THE REMINISCENCES OF CARL SCHURZ
that, I being only an adopted citizen, a “foreigner,” they could permit themselves greater license in abusing me than they could have safely indulged in when attacking a public man native to the soil. Certain it is that if only a tenth part of the things that were said and printed of me had been true, I should have been rather fit for the penitentiary than for the company of gentlemen. In the course of my public activity I became gradually hardened to this kind of infliction, and took it as an unavoidable incident of political warfare. I made it a rule never to dignify with an answer any accusation that had nothing to do with my public conduct.
My habit of not replying to attacks of the personal kind led sometimes to curious incidents. For instance, when at a later period I opposed General Grant's re-election in 1872, I spoke in a Western town where the Republican paper, anticipating my speech, published a personal attack on me so extravagant in its vileness that I cut out the article and put it in my pocketbook to show it on occasion to my friends for their amusement. It so happened that a few years later I visited the same town in a “sound money” campaign in which the Republican candidate was on the right side; and now it was the Democratic paper of the place that fired a tremendous volley of abuse at me. The Republican editor politely visited me at my hotel, holding the Democratic paper in his hand. “Have you seen this Democratic mud-battery?” he said. “It is a d——d outrage, isn't it?” I read and smiled, remembering that I happened to have my Republican friend's article still in my pocketbook. I took it out and presented it to him. “The Democratic mud-battery is not without precedent,” said I. The poor man's confusion may be imagined. He blushed, stammered something unintelligible, and beat a hasty retreat.
One of the favorite methods of fighting a troublesome
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