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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 Lecture
before the Young Men’s Association Jan 21
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
_____________________________________________________________________
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:
No 1 Chapter on Schurz home and fire
No 2: Carl was a nephew of Catharine
Gaebler, wife of Emil C. Gaebler
All images added, not part of original text
