Carl Schurz

“ He will stand up for the honor of that country as he will for his own, at all times and everywhere, especially against the outside world, and nothing touches in him a more sensitive point than to see the lustre of that honor diminished in the eyes of the world by accusations which he cannot refute.
It is a very hard thing for a good American to acknowledge the fact that the reputation of our Republic as to the matter of honesty in its political life is not good. ”

“ They have already won important successes with the great mass of the politicians against them. They will have to do in the future what they have done in the past — keep their aim steadily before their eyes; be just and fearless in their criticism as well as in their praise; defend sturdily what has been won; work patiently for small advances when they cannot go forward in great strides; appeal unremittingly to the good sense, the democratic instincts, and the patriotism of the American people. ”

“ If they were harmless, then the honor of the country demands that they should be shown to have been so. If there ever was an object lesson bringing home to the American people the importance and desirability of legislation compelling political campaign committees or managers to preserve and exhibit their accounts and vouchers, here it is. Imagine, if there were such an exhibition of the accounts of expenditures of all parties now, proving everything to have been fair and honest, how it would rejoice the hearts of all who love their country! ”

“ Such an act of justice would do the country honor. It would not only strike terror into the hearts of those who have been bold and base enough to put the bribe-money into the hand of the purchasable voter, but it would pointedly remind of their complicity in acts that are crimes the persons of property and high social character whom Judge Gresham so aptly described as the “men of prominence and respectability who raise these large sums of money, knowing the use that they will be put to — men who deal openly in corruption one day and go to church the next.” ”

“ Time was when in England constituencies were openly bought, and when Ministers, figuratively if not bodily, walked through the House of Commons, their hands full of bank bills, which they distributed among the members for their votes. Bribery was regarded as little else than a mere ordinary business transaction. The evil seemed incurable, and yet to-day elections in England are as clean of corruption as any in the world. What has been possible in England cannot be impossible here. ”

“ Least of all should that nation be indifferent which has prided itself so much upon setting an example to the world of what free institutions can accomplish not only in the development of material prosperity, but also in the moral elevation of the people. And I know the American people are not and never will be indifferent to their good name. [Applause.]
It is true, public opinion abroad concerning us is too largely influenced by sensational stories, and the foreign press not seldom presents all the charges hurled by one party against another in this country as established facts. ”

“ Let us ask ourselves whether all of it can be truthfully said by the defenders of American character to-day after what has happened during and since the last Presidential election. However anxiously we may seek for an answer to this question, we cannot close our eyes to the fact that this time the charges of wholesale bribery and corruption are made not merely by one party against another, that they are supported by what appears to be strong prima-facie evidence, and that they are believed to be true, if not universally, at least by a very large portion of the American people. ”

“ Thus, when I was in Germany last summer, a prominent Berlin paper published an article in which our elections were represented as mere affairs of money, the longest purse always winning the day, and the American people as not being merely indifferent about the wholesale bribery going on among them, but as rather admiring and applauding the smartness of the politicians who knew how to carry elections by outdoing their opponents in the use of corrupt means. ”

“ They will prefer to make hay while the sun shines. They will think only of the greatest possible profit for the time being, and let the devil take the hindmost, no matter how many hindmosts there may be. They will not trouble themselves about what finally may become of the Republican party. They will ride the Republican party to death, if it permits itself to be ridden. [Applause.]
It is my firm conviction that the Republican party can save its future only by taking the reform of the tariff in the way of essential reduction into its own hands. ”

“ Whatever obstacles and adverse influences there may be in its path, civil-service reform is bound in the end to triumph. I speak of this with great confidence. The time is fast approaching when every good citizen, however indifferent to-day, will acknowledge its necessity. ”

“ We shall then be apt to keep in mind that there are upright, patriotic, and able men in both or in all parties, whose opinions and purposes may deserve to be studied with respect; that a man may differ from us in opinion without moral obliquity; that good measures should be supported and bad ones opposed, from whatever quarter they may come, and that the question whether the country be well served is, after all, much more important than the question what party or what set of men serve it. ”

“ Nothing is more desirable than that this work should be pushed forward without the intervention of any party spirit. In fact, no party can remain behind in this work without justifying suspicion. As there are corrupt men in all parties, so there are men of integrity and high patriotic purpose in all of them, who will be eager to punish and suppress corrupt practices, not only among their opponents, but also among their friends. It is an object which simply appeals to the best impulses of every good citizen, whatever his party creed. ”

“ If they are not true, then every American who can do or say anything to disprove them owes it to his country as a duty of honor to come forward and let the world hear what he has to say. We cannot dispose of this case by falling back upon the principle that the burden of proof is upon the accuser, and that the charges are not entitled to credit until they are established by legal evidence. ”

“ But such a discussion cannot be stopped as long as the difference of interests and opinions exists. If the opponents of the tariff should grow weary of it, the protectionists themselves would start it anew, for they are not yet satisfied with the tariff as it is. I was astonished when I heard a prominent statesman say that the protective system achieved a great triumph, a decisive victory, in the late Presidential election, and that the tariff policy of the Government was now finally and irrevocably settled. ”

“ I shall be one of the happiest men in the land if it is made to appear better. But whether that dark shadow be cleared up or not, every patriotic American should look that which is known to have happened, and the possibilities thus presented, squarely in the face. ”

“ Republican speakers have done valuable service in mercilessly criticising the shortcomings of President Cleveland's Administration, for they cannot have failed to convince many of their Republican hearers who were never convinced before that the removal for mere partisan reasons of a good officer before the expiration of his term is an extremely wicked thing. It must also have become quite clear to the Democrats by renewed experience that the possession of the offices is not an element of strength in a contested election, and the Republicans may profit by the example of their opponents. ”

“ We may survive extortion by monopolies or a breakdown of our manufactures, as predicted by one party and by the other; we can endure Republican or Democratic party rule; but the existence and continuance of such a state of things would bring a disgrace and dangers upon us of which so far we have had no experience and perhaps no conception. ”

“ We have, indeed, had sporadic bribery before, on a small scale; we have had here and there ballot-box stuffing; we have had colonizing of voters; we have had fraudulent returns and forged poll reports; we have had intimidation of negroes by whites, and of working people by employers; we have had a great variety of tricks, some of a very unscrupulous and disreputable kind, resorted to by politicians to make their party win. ”

“ On another occasion I expressed the apprehension that, unless a sensible reduction of the tariff were enacted soon, there would be great danger of a violent and sweeping reaction against the protective system, possibly bringing on a crisis fraught with much temporary disaster, as sudden changes of economic policy frequently are; and such a reaction would be rendered all the more probable by the further development of Trusts and other monopolistic combinations, which a people like the American would certainly not long endure. ”

“ And the multitudes now scrambling for positions, from Cabinet places down to tide-waiterships, furnishes an object lesson which can hardly be lost upon the American people. It certainly is not lost upon some sorely beset statesmen in Congress, who in the anguish of their souls already cry out: “Oh, this is intolerable.” Who knows but the President-elect himself, patient as he is, may in his innermost heart pray the Lord to deliver him. ”

“ But if there be nothing forthcoming to shake the widespread belief in the charges of systematic bribery and corruption, if the American people have to accept the odium of the situation, then it will be well for them to ask themselves what that situations really means. ”

“ The bosses of the Democratic “halls” and the “boys” of the Republican organization of this city will no longer be looked up to as the men who can put one party or the other in possession of the National Government as they please. Anything that abolishes the nuisance of such a pivotal State, anything that diminishes the importance and power of the political machines of New York city, may be thankfully received as a help to good government. Let us, therefore, give the new States a hearty welcome.
CIVIL SERVICE.
The Commonwealth Club has the reform of the civil service especially at heart. ”

“ The adopted citizen has to account for his attachment to a country not his native land upon a ground other than filial feeling, and it is his highest satisfaction and pride to be able to say that the country of his chosen allegiance is, in every sense and in the highest degree, entitled to the esteem and love of mankind. ”

“ It is currently asserted that during the last Presidential campaign much larger sums of money have been raised for electioneering purposes than on any former occasion, and that much of that money has been used in downright bribery of voters — that, in fact, there has been in this election far more corruption of the grossest kind, systematically planned and organized, than this country has ever known. ”

“ If, in spite of all the disadvantages and the mismanagement I have mentioned, the inherent strength of the tariff-reform cause, as the short discussions of one campaign presented it to the popular mind, came so near defeating the tremendous array of interest and energy on the other side, what would have happened had President Cleveland brought out his tariff message a year or two sooner, so that the educational movement started by it would have had time to penetrate the rural districts as it has penetrated some of the industrial centres? ”

“ The American people will then feel that their pride of rectitude and their patriotism will have to go into action in full force in order to vindicate their honor, whatever may have occurred or may still occur, and to take care of their future. And I am confident they can and they will take care of it.
OUR POLITICS NOT ROTTEN.
I have heard pessimists say that our politics are hopelessly rotten, and that nothing can be more ridiculous than an effort to reform them. ”

“ I will here only say that there are many of them to whom everything that tarnishes the good name of their adopted country is peculiarly painful — perhaps more painful even than to the native. The reason is not far to seek. ”

“ And opposed to him was a Republican candidate of unquestionably high personal character, and behind that candidate a party far superior to the Democrats in means and energy, as well as in the skill of campaigning. Is it surprising that, laboring under such disadvantages, Mr. Cleveland was defeated? No; it is rather surprising that he was not buried under a majority mountain high. It is truly amazing that he came so near winning the victory — so near, indeed, that a change of only 8,000 votes in the State of New York would have given him the election. ”

“ On the contrary, there have been at the last election, as is reported, in the interior of this State and elsewhere, purchases of votes substantially at auction, one party outbidding the other, and the longest purse getting the “floater.” If there has been any bribery at all it is likely to have been on both sides, and that explains the fact that the active politicians on both sides are so remarkably meek when searching investigations of corrupt practices are demanded. ”