EXECUTIVE MANSION, _Washington, July 14, 1886_.
_To the Heads of Departments in the Service of the General Government_:
I deem this a proper time to especially warn all subordinates in the
several Departments and all officeholders under the General Government
against the use of their official positions in attempts to control
political movements in their localities.
Officeholders are the agents of the people, not their masters. Not only
is their time and labor due to the Government, but they should
scrupulously avoid in their political action, as well as in the
discharge of their official duty, offending by a display of obtrusive
partisanship their neighbors who have relations with them as public
officials.
They should also constantly remember that their party friends from whom
they have received preferment have not invested them with the power of
arbitrarily managing their political affairs. They have no right as
officeholders to dictate the political action of their party associates
or to throttle freedom of action within party lines by methods and
practices which pervert every useful and justifiable purpose of party
organization.
The influence of Federal officeholders should not be felt in the
manipulation of political primary meetings and nominating conventions.
The use by these officials of their positions to compass their selection
as delegates to political conventions is indecent and unfair; and proper
regard for the proprieties and requirements of official place will also
prevent their assuming the active conduct of political campaigns.
Individual interest and activity in political affairs are by no means
condemned. Officeholders are neither disfranchised nor forbidden the
exercise of political privileges, but their privileges are not enlarged
nor is their duty to party increased to pernicious activity by
officeholding.
A just discrimination in this regard between the things a citizen may
properly do and the purposes for which a public office should not be
used is easy in the light of a correct appreciation of the relation
between the people and those intrusted with official place and a
consideration of the necessity under our form of government of political
action free from official coercion.
You are requested to communicate the substance of these views to those
for whose guidance they are intended.