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It was revived by his occasional appearance on German soil. Before what they called an amnesty for us was thought of, there appeared, in 1861, in the German newspapers, the official notice that the United States Minister in Spain, Mr. Carl Schurz, would pass through the country on his way to his American home, and the police were warned not to disturb him, this time. [Laughter and applause.]
Another time the papers and the people would relate with hushed exultation how the irreconcilable revolutionist was hobnobbing with demi-god Bismarck, and with the Crown Prince and the Emperor.
After his final escape I heard but rarely of him, and for a short time only; but, as there was no man or woman in any walk of life but adored him, and tried to know all about him, rehearsed his past and was interested in his present, so the only news a State prison convict whispered some day to the lone political State prisoner in his cell was that Carl Schurz was in America; that longed-for republican paradise; that combination, we fondly imagined, of Rome and Hellas; and there I shall now leave him.
The myth of the millions of Germany, to you, to us, he became and is real. What he has been to this, our country, is contained in the history of our last forty years, and will surely be told to-night. I know he would rather be absent, as he was spared being present at the celebration held in Berlin last week. But these are great qualities besides modesty, and, as he is modest, so he has often proved his endurance. In that spirit he should endure this evening, and remember that its main object and outcome is not so much personal, as
