Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 4.djvu/524

490 your party and your cause by the nomination of such a man as Mr. Fellows would not be repaired, but it would be aggravated, by his election. “He serves his party best who serves his country best,” and surely the rank and file of your party can, under existing circumstances, do no better service to themselves and to their cause than by showing that, whatever the vagaries of some of their leaders, the masses at least are sound at heart and worthy of confidence.

To the last minute I shall not cease to hope that your true self-respect will reassert itself and draw you away from that side on which, as you well know, you can find to-day every thief, every corruptionist, every law-breaker in New York, including those who have run to Canada—for there is not one of them who does not pray for the election of Mr. Fellows; not one who does not stand in deadly fear of Mr. Nicoll.

But if we cannot be spared the incredible spectacle of the mayor of New York asking the people on the score of “self-respect” to put in the place of public prosecutor a person whose self-confessed and absolute moral unfitness would be an encouragement to the very class to be prosecuted, then, I trust, the citizens of New York will prove self-respecting enough to take care of their own honor by giving an overwhelming majority to a man whose character has stood the test of severest trial, who has made himself a terror to evil-doers, whose election will show that our people really demand honest government, and whom they can exhibit as their choice without shame. 



&emsp; My dear Schurz: You never did anything more timely, more conclusive or more patriotic than the letter to Hewitt. It is a great public service.—Always yours. 