Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume Three).djvu/460

 The elections of 1874 transferred the control not only of the lower house in Congress, but also of State and local governments generally, from the Republicans to their adversaries. The Grant régime—to the destruction of which Schurz had devoted all his hopes and energies for years—was mercilessly repudiated by the people. In this, of course, Schurz found much cause for gratification. “How Sumner has been avenged!” he wrote to a friend just after the election. But at the same time it was evident that the elections in Missouri had put the control of the State entirely into the hands of the extreme or “Bourbon” Democracy, on the eve of the expiration of Schurz's senatorial term, March 4, 1875. Only a campaign or two earlier, after Schurz had broken his party ties to insure that the injustice to this class of Democrats should cease, he was everywhere received by them with irrepressible enthusiasm. The demonstrations of favor sometimes went so far that a little company of lank and vigorous rustics would seize him and bear him on their shoulders amid wild shouts. This was exceedingly distasteful to him, whose enthusiasms were purely intellectual. On a particularly irritating occasion of that sort, he remarked: “Oh, yes, you are wonderfully fond of me now, but you will soon choose a Confederate brigadier to succeed me.” Even after the election of 1874 some of his friends tried to convince him and themselves that the triumphant Missouri Democracy would have enough of the Liberal spirit to send him back as their Senator. He did not for a moment share this delusion. He knew a thousand times too much of practical politics to forget that if republics are ungrateful, parties are greedy. True to his early prophecy, the Democratic legislature of Missouri in a few weeks elected General Cockrell as his successor.

Meantime he was actively considering private