Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume Two).djvu/178

 office is entitled to high respect, as one of the most important and exalted functions in the world, and its occupant should not be unjustly or even flippantly remarked upon. But it must not be forgotten that this is a Republic to be governed by a well-informed public opinion, and that this public opinion is to receive its light through the freest possible discussion and criticism of public affairs and policies and men. And to exempt the president on account of the dignity of his office from that critical discussion would be entirely incompatible with the nature of our government. The presidential office is reached through a nomination by a political party convention and the ratification thereof by the popular vote. It is the usual ambition of a president ending his first term of office to secure a second, and during the second to secure the presidency for another member of his party. The people have to decide by their votes whether they consider it their interest to gratify that ambition or not; and they have to make that decision on the best information they can get. They are clearly entitled to that information. Indeed, the information or advice presented to them by an unrestrained freedom of speech and press is not all trustworthy. But it is to be sifted by free discussion, and it cannot be sifted in any other way. Under these circumstances, to set up the president as a superior being to be protected by legal restrictions and penalties against all unhandsome criticism would fit governments in which the fiction of the divine right of kings prevails, but not ours.

It would be a dangerous thing for our presidents themselves, in the first place, because it would greatly obscure their judgment of public opinion. Even under present circumstances, they are, on account of the power they wield and the favors they have to bestow, surrounded by an atmosphere of