Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume Two).djvu/47

  and the virtues of the Democratic party, to which he and, he was glad to know, all the adopted citizens belonged. When I asked him for his opinion as to the right and wrong involved in the slavery question in general and the repeal of the Missouri Compromise in particular, he answered with the impressive solemnity of one who knows a great deal more than he feels at liberty to divulge, that the slavery question was a very important one, very important indeed; that it was also a very complicated and difficult one—indeed so difficult and complicated, that one must take great care not to be carried away by mere sentiment in forming one's judgment about it; and that the Abolitionists were very reckless and dangerous men, to whom good citizens should never listen. This did not satisfy me, and I continued my inquiries; whereupon he assured me that every good citizen must follow his party, and that, as to the Nebraska Bill, he, as a good Democrat and as an Administration man, would faithfully follow his party's lead. And then he wound up with this sentence: “On the whole, I do not take as much interest in measures and policies as in the management of men.” This sentence, every word of it, has stuck fast in my memory, for it puzzled me greatly to discover the meaning of it. I thought I noticed that the Senator did not wish to be pressed further, and so I took my leave with an unsolved riddle troubling my mind.

The next day I met Mr. Francis Grund, the “veteran journalist,” whose acquaintance I had made in the meantime. I asked him what Senator Brodhead might have meant when he said that he did not take as much interest in measures and policies as in the management of men. “Bless your innocent soul!” exclaimed Mr. Grund with a hearty laugh, “he meant that he does not care whether his party leads him this way or that way, but that his main business is to get post-offices