Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 3.djvu/275

Rh parties in the different States one by one, I cannot but conclude that the issue will be very uncertain if the Republican party depends upon its record and its own regular strength.

It will find it impossible to conduct the campaign on the old war issues. Neither does my understanding of your own opinions lead me to believe that you would have it so. There is at present far more strength, as there is more wisdom and patriotism in the advocacy of a policy of justice and conciliation, than in an attempt to rake up old animosities and in a mere repetition of old cries. The Republican party, in order to be successful, must show itself strongest on the living questions which, of necessity, will press to the foreground.

Of these the questions of finance and of administrative reform will prove the most unavoidable. With regard to the former your own publicly expressed opinions are stronger and inspire more confidence than the Republican platform. But the struggle is likely to become an arduous one. There are in our present economic condition many indications which render an extremely stringent money-market probable in September and October. Such a state of things attended with an accumulation of commercial failures will be apt, as it always is, to tell against the party in power. Still, the evil effects of that circumstance may be overcome by a vigorous fight and the development of strength in that direction in which the Republican party is at present weakest.

The question of administrative reform is the really and seriously sore point of the party. There the attacks of its opponents will be most incessant and unsparing, and, unfortunately, they may be terribly severe without being unjust. It was the corruption in the public service grown to alarming proportions after the war, and, connected with it, the reckless partisanship disregarding