Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume Three).djvu/486

 the natural reply to this insolent outburst would have been the dismissal of the woman and the termination of the correspondence. Mr. Schurz realized, however, that such a course might make her the victim of another's wrongheadedness, and that he had to deal with an aggravated case of spoilsman's fever. Accordingly he addressed to the excited editor a long, calm letter, pointing out, with exaggerated gravity, that the excellence of the woman's work as a correspondent gave her a claim to increase of rank and pay on the staff of the newspaper, but not on that of the Patent Office, and setting forth the elementary principles of civil-service reform. The Secretary then gave closer personal attention to the case, satisfied himself that the clerk concerned was a bright, respectable and hard-working woman, with a reasonably good defense against the charges on which she had been reduced in rank. He therefore transferred her to another branch of the department's service, where she continued to labor with eminent efficiency till near the end of his term, turning often aside from her avocation of enlightening the people of Ohio on things social and political at the Capital, to express in private letters her sense of the greatness and justice of the Secretary of the Interior. The truculent editor was mollified by Schurz's action if not convinced by his argument, and appropriately made his last appearance in the letter files of the Secretary as an earnest seeker after office for himself.

In all the other aspects of the reform which he had preached, Mr. Schurz was as faithful to his ideals as in the matter of minor appointments. Though some branches of the Interior Department, especially the Land Office and the Indian Bureau, had been, especially under Grant, notorious haunts of the spoilsmen, nothing like a clean sweep was undertaken, but, greatly to the disgust in many cases of the friends