Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 4.djvu/40

6 are doing, to call for our best judgment and a strenuous effort to put that judgment into execution.

In the first place, let us make it clear to our own minds what we want. The answer is, in a general term, that we want a good government; that if we have it we must endeavor to keep it, and that if we have it not we must endeavor to get it. What is good government? We may answer again in general terms, that it is a government which well understands the public business, and, understanding it, transacts it within the limits of its constitutional power, intelligently, honestly and justly. The second question we have to answer to ourselves is, how far the government we have comes up to these requisites, how far the principles upon which it acts, the methods it employs, the aims it pursues and the degree of efficiency it develops, answer the public need, and how far in this respect we ought to preserve what we have or look for other things we have not.

As a member of the present Administration now on the point of yielding its power into the hands of a new set of public servants, I may be permitted to appeal to the candid judgment of the American people as to the manner in which the public business has been conducted during these last years. While it might be natural that, bearing a part of the responsibility myself, I should be inclined to take a favorable view of its performances, still I feel that my ways of thinking are independent enough not to betray me into mere partisan eulogy, and that we may confidently rely upon the judgment frequently expressed, not only by our friends, but also by very many candid men among our opponents. As a matter of course I do not expect Democratic politicians and orators to give us that fairness of judgment in the heat of an election contest which they could not deny us during the repose of a previous period, and which they will not deny us when this contest is over;