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to be allotted at his discretion.

Yet it seems to me that a curtailment of the small duties now imposed on
the President might well be made. The number of his appointments, for
instance, might well be lessened. The President ought, of course, to
appoint his Cabinet, the Supreme Court, ambassadors, ministers,
generals and admirals, but beyond that I think appointments ought to be
made without bothering the President about them. We have introduced a
Civil Service reform system with a Civil Service Commission, and I trust
that the matter of taking these subordinate officers out of politics
will be pressed generally as a much-needed reform.

Is the position occupied by a postmaster of sufficient importance to
justify the President in bothering with his appointment when he has such
a problem as the Mexican situation on his hands? We are coming to the
time when there are great complicated duties to perform under the
government. We have departed from the Jefferson view, and we now think
that the government can do a great many things helpfully, provided it
has experts to do them. Is it not entitled to the best men to do these
things? Yet how are experts obtainable unless they are selected to
permanent positions by those who are looking for experts and not looking
for men who exercise influence at the polls?

I recommended to Congress four times, that is, in each annual message,
that it enable me to put these men under the Civil Service law and in
the classified service; but it did not do it, and why? Because all local
officers now have to be confirmed by the Senate. That power of
confirmation gives a hold on the Executive and each Senator and each
Congressman wants to name the postmaster and the other local officers in
his district or state. The consequence is that Congressmen do not wish
the Senate to lose the power of confirmation. They believe this personal
patronage to be a means of perpetuating their own tenure. As a matter of
fact, this is not the case. Few men help themselves politically in the
long run through the use of patronage. It is a boomerang. Some few
manage to make it useful, but generally when a man secures an
appointment for a henchman, as the saying is in Washington--and it is a
very true one--he makes one ingrate and twenty enemies. The result is
that after he has served a term or two, he begins to find those aspiring
constituents, whom he did not appoint, rising like snakeheads to strike
him down.