Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 3.djvu/129

Rh frighten Southern immigrants from our borders? Why do you not tell those who expose corruption in the National Government to stop lest they defame the United States and frighten away European immigration? Who defamed the State when to me in my seat in the Senate more than once some of my associates came with newspapers in their hands containing lengthy accounts of the shameless brigandage here, and when I was asked the question: “Have you no laws and no government in Missouri?”

Who was defaming the State, when even European journals printed accounts of the Gad's Hill robbery as a racy anecdote, to show their readers what things can be done in this commonwealth with impunity?

And now, accuse those of wronging the community who insist that such scandals be stopped! As the irony of accident would have it, one of the Democratic papers of this city, which had called me a slanderer in one issue, published in the very next two articles, one telling the story of a murderous assault and robbery committed by a band of masked brigands upon an emigrant camp in the western part of this State, and the other giving the details of two street broils in Lexington, in which two men were mortally and one slightly wounded. And these interesting pieces of information are now making the round of the American press. This was only last week. Who defamed the State? Who frightened away immigrants? And the same Democratic paper but recently spoke with a sort of approving and encouraging tenderness of the chivalrous habit of the “ruddy young fellows” to settle their difficulties by lustily pulling out their pistols or knives, and shooting or stabbing one another dead on the public streets.

This is not a matter to be trifled with, or to be slurred over by sneering at those who demand a remedy.