Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 5.djvu/260

236 city”? What does it mean when Mr. Straus—altogether too good a man to be seen in such company—relinquished his candidacy because the city ticket was openly sacrificed to Hill? What does it mean that the shouts for Hill in Tammany meetings are so much louder than those for Grant? It means that the battle against Tammany is really fought in the contest for the governorship. It means that every vote for Hill is a vote for protecting Tammany Hall against any legislation unfavorable to its interests. It means that every vote for Hill is a vote for shielding the Tammany chiefs of the municipal departments from any effective interference by the reform mayor. It means that every vote for Hill is a vote for stripping the reform mayor of the power necessary to clean out the Augean stables of Tammany corruption. It means that every vote for Hill is a vote for enabling Tammany to preserve the substance of its power for a resumption of its nefarious business when the storm of indignant excitement will have blown over. It means that every vote for Hill is a vote for defrauding this patriotic uprising of the good citizens of New York of its most valuable fruit. It means, in one word, that every vote for Hill is a vote for Tammany Hall, and all that it implies.

That a Tammany man should vote for Hill with zest is natural. That an unreasoning, bigoted partisan, or a person ignorant of his record, should vote for him, I can understand. But when I hear professed anti-Tammany Democrats, men who have preached political morality and reform, men who have with burning words held up Hill's villainies to public scorn, men who have denounced him for demoralizing and disgracing his party, men who have called upon their fellow-Democrats to organize against the scandals of his leadership, and who stood at the very head of the organization so formed—when I hear such men appeal to that very organization, at this solemn