Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 5.djvu/102

78 were employed to an extent never heard of before? And if it be true, as has been said, that the McKinley tariff bill was nothing but a bill to reward the signers to the campaign fund and to induce further contributions, does not Senator Ingalls simply speak for those who hold that this is a perfectly proper measure of political war? Behold this spectacle: A few months ago the Republican State convention of Pennsylvania, the high-tariff State par excellence, adopted jubilantly the following resolution: “For the chairman of our National Committee, M. S. Quay, we feel a lasting sense of gratitude for his matchless services in the last campaign. As a citizen, a member of the general assembly, as secretary of the Commonwealth under two succeeding administrations, as State treasurer by the overwhelming suffrage of his fellow-citizens, and as Senator of the United States, he has won and retains our respect and confidence.” Who is this great man, and what were his matchless services? Is he a statesman who has originated beneficent laws or systems of administration, or who eloquently advocated great truths, or who boldly attacked and abolished grievous abuses? To say this of Mr. Quay would be a roaring joke. No. His “matchless services” consisted merely in collecting an enormous campaign fund, or in enlisting pious men to do it for him, and in employing that money to “hire Hessians,” to “purchase mercenaries,” and to do various other things for his party, “in which the Decalogue and the Golden Rule had no place.” And more than that. He is the same Quay who for months has stood arraigned before the whole country, by responsible men, among other disgraceful things, of having, while a high officer of this State, taken $200,000 out of the public treasury, of having used that money in speculation and lost it, and of having been saved from exposure and the penitentiary by friends who replaced the money for him. He is the