Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 2.djvu/396

376 complications seem to be now imminent. I do, however, not presume to offer any advice to you, especially since you might, after all I have written you, consider me somewhat prejudiced in the matter. I have, from the beginning, made it a point to tell you, with entire candor, how I feel and what I think about this business; and now, if the developments of the campaign should be such as to disappoint your hopes, it will not be my fault if you are deceived about the real state of things. 



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Is there no way out of the wretched mess into which these Cincinnati nominations have plunged us? If the matter be left as it stands, it will be impossible for any one to speak of “reform,” during the next fifteen years, without causing shouts of laughter.

No man of standing and character can take the stump for Greeley without putting his whole future in peril. His election, every man of sobriety and thoughtfulness concedes, would be a National calamity of the first magnitude. If it occurs it will be the triumph of quackery, charlatanry and recklessness, over the sober common-sense which has thus far saved the republican government on this continent. I do not know whether you are aware what a conceited, ignorant, half-cracked, obstinate old creature he is; but you must know enough to feel that we did at Cincinnati a most serious and dangerous thing. It was a shocking mishap. I assure you this feeling about the matter deepens every day. Can nothing be done to make amends?

Did you read the address to the people of the great State of New York the other day signed, in behalf of the “reformers,” by John Cochrane and Theodore Tilton the biographer of Mrs. Woodhull! Has it really come to this complexion with us? 