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Carl
Schurz,
German American
Carl Schurz, one of the most
celebrated German Americans, was born on 
Stresemann
characterized him in the following way:
"Carl Schutz managed to
combine his love for Germany with a loyalty to his American homeland in a
marvelous unity reflecting the striving of his great personality which, here as
well as there, was concerned with profound moral goals that are not restricted
to a single nation, but apply to all mankind."
While a student in Bonn, Schurz joined
what would become the German revolutionary movement of 1848. He participated in
the rebellions in the Rhineland, the Palatinate and in Baden. After the defeat
at Rastatt, Schurz escaped via Strasbourg to Switzerland, and later to Paris
and London. From there he shipped out in the fall of 1852 to New York, along
with his wife, settling in 1855 as a farmer in Watertown, Wisconsin, where he
gained admittance to the bar to practice law.
He became a dedicated supporter of the
still young Republican Party and campaigned for Lincoln in Illinois, Indiana,
Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York and Wisconsin. After the election,
President Lincoln appointed him U.S. envoy to Spain. The first defeats of the
Union Army in the Civil War occasioned his return to play an active part as
Union general in the war against the Confederacy and the struggle for the
emancipation of the slaves.
After the devastating war had ended, leaving
600,000 dead, Schurz returned to civilian life, working as Washington
correspondent for the New York Tribune, then as editor-in-chief of the Detroit
Post and after l867 as co-editor and part owner of the German-language
Westliche Post in St. Louis, Missouri. In 1869, he was elected U.S. senator by
his new home state. Thus at the age of forty, only sixteen years after arriving
in America as a homeless fugitive, Carl Schurz became a member of his adopted
country's highest legislative body, an institution often more powerful than the
president in those days.
As secretary of the interior under President
Rutherford B. Hayes from 1877 to 1881, Schurz had the opportunity to begin his
long championed civil service reform and make improvements in the Bureau of
Indian Affairs.
He then moved to New York City, where he
helped found the New York Evening Post. From 1892 to 1898 Schurz wrote the
editorials for Harper's Weekly. He became nationally famous as a political
writer and reformer, especially in the field of civil service administration.
During extensive lecture tours and new
journalistic endeavors after his service in the Cabinet Schurz continued
He died in New York on
Some of his quotes:
"Our ideals resemble the stars,
which illumintate the night. No one will ever be able to touch them. But the
men who, like the sailors on the ocean, take them for guides, will undoubtedly
reach their goal."
"My Country! When right keep it right; when wrong, set it right!"
Image from
an 1872 issue of German magazine "Über Land und Meer" showing Senator
Carl Schurz addressing rally in Cincinnati. Biographical sketch of Schurz
follows:
Carl Schurz was born in 1829, near Cologne,
in Liblar, Germany, to parents who were the local school master and daughter of
the "tenant in chief" to the Wolf Mettemich feudatories. He was born
under feudalism, living in a "chateau" or castle, surrounded by a
moat.
His school master father had a library full
of Schiller, Goethe, and Shakespeare, and told him that "George Washington
was the greatest man who ever lived." His father read Schiller's poems to
him, as well as G. E. Lessing's Nathan the Wise. The boy became an
expert pianist, who later performed for Lincoln, Hayes, and others Presidents.
Thus,
Schurz was still a "teenager" when the 1848 revolutions broke out,
and he followed his teacher, Gottfried Kinkel, into "battle", or such
that the aborted "revolution" could be characterized, even though it
was more a disjointed protest against the relic of feudalism which still ruled
Germany, but was crumbling everywhere.
Schurz gained fame in revolutionary circles
when he rescued his teacher/ leader from prison, and led him into exile into
London by 1851. There he met with all the other revolutionaries, including
Mazzini, and even led a German delegation welcoming the Hungarian Kossuth into
his British (later Italian) exile.
Soon, however, he followed the other
"48ers" to America, migrating to Watertown, Wisconsin because of
relatives having settled there. While most Germans had gravitated towards the
Democratic Party, and about 1 million Germans left for America in the 1850's,
the '48ers started a new trend to support the Whig Party, and later the
Republican party, because of its more anti slavery stance.
Schurz led this trend in Wisconsin, and fast
became a leading orator of the new formed Republican Party, traveling to
Illinois in 1858 to see the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates. Lincoln was already
subsidizing a local German paper there, realizing the importance of weaning the
German-Americans away from the Democratic Party. Schurz became dedicated to
Lincoln for the rest of his short life.
Meanwhile, Schurz and his wife created a
cultural storm in the prairie wilderness of Wisconsin, performed operas,
holding concerts, and even forming a new movement started by Frederic Froebel
in Germany, as they created a "kindergarten"
in Watertown, Wisconsin. However, Schurz also had a lifelong romantic fling
with Wagnerian operas and music, which showed the destructive force of this
cultural rebellion in European Enlightenment.
Schurz became the major German American orator
for Lincoln's 1860 election campaign, and swung enough German voters into the
Republican Party to win that election. Lincoln was very grateful, and showed
his respect by showing Schurz his Inaugural Address before he left Springfield
for Washington in late 1860. After the inauguration, Lincoln appointed Schurz
to Ambassador of Spain; he only served there a short time, but quickly told
Lincoln that he could win over Europe with an Emancipation Proclamation, which
would make the main issue of the war the abolition of slavery.
Lincoln did issue this proclamation after the
"victory" at Antietam, actually a draw, but it repelled Lee from the
North until Gettysburg. Lincoln did this before Congressional elections of
1862, which cost him some Republican seats in Congress, but won him enough
European support to counteract British aid for the Confederacy.
Shortly, thereafter, Schurz returned to fight
as a Brigadier General to lead the huge number of German Troops in the Army of
the Potomac. He was attached to General Fremont's corps, whose staff officers
were colorfully garbed Hungarian 1848ers! He maintained an impetuous
correspondence with President Lincoln, who respected him enough to answer his
tactless questions about military strategy, including several White House
visits.
Soon the German corps were caught up the
battle of Gettysburg, where one artillery unit near Culp's Hill held off
desperate Confederate flanking attacks: one Southern officer reached the guns
and declared, "This Battery is ours!" while a German trooper speared
him with a shaft, and yelled, "Nein, dis battery ist unser!"
German artillery units then mowed down
Pickett's last charge with devastating fire, while the Yankee lines broke out
with victorious sounds of "John Brown's Body" to the retreating
confederates.
In 1864, Schurz again rallied the German
American vote for Lincoln. However, Lincoln's death left him and many Americans
without sound leadership, and he was soon embroiled in the bitter impeachment
of President Johnson. He toured the South to document trampled civil rights and
reconstruction, and his Congressional Testimony was reprinted in 100,000
copies.
In 1868, Schurz traveled back to Germany as
an American Icon, and Bismarck greeted him with a private hour and half interview,
followed by more conversation at dinner. When some North German jurists and
Privy Counselors attended the dinner, they did not recognize Schurz, until
Bismarck introduced him to his former enemies, much to their discomfort.
Schurz asked Bismarck why he did not attack
France right after he routed the Austrians in 1866, and Bismarck told him that
he had not consolidated South German support yet, and to defeat France then
would require raising of Hungarian troops, which was anathema to the Austrian
Hapsburgs! However, this shows confirmation that the Hungarians were working
closely with Bismarck against Austria, which resulted in the 1867 compromise by
Austria allowing home rule by the Hungarians who had rebelled in 1848, and
defeated Austria on the battlefield until Russia intervened.
Meanwhile, back in the United States, the
Grant Administration had poured millions of dollars into northern internal
improvements, while the Democratic Party vetoed all monies to the occupied
South, which remained prostrate while the Northern industrial revolution
boomed. This untenable situation was exploited by various "scandals"
such as Credit Mobilier in order to split the Republican party asunder. This
resulted in the great "compromise of 1877", after the Tilden/Hayes election,
which seated Hayes in the disputed White House in return for withdrawing all
Federal troops from the south, thus ending "reconstruction."
Schurz returned to America to become a St.
Louis German paper editor, and then a Senator from Missouri, where he
vigorously opposed New York (GOP) Senator Roscoe Conkling (Wall Street Agent)
in hearings on arms sales during the Franco Prussian war. However, while
Senator he also broke completely with the Grant Administration, and James
Blaine, in particular.
Subsequently, Schurz was in and out of the
GOP, leaving in 1872 to support Greeley on the Third Party ticket, returning to
elect Hayes in 1876, and become Secretary of the Interior, thence supporting
Garfield in 1880, but slipping away again when Arthur replaced the assassinated
Garfield, and appointed Conkling to the Supreme Court.
Thereafter, he left elected and appointed
office for good, reestablishing himself as a journalist with Henry Villard's
Nation. He became a leader of national civil service reform, which was a
catch all of Wall Street agents and anti-silver populists. He disliked Blaine
so much he supported Grover Cleveland in 1884, although the defection of New
York's Conkling, who hated Blaine with a Wall Street venom, may have done more
damage to Blaine, than Schurz did with the German American voters.
However, Schurz did come back to his senses
when he saw various oligarchical currents revive anti-Semitism in Europe and
anti-black racism in America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, submerged
under the cover of renewed "imperialism". On this issue he broke with
Theodore Roosevelt completely, and organized an Anti-Imperialism League in
America in the last years of his life, which ended in 1906.
Interestingly, a fact missed by Schurz's latest
biographer, Hans Trefousse, a Brooklyn College Professor, is that Governor
Robert LaFollette of Wisconsin, who was the national leader of the Lincoln
Insurgents in the GOP at the turn of the Century, feted Carl Schurz in
Wisconsin in June, 1905 by endowing a Carl Schurz Professorship at the
University of Wisconsin.
Schurz addressed LaFollette in Madison,
Wisconsin by saying:
"I am so happy to know that what I have been striving for all my life has been taken up by a younger man. Go on with the good work, Governor, do not lose courage, and may God bless you. "
Authored and contributed by:
Glenn Mesaros
Minneapolis, MN
gmeszaros@email.msn.com
[ Address added with permission of the author
]
1858
01 21 Lecture
before the Young Men’s Association
09 16 Appointed Regent of the University of WI
12
02 Special Election to fill vacancy
occasioned by the resignation of Ald. Schurz
WD
1859
01 12 Beaver
Dam Democrat gives currency to
charges against Carl Schurz WTranscript
05 05 Schurz
is as prolific as Queen Victoria, although their tastes are somewhat
different WG
CARL
SCHURZ DIES AT AGE 76
1906
05 15 1906
Carl
Schurz who was widely known as an orator and writer passed away at his home in
the city of New York at an early hour yesterday morning in the 76th year of his
age, having been born in Cologne, Germany,
CARL SCHURZ TO BE HONORED
Watertown Daily Times, 02
10 2001
Carl
Schurz, general in the Union Army in the Civil War and one of Watertown's most
famous residents, is scheduled to be inducted into the Wisconsin Conservation
Hall of Fame in Stevens Point this spring.
We
learned of this honor for a great American statesman in a call from a strong
friendship we made in our years in the newspaper industry. Bill Berry, former
editor of the Stevens Point Journal, called us with the information. Bill is a
friend whom we had not heard from since he left his newspaper career to pursue
a little slower pace of life as a freelance writer and also as head of public
relations for this conservation group.
Bill
said he thought we would be interested in knowing Carl Schurz was scheduled for
this great honor. The induction will take place on Saturday, April 7, in a
program from
Carl
Schurz is known in Watertown for his great oratorical skills, his political
leadership and also for his famous wife, Margarethe Meyer Schurz, who
established the first kindergarten in the United States. It was founded right
here in Watertown at the southwest corner of North Second and Jones streets.
That's now a municipal parking lot, but there is a stone monument marking that
as the location of the first kindergarten.
Many
years ago the actual first kindergarten building was moved from its original
location to the Octagon House grounds where it can be toured.
We
didn't realize the strong role Carl Schurz played in conservation efforts for
the United States back in the 1800s and up to the turn of the century. Here's a
little background on this famous man. It was included in the information Bill
sent to us this week.
Carl
Schurz was born in Liblar, Germany on
He
settled in Watertown in 1854 and remained one of Watertown's famous citizens
until 1860 when he was appointed envoy to Spain.
It was
during his years in Watertown that he became deeply involved in politics. He
ran unsuccessfully for the position of lieutenant governor of the state in
1857. He was elected chairman of the Wisconsin delegation to the Republican
National Convention in Chicago in 1860. He campaigned for the re-election of
President Abraham Lincoln in 1864 and was a United States senator from Missouri
from 1869 to 1875.
From
1877 to 1881 he served as secretary of the Department of the Interior under
presidencies of Rutherford B. Hayes and James A. Garfield. In his tenure at
that position he opposed the spoils system, advocated enlightened treatment of
Indians, made Civil Service reforms, prosecuted forest/land thievery and had
vast impact on conservation efforts nationally.
He was
a great influence on the American Forestry Association and other foresters and
he played a key role in the adoption of the 1891 Forest Reservation Act.
Carl
Schurz wrote extensively throughout his life. He was an editor of Harper's
weekly from 1892 to 1898, also edited the New York Evening Post and The Nation,
published a history of the United States and a biography of Henry Clay. He also
wrote a three-volume book of memoirs titled "Reminiscences."
He was
a brigadier general and then a major general in the Union Army and served in
the military at the Battle of Gettysburg.
The
Carl Schurz Society in Germany was founded in 1926 and is active to this day. A
Carl Schurz Memorial Foundation was established in Chicago in 1930. A large
statue in Oshkosh proclaims him to be the foremost German-American in the
country's history.
Here's
a little more information about his conservationist views as researched by our
friend Bill Berry:
That
Carl Schurz merits mention in American history is beyond discussion. A German
immigrant, Schurz was a Civil War hero, a reformer and political activist. He
was a writer and author, a brilliant orator and a keeper of company like
Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Rutherford B. Hayes.
Schurz
was a man of many interests and activities. Even when focusing only on his
conservation activities, his importance to the cause is hard to summarize.
For
instance, Schurz is credited with helping to bring about Civil Service reform.
On the surface, this might not seem related to conservation. But the late
Steward L. Udall put the two together in his book, "The Quiet
Crisis." Udall noted that Schurz's first act as Secretary of the Interior
(1877-81), "was to initiate an intensive study of forest depredations, and
his first report, in 1877, singled out lumbermen who were 'not merely stealing
trees, but whole forests.'"
Udall
added that when Schurz set out to regulate these practices, he found trouble
within his own agency. "... he soon discovered that his fieldmen in the
General Land Office, who were supposed to be looking after the forests, were
spoils appointees inclined to wink at trespass and timber theft."
As
secretary, Schurz acted quickly to remove politics from everyday forest
management. New job candidates and those proposed for promotion were required
to take an examination, noted Schurz biographer Joseph Schafer ("Carl
Schurz, Militant Liberal," 1930). "All applicants, no matter how
politically strong their support might be, found themselves obliged to go
through this testing process and to abide its results," Schafer wrote.
Next
week we'll continue with more of the commentary from Bill Berry on Watertown's
Carl Schurz.
TLS
MORE ON CARL SCHURZ
Watertown Daily Times, 02
17 2001
In
last week's column we told our readers about the high honor Carl Schurz, one of
Watertown's most famous citizens, is scheduled to receive in April. Schurz, a
famous American who was born in Germany in 1829 and died in New York City in
1906, had lived in Watertown in the 1850s and 1860s.
He
became famous as a statesman and was deeply involved in politics. He served in
Cabinet positions under several United States presidents. Lesser known to most
of our readers was his strong interest in the environment. Carl Schurz was
secretary of the interior and a champion of preserving our country's natural
resources.
It was
his devout interest in protecting our country's environment that led the
Wisconsin Conservation Hall of Fame to select him for induction on April 7 at
the conservation organization's large parcel of forestland outside Stevens
Point. The ceremony will begin at
Our
column of last week included some background on Carl Schurz and also started a
narrative by our friend Bill Berry on Schurz's history and why he was selected
for this honor. Here we are concluding his narrative:
Carl
Schurz's causes were many, but historians give plenty of attention to Schurz's
keen interest in conservation and land use. In his day, the duties of Interior
Secretary were many, but "his heart was clearly in the two subjects of
forestry and Indian affairs," wrote Schafer.
Schurz
battled against views still prevalent at that time that saw "forests as an
obstacle to civilization, fit only to be slaughtered and burned."
Appreciation of forests for conserving soils and governing stream flowage was
still absent in America of the 1870s, noted Schafer. The belief that timber
resources were inexhaustible still prevailed.
"Schurz,
by reason of his knowledge of world conditions, realized the tragic
shortsightedness of such views and made it one of his special duties, as the
officer charged with the oversight of the forests on public lands, to educate
congress and the people upon that subject," wrote Schafer.
Schurz
sought to end timber thievery, the taking by private operators of government
timber. An unsympathetic Congress instead passed a law that all but legalized
the practice in some states.
As
secretary, Schurz succeeded in passing a measure to penalize those who set
fires on forestlands. He exempted timber areas from homestead or pre-emption
claims and regulated the sale of government wood to miners and settlers, who he
said had been "denuding the national domain whenever and wherever they saw
fit to do so."
Schurz,
like other early conservation figures, was ahead of his time. Historian Henry
Clepper wrote "Crusade for Conservation, The Centennial History of the
American Forestry Association." In that history, he referred to Schurz as
"the first authentic conservationist to hold cabinet rank."
He
would also be called "The Father of the Forest Reserves" for his
efforts to rescue and reinvigorate America's forests. It was Schurz's job to
educate, so that others would later act. As secretary, Schurz called for
establishment of a system of federal forest reserves, initiation of
reforestation practices, charges to the users of natural resources, stiff fines
for willful setting of forest fires and empowerment of the president to appoint
a commission "to study the terribly instructive laws and practices of
other countries." He also called for a campaign of public education on the
conservation of forests, trees and soil.
Most
of his agenda was squashed or ignored. "Deaf was Congress, and deaf the
people seemed to be," Schurz later wrote. Secretary Schurz also encouraged
the country to adopt land management practices for America's West, based on the
recommendations of Major John Wesley Powell. The Powell Plan was a broad vision
for land use in the West, taking into consideration the need for a reservoir
system for irrigation and many other land use practices employed today.
Congress dallied on his recommendations, but Powell's ideas were to be
vindicated several times in the future. The Reclamation Act was passed in 1902.
The Dust Bowl era of the 1930s finally brought an introduction of many of the
practices recommended by Powell.
In a
letter to Herbert Welsh in 1899, Schurz reflected on his years as secretary:
"What I did with regard to the public forests was simply to arrest
devastation, in which I partially succeeded, and for which I was lustily
denounced, and to strive from year to year to obtain from congress legislation
for the protection of forests, in which I largely failed."
Schurz
continued to lobby the cause after leaving office. He sought to rally support
for a national forest policy with the American Forestry Association, and
momentum built for reform. In 1891, Congress empowered the president to
withdraw forest reserves from the public lands, creating the Forest Reservation
Act. Presidents William Harrison, Grover Cleveland and, especially, Theodore
Roosevelt, laid away 132 million acres as national forests before Congress
repealed the Forest Reservation Act in 1907. This is still the major part of
the National Forest System.
It was
Carl Schurz who first called for establishing federal forest reserves. He lived
to see that happen.
Wisconsin
is quick to claim Schurz, even though he lived here for but eight or nine
years. Schurz moved to Watertown from his native Germany in 1852 and stayed in
the state until 1860. He immersed himself in many causes while in the state. He
quickly became part of the anti-slavery movement. He ran unsuccessfully for
lieutenant governor in 1857. He set up a law office in Milwaukee. He campaigned
for Abraham Lincoln with both natives and foreign-born. He was a Wisconsin
delegate to the National Republican Convention in Chicago.
But
for a brief return to the state after serving as a general in the Union Army
during the Civil War, that fairly well sums up the time Schurz actually spent
in Wisconsin.
He
was, of course, the first and only Interior Secretary from Wisconsin, and he
lives on in the state's history books. He and his wife, Margarethe, are both
listed in the standard reference, "Wisconsin Biographies." His
three-volume "Reminiscences," holds a place in the Wisconsin section
of state libraries to this day.
The
Schurz home is a historic attraction in Watertown. Margarethe Schurz is
generally recognized as having established the first American kindergarten, in
Watertown.
Like
many early conservation figures, Schurz's main job would be to educate people
about the need for change. By most accounts, the conservation movement wasn't
born in America until the mid-19th century.
As
noted by historian Henry Clepper, Schurz was the first conservationist to be
appointed to a cabinet position. Schurz, like the other early conservationists,
must by necessity be measured in no small part by the deeds of those who
followed. Such is the lot of people with vision and foresight beyond the normal
scope.
Watertown
residents should be proud that one of this community's famous sons has been
honored for his conservation efforts. We're glad Bill passed this information
on to us. It helped us to learn more about this important figure in American
history.
TLS
_____________________________________________________________________
1906 Mr.
Carl Schurz devotes the eighth chapter of his “Reminiscences of a Long Life” in
McClure's to a description of his adventure in Paris after his flight from
Kinkel from his own country. And the adventures are surely exciting. Schurz
almost without money, struggling along in a hotel carnet in the Latin Quarter,
trying to keep body and soul together by correspondence with German socialistic
papers, was followed by the spies of Louis Napoleon, just then planning his
coup d'etat which was to make him Emperor of the French. Mr. Schurz, all
unsuspecting that his revolutionary record would make him of interest to
Napoleon, went placidly on his way until he was arrested and thrown into a cell
with a common thief from which he was taken only to be warned to leave the
country immediately. This incident, exciting as it is, is only a small part of
the good things in this installment. There are charming descriptions of life in
the Latin Quarter and of the writer's encounters with famous artists and poets of
the period. Mr. Schurz is always entertaining, but in this installment he
outdoes himself, and one regrets that it is not twice as long as it is. 06 12
June Harsh criticism upon the 1906 death of
Carl Schurz Mother Earth magazine
_____________________________________________________________________
1908
04 02 Contributions being received for the Carl Schurz memorial fund. Apathy on part of the people of Watertown.
05
01 Watertown fund raising for Carl Schurz
memorial. Carl Schurz Memorial
Professorship.
1983
05 08 U.S. stamp honoring Carl Schurz.
Cross-References:
Chapter
on Schurz home and fire
Carl
was a nephew of Catharine
Gaebler, wife of Emil C. Gaebler
Daniel Kusel, Sr. was persuaded to stay in Watertown by
his friend, Carl Schurz
All images added, not part of original text
