The Writings of Carl Schurz/To Alton B. Parker, July 11th, 1904
TO ALTON B. PARKER[1]
Not as a partisan but as an independent I feel bound to express to you my sincere respect. The principles and opinions you are known to hold as to the currency, imperialism, the tariff and the civil service strongly commend themselves to men of my way of thinking. But if, as an independent, I was in doubt for what candidate my duty commanded me to vote, your action on the terms of your nomination has solved that doubt. It has rendered to the Republic a double service of incalculable value. No candid man will deny that it has finally removed the gold question from the reach of party controversy, and thus relieved the business world of an element of peculiarly unhealthy agitation, a relief so evident that any attempt to continue that agitation artificially must now be condemned by every good citizen as hardly less than criminal.
And secondly, your manly declaration that you would accept the offered nomination for the Presidency only in harmony with your sense of public duty has set up before the American people one of the standards of moral courage and civic virtue of which our public life stands most urgently in need. The higher you lift those standards, the higher you will rise in the esteem and confidence of your countrymen, and the more surely they will hold you worthy of their highest trust.
Wishing you all the success you so well deserve,
I am sincerely yours.
- ↑ Democratic nominee for the Presidency.