He made a fatal mistake,
as it always seemed to me, in permitting the resignation of
President Garfield's Cabinet and filling their places with
men who, like himself, belonged to the Grant faction. If
he had said that he would not allow the act of an assassin
to make a change in the forces that were to control the Administration
so far as could be helped and that he would carry into effect
the purposes of his predecessor, wherever he could in conscience
do so, he would have maintained himself in the public esteem.
But that was not his only mistake. Inconsiderately he lent
himself to the popular prejudice against the policy of river
and harbor improvements, and, in vetoing a bill passed by
large majorities in both Houses of Congress, he sent in a
message in which he said in substance that the more corrupt
the measure the more votes it was likely to get in Congress.
When in the next winter he was asked to specify the objectionable
items in the bill he had vetoed, which appropriated about
$18,000,000, he was able to point out less than five per cent.
of all the appropriations which he could say he thought were
for purposes not required by the interests of international
or interstate commerce.
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