Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 6.djvu/389

Rh and their affiliations—such as some of the Trusts and rich financial firms—are urged to make another money investment in the Republican party, with the prospect of a lucrative return.

The effect of such practices, raised to the dignity of a system, upon our public life is obvious. The “use of money in elections” is an old complaint which has troubled many a patriotic heart. But a generation ago the evil was a trifle compared with what it is now. The amount of money now needed by the Republican party for running a National campaign is enormous, and constantly increasing. I say “needed,” for as the constituencies have become accustomed to a lavish flow of money in the political market, and as the appetite grows with eating, the baneful evil grows in virulence from election to election. And this appalling spreading of the old abuse is distinctly owing to that economic policy which required a national system of corruption, methodically organized on the grandest of scales, to enable the beneficiaries of government favor to secure themselves in the enjoyment of their benefits. Nor is it hazardous to predict that this evil will grow and grow, and bring forth still more direful results, unless we put a stop to that economic policy.

Here I may be asked whether there is not also corruption in places where the Opposition, the Democratic party, rules. Unquestionably there is altogether too much of it. But that corruption is local, sporadic, subject to be attacked and put down by the action of local sentiment. But as it must be recognized to be, it is not inherent in a system of national policy. It is not entrenched in immensely powerful interests upheld by the Government. It has brought forth nothing like the condition of things existing in that state in which the worship of the fetich of the protective tariff seems almost