Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 4.djvu/71

Rh generally, whose first desire it must be to see the public business of the Government administered in an honest and intelligent way, will, therefore, have no reason to fear sudden and fitful revulsions in the organization of the administrative machinery, as the distribution of the spoils among the victors after Democratic success would inevitably be. This is the least advantage we may expect with certainty; but that advantage is so great that no man of sense will fail to appreciate it. Of the greater, more thoroughgoing and permanent reforms which I have long considered not only necessary but also practicable, and which have been attempted and in part carried out, it may be said that so far their advocates have made themselves heard only on the Republican side, and that at present there appears to be no other organization of power in which they can be worked for with any hope of success. That this work will not be given up, is certain, while, on the Democratic side, we have no reason to look for anything else than a complete relapse into those barbarous methods which in former times have proved so demoralizing as well as expensive.

And now I appeal to the conservative citizens of the Republic, to you who desire the public faith sacredly maintained, where will you go? Can you, in view of present circumstances, conscientiously go to the Democratic party? You will indeed find there not a few men who think as you do; but with them, you will find closely allied in party interest all those elements to whom our national obligations are the football of momentary advantage. You will find on that side every State that has repudiated or speaks of repudiating its public debt; you will find there all those who decried the public creditor as the public enemy, and whom no loyal tradition and impulse attaches to the national honor. You will find there a party, inside of which the public faith has still to