Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 2.djvu/385

Rh North since my arrival here only confirms my first impressions. Some German delegates from the Eastern States thought they might still go with the movement, but they were few, and men of little influence. After the adjournment I dined with the most prominent German leaders of the West, all old personal friends of mine, and I found them not only dissatisfied, but also fully determined to oppose the ticket with their whole strength, and deaf to argument—unwilling, as they said, to be the victims and tools of Frank Blair and New York politicians and to further the designs of Frank Blair and New York politicians. The German newspaper editors I met, were of the same mind. I heard of only one who was considering the question whether he should support the ticket with anything like favor. My own partners inquired by telegraph, whether they should come out for the ticket; I answered in the affirmative and have since received two despatches suggesting a doubt as to whether it will long be possible to do so consistently with the interests of the paper. To the best of my information, my paper is to-day the only German journal in the country which has come out for the ticket. Yesterday and to-day I have received piles of German papers which all sing the same song. The German Democratic press, at the opening of the Convention, thoroughly on our side, clamors partly for a straight party nomination, partly for a new reform movement. This is a sober statement of the facts as far as I have been able to look over the field.

Whether it will be possible, in any appreciable measure, to correct this, I do not know, but I seriously doubt it, for the moral elements which attracted the Germans to the movement, are so seriously compromised that I, myself, in appealing to them, could not use the same arguments I used before and in which the whole attraction consisted. Mere political talk, after the old fashion, will