Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 6.djvu/373

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1904]
Carl Schurz
349

movement. I have in order to enjoy the milder air of the South, after having been abed with bronchial catarrh for several weeks, spent some time at Hampton and studied more closely the working of that institution. I am happy to say that my experience has been exceedingly satisfactory. The school is doing the best kind of work and exercising the healthiest kind of influence. What I saw there has been a real inspiration to me, and it is a hopeful thing that similar institutions—most of them, to be sure, on a smaller scale—are springing up in various parts of the South.

I think that the men interested in Southern education—I mean especially those living and active in the South—are gradually coming to the conclusion that the two things, education and suffrage, must go together, and that the movement against suffrage is logically a movement against education, as strikingly exemplified in the case of Governor Vardaman of Mississippi. Mr. Murphy of Alabama whom you probably know, and whom I look upon as one of the sincerest advocates of education, has just published a book which is full of powerful argument. The leaven is working and, I have no doubt, good results will follow; but even in the best case we shall have to be patient.

As to the Philippine matter, there has been a paper in circulation asking the two political campaigns to pronounce in favor of Philippine independence. The success of that paper has been beyond all expectation. It has been signed by dozens of college presidents with President Eliot of Harvard at the head, scores of professors, ever so many Episcopalian bishops and clergymen, Cardinal Gibbons, several Catholic archbishops and bishops and no end of prominent private citizens. I suppose it will be ignored by the Republican National Convention, but I shall not be surprised if it would encourage the Democratic Convention to put forth some energetic pronounce-