Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 4.djvu/332

298 legislative action while the practical treatment of the civil service question is the business of the Executive and is, aside from the ordinary routine, likely to be its principal business during the first eight or nine months of the new Administration. The passage of the Government from one party to another is the decisive crisis of administrative reform. If it weathers that crisis successfully, it will live. If the American people have now a change of party in power in which the public interest is the only ruling motive and consideration, an example is set which will have almost the force of law to govern similar events in the future. The man who carries this through will be one of the greatest benefactors of the American people, and you have the opportunity of being that man.

In serving this great end you will at the same time do the best service to your party. There is a new confused migration of political forces going on. They are footloose and restless. Their party allegiance restrains them very little. Both parties, the Republican as well as the Democratic, have come out of the last campaign in a shape very different from that in which we knew them before. The Democratic party won under the banner of reform, aided by the most determined reform-elements coming from the Republican side. If the Democratic party, when in power, should drop that standard for the purpose of winning back the forces that strayed from it in the late contest, it would not fully succeed in accomplishing that purpose, while losing all its moral strength and also the support of the auxiliary forces which made its victory possible. The party now come to power must be a reform-party in order to live, for it is certain that the opposition, as long as out of power, will be the most watchful and vociferous advocate of reform ever seen. The Democrats are not a majority party now. But they can become a majority party if their policy satisfies those