Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 5.djvu/435

Rh reputable set of “traitors,” “renegades” and “political hermaphrodites”? Would he urge his party to do a disgraceful thing by abolishing a law it had promised honestly and thoroughly to enforce and even, wherever practicable, to extend? Would he seek to induce a Republican President to become a dishonest man by breaking his plighted word? And just this, Senator, is what you are doing.

Is that your conception of good Republicanism? Do you call that supporting your President in the discharge of his sacred duty? You seem to pose as a man who votes the Republican ticket “as a matter of political principle.” What would you have to say if some party man more faithful than yourself to that which after all gives to a party its true value—its principles and pledges and good faith—arraigned you as a “traitor,” a “renegade,” a “political hermaphrodite” and all that, on account of your repudiation of one of the essential parts of the Republican platform and your opposition to President McKinley's faithful endeavor to carry it out?

Here, Senator, I will leave you to your reflections, with the assurance that, if you wish to continue this conversation, I shall with pleasure be at your service. 



&emsp;

I am unable to refrain from thanking you for your exquisite dissection of poor Gallinger. It is the most polite and gentleman-like flaying of a selfish and ignorant politician that I have seen or known of since the days of Junius. You have again added a most valuable contribution to public education upon the most important topic of the day. Civil service is the keynote and the one remedy for all our political ills, and you are now the high-priest of this religion. I hope that [George