Page:Visit of the Hon. Carl Schurz to Boston, March 1881.pdf/74

Rh speak in some public place in Boston; and Faneuil Hall was secured for the purpose. It fell to me to call the meeting to order with some preliminary remarks, and then to introduce Senator Wilson, who presided. Mr. Schurz' speech, which he prepared in the few intervening days after he arrived here, was published in full in the Boston and New York Journals. It established his rank as an orator of the first order. and from that time he was in great request in the Eastern States as a lecturer before lyceums and a speaker in political contests. Twenty-two years ago he came to us unknown; but he now comes to us with a fame for eloquence and beneficent service which has become a part of American history. With every visit to Boston he has found an ever-widening circle of friends, while those he has known the longest are as fast bound to him as ever.

My last word must be of a tender tone. Mr. Schurz became a senator in 1869, when Mr. Sumner was serving his last term. It was the period in the career of our Massachusetts Senator in which he suffered much,—pain of body intense and prolonged, the antagonisms of political associates, the withdrawal of some he had counted as friends, the hand of power laid heavily upon him, the censure of the Commonwealth he had served so long (happily recanted before it was too late),—a period closed by death. In all this our guest was a loyal friend, sympathetic in private intercourse, tender at the bedside