Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume Three).djvu/542

 compliance with these demands to any great extent a physical impossibility, there were other causes active in determining his course. The Republican national campaign was managed by ex-Senator Powell Clayton; and when a request signed by this gentleman came to Mr. Schurz, the declination could not have lost anything in emphasis from the memories that clustered about Clayton's name.

As the campaign developed it became evident that the decisive battle ground was to be the Middle West. Husbanding his strength for a great effort on this field, Schurz went to Chicago and on September 5th, under the auspices of the American Honest Money League, a non-partisan organization, made his plea for sound currency. The speech had all the vim, fire and vote-getting cogency that had characterized his campaign work a score of years earlier. It was void of reference to McKinley or the Republican party, and presented only an annihilating assault on the historical, economic and political bases of the free-coinage platform. The effect of the address was seen not only in the enthusiasm with which it was greeted by the Republicans and Gold Democrats, but particularly in the attention given to it by the Bryan party. Governor Altgeld, who was by far the strongest of the silver men in purely intellectual debate, found it expedient to make formal reply to the argument of Mr. Schurz, and the latter, with the joy of combat roused to its old-time maximum, returned to the fray with an elaborate rejoinder at Peoria late in October.

The result of the November voting brought many congratulations to Mr. Schurz on the influence he was supposed to have had in the result. His own profound satisfaction at the defeat of Bryan was not accompanied by an equal joy over the election of McKinley. He regarded with grave apprehension the influences that were likely to be in the ascendant under