Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 5.djvu/123

Rh methods of raising money in elections, one that is farther reaching and threatening in the long run more pernicious results than the systematic investment of money by a great financial power in a political party, to obtain through that party legislation securing large pecuniary profits to the investor? Can you imagine a more effective machinery for the use of money in elections, and all that it implies, than a great political party lavishly subsidized by rich men and corporations who seek through it the enactment or continuance of laws to make them still richer? I say to you, the most fertile genius of evil in his most ambitious flights of fancy cannot invent a surer method fatally to demoralize the political life of a people governing themselves by universal suffrage, than a policy putting up a stake of untold millions of money in its general elections, that stake of untold millions to be won by a strong financial power through the victory of one of the political parties of the land. The result is inevitable.

You may object that after all there are many good men among the leaders and the rank and file of the Republican party. Unquestionably there are. Let me be clearly understood. I certainly do not mean to say that a man holding to the theory of protection may not be a perfectly honorable man, and that the rank and file of the protection party may not very largely consist of perfectly honest and patriotic people, meaning only to benefit the country by the policy they support. It is undoubtedly so. I do not mean to say that there has been no corruption and no use of money in elections on the Democratic side, for I believe there has been. I do not mean to say that the protective policy is the original source of corruption and of the use of money in elections, for I know a certain measure of both these evils has existed, and may still exist, without it. Neither do I mean to say that the plenipotentiaries of the Republican Party and the