Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 5.djvu/131

Rh no matter whether they are shared by others or not; may refuse to stoop to the low arts by which, according to the current notion of the time, a following must be organized and support must be won; may not be everything to everybody, but may be himself in the best sense of the term; and may just because of all this be preferred to all others and chosen at the command of an overwhelming public opinion for the highest honor a party can bestow. Here is your example! Here is the road to public usefulness and distinction and success with honor!”

This is the true significance of Mr. Cleveland's nomination, and this will be the highest significance of his election by the people. Think out, I pray you, what such an object-lesson will be worth to the future of the Republic; what a new courage it will infuse into our political life; how it will clear away the miasma of demoralizing examples, impressions and experiences; how it will put to shame that pusillanimous despondency, that dreary pessimism that always despairs of the Republic, and hampers so many useful endeavors; how it will strengthen the confidence of the people in their own power for good; how it will lift up the spirit of the doubter, and ennoble the ambition of the aspiring; how it will elevate the ideals of our young generation, and attract again to political life so many who might be eminently useful but have turned away in disgust!

I repeat, since the end of the civil war there has been no event in our political history so full of good promise, hope and encouragement as Mr. Cleveland's nomination, and so it will stand in the annals of the Republic if ratified by the popular vote. That it be so ratified is indeed an essential condition of its effect; for if it could be said that the uprising of a healthy public opinion might perhaps be potent enough to bring about the nomination of a