Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume Three).djvu/559

 might irreparably damage the cause of civil-service reform. On this account he announced that he would decline re-election as head of both the National League and the New York Association. At the urgent entreaty of his old associates he ultimately consented to retain his place as president of the State organization; but he persisted in bringing to an end his official leadership of the National League.

It became pretty evident that Bryan and McKinley would again be the opposing candidates in 1900, and that the Democrats would antagonize imperialism. Schurz soon began to show signs of a purpose to support Bryan. As early as November 5, 1899, he wrote to a friend expressing his utter distaste for both the Bryan and the McKinley-Hanna groups, but declaring that if he should be forced to choose between them “I shall consider it my duty—a horrible duty—to swallow all my personal disquiet and to defeat—or at least try to defeat—imperialism at any cost.” During the winter and spring preceding the nominating conventions of 1900 he took an active part in the efforts that were made to reunite the Democratic factions that had separated on the silver issue in 1896. The chief interest of Mr. Schurz in the enterprise was the hope it afforded of a strong party opposition to imperialism; and that this would also contribute to the relegation of the free-coinage issue to the background. To bring the greatest possible pressure upon the Bryan leaders the anti-imperialist leagues kept up a spirited agitation throughout the spring against the course of the administration in seeking to subdue the Filipinos. To this agitation Mr. Schurz contributed not only unremitting consultation and counsel, but also a formal oration at a great meeting of anti-imperialists at Cooper Union, New York City, on May 24, 1900. For a time he was quite sanguine of converting the free-silver Democracy into an instrument for