Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 5.djvu/358

334 shield of corruption and abuses, and, single-handed, defied the serried ranks of political power and party passion.

Then you gained my admiration, my confidence and respect and you have never lost them. And it is the vibration of such feelings that causes this note.

On the incoming of the McKinley Administration I shall pack up and return home, and when I am settled there in my plain homestead overlooking the blue Delaware, perhaps I may induce you to pass some days with me, and, if you like it, I will tell you what I can of this great and civilized Kingdom, and of what I here tried to do to create a clear and friendly understanding between its people and my own countrymen.

Of course there are discordant voices, and no man can escape the missiles of folly, ignorance and hatred; but, despite them all, I think I shall leave the path of honorable success unobstructed to those envoys who are to come after me.

I hope your health is good and that those you love are well established in life. And I am with sincerity, long tested, &emsp;





ought to be responded to in music. This the Liederkranz has done so often and with so much feeling—and again only the other day—that it might be better were the chorus now to stand in my place, for to-day we celebrate more especially the German mothertongue as it speaks to us in song. There may indeed be other languages which on account of the resonance of their vowels and the
 * —The toast to the German mothertongue