Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 4.djvu/39

Rh in its tone. You will discern at once that it is intended to stop all hasty demonstrations of discontent in independent quarters. I have written to my correspondents to the same [end], and with what effect, I do not know yet.

I communicate to you Horace White's letter, of course only in strict confidence. Please return it to me after having read it. I am on my way to the Pacific coast, and letters will find me from Aug. 28th to Sept. 1st in San Francisco, and until Sept. 5th at Sacramento City, Cal. 



which a large number of citizens of Indianapolis have honored me, I shall speak to you only on a few of the questions which will be discussed in the present contest; on those, I mean, which come directly home to you. I shall address myself to the conservative business men of the country, whose interest in politics is only that of the public good.
 * —In response to the invitation with

I shall appeal not to your passions, but to your reason, and, without any resort to the artifices of oratory, give you a plain practical talk. The language of party warfare is apt to fly to violent exaggerations for the purpose of producing strong impressions; the language of reason and common-sense will abstain from them. Let me say at the outset, therefore, that I do not agree with those who speak of the present moment as the greatest crisis in the history of American affairs. The questions we have to dispose of are not those of immediate life or death; but the bearing they have upon the future welfare of the nation, and upon those interests which most nearly affect us, is important enough to make us consider well what we