mpt punishment of all misconduct.
In this respect I challenge comparison with any department of the
Government, either under the present or under any past national
administration. I am prepared to demonstrate the truth of this statement
on any fair investigation."

Appended to this letter was a table in which General Arthur showed that
during the six years he had managed the office the yearly percentage of
removals for all causes had been only two and three-quarters per cent.
against an annual average of twenty-eight per cent. under his three
immediate predecessors, and an annual average of about twenty-four per
cent. since 1857, when Collector Schell took office. Out of nine hundred
and twenty-three persons who held office when he became collector on
December 1, 1871, there were five hundred and thirty-one still in office
on May 1, 1877, having been retained during his entire term. Concerning
promotions, the statistics of the office show that during his entire
term the uniform practice was to advance men from the lower to the
higher grades, and almost without exception on the recommendation of
heads of departments. All the appointments, excepting two, to the one
hundred positions paying two thousand dollars salary a year, and over,
were made on this method.

Senator George K. Edmunds, at a ratification meeting, held in
Burlington, Vermont, on the twenty-second of June, 1880, said:--

"I have long known General Arthur. The only serious difficulty I have
had with the present administration was when it proposed to remove him
from the collectorship of New York. No one questioned his personal honor
and integrity. I resisted the attempt to the utmost. Since that time it
has turned out that all the reforms suggested had long before been
recommended by General Arthur himself, and pigeonholded at Washington."

Meanwhile General Arthur had rendered great services as a member, and
subsequently a chairman, of the Republican State Committee, and had
united his party from one success to another through all the mazes and
intricacies which characterize the politics of New York City.
Vice-President Wheeler said of him:--

"It is my good fortune to know well General Arthur, the nominee for
Vice-President. In unsullied character and in devotion to the principles
of the Republican party no man in the organization surpasses him. No man
has contributed more of time and means to advance the just interests of
the Republican party."

Th