Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 5.djvu/171

Rh the one thing which even the most daring claimant but seldom dares to claim. He does, indeed, claim that he can do one thing as well as another if he is only permitted to try; like the Yankee who, when asked whether he could play the violin, answered, he guessed so, but he had never tried. So the officeseeker is ready to try his hand at administration. In most cases the claim to office is based upon party service, the payment or collection of money for the campaign chest, the making of speeches or other political work deserving reward. And this claim is fortified with all sorts of reasons appealing to sympathy. Here is a patriot who has a large family to support and needs a post-office to help him along. There is another who wants a consulship abroad because he himself or his wife is in bad health and a change of climate would do good, or his daughter has a fine talent for music which should be developed in Europe. There is still another who wants the prestige of official recognition in the shape of a collectorship or a marshalship to enable him to exercise still higher political authority over the minds of his fellow-citizens. A man in Kansas, so the papers report, recently urged the appointment of his daughter to some place in the postal service in connection with the World's Exhibition at Chicago, on the ground that she would be the largest public servant in the country, weighing four hundred and seventy-two pounds. And for aught I know, this qualification is as good as many of those seriously urged.

This spoils carnival has been going on since the 4th of March, and it is not ended yet. In a measure it continues through the larger part of the Presidential term. I affirm and maintain that the American people are heartily disgusted with a spectacle so absurd, so ludicrous and at the same time so barbarous, shameful and revolting—a spectacle exposing the American name to ridicule and reproach. When speaking here of the American people I