New national era. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1870-1874, 1872-04-18
What the German Papers Think
Of Schurz.

1t must be highly gratifying for Senator
Schurz to learn that, while the liberal press
throughout Germany deprecates his recent
course as calculated to embitter the relations
between the United States and the German
Empire, the organs of the reactionists and
UltramOntanes lavish praise on him on ac-
count of his conduct in the French arms sales
affair, and the French journals applaud him
because they think and hope that he will sue
coed in creating serious difficulties between
his native and his adopted country.
The Oder-Zeituug thinks that "Carl Schurz
is an Overrated, selfish, and ambitious man.
who, as the present affair (the French arms
sales debate) shows, cares very little for his
fatherland. If he feels so shocked at what
the War Department in Washington has done
for France during the war--more shocked, in
deed, than the Chancellor of the German
Empire--why did he not raise his voice against
the sales of these American arms in the Sen
ate of the United States when it was time to
stop them? 1t seems that his indignation
dates only from the moment when he fell out
with President Grant, whose election he now
wants to prevent"
The Rhenish Courier says: eve are glad
that the Provincial Correspondent (Bismarck's
organ) has so promptly disavowed the report
that it would demand explanations from the
Government of the United States for the sales
of arms and ammunition to French agents
during the war, and that it says that that
Government has not violated the rules of
neutrality, either directly or indirectly. To
be sure, the Gesmdnia, (the UltramOntane
organ of Berlin which, during the war, Sc
cretly prayed against the success of our arms,
now hopes to make a point against Prince
Bismarck, by demanding that he shall call
the Cabinet of Washington to account, and
refers to Mr.. Carl Schurz, who figures prOmi-
nently in the American Senate debate on the
arms sales to France, in order to prove that
the United States violated the neutrality
laws by permitting these sales. We never
heard that Mr.. Schurz, who won his present
position by his remarkable fluency as
speaker in English--a faculty rarely acquired
by Germans in the United States---was an
authority on International law. We prefer
Vattel and Hugo Grotius on that subject, and
think the honor of Germany is safe in the
hands of Prince Bismarck"
The Breslau G0sette says: 1.-The New Y Ork
correspondent of the National Gazette U5erlin)
overfows with admiration of Senator Carl
Schurz, and pretends to believe that by at
lacking the President of the United States in
regard to this complicated business, (the
French arms sales,) he has rendered signal
service to his fatherland. We think other
wise. Practically, those sales, even if they
have taken place in the manner charged by
Senator Schurz, were of little consequence to
this country; but what is of very great con-
sequence to us is that we should remain on
the fnendliest possible terms with the United
States. Senator Schurz is working hard to
prevent this, and for that he should not be
thanked and gloritied by any liberal-minded
German. If anything were needed to show
it, one has only to read the Berlin Germania,
which has conceived a very sudden, but by no
means inexplicable, admiration for Senator
Carl SchurZ."