[c. July 1881]

Both influence and advice are words now used in a sense so different from that formerly common that without discrimination they will lead in the pending national discussion to much darkening of counsel. “A man of influence” once meant what might be supposed from Webster’s definition—“moral power; power of truth operating on the mind; rational faculties or will.” A few illustrations will indicate the present more technical sense of the term.

A tramp of the Guiteau stamp but more seedy and sottish touched my elbow as I was about entering a government building and whispered: “Don’t you want my influence, General?” While in a public office I heard a girl say, “I can’t do anything about it today. My influence is out of town,” (presumably with reference to obtaining some favor or escaping some penalty), and a young man asking the return of some papers: “I’m a gone sucker without my influence.” In a single newspaper I have seen four advertisements of influence “wanted”, the influencer being promised a share of what could be got from the public till or in consequence of the desired trade. I was present when a poor sickly haggard old man offered himself as a recruit for the public service. “You can see my influence” he said, showing a varied assortmnt of what he thus designated, that of most recent date being a paper signed by several members of Congress begging that some place might be found for him, a part of the wages for which should be held back until a sum had accumulated sufficient to send him to the distant part of the country from which older influences had drawn him.

Wrecks of influence like this are so common in Washington I was told that the Police have a wholesale arrangment with certain railroads for removing them at reduced rates of fare.

Another shade of meaning I have seen illustrated in a note addressed to the head of an office, to this effect. “J.B stands for my influence with you. He tells me some charge is to be made against him—If so please overlook it and oblige Yours &c. —”

Also, I once heard a subordinate when asked to explain a gross neglect of duty, reply, “You want an explanation do you? Well, [laughing] there it [540] is”: handing a writing: “If there is anything against C.D. Please let him off and charge to account of Yours Respy.”

Influence when used in the sense of these examples is often accented in the penultimate—influence, and it would be convenient to accept this variation.

A civil service system of which it is a cardinal point that places in it shall be obtained & held less by merit than through influence, can be maintained only because no satisfactory alternative offers. But one proposition has been made, the adoption of which would do more than beat the devil of influence about the bush; it is that prominently brought forward by Mr Pendleton’s bill There is a strong, sincere and thoroughly respectable repugnance in many minds to this alternative. It rests mainly on connections of the class commonly designated as of common sense, and partly on clear scientific ground.

The scientific ground is that upon which much modern statesman-ship is based, that the most efficient bar against bad service lies in competition and that the advantage which the present system secures through the danger that bad service will tend to the defeat of the party dispensing patronage would be thrown away by the change proposed.

What seems to many the common sense objection to the proposed change is probably in part simply a habit of mind established in adaptation to customs indirectly growing out of the present system.

It is for example largely due to the present system that the line has been in so great a degree obliterated which originally divided the class of public servants who are responsible for the choice of measures by which laws and policies are to be carried out and those whose official business lies in the pursuit more or less by set methods and under rules and discipline of measures determined independently of them. And the mental confusion due to this custom is aggravated by another, that of so overloading heads of administration with patronage business that they are compelled to neglect or throw upon their subordinates their own proper duties.

Two notions on the subject have thus far been more distinctly lodged in the public mind. First that the time and strength of the President and chief officers of the federal government are absorbed in dealings with influence to a degree that cannot but be cruel to them and detrimental to all other public business, second that the evil has its origin and the remedy must be looked for with the people.

Something would be gained if it could be realized first that what the President suffers is simply a more conspicuous example of an evil extending to nearly all public business; second that instead of the common figure of a stream of which Washington is supposed to be the mouth, and private sentimnt the sources, it would be more apt to regard the seat of government as the heart of a system between which and its extremities there is a ceaseless flux & reflux of influence.

[541]

How the system operates in this respect in many Custom-Houses, Post Offices and Indian Agencies is notorious. A few illustrations which I propose to offer from points still more remote from the federal centre may aid a better understanding of its difficulties.

The experience upon which I shall draw for these has been obtained in professional engagmnts in township affairs. Engagmnts in every case coming unsolicited, through votes from both national parties, in boards composed of men generally of enviable repute, in easy circumstances, serving the public without pecuniary compensation, with pride in their duty; not selected by the caucus process or elected by popular suffrage.

By a board of this class, in the city of New York I was unexpectedly called in 1857 to find work for and employ a thousand men upon the site for the Central Park in advance of the adoption of a plan for laying it out. The order led to the accumulation of a store of road-metal which it was assumed would be valuable under any plan. The morning after it passed, and before it reached me officially, I was told by an appalled domestic that twenty men were outside my street door each with a letter which he wished to deliver to me with his own hands and that four of them had forced their way into the house. To reach my office that morning I had to penetrate a body of men estimated by some of the newspapers to be five thousand strong. They were mostly laborers but a number of members of the legislature and aldermen were among them. As I worked my way through the crowd, no one recognizing me, I saw & heard a man then a candidate for reelection as a local magistrate addressing it from a wagon. He urged that those before him had a right to live; he assumed that they could live only through wages to be paid by the city; and to obtain these he advised that they should demand employment of me. If I should be backward in yielding it—here he held up a rope & pointed to a tree, and the crowd cheered. Men pushed letters at me wherever I went, stuffed them into my pockets, set their wives to waylay me, tossed letters through windows to me. I fully believe that some thought that if they could hit me with a letter I should be magically made their benefactor. Several applicants were at my door whenever I came home & when I went out in the morning. Their influences joined me as I walked in the streets and sat with me in rail-cars.

The President of the Board of Aldermen—the vice-mayor— apologized for introducing himself while I was at breakfast on Sunday morning by a {. . .} harrowing narrative of the pressure for patronage which he suffered. He obtained my promise to give personal attention to a certain number of men whom he would select as the most worthy & efficient out of a large number for whom the pressure was most irresistible. One of these, when they came, I was told by the police had lately served a term in the state prison. He was assigned to a stone-breaking gang; looked morosely at the work for a moment and then turned his back. Another assigned to a gang opening a ditch at the time he came upon it, was given a shovel by the foreman and told to fall [542] in with those in the trench. Whereupon he threw the shovel down with a great oath, turned his back and was seen no more. I asked the smiling foreman who reported this to me what it meant. “Why, it means“, said he, “that Johnny will find that he can’t pay his debts with any such jobs as you give these fellows.” Of fourteen men employed under this official’s influence not one remained on our rolls at the end of three weeks. Some had resigned, some been dismissed for intoxication, indolence or insolence.

So constant and rapid was the process of elimination thus illustrated that during a period of two years in which I was in uninterrupted superintendence of this work more than ten thousand recruits were enlisted for it, the force at work never reaching 4000 and being hardly more than 2000 on an average. For the 10,000 successful in securing an opportunity to serve on it there were probably more than ten times that number of letters or other forms of influence receivd from office-holders or candidates for office.

A general design having been adopted, it became the policy of the Board to advance the work as rapidly as possible in order to have its leading features so stamped on the ground as to distance the constant projects of politicians for getting possession of it through specious charges against the purposes and taste which it embodied.

To keep a large, shifting and mainly raw force under efficient organization and discipline; work it with reasonable economy; cut out and superintend its work, secure adequate checks against fraud and negligence and be at all times prepared to supply conclusive proof against the innumerable charges against the managmnt brought by the discharged and disaffected and which after having {been} dealt with by the Board directly in charge, led to five successive Investigating Committees of superior legislative bodies, each believed by the Board to have its origin in jealousies of appointing influence, and all this with an executive staff not one man of which had ever before been engaged in an undertaking having the same objects, conducted on the same principles and with the same forms and methods, would have well taken all the time and strength I could give it had I been wholly guarded from influence. With my best possible efforts I should have failed disastrously in my distinctive professional duties had it not been for a strong set of public favor and for the enthusiasm which the nature of the business seemed to inspire in my associates who generally worked twelve to fourteen hours a day. There were nine engineers who habitually took their work home with them & often did more at night than by day. More than once some of them remained in the office all of two successive days & nights of full sixty hours in harness. Three of the most devoted were disabled by over-work one after the other, each showing incipient or fully developed brain-fever. In all this time, the larger part of my day-light was claimed by business growing out of the demands for patronage of men in such public positions that, as I was assiduously instructed, custom & policy required that they should be respectfully dealt with & if possible conciliated. I several times officially reported this fact to my [543] superiors and measures were taken to relieve me as far as was thought practicable in respect to certain details, but as long as I remained in charge of the work the wear and tear from this cause greatly exceeded that from all others. More than 90 percent of my correspondence and of the time occupied in conference about matters of my office, other than with my subordinates, was taken up with it. That I had any other and more important duties seemed to be generally forgotten, not by my direct but my indirect superiors. My real work, that of forecasting scenery to be formed, to contrive means of securing its gradual development under difficult conditions and of making it available to great bodies of people, was of deep interest to me. I had none in life that compared with it, and every minute to be saved for deliberate and absorbed study of it was deeply precious. Under these circumstances, one day when hardest pressed, a note came marked “important” asking me to call at a certain hour upon a party leader. “The biggest boss over all.” To do so took me from my office three hours and the heart out of my day. I rearranged my appointmnts and as soon as possible stood at a guarded door while others passed in and out—a senator, the highest local federal officers, a Commissioner of Police. When at last my turn came I was received with a charmingly benignant manner and the business occupied less than a minute. “A man will call with my card. Do me the favor to see that he obtains some employment that will satisfy him.”

“I shall hope to do so.”

“Good bye.”

“Good bye Sir.”

The efficient manager had sent for me simply to repeat face to face what he had previously written and after all the object of his solicitude never delivered his card. He had probably set his heart upon a consulship and knew that I could have no office to fill with which he would put up.

Of course it was not recruiting alone that gave occasion for these demands upon my time. We sometimes used fifty barrels of gunpowder a day in blasting rock, for a long time more than half that and besides thousands of laborers & hundreds of horses we had within limited space great numbers of visitors—men, women & children, to guard from danger. For this among many reasons a degree of discipline was needed and was maintained, seldom attempted in public works. Many of those calling upon me were seeking the restoration of officers or men, dismissed after fair trial for disregarding the rules or for other forms of negligence or insubordination. The “pressure” on this account was very trying, and I must add that a painful part of it though not the most venomous began with men not themselves “in politics,” not a little with some for whom I had a sincere regard and to whom I felt under private friendly obligations. Unsuccessful in direct appeals to me, these often sought also to bring political influence to bear in favor of their wrong-headed charities. Among them who did so I recall one zealous clergyman who urging the reappointment of a backslider as an encouragement to a renewed effort for a [544] better life, made me responsible for the culprit’s soul. The appointing officer of another work told me that he had been obliged to restore a man of infamous character, grossly insubordinate and always damaging through the relentless insistence and pressure of one of the foremost leaders of benevolent and religious movements in all the country, a doctor of laws.

The harrassments to which I was subject by day forced me to leave matters for absorbing study chiefly for the night. I was often out with my associate in the design or others going over the ground until after midnight and engaged upon maps and plans or writing instructions until after day-break.

The time at length came late in the season when the doctor said - “an entire change for a few days at once, or I will not be responsible for the consequences.” He obtained for me a week’s leave of absence and sent me off, but letters and telegrams followed and before the week was up I was advised from headquarters to hasten my return. I did so to reach the work in a delirious condition, disabled for duty for several months and with injuries {from} which I have never recovered.

In 1872 the government of New York passed through a change which left its affairs in a more confused and provisional state than revolutions in France have left those of Paris. The status, rights and duties of its several offices were in many respects doubtful and all their business proceeded under consequent difficulties aggravated by injunctions of Court & other legal proceedings. This was especially the case with the department of parks upon which devolved a variety of extraneous business. Its managing board contained two of the recognized heads of the revolution and one of the Tweed faction who remained very active & singularly vigilant, bold and resolute in obstructing its business until late in the year when he also fled abroad. Extensive operations had been begun under the overthrown Ring and some of them, ill-judged, tasteless & extravagant, were in that condition that it was a hard question whether what had been accomplished should be taken as a basis for further proceedings or demolished. Upon the decisions to be made large private interests were at stake. In nearly all the works of the departmnt, and in nearly all parts of each work, revisions of design and policy were called for. To increase the difficulties thus arising, the Chief Engineer, the chief gardener, the Secretary, the bookkeeper and a large number of the subordinate officers upon the works had resigned or been removed. The office of Treasurer was combined with that of President and the President was given extraordinary powers as to purchases, appointments and removals. But the President was also a member ex officio of an extraordinary Board recently appointed to audit the accounts against the City run up by the Ring, many of them just claims but many fraudulent & more exhorbitant, yet pressed by skilful lawyers, so that the duty required deliberate study of bodies of conflicting testimony. This and other important duties outside those of the departmnt proper so took the time and mind of its chief that as far as possible he had, in the lack of others whom he was disposed to trust, laid upon me a great variety [545] of his discretionary duties & depended much upon my study & reports. Suddenly he was obliged by private business to be absent for some weeks from the country. He thought it best and it was thought best by the leaders of the reform movement & by the Mayor that his responsibilities should be added to those proper to my professional office. I reluctantly yielded to their and his request to take them. A plan for the purpose was devised and carried out. I took my seat at once in three boards over one of which I presided. At the first meeting of this body four questions were referred to me to investigate with a request that I would report on them at the following meeting and I found fourteen similar requests with which my predecessor had been unable to comply & which he had left over to me. As I came out from this meeting there were lawyers and others waiting to press affairs upon my attention, nearly all with letters of introduction from men in high official station. One man presented a claim which he declared & which was afterwards conceded to be just, long over due, the prompt payment of which he assured me would save him from bankruptcy. There were papers on my desk addressed to me in all four of my functions, among them an order of Court requiring immediate attention.

I have mentioned these things as an indication of the work other than that of recruiting that at this period needed my time and strength. As to recruiting, in the pressure of multifarious duties upon my predecessor he had allowed our works to be overstocked and the payrolls were much larger than our appropriations justified. He had advised me of this and that in consequence a reduction of force was imperative. In addition therefore, to a notice to that effect which he had posted at the outer door, I at once advertized that under no consideration would any new appointments be made. Nevertheless a crowd of applicants bearing letters from officials so blocked the sidewalk, that a police officer was needed to keep a passage open, and during all business hours members of the Reform Committee, of the legislature and of the city councils were waiting to press claims for patronage upon me. A clerk experienced in the duty was instructed to receive them; to explain the situation to each and to request that I might be excused from receiving them. Many upon this withdrew but many declined to do so. When Sunday came I took a few notes. I find one to the effect that I had not during the week, had five minutes in my office uninterrupted by a card sent or by some gentleman who had been unwilling to take my written notice or my clerk’s verbal assurance that I could make no appointmnts and who either held such a position in politics or brought such letters that the clerk did not feel justified in refusing to present his request to see me.

All this occurred in the midst of a storm of reform declamation. My visitors mostly classed themselves as reformers and often brought me letters urging their claims as such from the recognized reform leaders. (Nevertheless, singular as it may seem, some actually made themselves of consequence because of their friendship with Mr Tweed and the confidence that had been given them under the broken Ring. (as to be shown later))

[546]

Mainly all my time in office hours when not attending Board or Committee meetings was given to patiently satisfying such callers that my written declaration was sincerely made. I studied to do this considerately and conciliatingly but before the end of the second week one of those upon whose advice I had taken the office sent for me to say that complaint came to him of my inaccessibility and he feared that the cause of reform might suffer if this continued.

I reminded him that, needing no recruits, every hour that I gave to the business of recruiting was wasted for any of my essential duties but he advised me to realize that I could have no duty so essential as that of maintaining good relations with those who made the laws and determined appropriations. That I could commit no more serious offence than to deny to them the right and opportunity of conferring and advising with me and he suggested that if their views in this respect did not seem sound to me it was hardly becoming in me to set up my private political theories against those clearly established in the customs of the country & accepted by the people.

I had occasion to confer with the head of another departmnt of the city governmnt. While my card went in I waited with eight men whom I had previously seen at my office with influence, and when I was admitted found others with the Chief. I was passed on into a small inner room while he was putting them off. When they had left he came to me; apologized for having kept me waiting, reclined on a sofa and said he was well nigh worn out.

“Can you be as much rundown by these men as I am?” I asked.

“Oh! More so, I’m sure.”

“That is impossible, but do tell me, when are you able to give attention to the more essential business of your office”?

“I don’t often get a moment for it during office hours. I come early and stay till after seven.”

“What about your meals?”

“I have them sent in from the Astor House.”

“Is there no way of avoiding this waste of your time & strength.”

“No it is the established order of things.”

I met a statesman of national renown with whom I had had the honor of a friendly acquaintance and as he kindly invited me to take counsel with him I told him of my situation and said, “Here I am paid ten thousand dollars a year, furnished with a luxurious office & given clerks to aid me in a public duty and it is demanded that on an average a full working day of my time shall be given every twenty four hours to assuring people who wish to share in the patronage of my office that there is no patronage to share and so softening the assurance to them that they shall not go away with a disposition from which the interests of the city might suffer. Must I yield to such a preposterous demand?”

He answered in effect, by asking, “Do you think it would be judicious for you all alone to rebel against a system universally accepted, national in its [547] scope and as clearly representative of the genius of the people as any institution we have?”

Of a score of public men of considerable rank and hundreds of subordinate standing having weight in party managmnt, of whose private convictions I have had a somewhat confidential knowledge there are none whom I believe would give a different answer. I thoroughly believe also that it would be generally honest and that in many—perhaps in most cases—it would express a conviction adopted reluctantly and held with a sadness not without a tinge of remorse.

I have often sought to understand the grounds of this abandonment of faith in the republic of our fathers, and think that a good deal of them would appear in a frank argument somewhat as follows:

More distinctly than England has become a Nation of Shop-keepers, our people have become filled by the spirit not so much of mere shop-keeping as of trading adventure, bolder & less closely considerate and rule-bound than shop-keeping spirit. Except in a few tiny garden patches of genuine Poetry, Art, Science & Scholarship, nothing holds out against this spirit. For example, tricks of trade, advertising methods of trade, trade language and forms not only pass as natural and proper in the managmnt of church & church charitable and even church propogandist and devotional efforts, but a scrupulous avoidance of them would be commonly felt to argue lack of practical ability if not of earnestness & religious zeal. Much more so would their avoidance in politics show a man to stand apart from the people. Nay if bishops and ministers, elders and deacons, evangelists and colporteurs are required to yield a little of their dignity and straight-lacedness to the spirit of trade & speculation; is it to be supposed that politicians can afford to be nice & fine in their ways with offices, votes, patronage, influence? All this is a weight to be deplored but for the present it handicaps all statesmanship if not all law and gospel and those who cannot carry it must be distanced.