Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume Three).djvu/446

 agitate for a new convention and another candidate. Greeley was accepted, however, by many of the Liberal chiefs, like Samuel Bowles of the Springfield Republican and Horace White of the Chicago Tribune, though with little of the normal campaign enthusiasm. To the support of the nomination came now the influence of many Democratic leaders, who, little as they liked Greeley, felt that they had gone too far in promoting acceptance of the Liberal cause to turn back because the candidate did not please them. From the South, moreover, came so many and so influential voices in favor of Greeley that his rejection by the Democracy was impracticable.

During the busy weeks of discussion and adjustment that followed the Cincinnati convention, Mr. Schurz, though in constant consultation with all the factions of the Liberals, made no public announcement as to whether he would or would not support Greeley. His correspondence with the candidate was as unprecedented as the speech to the assembly by whom the candidate was named. On May 6th, Schurz addressed to Greeley a very long letter designed, as the writer explained, “to state to you with entire candor my views on the present state of things. Whatever may come there shall be honesty between us.” As to candor, the letter certainly left nothing to be desired. It rehearsed the story of the bargain between the Greeley men and the Brown men, and affirmed Schurz's regretful conviction that “the first fruit of the great reform, so hopefully begun, was a successful piece of political huckstering,” which “could not fail to shake the whole moral basis of the movement. … In its present shape it does not longer appeal to that higher moral sense which we hoped to have evoked in the hearts and minds of the people. Its freshness and flavor are gone and we have come down to the ordinary level of a campaign of politicians.” The result of this situation