AMERICAN

HERITAGE

Noah's Ark by a folk

artist,

about 1850

December

)5^

Digitized by the Internet Archive

in

2010

http://www.archive.org/details/americanheritage11catt

AMERICAN
HERITAGE
December 1959

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^)^

Fan-Aiiu-i

\tii(i iiJii

it:in

2,

4,

12,

i5-7.

of America.

Htiitiim-

(ii)p> right

wilhoiil pcrmissioii

i>

Volume AY, Number 1

I'lihlisliing

CiMui-iKiuns.

piohibilrd.

'^ (bottom),

lii

I'.S.

Co..

Iiu.

Kcpiodiu
top>iighi

(top), :;a-23,

:it),

\ll

liitii
is

not

and

i^lils

Jii

luilc

n-^ciMtt utuUr
oi

in

l.iinud hit

4)-r,ii.

I'riuicd

pat

(oloi
in

ul

Hci

iif

.iii\

platts

<iii

;iiul

aitii le

pages

the I'niti-d Stales

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

Spoiiiored hv

J:imcs Parton
I

nnOKI

Joseph

DIKII KIR

\J

CONTENTS

Bruce C.auon
\l

of American Historians

Socirt)

Volume XI, Number

December 1959

IO[t

111

Lucii/ History

Cif

Jr.

EDITOR

\N \(.IM.

hncriidu Associdt'rjn for SuiU

Thorndike,

J.

Olixcr Jensen

liXEcunvu r,i)noR
Eric Larrabce

Assncmr in tors
Rifharcl M. Ketclium
Joan I'alerson Mills

THE OLD DOMINION

IHl'

PEPVS OF

rilK

BOODLING BOSS AND IMK MUSIC.\L

by Mm.sluill Fi^lnricl:

Iilixicn

12

Liddcll Hurl

24

M.\\()R

ASMSTW
R()l)irt
1

111

111

HIE

KIH

\SMSI

\I.

HE FRON

E.MIMRE

.\N

PORCH CAMPAIGN

by

Naomi

S.

Weber

FHE DELICIOUS LAND'

(iiiK ia.i7Aut.

\ni niKK roK

Irwin Ghisker

AssociAiF ART DiRFCTOR:

SIM

Al)\

ISOR^

Allan \e\

Ray A.

lillliiigicni

Clnislopliii Caiitenilen

Marshall

Ho\vai<l H.

Uavldson
Anliin M. .Schlesingcr.
li.

1.1K<

...

linwsr

/..

,\Mi

46

pari v)

,\\ii,ui(,,\:

C:ONGRESS FRIED lO RL^LE

32

by UniiUry Smilli

by Millon I.niiuisk

lirriclilry

60

02

HAR IFORD: FHE

.MARK FWAIN IN

ll.\PP\

EARS

rilid'd

by Henry Darbci-

().")

Peckham

K. .Stevens

.S.

FO\S:

FRO.M

I'AR.\1)E

.\

HE AMERIC.\N

P.\S1

.SI

89

,Sr.

S.\C:CO

I.VTION DIRri tOR

WHEN

.1.

IIIE S2I .S^V"INDLE by Xallinnicl

llOXKll

l.cuiis C:. Jones

Rkliaui P. MtCormick
Hairy Sliaw Newman

Core)

li.

Herbert Loebel

/;v

m.ws

jxiilfolio of jilioloi^ruftlis

11

//.

ins. Cliniiiiicin

Car! Caniicr
Allien

Murray Belskv

piiotoirai'her:

ivitli

li.

by Mavgincl Lc-cch

Beverly Hill
assistant:

Davuhn,,

li.

hook siLKcriox

,\miri(:an iiiRriA(;i:

rniidu

WON

UAITT.E lH.\r

IIIE

WIS

Caroline Backliind, Helen M. Brown

Roheii Cowley, Stephen W. Sears
';or\

-.V.MERIC.KN ^VOODS.\l.\N' by M,nsh,ill

Reynolds

L.

KlKl

by IliiKc

VANZEIFI: THE UNFINISHED

1)EU.\

IE

Richard V. Benson

Amikkw

IIikiiu.i

iiKiiillis li\

.\iiKiic.m Ikiilage I'lililishing

Inc..

-|-|i

1-iftli

is

.\\eiuie.

Single Cioples:

lud

every

piililislicd

New ^mk

17,

RF\niNG. WRllINC;.

cveM

]>iil)lished

.\\MRiiA\

lOR

N. \.

it Canad.i
elsewhere

Amikiiw Hirmm.i

<il

leliiiiai\.

lliRii\(.i

Urildils' (.iiidi

hi

klN(,

CiO\ ER:

is

piitcti

I'liiodiiiil

al

OR CONGRESS

Ihc

l.il 11

iil

(eiitnry toy.

n(i

ui

Ironi the past.

ille

for

regislered

iiiisiilii

I'.S.

Seidiid (lass poslage paid

iied

iiiauiial.

I'auni Olliic.
al

New

Noah is one ol llie

Noahs .\ik. (oiiipleu-

jdcture one

on

;.;ie.il

Bible sloiies that laseinates cverv

willi .iiiiinals.

was

a iaxorile nineleeiith-

the bei^inniiiL; ol a ponloiio ol toys

pa,s^e 8i. al

Ihe ark on the co\er. painted

in oil

on

wood panel about

i8.-,o.

ill

HERiTAta-; will ronsider hnl assinius

responsibility

113

120

tale ol

We

.^i.iin.

indfstil

alsii

is

is

hdiii llie

^inia.

American

(in..

generation; inileed
lii(le\

ISnur Cillon

.S12.50 in U.S.
$13.^,0

annnal

/)y

S2.(|-,

Annual Subscriplions:

.All

.\N1) IllS"IOR^

\n\\, N. \.

and

is

and general
\'ork. H(uk
thouglit by
to the

\l)l)\

.\khicli RiKkelellei

Folk

attributed to Joseph H. Flidley

artisan
('.(n'fr:

some

lo

who

is

noted lor

An

Colleuion

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

lews ol his

al

Williainsbint;.

\'ir-

tarpeiuer. la\iderniist,

home town

ol Poestenkill.

New

Ihe sniid\ but stubby side-wheel lerryboat /.. 7'. I'rall is

ha\e operated long ago at llaltimoic. Ihe p.iiniing belongs

Shelburne Museum, Shelliuine. \eiinont.

.^\
-w

^??;-

He

(ould never
or

an old hook,

resist

He

Iresh idea.

and was perpetuallN

e\tensi\cly.

lie\ing perliaps. like Leonardo,

woukl

i)e

more willing

he wrote his

now

^iil,

planned

in ileljt. Bc-

lulnie i^enerations

llial

know

lo

\oimi;

li\fd spleiulidly.

liini

than was his own,

Only

delieiotis, ilelailed tliaiies in (ode.

that tliey have been translated, anil time has put

do we see what William I5\ rd of

Wcstover was: one of the hall-do/en leading wiis and
his era in perspective,

colonial .\meri(a.

stylists of

In the po|)idar imagination, to be

means

lo

Irom rags

rise

\iised the pattern, as

born

to \\ealth,

to

ridies.

an Amei

ii .111

William

lis

hero

rd re-

did so man\ other things:

lie

he never seemetl able to hold on to

His father, William Byrd

(1653-1704), was one

ol

it.

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

Horsmanden, and

Some

was, too.

of

tlie

won

the h.inil of

Mary

dainty and wealthy hand

a very

it

bold and red knight-err:mt blood

of the Elizabethans flowed through the veins ol Wil-

liam Byrd

1.

He had

the

whom

same knack

did Captain

as

John Smith
getting in and out of sciapes. For example, William
Byrd 1 joined Nathaniel Bacon in subduing the Indi(in

that blood fairly bidjbled) for

but stopped short of joining the rebellion against

ans,

(iovernor \\'illiam Berkeley, withdrawing in time to

and his neck. Later on he became

and auditor of Virginia, a member of
the Council of State, and the colony's leading aiithorii\
on Indiairs, The important 1685 treaty with ihe
Iiocpiois bore his signature. Death cut short his bril-

save his repntation

receiver-general

liant career

soon after his

fiftieth

birthday, antl sud-

denly thrust his son and namesake into the tenter

of the colonial stage.
his

The

boy,

who had

spent

time in England getting an education and,

an agent for Virginia, must now reiinn

to

much

MMRiOll

of

later, as

.\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 Virginian beha\'etl scandalously in London, it was Will Byrd.
"Never did ihc sun shine upon a Swain who had more

His secret

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

u^isdom, and lusty candor that

diaries sparkle

with the wit,

made

indebted lor nuich of oin knowieilge of the man. says

that he

rill'

was notoriously promiscuous, freijuenting the

JH>\h(iit oj H\iil ojijxiMlr

KiicUrr in

IjiiiiUiii. ji]<>hnhl\

liiinihi>inc

]'i\i^ini(in

lif/'iinil

looked

lo Ihc iitsniiling

inn

I'l'i'iy

in

inch

wig then

ii'iis

l>iiiiilirl

hi-lwrrii

lii.',

riiil\

iji=,
foi liiw

William B^rd

II

of

Westo\Tr one of

h\ Sn Coilficy
anil 1-20.

llir

Ihc

j>niiic

llic .sn/ihi.slii iilfd ini.slocral

Virginia's

most

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

jrentlemen

itj

even

jii\hioiuihlc in iipjycr-cluss .sociely.

By

MARSHALL

IISIIWICK

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

occasions,

London

Btirwell, a ^\illiamsbtIrg belle,

boudoirs

Other

ol

street.

Once, ivhen

arrived ioi a rencle/xoiis witli

lie

a cer-

home, so he seduced
was coming down the

problems (iiuhiding, on

\'irginia lailies lacetl

B\rd) that were far older than the colony or the witch scare. .\ good example was Martha
Sir

\\"\\\

Nicholson,

Francis

man more

the

who

rejected the

governor,

so

stiit

of

might

she

tain Mrs. .\-l-n, the lady wasn't

marr) a

the chambermaid.

would cut the throat of the

briilegriiom, the clergyman, and the issuing justice.
Unavvare that females are membeis of the weaker sex,
Martha refused to give in eveit when Nicholson threw
in half a ilo/en more throats, including those of her
fathei and bioihers. She married her true love. No
throats were cut but visitors to the Governor's palace

came

steps Mrs. A-l-n

Byrd and

Jirst

as

lie

Then

the front lioor.

in

back up the

.Mrs. A-l-n avciu

Will

stairs together.

home and ate a plinii cake.

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:
Several hours later, he went

On

his favorites

her liking.

to

If

she did

Williamsburg observed that His Excellency made

in

"a Roaring Noise.

"

In those days Titlewater Virginia was governed by

a system of benevolent paternalism.

The

instant Nour coach drove away,

as

it

if

madam, my

had been lorn up by the very

my body

as

if

severed limb hoiii limb.

and tlie
Could

roots,
.

time have considered that the oiih pleasure

world was leaving me.

rest of
at

that

hat! in

lia\e sullered myself to

be

The

aristocrats

intermarried, and the essential jobs sheriff, vestryman,

justice ol the peace, colonel ol militia stayed in the
laniily.

The

the

had hung upon your coach and had

been torn in pieces sooner than

taken from you.

Having

iieart felt

swore

so.

the enrageil Nicholson, he

to social

support of the gentry was the prerequisite

and

political

advancement. Wealth,

and privilege were the Tidewater

trinity,

and

status,

it

was a

case of three in one: wealth guaranteed status; status

said all the proper things, he

moved on

to

relate, in a later letter, some ol the jincier bits oi London 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

humour!" The image is Falstalhan.

Byrd's friends. But with news ol his

as

ami good

iat

weie inan\ of

lather's

death he

and
assume new duties. With both Hal and Will the metamorphosis was dilluiilt ami paiiial. btu nonetheless
memorable.
must, like Piince Hal, scorn his

ilissoltite

friends

conveyed privilege; and privilege insured wealth.

Will Byrd both understood and mastered the world

which he had returned. He retained the seat in the

of Bingesses which he hail won before going to
England, anil turneil his attention to finding a suitable wile. Like many of his contemporaries, he confineil "romantii love" to extractirriiular affairs, and
called on common sense to help him in matrimony.
Both Washington and |efleison married rich widows.
to

House

Ambitiotrs yotnig

more than

men

lounil iluv coidd love a rich girl

poor one, and the colonial newspapers

re-

jjoited their mairiages ^vith an honesty that boiilereil

One reails. for example, that twentyWilliam Carter married .Madam Sarah

on improprietv.

The
turnedthe

\'irginia to

in the

whidi

in 1705 ^\'illiam

B)rd

II re-

oldest jjermanent English settlement

New World ami

the

link in the chain th.it

lll^t

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 Europe, 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
^vould one day be

settling tlovvn in X'irginia after his long stay in Eng-

comt was
Knowing women

land, a X'irginia

instructing "as

sieiit anil

as jiossible

her Carefully For

teats

spotts

many An-

... to search
ami marks abotit her

body." \\'hen tertain luysieiious marks were indeeil

fotnul, the

woman

obvious contlusion was drawn, and the poor

languished in \e (onunon gaol. Finalh

leased, she lived to be eightx

and

tlieil

re-

natmal death.

three-year-okl

wiilcjw of eighty-live, "a sprigluh olil Tit,

I'^llson,

with

three thousand poinuls fortune."

Will Bvril's choice was the eligible

bm

fiei v

P;nke. ilaughter of the gallant rake Daniel Paike,

Lucy

who

had fought with .Mailboi imgh on the Continent anil

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 cjuick
to record his

ictories.

such as the one noteil in his

tliary for Febrtiaix 3, 1711: ".Mv

wife anil

quaiielleil

about hei jjidling her brows. She threatened she would

not go to \\'illiamsbtng if she might not pidl them; I
relused. however,

tained

my

That
Ills

ol

and goi the

beltei of her ;nid nutin-

authoiity."

.Mrs.

teinj)ei

Bvrd had as main good exciises

and violence as any other lady

hjr her
in \'ir-

giiiia

seems plain not unh Irnm lui

from

liei

November

ol

picture ol

among

evriiiii'.;

tin-

111

i7<><).

u,

lile

(aiiie this .iliernooir

autl

o'clock

and then

graphic

this

lire

sixlist.

otii

where nn wile

talked

.nid

s.it

planter, clitiichman.

retired to oin (h.nnheis.

pl.ivetl

.it

|i

man who,

with the responsibility

alxiiit

till

William

Byiil II

ol

biiiilened lor most of his life

thousands of acies and

dieds ol sla\es, never became naiiow

m]

saw and

miidi as any Ameiican \\ho died before

Re\()ltition.

Here was

loimil Mrs. Chiswtil, in\ sister

We

with the liankness ol .Montaigne and the zest

Philosopher, lingtiist, doctor, scientist,

Rabelais.

ie])oitecl as

[liarrelt'sl.

l)i.

Ici

other ladies.

(llistis.

wiilei
ol

I'liiiy

the planters:

went

example, we get

loi

but

ate iisalions.

luisbanil's admissions. I'"ioin his diaix

oi

hiin-

piovincial.

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

.\either his mind, nor his tongue, nor his

pen the

possibly because he wiote the diaries in

code was

soon

stiaineil by his

as lln'

which

loinpanv

w.is '.;one.

nei;leited to sa\ ni\ |)ra\ers

should not ha\e done, because

ought

to bej; par-

God

\\hen he

One

As we lead on, we begin

in

America

colonial

'We

saiti:

ol

or

call a

spade a spade."

Hxrd's most remarkable achievements, and

one not neatly

to leaii/e that \\e aie con-

man

re-

home

was innntme fiom the barbs ol his wit. W'lien

we read liyrd, \\e know just what Dean Swift meant

.Alnii^hty.

fronting a Renaissance

in timstances, ami no one at

.ibioatl

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

last

\vell

enotigh kntjwn and appieciated,

is

his sketch ol himsell, attached to a lettei dated KebrtiCONTISL'tD ON

i'.XGK

1"

COURTESY Virginia Cavalcade

H'o/oTrr. Hyrd's
liiivr

Jive

no

my
ill

II

floiks
liinil

loii'^cr

III

li(ni\r

mid my

nn

a hliifl

/iri(h.

of iiidrjiciuUtu c nl
llif

liiiiiily.

nUovc

llir

my boiidmni

lodny

rvriynnr
Inn

iiiiiili

](niirs.
niiil

hiil

of

was

roiii l>lflril

h(iii(l,C(iiiiiii

l'in\i(\ctii i'."
;/\

iiiiil

nhoiif /7;5. "/.ihf <ir of llif jynlriitii

ct'crv soil

i)l

limlf

His son dissipdiiil the

old iliinm.

I'yi-,'tilcl\

owned,

il

rstiilf. hiil
is

my

iiiiiijiii^\l
ii

oifii

If.." Iir icro/c.

srn'diils,

\ii

lliiil

"/
I

restored Wfsloi'cr. thow^li

occiisionnlly

ojiened to the jiublie.

Novciiibei, njoi. the

In

loriiia,

dreaming

little

tnwu

Sonoma,

ol

in the haze of

For .\brahain Ruel's

Cali-

miles north ol San Francisco, lay

lc\v

Indian sinnmer. There

were few guests in the town hotel, and only t^vo were
One of them was a small man with bright,

strangers.

looking ahead to

\i\icl

imagination was alreadx

dramatic luiiue. Years

later, from
San Ouentin Prison, he recalled those days
in Sonoma in his autobiography. The Road I Trai'eled:

his cell in

beady eyes above a huge mustache; he looked like Ben

Turpin with his eyes uncrossed. The other Avas big and

W'c were the only strangers in the little village. We had IcU
our whereabouts unknown except to our immediate families. There, in undisturbed peace, we talked and planned

broad-shouldered; he had a head of thick, curly black

day and night. There in the tranquil Sonoma

hair and a luxiniant mustache

that, in pictiues of

and Vandyke beard

him, give an irrepressible im])res-

sion of being glued on.

These

visitors

They had

San Francisco

man

little

seemed

a single
city

to

document
charter,

be instructor and pupil.

A\ith

them, a copv of the

and hour

after

hour the

could be heard through the thin walls of

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-

hills I saw
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 President; I saw the Union Labor Party a throne for Schmitz. as

visions of political power;

.Mayor, as

Governor as President

hind

tluone.

corrupt political boss

who reaped

the profits of

tliat

tional

To

the hotel

cisco's

saw myself

understand how Rtief was able

and how he
prison

hinrself

cell, it is

cisco's earlier,

orchestra

^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\ immediately after the election, Ruef was trying to teach
ter,

his

henchman

the rudiments ol public administration.

The

States. Be-

state na-

to

put his gro-

necessary to glance briefly at San Fran-

turbulent history.

At the beginning of the t^vcntieth century, the

could look back on a solid

and corruption.

It

had

Airicricans in i8}().

lately

local,

nominee into the mayor's chaii,

could end up a few years later in a

The

Columbia Thea-

United

power,

tesquely unc]ualified

bribery and corru]:)tion with unparalleled sang-froid.

big one was Eugene Schmitz.

of the

its

saw myself United States Senator.

of a thousand people

leader at San Francisco's fashionaljle

mushrooiried

ing

crimes of

ernment

fifty

citv

years of sin, violence,

drowsy .Nfexican village

was taken o\cr bv the
years later, the town hav-

beeir a

when

Only

five

following

iolence Avere so

it

the

common

discovery

of

gold,

;ind the local gov-

both that the citifamous extralegal "vigilantes"

officially the X'igilance Ciommittee to restore order.
Their method ^\as simple and effective; hanging, after
zens

so \cnal or spineless or

organized

the

BO OD LING BOSS
A

corrupt lawj^er and his complaisant ally

until a crusading editor toppled their plots

By

.Ibralidin

and

brillianl

Jiucf,

rxiildess,

held

the

reins of [lowcr in lurnof-

the-century San

I-

ranri.sco.

BRUCE

the briefest extemporaneous

conspicuous wrongdoers.

trials,

The

next few years saw

tlic

leading newspaper editor shot clown by an indignant

sidjsciiber;

United States senator killed

in

duel

with the chief justice of the state supreme louii; and

ho\vling

mobs burning

were believed

to

The

some of the more

the houses of the Chinese,

who

be tmdercutting Americans in the

forerumier of that struggle was a savage water-

summer

front strike in the

t^\o

of ujoi tliat lasted about

months and kit endiuing

with the aid

jjolicc

ol the

scars. It was broken

municipal authorities, who put city

on the drays

to

protect

Since the days of the gold rush,

nonstriking drixers.

when

labor was in

desperately short sujjply and workers were able to dic-

own

labor market. For the whole half century, prostitution,

tate their

gambling, and drunkenness raged through the town;

its Barbary Coast was infamous for the public disjjlay

strong union town.

of e\ery sort of vice.

Union
Labor party and began to talk big about taking control of the city. This talk might easily have come to

some extent economically by

the

the Southern Pacific

big coiporations,

Railioad, a situation

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,
dianiatically

a \veekend

round-trip

dropped on the desk

When

ticket

of e\ery

to

San

Francisco

Avas

lawmaker everv Friday.

the t^ventieth century began, there was

little

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

e\iclence that \ery

history to

and

end municipal corruption.

the

had alwavs f)een a

on the water

their deleai

for

revenge.

kingiiieii

They organized

turned

the

nothing but for the presence of Abraham Ruef.

The
tile

little boss,

born of

a |)ros])erous

family in San Francisco, had a hue

Jewish mercan-

mind and

sent

one of them

to jail

BLIVEN

/>))

tinci-

Scliiiiilz.

II

lender,

xciis

pet

the

ns

li'rnis

Enc^rrxr

htuid

foyiiier

Ituff's
city's

pvj)-

mayor.

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 original Trilby, his came from the world of music.
Eugene Schmit/, the orcliestra leader, knew nothing

MUSICAL MAYOR

ran San Francisco as their private preserve

and schemes, and

With

shocked and embittered woi

politics

to

For a good part of that time, the venality of most

municipal officials was duplicated in the capitol at Sacramento. Tile state was controlled ])olitically and to
esj)ecially

front, the

terms. San Fiancisco

BOTH PHOTOGRAPHS FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY

told, to their

dismay, that their licenses were to be can-

They promptly hired Ruef as their lawyer, paid

him many thousands of dollars, and the threat of

celed.

troidjfe faded a^vay.

Among

the dozens of houses of

which then flourished openly in San Francisco 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
prcjstitiuion

city for years.

Other

The

ity.

varieties of graft

police in

developed with great rapid-

Chinatown were accused

of collect-

ing regular weekly imnuuiity fees from gamblers. Vari-

ous types of business had to pay

certain things,

some

permission to do

Icjr

of which were entirely legal

and

unobjectionable.

THE HUNTERS:
cculor; Detective

Rudolph

him

W'illuiiii

/.

liiniis:

Edilor

Hrney. the jnosInciiuiiil

Older:

Spreckels, a jnuouial bniltry of the prosriiilion.

politics

()[

(Lcfl In righlj Fniiicis J.

and

tliil

not \vant to run, but Rucl assmetl

victory was practically certain.

"The psychology

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

ol

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

ivas still

smarting from the broken

man

strike;

in the city

Schmit/

\\'as

After a iew days of the

Sonoma cranrmer's-coiirse in
men returned to San

the art of government, the t\vo

and soon thereafter Schmitz formally took

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, catering to the family trade and serving excellent food and
wine at reasonable prices. There were always, however, 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
Francisco,

Before

Schmitz administration was \erv old the oAvncrs ^\ere

10

that

ment

incli\ic!ual

sujjervisors

were openly asking pay-

to vote in accoidance ^\ith the wishes of various

businessmen.

elected.

office.

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 l^uef 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 I^uef, 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

The
ber of

boss sa^v that this

men

would never do; with

ninn-

seeking bribes indi\icluallv, open scandal

could not be averted. Acccjrdingly, he called an

luiolfi-

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
cial

to the supervisors in return for their consideration of

liis

wishes and needs, this

disbursed by me.

You

money

are not to

donor: you will simply vote as

The

supervisors saw

that

be collected and

will

kno'\v'

I tell

they

the

you
^^ere

name

of the

in all cases."

licked,

and

seventeen of them silently acquiesced. By some accident,

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.

however, one honest

example of how the Ruef system ^vorked

between t\\-o competing telephone companies. The Pacific States Telephone and Telegraph
Company was already operating in San Francisco,
while the Home Telephone Company w;miecl to set
typical

was the

fight

up

a fonipctiiii'

ber ol oilier

svstem there, as

been paxins; Riiel

(Riiefs ciislom

among

done

hail

month as
him

Si, 200 a

lh)me Telephone

it

lor

Pacific States hail

ciiies.

offered

no\\-

was

to

in a numsome time

"attornev's lees."
a

Hat Si

share about hall

the

IhiUctiii.

Okler, generally lonsidered by journalists to

25,()()().

be one of

money

American

seventeen dishonest supervisors, ami

the

Fremont Okler, who in iHijr,, at the age of iliirly-ninc,

had become managing editor o[ the San Francisco

to

and

of a nose,

varying proportions, olten ecjualh.)

when he was

Pacific
ceeded
Iv,

to

approach ele\en ol the supei \ isois directol them about S5.o()o. When he learned

giving each

Ruef was hirioiis; he told the supervisors that

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 distribution of tlie Home Compaii) money is interesting. .According 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.
nl

this,

iliey

,'>!

Rea, the honest super\isor. of course got nothing.

One

man, Patrick McClushin, also got nothing; in

public speeches he had committed himself so tlioronglily to municipal ownership that he did not tlaie
oilier

vote for either corporation.

Many
time

otlier

felt

liiief a

it

companies and

indi\iiluals at

necessary to indulge in bribery,

willing recipient.

The

largest

about

this

and found

sum he

recei\ed

was 200,000 from the United Railroails, which tontrolled 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 aggressive,

able,

and unscrupulous

financier,

grandson

of

huge man,

ol

two and

a voice that rrjsc to a roaring bellow

was a part-time cub re]Jorter on the

(1

Bulletin tor several ycais iluring the light against the

ring while working

graft

my way

through Staiilonl
I can tes-

University as a caiii])us correspondent and

to the etpial

tify

amoiinis of terror, admiration, and

mem-

passionate loyally that Okler inspired in every

ber of his

Why

staff.)

a deep and burning zeal for

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

he possessed such

municipal honesty

certainly

is

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

Own

he relates

road for S'-'5

that time to
ones.

in his fasc inating autobiograpfiy.

My

Story, on the payroll ol the Soutliern Pacific Rail-

month, the customary stipend paid at

weak newspapers and many strong

all

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

one siage

graft ring. .\t

left for

office,

and

severely beaten,

dead.

Older, as the
serious risks.
spite

the battle he was struck

in

clown in an alley behind his

more

When

more

aggressive fighter, ran even

in 1905 Schniitz

the opposition ol

was re-elected deriotous

the Biillrlin, a

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

i\

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

feet

si.\

excited or angeretl, which was almost

continuously.

what was going on and pro-

was

broad-shouldered, with Hashing eyes above a big beak

divide the other hall between himscll and Sdimit/ in

States no^\ heard

top newspa|)er editors in

the hall-do/en
history,

iM

iMi\

street
r

\(.i

11

the

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 Nevada, 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.

.$200,000 to Schmit/

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.

THE
u'illi

the

QU.\RR^:
two

of

Ills

./

-.corrird

iitliinieys

iiiily fj^iiijlcr \eli()

/Jovv

iliiriiiii

liis

liiipf

(center)

e\tnrlinu

triiil.

confers
lie

u'lis

\nvc(l diiy niii\iileriihlf lime in prison.

11

*Mf

*MERICKN MtStLM OF NAtOUUCi. ffiSU

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/ile

^lMERICAN WcOODSMAN"
^s

the frontier Dioved ^icestu-drrl a?id

the tireless

Auduho)i drove himself

By

12

MARSHALL

B.

-a-ildlifc

to I'ecord its

DA\ IDSOX

declined,

wonders

Thanks

Id

liiiciy

llic

waiclier

biri!

lashionaijie

New Wnk
i8<S()

On

Ciity.

pluiuk't
oik- oI

ti:iclc,

ihc

in

iiii;

i1k-

sho|)|)in,g

one sharp-cycil naturalist

was along the

i88u's

downtown

ot

strecis

two suiccssivf

of ihc mil-

;i<^cius

bcsi rambles lor a

laic alternooiis in

sjiotted

more than

a laughing gull, a nified grouse, a green heron,

and a
crowded precincts ol lower
be sure, and perched stillly
accessories on the habits of

Manhattan; all dead, to

and pioperly as (ostiinie

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

to \vipe out astronomical numbers ol birds,

managed

in recent times, ho\ve\er,

a

tolerable

state

man and

biril li.i\e

coexistence in our

ol

may continue

world. C;oiiiury lolk

achieved

[Ktrt

of

our

ladies' hats.

our

llicting interests ol

to

\ot\\ithstanding the con-

Force, we have piovided

whooping crane, and have

,\ir

jjeacehil sanctuary for the

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

he night, .Audubon went to sleep before the campfire

[his] Chiistmas sport."
\\'hi(h

birds

On

to

the birds some of

commodated iheir
finding new homes

stock.

The

in

where, for the

human

interloper, perhaps,

forests of the

\ew World and

and

that sought their cover were "inexhaustible.

his live-

the

all
"

game

Yet they

would have to give way to man and his works. There

would be time enough to regret the wasteful plundering that went with pioneering when the naiion finally
spiead out over and .settled down on its three billion
acres of virgin land.

Audubon
the
olf

ne\er did become a conservationist as

word is understood these days. Even as he picked
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

him would

after

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

He needed

all

manner

it

was too

late.

of variants to complete his

and from the beginning he hired hunters w-hen

habits to the strange ways of man,

own gun for some picssing reason was idle. In later

yeais, when he was obliged to remain in England to

chimneys and barns, or abandon-

attend to publication matters, he wrote his naturalist

in

ing their ancestral forest habitat h)r

commuters

them have

his hey-

(leaiures or the preservation of any living

\\\\d

studies,

their side,

.Audubon with. In

stick lo beat

thing sa\e the

that, in a horseless age, still feed as before in the city

streets.

no

is

day the .Ameritan wilderness was just about the last

))lace in the world to expect the jjievention of cruelty

the

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

"veiy well satisfied wiili

loi ty

ditteicnt species, iniliiding such iinlikeh specimens as

sa\\-whei owl, all in the

wards, and iheir heads sunk in the water, and their

legs kicking in the air." .\fter eating a meal of pecannut and beailat soup, while the stjuaws worked into

oin

life

burgeoning suburbs.

i)ast lifty

among

And

ac-

the

every-

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

his

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
.

depend ... It will save me one year of Shooting

."
and of ransacking the Woods singly.
Time was everything, and from the moment he

also

John James .\udubon, we might never have heard of

the man, much less celebrated his memory as a great

started in active pursuit ol his "great idea" until the

pioneer nalinalisi.

waning years

mammoth

In

the course

of

compiling

inventory of the birds of .America,

his

Audubon

must ha\e

his journal

He

".

killed a formidable number of specimens.

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

may

of his

life,

am growing

to lose. "1

he

felt

he never had a

one evening when he was

(iod grant

my mammoth work

moment

old too fast," he complained to

me

life

in his late forties;

to see the last plate of

to test his excellent

marksmanship, or simply pom Ic

Once, on December 25, 1810, \vith a jjarty of
Shawnee Indians, he caught a lakefid of swans in a

on this tri|j he
morning and had been at
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

sport.

coast ol Laijrador so that he coidd witness the breed-

ing habits

and

pitiless cross fire, until the surface of the

summered

in

the other hand, his diary candidly reports the aniuse-

meiu

lie

occasionally took in firing into a Hock of birils

water was
"covered with birds floating with their backs down-

had been up
his chawing

log might

finished." .As usual,

at three in the

see the jjlumage of the waterfowl that

that

collet

"wonderful dreariness."

and

la

II

in large diojjs

The

chill

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

fixedness with which, once the vision

Audubon drained
he

him

maniacal
to him,

prodigious energies into the

The Birds

of America. It x\as the task,

with almost mystical reverence, "allotted
by nature,'" and driven by that obsession he

publication of
as

all his

came

sa^\

it

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

thai France binst into the flames of revolution. There,

in gootl

time, he \\as legally adopted

name

and properly

Jean Jacques Fougere

.Audubon. (Or, if you prefer a long outside chance, he
was the lost Dauphin, somehow spirited out of captivbapti/etl,

ity

given the

of

into the protecti\e custody of the

Audubon menage

although the Revue Insturiqiie dc la question Louis A' 17/. published early in this centiny to

in Xantes:

him among

penetrate this mystery, does not

list

many nominees

distinction.)

^t

lor that

imhappy

eighteen, the lad ^\as ripe for conscription in

the

Na-

jLx. poleon's swarming armies and, apparentlv to

avoid any such interruption of his career, the captain

aspect of genius.

dispatched his son to the Xe^v A\'orld estate near Phila-

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

delphia that he had acquired during his residence in

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
his

own

uphill struggle bv x\hich he shaped

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 observe 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

the western hemisphere. Thus yoiuig .\udubon followed in a long line of tlistingiiished cmii^rcs, including 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, Audubon 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 tlistraction 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 circiunJ.

Before begijunng
first

14

The

Birds of .\nierica.

subjects, sketched in chalk in iSitj,

E.

SITED ART MUSEUM, LOUISVILLE

Audubon for a time icas an ilineriint portraitist, charging Sy a jiicture. Among his
were the James Bertliouds and their son Nicholas, right, of Louisville, Kentucky.

MKS.

1S22 Auiliibon mrl

III

Jiihii

right).

The

stances. Liicv

11

had her

\VI\TERS

jxnirailnl wlio inshiulrd

liknicss of

nuisical instruments.

C. E.

Audubon

])iano,

Tlu-re

his

own

were a tollection

uuis bci^ini iiuiiiy \rins

various

ol books,

decent complement of siher, china, antl other housedrudgery

h(jkl furnishings, antl slaves to lighten the

and

the house

in

in the

barnyard and orcharil.

Cler-

tainly .\be Lincoln's lather, struggling to provide lor

his

own

family larther east in the state, ^voiikl

little

ha\e considereil

Had Audubon

tontiniied

thoirsanils of

prosper,

to

lost

immigrants who

among

name

his

the coinitless

foiintl tlieir lortinies in

went
and

the ^\'est. But then, in the panic vear of 1819, he

Hat

broke

and bankrtipt.

Keleasetl

from

pressed by necessity, he iiuiied portrait

jail

artist,

taking

his increasingly firm

such primitive exeicises ^\as exhausted,

^\it!l iheii

t^vo

WDotlhouse .\udid)on,
and
(ancinnati,
where both parents
he and Lucy mo\ed to
sons. Victor Gillonl

|()hii

foinul hire as teat hers; antl

1S20,

that Aiiiltd)on

it

^\as there, in Otiober,

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

ttne?

He had diawn

stub an "imjjossible

biids all his

lile,

he cotikl not yet identif\ a cormorant,

"

\cn-

to be sine. l>ut
as his jotnnal

clearly intlicates; antl he a])parentl\ hatl not \ei c\en

spoltetl siuh a

connnon bird

as the

hermit thrush.

lis

understanding of ornithology was nothing but itidimeniarv; he was igntirant of most of the literatine on
the subjei

anil

artistic talent

had

access to onl\ a small jxirt ol

was limited,

as his nortr.iils

it.

Irom

lis

this

l'irlni(lffl)

and

iinidriilijird nicnihi-y of ihc family.

ilentcd, heroic scale.

lisher

yet

^vas

jimpose) woidd cost

small lor-

publishing enterprise on an tniprece-

call for

to

The

lome

ilay of the professional

in

.\mcrica.

The

very

pubfew

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,
innocent of illustration because of the prohibi-

trstially

would have involved. Even the peripaParson A\'eems, the most active and imaginative
Ijookseller of his ilay, could not have moved the giant

much

the local market h)r

lie jttiinlcd lii\ si)n\.

unmistakably re\ial. although b\ constant ])rache 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

tetic

initil

nil

perioil

tive costs this

head

year

lain hy

profde likenesses of his friends and neighbors for as

as five tlollais a

AIUIBON MEMORIAL MUSEfM, HENDERSON', KENTUCKY

tice

time and

this luxiny.

would jjrobablv have been

TYI LR; <)\ lovN TO

VTII l>\

in l)ic u\i- of ails: llie iirxt

liiin

Lucy, icciilci)

}iis icifc.

AND MISS M

Audubon envisaged.
What publisher today, for

tomes

that matter, with all the

present industry's elaborate apparatus for promotion

and

distiibtition,

woidil

dream

illustrations

and with

its

monetary

resotirces,

of iniilerw riling a four-volume set of 435

by a relatively luiknown

artist,

each vol-

tune measuring abotn fort\ by thirty inches and weigliing as

sell

much

as a

were also

to

strong

man

could carry, the wliole to

thousand dollars a
be six stout vohnnes of

lor rouj;hl\

set? (.\\u\ there

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,

blithcK took
ilSjo.

He

oil

when .Vudubon

to\\ard the .South in that auttinin of

(oidd not have taken

A ri>kIlOI.Ili OK Al Dl HON'S

a better direction to get

work C.ONTIM

1V\T CONIINI KIHJN rVf.E 04

ON TliU lOl.LOWINt. PM.IS

is

I.KCTKJN OF MKS. OKIRI.L M.

D.

hlllY,

NMCHIZ
0/;('

uf Atiduhon's fciu hnidsc/ipes

sicfpily jx'rrlied
ftc.

on a

blufj

tihot'i' its

is

this

1S22 vicic of Xatcliez, Mississippi,

busliing ^t'linmcs

In his typically ungriinvnnlinil prose,

Audubon

and the

wrote:

Neiu and Elegant Mansion the properly 0/ Mr. Pustleieait

teemin'g

"On

the

rix'er traj-

lilt

attracts the

11

Anxious

.^J>te<<^'^i*^lf^V
i\co)i

llir rii^lil llir )a///)ii;s

:...,

i^*^'

of llif liidilli lliinly

<li\'/-rsifiril

hy poor

liiihiliilions

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
\ooti (lose llir prospfcl

Ilie Jnil,

NEW-YORK HISTORiaVL SOCIETY, COl RTFSY ME ROroriT \N MLSn

I

A\i(\u\)on's great u'nrh. tlic

liiin. is

Z/^CctS
^ds

1 he Birds

"'"' "''^
I luas

''^

^Vild

one

America;

ol

VNO nnnKOF-'I HE-MOXTH CLIJB

for whiili lii.storv reiiieiiibrr.s

to

devoted the bulk o/

Turkey

^^

il.s

/)(,v

coiii/)ili>iij^.

l)ublisliing.

jiroductnie years. Plate

foj>j}osite). a singul/irly

(ij>t

clioice: the

turkey was. Benjamin Franklin had written, "a true original native of Amer-

our national emblem than the bald eagle "a

ica" niucli better suited for

of bad moral chanuter
beginning jiubliciition of

liis

generally

jxior

Birds in

1S2J.

and ojlen very

lousy."

Audubon continued

biril

Ajtei

searching

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
out

Havell, to

fill

in the

backgrounds, .ludubon's drirwing of the roseate spoonbill

had very little background to the

added swainps, waterways, and a soft line

(above), for exain/ile.

(beltne), Hirvell

final
of

eiigraxiing

distant

hills.

NE\v'-VORK HISTORICAL

SOCUTV

NFVV VORK

gray and I am growing old," Audubon wrote to his naturalist

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 mammtils. just as he had done with its birds. Published between /S^5 and tS.j8 as The X'iviparous Quadrupeds of N'orih America, it was a monumental achievement. Bachman helped with the text: .Audubon'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.

"My hair

friend, the

NATIONAL Al-DtBON 50C1FTY, COl RTESY LlfC

is

OOLLECIIUN Of MHS. Klkin

I.

(IIVMIUKS.

milsMIlJ

V--

Kcpvodxiccd above atul opposite are two

pai^es

from Aiidulion's remarkable

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
little

Qjnsects

page, above

11

bottom (enter

roic
is

including a grasshopper, a camel cricket, and a true bug; at

wood

yet such was his magic

cuikroacb.

tliut

Audubon was

not a trained entomologist,

even these liny creatures spring to

life

on the page.

:\.

.'^
;ff-

JC,

V*
\

^ 'x

The Battle That

ivill, some time hence, he a vast empire, llie
power and learning.
Xatine has refused
notliing, and there will grow a people out of our
spot, England, that will fill this vast space, and

''This
seal

(if

tliein
little

divide this great portion of the globe with the Spaniards,

who

are possessed of the other half."

Tliat

projjhecy,

iwo hundred and one years

ago, about the lutiue ol Britain's colonies in

man who had

America, wns written by the

scornlully said in another letter lota' days

"The Americans are in general the dirtiest

most contemptible dogs that you can conceive." 1 his
hasty and violent generalization from a particidar episodethe capture ol Loiiisbourg was as characteristic
of the man as was the far-ranging vision sho\vn in his
earlier:

next
It

his

letter.

was the same

man who

a year later,

death and of the \ictory that

made

on the eve of
his

name

im-

mortal, recited some verses of Gray's "Elegy in a Country

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

United States might well be termed

the light of his conception coupled

future.

By a

brilliant

f/ii"

t'iiif,/i//ifrr.i ,tii,/, '/n,/i,Tit,>. il'/itr/r

(h/lhti H.i /li\if It'/ttWl iA/i/t,/rt/

.

^^ith the effect of

.7;;

none

is

easier for

darkness

ll'olfe's

^i/tnt// til//rnr/tft/ fl<tf/t. fAf1Hl4//l

I'r

'

AMTA,/.-^'....*/Ai;,;V,L.\rRJK,l WniTTI.K,.!.T/7*.,

old engraving published in

tlic

,i

Oilcbcr

/in'i/itiiiY f/ir otir/v/ii/)-r

his grandchild, in

for Qiicbec on

the world's historic battlefields,

cf QUKJJEC Scplcmber iil75i>

'H '/eir i>/^//ic xya/iiiii/

u/la/frvi/i/'/^m't/'tW /lu/M/vtYj/f

The

his action.

Of

\_^

London

in

nioining of Se/ileinher

men landed

at liglilly

maneuver young James Wolfe conquered

iy<)/ slioius

/j. /j^i).

the struggle

In the lire-dawn

guarded Foulon cove,

''^impregnable'''^
By CAPTAIN

24

stole

B. H.

Won an Empire
su.Mi M> swiiri

cw \ni \v\

r.

\i

k^'.

nn\-

\i

(i\r vrki mi

si

\(

the visitor lo trace

The

course

cance,

is

and

made clear by
The scene

rence River.

landing

at a

cove

city, is close to

embark

visualize than that of

Quebec.
moves, antl their signifi-

ol tiie ])reliniinary

the contoins ol the

mile anil

where

liie

cliffs

above

this

The

lies

immediately

now

landing place on

Abraham,

lo the west of the city.

capture of Quebec and

sequel, the conquest

its

of Canada, formed the liigli-water

mark

of

tlie

tide of

British imperialism in the eighteenth century.

was cmphasi/ed by

Sir

dis-

was fought

the plateau talletl the Hcighis, or Plains, of

Avhich

Law-

upstream from the

a hall

transatlantic liners

their passengers. Tiie battle itself

out on top of the

St.

ol \\'olle's decisive step, the

That

Seelcy, the Ciambridge his-

John

torian of the late Victorian .\ge, in his famous book.

The Expansion

of

England. In

lyrical Avords:

liis

one of a long scries, which to contemposeemed 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

That

victory vvas

raries

or three splendid years as

never return and

how

long

upon
it

happiness that could

continued to be the unicjue

boast of the Englishman

That Chathuni'i Lani^nace

And

]\'olfe'.s

great heart

icns

his nintlier-loiigiie

com l>atriot with

Englishmen had need of such comfort

war, the American Re\olution.

ada then looketi

like

The

liis

oiun.

in

the next

leteiuion of Can-

poor compensation

for the loss of

North .\merica.
Thus Wolfe's fame glowed all the more

their older colonies in

///( i/f/ti
<lif

yhk-

</i-

Qvi:bEC /<

13

Septcnitro 17^5

trast

^AeflrMenO /f f/f'/'fl ft/It r mctlt ,/fj ^rott^cd ^ /ftt^/i) utt-J,^-X'jf-K^-/itWf2c t/tr^^l^trti^fi^

fill t^fa/a^an/ lift i^ei/n'ff ^z:J:^oiA<Ata: ^. ^car t{f7cifer^/nMfe t/uTa/iU/ttlif ^u(/t/rtracit

*fa^rf

?//)

it

nri'iiic.
iif

hud

msli

It)

niHnjxmwrcd the
lhii/ii!^h

jnchcis. anil ilrnr u/} jor halllc

Tlir French. r\/)r'(//!;

Abrii)iiun.

I'hiiiis

iilliiih

the toxen iind foiin quiilily to meet the

Oi(chcc a}i(/ secured

on

llir

below Ouehec.
<i.^.\iiiilt.

in the con-

bet^veen the glory of the Seven ^'ears' ^\'ar and

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 appeared abo\e the hoii/on only a yeai bclore he ilied.
and \anishcil in a bla/e ol "lorv at thirtv-two.
the lumiiliation of the eight years'

North Jtnerica for

the English-speaking peoples

LIDDELL HART
25

MC CORD MUSEUM, MC

GILL UXIVERSITY,

MONTREAL

This sketch of

WHS

one of

by

Qiiebec

his brigadiers,

Tou'tishetid,

Wolfe

Jauiei.

nl

(Irnuiri

George

and presented

to the British adjutant general.

Isaac

years

American

named

B(irrein

(hniiijiion

later

the

of

who

colonists,

Barre, I'ermonl. ami

Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania,
for him. Wolfe did not
firciiate

riuh-ioum
whicli

of

I'ownshend's

aimed

him. and they hardly

his metcoiiikc rise and course, AVolfe ^vas

Orde
InWingate
the brilliant, temperamental inno\ator
tlie

and combat leader ol the eighteenth centiny, but his

achievement was greater and more cndining. Jn personality there was much similarity bet^veen the two
men. Both ^\ere supercharged with ilxnamism and audacity. Both were intensely ambitions, instincti\elv rebellions, 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 exasperation against the momentary cause ol frustration,
fjoth made their marks as skilled trainers ol troops in

26

minor

tactics

on imconventional

his great opportiniitx b\

isterWilliam Pitt
case

and

a great

many

cartoons,

were

nf)-

bar-

at

.\j>oke.

Each was given

wartime prime min-

lines.

(later Earl ol Cihathani) in the first

Clhin chill in the seconil.

^N'olfe's

birthplace \vas ^\'esterham in Kent, and his

boyhood association

^\ith this village

maile

of pilgrimage in later generations drawing

it

a place

many

visi-

became a still greater draw

Winston C^hiuchill. Constant

tors there initil the \illage

as the

coimtry

home

ol

reminder of Wolfe's career through such propinquity

could hardly

fail to

influence Chinxhill, a

man

so his-

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 militorically

tary sci\icc \\as almost f(|ual

al

ihf time wlu-ii

tin-

iliem.

For WDlle

ivas only loin leen wlieii he betaine a junior

officer in his

came

great oppoi iiinitv

to each

ol

and sixteen when he

father's res^iment ol marines,

17^3 the

last battle in

Three

English king led his troops in person.

which an

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 Continent, and b\ his twenty-first birihd.iy \vas a veteran of

campaigns. Peace came soon afterward, and he went

back to garrison duty in Scotland, soon becoming com-

ol peace,

ity

in war.

in

r.urojje.

and

ol

couise waiu vigilance and activ-

Our militarv education

And again: "We are
"

is

by far the worst

the most egregicjus

blunderers in w:ir ihal e\er look the hatchet

His criticisms were

Twellth Foot, in

tingmsiiecl himsell, as acljiilant ol the

battle at Dettingeii in

clis-

lime

home

in

hand."

oiu by ihe mismanaged

seaborne expedition against Rochefoil. on the west

Fiance,

of

ccjast

in

vvhich

1757.

ended

in

lulility

ilirough defective combination between the military

But Wolle hinrsell, one of the junemeiged 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 concfuct amphibious operations.

and naval

leaders.

ior leaders,

six

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

drinks, cinses, gambles, nor rinis after

make him
and

sterile,

comjilaining

women. So we

letters

were

fidl

were

prospects

his

th.it

neither

that "barren battalion conversation blinits

the faculties."

no

own

otn jjatiern." But his

discontent,

of

He

paragon.

as "a

He

liked the civilian society in Glasgo\\'

men

better, saying that the

\vere "designing

aticl

treacherous, with their immediate interests always in

The

and cunning,

for

ever enquiring after man's circtmistances." \VhiIe

set-

view.

Avomeii, coarse, cold

good example h\ attending "every Simday at the

Kirk," he bitingly remarked that "the generality of
ting a

"

Scotch jjreachers are excessive blockheads.

He found
when

somewhat more congenial

Itxal society

the regiment

moved

the rebel area ol

to

Highlands. Here he gave fortnightly dances

of

"ocxl

restorinsi

women: "They

remarked

and

relations,

wild as

are perfecth

the

the

means

as a

the

of

ihat

hills

breed them; but they lay aside iluir principles lor the
sake of soinul and movement. " When the regiment was
later

nuned

officers

he applied the same

to Dcvonshiie.

ment, and was soon able

10

s.i\

into the good graces ol

here abouts,

who were

treat-

ha\e danced the

"I

ihe

women

[.icobite

"

prejudiced anainst them.

For him. such play was onl\

means

.1

to

an end. and

when war bioke <iiil afresh willi

Meantime he had de\<)tecl much time
reading current and classic books on the miliiary

he

felt

nuich

France, in
to

jjreparation for the leading role he

in

fill.

He had

men

relief

1751).

art,

to a

also developed the

Ouebec where two

battle,

musketry

on

its

to

of his
at var-

value \vas to he proved

(jiiick, ellectivc

voilevs

won

die

tioii

and

incllic ienc

J'x. overseas possessions. "In

were

l-.urope

s.ixing:

lieicelx

"We

to

.\iiierica,

at

France's

England and

be fought for," he later declared.

The

exjjedition was to be against the great French

main

on Ciape Breton Island, which

approaches to Clanada: other cambe directed against the forts at Ticon-

fortress of Lcjuisbouig

dominated the
paigns were to
cferoga

and

sea

Diuiiiesne.

England had a minister strong enough to

sweep aside military cusiom and seniority, and, "]jassing over whole columns ol the army list," to pick his
own instruments. For comniand ol the exjjedition lie
In Pitt,

ol lortv. Jeffrey .\mhersi-nKiking him

appoinied Wolle. who w;is ten vears
and
general
a
voiinger, as one of the three brigadiers. .\ miserable

chose a colonel

Wolfe sultered badly during the voyage, but

fought clown his seasickness when action was imminentas 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
siiilor,

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 signal them to sheer oil. However, three on the extreme

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,
light

who

carried a cane as his only weajjon.

1)\

They

pressed

ihe nearest French battery by as-

and look
Me;inwhile, with the enemv's :iiicniion occupied

lorw:ircl

sauli.

Wolfe, another

Fieiuh,

and gained an empire.

Like most leloiniers W'olle was

obsiruc

hoped

skill

high pitch by constant firing practice

ied targets. His insistence

al

After this check, Pitt decided 10 strike

iluis

landed

l)rig:icle

ineiKKed on

l.iriher west.

Ixuli li.nikv, lied

lo l.oiiisbouig v\as

ciiliial

ol

lelieal

are la/\

in

in the h.iiuls ol ihe British.

<

ul

oil.

The

beloie their

le.iving iheii

guns

27

"

But the next

biejj'i

^\xrc

delay inipaiictl the greater

inoie pioloiigt'd,

phm

the

;iik1

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.

that

Wolfe had got

was

Eventtially. the issue

decided by the demorali/iiig

effect of a

into position

on the

heavy battery
hills

overlook-

ing Louisfjoing haibor from the north^vest and

on

Jtdy 27 the French capitulated.

Seven \\eeks after the landing, the strongest

in the New \\'orld had lallen, but Wolfe was
fietl.

Cluula River.

Tlie iturlhwcil j}ait of Q_ucbec, from the St.

Quebec under the gun

The drawings on

niniie in slicU-lorn

pnges ivere

tzuo

tliete

Quebec, after the surrender, hy Richard Short.

H..\!.S. Priiuc of

and

Oningc. De.scribing the scene

Pnrhnian unote: 'The

\Vollc. Francis

gone; the great river

and

leas left n solitude:

sunshine and snow.

frost,

MoiUtalm

in

[Brili.^h] fleet

and

tlie cliill

was

days of

fmssed over Qjiebec in allernalions of rain

Xovewber

a fitful

I>ur\er of

so battered the f^Uice thai

troofis] to find shelter.

it

Their own artiUerx had

was not easy [for the Hrittsh

the liishoj/s Palace

was a

skeleton of tottering masonry, and [other] buildings icere a

mass

ruin, wliere ragged

of

among

boys were playing at see-saiu

and limbers.
The solid front of

the fallen jilanks

was burned
Jesuits teas

to a shell.

Rccollets suffered

lite

had thrown

as they burst

dead.

uj]

the bones

The commissary-general

the slate of the town: 'Qiiebec

jnass of ruins.

is

and

nothing but

Confusion, disorder, pillage, reign

diix.

knowing

Everybody rushes

III//)'.

Never

returned to Loiiisbourg, Amherst liad sailed for

to support

Abercrombie.

.\ letter

New

that ^\'olie sent

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 defensive, encourage the meanest scoundrels to attack us."

sei>erity

October ^\olle sailed for England to recover his

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-

leilhout

self right ^\ith the

a shafjeless

e~ven

make examjyies (if

hither and thither,

zuas

skulls of the

Berniers, thus describes

the inhabitants, for the English

every

The

more. The bombshells

the roof had broken into Ihc jyavement,

that fell through

and

still

a rash

occupy tlie attention of the Marcjuis

de Montcalm, the Frencli commander in Canada, and
prevent him from reinforcing the troops who were opposing Abercrombie's overland advance. Before AN'olfe

after

ftockmarked by numberless cannon-balls, and the

"We made

as a diversion to

The Cathedral

adjacent church of the Order was -woefully shaltereil.

church of

the College of the

letters are characteristic:

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." Then, as to the next move, he ^vrote: "I
dicious.
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

York

His

fortress
dissatis-

among

there seen such a sight.'

In health,

Minister, expressing his willingness

to serve again "in America, antl jjarticularh

river

St.

Lawrence."

Pitt

had

learned,

in

the

from many

whom

was due the chief credit ol the Louisbomg victory: and WoUe's letter ga\e him the assmance upon which to take the momentous decision of
soiuces, to

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

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
saileil

The

interior of the Jesuit ihurcli.

SIG.Ml

'Inw nsliciul

.IN

llu'

lliiul.

ln'

ousel

W'olk's

w.is so Uii coiiveriLiI b)

\ ;il

(.coiuf

i\('

ND S\Ml

<,\S

\III

\\

\ .

Ml VR\ KOY
.

M.

OM

\RI()

|1

disasieis

iiicrii ;iiul ilic

thai hail bdalleii earlier coinmaiulcis. thai wlu-n ihc

Duke

ol Newcastle ileclaretl

retorted: "Mail,
ol

iliat

Then

her

is

my other generals."
WoUe sailed from England

W'ollc was

hope he

middlr

in the

iiiatl.

will bite

he

some

I'ebru-

ol

ary alter writing his mother a larewell letter whiih in

brevitx shatters \arious imaginati\e acits Spartan

lounis that ha\e sin"\i\ed.

1 lu'

(oiin.ilin

In-

prrler this nulhiul

wishes and duly in

said simply:

1lm\c shiniUI

lakiiij;

111

avoiileil; tlicrclorr

It

iii\

lallier

and

in the

Sood

life

nllcriiis^

Id noil

business throiii;h uiili ni\ best abilities.

is

js iiiiuli as possible
iil

lu- itsi,

my

.nooil

77/!' cdlliiuliiil

Ii \iiil

ii}lli<j,c.

mid liiiuUcI

iliunli.

shall carry this

hands ol l'ri)\ iilencc. to whose lare

and (ondutl will rctoninieiul your son.
1

\ou know,
\iiur

lio|)e

Although I'ill had intended him to ha\e iweh'e

men. W'olle founil less than nine thoiisanil
available at Louisbourg. his base, and many ilehiiencies in equipment. Moreover, Amherst's overland advance 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 fortress of Quebec, perched loftily on the north shore ot
the St. Lawrence, commanded the river; the lanil approach 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.
thoiisanil

Trusting

and

this obstacle

in

in the

guns of the

to cover his western

shore between the

On

Hank,

arinx

in

reaches ol

the

ri\ei,

an entrendied position

the six-mile stretch ol the north

Charles anil the Montmorency.

St.

reaching the .American side of the .\ilanti( on

April 30, W'olle had found to his disgust that Reai .Admiral Philip Durell was still at anchor at llalilax insteail of

.\s

St.

Lawrence

lesidt ol

0/ .\i>lic

Dmiic dc

In

icloirc.

as soon as the ice liegan to

this delay,

although Dinell was

sent oil at onie. ihiee French frigates

storeships slipped through anil

the

The C Inn ill

carrying out W'olle's instructions to bloik the

entrance to the
melt.

intcndaiit'.s juilace.

fortress to control the n:irrow

passage that led to the iqjpei

Montcalm posteil his

below Quebec along

The

entrance

]>osition anil

up

and

a score of

to ()iiebec before

was closed, strengthening Montcalm's

impairing

^\'olfe's jjlan.

Forttmateh

miral (Miarles Saiuitlers, the connnaniler

ol

the

.\d-

main

Wolle from England, was a

and iheir o operiition w;is to

Meet lh:n had sailed with

man

ol

greater

\igoi'.

'1 III'

iiilrtiiii i)j llir

lirtoUrl iliuiill.

Ml

Sl_l'M

\TIONAL GALLFRY OF C \N

iS^^i^'^W-

^^_\^

0\.^

"P?;^^

\I>A,

COURTESY Life

provide one of the few good

(lila\.

exanij)le.s in IJiit;iin's his-

combined action between army and navy. More

ol

i()i\

however, was caused because I.ouisbourg harbor

blocked ^\ith lie. WoUe could not land there

\\as still

May, but he completed his prepaQuebec 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
until the miildle ol

and

rations

sailed lor

gcnernor, wrote:

"The enemy have

war where we hardly dared

ol

passed sixty ships

risk a vessel ol a

hun-

Orleans,

lour

dred tons."

W'oUe disembarked on the

ol

Isle

miles below Quebec, on Jiuie 27. His reconnaissance

discovered the French disjjositions and the extent to

had enabled them

\\hich .\dmiral Dinell's negligence

lo

The

prepare to meet the attack.

brown

long line ol steep

topped by entrenchments, was a dainiting

sight. Aforeover, the French now had, besides lloating
batteries, more than a hundred gmis mounted in wellchosen positions to conmiand the river and likely land-

^%.

cliffs,

Further evidence of their preparedness

ing places.

came on

the night of the twenty-eighth, w^hen

French loosed seven

British

fire ships

But the crews

fleet.

the

downstream against the

set light

too soon to their

explosive loads, aiui the danger W'as averted

coolness of the British sailors,

1)\

the

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

had wished

the loAvei pait of the city.

to post a strong

Montcalm

detachment on the south

bank, but his jiroposal hail been overruled by \'audreuil on the mistaken assumption that the French

guns would make

lish

batteries in

elfective

impossible for the British to estab-

emplacements

close

enough

lor

an

But although Wolfe

getting his ginis tlug in, and then gradu-

bombardment

succeeded in
ally

it

ol the city.

crumbled the Lower

Town

ing ellect was too grailual to

into ruins, their gall-

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

Plums of IhiiilniiN irilli llic rncniy fleeing mill vicwon. A singidii slum lies llie blixnl from tlie ftiliil lung

llic

toi\

leouiid while
Siiiilh.

and

left WOlfe's iiideile-c(iml>. C(ij)tnin Ileney

ndjulnnt general. Colonel liarre. kneel solid-

iil

his

over him. Standing at left, a cloth over his oxen wound,

Robert .Mom litoii Wolfe's senior brigadier. Most of lliose
shown were mil iiitiiiill\ at the siene. and it is said that
lijiislv

IS

West iKlmilh'

ihiiige,! a fee /"i jiiiltnig

them into the

j>i(tiire.

31

-^^

In iSpS, the depression which had followed the Panic of

business failure,
tion

seemed

unemployment and labor unrest

,

just a step away.

This

'p}

was

in

its

third year. Debt,

loere spreading; to

many, revolu-

luas the setting for the bitter presidential contest

between Republican William McKinley and Democrat Willia7n Jennings Bryan, and

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 great debate betiueen the advocates of "sound

The
Front Porch

Campaign
While Bryan stumped up and down
let the voters

come

to his

By

lawn

in

the /and,

Canton and

McKinley
they

came

MARGARET LEECH

American scene was ornamented by three

John Hay and Henry Adams attest that the "hearts" of
their exclusive Washington salon were joined in a rare intellectual communion. The correspondence of Cabot Lodge and Theodore Roosevelt, concerned though it was with their grosser political 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, usuthe later years of the nineteenth century, the

In celebrated

friendships.

The

letters of

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 politially matters of patronage.

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.UICAKT LCH PULITZEH

ss

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 with
both men that McKinley gave the orders, and Hanna
obeyed them without question. Herman Henry Kohlsaat, the Chicago newspaper proprietor, wrote that
Hanna's attitude toward McKinley was "always that of
a big, bashful boy toward the girl he loves." Hanna
told the story himself. He said that somehow he felt
for McKinley an affection that could not be explained;
but he explained it very well.
It made Hanna feel twenty years younger to spend
a social evening with his friend. On a house party,
McKinley was like a big boy. When he laughed, "he
laughed heartily all over," enjoying a joke on him-

and loving to get a joke on Hanna, and ring all

the changes on it. At their Sunday evening concerts,
he would urge Hanna to raise his tuneless voice, insisting that it was a sweet tenor. He was "a pleasant
tease." He was fond of the theater, and delighted in
meeting the actors who came to Hanna's house.
self

Behind the scene: Mark Hanna

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 government had become problems of money. He wanted to
cal

make them
McKinley looked upon the
great industrialists as the leaders in the march of national progress, the source of high wages and full employment for all the people; and he thought of their
place the corporations in the saddle, and

pay in advance

for the ride.

financial backing of his presidential candidacy as a

contribution

Hanna put

to

the patriotic

cause

of

protection.

the situation in balder terms, but both

arrived at the same conclusion.

The

partnership had naturally involved a close per-

Hanna was an expansive man, blufi,

hearty, and dynamic. Though his speech was rough
and his manner aggressive, he made warm friends, as
sonal association.

and his advanced opinions on the

management and labor, and his just and

well as hot enemies;

relations of

own employees had brought

workingmen of Ohio. In choosthe object on which to lavish his ener-

cordial dealings with his

him

the esteem of the

ing McKinley as
gies,

Hanna had

He had

not

made

a purely rational decision

been magnetized by a polar attraction. Cynical

in his acceptance of contemporary political practices,
Hanna was drawn to McKinley's scruples and idealistic standards, like a hardened man of the world who
becomes infatuated with virgin innocence. That his
influence ruled McKinley was the invention of the political opposition, of young Mr. Hearst's newspapers
in particular. Hanna, on the contrary, treated McKinley with conspicuous deference. The Kansas City reporter William Allen White, who thought Hanna the

34

The

best times of all for

at night in the

den

Hanna were

the hours late

at his house in Cleveland,

when

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 look
in McKinley's eyes when he said, "Mark, this seems to
be right and fair and just. I think so, don't you?"
Hanna remembered too how McKinley's eyes would
sparkle at the suggestion that the tariff bill which he
had sponsored as a congressman had brought Republican defeat in the presidential election of 1892, and
how he would admit it might be so, "but wait and see,

Mark wait and see." Hanna remembered that McKinley said, "A good soldier must always be ready for
and another time, "There are some things,
would not do and cannot do, even to become
President of the United States."
Together these two made one perfect politician. In
the foreground was the zealous protagonist of his
duty,"

Mark,

who could inspire faith in

who spurned comdiplomat who avoided unpleasantness.

party's causes, the speaker

well-worn platitudes, the moralist

mitments, the

Behind him moved the practical businessman, whose

brain was unclouded by muzzy ideals; the clever organizer, who could push and publicize, make deals
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 for
openly promoting his own advancement. His reticence
was always his great flaw as a leader. With the growth
of his importance, he had become increasingly formal
and guarded, wary of committing himself on all points

except the
stinctive.

tariff.

He

McKinley's political

were

skills

in-

did not comprehend or cultivate the art

of public relations. His excessive modesty was a curi-

ous defect in a

man

McKin-

of such resolute ambition.

he could work
boldly for the party; but he shrank from seeming to
put his own interests forward, and preferred neglect
ley could freely ask favors for others;

even

to favorable personal notice in the

On

newspapers.

Mark Hanna

the candidate's behalf,

pulled the
powerful strings of money and organization and publicity. "He has advertised McKinley," Theodore Roose-

would exclaim, "as if he were a patent medicine!"

McKinley was like a talented artist who needed an impresario, a press agent, and an angel. In Mark Hanna,
he found all tliree.
velt

nessman the most infamously caricatured figure in

America. Hanna was depicted as a brutal, obese plutocrat, the symbol of sly malice and bloated greed, covered with moneybags and dollar signs. Behind this
monster the little candidate cowered in his big Napoleonic hat. Hanna was the puppet-master who

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
pulled McKinley's strings; the ventriloquist

had been
on McKinley; he was unable to repeat
the savage drawings after he met their original. Nevertheless, the representation of McKinley as pitiable and
victimized was a poor service to his reputation. The
clever political stroke that the cartoonist

taken to

call

graphic impression of his spineless subservience to

McKinley,

in retirement at his

home

town, Canton,

Ohio, had not passed the spring of 1896 in untroubled contemplation of the progress of his preconvention canvass. His emergence as a formidable contender for the Republican nomination had started the
yellow press snapping at his heels, with the New York
Journal leading the pack. McKinley's record was bare
of hidden scandals. He had worked hard. He had not

accumulated money. His public career had been as

honest as his private life was upright. He had few enemies, and his Canton neighbors had nothing but good
to tell of him. His bankruptcy while he was governor of
Ohio was the only incident on which the Journal could
fasten scurrilous assertion and innuendo. The Hearst
correspondent, Alfred Henry Lewis, raked over the
story, and produced tales of McKinley's reckless extravagance and his bondage to the men who had aided
him. Some of the mud splashed. McKinley's financial
failure

became

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

on his candidacy. Anxcommitment that might damage his

the western mining states, he main-

effective attacks

ious to avoid any

popularity in

tained that his position was perfectly understood from

his public utterances. But,

his record

on the

when McKinley

stood on

financial question, his footing ap-

peared perilously insecure both to his political opponents 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

a favorite sneer, vigorously exploited

for a time by the respectable Nation. Lewis caught

public attention
others will shuffle

when he
him and

wrote,

deal

"Hanna and

him

like a

the

pack of

went beyond the bounds of partisan

on McKinley's backers as
syndicate "gambling for a White House." The

cards," but he

credulity in his aspersions

a

Journal did far better when

it

concentrated

its

venom

on the alleged chief of the syndicate, the wicked millionaire, Mark Hanna. To strike at McKinley through
his manager became the established policy of the
Democratic opposition. Before the campaign ended,
Hanna had been made the scapegoat for all the sins of
money and corruption. The Journal did not scruple to
brand him as a union-smasher, the warmest enemy of
the workingman, who for thirty years had "torn at the
flanks of labor like a wolf."
Still

more

effective in influence

than Lewis was the

Homer Davenport. In
he made an unknown Ohio busi-

The

cartoonist

Homer Davenport

Journal's talented cartoonist,

his various features

the spring of 1896,

looked in the

sketched

Hanna and

two different ways: as he actually

flesh (left)

and

in caricature {right).

35

came from the Republicans of the East that the

date should explicitly avow his opinions and

candiinten-

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
furor over the
tariff issue alone. He still regarded the
be calmed
might
which
currency as a passing flurry,
interby the bimetallist program. The search for an
silver
and
gold
between
ratio
national agreement on a
opof
heap
trash
the
to
had been generally consigned
die-hard
the
to
belonged
timistic theorizing. McKinley
band of hope. He did not believe that the United

States should take

independent action by legislating

old ratio of
for the unlimited coinage of silver at the
supalienate
to
intend
not
sixteen to one, but he did

preliminary
port by discussing the question during his
canvass.

hung the bright syllable "gold." Tacitly accepted as

had been
the money standard of the United States, it
only in
platforms
RepubUcan
previous
in
mentioned
relation to silver

and paper. The

strain

nothing to

but threadbare arguments that satisfied

but silence was of extreme disservice to his

offer

neither side,

The candidate's denial of the legitimate

demand for enlightenment on his views lent jus-

reputation.

public

Its press
tification to the onslaughts of the opposition.
of
evidences
for
record
McKinley's
rummaged through

cartooned as a sphinx, ridiculed

sly time-server
as tongue-tied and dumb, taunted as a
effacement
mute
McKinley's
with no convictions at all.
proof that
unanswerable
in Canton was interpreted as
inconsistency.

He was

he was muzzled by Mark Hanna.

The approach of the Republican convention in
to
June, at St. Louis, made it necessary for McKinley
Hanna
with
conference
in
submit his opinions, and
and other advisers, he drafted a statement on the currency. It contained the usual pledge for sound money,
with silver used to the fullest extent consistent with
the maintenance of

its

parity with gold.

group

at St.

existing
ard," was substituted the statement that "the
did
change
The
preserved."
be
should
gold standard

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 silvermining 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

compromise of bimetallism had raveled out in

The
of dissension. McKinley had
the furious

little

Louis at last ventured to insert the word alone. For

McKinley's phrase, "to maintain our present stand-

hand from

the anti-McKinley

his
delegates. He intended that the candidate and
overwhelming
the
yield
to
appear
to
manager should
sentiment of the convention. By conveying to eastern

New York and Cabot Lodge

Massachusetts-the impresfrom
the junior senator
to call the money
reluctant
still
sion that he was
to consolidate
them
incited
Hanna
standard by name,
explicit defithe
of
favor
in
were
the delegations who
finally procommittee
resolutions
nition. When the
essentially
was
plank
currency
the
duced the platform,
was
There
approved.
had
McKinley
the statement that

leaders like

Tom

Piatt of

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

While extend-

ing a welcome to international bimetallism, McKinmeanwhile "the

ley's proposal declared that it was
plain duty of the United States to maintain our present standard," and that the Republican party was
therefore opposed to the free

and unlimited coinage

of silver.

approve McKinley's evasiveness

because of its favorable effect in the Far West; but,
arriving early at St. Louis for the meetings of the nafor
tional committee, he discovered a strong sentiment

Hanna had come

the gold standard

to

among

he was busy with committee

friends

met

in his

room

While
number of

the other delegations.

affairs,

to consider the question of

stiffening McKinley's statement.

Over the

36

discussions, as

menacing

as

an explosive.

The

flag-draped

McKinley home in Canton.

at all,

were leading contenders for the honor. Hanna

did not disilhision them. The McKinley delegations

from the South had been comfortably seated. St. Louis

was plastered with McKinley posters, and waving

with McKinley banners. Men with McKinley badges,
canes, and hatbands rested in the McKinley lounges
of the hotels, and refreshed themselves with McKinley drinks of bourbon, lemon juice, and sugar. Hanna
had done his work well. He was satisfied to remain in
the background.
A break with the Far West was a foregone conclusion. Anticipation marred the drama of the scene that
followed the adoption of the money plank. "Silver is,
we think," the Nation commented, "the first raw metal
that has ever been wept over." Senator Teller in pathetic periods took farewell of the party to which he

had given

his lifelong devotion,

and led the sad

proces-

As the
silver men filed out, a tall Nebraska reporter and excongressman came striding down over the desks from
his place in the back of the press stand. William Jennings Bryan looked after the Republican bolters with
a gleam in his eye and a faint, satisfied smile; but the
loss of the mining states did not jar the enthusiasm of
the convention's proceedings, nor dim Republican
sion of delegates from the convention hall.

confidence in the future. Glittering refulgently in the

platform, gold seemed a word of magic power to purge
the party of inflationists

and make

it

with a new con-

sistency the organization of the business interests.

when
June
On Thursday, were
made
18,

Can-

and then McKinley crossed

to the parlor to

"Are you young ladies getting anxious

entourage,

about

this affair?"

Murat Halstead,

To

the veteran Cincinnati editor,

his calm, grave face

looked "marvel-

ously like Daniel Webster," as he sat in the revolving

pad and pencil

chair beside his desk, with

The news

Ohio had been reached in the roster of the

and Ex-Governor Joseph B. Foraker was making 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 confusion of cheers. Others followed his example, and
wires that

shared his astonishment.

The

circuit in the conven-

left open, and

McKinley had actually had the extraordinary experience of hearing himself acclaimed six hundred miles

tion hall

away.

The

telephone booth had been

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

Sam Saxton read out. "Ah," McKinley said,

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
before,"
is

like

ton was undecorated and noiseless. Bicyclists, pedaling

parlor relaxed in smiles of amusement.

along North Market Street, cast curious glances across

a shaven, dewy lawn, brightened by two white urns
spilling over with flowers, and by circular beds of

Suddenly,
McKinley."

The candidate's house was

looped like a Christmas package with important coils
of wire, which directly connected it by telegraph and
long-distance telephone with the convention hall in
blazing red geraniums.

Louis. Reporters had taken over the front porch,

occupying the wicker armchairs and splint rockers,
sprawling on the floor and steps, and perching on the
St.

railing. Privileged friends arrived,

A group

and passed

inside.

around
McKinley

of nervously vivacious ladies clustered

McKinley's wife and mother in the parlor.

himself was seated in the library, near the telephone

apparatus, in the

company

of his one-legged Civil

War

comrade, General Russell Hastings, and a few other

men. The instruments of the Postal Telegraph and

Western Union companies clicked competitively in the

and Mrs. McKinley's young cousin, Sam

upstairs hall,

Saxton, read

phone.

off

the bulletins that

came over

the tele-

in hand.

arrived almost simultaneously over the three

states,

"that

the nominations for the

at St. Louis, the city of

Presidency

Now

speak a cheerful word to his wife or ask her twittering

the

came,

bulletin

The gentlemen

"Alabama,

18

for

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

in

the

library

Ohio's forty-six certain votes would settle the

nomination on the first ballot. Before they were reported, 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

horsemen, and

bicyclists

the buildings. Carriages,

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

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.

monium

Shrubbery,
ruins.

geranium beds, and rosebushes

Strewn across the wreckage, a dozen

lay

in

rifled purses

bore witness that pickpockets, as well as honest

zens, had found cause for rejoicing in Canton's

citi-

rise

to national importance.

of the community, carried away by excitement, danced

around the Major, as McKinley was generally known, from his brevet rank in the Civil War.
Long before the arrival of the band and the veterans, 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 pandein circles

38

McKinley
lot,

had received

while Speaker

66ii/4 votes in the final bal-

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

but influential in the Republican party in his state; and he had been Mark Hanna's
choice for the nomination. Hanna had carried everything before him. He had managed a political canvass
as though it were a business enterprise. His astounding success was saluted by the cheers of the convention,
and by his selection as chairman of the national committee. Hanna was a new wonder in the political firmamentthe 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
to the country,

speeches every day.

He

greeted parading workers from

the protected industries of Ohio and adjacent states.

He beamed on the big contingent from the new tinplate mill at his birthplace, with

Niles to the White House."

speeches and

To

friendly greetings,

without wait-

The

platform

as

platform. His

ing the enlargement of the powers of the Interstate

banner, "From

all

tariff

at the ratio of sixteen to one,

ing for the consent of any other nation.

condemned governmental dealing with banking syndicates, to their profit. It denounced the protective
tariff as a prolific breeder of trusts. It demanded
stricter federal control of trusts and railroads, specify-

and sundry,
McKinley appeared

candidate, standing on a

a tariff

its

and gold

in

as

Commerce Commission

to

though the admission of the

gold standard had never been written into the Repub-

robbery and oppression.

Its

lican platform.

President Cleveland's action in the Pullman strike.

references to "good

money" and

secondary and indefinite

The
tion in

reports

"full dollars"

were

as

declaration had produced an unfavorable reac-

many parts of the Middle West, and Hanna's

led him to conclude that he was going to have a

hands in the Mississippi Valley. He intended to get his work of education on the money question started before his summer holiday; but he did not
look forward to a difficult campaign. For a short time
after the St. Louis convention, the Republican nomination seemed tantamount to election.
As the Democratic convention gathered in Chicago
in July, it did not seem a formidable assemblage. The
division on the money question had cut deep. As the
party had disintegrated, it had been infiltrated with
Populist sentiment. In many parts of the South and
West, by a process of burrowing from within, the third
party had taken over the Democratic organization,
making common cause with its candidates. The inflationists were expected to wrest control of the convention from the conservative elements; but, though they
were numerically dominant, they had no outstanding
fight

on

his

leaders. In the headlines of the city press

and

in the

confabulations of political sages, no importance was

attached

engaged
a

to

the

youthful

as a lecturer

member

ex-congressman,

and newspaper

of a contesting delegation

writer,

recently

who was

from Nebraska.

from

protect the people

denunciation of arbitrary
federal interference in local affairs was an attack on
censure of "government by injunction" in labor

Its

disputes and the recommendation of an income tax de-

Supreme Court and impugned its judgment,

with a plain hint that the problem might be solved by
packing the Court in future.

fied the

After the platform was reported, Bryan arose to ad-

Democratic convention. He said nothing new,

nothing that he had not said hundreds of times before.

dress the

He had

twice employed in public speeches the very

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 comrhetorical figure with

it could from the fact that the Democrats were

stampeded by "a chestnut." Bryan's impassioned periods had electrified the convention, and made him its

fort

presidential candidate.

The
had found
The
sion over the currency flamed into open
their leader.

inflationists

dissen-

conflict in

the

campaign of

1896. It

was a sectional

conflict, the

debtor farmers of the West against the eastern magnates. It was a class conflict, the crusade of the proletariat

against

the

entrenchments of privilege.

The

and impotent forces of protest united to asthe existing economic system and the dominance

scattered

William Jennings Bryan was scarcely known to the

East. His fame lay in the small communities and scattered farms of the West and South. He had traveled
about, preaching free silver; and he had also taken an
active part in an organization of silver Democrats, who
planned to capture the party's national convention.
Their political ideas were strongly tinctured with
Populist tenets. Bryan, demagogue and evangelist, was

sail

their natural leader.

weary of hard times with the confident promise of

plentiful money; and, when Bryan called on Americans 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

Nebraska contestants were seated at

Chicago, Bryan claimed and obtained a place on
the resolutions committee, for which his delegation
had favored him. The Democratic platform of 1896
sounded 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 demanded the free and unlimited coinage of both silver

As soon

as the

of the

"money power." To Bryan's standard

Populists and Silver Republicans,

who soon

ventions to endorse the Democratic nominee.

listed

farmers and workingmen, and

all

flocked

held con-

He

en-

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

of party loyalty.

Bryan was of

service to his country in laying bare

the abuses of concentrated wealth

government.

He

and

its

control of

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 economics. He preached free silver as he might have preached
Christ crucified, the hope of man's salvation.
flationists

surpassed the high

tariff

The

in-

advocates in pro-

vincial exclusiveness of outlook, for they proposed that

commercial nation should be isolated and selfmoney system. They were heedless of
the country's financial structure, and indifferent to foreign 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 sovereign and uninformed people, the campaign of 1896
became a grandiose farce democracy reduced to an
a great

sufficient in its

Bryan's conservative contemporaries were shocked

They were

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 believed 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 challenge and man the barricades. Hanna gave up his holiday and began a summer of hard work, directing
folly.

collapse of Republican confidence was evident

The Ohio,
but McKinley was
He benignly

also appalled

tranquil.

in

many visitors, and with his "buoyant spirit"

sustained Hanna and the other campaign managers.
McKinley's attitude was like that of a parson who
received his

sees his

of a

absurdity.

by his

campaign headquarters established in New York and

Chicago. The old lines would hold in the East, but
Republican morale sank dangerously low in midsummer. The firm ground of the tariff had been swept
from under McKinley's feet. The champion of protection 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, taking the Middle West by storm.

congregation carried away by the excitement

camp meeting. He deplored

sure that his flock

The common

in the old pews.

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 thoroughness.

While Bryan's eloquence was the

greatest single

asset of the Democrats, he was not conducting a oneman 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 counterpropaganda 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

the hysteria, but felt

would soon be back

Street was apathetic, cold to McKinley, and unacquainted with his manager. Hanna's first efforts met
with rebuff and discouragement. Bryan had succeeded,

Wall

John Hay wrote Henry Adams in September, "in scaring the Gold bugs out of their five wits; if he had
scared them a little, they would have come down handsome 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 million dollars unprecedented at that time was disbursed 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

emoand "cheap money"

to counteract the

tional fascination of "free silver"

by instructing hundreds of thousands of plain people

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,
in the

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

on pensions,

all

who owned

something for

a bit of property, or

were trying

to save

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.

not a boastful man. He fully acknowledged the contribution of "McKinley's strong and
noble personality" to the campaign. McKinley's conception 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 engagements, both nonpolitical in character, requiring his
presence in July at the Cleveland Centennial celebration and at Mount Union College. Except for three
days' absence to keep these appointments and one weekend 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.

Hanna was

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 Benjamin Harrison

in his second

and losing campaign

in

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
1892,

attitude of responding to the

demands

of his friends,

of desiring election without going to seek

it.

He was

so

to holders of

reluctant to stimulate interest in his campaign that he

insurance policies and depositors in savings banks, to

expressed himself as "averse to anything like an effort

those dependent

41

Puck, OCTOBER 2 1, 1 896;

CULVER SERVICE

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,"

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,
until the speech was finished.

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 informal 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

candidate.

the

Republican

They had been right close to him, they had

hand. They had seen him in his setting, and

shaken his
was all exactly right the friendly town; the neat,
unpretentious house and the porch hung with trumpet vines; and the First Methodist Church where McKinley worshiped with his mother every Sunday. Many

it

^o^[.^

of the visitors saw the dear old mother, sitting beside

more McKinley weighs." The

Puck ridiculed Bryan for his demagoguery.

"The more he
cover of

being

made

talks, the

to bring crowds here."

The Republican

National Committee was active, nevertheless, in drumming up delegations, and the railroads were glad to
co-operate.

Low

excursion rates from

all

parts of the

Canton, as the free-silver

country made the
remarked, "cheaper
Dealer
disgustedly
Cleveland Plai7i
Republican pilthe
eager
than staying at home." For
excitement
of a politthe
grims, the journey combined
outing.
an
pleasure
of
ical demonstration with the
trip

to

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 horsemen, 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

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 principles were blended with complimentary allusions to

of the

42

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. McKinley's queer ways and her husband's selfless devotion.

campaign speeches, McKinley made no miscould ill have afforded to do so. A careallusion would not only have
misplaced
less word or
deputation
on the lawn, but
prideful
the
alienated
readers
the
newspaper
spread
before
been
would have
seemed
McKinley's
addresses
Though
of the country.
been
carefully
had
spontaneous,
they
unstudied and
his
Intakes.
He

prepared. Precautions were also taken to avoid extempore indiscretions on the part of the spokesmen.
to send in advance a copy of their
McKinley approved and ocwhich
remarks,
intended

They were required

casionally edited.

McKinley was obliged

to discuss the financial ques-

tion every day, but he dexterously kept the

the fore
first

by means

were

of lightning transitions,

seriously

disquieting

slipped smoothly from sound

to

money

his

tariff to

which

critics.

at

He

to high wages,

good times, from free silver to

from good
mints to open mills. At the
open
free trade, from
addressing
the McKinley and Hoin
end of July,
dollars to

Club of Knoxville, Pennsylvania, the candidate

made some remarks that excited great attention. "That
which we call money, my fellow citizens, and with
bart

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 determination 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 candidate 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
.

Harper's Weekly,

Ji'NE 6, 1R96;

CULVER SERVICE

>A

his nerves."

As August passed, the Nation and the big Demowhich were supporting McKinley only
because of a still stronger antipathy to Bryan, began
to look with increasing favor on the Republican candidate. 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 pubcratic dailies,

lication that

doubts were

month

of his letter of acceptance,

set at rest.

The money

all

question was placed

foremost, and presented in a lucid and incisive discus-

McKinley, commonly called "the Major," was at first accused of ambiguity on the problem of sound money.

would have neither the obligation nor the power

maintain the parity. The nation would be driven
values, financial loss

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 prosperity of the country. The mere declaration for the

ment
ment

free coinage of silver involved such grave peril to the

gold standard."

nation's

business

and

credit

that

conservative

McKinley cautioned his countrymen against

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

in protest.

misleading phrases and

who were owners

of silver bullion.

They would

receive a dollar for fifty-three cents' worth

and other people would be required to receive 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

of bullion,

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

and damage

to

commerce, impair-

of contractual obligations, further impoverishof 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

men

everywhere were breaking away from their old party

associations and uniting with other patriotic citizens

mints for the few

to

a silver basis, with resultant reduction of property

sion that silenced the criticisms of McKinley's "wobbliness"

to

government

McKinley's

extensive dissertation on the currency

question was marked throughout by composure

and moderation of tone. He said that money should be

from speculation and fluctuation, and ought never

free
to

be

made

the subject of partisan contention.

observed that

it

He

also

was a cause for painful regret that an

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 reprehensible. They were opposed to the national instinct
effort

and

interest,

and should be

resisted

by every

citi-

Having administered a dignified reinike to the

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
zen.

Bryanites,

43

miseries of the depression. It was

mere pretense, he
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

addressed eleven gatherings, some of which comprised

said, to attribute the

two, three,

an increase in the volume of business. A wise protection 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 expressions attracted attention to these passages, but the

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

treatment

with parades waiting their turn, and the neighbor-

predominant

interest of the letter lay in

its

made

and even

gold neckties, gold hatbands, sprigs of goldenrod, gold-

trimmed

bicycles.

thick as

flies

borders.

The

McKinley's

prestige steadily

mounted

lication of his letter of acceptance.

after the

The

pub-

Republi-

A week later, he
crowds that were

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,

hood

status as a tariff candidate.

to

dazzled eyes of the citizens flashed flags and banners,

writer

goldbugs to bimetallists, while firmly retaining his

one day

estimated at thirty thousand.

of the currency,

and it vtbs scarcely noticed that the

had repeatedly implied that the issue was transient and subsidiai7. In tlie hours he had snatched for
composing the paper in his beleaguered house, McKinley had accomplished a considerable political feat. He
had eminently satisfied the sound-money men, from

six delegations.

sixteen speeches in

The downtown

streets

were glutted

McKinley house was black with crowds "as

around a railroad pie stand."
Like an army that does not advance to meet the
enemy, McKinley had brought destruction to his own

The

of the

front porch was in a state of dilapidation.

weakened by the grasp

and pressure of the crowds that the roof was in imminent 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
slender posts had been so

can National Committee distributed hundreds of thousands of copies. "Good money never made times hard"

farmers' families picnicked while they waited for the

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.

lake of

The correspondent of the Cleveland Plairi Dealer,

accustomed to scoff at the cut-rate excursions, capitulated on September 19. The opening of the floodgates,
he telegraphed his newspaper, had swept Canton off
its feet. That day, McKinley gave a continuous performance, 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, HungarianAmericans from Cleveland, hardware men, commercial
travelers, farmers' associations. The Republican Na-

autumn, it became a
Street had a brief inwhile the meetings adjourned to Can-

speeches. In the rains of early

mud, and North Market

terval of respite,

gloomy public hall, the Tabernacle.

The McKinley house was filled with a monstrous
clutter of gifts, and the debris that the retiring delegaton's

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

tional

by a bedridden Cleveland lady, a cane of weldless colddrawn 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 McKinleys put the finely polished stump of a tree from Ten-

gent,

nessee, the largest plate of galvanized iron ever rolled

Committee had organized the railroad continwhich arrived in ten special trains from Chicago,

but the Plain Dealer man admitted that the enthusiasm 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

steamed in from morning until night, bringing

over twenty thousand people, who represented thirtyodd cities and towns in half a dozen states. McKinley
trains

44

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 remembrances of

all,

and McKinley made haste

to present

were received. Five

fine specimens, christened Major, McKinley, President, Hobart, and Hanna, were lodged near the wolves

them

to the city of

Canton,

as they

in the pavilion in Nimisilla Park.

The

national excitement

mounted

as election

day

drew near. The Democrats had the Solid South. They

had a nearly solid Far West. Labor organizations and
labor

journals

Bryan's

fiei"y

were

all

vociferous

for

free

and aggressive campaign seemed

silver.

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 pulpits.

trainload of

Union

officers

aroused the old

diers of the 'West with bands, cannon, rockets,

sol-

and

Comrade McKinley. Monster torchlight

wound through the streets of the cities, with

speeches for

parades

captains of finance and industry marching in line. For

Banks
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
a few days, business almost

refused to

make

came

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 members of the party who had nominated their own candidates, concluded in large numbers to gag at the tariff
and vote for McKinley. Late on election day, the newspaper bulletins began to flaunt the tidings of Republican 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.

to a standstill.

loans. Orders to factories

H. Kohlsaat made a telephone call

Canton from his office at the Chicago TimesHerald, which had given valuable support to the Re-

Late
^

that night, H.

to

publican candidate.

He was

finally

connected witli

suspense for the returns.

Mother McKinley's house, and spoke with her grandson, James. After some delay, James came back to re-

time for suspense had ended weeks before. The

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 coercion of their employers. Others had been estranged by
the increasingly radical tone of Bryan's speeches, and
disillusioned by the knowledge that this demagogue

the newly elected President was in his

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.

The

great

port

that

mother's

45

THE ELIZABETHANS AND AMERICA: PART V

mmW
America acted deeply on

working

magic in the

its

the Elizabethan English imagination^

tJiinds

By A.

'

uring the reign of Elizabeth

terest in

ered

and knowledge

momentum,
and the

of

I,

as

L.

the in-

America gath-

so their reverberation in

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
literature

to the subject.

On

arts

the other, there

is

the reflection of

America in the mirror of the imagination, in the poetry 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

of poets and men of

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

Winter's Tale and Pericles. The influence of the
voyages speaks in them all, inciting the imagination to

of

The atmosphere of Arcadia

mon with that of The Faerie

has something in comQiieene the dreamlike

timelessness of a fairy world of romance. Spenser was
a friend of both Sidney and Raleigh, and the intro-

ductory stanzas to

transition

be seen

first

And daily how through

Many great regions are

always strad-

Which

Who

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 chapCopyright

1959 by A. L.

Rowse

to late age

hardy enterprise
discovered,

were never mentioned.

ever heard of th' Indian Peru?

men no man did them know,

Yet have from wisest ages hidden been;
And later times things more unknown shall show.
Yet all these were

from the factual world of translarealm of the imagination may

whom

acknowledge the impulse

Or who in venturous vessel measured

The Amazon huge river now found true?
Or fruitfullest Virginia who did ever view?

With people

to the

in the circle of Philip Sidney, to

II

But let that man with better sense advise

That of the world least part to us is red;

ode "To the Virginian Voyage," or how Strachey's

account of the hurricane off Bermuda is echoed in
The Tempest.

and reports

Book

of the expansion:

the words of Raleigh's sea captain. Barlow, take wing

in the verse of his master or reappear in Drayton's

The

strange scenes and countries across the seas.

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

tions

science

as overflowing
to

in general,

with gold:

people in the Old

Marlowe has

America is always regarded

is what it chiefly meant

this

World as

it still

does to some.

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,

Chapman.

Shakespeare,

treasure there, captain, as I have heard?" Seagull: "I

where sooner or later everything gets expression. We

must remember that America, in this connotation,

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;

Massinger,

appears

It

in

often appears as India, with or without the adjective

This

"Western."

made

is

clear

sufficiently

by

the

"As bountiful as
mines of India," he writes. Henry VIII's meeting with
Francis I at the Field of the Cloth of Gold

dominant

association with "mines."

Made

Britain India; every

Showed

like a

man

that stood

mine.

"How
When

that

now, my metal of India," i.e., piece of gold.

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 augmentation 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 digging for gold is an important element in Timona.t a
time, too, when the Jamestown colony was temporarily given over to a frantic search for

it.

One

hope, no work but to dig gold, wash gold, refine gold,

load gold." And this was about the date when Timon

fettered in gold;

forth

on

shore.

."

extended

money

is

Ho! The absurd Sir Petronel

bestowed on a ship bound for Vir-

knight adventurers:

who

"We

have too few such

would not sell away com-

petent certainties to purchase, with any danger, excel-

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 public. "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.
this

Spendall asks: "Why,

is

ready with any English?" Seagull:

of English

is

there,

man, bred

she inhabited

The

second of July we found shoal water, where

in

we

smelt

PRINCIPAL NAVIGATIONS, VOIAGES,

TRAFFIQ^ES AND DISCOueriesofcheEnglifli Nation, made by Sea
orouer-land , to the remote and farthcftdiof 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,

as of LdfUnd^crikfinu,Ccre!u,ihi. Bajc of S. NiceLu^ the Iflcs of Col*

goieue.,yaig^i\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/rtfl^in former agei.

Vyhennnto is annexed al/o c hnefe Qmmentarie ofthe trut

due o{ Jjl4/}d and ofthcNorthren Seas and

,

lands fliuacc chit \vi^.

^^ndUph, thememorahU iefutt cftheSfAn'ifl) ha^e

'

^rmatU, j^ntu

/ f

t.

and the fimou*

atcliicucd 31 the cicic

of Ca^^. ' js

viflotie
^'

tre dcrccibed.

HlCHAKD HaiLVYT
Aitci,

t^f*Tttr tf

udfomcumc Student of ChnlU

CbutchinO^otd.

at London by G b o r o r
Bishop, Ralph Newberib

Imprinted

the

make 'em bring

full of all sorts of excel-

captains he sent to reconnoiter Virginia in 1584

we do

"They have married with

any we have

sea-

pleasant

of those that were left

his-

as

the

al-

not go to dramatists for dates any more than to

Indians and

by
it

"A whole country

there in '79." (Actually the date was '87; but

torians for dramatics.)

is

reported as follows:

lent uncertainties?"

On

'em

"And

asks,

the crossroads in literature, as he did in these actions.

The

Chapman,
Ben Jonson and John

Marston's Eastward

Security comments:

and diamonds they go

gather

These leads Spenser, Marlowe, Chapman all point

were all his friends; he stands at

in the scenes that

Raleigh's poet, contributed to

Flash's

and

to Raleigh, as they

ftant quarters

is

for rubies

Scapethrift

their

lent viands."

the voyages.

ginia.

and

holidays

up

the prisoners they take are

all

sun shined on: temperate and

was written. The combination of the gold theme with

digging for roots for subsistence comes straight from

The theme

massy gold;

writer

1608 that there was then "no talk, no

declared in

the chains with which they chain

all

streets are

country withal?" Captain Seagull replies: "As ever the

when Maria appears to lay down

entraps Malvolio, Sir Toby belches,

In Twelfth Night,
the letter

and

andKoxiRT Ba&kiiu
1

forth as beautiful faces

8.

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

Title page

Principal

from Sir Ferdinando Gorges* copy of HakluyVs

Navigations (1398), bearing Gorges' signature.

47

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

And

so sweet

could not be far distant

we

being, whereas

We

viewed the land about

To

us,

The

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

think in

all

In the

My

trees.

And

poem Raleigh was

highest mountains where those cedars

whose banks the troubled ocean

And were

the marks to find thy

Into a soil far

And when we come

ian Voyage,"

we

to

"To

grow

home

seek

all

new worlds

up

in one

famous

line:

for gold, for praise, for glory.

Pory,

Christopher Davison, George Sandys. Donne,

before he condescended to enter the
Church, sought to be made secretary. Strachey, a

bet

who was hard up

Cambridge man, moved in a literary and dramatic

London. He was a shareholder in the Children 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

the Virgin-

circle in

find:

When

to leave

There was a whole succession of literary men who

went as officials to Virginia: William Strachey, John

hoped port

Drayton's ode,

men

strange, to lands far off addressed

he sums them

To

themselves remove.

off

useful sassafras.

hopes clean out of sight with forced wind

To kingdoms

writing some years later

to recover the Queen's favor (but never finished),
Cynthia, the Lady of the Sea, we read:

On

kiss the sky.

Of the motives that could lead

Raleigh speaks, in his own case:

the world the like

Agai?ist

purple mass

cypress, pine.

And

abundance is not to be found. Under the bank or hill

whereon we stood, we beheld the valleys replenished with
goodly cedar

his

The cedar reaching high

landed, very sandy and low towards

first

the ambitious vine

Crowns with

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.

an agreeable winter

made

ing

there.

The

extraordinary happen-

a strong impression on people's

minds

at

CONTINUED ON PACK 57

God

"wildernes as
To

GENERALL HISTORIE

if

ov

'

firfl

Covernours from

beginning j\n:
prefent

made

colonists, Virginia presented

less strange,

in England.

Virgima.New-England.and the Summer

Iflc5 wiih tKe names of the Adventurer5,
Planters.and

its first

no

first

On

than

it"
an aspect

less idyllic,

held for their compatriots back home

the following pages are photographs of the
it

area near Jamestown, taken by Bradley Smith, which show as

closely as possible how the landscape would have looked to

their

j-8 4. to this

Captain John Smith and

162S

his companions, when they came here

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 writings but various letters and accounts by his fellow adventurers.

to plant a colony,

JM

intSdc^omu mat ftfc^thm

cTimrm'esStd^ifcai^rtes

in

oiFihcr
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
h

tny,,^a'untp&cBf&aP.
VNcw Engbnd
^^
"'"
LONDON
InntcdtylD anj
I H for tdwara

M
,,s

^.

The

first

the verie

From

the frontispiece of Smith's Genone of his several books.

eral] Historic,

which

at

we made, we fell with Cape Henry,'

mouth of the Bay of Chissiapiacke,
that present we little expected, having by
land

a cruell storme bene put to the Northward.

48
Their landfall: Cape Heniy from the

sea. dijring a

storm

^si^^

Archers

Hope

flefl),

of land" unsuited for

The

and discovered

a point oj

Land, called

Archers Hope, ivhich wassnjiicient

If

ivitli

liad not

to all the

The

we had

from the point

of

Land

came

[of]

-which

to

our

some eight miles

I made

before; -where our ship pes doe

so neere the shoare

tlie

setled there

seating place in Paspihas Countrey,

lie

Collonies co)ite)itinent.

thirteenth day [of Max], ice

mention

heoie disliked because the ship could

not ride neere the shoare.

to

a little labour

defend our seh>es against an\ Enemy.

if

Trees in

6.

that

fathom

they are

moored

luater.

Jaincsiouii Kiaiul. where ihe\ iiiuored in laic afternoon.

50

"point
colony

twelfth day [of May'\, xve -went l/acke to our

ships;

to

the
tfieir

Ma\

13.

1C07

Janiotown Ulaml from

ilie

hindward side

Oil

lilt'

it'est

side oj

navigable rwers.
the Bay. hath

they
lieth

it.

icf

Jiii\,

The

ii'cre

siiiil

]\'est

accor\ding\ to the

The most

of these

peninsula on the North side

called

James Toxvne.

in

oj

faire tind

and the next

of a jirincipall

lo the

inoiilh of
oj

iiaiiie

this

rixier

couutr\ that

inhabited

rivers are

name

this river are the

honour

(Iflighljiiil

and by North. The

name

by senerall nations, or rather families, of the

them

5.

fnsi oj those rix'ers

course from the

liis

call Poxchataii,

uJ)on

llic

of the rix'ers.

English planted

in a

In a

place by

of the Ki)igs most excellent Alajestie.

51

*>?
s

\^

(-

-!\:

^^:'v/-\

King deck, up the James Ri\er from Jamestown

Our

liote

by reason of the ebl)e chansi)ig to

grounid npon a many shoitles lying

For the nwst jmrt the earth

stnulx iiioidd. in
fat

some

is

a black

phices a

barren gravell.

many
some

By

tJie

rivers are

20,

Sahiages inhabit: but all overgroivne

trees dr weedes,

plaine wildernes as

being a

God

first

himselfe by nayling them to the

groicnd with
in that

pbiine marishes containing

some ino, some 200 Acres,

sonie lesse. Other j)laines
more,
sonie
there are fewe, but only where the
-with

it.

liis

manner:

sword,
thtis

set us all a fislii>}g

we tooke more

in

one houre than we could eate in a day.

But it chansed our Captaine taking
a fish

his siuord (not

from

condition)
a

made

the reedes: our Captaine sporting

i)i

slimy clay, in other places a very

i)i

the entra)ices, ive spyed ma)iy fishes lurking

knowing her

ivhereon the middest

\xi'as]

most poysoned sting, of two or

three inches long, bearded like a saio on

each side, which she strucke into the

icrest oj

and

his

arme iwerc an inch

no bloud nor wound was

a halje:

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

much
in

concluded (anticipated)

sorro-w

his funerall,

and prepared

Slingia) I'uinl, near DcUaville,

iiyiiua

his

grave

an Island by, as himselfe directed.

ice called the Island

On

all n'ith

after the

name

Stingray Isle

of the fish.

53

pitdvnnfi 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

of trees insunder he

Being got

to the

desert, [he]

had

made

marshes

his passage.

still

yet

to

liis

lie zcas

arme

wifli

n'itli liis

garters,

shot in his thigh a

i)i

the

supposed) sleeping by the C.unowe,

is

little,

and used

to
.

lie

arroiues that stuche

tooke him

at laste they

whom

Jiim as a buckler.

and had many

fill

At last they brought him

ichere was Powhatan their Emperor.
.

myles

the a\d of a Salvage his guid,

in his cloathes but no great hurt,

prisoner.

beset with 200. Salvages, tiro of

defending himselfe

bound

(as

labour hy cittling

them viduall: who

them hee slew,

whilst himself e by fowling sought

finding he was

at the rivers head, ticentie

two men slaine

his

in iicit

Meronocomoco (=i Jan. i6nS).

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
iflieii

out his braines. Pocahontas the Kings dearest daughter,

no intreaty could prevaile. got

laid her

owne upon

his to save

his

head

in

him from death.

her armes, and

.

54

Trail leading to the

site of

Powhatan's \illage

:^'^^^,<^ -*

-''^^J!.

Hf'^i

<

^r.|-'."

tte

.Vv

;:s^
^^.-.-^-^---v^-

^^mi>
r'^;

IJV

^.

^-

*.'

'

.^:;'

/
-'.

^^v

y>'
_=^^-

/"

r-:^-

--.^c

rt^

" -'i^O^f*

.^.

^V^;

The

site,

Nolo

determined by archaeologists, of Jamestown Colony

this

our yong Common-wealth of Virginia,

as

you have read once consisted

If we truely
but of ^S f)ersons, and in two yeares increased hut to 200.
consider our Proceedings with the Spanyards, and the rest, we have no reason
.

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.
to desfmyre, for

56

The "Delicious LaruV

That,

home, and several accounts

being

detailed

which

Strachey's

ol

appeared, the most

it

letter

circidated in manuscript.

noble

to
It

iatly,

not sinprising

is

mind in that circle was

germ ol Tlic Tempest.

thai the most impressionable

struck by
It

it,

somehow

is

was the

lor this

provides the

right

just

that,

More's Utopia

as

'World in our period, so Tlie Tempest

that these two transcenilent

last;

]jrovitles

New World

of the

the

minds shoidd have

risen to the full height ol the theme. For there

more

New

expression of genius of the

first

is

far

Shakespeare's play than

in

from Strachey's letter: the

the
details,
St. Elmo's fire llaming
with
its
veracious
storm
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 lovesuggestion

original

and how

subsist

and

Full

fiillwr

lliy

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.
but

that,

\vith

Show

To
To

with

my

son

who

and

whole question of what

makes its impact upon
placed before us in a \vay we can

is

Our sympathies

never forget.

are not with Prospero

and jjerhaps in the subconscious

mind we think of \vhat happened
There

is

his

lordly per-

civilization

primitive society

corridors of the
the redskins.

to

something deeply affecting about Cialiban:

.

When

nimrst

lliou

Water

ivith

me and

niad'sl mucli of

berries in't

This

what had happened time and again, generation

is

after generation, with tribe after tribe, all along the

coasts of

America when the Indians came

with the white

men

lontact

in

knowledge.

anil their su])erior

read in Hakluyt and Captain Smith with wiiat

they

learned

al)out

the

stars

and

We

axiility

tnniament,

the

watched the white men's instruments, were im])ressed

by lodestone and magnet, optic glass and clock.
.

and then

lov'd

sliow'd thee all the qualities n' the

The

fresh sf)rings, l/riiiepils. harrrn place,

and

-will ilig

lliec j)igi!uts;

instruct thee

how'

snare the nimble tnarmozet: Til brirtg thee

and sometimes
from the rocks

clusl'ring filberts
scaniels

I'll

get thee

In spite of what he has sulfered at the hand of Prosj)cro,

Caliban now wants Stephano

show thee every

I'll

are

to

be his god:

fertile inch o' the island;

I will kiss thy foot: I prithee,

be

my

god.

reminded of the native Californians who emmen by taking them for gods.

and

so-

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 lawas a generalizing and abstiac t thinker, as he was, l)ut
his library was fidl of the /Vmerican voyages. There,

made

visible, \vas

it

an example of the way early anthro-

pology went into political theory.

Tudor

lolk were fascinateil by the trappings of Inand 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
life

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

s]}rigged leathers

waving down

in

on

Indian

costume,

"with

iiigh

their heatls, hair black anil large

to their shoulders."

The

nuisiiians were

from John
But the serious-minded C:ha])man

attired like Virginian "priests" no iloui)t

dr;iwing.

addressed himself to a searching theme, the ])roi)lem

isle.

and

politi-

speculation and theorizing about

ciety,

A\'hite's

thee

And

bring thee where crabs grow;

long nails

thee a jay's nest

Young

dian

first.

me; would'st give me

and teach me how
To name the bigger light, and how the less.
That burn by day and night
Tliou strok'dst

me

Prospero

have an important development in

dispossesses him, the

happens when

let

/\fier

he idea of an original state ol nature was to

the primitive savage, possessor of the islaiul,

and

Nor

barrassed Drake and his

the creation of Caliban,

relation to Prospero, the very civilized

And

CALIBAN': / prithee,

And

cal

Not only

too deep to bridge.

riences at the hand of the white man.

comes the drunken Stephano:

We

lies,

man

did he profit from his knowledge, in spite of his expe-

And

five

fiitliuiii

man was

lost in the struggle for existence.

that of the white

so the red

songs are of the sea:

liest

had often ha])]jened we remember how

to set Indian corn, and enabled them to

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
fish

CONlINrKI) IROM PAGE 48

too,

Sqiuinto showed the Pilgrims where best to take their

fertile.

posed by the diversity of religion revealeil by a new

57

Holy Scripture, which held the key to

had no knowledge. The orthodox
spoke
through
Eunomia, representing civilized
poet

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

order:

at their liberty,

and

\vorld, ol wliich

all

human

history,

(Enlightened with
Is

never subject

And

hatli

event

to bliiik error's night.

tage of

mankind

region.

even

jjeople,

then,

who

speculated

\vas

sensibly whether the

Asia.

American Indians had not come

narrow divide oi the Bering Strait trom

Some

divest allegiance

reflection

ol

these speculations

seen in Bacon's jeu d'esprit.

The New

may be

being discovered, there

knowledge, but a comparable

impetus to improve its quality and tech-

graphical

niques. England was backward in this

now

art, as in so

but

the voyages and of reading

and Bacon had a direct interest
in colonization by this time: he was one of the Council for Newfoundland. Bacon's Utopian island was in
the Pacific, which might still have islands and continents 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 remnants ol a people: "Marvel you not at the thin population 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,

tacts

with these leaders of thought, ^vhile they

the influence ol
ajjparent,

is

at the least,

than the

The mind

rest ol the

woi Id."

of the poet fDonne was

markedly stimu-

lated by the geographical curiosity of the time. This

reflected in the

is

unexpected images he reaches out lor

on the subject of

love:

much

her geographers profitetl from their con-

else;

Hakluyt

made

use of the information gathered by the English voyagers 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 information 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 illustrate, as everything about him does, his ciuious mixtine 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

to debouch with the Colorado into Southern
California, liy the end of the century, much more exact
and uselul tontributions were being made to navigation and cosmography by such men as John Davis and
across,

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.

Edward Wright.
]]'here

we ran

Without

Or

shaifi

find two belter heinisfherrs

\orlh.

unlhout

in addressing his mistress,

what unusual

Hariot appears

declininu,

West:'

going to bed,

in

some-

mann<'d!

the sermons that were preached to speed

the Virginia enterprise;

but Donne's sermon is the

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
finest

58

as the

most complete, all-round

sci-

entist of that time, with his interest alike in inathe-

and astronomy, anthropology and navigation.

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 Elizabethan quaiiuness in this; no fancy, let alone fantasy;
all is in due order based on close observation, accurately brought into correlation with existing categories. 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
uKitics

He

teiins:

O my America! my new-found-land.
My kingdom, safeliest when with one man
Many were

not only an immense extension of geo-

Atlantis. Nat-

urally

in general."

New World

^ith a

across the

already offered lieaven's true light

To ynur dark

There were

to

sky

hrii^^ht

Christian piety)

is

be under no man." And Donne had something to say

which is very much to the point in the modern discussion 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-

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

To tliis our British Plioebus, whose

this

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,

maps and papers were

many

more

tilings he has to answer for. 'I'his

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 the niau)

certainly

of .American lile turned up, having long ago disap-

peared from \\ew. In the

as

entl,

it is

these Powhatan's mantle, a

through such things

wampum

girdle or a

lost in the sea in the

shell necklace, the things the Elizabethans held in their

lunricd transfer of their goods to flrake's ships. Others

on Roanoke weic spoiled by the

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 unlorgotten impre.ssion that Pocahontas made on the English people in her day still alive in the famous inn
write these words not far
sign, "La Belle Sauvage."
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 evidence of the strength of conmion memories, common
affections, antl connnon ancestry.

of their

of White's papers lelt

what remains is considerable.

of America upon natmal history in general, and botany in particular, was no less exciting. A
wide range of new plants and animals provided conIndians. But

The impact

tinuing stimidus to the scientific ciniosity, as well as

the fancy, of naturalists in England as else;vhere.
this

is

came

reflected in their books.

the

giant

snnflower,

From

the

nasturtiinn,

daisy, lobelia, evening primrose,

and

And

New World
Michaelmas

so on. liut by lar

the most important introductions were tobacco and

the potato: these affected history.

The

medicinal properties of tobacco were considit "purgeth super-

ered valuable. Hariot reported that

and openeth
which means
the use thereof not only preserveth the body from obstructions, 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 colony 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, Retliille N. Salaman writes: "The introduction ol llie potato has |)roved to Ije one of the major events in man's
recent histoiy, but, at the time, it was a matter of relatively little moment and called forth no innuediate
public connnent." To the Elizabethans the innocuous
potato was not only sustaining, but stinudating to lust.
fluoirs
all

phlegm and other

and passages

the pores

gross himiours,

of the body: by

We

remember

that

when

tions, gets Mistress ?"ord

to

him, he

much

that

calls
is

Falstatt,

with the worst inten-

and Mistress Page

on the sky

to

to rain potatoes.

come

in

,\mid so

Dr. Salaman thinks

it

cjuite

growing

<jf

xierse

elaborate

Qiieer},

froiii

the t'suhnist iihoxie

title

/mi;c

of

I'lirchas

and
it

his

a chasten-

(jrom

the

rilsrimes,

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.
7625),

earthy, not to say nunky, about this root,

introiluce the

With the tomb of the Great

in'^

probable that Raleigh did

po tatoes into Ireland one

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

move Johnson had

set a

re-

precedent that future genera-

On
was

ability to interfere in
legislative

and

seventy-six Stevens, emaciated

sick, present-

programs?

the sinface, the purpose of Johnson's enemies

to call a halt to his persistent opposition to their

plans for reconstructing the eleven formerly Confederate states, all of which, except Tennessee, ^\ere

out of the Union at the time of the impeachment

For

many

of the

lesser

lights

among

the

Radicals of the congressional majority this

doubt, the only motive. But to say that

tions ^vould hesitate to challenge.

.A.t

since, and irretrievably, lost all

any substantial \\ay with their

or even

Thad

the

it

main and operative motive

still

trial.

so-called
^^as,

^vas the

in the

no

only

minds

ing to the world the appearance of a white old rock

of

drying in the

impeachment movement is to suggest that these brainy

and experienced politicians were incapable of grasping

sini, ^vas almost at the end of his earthly

His comment on the omcome of Johnson's
of which he himself was the chief architect, was

course.
trial,

the last remark of

ever make,

more than passing

interest he ^voidd

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 Executive

out of

The

ft ^\as also

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

60

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

offi( e.

question

Stevens and the other effective leaders of the

any vetoes Johnson chose

scuttled his Reconstruction
their o\vn.

One

^^av or

hand down. Thev had

program anil substituted

to

another the\

hail

made

it

diffi-

By

MILTON LOMASK

cult for

him

many

to exercise

jjowers, hamstringing

him

of his constitutional

to the point w iierc

would

they failed to impeach him, he

e\cn

if

luiable to

still i^e

Imther fact that Johnson's term of

office WAf, almost over, and there was no reason to believe that he could be elected to another, even il some
of the leaders of his own Democratic party were cpiixotic enough, in i8(")8, to suggest the nomination ol a

man

on

his cane, but bitter

face.

wrest control of the South from their hands.

There was

The House "managers of the impeachtnent" posed for

Mdthfw Brady before Ihe trial. Stevens, dying, hobbled in

the

min

determination was

Seated with him

F. Butler,

liam; standing,

(left

Thomas

to right) are

IVilliarns,

J. F. JVilson,

G.

S.

still

written on his

Prosecutor Benja-

and Chairman
Bnulwell, and

J.

/.

.1.

Bing-

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,

so discredited in the eyes of the voters. His pres-

"that the Radicals in Ciongress are in a conspiracy to

ence in the White House was annoying, and sheer

overthrow not only the PresideiU but the go\ernnicnt."

hatred of the

man was

inlaying a role in

How

liie

of

had only to hiilc tiieir

months and .Vndrew John-

events. Tiie Repui)lican leaders

time in patience for a fe\\'

son would be out of their way.

But they didn't

wait,

and

haps not even fiUIy articulated

Other men

oiuside their circle

guessed what they were

up

to.

had comand per-

for this they

pelling reasons largely unspoken, to

in

i)e

sure,

their

^vas

them

still

to

(iideon Welles,

Navy and Lincoln's

Johnson's Secretary of the

him. Behind Welles' benign eyes and his
face in

its

government.

own minds.

and unfriendly

One

"Deacon" Welles, as he was now and then called,

was right. The determined nun behind the impeachment 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

ec

liclore

lesiastical

whiskery nest lay a trenchant and suspicious

few of them overrated [ohnson, assiuuing that lie

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

men saw an opportunity

in Johnson's strength, these

CONTINUED ON PACK

I(K)

61

now

By
Dutch

it

about

it,

is

probably too late to do anything

but the unsettling fact remains that

the so-called sale ot

in

Manhattan Island

to the

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

foothold to be

dislodged by ihe Indians, at any rate -and the eventual arrival of oneway avenues and the Hambuig

Heaven

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 AlgonCrystal

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

and they had a fort called Nipinichsen, on

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 island, and its twenty-hve miles or so of water front were
dotted with small camps, from which the Indians con^'onkers,

the north

ducted their food-gathering expeditions. The fishing

was more rewarding than it is now; aside from the periodic 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

THE

didn

wasn V

mind the land

theirs

anyway

$24

SWINDLE
By

62

NATHAMKL BEXCHLEY

was either unknown to

way of lile. At any rate,

many, and

ihe!>e
tiieir

Indians or else
iliscovered

sliell

it

was

piles are

mounds comparatively few. In

now and then a
strandetl on a sand bar down in the

their biuial

addition to

all

hattans) occupietl the northern three quarters of

tiie

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,
island,

bears, wolves, porcupines. bea\er. otter, moose, wild-

and

itiikt\,

and there

\vere

even cases

an occasional bison would wander

west, just in time to

i)ullalcj

Imd

hinisell

in

from the

transformed into a

robe.

In consecpiente of all this largess, the Indians were

tluse delicacies, e\eiy

whale \\oidd i^et

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-

cats, grouse,

Avlien

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 inunbers, 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

or Maiu'tou. and their heaven was a precise

.Spirit,

place it

lay oil to the southwest, jjossibly wliere

nitSIKMM)

OK

AmIRK-W

nt-RlIXt.t.

IW

KOIlt K

Tren-

IIMIOKN

ton,

New Jersey,

is

now.

It

was

a place

where game was

and a great deal

even more plentiful than in real lite,

more plentiful than at the present moment,
ures from Trenton

authorities

are

at

all

if

the

fig-

accurate.

cows, horses, and pigs and they were the first such animals 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

had dances, either

by not only the sight of the animals but also their by-

for spring planting, or harvest, or thanksgiving, or the

like, and they always made a big to-do when they set

products, such as milk, cheese, bacon, ham, and mut-

About four times

a year the Indians

on a hunting expedition. Their

off

life

was, in short,

would have us begood 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
that the out-of-door enthusiasts

all

lieve

is

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,

with either

fish oil,

eagle

smeared themselves

they

fat,

or bear grease.

To

get to

ton.

new and
happening
every
day
(their
first
view
interesting was
the
cause
wooden
shoes,
for
instance,
was
of the Dutch
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

From

the Indians' point of view, something

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

or no sexual scuffling be-

leeward of a Weckquaesgeek Indian on a hot day,

even or especially if he was in a friendly mood, was

the reason, there was

an experience in

Then, on May 4, 1626, Peter Minuit, sent by the

Dutch West India Company to be the formal directorgeneral 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 Jamestown, would not be particularly pleased at the establishment of a Dutch colony in the area, and they also
knew that they didn't have the strength to resist armed

Their

itself.

relations with the white

men

were, initially,

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
good.

have been joined by a newcomer with three ears. As

anyone knows, the Florentine explorer Verrazano was the first to see Manhattan and its natives, in
1524, but no significant contact with the Indians is

far as

recorded until 1609,

when Henry Hudson

sailed

up

the river in search of a passage to the Orient. Unfor-

tween the natives and the

men, a few Indians were killed.

There was, in fact, what amounted

to a pitched bat-

Moon's candamage
did
severe
her
crew
of
muskets
the
non and
canoes.
But,
and
in
the
shore
the
on
to the braves
tle off

Fort Nipinichsen,

when

the Half

everything considered, the relations were not too bad,

and the Indians were quite impressed by the knives,

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

kettles, awls,

deal.
fifteen years, more and more fur traders
on Manhattan, some of them even setting up
storehouses on the southern tip of the island, and in

In the next

arrived

all

that time

their dealings with

friendly. In 1625 the

64

first

the Indians were

livestock arrived 103 sheep.

colonists.

intervention by either nation. Consequently, they

make

solved to

as possible,

back up

their purchase of

hoping that

if

Manhattan

re-

as legal

the Indians appeared to

their claim, the British or

French might

hesi-

CONTINUED ON PAGE 93

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 Hudson's

little

In respect to "Mark Twain in Hartford: The Happy Years,"

the Editors gratefully acknowledge permission from the publishers 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 Autobiography, 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;
Father, Mark Twain, Clara Clemens, Harper & Brothers,
;

My

New

York, 1931;

My

Mark Twain, William Dean Howells,

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.

Harper

&

l^cu

iC

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
This

is

the story of twenty

as a guide to the

Mark Twain Memorial,

the house

ing restored in Hartford, Connecticut, which

now

be-

Twain planned,

loved so much, and lost under such tragic circumstances.

'^7i

!^

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,

leased the fine

known

as

it

held their chief business interests ....

Hooker house on Forest

Nook Farm

He

'

SOME MAXIMS

finally

OF

Street, in that pleasant seclusion

the literary part of Hartford, which included the

MARK TWAIN

Warner and Harriet Beecher Stowe ....

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
residence of Charles Dudley

Clemens and

his wife

you don't like the

weather in New England, just

'If

Paine describes the novel plans tor Twain's house:

The plans for the new house were drawn forthwith by that gentle archiEdward Potter, whose art to-day may be considered open to criti-

wait a few minutes.

'

tect

cism, but not because of any lack of originality. Hartford houses of that

period were mainly of the goods-box form of architecture, perfectly

many of their owners. Potter

agreed to get away from this idea, and a radical and even frenzied de-

square, typifying the commercial pursuits of

parture was the result

'More than one cigar at a time

To

the public, the three-storied house with

gables,

was Mark Twain's "practical joke."

profusion of verandas and high-peaked

its

contemporary view of

it is

is

excessive smoking.

given in the

Hartford Daily Times, March 23, 1874:

Most

of the residents of

otherwise

known

as

Hartford

"Mark Twain,"

Avenue, a short distance east

Many

of the readers of

know

that Mr.

of the stone bridge

The Times,

Samuel L. Clemens,

building a residence on Farmington

is

on that thoroughfare.

doubtless, have had at least an exter-

nal view of the structure, which already has acquired something

a local

that

fame and such persons, we

it

is

dwelling,

one of the oddest buildings

not in the whole country.

if

beyond

think, will agree with us in the opinion

in the State

ever designed for a

'My books

are water; those

of the great geniuses are wine.

Everybody drinks water.

.

'

William Dean Howells, the well-known novelist and editor,

Mark
recalls a visit to

Twain's Notebook

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 constant 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
in-law, Mrs. Langdon:

to his

mother-

Twain's Hartford home, pictured in

Scribner's Monthly,

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
I

putting

down

setting

up the

the carpets,

by the scoundrel who

is

billiard-table (and has left the balls in

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

New

November, 1S76.

'

'

'

Harriet Beecber Stowe

The Reverend Joseph H. Twichell

Twain and

Whe lmX
"Good breeding consists in
concealing how much we think
ourselves and how little
we think of the other person.

of

his literary neighbor, Charles

FaPFi^

Moncure D. Conway, clergyman and

Dudley Wain^i.

Spsup

author, wrote:

Every day we saw Charles Dudley Warner [the writer who collaboraTwain 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

'

ted with

Mark Twairis Notebook

delightful

tures

if

man

in

conversation than Twichell. and his ministerial adven-

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
that if more time
had been taken, in the iirst place, the
world would have been made
right, and this ceaseless
improving and repairing would
not be necessary now. But if you
hurry a world or a house,
you are nearly sure to find out
by and by, that you have left

'It is likely

out a towhead, or a broom-closet,

or some other

convenience,

how much
may cost.

to be supplied, no matter

expense or vexation

'

it

Lite on the Mississippi

for climate,

hell for society.

Speeches

68

hand.

George P. Lathrop

One most

told of an evening with Twain's neighbor, Harriet

memory

'

company
Among other things there was

will long
at the

a negro's ear!

Katy Leary, Mrs. Clemens' maid,

and

Beecher Stowe:

remain with me, of an evening

house of Mr. and Mrs. Clemens.
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
agreeable

spent in Mrs. Stowe's

little

here and there, which has got

"Heaven

in her

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


my

them send you a copy right away." Then, of

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."
to

publishers and have

course, everybody

new establishment, the Clemenses had a staff of seven servants, some of

were described by Clara, Twain's second daughter:

In their huge

whom

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 service 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, however, 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 morning 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 miracles,

even at the age of

six.

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

Katy Leary

^'^

at other times the best of friends.

Katy Leary gave a below-stairs view

Mhjwrrrlsi
>'^"

f"

fK

f^

L^L^

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
:

Twain designed

this chart to record

his difficulties with the telephone.

till about eleven o'clock. They didn't

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
oh, for nothing Some
left strict orders not to have anybody disturb him

never came
get

up so

down

for their breakfast

early, but I

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.
;

Clara with her

calf,

Jumbo.

C9

'

'

'

usefyl f Talente

Mrs. Clemens' nephew, Jervis Langdon, described a long-established practice in the

Clemens household

"Everything human is pathetic.

The secret source of Humor itself
is

not joy but sorrow.

There

is

no humor

in heaven.

'

Following the Equator

One of the pleasantest neighborhood customs that grew up in

home was the gathering, of an evening, around the library

ford

the Hartfire

while

Mr. Clemens read aloud. He liked stirring poetry, which he read admirably, 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.
But Twain was not

the only performer in the household. In his autobiography, he told

of his children's early dramatic endeavors:

J^

c^/^^-e

-5-.=-<

:?&.

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

Program

{or

The Prince and

the Pauper.

'

'

They spell it Vinci and pronounce

Vinchy foreigners always

it

spell better

than they pronounce.

'

to sleep.

The Innocents Abroad

Clara Clemens remembered

'
'

Clothes

Naked

make

influence in society.

More Maxims of Mark

little

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 Hellespont 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

the man.

people have

how

or no

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
it looked just like a real palace. Oh, it looked

the Palace garden, and

70

'

Susy Clemens poses

as the prince in

Mark

Twain's The Prince

The

actresses in a phiy by Su.sv

CU-incns are (left to

liglii):

Clara. Charles

Dudley

and the Pauper.

Warner's niece Margaret, Jean Clemens, Susy, and another neighbor, Fanny Friese.

and lovely! All the audience set in the living-room and diningroom. 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
brilliant

ever seen.
Ot

all the

Clemens children, Susy was perhaps the most

My elder sister,

Susy

She had marked talent

when

for

was altogether the genius among the children.

writing and composed a charming little play

was not more than fourteen or

Thanksgiving night for a large company of
that it was full of originality.
Susy

she

at thirteen

We

talented, as Clara recognized:

worked on a biography

of her

fifteen.

We

Clara took the part

Lady Jane Grey.

ot

performed it one
and all agreed

invited friends,

famous

father,

which began:

happy family. We consist of Papa, Mamma, Jean, Clara

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 perfect, 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
are a very

and me.

It is

"To have nothing

the matter

with you and no habits

is pretty tame, pretty colorless.
It is just the

way

a saint

reckon it is at
least the way he looks.
feels, I

'

Europe and Elsewhere

the wall.

71


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
in

which

to

his

house admirable for family

write even

As soon

letters.

He wrote

to

life

and entertaining, but a

difficult

one

Mrs. Fairbanks:

you departed, Livy arranged a writing table near the conI could have the writing conveniences I had been wailing 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
as

servatory, so that

In the billiard
bling

room

Hartford

of his

house,

ram-

Twain

wrote some of his greatest works,

including The Adventures of
Tom Sawyer, Life on the Mississippi,

and Huckleberry Finn.

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 precarious letter-writing, with a pencil, upon encumbered surfaces & under
harassment & persecution, as before. But convenience me no more women's conveniences, for I will none of them.
.

He

found professional writing equally

One would

difficult.

Lathrop reported:

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 remains, 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.

In a photograph taken after he

left Hartford, Twain is shown
indulging in his favorite pastime
with Louise Paine, daughter of
his

biographer,

Of her

B,

Paine.

Susy once commented,

seemed to rest his head."

liards,
"it

A.

father's passion for bil-

reporter from the

This room

is

New York World

a treat.

stands in the middle of

it.

described the billiard room:

big billiard table with black and gold legs

.

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

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 decorated with a beerstein, gules, two long-stemmed pipes rampant and other
States

"The

'

difference between the

word and the almost

right

right

lightning and the lightning bug.

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:

when

'As to the Adjective:

it

The Tragedy

Pudd'nhead Wilson

of

out.

The reason

My

is

explained by Twain's method of work:

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

Every Friday evening, or

its

original purpose:

oftener, a small party of billiard-lovers gath-

and played until a late hour, told stories, and smoked till the room
was blue, comforting themselves with hot Scotch and general good-fellowship. 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 indignation when his opponents disqualified his rulings and rode him down.

in

'

doubt, strike

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.
!

Twain's bed came from Venice,

ered,

Twain always rose

morning, and did

work
the

late in the

much

in bed. In this

of his

photograph,

crumpled pillow and the

unruly hair combined

author's
to give

the illusion of a small

figure crouching at his ear (see

sketch).

Viewing

the

picture,

Twain remarked, "People often

ask
.

word

the difference between

is

ear

me where I get my ideas.

A little imp whispers in my
and tells me what to say.**

'

'

'

i0^sM:4'^A

.T?,;>?^4,i

Childe Hassam sketched the veranda known

"Ombra" lor Harper's Monthly in 1896.

as the

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.

Albert Bigelow Paine described the Clemenses' rigorous social

Company came

life:

distinguished guests and the old neighborhood circles.

Dinner-parties were more frequent than ever, and they were likely to be
'

'

The holy passion of Friendship

is of so sweet and steady and loyal
and enduring a nature that it
through a whole lifetime,
if not asked to lend money.
The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson
will last

'

brilliant

affairs.

Mark Twain's
Aldrich: they

The

best minds, the brightest wits gathered around

Booth, Barrett, Irving, Sheridan, Sherman, Howells,

assembled, and many more. There was always someone

table.
all

on the way to Boston or

New York who

or the night, or for a brief call, to the

Katy Leary

told of their lavish

manner

addressed himself for the day

Mark Twain

fireside.

of entertaining:

always helped George wait on table if there was over twelve at the
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 waving 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 ordinary 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
I

dinner. Mr.

"Training is everything. The

peach was once a bitter almond
cauliflower is nothing but
cabbage with a college education.
The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson

'

a good thing Adam had

when he said a good thing he knew
nobody had said it before.

What

'

Mark

Twain's Notebook

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,

think they called

it)

around the table and have a

little

champagne (maybe) while we passed the coffee to the ladies in

ing room, where they'd drink it and then set down and gossip

more

the drawawhile.

Clara recalled:

When

dinner parties were given, Susy and I used to sit on the stairs
broken bits of conversation coming from the dining room.
We got into this habit because we used to hear so many peals of laughter in the distance that we would run to discover the cause of all the mirth.

and

listen to the

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

Thomas

Bailey Aldrich

very witty.
Mrs. Thomas Bailey Aldrich, wile of the

and poet, described one memorable

critic

winter evening:

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
It

moment

and cap, but still wearing his lowwanted a walk, and was going to the village

in his historic sealskin coat

cut evening shoes.

He

said he

George Washington Cable

and should shortly return with the ingredient. Deaf, absolutely deaf, to Mrs. Clemens's earnest voice, that he should at least wear
for the ale,

overshoes that snowy night, he disappeared. In an incredibly short time

he reappeared, excited and hilarious, with his rapid walk in the frosty

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

air

day of the joyous, jubilant visit came to the close. Untroubled by the flight of time I can still hear a soft and gentle tone, "Youth,
O Youth !" for so she always called him.

this wise the last

Clara describes their Christmas celebrations:

When Christmas Eve

arrived at last,

William Dean Howells

we

children

ings in the schoolroom next to our nursery, and did

it

hung up our stock-

with great ceremony.

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-

Mother always

ways turned

recited the thrilling little

the gas

down

low), trying to

drive through the snow, he sat

on the way.

down and

warm
told

himself after the cold

some

of his experiences

Three prominent

literary fig-

ures of the time were often

guests at the Hartford house.

Novelists Aldrich and

How-

both edited the Atlantic

Monthly; Cable, the noted

ells

southern writer, several times

took to the profitable lecture circuit with Twain.

75

Twain

'

'

Clara

in his thirties.

(left)

Olivia L. Clemens.

holds the family dog, Flash, while Jean and Susy look on.

In a letter written to Susy on Christmas morning, Twain played Santa Claus:

St. Nicholas
Christmas Morning

Palace of

in the

Moon

My

Dear Susie Clemens:

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 without 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
I

always drew a sigh of

relief when the holidays were over.
The reason was that they
included social festivities that were

"Father

sometimes a burden to him,

particularly if he happened to be
in the mood of writing and this mood,
;

he was wont to declare,

always attacked him when some
'mentally dead people
brought their corpses with them

good children.
There was a word or two
.

for a long visit.

Clara Clemens,

'
'

My

Father,

Mark Twain

certain

of. I

took

it

in

your mama's

letter

which

couldn't be

to be "trunk full of doll's clothes." Is that it?

will

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

call at

"There

isn't

a Parallel of

Latitude but thinks

it

would

have been the Equator

if it

had had

its rights.

Following the Equator

'

Your loving

76

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

setting
trolled,

still

'
'

One thing

at a time

is

my

motto

and just play that thing

for all
it's

it is

worth, even

Connecticut Yankee
King Arthur's Court

larger ventures: a type-

if

only two pair and a jack."

in

machine patent,

in which he had invested, and now largely conhe regarded as the chief invention of the age, absolutely certain

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 Constantinople to the Persian Gulf. Charles A. Dana, of the Sun, had put him in the
to

way

of obtaining for publication the

life

Leo XHI,

of the Pope,

officially

authorized by the Pope himself, and this he regarded as a certain fortune.

'

There are two times in a man 's

life when he should not speculate:
when he can 't afiford it
and when he can.
'

Twain had most

L.

money invested in the Paige type-setting machine and the Charles

Webster Publishing Company. Katy Leary tells o( his hopes for the machine:
ol his

Following the Equator

now I'll tell you about the type-setting machine. That's a long
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.
Well,

story.

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
.

The Paige

typesetter.

many months

in vainly trying to get this money together. In the meantime 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.
.

Twain confided

December

to his

notebook his exasperation with the machine and

20, 1890.

its

"The man with

is

new

idea

a Crank until the idea succeeds."

Following the Equator

inventors:

About three weeks ago the machine was pronounced

77

'

'

'

"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

Charles L. Webster, Twain's partner.

had proved a commercial

in distress, for the

much-vaunted

life of

the

Pope

failure. Clara wrote:

few years before he had sunk most of his earnings in the Charles
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 something should be done to improve our straitened situation.
L.

'
'

Every one is a moon

and has a dark side which he
never shows to anybody.
'

Following the Equator

"Few

of us can stand prosperity.

Another man 's,

mean.

'

In 1891, the family left for Europe. Paine described their last day in Hartford:

Following the Equator

.

the maintenance

was

income. The house with

its

far too costly for his present

and prospective

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 immediately. 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.

Hartford Courant reported:
(yk,r7>

_.V^^.^ .^.^^^^

S.^.<f-!r:<?^y^-

X^>., ^^-^.^

^A^

G^/:.

^vidow as a
is

first

owned by

Talk of the Street

royalty.

The canceled check

the Players Club in

New

York.

Right.

and regret are universal,

'

Paige and

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

78

Some Rumors set

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
made

'

April 20, 1894, the

MARK TWAIN'S FAILURE

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

Twain's firm, which published U. S. Grant's

war memoirs, paid a $200,000 check to his

On

Mr. Clemens, as a citizen of Hartford, has

for

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
After a brief

When

visit to the

arrived in

own

inheritance.

Hartford house in 1895, Twain wrote to his wife:

town

did not

want

to

go near the house,

&

'

CULVER SERVICE

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 & ornament & 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.
didn't

want

to

Keppler caricatured Mark Twain

on the lecture platform for Puck.
J.

Later that year Twain set

with his wife and Clara on a lecture tour around the world,
leaving Jean and Susy in America. Katy Leary relates:

Well, they started

felt terrible at

off

off,

We all
it was hard to let them go
They went to Vancouver and to California

and, oh,

parting again.

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
;

SR00n,TO ACAIDI? Of

afternoon.

By

then

UTSIC, FEB.

7tli

TicktU

we were getting
we got a

and the next thing

was nearing Europe,

London the
the
Warners'
and
went up to

letters that the family

cable to

come

at once, to sail for

following Saturday, Susy, Jean, and I. ... I

I found Susy wasn't feeling very well. She looked very bad and says:

"Oh, Katy, did you come for me?"

"Oh, have I got to leave now?"
I said, "Yes." Then she says
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

(It

^44

Ftttton St. aiui

17 'i yttmtiioue

SI.

This jumping frog poster announced

a Twain reading in Brooklyn, 1869.

evening,

when

it's

till

cooler?"

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
"Well,"

said, "that's all right. It's pretty hot

afternoon, Susy

was

in a pitiful state, so sick

and

'You can straighten

a worm, but the crook
and only waiting.

is

in

'

More Maxims of Mark

full of fever.

79

him

'

'

So

hurried right off and

got Dr. Porter right away, and he said

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

She died before we ever could

Shattered by the news,

sail.

Mark Twain wrote from London:

Ah, well, Susy died

died in another house

at

home. She had that

well,

think

privilege.

...

If

she had

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 sympathies 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.
;

Susy, shortly before her death.

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 celebrated with loving preparations followed by a joyous and jovial outpouring 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.
;

'

All say,

we have

How hard it is that

'

to die

'

a strange complaint

come from the mouths

who have had to live.
to

of people

'

The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson

And
'

Susy died

at the right time,

the fortunate time of

life,

the

happy

twenty-four years. At twentyfour, such a

has seen
the best of
as a happy
age

girl

life

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 tenantless and forlorn, but to me it was a holy place and beautiful.
;

life

dream. After that age the risks

begin responsibility comes,
and with it the cares, the sorrows,

On

April 19, 1902, the following notice appeared in the Hartford Courant:

and the inevitable tragedy.

"MARK TWAIN'S"

'

Mark Twain's Autobiography

HOMEmostFOR

SALE.

beautiful and valuable

residences in this city, located on Farmington Avenue, with a fro.ntage of about
Large house
SOO feet on the Avenue.

One

with

"ADAM

Wheresoever
she was, there was Eden."
[at

Eve's Diary

80

Eve's grave]

of the

19

rooms conveniently arranged and

decorated: brick barn with

coachman; green-house.
for
opportunity to purchase a
rare
This is a
magnificent home in the best residential
section of the city.
For further particulars regarding price,
terms and permit to examine the premises, apply to Franklin G. Whitmore. 700
Main street, Hartford, Conn., or to William H. Hoyt & Co.. 15 West 42nd street,
beautifully

tenement

New York

City.

Animals a-coming, two by two:

Up

went the

Noah and

toy

is

lid

all.

and you could

stuff

them

Or you could throw them

pretty adaptable.

THE A

in,

at Brother.

r^.

i^^

-'/-;.";

-?f

?
<^

F?* f r'f^HTss^rif :>:'

v-

The
it

beauty of a good toy

is

f>

f f

that

picks out the really important things:

Oarsmen who

actually row, for instance,

or the steamer's great walking beam,

or a good loud bell on the train.

Imagination does the

toy

is

a crude

rest.

very like a primitive

imitation of

for the collection

a

we

that.

painting,

life;

yet for all that a very

is

Any boy knows

shrewd glimpse

at

it

too,

exhibit here

kind of push-pull

pageant of American history.

The

it)th-cenlury

tion

transportation

locomotive

toys

on

this

page

reflect

the fascina-

has always held for boys.

Comet,

with

her

passenger,

The

freight,

tin

and

mail cars, dates to 187^, and the Chicago horsecar to

the lime of the Columbian Exposition of 18^}. The
racing shell

and

is

cast-iron

pull-toy.

The

hose cart

is

"Mazeppa," after Byron's Cossack hero.

The steamboat and the painting, Boy with a Toy
Horse, by Joseph W. Stock, are both from about 18^^.
tin

stenciled

Here was
toys

a bonanza for the wildly fortunate few;

were scarcer then, and expected

to last.

For action, we have a tin-horse hoop,

and

for

Among

good shattering

the toys of peace there

ideal for scaring sisters,

past eyes
of the

noise, a driun.

unused

"Exprefs"

and

is

a jack-in-the-box,

panorama show

to television.

One might

company wagon, or

to be

the too-tricky marble game,

or even the wind-up dancers, but the peddler's

hung with

all

those doodads,

would

cranked

tire early

cart,

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
and

Victoria had some, unlikely as

so did the Egyptians.

it

seems,

They turn up

Americans have made them out

in tombs.

of everything: rag,

chicken bones, wood, wax, even corncobs.

Sometimes they come

in instructive groups; see the

one-room schoolhouse.

Do

right

and

say the mottoes, in three languages.

From left to right, at top, are a carved

wooden boy-doll, crudely designed but fineexecuted sometime in the 19th century;
wood-and-wax Ophelia with hair of flax
and dress of damask, dating from about
16^0; and two so-called "peddler dolls,"
ly

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

them under glass. The school above

mere eight inches high) and the rowing
dolls (right) are of wood. The sailors move as

exhibit
(a

the wheels turn; the scholars merely study.

fear nothing!

4.4

'

American Heritage is grateful to two museums for the

use of their great toy collections:

The Shelburne Mu-

seum,

Shelburne,

Vermont,

for the toys on pages 8}, 86,

and 88; and the New-York

Historical Society for the ark

on page 8i, the painting on

page 82, and the toys on
pages 84 and S5. The painting of Emma Clark on page
8y, is from The Abby Aldrich

Rockefeller Folk Art

Collection.

Photographs
Herbert Loebel.

Let's pretend, says the child to himself,

and

all

the rest follows.

like this

and

toy can be superb, of course,

French mechanical clown, who bends and

twists

balances, a circus all by himself.

More

likely,

however,

like the little tin

But

The

young mind

simple, and just turns,

merry-go-round above.

to the child it

full of all the

it is

is

the

Thing That Moves by

Itself,

magic and excitement with which the

clothes the great world outside.

by

Today, thirty-two years after Nicola Sacco and liartolomeo

Vanzclli were executed for the murder of a paymaster and

Sacco-Vanzetti:

his

guard

South Braintree, Massachusetts, the ghosts of

in

and the fish-peddler are not

the cobbler

As recently

at rest.

committee of the Massa-

as last year a joint senate-house

recommend

chusetts legislature was asked to

that the gov-

ernor issue posthumous pardons, thus correcting "an

the

his-

which had besmirched the reputation and

torical injustice

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

unfinished

men were

author, Francis Russell, concluded that the two

innocent of the Braintree crime. Recently we received a

letter in reply

brarian at

from Mrs. Dorothy G. IVayman, now a liin upper New York State,

Bonaventure College

St.

who covered

but formerly a newspaperwoman

the Sacco-

published here in the interests of historical fairness, with a brief defense of his original thesis
Vanzetti

trial. It

is

by Mr. Russell.

Reading

recently in

American Heritage

that the Sacco-

Vanzetti case in 1921 was a miscarriage of justice,

was led

to the conclusion that the propagar.^'.a of the 1920's

becoming enshrined in amber. Tlie article in question

was written by one who candidly confessed he was a boy in
is

grammar
I

knew

years. I interviewed the

for both sides,

the counsel

was familiar

the day that Captain Charles

expert for the

me, in the

how

state police laboratory,

the revolver found

ton streetcar,

Van Amburgh,

Massachusetts State Police,

killed Alessandro Berardelli

folk

However,

matched

on Nicola Sacco

have been

County jurymen of the

showed

the bullet that

test bullets fired

at his arrest

on

bal-

had
from

a Brock-

convinced as the twelve Nor-

as

guilt of Sacco

First, let us rehearse, factually,

and Vanzetti.

the events in the payroll

six years of litigation

Life was going

on peacefully
I

in April of 1920 in South

know

miles south of Boston, because

Braintree,

grew up

some twenty

in the next town,

worried a

and

tion,
office
rill.

Two

on December

an attempted robbery of

24, 1919, there

a payroll for a

with gunplay in the

street.

That

guarded truck, the guards returned the

had been

Bridgewater shoe
payroll was in a

shots,

and the rob-

&

Morrill.

On

the morn-

Express Agent Shelly Neal

car,

rest, a

sta-

driver watched Neal cross from the express

however, drove

later,

off

office of Slater

& Mor-

toward the village square.

with no train due, William Heron, a

loiter

men Italians,

rail-

he thought

by the restroom. (After the

ar-

Heron identified Sacco as one of them.)

before Heron saw the men in the railroad sta-

fortnight later.

Shortly

Mrs. Lois Andrews, looking for a job at the Slater

tion,

Morrill factory, saw a large, black automobile parked in

front of the factory

and a man bent under the hood

though tinkering with something. She tapped the

the back

Two
roll

as

man on
He stood

and asked about the other shoe factory.

which door to go in for the employment

told her

the Rice

& Hutchins

factory.

or three hours elapsed while the Slater

&

Morrill pay-

was being put in the individual pay envelopes.

Frederick Parmenter was the

(A few miles further south, in Bridgewater, Massachusetts,

factory,

15, 1920,

because an unfamiliar large black auto-

enter the station and

office at

earlier,

little

its

hours

and a bit downhill on Pearl Street you came first to the Rice
& Hutchins shoe factory (where Nicola Sacco had worked
under an assumed name); and next to it, the Slater & Morshoe factory.

at Slater

road detective, noticed two strange

up and

four months

true.)

with the bundle of money to the

The

Randolph. Across from the South Braintree railroad station

rill

is

mobile, with engine running, was parked outside the

&

thirty years of ideology.

Braintree, Massachusetts.

it

received as usual a consignment of cash for the company.

robbery, involving two murders and the theft of $15,776,

which became a cause celebre, with

and

with Sacco, for the South Braintree murders.

ing of Thursday, April

He

with the scene and the people of the times.

listics

and was a convict under sentence when

tion in that affair

tried, in 1921

Thursdays were paydays

was "working press" in those

From

You will not find in reference works that Bartolomeo Vanzetti was identified and convicted of participabers escaped.

school in 1921.

prisoners,

Ed.

Slater

&

Morrill shoe factory;

official

paymaster for the

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

down

tance across the railroad tracks,

the Slater

office to

& Morrill shoe

the

from the

hill,

employees

factory. Office

watched them from the second-story window with a clear

man was

view. Each

covered

carrying a long,

flat

tin box, like a

tained

Boda

bor's house

three others.

and telephoned

Two

police.

and

she later identified as Sacco

While her husband

Johnson went

in conversation, Mrs.

of the men,

Vanzetti,

de-

to a neigh-

whom

followed her,

going and coming back.

with pay envelopes stacked in order.

tray, filled

As they walked, they met James

Boda and

motorcycle,

Her husband, meanwhile, had convinced Boda

E. Bostock, machinist at

that with-

& Morrill factory, who, leaving the factory to

come uphill, had seen two foreign-looking strangershe

out 1920 license plates the latter could not drive his Over-

thought they were Italian fruit-peddlers loafing near the

another man,

the Slater

Parmenter spoke

factory.

needed
hill.

repair.

A moment

As recorded

later,

about a pulley that

to Bostock

The two with

the payroll went

on down the

[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
.
Probably I was away from him 50 or 60 feet
times
.

as I

turned they swung around and shot

The automobile came up

...

twice

got out and helped throw the two cans, or boxes

the payroll, in

me

saw the two that done

the runningboard ... he

the street ...

the shooting and one other that got off

at

mounted

it

fired into Berardelli's

ballistically,

to

have been

fired

as Bos-

from the

ing him). Police, alerted by Mrs. Johnson's telephone

There were a number of other eyewitnesses. Their cumu-

may be read

in the transcript of the

jury heard their living voices, watched as they

identifications of the accused

on

trial.

made

the pair.

When

was found

searched at the Brockton police station Sacco

to be carrying the Colt .32-caliber revolver

All the eyewitnesses of the Braintree crime were given

an opportunity to view Sacco and Vanzetti

and a number

station,
it

their

trial at

Dedham Courthouse

May

5,

trial

Vanzetti for the attempted payroll robbery in Bridgewater

Under Massachusetts

Dedham

No

trial,

had

priority.

no reference was made,

law,

eyewitness testified to seeing Vanzetti

fire

a shot, but

murder occurs

participating in a crime where

retrospect, the extraordinary thing, to

Inreporters

and

lived in Bridgewater; he

had been seen driving

black Buick like that described in the Braintree

Braintree shoeworker

seen the robbery and had written

down

named

had
num-

Pelzer

the license

car. It was soon found, abandoned in woodnumber 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 citizen. Police asked Johnson to notify them if Boda or any-

7,

citizens of the area,

me and

My

Defense headquarters

newspaper editor sent

at

me

often to the

anarchists, sympathetic liberals,

and emotional

Defense Committee brought from California,

who had

Italians.

May 5, 1920, after the Johnsons had

men knocked at their door. Mrs. Ruth

the evening of
to bed, four

Johnson opened the door and saw, by the headlight of a

90

York Times reported on October

The

as chief de-

previously defended per-

fense counsel, a lawyer

On

in-

terview the various people that congregated there professed

sons accused of anarchist violence. In four years.

to claim the Overland.

to other

256 Hanover Street, Boston, to

ber of that

gone

equally

was the instant organ-

land; the

came

is

1920 of an enthusiastic Sacco- Vanzetti De-

fense Committee.

else

at the

and conviction.

to Vanzetti's previous trial

izationMay

one

later.

(and conviction) of

1920,

had been investigating "suspicious characters." One

they had under surveillance was an Italian named

important,

is

did not come until a year

Part of the delay was due to the

whom
a

at the police

happened only two weeks after the crime, although

indictment by a Norfolk County grand jury and their

chusetts

payroll robbery.

This

of their arrest.

Ever since the attempted payroll robbery in Bridgewater

large,

identified them.

subject to the death penalty.

the previous December, police throughout southern Massa-

Boda who

with

trial.

concerning their actions from April 15 to

zetti

call,

again under Massachusetts law, an accessory present and

Let us pass on to the sworn testimony of Sacco and Van-

and the circumstances

visit-

boarded the next streetcar from Bridgewater and arrested

in December, 1919, which

Sacco at his arrest.

The

Brockton (nearest point to Stough-

where Sacco lived and Vanzetti was temporarily

ton,

from the body of the murdered payroll guard, Berardelli.

Colt .32-caliber revolver that police found concealed on

lative testimony

away and were never sub-

the motorcycle, drove

had

tock watched in horror was extracted at the autopsy

and was proved,

Boda and

highways.

the

have been one Orciani, then

Sacco and Vanzetti walked away in the direction of the

body

onto

to

electric streetcar line to

as

One of the four bullets

garage

testified

passed

He laid,
me, I went back to
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.
.

the

number of cartridges to fit it. On Vanzetti was a Harrington & Richardson revolver, similar to the one missing

that

saw it was a Buick car ... As

where Berardelli was laying

out of

sequently apprehended by police.

Bostock heard shots and turned around.

in the official trial transcript, Bostock testified:

Parmenter had started

and

land

4,

The New
Com-

1925, the Defense

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 Massachusetts

and

Supreme Court,

to the

to several justices of the

States, for

two more

years,

governor of Massachusetts,

Supreme Court of the United

exhausting every legal resource

before the death sentence was carried out on August 23, 1927.

In thirty years as a reporter on a metropolitan newspaper, never again did

money, or

see such lavish outlay of

such public furor as was elicited for the defense of two

aliens, arrested carrying guns, convicted of

murder in con-

by police to either Sacco or Vanzetti.

more than a

for their defense.

Both Sacco and Vanzetti admitted

Setting aside the public furor, the naked issue in the six-

year controversy, quite simply, was the validity in our

civ-

were "Long

lo,

1927

May

evening of

Agitation

on Eve

,^. ...rrl'^rr.'rjT,

of Execution Brings

mv

"";S.l";,:r

t :"" "*n;U

3,

- ~-~.

"^

'""

-.

These ip2^ headlines

reflect the tension

efforts to save

first

appeals for a

new

Dedham

Sacco in the

had been denied,

trial

one Celestino Madeiros,

a fellow prisoner with

suddenly "confessed" that he,

jail,

Braintree robbery and that neither Sacco nor Vanzetti had

"eaf SP^kers Denounce
"le Oeatli Sentence

-'

and violence

been with them. Aside from palpable discrepancies, such

was

as that the payroll

<-'""'<"-

'

Attests.

sioned by eleventh-hour

After the
late in 1925,

AI

To Save Lives of Sacco and Vanzetti

of Date

secrete subversive literature to

with others he declined to name, had committed the South

Final Efforts

in

said they intended to visit radi-

avoid deportation.

AS TRIAL JUDGE REJECTS SACCO PLEA;

NEW YORK PROTESTS END IN DISORDERS
Day ' Development!

Overland car from

1920, to get Boda's

5,

They
collect and

friends to

cal

FUlim CONSIDERS LAST MINUTE STAY

mmwmnm

They admitted

anarchyl")

live

affilia-

he went to the

going with Boda and Orciani by prearrangement on the

the Johnson garage.

The New York Times, august

their anarchist

(Sacco's last words, as

tions at the trial.

electric chair,

nection with a payroll robbery.

a fact that

It is also

third of a million dollars was forthcoming

occa-

Sacco and Vanzetti.

tin boxes)

and

that he

in a black

and

dence to Boston, back

his

bag

(it

was in two

flat

gang had driven from Provi-

to Providence,

from Providence

to

Braintree and then "spent some time in a speak-easy" be-

by jury. That issue was clearly recognized

ilization of trial

and upheld by the high court of Massachusetts and by the

Supreme Court

of the

United

States,

both denying petitions

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.
for

was an

Sacco's defense
1920, he

He

alibi.

swore that on April

had spent the day in Boston,

return to Italy.

He

15,

to get a passport to

could not produce a passport, but his

story ran that he

had taken

and was

must have a regulation passport photo.

told he

fore the three o'clock crime, his confession left unexplained

Sacco's possession of the Colt revolver.

in a large family

photograph

The

defense produced an affidavit

made

mer

clerk in the Boston consulate,

whose memory was phe-

in Italy of a for-

When

all

of Massachusetts, a conscientious

visory committee A.

vard

University;

man, appointed

W.

Samuel

April 15 was a Thursday. Sacco, under oath at his

trial,

he needed the passport because "we were

to get the steamboat." Yet,

instead of walking half a mile from the consulate to Scol-

retired judge of the probate court in Boston.

paper reporter

them

to

knew them

have been honorable

They interviewed

all

men

of ability

and the

which was lined with studios

specializ-

and

zetti,

the "confessing" convict Madeiros. In the end,

believed that the jury's verdict was warranted.

During the
the verdict

the furor of public opposition to

six years,

had been not only vocal but

violent.

w'orld.

eels all

alibi

was that he had been

day around Plymouth, Massachusetts, he

at the trial that

on April

22 he

went

with radical friends and thence to

to

Boston

New York

lawyer for an Italian held for deportation.

not one dollar of the Slater

&

probity.

they published a report stating that on the evidence, they

Sacco and Vanzetti from prominent people

all day in restaurants, and

work on Friday, telling his boss that the consulate
crowded that he could not get his passport.

whose

and

and forty-one witThey went to

gone

for Vanzetti,

a news-

defense.

he had loafed around Boston

As

As

the eleven jurors then surviving, the

fense

was so

the

personally. I considered

ing in passport photos delivered immediately, he said that

to

of

the prison with Governor Fuller to interview Sacco, Van-

even fixed the time within fifteen minutes!

lay Square, Boston,

president

Stratton,

an ad-

of Har-

Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and Robert Grant,

nesses for the prosecution

New York

as

Lawrence Lowell, president

judge, district attorney, defense counsel,

going Saturday to

the

then under sentence of death. Governor Alvan T. Fuller

minutes in the consulate, and the family group photo, but

testified that

trial,

Defense Committee sought a pardon for Sacco and Vanzetti,

nomenal. After a year, he not only recalled Sacco's few

had

had been consid-

the appeals to higher courts

ered and denied, six years after the original

It is

selling

testified

to consult
to see

the

a fact that

Morrill payroll was traced

lent
sies

enlisted

Others,

means

statements in

behalf of the

who remained anonymous,

of opposition. Starting in 1921,

were bombed in

The

de-

innocence of
all

over the

took more vio-

American embas-

Havana, and various South Amer-

Paris,

of the presiding judge, a juror, a key witness,

homes
and even

who threw

the switch.

ican countries. So, over the next few years, were the

Robert

"The

Elliott, the official

lovers of

Oliver Wendell

executioner

justice,"

Holmes

to

wrote Supreme Court Justice

Harold Laski, "have emphasized

91

by blowing up a building or two."

their love

she later identified in court as Sacco. Yet she talked with

Threats had been sent to Governor Fuller, Justice Holmes,

and other

night guard in those days.

on

had them under day-andJustice Holmes was one of four

so that police

officials,

Supreme Court who had had petithem and, after consideration, had de-

him

tions presented to

The

intervene.

to

others were Justices Louis D.

Brandeis and Harlan F. Stone and Chief Justice William

Howard

Taft.

On

the opinion of such men, I

to believe that the

am

willing

two gunmen were afforded every oppor-

tunity to have their innocence established,

had they been

woman,

hysterical

the United States

clined

unaware of any accent, though Sacco

in English,

time could scarcely speak English at

James

other witness.

When
and

saw the shooting more closely than any

The getaway

at the trial

car passed within feet of him.

he was asked

he could identify Sacco

if

Vanzetti, he replied, "No, sir."

he could

To

the question whether

men

the defendants were the two

tell if

at the

Mrs. Andrews, a

repudiated her court testimony.

later

E. Bostock

all.

do the shooting he answered: "No,

whether or not they was, no sir."

sir,

he saw

could not

tell

For the eyewitnesses who identified Sacco and Vanzetti,

innocent.

In the nearly forty years since a Braintree paymaster and

an equal number denied they were the men. As Police Chief

world has

important for future generations that the record of

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

be not distorted.

to

his

guard with the payroll were shot

many

seen
It

is

facts

There

to death, the

attempts to destroy the democratic way of

life.

exists a five-volume transcript of the trial of Sacco

me

who could
who could tell

to be drifting along, to strive to see

the biggest crowd. In other words to see

the

and Vanzetti, but few have the time to read, analyze, and
ponder it. At least, let the inaccuracies that have crept into

biggest lies."

the literature of the cause celebre be corrected. Let Justice

pick Sacco and Vanzetti from a line-up but were shown

Oliver Wendell Holmes, himself a Massachusetts man, a

them alone. Again, Mrs.

great jurist, one concerned in

and cognizant of the

trial,

be quoted. At the time, he could not properly speak pubthat has

He wrote: "I think the row

been made idiotical." And again: "Sacco and Van-

zetti

but he

licly,

left

the record.

trial,

was able

R.USsell replies:

but when her points are examined carefully

is

think

it is

unquestionable

one shown her by Captain Van Amburgh was from

one man

Sacco's pistol. Yet all witnesses testified that only

shot Berardelli, that this

his revolver into him.
delli's

body.

When

gives the impression that Vanzetti's ear-

was independent of the Dedham

trial.

Such

is

any crime until they were accidentally picked up by the

few weeks after the Braintree crime. Vanzetti's

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

tenable.

In the matter of the bullet,

that the

wrong about Orciani.

and Vanzetti, but as

counsel was afterward able to show a receipt for eels that

Mrs. Wayman may have seemed to make a good case for

none of them

is

provide a time-clock alibi he was released.

to

Wayman

trial

police

herself,

Wayman

were not asked to

not the case. Neither he nor Sacco had been suspected of

were turned into a text by the reds."

Dorothy G. Wayman

Mr.

procedure before the

irregular. Witnesses

arrested the day after Sacco

Mrs.
lier

to the identification

was most

it

He was
lie

As

get

man

Four

stood over
bullets

him and emptied

were found in Berar-

exhibited in court three of these were

quite true that anarchists

defense, just as

it

is

colleagues

to the

own

is

Communists found the

political ends.

One

on the Boston Globe, Frank

attended every day of the

it

over the land rallied to their

true that the

case convenient for their

Wayman's

all

Dedham

trial.

of Mrs.

P. Sibley,

Later he

testified

Lowell Committee: "His [Judge Thayer's] conduct

admittedly from a weapon not found on Sacco or Vanzetti.

was very improper. What affected one more than anything

The

fourth bullet was from a Colt of the type Sacco car-

else

ried.

Therefore either the murderer used two guns or

the record. In

someone switched a

bullet.

else

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

who

man

shot Berardelli was seen to reload. Four shells were

found near the body.

from a

When shown
gunman was

Colt. Yet the

in court only

one was

observed to reload only

once. Certainly he could not have ejected two kinds of

cartridges

to the witness

man

92

in

presume Mrs.

my

It is

nothing that you can read into

thirty-five

years I never saw anything

like it."

Mrs.

Wayman

should realize that a jury's verdict

is

not

Both Maine and Rhode Island abolished cappunishment after it was discovered that innocent men

sacrosanct.
ital

had been executed

in those states.

Four years ago

a Santos

Rodriguez was convicted by a Massachusetts jury of murder, a conviction aided by his

he was

finally

own

confession. Yet last year

proven innocent, and released.

Madeiros in his confession admitted that he was drunk

from one revolver.

By Lois Andrews

was his manner.

Wayman

is

referring

Lola R. Andrews. Lola Andrews talked with

South Braintree the day of the murders

whom

during the holdup. Some of the details he gave may be

wrong or

hazy, yet the confession does account for five

being at the robbery. Although

all

men

witnesses testified to the

five

men

including a blond driver, the prosecution

made no

lence as a gesture of protest against society, their motiva-

however misguided, have been

consistent attempt to account for the other three. Madeiros

tions,

was a member of the notorious Morelli gang of Providence.

which they have been willing

Governor Fuller and the Lowell Committee, Fuller

was a hesitant parvenu and President Lowell of Harvard

a sordid commercial crime as the one in South Braintree

had a hard Yankee

who

As

for

In conclusion

bias against foreigners.

should like to point out that though

anarchists have in the past committed acts of political vio-

The $24 Swindle

would never have come within

idealistic

ones for

Such

to sacrifice their lives.

the anarchist canon.

Anyone

reads the letters of Sacco and Vanzetti must realize

how

incompatible a robbery-murder was with the two men's

Francis Russell

characters.

CONTINUED FROM PACE 64

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
tate before starting

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 skybut 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 village named Werpoes, to replace the one they had left
behind, and everybody settled down and was happy.
Everybody was happy, that is, except the "Weckquaesgeeks. 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 nothing 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.

it, the Dutch had guns and they didn't,

and the only thing the Indians could do was sullenly

a fight about

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
try to

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 platoon 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
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

Dutch who were the

so badly that at

aggressors.

first it

(In

looked like the work of other

Indians. As a result, by 1664,

slipped in and quietly took

when

the British fleet

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 disastrously, 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

est

of any

Manhattan resident

inter-

in this im-

portant though little-known aspect of

past.

He is a

novelist, a playwright,

author of a book about

Benchley, a Biography.

his father,

its

and the
Robert

The "American Woodsman''

on with

No river valley on earth proand more tempting flyway than the

his gigantic task.

vides a broader

From

Mississippi's.

the Arctic barrens to the grassy

CONTINUED FROM PACE I5

and possibly none

since, has so perceptively

On March

25,

1821,

plains of Patagonia, feathered travelers are funneled

great white heron.

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

tically

through

this

the Gulf Coast; ivory-billed woodpeckers, the largest

and mightiest axemen of

with their clarinet-like
keets

their tribe, filling the

calls; flocks

and swallow-tailed

woods

of chattering para-

kites.

Audubon made

and

spir-

itedly caught the natural likenesses of his models.

trying to

Audubon

Two

make

started

work on a

days later he was

the bird

come

still

alive

paper, but the stench of the putrefying carcass

fran-

on his
had by

become overpowering. However, he braved

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
that time

nausea to open the bird for clues to

his head-

appetite, sometimes out of serious curiosity. Starlings

quarters in the lush green world of lower Louisiana,

and hermit thrushes he found "delicate eating," although the latter were fatty; herring gulls were too
salty for his taste; the flesh of flickers had a disagree-

For the next

six years

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-

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

when he was working on a
book about mammals, he found wildcat meat not unlike 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.
naturalists. Later in life,

cult to share.)

Occasionally he did well enough to help support his

family while he stubbornly proceeded with his essential

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 employment 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
its

brilliance faded.

plumage before
a measure of

The method gave

control to his draftsmanship, but

it

could have

re-

and artificial construcwas because Audubon's

sulted in the most mechanical

tions.

That

it

rarely did so

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
94

clear

enough. In

fact,

no bird

artist until then.

the abrupt, prokeenly Lucy may have

Howlonged,
and trying separations of the next ten
felt

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 believe in his destiny, the loneliness and renunciation of
those years must have been great indeed.

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 introduction to Sir Walter Scott, Lafayette, Baron von Humboldt, and other dignitaries. He had learned to a certainty that no one in America would publish his work,
It

but he was
that

still

was worth

it

full of his
all

purpose.

opinion.

With

conviction

work had been alinformed scientific or arformal training and less

a desperately lonely one. His field

most without reference

tistic

The

the years of dedication was often

to

little

professional guidance, he

had doggedly and unspar-

own criteria.
Audubon made an immediate impression on the
Old World. The lithe and handsome "woodsman,"

ingly set his

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

and scholarly circles abroad with the freshness

and wonder of the New World still upon him. At parlor 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 recorded 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

had

hand

for chess

and

billiards,

much

for

me

as

my Talent

for Painting."

America into the

social

the envy of sailors he shipped with.)

home he started referring to himself as the "American

woodsman," at first a bit self-consciously, then habitually, 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

He

and

was a Mason,

for

good meas-

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

He was

work were immediately recognized.

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 exhibited, 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 himself, 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 Audubon'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-

they were cast in adequately published form. So,

ure he could also knowingly discuss the books, drama,

til

and music of the London

with sublime temerity, Audubon commissioned a London engraver to start work and, without a publisher,

He

season.

played his part without

difficulty.

In his

letters

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

do anything for
Lucy five months after
the prospectus was issued. He drew trifles for the album of a Scotch lady, and he turned out careful copies
of his drawings, which he peddled among the picture

in order

to subsist, for that matter. "I

money now

a days," he wrote

dealers along the Strand or to such individual cus-

tomers as he could

attract.

(Where have

all

those pic-

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 moment from the awful reality of the debtors' prison.
In the meantime, armed with letters of introductures gone, he later wondered, as indeed

at the age of 57, Audubon settled down at "MinLand" "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,

In 1S42,
nie's

95

ason's ftcloTial

Drawing Room Companion, may

esti-

was away. In passing he would

own country (his fame had
crossed the Atlantic), and then resell the English delinquents 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 subscribers 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 reported, 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 prospectus, and, in a depression year, he was faced with

mated that during the four years it

had taken him to produce his first

commitments, or with the unthinkable alternative of

volume,

leaving his

scriptions while he

j^gather subscriptions in his

he scoured the countryside for

tion,

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 reproductions,

his

problems

financial

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 canceling
tions.

their

expensive

subscrip-

At one point Audubon

fifty

subscribers, represent-

ing lost payments of some

On

fifty-six

thousand dollars, had reneged.

if he neglected close supervision

the other hand,

balky subscribers

who

objected to

work incomplete. He

dubon alone could bring

and both

doing. In June, 1830, he wrote his engraver, "Should I

find the same complaints as I proceed from one large
to another through out England as I am now determined to do I must candidly tell you that I will

town

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

the drawings from which they were derived

most of

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 before the job was completed he returned to

America

to

replenish his portfolio, in spite of the cost in lost sub-

96

new

squeezed the
plates.

The whole operation had long since begun to demand far more energy, skill, and knowledge than Au-

of the reproductions,

hand coloring
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-

more expensive

finally

additional subjects into thirty-five

of the engravings of the plates and the

the

still

now

their sons,

to

in his lifetime.

it

capable

artists in their

Lucy

own

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 Publications. My Youngest Son draws Well Cdin you tell what
is his or mine's work in the last Drawings you saw?"
right,

Actually,

Audubon

himself never did

tell.

Here, as

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 acknowledgment given in the text. Another is Lucy's, although
elsewhere, he was by

hers

is

clearly indicated as such. In the press for time,

he brought his family and friends into the closest collaborationinto what he called his "Little Alliance."

"Can we not push the work

still

faster?"

he again

wrote Havell from America. "So much travelling exposure and fatigue do I undergo, that the Machine me
thinks is wearing out; and it would indeed be a pleas-

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-

ure for

as well as for
shells,

and

many

other services, such as selling skins,

insects to the British

Museum

for cash to

English and sound descriptive commentary on the

help meet the formidable weekly payroll of one hundred pounds. A scribbled note to Havell on one of the

birds.

drawings, of a crippled great black-backed gull, reads,

Victor in a fever of excitement, the manuscripts went

ground better." "Amend this rascally sky

and water," he wrote on another original; on still

on "increasing in bulk like the rising of a stream after

abundant rains." It was a prolific flow of words written

another he asked the engraver to supply "an old rotten

out by Audubon in his gushing prose; five solid volumes, averaging six hundred printed pages each, were

"finish this

The

stick."

entire setting of the great

auk and

of sev-

With Lucy's added

help,

Audubon wrote

his son

not a versatile artist and,

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-

compositions, usually depended

tivities.

eral other subjects are Havell's agreeable inventions.

Audubon

always had trouble with landscapes he was

when he used them in his

upon the efforts of
youthful artists who traveled

one or another of the

with him, or

To

Iclt

them

for Havell to supply.

expedite matters further,

Audubon not only ocown 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 individual blades of grass from other discarded compositions. "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."
really

mattered save that the work be

properly presented in the final printing, and

that

it

all

be finished before time ran out.

Audubon

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 instructed Victor. "It is their Habit but could not procure one yesterday and today it rains hard. Have the
edges of the little Grous (Young) softened in the Enreached in

graving";

all

directions for the help he

and, he added, have the plants properly

member

Linnaean Society. Drawand some of the insects that were reproduced on the finished plates were
supplied by the youngster Joe Mason, who accompanied Audubon clown the Ohio in 1820, and in later
years, at his urgent request, by Maria Martin, sister-inlaw and then wife of his naturalist friend, John Bachman. To Bachman he turned with ever-mounting insistence 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 Epiidentified by a

ings of

many

of the

of the plants, flowers,

All too aware of his deficiencies as a writer

could spare from writing, draw-

and sundry other concerns, Audubon spent beating 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,

and a

sci-

he hired William MacGillivray, a

Scotch naturalist, to turn his manuscripts into good

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

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 performance by adding a technical synher

subscription,

had

opsis of 370 more pages (largely engineered by MacGillivray) to the

giant folios of reproductions and

the

five

volumes of biographies.

And then, in 1839, he sailed

home for the last time. He had

for
suc-

cessfully concluded one of the most

improbable publishing ventures in
history. It had been his unique concept, his risk, and his total accomplishment. He ended up with some-

thing over 160 standing subscribers

(n8 had

sodes connected with Natural History."

entific naturalist,

moment he

ing,

casionally copied elements from his

Nothing

Every

fallen by the wayside over

hundred thousand

the years), grossing about two

lars in the total operation.

dol-

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

uralist!!!"

but here goes) a Great Nat-

it,

As the learned Baron Cuvier had exclaimed

when he saw

the

first

the most magnificent

finished plates, this was indeed

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

learned that he already planned to reissue

years earlier

The Birds

of

America, revised and in a smaller format, once the big

edition was completed, as well as to compile an entirely new book on North American mammals. By the
time he arrived in America, these projects had already

been put in

The

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

subscriptions,

train.

book quickly developed into a substantial operation, most of the management 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 rearranged. This octavo version was issued in one hundred separate parts, to be sold for one dollar a part.
"petite edition" of the Birds

expenses by painting portraits on the way.

his

it is

referred to the

On

easy to understand

little

his tireless

why he

gratefully

edition as the family's "Salvator."

rounds Audubon also took subscrip-

tionswith remarkable results for the work on animals, just under way, at three hundred dollars a

complete

maining

set.

He

also tried to

sets of the

Of

scribers to that work.

notorious

was

unload his very few

big Birds, and

without

dunned laggard

these, the

question

re-

sub-

most famous and

Daniel Webster,

whose subscription Audubon had exultantly reported

Audubon

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
himself spent a considerable

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 subscripfifteen

he could supply the parts. On April

1841, he wrote one of his agents from New York,
we have at this moment in this city and at Phila-

tions faster than

29,
".

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
up

the agents he

employed

to

help

him drum

trade were Dr. George Parkman, a friendly

fluential volunteer

who was murdered

in one of Harvard's most

and

in-

a few years later

gruesome and spectacular

and on a professional level Messrs. Little

and Brown, a new team of Boston booksellers, who apparently served him well. In any event, by the time he
scandals;

felt

obliged to write the above letter he already had at

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
least 1,475 orders for the plates;

98

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

.

once,

and said that he would attend to that business at

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

teed by Little

(plus,

however, a

work with payment guaranand Brown!). But he tracked his quarry

subscription for the

little

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 Audubon 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
as remorselessly as ever

in"

when Audubon returned

Senate lobby.

to his

office

the next

man finally ran him down in the

"He told me that he particularly wished

week, but the bird

to see

me on

later
I

Richmond!" Audubon
know not." A week

ray return from

entered in his journal.

he knew. "Mr.

"What

for I

W. would

willing to have one; but

give

me

was
and piece

a fat place

love indepenn

more than humbug and money!" In other words, apwould 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
parently, he

knowledge
this book is

to complete.

"Don't

flatter yourself

that

John Bachman warned him

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 determination was fixed on this new goal; as he wrote
Bachman, "My spirits are as enthusiastical as ever."
child's play,"

at the outset; "the birds are a

When

he was within reach of his drawing papers he

worked on them from daylight to bedtime. He dispatched his son John first to the wilds of the Southwest, then to the zoos and museums of Europe to
record specimens he himself had no hope of collecting
or examining. The indispensable Bachman was commandeered 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 running out. Yet in 1843, with a

final burst of his incredi-

on
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 abundance to collect, new varieties that he had missed earlier, 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
ble energy, the toothless, grizzled veteran took off

an expedition

to gather

Audubon was determined to put down in his

second great book of discovery. The great auk had alwild

life

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."
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
It

was too

late for his

September 28, 1843, "^^ 'his evening I missed my footing 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

man" completed about one half the drawings

the "old

mammals book;
He had done what he

that were to be reproduced in the

then he laid

down

could in

and

deeply

life

felt

his brushes.

this

was an end

to

it.

As

if

by some

persuasion, he released himself from further

care by slipping into a benign, helpless senescence.

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 finished 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.

For

When Audubon

died in 1851,

full of

honors, the

first

and a
was on the

edition of the animals book was not yet finished,

whole

series of reprintings of

both

titles

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 idiosyncrasy 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 neighborhood 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
sell

had previously sustained," was obliged

to

the original drawings to alleviate her "absolute

need." (The New-York Historical Society consummated the purchase by raising four thousand dollars

through public subscription.)

est asset

The

"Alliance's" great-

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
may have

popular audience. For

all

the carnage

it

involved, in the end and under the circum-

stances, this

was conservation in

its

most

realistic

and

empirical form.

member of the Advisory Board of

editor of publications at the Metroof Art and author of Life in America.

Marshall B. Davidson, a

American Heritage,
politan

Museum

is

99

The Boodling Boss and the Musical Mayor

CONTINUED FROM PACE

few blocks to their

One day

home

in 1907, after

in

the Palace Hotel.

two plots

him had
by an anonymous
to kill

Older was lured into a trap

call promising him "important information" if he would come to the Savoy Hotel on Van
Ness Avenue. He could not resist the invitation, although 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, confused 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 obtained 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 Railroads; 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 accompanying car, Older recognized several employees of
the United Railroads. By now he was really frightened, 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."
misfired,

telephone

Older's

life

ment.
technically

was saved by an extraordinary developthey were

The Los Angeles men, since

court officers, made no attempt

to conceal

and took him into the

dining car for dinner. A young San Francisco attorney
happened to be on the same train, thought he recognized Older, and grew curious as to why he was traveling with such odd companions. When one of the Los
Older's presence

on the

train,

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

San Francisco
Spreckels,

100

Call,

owned by

who was working

office of

the brother of

the

Rudolph

with the graft prosecution.

"Is

Fremont Older missing, by any chance?"

the at-

torney asked.

"My God,

came

yes,"

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
to kill Older.

state's

Of

evidence and admitted the plot

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 presumably influenced by Ruef.
By 1905, Older and those working with him had realized that the grafters controlled nearly all the machinery of justice so completely that outside help

would be

and that this would be very exprominent and wealthy citizens sympathized with Older and were helping him as much as
possible. One was James D. Phelan, a millionaire businessman (and afterward United States senator) who
had given San Francisco an honest and efficient government 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 tremendous self-confidence, a bitter-end fighter, and a combined 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 President Theodore Roosevelt to have Heney lent to the
pensive.

necessary,

Two

San Franciscans

as

soon as the Oregon cases were conhome town, Heney gave his

cluded. Since this was his

was to last several

brought with him William J. Burns, a depay for a

services without
years.

tective

He
who had made

fight that

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 earthquake 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 unexpectedly turned out to be honest, and had co-operated
with the prosecution by appointing Heney as an assistant district attorney. Ruef responded by ordering
Mayor Schmitz to dismiss Langdon and replace him by
none other than Ruef himselfl The prosecution succeeded 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 distributed many thousands of free copies throughout the
city. The paper invited honest residents of San Francisco 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 suspicion 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,

had reasons to dislike
the power of Older and Heney.

joint owners of a skating rink,

Ruef and

to respect

They now approached

help,

and

a trap

was

the prosecution with offers to

set for

some

of the dishonest

supervisors.

The prosecution prepared an ordinance that would

have crippled the operations of the skating rink by forbidding 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

and while Burns and two

office

of the skating rink,

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 stenographer, 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, including the supervisors. Such offers were not legally
binding on the courts, but judges usually respected

them. With the damaging evidence against the supervisors

who had

taken the

money

in the skating-rink

and with promises of immunity to their colleagues, 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
affair,

Schmitz were promptly indicted for mulcting the

French "restaurants."

Both men

exhausted every legal avenue to avoid

it as long as possible. When
Ruef's case came up, he did not appear in court, apparently believing that through a legal technicality he
trial,

or to postpone

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

Ruef immunity

fered

time the

little

if

men

he would

higher up,
confess.

now

of-

For a long

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 remarked 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 sayhe was found
and sentenced to prison. Before this, the ques-

guilty
tion
all

had arisen as to whether the supervisors, nearly

whom had now confessed to accepting bribes.

of

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

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-

Supervisors was "the best in America": they did not

istered in the actions in the courts. Tirey L. Ford,

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

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-

mayor's

visor; there

dare

temporarily.

office

As Heney began

to tighten the noose

who were behind

businessmen

den turn appeared

the "best people"

now Heney's

the corruption, a sud-

in San Francisco public opinion.

men from

long as the quarry had been

strata,

on the big

had

As

the lower social

heartily approved; but

detectives were getting close to important

and the prosecution quickly became highly

unpopular. Western rough-and-tumble mores still precitizens,

vailed; the businessmen

men and

who were

quitted. (Each trial was for bribing a different super-

self-made

were so many of these cases that the prose-

cution could have gone on for years.)

courts

of

the state,

deeply respectful of

many

men

of

The

higher

whose members were

of property, also conspicu-

ously sided against the prosecution.

of appeals soon freed Schmitz,

The

district court

on astonishing grounds:

he was not guilty of extortion, it said, because the

French "restaurants" were undoubtedly houses of pros-

accused were, after

community. As
members, they still thought of Schmitz
as their spokesman. Since Ruef was a Jew, the prosecution was accused of anti-Semitism; since Patrick Calhoun, 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 Episcopal Church, and Heney and Older were attacked for
all,

who

leaders of the

ATO.NEMENT

for trade-union

prejudice against that institution.

Those

allied with the prosecution

were subjected to
Big advertisers withdrew from Older's Bulletin, and wealthy depositors
took their money out of Rudolph Spreckels' First National Bank. The foreman of the honest grand jury,

pressure both subtle

and

direct.

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,

Heney.)

as did

while under indictment, was asked to a

dinner at the fashionable Olympic Club, where
he was warmly applauded and asked to make a speech;

Calhoun,

when one

of the oldest members of the club. Dr.

Charles A. Clinton, protested, he was expelled and

Calhoun was

Fremont Older
"Members of the prose-

elected in his place. Mrs.

described the social ostracism:

cution were not bidden to entertainments where people of fashion gathered

[where] women reserved
.

their

sweetest

prison

smiles

for

the

candidates

for

state's

[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
I myself

102

of its staff worked under a tremendous strain;

saw plenty of evidence of this. Many reporters

This San Francisco Examiner cartoon of May 16, igoj, shows

offering up to Justice the heads of some of the powerful

Ruef

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.

titution,

and

their licenses could properly

revoked; to threaten to do a legal act

have been

Ruef

go, or

would

disagree, as

had happened

in almost

not extortion.

every other case growing out of the graft prosecution.

supreme court upheld this remarkable argument 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 Francisco, or that Ruef was a political boss!
In this atmosphere of mounting community disapproval, 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 August 27 until November 6, and used up a panel of almost fifteen hundred talesmen.
While examining prospective jurors Heney had publicly revealed the fact that one man on the panel, Morris 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 approached Heney in the courtroom, whipped out a revolver, 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 produced 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 beside 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 police 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-

While the jury was out Heney telephoned Older to

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 moment's notice. Older now hastily sent word to dozens
of these men, who came and crowded into the courtroom, which was directly under the chamber in which

The

is

state

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 summation Johnson called each of them by name, pointed a
forefinger at him, and shouted: "You you dare not acquit this mani" Nevertheless, when the jury retired for
its deliberations everyone expected that it would let

say that

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

The rest of the crowd joined

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.
trumpeted
in.

It

But

like a bull elephant.

their verdict

was "Guilty," and Ruef was

tenced to fourteen years in prison. Of

meted out

all

sen-

the sentences

whole course of the

was the only one that was made to stick.
Another municipal election was approaching, and
Langdon, the weary and battered district attorney, refused to run again. He was discouraged, with good
reason: a key witness, the supervisor who had paid off
to leading figures in the

prosecution,

his fellows

it

behalf, had fled the country. In

Heney himself ran for district attorney,

on Ruef's

desperation,

and was defeated by a football hero from Stanford

M. Fickert, whose liaison with the

University, Charles
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 wherewho had fled, although every-

abouts of the supervisor

knew that he was rusticating in Vancouver,

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 overruled by the court of appeals, which decided that all of
the large number of remaining indictments should be

one

else

British

quashed.

The
most

Or

graft prosecution

total failure,

so

it

than any

was over, having ended in

al-

with only Ruef in prison.

seemed. But the future was in fact brighter

of Older's group could have dared to

member

103

hope. Even in the middle of the fight, a new mayor

had been elected, Dr. Edward Robeson Taylor, who

no one in a posipower shared his new-found Tolstoian attitude,

and Ruef was not paroled until he had served a full
in the Bulletin for Ruef's release, but

tion of

was not only a leading physician but a leading attorney 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 thieving. 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 toward crime. Hiram Johnson had become a hero by taking Heney's place; he now ran for governor, with the
blessing of Older and his friends, on a platform of

half of his "net" sentence of nine years (after deduc-

good behavior and for time in prison awaitHis 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
tions for

ing

perjured witness to send

Tom Mooney

to prison,

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 accepted a bribe of $410,000 a few years earlier in an
important case involving the estate of a wealthy Californian, James G. Fair. Patrick Calhoun lost his fortune in land speculation, though many years later he
partially recouped his losses in another city. Ruef, released 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 several successive terms on the Board of Supervisors!

and

"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 organizations that were not above stooping to corruption.

Johnson was overwhelmingly elected governor, and

from that office to the
United States Senate. As governor he put through a

re-elected four years later, going

series of reforms,

trial).

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 perhaps 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

his career

Bruce Bliven served under Fremont Older on the San Francisco Bulletin during the prosecution of Ruef and Schmitz.

For many years an editor of the

New

is

shown

me

now

Republic, he

lecturer at Stanford University.

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

MODEL
FOR CORRECT ACCEPTANCE
OF A
PROPOSAL

Sir:

The

attentions which you have so long

have not escaped

exclusively to

my

me?

notice; indeed
.

and

how could

so assiduously

they, since they

I admit the truth, that pleased

and

to

were directed

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 acknowledged 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

ill

the near future before gales

and

frost

would come

to the relief of the French.

Faced with an enemy strongly entrenched in a posicommanded the approach to Quebec, Wolfe's
problem was to lure him out of his fastness. The only
tion that

way

of doing this was to bait a trap.

who had

To

this

end Wolfe

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

CONTINUED FROM PACE Jl

heavy British bombardment from Pointe Levi, and anchored 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 between the city and Cap Rouge. \Volfe at once reconnoitered 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

feared most was, that

if

we

the north shore, just below the falls of the Montmorency River. This dispersion of his force has been much

should have landed between the town and

Cap Rouge the body first landed could not be rein-

by military historians. But the objections,

while in accord with abstract theory, tend to overlook

army."

the actual circumstances.

critics

criticized

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 portion if engaged. His troop distribution gave him the
power of siuprise by keeping Montcalm in uncertainty 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

troops in any engagement on their

own ground a

own
con-

which was abundantly justified gave him

curity that any part that was attacked could hold
fidence

own

seits

for the time until reinforcements crossed the river.

This understanding of Wolfe's object and the conditions sheds light on Townshend's statement, and complaint, 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

tainly would not venture against an enemy visibly

cer-

in a

strongly fortified position.

Far from Wolfe being in danger, neither this bait

nor the gradual destruction of the city by bombardment 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 cannot 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 compelled their retreat.

The

next British

move was

a naval one.

On

the

and some smaller vessels

slipped past the guns of Quebec, under cover of a

night of July

18,

a frigate

the river of

forced before they were attacked by the enemy's whole

A landing still higher up

the river,

which some

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 dangerous 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 Quebecgrazing the middle.

and Wolfe felt

some daring measure to draw out the
French, if he could find one less desperate than a landing 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

But

the weeks were slipping by,

bound

the

falls,

to try

a 250-foot drop, just before entering the St.

Lawrence. Wolfe had tried in vain to discover a practicable 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 detached redoubt, to tempt the French army down to
regain it, and so bring on a battle in the open. Meanwhile, the other two brigades were to be ready to join
him by fording the lower reaches of the Montmorency,

where

On

it can be waded.
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

confuse

the

rowed up and down, both to

to enable Wolfe to sight

enemy and

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

tion with success

his surgeon, "I

my

may be
I shall

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."

try

Neither in his frank dispatches to Pitt nor to his

troops did Wolfe

show any

loss of heart,

but his

last

mother, on August 31, reveals his declining hope and his feeling that he was on the verge of
professional ruin: "The enemy puts nothing to risk,

letter to his

whole army

and

My

antagonist has wisely shut himself

can't in conscience, put the

sible entrenchments, so that I can't get

spilling a torrent of blood,

Then he went on

to risk.

up in inaccesat him without

and that perhaps

to little

approve entirely
of my father's disposition of his affairs, though perhaps 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 presumppurpose."

to say: "I

^If^jL^

/tcrm^^'^

"MK^i

know

to survive inevitable jealousy.

fell ill in

body, but saying to

perfectly well

you cannot cure

complaint," he demanded: "Patch

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 muskets

if it is

Dejected in mind, he

able to do

my

me up

so that I

duty for the next few days, and

be content."

He hadhadbeen
he

laid

low on August

19,

initiated a "starvation"

but before

this

campaign against

the French, sending detachments to lay waste the coun-

around, although he gave

women and

strict

orders for the good

More important
main supplies, which
came downstream from Montreal. For weeks, more and
more British ships had slipped past the guns of Quebec, 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
treatment of

still

was a move

children.

to cut off their

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

the

move, suggesting three possible variations of

Montmorency

and the

plan.

Murray had now returned,

proposed instead "to carry the

operations above the town," and try to "establish ourselves on the north shore" but without any detailed
three, in reply,

-u-^sA.

lijj

KO tXUUCY

TO

C/s.PTl-W-,S

MEt'OBE QlTEBECK

how and where it was to be done.

know,
had conceived this idea before,
Wolfe, as we
abandoned
it. But now the situation
reluctantly
and
had got so many of his
because
he
both
was modified,
suggestions as to

ships upriver and because, after the Montmorency

plan had failed, a gamble was more justified-and in-

be

left in

charge of the troops on the south shore, and

on the eleventh he issued

warning order

barkation of the troops the next night.

On

for the

em-

the twelfth

he issued his orders for the attack, ending on the note,

"The officers and men will remember what their coun-

them ... [to be] resolute in the execuduty" the germ of Nelson's message at
Trafalgar. That evening, in his cabin on H.M.S. Sutherland, Wolfe sent for his old schoolfellow, John
Jervis later famous as Earl St. Vincent, but then commanding a sloop and handed over his will, together
try expects of

tion of their

evitable.

September 3 Wolfe evacuated the Montmorency

camp, and on the fifth, after concentrating his forces
on the south shore, he marched the bulk, some thirtysix hundred men, overland up the river bank, and embarked them in the ships. Montcalm thereupon reinforced Bougainville, who was at Cap Rouge, with
another fifteen hundred men, although feeling confident 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 countermarching, 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

On

posted there only a small picket.

Wolfe's choice was made, but he kept

it

secret until

On

September 10 he informed
Colonel Burton of the Forty-eighth Foot, who was to
the eve of the venture.

Gibes from the Officers"*

with a miniature of his promised bride, Catherine

Lowther, with instructions to return it to her in the
event of his death.

main
drew out along the shore opposite Montcalm's
camp below Quebec, and, lowering the boats to suggest a landing, opened a violent fire. This ruse fulfilled
its purpose of fixing the enemy, for Montcalm concentrated his troops at Beauport and kept them under
arms during the night miles away from the real danger point. While the French were straining their eyes
Just before sunset. Admiral Saunders with the

fleet

to detect the threatened landing, a single lantern rose

maintop of the Sutherland, upriver, and sixteen

hundred troops of the first division noiselessly embarked 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
to the

boats leading. Discovery was narrowly averted

French-speaking British

officer

when

twice replied to a sen-

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 barracks-room humor, and they were most displeasing to Wolfe.

around a

once saw one of

for proper fortifications, he

stickler

Townshend's

sketches

brothel. "If

showing

we

live,"

him

building

trenches

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
near

left in

a conversation between Wolfe

Isaac Barre. Wolfe's fastidiousness,

and

and

at

his adjutant,

his frazzled nerves,

made fun of at right, where he is pictured urgFrenchman to dig a latrine to a ridiculous depth.

are also

ing a

/i^uv yc^^n^

riaXti^t

'-V

try's

challenge from the shore his deception being

ley,

repeated

it,

and then, on Wolfe's

helped by the

fact, of which two deserters had informed Wolfe, that the enemy was expecting a con-

foe already disintegrating.

voy of provisions.

inevitable target.

The landing was safely made at the Foiilon covenow called Wolfe's Cove. A band of picked volunteers

ond

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, reinforced by another twelve hundred troops under Colonel 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 confidence 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

and Wolfe's appearance on the Plains of Abraham, close to the city, was a
moral challenge an opponent could hardly decline.
as well as the material elements,

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, commanded 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 Montcalm attacked before his whole force was on the spotprobably because a large part of it was pinned by
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
fear of the threatened landing

Wolfe's instructions that "a cool well levelled

much more

fire is

and formidable than the quickfire

confusion."
He
himself was shot through the
est
in
handkerchief
round it, continued
wrist, but, wrapping a
fire.
men
to
hold
their
At last, when the
his calls to the
barely
forty
yards
distant,
the word was
French were
delivered
shattering
given, and the British line
a
vol-

108

destructive

At the head

signal,

of his picked grenadiers

charged a

Wolfe was an

bullet penetrated his groin, a sec-

and he fell, unobserved by the charging

Only an officer and two others, soon joined by
an artillery officer, saw what happened, and began to
his lungs,

ranks.

him

carry

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,

had

fallen wounded, and the comTownshend, 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

mand

too,

thus passed to

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 Montcalm 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 Montcalm to complete as dramatic a battle as history recordsand Townshend's energetic pressing of the siege,

Quebec surrendered four days

The

fall

later.

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

lowing April. Murray,

against

who had been

Quebec

left in

the fol-

command

moved out to meet them, and by unadvancing

too far got his troops and guns
wisely
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 retreated 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.
of the garrison,

Henry Liddell Hart is a former British army officer and

who has written some thirty books on military
science and history and is an internationally known expert
Basil

journalist

in those fields.

U^hen Congress Tried

to

from organized 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 President 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

Here was

in his weakness.

a President cut off

Rule

CONTINUED FROM PACE 6

remaining accusations in the wordy Articles of Impeachment, they consisted of little more
than the allegation that Johnson had exercised his
constitutional powers as Commander in Chief although Congress had passed a law forbidding him to
do so, along with the assertion that, at divers times and

As

for the

places, the President

had delivered speeches

tasteful nature "in a

loud voice." So niggling were

of these charges that

midway

Congress could oust a President because he

agreed with them, what was to prevent future Con-

Butler

from ousting other Presidents for the same

The result was bound to be a gradual erosion
of the federal system and its replacement by something

dent's

akin to the parliamentary system of Great Britain, a

system in which Congress would rule supreme with

setts abolitionist,

dis-

this

gresses

reason?

the executive and, in time, the judiciary as satellites.

I

the

submit that therein

impeachment

of 1865, the Civil

trial.

War

lies

the major significance of

At Appomattox,
bled to

its

close.

in the spring

In the red and

Massachusetts,

of

in the trial

chief

most implacable

foes,

all

Benjamin

prosecutor

House impeachment managers and one

of a dis-

for

F.

the

of the Presi-

confessed that as a lawyer

he would give anything to be on the other side of the

But Charles Sumner, the ponderous Massachu-

case.

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.

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

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 Cabinet, the Senate refused its consent. Johnson persisted
because of Stanton's failure to co-operate with the Administration 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

moment, a gradual return

March

then, the trial was political.

Clearly,

Abundant

evi-

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
dence that

to

it

Reconstruction. In spirit Johnson's plan

initiate

with ideas that Lincoln had endorsed. He

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 organization. He let it be imderstood that, in the eyes of

was in

line

recognized the loyal governments

llarpCT's

II

30, 1868.

The Tenure

of Office Act was unconstitutional, as

Supreme Court would, many years later, declare.

Even so, many of the best legal minds of the day went

the

along with Johnson's claim that his dismissal of Stanton 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 appointed him. And Johnson had not appointed Stanton.

On March

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

process,

provided

slavery within

its

completed

it

simultaneously

that

it

this

abolished

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 convened on December 4, 1865, nine of the eleven Southern states all but Texas and Florida had fulfilled
the President's requirements, with one or two minor

and had named senators and representa-

deviations,
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
Congress did not, and of the elements be-

this point.

hind

its

refusal,

One was

two were large with future mischief.

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

commonly held

F.

Wade

objective that enabled

fact that

like all

power
and injured dignity. For four years the legbranch had deferred to the executive. The

diately after a war, was suffering the pangs of

deficiency
islative

Thirty-ninth Congress was determined to reassert

itself.

Notwithstanding these divisive influences, the lineup in the Congress was not such as to make a break
with the Executive inevitable. The Radicals controlled the House, but in the Senate the balance of
power lay with perhaps a dozen Republican moderates 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
evidence of their willingness to
extend the blessings of the Bill of Rights to some four
million newly freed Negroes.
states give concrete

Had Johnson

seen

fit

to

make

concessions in this

The

direction, thus inviting the support of the moderates,

to present

he might have triumphed, but he would not; he be-

of Ohio.

them

other important element was the

the
The
Thirty-ninth,
Congresses convening imme-

a solid front was their determination to preserve a

lieved that the extension of civil

Republican hegemony in Congress. Obviously the

President's Reconstruction program was a threat to
this, for immediate seating of the Southern representatives would reduce the nominal Republican majority 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 distinguished their thinking from that of the more statesmanlike Republican moderates.

the Negroes was a state matter and that the federal

Harper's Weekly, march 28,_i868

and

political rights to

government should refrain from interfering at least

until such time as the South was once more fully represented in Congress. Even without making any concessions he might have salvaged a part of his program
had the Radicals not been led by Thad Stevens, a political strategist of unique abilities. Johnson made no concessions 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
was

this point on, the real issue ceased to

to control

The

be

who

Reconstruction, the Congress or the

had become who was to control

December of 1865 the mood of
Congress was merely aggressive. A year later it had become conspiratorial.
Executive.

issue

the government. In

Johnson's enemies tried to justify their course by

accusing

him

of conspiracy.

The

found Congressman George

S.

closing days of 1866

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

and horrible imaginings.

according to Boutwell's Reminis-

ears a tale rife with alarums

The

Secretary,

cences, said

the

Army

that the President

had issued orders

to

"of which neither he nor General [of the

Army] Grant had any knowledge." He "apprehended

On March

7 George T.

served Johnson with a

Brown, Senate sergeant

summons

the President promised he

110

for the

trial.

"would attend

at arms,

Accepting

it,

to the matter."

an attempt by the President to reorganize the government by the assembling of a Congress in which members of the seceding states and Democratic members

from the North might obtain control through the aid

of the Executive." Boutwell agreed witii Stanton that

must be limited. Then and

under Stanton's dictation, he drafted a measure
making it a "misdemeanor for the President to transmit 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 assign him to duty outside the capital without the advice and consent of the Senate.
This flagrant attempt to strip Johnson of his prerogatives 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 legislature as "the sovereign power of the country" and
thundering that "though the President is Commanderin-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 erstwhile moderates who had seen the light and reformed
"The executive department of a republic like ours,'

commentators. Roscoe Pound and Charles H. Mcllwain have detected in its attitudes similarities to those

the President's powers

of the British

there,

Charles

Senator Sherman would write

later,

in

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 powapplied

its

chisel also to the

foundations of the Supreme Court. In the first of the

four acts embodying the congressional plan of Reconstruction,

made

the judiciary both federal

Parliament, which in 1649 sent

and proclaimed the Com-

monwealth a "unitary state" with the supreme power

vested in the Parliament "of this nation." The British
political scientist

Harold

Laski has found the

J.

ac-

tions of the post-bellum Senate "inexplicable except

upon

the assumption that

was determined

it

to

make

no more than its creature." An even

more pointed observation comes from another British
student of American government, D. VV. Brogan. Notthe President

Harper's Weekly, APRIL

On March

ii,

1868

30 members of the House, led by Stevens with his

chamber for the trial's opening.

cane, arrived at the Senate

summation

"should be subordinate to the legislative department

ers of the Executive. It

Rump

to the scaffold

and local was

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-scalawag rule that Congress had imposed upon the South.

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, Brogan 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.

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
Congress had no such chance.

pendulum swung

The

fact that

in the other direction.

Johnson was acquitted by only one

vote imparted breathless

the trial on

May

26,

but

drama
it

to the closing hours of

cannot be taken as a meas-

of the Reconstruction Congicss has not

ure of prevailing sentiment at the time. Three months

later, in a letter to an intimate, Johnson was contend-

gone unobserved on the part of twentieth-century

ing that the vote was "not so close as most people

The mood

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-

William Sprague of Rhode Island and Waitman

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
would practically have revolutionconsiderations
ized our splendid political fabric into a partisan congressional autocracy." During the summer of 1868
ators,

Thomas Willey

among

Fessenden, perhaps the clearest thinker

Republicans
that to

who had supported

remove

those

Johnson, was writing

United States

a President of the

for

merely political reasons "would be to shake the faith

of the friends of constitutional liberty in the perma." Within weeks
nency of our free institutions.
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 diffrom 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 contrary, 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 government shifted from a federal to a parliamentary base?

ferent

form of government were in the air while the governitself was still an embryo. In the course of the
federal convention during the summer of 1787 Roger

ment

Sherman of Connecticut advocated a constitution that

would make the legislature "the depository of the supreme will of the society." And at that same memorable meeting in Philadelphia Alexander Hamilton declared that "the British government was the best in the

world: and that he doubted

short of

it

would do

Since the days

jealous of

its

much whether any

thing

in America."

when

the thirteen colonies, each so

sovereignty, got together to fight the lob-

American people have exhibited a

genius to maintain widely divergent
viewpoints in normal times, but to unite and agree in

sterbacks,

the

tendency a

One

times of

stress.

vived

is

that

Most

of the time the three co-equal divisions of the

it

reason the federal system has sur-

has demonstrated this same tendency.

general government tend to compete. In crises they

tend to co-operate.

And

not only during a war.

sin-

gular instance of co-operation took place in the opening days of the

when

Roosevelt,

and

legislature

first

administration of Franklin D.

the harmonious efforts of Executive

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 capacity of both people and government to shift from
competition to co-operation and back again as circumstances warrant suggests that the federal system
will be found equal to the very real dangers of the
present world situation.
the Congress of 1868, one of the charges against

InAndrew

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

government of

upon the impeachment proceedings solely as an attack

on him personally. As he made clear in numerous

separated powers, of checks and balances, point out

statements, he realized that he was not standing alone

considerable literature has addressed

question.

that

it is

Many
also a

Thoughtful
the day
the

critics of a federalist

government

of delays

itself to this

and deadlocks.

men Laski among them have

when

these characteristics

American government when

the swiftly arising crises of

jection frequently voiced

may prove

foreseen
fatal to

must meet and solve

our own era. Another ob-

is

it

and

in

effect

thwart the will of the people.

While such

criticisms have
is

been coming thicker and

nothing new about them.

Doubts concerning the workability of the American

112

United States Senate. Standing beside

all of the other devoutly remembered

our federal system of government.

dolph, and
chitects of

ar-

that the federal system

tends to block needed social reforms

faster in recent years, there

at the bar of the

him, faint shades in the sparkle of the chandeliers,

were Washington and Madison, Franklin and Ran-

Milton Lomask of Weston, Connecticut, autlior of a score of

biographies and novels, is an instructor in the
]Vriting Center at New York University. He has recently

juvenile

completed Andrew Johnson: President on Trial, to be

published next year by Farrar, Straus and Cudahy.

READING, WRITING, AND HISTORY

By

What War
If

the

BRUCE CATTON

study of military history teaches anything

it

turns loose social forces that get completely

out of hand.

It

means profound change.

For war disrupts the ground on which people were

when

up arms.

they took

r/uo which one side or the other,

itself to

matums were exchanged

ian powers all
to the generals.

From

the

moment

the ulti-

August of 1914, the civilacross Europe turned everything over

To

in

a very large extent, the generals

be fighting to preserve.

The Great War,

if

not both, believes

The

very process of
is

ever go-

ing to be the same again.

$5.95.

fit, with a minimum of interference

by emperor, king, prime minister, or parliament. Here
was a soldiers' fight. How did the soldiers do?

acted as they saw

Mr.

This bears with especial weight on the military

themselves, for they are the

1914-1918, by Cyril Falls. G. P.

Putnam's Sons. 447 pp.

It erases the status

fighting creates the certainty that nothing

men

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

of the soldiers themselves.

brings results that were neither fore-

seen nor desired. It

standing

in

tence, striving earnestly to

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

way

which professional soldiers of high compedo 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
the

Destroys

be invisible to them. By their training, they

Falls,

taking the narrowest of purely military

viewpoints, considers that a good

very well indeed.
believes,

The two

many

of

them did

great captains of 1918, he

were the French Foch and the British Haig.

They had

military

skill,

great qualities of leadership,

indomitable will power: "Both were men of imconquerable souls." Ranking closely behind them he puts
the

German Ludendorif, although he

confesses that

tend to be the most conservative of living mortals; in

Ludendorff was

wartime, without in the

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

to

least realizing

become the world's most

it,

they are apt

ruthless radicals.

is brought to mind by a reading of Cyril

meaty book, The Great War. Mr. Falls, a British military critic, undertakes to examine the generalship of the leading soldiers in the First World War,
and his book can be taken as a classic case history of

All of this

Falls's

"without their virtues of character."

foffre receives better

113

and the campaigns

in

played their parts.

He

scene that

which these and other generals

is

dealing, of course, with a

a little too big for

is

First

World War was

sion,

and

pages

calls for

to describe

any single book.

The

a stupendous, sprawling convulin fewer than five

it

more compression than

the

hundred

traffic

ought

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

man was

for.

In his

own

what we can now

to be asked to bear. Nevertheless, within limits, this

way, each

book does what

call the pre- 19 14 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

ful,

it

tries to do; it offers a solid,

informed analysis of the war in

thought-

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 society that had room for a Russian empire, an Austro-

Hungarian empire,

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 happened. 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 empire could have countenanced. The Russian empirewell, 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
ists

and a second war, and

today in divided fragments which disturb

peace of

all

mankind by

ex-

fell

most inconceivable price. They made unendurdemands 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 Verdun, a Masurian Lakes, a Passchendaele, and a Caporetto 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
at the

ably excessive

remarks, that this would involve "a correct calculation

needed to obtain it." But

was beyond most of them. Thinking only of victory, they could not think of what victory might cost.
So the war went on and on, destroying lives, the accumulated riches of the past, habits of thought, social
organizations and in the end the soldiers, who imagined 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 itself 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.
of the extent of the victory
this

their separate existence. Italy

Excess of Caution

into the position of a second-

power, alive today by sufferance and the aid of

the British empire, which
Sir Douglas Haig fought so hard to maintain? Sir
Douglas assuredly would not recognize it, and would
class

many non-Frenchmen. And

not want to recognize it, as it is today.

In plain language, these professional soldiers, trained

114

captains they assuredly were not. They could see nothing but victory, and they were willing to buy victory

the

got Mussolini, humiliation, and an existence as a vacation spot. France

trying to preserve

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

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 consenting 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

advantage of the opportunities was lacking.

French generals "did not fight"; and although

The
invit-

ing chances for counterattack were offered, "in actual

fact

no one

during Hitler's

to counterattack."

was a complicated

defeat, of course,

business. In part

among

wanted

really

The French

came out

it

rise to

of political mistakes

made

power, out of general confusion

the soldiers regarding

what the government

really wanted, out of tactical blunders in the field, out

on
main Colonel

of the decision to surrender rather than to carry

the

war from North

Goutard's

verdict

Africa.

holds:

But

in the

"Fundamentally,

our

more to our conservatism of outlook

and our unrealistic and preconceived ideas than to any

defeat was due

military weakness inherent in our nation."

The

whom much had

was expected, had

soldiers, in other words, to

been given and of

whom much

learned their lessons wrong. In the olden days this

The

by Colonel A.
Goutard, with a foreword by Captain B. H.
Liddell Hart. Ives Washburn, Inc. 280 pp. $4.
of

Battle

France,

1940,

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 admitted, "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 until this,

real

or the other circumstance would

that,

show of

make a

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-

our High Command. The tactical surwas because our ideas were inherited from 1918,

prise against
prise

as against the

German

lightning war."

had learned something one

lesson

ently to be blunted) being that a

(its

The Germans

sharp edge pres-

modern war, what-

had better be short if the people who

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 insists, was not because France was overmatched. Once
the German offensive began, there were plenty of opever else

it

have made

does,

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 happened 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,

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 utparted

most intensity of which they are capable, the soldier's

war begins has a weight of terrifying proportions. All-out war is revolutionary war, even
though no one means it that way. When we begin a

responsibility once

war we

invite the future to change.

it

portunities to restore the balance.

The

will to take

T/ie

Great Incalculable

Perhaps

it is

difference. Everything that a nation has

the struggle.

makes the

the intensity of the fight that

New

powers

are developed,

is

new

put into

forces are

115

let loose,

and

new

and
Beyond

capacities are discovered

exploited,

permanent
on working;

either vic-

these have a

effect.

becomes impossible for the warring nation to go back to its prewar

status simply because the effort of fighting the war has
tory or defeat they go

it

destroyed that status forever.

The

example of this is, of course, that hardy

modern book lists, the American Civil
War, and Allan Nevins examines the process in an
classic

perennial of the

new book. The War for the Union. He subtitles his book "The Improvised War," and he is
chiefly concerned here with how the improvisation
excellent

took place and what

it

finally led to.

ever two peoples were unprepared for war, the

If

peoples of the North and the South were unprepared

They had

to make the war up as they went

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. Problems of finance and equipment had to be solved catchas-catch-can; armies had to be whistled into existence

in 1861.

and

along,

in the

according to the obsolete military tradition of the

which meant that

time,

in matters of discipline

and

training they were almost entirely out from under central

had

control; generals

to

be created out of any

material that came to hand, and strategic planning

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
all

to the old level of small enterprises pettily pursued.

Behind the

for the Union:

The Improvised War,

1861-1862, by Allan Nevins. Charles Scribner's

Sons. 436 pp. $7.50.

(where

it

all) was a singular blend of politiand dimly understood military prin-

existed at

cal considerations
ciples, carried

out by

officers

who

in

many

cases tried

Had some
summer

ently indecisive. In the East, the

is

appar-

Union government
Run; in the

suffered the disgraceful setback of Bull

West,

it

had the equally humiliating setback of WilOnly in West Virginia, in Kentucky, and

son's Creek.

at isolated spots

along the Atlantic seacoast did the

in non-political fields. Bull

many

of the organic functions of society.

and the major revoluand instructive fact that the responsible leaders on both sides
wanted nothing of the kind to take place. The America of i860 was a happy land, a loose-jointed and ineffort

did

fail,

tion did take place.

of course,

And

it

is

a melancholy

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,

happy
year, accordingly,

new

miracle of compromise ended the war in the

revolution, altering

men

first

ships

factories

would have emerged with but

Run had made it
certain that a considerable socio-economic revolution would
occur. If the mighty military effort planned for 1862 succeeded, it would be merely considerable. But if it failed,
and the conflict continued, the country would face a major

their best to be virtually independent of the national

record of the

new

of 1861, the country

minor changes

government.

The

and scurrying

were belching smoke, banks, stores, and warehouses were being

enlarged to seize new opportunities, and the wheels of
transport were turning with new speed." The very attempt that was being made to fight the war on the required scale was making a permanent change in the
country. Nothing would ever be the same again, because a whole new order was coming into existence.
Mr. Nevins sums up the situation succinctly:

The

The War

drilling troops

industries were taking form,

believed that they were fighting to restore that

situation. Fighting to restore

it,

they ended

it

forever.

Modern war can make

several ways.

on the

First

its

long-range effects

felt in

As Mr. Falls has indicated in his book

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

national government record any definite advances, and

1940, instinctively

these

seemed to be peripheral matters that might easily

have been canceled out by more extensive reverses

structiveness of the earlier conflict, ruined their coun-

later on.

own

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

116

try

all

drawing away from the fearful de-

by an excess of cautious conservatism. And in our

case we can see how the mere task of harnessing

of a country's energies for

forces that take

men

war can

in directions they

motion
had no intenset in

tion of traveling.

Modern

war, apparently,

is

the great incalculable.

can be controlled only to the most limited degree.

Won or lost, it means profound change; change, usuIt

ally,

that never entered into the calculations of the

men who

started

it.

The Pepys of the Old Dominion

ary 21, 1722. For honesty and perception, and for the
balance that the eighteenth century enthroned, it has

"There

a distinctly

American quality in

writings of the latter half of Byrd's

trast

few American counterparts.

is

CONTINUED FROM PACE 7

life,

to the exclusively English quality in the writ-

ings of his earlier years. Further study

Poor Inamorato [as Byrd calls himself] had too much meron
cury to fix to one thing. His Brain was too hot to jogg
lively
the
more
by
liv'd
eternally in the same dull road. He
moment of his Passions, than by the cold and unromantick
pay'd his Court more to obscure
merit, than to corrupt Greatness. He never cou'd flatter any

He

Reason ...

dictates of

body, no not himself, which were two invincible bars to all

His religion is more in substance than in
.
preferment.
.

more forward to practice vertue than profess

... He knows the World perfectly well, and thinks him-

form, and he
it

is

a citizen of

self

He

distinctions of kindred

The

visits

conversations gives a

fc

man

He

his friends.

reason for his

own candor

to undress

Lov'd

guise, that

heresy

wickedness of

he might loath

its

made

is

clear

by

this

wishes every body so perhe overlooks the im-

fect, that

possibility

reaching

of

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 architectural solutions never come quickly or easily: only fustrate minds can conjure up first-rate houses. In the
spring of 1709, we know from Byrd's diary, he had
constructing brick. Five years later, stonecutters from Williamsburg were erecting the library
chimney. There were interruptions, delays, faulty ship-

it

He wou'd

in

have

this

World.

men

Angells before their time,

workmen

to be trained.

all

its

paint,

emerged.

hundred yards from the James

River, Westover has not changed much over the generations. The north and south facades are as solid and
rhythmical as a well-wrought fugue, and the beautiBuilt on a

little rise

and

dis-

planned from the outside

in.

the peculiar priviledge of

historical

societe,

character

sketches,

epi-

ceilings.

work,

wrote:

The handsomely

Underneath

the

house is a complete series of

rooms, converging at the
subterranean passage lead-

and humorous satthis work Maude

Byrd's

stairway

paneled walls of the downstairs rooms support gilded

Woodfin, one of the few

into

The

trade of richly turned ma-

hogany.

essays,

scholars to delve adequately

hallway,

has three runs and a balus-

taphs, letters, poems, trans-

Of

main

of the house.

Byrd left us a scattered

and largely unavailable
body of literature t;er5 de

ires.

The

eighteen feet wide and off

center, goes the full length

Heaven.

lations,

doorways would have pleased Palladio himself. Although 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 adjudged it esthetically more
satisfying than most of the
in
contemporary homes
England.
Like other buildings of
the period, Westover was

and wou'd bring down that

perfection upon Earth which
is

But gradually a master-

ful

clearly stated:

deformity.

remarkable passage:

He

is

extent of his philosophizing and his admitted

The

will

piecenoble in symmetry, proportion, and balance-

habit of inadvertency, which betrays him into faults without

measure & without end. For this reason, he commonly reserv'd the morning to himself, and bestow'd the rest upon

and

and time

in the Virginia

period from 1726 on, with its colonial scene and theme,
has greater literary merit than his work in the London

ments,

interruptions:

constant hurry of

his business

doubtless argue that his literary

work

workmen

goes on to explain why, for most of his life, he

his day by reading ancient classics, and frowned

upon morning

without the

Country.

sect or

began

it

these

in direct con-

William fSyrd's con t of arms. The Latin

motto means, "No g uiU to make one pale."

ing to the river.

Two

un-

derground chambers, which

117

of William Byrd

would not want any tale of Westover

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
to

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

composed his own epitaph, and made

execute it on pain of being disinherited:
Custis

Under

this

word,

his son

marble tomb lies the body

JOHN CUSTIS, Esq.,

OF the Hon.

This /702 drawing shows

five

buildings in Wil-

liamsburg, colonial Virginia's capital: (A\ the

New

$till

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,

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.
Custis

came

could, to enjoy the

to Westover,

like

all

others

who

parlor games, barbecues

the conversation.
fairs, balls,

but above all,

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-

masculine vigor, and

ing as his History of the Dividing Line. On his fiftythird birthday, in 1727, Byrd was appointed one of the

Rosewell, with its mahogany balustrade from San Domingo. Westover would be followed by Brandon, with

Virginia commissioners to survey the disputed Virginia-North Carolina boundary; the next spring saw

and fine simplicity; Gunston Hall, with

and coziness; Sabine Hall, so reminiscent of Horace's villa at Tivoli; and Pacatone, with
its wonderful entrance and its legendary ghosts.
These places were more than houses. They were

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

after

Hall, with

Stratford

its

chaste cornices

cut-stone quoins

worlds in themselves, part of a universe that existed within the boundaries of Virginia. The planters
little

lavished their energy and their lives on such worlds.

They were proud

libraries,

about the

of their crops, their horses, their

their gardens. Byrd, for example, tells us

iris,

crocus, thyme,

marjoram, phlox,

lark-

and jasmine in his formal two-acre garden.

At Westover one might find the Carters from Shirley, the Lees from Stratford, the Harrisons from Randolph, or the Spotswoods from Germanna. So might
one encounter Byrd's brother-in-law, that ardent woman-hater, John Custis, from Arlington. Surely the ghost
spur,

118

stole their food.

Byrd

Bad weather and poor luck caused

to swear like a trooper in

To mend

His Majesty's Guards.

matters, Byrd's

companions arranged a party

around a cheerful bowl, and invited a country bumpkin 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

"rubbed up"

too bad, the party's chaplain

his artistocratic

seasonable sermon; and

swamp-evaders with

we must adjudge

all

the hard-

ships a small price to pay for the History. This was

Fortune-tellers of every denomination, whether they

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,
followed by

and the other

to

at the point of the

Appomattuck

profess to read the Ladys destiny in their faces, in their

palms or

China in their fair posteriors."

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

Nor

River,

be distinguished.

be called Petersburg."

When
It

is

did eighteenth-century America reach real distinc-

But as we look more closely at our colonial literaand architecture, and apply our own criteria
rather than those imposed upon us by the English, we
ture

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

had

him we

little

work we

we

that

Byrd

No amount

VV'its

What

Statement required by the Act of August 24, 1912.

89 amended by the Acts of March 3, 1933, and July
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 Jensen 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
;

amount of stock American Association for

State and Local History, Sturbridge, Mass.; The
Society of American Historians, Inc., Princeton Library. 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-

grow into

their

Compared

seem

to be lacking

to his prose, the tedious

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 because 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

fig-

it

"I believe in astrologers, coffee-casters,

title.

to

Beside him, the so-called Connecticut

school.

left for us.

of reappraisal can turn Byrd into a

2.

total

clearly than in that of his con-

sermonizing of the Puritan and Anglican ministers

seems like copybook work in an understaffed grammar

in

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

of

more

of the late eighteenth century

half their

Ruffin published fragments of

ure of the highest magnitude.

profess:

shall see,

own nationhood.

Only

of 1744,

most complete expression of a

and the American colonies destined

of his contemporaries,

when Edmund

summer

lived with us but belongs to the world. In his

many

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
all

died in the

of Byrd's prose. Because he did "call a spade

his writings in the Virginia Farmers' Register.

read

II

temporaries, the emerging differences between England

and even more

of their descendants, have not wanted his work and
allusions made public. Byrd had been dead almost a
century

shall find the

man who

Jefferson's magnificent buildings to refute the

a spade,"

ate fish for dinner."

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

tion.

notion that he was a mere dabbler, and for years

William Byrd

the pre-Revolutionary ethos

a generally accepted belief that only in politics

we have

like those of

will

have settled for

this.

Marshall Fishwick, professor of American studies at IVashington and Lee University, is the author of Virginia, the first

volume

and

in

Harper's new "Regions of America"

series.

He

has just returned from a Fulbright lectureship in Denmark.

tion of Trust for Dana Parton, dated 12/30/57 and

as Trustee under Declaration of Trust for Agnes L.

Joan Straus,
N. Y.

Parton and a Child of the Grantor, dated 11/15/58;

Gerald P. Rosen; Joseph J. Thorndike, Jr., individually 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
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New York 22, N. Y. E. F. Hutlon & Co. for
Margery F. Sachs, 61 Broadway, New York 6, N. Y.;
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P. O. Box II, RowaytoD, Conn.; Roger S. Phillips,
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Bankers Trust Co., P. O. Box 704. Church St.
Station,
New York 8. N. Y.; E. J. Stackpole,
220 Telegraph Building, Harrisburg, Pa.; Barbara

3.

The

known

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Madison

bondholders,

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New York

22.

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119

for

King (# or Congress
Hark, Hark the trumpet sounds. The din of war alarms.
O'er seas and solid grounds.

Do

Who

Their honors soon will shine

for king George do stand.

Their ruin

The

is

at

call us all to

Who

hand.

with the Congress join.

In them I

Acts of Parliament,

arms.

much

delight.

I hate their curst intent.

Who

Who

non-resistance hold.

They have my hand and

May

they for slaves be sold,

Who

The Tories
They soon

of the day.

shall sneak aivay.

The Congress
Blessings

my

They

are

Who

independence

Whoe'er

ivaits.

daily toast.

my

boast.

heart.

takes Britain's part.

To General Washington,

Confusion and dishonor.

May numbers

To

On

daily run.

Mansfield, North and Bute,

Confusion and dispute.

To North, that

British Lord,

I wish a block or cord,

The American Revolution was

there was a

commotion

in the

going

heart.

act a wiggish part.

I hate with all

of the States,

upon them

for the Congress fight.

Britain's royal banner.

May daily blessings pour.

On Congress evermore.
May honors
To General
full tilt

New York

still

be done.

Washington.

when, one day in 1779,

Samuel

legislature at Albany.

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 member 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

Early ferryboat