Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 4.djvu/522

488 public man, advise your fellow-citizens to intrust him with almost uncontrollable power over those interests which, at this moment, are to them the dearest—even the good name of the community? As a “self-respecting” mayor of New York, can you ask the people of the city to put the indictment of gamblers at the discretion of a gambler evading the payment of his debts, and the prosecution of bribe-givers and bribe-takers at the mercy of a man who did not blush, when just rising from the study of Tweed's crimes, to beg a pecuniary favor from him who in our history stands as the very embodiment of corruption? Would you thus intrust the honor of the community to one who has confessedly shown that his character lacks the first elements of the sense of honor required in the office of public prosecutor?

Since your “self-respect” would not let you recognize the moral sense of the community which favored Mr. Nicoll, I invite you to contemplate calmly the “self-respect” which you enjoy as the eulogist of the “simple Christian life” and the high character of Mr. Fellows.

And now, do you really think, as your letter seems to intimate, that unless the people elect to the district attorney's office a man who has been capable of trying to escape from his gambling debts under the cover of the very law against gambling, and of begging pecuniary accommodations from the most notorious public thief in the land, your party will be defeated in the Presidential election next year, and that, as you say, “this State will open the Treasury to jobbers and to schemes foreign to the purposes of our Government and to the best interests of our people”? Do not deceive yourself. If the Democratic party has been hurt by anything connected with this struggle about the district attorneyship, it is by the perverseness of some of its leaders, who rejected