Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 4.djvu/545

Rh In condemning the concessions to the spoils element in the Democratic party made by President Cleveland in violation of his own original program, I go as far as his severest critic among the friends of reform. With my experience of public life, I cannot join in any of the excuses or palliations which have been offered for them. I do not think, for instance, that, had he unflinchingly done those things which he had given the country reason to expect of him, he would have been a “President without a party.” The American people love that manly courage which, in keeping good faith and in righting wrongs, does not shrink from defying great odds. The spectacle of a President telling his party friends that neither flattery nor threats could tempt him to abandon a single iota of his word, either in letter or spirit, would have stirred the noblest impulses of the American heart. His very enemies would have been compelled to do homage to the intrepidity of his rectitude. The party organization, seeing that it could not command him, would have been obliged to follow his leadership, for it could not have sacrificed such a President without ruining itself. He might indeed have lost the support of some of its worst elements, but he would have gained on the other side the full confidence and aid of a much larger number of patriotic men who stood ready, without regard to political antecedents, to rally around a thoroughgoing reformer. His party would then have been morally as well as numerically stronger than it is to-day. This, I think, would have been the result; but even if such expectations had not been entirely fulfilled, certain it is that by the example of such conduct President Cleveland would have rendered a far greater service to the cause of healthy politics and good government in America than by anything else he has done or could have done.

In view of the departures from the standards set up by