Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 2.djvu/192

172 event; but have we a right to expect a moral revolution so powerful unless we prepare the way for it by removing the temptations which are now operating on the minds of the politicians and the multitude?

We are told that there is a popular notion prevailing in this country that every American citizen is entitled to public office. Yes, so he is; but would it not be well to create the additional popular notion that then every American citizen shall fit himself for public office in point of intelligence, acquirements and character? Thus office may even become an educational element in society.

“Are we to do nothing for our friends who helped sending us here?” we are sometimes asked. “Shall we say to them when they come to us asking for an office, ‘No, you shall not have it?’ ” Sir, I am willing to do much for my friends; they shall command my best endeavors. And I think we can do something vastly better for them and their children and their children's children than giving them post-offices and places in customhouses; and that is, to pass laws which will secure to them good government.

Again, the objection is made that a reform of this kind would be incompatible with republican institutions. Sir, it seems to have become fashionable with some, whenever a great abuse is attacked that has worked itself into our political habits, to say that this is one of the evils in separably connected with republican government, and that we must not touch it lest we touch republican government itself.

I, sir, have a far higher idea of republican government. I do not believe that true republican government is in any sense necessarily wedded to organic disorder and demoralization. I certainly do not indulge in the delusion that all the frailties and weaknesses of human nature can be abolished by an act of Congress; but I do not think that republican government will suffer if we repress