Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 3.djvu/210

184 corruption and profligacy, and propose to reform by giving us more of that also! Indeed, a fine assortment of reformatory sweets in that inflation pill. No, Governor Allen, that will never do. If you propose to reform the evils you so loudly denounce by giving us more of them, you and your friends are not the sort of reformers sensible men will take to. If, indeed, that should turn out to be the real reformatory spirit of the Democracy, then prudent and patriotic men must feel in duty bound to turn round and look for salvation somewhere else. But, surely, even were I a lifelong Democrat, that kind of reformatory spirit I should, as a friend of the party as well as of my country, feel bound to aid in putting down to prevent it from doing fatal mischief to both. For this kind of reformatory spirit might at last reform Congress into an insane asylum, the public service, the machinery of the Government into the elements of a penitentiary and the party into a terror to all honest and civilized men.

But there is another excuse which at first sight appears more respectable. It is said the times are hard; business is languishing; our industries are depressed; thousands of laborers are without work; the poor are growing poorer; the country is full of distress; something must be done to afford relief. All this is true, and there are many well meaning men who, troubled by their difficulties, grope about for a remedy.

Yes, it is indeed necessary that something be done to afford relief. The question is what that something should be.

As wise men, we must first ascertain the nature of the disease before determining upon the method of cure.

The Democratic platform of Ohio affirms that the business depression was caused by the contraction of the currency wrought by the Republican party. Time and again it has been shown that this statement is false on its