The Senator from Iowa might have gone further in his application of the doctrine of evolution with much propriety. Geology teaches us that in the process of being upward from the protoplasmic cell, through one form of existence to another there are intermediary and connecting stages, in which the creature bears some resemblance to the state from which it has emerged and some to the state to which it is proceeding. History is stratified politics; every stratum is fossiliferous; and I am inclined to think that the political geologist of the future in his antiquarian researches between the triassic series of 1880 and the cretaceous series of 1888 as he inspects the jurassic Democratic strata of 1884 will find some curious illustrations of the doctrine of political evolution.
In the transition from the fish to the bird there is an anomalous animal, long since extinct, named by the geologists the pterodactyl, or the winged reptile, a lizard with feathers upon its paws and plumes upon its tail. A political system which illustrates in its practical operations the appointment by the same administration of Eugene Higgins and Dorman B. Eaton can properly be regarded as in the transition epoch and characterized as the pterodactyl of politics. It is, like that animal, equally adapted to waddling and dabbling in the slime and mud of partisan politics and soaring aloft with discordant cries into the glittering and opalescent empyrean of civil-service reform.
The President closes his recent message to the Senate in this language:
The pledges I have made were made to the people, and to them I am responsible for the manner in which they have been redeemed. I am not responsible to the Senate and I am unwilling to submit my actions and official conduct to them for judgment.
There are no grounds for an allegation that the fear of being found false to my professions influences me in declining to submit to the demands of the Senate. I have not constantly refused to suspend officials, and thus incurred the displeasure of political friends, and yet willfully broken faith with the people for the sake of being false to them.
Neither the discontent of party friends nor the allurements constantly offered of confirmation of appointees conditioned upon the avowal that suspensions have been made on party grounds alone, nor the threat proposed in the resolution now before the Senate that no confirmations will be made unless the demands of that body be complied with, are sufficient to discourage or deter me from following in the way which I am convinced leads to better government for the people.
He is not responsible to the Senate, nor is the Senate responsible to him; both are alike responsible to the people. But in the cases at bar we are compelled to inquire, in justice to the people, whether those pledges have been redeemed, or whether they have been broken, violated, and disregarded. Had the patronage of the Government, within proper limits, been turned over for its exercise to the party intrusted with power by a majority of the people there could have been no complaint, but upon the assurances that I have read, the declaration was made that in every case where an incumbent was competent and qualified he should remain in office till the expiration of his term.
When, therefore, some were suspended and others were left, what is the irresistible inference, after the declarations of the President, except that these persons were suspended for cause either affecting their personal integrity or their official administration? Upon the ground, then, of personal justice, if no other, we are entitled to know whether wrong has been done by the accusations that have been filed in the Departments, so that we may protect those who are unable to defend themselves from injustice and defamation.
But there is another reason, and to me a still more convincing reason, why we should be advised in the case of these suspensions what are the papers, the official documents, and the reports on the files of the departments affecting the administration of these offices, and that is this: under the tenure-of-office act, every official suspended is reinstated by the provisions of section 1768 of the Revised Statutes, if the Senate adjourns without confirming the designated person, and continues to exercise and discharge the duties of that office, until he is again suspended by the President. Therefore, in acting upon these cases we have a double duty to perform; in the first place, to decide whether the person suspended was properly suspended, and in the next place, whether he is a competent person to be restored to office under and by virtue of the operation of the statute under which he was suspended. If he is not a competent person then he ought not to be restored, and we cannot determine whether he is competent and qualified and fit to discharge the duties of that office until we have the official declarations and statements upon which the action of the President was based.
Since this debate began, there are indications that the President has become convinced that his position is untenable, and that he has concluded to yield to the reasonable requests of the Senate and relieve suspended officials from the otherwise inevitable imputations upon their conduct and character. I find the following correspondence in one of the metropolitan journals, which if authentic relieves the relation between the President and the Senate of the principal restraint: