e as we drove upon the
Heights of Washington, "Do you mean that I ought not to appoint my
subordinates for whom I am responsible?" I answered: "I mean that you do
not appoint them now; I mean that if, when we return to the capital,
you hear that your chief subordinate is dead, you will not appoint
his successor. You will have to choose among the men urged upon you by
certain powerful politicians. Undoubtedly you ought to appoint the man
whom you believe to be the most fit. But you do not and can not. If
you could or did appoint such men only, and that were the rule of your
department and of the service, there would be no need of reform." And he
could not deny it. There was no law to prevent his selection of the
best man. Indeed, the law assumed that he would do it. The Constitution
intended that he should do it. But when I reminded him that there were
forces beyond the law that paralyzed the intention of the Constitution,
and which would inevitably compel him to accept the choice of others, he
said no more.

It is easy to assert that the reform of the Civil Service is an
executive reform. So it is. But the Executive alone cannot accomplish
it.

The abuses are now completely and aggressively organized, and the
sturdiest President would quail before them. The President who
should undertake, single-handed, to deal with the complication of
administrative evils known as the Spoils System would find his party
leaders in Congress and their retainers throughout the country arrayed
against him; the proposal to disregard traditions and practices which
are regarded as essential to the very existence and effectiveness of
party organization would be stigmatized as treachery, and the President
himself would be covered with odium as a traitor. The air would hum with
denunciation. The measures he should favor, the appointments he might
make, the recommendations of his secretaries, would be opposed and
imperilled, and the success of his administration would be endangered. A
President who should alone undertake thoroughly to reform the evil must
feel it to be the vital and paramount issue, and must be willing to
hazard everything for its success. He must have the absolute faith and
the indomitable will of Luther. "Here stand I; I can no other." How can
we expect a President whom this system elects to devote himself to its
destruction? General Grant, elected by a spontaneous patriotic impulse,
fresh from the regulated order of military