Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 4.djvu/301

Rh was, indeed, the thing which made his enemies hate him so bitterly. But take his whole record. When he ceased to be mayor of Buffalo a Republican paper said: “Yesterday Buffalo lost the best mayor she ever had.” When he ceases to be governor, to become President of the United States, these very gentlemen will say: “New York never had a more efficient governor than this.”

In justice we are bound to say that here is a man whose ideas of honest, intelligent and efficient administration are remarkably clear and correct; who has not only promised but performed; whose performance, in fact, went ahead of the manifesto; who has proved himself to possess in an eminent degree the principal requisites of executive efficiency, which are incorruptible integrity, a clear head, a well-informed mind, a devotion to duty shrinking from no labor, a cool judgment, a high sense of official honor, a keen instinct of justice and that rare courage which, whenever the public good requires it, firmly resists not only the opposition of a hostile party but, which is more difficult, the entreaty of party friends. You fear that another party coming into power will, in its eagerness to get possession of the offices, turn out the good men together with the bad, and you ask whether there is a man who as President would be strong enough to withstand the pressure of his partisans. I admit you cannot find many strong enough to do this, but I do not think I risk anything in saying that Mr. Cleveland is one of the few. I should not be surprised if he were the strongest of them all. As to the higher spheres of statesmanship, it may be remembered that in every position of power assigned to him he has shown an ability to perform its duties beyond the expectations of his friends. And when he now says, as he did a week ago in accepting the nomination, that he considers himself pledged to give to the people “the utmost benefits of a pure and honest