Page:The Spoils System (spoilssystemaddr00carl).pdf/25

 to instigate or even to countenance the trumping up of charges affecting the official and perhaps even the personal character of an honorable man, to effect the removal of that man from an office efficiently filled, and this merely to enable him, the member of Congress, to redeem a promise which he never ought to have made? He would not look into a mirror at that moment for fear of seeing his own face. He does not dare to listen to a warning voice speaking within him. With cowardly haste he seeks refuge in the thought that politics is politics; that this is the custom of the country, and that so long as that custom permits and even obliges members of Congress to use the offices of the Government as rewards for their henchmen—why, such things will be done, whatever their character and effect. And thus the shameful game of trumped-up charges is played. And our friend has more Joneses to provide with more postoffices, which causes more conferences at the Department, in some cases the trumping up of more charges, the disappointment of more men who had promises, the making of more pledges to furnish “something equally as good,” and more sacrifices of honor and self-respect.

But now comes the task of getting for his friends places which are not, like the postoffices, regarded as “belonging” to the member of Congress, but for which he must compete with other members, and even with the more formidable Senators—places in the Departments, or consulships, or foreign missions, or revenue offices, or Indian agencies, and what-not.