Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 5.djvu/266

242 I shall vote, and so will you, against that amendment, and with entire consistency we can put him and it into the same grave.

He pretends also that his defeat will mean a victory of the American Protective Association. Nonsense again. That proscriptive secret society is a waning power already, and we shall all coöperate to put it into the same grave as a good third. He further pretends that a defeat of the regular Democratic organization in New York State this year will necessarily draw after it defeat in the Presidential election two years hence. More nonsense. It is history that several times the party defeated in New York one year was victorious in the National field one or two years afterwards.

This is Hill's cry, and it is Tammany's cry likewise. Being one and the same, they have an equal right to it. They cannot be expected to remember that the numerical strength of a party always depends in the long run upon its moral strength. It is, nevertheless, an overruling truth. And in order to recover the necessary moral strength, the Democratic party needs not more Tammany and more Hill, but a good deal less of them. To make the Democratic ship swim again, the party must throw its Jonahs overboard. It must bury them in the waves, out of sight, and, if that be possible, out of memory. This is what Hill's defeat will mean.

Now let us see what his victory would signify. Listen to me a moment, Democrats, who constantly affirm their zeal for reform, clean politics and good government, but now tell us that the good of the Democratic party requires Hill's election. Have you considered what the consequences would be if you succeeded in seducing a sufficient number of anti-Tammany and anti-Hill Democrats to give him a majority? As to our municipal struggle, do you really mean merely to hit Tammany without hurting