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Borrowers should ij use their library ileges for the bene- af other persons.^ looks of special lie and gift books, en the giver wishes are not allowed to culate. ieaders are asked report all cases of oks marked or muti- ted. ''^.. ^fTfl?l»K- :s and Cornell University Library E663 .W36 Famous living Americans with portraits, olin 1924 030 906 733 The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924030906733 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS V WITH PORTRAITS EDITED BY MARY GRIFFIN VIEBB EDNA LENORE WEBB PUBLISHED BY CHARLES WEBB & COMPANY GREENCASTLE, INDIANA 1915 /j.X1^6// Copyright 1914 by Charles Webb Published December^ 1914 THE TORCH PRESS CEDAR RAPIDS IOWA INTRODUCTION IN tlie preparation of thi^ork two purposes have been ^' kept in view : *^ First, to ^upply the general reader in compact form the ^biographies of a considerable number of the most prominent pi:esent-day Americans. This volume gives the main facts about each character down to the present in an appreciative and interpretive sketch such as seldom appears during the life-time of an individual. Although fragmentary material on most of our great leaders may be secured from widely scattered publications, articles having the particular aim and scope of these biographies are rarely if ever found in current literature." The present work meets a need of the reader by providing within a single volume the life stories of forty-three representative living Americans. Because of its inspirational value, biography is gener- ally given an important place in education. Nevertheless, while the illustrious characters of earlier days — largely heroes of war — are held before us for emulation, all too little attention is paid the men and women — almost ex- clusively heroes of peace — now making American his- tory. Must the achievements of our present-day leaders be reserved wholly for posthumous eulogies ? Surely the perspective of the future is not needed for a due appre- ciation of their contributions to the progress of mankind. It is thought that a service will be rendered in making accessible now the helpful record of the struggles and suc- cesses of eminent Americans belonging to our own time. Second, to provide inspirational and authoritative 1 The article on Colonel Gfeorge W. Goethals by Mr. Bay Stannard Baker in the American Magazine, October, 1913, seemed so well suited to the purposes of this volume, that it has been republished here, with the kind permission of Mr. Baker and the Phillips Publishing Co. vi INTRODUCTION source material for use as the basis of papers and speeches, and to give practical directions for the composi- tion and presentation of biographical and other addresses. In addition to the subject-matter in the articles, further material on particular phases of the lives of the characters is cited in the bibliographies. Especially practicable subjects for orations are fur- nished by this volume, since great personalities embody concretely the principle or "theme" essential to the struc- ture of the oration. While, for instance, the necessity for persistent effort, in the abstract, is relatively difficult to use as a subject, the biography, say of Edison, gives in the indefatigable industry of the famous electrician, a tangi- ble "theme." It is confidently expected, moreover, that the greater inspiration of the living, the keen interest attaching to persons even now engaged in important un- dertakings, will stimulate to worthy efforts in oratorical work. The chapter entitled. Suggestions on the Preparation and Delivery of Biographical Speeches, besides being of value to those not in academic work, is particularly adapted to the use of students in colleges and secondary schools for Oral English exercises and oratorical contests. The author, Professor Harry Bainbridge Gough, head of the department of Public Speaking and Debate in De Pauw University, is well qualified to give expert help on the subject. His material is very much condensed, the chapter being, as a result, a brief but comprehensive manual on biographical orations. It is believed that the article is a unique contribution to the literature of Public Speaking. The Editors TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE INTRODUCTION v SUGGESTIONS ON THE PEEPAEATION AND DELIVERY OF BIOGRAPHICAL SPEECHES . 1 Haeey Bainbeidge Gough, A.m. Professor of Public Speaking 'and Debate DePauw University, Greeneastle, Indiana CHARACTERS AND WRITERS JANE ADDAMS 20 Heeman 0. Makey, A.B. Principal of High School Eaton, Indiana ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL .... 34 HiLLAEY ASBXJEY GOBIN, D.D., LL.D. Vice-President of DePauw University Greeneastle, Indiana MAUD BALLINGTON BOOTH 49 Charles Beandon Booth General Secretary of the Volunteer Prison League New York City WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN .... 58 Maynaed Lee Daggy, Ph.B. Author of The Principles of Public Speaking Seattle, "Washington LUTHER BURBANK 68 RoBEET John President, The Luther Burbank Press Santa Rosa, California JOHN BURROUGHS 82 Edwaed Baeebtt State Geologist of Indiana Indianapolis, Indiana viii FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS —ANDREW CARNEGIE 94 James Casey, C.E. Chicago, Illinois CHAMP CLARK 107 Wallace D. Bassfoed Mexico, Missouri FRANCIS E. CLARK 121 Charles Eugene Undeewood, A.M., Ph.D. Professor of Old Testament Language and Literature Butler College Indianapolis, Indiana RUSSELL H. CONWELL 132 Miss Latjea H. Caenell, Litt.D. Dean of Temple University Philadelphia, Pennsylvania GEORGE DEWEY 146 Miss Lois Elbanoe Kinney, A.B. Teacher of English, Central High School Birmingham, Alabama THOMAS A. EDISON 163 Geoegb Lawbencb Scheegee, Ph.D. Professor of History and Political Science Armour Institute of Technology Chicago, Illiaois CHARLES W. ELIOT 176 Cheistopheb B. Coleman, Ph.D. Professor of History, Butler College Indianapolis, Indiana CARDINAL GIBBONS 187 Joseph Leonard Caeeico, C.S.C, Ph.D. Professor of English, University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, Indiana GEORGE W. GOETHALS 201 Ray Stannaed Bakbe, B.S. Amherst, Massachusetts TABLE OF CONTENTS ix ANNA A. GORDON 225 Mtis. LuELLA F. McWhibteb President of the Indiana "Woman's Christian Tem- perance Union, 1896-1900 President of the Indiana Federation of "Women's Clubs, 1911-1913 Indianapolis, Indiana JAMES J. HILL 234 Andrew Thomas "Weaver, A.M. Departments of English and Public Speaking Northwestern University Evanston, Illinois EMIL G. HIESCH 246 Joseph Lbisee, A.B, AUentown, Pennsylvania WILLLiM DEAN HOWELLS 260 Dbwitt Clinton Speague, Ph.D. Departments of English and Psychology Eastern Illinois State Normal School Charleston, Illinois HELEN KELLER 277 Miss Evelyn M. Butlbb, A.M. English Department, Butler College Indianapolis, Indiana ROBERT M. LaFOLLETTE 287 Maynard Lee Daggy, Ph.B. Lecturer and Institute Instructor Seattle, "Washington BEN B. LINDSEY 300 Thomas Le Grand Harris, Ph.D. Professor of History, Baker University Baldwin, Kansas JOHN MITCHELL 313 Francis Calvin Tilden, A.M. Professor of Comparative Literature DePauw University Greencastle, Indiana X FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS JOHN R. MOTT 327 WhlLIam Wakben Sweet, B.D., Ph.D. Prof esaor of History, DePauw University Greencastle, Indiana JOHN B. MURPHY 336 William Augustus Evans, M.D., LL.D., D.P.H. Professor of Sanitary Science Northwestern University Medical School Chicago, Illinois ROBERT E. PEARY 354 Mrs. Minnie Prey Knotts Librarian of the Nebraska State Historical Society Lincoln, Nebraska MRS. PERCY V. PENNYBACKER .... 375 Mes. GrEACE Julian Claeke, Ph.M. Member of the Board of Directors General Federation of Women's Clubs Indianapolis, Indiana JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 387 Miss Anna Nicholas Editorial Staff, Indianapolis Star Indianapolis, Indiana JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER 400 RiCHAED Gilbert Collier Cleveland, Ohio THEODORE ROOSEVELT 416 The Honorable Jackson Boyd Greencastle, Indiana ELIHUROOT 429 Albert William Macy, A.M. Author of Curious Bits of History Chicago, Illinois ANNA HOWARD SHAW 441 Miss Lucy E. Anthony Moylan, Pennsylvania WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT 451 / The Honorable Luther Albertus Brewer, A.M. I President, The Torch Press Cedar Rapids, Iowa TABLE OF CONTENTS xi OSCAE W. UNDERWOOD 463 The Honorable Nbyle Colquitt, B.L. Savannah, Georgia JOHN H. VINCENT 473 Heney G. Jackson, A.M., D.D. River Forest, Illinois JOHN WANAMAKER 487 Miss Ida Elizabeth Riley, A.M. Greeneastle, Indiana BOOKER T. WASHINGTON 499 Robert E. Park, Ph.D. Lecturer on Sociology, University of Chicago Chicago, Illinois HENRY WATTERSON 512 Logan Esaeey, Ph.D. Editor of the Indiana Magazine of History Department of History, Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana EDWARD DOUGLASS WHITE .... 525 Walter Carleton Woodward, A.M., Ph.D. Professor of History and Political Science Barlham College Richmond, Indiana WOODROW WILSON 539 Cecil Clare North, Ph.D. Professor of Sociology, DePauw University Greencastle, Indiana LEONARD WOOD 555 Emerson Beck Knight Indianapolis, Indiana ORVILLE WRIGHT 571 Samuel Raymond Dunham, A.M., B.D. Dayton, Ohio ELLA FLAGG YOUNG 583 John T. McManis, Ph.D. Professor of Education, Chicago Normal School Chicago, Illinois SUGGESTIONS ON THE PEEPAEATION AND DELIVERY OF BIOGEAPHICAL SPEECHES By Habey Bainbbidge Gotjgh IT is believed that the following are some values attending the preparation and delivery of the biographical speeches herein planned: First, a keener appreciation of some of the famous Ameri- cans of our own time. Second, an increased power of initiative on the part of the student. It would seem that the careful composition and pub- lic presentation of a message, caught I. To Teachers up from the facts given in these sketches yet made universal in its ap- 1. Some values plication, should call into play the * * creative resources. ' ' Third, some training in the careful analysis of data and in the sifting out from the relatively insignificant the more im- portant: and what is of more worth still, some intelligent training in seeking the causes back of facts or effects. Fourth, some inspiration to the careful composition of Oral English. Probably the student will use Oral English one hun- dred times, possibly a thousand times, more than "Written English. ' ' While we have never emphasized unduly the latter, "Spoken English" as such is receiving justly more and more attention. Moreover, these biographical speeches in connec- tion with the contests planned, will afford the student an imme- diate and worthy purpose for his efforts at composition. The great mass of what he writes is rarely, if ever, read out- side the classroom. Here is afforded an opportunity for him to prepare for a very definite, practical, and apparent end, a vital message, and to secure for it a respectful hearing. Fifth, some training in the oral presentation of his mes- sage. Surely if some of our "very intellectual" or "un- usually bright," not to mention our "ordinary," students are 2 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS before an audience stammering dolts or downright dunces, it is not to the credit of our educational methods. And this sug- gestion is the more significant in the light of the fact that em- inent students of our people and government ascribe so much power to public discussion and appeal. This volume is pub- lished in the firm conviction that the appreciation of the rela- tion of practical public speech to the well-being of the state and nation, is growing rapidly. To treat fairly of this subject within the limits of a single chapter is manifestly impossible. For the speeches herein planned should be orations in minia- 2. Pabticulae ture ; and of all types of literature, the DiEECTioNs HERE oratiou is most complex. The compos- iMPOssiBLE ition, not to mention the delivery, in- volves an art quite beyond communica- tion through the medium of the printed page. Skill in any art, indeed, is vastly more than instruction and knowledge : it rep- resents usually long-continued practice under the direction of one skilled in that art : it is attained through repeated revi- sions based on intelligent criticism. For illustration, it is generally considered impossible, through the medium of a book, adequately to instruct in the art of vocal or instrumental music. Just so probably no satisfactory * * text, ' ' however long or learned, will ever be written on the preparation and deliv- ery of public appeals. It is believed, however, that the following general sugges- tions will prove helpful. They are based upon some years of experience in teaching the Composition and Delivery of Pub- lic Address. Now it is assumed that the student will be made to feel free to seek sympathetic and legitimate criticism from his teach- ers : and it is further assumed that he 3. Sympathetic will not be satisfied with one writing of CRITICISM his speech, nor even with two; but necessary that he will pursue persistently the suggestions made and that he will em- body in his final production his very best thought and skill. Courtesy Cammack Studio, Greencastle, Ind. SUGGESTIONS ON BIOGRAPHICAL SPEECHES 5 Similarly, it is assumed that Ms delivery of the message will represent patient practice under competent criticism. Lack of confidence on the part of the student prompts this appeal to teachers. The beginner has heard much fun made of "fire-eating orators"; and he feels 4. Lack of confi- that his productions, especially of the DENCB AN OBSTACLE more formal kind, will be looked upon patronizingly, if not scornfully. It surely is not too much to hope that in his efforts toward the careful composition and public presentation of a vital mes- sage, the student will receive the same generous consideration accorded him in his other endeavors. The form of Oral Discourse herein treated may be called the Biographical Speech. To this class of appeals belong various kinds of public discourse, not- n. The Composition of ably commemorative speeches deliv- the Biographical ered for the most part on anniversary Speech occasions, as on Washington's Birth- day or on Decoration Day. These bio- 1. Kind graphical addresses, then, are typical of a very large class of speeches gath- ering about the inspiration of mighty characters or of epochal events. From the first it must be borne in mind that composition for oral delivery is different from that intended for read- ing. "A speech is to be written as in 2. Obal discoubse the presence of an audience and for an PECULiAB audience. " It is not prepared for pri- vate reading, but for public hearing. To write something to he read by another at his pleasure again and again, if he desires, is one thing : to compose a vital mes- sage to be acted upon after a mere collective hearing, is quite another thing. Serious public speech aims, then, not at being something merely, but at doing something. It must do some- thing with the hearer. It aims at some decision on his part ; and so while addressed more immediately to the mind, it is prepared and presented for the purpose of moving the will. Let no one think, then, that the speeches herein considered are 6 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS for entertainment merely. So far from that, they are serious and solid. Of course formal speech must entertain in the sense of arousing, sustaining, and satisfying interest; but it must do vastly more : it must appeal for action and yield ac- tion, although the action be no more than is involved in chang- ing a mental attitude. These speeches, then, are to be prepared, not for private reading, but for public hearing : they are to be carefully con- structed and written, not for the purpose of being something, but for the purpose of actually doing something. All serious speech-making must have as an object action on the part of the hearer. Three of the limitations attending the composition of formal public address should be kept in mind: First, while it must gather about facts, oral discourse must contain more than facts. The sketches in this voliune consist largely of facts, and intentionally so : 3. Limitations but merely to recite them to any great MAKING NECESSARY exteut in public speech would deprive THE THEME the speaker and audience of the larger purposes and profits involved. These mere details for the most part are remote and of little signifi- cance relatively to the hearer. The important business for the speaker is to dig beneath and to peer behind these facts and to discover their reason, their explanation. To be told that a man achieved certain things through courage in time of great stress is interesting: but far more important is it to be informed as to the cause behind that courage. Putting the matter another way, these facts concerning famous living Americans largely pertain to the past. The speaker must give them a vital meaning for the present and the future. The worth of these biographical addresses under consideration must be meas- ured, indeed, by the interpretation of facts into thought and action for the hearer. The speaker does not, then, ignore facts ; but he states them briefly or else assumes that they are known. His task is rather to show an eternal principle as a dominating, guiding force and to make clear the obligation of the hearer as to that principle. SUGGESTIONS ON BIOGRAPHICAL SPEECHES 7 Second, the effective speech must gather about one truth, one great, central thought. Formal address has no place for "strings of glittering generalities." The spoken message must be strictly a unity. Every illustration used or fact cited, every sentence, indeed, must relate clearly to the one big idea to be enforced. A single and immediate purpose on the part of the speaker must be manifest throughout his message. Psychic qualities peculiar to the audience impose this second limitation. Third, public speech must at the same time be simple in thought: it "moves among common thoughts, motives, and principles." ^ Speculative, or abstract, or involved ideas are exceedingly difficult to treat through public speech. To ap- peal to the hearer's "tendency toward perfection" in duty fulfilled, in virtue practiced, and in happiness attained, is the object of the oration according to Professor Robinson. These ideas, he shows, are old and universal; but the primary aim of pubUc speech is not the impartation of new ideas : it is rather the enforcement of ideas, often very old ones, with a view to getting the hearer to act upon them. These three limitations, then, demand: first, that some means be found for interpreting the facts of a Hf e into thought and action for the hearer ; second, that there be set forth and enforced throughout the production, one great unifying truth or principle : and third, that this truth or principle be not ab- stract nor involved but vitally human through appeal to per- sonal duty, virtue, or happiness. Now as a means of meeting the demand of these three hm- itations upon oral address, we employ what we call the THEME. For illustration, a student 4. The Theme desires to interpret the life of Brutus. He does not recite facts about that hero, but begins his address with a statement of his theme in this thought: The first task of life is service: service is through sacrifice. He attempts to show that this idea always 1 Forensic Oratory, by William C. Robinson, LL. D. (Little, Brown & Company, Boston, 1893). In Chapter III especially, the author sets forth very clearly this matter. 8 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS guided Brutus, even when he became a conspirator against Caesar. Although the address may have denunciation as an object, that is, when the aim is to hold before an audience a character not for emulation, but for condemnation, the great principle should be stated clearly and followed closely with a view to enforcement as above suggested. In his address on Aaron Burr, the Honorable Champ Clark almost immedi- ately sets forth his theme by stating that while Burr was the most brilliant and fascinating of the Vice-Presidents except Jefferson, "the one thing he [Burr] needed" was "moral sense." He points out at once that "for this fatal deficiency nothing can compensate^' ; and the entire address enforces this universal idea.^ He has taken facts, explained them with one thought, made that one idea the unifier of the entire- speech, shown that it is vital, and has so enforced it. True, it is an old idea, generally assented to, but it deserves repeated enforcement and personal apphcation, probably, to many. This commonly accepted but enforced idea, we call the- THEME. Yet another illustration of the use of the theme in the bio- graphical address is found in the production by Mr. Plynn, referred to later on. The Redemption of Jean Valjean. He opens the way immediately for his translation of the facta gathering about the story of Valjean, through the statement of the commonly conceded truth, perhaps worthy the name principle, "Men fall and rise again and the world may remem- ber them forever as her heroes." He shows, too, the three subjective processes in every genuine redemption. The speech should begin with a statement of the theme, as in the illustrations given above. But it is fair to state in this connection that very many famous speeches do not immediate- ly set forth the theme. In some instances the principle to be enforced is at first withheld because public speech ofttimes involves a peculiar quality we may call "personal accommoda- tion" on the part of the speaker. He may, for illustration, be utterly unacquainted with the audience and he finds that: 2 Modern Eloquence, vol. vii, George L. Shumau & Company, Chicago, 1903. SUGGESTIONS ON BIOGEAPHICAL SPEECHES 9 the formal statement of the principle lie means to enforce can be introduced best through, an informal word of personal or of local adaptation. Sometimes courtesy requires that the speak- er at the very beginning acknowledge an expression of greet- ing or of appreciation on the part of the presiding officer or of the audience. Often, too, while the theme is not definitely stated at the outset, it is implied quite clearly in a description, narration, or perhaps an historical summary, or a weighty quotation from some eminent authority. But in coimection with the addresses under consideration it is apparent that no word of personal accommodation is necessary. Usually, indeed, the very occasion is introduction enough for the speaker: and usually the formal address has no place for any reference whatever by the speaker to himself. The implication is that by mutual agreement he has prepared carefully a practical, vital message and the people have as- sembled to hear it and to act on it. Experience in teaching Public Address dictates that it is best to begin with a state- ment of the truth or principle to be enforced. Yet another reason for the Theme is found in the fact that the speaker must immediately "get on common ground" with the audience. If any are neutral or indifferent toward his cause, their interest must be aroused: if they are opposed, their attention must be won. The statement of a principle commonly accepted, but perhaps needing a new application, tends to arouse curiosity in the indifferent : in the opposed it tends to allay prejudice and to bring them mentally at least one step toward final accord with the appeal. Because, then, the purpose of public appeal is to secure ac- tion and because of the severe limitations upon the subject- matter and its treatment, the Theme is necessary. One of the outstanding criticisms made concerning bio- graphical speeches is that they are not unities, but "a little of this and a little of that." It would 5. The Outline seem well, then, to provide the begin- ner with some thoroughly tried gen- eral outline and to show the relation of the Theme to it. The following Structure is therefore suggested : 10 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS I. Introduction. 1. Statement of the THEME. 2. Expansion of the truth or principle and illustration of it in the character under consideration. II. The Problem, i. e., The DifBcuIties. A brief statement of the conditions, the discourage- ments with which the subject met, perhaps his lim- itations in endowments or opportunities. These facts should be stated as briefly as possible. in. Solution : How He Overcame These Difficulties. 1. The means he employed, briefly stated. It should be shown that a single great cause — that suggested in the Theme — accounts for the inspiration the sub- ject affords. 2. The results, briefly, of his efforts. The permanent results of a life should be accounted for through the Theme. IV. Conclusion: Appeal. 1. The significance of the principle to the hearer. 2. The significance of the principle, illustrated by the life of the subject, to the country at large. 3. The appeal for the personal embodiment by the hearer of the principle or Theme illustrated in the life of the subject. This outline follows that suggested by the ancient and mod- ern writers on the subject. The words "Theme," "Prob- lem," and "Solution" are not original. A very good treat- ment of the development of oratorical themes, in which prac- tically this same outline or structure is suggested, will be found in Professor Maynard Lee Daggy's TTie Principles of Public Speaking (Eow, Peterson & Company, Chicago, 1909). The practical application and clearness of such an outline are shown in the oration. The Redemption of Jean Valjean, by Mr. Clarence E. Flynn, DePauw 6. Use of outline University, 1911. In the latter part of iLLTJSTEATED the f oUowiug short paragraph he gives the theme: "Men fall, and the world may remember them for a day as SUGGESTIONS ON BIOGRAPHICAL SPEECHES 11 her sinners ; men stand, and tlie world may remember them for an age as her saints; men fall and rise again, and the world may remember them forever as her heroes. A colossal type of this heroism is outlined in the character of Jean Val- jean." The Problem division of the oration treats of the various influences contributing to the downfall of Valjean which we need not consider here. Then the Solution division treats of his "redemption" thus: First, through the struggle for self-recovery: ". . . Mus- ing in the prison or toiling in the chain gang he saw himself a martyr ; but standing between wistful childhood and tranquil age, both wronged by his hand, he sees himself a wretch. . . " Second, through the struggle for self-mastery :". . . The self within him is strong. But a persistent voice — the voice of his awakened conscience — bids him lay down his freedom and again receive the shackles of bondage, bids him surrender his official title and reassume the old name of infamy and re- proach. . ." Third, through the influence of suffering: ". . . His life-long penance reaches its climax in the hour when the mem- ory of Cosette, estranged and gone, rises up to mock him as he sits alone beside the broken shrine where she has been his idol. . ." Thus Mr. Plynn throughout his production enforces the idea of heroism as shown in Valjean 's redemption — the uni- versal method of redemption. All the facts of his later life are explained in the analysis of these processes. If the productions be limited say to one 7. Length thousand words, the length of the divisions in- dicated should approximate the following : Introduction ..... 100 words Problem ..... 300 words Solution ..... 500 words Conclusion ..... 100 words In connection with the Style and Diction, the greatest dan- ger to public address is triteness, commonplaceness. Inas- much as the aim is to enforce an important but ofttimes old 12 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS thought, it is necessary that sane but forceful sentences should be employed. Of course, in these formal speeches there is no place for either "picturesque slang" 8. Style and or coarseness. But the most apparent Diction and the most blameworthy weakness in formal public address to-day is a kind of vapid prating, mere twaddle, suggestive of absence of downright hard thinking. Now it is assumed that the stu- dent will observe carefully the general rules usually given in his English course concerning Clearness, Force, Dignity, and so on. But because of the peculiarities of oral discourse, it is recormnended especially that the following rhetorical de- vices be much employed in these speeches: Antithesis often enables the speaker to make perfectly plain through contrast what otherwise probably would be obscure; the Rhetorical Question and Answer afford variety not merely to the style, but to voice and action in the presentation; Rhetorical Imag- ery is a great aid to Public Address ; e. g., for the use of Meta- phor Professor Clark ascribes the following reasons : "First, to aid the memory; second, to aid the understand- ing; third, to impress the feelings; fourth, to excite surprise or curiosity; fifth, to secure brevity and smoothness."* The writer does not know just now of another work more brief and clear covering the whole matter of style than that referred to. Part II of that text will be peculiarly significant to the stu- dent because written by a man at once a most effective speak- er, a successful teacher of the art of Composition for Oral De- livery, and a rhetorician of rare scholarship. Because of the limitations of this article it is impossible to mention in detail further qualities of style. It is assumed, as has been suggested, that the student will bring to bear his best skill looking especially toward Clearness, Force, Dignity, etc., as developed in his English Composition training. It is to be emphasized, all the while, that the object of the public appeal is to do, not merely to he something: that the object is to get the hearer to act. 8 A Practical Rhetoric, by J. Scott dark, New York (Henry Holt & Company 1886). SUGGESTIONS ON BIOGEAPHICAL SPEECHES 13 Thus we have suggested briefly : Some of the Values attending the preparation and presen- tation of these Biographical Speeches. Some of the Peculiarities of Oral Discourse. The Three Chief Limitations upon it, necessitating the Theme. The Practical Use of the Theme. The Use of the Outline. Some of the more Helpful Qualities of Style. Many incorrect notions about instruction in delivery obtain. Teaching Public Speaking is not giving instruction in mimicry — not with sincere folk; nor is it in- ni. The Delivery struction in the ventriloquism em- ployed by the "Punch and Judy" per- 1. Incoerect former in the side-show; nor is it NOTIONS ABOUT prattle about saying things this way THE Dbliveby or that, or * ' splitting 'twixt the north and northwest side" the manner of "making" a gesture. Again, some oppose a careful study of public discourse on the alleged ground that the study is unnec- essary. They urge that if one has something to say that is worth saying, all he has to do is to rise to his feet before an au- dience and say it. Surely, then, those holding this view must go a little further, if consistent, and urge that if one has some- thing to write worth the writing, all he has to do is to write it — without any instruction whatever save that afforded by "in- nate common sense"; and that if someone has something to paint worth the painting, all in the world he has to do is to paint that something, without contact with a master; and that if somebody has a song worth the singing, he need only ' ' ope his mouth" and sing — to take instruction in singing would be so silly withal! Now native ability, "sheer genius," oft- times achieves relative success in an art ; but that fact is not sufficient ground for cavalierly disdaining as unnecessary in- struction in Public Speaking. It is but fair to state that some of the greatest figures of history, and many of the mighty characters of our own times, by example and by testimony give the unanswerable answer to such nonsense. 14 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS Now, let it be recalled again that the public address is to be heard, rarely, if ever, read ; and that it is to accomplish some- thing in the hearer — to move his will. Just as in the com- munication of thought through writing, certain elements such as Force and Unity should be observed, so in the presentation of thought through oral address, certain perfectly reasonable qualities or principles should be observed. And so far from involving mimicry, or ventriloquism, or trifling distinctions, intelUgent instruction in delivery aims simply at clearness, force, unity, and dignity in the presentation of the message : aims at helping the student to get away from oddities and habits tending to detract from the thought; and seeks to aid him in giving the message the impress of his own personality. Oral Discourse, it should be remembered, is always more than mere thought : it is the communication of ideas plus the speaker's impress — a life he imparts 2. Oeal Discoubse to it. The message intended for pri- MOEE THAN vatc reading comes for the most part MERE THOUGHT cold, Uninterpreted, without the throb of personality. This personal im- press, this life given to it by the speaker, accounts largely for the striking results of the oral appeal through all the years in the great realms of poHtics, social reform, and religion. Just as in the composition of public discourse the speaker gives not merely facts but the significance of the facts, so in the presentation of a great message he gives not merely thought, but his reactions — the response from the very depths of his being — fairly and sincerely accompanying the thought. A great speech is necessarily more than mere thought. Men who actually have studied Public Speech reahze full well this "spiritual content." Here, then, if nowhere else, is found abundant reason for training in actual dehvery of public dis- course. In connection with the delivery one thing may be stated with certainty: that public speech is essentially away beyond pri- vate speech usually as to occasion, aim, and certain outstand- ing qualities. What might be said or done with propriety in private speech might be ridiculous in public speech. In so SUGGESTIONS ON BIOGEAPHICAL SPEECHES 15 far as they are alike, however, public speech is private speech magnified many-fold. This enlargement is due to the fact that primarily public speech employs so ex- 3. Public Speech tensively hint, suggestion. If in some LIKE PRIVATE rather insignificant way the speaker is SPEECH ENLAEGBD timid, he may seem to the audience not sure of the truth, or possibly he may seem deceitful. Again, if in manner he seems even a little defiant, he may suggest bombast, egotism, possibly he may give out the hint that he is "bluffing." And so a repel- lent voice is likely to arouse opposition to the speaker and to his cause: on the other hand, an attractive voice, a per- suasive one, tends toward a receptive and favorable attitude on the part of the hearer. And so a "slouching" or a precise enunciation, grotesque or graceful gestures, intense feeling or colorless mumbling — every quahty in serious public speaking is thrown, as it were, before the audience as a hint or sugges- tion to be enlarged many-fold. Now like every other art, Public Speaking is made up of many seemingly unimportant details. It is thought best to call attention to the most important of 4. Made UP OF these so-called "small matters" of DETAILS which effective public speech is made. The mastery (always, of course, the relative mastery) of these "small matters" is the road to ef- fective speaking. Now there is no other way to effective delivery known to the serious men who are teaching Public Speaking in our universities and colleges to-day than this : to direct the student in the development and most effective use of his own powers in Voice, Word-making or Enunciation, Physical Expression, and Intensity or Feeling. These are the qualities in delivery. It seems well, therefore, to treat briefly of each of these fundamentals, these "small matters," upon which the presen- tation of the speech depends. No other 5. The Voice element in the delivery is more deserv- ing of the attention of the student than the voice. The qualities of the voice are (a) Purity, (b) Strength, and (c) Flexibility. 16 FAMOUS LIVING AMEEICANS (a) The voice should be pure: e. g., free from rasping "throatiness," nasal twangings, and whimpering. Obstruc- tions, or rather, impurities of voice of (a) PuEiTT this sort are due largely to sheer habit. We tend to lose our appreciation of the things with which we are most familiarly associated: so, many persons never listen to their own voices ; and so they never know their vocal defects. In order to correct these faults, one must be made conscious of them. Intelligent crit- icism, then, becomes almost an absolute necessity ; and it must be followed with patient practice. (b) The voice should have strength. He who speaks must be heard. If he is not heard, what is the use of his speaking? In this connection it must be borne in (b) Steength mind that the voice of the speaker must overcome the distracting hack- ing and coughing usually accompanying any coming together of a large number of people. Even above the attentive audi- ence rises a subdued but almost ceaseless din more or less op- posing the voice of the speaker. But he simply must he heard. To demand that the speaker be heard easily is not a whit more than to demand clearness in the composition to be read. In this connection it should be remembered that public discourse must be "caught on the wing." No opportunity is afforded the hearer mentally to go back over a part he did not hear dis- tinctly. He must "keep up" with the speaker all the while. On the other hand, composition for private reading may be re- traced again and again with a view to understanding it. (c) The third quality in the voice is -flexibility, or perhaps better, variety. Public speech, like every other art, should have no place for monotony. The use (c) Flexibility of one note over and over again, the constant repetition of a series of notes, "the pounding along humdrum fashion" through an address — these "singsongs" are to the audience very conducive to sleep. One of the best ways to secure variety is to shift the voice between sentences ; i. e., to change the pitch. A sentence is a thought more or less complete. In writing we separate SUGGESTIONS ON BIOGRAPHICAL SPEECHES 17 sentences, and even parts of sentences, with various marks re- ferred to as "punctuation." It is even more necessary in public speaking to separate thoughts and modifications of them with vocal "shifts." The greatest single aid to variety is this change in pitch, between sentences especially. This demand upon the speaker for flexibility or variety in voice is in no sense finical, just as the demand for punctuation in writ- ten English is not finical. Another very important element of public speech is enunci- ation, or vocal word-manufacture. Evidently we utter words by "joining elementary sounds." Care- 6. WoBi)-MAKiNG less enunciation is to public speech OK Enunciation very much as misspelling is to writ- ten composition. To say, for illustra- tion, "The Gen'ral advise' the Gover'men' t'yiel'," for "The General adviset? the Government to yieW," is to suggest slovenliness of speech, and worse yet, dullness of mind. Think what we may of it, enunciation bespeaks mental habit. Now the points at which we have most difficulty in word- manufacture are the following : (1) Final -d and -t sounds, as "hac?," "abound," enlist." (2) Final -p and -b sounds, as in "develop," "absorb." (3) Final -s and -z sounds, as m "frientis," "abount^s." (4) Words of many syllables are likely to be slurred by the speaker and correspondingly "blurred" in the mind of the hearer. Lists of long words may be made and practiced to great advantage. For the habit of misspelling we prescribe, "Consult your dictionary"; and for indistinct enunciation we prescribe * ' Consult your dictionary and give to every sound in the word distinct utterance." The seemingly trifling matter of precise enunciation is worthy a place among our habits. It is an in- dex of mentality and even of character. To demand distinct enunciation is no more than to demand correct spelling. The arguments for either apply with equal force to the other. The object of Physical Expression is the enforcement of thought and accompanying feeling. Language alone is not sufficient even for private conversation ; and so words are sup- 18 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS plemented with various forms of what might be called "modi- fied sign language." But physical expression must be based upon thought and feeling; and since 7. Physical everything the speaker does is en- ExpEESSioN larged, magnified as it were, before the audience, this form of communication, (a) Object if bungling, is likely to attract atten- tion to itself, and so to hinder rather than to help the message. The test of all physical expression then becomes : First, does it strengthen the thought and the ac- companying reaction on the part of the speaker? And second, does it in the slightest degree attract attention to itself? This is but stating in another way that physical expression must be based upon thought and thought-reaction, and is entirely sec- ondary to them. But the phrase "Physical Expression" is very comprehen- sive and includes many different forms of hint, or suggestion. For illustration, the normal position is (b) Position on usually about three feet from the front Platform of the platform. If too far forward, the speaker suggests undue familiar- ity, lack of caution. On the other hand, if he stands more than three or four feet back from the edge of the platform, he will suggest timidity, lack of confidence in his own message, possibly an effort to deceive. The head should be up, the body (c) PosTUBE OB erect, the shoulders square and at Attitude right angles to the audience, the arms and hands hanging at rest. Arm gesture is made from the shoulder, not from the elbow or wrist. The significance of the different positions of the hands is so varied as to preclude even (d) Gestuee a brief treatment here. The "language of the hands" is most complex. In- telligent criticism is the only safe guide. In case of doubt as to whether a gesture should be used, it is best to omit it, prob- ably. The intensity of the delivery depends fundamentally upon SUGGESTIONS ON BIOGEAPHICAL SPEECHES 19 the impression which the speaker compels the thought in the message to make upon himself. Pub- 8. Intensity oe lie speakers have long realized that "Feeling" impression depends largely upon the vividness of the imagination of the speaker, his keenness of insight. We say, and say very truly, that if the speaker does not "think and see and hear and feel" in connection with a mighty message, — if he is not somehow stirred to his very depths, — he will not move his hearers to action. Of all the criticisms uttered by Public Speaking in- structors, the most repeated probably are these: "You do not appreciate the import of the thought" ; "You do not catch the deeper spirit of the message"; "You do not do your com- position justice." Long -continued brooding over a speech is the road to adequate impression. This process is absolutely essential. The object of the orator is to convince of truth and persuade hearers to act thereon: and if he has intense but thoroughly controlled passion for his cause, he will in large measure allay opposition. On the other hand, "the saying a piece," the mechanical reciting of words and sentences, is not worthy the serious student. In the treatment of the Composition of Oral Discourse we found that while public appeal is based upon facts, it is vastly more than a statement of facts : that it must aim at the en- forcement upon the hearer of a vital principle. And to that end some general directions, especially as to the THEME and OUTLINE, were offered. And now we have found that while the presentation of the public appeal is based upon thought, it is always more than the mere thought : that the oral message bears the reactions, the peculiarly personal responses of the speaker to his thought : and that suggestion plays an important part. And so with a view to the adequate expression of the thought and the accompanying "spiritual content," attention has been called briefly to the four elements of delivery : VOICE, ENUN- CIATION or WOEDMAKING, PHYSICAL EXPRESSION, and INTENSITY or FEELING. JANE ADDAMS By Herman 0. Makey ONE day a little girl, not yet seven years of age, drove with her father through the poor district of a small city. Till then the city had always meant splendid shops and luxurious houses and this was her first introduction to real poverty. "Father," she exclaimed, "why do people live in such hor- rid little houses so close together?" Her father explained as best he could to his daughter why such a condition existed. But the explanation did not satisfy her. "When I get big," she replied, "I am going to live in a great big house right among horrid little houses like these." This youthful promise Miss Addams has literally fulfilled ; and Hull House, perhaps the best expression of the spirit of "Chicago's foremost citizen," has since 1889 been minister- ing to needs which even childhood's eyes can see. To understand Miss Addams 's life one must know her childhood and no record of her childhood is clear without an insight into the relation of the motherless child to her father. Mr. Addams had early begun life as a miller's apprentice. Eising at three in the morning to begin work, he had taken advantage of the dull morning hours to read through the entire village library. With the same intense earnestness he had worked his way through life. During the sixteen years follow- ing 1854 he was a member of the Illinois State Senate. In those uneasy times there were few men whose position could abso- lutely be relied upon. But Lincoln, still an obscure member of the legislature, writing concerning his stand on a measure then before the Senate, expressed his assurance that Mr. Addams "would vote according to his conscience." Upon the death of Mr. Addams in 1881 the editor of a Chicago daily wrote that he knew of but one man in the Illinois legislature to whom in the now incomprehensible days of reconstruction JANE ADDAMS 21 a bribe had never been offered — and that man was John H. Addams. With this father the young child was in most happy accord. He was her ideal man and her pride in him was a source of some of her mtfst poignant childish suffering. AfiSicted, as she was, with a slight curvature of the spine, it was an un- bearable thought that visitors to their church should think that the dignified Mr. Addams was the father of such an ugly, gawky girl. On days when there were visitors at the church she always managed to walk home with her uncle, sacrificing the walk with her father — which was to her the chief event of the week — to preserve his dignity. This oversensitive- ness lasted until a day when she met him on a crowded street and he lifted his hat to her. This voluntary public recogni- tion put an end to her morbid sensitiveness to her personal appearance. But John Addams was no stern father to be only respected and feared. After a day in which Jane had committed the sin of lying she would find sleep impossible until she had con- fessed her sin to her father. His only comment would be that he was glad that she "felt too bad to go to sleep afterwards." Comforted by the fact that she no longer bore her sin alone and by her confidence in his parental understanding, she would soon be asleep. From her father she learned that honesty to self was more important than an understanding of deep theological doctrine. The admission that he was as unable as she to understand the doctrine of foreordination served as balm to her childish un- rest at being unable to comprehend what her friends "under- stood perfectly. ' ' It is not to be imagined, however, that Miss Addams 's childhood was in any way abnormal. If she were more thoughtful and more concerned with her inner life than are most children it was only because she saw in her father's daily life greater depths than it is the usual lot of childhood to see. The buzz and activity of her father's sawmill had for her the same charm it has for other children. Her father's flour mill furnished great empty bins filled with the smell of 22 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS flour and the eiicliantment of dusky light. The country about the little village was filled with spots of beauty and charm for her and her stepbrother. Summer after summer they ex- plored the surrounding neighborhood and found many spots which called forth their childish but poetic fancies. Flowers and trees and birds, evening sounds, and the splendor of the rainbow roused in them the spirit of joy and reverence. Upon an altar which they had erected they placed all the snakes which they killed and sometimes brought a share of their spoils of nuts or a favorite book as an offering to the God of the Universe. To repeat the Lord's Prayer in English lacked the decidedly religious flavor ; so they learned it in Latin and repeated it every night. Thus does natural childhood ever long for some ceremonial to express its inherent religiousness. In emulation of her father she attempted to read through his library, beginning with Pope's Iliad. This proved unsat- isfactory and she compromised by reading a bulky History of the World. About this time, perhaps, she began reading Plu- tarch's Lives (under the stimulus of the reward of five cents for each "Life" which she could intelligently report to her father), and Irving 's Life of Washington (at the rate of twenty-five cents per volume). This introductory reading in history developed into a real liking, so that while she was in boarding school she spent one summer in reading Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, not only reading it but successfully withstanding the bombardment of test ques- tions given by her skeptical schoolmates. The year 1877 found Miss Addams at Eockford Seminary, and she was one lof the first four young women to receive a de- gree upon its becoming Eockford College. Here she found the spirit of earnestness which is characteristic of pioneer in- stitutions and into which she entered with eager intensity. Illustrative of her effort to understand and appreciate the opening world of human experience is the effort which she and four other students made t;o understand DeQuincey's Dreams. This was nothing less than an attempt to drug themselves with opium. Not only did they fail to experience any exhilaration from the numerous opium powders, but the Copyright by Moffett Studio, Chicago JANE ADDAMS 25 high excitement even prevented sleep. The only reward of this heroic study was an emetic and a reprimand. Even at that early date Miss Addams took for granted the justice of the franchise for women, merely following, at first, her father's conviction. That this belief has not grown less strong is evidenced by her election in 1912 to the vice-pres- idency of the National "Woman's Suffrage Association and by the prominent part which she played in the first convention of the Progressive Party in the same year. "Government," she holds, "is in the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat, the diseases that enter into our homes. It has to do with the education of our children and the living condi- tions of our men and women. ' ' That women can successfully deal with such subjects of government no one who is ac- quainted with the work of Miss Addams and her colleagues at Hull House can deny. When Eockf ord Seminary was allowed to compete in the in- tercollegiate oratorical contest of Illinois, she was elected to represent her school. Her schoolmates looked upon her, as she looked upon herself, as the champion of Woman's Cause. When the contest was over she found that she ranked fifth and, although she concurred with the judges in their decision, it was no easy matter to meet her disappointed schoolmates who had, perhaps, expected too much and could not readily forgive this blow to the cause of woman. Doubtless any bit- terness at the decision has been wiped away by the after- career of the winner of that contest — William Jennings Bryan. During the four years at Eockford, Miss Addams did not escape many emotional appeals to join herself to the church. She was one of the few girls in the school who were not avowed Christians. With a strong sense of personal integ- rity she refused to yield to the pressure because she could not subscribe to the dogmas of the church. Personal piety she had, and a strong sense of the presence and power of a living God. But it was not till several years afterward that she became a member of the Presbyterian Church of her na- tive village of Cedarville, Illinois. It was not that she had 26 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS felt any emotional conversion, nor was it that she wished to conform with the views of those about her. She simply took the step as the outward expression of her inner religious sin- cerity. Her pastor was wise enough to recognize her real Christian spirit and required no profession of belief in creed or dogma. It was the longing for a visible fellowship with the saints of the church and a devotion to the ideals of dem- ocracy, which seemed to her most perfectly exemplified in the Christian Church, that had drawn her ; for her childhood faith was little changed. It was in resisting these appeals of those whom she knew to be her true friends that she gained the poise which she has found necessary to keep her later work from being diverted into a merely secular or partisan movement. She learned to select what was reasonable from the confusion of dogmas in the world and to stand fast in the midst of all the attacks of partisanship. She has been able to keep Hull House alike out of the hands of capital and of labor and has made it stand for raw humanity in whatever dress it may appear. As the end of the four years' course drew near, the ques- tion of the future loomed large. Miss Addams had picked upon medicine as her profession and the poor as her especial clientage. That she should choose the field of science was in- evitable in a day when Darwin's Origin of Species was the subject of so much bitter controversy. Trained from infancy to look at matters of opinion from a detached point of view,, and unbound by the sense that she must defend any creed with which evolution might seem to conflict, the prejudiced arguments which she heard against evolution could not but turn her toward it. Perhaps a touch of bravado was in her- acceptance of this theory, now a commonplace, but then a thing anathema. The next winter was spent in the Woman's Medical College of Philadelphia. Early in the spring, however, the spinal trouble which had threatened her from childhood put her in the hospital. Four years in college and a year's strenuous professional study had left her weary, and it was a rehef, after a few weeks, to turn from anatomy to Carlyle. Upou JANE ADDAMS 27 her doctor's advice she left America for a two years' stay in Europe. There is a tendency today to frown upon the individual who drifts. He who has no settled purpose is, in the opinion of the times, wasting his hfe. But he who reads biography with open mind will find that no inconsiderable number of the earth's great have drifted into their own. They have, it is true, been earnest and serious, but few things are more mis- leading than the notion that one's life endeavor is necessarily best spent where first inclination may lead. It is, of course, impossible to tell what Miss Addams might have done as a physician to the poor ; but is it presumptuous to say that she has done a far greater work than she could ever have hoped to do professionally? Be that as it may, her experience for the next six years led her unconsciously, step by step, to the work for which she seems to have been most peculiarly fitted. "There is a des- tiny which shapes our ends," and often it does not ask our consent. One of her first experiences on her European trip was a visit to East London Market on Saturday night. Ner- vous and morbid after her sickness, the impression of the starving, poverty-ridden crowd bidding their scanty coins for decaying vegetables and fruit was not to be eradicated. The midnight hour, the shadows, the upturned hands, the animal hunger of these human beings — all this came to her with the force of a vision. In Italy, in Austria, wherever she went on the continent, the memory of that hideous scene drew her to the haunts of poverty. Kiiowing little of the efforts even then being made to lighten the burden of the poor, she was weighed down by the vision. When yet a small child she had suffered from one of those recurring dreams which sensitive children sometimes endure in silence. It seemed that the whole future of the world de- pended upon her making a wagon wheel. Day after day she would watch the village blacksmith, questioning him, and learning how to make a wagon wheel. Something of this same sense of responsibility and helplessness came to her as she suffered over the poverty of the world. Books seemed 28 FAMOUS LIVING- AMERICANS foolish bubbles, education a delusion. With so much to be done, with throbbing life all about her being ground down to the level of the brute, what could excuse her self-centered life, how could one spend time on culture when life called? But even yet she found no call to work. Between trips to Europe she went, one summer, to visit in a western state where she held mortgages on some farms. It was after a long drought. The farmers were in a most des- perate condition. Their farms, their homes, and their fam- ilies bore every trace of extreme poverty. That human be- ings could live under such conditions was almost beyond be- lief. Yielding to the horror which this revelation inspired, she withdrew her investments rather than receive interest from men likely to be reduced to such conditions as these — doubtless only adding to their wretchedness by her ill-timed act. Finally came a day in April, 1888, which wa-s to be the turn- ing point in the aimless career which had now gone on for al- most six years. With the other members of her party, which was then in Madrid, Spain, Miss Addams attended a bull fight. As she looked upon the combat, all the splendor of the imagined Eoman arena, all the historic gloiy of the medieval tournament threw a glamour over the scene. It was not a bull fight she was witnessing — it was a dramatic representation of all the vanished splendor of historic combat. Meanwhile five bulls and several horses were killed as she looked on with- out a tremor. The spectacle had inspired her friends with only a sense of nausea, and they expressed no little displeas- ure at her insensibility. A reaction came in the evening, and she was filled with self- disgust as she realized that she had witnessed this revolting scene without a qualm. It was quite clearly borne in upon her that although she had pretended such a deep interest in life she had really been drifting to the point where she could look on suffering with esthetic pleasure. The hope that all this period of preparation was leading to some real purpose- ful end suddenly cleared itself to her as mere pampering self- ishness. The moral revulsion following the fight compelled JANE ADDAMS 29 her to action. Hopes for the future were well, but without some definite purpose and effort to fulfil these hopes, they were but an opiate to her conscience. Just what turned her mind in the direction of settlement work is difficult to say. Perhaps her childish thought of liv- ing in a big house among "horrid, little houses" had never left her. Without a doubt the misery and suffering of the poor, which she had been morbidly seeking for the past few years, had impressed her with the real need of these people. Be that as it may, she had for some time been revolving in her mind the plan of a settlement house. In the present crisis Miss Addams resolved to make her escape from the in- sensibility into which she was sinking, and with many misgiv- ings she broached the subject to her fellow-traveler and for- mer schoolmate. Miss Starr. To her surprised delight Miss Starr entered heartily into the plan and the scheme rapidly assumed tangibility. Miss Starr continued her European journey and Miss Addams re- turned to London to visit Toynbee Hall and the People's Pal- ace that she might gather suggestions from these forerunners in the settlement movement. January, 1889, found Miss Ad- dams and Miss Starr in Chicago looking for a site for their experiment. From this time on Miss Addams 's life is so closely bound up with the progress of Hull House that it is almost impos- sible to separate her acts from those of the other residents of Hull House. That her influence has been responsible for many steps in which she has taken no active part is certain ; that she has been the prime mover in Hull House activity is no less certain. But it must never be forgotten that there were others — many others — who devoted their energies to the success of this movement, and no one is more ready than Miss Addams to give them due credit. If other names are here omitted or neglected it is not because their part is for- gotten but because only a single thread is being followed through the mazes of a life which touched untold others. After a long search a house, built in 1856 by Mr. Hull, one of the early settlers of Chicago, was rented. It had been used 30 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS as a home, the office of a factory, a second-hand furniture store, and a honae for the aged. In addition to this its attic was supposed to be haunted. In spite of its varied career the house was still in good condition and was soon repaired. Miss Helen Culver, the owner of the house, gave, on the following spring, a free leasehold of the entire building. The thirteen buildings now under the management of Hull House stand on property which is almost entirely the gift of this generous woman. "To provide a center for a higher civic and social life; to institute and maintain educational and philanthropic enter- prises, and to investigate and improve the conditions in the industrial districts of Chicago": This, says their charter, is the object of Hull House. But it is more intensely human than this cold statement indicates. It was also the intention of Hull House to enter into the lives of the poor and the ig- norant and to keep alive that spark of humanity which all too often becomes sodden under the ceaseless dropping of poverty. Accordingly, Hull House was furnished as the residents would have furnished their own homes in any other part of the city. Perhaps a knowledge of the neighborhood of Hull House will make evident the high audacity of this. On one side was a colony of some ten thousand Italians ; to the south were as many Germans, with Polish and Russian Jews occu- pying the side streets ; further south was a vast Bohemian colony; to the northwest were many Canadian French; and to the north was an Irish colony. Thus Hull House was in the midst of six nations. The conditions of the neighborhood may be understood from a single incident. When, aroused by the inactivity of the garbage inspector. Miss Addams as a last resort entered a bid for the contract to remove the garbage from her ward, her bid was thrown out on technicalities. The incident resulted, however, in her appointment as garbage in- spector of the nineteenth ward. It was no light task for an already busy woman, but with the help of fellow-residents re- sults began to appear. As a crowning achievement, a pave- ment was discovered eighteen inches underground in a nar- row street which no one remembered ever to have been paved. JANE ADDAMS 31 That an American city would allow such an accumulation of garbage on its streets is almost unbelievable. This and kin- dred activities reduced the death rate of the ward from third to seventh among Chicago wards. The whole attitude of Hull House is exemplified by Miss Addams's reply to the manufacturers who offered to give Hull House $50,000, enabling it to become "the largest institution on the West Side," if the residents would cease their agita- tion for sweat shop reform. It must have caused these manu- facturers no little embarrassment to hear her declaration that she and her friends were not interested in exalting Hull House but that they were interested in protecting their neighbors from undesirable working conditions. It is this attitude which has kept Hull House alive. It is easy to record visible material results such as the above, but almost impossible to make clear the larger, per- sonal, human results of the movement. To record the influ- ence of Hull House in sweat shop and labor legislation, re- pression of the sale of morphine and opium to minors, and the amelioration of conditions in poor houses — this would be an easy task, but would give no real insight into the work of Miss Addams. To give her personal part as a member of the Board of Education, as arbitrator in the Pullman Strike, as member of the university extension staff of the University of Chicago, as a member of the committee to investigate poor- house conditions — to review these personal honors and ef- forts would tell little of her work save the esteem in which she is held. To know her real work one must get an insight into the changed environments, the uplifted lives and the re- directed careers of the thousands whom she has touched. That old age finds itself not abandoned, that youth finds it- self appreciated, that the sorrowful find comfort, that the dis- couraged find inspiration, that the weak find strength, that the sick find health, that the misunderstood find toleration, that the immigrant finds his place in the new world — these are the real achievements of Hull House. And all this is achieved through the devotion, the sympathy, and the real love for mankind that inspires Miss Addams and her co-workers. 32 FAMOUS LIVING AMEEICANS Perhaps there could be found no better expression of the attitude of Chicago toward Miss Addams than the banquet held at the Hotel La Salle the latter part of February, 1913, just before her departure for a four months ' vacation trip to Egypt and Italy. Twelve hundred guests met at the call of the Progressive Club of Chicago. From varied walks of life came expressions of esteem. Bainbridge Colby, of New York, but expressed what all felt as he summed up the career of this woman whom Graham Taylor in an editorial in the Chicago Daily News calls "Chicago's foremost citizen": "What an extraordinary mission of life is hers," he said, "and how wondrously her life has preached the sermon of the deed! Refusing to lull her conscience by a dreamer's scheme, unbeguiled by paper reforms, she set out early in life — and I use her words — 'to make social intercourse express the growing sense of the economic unity of society and to add the social function to democracy.' Proceeding upon the sober theory that the dependence of classes upon each other is re- ciprocal, she determined to deal directly with the simplest hu- man wants. "Abounding in achievement as her life has been, I venture the assertion that the year just closed is the richest and most fruitful of her life thus far. This year she has sown broad- cast the seeds of ripened purpose, of experience and deep re- flection. She has scattered wide the accumulations of the past. To a waiting and famished people, who hungered and thirsted after righteousness, she has thrown the rich spoils of her life. ' ' And then to the tune of "My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean" twelve hundred voices sang : "Jane Addams sails over the ocean, Jane Addams sails over the sea, We're glad she's to have a vacation, But bring back Jane Addams to me. "We'll lend her to Greece and to Egypt, Jerusalem, Athens, and Rome, JANE ADDAMS 33 We'll lend her to Europe and Asia, So long as we get her back home. ' ' The Peace Dove will perch on her shoulder, All Europe will dwell in accord, The Turks will go back to rug-maMng, The Balkans will put up the sword." BIBLIOGRAPHY BOOKS Heroines of Modem Progress, pp. 280-307. (Sturgis and "Walton.) By Ehner C. Adams £ind Warren D. Foster. Twenty Years at Hull House. (Macmillan.) By Jane Addams. PEEIODICALS Autobiographical Notes. By Jane Addams. American Magazine 69:722-734; 70:84-93, 192-202, 338-348, 494-505, 638-646. Chicago's Farewell to Jane Addams. Survey 29:741. Hull House, Chicago : An Effort toward Social Democracy. By Jane Addams. Forum 14 :226-241. Jane Addams (a poem). By "William A. Bradley. American Maga- zine 70:562. Jane Addams — Interpreter. By Graham Taylor. Review of Re- views 40 :688. Jane Addams: the Lady of the Melting Pot. Current Literature 49 :152-156. Jane Addams 's Twenty Years of Industrial Democracy. By Graham Taylor. Survey 25:405-409. My Experiences as a Progressive Candidate. By Jane Addams. Mc- Clure's 40 :12-14. Only Saint America Has Produced. Current Literature 40:377-379. Routine and Ideals. By John Haynes Holmes. Survey 25 :881-883. Settlers in the City "Wilderness. Atlantic Monthly 77:118. Social Settlement. By Annie L. Muzzey. Arena 16 :432. Visit to Tolstoy. By Jane Addams. McClure's 36:295. ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL By Hillaky Asbuey Gobin WHEN I was a small boy a fine old gentleman came to my father's house one day to talk about a machine for making brick. The old man was working hard on his invention — a means of making brick by steam power rather than by hand labor. In his talk he said: "I would rather leave a useful invention to my f ellowmen than to be President of the United States. ' ' The small boy listening in silence was deeply impressed by this remark. He never heard the result of the experiment with the brick machine but he never forgot the old man's remark. To appreciate the value of this saying we do not need to dis- parage the high character or vast importance of this great office, but the comparison suggests the value to society of a wonderful invention. The decisions of the President may not be known or felt by vast multitudes of the people, while the efforts of some ingenious and persistent thinker may result in such an improvement in certain commodities or utilities as to bless every home in the land. Among the greatest inventions, if not the very greatest, in point of service to all kinds of people, is the telephone. No other invention came into practical service so speedily. No other invention went so rapidly around the world and entered at once into every scene of human activity. It speaks in all languages and talks on all subjects. With equal facility it transmits the classic speech of the learned and the awkward dialect of the illiterate. By it we hear from afar the prattle of the babe, the counsel of the aged, the wail of the sorrowing, or the cheer of the victorious. It talks about money, danger, success, failure, playful jest, and loving devotion. One mo- ment its voice is angry and insolent, in an instant it becomes apologetic, respectful, and assuring. It alarms, commands, relieves, and exults in breathless speed and forcefulness, through incredible distances. Wonderful, wonderful tele- phone ! ^l£c.„^^ >^^-- /i-^ ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL 37 But the most marvelous thing of all about this wonderful achievement is that the chief inventor still lives to observe and enjoy the success of his invention. Recalling the remark of the old brickmaker, if it is such a joy to leave a useful in- vention to one's fellow men, how rare is the privilege of the inventor, after the struggle of its introduction is over, to live on to witness and assist in its improvement and world-wide adoption. This fortunate personage is Alexander Graham Bell. He was bom in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1847. He belonged to a family of voice teachers. * ' His father, also his two brothers, his uncle, and his grandfather, had taught the laws of speech in the Universities of Edinburgh, Dublin, and London. For three generations the Bells had been professors of the science of talking. ' ' ^ Alexander Graham Bell was elected professor of vocal physiology in Boston University in 1873 in his twenty- fifth year. He was commonly known as a professor of elocu- tion. At that time the studies in this subject were chiefly con- cerned with tones, pitch, modulation, and gesture. But Pro- fessor Bell closely investigated also the mechanism of the voice and the philosophy of sound. An element of philanthropy en- tered largely into these early studies. It Avas discovered that many mutes were dumb not because of deficiency in the vocal apparatus but simply because they could not hear. In such instances the professor of vocal physiology began to teach these students to make articulate sounds. Progress toward full and precise speech was slow and difficult. But by persist- ent effort great success was achieved. Doubtless he was stim- ulated in this work by the fact that his grandfather, Alexander Bell, had invented a cure for stammering, and his father, Alexander Melville Bell, had devised a sign language which he called "visible speech." The work of Professor Bell in this direction gave him great honor. He was for a time as- sociated with Dr. Monroe in his famous School of Oratory in Boston. The writer of this sketch was present at an exhibi- tion given in this school when a "dumb" boy eighteen years ^History of the Telephone, by Herbert Casson. A. C. McClurg & Co., 1910, p. 14. 38 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS old recited a poem of about twenty stanzas. The occasion was of so much interest that several distinguished scholars and philanthropists were present. Among them I remember A. Bronson Alcott, Theodore "Weld and Colonel T. W. Higginson. A note was read from Ralph Waldo Emerson expressing his regret that he could not enjoy an occasion which he felt sure signified so much for the relief of a most deserving class of persons. When Dr. Monroe gave an account of the boy's training and proficiency he held a sheet of paper before his lips so that the boy could not see what he was saying. The student could not hear a word but he was an expert in reading "visible speech. ' ' Dr. Monroe stated that recently a bus-driv- er seeing this boy on the side walk and not knowing that he was deaf and dumb called out to him for the direction to a certain citizen's house. The boy chanced to be looking toward the driver and reading his lips knew what he wanted and in plain speech gave him the desired information. The teach- ing of mutes to speak is now an important department in ev- ery deaf and dumb institution. One of the greatest rewards for original research is the opening of doors to new and higher problems. While the pro- fessor of vocal physiology was seeking relief for the speech- less he was led to study how ordinary speech may become more serviceable in all human affairs. Other experimenters approached the telephone in the study of applied electricity. Professor Bell came to the telephone in the study of the vocal apparatus. The sound box in the voice suggested the possi- bility of a sound box similar to the voice which might emit vibrations not upon the vacant air but upon a transmitter which might convey articulate sounds in definite directions and distances. Professor Bell was not without knowledge of electrical phenomena. In former years he had been a close student and experimenter with this mysterious force. But it was his mastery of the science of the voice that gave him the chief ba sis for his great invention. He once stated,^ "Had I zThirtietli Anniversaxy of a Great Invention. By John Vaughn, Scribner's 40:365. ALEXANDER GEAHAM BELL 39 known more about electricity and less about sound, I should never have invented the telephone. ' ' There have been many romances in education. Has there ever been one equal to this — a teacher of public speaking not satisfied with the superficial and conventional instruction and seeking a scientific basis for his art discovers means whereby the dumb may learn to talk and invents an instrument which transmits the voice in all its characteristics of tone, modula- tion and emphasis, in any language, to hearers in endless varieties of conditions, and, so far as theory goes, to incredi- ble distances'? On account of the similarity in words the telephone has been compared to the telescope {tele scopein, to see afar; tele phon- ein, to sound afar). But there is a vast inequality in the service of the two instruments. The telephone not only speaks afar but by means of intra-phones it speaks to the next room and the next desk. The mass of instruments in a single build- ing is amazing. "No sooner is a new sky-scraper walled and roofed than the telephones are in place. In a single one of these monstrous buildings, the Hudson Terminal, there is a cable that runs from basement to roof and ravels out to reach three thousand desks. This mighty geyser of wires is more than fifty tons in weight and would, if straightened out into a single line, connect New York with Chicago." {History of the Telephone, p. 135.) This mass of invisible wires connects not only room with room and desk with desk, in this one tow- ering structure, but penetrates into nearly all rooms and all desks in the nation. So the telephone is far more than both the telescope and the microscope combined. Comparatively few people have the need or the pleasure to use these great adjuncts of sight, while many millions have frequent and familiar use of the ' ' speaking machine. ' ' A more striking comparison exists between the telephone and its elder brother, the telegraph. The analogies between the invention, development, and success of these two great utilities are numerous and impressive. But the contrast be- tween their present service and popularity is astounding. 40 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS "Ten years ago there were sent by the telephone in the Unit- ed States forty-one times more messages than were sent by telegraph, although the latter method of communication was forty years older than the former."* At the present time such a comparison is impossible. Messages by telegraph can be computed but not those by telephone. One might as well try to count the words spoken in an hour by the entire human race. The greatness of the success of the invention cannot be shown without some citations from statistics, although the fig- ures are so large as to be incomprehensible. The annual re- port of the Bell System for 1913 states the value of the plant December 31, 1913, as $797,159,487, an increase since 1907 of $294,171,587. The gross earnings for 1913 were $215,572,822 and the total expenses, $156,883,299. Let no one imagine that this transition from the toil of a modest and obscure teacher to the mastery of a colossal util- ity came with a sudden and easy ascension. The story of Pro- fessor Bell's discovery and development of the telephone con- tains the elements of romance — danger, courage, and persist- ency, terminating in exultant victory. Perhaps he never en- countered danger in the sense of bodily harm, but he did incur the peril of missing the mark in his invention, and no small risk of his being deprived of his proper meed of honor for its success. Many students in electricity had devised instruments for conveying sounds and musical notes by electric currents. Some had even transmitted the voice in certain irregular and incoherent forms. But Professor Bell persisted beyond all these elementary stages and produced a mechanism for trans- mitting speech in a definite, practicable, and reliable manner. His accuracy in the use of language gave him the sure "cinch" on his patent. The chief sentence in his patent was: "The method of and apparatus for transmitting sounds telegraphi- cally, as herein described, by causing electric undulations, sim- ilar in form to the vibrations of the air accompanying the said vocal or other sounds substantially as set forth." In subse- 3 Thirtieth Anniversary, Scribner's 40:371. ALEXANDER GEAHAM BELL 41 quent years in the bitter contests in th.e courts this sentence became the citadel of the defense of the Bell patent, and great lawyers in the attacking force admitted that it could not be broken down. The early history of the telephone is marked by an obstinate distrust by men in a situation to have become valuable promo- ters. Fortunately, their lack of faith and satirical comments, while depriAdng them of a golden opportunity for a rare in- vestment, did not handicap the persistent inventor. His in- strument was dubiously admitted to the Centennial Exhibi- tion in 1876. It was regarded as a toy and not the germ of a great utility. A few observers, among them Dom Pedro, Em- peror of Brazil, appreciated the instrument as interesting, but no one could see its possibihties. No capitalist approached the inventor with a proffer to finance its manufacture and in- troduction. Doubtless in subsequent years many men of means have been wont to say: "I might have been a millionaire many times over had I appreciated the Bell Telephone!" One of the first friends and co-workers with Professor Bell was Thomas A. Watson, who after a fine career as a telephone pro- moter became a great ship-builder in East Boston. In the Scientific American Supplement for April 5, 1913, in an arti- cle by Mr. Watson entitled, "Pioneers in Telephone Engineer- ing," he says: "At that time, 1877, there was a tremendous need for cash. We had just been bitterly disappointed, we four who composed the telephone business, Mr. Hubbard, Mr. Sanders, Dr. Bell, and a boy by the name of Watson. We had just received a terrible blow. The Western Union Tele- graph Company had refused our offer to sell all the Bell pat- ents for $100,000, and we were very much depressed over it. Just about that time Dr. Bell needed money, more, I think than he ever before needed money in his fife. He wanted to get married. The need for money was so great that some of the ladies prominently connected with the original four, insisted that telephones be made and sold by the thousands, and as quickly as possible. This would have meant the flooding of the country with very imperfect telephones and also would 42 FAMOUS LIVING AMEEICANS have blocked the plan for leasing them that has resulted in the present system of the unity and universality of the telephone service. ' ' Another writer, speaking of the poverty of those early years, says: "Month after month the little Bell Company lived from hand to mouth. No salaries were paid in full. Of- ten for weeks they were not paid at all. In Watson's note book there are such entries as, 'Lent Bell fifty cents. Lent Hubbard twenty cents. ' More than once Hubbard would have gone hungry had not Devonshire, the only clerk, shared with him the contents of his dinner pail." (Casson, History of the Telephone.) In the beginning the telephone was financed by the same art that produced it, the art of superior speaking. The first lec- tures of Mr. Bell were delivered without charge before the Essex Institute in Salem, Massachusetts. The lectures were received with much enthusiasm, and many engagements were made for lectures and demonstrations in other cities. Henry W. Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and other men of like distinction, published an open letter inviting Bell to lecture in Boston. The people came by hundreds and thousands to hear and see. By his success in describing and illustrating the tel- ephone the professor of Vocal Physiology established sufficient control over his invention so that in its world-wide growth and extension it should forever bear his name. While the machine is known by the name of the chief inven- tor, the variety of instruments and new improvements is prac- tically numberless. It would require more than a page of this book to give the list of inventors, without specifying their par- ticular devices. The records of the United States patent office show "that there have been issued in Class No. 179, Telephony, to date (August, 1914) approximately sixty hundred and nine- ty-six (6,096) Patents. ' ' The intellectual energy displayed in securing over six thousand patents in one field of invention is amazing. We must not infer that this means so many in- ventors. Many of these patents belong to particular men, as for example over six hundred on the switch-board belong to Mr. Charles E. Scribner. On the other hand, thousands have ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL 43 studied and toiled to the brink of insanity on general systems or minute parts for which they received neither patent nor recognition. Sometimes a "trick" in the elusive "juice" has been discovered by an obscure laborer whose mind was more active than his hands. All this army of thinkers, experts, and helpers, from such master minds as Edison, Blake, Carty, Pupin, Berliner, Doolittle, Vail and Barton, to the humblest operator, owe their chief incentive to Alexander Graham Bell. The inventions in Telephony may be grouped into a few great classes. The Case, The Transmitter, The Wiring, and The Switchboard. The last is the greatest achievement of all. "A telephone switchboard is a pyramid of inventions. If it is full grown, it may have two milhon parts. It may be lit with fifteen thousand tiny electric lamps and served with as much wire as would reach from New York to Berlin. It may cost as much as a thousand pianos or as much as three square miles of farms in Indiana. The ten thousand wire hairs of its head are not only mmabered, but enswathed in silk, and combed out in so marvelous a way that any one of them may be linked in a flash to any other." The glory of the switch- board is its merging into the modern Telephone Exchange. "This is the solar plexus of the telephone body. Bell himself was perhaps the first to see the future of the Telephone Ex- change. In a letter written to some English capitalists in 1878 he said: 'It is possible to connect every man's house, office, or factory with a Central Station, so as to give him direct com- munication with his neighbors. . . It is conceivable that wires could be laid underground or suspended overhead, con- nected by branch wires with private dwellings and shops, and uniting them with a main cable through a Central Office.' " (Casson, History of the Telephone.) Turning again from the technical to the practical, the tele- phone is a great means of popular education. Why not? It was bom in the private study of a teacher and has been studied in the laboratories of men of science everywhere. As a means of information in which one has a personal interest it far excels the daily newspaper, and the paper itself is made a hundred fold more valuable by its liberal use. Who can estimate what 44 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS distress would come to the world if some mysterious cataclysm of nature should deprive us of the telephone! It would be worse than the pall of darkness that came to ancient Egypt. The telephone is a great agency for the promotion of higher civilization in foreign lands. Its mysteries arouse no preju- dice but rather invite study. Its manifest convenience se- cures ready adoption. There is no region so remote or so dark that it has not been penetrated by this great instrument of enlightenment. If it is a pleasure to see how rapidly this invention is re- ceived in all lands and adopted by all people, it is a greater pleasure to note its increasing popularity in our own country, the land of its birth. The ancients were wont to deify all the powers of nature and ascribe certain jurisdictions to particu- lar gods and demigods. If we followed their example, our supreme deity would be electricity, and his three giant sons would be electric light, electric motor, and electric telephone.^ "We leave to other writers the pleasure of describing the vast provinces of the light and the motor, also the extent to which, our countrymen have contributed to the improvement of these two great utilities. Suffice it to say here, "The United States leads the world in the use of the telephone by a wide margin. There are in this country 64.7 per cent, of all the telephones,, and only 25.3 in all Europe. France has 230,700, Great Brit- ain nearly 649,000, Germany a little over 1,000,000, while the United States has 7,500,000 ! ' ' (Bulletin New York Telephone and Telegraph Co.) In 1911 a French publication gave sta- tistics of telephones in the seventeen chief cities of Europe. Paris is credited with 74,400, Berlin 122,500, London 172,000.*^ The same year New York City had 402,000. Chicago has more telephones than France, and Boston more than Austria. What the telephone will become in the future no one can predict: Enthusiasts tell fairy tales of its possibilities. Two years aga when an expert claimed that photographs could be transmitted by telephone the hearers were ready to hiss him off the stage. But in the Scientific American, December 21, 1912, p. 529, is given a portrait of a beautiful lady transmitted by "tele-pho- * L 'lUiistration. ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL 45 tograpliy" over a teleplione line four hundred and fifty miles. This showing verifies the claim made at the beginning of this sketch that no other inventor has lived to witness the amazing growth and popularity of the invention bearing his name. It is not claimed that all of this achievement has come by the work of one man. If such could be the case the inven- tion would be a small affair. A chief part of its glory is that it has attracted more than ten thousand students, discoverers, and designers to its improvement. The greatest scientists of the age have pored over its problems. The promoters in the line of investors, stockholders, engineers, and superin- tendents, may be numbered as many more thousands. The op- erators, mechanics, and laborers must be numbered by the million. It is not surprising that in an industry so vast, the legiti- macy of the inventor's claim should be questioned. Contest- ants have gathered like an invading army. "In all, the Bell Company fought out thirteen law suits that were of national interest, and five that were carried to the Supreme Court in Washington. It fought out five hundred and eighty-seven law suits of various natures and with the exception of two trivial contract suits, it never lost a case." At first sight this contest is an uncanny scene, but, while a dark cloud on the American escutcheon, it is a bright halo over the brow of Bell. The historian whom we have repeatedly quoted closes his chapter on the litigation with these emphatic words : "But in the actual making of the telephone there was no one with Bell nor before him. He invented it first and alone. " The undesigned but beneficent result of all this controversy in the courts and elsewhere has established for all time the fact that justice has been done in giving the chief honor of the inven- tion of this wonderful instrument with all its collateral appli- ances to the student and teacher of public speaking, Alexander Graham Bell. BIBLIOGRAPHY BOOKS Historic Inventions, p. 215. By R. S. Holland. History of the Telephone. (McClurg.) By Herbert N. Casson. 46 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS PEEIODICALS Alexander Graham Bell. By E. E. Quimby. Nation 29 :279. Alexander Graham BeU. By G. P. Serviss. Cosmopolitan 33 :42. Eace of Human Thoroughbreds, an Interview with Bell. By W. A. Frost. World's Work 27 :176. Scientific American 75 : Supplement. Scientific American 102 :462. Thirtieth Anniversary of a Great Invention. By John Vaughn. Scrib- ner's 40 :365. Courtesy of Pack Bros, New York '^?C-^C..Jy^^^. MAUD BALLINGTON BOOTH By Chablbs Bbandon Booth THE great prison chapel at Sing Sing was packed to the doors. Even in the aisles and windows gray garbed men crowded, eager and expectant. The low hum of whispered conversation held a suggestion of suppressed ex- citement. Suddenly a small door at the rear of the chapel opened and aU attention was riveted as a Httle woman, dressed in a simple gray gown, stepped onto the rostrum. Her coming was the signal for a burst of applause which, in the genuine- ness of its welcome, told eloquently the place which the "Little Mother" holds in the hearts of those who live in the shadow of the prison bars. As she stood before the cheering audience, her face aUght with the joy of her mission, there could be no doubting the unchanging faith which she holds in this work of bringing a new realization of hope to so many tens of thousands of the imprisoned, for Maud Ballington Booth has not only been the bearer of good tidings within the walls, she has also carried to the outside world the story of the redeemabiUty of the pris- oner and shown that all men and women have a responsibility with regard to this phase of our social problem. It is no sentimental or impractical' religion that this Uttle woman preaches to the thousands to whom she ministers ; nor does she present any tangle of unproven theories to the public. Her efforts are based upon the foundation of a faith in the redeemability of every man through the Divine Power, pro- vided that he will at all times second that Power by a deter- mination to do what is right. From a study of her life of almost constant travel, with its round of great public and prison meetings, and detailed office activity, we turn to view those years when she was preparing for the undertaking of the mission which has proved her crowning joy. In those early days of her life, spent in a quiet corner of England, we find no suggestion of the responsibili- 50 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS ties of the years which were to come. Nestled in the heart of Surrey, that garden land of the old country, the little village of Limpsfield must have proven a veritable fairyland of beauty to child minds and hearts. Here, a little way back from the shaded main street, stood the parish church. Across the way in the handsome old rectory Maud Elizabeth Charlesworth was bom on the thirteenth of September, 1867. Her father, the Eeverend Samuel Charlesworth, was rector of the parish. He possessed a wonderful personality which had won for him the respect and love of all those numbered among his little flock. It is a question whether to him or to her mother Mrs. Booth owes the personal qualities which make her so magnetic a pubhc speaker. Maud Elizabeth was the youngest of three children and the two older sisters were her constant playmates and boon com- panions. The favorite sister Florence, who was nearer to her because they were more of an age, shared with her many an adventure. Living in a country village it was natural that they should spend hours each day playing in the fields or roam- ing over the great commons. On the occasion of their numer- ous trips to the seaside both became expert swimmers and were holders of the long distance swimming records at several of the summer resorts they visited. The eldest sister, Annie, was more advanced in her studies and specialized in botany. As a result she did not share so actively the adventures of the other children. Yet all of them were lovers of the out-of-doors and it is certain that in these years of child experience both Florence and Maud built up constitutions which have since aided them to withstand the stress of worry and taxing responsibility which have been their portion. With these memories of happiness there is also the thought of the loss which came to the rector's family while they were still in Limpsfield. When Maud was fifteen years of age, the mother, who had given to that home such a beauti- ful example of loving devotion, was taken from them. Her last resting place was chosen in the little churchyard and is marked by a moss-covered gravestone upon which can be read MAUD BALLINGTON BOOTH 51 the words, "And they that be wise shall shine as the bright- ness of the firmament, and they that turn many to righteous- ness as the stars forever and ever." Who shall say what in- fluence and inspiration for a life of devotion to the uplifting of fallen and broken humanity flowed from the calm, conse- crated loving mother into the very soul of the youngest child, so soon destined to take up her life work? Not long after this the family moved to London. The Eeverend Charlesworth was made Vicar of the Limehouse parish, and the two eldest daughters married clergymen. Maud, left without their companionship, commenced to look for a field of endeavor in which she might be of service. "When the opportunity was presented she was quick to grasp it and at the early age of sixteen commenced her pubhc speaking. In France there was great need for reformative influence. It was just at the time that in the great city of Paris "un- tamed revelry reaped a toll of shadow. ' ' To these impulsive yet sympathetic people the girl of faith carried a message of the higher ideals of life. Her knowledge of their own lan- guage, so thoroughly gained from the nurse of her baby days, gave to her appeal an added touch of personal understanding, and hundreds upon hundreds responded to her message. Prom France she went to Switzerland, always working for the uplifting of others. Just before her return to England a call came to her from the great University at Upsala, Swed- en. Here she realized her greatest successes and led the most inspiring and helpful of her services on the conti- nent. Winning the attention of the students she commanded their respect and appreciation. It has been said that never before or since in the history of the University was such a powerful influence for good felt. Even to this day there are in all parts of the world those who still speak of the Upsala gatherings and look back to them as the turning point in a life experience. It would be impossible to recount the rapidily varying events of the following years in so short a biography as this ; to tell how she met Ballington Booth and of the courtship which followed ; of the time of separation necessitated during 52 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS Mr. Booth's travels in Australia and finally of their wedding before a vast audience of nearly six thousand people in the great Congress Hall, London. After an all too short wedding trip they returned to the responsibilities of a great religious movement. Soon came the call to America which resulted in their trip across the Atlantic and the appointment to full charge of the Salvation Army work in the United States. For the first years their efforts in this country were marked by hardships and at times fraught with dangers. As the pioneers of a rehgious organization they received much abuse, and were the target for scoffers' tongues and the skepticism of the unbeheving. They were actually stoned upon the streets and often were saved from rougher treatment only by inter- vention on the part of the poHce. A few months after Mrs. Booth's arrival in America her son was bom and during a long and serious iUness which followed, she suffered from deprivations which almost result- ed in the loss of her Hfe. During these weeks her husband, with the burden of the work upon his shoulders and the cease- less concern regarding her health, was threatened with a nerv- ous breakdown, and for a time it seemed that the battle would be too difficult and that they would have to give up and return to England. But neither Mr. nor Mrs. Booth are to be num- bered among those who can complacently accept defeat, and little by Uttle they turned the tide of opposition. Before many months had passed a small company of stanch friends had ralhed to their aid and with this encouragement, giving them added incentive for their work, they started a campaign which swept the movement forward to its zenith of success during the the last years of their leadership. When their son was five years of age a daughter came to add to the happiness of the little family. She was named Myrtle Theodora and her dedication was attended by hundreds of friends of Mr. and Mrs. Booth. Feeling that the country would be better for the children they decided to make their home in the suburbs of New York. Just at this time came another experience of trial, for on MAUD BALLINGTON BOOTH 53 matters of principle and standards of Americanism Mr. and Mrs. Booth, disagreed with the headquarters office of the Salvation Army in England. In the interchange of corre- spondence demands were made to which the American leaders could not accede without grave injustice to their subordinates and the endangering of the standing of the organization in America. Eeahzing at last that it was impossible to bring about a mutual agreement they tendered their resignation and in the year 1895 stepped out of the Salvation Army and re- tired to the seclusion of their home. In the meantime an in- terested American public had followed the story of the diffi- culty through the medium of the press and, although some of the reports were badly garbled, enough of the truth was re- vealed to arouse a strong sentiment in favor of the stand which Mr. and Mrs. Booth had taken. As a result they were approached by friends who urged that they start a new re- ligious movement, thoroughly American in principle and en- tirely democratic in government. After much prayerful con- sideration they decided to yield to this new call of opportunity and organized the Volunteers of America, later being elected co-Presidents of the field council. Some little time before Mrs. Booth had visited the great state prison at San Quentin, California, and as she considered the opening of the new work, the memory of this visit was fresh in her mind. "Never shall I forget," she said, "the sea of upturned faces, many of them so plainly bearing the marring imprint of sorrow and sin — despair and misery — yet behind the scars and shadows there was such an eager longing — such a hun- gry appeal for a sight of hope 's bright star, that one could but feel an intense inspiration while delivering the message. Nev- er before had I seen the stripes, never heard the clang behind me of the iron gates, nor had I realized the hopelessness that enshrouds the prisoner. . . I did not attempt to preach. As far as possible in that brief hour I tried to carry them away from prison. . . The response I read in their faces — the grateful letters that reached me afterwards in the mail, and the constant memory of that scene as I witnessed it, 54 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS deepened into a determination to make their cause mine when the opportunity should offer. ' ' Clear and unmistakable the call had come to Mrs. Booth to enter this field of endeavor and when the warden of Sing Sing wrote urging her to visit the prison she determined to take up the cause of the prisoner as her life work. On May 24, 1896, the initial meeting was held at Sing Sing and from the thousand or more men in her audience the first members of the Volunteer Prison League were enrolled. So much a part of her life is this work that we may well note, in part, the concise account of the league given in Tighe Hop- kins 's splendid book entitled. Wards of the State : "Let us seek to know what is the spirit of this crusade which has stirred so profoundly and affected so powerfully the whole under-world of America. 'From the very first,' says Mrs. Booth, 'I realized that to make the work effectual there must be the establishment of personal friendship, and that it was only as we recognized and helped the individual, that we could by degrees affect the whole population.' Her idea was, to meet the prisoners on the level, to get to know them man by man, to win their confidence, to put them grad- ually on their mettle, and then, in the end, to engage them to stand up in prison with her badge upon their breasts. There was to be no coddling, no going behind the prison rules. With the definite promise of help on release, the men were to be compelled to work out their own salvation. "A beginning was made with the chapel services. Mrs. Booth's talk caused a sudden stir in the hearts of her listeners. She said she would correspond with those who had no friends to write to them. Letters poured in upon her. ' The many let- ters which reached me soon gave us an insight into the thoughts and feelings of the men, and we were then able to be- come familiar with the names and histories of many of them.' After the letters came interviews in the cells. As men began to take the decisive step, it became evident that organization would be needed to bind them together. The V. P. L., or Volunteer Prison League, was formed ; and, to test him to the uttermost, every man who joined it must show his button boldly MAUD BALLINGTON BOOTH 55 in the prison. This button was a small white one with a blue star in the middle and the motto of the league, 'Look Up and Hope.' The prisoners banded in this league stood together for right living and good discipline. Each man was given a certificate of membership : " 'This is to certify that is a member of the Volunteer Prison League, he having faithfidly promised, with God's help, to conform to the following conditions of membership: " 'First — To pray every morning and night. " 'Second— To read the Day Book faithfully. " 'Third — To refrain from the use of bad language. " 'Fourth — To be faithful in the observance of prison rules and discipline, so as to become an example of good conduct. " 'Fifth — To seek earnestly to cheer and encourage others in well doing and right living, trying, where it is possible, to make new members of the League. ' "This document hangs in the prison cell, and its owner dons forthwith the badge of the V. P. L. He is now, of course, a marked man. Officers and fellow-prisoners alike watch him closely, and, as may be imagined, it is in this hour that his trial begins. This, however, Mrs. Booth regards as of para- mount importance ; the man must go through the fire . . . alone. "The thought that has made this league a strong foundation for the work and that has proved the most rousing inspiration to the men, is that the effort is not ours, but theirs. No phil- anthropist, preacher or teacher in the world can reform these men ... it rests with the men themselves. "The league obliges them to realize this very vividly; the responsibihty is rolled back upon their own shoulders ; they are made beholden to their own consciences. This would seem to be the root of the matter ; this is that spirit we have been seeking. The prisoner sets to work to rebuild his character; and what that effort costs within the walls of prison may be but faintly guessed. . ." At first the skeptics scoffed and even friends did not hesi- tate to warn Mrs. Booth that her efforts would only result in disappointments and heartbreak. As she went to the outside world with the story of the prisoner there came to her the 56 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS realization of how hard and long the battle would be. Almost single-handed she was championing the cause of those who were considered by the world, in its ignorance and blindness, as hopeless and worthless. The discouragements came, but not in such a way as to hide the wonderful successes, and as man after man proved himself worthy of the trust reposed in him and put his shoulder to the wheel in the fight to make easier the path of the discharged prisoner, Mrs. Booth's task became less difficult. Slowly it dawned upon those who had doubted that the men themselves were proving that Mrs. Booth's arguments were upon a firm common sense basis. Through the homes which the organization established hun- dreds of men were returning to fill positions of trust and con- fidence in the business world, assume the responsibilities of home life, and faithfully fulfil their duty to loved ones. Ev- ery added day of experience only offered its quota of new proof that the prisoner can be reformed, and skepticism was changed to belief, and warnings to commendation. In the meantime the men themselves had come to realize Mrs. Booth's interest in them and appreciate her devotion to their cause. Some grateful and inspired "boy" had called her the "Little Mother," and by this name she is now known throughout the prisons of the land. Not long after the establishment of the prison work there came from England the sad news of the death of Mrs. Booth's father. In the last years of his life he had taken a particular interest in his daughter's efforts for the prisoner and it was a great grief to his youngest child that she had not been able to visit him at the old home in England. In his will he left a certain amotmt to each of his daughters and by this inherit- ance Mrs. Booth was made freer to carry on her work and to devote her entire time and thought to it without taking any compensation in return. When the work was well established and she could find a little spare time Mrs. Booth became interested in writing. Her book entitled, After Prison, What? is considered one of the best on this phase of our social life. She did not confine her ability with the pen, however, to this line of work. Her MAUD BALLINGTON BOOTH 57 fairy tales for children have brought her very close to the hearts of thousands of little ones all over the country. In a general review of her life we find one thing which stands out above all other attributes which are hers. While she is gifted as an orator, well known as one of the pioneers of the best interests of the prisoner, and admired by many who have known her only through the medium of her books, it must still be acknowledged that her greatest power and attrac- tion lies in her unchanging faith. In all that she has spoken or written we find it evidenced over and over again. No man has fallen so low that she will not believe in the possi- bility of his redemption ; she has no plan for the best interests of those for whom she is working but that she has confidence in its ultimate success. Tirelessly, unceasingly she has bat- tled to bring the world to see as she has seen and as she is confident the Divine Euler of the Universe sees — not the fail- ures, the wretchedness, the hopelessness, but the opportunities for success, the chance of happiness and the renewing of con- secrated determination. To thousands she has brought this clearer understanding as with unfailing consecration she has pointed them onward and upward to the highest ideals of man- hood and womanhood. Through the shadows of the prison bars, the trials of temporary failures and the doubting of the unbelieving, her faith has held firm and true, and she has seen shining clear the star of hope with its promise of the best which life may hold. BIBLIOGRAPHY Wards of the State. By Tighe Hopkins. BOOKS BY MAUD BALLINGTON BOOTH After Prison, What ? (Revell) . Lights of Childhood. (Putnam's Sons). '; Little Mother Stories. (Volunteer Prison League, N. Y.). Sleepy Time Stories. (Putnam's Sons). The Curse of the Septic Soul Treatment. (Revell). Twilight Fairy Tales. (Putnam's Sons). Was It Murder, or the Relentless Current. (Putnam's Sons). WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN By Maynabd Lee Daggy SOME men are born great, some achieve greatness, while others have greatness thrust upon them." William Jen- nings Bryan was born great : he inherited a clean bill of physical, mental and moral health; he began life with no handicaps. He achieved greatness: the influence of environ- ment gave emphasis to those ideals out of which the individ- ual molds character and builds a career; he builded a charac- ter and dedicated its powers to the needs of his age. He had greatness thrust upon him : he entered public life during that period which required the leadership of one possessing his unique powers ; his age demanded his services and with loyal devotion he met its demand. William Jennings Bryan was born during the period when the struggle between North and South made public questions the one subject of daily conversation. March 19, 1860, was his birthday. He was bom in a section where the union of Puritan and Cavalier gave a peculiar intensity to the ante- bellum and war-time debate. Salem, Illinois, was his birth- place. His father was Silas Lillard Bryan, a man of sturdy an- cestry, strong convictions, and the fine public spirit which blends patriotism with common sense. Mariah Elizabeth Jennings, his mother, was a gentle woman who was devoted to home and children, and at the same time was keenly alert to a wider circle of interests. She possessed a personality in which there was united womanly dignity with refinement of mind and nobility of bearing. Thus the future statesman passed the formative years of childhood under the influence of parents who regarded the home as the nursery of char- acter. The early life of Mr. Bryan has been duplicated in thou- sands of American communities. His boyhood days are de- void of the impossible traditions that surround the youthful Copyright by Moffett Sivdio, Chicago WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 61 years of many famous men. The hero worship, the wildly extravagant play of the imagination, the fantastic pictures of dramatic incident, that make the first American biographies so delightfully inaccurate, have no place in the biography of to-day. In this practical age truth and science are syn- onymous, and the writer must paint his hero as he is. Mr. Bryan attended the public school, but during this time exhibited no unusual precocity. Since his parents enjoyed average prosperity, the children grew up under the stimu- lating and wholesome influence of three good meals a day, and so knew nothing of poverty as a personal experience. Prom the public school young Bryan went to Jacksonville, Illinois, to enter Illinois College. Here he made an excellent record and was graduated with highest honors in 1881. Two years later he received his degree from the Chicago Union CoUege of Law. The following year his alma mater conferred upon him the Master's degree. In 1883 the traditional shingle was hung out in Jackson- ville. The next year occurred the marriage of the young at- torney to Mary Elizabeth Baird. She had been a student at Jacksonville Academy and was a yoimg woman of excep- tional mental power and of rare social graces. She proved a worthy companion and helpmeet, sharing the obscurity of these first years with the same womanly dignity with which she has since shared the distinctions of fame. Mr. Bryan waited for clients. But there seemed to be no place for him among the hosts of old and established lawyers and the young and ambitious attorneys. Perhaps it was the old story of the prophet in his own country. However this may be, in 1888 he followed the historic advice of Horace Greeley and "went West" to Lincoln, Nebraska. Here he won both friends and clients, and soon was recognized as a man of unusual character, poise, and magnetic power. In 1890 he was nominated as the Democratic candidate for Con- gress, an honor conferred because the district was overwhelm- ingly Republican and good politics dictated the nomination of a man strong enough to bring out the full party vote. To the surprise of everyone with the possible exception of the young 62 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS candidate himself and the loyal wife, who was his most trusted lieutenant, the "Boy Orator of the Platte" was elected. In 1893 he was reelected. These four years gave the opportunity for effective service. As a result of his mastery of the new political issues, his courageous battles against predatory in- terests, Mr. Bryan rose to prominence as the apostle of rad- ical democracy. In 1893 and again the following year his party showed their confidence in him by making him their nominee for United States senator. Later as editor of the Omaha World-Herald he carried on the battle for progressive principles with a vigor that aroused consternation in the ranks of the reactionary enemy. To those who had followed Mr. Bryan's career his nomina- tion to the presidency in 1896 caused no surprise. Indeed his selection for this high honor might well be denominated "logical." The bosses had endeavored to control the party with a view to the continuation of sham battles over ancient issues. Contrary to former customs the delegates refused to be controlled. They demanded a progressive platform and an aggressive candidate. The times called for a man of sin- cerity, and one whose youth would insure endurance. Mr. Bryan had frequently been mentioned as an available candi- date for the presidency. His eloquent speech before the na- tional convention, having much of the dramatic force with which Patrick Henry defied the Tory of revolutionary days, won for him the nomination and raised him to the position of a national leader whose credentials came straight from the people over the protests of Wall Street buccaneers. Concern- ing the bitterness of the ensuing campaign little need be said. The unthinking imagined the issue to be between "free sil- ver" and the gold standard: thoughtful men, looking beneath the surface, recognized the fundamental differences rapidly dividing the people into hostile camps. Under such condi- tions defeat was inevitable. After the smoke of the first battle had cleared away, Mr. Bryan emerged as the undis- puted leader of progressive Democracy. The campaigns of 1900 and 1908 served to strengthen him in the affections of the WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 63 people and confirmed their faith in the principles for which he stood. The sources of leadership vary as widely as the form and spirit of governments. In a monarchy the authority of lead- ership is based upon the inherited prerogatives of birth and wealth. In a democracy this authority is granted by the people to those who have demonstrated their ability and who are able to offer a working program which seems to assure the realization of the public needs. It asks of its leader no badge of birth or wealth ; it only asks for a guarantee of faith in the people. The people have thrust upon Mr. Bryan the duties and hon- ors of leadership. His creed, like that of all great men, is simple. He believes in the people. He prefers to grapple with and to set aright the mistakes of democracy rather than to trust to the strong government of the few. He knows that either democracy must be rejected as an impossible ideal or the faults of democracy must be eliminated through experi- ence. While Mr. Bryan is a man of exceptional intellectual powers with a thorough understanding of the complex problems of modern life, he is in no sense academic either in his point of view or in his methods. He does not possess the scholarship of a Disraeli, a Burke, or a Gladstone. Men, rather than books, have been his teachers. Ideas rather than things have given to his leadership something of the authority of "thus saith the Lord." He respects tradition only as it conserves the welfare and progress of mankind. Instinctively the people recognize the safety of his leader- ship. He possesses a sort of divine recklessness which the time-server cannot understand. The people, however, prefer the courage of such a leadership to the more conservative leadership which fears to enter the untrodden paths. They know that Mr. Bryan sees clearly the problems which they themselves see vaguely. They realize that while he may make mistakes he will never lose sight of the supreme end of dem- ocracy: the perfection of the institutions that exist for the prosperity and^j^ppiness of humanity. 64 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS In the analysis of Bryan, the leader, we may anticipate Byran, the orator. The orator voices the inarticulate thought of the people. Inspired with a passion for righteousness he calls a nation to repentance. Thus the orator becomes the hying embodiment of a great truth — the Voice that seeks to penetrate the wilderness of respectable wrong and intrenched injustice. He who has something to say that ought to be said, and who knows how to give this message with impelling power, has perfected the finest of all the arts, the art of elo- quence. Mr. Bryan has taken his place among the great orators. He has studied this nation, its history and its problems, and out of this study has grown his supreme theme — the future greatness of the nation. In the accomplishment of his pur- pose he has been generously aided by nature. Of command- ing physique, with a face that frankly expresses every shade of emotion, he looks the part of the orator. His carefully trained voice can be heard with distinctness in the largest au- ditorium, and carries to the farthermost sections when he speaks from chautauqua platforms. His oratory has the essential sincerity of all effective speech. In hearing him address an audience one realizes that oratory is conversation raised to its highest power. He il- lustrates the definition of an orator given by George Wilham Curtis who described Wendell Phillips on the platform as "a gentleman conversing." Mr. Bryan voices what he believes to be true and clothes his thought in language that cannot be misunderstood. His vocabulary, though of wide range, is simple. He never uses a classical derivative when a homely Saxon word will suffice. He finds his illustrations in the com- monplace experiences of life rather than in the exceptional events of history. From the Bible, which in its essence all men understand, he draws a wealth of illustration, quotation, and incident. Like Mark Antony he speaks ' ' right on " in the straightforward prose of every day. Measured by the extent of his influence upon the thought and ideals of his time, Mr. Bryan's preeminence is undis- puted. As a political speaker he has raised stump speaking WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 65 to the dignity of deliberative oratory. Througli the Chau- tauqua and the lyceum he has awakened sluggish citizenship, and weakened the bonds of party slavery. He is more than the spokesman of a party; he is an evangelist of national righteousness. Mr. Bryan is not only an orator, agitating the murky waters of injustice, but a constructive statesman, translating theory into accompUshed fact. Although long identified with the minority party he has lived to see many of his most cher- ished principles enacted into law. During the four years in Congress he was an advocate of tariff reform. The recent law is largely the expression of the tariff policy which he has upheld for more than twenty years. When the income tax was forced upon Congress by the Farmers' Alliance wedge, the Nebraska statesman was one of its sponsors and deliv- ered one of the strongest speeches made in Congress in its be- half. It, too, is an endorsement of his practical statesman- ship. It is impossible to speak with certainty as to Mr. Bryan's comparative place among those who have held the first posi- tion in the president's cabinet. In the short time that he has been Secretary of State, he has made the larger interests of hu- manity paramount to the sordid claims of commerce and five percent. The character of every man, whatever his rank, has some- where its source of strength or weakness. The foundation of the character of William Jennings Bryan is his faith in Chris- tianity. Religious by inheritance and training, these convic- tions have been fortified by contact with the world. An active member of the church, and a sincere subscriber to its creed, he expresses his religion very earnestly through his everyday life. On numerous occasions Mr. Bryan has testi- fied that Christianity has been the source of whatever good he has been able to accomplish. Mr. Bryan declares that as a result of early religious influ- ence, he has always hated the vices of intemperance, gambling and profanity. May not this explain his uncompromising at- titude toward certain present-day questions? He Has been 66 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS the foe of intemperance in private life, and has recognized the necessity of legislation designed to promote temperance. His hatred of gambling has likewise had a potent influence in shaping his economic doctrines. This hostility underlies his opposition to the system of private monopoly, which closes the door of equal opportunity and leaves the masses little more than a gambler's chance in the struggle for prosperity. His faith in the divine is reflected in his reverence for and his belief in the sacredness of humanity. It is this faith which, in the last analysis, furnishes the key to his social philosophy. Out of the deep springs of character has issued the remarkr able power that has placed Mr. Bryan among the great, and given him an abiding place in the hearts of his countrymen. William Jennings Bryan has given this generation a new ideal of citizenshp. He has defined patriotism not in the language of war but in the terms of peaceful service. He has caught the new spirit of an awakened social conscience, and has taught that to live for one's country is nobler than to die for one's country. He has found the measure of national greatness not in the evidences of material grandeur, but in the sublime manifestations of spiritual worth. By the eloquence of example he is calhng men and women to lay aside the con- tentions of party strife that they may unite in a nobler army as soldiers of the common good. As never before in the long march from monad to man, from savagery to civilization, men are revising their outworn creeds and doctrines ; as never be- fore they are learning that there is nothing so impractical as wrong, nothing so practical as right. In another century when the impartial decrees of truth are recorded, the histo- rian will speak in grateful praise of the service rendered his country by the leader, the orator, the statesman, "William Jen- nings Bryan. BIBLIOGRAPHY PERIODICALS Character Sketch. By "W. A. "White. McClure's 15:232. English View of Mr. Bryan. By Sydney Brooks. North American Review 198 :27. WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 67 Explanation of Mr. Bryan. By Henry Jones Ford. World's Work 16 :10215. Most useful Americans. Independent 74 :960. Mr. Bryan. Outook 89 :57. Mr. Bryan. By William Bayard Hale. World's Work 26:154. Mr. Bryan 1896-1906. Nation 83:194. Mr. Bryan — Earlier and Later. Review of Reviews 38 :1. William Jennings Bryan: a Character Study. By Lyman Abbott. Outlook 84:66. LUTHER BUEBANK By Robbbt John tUTHER BURBANK, "whose contributions to human . comfort are greater in value than all the gold taken from the mines of California" — so says Dean Brink, of the Kansas State Agricultural College — was born in the town of Lancaster, Massachusetts, March 7, 1849. Although a "49er," his face was yet to be turned toward that land "where every day is a suggestion of May, and winter never Ungers." Luther Burbank was bom almost within the shadow of Bun- ker Hill, where stands our monument to American independ- ence, and seems to have been much influenced by this environ- ment, this spirt of independence. In all his work he has shown a natural inclination toward unharnessed thought — a turning away from the old paths of science and of dead things, to delve into nature's secrets as shown in living, growing na- ture. "He is a citizen of the Celestial City of Free Minds," someone has said. His father was of English stock; his mother of Scotch an- cestry. From his father he inherited his love for books, for investigation, and for untiring research. From his mother came the friendly, kindly, generous nature — ^'his willing heart of love" — and his love for the beauties of nature. It was the fusing of these two natures, developed by his Cali- fornia environment — the glories of perpetual sunshine, and the influences of energetic, generous, and optimistic people — that has helped to give the world this unique genius, Luther Burbank, When only a toddhng infant, so his sister says, Mr. Bur- bank showed an intense love for plant life. In amusing him flowers took the place of the baby rattle. He tenderly treas- ured them until the bloom had faded and the fragrance had gone. He is said to have preferred plants to animals as pets and had as a plaything what our New England mothers call Courtesy of Gabriel Mtmlin, San Francisco Luther Burbank LUTHER BURBANK 71 the "lobster" cactus. And it is a coincidence tliat one of Mr. Burbank's greatest achievements has been the "making over" of the spine-protected cactus, ridding it of its needle-hke thorns, compelling it to give mankind and animals food in- stead of poison, and making it earn for its growers fifteen times what they formerly made out of alfalfa. As the boy grew he showed more and more, a love for the beautiful things in the world around him. His teachers say he was an apt scholar. But even as a boy of twelve, nature's lessons were to him more interesting than any culled from books. To this nature-teaching he added the information of all the books within his command that would give any additional nature-knowledge. The trend of his mind could have been forecast from the fact that among his favorite authors was Ralph "Waldo Emerson. Even in his teens Mr. Burbank showed those tendencies whose development in after years led to the hundreds of plant, fruit, and flower inventions — concerning most of which the world has never even heard. After young Luther had finished common school he was sent to the academy at Lancaster. Nothing in Luther Burbank's nature stands out more strongly than his singleness of purpose, his never-wavering aim to make practical, his ideal, and his wonderful capacity for work — persistent, never-tiring work ! One of the editors of Luther Burbank, His Methods and Discoveries and Their Practical Application has said in reference to this : "Some of us do one thing at a time and feel content if we manage to do that one thing well: some of us count eight hours a working day, and limit our labor to that. Luther Burbank is in the habit of doing things by the thousand : his work days average fourteen hours; and he has kept up this steady pace throughout four decades. "During these forty years he has made a hundred thousand definite experiments in plant life, involving in all the plant- ing, observation, selection, poUenation, and propagation or destruction of more than a billion individual plants. A hun- dred thousand experiments, so well done that the practical 72 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS successes wrought run well into the thousands — how vast it seems to those of us who are content to do one thing at a time!"^ Is not humanity, therefore, to be congratulated that Luther Burbank, early in life, selected his work and turned a deaf ear to the wishes of his people that he direct his talents to mechanical invention? If he had developed into an Edison, a Morse, a Howe, or a Marconi, the world would have been robbed of the Burbank potato which has added more than seventeen million dollars a year to the farm incomes of Amer- ica alone. It would have been robbed of Mr. Burbank 's dis- coveries in prunes, which have made the United States a three hundred million pound exporter of prunes, instead of a fifty million pound importer as before. It would have been robbed of the thirty or forty Burbank creations that are adding mil- lions to the wealth of the nation; and it would have been robbed of the hundreds of other equally important Burbank in- ventions that will be generally known as soon as Mr. Bur- bank's books, now about completed, are given to the reading public. And notwithstanding the fact that young Burbank constructed a machine in the factory in which he had found temporary employment that did the work of a half dozen men, and because of which his delighted employers doubled his pay, he was still true to his ideal — true to the call of nature to come and cooperate in making new plants and improving old ones. So young Burbank left the whirl and grind of the factory and went out into the green fields to begin the creation of his wonders. His first creation, when he was but a young boy, was the Burbank potato. Every man, woman and child in a large part of the entire world has personally benefited by this development. We quote from the first volume of Luther Bur- bank, His Methods and Discoveries and Their Practical Appli- cation : "Luther Burbank found a seed-ball on one of the plants of 1 Luther Burlanlc, Bis Methods and Discoveries and Their Practical Applica- tion. Three volumes of this series have already been issued and the remaining nine volumes will appear in rapid succession. LUTHER BURBANK 73 his mother's potato patch. Who knows what little thing will chajige a career? Or what accident will transform an ideal? Or what triviality, out of the ordinary, will lead to the dis- covery of a new truth? The potato seed-ball was a little thing, almost an accident, a triviality; at least, so any practical farmer would say. Away back in the history of the potato, when it had to depend upon its seed for reproduction, every healthy potato plant bore one or more seed-balls. But long- continued cultivation has made unnecessary the bearing of seeds for the preservation of its kind. The potato plant, now so reliant on man for its propagation, has little use for the seed upon which its ancestors had to depend for perpetuation, Luther Burbank saw the seed-ball on his mother's potato patch. If he did not realize its possibilities, at least he scent- ed an adventure. How the youthful experimenter lost his po- tato-ball, how he found it again, and then nearly spoiled the outcome by not knowing how to plant the seed, and the prac- tical lessons in method which he learned even at this early date in his career" are as interesting as a fairy tale. To-day, when more pounds of potatoes are grown than of any other food crop of the world, the increase made by the help of the Burbank discovery in a single year's crop, and gained without any corresponding increase in capital invest- ed or cost of production, amounts to an astounding number of millions. Another one of Mr. Burbank's boyhood achievements was to have roasting ears ready for the Fitchburg market two weeks ahead of his neighbors. Let Mr. Burbank himself tell how he accomplished this successful experiment, the forerun- ner of the thousands which were to follow : "The whole secret of my plan was to germinate the com before planting it. Before my neighbors, or I, could begin spring plowing, I obtained fresh stable manure which I mixed with leaf -mould from the woods — about half and half. While this mixture was moist and hot I placed the seed corn in it, mixing the whole mass together lightly. Thus I allowed it to stand until the seed had thrown out roots ranging from two to six, or even eight inches in length, while the tops had grown 74 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS about one-half an incli. In the meantime, as soon as possible, the land was prepared to receive this sprouted corn by making drills about four feet apart. Along these drills this corn was dropped liberally, no attention being paid as to whether it was right side up or otherwise. I then covered it about one-half inch in depth. It was nothing unusual to find the corn up and growing the next morning. This method, alone, insured me a crop at least a week in advance of all other planters who could reach the Fitchburg market. "But this was not all. As I said before, the kernels were planted quite liberally along the drills. Some would show a very strong growth and some a very weak growth. The weak- er ones were pulled out after a few days and the stronger ones left at a distance of about twelve to eighteen inches apart. Thus, by selecting the strong from the weak, and giving the best fitted the best opportunity to grow, I gained a total advance of nearly two weeks over my competitors." ^ It was in 1871 that Luther Burbank produced his new pota- to. In 1875 he started for California with a very lean purse, a hand-bag full of his own potatoes, and a surplus stock of vitality and endurance. Except in years he was not much different from the Luther Burbank of to-day. His friend El- bert Hubbard describes him thus : "A modest man, with face of tan, blue eyes that would be weary and sad were it not for the smiling mouth, whose corners do not turn down ; a gentle gentleman, low-voiced, quiet and kindly. On Broadway no one would turn and look. His form is slender, and smart folks, sudden and quick in conclusion, might glance at the slender form and say the man is sickly. But the discerning behold that he is the type that lives long, because he lives well. His is the strength of the silken cord that bound the god Thor when all the chains were broken. He is always at work, al- ways busy; always thinking, planning, doing; dissatisfied with the past, facing the East with an eager hope. He is curious as a child, sensitive as a girl in love, strong as a man, per- sistent as gravitation, and gifted like a god." This was Luther Burbank 's equipment as he traveled up the 2 Luther Bwrhank, Bis Methods and Discoveries and Their Practical Application. LUTHER BUBBANK 75 fertile but lanimproved valley lying between two spurs of the Coast Range Mountains in California before lie settled in Santa Rosa. The country was new, the settlers few, and Mr. Burbank had hard work in getting an occasional odd job. The story is told of his spending the last of his money for a shingling hatchet on the strength of a promised job that did not materiahze. His first steady employment was on a chick- en ranch. The work was not to his liking, and the pay very small, but he was willing to do anything that would help him to the realization of his ideal. Even then Mr. Burbank saw the wonderful possibilities of this land of everlasting sun- shine. After suffering nearly all the hardships that can be heaped on man without forcing him across the Great Divide, he succeeded, by superhuman work and by saving every penny earned, in securing a small plot of ground. Here he estab- lished the nursery which was to become famous throughout the world — the Luther Burbank Experiment Farm of to-day, and the present home of The Luther Burbank Society. One of Mr. Burbank 's first achievements after he was set- tled on his own "little half -acre" was to fill an order for twenty thousand plum trees to set out. It was a hurry-up order. The customer was going to start a prune ranch and did not want to wait two and a half years for the trees to grow; so the order must be filled in nine months. Luther Burbank filled the order; and to-day one of the finest prune orchards in the world stands as a monument to this Burbank achievement. But Luther Burbank 's is not a commercial mind. No man could put his hours, his enthusiasm, and his almost infinite patience into any work which produced only money. His passing years have not been spent in gathering wealth for himself, but in opening up nature's vast store-houses for hu- manity. While he worked in his garden with hoe and spade he worked with Darwin and other scientists in the quiet of the living-room at the homestead : so that now his recorded work at the close of a busy life of deep thought and never-tiring investigation is a "rare combination," as an admirer has said, "of the great truths observed by Darwin, Mendel, and De 76 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS Vries, told in story form by the greatest breeder of plants the world has ever known, told not only with a view to plant ap- plication, but to human application as well." Mr. Burbank's efforts have covered the working out of a hundred thousand definite experiments resulting in complete transformations in practically every sort of plant life : in tree fruits, and in small fruits; in flowers, thousands of them; in grains, vegetables, and in forage crops ; in grasses to grow on our lawns, in shrubs to adorn them; in shade trees to give us cover from the sun ; in nuts and nut trees that produce valu- able lumber; in wild mountain plants ; in field plants; in desert plants; and in plants which can yield us useful substances, either by reason of their chemical content or their fiber in manufacture. He has given us the Spineless Cactus, and tells us how he bred out the spines and made it produce a fruit wMch is used for canning and is delicious when eaten raw. He has turned a troublesome weed into the beautiful Shasta Daisy; has made the blackberry white; created the scented calla; made the Stoneless Plum ; speeded the growth of the walnut tree ; pro- duced winter rhubarb, and the Sugar Prune ; taught us the practical application of poUenation; shown us his method of grafting and budding — and all this without cost or price. He tells the world how he has doubled the productiveness of the cherry; how he has transformed the quince; about his forty years' work in search of a perfect plum; about his plums and prunes without stones and seeds ; and about the way he creat- ed the Plumcot — a cross which man said could never be made. He has created the Thornless Blackberry; designed a straw- berry to bear the year round; introduced a new food, the Sun- berry, a product from the wild. He is even changing the poi- sonous barberry into an edible fruit. He has made a plant that bears potatoes below and tomatoes above ; turned green chives pink; shown us how to get the most out of grains; manufactured food for live stock; and told us how we can reclaim the deserts with cactus. He tells us how the Burbank and many other roses were produced; how he accomplished the impossible with the amaryllis ; how he changed the pop- LUTHER BURBANK 77 py's color; how he made the chrysanthemum-like daisy; how he taught the gladiolus new habits ; and how he made an ever- lasting flower. He tells us about the business side of nut grow- ing; the paper shelled walnut; growing the almond inside of peaches ; making the chestnut bear in six months ; and a quick way of growing trees for lumber. And all this is just a ' ' sus- picion" of the good that will come from the work Burbank has done for humanity. Yet, much as they mean, it is not the Burbank creations, themselves, which mean most to the world. What the world most needs to have is a definite working knowledge of the methods used by Mr. Burbank to produce his new creations. For by the broad-spread dissemination of these methods the world will come to enjoy and profit by the creations of a thousand new Burbanks, producing new fruits, flowers, vege- tables, grains, trees and forage crops, of which even Mr. Bur- bank has never dreamed. And this broadcast dissemination of his methods has been, in fact, Luther Burbank 's life-ideal. To bring this about was the motive which actuated the organ- ization of The Luther Burbank Society. The Carnegie Institution, at Washington, appropriated a large sum of money for the promulgation of Mr. Burbank 's discoveries. After several years of effort, however, this pro- ject was abandoned, because it was the purpose of the Carne- gie Institution to limit its activities to the production of works on pure science. In order, therefore, that this message of the world's foremost plant breeder might go forth to the world with fitting sponsorship. The Luther Burbank Society was formed. Chartered by the State of California, the so- ciety has no capital stock, no power to incur debts or earn profits. Its sole purpose is to assist in the final preparation of Mr. Burbank 's writings and to aid in the spread of his teachings, so that the greatest number may profit to the great- est degree. The Luther Burbank Society numbers among its members many of the foremost men and women of America. Mrs. Phoebe A. Hearst, Thomas A. Edison, W. C. Brown, John D. Archbold, Frederick D. Underwood, these and many other public-spirited citizens became identified with the movement 78 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS and contributed of their funds for its maintenance and spread. The entire mass of Mr. Burbank's records, together with much that has been written by other workers in this field, has been assimilated, classified, and rewritten. The Society has gone to the great expense of perfecting a new process of color photography for the purpose of demonstrating the exact meth- ods employed, so that one sees before him, as it were, the actual plant in the hands of this wizard-like workman. More than two hundred thousand dollars have been expended in the distribution of several million bulletins, pamphlets and other printed documents, in this and other countries, among those in- terested in plant breeding and in the improvement of agricul- ture and horticulture. The United States government protects the man who makes an invention: it protects the man who improves some other man's inventions, and says that he is entitled to all the profits that can be made out of the invention or the improvement. The patent laws of all countries protect him to the exclusion of all others. But the creator of new plants or the improver of old ones gets no protection from any country. The secre- tary of The Luther Burbank Society has pointed out the fact that if Mr. Burbank had devoted his inventive genius to the perfection of new machinery (as his early days gave evidence that he might), he could be worth millions from his legally protected royalties. But having been guided only by his ideal, without thought of profit or reward, and becoming an inventor of new forms of plant life, he gets no permanent, material benefit — is entitled, by law, to none. The United States government, through William H. Seward, bought Alaska for $7,200,000. Some people say that next to the Louisiana Purchase, Seward's purchase of Alaska stands as the greatest land acquisition of the century. Alaska pro- duced in the year 1911, $19,000,000 in gold. Yet how insignif- icant is this $7,200,000 compared with Luther Burbank's sale for $175 of one small potato that the United States Depart- ment of Agriculture says is adding $17,500,000 a year to the farm incomes of America. Other creations, through their sale to nurserymen and seedsmen, have enabled him to enjoy LUTHER BUBBANK 79 a comfortable living, but some of the most important of Ms creations, more important from a money standpoint than the Burbank potato, have brought, and will bring him, nothing. The value of Mr. Burbank 's work to the youth of the world is inestimable. No set of figures can give an adequate idea of the worth to our youth of Mr. Burbank 's methods and dis- coveries and their practical application. During the past hun- dred years, and particularly the past two decades, we have been devoting all our energy toward bringing conveniences within the reach of all, toward making luxuries so cheap that none could afford to refuse them. Meanwhile the actual ne- cessities of life, the things we eat, the things we wear, and all those other things which depend upon the soil for their pro- duction, have grown dearer and dearer. It is this state of things that gives our young people of to-day the biggest op- portunity that young people have ever had. A hundred years ago it was the railroads which opened an opportunity to the young Vanderbilts. Fifty years ago it was steel — steel needed in other fast growing lines of indus- try — which opened an opportunity to the young Carnegies. Forty years ago it was electricity which opened up its oppor- tunities to the young Edisons and Westinghouses. To-day ev- ery forty acre tract of land that will bear a crop is begging our youth to come and take their opportunity. To the boy who has a bent for the work it offers a thousand-fold more re- ward than has ever before been offered a genius. To the boy who has merely intelligence and persistence it opens up the way to escape from mediocrity. Mr. Burbank will live to see the day when his practical manual of plant breeding will be in the hands of every young gardener. It will bring him the sat- isfaction of knowing that a thousand young Burbanks are tak- ing up his work where he will leave off. Luther Burbank stands absolutely unique among men in his knowledge of nature and his manipulation and interpretation of her forces. He is a philosopher, scientist, plant-breeder, and horticulturist all in one. Guided by an adherence to sci- entific truth, he has aimed to give the widest possible service to the world. A friend of Mr. Burbank says, "He is pre- 80 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS eminently an observer as well as a man of rare intuition and wonderful memory. He not only notes those essentially ob- vious characteristics which the average man may see, and assigns them unerringly to their proper place, but he looks farther on and deeper into the subtler life of nature, and as unerringly assorts and eliminates and assigns. He adds all these manifestations of nature to the sum of all his experi- ences and from them all he draws for his material for his own mental furnishing and equipment. ' ' Mr. Burbank is a member of the California Academy of Sciences ; was elected the first honorary member of the Plant and Animal Breeder's Association of the United States and Canada ; and is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The degree of Doctor of Science has been conferred upon him by Tufts College. He is a lec- turer on scientific plant-evolution in Leland Stanford Uni- versity. Dr. Hugo de Vries, of the University of Amsterdam, Hol- land, says that Mr. Burbank is the greatest breeder of plants the world has ever known. The magnitude of his work excels everything that has ever been done before. Dean Brink of the Kansas State Agricultural College declares that he is en- titled to be counted not only one of the geniuses of our time, but one of the benefactors of the race. Ex-Grovemor Pardee of California says that Burbank, like Columbus, has shown us the way to new continents, new forms of life, new sources of wealth, and we, following in his footsteps, will profit by his genius. March 6, Mr. Burbank 's birthday, has been set apart by the State of California as Burbanh Day. To-day, at the age of sixty-five, Luther Burbank "has be- stowed upon the world a greater increment of values, in things done and things inevitable, which are for the permanent betterment of civilization, than any score of celebrities in this decade or in any previous decade or century, ajid this will clearly appear when the facts are submitted to ultimate an- alysis. . . Is it too much to say that among the great bene- factors of the race Luther Burbank will be unique in the splen- LUTHER BURBANK 81 dor of his monument — a monument that can never crumble while sunshine, air, and soil carry on their chemistry!" BIBLIOGRAPHY BOOKS Luther Burbank, His Meth.0ds and Discoveries and Their Practical Application. (The Luther Burbank Press, Santa Rosa, Cal.) Training of the Human Plant. (Century Co.) By Luther Burbank. PERIODICALS Burbauk's Recent Experiments. Scientific American 94:130. Burbank 's "Way with Flowers. By Henry Smith Williams. Good Housekeeping 59:158. Every Woman Her Own Burbank. By Henry Smith WiUiams. Good Housekeeping 58:440. Great Dutch Scientist on Burbank and His Work. Review of Re- views 32:369. Luther Burbank and His Latest Triumph. Arena 33 :554. Luther Burbank 's Ideas on Scientific Horticulture. By Hugo De Vries. Gentwry 73:674. Luther Burbank 's Wonderful Work in Horticulture. By Charles T. Woodbury. Scientific American 103 :126. Maker of New Fruits and Flowers. By Liberty H. Bailey. World's Worfc 2:1209. Miracle Maker of Gardens. By Emma Burbank Beeson. Independ^ ent 58:997. Personal Impressions of Luther Burbank. By Hugo De Vries. /tz- dependent 60 :1134. Recent Work of Luther Burbank. By Riley M. Fletcher Berry. Sci- entific American 98 :260. Science Applied. Independent 61:767. JOHN BURROUGHS By Edwaed Babbbtt THERE is a difference between the naturalist and tl scientist. Or rather, there is a difference between tl naturalist and most scientists. A naturalist must nee( be a scientist, but not all scientists are naturalists. Most naturalists eschew the laboratory and cling to tl field. Most scientists eschew the field and cling to the labi ratory. The naturalist studies nature in all its relations in its ow habitat — the woods, the field, the water, the air. The sciej tist removes nature from its own realm and studies it in tl laboratory under the microscope. The naturalist would stud the bird in all its relations to the things about it — its habit its food, its adaptabihty, its color, its migration, its song, i1 instinct, its limitations, and delimitations. The sdentii would study the bird under the knife and microscope — i1 cells and the nuclei of its protoplasm; its classification in son: established faunal system, with its unpronounceable scientif nomenclature. These are the two fields for thought that spread out befoi John Burroughs, one of which he must choose in which i glean, and he chose the field of the naturalist. He determine to five a fife — "Exempt from public haunt, to find tongut in trees, books in running brooks, sermons in stones, and goc in everything. ' ' John Burroughs is a bom naturalist. He communes wil nature, and to him she speaks a varied language. If close di crimination and fine interpretation are marks of a true na uraJist and scientist, then John Burroughs is a true disciple ( nature, for he possesses these faculties, preeminently. No student of nature has, by his work, more clearly set on and more clearly defined the limits of the two fields of endeav( described above, than Mr. Burroughs. A study of his Summ of the Tears and his Ways of Nature lifts one out of the real of the purely technical up into the plane of the practical, tl Copyright by Underwood d- Underwood, New York ^5^^^ U^.y(^Ut^1^^^^-LS/l<^ JOHN BUREOUGHS 85 To Burroughs, "the call of the wild" does not mean that he shall live in seclusion, and adopt the idiosyncrasies of the her- mit, but that to study nature intelligently he must go where nature is; out in the open; out in God's golden sunlight; in the deep, dark shade of the forest; out on the great, silent prairie; up on the great, lordly mountains, or down in the beautiful valleys between. Burroughs has accomplished great things in his nature study ; but if he had accomplished nothing more than the dif- ferentiation of the field of endeavor of the true naturalist from the realm of the technical scientist, his work would stand for ages. I look in vain through all his writings for a single technical term ; but in, and through, and over all I find his de- scriptions and interpretations clothed in the plain, simple lan- guage of every day. He may have a vocabulary of thousands of technical terms, for aught I know, but in the message he brings to us, he studiously avoids using a single one of them. The writer would not disparage the anchorage of the names of orders, families, species and genera in fixed and changeless foreign nomenclature. This must needs be. But he who can interpret the life habits of plajits and animals in terms so plain and simple that a child can understand, is a benefactor indeed to ninety-nine out of every hundred people. But there is another phase of scientific inquiry that per- meates the work of Burroughs more deeply than it does the work of most naturalists and scientists. In all his dehnea- tions, in all of his deductions, throughout all of his messages to the world there breathes a pure spirit of Christianity, and the recognition of a merciful, purposeful, and All-Wise Creator. Too often the smattering technologist permits the deductions of the chemical laboratory and the microscope to lead him into agnosticism, and atheism ; but not so with John Burroughs ; with Tennyson he thinks : "Yet I doubt not through the Ages One increasing purpose runs And the thoughts of men are widened "With the process of the suns." Speaking of this world and his relations to it. Burroughs 86 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS says : "It has been my point of outlook into the Universe. . I have tilled its soil, gathered its harvests, waited upon seasons, and always have I reaped what I have sown. Wh I delved I did not lose sight of the sky overhead ; while I gai ered its bread and meat for my body, I did not neglect to gal er its bread and meat for my soul. ' ' In Roxbury, Delaware County, New York, in a house tt stood near the old ancestral home, John Burroughs was bo April 3, 1837. His earlier years were spent in various pursuits — f armii teaching and fruit raising. About twenty years of his li were spent in the service of the government as a clerk in t treasury department and as a national bank examiner, b during these twenty years each day some of his waking hou were spent in nature study, and in laying up a great store intellectual capital that in later years blossomed into the fru age and harvest of descriptions and delineations that ha made him the real nature student of the age. Of the several occupations mentioned above, farming w the most congenial to him, because it put him nearest natui "The thing which a man's nature calls him to do — what el so well worth doing" asks this writer. One's first impre sion after glancing about his well-built cabin, with the nece sities of body and soul close at hand, is a vicarious satisfa tion that here at least is one who knew what he wanted to ( and has done it. Clara Barrus has well said, ' ' The readers of Mr. Burroug] crave the personal relation to him. They feel a sense of de( gratitude to one who has shown them how divine is the s( under foot — veritable star-dust from the gardens of the Ete nal. He has made us to feel as one with the whole cosmos, n only with birds and trees, and rocks and flowers, but al with the elemental forces, powers which are friendly or u friendly according as we put ourselves in right or wrong rel tions with them. He has shown us the Divine in the comm( and near at hand; that Heaven lies about us here in tli world; that the glorious and the miraculous are not to 1 sought afar off, but are here and now; and that love of ti JOHN BURROUGHS 87 earth-mother is in the truest sense love of the Divine. One who speaks thus of the things of such import to every human soul is bound to win responses ; he deals with things that come home to us all ; we want to know him." Continuing, the same writer says, "We are coming more and more to like the savor of the wild and the unconventional ; perhaps it is just this savor or suggestion of free fields and woods both in his life and in his books that causes so many persons to seek out John Burroughs in his retreat among the trees and rocks on the hills that skirt the western bank of the Hudson. To Mr. Burroughs, more perhaps than to any other living American, might be applied these words in Genesis: ' See, the smell of my son is as the smell of a field which the Lord hath blessed' — so redolent of the soil and of the hardi- ness and plenitude of rural things is the influence that em- anates from him. His works are as the raiment of the man, and to them adheres something as racy and wholesome as is yielded by the fertile soil. ' ' Mr. Burroughs 's residence since 1874 has been at Riverby, West Park, Ulster County, New York. Here he combines farming, or rather horticulture, with his achievements as a literary naturalist. However, most of his observations, his thinking and writing are done at his cabin home farther up on the slope of the mountains, which home he has designated as "Slabsides." Of his life here, his most noted biographer says, "Business life, he had long known, could never be congenial to him. Lit- erary pursuits alone were insuflScient ; the long line of yeoman ancestry back of him cried out for recognition ; he felt the need of closer contact with the soil ; of having land to till and culti- vate; this need, an ancestral one, was as imperative as his need of literary expression, an individual one." To him it seems that the town is better than the city, the im- proved farm better than the town, and the primitive forest better than the improved farm. Intense love of home and home scenes are characteristic of Mr. Burroughs. In his auto- biographical sketches he evinces these characteristics: "When I think of the storied lands across the Atlantic — Eng- 88 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS laud, France, Germany, Italy — so rich, in historical associ tion, steeped in legend and poetry, the very look of the fiel redolent of the past — and then turn to my own native hil how poor and barren they seem ! — not one touch anywhere that which makes the charm of the old world — no architc ture, no great names; in fact, no past. They look naked ai prosy, yet how I love them and cling to them ! They are wr: ten over with the lives of the first settlers that cleared tl fields and built the stone walls — simple, commonplace five worthy and interesting, but without the appeal of heroism ( adventure. "Oh, the old farm days! how the fragrance of them st lingers in my heart ! the spring with its sugar-making and tl general awakening about the farm, the returning birds, ai the full, lucid trout-stream ; the summer with its wild berrie its haying, its cool, fragrant woods; the fall with its nuts, i game, its apple-gathering, its holidays; the winter with i school, its sport on ice and snow, its apple bins in the cella its long nights by the fireside, its voice of fox-hounds on tl mountains, its sound of flails in the barn — how much I sti dream about these things. ' ' Probably sixty years of the seventy-seven that John Bu roughs has lived have been spent in the study of birds ai flowers ; and this study, too, out in the open, the natural e: vironment of birds and flowers. The result of this study ar observation is his nature books, so fraught with delightf originalities. His own life has been so free of unnatural restraint that 1 cannot brook restraint toward any of God's creatures. I says: "The songs of caged birds are always disappointii because such birds have nothing but their musical qualities ' recommend them. We have separated them from that whi( gives quality and meaning to their songs. I have never y seen a caged bird that I wanted — at least, not on account i its song — or a wild flower that I wished to transfer to n garden. The caged skylark will sing its song sitting on a I of turf in the bottom of the cage ; but you want to stop yoi ears, it is so harsh and sibilant and penetrating. But up ai JOHN BURROUGHS 89 against the morning sky, and above the wide expanse of fields, what delight we have in it. It is not the concord of sweet sounds, it is the soaring spirit of gladness and ecstasy rain- ing down upon us from Heaven's gates." To properly hear and appreciate bird songs, one must hear with "that inward ear that gives beauty and meaning to the note. Bird songs are a part of nature that lies about us en- tirely occupied with her own affairs, and quite regardless of our presence. Hence it is with them as it is with so many other things in nature — they are what we make them; the ear that hears them must be half creative." What heart so unresponsive as not to appreciate his inim- itable description of the bluebird? "And yonder bluebird with the earth tinge on his breast and the sky tinge on his back — did he come down out of Heaven on that bright March morning when he told us softly and plaintively that, 'If we pleased, spring had come'? Indeed, there is nothing in the return of the birds more curious and suggestive than in the first appearance or rumors of appearance of this little blue coat. The bird at first seems a mere wandering voice in the air ; one hears the call or carol on some bright March morning but is uncertain of its source or direction ; it falls like a drop of rain when no cloud is visible ; one looks and Hstens but to no purpose. The weather changes, perhaps a cold snap with snow comes on, and it may be a week before I hear the note again, and this time, or the next perchance, see the bird sitting on a stake or a fence, lifting his wing as he calls cheerily to his mate. Its notes come now daily more frequently. The birds multiply and flitting from point to point call and warble more confidently and gleefully. . . But as the season advances, they drift more and more into the background. Schemes of conquest which they had at first seemed bent upon are aban- doned, and they settle down very quietly in their old quarters in remote stumpy fields. ' ' At the age of more than three score years and ten, we find John Burroughs writing in his Summit of the Years : "There is no other joy in life like mental and bodily activ- ity, like keeping up a live interest in the world of thought and 90 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS things. Old age is practically held at bay so long as on keep the currents of his life moving. The vital cun like mountain streams, tend to rejuvenate themselves as flow. . . Nature is always young, and there is no gr felicity than to share in her youth. I still find each da short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I to take, all the books I want to read, and all the friends I to see." Someone has said that poets are .born, not made. We already said that Mr. Burroughs is a bom naturalist. P( is worth while only as it expresses a universal principle ; is, the theme possesses an element that strikes a univ chord ; something that threads its way through human act and human life and connects it with the universal. Tha realm of nature possesses this primal £ind universal ele: cannot be contradicted. Bird hues run the entire scale thr prismatic and secondary ; bird songs ring the entire gam note and tone. Every naturalist possesses in high degre should possess, the poetic instinct. That the poetry of Burroughs touches a universal chord in the human brea exemplified in two of his best-known poems, the first of w entitled The Return, is given below : THE EETURN He sought the old scenes with eager feet — The scenes he had known as a boy ; "Oh, for a draught of those fountains sweet. And a taste of that vanquished joy ! " He roamed the fields, he wooed the streams, His school-boy paths essayed to trace ; The orchard ways recalled his dreams. The hills were like his mother's face. Oh, sad, sad hills ! Oh, cold, cold hearth ! In sorrow he learned this truth — One may return to the place of his birth. He cannot go back to his youth. His other poem. Waiting, perhaps best known, is here gi JOHN BURROUGHS 91 WAITING Serene, I fold my hands and wait, Nor care for wind, nor tide, nor sea; I rave no more 'gainst time or fate. For lo ! my own shall come to me. I stay my haste, I make delays, For what avails this eager pace 1 I stand amid th' eternal ways. And what is mine shall know my face. Asleep, awake, by night or day. The friends I seek are seeking me ; No wind can drive my bark astray. Nor change the tide of destiny. What matter if I stand alone ? I wait with joy the coming years ; My heart shall reap where it hath sown. And garner up its fruit of tears. The waters know their own and draw The brook that springs in yonder heights ; So flows the good with equal law Unto the soul of pure delights. The stars come nightly to the sky ; The tidal wave comes to the sea ; Nor time, nor space, nor deep, nor high. Can keep my own away from me. [Republished by courtesy of John Burroughs.] The bulk of all that Burroughs has written is contained in about sixteen volumes, almost entirely prose. In his early writing he evinced a tendency toward the philosophic and psy- chologic, a field that had already been occupied by such a mas- ter as Emerson, and of whom Burroughs would be a disciple. In addition to his Nature study work, his thinking and writ- ing were along the lines of literary criticism and philosophical and religious discussion. Wake Robin appeared in 1871, followed by Squirrels and Other Fur Bearers, and Winter Sunshine in 1875 ; Birds and 92 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS Poets, 1877 ; Locusts and Wild Honey, 1879 ; Signs and sons, 1886; followed by Indoor Studies, 1889. Riverhy appeared in 1894, and Light of Day in 1900. 1905, Ways of Nature was added, and in 1908 came Leaf Tendril. Burroughs has always held that Nature is the same "w ever you find her, and in the volumes Far and Near, 1904, Fresh Fields, 1884, he proves this statement. He early evinced an intense fondness for Walt Whiti His first volume, Whitman, 1896, and the later counter] Whitman — A Study, are an analysis and defense of his long friend. In Pepacton, he expresses his filial love for his childl scenes and parental memories. The climax of his work to date is The Summit of Y( written with as much freshness and vigor and originaUt the works of his younger years. It contains touches of philosophy of life, vivid descriptions of nature in tree animal life, and an effort to draw the line clearly betweer animal and the human mind. John Burroughs has found himself. An unplowed fielc stretched out before him and he possessed himself of it. had not been occupied by White, or Thoreau, or Auduboi Isaac Brown. They had furrowed the edges and mad( cursions into it but they had not fully possessed it. H( tuned his ear, his eye, his feelings, his sympathies ajid s* ments to the sweet harmonies he found therein, to bird, bee, and blossom. Viewed from every angle, he is fitted to observe, to ii pret, and to reveal to his fellow beings the meaning of the about him ; gentle,, serene, sympathetic ; yet of temper t( buke imposition and incongruity ; clean in thought and h never passion's slave to sound what stop she pleases. H "he sees divine things under-foot as well as over-head." "His writing has the fertility of a well-cultivated, pasi region, the limpidness of a mountain brook, the music oi unstudied songsters, the elusive charm of the blue beyonc summer clouds ; it has at times the ruggedness of a she! rock, combined with the grace of its nodding columbines. JOHN BURROUGHS 93 BIBLIOGRAPHY BOOKS Our Friend John Burroughs. By Clara Barrus. PERIODICALS Boyhood Days with John Burroughs. Craftsman 22 :240. Day with John Burroughs at Riverby and Slabsides. Craftsman 8 :564. In the Circuit of the Summer Hills. Century 86 :878. In "West Park-on-the-Hudson. By F. W. Halsey, American Authors 29. Slabsides and Its Owner. Critic 47 :101. What Life Means to Me. Cosmopolitan 40 :654. ANDREW CARNEGIE By James Casey yt NDREW CARNEGIE is one of the most typical, and, let /-% it be added, one of the most impressive representatives of what will hereafter assuredly be known as a great and strenuous age. We do not intend to present him here as a perfect man; for if he were perfect he would not be typical either of the species to which he belongs or of the times. No man or age is perfect. Man must be weighed by the standards of the eternally human, and, in a particular sense, by the special standards of his time. If Mr. Carnegie be weighed by either of these standards — or by them conjointly, as is the better and juster way — he will certainly not be found want- ing. Mr. Carnegie with all his defects — and no man has more frankly admitted his deficiencies — is emphatically a great man. The world is agreed in so proclaiming him. He is a self-made man. Behind his successes lie character, judgment, resolution, and persistency. A poorlad, a new arrival in a strange land, he never allowed himself to become discouraged. He had confidence in himself. To begin with, he had a sound body and a sound mind. This young Carnegie knew, and that was enough for him. With time, all else would come. Andrew Carnegie started out in life with a definite purpose ; he steadfastly pursued that purpose, and, so far, he has ac- complished it in ample and full measure. We say "so far" advisedly, for as the old Greek philosopher was careful to re- mind his followers: "No man can be called happy until he has fulfilled his days. " So no man, in the fuller sense, can be said to have accomplished his mission — and Mr. Carnegie believes he has one — until he has passed away, and in passing away left behind him a completed and well-rounded career — a career commenced in purpose, pursued with unfaltering per- sistency, and perfected so far as human endeavor can be per- fected in any direction. Cu,„iri!/hl III J-u,l,-ru;,ad d- V „d,-rivoo,l . New York Andrew ('arneoie ANDREW CARNEGIE 97 Andrew Carnegie was born November 25, 1837, in Dunferm- line, Scotland, the elder son of William and Margaret Carne- gie, His father was a master weaver, a man of sturdy char- acter, a speaker and writer on behalf of those political reforms which were being agitated in those early days. Young "An- die" acquired thus, at the feet of his father, the democratic principles which have influenced his entire Hf e. He was equal- ly blessed in his mother, a thrifty woman of much common sense, sparing of words, but sound of counsel. It may here be added that, by the time the future Iron King became pos- sessed of great wealth, his father was dead, but his mother was his constant companion, accompanying him in all his holi- days, both at home and abroad. In 1848 the Carnegies came to the United States and set-/ tied in Allegheny City, opposite Pittsburgh. At the age of\ twelve "Andie" entered a cotton factory as a bobbin boy, at I a dollar and twenty cents a week. His progress was steady. ! He spent his evenings in study and otherwise improved him- self. At fourteen the lad became a telegraph boy. The choking over the wires interested the quick-witted youngster, who somehow seemed to feel that he now stood in the midst of the busy world. Mr. J. D. Reed, in his History of the Telegraph, referring to this period of Andrew Carnegie's life, says, "I liked the boy's looks, and it was very easy to see that though he was little he was full of spirit. He had not been with me a month when he began to ask whether I would teach him to telegraph." As boy and man Andrew Carnegie was never backward. According to circumstances he asked and received, hstened and gave, with equal facUity. In other words, he was an out-and-out man of affairs at every stage of the bus- iness game. Young Carnegie attracted the attention of Thomas A. Scott, superintendent of the Pittsburgh division of the Pennsylvania railroad, who offered him a situation as an operator. Thus commenced a friendship that was to develop to the material benefit of both parties. One day Mr. Scott called the young operator aside and sug- 98 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS gested that he could acquire ten shares in the Adams' Express Company for $600, and that if he could raise $500, he (Mr. Scott) would advance the remaining $100. Andrew Carnegie consulted his parents. "It must be done," decided his resolute mother, *'we must mortgage the house." The thing was settled. Andrew Carnegie owned his first shares. What was of more importance, he had learned his first lesson in finance, which he was later to turn to such ad- vantage. One of Mr. Carnegie's noblest traits is gratitude. He never forgets a service. "One good turn deserves another" is an aphorism he has ever believed in and lived up to. This he was soon to show. In the course of a railway trip he chanced to meet Thomas T. Woodruff, who showed him the model of a sleeping-car. Eecognizing the value of the invention the young man introduced the inventor to Mr. Scott. The out^ come was the organization of the Woodruff Sleeping-Car Co. Mr. Carnegie, greatly daring, decided to take up as many shares as he thought he could handle, borrowing the money from a local bank and signing his first note for that purpose. He was not afraid. He was not made that way. He knew his men, he knew what he was getting, and he knew himself; in all three, particularly in himself, he had ample confidence. Other investments followed, and Mr. Carnegie was fairly launched upon his golden career. Meanwhile, however, he prudently continued to associate himself with his proven friends, men of experience and worth. In 1860 Andrew Carnegie persuaded President Scott and Superintendent Woodruff to join him in acquiring the Storey Farm, on Oil Creek, Pa., where petroleum had been located. The purchase price was $40,000. The enterprise developed until the company's shares aggregated $5,000,000 value, and $1,000,000 cash dividends were declared in a single year. All this time, the young man's interest in railroad work remained unabated. Here we have a good instance of another of Mr. Carnegie's chief characteristics, constancy of purpose. Reach- ANDEEW CARNEGIE 99 ing out to new and larger things, he continued to hold on to the old. On the outbreak of the Civil War, Colonel Scott was ap- pointed Assistant Secretary of War and invited young Car- negie to Washington. The outcome was that Carnegie was put in control of the military railroad and government tele- graphs. He had just entered his twenty-fourth year. Those were stirring times, such as rouse vigorous men. Andrew Carnegie was preeminently a man of this type. He saw the opportunities before him ; he foresaw what was surely coming as soon as peace once more prevailed ; namely, a great outburst of industrial activity in every direction. To a man of Mr. Carnegie 's deep perceptions and large out- look, already possessed of experience in railroading matters, it was evident that there was an immense and immediate future before the iron business, more particularly along the line of manufacturing. As quick in action as in perception, he at once set to work to organize — and no greater organizer ever lived in the business world — the Keystone Bridge Co. Such was his indomitable pluck, industry, and sweep of out- look that, within a comparatively short space of time, he con- trolled seven great plants, all operating within five miles of Pittsburgh: the Homestead, the Edgar Thomson, and the Duquesne steel works and furnaces, the Lucy furnaces, the Keystone Bridge Works, the Upper Union Rolling Mills, and the Lower Union Rolling Mills. Pittsburgh! Yes, Pittsburgh, the city in which the "wee laddie" first settled when he arrived in this country, is the same city in which he served his apprenticeship, made his vast fortune, and ended by munificently endowing. Andrew Car- negie never was a "rolling stone" — he did not accumulate "moss," but he acquired wealth beyond the dream of avarice. Nobly he earned it, and right nobly has he spent it in the cause of mankind, to serve which has ever been, from youth to venerable age, the highest ambition of his life. Mr. Carnegie never missed an opportunity. He seized it in flight and made the most of it before others well realized its 100 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS presence. A visit to England in 1868 was an epoch in Ms life. What is known as the Bessemer Process of steel production was then agitating the business world. Mr. Carnegie, recog- nizing that steel was rapidly supplanting iron in the old coun- try, promptly returned to the United States, and introduced the new methods into his mills. He thereby entirely revolu- tionized the iron industry in the western hemisphere, and se- cured for a time what was practically a monopoly. Vast as were his commitments, the big manufacturer con- tinued to expand. Alarmed interests threatened to combine against what they were pleased to call his "encroachments": they would isolate him. Little did they know the man with whom they had to deal. So far from Ijeing intimidated, Car- negie's fighting blood was stirred. If the mine-owners would not sell him iron ore and coal at the right prices he would buy and work iron and coal fields of his own : and, further, if the railroads discriminated against him, he would build and oper- ate railroads of his own. He did not threaten in vain. He followed up his words with immediate action. In 1889 Mr. Carnegie invited Henry Clay Frick, who at that time dominated the coke-making industry, to join forces with him. Mr. Frick consented. The outcome was that the Car- negie concern soon owned and controlled mines producing 6,000,000 tons of ore annually ; 40,000 acres of coal land, and 12,000 coke ovens; steamship lines for transporting ore to Lake Erie ports ; docks for handling ore and coal, and a rail- road from Lake Erie to Pittsburgh; 70,000 acres of natural gas territory, with 200 miles of pipe line ; nineteen blast furn- aces and five steel mills, producing and finishing 3,250,000 tons of steel annually. The pay roll of the year exceeded $18,000,000. In 1890 was formed the Carnegie Co., with a paid-up capital of $160,000,000. The parent company in- cluded over twenty subsidiary companies. To trace the growth of the Carnegie Co., and to follow it up to its present development into the United States Steel Corporation, would fill a big volume. Suffice it here to state that according to Poor's Manual of Industries, 1913, the re- turns for the United States Steel Corporation, December 31, ANDREW CARNEGIE 101 1912, make the following showing: "Total capitalization, $1,512,305,073, consisting of $869,175,142 stocks (common and preferred) and $643,129,931 bonds; number of employes, 221,025 ; pay-roll, $189,351,602 ; net earnings for year, or prof- its, $108,174,673." Andrew Carnegie 's dominant position in the steel and iron industry, his comprehensive grasp of the situation, and his masterful character made successful competition almost im- possible in the trade. He must be bought out and retired. The more powerful competitors induced J. Pierpont Morgan to approach the great ironmaster. Mr. Carnegie named his price. The master of money considered the terms excessive and retired; the master of the iron situation smiled grimly and waited. The men met again. Mr. Morgan had recon- sidered the matter; but so had Mr. Carnegie. The latter raised his price. The big banker had met his match, and he knew it : he ended by accepting everything. Mr. Carnegie received for his interest $250,000,000 of bonds on the Trust's properties (capitalized at $1,100,000,000), bear- ing interest at the rate of five per cent per annum. These terms were better than cash, for the security was ample, and he was in position to see that it remained so. In an address deUvered at Pittsburgh, he gave his reasons for retiring from business in the following words: "An op- portunity to retire from business came to me unsought, which I considered it my duty to accept. My resolve was made in youth to retire before old age. From what I have seen around me, I cannot doubt the wisdom of this course, although the change is great, even serious, and seldom brings happiness. But this is because so many, having abundance to retire upon, have so little to retire to. I have always felt that old age should be spent, not as the Scotch say, in 'makin' mickle mair', but in making good use of what has been acquired, and I hope my friends at Pittsburgh will approve of my action in retir- ing while still in full health and vigor, and I can reasonably expect many years of usefulness in fields which have other than personal aims." As a big manufacturer, Carnegie believed in concentration 102 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS and in being surrounded by enthusiastic and competent men. He says : ' ' Concentration is my motto — first bonesty, then industry, then concentration." Again, referring to bis own metbods, be makes tbem clear in the following words: "I do not tbink that any one man can make a success of a busi- ness nowadays. I am sure I never could bave done so without partners, of whom I bad thirty-two — the brightest and clev- erest young fellows in the world. All are equal to each other, as the members of the Cabinet are equal. The chief must only be first among equals. I know that every one of my partners would have smiled at the idea of my being his su- perior, although the principal stockholder. The way they differed from me, and beat me many a time, was delightful to behold." In bis book, The Empire of Busmess, he calls the industrial world a partnership of three equals, Capital, Business Abihty, and Labor; which be likens to a three-legged stool. He con- cludes that capital, business ability and labor must be united; and that he who seeks to sow seeds of disunion among them is the enemy of all three. Mr. Carnegie's retirement from business was final. Hav- ing possessed himself of wealth, be became the prophet of wealth; not in the sense of further acquisition but the dis- posal of it — the "dross," as be calls it rather comtemptuous- ly. Despite his rugged and somewhat aggressive bearing, An- drew Carnegie has a tender heart. Impulsive by nature and sometimes in speech, he never acts impulsively. Indeed, he is much of a thinker and philosopher. If be occasionally ex- plodes, it is because he feels that he has a gospel to preach, real things to do, and be wants results. He is a man with a reserved soul and passionate convictions. Hence his occa- sional outbursts. From youth up he has been, in the deep recesses of his heart, a dreamer of dreams and a builder of "castles in the air." To bring these airy creations to earth, and root them there somehow, has been bis steadfast purpose throughout bis long and eventful life. In 1895 be bought SHbo Castle ANDREW CARNEGIE 103 at the extreme north, end of Scotland, and since then has lived there with his family — his wife, Louise (Whitfield) Carnegie, whom he married in 1887; and his daughter, an only child, who is her father's constant companion. Back in his native land, once more treading the free heather, Andrew Carnegie has matured, and is now further maturing his plans. As is usually the case with truly noble characters, Mr. Car- negie's vision has enlarged, and many of his views have cor- respondingly mellowed, as he has advanced in years. What the final outcome, the completed whole, will be, none know; but those who have studied the man's career can form a shrewd opinion. Mr. Carnegie will, indeed he has already said as much, follow his original purpose — build upon foun- dations already set and guarded. He will leave nothing to accident. In his Gospel of Wealth he says most clearly : "Men may die without incurring the pity of their fellows, still sharers in great enterprises from which their capital can- not be or has not been withdrawn, and which is left at death chiefly for public uses ; yet the day is not far distant when the man who dies leaving behind him available wealth which was free to him to administer during life, will pass away 'unwept, unhonored, and unsung, ' no matter to what use he leaves the dross that he cannot take away with him. Of such as these the public verdict will be : ' The man who dies thus rich dies disgraced.' " If Andrew Carnegie is not to * ' die disgraced, ' ' to use his own words, and he assuredly has no such intention, it is man- ifest that he will leave behind him little or no "available wealth." All will be hypothecated, left in charge of trustees, appointed by himself during lifetime, to administer. Thus the spirit of the great benefactor will rule beyond the grave, and bless countless generations. It is an immense scheme, and worthy of the man ; for, though his past and present gifts are many and generous, it is doubtful whether they have out- run his income, which upon his retirement from business was estimated at about $15,000,000 a year. The total amount of the great ironmaster's gifts up to the present has been computed at over $180,000,000. Among his 104 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS endowments are: Carnegie Institution, Washington, D. C, $22,000,000; Carnegie Institution, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, $10,000,000; Scotch universities, $10,000,000; Carnegie Dun- fermUne Trust, Scotland, $2,500,000; College Professors' Pen- sion Fund in United States, Canada and Newfoundland, $15,- 000,000; Peace Temple at the Hague, $1,750,000; Pan-Ameri- can Union (buildings and funds), $850,000; for benefit of Em- ployes of Carnegie Steel Co., $5,000,000; Allied Engineers' Society, $1,500,000. In addition he has given over $5,000,000 to endow libraries, etc., etc. The list is too long to exhaust; of libraries alone there are some two thousand. It is safe to say that behind all of Mr. Carnegie 's gifts there is a definite purpose. In his libraries he invites the thought- ful, more particularly the young, to "read, learn, and in- wardly digest" the best that has been written; though wheth- er the average frequenter of public libraries does that has been cynically questioned. In his endowments of college pro- fessors, an insufficiently paid calling, he releases many a great and generous soul from financial bondage — thus setting it free to pursue the higher course, the pioneering work that leads onward and upward ; the goal of which no man knows, but which is assuredly there and well worth striving for. His endowments of the Carnegie Institution and of the Scotch universities belong to the same order. His gifts to Dunferm- line, where he was born ; to Pittsburgh, where he grew up to great things; to the Allied Engineers' Societies, intimately associated with the industry in which he made his fortune — these are gifts personal, and of the heart. About his "Hero Fund" opinions differ. Some hold that the true reward of heroism is * ' the iron cross, not the golden guerdon. ' ' Be that as it may, all admit the motive — idealism. Andrew Carnegie is, and has always been, a good deal of an idealist, though he would doubtless hotly deny the statement, as he has already denied that he is a philanthropist. Well, anyhow, he is a " guid laddie. ' ' To that we know he will agree, for "our Andie" — and he is ours and the world's — is very human. He does not believe that any man should hide his light under a bushel. And he is right. If there were no bea- ANDEEW CARNEGIE 105 eons in the world, how drab and drear this world of ours would be. Mr. Carnegie is a veteran in the cause of peace ; and he re- gards the subject in all its phases — industrial, social, and in- ternational. No man has realized more fully than he that humanity is fundamentally a unity ; that all classes, as well as nations and races, are indissolubly bound together, for ill or for good. His sympathies are in this sense universal. With another eminent American he can truly say: "The world is my country, and to do good is my religion." Addressing the Annual Meeting of the Peace Society in the Guildhall, London, May 10, 1910, he proclaimed his faith and his hopes in the future in the following words : "If all civil- ized people now regard these former atrocities of war as dis- graceful to humanity, how soon must their successors regard the root of these barbarities, war itself, as unworthy of civil- ized men, and discard them as intolerable? We are marching fast to that day, the reign of law under which civilized peo- ples are bound to live — nations being only aggregates of in- dividuals, why should they be permitted to wage war against other nations, when, if we were all classed as one nation, they would be denied this right of war, and would have to subject themselves to the reign of law?" Without claims to any special personal magnetism or brilli- ancy, Mr. Carnegie is one of those rare men who have achieved all they set out to accomplish. His successes in carrying through his ideals and in popularizing them, as well as in his business enterprises, he owes mainly to the fact that he has always been intensely practical. He saw very clearly all that was within his horizon — an extensive one, truly — but he nev- er sought to fathom what was beyond. He has traveled much, seen much, reflected much ; and has made many acquaintances^ both at home and abroad. He has counseled with statesmen, and has been consulted by mon- arehs. Among his friends may be mentioned the late Mr. Gladstone, whom he regarded as his political leader and loved as a man; John Morley, the distinguished and philosophic 106 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS statesman; James Bryce, the eminent writer, and jurist; and others of like distinction and character. Andrew Carnegie, his works and what he represents, are known to-day throughout the world. No man has been more talked and written about. The newspapers and the periodical press are full of him and his doings. The real man can be best studied, however, by the perusal of his own books and speeches. He is the author of : An American Four-in-hand in Britain, 1883 ; Round the World, 1884 ; Triumphant Democ- racy, 1886; The Gospel of Wealth, 1901; The Empire of Bus- iness, 1902; Life of James Watt, 1905; Problems of To-day, 1908. BIBLIOGRAPHY BOOKS Andrew Carnegie, the Man and his Works. By Barnard Alderson. Famous Givers and Their Gifts, Carnegie and His Libraries. By (Mrs.) Sarah K. Bolton. How They Succeeded, Life Stories of Famous Men. By Orison Sweet Marden. Little Journeys to Homes of Great Men. By Elbert Hubbard. PERIODICALS American Millionaire. Bookman 25 :577. Estimate. Independent 62:848. How Carnegie Climbed Up. Current Literature 41 :392. Owners of America. Cosmopolitan 45 :3. Turning-point of Mr. Carnegie's Career. Century 76:333. CHAMP CLAEK By Wallace D. Basspoed ON the seventh day of March, 1850, Webster — ''Daniel ' the Godlike" — rose in his place in the Senate and de- livered a great oration, destined to live in history, in literature, and on the tongues of men. That surpassing effort has always been and ever will be known as "the seventh of March speech. ' ' On that same eventful day was born down in the hill-country in Kentucky a blue-eyed, flaxen-haired man child destined to play a great part in the history of his country and to hold an abiding place in the hearts of his countrymen, loved by millions, trusted by his most active opponents, re- spected even by his enemies. This child was named James Beauchamp Clark, for his grandfather, Judge James Beau- champ. One of the first marked evidences of the fine decision and vigor of his character occurred when he was but a youth, when, with the remark that "one's name is his personal prop- erty, and he has as much right to change it as he has to have his hair cut," he sliced off the first part, leaving it plain Champ Clark. As full of character and human interest as an egg is of meat, it is unfortunate that no modern Boswell has lingered lovingly at Clark's heels, with pencil and note-book ready to jot down each mot, each characteristic utterance or anecdote that might give future generations a true insight into this big man's real character. The parent stock from England, transplanted in turn from Virginia to Kentucky, found there a fertile field for its perfect development. It is scarcely an exaggeration to say that there is no spot in the western hemisphere of like population that has produced as many public men of equal eminence and at- tainments as the section of which Lexington, Kentucky, is the center. The mention of a few names will call to mind many others of equal or approaching calibre. This region produced Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis — the rival presidents 108 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS of our Civil War period — Henry Clay, Brutus J. Clay, anc Cassius M. Clay, Old Dick Johnson, Ben Hardin, Tom Mar shall. Prentice, the Breckinridges, the Blairs, the Prestons, Morgan the raider, George Vest, William J. Stone, Joe Black- burn, Oscar Underwood, and Champ Clark. No more remark- able instance of this prolific output of men of genius for pub- lic affairs could ever be found than now exists in the National House of Representatives, where the Speaker, the Majority Leader, Mr. Underwood, and the Minority Leader, Mr. Mann, all trace their families to the same county in Kentucky! At one time the grandfathers of Mr. Clark and Mr. Underwood were law partners, which partnership was followed by one be- tween Judge Beauchamp and Mr. Mann's uncle. Judge Jones. And these three men have not risen by accident to their high places in the councils of the nation. Nowhere does a man more certainly gravitate to the place which of right belongs to him than in the House. In that close daily association each man soon becomes known for what he is, and the niche into which he falls is the one in which he fits. In the last twenty years there has been in the Capitol no triumvirate of leaders equal in capacity to that of Clark, Underwood, and Mann. The climate and the limestone soil of great fertility and productive power were well suited to the further development of a strong and self-rehant race. The blood was mainly Eng- lish, with an intermixture of Scotch and Scotch-Irish. Young Clark grew up in an environment and under circumstances well calculated to develop all the qualities of mind and strength of body which he inherited from a long line of right- living ancestors. When he was a youth, farm work brought part of the money necessary for his sustenance in college; and breaking hemp, cradling wheat, and cultivating corn with a double-shovel plow from daylight until dark made a phys- ical giant of him who could stand up under it. That was be- fore the day of self-binders and riding plows. Each farmer kept his flock of sheep, for wool and meat; the wool was scoured and carded by the women folks, spun during the long winter evenings by the light of the open fire, and woven into homespun or linsey-woolsey on the old hand loom, which also Copyright by Edmonston, Washington CHAMP CLAEK 111 made the rag carpets, the linen sheets and the bedspreads. The farmer of that day sent his wheat and corn to the near- by water mill for grinding ; he likewise grew his tobacco and practically all that went on his table, itself covered with a cloth the product of his own hemp patch. His need for money was mainly for the purchase of pepper, salt, needles, buttons, and for the payment of taxes. Most farmers made the family shoes. In the sections outside the growing cities, the purchase of a chicken, a ham, a dozen eggs or a quart of milk, was unknown. Even whiskey, uncolored from a charred barrel, was home-made and placed before the guest without thought of evil. It was the simple Ufe, a life of the greatest measure of independence. Clark's father, Dr. John Hampton Clark, who was born where Atlantic City now stands, had been compelled to forego the benefits of a schooling by reason of his father's business failure and had had to work to support his widowed mother. After leaving home he had worked as a carriage maker, and tradition says he was a good one. Though denied schooling he could not be deprived of an education. He got it from everything he touched; he read omnivorously and formed vigorous opinions. He picked up dentistry, and rode about the country with one end of his saddle bags filled with the in- struments of his profession, while the other contained a Bible, Macaulay's Essays and copies of the speeches of Douglas and Breckinridge. He delighted in disputation and could easily hold his own. Many political opponents have learned to their sorrow that the son inherited this char- acteristic in Scriptural measure. Champ Clark's mother died when he was but a small child. While the father was riding the surrounding counties, young Clark and his little sister were cared for in the neighborhood around Lawrenceburg, where they were born. In the winter they went to the old field schools, where the boy soon outstripped all of his fel- lows. Ambition found him early. I once heard him say that at fifteen he would gladly have walked to West Point for the privilege of taking the entrance examination there. He added that he believed almost any of his classmates could have 112 FAMOUS LIVING AMEEICANS passed the examination — surely a testimonial to the efficiency of the schools of that day and Hnd. When the boy was about twelve, his father secured a place for him on the farm of John Call. John, on account of trouble with his eyes, could not read, but he took a great interest in politics, and agreed to subscribe for Prentice's daily paper, the old Louisville Journal (now the famous Courier- Journal, edited by Colonel Henry Watterson), provided young Clark would read it to him. While Clark was working for Call, Morgan and his men came through that region and Call put the boy on the back of a magnificent chestnut mare and told him to take the horses to the woods, for Morgan had a fine eye for a good saddler. He had just started when the vanguard of that daring body of cavalry burst into view at a turn in the road, the evening sun shining on their equipment. The boy paused. At that moment seven home-guards dashed out of the village and charged the whole of Morgan's cavalry! It was all over in a moment. But the incident of the charge fired the fighting blood of the boy and he stole away the next day to enlist in a company being raised in the county. He stood on his tiptoes and swelled out his chest, but they would not take him. Later he tried to get into a regiment that came through the region where he lived, but he was still too young. But he was growing and learning, reading newspapers, novels, histories, slipping away to attend political meetings and to hear the country lawyers in the Circuit Court room at the county seat. He saw his father occasionally, and one day he admiringly read aloud to his father a copy of Patrick Henry's speech before the Virginia House of Burgesses. One line that struck the boy's poetic fancy ran: "The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong." His father said: "That is from the Bible; if you want to learn the use of terse English, why don't you get it at first hand?" From that day young Clark buried his nose in the Bible, learning Job and St. Paul by heart. He lingered long over the splen- did rhapsody beginning: "Though I speak with the tongues CHAMP CLAEK 113 of men and of angels and have not charity, I am as sound- ing brass or a tinkling cymbal." Before he was fifteen Clark was teaching a country school in order to get funds for college, and at sixteen had in his school grown men who had been in both armies and had come home with a desire to learn the three E's. Birch, stout birch, well-wielded birch, was the prime requisite there. One youth was separated (to use the polite term devised by the Civil Service Commission) from the school for indulging in the playful diversion of throwing a handful of Enfield rifle cart- ridges into the stove that heated the one room of the school- house. In six weeks Clark had whipped that school from ninety down to two, for every time a student got a trouncing for his misdeeds he would promptly quit school. But peace reigned — of the sort that reigned in Warsaw on a celebrated occasion. But such experiences served a double purpose — they de- veloped stern traits of self-reliance and made the pot boil dur- ing the years at Kentucky University, which he entered at the age of seventeen. Teaching school, working as a hired hand on a farm, clerking in a country store and parting his hair in the middle to attract trade, he managed to make buckle and tongue meet. He spent three years in Kentucky University and was about to be graduated with honor when an unfor- tunate circumstance occurred. Young Clark became engaged in a college fight. The president of the faculty was absent. The remainder of the faculty took action and, by a majority of one vote, expelled Clark. He packed up his few belongings and left. A day or two later the president returned, prompt- ly rescinded the faculty's action and urged Clark's return. But he was gone and gone to stay ; he refused to come back. From Lexington, the seat of the University, he walked home, a distance of sixty miles, carrying on his back all his earthly possessions, including a dozen volumes which he had bought with the last money he had. He still treasures these old friends of the days of his greatest poverty. That fall found him at Bethany, West Virginia, attending 114 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS the school founded by Alexander Campbell, the founder of tl church variously known as the Disciples, the Church of Chris and the Campbellites. There he took the junior and senic courses in one year and on the senior year's work made the n markable average grade of ninety-nine and eight-ninth When it is known that Clark arrived at Bethany with on hundred and fifty dollars in his pocket, and that on that siii he managed to eke out an existence through the entire year, believe few will dispute the statement that this high-wate mark in scholarship constitutes one of the greatest sing] achievements of an individual within our times. Two of hi classmates there related to me how Clark would begin study s daylight or earlier and work steadily until midnight. To sav time for his studies he absented himself from chapel unt ordered to attend, whereupon he appeared with shaved heac This disturbed the services to such an extent that he was ej cused thereafter and he went back victoriously to his garre and his crust and his desperate battle to secure an educatioi But to him it was, withal, a cheerful battle. He learned to d logarithms and figure eclipses and became proficient in th languages. He sang Greek songs while cooking his cornbee and cabbage, wearing a gunny sack in lieu of an apron, an wrote odes in imitation of Horace. The remarkable scholarship shown by Clark at Bethan; secured for him at the age of twenty-three the presidency o Marshall College, the State Normal School at Huntingtoi West Virginia. For many years after that he held th record as the youngest college president in the country, i not in the world. In making application for the presi dency of Marshall College, Clark wrote this description o himself : "I am twenty-two years old, a Kentuekian by birtl a Democrat in politics, a Campbellite in religion, unmarriec a master mason, six feet two in height and weigh 170 pounds.' He now weighs 235, but all the changes of forty years tha have passed have not altered his habit of direct, forceful, m evasive statement. After having fought his way up in po itics from the lowly position of city attorney in a small tow CHAMP OLAEK 115 to the second office in the greatest government in the world, he is still as frank as a schoolboy. Clark spent one year at Marshall College, a year of profit to him, for it gave him the money for a course in the Cincin- nati Law School; it was also a year of great benefit to the college, for Clark possessed unusual talent for instruction, was full of human sympathy and labored day and night with the students, many of whom were older than he. From this work he proceeded to Cincinnati where he finished the law course and went thence to Wichita, Kansas, hung out his sign and awaited the first client — a vain wait of eleven weeks. The grasshoppers had invaded the State the previous year, eaten up all the crops, and left a great depression in their wake : times were bitterly hard. To get enough money to get out of the State, Clark went out in the fields and worked as a hired hand cutting com. From Kansas he went to Missouri, stopped at Louisiana, an old and historic town on the Missis- sippi, and formed a law partnership with David A. Ball. He was still a youth when he landed in the town of Louis- iana, past which, up and down the long river, Mark Twain had but recently been casting the lead on the big side-wheel floating palaces that bore the commerce of the Great Valley. WilHam Merritt Chase was going to school in the next county, dreaming even then of artistic conquests to come. John B. Henderson, who lived in the town of Louisiana, had just been driven from his place in the United States Senate because he had voted with Lyman Trumbull and Edmund G. Boss to save Andrew Johnson from conviction at the bar of the Senate. James 0. Broadhead and Col. D. Pat Dyer, since world-fa- mous, were members of the Pike County bar, and the song of "Joe Bowers, who had a brother Ike," was a popular ballad. Clark's first Sunday saw him at the little church where worshiped the followers of the great Alexander Campbell. There he put in his letter from the Christian Church at Cincin- nati and was received into full fellowship. Within a few days a steamboat trip was arranged by the young men of the town ; the old steamer War Eagle, towing the barge Mamie, brass 116 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS band, lemonade stand and all, steamed slowly up the broac river, while the full June moon rose over the picturesqui bluffs of Pike county, Illinois. The music, the perfect night the pretty girls, the odor of a thousand roses, the enthusiasn of youth — all else was forgot, and the young churchmai danced all the way up the river to the tuming-around point and then danced all the way back to the landing at Louisiana at two 'clock in the morning. The next Sunday he took his way to church, all unconsciouf of the gathering storm. Before the service began the younj Kentuckian was called before the bar of the Church and ex pelled from its membership for dancing in violation of th laws of the church. Clark, crestfallen but not discouraged walked out and cooled his brow in the shade of the long rows of maples on Georgia street. He looked at the cobblestones and thought of De Quincey's "Oxford street, thou stony hearted stepmother, that drinkest the tears of the children and hearest the cries of the fatherless." It was depressing discouraging. But soon his brain cleared ; he walked resolute ly back to the church and took a seat on the last bench in th( rear, observed by none. There he sat and heard a sermon oi backshding that seemed to be directed at him alone. In the Christian Church it is the unfailing custom, at tli( close of the service, to offer an invitation to all repentant sin ners to come forward and take a place on the front seat wML the congregation sings a hymn. It is a goodly custom. Whei the usual invitation was given, up rose a tall, blonde, anc blue-eyed young man with a square jaw — the young Ken tucky lawyer who, according to The Riverside Press, hen "settled in our midst." He stalked straight to that fron bench and sat resolutely down, the only repentant sinner t( make the good confession. The pastor was nonplussed; tb presiding elder gasped. The book containing the rules of tb church was hastily consulted ; there was only one thing to do a repentant sinner could not be turned away, so Clark wen back into the fold and there abideth to this day. The practice of law in the town was very slim picking Clark saw an opportunity to become principal of the higl CHAMP CLAEK 117 school and seized it. Shortly thereafter he bought the most important county newspaper of that day, and conducted it for eleven months, selling it to a friend, but placing this friend under contract to run only a strictly Democratic paper ! About this time Mr. Clark was married to Miss Genevieve Bennett, of Callaway county, a stately young woman of fine mind and attainments. She was graduated from Missouri University at the early age of eighteen. Of their children, little Champ and Ann Hamilton died early. Bennett and Genevieve have just reached manhood and womanhood. During these first few years in Pike county, Mr. Clark was elected City Attorney, appointed Deputy Prosecuting Attor- ney for the county, then elected Prosecuting Attorney and Presidential Elector. He was chosen vice-president of the Trans-Mississippi Commercial Congress which met in Den- ver, and was elected to the Missouri legislature, serving in 1889-90. There he showed himself to be a "progressive" be- fore that word came into use in a political sense. He was the author of the Australian ballot law of Missouri and also of the anti-trust statute of that State, which has proved to be the most effective law of the kind on any statute book in America. Under its provisions the Harvester Trust has very recently been expelled from Missouri. In 1892 he was elected to Congress to represent the Ninth Missouri district, which seat he still holds. He was permanent chairman of the Demo- cratic National Convention at St. Louis in 1904 and chairman of the committee which notified Judge Parker of his nomina- tion to the presidency. In December, 1908, he was chosen his party's leader in the House of Representatives without a dissenting voice. In 1909 this was repeated. Following this came the long and bitter struggle against Cannonism in the House, which Clark led in masterful fashion. The result is known to everyone. His leadership brought about the great victory of 1910, which gave the Democrats a large majority in the House and elected Clark to the Speakership by the unan- imous vote of his party. He secured in the party councils a state of peace which the Democracy had not known for many years. He was the Great Pacificator of his party. No one 118 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS envied him the place he had won ; no one sought to take powei from him, for he pushed it away with his own hand. He thought the attributes which had so long gone with the Speak- ership were too great for any one man, even though that man be himself. Those powers which he had snatched from the hand of Cannon he returned to the people and their repre- sentatives. In his view such concentration of power in the Speaker of the House as had been built up under Eepublican rule was both unsafe and undemocratic. In his address on taking the chair Speaker Clark said: "No man is fit to be a law-giver for a great people who yields to the demands and solicitations of the few having access to Hs ear, but is forgetful of the vast multitude who may never hear his voice or look into his face." In that speech Clark repeated aU the promises made in order to win the last election, and specifically promised their fulfilment through legislation in the ensuing session. How unique in politics! The campaign for the presidential nomination of 1912 came on while Clark was occupying the Speakership. His own State had, in a convention called for another purpose, passed a resolution endorsing the candidacy of Governor Folk, of Missouri, for the presidency. So long as that condition ex- isted Clark would not enter the lists, but the people of Mis- souri wanted Clark, and grew so restive under the existing situation that the matter finally came to a head when the State Committee met and called a State Convention to settle the question as to who was really Missouri's choice. Clark carried 111 of the 114 counties in the State, thus securing nearly all of the delegates in the State Convention. This was on February 20th and the National Convention was but four months away. It was a late start, funds for campaigning were very scarce and Clark would not leave his post of duty at Washington to tour the country in the interest of his can- didacy. In half the States he made no contest. Neverthe- less, he entered the Baltimore Convention far in the lead of the nearest competitor and very soon secured a clear major- ity of votes over all his opponents, which should have entitled CHAMP CLAEK 119 him to the nomination. But in 1844, when Martin Van Buren was a candidate for the presidency, some of the party leaders put through a rule that required that the candidate receive two-thirds of the votes of the Convention ; this was done solely to prevent Van Buren 's nomination, because he was opposed to the annexation of Texas. It served; he was defeated. That rule has since been the rule of Democratic Conventions, but had remained a dead letter for seventy-eight years until it was invoked at Baltimore in 1912 to defeat Mr. Clark. For many years it had been the custom, when a candidate reached a ma- jority vote, to withdraw the other candidates and give him the nomination. In this case when Mr. Clark had reached the ma- jority WiUiam J. Bryan arose and charged an alliance between the Clark candidacy and the "reactionaries." There was no foundation for the charge, as Mr. Bryan admitted in a signed statement made a few months later, but it struck Clark down. In that statement Mr. Bryan said : "If my language at Baltimore created any impression that I was charging Mr. Clark with being in sympathy with any reactionary forces I am glad of the opportunity to correct any such misrepresentation of my words or action. ' ' Mr. Clark maintained his majority on nine ballots, and led the convention on twenty-nine ballots, but after the Bryan speech his strength gradually waned and Mr. Wilson received the nomination. If Mr. Bryan saw any unfitness in Mr. Clark, it was of short life, for within a few hours he tendered Mr. Clark, through Senator Stone, the vice-presidential nom- ination, which was refused. The Speaker nevertheless entered the campaign and made a vigorous fight for the election of Mr. Wilson. When the newly elected president called the Sixty-third Congress in ex- traordinary session in the spring of 1913, Mr. Clark was again the tmauimous choice of his party for the Speakership. In March, 1914, he led the spectacular fight against the repeal of the law which gave to American coastwise vessels the free use of the Panama canal. In all his long career Mr. Clark has stood four-square to all the winds that blew, and it is safe to say that when the day 120 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS comes for him finally to quit public life, he will carry with him unimpaired that splendid mental integrity which has won him the confidence of all good men, regardless of party affiliations. To-day, in 1914, that time seems far in the future. The sup- port of the common people, whom he has so faithfully served, and which enabled him to sweep all before him in the presi- dential primaries of 1912, is growing rather than diminishing. The years of unremitting toil rest lightly on his broad shoul- ders and he is strong, vigorous and in perfect health — "his eye is not dimmed nor his natural strength abated." BIBLIOGRAPHY BOOKS Biographical Congressional Directory. Champ Clark. By John Hubert Greusel. Los Angeles. Champ Clark. (Neale Pub. Co.) By W. L. Webb. Five Famous Missourians. By HoUister and Norman. Kansas City. Thirty Years in the Press Gallery. (C. T. Richardson.) By 0. C. Stealey. PERIODICALS Champ Clark. North American Review 195 :721. Champ Clark, of Pike County. By Frank P. Stockbridge. World's Work 24:72. Men We are Watching. Independent 64:802. One of the Democratic Candidates. Independent 72 :1336. Speaker Champ Clark. By Colonel John Temple Graves. Inde- pendent 71:959. Views of Champ Clark. By John A. Lathrop. Outlook 101 :65. FRANCIS E. CLARK By Charles Eugene Underwood FATHER ENDEAVOR CLARK all Christendom knows and loves as the founder of the Young People's Soci- ety of Christian Endeavor. The orphan boy, Francis Edward Symmes, assumed the surname of his uncle and fos- ter father, Rev. E. W. Clark. "Father Endeavor" consti- tutes an honorary degree conferred upon him by the young people who for more than a quarter of a century have ac- cepted his fatherly counsel, and followed his spiritual leader- ship. The future founder of the Young People's Society of Chris- tian Endeavor was born at Aylmer, Province of Quebec, on September 12, 1851. His parents had migrated thither from New England. Orphaned at eight years of age, Francis en- tered the home of his uncle. Rev. E. "W. Clark. His New Eng- land inheritance, the inspiration of Christian associations, the atmosphere of a Christian home, and the influence and encour- agement of his uncle, all conspired to make him a Christian minister. He prepared for his chosen career at Dartmouth college and Andover seminary. Upon graduation Dr. Clark entered upon a modest mission pastorate in the Williston Congregational church at Portland, Maine. By earnest, capable effort he built the mission church into a strong, self-supporting, aggressive organization. In 1883 he removed to Boston, where he served the Phillips Congrega- tional church for four years. Closing his pastorate at this church in 1887 he became actively engaged in directing the Young People's Societies of Christian Endeavor. Henceforth the biography of the man is merged in the history of the move- ment. In the Williston church at Portland, Maine, on February 2, 1881, he organized the first Society of Christian Endeavor. He had found his young people interesting and inter- ested, but with no clear lines of Christian work to awaken 122 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS their enthusiastic support of the church, and enlist their hearty service. After twenty-five years he wrote of his ex- perience, as follows : ^ "Its founder was one of the youngest and humblest pastors in the state of Maine, and its charter members were average boys and girls such as can be found in any New England church. The pastor was feeling about, in his youth and inex- perience, for some way of training these boys and girls in Christian service, if haply he might find it. He tried many ex- periments, ran up many blind alleys, knocked at many closed doors ; made many experiments along literary, musical and de- bating society lines; did not despise the seductive ice cream festival or the succulent oyster as a means of interesting the youth in things religious ; but at last made the discovery that nothing but religion really appealed to the religious nature of young people ; that a prayer meeting could be made more in- teresting than a debating society, and that what young men and women really desired, though they did not always know it themselves, was to do something for the church rather than have the church do something for them. "As soon as he discovered for himself this old truth, which doubtless every wise man had discovered before him, he set to work on new lines, made the prayer meeting, and not the pink tea, the central feature of the Society, and service, not enter- tainment its watchword. ' ' As Dr. Clark intimates, he discovered not a new truth, but an old one, which he applied to the practical problem of young people's service. At the time he organized the new society he did not dream of the great growth before the Christian En- deavor movement. He had grappled with the problem in his own congregation and found a solution. Others having the same problem gladly welcomed the efficient Society of Chris- tian Endeavor into their church life. In a certain sense Dr. Clark interpreted the religious life of his own age, rather than turned its current into new channels. He saw this clearly, for he writes: "The desire for a larger and more fruitful work among young people was felt everywhere. Pastors and people were thinking and talking and praying about this perennial sub- ject — 'How shall we attract and hold our young people?' 1 A Quarter Century of Christian Endeavor. Outloolc 82 : 80-86. :;? /^^f-?-«'-6>-t--«/' FEANCIS E. CLAEK 125 The subject was in solution, as it were, the world over ; and the experiment at Williston church, of Feb. 2, 1881, simply gave it shape." If "the subject were in solution the world over," tremen- dous transitional forces should be discovered preparing for the movement. A search uncovers many factors. The educa- tional world had begun its evolution from supreme emphasis on the subject matter in education to greater emphasis on the unfolding life of the child. It was destined soon to consider the boy not a man in embryo, but a living being with his own laws of development. For future manhood he should be trained, not by manhood's lore alone, but by encouragement of the fullest expression of his normal boyhood life. In that ex- pression he should develop physical, mental, and spiritual powers that would bring him normally to maturity. New edu- cational ideals stirred the church, and awakened it to the con- viction that it had neglected the stimulation of children's normal religious growth into church activities. Through evan- gelism it had sought the conquest of the unchurched adult, while it had neglected the riper field of Christian education. True the church had for decades felt its way toward educa- tional methods. The religious world had conducted success- fully the Sunday School movement, which even in its imma- turity was a powerful educative force. As the Christian world realized the great need for educational work within the church, an abundant literature crystallized the sentiment for more efficient service to youth and by youth. Thoughtful men read this literature, clarified their own views, and set in mo- tion the forces that wrought tremendous changes. Dr. Clark refers appreciatingly to one literary production which influ- enced him profoundly in those initial years of the Christian Endeavor movement : "The most fruitful book of recent times relating to Chris- tian nurture is doubtless Bushnell's great little volume with that title. It turned the thought of the modern Christian world to this subject, and compelled the church to acknowledge that there must be growth within as well as conquest from without if she was to hold her rightful possessions as well as to extend her boundaries. 126 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS ' ' The writer acknowledges with profound gratitude his debt to this book, which he read with eager interest, and whose great thought of winning ajid holding the youth for the church he sought to embody in the first Society of Christian En- deavor." One may perhaps say that the age produced the Society of Christian Endeavor, but is it not true that Francis Edward Clark made to the movement a unique individ- ual contribution? Is it not true that the world's lead- ers always merely interpret their times and help other men to achieve great things? They do not fight the world's battles, nor solve the world's problems alone. Napoleon had his Mar- shal Ney, his Old Guard, his corps of efficient officers, his regi- ments of trained, enthusiastic soldiers. Behind him he had the vivacity of the French people, stirred to new ambitions through the new hberty ushered in by the terrible French Revolution. Napoleon became the embodiment of conquering instinct, the interpreter of the glory of combat. Washington was the interpreter of a new freedom, the herald of the mod- ern republic; the inheritor of centuries of colonial develop- ment toward freedom and self-government, yet the command- ing figure of the American Revolution and of the early days of republican experiment. Edison interprets the electrical age, and Burbank the age of agricultural advancement. Thus Francis E. Clark, though he modestly credits his forerunners and contemporaries and the great currents of thought within and without the church, with the creation of the Society of Christian Endeavor, interpreted more perfectly than any other man or men the young people's movement, and stands forth the commanding figure at the head of this tremendous force. He is "Father Endeavor Clark." He is the genius, the per- sonification, of Christian Endeavor. Old and young united in the promotion of the movement which Dr. Clark had organized, because all believed in its fun- damental principles. The closing year of the first quarter century of Christian Endeavor found 67,000 local societies, fostered in 100 denominations, entrenched in 50 nations and important colonies, and worshiping in 80 languages. Many FEANCIS E. CLARK 127 detached societies were formed in schools, colleges, on battle- ships, in army regiments, and even in prisons. Eighty thou- sand societies now enroll 4,000,000 members. This marvelous growth to interdenominational and international proportions marks Christian Endeavor a movement in harmony with the best religious convictions of the age, and its founder a prophet of present day religion. Dr. Clark presents the foundation principles of the move- ment as follows : ^ "First — Deep religious devotion. There is no such com- pelling and attractive power as this. 'For Christ and the church' has always been the motto of the society. "Second — Service for all and all for service. 'No impres- sion without expression,' the latest word of the psychologist, relating to adolescent youth, has been practically wrought out in Christian Endeavor methods. ' ' Third — Fellowship with Fidelity. ' Brotherhood with all, loyalty to one's own;' these are the watchwords which are heard in Christian Endeavor circles all over the world, and which incarnated in deed have given the society its power. ' ' In furtherance of the first aim the Christian Endeavorer pledged himself to pray and read the Bible every day. These practices developed young people of sterling character de- voted to the highest ideals. Through them came the devo- tional spirit which swept the entire church into a reverent study of the Scriptures. The religious world was ripe for this development. It had passed through a period of doctrinal con- troversy and crystallization before the rise of the Christian Endeavor. Now within the church correct doctrine became less the goal, and more the means of reaching that goal — Ufe, warm, abounding life, with its intellectual achievements and its emotional experiences. The message of the old He- brew prophets was a message of life, the same warm, abound- ing life ; and that message brought the soul, in its reach to the higher self, into contemplation of God and communion with Him. So in the awakening of the last quarter of the nine- teenth century the church sought closer communion with God. By its devotional ideals and practices the Christian Endeavor 2 A Quarter Century of Christian Endeavor. OutlooTc 82 : 80-86. 128 FAMOUS LIVING AMEEICANS movement restored the conception of the fatherhood of God, and gave expression to the longing of the whole church after Him. This enthusiastic religious devotion struck its roots into the soil of a new intellectual life. The world thrilled with the achievements of modern science, and rejoiced in unparalleled material prosperity. Old foundations crumbled, and apparent- ly impregnable superstructures of intellectual convictions tot- tered. The first results were disastrous. Crass materialism gained the ascendency. Intellectual subserviency threatened to plunge the world into intellectual barbarism. Eealities be- came identified with coal and wood, and iron and steel, and cotton and wool, and food and drink. The intellect grew vig- orous on the earth level, but its wings were clipped. The very exigencies of science, however, sent the intellect circling the heavens in search of the unknown. Psychology entered the field with demonstrations of the existence of realms beyond the material. Philosophy followed its lead, and with Bergson and Eucken developed a conception of knowledge reaching into the consideration of the infinite. Sociology inquired into the origin, development and fundamental principles of modem society, and stimulated kindliness in human relationships. Pedagogy, with its emphasis upon child development, discov- ered that moral fibre was essential to character, and that only religion creates moral fibre. The spiritual awakening within the church kept pace with this spiritualization of civilization, each movement supple- menting and influencing the other. Nay, rather they consti- tute one great, unified, forward movement of the race. With this more comprehensive view of the movements of the time, one becomes aware, without argument, of the harmony of Christian Endeavor with church and world development. That harmony again marks the prophetic character of the move- ment. Service is the second watchword of Christian Endeavor. By its devotional culture the movement gave to the church young people a profound impression, a boundless enthusiasm for larger achievement. From other sources — the Sunday FEANCIS E. CLAEK 129 School, the public worship, the mid-week service — the young people deepened that impression. At once they sought the expression of their ideals in practical service. The Christian Endeavor prayer meeting gave opportunity for expressing and deepening the devotional spirit until it sought new outlet in larger service. It has strengthened the hands of student volunteers; it has contributed money to the support of missions ; it has invested its own tremendous influ- ence and enthusiasm in the mission field; it has organized its societies in every mission land. Bolenge, in the heart of Af- rica, claims the world's largest Christian Endeavor Society. Christian Endeavor has grappled with the problem of mis- sions in the home land, and sought especially to solve those presented by the religious conditions in our large cities. Christian Endeavor has quickened the civic conscience. It has trained young men and women into higher ideals of busi- ness, society, and government. Local unions have conducted successful campaigns for social and municipal betterment. Everywhere the ideals of social service find ready intellectual and practical response in Endeavor circles. Internationally the Society moves forward in a program for world peace. Despite many lapses into barbarism the na- tions have permitted the seed sowing and will in time reap the harvest of international justice and world federation. Throughout its history it has stood uncompromisingly for temperance. At the International Christian Endeavor con- vention, held at Los Angeles in 1913, the great multitude of young people enthusiastically launched the campaign for a saloonless American nation by 1920. The motto, "Service for all and all for service," has ever inspired the Endeavor hosts. This devotional awakening and this unselfish service accom- panied fellowship and fidelity. Intense loyalty to the local church, and to the denomination, characterizes the movement. Yet no narrow sectarianism shackles it. With the vision of the prophet it sees the fatherhood of God issue in the brother- hood of man. With representation in one' hundred denomina- tions it carries its cooperative work across denominational 130 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS lines. Its fellowship grows stronger with its growth among the nations. Wherever its influence reaches it purifies the at- mosphere until all who feel its near approach breathe the spirit of fellowship. Dr. Clark relates an incident typical in its illustration of this influence for Christian fellowship and universal brotherhood : "The late Joseph Parker voiced this idea in his own pic- turesque way at the World's Christian Endeavor convention in London in 1900. On the same platform in the Alexandra palace were the Bishop of London, Hugh Price Hughes, Dr. Greenough representing the Baptists, and Dr. Munroe Gibson the Presbyterians ; while Dr. Floyd Tompkins, Dr. Maltbie D. Babeock, and other well known Americans added distinction to the platform. "Each speaker was supposed to represent his own denom- ination, and Dr. Parker was naturally expected to speak for Congregationalism. "It was a frightfully hot day; the sim beat down with re- lentless force upon the great glass roof. Dr. Parker perspired at every pore, and the water seemed to drip from every in- dividual hair of his shaggy locks. In his thunderous tones he remarked after a few preliminary words, 'Mr. Chairman, I wouldn't be wet through for any ism in the world, but I will sweat anywhere for the cause of fellowship and brotherhood as represented in this splendid assembly.' " In this three-fold statement of religious principles — "Deep religious devotion," "Service for all and all for service," "Fellowship with fidelity" — is sounded the keynote of pres- ent day religion. Francis E. Clark was the founder of Christian Endeavor, and throughout its entire history he has directed its fortunes. He was president of the United Society of Christian En- deavor; he has kept pace with the successive enlargement of the work, and is now president of the World's Christian Endeavor Union. Five times he has circled the globe in its interests, and Christian people of all states and lands hsten eagerly to his message. Dr. Clark is a prolific writer. In addition to his work as editor of the Christian Endeavor World he has written books of travel, of devotion and of prac- tical Endeavor methods. FRANCIS E. CLARK 131 Whatever the future may reveal for the organization, Chris- tian Endeavor must in its impress on the world's religious life stand as the permanent expansion of the life and ideals of one man — Francis Edward Clark. The fruitage of his life one sees in the Society. We seem as we read that record of achievement to lose all sense of individuality in the consid- eration of a great movement. Yet Francis E. Clark has a striking personality. He has prodigious energy, and a kindly, unselfish, earnest way of seeking the good of others. He has the vision of the prophet, and the organizing ability of the statesman. Added to these he retains the enthusiasm of youth. Such qualities insure success in any great unselfish labor of love. BIBLIOGRAPHY BOOKS Hastings Dictionary of Religion and Ethics. Training the Church of the Future. By Francis B. Clark. World Wide Endeavor. By Francis E. Clark. PERIODICALS Christian Endeavor Society in Mission Lands. By Francis E. Clark. Missionary Review 32 :840. How Goes the Battle ? Missionary Review 33 :832. Many-sided Missionary. Independent 61 :981. Quarter Century of Christian Endeavor. By Francis E. Clark. Out- look 82 :80. Society of Christian Endeavor. Century 82 :852. EUSSELL H. CONWELL By Latjba H. Cabnbll I WILL lift up mine eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help." Ever the mountain streams pour fertility over the broad-stretching valleys; ever the hill people come down to people the plain. The best parts of our own great plains were peopled from the hills of New England in the middle of the last century and still to-day we go back to these hills for rest and fresh inspiration. In the year 1843, in the same month that gave this country a Washington and a Lincoln, a child was born among the hill- tops of western Massachusetts. The soil could barely support the little family to which it came, yet it gave rich gifts to the baby : the splendid physique of the mountain bom, a voice as clear as the mountain brooks and as far reaching as the echo that springs from the circling hills that surrounded the home of his childhood. A Puritan ancestry with a more cavalierly strain from a paternal ancestor gave the faculty to dream dreams and see visions. In the village of the birth-place of this child was a Meth- odist church, the only church of the village. The time of which I write was long before all the great preachers were corralled in the big cities, and while splendid brave men still drove over the hills on long circuits carrying the very best they had to give to the humblest hamlets. To this little ham- let of South Worthington came one of these preachers, mak- ing it for a time his home. He lived on the very next farm to our child of promise. This preacher seems to have had in his head, or more likely in his heart, the germ thought of our modern institutional church although he lived and died with- out ever having heard of such a thing. He knew the boy on the next farm. Most of the boy's other neighbors were not quite so sure he was a child of promise, or rather the things they predicted for his future were not always complimentary. He was continually doing something to surprise them out of Courtesy F. Gutekunst, Philadelphia EUSSELL H. CONWELL 135 their ordinary calm serenity. His father's pew bore for half a century the marks of his restless activity during an overlong sermon. These artistic efforts were rewarded, it is true, with a spanking, but this did not destroy the morn- ing's achievement. The formal education of this child began at three years of age when he was sent trudging by the side of his older brother a mile away across the narrow valley to a little schoolhouse perched on an opposite hill. But his real education began when the wise Methodist preacher, who understood boy na- ture and its need of right outlets for expression, gathered in his kitchen by the great open fire, this boy, his own boy, after- wards a learned professor in two of our greatest colleges, and several other boys of the village, for a class in oratory. The village church seems to have been the social center where the results of the fireside class were tried out on public audiences. We hear of this boy of the hills speaking a piece in the village church as early as seven years of age. About this time spiritualism was sweeping over New Eng- land, even reaching into these hill towns where it still lingers in the more isolated districts. The whole community in which he hved was deeply affected by it, and we hear of the child being used as a medium while still very young. The impres- sions made upon an imaginative child at the most receptive period could never be obliterated. While extreme reaction necessarily follows any such over-stimulation, there were seed thoughts planted that all the after experiences of a varied hfe could not obliterate. The spirit world, for which this life is only a preparation and from which we are separated only for so short a period of time, was so real a thing to him that from earliest youth he felt the vital importance of an educa- tion as a preparation for big living here and as a preparation for better living in the great spirit world to which we are so soon going. So even back in these early days we see the boy the true father of the man. We find very early the embryo orator and the embryo teacher. As soon as the boy could hold the reins over the back of the staid old farm horses of his father, he was sent to the larger 136 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS village of Huntington nine miles away to carry down the products of the hills or to bring back merchandise for his father's store, for in connection with their farm the father also was the village storekeeper. The road from South Worthington to Huntington winds down the mountain by the side of a brook which makes its descent over sharp declivities, around huge boulders, through quiet pools where even now the deer come down to drink, and ever under overarching trees, until the brook meets the river half way down, and the road continues along the banks of the beautiful shallow West- field until it flows through the town of Huntington. On one of these early journeys in the sohtude of the woods, the boy was rehearsing an oration. The old horse was jogging along half asleep. He was used to these rehearsals but suddenly he heard "Woe unto thee, Chorazin!" He did not know before he was a Chorazin, but he had been called all sorts of things; so an extra name or two did not matter. He did know what whoa meant; and his sudden stop brought true woe for the youthful orator, who went headlong over the dashboard, land- ing on a sharp stone. The mark of this oration he still carries. Now the youthful orator, who had a theatrical bee humming in his head, had to go home, have his head sewed up, and, what was far worse, own up in the village store what had happened. Village stores are good places for curing oversensitive nerves. This experience put an end to his the- atrical ambitions and taught him a lesson in effective speech. The boy had learned to play a vioUn, or, as it was better known in his community, a fiddle. He loved to sing, and when the first melodeons were sold in these hills, his parents, at considerable sacrifice to themselves, bought one. He learned to play. He could not foresee what this gift was going to mean to him again and again in later years. The boy felt that he must go to college, as he had decided to be a lawyer ; so from the village school he went some miles away to Wilbraham Academy, a well-known academy of the Methodist church. He could work his way through, partly by fiddling for village dances, partly by teaching music, and partly by even humbler services. At Wilbraham his interest EUSSELL H. CONWELL 137 in public speech was further strengthened, as the Academy- made much of oratory. Even to the present time it excels in strong debating societies. From Wilbraham he and his only brother went to Yale, two mountain boys in mountain garb with no money in their pockets. Keenly sensitive to their lack of material things, the two boys settled down to earn their hving and get their college education. By giving les- sons on the organ, he earned part of the expenses, while as- sistance rendered to one of the cooks of the hotel secured the rest. Those were interesting days at Yale. The young man's autograph album is the witness. Every signer declared his poHtical or religious platform, and abolitionist, pro-slavery, anti-slavery, free-thinker, or atheist written after the name announced his creed. There was plenty of opportunity for oratory now. John Brown was hanged. This young man's home had been a station on the "Underground Railway" and John Brown had been his father's friend and had often been a guest in their home. Fort Sumter was fired upon — more occasion for oratory. The call for volunteers came. All through the long summer the boy, for he was still a boy in years, gathered around him the young men of the surround- ing farms, drilling them into a company. When they offered their services the young captain was under the age set for officers; so a special petition was sent to the governor that this company should go out from the hills under Captain Con- well, aged twenty. This petition was granted, and our boy captain went forth to learn what lessons war has to give. The college boy had been reading the philosophy and sci- ence of the middle nineteenth century. Of course, he thought he did not believe in anything, as that was the fashion of col- lege boys just at that time, when the wonderful discoveries of science of those years had not yet brought order out of the chaos which they had at first created. In the company of the young captain was a drummer boy who did believe that his Bible showed God's dealings with men and who read it faith- fully even though his young captain, whom he adored, teased him for doing so. One night there was an attack on the camp 138 FAMOUS LIVING AMEEICANS and the beloved captain's sword had been left in the tent. At the cost of his own life the boy went back to get the sword; and the young captain was made to realize that the boy had something from the Book that all his philosophy could not give. From this night he dates his conversion and the birth of the future preacher. During all the many months in camp and in the long jour- ney with Sherman to Atlanta, the young captain did not lose sight of the time when the war would be ended and he should go back once more to the ways of peace. By the camp fire he read law. In his knapsack could generally be found a volume in small print of some one of the great poets of the day. Many of the long quotations of the great poets that roll from his lips today were learned in sight of opposing armies. Just before going to the army the neighboring town of Westfield had invited the young man, who had made quite a name for himself as an orator in his own community, to give a lecture. This was the day of great lecturers, and it was one of the boy's ambitions to be a lecturer like Wendell Philhps or Henry Ward Beecher. When the town of Westfield heard this first lecture of one of the boys from their own hills, they little realized that this boy to whom they were giving his first chance to make good, was to become the greatest lecturer of his age and one who would lecture to more audiences than any other man of his century. At the close of the war the young man soon did what a young man should. He married. Soon he became a news- paper reporter. Later he graduated from the Albany Law School, and, as it was the fashion for New Englanders to go west, he went to Minneapolis, opened his law office there, founding its first newspaper and its Young Men's Christian Association. Here we see his first effort to make it possible for young men to get some assistance toward an education, an idea that could not see its full fruition for many years. Later he was sent to Germany as an emigration agent for Minne- sota. Again, a year or two later, he made a tour of the world. These years abroad, with his keenly alert mind, filled his brain with images and scenes that were to be given back EUSSELL H. CONWELL 139 in later and busier years to vast audiences "to point a moral or adorn a tale." His journeys abroad were made self-sup- porting by the articles sent home to the Boston Traveller and the New York Tribune. After these journeys he opened a law office in Somerville, Massachusetts, and later in Boston. His lecture work, which had never been entirely laid aside, was now taken up more ex- tensively. One of these earliest lectures was entitled Les- sons of Travel. About this time the lecture Acres of Dia- monds that has been given five thousand times to greater numbers of people than any other single lecture that has ever been placed before the public was evolved. "While traveling in the Orient he heard many of the wonderful tales of the East, but the tales of the East always have a moral. Two of these tales gave him the themes for his two greatest lectures, Acres of Diamonds, and The Silver Crown. After fifty years Acres of Diamonds is still given on Doctor Conwell's lecture tours four times out of five. While Dr. Conwell was conducting a successful law business in Boston and was lecturing up and down the country, he or- ganized a young men's Bible class in Tremont Temple and made many speeches for the temperance cause. In connec- tion with his Bible class he organized a Young Men's Con- gress modeled on the lines of the United States Congress, where all the leading questions of the day were debated. About this time he also began to write books: Why and How the Chinese Emigrate, The Lives of our Presidents, The Life of James G. Blaine, The Life of Bayard Taylor, a friend and feUow traveler, and a number of others. It was in con- nection with the Young Men's Congress that Dr. Conwell per- suaded Mr. Longfellow to write one of the sweetest of his elegiac poems, the one to Bayard Taylor. "Dead he lay among his books ; The peace of God was in his looks." At the great mass meeting held in Tremont Temple by the Young Men's Congress and presided over by Dr. Conwell, Oliver "Wendell Holmes read this poem. 140 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS In all the interests and activities of these years it was nat- ural that the man with the gift of the golden tongue should be attracted to the possibiUties of the political life, and we hear of him about this time being offered the nomination to the senatorship from his native State. He had stumped Ms State for General Butler and knew that every honor in the gift of his country might be his for the seeking. Victor Hugo, in his autobiography, has said he ever felt two natures struggling within him. So with Dr. Conwell, he felt strongly the call to the political life and all that it might hope to bring, but ever in the background was the persisting idea that he must give this all up to take up another life that could promise but little in the way of earthly reward. In battle- famed Lexington a little Baptist church stood closed and pas- torless. So our lawyer, orator, and politician decided to preach to these people on Sundays, crowding in a theological course at Newton Theological Seminary between times. In a year the old church had disappeared, a new one had taken its place, and the audience of a dozen people had given place to one that crowded the new building to its doors; and now the real life work of our mountain boy is about to begin. Forty years have gone by since he first cried out by the fireside in the New England hills. He has been very busy and has ac- comphshed many things, but Hke Kipling's Ship That Found Herself, it has been an initial voyage trying out all the parts that are now ready to work together as a perfect whole. A man in Massachusetts wrote to a man in Philadelphia that they had a very remarkable preacher in a small, even though famous, village ; that their preacher earned his living practicing law. The man down in Philadelphia was a deacon of a young church that had just placed the roof on a fine new building. It was not finished inside, neither was it paid for. Now the man in Philadelphia thought the young lawyer who had helped to pull down an old church with his own hands and had helped to build the new one while he lectured, studied theology and practiced law between times, was just the kind of a man they needed in Philadelphia. He was a close-mouthed, stubborn old deacon, a very successful man himself, so he RUSSELL H. CONWELL 141 said nothing to anyone. He put on his hat, slipped up to Bos- ton, went out to Lexington and heard the young man preach. After the young man was through, the stranger took him off into a comer and told him he was needed in Philadelphia. Be- fore the deacon got through with him, the young man made up his mind that perhaps he was needed in Philadelphia. Now to pick up a wife and three children, leave all one's friends and a good living at forty, to begin all over again in a conservative old city like Philadelphia, this meant more than he could possibly realize. Fortunately, his only knowledge of Philadelphia had been gained in war times when he had been kindly ministered unto when he had been brought to Philadelphia sick and wounded. Li Hung Chang calls Phila- delphia the City of a Million Smiles. It is, but it smiles rather shyly upon strangers who come to it unknown, and looks rather askance at anything that startles it out of its usual routine. The preacher who had come to one of its up- town, unfinished Baptist churches was destined to startle it many times. After his first sermon, the deacons saw that they would have to hurry up the finishing of the upper room. It was hardly finished before they were just as badly oflf. The city at that time had not grown nervous about its exits from pub- lic buildings, so the ushers filled the seats, let the people stand around the walls, fill the aisles, and stand on the stairways half way down. The stream of oratory poured forth, but this alone would not have been sufficient. Young men and women were identifying themselves permanently with the church. They must be given something to do. Young men's associa- tions, young women's associations, a Young Men's Congress were formed. The church building hummed with activity every day of the week. But as the young people worked they found their limita- tions. Missions were formed. The young people were sent out to take charge of them. There were religious services within the church which they must lead, but they felt they needed to know how to do it better. All turned to the leader for direction and for help. They might have to wait a long 142 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS time for their turn, but each one was met with as much sym- pathy and interest after a long day of seeing all sorts and conditions of men with all sorts and conditions of need as if he had been the only one seen that day. He makes this one of the fundamental principles of successful living: doing the thing in hand as if it were the most important thing in Kfe. One of the first to come for advice as to how to fit himself better for the part he was taking in this great work that was so rapidly developing, was a young man, the oldest son of a minister's widow, who was helping to support her and her three younger children. He felt the need of more education. Ultimately he desired to follow in his father's footsteps and be a minister. He told his pastor there were other young men in the church who felt the same way. There were no schools of any kind in Philadelphia at that time where young men or women could get any courses of study outside of the regular school hours except a very few disorderly night schools where only the most elementary instruction was given. The busy preacher, who was also still lecturing to help raise funds for the rapidly developing work, offered to meet the young men for one class on Saturday evenings. This first class was a class in oratory. The night this first group met in December, 1884, in the tiny study of their pastor, no one dreamed, unless it was the pastor himself, who often saw visions long before they were revealed to others, that that night a great university was being founded. The foundation course was oratory. This first class has nobly repaid its first teacher by the splendid work nearly every member of it has since done in the world. Very soon both teacher and scholars realized that in order to be successful orators these young people needed more than instruction in oratory, and so to make them better ora- tors classes were formed in English, in literature, in history, with volunteer teachers at first. As the demand for more and more classes increased, paid teachers had to be secured. At first the classes were free, but soon to help defray the ex- penses and to eliminate the unstable element that is ever ready to try any new experiment a small fee was charged. EUSSELL H. CONWELL 143 A house next door to the churcli had been purchased to re- Ueve the congestion, but already the realization was forcing itself upon the church that they must build a larger building. All the energies of the church were brought together to start the work of securing funds to buy a new site. A large lot was bought on North Broad Street, and the Baptist Tem- ple was begun. As this was planned to be the largest church in America, even the Quaker City was startled out of its com- placency and predicted complete failure for the enterprise. In the midst of this strenuous period of temple building the educational classes had so increased in number that the founder, realizing the tremendous need of this work in Phila- delphia, decided to apply to the state for a non-sectarian charter, that the entire city regardless of religious affiliations might enjoy the benefits of the new college that had sprung up in their midst. In 1888 Temple College was chartered as a non-sectarian college for working people; but the work it was doing soon became so well known that day classes were demanded and the day departments were opened. Shortly after the new Temple was opened the old church at Marvine and Berks Street was sold and Temple College moved into rented quarters. There was a lot to the south of the Temple for sale, but as the church was still staggering under the load of its great building enterprises, and the young College had not enough funds of its own, Dr. Conwell himself bought the lot, holding it for a year or two until the College was able to erect its first building. With its occupancy of its own buildings, its career as an entirely independent organization began. The demand for more and more courses was constantly made upon it. The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, the Teachers' College with its many vocational courses, the Theological School, the Law School, the Schools of Medicine, Dentistry, and Phar- macy took concrete shape. Buildings have been added and in the year 1907, the courts changed the name from Temple College to Temple University. Between three and four thou- sand students register annually and still the demands upon it 144 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS increase faster than it is possible to raise the money to meet the ever-varying demands. In the vision that came to the lawyer when he decided he must lay down everything and listen to the insistent voice within him that had been struggHng to be heard, there were three distinct obligations laid upon him : to preach the gospel, to give instruction to him who could not otherwise procure it for himself, and to heal the sick. He did not need to seek these obhgations ; each in its turn presented itself before lum in such manner that it was inevitable that he, being the man- ner of man he was, should take it up. Soon after the Temple was finished and while the Univer- sity was still erecting its first building, a small hospital in the northern part of the city had been compelled to close its doors for lack of funds. An appeal was made to Dr. Conwell, who called together a number of friends whose interest might be secured. They decided to reopen the little hospital with one ward and one nurse in a private house. The hospital was christened the Samaritan. Today it occupies half of a city square, with a training school of sixty nurses and a hundred and fifty beds, besides a large dispensary, an active social service department, and aU the other activities that charac- terize the best of modem hospitals. The Garretson Hospital, a smaller hospital in the center of great industrial plants, is also a part of the University work. The Samaritan Hospital as now constituted is also a part of the University, being under the same government. Dr. Conwell is the pastor of the Baptist Temple and president of the board of trustees of Temple University and its hospitals, but the latter are en- tirely independent of the church, having a board of trustees of their own selected from the alumni and friends of the Uni- versity. For some years now both the University and its hos- pitals have been receiving State aid, which has materially re- lieved the strain upon Dr. Conwell. Through all these exacting years President Conwell has continued lecturing, averaging three or four lectures a week. These lecture tours have taken him all over the United States and brought him in contact with all the great men of his age. EUSSELL H. CONWELL 145 But wherever he goes, whomever he meets, his first thought has been, ' ' Can I get any idea that will further the great work in Philadelphia ?" Much of the proceeds of his lectures has been given to the education of young people who could not have obtained it without this help. For a few weeks each year he goes back to the hills whence he came to get fresh inspiration for his work. Many years after he left it as a young man seeking his fortune he bought back his old home and there seeks rest and fresh strength. In view of the porches of the old home looms up the rocky precipice on which stood the tree that held the eagle's nest and which he tried to scale as a boy; and every time he goes up from the city to his home in the hills he passes the spot where he delivered his first very effective oration. Still, at heart he is above aU other things the orator. From a sense of duty, of obligation to his fellow men, and because the spirit of the Lord compels him, he is preacher, founder of hospitals and a university. BIBLIOGRAPHY BOOKS Life of Russell H. Conwell. By Albert H. Smith. Man and His Work. By Agnes R. Burr. Temple and Templars. By Robert J. Burdette. PERIODICAL How to MaJke a Church Pay. By R. H. Conwell. Independent 54 :730. GEOEGE DEWEY By Lois Eleanor Kinney IN the latter half of the sixteenth century the French Hu- guenot family, Douai, came to Kent, England, seeking for religious freedom. The same motive later sent the founder of the American Dewey family to Dorchester, Massachusetts, where he settled in 1634. This is the first that we hear of the family of our famous American admiral. George Dewey was born in the little town of Montpeher, Vermont, December 26, 1837, the youngest of three brothers. His boyhood days were spent in this beautiful New England town among the Green Mountains, where his father, Dr. JuUus Yemans Dewey, had settled after finishing his medical course at the University of Vermont. The death of his mother, when he was five years of age, made his father's influence of the greatest importance and of it he says, "To my father's influ- ence in my early training I owe, primarily, all that I have ac- complished in the world. ' ' His early life was that of the boys in a small American town, which Dewey considers "is about as healthy a Hfe as a growing boy can lead." A life of Hannibal early stirred his love for soldiers and forts and in the winter he built snow fortresses and entrenchments and proudly led forth his sol- diers to snowball battles. At the age of fourteen he was sent to the Military Academy at Norwich, Vermont. There the boys lived in dormitories, and had regular military drill. While at this Academy he, with four others, was brought into the Windsor County Court at Woodstock, Vermont, for break- ing up a religious meeting by singing negro melodies outside the window of the room where the meeting was held. There were no gjonnasiums in those days where a boy could work off his surplus energy, and continual study in a solemn manner had awakened the spirit of mischief. After this somewhat serious outbresik Dr. Dewey took his son from Norwich and later in the year 1854 sent him to the Naval Academy at An- Copyright by Clinedinst, Washington, D. C. George Dewey GEORGE DEWEY 149 napolis. At that time appointments were due to political influ- ence rather than to competitive entrance examinations. An- other boy was first given the appointment but, when he decided not to take it, it was given to Dewey. Dr. Dewey accom- panied his son to Annapolis and before starting for home said to him: "George, I've done all I can for you. The rest you must do for yourself. ' ' This advice Admiral Dewey says he has always tried to keep in mind. The four years' course was stiff, and of the sixty who en- tered in '54 only fifteen remained to graduate in '58. In his autobiography he tells of his difficulty with history and geog- raphy which was counterbalanced, however, by his excel- lence in mathematics and his facility in learning French and Spanish. When he was graduated he was fifth among the fifteen. At Annapolis there was then no system of athletics except the regular military drill, and the gymnastic equipment was poor. There was little or no relaxation from discipline, so outbreaks occurred which could not occur to-day. Every midshipman had his nickname and Dewey's was "Shang," though its origin he has forgotten. As was the habit of acting midshipmen Dewey chewed tobacco but, when he found that British and other foreign officers did not do it, he "be- came convinced that it was a filthy, vulgar habit in which no officer or gentleman should indulge, and consequently gave up all use of tobacco. ' ' After graduation from the Naval Academy a two years' ex- perience in practical cruising was necessary before the com- missions were given. Dewey and three of his classmates were assigned to the steam-frigate Wabash which was the flagship of the Mediterranean Squadron. The Wabash left Hampton Eoads July 22, 1858, and arrived at Gibraltar August 15. About fourteen months were spent cruising from port to port, at the most important of which they had glimpses of life ashore and became familiar with the exchange of official calls between nations. In October the Wabash was in the Bosphorus where ships from every navy had gathered for the celebration of Mohammed's birthday. His first acquaintance with the Orient was, therefore, a memorably beautiful one. From the Bos- 150 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS phorus they sailed to Beirut, Syria, and later visited Jeru- salem and Alexandria. If he had had trouble learning ge- ography while in school, he was now getting a thorough knowl- edge at least of Mediterranean ports. The Wabash was in Itahan harbors when the war between Austria and Italy and France was in progress and Dewey speaks especially of the f riendhness between the officers and crews of the Enghsh and American vessels both of which were watching the war as neutrals. The Wabash returned to the Brooklyn Navy Yard December 16, 1859. His next cruise was one to Caribbean and Gulf ports, his first experience in tropic waters. On his return to the Naval Academy in January, 1861, he took his final examination, which brought him through the grades of passed midshipman and master to that of lieutenant. In this examination he was third in his class. As he had been the thirty-third at the end of his first year at Annapolis it is quite evident that he had been following his father's advice and was doing "the rest" quite well. Lieutenant Dewey's first war experience was in the Civil War. The navy was then at the beginning of the change which was to revolutionize navy building: the wooden frigate was giving way to the ironclad. The navy department of the gov- ernment was being reorgajiized. Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy, and his assistant secretary, Gustavus Fox, found that there was no retiring law for officers of the navy and con- sequently many of them were not fit for active service, yet there was no way of supplanting them with younger, more able men. In December, 1861, a law was passed retiring all oflficers at the age of sixty-two, or after forty-five years of service. Dewey was first assigned to duty on the side-wheeler Missis- sippi, a steam-frigate which was to blockade the Gulf. This proved to be monotonous work until Farragut was given com- mand with the order to take New Orleans. By this time the lieutenant had risen to the rank next to that of captain and had become the executive officer of the Mississippi, though very young for a position of such importance. The preparations for GEORGE DEWEY 151 the coming attaxjk on New Orleans kept the men busy from early morning to late evening and Dewey tells how the captain of the ship put a stop to the swearing which became rife when some especially hard task was to be done. ' ' One day the cap- tain appeared on deck from his cabin, where he had been over- hearing the flow of sailor language. He looked as if he had borne about all he could bear. He told me to have the crew lay aft. I ordered them aft; then he said, 'Hereafter, any offi- cer caught swearing will be put under suspension, and any man caught swearing will be put in double irons.' Having dehvered this ultimatum he returned to his cabin. There was an end of swearing on the Mississippi from that minute." To get to New Orleans the heterogeneous fleet which Far- ragut had gotten together had to pass Fort St. Philip and Fort Jackson above which was an obstruction of chain-booms and anchored hulks across the river. The chains of the ob- struction were finally broken and about midnight of the 23rd of April the order was given for the fleet to move up the river. The Mississippi was second in the first division and Captain Smith gave Dewey the post of handling the ship, which was a big responsibility for a man of twenty-four. The Confederate ram Manassas caused the greatest excitement to the Missis- sippi during the passing of the forts. Its first attempt to ram the Mississippi was almost successful. Dewey, however, had seen it in time to partly turn his ship and the Manassas was able to strike only a glancing blow. This tore a piece of timber about seven feet long, four feet broad and four inches deep from the side of the Mississippi but due to the solid con- struction of the vessel it was practically undamaged. Later in the night Dewey had a chance to run down the Manassas but her captain ran her ashore. It was then easy to turn the guns of the Mississippi on the ram, wreck her, and send a boat to set her on fire. The Mississippi then proceeded up the river to join the fleet which had anchored about fifteen miles below New Orleans. The next morning the fleet was off for New Orleans, meeting only the slight opposition of the two bat- teries Chalmette and McGehee. The taking of New Orleans 152 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS was the biggest event of the war up to that time. The Mis- sissippi was stationed off that city for nearly a year after- wards as the guardship. Early in the spring of 1863 plans were made for the taking of Vicksburg and on March 14th the fleet started up the river. There was a sharp bend in the river commanded by Confed- erate guns. The night was dark, misty, and soon smoke- laden. Of the ships which preceded the Mississippi only that of Parragut got past the Port Hudson forts, while the others were forced to submit to a heavy fire. Each of the boats had an experienced river pilot and when the pilot guiding the Mississippi thought she was clear of the shoal point he ordered full speed ahead. The ship was not past the point, so ran aground and was unable to get clear. The enemy's guns were turned full upon her, and finally one of the "hot-shots" (red- hot round shot with wads of wet hay or hemp between the shot and the powder to keep the powder from igniting) started a fire in a storeroom filled with inflammable material. There was no time to lose, the ship had to be abandoned. The whole crew was sent off, the wounded first and the gunners last. Captain Smith and Dewey were the last to leave the Missis- sippi after setting fire to her and cutting her outboard delivery pipes. In his report Captain Smith highly commended Dewey. He wrote, "I should be neglecting a most important duty should I omit to mention the coolness of my executive officer, Mr. George Dewey, and the steady, fearless, and gallant man- ner in which the officers and men of the Mississippi defended her, and the orderly and quiet manner in which she was aban- doned." It should be noted that Dewey had trained this efficient crew during the monotony of guarding New Orleans. Dewey's next duty was that of prize commissioner at New Orleans. This was determining the ownership of cargo cap- tured on the blockade and, if he found it was legitimate prize, selling it for the government. The following summer Dewey became the executive officer on the sloop Monongahela, stationed below Port Hudson. It was on this ship that he had the closest call of his life. The Monongahela was steaming up the river when a field battery GEORGE DEWEY 153 hidden behind a levee began firing. One of the shells exploded at the ship 's side, mortally wounding the captain of the ship and slightly injuring Farragut's chief of staff who was on board. It seemed marvelous that Dewey, who was standing near these two, was not struck by some of the flying pieces. A Jarge naval force was not necessary on the river after the taking of Vicksburg, and Dewey was transferred to the Brook- lyn which was to report to Rear- Admiral Dahlgren at Charles- ton, South Carolina. From Charleston the Brooklyn was sent to the New York Navy Yard to be overhauled and Dewey had his first holiday since the beginning of the war. This he spent at his home in Vermont. On his return to service he was made executive officer of a third-rate wooden, side-wheel steamer, the Agawam, on which he remained until November, 1864. His next assignment made him executive officer of the Colorado, one of the big steam frigates which was in both attacks made on Fort Fisher. The training of the Colorado's crew was a hard task for there were some ruffians in it who were insubordinate. The first time Dewey called for all hands some of the men remained below because they thought it was too cold to get up. The executive officer went among their hammocks and, whenever he found one occupied, turned the occupant out. The next time he called for all hands, every man appeared for they had learned that the new executive officer had to be obeyed. After the victory at Fort Fisher, Commodore Thatcher, who had been in command of the Colorado, was promoted to rear- admiral of the Gulf Squadron and wished Dewey to go as his chief of staff. Again Dewey's youth was against him, so he was finally made executive officer of the Kearsarge, which post he filled for nearly a year. He then became executive of the Canandaigua. When the executive officer of the Colorado was detached, Dewey was given the place by Rear- Admiral Goldsborough, commander of the European Squadron, who said to him, "Now is your chance! Take the Colorado and make a man-of-war of her." Altogether, from 1862 to 1867, George Dewey had been the executive officer of nine ships. After the war was over the European Squadron was re-estab- 154 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS lished and for two years he cruised in European waters where the squadron was regarded with more interest and respect than before the war. In September, 1867, he was detached and put in charge of the fourth class of midshipmen at the Naval Academy. A month later he was married to Susan Boardman Goodwin, daughter of ex-Governor Goodwin, of New Hampshire. Here they stayed for three years. There was much gaiety and many social functions for there were several other young of- ficers and their brides at Annapolis. Dewey received his first regular command on leaving the Naval Academy, that of the Narragansett, a third class sloop. Three months later he was transferred to the Supply which was to take supplies for the relief of the French who had suf- fered in the siege of Paris. When he reached Havre he found the wharves piled high with supplies, so he was instructed by the relief committee to take his cargo to London for sale. On his return, he spent a few months at the Boston Navy Yard, then went to the Newport torpedo station where, on December 23, 1872, his son, George Goodwin Dewey, was bom. Five days later, occurred the death of Mrs. Dewey. In the spring Dewey was again put in command of the Nar- ragansett, which he joined at Panama Bay and on which lie spent the next two years, surveying Lower California and the coast of Mexico as far as Cape Corrientes. While in the Gulf of California there came word of the Virginius affair which seemed about to precipitate war between the United States and Spain. He tells that he found the officers sitting about de- spondent, and, on asking the reason, was told that it was be- cause there was to be a war in which they would have no part. His answer was, "On the contrary, we shall be very much in it. If war with Spain is declared, the Narragansett will take Manila." Always interested in the Philippine Islands, Dewey had read about them and had seen their situation as a logical point of attack ; but it was not until twenty-five years later that he had the privilege of taking this city. In the spring of 1875 he re- GEORGE DEWEY 155 ceived orders detaching him from the Narragansett and re- turned to his home country. After serving as lighthouse inspector for two years, he was made secretary of the lighthouse board in April, 1878, with his residence in Washington. Horseback riding was his fa- vorite form of exercise and he mentions the pleasant after- noon rides he had with the historian and former Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Bancroft. In October, 1882, Dewey left in command of the Juniata for the station in China, going by way of the Mediterranean. Ill- ness overtook him, however, and he was compelled to leave the ship at Malta and go to the British Naval Hospital. The next two years he spent traveling from one place to another in search of health, finding it at last in Santa Barbara, Cali- fornia. Here he received his promotion from commander to captain, a rank which he held for twelve years. As captain of the Pensacola, he sailed again in European waters and visited European ports studying other navies. On his return to the United States Captain Dewey was made chief of the bureau of equipment and watched eagerly the building of the new navy. Modest was the beginning of this navy, only a small squadron of unarmored cruisers being put out at first. In October, 1895, he was given the important position of president of the board of inspection and survey. This board inspected all the new battleships then being built — the Texas, the Maine, the Iowa, the Indiana, and the Massachusetts — and also several torpedo boats. Promotion from captain to commodore was received May 23,-1896. This rank entitled him to the command of a squadron as soon as there was a va- cancy. In the summer and fall of 1897 the question of a suc- cessor to Acting Eear-Admiral McNair, in command of the Asiatic Squadron, arose. Commodore Dewey received orders on October twenty-first, 1897, which detached him from duty as president of the board of inspectors on the thirtieth of No- vember and directed him to sail on the seventh of December for Japan. On January 3, 1898, Commodore Dewey took over the conmiand of the Asiatic Squadron and hoisted his pennant on the Olympid. 156 FAMOUS LIVING AMEEICANS Up to this time there had been only a few rumors that there might be trouble in the Philippines, and little attention had been given to these by the government. The new commander of the Asiatic Squadron was sensitive to the situation in the East. One of his first acts was to renew the custom, which had come to be disregarded, that each new commander of the Asiatic Squadron should ask for an audience with the Em- peror of Japan. The audience was granted and pleasant re- lations between the court and officials of Japan and the Asiatic Squadron of the United States were established. Then came the news of the Maine disaster on February 15th. There was still hope that war with Spain could be averted, but the European, South Atlantic and Asiatic Squadrons received orders to assemble at expedient points. As the rumors of trouble in the Philippines increased in number. Commodore Dewey began making such preparation as was necessary he- fore war should be declared. Ammunition and coal were cabled for and two vessels, which could be used as supply ships, were bought from China. A base of supplies was estab- lished at one of the Chinese ports, China then being the only nearby country which would be unable to keep a strict neu- trality. The McCulloch, a revenue cutter, and the Baltimore, bring- ing a supply of ammunition, were added to the squadron about the middle of April. All of the ships of the squadron were painted war color and cleared for action, though war had not as yet been declared. On the 24th and 25th of April the squad- ron left the harbor at Hong Kong and proceeded to Mirs Bay. At noon of the 25th word came from Secretary Long that war had been declared and the Asiatic Squadron was ordered to commence operations against the Spanish fleet. Two days later, April 27, the squadron started for Manila Bay, six hun- dred miles away. Word had been received that the entrance to the bay had been mined but Commodore Dewey reasoned that if the mines were contact or electrical mines they would soon become in- effective in the tropical waters. Also the depth of the water made the planting of mines, except by an expert, most difficult. GEOEGE DEWEY 157 Fearlessly, but not rashly, Dewey, on his flagship Olympia, led the squadron to Manila Bay. They were to enter it during the night, running past the batteries at the entrance under cover of darkness. The batteries which might have done con- siderable damage to the squadron failed to open fire and it sUpped into the bay untouched. At 5 :05 three of the Manila batteries opened fire but their shots passed over Dewey's ships. Daylight showed the Spanish fleet formed in front of Cavite at the southern end of Manila Bay. The Olympia led the way toward the Spanish vessels, which began firing hastily and without taking accurate aim. Commodore Dewey had considered the situation carefully and had decided that the most telling work could be done by waiting until his squadron was close enough to the Spanish ships to get them in effective range, and then to fire on them as rapidly as possible with all the guns. That this was a successful method was proved by the results. About eight o'clock the outcome seemed certain and the crews of our squadron, who had had only a cup of coffee about four a. m., were given their breakfast while the commanding officers reported on board the flagship. Up to that time their reports showed that not a single life had been lost nor any ship seriously damaged, though many shells had been fired at them by the Spanish. The entry on the night of May 1st in Commodore Dewey's diary reads thus: "Beached Manila at daylight. Immediately engaged the Span- ish ships and batteries at Cavite. Destroyed eight of the former, including Beina Cristina and Castella. Anchored at noon off Manila." The Spanish Squadron had been destroyed and the Ameri- can Squadron was in control of Manila Bay and could take the city at any time. The President gave Dewey the rank of acting rear-admiral, the same rank that had been conferred on Captain Sampson of the North Atlantic Squadron. After the battle there was no chance for idleness. It was necessary to establish and enforce a blockade. In connection with the enforcement of the blockade came up the affair with Vice-Admiral von Diedrichs. There was a misunderstanding 158 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS between von Diedrichs and Dewey as to the meaning of the blockade and the duties of neutrals coming into a blockaded harbor. Von Diedrichs failed at first to realize that his ves- sels had been allowed entrance into the bay only as a matter of international courtesy and that they must satisfy block- ading vessels of their identity. With infinite care and tact Eear- Admiral Dewey was able to settle the affair quietly and without calling on the President in regard to the matter. The taking of Manila was delayed until August 12 when the ships were in readiness and the troops, which had arrived dur- ing the summer, under the command of General Merritt, were prepared for a land attack. Negotiations had been going on for some time between Dewey and the Spanish general, Jan- denes, with M. Andre, the Belgian consul at Manila, as inter- mediary. It had been agreed that the American troops were to rush into Fort San Antonio, that the flagship Olympia should approach the city flying the signal "D, W. H. B." for "Surrender," and that on a certain place on the southwest bastion of the city wall the white flag should be displayed by the Spanish. There was to be no firing except at the first rush of the American troops unless they were fired upon, which they were not. The Spanish general saved his honor by a formal show of resistance. All was not easy even after the taking of Manila, for in the rest of the Phihppine Islands American authority had to be estabhshed. The Philippine Commission, consisting of Jacob Schurman, Charles Denby, Dean Worcester, General Otis, and Admiral Dewey, was appointed on January 12, to develop a system of civil administration in the islands. Admiral Dewey's faithfulness to duty was shown by the fact that he re- mained at Manila as long as he felt his services were needed — a year after the victory of May first — without once going to Hong Kong for the benefit of the change of climate, a priv- ilege he had granted to all of his officers. During this time his health had been impaired and a leisurely cruise home by the way of the Mediterranean seemed most hkely to restore it. In September, 1899, Admiral Dewey sailed from Gibraltar for GEORGE DEWEY 159 New York where he was greeted by vast crowds desirous of paying homage to the hero of Manila. Commodore Dewey, a man scarcely known to the general pubhc in April, 1898, returned home a little over a year later to find the name of Admiral Dewey on the lips of all. One of the honors conferred by the government was the creation of a special rank to which he was appointed by the President. He was made an admiral of the navy who should not be placed on the retired list except by his own application ; this office to cease to exist when it should be vacated by death or otherwise, John Barrett, special war correspondent with Admiral Dewey at Manila, says that if he were asked what had been the effect on the admiral of his great victory and succeeding fame, he would say that in the realization of the deep, all-prevalent love of the American people for him, he has become gentler in spirit. Since the war Admiral Dewey has been actively engaged in the work of the navy. For some years he has been President of the General Board, which prepares war plans, recommends the types of armaments of ships for the annual building pro- gram, and acts as a clearing-house for all questions of naval pohcy. After his return from the East, Admiral Dewey married Mrs. Mildred Hazen, who had been a friend during the years of his residence in Washington. Interested from his boyhood in army and navy affairs, we can trace his natural development into a distinguished ad- miral. Many things seem to have gone directly towards mak- ing him the illustrious hero of Manila, among which are his early knowledge of the Spanish language and his study of the situation in the East, especially in the Philippine Islands. His training in the Civil War under such men as Captain Melanc- thon Smith and Admiral Farragut taught him calm prepara- tion before war and quick, decisive action in battle. Inval- uable are the plans and advice which a man of such experience can give and the people of the United States should consider themselves most fortunate in having Admiral Dewey as Pres- ident of their General Naval Board. 160 FAMOUS LIVING AMEEICANS BIBLIOGRAPHY BOOKS Autobiography of George Dewey. By George Dewey. 1913. Dewey and Other Great Naval Commanders. By William Adams. Four American Naval Heroes: Jones, Perry, Farragut, Dewey. By Mabel S. Beebe. Hero of Manila: Dewey on the Mississippi and the Pacific. By R. Johnson. Life and Achievements of Admiral Dewey. By Murat Halstead. Life and Heroic Deeds of Admiral Dewey. By Young, Lewis, and Northrop. Life of George Dewey and the Dewey Family. By Adelbert Dewey. "War in the Philippines and Life and Glorious Deeds of Admiral Dewey. By Joseph Stickney. PEEIODIOALS Admiral of the Navy. Review of Reviews 48 :627. As a National Hero. By "W. T. Sampson. Century 36 :927. Character Sketch. By W. Churchill. Review of Reviews 7 :676. War with Spain. By H. T. Peck. Boohman 22 :587. THOMAS A. EDISON By Geoege Lawbbnce Scheegeb THOMAS A. EDISON is undoubtedly the most cele- brated and useful American of our day. He is consid- ered by all to be the greatest inventor of this, if not of any, age. He has made the entire human race his debtor. His inventions have revolutionized our life and civilization so that the world would seem a very dull place for us if we had to get along without them. So much like a wizard does he seem to us that his most startling invention does not surprise us. Noth- ing seems impossible to him. He is the incarnation of the American genius for inventiveness and for this reason the American people are proud of him as being a typical Ameri- can. Americans are also proud of Edison because he is a self- made man. He was born a poor boy and he rose by his own efforts through hard work. Although he seems to us one of the greatest geniuses who ever lived, he himself defines genius as two per cent, inspiration and ninety-eight per cent, perspira- tion. Although comparatively old today, he is still one of the hardest working men in the world. His mind is continually seething with problems. He is a dynamic force of the highest voltage. His perseverance is boundless. He spent ten years workiag on his storage battery, making fifty thousand exper- iments before he was satisfied with it. He worked at the mov- ing picture machine for thirty-four years. Thomas A. Edison was born in the little town of Milan, Ohio, February 11, 1847. His father had emigrated to this place from Canada in 1838, having been practically compelled to leave that country because he had taken an active part in the rebellion against the British Government. Here he mar- ried a school teacher named Nancy Elliot, with whom he had been acquainted in Canada. It seemed at that time that Milan had a great future, but these hopes came to naught. A new railway line was constructed near by but did not pass through 164 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS Milan. The Edison family therefore moved to Port Huron, Michigan, when Thomas was about seven years of age. The young lad did not enjoy an opportunity of acquiring an educa- tion, although he is very lavish in his praises of his mother and of her influence. He says : "I was always a careless hoy, and with a mother of different mental caliber I should have probably turned out badly. But her firmness, her sweetness, her goodness, were potent powers to keep me in the right path. I remember I used never to be able to get along at school. I don't know what it was, but I was always at the foot of the class. I used to feel that the teachers never sympathized with me and that my father thought that I was stupid, and at last I almost decided that I must really be a dunce. My mother was always kind, always sympathetic, and she never misunder- stood or misjudged me. My mother was the making of me. She was so true, so sure of me ; and I felt that I had some one to live for, some one I must not disappoint. The memory of her will always be a blessing to me." With the exception of about three months at the Port Huron Public school, young Edison received all his instruction from his mother. While living at Port Huron, the boy's father built an ob- servatory on his house, making a small charge to strangers who desired to look through the telescope. Young Al, as Mr. Edison was called when a boy, loved to sweep the horizon with his father's telescope. This was his first acquaintance with a scientific instrument. At the age of nine he had read a num- ber of scientific works, as well as Hume's History of England and Gibbon's Rome. At the early age of twelve, Edison, in order to obtain pocket money to experiment in chemistry and physics, became a train newsboy on the Detroit and Port Huron branch of the Grand Trunk Eailway. While occupying this position he continued his experimenting on the train and also bought a small hand press and became the editor, printer and publisher of a Httle newspaper which he called The Weekly Herald, and the sub- scription price of which was eight cents per month. He was only about fourteen at the time this paper appeared. It con- sisted of a single sheet printed on both sides. The regular THOMAS A. EDISON 165 subscription, circulation, when the paper enjoyed its greatest fame, was five hundred copies, from which he made a clear profit of about forty-five dollars a month. Two announce- ments of his paper are of especial interest. One of them says, "We expect to enlarge our paper in a few weeks." Another, "In a few weeks each subscriber will have his name printed on his paper." The Weekly Herald had begun to attract considerable atten- tion, being even mentioned in the London Times, and Edison might have continued this work and eventually have become a famous editor had it not been for an accident. One day wMle he was engaged in making an experiment the train gave a heavy lurch upsetting a bottle of phosphorus. The woodwork of the car took fire. Just as Edison was trying to put it out, the conductor, who was a quick-tempered Scotchman, came in and when he saw what had happened he pitched young Edison out of the car onto the platform, throwing his apparatus and printing press after him. The train then proceeded, while the young editor and future inventor was left behind. He had to continue his experiments and the publication of his paper in a workshop in his father's home. While a newsboy on the railroad Edison had become inter- ested in electricity, probably from visiting telegraph offices. He experimented with telegraph lines which had been strung up between houses, supporting the wire on trees. He learned how to send and take messages. But one day a stray cow wandering through the orchard pulled down his short poles and wires. Soon after he obtained a position where he was able to practice telegraphy as an operator. This he owed to the kindness of a station agent whose son he had saved from being killed by a train. Although he obtained several posi- tions as an operator he lost them because of his dislike for routine work and his love of reading and experimenting. Mr. Edison worked in a number of different cities, includ- ing Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Memphis, and Boston, as a tele- graph operator. While in Indianapolis he had invented an automatic telegraph repeater. In Boston he patented a vote recorder which was greatly praised, but which was not put to 166 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS any practical use. Soon after this he went to New York, ar- riving in that city without enough money to buy a breakfast. He applied for a job as a telegraph operator. While waiting for work he one day paid a visit to the office of a company which managed indicators, or tickers, distributed among sev- eral hundred brokerage offices. On that particular morning the machinery had broken down and there was much excitement because no one was able to locate the trouble. Every moment was precious because gold was dear. Mr. Edison was stand- ing by during the commotion and remarked that he thought he could put things right if permitted to do so. He was told to go ahead, whereupon he removed a loose contact spring which had fallen between the wheels and immediately the instrument did its work. As a result Mr. Edison was made manager of the service at a salary of three hundred dollars a month. Hfe almost fainted from joy when he received the appointment. Dissatisfied with the working of the old instrument he set to work to improve it. Thus came about the invention of Edi- son's Universal Stock Indicator for which he was paid the sum of forty thousand dollars. At first he scarcely knew what to do with so much money, but finally decided to open up a factory in Newark, New Jersey, where he employed a number of assistants and soon made many surprising inventions. Among these was the Duplex telegraph which he sold to the Western Union Telegraph Compauy, who also made a contract with him by which they obtained an option on all his future improvements along telegraphic lines. By means of the Duplex telegraph it was possible to send two messages in opposite directions over the same wire at the same time, without causing any confusion. This great inven- tion, which doubled the capacity of a single wire, was followed by that of the Quadruplex telegraph, invented in 1874, which made possible the transmission of two messages each way at the same time, according to the principle of working over the line with two currents so differing from each other in strength or nature that each of these currents affects only the par- ticular instrument adapted to respond to it. In order to operate this invention, two sending and two receiving oper- THOMAS A. EDISON 167 ators are required at eacli end of the wire. This device was worth millions of dollars to the Western Union, be- cause it made a mile of wire do the work of four miles. Eventually the same idea was developed into Sextuplex trans- mission. Not less brilliant was the invention of the automatic tele- graph, which required the preparation of the message in ad- vance, accomplished by the use of perforated paper tape with Morse telegraph characters, the tapes being subsequently run through a transmitter. This invention became possible only after the discovery of a solution which would give a chemically prepared paper, upon which the characters could be recorded at a great speed. Mr. Edison worked hard to perfect this paper and after six weeks of incessant labor, during which he ate at his desk and slept in his chair, he was finally able, after having made two thousand experiments, to produce a solution which would enable him to record over two thousand words a minute on a wire two hundred and fifty miles long. Event- ually he was able to obtain a speed of thirty-one hundred words a minute. It was while at Newark that he also invented the harmonic multiplex telegraph, a system of employing tuning forks act- uated by electro-magnets so that each reed serves as a key to send messages over the line, the tuning fork at the other end vibrating at the same frequency and thus selecting as much of the current as belongs to it. As many as sixteen messages may be sent at one time by means of this harmonic multiplex system. The autographic telegraph, also an Edison invention, writes at the other end of the line the same message which is sent off by means of a pencil writing on specially prepared paper. It was not only in telegraphy that Mr. Edison made such revolutionary inventions, but also in the perfection of the telephone. Many scientists were becoming interested in try- ing to solve the problem of how to employ electricity as a means of transmitting speech for great distances. The most famous of these inventors was Alexander Graham Bell, of Salem, Massachusetts. Strange to say, at almost exactly the 168 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS same time that Bell applied for a patent for his invention, Elisha Gray, of Chicago, Illinois, had made the same inven- tion, covering practically the same ground, and also applied for a patent. There was no other way to determine to whom the patent should be awarded except according to the hour of the day the applications were filed. The decision was made in favor of Bell, who obtained the patent and organized a com- pany called The Bell Telephone Company. Bell's telephone, however, was practical only for short lines and could not be used commercially on lines extending over several miles. Mr. Edison, however, realized the wonderful possibilities of the telephone and set to work to perfect it by inventing the carbon telephone transmitter. Bell was very anxious to make use of this but could not do so without infringing upon Edison's patent. Edison, on the other hand, could make little or no use of his transmitter without infringing upon Bell's inven- tion. After considerable strife between the two rival inter- ests a compromise was arranged by which Edison turned over his transmitter in exchange for certain benefits he received from Bell. Edison's transmitter did away with the noise and buzzing of Bell's telephone by means of the simple device of using the lamp black button. By applying the induction coil to the transmission of speech, Mr. Edison made the telephone the useful instrument which it is now universally considered to be. Mr. Edison has done much other work along the line of perfecting various systems for the transmission of speech, such as the water telephone, the condenser telephone, the mer- cury telephone, the musical transmitter, the megaphone and the aerophone. From this time on Mr. Edison came to be called the "Wizard of Menlo Park" and became famous the world over. The most fantastic ideas regarding the man were now accepted. Some even thought that he would overthrow all the estabhshed laws of nature and would revolutionize our scientific ideas, upsetting all nature. Though world-famous, Mr. Edison was still a young man, being only thirty years of age when he per- fected the telephone. Another field of experimentation in which Mr. Edison now THOMAS A. EDISON 169 became interested was that relating to tlie electric Hght. It was in the year 1878, as Mr. Edison himself tells us, that he saw in the laboratory of Professor Barker, at Philadelphia, the first arc lamp and soon after another plant which was be- ing taken around the country with a circus and which consisted of ten or fifteen lamps burning together in a series. Mr. Edi- son at once realized that the light was too bright and needed to be subdivided. He desired to obtain small lights which could be distributed among people's houses like gas lights, and in order to carry out this scheme organized the Edison Electric Light Company. The next step was to make each light independent of every other. This could not be done by having them bum in a series, hence they must burn in a multi- ple arc. Soon there dawned in his mind the idea of the incan- descent lamp as opposed to the are light. To make the new incandescent lamp a success, it was neces- sary for Mr. Edison to find a filament. He spent thirteen months of unwearied experimentation with different metals, trying first carbon points and then platinum wire. Any one but Mr. Edison would have given up in despair, but he per- severed until at last success crowned his efforts. While plati- num wire gave a good light when electricity was passed through it, the wire would melt when the current became too strong. It was therefore necessary to find some substance which would become luminous without melting when charged with electricity. Some of the greatest scientists of England had investigated this subject and come to the conclusion that the subdivision of electric light was a problem that could not be solved. After experimenting with various metals Mr. Edison came to the conclusion that metals would not do. One day, when seated in his laboratory, he accidently took up a little bit of lamp black mixed with tar, which was being used for another purpose in his laboratory. He rolled this until he obtained a thin thread, resembling a piece of wire. Suddenly he began to wonder whether this thread, being carbon, of course, might not have the strength to withstand the electric current. He began at once to experiment and rolled out fine threads preparatory to placing them in the lamps. With the 170 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS assistance of Mr. Charles Bachelor, he put the thread in a bulb, exhausted the air and turned on the current. The result was satisfactory in so far as obtaining a good light was concerned but the carbon was not strong enough. Mr. Edison, however, realized that he was on the right track so far as the carbon filament was concerned, but he must make his filament from some other substance. He next took a spool of cotton thread and tried to carbonize the thread, but it broke again and again. He was not disheartened, however, but kept up the battle for two days and two nights. On the night of the third day, after beginning the experiment with carbonized cotton, Mr. Edison and Mr. Bachelor placed the filament in the lamp, exhausted the air and turned on the current. In a moment they reahzed that their efforts had at last been crowned with complete success, for a beautiful, soft fight could now be seen. The cotton thread lasted for about forty hours, They next tried to find some sort of material which would give a fight that would last much longer, and so they began car- bonizing almost every material they could lay their hands on, such as straw, paper, and cardboard. The best results were obtained with bamboo, which Mr. Edison had obtained by tear- ing to pieces a bamboo fan. He now sent men to all parts of the world to find the best sort of bamboo, spending fully a hundred thousand dollars in the search. Some of his helpers went to the Malay peninsula ; others to Mexico, Ceylon, India, Almost six thousand different kinds of fibrous plants were tried, the most satisfactory growing in the valley of the Ama- zon. Having at last solved the difficulty of obtaining the right sort of filament, Mr. Edison took out a patent for his electric fight in January, 1880. He tested out his fights by stringing up a number of them along a wire suspended from the trees in Menlo Park, and invited his friends to come and see the new system of lighting. Among the visitors were the New York Board of Alderman, who went to Menlo Park on a special train and were defighted with the new invention. Mr. Edison next turned his mind to the task of establishing a central station in New York City from which the electric light could be obtained, and then organized the New York-Edi- THOMAS A. EDISON 171 son Dlmninating Compaiiy. In order to be able to fix the charges for the use of the electric light he invented the Edison electric meter. The first office building in which the incan- descent lamp was used was that of the New York Herald. A plant was also installed on the sailing vessel Jeanette, which made a trip in search of the North Pole and was lost in the Arctic regions. The first church to use the electric light was the City Temple, London. Soon the industry of furnishing electric light assumed enormous proportions and twenty years after its invention the electric lighting plants in the United States alone were worth $750,000,000. It is doubtful if any other invention has brought about such a revolution in civiliza- tion. It is also probable that Mr. Edison has done more to provide simple and wholesome amusement for the entire human race than any man who ever lived. This he was able to do par- ticularly by inventing the phonograph and the moving picture machine. His earlier experiments with automatic telegraphs had familiarized him with the use of strips having dashes and dots impressed on them and moving rapidly beneath a stylus. Mr. Edison noticed that this stylus in vibrating produced a slight sound. This suggested the talking machine, based upon the idea of recording the undulations so that when a stylus retraces them a diaphragm may be set in motion, reproducing the original sound. Eventually he made a cylinder upon which the sound waves could be impressed in a spiral line. The phonograph proved to be rather a simple instrument, consist- ing of two parts ; the phonograph and the record. The phono- graph itself was patented February 19, 1878. Mr. Edison made the following prophecy concerning his invention : * * The phonograph will undoubtedly be largely devoted to music — either vocal or instrumental — and may possibly take the place of the teacher. It will sing the child to sleep, tell us what o'clock it is, summon us to dinner, and warn the lover when it is time to vacate the front porch. As a family record it will be precious, for it will preserve the sayings of those dear to us, and even receive the last messages of the dying. It will enable the children to have dolls that really speak, laugh. 172 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS cry and sing, and imitation dogs that bark, cats that meow, lions that roar, and roosters that crow. It will preserve the voices of our great men, and enable future generations to lis- ten to speeches by a Lincoln or a Gladstone. Lastly, the pho- nograph will perfect the telephone and revolutionize present systems of telegraphy." Mr. Edison himself formed a collection of "voices of the great" which included records of the voices of Gladstone, Bis- marck, Tennyson, Beecher, Browning, and others. The Pho- nograph will certainly always be considered one of the most wonderful inventions of our age. Even more wonderful was the invention of the Mnetograph and the kinetoscope, or moving picture machine. Mr. EdisoD had never given any attention to photography before he be- came interested in the plan of taking pictures of moving ob- jects. He now thoroughly studied the subject of photography in all its bearings, and by the perfection of its processes was finally able to invent a mechanism which can take a series of photographs as rapidly as forty-nine to the second, so that every movement is at once registered upon a long strip of gelatinous film. The kinetoscope displays the film taken by the kinetograph, bringing the series of photegraphs so rapidly before the eye that everything moves about as in real life. The speed of the machine may be increased or retarded. The most wonderful results are obtained in this way. Even the growth of a plant or the unfolding of a flower can be shown from hour to hour of its development. The kinetophone combines the principles of the kinetograph and the phonograph, giving thus not only the movements but also the sounds. This machine will enable a man in his own home to see and hear a production of grand opera as produced on a distant stage, witnessing all the movements of the singers in addition to hearing the sound of their voices. This inven- tion is not yet as perfect as desirable, but there are no funda- mental difficulties to hinder its perfection. Mr. Edison was one of the first men in modern times to dis- THOMAS A. EDISON 173 cover the possibilities of cement in construction work and he established the celebrated Edison Portland Cement Works, bringing the manufacture of cement, in all the processes of crushing, drying, inixing, roasting, and grinding, to the high- est perfection by inventing machinery of the most wonderful nature. So great is the faith of Mr. Edison in the value of cement construction that he has likewise taken up the plan of constructing cement houses, made in molds. These molds, made of cast iron with smooth interior surfaces, are taken to the place where the house is to be erected, locked together, and placed upon the solid concrete cellar floor. The cement is poured into the forms, the pouring of the entire house being completed in about six hours. The molds then remain in position for six days while the cement hardens. After that the molds are taken away and the entire house may be seen cast in one piece. No plaster is used, but the walls may be papered or tinted as desired. Only the windows, woodwork, and fixtures need to be put in and the house is ready for oc- eupancy. The molds may be used again and again. Mr. Edi- son beheves that eventually it will be possible to put up such a model cement house at a cost bf twelve hundred dollars. What a boon to the working man the world over ! Another one of Mr. Edison's inventions which has realized great possibilities is the Edison storage battery. This is now perfected and is used very extensively for automobiles, com- Hiereial trucks, motor boats, train lighting, and in many other Ways. While many people still charge their own batteries, it seems likely that this work will soon be done largely by central power stations. When we consider the vast number of Mr. Edison's inven- tions it seems almost impossible that a single man could have dobe all this within the brief space of a lifetime, and yet Mr. Edison, though he has been flattered and lionized as few peo- ple have, has remained modest and unassuming. This is il- lustrated by an incident in connection with his application for membership in the Engineer's Club of Philadelphia. In filling out the application blank and stating the particulars as to his 174 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS quaUfication for membership lie wrote: "I have designed a concentrating plant and a machine shop, etc." How many further details would be required to fill out the "etc.?" Several years ago Mr. Edison moved his laboratory from Menlo Park to Orange, New Jersey, thereby robbing Menlo Park of its great attraction to the world. The laboratory at Orange consists of a group of buildings surrounded by green lawns and shady trees. It has a large library, a most won- derful equipment, and a staff of hundreds of men to each of whom a particular line of work is assigned. Mr. Edison has a wonderful knowledge of human nature and has always shown great skill in selecting his associates. Like their chief, they are men who become so absorbed in their work that they are glad to give up food and sleep in order to carry on an inter- esting experiment. He is especially fond of workmen who know how to keep silent and who do not care for gossip. Mr. Edison himself often becomes absorbed in his work to such an extent that he neglects his meals and goes without sleep, sometimes for several nights in succession. But, as he says, "If I spend sixty hours at an invention there must natur- ally be a loss of physical force, but I regain this by afterwards taking a slumber which may last from eighteen to twenty-four hours. In this way tired nature reasserts herself and both of us are satisfied." He cares little for money and though he has made a fortune from his inventions he never counts the cost when he is at work on a new one. He is very careless of his dress and does not care what he wears. He has strong opinions on the subject of diet and takes only the simplest food, and that in small quantities. He is always in a good himaor ; and enjoys a good joke as much as any one. One great secret of his tireless activity is the fact that he never worries. "Don't worry," he has said, "but work hard, and you can look forward to a reasonably lengthy existence." BIBLIOGRAPHY BOOKS Americaoi Inventors. 2 parts. (F. A. Owens.) Boy's Life of Edison. (Harper Bros.) By W. H. Meadowcroft. THOMAS A. EDISON 175 Edison: His Life and Inventions. (Harper Bros.) By F. L. Dyer and T. C. Martin. Story of Edison. (Educational Publishing Co.) By H. M. L. Camp- bell. Stories of Great Inventors. (Educational Publishing Co.) By H. E. Macomber. Thomas Alva Edison. (Whittaker & Co.) By E. C. Kenyon. "Wonder Workers. (Little, Brown & Co.) By M. H. Wade. PERIODICALS Edison and his Early Work. By A. Chtu-chilL Scientific Americcm Supplement 59 :24451. Edison's Early Inventive Genius. World's Work 10:6441. Edison's Inventions. By F. L. Dyer and T. C. Martin. Scientific American Supplement 67 :210, 230. Edison on Invention and Inventors. By W. P. Warren. Century 82:415. Edison's Dream of New Music. By A. L. Benson. Cosmopolitan 54:797. Impressions of American Inventors. Scientific American 100 :171. Most Useful Americans. Independent 74 :166. New View of Edison. American Magazine 67 :101. To-day and Tomorrow. Independent 77 :24. With Edison in His Laboratory. By G. E. Walsh. Independent 75:557. CifABLES W. ELIOT 179 and returned, splendidly equipped for his work, to be pro- fessor of chemistry in the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- nology. While still holding this position he spent a year in France (1867-1868), thus increasing his European experience. Among the products of his career as a teacher of chemistry were two text-books which he wrote in connection with Pro- fessor Storer, a Manual of Qualitative Chemical Analy,sis, and a Manual of Inorganic Chemistry. Though his life work was not to be chemistry yet his prolonged preparation and his thorough work in this subject were not wasted. A profound and thorough discipline in any one field is a better equipment for work, even in another field, than a smattering knowledge of many things and a miscellaneous collection of interesting information. In Professor Eliot's later administrative work the thoroughness and the scientific methods with which he had worked in chemistry were most effective, even though he dealt with educational instead of with chemical problems. It was to his advantage, however, that he combined with this special- ized training a remarkable command of nearly all the subjects of the college curriculum, and an extensive experience both in Europe and in America. President Eliot was at the head of Harvard University for exactly forty years. His administration will always remain notable in the annals of the university not only for its length, but also for its many wonderful achievements. At its begin- ning Harvard had been outstripped in many respects by Yale, her closest rival. At its close Harvard stood unquestionably at the bead of all American institutions of learning. Her fac- ulty, her endowment and material equipment, her student at- tendance, and her influence increased by leaps and bounds. Credit for her remarkable growth must be given not only to the man who presided over her destinies, but also to the men of note associated with him. Many of these are known the country over : James Eussell Lowell, Henry Wadsworth Long- fellow, Ralph Waldo Emerson, William James, Charles Eliot Norton, Charles Francis Adams, and others of as high repute. Many, also, are the distinguished men whose diplomas bear President Eliot's signature. Probably no other American 180 FAMOUS LIVING AMEEICANS university president has seen so many of his graduates win fame in the work of the world. When, in 1909, he resigned the office which he had so long and creditably filled, not only his own university, but the daily press, the magazines, and the whole educational world united to do him honor. Almost all departments of Harvard experienced revolution- ary progress in Dr. Eliot's administration. Perhaps the greatest change which he personally introduced, and the change for which he is best known, was the introduction in the undergraduate department of the "elective system." Forty years ago practically all college work was definitely pre- scribed. This work was nearly the same for all students. No matter what a boy's talents and tastes might be, no matter what career he planned to enter, he must be content with the same college course taken by everyone else. This course in- variably consisted almost entirely of Latin, Greek, mathemat- ics, logic, philosophy, theology, a little modem language, and natural and political science. Two comparatively recent de- velopments have for some time been making this prescribed course more and more inadequate. In the first place new fields of study have been opened, and new departments have been added to the college curriculum, such as sociology, peda- gogy; journalism, business problems and organization, the domestic sciences, and agriculture. In the second place the student body, once a small group of men, most of whom en- tered college to prepare for the professions of the ministry, medicine, law, and teaching, have become larger and more representative, expecting, for the most part, to go into busi- ness and other than professional careers. President Eliot was the first to adjust the college course to meet these new conditions. By the establishment of the "elective system" a large range of choice was offered to each student in the selection of his course. There were, at first, some abuses in the choice of subjects. Some students determined their course by their personal likes and dislikes among the fac- ulty, others specialized too early, while still others sought always the easiest classes. These defects, however, have been largely corrected by grouping the various courses and limit- CHARLES W. ELIOT 181 ing the student's choice to the election of certain groups of suhjects, each group being so balanced as to involve general culture and mental discipline as well as specialization. For some years the "elective system" formed the chief sub- ject of discussion in college circles. Gradually, however, other colleges followed the lead of Harvard, and this system is now permanently established in nearly all institutions. It has even been extended to high schools, where, in spite of many abuses and much unintelligent application, it is being per- manently accepted. Thus students are no longer burdened with studies which have no bearing on their future work; they are no longer put through a uniform process without regard to their individual needs, but the training of each is being measurably adapted to his capabilities and to his probable career. Education, in short, is no longer regarded as some- thing invariable, to be imposed on the student from without, but is looked upon as a process of development from within and of preparation for future work. The Law School, as well as the College of Liberal Arts, underwent radical transformation under President Eliot's administration. Here the so-called "case system" was devel- oped. The old method of instruction in law consisted in teaching a great mass of principles and decisions, as though the law were something fixed by a superior power and the stu- dent's task were merely one of memory. The new system as- signs to the student certain typical cases to investigate just as the lawyers and the judges investigated them in the first instance. He is thus made to reason cases out, to decide them, and to justify his decision. In this manner he gradual- ly introduces himself to the general principles of the law ; he masters, not some text-book which someone has written about the law, but the law itself. The * * case system ' ' is, in the high- est sense of the word, inductive. The extent to which it has been adopted elsewhere, as well as the fame and the large at- tendance of the Harvard Law School itself, shows the success whch has attended its development under the direction of President Eliot. The theological department has also undergone a notable 182 FAMOUS LIVING AMEBICANS change. It was formerly, as was, indeed, the rule throughout the country, a part of the machinery of one denomination alone. The Harvard Theological Seminary prepared min- isters for the Unitarian Church. By the close of President Eliot's administration the way had been prepared for the change by which the seminary became a graduate school for the study of religion and of church work in general. All denominational ties have been severed and the way is now open for the training of ministers on as broad and scientifie. a basis as prevails in law, medicine, or teaching. In the graduate school of Harvard equally significant changes took place. President Eliot early conceived the idea of a great university where formerly there had only been a college. Such a university involved higher ideals of scholar- ship, it involved the development of new departments and of more advanced work in all departments ; it involved gathering into the faculty a large number of highly-trained men who, personally engaged in research work, could initiate their stu- dents into the spirit and the methods of creative scholarship. All these plans President Eliot worked out, and under Ms guidance Harvard became the most important center of schol^ arship in the United States. The Medical School, Lawrence Scientific School, Radchff College for women, all shared in the general advance of the university of which they were a part. Thus in forty years there developed the greatest institution of learning which this country had yet seen. President Eliot made Harvard the first great American university. But it is of the quality of the highest leadership that it should be open to suggestions from others, and that it shonld inspire followers. No one has been readier than President Eliot to adopt the results of successful experiments made else- where and to give recognition to all hopeful movements. And no one has had greater influence than he in shaping the policy of other institutions than his own. So the Harvard of Pres- ident Eliot was not a single isolated achievement, but rather the first of many great American universities. Several of these universities have in some departments and in various CHARLES W. ELIOT 183 features of their work outstripped their former leader. Thus the modern university has taken an honored place in the march of American progress. At the eastern portals of our country, across the Charles River from Boston, stands Har- vard, and on the heights above the Hudson in New York stands Columbia. On our western coast on the hillsides over- looking San Francisco Bay lies the beautiful campus of the University of California. In most of the great cities within our borders, and in many a picturesque setting in smaller towns great resources in money and massive buildings have been set aside for universities in the interest of modern schol- arship. In many, if not in all our commonwealths, it is to these universities that men look for leadership, it is in their students that much of the hope of the future centers. Only when we realize how far-reaching in all of them has been the influence of Harvard's great president, can we appreciate our indebtedness to his clear insight, his courage, his enegry, and his moral grandeur. President Eliot's distinction as an educator has found rec- ognition in all parts of the educational world. He has served as president of our largest educational organization, the Na- tional Education Association. In this office, as elsewhere, he was insistent upon the importance of our whole school sys- tem. His famous address, More Moriey for our Public Schools, since pubhshed in book form, showed conclusively that we, as a nation, have not realized the significance of expenditures upon education. Moreover, President Eliot's position and character have given him an influence reaching far beyond the educational circles to which he belongs. Especially since he has laid aside the responsibilities of his official position and become presi- dent emeritus, has he been able to exert this influence in many good works. Perhaps his greatest contributions have been to the cause of peace ; not the peace of stagnation and mere conservatism, but the peace of progress without friction, of harmonious cooperation in the work of the world. In our jarring industrial life with its strikes and its bitterness, he has raised his voice for better mutual understanding, for fair 184 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS treatment on both sides, for law and order. He has stood for the preservation of our national resources and has been the honorary president of the National Conservation Association. He has been active in the cause of international peace. A few years ago he made a trip around the world which cul- minated in a message of peace from the American people to Japan and in bringing home to us assurances of peace from the Japanese. No one could more fittingly bear such a message. He bears in his appearance and in his whole personality the stamp of a man of absolute sincerity, the mark of one who is always at peace with himself and with the world. Simple in his tastes, free from false pretense, serene in his religious convictions, lofty in his ideals, he is the embodiment of the themes upon which he has written and spoken, The Happy Life, and The Durable Satisfactions of Life. He and others like him are greater than the great works which they have wrought, they are themselves our nation's greatest achievements. BIBLIOGRAPHY PERIODICALS Charles William Eliot, President of Harvard University. By George P. Morris. Review of Reviews 25 :289. Eliot and the American University. By David Starr Jordan. Sci- ence, n. s. 29:145. Great Minds of America. North American Review 186:320. Harvard. By Edward Everett Hale. Outlook 91 :453. Personality of President Eliot. By Mark Sullivan. Outlook 77 :825. President Charles William Eliot, Our Foremost Citizen. World's Work 8:5016. President Eliot. Outlook 90:567. President Eliot at Seventy. Nation 78 :225. Copyright ly Bachrach, Baltin ^, (£^^^'y Oerhard Sisters, St. Louis Helen Keller HELEN KELLER 283 Her college days were happy ones, though evidently full of difficulties and discouragements. Her constant comment on college Hf e is the lack of time and the multiplicity of tasks — its great disadvantage in her opinion is lack of opportunity for reflection. There is much truth in her remark, ' ' One goes to college to learn, it seems, not to think." She seems to have looked back frequently with longing to her days of ' ' solitude, books and imagination." Another conament she makes on college methods is concerning the "laborious explanations" that deadened so much of the instruction in literature, ' ' the in- terminable comments and the bewildering criticisms ' ' ; and it is with the greatest enthusiasm she speaks of one instructor who brought the literature itself to his class, allowing students to enjoy its power and beauty without needless interpretation or exposition. More wonderful than the intellectual attainment of Helen Keller is the beauty of her mind and spirit. Imprisoned in darkness and silence, how marvellous that she stretches out eager hands to help the world ; that she ever is busy planning for the betterment of the world's condition; that she is inter- ested not only in The Training of a Blind Child or The Educa- tion of the Deaf, but equally so in The Workers' Right, The Modern Woman, socialism, suffrage, religion and politics; that out of the silent dark she chants with sweet optimism : "0 Dark! thou blessed, quiet Dark! To the lone exile who must dwell with thee Thou art benign and friendly!" Again and again one realizes in reading her thoughts how far more unfortunate than herself she considers those who are in- tellectually and spiritually blind. In two gifts, Helen Keller has been exceptionally rich — books and friends. Of the former she says, ''Literature is my Utopia. Here I am not disfranchised. No barrier of the senses shuts me out from the sweet, gracious discourse of my book friends." From her own story of her life we find that as a young college woman, she loved especially Greek and 284 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS Latin poetry and Shakespeare's plays. Her comments show her appreciation and perception. Of Virgil and Homer she says that the gods and men in the -iEneid move like graceful figures on an Elizabethan mask, but in the Iliad they leap and sing. "Virgil is serene and lovely like a marble Apollo in the moonlight; Homer is a beautiful, animated youth in the full sunlight with the wind in his hair. " " Great poetry, ' ' she de- clares, "needs no other interpreter than a responsive heart. Would that the hosts of those who make the great works of the poets odious by their analysis, impositions and laborious comments, might learn this simple truth." Among French writers her favorites when she was in college were MoHere and Eacine, and of the German, Goethe and Schiller. She says, "My spirit reverently follows them into regions where Beauty and Truth and Goodness are one." Did any girl ever have such a list of distinguished acquaint- ances and friends ! Among them have been Bishop Brooks, Henry Drummond, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Whittier, Edward Everett Hale, Joe Jefferson, Mary Mapes Dodge, Kate Doug- las Wiggin, Dr. Alexander Bell, Lawrence Hutton, W. D. Howells, Mark Twain, Eichard Watson Gilder, Edmund C. Stedman, Charles Dudley Warner, and John Burroughs. Her dearest and truest friend, however, must ever be the woman who came to her on what she calls ' ' the most important day in all my life ' ' — Anne Mansfield Sullivan, who has been much more than teacher. All that love and sympathy, tact and tireless effort could effect, Miss Sullivan accomplished. Miss Sullivan is now Mrs. Macy, having married the man who com- piled and edited the life and letters of Helen Keller with re- ports and letters of her teacher. Helen Keller has given ex- pression to many heart-felt appreciations of her lifelong friend and guide. Among other things she says, "My teacher is so near to me that I scarcely think of myself apart from her. How much of my delight in all beautiful things is innate and how much due to her, I can never tell. I feel that her be- ing is inseparable from my own and that the footsteps of my life are in hers. All the best of me belongs to her — there is HELEN KELLER 285 not a talent, or an aspiration, or a joy in me that has not been awakened by her loving touch." Helen Keller's present home is in Wrentham, Massachu- setts. Since her graduation from college she has steadily progressed along the lines of intellectuality, of broad knowl- edge, and of generous sympathy. She has written much ; most important, perhaps, of her publications is The Story of My Life with her letters from 1887-1901. This book she had ded- icated to Alexander Graham Bell, "who has taught the deaf to speak and enabled the listening ear to hear speech from the Atlantic to the Eockies. ' ' Others of her books are Optimism, The World I Live In, and Out of the Dark. In poetry she has done some good work, The Song of the Stone Wall and A Chant of Darkness probably being best known. Alertness to the sense of touch gives to Helen Keller's face an expression of bright, concentrated listening. Every change of atmosphere, every vibration, every movement about her is full of significance to her. She describes most vividly scenes of which she can have no conception except through this one sense and through her imagination. Wonderful are her ac- counts of a storm, the fury of the wind, the creaking and straining of rafters, and the rattling of branches against the windows; or of a hunt, with bridles ringing, whips cracking, and harks and whoops and wild halloos. She loves "to touch the mighty sea and feel its roar." In speaking of her enjoy- ment of statuary she says, "I sometimes wonder if the hand is not more sensitive to the beauties of sculpture than the eye. I should think the wonderful rhythmical flow of hues and curves could be more subtly felt than seen. Be this as it may, I know that I can feel the heart-throbs of the ancient Greeks in their marble gods and goddesses. " No one after seeing the face of Helen Keller can feel that life to her is not full of engrossing interest and many joys. She has a decided sense of humor which adds to her constant- ly bright and changing expression. Tall, strongly built and vivacious, a good talker — and a marvellous "listener" — she inspires in those who meet her not pity so much as high re- 286 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS spect for her character and learning, admiration for her pa- tience, her charity, her broad and sympathetic interests, and wonder for her unswerving ambition, faith, and achievement. BIBLIOGRAPHY BOOKS Story of My Life. (Doubleday.) By Helen Adams Keller. World I Live In. (Century.) By Helen Adams KeUer. PERIODICALS Helen Keller as a Writer. Century 77 :154. Helen Keller's Life. By Edward Everett Hale. Outlook 86 -.318. How to Be Blind. By Helen Adams Keller. Outlook 82 :982. Spectator. Outlook 103:820. Story of My Life. By Helen Adams Keller. Ladies' Home Journal 19:284. ROBERT M. LaFOLLETTE By Matnabd Lee Daggt ROBERT M. LaFOLLETTE began his political career in 1880. At this time — a year after his graduation from *" the University of Wisconsin — he made the announce- ment that he would seek the nomination for district attorney of Dane County, Wisconsin. This action, quite characteristic of the young man's elemental honesty and straightforward- ness, was an unconscious foreshadowing of the political meth- ods that were destined to mark a long career. Although only twenty-five, the age when most men are circumspectly apolo- getic, young LaFoUette presumed to seek public office without first asking the consent of the local political boss. This de- fiance of the sacred prerogatives of the boss incurred the active opposition of the machine. But the candidate appealed to the sturdy folk of this his native county. After a campaign during which the machine and the boss were ignored, the young non-conformist was elected by a comfortable majority. His administration of the office was distinguished by its im- partial enforcement of the law against all violators, high and low, rich and poor, influential and obscure. Two years later he was reelected, leading the ticket by two thousand votes. In these four years of official service, Mr. LaFoUette was subjected to the severest discipline. With an eye single to the discharge of duty, he went about the routine of his daily task, neither fearing the power of the machine nor seeking its fa- vor. The early days on the farm had tested the moral fiber of the boy, for they were days of struggle against poverty; the years in the University had strengthened this moral fiber of the growing youth, who had caught an occasional glimpse of the great world beyond the campus. Now, the mental and moral habits of boyhood and youth were put to a practical trial and they more than stood the test. In order that every case which he was called upon to prosecute might be brought to a final conclusion in accordance with the pro- 288 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS visions of the law, he spared neither time nor energy to dis- cover all the facts and to present all the evidence. In this work were manifested the essential qualities of intellect that have placed Mr. LaFoUette among the foremost American statesmen. Concerning the influence of this four years' ex- perience as prosecuting attorney, Mr. LaFoUette offers this testimony: "I put my whole force into my work as district attorney and thought of nothing else. It was a keen joy to prepare the cases and present them in perfect order before the court. When it became known that a crime had been com- mitted, I tried always to be first on the ground myself, inter- view all the witnesses and see all the surroundings in person. It is facts that settle cases ; the law is always the same. And this rule applies to things of larger importance than criminal cases. Facts count high everywhere. Whether the matter in hand is railroad legislation or the tariff, it is always a question of digging out the facts upon which to base your case. In no other one thing does a public man more surely indicate his quality than in his ability to master actual conditions and set them forth with clearness. Neither laws, nor opinions, nor even constitutions, will finally convince people : it is only the concrete facts of concrete cases. ' ' ^ The spectacle of a district attorney defying the leaders whose decrees had heretofore been superior to statutes, and enforcing the law in an entirely impartial manner attracted wide attention and occasioned no little comment throughout Wisconsin. Largely as a result of the enviable record made during his term as district attorney, Mr. LaFoUette, at the solicitation of friends, became in 1884 a candidate for the Ee- publican congressional nomination. Again his ambitions were opposed by the regular party organization, which put forth every effort to defeat him. But again he ignored the bosses and made his appeal to the people. After a bitter contest he was nominated. In the campaign that followed, the "organ- ization" renewed its opposition, but where it had previously fought in the open it now resorted to secret methods. In 1 A Personal Narrative of Political Experience, by Robert M. LaFolletts, pp. 41-42. Copyright by Harris d Ewing yJ^-CA^ 't4.eAjt^ ^ V^fVC^t^ ROBERT M. LaFOLLETTE 291 spite of this LaFoUette and Ms friends, including many for- mer university students, made a valiant fight, and in Novem- ber he was elected by a small majority. The six years spent by Mr. LaFoUette as a member of Con- gress — from 1885 to 1891 — were years of preparation for the greater career to which Providence has since called him. Previous to the time spent in Washington he had not fully understood the real sources of pohtieal corruption. As pros- ecuting attorney he had enforced the law against the law- breaker, but he had not seen the forces of organized greed that lurked behind the violator of law. In the early years of pubhc life LaFoUette was like most of the statesmen of the period following the close of the Civil War in his attitude toward the problems of the day. Few of them had discovered the real source of corruption ; few had recognized the funda- mental economic character of political and social problems. Abraham Lincoln, foreseeing the danger of vast combinations of wealth, admonished his countrymen to beware of the threat- ening menace of monopoly. Wendell Phillips, prophetic knight of the nineteenth century, warned his countrymen against the despotism of the corporate slave-driver who had grasped the reins of power when the chattel slave-driver was driven from the throne. During the time he was a member of Congress, LaFoUette experienced a great awakening and be- gan to see what Lincoln and Phillips had seen. He now un- derstood that the violation of law, as well as other forms of political corruption which he had always considered as caused merely by political conditions, were frequently the effects of class legislation cunningly designed to control the operation of economic laws. He found the halls of Congress besieged by the hired representatives of Privilege, who sought oppor- tunities for the few at the expense of the many. He saw the patrimony of the people bartered away in return for generous contributions to campaign funds. He found that here was the center of an "invisible government" which was gradually destroying the representative form of government guaranteed by the constitution. LaFoUette refused to acknowledge the authority of this 292 FAMOUS LIVING AMEEICANS "invisible government"; he even defied its decrees when it spoke through the party leaders or issued its orders through the party caucus. He insisted on debating forbidden issues and asked embarrassing questions whenever the bosses sought to thwart the will of the people or endeavored to rush through legislation of doubtful character. His independence, his un- willingness to follow the party when such blind allegiance meant the betrayal of principle, aroused the hostility of those whose orders he refused to obey. The organized opposition did everything in their power to drive him from public Me. The election of 1890 was a hotly contested one. Although Mr. LaFoUette was renominated and again led his ticket, the enemy was too strong for him and he was defeated.^ Often what seems to be defeat is only victory in disguise. The retirement of Mr. LaFollette from Congress opened to him new opportunities for service. Now he was ready to be- gin the real battle for representative government. The ' ' Des- tiny that shapes our ends" and nullifies the petty plans of man with the purposes of Infinite Truth had decreed that the struggle for representative government should be fought out in a single state before it should be made the supreme issue in national politics. When Mr. LaFollette returned to private life as a lawyer in the city of Madison, he was able to see the problems of the state from an entirely new angle. He found that the "invisible government" had its high-priests in state as well as in national politics. The preliminary sMrmish against the state political machine revealed the railroads and other corporations as the controlling influence in Wisconsin. The story of the Wisconsin battle is a familiar one. Year after year, campaign after campaign, LaFollette led and di- rected the fight, speaking at county fairs, old settlers' meet- ings, and wherever and whenever he could find an audience. In caucus after caucus the people went down to defeat only to take up the fight with renewed vigor. In several state con- ventions, even in spite of the fact that a majority of the dele- 2 While it is true that local conditions in 1890 were against all of the Repub- lican candidates in Wisconsin, it is a well known fact that the efforts of the ma- chine leaders were centered upon the defeat of Mr. LaFollette. EGBERT M. LaFOLLETTE 293 gates had been pledged to the new cause, the machine was able to win a purchased victory. Finally, however, the old line leaders were vanquished. LaFoUette was made the candidate for governor, elected by an unprecedented majority, and on January 7, 1901, took the oath of office. Space forbids a detailed account of the fight for reform waged by LaFoUette and his supporters. American political history records no finer exhibition of inspiring moral courage combined with practical achievement. Traitors within the camp as well as enemies from without conspired against the administration. Wisconsin became a national battleground. Every forward step was taken only after a long siege main- tained in the face of organized, nation-wide opposition. The press from coast to coast denounced LaFoUette as a danger- ous demagogue ; wealth and influence sought to embarrass him in every possible way and even the power of Federal patron- age was used to divide the reform forces and to soUdify the opposition. Through it all LaFoUette remained the calm, confident leader, sure of the final triumph of his cause. "No compromise" was the keynote of his administration of the Wisconsin government. Every platform pledge was written into the organic law of the state. This era records the enactment of constructive legislation which estabUshed representative government in Wisconsin. Vitalizing this body of legislation was an intelligent pubUc conscience which had been awakened during the long period of agitation. During this era railroad rates were regulated so that discriminations and rebates were prohibited; an efficient railway commission was organized, and the services of all pub- Ke utihties were greatly improved. Reforms in taxation were inaugurated, and corporations, that under the old order had shifted their just burdens upon the people, were now com- pelled to pay seventy per cent of the entire taxes of the state. An inheritance tax was estabUshed and a state income tax adopted, both of which have proved thoroughly practicable. To safeguard these reforms and to insure their permanency the direct primary was adopted. Secret lobbying was pro- hibited and provision made that all arguments either in favor 294 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS of or against any proposed bill, should become a matter of public record. Progressive legislation, designed to protect the producers of wealth, was a noteworthy achievement of this administra- tion. "Wisconsin now easily leads the states of the Union in its body of labor legislation. Child labor has been reduced and the children kept in the schools. Excessive hours for women workers have been abolished. The doctrine of com- parative negligence has been adopted for railways, and the long hours of trainmen have been done away with. The most carefully drawn of all workmen's compensation laws has been adopted . . . and finally our new Industrial Commission, modeled after the Eailroad Commission, has been placed in charge of all the labor laws, with full power to enforce the laws and protect the life, health, safety and welfare of em- ployees."' The wide-spread interest in these reforms and the intensity of the struggle which preceded their adoption, gave LaFol- lette a reputation that was even more than national. The pro- gressive element in the Republican party throughout the coun- try came to regard him as a national leader. Fortunately, the long years of struggle in Wisconsin had produced an in- telligent and an alert citizenship and had developed leaders whose honesty and efficiency made them worthy of pubhc con- fidence. The people of Wisconsin felt that their leader was peculiarly fitted for service in the field of national politics and in 1905 they elected him to represent them in the senate of the United States. His entrance into the senate was hailed with enthusiastic approval by citizens of all parties in every sec- tion of the country. A new epoch began in the United States senate with the en- trance of LaFoUette. ' ' Senatorial courtesy ' ' and * ' senatorial tradition" which had long controlled the deliberations of this body had furnished many a timid statesman with an excuse for repudiating the principles he had loudly proclaimed upon the stump. There had been occasional revolts, but little actual reform had taken place. LaFoUette was not unaccustomed 8 A Personal Narrative of Political Experience, pp. 309-310. EOBEET M. LaFOLLETTE 295 to the subtleties by which insurgents are usually brought into line with things as they are. The leaders of the senate were not in harmony with the radical sentiments of the people. These leaders regarded the new senator as a disturber of sen- atorial tradition who must be speedily and effectually silenced. Every effort was made to negative his influence. He was given appointments on committees where he was afforded Uttle opportunity to exercise the expert knowledge gained through years of study and practical experience. He was made to understand that no consideration would be given to any measures he might introduce if they contained ideas that might interfere with the party program or threaten party dis- cipline. During the debate on the regulation of interstate commerce, an incident occurred which illustrates the attitude of the lead- ers of the senate and reveals the uncompromising courage of this tribune of the people. The incident is thus described by Senator LaFoUette : "I had not been speaking more than ten minutes before I found myself without any Republican col- leagues to listen to me, aside from the presiding ofiicer and the Senator from New Jersey, Mr. Kean, who seemed to have been left on guard. I understood perfectly well that I was being rebuked. It was not altogether because I was a new man in the Senate, but I had no sympathy, no fellowship, no welcome from the Republican members of the Senate when I entered. I knew that I was familiar with my subject. I had studied it for several years. In Wisconsin it had been the one subject, above all others, which had been discussed, investi- gated, and legislated upon. I knew that things had been done there in a fundamental way, and that I had been a part of the doing, and I felt that my experience should be of some value to the country. So I could riot help saying : " 'Mr. President, I pause in my remarks to say this. I cannot be wholly indifferent to the fact that Senators by their absence at this time indicate their want of interest in what I may have to say upon this subject. The public is interested. Unless this important subject is rightly settled, seats now tem- 296 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS porarily vacant may be permanently vacated by those who have the right to occupy them at this time ! ' " * Time has vindicated Senator LaFoUette. Within less than a decade he has reached a position of recognized leadership and commanding influence. Most of the senators who sought to rebuke and discipline him have been retired from pubUo life and many of his opponents in other fields of national pol- itics have been hurled from the seats of the mighty. Every legislative advance, either in the regulation of railroad rates or in the revision of the tariff, has been a practical recogni- tion of the political ideals of Senator LaFoUette. The growth of the progressive movement within the Eepublican party is the concrete result of the Wisconsin idea transferred to the arena of national politics. Whatever part this movement may play in the future drama of American politics it will be com- pelled to reckon with the leadership of Robert M. LaFoUette. That Senator LaFoUette was the "logical" candidate of the Republican party for president in 1912 is quite generally ad- mitted by impartial students of contemporary politics. Also that he was the first choice of the rank and file of the party is undoubtedly true. The circumstances leading to his defeat in the convention are not a matter for discussion in this place. However, it is only fair to say that he was generally regarded at the close of the campaign of 1912 as stronger than ever in the confidence of the people who believe that he will continue for many years as a leader in the cause of democracy and rep- resentative government. Modem civiUzation is complex, its problems are intricate. The conditions of present-day life reveal the utter uselessness of the old method of poHtical diplomacy with its policy of evasion and compromise. The new statesmanship is con- cerned with the establishment of economic and social condi- tions congenial to the development of better and happier living. The subject of this sketch typifies the essential honesty of this new school of statesmanship. Honesty has always been * A Personal Narrative of Political Experience, pp. 411-412. ROBERT M. LaFOLLETTE 297 the keynote of his private life and his public career. The political life of this twentieth century statesman has been one of rare consistency. He has offered a new interpretation of the old maxim, "Honesty is the best policy," in its applica- tion to the vital problems of modem life. He rejects the pol- icy that would secure temporary results through makeshift methods ; he prefers to work out completely the problems of legislation without resorting to compromise. "In legisla- tion," he says, "No bread is often better than half a loaf. I beheve it is usually better to be beaten and come right back at the next session and make a fight for a thorough-'going law than to have written on the books a weak and indefinite statute." Senator LaFoUette has had a notable career as an orator. He became interested in public speaking during his college days when he successfully represented the University of Wis- consin in the Northern Oratorical League. While a student in the university he was an active member of the debating so- ciety which, to this day, is famous for the research work which it demands of its members who are training for debate. His experience as a student in debating and public speaking furnished the foundation principles that in later years were so effective in the work of platform agitation and education. To-day he ranks with the masters of American eloquence. He has risen to this position solely by virtue of intellectual force and through unremitting labor. He has been favored by no genius other than the capacity for hard work. His attain- ments disprove the theory that a large physique is necessary for oratorical success. In stature he is below the average but is vigorous and athletic. He is always logical in thought and he always clothes the thought in words chosen with such nice precision that their meaning cannot be misunderstood. In his oratory there is the warmth of imagination and the depth of sympathetic insight which suggest the classic eloquence of James Otis. There is the enthusiasm, the reflection of truth through personality that marked the dramatic rhapsodies of Patrick Henry. Under the influence of his eloquence thous- ands of Americans have been mentally quickened, their moral 298 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS natures have been aroused, and they have gone forth like the patriots who listened to Otis and Henry, to do and to die for their country's good. Mr. LaFoUette is a man of great personal charm. His warmest friends are those who have known him in the close intimacy of private life. He is thoroughly democratic in spirit and in manner. He is a brilliant conversationalist, a gracious and genial host, a good neighbor, and a devoted friend. In every relation of private life he is generous and kind without the slightest trace of condescension. Of intense convictions, strongly assertive when occasion demands, and firm and positive when he has reached a decision, he is yet as fair to his enemies as he is faithful to his friends. When not engaged in official duties, he lives quietly on his farm near Madison with his family. During all the years of his political career, Mrs. LaFollette, who is a university graduate and a woman of wide interests, has been her husband's "wisest and best counsellor." Mr. LaFollette confidently faces the future. Believing with Wendell Phillips that no question is ever settled until it is settled right, this uncompromising advocate of the people's cause will continue to inspire his countrymen. To those who seek the opportunity for service, Eobert M. LaFollette offers this hopeful and inspiring message: "There never was a higher call to greater service than in this protracted fight for social justice. I believe with increasing depth of conviction, that we will, in our day, meet our responsibility with fearless- ness and faith ; that we will reclaim and preserve for our chil- dren, not only the form but the spirit of our free institutions. And in our children must we rest our hope for the ultimate democracy. ' ' BIBLIOGRAPHY PERIODICALS Autobiography. American 72:660-674; 73:3-15, 143-156, 306-317, 442-455, 591-603, 701-713; 74:72-83, 180-190, 369-379. Governor LaFollette and What He Stands For. By Amos P. "Wild- er. Outlook 70 :631. ROBERT M. LaFOLLETTB 299 LaPollette, Pioneer Progressive. By William Bayard Hale. World's Work 22 :14591. Personal Sketch of Governor LaPollette. By Earle H. Baton. Har- per's Weekly 48 :2025. Rise of Robert LaPollette, the Governor of Wisconsin. By John H. Pinley. Harper's Weekly 46 :1508. Senator LaPollette and His Policies. Outlook 100 :57. BEN B. LINDSEY By Thomas Le Grand Habbis SOCIAL progress at first was like the motion of a glacier — too slow to be perceived at all except by observation and comparison after long intervals of time. The move- ment is now much more rapid and is due to causes wholly different. One of the most potent of these is the genius of really great men whose efforts are directed toward making the world better. He who makes two blades of grass grow where only one grew before is a benefactor to mankind. Like- wise he who solves a difficult social problem has made a gen- uine contribution to the progress and happiness of his fel- lows. Among the Americans of this class is Judge Benjamin Barr Lindsey, born in Tennessee in 1869. His father was a Confederate army officer who served on the staff of General Chalmers in aid of the Lost Cause. The family fortune hav- ing been lost in the war, the Lindseys came North where the father, who had been bred a Southern gentleman, died from overwork in a few years. The widow was left to face the world with four little children and very scanty means. The subject of this sketch, being the eldest, had many of the trials and experiences which naturally come to a fatherless lad under such circumstances. At the age of twelve he be- came a messenger boy and also managed a newspaper route. He attended night school and made the most of such advan- tages as were within his reach. In due time he won his way to a bachelor's degree in a Western state university, after which he prepared for the profession of law and was duly admitted to the bar in 1894. His profession naturally leads the way to political life. Being a man with a normal amount of honorable ambition, he soon made a beginning in politics. He hoped to become district attorney but was unsuccessful. As matters turned out it was probably very fortunate for him and for the hundreds of boys who have been influenced by him that he did not realize his ambition in this instance. He was. Copyright by Moffett Studio, Chi, BEN B. LINDSEY 303 however, soon afterward appointed to fill out an unexpired term as county judge in Denver and began his work on the bench merely as an obscure young lawyer who had received a promotion and who was wholly unknown to fame. This was on January 8, 1901. At this period of his career he had in his thoughts neither plans nor theories for any work of an unusual character but only the idea of doing his whole official duty with whatever energy and ability he possessed. Here cases in great variety came before his court, and the regular daily round of busi- ness was transacted just as it had been done for many years previously. Many children were brought before this court on charges of theft, burglary, and other crimes. They were tried in precisely the same manner and under the same pro- cedure as were grown-up men and women, and if found guilty they were promptly sentenced to serve terms in the State In- dustrial School at Golden. This was part of the regular sys- tem provided for by law. A boy might be brought into the district court or the justice court as well as into the county court over which the new judge presided. The result was the same in the event his guilt was established. One evening, when the shadows were lengthening and the county court was grinding out its usual daily grist of cases with increased speed so as to dispose of the business on its regular calendar for that day, a case of petty larceny was called. The "thief" was only an Italian boy of tender years who had violated the majesty of the law and offended the dig- nity of the State of Colorado. His offense was that of pick- ing up coal along the railroad tracks in order to have a little fire at home. A policeman and witnesses soon made a clear case against the urchin. His guilt was evident and the youth- ful judge pronounced the sentence which the law prescribed for such an offense and hastily called the next case, for every- body was anxious to get through with the day's work and go home. Just at that moment, however, a prolonged shriek rent the air of the court room and attracted the attention of everyone. It was the shrill, agonized cry of a forlorn, un- 304 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS coutli woman whose appearance was not unlike that of a cave dweller of long past ages. Such happenings are not unknown in public courts of jus- tice. But the dignity of the court had been violated and the bailiff, whose duty it was to see that order was kept, made a move to eject the disturber from the court room, when the judge stopped the machinery of the law and, calling the poor woman to his side, talked with her and the boy together. He suspended the sentence and later visited them in their humble home. With the help of the mother and the cooperation of the boy himself the youth was saved from the operation of what had been previously the inexorable penalty of violated criminal law. In this way a boy, not really bad but who, in a moment of temptation, had appropriated something of trifling value, was saved from the beginnings of a criminal career. To-day he is a respected and useful member of society. Not long afterward a burglary case was set for trial in this young judge's court. When the time came he looked around for the criminals. Three frightened boys, not one of whom was more than sixteen, were brought before him. Upon in- quiry it turned out that the burglary had been committed in a pigeon loft, the owner being a peevish old man who claimed that the boys had long annoyed him and now had robbed him of some of his choice birds. The boys said that pigeons of a choice variety belonging to them had "taken up" with those of the old man and that they were only trying to get them back again. But this was burglary and under the criminal law boys guilty of this crime must be sent to the reformatory. Something in the appearance of the old man and the circum- stances of the case reminded the judge of his own youthful days. He asked more questions of the old man to learn the exact location of his pigeon loft. The judge was not mis- taken. He recalled that when a boy he was a member of a "gang." Boys instinctively associate themselves in gangs to do mischief. His own gang had planned and successfully ex- ecuted a "burglary" of this same old man's pigeon loft. The judge whose duty it was now to sentence these boys to prison had once helped to plan just such a burglary himself when a BEN B. LINDSBY 305 boy, but bis "nerve" bad failed Mm at tbe last moment and be bad not actually entered tbe barn witb tbe boys wbo belped tbemselves to tbe old man's pigeons on tbat occasion. It seemed unfair tbat normal, bealtby-minded boys sbould be sent to prison for an offense like tbat — sometbing whicb migbt bave bappened to tbe judge bimself in tbe days of bis youtb, A basty examination of tbe statutes seemed to make it un- necessary to deal witb tbese cases in tbe usual way. A scbool law enacted only two years or so before tbat time provided that sucb youtbs migbt be treated as juvenile disorderly of- fenders and not as burglars or tbieves. Tbe judge took tbje boys to bis private room and talked witb tbem in a friendly and familiar way, sbowing tbem bow weak and unmanly it was to take property tbat belonged to otbers even tbougb it were only pigeons. He assured tbem, furtber, tbat be bad no sympatby witb any boy wbo would tell on tbe otber fellow but asked tbem to bave tbe wbole gang come in and report to Mm at once. Tbey were promised a square deal. Tbe wbole gang came in witbout delay. Bacb told Ms own story and was al- lowed to go upon probation, witb tbe understanding tbat be report regularly. Tbe plan worked admirably and eacb boy became a friend of tbe judge. The special interest of tbe judge was thoroughly aroused and be thought he saw an opportunity to effect a much needed change in the wbole system of deabng witb youthful offenders in Denver. It did not seem human or just to treat mere boys who, in a moment of temptation, bad committed some slight offense against the law, as if they were in a class with hard- ened criminals. To "try" boys for "crimes" committed and often to find tbem guilty and send them to the State Industrial School was absurd and almost criminal in itself. Sucb a sys- tem seemed to place a greater value upon a trifling amount of property stolen by a youth than it did upon tbe men and women of the future. It seemed necessary to aid tbe delin- quent youth in developing character and overcoming any tendency toward criminal development rather than to inflict a merely vindictive pumsbment wMcb, in tbe great majority 306 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS of cases, only hardens the offender and confirms him in evil ways. -The judge began to ask himself if it were not high time that the future of the youth should be given more con- sideration than tbe value of the property he might be guilty of steahng or the importance of the misdemeanor he might be guilty of committing. There was but one answer to this ques- tion. The reform of the wrong-doer was certainly the para- mount object to be attained in such cases. The district attorney was approached and asked that all children's cases be sent to Judge Lindsey's court and that in future they be accused as juvenile disorderly persons under the school law rather than as violators of the criminal code. This request was readily and cheerfully granted, for the other judges did not care to be troubled with this class of cases at all, if their accommodating colleague would try them in his court. The interest of Judge Lindsey was now stimulated by facts brought to his attention through a study of the methods of dealing with juvenile offenders. He visited the State Re- formatory at Golden in order to get information at first hand. There he saw boys in their teens treated like hardened crim- inals. The ball and chain were not infrequently used as a means of reform. The worst of these evils he tried to have corrected even in the reformatory. But other things which he afterward saw in his own city brought the matter more closely home to him. A visit to the jails maintained by the city and the county revealed conditions which were of the very worst. Filth, dirt, and vermin were plentiful. The walls were dilapidated and the plastering had peeled off in great patches. The sanitary conditions were bad and the odors re- pulsive. But what was worse than all of this was the fact that no effort was made to keep youthful offenders separated from old and hardened criminals. Boys guilty of their first offense were here herded with men who had grown gray in lives of crime. Boys were instructed in the ways and means of the professional criminal and their minds were being con- stantly filled with everything that could be told them which was vile and degrading. The jails were only schools of in- BEN B. LINDSEY 307 struction in crime, and the teaching was done by maisters of the art they taught. The judge learned, upon further investigation, that for sev- eral years before he came into office more than four hundred boys had been sent to jail in each year for periods varying from a few hours to a month or more. This meant that every youth who developed a tendency toward crime was promptly sent by the state to a place where he could get further instruc- tion in criminal arts. Further investigation seemed to show that conditions in Denver were not exceptional, but only representative of what they were in other parts of the country. He learned that in some other cities in this country as many as one fourth of all the arrests made were of boys less than twenty, and that seventy-five per cent, of the crimes committed in the entire country are the offenses of persons under twenty-three years of age. Their records show that they were imprisoned as children and, in the absence of reformatory influences of any kind, rapidly developed into accomplished criminals. To Judge Lindsey it seemed that the whole juvenile procedure was wrong, that the methods of treating bad boys did not prevent crime but only fostered it, that the businesslike methods of the state in dealing out so-called justice to youthful offenders only tended to make greater criminals of them. His theory, easily deduced from the foregoing facts, is that the youthful offender should not be subjected to the degrading influences of prisons and vindictive punishments by the state but that it, like a good parent, should try to develop the better side of the boy's nature and strengthen his character so that he may be able always to resist temptations and to become a good cit- izen. These were the ideas upon which Judge Lindsey 's court was based. They might prove to be wholly sentimental but he proposed to work them out in actual practice, believing that the welfare of the youth was always of the first and greatest consideration and that the reform of the wrong-doer means much more for him and for society than any vindictive pun- ishment that might be inflicted with a view to correcting his 308 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS evil habits. But how was this to be done? The answer was a very simple one, to the judge's mind. He would depart from the routine businesslike methods of the old system and try to find out in each individual case what would be required to meet the needs of the offender and set the reformatory in- fluences to work. This could not be done by any set rule. It would require a rare combination of qualities in him who at- tempted it. Tact, sympathy with youth, gentleness, sagacity and a deep insight into human nature, especially as it appears in boys, all of these would be required. Certain things appeared to be self-evident to Judge Lind- sey after only a brief experience. One was that most boys who make a bad beginning do so because of evil influences, chief among which are heredity and unfavorable environ- ment, not because they are of natural born criminal types. Another fact was that boys associate in "gangs" just as men do in organizations. Still another is that all boys hate the one who will "tell" on the other fellow. There is no forgive- ness for him by the remainder of the "gang," if he has "told" upon them or any of their members. Every human being has some good in him. Underneath the evil nature and the disposition of the bad boy to Ue, or to steal, or to break the law in any other way, there is the latent possibility for good if it can only be reached and developed. It was also noticed that when a boy was brought into court he was either in a sullen and defiant mood, or was frightened and terror- stricken. Keeping these ideas well in mind Judge Lindsey began his new way of treating juvenile delinquents. He does not sit upon the bench in dignified and judicial fashion when a boy's case comes up for consideration. He will come down to a level with the boy in this as well as in all other matters. He will sit down by the side of him if necessary on a camp chair, and use the familiar slang of the street urchin in an effort to reach the boy and have him tell the truth about his own case. The terror-stricken boy is made to feel that the judge is not there primarily to inflict punishment and that he will get a square deal and have a chance to overcome his weaknesses BEN B. LINDSEY 309 and mistakes if lie will only tell the whole truth about him- self. He is not asked or encouraged to tell what any other boy has done. He may be asked later to get the other boy himself to tell. He is then made to see how unmanly and weak it is to do the wrong things to which he has confessed and is put upon probation, reporting regularly until such time as it is felt that he can overcome evil with good. The sullen and defiant boy is encouraged to tell the whole truth about himself and is given to understand that this must be done before his case can have consideration. Judge Lindsey seems to know instinctively when a boy is lying to him and he has wonderful power to convince such a boy of this fact. In an effort to get a boy's confidence, Judge Lindsey will invite him into his own private room, or will take him home to din- ner, or do whatever seems best in order to get the truth in re- gard to that boy's case. On one occasion after going over all the evidence with a defiant boy and making out a clear enough case, the boy still persisted that he had told the truth. The judge promptly instructed the officer to take the boy to jail, since the first thing to be done in every boy's case before it is adjusted is to get the truth. On the way to jail the boy re- lented and upon his return promptly confessed that he had lied, and that he was now ready to tell the truth about him- self. On another occasion a boy's collar was loosened to ob- serve his Adam's apple with the remark that its movements would reveal a lie. It is a cardinal principle with Judge Lind- sey in his dealing with a bad boy never to allow him to get away with a lie on his soul. This is the first step in deal- ing with any bad boy's case, and is more than half the battle. If the boy is a member of a "gang," and he generally is, he is then induced to have the others come in and each one tell his own story only. The judge does not seek to break up the gang as the older reformers would first think of doing, but he tries to cultivate a sentiment among the members while they are on probation that it is unmanly to lie, or to steal, or to commit offenses against the law. He thus turns the gang spirit to good account. The boys are made to feel that they must grow strong enough to meet successfully any tempta- 310 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS tions to break the law again or to do an unmanly act of any kind. The judge recognizes the fact that boys love to be com- mended for whatever progress they have made or whatever good they have done. His court of probation is therefore made, so far as it may serve a good purpose, a court of ap- probation. While looking into this matter the judge will move about among the boys calling each one by his street name and looking into his school or other report and if any progress has been made he will praise the boy and encourage him, pointing out to him examples of other boys who have grown strong and manly in right doing. Each boy's confidence is gained and he very early becomes the judge's friend and feels that since he is getting a square deal he must do the things that are expected of him. No record is made against any boy to come up against him in after life. After fair and repeated trials, if a boy makes no progress, he is given to understand that he must make use of the next most helpful thing in order to overcome his delinquency and that is to go to the Reformatory at Golden, not as a punish- ment, but as an aid to help him in becoming stronger. This idea is impressed upon him very strongly. The judge will sometimes take such a boy home with him in the evening and after dinner they will go over the whole matter together with the result that the boy is fully convinced. Every such boy is put wholly upon his own honor. His commitment papers are then made out and given to him, together with money for his expenses, and he is directed to go alone to Golden and report to the superintendent of the reformatory, who is not informed in advance of his coming. As an evidence of the success of this plan it may be said that of more than three hundred boys so committed from the Denver juvenile court, only five have betrayed their trust and failed to report as directed. Although Judge Lindsey is often referred to as the orig- inator of the whole juvenile court system in this country he modestly disclaims any such honor. This much, however, is certain, that in 1898 there was not such a court anywhere in the world. At that time there were, in the two states of New BEN B. LINDSEY 311 York and Massachusetts, statutes which, made possible the trial of youthful offenders apart from adults. In 1899 Colo- rado and Illinois enacted laws which enabled courts to deal in a special way with delinquent children. It was these laws which made possible a beginning, and it was not until the juvenile court idea had been fully developed and its success assured that the Colorado legislature passed an act giving it a legal basis and providing that every county in the state might have such a court. Judge Lindsey was the author of this act. Learning from experience what legislation was most needed to aid and strengthen the first act he afterwards asked for and obtained the passage of a Contributory Delinquency Law which provides for a maximum penalty of a heavy fine or even a year's imprisonment for contributing to the delinquency of any child, whether the offender be the parent or not. The in- tent of the law as first framed and passed was to enable the court to reach parents who keep their children away from school to work. It was later amended and chajiged so as to cover all cases of persons instructing children in crime or al- lowing boys to go into saloons or other immoral places. It also applies to the employees of railway companies who per- mit boys to steal rides or to carry off coal or other articles of small value from the yards. This was the first law of its kind ever passed. Judge Lindsey has always stood for good government and has been active in the fights of the last decade against the corrupt politicians and the "Interests" in his own city and state. His private life has always been above reproach. The esteem in which he is held by all good citizens has been amply demonstrated by the results of the last two elections in which he was a candidate for juvenile judge. In 1908 when the pol- iticians refused to place his name upon any regular ticket he made an independent campaign with the aid of his friends, and was elected by 14,272 votes over his nearest competitor. Four years later he was elected on a Citizens' ticket by 41,478 votes as against 16,249 for his nearest opponent on a regular party ticket. 312 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS It may safely be said that that life is most worth while which contributes something of real value to human progress. It is certain that Judge Lindsey has done this and that his name will have a place among the real reformers of the pres- ent generation. BIBLIOGRAPHY f PEEIODICALS Beast and Jungle. Everybody's 21:433-52, 579-598, 770-784; 22:41- 53, 231-244, 391-401, 528-540, 632-644. Children's Court in American Life. Review of Reviews 33:305. Children's Judge. Outlook 88 :476. Denver's Rejuvenation. Review of Reviews 46:365. Enemy of Corruption. Outlook 93:238. Judge Lindsey and his work. World Today 10 :368. Just Judge. By L. Steffens. McClure's 27:563-582; 28:74-88, 162- 176. Kid Judge of Denver. Outlook 80 :497. Mickey and the Judge. Outlook 93:565. JOHN MITCHELL By Francis Calvin Tilden IN the fall of 1902, in the midst of the great anthracite coal strike, one of the historic labor straggles of modem times, Lincoln Steffens wrote in McClure's Magazine as follows of a, then, little known labor leader : "When labor knew only its emotions, when the working men only felt that something — they knew not what — was wrong, the expression of that feeling carried the natural re- ward of leadership. Eloquence, in competition with elo- quence, aroused passions that begot violence. The orators could not control the forces they set in motion. ■. . Thus it came about that the laboring men turned from the orators to men who talked little and worked hard; to men who com- manded them and knew how to compromise with their em- ployers." ^ Of these new labor leaders, working through man's intel- ligence rather than through his passions, John Mitchell, at that time president of the United "Mine Workers of America, was most typical. He remains today not only one of the most skillful and trusted of labor leaders, but one of the foremost of a new type of men, a type as yet little recognized and less understood. This is the type of man who, in the midst of present-day ideas of what constitutes success, of what brings pleasure, of what is worth striving for, deliberately gives up personal ambition and a sure road to private wealth and power for the doubtful leadership of a body of men who un- derstand neither themselves nor him. With ability which, if used for personal ends, could scarcely have failed to bring those things for which most men struggle, he chose to use this unusual ability for the many rather than for himself alone. It seemed better to him that many thousand might eat more and better bread each day than that he should have for him- ^llcClwe's 19:355 ff. 314 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS self ease and luxury and the praise of society given to those who succeed in the things that society understands. It would be wrong to suppose, however, that John Mitchell chose deliberately between these two methods of procedure; that after due deliberation he decided to give up the egoistic for the altruistic. Altruism was so much a part of his nature that it developed with his growth, without struggle and with- out thought. He gave up nothing, because it appears that it never occurred to him that there was anything to do, for him at least, that was other than he was doing. Andrew Carnegie, beginning as John Mitchell did, in poverty and ignorance, made himself one of the foremost men of his time in the finance of the world. Behind him lies, as the result of his lifework, a better system of refining steel, innumerable li- braries — his gifts and bearing his name — a hundred mil- lionaires and more — his one-time lieutenants — and personal wealth so great as to tax his gigantic intellect to find means for its expenditure. In addition to this he has worldwide fame as a man who has succeeded in the game of life. John Mitchell, in a life as yet much shorter, leaves behind him not a better system of refining steel, not a hundred millionaires, not innumerable libraries with his name in stone over the doors, but better living conditions for four hundred thousand miners — more wages, fewer hours of labor, less dangerous mine conditions, far-reaching laws for greater safety, a bet- ter understanding between capital and labor. For himself he has, as reward, a modest salary and more battles to fight for the men he leads, almost in spite of themselves. Both Andrew Carnegie and John Mitchell were and are necessary to the world. The one built up and made possible the won- derful financial system of today, the great aggregates of cap- ital which the other is now attempting to direct toward the bettering of all mankind. Each man is necessary, but each represents a different philosophy and a different theory of economies. Consciously or unconsciously, Andrew Carnegie stands for that old theory, first put forward by Adam Smith, that social progress, the advance of the masses of the people, is most rapid when each individual of the mass is struggling Courte&y of the Chicago Tribune 0^7^ yTu^^^i^Cc^ JOHN MITCHELL 317 as strenuously as possible and as selfishly as possible for his own personal advancement. Consciously or unconsciously again, John Mitchell represents that newer theory of man and economics, developed first, possibly, by Thomas Carlyle, that social progress is most rapid, the sum total of human happi- ness greatest, when altruism and not selfishness prevails, when each seeks to help others and not himself alone. John Mitchell, this new man of the new time, is a self-made man. Self-made men are common in America. Generally speaking, we mean by the term self-made that the man to whom the term applies has, without the aid of inherited wealth or a college education, secured for himself a place in the so- ciety of the time. Andrew Carnegie, Charles M. Schwab, and John Wanamaker were self-made men. They began as poor boys, without advanced education and, by the aid of energy, ability, and intelligence, have placed themselves at the head of various business enterprises of this country. In the larger sense John Mitchell was, like these men, self-made. The dif- ference lay wholly in the finished product. John Mitchell was born at Braidwood, Illinois, on the 4th of February, 1870. Braidwood was a mining town stretching its full and ugly length upon a low, flat, marshy prairie. In the winter it caught the full sweep of far-driven storms and was half buried in snow. In spring it was surrounded by endless miles of marsh and mud. In summer it lay between inter- mingled fields of corn and slough-grass. The town was no more monotonous than the life of the child, John Mitchell, to the age of twelve years. When he was three years old his mother died. Soon after, his father married again. The stepmother was a good woman but had what seemed to many unusually severe ideas of conduct and discipline. At six years of age the boy saw his father brought home dead from the mines, killed there in one of the ever-recurring accidents. This father had been the boy's ideal. A soldier in the Civil War, and consequently an ardent American citizen, ever in- terested in all that affected the country's political or social action, he left his social rectitude as a heritage to his son. In after years the memory of that father, known so little in those 318 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS early years, was to hold him to certain definite theories of con- duct. Other men in the ranks of labor might forget that the laborer was a citizen, but not John Mitchell. For him there could be no successful labor struggle that did not also result in advantage to society, to all citizens of his country. Between the ages of six and ten years the boy attended the common schools of Braidwood. Shortly before he was ten his stepmother married again. The stepfather was from the first opposed to the boy, found fault with his going to school, found fault with him about the house. As a result John Mitchell left this, his only semblance of a home, when he was ten years old, and secured a job with a farmer of the neighborhood. He was to carry water to the men and do small chores. In return he was to receive a dollar a month, his board and room. The next year he was doing almost a man's work on the farm, and was receiving ten dollars a month. At twelve years of age, at the suggestion of his stepfather, he returned home and began work in the mines, securing a place as breaker boy. Living with his stepparents was not satisfactory, however, and late in the year he ran away from home, going by slow stages to the mines in Colorado. Here he nearly starved. The mining conditions were bad, worse even than in Illinois. The miners lived in the midst of con- tinuous hardship and privation; but Mitchell found, or thought he found, them to be unusual men. Gradually there was forced upon him the belief that the hardship these men and their families suffered was not inevitable. It began to appear to him that the conditions of their lives were unneces- sarily severe, and, boy though he was, he began to plan schemes of general help for miners and their families. From the very first the Union Labor movement seemed to him to hold the promise of the things that he believed ought to be. He became not only a member of the union, but a most careful student of labor problems, proposed reforms, and general economic conditions. From the very first he realized that the labor problem was an economic problem. The solu- tion of the labor problem he felt depended as much or more JOHN MITCHELL 319 upon the changing of economic conditions as upon the direct struggle with employers for higher wages. These earlier ideas of the situation broadened and deepened with his in- creasing years. At twenty, Mitchell was back in IlUnois, at work in the mines at Spring Valley. Here the Labor Union was begin- ning to be a force, and the interest begun in the West devel- oped into a controlling motive in his Hfe. He was made a Master Workman in the Knights of Labor. Already, how- ever, the miners felt the need of a special organization to care for their special problems. The United Mine Workers had hardly been placed in working condition before we find Mitch- ell as secretary-treasurer of a sub-district of the organization. Constant study and earnest work in behalf of the miners was recognized by them by official advancement, until in Septem- ber, 1898, he was made acting president of the organization, and the next year was made president, which office he held till 1908. Those who are active students of contemporary history will recall that the years 1900 to 1903 were years of tremen- dous import in the mining affairs of this country. In the great anthracite districts of the mining world, lying in the midst of our greatest manufacturing district and our densest population, the forces of capital and labor, as represented by mine owners and miners, were locked in what appeared to each side as a death struggle. With perfect honesty each side in the struggle believed that defeat meant total destruc- tion. The mine owners believed that defeat meant the sur- render of the control of their business. The miners believed that defeat meant a return to conditions bordering upon, if not actually similar to, slavery. Because of these somewhat exaggerated beHef s the struggle was most bitter. Gradually the public passed from the position of spectators to one of active and radical partisans. All forms of radical schemes for stopping the struggle were suggested. These ranged from a proposition to send United States troops into the coal fields to compel the miners to return to work, on the one hand, 320 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS to an equally radical proposition to seize the mines in the name of the United States and begin the mining of coal by the country at large without reference to property rights. In this struggle, so significant and tremendous, a few men soon became prominent. On the one side were the presidents of the mining corporations. These men, adherents of the old order of things, felt that not only their own welfare but the welfare of the country and all invested funds depended upon defeating labor in its demands upon the anthracite coal com- panies. They felt, or pretended to feel, that there could be no community of interest between the men and the owners of the mines. They insisted that the owners had the right to determine the conditions under which the men should work, and refused to consider any change through which the men themselves might have a voice in things that affected their own welfare. On the other side a single figure emerged with a new theory of the relations of capital and labor. This new figure was John Mitchell. His theory was the theory of the necessity of peace. While the mine owners on the one hand and many la- bor leaders on the other were declaring that the struggle be- tween labor and capital was a struggle never to be ended ex- cept by the complete conquest of the one by the other, Mitchell was declaring that a proper understanding of the relations of labor and capital would make plain that there should be no struggle at all. While, as president of the United Mine Workers, he directed the fight the miners were making against the mine owners, he nevertheless insisted that the struggle was wrong. It came about because neither side saw clearly the exact relationship. In his book, published after the fight was over, he says, in the preface : "There is no necessary hostility between labor and capital. Neither can do without the other ; each has evolved from the other. Capital is labor saved and materialized; the power to labor is, in itself, a form of capital. There is not even a necessary, fundamental antagonism between the laborer and the capitalist. Both are men with the virtues and vices of JOHN MITCHELL 321 men, and each wishes, at times, more than his fair share. Yet, broadly considered, the interest of one is the interest of the other." It was the attempt to make both parties see this, the at- tempt to make both sides realize that this great principle of mutual interest must after all triumph if even minor differ- ences were to be compromised, that formed the center of the Mitchell leadership in those troublous times. He felt that as a labor leader he must make the men realize that they were men, men of honor, ready to carry out a fair contract to the utmost. He felt also that it was necessary for the capitalist to realize that labor was a commodity, that in dealing with a labor union the capitalist was simply buying labor wholesale instead of retail, and that buying labor in this way had all the advantages of wholesale dealing. It was the realization of Ms larger knowledge of the situation that gave him the power of self-control which he showed in the historic meeting with the mine owners in the conference called by President Roose- velt, in October, 1902. A reporter who was present declares that of all the men who came at the call of the president, John Mitchell was the only one who kept his head. He as well as the miners' organization was bitterly attacked. Mitchell replied with calm and effective argument. He believed that there was Kttle to fight about if both sides could only under- stand. There were things to compromise, but in the interest of mutual advancement, not in the interest of party triumph for either side. It will be remembered that the strike terminated in arbitra- tion through which the miners were granted almost all they had asked. It would naturally be supposed that the leader of such a vast and successful labor movement would have found extraordinary honor in the eyes of the laboring masses. Such was not the case. Though the miners continued for a num- ber of years to keep Mitchell in the office of president of the United Mine Workers there was a growing feeling of dis- trust. This was due, without doubt, to the feeling that Mitch- ell was too conservative for a leader of labor. Before the anthracite strike was settled Mitchell had been compelled to 322 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS take a position that was considered ill-advised by many min- ers and labor men. He had refused to allow the miners in the soft coal field to violate their contract with the soft coal mine owners, and strike in sympathy with the anthracite nodners. Mitchell insisted that a contract was sacred and to break the contract in force was to make it impossible to secure other contracts. He insisted that the end of organized labor was to secure the confidence of capital, and, to secure this, all con- tracts made in good faith must be adhered to. This position was the natural result of his theory that there was no cause for antagonism between labor and capital; that the mutual recognition of the necessity of peace was the ultimate end to be sought. This view was not and is not held by many labor leaders. One has only to glance at the statements of Tom Mann, one of the great English labor leaders to note this. Mann de- clares that, "every provision for peace between the two par- ties is a perpetual wrong to labor." Another labor leader says: "We do not recognize the capitalist's right to live any more than we recognize the right of the typhoid bacilli to thrive at the expense of the patient, the patient being able merely to keep alive." As the result of movements of which the above quotations are illustrative, John Mitchell has found his work in the last few years not so much a matter of directing battles against employers a,s an attempt to form and direct the thought of the public and the laborers upon questions of labor economics. In addition to his book on Organised Labor he has contrib- uted to magazines a number of articles having to do with labor conditions and labor laws the world over. Relieved of the presidency of the United Mine Workers of America in 1908, he has remained vice president of the American Federation of Labor. Time and again in the conventions of this organ- ization he has stood firmly against the attempts to capture the organization for socialists or for more radical labor or- ganizations. He still believes that the principle of the labor union is right. He still insists that all the laboring man needs or should desire is the right of collective bargaining. JOHN MITCHELL 323 He believes that labor can secure its own advancement only by recognizing the rights of capital and by compelling cap- ital to recognize both the rights and the honesty of the labor union. Through all these years John Mitchell has compelled men to recognize his own integrity. He has never stooped to de- ceit for his own or others' ends. Loving mankind, and es- pecially laboring men, as few have ever loved, he has at the same time been able to preserve his intelligence alive side by side with his love. He has never allowed his love or his sympathy or his righteous indignation to blind him. He sees clearly not only the present but as far as any man can into the future. So highly are these qualities of intelligence and sincerity prized by thinking people that it is an open secret that had he permitted, John Mitchell might have had the nomination for the Vice Presidency of the United States on the Democratic ticket in 1908. He has to an extraordinary degree the power of seeing facts as facts, uncolored by bias, sympathy, or partisanship. Even more he has had the power to see not only his own side but the enemy's side of all dis- putes. It is this keenness of intellectual vision, this saneness of judgment and breadth of view, this recognition of fact and the necessity of being controlled by fact that have given John Mitchell the place he holds in the world of labor. Though sometimes dissatisfied with him because of what seems to many his over-conservatism, the majority of his followers, in their saner moments, have recognized him as their greatest leader. On the other hand, capital has been willing to treat with him because of his absolute honesty and his realization of fact and its place in all disputes. John Mitchell remains to-day the logical labor leader of the new regime. BIBLIOGRAPHY BOOK Organized Labor. By John Mitchell. PERIODICALS Dictation by the Unions. Independent, 54 :2228. Labor Leaders of To-day. By L. Steffens. McClure's 19:355. 324 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS The Leader and the Man. By E. C. Morris. Independent 54 :2073. The Man the Miners Trust. By W. B. Weyl. Outlook 82 :657. The Man Who Kept his Head. Current Literature 52:401. Sketch of John Mitchell. Outlook 71 :353. John R. Mott JOHN E. MOTT By William Waeebn Sweet THE scene is the main floor of the great gymnasium of the University of Pennsylvania on a certain winter's night some years ago. Gathered in that great room are perhaps two thousand men, students of the University. On the platform is seated the Provost, and by his side a tall, weU- built, smooth-faced, square-jawed man who glances quietly over that assembled multitude; and immediately one is im- pressed with the fact that he is in the presence of a master of men, one who can deal with and control difficult situations. And this impression grows when this man gets up to speak. There is no attempted oratory, no flowers of speech, hardly a gesture, and yet for over an hour those young men sit in abso- lute quietness, every eye directed toward the speaker's face, every mind intent upon the straightforward words that fall from his lips. And what is he talking about? Surely it must be something of unusual interest to young men to draw so many of them away from their books on a winter's night ! As one Hstens he soon finds that this is a religious leader, and that he is talking on a religious subject. For five nights in succes- sion that same square-jawed, square-headed, keen-eyed man addresses increasing numbers of students, in that same room, and if he should come back again to that same University he would get the same close attention, and be greeted with even larger crowds of students. Such is the power of the subject of this sketch. A Httle more than a month after the surrender of Lee at Ap- pomattox there was bom in the little town of Livingston Manor, New York, to a young couple by the name of Mott, a son, whom they called John. What a combination of names ! Livingstone, the hero of modern missions; John, called the Baptist, the forerunner of Christ, and John, the disciple ! It is fitting that these names be connected with this man Mott, for they all describe him. Has he not followed up the work 328 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS of Livingstone in Africa? And is he not also a worthy co- laborer with John the Baptist in preparing the way for Christian conquests, and with John the disciple 1 -^•^Tlpon his graduation from Cornell University in 1888, he immediately became secretary of the student department of the Young Men's Christian Association. His connection with student life has remained vital and important ever since. In the same year he also became chairman of the Executive Com- mittee of the Student Volunteer Movement, and it is in con- nection with this organization that John E. Mott has done his greatest work and has achieved his well deserved fame. In the year 1895 Mr. Mott became general secretary of the World's Student Christian Federation; three years later he was made secretary of the Foreign Department of the Inter- national Committee of the Young Men's Christian Associa- tion; and in 1901 he became associate general secretary of the International Committee. As we read of these positions they mean little to us, but the work that he has done, and still does, the influence he has wielded, and still wields, mean much to all who are interested in the progress of this old world. During the years 1895 to 1897 Mr. Mott toured the world in the interest of the Student Christian movement, and again in 1901 he made special tours to all parts of Europe, South Af- rica, South America, and Australia on a similar mission. The word "International" describes Mr. Mott; for he belongs to the world, and he is undoubtedly the best known figure in intellectual and Christian circles in the whole world. John "Wesley once said "The world is my parish," and that state- ment is also true of Mr. Mott. What has Mr. Mott done for the world that makes him an in- ternational figure ? First of all he has created a permanent Torce for the Christianization of the world in organizing the Student Volunteer Movement. This is an organization in the colleges and universities, made up of young men and women who have pledged themselves to enter the foreign mission field and who are training themselves for that purpose. As a result of this work five thousand, eight hundred and eighty- two of the brightest and best trained young men and women JOHN E. MOTT 329 that our universities and colleges turn out have been sent to the non-Christian lands, and there has thus been created an ever increasing army of occupation, which will eventually bring about the evangelization of the world. The movement spread to Great Britain, and over eighteen hundred Volun- teers from that country also have sailed for the field. Some one has characterized the foreign missionary work of former years as guerilla warfare: "A denomination in Europe or America sent out a few individuals to snatch souls as 'brands from the burning. ' They went to a pagan country, preached in the streets or in bazaars, organized little Zions among the •heathen masses, and counted it a joy if they won a score of converts in a lifetime. ' ' ^ But in recent years all this has been changed, and the change has come about very largely through the movement organized and perfected by the genius of John E. Mott. ' * To-day he is the field marshal of belligerent Chris- tendom, and nearly every section of the Christian Church ac- cepts his leadership. ' ' Another example of Mr. Mott's foresight and organizing genius is "The World's Student Christian Federation," an organization that has reached around the world and has branches in nearly every institution of higher learning in the world. The constitution states the purpose of this organiza- tion in the following words : "1. To unite students' Christian movements or organiza- tions throughout the world, and promote mutual relations among them. "2. To collect information regarding the religious condi- tion of the students of all lands, "3. To promote the following lines of activity: " (a) To lead students to accept the Christian faith in God — Father, Son and Holy Spirit, ac- cording to the Scriptures, and to live as true disciples of Jesus Christ. "(b) To deepen the spiritual life of students and to promote earnest study of the Scriptures among them. lOutlooTc, 99:751. 330 FAMOUS LIVING AMEEICANS "(c) To influence students to devote themselves to the extension of the Kingdom of Grod in their own nation and throughout the world. This organization numbers one hundred and fifty-six thous- and members, among whom are Chinese, Hindus, Japanese, Russians, and South Africans. What tremendous influence will go out from these organizations in the years to come! Many of these students will occupy positions of influence in business and government as well as in the Church, but what- ever they may be doing they will be known and recognized as Christians. What better plan could be devised to speed the Christianization of the world than to capture the student body of the universities of the world, and send them out to do the rest? ""^^nother international organization which owes its recent de- velopment largely to Mr. Mott's leadership is the Foreign De- partment of the International Young Men's Christian Asso- ciation, of which Mr. Mott is general secretary. In Asia alone there are over three hundred Associations, and these are be- ginning to exert an influence that is bound to bring about vast changes in the centers where they are planted. A few years ago Mr. Mott was in a hurry to raise a million dollars for some new buildings in the Far East, and Mr. Taft, who was then president, threw open the White House for a conference. A number of influential and wealthy men from all over the coun- try met Mr. Mott, and the desired amount was promptly raised and later doubled. He not only has the confidence of leading Americans, but he also enjoys the confidence of foreign governments and leading men of every race and clime. After the Boxer Eebellion of a few years ago, it was decided that the Chinese government should pay the United States an indemnity of several milhons of dollars. Part of this indemnity was, however, remitted by the United States government, and to show its appreciation of this act the Chinese government set apart the amount for the purpose of educating Chinese students in American universi- ties. Accordingly several hundreds of Chinese students were sent to America so that at present there are over one thous- JOHN R. MOTT 331 and here. Besides the Chinese Bureau which has its head- quarters at Washington, Dr. Mott also has taken much of the oversight of these students at the request of the Chinese gov- ernment. Mr. Mott believes that the inevitable result of Christianiz-'' ing the world will be the unifying of the churches. On this point hear what he himself has to say: "Just as war fuses together a great and complex nation, even its different and conflicting political parties, so a true and vivid conception of the vastness and difficulty of the undertaking of world con- quest for Christ will serve to draw his followers together. It is well that we recall that Christ has commanded us to give all men now living an adequate opportunity to know Him. He has called us to Christianize the races and nations in every de- partment of their life. He has summoned us to the recon- struction of the non-Christian world. It is His wish that the impact of the so-called Christian nations upon the non-Chris- tian world be Christianized. ' ' Under his leadership the work of coordinating the operations of the churches has gone for- ward with leaps and bounds. Within recent years Mr. Mott has won extraordinary dis- tinction as the presiding officer in a number of great conven- tions. Every four years the Student Volunteer Movement holds a convention at which representatives from practically all the colleges and universities in the United States and Can- ada meet together for counsel and inspiration. In 1906 there was a great gathering of this sort at Nashville, Tennessee, and four years later another such convention met at Rochester, New York. At these conventions nearly four thousand dele- gates represented seven hundred and thirty-five universities and colleges. Again in January, 1914, the greatest of all the gatherings of this movement met at Kansas City, Missouri. Over five thousand students were in attendance, and messages were read from England, Switzerland, Turkey, Russia, Japan, China, and South America. Prom China came a cablegram signed by C. T, Wang, former vice-president of the Chinese Senate, saying, "China choosing her destiny; why not make it Christ?" Turkey's message read, "Stricken Turkey realizes 332 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS greatest needs are moral. Undreamt-of possibilities challenge Christian workers to reveal upUf ting power of Christ. ' ' From Kiev, Russia, came this appeal: "Pray for tragic Russia." The volunteers of India cabled, ' ' India with thousands of col- lege students, at this juncture needs your help. ' ' In June, 1910, there was staged in Edinburgh, the gray old capital of Scotland, the most remarkable and significant gath- ering from the standpoint of missions that ever came together. "Thirteen hundred men from the ends of the earth" came to- gether there to plan and organize a campaign of world-wide scope for the Christianization of every nation. ' ' They were not ordinary men — every member of the assemblage had some achievement to his credit. Together they could have drawn a map of the world from first hand knowledge, and they repre- sented almost every shade of doctrine and Church government known to manj There were cabinet ministers and peers of the realm, Korean dignitaries, Hindu pundits with princely titles, Anglican archbishops and bishops, ex-governors of the British over-sea dominions, Japanese whose names are inseparable from the recent glory of Nippon, Chinese scholars, AustraUan officials, Americans of international renown, and representa- tives not only from each European nation, but from lands and islands of which the ordinary mortal has scarcely heard. (^ the left of the platform sat the archbishop of Canterbury ; on the right stood Lord Balfour of Burleigh, as the Herald of King George ; in the center, presiding with calm and dignified impartiality over the notable gathering, was a young Ameri- can layman, accorded the honor by unanimous acclamation, the most conspicuous figure in the hall — John R. Mott." ^ It is a difficult thing to follow John R. Mott as he goes about the world on his great mission. In the autumn of 1912, Mr. Mott, as Chairman of the Continuation Committee appointed by the Edinburgh World Missionary Conference, went on a tour in the Far East, spending seven weeks in the Indian Em- pire, six weeks in China, five days in Korea, and three weeks in Japan. To show the plan which he follows on such journeys I give a brief account of his stay in India. Sectional confer- ^OutlooJc, 99:749. JOHN E. MOTT 333 ences were held in six Indian cities, besides ia Rangoon, Bur- ma, and Colombo in Ceylon. In each center great meetings were also beld for students, the daylight hours, as a rule, be- ing devoted to the meetings of the conferences, and the even- ings to the student meetings. In Madras, for instance, five such meetings were conducted, and each night the hall where the meetings were held, which seated over two thousand, was filled to its capacity, while many were unable to enter. At these meetings in Madras over three hundred students signed cards expressing a desire to know more about the claims of Christ. These inquirers are to be placed in Bible classes, and the work followed up. In the conferences from fifty to sev- enty delegates, including Indians and foreigners, and repre- senting all the denominations, met together and discussed frankly the problems of their work, including such topics as cooperation, the Indian Church and India leadership. Chris- tian education and literature. We are told that one of the most notable consequences of these meetings was the closer fellowship among the Christian leaders of all denominations. About a year ago the newspapers informed us that Presi- dent-elect Woodrow Wilson was trying to persuade this great Christian statesman, John R. Mott, to be the next United States Minister to China. The people of the United States applauded the choice. In a few days, however, the papers re- ported that "Mott refuses the Chinese ambassadorship." We do not, of course, know the thoughts that went through the mind of Mr. Mott when this great and responsible post was offered him, but we can imagine that he said to himself, "Al- ready I have been given the post of ambassador of the Great King of Kings to the non-Christian peoples of the world, and I must be true to that mission." John R. Mott could not accept the post of Minister to China, for that would require him to give up a far larger and more important post. In 1911, Princeton University conferred the degree of Doc- tor of Laws upon Mr. Mott, following the example set by the University of Edinburgh the year previous. In conferring the degree the president of Princeton said: "John R. Mott, honored by academic and religious bodies for his services in 334 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS planning and extending the active Christian work of univer- sity students, deviser of national and international agencies for this work, particularly the World's Student Christian Fed- eration; presiding leader in the World's Missionary Confer- ence in Edinburgh in 1910 ; a traveler over four continents in search of room for work ; a man of buoyant energy, deep con- secration, astonishing success; a new crusader bent on the Christian conquest of the world. ' ' These words describe the work and the man. r= Moreover, Mr. Mott has found time in the very midst of his traveling and continuous speaking to write books. Strategic Points in the World's Conquest was the first to be published, appearing in 1897. In 1900, The Evangelization of the World in this Generation came from the press ; and what an influence that little book has had on Christian workers throughout the world I The very title has become the watch-word of the mil- itant forces of Christianity. The Pastor and Modern Mis- sions, a series of lectures delivered at Ohio Wesleyan Univer- sity, Yale Divinity School, MeCormick Theological Seminary, and Princeton Theological Seminary, was published in 1904. The book contains a mine of information and inspiration. Be- sides these books he has published numerous magazine articles and brochures. All of his publications are surcharged with the same deep earnestness, and are filled with the same straightforward, lucid, close-knit presentation of facts which characterize his spoken utterances. In the year 1915 Dr. Mott will have reached the half century mark and there will remain for him in all human probability, only a comparatively few years of active service, for his stren- uous life must soon begin to tell upon even his vigorous and athletic body. What will those years contain? No one can tell. But of this we can be sure, they will be spent in the high- est and best kind of service for his Master and for mankind. JOHN E. MOTT 335 BIBLIOGRAPHY PERIODICALS College Boys in Convention. Western Christian Advocate 80:2. John R. Mott. By Leslie G. Shannon. American 76 :29. John R. Mott. By Joseph H. OdelL Outlook 99 :749. John R. Mott in the Far East. Missionary Review of the World 36:364. Mott and Eddy among the Students of China. Missionary Review of the World 36:525. Work of Mott. Literary Digest 47 :110. JOHN B. MUEPHY By William Augustus Evans AS the ultimate end or life products of men are the results of many associated influences and energies, it is essen- tial in making a calculation of the importance of the various elements therein that we consider the heredity, the early environment, the necessity or choice of occupations and the energy expended in their attainment. The subject of this sketch was a descendant of sturdy im- migrants, who implanted themselves in the forest of Wiscon- sin, four miles west of Appleton, and endeavored to build a home and secure for their children the advantages which a new country offered to every line of human effort. In order to accomplish this it was necessary for these transplanted people to exercise a courage, an industry, a frugality, and in- tegrity of purpose, that good results might obtain. They soon recognized that the essentials to success in overcoming what would to us to-day seem to be insurmountable obstacles to the establishment of a home in the wilderness were continued labor, determination of purpose, husbandry of their small re- sources, and a confidence in the realization of future success, which never admitted of question. It was the conviction of this young couple in their pioneer home that indolence, and its companion, intemperance, were the most common barriers to the progress of the human race and the most frequent causes of failure, so that "work and total abstinence ' ' were dominant elements in their lives. They were insatiable readers and kept in close and intelligent touch with the progress of the times. These home influences could not fail to leave their impress on the character and intellects of their offspring. As the children attained a school age, the evening work at home was as accurate in its discipline and as exacting in its requirements as was their work at school. Inspiration and zest were added as the teacher of their country school usually Courtesy Matzene, Chicago JOHN B. MURPHY 339 lived with the family. The teachers were students in the Law- rence University at Appleton, Wis., four miles distant, and were working their way through college by teaching five days — returning to the university on Saturdays for recitation. The parents realized the value of education and often made use of this expression: "Education, my children, is not for the purpose of making an easier hving, but for the purpose of making labor more effectual and productive. If you are edu- cated there are no man's achievements which you cannot equal or excel, if you but have industry and integrity, and are tem- perate. ' ' When one considers the type of courage and work which was necessary to make a success of life for these immigrants, we might well say that all coveted attainments in modern life should easily be realized, but as his mother so frequently said, "They do not come by wishing but by working." Passing from the country school and the home to the city school gave to the youth a new horizon, broad and inspiring. How frequently he refers to the great influence teachers ex- ercise in shaping the destiny of their pupils ! In the Appleton Grammar School, he came under the personal supervision of Prof. R. H. Schmidt, who emigrated from Germany at the age of 17, having had but a meager grammar school education, and entered the Wisconsin State University at Madison, grad- uating with honors from the classic course at the age of 22. This man possessed an overpowering personahty. He was totally indifferent to form and heedless of conventionalities. He was a lover of truth, a lover of science, an exemplar of democracy in education. An indefatigable worker, there was no day or night too long for him to labor with his pupils ; he was no respecter of hours for labor: "Purposes and purposes attained" was his maxim. The establishment of the Friday evening debating or liter- ary society was a field in which his great influence was exerted. He attended the meetings regularly, he encouraged thorough investigation of the themes under discussion, he fostered re- search and guided the student in the best and most forceful means of presenting his subject to his audience. The disci- 340 FAMOUS LIVING AMEEICANS pline of this Friday evening debate Dr. Murphy has frequent- ly said exerted greater influence over his subsequent life than any other element in his early education. The association with Professor Schmidt lasted for six years; his students all respected and revered him. Then passing from the high school and its post-graduate work, again the in- dividuality of his teacher was felt. Prof. Walter S. Haines, the professor of chemistry in Eush Medical College, was his ideal medical teacher. He had the faculty of imparting knowl- edge in such a way that it was easily assimilated and perman- ently appropriated. He was precise as to detail, simple yet forceful in his demonstrations and exacting of the student in return, yet with a charming and attractive personality. One could not fail to be receptive, as the presentation was irresist- ible. Another of his teachers, almost diametrically opposite in his personality, was the later Prof. James Adams Allen. The keynote of his teaching was, "What is really the matter? What is back of the name? What is the real deviation from the physiologic condition which is called disease ? In other words, what is the internal disease that produces the external pre- sentations called symptoms?" The impression was left in every surgical student who sat within the hearing of Prof. Moses Gunn that he had an exact anatomic knowledge, that he knew the clinical course of sur- gical diseases and that prompt treatment was an absolute es- sential that best results might obtain. To use this able teach- er's expression : "If you are to be a success in surgery, you must be a minute gun. ' ' Dr. Murphy was next favored in a scientific way by his per- sonal and professional close relationship with the late Chris- tian Fenger, whom he considers the master American surgical mind of his time. Dr. Fenger 's early training had been of the most profound scientific type. His life was dominated by his love of science ; the application of it to the individual in a prac- tical way was merely an incident ; an opportunity for demon- strating its scientific value and truth. In his zeal he would forget his home, his family, and even his anesthetized patient JOHN B. MUEPHY 341 to pursue an idea or plan to its fruition. He was a teacher, a friend, and an inspiration to all true students. His influence for good was overpowering and lie exercised a greater force in the production of the present high standard of surgery and medicine in the middle west than any other man. In his early medical practice, Dr. Murphy fortunately be- came associated with a man of sterUng worth, Dr. Edward W. Lee, a graduate of the Medical Department of Dublin Uni- versity, a student, an active practitioner, possessed of the keenest sense of obligation to his patients' welfare, of a pro- found respect of the rights of others, with a type of integrity which no price could divert, even in thought. He had a most wholesome appreciation of the advantages which his adopted country afforded and was unfaltering in the fulfillment of his obhgations to its laws and customs. He used on many occa- sions the expression, * 'I would be abase ingrate if I were dis- loyal to any of the exactions of the Nation or State which afforded me such opportunities through its Constitution and Government." Individuality and integrity were the ideals of his existence. He never "worked. " The continued and con- scientious performance of his duties was an act of love, not labor. He was affectionate, generous, strong, and upright. The fifteen years' close professional association with this man was an enviable opportunity. Passing from the local to the world educational influence, three master teachers are constantly referred to by Dr. Mur- phy : Professor Bilroth of the Vienna Medical School, who in a few words and with a few strokes of crayon could express the cellular pathology of the disease under consideration in such a way that one appreciated from his lecture and the demonstration on the blackboard the microscopic changes in the tissue. He had the faculty of teaching surgery in its highest sense. In Berlin he attended the lectures of Professor Schroeder in the Frauen Klinik. He was a most forceful teacher, exact operator, inspiring lecturer and inquisitive investigator of the causes of disease in the individual. One could not leave his operating room without feeling that he was a part and parcel 342 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS of the proceedings of the day and that the knowledge dis- pensed therein was now his knowledge and available for prac- tical purposes. In pathology he was a pupil of Professor Arnold of Heidel- berg, who was capable of vivifying his cadavers, electrifying his pathologic tissues and illuminating his microscopic slides. The work of all of these teachers was carried on at a time when medicine was in the embryologic stage of its scientific evolution, when, in other words, its foimdation as a science was being laid. Its impetus was irresistible and the indi- vidual but a factor. Those who have lived during the last fifty years have par- ticipated in the most rapid advances that society has ever made. The rapid revolution has been universal. No field of human endeavor has failed to feel its impulse. But in in none has the change been greater nor the results more far- reaching than in medicine. This sketch has to do with the life of one of the men who have been forceful contributors to the changes that have been wrought in medicine and, through change in medical custom, in society at large. It is the story, so old in America, of a country boy, the son of immigrant parents, growing out of poverty and attaining great power by reason of great service. In 1879 medicine was a mystery science. The practitioners of medicine knew people well, they understood human nature, they knew disease as the patient described it, rather than as it was. They had a broad stock of general information. To their patients they were guides, counsellors, and friends in all the emergencies of life. In their service there was much of watchful waiting and but little of active interference. In the helpful, beautiful service they rendered they were nurses as much as physicians. In 1879 Virchow was in his prime. He was teaching that it was important to know disease as disease rather than as the symptoms expressed it. He was being listened to but it can scarcely be claimed that he was influencing the practice of medicine as it revealed itself in the daily work of the ordinary doctor. The patient was not getting the benefit. What Vir- JOHN B. MUEPHY 343 chow was teaching could not be said in 1879 to be for the people. The people were receiving services based upon the theorizing of the past which in turn had come out of the mys- ticism of a still earlier period. In 1879 Koch laid the foundation for bacteriology by per- fecting the methods of growing bacteria in the laboratory. It was in 1883 that Lister applied the truths of bacteriology to the everyday work of the surgeon. It was then that the sci- ences of bacteriology and pathology started on the road to- ward democracy. Within a few years they were being made use of in the everyday work of the everyday surgeon. John Benjamin Murphy began the study of medicine in 1876, graduated in 1879, finished his hospital service in 1880 and, in that year, began the private practice of surgery. He was taking up his life work in this period in which the founda- tion of modem medical science was being laid. He began his service just as the results of the preparatory work were be- ginning to flow into the daily life of the community. There are those who hold that Dr. Murphy's chief work has been as a research student, a discoverer and applier of new methods. There are others who hold that his great service has been as one who carried the revelations of science into the lives of the people. There have been hospitals for a thousand years more or less. Until 1880, however, the hospital developed along its medical side alone. The surgical wards were regarded as a menace. From them pus infections were constantly overflow- ing into the medical wards. A surgical ward was looked on much as a contagious disease ward is now regarded. What to do with infected wards was a great question — and all wards were infected. At that time surgery had but a limited field. Broken limbs were set, dislocated joints were reduced, maimed members were amputated, arteries were tied up — if they were outside of the body cavities. Generally speaking, surgery essayed to relieve certain conditions in the legs, arms, neck, and even in the trunk, provided it was not necessary to enter any body cavity to do so. 344 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS If the operative procedure required opening the abdominal cavity or the chest cavity or much work within the cranial cav- ity, the surgeon very wisely left it undone. The hazards were too great to commend such procedures to men of good judg- ment. The man who contracted appendicitis must die unless nature was able to wall off the pus sac and thus save him. When the pus cavities were walled off the man was saved by nature, not by the attending surgeon. If there was an in- testinal stricture or strangulation or perforation the person affected had to accept his outlook in a fatalistic spirit. How- ever much he pleaded with his surgeon for help his plea was unheeded. The surgeon dared not open up the abdominal cavity and subject it to infection. In heart and lung diseases the possibility of interference was even less. A pleura full of fluid might be drained or opened but not unless such conditions had arisen as made the operation one potentially on the outside of the chest cavity rather than within it. It is true that operations were done on the structures within the skull but they were not done except where some perforating wound or some infection had made the operation one of necessity rather than of choice. And probably this expression — "operations were of necessity" — describes the situation as well as it could be done in pages of type. When Virchow had laid down the laws of disease as such, the solid basis of fact; and Koch had developed bacteriology; when Lister had developed Koch's science and from it a sci- ence of antisepsis and asepsis and then had popularized it — the time had come to launch a new era of surgery. Theoretically, it was now safe to go into the body cavities. It was no longer good judgment to limit surgery to the arms, legs and neck. But men were timid. Some dared but many halted. They said asepsis might not work practically. The theory might be wrong. Daring was required. The daring required came naturally from America. The combination of daring, courage, common sense, and judgment was such as the American life of opportunity would develop in choice spirits. It was at this point that the surgeons of America began to be JOHN B. MURPHY 345 recognized as the leading spirits in the surgery of the world. Of the little band who carried this banner, none other was so frequent and so original a contributor as Murphy, the country boy from Wisconsin, who had had to fight his way upward. That the abdomen could be explored provided only it was found clean and kept clean was the first truth discovered by these men. But in the abdomen are to be found many differ- ent structures. It was determined early that some of these could be operated on with reasonable safety. Others tradi- tion held to be less amenable to handling. One by one these were studied and their surgery established. In this experi- mentation, trial, and demonstration, no man has done all the work. Every man has made use of the ideas of his co-workers in determining the natural next step. And yet in these ad- ventures of discovery, leadership is accorded to Murphy, by his fellow workers. An indirect effect of these improvements has been of great value to society. It was not feasible to go into the abdominal cavity until asepsis could be guaranteed. The operating room, of course, must be aseptic. Every process carried on therein must be controlled and kept constantly on a basis of asepsis. It followed naturally that the ward would be cleaned up. The result is that the surgical ward is now the cleanest ward in any hospital. The cleaner hospitals and the better general reputations which they now enjoy has greatly increased the use of the hospital and this in turn has multiplied their number. The hospital drains out of the home most of those who, through ill- ness, interfere seriously with the daily routine of the home. Having become cleaner the hospital is not in competition with the home. Undertaking to perfect methods so that surgical relief could be found for maladies of the organs within the body cavities, an unexpected result has followed. The cleaner methods re- sulted in clean operating rooms ; clean operating rooms were followed by clean surgical wards ; clean surgical wards have influenced the medical wards ; and the general reputation of 346 FAMOUS LIVING AMEEICANS hospitals has improved. In consequence there has come about a far-reaching effect. Forty years ago cities with less than fifty thousand inhab- itants were without hospitals. As surgery has never devel- oped apart from hospitals all such communities were without the service of resident surgeons. When there was need for surgical service the patient was carried a long distance to the surgeon or else the surgeon assembled an operative equip- ment, called together his assistants, and traveled to the pa- tient. For either of these methods time was required. In consequence, emergency surgery generally went unattended to or operation was done when the patient was in extremis. The methods of that day could not mean any sort of good results in suppurative appendicitis, gunshot wounds of the abdomen, strangulated hernia and a score of other conditions which these illustrations serve to bring to mind. At the present time even communities of five thousand in- habitants have their hospitals and resident surgeons. Rarely now do patients go to the city for emergency operations. The people are discovering that for such operations the local sur- geon in a position to operate quickly is more successful than the surgeon who comes out from the city and who therefore is some hours longer in rendering his service. In order that this epoch-marking change should have been possible several things were necessary. One of these was op- portunity for the training of surgeons. It was necessary to supplement the work of undergraduate colleges by the develop- ment of great surgical clinics, to which practitioners of med- icine might go and perfect themselves in surgical technique. There are no state-supported clinics for post-graduate in- struction in this country but for twenty years the Murphy clinic has had a daily attendance of a hundred or more. These men have come from all parts of the country. They have come without formality, remained as long as they cared to,, and, having seen at close range the methods employed, they have gone back home and made use of them in their local hos- pitals. Material for the maintenance of such a clinic is not enough. JOHN B. MURPHY 347 Well-equipped laboratories and libraries and assistants to make use of them are not enough. The surgeon must have diagnostic ability and technical skill, but, in order that the men in attendance may carry back home what was shown in the clinic, he must also have teaching ability. No one can teach unless he has personality. For teaching ability there must also be thorough informa- tion on his subject. This must include a knowledge of what has been written and judgment as to the values of the con- tributions of others. It also embraces knowledge of the field operated on and the meaning of pictures there portrayed. For want of a better term we say the surgeon to have teach- ing abihty must have "surgical sense." By surgical sense is meant knowledge of the field in question, judgment in inter- preting conditions, common sense, and a capacity for sensing, for wisely guessing, that which is beyond demonstration or proof. The teaching surgeon must analyze accurately, must be log- ical as well as forceful, must be positive, dogmatic and asser- tive. He must have the capacity of coordinating his muscles, of judging situations and, simultaneously, of telling the stu- dent of what is being done in a way that will react in the mind of that student. The great teaching surgeon of this day is John B. Murphy. Through the influence of the surgical clinics of which the one at Mercy Hospital has been a leader, the small towns and cities have their hospitals in which the work is done by resident sur- geons. In lieu of the few of former days there are now thou- sands of hospitals and tens of thousands of surgeons. In consequence no longer are sufferers with emergency condi- tions dragged long distances on trains. The entire machinery of surgery has changed. The surgical customs of the people have changed. The result is due to the building by Murphy and the men of his group on the foundation laid by Koch and Lister and men of their groups. The medicine of the future will concern itself principally with human efficiency. Physicians will be efficiency engineers. Service will continue to be rendered in curing developed dis- 348 FAMOUS LIVING AMEBICANS orders. However, many diseases now prevalent will be rare or will have disappeared entirely. The curative side of medi- cine will grow but it will develop in a collective way, and pre- ventive niedicine will be less wasteful of time and service than curative medicine is and has been. The great use of the vastly improved service by physi- cians in the future will be in increasing the efficiency of the human machine. The men of the next generation who find themselves incapacitated to some degree by some physical dis- ability, so far from being content to work at low efficiency, will demand that their medical servitors remedy the disability. Much of this work will be surgical. Surgery of that type is known as surgery of election. For it, sickness is not the im- pelling cause. Death does not stare the patient in the face. The operations are undergone because the parties are dissat- isfied with their inefficiency. Knowing the possibilities by reason of the state of the art, they elect to undergo the opera- tions required. The most recent surgical proposal made by Dr. Murphy is a group of methods for the restoration of the function of joints and the replacement of diseased and lost bones. In the olden days, John, crippled or lame, ambled through life as best he could. He was as efficient as a crippled man could be but still his efficiency was the efficiency of a crippled man. "Is John a capable man?" the neighbor was asked. "Oh, yes, as cripples go," he replied. John understood, but what could he do? He went to the surgeon for relief from his stiff hip or to have a new piece of bone put in to straighten his spine, but the surgeon declined to undertake the work. Why? The first essential — certain asepsis — could not be guaranteed. The years to come will witness a procession of people seek- ing the operating room as a means of increasing efficiency. The stiff-limbed, the lame, and the hunchback are the forerun- ners of this procession. This group of operative procedures, in that they pioneer the field wherein the surgery of the fu- ture is to be chiefly developed, earn for the man who has de- veloped them the right to the regard of his fellows. There are those who say that operations on bones and joints JOHN B. MUEPHY 349 will never come witMn reacli of surgeons generally. They say that the operations are technically difficult, that they re- quire a degree of asepsis not attainable in country hospitals, and that the after treatment is too complicated and too pro- longed to make it possible for the general run of surgeons to enter this field. In this the objectors lose sight of the trend of the times. The characteristic contribution of Dr. Murphy to surgery has been a simplicity of method that brings opera- tive procedure within the range of the country surgeon's technical skill. As a result, the surgeon in the smaller com- munity is growing more skilful and the standards of asepsis of the small town hospitals are becoming higher year by year. The massage and manipulation required in the after care will be given by men trained for it as the demand for their service grows. The first campaign conducted by Dr. Murphy was for early operation in appendicitis. To operate in appendicitis could not even be proposed until the preliminary work in pathology and bacteriology had been done. It could not be advised un- til the development of asepsis had made operations on the . abdominal organs possible. After this stage had been reached Dr. Murphy saw that the key to the appendicitis situation was early operation. He threw his dominating personality into a campaign of education addressed to the profession and to the laity as well. As the result of that campaign the people are well informed. As to the significance of the symptoms of ap- pendicitis, the physicians are accustomed to early diagnosis, and early operation is the rule. While he contributed to our knowledge of the pathology of appendicitis and improved the technique of operation on the appendix, his great service lay in changing the popular cus- tom. Twenty-five years ago the man with an intestinal per- foration was in a hopeless situation. The operation used to require from one to four hours for its performance. The tech- nical skill required for such an operation was beyond any ex- cept the best trained surgeons. As such operations are those of emergency it followed that a large portion of those having wounds of the intestines, strangulations with gangrene, in- 350 FAMOUS LIVING AMEEICAl^S testinal and gall bladder perforations, could not get tlie op- portunity for life held out by operative procedure. To meet this situation Dr. Murphy devised an anatomical button which was so simple and so easy to use, that at once the custom of immediate operation on proper cases by the surgeon at hand was established. If there is one outstanding quality of the Murphy procedures it is on simplifying procedures so that they become available for a larger number of people through the service of local surgeons. This principle is easier under- stood in the case of the button than in any other of his con- tributions. In the Surgery of the Lungs, Experimental and Clinical.^ he recounted his experience with a method which he had devised for the treatment of tuberculosis. There are two underlying principles of the method. The lung has difficulty in healing a tubercular cavity because it cannot drain readily. By com- pressing the lung by means of nitrogen gas introduced into the pleural cavity all abscesses are emptied and the abscess cavities are obliterated by adhesions found between the col- lapsed walls. The second principle is that an organ at rest is in the best possible condition for repair. The point in this connection which must not be missed is that the operation suggested by Murphy is so simple as scarcely to be considered a surgical procedure. In fact it is the attending physicians and tuber- culosis specialists who are now giving to the consumptives the advantage offered by this operation. Partaking of the same qualities are two other procedures. The one is that, where the peritoneum is to absorb a good deal of exuded material, the area of preference for its absorption is within the pelvis. With this is the recommendation that in the after care of such cases the patients be kept propped up in bed. The other is that, when much absorption is taking place, the kidneys be stimulated to work at full capacity by the continuous introduction into the bowel of a saline solution. To make this possible Murphy devised a method having all the 1 Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol. 31. JOHN B. MUEPHY 351 characteristics of all his recommendations in other lines — simplicity. No man has rendered direct surgical service to more people than has Dr. Murphy. In this service he has displayed com- mon sense, mechanical genius, good judgment, knowledge of his science, technical skill, surgical sense, executive abiKty, courage, and daring. Because of these qualities he has been for forty years one of America's busiest surgeons. The esteem of his fellow men could well be rested on the basis of this ser- vice. In making up an estimate of Dr. Murphy, however, much more must be put to his credit. He has had a unique part in changing the surgery of forty years ago into the surgery of to- day, in the development of new surgical fields, in the broad- ening of the influence of the hospital, in the multiplication of surgeons in small communities, and in the promotion of hu- man efficiency through surgery. Largely through his influ- ence surgery has been made available for all those who have needed it. He has made it democratic. He has visioned the future and, having seen, has led both his profession and the people into the new ways. He has weighed conditions with careful judgment and, having determined the natural next step, he has had the courage required to make the advance. John Benjamin Murphy was born in Appleton, Wis., Dec. 21, 1857, the son of Michael and Ann (Grimes) Murphy. He studied in the public schools of Appleton, graduating from the high school. As a youth John B. Murphy worked on his father's farm. Much of his tireless energy, endurance, and physical strength can be attributed to the outdoor work of that period of his life. He began the study of medicine under Dr. John E. Eeilly of Appleton, as preceptor. Graduating with the degree of M. D. from Eush Medical College in 1879, he entered at once on his service as interne at Cook County Hospital and re- ceived Ms certificate from the Hospital in 1880. In the same year Dr. Murphy began the practice of medi- cine and surgery associated with Dr. Edward W. Lee, one of the attending surgeons at Cook County Hospital. From Sep- 352 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS tember, 1882, to April, 1884, he stuudied surgery in European hospitals. He married Miss Jeannette C. Plamondon in 1885. Mrs. Murphy has always talsen the keenest interest in all of his scientific work and has been a great stimulus, as well as factor, in his undertakings. His first teaching position was instructor in surgery in Eush Medical College in 1884. He next filled the position of pro- fessor of surgery in the College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1892. For two sessions he was professor of surgery and co-head of the department in Eush Medical College. For the last fourteen years, with the exception of the three years (1905-1908) at Eush, he has been head of the department of surgery at Northwestern University Medical School. For more than thirty years he has been attending and consulting surgeon at Alexian Brothers ' Hospital, and is now consulting surgeon for that hospital, as well as for St. Joseph's Hospital, Columbus Hospital, and the Hospital for Crippled Children, He is now attending surgeon and chief of staff at Mercy Hos- pital. In 1902, the University of Notre Dame gave him the Laetare medal. In 1905, the University of Illinois gave him the de- gree of LL.D. ; in 1908, the University of Sheffield, Eng., the degree of D. Sc. The Degree of A. M. was conferred on him by St. Ignatius College. He is a life member of the Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Chirurgie, an honorary member of the So- ciete Chirurgical de Paris, an honorary fellow of the Eoyal College of Surgeons of England, and a charter member of the American College of Surgeons. He has been president of the American Association of Eailway Surgeons, the Chicago Med- ical Society, the American Medical Association, and the Clini- cal Congress of Surgeons of North America. PARTIAL LIST OF THE WRITINGS OF DR. J. B. MURPHY Cholecysto-Intestmal, Gastro-Intestinal, Entero-Intestinal Anasto- mosis and Approximation without Suture, Med. Record, 1892, xlii. Ileus, the Journal A. M. A., 1896, xxvi. Surgery of Arteries and Veins Injured in Continuity, Gomptes-Ben- dus du Congres International de Medecine, August, 1897. JOHN B. MURPHY 353 Surgery of the Lungs, The Journal A. M. A., July 23 and 30 and August 6 and 13, 1898. Two Thousand Operations for Appendicitis; With Deductions from Personal Experience, Am. Jour. Med. Sc, August, 1904. Ankylosis; Arthroplasty, Clinical and Experimental, The Journal A. M. A., May 20 and 27, and June 3, 1905. Perityphlitis (appendicitis). Early Operation on; read in 1889; pub- lished Feb. 26, 1890. Neurological Surgery, Surg., Gynec. and Obst., April, 1907. Proctoclysis in the Treatment of Peritonitis (the Murphy Drip), The Journal A. M. A., April 17, 1909. Removal of an Embolus from the Conunon Iliac Artery, with Reestab- lishment of Circulation to the Femoral, The Journal A. M. A., May 22, 1909. Organized Medicine; Its Influence and Its Obligations, The Journal A. M. A., June, 1911. General Surgery, Volume II, of the Practical Medicine Series, pub- lished by the Year Book Publishing Co., Chicago, 1911. The Surgical Clinics of John B. Murphy, M. D., published bi-month- ly by W. B. Saunders Co., Philadelphia. BIBLIOGRAPHY BOOKS Doctor's Who's Who, p. 170. (Saalfleld.) By Charles Wells Moulton. International Clinics, 12th Series, ii, p. 247. (Lippincott.) By Guy C. Hinsdale. PERIODICAL Advance of Surgery. By I. F. Marcosson. il/wnset/'s 48:738. ROBERT E. PEARY By Minnie Peey Kkotts FROM the frozen north, on a September day in 1909, came tidings which brought joy and satisfaction to the hearts of the American people. The wireless station at Indian Harbor flashed through the crisp Labrador air this message, "Stars and Stripes nailed to the North Pole." Myths both curious and absurd, speculations savoring of the truth, and hopes held for centuries by nearly all civilized nations had given place to realization. The American flag floated over the coveted goal. An American had placed it there. Robert E. Peary says: "I have always been proud that I was bom an American, but never so proud as when on that biting, sunlit Arctic day I saw the Stars and Stripes wav- ing at the apex of the earth, and told myself that an American had set 'Old Glory' there. As I watched it fluttering in the crisp air of the Pole, I thought of the twenty-three years of my own life which had been spent in laboring toward that goal, and realized that at last I had made good ; that I could now lay at the feet of my country a trophy which the greatest nations of the world had been struggling to attain for nearly four hundred years." The price of victory is hardship and pain. This American had paid it in twenty-three years of struggle with cold and hunger, the blinding snow and light of the Arctic region, brute hard labor, and the awful uncertainty of the great, white, treacherous ice. On the sixth of May, 1856, a son, Robert Edwin, was bom to Charles N. and Mary (Wiley) Peary at Cresson, Pennsyl- vania. His ancestors were an old family of Maine lumbermen of French and Anglo-Saxon blood. One writer has said of him: "This ancestry explains the man, for he is a compound of fiery French imagination and icy Anglo-Saxon firmness. The former quality enabled him to see the vision of the unknown 1 ^^>^ *v-"r^'fc^* liStof 1 ■ ■ W ^ ^M^^^J |1 IH m ^'-■1 innii 1 ;;-^ s ^1 >v 1 1 1 1 Copyright Harris d- Ewiitg, Washinf/ton, D. G. ^*h-r-^v^ ^^ ROBEET E. PEARY 357 northern point of the earth; the latter quality enabled him to reach it." When Robert was only three years old his father died and his mother returned to Portland, Maine. Here he spent his youth. With woods and fields near at hand he became an explorer of the hills and forest. He was a steady shot and swam and rowed the "wild waters of Casco Bay." He was a natural boy, not precocious or unusual except that he was singularly thorough and persevering in what he attempted. The saying that every great man had a great mother is al- most proverbial and was true in Peary's case. Mary Wiley Peary was a wonderful mother. She went to college with her son and was his chum and most intimate, confidential friend. Perhaps it was this association which developed the unfailing consideration for others, the gentleness, and the patience which Peary's co-workers often mention as his chief charac- teristics. His helpers all agree in the sentiment expressed by one of them who said: "In all the years I have worked for Commander Peary I have never heard him speak an im- patient word to any living thing." He graduated at the age of twenty-one from Bowdoin Col- lege, ranking second in a class of fifty-one. After graduation he became a land surveyor and in 1879 was given a position in Washington on the Coast and G-eodetic Survey. After two years of service he began energetic preparation for a competi- tive examination soon to be given by the navy department for the admission of civil engineers. Forty men took this examination but only four passed, and Robert E. Peary was the youngest of the four. He was appointed a member of the navy department with the rank of lieutenant. During his first year's service he was asked to report on plans for a pier at Key West, Florida, which the contractors said could not be built at the estimated cost. He reported that it could be built for twenty-five thousand dollars less than the estimate and was instructed to build it. Though failure had been predicted he finished the work at a saving of thirty- thousand dollars below the first estimate. He was then sent to Nicaragua as sub-chief of the Inter- 358 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS Oceanic Canal Survey. Here he acquired experience in deal- ing with, half-civilized men and in taking care of himself in hostile environments, both of which were invaluable later on. One evening, in 1885, while visiting an old book store in Washington he found a paper on the Inland Ice of Greenland. He was intensely interested and read all he could on the sub- ject. He was impressed by the conflicting experiences of the various explorers and felt that he must see for himself what the truth was of this mysterious place. In 1886 he obtained a short leave of absence from the navy and went to Greenland. It was during this cruise Peary says, "I caught the Arctic fever, from which I have never recov- ered." Although his stay in Greenland was brief he succeed- ed in penetrating the real interior plateau farther than any white man had gone before. His report of the cruise attracted the attention of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences, and this organization paid a part of the expenses of a second trip in 1891-92. In 1888 Robert E. Peary married Josephine Diebitsch of Washington, D, C, a woman wonderfully well adapted for the wife of an explorer. On his second voyage to Greenland, in 1891, Mrs. Peary accompanied him. Mr. Peary says : "Pos- sessed of health, youth, energy and enthusiastic interest in the work, she saw no reason why she could not endure condi- tions and environment similar to those in which Danish wives in Greenland pass years of their lives. I concurred in this opinion, and believed that in many ways her presence and assistance would contribute to the valuable results of the ex- pedition, as they were invaluable to me in the preparation. Events proved the entire correctness of this belief." Peary remained in Northern Greenland thirteen months during which time he made a twelve-hundred-mile sledge trip across the great ice cap, discovered Independence Bay, attained 81° 37' North latitude, and determined the insularity of Greenland. In 1893, Peary went north again and remained twenty-five months. Mrs. Peary accompanied him on this trip also, and during their sojourn in Greenland their eldest child was bom, Marie Ahnighito, the famous "snow baby," the most north- ROBERT E. PEARY 359 erly bom of all white children. During this expedition he took a second twelve-hundred-mile sledge journey, made a thor- ough study of the Whale Sound natives, made a detailed sur- vey of that region, and discovered the famous Cape-York meteorites, two of which he brought home with him. The persistent question of money has been a serious hand- icap to Peary's work. He furnished most of it himself until the necessary amounts were beyond the savings of a naval ofl&cer's pay. The department could grant him leave of ab- sence but not ships nor tons of food and other equipment. Most of the work of raising funds has been done by the ex- plorer himself. When he still lacked a few thousand for the expedition of 1893 he took the lecture platform and delivered one hundred and sixty-eight lectures in ninety-six days, mak- ing about $13,000. The arctic region has not been his only field of hard work. In 1896-97 Peary made another voyage to Greenland and brought back the greatest of the Cape-York meteorites, which was named Ahnighito. This meteorite weighs ninety tons and the transfer from its frozen bed to the hold of his ship, the Eope, was a piece of great engineering labor. The great mass now rests in the Museum of Natural History in New York City. Peary's next Northern expedition embraced the four years from 1898 to 1902. This journey was made chiefly for the attainment of the North Pole. It was the first expedition of the Peary Arctic Club, whose president, Morris K. Jessup, and others contributed a large amount of the necessary funds. Through the persistent effort of friends the Navy Department granted Peary a five years' leave of absence to carry out his plans. It was on this expedition that in January, 1899, both of Peary's feet were frozen and the amputation of seven toes was necessary. In 1900 he discovered the northernmost land in the world and named it for the president of the Peary Arctic Club, Cape Morris K. Jessup. In 1901 he started for the Pole but was compelled to turn back on account of the poor condition of his men and dogs. In 1902 he started again, reaching 84° and 360 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS 17'. But the worst ice he had ever encountered, together with heavy fogs and storms, prevented his reaching the goal on this trip. When he was compelled to turn back, three hundred and forty-three miles from the Pole, he wrote in his journal: ' ' The game is off. My dream of sixteen years is ended. I have made the best fight I knew. I believe it has been a good one. But I cannot accomplish the impossible. ' ' In 1902 Peary came home but the game was not off. As he himself once said, "The true explorer does his work not for any hope of reward or honor, but because the thing he has set himself to do is a part of his being." For the expedition of 1905 contributions from many persons made it possible to have a boat built which would be better adapted to his needs than any he had used before. It was named the Roosevelt and was driven to Cape Sheridan 82° and 30' North latitude, farther than any vessel had ever gone. From this point they pushed northward. More eager than ever to reach the goal, Peary wrote : "At night I can hardly sleep waiting for the dogs to get rested sufficiently to start again. Then I think what will be the effect, if some insuperable obstacle, open water, absolutely impossible ice, or an enormous fall of snow knocks me out now? Will it break my heart or will it simply numb me into insensibility?" A season of unusually violent winds broke the ice, separat- ing Peary from his supporting parties with so small an amount of supplies that when almost within the reach of suc- cess it was necessary to retreat because of the peril of starv- ation. "After a heart-breaking fight with the ice, the open water and storms," he was obliged to turn back from 87° and 6' North because his food supply would carry him no farther. Then on their return came the "big lead" (a lane of open water), half a mile wide when they first saw it. Delayed for days and compelled to eat their dogs, it was with joy they at last found a coating of young ice extending across the lead — now two miles wide — which might bear them on snow shoes. If not now, never. They made the start, the ice undulated under their feet but the other side was gained. Turning they EGBERT E. PEARY 361 saw a narrow, dark line of water dividing the frail ice they had just crossed. Peary had reached 87° and 6', the "far- thest North" of any one at that time. But he says, * ' The mere writing of a name a little higher up has never had any attrac- tion for me. I could not be content without the full and final accomplishment of the work." Preparations for an eighth and final expedition were merely a matter of finance. He had the ship, the men, the knowledge, and the experience — but Morris K. Jessup was dead. But Mrs. Jessup had not forgotten her husband's interest and sent a munificent check. Another friend of the cause gave ten thousand dollars and promised more should it be needed. At last an amount was secured which, economically and wisely spent, purchased the necessary supplies and equipment. Peary was extremely fortunate in the personnel of this last and successful expedition, for in choosing the men he had the members of the previous expeditions to draw from. First, and most valuable of all, was Robert A. Bartlett, master of the Roosevelt. Matthew A. Henson, Peary's negro assistant, had been with him, in one capacity or another, since the trip to Nicaragua in 1887. He had accompanied Peary on all of his northern expeditions, except the first, in 1886, and almost without exception on each of the "farthest" sledge trips. Ross G. Marvin, of Cornell University, who had accompanied Peary before, went with him again as secretary and assistant. George A. Wardwell, the chief engineer, and Percy, the stew- ard, had both accompanied Peary before. Dr. J. "W. G-oodsell, of New Kensington, Pennsylvania, was made surgeon, while Mr. Donald B. MacMillau, of Worcester Academy, and Mr. George Borup were added as members of the last expedition. To Captain Bartlett, Peary left the selection of his officers and men, with the single exception of the chief engineer. On the afternoon of July 6, 1908, from the pier at the foot of East Twenty-fourth Street, New York, the Roosevelt steamed North again on the last expedition. Cheers from the multitude who had gathered to see her oif and the whistles of the boats, the power-houses, and the factories, made the air resound with an expression of good wishes. Just before 362 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS reaching the Stepping Stone Light, Mr. and Mrs. Peary, and members and guests of the Peary Arctic Club transferred to a tug and returned to New York. Mr. and Mrs. Peary re- joined the ship at Oyster Bay. They were accompanied on board by President and Mrs. Eoosevelt. The president in- spected every part of the ship and shook hands with all aboard. As he was going over the rail Peary said to him, "Mr. Pres- ident, I shall put into this effort everything there is in me — physical, mental, and moral." The president replied: *'I believe in you, Peary, and I be- lieve in your success — if it is within the possibility of man." At Sidney, Cape Breton, the ship filled with coal. Outside the harbor Mrs. Peary, the children and two or three friends were transferred to a tug. On the west coast of Northern Greenland, midway between Kane Basin and Melville Bay, is a little oasis amid a wilder- ness of ice and snow. Here with animal and vegetable life in plenty a little tribe of Eskimos make their home. It is about two thousand miles from New York City, as the bird flies, and about six hundred miles north of the Arctic circle, or half way between that line and the Pole. Here the Roosevelt picked up the little dwellers of the frigid zone who were to help in the struggle farther north. These people were Peary's friends. For eighteen years he had known them and was regarded by them as friend and bene- factor. He had earned their gratitude by furnishing them supplies when starvation stared them in the face. He had left implements for hunting and utensils for work which made them better able to protect themselves against the rigors of the North. Nearly three weeks were spent in the Cape York-Etah re- gion in selecting Eskimos to accompany the expedition, and in purchasing dogs, furs, and other items of equipment. The "buying" was really bartering. Peary had lumber, knives, cooking utensils, matches, etc., which the Eskimos needed, and the Eskimos had dogs and supplies which Peary needed. The members of the ship 's party included at starting a total of twenty-two men. When Peary steamed out of Etah there ROBERT E. PEARY 363 were on board twenty-two Eskimo men, seventeen women, ten children, two hundred and forty-six dogs, and forty-odd wal- rus. Two of the ship's party had been left in charge of a reUef station. After struggle with the ice and violent winds in which the ship received some injury, the Roosevelt was forced into shallow water close to the delta point of the Sheridan River and near the place Peary had chosen for win- ter quarters on his previous trip. At once the transportation of supplies westward to Cape Columbia was begun. This work, alternated with hunting, occupied the time until No- vember. The winter months were occupied on board ship by making the equipment, clothing, harness, sledges, etc. During the moonlight period in each month, some time was spent hunt- ing, taking observations, and carrying supplies to Cape Co- lumbia. On the last day of February, Bartlett got away from Cape Columbia due north over the frozen sea with his pioneer division. On March first the remainder of the party followed the pioneer trail, with Peary leaving an hour later. The party now consisted of seven members of the expedition, seventeen Eskimos, one hundred and thirty-three dogs and nineteen sledges. It was the plan to have Captain Bartlett 's division pioneer the road and keep one day ahead of the main party. This division comprised Bartlett and three Eskimos with one sledge and team of dogs and carried their own gear and five days' supplies for the division. The second division, Borup's, included himself and three Eskimos, four sledges and dog teams. He was to accompany Bartlett for three marches and cache his loads and one sledge where he left Bartlett on the line of march. Then he was to hurry back to Cape Columbia in one march with light sledges, reload and overtake the main party. Without the system of relay parties it would be a physical impossibility for any man to reach the North Pole and return to tell the story : first, because a single division either large or 364 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS small could not possibly drag all the way to the Pole and back (nine hundred miles) the necessary amount of food and liquid fuel for men and dogs. Second, divisions must succeed each other in the hard work of trail-breaking for the first two-thirds of the distance in order to save the strength of the main party for its final dash. Third, when the supplies of one sledge after another have been consumed, the drivers of these sledges and the dogs are superfluous mouths to be fed from the scant supply being dragged northward. Fourth, each division being a unit it can be withdrawn with- out affecting the main party ; and Fifth, at the very end, when the supporting parties have performed their important part of trail-breaking and carrying suppUes, the main party, for the final dash, must be small and well selected, as a small party can travel much faster than a large one. One of the important features of this plan is that the suc- cession of returning parties keep the trail open for a rapid return of the main party. The second day out the first real obstacle was met. When three-quarters of the march was made a dark, ominous cloud was observed on the northern horizon. This always means open water. Soon a lead appeared. There was nothing to do but camp. The necessary igloos were constructed and all went to rest. Very early the next morning the grinding of the ice indicated that the lead was crushing together and the party got away. On the fourth day out Peary met an Eskimo with a note from Captain Bartlett saying that the captain was in camp about a mile farther on, held by open water. Pushing on, Peary soon reached the Bartlett camp and saw the unwelcome sight — a great, white expanse of ice cut by a river of inky black water, throwing off dense clouds of vapor. They were now forty-five miles north of Cape Columbia. One, two, three, four, five days they waited and still this river "Styx" spread before them. The temperature had risen as high as minus 5°. Peary ROBERT E. PEARY 365 paced back and forth, deploring the luck which prevented their progress when everything else was favorable. The lead con- tinued to widen. The Eskimos began to get nervous. Two of the older men came to Peary and complained of being sick. But he knew it was only an excuse and told them to go back to land as quickly as possible. On the tenth day the young (freshly frozen) ice began to appear on the lead, and on the eleventh they got away again. Sometimes the movement of the tide caused the ice to "rafter." The grinding, groaning, and creaking, as the pieces of ice crunched together often kept up all night — not a soothing lullaby. Beyond the big lead one supporting party, under Dr. Good- sell, returned to land. They were accompanied by MacMillan who must turn back on account of a frosted heel. Late that same afternoon there were rumblings and loud reports among the floes. Soon an active lead cut the path of the explorers. They followed it until they came to a place where there were many pieces of floating ice some fifty or one hundred feet across. They got the dogs and sledges from one piece to another, using the ice much as a pontoon bridge. As Borup was getting his team across, the dogs slipped and went into the water. Leaping forward, this young athlete stopped the sledge from following the dogs, and catching hold of the traces that fastened them to the sledge, he pulled them bodily out of the water. A man less quick and less muscular than Borup might have lost the whole team as well as the sledge laden with five hundred pounds of supplies, which, far out in that icy wilderness, were worth more than their weight in diamonds. Five marches farther on, the second supporting party re- turned, under the leadership of Borup who had also frosted a heel. Captain Bartlett went to the front again with Henson's division. While the pioneer party marched, the main party slept, and vice versa. After three more marches, Marvin, with the third support- ing party, turned back, March twenty-sixth. After bidding 366 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS Mm good-bye, Peary's last words were, *'Be careful of the leads, my boy." On March 29th, the main party overtook Bartlett's camp close beside a wide lead. In order not to disturb Bartlett, the main party camped a hundred yards distant, made their igloos as quickly as possible, ate their supper and turned in. All the next day they waited beside the open lead. On the second morning the temperature had gone down to minus 30°, with a bitter northwest wind. The lead was closed. They rushed across the ice and all day the whole party travelled together. The next march was to be Bartlett's last before turning back, and he did his best. The wind blew strongly from the north, full in their faces, but they struggled against it with a degree of happiness, for it was closing the leads behind, which would make it easier for Bartlett on the back trail. Peary and Bartlett walked together the last few miles. Bartlett was very sober and anxious to go farther. But the plan had been agreed upon and there were not sufficient sup- plies to increase the main party. The next morning Bartlett walked five or six miles north to make sure of reaching the 88th parallel. On his return he took an observation, getting 87° and 46' and 49", which showed that the continued north wind had drifted the ice south, thus robbing them of a few hard-earned miles. Even with his five-mile march Bartlett had missed the 88th parallel by a short distance. Though Peary would have been glad to take Bartlett on with him it was impossible. It was necessary for a supporting party to return from this point. So April first Bartlett started south over the back trail. Peary together with his negro assistant. Matt Henson, and four Eskimos were left one hundred and thirty -three nautical miles from the Pole. They had five sledges and forty splendid dogs and sufficient supplies for the calculated time. All were in good condition and ready for the final lap of the journey. Peary selected Henson for his fellow traveler to the Pole itself because he had always accompanied the explorer to his ' ' farthest North. ' ' In addition, Henson, with years of Arctic ROBEET E. PEARY 367 experience, was almost as skilful as an Eskimo with dogs and sledges. The two divisions now left pushed forward. Even the Eskimos were eager and interested. The weather was favor- able, and on April fourth they travelled ten hours and twenty- five miles were covered. The bitter wind burned their faces so they cracked. The Eskimos complained of their noses, which Peary had never heard them do before. At the camp, on April fifth, the party took more sleep than for several days. But before midnight of the fifth they started on the fifth march, which Peary had calculated in advance would bring them to the goal. This last march ended at ten o'clock on the forenoon of April sixth. They went into camp and Peary made an ob- servation which indicated their position as 89° and 57'. They were at the end of their long journey, yet, with the Pole act- ually in sight, Peary was too weary with the accumulated wear- iness of all those days and nights of forced marches to take the last few steps. As soon as the igloos were completed, dinner was eaten, the dogs double rationed, and Peary turned in. Weary though he was, he awoke a few hours later. The first thing he did on awaking was to write in his diary, "The Pole at last. The prize of three centuries. My dream and goal for twenty years. Mine at last ! I cannot bring my- self to realize it. It seems all so simple and commonplace." Then a light sledge was made ready, carrying only the in- struments for an observation, a tin of pemmican and one or two skins. The party travelled an estimated distance of ten miles and secured a series of observations indicating that their position was beyond the Pole. During the last few hours they had passed from the eastern to the western hemisphere across the summit of the world. To reach camp they must go north again for a few miles and then south, though all the time travelling in the same direction. There were some ceremonies connected with the arrival at their diflScult destination. Five flags were planted at the top of the world. The first one was a silk American flag given by Mrs. Peary fifteen years before and worn by Peary wrapped 368 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS about his body on every one of his successive expeditions North. He had always left a fragment of it at his "farthest North" points. The others were the colors of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fra- ternity, of which he was a menaber while at Bowdoin College; the "World's Ensign of Liberty and Peace"; the Navy League flag; and the Red Cross flag. After these flags had been planted, Peary told Henson to time the Eskimos for three rousing cheers, which they gave with a will, and Peary shook hands with each member of the party. Then, in a space between the ice blocks of a pressure ridge, Peary placed a glass bottle containing a strip of his flag and some records. After thirty hours at the Pole, busy with marching, counter- marching, making observations and records, they found them- selves too restless to sleep, and at four o'clock on the after- noon of April seventh they turned their backs upon the camp at the North Pole. Often, in Arctic work, the return journey is more serious than the advance. The vital thing is to keep and use the outward trail. Tired as they were, they must reach land before the next full moon with its "spring" tides which would rift the ice with open leads. Before starting South, Peary had a brief talk with his com- panions. The home journey was to be "big travel," "small sleep," and hustle every minute* They were going to try to cover two of the outward marches each day, with a halt and luncheon in the igloos of the old camp. If they could keep the trail they could do it ; they need waste no time building igloos. Straining every nerve, they pushed southward. Eighteen- hour marches, and hunting for the main trail in some places where the ice had faulted, were trying experiences, but Peary says he felt that they "were coming down the North Pole hill in great shape." After being detained again near the Big Lead for a few hours they at last reached land. Peary thought his Eskimos had gone crazy. They yelled and called and danced until they fell in utter exhaustion. As one of them sank down on his sledge, he said. ROBERT E. PEARY 369 "The Devil is asleep or having trouble with his wife or we should never have come back so easily." At six o'clock on the morning of April twenty-third they reached the old igloos at Cape Columbia. They had made six- teen marches in covering the four hundred and thirteen miles from the Pole to Cape Columbia. After two days at Cape Columbia and two forced marches of forty-five miles each they reached the Roosevelt. They were met by Captain Bartlett, who asked, "Have you heard about poor Marvin?" To the response of "No" the captain told them that Marvin had been drowned at the Big Lead while scouting ahead of his party and the Eskimos had returned without him. Peary says the news staggered him and killed the joy he felt at the sight of the ship and her captain. Nature had kindly favored the journey homeward by good weather. The one disheartening feature was the one fatality of the expedition. Had it not been for the thought of the com- panion lying at the bottom of the dark, ice-covered Polar Sea, the satisfaction would have been complete. After spending some time in tidal observations and erecting monuments in memory of Marvin and the discovery of the North Pole, on the eighteenth of July the Roosevelt left her winter quarters and started South. On August twenty-sixth they left the last of their faithful Eskimos at Cape York and the Roosevelt pointed her sharp, black nose toward home. As for the faithful Eskimos, Peary left them with ample supplies of dark, rich walrus meat and blubber for their win- ter, with coffee, sugar, biscuits, guns, rifles, ammunition, knives, hatchets, traps, and for the splendid four who stood beside him at the Pole a boat and tent each, to requite them for their energy and the hardship and toil they underwent to help their friend to the North Pole. On September fifth the ship arrived at Indian Harbor on the Labrador Coast. The first dispatch that went over the wires was to Mrs. Peary. On September twenty-first, as the Roosevelt neared the little town of Sidney, a white yacht approached her. It was 370 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS carrying Mrs. Peary and the cMldren to meet tlie hero. Far- ther down the bay they met a flotilla of boats, gay with bunt- ing and resounding with music. As they neared the city, the water front was alive with people cheering the Roosevelt as she came back, flying at her mast-head, beside the Stars and Stripes and the Ensign of their Canadian hosts, a flag which had never before entered any port in history, the North Pole flag. What has the world gained by the discovery of the Poles? It marks the completion of man's conquest of the surface of the earth. The splendid series of ventures and voyages began with the first pushing out of the Phoenician navigators into the fearful terrors of the great Atlantic and the crossing of the equator where the sun's furnace heat was supposed to scorch men black. It has ended with the attainment of the North and South Poles. Ended are the many strange conceptions of the shape and character of the world. The earth has been girdled from East to "West and spanned from North to South. Through the quest of the Poles has come valuable scientific knowledge re- garding the globe on which we live. Meteorology, geology, zoology and ethnology have all received benefit, and both mag- netic and tidal phenomena are better understood. The name of Eobert Edwin Peary will forever stand among the most eminent discoverers. He gave twenty-three of the best years of his life to his work. He planned with the utmost care and thoroughness; every detail and contingency were anticipated and met. By painstaking care, unusual thorough- ness, good judgment, and indomitable will he reached his goal. He has received many marks of recognition for his discov- eries. One, and perhaps the one he values most, was bestowed by his native land : a formal act of Congress tendering thanks for his Arctic explorations resulting in reaching the North Pole. Congress has also shown the honor of bestowing upon him the rank of Rear Admiral, with the retired pay of that grade. The President of the French Republic bestowed upon him the Legion of Honor, with the rank of Grand Officer. ROBERT E. PEARY 371 Among other recognitions, he has received special medals from the most important geographical societies of this coun- try, including the Peary Arctic Club, and from the national and imperial geographic societies of England, Germany, Italy, Austria, Hungary, Belgium, Scotland, and Holland. He has received the honorary degree of doctor of laws from Bowdoin College and the Edinburgh University, and honorary membership in many scholastic and commercial societies. Mrs. Morris K. Jessup presented to the American Museum of Natural History a bust of Rear Admiral Peary, which oc- cupies a niche in Memorial Hall. Discovery has not been the only field of labor of Robert E. Peary. His specialty in his earlier profession was ship canals and dry docks. He has to his credit the invention of the first practicable high lift lock gate for ship canals. Some engineers have credited Peary and Menocal with the conception and suggestion of the Panama Canal. These men were sent by the Navy Department to resurvey the Nicara- guan route. In their report, for the first time in a public print, is described and illustrated the type of canal now com- pleted at Panama. Although he has accomplished what would be a credit to any man's fife work, Peary has not resigned his place in the world's work. He is now actively interested in the subject of Antarctic explorations by this country, and the broad phases of aeronautics. He believes the conquest of a new world — the atmosphere — which since the creation till now has re- mained sacred to the winds, the birds, and the lightning, is a great and wonderful thing. He says it has a special interest for him "because almost simultaneously with my good fortune in closing a four-hun- dred-year book of history, 'The Conquest of the Pole,' the Wright brothers opened the pages of this new book, 'The Con- quest of the Air,' the future chapters of which no one can be- gin to imagine." Peary has been made an honorary member of the Aero Club of America. This club, with others, have felt the need of an aeronautical map of the world to be adopted internationally by 372 FAMOUS LIVING AMEEICANS all nations and used as a foundation from wMcli to develop national and local maps. The making of such, a map has heen under consideration by the Aero Club of America for some time and the club has recently appointed a committee, with Peary as chairman, to develop plans for its accomplishment. Always interested in and urging big things, an optimist re- garding the future of the country and scientific development, time alone can disclose what additional achievements may yet be credited to Robert Edwin Peary. BIBLIOGRAPHY BOOKS North Pole. (Frederick A. Stokes.) By Robert B. Peary. Northward Over the Great Ice. (Frederick A. Stokes.) By Robert E. Peary. PERIODICALS A Name for History: Peary. American Mxisewm Journal 12:128. Conquest of the Poles. By Robert E. Peary. The Mentor 1 No. 27 :1. Discovery of the North Pole. By Robert E. Peary. Hampton's Magazine 24-25. European. Tributes to Peary. National Geographic Magazine 21 :536. Peary : the Man and His Work. By Elsa Barker. Hampton's Maga- zine, 23 :814b-814e. Robert E. Peary and His Campaign for the Pole. By Sturges B. Rand. McClure's 18 :354. To Make a Standard Aeronautical Map of the "World and an Efficient Aeronautical Map of the U. S. By Henry Woodhouse. Flying 3 :169. Copyright 1914 ly Moffttt Studio, Chicago >. ^<^ MES. PEECY V. PENNYBACKEE By GrEACE Julian Claeke WHEN the history of the modem woman movement comes to be written, a considerable portion of the work will be occupied with an account of the woman's club; for this has undoubtedly been the school where women have received a training absolutely essential to the intelli- gent performance of certain duties and responsibilities that are gradually being placed upon them — a stepping-stone, as it were, to a position of greater dignity and significance in the world's affairs. The object of the first clubs was self-im- provement, not at all an unworthy motive when one considers the sex's previous environment and opportunities. The clubs of an earlier day served a great end. Women found that they could talk, and not simply gossip together. They talked and wrote papers. After years of consideration of such topics as "The Women of Ancient Greece and Eome," "Grermanio Criminal Jurisprudence in the Middle Ages," etc., they began rather cautiously to take up modem themes, and to-day we find club programs delightfully suggestive of the life we are now living. Through club activities women also learned how to conduct public meetings, and how to differ from one another without giving or taking offense. After awhile, the attention of the club women, long fixed on purely literary and cultural themes, was attracted to their own immediate surroundings, and they were frequently amazed and appalled at what they saw. It was, perhaps, the child that first drew the eyes of club women away from those more remote interests. Contemplating, in the light of their new knowledge, the needs of their own children, they were naturally led to consider the situation of "the other woman's" offspring. They began to demand the establishment of kin- dergartens, they looked into sanitary conditions of school- houses, the pay of teachers, and so on. Presently these club women were inspired to form parent-teacher associations, 378 FAMOUS LIVING AMEEICANS her indebtedness for having revealed to her what it meant to be a genuine teacher, the dignity that should pertain to the profession, the consecration and deep seriousness demanded therein. Removing with her family to Texas in the following au- tumn, she spent a year under private tutors, and then took the competitive examinations for a scholarship in the Sam Houston Normal School, which had just opened at Huntsville. She not only gained the scholarship, but received the remark- able average of 100 per cent. This was because in this in- stance, as always, she put her whole heart into the task be- fore her, paying no attention to anything else until this was out of the way. It is said that the news of this achievement preceded her to Huntsville, so that her arrival was looked forward to with keen interest. We are told also that her ap- pearance created universal surprise, for "they had expected at least to see a dignified school-marm, whereas she, a slip of a girl of eighteen years and very small for her age, seemed a mere child. However, she lived up to the reputation she found awaiting her at the school, for she more than held her own, and when graduation day came she was one of two honor students." ^ "A miracle of faithfulness" she has been called, and also "the story-book lady," both designations being truthful and apt, for her every achievement has followed conscientious and painstaking effort ; and so the story of her life reads like a page from a good old-fashioned fairy tale where virtue is always appropriately rewarded. One friendship formed at the Sam Houston Normal School was destined to have an important bearing on her subsequent life and to result in the greatest happiness that can come to a woman — happy wifehood and motherhood. It was there that she met Percy V. Pennybacker, a fellow student, and their engagement tinged with rose-color the next two years for both of them, years spent by her in teaching, first in Texas and then in Missouri, and by Mm in foreign study and travel. Returning to this country, Mr. Pennybacker became superin- 1 Peter Molyneaux in Texas Cluh Woman for June, 1914. MES. PERCY V. PENNYBACKEE 379 tendent of schools in Tyler, Texas, Miss Hardwicke soon fol- lowing to accept the principalship of the high school there. In Tyler were passed nine of the happiest and busiest years of her life, for in a few weeks after her arrival she became Mrs. Pennybacker; there her first child was bom; there she wrote her History of Texas ; and there she entered upon club work, a field in which she was to play so prominent and use- ful a part. Women's clubs had existed in the United States for more than twenty years, but they were comparatively few in num- ber and gave no promise of the power they were to wield dur- ing the next quarter-century. With fine vision, the young wife and teacher, with the encouragement of her husband, organized the first club in Tyler and one of the first in the state of Texas. This was in 1886, and four years later a city federation composed of seven clubs was formed, which has been the means of great educational, civic, and social helpful- ness. During these busy years, however, Mrs. Pennybacker found time to write her History of Texas, which is so graphically written as to challenge the attention and fire the enthusiasm of old as well as young, and which has been adopted as a text- book in the Texas public schools. It seems that a country school teacher, a guest in the Pennybacker home, having been much impressed by his hostess' manner of presenting the subject in the class-room, and realizing also the need of an adequate school history, first suggested the idea to her. He was warmly seconded by Professor Pennybacker, who was ever on the alert to encourage his wife's efforts, and so, after careful thought and considerable research, she undertook the task. It is pleasant to be assured that the spirit of intense patriotism manifest in the young people of Texas is attribut- ed largely to the Pennybacker History, and also that the book has produced royalties that have placed the author and her little family in easy circumstances. No wonder the men, wo- men and children of Tyler put on their best attire, culled out a holiday, and strewed flowers in her way, when Mrs. Penny- backer went back there in April, 1914, after an absence of t. . k,.. 380 FAMOUS LIVING AMEEICANS twenty years, to address the convention of the Third District of the Texas Federation of Clubs ! Her reception was a sig- nificant tribute to the effect of her life in their midst, and proves that, after all, the good men do is not forgotten. Mrs, Pennybacker's school teaching came to an end in 1894, when the family removed to Palestine, Texas, Professor Pen- nybacker having accepted the superintendency of schools there. She now gave more time to club work, the growing importance of which she clearly recognized. This was edu- cational too, just as truly as was the profession of teaching, although its full scope was not yet comprehended. The death of her husband in 1899 withdrew her from outside interests for a time, but she soon realized the selfishness of giving her- self up to grief. Three growing children looked to her for guidance, and through her determination to be to them both father and mother has come not only a sweet solace but an important part of her own education. A friend, after re- ferring to the singularly fortunate circumstances of Mrs. Pen- nybacker's domestic life, says: "Her husband — himself one of the great pioneer educa- tional forces of the state — saw to it that she had the needed encouragement in keeping true to the onward course of her own development during the consuming years of her early married life, when her children and her home-making were her first care and threatened to swamp all outside interests." The fact that she had been accustomed to a genuine compan- ionship with her husband in all the affairs of Hfe, while it added a certain pang to the separation, yet must have armed her with a strength and sense of power that rendered her double duties less difficult than would otherwise have been the case. The following year, in order to give her children better educational advantages and also to look after her business in- terests, she moved to Austin, where the family has since re- sided, her home being a center of intellectual and social life distinguished by generous hospitality, elegance, and simplicity. Elected to the presidency of the Texas Federation of Clubs in 1901, her incumbency was a period of unprecedented ac- tivity and splendid accomplishment. An endowed scholarship MRS. PERCY V. PENNYBAOKER 381 of three thousand dollars in the State University, by means of which ambitious young women may equip themselves for teaching or other work, the erection of a beautiful and com- modious Woman's Building at the University, the passage of a poll-tax measure greatly increasing the educational fund — these are some of the things which are attributed to the Texas club women under her leadership. Her fame as the author of the Pennybacker History had by this time made her name a household word throughout the state, so that as she went on her official rounds visiting clubs she was everywhere greet- ed by grateful admirers. In 1904, at the St. Louis Biennial, she first became officially connected with the General Feder- ation, being elected treasurer. Two years later, at St. Paul, she asked to be relieved, but was persuaded to accept the au- ditorship, her practical business sense being considered of inestimable value to the organization. In 1908 began a pe- riod of ill health, during which she went abroad with her children for two years. Her first public appearance after her return to this country was at the Council of the General Fed- eration in Memphis in April, 1911, where she spoke on the subject of the proposed endowment for the Federation, which had been decided upon at the Cincinnati Biennial the year before. The selection of Mrs. Pennyacker to take the lead in secur- ing this fund of one hundred thousand dollars was a natural one, in view of her achievements in Texas. As an officer for four years in close touch with the finances of the General Fed- eration, she well knew the great need of increased revenues in order to carry on the growing activities of the several de- partments of work. Her speech at Memphis marked a mile- stone in the history of the General Federation. From that time on the endowment appeared no idle dream, but an as- sured fact. To those who had never heard Mrs. Pennybacker the speech was especially electrical, for she has the gift of oratory to a remarkable degree, with an imagination and fervor that reach the heart and move to action. Slight of stature, but with great dignity of bearing, she has a voice of singular melody and persuasiveness. The endowment would 382 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS not seem to be a subject calculated to enHndle eloquence, but as the speaker proceeded there were tears in the eyes of near- ly all who listened. They saw little children in mills and fac- tories, for whom life was poisoned at its spring; they saw young girls hounded to destruction by the White Slave octo- pus ; they saw homes ruined by intemperance and want due to ignorance and unjust social conditions; they were also im- pressed anew with the noble efforts of club women all over the country to remedy these evils, and with the fact that much more might be accomplished if they but had the money need- ed to push the work. It is impossible to tell just how it was, but somehow as she spoke they felt that the women of the General Federation were a "chosen people" to whom the call had come to render a more valuable service than they had ever before performed, and that the only way to do this was to pro- cure the endowment. No wonder it was the universal ver- dict that if Mrs. Pennybacker could visit every state the amount would soon be secured: no wonder that when she made her appeal in Texas, the entire quota of that state's ap- portionment, two thousand dollars, was raised in twenty min- utes! But this little embodiment of zeal and determination could not go in person to every part of our country. So she care- fully planned a nation-wide campaign, naming an assistant in each state, and a considerable amount was in hand when, at the San Francisco Biennial of 1912, the prophecy made at Los Angeles ten years before was fulfilled and this favorite daughter of Texas was elected president of the General Fed- eration. Her life since that time has been a constant round of travel, letter-writing, and speech-making. She has jour- neyed more than thirty thousand miles and spoken in thirty- seven states (in some of them several times), besides address- ing many men's organizations of various kinds. One result of Mrs. Pennybacker 's visits to so many clubs and federations has been the unprecedented growth of the national organization, more than twice as many clubs having been admitted during the past two years as in any previous biennial period. Another tribute to her gifts of leadership MRS. PERCY V. PENNYBACKER 383 was shown in the spirit of the Chicago Biennial Convention of 1914, a certain feeling of confidence that prevailed, and an assurance of absolutely fair play. This was particularly manifest in the treatment of the Equal Suffrage Resolution. Two years before it was held that such a resolution was not germane to the business of the -Federation — this out of def- erence to the conservative element which was supposed to be particularly strong in the Southern states. Mrs. Pennybacker comes from the South, and many of her warmest friends and most ardent supporters were bitterly opposed to the resolu- tion. Knowing this, she yet gave her word early in the pro- ceedings that no resolution coming in an orderly way before the house would be suppressed, and suffrage was overwhelm- ingly endorsed. Her gifts as a presiding ofl&cer are most un- usual. Ever on the alert, tactful and courteous, she diffuses an atmosphere of ease, freedom and confidence, at the same time maintaining perfect order, while a certain tender rela- tionship is established between her and every individual dele- gate. There is nothing short of genius in this. One secret of her power is the habit formed early in life and strengthened by association with her husband of ever doing the duty nearest without fretting about results. She thus wastes neither time nor energy, and each day is a unit of ac- complishment. Add to this the fact that she has indomitable will, great patience and perseverance, and an abiding assur- ance that the thing she is doing is tremendously worth while, and her character and career stand revealed. The completion of the endowment of one hundred thousand dollars at the Chicago Biennial, which was the most dramatic scene of the entire convention, and in which Mrs. Pennybacker played so telling a part, marks the entrance on an era of in- creased activity in all departments of the General Federation. This means more traveling art exhibits, more instruction in Home Economics, fresh activity in civic improvement, civil service reform and conservation, better industrial and social conditions, more widespread and intelligent interest in public health. In a word, it means education. As president of the General Federation of Women's Clubs, 384 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS Mrs. Pennybacker, wliose life-work has been teaching, is at the head of one of the most far-reaching educational enter- prises in the world to-day. It is an enterprise of steadily growing power, too, for women are enrolling in clubs in great- er numbers year by year. In their organized capacity they have been aptly styled "an army whose presence is in itself a guarantee of a happy future for the land in which we dwell. ' ' As general-in-chief of this vast army of peace Anna J. H. Pen- nybacker has shown herself fully equal to the situation, with a keen and comprehensive grasp of the ends in view, a firm confidence in the character and integrity of the hosts behind her, and an unshakable faith in the ultimate success of the campaign in which they are engaged. BIBLIOGRAPHY BOOKS History of the General Federation of "Women's Cluba. By Mary I. Wood, pp. 161, 186, 216, 218, 223, 288, 290. PEEIODIOALS Leaders of Women. By Rose Yoimg. Good Housekeeping Magazine 57 :634. Letters to Club Women. By Anna J. H. Pennybacker. General Fed- eration Magazine 1913, 1914. Miracle of Faithfulness. By Peter Molyneaux. Texas GVuh Woman July, 1914. Mrs. Percy V. Pennybacker — a Tribute. By Bride NeiU Taylor. General Federation Magazine June, 1914. Tribute to Mrs. Pennybacker (poem). By Pearl Randall Wasson. General Federation Magazine December, 1913. What the Woman's Club Has Done. By Mary I. Wood. Ladies' Home Journal 31:26. Copyright by Mecca Studio, Indianapolis QJ cw^AAj vNU>Ao;=;;4pfr — ■ JAMES WHITCOMB EILEY By Anna Nicholas HE was a discerning man wlio declared that a poet is bom, not made. James WMtcomb Eiley is a distin- gxiislied illustration of the truth of the saying, for he is emphatically not a poet of the schools, though many of his productions are of classic beauty and perfection. James Whitcomb Riley was born to sing. Where he was bom, literally, and when, have an interest beyond that of mere statistics, because environment and conditions often explain the drift of a writer's mind. Biographical dictionaries have fixed 1853 as the date of his birth, but people who have known him long dispute in idle mo- ments the correctness of the date, some insisting that he opened his eyes on the world three or four years earlier. As it is, because of the poet's whim not to satisfy curiosity on this point — he lightly turning the subject when it is mentioned — 1853 will probably stand in the books. Nor is the uncertainty important, for what are a few years more or less "When the heart beats yotmg"? And Mr. Riley's heart is young and will be so always. Unkind time has interfered with his phys- ical activity in recent days, but the alert mind, wise with its accumulations of life's experiences, is ready to forget its knowledge and to be one with the children ; to believe, with them, in the pixy people ; he is ready to put himself in the place of the youngsters who listened, wide-eyed, to Orphant Annie, who admired Noey Bixler, who delighted in Our Hired Man, and Uncle Sidney who told fairy tales and believed them. He has within him the deathless spirit of the child — greatest gift of the gods. What he once wrote of another can be truly said of him : "Turn any chapters that we will. Read any page, in sooth, We find his glad heart owning still The freshness of his youth." 388 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS The place of the poet's birth was Greenfield, Indiana — a thriving little city now, but back in the mid-century it must have been a typical country village. The little flaxen haired, barefooted youngster, absorbed with the sports of childhood, did not give much promise then of his later career, but back to that life the inspiration of many of his poems can be traced. Did he have Greenfield in mind when he wrote of Griggsby's Station, "Back where we used to be so happy and so pore"? Did he mean Greenfield when he wrote, "The little town of Tailholtis good enough fer me"? It was there that he knew the delights ' ' along the banks of Deer Creek"; there that he went "up and down the Brandy- wine"; from there that he went Out to Old Aunt Mary's. Again and again his childhood is recalled : "When life was like a story holding neither sob nor sigh In the olden, golden glory of the days gone by." The simple life of the little town, prosaic as it may have seemed to others, was rich in its poetic suggestions to him, as time proved, but how did he come by his genius? Who knows? Perhaps his mother was a dreamer of dreams. His portrait of her, in the story of the Old Home Folks, hints as much : "The boy prone on the floor above a book Of pictures, with a rapt, ecstatic look — Even as the mother's, by the selfsame spell Is lifted, with a light ineffable — As though her senses caught no mortal cry But heard, instead, some poem going by." Or it may be that his stem lawyer-father, of whom the chil- dren of the family stood rather in awe, had a vein of sentiment and an emotional life back of his practical, sedate outward seeming that descended to and found expression in his son. The higher gifts to man come by ways that are mysterious and dim to mortal sense. It is enough to say that his heritage on both sides of his family is good. He comes of sound American stock. Mr. Riley spent his boyhood and young manhood in Green- JAMES WHITCOMB EILEY 389 field, following the pursuits common to tlie youth of the town, finding companionship in his two brothers and two sisters — only one of whom, a sister, beside himself now survives of the family — and among the boys who appear in the verse of his later years ; attending school and indulging in the pranks and practices known to all village youngsters. This freckle-faced, fair-haired lad was by no means a model pupil in school, but was what a modem teacher would class as a "problem." Yet, even then, his peculiar character- istics were manifesting themselves. He was shy, sensitive, self-conscious, lacking certain qualities that people call "prac- tical," as skill in mathematics and an adaptabihty to routine; and possessing some traits that people did not understand and shook their heads over — a disposition to dream and idle the days away and an unconquerable distaste for the fixed school "system" of his day. His taste was for variety, for dipping into books here and there, for reading more interest- ing literature than text-books, for wandering at will "Where over the meadow, in sunshine and shadow. The meadow larks trill and the bumble bees drone. ' ' Echoes come down from that by-gone time which indicate that he was something of a trial to his teachers, who did not comprehend that this child mind that would not be interested in the lesson of the text-book was feeling its way to more im- portant things and storing up a folk lore and absorbing na- ture's secrets that were afterward transmuted into song and story by the alembic of his fancy. For all of his boy companions he must have been a lonely little fellow, certainly one who took few into his confidence. His mother was sympathetic and comprehending, but she died while he was yet a child and no one ever took her place. To that mother he has paid many a tender tribute in his verse. Of her he says : "0 rarely soft the touches of her hands. As drowsy zephyrs in enchanted lands." But this boy of many ^fts, stumbling his way as best he 390 FAMOUS LIVING AMEBICANS could along the road to manhood, and finding it sometimes a difficult and bewildering path, found in one teacher aa appre- ciative friend. Mr. Lee 0. Harris, a teacher for many years, was of a type none too common in the educational field at any time. He was a man of fine quality, with a love for hterature and a poetic ability of his own that no doubt made him the quicker to discover signs of intellectual promise in others. At all events, he was discerning enough to see that young Eiley could not be pressed into the same mold into which his companions fitted, and was wise enough to allow him much latitude in his school pursuits. He proved to be "guide, philosopher and friend" to the lad and in later years a valued companion. Riley no doubt gained much inspiration from him. But after all it matters comparatively little to impressible, intelligent youth what schools teach if home influences are of an intellectual sort. Mr. Riley was reared in a reading fam- ily ; his father had good books about and his son James Whit- comb read them. Another educational influence was the village newspaper office, whose fascinations were early discovered and about which he loved to linger. A country newspaper is an excellent school and it was perhaps in the dingy office that his first lit- erary ambition was born. Though he developed a writing and rhyming knack early, he was, after all, slow in "finding himself." Perhaps he did not even dream of writing rhymes as a serious and remunerar tive occupation — a life work. He was expected to settle down like other young men to a regular calling, but the rou- tine of office or shop was not for him and he made various ventures in other directions — a trip with a company of stroll- ing players, another with a traveling doctor for whom he painted signs and advertisements, and a tour as a sign painter with a partner or two being the chief undertakings. One reason for these wanderings was the verdict of the fam- ily doctor that he ought to be out of doors a good deal because of his poor health. He had tried reading law with his father, but the undertaking soon came to an end. He had a distinct JAMES WHITOOMB EILEY 391 talent for painting or drawing and thought of being a portrait painter, his experiments in that line being on the back of wall paper, which he bought for the purpose. Then he descended in the artistic scale and learned ornamental sign painting from an old German. These travels which were in the company of young men like himself, of good habits and good family, continued for several years. They widened his acquaintance with all sorts and con- ditions of men, and his insight into character and his quick eye for originality in others must have caused to be etched upon his memory many of the portraits afterwards presented to the public and to fame. It was perhaps on those journeys that he met that native son of whom he says : "He's stove up some with the rheumatiz. An' they haint no shine on them shoes o' his, And his hair haint cut — but his eyeteeth is: Old John Henry." Some time on his travels he met Jap Miller. Of Jap he writes: "He'll talk you down on tariff; er he'U talk you down on tax. And prove the pore man pays 'em aU — and them's about the f acs ! — Eeligion, law, er politics, prize fightin' er baseball — Jes tech Jap up a little and he'll post you 'bout 'em all." Somewhere along, too, he came to know the rural philoso- phers personified in "Benjamin F. Johnson of Boone," be- hind whose name Mr. Riley stood when The Old Swimmin' Hole and 'Leven More Poems were first given to the public — a kindly soul whom he salutes thus : "Lo! Steadfast and serene. In patient pause between The seen and the unseen. What gentle zephyrs fan Your silken silver hair, — And what diviner air Breathes round you like a prayer. Old Man!" 392 FAMOUS LIVING AMEEICANS In the course of his ramblings over Indiana his propensity to write asserted itself and he found his way to country news- paper offices. With at least two of these, one an Anderson and the other a Kokomo paper, he established more than casual relations, forming lasting friendships with the editors and contributing many of his earliest productions to their col- umns. In them he first tried his poetical wings. It was when he began to contribute to the IndianapoUs Journal, however, that his literary career really began. The Journal, an old well-established paper, had always given more or less attention to matters not strictly of a news character and was especially hospitable to writers of the state. On its staff at that time were several men who were keenly appre- ciative of hterary merit and quick to discern originality. Mr. Riley's offerings, some of them in dialect, received hearty welcome and began to appear with great frequency. They soon aroused much interest and led to inquiries from the Journal's readers concerning the new writer. These patrons were largely of a class ready to appreciate literary talent, while the weekly Journal, made up from the daily edition, cir- culated widely in the country districts of the state and gave the people there their first acquaintance with a poet whom they could understand and who seemed to speat for them. Meanwhile, Mr. Riley himself was a frequent visitor to the Journal office, coming over from his home in Greenfield and before many months taking up his residence in IndianapoUs, which city has since been his permanent home and with which he is closely identified. He made the Journal office his head- quarters, and from that time, in the middle seventies, until 1904 when the Journal was sold and was merged with The Star, a desk there was assigned to his use and there he wrote perhaps the greater number of his poems. But he was not a methodical "regular" worker. He was never one of the authors of whom it is related that they pro- duce a certain number of words each day and accomplish the task at fixed hours. He wrote when the spirit moved him, when the inspiration came. He fell into the ways of the morning newspaper and formed a habit of dropping into its JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 393 editorial rooms at midnight and later, sometimes finding the late hours a favorable time for writing. Once he came after twelve 'clock with a bit of manuscript in his hand. "I want this printed in the morning," he said. "But Riley," said, the editor in charge, running his eye over the lines, ' * the poem's all right and we '11 use it, but it's too late to get it in in the morning. We '11 use it next day. ' ' "It can't be too late. You've got more news to set and you can set this. I had gone to bed and this thing got into my head and I had to get up and write it or I couldn't have slept. I want to see it in type." "But the editorial page where such things go is already made up," objected the editor. "I don't care where it goes. Put it on the market page or among the advertisements." The editor did as he was asked. The poem was The Song of the Bullet. What inspired the lines in that time of peace he does not himself know. It might have been accounted for had it been produced at the time of the writing of this sketch, when all America stands aghast at the sudden transformation of Europe into a battlefield. The poem expresses in a won- derful way, both by its thought and form, the swift speeding of the murderous missile : "It whizzed and whistled along the blurred And red-blent ranks ; and it nicked the star Of an epaulet, as it snarled the word — War! "On it sped — and the lifted wrist Of the ensign-bearer stung, and straight Dropped at his side as the word was hissed — Hate! "On went the missile — smoothed the blue Of a jaunty cap and the curls thereof. Cooing, soft as a dove might do — Love! ' * Sang on ! — sang on ! — sang hate — sang war — Sang love, in sooth, till it needs must cease, Hushed in the heart it was questing for, — Peace!" 394 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS When Mr. Riley began to write for the Journal his produc- tions were of a more ambitious sort than the light jingles he had been accustomed to turn out for the country papers or for recitation from the tail of the advertising wagon as it stopped in the little towns and the gay young firm of sign painters sang or played flute or fiddle ^or otherwise made merry in order to draw a crowd. He once said that he was really obliged to write things to recite ; what he found in print was not natural or human enough. Some of the poems now best known were written in these early days of his Indianapohs life. Besides his frequent poems in the Journal, he contrib- uted to the weekly Mirror, published in Indianapolis, his Fly- ing Islands of the Night appearing there — a rather weird composition, but wonderfully imaginative and original. Its merit and peculiar quality have perhaps never been generally appreciated. At the same time he bombarded Eastern mag- azines with his offerings, but for a long time to no effect. His work being out of the ordinary and the dialect verses, at least, unconventional, the editors, after the manner of their Mnd, regarded the contributions with distrust and promptly re- jected them. His first recognition came from the Century Magazine, whose associate editor, Robert Underwood John- son, himself a native Indianian, doubtless recognized the ac- curacy of the speech and the character drawing of Riley's metrical folk lore. After that the pages of the Century were always open to him. Mr. Riley made many contributions to the Journal before he mustered courage to ask for remuneration or before it oc- curred to the editor that he was entitled to it by reason of the merit of his offerings. Finally illumination came to the ed- itorial mind and to-day there exists a list of poems for which a lump sum was paid to the author. The list includes some of his most familiar and now famous verses, but what was paid for them is the author's own secret, for no memorandum is made on the list and the ledger recording it has long since vanished. Then it was proposed that Mr. Riley join the Journal ed- itorial staff at a fixed salary, which he did. His duties were JAMES WHITCOMB EILEY 395 not well defined, but it was then that he wrote the Benjamin F. Johnson series, The Old Swimmin' Hole and 'Leven More Poems, one appearing each week in company with a letter pur- porting to be written by Johnson, an illiterate but intelligent old farmer with a strong vein of sentiment. This feature of the paper attracted much attention and the identity of the au- thor quickly became known. This series was afterwards pub- hshed in a dainty booklet form and copies of the first edition of this first Eiley book are now much prized. He has been heard to say that the sight of none of the later editions of his books, including his "complete works," ever gave him the thrill of pleasure that this supplied. Meanwhile Mr, Riley's personal acquaintance extended rap- idly among appreciative people. There is always a group of clever men about a newspaper and Indianapolis newspaper circles at that time included several of more than common ability. It was soon found that Mr. Riley had more talents than that of writing verse — that he was witty, full of a dry humor and possessed of an inimitable gift for story telling or reciting — in short, that he was a delightfully entertaining companion. It thus came about that he was made welcome in various circles. One of these was what might be called an in- formal club made up of a group of men who fell into the habit of dropping in, usually in the forenoons, to the private office of John C. New, then owner and publisher of the Journal, where they held confab on all topics under the sun, humorous or serious, as the mood took them. It was rather a notable group. Mr. New, a keen-witted, clear-headed, widely-read man, was at that time prominent in public life and afterwards held several high government offices, including that of treas- urer of the United States. Among other members was the Rev. Myron W. Reed, a Presbyterian pastor of the city, a brilliant and gifted man, afterwards of national reputation; Wilham Pinckney Fishback, one of the leading lawyers of the state and noted for his intellectual ability and caustic wit; Elijah "W. Halford, editor of the Journal and afterwards President Harrison's private secretary. General Harrison himself, afterward President, occasionally joined the circle. 396 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS These casual meetings were usually punctuated with hilar- ious laughter that caused passersby to look in with wonder. One of the means of entertainment was the writing of rhymes. Some one — tradition has it Mr. Eiley himself — arranged a reel with a roll of paper on which attendants at the "club" jotted down verses from time to time, as the spirit moved them, and these were read at the meetings — poetry by the yard — to the accompaniment of great applause. Mr. Eiley 's first venture on the platform was a three months' experimental tour through Indiana under the direc- tion of George C. Hitt, a member of the Journal's publishing staff and now a prominent business man of Indianapolis. Mr. Hitt's faith in the future of the poet helped to give the lat- ter 's confidence in himself a needed stimulus, for he was dis- posed to be doubtful of his own powers. The tour estabhshed the fact that as an interpreter of the common heart, not only as writer but as speaker, he was a genius. From that time his fame grew and he was in demand outside of his state, dehght- ing his audiences and establishing a reputation as poet and character delineator that speedily became nation-wide. His few ventures into prose show that he might have excelled in fiction or essay writing, but he found such work irksome and soon abandoned it. His recognition in the Eastern states came more slowly than elsewhere, but when finally given it was generous and enthusi- astic. He became a great favorite in Boston and always drew large audiences from the most exclusive intellectual circles. His first appearance in New York City was at an authors' reading given for some special cause. Many distinguished writers, including William Dean Howells, Thomas Bailey Aid- rich, and Richard Watson Gilder were on the program. An authors ' reading is usually a dull affair, writers seldom being good speakers, and the great audience grew restless and weary. . Riley was last on the program, he was unknown and people were indifferent and impatient to be gone. But he proved to be the star of the occasion. Quickly it was seen that here was something new and original, that here was an JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 397 artist. Wave upon wave of applause followed his recitation of a dialect poem — a character sketch in verse — and late as it was encores were demanded. Newspapers next morning gave him much praise and his fame was firmly established in the literary and artistic world. He continued to appear in platform work for ten years or more, part of the time in company with "Bill" Nye, but chief- ly alone. He was very successful, always drawing big houses, but the life was distasteful to him. He disliked to travel, and as soon as his finances permitted he withdrew from the plat- form and for the past ten years or more has appeared only on special occasions, usually in Indianapolis. In outward incident his life has been uneventful. He made one trip abroad — a short visit to England years ago — and has seldom left Indianapolis save for brief journeys since his professional tours ended. He never married, but a pleasant home in the household of the widow of a Civil War veteran, a lady of much culture and refinement, and a host of friends of all ages and conditions keep him from loneliness. His life to the onlooker seems an ideal one for a literary man, with full honors and recognition bestowed upon him while yet living, respected and loved by the people among whom he lives, adored by children, his writings cherished by people everywhere, he goes his way serenely, with a hopeful outlook on this life and the next. For what Mr. Eiley has spoken in his writings is an expres- sion of his real self. The humor, the optimism, the tender sentiment, the sympathetic appreciation of all human experi- ences, the wise and kindly philosophy, the faith in eternal goodness, that characterize his printed utterances are signifi- cant of the man as he is best known. High-minded, sweet- souled, with an insight into the hearts of his fellow men that has enabled him to meet them in all their moods, he has gone Ms way through life bringing smiles and cheer and comfort to a multitude whom he has never known, as well as to those of his immediate circle, because he has spoken from his heart 398 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS to theirs. He gives Ms own philosophy when he says in homely language : "It haint no use to grumble and complain — It's jest as cheap and easy to rejoice: When Grod sorts out the weather and sends rain, Wy rain's my choice." And he speaks with siucerity when he writes : "No depth of agony but feels Some fragment of abiding trust — Whatever death unlocks or seals, The mute Beyond is just." It is a religious soul that speaks in the farewell to a friend who has passed to the "Onward Trail that leads beyond our earthly hail": "So, never parting word nor cry: We feel, with him, that by and by Our onward trails will meet, and then Merge and be ever one again." This is not the place for an estimate of Mr. Riley's verse, but whatever verdict the future may place on it, it will re- main true that he spoke for the inarticulate and put into words their hopes and dreams, their aspirations, their longings and their beliefs — that he is the poet of the people. BIBLIOGRAPHY PEEIODICALS American Poets of To-Day. By F. M. Hopkins. Current Literature 24:208. Estimate of James "Wliitcomb Riley. By J. MacArtliur. Harper's Weekly 48 :1099. James WMtcomb Riley's Complete Works. Bookman 38 (1913) : 163. James WMtcomb Riley. By Hamlin Garland. McClure's 2:219. James Whitcomb Riley. By Henry Van Dyke. Book News 25 :429. James WMtcomb Riley. By Joe M. Chappie. Nation^ Magazine 9 :322. JAMES WHITCOMB EILEY 399 Jamea Whiteomb Riley. By John Clark Ridpath. Book News 10 :278. James Whiteomb Riley (The New Poetry). By "WiUiam Dean How- eUs. North American Review 168 :588. Mr. Riley as a Public Reader. By George C. Hitt. Book News 25 :439. Poetry of James Whiteomb Riley. By Maurice Thompson. Critic 33:460. Riley the Humorist. By Hewitt Hanson Howland. Book News 25 :436. The Boy Who Was Bom in Our Town. By Samuel Duff McCoy. World's Work 25 :565. JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER By Richaed Gilbert CoLiiiBE JOHN DAVISON ROCKEFELLER is the paramount enigma of the world's notables. His has been a sort of lone-wolf existence. Aloofness has been second nature with him. He has shunned publicity, never friendly, with an insistent hostility. His public utterances, few and guarded, liave failed to imprint upon the American mind any satisfying conception of his personality, ambitions, or sentiments. His friendships have savored more of close business relationships than warm personal regard. Few men have enjoyed intimate association with him and they have kept their impressions to themselves. And to-day no man at all approaching him in position and importance in contemporary affairs is so httle understood, so little appreciated. This is one of the inevitable penalties of his stupendous wealth. For considerably more than a quarter of a century Rockefeller and the Rockefeller fortune have been under sus- picion. Both have been assailed with relentless vigor. This feeling found emphatic expression a few years ago in the more or less general protest against tainted money. So, figura- tively speaking, every man's hand has been raised against him. Extremely sensitive, Mr. Rockefeller knew and felt all this keenly and, knowing, his natural reserve was, perhaps, tinged with resentment, certainly with a considerable degree of timidity, and he became more and more a recluse. Only within the last half dozen years has this barrier been broken down. To-day more than ever before the human side of Mr. Rockefeller is being displayed where formerly only his insatiate thirst for wealth was apparent. While it was once well-nigh impossible to obtain a likeness of him, he now faces the camera smilingly and without hesitation. Now and then he welcomes an interviewer. Occasionally he has appeared unannounced at local gatherings of men of affairs. The life story of John D. Rockefeller strikingly emphasizes Copyright 'by E dm oust on, Washington John D. Rockefeller JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER 403 the wisdom of seizing opportunity with both hands the mo- ment it appears and holding fast with a bulldog grip. Bom in Richford, Tioga county, New York, July 8, 1839, the life which opened before him bore nothing of promise above that of his playmates. His parents were in quite moderate cir- cumstances. In several generations his ancestry had evinced no marked tendency toward fortune-building, and whatever of royal blood flowed in his veins was, for the time being, for- gotten. His father, William. Avery Rockefeller, was a country trader who displayed an exceptionally keen ability in his trafficking. His mother, Eliza Davison Rockefeller, was a woman of devout piety and a strict disciplinarian. From the one he inherited his remarkable business acumen; from the other, his unfaltering allegiance to the church. His youth appears to have been uneventful up to his six- teenth year. His parents had removed to Strongsville, a little hamlet a few miles south of Cleveland, Ohio, when young Rockefeller was eleven years of age. There he resumed his intermittent schooling, most of his instruction having been at the hands of his mother, and continued his educational en- deavors at Parma, a neighboring village to which they later removed, until he had almost completed the then limited high school course. Abandoning this he went to Cleveland and en- tered a commercial college but attended it only a few months. Just why he suddenly felt it imperative to obtain employ- ment at this early age does not appear. In his Random Reminiscences he does not explain. At all events he left the college and tramped about the city for days seeking a place to work and at last found employment with Hewitt & Tuttle, produce commission merchants. This was on Septem- ber 26, 1855, and Mr. Rockefeller has made the date an insti- tution in his life, celebrating it annually. Strange as it may seem in the light of his later career, young Rockefeller ac- cepted this place without any agreement or even discussion relative to remuneration. For the first three months he was paid a lump sum of $50. The next year he drew $25 a month. The next year the bookkeeper, who had been getting $2,000 a 404 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS year, resigned, and John D. Eockefeller succeeded him at a salary of $500. At the end of the third year he asked $800 and was offered $700. He had saved nearly $800 and, his employer still being inclined to quibble over the amount, he forthwith resigned and accepted the offer of a young Englishman, M. B. Clark, to enter partnership with him in a general commission business. To do this it became necessary for him to borrow $1,000. He obtained the money from his father at ten per cent, interest. Shortly afterward he had established a bank credit and was borrowing considerable sums. In his memoirs Mr. Eocke- feller naively declares that he was always a great borrower. It is significant that in the first year the sales of this youthful partnership exceeded half a million dollars. For nearly ten years this business prospered. Meantime Mr. Rockefeller, with James and Richard Clark and Samuel Andrews, had organized an oil refining company. In the troublous period of 1865 this partnership was dissolved and Mr. Rockefeller bought the plant and good will of the firm when, by agreement, it was auctioned off in private with the four erstwhile partners as the only bidders. Subsequently Andrews joined him in the venture. Two years later this business was merged with the firms of William Rockefeller & Co., Rockefeller & Co., S. V. Harkness and H. M. Flagler under the firm name of Rockefeller, Andrews & Flagler, Oil Refiners. Meantime many oil refineries had been built. At the outset profits had been large and the natural result was a rush for investment in the business. Soon there was an overproduc- tion of refined oil, prices tumbled and scores of concerns faced financial ruin. It was upon Mr. Rockefeller's initiative that the company began buying in the most desirable of these em- barrassed refineries and planning an extension of the market abroad. The Standard Oil Company proper was organized in 1870, with a capital of $1,000,000. In 1872 the capital was increased to $2,500,000 and in 1874 was again increased to $3,500,000. JOHN D. EOCKEFELLER 405 Vigorously prosecuting the Rockefeller ideas of increasing facilities and extending trade lines, the company established refineries from time to time at various points, principally at Baltimore, Philadelphia, Bayonne, and Brooklyn. Pipe lines were built more economically to transport the crude oil from the fields to these cities. Then came the tank car and the tank steamer for delivering the refined product. The Stand- ard set the pace in every development. Mr. Rockefeller, in his reminiscences, gives much credit for the upbuilding of this giant corporation to his several asso- ciates of those days. On the other hand these men without exception have many times declared that the guiding genius of the development was Mr. Rockefeller. Unquestionably, these associates were largely responsible for the working out of the policies and details of trade extension both at home and abroad, but there is little doubt that it was the Rockefeller in- itiative that made possible the early successes of the consol- idation movement. Something of this remarkable ability was hinted at by Mr. Rockefeller in the story of his rapid-fire borrowing on one of the occasions when the Standard absorbed some important competing properties. At noon a message was received stat- ing that the proposed deal was possible if the necessary funds were immediately available. In order to accomplish it Mr. Rockefeller was compelled to borrow something like half a million dollars in cash and get away on a train at three o 'clock that afternoon. His ride from bank to bank in Cleveland was on the Paul Revere order. He stopped at each just long enough to ask the president or cashier to get together in cash all the funds he possibly could lay hands upon by the time he returned. He made the train and the deal was consummated. The history of the Standard Oil Company is too well known to require extensive review. Suffice it to say that with a cap- itahzation of $100,000,000 it has been paying regularly for many years dividends aggregating seldom less than 40 per cent, of this amount. Prior to the recent court order of dis- solution its stock, which had a par value of $100 a share, brought something in excess of $1,400 a share when it sold at 406 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS all. Its products readied the uttermost parts of the earth and in the process of oil refining no by-product was lost. Prob- ably no other concern in the country surpassed it in the extent and excellence of its organization and the completeness of its scientific operation. With its various alUed interests it was one of the most extensive and financially powerful industrial concerns in the world. Mr. Rockefeller retired from active direction of the Stand- ard Oil Company in 1894 at the age of 55 years. Since then he has given only casual attention to the affairs of this com- pany and to his other large and varied interests, trusting their management almost wholly to his former tried and loyal asso- ciates. In more recent years, his soli, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., has more and more assumed a general supervision of the Rockefeller interests. Much of the real estate in New York, Cleveland, and other cities has been transferred outright to the son. Mr. Rockefeller, Sr., has never been a great traveler. His unique prominence probably precluded this even had his inclination been in that direction. He has not been the liberal patron of the arts that some of his millionaire associates be- came, though in both his homes at Forest Hill, Cleveland, and Pocantico Hills, Tarryiown, are some rare and extremely valuable bric-a-brac, tapestries, statuary, and paintings. His one displayed passion has been for landscape gardening and road-building, the mastering and intensifying of natural beauty. The arrangement of the roadways at each of his estates was outlined by him. Miles and miles of beautifully built, winding, interlacing roads traverse the grounds. The shrubbery effects are artistic and beautiful, the tree groupings magnificent. Both houses have splendid outlooks, the one over Lake Erie, the other over the Hudson River. His chief exercise and amusement is golf and he has become a really efficient wielder of the clubs. At one time Mr. Rockefeller promised to become one of the dominating influences in the iron trade. Among his many in- vestments were several in the rich Mesaba range of the Lake Superior ore district. When the panic of 1893 came along most of these ore mining companies found themselves in pre- JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER 407 carious financial conditions. Among them were the Rockefel- ler investments. To protect himself he was forced to acquire control of these other interests. This in itself was an easy task as the stock was tossed at him in bundles. Raising the ready money to buy it all was another matter, but his borrow- ing ability again stood him in good stead. At panic prices he secured control of thousands of acres of ore lands which to- day are worth untold millions of dollars. With characteristic enterprise he immediately began building vessels with which to transport this ore to market, and when these properties, known as the Lake Superior Consolidated Mines Company, were finally disposed of to the United States Steel Corpora- tion in 1900, the fleet comprised fifty-six vessels, the largest and of most improved types in the lake ore trade. By this transfer Mr. Rockefeller obtained his extensive steel holdings. The real extent of the Rockefeller fortune is a much mooted question. Probably Mr. Rockefeller himself has no very def- inite idea of the money value of his myriad holdings. He is generally accepted as the country's richest individual, and doubtless this is true. A popular estimate of his income is a dollar a second. In his many benefactions he is remarkably unobtrusive, a rather odd trait in a man of preponderous wealth. Recently it was estimated that within the last quar- ter century he had given away something more than $150,000,- 000. To but one of his many philanthropies has he given his name, the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, of New York. Eventually, however, the Rockefeller Foundation will perpetuate his name and administer the further philanthropies of his estate. To the General Education Board of this body, whose primary task is the endowing of colleges and univer- sities in the United States, he has donated an aggregate of $53,000,000. The general plan followed in these endowments is to subscribe a definite sum to an institution on the condition that it raise certain specified supplemental amounts. Approximately $5,000,000 has been donated to the Rocke- feller Institute, which has accomplished noteworthy results in combating cerebro-spinal meningitis, the hookworm, and other deadly diseases. Other notable gifts were $22,000,000 to the 408 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS University of Chicago; to Eush Medical College $6,000,000; to various churches and missions a total approximating $10,000,000; to Barnard College $1,375,000; to ithe Southern Education Fund $1,125,000; to Union Theological Seminary $1,100,000; to Harvard University, Yale University and the Baptist Educational Society, $1,000,000 each; to various, ju- venile reformatories approximately $1,000,000; and for land for park purposes to the city of Cleveland, $1,000,000. Scores of other gifts ranging from $25,000 to $750,000 might be cited. Of his private philanthropies the world knows nothing. More to his manifestly increasing interest in the welfare of humanity than to any other one thing is due the growing change of opinion concerning Mr. Rockefeller in the public mind these later years. Few who have come into personal contact with him since he has in a measure thrown off his cloak of reserve have failed to surrender to the charm of his modest, unassuming personality. For the Rockefeller presence radi- ates anything but the atmosphere of repellent rapacity that has been popularly painted. The Rockefeller of to-day is a gracious, kindly, humorous individual with a keen interest in human affairs and a gift of expression which enables him to hit the bull's-eye of observation nine times out of ten. To a marked degree he retains the capacity of winning good opinion which in the early days of his youthful business venture brought him scores of patrons unsolicited save by one in- formal, friendly call in a hurried trip of inspection through Indiana and Ohio. Men who were closely associated with him in a business way some thirty-five or forty years ago will tell you that in those days he was thrift personified. He had a disconcerting habit of appearing unexpectedly at one's elbow or desk and picking out the little errors of bookkeeping which annoy the customer or the little extravagances of habit which permit a bit of wrapping twine to go to waste upon the floor. And both were especially repugnant to him. To-day, while he trims you neatly on the golf links — not that you permit him to do it because he is Mr. Rockefeller and you are his favored guest for the afternoon, for he is really JOHN D. EOCKEFELLER 409 clever at his favorite exercise — you will notice, if you are at all observing, that this same element of painstaking care fea- tures his every movement at play. Incidentally he probably will give you some very good advice, cryptically, but with a whimsical humor running through it all. During his summer vacations at Forest Hill, Cleveland, one of his special delights is taking long automobile rides through the country. Usually he invites an old friend or two to ac- company him. He covers hundreds of miles a season in this manner and greatly enjoys traveling incognito, as it enables him to get nearer to the thought of the people. He will stop at a farm house, engage the farmer and his wife in a discussion of farm life and conditions, crops and livestock, trees and flowers, partake of their hospitality seldom farther than a cool, sweet glass of milk, and departing leave them wide-eyed with the knowledge that they have entertained the modem Croesus unawares. Several of his boyhood schoolmates still live in Strongsville and he never fails to visit them. On the day, several years ago, that the federal circuit court was reviewing the case in which the Standard Oil Company was fined $29,000,000, and was expected to hand down its decision that afternoon, Mr. Rockefeller spent the day with WiUiam Humiston, a lank, grizzled farmer cousin whose farm lies a few miles southeast of Cleveland. He talked of nothing but farming and garden- ing and early day conditions during the visit. Lunch was in- vitingly spread by the Humiston daughters under the trees in the farmhouse yard and Mr. Rockefeller ate sparingly, drank copiously of spring water after the meal, and lectured Cousin William seriously upon the evils of overeating. For Cousin William had a true farmer's appetite. Occasionally he gives an informal house-party at Forest Hill and invites fellowmembers of his church and acquaintances of years' standing. Sometimes he joins in the festivities of a lawn picnic given by some one of these and seems thoroughly to enjoy it. On a few rare occasions he has attended meet- ings of the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce and met the busi- ness men of the city. Always he studiously avoids business 410 FAMOUS LIVING AMEEIOANS topics. His Forest Hill grounds are always open to visiting organizations or distinguished visitors, but he never shows himself during these inspection trips. The Rockefeller tendency toward friendliness with the world these later years is no more a pose than his philanthro- pies are a salve to public opinion. He is by nature frank and friendly, a courteous, kindly gentleman. There is no hint of arrogance in his make-up. Popular opinion of the man has been created by what has been written about him, and almost without exception this has been markedly unfriendly. He has been pictured as cold, grasping, avaricious and unrelentingly predatory. No man who has ever spent an afternoon with him will agree with this estimate. His philanthropies, culminating in the Rockefeller Founda- tion, are the final perfect development of a boyhood inchna- tion. Soon after he began attending the old Baptist Mission Sunday School in Cleveland at the age of sixteen he displayed this instinct for systematic giving, though necessarily in a hm- ited way. Earning at that time only fifty or sixty cents a day, he set apart a specified amount regularly for charities. Like- wise the tendency to lead was manifest. About that time, or possibly a year later, it developed that the church was in finan- cial difficulties. One of the deacons held a $2,000 mortgage upon the building and threatened to foreclose it after repeated promises from the congregation had failed to materialize sub- stantially. Rockefeller, boy as he was, slipped to the front door after the service at which the minister had explained the situation, and solicited financial pledges from each member of the congregation as they passed out. Eventually he succeeded in securing pledges to cover the entire amount, and, more to the point, he collected the money. "That was a proud day," he says in his memoirs, "when the debt was extinguished." Band Deacon Sked, one Sunday morning nearly sixty years ago, welcomed a new member to his class in this Baptist Mis- sion Sunday School. The newcomer was a slim slip of a boy, bright faced and clear eyed, with a skin fair as a girl's and a shy diffidence of manner which betokened a newness to city ways. Under the influence of the deacon's benevolent smile JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER 411 and cheery greeting the boy quickly forgot the tinaidity which liad been strong within him, shook hands with the youths to whom the deacon introduced him, and speedily proved that he had studied his lesson thoroughly. And in all the succeed- ing years he maintained his early record for complete mastery of the day's text. That was his first association with what eventually became the EucHd Avenue Baptist Church. Deacon Sked's reputa- tion as a teacher still lives in Cleveland though the pious old man has been laid to rest these many years. He imbued young Rockefeller with much of his spirit. The boy's interest grew ; he attended regularly ; not many years later he was su- perintendent ; and he is still a member. During his stay at Forest Hill he attends the Sunday school regularly. Fre- quently at the close of the services he has something to say, particularly to the boys. In them he sees the citizenship, the men of affairs of the years to come, and in them he seeks to instil some of the lessons his wide experience has taught him. On one of these occasions, unconsciously illustrating the boyhood inclination toward giving, he drew from his pocket a badly worn little account book which had once been resplen- dent in a red leather cover. Holding it reverently he said : "It is particularly gratifying to me, after my absence, to notice the signs of prosperity in this school. This Sunday school has been of help to me, more than any other force in my Christian life. When you come to the church or the Sunday school, and associate with it as a member, you must put some- thing into it. When a business man associates himself with other business men for, say, the production of the bricks in these walls, or the glass in these windows, he contributes a sum of money to the partnership and its purposes. In pro- portion to what he puts in he receives a return on his invest- ment. The more he puts in, the more he gets back in divi- dends. It is not necessary that you contribute money to a church or Sunday school ; you may not have it ; but everybody must contribute something, be it money or what it may. Put something in; and, according as you put something in, the greater will be your dividends in salvation. 412 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS "This little document is my first account book; I call it Ledger A, You could not get this book from me for all the ledgers in the world and all the money they represent. It al- most brings tears to my eyes whenever I turn the pages of this little book ; and as I look through it I feel a sense of grat- itude I can't express. In it, back in 1855, when I began the struggle of life for myself, I set down all I earned and all I paid out. I see by it that the first three months I received only fifty dollars. Beginning January 1, New Year's day, 1856, 1 note that I received twenty-five dollars a month for my work. And this, according to Ledger A, is what I did with my money. From November, 1855, to April, 1856, I boarded myself, and the little items are recorded here. In that time I paid, I find, a trifle over nine dollars for clothing. My clothes were not of the most fashionable cut; I bought them of a ready-made clothier. But they were such as I could afford, and it was a great deal better than buying clothing I couldn't pay for. I note but one piece of extravagance — a pair of fur gloves for two dollars and a half. I ought to have bought mittens. During four months, in which I earned one hundred dollars, and out of which I lived and saved some money, I also gave over five and one-half dollars to Christian work. Here are the items, starting from November 25, 1855, when I gave ten cents to foreign missions. Then came these items: To Mr. Downie, one of our young ministers, ten cents. Pew rent — we called them 'slips' — one dollar. December 16, 1855, Sun- day school, five cents. For a present for Mr. Farrar, the Sun- day school superintendent, twenty-five cents. Five Points Mission, New York, twelve cents. For a little religious paper called the Macedonian, ten cents. Present for teacher Sked, twenty-five cents. I now turn to January, 1856. On the 13th of that month I find I had something left over for good work. I find these items : Missionary work, six cents ; church poor, ten cents — all on one Sunday. February 3rd I gave ten cents to the church poor; and also to foreign missions ten cents. Going to March 2nd, I gave ten cents to the church poor; the next day, pew rent, one dollar ; March 16th, foreign missions, ten cents ; March 21st, one dollar to Y. M. C. A. And all this JOHN D. EOCKEFELLER 413 me, mind you, I was not only paying my living expenses, othes and food and all, but saving money." Probably no clearer insight could be given to the Rocke- lUer character and thought than is offered by his expressions , his talks to the little people of his Sunday school. They •6 intensely illuminating. They reflect with unerring ac- iracy the animating impulses of his life. Thrift, industry, 3rseverance, self confidence, kindliness and charity; they are 1 there, portrayed with an earnest sincerity that puts skep- cism to flight. "It will not be long," he said to the boys one Sunday, "un- 1 you will be discarding your books and going to follow some fe occupation. For your work you will receive a certain mount of money. In that connection what a fine thing it ould be if all employers and those employed were just ; the nployer giving the employee his due and the employee work- Lg honestly ialways in his employer's interest. Now when Du have earned that money what will you do with it? Take y advice and pay your mother a part of it for your board. se your best judgment about the rest, but always remember 3u cannot accumulate money if you squander it. You must 3 saving; you must practice self-denial. There is not a busi- 3SS man in the city who can succeed without self-denial at mes. Do what you can for the church, for charity. As long 3 there is a world money will be needed for charitable pur- oses. The responsibility does not fall upon a few, myself or ayone else in particular. It is a common duty which falls pen us alike according to our means. God expects us to do ir duty in that direction. ' ' Mr. Rockefeller's home life has been ideally beautiful. It IS been his supreme recompense in all these years of harass- ent and censure. In one of his Sunday morning talks to the )ngregation of the Euclid Avenue Baptist Church several 3ars ago he turned and looked into the placid face of his wife, iated near at hand. "People tell me I have done much in y life," he said, and paused while his mind traveled swiftly 5wn the bygone years. "I know I have worked hard, but the 3st thing I ever accomplished and the thing that has given 414 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS me the greatest happiness was to win Cettie Spehnan. I have had but one sweetheart and I am thankful to say that I still have her." Mr. Rockefeller's devotion to his invalid wife, who was his schoolmate and boyhood sweetheart, has ever been constant and unswerving. She has always come first in his every consideration. He married Laura Celestia Spelman in 1864, just at the time when he was beginning to plunge in oil. Harvey A. Spelman, her father, was at that time prominent in Cleveland and well- to-do. He contributed somewhat at that time to his son-in- law's financial necessities. To this union were born four chil- dren, Elizabeth, 1866 ; Alta, 1871 ; Edith, 1872 ; and John D., Jr., 1874. All have married and Mr. Rockefeller now has nine or ten grandchildren. His predominant characteristics are those he has most strongly emphasized in his talks to the youth of his Sunday school. Thrift and unceasing industry, coupled with a bull- dog tenacity of purpose, made it possible for him in the favor- able early days to get control of the oil business. Unflagging vigilance and activity have permitted him to retain it. An ex- ceptional capacity for organization and a rare abihty to read men aright enabled him to surround himself with a brilhant corps of lieutenants who have carried out the interminable de- tail work with clock-like precision and have made the Standard a success beyond even the most fantastic Rockefeller dreams. In his philanthropies the innate modesty of the man would seem absolutely to preclude the thought that he has any but the most laudable and sincere motives. Gradually a pro- nounced change is becoming noticeable in the popular opinion of him. A few years ago one of his friends remarked to him, half in earnest, half jokingly: "Why, John, they will be building monuments to you when you have been dead twenty years. ' ' Mr. Rockefeller smiled, but it was the wan smile of a man with a sorely wounded heart. Yet stranger things have happened. JOHN D. EOCKEFELLER 415 BIBLIOGRAPHY BOOKS Random Reminiscences of Men and Events. (Doubleday, Page & Co.) By John D. Rockefeller. PEEIODICALS Intimate View of Rockefeller. By H. M. Briggs. Americcm 71 :101. John D. Rockefeller. By Ida M. Tarbell. McGlure's 25:227-249, 386-398. John D. Rockefeller : a study of character, motive and duty. By W. 6. Joems. Arena 34:155. Masters of Capital in America. By John Moody and George K. Turner. McGlure's 36:564. Mr. Rockefeller and Mob Opinion. World's Work 12:7928. Some Random Reminiscences of Men and Events. By John D. Rock- efeUer. World's Work 16:10755-68; 17:10878-94; 10992-11004, 11001-11010, 11218-28, 11341-55, 11470-8. Some Impressions of John D. Rockefeller. By F. N. Doubleday. World's Work 16:10703. THEODORE ROOSEVELT By Jackson Boyd THEODORE ROOSEVELT is the most distinguished man of action in the United States to-day. Probably no man in public life anywhere understands better than he the political and economic conditions that now confront the American people. No other man is so in touch with the ele- ments of progress, or can better sense the danger of reaction in its many insidious forms. "While he is not a philosopher, his appreciation of the situation of world politics shows true insight. He of all men is no theorist. He of all men is no re- former. He is a progressive, a man who believes in the evolu- tion of our institutions ; and, as a statesman, he has the fore- sight to anticipate and the ability to assist in realizing their destiny — the ultimate democracy of the human race. If the United States were compelled to find a statesman to represent it in any world movement, to guard its interests in the struggle for supremacy among nations, to see that all reactionary measures were avoided, to help in the forward movement of humanity in social justice, to secure equal opportunity, as far as is possible among men, there is no man in the United States to-day so well fitted for this great undertaking as Theodore Roosevelt. In politics, Theodore Roosevelt is an eclectic. He is more of a nationalist than Hamilton, but unlike Hamilton, a nation- alist for democracy, not aristocracy. He is more of a demo- crat than Jefferson, but unlike Jefferson he would anchor the nation with a strong central government so that it might not go to pieces in its very attempt at freedom. He with Lincoln proclaims the freedom of all men, but not stopping there, he stands for equal rights for men and women, the highest call of the world-wide humanitarian movement of to-day. In his fearless advocacy of right and justice above the law when there is a conflict, he stands with Jefferson, Jackson, and Lin- coln. Yet Theodore Roosevelt is not a radical. He is a con- Copyright hy Moffett Studio, Chicago Theodore Roosevelt THEODORE ROOSEVELT 419 servative in the truest sense of that word, demanding law and order that is compatible with reason and progress, making our nation an evolving organism, not a stationary machine which neither learns from its mistakes, nor profits from its successes. As a conservative, he is the embodiment of the spirit of our in- stitutions, interpreting them through the light of social prog- ress. As a practical pohtician Theodore Roosevelt is no recluse attempting to apply cobweb speculations or academic theories to practical life ; but a shrewd man of affairs seeking to con- trol men by the knowledge he has acquired in coming in con- tact with them. Hence of all the men in public life through- out the world there is none more successful than Theodore Roosevelt, none whom the future has a brighter promise for, none whom our nation can more safely engage in the solution of its problems of statesmanship in the years to come. Where we find a man so eminent in achievement, so en- dowed in qualification, it is well to search his biography to find, if possible, the causes that make him what he is in so far as it is possible to ascertain such facts in the lives of men. Little more than half a century ago (October 27, 1858), in the city of New York, Theodore Roosevelt was born of Dutch parentage. He was carefully reared, but suffered the loss of his father before he reached maturity. As a child, he was weakly, and for that reason was not educated in the public schools. From his infancy he was handicapped with a defect of eyesight, and had to forego many of the sports of childhood. But at an early age, seeing the absolute necessity of a sound physique in order to have a healthful mind, he became active in athletics and has kept up this interest throughout his life. In acquiring habits he seemed to have known by instinct what would hamper him and what would help him in acquiring that mental and physical development necessary to carry out his ambition in life. After completing his preparatory education in private schools and with tutors, Mr. Roosevelt went to Harvard Uni- versity, and later was graduated from that institution. Nat- urally one would think that a man of his extraordinary ability 420 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS would distinguish himself in college, but such was not the case. He is not a product of our educational system, and, no doubt, he was more or less a misfit in Harvard University, for he did not and could not enter into its life to any vital extent. Probably its greatest advantage to him was his acquaintance with its students, and the opportunity it gave him of studying life. Mr. Eoosevelt, unlike most ambitious men, did not, after quitting college, take up any of the learned professions. He leisurely set about his life work in a way peculiar to himself. Something like an instinct in the lives of young men of abiUty pushes them out and takes them abroad in the world. We have all read of the deUghtf ul wanderings of Benjamin Frank- lin; have wondered why it was that Lincoln left his native state, thinking that some experience in his boyhood instinc- tively had told him that he was not suited to the environment in which he lived. It was some such longing as this, rather than an adventurous spirit, that led Theodore Roosevelt to take up fife on our western plains as a cowboy. His years of "roughing it" developed his physique, making him one of the hardiest men of his generation. After several years in the "West he went back to New York City and at the early age of twenty-four was nominated for the General As,sembly. Mr. Roosevelt was in a district where a young man of high and noble ideas was just the man through whom one political machine could defeat another. Generally such novices are used only as a forlorn hope. At this time Mr. Roosevelt was in a position similar to that of Mr. Lincoln when he was running for the nomination for the presidency. It was then that the notorious politician, Norman R. Judd, un- invited, became Mr. Lincoln's political manager; and as Lin- coln dropped Judd conveniently so Roosevelt gently dismissed his manager. The lesson Mr. Roosevelt learned in this cam- paign was a key to his subsequent political success. As his career began, so it continued — always opposed by the most corrupt poHticians ; yet in the end defeating them. His rise was not meteoric, but like that of the stars in the night. He sometimes met with failure and ate the bread of THEODOEE EOOSEVELT 421 politicians — disappointment. From 1889 to 1895 he was a member of the United States Civil Service Commission ; from 1895 to 1897 president of the New York Board of Police Com- missioners ; in 1897 he was appointed Assistant Secretary of the Navy — all of which positions he filled with great efficiency. While in the Navy Department he secured from Congress a large appropriation for target practice which made the navy ready for effective service during the Spanish- American War. Thus Theodore Eoosevelt, more than any other man, contrib- uted to the success of this war ; and no man profited more by it; for at its close he was chosen by the republicans as the one man who could be elected governor of New York. At the be- ginning of the war he resigned his position as Assistant Secre- tary of the Navy and organized the First Volunteer Cavalry, known as the Rough Riders. Reahzing his own ignorance of military tactics, Mr. Roosevelt wisely insisted that Leonard "Wood be the colonel of the regiment, while he took the position of Heutenant-colonel ; but as in politics so in war, Roosevelt rapidly learned the game. He fought the battles of Las Guasimas, June 24, 1898, and San Juan Hill, July 1, and on July 8, Wood having been promoted to brigadier-general, he was appointed colonel. Of all war literature none is more interesting than Mr. Roosevelt's account of his actual fighting in the field. As a soldier he "made good" in the sense that politicians use that term. He was the most advertised man in the United States. He came back from the Spanish- American War much as Napo- leon returned from Egypt; and from that day to this he has occupied more space in the papers than any other man in the •United States. In the fall of 1898 he was elected governor of New York, op- posed by the politicians, but favored by the people. As gov- ernor he was singularly succe^ssful and showed the masterly political tact that crowned him with success in after years. At the National Convention of the Republican Party in 1900, Mr. Roosevelt was one of its most conspicuous figures, and not a few men of his party advocated his nomination for the presidency. But it was said that he was untried, too 422 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS young. These are tlie arguments that politicians use to de- feat efficient men. Not only that, but this was the occasion to bury Mr. Roosevelt so that he would not bother them in the future. A nice grave was prepared for him in the vice-presi- dency and he was prevailed upon to accept it. On March 4, 1901, he was inaugurated Vice-president; and on September 14, 1901, through the assassination of President McKinley, he became president. It was at this time that Mr. Roosevelt displayed his true greatness in that he once more went to school, and, instead of outlining some foolhardy pol- icy, took up the policies of Mr. McKinley and made them his own, thus endearing himself not only to the people of the United States but to the very politicians themselves. In 1904 Mr. Roosevelt was elected President of the United States by an extraordinary majority. Then began his career as a constructive statesman. Not a virtue did he possess that did not show itself ; and he is even now, while yet alive, cred- ited with being one of the greatest presidents our country has ever had. Mr. Roosevelt's administration accomplished many note- worthy things. In regard to labor there is to his credit the Employers' Liability Act, the Safety Appliance Act, regula- tion of railroad employees' hours of labor, the establishment of the Department of Commerce and Labor, the settlement of the coal strike in 1902. Commerce is indebted to him for the Hepburn-DoUiver Railroad Act, the National Irrigation Act, the acquisition of the Canal Zone, the assurance of the ulti- mate completion of the canal, and the keeping of the door of China open to American commerce. Scientific advance- ment is recognized in the enactment of the Pure Food and Drugs Act, Federal meat inspection, extension of the forest reserve, the inauguration of the movement for the conserva- tion of natural resources, and the inauguration of the move- ment for the improvement of the conditions of country life. Grood government owes to him the development of civil self- government in our insular possessions, the settlement of the Alaska Boundary Dispute, the reorganization of the consular service, the government's victory in the Northern Securities THEODOEE EOOSEVELT 423 Decision, the conviction of post-office grafters and public-land Meves, the direct investigation and prosecutions of the Sugar Trust customs fraud, the prosecution of suits against the Standard Oil and Tobacco Companies and other corporations loT the violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, the reduc- tion of the interest-bearing debt of the United States by more than $90,000,000. One of Mr. Eoosevelt's conspicuous achievements is what he did towards making our nation a trorld-power. During his administration our navy doubled in tonnage and greatly increased its efficiency through system- atic organization. But in spite of Mr. Roosevelt's reputation as a man of war the world has no greater advocate of peace, as is evidenced by the second Cuban intervention, resulting in Cuba's being re- stored to the Cubans ; by his bringing about the settlement of the Eusso-Japanese "War by the Treaty of Portsmouth; by avoiding during his administration the pitfalls created by the stress on the Pacific Coast due to the Japanese embroilment, and his negotiation of twenty-four treaties of general arbitra- tion. But what has made Mr. Eoosevelt most hated by the poli- ticians and most loved by the people was his determined op- position to corrupt politics. First, corporations were forbid- den to contribute to political campaign funds ; and second, he opposed the spoils system and advocated Civil Service Ee- form. Some of the policies that Mr. Eoosevelt stood for but failed to realize are : reform of the banking and currency sys- tem, inheritance tax, income tax, passage of a new Employers' LiabiUty Act to meet the objections raised by the Supreme Court of the United States ; postal savings-banks, parcels post, revision of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, legislation to remedy the evils of corporations, the Child Labor Act and many other progressive measures now taken up by his opponents. When Mr. Eoosevelt's four years as chief magistrate were over, he stepped down, and took a well-earned vacation in the most sensational hunting expedition recorded in all history — a trip through the interior of Africa. Instead of conquering the human race as did Alexander, Caesar, and Napoleon, men 424 FAMOUS LIVING AMEEICANS to whom he is likened by his enemies, this man satisfied the element of adventure in his nature by hunting "big game" for scientific purposes. This exhibition of his fondness for manly sport and adventure has endeared him to thousands of Amer- icans who care little for his literary and political pursuits. When Mr. Eoosevelt came back to the United States, he found that many of the measures which he had stood for had been discarded in his absence by the new leaders of the Eepub- lican Party, the "Standpatters." At the same time there had arisen a group of repubhcans who were known as the "Insurgents." These men believed in progressive principles and were the forerunners of the Pro- gressive Party. The doctrine of insurgency extended through- out the United States, but it needed some man to crystaUize it into definite form. Although, in 1904, he had declared his intention never again to run for the office, Mr. Roosevelt at last felt it his duty to become a candidate for the presidency and so announced himself in February, 1912. During the selection of delegates to the National Convention it was seen that the National Committee was determined to nominate Mr. Taft. More than a majority of the duly accred- ited delegates went to the Chicago Convention instructed for Mr. Roosevelt but the National Committee which was to pass upon all contested delegates threw out enough Roosevelt dele- gates to nominate Taft. Everything was done that could be done to get the National Committee to be fair; but it was determined to nominate Mr. Taft, no matter how, or what the result. It was not thought that there was sufficient virtue in American politics to resent this political outrage ; but old poli- ticians as the National Committeemen were, they did not know the heart of the American people. Heretofore, in all parties, regardless of unfairness, when the wrong was once accom- plished, it was deemed good politics to acquiesce, to support the party, and to vote the straight ticket. But a new day had dawned, the day of good citizenship and of the application of common honesty to politics. Many compromises were offered the Insurgents, but none that would not leave the wrong unrighted. The one thing the THEODORE ROOSEVELT 425 Standpatters could not understand was that Mr. Roosevelt was not fighting for office, but for principle. As a result the National Committee of the Republican Party was solely to blame for the disruption that followed. Had the Committee been reorganized on progressive principles, the wrong would have been righted within the party and a new party would not have been organized. The thing that has made Mr. Roosevelt most famous and that in all probability will be considered his greatest achieve- ment, was his unalterable resolution at the Chicago Conven- tion not to surrender principle for policy, not to compromise integrity for office, not to let partisanship stand above citizen- ship. Following the Republican National Convention, Mr. Roosevelt and his colleagues organized the Progressive Party and when the people of the United States had an opportunity to express themselves at the fall election, they vindicated this action by making the Progressive Party second in the nation. In this brief biography of Theodore Roosevelt a thorough analysis of his character is impossible ; but to let pass the op- portunity of mentioning his greatest qualities would be an un- pardonable omission. His physical bravery appeals to all men — friend and enemy alike. He faced without flinching the bullet of the cowardly assassin and the charge of the wounded lion. His intellectual honesty in meeting the great problems of the age in fearless discussion, in refuting hoary fallacies that brought denunciation from reactionaries in high places is worthy the highest appreciation. Yet these qualities are small in comparison with his moral courage. He is the un- compromising champion of the ' ' square deal. ' ' Great in phys- ical bravery, admirable in intellectual honesty, sublime in moral courage, Theodore Roosevelt is the typical American and our greatest living statesman ! BIBLIOGRAPHY BOOKS Campaign Book Progressive Party, 1912. History of the Presidency. (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.) By Edward Stanwood. 426 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS Memories of the White House. (Little, Brown & Co.) By Col. "W. H. Crook. Our Presidents, How We Make Them. (Haxper's.) By A. K. McClure. Theodore Eoosevelt, the Boy and the Man. By J. Morgan. Theodore Roosevelt, the Citizen. By Jacob Riis. Theodore Roosevelt. By F. B. Leupp. PERIODICALS Epoch of Roosevelt. Review of Reviews 39 :339. High Lights of President Roosevelt's Two Administrations. Century 77 :954. Jackson and Roosevelt — a Parallel. North American Review 184 :742. Personal Characteristics. McClure' s 24:7. Review of Roosevelt's Administration. Outlook 91 :298. Theodore Roosevelt's Autobiography. Outlook 103:393-408, 660-675, 917-941; 104: 148-172, 461-478, 660-681, 934-961. Copyright by Moffett Studio, Chicago Elihu Root BLIHU ROOT By Albbbt William Macy 4 S a rule those lives are most inspiring in whicli success has r\ been won in spite of the handicap of poverty. An ex- ception must be made in the case of Elihu Eoot, how- ever. He has never, even in childhood, felt the sting of pov- erty; yet his life is interesting in the extreme, and full of inspiration for the student. He has never been driven by necessity, and his path is one of his own choosing ; but his life has always been, and is to-day, an unceasing round of hard work. Endowed with great intellectual powers, he was never content, even as a boy in school, to drift with the tide, but chose rather to seek out difficulties and conquer them. This characteristic has remained with him through life, and a finer example can hardly be found of eminent success won by per- sistent effort. Elihu Eoot was born in the village of Clinton, Oneida county, New York, February 15, 1845. His father was Oren Root, for many years a professor in Hamilton College, located at Clinton. His mother was a daughter of Major H. Gr. But- trick. The house in which Elihu was bom stood upon the college campus, and belonged to his maternal grandfather. Major Buttrick. When Elihu was very young his father removed with his family to Seneca Falls, New York, where he became the prin- cipal of an academy. He remained there but a few years, however, and in 1850, when Elihu was five years old, he re- turned with his family to Clinton, to take the chair of math- ematics and astronomy in Hamilton College. Professor Root was not only a good mathematical scholar, but a lover of nature as well ; a combination rather unusual. In the rear of his home was a ravine, not extensive, but rough and irregular, and altogether a romantic spot. He added to the grounds, and constructed a sort of wild garden, which be- came quite a noted feature in the community. After his death 430 FAMOUS LIVING AMEEICANS one of his fellow professors wrote of Mm: "We shall think of Professor Eoot as a hero who wreathed the sword of se- vere science with the myrtle of natural history. He was not the less a mathematician because he loved to be where he could hear the pulse of nature throb. ' ' Thus Elihu Boot's childhood was spent in a dehghtful, scholarly atmosphere. He inherited strong intellectual tend- encies, and everything contributed to strengthen them. At fifteen he entered Hamilton College as a freshman, and graduated four years later, with the class of 1864. His col- lege career was uneventful. It was simply a case of hard work from start to finish. College pranks did not appeal to him as they do to most boys ; and anyway he was too busy. At one time during his junior year there was some trouble with the faculty, and the majority of his classmates rebelled against the college authorities. He may have sympathized with them to some extent, but as his father was a member of the faculty he felt in duty bound to remain loyal to the au- thorities. Besides, he did not feel that he had any time to spare. While those in rebellion were suspended for some weeks, and thus lost considerable valuable time. Boot kept on with his studies. He won first prize in mathematics and was valedictorian of his class. College curriculums in those days were not as broad and as comprehensive as they are now, and Mr. Boot's work in col- lege was confined principally to the classics and mathematics. Nevertheless, these afforded him an excellent basis for ac- quiring an education that was to be of the highest service to him in after years. Moreover, his college training was a very potent factor in forming his character and in shaping his course in life ; and this, after all, is the highest and most im- portant function of a college or university. Elihu Boot's career in college is worthy of the study of any young man or woman who wishes to get the best out of his or her college fife and experience. College boys may always be depended upon to provide ap- propriate (or inappropriate) nicknames for professors and students who have any marked peculiarities, and the Boots ELIHU BOOT 431 did not escape. In this instance the real name itself afforded too good an opportunity to be passed by. The professor was always known among the boys as "Cube Boot," and Elihu as "Square Boot." It was the professor's earnest desire that his son should follow in the paternal footsteps, and become a teacher. At first it seemed as if the wish were to be gratified ; for immedi- ately upon graduation Elihu secured the position of principal of the academy at Bome, New York. The administrative du- ties of this position were not very arduous, and much of his time was devoted to teaching mathematics and the classics. His work as a teacher was distinguished by the same earnest- ness and thoroughness which had characterized his career in college, and as a result the pupils made good advancement under his direction. He could not have been a hard master, however, for it is recorded that he was very popular with the students. After teaching one year he abandoned the teaching pro- fession, to his father's great disappointment, and never after- ward returned to it. For a long time he had had it in mind to enter upon the study of law, and to make the legal profes- sion his vocation. This cannot be wondered at, for to a mind like his, earnest and thorough-going by both nature and train- ing, the legal profession has strong and peculiar attractions. While he enjoyed teaching he felt that the law would afford him a far wider field of usefulness. While making preparations to enter upon a law course in New York City, his father, wishing to be helpful, offered to supply him with letters of introduction to a number of people of influence living in the metropolis. "No," the son answered, "I am starting out to do this thing myself. I am going to make my own friends without any family pull. I want to find out whether I am a man or a mouse. ' ' If the father had any fieeling of resentment at being rebuffed for his well-meant kindness, it must have been dispelled by admiration for his son's grit and determination. Thus EHhu Boot entered upon the study of law at the age of twenty-one in the University Law School of the City of 432 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS New York. He went at it hanuner and tongs, bringing to bear the same earnestness of purpose and the same intense applica- tion that had characterized his career in Hamilton College. At the end of the first year most of his fellow law students went to the bar for their examinations, as they were entitled to do. Mr. Root, although as well prepared as any of them, and, doubtless, much better than most, decided to complete the full course before taking the examination. This was in accord with his ruling doctrine of thorough preparation in everything he undertook. He remained another year devot- ing himself especially to the underlying principles of law, thus laying a solid foundation for his future success. He gradu- ated in law in 1867, and was at once admitted to the bar. It is proverbial that young lawyers, unless they possess some special advantages, have to go through a period of semi- starvation, or something nearly aMn to it, before they can suc- ceed in establishing themselves on a paying or even a living basis. Elihu Root, however, escaped this distressing experi- ence. He succeeded from the start, and his rise in the profes- sion was really phenomenal. At twenty-five, only three years after his graduation from law school, he had established a good practice in New York City. By the time he was thirty he had secured a large corporation business, and was looked upon as a leader at the New York bar. This success was due to sheer ability and hard work, for nearly all the cases he handled were local in character, and not such as would bring him fame, or even a great degree of notoriety. For a good many years Mr. Root pursued the course of a plodding, hard-working lawyer. It was not until 1883 that he attained anything like prominence in public life. In that year President Arthur appointed him United States District Attor- ney for the Southern District of New York. This office he held for two years, and it is unnecessary to state that he made a vigorous prosecutor. He gave his whole attention to the business in hand, and it is safe to say that the Empire State has had few, if any, more capable officials in her service. On the expiration of his term as District Attorney, Mr. Eoot returned to regular practice, and for the next fourteen years ELIHU BOOT 433 devoted himself to it with, his customary diligence. Many large corporations engaged his services, and his counsel and advice were sought concerning many important cases. In 1899, at the close of the Spanish-American War, Presi- dent McKinley invited Elihu Root to become Secretary of War. The War Department was badly in need of some one who could take hold with a vigorous hand, clean out a lot of incompetents, institute some radical reforms, and place the department on a new basis, with efficiency as the ruling idea. Many people were surprised that a civilian should be ap- pointed to the war portfolio. "Why," they said; "he is a mere theorist; he never smelled gunpowder in his life !" But McKinley had acted neither hastily nor blindly. He was satisfied that he had found the right man, and it was not long until people generally acknowledged the wisdom of his choice. The new Secretary plunged at once into the work of the department, giving it his whole attention. He encoun- tered much opposition, especially from military men, many of whom would rather see him fail than have their pet theories overthrown. Affairs within the department were in great dis- order, and there was bitter rivalry between some of the bureau chiefs. By strict discipline, and by the application of civil service rules, he soon brought order out of chaos. He pre- pared a plan for the reorganization of the army and submit- ted it to Congress. It met with violent opposition, and was defeated. At the next session of Congress Mr. Eoot brought it forward again, and this time it was adopted. On being complimented for his perseverance, he said, "I took the army for my client, that's all. " A great deal remained to be done in the way of settling up affairs after the Spanish-American War. As a result of the war a new element had been introduced into American pol- itics, that of territorial expansion; and as a feature of this question there was in the Philippines an insurrection of no mean proportions that must be suppressed. In conjunction with General Leonard Wood Secretary Eoot made the ar- rangements for the transfer of Cuba back to the Cubans. Under his direction, also, an army of seventy thousand men 434 FAMOUS LIVING AMEEICANS was placed in the Philippines, and the rebellion was put down after hard campaigning and considerable loss of life. Mr. Root's greatest achievement in connection with the Philippines, however, was providing a form of government for the islands. When it became necessary to promulgate a plan of government, he was ready. His famous "Instruc- tions" to the Philippine Commission, says one writer, in real- ity comprised a constitution, a judicial code, and a system of law and statutes. So perfect were they that Congress adopted them in their entirety. What the ultimate outcome of the "expansion" policy may be no one knows; but certain it is that our unexpected and quite unpremeditated possession of the Philippines has proved a blessing to those far-off islands. That the Philippine question, puzzling and troublesome though it is, has been handled so successfully thus far, is in very large measure due to the wisdom and foresight of Secretary Root. In 1903 Mr. Root was a member of the joint commission to settle the dispute between Canada and the United States con- cerning the boundary between Canada and Alaska. This question had been pending for some time, and in 1898 a joint high commission to adjust various questions at issue between the United States and Canada had been disrupted by disagree- ment over this very question of the Alaskan boundary. This new commission, made up of eminent American and British jurists, met in London, and rendered a decision in favor of the United States. In the negotiations Mr. Root was an earnest advocate of the claims of the United States, and it is hardly too much to say that it was chiefly due to him that a decision favorable to this country was secured. In August, 1903, Mr. Root resigned his position as Secretary of War, the resignation to take effect January 1, 1904. On the last-named date he retired once more from public life, and resumed his private practice. He was allo"v\^ed to continue it, however, only a little more than a year. On the death of John Hay, Secretary of State, President Roosevelt sent for Root and informed him that he had been selected as Hay's succes- sor. It is said that during the interview not a word was said by either concerning politics or money matters. No condi- ELIHU ROOT 435 tions were imposed or required. Root accepted the place, though it was at a great financial sacrifice. The cabinet posi- tion paid a salary of eight thousand dollars a year, while at his law practice he was earning many times that amount. It is as Secretary of State that Mr. Root it best known to the general public. While as District Attorney, as a member of the Alaskan Boundary Tribunal, and as Secretary of War he had rendered excellent service, as Secretary of State he found a much larger field for the exercise of his abilities as a constructive statesman. While the Department was in excel- lent shape when he took charge, many very important ques- tions came up for solution during his incumbency of the office. One of the most perplexing questions that every administra- tion has to deal with is that of the consular service. For many years the service had been used as a sort of hospital for broken-down politicians. A movement for reform had been started some ten or twelve years before, and while it had made some progress, a great deal yet remained to be done before the consular service could be placed on a footing of efficiency. Secretary Root gave the movement a new impetus by drawing up and enforcing strict executive regulations governing ap- pointments and promotions. A strong effort was made to break up the practice of appointing to the service job-seekers who claimed rewards for political work, ex-congressmen whose main desire was to keep in touch with the government pay-roll, and other patriots whose chief qualification was per- sistency in seeking office. As far as possible, appointments were made from the ranks of younger men who had prepared themselves by study and investigation to be efficient public servants abroad. There was a distinct improvement all along the line in the consular service, and respect for the United States among other countries rose correspondingly. Not only so, but the United States began to get some real service from its consular representatives abroad. During his three and a half years as Secretary of State, Mr. Root negotiated on behalf of the United States seventy-five treaties with foreign governments. This is the highest record of achievement of any incumbent of the office. Perhaps the 436 TAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS most important of these were the twenty-four arbitration treaties, with as many foreign governments, which provide that when differences arise between any two of the contracting states, they shall be referred to the Hague Tribunal for arbi- tration. Very memorable in the annals of the State Department was a visit made by Secretary Root to Central and South Ameri- can countries in the summer of 1906. There was a definite and very important object in this trip, and he went as the per- sonal representative of President Roosevelt. For many years there had been a growing apprehension among the Pan-Ameri- can countries that some day the United States would enter upon an era of expansion, and that when this day came it would be an evil one for them. The recent occurrences in Cuba and in the Philippines had greatly increased this appre- hension, and there was a growing danger of serious inter- ference with our political and commercial relations with those countries. It was to correct this misapprehension, and to set the Pan-American Republics right in their attitude toward the United States, that Mr, Root made the journey. It was un- like any other mission that had ever been undertaken. In many ways it was a more important mission than has been undertaken by any American citizen, before or since. As may readily be imagined, it would be no easy matter to eradicate the deep-rooted prejudices of half a century. Mr. Root adopted a policy that was in perfect accord with his nature and with his past life : that of telling the South American people the exact truth in plain words. He did this in his first speech, before the Third Conference of South Amer- ican Republics, at Rio Janeiro, July 31, 1906. The clearness of his statements, and the earnestness with which he made them, convinced his auditors of his sincerity and won their hearts. After that it was a sort of triumphal progress. He met the rulers of Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and Peru in their own capitals. Everywhere he disclaimed any purpose on the part of the United States to encroach on their domains. Our desire, he told them, is to extend and cultivate amicable poUt- ical and trade relations with all Pan-American countries. His ELIHTJ ROOT 437 policy of truth-telling won the day, and from that time till the present our relations with those countries, both political and conunercial, have been increasingly satisfactory. Scarcely more than a month after Mr. Root left the State Department, in 1908, he was elected United States Senator from New York, being the unanimous choice of the represent- atives of his party in the General Assembly of the state. As a United States Senator, of course, he is not so much of a national figure as he was as a member of the President's cab- inet. Nevertheless, he occupies a high rank as a member of "the greatest deliberative body on earth." In the judgment of many, he is the greatest intellectual force in the Senate to- day. Although at present his party is in the minority, he is held in the highest esteem by his poKtical opponents, and his counsel and advice are sought on all important national ques- tions. In this recital of Ehhu Root's life and services many im- portant things have been touched but lightly, and some have not even been mentioned. Enough has been said, however, to give emphasis to Mr. Root's dominant characteristics: his in- lectual superiority, his capacity for hard work, his honesty, and his purity of character. A few words touching his person- ality in some other respects may be added. Mr. Root is always cool and collected, and never loses con- trol of himself. Some think him cold-hearted, but that is a mistake. He often performs a kindly service in his own simple way. He is cautious by nature, and never acts until sure of his ground ; but when he has made up his mind and sets out to do a thing, he does it speedily and correctly. He is not only a hard worker himself, but he is also a great stimulus to others. He has high ideals — ideals of a type which through hard work can be realized, not those of the impractical visionary. Many honors have been showered upon Elihu Root. The degree of Doctor of Laws has been conferred upon him by various institutions, as follows : Hamilton College, 1894 ; Yale University, 1900 ; Columbia University, 1904 ; New York Uni- versity, 1904; Williams College, 1905; Princeton University, 1906 ; and Harvard University, 1907. In 1913 Oxford Univer- 438 FAMOUS LIVING AMEEICANS sity (England) conferred upon Mm the degree of Doctor of Civil Law. The greatest honor of all, however, came to him in December, 1913, when he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 1912, in recognition of his service in behalf of peace and arbitration. BIBLIOGRAPHY PEEIODICALS Root and South America. Review of Reviews 34 :583. Root and the State Department. World's Work 11 :6835. Root as Secretary of State. Putnam's Magazine 6 :471. Senator Root and the Peace Prize. Outlook 105 :829. Training of Elihu Root. Independent 59 :241. "World's Statesman. Review of Reviews 39 •.42. Courtesy Aime Dupont, N. T. y^Lc^.^ y^^-v----^ ^^^l*--7-^ ANNA HOWAED SHAW By Lucy E. Anthony AYOUNGr girl fainted while giving her first recitation at school — fainted from stage fright. When she recov- ered, her teacher wanted her to go home, but Anna How- ard Shaw insisted on going back to complete her recitation, sajdng that if she failed to finish it then she would never again be able to recite anything. This child developed a genius for pubHc speaking and oratory, and an infinite capacity for work, wMch, coupled with her native longing for liberty, and a sense of justice inherited from her great-grandmother, Nicolas Stott, united in making of her a worker, speaker, and orator of recognized ability in the various reforms to which she has given her life. Anna Howard Shaw was bom at Newcastle-on-Tyne, Eng- land, February 14, 1847. When she was very young her fam- ily emigrated to the United States, making the journey in a saihng vessel. When a week out at sea the ship was wrecked and towed back to Queenstown port where it remained many days for repairs. During this time she visited Spike Island, where there was a great prison and where she saw prisoners forced to dip water from the sea on one side of the island, carry it across and empty it into the ocean on the other side. Long afterwards when she became interested in prisoners, this example came back to her as her first conscious lesson of the inefficiency of the government in dealing with its criminals, and the useless waste of the energy and strength of human beings. After reaching this country she attended public school at Lawrence, Massachusetts, until she was twelve years old, when the family moved to Michigan, making the journey mostly by wagon. At first they lived in a little log house which the father and brothers had built before the arrival of the others, chopping down the great primeval pines, oaks, and bird's-eye maples for space for the hut. Miss Shaw remembers the de- spair which overcame her mother when she reached this place. 442 FAMOUS LIVING AMEEICANS as her imagination had failed to picture anything so lonesome, so primitive, and so isolated from everything which meant ed- ucation and civilization. She seemed stunned and sat by the side of the cabin with her face in her hands and did not move for hours. The children were afraid and awed and Miss Shaw says that something of life which she never regained went out of their mother from that time. When the night began to come on, the howling of the wolves and other wild animals aroused her to the sense of danger to her children. Then the mother spirit asserted itself and deadened the bitterness and loneliness and despair which had for the time overcome the woman. It was this experience which gave Miss Shaw her keen appreciation of what pioneer women suffer and enabled her later to express in her lectures such sympathy with their hardships and privations. In this primitive life the little girl grew up in freedom, working out of doors, fishing, gathering wild fruits, loving trees and animals, and with such recreations and games as came through the initiative of herself and little brother. En- counters with wild animals and Indians gave courage and op- portunity for testing the mettle of the children. Meantime a longing for knowledge was asserting itself. Some old copies of the New York Independent, with which the mother, trying to make the home neat and cosy, had papered the walls of their log cabin, fed this longing. There were political speeches in those papers, great thundering orations such as were made in those troubled days before the War, and full of history. It was a wasteful manner of learning history, perhaps, but it gave a grip on the knowledge which she has never lost. By the time Anna was fifteen years old there were sufficient people in the community to demand a school, and she passed an ex- amination which permitted her to become the teacher, at a sal- ary of two dollars a week and "board round." As this was the first school in the township, there was no appropriation for even this small salary until it was voted to take it from the dog tax ; so the salary was not paid until after the dog tax was collected. Her gift for public speaking and her spirit of freedom be- ANNA HOWAED SHAW 443 gan to show themselves very soon and her eloquence and na- tive ability attracted the attention of the presiding elder of the district conference of the Methodist Church of which she be- came, upon her conversion, a member. The elder startled and frightened her one day by telling her that he wanted her to preach the conference sermon in his district. She told him she never had preached and never could. He was ambitious for her and wished her to get started in this field as yet almost untried by women. She prayed over it all night long and in the morning answered that she would do it, and that is how in 1873 Anna Howard Shaw decided to work and study to become a minister. She felt timid after having promised to preach and did not tell any one until two or three days before the time, and then she told her sister, who was shocked and dis- tressed and begged her not to do it, as she felt that she was disgracing herself. All of the members of her family disapproved of her course and begged her to change her mind and not dishonor them. It was a dreadful feeling to have to do what she believed to be right, while all of her family were against her, and it made the ordeal a very hard one. When she did preach, she remembers, she trembled so that the oil shook in the lamps on the desk. The presiding elder continued to push her forward because he wished to have the credit of ordaining the first woman preach- er in the Methodist Church, and finally the time came when she must preach in her home town. This was the hardest place of all, because before her conversion she had been a ring- leader among the young people in all sorts of frolic and mis- chief, and they could not believe that she was in earnest. No member of her family attended church on the day that she preached in her home town. After she had preached in each of the thirty-two districts over which the elder presided she apphed for a preacher 's license. Every minister of the thirty- two present voted that she should have a license to preach, and this was renewed every year for eight years. She then attended a Methodist College, where, being a li- censed preacher, she had free tuition. Before she entered, the president engaged her in a long conversation and at its close 444 FAMOUS LIVING AMEEICANS handed her a paper passing her for the whole college course in American history, having gleaned from his conversation with her that she knew all that a written examination would call for. Her reading and study of the New York Indepen- dent had been the chief source of her knowledge. In 1875 she entered the theological department of Boston University, and was the only woman in a class of forty-two young men. Although at the end of the college course she passed an excellent examination, she was refused ordination by the New England Methodist Episcopal Conference on ac- count of her sex. She appealed to the General Conference of the same Church, which was then in session at Cincinnati, and the action of the lower Conference in refusing to ordain her was sustained. Later she appealed to the New York Confer- ence of the Methodist Protestant Church and was the first woman ordained in that denomination. After her application was sent in to this Conference she was summoned for an inter- view. After she had been questioned she was asked to retire. She waited in the hall for awhile, thinking it would take them about ten minutes — but they argued her case for two whole days. She was recalled and questioned as to what she beheved Paul meant when he said, "Wives, obey your husbands." She said that if he did mean what he said that it did not apply to her because she had no husband to obey. They parried by say- ing that she might have. She replied that they were right and that consequently if they believed what Paul said the only thing they could do was to ordain her ; because she might have a husband who would command her to preach, and she could not obey him unless they ordained her. She held pastorates in Hingham, Dennis and East Dennis, Massachusetts. She was the first ordained woman to preach in Denmark, Germany, Holland, Sweden, Hungary, Italy, and Norway. It is a most remarkable fact that, while in Norway women had full parliamentary franchise, they could not be or- dained as ministers nor speak in the pulpits of the State Church ; but as a result of the agitation on account of Miss Shaw's preaching there, the question was taken up by the gov- ANNA HOWAED SHAW 445 emment, which has since granted them the right to occupy the pulpits of the State Church. In 1901 the degree of Doctor of Divinity was conferred upon her by the Kansas City University, a college of the same de- nomination as the church conference which ordained her. Her family continued for many years to feel that she dis- graced them, but when she was chosen to preach the sermon on Woman's Day at the time of the meeting of the great In- ternational Council of Women at the World's Fair, Chicago, in 1893, her father was present and no parent was ever more proud than was Thomas Shaw of "my little Anna." Miss Shaw supplemented her theological degree by one in medicine at the Boston University, and some of her friends feel that she should have taken a degree in one more profes- sion, that of law. All of her remarkable powers of argument, logic, and oratory would have found expression in this profes- sion where all of her abilities might have concentrated. While practicing her professions as minister and doctor of medicine she became convinced there was little opportunity for women to attain their noblest state until they had financial and political freedom. Considering these the most important reforms, she resigned her pastorate, gave up the practice of medicine, and from that moment she has worked and lectured and given her life to these reforms. This decision may have been in part the result of an inheritance from her great-grand- mother, Nicolas Stott, who was a Unitarian and would not will- ingly pay tithes to the Church of England but sat on the steps of her home each year while the tax collector sold some article of household furniture with which to pay this unjust demand. Miss Shaw's highest ambition for the women of the United States, and of the world, has been that they might be free to express themselves by the only means through which citizens in a representative republic may express themselves ; that is, through the ballot. In 1892 she was elected vice-president of the National Amer- ican Woman Suffrage Association, and in 1904 became the president, which office she now holds. She is chairman of the 446 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS Committee on Suffrage and Eights of Citizenship in the Inter- national Council of Women, the largest and most important organization of women in the world. From her first meeting with Miss Susan B. Anthony, she was one of her closest and most trusted friends. They trav- eled in many campaigns together. Miss Shaw always taking upon herself the hardest part of the work and shielding Miss Anthony in every possible manner. Miss Shaw said of her at a gathering: "I believe that if the principles which she ad- vocates, the ideals for which she stands were embodied in all womanhood we would have a motherhood diviner than any this world has ever known, a motherhood such as Grod had in his thought when he created woman to be the mother of the race." As Miss Anthony grew less able to stand the fatigue of a long speech she would often abruptly call on Miss Shaw to finish it for her. The unity of thought between them made this easily possible. All during her life Miss Shaw had had a craving for a home of her own. As a young teacher she had taught and "boarded round" ; when she was older she became an itinerant preacher and "boarded round"; when she became a public lecturer on Temperance, Woman Suffrage, and kindred reforms, she lec- tured and "boarded round." After much saving and econ- omy, however, it became her good fortune to have a home of her own and she is very grateful and happy. While her work takes her away much of the time, the thought of having a rest- ful home to return to makes her work less fatiguing. She loves trees and has a pine grove of nearly two hundred trees, most of which she planted herself. When returning from abroad the greatest treasure she brings from the old country will be some pines, daisies, or ivy, and on the voyage no steward or porter is allowed to carry this precious package for her. Returning from her trip to Hungary in 1913 she brought eighteen young cedar trees from the Hy Tatra moun- tains and they are now flourishing in the grove which she calls her Forest of Arden. Young people are very fond of her and know no greater pleasure than listening to her stories of her experiences while ANNA HOWAED SHAW 447 living in the new West, while preaching on Cape Cod, or of her travels. One occasion in particular comes to the mind of the writer of this sketch. Miss Shaw was in the drawing room of The Deanery at Bryn Mawr College witla. the great open fire as the only light, and grouped about the room in such an artistic picture as can be made only by young free spirits, the students who were invited to spend the evening in this informal man- ner, listened with sympathetic laughter and tears to her stories of infinite variety. One summer at Chautauqua there was a young man who was particularly fond of making people feel uncomfortable. One day after he had centered the attention of every one on her he said, "Miss Shaw, we have been discussing the reason why some women wear their hair short, and as I knew so sensible a woman as yourself would not do it without a very good rea- son, I want to ask you why you wear your hair short. " Miss Shaw told him that his question greatly embarrassed her, that it was one over which she was very sensitive, but that as he had asked her she would tell him: **It is a birth mark — I was born with short hair. ' ' Needless to say, the tables were so turned on the young man that he was the butt of his own joke for many a day. Few of her speeches are recorded because she always speaks without notes and few reporters or stenographers can go at her pace — for while she speaks most distinctly she speaks very rapidly. She has lived to see political equality achieved in a sufficient number of states to make the question of such importance that political parties in those states vie with each other in the passage of good laws for the home and in the interests of women and children. Had Miss Shaw chosen to use for personal gain her wonder- ful gifts she might have achieved great financial independence and even wealth for herself, but she has given her service and used her talents for the uplift of women and of humanity. She seems to have found the secret of keeping interest and vitality of life in the abandonment of her whole being to the accom- plishment of a great and unselfish purpose. 448 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS BIBLIOGRAPHY BOOKS History of Woman Suffrage. Volume IV. By Ida Husted Harper. Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony. Volumes II and III. By Ida Husted Harper. PERIODICALS Dr. Shaw's Revolt. Literary Digest 48 :50. If I Were President. By Anna Howard Shaw. McG all's Magazine July, 1912. President and the Suffragists. Literary Digest 47 :1209. Story of a Pioneer. A serial beginning in the Metropolitan, October, 1914. Why I Went into Suffrage Work. Anna Howard Shaw. Harper's Bazar 46 :440. ■ m''y f f Copyright by Moffeit Studio, Chicago ^^/f/^ WILLIAM HOWAED TAFT By Luther Albbetus Bebweb IN times when reforms are vigorously agitated and insist- ently demanded, feverish dreams are apt to assume the lineaments of true ideals. How fortunate, therefore, is the nation, in that in days of stress and storm it has in its public life a man who has a settled reputation as one of the greatest constitutional lawyers, a man widely conversant with its territory, its varied populations, and its domestic and in- ternational situations. When economic conditions are un- settled and the people restless, statesmanship does not always readjust itself to the changing situation. Too often it lags in the rear, giving opportunity to the wilderness prophets to air their vagaries and to suggest experiments, all to the bewilder- ment of the public mind. The nation even now is bearing tribute to William Howard Taft that at a time when ideals were in eclipse and action was demanded he valiantly exalted the ideals of statesmanship and of conservative progress and made his administration a reign of law. The basis of statesmanship is the interpretation of law in the light of the country's growth and the people's as- pirations. President Taft so administered the affairs of his ofiSce as to inspire confidence in the legality of all his acts. He is not a politician in any interpretation of the term. On this all are agreed. History will confirm the statement here made, that no occupant of the presidential chair has a clearer claim to the title statesman than has he. With the pseudo-reformer, who is but the wolf in sheep's clothing, seeking personal aggrandizement, Mr. Taft has no patience. His distinction between the statesman and the rad- ical reformer, as expressed in an address at Baltimore in March, 1914, will long remain in the memory of thoughtful people : "I am far from saying that a statesman may not strongly sympathize with the general purpose of the enthusiasts, may 452 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS not clearly see the real abuse and wrong and evil which, these leaders of the crusades are picturing to the people, and may not take part in the initiation and carrying on of that move- ment ; but generally it will be found that the statesman mod- erates his expressions, sees the practical difficulties and does not imitate the fury of the eloquence of those with whose work he sympathizes." Here Mr. Taft stands forth, not as a reactionary, but as a safe and sane progres*sive. In this he is in accord with the mass of his fellow countrymen. And from even a cursory glance at the history of his fore- bears, we should expect to find in Mr. Taft these qualities of statesmanship, of reverence for law, of conservative progress in all things that pertain to the welfare of our nation and its people. His ancestry through both parents goes back to the little colony of people who settled in Massachusetts in the early part of the seventeenth century. He was bom at Cin- cinnati, Ohio, September 15, 1857, his father being Alphonso Taft, an able lawyer and a distinguished public servant. After preparing for college in the high school of his home city he entered the class of 1878 at Yale, graduating second in a class of one hundred and twenty-one. Though fitted by his muscular equipment for athletic sports, he eschewed these and devoted himself to acquiring scholastic honors. After his graduation he began the study of law in his father's office, at the same time doing court reporting for his brother's paper, his salary being six dollars a week. He did his work so well that another publisher employed him for the same duties at twenty-five dollars a week. He combined the work of reading and reporting that he might get both the the- ory and the practice of the law. He was graduated from the Cincinnati Law School in 1880, dividing first honors with an- other, and was admitted to the bar the same year. Almost immediately he was made assistant prosecuting attorney of Hamilton County. In 1881 he was appointed internal revenue collector for the first Ohio district. Although the salary of this office was $4,500 a year, he resigned at the end of ten months that he might give his entire time to the practice of WILLIAM HOWAED TAFT 453 the law. Here lie showed early in Ms public eaxeer his inde- pendence and his determination to pursue unflinchingly the course he had mapped out for his life. The salary of the col- lector's oflSce was much greater than any sum he could pos- sibly earn at his profession at that time, and the work far easier, but he did not propose to permit money to interfere with the legitimate work of his profession. This is an inci- dent in his life that may well be an example to ambitious American youth. Earnestly as he seemed to wish it, Mr. Taft could not keep out of pubhc life for any length of time. He had proven his worth in small things, therefore the call to greater. In 1885 he became assistant county solicitor, and in 1887 Governor Foraker appointed him judge of the Superior Court. This appointment was a tribute to the worth of the young official, for the governor was the head of a hostile faction of his party. Mr. Taft was later elected to the same position. Here he began his judicial career, a career that had always been Ms ambition. But already the fame of the young jurist had gone abroad, and after serving two years of the five for wMch he was elected, President Harrison persuaded him to become soKcitor general of the United States. He was then only thirty-three years old, and doubtless congratulated him- self that he had given up that revenue coUectorship. The office of solicitor general is an important one always, but it seems to have had under Mr. Taft an unusual number of big things demanding attention. Two of the cases conducted by him as solicitor general involved questions of vital impor- tance to the entire country — the seal fisheries dispute with Great Britain, and the legality of the McKinley tariff law. In both cases the victory was won by Mr. Taft. His wide learning, Ms tremendous power of close application and study of details, Ms ability to state propositions clearly and to argue convincingly, attracted the attention of the entire country. His firm resolve to "stick to his profession" and to avoid be- ing lured away by side issues proved worth while. After three years of service as solicitor general, during which he proved himself worthy of confidence and deserving 454 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS of greater honors, President McEanley returned him to his native state as judge of the Sixth Federal Circuit, comprising the states of Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky, and Tennessee. It was an important appointment and at once made Mr, Taft known to all the people of the country. It takes big men to grasp and to handle successfully big questions — men of large vision, of independent character, of strong determination to do the right though criticism and un- popularity follow. Barely have so many important affairs been placed in one man's hands for solution as have come to Mr. Taft. All his life he seems to have been making history. All his life he seems to have been placed in positions where he was compelled to decide questions of great moment. The United States judicial office was no exception. Here he was confronted with grave problems, the solution of which meant praise or blame according to the tenor of the decision. With rare courage and fairness he grappled every problem and in- terpreted the law according to his conscience. At least three precedent-making cases came before him as federal judge. His decisions in these have established stand- ards for our courts. The one granting an injunction against interference on the part of representatives or employees, with the reasonable and equal interchange of traffic between inter- state carriers was the first to define thus the relations be- tween railroads and their employees. It was at the time un- popular with the labor unions, as was also his decision pun- ishing the chief ringleader in a boycott of a railroad, then in the hands of a receiver, who had definitely disobeyed the or- ders of a court. Judge Taft served notice upon all concerned that the business of that particular road must not be inter- fered with, and that the army would be called upon, if neces- sary, to keep the trains running. As soon as the turmoil following this stern decree subsided Judge Taft showed his fairness by asking the receiver to take back all the strikers as rapidly as places could be found for them. No clearer or broader statements as to the rights of labor have ever been made than those given in these decisions. WILLIAM HOWARD TAPT 455 Attorneys for labor unions have since quoted them in con- ducting cases for their clients. A third important case to be tried before Judge Taft was one brought by the government to dissolve a cast-iron pipe monopoly. Efforts to define more clearly the Sherman anti- trust law had been made frequently but without effective re- sults. The decision was against the pipe company, and thus for the first time was the Sherman law made a vital force. The case was taken to the Supreme Court of the United States and confirmed by that body. The unusual honor was given Judge Taft of having his opinion quoted in full by the highest court in our land. A position on the federal district bench is usually a step- ping-stone to membership in the Supreme Court. It was well understood that this was a place coveted by Mr. Taft, and there is no question as to the appointment having been made had not other avenues for his abilities presented themselves. With characteristic devotion to duty he put aside his worthy ambition for a place on the bench of our highest court and ac- cepted the other responsibilities, all of which he discharged with fidelity and rare tact. Our war with Spain, which ended in 1898, resulted in the acquisition by the United States of the Philippine Islands. These islands literally were forced upon us. We did not want them. President McKinley and William Howard Taft shared the feeling of many leading Americans that we ought not to retain them. Certainly, we should not permit them to be ex- ploited for American benefit. But by force of circumstances seemingly beyond our control they were ours. Grave respon- sibiUties had come to us suddenly, and civilization and hu- manity demanded that we meet these responsibilities in an en- lightened spirit. The dream of the Filipino had long been for independence, and with the realization of this dream Taft sympathized. He saw clearly, however, that a people who for centuries had been under the yoke were not ready for sudden liberty and self-government. They must first be taught self- restraint, and reverence for orderly procedure. With broad 456 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS and enlightened vision he saw early the possibiHty of lifting a feeble, ignorant people into the light of liberty. Looking into the future, he became reconciled to present American domina- tion. When, therefore, President McKinley urged him to go to the Philippines as head of the civil commission charged with the grave and important duty of establishing order and stabil- ity in the island, Mr. Taft laid aside his ambition for higher judicial honors and cheerfully accepted the "white man's bur- den." He came to realize the benevolence of the work he might be able to accomplish for the "little brown brothers" in the far-away possessions. It was a hard task he had undertaken, but he set about its performance with characteristic energy. He found a people sullen and antagonistic, many of them in open rebellion. The few Spaniards doing business in the islands were suspicious and disposed to be in opposition to American orderly govern- ment. On arriving at the islands Mr. Taft promptly said to the Filipinos that he had not come to give them present, nor any definite promise of future, independence. His mission would be to help them to learn self-government. He wanted to work with them, not against them. He invited their cooperation in all his efforts to lead them to ultimate freedom. It took some time to convince the radicals of his sincere desire to help them, but he finally won their full confidence. He did this by living with them, eating and drinking with them, standing all the time for their interests despite the opposition of almost all of his own countrymen there whom he would not permit to exploit the resources of the islands for their own benefit. He steadfastly held that the Philippines were for the Filipinos. He helped the natives to build schools and to own their own homes. He gave them as he could appointments in the civil service, and established minor courts all over the islands with natives as judges. He gave the islanders a practical demon- stration of honesty and good faith. It is difficult for one to comprehend the tremendous achieve- ment of Mr. Taft in the Philippines. Probably no other man WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT 457 in America was so well-fitted by nature and by training for the great work he was called upon to perform in the far Pacific. While in the Philippines, he was thrice offered a place on the Supreme Bench of the United States. Each offer was de- clined because he felt he was needed by his Filipino brother. Affairs in the islands having assumed a fairly stable condi- tion, Mr. Taft felt free to accept the place of Secretary of War. As the Philippines were under the jurisdiction of this department of the government he saw opportunities as secre- tary to direct their affairs to a large extent. Fated as he seems to have been all his life to have great and important questions come to him for solution, this office proved no exception to the rule. His years of incumbency of the office were years filled with big things. His first great task was to build the Isthmian canal. Before we could send our men down there to do the practical work of excavating and superintendence, the sanitary conditions of the Isthmus must be changed. He called to his aid a group of experts and clothed them with autocratic powers. The canal zone soon was as safe a place of residence as many portions of the United States. As in the Philippines, there were hostile peoples along the proposed route of the canal and these had to be pacified. He made several trips to the district and was able to convince the people of Panama that our intentions were all of a friendly nature. Much of the credit for the suc- cessful completion of this great water highway is due to Mr. Taft, who in its building displayed executive ability of high order. While Secretary of War he was called upon to go to Cuba to rehabilitate the government there and to start it off on a sound footing. After freeing this island by war we allowed the Cubans to form their own government. In less than three years personal rivalries and bad management got things into such shape that civil war was imminent. As protector and patron, the United States was compelled to intervene. Some one had to be sent there to show the Cubans how to govern themselves. Naturally the choice fell upon Mr. Taft whose 458 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS ability along this line had been proven so abundantly in the Philippines. In September, 1906, he amved in Havana, and using the same candid methods in Cuba that he employed with such beneficial effects in the Philippines, he soon estabhshed order in the island. A provisional government was appointed, an American "army of pacification" was sent there to pre- serve order, Cubans with American "advisers" were placed in the cabinet, and officers and citizens alike were instructed in the fundamental principles of self-government. The Amer- ican protectorate was withdrawn early in 1909, and Cuba now seems to be enjoying a stable government. While Secretary of War Mr. Taft made a trip around the world. In accord- ance with his promise to the Filipinos, he returned to the islands to be present at the opening of their first national as- sembly. He spoke to them once more face to face, reminding them to beware of agitators who were clamoring for full free- dom before they had learned the rudiments of self-control. In Japan he reminded the people that "war between Japan and the United States would be a crime against modern civ- ilization. ' ' While in no sense a candidate, declaring that his ambition was not political, Mr. Taft was nominated by the Eepubhcans, on June 18, 1908, as their candidate for President. He was easily elected in November. Soon after his inauguration he convened Congress, in obedience to the party's platform as he understood it, for the enactment of a new tariff law. The result was the Payne- Aldrich tariff, which he signed. He did not approve of some of its provisions but in a speech defend- ing it as a whole made the unfortunate statement that the new act was "the best tariff bill that the Republican Party has ever passed, and therefore the best tariff bill that has been passed at all." Immediately the storm broke, Democrats and In- surgent Republicans vigorously challenging the truth of the statement. Vindictive war also was made upon some of the President's cabinet appointments. The congressional elec- tions of 1910 went against the party in power. His advocacy of Canadian reciprocity also brought upon him much adverse WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT 459 criticism, though, it was a plank in the platform of the conven- tion that nominated him. When the Democrats came into power in Congress a bitter war was begun on the President which continued for two years. Persistent opposition was given to his every proposal anent the tariff. However, during his incumbency of the pres- idency he was able to secure much important legislation for which he asked. A postal savings system and a parcels post were established; a constitutional amendment empowering Congress to impose an income tax was ordered submitted to the states ; publicity of campaign contributions was provided for; withdrawals of lands by executive order were authorized, a very practical step toward conservation. Other important laws put on the statute books were : establishing a department of labor with a cabinet officer at the head of it; prescribing penalties for the white slave traffic ; providing for the organ- ization of a bureau of mines and a children's bureau, thus tending to improve labor conditions as to health, morals, and safety; and other measures of an equally progressive nature. A conspicuous feature of his administration was its impar- tial prosecution of the trusts. With his fairness to all inter- ests and his lack of prejudice he maintained that all trusts should be prosecuted under the Sherman law, and not only those that had been especially flagrant violators or whose officers were persons widely known. This vigorous enforce- ment of the law was assailed in various quarters, but it had no effect on the President, who believed that laws were made to be enforced and obeyed. He was jealous of the prerogatives of his office and vetoed every attempt of Congress to attach "riders" to bills sent to Mm for approval in which it was sought to limit these pre- rogatives. Especially to be commended was President Taft's handling of the delicate Mexican situation. He might easily have drawn us into a war with the republic to the south had he been a man of less judicial temperament. He is an earnest advocate of universal peace. His position on this question is well put by Mm in a lecture at Tale in 1913 : 460 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS "I am strongly in favor of bringing about a condition of se- curing international peace in which armies and navies may either be dispensed with or be maintained at a minimum size and cost ; but I am not in favor of putting my country at a dis- advantage by assuming a condition that does not now ex- ist. . . I am an optimist, but I am not a dreamer, or an in- sane enthusiast on the subject of international peace." As the time came for the selection of presidential candidates in 1912 considerable opposition manifested itself to the renom- ination of President Taft. After a stormy session of the con- vention the President was given the usual second nomination. The breach in the party was widened by this action and the Republicans entered the campaign without any hope of being successful. They met a crushing defeat at the polls in No- vember. Not in any way soured by the disaster that had overtaken him and his party, President Taft smiled in his adversity, ut- tering no complaint, apparently glad to lay down the burdens of the office he did not covet in the first place, but the duties of which he had conscientiously performed as he saw them. In evidence of the patriotism and unselfish character of the man, it is well to state that a prominent New England senator went to the Chicago convention in 1912 carrying in his pocket a letter from President Taft in which the senator was author- ized to withdraw from the consideration of the convention the name of the President at any time it might seem well so to do. President Taft was willing to put the welfare of his party and of his country above personal advantage and vindication. No one can accuse Mr. Taft of insincerity or of political cowardice. He believes with a great American of old that it is a greater honor to be right than to be President — or pop- ular. His belief on this question is stated rather clearly in one of his Yale lectures when he was discussing the initiative and referendum. He said : "The man from whom the people really secure the best service is the man who acts on his own judgment as to what is best for his country and for the people, even though this he contrary to the temporary popular notion or passion. The WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT 461 men who are really the great men of any legislative body are those who, having views of their own, defend them and sup- port them, even at the risk of rousing a popular clamor against themselves." It is interesting to note, also, in view of his experience in the presidency, the following quotation from the same lecture : "Look back through the history of the United States and recount the number of instances of men who filled important offices and whose greatness is conceded today, and tell me one who was not the subject of the severest censure for what he had done, whose motives were not questioned, whose character was not attacked, and who, if subjected to a recall at certain times in his official career when criticism had impaired his popularity, would not have been sent into private life with only a part of his term completed. ' ' After retiring from the turmoil of the presidency Mr. Taft accepted the Kent professorship of law in his alma mater, a position he is filling with eminent ability and usefulness. May we not prophesy that in his case the compensations of peace are greater than the rewards of war? We have endeavored here to sketch the Taft his friends love to contemplate. Big of bone,- he also is big of heart. When his conscience tells him he is in the right, he has the moral courage of his convictions. A friend of the people, and their advocate, he freely tells them when he thinks they hold wrong views or insist on actions that do not square with law and justice and right. He believes in the square deal as much as any man in our public life and will insist as strenuously on the square deal being given. He does not have any faith in "hair- trigger" reformers, and frankly says so. He makes no ap- peal to the passions and prejudices of men — a thing all too common in recent years. He has faith in himself and con- fidence in the ultimate good sense and sound judgment of the American people, whose friend he always has been. Confident that the future will vindicate his acts, he has ever gone along the path he believed straight. Criticisms and vindictive at- tacks by those whose pet plans have gone awry have not mo- lested him or taken away any of that sweet character and 462 FAMOUS LIVING AMEBICANS amiable disposition he posseses in such an eminent degree. He is a true personification of the courageous, patriotic, sym- pathetic American. BIBLIOGRAPHY BOOKS Labor and Capital. Address by William Howard Taft before Cooper Institute, N. Y., January 10, 1908. Popular Government. (Yale Univ. Press, 1913.) By William How- ard Taft. Taft's Training for the Presidency. (Boston, 1908.) By Raymond Patterson. The Presidents of the United States. (Scribner's, 1914.) Edited by James Grant Wilson. WiUiam Howard Taft, American. (Boston, 1908.) By Robert Lee Dunn. William Howard Taft, the Man of the Hour. (1908.) By 0. K. Davis. PEEIODICALS Character of Taft. Independent, 66 :492. Governor Taft in the Philippines. By F. W. Nash. Review of Re- views, 29:164. Labor Decisions of Judge Taft. By F. N. Judson. Review of Re- views, 36 :212. President Taft. Atlantic, 109 :164. President Taft on Tariff Making. By. F. E. Luepp. Outlook, 100: 495. President Taft's Record in the Philippines. By J. A. LeRoy. Inde- pendent, 56:191. Taft's Work in the Philippines. By Theodore Roosevelt. Outlook, 69 :166. OSCAR W. UNDERWOOD By Nbyle Colquitt THE keynote to the character of Oscar Wilder Under- wood is quiet force. Indeed, no character in the realm of history, fiction or present day life exemplifies this characteristic to a greater extent than does the great House Leader. This quiet force, in turn, comprehends many qual- ities. Imperturbable, well informed, deep thinking, of rare judgment and prescience, Oscar Wilder Underwood is a born leader of men. Without show, with no apparent effort and with a determination completely screened by a serene smile, he makes history at the nation's capitol. As Mr. Thomas F. Logan, writing in the World's Work once said,^ "He tries to avoid any conflict with the rank and file of his party. He seems always to be bowing to their judgment, even when they are accepting his." And yet he reduces to law the great pol- icies of the Democratic Party as easily as the glazier molds his putty. And wheye party and platform is concerned, he stands stronger than Gibraltar — stronger, for while history relates instances where that proverbially impregnable fortress has been successfully assaulted, the history of the House, as contained in the Congressional Record, discloses no instance where Oscar W. Underwood was out of line with his party. And, whatever may be said of the variableness of party plat- forms, Mr. Underwood's record has been one of rare con- sistency. Biographers have called him "the despair of the yellow journalist" and "one of the most hopeless subjects that the pen of the lurid impressionists of modern journalism ever en- countered." Why? Because he is not bizarre. In address- ing the House he does not seek to shame the aurora borealis or deal in Himalayaic phrase. His language is plain, well chosen, direct. There is nothing of the patent medicine pol- itician about him. He is not a politician : he is a statesman. ^World's Work 23:539. 464 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS He neither shuns nor seeks publicity. A hard student and a tireless worker, he is at the capitol early, and never leaves until his desk is clean. Nothing ruffles him. Arthur B. Krock, writing in Harper's Weekly, aptly says of him : " "Should a doctor place his fingers on the wrist of Oscar Underwood and proceed to feel the pulse of that interesting young man, let the time be midnight or dawn, during a Con- gressional recess or in the heat of a political struggle, he would find it thumping seventy-two. Should a doctor force a pocket thermometer down Underwood's throat, it would regis- ter 98.4 degrees. For Underwood is that most abnormal of creations, a normal man." His attitude before, during, and after the history-making convention of the Democratic Party in Baltimore in 1912 gives us insight into his character. Repeatedly before and during that convention he said that, while his friends were good enough to present his name to Democracy, if they be- came convinced that there was any other Democrat who could give greater assurance of Democratic victory, he would de- sire that they support such a Democrat in preference to him- self. The success of his party, not his own advancement, was his chief concern. If he was disappointed in the action of the convention no trace of it appeared on his countenance. He remained the picture of imperturbability ; he showed the same sweet smile he had worn in the hour of his greatest triumph. Mr. Underwood is a man of simple tastes. His home life is ideal. His wife {nee Miss Bertha Woodward, of Birming- ham) is his help-meet in all his affairs. He is a good golfer and is very fond of chess, but with him the time-honored rule of business before pleasure is especially applicable. His fidel- ity to trust was emphasized when, in the presidential pri- maries, he refused to leave his work in Washington, even when his opponent, the present president, invaded Georgia on his campaign tour; and again, in his recent race for the United States Senate, he remained in Washington while his oppon- ent. Captain Richmond P. Hobson, campaigned in Alabama. 2 Harper's Weekly 56:9, June 1, 1912. Copyright by Harris d- Eicinr/, Washington OSCAR W. UNDERWOOD 467 In March, 1915, he will take his seat in the Senate, a well- merited distinction, but one which deprives the Democratic Party of its great leader in the House. And this recalls the fact that many Democratic delegates in the Baltimore conven- tion declared that they were constrained not to vote for Mr. Underwood for the presidential nomination because the party could not afford to lose his services in the House. This was not altogether illogical, particularly as the party had so much excellent material for the presidency, but it was somewhat in- considerate of a faithful servant. In addition to having as loyal a following as had any candidate in that convention, Mr. Underwood was, unquestionably, the alternative choice of at least four-fifths of the delegates, and had the two leading can- didates failed to secure the necessary two-thirds majority, as at one time seemed inevitable, Mr. Underwood would, in all probability, have been the nominee, and the occupant of the White House to-day. But, barring conjunctions, he was the most universally popular of those whose names were men- tioned in the convention ; which speaks well for the past and augurs well for the future. He could have had the nomina- tion for the vice-presidency by acclamation, and might now be the presiding officer of the Senate, but he preferred to remain in the House and complete his duties, the performance of which made Democratic success possible. He is ideally fitted by experience and endowment for the presidency of the nation. Mr. Underwood is a young man, two and fifty on the sixth day of May, 1914. One would suppose that the Congressional Directory, in which appear all the biographies of the members of Congress, would be the best book to consult for a biography of a congressman, and this would seem especially true when it is borne in mind that the congressmen themselves write their life stories. If, however, one should look there for Mr. Under- wood's biography, he would find recorded these bald words: "Oscar W. Underwood, Democrat, of Birmingham, was bom in Louisville, Jefferson County, Kentucky, May 6, 1862 ; was educated at Rugby School, Louisville, Ky., and the University of Virginia; was elected to the Fifty-fourth, Fifty-fifth, Fifty- sixth, Fifty-seventh, Fifty-eighth, Fifty-ninth, Sixtieth, Sixty- 468 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS first, Sixty-second and Sixty-third Congresses." So much in- formation is required by the publishers of the directory. By analyzing the foregoing, however, we find that he was born in a border state during the Civil War. When three years old, the family, on account of his mother's health, moved to the then frontier country of Minnesota, and lived there ten years. General Custer and General Hancock were his neigh- bors and Buffalo Bill was one of the influential citizens of the community. Eeturning to Kentucky he went to Rugby School, after which he took a law course at the University of Virginia. Shortly thereafter he cast his lot in his chosen profession in Birmingham, Alabama, then a town of four thousand inhab- itants. Mr. Underwood's progenitors were nearly all South- erners. Himself a Southerner, by choice, not by profession, he is, above all, an American. In appearance he does not re- semble the conventional Southern congressman, for his attire is rather that of a prosperous president of a Chamber of Commerce. But he has the unaffected, soft. Southern accent in his speech, and occasionally a tell-tale "you all" or an "over yonder" proclaims his geographical habitat. When Oscar Underwood wheels in his chair, looks you squarely in the eye, and, in answer to your query, commences with: "Well, I'll tell you — " you may know you are going to get an exact estimate of the situation. Many a man in Congress, with smaller knowledge of pending legislation than has Oscar W. Underwood, votes with his chief because, as he expresses it, "Underwood is a safe man to follow." His father was Eugene Underwood, of Kentucky. His mother before her marriage was Fredericka Virginia Smith, of Petersburg, Virginia. His paternal grandfather was Joseph Rogers Underwood, Kentucky colleague of Henry Clay in the United States Senate, a leader of the Union forces in that state during the Civil War, and a confidential adviser of President Abraham Lincoln. Further analysis and comparison of Mr. Underwood's mod- est autobiography will show that there are but four men, out of a total of four hundred and thirty-five in the House of Rep- resentatives, who have had longer continuous service than he. OSCAE W. UNDERWOOD 469 More than three thousand men have served in the House since he began his career in Washington, and but foar remain who started before he did ; and yet he was the youngest of all the presidential candidates in the 1912 primaries. His immense popularity and recognized ability in Birming- ham and the surrounding district is attested by the fact that he has been nine times nominated for Congress without op- position. The first recognition of his ability by his party came when, during his early service, he was made Democratic "whip." No man in Congress has had a wider experience. He has served on the Committees on Judiciary, Rules, Ap- propriations, Public Lands, and Ways and Means, five of the most important committees of Congress. He is chairman of the last named, which is the most important committee of the greatest legislative body in the world. This committee nom- inates the members of all the other committees of the House. Its chairman is leader of the majority party, and, next to the President himself, is considered the most influential member of the party in power. Mr. Underwood's succession to this position gave him his first opportunity to demonstrate his true greatness, and as evidence of the fact that he did so, he re- ceived in the 1912 Democratic National Convention electoral votes from Maine and Florida, Connecticut and Georgia, Michigan and Mississippi, Maryland and Massachusetts, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia, Alabama, Alaska, Hawaii, and Porto Rico, though he was the youngest man in the race, the last to enter the lists, and the first for- midable candidate from "way down South" since the Civil War, and despite the fact that in more than two-thirds of these states neither he nor his friends made any campaign what- ever. It was a spontaneous, voluntary tribute to merit. In 1910, when the Democrats came into power in the House, on all sides were heard the words accredited to James Gt. Blaine that "the Democrats always do the wrong thing at the right time." But this time there was a Democratic Samson in the ranks, who spread dismay among the Philistines. He was able, because of his training and his qualities of steadfastness, integrity, and thoroughness, to meet a national emergency. 470 FAMOUS LIVING AMEEICANS Leaders of the Eepublican opposition have declared Mr. Un- derwood the most resourceful antagonist they have ever found upon the Democratic side of the House. Mr. Underwood's position when the Sixty-second Congress was called into special session by President Taft for the pur- pose of passing the reciprocity legislation, was one of tre- mendous difficulties. He was made chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, with which he had been associated during the preparation of the Dingley and Payne tariff bills. The Democrats had a majority of nearly seventy. They had not had possession of the House for sixteen years and were polit- ically hungry and thirsty for patronage. They represented every element of Democracy. They saw ahead a glimmering hope for the election of a Democratic President in 1912 and full access to the places and prerogatives of a Democratic administration, and each man of the two hundred and twenty- eight Democrats was full of ambition to secure a position of influence in the House, in order that he might eventually ob- tain a commanding seat at the feast. In all this discord, Mr. Underwood was elected chairman of the Ways and Means Committee without a dissenting voice. The Democrats were anxious to revise the tariff, in order to keep faith with the people, but they had many plans for re- vision and a thousand shades of opinion. The House Lead- er's task was to hold these men in line, to get them to work harmoniously and effectively. The first tariff bills formulated in the House under Mr. Underwood's direction were vetoed by President Taft, on August 22, 1912. This action made it possible for the Democrats of the country to elect Woodrow Wilson President of the United States and unhorse a Eepub- lican majority in the Senate. But Mr. Underwood's field of endeavor in the House has not been confined to the tariff. Indeed, it would take a volume, and a very large one at that, to recount the full history of his activities in the halls of Congress. He was influential in abol- ishing the fee system which obtained in many departments of the government ; he first proposed the construction of a gov- OSCAR W. UNDERWOOD 471 eminent armor-plate factory to break up the existing monop- oly ; lie advocated and secured the appropriation of large sixms of money for fighting yellow fever; he has always been an earnest advocate of rural free delivery of the mails and the direct election of United States Senators ; he has fought for a tax on inheritances, and the present income tax law is em- bodied in the tariff bill which bears his name ; he has worked hard for the irrigation of arid lands, which have furnished free homes to thousands of settlers and have converted barren deserts into fertile fields; he has always earnestly advocated large appropriations for the work of the Department of Agri- culture; he believes in giving large power to the Interstate Commerce Commission and has always thrown his vote and in- fluence in that direction; he has cordially supported all em- ployee safety bills and legislation for an eight-hour day for laboring men employed on government contracts. For years he has been the balance wheel of the House. Among his most recent labors were those in connection with the new currency law, to secure the passage of which the President sought Mr. Underwood's assistance. His greatest single achievement in the realm of legislation, however, is the great tariff bill which bears his name — the Underwood Bill. The opponents of the measure acknowledge that it represents a clean redemption of the pledge contained in the party's platform to reAdse and lower the tariff so as to make it a tariff for revenue only. The best evidence of its popularity may be found in the fact that it entered the statute books with less adverse comment than any other tariff bill in history. Efforts have been made by Mr. Underwood's political an- tagonists to place him in the class of the reactionaries. Nat- urally this effort could not meet with success. Others have called him a conservative, a term that jars the very ear-drums of the progressive element. But Mr. Underwood is nothing if not progressive. Witness his own tariff bill. Witness the great national currency law. Witness his income tax. Wit- ness his advocacy of the direct election of United States Sen- ators. True he has not taken the initiative, referendum, and 472 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS recall to his bosom and he believes that prohibition and woman suffrage are questions for the several states to settle, but he is a progressive of progressives. He is not a radical, however, not one of the "Farthest North" progressives. He does not believe in the recall of judges. He simply believes in study- ing a proposition in all its phases and from every angle, being sure he is right, and then going ahead. In short, he is thorough, this man of quiet, yet dynamic, force. Eternal vigilance is the price of his success. Keeping everlastingly at his task is the reason, not the secret, of his rise to fame. BIBLIOGRAPHY PEKIODICALS Chairman Underwood. By WiUis J. Abbot. World's Work 23 :534. Getting a Line on Underwood. Current Literature 50 :605. Intimate View of Underwood. By A. B. Kroek. Harper's Weekly 56:9. Men "We Are Watching. Independent 70 :1413 ; 72 :144 ; 75 :435. Progress of a Sane Young Man. By Samuel G. Blythe. Saturday Evening Post, Dec. 30, 1911. Underwood — House Leader. By Alfred Henry Lewis. Cosmopolitan 52:109. Underwood of Alabama, Democracy's New Chieftain. By Eobert WooUey. Review of Reviews 4A :196. What I am Trying To Do ; an Authorized Interview with Underwood. By Thomas F. Logan. World's Work 23 :538. Where Underwood Stands. By Oscar King Davis. Outlook 99 :196. JOHN H. VINCENT By Hbnbt Or. Jackson IT is said tliat an explorer among the tombs of ancient Egypt found, in the dried-up hand of a mummy, a few grains of wheat, that many centuries ago friends had placed there in token of their belief in immortality, or, at least, of their belief that there remains a germ of life that death is unable to destroy. The traveler, desiring to test the appropriateness of this symbol of their faith, took the grains from the patient hand that had preserved them through the "waiting years, and, on his return to his home, planted them in suitable soil and awaited the result. In due time, greatly to his surprise, the moistened seed germinated, grew and pro- duced a little harvest, fresh and golden, in spite of the an- tiquity of the ancestral seed ; and, for anything that is known to the contrary, milhons of acres of waving grain are the descendants of the handful of seed so long held in waiting. In Uke manner it is the happy fortune of some adventurous explorers among the tombs of buried ideas to set free from the relentless grasp of forgotten years some deathless germ of truth, and so to plant it that, by its reduplication, it may reach and enrich the mind of the world. Eminent among those who have thus contributed to the advancement of knowledge is the subject of this biographical sketch — Bishop John Heyl Vincent — who, after serving his generation with distinguished ability and success, still lives in the enjoyment of an honored and serene old age. John Heyl Vincent's paternal ancestors were Huguenots, who, after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, fled from their home in southern France and came to America. One branch of the family settled in Pennsylvania, near Milton, Northumberland County, where the father of the future bishop was born. About 1820, he removed to Alabama, where he married, his "wife being the daughter of a sea captain, Bernard Baser, of Philadelphia. From this union, John Heyl, son of John Him- 474 FAMOUS LIVING AMEEICANS rod and Mary Baser Vincent, was bom in Tuscaloosa, Ala- bama, February 23, 1832. Mr. Vincent, the father, was, as might be expected from the character of his ancestry, a Christian whose religion was a ruling factor in his life. Consequently, his household was governed according to the precept, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom," and in harmony with the strictest tenets of the Methodist Episcopal Church, of which he was a member. But, strict as the home life was, it was preeminent- ly happy. It was made especially attractive and hallowed by the presence of the mother, Mrs. Vincent, whom her son eulo- gizes as "the incarnation of consistency, fidelity, self-sacrifice, and serenity." By the mother John was consecrated to the ministry from his birth, and it is said he accepted his calHng so early that at the age of five years he began discoursing on religious themes to the negro children of the neighborhood. It may readily be believed that these infantile discourses were somewhat lacking in theological prof imdity ; nevertheless, they were doubtless listened to with due respect by his uncritical auditors. When the boy was six years old his parents returned to Pennsylvania, where he began his education under a gover- ness. During those years preachers of different denomina- tions were, from time to time, entertained as guests by the hospitable family; and, no doubt, the alert mind of the boy derived not a little profit from the conversations listened to at the home fireside. "When the period of instruction under the governess was completed, he attended academies at Milton and at Lewis- burg. With these advantages such progress was made that at the early age of fifteen he became a teacher. Further evi- dence of his precocity is seen in the fact that at the age of eighteen he was licensed to exhort, and soon thereafter he be- came a local preacher. Thus he who had exercised his call in childish sermons to an audience of negro children was now authorized to preach to congregations of adults in the church of which he was a member. Compelled to abandon his long cherished desire to go to Cojfyriffht by Moffett Studio, Chicago