Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 3.djvu/272

246 This is no time for so-called availability springing from distinction gained on fields of action foreign to the duties of government; nor for that far more dangerous sort of availability which consists in this, that the candidate be neither so bad as to repel good citizens, nor so good as to discourage the bad ones.

Passive virtue in the highest place has too often been known to permit the growth of active vice below. The man to be intrusted with the Presidency this year must have deserved not only the confidence of honest men, but also the fear and hatred of the thieves. He who manages to conciliate the thieves cannot be the candidate for honest men.

Every American citizen who has the future of the Republic and the National honor sincerely at heart should solemnly resolve that the country must have a President “whose name is already a watchword of reform; whose capacity and courage for the work are matters of record rather than of promise, who will restore the simplicity, independence and rectitude of the early Administrations, and whose life will be a guarantee of his fidelity and fitness”; a man at the mere sound of whose name even the most disheartened will take new courage, and all mankind will say: “The Americans are indeed in earnest to restore the ancient purity of their Government.”

Fellow-citizens, the undersigned, in addressing you, are not animated by the ambition to form or lead a new political party. Most have long been and are warmly attached to their party associations. It would be most gratifying to us to see, by party action, candidates put forward whose character and record answer those requirements which present circumstances render imperative. We earnestly hope and trust it will be so. We shall gladly follow such a lead and make every effort in our power to render it successful. But while we are ready