Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 6.djvu/277

Rh past; a policy cynically disdainful of the fact that it was the Declaration of Independence, with its proclamation of high principles, that made this Republic a really great and beneficent power in the world; a policy which at the very start broke the moral force of our Republic by mean treachery to its lofty professions; a policy which, beginning with criminal aggression, will need more and more criminal aggression for its sustenance; a policy which, living upon unjust rule by force abroad, will inevitably tend to unjust rule by force at home; a policy which, making sport of the vital principles of our organic law, cannot but run into more and more despotic usurpations; a policy which, utterly demoralizing this democracy working through universal suffrage by the destruction of its ideal beliefs and aspirations, will leave to our children, instead of a free, happy and peaceably powerful commonwealth, a mere sham Republic tossed and torn by wild passions and rapacious ambitions, and bound to sink in disorder, disaster and disgrace. To check this policy in its growth, if possible without delay, I believe to be the very first duty of the American citizen. Whatever it may cost to check it now, that cost will be far less than the cost will become if that policy be permitted to continue.

I cannot agree with some esteemed friends who think that the struggle against imperialism should now be suspended and that those in power should be kept there in order to avoid other troublesome risks. I do, indeed, not believe that, if now baffled, the efforts against imperialism will cease. They certainly will not, as the efforts against slavery, however often baffled, did not cease until their final triumph came through a tremendous crisis which perhaps might have been avoided had they succeeded earlier. But our efforts should not now be suspended, for weighty reasons.

One is this: There is but too much ground for believing