New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1880-07-21
OPENING TIE INDIANA CANVASS.

We print on another page a large part OF the
sneech of the Hon. Carl Schurz, delivered yes
terday at indianapolis. AS one of the earliest
efforts on the stump in the l esent canvass 10y
a Republican orator of National reputation, it
has peculiar interest. Opening speeches are
always important. People look to them for
indications OF the drift the canvass is to take,
and closely scan the positions they assume anu
the views they advocate. With the exception
of the Hon. GLENN w. ScOfeld Register of
the Treasury, who lately made a short and adj
mirabIe address to his Pennsylvania neighbors
the Secretary of the Interior is the first person
closely associated with President Hayes's Adj
mnjstration to take the stump for Garfield and
Arthur. His speech will be accepted as an evil
dence of the cordial interest taken by the Ad
mjnistration in the success of the Chicago
ticket. Its reference at the outset to the
course of the Hayes Government will remind
Republicans of a circumstance upon which as a
party they have reason TO congratulate
themselves-they are not obliged to 90 into
this fight defending the Washington author
tiles. President Hayes and his advisers
have. of course, erred in some matters of judg
ment and detail, but the party which
nlaced them in power does not need TO
onolocize fol-, them. 1t carries no load of re-
proach OF suspicion which they have put upon
it. but is free to wage an offensive battle
against the Democracy.
A strong point in the speech is the picture of
tbe might General Hancock would be in if he
should be elected. Without experience in civil
affairs. with no fixed ideas on any question Of
pubic policy, and no record of expressed
In Ia no NO ha hv al
the motley elements which make up the De-
mOcracy, each clamOring for recognition. Lam
ders and his Indiana inflationists, Scion Chase
and his Maine fiat-mODey lunatics, the hardest
of hard-money men from New York, the freest
Of free-traders from Illinois, the stlffest OF pro-
teetiopists from Pennsylvania, all would press
upon him, demanding that he carry out their
notions, and grasping for public plumber with
an appetite simulated by twenty years exclu-
sion from power. This is the situation which
would have to be faced by this soldier, wholly
ignorant of political science and management,
and without education save that of the military
academy. the camp and the barrack. Would
the public faith be maintained by hint Who
knows? Who can predict that 1t would be,
when Sam Cary was among the first to wish him
success. and General Ewing. Landers and Ben
Rutler arc among his ardent supporters7 Would
resumption be maintained. and the business of
the country protected Who can say, in view
Of all the bold and dishonest financial schemes
the Democratic party has engendered And
what would become of the civil service9 On
this point there is no Obscurity. The Demo-
cratic maxim that ito the .victors belong the
aspoilso would be carried out to the letter.
Every incumbent In the seventy or eighty
thousand Government Offices would be forthwith
discharged TO make room for greedy crowds of
ignorant, incompetent Democratic politicians.
Thus the whole administrative machinery
would be disorganized at one blow by the
sudden substitution of raw hands for tried and
skilful public servants
Mr.. Schurz makes striking contrast be-
tween General Hancock. the man without civic
training and without known opinions on any
question likely to come before the Admnistra-
ton and General Garfield, the wise, consistent
statesman, whose record is long and broad and