WHAT WASHINGTON THOUGHT OF A THIRD TERM. 327 with his military family, or of the ruler in the midst of his official household, is well shown in a letter to Timothy Pickering, his trusted Secretary of War, dated September twenty-seventh, 1795, wherein he says: "I shall not, whilst I have the honor to administer the government, bring a man into any office of consequence, knowingly, whose political tenets are adverse to the measures which the general government are pursuing.” (Sparks, vol. xi, P- 74.) This, it will be observed, is just what the merchant does, in equipping his counting-room. The danger growing out of the abuse of patronage for personal and party advantage is a new peril, apparently not contemplated by the framers of the Constitution. The machinemethods resorted to of late to relieve the appointing power of the burden of personal selection, thoroughly well meant as they have been, are proving themselves, as was to be expected, crude and hopelessly inadequate. No business man would allow his subordinates to be imposed upon him by an examining board. His shrewdness in selecting them is one element of his success. His power of retaining or dismissing them is a factor in his control. Just so far as the governmental machine does the work, just so far will the appointing power escape responsibility. We may shift the load from one shoulder to the other, but we get rid, in so doing, of no part of the weight of it. British experience in the government of India might have taught us this. German bureaucracy is ever holding up its warning finger. We may elect postmasters by local, popular suffrage, provided we retain a veto power in the post-office department. We may discover a certain required minimum of intelligence and book-learning, through competitive, civil service examinations. But these are powerless as a further test of fitness. Any high-school girl can pass a better examination than the best patrolman in your district. We are expecting too much of the system. We are overtaxing the machine. We may determine by written tests which candidate out of many knows best how to punctuate a sentence or do a sum or draw a map of Turkey. But is that candidate the most promising for promotion ? No
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