Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 6.djvu/435

Rh after another of his fields of prey, is one of the most remarkable and cheering proofs of the power of an enlightened public opinion in our time. And of that intellectual and moral influence George William Curtis was the fairest exponent and representative. While the successes won are still incomplete and not uncontested, yet the eyes of the leader closed upon a vastly improved public sentiment and upon results which cannot be undone; and when, at some future day, the reform of the civil service in the widest sense is an accomplished fact, as it surely will be, the American people, while justly recognizing the merits of others, will gratefully remember George William Curtis as one of the bravest pioneers and champions, and as the true hero of that great achievement.

He was a warm and faithful party man so long as the objects pursued by his party were such as not to offend his conscience. He broke with his party when he became convinced that its conduct made it an instrument of evil to the country. It was not upon a mere quick impulse, or with a light heart, that he took the decisive step. The party which had fought the great battle against slavery was very dear to him. In it he had formed associations to which he was most warmly attached and which it gave him the keenest pangs of pain to sever. Only the stern voice of duty could move him to give up all this. How much he sacrificed, and how much more he risked, when in 1884 he declared himself against a Republican candidate for the Presidency, only those know who stood nearest to him.

No conspicuous member of a party can turn away from it without exposing himself to bitter censure and vituperation. This was also his lot. It seems to be extremely difficult to the ordinary partisan mind to understand how a man of conscience may abandon his