Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 4.djvu/303

Rh apologize for and nothing to conceal; with what affection and confidence we commended to the suffrages of the people our standard bearer, honest Abraham Lincoln. Remember how, under Republican guidance, the American Union was washed clean of the stain of slavery, and the great rebellion was vanquished, and Abraham Lincoln was borne once more on our shield, with the same faith and the same affectionate confidence, for the trials of power had given to his honesty still more radiant luster.

And now, after twenty-four years of uninterrupted ascendancy, what has the party come to? Look at it, the party of moral ideas, presenting as its great leader and representative a man whose unclean record it cannot deny and dare not face. Listen to its spokesmen, how they dodge and squirm around that record as something too hot to touch—unfortunate attorneys, wretchedly troubled by the feeling that, if they respect themselves, they must take care not to become identified with the public morals of their client. Watch them, how they use the tariff question as a great fig leaf which they stretch and spread to make it cover and hide the crookedness of their standard bearer! What a burning shame and disgrace is this! Pride of party indeed! Those who are truly proud of the good the party has done will be too proud to consent to its degrading perversion into an instrument of evil. If the great party which abolished slavery and saved the Republic is to serve as an instrument to poison the life of the same Republic by crowning corruption with its highest honors, then the truly proud Republicans will wash their hands of it.

As they understood the great problem of the anti-slavery period, so they understand the great problem of to-day. The contest in which we are engaged is not a mere crusade against one man. It is not a mere race between two. It is one of the great struggles for the