Benjamin Harrison, Supposedly a Civil Service Reformer, Consults a Noted Spoilsman About Appo

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When Pres. Harrison took office in 1889, the Republicans controlled both houses of Congress. The party’s ability to control the domestic agenda was, however, influenced by an economic depression in the agrarian west and south that led to pressure for legislation conservative Republicans might normally resist.  By the late summer of...

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Benjamin Harrison, Supposedly a Civil Service Reformer, Consults a Noted Spoilsman About Appo

When Pres. Harrison took office in 1889, the Republicans controlled both houses of Congress. The party’s ability to control the domestic agenda was, however, influenced by an economic depression in the agrarian west and south that led to pressure for legislation conservative Republicans might normally resist.  By the late summer of 1890, both Sherman Acts were signed and the McKinley Tariff was through the House and awaiting finalization in the Senate. Meanwhile, the U.S. economy continued in a downturn as the year wore on. Civil service reform was another key issue of the day, and Pres. Harrison had campaigned in 1888 promising to support it. Historians generally record that, as president, Harrison steered a middle course on the subject, a position that alienated anti-reform elements in his own party who demanded continuation of the spoils system of awarding government posts for party loyalty. His inability to satisfy their patronage demands, one reads, was a significant factor in his failure to win a second term in the election of 1892. The following letter, illustrating the extraordinary degree to which Harrison worked and consulted with a noted spoilsman, indicates that this may not be an accurate picture.  One notable practitioner of the spoils system was James S. Clarkson (1842-1918), the editor of the Des Moines State Register and a stalwart member of the Republican National Committee. He was a Harrison loyalist, and the President appointed him First Asst. Postmaster General (in which capacity his main task was handling patronage, not overseeing mail delivery). In this post he replaced Democratic postmasters with Republicans at an astonishing rate (one source claims 30,000 per year in 1889-1890).  The letter reveals Harrison asking for Clarkson’s advice on appointments, and manifests Harrison’s expectation that Clarkson assist him in determining strategy for the forthcoming 1890 Congressional elections.   

Autograph Letter Signed as president on Executive Mansion letterhead, Washington, August 9, 1890, to Clarkson, in a letter not surprisingly marked “Private.”  “I am sorry you are sick, both on your account & my own. I wanted to see you before I went to Boston, & failing that I write to ask that you will, when you get about again, possess yourself as fully as you can of all the facts relating to the Congressional Canvass & think over the question of a Secretary & when I get back we will start the team if we have to hitch to the cart ourselves.”               

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