Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 5.djvu/61

Rh that respect my speech of May 31, 1872, on the majority report.

As to the question whether there had been corrupt motives and practices connected with these sales of arms, I was then and am now convinced that there was illegitimate money-making at the bottom of this business. Some of the reasons for that belief I gave in the closing part of my speech of February 15th. Other reasons were furnished by confidential communications received by Sumner as well as myself, strong enough to produce a moral conviction. That moral conviction has been strengthened by information which has come to me since. But you know how difficult it is to prove such things by legal evidence, and in this case it was made doubly difficult by the determination of the majority of the Committee that nothing should come out. If you could read the testimony taken you would find that we were now and then just on the point of lifting the veil. But it could not be accomplished.

I remarked in one of my speeches that the Secretary of State, Fish, was strongly opposed to these sales, but the War Department, under Belknap, prevailed against him. I knew that the German Government would not remonstrate. Had there been the slightest danger of this, the inquiry would certainly not have been moved in the Senate. 

 As a near friend of this grief-stricken family, I am called upon to add a few words to this mournful ceremony, and I feel impelled to do so as a friend, too, of the dear little boy whose lifeless body lies in this coffin. For he felt me to be his friend and he called me so. There was in his