Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 5.djvu/447

Rh the significance of the pledge to “extend” the law. That pledge cannot possibly mean anything else than the widening of the operation of the law, “wherever practicable,” beyond the limits within which it operated at the time the pledge was made. And it may be remarked, by the way, that under this pledge President McKinley, as a really faithful Republican, would not only have been bound, had President Cleveland's order of May 6, 1896, never been issued, to make substantially the same extensions provided for by that order, but that he is now bound to go even beyond them, “wherever practicable.”

And in the face of all this you assert that the interpretation of the civil service law and of the Republican pledge concerning it is a mere matter of “opinion” and that the party itself is the best interpreter. Do you mean to say that the party itself may interpret the pledges upon which it asked for the people's votes, just as it may please? Is not this attributing to the political party the doctrine of the divine right of kings—the officers of the government being responsible only to the king, and the king being responsible only to himself or, as he expresses it, to his God? To this point you carry the doctrine of the divine right of party.

How President McKinley, as a faithful Republican and an upright gentleman, interprets the pledge, we all know. But how do you advise the Republican party to “interpret” its pledge? You pretend to great indignation at the wicked Grover Cleveland who, as you say, “did not honestly enforce the law but prostituted it to partisan ends.” Of course, you wish your constituents to understand that you fairly yearn for a really “honest” enforcement of the law and that “partisan ends” are a horror to your patriotic soul. Do you not again presume upon the supposed ignorance of the people of New Hampshire? They need only open the Congressional Record