Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 3.djvu/503

Rh Certainly no man of common-sense need be told that under such circumstances it is the only wise policy to keep the good things we have, and to let well enough alone.

And now, my friends, I am come to a close. The American people are at present engaged in a political struggle to determine the character of the next National Legislature. The financial question has, for the time being, well-nigh swallowed up all other issues dividing parties. I sincerely regret to find the Democrats of Ohio as firmly wedded to the fallacies we combated in 1875 as they were then, and their party in other States drifting into the same dangerous current. I sincerely regret this, I say, for I am not partisan enough to rejoice at the errors of the opposition, if they threaten to become destructive to the public welfare. I desire both parties to be as good and patriotic as possible, so that the bad tendencies of one may not encourage the faults of the other, and I am glad, therefore, to see not a few Democrats manfully stand up for their old hard-money principles. May their acts be in harmony with their faith.

I do rejoice to see the Republicans of this State, and, indeed, almost all over the country, following the example you set in 1875, grow stronger in their resolution to defend the cause of honest money, true to their traditions and instincts of loyalty to the financial honor of the Republic; for they can render to the public good no better service.

The situation appears very grave. A diligent agitation seems to have propagated the paper-money mania like an epidemic. But this last blazing up may, after all, turn out to be really like the decisive paroxysm in typhoid fever, which, although apparently threatening death, is only the forerunner of convalescence. Indeed, with as intelligent and high-minded a people as the Americans, it can scarcely be otherwise. Through whatever extravagancies of imagination and reasoning they may pass,