Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 4.djvu/289

Rh record such as Mr. Blaine's to the Presidency of the United States, the American people take the fatal step of declaring the corrupt abuse of public power, the prostitution of official trust for private gain, will no longer be branded with dishonor, but will henceforth not even stand in the way of a man's promotion to the highest office of the Republic.

There is corruption enough now. But when the American people shall have proclaimed that they care nothing for a proper sense of honor in their public men and the public service, then a crop of corruption and demoralization will ripen such as we have never dreamed of. You complain now that the money kings and the great corporations have too much power in our public concerns. But when the American people by a solemn popular election shall have taught our politicians, young and old, that they can make themselves rich by the prostitution of official trust without fear of disgrace, that they may have pelf and public honor at the same time, there will be no limit to the corrupting power of wealth, and your dreaded money kings and corporations will do in open daylight what they now attempt in the dark. Corruption will irresistibly “broaden down from precedent to precedent.” Its flood may overwhelm all that we hold dear and are proud of to-day.

Citizens of the United States, I warn you solemnly not to take this fatal leap. The honor of the American people, the vitality of our institutions, the whole future of the Republic are involved in the issue. Do you want to protect that honor, to save those institutions from deadly rot, and the future of the Republic from incalculable disaster and disgrace? There is but one thing to do. If a political party, however great and glorious, has been so forgetful of its dignity and its duty as to nominate a candidate for the Presidency conspicuously bearing the