Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 2.djvu/483

Rh property shall be taken for public use without just compensation? Is that the light in which you look at a transaction like this? Shall we increase the temptation already working to so fearful a degree by assuring to the purchaser of a seat in the Senate of the United States full security of enjoyment? Have you considered the consequences of such indulgence? Let me ask your attention to one of them. To-day, Senators, we may still be able, when we know that a seat has been acquired by purchase, to vacate it by a majority vote; but if you encourage this practice by the promise of impunity, do you know how long it will be before so many of these seats are filled by purchasers, that the struggle will become utterly hopeless? This is not a mere dark fancy, not a mere offspring of a morbid imagination.

The country at this very moment is ringing with the cry of corruption. Is it without reason? Never before have the agencies been so powerful which seek to serve private interests by a corrupt use of money, and never before has the field of political life been so well prepared for their work. The same causes will always and every where bring forth similar effects. We have had a great civil war. That civil war, with its fluctuations of values and its tempting opportunities for the rapid acquisition of wealth, has left behind it a spirit of speculation and greed stimulated to most inordinate activity. There is prevalent a morbid desire to get rich and to indulge in extravagant enjoyments; and the more it grows the greater will grow also the unscrupulousness of men in the employment of means to attain that end. But more than that. More than ever before has the Government of the United States extended its functions beyond its legitimate sphere; more than ever has the public Treasury been pressed into the service of private interests. Do we not all know it? Do we not see and understand what is going