Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 3.djvu/520

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&emsp; I intended to answer your last note some time ago but the current business of the Department would not let me do so.

It seems to me that it is time for the opponents of General Grant's nomination to act. The “boom business” has been so much overdone that the public mind is open for a reaction. I have watched the matter with great attention and firmly believe now in the possibility of preventing the mischief. All that is necessary now is that those who are earnestly opposed to the third term should openly say so. You strike the nail on the head in saying that the real danger consists in “the habituation of the popular mind to personal government.” But I think you are not right in your apprehension that the people have no clear appreciation of that danger. It is just this appreciation, together with their remembrance of the corruptions and abuses of the Grant regime, that makes the Germans so unanimous in their opposition to the third term. I see this cropping out everywhere. Without the German Republican vote several of the Northwestern States, such as Wisconsin, Illinois and Ohio, cannot be carried. This is gradually becoming well understood among politicians. Now let it be known that the Independent Republican element in New York is of the same mind,—let this become known through a strong and unmistakable demonstration, and the back of the Grant movement will be broken.

Why not proceed in Harper's Weekly? And if you do not think it practicable to speak out bluntly there editorially—I mean as to the support of Grant in case of his nomination—would not Harper's Weekly publish communications stating the whole argument?