Los Angeles daily herald., 1889-02-19
A CASTIGATLON.
EdgertOn Handles Cleveland
Without Gloves.
CALLS HIM A MUGwUMP TOOL
The President Charged With Think
ing Himself Bigger Than
the Whole Party.
Associated Press Dispatches to the HERALD.

I associated Press Dispatches to the HERALD.
WASHINGTON, February 1S.-Judge
who was recently re-
moved from the office of Civil Service
G Commissioner, has written an open let
ter to the President. Hs says, among
other things: 81 was indebted to you for
the only appointive office ever held.
You now declare, by your action, that
You regret the appointment. /, with
equal right, regret its acceptance. Your
regret was never made known to me by
you, in any word, or utterance, Oh action,
until now, at the close Of your admins
tration, and on day before my removal,
and after the election. In this regard, it
would almost seem is if you we're
willing to play false with the mug
wumps to enable you to win with
the Democrats. The result of the elec-
few people would have known how to
on your hands whom the Mugwumps
had declared war upon as an enemy to
their civil service reform theories, and
your plan Of becoming their representa-
tive in the future would be weakened or
defeated if some assurance OF your tldel-
ity to their cause could not be secured.
Accordingly, it appears that You decided
upon the removal of the head OF the
Commission; and, deeming Thompson a
good enough Mugwump for them, you,
therefore demanded my resignation that
you might appoint him, apparently as an
atonement for your previous inaction.
"Mr. President, with all due courtesy
to the high Office you hold, allow ms to
say that you are very peculiar man, a
positive man, positively wrong or posi-
lively right, and therefore an uneafe man
to trust; and that element in your char
acter believe led to your defeat. Pope
says: The most positive men are the
most credulous, since they most believe
themselves, and advise most with their
fellow-hatterers, and worst enemies Be-
ing one Of that kind Of positive men your
self, you have kept some men Of like
character around you who are positive
only in their malice and conceit.
Juvenal says There is nothing man
will not believe in his own favor You
were credulous enough to believe that you
were elected President by the Mug
wunps, and therefore you permitted
them to malign your real friends and to
flatter you into the policy which led to
your defeat. You were a man who
would not permit your real friends to ad-
monish you with freedom and conf
dence, and the result is that you have
suffered from want OF friends, and your
wrecked and wre.ched greatness has dis
covered that there is no tru5 success in
life without the power and blessing of
friendship. You believed that your will !,
and the power to enforce it, was above
all powers; hut the will OF the
people, expressed in constitutional
way has taught you that there was q
wiser and better way than that chosen
by you. You will be censured and con-
demned because you put no trust in
your own party, but believed yourself to
be better than your own, and greater
than all, parties. You have ascertained
that the many were not made for the
one. You can find as many reasons for
removing ME as the Democratic party,
through an indiffer ence which was simply
retaliatory, had for removing you.
shall be quite willing to remain with you
in the gloom of defeat"
The Judge proceeds to give his under.
standing of the Civil Service law, and
continues: 81 do not ask you to give
any reason for my removal. 1 know,
and SO do you, that the only one you
could give would be that it was your
will; for, if you attempted to give any
other, your own previous words would
prove it untrue. In my interview with
you before my removal you expressly
disclaimed having any reason for it ex-
cept my refusal to resign to enable you
to make Mr.. Thompson's nomination.
Removed is a word of far.reaching
potency, especially when the record does
not explain it. am consci-
GUS of this, and deeply panied
by the consciousness. People have
a right to know the truth in ali
matters of this kind and for this reason
only do l address you. I cannot, like
you, make prayer for relief to the pub
lie such as the article seemed to be in
the Baltimore Sun OF the 14th instant
This is the first time in the history of
this Government that an outgoing Presi
dent has found it necessary to advertise
through the newspapers his particular
work during his term of office, and his
claims upon his party and country for
approval. Between the lines can be read
a special plea for reelection.
II can point to another removal than
mine, beyond parallel, which is to 20
down through history when I shall be
forgotten. Before 1 do 30, let me refer
to a proof of your ignorance of public
opinion, and not of your indifference to
ito what you say in the Sun article of
Mr.: Burns, of Missouri, as one not
guilty of the annoyance to which you
we're subjected by country members of
Congress introducing to you their con-
stituentn, because he always presented
his constituents at the public recep-
tions. If Mr.. Burns were living he
could tell you another reason which he
often told to others, that he had been
riudely treated by you and had no respect
for you personally, and ascribed the
defeat OF the Democratic party to your
ignorance OF it.
1T was necessary you should make
some such explanation for your attack
upon way back members, but you
were unfortunate in the selection OF your
witness, who was one of the ablest and
noblest legislators in Congress-. was
on the floor of the House OF Representa-
tives during the time the votes of the
electoral college were counted and heard |
the announcement of the result that
Benjamin Harrison was duly elected |
President of the United States, but the |
words that burned deep through the
empty boxes of the administration could |