ARTICLE ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED AS

“The Life of Benjamin R. Tucker, Disclosed by Himself In the Principality of Monaco At the age of 74 on Tuesday 06 May 2008”

On WendyMcElroy.com

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[The following has been transcribed from a microfilm of pages that were written in Tucker’s hand. Thus, my apology for spelling or transcription errors. Unfortunately, the autobiography was never finished (by Tucker) and it ends abruptly just at the point when his political radicallism was being born. The following transcript is a labor of love, done in spare hours, and made available for free. Please credit this site if/when you distribute the autobiography. Thanks! Wendy McElroy]

The Life of Benjamin R. Tucker
Disclosed by Himself In the Principality of Monaco At the age of 74

Whether the life pictured in these pages was worth living or not, may those who are to follow profit by the example!

I write my book for few men and for few years…I will not, after all, as I often hear dead men spoken of, that men should say of me: “He judged and lived so and so; he would have done this or that. Could he have spoken when he was dying, he would have said so or so, and have given this thing or the other. I knew him better than any.” Now, as much as decency permits, I here discover any inclinations and affections. What I cannot express, I point out with my finger:

…If people must be talking of me, I would have it to be justly and truly. I would come again with all my heart from the other world to give any one the lie that should report me other than I was; though he did it to honor me. — Michel de Montaigne

Table of Contents

Introductory

1. Nativity and Pedigree. An April Snow-Bird. A Dartmouth Bazaar. Abner Tucker’s Two Marriages. A Notable Centenarian.

2. Childhood in Padanaram. Miraculous Power of the Bible. Rebellion in the Tucker Blood. First Lesson in French. My Musical Repertory.

3. Boyhood in New Bedford. A Negative Lesson in Self-Determination. The Firm of Tucker and Cummings. Summer in the Green Mountains. The Friends’ Academy. My First Composition. Favorite Sports. My Debt to Unitarianism. My Escape from Sunday School. The New Bedford Lyceum. Literary Preferences. New Bedford Homes. Dancing and Riding. Death of Sister Julia. Joyous Memories of the Great. Earning my Pocket-Money. My Unique Cousin. A Defeat and a Victory. Punctuality and Diet, Disease and Death. “Joe Bigler.” Trip to Washington. First Play and First Opera. Household Games. A Momentous Decision. The Last Day at Friends’ Academy. Billy Rip’s Hasty Conclusion.

4. Youth in Boston, New York, and Europe. My Boarding-House and its Conveniences. On the Road to Atheism, and My Arrival. The Atheist’s Prayer. Zenas T. Haines. Change of Residence and New Associates. The Era of My Awakening. My First and Last Dip into Politics.

At a banquet given in celebration of the seventieth anniversary of the birth of Bernard Shaw, a letter of congratulations was read from an eminent German statesman. In Shaw’s grateful acknowledgement published in the press, he paid warm acknowledgment to the German nation and its culture, of which he found apparently the highest evidence in its enthusiastic reception of his plays. Being very fond of Shaw, but less fond of the Germans, I addressed to him, under date of August 10, 1926, a rather saucy note, beginning thus: “Apropos of your letter of thanks to the German nation, may I suggest that ability to discern at an early date the surpassing value of Bernard Shaw is not the sole, or even the chief criterion by which to measure men or nations? Were it such, I perhaps should be accounted the greatest man on earth today, next of course to Shaw himself.” I give here the opening sentences of Shaw’s reply (italics his own), written from the Hotel Regina Palace, Stresa, Italy, under date of August 17, 1926: “Well, my dear Tucker, so you are. I shall be the first to acknowledge it, if I am challenged.”

Whatever may be thought of the verdict thus pronounced by the foremost living dramatist upon the man generally admitted to be the foremost living Anarchist, it at any rate encourages me to yield to the pressing solicitation that have reached me from widely-scattered friends and tell the story of my life.

The task is difficult and distasteful. Difficult, because I have not at my command the biographic style. Distasteful, because it compels me to fling modesty to the winds. But I shall try, and I shall cry! However, the difficulty is lessened by the abundance of material, most of which is ready to my hand, and the distaste is alleviated by the joy of battles yet to come, of which the signs are visible afar.

In fact, the book itself will be a battle, a battle against liars. And here gleams through another reason, — perhaps, after all, the principal one — for this risky undertaking. I am going to tell my story, because I am afraid that, if I do not, some one else will. And I am becoming more and more convinced that most story-tellers are either mendacious or negligent — many of them both. They are “story-tellers” in the euphemistic sense. In this book I intend to head off the liars, and, if possible, to force the reckless to take heed. I cannot hope to exterminate them all, but I may succeed in crippling some. It is worth while.

The work is easier, too, not alone because of the abundance of the material, but because of its nature. Richard Garnett, beginning the prefatory note to his “Life of Emerson,” remarked: “Emerson has dealt severely with his biographers. With full knowledge that his history must be written, he thought fit to lead a life devoid of incident, of nearly untroubled happiness, and of absolute conformity to the moral law.” My considerateness equals Emerson’s severity. My life, though far from unhappy, is packed with incident, and has been one long flouting of the moral law. At the age of eighteen, having read the utilitarian thinkers, my moral conceptions had become tenuous, to say the least; at the age of thirty, on becoming familiar with the doctrine of Stirner, they vanished quite. “Digest the sacramental wafer,” says the immortal Max, “and you are rid of it.” I passed it long ago. Mounting then to the region of my high ideals, I examined the various modes of living, and chose for my conformity those that seemed to me most advantageous and agreeable, — that is, most conducive to “peace on earth, good-will to men” of peace. To my fellow-dwellers in that ethereal region my doings will be surely interesting, perhaps attractive; to the unfortunates who linger in the moral realm, they can hardly be other than “nauseatingly repulsive.” I warn them off, lacking the power to lead them on. My life is worthy of a better pen. Were I an artist, I could make it picturesque; being simply an old and weary philosopher, it must needs be garbed in drab, befitting the Quaker blood from which I sprang. Drab or dazzling, the costume covers a personality above the moral law and mentally emancipated, in short an Egoistic Anarchist.

But enough of explanation! To the task!

The south-eastern corner of Massachusetts, before you reach Cape Cod, consisted, in Old Colonial days, largely of one town, Dartmouth, which was, in point of area, the largest in the State. In 1787, a small section was set apart and called New Bedford, which in 1847 became a city, by legislative charter. Of the town that remained, there were three sections, — North Dartmouth, South Dartmouth, and Dartmouth proper. The last named was generally called Russells Mills; North Dartmouth was known as Smith Mills; while South Dartmouth had three names, — South Dartmouth, Apponagansett (which was the Indian name, and the name of the river and bay on which the village was situated), and Padanaram, of Biblical origin. Why it received the name Padanaram I do not know, but at the present day it is more commonly called by that than by any other name.

An April Snow-Bird.

It was in South Dartmouth that I was born, on April 17, 1854. The birth occurred in the night, in the midst of an uncommonly severe snow-storm, which, of course, was unexpected in the middle of April. The storm was so violent that my father could not get his sleigh out of the barn to go for the doctor and he had to tramp through the drifts for a considerable distance.

My father’s name was Abner Ricketson Tucker, and he was the son of Benjamin Ricketson Tucker, for whom I was named. It was my mother’s desire that I should bear the name Frank, but either my grandfather or my grandmother on my father’s side was so eager to have me named for my grandfather that one hundred dollars and, I believe, a silver cup also, were offered as an inducement to that end. The temptation proved a strong one, and the money was deposited in a bank in my name, where it remained until I reached my majority.

A Dartmouth Bazaar.

My grandfather Tucker kept a general store at Russells Mills. I have a copy of the New Bedford Mercury more than a century old (March 9, 1827), which contains a long advertisement of his store and his merchandise. It reads as follows:

“CHEAP GOODS. BENJAMIN R. TUCKER informs his customers and the public, that he has recently received from Boston, an additional supply of GOODS, which, together with his former stock, comprises a very complete assortment of British, French, India and Domestic Goods, all of which he offers for sale as cheap, or cheaper, for cash or approved credit, as can be purchased elsewhere.

Then follows a long list of

Broadcloths, Habit Cloths, Sattinetts, Duffils and Kerseys; flannels, swans down Vestings, Bombazetts, Norwich Crapes, Camblets, Calicoes, some as low as 10 cents per yard; British and Swiss Muslins; Cassimere Shawls; Lustrings, Levantines, Sarsnets, Gro de Naples Dresses; Ladies Kid Gloves at 12 1/2 cents per paid. Also, crockery, Glass and Hardware; hyson, young hyson, sonchong, and bohea Teas; Coffee, Ginger, Pimento, Cloves, Pearlash, Cassia; Tobacco, snuff, Raisins, Figs, Nutmegs, Madeira, Champagne, Malaga, Catalonia, currants, and Post WINES; Cognac, and Spanish Brandy, Cralongee, Weesp, Schiedam and American Gin; Old Irish and Columbia Whiskey; London and American Bottled Porter; Spanish and American Segars. Hayseed of every description, American and English Shovels and Spades, and clean Flaxseed suitable for sowing.

In common with many other inhabitants of Dartmouth, my grandfather was a Quaker, but, if I may judge from an alleged portrait of him that I possess, and from such references to him as I heard in my boyhood, he was far from the general conception of the Quaker in his appearance and manner of life. He seems to have been rather gay in his dress, and to have been very fond of good living, the last of which qualities he handed down to his son and grandson.

I know very little of my genealogy on my father’s side. Of his immediate relatives, I knew only two, — his sister Rebecca Church, and his half-sister Elizabeth Cummings, who was the wife of my mother’s uncle. (These complexities were common in Dartmouth.) His other relatives died before I was born, or else so soon afterwards that I have no recollection of them. My grandmother Tucker was married three times. My grandfather being her first husband. I have never looked upon married with favor, perhaps in part because my ancestors overdid it. I have tried to make amends, not marrying at all.

(Let me hasten to add that I am not without progeny, for it is well to know the worst at the start.) My father very rarely spoke of his own relatives. I am sure, however, that this was not from any lack of interest in them or any unfriendly spirit towards them, but simply because that was his way. The relatives with whom we lived in more or less immediate contact belonged to my mother’s side of the house, and naturally our daily association caused the conversation to turn upon them rather than upon people who were dead or who lived some distance away. Nevertheless I may say that Tucker was an extremely common name in Dartmouth, and that a society now exists in that neighborhood for the special investigation of the Tucker genealogy. It is generally said that all the Tuckers descent from three brothers who came from England. The oldest that I have ever heard mentioned [sic] was named Henry; he settled in Dartmouth about 1669, and has had many namesakes. The common origin of these Tuckers is so remote that the different lives now existing have little more blood in common that have the inhabitants of the same locality who bear other names. As a result, there are many inter-marriages among Tuckers who are not supposed to be related.

Abner Tucker’s Two Marriages.

Such was my father’s case when he married his first wife, a girl not yet seventeen, who name was Tucker also. Of that marriage, five children were born, three of whom died in infancy. The two others were still living at the time of my birth, being named respectively Henry R. and Sarah H. Tucker. My half-brother, born in 1839, was more than fourteen years my senior and my half-sister was ten years my senior. My father married in 1838 at the age of twenty-one, and his wife died in 1852. Almost exactly a year later, he married his second wife, Caroline Almy Cummings, my mother, the eldest child of Benjamin Cummings, who had been a successful farmer in Russells Mills, but afterwards moved to New Bedford, where he devoted himself to the management of his real estate interests. I assume that my father, when he attained his majority, was already in possession of some property by inheritance or otherwise. At any rate, he seems to have moved to Padanaram at about that time, and was, I judge, a somewhat prominent man in that village. Whether he had inherited property or not, he soon became the owner of a piece of land of considerable proportions upon which he built a spacious house, — probably then the most pretentious residence in the neighborhood. He too kept a general sore, in Padanaram, and was also engaged in the outfitting of whale ships, — the whaling industry having been, up to sixty years ago, the foundation of most of the fortunes accumulated in New Bedford and vicinity. I do not know at what date my father entered into partnership with my mother’s brother, Charles S. Cummings, but certainly the business was conducted under the name of Tucker & Cummings in the days of my earliest recollection.

A Notable Centenarian.

Among the living descendants of my grandfather Cummings one hears much talk of the “Cummings clan.” In my opinion the appellation does an injustice. The real credit belongs to the great and plebeian tribe of Smith. Most of the good qualities fairly attributable to the children and grandchildren of Benjamin Cummings were derived from his wife, originally Cynthia Smith, among all my ancestors the “bright particular star.” She was a tall woman, of commanding but kindly presence, serene, firm, independent, good-humored, quick at repartee, and, above all honest, straightforward, and sincere in every fibre of her being. Had she been reared in one of the great centres of civilization and culture, it is probable that her influence upon the world would have been great. Growing up as she did, with native faculties untrained, her influence was felt and prized mainly by the goodly number of fortunate beings whose lives she, as mother, grandmother, and great grandmother added to the population of a small provincial city. But, as far as it went, it was thoroughly good and she remained long to bless her beneficiaries with her personal presence, dying in New Bedford in 1902, two months past her centennial day. In general, the members of the Cummings clam (I use the misnomer perforce) hold tenaciously to life. My mother died at nearly eighty-three, her three sister, I think, at ninety-six, eighty-eight, and eighty-six respectively, and one of her brothers at seventy-eight. Among my own cousins still living, one is eighty, another seventy-eight, a third four-months older than myself, and of seven younger than I, the youngest is considerably more than sixty.

Another peculiarity of the clan appears in the superiority, in general, of the Cummings girls to the Cummings boys. The moment that the Cummings blood began to course through female veins it seemed to do its perfect work. In the two generations represented by mother, mother and myself, nine girls grew to womanhood. One of these I hardly knew; of her, naturally, I cannot speak. But of eight I say with confidence that each proved a thoroughly sound investment. For the twelve boys who grew to manhood so sweeping a statement would not be warranted. The majority, it is true, would pass muster very creditably, but some have little or nothing to their credit, save indeed the procreation of Cummings girls, while still others have proved themselves positive social nuisances. In saying this, of course, I am conscious, though not painfully so, that most people will find in my own person the most convincing proof of the truth of my statement.

It may be that the phenomenon just pointed out is not a peculiarity; perhaps it is characteristic of the human race in general. In any case the fine record of the Cummings girls is something to be proud of, and that their wonderful progenitress, Cynthia Smith Cummings, was indeed proud of it there can be no doubt whatsoever.

In my Padanaram days, my mother’s relatives, with the exception of her brother Charles, were not her near neighbors. Her brother William Henry lived as a farmer at the old homestead in Russells Mills. Her youngest sister Louise, then in her teens, lived with her parents in what was then the centre of New Bedford’s residential district. Her sisters Mary and Emily, each of whom had married an Almy (the two husbands were related only remotely, if at all) and had children of her own, occupied neighboring homes in the northern portion of New Bedford. My Aunt Mary’s husband, Charles Almy, was a man of considerable importance in the community. He held liberal views of most public questions, and in my later youth was to me, in some respects, the most sympathetic member of our circle. Indeed, I shared for a time, but soon outgrew, his single illiberal aim, — to make America “dry.” Happily for him, as I think, he did not live to witness the realization of his ideal, though, as candidate of the Prohibitionists for the governorship of Massachusetts, he led for a time what seemed then a “forlorn hope.” It could be said of him, as the witty Pat Collins, of Boston, once said of another New Bedford Prohibitionist, Judge Robert C. Pitman: “He is a mighty fine man, but he has just one fault; he can’t let rum alone.” The husband of my Aunt Emily, Benjamin R. Almy, was a man of means, living in an imposing mansion surrounded by large grounds, the estate being known as “Graystone.” Aunt Emily herself was noted throughout the region for her very remarkable beauty and her charm of manner. I remember her fiftieth birthday (June 25, 1877), as well as the poem written in its honor by her friend, Mrs. Sarah T. Craps, herself a lovely character, the wife of William W. Craps, a man of high repute in law and politics. The poem, as such, is not extraordinary, but it delineates my aunt so faithfully that I preserve it in these pages.

In the land between the rivers,
Where laurel and mayflowers grow,
There came to the house of Cummings,
Just fifty years ago

A dimpled and rosy baby girl,
And close within her reach
Grew the lofty and the lowly flower,
And she took a gift from each.

From the hiding fragrant arbutus
The gentle and kindly word,
To soothe, and heal, and strengthen,
And bring us its sweet accord.

The beautiful laurestinus
Gave a gracious and stately mien,
And now our Alma Mater
Walks among us like a Queen.

And we thank the royal giver
For the beauty and the grace,
But more for the loving spirit
Which beams from the dimpled face, —

The loving and cheerful spirit
Which banishes all our gloom,
And drives away our shadows,
Like sunshine in a room.

2. Childhood in Padanaram.

The first thing that I can remember in my life is the day when I was four years old, which seemed to me a great event; but I am told that several things happened at an earlier date. For instance, it is a matter of tradition that I could read fairly well when I was two years old; but my literary taste seems to have confined itself at that period to the perusal of an enormous Family Bible, weighing more than seventeen pounds, which used to be placed wide open, upon a lounge, before which I stood to decipher the text. This volume is still in my possession. In fact, beyond my fleshly wrappings, it contains, so far as I know, the only evidence extant that I was ever born at all and as such it has stood me in good stead.

Miraculous Power of the Bible.

In 1910, when I was living in Le Vesinet, near Paris, I had occasion to visit the local police station to comply with certain formalities required by French law. The official asked me for my birth certificate. I explained that in 1854, when I was born, it was not the habit in the United States to give birth certificates, and that scarcely any one of my age possessed one. “That is not my affair,” he answered. “A certificate I must have.” I bethought me of the Bible. “Bring it,” said he, with an air of finality. I went to my villa, found the volume and, under the burden of its size and weight, staggered through the streets for half a mile, back to the police office. Out of breath, I planted it before the stubborn man. Open it nearly covered his desk. It was his turn to stagger. I pointed my finger at the entry of my name. He could not read the English, but he pretended to do so and straightway wilted. In his eyes anything so formidable must be valid. Without further assistance, he signed all the necessary documents. And I staggered home again, thinking as I went: “After all, good does come out of Nazareth sometimes.” Being and Egoist, scripture in general has for me no sacred quality. But, since the Le Vesinet experience, my reverence for this particular piece of scripture has been something akin to idolatry. With its Family Registry, written in my father’s hand from 1838 to 1873, in my mother’s from 1873 to 1878, and in my own thereafter, I am determined that it shall stay with me, as a talisman, until the end.

But where was I? I must get back from France to Padanaram, where I was studying the Sacred Book. At the age of four I had become so familiar with its contents that, being taken by my parent to call at the home of my father’s half-sister in Smith Mills, I was asked by the young ladies of the household, who were Episcopalians, to read from their prayer-book. Doing so, I came upon a passage that startled me by its inaccuracy. I stoutly asserted that it appeared to come from the Bible, but was erroneously quoted; to which the young ladies answered that I must be wrong. A Bible was produced and I had no difficulty in demonstrating that I was right. Which demonstration established me as a prodigy.

In Padanaram, my family attended the Congregational Church, and there too, in the Sunday School, I learned things that made me still more famous. I am told that it was a habit of my father to stand me on the counter of his village store, from which point of vantage I informed the villagers assembled around the fire, with a confidence that I have since lost, that the Lord was my shepherd and I should not want, concluding with the assurance that I should dwell in the house of the Lord forever. At the age of five or six, one is prone to be credulous.

Rebellion in the Tucker Blood.

At this point I imagine the reader wondering how the family happened to be sitting under Congregational preaching in this Quaker community where my father and his ancestors had been “Friends” for generations. The explanation is simple. My father, in violation of the denominational law forbidding marriage outside the fold, had committed a grievous sin in marrying my mother, who, though by no means gay or giddy, did not wear a poke bonnet of the prescribed type. Because of this, he was expelled from the Meeting. True, in the course of time the elders offered to restore him to membership, if he would say that he was sorry, but this offer he refused. Evidently rebellion was latent in the Tucker blood. I doubt if he was more Congregationalist than Quaker. In fact, I am not at all sure that he entertained any religious views whatever. As to that, I can say only that at a later period, after our Unitarian Church, I never heard him give utterance to any kind of religious belief, until one day at the table, when I was about seventeen years of age, the conversation having turned upon the existence of God, he, who up to that point had taken no part, suddenly remarked, in a very commonplace tone, that he never had been able to see any reason for believing in such a being. I looked at him with some amazement, and the conversation ended there, but I remember that the declaration greatly impressed itself on my mind. I may add that I had already arrived at his conclusion, but was greatly surprised to learn that he had even considered the subject.

Whether an atheist or not, my father certainly was an optimist, and his optimism was often not a little annoying both to my mother, who generally looked upon the dark side, and to his business partner. It is told that, on one occasion, when one of the firm’s whaling ships, after a voyage of some years’ duration, had returned to port with empty casks, my father, walking on the pier and surveying the unpleasant situation, disgusted his partner by saying: “Well, Charles, we shall not have to buy any new casks for the next voyage.” The remark was characteristic of his entire life.

Watching the return of the whalers was one of the diversions of the Padanaram home, whose rear windows commanded a view of Buzzards Bay, an arm of the Atlantic ten or fifteen miles wide stretching between the Dartmouth shore and the Elizabeth Islands. Through this expanse of water passed the whalers en route for New Bedford. Near one of the widows a long spy-glass was kept, and, when a vessel was in sight, there was a grand rush for first possession. As each owner had a special flag, it was often possible to identify the new arrival, which in those days was apt to be unheralded; and, as a result, there was must exerted speculation concerning the good or bad fortune of those immediately interested.

A return of quite another sort one day brought mingled consternation and joy to the household. Some months earlier my half-brother, Henry, who was proving rather unruly, had been shipped on a whaling voyage by his father as a means of discipline. One afternoon (probably Sunday, for I seem to remember my astonished father in the picture), when Henry was supposed by all the family to be thousands of miles away, he came walking up the flagging leading to the back piazza. I believe that he had escaped from his vessel at San Francisco where the whalers often stopped, and had secured return passage by another. The details of the greeting have passed from my mind, but surely all were glad to see him, regardless of the disciplinary failure. It is safe to say, however, that my father did not kill the fatted calf, or even the freak — the chicken with four necks — as is recorded in a modern version of the prodigal’s return.

One of the New Bedford whalers, and one of the last to go out of service, was named for our father. The New Bedford Sunday Standard of May 10, 1925, printed a large reproduction of a photograph of the A.R. Tucker at its pier, accompanied by this comment: “A whaler whose stern recalls the old witticism that whale ships were built by the mile and cut up in lengths to suit.”

First Lesson in French.

With Henry’s return the household, exclusive of domestics, again became six in number, a figure originally attained through the birth of my sister Julia in January 1858, — an event which I scarcely remember. But this was really the case only during the vacations enjoyed by my half-sister Sarah, who was receiving her education at Wheaton Female Seminary in Norton, Massachusetts. Of her, during those years, but a single remembrance remains vivid. In the course of my play, my handkerchief had fallen to the floor. Sarah, naturally proud of her superior learning, remarked, “Il y a votre mouchoir.” I was beginning to wonder if her reason had departed when she relieved me by explaining that the words were French for the expression: “There is your handkerchief.” My wonder changed promptly into admiration. It was my first lesson in the language the reading knowledge of which was to become so important a factor in my later life. Telling this story recently to my daughter Oriole, who having lived in France since the age of six weeks, speaks the language like a native, I was reminded by her (it was her turn to be proud) that Sarah’s words had established merely the existence of the handkerchief rather than the position in the room, and that her French would have been more idiomatic has she said: “Viola votre mouchoir!” I humbly accepted the correction, but with the further amendment (for it was my turn to be proud) that, since Sarah was addressing her little brother, her French would have been simply perfect had she exclaimed: “Voila ton mouchoir!” Thus, between my earliest French lesson and my latest, nearly seventy years have passed, and it must be confessed that in that period I have learned none too much, considering the unusual opportunities that I have enjoyed. It is true that as a translator of non-technical French into written English I may properly be counted among the best. It is also true that I can read such French to myself with great rapidity and with some approach to instant and perfect comprehension. Nor is it an exaggeration to say that I can read aloud to others, from any ordinary French book or newspaper that I may pick up, at sight and in English, with fluency not common. My pronunciation of French is far from good, but by no means ridiculous; and I think that I could make a creditable record at a French spelling-bee. But to this day I cannot converse in French for two minutes without getting into a hopeless muddle, nor can I write in French with any ease or assurance of accuracy. If a Frenchman speaks to me at a rate exceeding twenty words a minute, I do well if I catch two words out of the twenty. If, on the other hand I chance to catch a complete sentence, I rarely fail to see the meaning, and in one direction at least I have attained a degree of proficiency that enables me at the Monaco market, which I attend almost daily, to dodge successfully the wiles of the dealers, regardless of sex. In fact, in the bosom of my family I am continually chaffed about my lady friends at the market. I should not have been thus explicit in defining my linguistic limitations but for the fact that the newspapers very often credit me, kindly but erroneously, with a thorough knowledge of French.

My Musical Repertory.

All the other secular knowledge that I have acquired in Padanaram days must have been imparted by may mother (though my mind carries no picture of her as teacher and myself as pupil), and must have covered a large part of the ground included in a New England primary school course. Nothing else was attempted. For instance, nothing musical, for there was no music in the family. Neither of my parents could distinguish one tune from another, and a discord had to be very violent to cause me the least disturbance. But there was one good voice among the Cummingses, — the soprano of my Aunt Louise. She sometimes came to Padanoram to pass a few days, and her singing I enjoyed, probably because of the character of her selections. Up to the age of four I spelt in the ground-floor chamber of my parents, but after Julia’s birth an up-stairs room was assigned to me, where I spelt by myself. Such was my appreciation of Aunt Louise’s lullabies that during her visits I used to beg that she might put me to bed. In my early childhood I heard little other singing except of the familiar hymns of the orthodox sects, which rang in my ears not only at Sunday services, but in the home of my father’s sister, who lived in Westport, a town adjoining Dartmouth on the west, — a home in which I had five cousins, and where I sometimes visited for a week. Here was another case of violation of the Quaker marriage code. But I never heard that my Aunt Rebecca suffered expulsion from the Meeting in consequence. Or did she perhaps, less rebellious than her brother Abner, consent to say that she was sorry, and thus regain her standing! In any case, she was a faithful attendant, theeing and thouing to the last day of her life. But she married an Episcopalian. Their surname was Church, and they did not steal it. It appropriateness made it their own. At the beginning of each meal the father said a short grace consisting of fifteen or twenty stereotyped words, opening with the phrase: “O Lord, we thank Thee for these provisions of Thy bounty.” And very frequently in the evening the children gathered around the piano (or perhaps an organ), prepared to exhaust the following repertory: “Yes, we shall gather at the river,” “For oh we stand on Jordan’s strand,” “Rock of Ages, cleft for me,” “There is rest for the weary,” “From Greenland’s icy mountains,” “Watchman, tell us of the night,” “Oh, wonderful love,” and the Doxology. Lacking ear and voice, I could not join, but gradually I caught the swing of the music and swiftly absorbed the words. Since those days I have arrived at a high appreciation of the dramatic, the emotional, and, to an extent, the tuneful content of the best music. But for myself I rarely attempt anything beyond the repertory of my infancy, supplemented by a few similar selections of later date, such as “Nearer, My God to Three” and “Hold the fort, for I am coming.” Were I to venture anything more ambitious, my presence, I fear, would not long be tolerated. As it is, with second childhood imminent, I lie on my lounge, or pace up and down my apartment, pouring forth my soul. Said Jim Lefferts to Elmer Gantry: “You certainly can make that hymn sound as if it meant something.” Well, so can I. I deliver it with clear enunciation, shaded emphasis, and much gusto. In “There is rest for the weary” I seem to make a special hit, possibly by the suggestion of an opposite conclusion. Up to a certain point the other members of the family maintain a charitable composure, but at last a huge outburst of unappreciative, not to say mocking, laughter greets me, perhaps quieting me for the moment; soon, however, nothing daunted, I soar again upon the winds of song. The outpour begins when I am dressing in the morning, and, but for the fact that I sit up till nearly midnight and live in a thickly-settled and well-regulated community, would continue when I am undressing in the evening. Ought I not to stop it altogether? Already the fear begins to haunt one that the religious, after my death, may seize upon this innocent habit as evidence of recantation of my atheism. It is hardly likely that my Monegascan neighbors understand the words. Still, one never knows. Once more, then, let these pages serve to head the liars off.

Aunt Louise was not the only visitor at Padanoram. Cousins came also; generally boys from one to four years older than myself. The place had its attractions. Besides the lawn, the flower garden, the vegetable garden, the orchard, the stable, and a considerable expanse of meadow,– perhaps an acre or more, in all, — there was the seashore, within five or ten minutes’ walk of the house; and, when all else failed, there was still a timid cousin to tease. One of the favorite amusements was to entice and aid me to the hay-loft and leave the descent to my own resources, which were not fertile. It was oftener my lungs than my limbs that brought me release from my predicament. This species of torture must have been inflicted in the summer of 1860, and before another summer arrived the hay-loft had become in my life thing of the past. I do not know what induced my parent to remove to New Bedford. Perhaps the business of Tucker & Cummings was in the decline. Whatever the reason, the removal occurred, early in 1861. My father sold his residence, — for twelve thousand dollars, I believe. Whether the land is still intact, I do not know. Nearly thirty years have passed since I laid eyes upon it. It must now be a very valuable property, as the entire region for miles around ahs become a summer stamping-ground for the “dead swells” of America and even of foreign parts, and the population of the adjacent city of New Bedford has increased more than five fold. The buyer was Charles Tucker, a brother of my father’s first wife; and his son, Arthur L. Tucker, still occupies the premises, if I am not mistaken. Though my father, who, be it remembered married a Tucker not related to himself, was related to Charles Tucker only by marriage, Charles Tucker’s son Arthur is my cousin. How so? Simply because Charles Tucker also married a Tucker not related to himself but a cousin of my father. Hoping that these complications have not led me into error, and leaving the reader to find his way out of the labyrinth, I pass on to New Bedford, taking with me as souvenir a photograph of myself at the age of two, which, in an oval gilt frame, still hangs upon my wall in Monaco. The first experiments with collodion dry plates were described in La Lumiere on April 22, 1854, — just five days after my birth. This photograph, then, taken in 1856, must be one of the very early products of the photographic art, and seems to me a creditable piece of work.

3. Boyhood in New Bedford

While my parents were establishing themselves in New Bedford, they got me out of their way temporarily by sending me on a visit to the house of my grandfather Cummings, occupying on County Street the entire front extending from Clinton Street to Arnold Street. These premises, then the property and residence of Benjamin Cummings, are sill, sixty-seven years later, the property and residence of Benjamin Cummings. The present owner, however, is not my grandfather, but his namesake, my own cousin. Of him the reader will learn more later, as he has made more noise in the world than ever his grandfather did. I remember very well my grandfather’s personal appearance, but otherwise can recall nothing of him save that, during this visit, he gave me twenty-five cents to induce me to address him as “Sir.” The old gentleman little realized then that he was getting lip-service from an incipient anarchist at a very low price. Had he realized it, perhaps the knowledge would have given him comfort, for he is believed to have taken no little pride in being good at a bargain. It is a singular coincidence that at an early age I was made an object of bribery by grandparents on both sides of the house. My paternal grandfather paid me for the privilege of bestowing a name upon me, while my maternal grandfather paid me for the practice of bestowing a title upon him. I have never heard that my grandfather Cummings was a hard master in his household, but there is reason to believe that he preferred to hold the purse-strings. When he married Cynthia Smith, she brought into the family some money, which she promptly placed in her husband’s name. Being cautioned against this, she responded rather indignantly that she would be ashamed to refuse to trust her money to a man to whom she was willing to trust herself. Later in life she became a stout champion of women’s independent ownership, and I suspect that experience was as influential as thought in inducing this change of view; not that her husband had administered his trust unwisely, but that she perhaps, at times, had felt a certain annoyance in not having her means immediately at her command.

As I must have been at least ten or eleven years old at the time of my grandfather’s death, I can account for my failure to recall him more clearly only by the fact that my uncommonly good memory has sometimes played me curious tricks. He had two brothers and a sister living almost side by side in the village of North Dartmouth. His bachelor brother William and his maiden sister Hetty lived together in a small house, while two or three doors away lived his brother John (who was also my father’s brother-in-law), in a larger house, with his wife Elizabeth and a large family of children. Benjamin, dying in 1865 or thereabouts, left an estate of some importance, but William, with whom he was closely associated in real estate interests, left a very much larger one, principally because he had no immediate family and spent little or nothing, dying many years later in a condition of absolute senility. (Though John was not rich, his children, like Benjamin’s, inherited from their uncle William. There were many heirs, but the property, for those days, was large. Of course, my mother was one of the beneficiaries, — a fact that, because of its importance in the shaping of my career, justifies this interruption of my story, which I now resume.

A Neglected Lesson in Self-Determination.

On County Street, two doors to the south of my grandfather’s house, lived a family by the name of Ricketson, with which the Cummings family was on very friendly terms. There were three generations in the Ricketson house, but it was spacious and there were rooms to spare. The head of the household, being engaged in invention, was always on the eve of wealth, but never witnessed prosperity’s dawn. The necessity of eking out a too slender income induced him to accept my father and his family as boarders until a favorable opportunity for leasing a house should present itself. This ended my visit at my grandfather’s. I must have rejoined my parents in the early spring, for it seems to me that we were in the Ricketson house when my father, returning from his business, brought the news that Sumter had been fired upon. Interesting though the news was, it seemed tome that it produced an agitation disproportionate. Even at that age I was strong enough in geography to know that Sumter was a long way off, and I saw no occasion for immediate worry. My view of the matter did not prevail; it even took four years for the excitement to wear off. Fortunate it was for me that the affair occurred in 1861 instead of a dozen years later. Had the date been 1873, I could hardly have escaped with anything less than a coat of tar and feather, for by that time I had become a champion of self-determination, — the doctrine that Woodrow Wilson re-discovered more than forty years afterwards, only to toy with it after all. Being myself an intrepid thinker, I started with A and went to Z, without lingering over the Ps and Qs. Wilson, on the other hand, being a self-seeking politician, was already to stop with any intermediate letter of the alphabet, if that stage happened to find him at the head of the procession.

Wilson’s doctrine was presented to New Bedford just before the firing on Sumter, and, if I had been older, I could have appreciated its force. In a speech delivered in that city on April 9, 1861, in the presence of a hissing audience, no less a person than Wendell Phillips said: “Here are a series of States guiding the Gulf, who think that their peculiar institutions require that they should have a separate government. They have a right to decide that question, without appealing to you or me. A large body of people, sufficient to make a nation, has come to the conclusion that they will have a government of a certain form. Who denies them the right? Standing with the principles of ’76 behind us, who can deny them the right?….I maintain, on the principles of ’76 that Abraham Lincoln has no right to a soldier in Fort Sumter…..Understand me: I believe in the Union, exactly as you do, in the future. This is my proposition: ‘Go out, gentlemen; you are welcome to your empire; take it.’ Let them try the experiment of cheating with one hand and idleness with the other. I know that God has written bankruptcy over such an experiment….When the battles of Abraham Lincoln are ended, New England may claim the right to secede.”

It is little wonder that these sentiments were greeted with hisses.

In New Bedford, in 1861, even moderate self-determinationists had a hard road to hoe. They were known as “copperheads,” and among them were some of the best men in the city. I was too young to realize their value. My school days were beginning, during which I was to acquire the rudimentary knowledge that would enable me to study for myself self-determination and kindred problems.

Directly across the street from the Ricketson house there was a private school for juveniles, kept by a tall, plain, and effusive young woman, Miss Ellen T. Congdon. Her father, James B. Congdon, was the City Treasurer, and her uncle, Charles P. Congdon, was our editorial writer of no mean ability on the staff of the New York Tribune under Horace Greeley. She was my first school-teacher, and I doubt if the benefit of her tuition amounted to more than a strengthening of my grasp upon such knowledge as my mother had already imparted. When I was withdrawn from her school at the end of a year, my principal feeling was one of relief at being freed from the necessity of kissing twice a day a woman upon whom nature had cruelly bestowed a luxuriant black moustache. Possibly this experience helped to make me backward about killing the girls for long, long years to come.

The Firm of Tucker & Cummings.

On or before our arrival in New Bedford, Tucker & Cummings had established themselves as wholesale grocers at the foot of Union Street, near the wharves. The venture was unfortunate, and soon ended in a bankruptcy. But the firm succeeded in re-establishing itself (in what year I am unable to state; probably about 1863) as a large grocery house, principally retail, in a building which the brothers, Benjamin and William Cummings had just erected on the corner of Purchase and William Streets, one of the best sites in the city. This building, known from the start as Cummings Building, is still standing, — the property of an organization styled The Cummings Estate Trust. The new grocery proved an instant success, but its history may more properly be told at a later stage of my narrative.

In May 1861, my mother gave birth to another daughter, Alice, who lived but little more than a year. She was named for my father’s aunt, Mrs. Alice Peckham, who lived in Westport with her husband, Peleg Peckham. They were an old and childless couple, and had some property. I do not recollect that I ever saw them. They died during the sixties, and their estate fell to their neighbors (the Church family already spoken of) and to my father and his family. In the distribution the younger generation was not forgotten. My share, I believe, was one thousand dollars, which went into the bank to keep company with the hundred given to me at my birth.

Summer in the Green Mountains.

Early in 1862 my father effected a three-year lease of a house at the southern end of the city, on the corner of Bonney and Grinnell Streets. The premises included an orchard. Leaving the Ricketson house, we were soon installed in our new home. That spring my mother had an attack of rheumatism, and the baby, Alice, was far from well. My mother, up to the time of her marriage, had been sickly. My grandmother said that she had rarely known of so constant a sufferer during the first thirty years of life. Marrying, however, at the age of thirty-two, she became immediately a well woman, and, barring this period of rheumatism in 1862, she remained in good health until her final illness in 1903-4. With the approach of summer in 1862, my mother’s rheumatism lingering and the baby’s condition not improving, my father decided that the family must pass the months of July and August in the Green Mountains of Vermont. It proved the first of a series of summer vacations continuing through fifteen years. Summer tourism had not yet become a fashion in the United States, and the civil war now being on, the tendency to remain at home was stronger than before. Unable to afford the luxury of an established resort, my father, by correspondence, contracted for a stay of two months at a farm-house in the town of Middlesex, about six miles from Montpelier, the capital of Vermont. The farmer made great preparations, and went, no doubt, to some expense. Nevertheless, on our arrival, my mother, who was always a bad traveller and who in this instance was of course the first person to be considered, found the conditions too primitive to be tolerable, and at once it was decided that we must move on. After considerable discussion it was agreed that the payment of a certain sum should procure the cancellation of the contract, but it was easy to see that the farmer’s wife had her opinion of “these stuck-up city folks.” We had heard of a small town fifteen miles farther north, Stowe, which, though not on the railway line, boasted of a brick hotel, and we decided to try it. The hotel was small, but we found the accommodations excellent. We were almost the only guests. Near the foot of Mount Mansfield, which competed with the adjacent Camel’s Hump for the honor of being the highest peak in the range, we had a choice of many beautiful excursions in large wagons drawn by four horses, — to Montpelier, or through Smugglers’ Notch, or up the mountain itself. The region was notable for its fine horses. In the stable belonging to the hotel was kept a handsome black stallion, whose services were required almost daily by the farmers thereabout. Thus the youth of the neighborhood, myself included, were afforded abundant opportunity for close observation of the method by which the equine race is perpetuated; and, reasoning by analogy, I arrived at satisfactory conclusions concerning the survival of the human species. It has always been characteristic of my mental make-up to put two and two together. Here I may say, parenthetically, that in later life I chanced to be one of a party of journalists invited by the management of Barnum’s circus to witness the manufacture of a baby elephant. In more ways than one I have been a darling of the gods.

My father came from New Bedford for several week-ends, and once for a fortnight’s stay. We’re returned early in September, my mother nearly well, but Alice worse. Comfortable transportation was then unknown, and the baby had no rest during the tedious journey, the cars were filled with drunken and ill-behaved soldiers. As a result, she died before the month was out.

Despite this untoward termination of our summer, my father, an enthusiast by nature, lost thereafter no opportunity to sing the praises of Stowe. All his friends in New Bedford heard of it; those in Boston also. And the summer of 1863 saw the little brick hotel filled to overflowing. We passed three successive summers there, — that of 1864 in a large, new, wooden hotel accommodating several hundred guests. The resort has been prosperous ever since, and it may fairly be said that it owes its fortune to my father.

The Friends’ Academy.

In the autumn of 1862, I think, I was placed in my second school, again a private school, which had been carried on for many years by Mrs. Sylvia Gerrish, an elderly lady who had not the kissing habit. There I really began to learn. In fact, my progress was so rapid that in a year’s time I was ready, at the age of nine, to enter the Friends’ Academy, the crack school of New Bedford, corresponding in grade to the High School, opposite which, at that period, it stood. Generally no pupils under the age of eleven were accepted there, but an exception was made in my case. Mrs. Gerrish insisted that I was ready, and put me through special examinations to prove it. I remember, for instance, that in geography, then my favorite study, I knew the entire text-book by heart, word for word.

The Friends’ Academy, as its name implies, was founded by the Quaker element in New Bedford, and stood in large grounds extending from Morgan Street, the girls’ side, to Elm Street, the boys’. The boys’ playground was especially spacious. The sexes were separated according to Quaker practice, but pupils were received regardless of religious profession. Probably the Unitarian denomination was represented among the pupils more largely than any other. I do not remember that religious ceremonies played the least part in the school exercises. In 1863 the institution was in charge of two brothers, T.P. and Edward A.H. Allen, members of a large family of pedagogues, seven or eight in all. T.P., as he was called, had charge of the boys. The lowest class, in which I was placed, comprise about a dozen members, all my mates being from one-and-a-half to three years older than myself. I have two school reports rendered by T.P. to my parents, one dated October 30, 1863, the other March 4, 1864. The first reads as follows:

“Reading: remarkably good. Spelling: excellent. Writing: painstaking and improving. Drawing: excellent. Geometry: very faithful and studious. Geography: entirely satisfactory. General Exercise: attentive and interested. Written exercise very creditable.

“Benjamin’s mind is not so mature as the other boys’, and does not grasp a subject quite so quickly; but he is exceedingly faithful, learns his lessons well, and is making good progress. ”

In my view, the ratings for drawing and geometry should have been transposed. For drawing, I have no talent at all, whereas in geometry, from the moment that I began its study, my mind grasped instantly every elementary problem that I lacked the self-possession shown by boys two years my senior, but I venture the opinion that a boy of nine who, competing with a boy of eleven, does not lag behind, shows, in proportion to his years, the greater maturity.

The second report simply lists the studies without special comments, and concludes thus:

“Benjamin continues to give us entire satisfaction. He appears interested in his work and to understand thoroughly what he is about. The whole class to which he belongs is an uncommonly pleasant and intelligent one, and I think his progress in connection with it cannot but be rapid and solid.”

In the second report grammar is listed among the studies. This is certainly a mistake. Never in my life have I had a set lesson in English grammar, strange as the fact may seem. My study of grammar began when I took up Latin, and was confined to the structure of that language. At that time, the architecture of speech came to me as a complete revelation. Subsequently I studied it in connection with other tongues. But my sole instruction in English grammar has consisted in correction of grammatical errors in written exercises, unaccompanied by explanation or statement of rules. In this branch my real knowledge has been acquired by constant reading of good literature, as is indicated by the fact that I write correctly, while my speech is far from what it should be. Through reading too has come the art of composition, so far as I possess it.

My First Composition.

Only two or three times in my life has the task of writing a composition been imposed upon me by a teacher. The first of these efforts, and the only one preserved for posterity, bears no title or date, but as the words “Very good,” in T.P.’s handwriting, appear on the back of the short manuscript, and as it deals with matters auditory, I infer that T.P. must have instructed me in 1863 to prepare a paper on the subject of acoustics. I give it entire, exactly as written, without T.P.’s corrections. The very poor English bears out my statement that I had received no instruction in grammar. But the essay is perhaps of interest as an exhibition of the curious conceits that were then running riot in my youthful brain.

“The structure of the ear is the most difficult to find out about, of any of the organs of the body. When a man makes a speech, that is so long that it takes an hour and a half to make it to twenty thousand people, every word of that speech falls distinctly, and at the same instant, on every one of those forty thousand ears. If you are in a room all alone, and you are turning your attention chiefly to a book and a person should come into the room, and speak to you five or six times in a loud tone, you would not hear him, because you was paying so much attention to the book. When you are walking about on the busy streets of a city, where there is a continual buzz and whir, and yet you could turn your attention to one particular noise, so that you would not be conscious of hearing the other noises. If two persons go into the water and are a half a mile apart, and one of the persons puts his hands into the water, and strikes two stones together in the water, the other one would hear it. Whispering Galleries are rooms which are so well constructed, that if you put your ear to a certain point in the wall, and another man goes a long distance away, and makes a slight noise, the other person could hear it. If a man took a long stick, and put one end to a man’s ear, and made such a slight noise on the other end that he could not hear it himself, the other person would hear it. If a person was in a church where there were two hundred persons singing, and fifty musical instruments besides an organ, he could turn his attention to one particular instrument, and if the man that played the organ was playing with all his fingers and both feet at the same time, he could turn his attention to any one of the fingers, and not be conscious of hearing any of the others.”

T.P. Allen resigning in 1864, Edward A.H. Allen became principal of the two schools, with Edwin P. Seaver, a Harvard graduate, as first assistant in special charge of the boys. In 1865 Mr. Seaver accepted a position of more importance in Boston, and was succeeded by John Tetlow, a Brown graduate. Still later, through the retirement (or possibly the death) of Mr. Allen, Mr. Tetlow became principal, with Andrew Ingraham as first assistant. Of all these gentlemen Mr. E.A.H. Allen was the mildest, Mr. Seaver the handsomest, Mr. Tetlow the most efficient, and Mr. Ingraham the most cultured. I got on very well with all of them. During the successive stages there was a steady trend toward co-education of the sexes. As a first step, they mingled in the class-rooms only; later all pupils had their desks in the largest room, up one flight, originally devoted to the girls exclusively, but Quakerism still kept the boys on one side and the girls on the other Such was the status when I left in 1870. Heaven knows what goes on there now, in this year of our Lord, 1928! Very likely, at recess, they dance the black bottom to the music of a jazz band.

Favorite Sports.

At recess in my time the boys did little but play ball. The balls used, however, were of three sizes — footballs, baseballs, and marbles. My preference was for marbles. Like most people, I prefer to do that which I can do well. That I could play marbles well is established by the fact that at the end of the marble season I was always the proud possessor of two-third of the marbles. That I was good for nothing at football or baseball is indicated by the fact that, avoiding those games, I had at the end of the season neither broken bones nor bruises. A long life has shown me that, as a rule, only those who are strong love to fight. Of course this must be qualified by the fact that the mentally weak are often unconscious of their weakness, while the physically weak know their’s only too well. I am strong mentally, and since the age of eighteen have been engaged in mental warfare. Some of those who have watched my career are willing to declare that I never lost a battle. Muscularly I am weak, and, if in muscular warfare I have never lost a battle, it is because I never fought one to the finish. I either kept away or ran away. In the games of which I was fond, balls of three sizes figured also, — marbles, billiard balls, and bowls. All of these I manipulated with more or less skill. At bowling and billiard I was perhaps a little better than the average. At fifteen-ball pool I was a good deal better than the average. During the eighties, when I was on the staff of the Boston Globe, I frequently spent a portion of my luncheon hour in playing pool at near-by Young’s Hotel, entering the open game with competitors ranging in number from three to fifteen. The man with the lowest score had to pay. If I got caught (which rarely happened), it was usually because ill-luck in the drawing had given me the last chance at the balls. On the other hand, when I had the good luck to draw first or second chance, it not infrequently occurred that I pocketed the fifteen balls without a break. Thus compelling the house to follow its rule of opening champagne for all concerned. My most glorious exploit, however, was achieved at the old Parker House in New Bedford, when I was about fifteen, — a few months after I had begun to play billiards. Three of my New Bedford cousins, ranging from seventeen to nineteen years of age, had been playing the game for some years. Theretofore in nearly all their sports I had figured, deservedly, as an almost negligible quantity. But they were planning a billiard tournament, and, needing a fourth cue, they invited me to participate. It was summer, and all of us were free. A week was to be devoted to the affair, and twelve games were to be contested, each player meeting each of the others twice. They play was to take place in the Parker House billiard room, — one game each forenoon and one each afternoon. To the astonishment of all, myself included, I carried off the honors. At the time, my victory did not cause me to swell with pride, realizing, as I did that, were there to be a second tournament, the result might be very different. In fact, years passed, and I had quite forgotten my success. Then, on of these cousins, returning to the East after a quarter of a century in the Far West, referred to the affair one day, when we were exchanging reminiscences. “Best,” I asked, “are you quite sure that I was the winner?” “Oh, yes,” he replied; “we never could get over it.” And, on the strength of that assurance, I procured a brilliant feather to add to my panache.

My Debt to Unitarianism.

Coincident with my schooling, another and still stronger influence on my mental development came into play, on our removal to New Bedford, through the decision of my parents to become members of the Unitarian Church which, under the leadership of its pastor, Rev. William J. Potter, also a Dartmouth boy of Quaker origin, was not only the most radical, but, strange to say, the richest and most influential religious body in the city. Whether in this matter my parents were moved more by their own proclivities or by the example of their New Bedford relatives, nearly all of whom were Unitarians, I cannot say. In either case the step was a very fortunate one for me, for I am persuaded that I owe to the preaching of Mr. Potter, my first perceptions of the importance of mental emancipation. The emphasis laid upon independent judgment was always foremost in his gospel. At first, of course, I was too young to perceive and measure this trend, but, by the time that I was ten, I began to feel its influence, especially as Mr. Potter himself was steadily advancing. One of his first innovations was the dropping of the communion service. It took his fold some time to recover from that shock. Then he began to read from other scriptures than the Christian, and to suggest that the histories of all the great religions revealed striking similarities. And finally, at about the time of the formation of the Free Religious Association, which for a generation cut a considerable figure in the intellectual life of New England, he refused to call himself a Christian at all. He never went so far as to drop the prayer, but I remember that he became less and less lavish of advice to Omniscience and less and less pressing for the favors of Omnipotence. Through him too I first heard of the great thinkers and emancipators of the world. In short, my years at the Unitarian Church in New Bedford constituted the primary course in the education for my high calling, — the Apostate of Liberty. I am aware that I am placing a grave responsibility of the shoulders of that institution, of which perhaps it would like to be relieved. But I am not disposed to afford such relief. Consequently, when I learned early in 1927, that the present pastor, Rev. E. Stanton Hodgin, D.D., had been preaching a series of seven sermons on “Damaged Isms,” the titles of which ran thus: “A Good Word for Materialism,” “A Good Word for Paganism,” etc. and that he had said no word for Anarchism at all, I wrote him the following letter:

Receiving no reply, I forwarded a copy of the letter to the New Bedford Daily Standard, which printed it in its issue of June 12, 1927. In a later issue appeared a letter from Dr. Hodgin, of which the opening paragraphs follow:

The remaining paragraphs of Dr. Hodgin’s reply contain kindly references to my personality, as well as comments on my views partly complimentary, partly critical. I omit them as unrelated to my present purpose. My own letter gave Dr. Hodgin a good reason why he should have included Anarchism in his programme. He saw fit to ignore this reason, making no comment upon it whatever. Instead, he offered his reason for excluding Anarchism, — namely, that it would have thrown his programme out of balance. To this I rejoin that the motive of balance decidedly favored the inclusion of Anarchism, since its exclusion left “Communism,” its diametrical opposite unbalanced by anything whatever. His hint of “A Good Word for Anarchism” as among the possibilities may result in further light. Meanwhile I insist, and offer my own case as illustration, that the seeds of radical Unitarianism, implanted in a young and strong mind, are apt to result in Anarchism as flower and fruit. If there is any power in my contention, Unitarianism in general and Dr. Hodgin in particular are bound in fairness to give public consideration to the contingency. In this connection it is not out of place to state that about forty years ago, when Dr. Hodgin’s parish was in charge of Dr. Paul Frothingham, I, in response to invitation, read in the Unitarian Chapel at New Bedford my essay (then still unprinted) on “State Socialism and Anarchism,” generally considered my most important single contribution to sociological literature. Those were days when serious matters still commanded a certain amount of attention. Now, looking week by week at the Saturday issue of the New Bedford Standard and noting the disgraceful scramble of all denominations (Catholics excepted and Quakers included) to secure patronage by every variety of sensationalism, I say to myself that, if this is what “mass production” brings to us, it may be advisable to slacken our industrial activities. I observe with some pleasure, however, that the Quakers content themselves with indicating that Mr. Mostrom (the name of a Quaker preacher well known in New Bedford) will mount the rostrum, remaining sufficiently prudent and consistent to refrain from promising that the Spirit will move him to open his mouth. Probably the Quakers still adhere also to their principle that preachers should not be paid. The New Bedford Standard of August 10, 1926, printed a letter from me under the caption, “Not a Question for Quakers,” in which I refer to this tenet. As the letter contains also an anecdote concerning Rev. William J. Potter, whose name will figure again in my narrative, I give it below in full:

The attentiveness with which I, even as a youngster, followed Potter’s preaching is attested by a little incident that occurred one Sunday at the house of my grandmother, when I was about twelve years old. She lived not far from the church and it was the custom of some of her friends to drop in for a few minutes on their way home from the morning services. Occasionally I was present, but sat silent, my halting tongue and my shy nature disinclining me to conversation. On the Sunday in question a lady just under thirty and belonging to one of the first families asked innocently: “What could Mr. Potter have meant this morning by his reference in his sermon, to ‘ex-Jesus’?” I saw a look of bewilderment pass of the faces of those thus addressed, but observed no disposition to offer an explanation of the puzzle. At last, feeling that such an opportunity for enlightenment should not be wasted, I piped up: “I don’t remember any mention of ‘ex-Jesus’ in the sermon, but I did hear the word ‘exegesis’.” By the expressions of amazement and the shouts of laughter that greeted this little speech, who was the more abashed, the lady or myself, it would be difficult to say.

My Escape from Sunday School.

But, if my interest in the sermons was great, the same could not be said of my interest in the Sunday School, which was nil. John Tetlow, my teacher at the Friends’ Academy, was my Sunday School teacher also. Coming to New Bedford a Baptist, he had fallen in with the Unitarian element among the parents of his pupils, and, being a sincere man with an open mind, he too had broadened under Mr. Potter’s influence, and finally had taken a class in the Sunday School. One Sunday, in the course of the lesson, he asked me a question on which I fell down. “Benjamin, how long did you study this lesson?” he inquired. “About five minutes, sir,” was the reply. “How much time each day do you give to your daily lessons, outside of the regular school sessions?” “About two hours, I think.” “Well, Benjamin, could you not give at least two hours a week to your Sunday School lesson, which is of so much greater importance than your daily lessons?” I am afraid that this question was met with an equivocal answer, and it is safe to assume that I did not reform. Instead, I began to wonder whether I really was learning at the Sunday School anything worth while, and as a result, again at the age of twelve, or possibly thirteen, I decided to insist upon ceasing my attendance. In the following autumn, therefore, on the arrival of the Sunday when the School was to be resumed (after the summer vacation, I went, after the morning service, directly to my grandmother’s, availing myself of the standing invitation for Sunday luncheon open to any grandchildren desiring to come. It was my hope that my parents would forget about the Sunday School, which was to assemble at three o’clock in the afternoon. But m y mother had a never-failing memory. Toward the hour my father appeared, with directions to send me to Sunday School. On learning that I had other views about the matter, he said that he must take me home for consultation with my mother. So home we went. My astonished mother argued and pleaded in vain. I was adamant, and finally carried the day, because my parents, having confidence in my earnestness, saw that nothing was to be accomplished by attempting to thwart so firm a resolution, I never went to Sunday School again. Some years later, at a Unitarian parish meeting, John Tetlow moved that the Sunday School be discontinued, on the ground that it had become a useless institution. The notion was not carried, but I heard the news of its presentation with a satisfaction natural under the circumstances.

The New Bedford Lyceum.

Another shaping influence in my early days was the institution then so widely known in New England as the Lyceum. The New Bedford Lyceum had as its presiding officer, my uncle, Charles Almy, an Abolitionist of long standing. From the early days of Garrison’s warfare upon negro slavery New Bedford had been a hotbed of abolition and the terminus of the Underground Railroad by which so many fugitive slaves found their way to freedom, becoming, with their descendants, a notable part of the city’s population. One of these was the well-known negro orator, Frederick Douglass, who lived there for a time. He was one of the lecturers to grace the platform of the New Bedford Lyceum during its winter courses, which I began to attend shortly after the end of the civil war. The spirit of the Abolition movement was felt for many years in the framing of these lecture courses, which were given in a hall directly opposite Cummings Building. Its name was Liberty Hall. The boy who passed within its walls some of the most inspiring moments of his life fancies at times that in its name may be found a pointer to the fact that a decade or two later he was to found the paper, Liberty, on whose history rests the claim to such fame as he has won. However, that maybe I listed there to voices that filled me with libertarian aspirations, — the voices of Wendell Phillips, William Lloyd Garrison, George William Curtis, Anna Dickinson, and many others. Of course none of these can be counted as a signal contributors to the world’s intellectual stove, but none the less were they great stimulating forces. It seems to me impossible that anyone at all susceptible to the influence of personal nobility could listen to, or long look at Wendell Phillips without experiencing a sense of impetus and uplift. Among the hundred and twenty millions now living in the United States perhaps less than a hundred thousand ever heard him address an audience. Rarely do I meet one of those fortunate beings. But I treasure the memory of at least fifty of his speeches heard by me in New Bedford and in Boston, one of the last being his wonderful farewell to Garrison delivered as he leaned over his old comrade’s coffin. I have listened to many orators of high repute, — Ingersoll, Bradlaugh, Jaures, Gough, Bryan, for example, — but Phillips stands apart, of quite another type, unique and unapproachable. Often, too, did I meet him on the streets of Boston, and always halted to watch him disappear from sight, filled as I was with the consciousness that unassuming majesty had just passed by. Two or three times I met him ever at his own home in Essay Street. Once, I remember, when I had asked him to participate in some demonstration then in prospect, he, regretfully declining, accompanied me to the door with his hand upon my shoulder, saying at the last: “My race is nearly run; from now on the brunt of the battle falls on you younger men.” Anna Dickinson also was among those whom I met personally, as she, when lecturing in New Bedford, was usually a guest at the house of my grandmother. Most notable, however, among these New Bedford platform memories was my hearing, not at the Lyceum, but in the Unitarian Chapel, of Ralph Waldo Emerson. He alone among those mentioned was a real world figure, transcending his generation; and, moreover, a specifically Anarchistic force, though, at the moment, my own thought was not sufficiently developed to appreciate this. Later, one of his sayings became one of my watchwords: “It can never make any difference to a hero what the laws are.”

Literary Preferences.

School, Church, Platform, all were forceful in my fashioning, but perhaps more potent than any was that Fourth Estate, the Press. A voracious reader of newspapers from the age of ten until the present day, I had also until the age of twenty-five an appetite for books that was no less ravenous, but that slackened later through comparative disuse from lack of time to grant it satisfaction. Naturally I began with juveniles, — Mayne Reid, Oliver Optic, Ballantyne, and others, with, for magazine, Our Young Folks. From these the next step was to fiction: nearly everything of Dickens, “The Tale of Two Cities” topping all the others; much of Scott, with “The Antiquary” as favorite; a good deal of Fenimore Cooper, “The Two Admirals” making a special impression; a single work of Huge, “Les Miserables”, monumental, unrivalled in its line; and, with great difficulty and patience, “Vanity Fair,” of Thackeray, an author whom I cannot abide.

While continuing the fiction, I turn my attention to science and philosophy. The reading of Darwin’s “Origin of Species” and “Descent of Men,” followed by Spencer’s “First Principles,” constituted an event in my life and virtually completed my acquaintance with books up to the finish of my school days in New Bedford. Nearly all the works just mentioned, as well as many single volumes besides, I obtained from the city’s public library and from a circulating library in Cummings Building. My newspaper reading up to the age of twelve was confined to the two dailies of New Bedford, the Mercury and the Standard, and to the Boston Journal, to which my father was a subscriber. Shortly before my twelfth birthday, being asked by my parents what I would like for a birthday present, I expressed a preference for a year’s subscription to Horace Greeley’s journal, the New York Tribune. My wish was granted, and from that day I read the Tribune religiously until Greeley’s death about seven years later. This fine gift, received in the spring of 1866, was followed in the autumn by another still more notable and from the same source, — a set of the “New American Cyclopedia,” edited by George Ripley and Charles A. Dana, in sixteen large volumes, bound in sheep. To me these books have been, as still are (though out of date) of invaluable service. It speaks highly for the wisdom and the generosity of my parents that they, not “bookish” themselves, were willing and glad to indulge my literary tastes. The home library was not large. My mother read the better novels of the day and some poetry. As for my father, he read the daily newspapers with a degree of regularity, but, so far as I know, the only book that he ever read was “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” They were subscribers, however, to the Independent, a weekly which I enjoyed because of Theodore Tilton’s brilliant editorial writing.

New Bedford Homes.

During the operation of the four influences just outlines, united in pushing me on to a dethronement of all the gods, not even my tutelar deities were suffered to remain undisturbed.

Between 1862 and 1868 the Tucker household knew two removals. On the expiration of the Bonney Street lease in 1865, my father effected a new three-year lease of a large house on the corner of School and Sixth Streets, near the centre of the city and about a quarter of a mile from his place of business. It was an old, roomy, and comfortable structure, known as the Howland house, having no grounds, but wasting a stable that was anything but stable, as will be seen presently. Late in 1867 we moved again, to a house two blocks distant, which may mother purchased for six thousand dollars. It was on the corner of Spring and Seventh Streets, the Spring Street number being 93. This house, too, was a survival. At the present day it must, I think, be nearing the end of its second century. It was build by an old physician, Dr. Spooner, and was long know by his name. His idea of convenience must have been primitive. Several of the rooms were inaccessible except by passage through others, and the toilet facilities certainly were afterthoughts. Yet there were delightful features, — among them an immense square living room having no less than six windows, two on each of three sides, and in which I did nearly all my reading.

In 1904 this house became my property through inheritance. In the meantime the population of the city had tripled. Yet, strange to say, this piece of real estate, situated but one short block from the principal business street, had gained very little in value. I sold it at auction (in 1907, I believe) for eight hundred dollars in excess of the figure paid by my mother. The buyer was my cousin, Benjamin Cummings. A few years ago he in turn sold it to an undertaker, at what price I do not know. Doubtless at a good one, for everything that he touches turns to gold. But is it one of the little ironies of Fate that my old dwelling place should have passed out of the hands of my cousin, who hardly can pass a cemetery without roundly cursing such abominable waste of valuable land to be advertised daily in the New Bedford newspapers as “WS Dillingham’s Colonial Funeral Home.” (This additional advertisement is purely gratuitous.)

Dancing and Riding.

It was during our years in the Holland house that I was sent to dancing school, much to my disgust though less repellent than the Sunday School; it was not at all to my liking. I hardly know whether I ought to congratulate myself, in view of this repugnance, on the fact that as a dancer I proved a shining success. That such was the case was shown in the selection of myself, from a class of about sixty, to dance, in Pierian Hall, at the final exhibition, before a large audience, the Sailor’s Hornpipe, and, in conjunction with my partner, to lead a stately Spanish Quadrille. In both I appeared in costume. For some time thereafter, in the event of social festivities at home, no opportunity was lost to “show me off.” I was relieved when at last the furore subsided, and I strove to forget the past. Strive as I may, I find, after all, that I do look back with pleasure upon at least one dance, — the jolly Virginia Reel, a thing never heard of now but in these days I rarely venture a reference to my Terpsichorean exploits. The look of scepticism that passes over the faces of my hearers when I boast that for a brief period in my life I developed a certain degree of grace and agility is proof that appearances are against me.

In such a case I endeavor to regain their confidence by recounting a disastrous equestrian adventure that befell me contemporaneously. It occurred in the unstable stable. My Westport cousin, Christopher Church, was visiting us at the time and had brought his pony with him. As my father kept no horses then, we had not tested the old stable, but it was decided that we could safely give the pony accommodation. On the afternoon following Christopher’s arrival, no one being at home except the domestics and my sister Julia, then seven years old, I concluded that the moment was auspicious for venturing a short ride. So Christopher saddled and bridled the pony, and I mounted him in the middle of the stable floor. Just at that moment a domestic came running in, carrying Julia in her arms. This sudden appearance frightened the pony, and he reared. As his forelegs came down with force upon the rotten floor, the timbers gave way, and the pony and I dropped about four feet into the cellar, floundering among broken beams. After several frantic efforts, the terrified animal, with a vigorous leap, recovered sound footing, and I clambered off his back. The pony rushed into his stall, I began to scold the servant, Julia began to cry, and Christopher viewed the hole in the floor with blank dismay. What happened after the return of the family I do not remember nor what disposal was made of the pony, but it is safe to say that for some time to come, I preferred dancing to riding. Glory is not always agreeable, but ignominy is ever intolerable.

Death of Sister Julia.

Soon after the removal to 93 Spring Street the family suffered a severe blow in the sudden death of Julia at the age of ten, — an event entirely unexpected. The previous evening I had been playing with her on the floor of the living room and our good-night kiss as my mother led her upstairs to bed was my last communication with her. During the night she was seized with an exceptionally virulent attack of scarlet fever. When I saw her the next day, she was oblivious of her surroundings and in the evening she passed away. It was a tragedy in the life of my mother, who was a very undemonstrative, but highly emotional, women. I recall my astonishment when in the afternoon she caught her child’s almost lifeless form from the bed and held it tightly to her breast, for such a manifestation was a thing unknown in the Tucker household. The usual formalities of greeting and farewell were observed invariably, but spontaneous caresses were withheld. My father was fond by nature, but I never saw him kiss or caress my mother, except ceremoniously. She shrank from such testimonies, and did not offer them herself. But in all other way she showed constantly her affection, the depth of which was great. And by way of further contrast her tears flowed easily. This weakness so incapacitated her for the narration of an emotional event that at times it sorely taxed my patience. I know now, however, from my own experience, that the phenomenon is physical, and intensifies with age in the cases of those afflicted. For the last ten years or more I have been unable to read aloud a passage of prose or poetry that especially appeals to me by its essential nobility without blubbering like a baby. The misfortune, it seems to me, is a measure, not of emotional intensity, but of impairment of the tear duct, and is often a family trait. Self-consciousness also plays its part therein. After repeated experiences, one is likely to blubber from fear lest he may blubber.

Julia was a child of promise. Not exactly beautiful, her features nevertheless were remarkably sympathetic. After her death the leading crayon artist of the day made a life-size bust-portrait of her from a tin-type. It is still in my possession and strangers sometimes ask if it is a likeness of myself as a child. I often wonder whether, had she lived, her intellectual bent would have corresponded with my own. That she was not exactly stupid is shown by a little incident that occurred some weeks before her death. Among local political issues that of prohibition versus license was prominent. The State law permitted each community to exercise local option annually. The friends of license were banded in an organization styling itself the Personal Liberty League, the members being known familiarly as P.L.L.s. In New Bedford the municipal election was approaching, and the P.L.L. candidate for mayor was a near neighbor of ours, Andrew G. Pierce, on of the most staid, sober, and substantial citizens of the community. One morning, at the breakfast table, the campaign was under discussion. The P.L.L.s being referred to as members of the Personal Liberty League, Julia looked surprised. “Why!” she exclaimed, “I thought those letters meant ‘Pierce Loves Liquor’.” Our neighbor was much amused when my father told him the story.

Joyous Memories of the Great.

As a result of Julia’s death, common sense and conventionalism came to grips in the school and in the home. In the school conventionalism triumphed; in the home, common sense held its own. In my view, death should not be permitted, except in the degree that necessity may dictate, to interfere with life’s daily procedure. Concealment of grief is preferable to its parade. A show of cheerfulness sufficient to avert a cloud of gloom is a justifiable pretence. Such, however, was not the opinion of John Tetlow, principal of Friends’ Academy. In that institution, I had made a reputation as a reciter of comic poetry, and accordingly had been assigned the leading part in a humorous scene from Shakspere [sic] to be given at an approaching school exhibition. Julia’s death intervening, Mr. Tetlow decided that my appearance in such a role would be an incongruity, and struck my name from the programme. I was delighted at my escape, but disgusted with the motive that led to it. Almost at the same moment the same issue confronted the family. Charles Dickens was then giving his farewell reading tour in America, two years before his death. He was billed to read in Liberty Hall his “Christmas Carol” and the Trial Scene from “Pickwick Papers.” For me, it was the opportunity of a lifetime. Conventionalism would have had me sacrifice it. Again my parents, after much consideration, showed good sense. They booked a seat for me, near the front row, and sent me, along, to fill it. I placed myself at the top of the long flight of stairs leading to the hall, to see the great man come up, wrapped in a huge overcoat suited to the biting winter night. Then I hastened to my seat, and presently saw him almost dance across the platform to his reading desk, the inevitable bouquet in his button-hole. That exciting evening was to me, in its entirely, a “thing of beauty” that will remain a joy while memory lasts.

Strangely enough, I am writing this paragraph just after returning from a lecture delivered here in Monaco by an Englishwomen on “Humor Among the English People.” Nine-tenths of the audience were English, some of them white-haired. Dickens, of course, was spoken of with warmth. I wondered, as I listened, whether, should the lecturer ask of her audience: “Who among you all ever saw Charles Dickens’s face?” I should not be the only one to rise. It would indeed be delightful to find some one now and then with whom to share this joyous memory, but there is also a certain selfish pleasure in my singularity. Realization of this has led me to the conclusion that parents should take pains to store the minds of children with similar recollection, and I have heeded the lesson the case of my own daughter, Oriole. I am sure that the experiment will not prove a failure, but at least in one instance it led to a ludicrous result. In the year 1920 we were living in Nice, and Oriole was not yet twelve years old. About the theatre she knew next to nothing, little opportunity for dramatic entertainment having been afforded during the war. Suddenly announcement was made that Sarah Bernhardt was coming to Nice to share with the public her reminiscences of Edmond Rostand, who had died some months before. For years Bernhardt had been in rebellion against old age, but had not been able to defy it. She was little more than a reminder of her former self, her marvelous voice had lost is charm, and, having suffered an amputation of one of her legs, she could appear only under circumstances that permitted concealment of her infirmity. Seated behind a draped reading desk, she could relate and recite, and whatever she could do she was determined to do until the last. Oriole was told of her great career, but could form little conception of it. To some extent I enlisted her interest by informing her that I had known the artist personally and had been her guest. As Oriole understood and spoke French, it was sure that Bernhardt’s efforts, however imperfect, would leave some impress on her youthful mind. Accordingly we attended the recital. The result was sufficient to inspire Oriole with a desire to convey her impressions to the readers of her favorite magazine, St. Nicholas, and she began her letter with the statement that she had “been to see Sarah Bernhardt, the great one-legged actress.” At the risk of darkening her enthusiasm, she was persuaded that, while her letter was worthy of preservation among her own memoirs, it had been await publicity on a more suitable occasion Which occasion, so far the phrase cited is concerned, now presents itself.

Earning My Pocket-Money.

Again my parent showed good judgment in their manner of dealing with the question of my personal expenditures. Very liberal, as has been shown already, in providing me with educational resources of a character befitting my inclinations, they rarely supplied me with spending-money. Whatever I had in that line I was obliged to earn. My father was in the habit of sending loads of old boxes from the store to the house, the chopping of which for kindling was a duty that devolved upon me, and that yielded me an income of twenty-five cents a load. Besides this, I often earned something on Saturday, the school holiday and the store’s busy day, by serving as sales-clerk in the day-time and as cashier in the evening, the capacity of the staff being taxed to the utmost until nearly midnight by the requirements of the mill operatives, who thronged to the centre of the city from its extremities to get rid of the contents of their pay-envelopes, and thus kept the cashier especially busy. That I showed celerity and accuracy in the handling of the money is proved by the fact that my services squeezed a compliment from my father’s partner, my uncle, whom I was never able to count as one of my ardent admirers. My accuracy was due to my native skill in mental arithmetic; my celerity, to my refusal to follow the routine usually observed in making change. As a rule, when a cashier is presented with a five-dollar bill and a slip indicating that he is to take $1.67 out of it, he lays down three cents and say “one seventy,” than a nickel and says “one seventy-five,” then a quarter and says “two dollars,” and finally three dollar bills, saying “in conclusion, “three, four, five dollars.” My method in such a case was to subtract mentally $1.67 from $5.00, and, thus finding that I must return $3.00, to take that sum from the till, beginning with the dollars and ending with the cents, and lay the whole before the customer or the salesmen, saying simply “three thirty-three.” I admit that my method is less logical in appearance, but I found it much more expeditious; and it worked, because in those days I did not make mistakes. Doubtless in my old age I should have proved less successful.

My Unique Cousin.

During my store service, however, I was once put to shame by my cousin, Benjamin Cummings, a boy of almost exactly my own age, then a clerk in the establishment and now its principal owner. His personality beggars description, but, as he has already been referred to twice and must figure again later, an effort should be made to acquaint the reader with his qualities, especially as we are said to resemble one another in personal appearance. He was reared on the Russells Mills farm, and his early life planted within him the seeds of perfect health, which no bad habits have ever impaired. Moreover, he has the muscular strength of an ox. His father died at middle age, being prevented by reckless gluttony from sharing the Cummings longevity. Before dying, he sent his oldest son to New Bedford to enter the employ of Tucker & Cummings, giving him a parting admonition in words that ran about as follows: “You know, Ben, that I’ve been the black sheep of the family [not quite true, by the way]. Now it’s up to you to redeem our branch by making good.” Though Ben’s fleece is not quite as white as that of Mary’s lamb, it cannot be denied that in some important respects he has “made good.” He arrived in the city determined to own the County Street residence of his grandfather and the William Street sore of his two uncles. Having attained this height of his original ambition, he refused to stop. He now owns no inconsiderable portions of Dartmouth, Westport, and New Bedford, including the Russells Mills farm and a big garage, and probably much else of which I have no knowledge. In short, he ranks among the very rich men of a very rich city. As a boy, he attended for some time a Quaker school in Providence (Rhode Island) but, not taking to books, never learned much there. His education was very meagre, though his knowledge of figures is sufficient evidently for success in business. He has a keen eye for the main chance, and is a shrewd judge of land values. His vocabulary, if not large, is picturesque. He dwells in the realm of the superlative. As a rule, his tongue is a lash which he applies with little discrimination, and which drips profanity with every stroke; yet at times he scatters kindly word, and even inordinate compliment, with prodigal profusion. He claims to be a rabid Republican, but knows little of Republicanism except that it stands for a protective tariff, which makes it good enough for him. The lists published in the newspapers show that the amount of taxes that he pays is large; the amount that he doesn’t pay has never been stated. He is a stout upholder of law and order, but his name occasionally figures in the court reports. Withal, he enjoys great popularity. The late Thomas M. Stetson, a very prominent New Bedford lawyer and father-in-law of a delightful cousin of ours, being asked where he bought his groceries, answered: “At Cummings’s. I would rather be cheated by Ben Cummings than treated justly by any other grocer in town.” That is a story which I should hardly venture to tell (misrepresenting as it does the deserved reputation of the Cummings firm for reliable dealing) but for the fact that I have heard Ben himself tell it with great pride. Another aspect of his delicious impudence is seen in the appalling familiarity with which he treats the mighty. On one occasion a congressional committee was sitting in New Bedford for the consideration of some practical measure. Ben’s opinion was asked. He said that he had no advice to offer. But he added, pointing at the imposing chairman of the committee (I quote him from memory of a newspaper report): “I’m sure that, if the matter is left to that elegant gentleman over there, everything will be all right.” “Elegant” by the way, next to “damn,” is the most overworked word in Ben’s vocabulary. Again, no respect for the proprieties intimidates him. When his wife, of whom he was very justly proud, was still living, they took a trip to Washington, accompanied by another New Bedford couple. As they were strolling through Corcoran’s Art Gallery, Ben, a little in advance of the others, suddenly spied Powers’s nude statue, “The Greek Slave.” Turning towards his friends in the rear, he shouted: “why, there’s my Mary!” I do not know whether he has quieted any during the twenty-off years that have passed since I saw him, but I remember him as a whirlwind of energy and activity. Upon me he has always made the impression of one of nature’s elemental forces. And I hope that I may be pardoned for this portrayal of his Brobdingnagian [sic] proportions, which enables me to tell with more composure the little story of my own discomfiture.

A Debate and a Victory.

One day the question whether he or I could make the better package was under discussion. Finally Ben said: “Let’s each of us do up a pound of granulated sugar in a paper bag tied with string and leave the decision to Uncle Abner. Of course nothing could be fairer, and I assented. Straightway we made the packages, and it took but a glance for me to see that I was beaten. Just then my father, who thus far had heard nothing of the contest, happened along, and the two packages were placed before him for his decision, He knew very well which was mine as he had taught me his own method, which I had followed. But he, as well as I, saw that Ben’s was the better, and, honest man that he was, he promptly said so. I saw from his expression that he shared my chagrin, yet each of us found compensation in the knowledge that justice had been done. But, though Ben excelled me as a purveyor of foodstuffs, I was sure that I could outdo him as a consumer thereof, and was eager to demonstrate my superiority. Opportunity soon offered. At times he was invited to pass a few days at our Spring Street home. In the winter we often had for breakfast buckwheat cakes, of which both Ben and I were very fond. They were made in the form of flapjack, — round, about three inches in diameter, and perhaps an eighth of an inch in thickness, — and were brought in from the kitchen hot, about a dozen at a time, to be eaten with butter and maple syrup. One morning the challenge passed between us, and the contest began. My mother, who was a small eater herself, but always insisted that others must eat whether or not, looked on with satisfaction at a struggle which, viewed from a dietetic standpoint, was almost criminal. When I had eaten thirty-six, Ben took a walk around the table, and then worried down his thirty-sixth also. But, when he saw my thirty-seventh disappear, he threw down his knife and fork. Thenceforth honors were easy. In later life, however, progress in the knowledge of hygienic living convinced me that my victory in the second contest was much more discreditable than my defeat in the first. Nevertheless it was established that, tough Ben Cummings was Brobdingnargian, Ben Tucker at least was Gargantuan.

Diet, Disease, and Death.

Appetite and its satisfaction have been important factors in my life, both for good and evil. For good because, liking almost everything, I have never lacked any of the food constituents essential to health. For evil, because my unchecked voracity finally made me so dangerously fat that, had I not taken warning just in season, I should not have reached the age of sixty. At the stage of my narrative where I attain the critical period I shall deal with this matter in detail. Looking back now, I may trace what seems to me the effect of ignorance of dietetics upon my immediate relatives. My father, like myself, was very fond of the table, and was a heavy eater. Luckily his tastes led him to avoid sweets and starches, the fattening foods and, as a result, he remained thin all his life, his weight ranging from 135 to 145 pounds, while his height was above the average. His staple foods were meat and fish, but the injurious effects of his excessive consumption were largely counteracted by the large quantities of raw salads and green vegetables with which he accompanied them. For many years his excess of protein caused no perceptible suffering beyond frequent sick headaches, but finally heart trouble ensued, carrying him off at the age of sixty-seven, after some years of invalidism. It was not a short life, but it could easily have been a very long one. My half-sister was less fortunate. “No grass for me!” was her motto. She did not eat as heavily as her father, but, like him, was afflicted with sick headaches, and, as a result of her carnivorous tastes, was found dead in bed one morning in her fiftieth year. My half-brother (for what reason I do not know) became dyspeptic early in life. Otherwise he might not have reached his seventieth years, which he attained through moderate eating as a matter of necessity and through very moderate working as a matter of choice. Of all the members of the family, my mother lived in the manner most conducive to longevity. An all inclusive diet, unaccompanied by excess in any direction, carried her well past the age of eighty-two, when she died from accidental causes. A fortunate appetite rather than hygienic knowledge proved her salvation, despite her sickly youth and her attack of rheumatism at middle age.

As for myself, I was born with a constitution and a power of digestion that easily entitled me to a century of life. At the age of seventy-four I cannot “read my title clear” to such a rounding, let alone the “mansions in the skies.” I had nearly all the usual children’s diseases, which in those benighted times were looked upon as more desirable than dangerous. Fortunately I had them lightly. Later I was troubled a little by repeated attacks of tonsillitis, which I got rid of in my twenty-fifth year by growing a full beard, never shaving again until my fiftieth year. At the age of thirty-five a mild but persistent siege of rheumatic fever, caused by insufficient sleep resulting from a combination of day and night work, haunted me for nine weeks. Apart from these, I enjoyed more than half a century of the most perfect health imaginable, rarely suffering pain in any form. I hardly know what it is to have a headache. The comparative absence of pain still continues, but fifty years of heavy eating destroyed the stability of my equilibrium, in the of which now lies my chief danger.

I was not only gourmand but to an extent gourmet. In my boyhood my father often took me with him on his buying trips to Boston, so highly did he value my services as a taster of butter, for which I was always well paid by an abundant and toothsome luncheon at Boston’s most famous restaurant, Parker’s. It was my father’s opinion, frequently expressed, that I could “digest a board nail.” We always had a good table at home. It pleased my mother to provide it and it pleased the rest of us to consume it. What she could not endure with perfect equanimity was failure to appear punctually at the festive board. Every member of the household was expected to be ready for breakfast at the appointed hour, with no evidence of neglect of toilet.

Punctuality and Self-Help.

My mother herself set the example. She was always the first to rise in the morning and the last to retire at night. In case of failure of the part of the others, she did not storm or scold, but her fretfulness was sufficiently prolonged to produce the desired effect. At least on all of us except my father, whose duties at the store compelled him often to be late at dinner or suffer. Her lamentations on these occasions alone disturbed the peace of our exceptionally harmonious home. Not that he failed to receive them with equanimity but that his indisposition to reform served to perpetuate her plaint. I used to think that she was a bit too insistent, but I see now that she was entirely in the right. Her passion for punctuality was an Anarchistic lesson to all of us. She saw instinctively that tardiness is invasive, authoritarian, — an encroachment on the time of other in violation of a contract tacit or explicit. She would not be guilty of it herself, and she could not endure it patiently in her associates.

Moreover, this was not the only way in which, without knowing it, she prepared me for my Anarchistic career. She taught me self-help also. We always had two domestics, but she would never allow me to call upon them. “They have their appointed work,” she would say to me; “it is for you to leave them free to do it. If you want extra service, perform it yourself.” And here again she set the example. Even in her very old age she would always climb one or two flights of stairs herself rather than allow another to going her stead. By nature she was a remarkable woman, respected and loved by all, ever ready to help, never ready to be helped.

“Joe Bigler.”

The range of my appetite was wide enough to include sweetmeats, and I was lucky enough to find special opportunity for indulgence. I had only to leap a fence at the rear of my father’s store to find myself at a basement back door opening into the manufacturing department of a well-known confectioner, William M. Bates, who worked there personally, assisted by his brother, Orrin Bates, and another man known as Bennie Green. I think that it was during my thirteenth and fourteenth years that I made this leap nearly every day and for a double purpose, — first to consume the stray bits of candy that each operation left behind as tempting refuse, and, second, to satisfy my passion for talking politics. That was period when the humorist, Petroleum V. Nasby, was writing his letters from Confederate Cross-Roads, which appeared in the newspapers at regular intervals. Present-day octogenarians may remember the drunken village loafer of Northern extraction, Joe Bigler, who figured in those letters, and who had the habit of interrupting the conversation of his Confederate townsmen with awkward questions and reflections. His witticisms as well as the political news of the day constituted scraps of information, which I passed on to the candy-makers in return for the scraps of candy. They seemed to find delight in the exchange, and after a time they fastened on me the nickname “Joe Bigler.” Many years later, Ben Cummings, reminding Orrin Bates of this peculiar commerce, drew from him the remark: “That boy certainly knew more about politics than any man in New Bedford.”

Trip to Washington.

Doubtless my political enthusiasm was a factor in inducing my father to invite me to accompany him on a trip to Washington in March 1869, to witness the inauguration of General Grant as president. I believe this to have been the first time that I passed the limited of New England, though it is possible that I had been taken once to the City of New York on a previous occasion. I remember the interest with which I watched the speedy change from winter to spring as we went through Delaware and Maryland. In Washington we stopped at Willard’s, but had to content ourselves, in common with a score of other guests, with accommodations on the floor of one of the large public rooms. On the second morning, as we were dressing, my father fell into conversation with the gentleman who had risen from the neighboring mattress. It transpired that he was from New York and that we were from New Bedford. “Indeed!” said the gentleman; “that interests me, since I enjoy the honor of having my name attacked to a whaling vessel belonging to that port.” Like a flash my father turned toward him: “Elliot C. Cowdin?” “The same,” replied the gentleman, apparently as pleased as Punch at the quick identification. “Well,” said my father, “I built that ship.” Whereupon the joyful surprise was doubled. Let the present generation has forgotten, I may state that Elliot C. Cowdin was a prosperous and highly honored merchant, who was talked of at the moment as a possible member of the president’s cabinet. The little scene made a great impression on my youthful mind. The inauguration ceremonies we watched at long range. From the point where we stood in the enormous crowd, Grant’s face seemed little more than a speck. In the evening we attended the inauguration ball held in the Treasury Building, where for the first time I witnessed the public exhibition of the female bosom. Perhaps in this is to be found the explanation of my inability to distinguish, in point of priority in time, between my Washington visit and my first New York visit, when at Niblo’s Garden, where “The Black Crook” was running, I saw my first leg-show. I am quite unable to say which of the two spectacles was the earlier or the more pleasing. More vivid than either, however, though not comparable in beauty, is my recollection of Horace Greeley’s face, which I saw at the ball for the only time in my life, It came into view a few hours before dawn when, in the confusion of a swamped cloak-room, he was clamoring for his famous white hat and I for my less conspicuous black one. My equanimity exceeded him for he was swearing like a trooper, and all to no avail. Each of us departed with uncovered heads. Whether he received subsequent satisfaction, I do not know, but I at any rate, on returning to the Treasury Building toward noon, had the liberty of choice among several hundred hats, of all sizes and shapes, heaped indiscriminately upon the floor. Our arrival at New Bedford found me in a contented frame of mind, for I still had a hat and had seen the editor of my beloved Tribune.

First Play and First Opera.

Though New York introduced me to the ballet, my home town afforded me theatrical opportunities. My first play, “Still Waters Run Deep,” I saw in Liberty Hall. It was by no means a bad beginning and the cast was really admirable, including J.W. Wallack and E. L. Davenport. In New Bedford too I once saw Edwin Forrest, and several time Laura Keene, the actress whose performance Abraham Lincoln was enjoying at the time of his assassination, and who had a summer residence in Fairhaven, opposite New Bedford. I heard good music also, but did not appreciate it, my taste in that direction developing in later years. Parepa [sic] Rosa’s wonderful voice, which I heard, I think in “The Barber of Seville” (my first grand opera), I remember chiefly as proceeding from a personality of enormous physical proportions. Camilla Urso lingers in my memory as well, principally, I imagine, because a lady violinist was then a sort of freak. Within my reach, however, were the comic songs of Henry C. Barnabee, to which I looked forward from winter to winter.

Household Games.

Few of the sports enjoyed by boys in general had any attraction for me. I did not swim, or skate, or hunt, or “hike,” or box, of “bike,” or ride, or drive. Household games interested me a little. I was good at cribbage, which I played by the hour with my mother, who was an inveterate card-player. Good also at poker, though I never played it much. Fair at whist and euchre. Not much at checkers. As for chess, I never had the courage to try to understand it. A hundred times I have been told that I would have made a wonderful chess-player. It is a mistake. I am devoid of strategy. Even in polemics, in which I have made my greatest reputation, I have rarely laid a trap. My methods are straightforward, my thrusts direct. I trample upon my opponents; I do not mislead them. Chess, a crafty game, is not for me. Oh! I know the answer. “Poker is a crafty game, and yet you play it well.” Yes, but I do not play it craftily. I keep a steady face, and play my hand for its true value. In the long run it is a winning policy.

Still less than sports in general did society pleasures charm me. When I curled up in an easy chair at home, reading Herbert Spencer, it was a difficult thing to drive me out of our house to enter another where I might be expected to talk with a girl having nothing but beauty to recommend her, and perhaps very little of that. As for dancing parties, which were common in New Bedford, they were the bane of my existence. The “German” was the fashionable dance then, and an invitation to a party imposed upon the boy receiving it the duty of hunting a partner. How I used to pity the girl who, too truthful to declare that she was already under pledge, and too polite to say that she preferred to be a “wall flower,” was obliged to answer me with a smiling “Yes” that at once cast doubt upon her honesty.

A Momentous Decision.

However, it was a very contented boyhood that was now coming to an end. The spring of 1870 was to precipitate an issue to which I had been looking forward with some anxiety. In our circle it was the common thing for a graduate of the Friends’ Academy to enter Harvard. My parents had taken it for granted that my case was to be no exception to the rule. My studies had gone on satisfactorily, including four or five years of Latin and a year of Greek. The time to make the change was approaching. But I had other designs. Though having no partiality for divinity, I viewed the “humanities” with little interest. James Russell Lowell, their devout worshipper, had done his cult a very bad turn by convincing me that “Time makes ancient good uncouth.” I felt the call of modern god instead, and, to answer it, I desired to launch at once upon an independent career. To the manner by which I should earn my living I had given little or not thought, but I was perfectly confident that I should find a way, and that, my living assured, I should have spare moments in which to serve my ideals as occasion offered.

It was shortly after my sixteenth birthday that I announced my purpose to the consternation of my parents. Seeing that something must be done at once, they summoned the principal of the Academy, Mr. Tetlow, to the house that he might spend an evening in an effort to convince me of my error. There was a vigorous battle, which resulted in a compromise. At the moment I viewed the situation with no little dissatisfaction, but now I look back at that evening’s decision as the greatest favor that Fortune ever did me. It being evident that I was determined no to go to Harvard, the suggestion was made that I go instead to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, then a comparatively young, but promising, school of industrial science. This in itself did not appeal to me, as I am lacking in mechanical faculty, and therefore could not hope for success in a technical career. But the plan had incidental aspects not unpleasing, and I saw, moreover, that its adoption would, perhaps, prevent my parents’ hearts from breaking altogether. Such scientific training as I might acquire would never come amiss and a series of years in the heart of Boston was tempting to a boy of my tastes, offering me in a tenfold degree such opportunities as in New Bedford had already been the object of my choice. Those who find it contradictory that a boy averse to “the humanities” should gravitate to the “Athens of America” (I pray forgiveness for recalling a title once deserve, but now a misnomer) may be reminded that in Athens the Agora was as important as the Academy.

Influenced by these consideration, whether contradictory of not, I gave assent, and was at once rewarded by Mr. Tetlow’s assurance that my curriculum would be revolutionized directly, in order to fit me for the Institute’s entrance examinations that were to take place only six weeks latter, in the month of June. Accordingly he handed me over to his chief assistant, Mr. Andrew Ingraham, who gave me special lesson; and, that I might concentrate my attention upon these, I was relieved of all other studies and school exercises of whatever nature.

Last Day at Friends’ Academy.

Mr. Ingraham and I did the “stunt” so successfully that a day came which found me, half an hour before the closing of the day’s session, sitting idle at my desk, the first in the last row of the main school-room, — the post of honor which my seven years at the Academy had won me. To this last half-hour was allotted a singing exercise, led by Mr. Tetlow. At the end of the first selection I incautiously whispered something to my next neighbor, — by the way, a cousin of mine, Clarence Almy. Mr. Tetlow caught me in the act. Always a bit stern, he happened in this occasion to be in severer mood than usual. “Benjamin,” said he “take out your singing-book, and join in the singing.” “But, sir,” I answered, “I am excused from singing.” “Then,” said he again, “take out your textbooks, and go to studying. And I again rejoined: “My lessons are completed; so I have nothing to study.” “Then, Benjamin,” he said, with an air of finality, “take all your books, and go home.” I obeyed instanter. [sic] Within arm’s reach was a door opening on a flight of stairs that led to the boys’ exit. Loaded with books, I hurried down the stairs, grabbed my hat, and scampered home at top speed, in a state of high elation. Never again was I insider the Friends’ Academy; never afterward did I see John Tetlow’s face.

It was a rather shabby part that I played on this occasion, I confess. For poor excuse I offer my age, — that age, which in its ebullient onrush knows no pity, no consideration. Not only was I in error, but I sacrificed an opportunity. If I had simply walked to the front of the school-room, extended my hand to my teacher, thanked him publicly for his kindness, and bidden him a respectful farewell, perhaps his would have been the shame for a severity hardly called for by so trivial an offence committed by a pupil of long standing and creditable record, who was not given to misbehavior. As it is, all that I can say, with the little Latin that this record left me, is Mea Culpa.

Billy Rip’s Hasty Conclusion.

It was the following Monday, I think, that I took an early train for Boston, where I was met by my cousin, Walter Almy, who had just finished his first year at the Institute of Technology, but had concluded to go to Utah to begin a mining career without completing his technical education. The meeting gave me courage for the examination ordeal, as Walter, who had been through it himself, was able to reassure me and to inform me as to the procedure. To each study was allotted a special room in charge of an instructor or assistant professor who distributed the question papers. Nowhere was I confronted by my formidable difficulty, and least of all in the last room visited, where the subject was algebra. Glancing over the questions, I saw that they were very simple, and in quick time, hardly more than ten minutes I should think, I wrote out all the solutions. Rising with paper in hand, I went to the instructor’s desk, where sat Mr. William Ripley Nichols, who, as I learned month later, was the assistant professor of chemistry and was very unpopular with the students, by whom he was usually spoke of as Billy Rip. As I laid my paper on his desk, where no other candidate had preceded me, he looked up at me with a pitying deprecatory smile, saying, “Oh! I wouldn’t give it up so.” “But I haven’t given it up, sir, ” I answered. “The paper is finished.” The speed with which his pity vanished in an apologetic gasp of confusion was so embarrassing that I did not linger longer than was necessary in order to avoid the appearance of unbecoming haste. I learned subsequently that it was the policy of the Institute in its early days, when it needed students to make the entrance examinations easy, thereby insuring a larger class for the first year, and to weed out the unpromising by severe annual examinations, with the result that the graduating group was always creditable. At a later stage in the Institute’s life this policy became unnecessary. Fortunately the explanation did not reach me in season to spoil the pride with which I received, in due time, the notice that I had passed successfully.

My studies, of course, were not to begin till the following autumn. About two months of the intervening summer I passed in the little town of Northville, near Cayuga Lake, in New York State, where I visited a distant cousin on my father’s side, Arthur E. Slocum, who had inherited a moderate fortune, and was beginning a farmer’s career at the age of twenty. I found my relatives there most agreeable and hospitable people, who took care that I should pass a delightful vacation, the only drawback being that politeness compelled me to attend a Presbyterian church every Sunday, where a preacher young enough to know better drummed into my disgusted ears doctrines worthy of the Dark Ages. I had not yet read Frances Wright’s work, “A Few Days in Athens,” so inspiring to all Rationalists, but the belated and benighted puritanism of this officious prig led me to look forward with ever-growing eagerness to a few years in the “Athens of America,” then a city which Epicures would have loved.

4. Youth in Boston, New York, and Europe.

My departure for Boston marks perhaps the most significant period of my life, — that in which Minerva and Fortuna seem to have entered into conspiracy for the shaping of my destiny. My meeting with Josiah Warren, William B. Greene, Lysander Spooner, Ezra H. Heywood, and Sidney H. Morse proved the pivotal point of my career, and the chance of such meeting would have been remote had I gone to Harvard instead of to the Institute. Cambridge, to be sure, is almost one with Boston, but constant visits to the larger city would have been incompatible with studious life in a Harvard dormitory. Living in the heart of Boston, however, I could in a few moments, with comparatively slight interruption of my studies, reach any gathering-place that promised me entertainment, instruction, or congenial companionship. It was such adjacency that finally put me in touch with teachers of far greater importance to me than any professional body, classical or scientific. By no foresight of mine did I gain this point of vantage. The afore-mentioned goddesses had the matter in hand, and seemed intently “on the job”

My Boarding-House and Its Conveniences.

My presiding deities sent me first to 26 Pemberton Square, a large boarding-house kept by a Mrs. Stearns, where I secured a small room. The situation suited me exactly. Devoted largely to law officers, the square was near the business centre, but practically remote from its noise and bustle. Almost opposite the exit leading to the commercial district was another leading in as few steps to a select residential quarter. The Institute, then on Boyleston Street, was about a mile distant. Thither I walked twice a day, crossing the famous Common and passing by the side of the contiguous Public Garden, thus securing the needed exercise that otherwise I should not have had, averse as I was and still am, to walking without an errand on roads offering neither lovely scenes nor novel sights. Of my somewhat humdrum life and studies at the Institute itself I shall have but little to say, and even that, as a rule, incidentally, when some event or anecdote in this indifferent round connects it with the currents of my primary purpose. It was much more important to me that my boarding-house was near to Faneuil Hall, the “Cradle of Liberty”; was not far from the court-houses, where, on occasion I could continue the custom that I had formed in New Bedford of attending the sessions of the Superior Court, — a school which I commend to every youth who would learn to discriminate between logic and sophistry, between justice and tyranny; was close by the offices of the leading daily newspapers, in one of which I was destined to pass eleven years of my life; was but a few steps from the Parker House, in whose reading-room any orderly person was welcome to consult a large assortment of metropolitan journals, and where one could almost touch elbows with local notabilities of nearly every shade and sort; and was within easy walking distance of Tremont Temple, Horticultural Hall, and Music Hall, in which for some years, during the winter season, I listened to three, four, and five lectures a week from men and women of world repute. The Public Library, to which I often went to read the magazines and take out books, was less conveniently situated, but I could easily visit it on my return trips from the Institute. My recreation I sought at the theatre and the billiard-room, where I had as occasional companions too commercial employees, one of the a fellow-boarder, Frank Baker, formerly a fellow-student at the Friends’ Academy, the other a cousin, William A. Tucker, whom I had often visited for days at a time in the house in which I was born and which his father had bought. About once a month I passed a week-end at my New Bedford home, where my mother, outside of our correspondence had also fortnightly reminders of my existence in the arrival by express of my linen, which was laundered, repaired, and returned under her watchful case, — a custom that continued to the end of 1873.

On the Road to Atheism, and My Arrival.

On Sunday mornings in general I went either to Music Hall to hear Rev. William R. Alger speak from the platform that during the fifties had served Theodore Parker as a pulpit, or to a small hall where Parker’s old adherents still met (pending the building of Parker Memorial Hall) under the leadership of Rev. J. Vila Blake. The teaching of Alger and Blake did not differ materially from that with which Potter in New Bedford had already made me familiar, and which filled me with increasing dissatisfaction. I valued its tendency to the destruction of superstition, but I was beginning to find it half-hearted and inconclusive. The minor absurdities of the orthodox creeds were dealt with triumphantly, but I noted an indisposition to face squarely the questions of origin and destiny. I was acquainted with Spender’s doctrine of the Unknowable and I had no expectation of attaining knowledge of the ultimate. But I was asking myself, not “What is Knowable?”; rather, “What is Credible?” Atheism is not a denial of God; it is a disbelief in God. When Noah Webster says that it may be either, he shows a lack of discrimination. “I am” indicates a doctrine, not a dogma. There are three ways of accounting for existence. One premises an eternal and conscious entity, idle and solitary until he or she or it created the universe, which is not eternal, since it had a beginning. A second premises an eternal and conscious universe, either saturated with consciousness or having an undiscovered seat thereof. A third premises an eternal, blind, unconscious universe, in perpetual activity, each moment in it being a necessary effect of all that has gone before and at the same time an absolutely determining cause of all that is to come. The first is ludicrous, preposterous, and cruel. The second is incomprehensible, fanciful, and cruel. The third, not postulating consciousness, cannot be cruel, though it is not exactly enchanting, and it is somewhat less mysterious than the others, having over them the decided advantage of presenting itself to our senses. I believe in the third, because the first and second are to me incredible, and because I can see no fourth. Hence I am an atheist, a determinist, and a materialist. But at the time of which I speak I had not definitively arrived at these conclusions, and it is with the circumstances under which I arrived at them that my story now deals.

One Saturday, scanning the advertisements of the Sunday entertainments, I discovered that debates were held Sunday afternoons in Hospitaller Hall, Washington Street, on subjects religious and philosophical, and at once I decided that this clue must be followed up. Eventually it led me — and therein lay for me its principal value — tot he office of the Boston Investigator, an Atheistic weekly founded in 1831 by Abner Kneeland, of which I had heard, but which I had never seen. I found that its editor, Horace Seaver, was the principal participator in the Hospitaller Hall debates, and that its publisher, Josiah P. Mendum, occasionally figured in them also. They upheld the atheistic view against a straight, still, gray-bearded man, Professor Wetherall, who was the protagonist of Roman Catholicism, and a curious individual by the name of Ramsdell, who was always ready to talk but never had anything in particular to say, thereby winning the sobriquet of Ramsdell the Rambler. Others took part occasionally, but these were the “steadies.” I attended these debates more or less regularly for a series of years, but do not believe that they contributed much to my mental development, though from time to time they made me personally acquainted with people of some interest. Nor did I find the Investigator itself really invigorating. Horace Seaver was not a stupid man, but, when you had heard him two or three times, he had nothing more to offer you. Both speeches and his editorials were monotonous, and a monotonous editor generally makes a monotonous journal. To me the Investigator’s advertising columns were of chief interest. They made known to me a long list of valuable, interesting, and unusual books on sale at the Investigator office, many of which I bought and still have in my library. Among them I especially remember the political and philosophical writings of Thomas Paine. “Volney’s Ruins,” Frances Wright’s “A Few Days at Athens,” Hume’s Essays, Voltaire’s “Philosophical Dictionary,” Baron d’Holbach’s “System of Nature,” and various works of the French Encyclopedists, — Diderot, d’Alembert, Helvetius, and others. In the Public Library I had already been reading the works of Theodore Parker, which had filled me with great admiration of the man and of his anti-slavery career, but had left me little the richer as a student of philosophy. Parker could tell me nothing that Potter had not told me before. One departure, however, was noticeable Parker addressed his prayers to “Our father and Mother,” from which I inferred that the object of his worship shared the peculiarity that was acquired by the son of Hermes and Aphrodite, while engaged in taking a bath. This feature of divinity was novel, but not sufficiently attractive to prevent me from turning with eagerness to those writers on the Investigator’s list who disputed divinity’s existence. First, among the, for me, was Baron d’Holbach. It was his “System of Nature” that compelled me to dismiss the hypothesis of a created universe. Doubtless in later time, with the aid of scientific progress and especially with the advent of the evolution theory, books still more forceful have been written in this line. But I found d’Holbach sufficiently convincing. Of course the mystery remains. It remains. If retreats as we advance, and must always elude us. But why fall prostrate before it? Awe profits nothing. Worship is vain. It is better to work than to wonder. Concentration of infinity is dangerous. That way madness lies. At least the universe is here; its possibilities are fascinating; to exhaust them is beyond the power of our insatiable curiosity.

It was in the Investigator too, some months later, — in 1871, I think, — that I began to hear of a remarkable Westerner by the name of Ingersoll; and in 1872, either in its columns or in a pamphlet bought at its office, I read his lecture on “The Gods.” I was delighted. The orator added nothing of great importance to d’Holbach’s thought, but reinforced it, and, by a sparkling and prismatic style, made it resplendently picturesque. Thus I was in at the opening of a brilliant and beneficent career, full of high spots, none higher, however, than this first ascent. The event holds a place in my memory beside that of the Dickens reading four years earlier, and again I reflect with no little pride that there are but few persons now living who enjoyed “The Gods” earlier than I. Fifty-six years have rolled away, and this lapse of time has not served to diminish my scepticism. Evidently I had completed the first stage of my emancipation. During the later stages I had little occasion to recur to it, but, to show that I had not forgotten, I may reprint here what, I believe, was my first attempt to render French verse into English, or even at versification of any kind. The original was the work of Jean Richepin, French poet and Academician, and my translation appeared in the fiftieth number of my paper, Liberty, bearing date of September 6, 1884.

Who then are you? Speak out at last. The hour is come.
You cannot always keep your tongue within your head.
Appealed to you have all men, wept and wailed have some.
Why have you nothing said?

Why stay you in the sky, huge bronze of livid hue,
With mocking smile on lips that all speech else avoid?
Impenetrable face and phantom form, are you
Of brain and heart devoid?

Why do you nothing say? Why do we see described
No wrinkle, stubborn spectre, on your brow austere?
Why that stupid air and aspect circumscribed?
Are you too deaf to hear?

If you speak not, then try at least to understand.
Despise me, if you will, but let one see, I pray,
Your face relax to show that I may lift a hand
And you know what I say.

To transform into faith the doubt that one o’erpowers
You need but put a yes into those eyes I spy.
You need but make a sign; my hate no longer towers;
It at your feel will die.

O Mystery proud, wrapped in your dismal veils,
He whom men call father should be one indeed.
If you are my creator, in the shades and vales
How can you see me bleed?

How can you see me humbly kneeling on the stone,
My arms stretched toward you, drowned my voice in accents wild,
And yet no tear beneath your cycled trickling down?
Am I, then, not your child?

Alms give, in pity’s name! So poor am I and weak!
I am not wicked. Good be thou, and look at me.
My poor love-laden heart has nought that it can seek
But to exhale to thee.

But no! I still see on your face that stupid smile.
My cries, my tears, my insults bear no fruit, I fear.
No, you do not speak; you have no thoughts the while;
You have no ears to hear.

Then, after all, do you exist? When I sound space,
Within the infinite depths your shape I never miss.
Is what I see, perchance, the reflex of my face,
Mirrored in that abyss?

Is it my soul that lends a soul unto the world?
Were my heart’s dream no more an object of my thought,
Would you in vain, like image of the wild waves whirled
When sun goes down, be sought?

Yes, yes, your haughty silence now is solved for aye,
But I too long have suffered; revenge is now my share.
These lips henceforth shall be of blasphemy the way,
Never again of prayer.

O God, though floating fog above a field of lies!
O God, thou vain mirage of wishes here below!
Thy glory and thy pride but from our dreams arise.
Without us, thou must go.

In making this translation, it was hardly becoming in me to address the Deity now in the second person singular, now in the second person plural; but I found myself lacking in the technical skill necessary to the maintenance of grammatical consistency.

Zenas T. Haines.

During my early days in Boston I generally carried one of the Investigator’s books on my person for reading in spare moments, and such moments often offered themselves while I was awaiting meals. Near the dining-room at my boarding-house a small sitting-room was provided for the momentary accommodation of the over-prompt, — a class to which I belonged as a result of early training and every-present appetite. This class not being numerous, I usually had the sitting-room to myself. But there were exceptions. One noon, when I, still accounted a new boarder, was reading a book there, pending the announcement of luncheon, my neighbor at table, a sedate gentleman not long past forty, with whom I had conversed but little, strolled in, and began pacing about the room in leisurely fashion. Observing that I was absorbed in my book, and feeling presumably that it was not intrusive to show an interest in the literary taste of a lad of sixteen, he inquired presently what I was reading. “Paine’s ‘Age of Reason’,” answered I, unblushingly. He stopped short in his walk, turned, and looked into my face with an expression on his own that was almost exclamatory. Then, recovering himself, he remarked quietly: “It is a book from which one may derive much benefit.” Thus began an acquaintance that soon ripened into friendship, and had a marked influence in shaping my subsequent career. The name of the gentleman was Zenas T. Haines, and I soon learned that he was the night new editor of the Boston Herald, which explained the fact that he never appeared at breakfast. Grave, and a bit sleepy in demeanor, but awake nevertheless to the ridiculous; a little pinched in expression, as one accustomed to physical suffering, but broad in outlook; kindly, sympathetic, helpful to all, and especially disposed to encourage the young, — such was the man. As we grew familiar through daily contact, he began to pay me little attentions, and one Saturday afternoon invited me to accompany him to Music Hall, where Christine Nilsson was to sing. I heard he in numerous selection, but especially remember Handel’s “Angels ever bright and fair,” and the familiar “Swanee River.” For me her voice remains unequaled. Sad to say, the phonograph had not yet made its appearance; else my estimate could be tested. In any case it stands.

Change of Residence, and New Associates.

It was early in 1871, I think, that Mr. Haines surprised me with the announcement that he had found a new boarding-house at 59 Temple Street, not a great distance from Pemberton Square and a little way back of the State House, and he suggested that I seek accommodation there also. The idea appealed to me, and soon we were installed in our new quarters. The house was kept by a Mrs. Chevaillier, a nervous, brisk, vivacious, and intelligent little woman, who eked out the slender income that she earned as a teacher in the public school by taking a few boarders, being assisted in the conduct of the house by an aged aunt, Miss Helen Clark. She had a daughter, Alzire, about twenty years of age, who suffering from nervous troubles, was not at home steadily, as well as a son, Charles, a year or two my senior and a most brisk and up-and-coming man, who was employed as a salesman in the publishing house and book-store of Little, Brown & Co. Besides Mr. Haines and myself the boarders were three in number: Mrs. Tarbell, an elderly lady in black; William Ben Wright, an exuberant impulsive, and exhilarating Canadian youth of my own age, employed as bookkeeper in a stereotyping establishment and diligently engaged in the study of stenography, — an art in which he was determined to excel; and a younger boy, short, slender, and delicate, Willie Saxton, whose occupation I forget, and who committed suicide some years later, for what reason I do not know. (Right here I may mention as a coincidence that my old school-fellow, Frank Baker, already spoken of as a boarder at the house of Mrs. Stearns, went afterward to California, and there committed suicide also.) Charley Chevaillier, young Wright, and myself became boon companions, Wright especially sharing in my mental eccentricities, but with more enthusiasm than depth. These eccentricities too were in marked contrast with the atmosphere of the household, the lady members of which were Episcopalians of the “Highest” variety, being devout and almost daily attendants at the neighboring Church of the Advent, were ceremonialism was carried to the farthest limit permissible within the Protestant fold. However a spirit of toleration prevailed. Perhaps the ladies felt that, since Mr. Haines appeared to view the boy’s vagaries with equanimity, there was no reason why they themselves should worry. Moreover, I was no longer spoiling for a fight on questions theological. Satisfied that the foundations of my scepticism were unassailable, I was turning my attention more and more to problems sociological. On these matters I had brought with me from New Bedford a curious conglomerate of views already formed. I was a woman suffragist and emancipationist, a prohibitionist and of course a teetotaler, a free trader after having been a protectionist, a believer in an eight-hour law as an adequate solution of the labor problem, at least a doubter as to the sanctity of marriage and without any doubt whatever as to the sanctity of democracy and majority rule. Though sincere and full of good intention, I fear that I was a conceited young prig, who felt that he knew the way and was destined to force other to walk in it.

The Era of My Awakening.

To take the starch out of a prig there is nothing like the transfer from a provincial city to a metropolis. Having had no trouble in keeping at the head of my class in the Friends’ Academy, I was not a little surprised at the Institute to find that there were others and to perceive that, if in the first year not more than twenty of my class-mates were to surpass me, I should have every reason to congratulate myself. Similarly, on attending woman’s rights conventions only to find, instead of harmony, fierce fights in progress between bold persons like Stephen Foster and his wife, Abby Kelly Foster, on the one hand, and timid persons like Henry B. Blackwell and his wife, Lucy Stone, on the other hand, and, on attending labor conventions and political gatherings of all kinds only to find conflict and clash between “isms” of every variety, I began to suspect that there were “more things in heaven and earth” than I had dreamed of in my philosophy. These struggles were very invigorating, but they left me dreamy. My sympathies were always with the extremists, but nowhere did I find myself on solid ground. Nor did the innumerable lectures to which I listened in the years 1870-71 furnish me with the criterion of which I was in need. They were very interesting and stimulating, and made me familiar with many notable figures, some of which I recognized afterwards in my daily walks. Indeed, I might almost say that the day was an exception when I did not pass in the street either Ralph Waldo Emerson, or Wendell Phillips, or Oliver Wendell Holmes, of Charles Sumner, or A. Bronson Alcott, Alcott’s daughter Louisa (the author of “Little Women”), or Julia Ward Howe, or Lucy Stone, or the poet Longfellow, or Henry James (the elder), or Col. T.W. Higginson, or President Eliot of Harvard. Amid these joys I drifted on, until the arrival of “Anniversary Week” in May 1871, when the feasts of reason were so numerous that my escape from mental indigestion was really miraculous. And then came the annual examinations at the Institute, in the course of which I had another encounter with “Billy Rip.”

But this story should be prefaced by the relation of an amusing incident that had occurred previously during one of his chemical lectures to the class. To demonstrate the reaction that he was explaining he had begun by pouring into a glass test-tube a certain chemical, to the eye indistinguishable from water. Just at that moment received a summons that compelled him to absent himself from the class-room for a minute or two, leaving the tube standing in a rack. During his absence a front-seat student improved the opportunity to pour the chemical into a sink and replace it with an equal amount of water. The professor, on his return, picked up the tube in one hand, and in the other a bottle containing an acid. “Now, gentlemen,” said he, “when I pour in a few drops of this acid, you will observe the forming of a white precipitate.” And he suited the action to the word. Nothing happened. He shook the tube. Still no result. Then he added a few more drops and shook again. “Do you notice the precipitate, gentlemen?” he asked. Sundry voiced responded in the negative. “Well,” he said, “it takes a practiced eye to see these things.” And, emptying the tube, he proceeded to another subject. Of course, no one “cracked a smile,” but numerous eyes exchanged knowing glances.

To return now to my encounter, which occurred in the course of a laboratory examination in qualitative analysis. In the chemical submitted to me I found various things, iron among them, and reported accordingly. “But,” said “Billy Rip,” “there was no iron in it!” I respectfully insisted to the contrary, saying: “The test for iron was unmistakable, sir.” Back and forth we had it, for several moments. I was sorely tempted to remark: “You see, sir, it takes a practiced eye to see these things.” But I prudently refrained. Finally, however, I said: “Well, sir, I think I must consider my report submitted”; and with that I retired from the scene, fully expecting to be conditioned in chemistry. But I was agreeably disappointed. I pass all my examinations successfully, chemistry included.

The ensuing summer (1871) is almost a blank in my mind. Undoubtedly my parents took me with them on their summer vacation, but where we spent it I am not sure. Probably in Lancaster, New Hampshire, where we certainly passed one vacation, making excursions to Dixville Notch and to the top of Mount Washington.

At all events, October found me in Boston again, beginning my second year at the Institute and at Mrs. Chevaillier’s, where the household remained unchanged. My life during the autumn differed but little from that of the previous spring, presenting, however, one new feature in the occasional evening visits that I made to the Herald newsroom to talk with Mr. Haines and watch him at his work. In the winter began the usual course of Sunday afternoon lectures at Horticultural Hall under the auspices of the Free Religious Association, which I attended regularly, finding it delightful and instructive to listen to men like Octavius B. Frothingham, John Weiss, David A. Wasson, Samuel Johnson, and other liberal thinkers of their school, even though I felt that I had passed their stage of emancipation from superstition.

It happened that I visited Mr. Haines in the evening of one of these Sundays. I do not remember what lecturer I had heard, or on what subject he had spoken, but I was so enthusiastic in the expression of my admiration that Mr. Haines suggested that I seat myself at the next desk and write a four-hundred-word report for the morning paper. Taken aback, I said that I had made no notes, and did not feel equal to the task. Pooh-poohing this, Mr. Haines insisted, and, thus encouraged, I made the attempt. The result was satisfactory, and the report appeared the following morning. It was my first contribution tot he press, and probably determined my career, — a subject to which, as I have said before, I had given hardly a moment’s thought.

To me my vocation was a minor matter; my real interest was in my avocation, which was to be the spreading of the truth and the dissipation of error. But it had never occurred to me that I could participate in the exposition of the truth. I had dreamed only of sufficient earnings to enable me to devote my spare time to propaganda in the capacity, if I may say so, of an irreligious colporteur. [sic] I doubt if ever a youth of average intelligence had less personal ambition than myself. I was sincerity incarnate. Disinterested I was not; nobody is; but my interest was in ideas and their advancement.

I once heard Stephen Pearl Andrews say that radicals are not more humane than conservatives, but are distinguished from them by their passion for truth, — an analytical remark which revealed me to myself. Without disturbing my conviction that truth is of value only as it is conducive to happiness, it made me aware that in my own case the relation between truth and happiness is immediate. Indulgence of this passion is of all intoxications the loftiest. Drink as deep as one may at the Pierian sprig, he does not wallow in the gutter; even though the draught be bitter, he soars in the empyrean. I had always known the thirst, and in this province, if in my other, my disposition was convivial, but the distillation of the beverage I supposed to be quite beyond me. It was Zenas Haines who put the idea into my head when he induced me to write that press report. And one another occasion he drove it farther in, when, finding me reading my daily Tribune in Mrs. Chevaillier’s parlor, he remarked: “I expect to see you the managing editor of that paper some day.”

“You are joking,” said I.

“No, indeed,” he rejoined, “I was never more earnest in my life.”

But, to tell and spread the truth in points, it is necessary first to know it. I was on the trail, but my quest was still unfinished. Regarding cosmogony, I had rejected the absurd in its entirety, and, without professing certainty, had arrived at a fairly firm belief in the lease improbable of all the theories offered. Further search in this direction was open only to the biologist and anthropologist. Awaiting the production of later evidence in an attitude of hospitality, it nevertheless had become with me a well-nigh settle conviction that every form of existence is subject to the exigencies of life and death, substance alone being indestructible. Such a conclusion commanded a concentration of interest on the problems of sociology. How to order the life that we now enjoy, — to that must be confined our further effort.

Life, broadly surveyed, falls mainly into two divisions: on the one hand, the mart and the workshops where the individual is in relation with the world at large; on the other hand, the home and the club, where the individual is in relation with his intimates. The first of these confronts us with the industrial or economic problem; the second with what we may call, in the absence of a better name, the domestic problem. Each has its complexities, but, on the whole, the second is much the simpler.

For a year or two I had been reading Woodhull & Claflin’s Weekly, led thereto by my interest in the emancipation of woman, and, as a result, I looked with much favor on the doctrine that legal interference with private intimacies, and especially with the relations of the sexes, is sheer impudence, — that is, impertinence carried to the point of effrontery. Though I held this view on its own merits and by my own inclinations rather than as one of the applications of a well-considered social philosophy, I felt nevertheless that I already had something of a grip on the domestic problem.

As to the economic problem I was all at sea. As a means of securing for labor a greater share of its product, a legal eight-hour day had appealed to me, just as arbitrary, direct, and aggressive measures always appeal to the childish mind, and generally to children of a larger growth. But at the age of eighteen an inquiring mind begins to “put away childish things,” and I was becoming dimly conscious that an indirect and automatic solution would be more effective and less revolting.

Not having found it, however, I continued to go, nearly every Wednesday evening, accompanied often by my friend Wright, to a tiny room in Bromfield Street, where the Boston Eight-Hour League held its weekly meetings. There were about a dozen attendants, on an average. The leading spirits were George E. McNeill and Ira Steward. McNeill, trade-union organizer, presided, and Steward, philosopher, expounded. F. A. Hinckley, who afterward became a Unitarian clergyman, was usually present; sometimes, Rev. Jessee H. Jones, an Orthodox divine settled at North Abington, whole-souled sincere, fanatical, a sort of Christian Socialist; often Edward D. Linton, an elderly man who had figured long in social movements, and a younger men, his disciple, E.B. McKenzie, neither or whom I knew, but both of whom I was destined to know and to admire. One meeting was much like another; none very instructive, all rather hum-drum. But a pleasant atmosphere prevailed.

Late in the spring of 1872, I chanced to see a notice in one of the Boston papers that on Sunday, June 30, and Monday, July 1, the New England Labor Reform League would hold a convention in Eliot Hall, corner of Eliot and Tremont Streets, — two sessions on Sunday and three on Monday. The announcement seemed to come from the secretary, Ezra H. Heywood. Never having heard of the League or its secretary, I approached Ira Steward the following Wednesday evening in search of information concerning them, especially desiring to know whether it were worth my while, to attend the convention.

“Why don’t you go and see for yourself?” he asked very pleasantly, by way of reply.

It was a magnanimous suggestion on his part, — since, as I learned later, the relations between the Boston Eight-Hour League and the New England Labor Reform League were not over-friendly, — and I did not fail to act on it. The afternoon of Sunday, June 30, found me at Eliot Hall, in a seat well toward the front, awaiting the proceedings with a high degree of curiosity. The audience was moderate in size and thoughtful in appearance. The president of the League at that time was John Orvis, a well-known disciple of Fourier, who, I believe, had been a member of the famous Brook Farm community. Probably he was in the chair that afternoon, but here my memory is a little dim. He, too, I had seen occasionally at the Eight-Hour meetings.

The opening remarks were made by the secretary, Mr. Heywood, who also presented a series of resolutions very denunciatory in tone, and not of a character to convey to a new-comer a clear idea of the League’s purposes, which were set forth later in a much calmer and more orderly fashion in another set of resolutions offered by Edward D. Linton. Mr. Heywood’s manner, on the other hand, was not at all violent; on the contrary, it was very attractive. He was a tall and rather lank New Englander, with a fine profile and a full blond beard and flowing hair. A little angular in his movements, his presence on the platform nevertheless was easy and almost graceful. His delivery was slow and measured, but without hesitancy, and his appearance was that of a scholar and a gentleman.

While he was speaking, my eyes fell on a simple old man seated two rows in front of me, whose Socratic features wore an expression of shrewdness and good humor. Suddenly Mr. Heywood, indicating this figure with a gesture, referred to the presence in the hall of “Josiah Warren, notable for his forty years’ pilgrimage through the wilderness of American transgressions.” From that introduction dates the real beginning of my career, as is acknowledge, on the dedicatory page of a large volume of selections from my writings published twenty-one years later under the titled “Instead of a Book,” in these words: “To the Memory of My Old Friend and Master, Josiah Warren, Whose Teachings were My First Source of Light, I Gratefully Dedicate this Volume.”

At a table in the hall, where some of the literature of the League was displayed for sale, I bought Warren’s work, “True Civilization,” William B. Greene’s “Mutual Banking,” Lysander Spooner’s “No Treason,” Heywood “Yours or Mine” and “Uncivil Liberty,” and copy of The Word, a tiny monthly published and edited by Heywood at Princeton, Massachusetts, of which three numbers had then been issued.

The impression made upon me by the Sunday sessions was sufficient to induce my reappearance Monday forenoon. As I was ascending the stairs leading to the hall, Mr. Heywood, coming up behind me, remembering doubtless my presence and attention of the day before, and perhaps wondering at this sustained interest on the part of a youth of eighteen, laid a friendly hand on my shoulder, and asked me some question calculated to elicit the cause of my curiosity. My answer and subsequent conversations during the day led up to the fact that Heywood and his wife were running a summer boarding-house at Princeton, and the further fact that he was conducting there, under the name Co-operative Publishing Company, a publishing business for the propagation of his ideas. He told me that Josiah Warren was living in his house, and suggested that, if I were to engage board there for a week in the course of the summer, I would have an excellent opportunity for studying the movement in which I was showing an interest. I saw at once that it would be a good thing for me; I did not fail to see (nor did Heywood) that it would be a good thing for the boarding business; and I promised to consider the matter.

Before the opening of the Monday morning session, a man came walking down the aisle whose presence would have made him notable in any company. He was tall; of large frame, though not especially stout; and was apparently about sixty-five years of age. His hair, beard, and moustache were white and smoothly trimmed, and he had a very high forehead, a decisive mouth, and eyes that were twinkling as well as wonderfully piercing. He was strikingly handsome, and wore a black velvet coat that became him remarkably. When he mounted the platform and took the chair, I realized that he must be Col. William B. Greene, the vice-president of the League. That he was a wonderful presiding officer I had abundant proof throughout that day and on many subsequent occasions.

The League had been formed in 1869, and its early meetings had been conducted on the usual democratic plan, any resolutions that were presented being submitted to the vote of the audience present, regardless of membership. The method was soon found to be incautious and disastrous. Eight-hour advocates and trade-unionists attended in force; and introduced and passed resolutions not at all in keeping with the purpose of the League’s founders. It became necessary, therefore, to adopt a new plan. The League existing for propagandism rather than political action, it was decided that resolutions should be offered for discussion only, and that no questions should be put to vote. Resolutions more desirable for the reason that, being carefully considered in advance and presented in the form of printed proof-slips, they were generally given in full by the newspapers, while speeches suffered from condensation and misrepresentation.

In the long run the new plan proved workable, but was very shocking at first to those accustomed to determining the truth or falsity of a proposition by a counting of noses, and gave rise to amusing incidents. I remember that, on one occasion, Mr. F.A. Hinckley, whose name I have mentioned before, arose to offer an amendment. Col. Greene, being the chair, informed him that amendment were not in order, but that any remarks that he might like to make in criticism of the resolutions would be welcome.

“But,” said Mr. Hinckley, “suppose that I insist on my amendment, and that it is put to vote and adopted; what then?”

Col. Greene responded: “If the chair knows himself, and he thinks he does, the questions will never come to a vote.”

“Are the members of this audience to understand then,” inquired Mr. Hinckley, “that they are here simply as guests of the managers of this meeting?”

“Well,” said Col. Greene, “if the gentleman insists on an answer to that question, I shall have to inform him that he is a good deal more than half right.”

Whereupon Mr. Hinckely threw his overcoat over his arm, and marched out, with an air that seemed to say that under no circumstances would he so humiliate himself as to become the guest of any one whomsoever.

At another time, Julius Ferrette, a bishop of the Greek Church who sometimes made long and rambling speeches, was addressing the League. Col. Greene, again in the chair, had occasion to remind him that he was wandering far afield. It happened that he was just broaching a topic dear to the heart of Mrs. Angela T. Heywood, who rose in indignant protest against the chair’s interference, claiming that all social problems were intimately connected, and that it was impossible to separate them.

“Time being limited,” Col. Greene explained, “the range of discussion must be limited also. I do not deny, however, that the lady is right. It is perfectly true that one can begin with Bishop Ferrette’s watch-chain (which was rather conspicuous) and reason to the archangels; but it cannot be done on the platform of this League during the occupancy of the chair.” Mrs. Heywood subsided, which was not characteristic of her. It was Col. Greene’s courtly manner and polite banter than always carried the day. Of the art of decision without offense, he was a master. His light irony disarmed. One forgot the firmness of his chin under the charm of the twinkle in his eye.

At this point it may be well to explain that the organization of the League, with its formidable list of vice-presidents, secretaries, treasurer, and executive committee, was mere facade. The same may be said of its national counterpart, the American Labor Reform League, whose conventions were held in New York. The two boards consisted largely of the same men and women, distributed in a different order. There was no sham about it, since all the officers authorized the use of their names; but, in reality, so far as activity and management were concerned, the secretary, Ezra H. Heywood, was “the whole show.” For instance, in February 1873, I was elected treasurer of the New England League. Let it not be inferred, however, that a single cent ever passed through my hands, or that an accounting was ever made. And the other officers were similarly inactive, except, of course, that the chair was always occupied by the president or one of the vice-presidents.

Heywood fixed the dates of the conventions, which invariably began on a Sunday, and prepared the resolution, which, in the case of the New England League, were considered the previous Saturday evening at the residence of Col. Greene, — in the earlier years a fine house at Jamaica Plain (a Boston suburb); and in the later a suite of rooms at the Parker House. The little gathering passed for a meeting of the executive committee, but the members were not summoned, those attending being Heywood and myself sometimes accompanied by William Ben Wright. We were treated sumptuously, but the chief treat was Col. Greene’s conversation. Sometimes, for a few moments, his wife or daughter was present. The former had been Anne Shaw, known in her youth as “the belle of Boston.” She belonged to an old family of Abolitionists, and was a sister, I believe, of Col. Robert G. Shaw, who fell in the Civil War at the head of the first negro regiment enlisted, and in whose memory a fine monument, the work of St. Gaudeno, stands opposite the Boston State House. To see the stately, but unassuming, couple enter the Parker House restaurant, arm in arm, was a sight for the gods, who, however, did not monopolize it, for I sometimes enjoyed it myself.

So much pretence as was involved in the show of organization outlined in the previous paragraph may not have been unpardonable, since it was necessary to the securing of a hearing. Thus heralded, a convention drew an audience that a single name, unless that of a great celebrity, would have failed to attract, and apparently few felt defrauded, since many came again.

In my own case, however, a continuance of interest was commanded less by what I heard at my first convention than by the literature that I purchased, especially Warren’s book, the full title of which was” “True Civilization: A Subject of Vital and Serious Interest to All People; but most immediately to the Men and Women of Labor and Sorrow.” When I found in the preface, written 1852 by no less a personage than Stephen Pearl Andrews, the following sentence: “I do not hesitate to affirm that there is more scientific truth, positively new to the world, and immensely important in its bearings upon the destiny of mankind, contained in this work than was ever before consigned to the same number of pages’; and when, in the early ages of the work itself, I found this of the sentence: “Disconnecting all interests, and allowing each [individual] to be absolute despot or sovereign over his own, at his own cost, is the only solution that is worthy of thought,” — I felt that I must devote careful study to a treatise giving promise of the automatic solution of which I was in search. So, having finished my second year at the Institute, and having again succeeded in passing the annual examinations, I w as in high spirits when I arrived at New Bedford with my package of pamphlets. I was not yet sure whither I was going, but I felt that I was on my way.

My First and Last Dip into Politics.

I could not, however, begin my new study at once. A presidential campaign was on, and I had not yet lost my interest in politics. Four years of Grant and corruption had disgusted me with the Republican party, and the chance of seeing an honest man in the White House in the person of Horace Greeley, whom I had so long admired, made me eager for the fray. In Theodore Tilton’s departure from the Independent and his establishment of his new paper, The Golden Age, I found an immediate opportunity for participation, as Tilton, in his youth a Tribune reporter under Greeley, had espoused the cause of his old employer, and was devoting both pen and tongue to his election.

My parents had planned to spend their summer vacation in Bellows Falls, Vermont, and I was to accompany them. But I had still a few weeks in New Bedford, and it occurred to me that a part of that time might well be devoted to a canvass for subscriptions to The Golden Age. Less than a week’s work in the city resulted in a list of respectable propositions, — about thirty names, I believe, — and without previous consultation with the management of the paper, I dispatched both the addresses and the money, deducting nothing for commissions. I think that my own name was already on the subscription list, but doubtless that fact afforded all the knowledge of my existence that either Tilton or his staff possessed.

Nevertheless, they rose promptly to the occasion. Straightway came a letter from the business manager, — D.M. Fox by name, if my memory serves one, — urgently inviting me to take the agency for the entire State of Massachusetts. My refusal, based on the ground that I was soon to accompany my parents to Vermont, must have indicated to Mr. Fox that I was of somewhat tender age. Yet he did not shy at that. “Take Vermont instead,” he urged. But I was obliged to decline again. I had been kind only to be cruel. Some years late, on reading in a new poem by Tilton, “Sir Marmaduke’s Musing,” the line, “All pangs of fair hopes crossed,” I wondered if I had not counted for a little in the poor man’s disappointments.

However, even in hopelessly Republican Vermont, I had one opportunity, while at Bellows Fall, to lift my feeble voice in the good cause. During our stay, a Greeley & Brown rally drew a large audience, which was addressed by Gen. Judson Kilpatrick, a firm stump orator of no little power. My father and I attended, and, as my father was hard of hearing, we sat in the front row. The speaker, in the middle of an exposure of scandal that had disgraced the Grant administration, suddenly came to a halt through inability to recall the name of a man who had figured in it. The name being necessary to his purpose, he surveyed his audience in a helpless and inquiring manner, and I, seeing his predicament, shouted out the missing word, He looked down at me with some surprise, then thanked me, and proceeded. Of course, my father was delighted, and I proudly reflected that, if Orrin Bates, the New Bedford candy manufacturer, had been present, he would have exclaimed,: “Joe Bigler is still on the band-wagon.”