Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 5.djvu/465

Rh The cause of this steady succession of failures may have been partly that the people found him too unlike themselves—too unfamiliar to the popular heart—and partly that the party managers shrunk from nominating him because they saw in him not only a giant, but a very vulnerable giant, who would not “wear well” as a candidate. They had, indeed, reason to fear the discussions to which in an excited canvass his private character would be subjected. Of his moral failings those relating to money were the most notorious and the most offensive to the moral sense of the plain people. In the course of his public life he became accustomed not only to the adulation but also to the material generosity of his followers. Great as his professional income was, his prodigality went far beyond his means, and the recklessness with which he borrowed and forgot to return betrayed an utter insensibility to pecuniary obligation. With the coolest nonchalance he spent the money of his friends and left to them his debts for payment. This habit increased as he grew older, and severely tested the endurance of his admirers. So grave a departure from the principles of common honesty could not fail to cast a dark shadow upon his character, and it is not strange that the cloud of distrust should have spread from his private to his public morals. The charge was made that he stood in the Senate advocating high tariff as the paid attorney of the manufacturers of New England. It was met by the answer that so great a man would not sell himself. This should have been enough. Nevertheless, his defenders were grievously embarrassed when the fact was pointed out that it was, after all, in great part the money of the rich manufacturers and bankers that stocked his farm, furnished his house, supplied his table and paid his bills. A man less great could hardly have long sustained himself in public life under such a burden of suspicion. That