The Writings of Carl Schurz/To President Cleveland, September 23d, 1885
TO PRESIDENT CLEVELAND
New York, Sept. 23, 1885.
Permit me to offer you my personal thanks for the steps you have taken in the Bacon-Sterling[1] affair. You have given new courage to the friends of good government. I hope the investigation you have ordered will go to the bottom of the matter and, as a result, it will become clear that there is no impunity for any officer of the Gov ernment, high or low, who trifles with the character of the Administration.
The anti-reform movement in the Democratic party seems to be gathering considerable momentum, and it looks as if the meeting of Congress would bring a tremendous pressure upon you with threats of active opposition. My experience in public life leads me to believe that there is one way, and only one, to break the force of this movement at the start and thus to ensure its defeat; and that is, not to make any compromise with it, but to meet it at once with calm, and if necessary, defiant determination. As soon as these gentlemen hear from you that whatever they may say or do, they cannot move you an inch, and that you are at any moment ready to appeal to the country against them, so that all may know whether the American people will stand by a President who is honestly resolved to redeem his promises—most of them will come to the conclusion that you are stronger than they are, that yours is the winning cause and that the best they can do for themselves is to follow you. And if they do not, you will have the people on your side.
Let me repeat once more: Your greatest danger is in having men in places of power under you who do not sympathize with you in your endeavors.
- ↑ Sterling, who had recently been appointed weigher in the New York customhouse, in place of Captain Bacon, had been suspended, and Collector Hedden had been ordered to report on the facts.