Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume Three).djvu/546

 Especially frequent were the appeals of the German-Americans, whose representative public speaker he was generally recognized to be. The list of his addresses before their various organizations is long and most diverse. He spoke at the memorial services to Emperor William I., Bismarck, Lasker, Steinway and others; at the banquet to Ambassador White; at the jubilee of the New York Liederkranz in 1897; at the banquet celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the revolutionary movement of 1848, and on many other important occasions. As honorary member of the Chamber of Commerce, he was frequently called upon for memorial or ceremonial addresses. One of his most entertaining speeches was at a banquet of the piano-makers of New York, for he was born a musician as well as an orator.

The time-and-strength-consuming potency of these various avocations is to be properly appreciated only when it is remembered that he was never satisfied with the results of momentary inspiration, and whenever it was possible made careful preparation for his speeches, writing them out with his own hand and revising them again and again.

In April of 1898 one unremitting drain upon his energy was removed by the termination of his connection with Harper's Weekly. The political convictions as well as the financial interests of the proprietors dictated a change in the policy of the paper to bring it more nearly in harmony with the popular sentiment that was clamoring for war and territorial expansion. No concession to such a sentiment could ever be expected of Mr. Schurz, and hence his weekly editorials ceased. The rupture of this relation was the first of many that were produced by the Spanish War. He was now past his sixty-ninth birthday. At forty he had successfully antagonized Grant's project of tropical expansion and had met no popular