Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume Three).djvu/443

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

CARL SCHURZ'S POLITICAL CAREER

ties of more than a “favorite son.” Yet he seemed to be a promising possibility for the second place. Ever since the election of Frank Blair as Senator from Missouri a coolness had existed between Brown and Schurz, because the latter had strongly objected to Blair's candidacy, while Brown had supported it.

Brown did not go to Cincinnati for the opening of the convention. Irritated, however, by reports that Schurz was seeking to divert the votes of Missouri to Adams, and vexed, in all probability, by Schurz's prominence and influence, Brown, accompanied by Blair, hastened to Cincinnati before the balloting began, and promptly came to an understanding with the Greeley men. Accordingly, after the first ballot, in which Adams led with 203 votes and Brown received 95, Brown ascended the platform, withdrew his name and urged the nomination of Greeley. The effect was seen on the second ballot, when Greeley's vote rose to equal that of Adams. The two remained very close till the sixth ballot, when, under the skillful and persistent pressure and manipulation of the intriguers, the change of votes to Greeley began, and he was nominated. Brown was duly rewarded for his services, by receiving on the second ballot the nomination for the Vice-Presidency.

Greeley's nomination was a heavy blow to Schurz. It destroyed in an instant the whole fabric of the reform movement as he had so laboriously shaped it. Greeley was ludicrously remote in personality and notoriously separated in principle from the ideals which the true Liberals had avowed. To secure and retain the support of the New York and Pennsylvania protectionists, of whom Greeley was the spokesman, the Liberal leaders had with much reluctance surrendered the tariff plank of the Missouri platform. The convention's committee on resolutions frankly admitted that sentiment in regard

[ 345 ]