I cannot exaggerate the waste of the President’s time and the consumption of his nervous vitality involved in listening to congressmen’s intercession as to local appointments. Why should the President have to have his time taken up in a discussion over ... who shall be the postmistress of Devil’s Lake, in North Dakota? How should he be able to know ... who is best fitted to fill such a place?
ATTRIBUTION:
William Howard Taft (1857–1930), U.S. president. Henry F. Pringle, The Life and Times of William Howard Taft, 2: 611, Farrar & Rinehart (1939).
Taft’s use of the patronage power was ambivalent. He used it to get regulars to support him but used it against the insurgents. He did, however, extend the civil service in the Post Office Department, foreign service, and navy yards. See Paolo E. Coletta, The Presidency of William Howard Taft, pp. 137-138, University of Kansas Press (1973).
