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The Honorable Charles Francis Adams, of Boston, presided.
The various periods of Mr. Schurz's public career were made the subjects for the speeches of the evening.
They were:
Young Germany in the Storm and Stress Period.
The Champion of the Slave.
The Soldier in the Civil War.
The Statesman in Reconstruction.
The United States Senator.
The Member of the Cabinet.
The Civil Service Reformer.
The Sound Money Presidential Campaign.
The Chairman, in his opening speech, sketched briefly
the distinguished services rendered by Mr. Schurz
to his
country, and referred at length to the deficiency, in our
political system, as the result of which such men are
rarely retained in official and parliamentary life, to the
country's inestimable loss. While Mr. Schurz sat in
the Senate, elected from Missouri, the speaker, though
a resident of Massachusetts, had been completely,
almost ideally, represented there. When he was called
to the Cabinet, the services of a thoroughly equipped
and brilliant parliamentarian were necessarily lost. Such
constituencies as in England or Germany would have
returned a man of this stamp to the House of Commons
or to the Reichstag, as quickly as opportunity offered,
