American Heritage December

7/17/2019 American Heritage December

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/american-heritage-december 1/128

AMERICAN

HERITAGE

Noah's

Ark

by

a

folk

artist,

about

1850

December

,

)5^



Digitized

by

the

Internet Archive

in

2010



HERITAGE

December

1959

•

Volume

AY,

Number

1

©

HJjft

^)^ \tii(i iiJii

Htiitiim-

I'lihlisliing

Co.. Iiu.

\ll i

i^lils n-^ciMtt utuUr Hci iif ;iiul

Fan-Aiiu-i

it:in

(ii)p> right

CiMui-iKiuns. Kcpiodiu

liitii

Jii

u luilc

oi in

pat

t

ul

.iii\

aitii

le

wilhoiil pcrmissioii

i>

piohibilrd.

I'.S.

top>iighi is

not

i

l.iinud

hit

(oloi

platts <iii

pages



VMI'IRK

IRIST

COMPANY

OF

Nt\\ \OKK

Large

sums

of

money,

let

alone

fame, usually

elude the

artist in

life,

but he

can

dream.

This

case in

fjoini.

Barrels ol

Money, was

fjainted

about iSS^.

It is

unsigned.

Some

exfjerls

attribute it

In

'I'.

Dubreuil,

but

the

name

itself urns

in nil likeliliood

a

f)seudon\m

fur

a

more

famous

exfjert at

trompe

I'oeil,

a

wise

precaution since

the

Treasury

Department

used

to look

askance

at

any

reproduction

of

the

currency.



AMERICAN

HERITAGE

The Aldircrzi/ic

of

History

PUIII.ISHFR

J:imcs

Parton

I

nnOKI \J

DIKII KIR

Joseph

J.

Thorndike,

Jr.

EDITOR

Bruce C.auon

\l

\N

\(.IM.

I

111 IO[t

Olixcr

Jensen

liXEcunvu

r,i)noR

Eric Larrabce

Assncmr i

in tors

Rifharcl

M.

Ketclium

Joan

I'alerson Mills

ASMSTW

I 1

111 KIH

R()l)irt

L.

Reynolds

1

111

KlKl

\I.

\SMSI WIS

Caroline

Backliind,

Helen

M.

Brown

Roheii Cowley,

Stephen

W.

Sears

';or\ rniidu

Beverly

Hill

assistant:

Naomi

S.

Weber

\ni

niKK

roK

Irwin

Ghisker

AssociAiF

ART

DiRFCTOR:

Murray

Belskv

SIM

I

piiotoirai'her:

Herbert Loebel

Al)\

ISOR^ llOXKll

Allan

\e\ ins.

Cliniiiiicin

Ray

A. lillliiigicni

l.cuiis

C:.

Jones

Car

Caniicr

Rkliaui

P. MtCormick

Allien

li.

Core)

Hairy

Sliaw

Newman

Clnislopliii

Caiitenilen

Ho\vai<l

H.

Peckham

Marshall

li.

Uavldson

.S.

K.

.Stevens

Anliin

M. .Schlesingcr.

,Sr.

1.1K<

I I.VTION

DIRri tOR

Richard

V.

Benson

Amikkw IIikiiu.i

is

piililislicd

every lud

iiKiiillis li\

.\iiKiic.m Ikiilage

I'lililishing

(in..

Inc.. -|-|i

1-iftli .\\eiuie.

New

^mk

17,

N.

\.

Single Cioples:

S2.(|-,

Subscriplions:

.S12.50

in

U.S.

it Canad.i

$13.^,0

elsewhere

All annnal lii(le\

<il

Amikiiw

Hirmm.i

is

>iil)lished cveM

leliiiiai\.

piitcti

al

.î.iin.

\\MRiiA\

lliRii\(.i

is

alsii

indfstil

ill

rildils'

(.iiidi hi

I'liiodiiiil

l.il 11 iil

ui (

.

HERiTAta-;

will

ronsider

hnl

assinius

responsibility

for iiiisiilii

iied

iiiauiial.

I ille

regislered

I'.S.

I'auni Olliic.

eidiid

(lass

poslage

paid al New \n\\,

N.

\.

Spoiiiored

hv

.

hncriidu

Associdt'rjn

for

SuiU

Cif

Lucii/

History

Socirt)

of

American

Historians

CONTENTS

December

1959

Volume XI, Number

1

IHl'

PEPVS

OF

THE

OLD

DOMINION by

Mm.sluill

Fi^lnricl:

. .

4

rilK

BOODLING

BOSS

AND IMK

MUSIC.\L

M.\\()R

by IliiKc

Iilixicn

8

HIE

-.V.MERIC.KN

^VOODS.\l.\N•' by M,nsh,ill

li.

Davuhn,,

.

12

IIIE UAITT.E

lH.\r

WON

.\N E.MIMRE by li.

//. Liddcll Hurl

24

,\miri(:an

iiiRriA(;i:

hook

siLKcriox

1

HE FRON

r PORCH

CAMPAIGN

by

Mavgincl

Lc-cch

FHE

•DELICIOUS

LAND'

/;v

.1. /..

linwsr

...

(iiiK

ia.i7Aut.

m.ws

,\Mi ,\\ii,ui(,,\:

pari

v)

ivitli

11

jxiilfolio

of

jilioloi^ruftlis by UniiUry

Smilli

WHEN

C:ONGRESS

FRIED

lO

RL^LE by Millon

I.niiuisk

IIIE

S2I

.S^V INDLE

by

Xallinnicl lirriclilry

. . .

.

.MARK

FWAIN IN

HAR

IFORD:

FHE ll.\PP\

\ EARS

rilid'd

by

Henry

Darbci-

FO\S:

.\

I'AR.\1)E FRO.M

1

HE

AMERIC.\N

P.\S1

. .

.

.

S.\C:CO

VANZEIFI:

THE

UNFINISHED

1)EU.\

IE .

.

. .

RF\niNG.

WRllINC;.

.\N1)

IllS IOR^

/)y

ISnur

Cillon .

lOR klN(,

OR

CONGRESS

32

46

60

02

(). )

.SI

89

113

120

CiO\

ER:

Ihc

tale

ol

Noah

is one

ol

llie

;.;ie.il

Bible sloiies

that laseinates

cverv

generation;

inileed

Noahs

.\ik.

(oiiipleu- willi

.iiiiinals.

was

a iaxorile

nineleeiith-

(eiitnry

toy.

We

jdcture

one on pa,sê

8i.

al the

beiînniiiL;

ol

a ponloiio

ol toys

Ironi

the

past. Ihe

ark

on the co\er. painted in

oil

on

a

wood

panel

about

i8.-,o.

is hdiii

llie

\l)l)\

.\khicli

RiKkelellei

Folk An Colleuion

al

Williainsbint;.

\'ir-

înia. and

is

attributed

to

Joseph

H.

Flidley

(i.S;j(i-i87l>).

a

tarpeiuer.

la\iderniist,

and

general

artisan

who

is

noted

lor

\

lews

ol

his

home

town

ol

Poestenkill. New

\'ork. H(uk

('.(n'fr:

Ihe

sniid\ but

stubby

side-wheel

lerryboat

/..

7'.

I'rall

is

thouglit

by

some

lo

ha\e

operated

long ago

at llaltimoic.

Ihe

p.iiniing

belongs

to

the

Shelburne

Museum,

Shelliuine.

\eiinont.



.^•\

-w

^??;-



He

(ould never resist

an old

hook,

a

\oimi;

îil,

or

a

Iresh

idea.

He li\fd spleiulidly.

planned

e\tensi\cly.

and

was

perpetuallN

in

ileljt.

Bc-

lie\ing

perliaps.

like

Leonardo,

llial lulnie

iênerations

woukl i)e

more willing

lo

know liini than was his own,

he

wrote

his delieiotis,

ilelailed

tliaiies

in

(ode. Only

now

that

tliey

have

been

translated,

anil

time

has

put

his

era in perspective, do

we

see

what

William I5\ rd of

Wcstover was:

one

of the

hall-do/en leading wiis

and

stylists of colonial

.\meri(a.

In

the

po|)idar

imagination,

to

be

an

Amei ii

.111 hero

means

lo

rise

Irom

rags

to ridies. William

lis rd

re-

\iised

the pattern,

as

lie did

so

man\

other

things:

born

to

\\ealth, he

never

seemetl able

to

hold on

to it.

His father,

William Byrd 1

(1653-1704),

was one

ol

the

most

powerfid

and

venerateil men of his generation.

Not

only

had

he

inherited

\aliiable land on

both

sides

of

the

James

River,

he lunl also

won

the

h.inil of

Mary

Horsmanden,

and

a

very dainty and wealthy hand it

was,

too.

Some

of

tlie

bold and

red

knight-err:mt blood

of

the

Elizabethans flowed

through

the veins

ol

Wil-

liam

Byrd

1.

He

had

the

same

knack

as

did

Captain

John

Smith

(in

whom that blood fairly bidjbled)

for

getting

in

and

out

of

sciapes.

For

example,

William

Byrd

1

joined

Nathaniel

Bacon

in subduing

the

Indi-

ans,

but

stopped

short

of joining the rebellion

against

(iovernor

\\'illiam Berkeley, withdrawing

in

time

to

save his

repntation

and his

neck. Later

on

he became

receiver-general

and

auditor of Virginia,

a

member of

the

Council

of State, and the colony's leading

aiithor-

ii\ on

Indiairs,

The

important

1685

treaty

with ihe

Iiocpiois bore his

signature.

Death cut

short

his

bril-

liant career

soon

after his

fiftieth birthday,

antl

sud-

denly thrust his son and namesake

into the

tenter

of

the

colonial

stage.

The boy,

who

had

spent much

of

his time

in

England getting an education and,

later,

as

an

agent

for

Virginia,

must

now reiinn

to

.\meiica

and assume

the

duties of

a

man.

No one tan

read

the story of yoiuig

Will

liyrd's early

years,

and

bis

iranslormalion, withoul

thinking

of

Will

Shakcs])eare's Prince Hal. II ever

a

young

Virgin-

ian

beha\'etl

scandalously in

London,

it was Will

Byrd.

Never did

ihc

sun shine upon

a

Swain

who

had more

tombusiible

matter in

his

tonsi iiution, HyrtI

wrote

of

himself.

Low

broke out upon

him before

my beard.

Louis Wi

ighl,

to

whose

ediliiig

ol l>\rd's

diaries we are

indebted lor

nuich of

oin

knowieilge

of

the

man. says

that he

was

notoriously

promiscuous,

freijuenting

the

MMRiOll

His

secret diaries sparkle

with

the

wit,

uîsdom,

and lusty candor that

made

William

B^rd II

of

Westo\Tr one of

rill'

JH>\h(iit

oj

H\iil

ojijxiMlr ii'iis

l>iiiiilirl

h\ Sn

Coilficy

KiicUrr

in

IjiiiiUiii.

ji]<>hnhl\ hi-lwrrii

iji=, anil

1-20.

Ihc

liiinihi>inc ]'i\iîni(in

inn

in lii.', riiil\

foi

liiw

—

llir

j>niiic

itj

lif/'—iinil

looked

I'l'i'iy inch llic

.sn/ihi.slii

iilfd ini.slocral

. even

lo

Ihc

iitsniiling

wig

then

jii\hioiuihlc

in iipjycr-cluss

.sociely.

Virginia's

most

cii<i;a<j;in<j^

jrentlemen

By

MARSHALL

IISIIWICK



boudoirs

ol

higlibom ;iiul

lowborn abke. Indeed,

as

his diaiv sho\\s,

he

was not abo\e

taking

to

the grass

with a

fille

dc

joic nhoni

he

might

eiuoiniter on

a

London street.

Once, ivhen

lie arrived ioi a

rencle/xoiis

witli

a

cer-

tain

Mrs. .\-l-n,

the lady

wasn't

home,

so he

seduced

the

chambermaid.

Jirst

as

lie

was coming

down the

steps

Mrs.

A-l-n

came

in

the

front lioor. Then

Will

Byrd and

.Mrs.

A-l-n

avciu back up

the

stairs

together.

Several

hours

later,

he

went

home

and

ate

a plinii

cake.

On his

favorites

he

lavished neoclassic

pseudonyms

and

some

oi

the era's

most sparkling prose.

One

such

lady (called

Facetia and believed

to

have been Laily

Elizabeth

Clromwell)

vvas

his

preocciipaiion

timing

1703.

'When she lelt

him to

visit

Iriends in

Irelantl,

A\'ill

Byrd

let

her know

she

;\oidd be

missed:

The

instant Nour

coach

drove away,

madam,

my

iieart felt

as

if it had

been lorn up

by

the very

roots,

and

tlie rest

of

my body as if

severed limb

hoiii

limb. . . .

Could

I at that

time

have

considered that the oiih pleasure I hat in the

world

was

leaving

me.

I

had

hung

upon

your

coach

and had

been

torn

in

pieces sooner than

lia\e

sullered

myself to be

taken from you.

Having

said

all the proper things, he moved

on to

relate,

in

a later

letter, some

ol

the

jincier

bits oi Lon-

don

gossip.

Mrs.

Brownlow liatl hnalh agieed 10 marr\

Lord

Guilford—

and

the

gods

alone can

tell

what

will

be

produced

by

the conjtmciion

of

such iat

ami

good

humour

The

image

is

Falstalhan. as

weie

inan\

of

Byrd's friends. But

with news

ol

his lather's

death

he

must, like

Piince Hal,

scorn

his

ilissoltite friends and

assume

new

duties.

With

both

Hal

and

Will

the

meta-

morphosis was dilluiilt ami

paiiial.

btu nonetheless

memorable.

The

\'irginia to

whidi

in

1705

^\'illiam

B)rd II

re-

turned—the

oldest jjermanent English

settlement

in the

New

World

ami the lll^t

link in

the

chain th.it

^vould

one

day

be

known

as the British

Emjjire—was

a

combination

of elegance and cruditv,

enlightenment

and

superstition.

While

some ol

his

X'irginia

neighbors

discusseil

the

most advanced political

theories

of

Eu-

rope,

others argued

about

how

to

dispose

of

a

witch

who

was

said

to

have

crosseil

o\ei

to

(airrituck

.Sound

in an eggshell.

In

1701).

the

same

year

that

Byrd was

settling tlovvn

in

X'irginia after

his

long

stay

in Eng-

land,

a

X'irginia

comt

was

instructing

as many An-

sieiit anil Knowing women

as

jiossible

... to

search

her

Carefully For teats

spotts

ami marks

abotit

her

body.

\\'hen tertain luysieiious marks

were

indeeil

fotnul,

the

obvious contlusion was drawn,

and the

poor

woman

languished

in

\e

(onunon gaol.

Finalh

re-

leased, she lived

to

be

eightx

and tlieil

a

natmal death.

Other

\'irginia

lailies

lacetl

problems (iiuhiding,

o

occasions,

\\ \\\

B\rd)

that

were

far

older

than

the

col

ony or

the

witch

scare.

.\

good example was

Marth

Btirwell,

a

^\illiamsbtIrg

belle, who

rejected the

stiit

o

Sir

Francis

Nicholson,

the

governor,

so

she

migh

marr)

a

man more to her

liking.

If she did

so.

swor

the

enrageil Nicholson,

he

would

cut the throat

of

th

briilegriiom,

the clergyman,

and

the issuing

justice

Unavvare that females

are

membeis

of the weaker

sex

Martha

refused

to

give

in—

eveit

when

Nicholson thre

in

half

a

ilo/en

more

throats,

including

those

of

he

fathei

and

bioihers.

She married her

true

love.

No

throats

were cut—

but

visitors

to

the Governor's

palac

in

Williamsburg

observed that His

Excellency

mad

a Roaring

Noise.

In

those days

Titlewater

Virginia was

governed

b

a system of

benevolent paternalism.

The aristocrat

intermarried,

and

the

essential

jobs—

sheriff, vestryman

justice

ol

the

peace, colonel ol

militia—stayed

in th

laniily.

The support

of

the

gentry was the

prerequisit

to

social and political

advancement.

Wealth,

status

and privilege

were

the

Tidewater trinity,

and

it

was

case of three

in

one: wealth

guaranteed status;

statu

conveyed privilege; and privilege insured

wealth.

Will

Byrd

both understood

and

mastered

the worl

to which

he had

returned.

He retained

the

seat in

th

House

of

Bingesses

which

he

hail won

before

going

t

England,

anil

turneil

his

attention

to

finding

a

suit

able wile. Like

many of

his contemporaries,

he

con

fineil

romantii

love

to

extractirriiular

affairs, an

called on common sense

to

help him

in

matrimony

Both Washington

and

|efleison

married rich widows

Ambitiotrs

yotnig

men

lounil

iluv

coidd

love

a

rich

gir

more

than

a

poor one,

and

the

colonial

newspapers re

jjoited

their

mairiages

^vith

an

honesty

that boiilerei

on

improprietv.

One

reails.

for

example,

that

twenty

three-year-okl William Carter married .Madam Sara

I'^llson,

wiilcjw

of

eighty-live,

a

sprigluh

olil Tit, wit

three

thousand

poinuls fortune.

Will

Bvril's choice

was the

eligible

bm

fiei

v

Lucy

P;nke.

ilaughter

of

the

gallant rake

Daniel

Paike, who

had

fought with .Mailboi

imgh

on

the

Continent

ani

brought

the

news of Blenheim

to

()ueen .^nne. Many

a

stibseijtient

battle

Avas

louglu

between

Lucy Parke

and William

Bvrd

alter

their

niariiage

in

i7o().

though

neither side

was entirely

\anijuished.

Byrd was

cjuic

to

record

his \

ictories. such

as the one

noteil in

hi

tliary

for

Febrtiaix

3,

1711:

.Mv

wife anil

1 quaiiellei

about

hei

jjidling

her

brows. She

threatened she

would

not go to

\\'illiamsbtng

if

she might

not

pidl

them;

relused.

however,

and

goi

the

beltei

of her

;nid nutin

tained my

authoiity.

That

.Mrs.

Bvrd

had

as

main

good

exciises hjr her

Ills

ol

teinj)ei

and

violence as any

other

lady

in

\'ir



giiiia

seems

plain—

not

unh Irnm lui ate

iisalions.

but

from

liei

luisbanil's

admissions.

I' ioin his

diaix I'liiiy

ol

November

u,

i7<><).

loi

example,

we

get this graphic

picture

ol

lile

among

the

planters:

111 tin-

evriiiii'.;

I

went

Ici

l)i.

[liarrelt'sl.

where

nn wile

(aiiie

this

.iliernooir I lire I

loimil

Mrs.

Chiswtil,

in\ sister

(llistis. autl

other

ladies. We

s.it

.nid talked till

alxiiit

i i

o'clock

and

then

retired

to oin

(h.nnheis.

I

pl.ivetl

.it

|i m]

with

Mrs. C:hiswcll and

kissed

her

on

the Jjcd

till

she

^^•as

ans^ry

and

my

\vife

also

was

inieasv

about

it.

and

tried

as

soon

as

lln'

loinpanv

w.is '.;one. 1 nei;leited

to

sa\ ni\ |)ra\ers

which I

should

not

ha\e done, because

I

ought

to

bej; par-

don

for

the

Inst

I

had

lor

another

man's wile.

Howe\er

1

had

good

health,

good

ihounlus.

and i;iiod

lunnoi.

ili.uiks

be

to

God

.Alnii^hty.

As

we

lead

on, we begin

to

leaii/e that

\\e

aie

con-

fronting

a Renaissance man in

colonial

America—

wiilei

with

the

liankness

ol

.Montaigne

and the

zest

ol Rabelais.

Philosopher,

lingtiist,

doctor,

scientist,

sixlist.

planter,

clitiichman.

William

Byiil II

saw

and

ie])oitecl

as miidi

as any Ameiican \\ho

died

before

otii

Re\()ltition.

Here

was

a

man

who,

biiiilened

lor

most of

his

life

with the responsibility

ol

thousands

of

acies and

hiin-

dieds

ol sla\es, never

became

naiiow

oi

piovincial.

.\either

his

mind,

nor

his tongue, nor

his pen—

the last

possibly

because he wiote

the

diaries

in

code—

was

re-

stiaineil

by

his c

in

timstances,

ami

no

one

at

home

or

.ibioatl was

innntme

fiom

the barbs ol

his

wit. W'lien

we

read liyrd,

\\e

know

just what

Dean Swift meant

\\hen

he

saiti:

'We

call

a

spade

a

spade.

One

ol Hxrd's

most

remarkable

achievements,

and

one

not neatly

\vell

enotigh

kntjwn

and

appieciated, is

his sketch

ol himsell,

attached to a

lettei

dated

Kebrti-

CONTISL'tD ON

i'.XGK

I

1

COURTESY Virginia

Cavalcade

H'o/oTrr. Hyrd's li(ni\r

nn

a

hliifl

nUovc

llir

](niirs.

was

roiii

l>lflril

nhoiif

/7;5.

/.ihf <»ir

of

llif

jynlriitii If..

Iir

icro/c.

/

liiivr

my

floiks

mid

my

/iri(h. my

boiidmni

niiil

h(iii(l,C(iiiiiii

.

iiiiil

ct'crv

soil

i)l

limlf iiiiiijiii^\l

my

oifii

srn'diils,

\ii

lliiil I

Jive ill II liinil

of

iiidrjiciuUtu c

nl

rvriynnr

hiil l'in\i(\ctii

i'.

His

son

dissipdiiil the

rstiilf.

hiil

ii

restored Wfsloi'cr.

thow^li

no

loii'^cr

III

llif

liiiiiily.

lodny

Inn

iiiiiili

of

;/\

old

iliinm. I'yi-,'tilcl\

owned, il

is

occiisionnlly ojiened to

the

jiublie.



In

Novciiibei,

njoi.

the little

tnwu

ol

Sonoma, Cali-

loriiia,

a

lc\v miles

north ol

San Francisco,

lay

dreaming

in

the

haze

of Indian

sinnmer. There

were

few

guests in

the

town

hotel,

and only

t^vo

were

strangers.

One

of them

was

a small man

with bright,

beady

eyes

above

a

huge

mustache;

he

looked like

Ben

Turpin

with his

eyes

uncrossed. The other Avas

big

and

broad-shouldered;

he

had

a

head

of

thick, curly black

hair

and a luxiniant

mustache and

Vandyke beard

that,

in

pictiues

of

him,

give

an

irrepressible

im])res-

sion

of

being

glued

on.

These

visitors

seemed

to

be instructor

and pupil.

They had a single document A\ith

them, a

copv of the

San

Francisco

city charter,

and

hour after hour the

little man

could be

heard through

the

thin

walls

of

the

hotel

room

explaining

its

proxisions

to the

big

one,

quizzing

him

on its contents, expostulating when

his

companion

got the

answers wrong or

didn't remember.

The people

of Sonoma promptly recognized

the

pair,

for

their faces

Avere

well

known

in

Calilornia.

Wlrat the

toivnsfolk

did not

realize

^vas

why

they

^\ere

there.

The

little

man

was Abraham Ruef, San Fran-

cisco's

corrupt

political boss who reaped

the profits

of

bribery and

corru]:)tion

with

unparalleled

sang-froid.

The

big

one

was

Eugene Schmitz.

lately

orchestra

leader

at San

Francisco's fashionaljle

Columbia

Thea-

ter,

^vhom

Rucf

had tinned into

a

political

figure

only

a

few

months earlier anil, almost

singlehandetlly.

had

had elected

mayor. No\v,

in the Sonoma

hiliea^^•a\

im-

mediately

after

the

election,

Ruef was trying

to

teach

his

henchman

the

rudiments ol

public administration.

For

.\brahain

Ruel's

\i\icl imagination

was

alreadx

looking

ahead

to

a dramatic luiiue.

Years later, from

his

cell

in San

Ouentin

Prison, he

recalled

those days

in

Sonoma

in his autobiography. The

Road

I

Trai'eled:

W'c

were

the only

strangers

in

the

little

village.

We had

IcU

our

whereabouts

unknown

except

to

our

immediate

fam-

ilies.

There,

in

undisturbed peace,

we talked and

planned

day

and

night. There in

the tranquil

Sonoma

hills

I

saw

visions of

political

power;

I

saw

the

Union

Labor

Party

[U)

which he

and

Schmitz

belonged]

a

spark

in

Calilornia

which

would

kindle

the

entire

nation and make

a Labor

Presi-

dent;

I

saw

the Union

Labor Party

a

throne for

Schmitz.

as

.Mayor,

as

Governor—

as

President

of the

United

States.

Be-

hind

tliat

tluone.

I

saw myself

its

power,

local,

state—

na-

tional

. . .

]

saw

myself

United

States

Senator.

To

understand

how Rtief

was

able

to

put his gro-

tesquely

unc]ualified

nominee into

the

mayor's chaii,

and how he

hinrself

could end

up

a few years

later

in a

prison

cell, it is

necessary

to glance

briefly

at San Fran-

cisco's earlier,

turbulent

history.

At

the

beginning of the

t^vcntieth

century,

the citv

could look

back

on

a solid

fifty years of

sin,

violence,

and

corruption.

It

had

beeir a drowsy .Nfexican

village

of

a

thousand

people when

it was taken

o\cr

bv the

Airicricans

in

i8}().

Only five

years later,

the

town

hav-

ing mushrooiried following

the discovery

of gold,

crimes of \ iolence Avere so common

;ind the

local gov-

ernment

so \cnal or

spineless—

or

both—

that the

citi-

zens

organized

the

famous

extralegal

vigilantes —

officially the X'igilance Ciommittee— to

restore order.

Their method ^\as

simple

and effective;

hanging,

after

The

BOOD

LING

BOSS

A

corrupt lawj^er

and

his

complaisant a

until

a

crusading

editor

toppled

their pl

By BRU

.Ibralidin

Jiucf,

brillianl

and

rxiildess,

held

the

reins

of

[lowcr

in

lurnof-

the-century

San

I-

ranri.sco.



the briefest

extemporaneous trials,

some of

the

more

conspicuous

wrongdoers. The

next

few years

saw tlic

leading

newspaper editor

shot

clown

by

an

indignant

sidjsciiber;

a United States

senator killed

in a duel

with the

chief

justice

of

the

state supreme louii;

and

ho\vling

mobs burning

the houses of

the

Chinese,

who

were

believed

to

be

tmdercutting

Americans

in the

labor

market.

For the whole half century,

prostitution,

gambling, and

drunkenness

raged

through

the town;

its

Barbary

Coast

was infamous

for

the public

disjjlay

of

e\ery

sort of vice.

For

a

good

part

of that

time,

the venality of

most

municipal

officials

was duplicated in

the

capitol

at Sac-

ramento.

Tile state

was

controlled

])olitically—

and

to

some

extent economically—

by

the

big

coiporations,

esj)ecially

the

Southern

Pacific Railioad,

a

situation

dianiatically

and

accuratel)

described

by

Frank Xorris

in Tlif

Octopus.

Distributor

of

nione\

and fa\ors for

the

Soiuhern

Pacific

was its chief counsel,

William

F.

lierrin, who,

besides

dispensing more

serious

bribes,

saw

to it that

whenever

the legislature \\as

in

session,

a

\veekend round-trip

ticket

to

San

Francisco

Avas

dropped on the desk

of e\ery lawmaker

everv

Friday.

When

the

t^ventieth

century began, there was

little

e\iclence

that

\ery

man\ peojjle in

the

city

objcc ted to

this

stale

cjl affairs,

and much e\icleiue

thai

most oi

them at least tacith approved. They

would

lia\e

been

dumfounded

if they

had

been

tcjld

that

during the

next

decade

San

Francisco

would

be

torn

asunder

by

what

was

probably the

greatest

struggle in

American

history

to end

municipal

corruption.

The forerumier

of

that

struggle

was

a

savage

water-

front

strike

in the

summer

of ujoi tliat

lasted

about

t^\o months

and

kit

endiuing

scars.

It

was broken

with

the aid

ol

the municipal

authorities,

who

put

city

jjolicc

on

the drays

to

protect

nonstriking

drixers.

Since

the days

of

the

gold

rush, when

labor

was in

desperately

short sujjply

and

workers

were

able

to dic-

tate

their

own terms.

San Fiancisco

had

alwavs

f)een

a

strong union

town. With

their deleai on

the water

front,

the

shocked

and

embittered woi

kingiiieii

turned

to politics for revenge.

They

organized

the Union

Labor party

and

began

to

talk big

about

taking con-

trol

of

the

city. This

talk might easily have come

to

nothing

but for the

presence

of

Abraham

Ruef.

The little boss,

born

of

a |)ros])erous

Jewish

mercan-

tile family

in San

Francisco,

had

a hue mind

and great

personal

ambition.

[le went

through

the University

of

California

at

Berkeley, studying

classical

languages.

Graduaied subsecpiently from

San

Francisco's

Hastings

College

of

Law, he

began to

jjiactice and

immediately

went

into

politics

as

a

Republican.

He

Avas

successful

in both

careers

from

the first,

aided

by

his

native

shrewdness and his

unusual

abilities

as

a

writer

and

public

speaker.

In hjoi

he

was thirt\-se\en.

and for

more than ten years

had

already

had many

dubicnis

underworld

connections. He saw in

the new

L'nion

Labor party

an

opportunity

for

Irimself,

lor

power

—and money.

He

needed

a

Trilby

to

xvhom

he could

play

Svengali, and

he

soon

found one.

Like the orig-

inal

Trilby, his

came

from

the

world of

music.

Eugene

Schmit/,

the orcliestra

leader,

knew

nothing

the

MUSICAL

MAYOR

San Francisco

as

their

private

preserve

schemes,

and

sent

one

of

them

to jail

/>))

tinci- li'rnis

Enc^rrxr

Scliiiiilz.

II

foyiiier

htuid

lender, xciis

Ituff's

pvj)-

pet ns

the city's

mayor.



BOTH

PHOTOGRAPHS

FROM THE UNIVERSITY

OF

CALIFORNIA,

BERKELEY

THE

HUNTERS:

(Lcfl

In righlj

Fniiicis

J.

Hrney.

the

jnos-

cculor; Detective W'illuiiii

/.

liiniis: Edilor

Inciiuiiil

Older:

Rudolph

Spreckels,

a

jnuouial

bniltry

of

the

prosriiilion.

()[

politics

and

tliil not

\vant to run, but Rucl assmetl

him

victory

was

practically

certain.

The

psychology

ol

the

mass of voters, said Riiel, is like that ol a

crowd of

small

b())s

or

primiti\e nren.

Other things

be-

ing

equal,

of

two candiilates

they

^vill

almost invari-

ably

follo^v the

strong,

fineh-biiilt

man.

Riief

proved

a good prophet.

The

Republican ami

Democratic op-

ponents

were weak,

and

e\er\

iniion

man

in

the

city

ivas

still

smarting from

the broken

strike; Schmit/

\\'as

elected.

After

a

iew

days

of

the

Sonoma

cranrmer's-coiirse in

the

art of government,

the

t\vo

men returned to San

Francisco, and

soon

thereafter Schmitz

formally

took

office.

Before

very

Icjng,

newspapermen and

other

knowledgeable

people

in the

city began to hear that

graft was on

the

inciea.se,

and that nearly

all

of

it was

channeling through

Riief. His

method

^vas admirably

micomplicated:

he

became attorney

for

any

individual

or

group

that

liad

bribes to offer;

the money

:\as

then

paid

to him as legal

fees, and

he

divided it

with

Schmitz and

with

anyone else ^\ho

was

entitled

to a

cut.

One

of

tlie

important

early

sources

of graft

under

this

system

was San Francisco's

famous

group

of

French

restaurants.

Although

owned

by

different

people,

these

operated

on

a

uniform

and

disreputable

system.

The

ground

floor

was

a

respectable

dining

room,

cater-

ing

to

the

family

trade

and serving

excellent

food

and

wine at

reasonable prices.

There

were

always, how-

ever,

several

higher

Hoors

with

private dining rooms

and

bedrooms, where

prostitiues

operated

bra/enly.

These

restainants had

to

ha\e

city

licenses, which

came

u]j for renewal

from

time to time,

and

before the

Schmitz

administration was

\erv old the oAvncrs

^\ere

told,

to their

dismay,

that

their

licenses were

to

be can-

celed.

They promptly

hired

Ruef

as

their

lawyer,

paid

him

many

thousands

of

dollars,

and

the

threat

of

troidjfe

faded a^vay.

Among

the dozens of houses

of

prcjstitiuion

which then

flourished openly

in

San

Fran-

cisco was

one on

Jackson

Street,

with seventy inmates,

in

which

Mayor

Schmitz was

generally

believed

to

have

a

heavy part-ownership.

This

was nicknamed

the

Municipal Crib

and

was

so

known throughout

the

city for

years.

Other

varieties of graft

developed

with

great

rapid-

ity.

The police

in Chinatown

were accused of collect-

ing regular

weekly imnuuiity

fees

from

gamblers. Vari-

ous

types

of

business

had to pay

Icjr

permission

to do

certain things,

some

of which

were

entirely

legal

and

unobjectionable.

With

the Republicans

and Democrats still divided,

and

with

the

workers

on

the whole still behind

the

I'nion

Labor

party, Schmitz

was re-elected

in

ic)o3

and

again in

1905.

He and lûef had

consolidated

their

po\ver

and gained experience,

and in

icj()5,

h)r

the first

time, nearly

all eighteen members of

the Board

of

Supervisors

\\cre

their

henchmen.

Some

came

from

the

ranks

of

union

labor,

bin

others were

variegated

friends of Iûef, with

backgromids

as

did)ious as his

o^\•n.

Almcjst

at

once

it

developed that

most of them

had

heard that the

city was

full

of eas\

money,

and

they intended to

get

their

share;

soon

Ruef

was told

that incli\ic ual sujjervisors were

openly

asking

pay-

ment to

vote

in

accoidance ^\ith the

wishes

of

various

businessmen.

The boss sa^v

that

this

would

never

do;

with

a

ninn-

ber

of men seeking

bribes indi\icluallv,

open scandal

could

not

be

averted. Acccjrdingly,

he

called an

luiolfi-

cial

meeting

of

the

board

and

made

a

short speech.

His exact words

have been

lost

to history,

biu

of

the

substance

there is no

doubt. You

men owe

your jobs

tci

me,

he said in

effect, ^'ou will do

\vhat

I

say,

or

you

will be rejalaced. If

anybody

wants to make

a

gift

to

the

supervisors

in

return for their consideration of

liis

wishes and

needs, this money will

be

collected

and

disbursed by

me. You

are

not to kno'\v'

the

name of

the

donor:

you will

simply

vote as I

tell

you

in

all cases.

The

supervisors saw that they

^êre licked, and

seventeen of

them

silently

acquiesced.

By some accident,

however,

one

honest

man

had got

on the

board: he

was

not

at

the

historic

meeting,

nor

did

he

participate

in

the

subsequent

distribution

of

graft. Let

his name

be

recorded

for history:

Louis A. Rea.

A

typical

example

of

how

the

Ruef

system

^vorked

was

the

fight between

t\\-o

competing

telephone

com-

panies. The

Pacific States

Telephone and

Telegraph

Company was

already

operating in

San

Francisco,

while

the Home

Telephone

Company w;miecl

to set

10



up a

fonipctiiii'

svstem there,

as

it hail

done

in a num-

ber

ol

oilier ciiies.

Pacific States

hail

lor

some

time

been

paxins;

Riiel Si,

200

a

month as

attornev's lees.

lh)me

Telephone

no\\-

offered

him

a

Hat Si 25,()()().

(Riiefs

ciislom

was to

share

about

hall the

money

among the

seventeen

dishonest

supervisors,

ami

to

divide the

other

hall

between

himscll and

Sdimit/ in

varying

proportions,

olten

ecjualh.)

Pacific

States

no^\•

heard

what

was going

on

and

pro-

ceeded

to

approach

ele\en ol

the

supei \

isois direct-

Iv, giving each

ol

them

about

S5.o()o.

When he

learned

nl this,

Ruef

was

hirioiis;

he

told

the

supervisors

that

iliey

would

have

to

vote

for

the

Home

(;ompain

(which

a

majority

ditl),

ami

that they

should gi\e

back

at

least part

of

the

Pacific

Slates bribes.

The

distribu-

tion

of tlie Home

Compaii) money

is

interesting. .Ac-

cording to

^\'alton

Bean in his

aiithoi

itaii\e

book.

Boss

Rui'I's

S/iit

Francisco, Ruef kept

about

one

fourth

ol

the

,'>

25,000

and gave

another

loiirth

to

Schmit/.

The

rest

was distributed

among

the

supervisors

on

a

carefully

graduated

scale,

according

to

whether

or

not

they

had

accepteil

Pacific

States

bribes, and

whether

they

had

\oted

for or against

the Home

Company.

Rea,

the honest

super\isor. of

course

got

nothing. One

oilier man, Patrick

McClushin,

also

got

nothing; in

public

speeches he

had

committed

himself

so tlior-

onglily to

municipal

ownership that he

did

not

tlaie

vote

for either

corporation.

Many otlier

companies and indi\iiluals at

about

this

time

felt

it

necessary

to

indulge in

bribery, and

found

liiief a

willing recipient. The largest sum

he

recei\ed

was

§200,000

from the United

Railroails, which

ton-

trolled

the

city's

streetcars. There was

an

agitation in

San Francisco to have tire

overhead trolley

\vires put

into

underground conduits,

and

United

Railroads

paid

the bribe

to

block this

expensi\e project. Head of

the

United

Railroads was

Patrick Calhoun,

an

aggres-

sive,

able,

and

unscrupulous

financier, grandson

of

John

C.

Calhoun, former Vice

President

and

states'

riohts

leader. Patrick

Calhoun sent

his

chief

(ouuscl.

Tirey L.

Ford,

to

Ruef, who

passed on part

ol the

.$200,000

to Schmit/

and

the

seventeen

su])ervisors.

On

another

occasion

and

from

another

source

Ruef

was promised

a far

larger bribe. San

Francisco needed

a

su|jplenientary

supply of water

from the Sierra Ne-

vada, lar

across the

state to

tlie east, and

owners

ol

mountain

land near

Lake Tahoe

proposed to build

a

water system there

and sell

it

to the

city at

a

profit of

three

million

ilollars;

one

third

of this was to go to

Ruef,

who in

turn would

split

with

the

supervisors.

Before the plan

could

be

carried

out, however,

the

storm broke over the

members

of

the

graft ring.

The

storm was created

|)rimarily

by

one

iiuliv idnal.

Fremont

Okler,

who

in

iHijr,,

at the

age of iliirly-ninc,

had

become

managing

editor

o[ the

San

Francisco

IhiUctiii.

Okler,

generally

lonsidered

by journalists to

be one of the hall-do/en

top newspa|)er editors in

American history, was a huge man,

si.\

feet

two and

broad-shouldered,

with

Hashing

eyes above a

big

beak

of

a

nose, and

a

voice that rrjsc

to

a

roaring

bellow

when

he

was

excited

or

angeretl, which

was almost

continuously.

(1

was

a

part-time

cub

re]Jorter on the

Bulletin

tor

several

ycais

iluring

the

light

against the

graft

ring—

while

working my

way

through

Staiilonl

University

as a

caiii])us

correspondent—

and

I can

tes-

tify

to the

etpial

amoiinis

of terror,

admiration,

and

passionate

loyally that

Okler

inspired in

every

mem-

ber of his staff.)

Why

he

possessed

such a deep

and

burning

zeal

for

municipal

honesty

is

something that must be

left

to

the

psychiatrists,

ft was

shared

by

few

if

any

of the

top

executives

of the

other San

Francisco

newspapers,

and

certainly

not

by

Older's

boss,

R.

A.

Crothers,

])ari

owner

and

active manager of

the B\ilh'ti]}.

When

Older

came

into the olhce

the

paper was

moribund. It was

also, as

he

relates in

his

fasc

inating

autobiograpfiy.

My

Own Story,

on

the

payroll

ol

the

Soutliern Pacific

Rail-

road

for

S'-'5

a

month, the customary

stipend paid

at

that time

to all

weak

newspapers

and

many

strong

ones.

During all

the

years of

the

fantastic struggle

to

expose

the

grafters, the

Biillrlin played

a leading

part,

liut

CJotheis,

to

put

it mildh,

dragged

his feet.

This,

however,

did

not

e\eui|)t

him

Ironi the wrath

of the

graft

ring. .\t

one

siage in

the

battle

he

was

struck

clown

in

an

alley

behind

his

office, severely

beaten, and

left

for

dead.

Older, as

the

more

aggressive

fighter, ran

even

more

serious

risks.

When

in

1905

Schniitz

was

re-elected de-

spite

the

opposition

ol the

Biillrlin,

a

riotous

mob

gathered

in

front

of

the

newspaper,

smashed all

its

windows,

and

lollowed

Older

and his

wife,

hooting

and

jeering

at

iliem, as tliev

walked

clown

the street

i\

I

iM

1

iMi\

r

\(.i 11

THE

QU.\RR^:

./

-.corrird

/Jovv

liiipf

(center)

confers

u'illi

two

of

Ills

iitliinieys

iliiriiiii

liis

e\tnrlinu

triiil. lie u'lis

the

iiiily

fj^iiijlcr

\eli()

\nvc(l diiy

niii\iileriihlf

lime

in

prison.

11



*Mf

^

MtStLM

OF

NAtOUUCi.

ffiSU

^l

John James

Audubon,

painted

toward

the

end

of

his

life

by his

sons, Victor

and

John.

In his

prime,

a

woman declared: Audubon

was

one

of

the handsomest

men

I

ever saw.

. . .

He

was

tall

and

slender,

his

blue

eyes

were an

eagle's in

brightness, his teeth were white and r~i'en. his hair

a beautiful

chestnut

brown. x>ery

glossy

and

curly.

His bearing

was

courteous

and

refined,

simple,

and

una.\suining.

T/i

le

MERICAN

Wc

OODSMAN

^s

the

frontier

Dioved ^icestu-drrl a?id

-a-ildlifc

declined,

the tireless

Auduho)i

drove

himself

to

I'ecord its

wonders

By

MARSHALL B. DA\

IDSOX

12



Thanks

Id

llic

pluiuk't

iiii; ;i<^cius of

ihc mil-

liiiciy

ti:iclc,

oik-

oI

i1k- bcsi rambles

lor

a

biri

waiclier

in

ihc i88u's

was along

the

lashionaijie

sho|)|)in,g

strecis ot

downtown

New

Wnk Ciity.

On

two

suiccssivf

laic

alternooiis

in

i8<S()

one

sharp-cycil naturalist

sjiotted more

than

loi

ty

ditteicnt

species, iniliiding

such iinlikeh

specimens

as

a laughing

gull,

a

nified

grouse,

a

green heron,

and

a

sa\\-whei

owl,

all

in

the

crowded

precincts

ol

lower

Manhattan;

all dead,

to be sure,

and perched stillly

and

pioperly

as (ostiinie

accessories on

the

habits of

well-dressed

ladies of

the

nietiopolis. The

phinie

mer-

chants never

had such

spectacular

opportunities

as

they did in

the

Gilded

Age.

To

such ends

and others,

in the

past we

Americans

managed

to \vipe

out

astronomical

numbers ol

birds,

in

recent times,

ho\ve\er,

man and

biril li.i\e

achieved

a

tolerable

state

ol

coexistence

in our

[Ktrt

of

the

world.

C;oiiiury

lolk

may

continue

to worry about

the

nuisance

ol

hawks

and

crows,

and

city

dwellers

about

the

untidy

habits

of

pigeons

and

starlings.

But

we

ha\e

abandoned

the practice

of

massacring

songbirds

to

decorate

our

ladies'

hats.

\ot\\ithstanding

the

con-

llicting

interests ol

our

,\ir

Force, we

have

piovided

jjeacehil

sanctuary

for

the whooping

crane, and have

even

granted

ininiunity

to the

peregrine

falcons

that

occasionally

rocket

do\vn

from

the

heights

of

tall

buildings

lor

tasty bits of

the

more

domesticated birds

that,

in a

horseless

age,

still

feed

as before in the

city

streets.

On their

side,

the

birds—some

of them—

have ac-

commodated

iheir

habits to

the

strange

ways

of

man,

finding

new

homes

in chimneys

and

barns,

or

abandon-

ing their

ancestral

forest

habitat

h)r

life

among

the

commuters

in

oin

burgeoning

suburbs.

And every-

where,

for the

i)ast

lifty

years

or

so, the

watchful

eye

of

an

.\tidiibon

society

guards their

interests.

There

is

a measure

of

irony

in

the

fact that

if any

such

organization

had

existed

during

the

lifetime of

John

James

.\udubon,

we

might

never

have

heard

of

the

man,

much

less

celebrated

his

memory

as a

great

pioneer

nalinalisi.

In

the

course of

compiling

his

mammoth inventory

of

the

birds

of .America,

Audubon

must

ha\e

killed

a formidable

number of

specimens.

He once

boasted

that it was

a

poor

day's

hunting

\vhen

he

shot fewer

than

a

hundred.

Like

a

number

of

his

tales,

this

one

may

be taller

than

the actual truth. On

the

other hand,

his diary

candidly

reports

the

aniuse-

meiu

lie

occasionally

took

in firing

into

a

Hock

of

birils

to

test

his

excellent

marksmanship,

or

simply

pom

Ic

sport.

Once, on

December

25,

1810,

\vith

a

jjarty

of

Shawnee

Indians,

he caught

a

lakefid

of

swans

in

a

pitiless

cross

fire,

until

the surface

of

the water

was

covered with

birds

floating

with

their

backs

down-

wards,

and iheir

heads sunk

in the water,

and

their

legs

kicking

in

the air.

.\fter

eating

a meal of

pecan-

nut

and

beailat

soup,

while

the

stjuaws

worked into

I

he night,

.Audubon

went

to

sleep

before

the

campfire

veiy

well

satisfied

wiili

[his]

Chiistmas

sport.

\\'hi(h

is

no

stick

lo

beat .Audubon

with.

In

his

hey-

day

the

.Ameritan

wilderness

was

just

about

the

last

))lace in

the world

to

expect

the

jjievention

of

cruelty

to

\\\\d

(leaiures

or

the

preservation

of

any

living

thing

sa\e the

human interloper,

perhaps,

and

his

live-

stock.

The forests of

the

\ew

World

and

all

the

game

that

sought

their

cover

were

inexhaustible.

Yet

they

would have to

give way

to man

and his works.

There

would

be time

enough

to regret

the wasteful

plunder-

ing

that

went with

pioneering

when the

naiion

finally

spiead

out

over

and

.settled

down on

its

three billion

acres

of virgin

land.

Audubon

ne\er

did

become

a

conservationist

as

the word

is understood

these

days.

Even

as

he picked

olf

his

huge

toll

ol

feathered

specimens,

he

was aware

that

his

beloved

frontier

world

was

rapidly

vanishing

about

him.

He did

not

pretend to

say

whether

the

changes were

for

the

better

or for

the worse.

He only

knew with

passionate

conviction

that

no

one coming

after him

would

e\er

have

the same

opportunity

to

record

the biids

of

North

America

in their

primeval

haunts,

and

that

realization

drove

him mercilessly

to

finish

his

inventory

before

it

was

too

late.

He needed

all manner

of variants to

complete

his

studies,

and

from

the

beginning

he hired

hunters

w-hen

his

own

gun

for

some picssing

reason

was

idle.

In

later

yeais, when

he was obliged

to

remain

in

England

to

attend

to publication

matters,

he

wrote

his

naturalist

Iriend,

the Reverend

John

Bachman

of Charleston,

pleading

for more specimens:

Take

to your

gun

. .

.

go to

the \\'oods,

and go

to

the

shores,

or

if

you

cannot

at

all

send

some worthy

one on

whom

you

can and I

also

depend

... It will

save me one

year

of

Shooting

and

of

ransacking

the

Woods singly.

. .

.

Time

was

everything,

and

from

the

moment

he

started

in active

pursuit

ol

his

great

idea until the

waning

years

of

his life,

he

felt

he

never

had

a

moment

to lose.

1

am growing

old too

fast,

he complained

to

his

journal

one

evening

when

he was

in his late forties;

.

. .

may

(iod

grant

me

life

to

see the

last plate

of

my mammoth work finished.

.As

usual,

on this

tri|j he

had

been up

at three

in

the

morning

and

had

been at

his chawing for

seventeen hours

before

making

the

entry.

He had

been working

under the

main

hatch of

the schooner

he

had

hired to

take him

to the

bleak

coast ol

Laijrador

so

that he

coidd

witness the breed-

ing

habits

and see the

jjlumage of

the

waterfowl

that

summered

in

that

wonderful dreariness.

The chill

log

might collet

t

and la

II in

large diojjs

Irom the ship's

13



rigging onto

his tlr;n\ing

table,

and occasionallx the

heavy

rain

would

oblige him

to

close

the skylight:

but

he

worked on.

in wet

clothes

and

in seniidarkness.

if

need

be.

If

there was daylight

left

when

he

finished

his

stint, he went

ashore for exercise.

This

single

episode is

tvpical

of

the

almost

maniacal

fixedness with

which,

once

the

vision came

to

him,

Audubon

drained

all his prodigious

energies into the

publication

of

The

Birds

of

America.

It

x\as

the

task,

as he

sa^\ it

with

almost

mystical

reverence,

allotted

him

by

nature,' and driven

by

that

obsession

he

reached

his main

goal

in about

twenty years' time. In

the

course of doing

so,

he

forced

his plodding

talent to

such

extreme, if

narrow, limits

that

it

took

on

the

aspect

of

genius.

But

to

label

Audubon

a

genius is to rob the

man

he

was

to pay

the

legend he

has

become.

His name

has

long since become a

household xvord, revered

b\

Boy

Scouts

everywhere

and

taken

by

conservationists

as

a

rallying cry for their

cause.

He

has been

critically

ac-

claimed

as

one

of

the

greatest

nature

artists

of

all

time.

He has been

cast

in

the image

of a

felk

hero,

somewhat

bigger than

life. But genius is

inexplicable, and

.\udu-

bon's accomplishment can be told in

terms

of

the

very

human,

^vorkaday uphill struggle

bv

x\hich

he

shaped

his own

destiny.

He

arrived in

America

in

1803,

an insouciant

youth,

somewhat

dandified

in a

continental

manner,

with

a

passion for dancing

and

an oft-beat conipidsion

to

ob-

serve and

draw

the

likenesses

of

birds.

This

bastard

son of

an

adventuring French

sea

captain

and one

of

his

Creole

mistiesses

had been

born

in San Domingo

in

1785.

His

father

had

taken

the

chikl

home

to

his

lax\-

ful

(and

iniderstanding) wife at just about

the

moment

thai

France binst

into the

flames

of

revolution.

There,

in gootl

time, he \\as

legally

adopted and properly

bapti/etl,

given

the name

of

Jean Jacques

Fougere

.Audubon.

(Or, if

you

prefer

a

long

outside chance,

he

was

the

lost

Dauphin, somehow spirited

out of captiv-

ity

into

the protecti\e

custody

of

the

Audubon

menage

in Xantes: although

the

Revue

Insturiqiie

dc

la

ques-

tion

Louis

A'

17/.

published

early

in

this centiny

to

penetrate

this

mystery,

does

not

list

him

among

the

many nominees

lor that

imhappy

distinction.)

^t

eighteen, the lad ^\as ripe

for

conscription

in Na-

jLx.

poleon's swarming

armies and,

apparentlv to

avoid

any such

interruption

of

his

career,

the

captain

dispatched

his son to the Xe^v A\'orld

estate near

Phila-

delphia that

he had

acquired

during his

residence

in

the

western hemisphere.

Thus yoiuig .\udubon fol-

lowed

in a long line of tlistingiiished

cmii^rcs,

includ-

ing Louis Philippe,

the

futme

Citizen King

of

France,

and his brothers: Talleyrand;

Brillat-Savarin;

.Moreau

de

Saint-Mery:

and

others

who

for

one

reason

or

another

sought

haven in the United States while

France

^\as in

turmoil.

But

inilike

so many

of

those

jaolitical

exiles, Audu-

bon

stayed

on

to

live out

his

years in

.\merica.

For

a

while

it seemed altogether

likely

that

he might

become

a moderately successful Xew ^Vorld

merchant,

as

his

father, between times,

had

briefly

been before

him.

A\ ithin

a

few years

he had

married

his

English-born

neighbor, Lucy

Bakewell,

and mo\ed

to Kentucky,

where,

in

spite

of the

constant

and commanding

tlis-

traction

of

his

interest in

birds,

in

time

he made

enough

money

by

trade

to

speculate

in

land

and

slaves,

and

bring himself to

lairlv

comfortable

circiun-

J.

E. SITED ART MUSEUM, LOUISVILLE

Before

begijunng The

Birds

of .\nierica.

Audubon

for

a

time

icas

an

ilineriint

portraitist, charging

Sy

a

jiicture.

Among

his

first

subjects,

sketched

in

chalk

in

iSitj, were

the

James

Bertliouds and

their son Nicholas,

right,

of

Louisville, Kentucky.

14



MKS. C. E. \VI\TERS

AND

MISS

M

VTII l>\

TYI

LR;

<)\

lovN

TO AIUIBON MEMORIAL

MUSEfM, HENDERSON',

KENTUCKY

III

1S22

Auiliibon

mrl 11

jxnirailnl wlio

inshiulrd liiin in

l)ic

u\i-

of

ails:

llie iirxt

year

lie

jttiinlcd

lii\

si)n\.

l'irlni(lffl) and

Jiihii

f

right). The

liknicss

of

}iis

icifc.

Lucy,

icciilci)

uuis

bci^ini

iiuiiiy \rins lain hy nil iinidriilijird

nicnihi-y

of

ihc

family.

stances.

Liicv

had

her

])iano,

Audubon his

own various

nuisical instruments.

Tlu-re were

a

tollection

ol

books,

a

decent

complement

of siher,

china,

antl

other house-

h(jkl furnishings, antl

slaves

to

lighten

the

drudgery

in the house and

in

the

barnyard and

orcharil.

Cler-

tainly

.\be

Lincoln's

lather,

struggling

to provide

lor

his own

little

family

larther

east

in

the state,

^voiikl

ha\e considereil

this luxiny.

Had

Audubon

tontiniied to

prosper, his

name

would jjrobablv have

been

lost

among

the

coinitless

thoirsanils of immigrants who

foiintl

tlieir

lortinies in

the

^\'est.

But then,

in

the panic

vear

of

1819,

he

went

Hat broke and

bankrtipt.

Keleasetl

from

jail and

pressed

by

necessity,

he

iiuiied

portrait

artist, taking

profde

likenesses

of

his

friends

and

neighbors

for as

much

as

five tlollais

a

head initil the

local market

h)r

such

primitive exeicises

^\as

exhausted,

^\it l iheii t^vo

sons. Victor Gillonl

and

|()hii

WDotlhouse

.\udid)on,

he

and

Lucy mo\ed to

(ancinnati,

where

both parents

foinul hire as teat hers;

antl it

^\as

there,

in

Otiober,

1S20,

that

Aiiiltd)on Ijecame

possessctl.

Without

a

retl

cent

in

the potkets

ol his

worn brown

breeihes.

he

left

his

famih

to

lenil

lor

themsehes and

lollowed

the

migiating binls

down

the

Ohio

in a

llatboat.

A\'hat conipelleil the man.

mitlwax

in

life

anil

virtu-

all\

penniless,

to

innlerlake

stub

an

imjjossible

\cn-

ttne?

He

had

diawn

biids

all

his

lile,

to

be

sine. l>ut

he

cotikl not

yet

identif\ a cormorant, as

his

jotnnal

clearly

intlicates;

antl he

a])parentl\

hatl

not

\ei c\en

spoltetl

siuh

a

connnon

bird as

the

hermit

thrush.

I lis

understanding

of

ornithology

was nothing

but

itidi-

meniarv;

he was igntirant of most of

the

literatine on

the

subjei

t anil

had

access

to onl\

a

small jxirt ol it.

1

lis

artistic talent

was

limited, as his nortr.iils

Irom

this

perioil unmistakably

re\ial. although

b\

constant

])rac-

tice

he was

developing it.

But tjuite

asiile

from the basic problem of

making

ainthing like

a

complete

and

faithfid

record of the

luitold

variety

of

North American

bird life, to

see

the

operation

through

to final

publication

(which became

his

increasingly

firm jimpose)

woidd cost

a

small

lor-

time

and call

for publishing

enterprise

on

an

tniprece-

ilentcd,

heroic

scale. The

ilay

of

the professional pub-

lisher

^vas

yet

to

lome in

.\mcrica. The

very few

American

authois \vhose

work

might sell in their

own

country

t\j)ically paiil

lor the

manufacture

of

their

books, which

were

slight

and

inexjiensive

volumes,

trstially

innocent of

illustration

because

of

the

prohibi-

tive costs

this

would have

involved.

Even the

peripa-

tetic

Parson

A\'eems,

the most

active and

imaginative

Ijookseller of his ilay,

could

not

have

moved the giant

tomes

Audubon envisaged.

What

publisher

today, for

that

matter, with all the

present

industry's

elaborate

apparatus

for promotion

and

distiibtition,

and

with its monetary

resotirces,

woidil

dream

of iniilerw

riling

a

four-volume set

of

435

illustrations

by

a

relatively

luiknown

artist,

each

vol-

tune

measuring

abotn

fort\ by

thirty

inches

and

weigli-

ing as

much as

a

strong

man

could carry, the

wliole

to

sell

lor

rouj;hl\

a

thousand

dollars

a set? (.\\u\

there

were

also

to

be

six

stout

vohnnes

of

text.)

It

woidd

seem

lUier

lolly, the

more

so since

the real

value

of

the

thousand

dollais ol

.Vudubon's

day

was

many,

many

times

what it

is today.

.\o

such

miracles

could

be

expected,

excc])t

in

the

l.nthest

reaches

of his

o\vn vision,

when

.Vudubon

blithcK

took oil

to\\ard the

.South

in

that

auttinin of

ilSjo.

He

(oidd

not have

taken a

better

direction

to

get

1V\T

CONIINI

KIHJN

rVf.E

04

A

ri>kIlOI.Ili OK

Al

Dl

HON'S work

C.ONTIM is

ON TliU

lOl.LOWINt.

PM.IS



X

OF MKS.

OKIRI.L

M.

D.

hlllY,

NMCHIZ

0/;('

uf

Atiduhon's

fciu

hnidsc/ipes is

this

1S22 vicic

of

Xatcliez, Mississippi,

sicfpily

jx'rrlied

on

a

blufj

tihot'i'

its busliing ^t'linmcs and the teemin'g

rix'er

traj-

ftc.

In

his

typically

ungriinvnnlinil

prose,

Audubon

wrote:

On

the

lilt

.

. .

11

Neiu and

Elegant Mansion

the

properly

0/

Mr.

Pustleieait

attracts

the

Anxious



.^J>te<<^'^i*^lf^V

:...,

_

i^*^'

i\c—o)i

llir

rii^lil

llir )a///)ii;s

of

llif

liidilli

lliinly <li\'/-rsifiril hy

poor

liiihiliilions

\ooti

(lose

llir

prospfcl

. . . Ilie

Jnil,

Court

House

are

New and

tolerable in

their

joiiii

the

Lower

pari

of

the

former

a

Boarding

House

of

some

Xole, there are

Tico Miserable

Looking Churches;

I dare not

say unattended but

think

so

.

.

.



NEW-YORK

HISTORiaVL

SOCIETY,

COl

RTFSY ME I

ROroriT \N

MLSn ^^

VNO nnnKOF-'I

HE-MOXTH

CLIJB

^ds

A\i(\u\)on's

great

u'nrh.

tlic one

for

whiili

lii.storv

reiiieiiibrr.s

liiin.

is

1

he

Birds ol America;

to

il.s

coiii/)ili>iij^.

l)ublisliing.

Z/^CctS

' '

''^

''^

devoted

the bulk

o/

/)(,v

jiroductnie years. Plate

I

luas ^Vild

Turkey

foj>j}osite).

a

singul/irly

(ij>t clioice:

the

turkey was.

Benjamin

Franklin had

written,

a

true

original native

of

Amer-

ica

niucli

better suited

for

our

national

emblem than

the

bald

eagle—

a

biril

of

bad

moral

chanuter

. . .

generally

jxior and

ojlen

very

lousy.

Ajtei

beginning

jiubliciition

of

liis

Birds in

1S2J.

Audubon

continued

searching

out and

sketching additional

specimens,

but

the

task

was

formidable

and

as

lime

sped

by

he lame

to r/ly

more anil

more

on

his

London

engraver.

Robert

Havell, to

fill

in

the backgrounds,

.ludubon's drirwing

of

the roseate spoonbill

(above),

for

exain/ile.

had

very

little

background

:

to

the

final

eiigraxiing

(beltne),

Hirvell

added

swainps, waterways, and

a

soft

line

of

distant hills.

NE\v'-VORK

HISTORICAL SOCUTV



NFVV VORK

My

hair

is

gray and

I

am

growing

old,

Audubon

wrote

to

his

naturalist

friend, the

Reverend

John

Bachman,

in

i8j^. He was,

in

fad,

5y,

an

age at

which

many men,

having

reached

the peak

of

their

achievement,

look

forward

to

retirement.

But

Audubon

was

just

entering on

the

second

great project

of

his

life,

drawing the

likenesses and recording the habits

of

.America's

mam-

mtils.

just

as

he had

done

with

its birds.

Published

between

/S^5

and

tS.j8

as The

X'iviparous Quad-

rupeds

of

N'orih America, it

was

a

monumental

achievement.

Bachman helped

with the text:

.Audu-

bon's

elder son,

John,

did

many

of

the

drawings and

his

brother Victor

handled

the

publishing

details.

Three

of

the

draiciiigs are reproduced here:

the

common house-mouse

labove), the

red

fox

(below),

and the northern

gray squirrel

(opposite^.

.Audubon himself

did not merely

sit

back

and

supervise.

.Many plates

are

the

fruit

of

his

own

exhausting 2,Soo-mile

round

trip

from

St. Louis

to

Fort

Union.

NATIONAL

Al-DtBON

50C1FTY,

COl RTESY

LlfC



OOLLECIIUN

Of

MHS.

Klkin I. (IIVMIUKS.

milsMIlJ

r

V--

Qjnsects

Kcpvodxiccd

above

atul

opposite

are

two pai^es

from

Aiidulion's remarkable

little

sketchbook

of

American

insects

and reptiles, drawn

between

1S21

and

1S2J.

At

center above

is

a

small

lizard known

as a

gecko and, just to

the

right,

a

praying

mantis.

An

emperor

butterfly

ajypears at top right

on

the

facing

page,

above

11 roic including

a

grasshopper,

a

camel cricket,

and

a true

bug;

at

bottom

(enter

is a wood

cuikroacb.

Audubon was not

a

trained

entomologist,

yet

such

was

his

magic tliut

even

these

liny

creatures

spring

to

life

on the page.



:\.

)

;f«»f-

.'«

\

L

*

C,

V*

^



The

Battle

That

''This

ivill,

some

time hence, he a vast

empire,

llie

seal

(if

power and learning.

. .

. Xatine

has

refused

tliein

notliing,

and there

will

grow

a

people out

of

our

little spot,

England, that

will

fill

this

vast

space,

and

divide

this great

portion

of

the globe

with

the Span-

iards,

who

are possessed

of

the

other

half.

Tliat

projjhecy,

iwo hundred

and

one

years

ago,

about

the

lutiue

ol

Britain's

colonies

in

America, wns written

by the man who

had

scornlully

said in another letter lota' days

earlier:

The Americans

are

in

general

the dirtiest

most

contemptible

dogs

that you

can

conceive. 1

his

hasty

and

violent

generalization

from

a

particidar epi-

sode—the capture

ol

Loiiisbourg—

was

as

characteristic

of

the

man

as

was the far-ranging

vision sho\vn

in his

next

letter.

It

was the same

man who a

year later,

on

the

eve of

his

death

and

of

the

\ictory that

made

his name im-

mortal,

recited

some

verses

of

Gray's Elegy

in a

Coun-

try CJhurchyard,

and said to

his

staff:

1

^vould sooner

have written

that

poem

than

take Quebec. In his

own

annotated cojjy of

the Elegy

he

had imderscored

the

line:

The paths

of

glory lead but

to

the

grave. It is

yet

another

facet of

the

extraordinary character of

James

Wolfe.

The present

year,

1959,

marks

the two himdreilth

anniversary of his victory at

Quebec.

By

th;it astonish-

ing

coup,

achieved in

a

very

unconventional

manner,

he undermined

the

French position

in Canada

and

quenched the

French threat

to

the

British

colonies in

North America. Thereby

he

paved the

way for

those

colonies

to

throw oft

British

ride

within

less

than

a

generation, and start

on

their

independent

path to the

fidfillment

of his vision ol their great

future.

The

United

States might well be termed

his

grandchild, in

the

light of his

conception

coupled

^îth

the

effect of

his

action.

Of

the

world's historic

battlefields,

none is

easier for

\_^

'H

'/eir

i>/^//ic

xya/iiiii/

cf

QUKJJEC

Scplcmber

iil75i>

u/la/frvi/i/'/^m't/'tW

/lu/M/vtYj/f

f/ii

(h/lhti

H.i

/li\if

. It'/ttWl iA/i/t,/rt/

,i

î/tnt// til//rnr/tft/

fl<tf/t

t'iiif,/i//ifrr.i

,tii,/,

'/n,/i,Tit,>.

il'/itr/r

/in'i/itiiiY f/ir

otir/v/ii/)-r I'r Oilcbcr

'

AMTA,/.-^'....*/»Ai;,;V,L.\rRJK,l

WniTTI

.7;; old

engraving published

in

London

in iy<)/ slioius the strug

for

Qiicbec

on

tlic

nioining

of

Se/ileinher

/j.

/jî).

In

the

lire-d

darkness

ll'olfe's men landed at

liglilly guarded

Foulon

cove,

s

By a

brilliant

maneuver

young

James

Wolfe

conquered

''împregnable''

By

CAPTAIN

B.

24



an

Empire

su.Mi M>

swiiri

cw

\ni

\v\

r.

\i 1

1

k^'.

nn\-

\i

(i\r vrki

mi si i \(

///(•

i/f/ti

yhk-

</i-

Qvi:bEC

/<

13

Septcnitro

17^5

.

/f

f/f'/'fl ft/It

r

mctlt

,/fj

^rott^cd »^

/ftt^/i) utt-J,^-X'jf-K^-/itWf2c

t/tr^^l^trti^fi^

t^fa/aân/ lift

iêi/n'ff

^z:J:ôiA<Ata: ^.

^car t{f7cifer^/nMfe

t/uTa/iU/ttlif

û(/t/rtracit

nri'iiic.

niHnjxmwrcd

the

jnchcis.

anil ilrnr

u/}

jor

halllc

on llir

iif

Abrii)iiun.

Tlir French.

r\/)r'(//« ;

iilliiih

below Ouehec.

It) msli lhii/ii ^h

the

toxen

iind

foiin

quiilily

to

meet

the

<i.^.\iiiilt.

the visitor

lo trace

and

visualize

than

that of

Quebec.

The

course ol tiie ])reliniinary

moves, antl their

signifi-

cance, is

made

clear

by

the

contoins ol the St.

Law-

rence River.

The scene ol \\'olle's decisive

step,

the

landing

at

a

cove

a

mile anil

a hall

upstream from

the

city,

is

close

to where

liie

transatlantic

liners

now

dis-

embark

their

passengers.

Tiie

battle itself was fought

out

on

top

of

the cliffs

above

this landing

place—

on

the

plateau talletl the

Hcighis,

or

Plains,

of

Abraham,

Avhich lies

immediately lo

the west of

the

city.

The

capture of

Quebec and

its

sequel, the conquest

of Canada,

formed

the liigli-water

mark of tlie

tide of

British

imperialism

in

the

eighteenth

century.

That

was cmphasi/ed

by

Sir

John

Seelcy,

the

Ciambridge

his-

torian

of the late Victorian

.\ge, in his famous

book.

The

Expansion

of

England.

In liis lyrical Avords:

That

victory vvas

one of

a long scries, which to

contempo-

raries

seemed fabulous, so

that the nation came

out

of the

struggle

intoxicated

with

glory, and

England

stood

upon

a

pinnacle

of

greatness

which

she had never

reached

before.

We

have forgotten how. through al

that remained

of

the

eighteenth century,

the

nation looked back upon

those

two

or

three

splendid

years as

upon

a happiness

that could

never

return

and how

long it continued to be the unicjue

boast

of

the Englishman

That Chathuni'i

Lani^nace

icns his

nintlier-loiigiie

And

]\'olfe'.s

great heart

com

l>atriot

with

liis

oiun.

Englishmen had need of such

comfort in the

next

war,

the American

Re\olution.

The leteiuion of

Can-

ada then looketi like

poor

compensation

for

the

loss of

their older colonies in

North

.\merica.

Thus

Wolfe's

fame glowed all

the more

in the

con-

trast

bet^veen

the

glory

of the Seven

^'ears'

^\'ar and

the

lumiiliation

of the

eight

years' war

that

followetl.

Even

before

that,

the brightness of

his lame owed

much

to

the

suddenne.ss of its growth, and

to the

hero's

death in

the

hoiu' ol victory.

He

was

a

meteor

that ap-

peared

abo\e the

hoii/on only

a

yeai

bclore he

ilied.

and \anishcil in a

bla/e

ol

lorv at thirtv-two.

—

a}i(/

secured North Jtnerica

for

the

English-speaking

peoples

HART

25



MC

CORD MUSEUM,

MC

GILL

UXIVERSITY, MONTREAL

This

sketch

of

Jauiei.

Wolfe

WHS

(Irnuiri

nl

Qiiebec

by

one

of

his

brigadiers,

George

Tou'tishetid,

and

presented

to

the

British

adjutant

gen-

eral. Isaac

B(irre—in

later

years a

(hniiijiion

of

the

American

colonists,

who

named

Barre,

I'ermonl.

ami

Wilkes-Barre,

Pennsylvania,

for

him.

Wolfe

did

not

nf)-

firciiate

I'ownshend's

bar-

riuh-ioum cartoons,

many

of

whicli

were

aimed at

him. and they hardly .\j>oke.

In

his

metcoiiikc rise and course, AVolfe ^vas

tlie

Orde

Wingate—

the

brilliant,

temperamental

inno\ator

and combat

leader—ol the eighteenth centiny, but his

achievement

was greater

and

more cndining.

Jn per-

sonality

there

was much similarity

bet^veen the

two

men.

Both

^\ere

supercharged with ilxnamism

and au-

dacity. Both were intensely

ambitions,

instincti\elv

re-

bellions, and irreverent

towartl

their

elders

and

official

superiors.

Both

were fdled with

self-confidence,

\et

had

streaks

of humility. Both

had the

divine

discontent

of

genius, but

often

expressed it

in

a

way that was far

from

divine.

Both

had

great

pertinacity

along

\\ith

temperamental instability,

so that

they fell

into

moods

ol

deep

depression—or

more

often, ble\s' oft

in

exas-

peration against the

momentary

cause

ol

frustration,

fjoth

made

their

marks

as skilled trainers

ol

troops

in

minor

tactics

on

imconventional

lines.

Each

was

given

his

great opportiniitx

b\ a

great

wartime

prime min-

ister—William

Pitt (later

Earl

ol

Cihathani)

in

the

first

case

and

Clhin

chill in

the

seconil.

^N'olfe's

birthplace \vas ^\'esterham in

Kent,

and

his

boyhood association ^\ith this village maile

it a place

of

pilgrimage

in later

generations—drawing many

visi-

tors

there

initil

the

\illage

became

a

still greater draw

as the

coimtry home ol

Winston

C^hiuchill. Constant

reminder

of

Wolfe's career

through

such propinquity

could

hardly

fail to influence

Chinxhill,

a

man

so

his-

torically

minded,

when it came to a

cjuestion

of

giving

opportiniity to another

yoimg

soldier

of similar stamp.

\\'hen

^\'olle

was sent to

captme

Quebec

by

Pitt,

he

^\as

eight years

yoimger

than Wingate

^^as

when

sent

to

Binina

b)

tihunhill,

but iheir length of mili-

26



tary sci\icc

\\as

almost

f(|ual

al ihf

time

wlu-ii

tin-

great

oppoi

iiinitv came

to

each

ol iliem. For WDlle

ivas only

loin

leen

wlieii

he

betaine

a

junior officer in

his

father's

res^iment

ol

marines,

and

sixteen

when he

clis-

tingmsiiecl himsell,

as

acljiilant ol

the Twellth

Foot,

in

battle

at

Dettingeii in

17^3—

the

last

battle

in

which

an

English

king

led his

troops in

person.

Three

years

later

AV'olle

made a

Imther

mark in

the

Battle

ol

Cadloden

Moor

in

Scotland, when the

arm\

ol Prince

(Charles

Edward, the

Young Pretender,

was deleated

and ihe

Jacobite

ho])es ol regaining the

throne

irom

C.eorge II

were

extinguished. W'oUe

then

retmned

to

the

Conti-

nent,

and

b\

his

twenty-first birihd.iy

\vas

a

veteran

of

six

campaigns.

Peace came

soon

afterward, and he

went

back to

garrison duty in

Scotland,

soon becoming

com-

mander

of

his new regiment,

the I

Wentieth

Foot.

He made

this regiment

into

what

others termed

the

best-drilled and

disciplined

in

the

Hiiiish

Army.

One

of

his officers

described him

as

a

paragon.

He

neither

drinks,

cinses, gambles,

nor

rinis

after

women. So we

make him

otn jjatiern.

But

his own

letters

were

fidl

of

discontent,

comjilaining

th.it

his

prospects

were

sterile,

and

that

barren battalion

conversation

blinits

the

faculties.

He

liked the

civilian society in

Glasgo\\'

no better,

saying

that

the men

\vere

designing

aticl

treacherous, with

their immediate

interests always

in

view. . . . The Avomeii,

coarse, cold

and

cunning,

for

ever

enquiring

after man's

circtmistances.

\VhiIe

set-

ting

a

good

example

h\

attending

every

Simday at

the

Kirk,

he

bitingly remarked

that the

generality

of

Scotch

jjreachers

are

excessive

blockheads.

He

found

Itxal

society

somewhat

more

congenial

when

the

regiment

moved

to

the

rebel

area ol the

Highlands.

Here

he

gave

fortnightly

dances

as

a

means

of

restorinsi

ocxl

relations,

and

remarked

of the

women: They are perfecth

wild

as the

hills

ihat

breed

them;

but

they

lay aside

iluir

principles

lor

the

sake

of soinul

and

movement.

When

the

regiment was

later

nuned

to

Dcvonshiie.

he

applied

the

same treat-

ment,

and

was

soon

able

10 s.i\

:

I ha\e

danced the

officers

into the

good

graces

ol

ihe [.icobite

women

here

abouts,

who were prejudiced

anainst

them.

For

him.

such play

was

onl\

.1

means

to

an

end. and

he

felt

nuich relief

when

war bioke

<iiil

afresh willi

France,

in

1751).

Meantime he

had

de\<)tecl much time

to reading current and

classic

books

on

the miliiary

art, in jjreparation

for the leading

role he

hoped

to

fill.

He had

also developed

the musketry skill

of his

men

to

a

high pitch by

constant

firing practice

at

var-

ied

targets. His insistence on its

value

\vas to

he

proved

al

Ouebec—

where

two (jiiick,

ellectivc

voilevs

won

die

battle, and

gained

an empire.

Like

most

leloiniers W'olle

was

lieicelx ciiliial

ol

obsiruc tioii and incllic ienc

\

, s.ixing:

We

are

la/\ in

lime

ol

peace, and

ol

couise

waiu

vigilance

and

activ-

ity in

war.

Our

militarv education

is

by far

the

worst

in

r.urojje.

And

again: We are the

most

egregicjus

blunderers

in

w:ir ihal e\er

look

the

hatchet

in hand.

His

criticisms were home

oiu

by ihe mismanaged

seaborne

expedition

against

Rochefoil. on

the west

ccjast

of Fiance, in

1757.

vvhich

ended in lulility

ilirough defective

combination between

the military

and naval

leaders.

But

Wolle

hinrsell, one

of

the

jun-

ior

leaders,

emeiged with credit

from

ihe

court of in-

(juiiv.

Moreover,

a

letter he

wrote

in

lellection

on the

expedition

w:is a model

exposition

of the

way

to

con-

cfuct

amphibious operations.

After

this

check, Pitt decided

10 strike at

France's

J'x.

overseas

possessions. In

.\iiierica,

England

and

l-.urope were

to

be

fought

for, he later

declared. The

main

exjjedition

was to be against

the great

French

fortress

of Lcjuisbouig on

Ciape Breton

Island,

which

dominated the sea

approaches to

Clanada:

other cam-

paigns were

to

be

directed

against the forts at

Ticon-

cferoga

and

Diuiiiesne.

In

Pitt, England had

a

minister strong

enough to

sweep aside military

cusiom and

seniority,

and, ]jass-

ing

over whole

columns

ol

the

army list,

to pick

his

own

instruments.

For comniand

ol the

exjjedition

lie

chose a

colonel

ol lortv.

Jeffrey

.\mhersi-nKiking

him

a

general—

and

appoinied

Wolle.

who

w;is ten

vears

voiinger,

as

one

of the three

brigadiers. .\

miserable

siiilor,

Wolfe

sultered badly

during the

voyage,

but

fought

clown his

seasickness

when action

was

immi-

nent—as

he

always

did

his more

deep-seated

maladies.

.\fter

reconnoitering

the

rocky

and

lorbidding

coast

line,

.\mheist

decided

that

Wolle

should carry

out the

main

landing at

Freshwater

Cove

in

Oabarus

Bay,

some four miles

wesi

of Loiiisbourg.

while

the

other two

brigadiers

leinted

landings

al

poinls

nearer the

lor-

tress. This

w;is dillerent

from

ihe

plan

that

Wolfe

had

devised.

The

landhig-on

June

S,

1738—

came

at

the

most

strongly

defended

point,

and

ihe

boats

were

greeted

with

such

a

hail of

shot that

Wolle

had

to

sig-

nal them

to

sheer

oil.

However,

three

on

the

extreme

light were

partially

sheltered by

a

projecting

spit

of

land,

and

touched

bottom

among the

rocks at

this

poiiii.

Wolle

immediatelv

directed

the rest of

the

boats

towaitf

ihis laiul; and

alihough

m;my

were

stove

in,

ihe

bulk

of

the

troops

scrambled

ashore

led

by

\\'olle,

who

carried a

cane

as

his only

weajjon. They

pressed

lorw:ircl and

look ihe

nearest French

battery

by

as-

sauli.

Me;inwhile,

with

the

enemv's

:iiicniion

occupied

1)\

Wolfe,

another

l)rig:icle

landed

l.iriher

west.

The

Fieiuh,

iluis

ineiKKed

on

Ixuli

li.nikv, lied

beloie

their

lelieal

lo

l.oiiisbouig

v\as <

ul

oil.

le.iving

iheii

guns

in

the

h.iiuls

ol

ihe

British.

27



iturlhwcil

j}ait

of

Q_ucbec,

from

the

St.

Cluula

River.

Quebec

under

the

gun

drawings on tliete

tzuo

pnges

ivere

niniie in

slicU-lorn

after

the

surrender,

hy

Richard

Short.

I>ur\er

of

Priiuc

of

Oningc.

De.scribing

the

scene in

MoiUtalm

\Vollc.

Francis

Pnrhnian

unote:

'The

[Brili.^h]

fleet

was

the

great

river

leas

left

n

solitude:

and

tlie

cliill

days

of

Xovewber fmssed

over Qjiebec

in

allernalions

of

rain

frost,

sunshine

and

snow.

. .

.

Their

own artiUerx

had

battered

the

f^Uice

thai it

was

not

easy

[for

the

Hrittsh

to

find

shelter.

. . .

the

liishoj/s Palace . . .

was

a

of

tottering

masonry,

and

[other]

buildings icere a

of

ruin,

wliere ragged

boys

were

playing

at

see-saiu

the

fallen

jilanks and

limbers.

. .

.

The

Cathedral

burned

to

a

shell.

The

solid

front

of

the College

of

the

teas

ftockmarked

by

numberless

cannon-balls,

and

the

church

of

the

Order

was

-woefully

shaltereil.

The

of

lite Rccollets

suffered

still

more. The

bombshells

fell

through the

roof

had broken

into

Ihc jyavement,

as

they

burst had

thrown

uj]

the

bones and skulls

of

the

. . .

The

commissary-general

,

Berniers, thus

describes

. .

the

slate

of

the town:

'Qiiebec is

nothing but a

shafjeless

of

ruins. Confusion,

disorder, pillage,

reign e~ven among

inhabitants,

for

the

English

make

examjyies

(if

sei>erity

diix. Everybody

rushes

hither

and thither,

leilhout

III//)'.

. .

.

Never

zuas

there seen

such a sight.'

But

the

next

biejj'i ^\x•rc

inoie

pioloiigt'd,

;iik1

the

delay

inipaiictl the greater phm

lor

the contjiiest ol

Canada, pre\eiiting

the

release ol Amherst's

force

for

co-operation

with

Cleneral

James

Abercronibie

in

the

campaign on

the

mainland.

Eventtially.

the issue was

decided

by

the

demorali/iiig

effect of a heavy

battery

that

Wolfe had

got

into position

on

the hills

overlook-

ing

Louisfjoing haibor from

the

north^vest—and

on

Jtdy

27

the French capitulated.

Seven

\\eeks

after the landing,

the strongest fortress

in

the

New \\'orld had

lallen,

but Wolfe

was dissatis-

fietl. His letters are

characteristic:

We

made

a

rash

and ill-ad\ ised

attempt to land, and

\>\

the

greatest of

good fortune imaginable we succeeded.

If

we had

known

the

country,

and

had acted

with more

vigour,

half the

garrison

at least

(tor they

\\ere all out)

must

have fallen

into our hairds

immediately we

landed.

Oin-

next

operations

were

exceedingly

slow

and inju-

dicious. . .

.

Then, as

to

the

next

move,

he

^vrote:

I

do

not

penetrate oin-

General's

intentions.

If he

means

to

attack

Quebec,

he must

not

lose

a

moment.

Since

the

naval

authorities

were

reluctant to

rim

the

risks of the

passage

up

the

St.

La^\'rence River,

Wolfe

departed

to harry

the

French

settlements on the

gidf—

as a

diversion to

occupy tlie

attention

of

the

Marcjuis

de

Montcalm,

the

Frencli

commander

in

Canada,

and

prevent

him

from

reinforcing the troops who

were

op-

posing

Abercrombie's

overland

advance.

Before

AN'olfe

returned

to

Loiiisbourg, Amherst

liad

sailed

for

New

York

to

support

Abercrombie.

.\

letter

that

^\'olie

sent

after

him

gives

a

side

light

on the influence

Wolfe

had

won, allowing

liim to

give

advice to his

superior:

.\n

offensive,

daring

kind

of

^\ar

will awe

the

Indians and

ruin the

French.

Block-houses,

and a

trembling

defen-

sive,

encourage

the meanest

scoundrels to

attack

us.

In

October

^\olle

sailed for England to

recover his

health,

wliiih had

suttereil

horn

the strain.

Pitt had

intendetl

him

to remain in

.\merica, but the

onler

missed

him, and

hearing

this,

^\'olfe

^^rote

to

put him-

self

right

^\ith the

Minister, expressing

his willingness

to

serve

again

in America, antl

jjarticularh

in the

river St.

Lawrence.

Pitt had

learned, from

many

soiuces, to

whom

was

due

the

chief credit ol

the

Louis-

bomg

victory:

and

WoUe's letter

ga\e

him

the assm-

ance

upon

which

to

take the

momentous

decision

of

giving this

young

soklier

ol

thirt\-one

commanil

ol the

expedition

no^v

planned

against

Quebec.

On

recei\ing

Pitt's

summons,

\\'olfe

hastened to

Lonilon.

anil

the

two remaining

months

belore

he

saileil

were

occujjieil

^vith

prepaiations.

He named

Robert

Monckton and

James

.Minrav,

an

old enemy

who

hail

won his praise at

Loiiisbourg, as

two of

his

brigadiers,

and

accepted

Pitt's

suggestion

of

George

The

interior

of

the Jesuit

ihurcli.



SIG.Ml

ND

S\Ml I

I

<,\S \III

\\

\

». Ml VR\

.

KOY M. OM \RI()

Ml

S

'Inw

nsliciul

.IN

llu'

lliiul. I

ln'

(

ousel

\

;il i\('

(.coiuf

|1

w.is

so

Uii

coiiveriLiI b)

W'olk's

iiicrii

;iiul ilic disasieis

thai hail

bdalleii

earlier

coinmaiulcis. thai

wlu-n

ihc

Duke

ol Newcastle

ileclaretl

iliat W'ollc was

iiiatl. he

retorted: Mail,

is

her

Then

1

hope

he will

bite some

ol my

other generals.

WoUe

sailed

from England

in the

middlr

ol I'ebru-

ary

alter

writing his

mother a

larewell letter

whiih

in

its

Spartan

brevitx

shatters

\arious

imaginati\e

ac-

lounis that ha\e

sin \i\ed. It

said simply:

1 lu'

(oiin.ilin

111

lakiiij;

1lm\c

shiniUI

In- js

iiiiuli

as

possible

avoiileil; tlicrclorr 1

prrler this

nulhiul

iil

nllcriiis^ my

.nooil

wishes

and

duly

in

iii\ lallier

and

Id

noil I

shall carry this

business throiii;h

uiili

ni\

best

abilities. I

lu-

itsi,

\ou

know,

is

in

the

hands

ol l'ri)\ iilencc. to

whose

lare

1

lio|)e

\iiur

Sood

life

and

(ondutl

will

rctoninieiul

your

son.

Although

I'ill

had

intended him

to

ha\e

iweh'e

thoiisanil

men.

W'olle founil

less

than

nine

thoiisanil

available

at

Louisbourg. his

base,

and

many

ilehiien-

cies

in

equipment.

Moreover,

Amherst's overland

ad-

vance

from

Xew

Y'ork

x\as

so

tardy

that

the

French

were

able

to concentrate

some sixteen

thousand

men

around

Quebec to oppose \\'olle.

But

their quality

was

low,

and their great commander,

Montcalm,

suHered

much hinilrance

from

the

governor of

Canaihi, the

Marquis

ile

V'aiidreuil,

and his

corrupt subordinates.

Even so,

the French

position seemed

to be, and

was

ileemeti

by the

defender,

impregnable —as

V'auilreuil

assured

the

government

in

Paris.

The

guns

of the

for-

tress

of Quebec,

perched

loftily

on

the

north

shore

ot

the St. Lawrence, commanded the

river; the lanil ap-

proach from

the

east

was

barred

by

the

tributary rivers

.Montmorency

and

St.

Charles,

and

that

from

the

west,

above

Quebec,

by the

clifts of the

Plains

of

Abraham.

Trusting in

this

obstacle to cover his

western

Hank,

and in the guns of

the

fortress to

control the

n:irrow

passage

that

led to the

iqjpei reaches

ol

the

ri\ei,

Montcalm

posteil his arinx

in an

entrendied

position

below

Quebec—along

the six-mile stretch

ol

the

north

shore between

the

St.

Charles

anil the

Montmorency.

On reaching

the

.American

side

of

the

.\ilanti(

on

April

30,

W'olle

had found

to his

disgust

that

Reai .Ad-

miral Philip Durell

was

still

at

anchor

at llalilax in-

steail of

carrying

out W'olle's instructions to bloik the

entrance

to

the

St.

Lawrence

as

soon

as

the

ice

liegan

to

melt.

.\s

a

lesidt

ol

this

delay,

although

Dinell was

sent

oil

at

onie.

ihiee French

frigates

and

a

score

of

storeships

slipped

through

anil

up

to

()iiebec

before

the

entrance

was closed, strengthening Montcalm's

]>osition

anil

impairing ^\'olfe's jjlan.

Forttmateh .\d-

miral

(Miarles

Saiuitlers,

the connnaniler ol the

main

Meet lh:n

had

sailed with

Wolle

from England,

was

a

man

ol

greater

\igoi'.

and iheir (

o

operiition

w;is to

77/ '

cdlliiuliiil

.

Ii

\iiil

ii}lli<j,c.

mid

liiiuUcI iliunli.

The

intcndaiit'.s

juilace.

The C Inn

ill

0/

.\i>lic

Dmiic

dc

In

\

icloirc.

'1

III'

iiilrtiiii i)j llir lirtoUrl

iliuiill.



^^_\^

iS^^i^'^W-

0\.

GALLFRY

OF

C

\N \I>A,

COURTESY

Life

P?;^^



^%.

provide

one

of the few good

exanij)le.s in

IJiit;iin's

his-

i()i\

ol

combined

action

between

army

and navy. More

(lila\.

however, was

caused

because

I.ouisbourg

harbor

\\as

still blocked

^\ith lie.

WoUe

could

not

land

there

until the miildle ol

May, but

he completed

his prepa-

rations

and

sailed

lor

Quebec

by

June

i.

1 he voyage to

Quebec was in

itsell a

very ha/artlous

pan

ol

the expedition,

lor

the

(inrents and shoals

oi

liu'

Si.

Lawrence are

notoi

ions,

and its athievement

wiihoiit mishap astonishetl the

French.

Vaudreuil, the

gcnernor,

wrote: The enemy

have

passed

sixty

ships

ol

war

where we hardly dared risk

a

vessel

ol

a hun-

dred

tons.

W'oUe disembarked

on

the

Isle

ol

Orleans,

lour

miles below

Quebec, on

Jiuie

27.

His

reconnaissance

discovered the

French

disjjositions

and

the extent

to

\\hich

.\dmiral

Dinell's negligence had

enabled them

lo prepare

to

meet the attack.

The

long

line ol steep

brown

cliffs,

topped

by

entrenchments,

was

a

dainiting

sight.

Aforeover,

the

French

now

had,

besides

lloating

batteries,

more

than a

hundred

gmis

mounted in

well-

chosen

positions to

conmiand

the

river

and

likely

land-

ing places.

Further evidence of their

preparedness

came

on

the night

of

the

twenty-eighth,

w^hen the

French

loosed

seven

fire

ships

downstream

against the

British

fleet.

But

the crews

set light

too soon

to their

explosive

loads,

aiui the

danger

W'as

averted

1)\ the

coolness

of the British

sailors,

who

lowed

out and

to\\ed the

Ijla/ing hulks

ashore.

Wolfe

retorted \vith

a

promjjt

coiuiterstroke,

seizing

Pointe

Levi

on the

south

bank

of tite ri\er

opposite

Quebec.

Here the

passage

;vas little

more than half

a

mile

wide,

and

from this

\antage

jjoint

his

ginrs

were

able

to

bombard

the

loAvei

pait

of

the

city.

Montcalm

had

wished

to

post a

strong

detachment

on

the south

bank, but

his

jiroposal hail

been

overruled

by

\'au-

dreuil—on the

mistaken

assumption

that the

French

guns would

make it

impossible

for the

British

to

estab-

lish

batteries

in

emplacements

close

enough

lor

an

elfective

bombardment

ol

the

city.

But

although

Wolfe

succeeded

in

getting

his

ginis tlug

in,

and

then gradu-

ally

crumbled

the

Lower

Town into

ruins,

their gall-

ing ellect

was

too grailual

to

soke

his

assaidt

problem

CONTIMKD ON

\'\i.r.

105

In

the

cinitral

section

of

licnjnmiu

Wrsl's famous

Imittliiig,

The

fJeath

of

WdHc. the

\oun;j,

lino

lies nioiliilly

wounded

on

llic

Plums

of

IhiiilniiN

.

irilli

llic

rncniy

fleeing

mill

vic-

toi\

won.

A

singidii

slum

lies llie

blixnl

from

tlie ftiliil

lung

leouiid

while

iil

left

WOlfe's iiideile-c(iml>.

C(ij)tnin

Ileney

Siiiilh.

and

his

ndjulnnt

general.

Colonel liarre.

kneel

solid-

lijiislv

over him.

Standing

at

left,

a

cloth

over

his

oxen

wound,

IS

Robert

.Mom litoii

.

Wolfe's

senior

brigadier.

Most

of

lliose

shown

were

mil

iiitiiiill\

at

the

siene. and it

is

said

that

West iKlmilh'

ihiiige, a

fee

/ i

jiiiltnig

them

into

the

j>i(tiire.

31



-^^



In iSpS,

the

depression

which

had

followed

the

Panic

of

'p} was in

its third

year.

Debt,

business

failure,

unemployment

,

and labor unrest loere

spreading; to many, revolu-

tion

seemed just

a step

away.

This

luas the setting

for

the bitter

presidential

contest

between

Republican

William

McKinley and Democrat

Willia7n

Jennings

Bryan, and

the

great

debate

betiueen

the

advocates

of

sound

money and

the

supporters

of

the

inflationary panacea,

free silver.

In a

chapter

from

her long-awaited new book, In

the

Days

of McKinley,

Pulitzer

prize-winner

Margaret

Leech

tells how McKinley

and

his

famous

manager, Marcus

Alonzo

Hayina,

conducted and won

a

campaign

in

which the candidate

never

left

home.

The

book

is published by Harper

ir

Brothers.

The

Front

Porch

Campaign

While

Bryan

stumped up and

down

the

/and,

McKinley

let

the

voters

come

to

his lawn

in

Canton—

and

they

came

By MARGARET

LEECH

In

the

later

years of the nineteenth century,

the

American

scene was

ornamented

by three

celebrated

friendships. The letters of

John

Hay

and Henry

Adams

attest

that the

hearts

of

their

exclusive

Washington

salon were joined

in a rare

intellectual

communion.

The

corre-

spondence of

Cabot

Lodge and Theodore Roosevelt,

concerned

though

it

was

with

their

grosser

po-

litical ambitions, reveals

an

affinity

scarcely less elevated

in

refinement

and

sympathetic

exchange.

The

love of

William McKinley and

the Ohio

business

magnate,

Marcus

A.

Hanna,

has not left

a comparable

record.

Their few surviving letters

are

confidential

rather

than

intimate.

There

are

formal missives from McKinley, most of

them

dictated

and

faintly

odorous

of

the

letter

press

or

carbon

copy; and some

scribbled notes

from Hanna

on minor

political

questions, usu-

ally

matters of

patronage.

Perhaps

not

much

has

been

concealed

or

destroyed.

When

parted,

these

two

communicated

over the

long-distance telephone,

or through

that

more

ancient

medium,

the

private

emissary.

They were

practical men, without

a

trace

of the

scholar

or

dilettante.

The

basis

of

their

alliance was

the commitment

of

the

Republican

party

to

the

business

interests.

Hanna's first

overtures

to

McKinley

had disclosed

the harmony

of their

minds,

both

in politi-

Eager

crowds

thronged

to

Canton

to

hear

McKinley

speak

from

the

front

porch

of

his

North

Market

Street

home.

In

this

photo, Hanna

(seated at

far left)

listens,

hat

in

hand;

Cabot

Lodge

is behind

the pitcher.

American

Heritage

Book

Selection

COnfRJCHT

© 1959 BY

M.UICAK£T

L££CH PULITZEH

ss



Behind

the

scene: Mark

Hanna

cal

purpose and

in

the

choice

of the

human

instrument

for its

fulfillment.

Hanna had shrewdly appraised the

America

of

his

day.

He saw that the problems

of govern-

ment

had

become problems

of

money. He wanted

to

place

the

corporations in

the

saddle, and make them

pay

in advance

for

the

ride. McKinley looked upon

the

great

industrialists as

the

leaders

in

the

march

of na-

tional

progress, the

source of high wages

and

full

em-

ployment

for

all

the

people;

and he

thought of

their

financial

backing

of his

presidential

candidacy

as

a

contribution

to

the

patriotic cause

of

protection.

Hanna put

the

situation

in

balder terms,

but both

arrived

at

the

same

conclusion.

The

partnership

had

naturally

involved a close

per-

sonal association.

Hanna

was

an

expansive

man, blufi,

hearty, and

dynamic. Though

his

speech was

rough

and his

manner

aggressive, he made warm friends, as

well

as

hot enemies;

and

his advanced opinions

on the

relations

of management and

labor,

and

his

just

and

cordial dealings with

his own

employees

had

brought

him the

esteem of

the

workingmen

of

Ohio.

In

choos-

ing

McKinley

as

the object on which

to lavish his ener-

gies, Hanna

had not made

a

purely

rational decision

He

had

been

magnetized

by a polar

attraction.

Cynical

in

his

acceptance

of

contemporary

political practices,

Hanna

was

drawn

to McKinley's

scruples and ideal-

istic

standards,

like a hardened man

of

the

world

who

becomes

infatuated

with

virgin

innocence.

That his

influence

ruled McKinley was

the

invention

of

the

po-

litical

opposition, of young

Mr.

Hearst's

newspapers

in

particular. Hanna,

on

the

contrary, treated McKin-

ley

with conspicuous

deference. The

Kansas

City

re-

porter William

Allen

White, who thought

Hanna

the

better man of

the

two,

was

obliged to admit

that

he

was just a

shade

obsequious in McKinley's

presence.

Charles G.

Dawes

noticed in his

close

association

wit

both men

that

McKinley

gave the

orders,

and Hanna

obeyed

them without

question. Herman

Henry Kohl

saat, the

Chicago

newspaper

proprietor, wrote tha

Hanna's attitude toward

McKinley

was

always that

o

a

big, bashful

boy

toward

the

girl

he

loves. Hanna

told the

story himself.

He said

that

somehow he

fel

for

McKinley

an

affection

that

could not be

explained

but he

explained

it

very well.

It made

Hanna

feel

twenty years

younger

to

spen

a

social

evening with

his

friend.

On

a

house

party

McKinley

was like a big

boy.

When he

laughed,

h

laughed heartily

all

over,

enjoying

a

joke on him

self and

loving

to

get a

joke on

Hanna,

and

ring al

the

changes

on

it.

At

their

Sunday

evening

concerts

he

would

urge

Hanna to

raise his

tuneless

voice,

in

sisting that it was

a

sweet

tenor. He

was

a pleasan

tease. He

was

fond

of

the

theater, and

delighted

i

meeting

the

actors who

came

to

Hanna's

house.

The

best

times of all for

Hanna

were the

hours

lat

at

night

in the den at

his house

in Cleveland,

whe

the other

members of

the

house party

had

gone

to

bed

and just

the two

of

them had

their

heart-to-heart

talks

puffing

their cigars and

looking

into

each

other's

faces

Years

later, he

could

still

see

the

kindly, quizzical loo

in

McKinley's

eyes when he

said,

Mark, this

seems

t

be right and

fair

and just. I

think

so,

don't

you?

Hanna remembered

too

how

McKinley's

eyes

woul

sparkle

at

the

suggestion that

the

tariff bill

which h

had sponsored

as

a

congressman had

brought

Repub

lican

defeat

in the

presidential

election of

1892,

an

how

he

would

admit

it

might

be

so,

but

wait

and

see

Mark—wait

and

see.

Hanna

remembered that

McKin

ley said,

A good

soldier

must always

be

ready

fo

duty,

and

another time, There

are

some

things

Mark, I

would not do

and

cannot

do,

even

to

becom

President of

the United

States.

Together

these

two

made

one perfect

politician.

I

the

foreground

was

the

zealous

protagonist

of hi

party's

causes, the

speaker

who could

inspire faith

i

well-worn platitudes,

the

moralist

who

spurned

com

mitments,

the diplomat

who avoided

unpleasantness

Behind

him moved the practical

businessman,

whos

brain

was

unclouded

by

muzzy

ideals;

the

clever

or

ganizer,

who could push and

publicize,

make

deal

and

raise money;

the

blunt and bad-tempered

fighter

McKinley's

indirection

of

mind and method

combined

with

his

cautiousness and diffidence

to

unfit him

fo

openly

promoting

his own advancement. His

reticenc

was always

his great

flaw

as a

leader. With the growt

of his

importance,

he had become increasingly

forma

and guarded,

wary

of

committing

himself on all

point

34



the

tariff.

McKinley's political

skills were

in-

He did

not

comprehend

or

cultivate the art

public relations. His excessive

modesty was

a

curi-

defect

in

a

man

of

such

resolute

ambition.

McKin-

could freely ask

favors

for others;

he

could work

for the

party;

but

he shrank from seeming

to

his own interests

forward,

and

preferred

neglect

to

favorable

personal

notice in

the

newspapers.

On

the candidate's

behalf,

Mark

Hanna

pulled

the

strings

of

money and organization

and

pub-

He has advertised

McKinley,

Theodore

Roose-

would

exclaim,

as

if he

were a

patent medicine

was like

a

talented

artist who

needed an im-

a press

agent,

and an angel. In Mark Hanna,

found all

tliree.

in retirement

at his

home town, Canton,

Ohio,

had not passed

the spring

of

1896

in

un-

contemplation

of

the progress

of

his precon-

canvass.

His emergence

as

a

formidable

con-

for the

Republican

nomination

had started the

press

snapping

at his

heels,

with the New York

leading

the pack.

McKinley's record

was bare

hidden

scandals.

He

had

worked hard.

He

had not

money.

His

public career

had

been as

as

his

private life was upright. He had

few

ene-

and

his

Canton neighbors had nothing

but good

tell

of

him. His

bankruptcy

while

he was

governor

of

was the only

incident

on which

the

Journal

could

sten scurrilous assertion

and

innuendo.

The

Hearst

Alfred Henry Lewis,

raked over

the

and

produced

tales

of

McKinley's

reckless

ex-

and his bondage

to

the men who had

aided

Some

of the mud splashed. McKinley's financial

became a favorite

sneer,

vigorously exploited

a

time

by

the

respectable Nation. Lewis caught

attention

when he wrote,

Hanna

and

the

will shuffle him

and deal him

like

a

pack

of

but he

went beyond

the bounds of

partisan

in

his aspersions on

McKinley's backers

as

syndicate gambling

for

a

White House. The

did

far

better when it concentrated its venom

the alleged chief of the syndicate,

the

wicked

mil-

Mark

Hanna.

To

strike

at

McKinley through

manager became

the established

policy

of the

opposition.

Before the

campaign

ended,

had been made the

scapegoat

for all the sins

of

and corruption. The

Journal

did

not scruple to

him as a

union-smasher,

the

warmest

enemy of

workingman, who

for thirty

years

had

torn

at

the

anks of

labor like

a wolf.

Still

more effective

in influence

than

Lewis

was

the

talented cartoonist,

Homer Davenport. In

spring

of

1896,

he made an unknown

Ohio busi-

nessman

the most

infamously

caricatured figure

in

America.

Hanna was depicted as

a

brutal,

obese pluto-

crat,

the symbol of

sly

malice and bloated greed, cov-

ered with

moneybags and dollar signs. Behind this

monster the little candidate cowered

in

his

big Na-

poleonic

hat. Hanna

was

the

puppet-master

who

pulled

McKinley's

strings;

the ventriloquist who spoke

through the dummy, McKinley; the

organ-grinder

for

whom

the monkey, McKinley,

danced.

Davenport,

at

this time, had

never seen

Hanna.

It

was

considered

a

clever

political

stroke that the cartoonist had

been

taken

to

call

on

McKinley;

he was

unable

to

repeat

the

savage drawings

after

he met their original. Never-

theless,

the representation

of

McKinley

as

pitiable

and

victimized

was

a

poor service

to his

reputation.

The

graphic

impression of his

spineless

subservience

to

Hanna

would

long

outlast the lies

of Alfred

Henry

Lewis.

At

a time when

the

nation still suffered

from

the

depression

that

followed

the

Panic

of 1893,

McKinley's

silence

on the currency question

was

the cause of the

most valid

and

effective

attacks on

his candidacy.

Anx-

ious to

avoid

any commitment that

might

damage

his

popularity

in the

western

mining states,

he

main-

tained

that

his position

was perfectly

understood

from

his

public

utterances.

But, when McKinley

stood

on

his record

on

the

financial question,

his

footing

ap-

peared

perilously

insecure both to

his

political

op-

ponents and

to

the

goldbugs

of

his

own party.

His

refusal to

speak,

in

the

face

of his

endorsement

by

western

silverite

conventions

in

1896,

antagonized

and

frightened

businessmen,

and

a vociferous

demand

The

cartoonist

Homer Davenport sketched Hanna

and

his

various

features

two

different

ways:

as

he

actually

looked

in the

flesh

(left)

and in

caricature {right).

35



came

from

the

Republicans

of

the

East

that

the

candi-

date

should

explicitly

avow

his

opinions

and

inten-

tions.

Hanna

had

originally

favored

plumping

for

the

gold

standard,

but

McKinley

had

declined

to

listen.

He

was

determined

to

bid

for

the

nomination

on

the

tariff

issue

alone.

He

still

regarded

the

furor

over

the

currency

as a

passing

flurry,

which

might

be

calmed

by

the

bimetallist

program.

The

search

for

an

inter-

national

agreement

on a

ratio

between

gold

and

silver

had

been

generally

consigned

to

the

trash

heap

of

op-

timistic

theorizing.

McKinley

belonged

to

the

die-hard

band

of

hope.

He

did

not

believe

that

the

United

States

should

take

independent

action

by

legislating

for

the

unlimited

coinage

of

silver

at

the

old

ratio

of

sixteen

to

one,

but he

did

not

intend

to

alienate

sup-

port

by

discussing

the

question

during

his

preliminary

canvass.

The

compromise

of

bimetallism

had

raveled

out

in

the furious

strain

of dissension.

McKinley had

nothing

to

offer

but

threadbare

arguments

that

satisfied

neither

side,

but

silence

was

of

extreme

disservice

to

his

reputation.

The

candidate's

denial

of

the

legitimate

public

demand

for

enlightenment

on

his

views

lent

jus-

tification

to

the

onslaughts

of

the

opposition.

Its

press

rummaged

through

McKinley's

record

for

evidences

of

inconsistency.

He

was

cartooned

as

a

sphinx,

ridiculed

as

tongue-tied

and

dumb,

taunted

as a

sly

time-server

with

no

convictions

at

all.

McKinley's

mute

effacement

in

Canton

was

interpreted

as

unanswerable

proof

that

he

was

muzzled

by

Mark

Hanna.

The

approach

of

the

Republican

convention

in

June,

at

St.

Louis,

made

it

necessary

for

McKinley

to

submit

his

opinions,

and

in

conference

with

Hanna

and

other

advisers,

he

drafted

a

statement

on

the

cur-

rency.

It

contained

the

usual

pledge

for

sound

money,

with

silver

used

to

the

fullest

extent

consistent

with

the

maintenance

of

its

parity

with

gold.

While

extend-

ing

a

welcome

to

international

bimetallism,

McKin-

ley's

proposal

declared

that

it

was

meanwhile

the

plain

duty

of

the

United

States

to

maintain

our

pres-

ent

standard,

and

that

the

Republican

party

was

therefore

opposed

to

the

free

and

unlimited

coinage

of

silver.

Hanna

had

come

to

approve

McKinley's

evasiveness

because

of

its

favorable

effect

in

the

Far

West;

but,

arriving

early

at

St.

Louis

for

the

meetings

of

the

na-

tional

committee,

he

discovered

a

strong

sentiment

for

the

gold

standard

among

the

other

delegations.

While

he

was

busy

with

committee

affairs,

a

number

of

friends

met

in

his

room

to

consider

the

question

of

stiffening

McKinley's

statement.

Over

the

discussions,

as

menacing

as

an

explosive.

hung

the

bright

syllable

gold.

Tacitly

accepted

as

the

money

standard

of

the

United

States,

it

had

been

mentioned

in

previous

RepubUcan

platforms

only

in

relation

to

silver

and

paper.

The

little

group

at

St.

Louis at

last

ventured

to

insert

the

word

alone.

For

McKinley's

phrase,

to

maintain

our

present

stand-

ard,

was

substituted

the

statement

that

the

existing

gold

standard

should

be

preserved.

The

change

did

not

alter

the

meaning.

Everyone

perfectly

understood

what

our

present

standard

was,

and

the

silverite

leader.

Senator

Henry

M.

Teller

of

Colorado,

told

newspaper

correspondents

that

the

original

version

would

have

been

equally

unacceptable

to

the

silver-

mining

states;

but

to

sound-money

Republicans,

the

quibble

was

portentous.

Crisis

had

forced

them,

with

trepidation

and

high

resolve,

to

dare

to

speak

of

gold.

Hanna

expressed

his

approval,

and

McKinley

was

convinced

by

the

united

recommendation.

But

Hanna

artfully

concealed

his

hand

from

the

anti-McKinley

delegates.

He

intended

that

the

candidate

and

his

manager

should

appear

to

yield to

the

overwhelming

sentiment

of

the

convention.

By

conveying

to

eastern

leaders

like

Tom

Piatt

of

New

York

and

Cabot

Lodge

—the

junior

senator

from

Massachusetts-the

impres-

sion

that

he

was

still

reluctant

to

call

the

money

standard

by

name,

Hanna

incited

them

to

consolidate

the

delegations

who

were

in

favor

of

the

explicit

defi-

nition.

When

the

resolutions

committee

finally

pro-

duced

the

platform,

the

currency

plank

was

essentially

the

statement

that

McKinley

had

approved.

There

was

a

rush

to

claim

credit

for

the

fateful

monosyllable,

gold.

H.

H.

Kohlsaat,

who

was

a

late-comer

at

the

conferences,

insisted

that

he

alone

was

responsible.

Piatt and

Cabot

Lodge,

who

had

never

been

present

The

flag-draped

McKinley

home in

Canton.

36



all,

were leading

contenders

for the honor.

Hanna

not

disilhision them.

The

McKinley delegations

the

South had

been

comfortably seated.

St.

Louis

plastered

with

McKinley

posters, and

waving

McKinley

banners.

Men with

McKinley

badges,

and

hatbands rested

in the

McKinley

lounges

f the

hotels,

and refreshed

themselves

with

McKin-

drinks

of

bourbon, lemon

juice, and

sugar.

Hanna

done

his

work

well.

He

was

satisfied to

remain

in

background.

A

break

with the Far

West

was

a

foregone conclu-

Anticipation marred

the

drama

of

the

scene

that

the

adoption of

the money

plank.

Silver

is,

think, the

Nation

commented, the

first

raw

metal

has

ever been

wept over.

Senator

Teller

in

pa-

periods

took farewell

of the

party

to

which

he

given

his

lifelong

devotion, and led

the

sad

proces-

of

delegates

from

the

convention

hall.

As

the

men

filed out, a

tall

Nebraska

reporter

and

ex-

came

striding

down

over

the desks

from

place in the

back

of

the

press stand.

William

Jen-

Bryan looked after

the

Republican

bolters with

gleam in

his

eye

and a

faint,

satisfied

smile; but the

of

the

mining

states

did not

jar the

enthusiasm of

convention's

proceedings,

nor

dim

Republican

in

the

future.

Glittering

refulgently

in

the

gold

seemed a

word

of

magic

power

to purge

party

of

inflationists and

make it

with

a new con-

the organization of

the

business

interests.

Thursday,

June

18,

when the

nominations

for the

Presidency

were

made

at

St. Louis, the

city

of

Can-

was

undecorated and

noiseless.

Bicyclists, pedaling

North Market

Street,

cast

curious

glances across

shaven, dewy

lawn,

brightened by

two

white

urns

over

with

flowers, and

by

circular

beds of

red

geraniums.

The

candidate's

house

was

like a

Christmas package with

important coils

f wire, which

directly

connected it

by

telegraph

and

telephone

with

the

convention

hall in

Louis. Reporters had taken

over

the

front porch,

the wicker armchairs and

splint rockers,

on

the

floor

and

steps,

and

perching

on

the

Privileged

friends

arrived,

and passed

inside.

group

of nervously

vivacious

ladies clustered

around

wife

and

mother in the parlor.

McKinley

was

seated

in

the

library, near the

telephone

in

the

company

of his

one-legged

Civil

War

General

Russell

Hastings,

and a

few

other

The

instruments

of the

Postal

Telegraph and

Union

companies

clicked

competitively

in the

hall, and

Mrs. McKinley's young

cousin, Sam

read off

the

bulletins that came over the

tele-

Now and then

McKinley

crossed

to the parlor

to

speak a cheerful word

to

his

wife or ask

her

twittering

entourage,

Are

you young

ladies

getting anxious

about this

affair?

To

the veteran Cincinnati editor,

Murat Halstead, his

calm,

grave

face

looked marvel-

ously like

Daniel

Webster, as

he

sat

in

the

revolving

chair

beside

his desk,

with

pad

and

pencil

in

hand.

The news

arrived

almost

simultaneously over the three

wires

that

Ohio had

been

reached in the roster

of

the

states,

and Ex-Governor

Joseph

B.

Foraker

was

mak-

ing

his way to

the platform. He was about

to

speak.

His

pronouncement of

McKinley's name had

thrown

the convention into

an uproar. The

telephone

was

silent

for

half

an

hour.

Stepping

over

to

pick up

the

receiver,

McKinley

was

amazed

to hear

a

distant

con-

fusion

of

cheers.

Others

followed

his

example, and

shared his

astonishment.

The circuit

in the

conven-

tion hall telephone

booth

had

been

left

open, and

McKinley had

actually

had the

extraordinary

expe-

rience

of

hearing

himself

acclaimed

six

hundred

miles

away. The

sound, Halstead

said,

was

like a storm at

sea with

wild,

fitful shrieks

of

wind.

It

was

hard

on

a

speaker,

McKinley remarked, to

be

held

up

that

way—

like stopping

a

race

horse in

full

career.

The

St.

Louis operator

came

back to

the

telephone. Foraker

was

trying

to

resume his

speech.

You seem to

have heard

the

name

of

my

candidate

before,

Sam Saxton

read

out.

Ah,

McKinley said,

that is

like

him.

He

knows

what

he is

doing, and is

all

right.

Mark

Hanna

and

the

governor

of

Ohio

were

embracing,

Sam

reported, and

another

delegate

was

wildly

fanning

Hanna's

head.

The

tension

in

the

parlor

relaxed in

smiles

of

amusement.

Suddenly, the

bulletin

came,

Alabama, 18 for

McKinley. The

gentlemen

in the

library grabbed

their

tally sheets.

McKinley

sat

quietly keeping

score

at

his desk. The

roster

of

the

states

rushed on.

The

figures

mounted

fast.

Quick

calculation soon

showed

that

Ohio's forty-six

certain

votes

would

settle

the

nomination

on

the

first

ballot.

Before

they

were

re-

ported,

one

of

the

men

threw

down his

pencil, and

offered his

congratulations.

McKinley went to

the

parlor

and

kissed his

wife and

then his

mother, as he

told them

that Ohio

had

given him

the

presidential

nomination.

While he

bent above

them in

a

tender

tableau

that

moved

some

ladies

to

tears, a

clang

reverberated

from

the

city

hall tower

and

hell broke

loose in

Canton.

Gongs

and bells,

cannon

and guns

and

firecrackers,

tin

horns and

whistles, the

music

of

the

bands,

and

the

citizens'

roars

of

triumph were

blended in

a

single,

deafening,

discordant

din. Flags

were

thrown to

the

breeze,

bunting

smothered

the

buildings.

Carriages,

horsemen,

and

bicyclists

whirled

up

North

Market

87



Delegations

came to

Canton by the dozens. They

rarely departed

without a

speech,

and an

informal

reception on

the porch steps.

Street, followed by a

racing crowd on

foot.

Sam

Saxton

was calling

for

Central,

but the

announcements

could

not be

heard

in

the din of

victory. The

crowd

made

a

rush

to the front

door.

McKinley's companions

fled.

You have my sympathy,

General

Hastings dryly

remarked,

as

he

hobbled out

the

back way. Thousands

of

people

flung

themselves

into the house,

with

shrieks

of

congiatulations

and God

bless

you,

and the

ladies

of the

community, carried

away by

excitement, danced

in

circles around

the

Major,

as McKinley

was

gener-

ally

known,

from

his brevet

rank in

the

Civil War.

Long before

the

arrival of

the

band and

the

vet-

erans, who had

formed in

tire public square

according

to

the

program,

McKinley

was

obliged

to

mount

a

chair

on

the front

porch and

respond to the calls of

the

multitude

on

the

lawn

and

street. He

made

another

speech

when

the

parade arrived. He passed through

the

kitchen

to

address a

deputation

from

Alliance,

which

stormed

the

back

door.

A

special train

brought

a

monster

delegation

from Massillon. As

twilight

fell,

four thousand

arrived

from

Akron.

Villagers

poured

in

from

Carrollton,

Osnaburg,

and

Minerva,

and at

ten

o'clock

the

proud citizens

of

Niles,

McKinley's

birthplace,

paid their

respects. Between five o'clock

and

midnight

more

than fifty thousand people heard

McKinley

speak,

and

it was claimed

that

he

shook

hands

with

most

of

them.

When the

Major

at last

retired to rest, the

pande-

monium in

Canton

was

unabated. An

arc

light

on

McKinley's

lawn

illuminated

a

scene

of

devastation.

The

grass

was trampled.

The iron

fence

was

broken.

Shrubbery,

geranium

beds,

and

rosebushes lay in

ruins. Strewn across

the

wreckage, a

dozen rifled purses

bore witness

that

pickpockets,

as

well

as

honest

citi-

zens,

had

found

cause

for

rejoicing

in Canton's

rise

to

national

importance.

McKinley

had

received

66ii/4

votes in the

final bal-

lot, while Speaker

Thomas Reed of

Maine, his

nearest

competitor,

had

8414.

A

motion

to

nominate

by

acclamation was

quickly carried,

and

the

delegates

wound up

their

proceedings

by

nominating

Garret

A.

Hobart

of New

Jersey

for the

Vice

Presidency.

He

was

a rich

corporation

lawyer and

businessman,

scarcely

known

to

the

country, but

influential in

the

Republi-

can

party in

his state; and

he had been

Mark

Hanna's

choice

for

the

nomination.

Hanna

had

carried every-

thing

before him.

He

had

managed

a

political canvass

as

though

it were a

business

enterprise. His

astound-

ing success

was

saluted

by

the

cheers of

the

convention,

and

by

his selection as

chairman

of the

national

com-

mittee. Hanna was

a

new

wonder in the

political fir-

mament—the

boss of

the

Republican bosses.

When Hanna

presently ran down

from

Cleveland

to

Canton, he

had

a

glimpse

of the

turmoil

with

which

McKinley

was

surrounded.

The

candidate

was

making

38



every day. He

greeted

parading workers

from

protected

industries

of Ohio

and adjacent states.

beamed on the

big

contingent from the new

tin-

mill

at

his

birthplace, with its

banner, From

to

the

White

House. To all

and sundry, in

and friendly

greetings,

McKinley appeared

as

tariff

candidate, standing

on a

tariff

platform.

His

to

good

money

and

full

dollars

were

as

and

indefinite

as

though

the

admission

of

the

ld standard

had

never been

written into the

Repub-

platform.

The

declaration had produced

an unfavorable

reac-

in

many

parts

of

the Middle West, and

Hanna's

led

him to

conclude

that he

was

going to

have

a

on his hands

in

the

Mississippi Valley.

He

in-

to

get his

work

of

education on the

money ques-

started

before

his

summer

holiday;

but

he did not

forward

to

a difficult campaign.

For

a

short

time

the St. Louis

convention,

the

Republican

nom-

seemed tantamount to

election.

As

the

Democratic

convention gathered in

Chicago

July,

it

did not

seem

a

formidable assemblage.

The

on

the money

question had

cut deep.

As the

had disintegrated, it

had

been

infiltrated with

sentiment.

In many parts

of

the

South and

by

a

process

of

burrowing from

within,

the

third

had

taken over the Democratic

organization,

common cause with its

candidates. The

infla-

were expected to

wrest control

of

the

conven-

from

the

conservative elements; but,

though they

numerically

dominant, they had no

outstanding

In

the

headlines

of

the

city

press

and

in

the

of

political

sages,

no

importance

was

to

the youthful

ex-congressman, recently

as

a

lecturer

and

newspaper

writer,

who

was

a

member of

a

contesting delegation

from

Nebraska.

Jennings

Bryan was

scarcely

known

to

the

His fame lay

in

the

small

communities and

scat-

farms

of

the West

and

South.

He had traveled

preaching

free

silver; and he

had also taken an

part

in an

organization

of silver

Democrats, who

to

capture

the

party's

national convention.

political

ideas

were

strongly

tinctured with

tenets.

Bryan, demagogue

and evangelist,

was

natural

leader.

As

soon

as the

Nebraska

contestants

were

seated

at

Bryan

claimed and

obtained

a

place

on

resolutions

committee, for

which

his delegation

favored him.

The

Democratic platform

of

1896

a

new

note

in

the

pronouncements

of

the

major

parties

of

the

United

States.

It was a

declaration

made on

behalf of the

masses of

the people. The

money

plank stood

first.

It

uncompromisingly de-

manded

the free

and

unlimited

coinage of

both

silver

and gold at the

ratio

of sixteen

to

one,

without wait-

ing for the

consent

of

any other nation.

The platform

condemned governmental dealing with

banking

syn-

dicates,

to

their profit. It

denounced

the protective

tariff as

a

prolific breeder

of

trusts. It

demanded

stricter federal control

of

trusts

and

railroads, specify-

ing

the

enlargement of the powers

of

the Interstate

Commerce

Commission

to protect

the people

from

robbery

and

oppression.

Its

denunciation

of

arbitrary

federal interference in

local affairs

was

an attack on

President

Cleveland's

action in

the

Pullman

strike.

Its

censure

of

government

by

injunction

in

labor

disputes

and the recommendation

of

an

income tax de-

fied

the

Supreme Court and

impugned its

judgment,

with a

plain

hint that

the

problem might be

solved

by

packing the

Court

in future.

After

the platform was

reported,

Bryan arose to ad-

dress the

Democratic

convention.

He

said nothing

new,

nothing that he had not said

hundreds

of

times

before.

He

had

twice employed

in

public

speeches

the

very

rhetorical

figure with

which

he

concluded

at Chicago:

You

shall not

press

down

upon

the

brow of

labor

this

crown

of

thorns;

you

shall not

crucify

mankind

upon

a

cross of

gold.

The

Republican

press

took what

com-

fort

it

could from

the

fact

that the

Democrats were

stampeded by a

chestnut.

Bryan's

impassioned pe-

riods

had electrified

the

convention, and made

him its

presidential

candidate.

The

inflationists

had

found their leader.

The

dissen-

sion

over the currency

flamed

into

open

conflict in

the

campaign

of

1896.

It

was

a sectional

conflict,

the

debtor

farmers

of

the

West

against the

eastern mag-

nates.

It was

a

class conflict,

the crusade

of the prole-

tariat against

the entrenchments

of

privilege.

The

scattered

and

impotent forces

of

protest

united to as-

sail

the

existing economic

system and

the

dominance

of

the

money power.

To

Bryan's

standard

flocked

Populists and

Silver

Republicans,

who

soon

held

con-

ventions

to

endorse

the

Democratic

nominee.

He en-

listed

farmers

and

workingmen,

and all the

radicals,

chronic

objectors,

bankrupts,

and

visionaries to

whom

he

was an

inspired

prophet.

But his

clarion voice

reached a

far

wider

audience.

It rang

across

a

country

weary of

hard

times

with the

confident

promise

of

plentiful

money;

and,

when

Bryan

called on

Amer-

icans

to

renew

their

allegiance

to

the

rights

of

the

common

man,

he

awakened

an

ancient

faith

and

a

desire

for social

justice.

Like

the

old

slavery

issue, the

moral cause

of

Bryan's

campaign

shattered the

bonds

of

party

loyalty.

Bryan was

of service

to

his

country

in

laying

bare

the abuses

of

concentrated

wealth

and its

control

of

government. He

touched

the

laggard

conscience

of

39



America, and

disturbed

its complacent

absorption

in

material

success.

But

over

his crusade,

belittling

its

purpose

and

confusing its

significance, floated the

banner

of

fiat

money.

Bryan

knew

nothing of econom-

ics.

He

preached

free

silver

as

he

might

have preached

Christ

crucified, the

hope

of

man's

salvation.

The in-

flationists

surpassed

the

high

tariff

advocates

in

pro-

vincial

exclusiveness

of

outlook,

for they proposed

that

a

great

commercial

nation

should

be

isolated

and

self-

sufficient in

its

money

system.

They were

heedless of

the country's

financial

structure,

and indifferent

to

for-

eign

trade.

Their

most

reckless

demand

was

that the

technical

question

of the

currency, understood

only

by

financial

experts,

should be

settled at

the

polls.

With

the

national

solvency at the mercy of

the

sover-

eign

and

uninformed

people, the

campaign of

1896

became a

grandiose

farce—

democracy

reduced

to

an

absurdity.

Bryan's

conservative

contemporaries

were

shocked

by his

folly. They

were

also

appalled

by the

strength

of his cause.

In

July,

the

masses seemed spellbound.

Had the

election

been held

in

the

first

weeks

after

Bryan's Chicago

speech,

the Democrats would have

carried

the

country.

It

does

not

now

appear

that

the

United

States

was

in imminent

jeopardy,

or that the

wildest

measures

of

inflation

could have long availed

to

arrest

its progress

and

stamp out

its

production.

But,

in

1896,

Republicans and Gold

Democrats

be-

lieved that they

faced a

crisis more serious than

that

of the

Civil War.

This was

the rise of bankruptcy,

nihilism,

anarchy.

This was

red revolution.

The

Republican leaders

rallied

to meet the chal-

lenge and

man the

barricades. Hanna

gave up

his

holi-

day

and

began

a summer of hard

work,

directing

campaign headquarters established in New York

and

Chicago. The

old lines would hold

in the

East,

but

Republican morale

sank dangerously

low

in midsum-

mer.

The

firm

ground

of

the tariff

had been

swept

from

under McKinley's

feet. The

champion

of protec-

tion appeared

a feeble

defender

of the

gold

standard—

a candidate

as

illogical,

the

Nation

had observed,

as

a Methodist

preacher would be

in an

election for

Pope

of Rome. Bryan

began

a

tremendous

campaign,

tak-

ing the Middle

West

by

storm.

The

collapse

of

Republican

confidence

was

evident

in

Ohio,

but

McKinley

was

tranquil. He benignly

received

his many visitors, and with his buoyant

spirit

sustained Hanna

and the

other

campaign

managers.

McKinley's

attitude

was like that of a

parson

who

sees

his congregation carried away

by

the

excitement

of a camp

meeting. He deplored the

hysteria,

but felt

sure

that

his

flock

would soon be back in

the

old pews.

The common people,

he

told

his

friends, would put

the

matter

right. It was only necessary to make them

understand

the principles. Hanna

was

preparing

an

educational

program

of unexampled extent and

thor-

oughness.

While Bryan's eloquence was the greatest

single

asset of the Democrats, he

was

not

conducting

a

one-

man campaign. In

challenging

the interests, the

transformed party had

not

antagonized the mining

magnates, and

it

was supplied

with

funds to spread

the

gospel

of

silver.

Hanna's

plans

for

counterpropa-

ganda would

be

costly beyond the resources

on which

he

could

ordinarily

rely;

and

while

his organization

was forming he undertook

to

shake

down the

New

York

financiers,

who

had

most at stake

in

the election.

Bryan's

persuasive

eloquence

stirred up

a

country

weary

of

hard times.

He

preached

free

silver as

he

might

have preached

Christ

crucified.

ILLUSTRATED

FOR

AMERICAN

HeRITACE BY ARTHUR

SHILSTONZ



Wall

Street was apathetic, cold to

McKinley,

and un-

acquainted with

his

manager. Hanna's

first

efforts

met

with rebuff

and

discouragement.

Bryan

had

succeeded,

John

Hay wrote

Henry Adams

in

September, in

scar-

ing

the Gold

bugs out of their five wits; if he had

scared them a little,

they would

have

come

down hand-

some

to

Hanna.

But

he

has

scared them so blue that

they

think

they

had better

keep what

they

have got left

in

their

pockets

against

the evil clay. In

the end,

Hanna's

salesmanship prevailed. The

financiers paid

up, and lent

Hanna

their

assistance

in

organizing

a

systematic collection. Banks were regularly

assessed

for

subscriptions,

and

corporations

and life insurance

companies

were induced

to

make

liberal contributions.

A

campaign

fund

of

more

than

three

and

a

half mil-

lion

dollars—

unprecedented

at

that time—

was

dis-

bursed

by

the Republican National

Committee.

The

greater part of the

money

came from

New

York

and

its

vicinity,

and it

was

largely

expended

in

the

doubtful

states

of

the

AVest.

With

it

Hanna

undertook

to

counteract

the

emo-

tional

fascination

of

free

silver

and

cheap money

by

instructing

hundreds of thousands

of

plain people

in

the

meaning

of the

terms.

The committee reached

out

to work

with rural

newspapers

and schoolhouse

meetings. The country

was

invaded by

an

army

of

paid speakers, and

deluged

with

tons

of

literature,

printed in

a

dozen

languages.

More than

a

million

copies

were distributed of a single

pamphlet, William

Allen White's

mocking

anti-Populist

tract, What's

the

Matter

with

Kansas? Simple

economic lessons

stressed

the

disadvantage of

inflation

to

people

of

limited

means—

to

those

dependent

on

pensions,

to

holders

of

insurance

policies

and depositors

in

savings

banks,

to

all

who

owned

a bit

of property, or

were

trying

to

save

something

for

their

old age or

for

their children.

In

persuasive presentation

and efficient organization, the

educational

campaign

was

proof

of Hanna's genius

for

political

management.

Hanna

was not a

boastful

man.

He

fully acknowl-

edged the contribution of

McKinley's

strong

and

noble personality

to

the

campaign. McKinley's

con-

ception

of his

candidacy

was

so

passive

that

he

at first

gave the impression of

intending

to

make

no

campaign

at

all. He had decided

to

stay

at

home and address

only

the

people who

cared

to

visit him there. Before

his nomination,

he

had

made two speaking

engage-

ments, both nonpolitical

in

character,

requiring his

presence in

July

at the Cleveland

Centennial celebra-

tion and

at

Mount Union College. Except

for three

days'

absence

to

keep

these appointments

and one week-

end of rest

in

August, McKinley

remained

in

Canton

from the

date

of his nomination

until

the election,

available

at

all

hours

to

the public

on every day

but

Sunday.

McKinley

was no match for his

younger opponent in

dramatic

presence and

oratorical

power, and he

refused,

as he told

Dawes,

to enter the

competition.

He

may

have

been influenced

by the example

set

by Ben-

jamin

Harrison

in

his second

and

losing

campaign in

1892,

but the

idea of the front porch campaign

seems

to

have been

a

natural oiugrowth

of the many

groups that visited

Canton.

McKinley

preferred

the

attitude of responding to the

demands

of his friends,

of

desiring election

without going

to seek

it.

He

was so

reluctant

to

stimulate

interest in

his

campaign

that

he

expressed

himself

as averse to

anything

like

an

effort

41



Puck,

OCTOBER 2

1,

1

896;

CULVER

SERVICE

^o^[.^

The

more

he

talks,

the more

McKinley

weighs.

The

cover

of

Puck

ridiculed

Bryan

for

his

demagoguery.

being

made to

bring

crowds

here.

The

Republican

National

Committee was

active,

nevertheless, in

drum-

ming

up

delegations,

and

the

railroads

were

glad

to

co-operate.

Low

excursion

rates from

all

parts of

the

country

made

the

trip

to

Canton,

as

the

free-silver

Cleveland

Plai7i

Dealer disgustedly

remarked,

cheaper

than

staying at

home.

For

the eager

Republican

pil-

grims,

the journey

combined

the

excitement of a

polit-

ical

demonstration

with

the

pleasure of

an

outing.

Decked

in

campaign

badges,

caps,

and neckties,

they

tumbled

off

the

trains

into

the

welcoming arms

of

Canton.

Committees

of

greeters

were

on

hand

at

the

depot,

with

the

well-mounted

and

nattily

uniformed

squads

of

the troop

that

Canton

had

organized for

escort

duty. The

parades

then

formed

around

their

bands

and

banners,

and

guided by

the

clattering

horse-

men,

wound

through

a

town

ablaze with red,

white,

and blue, and

noisy

with

the

cheers

of the

citizens on

the

curbstones.

At the

foot

of

North

Market Street

the

delegations

passed

beneath

the

ornate plaster

structure

of

the

McKinley arch,

surmounted by

the

candidate's

portrait, and

at

last

broke

ranks to

crowd onto the

McKinley lawn.

There

was a

breathless

moment

when the

handle

of

the door

turned,

and

a

blast

of

cheers when

McKinley

appeared

on

the

front

porch.

The

spokesman stepped

forward to

deliver an

address

in

which

expressions

of

allegiance to

the

candidate and

to

Republican prin-

ciples were

blended

with

complimentary

allusions

to

the

community or

organization

or

industry

represented

by

the group.

McKinley

listened

with

rapt

attention.

He

would

stand,

said Captain

Harry

Frease

of

the

Canton troop, like a

child

looking

at

Santa

Claus,

until

the speech

was

finished.

Then,

mounting a chair,

McKinley talked to

the people. He bade

them

welcome

to his

home,

and

thanked

them

for

the

honor

of

their

call. He

said

a

few

words on

the

campaign issues,

adapting the

discussion to suit

the

special

interests

of

his

audience.

In conclusion, he

expressed a

desire to

shake

the

hand of

each and every

one,

and

held

an in-

formal

reception on the

porch

steps.

Warmed

by

McKinley's

cordiality and

impressed by

his

sincerity, the

excursionists

carried to

all

parts

of

the

country

enthusiastic

reports of

the

Republican

candidate.

They had

been

right close to

him, they

had

shaken

his hand.

They had seen

him in

his

setting,

and

it was all

exactly

right— the

friendly

town;

the

neat,

unpretentious

house and

the

porch

hung with

trum-

pet

vines;

and

the

First

Methodist Church

where

Mc-

Kinley

worshiped with

his mother

every

Sunday.

Many

of

the visitors saw

the dear

old

mother, sitting

beside

her son or

rocking

on her

own

front

porch.

Many

saw

and

stared at

the

invalid wife.

The curiosity

about

Ida

McKinley

was

so

intense

that she

was

sometimes

sent to

stay on

a

nearby farm,

but

it does

not

appear

that

these

absences

were

frequent. Canton

talked, in

any case,

regaling the

trippers

with tales of

Mrs.

Mc-

Kinley's

queer

ways

and her

husband's

selfless devo-

tion.

In

his

campaign speeches,

McKinley made no

mis-

takes. He could

ill have

afforded to

do

so.

A

care-

less word

or

misplaced

allusion

would

not

only

have

alienated

the

prideful

deputation on

the

lawn,

but

would

have

been

spread before

the

newspaper

readers

of the

country.

Though

McKinley's addresses

seemed

unstudied and

spontaneous,

they

had

been

carefully

prepared.

Precautions

were also

taken to

avoid ex-

tempore

indiscretions

on

the

part of

the

spokesmen.

They

were required

to send

in

advance a

copy

of

their

intended

remarks,

which

McKinley

approved

and

oc-

casionally

edited.

McKinley was

obliged

to

discuss the

financial

ques-

tion

every

day,

but he

dexterously

kept

the

tariff to

the

fore

by

means of

lightning

transitions,

which

at

first were

seriously

disquieting

to

his critics.

He

slipped

smoothly

from

sound

money

to high

wages,

from good

dollars

to

good

times,

from

free

silver to

free

trade, from

open

mints to

open

mills.

At the

end

of

July,

in

addressing the

McKinley

and

Ho-

bart

Club of

Knoxville,

Pennsylvania,

the

candidate

made

some

remarks

that

excited

great

attention.

That

which

we

call

money,

my

fellow

citizens,

and with

42



which vahies are measured and settlements made, must

be as

true

as

the bushel

which measures the grain

of

the

farmer,

and

as

honest

as the

hours

of labor

which

the

man

who

toils

is

recjuired

to

give. This was

merely

a

good

sample of

the

kind of oratory

with

which

McKinley

charmed

rural

and

labor audiences;

but he

had

more

to

say. Our

currency

today is

good—

all of

it

as

good

as

gold—and it is the unfaltering

deter-

mination

of

the

Republican

Party

to

so

keep

and

maintain it forever.

At last, the friends of the

honest dollar

had

cause

for relief and rejoicing.

For the first time, the

candi-

date had uttered the word

gold.

He pronounced it,

the Nation

said,

in a somewhat

furtive

way,

.

. .

hastening

to

take a

good

pull

at

the

tariff

to

steady

his

nerves.

As August passed, the

Nation and

the

big Demo-

cratic

dailies,

which

were

supporting McKinley

only

because

of a

still

stronger

antipathy

to

Bryan,

began

to look with increasing favor on the

Republican candi-

date.

They

had

confidently

expected

a

fumbling

and

mediocre

campaign. They

were astonished

by

the

versatility

and

political

sagacity

of the front-porch

speeches.

McKinley's

remarks

on the currency grew

progressively pointed and emphatic,

and

with the pub-

lication that

month

of

his

letter

of

acceptance, all

doubts

were set

at

rest.

The

money

question

was

placed

foremost, and

presented

in a lucid and

incisive

discus-

sion that silenced the

criticisms

of

McKinley's

wob-

bliness

and

mental

incapacity.

A

clear and

direct

issue

had

been presented

to

the

American

people, McKinley

wrote,

and upon its right

settlement

largely

rested

the

financial

honor

and

pros-

perity of the

country.

The mere

declaration

for the

free coinage of silver involved such grave

peril

to the

nation's business and

credit that conservative men

everywhere

were

breaking

away

from

their

old

party

associations

and uniting with

other

patriotic citizens

in

protest.

McKinley cautioned his countrymen against

misleading

phrases

and false

theories. Free silver

would

not

mean

that

silver

dollars

would

be

freer

to

the

many.

It

would mean

the

free

use of

the United States

mints for

the few who

were owners of

silver

bullion.

They

would receive

a dollar

for fifty-three

cents' worth

of

bullion, and other

people would

be

required

to re-

ceive

it

as a full

dollar

in payment

for

their

labor

and

products. The

silver

dollars already in use had

been

coined

by

the

government—not

for private

account

or

gain—and the government

had

agreed to

maintain

their value

at

a parity

with gold.

This at times had

been

accomplished with peril

to the

public

credit.

The

Sherman law had failed

to

realize

the expectation

that

it would advance the bullion value of silver.

Under coinage at

sixteen

to

one, the government

Harper's

Weekly,

Ji'NE 6,

1R96;

CULVER SERVICE

>A

McKinley,

commonly

called

the

Major,

was at

first

ac-

cused

of

ambiguity on

the problem

of

sound

money.

would have neither

the obligation nor

the power to

maintain

the

parity.

The nation

would

be

driven

to

a

silver

basis, with

resultant

reduction

of

property

values,

financial

loss

and damage to

commerce,

impair-

ment of contractual

obligations,

further

impoverish-

ment

of

laborers and

producers,

and

business

panic

of

unparalleled

severity.

Until the ratio between

the

two

metals

was

fixed

by

international

agreement,

it

was

the

plain duty

of

the

United States

to

maintain

the

gold

standard.

McKinley's

extensive

dissertation

on the currency

question

was

marked throughout

by

composure

and moderation of

tone. He said that money should be

free

from

speculation and

fluctuation, and ought never

to

be

made the

subject

of

partisan

contention. He also

observed that

it was

a

cause for

painful regret that

an

effort

was

being

made

by

the

Democratic party and

its

allies

to

divide the

country into classes and

create

distinctions

that did

not exist and

were repugnant to

the

American

form

of

government. These appeals

to

passion and prejudice

were in the

highest degree repre-

hensible. They were

opposed to

the

national

instinct

and

interest, and

should be resisted

by

every citi-

zen. Having

administered a

dignified

reinike

to

the

Bryanites, McKinley passed

on to

a

long

discussion

of

another

issue of

supreme

importance, the

tariff. He

examined

the

defects

of

the

unpopular

Democratic

tariff

of

1894

and charged

to

its

operation all the

43



miseries of

the

depression.

It

was

mere

pretense,

he

said,

to

attribute

the

hard

times to

the gold

standard.

Good

money

never

made

times

hard.

It was

not

an

increase

in

the

vokime

of money

that

\vas

needed,

but

an

increase in

the

volume of

business.

A

wise protec-

tion

policy

had

lost

none

of

its

virtue

and

importance.

The

enactment of a

new

tariff

law

would be

the first

duty

of

the

Republican

party, if

restored to

power

in

the

autumn.

The

concluding

paragraphs of the

document

pledged

the

promotion of a

spirit

of

fraternal regard

between

the

North

and

South.

The

fervor of

McKinley's

ex-

pressions

attracted

attention

to these

passages,

but

the

predominant

interest

of

the

letter lay in

its

treatment

of the

currency, and

it

vtbs

scarcely

noticed

that

the

writer had

repeatedly

implied

that the

issue

was

transi-

ent and

subsidiai7. In tlie

hours he had

snatched for

composing

the paper

in

his

beleaguered house,

McKin-

ley

had

accomplished

a

considerable

political

feat.

He

had

eminently

satisfied the

sound-money

men,

from

goldbugs to

bimetallists,

while firmly

retaining

his

status

as

a

tariff candidate.

McKinley's

prestige steadily

mounted after the

pub-

lication

of his letter

of acceptance.

The

Republi-

can

National

Committee

distributed

hundreds of

thou-

sands of

copies.

Good money

never

made times

hard

became a

popular

campaign slogan. It

was

October

before

Hanna's

organization

proved its

effectiveness,

but Canton

was

engulfed

weeks

earlier by

the

tide

that rolled

toward

McKinley.

The

correspondent of the

Cleveland

Plairi

Dealer,

accustomed

to

scoff at the cut-rate

excursions,

capitu-

lated on

September

19.

The

opening

of

the floodgates,

he

telegraphed

his

newspaper,

had

swept

Canton off

its feet.

That

day,

McKinley

gave a

continuous per-

formance,

making

nine

addresses,

shaking hands with

thousands. The

delegations formed a

solid,

slowly

moving

procession—western

railroad men,

laborers

from

the

Carnegie

furnaces at

Pittsburgh, Hungarian-

Americans from

Cleveland,

hardware

men,

commercial

travelers,

farmers'

associations.

The

Republican Na-

tional

Committee

had

organized the railroad

contin-

gent, which

arrived

in

ten

special trains from

Chicago,

but

the Plain

Dealer

man

admitted that the enthusi-

asm was

genuine. No one

who saw

these crowds of

sturdy citizens, he

said,

could

fail

to

be impressed

with

the

blind

faith that the

^\•zge

earners

had

been

taught to

place in

McKinley.

Every week that

followed

the

formal opening

of

the

Ohio campaign

saw

a

greater

invasion.

On the last

Saturday

in

September,

special

trains

steamed

in

from morning until night,

bringing

over

twenty

thousand people,

who

represented thirty-

odd

cities and towns

in

half

a

dozen states. McKinley

addressed

eleven gatherings,

some

of

which

comprised

two, three, and even

six

delegations.

A week

later,

he

made

sixteen speeches in

one

day to

crowds

that were

estimated

at

thirty

thousand.

For eight weeks,

every

day but

Sunday

was

circus

day

in Canton.

The quiet Buckeye

community

had

never

dreamed of

such

delirious excitement.

Past

the

dazzled

eyes of

the citizens flashed

flags

and

banners,

McKinley

and Hobart

umbrellas,

tin

canes and

horns,

tin plumes

and

streamers, glass

canes,

glass

lilies with

McKinley's

portrait,

badges

of

raw

wool, gold badges,

gold neckties, gold

hatbands,

sprigs

of

goldenrod,

gold-

trimmed bicycles.

The

downtown

streets were

glutted

with parades

waiting their turn, and the

neighbor-

hood

of the

McKinley house was black

with

crowds as

thick

as

flies

around

a railroad pie stand.

Like

an

army that does

not advance

to meet

the

enemy, McKinley had brought

destruction

to

his

own

borders.

The front porch

was

in a state of

dilapidation.

The slender

posts

had

been so

weakened

by

the grasp

and pressure

of

the crowds

that

the

roof

was in

immi-

nent

danger

of

tumbling on

the

Major's head.

The

demolished

fence and

grape

arbor had

been

picked

clean by

souvenir-hunters.

The

once-green lawn

had

been trampled to a brown

plain

of

earth, on

which

farmers' families picnicked while they

waited

for

the

speeches.

In

the

rains of

early

autumn,

it

became a

lake

of

mud,

and North Market

Street

had

a

brief

in-

terval

of respite, while the

meetings

adjourned

to

Can-

ton's

gloomy

public hall, the

Tabernacle.

The

McKinley

house

was

filled with

a

monstrous

clutter of

gifts, and the debris

that the retiring delega-

tions left in

their

wake. The

bunches of

flowers faded.

Cheese

and butter and

watermelons

could

be

eaten.

Badges

and glass

canes made

acceptable

presents

to

children.

A place

was

undoubtedly found for

a

marble

bust of

McKinley,

a

bouquet of

artificial flowers made

by a

bedridden

Cleveland lady, a cane of weldless cold-

drawn steel

tubing,

a

miniature

gold

reproduction

of

a

one-hundred-poimd

steel

rail, and

a

gavel

formed

from a log

of the cabin

occupied

by

Lincoln

at Salem,

Illinois. But it

is

difficult to

imagine

where

the

McKin-

leys

put

the finely

polished stump of

a

tree from

Ten-

nessee, the

largest

plate

of

galvanized

iron ever

rolled

in

the

United

States, the equally

record-breaking sheet

of

bright

tin, or the strip

of

jointed

tin, sixty

feet

long,

embellished

with

the names of the

candidates.

Live

American eagles

were

the

most

inconvenient remem-

brances

of

all, and

McKinley made haste to present

them to the

city

of

Canton, as they

were

received. Five

fine

specimens, christened

Major,

McKinley,

Presi-

dent,

Hobart, and

Hanna, were

lodged

near

the

wolves

in the pavilion in

Nimisilla Park.

The

national

excitement mounted

as

election

day

44



drew

near. The

Democrats

had

the Solid South.

They

had

a nearly

solid Far West. Labor

organizations and

labor

journals were

all

vociferous for

free

silver.

Bryan's fiei y

and

aggressive

campaign

seemed

to

have

infused his cause with a sinister vitality.

In

tones

sharp with alarm, great Democratic and

independent

newspapers

defied

the

forces

of

insolvency and ruin.

Preachers

fulminated against Bryan

from

their pul-

pits. A

trainload

of

Union

officers

aroused the

old sol-

diers

of

the

'West

with

bands,

cannon,

rockets, and

speeches

for Comrade

McKinley.

Monster

torchlight

parades

wound through the streets of the

cities,

with

captains

of

finance

and industry marching in

line.

For

a few days, business

almost came to

a

standstill.

Banks

refused

to

make loans.

Orders

to

factories

were subject

to

cancellation. Workers

were

warned

that

their

wages

and

even

their jobs

were contingent

on

the outcome

of the election. With fear

in

their hearts, sound-money

men cast

their votes on November

3,

and

waited in

suspense for

the returns.

The

time for

suspense

had ended weeks

before. The

great American

middle

class had

awakened

from

a

summer's

dream

of

the

glories

of

free

silver.

Some

men

had been

persuaded

by

argument,

some

by

the

coer-

cion

of

their employers.

Others had

been

estranged

by

the

increasingly radical tone of

Bryan's

speeches,

and

disillusioned by

the knowledge

that

this

demagogue

was

backed

by the magnates

of

the

silver

mines. The

price of wheat

soared,

nullifying

Bryan's arguments

to

the farmers. The Gold Democrats,

conservative mem-

bers

of the

party

who

had nominated

their

own

can-

didates, concluded

in large

numbers

to

gag

at

the tariff

and vote for

McKinley.

Late

on

election day,

the news-

paper bulletins began

to

flaunt

the

tidings of

Republi-

can

success. Middle

western

and border

states

of the

South

tumbled

into

the

gold

column. At

midnight

it

was

known

that,

by

a goodly majority

in the electoral

college and a popular

vote

larger

than

that

received

by

any

candidate since Grant,

William McKinley

had

been elected President

of

the

United

States.

Late

that

night,

H.

H. Kohlsaat

made

a telephone

call

^

to

Canton

from

his office

at

the

Chicago

Times-

Herald,

which

had given

valuable

support

to

the

Re-

publican

candidate. He

was finally

connected

witli

Mother McKinley's house,

and

spoke with

her grand-

son,

James.

After some delay,

James

came back to

re-

port

that the newly

elected President

was in his

mother's room.

She

was kneeling

beside

her bed,

James

shouted

over

the

long-distance

wire,

with

one

arm

around

Uncle

Will

and

the

other

around Aunt

Ida.

All

that

James

could

hear

was Oh, God,

keep

him

humble, and

that,

apparently,

was

all that Mr.

Kohlsaat

got

for

his

telephone

call.

45



THE

ELIZABETHANS

AND

AMERICA:

PART V

m

€mW

America

acted deeply

on

the

Elizabethan

English

imagination^

working its magic

in

the

tJiinds

of

poets

and

men

of

science

By A. L.

ROWSE

'

uring

the reign

of

Elizabeth

I,

as

the

in-

terest

in

and

knowledge

of

America

gath-

ered

momentum,

so their

reverberation

in

literature

and the

arts

became

louder,

more

frequent,

and

more varied.

On the

one

hand, there

were

the

writings

and

reports

of those

who

had been

there,

as collected

by Hakluyt

and

Purchas;

the

books

written

by

people

like

Captain

Smith

and Morton

and

Strachey;

the

histories

and

journals

of

Bradford

and

Winthrop;

the

numerous

tracts

and

sermons devoted

to

the

subject.

On the

other,

there

is

the

reflection

of

America in

the

mirror

of

the

imagination,

in

the

po-

etry

and

prose

of Spenser

and

Sidney,

Raleigh

and

Chapman,

Shakespeare

and

Drayton,

Bacon

and

Donne.

Sometimes

these

things

run

into

one another:

in the

case of Raleigh,

for

example,

who

always

strad-

dles

all fences. But

it is

fascinating

to observe how

not

only the

content

of

the

voyagers'

accounts

but

their

very

phrases

will

appear in

the

lines

of the

poets; how

the words

of Raleigh's

sea

captain.

Barlow,

take

wing

in the

verse

of his

master

or reappear

in

Drayton's

ode To

the

Virginian

Voyage, or

how

Strachey's

account

of

the

hurricane

off

Bermuda

is

echoed

in

The

Tempest.

The

transition

from the factual

world

of

transla-

tions

and

reports

to

the

realm

of

the

imagination

may

be seen first

in

the

circle

of Philip

Sidney,

to

whom

Hakluyt

dedicated

his

Divers

Voyages.

When

we read

Sidney's

Arcadia,

whose

author

was

so

much

interested

in

America

and

several

times thought

of

coming

here,

we recognize

the atmosphere

of the

voyages.

It

begins

with a

shipwreck,

with

the wrack

floating

in

a sea

of

very rich

things and

many

chests

which

might

promise

no less.

The

capture

of prizes

dominates

the

first

chap-

Copyright

©

1959

by A. L. Rowse

ters,

with

the

arrival

of Musidorus

in

a

strange

country,

having

lost

his

friend

Pyrocles,

who

subsequently

turns

up.

It

is like

the

beginning

of The

Tempest,

or episodes

of

A

Winter's

Tale

and Pericles.

The

influence

of

the

voyages

speaks

in

them

all, inciting

the

imagination

to

strange

scenes

and

countries

across

the

seas.

The

atmosphere

of

Arcadia

has

something

in

com-

mon

with

that

of The

Faerie

Qiieene—

the

dreamlike

timelessness

of

a

fairy

world

of romance.

Spenser

was

a friend

of

both

Sidney

and

Raleigh,

and

the

intro-

ductory

stanzas

to

Book

II

acknowledge

the

impulse

of

the

expansion:

But

let

that

man

with

better sense advise

That

of

the

world

least part

to us

is

red;

And

daily how through

hardy

enterprise

Many

great regions

are

discovered,

Which

to late

age

were

never

mentioned.

Who ever

heard

of

th'

Indian

Peru?

Or who

in

venturous

vessel

measured

The

Amazon

huge

river

now

found true?

Or

fruitfullest Virginia

who

did

ever

view?

Yet

all these

were

men

no

man

did them

know,

Yet

have

from

wisest

ages hidden

been;

And

later

times

things

more

unknown

shall

show.

With

people

in

general, America

is

always

regarded

as

overflowing

with

gold:

this is what

it

chiefly

meant

to

people

in

the Old

World—

as

it

still

does to

some.

Marlowe

has several

references

to

this

in

Tambur-

laine:

Desire

of

gold,

great

sir?

That's

to be gotten

in

the

Western

Ind:

The

thought

is

expressed

by Greene,

Peele,

Lyly,



Massinger,

Chapman. It

appears

in

Shakespeare,

where

sooner

or

later

everything gets expression. We

must

remember

that

America,

in

this

connotation,

often

appears as

India,

with or

without

the adjective

Western.

This is made

sufficiently

clear

by

the

dominant

association

with

mines.

As bountiful

as

mines of

India,

he

writes.

Henry VIII's meeting with

Francis

I

at

the

Field

of

the

Cloth of Gold

Made

Britain

India; every

man

that

stood

Showed like

a

mine.

In

Twelfth

Night,

when

Maria appears

to

lay

down

the

letter that entraps

Malvolio, Sir Toby

belches,

How

now, my

metal

of

India,

i.e.,

piece

of

gold.

When Malvolio falls

into

the

trap and is utterly

be-

mused,

Maria

reports,

He does smile

his

face

into

more

lines

than is in the new map with the

augmenta-

tion of the

Indies.

That was the

map that

went with

the first

volume of

the enlarged

edition

of

Hakluyt

published

in

1598.

Shakespeare

derived

inspiration

and profit

from reading Hakluyt. The theme

of

dig-

ging

for

gold

is

an

important

element in Timon—a.t a

time,

too,

when the

Jamestown

colony was

tempo-

rarily

given

over to a frantic

search for

it.

One writer

declared

in

1608

that there was

then no

talk,

no

hope,

no

work but to dig

gold,

wash

gold, refine gold,

load gold. And

this

was about

the

date when Timon

was

written.

The

combination

of

the

gold theme

with

digging

for roots for

subsistence comes

straight

from

the

voyages.

The

theme

is

extended in the

scenes

that

Chapman,

Raleigh's poet,

contributed

to

Ben

Jonson

and

John

Marston's

Eastward

Ho

The

absurd Sir Petronel

Flash's money is

bestowed

on

a

ship bound for Vir-

ginia.

Security

comments: We

have

too few

such

knight adventurers:

who would not

sell

away com-

petent

certainties

to

purchase, with any

danger, excel-

lent

uncertainties? This

was

precisely

what

many did

for

Virginia,

and New England too. Seagull

helps

with

a

lot of

mariners'

tales

about

Virginia

to

gull the

pub-

lic. Come, boys,

he

says,

Virginia

longs

till

we

share

the

rest of

her maidenhead.

That

was a

regular

phrase with the

voyagers—

Raleigh's phrase

for

Guiana.

On

this

Spendall asks:

Why,

is

she

inhabited al-

ready

with any

English?

Seagull:

A

whole

country

of

English

is

there,

man,

bred of

those

that

were

left

there in

'79.

(Actually

the

date was

'87;

but we

do

not

go

to

dramatists

for

dates any more

than

to

his-

torians for

dramatics.) They

have married with

the

Indians

and make

'em

bring

forth as

beautiful

faces

as

any

we

have

in

England, and therefore

the

Indians

are so in

love

with 'em

that all the treasure

they have

they

lay

at

their feet.

Scapethrift:

But

is

there

such

treasure there,

captain,

as I have heard? Seagull:

I

tell

thee,

gold is

more

plentiful there

than

copper is

with

us; and

for

as

much

red

copper as I can

bring,

I'll

have

thrice

the weight

in

gold.

Why,

man,

all their

dripping

pans and their chamber

pots are

pure

gold;

and all

the

chains

with

which they chain

up their

streets

are

massy

gold;

all

the

prisoners they take

are

fettered

in

gold;

and

for

rubies

and diamonds

they

go

forth on holidays

and gather

'em by

the

sea-

shore.

.

.

Scapethrift asks,

And

is

it a pleasant

country

withal? Captain

Seagull

replies: As

ever

the

sun shined on: temperate and

full

of

all

sorts

of

excel-

lent

viands.

These

leads—

Spenser, Marlowe, Chapman—

all

point

to Raleigh,

as they

were all

his friends;

he

stands

at

the

crossroads

in literature,

as

he

did

in

these

actions.

The

captains

he

sent to reconnoiter

Virginia

in

1584

reported

as

follows:

The

second of

July

we found

shoal

water, where

we

smelt

PRINCIPAL NAVI-

GATIONS,

VOIAGES,

TRAFFIQÊS

AND

DISCO-

ueriesofcheEnglifli

Nation, made

by

Sea

•orouer-land

,

to the

remote

and

farthcftdi-

ftant quarters

of

the

Eanh, at

any time

within

ihccojnpafTcofthelc

1500.

yecrcs:

Druidcd

mioui'cefcuerallVoIiiaici, atcordmgiotbc

|>oI>uooiofihcKcgioni,»hcTciKUO

dicjp wcf

c ducftcd.

Th

is firft

Volume

containing the

woonhy Difcouerfcs,

&c.

of

the

EngliOi

toward

the

North

and Nonheaft

by

fca,

asof

LdfUnd^crikfinu,Ccre u,ihi.

Bajc of

S.

NiceLu^ the

Iflcs

of

Col*

goieue.,yaigî\y^n6 NoHi

ZembU,

toward

the

great

riucrO^,

witH the

mighty Empire cl

RufU.^zCtifpianici.Geor*

rit,K^rmemay

Media, Perfu,Eoghdr\nBg{thSf

anddiucrs kingdoms

of

r^/jrw.-

Together

with

many

notable

monuments and tcflimo*

Dies

of the ancient forrcn

trades,

and

of

the

warrclikc

and

ochcrfliippingofihisrcilmcof

£ng/rtflîn former agei.

Vyhennnto

is annexed al/o

c hnefe

Qmmentarie

of

the

trut

due

o{Jjl4/}d

, and

ofthcNorthren Seas and

lands fliuacc chit

\vi^.

^^ndUph,

thememorahU iefutt cftheSfAn'ifl) haê

'

^rmatU,

j^ntu

1

/

f

t. and

the fimou* viflotie

atcliicucd

31

the cicic ofCa^^. '

js

^'

tre

dcrccibed.

HlCHAKD

HaiLVYT

t^f*Tttr

tf

Aitci,

udfomcumc

Student

of

ChnlU

CbutchinOôtd.

Imprinted

at

London

by

G

b

o

r

o

r

Bishop,

Ralph

Newberib

andKoxiRT

Ba&kiiu

1

5

P

8.

Title

page

from

Sir

Ferdinando

Gorges*

copy

of

HakluyVs

Principal Navigations

(1398),

bearing Gorges'

signature.

47



so

sweet

and so

strong

a

smell

as

if

we

had been

in

the

midst of

some

delicate garden abounding

with

all kind

of

odoriferous

flowers,

by which

we

were

assured

that

the

land

could

not

be

far

distant

. . . We viewed

the

land

about

us,

being, whereas

we first landed,

very sandy

and

low

towards

the

water's

side,

but

so

full

of grapes

as

the

very

beating

and

surge

of the sea overflowed

them;

of

which

we found

such

plenty,

as

well on every

little

shrub as

also

climbing

towards

the tops

of high cedars

that

I think

in

all

the

world

the

like

abundance

is

not

to be

found.

Under the

bank

or hill

whereon

we

stood,

we

beheld

the

valleys

replenished

with

goodly

cedar

trees.

In

the

poem Raleigh

was

writing

some

years

later

to

recover

the

Queen's

favor

(but never

finished),

Cynthia,

the

Lady

of

the Sea,

we read:

On

highest

mountains

where

those

cedars

grow

Agai?ist

whose

banks

the

troubled

ocean

bet

And

were

the

marks

to

find

thy

hoped

port

Into

a soil

far

off

themselves

remove.

And

when

we

come

to

Drayton's

ode,

To

the

Virgin-

ian

Voyage,

we

find:

When

as

the

luscious

smell

Of

that

delicious

land

Above

the sea

that

flows

The

clear

wind

throws.

Your

hearts

to

swell

Approaching

the

dear

strand.

And

the

ambitious

vine

Crowns

with

his purple

mass

The cedar

reaching

high

To kiss

the

sky.

The

cypress,

pine.

And

useful

sassafras.

Of

the

motives

that

could

lead

men

to leave

home

Raleigh

speaks, in

his

own

case:

My

hopes

clean

out

of

sight

with

forced

wind

To

kingdoms

strange,

to

lands

far

off

addressed

.

. .

And

he

sums

them

all

up

in

one

famous

line:

To seek

new

worlds

for

gold,

for

praise,

for

glory.

There

was

a

whole

succession

of

literary

men

who

went

as

officials

to Virginia:

William

Strachey,

John

Pory,

Christopher

Davison,

George

Sandys.

Donne,

who

was

hard

up

before

he

condescended

to

enter

the

Church,

sought

to be

made

secretary.

Strachey,

a

Cambridge

man,

moved

in

a

literary

and

dramatic

circle

in

London.

He

was

a

shareholder

in

the

Chil-

dren

of

the

Queen's

Revels

and

so

came

to

Blackfriars

two

or

three

times

a

week,

where

he

would

meet

Shakespeare.

In

1609

he

went

out with

Gates

and

Somers

in

the

Sea

Venture,

which

was

famously

wrecked

on

Bermuda,

though

all

were

saved

and

spent

an

agreeable

winter

there.

The

extraordinary

happen-

ing

made

a strong

impression

on

people's

minds

at

CONTINUED

ON

PACK

57

A

wildernes

as

God

first

made

it

GENERALL

HISTORIE

ov

Virgima.New-England.and

the

Summer

'

Iflc5

wiih

tKe names

of

the

Adventurer5,

Planters.and

Covernours

from

their

firfl

beginning

j\n: I

j-8

4.

to

this

prefent

162S

JM

intSdcômu mat

ftfc^thm

in

oiFihcr

cTimrm'esStdîfcai^rtes

t,

Alfo

the

Maps

and

Defcriptionsofall

thofe

Cotmiryes.

their

Conunoditicsjjeople,

Govcmmcnt.Curiomes.and

P&ligion

yei

knowne

.

y^

Dll'IDED

INTO

SECE

BoOKES

.

/I^BvOwtmr WHS

SMITHJmetYmesOmrvf'ir'

'^^

,i

tny,,â'untp&cBf&aP.

•£h

VNcw Engbnd

^^

'

LONDON

InntcdtylD

anj

,,s

I H for

tdwara

M

^.

From

the

frontispiece

of

Smith's

Gen-

eral]

Historic,

one

of

his

several

books.

48

To

its

first

colonists,

Virginia

presented

an aspect

less

idyllic,

if

no

less

strange,

than

it

held

for

their

compatriots

back

home

in

England.

On

the

following

pages

are

photographs

of the

area

near

Jamestown,

taken

by Bradley

Smith,

which

show

as

closely

as

possible

how

the

landscape

would

have

looked

to

Captain

John

Smith

and his

companions,

when they

came

here

to

plant

a colony,

and

look for

gold,

in

1607.

The

quotations

that

accompany

them

are

taken

from

Edward

Arber's

edition

(1884)

of

Smith's

Works,

which

includes

not

only his

own

writ-

ings

but

various

letters

and

accounts

by his

fellow

adventurers.

The

first

land

we

made,

we

fell

with

Cape

Henry,'

the

verie

mouth

of

the

Bay

of

Chissiapiacke,

which

at

that

present

we little

expected,

having

by

a

cruell

storme

bene

put

to

the

Northward.

Their

landfall:

Cape

Heniy

from the

sea.

dijring

a

s



Archers

Hope

flefl),

the point

of land

unsuited for tfieir colony

The

twelfth day

[of

May'\,

xve

-went

l/acke

to

our

ships; and

discovered

a

point

oj

Land,

called

Archers

Hope, ivhich

wassnjiicient

ivitli

a little labour

to

defend

our

seh>es

against

an\

Enemy.

.

. .

If

if

liad

not heoie

disliked because

the ship

could

not

ride

neere the shoare.

we

had setled there

to

all the

Collonies

co)ite)itinent.

The

thirteenth

day

[of

Max],

ice came to

our

seating

place

in

Paspihas

Countrey,

some eight

miles

from

the point

of

Land

[of]

-which

I

made

mention

before;

-where our

ship

pes doe

lie

so neere

the

shoare

that

they

are

moored

to

tlie

Trees

in

6.

fathom luater.

Jaincsiouii

Kiaiul.

where

ihe\

iiiuored

in

laic afternoon.

Ma\

13.

1C07

Janiotown Ulaml from

ilie hindward side

50



Oil lilt'

it'est

side

oj

llic Jiii\,

icf

siiiil

ii'cre

5.

faire

tind

(Iflighljiiil

navigable

rwers. . . .

The

fnsi

oj

those rix'ers

and the

next lo

the

inoiilh

of

the Bay.

hath

liis course

from

the

]\'est

and

by

North.

The

iiaiiie

oj this

rixier

they

call

Poxchataii, accor\ding\ to the name

of

a jirincipall

couutr\ that

lieth

uJ)on

it.

. . .

The

most

of

these rivers are

inhabited

by

senerall

nations,

or

rather

families,

of

the name

of

the

rix'ers.

. .

.

In

a

peninsula

on

the

North

side

oj

this

river

are

the

English planted in

a

place

by

them

called

James

Toxvne. in

honour

of

the Ki)igs

most

excellent

Alajestie.

51



\^

n

(-

- \:

^^:'v/-\

*>?•

t

s



King

deck, up the

James

Ri\er from

Jamestown

For the

nwst

jmrt

the earth

is

a

black

stnulx

iiioidd.

in some phices

a

fat

slimy clay,

in

other

places

a

very

barren

gravell.

. . .

By

tJie

rivers

are

many

pbiine

marishes

containing

some

20,

some

ino,

some

200

Acres,

sonie

more,

sonie

lesse.

Other

j)laines

there

are

fewe,

but only

where

the

Sahiages inhabit: but all

overgroivne

-with

trees

dr

weedes,

being

a

plaine wildernes as God

first

made

it.

On Slingia)

I'uinl,

near

DcUaville,

\

iiyiiua

Our

liote by

reason

of

the

ebl)e chansi)ig

to

grounid

npon

a

many

shoitles lying i)i

the

entra)ices, ive

spyed ma)iy fishes

lurking

i)i

the

reedes:

our

Captaine

sporting

himselfe

by

nayling

them to

the

groicnd

with

liis sword, set

us all a

fislii>}g

in

that

manner:

thtis we

tooke

more

in

one

houre than

we

could eate in

a

day.

But

it

chansed

our

Captaine

taking

a

fish

from

his

siuord

(not

knowing

her

condition)

. . .

ivhereon the

middest

\xi'as]

a

most

poysoned

sting,

of

two

or

three

inches

long,

bearded

like

a

saio

on

each

side,

which

she

strucke

into

the

icrest

oj

his

arme

iwerc

an

inch

and

a

halje: no

bloud

nor

wound

was

scene,

but a

little

blew

spot,

but the

torment was

instantly so

extreame,

that

in

foure

lioures

had

so

swolen

his

hand,

arme,

and

shoulder, we

all

n'ith

much

sorro-w

concluded

(anticipated)

his funerall,

and

prepared

his

grave

in

an

Island

by,

as

himselfe

directed.

.

.

.

ice

called

the

Island

Stingray

Isle

after

the

name

of

the

fish.

53

tar

swiinip

on Jainr^ttnvii

T'^land



A

marsh

on

the

C;hickahomin\

River, near Toano

TJie next

voyage

hee proceeded

so

farre

that

witli in

iicit

labour

hy

cittling

of

trees insunder

he

made

his

passage. . .

.

Being

got

to

the

marshes

at

the rivers

head,

ticentie

myles

i)i

the

desert,

[he]

had

his

two

men slaine

(as is

supposed)

sleeping

by

the

C.unowe,

whilst

himself

e by

fowling

sought

them

viduall:

who

finding

he was

beset with

200.

Salvages,

tiro

of

them hee slew,

still defending

himselfe

wifli

the

a\d

of

a

Salvage

his

guid,

whom

lie

bound

to

liis arme n'itli

liis

garters, and

used

Jiim

as

a

buckler.

yet

lie zcas

shot

in his

thigh

a

little, and had

many arroiues

that

stuche

in his

cloathes but

no

great hurt,

fill

at

laste

they tooke

him

prisoner.

. . .

At

last they

brought

him

to Meronocomoco

(=i

Jan.

i6nS).

ichere

was Powhatan

their Emperor.

.

. .

Having feasted

him

after

their best

barbarous

manner

they could,

a

long

consultation

was held.

but

the

conclusion was,

two

great

stones were

brought

before

Powhatan:

then

as

many

as could layd

Jiands

on

him, dragged

him to them,

and

thereon laid

his

head,

and

being ready with

their

clubs.

to

beate out his

braines. Pocahontas

the Kings

dearest

daughter,

iflieii

no intreaty

could

prevaile.

got

his

head in

her armes,

and

laid her owne

upon his to save him

from

death.

. . .

54

Trail

leading

to the

site of

Powhatan's

\



.Vv

«:^'^^^,<^

-*

Hf'^i

-''^^J .

^V^;

tte

<

^r.|-'.

;:s^

^^.-.-^-^---v^-

^^•mi>

IJV

r'^;

^.

*.'

•^-

.^«:;'

'

^

/

-'.

^^v

r

_ ;

f

X V

y>'

/

/

_=^^-

r-:^-

.^.

•

-'i^O^f*

rt^



The

site,

determined

by

archaeologists,

of

Jamestown

Colony

Nolo

this

our

yong

Common-wealth

of

Virginia,

as

you

have

read

once

consisted

but

of

^S

f)ersons,

and

in

two

yeares

increased

hut

to

200.

.

. .

If

we

truely

consider

our

Proceedings

with

the

Spanyards,

and

the

rest,

we

have

no

reason

to

desfmyre,

for

with so

small

charge,

they

never

had

either

greater

Discoveries,

with

such

certaine tryals

of

more

several

Commodities,

then in

this

short

time

hath

beene

returned

from

Virginia

and

by

much lesse

meanes.

56



The

Delicious LaruV

CONlINrKI)

IROM

PAGE

48

home, and

several

accounts ol

it

appeared, the

most

detailed being

Strachey's letter

to

a

noble

iatly,

which

circidated in

manuscript. It

is

not

sinprising

thai

the

most impressionable

mind

in

that circle

was

struck

by

it, lor this was the germ ol

Tlic

Tempest.

It

is

somehow

right

that,

just

as

More's

Utopia

provides

the first expression

of

genius

of the

New

'World

in our

period,

so

Tlie Tempest

]jrovitles

the

last;

that these two

transcenilent

minds

shoidd have

risen to the full

height ol the

theme.

For

there

is

far

more

of

the New

World in

Shakespeare's

play than

the

original

suggestion from

Strachey's letter: the

storm

with its veracious

details, St.

Elmo's

fire

llaming

ama/cment

along the mainmast;

the wreck and not

a

hair

of

the

people

hurt;

the

enciianted

island

fidl of

noises,

for

Bernuida

was believed

to be

haiuited

by

evil

spirits. The

whole

play sings

of the sea; the love-

liest

songs

are

of

the

sea:

Full

fiitliuiii

five

lliy

fiillwr

lies,

Of

his

bones are

coral

made;

Those

are

pearls

that

were his

eyes:

Nothing

of

hiin that

(loth

fade

But

doth

suffer

a

sea-change

Into

something

rich and

strange.

Not

only

that,

but

\vith

the creation

of

Caliban,

the

primitive savage,

possessor

of the

islaiul,

and his

relation

to

Prospero,

the very civilized

and lordly per-

son who

dispossesses him,

the whole

question of what

happens

when

civilization

makes its

impact

upon

primitive

society is

placed

before us

in

a

\vay

we

can

never

forget.

Our sympathies

are

not

with Prospero

—and

jjerhaps

in

the subconscious

corridors of the

mind we

think

of

\vhat

happened to

the

redskins.

There

is

something deeply

affecting about

Cialiban:

. . .

When

lliou

nimrst

first.

Tliou strok'dst me and

niad'sl

mucli

of

me;

would'st

give me

Water

ivith berries in't and teach me

how

To

name

the

bigger light, and how the

less.

That

burn by

day and

night

.

.

.

This

is

what had happened time

and

again,

generation

after generation,

with

tribe after tribe, all

along

the

coasts of America when the Indians came in

lontact

with the white

men anil

their

su])erior

knowledge.

We

read

in Hakluyt

and

Captain Smith

with

wiiat axiility

they learned al)out the stars and

the

tnniament,

watched

the

white

men's

instruments, were im])ressed

by

lodestone

and magnet,

optic

glass

and

clock.

. .

. and then

I

lov'd

thee

And

sliow'd

thee

all the qualities n' the

isle.

The

fresh sf)rings,

l/riiiepils.

harrrn

place,

and

fertile.

That, too,

had often

ha])]jened—

we remember

how

Sqiuinto

showed

the

Pilgrims

where best

to take their

fish and how

to set Indian

corn, and enabled

them

to

subsist

through

the

hard

first

years. In one

sense the

Indians were

cjuick

to

learn;

in another,

they

never

learned—

the gulf

between

their primitive

cast of mind

and

that

of

the white

man

was too deep

to bridge. And

so the

red

man lost

in the

struggle for

existence. Nor

did he

profit

from

his knowledge,

in spite of

his

expe-

riences

at the hand

of the

white man. /\fier

Prospero

comes

the

drunken

Stephano:

CALIBAN':

/

prithee,

let me

bring

thee where crabs grow;

And

I

with my long

nails

-will ilig lliec j)igi uts;

Show

thee a jay's

nest

and instruct thee

how'

To

snare

the

nimble tnarmozet:

Til brirtg

thee

To

clusl'ring

filberts

and sometimes

I'll get

thee

Young

scaniels

from

the

rocks

. .

.

In

spite

of what

he

has

sulfered

at the hand of Pros-

j)cro, Caliban

now wants

Stephano to

be his

god:

I'll show

thee

every

fertile

inch

o'

the

island;

And

I

will

kiss

thy

foot:

I

prithee,

be

my

god.

We are reminded of

the native

Californians

who em-

barrassed

Drake

and

his

men

by

taking

them

for

gods.

he idea

of an original

state ol nature

was

to

have

an important

development

in politi-

cal

speculation

and theorizing about

so-

ciety,

and it

was given immense

impetus

by

what

men

discovered

in

the New Workl. It

was

brought

home

vividly

to me years

ago

when

I

saw

John

Locke's

library

as it had come down in

the

possession

of his

representatives:

we take

it for

granted

that

la-

was a generalizing

and

abstiac

t

thinker,

as

he

was,

l)ut

his library

was

fidl

of the /Vmerican

voyages.

There,

made visible,

\vas

an

example

of

the way

early anthro-

pology

went

into

political

theory.

Tudor

lolk

were

fascinateil

by

the trappings

of In-

dian

life

and the

spectacle of

Indians,

Irom

the

time

Cabot

brought some

back to

the

streets

of Westminster,

and a

Brazilian chief

was

presentetl

at the

court of

Henry

VIII. In i()i4—

\vhen

the

great

X'irginian

venture

was

much

in

mind—

two

mascpies

were given

by the

Inns

of Cknn t. Bacon's Masque

of

i'lowers

argued

the

merits

and

demerits

of

Virginia's

chief product, tobacco,

before

the

antitobacconist

James

I.

Cha|)man's

masque,

a nuicli grantler

alfair

drcsseil

by

Inigo

Jones,

had

the

masquers attiretl in Indian

costume,

with

iiigh

s]}rigged leathers on

their

heatls,

hair black anil large

waving

down

to

their

shoulders.

The nuisiiians

were

attired

like Virginian

priests —

no

iloui)t

from

John

A\'hite's

dr;iwing.

But the

serious-minded

C:ha])man

addressed

himself

to a

searching theme, the

])roi)lem

posed

by the

diversity

of

religion

revealeil by

a

new

57



\vorld, ol

wliich Holy

Scripture, which held

the

key

to

all

human

history, had

no

knowledge.

The orthodox

poet

spoke through

Eunomia, representing

civilized

order:

Virginian

princes,

you must

now

renounce

Your

superstitious

luorship

of

these

Suns,

Subject

to

cloudy darlteniiigs

and

descents.

And

of

your

fit

devotions turn

the event

To tliis

our

British

Plioebus,

whose

hrii^^ht

sky

(Enlightened

with

a

Christian

piety)

Is never

subject

to bliiik error's

night.

And

hatli already

offered

lieaven's

true

light

To ynur

dark

region.

There

were

jjeople,

even

then,

who

speculated

sensibly

whether

the

American

Indians

had

not

come

across

the

narrow

divide

oi

the

Bering

Strait

trom

Asia.

Some reflection

ol

these

speculations

may

be

seen

in Bacon's

jeu

d'esprit. The

New

Atlantis.

Nat-

urally

the

influence

ol

the voyages

and

of reading

Hakluyt

is ajjparent,

and Bacon

had

a direct

interest

in

colonization

by this time:

he

was one

of

the Coun-

cil

for

Newfoundland.

Bacon's

Utopian

island

was

in

the

Pacific,

which

might

still have

islands

and

con-

tinents

not

yet

come

to light—

Australia

was

yet

to

come

out

of

it.

But

he

refers

to

the

inimdation

of

an

Atlantic

continent,

and

the shrinking

Atlantic

shelf

of

America.

Hence

the

American

Indians

were

but rem-

nants

ol

a people:

Marvel

you

not at

the

thin

popu-

lation

of

America,

nor

at

the

rudeness

and ignorance

of

the people; lor

you

must

accept

yom- inhaijiiants

of

America

as a

yoinig

people: younger

a

thousand

years,

at

the

least,

than

the

rest

ol

the woi

Id.

The

mind

of

the

poet

fDonne

was

markedly

stimu-

lated

by

the

geographical

curiosity of

the

time.

This

is

reflected

in the

unexpected

images he

reaches

out lor

on

the subject

of

love:

Let

sea-discojierers

to neio

worlds luwe

ironc.

Let

maj)s to others xuorlds

on

jeorhls

have

shoiun.

Let

us

l)ossess

one

world,

eaih

hath one

and

is

one.

]]'here

we

ran

find

two belter

heinisfherrs

Without

shaifi

\orlh.

unlhout

declininu,

West:'

Or

in addressing

his

mistress,

going

to

bed,

in

some-

what

unusual

teiins:

O

my

America

my

new-found-land.

My

kingdom,

safeliest

when

with

one

man

mann<'d

Many

were

the sermons

that

were

preached

to

speed

the Virginia

enterprise;

but

Donne's

sermon is

the

finest

specimen

of

the class,

in which

it is

elevated

to

literatme.

As

we

should

expect,

he raised

the

issues

presented

by colonization

to

a

higher

plane,

fie

warned

those going

against

seeking

independence

or

exemption

from

the

laws

of Englaml.

If

those

that

govern

there

woidd

establish

such

a government

as

should

not depend

upon

this,

or if those

that

go thither

propose

to themselves an

exemption

from laws

to live

at

their

liberty,

this

is to

. . . divest

allegiance

and

be under

no

man.

And

Donne

had

something to

say

which is

very

much

to the point

in the modern

dis-

cussion

about colonialism.

The law

of nations ordains

that

every

man

improve

that

which he hath

. .

.

the whole

world,

all mankind

must

take care that all

places

be

improved

as far as

may

be

to the

best

advan-

tage of mankind

in

general.

^ith

a

New World being

discovered, there

\vas not only an

immense extension of

geo-

graphical

knowledge,

but

a comparable

impetus to improve

its

quality and

tech-

niques.

England

was backward in this

art,

as

in so

much

else;

but

now

her

geographers

profitetl

from their

con-

tacts

with these

leaders

of

thought,

^vhile

they

made

use

of

the

information

gathered

by the English voyag-

ers

in

constructing their

maps—

Ortelius,

of Anthony

Jenkinson,

for

Russia

and

Persia;

Mercator,

of

Drake,

for

America

and the Pacific.

Though English

map

makers in this

field

were

not

yet

comparable,

they

^\ere beginning.

Frobisher's and Gilbert's

voyages

to

North

America led

to a considerable

increase

of in-

formation

about

the

northern

areas,

reflected

in the

ma]is

of Michael

Lok

and Thomas

Best.

A

number

of

John

Dec's

maps

of these

regions

remain,

and

illus-

trate, as everything about him

does, his ciuious

mix-

tine of shrewd criticism

and crazy

credulity.

His map

of North

America

based

on

Ciilbert's

explorations,

for

examjile, has

a

propel

realization

of the width

of the

continent

across

CJanada;

inu

theorist

that

he

was,

he

had

no compunction

in

tracing

a \\'aterway right

across,

to

debouch

with the

Colorado into Southern

California,

liy

the

end of the

century,

much more

exact

and

uselul tontributions

were

being

made

to

naviga-

tion

and

cosmography

by such men as

John

Davis and

Edward

Wright.

Hariot

appears as

the

most complete,

all-round

sci-

entist

of

that

time, with

his

interest

alike in

inathe-

uKitics

and

astronomy,

anthropology

and

navigation.

He

set

forth

a

model of first-class

scientific method

with

his Brief

niul True

Report

of

the

new

found

land

of

Virginia.

It is

the A\ork

of

a

superior

mind;

no

Eliza-

bethan quaiiuness

in

this;

no

fancy,

let alone fantasy;

all is in

due order

based

on

close

observation,

accu-

rately

brought

into

correlation with

existing

cate-

gories.

It gives

an account of

the

flora

and fauna:

the

commodities

of

the

country

with

their qualities

and

uses:

methods of

agriculture and

properties

of the soil,

plants

and

fiiiits

and roots;

the beasts,

fowl,

and fish;

ending with

the

nature and

manners

of the people,

for

58



Haiiot hail

learned

enough ot

their

languaj^e

to

coni-

numitate

witli

them about

their

notions

and belicis.

This

concise

little

work,

important as

it

is, is

only

a

fragment

of the

materials collected by Hariot and

John

White

at Roanoke.

White was

similarly engaged

in

mapping the

coasts

and

sounds

and

rendering the

life of

the place

in his water

colors of the

])lants

and

fishes,

the

characters

and

ways of

the natives,

fiut

alter

the

hurricane

that

decided the

colony to

leave,

many

of

their maps

and

papers

were

lost in

the

sea in

the

lunricd

transfer of

their goods to

flrake's ships.

Others

of

White's papers

lelt on

Roanoke

weic

spoiled by the

Indians.

But

what

remains

is

considerable.

The

impact of

America upon

natmal

history in

gen-

eral,

and

botany in

particular, was no

less exciting. A

wide

range of

new

plants

and

animals

provided

con-

tinuing stimidus to the

scientific

ciniosity, as

well

as

the

fancy,

of

naturalists in

England as

else;vhere. And

this is

reflected

in

their books.

From the

New

World

came the

giant snnflower,

nasturtiinn,

Michaelmas

daisy,

lobelia,

evening

primrose,

and

so

on.

liut

by

lar

the

most

important

introductions

were

tobacco and

the

potato: these

affected history.

The medicinal

properties of tobacco

were consid-

ered

valuable. Hariot

reported that it

purgeth

super-

fluoirs phlegm and other

gross

himiours, and

openeth

all

the

pores

and

passages of

the

body:

by which

means

the use thereof not

only

preserveth the body

from

ob-

structions, but

also (if any be, so

that they

have not

been ot

too long

continuance)

breaketh them.

The

habit of

smoking

spread

rajjidly among

the

courtiers

and

the

upper class,

popularized

by

Raleigh

and

those

in

touch with

the

colonies.

It

was

noted

as

a

piece

of arrogance

on

Raleigh's part

that

he

took

a

pijie

of tobacco

before

he

went to the

scaffold ;

it is

more likely to

have

been to

steady

fiis

nerves,

or

as a

last pleasure on

earth.

E\en

before

the

end

of

the

()ueen's

reign,

the habit was

spreading to the

lower

orders. All this was

good for

X'irginia:

it put the

col-

ony on

its

feet

and

enabled

it to survive.

The

potato has

had

even mcjre effect in

history.

In

The

History

and

Social

Influence

of

the

Potato,

Retl-

(

iille

N.

Salaman

writes: The

introduction

ol llie po-

tato has |)roved to

Ije

one

of

the major

events

in

man's

recent

histoiy,

but,

at

the time,

it

was

a

matter

of

rela-

tively

little moment

and

called

forth

no

innuediate

public connnent.

To

the Elizabethans

the

innocuous

potato was

not only sustaining,

but

stinudating to

lust.

We

remember that

when

Falstatt,

with

the

worst inten-

tions,

gets

Mistress

? ord and

Mistress

Page to

come in

to

him,

he calls on

the

sky to rain

potatoes.

,\mid

so

much that is earthy, not to say nunky, about

this

root,

Dr. Salaman

thinks

it cjuite

probable

that

Raleigh

did

introiluce

the growing <jf po

more

of the

niau) tilings he has

to

answer for.

'I'his

certainly

had lemote

and

far-reaching

consecjuences,

setting

in motion

the

cycle that idtimately

led to the

mass

migration of the

Irish,

dining and

alter

the

Famine, to

.America.

It was from Ireland, too, iliat |()hn

White's dra\\ings

of

.American

lile turned

up,

having

long ago

disap-

peared

from \\ew. In

the

entl, it

is

through

such things

as

these—

Powhatan's

mantle, a wampum girdle

or

a

shell necklace, the things

the

Elizabethans

held in

their

hands

and

brought

home,

the Ilotsam

and

jetsam

of

time— that we are most ilirectly in touch with that

early

American life,

as well as

through

those

fragments

of

memory that

have

entered into folklore, the

unlor-

gotten impre.ssion

that

Pocahontas made on

the

Eng-

lish

people

in her

day—

still

alive

in the

famous inn

sign,

La

Belle

Sauvage.

I write these words not

far

from

a village in

Cornwall

still

called after her,

Indian

Queen's.

For

w'hat

enters into

the unconscious

life of

the

mind and

is

carried on

in

folklore is

the

best

evi-

dence

of

the

strength

of

conmion

memories,

common

affections, antl connnon ancestry.

tatoes into

Ireland—

one

With

the

tomb

of

the

Great

Qiieer},

and

a

chasten-

in'^

xierse

froiii

the

t'suhnist

iihoxie

it

(jrom the

elaborate title /mi;c

of

I'lirchas

his

rilsrimes,

7625),

we

end

this series

l>y

Dr.

A.

L.

Rowse,

the

noted English

authority

on

the

Elizabethan

era.

It

forms

part

of

his

hoolt

The

F.lizalK'thans

and

America, recently

j^ulilislied

by

Harper

c

lirothers.

59



JVas

itf

as

Navy Secretary

Welles believed^

*'a co/ispiracy

to overthrow

the

gover)ime7it''

WHEN

CONGRESS

TRIED

TO

RULE

President

Andrew

Johnson

When

in

the

spring

of

1868

the

Senate of

the

United States

declared Andrew

Johnson

not

guilty

of the

high

crimes

and

misdemeanors

charged

against

him

by

the House,

Congressman

Thaddeiis

Stevens

predicteil

that

ne\er

again

would

a

serious

effort

be

made to impeach an

American

Presi-

dent.

\\'hat

the

sharp-spoken

^sarrior

from Pennsyl-

vania

was

saying, of

coinse,

^vas

that

the

failiue

to re-

move

Johnson

had

set

a

precedent that future genera-

tions

^vould

hesitate to

challenge.

.A.t seventy-six

Stevens,

emaciated

and

sick, present-

ing

to

the

world

the

appearance

of

a

white

old

rock

drying

in

the

sini,

^vas

almost

at

the

end of

his earthly

course.

His

comment

on

the

omcome of

Johnson's

trial,

of

which

he

himself

was

the

chief

architect,

was

the

last

remark

of

more

than

passing interest he

^voidd

ever

make, ft

^\as also

one of

his

most

tantalizing,

for

it

fastened

attention

on a question

that

still

hovers

over

the

only

attempt

to

date to

drum

a Chief Execu-

tive

out of offi(

e.

The question is

why—

why tlid

the

leaders

of the

Republican majority

in

Congress

go

to

the

enormous

bother

of

trying

to

depose

a

President

who had

long

since, and

irretrievably,

lost

all ability to interfere

in

any substantial

\\ay

with their legislative

programs?

On

the

sinface,

the purpose of

Johnson's

enemies

was

to

call

a

halt

to

his persistent opposition to

their

plans

for reconstructing the

eleven

formerly

Confed-

erate

states, all

of

which,

except Tennessee,

^\ere still

out

of

the

Union

at the time

of

the

impeachment

trial.

For

many of

the

lesser lights among

the

so-called

Radicals

of

the congressional majority

this ^^•as,

no

doubt, the

only motive. But to

say

that

it ^vas

the

only

—or even the

main

and operative—

motive in

the minds

of

Thad

Stevens and

the

other

effective

leaders of

the

impeachment

movement is

to

suggest

that these brainy

and

experienced

politicians

were

incapable of

grasping

realities

that

were

right

inider their noses.

The

members

of

the

congressional majority

did

not

have

to

remove the

President

in

order

to

ha\e their

^\ay

about Reconstruction. They had had their

w^ay

ever since the 1866 elections, which had

given

them

in

both

houses

of

Congress

enough strength

to

override

any vetoes

Johnson

chose to hand down. Thev had

scuttled

his

Reconstruction program

anil substituted

their o\vn.

One

^^av

or

another the\

hail

made

it diffi-

60



By

MILTON

LOMASK

cult for

him to

exercise

many

of his

constitutional

jjowers,

hamstringing

him

to

the

point

w

iierc

e\cn

if

they

failed

to

impeach him, he

would

still i^e luiable to

wrest

control

of the

South from

their

hands.

There was

the

Imther

fact

that

Johnson's

term of

office WAf,

almost

over,

and

there

was

no

reason

to be-

lieve that

he could

be

elected

to

another, even

il

some

of the

leaders

of his own

Democratic

party

were

cpiix-

otic

enough,

in i8( )8, to suggest

the

nomination ol a

man so

discredited

in the

eyes

of

the

voters.

His pres-

ence

in

the

White

House

was

annoying,

and sheer

hatred

of the man

was

inlaying

a

role in

liie

How of

events.

Tiie

Repui)lican leaders

had only

to

hiilc tiieir

time

in

patience

for a

fe\\'

months

and

.Vndrew John-

son

would be

out of

their

way.

But

they

didn't

wait,

and

for

this they

had

com-

pelling

reasons—

largely

unspoken,

to i)e sure, and

per-

haps

not

even fiUIy

articulated

in

their own

minds.

Other men

oiuside

their

circle

and

unfriendly to

them

guessed

what

they

were up

to.

One ^vas

(iideon Welles,

Johnson's

Secretary of the

Navy and

Lincoln's

liclore

him.

Behind Welles'

benign

eyes and

his

ec

i

lesiastical

face in its whiskery nest lay a

trenchant and

suspicious

The

House

managers

of

the

impeachtnent

posed

for

Mdthfw

Brady

before

Ihe

trial.

Stevens,

dying,

hobbled

in

on his

cane,

but

bitter

determination

was still

written on

his

face.

Seated with

him

(left

to

right)

are

Prosecutor Benja-

min F.

Butler, Thomas

IVilliarns, and

Chairman

/.

.1.

Bing-

liam; standing,

J.

F.

JVilson,

G. S.

Bnulwell, and

J.

A.

Logan.

mind,

a mind

sometimes

wrong

in

its

judgments but

sometimes devastatingiy accurate. It is

evident,

he

^^•as

writing in his lamous diary

on

the

eve

of

the

trial,

that

the

Radicals in Ciongress

are

in

a

conspiracy

to

overthrow

not

only

the

PresideiU

but the

go\ernnicnt.

Deacon

Welles,

as

he was

now and then called,

was

right. The

determined

nun

behind the

impeach-

ment

had

Ijigger

fish

to

Iry

than

tiie

Reconstruction

ol the South. They were

looking

IjeNond

innnediate

issues to the

reconstruction

of

the .\merican

form

of

government.

A few

of them

overrated

[ohnson,

assiuuing

that

lie

still

possessed the

ca])acity to

impede their

Recon-

struction

plans.

15ut

it is diflicult

to

jjelieve that

Stevens

and

his more

knowing

associates entertained

any

such

misapineliensions.

Far

from

seeing a

danger

in

Johnson's

strength,

these

men

saw an

opportunity

CONTINUED

ON

PACK

I(K)

61



By

now it

is probably too late to

do

anything

about it, but the

unsettling

fact

remains

that

the

so-called sale

ot Manhattan

Island

to

the

Dutch in

1626

was a

totally illegal deal; a group of

Brooklyn

Indians

perpetrated

the swindle, and they

had no more right

to

sell Afanhattan

Island

than

the

present

mayor of

White Plains w^oidd

have

to

declare

war

on

France. When

the

Manhattan Indians lound

out

about it

they

were

understantlably

Unions,

but

by

that

tiuie the

Dutch

had

too

strong

a

foothold

to

be

dislodged—

by

ihe Indians,

at

any

rate

-and the

even-

tual

arrival

of

oneway

avenues and

the

Hambuig

Heaven

Crystal Room was

only

a

matter

of

time.

To

imderstand

how

this

was

brought

about, it

is

important

to

know

something about

the

local

Indians

of the period. They

were

all,

or

almost all,

of

Algon-

quian

origin; those

who later became known

as

the

Manhattans

were

actually

Weckquaesgeeks, who

be-

longed

to

the

Wappinger

Confederation.

Their main

village

was Nappeckamack,

on the site

of

what is

now

^'onkers, and they

had

a

fort

called Nipinichsen,

on

the north

bank

of Spuyten Duyvil.

They lived

in

little

clusters of

igloo-like

bark huts,

along

the

east bank of

the

Hudson River and

the

Westchester

shore

of

Long

Island

Soiuid, and they

used

Manhattan

( the

island

of

hills )

for their hunting and fishing

stations.

A path

ran

up

the center

of

the

wooded,

craggy is-

land, and its twenty-hve miles or

so

of

water front were

dotted with

small

camps,

from

which the

Indians con-

ducted

their food-gathering

expeditions.

The

fishing

was more

rewarding

than

it is now; aside

from the

pe-

riodic

runs of shad, there

were sturgeon

and flatfish in

considerable

ninnbers,

and

there

were

massive

oyster

and clam beds

all along

the

shore line.

The squaws

would

shuck the oysters and

dry

them on

sticks

in the

sun, and

it

must

be

assinned

that

ptomaine poisoning

The

I/idians

who

sold

Manhattan were hilkedy

all

right

, but

they

didn

t

mind—

the

land

wasn

V

theirs

anyway

THE

$24

SWINDLE

By NATHAMKL

BEXCHLEY

62



was

either

unknown to

ihe >e

Indians

or

else

it

was a

way of

lile.

At any

rate,

tiieir

iliscovered

sliell

piles

are

many,

and their

biuial mounds comparatively

few.

In

addition to all

tluse

delicacies,

e\eiy now and then

a

whale

\\oidd

i^et

strandetl

on

a

sand

bar down

in the

Narrows,

and

the

braves

^vould

take

out

alter

it

in

their

dugout

cancjes.

By yeneial

consent, the Wee

ktiuaesgeeks

(and

it

is

easy to

see

^\•hy

the

Dutch

decided to call them

Man-

hattans)

occupietl

the

northern three quarters

of tiie

island, and the

Clanarsees,

who were members of

the

Montauk, or Long

Island,

branch of

the

Algonquians,

had only the southern tip, plus all of what is

now

Brooklyn.

But

there \\as enough

lish

and

game for

all,

and noboci)

bothered

\ery nnuh

aljout

boundaries.

The game was

fairly

spectacidar;

there

were deer,

bears,

wolves, porcupines. bea\er. otter,

moose,

wild-

cats,

grouse,

and itiikt\, and there

\vere

even

cases

Avlien

an

occasional bison

would

wander

in

from the

west, just in

time

to

Imd

hinisell transformed

into a

i)ullalcj

robe.

In consecpiente

of all

this largess,

the Indians

were

happy

with their

lot.

They

were ^vell

fixed

for

food

and

clothing

(in addition lo the lish

and

game,

they

grew

corn, beans,

jjiun|)kins. and

tobacco,

which

lounded

oiu their

diet

\vitli the

])ioper

e|Mcinean

touch),

and their only real worries

\\ere the

occasional

and

luiexplained

epidemics

that

decimated

their

inun-

bers,

and the ])eriodic raids that the

iqjslaie

.Mohawks

made to

collect

overdue

tribute.

It

was the

Mohawks,

as

a

matter of

fact,

who

later

all but wiped

out the

Canarsees, in

an

act of

unccjnscious

retribiiti\e jirstice.

All the

tribes

of the

area

shared

a

conunon

belief

in

a world after death, iided

over

by

a single

Great

.Spirit,

or

Maiu'tou.

and their

heaven was

a

precise

place—

it

lay

oil

to the

southwest,

jjossibly

wliere

Tren-

nitSIKMM)

1

OK

AmIRK-W

nt-RlIXt.t. IW

KOIlt

K

I

IIMIOKN



ton,

New

Jersey,

is now.

It

was

a

place

where

game was

even

more

plentiful

than in

real

lite, and

a

great

deal

more

plentiful

than at

the

present

moment,

if

the

fig-

ures

from

Trenton

authorities

are at

all

accurate.

About four

times a

year

the

Indians

had

dances,

either

for

spring

planting,

or

harvest,

or

thanksgiving,

or

the

like,

and they

always

made a

big to-do

when

they set

off

on

a

hunting

expedition.

Their

life

was,

in short,

all

that

the

out-of-door

enthusiasts

would

have us be-

lieve is

good and

true

in

Nature.

The

men

wore

their

hair

in a

scalp lock

that formed

a

brush

from the

forehead

to

the

nape

of

the

neck,

the

side

hair

usually

being

burnt

off with hot

rocks,

and

although

they

sometimes

put

feathers

in

their

hair,

they

never

used

the

Sioux-type

war

bonnet.

They

decorated

their

faces

and

upper

bodies

with

stripes

of

red,

yellow,

and black,

and,

in

order

to

ward

off

both

mosquitoes

and

sunburn,

they

smeared

themselves

with

either

fish

oil, eagle fat,

or

bear

grease. To

get to

leeward

of a

Weckquaesgeek

Indian

on

a

hot

day,

even—

or

especially—

if he

was

in

a

friendly

mood,

was

an

experience

in

itself.

Their

relations with

the

white

men

were,

initially,

good.

The

Indians

were

agreeable,

in

their

way,

and

their

main

reaction

to

the

coming

of

the

white

men

was

one

of

excited

interest, like

schoolchildren

who

have been

joined

by

a

newcomer

with

three

ears. As

far as

anyone

knows,

the

Florentine

explorer

Verra-

zano

was

the

first to

see

Manhattan

and its

natives,

in

1524,

but

no

significant

contact with

the

Indians

is

recorded

until

1609,

when

Henry

Hudson

sailed

up

the

river in

search

of

a

passage

to

the

Orient.

Unfor-

tunately,

a

crewman

of

the

Half

Moon

named

John

Coleman

was

fatally

punctured by

the

Indians,

more

out

of

curiosity

than

anger

on

their

part,

and

in the

subsequent

incidents

between

the

natives

and Hud-

son's

men, a

few

Indians

were

killed.

There

was,

in

fact,

what

amounted to a

pitched

bat-

tle

off

Fort

Nipinichsen,

when

the

Half

Moon's

can-

non

and

the

muskets

of

her

crew

did severe

damage

to

the

braves

on

the

shore

and

in

the

canoes.

But,

everything

considered,

the

relations

were

not

too

bad,

and

the

Indians

were

quite

impressed

by

the

knives,

kettles,

awls, and

blankets

that

Hudson's

men traded

for

their

furs.

As

far

as

they

were

concerned,

a

little

bloodshed

every

now and

then

was

inevitable,

and the

materials the

fur

traders brought

made

up

for

a

great

deal.

In

the

next

fifteen years,

more and

more

fur

traders

arrived on

Manhattan,

some

of

them even

setting

up

storehouses

on

the

southern

tip

of

the

island,

and

in

all

that

time

their

dealings

with the

Indians

were

friendly.

In

1625

the

first livestock

arrived—

103

sheep.

cows,

horses,

and

pigs—and they

were

the first such ani-

mals

the

Indians had

ever

seen. Almost every

Indian

family had

its dogs,

but

beyond

that

the

only

animals

they

knew

were

wild, and

the savages

were

overcome

by

not

only the

sight of

the animals but

also their

by-

products,

such

as milk,

cheese,

bacon, ham, and mut-

ton.

From

the

Indians'

point of

view,

something

new

and

interesting

was

happening

every day

(their

first view

of

the

Dutch

wooden

shoes,

for

instance,

was

the cause

for

no

end of

giggling

and

general merriment), and

since

the

Dutch were

under

strict orders to be as

nice

to

the

natives as

possible,

the

untoward incidents

were

reduced to

an

absolute

minimum. In passing, it is of

interest to note

that

the

rate of

seduction

of

the

Indian

maidens

was

so

small

as to

be

practically

negligible.

Either

they were

afraid

of

their own

menfolk, or the

Dutch

were

unusually

clumsy—or

the

eagle

fat

might

possibly

have

had

something

to

do

with

it.

Whatever

the

reason,

there

was

little

or

no

sexual

scuffling be-

tween

the

natives

and the

colonists.

Then, on

May

4,

1626,

Peter

Minuit,

sent

by

the

Dutch

West

India

Company

to

be

the

formal

director-

general

of New

Netherland,

arrived

on the

Sea-mew.

The

Dutch

knew

that the

French

and

the

British,

the

latter

with

flanking

colonies at

Plymouth

and

James-

town,

would

not

be

particularly

pleased at

the

estab-

lishment

of

a Dutch

colony

in the

area,

and

they

also

knew

that they

didn't

have the

strength

to resist armed

intervention

by

either

nation.

Consequently,

they

re-

solved

to

make

their

purchase of

Manhattan

as

legal

as

possible,

hoping

that

if the

Indians

appeared

to

back

up

their

claim,

the

British

or

French

might hesi-

CONTINUED

ON

PAGE

93

In

respect to

Mark

Twain in

Hartford: The Happy

Years,

the

Editors

gratefully

acknowledge

permission from

the pub-

lishers ;

from

Thomas G.

Chamberlain and the

Hanover

Bank,

Trustees

of the

estate

of

Samuel

L.

Clemens

deceased;

and

from the

Trustees

of

Columbia

University,

to reprint

excerpts

from the

following copyrighted

sources: Mark Twain's

Auto-

biography,

Harper

&

Brothers,

New

York,

1924;

Mark Twain's

Letters,

arranged

by

Albert

Bigelow

Paine, Harper &

Brothers,

New York,

1917;

Mark

Twain,

a

Biography, Albert

Bigelow

Paine,

Harper

& Brothers,

New York,

1912;

My

Father,

Mark

Twain, Clara

Clemens,

Harper

&

Brothers,

New York,

1931;

My

Mark

Twain, William

Dean

Howells,

Harper

&

Brothers,

New

York,

1910;

Crowding Memories,

Mrs.

Thomas

Bailey

Aldrich,

Houghton

Mifflin,

Boston

and

New York,

1920;

Mark

Twain

to

Mrs.

Fairbanks,

Dixon

Wecter,

Huntington

Library,

San

Marino,

California,

1949;

Autobiography

of

Moncure

Daniel

Conway,

Houghton

Mifflin,

Boston

and

New

York, 1904;

Mark

Twain's

Love

Letters,

edited

by

Dixon

Wecter,

Harper &

Brothers, New

York,

1949;

Mark

Twain's

Notebook,

Harper &

Brothers,

New

York,

1935.

All

illustrations

not

otherwise

credited

are

from the

Mark

Twain

Library

and

Memorial

Commission in

Hartford.

64



iC

l^cu

'^7i

This

is the

story

of

twenty happy

and

productive

years

in

the

life

of Mark

Twain,

told

by

the

author

himself

and

by

those

who

knew him.

Portions

of it were

published earlier

as a

guide to

the Mark

Twain

Memorial,

the house

now

be-

ing

restored

in

Hartford,

Connecticut,

which

Twain

planned,

loved

so

much,

and

lost

under such

tragic

circumstances.

^

Edited by

Henry

Darbee

65



?

,.„;;v:';SW«



the literary

man.

It

held

a

distinguished

group

of writers, most

of whom

the Clemenses already

knew.

Furthermore,

with Bliss

as

publisher of

the

Mark

Twain

books,

it held their chief

business

interests

....

He

finally

leased the

fine

Hooker house

on

Forest

Street,

in

that

pleasant seclusion

known as Nook

Farm

—the

literary

part

of

Hartford,

which

included

the

residence

of Charles

Dudley

Warner and Harriet Beecher

Stowe

....

Clemens

and

his

wife

bought

a

lot

for

the new

home that

winter,

a

fine,

sightly

piece of

land on Farmington

Avenue

—

tableland,

sloping down

to

a

pretty stream

that wound through the willows and among the

trees

. . .

Paine describes the

novel

plans tor

Twain's

house:

The plans

for

the

new

house

were

drawn forthwith

by that gentle

archi-

tect

Edward Potter, whose art to-day

may

be

considered

open to

criti-

cism,

but

not

because

of any

lack of

originality. Hartford

houses of

that

period were mainly of the

goods-box

form

of architecture, perfectly

square, typifying

the

commercial

pursuits of many of

their owners.

Potter

agreed

to

get

away

from

this idea, and

a

radical

and even

frenzied

de-

parture

was the

result

. . .

To

the

public, the

three-storied

house

with

its profusion of verandas

and

high-peaked

gables, was

Mark Twain's

practical

joke.

A

contemporary view

of

it

is

given

in

the

Hartford

Daily Times, March

23,

1874:

Most

of the residents

of

Hartford know that Mr. Samuel L. Clemens,

otherwise

known

as

Mark Twain, is

building

a

residence

on

Farmington

Avenue,

a

short

distance

east

of

the

stone

bridge on

that

thoroughfare.

Many of the

readers of

The

Times,

doubtless, have had at least an exter-

nal

view of the

structure, which already has

acquired

something

beyond

a

local

fame ; and

such persons,

we

think,

will agree

with us

in

the

opinion

that it is one

of the oddest

buildings

in the State ever

designed for

a

dwelling,

if

not

in the

whole country.

. . .

William

Dean

Howells,

the well-known novelist and editor, recalls

a

visit

to

Nook

Farm.

In

the

good

fellowship

of

that

cordial

neighborhood

we

had

two

such

days

as

the ageing sun

no

longer

shines

on

in

his

round. There

was

con-

stant

running

in

and

out

of friendly

houses

where

the lively hosts

and

guests

called one

another

by

their Christian

names or

nicknames,

and

no

such

vain ceremony

as

knocking or ringing at doors.

Clemens

was

then

building the

stately

mansion

in

which

he

satisfied his love of

magnificence

as

if it

had

been

another

sealskin

coat, and

he was

at

the

crest

of the

prosperity

which

enabled

him

to

humor every whim or

extravagance.

As

the

house

neared

completion,

Twain penned the

following

complaint

to

his mother-

in-law,

Mrs. Langdon:

I

have

been

bullyragged

all day by

the builder,

by

his

foreman,

by

the

architect,

by

the

tapestry

devil

who

is

to

upholster

the furniture, by the idiot who

is

putting

down

the carpets, by

the scoundrel who is

setting

up

the

billiard-table

(and has left the balls in

New

York),

by

the

wildcat

who is sodding the

ground and

finishing

the driveway (after the sun

went

down), by

a book agent, whose body

is in

the

back

yard

and

the

coroner

notified.

Just

think

of

this

thing

going

on the whole day

long,

and I

am

a

man

who

loathes details with all my

heart

SOME

MAXIMS

OF

MARK TWAIN

'If you

don't

like

the

weather

in

New England,

jus

wait

a

few minutes.

'

'

'More than

one

cigar

at

a tim

is

excessive smoking.

'My

books

are water; those

of

the

great

geniuses are

wine

Everybody

drinks

water.

'

'

Mark Twain's Notebook

Twain's

Hartford home, pictured

Scribner's Monthly,

November,

1S7



Harriet

Beecber

Stowe

Reverend

Joseph

H. Twichell

Twain

and

his literary

neighbor, Charles Dudley

Wain^i.

breeding

consists in

how

much

we think

of

and how little

think of the

other

person.

'

Twairis

Notebook

is

likely

that if more

time

been

taken,

in the iirst place,

the

would

have been

made

and

this

ceaseless

and

repairing

would

be

necessary

now.

But if you

a world or a

house,

are

nearly

sure to

find out

and by, that you

have

left

a

towhead,

or

a

broom-closet,

some

other

little convenience,

and there, which

has

got

be

supplied, no

matter

how

much

or vexation it may cost.

'

'

on

the Mississippi

for climate,

and

for

society.

'

Whe

¥lmX

FaPFi^

Spsup

Moncure

D. Conway,

clergyman

and

author, wrote:

Every

day we

saw

Charles Dudley Warner [the writer who

collabora-

ted

with

Twain

on The

Gilded

Age] and his wife,

near

neighbors,

and

in

the evening

Rev. Dr.

Twichell

came

in. In

no country

have

I

met

a

more

delightful

man

in conversation

than Twichell. and his

ministerial adven-

tures

if

printed

would add

a

rich

volume

to

the

library

of

American

humor.

Mrs.

Clemens

was

not only

beautiful

but a gracious hostess; her

clear

candid

eyes

saw

everything,

her

tact was

perfect,

and

if

she entered,

the

great strong

Mark in

his stormiest mood would

alight

as

if a

gentle

bird

in

her

hand.

George

P.

Lathrop

told of

an

evening

with

Twain's

neighbor,

Harriet Beecher Stowe:

One most agreeable

memory

will

long

remain

with me,

of

an

evening

spent in Mrs.

Stowe's company

at

the house of Mr. and Mrs. Clemens.

Among other

things

there was after-dinner

talk

of the days

preceding

the war, and

of the underground railroad

. . . Mrs. Stowe gave her

reminiscences

of

exciting incidents

in

her life

on

the

Ohio border at

that

time,

and

told

of

the

frightful letters

she received

from

the

South

after

publishing

her great

novel [Uncle Tom's Cabin]

. .

.

To

give

an idea

of

the extremes

to

which

these

missives

proceeded,

Mrs.

Stowe

mentioned

that

one of them, duly

forwarded to her by United

States mail, enclosed

a

negro's ear

Katy Leary, Mrs.

Clemens'

maid,

recalled

Mrs. Stowe's

more

eccentric

moments:

She used

to

come to

the

Clemens a

great deal in the old

Hartford

days.

She kind

of

lost

her mind

a little bit when she

got

older,

but

she

was

very

nice. She

used

to

go

out every

day for

a walk

and

every one

she'd

meet, she'd

stop

and talk with

them

very pleasant

and

ask

them if

they'd

read her

book

Uncle

Tom's

Cabin,

and

some of them

would

have

a

blemk

face on,

and

didn't

know

what she was talking

about. Really,

she'd

say,

you

should

read

it. What's your

name

and

address?

I'll write

68



to

my

publishers

and

have them

send

you

a copy

right away.

Then,

of

course,

everybody would

say they

hadn't

read

it, because

they

all wanted

one

of

them books

free

She

used

to write

her autograph in

all

her

books,

and

her autograph

was:

Love

the Lord

and

do good.

That's

pretty,

ain't

it?

Love the Lord and do

good.

In their huge new establishment, the

Clemenses

had

a

staff

of seven servants, some of

whom

were

described

by

Clara,

Twain's

second daughter:

Our

butler,

George,

was

colored

and

full

of

personality.

He

had

come

one

day

to wash

windows

and

remained

for

eighteen

years. Everyone in

the family liked him, although the only time

he

looked after

anyone's

needs

at the

table

was when

a

large

company

of

guests

were

invited

to

dine.

On

such

occasions he

could

rise

to great

heights

of professional serv-

ice and throb

with

feverish

excitement,

as

if

he

were

acting

a

big

role

on

the stage.

When only members of the

family

were seated

at

table,

how-

ever,

he

preferred listening

to

the conversation

to

passing them

food.

He

explained that the

intellectual inspiration he

received

in

the

dining-room

saved

him from

the

bad

effects

of life

in

the inferior

atmosphere

of

the

kitchen.

Often did

we

hear

a

prompt laugh filling

the

room from

a

dark

figure at ease

against the wall, before the rest

of

us

at

table had expressed

our

amusement

at

one

of

Father's

remarks.

George

was

a great

addition

to

the

family

and

afforded

Father almost

as

much

amusement as Father

did George.

Another

pronounced

character

in the

household

was

the coachman

[Patrick McAleer]. He

persuaded me

that

if

I

curried

the

calf every

morn-

ing

and

put

a

saddle

and bridle on him he

would turn

into

a

horse.

The

idea

seemed

marvelous to

me

and I was

always

ready

to believe

in mira-

cles, even

at

the

age

of six.

. . .

A

third

servant

in

the house with

plenty

of

imagination was

Mother's

maid,

Katy Leary.

She and the

butler

used

to

fight in such

picturesque

language

that

Father

often

threatened

to

put

them in print.

Yet,

in

spite

of the

descriptive names they

called each

other

when

quarreling,

they

were

at other

times

the

best

of

friends.

Katy

Leary

gave

a

below-stairs view of

the daily

routine:

Well,

the day

would begin

like

this :

We

had

breakfast about

half-past

seven,

and at that time

the

family

—

meaning

Mr.

and

Mrs. Clemens

never

came down

for

their breakfast

till about

eleven

o'clock.

They didn't

get

up

so

early,

but

I used

to

go

m

when

Mrs. Clemens

would ring

for

me

and

brushed her

hair and

helped

her dress

and

then they

would

come

down to

breakfast

say

about

eleven o'clock,

and then Mr.

Clemens

(he

never eat

any

lunch,

you

know),

he'd

go to

his

billiard

room

to write.

He

left strict

orders not to

have anybody

disturb him—

oh, for

nothing

Some

days

he

worked

harder than

others

;

but

every

day

not

to

disturb

him

as

he

was

a

very

busy

writer.

Well,

he would

appear

again about

half-past five

(they

had

dinner at

six o'clock

in those

days).

He'd come

down

and

get

ready for

dinner

and Mrs.

Clemens

would get ready too.

Mrs.

Clemens

always put

on

a

lovely dress for

dinner, even

when

we

was

alone,

and

they

always

had

music during

dinner.

They had

a

music box

in

the

hall,

and George

would

set that

going

at

dinner

every day.

Played

nine

pieces,

that

music box did ; and he

always

set

it

going every

night.

They

brought

it from

Geneva,

and it

was

wonderful. It

was

foreign.

It

used to

play

all

by

itself

—

it

wasn't

like

a

Victrola,

you

know. It just

went

with

a

crank.

Katy

Leary

s

Mhjwrrr

lsi

^'^

>'^

f

fK

f^

L^L^

i

Twain

designed

this chart to record

his

difficulties with

the telephone.

Clara

with

her

calf,

Jumbo.

C9



human

is

pathetic.

secret source

of

Humor itself

not

joy

but

sorrow.

is

no

humor in

heaven.

'

'

the

Equator

B

§©usefyl

©f Talente

Mrs.

Clemens'

nephew,

Jervis

Langdon, described

a

long-established

practice in

the

Clemens household

One of the

pleasantest

neighborhood

customs

that grew

up

in

the

Hart-

ford

home

was the

gathering,

of

an

evening, around

the

library

fire

while

Mr.

Clemens

read aloud. He

liked

stirring

poetry,

which

he

read

admir-

ably,

sometimes rousing his little

audience

to

excitement and

cheers.

Shakespeare

remained,

by whichever name,

the

love

of

his

heart,

but

he

made his

own

unique programs,

and

once mischievously slipped

between

two

of the

deathless

sonnets

a

particularly charming reading of

a

little

set

of verses accidentally

come

into his hands, that

had

been

painstakingly

written

for

a

school

periodical

by

one of the

children.

The

listeners

invariably

demanded

at

the

end

three

favorites,

How

They Brought the

Good

News from Ghent

to

Aix,

Up

at a

Villa,

Down

in the

City,

and

for climax, The Battle

of

Naseby,

which

he

delivered

with

supreme

eloquence

and

emotion.

J^

c^/^^-e

-5-.=-<

:?&.

{or

The Prince and the

Pauper.

spell it

Vinci and

pronounce

Vinchy ;

foreigners

always

better than

they

pronounce.

'

'

Innocents

Abroad

make

the

man.

people have

little or no

in society.

'

'

Maxims of Mark

But

Twain

was

not

the

only

performer

in the

household.

In

his

autobiography, he

told

of his children's early dramatic endeavors:

Susy

[Twain's

oldest

daughter] and her

nearest

neighbor,

Margaret

Warner, often

devised tragedies

and

played

them

in the

school

room,

with little

Jean's

help

—with closed doors—

no

admission

to

anybody.

The

chief characters

were always

a

couple of

queens,

with

a

quarrel in stock

historical

when

possible,

but

a

quarrel anyway, even

if it had to be

a

work

of the

imagination.

Jean

always

had one

function

—

only

one. She

sat

at

a

little

table about

a foot

high and drafted

death

warrants

for

these

queens

to

sign.

In

the course of

time

they completely

wore out

Elizabeth

and

Mary,

Queen

of Scots

—

also all of

Mrs.

Clemens's

gowns that

they

could

get

hold of

—

for

nothing charmed these monarchs like

having

four

or five feet of gown

dragging

on

the floor

behind.

Mrs. Clemens

and I

spied

upon

them

more than once, which

was

treacherous conduct—

but

I don't

think

we

very seriously

minded

that.

It

was

grand

to

see

the

queens

stride back

and

forth and

reproach

each

other

in

three-or-four-syllable

words

dripping with blood

;

and it was

pretty

to

see

how

tranquil

Jean

was

through

it

all.

Familiarity

with

daily

death and

carnage

had

hardened

her

to crime and

suffering

in

all their forms,

and they were

no

longer

able

to

hasten

her pulse

by

a

beat. Sometimes when there

was

a

long

interval

between

death

warrants she even leaned her head

on

her table and went

to

sleep.

. .

,

Clara

Clemens

remembered how her father sometimes took

part

in

charades

in the

parlor:

We were trying

to enact the story

of

Hero and Leander. Mark Twain

played the

part

of

the impassioned

lover obliged

to

swim across

the Hel-

lespont to

snatch

a

kiss from

his sweetheart

on

the

other

side of

the

foaming

water.

For this scene

Father

wore

a

bathing-suit,

a

straw

hat

tied under his chin with

a

big

bow, and

a

hot-water bottle

slung

around

his

chest.

Katy

Leary tells

of the

first

dramatization

of

Twain's

The

Prince and the

Pauper:

Well,

the play

was

done in the drawing-room

and

the conservatory was

the Palace

garden,

and

it looked just

like

a

real

palace.

Oh, it looked

70



The actresses

in

a

phiy

by

Su.sv

CU-incns are

(left

to

liglii):

Clara.

Charles

Dudley

Warner's

niece

Margaret,

Jean

Clemens, Susy,

and

another

neighbor,

Fanny

Friese.

brilliant

and lovely All the audience

set

in the

living-room

and

dining-

room. Mr.

Clemens

was in it, too, and

he

was so funny,

just his walk was

funny

—

the way

he walked

He made

out

he

was quite

lame

when he

was

walking

out in

the

play.

(He

was

Miles

Hendon.)

Then

he

rang

the

bell

for

me

to

bring

the pitcher

of water in,

and he

poured it out the wrong

way—

by

the handle and

not

by

the

nose

—

and of

course

that took down

the house

They roared at him

when

it

was

over. Then

he

made

a

few

remarks, telling how his wife

got

up this thing

to

surprise him,

and it

did

surprise

him, because

it

was

the most wonderfully

got

up thing

he'd

ever

seen.

Ot

all

the Clemens children, Susy was perhaps the most talented,

as Clara

recognized:

My

elder

sister,

Susy . . .

was

altogether

the

genius

among

the children.

She

had

marked

talent

for

writing

and

composed

a

charming

little

play

when

she

was

not

more

than

fourteen

or

fifteen.

We

performed

it one

Thanksgiving

night for

a

large company

of

invited friends,

and all

agreed

that it

was

full

of originality.

Susy Clemens poses

as

the

prince in Mark

Twain's

The Prince

and

the Pauper.

Clara

took the part

ot

Lady

Jane

Grey.

Susy at

thirteen

worked on

a

biography

of

her

famous

father, which

began:

We

are

a

very

happy

family.

We consist

of Papa,

Mamma,

Jean,

Clara

and me. It is

papa

I

am writing

about,

and

I

shall have

no

trouble

in

not

knowing what to say

about him,

as

he is

a

very striking

character.

Papa's

appearance has

been described many times, but

very

incorrectly.

He

has beautiful

gray

hair,

not

any too

thick

or

any too

long,

but

just

right;

a

Roman nose,

which greatly improves

the

beauty of

his features;

kind

blue eyes,

and

a

small

mustache.

He

has

a

very

good

figure

—

in

short,

he

is an extraordinarily fine

looking

man.

All his

features are

per-

fect, except

that

he

hasn't

extraordinary teeth.

His

complexion

is very

fair,

and

he doesn't

ware

a

beard.

He

is a very good man and

a

very

funny

one.

He has

got

a

temper,

but

we

all

of

us

have

in

this

family.

He is the

loveliest

man I

ever saw

or ever

hope

to

see

—

and oh,

so absent-minded.

He

does tell

perfectly

delightful

stories. Clara and

I

used

to

sit

on

each

arm of his

chair

and listen

while he

told us stories about the

pictures

on

the

wall.

.

. .

To

have nothing

the matter

with you and no habits

is

pretty

tame,

pretty color

It

is just

the

way

a

saint

feels, I reckon ; it is at

least the way

he looks.

'

Europe

and

Elsewhere

71



In

the

billiard room

of his ram-

bling Hartford house, Twain

wrote

some

of his greatest

works,

including

The

Adventures

of

Tom

Sawyer,

Life on

the

Mis-

sissippi, and

Huckleberry

Finn.

In

a

photograph

taken

after

he

left

Hartford,

Twain

is shown

indulging in

his

favorite

pastime

with

Louise

Paine,

daughter

of

his

biographer,

A.

B, Paine.

Of her

father's

passion for

bil-

liards,

Susy

once commented,

it

seemed

to

rest

his

head.

At another time

she wrote:

He is

as much of

a

philosopher

as

anything,

I think. I

think

he

could

have

done

a great deal in this direction if

he had

studied

while young,

for

he

seems

to

enjoy reasoning

out

things, no

matter

what ;

in a

great

many

such directions

he

has

greater ability

than

in the gifts

which have

made

him

famous.

Twain

found

his house admirable

for family life and

entertaining,

but a

difficult one

in

which

to

write—

even

letters.

He

wrote

to

Mrs.

Fairbanks:

As

soon

as you departed, Livy arranged

a

writing

table

near the

con-

servatory,

so

that

I could

have

the writing conveniences I

had

been

wail-

ing

about so much.

She

put

a

box,

called a

writing

desk,

on

this

table

a

box

which

opens in the middle

&

discloses

two

closed

lids;

inside

of

these lids

are paper,

pen, stamps, ink,

& stamped

envelopes.

To

get

either

of

those

lids

open

pushes patience

to

the

verge

of

profanity, &

then you

find that

the

article

you

want is under

the

other

lid.

She

put

a delicate

glass

vase

on top

of that box

&

arranged

pots

of flowers round about

it.

Lastly

she leaned

a

large

picture

up

against

the

front of the

table.

Then

she

stood off

&

beamed

upon

her

work & observed,

with

the

Almighty,

that

it

was

good.

So

she

went

aloft

to

her nap with

a

satisfied

heart &

a

soul at

peace.

When

she

returned,

two

hours

later,

I had

accomplished

a

letter,

&

the

evidences of it were

all

around. The large picture has

gone

to

the

shop

to

be re-framed, the writing desk

has

returned to the

devil

from whom

it

must

have come, but

the

flower pots & the

glass

vase

are

beyond the

help

of man.

. .

. Since

that day I

have

gone

back to

pre-

carious letter-writing,

with

a

pencil,

upon encumbered surfaces &

under

harassment

&

persecution,

as

before. But convenience

me

no more

wo-

men's

conveniences,

for

I

will

none

of

them.

He

found professional writing

equally

difficult.

Lathrop

reported:

One would naturally in such

a

place expect

to find

some

perfection

of

a study,

a

literary work-room,

and

that has indeed been provided, but

the

unconventional

genius

of

the author could not

reconcile itself

to a

surrounding

the

charms of which distracted

his

attention.

The study re-

mains,

its deep

window

giving

a

seductive outlook

above the

library,

but

Mr.

Clemens

goes

elsewhere.

Pointing

to a

large

divan extending

along

the

two

sides

of a

right-angled corner,

That

was

a

good idea, he

said, which

I got

from

something

I

saw

in

a

Syrian monastery; but I

found it

was

much more

comfortable

to lie there and

smoke

than

to stay

at my

desk. And

then

these

windows—

I was

constantly getting

up

to

look

at

the

view ; and

when

one

of our

beautiful

heavy snow-falls came

in

winter,

I

couldn't

do

anything

at

all

except

gaze

at

it.

So

he has

moved

still

higher

upstairs

into

the billiard room, and there

writes at a

table

placed

in such

wise that

he can

see

nothing

but the wall in front

of

him

and

a

couple

of shelves

of

books.

A

reporter

from

the

New

York World

described

the billiard room:

This room

is

a

treat.

A

big billiard

table with

black and

gold

legs

stands in the middle of

it.

. . .

Mark Twain's

desk

stands in

the southern

corner

piled with business papers.

Shelves of books line

the

walls

of

72



this

angle. Parleyings

with Certain People

rubs

covers with the

United

States Newspaper Directory, and

a

commentary

on the Old Testament

is

neighborly and shows no

ill-feeling

towards

Ruskin, who stands

near at

hand

in

a red

binding. The ground glass

of the nearest window is

deco-

rated with

a

beerstein,

gules,

two long-stemmed

pipes

rampant

and other

devices

of

festivity. Pipes and

boxes

and

jars of

tobacco are

tucked

in

here

and

there wherever there is

room.

The pipes are of

corn-cob

and

burned

to

a

jet

black

by

much usage.

. .

.

The room

presented

housekeeping

problems for

Katy

Leary:

Now,

I must tell

you all

about them precious manuscripts.

Mr.

Clemens

always

did all

his writing

up

in the Billiard Room. He

had

a

table there,

you know, and Mrs. Clemens used

to go

up and

dust

that table

every

morning and arrange his

manuscript

and writing,

if

he didn't arrange

it

himself,

which

he

sometimes

used to

do.

He

took

good care of

it

—

he

thought

he

did,

anyway

Oh,

he was

very particular

Nobody

was

allowed

to touch them manuscripts

besides

Mrs.

Clemens.

The reason

is

explained

by

Twain's method

of

work:

My billiard table is stacked up

with books

relating

to

the

Sandwich

Islands: the walls are

upholstered

with

scraps of paper penciled with

notes

drawn from

them.

I

have

saturated

myself

with

knowledge

of that

unimaginably

beautiful

land

and

that most

strange and

fascinating

people.

And I

have

begun

a

story.

Paine observed that the

room

was

also

used for

its

original

purpose:

Every

Friday

evening,

or oftener,

a

small

party of

billiard-lovers

gath-

ered,

and

played

until

a late

hour, told

stories,

and

smoked

till the room

was

blue, comforting themselves

with hot

Scotch

and general good-fellow-

ship. Mark Twain

always

had

a

genuine

passion

for billiards.

He was

never

tired

of

the game. He could

play

all night. He

would

stay

till

the

last

man

gave

out

from

sheer

weariness; then

he

would

go on knocking

the balls about alone.

He

liked

to

invent

new

games

and new

rules for

old games, often

inventing

a

rule

on the spur

of the moment to fit some

particular shot or position on

the

table. It amused

him highly

to do

this,

to

make the rule

advantage his own

play,

and to pretend

a

deep

indigna-

tion

when

his

opponents disqualified his

rulings and

rode

him

down.

The

difference between

the

right word

and

the

almost

right

w

is the

difference between

lightning

and

the

lightning

bug.

'

'As to the

Adjective:

when

in

doubt, strike it

out.

'

'

The Tragedy

of

Pudd'nhead

Wilson

Twain's bed

came

from

Venice,

Twain

always

rose

late in the

morning,

and did

much

of his

work

in

bed. In

this

photograph,

the crumpled pillow

and the

author's

unruly hair

combined

to give the

illusion

of

a

small

figure crouching at his ear

(see

sketch).

Viewing

the picture,

Twain

remarked,

People

often

ask me

where

I get my ideas.

. . . A little imp whispers in my

ear and

tells

me

what

to say.**



.T?,;>?^4,i

Childe

Hassam sketched

the

veranda

known

as

the Ombra lor Harper's

Monthly

in

1896.

Tropical

plants

and

a

tiny

fountain

embellished

the

conservatory

o/ the Hartford

house,

where the

Clemenses entertained

and the children

put on their theatrical

performances.

holy passion of

Friendship

of

so

sweet

and steady and loyal

enduring

a nature

that

it

last

through a

whole

lifetime,

not

asked

to lend

money.

'

'

Tragedy of

Pudd'nhead

Wilson

is everything. The

was

once

a

bitter almond

;

is nothing

but

with

a

college

education.

Tragedy of Pudd'nhead

Wilson

a

good thing Adam had

he

said

a

good

thing

he

knew

had

said it before.

'

'

Twain's

Notebook

Albert Bigelow

Paine described

the

Clemenses' rigorous social life:

Company came

:

distinguished

guests

and the

old neighborhood

circles.

Dinner-parties

were

more frequent

than

ever, and

they

were

likely

to be

brilliant

affairs. The

best

minds,

the

brightest wits gathered around

Mark

Twain's table.

Booth, Barrett, Irving,

Sheridan, Sherman,

Howells,

Aldrich: they

all assembled,

and many more. There

was

always

someone

on

the

way

to

Boston

or

New

York

who addressed himself for

the

day

or

the

night,

or

for

a

brief call, to

the

Mark

Twain

fireside.

Katy

Leary

told of their lavish

manner

of entertaining:

I always

helped

George wait

on

table if there

was

over twelve

at

the

dinner. Mr.

Clemens

wouldn't

be

expected, at

a

regular

dinner

party,

in

them

days,

to get

up

and

walk

around and talk—the way he

used

to

later

on

; but

he did walk

about

sometimes at dinner when the

family

was

all

alone

—walked

and talked. He

loved that.

When

Mr.

Clemens used to

get

up

and walk

and talk

at

the dinner table, he used to

always

be

wav-

ing

his

napkin

to

kind

of

illustrate

what

he was

saying,

I

guess. He seemed

to

be

able

to

talk

better when

he

was

walking

than when he was

settin'

down.

. . .

Well,

at those dinners,

as

I was telling you,

we

had soup

first, of

course,

and

then the beef

or

ducks,

you

know,

and then

we'd

have

wine

with

our cigars,

and we'd have sherry,

claret,

and

champagne, maybe

—Now

what

else?

Oh,

yes We'd

always

have

creme de

menthe and most

always

charlotte

russe, too. Then we'd sometimes

have

Nesselrode

pudding

and

very

often ice

cream

for

the

most

elegant dinners.

No,

never

plain ordi-

nary

ice cream—

we

always

had our ice cream

put

up

in some

wonderful

shapes—

like

flowers

or

cherubs,

little angels

—

all

different

kinds

and

different

shapes

and flavors, and

colors—

oh

everything lovely

And

74



then

after the company

had

eat

up

all

the

little

ice-cream

angels, the

ladies

would

all

depart

into the

living

room

and

the gentlemen

would sit

(lounge, I think

they

called it)

around

the table and

have

a

little

more

champagne

(maybe)

while we passed

the

coffee to

the

ladies in

the

draw-

ing room,

where

they'd

drink

it and

then

set down

and gossip awhile.

Clara

recalled:

When dinner

parties

were

given,

Susy

and

I

used to

sit on the

stairs

and

listen to

the broken

bits

of

conversation coming from

the

dining room.

We

got

into this

habit

because we

used

to

hear so

many

peals

of laugh-

ter in

the

distance that

we would

run

to

discover

the

cause

of

all the

mirth.

Almost

always

it

turned

out

that

Father

was

telling

a

funny

story.

Now,

it happened

that

a

few times

Father

had told the same

story

on various

occasions

when guests

were

dining

at

the house

and

we

calculated

that

each

time the

meal was

about

half

over. So

we used to

announce

to

each

other, Father is

telling

the

beggar story;

they must

have

reached

the

meat

course. When

he

discovered

that

his children were taking

their

turn at

having jokes about

him,

he

laughed

as

much

as

if we

had been

very witty.

Mrs. Thomas

Bailey Aldrich,

wile of the critic

and

poet,

described

one

memorable

winter evening:

It

was

voted

at

dinner

that the company

would not

disband until

the

genial morn

appeared, and

that there should be at

midnight

a

wassail

brewed.

The

rosy apples

roasted

at

the

open

fire,

the

wine

and

sugar

added,

and

the

ale

—but

at

this

point

Mrs. Clemens

said,

Youth,

we

have

no ale. There was

a

rapid

exit

by

Mr.

Clemens,

who

reappeared

in

a

moment in his historic

sealskin

coat

and

cap,

but

still wearing

his low-

cut evening

shoes.

He

said he

wanted

a

walk,

and

was

going

to

the village

for the ale,

and should

shortly return

with the

ingredient. Deaf, abso-

lutely

deaf,

to

Mrs.

Clemens's

earnest voice,

that

he

should

at

least

wear

overshoes

that

snowy

night,

he

disappeared.

In

an

incredibly short

time

he

reappeared,

excited

and

hilarious,

with

his

rapid

walk

in

the

frosty

air—very

wet

shoes,

and

no

cap. . . .

Mr.

Clemens

was

sent for

George,

with

Mrs. Clemens's

instructions

that

George

should carefully

retrace

Mr. Clemens's

footsteps

in the quest

for the

mislaid

cap, and

also to see

that

Mr.

Clemens

put

on

dry

shoes.

When

the

culprit

returned, the wet

low shoes

had

been

exchanged

for

a

pair

of

white

cowskin slippers,

with the

hair outside,

and clothed in them,

with

most sober

and

smileless

face,

he

twisted

his

angular body

into

all

the

strange

contortions

known

to

the

dancing

darkies of the South.

In

this

wise

the

last

day

of the

joyous,

jubilant visit

came

to the close. Un-

troubled

by

the

flight

of

time I

can

still hear

a

soft

and

gentle

tone,

Youth,

O

Youth

for so she

always called

him.

Clara

describes

their Christmas

celebrations:

When

Christmas

Eve arrived at

last, we

children

hung

up

our stock-

ings

in

the

schoolroom

next to

our

nursery,

and did it

with great ceremony.

Mother

always

recited

the

thrilling

little poem,

Twas the night before

Christmas, when

all

through the

house,

etc.

Father

sometimes

dressed

up as

Santa

Claus

and,

after running about

a

dimly lighted room (we

al-

ways

turned

the

gas

down

low),

trying to

warm

himself

after

the

cold

drive through

the

snow,

he

sat down

and told some

of his

experiences

on

the

way.

Thomas

Bailey Aldrich

George Washington

Cable

William

Dean

Howells

Three

prominent

literary fig-

ures of

the time

were

often

guests at

the Hartford

house.

Novelists Aldrich

and How-

ells both edited

the Atlantic

Monthly;

Cable,

the noted

southern

writer, several times

took

to the

profitable

lec-

ture

circuit

with

Twain.

75



Twain

in

his

thirties.

Clara (left)

holds

the

family

dog,

Flash,

while

Jean

and Susy

look

on.

Olivia

L. Clemens.

. . .

always

drew

a

sigh

of

when the holidays

were over.

reason was

that

they

social festivities

that were

a

burden to

him,

if

he

happened

to

be

the mood of

writing ;

and

this mood,

was

wont

to

declare,

attacked

him when some

dead

people

their

corpses

with them

a

long

visit. '

'

'

Clemens, My

Father,

Mark

Twain

isn't

a

Parallel of

itude but thinks it would

been

the

Equator

it

had had its rights.

'

the Equator

In

a

letter

written

to Susy on

Christmas morning, Twain

played

Santa Claus:

Palace of St.

Nicholas in the Moon

Christmas Morning

My Dear Susie

Clemens:

I have

received

and read all the letters which

you

and

your

little

sister

have written me

by the

hand of

your

mother and

your

nurses

;

I

have also

read those which

you

little people have written me with

your

own hands

—for although you did

not

use any characters

that

are

in grown

peoples'

alphabet,

you

use the

characters that all

children

in

all

lands on earth

and

in the twinkling

stars

use

;

and

as all

my

subjects in the moon are

children and

use

no

character

but that,

you

will

easily

understand

that

I

can

read

your

and

your

baby

sister's

jagged

and

fantastic marks with-

out any

trouble at

all.

But I

had

trouble

with

those

letters which

you

dictated

through

your mother and the nurses, for I am

a

foreigner

and

cannot

read English

writing

well.

You

will

find that I

made no mistakes

about the

things

which

you

and

the

baby

ordered

in your

own letters

I

went

down

your chimney

at

midnight

when

you

were

asleep and

delivered them all myself

—

and

kissed

both of you, too,

because

you

are

good

children.

. .

.

There

was

a

word or

two in your mama's

letter

which I couldn't

be

certain

of.

I

took

it

to be

trunk full of doll's

clothes.

Is that it? I will

call

at

your kitchen

door

about nine o'clock this morning

to

inquire. But

I must not see anybody and I must not speak to

anybody

but you. When

the

kitchen door

bell

rings

George

must

be

blindfolded

and

sent

to

open

the door.

Then

he

must go

back to the dining-room

or

the

china

closet

and take

the

cook

with

him. You must

tell George he

must walk

on tiptoe

and

not speak

—otherwise

he

will

die some day. Then you must

go up

to

the

nursery

and stand

on

a

chair or the nurse's

bed

and

put

your

ear

to

the

speaking-tube

that

leads down

to

the

kitchen and when

I

whistle

through

it

you

must

speak

in the

tube

and

say,

Welcome,

Santa

Claus

Then

I

will

ask

whether

it

was

a

trunk

you

ordered

or

not. If

you

say

it was, I

shall

ask

what color

you

want

the trunk to be.

Your

mama will

help

you to name

a

nice color and

then

you

must tell

me

every

single

thing in detail which

you want the trunk to contain.

. .

.

Then

you

must

go down into

the

library

and

make

George

close

all

the doors that

open

into

the

main

hall,

and everybody must keep

still

for

a

little while.

I will

go to

the

moon

and

get

those

things .

. .

Your

loving

SANTA

CLAUS



In

1885,

Twain was

fifty.

Paine

summarized

his

position:

So

Samuel

Clemens

had

reached

the

half-century

mark; reached

it in

what

seemed the fullness

of

success from

every

viewpoint.

If

he

was not

yet

the

foremost

American

man

of

letters,

he

was

at

least

the

most

widely

known

—

he

sat

upon

the

highest

mountain-top.

Furthermore,

it seemed

to

him

that

fortune

was

showering

her

gifts

into

his

lap.

His

unfortunate

investments

were

now only

as the

necessary

experiments

that

had led

him

to larger

successes. As

a

publisher,

he was

already

the most

con-

spicuous

in the

world,

and

he

contemplated

still larger

ventures:

a type-

setting

machine

patent,

in which

he had invested,

and

now largely

con-

trolled,

he regarded

as

the chief

invention

of

the

age,

absolutely

certain

to

yield

incalculable

wealth. His

connection

with

the

Grant

family

[Twain's

firm had

published the General's

memoirs]

had

associated him

with

an enterprise

looking

to

the building

of a

railway

from Constanti-

nople

to

the Persian

Gulf.

Charles A. Dana,

of

the

Sun, had

put

him in

the

way

of

obtaining

for publication

the life

of

the Pope,

Leo

XHI,

officially

authorized

by

the Pope

himself, and this he

regarded

as

a

certain fortune.

Twain

had most ol his

money

invested in the

Paige

type-setting

machine and

the

Charles

L.

Webster Publishing

Company. Katy Leary

tells

o(

his hopes

for the machine:

Well,

now

I'll tell

you about the

type-setting machine. That's

a long

story. Mr.

Clemens' heart

was

just

set on that, he believed in

it

so. He

was expecting

such wonderful

things from it.

Why, he thought

he

could

buy

all

New

York.

He

was

asking

how

much

it

would

take to

buy

all

the

railroads

in

New York,

and all the

newspapers,

too

—buy

everything

in

New

York

on account

of

that type-setting machine.

He

thought he'd

make

millions

and own

the

world,

because he

had

such

faith in it.

That

was

Mr. Clemens'

way.

Howells

explains

the

eventual

end of these hopes:

He

was

. .

.

absorbed

in

the

perfection

of

a

type-setting machine, which

he was

paying

the

inventor

a

salary

to bring to

a

perfection

so

expensive

that

it

was practically

impracticable.

We

were

both

printers

by

trade,

and

I

could

take the same interest

in

this

wonderful piece of

mechanism

that

he

could

;

and it

was so

truly wonderful that

it did

everything

but

walk

and talk. Its ingenious

creator was so bent

upon

realizing

the

highest ideal

in

it

that

he produced

a

machine of quite unimpeachable

efficiency.

But it

was

so

costly,

when

finished, that it

could

not

be

made

for less than twenty

thousand dollars, if

the

parts were made

by

hand.

This

sum was prohibitive

of its

introduction,

unless

the

requisite capital

could

be

found

for

making

the parts

by

machinery,

and

Clemens

spent

many months

in

vainly

trying

to

get

this

money

together. In

the mean-

time simpler machines had

been

invented and

the

market

filled,

and

his

investment

of

three

hundred

thousand

dollars

in the beautiful

miracle

remained

permanent

but

not

profitable.

I once went with him

to

witness

its

performance, and

it did

seem

to me

the

last word in

its

way, but

it

had

been

spoken too exquisitely,

too

fastidiously.

.

. .

'

'

One

thing

at

a

time

is my

motto

—

and

just

play

that

thing

for

all

it

is worth,

even if

it's

only

two pair and

a

jack.

A Connecticut

Yankee in

King

Arthur's

Court

'

There

are two

times in

a

man

's

life when he

should

not

speculate

when

he

can

't afiford it

and

when

he

can.

'

'

Following the

Equator

The

Paige

typesetter.

The man

with

a

new idea

is

a

Crank

until

the idea succeed

Following

the Equator

Twain

confided

to his notebook

his

exasperation with

the

machine

and

its inventors:

December

20, 1890.

About

three

weeks

ago

the

machine

was pronounced

77



Charles

L. Webster,

Twain's

partner.

'

'

Every

one

is

a

moon

and has

a

dark

side

which

he

never

shows to

anybody.

'

'

Following

the

Equator

finished

by

Paige, for certainly the

half-dozenth

time

in the

past

twelve

months. Then

it

transpired

—

I mean it

was

discovered

—that

North had

failed

to

inspect

the

period,

and

it sometimes

refused to

perform

properly.

But to

correct that

error would take

just

one

day,

and

only

one day—the

merest trifle in the world.

I

said

this

sort

of mere trifle

had

interfered

often

before and had always

cost ten times as

much

time

and money

as

their

loose

calculations

promised.

Paige

and Davis

knew

(they always

know,

never guess) that this correction would

cost

but

one single

day.

Well,

the

best part of two weeks went

by. I

dropped in

(last

Monday

noon) and

they

were

still tinkering.

Still

tinkering,

but just

one hour,

now,

would

see

the machine

at work,

blemishless, and

never

stop

again

for

a

generation ; the hoary old song that has been sung to weariness in my

ears

by

these frauds

and

liars

Twain's

publishing house

was

also in

distress, for

the

much-vaunted

life

of

the

Pope

had proved

a

commercial failure. Clara wrote:

A

few

years

before

he

had sunk most of his earnings in the Charles

L.

Webster Publishing

Company, for

a

time a

successful concern. Owing

to bad business years,

bad

investments and

mismanagement, however,

the

publishing house

was

rapidly

losing

ground.

Its fall would

cause

my

father

financial losses, grave losses, indeed. Therefore, it

was

decided

we

should

go

to

Europe,

where

we

could

live

more

reasonably

until

some-

thing

should be done

to

improve our

straitened

situation.

Few

of us

can

stand

prosperity.

Another

man 's,

I mean.

'

'

Following

the

Equator

(yk,r7>

_.«V^^.^

.^.^^^^ X^>.,

^^-^.^ G^/:.

^A^

ri^.

J^yXr^^:7=^r?.,

Twain's

firm, which published

U. S.

Grant's

war memoirs,

paid

a $200,000 check to his

^vidow

as a

first

royalty.

The

canceled check

is owned by the

Players

Club

in New

York.

'

'

Paige

and I always

meet

on

effusively

affectionate

terms,

and

yet he knows,

perfectly well,

that

if I had

him

in a steel

trap

I would

shut

out

all

human

succor and

watch

that trap,

until

he

died.

'

'

Mark Twain's

Notebook

In

1891,

the family left for Europe. Paine

described

their last

day

in Hartford:

. . .

the

maintenance

was

far

too

costly for his present

and

prospective

income.

The

house

with

its associations

of

seventeen

incomparable

years

must

be

closed. A great period had ended.

. . .

The

day

came for departure

and

the

carriage

was

at

the door. Mrs.

Clemens

did

not come imme-

diately.

She

was

looking

into

the

rooms,

bidding

a

kind

of

silent

good-by

to the

home

she

had

made and

to

all its memories.

Three

years later, Twain's

publishing house

went

bankrupt.

On

April

20,

1894,

the

Hartford Courant

reported:

MARK TWAIN'S FAILURE

Talk of

the Street—

Some Rumors set

Right.

The announcement

in

yesterday's

Courant

of

the

assignment

of

Mark

Twain's

publishing house of

Charles

L. Webster

&

Co., caused

a

great

deal of talk

about

town, yesterday. The expressions

of

sympathy

and regret

are universal,

for Mr. Clemens,

as

a

citizen of

Hartford, has

made

a

host

of friends

here,

and

his

hospitality

has

been

proverbial.

So many

idle

and

unfounded stories

were

in

circulation

that it seems

proper to say,

by

authority,

that

the

beautiful family

residence of

the

Clemenses

on

Farmington

avenue, in this

city,

is and

always

has

been

the property

of

Mrs.

Clemens.

The land

was bought

and

the

house

built

out of the

private fortune which was her own

inheritance.

After

a

brief

visit

to

the Hartford

house

in

1895,

Twain

wrote

to

his wife:

When

I

arrived

in

town

I

did

not

want

to

go

near the house,

& I

78



didn't

want

to

go

anywhere or see

anybody. I

said

to

myself, If

I

may

be spared

it

I

will never

live in

Hartford again.

But as

soon

as

I

entered

this front

door I was

seized

with a furious

desire

to

have

us

all

in this

house

again

&

right away,

& never

go outside

the

grounds

any

more

forever

—

certainly never

again

to

Europe.

How

ugly, tasteless,

repulsive,

are

all

the

domestic interiors

I

have

ever

seen

in

Europe

compared with

the perfect

taste of this

ground

floor,

with its

delicious

dream

of

harmonious

color,

&

its all-pervading

spirit

of

peace

&

serenity &

deep

contentment. You did it all,

&

it speaks

of

you

&

praises

you

eloquently

&

unceasingly.

It

is

the loveliest

home

that ever was.

I

had no faintest idea

of

what

it

was

like.

I

supposed

I had, for I

have

seen it in its wraps

and disguises several

times

in

the

past

three

years

; but

it was

a

mistake

; I

had

wholely

forgotten

its

olden

aspect.

And so,

when

I

stepped in at

the front

door

&

was

suddenly

confronted

by

all its richness

& beauty

minus wraps and

concealments,

it

almost took

my

breath away.

Katy had

every

rug

&

picture

&

orna-

ment

&

chair

exactly where

they had always

belonged, the

place

was

bewitchingly bright

&

splendid

&

homelike

& natural,

&

it seemed as

if

I had

burst

awake

out

of

a

hellish

dream, &

had never been away, &

that

you

would come drifting

down

out

of

those

dainty

upper

regions

with the little

children tagging after

you.

Later that year

Twain set off with his wife

and

Clara on

a

lecture

tour

around the world,

leaving

Jean

and Susy in America. Katy Leary

relates:

Well,

they

started

off, and, oh, it

was

hard to let

them go

We all

felt terrible

at parting

again.

They went

to

Vancouver and

to

California

and

lectured

;

then

sailed

from California

to

Australia,

where

they

started

their

grand tour. He lectured all

around

in these

different places and

it

was

a

great success—a

triumph,

you

might call it; and

then

they came

back to London and

was

going

to

take

a

house

and

settle

down

there,

and

I

was

to meet

them

in

London with the

girls later

on.

By this

time

Susy got

kind

of

lonesome

staying

up on the farm

so

she

decided

to

go to New York

for

a

little change. She

visited

Dr. Rice

and

she

stayed

with the

Howells,

too, for

a

little visit;

then

she

come

back

to

Hartford.

. . .

The Hartford house

was

closed and she couldn't

go

there;

so

she went

to

Mrs.

Charles

Dudley

Warner's,

and I took

a

little

apartment

on

Spring

Street.

I

lived

in it

and

Susy'd

come

over

every

day

to

do

her practicing.

. . .

Well, there

was

always

a

crowd

outside in the street

listening

to

Susy

sing,

for

she had

a

wonderful voice and really we had

a concert

every

afternoon. . . .

By then we

were

getting

letters that

the

family was

nearing

Europe,

and

the next thing

we got a

cable

to

come

at

once, to

sail for London the

following Saturday,

Susy,

Jean,

and I. ... I went up

to

the Warners' and

I

found

Susy

wasn't

feeling

very

well.

She

looked

very

bad

and

says:

Oh,

Katy,

did

you

come for

me?

I

said,

Yes.

Then she

says

:

Oh,

have I got

to

leave now?

She was

really

in

an

awful state and I said :

Yes,

Susy.

Oh

she says, I

don't

think

I can

start now. Couldn't we

wait

till

evening,

when

it's cooler?

Well,

I said,

that's

all

right.

It's

pretty

hot

now

and

we can

go

in

the

evening

when

it's

cooler. This was

in

the morning, and

then

I

went

to our own

house

to

get a

few things we

needed,

and

when

I

got

back in

the

afternoon, Susy was in

a

pitiful state,

so

sick

and

full

of

fever.

CULVER

SERVICE

J.

Keppler

caricatured

Mark

Twain

on

the

lecture platform

for

Puck.

SR00n,TO

ACAIDI? Of UTSIC, FEB.

7tli

TicktU (It

^44

Ftttton

St.

aiui

17

'i

yttmtiioue

SI.

This jumping

frog

poster announced

a

Twain reading

in

Brooklyn,

1869.

'You can

straighten

a

worm,

but

the

crook

is in him

and

only waiting.

'

'

More

Maxims of Mark

79



Susy, shortly

before

her

death.

'

All

say,

'

How hard

it

is

that

we have

to die

'

—a

strange

complaint

to come

from the mouths

of

people

who have

had

to

live.

'

The

Tragedy

of

Pudd'nhead Wilson

So I

hurried

right off

and

I got

Dr.

Porter

right

away, and he

said

she

was coming

down

with spinal meningitis. That evening she

got

very

bad. I

saw

then

she

couldn't travel.

. . .

But poor Susy

got

worse

and

worse. Mr. Langdon come to Hartford

in

the

morning

and

we

took her over

to the old home.

She was

very sick

and she wouldn't take

a

bit of medicine from anybody but me. She

wouldn't

let

the nurses

touch

her or come near

her,

so

I sat by

her night

and day—

night

and day,

I

sat Oh, it

was

a

terrible time

My heart

aches even

now

when

I

think

of it,

after all these

years.

Poor

little

Susy

She

died before

we ever

could

sail.

Shattered

by

the news,

Mark

Twain

wrote

from London:

Ah, well,

Susy

died at

home.

She

had

that

privilege.

...

If

she

had

died

in another house

—

well,

I

think

I

could not

have borne that.

To

us,

our

house

was not

unsentient matter

—

it

had a

heart,

and

a

soul, and

eyes

to

see

us

with;

and

approvals,

and

solicitudes,

and deep

sym-

pathies

;

it

was

of

us,

and

we

were in

its

confidence, and

lived

in

its

grace

and

in

the peace of

its benediction. We

never came

home

from an absence

that

its

face

did

not light

up

and speak

out

its

eloquent

welcome

—

and

we could

not

enter

it unmoved.

Almost

two years

after

Susy's

death,

Twain

wrote the following

entry

in

his notebook:

June

11,

'98.

Clara's birthday three days

ago.

Not

a

reference

to

it

has

been made

by

any

member

of the family in

my

hearing

; no

presents,

no

congratulations, no

celebrations.

Up

to

a

year

and

ten

months

ago

all

our

birthdays

from the

beginning

of the

family life

were

annually cele-

brated with

loving

preparations followed

by a

joyous and

jovial outpour-

ing of

thanksgivings.

The birthdays were milestones

on

the march of

happiness.

Then

Susy died.

All

anniversaries of whatever

sort

perished

with

her.

As

we

pass

them now they are only

gravestones. We

cannot

keep from

seeing them

as

we

go

by

but

we

can

keep silent

about

them

and

look

the other

way

and

put

them

out

of

memory as

they

sink out

of

sight

behind

us.

'

Susy

died

at the right time,

the

fortunate time

of

life,

the

happy

age—twenty-four years.

At

twenty-

four, such a

girl

has

seen

the best

of life

—

life

as

a

happy

dream.

After that

age

the

risks

begin

; responsibility

comes,

and

with

it the cares,

the

sorrows,

and

the

inevitable

tragedy.

'

'

Mark Twain's

Autobiography

ADAM

[at Eve's

grave]

:

Wheresoever

she

was,

there

was

Eden.

Eve's

Diary

80

And

later:

The

spirits

of

the dead

hallow

a

house for

me

—Susy

died in the house

we

built

in

Hartford.

Mrs.

Clemens would

never enter

it again.

But it

made

the

house dearer to

me.

I visited it

once

since

;

when

it

was tenant-

less

and

forlorn,

but to

me

it

was

a

holy

place

and

beautiful.

On

April

19,

1902,

the

following notice

appeared

in the Hartford

Courant:

MARK

TWAIN'S

HOME

FOR

SALE.

One

of

the

most

beautiful and

valuable

residences

in

this

city,

located on

Farm-

ington

Avenue, with

a

fro.ntage of

about

SOO

feet on

the

Avenue.

Large

house

with 19 rooms

conveniently

arranged

and

beautifully

decorated:

brick barn with

tenement

for

coachman; green-house.

This is a

rare

opportunity to

purchase

a

magnificent

home in the

best

residential

section

of

the

city.

For

further

particulars

regarding

price,

terms

and

permit to

examine the prem-

ises,

apply

to

Franklin

G.

Whitmore.

700

Main

street,

Hartford,

Conn.,

or

to

Wil-

liam

H.

Hoyt

&

Co.. 15 West

42nd

street,

New

York

City.



Animals

a-coming,

two

by

two:

Up went

the

lid

and you

could

stuff them

in,

Noah

and

all.

Or you could throw

them

at

Brother.

A

toy

is pretty

adaptable.

THE

A



-'/-;. ;

r^.

i^^

-?f

<^

?



F?*»

fr'f^HTss^rif

•

«:•>:'

.

v-

.«

f

f>

f

f

beauty

of

a good

toy is that

picks

out the

really

important

things:

who

actually

row,

for

instance,

the steamer's

great

walking beam,

a good

loud bell on the train.

does the rest. Any boy knows that.

toy is

very

like

a

primitive

painting,

crude imitation

of

life;

for

all that a very

shrewd

glimpse

at

it too,

the collection we

exhibit

here

a

kind of

push-pull

of

American

history.

The

it)th-cenlury

toys

on this page

reflect

the fascin

tion transportation has

always held

for

boys.

The

t

locomotive

Comet, with

her

passenger,

freight,

an

mail cars,

dates

to

187^,

and

the

Chicago horsecar

the

lime

of

the

Columbian

Exposition

of

18^}.

Th

racing shell is

a

cast-iron

pull-toy.

The hose

cart

tin and stenciled Mazeppa,

after

Byron's

Cossack

her

The

steamboat

and

the

painting,

Boy

with a

To

Horse,

by

Joseph W.

Stock, are both

from

about

18^^



Here

was

a

bonanza

for

the

wildly

fortunate

few;

toys were

scarcer then,

and

expected

to

last.

For

action,

we have

a

tin-horse

hoop,

and for good shattering

noise,

a

driun.

Among

the

toys

of

peace

there

is a jack-in-the-box,

ideal for

scaring

sisters,

and

a

panorama

show

to

be

cranked

past

eyes

unused

to

television.

One

might

tire

early

of the Exprefs

company

wagon,

or

the

too-tricky

marble

game,

or

even

the

wind-up

dancers,

but the peddler's

cart,

hung with all

those doodads,

would

last for

years.



Proud,

maternal

Emma

Clark,

doll in

hand,

was

painted by

an

unknown

artist.

Year?

About

1830.

Girls

have

loved

dolls since

civilization

began;

Queen

Victoria

had

some,

unlikely

as it

seems,

and

so

did

the

Egyptians.

They

turn

up

in

tombs.

Americans

have

made

them

out

of

everything:

rag,

chicken

bones,

wood,

wax, even

corncobs.

Sometimes

they

come

in

instructive

groups; see

the

one-room

schoolhouse.

Do

right

and

fear

nothing

say

the

mottoes,

in

three

languages.

From

left

to

right, at

top,

are a

carved

wooden

boy-doll,

crudely

designed but

fine-

ly

executed

sometime

in

the 19th

century;

a

wood-and-wax

Ophelia with

hair

of flax

and dress

of

damask,

dating

from

about

16^0;

and two

so-called

peddler

dolls,

made in the

i/90's,

that were

brought

over

from

England. The

faces

are

wax,

and the

costumes exquisitely fashioned.

Grown-up

ladies

would

lovingly

work over

these

and

exhibit

them

under glass.

The

school

above

(a

mere

eight inches

high)

and the

rowing

dolls

(right)

are

of

wood.

The

sailors

move as

the wheels

turn;

the

scholars

merely

study.



4.4

'



Let's

pretend,

says

the child to

himself,

and all the

rest follows. The

toy

can

be superb,

of course,

like this

French mechanical

clown, who

bends

and

twists

and

balances, a

circus all

by

himself.

More likely,

however,

it is simple, and just

turns,

like

the

little tin

merry-go-round

above.

But

to

the child it is the Thing That

Moves

by

Itself,

full of

all

the

magic

and excitement

with

which

the

young

mind

clothes

the

great

world

outside.

American

Heritage

is

grate

ful

to two

museums

for

th

use

of

their

great

toy

collec

tions: The

Shelburne

Mu-

seum,

Shelburne,

Vermont

for

the

toys

on

pages

8},

86

and

88;

and

the

New-York

Historical

Society

for

the ar

on

page

8i,

the

painting

on

page

82,

and

the

toys

on

pages

84

and

S5.

The

paint

ing

of

Emma

Clark

on

page

8y,

is

from

The

Abby

Al

drich

Rockefeller

Folk

Ar

Collection.

Photographs

b

Herbert

Loebel.



Sacco-Vanzetti:

the

unfinished

Today,

thirty-two

years

after

Nicola

Sacco

and

liartolomeo

Vanzclli

were executed

for

the

murder

of

a paymaster

and

his guard

in South Braintree,

Massachusetts,

the

ghosts

of

the

cobbler

and

the

fish-peddler are

not at rest.

As

recently

as last

year a

joint

senate-house

committee

of

the

Massa-

chusetts

legislature

was

asked

to

recommend

that

the

gov-

ernor

issue

posthumous

pardons, thus

correcting

an

his-

torical

injustice

which

had besmirched

the

reputation

and

standing

of

Massachusetts

in the eyes

of

the

entire

world.

No

pardons

were

forthcoming.

In

October

of

ip^S

American

Heritage

published

an

article about

the

case entitled

Tragedy

in Dedham, whose

author,

Francis

Russell,

concluded

that

the two men were

innocent

of

the

Braintree

crime.

Recently

we

received

a

letter in

reply

from

Mrs. Dorothy

G.

IVayman,

now

a li-

brarian

at St.

Bonaventure

College

in upper

New

York

State,

but

formerly

a

newspaperwoman

who

covered

the

Sacco-

Vanzetti trial.

It is published

here

in

the

interests

of

his-

torical

fairness, with

a

brief defense

of

his original

thesis

by

Mr. Russell.

—Ed.

recently in American

Heritage that

the Sacco-

.

Vanzetti

case

in

1921

was

a miscarriage of

justice,

I

led

to the conclusion that

the

propagar.^'.a

of the

1920's

becoming

enshrined

in

amber.

Tlie

article

in

question

written

by

one

who candidly

confessed

he

was

a boy in

school in

1921.

I

was

working

press in

those years.

I interviewed

the

knew the counsel

for

both

sides,

was familiar

the scene

and the

people

of the times.

From the

day that Captain

Charles

Van

Amburgh, bal-

expert

for

the

Massachusetts State

Police, showed

in

the

state

police laboratory,

how

the

bullet that

had

Alessandro Berardelli matched

test bullets fired from

e revolver found

on Nicola Sacco at his arrest on

a Brock-

streetcar,

I

have

been as

convinced

as

the

twelve

Nor-

County jurymen

of the guilt of

Sacco

and Vanzetti.

First,

let us rehearse,

factually,

the events in

the payroll

involving

two

murders and

the theft of

$15,776,

became

a cause

celebre, with six

years

of litigation

thirty years of ideology.

Life

was

going

on peacefully

in April of

1920

in

South

Massachusetts. I

know

Braintree,

some twenty

south

of

Boston,

because

I grew

up

in the

next

town,

Across

from

the

South

Braintree

railroad

station

a bit downhill

on

Pearl

Street you

came

first to the

Rice

Hutchins

shoe

factory (where Nicola

Sacco

had worked

an assumed name);

and

next

to it, the

Slater

& Mor-

shoe factory.

(A

few

miles further

south, in

Bridgewater,

Massachusetts,

months

earlier, on

December

24,

1919,

there

had

been

attempted

robbery

of a

payroll for

a Bridgewater shoe

with

gunplay

in the

street. That payroll was in a

truck,

the

guards returned

the

shots,

and

the

rob-

bers

escaped.

You

will not

find in

reference

works

that

Bar-

tolomeo

Vanzetti was

identified

and

convicted

of participa-

tion in that

affair

and

was

a convict

under

sentence

when

tried,

in

1921

with

Sacco,

for

the South

Braintree

murders.

However,

it

is true.)

Thursdays

were paydays

at

Slater &

Morrill.

On

the morn-

ing

of Thursday,

April

15,

1920,

Express

Agent

Shelly Neal

received

as

usual

a

consignment

of cash

for

the

company.

He

worried

a little because

an unfamiliar

large

black

auto-

mobile,

with

engine

running,

was

parked outside

the sta-

tion,

and its

driver

watched

Neal

cross

from

the

express

office

with

the

bundle

of

money

to

the

office

of

Slater

&

Mor-

rill.

The car, however,

drove off

toward

the

village

square.

Two hours later,

with no train

due, William Heron,

a

rail-

road detective, noticed

two strange

men—

Italians,

he thought

—enter the station and

loiter

by

the

restroom.

(After the

ar-

rest, a fortnight later.

Heron identified

Sacco as

one

of

them.)

Shortly

before

Heron saw

the

men in

the

railroad

sta-

tion, Mrs. Lois Andrews,

looking for

a

job at

the

Slater

&

Morrill factory,

saw

a

large,

black

automobile

parked in

front

of the factory

and

a man bent

under

the

hood

as

though

tinkering

with something. She tapped

the man

on

the back

and

asked about

the other

shoe

factory.

He stood

up

and

told

her

which

door

to

go

in

for

the

employment

office at the

Rice

& Hutchins

factory.

Two or three

hours

elapsed

while

the

Slater

& Morrill

pay-

roll was being

put

in

the

individual

pay envelopes.

Frederick

Parmenter was

the

official

paymaster

for the

Slater

& Morrill shoe

factory;

Alessandro Berardelli,

his

armed

guard. During

the

robbery and murder, Berardelli s

Harrington

&

Richardson revolver disappeared.

The

two

set

out that

sunny April

afternoon

about

three

o'clock to

walk, as

tliey

did every Thursday, tlie short dis-

89



tance

across the

railroad

tracks,

down

the hill, from the

office to the

Slater

&

Morrill

shoe factory.

Office

employees

watched

them

from the

second-story window

with

a clear

view.

Each

man

was

carrying

a long, flat tin box, like a

covered

tray, filled

with pay

envelopes

stacked in order.

As they

walked, they

met

James

E.

Bostock,

machinist

at

the

Slater &

Morrill

factory, who,

leaving the

factory

to

come

uphill, had

seen

two

foreign-looking

strangers—

he

thought

they

were

Italian

fruit-peddlers—

loafing

near

the

factory.

Parmenter

spoke

to

Bostock

about a pulley that

needed repair.

The

two with

the payroll

went

on

down the

hill. A

moment

later,

Bostock

heard shots

and

turned

around.

As

recorded in the

official

trial transcript, Bostock

testified:

Parmenter

had

started [to run]

across

the street . . .

There was

probably

eight

or ten shots ... [a

man] stood

over Berardelli.

He

shot,

I

should

say,

he shot

at

Berardelli

probably

four or

five

times

. . .

Probably

I was

away from him

50

or 60

feet

. . .

and

as

I turned

they

swung around and

shot

at

me twice

.

. .

The

automobile

came

up

the

street

... I saw

the two that

done

the

shooting

and

one other that

got off

the

runningboard ... he

got out

and

helped throw the two

cans,

or

boxes . .

. that

had

the

payroll,

in

...

I saw it

was a

Buick

car

...

As

it

passed

me,

I

went back

to

where Berardelli

was laying

. .

.

He

laid,

he set, just

off the sidewalk

... He

laid in

a

kind

of

crouched

position and

I helped lay him

down and everytime

he

breathed,

blood

flowed and was

coming

out

his

mouth.

One

of the

four

bullets

fired into

Berardelli's body as

Bos-

tock

watched

in horror

was extracted

at the

autopsy

and

was proved,

ballistically,

to have

been

fired from the

Colt

.32-caliber

revolver

that

police

found concealed

on

Sacco

at his arrest.

There were a number of other

eyewitnesses. Their cumu-

lative testimony may be

read in

the

transcript

of

the trial.

The jury heard

their

living

voices,

watched as

they

made

identifications

of the

accused

on

trial.

Let us pass on to the

sworn testimony of

Sacco

and

Van-

zetti concerning

their

actions from April

15

to

May

5,

1920,

and the circumstances of

their

arrest.

Ever

since

the attempted payroll

robbery

in

Bridgewater

the

previous December,

police

throughout

southern

Massa-

chusetts had been

investigating

suspicious

characters.

One

whom

they

had

under

surveillance

was an

Italian

named

Boda

who lived in

Bridgewater;

he

had

been

seen

driving

a

large,

black

Buick like that

described in

the

Braintree

payroll

robbery. A Braintree

shoeworker named

Pelzer

had

seen the robbery

and had

written

down

the

license num-

ber of

that

car. It was

soon

found,

abandoned

in wood-

land; the

number plate had

been stolen in December.

Boda

owned

an

Overland

car,

which

he

had taken for

repairs to the

garage of

Simon

Johnson,

a

law-abiding

citi-

zen. Police asked Johnson

to

notify

them

if Boda

or any-

one

else

came to

claim the

Overland.

On the

evening of

May

5,

1920,

after

the Johnsons

had

gone

to bed, four

men knocked

at their door.

Mrs. Ruth

Johnson

opened

the door

and saw, by

the

headlight of a

motorcycle,

Boda

and

three

others.

While

her husband

de-

tained

Boda in

conversation,

Mrs.

Johnson

went

to a neigh-

bor's house and

telephoned police. Two of the men, whom

she later identified

as

Sacco

and

Vanzetti, followed

her,

going

and coming

back.

Her husband, meanwhile,

had convinced

Boda

that with-

out

1920

license

plates

the latter

could

not

drive

his

Over-

land out

of the garage

onto

the

highways. Boda

and

another

man,

testified

to

have

been

one

Orciani,

then

mounted the motorcycle,

drove

away and

were never sub-

sequently

apprehended

by

police.

Sacco and

Vanzetti

walked

away

in

the direction of the

electric streetcar

line

to

Brockton

(nearest point

to Stough-

ton,

where Sacco

lived

and

Vanzetti was temporarily

visit-

ing

him).

Police, alerted by Mrs.

Johnson's

telephone

call,

boarded the next streetcar

from

Bridgewater

and

arrested

the

pair.

When

searched

at the Brockton

police station

Sacco

was found

to be

carrying

the Colt .32-caliber

revolver

with

a

number

of cartridges to

fit it. On

Vanzetti was a Har-

rington

& Richardson

revolver, similar to the one

missing

from

the

body

of

the murdered payroll

guard, Berardelli.

All

the eyewitnesses of

the

Braintree

crime

were

given

an

opportunity

to

view Sacco

and Vanzetti

at the police

station,

and a number identified

them.

This is important,

as it

happened

only

two weeks

after

the

crime,

although

their

indictment

by a

Norfolk

County grand jury and their

trial at

Dedham

Courthouse

did

not

come

until a year later.

Part of the

delay

was

due

to the

trial

(and

conviction) of

Vanzetti for the

attempted

payroll robbery

in

Bridgewater

in

December,

1919,

which had priority.

Under

Massachusetts law,

no

reference

was made, at

the

Dedham

trial,

to

Vanzetti's previous trial

and conviction.

No eyewitness

testified

to seeing Vanzetti

fire

a

shot, but

again under Massachusetts

law,

an

accessory

present

and

participating in a

crime where

murder

occurs

is

equally

subject to the

death penalty.

In

retrospect,

the

extraordinary thing, to

me

and

to other

reporters

and citizens of the area, was the

instant organ-

ization—May

7,

1920—

of

an enthusiastic Sacco-

Vanzetti De-

fense

Committee. My newspaper editor

sent

me

often

to

the

Defense headquarters

at

256

Hanover Street,

Boston, to in-

terview

the

various people that

congregated

there—

professed

anarchists, sympathetic

liberals,

and

emotional

Italians. The

Defense

Committee

brought

from

California, as

chief

de-

fense

counsel, a

lawyer

who

had

previously defended

per-

sons accused

of

anarchist

violence.

In four

years.

The New

York Times

reported

on

October

4,

1925,

the

Defense

Com-

mittee

collected

and accounted

publicly

for the

spending

of nearly a

third of a

million

dollars.

They

subsequently

carried the

litigation, with

reiterated

appeals, to the

Massa-

chusetts

Supreme

Court,

to the

governor of

Massachusetts,

and to

several

justices

of

the

Supreme Court

of the

United

States, for

two

more years,

exhausting

every legal

resource

90



before the

death

sentence was carried

out

on

August

23,

1927.

In

thirty

years as a

reporter on a

metropolitan

newspa-

per,

never

again

did

I

see such

lavish outlay

of money,

or

such

public

furor as was

elicited for the defense of

two

aliens, arrested

carrying

guns, convicted

of

murder in con-

nection with

a

payroll

robbery.

Setting

aside

the

public

furor,

the

naked

issue

in

the

six-

year

controversy,

quite

simply,

was

the

validity in our civ-

The

New

York Times,

august

lo,

1927

FUlim

CONSIDERS

LAST

MINUTE

STAY

AS

TRIAL

JUDGE

REJECTS

SACCO

PLEA;

NEW

YORK

PROTESTS

END IN

DISORDERS

mmwmnm

Day

'»

Development in

Final

Efforts

To

Save

Lives

of Sacco

and

Vanzetti

AI

Agitation

on

Eve

of

Date

,„^». ...rrl'^rr.'rjT,

—

3«,

-

eaf

SP^kers

Denounce

of

Execution

Brings

;S.l ;,:r

t

:

*n;U

-

~-~. -

.

le

Oeatli Sentence

-'

mv

Attests.

'

^

'

<•-' '< -

These

ip2^

headlines

reflect

the tension and

violence

occa-

sioned by

eleventh-hour

efforts

to

save

Sacco

and

Vanzetti.

ilization

of

trial

by

jury. That issue

was

clearly

recognized

and

upheld

by

the high

court

of Massachusetts

and

by

the

Supreme

Court

of

the

United

States,

both

denying petitions

for

new trials,

after

prolonged

hearings

on

appeals.

Anyone

might think that

a

generation

that has seen

blood purges in Nazi Germany or state

trials

in

Russia

would recognize and defend

the

institution of trial

by a

jury

of

a man's

peers,

with rights

to

counsel

and appeal.

Sacco's defense was an

alibi.

He swore that

on

April

15,

1920,

he had

spent

the day in

Boston,

to get a

passport

to

return

to

Italy.

He could not

produce

a

passport, but

his

story

ran that

he

had taken in a

large

family

photograph

and was

told

he

must have a

regulation

passport photo.

The

defense

produced an affidavit

made in Italy of a

for-

mer clerk in the Boston consulate, whose memory

was

phe-

nomenal.

After a year,

he

not

only

recalled

Sacco's few

minutes

in the

consulate,

and

the

family

group

photo, but

even fixed

the

time

within

fifteen minutes

April

15

was a

Thursday.

Sacco,

under oath at

his trial,

had

testified

that

he

needed

the

passport because we

were

going

Saturday

to New York to

get the

steamboat.

Yet,

instead

of

walking

half

a

mile

from the

consulate

to

Scol-

lay

Square, Boston, which

was

lined

with

studios

specializ-

ing

in

passport

photos delivered immediately,

he

said that

he had loafed around

Boston

all day in restaurants, and

gone

to

work

on Friday,

telling

his boss that the

consulate

was so crowded that

he

could not

get

his passport.

As

for

Vanzetti, whose alibi was

that

he

had

been

selling

eels all day around Plymouth,

Massachusetts,

he

testified

at the trial

that

on April

22

he

went

to

Boston

to

consult

with radical

friends and thence

to

New

York to

see

the

lawyer for an Italian

held for deportation. It is a

fact

that

not one dollar of

the

Slater &

Morrill payroll

was

traced

by

police

to either Sacco or Vanzetti.

It

is

also

a

fact that

more

than

a

third

of a

million

dollars was

forthcoming

for

their defense.

Both

Sacco and

Vanzetti

admitted their anarchist

affilia-

tions

at the trial. (Sacco's last words, as

he went

to the

electric chair, were

Long live

anarchyl )

They

admitted

going

with Boda and Orciani

by prearrangement on

the

evening

of

May

5,

1920,

to

get

Boda's Overland

car from

the

Johnson

garage.

They

said

they

intended

to

visit

radi-

cal friends to collect

and

secrete

subversive literature to

avoid

deportation.

After

the first appeals

for a new

trial had been denied,

late

in

1925,

one

Celestino Madeiros, a fellow prisoner

with

Sacco in the

Dedham jail,

suddenly confessed that he,

with others

he

declined

to

name, had

committed

the South

Braintree robbery and that neither Sacco nor Vanzetti

had

been with them. Aside from palpable

discrepancies,

such

as

that

the payroll

was

in a black

bag

(it

was

in

two flat

tin boxes)

and

that

he

and

his

gang had driven from Provi-

dence to Boston, back to

Providence,

from

Providence

to

Braintree

and

then

spent

some

time in a speak-easy be-

fore the

three o'clock crime, his confession left

unexplained

Sacco's

possession of

the Colt

revolver.

When

all the

appeals

to higher courts had

been consid-

ered

and

denied, six years after the original trial, the

Defense Committee

sought

a

pardon

for

Sacco

and

Vanzetti,

then

under

sentence of death.

Governor Alvan

T. Fuller

of Massachusetts, a conscientious

man,

appointed as an ad-

visory

committee

A. Lawrence

Lowell,

president of Har-

vard

University; Samuel W. Stratton,

president

of the

Massachusetts Institute

of Technology; and Robert

Grant,

retired judge

of the

probate

court

in Boston.

As

a news-

paper reporter

I

knew

them

all

personally.

I considered

them to

have been

honorable men of ability

and probity.

They

interviewed

the eleven jurors

then

surviving, the

judge,

district

attorney, defense

counsel,

and forty-one wit-

nesses

for the

prosecution

and

the

defense.

They

went

to

the prison

with

Governor Fuller to

interview Sacco, Van-

zetti, and the confessing

convict Madeiros.

In

the

end,

they

published

a

report

stating that on the

evidence,

they

believed

that the jury's

verdict was warranted.

During

the six years, the

furor

of public opposition to

the

verdict

had

been

not

only

vocal

but

violent.

The de-

fense enlisted statements in

behalf

of the innocence of

Sacco and Vanzetti

from

prominent people

all over the

w'orld.

Others,

who remained anonymous, took

more

vio-

lent

means

of opposition. Starting

in

1921,

American embas-

sies

were

bombed in

Paris,

Havana,

and

various South Amer-

ican countries.

So,

over the

next few years,

were

the homes

of the

presiding

judge, a

juror, a

key

witness, and even

Robert Elliott, the

official

executioner who

threw

the

switch.

The lovers of justice,

wrote Supreme

Court

Justice

Oliver Wendell

Holmes

to

Harold

Laski, have

emphasized

91



their

love by

blowing

up a

building

or

two.

Threats

had

been sent to

Governor

Fuller,

Justice

Holmes,

and

other

officials, so

that

police had

them under

day-and-

night guard in those

days.

Justice

Holmes

was

one

of

four

on

the United

States Supreme

Court who

had had

peti-

tions presented

to

them

and, after

consideration,

had

de-

clined

to

intervene. The

others were

Justices

Louis D.

Brandeis

and Harlan F.

Stone and

Chief

Justice

William

Howard

Taft.

On

the

opinion

of

such

men,

I

am

willing

to

believe

that the

two gunmen

were

afforded every

oppor-

tunity

to

have their

innocence established,

had

they

been

innocent.

In

the

nearly forty

years

since a

Braintree paymaster

and

his

guard

with

the

payroll were shot to death,

the

world

has

seen

many attempts to

destroy

the

democratic

way of

life.

It

is

important for

future generations that

the

record

of

facts

be

not

distorted.

There

exists

a

five-volume transcript

of

the

trial of

Sacco

and Vanzetti, but

few

have

the

time to

read,

analyze,

and

ponder it.

At

least,

let

the

inaccuracies that have

crept

into

the

literature

of

the cause celebre

be

corrected.

Let

Justice

Oliver

Wendell

Holmes,

himself

a Massachusetts

man, a

great

jurist, one

concerned in and

cognizant

of

the

trial,

be quoted.

At

the

time, he

could

not

properly

speak

pub-

licly, but

he

left the record.

He

wrote: I

think the

row

that has

been made

idiotical.

And

again:

Sacco

and Van-

zetti

. . .

were

turned into

a

text

by

the

reds.

—Dorothy

G. Wayman

Mr.

R.US

sell replies:

Mrs.

Wayman may

have seemed to make a

good

case

for

herself, but

when her points are

examined

carefully

none of

them

is tenable.

In

the

matter

of

the

bullet, I

think it is

unquestionable

that

the one

shown

her

by

Captain Van

Amburgh

was

from

Sacco's

pistol. Yet

all

witnesses

testified that only

one

man

shot

Berardelli,

that

this

man

stood over

him and

emptied

his

revolver

into him. Four

bullets were

found in

Berar-

delli's body. When

exhibited in court

three

of

these were

admittedly from a

weapon

not

found

on Sacco

or

Vanzetti.

The

fourth

bullet

was from

a

Colt of the type Sacco

car-

ried.

Therefore

either the

murderer used

two

guns or

else

someone

switched a

bullet.

Medical

Examiner McGrath on

removing the

bullets

marked

each

with

a number.

The Colt

bullet, however,

seems

to

have been

marked with

a different

instrument

than

the

other

three.

Furthermore,

the

man

who shot

Berardelli

was

seen to

reload.

Four

shells were

found near the body.

When

shown in court

only one

was

from

a

Colt.

Yet

the

gunman

was observed to

reload only

once.

Certainly he could

not have

ejected

two

kinds of

cartridges from

one revolver.

By

Lois Andrews I

presume

Mrs.

Wayman is referring

to the

witness Lola

R.

Andrews. Lola

Andrews talked with

a

man

in South

Braintree

the

day of

the

murders

whom

she later identified in

court

as Sacco.

Yet she talked

with

him

in English,

unaware

of

any

accent,

though

Sacco

at the

time

could

scarcely

speak English

at all.

Mrs.

Andrews,

a

hysterical

woman,

later repudiated

her

court

testimony.

James

E.

Bostock

saw the

shooting

more

closely

than

any

other

witness. The

getaway car passed

within

feet of

him.

When

at the trial

he was

asked if

he

could

identify

Sacco

and Vanzetti,

he

replied,

No, sir.

To the question whether

he

could

tell

if

the

defendants

were

the

two

men

he saw

do

the

shooting

he

answered:

No, sir,

I

could

not

tell

whether

or not

they

was,

no

sir.

For the eyewitnesses

who identified

Sacco

and Vanzetti,

an

equal

number denied

they

were the men.

As

Police

Chief

Gallivan

of

Braintree

later

remarked:

The

Government

would

put on a witness

there

and

then

the

defense

would

rush in

to

offset

it . . . That's the way

the

case

appeared

to

me

to

be

drifting along,

to strive

to see who

could

get

the

biggest

crowd. In other words

to see who could tell the

biggest

lies.

As to

the

identification

procedure

before

the

trial, it was most irregular.

Witnesses

were not asked to

pick Sacco

and

Vanzetti

from

a

line-up

but

were

shown

them alone.

Again, Mrs.

Wayman

is wrong about Orciani.

He

was

arrested

the

day

after

Sacco and Vanzetti, but as

lie

was able to

provide

a

time-clock

alibi

he

was

released.

Mrs.

Wayman gives

the

impression

that Vanzetti's ear-

lier trial was

independent

of

the Dedham trial.

Such

is

not

the

case.

Neither

he

nor

Sacco had been suspected of

any

crime

until

they

were

accidentally picked

up by

the

police

a

few weeks after the Braintree

crime.

Vanzetti's

counsel

was afterward able to show

a

receipt

for

eels

that

Vanzetti the

fish-peddler

had signed

in Plymouth the day

he

was supposed to

have

made

the earlier robbery attempt.

Sacco and Vanzetti were

convinced

anarchists, and

it is

quite

true

that

anarchists all

over the

land

rallied to their

defense, just

as it is true that the

Communists

found

the

case

convenient

for their own

political

ends. One of Mrs.

Wayman's

colleagues on the

Boston

Globe, Frank P. Sibley,

attended

every

day of the

Dedham

trial.

Later

he

testified

to the

Lowell

Committee: His

[Judge

Thayer's]

conduct

was very

improper.

What

affected one

more

than anything

else was

his

manner.

It is nothing

that

you

can

read into

the record.

In

my

thirty-five years

I

never saw anything

like it.

Mrs.

Wayman

should

realize

that

a

jury's

verdict is not

sacrosanct. Both

Maine

and Rhode Island abolished cap-

ital

punishment

after it

was

discovered

that

innocent

men

had

been

executed in

those

states. Four years ago

a

Santos

Rodriguez was

convicted by

a

Massachusetts jury of

mur-

der,

a

conviction

aided by

his own

confession.

Yet

last year

he

was finally

proven

innocent, and

released.

Madeiros

in his

confession

admitted that

he was

drunk

during the

holdup.

Some

of the

details he gave may be

wrong

or hazy, yet the

confession

does

account

for

five

men

being

at

the

robbery.

Although

all

witnesses

testified

to

the

92



five men including a

blond driver,

the

prosecution

made no

consistent attempt

to

account

for

the

other

three. Madeiros

was a member of the

notorious Morelli gang

of

Providence.

As for Governor

Fuller and the Lowell Committee,

Fuller

was a hesitant

parvenu and

President Lowell

of Harvard

had a hard

Yankee

bias

against

foreigners.

In

conclusion

I should

like

to

point

out

that though

anarchists have in

the

past committed acts of political

vio-

lence

as

a

gesture of protest

against

society,

their

motiva-

tions, however

misguided,

have been

idealistic

ones

for

which they

have

been

willing

to

sacrifice

their lives.

Such

a sordid commercial

crime as

the

one

in South

Braintree

would

never

have come

within

the

anarchist canon. Anyone

who

reads

the

letters

of Sacco and Vanzetti

must

realize

how

incompatible

a

robbery-murder

was

with

the two men's

characters.

—Francis

Russell

The

$24

Swindle

CONTINUED

FROM

PACE

64

tate before

starting

any

trouble.

With this in

mind,

Minuit was instructed

to

make

a

legal purchase

of

the

entire

island,

and

he

therefore did what seemed like

the logical thing:

he

asked the

first

Indians

he

saw to

ask their chief

to

come and hold council.

These Indians

were,

of course,

a

band

of Canarsees

who

had

set

up

a

little village called Werpoes

by

a

pond

near

what

is

now

Worth

Street,

and

their

chief

was

a genial

opportunist named

Seyseys. When

Seyseys

learned

that

not

only

would Minuit

give

him

valuable

merchandise

in

exchange

for the title to the

island

of

Manhattan, but

also that Minuit

didn't know that

the

Weckquaesgeeks controlled its

whole

upper

three

quarters

or more, he gladly volunteered

to

take

his

few people away, and let the Dutchmen

hunt and

fish

and

build

things to their hearts'

content.

There

is

some

reason

to

believe that Seyseys wasn't quite sure

what it

meant

to

sell

land—the land

was,

after all,

Mother Earth

to

the Indians,

and

they felt you

could

no

more

sell

it

outright

than

you

could

sell

the

sky-

but

he

wasn't

one

to quibble

over

small

points; he

took

the sixty guilders' worth

*

of

knives,

axes, clothing,

and

beads

(and

possibly

rum),

and

went

chortling

back

to

Brooklyn.

The

Canarsees

set

up another vil-

lage

named Werpoes, to

replace

the one

they had left

behind,

and

everybody settled down and

was happy.

Everybody

was happy, that

is,

except the

Weck-

quaesgeeks. At first they had

no idea that their land

had

been sold out from under

them,

but then more

and

more

Dutch

farmers

began to arrive, and

their

unfenced cattle

wandered off

across the Indians'

land,

eating

their

corn

and

trampling

their

crops,

and

when

the Indians

complained, they

were

given

a few trinkets

in

payment

and told

it was too

bad, but

the

land

was

no

longer theirs. It

was

then that

the

truth began to

creep

over

them, and

then there was absolutely

noth-

ing

they

could

do. Even

if they had

wanted

to make

•

The

sixty

guilders

has

popularly

been

supposed to have

been

worth

about

$24,

but

some authorities

claim

that, considering

the

times

and

the flexible

rates of

exchange,

it was probably

nearer

S2.000.

At

any rate,

it was

all found money

as

far

as

Seyseys was

concerned.

a

fight

about it,

the

Dutch

had

guns

and

they didn't,

and

the only thing

the Indians

could

do

was sullenly

try

to make the best

of

an impossible situation.

Matters

might

have continued

at

a

slow

boil for

some

time, if

it

hadn't

been that

a few

of the

Dutch

violated

all

the standing orders

and began

to trade

liquor and

guns

to the

Indians

in

exchange

for

furs.

They

found

that

the Indians,

being

unaccustomed

to

liquor,

were

pushovers for

a quick bargain after

about

one drink; the thing

the Dutch didn't

realize

was

the

fact

that an

Indian

with

a

hangover,

a

gun, and a

burning

sense

of injustice

was

as dangerous

as a pla-

toon

of

dragoons.

The

mere

sight

of

a red-eyed, dry-

mouthed Indian,

with

a

gun

in

his

shaking

hand and

bits

of

dirt

and grass clinging

to his coating

of

days-old

eagle

fat, should have

been

enough

to warn them to

be

careful—

but

it wasn't.

Inevitably,

trouble developed;

massacres

were per-

petrated

by both sides,

but

as

often

as not

it was

the

Dutch

who

were

the

aggressors. (In

one

spectacular

display

of

perfidy

they slaughtered

a whole group

of

Weckquaesgeeks

who had come

to them for

protection

against

the

marauding

Mohawks,

and mangled

them

so

badly

that

at

first it

looked

like the work

of

other

Indians.

As

a

result,

by

1664,

when

the

British

fleet

slipped in and

quietly

took

New

Amsterdam,

there

were

very few

Indians left

on

the island,

and

those

who

remained

didn't really

care

about

anything.

They

had succumbed

not only

to

various kinds

of

diseases

and

to the white men

but,

more

dis-

astrously,

they

had

been

done in by

the

Mohawks

from

up

one

river,

and

by

the

Canarsees from across another.

It should

be

a

lesson

to us

all.

Nathaniel

Benchley

has

the

natural inter-

est

of

any

Manhattan

resident in this

im-

portant though

little-known aspect

of

its

past.

He

is

a novelist,

a

playwright, and

the

author

of

a

book

about his

father,

Robert

Benchley,

a

Biography.



The

American

Woodsman''

CONTINUED

FROM

PACE I5

on with his

gigantic

task.

No river

valley

on earth

pro-

vides

a

broader and

more

tempting

flyway than

the

Mississippi's. From

the

Arctic

barrens

to

the grassy

plains

of

Patagonia,

feathered

travelers

are

funneled

through this immense

corridor

on

their

seasonal flights,

in

numbers and

varieties

beyond calculation.

En

route

Audubon saw

sights none

of us

is

privileged

to see

any

more:

great white

whooping

cranes

majestically

winging their way down the

valley from Canada

to

the Gulf

Coast;

ivory-billed

woodpeckers,

the

largest

and mightiest

axemen of

their

tribe,

filling

the

woods

with

their clarinet-like calls; flocks of chattering

para-

keets and

swallow-tailed

kites.

For the

next six years Audubon made

his head-

quarters in

the

lush

green

world of

lower

Louisiana,

where

so many

of

the

birds that summered

in

the

North found

their

winter

retreat.

By

any

but

his

own

standards

it was,

for the

most

part,

a

vagrant's life.

To

keep

himself alive

he

drew portraits;

taught drawing,

French,

music,

dancing,

or

fencing; painted shop

signs

and

steamship

decorations,

as

need and opportunity

dictated.

Once

in

New Orleans

he had

the

titillating

experience of

being

commissioned

by a

mysterious and

toothsome

young

widow to paint

her

naked

loveliness.

(He

wrote to

Lucy

of

this ten-day

adventure of

private

sessions with

an

excitement

she

must

have

found diffi-

cult to

share.)

Occasionally

he

did

well

enough

to

help

support his

family while he

stubbornly

proceeded

with

his essen-

tial

work. But it was

Lucy

who

remained

throughout

the

next

eight years the

consistent

family

breadwinner.

She followed

her husband south

after

a

separation of

fourteen

months,

and he

soon found

remunerative em-

ployment

for her as

a

tutor

and companion and, when

that

petered

out,

as

a

governess. This

left

him

more

free

to leave

home and

roam

as need be, to

hunt

and

draw

until

his

portfolio bulged

with

fresh material.

Each

drawing

was

to be

the size of life.

He vowed

never to

draw

from a

stuffed

animal,

and every

day

or

evening

he

carefully

wired

his latest

specimen

into

a

lifelike

position

against

squared paper and

drew off

the

likeness

on

similarly

squared

paper

as

rapidly

as

possible

to

catch the

full

color

of

the

plumage

before

its

brilliance

faded.

The

method

gave

a

measure of

control

to

his

draftsmanship,

but it

could

have re-

sulted

in

the

most mechanical

and artificial

construc-

tions.

That it rarely did

so was

because Audubon's

mind's

eye

brimmed with keen

observations

of the

creatures in

all

their

winged freedom, as the

small-scale

sketches

of

living birds

on

the

margins

of his journals

make

clear enough.

In

fact,

no

bird

artist

until then.

and

possibly

none since, has so

perceptively and spir-

itedly

caught the

natural

likenesses of his

models.

On March

25,

1821,

Audubon

started work

on

a

great

white heron.

Two days

later

he was still

fran-

tically trying

to

make the

bird

come

alive

on

his

paper,

but the

stench

of

the

putrefying carcass had

by

that

time

become

overpowering.

However,

he

braved

nausea

to open

the

bird for clues to

its

sex

and eating

habits.

He

examined

the

crops

and gizzards of

the

birds

he drew to

learn

how they fed and

to help him

decide

under what

circumstances

to

represent

them.

Often enough he ate

a

bird

he had shot during

the

day,

sometimes as a

normal

way

of

satisfying

a healthy

appetite, sometimes out

of

serious curiosity.

Starlings

and hermit

thrushes

he

found delicate

eating,

al-

though the

latter

were fatty;

herring

gulls were too

salty

for his taste;

the flesh

of

flickers

had a

disagree-

ably

strong

flavor of

the

ants

they

fed

upon; telltale

godwits

were

very

fatty

but

very

fishy ; and

so

on.

He

was

probably

one

of

the most

omnivorous

of

naturalists.

Later

in

life,

when he

was

working

on

a

book

about

mammals,

he

found

wildcat meat not un-

like veal

in

flavor

and alligator flesh

far

from

bad.

Dog meat

was

excellent, and

although

he gagged

at

the

frontier

delicacy

of

raw

buffalo

brains,

still warm

after

the

kill, he

admitted they

might

be

delicious.

How

keenly

Lucy

may have felt

the

abrupt,

pro-

longed, and

trying separations

of

the

next

ten

years

can

only

be

guessed.

At

least

occasionally

she

seems

to

have

questioned

her

husband's

judgment and

values,

called

him to

his

better

senses,

and

asked

him

to

consider

his

family

before his feathered friends.

I

have

a

rival in

every

bird, she observed

to

her sister;

but

there could

have been as

much pride as

bitterness

in

such

a

remark.

If

she did

not wholeheartedly

be-

lieve

in

his

destiny, the

loneliness and renunciation

of

those

years

must have

been

great

indeed.

It

was with

seventeen

hundred

dollars of Lucy's

earnings, in any

case,

that

Audubon

set sail alone

for

England

to

launch

his

publication

in

the spring of

1826.

He

carried

with

him

240

drawings,

many

of

them

redrawings

of

earlier

efforts,

and

letters

of

introduc-

tion

to

Sir

Walter

Scott, Lafayette,

Baron

von Hum-

boldt,

and

other

dignitaries. He

had learned

to a

cer-

tainty

that no

one

in

America

would publish

his

work,

but he

was

still

full

of

his

purpose.

The

conviction

that it was

worth

all the

years

of

dedication was often

a

desperately

lonely one.

His field work had been

al-

most

without

reference

to

informed

scientific

or

ar-

tistic

opinion.

With

little

formal

training

and

less

94



professional

guidance,

he had

doggedly and

unspar-

ingly set his own

criteria.

Audubon

made

an immediate

impression

on

the

Old

World.

The

lithe

and

handsome

woodsman,

with

curly

chestnut

hair falling in

thick

clusters to his

shoulders,

and with his

inexhaustible,

lyrical stories

of

life in

the

wilderness—

told with

an

engaging

French

accent—

walked out

of the

forests of

America

into the

social

and

scholarly circles

abroad

with

the freshness

and wonder

of

the

New

World still

upon

him.

At par-

lor

gatherings he was

called

upon to imitate the calls

of

owls and other wild birds,

to

yell like an

Indian,

and

to sing the

songs

of the

western rivermen. He had

some

difficulty

assuring

a

curious audience

that

his

worst enemies

in

the wilderness had

not

been

tigers,

bears, and wolves, but

ticks

and

mosquitoes—

which, he

added

with

feeling,

were

quite

enough.

He

was, in fact, all his admiring public wanted

him

to be, and

something

more.

He

had

roamed

the

length

and

breadth of the

American

borderland

with all the

freedom

of the

wild

creatures

he

knew

so

well

and

re-

corded so

faithfully. He

had

talked with

Daniel

Boone.

He

had

hunted and

camped

with Indians

along

the

frontier;

he

knew

their ways

and

may

have spoken

their language.

He had

traveled

by

ark

and keelboat

with

the

rough rivermen

of

the

western waterways,

and he could speak

their

language eloquently. (In spite

of

repeated resolutions,

in

later years his profanity

was

the

envy

of

sailors he shipped with.)

He was a Mason,

had

a hand for chess

and

billiards,

and for good

meas-

ure

he

could

also knowingly discuss the books, drama,

and

music

of

the

London

season.

He

played

his

part

without

difficulty.

In

his

letters

In

1S42,

at

the

age

of

57,

Audubon settled

down

at

Min-

nie's Land —

Minnie

was

the Audubon boys'

name

for

their mother—

in New York City. The

estate,

on

the

Hudson

River

between ijjth and i$6th

streets,

is

now

Audubon

Park,

home

he

started

referring

to

himself

as

the

American

woodsman,

at

first

a

bit

self-consciously, then habitu-

ally,

ready

enough to

see himself

as

others

chose

to

see

him.

He

was not unduly

hampered

by

modesty. My

hairs are now as

beautifully

long and

curly

as ever,

he

wrote

Lucy

from

Scotland, and

I

assure thee do as

much

for me as my Talent for Painting.

Yet,

he was

guided

less

by

vanity

than

by

his tower-

ing

determination

to

call attention

to his project,

and

for

this his theatrical

appearance was good

public

relations.

In

responsible

intellectual

circles the

quality

and interest of

his

work were immediately recognized.

He was

quickly

elected

to

a

half-dozen learned

socie-

ties,

whose

meetings

he

was asked to

address

and

to

whose

journals

he was asked

to

contribute.

One

critic

pointed

out,

when the

drawings

were

publicly

exhib-

ited, that

these were more than ornithological

studies

executed

on a

brave new scale;

they gave

old

Europe

a

fresh

poetic

vision

of

America

that,

like

the

man him-

self, fired

the

imagination.

Who

would

have

expected

such things

from the woods of America?

exclaimed

the fashionable

Parisian artist

Fran(jois

Gerard.

For

all the adulation

and

recognition,

no

one

rushed

forward

to sponsor publication. Indeed, some

of

Audu-

bon's best-qualified

counselors

advised against

any

such hopeless

undertaking.

Yet everything that

had

been

accomplished

up

to

now

was

only

a

beginning.

All

his

records—

his drawings,

his

notes, and

his

stored-

up

observations—

were

of

small

value to

the

world

un-

til they were

cast

in

adequately published form.

So,

with

sublime

temerity, Audubon commissioned a Lon-

don

engraver

to start

work

and,

without

a publisher,

an agent,

or

a

single

subscriber, issued

a

prospectus

committing

him

to at

least

twelve

years

of

hard work

and roughly

one

hundred thousand

dollars

in costs.

Those

next

twelve years

were

years

of

the most

extraordinary

accomplishment. At the

start

he

needed

money desperately

to

get

his enterprise off the ground

—in

order

to

subsist,

for

that

matter. I

do

anything

for

money now

a

days,

he

wrote Lucy five

months

after

the prospectus was issued. He

drew

trifles

for

the al-

bum

of

a

Scotch lady, and

he

turned out careful copies

of

his

drawings,

which

he

peddled among the

picture

dealers

along

the

Strand

or

to

such

individual

cus-

tomers as

he

could

attract. (Where

have

all those pic-

tures

gone,

he

later

wondered, as indeed

do

we today.)

At

one

point,

when

he

had

borrowed

five pounds to

keep

himself in

supplies

and

the

engraver

called

for

sixty

more

to

meet his

payroll. Sir

Thomas Lawrence

brought

some

friends to

Audubon's

studio, and their

purchases may

well

have

preserved

him

at the last mo-

ment

from

the

awful

reality of

the debtors'

prison.

In

the

meantime,

armed

with

letters

of

introduc-

95



Drawing

Room

Companion, may 6

tion,

he

scoured

the

countryside

for

subscribers.

Nine

months

after

is-

suing the

prospectus

he

had

more

than

a

hundred names

on

his

list,

and

when

these

started

paying

upon delivery

of

the

finished

repro-

ductions,

his

financial

problems

eased

somewhat.

Soon,

at

least,

he

could

write Lucy

that she

need no

longer send

him

money.

But

only

by

constant

attention could he keep

his less

dedicated patrons from

can-

celing

their

expensive

subscrip-

tions.

At one

point

Audubon esti-

mated

that

during

the

four

years

it

had

taken

him

to

produce

his

first

volume,

fifty subscribers,

represent-

ing

lost

payments of

some

fifty-six

thousand

dollars,

had

reneged.

On the

other

hand,

if

he

neglected

close

supervision

of

the

engravings

of

the

plates and

the

hand

coloring

of

the

reproductions,

the

work might go

awry.

In

April,

1828, he

complained

of

the

daubing

of

one

of

the

colorists,

and

the

whole

crew

quit

on

the spot and

had

to

be

replaced.

Time

and

again on

his

travels

he

came

across

defective copies

and

returned

them

for re-

doing.

In

June,

1830,

he

wrote his

engraver,

Should

I

find the same complaints as I

proceed from

one

large

town to another through out

England

as

I am

now

de-

termined

to do—I must

candidly

tell you that

I will

abandon

the

Publication

and

return

to

my

own

Woods

until I leave this World

for

a

better

one.

However,

Robert

Havell,

the

engraver

entrusted

with

most

of

the work, was

on the

whole

a

superb and

conscientious

craftsman

and an

artist in

his own

right. In

the

end,

it

is

his scrupulously finished

aquatints that

are

generally

celebrated

as

Audubon originals,

although most of

the

drawings

from

which

they

were

derived

may

still

be seen

at

the

New-York Historical

Society.

As

the

work progressed,

Audubon's

standards rose,

and

he

became

increasingly

aware

of his limitations

as

an

ornithologist.

He realized too

that

he had barely

half

enough

drawings

to cover

his subject,

and

of these

many

were

simply

not good enough. Three

times

be-

fore

the

job was

completed he

returned

to

America

to

replenish

his

portfolio,

in

spite of

the

cost

in lost

sub-

scriptions

while

he was

away. In

passing

he would

j^gather subscriptions

in

his

own

country

(his

fame

had

crossed

the

Atlantic),

and

then

resell the English

delin-

quents

when

he

returned.

If

I

could

be

spared from

Drawing

Birds

and

from

going

to

England

for

12

months

after

my next Voyage, he wrote

from

America

in

1833,

I

could procure

in that

time and

in

our

own

Country too,

one hundred

additional Subscribers.

Five months

later he

left

America

with

sixty-two sub-

scribers and a hundred new drawings.

These

American

excursions

took

him from

the chill

coast

of Labrador

to

the keys

of Florida

and on to

the

remote republic of

Texas.

(While in that independent

new

nation he

drank grog

and

swapped yarns

with

Sam

Houston

in his log house.

A few

months later

he

dined

en

jamiUe with

Andy

Jackson

at

what, he

re-

ported, was

then

becoming familiarly

and

vulgarly

known as the White House,

where

he learned

that

the

President did not

approve

of the

annexation

of

Texas.) In

the

end,

the

roster

of

birds

he

depicted

had

grown

well beyond

the

number

set

forth

in

the

pros-

pectus,

and,

in

a

depression year, he was faced with

balky

subscribers who

objected to

still

more

expensive

commitments,

or with

the

unthinkable alternative

of

leaving

his

work incomplete. He

finally squeezed

the

additional

subjects into thirty-five new

plates.

The whole operation had

long

since

begun

to

de-

mand

far

more

energy, skill,

and

knowledge

than Au-

dubon

alone

could

bring

to it in his lifetime.

Lucy

and both their sons,

now

capable

artists in

their

own

right, were put to work.

Audubon was

ever

hopeful

that

the

lads might

see

the

publication

through on

their own if

he

couldn't finish

it himself. There

will

be

no

End

to

my

Publications

of

Birds,

he

wrote

Havell,

or

(which

is

the

same)

of my Sons Publica-

tions.

My

Youngest Son draws

Well—

Cdin

you tell what

is

his

or

mine's work

in

the

last

Drawings

you

saw?

Actually,

Audubon

himself

never

did tell. Here, as

elsewhere,

he was by

no

means careful about

giving

credit where it

was

due. At

least

one of

the

birds in

the

final work

is

altogether

John's,

but

there

is

no

acknowl-

edgment given

in

the text. Another

is

Lucy's, although

hers is clearly

indicated as such.

In the

press for time,

he

brought

his

family and friends

into the

closest col-

laboration—into

what he called

his Little

Alliance.

Can

we

not

push

the

work

still

faster?

he

again

wrote

Havell from

America.

So much travelling

ex-

posure

and

fatigue

do

I

undergo,

that

the

Machine

me

thinks is

wearing out;

and it

would

indeed

be

a

pleas-

ure

for

me

to see

the

last of

the

present Publication.

He was

relying

ever more heavily on that

competent

man

to

finish

his

incomplete

drawings

on the copper-

as well as

for many

other services,

such as

selling

skins,

shells,

and insects

to

the

British

Museum

for

cash

to

96



help meet the

formidable weekly

payroll

of

one hun-

dred

pounds.

A scribbled

note

to

Havell

on

one

of

the

drawings,

of

a

crippled great black-backed

gull, reads,

finish

this

ground better.

Amend

this

rascally

sky

and

water,

he

wrote on

another original; on still

another he

asked the

engraver

to

supply an old rotten

stick. The

entire

setting

of

the

great

auk and

of

sev-

eral

other

subjects are

Havell's agreeable inventions.

Audubon

always

had

trouble

with landscapes—

he

was

not

a

versatile artist—and,

when he

used

them in

his

compositions,

usually

depended upon

the

efforts

of

one

or

another of

the youthful

artists who traveled

with

him, or Iclt

them for

Havell

to

supply.

To

expedite

matters further,

Audubon

not

only

oc-

casionally

copied elements from

his own earlier repre-

sentations to

supplement

later

ones, but a

few

times he

cribbed from

the rival ornithological

publication of

Alexander

Wilson.

A

number

of his final efforts

were

composed in part

of

pasted cutoius of

figures—

even

in-

dividual

blades

of

grass—

from

other discarded compo-

sitions. Take

great

care

of

these Drawings,

he

wrote

Victor

of

one lot

he

sent

to

England

from

America,

and shew them

to

a

very

jew of

your Friends

... as

many Birds have been Pasted.

Nothing

really

mattered save

that the work

be

properly presented

in the

final printing,

and

that

it

all

be

finished

before time ran out. Audubon

reached

in all directions

for the

help

he had

to

have.

You must stick

a

Cricket

or a Grass hoper

on

a thorn

before

the

bill of

the Male

Shrike

on the wing,

he

in-

structed Victor.

—It

is their Habit—

but could

not pro-

cure

one yesterday

and

today

it

rains hard.

Have the

edges of the little Grous (Young)

softened

in the En-

graving ;

and, he added,

have

the plants properly

identified by a

member of the

Linnaean Society. Draw-

ings of

many

of the

plants,

flowers,

and

some

of the in-

sects

that

were

reproduced

on

the

finished

plates

were

supplied

by

the

youngster

Joe

Mason,

who accom-

panied Audubon

clown

the

Ohio in

1820,

and in later

years,

at

his

urgent request,

by

Maria Martin, sister-in-

law

and then wife of his naturalist

friend,

John

Bach-

man.

To

Bachman

he

turned

with

ever-mounting

in-

sistence for more

information

to

include

in

the bird

biographies

that

would

accompany the

plates. I am

almost mad

with

the

desire of

publishing

my 3d

Vol

this

year,

he

wrote him

in

1835.

I am

growing

old

fast

and

must

work

at a double quick time now

. . .

Can

you send

me some good stories

for

Episodes? Send

quickly

and often

. . .

'any

sort of

things'

for

Epi-

sodes

connected

with

Natural

History.

All too aware

of

his deficiencies as

a

writer

and a sci-

entific naturalist,

he

hired

William MacGillivray,

a

Scotch

naturalist,

to

turn his manuscripts into good

English and

sound descriptive

commentary

on

the

birds. With

Lucy's

added help, Audubon

wrote

his

son

Victor

in a fever

of

excitement, the

manuscripts

went

on

increasing

in bulk like

the

rising

of a

stream

after

abundant rains.

It was a

prolific

flow

of words

written

out by

Audubon

in his

gushing

prose; five

solid

vol-

umes,

averaging six hundred printed

pages

each,

were

completed—

edited, set up in

type,

proofed, seen

through

the press,

bound,

and

distributed—

in

eight years'

time,

all in

the

midst

of a full round

of

other

essential ac-

tivities.

Every moment he could spare

from

writing,

draw-

ing, and

sundry

other

concerns, Audubon

spent

beat-

ing

the

bushes for new

subscribers and

checking

up

on

the old

ones, often

on

foot over

long

distances.

When

he was

in his early

forties

he

thought he

could

still

outwalk

and kill down

any horse

in England in

twenty

days' time, and

it is

likely he

could.

To

a

man

in

a

hurry, he

later

observed,

the

slowness

of

the

stage-

coach could be a

great bore. Good

God, if

this is not

Labour,

I

Know

not

what

Labour is, he

wrote

Lucy

one

evening after

having trudged

something

over ten

miles with

his

heavy

portfolio

in a fruitless quest

for customers;

and

he

soaked

his

feet

in hot water. The

next

week

he

learned that the

Marchioness of

Hereford, who

had

discontinued

her subscription,

had had the

whole

first

volume of

plates cut

out

and

pasted

on the

walls of one

of

her

superb rooms.

If

you

woiUd

think

my

advice to you

worth

a

jot,

he wrote

Bachman,

never

set

to

the writing

of

any one

Book. . .

.

Yet

Audubon

capped

his

per-

formance

by

adding

a

technical

syn-

opsis

of

370

more pages

(largely en-

gineered

by

MacGillivray)

to

the

giant

folios

of

reproductions

and

the

five

volumes of

biographies.

And then,

in

1839,

he

sailed

for

home for the last time.

He

had suc-

cessfully

concluded one of

the most

improbable

publishing

ventures in

history.

It

had

been

his

unique

con-

cept, his

risk,

and his total

accom-

plishment.

He ended up

with some-

thing over

160

standing

subscribers

(n8

had fallen

by the

wayside

over



the years), grossing

about

two

hundred thousand

dol-

lars

in

the total

operation.

In

the process, he pointed

out, he had

growed neither

fat,

rich, nor

lazy.

But

he

had

become

a

legend in

his own

time.

I

have

labored

like

a

cart

Horse for

the

last

thirty

years

on

a

Single

Work,

he wrote Bachman,

.

. .

and now

am

thought

a-a-a

(I

dislike

to

write it,

but here goes)

a

Great

Nat-

uralist

As

the

learned

Baron

Cuvier

had exclaimed

when

he

saw

the

first

finished

plates,

this

was

indeed

the

most magnificent

monument

yet

raised

to

orni-

thology.

No

one

who

knew

the

man

would

have taken seri-

ously

his

admonition

about

the

writing

of

a book.

Those

who

knew

him

best,

in fact, had years earlier

learned

that he already

planned

to reissue

The

Birds

of

America,

revised

and

in a

smaller

format,

once

the

big

edition

was

completed,

as

well

as to compile

an

en-

tirely

new

book

on North

American

mammals.

By

the

time

he

arrived

in

America,

these projects

had already

been put in train.

The

petite

edition

of

the

Birds

book

quickly

de-

veloped into

a

substantial operation,

most of

the

man-

agement

being left

to

John

and

Victor.

By

means

of

a

camera lucida

John

reduced

the

plates

of

the original,

supplemented and

somewhat

revised, for

lithographic

reproduction;

and

the

basic text

was

systematically

re-

arranged.

This

octavo

version

was

issued

in one hun-

dred

separate parts, to

be

sold

for one

dollar

a

part.

Audubon

himself

spent a

considerable

amount of

.his

time

canvassing

the countryside,

from Canada

to

Washington,

often

in one-night

stands, signing up

subscribers.

During

one

month

he

covered

more

than

fifteen

hundred

miles

(he

was steam-propelled

these

latter

days,

and

found

the

sparks from

the

locomotives

a

real hazard),

and

at

the

outset

he

sold subscrip-

tions

faster than

he

could

supply the

parts.

On April

29,

1841,

he wrote

one of

his

agents from

New York,

.

. .

we

have

at this

moment in this

city

and

at

Phila-

delphia

upwards

of Seventy persons

employed

... all

these are

to

be

paid

regularly each

Saturday

evening,

and

when

we

are out

of

temper it

is

not without

cause.

Among

the agents

he

employed

to help

him

drum

up

trade were

Dr. George

Parkman,

a

friendly

and

in-

fluential

volunteer

who

was

murdered

a

few

years later

in

one

of

Harvard's

most

gruesome

and spectacular

scandals;

and—on

a

professional

level—

Messrs.

Little

and

Brown,

a

new

team of Boston booksellers,

who

ap-

parently

served him well.

In

any event,

by

the

time

he

felt

obliged to

write

the above letter he already

had at

least

1,475

orders for

the plates;

and

2,000

for

the texts,

which

could

be

purchased separately.

If in

the

end

he

actually

was

paid

one hundred

dollars

each

for

these

The varying

moods

of

the

Mississippi—

here seen

at

the

great

Bend No.

100 in Louisiana—became

familiar to Audubon

as

he floated down

to New Orleans in

1820,

sketching

birds

and

paying

his expenses

by

painting

portraits

on the

way.

subscriptions,

it is easy to understand

why

he gratefully

referred

to

the

little

edition

as

the

family's

Salvator.

On his tireless rounds

Audubon

also

took

subscrip-

tions—with

remarkable

results—

for

the work

on

ani-

mals,

just under way, at three hundred

dollars

a

complete

set. He also tried to

unload

his

very

few

re-

maining sets

of

the

big

Birds, and dunned laggard

sub-

scribers to

that work. Of these, the

most

famous

and

notorious was

without

question Daniel Webster,

whose

subscription

Audubon

had exultantly

reported

in

his

journal

of

1836.

In

October,

1840,

the naturalist

called

upon ^Vebster

at

his

Boston

office

and

reported

that

the

statesman

was

greatly surprised that

I

have

not received

a

Dollar

yet

on

a/c

of

what

he owes

us

. . .

and said that

he

would

attend

to that business at

once,

and

indeed settle it to

my

satisfaction

by

'W'ednes-

day next.

Nous verrons

Three

months

later Audubon

got a

payment

on ac-

count for

one

hundred dollars

only (plus,

however,

a

subscription

for

the little

work with

payment

guaran-

teed

by

Little

and

Brown ). But

he tracked

his

quarry

as

remorselessly

as ever he

chased

a

bird

of

the

forest.

Webster must

have

come

to

dread

the sight of him.

In

the

heat of

the

Washington summer

two years

later,

Audubon

hunted the

godlike

Dan'l

in his

office

but

found

him

engaged

with Lord Ashburton:

one

of

those

private

conferences,

no

doubt,

by

means of

which

the

two finally settled

the

long

disputed

northeastern

boundary

of

the

United

States.

(A

few days

later

Audu-

bon

distracted

Ashburton

from his

diplomatic mission

long enough

to

sell liim a copy of Birds

of

America for

one

thousand

dollars in

gold.)

Webster was still

not

in

when

Audubon returned to

his

office

the

next

week,

but

the bird

man finally ran

him

down

in

the

Senate lobby.

He told

me

that

he

particularly wished

98



to

see

me

on

ray

return from Richmond Audubon

entered in

his

journal. What

for

I know

not. A week

later

he

knew. Mr.

W.

would

give me

a

fat place was

I willing to have one; but I

love indepenn

and piece

more

than humbug

and

money

In other words,

ap-

parently,

he would

not

be

bought

off.

Between

his

wide-ranging

business

trips Audubon

applied himself to the

projected book on mammals,

a

task

he

had

neither

the

time,

the energy,

nor

the

knowledge to

complete. Don't flatter

yourself that

this

book

is

child's

play—,

John

Bachman warned him

at

the outset;

the

birds are

a mere trifle compared

with

this.

I have been at it all

my

life

...

we all have

much

to learn in

the

matter. However, Audubon's

de-

termination

was

fixed

on

this

new

goal; as

he

wrote

Bachman, My

spirits are

as

enthusiastical as ever.

When he

was within

reach

of his

drawing papers

he

worked

on

them from daylight

to

bedtime.

He dis-

patched

his son

John

first to

the

wilds

of the South-

west, then to

the

zoos and

museums of Europe to

record

specimens

he

himself

had

no hope

of collecting

or examining.

The

indispensable Bachman

was

com-

mandeered

to

provide

an

authoritative

text,

which he

completed imder great

difficulties

and discouragements.

Over the years that

followed

he got diminishing

help

from Audubon, whose own time was now

really

run-

ning out.

Yet

in

1843,

with a final burst

of

his

incredi-

ble energy, the toothless,

grizzled veteran

took

off

on

an expedition

to

gather

more material.

He

went as

far

as

Fort

Union

at

the

mouth

of

the

Yellowstone

River,

farther

west

than

he had

ever

been

but

not so far

as he

had

always

yearned

to

go.

It

was Audubon's

last sortie

into

the

wilderness.

There

were still

birds

in abun-

dance

to

collect, new

varieties that

he

had

missed

ear-

lier,

as well

as

the animals

he went

to

hunt and

record.

He

made

an

adequate

killing

for his purposes.

But the time was also

running out for some

of the

wild life

Audubon

was

determined

to put

down in his

second great

book

of discovery.

The

great

auk

had

al-

ready disappeared

before

he had

seen

a

living

speci-

men. Now,

as

Audubon

witnessed the endless

slaughter

that went on about him

near

this

hunter's

paradise,

he

was dismayed

at the prospect.

Surely,

he

concluded

as

the

mounds

of beaver,

buffalo,

and wolves piled up

on

the

Plains,

this

should

not

be

permitted.

It was too

late

for

his concern

to

matter.

His own

shooting days were,

in

any

case, just about over.

I am

getting

an old

man,

he

lamented

to his journal

on

September

28,

1843,

^°^

'his

evening I missed

my

foot-

ing on getting

into

the

boat,

and bruised

my knee

and

my elbow,

but

at seventy

and over

I

cannot

have the

spring

of

seventeen.

From

contemporary descriptions

he

already

looked

to

be a patriarchal

seventy,

but

he

was

in

fact

only

fifty-eight

and

he

knew

it.

Within two

years

of

his return from the

Yellowstone

the

old man completed about one

half the

drawings

that

were to

be

reproduced in the

mammals

book;

then

he laid

down

his

brushes.

He had done

what he

could in

life and this was an

end

to it.

As

if

by some

deeply

felt

persuasion,

he

released

himself

from

further

care by

slipping

into a

benign, helpless senescence.

For

the

few

remaining

years

of

his

life

he

was

barely

aware that the vital industry

he had

set

in motion

never faltered.

John

returned

from

England

and

fin-

ished the remaining drawings;

Bachman

worked

as

hard

as

Audubon

ever

had

to

compile

the

texts,

which

a

half-dozen

others helped to prepare for

the

printer;

and, among other tasks,

Victor

saw

the

abundant flow

of

material

through to final publication.

When Audubon died

in

1851,

full

of

honors,

the

first

edition

of

the animals book

was not yet

finished,

and

a

whole

series

of

reprintings

of

both

titles

was

on

the

calendar

for

the future.

But this

cr^ole de

Saint-

Domingue,

as

he

was

referred

to in

his

father's will,

this

inept

Kentucky merchant—a

one-time bankrupt,

this man

who

cared

for

nothing

more than to

explain

the ways

of

the birds and beasts, had built

his

idio-

syncrasy

into

an

organized institution

of

international

stature;

and

into

a

business

with

its own momentum,

which, astonishingly, grossed

very large

sums

of money.

At

a

guess, the

figure could have been in

the

neighbor-

hood

of

half

a

million dollars

even

before Audubon

died. After

his

death,

while Victor and

John

still lived,

the

books

proliferated

in

numerous reprintings.

From

all this no family fortune was

founded,

for

various

reasons, including—

among

other

things—

the

continuing

high cost of production.

At

the

age

of

seventy-five,

indeed, Lucy, burdened

with

the

cares

oc-

casioned

by

the

death

of

their

two

sons,

and

the

heavy

losses

they

had previously sustained,

was obliged

to

sell the

original

drawings

to alleviate her absolute

need. (The New-York

Historical Society

consum-

mated the purchase

by

raising

four

thousand dollars

through public subscription.) The

Alliance's

great-

est asset

had

always

been

that

unwavering conviction

of

the

self-made

woodsman that these aspects of the

vanishing

American wilderness

must

be

put

on

record,

whatever it

cost,

faithfully

and

for

all

to

see,

while it

could

still

be

done.

Certainly

no

naturalist

had

ever

won such a

popular audience.

For all

the

carnage it

may

have

involved,

in

the end

and

under

the

circum-

stances,

this

was conservation

in

its

most realistic and

empirical

form.

Marshall B. Davidson,

a

member

of

the Advisory

Board

of

American

Heritage,

is

editor

of

publications

at

the

Metro-

politan Museum

of

Art

and

author

of

Life

in America.

99



The

Boodling

Boss

and the Musical

Mayor

CONTINUED

FROM

PACE

a

few

blocks to

their home

in

the Palace

Hotel.

One

day

in

1907,

after

two

plots

to

kill

him had

misfired, Older

was

lured

into

a

trap

by

an

anonymous

telephone

call

promising

him

important

informa-

tion

if

he

would come

to

the

Savoy

Hotel

on

Van

Ness

Avenue.

He

could

not

resist

the

invitation,

al-

though he warned his

colleagues

at

the

Bulletin

that it

might be

a

trick.

As

he walked

toward

the hotel

an

automobile with four

occupants

stopped

beside him.

He was shown

a

Los Angeles warrant

for his

arrest,

and

was

told

to

get into the

car.

A

day

or so

earlier,

a

reporter for

the

Bulletin

had,

for one

edition,

con-

fused

the

identity

of

two

men

named

Brown,

one

of

whom

was head of

the

secret service

for

the

United

Railroads.

This

man had

gone to an

obscure

justice

of

the peace

in

Los Angeles,

475

miles away,

and ob-

tained a

warrant

for

Older's

arrest

on

a

charge

of

criminal libel. Of

the

four men in

the

automobile, two

were private

detectives representing

the United

Rail-

roads;

the

other

two

were deputies

representing

the

Los

Angeles justice

of

the peace.

In

the

automobile. Older

was

told

he

would

be

taken

to

the chambers

of

a

San Francisco

judge, where

he

could arrange

for

bail. Instead,

the

car shot away

out of

the

city at

high

speed,

while

one

of

his

captors

kept

a

gun

pressed into the

editor's ribs; in an accom-

panying car, Older

recognized

several employees of

the

United

Railroads. By

now

he was

really

fright-

ened, suspecting

that

they

intended

to

kill

him.

He

was

right.

Gangland

had

not

yet learned to

use the

term, but

Older

was

being taken

for

a

ride.

The two

Los Angeles men planned to

take

him

aboard

a

train

at

a

station

a

few

miles down

the coast,

leave the

train

at

another

station

in

the early

morning, and

take

Older

up

into wild mountain country.

There

he

would

be

shot while

attempting

to

escape.

Older's

life

was saved by an

extraordinary

develop-

ment.

The Los Angeles men, since

they

were

technically

court

officers,

made

no

attempt

to conceal

Older's

presence

on

the

train, and took

him

into

the

dining

car

for

dinner.

A

young

San

Francisco

attorney

happened

to

be on the same

train,

thought he

recog-

nized

Older,

and

grew

curious

as

to

why

he was travel-

ing with

such

odd companions.

When

one

of the Los

Angeles deputies admitted

Older's

identity,

the

lawyer

broke

his

journey,

got

off

the train in

the

middle of the

night at

a

way

station, and

telephoned

the office

of

the

San

Francisco

Call, owned by

the

brother of

Rudolph

Spreckels,

who

was

working

with

the graft prosecution.

Is

Fremont

Older

missing,

by any

chance? the

at-

torney

asked.

My

God,

yes, came the

answer.

The

whole

city is

looking

for

him.

The

attorney described Older's

situation.

A

judge

in

Santa Barbara,

a few miles

north

of

Los

Angeles, was

routed

out of bed

by

a

long-distance telephone

call,

and

a

writ of

habeas

corpus was

issued.

In spite

of

the

early

hour, word

of

what

was

hap-

pening spread

through

Santa Barbara,

and

when

the

train

reached

the city

the

station was thronged

with

interested citizens.

Must

be

a

wedding party, said one of the

kidnap-

pers

as

he

looked out the

compartment

window. But

he

was

wrong;

a

sheriff's

posse boarded

the

train and

took

Older

into custody.

A

few

hours later,

in

a

Santa

Barbara

courtroom, he

was

set

free.

His

four

captors

were

subsequently

arrested;

the

two

from

Los

Angeles

turned state's

evidence

and admitted

the plot

to

kill

Older. Of

the

other

two,

one

jumped

bail

and

was

never

recaptured;

the

fourth man,

brought to trial

a year

later, was acquitted

by

a

San

Francisco

jury

pre-

sumably influenced by

Ruef.

By

1905,

Older

and

those

working with him had re-

alized

that

the

grafters controlled nearly

all

the

ma-

chinery

of justice

so

completely

that outside help

would

be

necessary,

and

that

this

would

be

very

ex-

pensive.

Two prominent

and

wealthy citizens sym-

pathized with

Older

and

were

helping

him

as

much as

possible. One

was

James

D. Phelan,

a

millionaire

busi-

nessman

(and afterward

United

States

senator) who

had given San

Francisco

an honest and efficient gov-

ernment

as

mayor for three terms,

just

before

Schmitz

took

office.

The other was Spreckels, who came of

a

wealthy family

but

had

quarreled with his father

and

made a

fortune of

his

own

before

he

was

thirty.

Phelan

and

Spreckels

promised

to

put

up the

money

for an

independent investigation

and

prosecution,

which

they

thought

would cost

$100,000

(the

final

tab

was

about

two

and

a

half

times that

much).

There was

no

doubt as to the

man they

wanted

as

prosecutor:

he

was

Francis

J.

Heney,

an attorney born

in

Lima,

New

York,

but raised in San

Francisco,

a

man

of

tremen-

dous

self-confidence,

a

bitter-end

fighter,

and

a

com-

bined bloodhound

and

bulldog when

he

was on the

trail of

evil-doing. At

the

moment, Heney was being

used

by

the

United

States

government

to prosecute

a

series

of

land-fraud cases in

Oregon.

Older went to

Washington

and

easily obtained the

promise of

Presi-

dent

Theodore

Roosevelt

to

have Heney lent to

the

100



San Franciscans

as

soon

as

the

Oregon cases were

con-

cluded.

Since

this

was his

home

town, Heney gave his

services

without

pay

for

a

fight

that was to

last several

years.

He

brought with

him

William

J.

Burns,

a

de-

tective

who

had made a

notable

career

in the

Secret

Service of the United

States

Treasury Department.

So intent were Older

and his

friends

on

tracking

down

the

grafters

that

the

great

San

Francisco

earth-

quake and

fire

of

April

18,

1906,

which

cost

more

than

four hundred lives

and almost

completely destroyed

all

the

important

parts

of

the

city,

delayed them

only

temporarily.

A

few

weeks

later

the prosecution

was

ready

to

proceed.

With great

audacity

Ruef, well

aware

of

what

was

going

on,

struck first.

The

district attorney,

William H.

Langdon,

had

been

appointed

with Ruef's

consent

but had

unex-

pectedly

turned

out to

be

honest,

and had co-operated

with

the

prosecution by

appointing Heney

as

an assist-

ant

district

attorney. Ruef

responded

by

ordering

Mayor

Schmitz to dismiss Langdon and replace him by

none

other than

Ruef

himselfl

The

prosecution suc-

ceeded in

bringing the

matter

into

court

the next

day,

and

the

judge

agreed

to

give

his decision at

2

p.m. In

the

early

morning, Older

rushed

out a

special

edition

of the

Bulletin telling

what

was happening,

and

dis-

tributed many

thousands

of

free

copies

throughout

the

city. The paper

invited honest residents

of

San

Fran-

cisco to come at

the zero hour

and line

up on the

lawn

outside the

judge's

chambers,

which

happened

to

be

on

the

ground

floor.

Many hundreds

of leading citizens

responded,

and

as

two

o'clock approached, they stood

packed

together and silent,

looking in at

the

judge.

He

ruled

for

Langdon.

The

prosecution

began

its

work

with

plenty

of

sus-

picion

of

bribery, but

little

solid

evidence.

Indeed,

on

several

occasions both

Older

and Heney

made public

charges,

which

Older printed

in

the Bulletin,

that

went far

beyond

anything

they

were able to

prove.

The first

break

came, as

it

so

often does,

when

the

thieves

fell

out. Two minor members

of the graft

ring,

joint

owners of

a

skating

rink, had

reasons

to

dislike

Ruef

and

to

respect the

power

of

Older and

Heney.

They now

approached the

prosecution with

offers

to

help,

and a

trap

was

set

for

some of

the

dishonest

supervisors.

The

prosecution prepared

an

ordinance that would

have crippled the

operations

of

the

skating

rink by for-

bidding

entrance

to unchaperoned minors, and Mayor

Schmitz

was tricked

into

sponsoring

it

with

the

Board

of Supervisors.

Several members

were

then

sounded

out

as to

whether

they would be

willing

to

vote against

it

for

a

suitable

sum

of money.

This was

long before

the

days

of dictaphones,

but

the trap was set

efficiently,

nonetheless. The first supervisor

was approached

in

the

office

of the

skating

rink, and while Burns and

two

other

men watched through holes bored in the

wall,

he

accepted

$500

in

marked

bills.

Another

supervisor

fell for

the same ruse.

A

third

was

bribed

in the home

of

one

of the

skating-rink owners while Burns,

a

stenog-

rapher,

and

another

witness

watched

from

a darkened

adjoining

room through folding

doors

left slightly

ajar.

From

the

beginning,

the

prosecution

wanted

to

reach

the

big

businessmen

who

gave

the bribes;

Heney

was

willing

to offer immunity

to

the

lesser figures, in-

cluding the

supervisors.

Such

offers

were

not legally

binding

on

the courts, but

judges

usually respected

them.

With

the damaging evidence against

the

super-

visors

who had taken

the

money in

the

skating-rink

affair,

and with promises

of

immunity to their

col-

leagues,

Heney

soon had detailed and documented

confessions from almost

all

of

the

seventeen men.

The

grand jury was

known to be packed with

henchmen

of the

graft

ring,

and

a

new

one was clearly

needed.

District Attorney

Langdon

dismissed the old

jury

and

had

an

honest

one

impaneled.

Ruef

and

Schmitz were

promptly indicted for

mulcting

the

French

restaurants.

Both

men

exhausted

every legal

avenue

to avoid

trial,

or to

postpone

it as

long

as

possible. When

Ruef's case came up,

he

did

not

appear

in court,

ap-

parently

believing that through

a

legal technicality he

was not required to

do

so;

he

was promptly arrested.

Since the

sheriff was

one

of

his own

men,

the

duty

of

guarding

him was

transferred to the coroner.

But

he,

also,

was in the

graft ring,

and was

not

to be

trusted.

Ruef

was

therefore confined

in

a

hotel

under

the care

of

William

J.

Biggy,

a

special

officer called an

elisor.

Heney,

eager

to

reach

the men

higher up, now of-

fered Ruef

immunity

if he

would

confess. For a long

time

the

little

boss

refused;

his story

was

that

all the

money paid

him

by

everybody

had

been

merely

legal

fees. But at

last

he

broke

down, after

many

appeals by

two

rabbis

and

a

dramatic

scene

in

the bedroom

of

his

mother,

who

was

gravely

ill.

He

then

made

a

complete

confession,

naming those

who

had

bribed him and

telling

the

amounts

and

where the

money had gone.

Describing the members

of

his own

graft ring, he re-

marked that

They

were so

greedy

they

would

eat

the

paint off

the

City

Hall,

leading the

public

to

call

them,

for years

thereafter,

the

paint

eaters.

Schmitz was

now

tried

on

the extortion indictment.

Although

he

pursued

the

course

that

he

followed to

the

day

of

his

death—

flatly

denying every charge, no

matter

what

anyone else

might

say—

he

was

found

guilty

and sentenced

to

prison.

Before this,

the

ques-

tion had

arisen as

to

whether

the

supervisors, nearly

all of

whom had

now

confessed

to

accepting bribes.

101



should

be

turned

out of

office, and

the

prosecution

had

approved

keeping

them

in their

places

temporarily,

lest Ruef

should furnish

a

new

and

worse set from his

seemingly

endless

supply

of

underworld

characters.

As

Lincoln

Steffens

pointed

out

at

the time,

this

Board of

Supervisors

was

the

best

in

America :

they

did not

dare

misbehave

further,

with

their

confessions

of

wrongdoing

on

record.

With

Schmitz in

jail,

and

with

no

honest

replacement

in

sight,

the

prosecution

agreed

to

put one of

the

bribe-taking

supervisors

into the

mayor's

office

temporarily.

As Heney

began

to tighten

the

noose

on the big

businessmen

who

were

behind

the

corruption,

a

sud-

den

turn

appeared

in

San

Francisco

public

opinion. As

long

as

the

quarry

had been

men

from

the

lower

social

strata,

the best

people

had heartily

approved;

but

now

Heney's

detectives

were

getting

close

to important

citizens,

and

the

prosecution

quickly

became

highly

unpopular.

Western

rough-and-tumble

mores

still

pre-

vailed;

the

businessmen

who were

accused were,

after

all,

self-made

men

and

leaders

of the

community.

As

for

trade-union

members,

they

still

thought

of Schmitz

as their

spokesman.

Since

Ruef was

a

Jew,

the prosecu-

tion

was

accused

of anti-Semitism;

since Patrick

Cal-

houn,

the

streetcar

tycoon,

had

come

from

Georgia,

the bloody

shirt

was

waved.

Several

of the

other men

who

had taken

bribes

belonged

to

the

Protestant

Epis-

copal

Church,

and

Heney

and

Older

were attacked

for

prejudice

against that

institution.

Those allied

with

the

prosecution

were

subjected

to

pressure

both

subtle

and

direct.

Big

advertisers

with-

drew from

Older's Bulletin,

and wealthy

depositors

took

their

money

out of

Rudolph

Spreckels' First

Na-

tional

Bank.

The foreman

of

the

honest

grand jury,

Bartley P.

Oliver,

was in

the

real-estate

business;

he

was

boycotted

severely.

(When it

was

all over,

he had

to move away

from

San

Francisco

and

start life

anew,

as did

Heney.)

Calhoun,

while

under

indictment,

was

asked

to a

dinner

at

the

fashionable

Olympic

Club, where

he was warmly

applauded

and asked

to make

a

speech;

when

one

of the oldest

members

of the club.

Dr.

Charles

A.

Clinton, protested,

he

was

expelled—

and

Calhoun

was elected

in

his

place. Mrs.

Fremont

Older

described

the

social

ostracism:

Members

of the

prose-

cution were not

bidden

to

entertainments

where

peo-

ple of

fashion

gathered

. . .

[where]

women

reserved

their

sweetest smiles for

the

candidates

for

state's

prison

. . .

[and]

to

ask

whether

one believed

in

loot-

ing

the city

became

a

delicate

personal

question.

The

Bulletin was

the

center

of the

storm,

and

the

members

of its

staff

worked under

a

tremendous

strain;

I myself

saw

plenty

of

evidence

of

this. Many

reporters

and advertising

solicitors

habitually

carried revolvers.

Every

setback

for

the

prosecution—and

there were

many—

became

a personal

tragedy

to everybody

who

worked for

Older.

The change

in the

city's moral

climate

was soon reg-

istered in

the actions

in

the courts.

Tirey

L.

Ford,

who

had

bribed

Ruef

with

$200,000

on

behalf

of Calhoun,

was tried

three

times;

in spite

of

ample

evidence of

his

guilt,

the jury

disagreed

once,

and

twice

he

was

ac-

quitted.

(Each

trial was

for

bribing

a

different

super-

visor; there

were

so

many of these

cases

that the

prose-

cution

could

have gone on for

years.)

The

higher

courts of

the

state,

many of

whose

members

were

deeply

respectful

of

men

of property,

also conspicu-

ously sided against

the

prosecution. The

district court

of

appeals soon

freed

Schmitz, on astonishing

grounds:

he was not guilty

of extortion,

it said,

because

the

French restaurants

were

undoubtedly

houses of

pros-

ATO.NEMENT

This

San Francisco Examiner

cartoon

of

May 16,

igoj, shows

Ruef

offering

up

to Justice the heads

of

some

of

the

powerful

men

he

had

implicated in

his confession: Patrick Calhoun

and

Tirey

L.

Ford

of

the

United Railroads;

Louis

Glass,

vice

president and

general manager

of

the

Pacific

States Tele-

phone Company;

William F. Herrin,

chief

counsel

for

the

Southern

Pacific;

and

Ruef's

puppet.

Mayor Eugene

Schmitz.

102



titution, and their licenses

could

properly have

been

revoked;

to

threaten

to do

a

legal

act is not extortion.

The state supreme

court upheld

this

remarkable argu-

ment and

added

one of its

own: that the whole

trial

of

Schmitz was illegal

anyway because

the indictment

had failed

to

mention that

he

was mayor of

San Fran-

cisco,

or

that

Ruef was a

political

boss

In

this

atmosphere

of

mounting

community disap-

proval,

Ruef

was

finally

tried for

bribery.

Because he

had

persisted,

in

trial

after trial, in

partly

repudiating

his confession and

in

insisting that

all payments made

to

him had been

merely

legal fees,

Heney canceled the

promise

of immunity;

Ruef

responded

by

pleading

not

guilty. The bitterness of San

Francisco

sentiment was

shown

by

the

fact that

getting

a

jury took from Au-

gust

27

until

November

6,

and used up a

panel of al-

most

fifteen

hundred

talesmen.

While examining prospective

jurors Heney

had

pub-

licly revealed

the

fact

that one man

on the

panel, Mor-

ris

Haas,

was

ineligible

because

he

had many years

earlier

served

a

term

in

San

Quentin

Prison.

Heney

did not

need to

humiliate

Haas

publicly in this way;

he did so

in

anger,

believing that Ruef was trying to

plant

the

man

on

the

jury. Haas

deeply

resented

Heney's action

and brooded over it

for

many

weeks.

While

the trial was in

temporary recess, Haas ap-

proached

Heney

in the

courtroom, whipped out

a

re-

volver, and shot

the

attorney

in

the

head;

the

bullet

lodged behind

the

jaw

muscles,

where a difference

of

a

fraction of

an

inch

in

any direction would

have

pro-

duced

a

fatal

wound.

Heney was

carried

away on

a

stretcher, mumbling, I'll get

him

[Ruef]

yet. His

place

was

taken

by

a

bright

young

assistant

named

Hiram

Johnson,

and

the

trial went on.

Haas was

placed in

a

prison cell with

a

policeman

to guard him; but in

spite of

these

precautions he was

found dead the

following

evening,

a

small

pistol

be-

side him. Those who

believed Haas had been

hired

by

Ruef

to

murder

Heney now believed, naturally,

that

some

other gangster

in

Ruef's employ had

done

away

with Haas

so

that

he

could

not talk. The

chief of

po-

lice was

deeply

hurt

by

Heney's

public criticism of

him

for

negligence

in

the Haas case, so

much

so

that

some

time later

he

committed suicide

by

jumping

overboard

from

a

launch

during

a

nighttime

crossing of

San

Fran-

cisco Bay.

Heney

did

not

die,

as

he

had

been

expected

to,

and

some days

later

the trial

was

concluded. Detective

Burns

had

given

Johnson

the names

of

four

jurors

who. Burns said,

had

been

bribed,

and in

his

summa-

tion

Johnson

called each

of

them

by

name,

pointed

a

forefinger

at him, and

shouted:

You—you

dare not

ac-

quit

this

mani

Nevertheless,

when

the

jury

retired

for

its

deliberations

everyone expected that it would

let

Ruef

go,

or

would disagree, as had happened in almost

every other

case

growing

out

of

the graft

prosecution.

While

the jury

was out Heney telephoned

Older to

say

that

he was much

recovered,

and

proposed

to

come

down

and

pay

his respects to the

judge. Older, with

his

usual flair

for the dramatic, told Heney not to come

until

the editor gave the signal. While most of

the

community was

by

now against the

prosecution,

there

was

a

minority

on

the

side

of honesty,

which

had

organized

a

League

of

Justice

pledged

to help at

a mo-

ment's notice.

Older

now hastily sent word to dozens

of

these

men,

who

came

and

crowded into the

court-

room,

which was directly

under

the chamber in which

the jury

was

deliberating.

Evelyn Wells, in her

biog-

raphy of

Older,

tells

what

happened when

Heney

entered

the

courtroom

on

Older's arm:

The

minutemen

raised

a shout of

welcome.

Older himself

trumpeted like a bull

elephant. The

rest

of the crowd

joined

in. . . . It

was

a

cheer of

welcome,

but to the scared jury

on

the floor

above

it sounded like

a

bellowed

demand for

lynching.

A

few minutes

later

twelve good

men and

true

filed

hurriedly

into the

courtroom. They

had hastily made

up their

minds.

All were

deathly white. Some trembled.

A

few were

weeping.

But

their verdict

was

Guilty, and

Ruef

was

sen-

tenced

to

fourteen years

in prison. Of

all the

sentences

meted out to

leading

figures

in

the whole

course

of the

prosecution,

it was the only

one

that

was made to

stick.

Another

municipal election was approaching, and

Langdon,

the

weary and battered

district

attorney,

re-

fused to run

again.

He

was discouraged,

with

good

reason: a

key

witness,

the

supervisor

who

had

paid

off

his

fellows

on

Ruef's

behalf,

had fled

the

country. In

desperation, Heney

himself ran

for

district

attorney,

and

was defeated

by a

football

hero

from Stanford

University,

Charles M. Fickert, whose liaison

with

the

grafters was notorious.

Fickert

promptly

and

contemptuously

refused to

go

on

with

any

of

the pending cases

against

the

big

businessmen. He pretended

not

to

know the

where-

abouts

of

the supervisor

who had

fled,

although

every-

one else

knew

that

he was

rusticating

in Vancouver,

British

Columbia. William

P.

Lawlor,

the

honest

judge

who had presided

in several

of

the cases,

excoriated

Fickert

and ordered

the others

to

trial;

but he was

over-

ruled

by

the court of

appeals,

which

decided

that all

of

the large

number

of

remaining

indictments

should

be

quashed.

The graft prosecution was

over, having ended in al-

most

total failure,

with

only

Ruef

in

prison.

Or so

it seemed.

But the

future was in fact

brighter

than any member of

Older's

group

could

have dared to

103



hope.

Even

in the

middle

of the

fight, a

new

mayor

had been elected,

Dr. Edward

Robeson

Taylor,

who

was not only

a leading physician but

a

leading

attor-

ney as well; although

he had stood

aloof from

the graft

prosecution,

he was

a man

of

unquestioned

probity

who could

be relied

upon

to

put

an

end to the thiev-

ing.

Moreover, the proceedings in

the

various cases

had

been

watched

not only

in San

Francisco

but

throughout

the

state,

where

many

people

did

not

share

the

San

Franciscans'

laissez-faire attitude to-

ward

crime.

Hiram

Johnson

had become

a

hero

by

tak-

ing Heney's

place;

he

now ran

for governor, with

the

blessing

of

Older

and

his

friends,

on a

platform

of

turn

the

rascals out —

the rascals including not only

the

San Francisco

bribers

but

the

fixers for

the South-

ern

Pacific

Railroad and other

great business organiza-

tions

that

were not above stooping to corruption.

Johnson

was

overwhelmingly

elected

governor,

and

re-elected four

years

later, going from

that office to

the

United States Senate. As

governor

he

put

through

a

series

of

reforms, including changes

in

the

electoral

system,

that ended

forever most

of

the worst

practices

of

the

graft ring. Today, San

Francisco

has

an honest

government,

and

the business

organizations

(or their

successors) that handed

out

bribes

half a

century

ago

would look

with proper

horror

on

any

suggestion

that

they should now resort to

the

old

tactics.

Having finally

put

Ruef into

prison.

Older

began

to

have

qualms of conscience.

He

felt that

the

promise

of

immunity

had

been too

cavalierly

broken,

that per-

haps

the

community was more guilty than

the

little

boss,

and

that Ruef

had

been made a scapegoat

for

many

worse

men.

The

editor

now began

a campaign

in

the

Bulletin for

Ruef's

release, but no one

in

a posi-

tion

of

power shared his new-found

Tolstoian attitude,

and Ruef

was

not

paroled until

he had

served

a

full

half

of his net

sentence

of nine years (after

deduc-

tions

for

good

behavior

and

for

time in prison

await-

ing

trial).

His release

came

one month

after

it was

legally

possible—

after

four years and

seven months.

In

some other

cases. Nemesis

seemed

to

be

at

work.

Fickert,

a

few

years

later,

was

discovered

to

have

used

a

perjured witness

to

send

Tom

Mooney

to prison,

and

his

career

ended

in

disgrace.

One

of

the

members

of

the

state supreme

court,

who

cast

the deciding vote

in some three-to-four

decisions,

was proved to

have

ac-

cepted

a bribe

of

$410,000

a

few years

earlier

in an

important

case

involving the estate of a wealthy

Cali-

fornian,

James

G. Fair.

Patrick Calhoun

lost

his

for-

tune in

land speculation, though

many years

later

he

partially recouped

his losses in another city. Ruef,

re-

leased from prison, went into the real-estate

business

and

after some

successes,

went downhill

into

deepening

poverty

until

he

died

bankrupt,

a

quarter

of

a

century

after

he

had gone to

prison.

Ex-Mayor

Eugene

Schmitz fared better

than any

of

his

associates.

He

brazened

it out in San

Francisco

for

almost

two decades;

the

city, perhaps

remembering

Steffens' advice

that the

best possible

official

is one

who

has

already

been

proved

dishonest, elected

him

to sev-

eral

successive

terms—on

the Board

of Supervisors

Bruce

Bliven

served

under

Fremont

Older on the

San

Fran-

cisco

Bulletin

during

the prosecution

of

Ruef

and

Schmitz.

For many

years

an

editor

of

the

New

Republic,

he

is now

a

lecturer at

Stanford

University.

'^'^'\P'^'v''^'^'^^'\?'^'s?'^'^'7'y'^'^'^'^'^'^'^^

MODEL

FOR

CORRECT

ACCEPTANCE

OF

A

PROPOSAL

Sir:

The attentions which

you

have

so

long and so

assiduously shown

to

me

have

not escaped my notice;

indeed how

could they,

since

they

were directed

exclusively

to me? .

.

.

I admit the truth, that pleased and

flattered

by such

attentions,

I

fondly

endeavored

to

persuade

myself

that

attachment

toward

me

had

formed

itself

in your

breast.

Judge

then, what must have been

my

feelings

on

reading the contents

of

your letter,

in which

you

propose to

pay your

addresses,

in

a

manner,

the

object

of

XL'hich cannot be mistaken—that I may

regard

you as

my

acknowl-

edged

suitor,

and that

you

have chosen

me

as the most

likely

to

contribute

to

your

happiness

in

the married

state.

On

consulting

my

parents, I

find

that

they

do

not

object to your

proposal;

therefore, I

have

only

this to

add—

may we still entertain the same

regard

which

we

have

hitherto

cherished

for

each

other, until it shall ripen

into

that

affection which

wedlock shall

sanction,

and

which

lapse

of

time

will

not

allow to

fade.

Believe

me

to be.

Yours,

sincerely attached.

Emily

Thornwell,

The Ladies'

Guide

to Perfect Gentility, New York,

1859.

Reprinted in the

Bulletin,

Missouri

Historical

Society,

July,

1959.

104



The

Battle

That

IVon an

Empire

CONTINUED

FROM

PACE

Jl

ill the near

future—

before

gales and

frost

would

come

to

the

relief

of

the

French.

Faced

with

an

enemy

strongly

entrenched in

a

posi-

tion that

commanded

the

approach to

Quebec,

Wolfe's

problem

was

to

lure

him

out of

his fastness.

The

only

way

of

doing

this

was

to

bait

a

trap.

To

this

end

Wolfe

—who

had

already

dispatched

Monckton's

brigade

to

Pointe

Levi—

now

landed

(during the

night of

July

9)

the

bulk

of

Townshend's

and

Murray's

brigades on

the

north

shore,

just

below

the

falls of the

Montmor-

ency

River.

This

dispersion of

his force

has been

much

criticized

by

military

historians.

But

the

objections,

while

in

accord with

abstract

theory, tend to

overlook

the

actual

circumstances.

In

view

of

the

almost

impregnable

position

in

which

Montcalm was

posted, Wolfe had

to take

risks

to

lure

the enemy

into

the

open. In

this case the

risks were

slight.

Wolfe's

command

of

the

river

gave

him

the

power

of

movement, for reinforcement

of

either

por-

tion if

engaged.

His

troop

distribution gave

him

the

power

of

siuprise

by

keeping

Montcalm

in

uncer-

tainty and

apprehension as

to

the

direction

of

Wolfe's

real

move.

Moreover,

Wolfe had

ample

evidence that

the

French

were disinclined to

take the

offensive,

and

his

confidence in

the strong

superiority of

his own

troops in any

engagement

on

their own

ground—

a

con-

fidence which was

abundantly

justified—

gave him se-

curity

that

any

part that

was

attacked

could hold its

own

for

the

time

until

reinforcements crossed

the river.

This

understanding

of

Wolfe's

object

and

the condi-

tions

sheds

light

on

Townshend's statement,

and

com-

plaint, that on

inspecting his front, Wolfe

disapproved

of it,

saying I had

indeed

made

myself secure, for I

had

made

a

fortress.

Townshend

failed to

realize

that he

was

spoiling Wolfe's

bait,

for

if the

French would not

come out to

attack the

English

in

the

open,

they

cer-

tainly

would not

venture

against

an

enemy visibly

in

a

strongly

fortified

position.

Far

from

Wolfe

being

in danger,

neither this

bait

nor

the

gradual

destruction

of

the city by

bombard-

ment

could

stir the cool and

wary French

commander

—who

remarked

to his

subordinates: If

you

drive

Wolfe and

his

two

brigades away, they

will

be

trouble-

some

somewhere else.

While they are

there, they

can-

not

do much harm.

So

let

them

amuse

themselves.

By

any

normal gauge, he

was justified

in

reckoning that

he

could keep

his attackers

at bay until

winter

com-

pelled their

retreat.

The

next British

move

was a naval

one.

On the

night

of

July

18, a

frigate

and

some

smaller vessels

slipped

past the

guns

of

Quebec,

under cover

of

a

heavy British bombardment

from Pointe

Levi, and

an-

chored above

the city. This at

least

forced

Montcalm

to detach

six

hundred men to

guard

the

few

paths

up

the

cliffs

in

the eight-mile

stretch above

Quebec

be-

tween

the

city

and

Cap

Rouge. \Volfe

at once

recon-

noitered

the

upper

river for

a

possible

landing

on

the

north

shore,

but

after

restless

meditation

decided

that

both

the

difficulties and the

risks were too

great. As

he

wrote

to

Pitt:

What

1

feared

most

was,

that if we

should have

landed

between

the

town

and the

river

of

Cap Rouge

the

body first landed could

not

be

rein-

forced before

they

were

attacked by

the

enemy's

whole

army.

A

landing

still higher up the river, which

some

critics

have

suggested,

would

not only

have

given

Montcalm time to occupy

fresh lines on that

side,

but

would have widely

separated Wolfe's army

from

the

main part

of the fleet

and

his base—

a

far

more

danger-

ous

dispersion

than

that

which

these

critics

condemn

at Pointe Levi and

Montmorency.

His

communications

would have been

stretched

like

a

narrow cord

with a

knife—

Quebec—

grazing the middle.

But

the

weeks

were

slipping

by,

and

Wolfe felt

bound to

try

some

daring measure to

draw out

the

French,

if

he

could

find

one less

desperate

than

a

land-

ing

above

Quebec.

Below the

town he was

separated

from tlie French

by

the

Montmorency,

which

flows

swift

and deep

for

many miles until it

tumbles

over

the falls,

a

250-foot

drop,

just

before entering

the

St.

Lawrence.

Wolfe had

tried

in

vain

to

discover

a

prac-

ticable ford above the falls

by

which he

could turn

the

front

of

the

French. But

only

below

the falls

does it

run broad

and

shallow.

A mile

to the west, up

the

St.

Lawrence, there was

a

narrow

strip

of

land

between

the

river and

the

heights

where

the

French

had

built

redoubts.

Wolfe now

planned to

land here

with all his

available

grenadiers and

part

of

Monckton's brigade

from Pointe

Levi—hoping,

by

the

capture

of

a de-

tached

redoubt,

to

tempt

the

French

army

down to

regain it, and

so

bring

on

a

battle in

the

open. Mean-

while, the

other

two

brigades

were to

be

ready

to join

him

by

fording the

lower

reaches

of

the

Montmorency,

where it can

be

waded.

On

July

31

the

attempt

was

made,

covered by

the

guns of several

ships and by

the

batteries across

the

Montmorency

gorge.

But

on

nearing

the

shore

Wolfe

perceived

that

the

redoubt was

too

much

commanded

to

be

kept

without

very

great loss,

and

drew off.

For

several hours

the

boats

rowed

up

and

down,

both to

confuse

the

enemy

and

to

enable

Wolfe to

sight

another

landing point.

Late

in

the

afternoon

the

105



enemy,

marching

and

countermarching,

seemed

in

some confusion,

and Wolfe gave

the

signal for

a fresh

attempt.

Unluckily

many

of

the boats

grounded on

an unseen

ledge,

causing

further delay. Worse was to

follow,

for

when the troops

got

ashore, the

grenadiers

rushed

impetuously

on the

enemy's

entrenchments

without

waiting

for

the

main

body

to

form

up.

As a

storm

of

fire broke

in their faces, a storm of

rain

broke

on

their

heads,

and

the

steep

slopes,

slippery

with

blood

and

water,

became

unclimbable,

while

the

mus-

kets

became

unfireable.

Realizing

that

his plans

had

gone

awry,

Wolfe

broke

off

the

fight and re-embarked

the troops.

It

was

a

severe

setback, and

the

French

were proportionately

elated.

The

Governor wrote

home:

1

have no

more

anxiety

about

Quebec.

Neither in

his

frank dispatches

to Pitt

nor

to

his

troops

did Wolfe show any loss

of

heart, but

his

last

letter to his mother, on August

31,

reveals

his

declin-

ing hope

and

his feeling that he was

on

the

verge of

professional

ruin:

The

enemy

puts

nothing to

risk,

and

I

can't in

conscience,

put

the

whole

army

to

risk.

My

antagonist has

wisely shut himself

up

in inacces-

sible entrenchments, so that I can't get at

him

without

spilling

a

torrent

of blood, and

that

perhaps to

little

purpose. Then he

went on

to say:

I approve

entirely

of

my

father's disposition

of

his

affairs, though

per-

haps

it

may

interfere

a

little

matter with

my

plan

of

quitting

the

service, which

I

am

determined

to do

the

first opportunity.

Wolfe knew

that

where age

can

blunder

and be

forgiven,

youth must

seal

its presump-

tion with

success

if it is to

survive

inevitable

jealousy.

Dejected

in mind,

he

fell ill in

body,

but saying

to

his

surgeon,

I

know

perfectly

well

you

cannot

cure

my

complaint,

he

demanded: Patch

me

up

so that I

may

be

able

to do my

duty

for

the

next few days,

and

I shall

be

content.

He

had

been

laid

low

on August

19,

but before

this

he

had

initiated

a starvation

campaign

against

the

French, sending detachments

to lay waste

the coun-

try around,

although

he

gave strict orders for

the

good

treatment

of

women and

children.

More important

still

was

a

move to cut

off their

main

supplies,

which

came

downstream from Montreal.

For weeks,

more

and

more

British

ships

had

slipped

past

the

guns of

Que-

bec, and on

August

5,

after

being

joined by Murray

with

twelve

hundred

troops in

flatboats,

they were

sent

upstream to

harass

the

French shipping and

shores.

The

diversion, moreover, forced

Montcalm

to

detach

another

fifteen

hundred

men

under Louis

de

Bougainville

to

prevent

a

landing

west

of

Quebec.

Economic pressure is

a slow

weapon,

however,

and

Wolfe feared

that winter

might

stop

operations before

it could achieve

its

object.

From his

sickbed

he sent

a

message

asking

his brigadiers to consult

together

on

a

fresh

move,

suggesting

three possible

variations

of

the

Montmorency

plan. Murray had now

returned,

and

the

three, in reply,

proposed instead

to

carry

the

operations above

the

town,

and try to establish

our-

selves on

the

north shore —but

without any

detailed

^If^jL^

/tcrm^^'^

MK^i

-u-^sA.

lijj

KO

tXUUCY

TO

C/s.PTl-W-,S

MEt'OBE

QlTEBECK



suggestions as

to

how

and

where

it was

to be

done.

Wolfe,

as

we

know, had

conceived

this idea

before,

and

reluctantly

abandoned it.

But

now the

situation

was

modified,

both

because

he

had

got

so

many

of

his

ships

upriver

and

because,

after

the

Montmorency

plan

had failed,

a

gamble was

more

justified-and

in-

evitable.

On

September

3

Wolfe

evacuated

the

Montmorency

camp,

and

on

the

fifth, after

concentrating

his

forces

on

the south

shore,

he

marched

the

bulk, some

thirty-

six

hundred

men,

overland

up

the river

bank,

and em-

barked them in

the

ships.

Montcalm

thereupon

rein-

forced

Bougainville,

who

was

at

Cap

Rouge,

with

another

fifteen

hundred

men,

although

feeling

confi-

dent that it

was a

ruse of

Wolfe's—

who, he

remarked,

is

just

the man

to

double

back

in

the night.

Each

day

the

ships drifted up

and

down with

the

tide,

perplexing

the

French

command

and wearing

out

their

troops

with

ceaseless

marching

and

counter-

marching,

while

Wolfe

reconnoitered

the

cliffs

through

a

telescope

for a

possible

point of

ascent.

While

his

brigadiers

were

searching

elsewhere,

he

observed a

winding

path

up

the cliffs at

the Anse

au

Foulon,

only

a

mile

and

a

half above

Quebec, and noticed that it

was

capped by

a

cluster of less

than

a

dozen

tents.

Deeming

the

spot almost

inaccessible,

the French had

posted

there

only

a

small

picket.

Wolfe's

choice

was

made,

but

he kept it secret

until

the eve

of

the

venture. On

September 10

he

informed

Colonel

Burton

of

the

Forty-eighth

Foot,

who was to

be

left

in

charge of the

troops on the

south

shore, and

on

the eleventh he issued

a

warning

order

for the em-

barkation

of

the

troops the

next

night.

On

the

twelfth

he

issued

his orders

for

the

attack,

ending

on

the

note,

The officers

and men

will

remember

what

their coun-

try expects

of

them

...

[to be]

resolute

in

the

execu-

tion of

their

duty —

the germ

of

Nelson's

message

at

Trafalgar.

That evening, in his

cabin

on

H.M.S. Suth-

erland,

Wolfe

sent

for his

old

schoolfellow,

John

Jervis—

later famous

as

Earl St. Vincent,

but

then com-

manding

a

sloop—

and

handed over his

will, together

with

a

miniature

of

his promised

bride,

Catherine

Lowther, with

instructions

to

return it to

her

in

the

event of

his death.

Just

before sunset.

Admiral

Saunders

with

the

main

fleet

drew out along the

shore

opposite

Montcalm's

camp

below

Quebec,

and,

lowering

the

boats

to

sug-

gest

a

landing,

opened a

violent

fire.

This

ruse fulfilled

its purpose

of

fixing the enemy,

for Montcalm

concen-

trated

his

troops at

Beauport

and kept them

under

arms

during

the

night—

miles

away

from

the

real

dan-

ger

point.

While

the

French

were

straining their

eyes

to

detect

the

threatened

landing, a single

lantern rose

to

the maintop of

the

Sutherland, upriver,

and sixteen

hundred troops

of the

first

division

noiselessly

em-

barked

in their flatboats. At

2

a.m.,

as

the

tide

began

to

ebb,

two

lanterns rose and flickered, and

the whole

flotilla dropped

silently

downstream, the

troops

in

boats

leading. Discovery was

narrowly averted when

a

French-speaking British officer twice

replied to a sen-

Gibes

from

the

Officer

s *

Mess

During

the Quebec

campaign. Brigadier

George

Townshend

turned

his

hand to

cartoons, three

of

which

appear here.

Like

most

such

efforts,

they belong on the

level

of

bar-

racks-room

humor,

and they

were

most

displeasing

to

Wolfe.

A

stickler

for

proper

fortifications,

he once

saw

one

of

Townshend's

sketches

showing him building

trenches

around

a

brothel.

If

we

live, he told

Townshend,

paling

and pocketing

the

paper,

this shall

be

enquired

into.

As

the

skirmishing

around

Quebec grew

more

brutal. General

Wolfe

issued

proclamations threatening

reprisals

against

French-Canadian

prisoners. These

are satirized at

far

left

in

a

confrontation

between

Wolfe

and a

French

couple

and

at

near

left

in

a

conversation between

Wolfe

and

his

adjutant,

Isaac

Barre.

Wolfe's

fastidiousness,

and his frazzled

nerves,

are

also

made

fun

of

at

right,

where

he

is

pictured

urg-

ing a

Frenchman to

dig

a

latrine

to a

ridiculous

depth.

riaXti^t

/i^uv

yc^^n^

'-V



try's

challenge

from

the

shore—

his deception

being

helped

by

the fact,

of

which

two

deserters

had

in-

formed

Wolfe, that

the

enemy was

expecting

a

con-

voy of provisions.

The

landing

was safely made at

the Foiilon

cove-

now

called Wolfe's Cove.

A

band of

picked

volunteers

clambered

up the

steep

cliff,

and

overpowered

the

French

picket

on the

summit. This coup covered

the

landing

of the

main

body.

Before

dawn

the

army,

rein-

forced

by another

twelve hundred

troops under

Colo-

nel

Ralph Burton

direct

from

the south

bank,

was

moving

toward Quebec.

Wolfe

had found,

on

the

Plains

of Abraham,

the

open

battlefield for

which

he

had thirsted.

Should he

be

beaten,

he was

certainly

in

a

desperate position,

but he had

sure ground

for

confi-

dence

in the quality of his own men to

offset

the

French quantity

in

an

open battle.

There was a

danger

that

Bougainville's detachment

might hasten back

from

Cap

Rouge

and fall

on

his

rear,

but

this menace

can easily

be

exaggerated

in

retrospect,

for

the

light

infantry

that

Wolfe

dispatched

to

guard

his

rear

was

capable

of

holding

Bougainville in check. A

worse

danger

was

that

Montcalm might

still decline

battle,

in

which

case

the

difficulty

of

bringing

up supplies

and

artillery might

have

made

Wolfe's position precarious.

But

a

military

appreciation

must

consider

the

moral

as

well

as

the material

elements,

and Wolfe's

appear-

ance on the Plains of

Abraham, close

to

the

city,

was

a

moral challenge an

opponent

could

hardly decline.

Wolfe

deployed

his force

in a

single line—

to

gain

the fullest value of his troops'

superior

musketry

—with

his left

thrown

back to guard

the inland

flank,

and

one

regiment (Webb's

Forty-eighth

Foot, com-

manded

by

Colonel Burton) in reserve.

Montcalm,

warned

too late,

hurried his troops westward across

the

St.

Charles

and

through

the city. Wolfe's

bait

this

time

had succeeded, even

beyond

expectation, and Mont-

calm attacked before his

whole

force

was on

the

spot-

probably because a large part

of it was pinned

by

fear

of

the

threatened

landing

below

Quebec.

The

clash was

preceded by

an attempt of

the

French

Canadian irregulars and

Indians to

work

around

to

Wolfe's

left,

but

although their fire

was

galling, their

effort

was too

uncontrolled

to be

effective. About lo

A.M. the French

main

body

advanced,

but

their

ragged

fire drew no

reply

from

the

British line,

obedient

to

Wolfe's

instructions

that

a

cool well

levelled

fire is

much more destructive and

formidable

than

the

quick-

est

fire

in

confusion.

He

himself was

shot through the

wrist, but,

wrapping

a

handkerchief

round

it, continued

his calls

to the

men to

hold their

fire.

At last, when

the

French

were

barely forty yards distant,

the

word

was

given,

and

the

British

line

delivered

a

shattering

vol-

ley,

repeated

it,

and

then,

on Wolfe's

signal, charged

a

foe

already

disintegrating.

At the

head of his picked grenadiers

Wolfe was an

inevitable

target. A bullet

penetrated

his groin, a sec-

ond his

lungs, and

he fell, unobserved

by

the

charging

ranks.

Only

an officer and

two

others, soon joined

by

an

artillery

officer, saw

what

happened, and

began

to

carry

him

to the rear. Realizing that

the

chest wound

was

mortal,

he

bade

them

put

him

down,

and

stopped

them

from

sending

for

a

surgeon. His

dying

words,

when told that

the

enemy

was on

the

run—

Now

God

be praised, I

die happy —are

historic. But

the

words

immediately

preceding—uttered on

the point

of

death

—are

a

finer tribute to

him

as

a

general:

Go,

one

of

you,

my

lads,

with all

speed to

Colonel Burton

and

tell

him to march

Webb's regiment down

to the St.

Charles

River,

and

cut

off the

retreat

of

the

fugitives

to the

bridge.

Monckton,

too,

had fallen wounded, and

the

com-

mand

thus

passed

to

Townshend, who

checked

the

pursuit—

which

might

have

rushed

the

city

gates

on

the

heels of the flying

foe—

in

order

to

re-form

the

army

and

turn

about to

face Bougainville's

belated

approach.

The sight

of the

British,

emphasized

by a

few

prelimi-

nary

shots,

was

sufficient

to

convince

Bougainville that

his

small force

had best seek a safe

haven, and

he re-

treated

rapidly.

In the

city all

was

confusion, for

in the

rout Mont-

calm

had been gravely wounded, and

that

night

the

wreckage of

the

French

army streamed away

up the

river

in

flight.

With

the

death of

the

gallant Mont-

calm—

to

complete

as

dramatic

a

battle as history re-

cords—and Townshend's energetic pressing

of

the

siege,

Quebec

surrendered four

days

later.

The fall of Quebec,

the

gate

of

Canada,

ensured the

collapse

of

French power

there

unless

it could soon be

recaptured. After

recuperating

in

Montreal

during

the

winter, the

French

moved

back

against

Quebec the fol-

lowing

April.

Murray, who

had

been

left in

command

of

the

garrison, moved out to

meet

them, and by un-

wisely

advancing

too far

got

his

troops

and

guns

bogged in

a

stretch

of frozen slush.

As

a result, he

was

driven

to

retreat

within the

walls

in

a badly

mauled

state.

But

the

French

abandoned

the

siege and

re-

treated to

Montreal

when

the first ships

of

the

British

relief

fleet

came up

the

river

ten

days

later. They put

up

no

serious

resistance to

the

subsequent

converging

advance

of

the

British

forces,

and

on

September

8

Vaudreuil

signed

the

surrender

of

Canada.

Basil

Henry

Liddell

Hart is a

former

British army

officer

and

journalist

who has

written some

thirty books on

military

science

and

history

and

is

an

internationally

known expert

in

those

fields.

108



U^hen

Congress

Tried

to

Rule

CONTINUED

FROM PACE

6

in

his weakness.

Here

was a

President cut

off from

or-

ganized

political

support

and

violently

opposed

by

at

least

sixty per cent

of

the press,

an

Executive

who

probably

could

be

removed. The

proximity of the

end

of his

term,

instead

of

being

a

deterrent,

was a

spur,

since

it

might

be

a

long while

before

another

Presi-

dent

so

defenseless

and

vulnerable

came

along. Of

this fact

Stevens, facing

death, was

poignantly

aware.

The

anvil was

hot; the

time to

strike

was now.

If

this

Congress could

oust

a

President

because

he

dis-

agreed

with them,

what

was

to

prevent future

Con-

gresses from

ousting

other

Presidents for

the same

reason? The

result

was

bound

to

be a

gradual erosion

of

the

federal system

and

its replacement

by

something

akin

to

the

parliamentary

system of

Great

Britain,

a

system

in which

Congress

would rule

supreme—

with

the

executive

and,

in

time, the

judiciary as

satellites.

I

submit

that

therein

lies

the

major

significance

of

the

impeachment trial.

At

Appomattox, in

the spring

of

1865,

the

Civil War bled to its close.

In

the red

and

gold

well

of

the

Senate

chamber,

in

the

spring of

1868,

the war's

aftermath reached

its climax:

all the

rest of

Reconstruction

was

to

be

an ebbing

away from

this

moment,

a gradual

return to normal under

the

same

government erected by

the founding

fathers.

That

the

attempt

to

remove

Johnson

was a strictly

political

maneuver

is

a fact

with which

few

historians,

if

any, disagree

any

longer. The main

charge

was

that

he had

defied

the

Tenure of

Office Act of

1867,

which

forbade

the President,

under

certain

circumstances,

to

remove

a

Cabinet

member

without the consent

of

the

Senate. When

Johnson

dismissed

Lincoln's

enigmatic

Secretary of

War,

Edwin McMasters

Stanton, -(vhoni

he

had kept

on

along with

the rest of

Lincoln's Cabi-

net,

the

Senate

refused

its

consent.

Johnson

persisted

because of

Stanton's failure

to co-operate

with

the

Ad-

ministration

and

his alliance

with

its

opponents, and

the

Radicals in the lower

house, who for

more

than

a

year had been

seeking

some excuse

for

impeaching

the

President,

brought

him

to

trial before

the

Senate on

March

30,

1868.

The

Tenure

of

Office

Act

was

unconstitutional,

as

the Supreme

Court

would, many

years

later, declare.

Even so,

many of

the

best legal minds

of

the day went

along with

Johnson's

claim

that

his

dismissal

of

Stan-

ton was

not clearly

within

its meaning. For the act

contained

an

ambiguous

clause specifying

in

effect

that

Senate consent

to the removal

of

a

Cabinet

officer

was

required only if

he

were

dismissed

during the

term—plus one month—

of the

President who

had ap-

pointed him.

And

Johnson

had

not

appointed

Stanton.

As

for

the

remaining

accusations

in

the

wordy

Ar-

ticles of Impeachment, they

consisted

of

little

more

than the

allegation that

Johnson

had

exercised

his

constitutional

powers

as

Commander

in

Chief

al-

though

Congress

had passed a

law

forbidding

him

to

do

so,

along

with

the

assertion

that, at

divers

times

and

places, the President had

delivered speeches

of a

dis-

tasteful

nature in a loud

voice. So

niggling

were all

of

these charges that midway in the

trial

Benjamin F.

Butler

of

Massachusetts,

chief

prosecutor

for

the

House

impeachment

managers and

one

of

the

Presi-

dent's most implacable foes, confessed

that as a

lawyer

he

would give

anything

to

be

on

the

other side

of

the

case. But

Charles Sumner,

the

ponderous

Massachu-

setts

abolitionist,

dismissed

such

qualms as

of

no

con-

sequence

and

blatantly

advised

his

fellow

senators to

ignore

mere

matters

of

fact

and law in passing

judg-

ment. Let

each

senator,

Sumner

urged,

pronounce

the

words Guilty

or

Not

Guilty

in

accordance

with

his political

convictions.

Clearly,

then,

the trial was

political.

Abundant evi-

dence

that it

was also revolutionary

is

to be

found

in

the

events

out

of which it

grew.

When

Lincoln

died, Congress was in

recess,

and

this

gave

his successor for

several months

a

free

hand

to

initiate

Reconstruction.

In

spirit

Johnson's

plan

was

in

line with

ideas that

Lincoln had endorsed.

He

recognized the

loyal

governments set up

during

the

war

in

four

of the

formerly

Confederate

states.

In

each of

the other

seven

he

appointed

a

provisional

governor

empowered to

establish

a

permanent

civil

or-

ganization.

He

let

it

be

imderstood

that,

in

the

eyes of

llarpCT's II

On

March

2

Stevens

closed

the

impeachment

debate

in

the

House,

condemning the

President

as

a

great

malefactor.

109



the

Executive, each

state

could

be

eligible for read-

mission

to

the

Union

as

soon as it

completed this

process,

provided

that simultaneously it

abolished

slavery within its

borders

(preferably by

ratifying

the

Thirteenth

Amendment), repudiated

its

Rebel war

debt,

and voided

its

ordinance

of

secession.

By the

time

the

first

session

of

the

Thirty-ninth

Congress con-

vened

on

December

4,

1865,

nine of the

eleven South-

ern

states—

all

but

Texas

and

Florida—

had

fulfilled

the President's

requirements,

with one or two

minor

deviations,

and

had

named

senators

and

representa-

tives

to

the

national legislature.

Had Congress accepted

these

representatives

from

the

South,

restoration—

if not Reconstruction, strictly

speaking—

would

have

been

practically

completed

at

this point. Congress did

not, and of

the elements

be-

hind

its

refusal,

two

were large

with future mischief.

One

was

the

growing

influence

of the iron-back,

or

Radical, wing

of

the

Republican party,

gravitat-

ing

in

the House

around Stevens and in

the

Senate

around

Sumner and Benjamin F. Wade of

Ohio.

The

commonly

held objective

that

enabled

them

to present

a

solid

front

was

their

determination to preserve

a

Republican

hegemony

in Congress. Obviously

the

President's

Reconstruction

program was

a threat

to

this,

for immediate seating

of

the Southern

repre-

sentatives

would reduce

the

nominal

Republican

ma-

jority in the House

from

ninety-eight

to about

forty,

and in

the Senate

from twenty-eight

to about

six.

The

Radicals

had

other

aims, but

their devotion

to party

domination

was the feature

that

most clearly distin-

guished

their

thinking

from

that of

the more

states-

manlike

Republican

moderates.

Harper's

Weekly,

march

28,_i868

On

March

7

George

T.

Brown,

Senate

sergeant

at arms,

served

Johnson

with

a

summons

for

the

trial.

Accepting

it,

the

President

promised

he

would

attend

to the matter.

The

other

important

element

was

the

fact that

the

Thirty-ninth,

like

all

Congresses convening imme-

diately

after

a

war,

was suffering the

pangs

of power

deficiency

and injured

dignity. For four

years the

leg-

islative branch

had

deferred

to

the executive. The

Thirty-ninth Congress

was

determined to reassert itself.

Notwithstanding

these

divisive

influences,

the

line-

up

in the Congress was not such as

to

make

a

break

with

the

Executive

inevitable.

The

Radicals

con-

trolled the House,

but in the

Senate

the

balance of

power lay with perhaps

a

dozen

Republican

moder-

ates of

the

caliber of William

Pitt Fessenden

of Maine

and

Lyman Trumbull

of

Illinois.

Where

the South

was

concerned

the

moderates

harbored

no

vindictive

or nakedly

political

aims. Their one

demand

was

that

as a

price

for

readmission

to

the

Union

the

seceded

states

give

concrete

evidence

of

their

willingness to

extend

the

blessings

of

the Bill

of

Rights

to some four

million

newly

freed

Negroes.

Had

Johnson

seen fit to make

concessions

in this

direction,

thus

inviting

the

support of the moderates,

he

might

have triumphed, but

he

would

not;

he

be-

lieved

that the extension

of

civil

and

political rights

to

the

Negroes was

a

state matter

and that

the

federal

government

should refrain from interfering—

at

least

until such time

as

the South

was once

more

fully

repre-

sented in Congress. Even without making

any

con-

cessions

he

might

have

salvaged

a

part

of

his

program

had

the Radicals not

been

led

by

Thad

Stevens,

a

politi-

cal

strategist

of

unique abilities.

Johnson

made

no

con-

cessions and Stevens made

many,

playing

his cards

so

ably that

by

the

end of

1866

the

President

was

locked

in

deadly

combat not

merely

with

the

Radicals but

with practically

the whole congiessional

majority.

From this point

on,

the

real

issue ceased

to be who

was to

control

Reconstruction,

the

Congress

or

the

Executive.

The issue had become

who

was

to

control

the

government. In December

of

1865

the

mood

of

Congress was

merely

aggressive.

A year

later

it had

be-

come conspiratorial.

Johnson's

enemies

tried

to

justify

their course

by

accusing

him

of conspiracy.

The closing days of 1866

found Congressman

George S. Boutwell,

the

fiery

Massachusetts

Radical,

closeted

with

Secretary

of

War

Stanton.

One can imagine Stanton's

perfumed beard

chopping

the

air

as

he

poured

into Boutwell's

receptive

ears a tale

rife

with alarums

and

horrible

imaginings.

The

Secretary, according

to Boutwell's Reminis-

cences,

said that the

President

had issued

orders

to

the

Army

of

which

neither

he nor General

[of

the

Army]

Grant had

any knowledge.

He apprehended

an attempt

by

the

President

to

reorganize

the govern-

ment

by

the

assembling

of

a Congress

in

which

mem-

bers

of

the

seceding states and Democratic

members

110



from

the North

might

obtain control through the aid

of the

Executive. Boutwell

agreed

witii Stanton

that

the President's

powers must be

limited. Then and

there,

under

Stanton's dictation,

he

drafted a

measure

making

it

a

misdemeanor

for the

President

to trans-

mit

orders

to any officer of the

army

except

through

the

General

of the Army.

Added

to

this

were

other

provisions

forbidding the

President

to

remove the

General

of

the

Army—

or,

for

that

matter,

even

to

as-

sign

him to

duty

outside

the

capital—

without the

ad-

vice

and consent

of the

Senate.

This flagrant

attempt to strip

Johnson

of his

pre-

rogatives

as Commander in

Chief

was attached to the

Army Appropriation Bill

of

1867.

Rather than

leave

the

military

without

funds, the President

signed it,

taking care in his return

message

to note

that

the

rider

attacking

his powers

was

unconstitutional.

The conspiratorial mood of

Congress

was

further

expressed

by

the passage of other

bills, including

the

Tenure of

Office

Act,

aimed at

clipping

the

President's

wings.

In

the

House,

Stevens

was

describing

the

legis-

lature

as

the sovereign

power of the

country

and

thundering that

though the

President is

Commander-

in-chief,

Congress

is his

commander,

and God

willing,

he

shall obey

In the

Senate,

slender and

dignified

John

Sherman,

brother

of

the

Civil War

general,

while

demurring

at

the

Tenure

of

Office Act,

was supporting

the rest of

the

Radical program with

a zeal

typical of

other

erst-

while

moderates who

had

seen

the

light and

reformed

The

executive

department

of

a

republic like

ours,'

Senator

Sherman

would

write

later, in

summation

should

be

subordinate

to

the

legislative

department

The

President should obey

and

enforce

the laws, leav

ing to

the people

the

duty

of

correcting any errors

committed

by

their

representatives

in Congress.

Nor

was Congress

content

to

chip

away

at

the pow-

ers

of the

Executive. It

applied its

chisel

also to the

foundations

of

the

Supreme

Court.

In

the

first

of

the

four acts

embodying the

congressional

plan

of

Recon-

struction, the

judiciary—

both

federal

and

local—was

made subsidiary to the

military

in

ten

Southern states;

and

by the

Habeas Corpus

Act

of

1867,

state courts

were

forbidden to issue writs of habeas corpus

except

under

certain

circumstances.

Four

other

acts

were

aimed

at the

Supreme Court, and

while

not

all of

them

passed,

together

they constituted

a

threat

to

which

the Court

reacted

as desired: in

at least two

cases

involving defiant

Southern editors,

the

justices

took

refuge

in

technicalities

to

avoid

decisions that

might

have

overturned

the bayonet-carpetbag-scala-

wag

rule that

Congress had

imposed

upon

the

South.

The mood of

the

Reconstruction

Congicss

has not

gone

unobserved

on

the part of

twentieth-century

commentators.

Roscoe

Pound

and

Charles

H.

Mcll-

wain

have

detected

in its

attitudes

similarities

to those

of the

British

Rump

Parliament,

which

in

1649

sent

Charles

I to

the

scaffold

and

proclaimed

the Com-

monwealth

a

unitary

state with

the supreme

power

vested

in the

Parliament

of

this

nation.

The

British

political

scientist

Harold

J.

Laski

has found the

ac-

tions

of

the post-bellum

Senate

inexplicable

except

upon

the

assumption

that

it

was determined

to

make

the

President no

more

than

its

creature.

An

even

more pointed observation

comes from

another

British

student of American

government,

D.

VV. Brogan.

Not-

Harper's

Weekly,

APRIL

ii, 1868

On

March

30

members

of

the

House,

led

by

Stevens

with

his

cane, arrived

at the Senate

chamber

for

the trial's opening.

ing

that

if

Johnson

had

been

removed,

his

successor

under the Constitution

would

have

been Ben Wade,

the

pro-Radical

president pro

tem

of

the Senate, Bro-

gan

poses

the

question.

Had

the impeachment

succeeded,

he

writes,

had

Congress

tasted

blood

by

putting

one of

its

own

. . .

into

the

White House,

who

can

say

what

would

have

happened

to the

presidential

office?

It

is now

pretty

widely

agreed

that,

as

a

matter

of fact.

Congress

had no

such

chance. When the trial opened

on

March

30,

1868,

many senators—

and

the

people

of

the

North

in

general—

sincerely

believed

that

Johnson

merited

removal

on

constitutional

groimds.

But

in

the

course

of

almost

two months

of

testimony-taking

and a

hundred

hours of

fervid

argumentation,

the

pendulum

swung

in

the other

direction.

The

fact

that Johnson

was

acquitted

by

only one

vote

imparted breathless

drama

to the

closing

hours of

the trial on

May 26,

but

it

cannot be

taken

as a meas-

ure of

prevailing

sentiment at

the time.

Three months

later,

in a letter to

an

intimate,

Johnson

was contend-

ing that

the

vote

was

not so

close

as most

people

111



think.

The

President revealed

that

rather than to

have

seen

Ben \Vade succeed

to

the

presidential

chair,

Senator

Edwin

D.

Morgan

of New York, who voted

Guilty, would have

changed

his vote

if on the

two

final roll calls

the

President

could

have

been

saved from

conviction

by

his

doing

so.

Two

other

Republican sen-

ators,

William Sprague of Rhode

Island and Waitman

Thomas Willey

of

West

Virginia, bent

to the

party

lash

and

also

voted

Guilty, but

both

let it be

understood

prior

to the

roll

calls

that they

too

would change

their

votes

if their voices

were needed.

Apparently

all

of the

seven

Republicans who

broke

with

their

party

to

save the day

for

the President

were

aware

of the

impact of

their

decision

on

the

structure

of

government.

Edmund

G.

Ross of

Kansas, who

cast

the

deciding vote, believed that

to

have convicted

Johnson

upon insufficient

proofs

and

from

partisan

considerations . . .

would practically

have

revolution-

ized our splendid

political fabric

into a partisan

con-

gressional autocracy.

During

the

summer

of 1868

Fessenden,

perhaps

the

clearest thinker

among

those

Republicans

who

had supported

Johnson,

was writing

that

to

remove

a

President

of

the United States

for

merely political reasons

would

be to

shake the

faith

of the

friends of

constitutional

liberty in

the

perma-

nency

of our

free

institutions.

. .

.

Within

weeks

after

the

conclusion of

the

trial,

a

decided

reaction

was

noticeable

on the

part

of

the

public—

an

inchoate

but

growing realization

that in

the

acquittal

of

Johnson

the

country

had

escaped

dangers

far greater than any

that its

willful,

even

if

right-minded. President could

conceivably

generate.

The

American of today, living

in an age quite dif-

ferent

from

that

of 1868,

can

be

excused for

wondering

whether

the

acquittal was

a

danger avoided,

as

the

people

of that time believed;

or

whether,

on

the con-

trary,

it

was

an

opportunity

missed.

Would

the

United

States

be

better

able

to

cope with

its

present

problems

if

Johnson

had been

convicted and

the

central

govern-

ment shifted

from a federal

to

a

parliamentary

base?

A

considerable

literature

has

addressed itself

to

this

question.

Many critics of a federalist

government

of

separated

powers,

of

checks

and

balances,

point

out

that

it

is

also

a

government

of

delays and

deadlocks.

Thoughtful

men—Laski

among

them—

have

foreseen

the

day

when

these

characteristics

may

prove

fatal to

the

American

government

when it

must

meet

and

solve

the

swiftly

arising

crises of

our

own

era. Another

ob-

jection frequently

voiced is that

the

federal

system

tends

to block needed social reforms

and in

effect

thwart

the

will

of

the people.

While

such

criticisms

have

been

coming thicker

and

faster

in

recent

years, there is

nothing new about

them.

Doubts

concerning

the

workability

of

the

American

form

of

government

were in

the

air

while

the

govern-

ment

itself

was

still

an embryo.

In

the

course

of

the

federal

convention

during

the

summer of

1787

Roger

Sherman

of Connecticut

advocated

a constitution

that

would

make

the

legislature

the

depository

of

the

su-

preme

will

of

the

society. And

at that same memora-

ble

meeting

in

Philadelphia

Alexander Hamilton de-

clared

that

the British

government was

the

best in

the

world:

and

that

he

doubted

much

whether any

thing

short

of it would

do

in America.

Since

the

days when

the

thirteen

colonies,

each

so

jealous

of

its

sovereignty,

got together

to fight

the

lob-

sterbacks,

the

American

people

have

exhibited

a

tendency—

a

genius—

to

maintain

widely

divergent

viewpoints

in normal times,

but to

unite

and agree in

times

of stress.

One

reason

the

federal system has

sur-

vived

is that

it has

demonstrated

this

same

tendency.

Most

of

the time the three

co-equal

divisions

of

the

general

government

tend

to compete.

In crises they

tend

to co-operate.

And

not

only during

a war. A

sin-

gular

instance

of co-operation took

place

in

the open-

ing

days of

the

first administration

of

Franklin

D.

Roosevelt,

when

the

harmonious efforts of Executive

and legislature

to

arrest

the

ravages

of

depression

brought

the

term rubber-stamp

Congress into the

headlines.

On

the

other hand, when in

1937

Roosevelt

attempted

to

bend

the

judiciary

to

the

will of

the

executive

by

packing

the

Supreme Court, Congress

rebelled. This

frequently

proved flexibility—

this

ca-

pacity

of both

people

and government to

shift

from

competition

to

co-operation and back

again as

cir-

cumstances warrant—

suggests

that

the

federal

system

will

be found equal to

the

very

real

dangers of the

present world situation.

In

the

Congress

of 1868,

one

of

the

charges

against

Andrew

Johnson—

a

charge subsequently softened

by

historians—was

that

his actions

were

directed

by

a

boundless

egotism.

That

they were

not

is

indicated

by the

fact

that

never for one

moment did he

look

upon

the

impeachment proceedings

solely as an

attack

on him

personally.

As

he made

clear

in

numerous

statements,

he

realized that

he

was

not

standing

alone

at

the

bar

of

the

United States Senate. Standing beside

him,

faint

shades

in

the

sparkle

of

the

chandeliers,

were

Washington

and

Madison,

Franklin

and

Ran-

dolph,

and all of

the

other devoutly remembered ar-

chitects

of

our

federal

system of

government.

Milton

Lomask

of

Weston,

Connecticut,

autlior

of

a

score

of

juvenile

biographies

and

novels,

is an instructor in

the

]Vriting

Center

at

New York

University.

He has

recently

completed Andrew

Johnson:

President on Trial,

to

be

published next year by

Farrar, Straus and

Cudahy.

112



READING,

WRITING, AND

HISTORY

By BRUCE CATTON

What

War Destroys

If

the study

of military history teaches anything

worth

knowing,

its

principal

lesson is that

modern

war

never means what

the people

who

are fighting it

thought that

it was

going

to

mean. This is

not

merely

because

it

involves

infinite physical

destruction,

but

because it turns

loose social

forces

that get completely

out

of

hand.

It brings

results

that

were

neither

fore-

seen

nor

desired.

It

means

profound

change.

For

war disrupts the ground

on

which people

were

standing

when they

took

up

arms.

It erases

the

status

r/uo—which one side

or

the other, if not

both,

believes

itself to be

fighting

to preserve. The very

process of

fighting creates the certainty that nothing is ever

go-

ing to

be

the

same

again.

This bears with

especial

weight

on

the

military

men

themselves,

for

they are the men whose

routine de-

cisions bring

about

these changes.

Their

profession

compels

them

to strive for

immediate, tangible

results,

and the

profound

intangibles

that

will

grow

out

of the

things they

do

when

they

try to

gain

those

results

are

likely

to

be

invisible

to

them.

By

their

training, they

tend to

be

the

most

conservative

of

living mortals; in

wartime, without in the

least realizing

it, they

are apt

to become the

world's

most

ruthless

radicals.

All

of this

is

brought to mind

by

a

reading

of Cyril

Falls's meaty

book,

The Great

War. Mr. Falls,

a

Brit-

ish

military

critic,

undertakes

to

examine

the general-

ship

of

the leading

soldiers in

the

First

World

War,

and his

book

can be

taken as

a

classic case history

of

the way in

which

professional

soldiers

of

high

compe-

tence, striving

earnestly

to do one thing,

managed

in

the

end

to

do something

everlastingly different.

More than any

other war that readily comes to

mind,

the

First World

War was under the firm control

of

the

soldiers themselves.

From the

moment

the

ulti-

matums were

exchanged

in

August of

1914,

the civil-

ian

powers

all across Europe

turned everything over

to

the

generals.

To a

very

large extent,

the generals

The

Great

War,

1914-1918,

by

Cyril

Falls.

G.

P.

Putnam's

Sons.

447

pp. $5.95.

acted as

they

saw fit,

with

a

minimum of

interference

by emperor, king,

prime

minister, or

parliament. Here

was

a

soldiers'

fight.

How

did

the

soldiers do?

Mr. Falls,

taking the narrowest

of

purely

military

viewpoints,

considers that a good

many

of them

did

very well

indeed.

The

two

great captains of

1918,

he

believes,

were

the

French Foch and

the British

Haig.

They

had military

skill, great

qualities

of

leadership,

indomitable

will power:

Both

were men of

imcon-

querable

souls.

Ranking

closely

behind

them

he

puts

the

German

Ludendorif,

although

he

confesses that

Ludendorff

was

without their

virtues

of character.

foffre

receives better

marks

than

he

is

often

given,

and

the

Austrian

Conrad von

Hotzendorf

similarly

gets a

high

rating.

The

Russian Brusilov

comes

in for praise,

as does Prussia's

Falkenhayn; and not

many British

writers

have

been as warm to

the

American Pershing

as

is

Mr. Falls.

In

substantial

detail, Mr.

Falls

studies

the battles

113



and

the

campaigns in which these and other generals

played

their

parts. He is dealing,

of

course,

with

a

scene that

is

a little too big for any single book.

The

First

World

War was

a

stupendous, sprawling

convul-

sion,

and

to

describe

it

in

fewer than

five

hundred

pages

calls for more compression

than the traffic

ought

to

be

asked to

bear.

Nevertheless, within

limits,

this

book

does

what it

tries

to do;

it

offers

a solid,

thought-

ful,

informed analysis of

the

war in strictly profes-

sional

terms.

And

the

only

trouble

is that

those terms are

alto-

gether

too

narrow. As

technicians,

the great

generals

of

the First World

War may indeed

have been

very

able

men, serving

to the best of their

considerable

abilities the countries

that

had trained them,

and

the

breakthroughs,

the

stirring

defenses, the encirclements

and

so

on,

which they

achieved

at

various

times, will

no doubt

be

studied

in

the

textbooks for

years

to come.

But

what

finally came of all of this?

What came of it was

something the

governments

that employed these gieat

soldiers

would

have run

from, screaming, if

they could

have seen it in

advance.

For

what these governments

really

wanted

out

of

the

First World

War

was

the

continued

existence

of

a

so-

ciety

that

had

room

for a

Russian

empire, an Austro-

Hungarian

empire,

a

German

empire,

a

British

empire,

a

France

trailing the

memories of

the

Little

Corporal,

and so

on:

a

stable

society,

in which rival empires

might indeed

gain this or that

advantage,

but which

preserved

the

old

order

and permitted

no room

for

any

substantial change. And what they

got

was

the

end

of

everything

they had lived

by.

These

empires were, as

Mr. Falls

insists, ably served

by

their

military

servants.

But

look

at

what

hap-

pened.

The

Austro-Hungarian empire

vanished

in

thin

smoke,

literally

obliterated,

its bits

and

pieces

surviving

quite separately—

more

happily, perhaps,

than

they

were

before,

but

not

seeking

and getting

that

happiness

in

any

way

which a

servant

of

the

em-

pire

could

have

countenanced.

The

Russian

empire-

well,

no

comment that

could

be made here

would do

justice

to

the

upheaval that came about.

The German

empire broke, passed

into

the hideous

tetanic

spasm

that

brought

about

Hitler and

a

second war,

and

ex-

ists today in

divided fragments

which

disturb

the

peace

of

all

mankind

by

their

separate

existence.

Italy

got

Mussolini,

humiliation,

and an

existence

as

a

va-

cation spot.

France fell

into

the

position

of

a

second-

class

power,

alive

today

by

sufferance

and the

aid

of

many

non-Frenchmen.

And the

British

empire,

which

Sir

Douglas

Haig

fought

so

hard

to maintain?

Sir

Douglas

assuredly would not

recognize

it,

and

would

not want to

recognize it, as it

is

today.

In plain

language,

these

professional

soldiers,

trained

to the hilt and

given

their

heads, managed

to bring

on

wholesale

revolution, overturn,

and

permanent

change

more rapidly

and decisively

than anything

that could

have been accomplished

by what

they

believed

they

were

fighting

against.

They

won battles

and campaigns

and

lost everything

they

were

fighting for. In

his own

way,

each man was

trying

to preserve

what we can now

call

the

pre-

1914

way of

life,

and

precisely because

they

fought

so

long

and

so hard they made

the pre-1914

way of

life

one

with

the

dodo

and

the great

auk.

Great

technicians

these men may

have

been;

great

captains they

assuredly were

not.

They

could

see noth-

ing

but

victory,

and they

were

willing

to

buy victory

at

the

most inconceivable

price.

They made unendur-

ably

excessive

demands

on

their

people;

they

tried

to

buy

military

triumph at

prices

that left

all

of

Europe

bankrupt.

Knowing all

that could

be known about

the

military

arts, they

knew

nothing

whatever

about

the

human

societies

that had

to pay for

the

exercise of

those

arts.

They

gave

mankind

a

Somme and

a

Ver-

dun, a

Masurian

Lakes, a

Passchendaele,

and

a

Capo-

retto—

and looking

back

at this

distance we can

only

say

that something

essential

had

been left

out

of

their

training. Never were learned men

so

ignorant.

It appears that once or

twice the generals

themselves

sensed

this.

Falkenhayn apparently wanted

the

war to

end

in

a

good peace,

and he dimly

felt,

as Mr. Falls

remarks,

that

this

would involve

a correct

calculation

of

the

extent of

the victory needed

to

obtain

it.

But

this was beyond

most of

them.

Thinking

only of vic-

tory, they could

not

think

of what victory

might

cost.

So

the

war

went

on and on,

destroying

lives,

the accu-

mulated

riches

of the past, habits

of

thought,

social

organizations—

and

in

the

end

the

soldiers,

who

imag-

ined

that they

were

defending

the established order,

fought

mankind's way into

a

situation

where

a new

order

had

to

be

built from scratch.

Today's

world

contains

many

frightening

things;

among

them, a

superweapon

whose mere existence

gives all

of us

a

bad case of

nerves. But

it

may

be

that

a

much

more

frightening

thing

than

the

weapon

it-

self is

the

narrow professional who looks only at

the

weapon

and

who

has never

been taught

to

think

about

what

may

happen after

the weapon

has

been

used.

Excess

of

Caution

Yet

this

is

where

the

shoe

really pinches.

The

pro-

fessional soldier,

probably

of

necessity, spends

his

life

learning how

to

beat an

enemy to

his

knees, and

he

does his best to

learn

this by

studying the

ways

in

which

the last

enemies

were

beaten.

Then

the

world

moves

out

from

under him,

and

his

body

of knowledge

114



becomes

a

hindrance

rather

than a

help—

and,

once

again,

history

turns a corner.

A French

military

historian,

Colonel

A. Goutard,

examines this

problem in The

Battle

of

France,

1940,

and

the

book

makes a good

companion piece

to

the

study

written

by

Mr.

Falls.

Colonel

Goutard

says

bluntly

that the

soldiers of

France—

a

nation

whose

army

had

a

military

tradition

as

good

as any in

Europe

—had

learned

from

World

War

I

nothing

except

a

few

outmoded

lessons

in

tactics,

and that

France

lost

its

part

of the

Second

World

War

as a

direct

result.

The

French,

Colonel

Goutard suggests,

missed

the

boat

several times:

specifically,

right

at first,

by

con-

senting to

the inactive

phase

of the

phoney

war,

from

the

moment war

was

declared

in

the

fall

of

1939

to the

outbreak of

the

German

offensive

in

the

following

May.

Germany was

vulnerable

then,

he

insists, and

a

The

Battle

of

France,

1940,

by

Colonel

A.

Goutard,

with a

foreword by

Captain

B.

H.

Liddell

Hart.

Ives

Washburn,

Inc.

280

pp.

$4.

sharp

French

offensive

might

have settled

things

in

short order. He

quotes

German

generals as

confessing,

much

later,

that

a

French

drive

in

the

fall

of

1939

could

have

crossed the

Rhine and

occupied the

Ruhr;

after

which,

as

the

Reich's

General

Westphal

ad-

mitted,

the

whole face

of

Europe

would

have been

changed.

But this

was

the

last

thing

French

military thought

could

contemplate.

The

French

Army was

put on

the

defensive,

not

because

it

was

unprepared, not

because

the

government

had

not given

it

proper

equipment

and

training,

but because

the

wrong

lessons

had been

learned

from

the

earlier

experience.

The

overriding

principle

was to sit

tight, to

play for time, to

wait un-

til

this, that,

or

the

other circumstance

would make

a

real

show of force

advisable.

Unfortunately,

the

Germans refused

to play

it

that

way.

Colonel

Goutard is

blunt

about

it: Our

defeat

in

May

1940

was

achieved by

tactical and

strategic sur-

prise

against our

High

Command.

The

tactical

sur-

prise

was

because

our

ideas were

inherited

from

1918,

as

against the

German lightning

war.

The

Germans

had

learned

something—

one

lesson

(its

sharp

edge

pres-

ently to

be

blunted)

being

that a

modern

war,

what-

ever

else it

does,

had

better

be

short

if the

people who

have

made it

hope

to get

what

they

want.

They

hit

hard and

suddenly,

they

tossed

the

supposed

tactical

teachings

of

1918

out

the

window,

and

they knocked

France out of the

war.

And this.

Colonel Goutard

in-

sists, was

not

because

France was

overmatched.

Once

the

German

offensive began, there

were

plenty

of

op-

portunities

to

restore

the

balance.

The

will to take

advantage

of

the opportunities

was

lacking.

The

French generals

did not

fight ;

and

although

invit-

ing chances for counterattack were

offered, in actual

fact

no

one really

wanted to

counterattack.

The

French defeat,

of

course, was a

complicated

business. In

part

it

came

out

of

political

mistakes

made

during Hitler's

rise

to

power,

out

of

general

confusion

among the soldiers regarding

what

the

government

really

wanted, out

of

tactical

blunders

in

the

field, out

of

the decision

to

surrender

rather than

to

carry

on

the

war

from

North Africa. But in the

main Colonel

Goutard's

verdict holds: Fundamentally,

.

. . our

defeat was due more to our

conservatism of outlook

and our

unrealistic

and preconceived ideas

than

to

any

military weakness inherent in our nation.

The

soldiers,

in other words, to

whom

much had

been given

and

of

whom

much was

expected, had

learned

their

lessons

wrong.

In

the

olden days this

might not

have

mattered

so

much. In the

modern

world,

where incalculable things

hang on

the

outcome

of

a

war,

it

mattered

beyond

reckoning.

Consider

what these French generals were carrying

on

their

shoulders in the

fall of

1939

and the first six

months

of

1940.

Just

about everything that

has hap-

pened

in the world

since then would

have

happened

very differently

if

they had

learned

to

understand

something

more about

war

than

the

mere

technique

of

waging it.

(That they

learned

that

technique wrong

was an

additional

error

which compounded the

effect

of the

basic error.)

Understanding nothing but

the

business of

fighting,

they

played the military

game

in

a

vacuum.

Strategy, as

Colonel

Goutard

truly says,

parted

company

with

common

sense,

and

the

result

was

unrelieved disaster.

Generations ago

the

professional

soldier needed

to

know

nothing but

the

intricacies

of his

own

profession.

Wars

were limited,

once;

the

soldier

used

the means

that

had been

given

him,

did the

best he could

with

them, and

in

ordinary

circimistances his

country

could

live with

the result. It is

not

like

that

any longer—has

not

been

like it,

indeed, for a

century

and

more;

and

simply because

nations today

fight

wars with

the ut-

most

intensity

of

which they

are

capable,

the

soldier's

responsibility

once

war

begins

has

a

weight of terrify-

ing

proportions.

All-out

war

is

revolutionary war,

even

though

no

one

means it

that

way.

When we

begin

a

war

we

invite

the

future to

change.

T/ie

Great

Incalculable

Perhaps

it

is

the

intensity

of

the

fight that makes the

difference.

Everything

that

a

nation has is

put into

the

struggle.

New

powers

are

developed,

new forces

are

115



let loose,

new

capacities are

discovered

and exploited,

and

these

have

a

permanent

effect.

Beyond either

vic-

tory

or

defeat

they

go on

working; it becomes

impos-

sible

for

the

warring

nation

to go

back to

its

prewar

status simply

because

the

effort of fighting

the

war

has

destroyed that status

forever.

The classic

example

of this

is,

of course, that

hardy

perennial

of

the

modern

book lists, the American

Civil

War,

and Allan Nevins examines

the

process in an

excellent

new

book.

The

War

for

the

Union.

He sub-

titles

his book The Improvised War, and

he

is

chiefly

concerned

here

with

how the

improvisation

took

place

and what it finally

led

to.

If

ever

two peoples were unprepared

for

war,

the

peoples

of

the

North and

the

South

were

unprepared

in

1861.

They

had to

make

the

war up

as

they

went

along,

and

in

the

end

almost

nothing

that

happened

came because

anybody

had really

planned

for it.

The

first

year of

the

war

is

a

long

record of

mistakes. Prob-

lems of

finance

and equipment had to be solved

catch-

as-catch-can;

armies

had

to

be

whistled into existence

according

to

the

obsolete

military

tradition of

the

time,

which

meant

that in

matters

of

discipline and

training

they

were

almost

entirely

out

from under cen-

tral control; generals

had to be

created

out of any

material

that

came to hand, and strategic planning

The

War for

the

Union:

The

Improvised War,

1861-1862,

by

Allan Nevins. Charles Scribner's

Sons.

436

pp.

$7.50.

(where

it

existed

at

all)

was

a

singular

blend of politi-

cal considerations

and dimly

understood

military

prin-

ciples,

carried

out

by

officers

who

in

many

cases tried

their

best to be

virtually

independent

of

the

national

government.

The record of the first

year,

accordingly, is

appar-

ently indecisive.

In

the

East,

the

Union

government

suffered

the disgraceful

setback of

Bull

Run; in

the

West, it had

the

equally

humiliating

setback

of

Wil-

son's Creek. Only in West

Virginia,

in Kentucky,

and

at isolated

spots

along

the

Atlantic seacoast

did

the

national government

record any

definite

advances, and

these

seemed to be

peripheral

matters that might easily

have

been

canceled

out

by

more extensive

reverses

later

on.

Yet

it

is

clear

that

an

immense

job was

done. More

than

500,000

men were

brought

under arms, a

new

fleet

was

created,

the industrial mechanism

to

support

an

all-out

war

effort

was

slowly

brought

into being,

and

the

amorphous

enthusiasm for

restoring

the

Union

was

somehow hardened,

by

slow

degrees,

into

the

grim determination

that

would

finally insist

on

driving

ahead to

all-out

victory

at any

cost.

And

amid

all

of this,

the shape

that

the

war would

finally take

was

determined.

For

what

was taking

place

was

in fact

a

genuine

revolutionary effort.

Never

before had

the

American

people

made

such a

tremendous effort of organization

and preparation;

and,

as Mr. Nevins remarks,

No

government,

after such

an

effort,

could

ever

sink

back

to the

old

level

of

small

enterprises pettily pursued.

Behind the

drilling

troops and scurrying

ships

new

industries

were

taking form,

new

factories were

belch-

ing

smoke, banks,

stores,

and warehouses were being

enlarged

to

seize

new opportunities, and the

wheels

of

transport

were turning with

new

speed.

The

very

at-

tempt that was

being

made

to

fight

the

war

on the re-

quired scale

was making

a

permanent

change

in

the

country. Nothing

would ever

be the same again,

be-

cause

a whole new order

was

coming into existence.

Mr. Nevins

sums

up

the situation

succinctly:

Had

some

miracle of

compromise

ended

the

war

in

the

summer

of 1861,

the country

would

have

emerged

with but

minor

changes

in non-political fields. Bull

Run

had

made it

certain

that a

considerable socio-economic revolution would

occur. If the

mighty military

effort

planned

for

1862

suc-

ceeded, it would

be merely considerable.

But if it

failed,

and the

conflict continued,

the

country

would

face

a

major

revolution, altering

many

of the organic functions of society.

The effort did fail,

of

course, and the major revolu-

tion did

take place.

And

it is

a

melancholy

and

in-

structive fact

that

the

responsible

leaders

on both

sides

wanted nothing of

the

kind to take place. The Amer-

ica

of i860 was

a

happy land, a loose-jointed and

in-

formal sort of place in

which,

barring the

thorny

slavery-States'

rights

dispute,

there

were

no

great

prob-

lems

and

no

great

pressures.

North and

South

alike,

men believed that they were fighting

to

restore that

happy

situation.

Fighting

to restore it,

they

ended

it

forever.

Modern

war

can make its

long-range effects felt

in

several ways.

As

Mr.

Falls

has indicated

in his book

on

the

First World

War,

the sheer destructiveness

of

the

fighting

can

destroy the

things

men believe they

are

trying

to preserve.

Yet

the

generals of

France

in

1940,

instinctively

drawing

away from

the

fearful

de-

structiveness

of the

earlier

conflict, ruined

their

coun-

try

by an excess

of cautious

conservatism. And

in

our

own

case

we

can

see

how

the

mere

task of

harnessing

all

of

a

country's

energies for war

can set

in motion

forces

that

take

men

in

directions

they

had no inten-

tion

of

traveling.

Modern war,

apparently,

is

the great

incalculable.

It

can be

controlled

only

to the most

limited

degree.

Won or lost, it

means profound

change; change,

usu-

ally, that

never

entered

into

the

calculations of

the

men

who

started

it.

116



The

Pepys

of

the

Old

Dominion

CONTINUED

FROM

PACE

7

ary 21,

1722.

For

honesty

and

perception,

and

for

the

balance

that

the

eighteenth

century

enthroned,

it

has

few

American

counterparts.

Poor

Inamorato

[as

Byrd

calls

himself]

had too

much

mer-

cury

to

fix

to

one

thing.

His

Brain

was too

hot

to

jogg

on

eternally

in

the

same

dull

road.

He

liv'd

more

by

the

lively

moment

of

his

Passions,

than by

the

cold

and

unromantick

dictates of

Reason

...

He

pay'd

his

Court

more to

obscure

merit,

than

to

corrupt

Greatness.

He

never

cou'd

flatter

any

body,

no not

himself,

which

were

two

invincible

bars

to

all

preferment.

. .

.

His

religion

is

more

in

substance

than

in

form,

and he

is

more

forward

to

practice

vertue than

profess

it

... He

knows

the

World

perfectly

well,

and

thinks

him-

self

a

citizen

of

it

without

the

. . .

distinctions

of

kindred

sect

or

Country.

He

goes on

to

explain

why,

for

most

of

his

life, he

began

his

day

by

reading

ancient

classics,

and

frowned

upon

morning

interruptions:

A

constant

hurry

of

visits fc

conversations

gives

a

man a

habit

of

inadvertency,

which

betrays

him

into

faults

without

measure

&

without end.

For

this

reason,

he

commonly

re-

serv'd

the

morning

to

himself,

and

bestow'd

the

rest

upon

his

business

and

his

friends.

The

reason

for

his

own

candor is

clearly

stated:

He

Lov'd

to

undress

wickedness

of all

its

paint,

and

dis-

guise,

that he

might

loath

its

deformity.

The

extent

of

his

philosophizing

and

his

admitted

heresy

is

made

clear

by

this

remarkable

passage:

He

wishes

every

body

so

per-

fect,

that

he

overlooks

the

im-

possibility

of

reaching

it

in

this

World.

He

wou'd

have

men

Angells

before

their

time,

and

wou'd

bring

down

that

perfection

upon

Earth

which

is

the

peculiar

priviledge

of

Heaven.

Byrd left

us

a

scattered

and

largely

unavailable

body

of

literature—

t;er5

de

societe,

historical

essays,

character

sketches,

epi-

taphs,

letters,

poems,

trans-

lations,

and

humorous

sat-

ires.

Of

this

work

Maude

Woodfin, one

of

the

few

scholars

to

delve

adequately

into

Byrd's

work,

wrote:

William

fSyrd's

con

motto

means,

No

g

There is

a

distinctly

American

quality

in

these

writings

of

the latter

half of

Byrd's

life, in

direct

con-

trast

to

the

exclusively

English

quality

in

the

writ-

ings of

his earlier

years.

Further

study

and

time

will

doubtless

argue

that

his literary

work

in

the

Virginia

period

from

1726

on,

with

its

colonial scene

and

theme,

has

greater

literary

merit than

his

work in the

London

period.

Byrd

has

a

place

in

our

architectural

history as

well.

His

manor

house,

Westover, is in

many

ways

the

finest

Georgian

mansion in

the

nation.

Triumphant

architec-

tural

solutions

never

come

quickly or

easily:

only

fust-

rate

minds

can

conjure up

first-rate

houses.

In

the

spring

of

1709,

we

know

from

Byrd's

diary,

he

had

workmen

constructing

brick.

Five

years

later,

stone-

cutters

from

Williamsburg

were

erecting

the

library

chimney.

There

were

interruptions,

delays,

faulty

ship-

ments,

workmen

to

be

trained.

But

gradually

a

master-

piece—noble

in

symmetry,

proportion,

and

balance-

emerged.

Built

on

a

little

rise a

hundred

yards

from

the

James

River,

Westover

has

not

changed

much

over

the

gen-

erations.

The

north and

south

facades

are as

solid and

rhythmical as a

well-wrought

fugue,

and

the

beauti-

ful

doorways

would

have

pleased

Palladio

himself.

Al-

though

the

manor

is

derived

from

English

standards

(especially

William

Salmon's

Palladio

Londinensis),

Westover

makes

such

superb

use

of the

local

materials

and

landscape

that

some

European

critics

have ad-

judged

it

esthetically

more

satisfying

than most

of

the

contemporary

homes

in

England.

Like

other

buildings

of

the

period,

Westover

was

planned

from

the

outside

in.

The

main

hallway,

eighteen

feet

wide

and

off

center,

goes

the

full

length

of

the

house.

The

stairway

has

three

runs

and a

balus-

trade

of richly

turned

ma-

hogany.

The

handsomely

paneled

walls

of

the

down-

stairs

rooms

support

gilded

ceilings.

Underneath

the

house

is

a

complete

series

of

rooms,

converging

at the

subterranean

passage

lead-

t

of

arms.

The

Latin

ing

to

the

river.

Two

un-

uiU

to

make

one

pale.

derground

chambers,

which

117



This

/702

drawing

shows

five

buildings in

Wil-

liamsburg,

colonial Virginia's

capital:

(A\ the

New

Council

House;

(B) a merchant's

house;

(C)

the

ground

plan

of

the Statehouse,

where William

Byrd

often

sat in

the

House

of

Burgesses;

(D)

a

farmer's home;

and

(E) the

Bruton

Parish

Church.

could

be used

as

hiding places, are reached

through

a

dry

well. Since

he

liked nothing

less

than

the

idea of

being

dry,

William

Byrd

kept

both chambers

stocked

with claret

and

Madeira.

Westover

takes

its

place

in

the

succession

of remark-

able Virginia

manors

that

remain one

of

the

glories of

the

American

past.

It

was

completed

probably by

1736,

after Stratford

Hall, with

its

masculine vigor,

and

Rosewell,

with

its

mahogany

balustrade

from San Do-

mingo.

Westover

would

be followed

by Brandon,

with

chaste cornices

and

fine

simplicity;

Gunston

Hall, with

cut-stone

quoins

and

coziness;

Sabine

Hall,

so remi-

niscent

of

Horace's

villa

at

Tivoli;

and Pacatone,

with

its wonderful

entrance

and its legendary

ghosts.

These

places

were

more

than

houses.

They

were

little

worlds

in

themselves,

part of

a

universe

that

ex-

isted within the

boundaries of

Virginia.

The planters

lavished

their

energy

and their

lives

on

such

worlds.

They

were

proud

of

their crops, their horses, their

libraries,

their gardens. Byrd,

for

example,

tells

us

about

the iris, crocus, thyme,

marjoram,

phlox,

lark-

spur,

and

jasmine

in

his formal two-acre

garden.

At Westover one

might

find

the

Carters

from Shir-

ley,

the

Lees

from Stratford,

the

Harrisons

from

Ran-

dolph,

or

the

Spotswoods

from

Germanna.

So

might

one encounter Byrd's

brother-in-law,

that

ardent

wom-

an-hater,

John

Custis,

from Arlington.

Surely

the

ghost

of

William

Byrd

would

not

want

any

tale

of

Westover

to

omit

a

short

tribute

to

Custis'

irascible

memory.

While

other

founding

fathers

left

immortal

lines

about

life

and liberty

to

stir

our

blood,

Custis

left

words

to warm

henpecked

hearts.

With

his

highhanded

lady

he

got

on monstrous

poor.

After

one

argument

Custis

turned

and

drove

his

carriage

into

the

Chesapeake

Bay.

When

his

wife

asked

where

he was

going,

he

shouted,

To

Hell,

Madam.

Drive

on,

she said

imperiously.

Any

place

is

better

than

Arlington

So

that

he

might

have

the last

word,

Custis

composed

his

own

epitaph,

and

made

his

son

execute

it on

pain

of

being

disinherited:

Under

this

marble

tomb

lies

the

body

OF the

Hon.

JOHN

CUSTIS,

Esq.,

* *

* «

Age

7

1

YEARS,

AND

yet lived

but

seven

years,

WHICH

WAS

THE

SPACE

OF

TIME

HE

KEPT

A bachelor's

HOME

AT

ARLINGTON

ON

THE

Eastern

Shore

of Virginia.

$till

Custis

came

to

Westover,

like

all

others

who

could,

to

enjoy

the

fairs,

balls,

parlor

games,

barbecues

—but

above

all,

the

conversation.

One

should

not

conclude

that

entertaining

friends

was

the

main

occupation

of

William

Byrd.

As

soon

as

he

awoke

he

read

Latin,

Greek,

or

Hebrew

before

breakfast.

His

favorite

room

was

not

the

parlor

but

the

library,

in

which

were

collected

over

3,600

volumes

dealing

with

philosophy,

theology,

drama,

history,

law,

and

science.

Byrd's

own

writings

prove

his

intimate

knowledge

of the

great

thinkers

and

writers

of

the

past.

Of

those

works,

none

except

his

diary

is

as

interest-

ing

as his

History

of

the

Dividing

Line.

On his

fifty-

third

birthday,

in

1727,

Byrd

was

appointed

one

of

the

Virginia

commissioners

to

survey

the

disputed

Vir-

ginia-North

Carolina

boundary;

the

next

spring

saw

the

group

ready

to embark

on

their

task.

Byrd's

History,

which

proves

he

was

one

of

the

day's

ablest

masters

of

English

prose,

is

a

thing

of delight.

For

days

comedy

and

tragedy

alternated

for

supremacy.

Indians

stole

their

food.

Bad

weather

and

poor

luck

caused

Byrd

to

swear

like

a trooper

in

His

Majesty's

Guards.

To

mend

matters,

Byrd's

companions

arranged

a party

around

a

cheerful bowl,

and

invited

a country

bump-

kin

to

attend.

She

must

have

remembered

the

party

for

a long time:

.

. .

they

examined

all

her

hidden

Charms

and

play'd

a

great

many

gay

Pranks,

noted

Byrd,

who

seems

to

have

disapproved

of

the

whole

affair.

The poor

Damsel

was

disabled

from

making

any

resistance

by the

Lameness

of her

Hand.

Whenever

matters

got

too

bad,

the

party's

chaplain

rubbed

up

his

artistocratic

swamp-evaders

with

a

seasonable

sermon;

and we

must

adjudge

all the

hard-

118



ships a

small

price

to pay

for the

History. This

was

followed

by A

Journey

to

Eden,

which

tells

of

Byrd's

trip to survey

twenty thousand

acres

of

bottom

land.

On

September ig,

1733,

Byrd

decided

to stake

out

two

large

cities:

one at Shacco's, to be

called

Richmond,

and

the

other

at

the

point

of

the

Appomattuck

River,

to

be

called Petersburg.

It

is

a

generally

accepted

belief

that

only

in

politics

did eighteenth-century

America reach

real

distinc-

tion. But

as

we look

more

closely

at our

colonial litera-

ture

and architecture, and apply our own

criteria

rather than

those

imposed

upon

us

by the

English, we

find

that

this may not

be

so.

How, for

example,

could

we

have underestimated

William

Byrd's importance

all

these

years? There are several

answers.

He

never pre-

tended

to be a

serious

writer (no

gentleman

of his time

and place

would), any

more than

Jefferson

would

have

set

himself

up as

a

professional

architect.

But at least

we

have

Jefferson's

magnificent

buildings to refute the

notion

that he

was

a

mere

dabbler, and

for

years

we

had

little

of

Byrd's

prose. Because

he did

call

a spade

a spade,

many

of

his

contemporaries,

and even

more

of

their descendants, have

not

wanted

his work

and

allusions made

public. Byrd

had been dead almost a

century

when

Edmund

Ruffin published

fragments of

his writings

in the

Virginia

Farmers' Register.

Only

in

our

own generation

have

the

diaries

been

deciphered:

not until

1941

did

a

major publisher

undertake

to

see

part

of

them

into print; not until

1958

did

we have

The

London Diary

(1717-21);

not even

now

can we

read

all that

Byrd left

for

us.

No

amount

of reappraisal

can

turn

Byrd

into

a

fig-

ure of the

highest

magnitude.

What

it

might

do

is

to

reveal

a

man who for candor,

self-analysis,

and wit

is

unsurpassed—

this in

an age that

produced

Washington,

Adams,

Franklin,

Henry, and

Jefferson.

Could

any

other

colonial

American, for

example, have

written

such

a

delightful

and

ribald satire

on women

as The

Female

Creed,

which

has an

eighteenth-century

lady

profess:

I

believe in

astrologers,

coffee-casters,

and

Fortune-tellers

of every

denomination,

whether

they

profess

to read

the Ladys

destiny in their

faces, in

their

palms

or like

those

of China

in their

fair posteriors.

Nor

will

one often

encounter

in

a

colonial

writer

the

desire

to

exhume

his

father's

corpse,

and

then

to

report:

He

^vas

so wasted

there

was

not

one

thing to

be

distinguished.

I

ate fish

for

dinner.

When

William

Byrd

II

died

in the

summer

of

1744,

the pre-Revolutionary

ethos

and

attitudes

were dying

too.

They

have

not

attracted

historians

and

novelists

as have the

earlier

adventurous

days of

settlement

or

the

later

days

that tried

men's souls.

The period from

1700

to

1750

remains

the forgotten one

in

American

history

and literature,

despite

much

excellent but

rather

specialized

work

in it since

1930.

When

we know

more

of

that

important

and colorful

half

century, William

Byrd's

reputation

will

rise.

In

him we

shall

find

the

most

complete expression

of a

man

who

lived with

us

but

belongs

to

the

world.

In

his

work we shall

see, more

clearly

than

in that

of

his con-

temporaries,

the

emerging

differences

between

England

and the

American

colonies destined

to

grow

into their

own nationhood.

Beside

him,

the

so-called

Connecticut

VV'its

of

the late eighteenth

century

seem

to be lacking

half their

title. Compared

to

his

prose,

the tedious

sermonizing

of

the

Puritan

and Anglican ministers

seems like copybook work

in an understaffed grammar

school.

Not

that William Byrd

was

a

saint,

or

a

model

husband—

as he would have

been the first

to point

out.

But

as

with

the saints,

we

admire

him all the more

be-

cause

he

tells

us

about

his faults

and

lets

us

tabulate

the

virtues

for ourselves.

All

told,

we can

say

of

him

what

Abraham

Lincoln

supposedly

said

when

he

saw

Walt Whitman

far

down

the corridors

of

a

building:

There goes

a

man.

William

Byrd

of

^Vestover

would

have

settled

for

this.

Marshall

Fishwick,

professor

of

American

studies

at

IVash-

ington

and

Lee

University,

is

the

author

of

Virginia,

the

first

volume in

Harper's new Regions

of

America

series.

He

has

just

returned

from

a

Fulbright

lectureship

in

Denmark.

Statement

required

by the Act of August

24, 1912.

89

amended by

the

Acts

of March

3,

1933, and July

2.

1946 (Title

39,

United

States Code, Section

233)

showing

the

ownership,

management,

and

circulation

of

American Heritage, published

bimonthly

at

New

York. N. Y. for October

1. 19S9.

1.

The names and addresses

of

the

publisher,

editor

and

managing editor are: Publisher,

James Parton

Editor,

Bruce

Catton

;

Managing

Editor,

Oliver

Jen-

sen ; all of

551 Fifth Avenue,

New

York

17,

N.Y.

2. Tiic owner

is:

American Heritage Publishing

Co., Inc..

531 Fifth Avenue, New York

17, N.

Y.;

stockholders owning

or

holding 1

per cent or

more

of

total

amount

of stock

: American

Association

for

State

and

Local

History,

Sturbridge,

Mass.;

The

Society

of American

Historians,

Inc., Princeton

Li-

brary. Princeton,

N.

J.;

Kichard V.

Benson;

Charles

Bruce Catton;

Irwin

Clusker;

Oliver

O.

Jensen;

Frank H.

Johnson;

James

Parton, individually

and

as Trustee under

Declaration

of

Trust

for James

Parton III,

dated

12/30/57, aa

Trustee

under

Declara-

tion

of

Trust

for

Dana

Parton, dated

12/30/57 and

as Trustee under

Declaration

of

Trust

for

Agnes

L.

Parton and

a Child

of the Grantor, dated

11/15/58;

Gerald

P. Rosen;

Joseph

J.

Thorndike,

Jr.,

individ-

ually

and

as Trustee under

Declaration

of Trust

for

John

Thorndike,

dated

12/27/57. as

Trustee

under

Declaration

of Trust

for

Alan

Thorudike,

dated

12/27/57,

and as Trustee

under

Declaration

of

Trust

for

Anna

Beardsley Lemont,

dated

9/15/58;

all

of

whose

addresses are

551

Fifth

Avenue. New

York

17, N. Y.;

.Alexander Hehmeyer, 575

Madison

. Avenue,

New

York

22,

N. Y. ;

E.

F.

Hutlon

&

Co.

for

Margery F. Sachs,

61 Broadway, New York

6,

N. Y.;

Arnold

H. Maremont,

1600 South

.Ashland

Avenue,

Chicago,

111.; A.

J.

Ostheimer HI, 1510

Chestnut

Street,

Philadelphia

2,

Pa.;

E.

Michele Phillips.

P.

O.

Box II, RowaytoD, Conn.; Roger

S.

Phillips,

P.

O.

Box

11,

Rowayton,

Conn.;

Cecily

Sachs,

c/o

Bankers

Trust

Co.,

P. O.

Box

704.

Church

St.

Station, New

York

8.

N. Y.; E.

J.

Stackpole,

220 Telegraph Building,

Harrisburg, Pa.; Barbara

Joan

Straus,

595

Madison Avenue,

New York

22.

N. Y.

3.

The known

bondholders, mortgagees,

and other

security

holders

owning

or

holding

1 percent or

more

of

total

amount

of bonds,

mortgages,

or

other

securities

are; None,

4. Paragraphs

2

and

3

include,

in cases

where the

stockholder or

security

holder appears upon

the

books

of

the company as

trustee

or

in

any other

fiduciary relation, the

name

of

the

person or corpo-

ration

for

whom

such

trustee

is

acting; also

the

statements

in

the

two

paragra)>hs show

the afliant'a

full

knowledge

and belief as

to the

circumstances

and conditions under which

stockholders and

security

holders who do not

appear

upon the books

of

the

company

as

trustees, hold stock

and securities

in

•

capacity

other than

that of

a

bona

fide

owner.

Signed,

James

Parton,

Publisher.

Sworn to and

subscribed before me this 20

day

of

August, 1959. [Seal]

Nathan Creenberg,

Notary

Pub-

lic

(My

commission

expires

March

30,

I960).

119



for

King

(#

or

Congress

Hark,

Hark

the

trumpet sounds.

O'er seas

and

solid

grounds.

Who

for

king

George do

stand.

Their

ruin is at

hand.

The Acts

of

Parliament,

I

hate their curst

intent.

Who

non-resistance hold.

May

they

for

slaves be

sold,

The

Tories

of

the

day.

They

soon

shall

sneak

aivay.

The

Congress

of

the States,

Blessings

upon

them ivaits.

To

General

Washington,

May

numbers daily

run.

On

Mansfield,

North and

Bute,

Confusion

and

dispute.

To

North,

that

British

Lord,

I wish a

block

or

cord,

The din

of

war

alarms.

Do call

us

all

to

arms.

Their

honors

soon will

shine

Who

with

the

Congress

join.

In

them I

much

delight.

Who

for

the

Congress

fight.

They have

my

hand

and heart.

Who act a wiggish

part.

They

are

my

daily

toast.

Who

independence

boast.

I

hate

with

all

my heart.

Whoe'er

takes Britain's part.

Confusion

and

dishonor.

To

Britain's

royal

banner.

May

daily blessings

pour.

On

Congress evermore.

May

honors

still be

done.

To

General Washington.

The

American

Revolution

was

going

full tilt when, one

day

in

1779,

there

was a

commotion in

the New

York legislature at

Albany. Samuel

Dodge,

member

for Dutchess

County, was its cause.

He

had written

the

poem

above, and

a

copy had

gotten,

by

plan,

into

other hands.

A

mem-

ber

leapt to

his

feet to read

the verses

aloud

and

prove

the

d—nd

Tory

principles

of

the author.

Naturally

the

reader

had

read

from

left

to

right,

a

full line at

a

time, and the

House

groaned

and hissed. The

members

demanded to

know whether

Dodge

avowed

such

treasonable

views. Read

the

poem

again,

he

asked,

but

this

time read

it

differently

—not

straight

across but in

couplets,

first

from

the

left column,

then

the

right. On

hearing

the

same

words again,

the legislators

now

cheered

loudly. Thus,

dryly

concluded

a

long-ago

witness,

the instability

of

the

hearers

was

soon

perceivable.

—

Contributed

by

]ohn

Lowell

Pratt,

great-great-great-grandson

o^

Samuel

Dodge

American Heritage December

Documents

Transcript of American Heritage December