Visit of the Hon. Carl Schurz to Boston/Address by the Hon. Charles R. Codman
ADDRESS BY THE HON. CHARLES R. CODMAN
We are assembled to-night to do honor, by a frank and cordial expression of regard, to one of the most distinguished statesmen of the country; to testify our hearty admiration of a remarkable and unexampled political career; and to say to our fellow-citizens in Massachusetts and in the whole country, so far as our names carry any influence or weight, that we believe that Carl Schurz, in the field, in the Senate, and in the Cabinet, has rendered services to the nation which rightfully place him in the foremost rank of her public men, and entitle him to the high respect and gratitude of all the people.
At the age of nineteen, in the foreign country in which he was born, he had become conspicuous for an ardent devotion to the great principles of freedom which have ever since guided and colored his political action. An exile and a refugee for liberty, he lands in early manhood upon the shores of America; and, frankly renouncing his German citizenship, he adopts as his country the nation which gives to him, as to all the oppressed from foreign lands, protection, freedom, and opportunity. To that nation he gives his full allegiance; and when her hour of danger comes, resigning an honorable post in her diplomatic service, he joins her patriotic sons born on her soil, and ventures his life in the war for Liberty and the Union.
Of the highest capacity for public affairs, and by nature and training a lover of politics in the best sense of the word, he set himself the task of comprehending the great ideas which underlie American constitutional government; and he has mastered them with the same thoroughness with which he has conquered the difficulties of the historic language, through the medium of which they have been proclaimed to the world. No public man to-day has more deeply studied American history and politics; none is more imbued with their spirit, in their higher aspects; no one expounds more clearly, more ably, and more independently the problems of finance and of government. That a man of foreign birth and of foreign education should gain the ear of an English-speaking people as journalist, writer, and speaker, and should hold a place in the popular estimation which places him in the forefront of statesmen and orators, is now seen for the first time in Anglo-Saxon history.
We who are here to-night believe that Carl Schurz is one of the few men in public life who distinctively represent independent and comprehensive statesmanship. We have felt, even when separated from him by party lines, and supporting candidates who were not his, that he may have been right and we mistaken.
It is not given to all men to stand outside of the clash of parties, or wisely and judiciously to determine between them. Those who can take such a position, and maintain it by sheer force of ability, integrity, and character, are surely our foremost men. They are not the leaders of factions; they are not even the recognized leaders of parties,—though that is an honorable and a lofty function: but they are the champions of great policies, and, if not the chiefs of parties, they are the natural leaders of men. There have always been such men in our politics, and there will always be need of them. Charles Sumner was such a man; and Carl Schurz is such a man.
It is my privilege to-night, in the name of this company, to present its thanks to Mr. Schurz for great and eminent services. We thank him that he has always been true to the two great political ideas which have ever been first in the hearts of the good people of this Commonwealth,—those, namely, of freedom and justice for all men, and of the sacred maintenance of public faith and credit. We thank him that when the West was honeycombed with the inflation heresy, his was the strongest and the clearest voice that pointed to the resumption of specie payments as demanded by every consideration of public safety and honor. And it has been his singular good fortune that upon this point, unlike many even of the wisest of our public men, he has had no occasion to revise or correct his opinions. They have stood the test of time; and he has lived to see general acquiescence in views of which at one time he, almost alone among Western statesmen, was the convinced and unhesitating advocate.
We thank him for having added lustre and renown to the administration of President Hayes,—an administration which, in purity and honesty of purpose, and in absolute freedom from scandals and corruption, has had no superior in American annals.
We thank him for his able and successful management of the vast and complicated concerns of the Department of the Interior; for having shown that the public business is done more economically, more efficiently, and more honestly by officials whose appointment and promotion depend solely upon their merit and competency,—thus demonstrating the necessity and practicability of extending the same principle to the entire civil service.
We thank him for having done more than any of his predecessors for the advancement of the Indians in education and civilization, and for the improvement of their relations with the white men and with the Government.
We thank him for having called the attention of our legislators—indifferent even after they were informed—to the outrages inflicted upon the Indians in the name and by the agents of a free people; and we congratulate him that a measure of justice has been meted out to the unfortunate Ponca tribe. That sentiment of sympathy for the oppressed, and of resistance to oppression, which always stirs the blood of Massachusetts, has at last awakened the conscience of this community; and, in the sudden and honest and indignant expression of that sentiment, grave injustice, as we believe, has been done to the man who, overlooking the whole field, and oppressed with the load of official responsibility, has been considering for months and years a problem of astounding difficulty, with a view to its solution on principles of justice and safety for the Indians. And now that a tardy act of reparation has been done, and the nation has recognized its fault and its humiliation, surely that citizen may stand acquitted who, first of all men holding executive or legislative office, proclaimed the wrong and demanded the redress.
These are the views, as I have tried imperfectly to interpret them, of this assembly,—representing, not, I trust, altogether inadequately, the commercial enterprise, the literary culture, and the independent politics of Massachusetts. We offer to our guest, now withdrawing—temporarily, we hope—from the public service, this tribute of our regard. We will not believe that the country is to lose his valued counsels. He will yet be heard, we doubt not, in the press and in the gatherings of the people; and we know that he will discuss the issues of the day with the highest intellectuality, patriotism, and power. Looking hopefully forward to the future, we are here to-night to thank him for the past, and to give him our best wishes and our heartiest commendation. Health and prosperity and added distinguished public honors to Carl Schurz!