Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 5.djvu/369

Rh of extraordinary eloquence. He did not win their friendship by any magic of “personal magnetism.” There was nothing romantic in his history to captivate the imagination. Least of all did he know the demagogue's art of being all things to all men. The real source of his strength lay in the impression made upon the popular mind, less by his abilities or by his opinions, than by his character as it had revealed itself in his utterances and acts. People saw in him a man conscientiously devoted to his duties, honest in his zeal to understand and to perform them without regard to personal advantage, and maintaining with dauntless courage what he thought right against friend and foe alike—a personality of exceptional strength and trustworthiness, commanding confidence. Thus the very qualities which made him an uncomfortable and distasteful person to party magnates and their henchmen, had endeared him to the popular heart. They overshadowed in the minds of many all differences of opinion about silver or the tariff. They carried his nomination and election triumphantly over the heads of the “practical politicians,” and gave him even a large number of Republican votes—far more than enough to make up for the defection of Democratic malcontents.

As a vigorous pronouncement of public opinion in favor of a candidate who saw in his office not a party agency, but a public trust, and as a victory of moral forces over political machine principles and methods, the nomination and election of Mr. Cleveland were events of most encouraging significance. Had those moral forces proved equally potent in determining the character and temper of Congress, they would not only have secured during Mr. Cleveland's term of office harmonious coöperation between the different branches of the Government, but they would also have gone far to strengthen the power of honest and independent thought in party politics, to bring back