Frederic Bancroft and William A. Dunning

“ When Schurz left, Blaine accompanied him. As they neared Lafayette Square, Blaine realized that, as his usual methods were unavailing, it was time for a grand coup. Growing more and more friendly and ardent, still without the desired effect, he threw his arm almost around his companion's neck, and looking him appealingly in the face said, “Carl, you won't oppose me, will you?”
Meantime Schurz had been revolving in his mind a plan for a conference of Independents to devise measures “to prevent the campaign of the centennial year from becoming a mere scramble of politicians for the spoils.” ”

“ I earnestly deprecate the cry we have heard so frequently: ‘Anybody to beat Grant!’ There is something more wanted than to beat Grant.” Mere availability he begged the convention to leave out of account in their choice of a candidate; “superior intelligence coupled with superior virtue” must be sought. Not merely an honest and a popular man, but a statesman is needed. In seeking for such a man “let us despise, as unworthy of our cause, the tricky manipulations by which, to the detriment of the Republic, political bodies have so often been controlled.” ”

“ It can render inestimable service to the cause of good government by wielding the balance of power it holds with justice and wisdom, and from purely patriotic motives. Ours must necessarily be, in a certain sense, a government of and by political parties; but it will be all the better for the country if it is a party government tempered by an unselfish, enlightened, and patriotic independent opinion. ”

“ I have never betrayed those who elevated me to power, and sought to use that power for their destruction.” Schurz's reply combined sharp criticism with an epigrammatic expression of his philosophy of political action: “I want him to point out in my record a single principle that I ever betrayed. I want him to show in the platforms of policy I have favored a single contradiction. He will not find one. He has never left his party; I have never betrayed my principles. ”

“ By this time the approach of the presidential campaign was engrossing his attention. The Garfield-Arthur term had been peculiarly favorable to the growth of independence in politics. Garfield's assassination, the Pendleton act greatly extending the civil-service reform, the overwhelming defeat of the Republican “machines” in Pennsylvania and New York in the State elections of 1882—formed a sequence of events that could not be misinterpreted. The grosser evils, at least, of spoils politics were under the ban of strongly aroused public opinion. ”

“ Grant and his faction carry at present everything before them by force majeure. The organization of the Republican party is almost entirely in the hands of the office-holders and ruled by selfish interest. In all you say about Grant, you are unquestionably right. You ask me, what can be done to avert the calamity of another four years of such rule? I answer, we must act with energy. I am fully determined not to sit still. I doubt now whether we can prevent his nomination. The men who surround him stop at nothing. But I shall not support him. Neither shall I support the Democrats. ”

“ Abating nothing of his confidence that reconstruction through negro suffrage had been the least objectionable policy, he declined to recognize that the maintenance of Republican party supremacy in the restored States was a sufficient ground for continued interference by the central government. The widespread political and social disorders in the South were regarded by hot partisans like Senators Morton, Drake and Wilson as expressions of the old rebellious spirit in the whites and of a malignant purpose to thwart by violence the building up of the Republican party in the reconstructed States. ”

“ He claimed that unless precedence should be given to the reform issues, the Independent voters, eager for reform, would go to Tilden. “The cry for a ‘change’ is immensely powerful. People say, Governor Hayes is an honest man, but what good will it do to elect him if his administration is controlled by Morton, Conkling, Cameron, Chandler, Blaine, etc.—and off they go where they are sure of a ‘change.’ I could show you a number of letters from men of Republican sympathy, of cool judgment and more or less prominence and influence, who have taken or are inclined to take that course. ”

“ This pleasant conventionality could not disguise the fact that the mass of the people, like the majority of Congress, at heart preferred war, and war duly came.
With the progress of hostilities Schurz's whole anxiety was to check the growth of that spirit of conquest which was so bountifully nourished by military and naval success. Though the annexation of Cuba had been formally excluded from the policy of our government, Porto Rico and the Philippines soon presented the problem of expansion in a field concerning which no pledges had been made. ”

“ To Schurz the procedure of the radical politicians was objectionable from every point of view. It promoted among the whites a policy of exasperation and proscription where he believed conciliation and concord were needful; it identified the newly enfranchised negroes with a cause that must bar them from all cordial relations with the better class of whites and leave them the dependents of mere political schemers; and it exhibited, in the methods through which the convention had been packed by the radicals, the particular kind of party trickery that he most abhorred. ”

“ This will preclude anything and everything like a personal policy looking to ulterior ends. Ever since I have been in official life I have adhered to the rule of regarding the official position occupied by me at the time, as the last one ever to be held by me, and as decisive of my reputation as a public man. We can only perform a duty well when we perform it for its own sake. ”

“ At Washington, surrounded by eager party leaders, he found strict adhesion to reform principles in removals and appointments practically impossible save at great risk to other important elements of his policy. Whether risk or complete sacrifice, the radical Independents urgently demanded it in the name of plighted faith. The spoilsmen, in the name of party interest, were as insistent in the opposite direction. ”

“ It naturally brought into the foreground the discussion of men rather than measures, of personalities rather than principles. While most of his associates arrayed themselves in active and eager support of this or that candidate for the nomination, he refrained from announcing any preference, and strove only to insure that the convention should be free from the ignoble methods and influences which usually characterized such assemblies, and that no man should be nominated who did not represent, in antecedents and character, the highest ideals of Republicanism and reform. ”

“ I believe that the only thing that can save the Republic from being rushed over the precipice is the defeat in the coming election of all or nearly all the Republican candidates, either for State offices or for Congress, who have conspicuously come out in favor of that expansion policy.” Schurz's confidence that imperialism could be killed by Republican defeat proved as ill-founded as Hoar's belief that Republican victory would kill it. ”

“ From a review of the weak points that had developed in the administration, particularly in connection with the Attorney-General and the Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Schurz derived the conclusion that if an election were at hand the President would have no chance of success against any Republican candidate but Blaine, and but the slightest chance against even him. The Independents have been alienated and the spoils Democrats, who at heart despise the President, are jubilant. ”

“ At the first suggestion of the annexation of Santo Domingo, Schurz had felt instinctively that, apart from the question whether any increase of territory was desirable, the direction of this proposed increase should condemn the project. This thought was elaborated in a broad philosophical review of human history showing that the tropics are ill-adapted to the development of a high civilization—that they produce social and political systems in which the extremes of slavery and despotism are sure to prevail. ”

“ Meanwhile, in the autumn of 1873 the great financial and industrial crisis occurred, which introduced a wholly new element into the political situation and crossed the lines that separated the parties with troublesome questions of the finances and the currency. Inflation or contraction, “greenbacks” or specie resumption, were the problems with which Congress was called upon to struggle; and throwing himself with ardor into the long and complex discussion of these subjects, Mr. Schurz added new laurels to those already won for cogent doctrine and effective debate. ”

“ Greeley's nomination was a heavy blow to Schurz. It destroyed in an instant the whole fabric of the reform movement as he had so laboriously shaped it. Greeley was ludicrously remote in personality and notoriously separated in principle from the ideals which the true Liberals had avowed. To secure and retain the support of the New York and Pennsylvania protectionists, of whom Greeley was the spokesman, the Liberal leaders had with much reluctance surrendered the tariff plank of the Missouri platform. ”

“ It reminds both parties that neither of them can venture upon mischief without seriously impairing its prospects for the future. Between them stands an element which is not controlled by the discipline of party organization, but acts upon its own judgment for the public interest. It is the Independent element; which, in its best sense and shape, may be defined as consisting of men who consider it more important that the government be well administered than that this or that set of men administer it. This Independent element is not very popular with party politicians in ordinary times ”

“ On the 11th of April McKinley's message was sent to Congress recommending intervention for the single purpose of ending the disorders and suffering in Cuba. Though war with Spain was clearly contemplated, the President's tone was wholly pacific and humane, and offered no suggestion of imperialistic ambition. Schurz thanked him for his “excellent message,” and added: “I have no doubt that the people will sustain you in your efforts for peace.” ”

“ He considered the popular man from Maine a particularly objectionable example of those politicians to whom politics is a sport—a great game played before millions of spectators—in which success means the triumph of a person rather than the promotion of social truth and justice. In the revelations of 1876 as to Blaine's connection with land-grant railroads, Schurz saw the confirmation of his impression and much more. ”

“ You ought to be the great leader of this movement which will create the party of the future. It is the only manner in which the equal rights of all can be permanently secured in the South. All your Ku Klux and enforcement-laws avail nothing, if we do not find the means to control public opinion, and this is the way to do it. ...
“I know that in the efforts I am now making, I have the hearty sympathy of large masses of people, not only Democrats by any means, but Republicans who are not corrupted by the patronage or frightened by official terrorism. ”

“ And even yet the thought had not dawned in the minds of the pestering politicians, that if a reformer is both sincere and intelligent, he does not forget that the only time he can ever put his ideas and himself to a test is when he obtains responsible official position. Schurz was ambitious for distinction; his whole nature craved it as a woman's does affection. ”

“ What thinking American who has the future of the Republic at heart will not stand appalled at such a prospect?”
On the question of our commercial interest, he argued with much statistical data that we should get far better results in direct and open competition with other nations than in monopolizing the trade of the islands taken from Spain. Porto Rico, like Cuba, should be made an independent republic, and the Philippines, under a guarantee of economic freedom, should be turned over to some such state as Holland or Belgium for political administration. ”

“ It is always difficult for a man of Schurz's qualities to conceal a certain righteous indignation at the evasions and ignorance of presumptuous politicians. Logan, whose forte was heat rather than light, would have been insufferably exasperating if he had not often displayed an amusing lack of information and of logic. Schurz evidently believed Morton to be insincere rather than ignorant. ”

“ Schurz, while not less a philanthropist, was a philosophical public man, and since 1865 he had closely studied the Southern question, kept an open mind, and had become a resident of the South. His actual experience of negro suffrage in Missouri, and his clear insight into the purely partisan influences that so powerfully operated in promoting the administration's Ku Klux policy, compelled him to choose a course of action different from that of his dear friend Sumner. Practically all the other Republican Senators of the anti-administration group agreed with Schurz. ”

“ Schurz had never parted from the belief that the United States must walk in the paths of peace, and especially must beware of the tropics. Yet when the test came in 1884, he felt that the stress must be laid on the issue of personal honesty and public morality. In September of 1882 Blaine had published in the Chicago Tribune a long attack on Schurz, directed to showing in particular that in their respective Cabinet careers Schurz had grossly betrayed, while Blaine had systematically sustained, the principles of civil-service reform. ”

“ It will ruin the cause of reform forever, he declared, “if we attempt to control and use this movement by the old tricks of political trade, or fritter away our zeal in small bickerings and mere selfish aspirations. We must obey the purest and loftiest inspirations of the popular uprising which sent us here.” “No merely personal consideration, whether negative or positive, should be controlling. ”

“ On September 15th, Hayes wrote: “. . . the canvass daily brings to the front more and more as the two leading topics, the danger of the united-South victory, and the Tilden record as a reformer.” In accordance with this feeling the candidate gave his whole support during the last six weeks of the campaign to a policy of exploiting Southern horrors and “viewing with alarm.” Schurz, however, firmly adhered to his own chosen method of promoting the Republican cause. ”

“ Schurz drafted the call and made the chief address at the conference on August 18th. His speech was an earnest and eloquent development of the suggestions made to the President in the letter of June 1st. Expansion was opposed on grounds of morals and honor, of institutional policy and of commercial interest. The question of morals was put by the orator, suo more, in the foreground: “It may be somewhat old-fashioned, but I still believe that a nation, no less than an individual man, is in honor bound to keep its word ... that honesty is and will remain the best policy. ”

“ In a frank conference with the President while the treaty of annexation was before the Senate, Schurz had learned how tenacious Grant was of his purpose to acquire Santo Domingo. The ostentatious repudiation of the Missouri liberals during the State campaign of 1870 had been public notice that the presidential favor would be withdrawn from Senators who, like Schurz, refused to support the Dominican policy. In a number of States there was a promising opportunity to constrain senatorial votes by administration pressure through the party machine. ”

“ O, yes, we understand politics and human nature. This efficiency-and-competitive-examination business is well enough to talk about,—to clerks and to the simple country people. We know Carl Schurz [which they variously pronounced shers or shirts, but never correctly, shoorts] ; we've seen him advocatin' reform after reform, includin' that ludicrous fiasco, Horus Greeley. ”

“ To Cleveland Schurz wrote, after a conference on the subject: “While the three Southern men named [Bayard, Lamar, Garland] are all United States Senators of renown and experience, the Northern men [Manning, Endicott, Vilas] are all new men without experience and established standing in public affairs.” In a letter of March 2d to Lamar, Mr. Schurz expressed his dissatisfaction without reserve. The selection of Manning he declared to be a terrible load for the Independents to carry, because Manning was without standing in national affairs and had the reputation of a mere machine politician. ”

“ The Liberals assembled at Cincinnati May 1st. Schurz was acknowledged to be, as Horace White wrote at the time to Trumbull, “the leader and master mind of this great movement.” As was inevitable, however, men and interests that were alien to the aims and ideals of its leader had become involved in the movement, and these disturbing elements made themselves conspicuous from the outset. Against the spirit of intrigue and petty jealousy which they manifested, Schurz entered an eloquent protest. ”

“ The part of the address that excited greatest interest was a series of paragraphs describing the types of politicians for whom the reformers would not vote. No names were mentioned, but the mordant phrases clearly etched the familiar forms of all the leading Republican aspirants, save Bristow, for the Presidency. Blaine, Morton, Conkling, as well as every “dark horse” whose availability might lie in his weakness and indisposition to offend, instead of in his power and resolution to crush all obstacles to reform, were thereby barred by the Independents. ”