Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume Three).djvu/450

 on me of a sincere, confiding man. He argued like a baby with me about his right to write that letter to you in answer to one you wrote to him, since, as he said, he did not nominate himself at Cincinnati, had no communication with Gratz Brown or any of his friends thereon, etc., etc. He ended by acknowledging that he had done wrong, and authorizing me to go down to the Tribune office to-day and insert an article saying that his correspondence had become so voluminous that he could not undertake to answer any more letters. His Astor House headquarters are to be broken up immediately.”

The reference in Schurz's letter of May 18th to another Liberal ticket alluded to a conference which was being planned by those who were dissatisfied with the Cincinnati ticket. A call for this conference, signed by Schurz, J. D. Cox, Ottendorfer, Bryant and others, brought together some three score men at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, New York, on June 20. A free discussion, participated in by representatives of all shades of feeling on the situation, showed a predominant opinion that Greeley should be accepted. This opinion was sustained in a forceful speech by Mr. Schurz, closing the conference. The conviction at which he had arrived was that the possibility of ideal reform through the present election had been destroyed by the painful and distressing result reached at Cincinnati, and that the only question now was the perfectly practical one: Which of two unsatisfactory candidates would afford the more promise of success for a true reform four years hence? To this question he believed the answer clearly was: Greeley.

In the spirit of this declaration Mr. Schurz made a number of speeches during the campaign. They were naturally against Grant rather than for Greeley, and they lacked the quality which a different candidate and a less hopeless cause