Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 4.djvu/260

226 honest Administration. The question is much larger than that. It is whether the public record of the Republican candidate is not such as to make his election by the American people equivalent to a declaration on their part that honesty will no longer be one of the requirements of the Government of the Republic. It is whether such a declaration will not have the inevitable effect of sinking the Government for generations to come, perhaps forever, into a depth of demoralization and corruption such as we have never dreamed of before. If this is really the issue of the pending campaign, then you will admit it to be the most momentous that has been upon us since the civil war; nay, as momentous as any involved in the civil war itself.

Above all, let us be sure of the facts. Are the public character and record of the Republican candidate really such that his election would produce results of greater consequence to the future of the Republic than the decision one way or the other of any political question now pending? Some of Mr. Blaine's friends assert that he is a much abused and calumniated man; that certain charges have been trumped up against him and exploded; that unscrupulous enemies are persecuting him with accusations of a vague and indefinite nature, using against him the insidious weapons of hint, insinuation and innuendo. If this be so, it is wrong. Mr. Blaine has a clear right to demand the facts. The citizens who are asked to vote against him on the ground of his character and record have a right to demand the facts. And if indeed others have been vague in their statements on a subject so important to the people at this time, nobody shall have any reason to complain of a want of straightforwardness on my part. Nothing could be more distasteful to me than to discuss the personal conduct of a public man. But it has been forced upon us as a public duty, which, however