Page:Addresses in Memory of Carl Schurz.pdf/22

 the less for what he was and what he did within the sphere of patriotic endeavor. And we are all here to do honor to his memory, and in this way to likewise honor ourselves and manifest our appreciation of pure and unselfish love of country.

It would by no means be entirely out of keeping with the occasion to extol the courage of battlefields where patriotism exacts the giving up of human lives for country's sake. But this physical courage is so much a part of our national character that its recognition is universal and its stimulation is not among our country's needs. What our nation needs—and sorely needs—is more of the patriotism that is born of moral courage—the courage that attacks abuses, and struggles for civic reforms single handed, without counting opposing numbers or measuring opposing forces. It is this kind of courage, and the great public service that has been rendered under its inspiration, that we memorialize to-night; and an undisturbed contemplation of its heroism and saving attributes are most in sympathy with the spirit that should pervade this assemblage.

I believe that the man whose memory we honor never knew moral fear, and never felt the sickening weakness of moral cowardice. With him it was only to see what he believed to be injustice or error, to hurl himself upon its defences with the impetuosity of a zealot and the endurance of a martyr. He did not shun politics; but in his conception, political activity was valuable and honorable only as it led the way to the performance of civic duty and had for its end and purpose the advancement of principles and the enforcement of practices that best promoted the public good. He had no toleration for the over-nice foppery that drives many who claim patriotic impulses away from politics through fear of contaminating defilement. He entered politics because he saw his duty there; and he found immunity from defilement in cleansing and purifying his political surroundings.

In recognition of the affirmation that ours is a government by party, he did not disparage political organization, or hold himself aloof from party affiliation. He assumed party relationship as an arrangement for united effort in the accomplishment of purposes which his judgment approved; but he never conceded to