Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 2.djvu/384

364 management differs in nothing from the practices it professed to condemn. In its present shape it does no longer appeal to that higher moral sense which we hoped to have evoked in the hearts and minds of the people. Its freshness and flavor are gone and we have come down to the ordinary level of a campaign of politicians.

I want you to understand that I do not allude to your own character and reputation. They stand above suspicion, and nothing could be farther from my intentions than to throw the least shadow of a doubt upon them. But you appear now, after what has happened, as the leader of an army which, in the essential points, is looked upon as no better than those we expected to fight and whose victory is of very doubtful promise. No wonder that a great many men, and these among the very best we had there, went away from the Convention, not with mere disappointed expectations as to their own choice, but with the sting of moral disappointment in their hearts.

The effect was immediate. I will not speak here of the revenue reformers who found themselves in a somewhat ridiculous position, but about a class of people [who] cared less about the tariff than about the moral tendency of the movement. The first solid mass that joined us were the Germans, East and West. They went into the movement enthusiastically with their whole hearts and for no selfish purpose—Democrats and Republicans both, almost to a man, ready to give up their party affiliations. In some Western States they formed the whole backbone of the movement. When the Convention opened, we had nearly the whole German vote with us; there were but few exceptions, in some places none at all. When we came out of that Convention, that force was almost entirely lost to us. In saying this, I do not exaggerate. Information received from all parts of the