Carl Schurz

“ There is such a period in the life of every people. As we had our storm and stress in the Revolution and in the antislavery movement, so the last absolutely spontaneous storm and stress of Germany was the revolution of 1848. Is there such a period in Carl Schurz's life? Either there was no such period, or it lasted all his life, for that life has been spent in fearless and incessant combat on the battlefield, the platform, in the council of the nation, in literature, always in the interests of his ideals, to this very day of his triumphant recognition. ”

“ Carl Schurz, though not a child of our soil by birth, is more than one by adoption. He is a citizen who, through good report and evil report, in moments of popular sunshine and of popular shadow, has carried without faltering into private and public life the highest American ideals. ”

“ Carl Schurz, but it will be impossible for me, to be in New-York at that time.
Outside of the personal satisfaction of meeting Mr. Schurz, and the many distinguished people who will be present on that occasion, we owe it as a duty to our country to recognize the principles for which he has so long stood. In a democracy the most potent influence in directing the course of public affairs will always be the political ideals which obtain among the majority of its citizens, and it is particularly opportune to honor those of which Mr. Schurz is the representative. ”

“ When all Carl Schurz has been, or done, will no longer be remembered in all its particulars, the millions of Germany will rehearse the legend of the young hero who stepped into the hyena's den and snatched his friend out of the clutches of cruel dungeon keepers. [Applause and cheers.] The myth is alive, as it was fifty years ago. ”

“ We have known him as the intimate friend of Charles Sumner, and are grateful that in the last, somewhat lonely, hours of that noble life, Charles Sumner had in Carl Schurz a friend in whose devotion and affection he could wholly trust; and we listened with gratitude to the voice which in Music Hall recounted the great services and defended the spotless fame of our own great Senator.
Those of us who have known all this have not found it necessary to examine very critically any charges against the fidelity of such a man. After observing such a career, we either know a man or we do not know him. ”

“ Dear Friend: I am in receipt of your circular inviting me to participate in tendering a complimentary dinner to the Hon. Carl Schurz on his seventieth birthday.
I thank the Committee for the invitation, and unite with them in admiration of the character and great public services of Mr. Schurz, but a recent family bereavement precludes my taking part in any public social entertainment. With great respect, I am,
Thine truly,
(Signed,) ⁠Francis R. Cope.
FROM THE HONORABLE WILLIAM D. BYNUM.
Indianapolis, Ind., February 7, 1899. ”

“ MR. CARL SCHURZ AND THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY.
The honors which have been recently offered to Mr. Carl Schurz have a greater public than personal significance. His career has made him the representative of the general desire of reform in political methods and spirit which prevails in the country, and those who are bent upon that reform greet Mr. Schurz with continuous enthusiasm. In his speeches he maintains the necessary supremacy of conscience in politics, and his accomplishments and readiness and eloquence enable him to speak to the sympathy and hope of all patriotic men. ”

“ I am not sure whether I should have the courage to say those things to the men who are scowling around him."
Of all men in the Senate Chamber, Sumner was probably least aware that the thing he did required pluck. He simply did what he felt it his duty to his cause to do. It was to him a matter of course. He was like a soldier who, when he has to march upon the enemy's batteries, does not say to himself, "Now I am going to perform an act of heroism," but who simply obeys an impulse of duty, and marches forward without thinking of the bullets that fly around his head. ”

“ A stainless, useful life is his record so far, which, we who know him, know full well, is to remain stainless to the end.
Added years to Carl Schurz can only bring added honors. He and disgrace are strangers.
Long life to him for his country's sake, and for all of your sakes, his friends.
Very truly yours,
(Signed,) ⁠Andrew Carnegie. George Wilson, Esq., Secretary Carl Schurz Dinner.
FROM MR. CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER.
Hartford, February 10, 1899. ”

“ He cherished in his mind a high ideal of what this Republic and its government should be: a government composed of the best and wisest of the land; animated by none but the highest and most patriotic aspirations; yielding to no selfish impulse; noble in its tone and character; setting its face sternly against all wrong and injustice; presenting in its whole being to the American people a shining example of purity and lofty public spirit. Mr. Sumner was proud of his country; there was no prouder American in the land. He felt in himself the whole dignity of the Republic. ”

“ But if any man has justified his election to his high office, it is Carl Schurz, and Missouri should as certainly return him as Massachusetts would have returned Charles Sumner. Mr. Schurz is precisely the kind of man that the country needs in public life. ”

“ He stretched out his hand, which gave mine a vigorous grasp. “Glad you have come,” he said in a voice which appeared rather high-keyed, issuing from so huge a form, but of pleasing timbre. “I think I must have seen you before,” was his first remark while we were still standing up facing one another. “It was sometime in the early fifties on a railway train from Frankfurt to Berlin. There was a young man sitting opposite to me who, from some picture of you which I had seen in a pictorial paper, I thought might be you.” I replied that this could not be, as at that period I was not in Germany. ”

“ I regret very much that I cannot accept your kind invitation to be present at the dinner tomorrow night in honor of our great citizen and patriot, Carl Schurz.
It will be a great occasion, but not greater than the recipient merits. He is an example to us all, and a source of hope and courage too. I would that all such men might live to be seventy. ”

“ If, however, denying himself this natural indulgence, he fill his later years with persistent and fruitful labors for his countrymen, like those contributed by Carl Schurz to the cause of Civil Service Reform, he reaches a peculiar distinction, and deserves the supremest gratitude and honor of those he serves. ”

“ IF one were called upon to name the most interesting and inspiring example, at this day, of what the free institutions of our country may do for the citizen and of what a citizen under those institutions may do for his country, one would not go far astray in naming Carl Schurz. ”

“ During these first months of the war Schurz threw himself into the work of organizing in New York a regiment of German cavalry; but his services were considered of even greater value in another kind of activity, and a few weeks later he was on his way to Madrid, as United States Minister to Spain.
There is probably no other country in the world where such a rapid and spectacular progress would be possible. Ten years before, Carl Schurz was an exile from his native land, a poor newcomer to a strange country. ”

“ By hard work this was finally accomplished, and Carl entered the university at Bonn.
German universities have always been known for their student societies. Too many of these groups of students have had a reputation only for drinking and senseless dueling; but there are others that have been [Pg 61] marked by a distinct scientific, literary, or musical tone. Of the latter class was the Buschenschaft Franconia at Bonn; its members were not men of wealth or noble birth, but in later years they found high places in the world’s history. And of this society Carl Schurz was elected a member. ”

“ The wish of the people of Karlsruhe to get rid of their neighbors from the Palatinate, was so great that our troops were not even given sufficient opportunity to prove to those timid souls what honest and peace-loving beings were concealed under those wild beards, those red plumes, and those belts stocked full of daggers and dirks. On the same day a camp was assigned to us outside of the city, and on the 20th of June we marched northward to the aid of the revolutionary army of Baden, which in the meantime had got into a critical situation. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Soon General Hooker rode up—as it seemed to me in a somewhat excited state of mind—and ordered me to hurry my division to the relief of Geary. This was the order I had expected. Instantly I put myself at the head of Tyndale's brigade, which was the nearest at hand, and marched off on the road to Wauhatchie, sending my chief-of-staff to my other two brigades, with the order to follow me. The moon shone brightly, only now and then obscured by passing clouds. We could see ahead on the open ground tolerably well. But the shadows of the dense woods we entered were all the darker. ”

“ But I dare to assert that every truthful man who knows what has occurred in the South, will testify that if the official statements I have made convey erroneous impressions at all, they do so only by their studied mildness. My report has not had the good fortune of winning the applause or of exercising an influence upon the mind of him who sent me; but I console myself with the confident belief that in this country no individual, however powerful, can seal the eyes of the people by merely closing his own. ”

“ We are making accessions almost every day from the other side and our German friends tell us that some of their acquaintances are yet undecided but say to them—‘Wait until we hear Carl Schurz.’ P.S. I have just heard that Douglas has agreed to be here on the 24th. Now, do give us an antidote to such a dose as that.”
A. H. Conner, Indianapolis, Sept. 18, 1860: “We are doing considerable work amongst our German friends, but find no one capable of wielding so great an influence as yourself, and hope you will come to Indiana as soon as possible. ”

“ No one is entitled to a more respectful hearing on public questions than Mr. Carl Schurz. His long experience, his proved ability, and especially his singular disinterestedness and devotion to a high ideal of public life have won for him the confidence and sympathy of thoughtful Americans. In civil life he has been a distinguished leader in three great struggles, that with slavery, that with unsound finance, and that with political corruption. ”

“ Schurz has been consistently true it is the principle of Civil Service Reform. Whether allied to the Republican party or to the Democratic, whether on the crest of the wave of success or struggling in the undertow of defeat, in the face of scorn, contempt, ridicule, in fair weather as well as in foul, he has been its ardent champion, suffering such slings and arrows of outrageous fortune in its behalf as would have overwhelmed most other men, never for once yielding up a jot of his devotion to it. ”

“ IT is probably within bounds to say that no single man in the last sixty years, with the exception of Lincoln, had a more effective influence on popular political action in the United States than Carl Schurz. ”

“ I wish therefore to say, that in asserting that “Carl Schurz fled at Chancellorsville,” Mr. Combs lies. I choose the word “lies”—although with extreme reluctance and regret—upon due consideration of its meaning ”

“ In Germany, revolutionists had met a similar fate. To Carl Schurz there seemed but one direction in which he might turn. Far beyond the Atlantic the United States of America offered a republican government where the people ruled themselves by popular laws, free to live their lives and express their thoughts, free from the yokes of kings and princes. In August, 1852, Schurz and his young wife sailed for New York. ”

“ Before evening I was lodged in the house of a baker's widow, in the Dorf Enge, a suburb of Zürich. Strodtmann found quarters in a neighboring inn. My other friends lived near by in the house of the schoolmaster. All this was very convenient and comfortable, although extremely simple. While Strodtmann was with me my thoughts moved in the atmosphere of the old conditions and surroundings, and my sojourn in Zürich appeared almost like part of a student's jaunt. But ten days later my dear good friend returned to Bonn, and what now began for me was the life of a refugee in its true reality. ”

“ Another spectacled hero, with fiery whiskers, and an asserting nose with the blooded race-horse thinness of nostril, is conspicuous—General Carl Schurz, for the time chief Washington correspondent of the New York Tribune; and, as all men know, the most eloquent foreigner taking part in our American politics. ”

“ The opposition within the Union party had stung him to the quick. Now he had his opponents before him, baffled and humiliated. Not a moment did he lose to stretch out the hand of friendship to all. “Now that the election is over,” he said, in response to a serenade, “may not all, having a common interest, reunite in a common effort to save our common country? For my own part, I have striven, and will strive, to place no obstacle in the way. So long as I have been here I have not willingly planted a thorn in any man's bosom. ”