The Bay State Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 5, May, 1884 | Page 5

afterward alone, he became counsel to the city department
of taxes and assessments, with an annual salary of ten thousand dollars,
but he abruptly resigned the position when the Tammany Hall city
officials attempted to coerce the Republicans connected with the
municipal departments.
When the next presidential election drew near, General Arthur entered
enthusiastically into the support of General Grant, and was made
chairman of the Grant Central Club, of New York. He also served as
chairman of the executive committee of the Republican State
Committee of New York. In 1871, he formed the afterwards
well-known firm of Arthur, Phelps, Knevals, and Ransom.
President Grant, without solicitation and unexpectedly, appointed
General Arthur collector of the port of New York, on the twentieth of
November, 1871. He accepted the position with much hesitation, but it
met with the general approval of the business community, many of the
merchants having become personally acquainted with his business
ability during the war. He instituted many reforms in the management
of the custom-house, all calculated to simplify the business and to
divest it, to a great extent, of all the details and routine so vexatious to
the mercantile classes. The number of his removals during his
administration was far less than during the rule of any other collector
since 1857, and the expense of collecting the duties was far less than it
had been for years. So satisfactory was his management of the
custom-house, that, upon the close of his term of service, December,

1875, he was renominated by President Grant. The nomination was
unanimously confirmed by the Senate without reference to a committee,
a compliment very rarely paid, except to ex-senators. He was the first
collector of the port of New York, with one or two exceptions, who in
fifty years ever held the office for more than the whole term of four
years.
Two years later General Arthur was superseded as collector by General
Merritt. The Honorable John Sherman, secretary of the treasury, on
being questioned as to the cause of the removal of General Arthur as
collector of customs at New York, said:--
"I have never said one word impugning General Arthur's honor or
integrity as a man and a gentleman, but he was not in harmony with the
views of the administration in the management of the custom-house. I
would vote for him for Vice-President a million times before I would
vote for W.H. English, with whom I served in Congress."
General Arthur, in a letter written by him to Secretary Sherman, on his
administration of the New York custom-house, said:--
"The essential elements of a correct civil service I understand to be:
First, permanance in office, which, of course, prevents removals,
except for cause. Second, promotion from the lower to the higher
grades, based upon good conduct and efficiency. Third, prompt and
thorough investigation of all complaints and prompt punishment of all
misconduct. In this respect I challenge comparison with any department
of the Government, either under the present or under any past national
administration. I am prepared to demonstrate the truth of this statement
on any fair investigation."
Appended to this letter was a table in which General Arthur showed
that during the six years he had managed the office the yearly
percentage of removals for all causes had been only two and
three-quarters per cent. against an annual average of twenty-eight per
cent. under his three immediate predecessors, and an annual average of
about twenty-four per cent. since 1857, when Collector Schell took
office. Out of nine hundred and twenty-three persons who held office

when he became collector on December 1, 1871, there were five
hundred and thirty-one still in office on May 1, 1877, having been
retained during his entire term. Concerning promotions, the statistics of
the office show that during his entire term the uniform practice was to
advance men from the lower to the higher grades, and almost without
exception on the recommendation of heads of departments. All the
appointments, excepting two, to the one hundred positions paying two
thousand dollars salary a year, and over, were made on this method.
Senator George K. Edmunds, at a ratification meeting, held in
Burlington, Vermont, on the twenty-second of June, 1880, said:--
"I have long known General Arthur. The only serious difficulty I have
had with the present administration was when it proposed to remove
him from the collectorship of New York. No one questioned his
personal honor and integrity. I resisted the attempt to the utmost. Since
that time it has turned out that all the reforms suggested had long
before been recommended by General Arthur himself, and
pigeonholded at Washington."
Meanwhile General Arthur had rendered great services as a member,
and subsequently a chairman, of the Republican State Committee, and
had united his party from one success