in many instances as honest, as capable, and as intelligent as any of us. There may be reasons and considerations which properly defeat their aspirations, but their applications are not always disgraceful. I have an idea that sometimes the greatest difference between them and those who needlessly abuse them and gloat over their discomfiture, consists in the fact that the office-seekers desire office, and their critics, being more profitably employed, do not. I feel constrained to say this much by way of defending, or at least excusing, many belonging to a numerous contingent of citizens, who, after the 4th of March, 1885, made large drafts upon my time, vitality, and patience; and I feel bound to say that in view of their frequent disappointments, and the difficulty they found in appreciating the validity of the reasons given for refusing their applications, they accepted the situation with as much good nature and contentment as could possibly have been anticipated. It must be remembered that they and their party associates had been banished from Federal office-holding for twenty-four years. I have no disposition to evade the fact that suspensions of officials holding presidential commissions began promptly and were quite vigorously continued; but I confidently claim that every suspension made was with honest intent and, I believe, in accordance with the requirements of good administration and consistent with prior executive pledges. Some of these officials held by tenures unlimited as to their duration. Among these were certain internal-revenue officers who, it seemed to me, in analogy with others doing similar work but having a limited tenure, ought to consider a like limited period of incumbency their proper term of office; and there were also consular officials and others attached to the foreign service who, I believe it was then generally understood, should be politically in accord with the administration.