Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 4.djvu/38

4 contested States necessary for Republican success. Without them you can scarcely hope to win.

Besides, you want not only to be elected, but, if elected, to do good service to the country and credit to yourself by your Administration. I think I am not entirely ignorant of politics. Let me make a prediction. No skill in nice balancing will save you from the necessity of choosing between two roads, one running in the reactionary tendencies and machine politics, and the other in the direction of intelligent, progressive and reformatory politics. Following the latter, you will be supported by the best intelligence and moral sense not only of the party but of the country and be their leader. Following the former, you will have the political machinists around you and will be their slave. Just in the same measure as President Hayes maintained in practice the principles with which he started out, he won the applause of the country and made his party strong. His failures, which have brought the censure of the respectable opinion of the country upon him, all were in the direction indicated in your letter of acceptance as the course you mean to follow. I must confess that I regretted to find in your first utterance as a candidate an implied disapproval of the principles of your predecessor, the good record of whose Administration is at the present moment the best capital of the party whose candidate you are. I should not wonder if President Hayes had felt that himself.

I write you this for the reason that I think it necessary you should understand every phase of the campaign, and to point out some dangers which might be rendered still more serious by further steps in the same direction. I am going to speak here to-night and you will find my speech in the papers. I had originally sketched out a different and higher kind of argument, when your letter appeared and forced me to adopt the low key you observe