Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 6.djvu/388

364 aid, of course, on the understanding that they continue to receive the old or greater favors of money value from the Government through the instrumentality of the political party in question. I know there are people who find this reciprocal arrangement perfectly natural and unobjectionable. They ask whether it is not quite proper that they should contribute money to keep in power the party which gives them laws enabling them to make more money, or that the party which they thus support with money should give them legislation to reimburse them with a profit. The question so put carries its answer with it. The very fact that some people call such a proceeding natural and unobjectionable only shows how that practice has confounded their moral principles. For what else is it than purchasing with money legislation that will give the purchaser more money? What else is it than corruption in the grossest and largest form? What else than a system of government based upon corruption? John Bright, one of the warmest friends this Republic ever had in England, and one of the best of men, once wisely said: “There is nothing in public affairs that tends more to make men dishonest than the system of protection. It was so in this country before our free trade era; it is so now in the United States.”

This political lewdness has already so much debauched the public mind that the corrupt business is done openly, without shame. The fact is notorious that the Republican party organization before every National election “fries the fat” out of its beneficiaries, with the understanding that the beneficiaries will be protected in the enjoyment of their benefits, if the yield of the frying process is satisfactory, and if not, not. The upshot is a combination of bribery and blackmail, carried on with hardly any concealment. In this very election campaign it has been the common talk how the protected interests