Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume Two).djvu/135

 the politicians by culpable indulgence. The virtue of many a public man has thus been victimized by the indulgence of his constituency. …

“It must be our principal object not only to catch the people's votes for our candidates, but to enlist in our cause the people's conscience. We must encourage moral independence in politics; we must admonish every man to think and reason for himself, to form his own convictions and to stand by them; we must entreat him never to accept, unseen and uninvestigated, the principles of others, even if they be our own. Let those who follow your lead believe in your words because what you say is true, and not merely because you say it. … Address yourself to their moral nature, and their consciences will enlighten their understanding. Then you will organize the party of independent men. This independence will keep the rank and file vigilant, and that vigilance will keep the leaders upright and honest. I know it will require incessant work to keep up something like discipline in such a party, but it will be an object worth working for; for such an organization will never become a mere tool in the hand of selfish ambition, and its discipline will never degenerate into a mere machinery of despotism. I know that volunteers will sometimes not fight as well as regular troops, and that drill will sometimes defeat mere enthusiasm. But enthusiasm also may be disciplined, and then it will be irresistible. …

“We must not hesitate to denounce every member of our own party who prostitutes his trust and power by dishonest and corrupt transactions, as a contemptible villain. And not only that, we must consider and treat him as a traitor to his party. What we can and must do, is to make all dishonest and corrupt practices high treason, and to take every such traitor and pitch him overboard, and condemn him to political death