Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 6.djvu/232

208 community, which should not be unnecessarily disquieted, especially not by those in authority. I am sure many of your fellow-citizens are anxious to know what you may have to say on this aspect of the situation. 



Sir: The object of my open letter of September 1st was, by offering a means of escape from the dangers pointed out by you, to call public attention to the fact that the present campaign is by no means a repetition of that of 1896, and that the money question now has no right to stand in the way of a fair consideration of other important questions on their own merits. I thank you for the courtesy of your answer, but I must regret that, instead of favorably receiving my well-meant suggestion, it only shows to what lengths partisan zeal will go in the attempt to frighten the people into the belief that only Mr. McKinley's reëlection can save them from general ruin, and that no objection to him in any other respect must have any weight with them.

To help on the alarm, you quote from a speech made by me in 1896, showing what disastrous consequences I predicted would be brought on by the election of Mr. Bryan. I believed at the time, and I believe now, that those consequences would have followed had Mr. Bryan been elected then, after a campaign turning wholly upon the financial issue, with no existing law seriously to hamper him, and with majorities in both houses of Congress prospectively at his back. But you know as well as I do that circumstances have essentially changed, and that there is an immense difference between a President so