Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 1.djvu/305

Rh apt to entertain a newspaper reader, but in most cases not calculated to form part of an official report. Nor did I authorize any newspaper to mention my name in connection with those letters; on the contrary, I forbade it, and I regret to see that it has been done against my express directions.

The principal reason why I wrote those letters is well known to the Secretary of War, for I previously informed him of it. The compensation I receive from the Government is insufficient to cover the expenses incidental to my travels, aside from transportation and subsistence, and to provide for the wants of my family at the same time. I have no independent income; when I left the service I had but little laid up, and I am now obliged to depend upon the yield of my labors. In order to go South according to your desire, I had to give up all other engagements. If my suggestion to cancel my resignation [from the Army], had been accepted for the time being, I should have been above the necessity of doing something for the support of my family while travelling. But that suggestion not being accepted, I saw myself obliged, either to decline going, which, after your having selected me for this business, would have been inconsistent with my notions of duty, or to do something to make my going financially possible—especially as a trip so far South involved the payment of a considerable extra premium upon my life insurance. I informed the Secretary of War of all these circumstances.

And now to find myself abused in the newspapers for endeavoring to keep honestly above water while trying to serve the country; to see myself publicly threatened with a recall because I am obliged to make up with my own labor for the insufficiency of the compensation I receive from the Government, this, I must confess, is rather hard. It is a thing to which I ought not to be subjected, and I