Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume Two).djvu/27

 parties. As to the American politics of the day, I had received only some vague impressions through my conversations with various persons. My friend Kinkel, who had visited the United States in 1851 in the interest of the revolutionary movement in Europe, had been received by President Fillmore and had described him to me as a “freundlicher und wohlwollender Greis” (an amiable and benevolent old gentleman). Of the political parties he could tell me only that they both seemed to be dominated by the slave-holders, or at least to be afraid of the slavery question, and that most of the Germans in the United States were on the side of the Democrats, because they were attracted by the name of democracy and because they believed that the Democratic party could be more surely depended upon to protect the rights of the foreign-born citizens. The news articles about American politics which I had read in European papers had been, as they mostly have remained to the present day, well-nigh valueless to everyone not personally acquainted with American affairs, and my conversations with my fellow-passengers had given me little light on the then existing situation. It presented itself to me like a dense fog in which I saw shadowy figures indistinctly moving.

We spent two or three days in trying to see what “sights” there were in, the city, and we found that there were none in the line of museums, or picture galleries, or remarkable public or private buildings. Barnum's museum of curiosities, on the corner of Broadway and Ann Street, opposite St. Paul's Church, was pointed out to us as a thing really worth seeing. In the shop-windows on Broadway we observed nothing extraordinary. The theaters we could not enjoy because I did not understand English. The busy crowds thronging the streets were always interesting, but strange: not a familiar face among them. A feeling of lonesomeness began to settle upon us.