Page:The Spoils System (spoilssystemaddr00carl).pdf/33

 and high-minded ambition, as they told the story of their miseries—how, seduced by what they accepted as the custom of active politics, they had entangled themselves in the meshes of questionable engagements almost without knowing it; how they had sometimes been forced to recommend for office men whom they knew to be unfit; how the misconduct of such men, demanding protection at their hands, subjected them to abominable perplexity and self-abasement; how their pride was humbled by their attitude as beggars for favors not only before members of the Government but even before Department clerks; how, not seldom, their sense of honor and duty revolted when they had to urge the removal of a worthy officer simply to make room for one of their own henchmen; how they felt themselves like bondmen in their relations to those in power, on account of the persons to be put or to be kept in office; how the patronage business robbed them of their time, spoiled their working capacity, enervated their spirits, and hampered and clogged in every possible way their one time supreme ambition to devote themselves heart and soul to their legislative duties for the common good, and how they now cursed the galling, debasing, disgusting servitude to which the patronage had subjected them.

And more than that. Many a time when, as Secretary of the Interior, I had to remove public servants for peremptory cause which absolutely left me no choice, I received the visits of members of Congress who had recommended the appointment of the men in