Harper's Weekly Editorials on Carl Schurz/Senator Schurz 2

by Harper's Weekly

SENATOR SCHURZ.

The Fifth Avenue Conference merely showed, what was already evident, that the canvass is to be a combined attempt to beat Grant, but without any common ground of political principle. None of the gentlemen who spoke, except Mr. William Dorsheimer, of Buffalo, who has very recently changed his views upon the subject, however they might concede that an absurd fate had made Mr. Greeley the inevitable candidate, spoke of him with respect, or professed to think him a proper or suitable person for the office. The opponents of General Grant are, at least, shrewd enough to conceal their dislike, while the supporters of Mr. Greeley frankly confess his total unfitness and their utter reluctance, but wofully conclude that they must accept him.

The gentleman in the most unfortunate position, however, is Senator Schurz. He was the real author of the Cincinnati movement. He was the president of the Convention, and his speech, as usual, was eloquent and full of high political aspiration. But a cruel fate compelled him to see his colleague in the Senate, General Frank Blair, the Governor of his State, Mr. Gratz Brown, and Senator Fenton, with a few other skillful politicians, taking possession of his Convention, and imposing upon it and upon him a candidate who is the peculiar representative of every political principle and policy that Mr. Schurz and his friends especially disapprove. Had he protested from the platform, as he might have done, that in the universal tumult it was impossible to determine what the real wish of the Convention was, or, when he saw that the purpose of the movement had been baffled by the nomination, had he immediately declared his refusal to be bound by the decision, upon the ground that such a nomination could not accomplish the ends for which he had taken part in the movement, he might have affected the result. But he lost the golden moment, and after bitterly grieving for seven weeks over the nomination, he comes mournfully to New York and says only, “Too late! too late! Greeley is a chaos of doubt, but he is preferable to the certainty of Grant.” And so ends Mr. Schurz's dream of a glorious political revival.

He will perhaps now enter upon the active canvass for Mr. Greeley. But the shadow of his deep disappointment will constantly attend him and paralyze his efforts. He knows — no man better — that while there has been much discontent in the Republican party, it has been because of the supposed influence of a certain class of unscrupulous politicians, and that it is not a discontent which will follow him out of the party to seek a remedy from worse specimens of the same class, who are the vociferous managers of Mr. Greeley, and whom Mr. Bowles says that Mr. Greeley prefers to honest friends. Senator Schurz will perhaps denounce what he will call the corruption and low tone of the present Administration. He will do this possibly in the State of New York. Does he suppose that the the intelligent mind of this State the names of Senator Fenton, of Mr. John Cochrane, of Mr. Waldo Hutchins, of Mr. Ira O. Miller, which are all well known, are earnests of a higher and purer political tone? Assuming that the gentlemen whom we name are quite the peers of certain Grant men who might be named, will Mr. Schurz tell us what is to be gained merely by changing hands? Assuming that Senator Conkling controls the national “patronage” in this State now, will Mr. Schurz show us what moral revolution there is, or what increase of political purity or elevation of tone, in giving it to Senator Fenton? He will remember that Senator Fenton is not a political stranger to New Yorkers.

Moreover, Mr. Schurz ought to understand that those supporters of the President who know, as we know, the honesty of the Senator's purpose, know also, as we do, that he is not a representative of the Greeley Republicans. We appeal confidently to the experience of other Republicans, as we state our own, in saying that such of our late political friends as incline to the Greeley movement are almost — not always, but almost — without exception moved by some personal or utterly visionary consideration. It is not, what it is claimed to be, a movement for purity and harmony. These may be the real hopes of a very few, but they are the masks of the purposes of the leaders. The real spring is personal. It is baffled influence and fruitless desire of office counting upon Republican dissatisfaction and Democratic demoralization to play a bold confidence game and win the Presidency. Senator Schurz can see it if he will. He early saw the dissatisfaction and demoralization. He believed that a new party was practicable. He inaugurated a movement toward it by his Chicago speech last summer. But wilier and unscrupulous politicians saw exactly what he did. They joined his movement, captured it, controlled it, turned it to their own purpose; and Carl Schurz now marches in their train, supporting a candidate whom he does not profess to approve, declaring that Grant and “his surroundings” are the depth of infamy, but Greeley and his surroundings the hope of the republic. It is the most mournful spectacle in our politics to-day.

Possibly Mr. Schurz believes that the election of Mr. Greeley would dissolve existing parties and ameliorate party tyranny in Congress. But, however he may wish it otherwise, both parties stand fully organized, and Mr. Greeley, elected by Democratic votes and Democratic machinery, will be virtually a Democratic President, or if not, then a fly upon the wheel. An organized party which elects its candidate, and with him a Congress, controls the Administration. So Mr. Schurz's movement would end not in a new party of homogeneous principles, and composed of the best men of the present parties, but in a mass of unequal parts, from which the best men of both parties would hold aloof. It would not dissolve parties, but merely leave the old Democratic party masters of the field. It may be, as he says, the only means by which General Grant can be defeated. But neither Senator Schurz nor all the other Greeley orators will be able to show the country that, under such circumstances and by such means, the defeat of Grant is more to be desired than the election of Greeley is to be feared.