Monday of December 1885 the President suspended 643 officials. "I have no disposition to evade the fact," wrote Cleveland, "that suspensions of officials holding presidential commissions began promptly and were quite vigorously continued; but I confidently claim that every suspension was made with honest intent. . . . By far the greater number of suspensions were made on account of gross and indecent partisan conduct on the part of the incumbents. . . . Certain phases of pernicious partisanship seemed to me to deserve prompt and decisive treatment." When the Senate convened, it demanded the reasons for the suspensions: these Cleveland steadfastly refused to give, although perfectly willing to furnish any information in his possession regarding the new appointees. Edmunds, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, was the leader of the Senate Republicans and the battle between him and the President was one of giants. But, according to Hoar, a fellow member of the Judiciary Committee, Edmunds's constitutional argument was regarded "as a mere ingenious device to protract the day when their political fate should overtake the Republican officials." Cleveland had not only the letter of the statute on his side but the prevailing practice down to Andrew Johnson, before whose administration Presidents had made both suspensions and removals without regard to the Senate. He appealed with telling force to

1278 postmasters, 28 district attorneys, 24 marshals; among those who held office for no specified term, 61 internal revenue officers and 65 consuls and other persons attached to the foreign service. Presidential Problems, 45.

2 Pres. Problems, 41-43.

3 "The people, both Republicans and Democrats, expected that the political control of the more important offices would be changed when a new party came into power." Autobiography, ii. 143.

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the authority of Grant, "the great general and patriotic citizen." As Grant and the Senate were both Republican the ancient and reasonable practice was restored, but now that a Democrat had succeeded to the presidential office the Republican senators saw an opportunity to make an issue. In Cleveland's words, "After an existence of nearly twenty years of almost innocuous desuetude these laws are brought forth - -apparently the repealed as well as the unrepealed and put in the way of an Executive who is willing, if permitted, to attempt an improvement in the methods of administration." The Republican senators intimated that if Cleveland would say that the suspensions were made for party reasons, they would cease their objections; but such an admission would clash with his utterances and actions in favor of Civil Service reform and of course was not made. It was easy to see that their design was to involve the President in a scrape, and as the tendency is to side with an honest individual in a fight with a body all the Democrats rallied enthusiastically to his support and so did a large number of Republicans. Curiously enough, many Civil Service reformers looked upon the Senate cause with favor owing to their desire for publicity in all matters connected with appointments and removals. "It was not certain," wrote Woodrow Wilson, "that the moral advantage lay with the President." 3

George F. Hoar, senator from Massachusetts, soon afterwards came to the front. Although he acted with

1 Richardson, viii. 380.

2 Special message to the Senate, March 1, 1886. Richardson, viii. 381. 3 Atlantic Monthly, March 1897, 289; Proceedings of the C. S. R. League.

his party, he probably did not sympathize with it in the fight over the appointments. As statesman Hoar showed constructive ability of a high order and left many excellent marks on the statute book. He was moreover a good lawyer and a lover of learning and literature. It used to be said that his favorite reading, when he travelled between Worcester and Boston, was Thucydides in the original; at all events, that author permeated his being so that his frequent references were always natural and never forced. Attached to Harvard University, he served her many times with love and veneration. Intensely partisan, the mugwump defection of 1884 exasperated him and he never lost an opportunity to refer to the Mugwumps with sarcasm, which, as he was endowed with humor, was employed with significant force. The Mugwumps "who like to call themselves 'Independents,' he wrote, "have commonly discussed the profoundest and subtlest questions with a bitter personality which finds its parallel only in the theological treatises of the dark ages." "The independent newspapers welcomed any opportunity to support their theory that American public life was rotten and corrupt." But on another occasion, stating his belief in what the history of the country shows, namely that "the masses of the people are always pure and incorruptible," he spoke of the duty of men in high places, "Let scandal and malice be encountered by pure and stainless lives." And Hoar was not one to point out "the steep and thorny way to Heaven" while treading "the primrose path of dalliance," himself; he lived up to his precept but without

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1 Autobiography, ii. 101, 113.

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2 Ibid., i. 307, 309.

pharisaical narrowness; being of a sunny disposition he could enjoy life as he found it. His Autobiography, though hastily written, is a charming book and shows him "in his habit as he lived." He may indeed be ranked among the notable men that Massachusetts has contributed to our national life.

As we have seen his bill dealing with the Presidential succession showed that he was especially admirable when in a non-partisan mood. He now compassed the entire repeal of the Tenure of Office Act [March 3, 1887]. In the Senate only three Republicans voted with him. Edmunds opposed it vigorously and John Sherman remonstrated with Hoar for acting in opposition to the feeling of Republicans in the Senate.1 But the House passed the repeal by 172: 67; Governor Long made "an able speech in its favor" but Thomas B. Reed voted against it.2

It was fortunate that Hoar was an American and a member of the American Congress rather than of the British House of Commons. John Sherman as a result of his long public experience remarked, "The great body of the questions we have to decide are non-political. Upon these we divide without feeling and without question of motives." This point of superiority of con

1 But see Sherman's position in Nov. 1877 when Secretary of the Treasury. The Nation, Mar. 25, 1886, 252.

2 Autobiography, ii. 143. The Senate vote on Dec. 17, 1886 was 30: 22, 24 not voting. For, 26 Democrats, 4 Republicans (Chace of R. I., Hoar, Ingalls, Mitchell of Oregon). Against, 22 Republicans. Not voting, 16 Republicans, 8 Democrats. Record 248.

In the House the bill was taken up under suspension of the rules on March 3, 1887. The vote was 172: 67, not voting 80. Two-thirds in the affirmative were required. For, Democrats 137, Republicans 34 (9 of them from Massachusetts), 1 Greenbacker. Against, 65 Republicans, 2 Democrats; not voting, 39 Republicans, 40 Democrats, 1 Greenbacker. 3 Rec. ii. 1080.

gressional to parliamentary government was favorable to Hoar. As an M. P. he would on the floor of the House have been a partisan; as member of the House and the Senate he was able, a great part of the time, not to work merely for the ascendancy of his party but for the safety and well-being of the republic.

"The year 1886 is likely to be noted as a great strike year," wrote F. W. Taussig in an article composed shortly after the strike on the Southwestern railroads had alarmed the country. The Missouri Pacific system combined a number of railroads and these together with the Wabash and Texas Pacific, were controlled by Jay Gould who, in his railroad operations, always had an eye to Wall Street; whatever there was of efficiency in their management was due to the local men who bore the brunt of their working. No writer who desired to extol the railroads of the United States would point to the Gould system as a striking example of merit.

Owing to the depression of 1884 a general reduction of wages had been made in September of that year which was so readily submitted to that another reduction was announced in March 1885. This was resisted by the shop-mechanics in a strike that stopped the freight traffic of the whole Southwestern system. Public opinion was on the side of the strikers, as were the Governors of Missouri and Kansas, who recommended to the railroad managers that wages be put back to what they were in September 1884. This was done and the elation of the

1 The Southwestern strike of 1886. Quarterly Journal of Economics, January 1887, 184. In my account of the strikes, this article will be referred to as Taussig.