Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume Two).djvu/223

 proper “recognition.”  They had spent money freely and let everybody understand that there was a great lot more to spend. Among these men Thurlow Weed moved as the great captain, with ceaseless activity and noiseless step, receiving their reports and giving new instructions in his peculiar whisper, now and then taking one into a corner of the room for secret talk, or disappearing with another through a side door for transactions still more secret. I had heard much of Thurlow Weed as a man of mysterious powers; as a political wizard able to devise and accomplish combinations beyond the conception of ordinary mortals; as the past-master of political intrigue and stratagem; as the profoundest judge of men's abilities, virtues, and failings; as the surest calculator of political chances and results; and as the guide, superintendent, and protesting genius of William H. Seward's political career. This may sound like exaggeration, but he certainly had acquired the reputation of the most skillful political manager—others called it “wire-puller”—of his time. While everybody recognized his extraordinary ability, the opinions about his political virtue were divided. His opponents denounced him as a selfish and utterly unscrupulous trickster, while his friends emphasized the fact that he secured offices for ever so many friends, but never any for himself, except a public printer's place which was profitable in revenue, but very modest in rank. In this respect, therefore, his ambition passed as disinterested. His singular zeal for the furtherance of Seward's political welfare and the singular intimacy that existed between the two not seldom alarmed Seward's political friends, but it cannot be said that Thurlow Weed turned Seward's rise in influence and power to his own material advantage. My own impression was that Mr. Weed might, indeed, not be without appreciation of the higher aims of political activity,