Source:
Roscoe Conkling Defends the Spoils System, 1877
. . . Who are
these men who, in newspapers and elsewhere, are cracking their whips over
Republicans and playing school-master to the Republican party and its
conscience and convictions? ... Some of them are men who, when they could work
themselves into conventions, have attempted to belittle and befoul Republican
administrations and to parade their own thin veneering of superior purity. Some
of them are men who, by insisting that it is corrupt and bad for men in office
to take part in politics, are striving now to prove that the Republican party
has been unclean and vicious all its life, and that the last campaign was venal
and wrong and fraudulent, not in some of the States, but in all the States,
North and South. For it is no secret that in all States office-holders, in
committees, in organizations and everywhere, did all that men could fairly do
to uphold the candidates of our party, and that they were encouraged and urged
to do so. Some of these worthies masquerade as reformers. Their vocation and
ministry is to lament the sins of other people. Their stock in trade is rancid,
canting self-righteousness. They are wolves in sheep's clothing. Their real
object is office and plunder. When Dr. Johnson defined patriotism as the last
refuge of a scoundrel, he was unconscious of the then undeveloped capabilities
and uses of the word "Reform." . . .
... Let us
agree to put contentions aside and complete our task. Let us declare the
purposes and methods which should guide the government of our great State. On
this platform let us place upright, capable men, and then let us appeal to the
people to decide whether such men shall conduct their affairs on such
principles, or whether they would rather trust spurious reformers under the
lead and dominion of our political opponents....