Although President Cleveland decisively repelled the Senate's attempted invasion of the power of removal belonging to his office, he was still left in a deplorable state of servitude through the operation of old laws based upon the principle of rotation in office.The Acts of 1820 and 1836, limiting commissions to the term of four years, forced him to make numerous appointments which provoked controversy and made large demands upon his time and thought.In the first year of his administration, he sent about two thousand nominations to the Senate, an average of over six a day, assuming that he was allowed to rest on Sunday.His freedom of action was further curtailed by an Act of 1863, prohibiting the payment of a salary to any person appointed to fill a vacancy existing while the Senate was in session, until the appointment had been confirmed by the Senate.The President was thus placed under a strict compulsion to act as a party employment agent.
If it is the prime duty of a President to act in the spirit of a reformer, Cleveland is entitled to high praise for the stanchness with which he adhered to his principles under most trying circumstances.Upon November 27, 1885, he approved rules confirming and extending the civil service regulations.Charges that Collector Hedden of the New York Customs House was violating the spirit of the Civil Service Act, and was making a party machine of his office, caused the Civil Service Commission to make an investigation which resulted in his resignation in July, 1886.On the 10th of August, Daniel Magone of Ogdensburg, New York, a widely known lawyer, was personally chosen by the President with a view to enforcing the civil service law in the New York Customs House.Before making this appointment, President Cleveland issued an order to all heads of departments warning all officeholders against the use of their positions to control political movements in their localities."Officeholders," he declared, "are the agents of the people, not their masters.They have no right, as officeholders, to dictate the political action of their associates, or to throttle freedom of action within party lines by methods and practices which prevent every useful and justifiable purpose of party organization." In August, President Cleveland gave signal evidence of his devotion to civil service reform by appointing a Republican, because of his special qualifications, to be chief examiner for the Civil Service Commission.
Democratic party workers were so angered and disgusted by the President's policy that any mention of his name was enough to start a flow of coarse denunciation.Strong hostility to his course of action was manifested in Congress.Chairman Randall, of the committee on appropriations, threatened to cut off the appropriation for office room for the commission.A "rider" to the legislative appropriation bill, striking at the civil service law, caused a vigorous debate in the House in which leading Democrats assailed the Administration, but eventually the "rider"was ruled out on a point of order.In the Senate, such party leaders as Vance of North Carolina, Saulsbury of Delaware, and Voorhees of Indiana, openly ridiculed the civil service law, and various attempts to cripple it were made but were defeated.
Senator Vance introduced a bill to repeal the law, but it was indefinitely postponed by a vote of 33 to 6, the affirmative vote being cast mainly by Republicans; and in general the strongest support for the law now came from the Republican side.Early in June, 1887, an estimate was made that nine thousand civil offices outside the scope of the civil service rules were still held by Republicans.The Republican party press gloated over the situation and was fond of dwelling upon the way in which old-line Democrats were being snubbed while the Mugwumps were favored.At the same time, civil service reformers found much to condemn in the character of Cleveland's appointments.A special committee of the National Civil Service Reform League, on March 30, 1887, published a report in which they asserted that, "tried by the standard of absolute fidelity to the reform as it is understood by this League, it is not to be denied that t this Administration has left much to be desired." At a subsequent session of the League, its President, George William Curtis, proclaimed that the League did not regard the Administration as "in any strict sense of the words a civil service reform administration." Thus while President Cleveland was alienating his regular party support, he was not getting in return any dependable support from the reformers.He seemed to be sitting down between two stools, both tilting to let him fall.
Meanwhile, he went on imperturbably doing his duty as he saw it.
Like many of his predecessors, he would rise early to get some time to attend to public business before the rush of office seekers began, but the bulk of his day's work lay in the discharge of his compulsory duties as an employment agent.Many difficult situations were created by contentions among Congressmen over appointments.It was Cleveland's habit to deal with these cases by homely expostulation and by pleas for mutual concessions.Such incidents do not of course go upon record, and it is only as memoirs and reminiscences of public men are published that this personal side of history becomes known.
Senator Cullom of Illinois in his "Fifty Years of Public Service"1
