Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 5.djvu/446

422 solemnly pledged itself in its platform to enforce that law “honestly and thoroughly.” To the charge that you are repudiating this long-standing and important part of the Republican creed, and that you are urging the Republican party to break its pledge, you have only this defense:

In regard to civil service reform I will say that as the Republican party gave to the country the civil service law, that party is its best interpreter. . . . At best the interpretation of the present civil service law is not a fundamental political tenet, but simply a question of opinion. If you will read carefully the plank in the last Republican platform you will observe that it demands that “it [the civil service law] shall be thoroughly and honestly enforced.” That is the very issue I have raised. I have contended and still contend that Grover Cleveland did not honestly enforce the law, but prostituted it to partisan ends.

Not a “fundamental political tenet” but a mere “matter of opinion”? Let us see. The Republican platform must be quoted to you again to make you fully appreciate it: “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.” Have you ever known any platform pledge of greater clearness and force? It is not, as most platform declarations are, a more or less vague expression of sentiment or general intention. It is exceptionally definite, specific and unequivocal, more so than any protective tariff plank ever was. There cannot be the shadow of a doubt as to what the civil service law is; for it stands on the statute book. There can be no question as to what the enforcement of the law means, for the records of two Republican and two Democratic Administrations show it. There can be no doubt as to