Woodrow Wilson to James A. O'Gorman
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(Original in the President's handwriting)¹
(May 5, 1913)
My dear Senator
I have been thinking a great deal about our recent conference, and the thinking has not reassured me, for I was disturbed by what you said. I am going to write you a few frank lines now in the hope that by so doing our thinking may never be at cross purposes again. I value your confidence and friendship too much to be willing to dissemble for a moment my real opinions or to withhold anything that is in my mind concerning matters which we must handle in common. I would rather speak than write,— partly because (I) always so much enjoy a conference with you,— But every time we meet (pending the determination of the chief appointment in New York) the newspapers put a false construction, of contest or compromise, upon our conference, and I am resolved they shall not embarrass us!As I told you when we had our last talk, I cannot accept the interpretation you then put upon the constitutional relationship between the President and individual Senators in the matter of appointments in the several States. I am deeply conscious, moreover, of what the country has usually expected and demanded of the President in that matter and of its growing desire and insistance that he should hold himself free to exercise his independent choice in everything that concerned the fulfilment of his obligations as chief executive not only, but also as leader of his party, particularly when that party is in control of the government. It will hold him responsible in every particular.
But theoretical differences of opinion are not going to embarrass us. I know your spirit in this as in other matters; and I have no fear that we shall ever clash in practice because of any independence of choice I may feel it necessary to exercise. What I want to make clear to you in this modest epistle is the principles upon which I shall try to act,— always with as much thoughtful consideration of the rights of others and of the full courtesy due them as I know how to show,— and the method I shall hope to pursue with your advice, and that of your colleagues, constantly in my mind.
In the first place, as to the advice of my Cabinet colleagues about appointments. You spoke the other day of the Secretary of the Treasury as a “subordinate.” I do not look upon any member of the Cabinet as a subordinate. The offices they occupy are of the first dignity and consequence. Moreover, an “Administration” must be a unit in spirit and in action or it will fail and come to naught. If I were inclined to ignore the members of my Cabinet in these matters, or in any others that affected the administration and efficiency of their several departments, there could be no Administration at all. Men of pride and of reputation would not serve in the Cabinet. I have had long experience in cooperative administrative action where the partners were men of spirit and of parts, and I know that I must support my colleagues as loyally as they support me and must defer to them in every matter in which I do not disagree with them in principle or upon grounds of large public policy. It would be folly for me not to attach the greatest possible weight to the judgment and preference in respect of their subordinates, especially their chief subordinates, even if I were inclined to do so—except when I think them radically mistaken in their men. I must be guided by them so far as possible, if I am to have an efficient and successful administration.
But they are men of sense and discretion and good feeling and are as ready to defer to my wish and judgment as I could wish them to be. They respect the advice of Senators, besides, as sincerely and as habitually as I do, or as any one can who does not surrender entirely his right of individual choice and judgment, and they are as willing, as anxious, as I am that the recommendations of Senators should, as a rule, be accepted,—as a rule with as few exceptions as possible.
The solution, therefore, is, not clash or contest, but frank and frequent conference, in order that the choices to be made may be made jointly and by common counsel. All the forces involved are independent and self-respecting forces: they must be combined in the only way in which such forces can be.
And so we come to our own concrete instance. As you must have seen when you left me the other day, I was anxious, after our talk, to find it possible to agree with you and give the appointment to Mr. Lawson Purdy. But I have made detailed inquiries in several directions since then and find that he would be regarded, whatever his personal character and quality, as representing a recognition by the Administration of the Tammany organization, now more than ever discredited in the eyes of the country. The difficulty is, not that the Secretary of the Treasury will claim any personal rights in this matter,—for I have talked with him again and find him most willing to accede to any choice which may seem wisest in all the circumstances,— but that this choice would violate a policy to which I feel I have no choice but to adhere. I shall hope, therefore, to have further conference both with you and with the Secretary about this selection.
We must use especial care in the future, that, in respect of all (and) every New York appointment of importance, cooperation between the three friends concerned, yourself, the Cabinet officer, and myself, will precede public mention of any person thought of in connection with it by any of us,— the actual cooperation of our minds in this delicate business,— and of course precede any conclusive judgment or individual commital by any one of us. No doubt, by the careful discipline of our office forces, we may have our consultations without mischievous talk from outside. We will work it out as friends should, and those who cordially and as a matter of course understand one another.
Woodrow Wilson
Senator James A. O’Gorman.
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