Charles W. Eliot to Woodrow Wilson

Because of their great and far–reaching importance, I venture to call your pecrsonal attention to certain Democratic acts for which the party is liable to be held responsible at the next elections. These acts seem to me to show instability, or lack of conviction, with regard to the consistent application of the merit system.
The first is the party vote in the Senate rejecting Senator Lodge’s amendment about the income–tax–collection force. That action seems to fix on the Democratic party the deliberate purpose of making a large number of spoils appointments.
The second is the issue from the Department of the Interior of the circular letter of which I enclose a copy. The last paragraph of this letter is an order to give public advertising to Democratic newspapers.
The third is the violation in a considerable number of instances of the excellent policy set up by the last two Republican Administrations, namely, that of making the diplomatic and consular service a life–career for well–trained men, who should prove themselves efficient and influential. I learn from the public records of the diplomatic officers who have been removed and of their successors, that several ministers, who have come up through the service from the ranks and are trained diplomats, have been displaced by men who have never been in the diplomatic service, and are obscure men at home.
I feel as if it were not only right but also highly expedient to keep the skirts of the party clean from every use of public offices or appointments as party spoils. The convictions of an immense majority of the American voters are against that practice. You seem to be the main stay of Democratic morality in this respect. Do not these matters require, therefore, your urgent personal intervention?