Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 5.djvu/196

172 the productions of our industries, but the working of our political institutions, our morals, our customs, our manners, our ways of thinking, all the fruits of our civilization. The patriotic American, mindful of the honor of his country, asks himself with anxious interest how the spectacle of the passage of our National Government from the control of one party to that of another will strike these keen observers, and how their experiences, communicated to the world, will affect the standing of this Republic in the opinion of civilized mankind.

Imagine such men to go to Washington in order to look into the machinery of what may without exaggeration in some respects be called the greatest, and certainly the freest Government on earth—the one which ought to be the model Government of the world. Imagine them to find the National capital occupied by eager crowds clamoring for the public offices as the hireling soldiery of past centuries may have clamored for the booty of a town taken by assault. Imagine them to find the President of the United States, the greatest elected officer in the world, literally besieged by the throng of office-hunters demanding his instant attention. Imagine them to see the President, as well as the Secretary of the Treasury, at a moment when the financial interests of this people of sixty-five millions are drifting into the perils of a great crisis, obliged to confess that the place-hunting invasion does not leave the highest officers of the Government time quietly to study the pressing dangers of the situation and the means to avert them. Imagine the observers to inquire into the “claims” of the impetuous office-hunters, and to find in an overwhelming majority of cases mere party service urged as their only title to public employment, coupled with an impatient demand that all officers of different politics be instantly ousted to make room for the victors. Imagine them to see Senators