Page:Visit of the Hon. Carl Schurz to Boston, March 1881.pdf/64

Rh right direction, and believe that history will mark it as the turning point from demoralization to purity. Sneer at it as they may, denounce it as they will, they know that it is honored by the nation, and will remain a permanent obstacle to all attempts to restore the system of personal government,—that is, government for the benefit of certain persons, and not for the good of the whole people. Our gratitude for the past is joined with that other kind of gratitude, which has been cynically defined as “the sense of favors to come.” We look for your support and help in the great duties of the hour before us,—the permanent reform by law of the civil service, the industrial regeneration of the South, revision of the tariff, and, above all, ample protection for the freedom and purity of the ballot box, that palladium of American freedom. The civil service will become what we need, when no one is appointed to office but the man best fitted to do its duties, no one kept in office who does not perform its duties, and no one removed from office so long as he faithfully and ably fulfills its duties. And the rights of the people in elections will be vindicated, when law and public opinion concur to make it a crime of the blackest dye to obtain nominations by trickery, votes by bribery, or to tamper in any way with the returns. Such is the work before us, to which we trust our friend will lend his important influence.

This is by no means the first time that the people of Boston see his face, and hear his voice, and sym-