Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 4.djvu/523

Rh the man who most clearly represents at this juncture the cause of justice and good government, and by the nomination of a man whose success would make every rascal in the land rejoice. It is by the blind infatuation which has led these leaders to drag even the National Administration with them into the mire of a bad cause.

What malignant enemy of President Cleveland was it that induced Mr. Cooper to extort from him that most unfortunate letter intermeddling in New York City politics on the side of the typical “dead beat” as a candidate for an office which is the guardian of the public honor? If the President had had a true friend in your councils, that friend would have strained every nerve to confirm his disinclination to descend from the high dignity of his office; that friend would not have failed to remind him of 1882, when the meddling of the National Administration with New York State politics resulted in the most sweeping opposition victory on record; that friend would have struggled to the bitter end against the publication of the President's letter after the new revelations concerning Mr. Fellows's career, in ignorance of which, I have no doubt, that letter was written, and after learning which I trust he would wish it never had been written.

I shall say nothing in extenuation of the fact that the President permitted himself to be so misused. But certain it is that the bitterest enemies of the President and of the Democratic party could not have dealt them a more vicious blow. For more than thirty years I have been an attentive observer of political events, and never, never have I witnessed more wanton recklessness on the part of party leaders, sacrificing the interests and good name of a great municipality, the character of a National Administration, as well as the interests of their party and cause, to their blundering folly or their small selfishness.

No, sir; the injury you and your friends have done to