Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume Three).djvu/539

 6, 1897, to the Governor which must stand as a masterpiece of conclusive argument and indignant denunciation expressed without the slightest deviation from the external forms of propriety and courtesy. In the city government a reform mayor, troubled with the bickerings of some of the reformers most concerned in the administration of the civil-service laws, was glad to lay the complications before Mr. Schurz and solve the problems through his ready and effective aid.

Municipal politics in general contributed much to occupy Mr. Schurz during these busy years. In the perennial conflict between “bossism” and enlightened politics his interest was early enlisted, as has been mentioned, in the opposition to Tammany Hall. From 1886 to 1894 Tammany controlled the city, and Mr. Schurz's rôle was only that of a protesting leader of the helpless but undaunted non-partisan minority. The election of 1894 brought triumph at last, in the success of a fusion of Republicans and reformers which nominated W. L. Strong for the mayoralty. This result was due in large measure to an “anti-vice crusade” conducted by the Rev. Dr. Parkhurst, which led to the revelation of gross corruption in the police department. The new mayor summoned Theodore Roosevelt to head the board of police commissioners, and Roosevelt's downright and strenuous policy in enforcing the excise laws precipitated a serious split among the reformers. In the elections of 1895 their leaders maintained the fusion with the Republicans; but the German element of the reformers, disgusted with the rigid enforcement of the excise laws, broke away and supported Tammany, while a little knot of radicals, holding that fusion with the Republican machine was as immoral as fusion with Tammany, devoted themselves to an excited campaign against both the main parties, but especially against their fellow-reformers.