And yet I do not scruple to affirm that not only has there been less dishonesty and maladministration in the sixteen years of Republican rule proportionally to the numbers and wealth of the people than in the first sixteen years after the inauguration of Washington, but there has been less absolutely of those things.
Hoar argues that the Republican administration has been less corrupt than earlier administrations despite challenges.
Share
More from George F. Hoar
It will be better for his reputation that the chapter of that history which relates to him shall be written by a historian with a full and clear sense of those faults and infirmities, concealing nothing, and extenuating nothing.
He would undoubtedly have taken a very high place in the public and official life of his generation if he had found himself in accord with either of the great political parties.
But, as I have already said, when the time came, he always subordinated his own desire to what he deemed the welfare of the public.
His pure and lofty counsel fell unheeded upon the ears of his near neighbors, and the people of Massachusetts did not listen very patiently to lectures on political purity or reform in civil service from New York city.
Other voices in this conversation
