Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 3.djvu/312

286 The matter is now being discussed in the newspapers. It appears the Senate amended a provision in a House bill touching this subject so as to make the prohibition to levy such assessments apply only to persons connected with the Government, but not to “other persons” as the House bill provided. If this amendment is agreed to, the Government clerks, etc., will receive circulars asking for campaign contributions, from party committees, which, in effect, leaves the matter just where it was before. The papers report that assessments are actually being levied now under the name of voluntary contributions. But we know from experience how voluntary they are. Not having received your letter in answer to mine I do not know what your reply may have been. But I venture to repeat my suggestion that you protest in some way against the collection of money for the canvass from Department clerks and other Government officers. A civil service reform campaign in which one of the principles we profess is, that Government officers are neither expected nor desired to render any partisan service—such a campaign run on money collected from Government officers, very many of whom would not pay “voluntary contributions” did they not know that there is danger in refusing, is a contradiction in itself. A protest from you, which would come as a perfectly natural thing, would be tangible proof that we mean what we say, and would have a most excellent effect. In fact it would be the honest thing to do.

I must recur also once more to the subject of my last letter. It grows every day more important that something of the kind suggested there be done. To the “plain people” who think that a Democratic victory would bring the Rebellion into power no other argument need be addressed. But there are vast numbers of Republicans or men who used to vote the Republican ticket who have lost their fear of the return of the Rebellion to power. They