LETTER TO HON. WILLIAM DUDLEY FOULKE COVERING GOVERNMENT APPOINTMENTS February 7, 1908. MY DEAR MR. FOULKE : The statement that I have used the offices in the effort to nominate any Presidential candidate is both false and malicious. It is the usual imaginative in vention which flows from a desire to say something injurious. Remember that those now making this accusation were busily engaged two months ago in asserting that I was using the offices to secure my own renomination. It is the kind of accusation which for the next few months will be rife. This particular slander will be used until exploded, and when exploded those who have used it will promptly invent another. Such being the case, I almost question whether it is worth while answering; but as it is you who ask, why, the answer you shall have. Since the present Congress assembled, two months ago, I have sent to the Senate the names of all the officials I have appointed for the entire period since Congress adjourned on the 4th of March last, that is, for eleven months. Excluding army and navy officers, scientific experts, health officers, and those of the revenue cutter service, I have made during this period about thirteen hundred and fifty-two ap pointments subject to confirmation by the Senate, eleven hundred and sixty-four being postmasters. Of these, appointments in the diplomatic and consular service and in the Indian service have been made without regard to politics; in the diplomatic and consular services, more Democrats than Republicans having been appointed, as we are trying to even up the quotas of the Southern States. In nominating judges I have treated politics as a wholly secondary consideration, and instead of relying solely upon the recommendations of either Senators or Congress men, have always conducted independent inquiries myself, personally through members of the bench or the bar whom I happened to know, or through Attor ney General Bonaparte, Secretary Taft, who was himself a judge; Secretary Root, because of his great experience at the bar, or Senator Knox, who was formerly my Attorney General. In a number of the other offices, chiefly assistant secretaries or heads of bureaus here at Washington, but also Governors of Territories or men holding peculiar positions such, for instance, as that of Commissioner of Edu cation in Porto Rico and also in a few other cases, notably those of marshals in certain of the Western States, but including various offices also here and there throughout the Union, I have either felt that the position was of such a character that the initia tive in the choice could only with propriety come from me or from one of the Cabinet officers, or else I have happened personally to know or to know of a man of such peculiar qualifications that I desired to appoint him on my own initiative. There remain the great bulk of the offices, in cluding almost all of the post-offices, the collector- ships of customs, the appraiserships, the land officers, and the like, numbering some twelve hundred and fifty or thereabouts. It is of course out of the ques tion for me personally to examine or have knowledge of such a multitude of appointments, and therefore as regards them I normally accept the suggestions of Senators and Congressmen, the elected represent atives of the people in the localities concerned, always reserving to myself the right to insist upon the man s coming up to the required standard of character and capacity, and also reserving the right to nominate whomever I choose if for any reason I am satisfied that I am not receiving from Senator or Congressman good advice, or if I happen personally to know some peculiarly fit man. Where the man has done well in office I prefer to reappoint him, and do so when I can get the consent of the Senators from his locality; but if they refuse, the reappoint- ment can not be made. Ordinarily, as a matter of convenience, the appointment can best be settled by consultation beforehand, the advice of the Senator or Congressman who is elected and has peculiar means of knowing the wishes of his constituents being taken. But where a Senator treats this not as a matter of consultation or mutual agreement, not as a matter of convenience and expediency, but as a matter of right on his part to nominate whomever he chooses, the custom is necessarily discontinued. In the South Atlantic and Gulf States, which have contained neither Senators nor Congressmen of my own party, I have been obliged to seek my advice from various sources. In these States I have ap pointed large numbers of Democrats, in certain States the Democrats appointed outnumbering the Republicans. For advice in appointing the Republi cans I have relied wherever possible not upon office holders at all, but upon men of standing and position who would not take office and on whose integrity I could depend. As instances merely, I will refer to Col. Cecil A. Lyon, of Texas, commanding one of the Texas National Guard regiments and a man of inde pendent means, engaged in active business; and to Mr. Pearl Wight, of Louisiana, and to Mr. Coombs, of Florida, also men of independent means and of large business affairs ; all of them being among the most respected men in their several States. These men, and most of the others upon whom I rely, could not be persuaded to take any office in my gift ; and I could no more coerce or control their political action than I could, for instance, that of presidents of chambers of commerce or colonels of national guard regiments in similar States in the North. In all of these States I have done my best, when I came to appointing Republicans, to put the best men in office those whom the people of the locality ac cepted as such and regarded as leading citizens ; and I have every reason to believe that the average of my appointees is very high. At present various efforts are being made to get up bolting delegations from the Southern States, and the meetings at which these so-called delegates are chosen are usually announced as "non-office holders " conventions. As a rule, this means only, so far as it means anything, that they are held under the lead of persons who wish to be put in office, but whose character and capacity are such that they have not been regarded as fit to be appointed under this administration. In these cases, be it remembered that the failure to secure office is not the result of the political action of the men in question; on the contrary, their political action is due to their failure to secure office. You quote a newspaper as saying : "We are now getting daily lessons in civil service reform from the White House, which ought to at tract national attention. The appointment of Taft workers to post-offices in Ohio, and of the totally unfit George W. Wanmaker as appraiser of this port, is now followed by the President s refusal to reappoint a good Hughes man as collector of customs at Plattsburg." This article is a good example of the accusations made by those of our opponents whose partisanship renders them especially unscrupulous and untruth ful. Mr. Wanmaker s appointment was recom mended by the three Congressmen from New York County and by the two Senators, the appointment being made precisely as the hundreds of similar appointments of postmasters, appraisers, internal revenue collectors and the like, which are confirmed by the Senate, are made, and in conformance with the custom which has obtained throughout my term of service, and throughout the terms of service of Mr. McKinley, Mr. Cleveland and my other prede cessors. In this particular case, as it happens, Mr. Wanmaker is peculiarly fit for the position, being already an assistant appraiser who has rendered good service in that place, and his appointment is the promotion of a proper man; he was appointed assistant appraiser by President McKinley twelve years ago, has served as acting appraiser several times, and has a very good record. "The refusal to reappoint a good Hughes man as collector of cus toms at Plattsburg" refers to the case of Mr. Walter Witherbee, and the accusation in this case is particularly comic, because Mr. Witherbee was an open and avowed Taft man, the classmate of Secretary Taft s brother at Yale, and both Secretary Taft and his brother requested his reappointment the only New York office holder for whom they made such a re- quest. The Congressman from his district and the Senators have not agreed about his successor, and he is still in office. These facts were either known to the editors of the paper in question, or could have been found out by the slightest inquiry. There remains the allegations as to the appointment of "Taft workers" to post-offices in Ohio. In Ohio I have made fifty-eight post-office appointments; twenty- seven of these were reappointments, thirty-one were new appointments, the last including the cases where the incumbent had died, had been removed for cause, or had resigned. Generally the appointment was made exactly as in other States, upon the recom mendation of the Congressman from the district. In various cases, however, as at Maumee, Stras- burg, Bluffton, Greenville, and Leipsic, the nomina tions were made upon the recommendation of both; Senators Foraker and Dick, or of one or the other. In four cases, the nominations were rejected by the Senate. In two of these, Dennison and Uhrichsville, the nominations of the new men were made on the recommendation of the then Congressman, Mr. Smyser; in each case the previous incumbent had not been giving very satisfactory service, in one instance he having failed to give sufficient personal attention to the office, as reported by the inspector, and in the other case the postmaster being also the publisher and editor of a newspaper and various irregularities having been noticed, some resulting in violation of law in the interest of the postmaster s paper. The course followed was precisely similar to that followed in the case of the various other post offices in Ohio in the districts represented by Con gressmen Keifer, Kennedy, Cole, and others, and precisely similar to the course followed as regards the recommendations of this same Congressman Smyser in other offices. At Spencerville investiga tion by the inspector showed that it was inadvisable to reappoint the incumbent, and that Mr. Wetherill, who had been originally recommended for this position by Senator Dick, should be appointed. Senator Dick afterward withdrew his recommenda tion, but the inspector reported that Mr. Wetherill had by that time already been appointed, and that to withhold his commission would be a great injury to him and would defeat the ends of justice. The nomination was accordingly sent in. At Wapa- koneta the incumbent did his work well, but the post- office inspector reported that the feeling was almost unanimous among his fellow-townsmen that there should be a change, and a Mr. Moser appointed, it appearing that the postmaster was not popular with the people, while the man suggested for the nomina tion was unquestionably the choice of the patrons of the office, being regarded by them as a most pro gressive and public-spirited young business man, possessed of more than ordinary ability, "extremely popular with the people of his native city, irre spective of party affiliations." I call your attention to the fact that the Senate withdrew its opposition to one of these four men and confirmed him, so that the charge relates to only three out of the whole number, eleven hundred and sixty- four post-offices; that of these three, two were nominated in the usual fashion on the recommendation of the outgoing Congressman; and that the third nomination was made on the report of the inspector and would have been made without the slightest regard to whether there was a Presidential canvsas on hand or not. The statements in the editorial in question are therefore untrue in every particular. As for your quotation from another newspaper, running as follows : "Federal office holders may be commanded to use their influence and their authority in behalf of a candidate. Such a command has been issued and the President should know of it. ... Somebody has instructed postmasters that they must obtain from their subordinates either their resignations or their pledges of support for Taft delegates to the convention. . . . "Even in Massachusetts efforts of this kind have recently been made, but happily they have been stopped, partly because the postmasters on whom the attempts were made had the courage to resist, and partly from other causes." there is really nothing to say except that it does not contain the slightest particle of truth, and that the misstatement is so gross that it is difficult to believe it other than a deliberate invention. There is not the slightest foundation for it, and no successful effort can be made to show that there is the slightest foundation for it. As regards the Massachusetts post-offices, in all except five cases my appointments were reappointments ; that is, the incumbent was renominated, with the consent of the Senators or Congressmen, at the expiration of the regular term. Of these five cases, new men were put in three times because of death and twice because of the resignation of the incumbent. In each case, whether of appoint ment or reappointment, I followed the ordinary cus tom, accepting the suggestion either of the Senators or of the Congressmen, or both, as in each case the men suggested were eminently fit. Not a particle of difference has been made in this respect between those Congressmen who were for one presidential candidate and those Congressmen who were for another ; and so far as I know, in every case the ap pointment has fully satisfied the local people. In other words, the appointments have been made not to control, but to recognize, the sentiment of the locality. If such assertions as those of these papers are made in good faith, on knowledge of facts, and with any other purpose than to produce a political effect by false pretense, or by reckless statement without knowledge, let those making them produce the spe cific cases to which they refer. If in any such case the accusation is found true, it will have occurred without my knowledge, and I shall deal with it in the precise spirit of my instructions to the Civil Service Commission hereinafter referred to. So far as I know the only other accusations that have been made as to the use of patronage have been in connection with the pension agent in New Hamp shire and a collector of internal revenue in Ohio. In the case of the pension officer, the Senators and Congressmen could not agree on a nominee, two recommending one man and two another. I decided to send in a man recommended to me by outsiders, whom I believed to be better than either. The Senate rejected him. His name would have been sent in if there had been no Presidential canvass at all at this time. As regards collectors of internal revenue, some are appointed upon the recommendations of Senators, and some on the recommendations of Con gressmen. In Ohio the collector of internal revenue whom I nominated in the First District was recom mended by the Congressman of the district. In the Tenth District I followed the recommendation of the two Senators. In other words, I followed the same course in Ohio as in other States as regards all these nominations, the only difference being that Ohio is the single State where the bulk of the Federal em ployees have been inclined to be against the Presiden tial candidate from the State. In New York, Penn sylvania, Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin, so far as I know, the enormous majority of appointees are in each case for the Presidential candidate from the State. This has been true in Ohio ; and my interfer ence with patronage matters in Ohio has been limited to insisting, as I should insist anywhere else, that op position to the purposes, policies, and friends of the administration shall not be considered as a necessary prerequisite to holding the commission of the President. In my letter to the Civil Service Commission of June 12, 1902, which now holds good, and will be enforced, officers are warned not to use their places to control political movements, nor to coerce their subordinates, nor to neglect their public duties for political work, nor to cause any public scandal by their political activity; but outside of the classified service they are not otherwise limited to political activity. No officer will be permitted to violate the above injunction, with my knowledge, no matter for what candidate he may be working; and I may add that the only officers as to whom any question of violation of this injunction has hith erto arisen has been men who are not working for Mr. Taft. The above is a full statement of the facts. Not an appointment has been made that would not have been made if there had been no Presidential contest im pending, and in no case has there been a deviation from the course that I would have pursued had none of those who actually are candidates for the nomina tion been candidates; nor has a single office holder been removed or threatened with removal, or coerced in any way to secure his support for any Presidential candidate. In fact, the only coercion that I have attempted to exercise was to forbid the office holders from pushing my own renomination, this being done in the following letter sent to the members of my; Cabinet on November 19, 1907: "I have been informed that certain office holders in your department are proposing to go to the Na tional Convention as delegates in favor of renomi- nating me for the Presidency, or are proposing to procure my endorsement for such renomination by State conventions. This must not be. I wish to in form such officers as you may find it advisable or necessary to inform in order to carry out the spirit of this instruction, that such advocacy of my renomi nation, or acceptance of an election as delegate for that purpose, will be regarded as a serious violation of official propriety, and will be dealt with accordingly. Yours truly, THEODORE ROOSEVELT HON. WILLIAM DUDLEY FOULKE, Richmond, Indiana.