Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 5.djvu/452

428 is not devoid of the instincts of a gentleman, without kindling a blush on his cheeks. If you have any sincere friends they cannot too soon point out to you this danger line. As the matter stands, every unprejudiced person examining the evidence before us will find himself forced to the conclusion that you have deliberately sought to mislead and deceive your constituents by telling them things which had been proved to you, and which you knew to be untrue. And I repeat, against this it will be of no avail to you to cry out about my being a “traitor to the Republican party,” or that you have never bolted a Republican ticket.

I have treated you seriously, Senator, in connection with a serious subject; and here I might leave you, had not this controversy also a feature irresistibly appealing to a humorous fancy. With the grand austerity to which but few great men know how to rise, you address to me in the opening of your “reply” a sentence which is to show me my proper place. It merits repetition. “It were probably better,” you say, “to suffer you [me] to lapse again into that political obscurity where your disloyalty to the Republican party precipitated you, than to gratify your yearning desire for notoriety by keeping you longer in public view, into whose presence [!] you have seized this opportunity of obtruding yourself.” That after having been publicly called a “traitor,” and all that, I should have “obtruded” myself by a word of explanation, may indeed be inexcusable. But, Senator, is it not cruel, on your part, to taunt me with my “obscurity”? Nature and fortune are sparing with their choicest gifts. On you they have lavished a rare combination of genius and success. The great and powerful of this world should at least be generous enough not to scoff at the feeble and insignificant. You are a genuine celebrity. Your noble defiance of President Harrison on account of a consulship, of which