working journalist and a doughty doctrinaire. A little group of such men
formed itself about Schurz--then only forty-three years old--to what end?
Why, Greeley, Horace Greeley, the bellwether of abolitionism, the king bee
of protectionism, the man of fads and isms and the famous "old white hat."

To some of us it was laughable. To Schurz it was tragical. A bridge had to
be constructed for him to pass--for retrace his steps he could not--and,
as it were, blindfolded, he had to be backed upon this like a mule aboard
a train of cars. I sometimes wonder what might have happened if Schurz had
then and there resigned his seat in the Senate, got his brood together and
returned to Germany. I dare say he would have been welcomed by Bismarck.

Certainly there was no lodgment for him thenceforward in American politics.
The exigencies of 1876-77 made him a provisional place in the Hayes
Administration; but, precisely as the Democrats of Missouri could put such
a man to no use, the Republicans at large could find no use for him. He
seemed a bull in a china shop to the political organization he honored with
a preference wholly intellectual, and having no stomach for either extreme,
he became a Mugwump.



III


He was a German. He was an artist. By nature a doctrinaire, he had become
a philosopher. He could never wholly adjust himself to his environment.
He lectured Lincoln, and Lincoln, perceiving his earnest truthfulness and
genuine qualities, forgave him his impertinence, nor ceased to regard him
with the enduring affection one might have for an ardent, aspiring and