Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1897-01-19
ON CABINET MAKING.
THE DIFFICULTIES PRESENTED TO A
 PRESIDENT ELECT.

Why Most Men Prefer the Senate to 8 Po-
 sition In the Cabinet-Parts of the oOun-
 try to Be Considered-Obse on
 Some Cabinets In the Past.
 It is ever to be regretted that the founders of the republic did not in some way arrange that cabinet places should be more attractive to the class of men who can best fill them. Every cabinet officer is in one sense one e-eighth of the presidency of the United States. The executive duties and responsibilities with which the chief magistrate is charged are divided into eight parts, and for practical purposes the head of aNdepartment is president of the United States concerning that eighth of the country's interests. The presidents ap- preval and consent is more or less per sfunetory, depending largely upon the degree of confidence. he comes to have in his various official advisers. In this light it is strange that q set of offices so important and Nith t'ae presidential succession falling to then should go a. begging to the extent that is usual with cabinet places. Few men nowadays will leave the senate to enter cabinet Sen ator Allison has at least twice before been offered a portfolio and declined it. Secretary Proctor left the cabinet of Harrison to become a senator from Yer mont. Nathan Golf of West Virginia is said to desire 8 cabinet position now, that he may get into line for the senate to take the place of MT. Faulkner, whose term will expire in two years.
 Illustrations might Do multiplied in- definitely to show that q place in tho senate is more coveted than one in the cabinet. A senator. in going into a cab met, must bury the Individuality of his political ambition. As long as the pres ident is a candidate for reelection his cabinet confidants must stand by him and with him, while no such responsi- bility is entailed upon his supporters at the other end of the avenue. If an ad- ministration prove failure, it carries down with it the reputation substantial ly of all who have been part of it. Again, the duties of @ cabinet officer are arduous and continuous Instead of an average six months i'll 8 year, he must reside here constructively the whole 12 and have constantly i'll mind the work of a great business establish ment. Half of his first year is consumed in picking out his chief subordinates and in explaining to the 99 disappoint- ed applicants for each position how 1t happened that their names were passed over. He must, moreover, maintain a social establishment of considerable dig nity and consequently of considerable expense.
 The relative undesirability of cabinet positions is only one, however, of the difficulties of a president elect i'll mak- ing suitable selections for them. He must, of course, choose eight men who are not only congenial to him, but con genial to each other. They must be ca pable administrators as well as students of the affairs of their several depart ments. Geographical considerations, too, always constitute 8 troublesome factor. When Major Mckinley started out on the task of cabinet building, he probably realized that one of the eight places must go to New England, anoth- CT to New York, one to the new tier of Republican states on the southern bor- der, one to the northwest and two to the Ohio valley and middle west region, and that perhaps the Pacific coast should be remembered, the middle Atlantic states and also the extreme south. New England almost always has cabinet position. In the two Cleveland admins trations MT. Endicott and Mir Olney, | both of Massachusetts, have been the New England representatives. Senator Proctor of Vermont was Harrison z man, and William E. Chandler of New Hamnshire President Arthur's. The