Page:Speeches of Carl Schurz (IA speechesofcarlsc00schu).pdf/226

216 him a vote for Lincoln, whom he does not love! [Renewed applause.] To be worked for, and be aware that those who do the work, work not for him, but for themselves! To be dead, and yet alive enough to be conscious of death! [Loud cheers.]

Oh, there is justice in history! Am I exaggerating?, Where is that mighty leader, whose voice once called millions into the field? At the street-corners and crossroads you see him standing like a blind, downfallen Belisarius—not in virtue, but in poverty—a bevy of political harlots surrounding him, and begging with him for the miserable obolus of a vote; begging the Know-Nothings, whom he once affected to despise; begging the Whigs, whom he once insulted with his brawling denunciations; invoking the spirit of Henry Clay, whom he once called a black-hearted traitor. [Cries of “Shame.”] Oh, poor Belisarius! The party harlots that surround him with their clamorous begging cry, steal every vote they receive for him and put it into their own pockets. [Applause.]

Where is the bold, powerful agitator, whose voice once sounded so defiantly on every contested field? Behold him on his sentimental journey [laughter], vainly trying to find his mother's home and his father's grave; apologizing with squeamish affectation for his uncalled for and indecent appearance in public, like one of the condemned spirits you read of in the myths of bygone ages, restlessly perambulating the world [laughter], condemned to a more terrible punishment than Tantalus, who was tortured by an unearthly thirst, with grapes and water within his reach; more terrible than that of the Danaides, who had to pour water into the leaky cask; for he is condemned to deliver that old speech of his over and over again [applause and cheers and laughter], as often as he arrives at a hotel that has a balcony [laugh-