Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 5.djvu/433

Rh The civil service law was placed on the statute book by the Republican party, which has always sustained it, and we renew our repeated declarations that it shall be thoroughly and honestly enforced, and extended, wherever practicable.

Here, then, Senator, you are confronted by the Republican platform testifying the fact that the civil service law was put on the statute book, not by your “traitors,” “renegades” and “hermaphrodites,” but by the Republican party itself; that the Republican party, evidently proud of the achievement, wishes the whole American people to understand this, and that it solemnly promises to enforce that law “thoroughly and honestly,” and even more, to “extend it wherever practicable.” Nor can it be unknown to you that upon this platform Mr. William McKinley was nominated as the Republican candidate for the Presidency; that he made the pledge of the party his own, and emphatically declared that there would be “no backward step”; and that after having become President, Mr. McKinley, as an honest gentleman, promptly proceeded to do some things clearly manifesting his determination to be true to the pledge of the party and his own. Why are you so silent about all this, Senator, in your letters to your constituents? Are you treating them fairly?

You profess to be a faithful Republican, a strict party man; at least you are not sparing in opprobrious epithets when assailing those who are not. A really good and strict and faithful party man regards the party platform as his political gospel. You cannot object to being judged by your own standard. Do you think he deserves the name of a good and strict and faithful party man who only wears the party name and votes the party tickets, but scorns the party s principles and pledges? Does it not appear to you that persons who do that call themselves true party men under false pretenses, and lay