Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume Three).djvu/508



EFORE Mr. Schurz left the Interior Department he was confronted with an almost embarrassing number of propositions for future occupation. Journalistic enterprises were naturally the most prominent. He also cherished, with increasing fondness, the desire to write a comprehensive history of the United States, with special reference to the Civil War. Doubtless as tentative preparation for this task, he agreed in the spring of 1881 to contribute Henry Clay to the American Statesmen series of biographies. By the study of Clay he would secure the necessary background and perspective for the period with which his personal experience made him familiar. But this pleasing prospect of a life of historical research and literary creation—of which he began to dream at Bonn when a callow student under Kinkel—was soon displaced by an equally attractive and more remunerative enterprise in journalism.

The control of the New York Evening Post was purchased by Henry Villard, who transferred a part financial interest and the absolute editorial control to Carl Schurz, E. L. Godkin and Horace White, with the first-named as editor-in-chief. On May 26, 1881, this arrangement went into effect; and the Nation, which Mr. Godkin had raised to so distinctive a position in the periodical world, became, with but little transformation, the weekly edition of the Evening Post. The extraordinary ability and experience represented by this trio