Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume Three).djvu/518

 It was not on this topic alone, however, that his opinions were given to Mr. Cleveland. The President-elect was inexperienced in national politics, was almost morbidly conscious of the fact, and eagerly seized every opportunity for trustworthy counsel. On December 6, 1884, in answer to Schurz's offer to “serve you in any way, as a private citizen,” Cleveland wrote: “You may be sure that I shall be most glad to hear your views at length in this time of anxiety. I wish that I might ask you to write to me as one whose only desire is to merit the opinion of those who trust him, but one who knows little of what awaits him in his new sphere of duty.” The response to this modest and engaging invitation was a long letter, December 10, in which Schurz set forth with the utmost candor his opinions on the whole situation. There was much in this letter like the advice given to Hayes eight years earlier. Cleveland was assured that his strength with the people depended upon his character as a reformer, and that he would be the more sharply criticized on this account. “Whenever Arthur did a creditable thing people would say ‘He is, after all, a better man than we thought he was.’ If you should do things not up to the mark, people will say ‘He is not as good as we thought he would be. This shrewd suggestion was followed by the same advice that had been given to Hayes, that the three great patronage departments—Treasury, Post Office and Interior—be assigned to “men who understand reform as you do, who believe in it as you do, who are willing to fight for it as you are.” “Experience has convinced me that no President, however firm and courageous he may be, can succeed in systematic reform if he has to carry on the reform against his own Cabinet.”

As to the personnel of the Cabinet, it was the deliberate policy of Mr. Schurz and the Independents to refrain