The Writings of Carl Schurz/To Robert Erskine Ely, January 22d, 1905
TO ROBERT ERSKINE ELY
Your letter of the 20th inst., inviting me to become a member of the advisory council of the New York Society of the Friends of Russian freedom is in my hands. I hardly need to assure you that all my sympathies are with the cause of Russian freedom. I also hold in the highest esteem the ladies and gentlemen you mention as being at the head of the Society. If now, before joining them in their work, which I should consider it an honor to do, I express the wish to be a little more minutely informed as to the persons or committees or associations with whom they are in correspondence, and upon whose advice they depend, and so on, it is because in my younger days I had a good deal of personal experience of such matters, which taught me that the efforts of such societies as yours, although inspired by the best intentions and the most laudable enthusiasms and the greatest conscientiousness, may occasionally do more harm than good, unless conducted with very great circumspection.
I should therefore be glad to have a conversation with you or, if inconvenient to you, with some other well informed officer of the Society at such time as you may choose. I have no office down town. Would it be asking too much if I invited you to visit me here? If you are willing to do so, you will oblige me by notifying me beforehand of your coming so that mishaps be avoided.