Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 5.djvu/498

474 without losing the free hand and the immense benefits of the neutral position, and without endangering the moral vitality of our Republic. Nothing will, it seems to me, be more apt to keep us in the right way than the constantly and emphatically reiterated declaration by our Government that this is a war of humanity and that it will not be permitted to fall from the high level of the original purpose.

It might be objected that you cannot predict or forestall what Congress may do when the time comes for making peace. I think you can. If during the war you constantly keep before the popular conscience, as well as before the world abroad, the original declaration that this is a war for the independence of Cuba and not for conquest—it being an incontestable fact that if the war had been announced as a war of conquest the American people would most certainly not have consented to it—you will form and lead public opinion, you will neutralize the wild talk about “imperial policies” now going on, and you will by the irresistible moral force of simple honesty and good faith effectually determine the action of Congress beforehand. And I am sure public sentiment will be overwhelmingly on your side.

Last week I journeyed to St. Louis and back. At St. Louis and on the way I saw quite a number of respectable persons, conversations with whom convinced me that the war, while it has a certain surface popularity, is beneath that surface as unpopular in the West as it is in New York. At St. Louis I met Colonel Leighton, the president of the National Sound-Money League, who told me that he had recently made an extensive journey with Mr. Stuyvesant Fish, the president of the Illinois Central Railroad; that they had visited several cities, especially Southern, and talked with a great many people, and that, while all were loyally supporting the Government, they