dvantage, he would doubtless have reformed existing
peculation and irregularities among inspectors, weighers, gaugers,
examiners, samplers, and appraisers.[1627] Until this army of placemen
could be taken out of politics Secretary Sherman refused to believe it
possible to make the custom-house "the best managed business agency of
the government," and as Arthur seemed an inherent part of the system
itself, the President wished to try Theodore Roosevelt.[1628] It is
safe to conclude, judging the father's work by the later achievements
of his illustrious son, that the Chief Executive's choice would have
accomplished the result had Conkling allowed him to undertake it.

[Footnote 1626: See his letters to the Secretary of the Treasury, New
York _Tribune_, January 28, 1879.]

[Footnote 1627: In his testimony before the Jay Commission, Arthur
spoke of "10,000 applicants," backed and pressed upon him with
unabated energy by the most prominent men "all over the country."--New
York _Tribune_, July 28, 1877.]

[Footnote 1628: Arthur was offered an appointment as consul-general to
Paris.--See Theodore E. Burton, _Life of John Sherman_, p. 294.]

When Conkling felt himself at ease, in congenial society, he displayed
his mastery of irony and banter, neither hesitating to air his opinion
of persons nor shrinking from admissions which were candid to the
verge of cynicism. At such times he had not veiled his intense dislike
of the Administration. After Hayes's election his conversation
discovered as aggressive a spirit as he had exhibited at Rochester,
speaking of the Secretary of State as "little Evarts," and charging
the President with appointing "a Democratic cabinet," whose principal
labour had been "to withdraw Republican support from me." Apropos of
Schurz, he told a story of the man who disbelieved the Bible because
he didn't write it. He criticised the Republican press for praising
Tilden as governor and "lampooning" him as a candidate for the
presidency, pronounced Packard's title as good as Hayes's, and
declared the President's "objectionable and dishonourable" record
consisted not in the withdrawal of the troops but in bargaining with
Southerners. "Every man knows," he said, "that on the face of the
returns Packard was more elected than Hayes. You cannot present those
returns in any form that will not give more legality to Packard as
Governor than to Hayes as President. People say this man assumes all
the virtues of refor