Visit of the Hon. Carl Schurz to Boston/Address by Edward L. Pierce, Esq.
The Chairman. Assembled as we are to do honor to a kindred spirit, our thoughts irresistibly turn to the great name and fame of Charles Sumner. I ask you to listen to his friend and biographer, Edward L. Pierce.
ADDRESS BY EDWARD L. PIERCE, ESQ.
Among living statesmen, I know no one to whom I would more gladly pay a tribute of respect than to the honorable guest whom we now welcome. He has had the felicity to cover with his life a great period, and to fasten his name to it in both hemispheres. Fresh and vigorous he comes to us, his features still youthful, his locks not as yet silvered, and, as we believe, with opportunities and honors before him not less than those in retrospect. While yet a student, he became the partisan of popular rights in 1848,—a year which witnessed the revival of the spirit of liberty both in Europe and the United States. He is remembered in Germany for his chivalrous rescue from the fortress of Spandau of the patriot Johann Gottfried Kinkel,—now a Professor of the History of Art at Zurich, whom it was my privilege to meet two years ago in that city, at the house of my friend Mr. Guyer, where we had much discourse on the noble career of our guest. After a year's residence in London he came to this country, in 1852; and in six years or less from that time he was able to address audiences in English, using our language with a facility, a vigor of expression, and a keen sense of idioms which belong to but few with whom it is the vernacular. No foreigner, unless it be Kossuth, has been his rival in this regard. In his speeches, he showed from the beginning not only breadth of vision and capacity for applying the methods of philosophy to political questions, which might have been expected from one of his gifts and nationality, but as well a vivid perception of the details of our history, early and later, and a delicate appreciation of the local and national spirit which has informed its successive epochs. Among our public men, to-day, where will you find another so accomplished, so well equipped on all sides for public service,—speaking and thinking in three languages, and in each easily and well; a student of all political science from the start, and not forced to cram for some new question or current of opinion; matching senators in debate, and instructing with marvellous skill popular audiences on abstruse subjects of political economy; and, with all this, energetic and practical in the management of public business?
There is not time this evening to review in detail the services of Mr. Schurz on the platform, in the field, the senate, and the cabinet; but some leading points in his career may be recalled. In 1858 he was active in the senatorial canvass in Illinois which gave Mr. Lincoln a national reputation, and led to his nomination two years later for the Presidency; and in the same year he aided effectively in a Republican success in Wisconsin. No man in 1860 did so much as he to carry the German vote,—a vote which was essential to Mr. Lincoln's election; and in that most important canvass of our history he was the peer, before audiences of English-speaking citizens, of Seward, Sumner, and Chase. In our civil war, months before the issue of the proclamation of emancipation, at a time when our Government disowned an Antislavery policy, he sought a discharge from our diplomatic service in Spain, unwilling to remain longer a distant spectator of the struggle; and on his return he forecasted the future in his remarkable speech in March, 1862, at the Cooper Institute, entitled “Reconciliation by Emancipation,”—maintaining that a mere victory of arms would 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 in great numbers by the State Committee in every village of the Commonwealth.
And now he has just laid aside the duties of a high public trust, in which he has proven a capacity for administration equal to that which he had already shown in the discussion of public questions. He has presided over that department of the National Government which, though attracting less than those of finance and foreign affairs the popular interest and imagination, exacts greater labor, embraces more miscellaneous duties and requires the application of more various powers than any other,—covering agriculture, patents, the census, public lands, national education, and the Indian tribes. In all this he has done well. He has been so clear in his office that intemperate criticism has been unable to impeach his integrity and honor. He leaves behind no acts to be investigated. He has deserved well of the Republic by his persistence and success in purging the Indian service of the scandals and abuses which have been traditional with it. He has uniformly applied to his department the same system of admissions and promotions which prevails in all well-conducted commercial business, and which ought to prevail without favoritism in the business of government. He has done for the civilization of the Indian what no predecessor has done, testing his fidelity in responsible trusts and his capacity for higher education, promoting as never before his individual ownership of the soil, and thus preparing the way for the time,—not far distant let us hope,—when like the African, who is no longer slave or freedman, the Indian, dropping his exceptional status, shall be registered only as an American citizen.
On the Indian question there is one pre-eminent authority,—Bishop Whipple. With him this is no new sensation, no fresh topic of declamation. He has known the Indian for a quarter of a century, not afar off, but by immediate intercourse in camp and wigwam. He has been quick to see the red man's wrongs, and fearless in denouncing them. By his consecration to the work he reminds us of kindred services to aboriginal races rendered, within our memory, by Selwyn and Patteson on a distant continent. Says this distinguished expert on the Indian question:—
“It is due to Mr. Schurz that I should say, that, in twenty-one years' intercourse with this department, I have never found an officer of the government more ready to examine into the wrongs done to the Indians; whenever proof has been submitted, he has tried to redress the wrong. He has shown a courage and fidelity in the discharge of duty which called out my hearty gratitude. To him we owe the establishment of Indian police, the employment of Indian freighters, the removal of bad white men for immorality, and many other reforms.”
To my mind the testimony of this saintly bishop is worth more than that of the critics whose newborn zeal for the Indian has behind it no toils and sacrifices in his behalf.
The ex-Secretary will remember how, from his earliest connection with his Department, I have said to him with reiteration: “Let no temptation of honor or service elsewhere draw you, let no calumnies ever drive you, from your post; but remain there till your chief closes his administration. Attest your capacity for affairs, and carry into effect the opinions and policies you have developed in speech.” And now I gladly join, when his work is finished in the “Well done, good and faithful servant!” with which this city and State salute him at the close of his official term.
Our guest has sometimes, in the pleasantry of social intercourse, said that I “invented” him. If indeed, I am entitled to the credit of having in any way called public attention to him at an early period of his career, I esteem myself fortunate. I may perhaps be allowed a moment to explain this reference by Mr. Schurz to the manner of his original introduction to this community. In April, 1859, a few of us were engaged in an effort to defeat a constitutional amendment which discriminated against citizens of foreign nativity. Meeting Senator Wilson on the steps of the State House, I called his attention to the movement. He said that he had just received a letter from the most eloquent German in the country, stating how prejudicial to the Republican cause in the coming national election of 1860 would be the success of that proposition. He gave the name of the writer, then unknown to me, and I wrote it as he spelled it. It was the name of our guest. The same day I posted a letter to Mr. Schurz, asking him for some expression of opinion on the question which might be publicly used, and adding incidentally that I wished he could be present at a dinner soon to be given in this city commemorative of the birthday of Thomas Jefferson, where it was proposed to emphasize that statesman's well-known sympathies with all who sought among us an asylum from foreign oppression. It happened to be convenient for Mr. Schurz to make the journey hither; and, accepting the invitation, he arrived just as the guests were about to enter the dining hall at Parker's. It was a notable occasion. Ex-Governor Boutwell, as chairman, spoke with deliberation on the place of Jefferson in our history. Other speakers were Henry Wilson, John P. Hale, Erastus Hopkins, and John A. Andrew, the last being one of the active managers of the festivity. Letters of sympathy were read from William C. Bryant, William H. Seward, and Abraham Lincoln,—Mr. Lincoln's being remarkable for its sententious statement of the issues of that period. But among the incidents of the day Mr. Schurz' speech was the most noted. He was then thirty years of age. Of those present few had ever heard of him, and probably only Senator Wilson had ever met him before. His brief remarks interested and charmed all, and, though the season was late, there was a general demand that he should 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 and in the last offices, chivalrous and valiant in public defence. As we recognize by this public festivity the character and services of a statesman, it is a grateful thought that we are also doing justice and honor to Sumner's faithful friend.