The Writings of Carl Schurz/To Grover Cleveland, January 3d, 1885
TO GROVER CLEVELAND
New York, Jan. 3, 1885.
Colonel Burt, who called on me this morning, said that when he was at Albany a few days ago, you asked him whether he knew how I liked your civil service letter. I thought you would not be seriously in doubt as to my opinion of that excellent document. Its merit has been practically tested by the impression it produced. Your friends are fully satisfied, especially as they remember that in your public career performance has not only not fallen short of promise but rather gone beyond it. And your opponents find themselves obliged to recognize the letter as a good thing and have nothing to say except that you do not mean it or that the spoils-seekers will be too strong for you. Of course there are grumblers among those who want patronage to distribute or who want office for themselves. After your inauguration their number will be much larger than it now manifests itself, and they will give you and the heads of Departments a great deal of trouble. But that cannot be helped.
It has been noticed among civil service reformers that your letter does not cover the question whether men in office, who have been conspicuously efficient in the discharge of their duties and not liable to objection of any kind, should not be reappointed upon the expiration of their terms of office, irrespective of party affiliation. But while I suppose you would seriously consider the propriety of such reappointments when the time for action comes, you have, in my opinion, wisely abstained from discussing that question now. I think you said just enough on this subject for the present, and you said it in the right way too—simply announcing your determination to do certain things instead of theorizing about them. You may indeed be congratulated upon the success of your first post-election utterance. It is in itself an event of great importance.
But in spite of the favorable impression produced by it on the Independents and those Republicans who, although they did not vote for you, more or less sympathized with us, there is still a drift of feeling prevalent among a great many of them, which manifests itself in such things as the following paragraph taken from the Boston Advertiser, a paper which advocated your election quite heartily [quotation omitted].
I have found similar things in other papers. This indicates a lingering of the old distrust of all Democrats, and a latent inclination to return to old political associations—watching you, as you fight your battle, not without some sympathy and hope, but after all from the standpoint of a doubting and critical “opposition.” There would be sound reason for this if there were any great divergence between you and them as to the objects to be accomplished, or if you were certain to be overborne by the adverse influences in your party. But considering that your political purposes and those of the Independents and liberal Republicans are in the main the same, as I think they are, and that you have the support or acquiescence of a strong enough portion of the Democratic party to make success appear at least possible, and that, moreover, in a certain sense you will have to make the party of the future, this attitude of critical opposition or expectancy is simply calculated to prevent or at least delay the reorganization of political forces and the concentration of energies for harmonious effort which must take place to render that success certain. These are the arguments I have been using with my friends as far as I could reach them, to make them understand that in the difficult struggles you will have to go through for the accomplishment of our common object, we should not stand by and wait to see how you will come out, but help you in every possible way to come out right, by active and constant support and coöperation, and to this end, instead of speaking of critical opposition, identify ourselves with you as much as may be necessary.
This view of the situation is gradually gaining ground, but it is still far from being as generally accepted as it should be. You can undoubtedly do more than anybody else to draw the whole, or at least a large majority of this important element, from its expectant and doubting position to rally it around your Administration and thus to promote that active union of the best intelligence of the South and of the North which the public interest demands. You can do this, it seems to me, not only by forming a Cabinet that will inspire confidence, but by telling the country in your inaugural address specifically what you mean when speaking of Democratic principles and a Democratic policy as applied to present circumstances. This, I believe, can be done in such a way as to explode a good many of the specters which have been frightening people so long, and to make those who substantially agree with you concerning the public objects to be accomplished, feel that the further maintenance of an attitude of doubtful expectancy or critical opposition would on their part be positively wrong as well as absurd.
If agreeable to you, I should be glad to submit to your judgment my thoughts on this matter in greater detail. I regret in this respect that, when you will visit this city, as the newspapers say, in two or three weeks, I shall be absent, to be gone from the 13th or 14th inst. until the 1st of March. Personal conversation on these things would probably be more useful. But I apprehend, as you are to leave Albany for Buffalo in a very few days, you will in the meantime be too much occupied with the winding up of your official business, to have leisure for anything else. In that case nothing but correspondence by letter will remain for an exchange of views, and I shall then, if you desire it, write again when you will be relieved of your governor's business and more at ease.
Wishing you a happy New Year, I am sincerely yours.