52]"/> and admirals, but beyond that I think appointments ought to be made without bothering the President about them. We have introduced a Civil Service reform system with a Civil Service Commission, and I trust that the matter of taking these subordinate officers out of politics will be pressed generally as a much-needed reform.

Is the position occupied by a postmaster of sufficient importance to justify the President in bothering with his appointment when he has such a problem as the Mexican situation on his hands? We are coming to the time when there are great complicated duties to perform under the government. We have departed from the Jefferson view, and we now think that the government can do a great many things helpfully, provided it has experts to do them. Is it not entitled to the best men to do these things? Yet how are experts obtainable unless they are selected to permanent positions by those who are looking for experts and not looking for men who exercise influence at the polls?

I recommended to Congress four times, that is, in each annual message, that it enable me to put these men under the Civil Service law and in the classified service; but it did not do it, and why? Because all local officers now have to be confirmed by the Senate. That power of confirmation gives a hold on the Executive and each Senator and each Congressman wants to name the postmaster and the other local officers in his district or state. The consequence is that Congressmen do not wish the Senate to lose the power of confirmation. They believe this personal patronage to be a means of perpetuating their own tenure. As a matter of fact, this is not the case. Few men help themselves politically in the long run through the use of patronage. It is a boomerang. Some few manage to make it useful, but generally when a man secures an appointment for a henchman, as the saying is in Washington—and it is a very true one—he makes one ingrate and twenty enemies. The result is that after he has served a term or two, he begins to find those aspiring constituents, whom he did not appoint, rising like snakeheads to strike him down.

Therefore, if Congressmen really had wisdom and looked ahead, they would rid themselves of responsibility for these appointments, would abolish the necessity for confirmation by the Senate, and would thus enable the President to classify them under the Civil Service law and merit system. But we have made progress and I am not discouraged about it. Ultimately we shall get the Senate to consent to give up that power, though at present the Democratic majority in the two Houses is fierce against such a suggestion, and quite naturally so, for, while the Republican party has been in control for sixteen years, the trend into office has been Republican and the Democrats wish to change it. That is human nature, and I am merely regretting, not condemning it. Perhaps if the Republicans come back into power after four years, they will not be quite so hungry as the Democrats were after sixteen years of famine, and we may have a little less wolfish desire to get at the offices.