Harper's Weekly

“ Senator Schurz, we know, honestly wishes to contemplate public questions from a point of patriotism rather than of mere party. We have more than once expressed our confidence in the purity of his purpose, as well as in his ability. But we ask him if his remark is not an insinuation of personal corruption against the President? If he thinks that the President connived at frauds in the general order business, why not say so? If he thinks that he is not a knave, but merely weak and hoodwinked by others, why not say that? ”

“ Is it a truer reform party than the Republican? Granting, as we do, that the Republican party as such is not pledged to reform as we understand it, yet much has been accomplished under its auspices; the question is cardinal with many Republicans; the Republican candidate is “upon record” for it; while the only Democratic reform, as shown by the history and the leaders of the party, would be “a clean sweep.” No man who is sincerely desirous of reform would suppose, under these circumstances, that a change of party control of the government would aid it directly or indirectly. ”

“ Schurz has been consistently true it is the principle of Civil Service Reform. Whether allied to the Republican party or to the Democratic, whether on the crest of the wave of success or struggling in the undertow of defeat, in the face of scorn, contempt, ridicule, in fair weather as well as in foul, he has been its ardent champion, suffering such slings and arrows of outrageous fortune in its behalf as would have overwhelmed most other men, never for once yielding up a jot of his devotion to it. ”

“ The German Peace Festival in New York was one of the most significant days in the history of the city. During four hours the great procession passed through the chief streets, under a summer sky, and amidst the applause of thousands of persons crowding balcony and window and roof. Flags were every where flying, and there was never a more conscious sense of general public enjoyment than on that day. Hitherto our great celebrations have been American or Irish. But Americans are always ashamed to enjoy themselves, and the Irish don't know how. ”

“ But when the Indians are driven to starvation and despair by the villainies of contractors and criminals, and burst out into fierce reprisals, it is they only who feel our avenging power. Why should not the soldiers who are summoned to drive the Indians back to their reservations when they escape also drive off the marauders who trespass upon the reservations? If our policy be to take care of the Indians, and not to leave them to take care of themselves like all other people in the country, we are morally bound to protect them from offense as well as to punish them when they offend. ”

“ I cannot forget that this republic, which it has cost so much strife and so much blood to establish and to preserve, stands in the world to prove to struggling mankind that the self-government of the people under wise laws is able to evolve all necessary remedies for existing evils without violating popular liberty or constitutional rights. ”

“ Those who in the investigation of frauds in administration seem much more anxious to smear the President than to punish guilty agents ought to consider whether by so clear an exhibition of personal animosity they do not harm the cause of simple, honest reform. For if once the country believes that the cry of corruption is raised not so much to purify the service as to serve a partisan and personal end, that moment the purification of the service will become more difficult than ever before. ”

“ Schurz said: “I earnestly deprecate the cry we have heard so frequently, 'Any body to beat Grant.' There is something more wanted than to beat Grant. Not any body who might by cheap popularity, or by astute bargains and combinations, or by all the tricks of political wire-pulling, manage to scrape together votes enough to be elected President, is enough...... We don't want a mere change of persons in the administration of the government.” ”

“ But gradually the increase of slavery, and the development by machinery of the products of slave labor, made slavery the controlling element in politics. The intensity of the moral agitation of the subject, with the fanaticism of the slave interest, which used the government for its own purposes, and absolutely dominated the Democratic party, with which it allied itself, and, upon the other hand, the economic sagacity which perceived the material impolicy of slavery, all concentrated political interest upon the subject. ”

“ And at the German dinner, on the next evening, he said, with the faith in America and want of faith in the “Reform Democracy” which show his great good sense:
“Corruption is the greatest evil which can afflict a free people. There are pessimists who look at the surface of our national affairs, and say that corruption is every where supreme. He who knows the American people knows, however, that they are sound at the core. ”

“ When criminals and scoundrels have provoked an Indian rising, those officers are called to suppress it. Why not authorize them to prevent it? Place the Indians upon reservations, scrupulously observe the conditions that we impose, keep the white settlers off as sternly as the Indians are kept in, punish white and red offenders promptly, and equally, feed and clothe the Indians faithfully, cut off from them gunpowder and whiskey by summary suppression of the traffic in both, and the beginning of civilization will be possible. ”

“ Schurz, but when we hear him say that he knows “the patriotic spirit” of the men in the Democratic party “who achieved so tremendous a revolution,” we listen with amazement and incredulity. He is a scholar, he is a student of history, he is an observer of human nature, he has mingled in public affairs — is it possible that he believes that a great organized political body, with the history, the traditions, and the tendencies of the Democratic party in this country, has suddenly, upon the eve of an election, renounced all that made it a party? Mr. Schurz is an honest man. ”

“ If both governments are equally hostile to freedom, then certainly that which insists upon adding the sufferings of war to those of slavery is the more to be condemned by humane men every where. Because King William is arrogant, and the Prussian army officers are haughty, and Bismarck is aristocratic, there are those who would willingly see them punished by Louis Napoleon. But they will not be punished; and do those reasons reconcile any American to the immeasurable anguish of wholly innocent persons which is to overspread two great countries? ”

“ And what is any book but the record of observation and thought?
Probably Senator Morton has heard many a farmer in Indiana laugh at book-farming and declare with an air of superior wisdom that he farms by experience, and not by book. And on his way home the farmer will chat with a neighbor, hanging over the fence, about the care of stock, and methods of planting and tillage, wondering that men can be such fools as to be book-farmers. But if the wise farmer were only a little wiser, he would know that the book which he despises is only his neighbor talking to a thousand farmers instead of one ”

“ Imagine that in our Revolutionary times, France, being at war with England, had brought to this country a fleet and an army, and had, without any definite compact to that effect, co-operated as an ally with our Revolutionary forces, permitting all the while the Americans to believe that she did this without any mercenary motive, and that, in case of victory, the American colonies would be free and independent. ”

“ If the white pressure is sure sooner or later to require the lands that have been ceded to the Indians by treaty, let us take care to make no cessions. If we mean to do with the Indians just what we please, let us say so frankly, and put an end to a pretense which is constantly irritating and vexatious and costly. It is evidently absurd to treat the Cherokees as we treat the wild Sioux and the savage tribes of the plains. But the wilder tribes are to be treated with humanity and justice. Honesty is still the best policy ”

“ Ardent supporters of the Administration as we are in this campaign, we recognize the fact that a sincere and intelligent opposition is a thing it has conspicuously lacked, and we are wholly willing to express our astonishment that it should have got along so well without it. If Mr. Schurz is used by the people he supports, or by the people he opposes, in the right way, there can be no question that he will remain as he has been in the past, a type of citizen which a strong and growing country really needs to have during its formative period. ”

“ It is plain, therefore, that the flat dollar itself, like the greenback, would be quoted at its value in gold, which is the real standard of value in the commercial world. The first effect of a “fiat” currency would be to banish gold from the country, and with its expulsion to introduce that uncertainty and fluctuation which are felt first by labor and productive industry. A paper dollar “based in some indefinite way upon an indefinite something” is not a dollar to satisfy men who intend to deal upon the principle of value received. ”

“ Beyond the Senate, those who may, not offensively, be called the brains of the movement are, like himself, free-traders, while the multitude who are to do the work and the voting, and who will control the policy of the movement, are composed of Democrats and of what the Evening Post calls bummers. Now the question of free trade did not disturb the Republican party, because that party was founded upon a great principle, to secure which all other questions were to be subordinated. But the Cincinnati movement does not claim to be one of principle. ”

“ No serious question of executive administration was ever treated in Congress with so little intelligence or reason. The debates upon the subject are laughable; they are humiliating to read. They all turn on two points. One is that a man is not necessarily a good inspector of snuff because he knows Greek, and the other that Senators and Representatives probably know quite as well as a squad of college professors who ought to have the post-offices. ”

“ There is no man who has been more bitterly denounced by party spirit. But there are few men in either of the great parties who rival him in sound political thinking, or who exercise so deep and strong an influence upon the political action of intelligent and patriotic young Americans. Mr. Schurz is peculiarly a public man, however his resolute independence may interfere with party relations, and that a man thrown out of such relations, yet with unabated interest in public affairs, still maintains his moral ascendancy in politics, is one of the happy signs of the times. ”

“ Schurz is entirely correct in holding that a well-ordered Indian Bureau is as adequate to the control of our Indian relations as to any other proper function of the government. It is idle to furnish the Indians with improved arms to massacre the settlers, but it is equally idle to suppose that they can be civilized at the point of the bayonet. If it be assumed that they are vermin to be exterminated, the more overwhelming and sudden their destruction the better. But if our policy be one of civilization, they must be taught that we mean to enforce it consistently. ”

“ Without the sage, destruction is sure. With him is the sole chance. The Democratic conviction is that if the chance should win, the Democratic organization would be saved; the Republican organization would be destroyed; and as the great mass of voters and the machinery which accomplished the result would be Democratic, and as Mr. Greeley represents nothing in the canvass but the Democratic purpose of any-thing-to-beat-Grant, the result must necessarily be a Democratic triumph, which would enable the party to intrench itself impregnably for the election of '76. ”

“ Schurz with admirable ability demonstrates that the larger the market for American products, the more prosperous will be American industry, that wages do not depend upon a high tariff, and that the free entry of raw materials has never reduced wages.
No part of the letter is more worthy of careful reflection than that in which Mr. Schurz points out that as a high tariff tends to destroy foreign competition at the cost of the American consumer, so “Trusts” destroy domestic competition, and leave the American consumer at the mercy of a doubly fortified monopoly. ”

“ But it was another illustration of the very great ability of a man who, amid the passions of our politics, as in those of an earlier day in Germany, maintains the independence and courage and fidelity to conscience which are the real bulwarks of the republic. ”

“ There was a great deal of fun made of the German soldier in spectacles solacing himself with a little Hebrew when he was relieved on guard; but the foundation of the jest is as significant a fact as any in the explanation of the German spectacle. The best military system in the world will not make the best soldiers out of worthless men. It is as impossible to get the finest results from human shoddy as the finest cloth from woolen shoddy. ”

“ No party man on either side who has not taken leave of his reason can deny the truth of Mr. Schurz's remark that party spirit prevents the consideration of public questions solely with reference to the public good, and that as patriotic men we ought to cultivate the habit of viewing them upon their merits. Neither can any honorable party man regard with indifference the increase of corruption and the lowering of the party standard. ”

“ The citizens of a republic have to pay some price for the great boon of their common liberty. But do we not know, also, or have we despaired of it, that in a republic remedies for such evils can be found in entire consonance with the spirit and form of republican institutions and of constitutional government? ”

“ Indeed, it seems hardly possible that any one who is familiar with the late political history of the country should seriously assert that he things the financial views and promise of the Democratic party to be sounder and more hopeful than those of the Republican party. A year ago, in Ohio, Sam Cary, a sheer demagogue, was the Democratic candidate for Lieutenant-Governor upon an inflation platform, and this year he naturally incites a mob to demand bread or blood. ”

“ NO war was ever justified when regarded from any point of view but the historic one. The larger forces that have play are the only forces that can properly be considered. In the case of the fighting in Luzon, the single great fact to be kept in mind is that it has fallen to our lot to bring that island and the whole Philippine archipelago at last to such a stage of civilization as the people and the country are capable of. The only method of bringing about such a result with such a population is first to restore peace and order under American control. ”

“ And now, although ten years are not passed, a radical reform of the practice is demanded by every political organization in the country; and the sharpest shaft that can be flown at an opponent is that he is indifferent to this question. If, as we have suggested, the working politicians of all parties are of opinion that the government can not be carried on except upon the spoils system, their sagacity is as profound as usual, and they will live to learn better. ”

“ The question now raised is whether peaceable Indians can be forcibly removed by the government from lands once confirmed to them by treaty, and returned to a reservation upon which they have not bound themselves by treaty to remain. Obviously this can not be done by any government which pretends to have any respect for treaty rights or justice. It can be done only by a government which proposes to do merely what it chooses to do; and it is because of this bad faith which has been constantly shown by us to the Indians that they distrust our overtures, and are taught to hate us. ”

“ But Senator Schurz has no partisan Democratic tendency. He smiles at the thought that those who find the strait-jacket of one party too narrow must thereupon squeeze themselves into that of the other. “We liberal Republicans are honest enough to speak out frankly what displeases us in the Republican party, but the same honesty compels us to say that there is still more in the Democratic party that displeases us. No, gentlemen, the new wine of Republican liberalism will not keep in the old Democratic cask. ”

“ It is not the Crown Prince sternly suppressing republican movements in Prussia; it is the King refusing to yield to the mad requirement of the nephew of the victor of Jena, who imposed a fine of a hundred million of francs upon Prussia; it is the King resisting, in the name of Germany and civilization, the demand of the hereditary enemy of liberty and Europe, that a German republican of '48 with all his heart approves and defends. ”

“ But we can not resist the conviction that the character of the officers of the army offers a much better guarantee of the prompt correction of the abuses of which the Indians justly complain, than the character of Indian traders and agents and dealers of every kind. Granting the strongest allegation that can be made, that the Indian troubles spring from the cheating and outrage and wanton injustice of the whites, official and unofficial, with whom the Indians come in contact, the question is whether officers of the army would be guilty of such cheating, outrage, and injustice. ”

“ THOSE who speculate upon the formation of a new party, or gravely propose it, seem to suppose that a great party is organized as a corporation is chartered. But that does not seem to us to be the way in which a party arises. In our own history party divisions began during the administration of Washington, and the Federal and the National Republican parties continued until the former disappeared, leaving, in the Monroe era of good feeling, no immediate successor. ”

“ But a man may earnestly desire radical reform of the political civil service system, and also believe that Democratic success would be the most fatal obstruction to it. The Democratic campaign naturally languishes because the party is painfully conscious of the want of any other issue than “change,” and the more colorless its candidate appears, the more evident that want becomes. ”

“ To leave the point to be decided by Congressional districts is not only evasion and cowardice, but it is stupidity. An Executive is not an Administration. If Cincinnati can elect a President, it must also choose a Congress to sustain him. ”

“ Grant that the Northern and Southern Democrats have acquiesced in the results of the war, does that acquiescence make them more trustworthy than those who have always accepted the principles and obtained those results? Grant that there are abuses of administration, can you expect greater purity of the Democrats than of the Republicans? ”

“ But I entreat you, do not delude yourselves and others with the thought that by following the fatal road upon which we now are marching you can still preserve those institutions; for I tell you, and the history of struggling mankind bears me out, where the forms of constitutional government can be violated with impunity, there the spirit of constitutional government will soon be dead. Who does not know that republics will be sometimes the theater of confusion, disturbance and violent transgressions ”

“ At this day, in France, most of those who call themselves republicans, and earnestly strive for the overthrow of Louis Napoleon, show as little comprehension of the vital and fundamental guarantees of liberty as the terrorists of '93. A century ago the French government, already rotten with the vices of despotism, which were about to plunge the country into revolution, recognized the independence of the American colonies, and substantially aided them. ”

“ And when the Chicago Tribune speaks of revenue reform and civil service reform as objects equally desirable, it would be interesting to know how lively a hope it has of reform of the civil service from the Democracy.
In the present situation of the country when the Republican party is neither disbanding nor likely to disband, the Republican who asks whether a new party is not desirable, merely asks whether it is desirable that the Democratic party should be successful. ”