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.
Yes, they have learned that mystery in the administration of the patronage of the 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 pertinent 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 covered tricks and betrayal. There are tricks and somebody has been betrayed.
Again, on the 20th day of December, 1884, after the election, some of the contingent of Republican deserters who elected Mr. Cleveland to the Presidency, becoming apprehensive that there might be trouble about their thirty pieces of silver, formulated their uneasiness in words and addressed him a letter calling his attention to the professions upon which he had been elected and demanding further guarantee. To that letter, on the 25th day of December, 1884, Mr. Cleveland replied, and from that reply I select certain paragraphs, not being willing to tax the patience of the Senate or waste my own strength in reading 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 competent and qualified officials and put in Democrats—