^3' C:if Co "f CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY WILLIAM EDMUND AUGHINBAUGH M.D., LL.B., LL.M. 1371, October 12, Washington, D. C. NewYork, N. Y., December 17,1940 President of The Adventurers' Club 1919-1925 "/ Swear by Apollo" Cornell University Library H59.G69 T74 Elgin Ralston Lovell Gould, a memorial olln 3 1924 030 360 345 Cornell University Library The original of tiiis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924030360345 ELGIN RALSTON LOVELL GOULD 1860-191S €lflm ilalston Cot^ell ©oultr A Memorial Privately Printed 1916 ^3 2.3 THE'PtlMPTON'PRESS NOEWOOD-MAES-U-S-A nlpr 1 O This Memorial of Elgin Ralston Lovell Gould is inscribed to His Wife Mary Hurst Purnell and to his children Adelaide Gould Ingram Lyttleton B. p. Gould Erl C. B. Gould John H. P. Gould by The League for Political Education CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE Introduction 3 Joseph H. Choate I. Early Years 7 Clarendon Gould II. A Student at Johns Hopkins 13 Albert Shaw III. Scholar and Author 35 John Bates Clark IV. Serving the City 43 George McAneny V. The City and Suburban Homes Company . 53 R. Fulton Cutting Joseph S. Auerbach VI. The League for Political Education ... 59 Robert Erskine Ely VII. In the Service of the Church 65 The Right Rev. David H. Greer Rev. Dr. Leighton Parks The Rector, Wardens and Vestrymen of St. Bartholomeio' s Church VIII. Epilogue 73 John H. Finley vii VIII CONTENTS IX. As Others Saw Him 79 President Frank J. Goodnow President Nicholas Murray Butler Seth Low Oswald Garrison Villard Henry Bruire Andrew Carnegie President Robert A. Falconer Dr. John P. Munn Charles E. Hvghes INTRODUCTION ■ . •INT-RODUCTIOK'-'''.' 1WAS very glad t'q- be* 'aske^ -by The League for Political Education to write an introduction to this memorial of Dr. Elgin R. L. Gould, who was long my friend, and whom I greatly ad- mired. It is not often that an American of middle age is able to devote so much time and attention to public service of such variety and importance as fell to the lot of Dr. Gould. Born in Canada, and doubtless remaining there until he became of age, for he was a graduate of the University of Toronto at the age of twenty-one, he soon became a prominent citizen of the United States. The mere enumeration of Dr. Gould's activities in a public way would seem to be quite introduction enough. To have been a Fellow at Johns Hopkins University for two years, an instructor in economics there for three years more, and a professor at the University of Chicago for two years; to have been Chamberlain of the City of New York, and vice- chairman of the New York City Charter Revision Commission ; to have spent four years in Europe on special commission from the Bureau of Statistics of Labor at Washington, for the purpose of studying the housing of wage-earners and other problems INTRODUCTION affecting their environment and condition of work; to have been the founder of the City and Suburban Homes Company, and its president for nearly twenty yeara .until his death, at which time that Company had-ai>put seven miUion dollars invested in model tenemjgnt's^.i'n; Ne'W-, York in which lived about twelve thousand. wajge'-^arners; to have been treasurer and vestryman of St. Bartholomew's Church for many years; president of the Associa- tion of Church Clubs of the United States; and chairman of the Board of Trustees of The League for Political Education for eleven years until his death; treasurer of the Citizens Union, and of the Century Association; president of the City Club Realty Company; and president of the New York City Alumni Association of the Phi Beta Kappa Society; all this testifies to a wonderful faculty for public service and a most remarkable willingness to perform it, for the most part gratuitously; — and considering the work involved in all these things, it is a matter of still greater wonder that he should have found time to write five important and valu- able books on "Housing of Working People," "Popular Control of the Liquor Traffic," "The Gothenburg System of Liquor Traffic," "The Social Conditions of Labor," and "City Government in the Twentieth Century," besides many articles in magazines and reviews on municipal and economic subjects. The truth is that he loved people, was interested greatly in the public welfare, and was most untiring INTRODUCTION 5 in doing all that he could to promote it, as is proved by the fact that he was a member of over fifty educational, philanthropic, and religious organiza- tions and learned societies, and was actively helpful in the work of most of them. I should say that his striking personal charac- teristics were strong will, good-will, unselfishness, and untiring energy. If three or four men had done all that he did in lives cut short at fifty-five, one would not be surprised, but for a single man to accomplish so much is very rare. When Emer- son wrote in his "Social Aims" the following sentences, he must have had such a man as Dr. Gould in mind: "Every one knows that in every town and city is always to be found a certain number of public-spirited men who perform, unpaid, a great amount of hard work in the interest of the churches, of schools, of public grounds, works of taste and refinement; and as in civil duties, so in social power and duties. Our gentlemen of the old school, that is, of the school of Washington, Adams, and Hamilton, were bred after English types, and that style of breeding furnished fine examples in the last generation, but, though some of us have seen such, I doubt if they are not all gone. But nature is not poorer to-day. With all our haste and slipshod ways, and flippant self-assertion, I have seen examples of new grace and power in address that honor the country. It was my fortune, not long ago, with my eyes directed on this subject, to fall in with an American to be proud of. I said O INTRODUCTION never was such force, good meaning, good sense, good action, combined with such domestic lovely behaviour, such modesty, and persistent preference for others. Wherever he moved he was the bene- factor. And I think this is a good country that can bear such a creature as he." I was absent from the country when Dr. Gould was Chamberlain of the City of New York under the administration of Mayor Low, but I am sure from all that I have heard that he filled that office with absolute fidelity and very great success. In subsequent years he never failed to respond to a summons to take part in any broad and generous scheme that tended in his judgment to promote the welfare of society. He did not know how to refuse such appeals, and so he was always overwhelmed with good work for others. If he had seen fit to apply the same energy and high endeavor to the making of a fortune for himself, he could not, I believej have failed to amass a generous one to leave to his posterity : — but his children have a much better inheritance in his splendid record of good work, and they may well be proud of such an in- heritance. The City of New York is much poorer by his sudden and wholly unexpected death. EARLY YEARS I. EARLY YEARS ELGIN RALSTON LOVELL GOULD, eldest son of John T. and Emily A. Gould, was born in Ontario County, Province of On- tario, Canada, on August 15, i860. Like many other men who have become leaders in the complex activities of a large city, his early years were spent amidst the healthful surroundings incident to life on the farm. His grandfather, Joseph Gould, who was a mem- ber of the well-known west of England family of that name, had purchased large tracts of land in Ontario County, which was then almost a virgin forest, about the year 1830. This land he cleared and cultivated and afterwards divided amongst his children as they became of age and married. His maternal ancestry goes back to the early Dutch settlers along the Hudson. Until Elgin Gould was thirteen years old, his mental training and education were entirely in the hands of his mother, who preferred to instruct her children herself in the formative periods of their lives, although fairly good schools were adjacent to her home. To this circumstance is doubtless due the religious bent of her son's mind, which early manifested itself and was one of the distinguishing 9 10 ELGIN RALSTON LOVELL GOULD features of his later life. Mrs. Gould was very sys- tematic in her habits and nature. Her standards were always the highest. She firmly believed in memorizing much of what was best in literature and particularly the New Testament. Her son was, therefore, required before he was twelve years old to commit to memory the four Gospels and to recite at least one chapter each week at Sunday-school, without prompting and with absolute accuracy. On one occasion, when there was a contest in the school, he recited three hundred verses, all of which had been committed to memory during the preceding week. In January, 1874, he was sent by his pa'rents to a private school in Toronto, conducted by the Rev. Mr. Moxon, a clergyman of the English Church, where he remained for a year and a half. The school was a small one and each student was under the direct observation of the principal from day to day. Mr. Moxon was a man of high ideals and sought not only to improve the mental faculties of his pupils, but also to develop concurrently the spiritual side of their natures. In September, 1875, he was transferred to a larger boarding-school at Dundas, where he was prepared for rhatriculation at Victoria University. At this school he was industrious and earned several first prizes each year for efficiency, par- ticularly in literature, history, and composition. He also took a deep interest in school athletics EARLYYEARS II and was catcher on the baseball team, besides playing cricket and lacrosse. The two years spent at this school were amongst the happiest of his life. Commodious and beautiful grounds surrounded the school, affording ample scope for the exercise of athletic instincts, while the bitter rivalry existing between the town boys and those at the school, which sometimes resulted in pitched battles, gave a zest to life and at least prevented the days from becoming monotonous. In September, 1877, having successfully passed his matriculation examinations, he entered Victoria College (affiliated now with Toronto University), pursued his studies with diligence, and received the degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1881. While at college he was not a bookworm, but he devoted much of his time to the student activities which were not included in the curriculum. In this class may be mentioned active participation in the work of the literary and scientific societies. It may be noted also that in his senior year he was hon- ored by his fellow-students with elections to the presidency of the two main college societies and was selected as editor-in-chief of the college paper. No sketch of Elgin Gould's early life would be complete without mentioning his keen sense of humor, which developed in his school days and rendered him very companionable with all those with whom he was brought into contact. The many amusing incidents related by Charles Dickens, particularly those recorded in "Pickwick Papers," 12 ELGIN RALSTON LOVELL GOULD appealed to him with the greatest force and the writer has many times seen him almost doubled up with laughter as he read of the unfortunate acts of Messrs. Winkle, Snodgrass et al. While he was fond of all sports, his keenest delight was in fishing, and to him no holiday outfit was complete unless it included a rod and tackle of the latest design, and whether the fishing was good or bad, he accepted the result with equanimity as a true disciple of Izaac Walton. At the conclusion of his course, he was somewhat in doubt as to what vocation to select for his life work. It was his father's desire that he should study law, but thus early in life his tastes seemed to incline to sociological work, and he determined to take a postgraduate course at the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, specializing particularly in history and economics. A STUDENT AT JOHNS HOPKINS II. A STUDENT AT JOHNS HOPKINS IT was in the autumn of 1881 that Elgin R. L. Gould came to Baltimore, to enter upon postgraduate studies at the Johns Hopkins University. The institution was only five years old, but President Gilman had already succeeded in making it famous by the simple plan of bringing together a group of men devoted to productive research in the fields of science and scholarship. A great majority of the students at that time were graduates of other colleges. They had come to Baltimore to pursue special and advanced studies, many of them having professorships in view. This was particularly true of those who were studying philology^ mathematics, chemistry, physics, and biology. Mr. Gould came to join a group of young men who were working in the related subjects of history, politics, and economics, under stimulating direction and by methods which had a marked result in shaping the careers of a considerable number of men who left the university to play parts of influence and usefulness in the social and political progress of the country. As those of us who were members of the group of men who were working together at that time now realize through the perspectives aff^orded by IS l6 ELGIN RALSTON LOVELL GOULD long experience, there was positive advantage in the informality of the methods then pursued in the department of history and political science. Pro- fessors, instructors, and lecturers were to us like older brothers; and each student was expected so to contribute of his best as to help his fellows. No two men were doing the same work, although all were kept familiar with the inquiries that each was pursuing, and there were certain courses of reading and certain systematic lectures that all were taking in common. The head of the department was Dr. Herbert B. Adams, of Amherst and Heidelberg, a remarkable teacher of history, and an unrivaled guide of younger men in the use of historical methods to attain results in some distinctive field of their own. Associated with Dr. Adams was Dr. Richard T. Ely, who became the head of the department of political economy in 1881, at the time when Gould arrived as a student. Professor Ely had graduated at Columbia University five years before, and had been in European universities during the interven- ing period, taking his Doctor's degree, as did Dr. Adams, at the University of Heidelberg. Drs. Adams and Ely were intensely American in spirit, but they were exponents of German historical methods in research — combining in the most unusual way a devotion to the minute study of sources, with largeness of vision and an almost passionate international humanitarianism. It was in the closest association with these A STUDENT AT JOHNS HOPKINS I7 teachers and guides, and with a group of post- graduate students of marked talent, definite purpose, and prodigious industry, that Elgin R. L. Gould remained for a number of years. There were not Fellowships enough for wide distribution; but after his first year Gould received the very high honor of being awarded the one Fellowship that was allotted to the department of history. During his first year as a student, the Fellowship had been held by J. Franklin Jameson, who received his degree of Doctor of Philosophy in 1882 and re- mained in the historical department as an assistant professor in history. Gould held the Fellowship for two years, after which he engaged in teaching at Washington, retaining a connection, however, with the Johns Hopkins University and holding a Fellowship "by courtesy," as an unusual honor, for a further year. In 1886 he passed final exami- nations, presented a thesis, and received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. I deem it suitable to dwell somewhat upon this period, because it was here that his intellectual and personal characteristics took those definite forms that persisted throughout his entire subsequent career. It was true of most of the men thus associated in Baltimore that their qualities were clearly shown, and that the work they did then had a certain basis of maturity and thoroughness that made it an inseparable part of the work they per- formed in later years. Thus when I went to Baltimore as a member of that group, some four l8 ELGIN RALSTON LOVELL GOULD months after Gould had begun his work, I recog- nized immediately his unusual combination of qualities. First of all was his enthusiasm. He was engaged in some exceedingly recondite — and to most people uninteresting — studies of early institutional forms. But he had the air of a man who was discovering diamond mines. He was fascinated with the con- ceptions he was gaining of continuity and develop- ment in the more obscure types of institutional life. But this was because he was concerned about all phases of life itself, and he could dig at the histori- cal foundations while making himself ready to be a competent leader — a man among men. Next to this inestimable power of enthusiasm, the thing that impressed me was Gould's born gift of leadership. He had a very responsible quality of mind. It was not that he sought or planned to be a leader, but that he felt impelled, by some natural talent for exercising authority, to help unify our intensely individualized group of men who had come, each for his own work and his own reasons, from widely separated places. The two men in our group at Baltimore who were easily pre-eminent, to my mind, in this capacity for unifying and personally leading their fellows, were Elgin Gould and Woodrow Wilson. Wilson did not arrive on the scene until the autumn of '83, but his eminence in the University was assured from the first week. He and Gould received their Doctor's degrees together, in June, '86. Dr. J. A STUDENT AT JOHNS HOPKINS IQ Franklin Jameson was our recognized leader in historical scholarship, especially in critical fields pertaining to the political evolution of America. After years of service in university chairs of history, he is director of the department of historical re- search in the Carnegie Institution of Washington. Dr. Jameson has sent me a letter regarding the impressions that Gould made upon him, from which I am glad to quote extensively: In those early days of the Johns Hopkins Uni- versity, when you and E. R. L. Gould and I were together, we were all very industrious young men, eagerly busy in making the fullest possible use of the time we had for graduate study. Therefore my memories of Gould are not those which any of us might have regarding the companions of our undergraduate days, in which there was more leisure for sociability, and a common life extending over a much larger area than that of hard work in a specialty merely. Our enjoyment of each other was simply that which we could get without diverting much time from austere devotion to the muse of history — or to the muses of history and political economy and political science, if the latter have muses, a point concerning which I have no information. Those three studies constituted one department then, in the charge of Dr. Herbert B. Adams. No one of the graduate students responded more actively than Gould did to the mental stimulus given to us by that brilliant and ingenious teacher. Gould came to Baltimore with a sound education, of the thorough, though not excessively broad type, which Canadian colleges have always known 20 ELGIN RALSTON LOVELL GOULD how to give. He showed a capable, eager, respon- sive mind, good reasoning powers, refinement of thought and of taste, and a degree of adaptability distinctly remarkable. The atmosphere of the Johns Hopkins in those days was one of the most stimulating ever found in America. "Joy was it in that time to be alive, but to be young was very Heaven." Gould eagerly breathed in that atmos- phere, and became an American scholar of a very fine type, whose interests even in those early days showed that public spirit and wish to be of service in large matters which afterwards marked his later career. His work was always done cleverly and substantially and, what is much rarer among American graduate students, was presented in an interesting way. He was indeed a very interesting man, a good talker, devoted to argument, as young students of our subjects ought to be, but never overbearing or quarrelsome. He was the soul of good nature, always kind and courteous and friendly, and very good company. Prof, Herbert B. Adams died in 1901, in the midst of his useful work as a trainer of scholars and statesmen. But Prof. Richard T. Ely — who has probably influenced more men who have them- selves become influential in the social and economic work and thought of this country than any other teacher — remains at the head of the department of political economy in the University of Wisconsin, having left the Johns Hopkins in 1892. Dr. Ely continued a warm friend of Dr. Gould through after years. I am at liberty to quote as follows from a letter written to me by Professor Ely: A STUDENT AT JOHNS HOPKINS 21 I well recall his first appearance and the impres- sion he made upon me. I remember him when he first came into my office as a tall and slight young man with a coloring which a young girl might well envy. My first impression then is that of a hand- some youth. His manners were frank, open, and engaging. It was evident from the start that he had social gifts which would enable him to win confidence and to make friends. As I became better acquainted with him in the classroom and in consultation, his intellectual qualities impressed me more and more strongly as time went on. He had talents, supported by a strong character. In calling to mind his career as a student and his career after he left the Johns Hopkins Uni- versity, I think of his continued interest in his studies and his fidelity to all engagements. He soon displayed those social sympathies which are so evident in his life's work. While not without interest in theory, his practical qualities were dominant. In speaking about his social sympathies, it occurs to me to say that while he had fine senti- ment, this never degenerated into sentimentalism. He did not allow his feelings to run away with his judgment. Dr. Gould's career is an inspiration and a just source of pride to all connected with it. In think- ing of him in connection with my students in the early days of the Johns Hopkins University, I feel that he occupies a worthy position in a dis- tinguished company. There is ample concurrence of testimony regard- ing the impression that was made by young Gould 22 ELGIN RALSTON LOVELL GOULD in those days in the University and in Baltimore circles. I am indebted to Mr. Edward Ingle, a prominent historian and journalist of Baltimore (who graduated at the Johns Hopkins as Bachelor of Arts in 1882 and continued for several years as a graduate student in history) for reminiscences from which I may quote first as respects scholastic work and afterwards as bearing upon Gould's part in athletic and social activities. Mr. Ingle gives me this attractive picture of Gould at work in the historical laboratory: Half a dozen of the men of the department of history and political science at the Johns Hopkins in the early eighties had upon them the mark of the promise of careers above the average. They had distinct aims and were naturally equipped to use to the full all aids to realization of them. Gould was of the number of these notables. Enter- ing the University as a graduate student within a few weeks after attaining his majority, he had poise and self-confidence frequently manifested in far less degree in men of more mature years and of definite achievement. His lithe mind, of decidedly practical turn, was complement to a body brimming with physical vigor and energy. Attractive per- sonal appearance facilitated the enthusiastic ex- pression in divers ways of his strongly developed social instinct. He entered heartily into the spirit of the course in political biology instituted by Dr. Adams by way of research into the beginnings of the govern- mental institutions of this country. The early part of the winter of 1881-82 found him delving among the archives treasured by the Pennsylvania Histori- A STUDENT AT JOHNS HOPKINS 23 cal Society in Philadelphia. The result, attained in a remarkably short time, was his monograph on the local institutions of Pennsylvania. This he read before the Historical and Political Science Association of the University, in March, 1882, and before the Pennsylvania Historical Society, on May I, 1882. The society published the paper, if memory does not mislead, and republication of it was had in Series I of Studies in Historical and Political Science of the University in the following winter. You may recall that other papers presented at the March, 1882, meeting of the Historical and Political Science Association were by Edward W. Bemis, on the local institutions of New York, Albert Shaw, on the local institutions of Illinois, Richard T. Ely, on the administration of the city of Berlin, and Henry E. Shepherd, on institutions of North Carolina. Our University library facilities were not ex- tensive at first, but special collections of one kind or another came into the possession of our depart- ment and provoked original lines of inquiry and research. Furthermore, we moved about with facility and attached ourselves to all the collections of the region. Thus in 1881-1882 a group of us, including Gould, were working in sources of early European history and in Italian history, under Dr. Adams' direction, in rooms at the Peabody Institute with the collections of the Institute's fine library at our disposal. Other parts of our work were done in the rooms of the Maryland Historical Society; and at other times local ecclesiastical authorities afforded us opportunities in church 24 ELGIN RALSTON LOVELL GOULD history. At the same time we were working under Dr. Ely in the history of political economy and in the literature of modern French and German socialism. Gould's work in that and subsequent years com- prised many courses in such subjects as interna- tional law, comparative constitutional history, finance, and administration. He took courses also in Anglo-Saxon and historical German, and was able to make ready use of the modern languages — as indeed all students were required to do — as tools of study in history, law, and political economy. We were given full opportunities in the library of international law and diplomacy of the State Department at Washington, in the great collection of early statutes and materials of the law library of the Supreme Court, and in the Library of Congress. And we were encouraged to search and dig for unused historical material wherever we could find it. We managed, also, to associate much of our reading and study with the visits and lectures of scholars and eminent men from other institutions. Thus Prof. James Bryce, of Oxford, now Lord Bryce, gave us a course in the sources of Roman law, besides talks upon politics in England and democracy in America. And several of us, includ- ing Gould, obtained a part of our training in the endeavor to assist Bryce in the gathering and formulation of material for certain chapters of his "American Commonwealth." That distinguished Comptroller of the Currency, John J. Knox, led us A STUDENT AT JOHNS HOPKINS 25 in Studies of finance and banking systems; and Mr. E. A. Freeman, the English historian, interested us in the politics of southeastern Europe while we studied his books upon English history. The eminent German historian Von Hoist gave us a course on the relations of History and Politics, and we toiled somewhat wearily through his elaborate volumes on the constitutional history of the United States, with whose aggressive anti-Calhounism I remember that Gould was more in sympathy than was Woodrow Wilson. In our historical and political science association meetings, instructors and students participated upon an equal basis. Many of the papers first presented there have had a permanent place as contributions to their respective subjects. The first paper I heard Gould read was in January, 1882, on "The Alleged Indebtedness of Adam Smith to the French Economists." A month later he read a paper on "Early English Military Institu- tions," embodying much painstaking historical study. In the next month he presented his contribution on "Local Self-Government in Penn- sylvania," to which Mr. Ingle refers in the letter from which I have quoted above. This was followed two months later by a memorandum on "The Sources of Institutional History of Pennsylvania." Returning from his summer vacation in Canada, he presented an interesting paper entitled "A Report of Summer Study in Quebec." Not to 26 ELGIN RALSTON LOVELL GOULD mention some intervening work, there was a paper in the following autumn on "A Visit to lona and Glastonbury," and in the following year was another entitled "The House of Lords," these being read before the Historical Seminary and reflecting the results of summer visits and studies in Great Britain. Another paper of that time was on "Canadian Studies in Local History." From this time on, Gould's work became more actively identified with economic and social studies. He had spent some time in Washington, first as a teacher, then as an expert assistant of the late Hon. Carroll D. Wright in the Bureau of Labor. He presented a paper at Baltimore regarding the work of that Bureau. He was sent abroad by Colonel Wright to conduct very extensive investigations on behalf of the Government. He became active in the new American Economic Association, and a member of foreign statistical and economic societies. He became an authority upon social conditions, and wrote important works on "The Housing of Working People," "The Control of the Liquor Traffic," "The Social Conditions of Labor," and so on. He returned to the Johns Hopkins from time to time, as a "professorial lecturer on social eco- nomics." He was a member for a number of years previous to his death of the Alumni Council of Johns Hopkins University; and he may thus be said to have been identified with that institution during all of its forty years of history to the time of his death, except for its opening five years. A STUDENT AT JOHNS HOPKINS 27 I have thus mentioned Gould's academic work and associations at Baltimore, merely by way of indication. I have not even attempted to make more than a suggestive reference to our subjects of study, and I have named only a few of the lecturers who helped to guide as well as to inspire our work. Thus Dr. Austin Scott, who had just completed some years with the venerable Bancroft in writing a history of the Constitution, gave us formal lectures and informal personal direction in our study of the sources of the American Constitution, and especially in the field of its interpretation by John Marshall. Those who knew Dr. Gould in later life, in his practical activities in the social and municipal upbuilding of what is now the world's greatest metropolitan center, may find it agreeable to be told in this way how well he was grounded in scholarly methods by those Baltimore years of study. As I have already intimated, I have the clearest memory of his remarkable enthusiasm in tracing certain phases of early English institutional history and connecting them with the organized life of English-speaking America. There were young men who brought to us from other institutions, or the outside world, certain presentations that had a permanent influence. Among these were Dr. Talcott Williams, Dr. Frank J. Goodnow, now president of the Johns Hop- kins University, and Dr. Josiah Royce. President Charles W. Eliot, Dr. G. Stanley Hall, and the late 28 ELGIN RALSTON LOVELL GOULD Dr. John S. Billings gave courses that were pro- foundly influential. The work done by our own men, furthermore, was mutually stimulating. Thus Woodrow Wilson wrote his "Congressional Govern- ment" in this period, and presented chapters of it from time to time for discussion and criticism; and what is true of this famous book might be said of many other volumes written by Johns Hopkins men, some of them only less famous and per- manent. Coming to Baltimore as a Canadian, Gould had a singular aptitude for making friends equally with men from the South and men from the North. His roommate was a typical South Carolinian, who also received his Doctorate in history and political science in 1886. This was the late Burr J. Ramage, who became a distinguished teacher of law as dean of the University of the South, and was a legal authority in the office of the Attorney- General at Washington at the time of his recent death. Both Gould and Ramage were members of the first Johns Hopkins Glee Club, as were several others of us — including Woodrow Wilson — from the historical department. The musical head of the Glee Club was Charles H. Levermore, a Yale man who took his Doctor's degree at Johns Hopkins with Gould, Wilson, and others in 1886. Dr. Levermore became a professor of history, then a college administrator, and is now one of the directors of the World Peace Foundation. Writing to me of that period, Dr. Levermore says: A STUDENT AT JOHNS HOPKINS 29 I recall our friend E. R. L. Gould as I knew him at Johns Hopkins most readily in conjunction with his chum, Ramage, for I first met them together, and both men became members of the Glee Club. The two men were complementary to each other; Ramage quick, impulsive, staccato in speech and movement; Gould somewhat reserved, always well poised, rather courtly in speech and action. Gould always impressed me as more mature than the rest of us. His temperament was judicial and his opinions, though expressed with quiet good humor, seemed to have a certain air of finality. It was this atmosphere of the elder brother or pater familias which I think led us to choose him to the presidency of our Glee Club. In the famous picture which was taken to celebrate the successful completion of the first year of that organization, it was Gould's presidential office that placed him in one of the two central chairs about which the members were grouped. Mr. James Page was a younger man and a member of another department, who has since become one of the most eminent of American engineers. It is interesting to know the impression that Gould made upon a man like Page, who was active in the Glee Club and in athletic and social activities. It is evident that Gould, like Woodrow Wilson, succeeded in exercising a formative and lasting influence upon the younger men, and in helping to form a college life as well as a uni- versity spirit in the new institution. Mr. Page gives me the following graphic sentences of remi- niscence : 30 ELGIN RALSTON LOVELL GOULD At the mention of Gould's name, a picture of the physical man rises before me; a frame larger than average; a head shapely, symmetrical, well poised; eyes dark gray, sympathetic, but full of energy; a demeanor and a mode of expression connoting control of circumstances and conditions rather than subjection to them. With Gould's university work I was not familiar, beyond an impression gathered from the esteem in which it was held by those qualified to speak, that it was marked by thoroughness and sincerity of purpose. Of the kindly spirit which actuated the work; of the generous appreciation awarded an- other's meritorious performance, I well recall an instance. The subject was a paper recently pre- sented to the Historical Seminary by Levermore, a contemporary Fellow in history. "Of all the historical papers I have read or heard," Gould told me, "it was at once the best in conception, the most scientific in criticism, the most humanly interesting." He was susceptible to music to an extraordinary degree. During glee club rehearsals his face was a study, betraying his eagerness to give meaning, force, message to every note. Sporting blood ran in his veins. Although a Canadian, baseball had no adherent more fervent, none more pleasingly vociferous. In football, if my recollection serves me faithfully, he was reliable rather than brilliant. It was in this connection that he passes from my view. The game is with the Baltimore Athletic Club, the finest muscle fiber which the city pro- duced. From the center of a scrimmage I see a figure thrown bodily into the air. As the struggle passes onward, Gould rises from the ground holding aloft a drooping arm and is led from the field. A STUDENT AT JOHNSHOPKINS 3I The fracture was slow in knitting and was followed by an attack of typhoid, necessitating a return to his home for convalescence. I never saw him again. One of the youngest men of our day was Daniel R. Randall, of Annapolis, now a lawyer of Balti- more, who entered upon postgraduate historical work at eighteen or nineteen and took his Docto- rate in 1887. In writing of that time, he says: To me at eighteen the older men of the Historical Seminary at Johns Hopkins University seemed gigantic in age as well as in ability. They had almost all achieved some distinction in life, which to me at the time seemed unattainable or at least far removed. Among these giants was Elgin R. L. Gould, and yet he came down to my level whenever with lacrosse stick in hand we met at old Newing- ton Park or at Druid Hill, in friendly game. His Canadian antecedents made him past master in a sport then little known outside the Dominion, and his enthusiasm did much to establish in Baltimore a leadership in this particular sport that it has always maintained. His standing in the student body was pre-eminent, and I can recall clearly in what high regard our preceptors, Adams, Ely, and Jameson, held his views and opinions, showing them due deference. I felt flattered when several years later Dr. Gould invited me to be one of his groomsmen and a witness to that next achievement of his life — one so important and so successful. His occasional return to the anniversaries of our alma mater brought us together at Baltimore; and the never- failing warmth of manner — his courtesy and affection towards old friends and college chums — 32 ELGIN RALSTON LOVELL GOULD marked him as a man among men. This was particularly evident to us who enjoyed the same fraternity associations. Mr. Ingle, who was also a member of the Glee Club, has given me reminiscences of Gould's great interest in athletic and social matters. Another of the members of the historical department, also in the Glee Club, was Arthur Yager, now Governor of Porto Rico, who came to Baltimore from Ken- tucky and received his degree of Doctor of Philoso- phy in 1884, returning to become professor of history and then president of Georgetown College, in his native State, Dr, Gould had a very warm, generous regard for Arthur Yager, as for his other University associates; and I am aware of his great pleasure in the political appointment conferred by President Wilson upon so capable an associate of the University period. Governor Yager, referring to Dr, Gould in a letter to me, says: His most striking characteristic to me was his remarkable personality. His social capacity and his genial comradeship were truly extraordinary, and to know him was to enjoy and admire him. He was indeed most lovable, an,d this gift for making friends seemed to grow with the years of his life. It would be manifestly impossible in this chapter of impressions to speak of all the men association with whom at the University had its marked bear- ing upon Dr. Gould's life and work. There were many whose names I have not mentioned who are A STUDENT AT JOHNS HOPKINS 33 as competent to speak of him in that period as those whose letters have been quoted. Among these were Judge Adkins of the Maryland bench, Judge Rose of the United States Court at Baltimore, Judge Duffy of Baltimore, Dr. Edward W. Bemis, and many others in the department of history and political science, together with many men now distinguished as scholars and leaders who were his contemporaries in other departments of the Uni- versity. Dr. Davis R. Dewey, the eminent political economist of the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- nology, was a fellow-student who also took his degree in 1886. Dr. Gould's activity as an alumnus kept him through later life in pleasant relationships with an unusually large number of the "Hopkins men" who were his contemporaries. It is to be noted that with all his vigorous participation in the life of the University, it was no part of Gould's nature to become an academic person in the narrow sense or a scholastic recluse. He found further outlet for his sympathies in social and religious work in the city of Baltimore. Pro- fessor Ely had come from Germany not only with intense sympathies for social masses and the labor movement, but with great knowledge of charitable work and administration. Students in politics, economics, and administration under Adams and Ely were encouraged to study Baltimore and other American communities as laboratories. It is not difficult to trace in Gould's awakened consciousness of pending municipal and social problems, while at 34 ELGIN RALSTON LOVELL GOULD Baltimore, the beginnings that led to his subsequent career as a municipal administrator and a social reformer. Those qualities of mind, temperament, and personality that we recognized at Baltimore were to distinguish him throughout the following thirty years of rounded and useful activities. SCHOLAR AND AUTHOR III. SCHOLAR AND AUTHOR THOSE who knew Dr. Gould chiefly as an oflScer of corporations regarded him as a business man of very unusual scholarly attainments. Those who knew him first at the Johns Hopkins University think of him as primarily a scholar, though drawn into business in a way that gives impressive testimony to the value of scholarship in practical fields. It was his re- searches during the four years in which, by author- ity of the Federal Government, he studied the housing problem in France, Switzerland, Germany, and England that caused him to be selected as the man above all others fitted to conduct a practical experiment in improving the housing of the poor in New York. The results of this investigation were embodied in an extended and valuable report on "The Housing of the Working People" and in mono- graphs and articles on "The Social Condition of La- bor" and kindred subjects — studies which revealed both an unequaled mastery of facts concerning the homes of the people in foreign lands and the plans there adopted for improving them and also a grasp of the essential principles which should be followed in an effort to improve the housing of workmen in 37 38 ELGIN RALSTON LOVELL GOULD America. It was this which rendered the work of the City and Suburban Homes Company under his direction so conspicuously successful. He carried scholarship into this great branch of business. Dr. Gould was one of the early group of men, now very distinguished, who gathered at the Johns Hopkins University shortly after its founda- tion. At that time, it was unique among American universities in devoting itself mainly to graduate instruction. Moreover, it treated the stimulating and guiding of actual research as an essential part of such instruction. It was a principle of President Gilman that young men can, in limited fields of research, produce results of high scholarly value and that, in some fields of investigation, the primary difference between what an accomplished and advanced student can do and what a maturer man can do consists less in the thoroughness of the study and the trustworthiness of its results than in the extent of the field that it tries to cover. Practise in obtaining knowledge at first hand was regarded as an indispensable part of a university training. Dr. Gould's four years in Europe following the taking of his degree as a Doctor of Philosophy, constituted a natural continuation of the work be- gun at the Johns Hopkins University and afforded an invaluable opportunity for making researches of high importance. The years during which he was a lecturer at the Johns Hopkins University, at SCHOLAR AND AUTHOR 39 Chicago and, later and temporarily, at Columbia afforded an equally good opportunity of utilizing the results so gained. During the last half year of the period which he spent in Europe as the head of a commission of six officers of the De- partment of Labor, Dr. Gould made, in Sweden, a study of the Gothenburg System of Liquor Traffic and, later, he published a work on this subject. During his stay at the Johns Hopkins University Dr. Gould had been a worthy member of a bril- liant circle of young men, which included Dr. Albert Shaw and another scholar whose service in the highest of stations has reduced to practise the principles which he early formulated and embodied in published works — President Woodrow Wilson, greatest of all Americans in the combined fields of scholarship and statesmanship. Verily science in that time and place was of the kind that, in prac- tical ways, well serves mankind. It was when he was invited to become perma- nently a professor in Chicago and give his time mainly to the work of teaching that Dr. Gould reached the parting of the ways; for it was at about the same time that he was asked by Mr. Robert Fulton Cutting and Mr. Alfred T. White to organize a large corporation on a plan that would enable it to offer to men of the working class superior homes, while at the same time securing for those who furnished the capital for the enterprise a fair rate of return. The appointment was both so 40 ELGIN RALSTON LOVELL GOULD congenial and so much in line with his special studies that he accepted it and, to the time when a tragic accident closed his brilliant and honorable career, he discharged the duties of it con amore and with conspicuous success. For the first time in New York, dwellings were offered at low rents having ample light and air and good sanitation. The buildings erected by the new company had spacious square courts in the interior instead of the mere flues of an earlier time, and were otherwise healthful and attractive. During all the years in which the business of this corporation and many other practical and philan- thropic occupations made heavy demands upon his time, Dr. Gould never ceased to collect materials for future publication and to look forward to a time when more of his energies could be devoted to distinctively scholarly work. Though the list of books that he completed and published is not large in absolute number, it is large in proportion to the number of years that he had been able to devote to such pursuits, and the quality of this work received fitting recognition from his Alma Mater, the University of Toronto, when it conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Laws. New York will not forget what he did for it politically, and the churches with which he was connected will not forget what his life and services signified to them; but it may well be that the scholarly works pro- duced in his early years may prove the most lasting memorial of his varied and fruitful activi- SCHOLAR AND AUTHOR 41 ties. The books and articles, the lectures, and the accomplished and winning personality of the author and man have made an abiding impres- sion on a large and very choice circle of American youth. SERVING THE CITY IV. SERVING THE CITY DR. GOULD'S early experience, his uni- versity and research work, the whole trend, in fact, of his thought and activity, fitted him ideally for the public service for which he was destined. Long before he came to New York, he had been convinced that the greatest single problem American cities have been given to solve is that of the betterment of the working and living conditions of those who dwell in cities. Equally strong was his conviction that city government of the type then prevalent was hopelessly ill-equipped for the solution of this or any other major social problem. In the city of his adoption, as elsewhere, municipal departments were organized and run upon political lines. The men selected to head them were chosen, as a rule, not for their fitness for the duties to be performed, but as a reward for political service rendered to a party or to party leaders. The use of municipal administrative machinery for purposes of social study, for scientific inquiry concerning the facts of city life, or for the working out of remedies was a thing well-nigh unknown. Money there was, in plenty, for the power to tax was never used sparingly. Too often, however, the millions that might have served so splendidly in the upbuilding 45 46 ELGIN RALSTON LOVELL GOULD of the city and of its people were dissipated in extravagance and waste. The franker critics at home talked despairingly of the "shame of the cities"; and the friendliest of foreign observers proclaimed that the failure of municipal govern- ment marked the one conspicuously weak spot in the American administrative system. Dr. Gould had studied the physical conditions of New York City while he was yet at Johns Hopkins, and later when called as an expert adviser to local improvement bodies. He was thoroughly familiar, as well, before he came to us, with administrative conditions, and with the causes of our political distress. Never, perhaps, has a new-comer fitted so readily and so perfectly into the life of the people with whom he is destined to work as did he. The beginnings of the movement for permanent munici- pal betterment were in the air, but little had been done. The lessons of previous experience had wholesome impressions. No one doubted that within the old parties there were citizens enough desirous of good administration, and unaffected by selfish consideration, to make permanent majorities for decency. The problem was how to detach such citizens from allegiances that, in city affairs, had grown to be meaningless, and how to organize them for non-partisan action. Dr. Gould was one of the first of those who realized that the first need of all lay in organization. He was quite willing, as were his associate pioneers, to copy the methods of the old parties in this respect at least. The SERVING THE CITY 47 object sought was well worth all the effort that could be given it. To secure for the citizens of New York actual control of their own affairs, to establish city government on business principles, to compel the use of the vast sums annually paid in taxes by the people for proper city building and for constructive social service — these were all within the vision; and to a man of Dr. Gould's heart and mind, they were worth not only ordinary effort, but a life's devotion. The City Club and the Good Government Clubs, in various campaigns of education and of trying-out processes, had prepared the way for the Citizens Union, which Dr. Gould joined Mr. Cutting in launching on February 22, 1897. As a member of the original Organization Committee, he aided in the drafting of the new declaration of principles and of the call for disinterested public support. Following the nomination of Mr. Low for the Mayoralty, he took the chairmanship of the com- mittee appointed to arrange meetings and to secure speakers. Mr. Low stood second in the triangular contest of the non-partisan with the two old parties ; but the Union polled 150,000 votes, and the fact that the demand for good government must be dealt with seriously thereafter was well driven home. In the campaign of 1899, minor offices only were to be filled, but the Union determined to hold its new position by naming a full ticket and Dr. Gould, already suggested as a natural leader, was made Chairman of the Campaign Committee. In this 48 ELGIN RALSTON LOVELL GOULD post he worked as steadfastly as though the hope in that year were not a forlorn one, and the chief need that of keeping the record right. In 1901 the Union found its great opportunity and reaped the reward of its political work. Mr. Low was again named for the Mayoralty. With Mr. Cutting as Chairman and Dr. Gould as Treas- urer and Chairman of the Finance Committee, a campaign of extraordinary effectiveness was organ- ized, Mr. Low was elected, and the "declaration of principles" of the Union became New York's municipal program. What has occurred since is a familiar story. With occasional setbacks only, the city has been taking rank with the enlightened municipalities of the world; its finances are sound; its departments organized upon new conceptions of efficiency; its civil service, from departmental chiefs to the rank and file, constantly advancing in their expert fitness for the work to be done; and the city government, best, perhaps, of all, is finding its place and meeting its great responsibilities as a social agency. This development has, of course, been cumulative, and it has covered now nearly fifteen years; but it is founded absolutely on the basis laid down in the campaign of 1901, and the great work done by the group of men who led in the years of effort which crowned them with success can never be seriously undone. In writing the public services of Dr. Gould, I have dwelt long upon these facts of municipal SERVINGTHECITY 49 history because without them the full measure of Dr. Gould's contribution to the welfare of the city he loved could not be properly understood. He was so much involved in these things, so closely engaged in everything that pertained to them from strategy to painstaking detail, and so clearly a leader, that the story becomes a natural part of his own. Mr. Cutting and Dr. Gould shared the honors, in a sense, when the fight of 1901 had been won. Rarely have two men of genius and courage and sound patriotism been so well yoked in a common leadership. At the extraordinary banquet at which the two were guests of several hundred of their fellow-citizens, on January 7, 1902, Mr. William Earl Dodge, who presided, in happy phrase called attention to this fact. To the diners it was a fact of equal interest, also dwelt upon, that while one of the two had long been identified with city affairs with an ancestral vista of two hundred and fifty years upon Manhattan Island, the other was, quite literally, a new-comer; born and raised to manhood under the British flag and but lately received to American citizenship, under our forms of law. There have been few more striking instances of our cosmopolitanism, or of the readiness of our people to accept right leadership under any other citizen who may show his worth regardless of considerations other than the fact that he is a citizen and devoted to his city. Dr. Gould for twenty years remained a leader. 50 ELGIN RALSTON LOVELL GOULD In the councils of the Citizens Union through all of its subsequent activities, in the City Club and those great organizations of philanthropy engaged in promoting his first great object — better housing — in the several committees that have risen from time to time to carry forward the non-partisan cause in later campaigns, he was never absent. No citizens' undertaking within the City of New York seemed complete or ready for active service without him, and to the calls that so frequently came for either service or advice, he never said "No." The time he gave to public affairs was given in the same spirit. His two years as City Chamberlain under Mayor Low were marked by many improve- ments in the administration of that unique financial office, and by the increasing respect of the great banking interests that dealt with it. In 1907, when he accepted Governor Hughes' appointment to the commission appointed to revise the City Charter — in which he served as Vice-Chairman, it was my good fortune to serve with him. I have, therefore, a very direct knowledge of the value of the work he did there, particularly upon the finan- cial chapters ; and — although the Legislature did not accept the excellent draft the commission, after a year of gratuitous service, produced — the ground-work he and his associates laid for the better charter of the future is bound in time to find its expression in the city's fundamental law. Dr. Gould won his rewards in the great satisfac- tion he found in the things his multifold service SERVING THE CITY $1 helped to bring about. He lived to know that his city had grown to be a better and prouder place in which to live — largely because he had himself lived in it and worked in it. He lived to see the forces of city and state working hand in hand with those of the private bodies he helped to create in providing better homes for the tenement-dweller,-, in promoting through the most advanced preventive health measures the health and happiness, amj. ev.en the prosperity of rich and poor alike, in' plaxiing healthful recreation, as a need of all the people, on a par with public education itself, and in casting- out the things that in the old days '^o'kadly hindered all progress of this sort. He muSt-'liave known that — could they have known all that his ■ working and thinking had done for them — many., : many thousands of these people of the city would have risen up to call him blessed. Dr. Gould gave to public life more than time and thought and creative service. Those who were with him actively will always remember the charm of his personal presence, his gentle-mannered ways in discussion or debate, his patience and fairness — and a certain impression of personal nobility that was always with him. The gentleness concealed a capacity for strength and positiveness that never failed him when he needed either, but the men he worked with loved him for it. In short, the mere touch of his personal presence made public life the better. In the minds of those with whom he was in- 52 ELGIN RALSTON LOVELL GOULD timately associated and, I cannot doubt, in the minds of a host of others. Dr. Gould will be remembered not only as a courtly gentleman and sterling friend, but as a constant benefactor of the city in which he made his home. THE CITY AND SUBURBAN HOMES COMPANY V. THE CITY AND SUBURBAN HOMES COMPANY IN 1896 the Association for Improving the Con- dition of the Poor held a conference in New York upon the housing of the poor. Dr. E. R. L. Gould, then a member of the Johns Hopkins University Faculty, was the principal speaker. Fresh from a three years' study of this question in Europe, his wide information and intelligent appre- hension of it made a deep impression upon the Conference. As a result of the Conference the City and Suburban Homes Company was organized, and the promoters of the enterprise invited Dr. Gould to become its President. He accepted and immediately undertook the development of a plan for supplying comfortable and convenient tenements at a rental within the reach of very modest income. This enterprise has attained substantial proportions and its buildings to-day are housing 11,000 souls. The social characteristics of this undertaking are peculiarly striking. At its inception Dr. Gould instituted a system of weekly rent collecting by women that distinctly differentiated it from ordi- nary tenement-house management. This expedient encouraged thrift and established between the proprietor and tenant a cordiality of relation quite 5S $6 ELGIN RALSTON LOVELL GOULD unique. The quality of self-respect among the tenants encouraged by this policy is illuminated by the extraordinary fidelity with which they pay their rents. In its entire history the company's losses from irrecoverable rents is only .23 % of the total receipts, or $7,750 out of $3,428,046. These model tenements have also acquired a reputation for the propriety of conduct of their tenants that has begotten popularity among those who appreciate this characteristic of home sur- roundings. There is to-day only one vacancy out of 2947 apartments. The City and Suburban Homes Company has paid 4% dividends on its stock from its inception. Dr. Gould also developed for his company an interesting suburban settlement in South Brooklyn, known as "Homewood." He was, I think, the first to introduce into the instalment purchase plan the factor of life insurance. By the payment of a small additional sum as premium to the monthly instalment the purchaser insured himself for the sum equal to the unpaid balance of the price paid, thereby insuring to his widow, or others dependent upon him, the security of the home while at the same time the company was assured of full pay- ment for the property sold. In this settlement several rows of comfortable houses for renting have also been erected and they are all occupied. While the City and Suburban Homes Company has attained to the substantial proportions I have described. Dr. Gould's vision looked to a future CITY AND SUBURBAN HOMES COMPANY 57 of the movement vastly more impressive, and his active mind was at the moment of his death engaged in a study for the development of the company's operations upon a scale of far-reaching magnitude. Beside the family tenements the company has erected a model home for single women which was financed by the young women of the Junior League of New York, and which has accommodations for 329 residents. Situated on Exterior Street on the corner of 78th Street with an unobstructed view of the East River on the East and the John Jay Park on the South, the outlook of this building is almost unique in residential property in New York City. This building as well as all of the later houses of the City and Suburban Homes Company was substantially planned by Dr. Gould. Using a model upon which one of the earliest buildings was erected, he so modified the arrangement of space as to provide conveniences of accommodation that I believe to be superior to those of any other tene- ment dwellings in New York. The elevations of the buildings drawn under his immediate super- vision, while inexpensive are architecturally dignified and tasteful. These houses have doubtless ma- terially assisted in raising the standard of tenement- house construction in this city. In many other ways Dr. Gould rendered service in contesting many efforts that have been made to emasculate the present tenement-house law in the interest of cheap and undesirable building. 58 ELGIN RALSTON LOVELL GOULD Dr. Gould died in his prime; yet rarely has the death of a citizen been the occasion for more generous recognition by journals of this and other cities, by associations and individual co-laborers in the many directions in which he was enabled to work with success for the social betterment of the condition of the wage-earner and for the general good of the community in which he lived. THE LEAGUE FOR POLITICAL EDUCATION VI. THE LEAGUE FOR POLITICAL EDUCATION ONE afternoon nearly twenty years ago a little company of women were holding a committee meeting in a Fifth Avenue drawing-room. They were discussing the difficulties and discouragements which confronted the recently organized League for Political Education of which they were officers. During their deliberations there entered a man whose personality radiated friendli- ness and sympathy, and with his coming new courage filled the atmosphere of the little gather- ing. This was Dr. Gould's first acquaintance with our League. Thereafter during its earlier years he was often a source of helpful counsel to Mrs. Sanders, the founder and president, and her associates. In the course of time there came a crisis when the very existence of the League trembled in the balance. It had been maintained almost wholly by Mrs. Sanders, but with her illness and death this support ceased. Of the League's best friends there were scarcely any who expected it to survive. But a few felt that it still had a chance of life and it was decided that a new Board of Trustees should 6i 62 ELGIN RALSTON LOVELL GOULD be formed. It was then, in the League's darkest hour, that Dr. Gould became Chairman of the Board. Only a man of vision and disinterested spirit would have accepted such a position at such a time. During the eleven years which followed until his death. The League for Political Education had in Dr. Gould a true friend. His many and multiply- ing public interests made innumerable demands upon his time and strength, but neither these interests nor his private affairs were allowed to interfere with his loyal service to the League. It was unusual for him to be absent from the meetings of the Board, and in its deliberations his sound judgment was a leading factor. But his usefulness was by no means limited to attendance at meetings. It was an every-day occurrence that he was called on the telephone and he was never too busy to give a helpful answer. These years of constant association with Dr. Gould revealed his distinguishing characteristics. Of these humor was one of the most marked. His favorite author was Dickens. No one enjoyed an amusing story more heartily than he. It was particularly fortunate that in his view of social questions he combined conservative opinion with broad sympathy. This led him to be patient with what were to him ill-considered, unwise utterances, and to appreciate the earnestness and sincerity of those whose views he could not share. His tempera- ment and outlook on life were sanguine and healthy. LEAGUE FOR POLITICAL EDUCATION 63 The solid virtues and simple pleasures; love for home, religious faith, belief in democratic institu- tions, were at the foundation of his character. To him the spirit of service was natural, and public usefulness was the habit of his life. ^^^ SP ^ IN THE SERVICE OF THE CHURCH VII. IN THE SERVICE OF THE CHURCH I [a letter from the right reverend DAVID H. GREER, BISHOP OF NEW YORk] DR. GOULD was a man for whom I entertained not only a great admiration because of his sterling worth but a deep and strong personal affection. For a number of years I was associated with him at St. Bartholo- mew's Church, and afterwards when I entered upon another sphere of duty I still retained and enjoyed a very close and intimate personal fellowship with him. He was a very busy man, and yet, like other busy men who accomplished much, he always had time for other things, and although I often had occasion to consult him he always had leisure to listen. His judgment was sound and sane and was highly valued by me. There was in his character a rare combination of gentleness and strength; and while he was a man of deep and strong convictions, he seemed to have the faculty of giving expression to them in such a calm and courteous way as not to create offense but rather to invite a respectful hearing of them. Others will testify to his value in the community as a public-spirited citizen, but 67 68 ELGIN RALSTON LOVELL GOULD to me he was the highly prized counselor and friend whose death has made a vacancy in my life which it will not be easy, if possible, to fill. Sincerely, your friend. ^^ II [a letter from the rev. dr. leighton parks, rector OF ST. Bartholomew's church] NOW that the first shock caused by the sudden death of my dear friend has passed, I should like to say a word about his work and his character. How varied his activities were — educational, economical, social, political, both civic and national, philanthropic and religious! These are the things to which our atten- tion is first drawn, for a man's work may be said to form the foreground of the picture of his life. The foreground of this picture is very full — tenement houses, providing decent, comfortable, and con- venient dwellings for the self-respecting poor; suburban homes where the family life can develop under natural and healthy conditions; civic clubs and banks and churches. As we think of this man giving the full energy of mind and heart to these essential things and doing all with kindly courtesy. IN THE SERVICE OF THE CHURCH 69 beautiful patience, and undiscouraged hope, we are led to ask ourselves what was the background of this life? Of that perhaps I am in some measure fitted to speak. It was a background of justice and righteousness and love. He lived in the presence of great spiritual ideals, free from superstition and fantastic vagaries. He was inspired by a very profound and majestic faith in the presence of the living God. From that presence he drew daily strength and in that strength he accomplished the great work for which the City and the Church and the Nation are profoundly grateful. His influence has not passed with his presence. We believe and hope that it will inspire many men and women to continue that work and enlarge it in the spirit in which he lived. Yours faithfully. HI [the tribute of ST. Bartholomew's church] AT a meeting of the Rector, Churchwardens, and Vestrymen of St. Bartholomew's Church in the City of New York, held on the thirtieth day of September, in the year nineteen hundred and fifteen, the following Minute and 70 ELGIN RALSTON LOVELL GOULD Resolution were read by Dr. Parks and the Resolu- tion was unanimously adopted: The sudden death of Dr. Elgin R. L. Gould on August 1 8th, came as a very severe shock to the Vestry of St. Bartholomew's Church of which he had been a member for more than nine years, having been elected on December 5th, 1905. It was a paralyzing blow, for not only was he one of our members but he was eminently active in two important positions, namely, as Treasurer, being elected to that office in March, 1906, and as Chair- man of the Building Committee for our new Church. His exceptional training and wide experience in kindred matters had developed natural capacities of no ordinary character to such an extent that he was able to render us services that were very valuable, while his uniformly hopeful and cheerful disposition combined with a happy faculty of favorably impressing and influencing men were often exceedingly helpful. Most men are none too eager to assume respon- sibility, but Dr. Gould seemed almost glad to bear the burden of it. As a servant of the public his record is well known, for his efforts to secure to the community whatsoever was highest and best were untiring, no matter what sacrifice and labor such efforts might cost him. His aim apparently was to leave nothing undone that it was in his power to do. For such an example of conscientious devotion to IN THE SERVICE OF THE CHURCH 7I duty we are duly grateful, but we shall greatly miss that pleasing personal presence so encouraging, so inspiring, and that warm-hearted cordiality that made all work done with him so much lighter. The association with such a man was a prized privilege, and in losing a co-worker so efficient, so energetic, and so competent we have met with a real calamity. Resolved, that we tender to his greatly afflicted family our sincerest sympathy and that this minute, after being signed by the Rector and Clerk, be entered in the Records of the Vestry and printed in the Year Book, and that an engrossed copy be sent to the family of the late Dr. Gould. Leighton Parks, Rectx)r W. H. BUTTERWORTH, Clerk of the Vestry m EPILOGUE VIII. EPILOGUE 1HAVE been wondering what picture of Dr. Gould those readers have who have had no acquaintance with him except through the foregoing tributes, to which I add this brief epi- logue; for, having known him through many years, I find that the appearance of him walks across every page of this wonderful record and that his personality has given color to every line of it. But this appearance and personality are not to be definitively revealed by words to those who never saw him. The distinctive quality and charm of his person and spirit are to be preserved only in the memories of those who actually knew him as he passed across this earth. If I could remember what my own picture of him was before he appeared one day in the historical library and lecture-room of Johns Hopkins Uni- versity (a room where we were never permitted to forget either the face of Professor Edward A. Freeman or his definition written upon the walls that "history is past politics and politics present history," but where I, at least, was always more keenly conscious of the presence of that scholar in society rather than in politics, Arnold Toynbee, though he had never visited the place), if I could 75 76 ELGIN RALSTON LOVELL GOULD remember the young Elgin Gould, Doctor of Philosophy, as I had pictured him from the proud descriptions of his masters, Adams and Ely, who became mine, I should be able to tell how the real differed from the imagined and so to make more life-like the picture to those who never had my good fortune. But his coming effaced, as an effulgence, whatever clear impressions I had of this brilliant prize-man from Canada. I do remember, however, with what romance the scholarship of those men who had gone out in those first days was invested for us of the second decade. They were thinking not of their own success or fortune in the conventional professions, but were pushing out, adventuring, as explorers, for social and political betterment. Of Wilson, Shaw, Bemis, Henry C. Adams, Coit and others, of whom Gould was one, we were constantly hearing. And their disinterested struggle and service outside gave us inside a sense of living in a world of cities where a new spirit was moving. How splendidly this spirit was translated into deed, and ultimately into improved urban condi- tions, the life and achievement of Dr. Gould, as intimated in this collection, set forth. He was with Shaw, and others of that group, a pioneer in a new cycle. He was an urban frontiersman establishing new cities on the verges or in the midst of the old. And if he showed that such new cities could be built and maintained with profit in the midst of a wilderness of tenements, his service was all the EPILOGUE 77 greater because of his leading capital to do what should not be left to charity. I have read a long Arabic poem in which is recited the series of agencies through which the supreme thing, the Truth, is reached. The series begins with man's habitation, his home. And here has Truth come, as economic science, and in the person not of a cloistered student but of a highly trained man of affairs to minister to human beings in the beginning of other series. And no one can measure the service of this man's life till one knows the influence of the habitation on the souls that dwell in it. An able lawyer, a successful banker, a professor, he might have been. He became all three in his public service. As stated above he was for a time Chamberlain of New York City; but he became later unofficially a chamberlain of the same city, in the original sense of the word chamberlain. He devoted himself to bettering the homes of the people, which are little more than chambers for hundreds of thousands. It is an interesting and significant fact that the place of ultimate happiness to which the Christian world has for centuries looked forward is a place of many chambers, and that the specific reward for faithfulness is ruling over many cities. But my last clear memory of Dr. Gould is of him in company with some of the great men of England in a castle, far from the tenements. There he was quite as much at home discussing 78 ELGIN RALSTON LOVELL GOULD the great world problems as he was among his fellows in the University or among his tenants in New York. He was a man in whom the best traditions of England were expressed here in America, in whom Canada and the United States had established the highest kind of reciprocity and in whom this country has set a splendid example of disinterested yet practical scholarship. AS OTHERS SAW HIM IX. AS OTHERS SAW HIM OUT of hundreds of letters and very many memorial resolutions and tributes a few have been selected for this book because they illuminate one phase or another of Dr. Gould's full and many-sided life and thus aid to round out the outline — literally an outline — presented in this volume. It is a selection made with difficulty because so many eloquent and touching tributes have been offered, but since only a few could be published it has been desirable to make the choice among those which are largely biographical in character. THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY president's office Baltimore, Md. December, lo, 1915 My dear Mrs. Gould: In the death of your husband the Johns Hopkins University has lost both one of its most eminent and loyal graduates and a sincere and devoted friend. Dr. Gould was one of the brilliant group of young men who went out from the University about thirty years ago, and whcJse influence for the advancement of science and social and political re- form has been unceasingly felt up to the present time. 81 82 ELGIN RALSTON LOVELL GOULD Dr. Gould's particular contribution to Ameri- can life was in the direction of the betterment of the social and political conditions of this country. He was one of the first of those interested in this line of work to see that the physical environment of the poorer classes of American citizens could and should be improved. For a number of years through travel and study abroad he acquainted himself with what was being done in other coun- tries. When he felt that his knowledge was suf- ficient, but not before, he threw himself with eagerness and enthusiasm into the work of prac- tical reform in his own country. The success of the City and Suburban Homes Company with which he was so long and so honorably connected is ample justification of his aims and his methods. Dr. Gould's interest was not, however, con- fined to the work of social reform. He also was keenly alive to the necessity of improving the political conditions of the city of his adoption. The great advance which has been in New York City owes not a little to his exertions. For he was connected prominently with most of the movements which were in large measure responsible for the change which is noticeable to every observer of recent developments in New York. In his death the cause of social and municipal reform loses one of its most enthusiastic, capable and sane supporters. His death means to the University, which is so proud to number him among its graduates, not ASOTHERSSAWHIM 83 merely the loss of one of its most eminent alumni; it means far more. It means that we have lost one of our most devoted and loyal friends. In times of need we have never hesitated to call upon him for assistance and advice. And we have never appealed to him in vain. For a number of years he has been a member of our Alumni Council and in that capacity has never grudged the expenditure of his time and energy at the call of the University. May I be permitted to express to you on this occasion the deep grief which all those connected with the University feel and at the same time to voice my own sense of personal loss.? For he was one of my valued friends long before I was con- nected with the University which is so proud to count him as its alumnus. I am, Yours very truly. ^::^yU.*AJ^^^^ 84 ELGIN RALSTON LOVELL GOULD COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK president's room December 5, 1915 My Dear Mrs. Gould: It is not easy for me to put on paper an adequate expression of the appreciation in which I held your husband. His untimely death while yet in the fullness of his physical and mental power has caused his many friends the profoundest sorrow. He was a foremost representative of a type of American that we sorely need to have multiplied and its influence developed. He combined most admirably the traits of a man of academic mold and of a man of practical affairs. His intellectual training and his wide range of knowledge increased the significance and value of his work both in business and in the field of philanthropy. On the other hand, the academic traits in him were always guided and controlled by the lessons learned in the school of practical experience. His simple and definite religious faith gave him added power both to accomplish good things for others and to draw others to himself in the bonds of a kindly friendship that have been broken all too soon. With warm regard, I am, Faithfully yours, fL'5 ' THE NEW YORK EVENING POST WASHINGTON BUREAU January 28, 1916 My Dear Mrs. Gould: The loss of Dr. Gould was a profound shock to me as to many, many residents of this city in which he was a leading citizen and for which he labored unceasingly. I first met him as a leader in the Citizens' Union when it was a great political force. In the Low campaign he worked day and night at headquarters, and when victory came he performed valuable service as City Chamberlain, writing numerous reports of marked importance in the campaign of education for good government by the Low administration and its reform successors. As I have had the pleasure of saying in print : It was, in a sense, a new type of citizen that Dr. Gould represented. Like Albert Shaw, he 88 ELGIN RALSTON LOVELL GOULD came out of Johns Hopkins University with the best of training and a strong bent for pubHc service. Somebody or something in Johns Hopkins made these men reaUze that there was a place in our civic life for the highly trained scholar of the German kind, who could deal with municipal problems in a non-partisan, scientific spirit. Their classmate, Woodrow Wilson, stuck for a time to the college career; Dr. Gould and Dr. Shaw made their mark as writers on civic and economic subjects with astonishing speed. As the latter has devoted his energies to his magazine, so Dr. Gould soon found in New York's building problems a full outlet for his energies. Indeed, it is for his services in this connection, as president of the City and Suburban Homes Company and administrator of its model tenements, that he will perhaps chiefly be remembered, although his public spirit led him into association with many another enterprise, such as the City Club and the movement to estab- lish banks to make small loans, as an offset to loan-sharks. But his services as vice-chairman of the Charter Commission, appointed by Governor Hughes, must not be overlooked because that charter has not yet been made law. In the City and Suburban Homes Company he demonstrated that philanthropy and four per cent, can be successfully combined. Year in, year out, his reports showed one administrative success after another, with an extraordinarily small amount of bad debts and unpaid rents. In one of the com- pany's buildings reside no less than five thousand people in comfortable sanitary quarters, and another building of approximately the same size is under way, for the company has a capitalization of six millions of dollars, all invested to prove that decent accom- ASOTHERSSAWHIM 89 modations for the poor do pay, and much of it because of the esteem in which Dr. Gould was personally held. Being himself without prejudice against any class of our citizens, it is needless to say that his buildings minister to the needs of all. They will long remain a monument to Dr. Gould and his ideals. In my own experience with reform workers in New York, I know of none with whom it was a greater pleasure to labor than Dr. Gould. His fine spirit free from anything like contentiousness, his ability to dispatch business, all made him an admirable presiding officer or secretary, and I have never seen a man in reform work who was more obviously in it without thought of personal reward. He was always ready for an appeal in any field of endeavor where the effort was to better American conditions. It is the existence of such me^n as Dr. Gould that afi^ords the best hope for the future of our American government. With a profound sense of personal loss, I am, dear Mrs. Gould, Sincerely yours. i. /^^z.^^*^'^^:?^^^^?**^ 90 ELGIN RALSTON LOVELL GOULD MEMORIAL ADDRESS 1 BY HENRY BRUERE Chamberlain in the City of New York 1 WELCOME the opportunity to say a word in appreciation of Dr. Gould on this occasion, not merely because of the circumstance that I now occupy an office which he made distinguished, but because of the high personal esteem in which I held him. Ten years was the interval between Dr. Gould's incumbency of the office of chamberlain and my appointment to the work he had so admirably conducted. But those ten years, where they did not represent a pause in the progress in New York City's government to which Dr. Gould had so largely contributed, represented merely the flower- ing out and fulfillment of his plans and desires. Therefore, despite the interval of a decade I have felt that I stand upon the foundations of his work in my aim to utilize the opportunity of this office for constructive service. Dr. Gould is a unique and remarkable figure in the history of New York's government. He was perhaps the most learned and highly trained man that had ever been appointed to office in the city of New York, He was at the same time practically > Delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Alumni in New York December 9. 1915. AS OTHERS SAW HIM QI experienced in municipal politics and trained in the theory and spirit of constructive political science. To him was due, in large measure, the success of the memorable campaign of 1901, in which Mayor Low was elected to succeed, and by his service to blot from the stinging memory of New York, the notorious Van Wyck-Croker regime which repre- sented the pinnacle of governmental debauchery. There are many who can speak with fuller knowledge and more intimate appreciation of Dr. Gould than I. But I like to think of him as one of the first small group of men who put to practical usefulness the intellectual and spiritual training they had received in postgraduate university work. He, with others also notable in letters, science or public service, was one of the first to take his Doctorate of Philosophy in America. We owe his practical-mindedness, his desire to apply the certain grasp of affairs and the understanding of social needs given him by his university training, to the then new and always stimulating institution, the Johns Hopkins University, where twenty-eight years ago he held a fellowship. Dr. Gould was not an American by birth, but came to the United States from Canada. It is, therefore, the more remarkable that he became so forceful a leader in the changing spirit of American community life and exercised an influence not only far-reaching in New York City but extending throughout the United States. He represented the cosmopolitanism of New York which has much to 92 ELGIN RALSTON LOVELL GOULD do with its temperament, its energy, and eager readiness for advance. In the field of philanthropy Dr. Gould was a forceful and constructive worker. There remains as his great monument the admirable City and Suburban Homes Company, which has been the most notable organized effort of value in America to supply suitable housing for the poor and moder- ately circumstanced. It is interesting to review the stages in his career. After his fellowship at Johns Hopkins, he took up for the United States Department of Commerce studies affecting labor. These studies took him to Europe, where at different times he made exhaust- ive inquiries into housing conditions and into the social condition of labor. This latter study was one of the first forward-looking inquiries ever made by the American government into the field of labor. His study of housing conditions made him an authority on the housing problem. So when Mr. R. Fulton Cutting and others through the Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor desired to take up the question of providing better housing for the poor of New York, they quite naturally sought Dr. Gould to obtain expert advice. So impressed were they with his good judgment and practical wisdom that they requested him to relinquish his professional position at Johns Hopkins to which he had returned, and to come to New York to organize and build up the City and Suburban Homes Company. With this as a point of begin- ASOTHERSSAWHIM 93 ning Dr. Gould's activities spread into many beneficent channels of civic effort. Notable was his co-operation in the organization of a non- partisan municipal party for better government, the Citizens Union, that achieved such distinguished success in cleansing New York politics of narrow partisanism and venality. As chamberlain Dr. Gould was a commanding figure — counselor of the mayor on fiscal matters, leader in constructive planning, and expert admin- istrator of his own office. The defeat of Mayor Low in 1903 was a mighty setback to civic progress in New York, and in no respect more lamentable than because it took from the service of the city a high-minded, skilled, and exceptional public servant in the person of Dr. Gould. In the intervening years between his withdrawal from office and his death, Dr. Gould organized a bank, participated in the continuing work of the Citizens Union, and kept always in effectiveness the company which he had built up for bettering housing conditions. It was in this period that I came to know him and to experience his friendly counsel and support at crucial times in my own public work. His death was in every sense untimely. It came when America was more fully realizing the need of the services of men of Dr. Gould's quality in its public affairs. The universities of America are being increas- ingly requisioned for public service. The great 94 ELGIN RALSTON LOVELL GOULD State institutions that have grown so rapidly in recent years, supported as they are by public taxes and guided by public opinion, are making higher education more democratic than it was a generation ago, and hence less a barrier to public service. Six years after Dr. Gould retired from the chamberlainship, Mayor Gaynor took great pride in announcing that he had appointed a number of college men to important public positions. Now it is so commonplace that no comment is made on it. We have gone further in that we are now expecting our colleges and universities specifically to train for public service. And so we look back to Dr. Gould as a pioneer by whose example and life we gain a prophetic insight into the future of American city government. To those younger Americans who look with confident hope to a future civic democracy, skilled, effective, of sane but courageous ideals, the life and public services of E. R. L. Gould stand forth as an inspiration for future achievements. Living we loved and honored him. Dead we revere and shall emulate him. ASOTHERSSAWHIM 95 December 20, 1915 Dear Mrs. Gould: My meeting with Dr. Gould opened a friend- ship which ripened with years, and I wish that I could express a measure of the honor in which I hold him. Essentially constructive and progressive in his views, he was nevertheless wholly simple, modest and unassuming; without pride of opinion or personal bias. He never vaunted himself, and only those who knew him well could appreciate what a strong, devoted and useful citizen he was. His clearness of vision and depth of feeling were shown when he put aside a successful professional career to give unselfishly of his talents to the de- velopment of civic, municipal, philanthropic, church and reform movements. Dr. Gould's life story would be an amazing chronicle of persistent effort, indomitable will, and splendid success. The highest estimate was put upon his character and service to his fellow-men, and he is held in affectionate remembrance by all who knew him. The world has indeed lost a worthy citizen and I a valued friend. Believe me, Very sincerely yours, 96 ELGIN RALSTON LOVELL GOULD Toronto, December 11, 1915 Dear Mrs. Gould: Dr. Gould's death, to our way of thinking so premature, has caused his many friends, among whom I am glad to believe he counted me, the deepest regret. With his brilliant gifts, developed by an unusually thorough university education, and his fine business capacity, there was combined a deeply religious nature, all of which enabled and prompted him to render a unique service to the public. Such a man will be long missed by the community which he served. His old University of Toronto took much pleasure a few years ago in showing her appreciation of his academic attain- ments and useful public career by conferring upon him the honorary degree of LL.D. He was the type of man whom a University is proud to have on its alumni roll. With kind regards, I am. Yours sincerely, President of the University of Toronto ASOTHERSSAWHIM 97 A Letter from Dr. John P. Munn, Family Physician and Friend of Dr. Gould In education as a college teacher, in business as the president of different corporations, in politics as City Chamberlain, in political economy as a chosen representative of President Cleveland to investigate certain conditions abroad, in philan- thropy as the originator of the City and Suburban Homes Company, in the church as an officer, and in life as a friend. Dr. Gould was ever kindly, faithful, competent, and true, serving his day and generation with all the power which the Almighty had given him. This describes the manner in which the world regarded him, but to know Dr. Gould, one must have seen him in his home, with his family, year after year, "in sickness and in health" contributing, as a member simply, and not "as one having authority," whatever he had of head and of heart to prepare each one to render the highest service to God and to mankind. The effect of this sweet, strong influence upon his family was sufficient to enable each one to continue the journey of life with a cheerful courage, de- termined to make up to the world, by combined effort, what it had lost by his untimely death. Could there be stronger evidence of the value 98 ELGIN RALSTON LOVELL GOULD and the greatness of this beautiful and satisfactory hfe? He still lives and his soul is marching on. SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES WASHINGTON, D. C. May 29, 1916 I SHOULD like to be counted with those who especially honor the memory of Dr. E. R. L. Gould. He won a distinctive place as the leader of philan- thropic endeavor by his constructive skill and rare talent for administration. These were the instru- ments of a dominating purpose to serve the com- munity. In this effort, nothing was lost through misdirection. The spirit of service was in all his work, but its characteristic feature was the sound practical judgment which achieved results. By his sagacious planning and superintendence, he was able to give an inspiring demonstration of what is immediately practicable in improving living condi- tions, and American cities will ever be his debtor for this example. Few men understood urban problems as did he, and his keen mind and expert AS OTHERS SAW HIM 99 knowledge were always at the command of good causes. He was zealous for impartial and compe- tent administration of public affairs, and for what he did in the hard struggle to secure administration of that sort and for what he accomplished for social betterment he will be remembered as one of our most efficient civic servants. Very sincerely yours, THIS BOOK IS LOANED YOU, READER, TO AMUSE, TO READ, TO TEACH, TO STUDY, NOT ABUSE. DONT DOG ITS EARS, DONt PENCIL ITS INSIDE, DONT turn it DOWN NOR OPEN IT TOO WIDE. WHYSPOILITS LOOKS AND (ilVE ITS BACK THE'BENDS"? READ PROMPTLY AND RETURN,IT MAY HAVE OTHER FRIENDS. jp ffiuF es