Page:Visit of the Hon. Carl Schurz to Boston, March 1881.pdf/69

56 be but half a victory, and that there could be no assured peace without a new society at the South founded on equality of rights, filled with new hopes and aspirations, and harmonizing at once with the spirit of our institutions and the spirit of the age. In our recent financial controversy, which is destined to be of perpetual historic interest, many men in public and private life tendered eminent service; but here, again, in the foremost rank of public benefactors Mr. Schurz will have a place. Though living in a section of the country strangely infected with false theories of currency, he never wavered a moment, never yielded an iota to popular clamor. The critical period of that contest was the election in Ohio in the autumn of 1875. If the result had then been different, we should probably be struggling to-day with an irredeemable currency, shifting in values, obstructing business, impairing the public credit, and corrupting the morals of the people. In the summer of that year some gentlemen—Governor Hayes among them—met at Cincinnati to confer as to the exigency; and there it was determined to send a telegram to Mr. Schurz, then in Switzerland, urging him to come home at once and participate in the canvass. He came, obedient to the summons; and what service he rendered, and with what effect, is known to all. Later, when here in Massachusetts a similar issue was pending, his speech in Tremont Temple, distinguished for its force of statement and lucidity of illustration, was the one which was spread