# U. S. Senate Speeches and Remarks of Carl Schurz/Relief to Germany and France

“Mr. Pomeroy asked, and by unanimous consent obtained, leave to bring in a joint resolution (S. 308) authorizing the use of a naval vessel to transport breadstuffs to Europe; which was read the first and second times, by unanimous consent, and considered as in Committee of the Whole; and no amendment being made, it was reported to the Senate. Ordered, That it be engrossed and read the third time. The said resolution was read the third time, by unanimous consent.” (Journal of the Senate of the United States of America, 41st Congress, 3rd Session, February 4, 1871, pp. 218-219). Carl Schurz makes two appearances in this discussion. The text is from The Congressional Globe, 41st Congress, 3rd Session, pp. 953-956.
RELIEF TO GERMANY AND FRANCE
Mr. POMEROY. I desire leave to introduce a joint resolution, and I ask that it be
read at length and acted on now. I think there will be no objection to it.
By unanimous consent, leave was granted to introduce a joint resolution (S.R. No. 308) authorizing the use of a naval vessel to transport breadstuffs to Europe; and it was read twice, and considered as in Committee of the Whole. It proposes to authorize the President to cause to be stationed at the port of New York, if the same can be done without injury to the public service, one or more of our naval vessels, to be there held in readiness to receive on board for transportation such supplies as may be furnished by the people of the United States for the destitute and suffering people of France and Germany.
Mr. ANTHONY. I am in favor of that resolution; but I should like to know whether the cost of this is to be taken out of the naval appropriation. I do not think that cost should be taken out of the Navy appropriations, and then we be told that the appropriations for the Navy are very extravagant. I think there ought to be some provision for it other than out of the funds appropriated for the Navy.
Mr. POMEROY. This is in precisely the form of the resolution adopted some years ago in reference to Ireland; and I suppose that then the expense came out of the Navy appropriations.
Mr. ANTHONY. I think there should be a clause to the effect "that the amount necessary for all the expenses thereof is hereby appropriated out of the Treasury."
Mr. POMEROY. The difficulty of that is that in the other House the bill would have to be considered in Committee of the Whole if it contained an appropriation, and it could not be passed promptly.
Mr. ANTHONY. I do not wish to do anything to embarrass the bill. If an amendment would prevent its passage in the other House I will not offer one.
Mr. POMEROY. Efforts are being made in New York to load a steamer, and those making them desire the prompt passage of this resolution. On consultation with the Department I found they could furnish a vessel if they had authority; but they want the authority of Congress to furnish it.
Mr. ANTHONY. I offer no amendment.
Mr. HOWARD. I do not wish to oppose the passage of the resolution; but I suggest to the mover of it that I do not see any propriety in inserting the words "and Germany." I take it the people of Germany are tolerably well supplied just now.
Mr. POMEROY. But if people choose to send anything there, this vessel is to carry it. It does not direct anything to be carried there.
Mr. HOWARD. We have no information, so far as I am aware, that the people of Germany are in need of any supplies from the United States whatever. They seem to have managed their own business pretty well, navigated their own canoe skillfully; and if there be any destitute people who need the charities of the people of the United States it seems to me they are the French, who are little better at this time, so far as I understand their case, than a conquered people — our old allies now in distress for bread, as well as arms and soldiers. I move, therefore, to strike out the words "and Germany." They seem to me gratuitous.
Mr. STEWART. I hope that will not be done. There are many people in the United States undoubtedly who have friends in Germany who are suffering in consequence of this war. This war has been very severe on Germany, and there are many people here who would like to send their contributions there. We do not want to discriminate in our charities between either belligerent. Of course the benevolent sentiment of the country will dictate where the donations shall go; and there are certainly many suffering in Germany in consequence of this terrible war, and many families left destitute. Although Germany has not been overrun, we know very well that that country suffers much; and there are a great many people in this country who desire to send contributions to their friends there, and it is very proper that they should have the opportunity.
Mr. HOWARD. Would the Senator get up a subscription to aid the people of Germany, who are the victors, the conquerors, as to whom we are not informed that they are in any distress for want of supplies from this country?
Mr. STEWART. Certainly there are many people now in this country who have made subscriptions for their friends in Germany. Societies have been organized for that purpose. There are many widows and orphans in Germany who are suffering; and their relatives in this country desire to send them aid, and have been doing it. There are societies organized for that purpose. It is just as benevolent a purpose as the other.
Mr. HOWARD. If it be put upon the ground that the Germans residing in this country who have become naturalized citizens of the United States wish to send supplies to their friends in Germany, I certainly have no objection to it on that ground.
Mr. SCHURZ. May I interrupt the Senator from Michigan for a moment? I think the Senator from Michigan is decidedly right in one respect: that is, that the Germans have been pretty well able to paddle their own canoe; but I understand the object of the Senator from Kansas to be not to make any invidious distinctions between nationalities at all.
Mr. POMEROY. That is it.
Mr. SCHURZ. It seems to me that all the gifts which may be transported to Europe may be put into the hands of those who may need them most, according to the discretion of those who distribute them. I think that is the object of the Senator from Kansas, and it is a perfectly proper one.
Mr. HOWARD. I do not know that I have any particular objection, that being the case; but it seemed to me to be a very anomalous proceeding. I am not aware that the people of any foreign nation raised supplies and transported them to the United States during our last war with the rebels. They took it for granted that we were doing tolerably well when we were achieving victory after victory.
Mr. POMEROY. The Germans did what was better than that. They sent us men; they recruited our armies with men; they helped to save the life of this nation. Though the French were our ancient allies, the Germans have been our modern allies, and I would not discriminate against either of them. -
Mr. HOWARD. I am quite aware of that. I am not saying anything at all in disparagement of either the French or the Germans, and I do not wish to be so understood; but I look on this proceeding by the Congress of the United States as quite anomalous under the circumstances.
Mr. CONKLING. It seems to me there is nothing in the history of our own recent war, or of the present European war, to turn our sympathies against Germany. It seems to me the Senator from Nevada is right when he says that it is natural for Americans to feel inclined to send contributions to German widows and orphans as well as to the sufferers of France.
But suppose it were otherwise; the purpose of the Senator from Kansas is to furnish a vehicle, for what? For you and for me, and all the citizens of our country to employ in conveying such contributions as they choose to make, to the destination they may select. Suppose the Senator from Michigan should think the French widows, and orphans, the French people at large, more than the Germans, in need of contributions; suppose he should be right in this; I submit to him that it has no bearing at all upon the propriety of this resolution, because this is only a proposal to send a ship in which everybody can send where he chooses. Is not this right, plainly? If I choose, however unwisely, to send a contribution to a German port, to be distributed in a German district, why should not I be allowed to do it?
The Senator from Michigan might give a wiser disposition to his charity than I might; but that is not the question here. The point is whether a national vessel, going, shall accommodate all those who want to send food and raiment to sufferers, leaving them free to choose to whom they will send. It seems to me there can be no question upon such a point. If, however, the pending resolution did in any way involve the question to whom Americans should open their hands or their hearts, I should repeat that I recall nothing in the commencement of the war which brought on the suffering now rending Europe, or in its conduct, which should incline the American Senate to sympathize against Germany, or against Germany's stricken homes.
Mr. MORTON. I should like to hear the resolution read.
The VICE PRESIDENT. The resolution will be reported, and also the amendment of the Senator from Michigan.
Mr. HOWARD. I shall withdraw my amendment, but I beg to say before I take my seat ---
The VICE PRESIDENT. Does the Senator from Indiana yield to the Senator from Michigan?
Mr. HOWARD. Only one moment.
Mr. MORTON. Certainly.
Mr. HOWARD. If the honorable Senator from New York, by the remarks which he has made, intends to impute to me sympathy for the French as against the Germans, and that would seem to be the implication of his remarks ---
Mr. CONKLING. Oh, no. I beg to explain that I had no such idea.
Mr. HOWARD. I disavow it most distinctly. My sympathies at the commencement of the war and during the continuance of the war were warmly, and I hesitate not to avow it, in favor of the cause of Prussia and against the imperial Government of France and its aiders and supporters.
The VICE PRESIDENT. The Senator from Indiana is entitled to the floor, and calls for the reading of the proposed joint resolution.
The Chief Clerk read the joint resolution.
Mr. MORTON. It seems to me that the discrimination that would be made by adopting the amendment offered by the Senator from Michigan would be not only unjust to Germany, but unjust to ourselves.
The VICE PRESIDENT. The Senator from Michigan has withdrawn the amendment.
Mr. HOWARD. That amendment is withdrawn.
Mr. MORTON. I will state what I intended to, anyhow.
Mr. SUMNER. Then, is there any amendment pending?
Mr. MORTON. Of course I can speak to the resolution. It is proper for us, Mr. President, to provide the means of enabling relief to be sent to the destitute and the suffering in France, without regard to who was to blame for bringing on the war. It is enough for us to know that they are destitute and suffering. And so with regard to the destitute and suffering in Germany, if there be such there; and I presume there are. But, sir, we cannot forget the fact that in this case the war was inaugurated and brought on by France, and that it became necessary for Germany to withdraw many hundreds of thousands of men from their homes and their families and to send them into the campaign. The withdrawal of this vast body of men from their homes and families in Germany must have produced suffering and destitution there to some extent; and they would be equally entitled to our sympathy. We have sent relief to other countries without considering the cause which has made that
relief necessary; and we may do it in this case. I can sympathize with the suffering in France, not because I sympathize with France in this struggle, but because the people, who were in no way responsible for it, are suffering; and so in regard to Prussia.
Mr. WILSON. Here is a resolution that I suppose every Senator is in favor of, and I hope we shall now have a vote upon it.
Mr. FOWLER. I have but a word to say. I am in favor of the resolution as it was offered; but at the same time I fail to perceive the justice of those remarks which do not accord to France that gratitude which is certainly due to her for the assistance that she gave us in our revolutionary struggle. I think it is a great mistake to say that it was not love for American independence, but a desire to humiliate Great Britain, that induced her to aid us in that contest.
Again, I have failed to see any evidence that Germany was ever our ally. Certainly she was not on that occasion, for we found her soldiers on the opposite side in that contest. In our recent struggle I know that a large number of the German nationality who are American citizens were in favor of the Government of the United States; but so far as Germany was concerned I do not understand that we received any particular assistance from her. So I fail altogether to perceive any alliance or any aid whatever that was contributed by Germany to the Government of the United States during our recent struggle. It may have been expended in sympathy, that is true. So far as the German people alone are concerned, my sympathies extend to them also, and I am willing, of course, to send them any amount of aid they may need; but so far as their Government is concerned in its raid upon the people of France since the battle of Sedan I have no sympathy with it.
Mr. STEWART. Allow me to call the attention of the Senator from Tennessee to the fact, which he must recollect, of the amount of our bonds that were taken in Germany at the time we needed that they should be taken, and when they were prohibited from the Exchange in London and from the Bourse in Paris, and not allowed to be on the markets there at all on account of the state of public opinion there, while Germany alone came in and took five or six hundred million dollars at a time when we needed money more than anything else to sustain our credit. That is a fact showing sympathy certainly.
Mr. FOWLER. I am not aware exactly of the state of facts put forth by the Senator from Nevada. I am aware that the Germans took our bonds that had been first absorbed by capitalists in the United States at a most miserable consideration, for which they got a very extravagant and enormous interest. In that they only proved themselves wiser than the French and British, as they have done for the last half century in regard to all material interests. I confess that in the present attitude of affairs I am on but one side of this question my sympathies are not on both sides.
Again, I have never seen any effort on the part of the Germans to establish free and independent Governments there. The only manifestation of a change in Germany has been to a concentration of despotic power. On the contrary, the French people are the freest people on the continent of Europe to-day, and have been the only people on the continent that have been struggling for free institutions.
Mr. SCHURZ. Mr. President, I need not say that I am but unwillingly drawn into a debate like this; but I cannot refrain from saying a word in defense of the nationality from which I have sprung.
I am far from desiring to depreciate anything the French may have done for this Republic in the early days of its existence. For such an object I do not rise. But when the Senator from Tennessee says that during our civil war he had no evidence of sympathy on the part of the German people or German Governments with this Republic I must express my doubt as to his being sufficiently conversant with the history of those days. I shall confine my remarks to this point at present, leaving other assertions made by the Senator for future discussion.
In the first place, as to the Governments: I do not think there were on the face of this globe Governments who expressed their sympathy with the cause of the Union during our civil war as straightforwardly and emphatically as the Government of Prussia and the German Governments generally; and if the Senator desires to see the evidence of this he need only examine the records of the State Department.
In the second place, there certainly was no nation outside of this continent that so heartily and actively sympathized with the Union cause in this country as the Germans. The Senator from Nevada already remarked, very properly, that in no country were more of the bonds of the United States taken; to which the Senator from Tennessee replies that that was because they were sold at a low price. But does he not know that such investments always go along with the sympathies of the people? Are not the English, are not the French, also inclined to speculate in stocks? Why did they not buy our bonds? Simply because they had no confidence in the success of the cause of the Union? And why had they no confidence in it? Simply because they had no sympathy with it. Money will in such cases almost always go in the direction of sympathy. And if that is the case, which certainly cannot be gainsaid, the Senator from Tennessee will not be able to deny that in Germany money and sympathy went together on a large scale. The Senator says that our bonds were a promising investment. Does he forget that when they were taken in Germany the issue of the war appeared by no means decided, and that the fortunes of this country were still trembling in the balance? It was a dangerous venture; and nevertheless they embarked in it. They did it because they believed in the Republic of the United States; because they had faith in the great destinies of this country; because their hearts beat in union with our hearts, and their sympathies impelled them to risk their interests with our fortunes. If afterward their venture turned out advantageously so much the better for them; but that they had sympathy and confidence enough to make the venture in the days of uncertainty when they did was certainly so much the better for us.
Mr. CASSERLY. Mr. President, I regret profoundly the turn given to this discussion this morning. The resolution of the Senator from Kansas now before us, like his resolution of the other day on the same general subject, was a graceful and becoming expression, because it was a faithful expression of the generous sympathies of our whole people toward the sufferers of the two mighty races that so lately joined in the deadly grapple of one of the greatest wars of ancient or modern times. There was in the resolution nothing to mar the fullness and warmth of that expression. There was nothing in it looking to a cold and invidious discussion of the merits of the conflict between the great antagonists. There was nothing in it to put a slur on one of them as against the other. There should have been in it nothing of the kind. The Senator from Kansas summoned us to the level of a common humanity when he asked us to join with him in bestowing, in its best, most organized, and most efficient form, the charity of the American people upon the sufferers by this tremendous war, whether of the French or of the German nation. Upon that high level we should be far above all petty and especially all party considerations. The resolution of to-day is in the same spirit, and but carries out the purpose of the other resolution.
Now, sir, after the remarks we have just heard from more than one Senator, in what fashion do we tender our sympathies to one of the two nations? Overthrown, crushed, desolate, bleeding at every pore, having fought out her hopeless battle to the last, we would succor France, bestowing on her at the same time our views of the merits of the war, our lecture upon her course. Sir, this is not a fit time for such remarks. They are deplorably out of place. Fault-finding and rebuke jar harshly upon an hour of sympathy and charity. Whenever the time does come, if it ever does, for a discussion here of the French-German war, and the merits of the combatants, the subject will be a great one, to be discussed in the proper spirit, in a spirit equal to the magnitude of the questions involved and to the relations which this country bears to the nations of the earth, and especially to the two nations involved in this war. It will not be an occasion for off-hand homilies or for coining paltry party capital.
When that time comes, if it shall be my lot to be here and to be in the discussion, I shall endeavor to bear my part. It will be a discussion, whenever it arises, to engage the best capacity of the best among us. But I do not propose just now to fall into the egregious error committed, this thrusting words of invidious blame and bitterness into a discussion upon a great work of national charity, upon which the whole heart of the American people has gone out in loving kindness to the sufferers of the French and German races. I shall not undertake at all in reference to such a case and to such sufferers to strike the balance of wrongs between them. In their presence, in the face of sufferings like theirs, I will not, I am not able, to stay the hand of sympathy while I play the critic at the expense of those whose sorrows should be their best protection. Still less will I select this moment of all others to announce judgment on the merits of the controversy between France and Germany. They have nothing whatever to do with the proposition of the Senator from Kansas.
There is a precedent for the use of naval vessels which will be in the minds of Senators when I recall it. At the time of the terrible famine in Ireland, more than twenty years ago, when the news which came to us by every mail seemed to go like an arrow through the quivering heart of the people, there was one general uprising everywhere in all the great centers, and in the country as well. The whole people of the United States rushed forward, held out their hands, not empty either, for the relief of a starving race. The Government did its part, and, with the greatest dispatch, the sloop of war Jamestown was fitted out and sent from Boston.
It seems to me that there can be no objection on any ground, to the furnishing by the United States of a ship of war for the present purpose. Then let those who wish to succor Germany do so; let those who wish to succor France do so. Americans will naturally bestow their aid where their sympathies are. And these sympathies, in my judgment, will be regulated by this consideration — where at present exists the greatest necessity. I should think that the only controlling circumstance about it — where is the greatest want, where is the direct suffering — there let us first go on our errand of mercy.
Mr. SUMNER. Mr. President, if I were compelled to determine the question of comparative obligation to France and Germany on the part of the United States, I should hesitate; and what American could do otherwise? I look at the beginning of our history, and I see that through the genius of our greatest diplomatist and greatest citizen, Benjamin Franklin, France was openly enlisted on our side. She gave us the treaty of alliance and flung her sword into the trembling scale. Through France was independence assured;
without France it must have been postponed. Such, sir, is our obligation to France, infinite in extent, which, ever paying, we must ever owe.
But is our obligation to Germany less? I cannot forget that this great country, fertile in men as in thought, has contributed to ours a population numerous and enlightened, by which the Republic has been strengthened and our civilization elevated. France contributed to national independence; Germany to national strength and life. How shall I undertake to determine the difference between these two obligations? We owe infinitely to France; we owe infinitely to Germany. It is within my knowledge — indeed, I have learned it within a very few days — that during this last year Count Bismarck, in conversation with a personal friend of my own, said, with something of pride, that Germany had in the United States her second largest State after Prussia.
Mr. WILSON. What did he mean by that?
Mr. SUMNER. My colleague asks me what he meant by that. The German statesman had encouraged emigration, by which Germans come here, so that there is a German population among us larger than that of any other German State after Prussia. Such, to my mind, is the natural meaning of his language. Some of the largest German cities are in our country; and all this population together is itself a State.
But, sir, why consider this comparison? Here is simply a question of charity. Now, charity knows no distinction of persons, knows no distinction of nations; especially does it know no distinction of friends. I will not now undertake to hold the balance between these two mighty friends, to whom we are under such great and perhaps equal obligations. Let us do all that we can for each, with this understanding that where there is the most suffering, there must our charity go.
Mr. HOWE. Mr. President, I rise simply to say that probably no man living admires the sentiments he has listened to this morning more than myself; but the last sentiment uttered by the Senator from Massachusetts is the one that strikes me most agreeably. He says, as I have felt for an hour very keenly, that sympathy knows no distinction of persons. Therefore, I hope you will enlarge your circle, and having provided for the sufferers in France and Prussia, you will have a little regard for a suffering American. Every Senator will remember how I was made to plead yesterday morning in my effort to get through a couple of little chores lying on my desk now. I trust that in the abundance of the generous sympathy of the Senate they will let this resolution go through, and then attend to my wants. [Laughter.]
Mr. WILSON. I think this had better go over. We have spent an hour on it already. I wish to go on with the morning business.
Mr. POMEROY. No; we can pass this resolution now.
The VICE PRESIDENT. Does the Senator from Massachusetts object to the further consideration of the joint resolution?
Mr. WILSON. No; I will not make an objection.
The joint resolution was reported to the Senate without amendment, ordered to be engrossed for a third reading, read the third time, and passed.