Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 6.djvu/383

Rh

&emsp; , Esq., General Secretary Parker Independent Clubs.

Dear Sir: I have received many invitations to address public meetings in the present election campaign, with which, I regret to say, I am unable to comply. But I have put on paper an expression of my views on some of the subjects at present under public discussion, and this I submit to you for such use as you may see fit to make of it.

Fifty years of political study and experience in this country have convinced me that if the American people mean to preserve the blessings of their free institutions, they must always keep in view certain truths.

The government of this Republic must be a government of law, not a government of adventure.

It must be a government for the general benefit, not a government of favor for the promotion of special interests.

It must be a government not permanently controlled by one political party, but by different parties alternating in the possession of power.

There never was a political party in a democracy, however virtuous it may have been at the start, that was not by long possession of power more or less corrupted and made arrogant and arbitrary.

The things most dangerous to this Republic are excessive party spirit, corruption and false patriotism, which is another name for national vanity, or greed under the guise of national pride.

The party spirit which regards party success not merely as a means to a higher end, but as the end itself, and which puts abject obedience to party behest above the