“Dear Byers:​--​I have owed you a letter for a long while, and though we have had enough in all conscience here to furnish fit topics for letters, I have known that the telegraph would be a long way ahead. In Europe you know as much of the tragedy of Garfield’s shooting and death as our own people in the interior, and many returned travelers describe the intense interest of all classes in Garfield’s fate, as long as he clung to life. The patient submission of our people, and their continued endurance of the brutal Guiteau till he shall have had a fair trial, is most honorable to us as a law-abiding people, but even I am sometimes impatient at the law’s dallying, as this trial draws its slow length along. I think the court means to make the trial so full, and so perfect, that all the world will be convinced of the justice of the sentence of death. So intense is public feeling that if the fellow was turned loose, he would be stoned to death by the boys.

“The transition of power from Garfield to Arthur has been so regular, so unattended by shock, that it proves the stability of the Government. I have never known a time when there was so little political excitement, or when the machinery of government worked more smoothly than now. There is the same outward pressure for place, but President Arthur fends it off with the skill of an old experienced hand. So I infer there will be as few changes as possible. Blaine goes out to-day and Frelinghuysen in, but it makes no more noise than a change of bank presidents. In the army the same general composure prevails, and we believe Congress will give us our 30,000 men, which will increase the strength of companies and thereby increase the efficiency of the establishment.

“All my family continues statu quo, reasonably well, in our house on Fifteenth Street. Our season also seems mild for December, for this far we have had no signs of winter.

“With my best love to all your folks, I am as ever,

“Your friend,
W. T. Sherman.”

On Sunday, as often happens after church here, the people were at the polls, voting as to the adoption or rejection of a batch of laws that had been adopted by the parliament. This is the “Referendum” in action. Absolute order and decency prevailed, and there were no intriguing ward politicians hanging around the polls, to buttonhole voters. Voting is a responsible, dignified act with the Swiss. A majority of the people seem to think the “Referendum” operates well enough with a people so intelligent and patriotic as themselves, and in so small a country. Yet, thousands here ridicule the idea of submitting great questions of state to be voted on by the intelligent and ignorant alike. In great cities, the world over, the ignorant and vicious are in the majority, and the laws would all be bad if such citizens had the decision of them. My own observation is that even the Swiss misuse this Referendum and adopt just as many bad laws as they do good ones.

[CHAPTER XXIV]
1882–1883

VISIT NORTHERN ITALY​--​AMERICAN INDIANS IN ZURICH​--​DEATH OF THE POET KINKEL​--​LETTERS FROM CARL SCHURZ AND THE POET’S WIFE​--​LETTER FROM SHERMAN AS TO THE BOUNTEOUS MISSISSIPPI VALLEY​--​A SECOND LETTER FROM SHERMAN​--​THE PRESIDENCY​--​CONVERSATIONS WITH SCHERR, THE WRITER​--​THE POET KINKEL’S SON​--​HIS POWERFUL MEMORY​--​WE VISIT BERLIN​--​MINISTER SARGENT’S TROUBLE WITH PRINCE BISMARCK OVER AMERICAN PORK​--​SARGENT IS APPOINTED TO ST. PETERSBURG​--​INDIANS AGAIN​--​BABY LIONS​--​VISIT AMERICA AGAIN​--​FUNERAL OF THE AUTHOR OF “HOME, SWEET HOME”​--​SWISS NATIONAL EXHIBITION​--​THE SWISS WAR MINISTER VISITS ME​--​WE HAD BEEN COMRADES IN LIBBY PRISON​--​TROUBLE WITH FRAUDULENT INVOICES​--​ORIGIN OF EXPERT SYSTEM AT CONSULATE​--​I SUCCEED IN STOPPING THE FRAUDS​--​MY ACTION IS REPORTED AT WASHINGTON AS SAVING A MILLION DOLLARS TO THE GOVERNMENT​--​ANOTHER LETTER FROM GENERAL SHERMAN​--​HIS COMING RETIREMENT FROM THE ARMY.