Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 6.djvu/443

Rh lies, and lies alone, in the courageous independence of the individual citizen.

And with what words of fire he addressed the representatives of the press, he himself being a working journalist:

I need not be told that an editor may be an honest partisan. We all probably belong to a party not alone in great emergencies of the state, but upon general principles and tendencies of government we must all take sides. Naturally the army in whose ranks we march becomes identified with the cause. Its colors, its music, its battlecries, become those of the cause itself. So a man comes to confound his party with his country, and to be wholly partisan seems to him to be only patriotic. Associated with illustrious achievements for his country and for mankind, the party name becomes as sweet to his ear and heart as, after famous victories, the name of his regiment to a soldier. But this is only the romantic and poetic aspect of one of the greatest perils to popular government. We liken a party to an army, and the phrases of an election are military terms. But an army is not a cause; it is merely an agency. A party is not a principle and an end; it is only a means. It is the abject servility which is bred by the military spirit that has made a standing army the standing threat of liberty. As the servility of the military spirit is a standing peril of liberty, so the servility of party spirit is the standing peril of popular government. The servility to party spirit is the abdication of that moral leadership of opinion which is the great function of the political press. It is a subserviency which destroys the independence of the paper; but it does not save the party. There is not a party in the history of this country which has been utterly overthrown, that might not have survived long and victoriously, if its press had been courageously independent. The press submits to be led by party leaders, while its duty is to lead leaders. They dare to disgrace their party, to expose it to humiliation and defeat, because they count upon the slavery of the party press. The press is never a more benefi-