The Last Mona Lisa Jonathan Santlofer

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Books. Change. Lives.

Copyright © 2021 by Jonathan Santlofer
Cover and internal design © 2021 by Sourcebooks
Cover design by Laura Klynstra
Cover images © Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa (between 1503 and
1506), zefart/Shutterstock, Paladin12/Shutterstock
Internal design by Ashley Holstrom/Sourcebooks
Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of
Sourcebooks.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any
form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information
storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations
embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing
from its publisher, Sourcebooks.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are
used fictitiously. Apart from well-known historical figures, any
similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and
not intended by the author.
All brand names and product names used in this book are
trademarks, registered trademarks, or trade names of their
respective holders. Sourcebooks is not associated with any product
or vendor in this book.
Published by Sourcebooks Landmark, an imprint of Sourcebooks
P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410
(630) 961-3900
sourcebooks.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Santlofer, Jonathan, author.
Title: The last Mona Lisa : a novel / Jonathan Santlofer.
Description: Naperville, Illinois : Sourcebooks, 2021.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020056377 (print) | LCCN 2020056378 (ebook) |
(trade paperback) | (hardcover) | (epub)
Classification: LCC PS3619.A58 L37 2021 (print) | LCC PS3619.A58
(ebook)
| DDC 813/.6--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020056377
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020056378
 Contents

Front Cover

Title Page

Copyright

August 21, 1911

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The South of France

Author’s Note

Reading Group Guide

A Conversation with the Author

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Back Cover
For Joy, who loved this book from the beginning and with my deep
regret that she is not here to see it realized.
BASED ON A TRUE STORY
“Imitation…is a double murder, for it deprives both copy and original
of their primitive existence.”
—Madame de Staël

“Nothing is original.”
—Jim Jarmusch
August 21, 1911
Paris, France

He has spent the night huddled in the dark, mind burning with
Bosch-like scenes from hell, hideous monsters, people writhing in
flames. He stares into the gloom, knowing that he will spend the rest
of his days in darkness.
We lose the things we do not cherish enough, his one thought, his
only thought, as he slips into his workman’s tunic, buttons it over his
street clothes, and opens the closet door.
The museum is unlit, but he has no trouble making his way down
the long hall. He knows the layout perfectly, his intention fueled by
guilt. The Winged Victory casts a predatory shadow that causes him
to shiver though it is stifling, airless.
Her face appears like a specter, beautiful lips cracked, flesh tinged
gray. Somewhere, a baby cries. The crying swells to a sickening
shriek. He covers his ears and lets out a sob, twisting one way then
the other, searching in the dark for his lost love and his child,
whispering their names, walls closing in, room tilting, that empty
feeling in his gut expanding until that’s all he is: a hollow man. Now
he understands that the emptiness he has felt for so long has been a
foreshadowing, a preview of the rest of his life, that he has been
practicing to be a dead man.
Footsteps?
But it’s too early, and a Monday, the museum closed to visitors.
He stops and peers into the dim hallway and sees nothing. He
must have imagined it, no longer sure what is real and what is not.
Gloved hand cupped around his ear, he listens, but it’s quiet, only
the sound of his own heavy breathing and the scudding of his heart.
 A few more steps, through the arch and into the Cour Visconti
Gallery, the high-ceilinged room large enough to hold mural-sized
paintings. In the dark, the canvases appear as black rectangles
though he can picture them: a landscape by Corot, a famous
Delacroix battle scene, Jacques-Louis David’s Consecration of the
Emperor Napoleon, the dictator clad in outrageous finery, animal-
skin cape, crown of ivy, a smug look of victory on his face.
It is then, as he pictures Napoleon, that his fevered brain comes up
with the explanation he will give later, the one the newspapers will
print: I stole the painting to restore it to its rightful home.
He will be a patriot, a hero, no longer the immigrant, the man
without a home.
Steadier now, he heads down another narrower hallway, mind
focused and filled with purpose. He will show them he is someone.
In the smaller Salon Carré Gallery, he can just make out the
shapes of the paintings, Titian and Correggio and the prize
shimmering between them—the lady of the rocks, the vampire who
never sleeps, the most famous woman in the world: Mona Lisa.
Heart pounding, nerve endings tingling, a dozen thoughts in his
brain as he unscrews the small wooden panel from its iron bolts. A
man possessed, blind to the shadow of his face reflected, distorted
in the glass he himself installed only last week.
It takes all of five minutes.
Then he is moving, the painting clutched to his chest, a shadowy
figure darting out one doorway, through another, down a hallway
and into a stairwell where he stops to remove the painting’s heavy
frame and plate glass and leave them behind. Moving again, through
a narrow corridor lined with marble sculptures, faster now, panting,
sweating, he cuts through an archway until he comes to the side
door, the Porte des Arts, all of it exactly as planned, a perfect dream.
Until the doorknob does not turn.
He tugs and twists, pulls and jerks, but the knob will not budge,
his spinning mind the only thing that is moving.
A deep breath, then another until it comes to him: the screwdriver,
of course! The same tool he has just used on the bolts he now uses
to unscrew the hardware until the doorknob drops into his hand and
he stashes it in the pocket of his workman’s tunic, which he strips
off, rolls up, and tucks firmly into the back of his belt.
He slides the panel under his shirt, aged canvas abrading his skin
as he buttons his jacket over it, his heart beating against the
mysterious four-hundred-year-old beauty who has witnessed her
own abduction more than once, observed countless assignations
from the wall of Napoleon’s bedroom, and endured the gapes and
stares of millions, and now, tired and world-weary, she yearns to rest
—but her story is far from over.
 1

December 2019
Florence, Italy

Carlo Bianchi dabbed the handkerchief to his dripping nose. His

shop, on the Via Stracciatella, not far from the Ponte Vecchio, was
small and cramped, books in shelves, on his desk, scattered around
the floor in stacks like miniature Mayan villages, everything covered
in dust, the place reeking of mold and damp.
Bianchi was looking for a book on rococo garden design, which he
knew was here somewhere. He finally found it at the very bottom of
a tall stack. Lying on his side, beard picking up lint, he was just
inching the book out when he saw the man’s thick-soled sneakers.
Bianchi twisted his neck for an angled view. “Posso aiutarla?”
The man peered down at him. “Do you speak English?”
“Yes,” said Bianchi, getting to his feet, slapping dust from his pants
and jacket. “One learns many languages in a lifetime of dealing with
books.”
“I am looking for a diary, a journal that you recently purchased
from a French book dealer named Pelletier.”
“Pelletier? Let me think. I should have a list of recent purchases.”
Bianchi made a show of sorting through a mass of receipts on his
desk. He knew every book he sold or purchased, including those to
and from the French dealer, Pelletier, though he never gave out a
customer’s personal information.
“This journal was written over a hundred years ago,” the man said.
Pelletier had sworn he’d sold the journal to Bianchi, and people
rarely told lies when they had just lost a finger and there was the
threat of losing another. “Surely, you would remember buying such a
book.” He laid his hand over Bianchi’s, then pressed it against the
wooden desktop.
“Sì, sì, I remember,” Bianchi said. “It was handwritten and in
Italian!”
The man eased up, and Bianchi slid his hand out, backing away,
practically bowing. “I am sorry…but…the journal… I have already
sold it.”
“To who?”
“To an old man who collects such things, no one important.”
“His name?”
“I don’t re—”
The man grabbed Bianchi by the front of his jacket and lifted him
off the floor. “The name. Now.”
Arms flapping, legs dangling a few inches above the floor, Bianchi
gasped the name: “G-Guggliermo!”
The man let go, and Bianchi landed unsteadily, knocking over a
tower of books.
“And where might I find this Guggliermo?”
“He…he is a”—Bianchi tried to catch his breath—“a professore, at
the university—in Firenze—but, but I think he is retired.” He stole a
glance at the window to see if there was anyone outside, a passerby
he might call for help, but the man shifted his body to obscure his
view.
“His address.”
 “I–I am certain if you inquired at the university—”
The man gave him a dead-eyed stare, and Bianchi quickly thumbed
through his Rolodex, fingers trembling. He found the card and began
to read from it, but the man snatched it from his hand. “You did not
read the journal, did you?”
“Me? No, no.” Bianchi shook his head back and forth.
“And yet you knew it was handwritten and in Italian.”
“Pelletier must have…told me…or…perhaps I glanced at a page,
but that was all.”
“I see,” the man said, lips pulling back to reveal tobacco-stained
teeth. He slipped the card into his pocket. “And you will not speak of
my visit, not to this Guggliermo, not to anyone.”
“No, signore. No. Not even to Pelletier. I would never say a word.”
“Of course not,” the man said.
Bianchi was still trying to recover his breath and balance when the
man thrust a fist into his chest. Bianchi stumbled back, arms flailing,
knocking over another stack of books before he fell.
The man lifted him up, hands around his neck, tightening and
squeezing.
Bianchi tried to speak, to plead, but managed only a few strangled
squawks, the room going in and out of focus.
“No. Not a word,” the man said as he felt the bookseller’s larynx
snap.
 2

Two Months Later

The email had arrived less than two weeks ago, and here I was,
unable to think of anything else, bolting from my life on a possibility,
a whim.
I tried to tamp down my anxiety, stopped to stretch the kinks out
of my body, then wheeled my suitcase through one long corridor
after another, a mix of exhaustion and adrenaline after an eight-hour
flight from New York where I’d been too keyed up to sleep.
Leonardo da Vinci airport was like most: impersonal, crowded,
harsh lighting. The fact that it was named for Leonardo struck me as
prophetic, though clearly, they hadn’t named it for me. I checked the
time, 6:00 a.m. Then searched for the airport train and was proud of
myself when I found it, slumped into a seat, and closed my eyes, a
dozen thoughts buzzing in my brain like gnats.
Thirty-two minutes later, I was in Roma Termini, the train station
huge, crowded, a throbbing nest of travelers, but with an element of
romance, all those trains hovering just beyond the ticket stalls,
belching white smoke into the winter air.
I cut through crowds of people—“Scusami, scusami”—thankful to
my parents for speaking to me in their native tongue from the time I
could crawl, moving from one train to another, clutching my ticket,
eyes on the big board searching, for Firenze as minutes ticked away.
I almost missed my train, listed only by its final destination, Venice,
a place I would love to see, but not now when I was on a mission.
The train to Florence was clean and new-looking, the seats
comfortable. I got my suitcase onto the rack above, took off my
backpack, and twice nodded off to images of pages wafting through
the air and me trying and failing to catch them.
I drank a Coke to stay awake and stared out the window, the
landscape going from flat to hilly to distant medieval towns dotting
the tops of even larger hills, all of it slightly unreal, as if I were in a
movie and not on my way to discovering what I hoped would finally
answer a hundred-year-old mystery and twenty years of research in
pursuit of my family’s most infamous criminal.
An hour and a half later, I was outside Florence’s bustling train
station, Santa Maria Novella, in the center of the city, lugging my
suitcase over cobblestone streets, hazy sun dipping in and out of low
clouds, the air crisp and cold. I replayed the events of the past two
weeks: receiving the email, buying an open-ended ticket, going to
the Italian consulate where I sweet-talked a young woman into
giving me a cultural permesso and a letter stating I was a university
art professor, which granted me access to Italian cultural institutions,
then the call to my cousin in Santa Fe—a sculptor always eager to
make the New York City art scene—who was more than happy to
sublet my Bowery loft. A week later, I’d bubble-wrapped my
paintings, left my college classes in the hands of my graduate TA,
and taken off a week before intersession, a rash move for an
assistant professor hoping to get tenure.
I crossed the wide street in front of the train station into a warren
of smaller ones, trying to follow my cell phone’s GPS that was
constantly rerouting. I had to change directions twice but about ten
minutes later came into a large rectangular plaza dominated by a
sienna-colored chapel with a redbrick dome, the Piazza di Madonna,
and there, spotted the hotel, Palazzo Splendour, its name spelled out
in old electric lettering.
The hotel’s lobby was the size of a cramped Manhattan kitchen,
the walls in need of a paint job, floors of badly cracked white-
variegated marble, the only decoration a faded black-and-white
photo of Michelangelo’s David.
“Luke Perrone,” I said to the guy behind the desk—youngish, ropy
arms laced with badly inked tattoos, handsome in a drug-addicted
sort of way, puffing on a cigarette, cell phone crooked between his
ear and shoulder.
“Passaporto,” he said without looking up. When I asked in my best
Italian if I could leave my suitcase and come back later, he held up a
finger as if I were disturbing his call, obviously personal unless he
called all the hotel guests “il mio amore.” I didn’t wait for his answer,
left my suitcase, and headed out.
Google Maps said San Lorenzo was five minutes away, which
seemed easy enough, though I walked the wrong way before
realizing I was reading the map upside down. I backtracked,
rounded the domed chapel in Piazza di Madonna one more time, and
followed the route, which led me alongside a series of stacked, ochre
structures, then past a long expanse of ragged stone wall with stairs
leading to blind arches, which ended at the corner. Piazza San
Lorenzo was open and mostly empty, except for a few tourists and a
couple of monks in long, brown smocks.
I tried to take it in, realizing what I had passed and where I stood
were all part of one vast complex.
Directly ahead, the sand-colored basilica was rough and
unfinished-looking, its three arched entrances with heavy wooden
doors, all of them shut. To the left of the church was a smaller arch
and a dark alleyway, which led me into the famous cloister of San
Lorenzo, a place I had only seen in pictures.
A few steps in and it was as if I were entering a dream, the square
garden with its hexagonal-shaped hedges and two-story loggia,
classic and harmonious, all of it designed by my favorite Renaissance
architect, Brunelleschi. For a moment, I tried to imagine I was an
artist of the High Renaissance and not some struggling New York
painter who taught art history to pay the bills.
I sighed, my breath a fog in the late-morning chill, everything in
the courtyard covered in a silvery frost. Three monks in long, woolen
smocks were wrapping plants with burlap while I shivered in my thin
leather jacket. I hadn’t thought it would be so cold in Florence. To
be honest, I hadn’t thought about much after receiving the email.

Dear Mr. Perrone,

One of Professor Antonio Guggliermo’s last requests was that I

get in touch with you regarding what may have been your great-
grandfather’s journal. The professor had planned some sort of
publication about the journal, which he claimed would be a
“revelation.” Sadly, his sudden death prevented him from ever
writing it.
The journal, along with the professor’s books and papers, has
been donated to the Laurentian Library in Florence, Italy. I was
the one to catalog his works and placed the journal in a box
labeled “High Renaissance Masters.”
To see Professor Guggliermo’s documents, you will need to
obtain a cultural permesso, which should not be difficult.
If you request the papers, I suggest you do not mention
anything about the journal and would prefer that you kept my
 name out of the request.

Sincerely,
Luigi Quattrocchi
Quattrocchi@italia.university.org

I had contacted Quattrocchi right away, and he’d emailed back

sounding serious and sane, assuring me of the journal’s existence
though he couldn’t guarantee its authenticity.
For years, I’d been writing letters and emails for any information
regarding my great-grandfather. Most went unanswered. The ones
who did answer invariably demanded money, but none had ever
panned out. This time, the information had come free of charge and
with no ulterior motive—at least none I could see.
“Scusi, signore,” said one of the monks, young, with a russet-
colored beard and startling blue eyes. “You wait for library to open?”
“Yes!” I practically bit his head off, then apologized. “You speak
English.”
“A little,” the monk said.
I told him I spoke Italian.
“Il bibliotecario e’ spesso in ritardo,” he said. The librarian is often
late.
I checked my watch. It was exactly ten; the library was supposed
to be open.
The monk asked where I was from and I said, “New York, but my
people are from Ragusa,” though I had never been to the Sicilian
town and hadn’t meant to say where my family had been from; I
hadn’t meant to say anything.
The monk extended his hand. “Brother Francesco.”
“Luke Perrone,” I said and glanced back at the door that led up to
the library.
 “It will open soon,” he said. “Pazienza.”
Patience, right. Never my strong suit, and clearly not now, when
I’d bolted from my life on nothing more than a hunch.
I watched Brother Francesco rejoin the others in the garden, noted
him whispering, then all three monks looking my way, their eyes
narrowed in the cold winter light. I moved into the shadow of the
arches to avoid their stares, leaned back against a pillar, pictured my
Bowery loft and the haphazard collection I’d begun as a boy in my
Bayonne, New Jersey, bedroom. It now filled an entire corner of my
painting studio: copies of hundred-year-old newspaper stories, a
floor plan of the museum with my great-grandfather’s escape route
mapped out in red marker, a metal file cabinet crammed with articles
detailing the theft and various theories, one drawer devoted to the
letters and emails I had begun writing as a teenager to anyone who
might know anything about the crime or about my great-grandfather
—and the answers, which were few and rarely, if ever, illuminating.
A cold wind whipped through the cloister, and I shivered. A tap on
the arm, and I flinched.
The young monk again. “Mi scusi, ma la biblioteca e’ aperta.”
I gave him a quick nod, then headed down the arched path to the
wooden door, which now stood open.
 3

INTERPOL Headquarters
Lyon, France

John Washington Smith read the emails for a second time. Like
everyone in INTERPOL’s Art Theft Division, it was his job to watch all
the obvious communiques and websites—antiquities dealers, art
galleries, anyone suspected of smuggling or selling stolen art or
artifacts—all of it continuously updated on one of his three computer
screens. Of particular interest to him—something that had, over the
years, become an obsession—was the 1911 theft of Leonardo’s most
famous painting, what went on during its two-year disappearance,
and the idea that the Mona Lisa in the Louvre Museum today was
not the original. For years, he’d heard the rumor that the thief,
Vincenzo Peruggia, had kept a prison diary, something that had
never been confirmed. But here was the thief’s great-grandson, Luke
Perrone, an American artist and art historian—someone he’d had
under communication surveillance for years—emailing with an Italian
professor about just such a diary.
Smith slipped off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose, a
headache between his eyes. The result of too many hours staring at
the pulsing light of the computer screens arranged in a wide U that
filled most of his desk, a white Formica slab balanced on thin metal
legs, jointed in such a way as to remind him of ET. The wireless
keyboard and mouse were also white, as were the boxy file cabinets
that formed the other end of the unit. White ceiling. White walls.
Pale-gray tiles on the floor in a “nubby” pattern to give the illusion of
being a rug. The tiles were slightly springy too, and Smith often
wondered if that was for the benefit of the INTERPOL workers’ feet
or to create a virtually soundless space, though it hardly mattered
since all the researchers wore some form of sneaker or walking
shoe. Smith’s were thick-soled white Nikes, which he kept clean with
a soapy toothbrush.
Smith read the emails again, tamping down his excitement while
taking stock of his options. He could notify the local authorities and
have them watch Perrone and this Italian professor or issue one of
the eight color notices INTERPOL used to designate the degree of a
suspected crime—a red notice being the highest—but there was no
evidence of a crime, not even any wrongdoing, not yet. No way
could he get the general secretariat to issue such a notice.
Smith glanced at the computer screen on his left, the one reserved
for data on international art objects currently missing or stolen and
the date they had disappeared. Art theft and forgery were serious
crimes, and the people involved—collectors, thieves, and middlemen
—were not only unscrupulous but often dangerous. According to
INTERPOL’s statistics, art theft alternated between the agency’s
number three and four spots in priority and importance, just below
drug dealing, arms smuggling, and money laundering. Smith took it
seriously, the way he did everything, like the daily calisthenics and
weight lifting, which had added considerable muscle mass to his
almost six-foot frame. The idea of being weak or perceived as such,
something a black kid from Manhattan’s Baruch Houses project had
learned early he could not afford. Smith had never known his father,
though he had taken the man’s last name as his middle, a way to
make the ordinary-sounding name more memorable.
He checked the time, nearly noon. Along with the headache, his
back had started to ache after four hours of sitting since the drive
from his one-bedroom apartment on the outskirts of Lyon, then
fighting the city’s traffic to get to the steel-and-glass monolith of
INTERPOL’s international headquarters, something he did every day,
twice a day.
He needed a break, time to think, and a cigarette.
The cylindrical elevator took him down to the octagonally shaped
courtyard in the center of the building. There were a few people
here, though the cool minimal space made them appear unreal, like
androids. Smith wondered if he looked robotic too, though he
doubted robots smoked Marlboro Lights. He inhaled deeply while
debating the pros and cons of what he was considering, knowing it
was strictly against INTERPOL policy.
A look up at the courtyard’s angled enclosures reminded him of the
Baruch Houses’ walls, both spaces a kind of prison, though these
were graffiti-free and there was no one lurking in the shadows
selling weed, meth, or H. Ironic, he thought, having traded one
prison for another, though he had imagined this one would offer not
only a way out but also success and glory. Was it too late for that?
Another pull on his cigarette, a thought taking shape as if the smoke
were skywriting in his lungs or on his brain: If you are ever going to
succeed, ever make a name for yourself, you need to do this. Smith
eyed the people across the space and wondered if they could read
his thoughts. He had done things in his life he was not proud of;
some he had never confessed to anyone. But could he do this?
He was still debating that when he finished his cigarette, continued
to debate it in the elevator, was still debating it and all that was at
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that he might be lacking in the executive faculty. His disposition of
business was orderly and rapid. His power of analysis, and his skill in
classification, enabled him to despatch a vast mass of detail with
singular promptness and ease. His Cabinet meetings were admirably
conducted. His clear presentation of official subjects, his well-
considered suggestion of topics on which discussion was invited, his
quick decision when all had been heard, combined to show a
thoroughness of mental training as rare as his natural ability and his
facile adaptation to a new and enlarged field of labor.
With perfect comprehension of all the inheritances of the war, with
a cool calculation of the obstacles in his way, impelled always by a
generous enthusiasm, Garfield conceived that much might be done
by his administration towards restoring harmony between the
different sections of the Union. He was anxious to go South and
speak to the people. As early as April he had ineffectually endeavored
to arrange for a trip to Nashville, whither he had been cordially
invited, and he was again disappointed a few weeks later to find that
he could not go to South Carolina to attend the centennial
celebration of the victory of the Cowpens. But for the autumn he
definitely counted on being present at three memorable assemblies
in the South, the celebration at Yorktown, the opening of the Cotton
Exposition at Atlanta, and the meeting of the Army of the
Cumberland at Chattanooga. He was already turning over in his
mind his address for each occasion, and the three taken together, he
said to a friend, gave him the exact scope and verge which he needed.
At Yorktown he would have before him the associations of a hundred
years that bound the South and the North in the sacred memory of a
common danger and a common victory. At Atlanta he would present
the material interests and the industrial development which
appealed to the thrift and independence of every household, and
which should unite the two sections by the instinct of self-interest
and self-defence. At Chattanooga he would revive memories of the
war only to show that after all its disaster and all its suffering, the
country was stronger and greater, the Union rendered indissoluble,
and the future, through the agony and blood of one generation, made
brighter and better for all.
Garfield’s ambition for the success of his administration was high.
With strong caution and conservatism in his nature, he was in no
danger of attempting rash experiments or of resorting to the
empiricism of statesmanship. But he believed that renewed and
closer attention should be given to questions affecting the material
interests and commercial prospects of fifty millions of people. He
believed that our continental relations, extensive and undeveloped as
they are, involved responsibility, and could be cultivated into
profitable friendship or be abandoned to harmful indifference or
lasting enmity. He believed with equal confidence that an essential
forerunner to a new era of national progress must be a feeling of
contentment in every section of the Union, and a generous belief that
the benefits and burdens of government would be common to all.
Himself a conspicuous illustration of what ability and ambition may
do under republican institutions, he loved his country with a passion
of patriotic devotion, and every waking thought was given to her
advancement. He was an American in all his aspirations, and he
looked to the destiny and influence of the United States with the
philosophic composure of Jefferson and the demonstrative
confidence of John Adams.

THE POLITICAL CONTROVERSY.

The political events which disturbed the President’s serenity for

many weeks before that fatal day in July form an important chapter
in his career, and, in his own judgment, involved questions of
principle and of right which are vitally essential to the constitutional
administration of the Federal Government. It would be out of place
here and now to speak the language of controversy, but the events
referred to, however they may continue to be source of contention
with others, have become, so far as Garfield is concerned, as much a
matter of history as his heroism at Chickamauga or his illustrious
service in the House. Detail is not needful, and personal antagonism
shall not be rekindled by any word uttered to-day. The motives of
those opposing him are not to be here adversely interpreted nor their
course harshly characterized. But of the dead President this is to be
said, and said because his own speech is forever silenced and he can
be no more heard except through the fidelity and the love of
surviving friends. From the beginning to the end of the controversy
he so much deplored, the President was never for one moment
actuated by any motive of gain to himself or of loss to others. Least of
all men did he harbor revenge, rarely did he even show resentment,
and malice was not in his nature. He was congenially employed only
in the exchange of good offices and the doing of kindly deeds.
There was not an hour, from the beginning of the trouble till the
fatal shot entered his body, when the President would not gladly, for
the sake of restoring harmony, have retraced any step he had taken if
such retracing had merely involved consequences personal to
himself. The pride of consistency, or any supposed sense of
humiliation that might result from surrendering his position, had not
a feather’s weight with him. No man was ever less subject to such
influences from within or from without. But after the most anxious
deliberation and the coolest survey of all the circumstances, he
solemnly believed that the true prerogatives of the Executive were
involved in the issue which had been raised, and that he would be
unfaithful to his supreme obligation if he failed to maintain, in all
their vigor, the constitutional rights and dignities of his great office.
He believed this in all the convictions of conscience when in sound
and vigorous health, and he believed it in his suffering and
prostration in the last conscious thought which his wearied mind
bestowed on the transitory struggles of life.
More than this need not be said. Less than this could not be said.
Justice to the dead, the highest obligation that devolves upon the
living, demands the declaration that in all the bearings of the subject,
actual or possible, the President was content in his mind, justified in
his conscience, immovable in his conclusions.

GARFIELD’S RELIGION.

The religious element in Garfield’s character was deep and earnest.

In his early youth he espoused the faith of the Disciples, a sect of that
great Baptist Communion which in different ecclesiastical
establishments is so numerous and so influential throughout all
parts of the United States. But the broadening tendency of his mind
and his active spirit of inquiry were early apparent and carried him
beyond the dogmas of sect and the restraints of association. In
selecting a college in which to continue his education he rejected
Bethany, though presided over by Alexander Campbell, the greatest
preacher of his church. His reasons were characteristic: first, that
Bethany leaned too heavily toward slavery; and, second, that being
himself a Disciple and the son of Disciple parents, he had little
acquaintance with people of other beliefs, and he thought it would
make him more liberal, quoting his own words, both in his religious
and general views, to go into a new circle and be under new
influences.
The liberal tendency which he had anticipated as the result of
wider culture was fully realized. He was emancipated from mere
sectarian belief, and with eager interest pushed his investigations in
the direction of modern progressive thought. He followed with
quickening step in the paths of exploration and speculation so
fearlessly trodden by Darwin, by Huxley, by Tyndall, and by other
living scientists of the radical and advanced type. His own church,
binding its disciples by no formulated creed, but accepting the Old
and New Testaments as the word of God, with unbiased liberality of
private interpretation, favored, if it did not stimulate, the spirit of
investigation. Its members profess with sincerity, and profess only,
to be of one mind and one faith with those who immediately followed
the Master, and who were first called Christians at Antioch.
But however high Garfield reasoned of “fixed fate, free will,
foreknowledge absolute,” he was never separated from the Church of
the Disciples in his affections and in his associations. For him it held
the ark of the covenant. To him it was the gate of Heaven. The world
of religious belief is full of solecisms and contradictions. A
philosophic observer declares that men by the thousand will die in
defence of a creed whose doctrines they do not comprehend and
whose tenets they habitually violate. It is equally true that men by
the thousand will cling to church organizations with instinctive and
undenying fidelity when their belief in maturer years is radically
different from that which inspired them as neophytes.
But after this range of speculation, and this latitude of doubt,
Garfield came back always with freshness and delight to the simpler
instincts of religious faith, which, earliest implanted, longest survive.
Not many weeks before his assassination, walking on the banks of
the Potomac with a friend, and conversing on these topics of
personal religion, concerning which noble natures have an
unconquerable reserve, he said that he found the Lord’s Prayer and
the simple petitions learned in infancy infinitely restful to him, not
merely in their stated repetition, but in their casual and frequent
recall as he went about the daily duties of life. Certain texts of
scripture had a very strong hold on his memory and his heart. He
heard, while in Edinburgh some years ago, an eminent Scotch
preacher who prefaced his sermon with reading the eighth chapter of
the Epistle to the Romans, which book had been the subject of
careful study with Garfield during his religious life. He was greatly
impressed by the elocution of the preacher and declared that it had
imparted a new and deeper meaning to the majestic utterances of
Saint Paul. He referred often in after years to that memorable
service, and dwelt with exaltation of feeling upon the radiant promise
and the assured hope with which the great apostle of the Gentiles
was “persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor principalities, nor
powers nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth,
nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of
God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
The crowning characteristic of General Garfield’s religious
opinions, as, indeed, of all his opinions, was his liberality. In all
things he had charity. Tolerance was of his nature. He respected in
others the qualities which he possessed himself—sincerity of
conviction and frankness of expression. With him the inquiry was
not so much what a man believes, but does he believe it? The lines of
his friendship and his confidence encircled men of every creed, and
men of no creed, and to the end of his life, on his ever lengthening
list of friends, were to be found the names of a pious Catholic priest
and of an honest-minded and generous-hearted free-thinker.

THE ASSASSIN’S BULLET.

On the morning of Saturday, July 2d, the President was a

contented and happy man—not in an ordinary degree, but joyfully,
almost boyishly happy. On his way to the railroad station to which he
drove slowly, in conscious enjoyment of the beautiful morning, with
an unwonted sense of leisure, and a keen anticipation of pleasure, his
talk was all in the grateful and gratulatory vein. He felt that after four
months of trial his administration was strong in its grasp of affairs,
strong in popular favor and destined to grow stronger; that grave
difficulties confronting him at his inauguration had been safely
passed; that troubles lay behind him and not before him; that he was
soon to meet the wife whom he loved, now recovering from an illness
which had but lately disquieted and at times almost unnerved him;
that he was going to his Alma Mater to renew the most cherished
associations of his young manhood, and to exchange greetings with
those whose deepening interest had followed every step of his
upward progress from the day he entered upon his college course
until he had attained the loftiest elevation in the gift of his
countrymen.
Surely, if happiness can ever come from the honors or triumphs of
this world, on that quiet July morning James A. Garfield may well
have been a happy man. No foreboding of evil haunted him; no
slightest premonition of danger clouded his sky. His terrible fate was
upon him in an instant. One moment he stood erect, strong,
confident, in the years stretching peacefully out before him. The next
he lay wounded, bleeding, helpless, doomed to weary weeks of
torture, to silence and the grave.
Great in life, he was surpassingly great in death. For no cause, in
the very frenzy of wantonness and wickedness by the red hand of
murder, he was thrust from the full tide of this world’s interest, from
its hopes, its aspirations, its victories, into the visible presence of
death—and he did not quail. Not alone for one short moment in
which, stunned and dazed, he could give up life, hardly aware of its
relinquishment, but through days of deadly languor, through weeks
of agony, that was not less agony because silently borne, with clear
sight and calm courage, he looked into his open grave. What blight
and ruin met his anguished eyes, whose lips may tell—what brilliant,
broken plans, what baffled, high ambitions, what sundering of
strong, warm, manhood’s friendship, what bitter rending of sweet
household ties! Behind him a proud, expectant nation, a great host of
sustaining friends, a cherished and happy mother, wearing the full,
rich honors of her early toil and tears; the wife of his youth, whose
whole life lay in his; the little boys not yet emerged from childhood’s
day of frolic; the fair, young daughter; the sturdy sons just springing
into closest companionship, claiming every day and every day
rewarding a father’s love and care; and in his heart the eager,
rejoicing power to meet all demand. Before him, desolation and great
darkness! And his soul was not shaken. His countrymen were thrilled
with instant, profound, and universal sympathy. Masterful in his
mortal weakness, he became the centre of a nation’s love, enshrined
in the prayers of a world. But all the love and all the sympathy could
not share with him his suffering. He trod the wine-press alone. With
unfaltering front he faced death. With unfailing tenderness he took
leave of life. Above the demoniac hiss of the assassin’s bullet he
heard the voice of God. With simple resignation he bowed to the
Divine decree.
As the end drew near, his early craving for the sea returned. The
stately mansion of power had been to him the wearisome hospital of
pain, and he begged to be taken from his prison walls, from its
oppressive, stifling air, from its homelessness and its hopelessness.
Gently, silently, the love of a great people bore the pale sufferer to
the longed-for healing of the sea, to live or to die, as God should will,
within sight of its heaving billows, within sound of its manifold
voices. With wan, fevered face tenderly lifted to the cooling breeze,
he looked out wistfully upon the ocean’s changing wonders; on its far
sails, whitening in the morning light; on its restless waves, rolling
shoreward to break and die beneath the noonday sun; on the red
clouds of evening, arching low to the horizon; on the serene and
shining pathway of the stars. Let us think that his dying eyes read a
mystic meaning which only the rapt and parting soul may know. Let
us believe that in the silence of the receding world he heard the great
waves breaking on a further shore and felt already upon his wasted
brow the breath of the eternal morning.

AFTER THE ORATION.

The eulogy was concluded at 1.50, having taken just an hour and a
half in its delivery. As Mr. Blaine gave utterance to the last solemn
words the spectators broke into a storm of applause, which was not
hushed for some moments. The address was listened to with an
intense interest and in solemn silence, unbroken by any sound
except by a sigh of relief (such as arises from a large audience when a
strong tension is removed from their minds) when the orator passed
from his allusion to differences existing in the Republican party last
spring. Benediction was then offered by the Rev. Dr. Bullock,
Chaplain of the Senate. The Marine Band played the “Garfield Dead
March” as the invited guests filed out of the Chamber in the same
order in which they had entered it. The Senate was the last to leave,
and then the House was called to order by the Speaker.
Mr. McKinley, of Ohio, offered the following resolution:
Resolved, The Senate concurring, that the thanks of Congress are
hereby presented to the Hon. James G. Blaine for the appropriate
memorial address delivered by him on the life and services of James
A. Garfield, late President of the United States, in the Representative
Hall, before both houses of Congress and their invited guests, on the
27th of February, 1882, and that he be requested to furnish a copy
for publication.
Resolved, That the Chairman of the Joint Committee appointed to
make the necessary arrangements to carry into effect the resolution
of Congress in relation to the memorial exercises in honor of James
A. Garfield be requested to communicate to Mr. Blaine the foregoing
resolution, receive his answer thereto and present the same to both
Houses of Congress. The resolution was adopted unanimously.
Mr. McKinley then offered the following:
Resolved, That as a further mark of respect to the memory of the
deceased President of the United States the House do now adjourn.
The resolution was unanimously adopted, and in accordance
therewith the Speaker at 1.55 declared the House adjourned until to-
morrow.
CIVIL SERVICE.
 Improvement of the Subordinate Civil
Service.

Speech of Hon. George H. Pendleton, of Ohio, in the Senate of the

United States, Tuesday, December 12, 1882.
On the bill (S. 133) to regulate and improve the civil service of the
United States.
Mr. Pendleton said:
Mr. President: When I assented yesterday that this bill should be
informally laid aside without losing its place, I had no set speech to
deliver, nor had I the intention of preparing a speech for to-day. I did
not intend to hold up the bill here as an obstruction to any business
before the Senate, or as an aid in passing any measure that might
receive my approbation, as my good Friend, the Senator from Kansas
[Mr. Plumb], so politely intimated. The bill providing for a bankrupt
law was very speedily, and to me unexpectedly, disposed of
yesterday, and this bill was called up several hours earlier than I
supposed it would be, and I thought the convenience of the Senate as
well as of myself would be subserved if I had an opportunity to
condense what I had to say on the subject.
The necessity of a change in the civil administration of this
government has been so fully discussed in the periodicals and
pamphlets and newspapers, and before the people, that I feel
indisposed to make any further argument. This subject, in all its
ramifications, was submitted to the people of the United States at the
fall elections, and they have spoken in no low or uncertain tone.
I do not doubt that the local questions exerted great influence in
many States upon the result; but it is my conviction, founded on the
observation of an active participation in the canvass in Ohio, that
dissatisfaction with the methods of administration adopted by the
Republican party in the past few years was the most important single
factor in reaching the conclusion that was attained. I do not say that
the civil service of the Government is wholly bad. I can not honestly
do so. I do not say that the men who are employed in it are all
corrupt or inefficient or unworthy. That would do a very great
injustice to a great number of faithful, honest, and intelligent public
servants. But I do say that the civil service is inefficient; that it is
expensive; that it is extravagant; that it is in many cases and in some
senses corrupt; that it has welded the whole body of its employès into
a great political machine; that it has converted them into an army of
officers and men, veterans in political warfare, disciplined and
trained, whose salaries, whose time, whose exertions at least twice
within a very short period in the history of our country have robbed
the people of the fair results of Presidential elections.
I repeat, Mr. President, that the civil service is inefficient,
expensive, and extravagant and that it is in many instances corrupt.
Is it necessary for me to prove facts which are so patent that even the
blind must see and the deaf must hear?
At the last session of Congress, in open Senate, it was stated and
proven that in the Treasury Department at Washington there were
3,400 employès, and that of this number the employment of less
than 1,600 was authorized by law and appropriations made for their
payment, and that more than 1,700 were put on or off the rolls of the
Department at the will and pleasure of the Secretary of the Treasury,
and paid not out of appropriations made for that purpose but out of
various funds and balances of appropriation lapsed in the Treasury
in one shape or another, which are not by law appropriated to the
payment of these employès. I was amazed. I had never before heard
that such a state of affairs existed. I did not believe that it was
possible until my honorable colleague rose in his place and admitted
the general truth of the statement and defended the system as being
necessary for the proper administration of the Treasury Department.
Mr. President, we see in this statement whence comes that
immense body of public officials, inspectors, detectives, deputies,
examiners, from the Treasury Department who have for years past
been sent over the States for the purpose of managing Presidential
conventions and securing Presidential elections at the public
expense.
 I hold in my hand a statement made before the committee which
reported this bill, showing that in one of the divisions of the Treasury
Department at Washington where more than nine hundred persons
were employed, men and women, five hundred and more of them
were entirely useless, and were discharged without in any degree
affecting the efficiency of the bureau. I read from the testimony taken
before the committee. Every gentleman can find it if he has not it
already on his table. The statement to which I refer I read from page
121 of report of committee No. 576:
The extravagance of the present system was well shown in the examination of
the Bureau of Engraving and Printing by a committee of which I was chairman. Of
a force of nine hundred and fifty-eight persons five hundred and thirty-nine, with
annual salaries amounting to $390,000, were found to be superfluous and were
discharged. The committee reported that for years the force in some branches had
been twice and even three times as great as the work required. In one division—
I beg Senators to listen to this—
In one division a sort of platform had been built underneath the iron roof, about
seven feet above the floor, to accommodate the surplus counters. It appeared that
the room was of ample size without this contrivance for all persons really needed.
In another division were found twenty messengers doing work which it was found
could be done by one. The committee reported that the system of patronage was
chiefly responsible for the extravagance and irregularities which had marked the
administration of the bureau, and declared that it had cost the people millions of
dollars in that branch of the service alone. Under this system the office had been
made to subserve the purpose of an almshouse or asylum.
In consequence of this report the annual appropriation for the Printing Bureau
was reduced from $800,000 to $200,000, and out of the first year’s savings was
built the fine building now occupied by that bureau.
And again, on page 126, this same gentleman says:
My observation teaches me there is more pressure and importunity for these
places—
That is, the $900 clerkship—
and that more time is consumed by heads of Departments, and those having the
appointing power, in listening to applications for that grade than for all the other
places in the Departments combined; and that when it is discretionary with a
Department to appoint a man or a woman the choice is usually exercised in favor
of the woman. I know a recent case in the Treasury Department where a vacancy
occurred which the head of the bureau deemed it important to fill with a man. It
was a position where a man’s services were almost indispensable; but the
importunity was so great that he was compelled to accept a woman, although her
services were not required. In consequence of this importunity for places for
women a practice has grown up in the Treasury Department of allowing the
salaries of the higher grades of clerkships to lapse when vacancies occur, and of
dividing up the amount among clerks, usually women, at lower salaries. In the
place of a male clerk at $1,800 a year, for instance, three women may be employed
at $600. Often the services of a man are required in its higher grade, while the
women are not needed at all; but as the man can not be employed without
discharging the women he can not be had. The persons employed in this way are
said to be “on the lapse.” Out of this grew the practice known in Departmental
language as “anticipating the lapse.”
In the endeavor to satisfy the pressure for place more people are appointed on
this roll than the salaries then lapsing will warrant, in the hope that enough more
will lapse before the end of the fiscal year to provide funds for their payment. But
the funds almost always run short before the end of the year, and then either the
“lapse” appointees must be dropped or clerks discharged from the regular roll to
make place for them. In some instances, in former administrations, the employès
on the regular roll were compelled, under terror of dismissal, to ask for leaves of
absence, without pay, for a sufficient time to make up the deficiency caused by the
appointment of unnecessary employès “on the lapse”. Another bad feature is that
these “lapse” employès being appointed without regard to the necessities of the
work, for short periods and usually without regard to their qualifications, are of
little service, while their employment prevents the filling of vacancies on the
regular roll and demoralizes the service.
In one case thirty-five persons were put on the “lapse fund” of the Treasurer’s
office for eight days at the end of the fiscal year, to sop up some money which was
in danger of being saved and returned to the Treasury.
Mr. Maxey. Do I understand the Senator to say that that
testimony was taken by the Senate Committee on Civil Service and
Retrenchment?
Mr. Pendleton. Yes sir. This testimony was taken in the month of
March, I think, of the present year.

Says this gentleman further—

I have no doubt that under a rigid application of this proposed system the work
of the Treasury Department could be performed with two-thirds the number of
clerks now employed, and that is a moderate estimate of the saving.
Mr. President, a Senator who is now present in the Chamber and
who will recognize the statement when I make it, though I shall not
indicate his name, told me that the Secretary of one of the
Departments of the Government said to him, perhaps to the
Committee on Appropriations, at the last session, that there were
seventeen clerks in his Department for whom he could find no
employment; that he did need one competent clerk of a higher grade,
and if the appropriation were made for that one clerk, at the proper
amount according to the gradations of the service and the
appropriation for the seventeen were left out, he could, without
impairing the efficiency of his Department, leave those seventeen
clerks off the roll; but if the appropriation should be made the
personal, social, and political pressure was so great that he would be
obliged to employ and pay them, though he could find no
employment for them.
Need I prove, Mr. President, that which is known to all men, that a
systematic pressure has been brought upon the clerks in the
Departments of the Government this year to extort from them a
portion of their salary under a system which the President himself
scouts as being voluntary, and that they are led to believe and fairly
led to believe that they have bought and paid for the offices which
they hold and that the good faith of those who take from them a
portion of the salary is pledged to their retention in their positions?
I have said before upon the floor of the Senate that this whole
system demoralizes everybody who is engaged in it. It demoralizes
the clerks who are appointed. That is inevitable. It demoralizes those
who make the appointment. That also is inevitable. And it
demoralizes Senators and Representatives who by the exercise of
their power as Senators and Representatives exert pressure upon the
appointing power.
I repeat that this system, permeating the whole civil service of the
country, demoralizes everybody connected with it, the clerks, the
appointing power, and those who by their official position and their
relations to the executive administration of the Government have the
influence necessary to put these clerks in office.
Mr. President, how can you expect purity, economy, efficiency to
be found anywhere in the service of the Government if the report
made by this committee to the Senate has even the semblance of
truth? If the civil service of the country is to be filled up with
superfluous persons, if salaries are to be increased in order that
assessments may be paid, if members of Congress having friends or
partisan supporters are to be able to make places for them in public
employment, how can you expect Senators and Representatives to be
economical and careful in the administration of the public money?
I am sure there is no Senator here who will forget a scene which we
had upon the last night session of the last session, when the Senator
from Iowa [Mr. Allison], the chairman of the Committee on
Appropriations, the official leader of the Senate, rising in his place
with the last appropriation bill in his hand, and the report of the
committee of conference, made a statement to the Senate of the
result of the appropriations. He stated that the appropriations that
were made during that session amounted to $292,000,000—I throw
off the fractions—and he felicitated the Senate and himself as the
organ and mouthpiece of his party, that this was an excess of only
$77,000,000 over and above the expenditures of the year before.
Instantly the Senator from Connecticut [Mr. Platt] rose in his place
and reminded the Senator that there would be a deficiency in the
Pension Bureau alone of $20,000,000 or $25,000,000. The
honorable Senator from Georgia, who now occupies the chair [Mr.
Brown], inquired of the chairman of the Committee on
Appropriations whether there would be any deficiencies in the
expenses of the current year, or whether the statement was supposed
to cover probable deficiencies in addition to the appropriations, and
the honorable Senator from Kentucky [Mr. Beck], certainly as
familiar with all these subjects as any member of this body, rose in
his place and said that notwithstanding the utmost scrutiny of the
Committee on Appropriations, undoubtedly at the end of the fiscal
year the ordinary deficiencies would be found.
Two hundred and ninety-two millions of dollars of regular
appropriations; $20,000,000 of deficiency in one bureau alone, the
usual deficiencies occurring during the course of the year of
$20,000,000 more! As if this were not enough, my honorable
colleague arose in his place and took up the tale and called attention
to the fact that the permanent appropriations amounted annually to
one hundred and thirty-seven or more millions of dollars. According
to his statement made in that speech, which I am sure nobody will
forget, the expenditures of the Government during this present fiscal
year would amount to $402,000,000 or $403,000,000—nearly $9 a
head for every man, woman, and child in the United States—more
money than was appropriated for all the expenses of the Government
during the first forty years of its existence, I will venture to say,
though I do not speak by the book.
Harbor and river appropriation bills of $18,000,000! Thirty-two
new buildings commenced in the States, almost every one of which
has had buildings before! Two million five hundred thousand dollars
appropriated for the commencement of those buildings, for laying
the foundation! Before they are finished $25,000,000 more will be
needed to complete them! While these enormous appropriations
were being made there came up from the country a demand for a
revision of the tariff, which was confessedly greatly needed; for a
revision of the internal-revenue laws, which was equally necessary;
for a reduction of taxation pressing so heavily upon all the interests
of the country. Our honorable friends upon the other side of the
Chamber chose to answer that demand by a bill repealing the taxes
upon perfumery and cosmetics and bank checks, and met with a
sneer of derision and ridicule every effort that was made on this side
of the Chamber for a reduction of taxation.
Mr. President, it was these methods of administration, it was these
acts of the Republican party, which made it possible for the
Democratic party, and other men who prized their country higher
than they did their party, to elect in Ohio a Democratic ticket by
eighteen or twenty thousand majority, and elect sixteen out of the
twenty-one members of Congress assigned to that State. I say elected
sixteen, perfectly conscious of the fact that thirteen of them only
have received their certificates at present. If three of them, against
whom the aggregate majority is only sixty votes, do not receive
certificates under the action of the returning board or under the
powers of our judiciary which have been invoked, they will be seated,
as they ought to be, at the beginning of the next session of Congress
in the other house.
Under the impulse of this election in Ohio, upon these facts and
influences which I have stated as being of great importance there, it
became possible for the Democratic party and its allies, whom I have
described, to elect a Democratic governor in New York, in
Massachusetts, in Kansas, in Michigan, and various other States in
which there has been none but a Republican governor for many years
past. The same influences enable us, having accessions to our ranks
from Iowa and Wisconsin and Michigan and Pennsylvania, to have at
the beginning of the next session of Congress an aggregate of
perhaps sixty or more Democratic majority in the House of
Representatives.
Mr. Hale. Will the Senator from Ohio let me ask him a question
right here? As he is confining himself very closely to the civil service
of the Government, I should like to ask him one question here
relating to that. He has appealed directly to the Chairman of the
Committee on Appropriations, who was not present at the time,
although he has just come in. The Senator from Ohio has alluded to
the remarkable speech made by the chairman of the Committee on
Appropriations upon the expenditures of the Government at the last
session, and the wonderful scene that was exhibited there at that
time. In that speech on the expenditures of the Government, by the
chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, was the admission
that the aggregate expenditures were seventy-odd millions of dollars
more than the year before—remarkable when in that speech of the
Senator from Iowa, the chairman of the Committee on
Appropriations, he showed that every dollar was accounted for by
deficiencies on the part of the previous Democratic Congress and by
the increase of pensions and some other matters.
Mr. Pendleton. I remember the speech of the Senator from Iowa
very well; I have quoted it repeatedly from the Record, in which I
found it. I did him no injustice; I know he will not believe I would
intentionally do him injustice at any time. I stated then, I stated a
moment ago, I have stated it on the stump, I repeat it now, that the
Senator from Iowa in that speech said that the appropriations for the
current year were $292,000,000, and that they were $77,000,000 in
excess of those made for the last year: and I might have added if I
chose to make it a partisan affair, that the last Congress was under
Democratic control.
Mr. Hale. And did he not account for every dollar of that
$77,000,000 increase? But I think I will leave it to him, as he is
present now.
Mr. Pendleton. Undoubtedly he accounted for it, for he gave all
the items that went to make up the $77,000,000.
I am confining myself more closely, Mr. President, to the
discussion of the reform of the civil service of the Government than
the Senator seems to apprehend. I was showing to him the causes of
this very remarkable revolution in public sentiment which we have
seen as exhibited by the last election. I attributed that result in great
measure to the defects in our civil-service system and to the
demoralization which, arising there and in its practices, has reached
the other departments of the Government.
Mr. President, I was about to say when the Senator from Maine
interrupted me that I begged gentlemen on this side of the Chamber
and I beg the Democratic party throughout the country not to
mistake this result of last fall as a purely Democratic triumph. It was
achieved by the Democratic party with the assistance of men of all
parties upon whom their love of country sat heavier than their love of
party. It was a protest made by an awakened people who were
indignant at the wrongs which had been practiced upon them. It was
a tentative stretching out of that same people to find
instrumentalities by which those wrongs could be righted.
The people demanded economy and the Republican party gave
them extravagance. The people demanded a reduction of taxation
and the Republican party gave them an increase of expenditure. The
people demanded purity of administration and the Republican party
revelled in profligacy; and when the Republican party came to put
themselves on trial before that same people the people gave them a
day of calamity.
I beg that my colleagues on this side of the Chamber may
remember, I desire that our party associates throughout the country
shall remember, that the people will continue to us their confidence
and increase it, that they will continue to us power and increase it,
just in the proportion that we honestly and fairly and promptly
answer to the demands which the people have made, and which were
thus responded to by the Republican party. They asked revenue
reform and they received none. They asked civil-service reform and
they obtained none. They asked that the civil service of this
Government should not either as to its men or its expenditures be
made the basis upon which political contests were to be carried on,
and they received for answer that that was an old fashion and a good
method of political warfare.
I beg gentlemen upon this side of the Chamber to remember that if
they desire to escape the fate which now seems to be impending over
their adversaries they must avoid the example which those
adversaries have set them.
Mr. President the bill which I have the honor to advocate to-day,
and which is reported by a committee of the Senate, is the
commencement, in my humble judgment, of an attempt to answer
one of the demands which the people have authoritatively made. I
speak advisedly. It is the commencement of an attempt to organize a
system which shall respond to one of the demands which the people
have made.
I suppose the most enthusiastic supporter of this bill will not
pretend that it is perfect. I suppose he will not pretend that upon the
adoption of this bill a system will immediately spring into life which
will perfect and purify the civil service of the Government. But it is
the commencement of an attempt to lay the foundations of a system
which, if it shall answer in any reasonable degree the expectation of
those who by experience and faithful study have framed it, it will in
the end correct the abuses to which I have alluded, and which have
been delineated by no enemy of the Republican party or of the
Administration in the report which I have read to the Senate.
The bill has for its foundation the simple and single idea that the
offices of the Government are trusts for the people; that the
performance of the duties of those offices is to be in the interests of
the people; that there is no excuse for the being of one office or the
paying of one salary except that it is in the highest practicable degree
necessary for the welfare of the people; that every superfluous office-
holder should be cut off; that every incompetent office-holder should
be dismissed; that the employment of two where one will suffice is
robbery; that salaries so large that they can submit to the extortion,
the forced payment of 2 or 10 per cent. are excessive and ought to be
diminished. I am not speaking of purely voluntary contributions.
If it be true that offices are trusts for the people, then it is also true
that the offices should be filled by those who can perform and
discharge the duties in the best possible way. Fidelity, capacity,
honesty, were the tests established by Mr. Jefferson when he
assumed the reins of government in 1801. He said then, and said
truly, that these elements in the public offices of the Government
were necessary to an honest civil service, and that an honest civil
service was essential to the purity and efficiency of administration,
necessary to the preservation of republican institutions.
Mr. Jefferson was right. The experience of eighty years has shown
it. The man best fitted should be the man placed in office, especially
if the appointment is made by the servants of the people. It is as true
as truth can be that fidelity, capacity, honesty, are essential elements
of fitness, and that the man who is most capable and most faithful
and most honest is the man who is the most fit, and he should be
appointed to office.
These are truths that in their statement will be denied by none,
and yet the best means of ascertaining that fitness has been a vexed
question with every Administration of this Government and with
every man who has been charged with the responsibility of its
execution. We know what is the result. Pass examinations have been
tried; professions have been tried; honest endeavors have been tried;
a disposition to live faithfully up to these requirements has been
tried; and yet we know and the experience of to-day shows it, that
they have all made a most lamentable failure. We do now know that
so great has been the increase of the powers of this Government and
the number of officers under it that no President, no Cabinet, no
heads of bureaus, can by possibility know the fitness of all applicants
for the subordinate offices of the Government. The result has been,
and under the existing system it must always be, that the President
and his Cabinet and those who are charged with the responsibility
have remitted the question of fitness to their own partisan friends,
and those partisan friends have in their turn decided the question of
fitness in favor of their partisan friends. The Administration has
need of the support of members of Congress in carrying on its work.
It therefore remits to members of Congress of its own party the
questions of appointment to office in the various districts. These
gentlemen, in the course of their political life, naturally (I do not find
fault with them for it) find themselves under strain and pressure to
secure a nomination or a re-nomination or election, and they use the
places to reward those whose friends and families and connections
and aids and deputies will serve their purpose.
I put it to gentlemen, particularly to my friends on this side of the
Chamber, because you have not the opportunity to exercise this
patronage as much as our friends on the other side, whether or not