Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 6.djvu/285

Rh to maintain its convictions of duty when brought face to face with a situation of a warlike character, and we know also from experience that an Executive not overscrupulous in the choice of means has more than once succeeded, by the employment of its resources of influence, in breaking an opposition not very strong in numbers.

I regret, therefore, not to be able to agree with you in thinking that a small Democratic majority in the House would be more constant in its opposition to imperialism with an imperialist, than with an anti-imperialist, in the Presidency, and that thus the election of an opposition House with a Republican Administration would “bring about every practical result the opponents of imperialism have in view.” You will admit that what you predict as probable to happen in case of Mr. McKinley's defeat is more or less conjectural, as all such predictions are. But we know what has happened, and we can, each one of us for himself, form an opinion as to whether we should do anything apt to be construed as an approval of it, and as an encouragement of a continuance of the same policy. It is indeed said that the reëlection of Mr. McKinley cannot be rightly understood as a popular approval of his so-called Philippine policy, because it will be well known that many voters supported him on other grounds, while they strongly condemned that policy.

However that may be, nothing is more certain than that Mr. McKinley's reëlection will—wrongfully, to be sure—be represented as a popular verdict and will be so accepted by a large part of the American people. The first man so to take it will be Mr. McKinley himself. Remember the election of 1896. It was well known that the money question, not the tariff question was the paramount issue of that campaign, and that hundreds of thousands of citizens who then supported him were