Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 5.djvu/264

240 of the State Democracy and of the Brooklyn reform Democrats to the late State convention. I should not wonder, for, being sure of an immense machine majority in that convention anyhow, which would have made the reformers absolutely powerless and at the same time harmless, the spider could generously invite the fly into his net. And now he is so generous as to permit all his opponents to vote for him. What more can you ask for?

It is said that he is courageous. No more courageous man in his circumstances than he. Only think of it: After all he has done, he still has the courage to call himself a Democrat! He still has the courage to show his face among decent people and actually to ask for the suffrages of patriotic and self-respecting men. Human intrepidity can hardly rise higher.

It is said—Mr. Coudert says so—that David B. Hill “represents in this contest everything we have fought for these last ten years.” I do not know whom Mr. Coudert means by “we.” For his own sake I hope he does not include himself. If he means by “we” such men as Dick Croker and Bill Sheehan and Barney Martin and Paddy Diwer, and that ilk of patriots, then I agree. What they have fought for these last ten years could indeed find no more brilliant representative than Dave Hill. To represent political methods which resulted in the building up of the most corrupt and despotic machine this State has ever known, and in such audacious frauds as the famous snap convention; to represent a political morality which flowered in the falsification of an election and a theft of the Senate majority, and in an attempt to seat a criminal on the highest State tribunal; to represent a Democratic partisanship which consists in systematic treachery to Democratic principles and measures, and in malignant attempts to break down a Democratic Administration all this to further the most selfish and devouring