Harper's Weekly/Mr. Schurz's Letter 2

by Harper's Weekly

MR. SCHURZ'S LETTER.

It is a real misfortune for the thousands who would have heard him that Mr. Carl Schurz is prevented by the condition of his health from speaking in the present canvass, for he is one of the few orators left to us to whom it is a keen intellectual pleasure to listen. But the very full statement of his views submitted in reply to the Brooklyn invitation will be very effective. As we remarked by the Tribune (July 22, 1880 — the date is significant), “It is one secret of his power in political discussion that he concentrates his efforts upon the vital point of the controversy.” He has done so in the present instance. “The vital point of the controversy” between the Republican high-protectionist party and the Democratic revenue-reform party is, in Mr. Schurz's judgment, and is in fact, the effect of the policy of the former upon its morals and on the morals of the country. Protection, either to infant industries or to American labor, is no longer really an issue, because our industries are no longer infants, and our labor does not now and never did need protection from the less-efficient labor of other countries. Protection now has come to be a partnership — it would not be unfair to say a conspiracy — between a limited number of men willing and able to pay largely for legislative favors, and the leaders of the party that has been willing and able in the past to sell those favors, and would like to extend its business.

It takes Mr. Schurz's admirable power of close analysis and clear succinct statement to trace the various channels in which this combination spreads demoralization. It is needless to say that he does not charge all Republicans with being aware of either the tacit bargain or its consequences, but he makes the existence of the bargain perfectly plain. And he shows that the one dominant fact in this contest is that the more closely the Republicans adhere to their essential policy, the worse must be the demoralizing effect, and, per contra, the more faithful the Democratic party is to its avowed principles, the more wholesome and beneficent must be its influence on the country.

Re-enforcing the conclusion from this central fact, is the evidence of the tendencies of the respective parties afforded by the manner in which their candidates were nominated. Mr. Cleveland was named despite the opposition of a large number of the active politicians of his party, including the entire regular delegation from his own State — a thing wholly unprecedented in the history of any political party in the Union — solely because what Mr. Schurz happily describes as the Democratic “people” compelled the nomination; and this was due not to any of the ordinary sources of popularity, not to “magnetism” or brilliancy or eloquence, much less to Mr. Cleveland's art in seeking popular admiration, for he is singularly wanting in all, but to the profound and general confidence in his character. Mr. Harrison, on the other hand, is certainly not popular either in his own party or outside of it, and was nominated largely through the efforts of his own appointees. Conceding everything that his friends claim as to his probity in private life, and the skill and judgment of his public administration, he still remains the spoilsmen's candidate of a party hopelessly wedded to a demoralizing policy, while Mr. Cleveland is the candidate, by free and unforced choice, of a party committed to a beneficent and needed reform. That is the lesson that Mr. Schurz develops in the letter that every voter should read.