Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume Three).djvu/445

 Most astonishing was the effect of the Cincinnati episode upon one of his most venomous journalistic critics of those days. The New York Times, a strong supporter of the administration, had during the winter and spring singled out Schurz for vindictive abuse. The teeming vocabulary of denunciation possessed by the editor, Louis J. Jennings, had been exhausted in epithets applied to the Senator, who had in one instance of peculiarly elaborate and malicious misrepresentation gratified his assailant by a tart and vigorous reply on the floor of the Senate. It was to be expected that the humiliation of Schurz at Cincinnati would be greeted by the Times with diabolical exultation. What actually happened was a frank and unqualified reversal of judgment by the editor. On May 9th, a leader opened with these words: “There is nothing more agreeable than to find reason to believe that our estimate of a public man has been less favorable to him than his merits deserve; with regard to the Cincinnati convention especially we must make this revision of our judgment in reference to Senator Schurz. … His speech at that convention was worthy of the extraordinary enthusiasm with which he is regarded by men of unquestionable ability and sagacity … and it was also a speech of which any public man might reasonably be proud.” Although Schurz had been unjust, the editor maintained, in some respects to Grant and unfair “in denouncing us as liars,” he did his best at Cincinnati “to obtain a fair expression of public opinion and to defeat the paltry intrigues of political hacks.”

The nomination of Greeley wrought great demoralization among the Liberal leaders. Some who had been very prominent in the movement, like Stanley Matthews, promptly repudiated the ticket and gave up the struggle for reform. Others, particularly the more earnest advocates of free trade, began to