Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 4.djvu/300

266 service act for the State of New York which embodies just these principles, although he knew that it cut off the loaves and fishes of public spoil in a great measure from his own party. But more. He said in the same letter of acceptance: “The expenditure of money to influence the action of the people at the polls or to secure legislation is calculated to excite the gravest concern. It is useless and foolish to shut our eyes to the fact that this evil exists among us, and the party which leads in an honest effort to return to better and purer methods will receive the confidence of our citizens and secure their support.” Having said this, he favored and signed a prohibition of political assessments in the civil service of New York, although he knew that this measure would most severely curtail the electioneering funds of his own party.

As a member of the Civil Service Reform Association, I may say that when we prepared and urged a legislative reform measure we never inquired whether Governor Cleveland, although a Democrat, would sign it, because we knew he would if it was a good one. When the citizens of New York City sought to correct the crying abuses of their municipal government, they, too, always counted with the same confidence upon the governor, no matter whether the Democratic or the Republican party might be hurt by a measure of true reform, and that confidence was always justified. And, by the way, it is rather a shabby piece of business that some of the gentlemen who leaned upon the governor as one of their principal pillars of strength, and were then full of praise of him for his courageous resistance to party pressure, should throw paltry quibbles at him since he has become a candidate for the Presidency. Had he not been nominated it would have been said that the unbending courage for the right with which he resisted pressure coming from his own party was the very thing that defeated him. It