Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 1.djvu/113

Rh  , Sept. 10, 1859.&emsp; Dear Judge [Potter]: I hoped to meet you at Milwaukee, but did not. I am going to try and raise $100 in Kenosha and $100 in Racine towards the amount, $750, for which our friend, Mr. Schurz, is liable as endorser for the German Republican papers. I said to one friend that I thought Mr. Durkee would pay fifty dollars, Washburn fifty, you fifty, and I fifty, making two hundred dollars of the amount. Now whatever course the German Republicans may pursue in this election makes no difference to me and should make no difference with our friends in this matter. But now is the time for the true and wise friends of Col. Schurz to take care of him, and not allow him to be sacrificed. He is a man of noble impulses, and of the highest order of genius. But like men of that character he needs some men of strong practical good sense to act for him at this juncture, which is perhaps the crisis of his life as well as the crisis in our Republican battle so far as Wisconsin is concerned. The people, if the German Republicans should, as some anticipate, bolt Randall, will place these two facts in juxtaposition, and no explanations will ever separate them. The German Republicans urged Mr. Schurz's nomination for governor. The convention by a large majority nominated Randall for governor and unanimously tendered any other office on the ticket to Mr. Schurz, which he declined. The German Republicans bolted the nomination of Randall, and the inference, whether right or wrong, will be irreparably drawn in the popular mind that the Germans bolted because a German was not nominated for governor. It will not remove the inference to say they would accept Hanchett or somebody else. Nothing could do so much to rekindle into a flame all the elements of American Know-Nothingism among our people, and Mr. Schurz, our most eloquent and gifted orator, would be crushed between the upper and nether millstone, between German Know-Nothingism and American Know-Nothingism, and our Republican party at once divided by the element which I had hoped was forever laid aside. Dear Judge, will you see that our good Republican friends in your neighborhood raise say one hundred dollars towards paying off his liability by endorsement? Please remember us kindly to Mrs. P. I remain ever devotedly yours, &emsp; If you do not come and see me, write me.  

Gentlemen:—When great political or social problems, difficult to solve and impossible to put aside, are pressing upon the popular mind, it is a common thing to see a variety of theories springing up which purport to be unfailing 