Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 4.djvu/68

34 them landed in the Democratic party, as the Democratic Greenbackers, who for a time became independents, mostly went back there. General Weaver and his followers are still in the intermediate state, but will no doubt finally materialize as sound Democrats.

But while the Democratic party has been attracting such elements, the Republican party has been either converting them to sound principles or ejecting them until they almost wholly disappeared among its component parts. Thus it has become emphatically the protector of the national faith and the party of sound money. I have no doubt that the disagreements still existing upon financial subjects of minor importance in the Republican party will be solved in the same way after mature discussion. This tendency in the Republican party has been owing to some very characteristic causes. It has not only a predominance of good sense and a thoughtful desire to be right and an endeavor to do that which was best for the general interests of the people, but it was also the traditional feeling grown out of the loyal attitude of the Republican party during the civil war in support of the Union and the preservation of the Republic—the feeling of solemn duty that all the obligations contracted for so sacred a purpose must be and remain sacred and inviolable. Therefore, it was that the idea of repudiation never could obtain a permanent foothold among Republicans, whatever the vacillations of individual minds during a limited period may have been. And the abhorrence of repudiation in our discussions of the financial problem inspired the most powerful arguments that brought the Republican masses to a sound appreciation of the money question.

In this way the Republican party, steadily progressing in an enlightened perception of the principles of sound finance, has become the reliable sound-money party of the