Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 4.djvu/561

Rh tariff will not succeed long, if they succeed at all. No free and spirited people will long endure such combinations when their nature has once been understood. It is therefore no mere fancy when I speak of an angry reaction not unlikely to come, causing sudden and sweeping changes without regard to immediate consequences, unless a policy of just and rational reform, such as proposed in President Cleveland's tariff message, be adopted in time. That angry reaction will be all the more probable if it should appear that the legislation against the Trusts, which is now being devised, will not remedy the evil as thoroughly or as promptly as the public interest demands.

All parties interested would, therefore, do well very calmly to consider whether the choice they have now to make, instead of being between tariff reform and no tariff reform, is not really between a moderate and easy change, beneficial to the industrial interests of the country, to be adopted now, and a sudden, violent and sweeping revulsion, doing rough justice in obedience to an exasperated popular feeling, unmindful of existing interests, to come in the near future. I am in favor of prudent and temperate reform, and wish to avoid the danger of abrupt, sweeping and possibly destructive changes. I am, there fore, in favor of the tariff policy proposed by Mr. Cleveland, and against that of the Republican party. And, in my humble opinion, the manufacturers as well as the laboring men will best serve their own interests if they act upon the same view of the subject.

Having said this, I am willing to repeat that, as I and probably most Independents think, President Cleveland would, by setting the example of strictest fidelity to all his reform pledges expressed and fairly implied, have rendered the Republic a greater service than he has done by any of his official acts. But that is no reason why we should overlook or underestimate the merit of the other things he