Mr. Carl Schurz has lost his temper. He is calling names. He calls editor of the Illinois Staats Zeitung, a liar, before the open forum of the United States Senate. An evil word that in this country used to have evil consequences for the cheeks of those who use it, when they utter it at a distance of a foot instead of a thousand miles. Since that memorable scene in Madrid when (if a certain rumor for which we won't vouch is the truth), the hand of a Dutch embassy attache and the cheek of Mr. Schurz are said to have come into close contact, Mr. Schurz has not dared again to use such language. However, the distance from Washington to Chicago is great. And, if necessary one can qualify the word "liar" by an "if". Thus if the editor of the Illinois Staats Zeitung had said that Carl Schurz last year did nothing at all in the arms sale affair, he is a liar. But as he has not said so, he has not lied.

What translation of an article of the Illinois Staats Zeitung Senator Conklin read to the Senate, and if the translation was exact, we do not know. This, however, we do know, that what we said about Carl Schurz was the full truth. We have never ignored, but have on, February 14, stated plainly that Schurz according to his claim, put an end to the secret arms trade i. e. through intervention with the Secretary of War. But we also have stated, and we repeat, that Carl Schurz at the time when the arms trade took place, did not utter one word of protest; as a matter of fact made no mention of the matter at all. If it is this statement which Mr. Schurz calls a lie, then we push - to use an American phrase - the lie back into his throat, and declare him not only a extremely mean, but an extremely stupid liar, whose lies do have even a short life, but none at all.

Because a few days earlier, on February 15, Schurz had conceded what he declared on February 19, to be a lie. He himself said on February 15, that he did not want to start a discussion in the Senate during the 1870-71 session about the arm trade, (Congressional Report of the New York Tribune), so as not to drive the administration into a defense of the matter and to disturb thereby the existing good understanding with the German element. The contemptible hypocrisy which lies in this justification we have already characterized. If it has any comprehensible meaning, it can only be that Schurz's brother-in-law was Federal Tax Collector and that perhaps some proteges of the Schurz-Ledermann newspaper, in St. Louis, were in some other federal offices, and that out of consideration for them, the good understanding between the administration and the German element was not to be disturbed. Either his explanation has this meaning or, what is more probable, it is intended to hide an impish grin with which the speaker escapes from telling his true motives, whatever these may have been.

And now, still one word more to Mr. Schurz. This gentleman believes he can confound everything the Illinois Staats Zeitung says about his actions by exclaiming, "The editor of the Illinois Staats Zeitung is Federal Customs Collector." This is an argument with which one young whipper-snapper might impress another, but in the mouth of a man like Schurz is nothing but a shout of angry fury over hits that have scored......we only want to point to the fact that the Democratic New York Staats Zeitung and the Democratic Cincinnati Volks Freund judge the unpatriotic behavior of Sumner (and therefore also Schurz's) exactly as does the Illinois Staats Zeitung. These two papers, we think, will not come under suspicion that they form their opinions out of consideration for President Grant!

The editor of the Illinois Staats Zeitung never has crawled around for weeks in Washington, as Schurz did in the Spring of 1861, in order to wring from President Lincoln, at the moment when the fate of the republic was at stake, with the stubbornness of a Shylock a fat office. For almost a 5quarter of a century he (the editor of the Staats Zeitung) has made his living by honest work, and not through dowry on borrowing. He never has chased an office, but when one was entrusted to him, he has put his pride to administrate it efficiently and honestly. To sacrifice for an office his convictions, change them by an iota, that trick he would have to learn from demagogic adventurers who - spoiled for any honest job - are forced to make their whole existence dependent upon the possession of an office. Enough for today; if Schurz wants to hear more he only need call us names again.