To the surprise of virtually everyone (including Chester A. Arthur), Arthur had turned out, at least by Gilded Age standards, to be a reasonably competent president. He signed the Pendleton Act knowing that it gave him cover as a reformer. He had modified the tariff in a compromise that created the “Mongrel Tariff,” and assented to laws restricting Chinese immigration. The reforms were modest. They were meant to defuse issues that threatened the Republican Party, and this, particularly in the West, they for the moment achieved.
