New York Committee of the Carl Schurz Memorial

“ His contemporary observations on American conditions of life show remarkable insight and sagacity. He saw clearly that political freedom means freedom to be feeble, foolish, and sinful in public affairs, as well as freedom to be strong, wise, and good. He saw that the object of political freedom is to develop character in millions of free men through the suffering which follows mistakes and crimes, and through the satisfaction and improvement which follows on public wisdom and righteousness. He saw clearly the productiveness of freedom through the spontaneous coöperation of private citizens. ”

“ Thus he became at an early age a revolutionist, struggling for the removal of political obstacles which, once accomplished, would open for the people, as he himself expressed it, new fields of inquiry, knowledge, and improvement, as a foundation on which to erect a solid structure of a broader and higher development. A fighter also he remained in this country, whose soil appeared to him so ideal a field for developing in absolute freedom all that is noble, progressive, and just in human nature. ”

“ AMERICA, in whose beloved soil rests all that is earthly of Carl Schurz, is foremost in honoring him to-night. But as in his heart the love of his native land never ceased to rival his devotion to the American people, so the country, in which Carl Schurz was born and educated, also claims him as one of its greatest sons. ”

“ He saw how freedom to do something awakens the desire and develops the capacity to do it. In short, this sanguine young foreigner, who had no experience whatever of democracy at work, saw clearly that a republic is not an ideal state, but a state in which good contends with evil, and the people themselves, and not a few masters of the people do the fighting, and so get instruction both from defeats through folly and vice and from victories through good sense and virtue. ”

“ Those of us who boast that we are Americans by heredity should not forget that he who thus wrought for the betterment of our nation's political ideas and practice was of foreign birth. And let us remember, too, with admiring appreciation, that while he never allowed his loving memory of his fatherland to fade, he at the same time earned imperishable honor in his newer citizenship, and added lustre to the patriotism of his nature by unreserved devotion and fidelity to his American allegiance. ”

“ If his noble example and service suggest a home-thrusting contrast, they should especially incite to better duty and more political solicitude those claiming by birthright an advanced place in our citizenship. And all of us should take to heart the broad and impressive lesson taught to every American citizen by the life and career of Carl Schurz. It is the lesson of moral courage, of intelligent and conscientious patriotism, of independent political thought, of unselfish political affiliation, and of constant political vigilance. ”

“ THIS great and brilliant company has assembled for no funereal rites, for no obituary service. We are here to do honor to the memory of a great citizen, to exult in his exalted virtues, and to learn the lesson of patriotism from his long and honorable life. ”

“ In well-nigh everything which has made for righteousness in the progress of this great reform, in our remedial laws, in our corrected customs, whether of administration or politics, in the growth of a strong and healthy public opinion, in the quickening of the Nation's sense of right, one who searches will find the influence, direct or indirect, evident or slightly veiled, of his earnest, persistent, and eloquent advocacy, will see the stamp of his work. ”

“ It is easier, however, from many points of view, to sympathize with a people or a race that has had an unfortunate start in life than it is to be frank and at the same time just—to say the word and do the thing which will permanently help, regardless for the moment of whether words or acts please or displease. As Mr. Schurz stood before the Hampton students, it was plain that he was a man who had been able to lift himself out of the poisoned atmosphere of racial as well as sectional prejudice. ”

“ The ordinary defects of American speaking―bombast, excess in simile and metaphor, exaggeration, and playing to the gallery―Carl Schurz invariably shunned. His oratory was always high-minded and dignified, although it ranged through all human moods, and could be either forcible or gentle, plain and calm, or dramatic and passionate.
Schurz was always a leader of the people, because he was an independent thinker and a student, and because he himself faithfully followed ideals which had not yet become the ideals of the masses. ”

“ But from this he did not conclude that men could not intervene. On the contrary, he considered it the duty of every upright man to lend himself with all his force to what he believed to be just and right. To the question, What is meant by the spirit of the age? he answered: “It is action, action, and action again.” Action, spirited action in behalf of the general welfare, action for the benefit not only of the American people, but of all mankind, was the text of his long, eventful, and strenuous life. ”

“ In every combat for honest government and pure politics, in every effort to give our country faithful servants, and, with and through such servants, rulers worthy of her greatness, his spirit will guide, his memory will inspire the men who strive for the right. ”

“ He saw that the actual political, industrial, and social conditions in a republic might, like the actual issue of a single individual's struggles, often be far below ideal conditions, and yet freedom to do wrong or to do right would remain the best possible atmosphere, indeed the only atmosphere, for national as for individual growth in virtue. ”

“ But every thoughtful man who loves his country ought to realize in this time of political awakening that the public welfare demands that parties should be in purpose and mission something better than mere machines to serve selfishness and the ends of low and perverted partisanship ”

“ Some are so prejudiced by the bigotry of sheer partisanship that they find it impossible to condone insubordination to party discipline. These conditions should not be too readily condemned. They may be largely attributable to temperament and environment. But no intelligently patriotic citizen can be blind to the fact, very recently more conclusively established than ever, that the political independence declared and illustrated by Carl Schurz has become a defence and safeguard of the people against the evils that result from the unchallenged growth of irresponsive party management. ”

“ A MONUMENT to Carl Schurz exists to-day, it exists, nay more, it lives, lives in the amended laws of his adopted country, lives in the enlightened thoughts and beliefs of Americans taught by him and those banded with him to know and cleave to the right in choosing public servants for the people's work. ”

“ WHATEVER death may be to the dead, to the living it always means a loss. The enforcement of its inexorable decrees reaches humanity in every corner of the globe; and the hearts of all who live bear in painful scars the sad record of its visitations. The widow and the fatherless are always with us ”

“ No one can know so little of partisan human nature as to suppose that an honest voter thus threatened with betrayal or disgrace in his party relationship can save his honor and political integrity by any less radical remedy than loud protest or open desertion. ”

“ For in the midst of the increasing conflicts of economic interests, solutions in harmony with the general welfare can be found and enforced, not by routine politicians, but only by philosophical and wholly sincere men who are convinced that ultimately great ideas and not petty personal interests must govern the destinies of nations. And that is true of the political conflicts, not only within a nation but also between nations. Only broadminded and farsighted idealism can satisfactorily solve these important problems. ”

“ He always stood by these great landmarks, that the executive should keep within its constitutional limits, and not invade by one hair's breadth the functions of the legislature or judiciary, and that they should do the like by it, and above all that the Federal power should not encroach upon the State power, nor this upon that, but each keep within its own limits, that the delicate balance of our dual system, which has justly excited the wonder and admiration of the world, might not be disturbed. ”

“ No biography of an American public man has been written with greater discernment, candor, and fairness. That it was written by a German who came to this country at twenty-three years of age, after practical experience of the crude and visionary revolutionism of Europe in 1848, and then entered on the study of the English language and of American political principles, is an intellectual and moral marvel. It demonstrates the consistency and continuity of Carl Schurz's own principles of political action from youth to age. ”

“ As a model of self-denying idealism he will not only continue to live in the hearts of the great number of his friends and of the best of his American fellow-countrymen but in Germany also with the conflicting interests created by the astounding development of its industrial life, a man of Carl Schurz's type will become of more and more importance. ”

“ And those who devoutly study the ways of God with man will gain a conception of the Infinite wisdom which has ordained that the wounds and losses inevitably and universally inflicted by death upon our individual lives, shall be the clarifying and purifying solvents which balance and strengthen the complex elements of human nature, by chastening with “the sabler tints of woe” the activities and delights of our existence. ”

“ Thirty years ago, when he was called into the counsels of President Hayes, so much of such work as fell to civil servants was in large part entrusted to men and women chosen, not because they were fit to serve the public, but because they were fit to serve politicians, and generally because they were fit for nothing else. ”

“ There are lives that occupy a larger area than that of individual association, and there are men who not only embrace within their affections all who need help, but whose course of life points out the way to honor and usefulness, and illustrates the grandeur of a career devoted for the public good. ”

“ It is good to be permitted to live in an age when great, serious, and perplexing problems are to be solved. It is good to live in an age when unfortunate and backward races are to be helped, when great and fundamental questions are to be met and solved. For my part, I would find no interest in living in an age where there were no weak member of the human family to be helped, no wrongs to be righted. Men grow strong in proportion as they reach down to help others up. ”

“ Everywhere our politics, National, State, and Municipal, were debauched by the wide and unrebuked prevalence of a peculiarly mean and baleful form of bribery, the use of public employment to influence votes and reward party service; huge corruption funds were constantly accumulated by openly taxing the salaries of public servants for partisan use ”

“ Those he taught and led will pass on his teaching to such as they in turn must lead in the like struggle for the same ends; and when there shall be in America no man in any public employment for any other reason than because the man or men who put him there believed him of all who might be chosen best fitted to do well the work he would there have to do, when that time comes, there will have been rounded to full completion the most lasting and most fitting of monuments to the virtues and the services of Carl Schurz. ”

“ After his three years service in the army during the civil war he returned for a time to the calling of his youth―writing for the daily press, both in German and English, an occupation in which his gifts had full play. A new theatre for his oratorical powers was opened to him when he took his seat in the Senate of the United States in March, 1869, as Senator from Missouri. Here he proved his readiness as a debater as well as his power as an orator. Debate often brings out a fine quality which the oratorical monologue does not develop―namely, fairness combined with aggressiveness. ”

“ One great life makes possible many great lives. We need at present, when the question of races is occupying the attention of the world as has seldom been done, as never before, it seems to me, men of clear, calm view, and with the courage of their convictions. ”

“ That disgrace has been largely redeemed, that danger has been in great part averted through a resolute and patient struggle, continued now for many years, amidst many disappointments, apostacies and failures, by a small number of men, who, in season and but of season, have cried out against the shame and iniquity of such doctrines and such practices, until they have gained the people's ear and awakened the people's conscience. ”

“ Our public offices were then too often asylums for incompetency and ill repute, recruited in great measure, from the failures and outcasts of creditable callings, those too weak, indolent, and vicious to hold their own in any worthy field of competition. ”

“ The most persuasive debater is always the fairest debater, because the listener who is not already a partisan is only too apt to be unreasonably repelled from the side which manifests unfairness, and to be sympathetically attracted toward the other side. ”