Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 6.djvu/465

Rh pretension to that effect is received with an ironical smile all round. The way you treated the matter was, I think, exactly right. It will entitle you in the Conference, and before the world generally, to all the more consideration. The real leadership will easily fall to you as it should, and I trust you will take it resolutely. Quod bonum, felix, faustumque sit. 



&emsp; I have received your letter of November 20th and beg to say in reply that during the last ten or fifteen years I have been approached on this same subject from various quarters two or three times with the same proposition, but have felt myself compelled to decline it. While we were serving in the volunteer army we were well paid. The Government has imposed upon the taxpayers an enormous financial burden by an uncommonly generous pension system. I do not feel that I can, consistently with my well settled opinions, seek to increase that burden for my own benefit beyond the understood conditions under which I entered the service.

I am very far from desiring to reflect upon the attitude of those of my esteemed old comrades who are engaged in the movement of which your letter gives me knowledge. I only wish quietly to adhere to the views concerning this matter which I have always held. 



&emsp; Pardon me for not having answered your very kind letter of December 19th more promptly, and also that I