Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 5.djvu/255

Rh of the whole pension roll seems to us commendable. Then a method should be devised to make the intervention of the pension attorney between the applicant and the Pension Office unnecessary, and thus to disarm the principal agency of mischief. All such plans will, of course, find the greed of the pension attorney and the cowardice of the politician in their way. But it may dawn at last upon the politician that his cowardice is stupid. For while an earnest effort to reform the abuses of the pension system may cost him, on the one hand, a few votes of interested persons, it will, on the other hand, win him the favor and support of a much greater number of thoughtful and patriotic men. The average American is certainly willing that every deserving soldier who suffered in the war shall have his full share of honor and of the Nation's bounty; but he is not willing that the people should be plundered by the fraudulent practices of greedy pretenders and speculators, and he will be grateful to the public man who aids in delivering the country of this pest. 

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Many thanks for your letter received this morning. I am rejoiced to hear that you are determined to go ahead and that this rare opportunity will not be lost. You can now show the Democrats what their party ought to be in point of candidates as well as of principles. Would you not think it wise to put forth, together with your ticket, a platform embracing mainly these five points: honest government and pure elections, a sound currency, tariff reform, civil service reform and divorce of municipal affairs from party politics? A short and simple document of this kind, expressed in ringing language, might prove a great rallying cry for the party of the future. 