THE REMINISCENCES OF CARL SCHURZ
the lonely woman, however heroically she tried to seek courage in her patriotic impulses and hopes.
Kinkel had much to tell in his letters of the cordiality with which the Germans in America had welcomed him. Wherever he appeared his countrymen gathered in large numbers to listen to the charm of his eloquence. As he traveled from city to city one festive welcome followed another. The enthusiasm of the mass meetings left nothing to be desired. Although Kinkel at that period spoke English with some difficulty, he was obliged to make little speeches in that tongue, when native Americans took part in the honors offered to him. So he visited all the important places in the United States, north, south, east, and west. He also paid his respects to President Fillmore and was received with great kindness. These happenings he described with bubbling humor in his letters, which breathed a keen enjoyment of his experiences, as well as a warm interest in the new country. In short, his journey was successful in all respects, except in that of the German National Loan. Indeed, committees were organized everywhere for the collection of money and for the distribution of loan certificates; but the contributions finally amounted only to a few thousand dollars, a small sum with which no great enterprise could be set on foot. Kossuth, who visited the United States a few months later for a similar purpose, and who enjoyed a greater prestige, and was received with much more pomp, had the same experience. And it was really a fortunate circumstance that these revolutionary loans miscarried. Even with much larger sums hardly anything could have been done but to organize hopeless conspiracies and to lead numbers of patriotic persons into embarrassment and calamity without rendering any valuable service to the cause of liberty.
At that time, however, we thought otherwise. Emissaries
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