the gorgeous pageant of his inaugura

tion.

Sir, the career of Napoleon was sudden, startling, and dramatic. There have heen many soldiers of fortune who have sprung at one bound from obscurity to fame, but no illustration of the caprices of destiny so brilliant and bewildering is recorded in history as the elevation of Grover Cleveland to the Chief Magistracy of sixty millions of people.

If when he was inaugurated he had determined that the functions of Government should be exercised by officers selected from his own party the nation would have been content; but he did not so determine, and herein and hereon is founded the justification that the majority of the Senate can satisfactorily use and employ in demanding that no action shall be had in connection with these suspensions from office until there has been satisfactory assurances that injustice has not been done. If it were understood that these suspensions and removals were made for political reasons the country would be content, the Republican majority in the Senate would be content. But what is the attitude? Ever since his inauguration and for many months before, by many utterances, official and private, in repeated declarations never challenged, Mr. Cleveland announced that he would not so administer this Government. At the very outset, in his letter of acceptance, he denounced the doctrine of partisan changes in the patronage, and through all of his political manifestoes down to the present time he has repeated these assurances with emphatic and unchanging mo

notony.

He has declared that there should be no changes in office, where the incumbents were competent and qualified, for political reasons, but that they should be permitted to serve their terms. Like those who were

grinding at the mill, one has been taken and another has been left. Some Republicans have been suspended and others have been retained. What is the irresist

tible inference? What is the logic of the events, except that, in view of what the President has declared, every man who is suspended is suspended for cause, and not for political reasons? It is not possible to suspect the President of duplicity and treacherous deception.

For the purpose of illustration, let me call the attention of the Senate and through the Senate the attention of the country, which is to judge of this matter, to the basis on which this inquiry proceeds. I read from the letter of Grover Cleveland, dated Albany, August 19, 1884, accepting the nomination for the Presidency of the United States. He says:

The people pay the wages of the public employés, and they are entitled to the fair

and honest work which the money thus paid should command. It is the duty of those intrusted with the management of their affairs to see that such public service is forthcoming. The selection and retention of subordinates in Government employment should depend upon their ascertained fitness and the value of their work, and they should be neither expected nor allowed to do questionable party service.

There is another utterance in this document to which I might properly allude further on, but which appears to me to be so significant that I will read it now. It has a singular fitness in connection with this subject that we have been discussing. Speaking of honest administration, he

says,

I believe that the public temper is such that the voters of the land are prepared to support the party which gives the best promise of administering the Government in the honest, simple, and plain manner which is consistent with its character and purposes. And now:

They have learned that mystery and concealment in the management of their affairs cover tricks and betrayal.

the administration of the patronage of the Yes, they have learned that mystery in Government, by the concealment from the people of the documents and papers that bear upon the character and conduct of officials suspended and those that are appointed, cover tricks and betrayal. “I thank thee for that word." A "Daniel" has come to judgment.' No more per

66

tinent and pungent commentary upon the facts of the present situation could be formulated than that which Grover Cleveland uttered before his foot was upon the threshold, that mystery and concealment in the management of the affairs of the people tricks and somebody has been betrayed. covered tricks and betrayal. There are

Again, on the 20th day of December, 1884, after the election, some of the conMr. Cleveland to the Presidency, becoming tingent of Republican deserters who elected apprehensive that there might be trouble lated their un asiness in words and adabout their thirty pieces of silver, formudressed him a letter calling his attention to elected and demanding further guarantee. the profess ons upon which he had been To that letter, on the 25th day of December, 1884, Mr. Cleveland replied, and from that reply I select certain paragraphs, Senate or waste my own strength in readnot being willing to tax the patience of the ing what is not strictly material.

I regard myself pledged to this

That is, to this practical reform in the civil service, this refusal to turn out com

those who profess friendliness for the cause, | and yet, mischievously and with supercilious self-righteousness, discredit every effort not in exact accord with their attenuated ideas, decry with carping criticism the labor of those actually in the field of reform, and ignoring the conditions which bound and qualify every struggle for a radical improvement in the affairs of government, demand complete and immediate perfection.

"Supercilious self-righteousness, attenuated ideas, and carping critisism," can not be regarded as complimentary phrases when applied to the apostles of this new evangel of political reformation.

He continues

I believe in civil-service reform and its application in the most practicable forin attainable, among other reasons, because it opens the door for the rich and the poor alike to a participation in public place-holding. And I hope the time is at hand when all our people will see the advantage of a reliance for such an opportunity upon merit and fitness, instead of a dependence upon the caprice or selfish interest of those who impudently

To whom does he refer?

who impudently stand between the people and the machinery of the Government.

You will agree with me, I think, that the support which has been given to the present administration in its efforts to preserve and advance this reform by a party restored to power after an exclusion for many years from participation in the places attached to the public service, confronted with a new system precluding the redistribution of such places in its interest, called upon to surrender advantages which a perverted partisanship had taught the American people belonged to success, and perturbed with the suspicion, always raised in such an emergency, that their rights in the conduct of this reform had not been scrupulously regarded, should receive due acknowledgment and should confirm our belief that there is a sentiment among the people better than a desire to hold office, and a patriotic impulse upon which may safely rest the integrity of our institutions and the strength and perpetuity of our Government.

The first official utterances of President Cleveland upon the 4th of March, 1885, renewed the assurance that had been given. He declared:

The people demand reform in the administration of the Government and the application of business principles to business affairs. As a means to this end civil-service reform should be in good faith enforced. Our citizens have the right to protection from the incompetency of public employés who hold their places solely as the reward of partisan service, and from the corrupting influences of those who promise and the

And

vicious who expect such rewards. those who worthily seek public employment have the right to insist that merit and competency shall be recognized instead of party subserviency or the surrender of honest political belief.

How this system, thus inaugurated, this amphibious plan of distributing the patronage of the country among his own partisans and at the same time insisting upon the enforcement of civil-service reform doctrines practically resulted finds its first illustration in the celebrated circular of the Postmaster General that was issued on the 29th of April, 1885. I do not propose to defile my observations by reading that document. I allude to it for the purpose of saying that a more thoroughly degraded, loathsome, execrable and detestable utterance never was made by any public official of any political persuasion in any country, or in any age. It was an invitation to every libeller, every anonymous slanderer, every scurrilous defamer, to sluce the feculent sewage of communities through the PostOffice Department, with the assurance that, without any intimation or information to the person aspersed, incumbents should be removed and Democratic partisans appointed. I offered a resolution on the 4th General for information as to the number of this month calling on the Postmasterof removals of fourth-class postmasters, not requiring confirmation by the Senate, between the 4th day of March, 1885, and that date. It was a simple proposition. It required nothing but an inspection of the official register and a computation of numbers. No names were required and no dates. There was a simple question of arithmetic to ascertain the number of removals of fourth-class postmasters not included in the list sent to the Senate by the President, the salary being less than $1,000. Eighteen days elapsed. There seemed to be some reluctance on the part of the Department to comply with that request, and I thereupon offered a supplemental resolution, which was adopted by the Senate, asking the Postmaster-General to advise us whether that first resolution had been received, and, if so, why it was not answered, and when a reply might be expected.

On the second day following an answer came down. It does not include the number of places that were filled where there had been resignations. It does not include the list of those appointed where there had been vacancies from death or any other cause; but simply those who had been removed without cause and without hearing in the space of the first twelve months of this administration pledged to non-partisanship and civil service reform. The number foots up 8,635. Eighty-six

hundred and thirty-five removals of fourthclass postmasters under an administration pledged by repeated utterances not to renove except for cause, making an average, counting three hundred and thirteen working days in that year, of twenty-eight every day; and, counting seven hours as a day's work, four removals every hour, or at the rate of one for every fifteen minutes of time from the 4th day of March, 1885, until the 4th of March, 1886. And that is civil-service reform! That is non-partisanship in the administration of this Government! That is exercising public office as a public trust!

Mr. COCKRELL. How many of these fourth-class postmasters are there?

Mr. INGALLS. I do not know. Mr. COCKRELL. About fifty-one thousand, are there not?

Mr. INGALLS. It makes no difference how many; they did the best they could, and angels could do more. I see that the Senator from Missouri is impatient; he is anxious that the axe should fall more rapidly.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Kansas will pause a moment. It is the duty of the Chair to inform the occupants of the galleries that the rules of the Senate forbid any expression of approbation or disapprobation. It will be the painful duty of the Chair to enforce that rule, if it is insisted upon.

Mr. INGALLS. I hope the Senator from Missouri will curb his impatience and restrain his impetuosity. The PostmasterGeneral will get through if you only give

him time.

Mr. COCKRELL. He will get through in four years at this rate.

Mr. INGALLS. One every fifteen minutes!

Mr. COCKRELL. Fifty-one thousand is the number of fourth-class postmasters, I believe, and only eight thousand in a year

have been removed.

Mr. INGALLS. Only one every fifteen minutes! How often do you expect them to be removed? He has done the best he could. And this does not include the number of those who resigned; this does not include any except those who have been removed. To the Senator from Missouri rising in his seat, impatient at the dilitary procrastination of the Post-Office Department in not casting out more Republican postmasters, I say this does not include all. Undoubtedly many more than eighty-six hundred and thirty-five have fallen beneath the axe of the Department or have been filled by partisans of the party in power as a reward for efficient and faithful party service in consequence of the retirement of thousands of patriotic Republicans: and when the Senator from

Missouri attempts to convey the impression here that out of fifty-one thousand fourth-class postmasters only eighty-six hundred and thirty-five have been changed during this past year he is entirely outside the record. It is to be observed that this is but a single Department. How many have gone out of the State department, how many have gone out of the Interior department, how many out of the Army and Navy departments, and out of that illuminated Department of Justice, and out of the Treasury, of course is entirely unknown, and probably will always remain unknown till the secrets of earth are revealed at the last day. They are carefully concealed; there are no lists furnished to the press for publication. Therefore I trust that the friends of the administration will be consoled, that the complaints which have been so frequent hitherto of the want of activity on the part of the administration in finding places for their friends will be tempered by the consideration that they have done the best they could in the time at their disposal.

Mr. President, the list of official utterances is not yet complete. On the first day of this session President Cleveland again repeated his declaration that the civil service was to be divorced from partisanship, and he took occasion to inflict some more castigation upon those who were endeavoring to force him off the civil-service platform which he had declared he intended to occupy. This was his language:

Lay siege to the patronage of Government, engrossing the time of public officers with their importunities, spreading abroad the contagion of their disappointment, and filling the air with the tumult of their discontent.

Rather florid, rather oriental phrase, but in its exactness mathematical; a demonplicit and satisfactory than that description stration in geometry could not be more exby President Cleveland of the occupation and the lamentations of the Democratic party. It will bear repetition.

Lay siege to the patronage of Government, engrossing the time of public officers with their importunities, spreading abroad the contagion of their disappointment, and filling the air with the tumult of their discontent.

A besieging, importunate, contagious, tumultuous, discontented organization.

There is more to the same effect in this document that I should like to read, but time does not serve, nor is it material, because there are other independent utterances to which I must pass; and I do this for the purpose of showing the consistent and persistent adhesion of the President of the United States to the declarations

with which he started out when he commenced to administer the Government.

On the 30th day of January, 1886, the ordinary avenues of communication with the public being inaccessible, President Cleveland availed himself of the interviewer, and in the Boston Herald was printed a long letter detailing in quotations a conversation with President Cleveland, "the many points of which will be found below. This was after this controversy, if you call it so, between the President and Senate, had begun to develop and there were some indications of approaching misunderstanding or disagreement:

He next spoke of his position toward the

cratic administration came into power, provided he was a competent man for the position to be filled. What I understand by civil-service reform, as I am carrying it out, is that the office-holders shall be divorced from politics while they fill their positions under this government. That rule I have meant to stand by." I asked him if he was aware of any deviation from it among his appointees. "If there has been any," said he, "it has not been called to my attention." I suggested that some such charge had been made in New York. He said he did not believe that there was any foundation for it, and that it was well known there that his wishes were that the office-holders should attend to

the duties of their positions, and interfere neither with candidates nor election contests.

He says plaintively

"to distrust me," said he, "if I am to accept what I hear from others. But I hear noth

ing from them. They have not called upon

me for information or for documents."
That complaint no longer exists.
"I have tried "—

He says

"to deal honorably and favorably by them. My purpose was announced at the beginning of my administration. I meant then to adhere to it. I have never changed it. I do not mean to change it in the future. It seems to me unjust and ungenerous in them "

That is, in the Senate

"unjust and ungenerous in them to suspect that I do. If I had not meant to adhere to my policy it would have been foolish in me to begin it. I should have escaped much in refusing to begin it. It is not at all pleasant for me to disappoint, and I fear sometimes to offend, my party friends. Nothing but a sense of duty has brought me to this step. Why run all this risk and incur this hard feeling only in the end to retreat? It seems to me it would have been as impolitic as it is wrong. No; I have tried to be true to my own pledges and the pledges of my party. We both promised to divorce the offices of the country from being used for party service. I have held to my promise,

and I mean to hold to it."

Then there was an answer to a question propounded by the interviewer, in which he defines his relation toward offensive partisanship in the Democratic party:

"I did not propose to hold party service in the past in the Democratic ranks as against a man. On the contrary, it gave him a strong, equitable claim to office. He had been excluded for twenty-four years because he was a Democrat. He should be remembered for the same reason when a Demo

My removals from office, such as are would be absurd for me to undertake to give made," said he, "are made for cause. It the country my reasons in all cases, because it would be impracticable. When I have removed a Republican for political reasons or for any other reasons, I would apply the same rule to my own party. I think the Republican Senators should be just enough to believe this of me. They ought to appre ciate that I am trying to do my duty. Why they should continue to distrust me I do not see. They do not come to me either personally or by committee to get an understanding of my attitude, or to obtain explanations on points of action to which they object. They stand off and question the sincerity of my purposes."

The eight thousand six hundred and thirty-five fourth class post masters and the six hundred and forty-three suspensions before the Senate and the thousands of changes in other departments" are made for cause, not for political reasons merely; but to give those who have been so removed the opportunity to explain or defend themselves would be "absurd" and "impracticable."

But this is not all. Later in the winter the Civil Service Commission was reorganized, and in a newspaper printed in this city appeared a statement alleged to be "personal" and included in quotation marks, and which it is commonly reported was in the handwriting of the President. I cannot rid myself—

He said, after speaking about the personnel of the Civil Service Commission

I cannot rid myself of the idea that this civil-service reform is something intended to do practical good and not a mere sentiment invented for the purpose of affording opportunity to ventilate high-sounding notions and fine phrases.