Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2

by George S. Boutwell

I placed the report in my private drawer with the purpose of delaying action until I should ascertain where the propelling force existed. Having occasion to go to Massachusetts I was absent about two weeks. Upon my return Mr. Ward came into my office and inquired whether I had received the report. I replied that I had received it. "Had I acted upon it?" I said that I had not. He then proceeded to say that the claim was a good one,—that Mr. Delano had examined it, and had concluded to pass it, but as he left the office rather suddenly he had neglected to act upon it. Finally, he expressed the hope that I would act without delay. I had already decided the case adversely upon the ground that the allowance was unauthorized. Therefore I had only to endorse the word "disallowed" with my signature and to return the report to the commissioner. I learned that the commissioner was engaged through the agency of Ward in making a contract with a Connecticut firm that was in my opinion at once improvident and irregular. This act led me to determine to end the difficulty at once. I went to the Executive Mansion and asked General Babcock to go to Long Branch and say to the President that the business of the Internal Revenue Office was in such a condition that immediate action was necessary. As a result the President returned that night and early the next morning he sent for me. I stated the facts, and he said he would send for General Pleasanton and ask him to resign. At the interview Pleasanton asked for the reasons. The President said: "The Secretary is not satisfied with your administration." Pleasanton replied: "I think I can make everything satisfactory to the Secretary." The President replied, naturally: "If you can, I am content." Then for the first time Pleasanton came to my office without a request from me. I invited him into my private room, and when he had related his interview with the President, I said: "General, if this were a personal matter we might come to an understanding, but your administration of the office has been a failure from the first and you must resign." This ended the interview. He refused to resign and the President removed him. He appealed to the Senate in a lengthy communication, but without effect. Pleasanton may have been, and probably was, a good military officer, but he did not possess the qualities that are essential in the discharge of important civil trusts.

Neither from my experience in Congress nor in the Treasury Department can I deduce much support for the doctrines of the class of politicians called Civil Service Reformers. From their statements it would appear that every member of Congress was the recipient of an amount of patronage in the nature of clerkships that he could and did control. I can say for myself that as a member I never asserted any such right and as the head of the Treasury I can say that no such claim was ever made upon me by any member of Congress. The nearest approach to it was by George W. Julian. During one of his canvasses for re-nomination, a clerk named Smith, and a correspondent of a journal in Mr. Julian's district, had advocated the nomination of Mr. Wilson (Jeremiah). When Mr. Julian secured the nomination, Smith gave him his support. Nevertheless when Julian returned to Washington he demanded Smith's removal. After hearing all the facts I declined to act. Julian was very indignant, and afterwards from the Astor House, New York, wrote me a violent, I think I might say unreasonable letter.

The public mind has been much misled by the statements in regard to removals and appointments. The employees in a department are of two sorts. There is a class who are trained men in the places that they occupy. They have been in the service for a long period. They are familiar with the laws relating to their duties, and to the decisions of the courts thereon, and they are the possessors of the traditions of the offices. They are as nearly indispensable as one man can be to another, or to the safe management of business. The head of a department cannot dispense with the services of such men. All thought of political opinions disappears. The responsibility of a change in such a case is very great. No prudent administrator of a public trust will venture upon such experiments. There is another class of clerks who are employed in copying, in making computations in simple arithmetic, in writing letters under dictation, and in other ordinary clerical work.

The public interest is not very large in the retention of such persons. The ordinary graduates of the high schools of the country are competent for all those duties. But the clerks of this class are not removed in mass, and they never will be, under any administration. Even a fresh man at the head of a department will soon find that the fancied political advantages are no adequate compensation for the trouble that he assumes and the risk of error and fraud that he runs when he takes new and untried persons in the place of those who have been tested. As late as 1870 about thirty per cent. of the employees of the Treasury in 1860 were in office, and this notwithstanding that the Treasury furnished recruits for both armies. During my time and for years afterward, the post of Assistant Secretary was held by Mr. Hartley, a Democrat from the days of Pierce and Buchanan. He was experienced, diligent and entirely trustworthy.

Of the first class of employees it is to be said that there is no occasion to embalm them in their offices, and if their pay is adequate there is no ground for placing them upon the pension rolls. Their duties are not as exacting as the duties and labors of men in corresponding stations in private life. As to the second class, their relations to the public are such that no public obligation arises except to pay them the stipulated salaries.

It is essential to a proper administration that the Secretary or the President should have the power of removal, and it should never be coupled with the duty of making a statement of the cause. Not infrequently a statement would be the occasion of scandal and of suffering by innocent parties. The power may be abused as every power may be, in the hands of dishonest or corrupt men. This is one of the perils to the public, a peril from which no government can escape. With us a change of rulers is a remedy for political wrongs that do not belong to the catalogue of crimes. It may be said, however, that this power of removal gives to a dishonest administrator of a department the opportunity to secure the appointment of his political friends in the place of political opponents removed, and this whatever may be the method of appointment. The candidates may pass the competitive examination, and they may enter upon their duties, but their chief in thirty or sixty days may find them lacking in practical aptitude, and so on, until those of the true faith shall be sent forward by the examining board.

Honest administrators of official duties are embarrassed by the system and dishonest ones evade it. The system may become the enemy of honesty and the shield of hypocrisy. Only this is needed. When the appointing power has designated a person for an office, let that person be examined by an independent board with reference to character and those qualifications which seem to be a fit preparation for the practical duties of the place. Whenever the power of appointment and removal is abused the public has a remedy in a change of administration. And herein is one reason why the Presidential term should not be extended. There may be many evils of administration which are not so flagrant as to warrant proceedings for impeachment. Such evils may be borne for brief periods, when if the term of the President were extended to six or eight years the dissatisfied elements of society might be tempted to engage in revolutionary movements. Nor is there wisdom in limiting the Presidential office to a single term in the same person. The thought that one has a future is a great stimulus to careful and energetic action in the performance of public duties. For a President there is no future except a re-election, which is in fact an approval by the country of his administration. A wise man will strive to so conduct affairs as to merit that approval. A House of Representatives already condemned by a popular verdict is but a poor guardian of the rights of the people; and a defeated administration performs its duties in the most indifferent manner. After a defeat appointments will be made and acts done that would not have been hazarded pending an election. It is true, probably, of every administration, not excepting that of General Washington, that the second term was less acceptable to the country than the first. Mr. Lincoln had no second term, and it is useless to speculate upon its probable character, if he had lived to perform its duties.

It was my habit to be at the Treasury every morning at nine o'clock, and I usually sent immediately for one or more heads of division or chiefs of bureau for conference upon some matter connected with their duties. By frequent interviews I acquired such knowledge of their duties and of pending questions that I always had a reason for those interviews. By this course I maintained relations of familiarity with the officers who constituted the department for administrative purposes, and I also established a system of punctuality in the matter of attendance. When the head of a division is tardy, the clerks soon venture to follow his example, and if he is prompt they are ashamed to be dilatory unless they have an adequate excuse. The same relation exists between the bureau officers and the head of a department.

One of my first acts in the nature of a financial policy was to establish the Sinking Fund, agreeably to the act of February 25, 1862. Seven years had passed since the passage of the law and four years since the end of the war and yet nothing had been done to provide for the redemption of the public debt agreeably to the promise that had been made when the Government was a large borrower of money and when its credit was depreciated, seriously, in all the markets of the world. In my first annual report, December, 1869, I advised Congress of my action and I recommended the application of the bonds that I had then purchased, amounting to about fifty-four million dollars, to the Sinking Fund, until the deficiency then existing had been met. The step that I then took was taken in obedience to the law, and not from any great faith in the wisdom of the Sinking Fund policy, nor was it from any fear that the Government could not pay its debts whether a Sinking Fund was or was not created.

The faith of the Government had been pledged to a particular policy and I thought that the observance of that policy was both wise and just. A government cannot afford to disregard the terms of its undertakings even if a violation or neglect does not work harm to anyone. The payments to the Sinking Fund were made regularly during General Grant's administration, and the credit of the Government was thereby somewhat strengthened. The chief element of strength was in the fact that the payments were such as to astonish the heavily taxed and debt burdened States of Europe. In my four years of service as the head of the Treasury the payments on the debt reached the enormous sum of three hundred and sixty-four million dollars. No one of my successors has paid an equal amount, nor has an equal amount been paid in any other equal period of time by the United States or by any other government.