Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 3.djvu/184

158 demoralize the party. If they fail in Ohio, it will be a terrible damper upon their spirits and thus have a similar effect.

On the other hand, it appears to me by no means as certain as it seems to you, that the “force-bill and outrage” Republicans will lose the control of the Republican organization. Public sentiment is indeed likely to force them to give up their Southern policy—and they, or at least most of them, will make that sacrifice, for that policy has always been to them merely a means for partisan ends—but they will still hold the leading-strings of the Republican organization. In point of sentiment we Liberals have had a majority of the rank and file of the party with us for a considerable period, but the organization was controlled by the ringmasters all the same. It is so to-day, and the abandonment of the force policy alone will not change this. I admit that the power of those ringmasters is not as absolute now as it was a short time ago, but it was only the defeat of the party at the State elections that weakened it, and it is as yet far from being wholly destroyed. And as long as that power exists, no platform or profession or promise will have much value. Although the Republicans of Ohio have made a decent platform, yet, unless I am greatly mistaken, the controlling spirits are still the old set; and how they will use their success, and what effect it will have on the Republican party—who can tell?

Under ordinary circumstances I might feel inclined to go to Ohio and help the Republicans, because the Democrats are so much worse. But at present we have to keep the more important issues of the Presidential election in view, and I think all the effect the Ohio election can produce with regard to that matter has already been produced by the action of the Democratic convention; and I think further it is our policy as Independents to let it stand there.