EXECUTIVE MANSION,

July 14, 1886.

I deem this a proper time especially to warn all subordinates in the several Departments, and all office-holders under the general government, against the use of their official positions in attempts to control political movements in their localities.

Office-holders are the agents of the people, not their masters. Not only are their time and labor due to the government, but they should scrupulously avoid, in their political action as well as in the discharge of their official duty, offending, by a display of obtrusive partisanship, their neighbors who have relations with them as public officials.

They should also constantly remember that their party friends, from whom they have received preferment, have not invested them with the power of arbitrarily managing their political affairs. They have no right as office-holders to dictate the political action of their party associates, or to throttle and prior to the installation of the present administration, should not have been permitted to continue to this time.

It appears that in the War Department the employees were divided on the 19th day of November, 1884, into eight classes and sub-classes, embracing those earning annual salaries from $9oo to $2000.

The Navy Department was classified November 22, 1884, and its employees were divided into seven classes and subclasses, embracing those who received annual salaries from $720 to $1800.

In the Interior Department the classification was made on the 6th day of December, 1884. It consists of eight classes and sub-classes, and embraces employees receiving annual salaries from $720 to $2000.

On the 2d day of January, 1885, a classification of the employees in the Treasury Department was made, consisting of six classes and sub-classes; including those earning annual salaries from $900 to $1800.

In the Post Office Department the employees were classified on February 6, 1885, into nine classes and sub-classes, embracing persons earning annual salaries from $720 to $2000. On the 12th of December, 1884, the Bureau of Agriculture was classified in a manner different from all the other Departments and presenting features peculiar to itself.

It seems that the only classification in the Department of State and the Department of Justice is that provided for by section 163 of the Revised Statutes, which directs that the employees in the several Departments shall be divided into four classes. It appears that no more definite classification has been made in these Departments.

I wish the commission would revise these classifications and submit to me a plan which will, as far as possible, make them uniform, and which will especially remedy the present condition which permits persons to enter a grade in the service in one Department without any examination, which in another his plainly erroneous assumption that his case and that of M. E. Benton, recently suspended and reinstated, rest upon the same state of facts, but prefer to regard his letter as containing the best statement possible upon the question of his reinstatement.

You remember, of course, that soon after the present administration was installed-and I think nearly a year and a half ago-I considered with you certain charges which had been preferred against Mr. Stone as a Federal official. You remember, too, that the action we then contemplated was withheld by reason of the excuses and explanations of his friends. These excuses and explanations induced me to believe that Mr. Stone's retention would insure a faithful performance of official duty, and that whatever offensive partisanship he had deemed justifiable in other circumstances, he would, during his continuance in office, at his request, under an administration opposed to him in political creed and policy, content himself with a quiet and unobtrusive enjoyment of his political privileges.

I certainly supposed that his sense of propriety would cause him to refrain from pursuing such a partisan course as would wantonly offend and irritate the friends of the administration who insisted that he should not be retained in office, either because of his personal merit or in adherence to the methods which for a long time had prevailed in the distribution of Federal offices.

In the light of a better system, and without considering his political affiliations, Mr. Stone, when permitted to remain in office, became a part of the business organization of the present administration-bound by every obligation of honor to assist within his sphere in its successful operation. This obligation involved not only the proper performance of official duty, but a certain good faith and fidelity, which, while not exacting the least sacrifice of political principle, forbade active participation in purely partisan demonstrations of a pronounced type, undertaken for the purpose of advancing partisan interests, and conducted upon the avowed theory that the administration of the government was not entitled to the confidence and respect of the people.

There is no dispute whatever concerning the fact that Mr. Stone did join others who were campaigning the State of Pennsylvania in opposition to the administration. It appears, too,

that he was active and prominent, with noisy enthusiasm, in attendance upon at least two large public meetings; that the speeches at such meetings were largely devoted to abuse and misrepresentation of the administration ; that he approved all this and actually addressed the meetings himself in somewhat the same strain; that he attended such meetings away from his home for the purpose of making such addresses; and that he was advertised as one of the speakers at each of said meetings.

I shall accept as true the statement of Mr. Stone that the time spent by him in thus demonstrating his willingness to hold a profitable office, at the hands of an administration which he endeavored to discredit with the people, and which had kindly overlooked his previous offenses, did not result in the neglect of ordinary official duty. But his conduct has brought to light such an unfriendliness toward the administration which he pretends to serve and of which he is nominally a part, and such a consequent lack of loyal interest in its success, that the safest and surest guarantee of his faithful service is, in my opinion, entirely wanting. His course, in itself such as should not have been entered upon while maintaining official relations to the administration, also renews and revives, with unmistakable interpretation of their character and intent, the charges of offensive partisanship heretofore made and up to this time held in abeyance.

Mr. Stone and others of like disposition are not to suppose that party lines are so far obliterated that the administration of the government is to be trusted, in places high or low, to those who aggressively and constantly endeavor, unfairly, to destroy the confidence of the people in the party responsible for such administration. While vicious partisan methods should not be allowed for partisan purposes to degrade or injure the public service, it is my belief that nothing tends so much to discredit our efforts, in the interest of such service, to treat fairly and generously the official incumbency of political opponents, as conduct such as is here disclosed.

The people of this country certainly do not require the best results of administrative endeavor to be reached with such agencies as these.

Upon a full consideration of all I have before me, I am constrained to decline the application of Mr. Stone for his reinstatement.

I inclose his letter with this, and desire you to acquaint him with my decision.

Yours truly,

GROVER CLEVELAND.