because my conception of true Democratic faith and public duty requires that this and all other statutes should be in good faith and without evasion enforced, and because, in many utterances made prior to my election as President, approved by the party to which I belong and which I have no disposition to disclaim, I have in effect promised the people that this should be done.
Not his party, but the people, Republican as well as Democrats. Then he proceeds to castigate the Democratic party:
I am not unmindful of the fact to which you refer that many of our citizens fear that the recent party change in the national Executive may demonstrate that the abuses which have grown up in the civil service are ineradicable. I know that they are deeply rooted, and that the spoils system has been supposed to be intimately related to success in the maintenance of party organization, and I am not sure that all those who profess to be the friends of this reform will stand firmly among its advocates when they find it obstructing their way to patronage and place.
He goes on thus, and this is a most significant promise and pledge:
There is a class of Government positions which are not within the letter of the civil-service statute but which are so disconnected with the policy of an administration that the removal therefrom of present incumbents, in my opinion, should not be made during the terms for which they were appointed solely on partisan grounds, and for the purpose of putting in their places those who are in political accord with the appointing power—
And then follows that celebrated definition which lifted the lid from the box of Pandora—
but many men holding such positions have forfeited all just claim to retention because they have used their places for party purposes in disregard of their duty to the people, and because, instead of being decent public servants, they have proved themselves offensive partisans and unscrupulous manipulators of local party management.
The letter closes with this somewhat frigid assurance of consolation to the Democratic party.
If I were addressing none but party friends, I should deem it entirely proper to remind them—
That is, party friends—