Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 6.djvu/283

Rh that nothing will be done to undo what has now been partially accomplished.

But should President McKinley be reëlected, with an opposition majority in the House of Representatives, that opposition majority could most assuredly be counted upon to act as an opposition majority always does act, in direct hostility to the Administration. Imperialism would then become a party issue.

Moreover, it appears to me, as it does to many others, that, in case of the reëlection of President McKinley, an opposition House of Representatives would, from almost every point of view, be a National safeguard. It would place a most salutary check on the proposed permanent increase of the Army; it would put a shipping subsidy bill out of the question; it would exercise a close and critical supervision over every act of the Administration; it would bring to light the misdeeds and abuses incident to the system of dependencies now carefully hidden from notice; it would at once consolidate and educate an opposition; finally, it would make it impossible for the Administration even for a moment to assert that its policy during the last four years had been approved by the country.

On the other hand, the defeat of Mr. Bryan will close the silver debate. His party this year most reluctantly accepted the issue of “16-to-1,” and the overthrow at the polls of its exponent would finally extinguish that heresy, making of it a laughing stock.

So far as the free-coinage-of-silver question, therefore, is concerned, the election of an opposition House would involve no danger. By unanimous consent, that question would be relegated to the graveyard of issues dead beyond thought of resurrection.

I think it not unreasonable to say that, where one man, who would at any time have voted for the reëlection of President McKinley, could now be induced to vote for Mr. Bryan, at least ten men would see the advantage to be found in an opposition House of Representatives, and could be induced to act accordingly. Large numbers of voters, who will not go to the length of voting for all that “Bryanism” includes and