Chapter I: Part 1

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THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY PRESS
BOSTON

AMERICANS
BY ADOPTION

_BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES OF
GREAT CITIZENS BORN IN
FOREIGN LANDS_

By JOSEPH HUSBAND

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
WILLIAM ALLAN NEILSON
PRESIDENT OF SMITH COLLEGE

_ILLUSTRATED_

_The_ ATLANTIC MONTHLY PRESS
BOSTON

COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY
THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY PRESS, INC.

_All rights reserved_

To
EDWARD F. SANDERSON

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION, BY WILLIAM ALLAN NEILSON xi

I. STEPHEN GIRARD 1

II. JOHN ERICSSON 17

III. LOUIS AGASSIZ 37

IV. CARL SCHURZ 56

V. THEODORE THOMAS 74

VI. ANDREW CARNEGIE 91

VII. JAMES J. HILL 104

VIII. AUGUSTUS SAINT-GAUDENS 121

IX. JACOB A. RIIS 140

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

LOUIS AGASSIZ _Frontispiece_

STEPHEN GIRARD 6

JOHN ERICSSON 18

CARL SCHURZ 56

THEODORE THOMAS 74

ANDREW CARNEGIE 92

JAMES J. HILL 104

AUGUSTUS SAINT-GAUDENS 122

JACOB A. RIIS 140

INTRODUCTION

There is an old story, told in many countries through the Middle Ages, of a knight who got into trouble, and was offered pardon if within a year he brought the correct answer to the question, “What do women most desire?” At the last moment he saved himself by answering, “Their own way,” or words to that effect.

This is a man’s story, and scores the man’s point in the perennial strife of wits between the sexes; but the answer needs but little modification to hold good of men and women alike. When one takes up a book like this, dealing with the lives of men who deliberately and voluntarily left the homes of their fathers to become citizens of a strange land, one naturally asks what they wanted, and equally naturally goes on to ask what men in general want most in life.

Many answers have been given to the question, and none can be final, because men and circumstances differ so widely. But I should like to propose one that seems to me of more general application than most. Men want most to count among their fellows for what they are worth. This desire is more persistent than love, more universal than the thirst for wealth or power, more fundamental than the demand for pleasure. It shows itself in early childhood, it steers the ambitions of manhood, its fulfillment is the crown of old age. The degree of the chance to achieve it is the measure of the desirability of a country as a place to live in; and it is fair to say that the men whose lives are told in this book, and we others who have come to America of our own accord, have done so because we believed that these United States, above all countries of the world, give men this chance to make the most of themselves.

“To count among their fellows for what they are worth”—see what this implies. First, and most superficially, it means recognition of ability and character by society. Carried to the highest point, it would mean the absence of handicaps, of privilege, of “pull”—the equality of opportunity for achieving distinction which has always been the theory of this democracy. Of course, neither here nor elsewhere is this perfect condition reached; but the biographies in this book tend to show that there has long been a large degree of it here, and our social progress has this condition frankly accepted as a goal.

Secondly, it implies a basis for self-respect. Deeper than the grudge that a man has against the society which refuses him due credit for his achievement is the grudge that a man feels when he has to admit to himself that his achievement is not really creditable. The worst curse of slavery was not its external restrictions, but its effect in crushing the slave’s sense of the potential nobility of his own soul. The feeling that a man has a fair chance to be taken at his full value is an exhilarating feeling, liberating his powers, freeing him from the gnawing pains of mortified vanity, impelling him to hold his head up and look his neighbor in the eye.

Thirdly, it means a chance to do one’s job—one’s own job—and to do it to the limit of one’s capacity. This is the foundation on which both recognition and self-respect must be built. “Blessed is the man,” says Carlyle, “who has found his work; let him seek no other blessedness.” Because a man is freer in America to pass from one calling to another, from one class to another, from one region to another; because here people are willing to be shown what he can do; the chances are greater than elsewhere that he will find the task and circumstances which fit him best and let him count for most.

If you read through these nine lives, you will see that what each of these men was really after, and what each found more fully here than in the old world, was not wealth or power or pleasure of the senses, but the chance to do the biggest job of which he was capable. Three of them, indeed, did gather great wealth, but it was either a by-product of the main achievement of their lives, or the instrument of that achievement. The vision that inspired James J. Hill was not a colossal fortune, but the opening up and populating of a great territory with farmers leading large, wholesome, and prosperous lives. Two of the nine were artists, who neither asked nor received great financial rewards, but who found here the chance to create beauty and to form taste, and in seizing this chance they found their supreme satisfaction.

Of these nine men I have known only one, Augustus Saint-Gaudens; but none could have illustrated better the spirit in which work has to be done if it is to yield its greatest reward. What struck me in watching Saint-Gaudens work was his absolute indifference to what a statue would cost him in pains or in time, or to what it would bring him in money, and his complete absorption in making it as nearly perfect as he could. He did not “count the mortal years it takes to mould the immortal forms.” He would work for hours on the modeling of an inch of surface, seeking for an exactness of result imperceptible to the lay bystander. He would never be hurried—and he found America willing to wait.

The same spirit worked in Ericsson in his inventions, in Carl Schurz in his unceasing quest for political justice, in Riis in his cleaning up of New York City. Some of these men were not outstanding intellects, but each cared intensely about his job, and to each America gave his chance.

I have a quarrel with the title of this book. “Americans by Choice” it should be, not “Americans by Adoption.” “Adoption” suggests that America adopt us. We who have of our own accord left the old world and taken up citizenship in the new know that we have chosen her, not she us. We can leave to the native-born their natural pride in their birthright, but we can claim that we pay a greater compliment to this land than can these others, for our citizenship is not the result of an accident but of our free choice. And we have paid our price. We, and we alone, know what it has cost to leave behind scenes and traditions and affections which clung close to the heart. But that we have left them is proof that we prized still more highly the opportunity that America offered us to count for what we are worth.

In the face of this proof we have no apologies to make. We call our nine worthies to witness; and, while not forgetting our due of gratitude for our chance, we point to the use we make of the chance, and ask the native-born to acknowledge that the balance swings level. More than this we cannot ask; less than this we will not take. Granted this, without grudging and without condescension, we can quiet all fears of divided allegiance, and work with our fellow citizens for the perfecting of the social order in which these wise and worthy men found an environment for accomplishment of the first rank, and with which we have thrown in our lot in becoming Americans by choice.

W. A. NEILSON.

NORTHAMPTON, MASSACHUSETTS
MARCH, 1920

AMERICANS BY ADOPTION

I

STEPHEN GIRARD

_Born in Bordeaux, France, 1750
Died in Philadelphia, 1831_

The old French city of Bordeaux has for centuries been one of the greatest maritime cities of Europe. Situated on the low shore of the River Garonne, its stone quays have for generations been close-packed with the ships of a world-wide commerce. Under the Roman Empire it was a flourishing city; in the fourth century, surrounded by massive walls and lofty towers, it became the capital of Aquitania Secunda; and later, for three hundred years, it was ruled by English kings. Here reigned Edward, the Black Prince, and here was born his son Richard. Between the Bordeaux merchants and the English an extensive commerce developed, and as years passed by, this commerce branched out into a world-activity that to-day maintains relations with all civilized lands, but chiefly, as has been the case for a century and a half, with England, South America, the West Indies, and the United States.

In the year 1750 the stone wharves along the river bristled with the masts and spars of the fleets of the Bordeaux merchants. Small ships they were compared with the great steel cargo-carriers that to-day line the stream; but they were staunchly built and strongly manned, and their rich cargoes, safely transported from the distant Indies, filled the city with wealth and the romance of blue salt water and foreign lands.

In that same year, in a house in rue Ramonet au Chartrons, then a suburb of the city, was born Stephen Girard, son of Pierre Girard, Captain of the Port of Bordeaux. Pierre the father was a man of some importance and a prosperous merchant in the city. In 1744, during the War of the Austrian Succession, he had served with honor in the French navy, and at the blockade of Brest, he had received the Military Order of Saint Louis for his heroic action in putting out the flames on his ship, which had been fired by a fire-ship sent into the French squadron by the British. In later years he became Burgess of Bordeaux, and during this period he began to trade with the French ports in the island of San Domingo in the West Indies. Of such stock was the boy Stephen; born with the romance of the sea as his inheritance and with the heroic memory of his father to inspire him, but born with a handicap which, however, he never permitted to retard his progress; for from birth he was sightless in his right eye.

It was natural that the boy should turn to the sea. When he was twelve years old, the death of his mother left him a half-orphan. His education had been of the most general nature. There was little to draw him into the occupations of the land. To the lonesome lad the sea offered at least the promise of adventure, and perhaps the rewards of wealth and distinction. In the year 1764 Stephen was fourteen. His father’s trading activities with the West Indies afforded the opening he desired; and with his few belongings packed in a sea-chest, he shipped as cabin-boy on a small merchantman to Port-au-Prince. Five more voyages followed, and in 1773 he was licensed to act as “captain, master, or pilot of any merchant ship he could obtain.”

A year later as “officer of the ship” La Julie, he sailed from Bordeaux for Port-au-Prince. It was the final severance of his tie with France. The cargo consisted chiefly of general merchandise, in which Stephen had purchased a small share, bought from Bordeaux merchants with notes, or promises to pay at some later date. But business was slow in the islands, and the goods sold at a loss of over twenty-five per cent. In those days a man might be imprisoned for debt, and Girard realized that such a fate might await him should he return to Bordeaux. Accordingly, he obtained his discharge from the ship, and with a young acquaintance determined to form a partnership for the purpose of trading between the island ports. So with many who have sought freedom in the new world, cruel laws and the dread of an unjust imprisonment forced Girard to forsake his native land. But the just debt which he owed was not forgotten, and in later years the Bordeaux merchants, whose anger he had feared, received from him payment in full of the merchandise they had advanced him.

In July, 1774, Girard sailed for New York with a small cargo of coffee and sugar. It was a stirring time in the history of the American Colonies. For a dozen years the free spirit of the Americans had chafed under the oppression of British rule. Open fighting had occurred in Boston in 1770, when, in a fight between the populace and the British soldiers, three men were killed and eight were wounded. Two years later the British revenue schooner Gaspee was seized and burned by the people of Rhode Island, and in 1773 the citizens of Boston, disguised as Indians, emptied into the water of Boston Harbor 342 chests of tea from an English merchantman, as a protest against taxation without representation in Parliament. In retaliation, acts obnoxious to the people of Massachusetts were passed by the British Government; and in answer to these, on September 5, 1774, the Continental Congress was assembled at Philadelphia, and a declaration of rights was drawn up and published, defining the spirit of the American Colonies and indicating the consequences which must follow further interference with the liberty of the American people to levy their own taxes and make their own laws in their own Colonial assemblies.

Backing words with deeds, the Colony of Massachusetts set up its own government in defiance of General Gage, the British representative, and placed at its head John Hancock, an influential merchant of Boston. Twelve thousand volunteer militiamen were organized,—of whom about one third were known as “minute men,” or soldiers ready to march or fight at a minute’s notice,—and stores and ammunition were collected. Into such a scene sailed the young French boy with his cargo of sugar and coffee; and it is not surprising that his liberty-loving spirit sympathized with the indomitable determination of the colonists to rid themselves of the yoke of an old-world nation, and led him to seek employment in New York City, with some merchants there who traded with San Domingo.

First as mate and soon as captain, Girard steadily sailed back and forth between New York and the trading town of Le Cap in San Domingo. As captain of the little vessel, he was allowed by the owners the privilege of carrying a limited store of goods for his own venture, in addition to the regular cargo. His capital was small, but no opportunity to increase it was ever allowed to pass, and each voyage showed a steadily increasing profit to the credit of the youthful trader.

Meanwhile, in America, the fighting at Lexington and Concord had announced to the world the determination of the liberty-loving colonists to cast off British rule, and in 1775 the War of American Independence was begun. But important as this war is in American eyes, it was but one of several difficulties which confronted Great Britain: three years later war was begun between that country and France, and in 1779 Spain also declared war on Great Britain; this was followed in 1780 by the declaration of war between Great Britain and Holland.

Immediately all American shipping became subject to seizure by British vessels, and accordingly Girard availed himself of the neutrality of France and shifted to the protection of the French flag. But the dangers of the sea, increased by the hazards of war, were enormous, and in 1776 Girard found himself practically shipwrecked off the Delaware coast. With difficulty he brought his ship to shore, and soon found himself in the little city of Philadelphia, which was destined in afteryears to claim him as its foremost citizen.

Philadelphia was a town of twenty-four thousand inhabitants. By slow-sailing packets its people kept uncertain contact with the news of the old-world cities; stage coach and post-rider kept them informed of home affairs. A few small newspapers reported the stirring events then occurring. But Girard was not particularly concerned with the struggle of the American Colonies. He was still a Frenchman trading with the West Indies, concerned only with his ships, his markets, and his fortune. Philadelphia seemed to him to be an enterprising and growing place, and accordingly he settled there. It was perhaps the most important decision in his life.

As he was forced by the presence of British war vessels off the coast to abandon his trading ventures with the West Indies, Girard’s activities were for two years limited to local affairs. During the blockade an event took place which gave him a real tie with the struggling states: he married an American, Miss Mary Lum. In 1778 the British forces occupied Philadelphia and seized the Water Witch, the first vessel owned entirely by the enterprising Frenchman.

Philadelphia, however, was soon again in American hands, and the sea communication for foreign trade was restored. With the reopening of commerce Girard formed a partnership with his brother, who was now living at Le Cap, for the purpose of trading between Le Cap and Philadelphia. Salt, syrup, sugar, and coffee were desired by the Americans, and by their importation he saw a “big profit.”

Business prospered, and in 1779 Girard wrote to his father: “Tired of the risks of a sailor’s life, I determined to settle ashore.... I have taken a wife who is without fortune, but whom I love and with whom I am living very happily. By hard work I have finished furnishing my house, increased my capital to thirty-five thousand and hope to make good all my past losses.”

Peace came in 1783, and with it ports were reopened and trade resumed. Convinced that by owning his own vessels his profits on each trading voyage would be largely increased, Girard became the sole owner of a small brig, the Two Brothers, which was built by him for his particular purposes. It was the actual beginning of that mercantile career which was to make him in time the richest merchant in America. The Two Brothers sailed for Le Cap with a cargo of flour and lumber. The return cargo consisted of molasses, sugar, coffee, and soap. The profits each way were large, and a second voyage to Le Cap was promptly undertaken.

Meanwhile, Girard, realizing the opportunities which the new Republic promised, had become a citizen, taking the oath of allegiance at Philadelphia on the twenty-seventh of October, 1778. Among the first of the millions of old-world people who in the years which followed were destined to renounce the oppressive institutions of their native lands and become naturalized citizens of the free United States, it is particularly interesting that Girard was born in a country which likewise was soon to cast aside the rule of kings and establish the institutions of a republic.

From now on Girard’s fortune seemed steadily to advance. In 1789 George Washington became the first President of the new Republic. With the cessation of war at home and abroad, commerce was again resumed, and an era of prosperity gave to such men as Stephen Girard the opportunity to reap richly of the world’s commercial harvest.

Crop failures in France had created a demand for foreign wheat, and to stimulate its importation the French Government offered a premium to anyone importing it. It was an attractive speculation, and Girard, with his eye ever scanning world opportunities while others passed them by, saw his chance to turn an honest penny. Promptly his own ships and other chartered vessels were filled with grain, and an abundant profit was quickly realized.

In these early days, the yellow fever, now eradicated by modern knowledge of sanitation, took each year its death-toll among the inhabitants of southern countries, and from time to time extended far beyond its normal field. Girard, and, in fact, most of the American merchants of that day, had conducted a large business with San Domingo, the principal trading centre of the West Indies. In 1791, however, the large negro population of the island revolted, and fire, slaughter, and plunder soon turned the prosperous community into a wilderness. White refugees crowded every outgoing vessel and by the hundreds began to pour into Philadelphia and other American seaboard cities. “Take advantage of my brig Polly,” wrote Girard to a friend on the unhappy island, “if she still be in the harbor, to come here and enjoy the peace which our Republican Government, founded as it is on the rights of man, assures to all its inhabitants.”

But with the refugees came also the dreaded plague, and baffling the skill of the doctors, it spread through Philadelphia until the streets were crowded with funerals and the church-bells seemed continually to toll. There were few hospitals in those days, and the Philadelphia hospital at Bush Hill was not only crowded far beyond its capacity, but was in wretched condition, owing to the lack of attendants. Girard was put on a committee, and that very evening reported the immediate need of nurses and money. But Girard did not stop with his duties as committeeman. Without hesitation, and totally ignoring the probability of contracting the fever himself, he and a fellow townsman, Peter Helm, assumed active control of the hospital, and day and night, throughout the plague, toiled at this self-imposed work of mercy among the sick and the dying.

Among the various accounts of the plague the following is of particular interest in its mention of Girard: “Stephen Girard, a French merchant long resident here, and Peter Helm, born here of German parents, men whose names and services should never be forgotten, had the humanity and courage constantly to attend the hospital, and not only saw that the nurses did their duties, but they actually performed many of the most dangerous, and at the same time humiliating services for the sick with their own hands.”

When the plague was over, Girard returned to his business. In February, 1793, France declared war on Great Britain, and immediately British troops and ships seized the French cities in San Domingo. Ships of war and privateers of both countries promptly swarmed over the seas. Decrees were soon published by the nations at war, forbidding neutral vessels to trade with enemy ports. The law of nations was disregarded, and American ships were seized and confiscated. Great Britain particularly ignored the rights of American ship-owners, and thousands of dollars worth of American ships and cargoes were soon in British hands. Two of Girard’s ships, the Kitty and the Sally, were taken. Commerce was demoralized.

In retaliation against the outrages perpetrated by the British and the French, a “non-intercourse bill” provided that after November 1, 1794, “all commercial intercourse between the citizens of the United States and the subjects of the King of Great Britain should cease.” The bill was lost in the Senate, but an embargo which closed all American ports to foreign trade accomplished practically the same end. In all, five ships belonging to Girard were now in enemy hands.

In October, 1801, after eight years of war, peace was concluded between France and Great Britain, and in December the war which the United States had been conducting against France was also ended. With the return of peace came renewed commercial activity. Girard at once availed himself of the opportunity, and soon his ships were engaged in trade with the ports of France and Russia. But this revival of commerce was of short duration, for the unsettled state of Europe soon resulted in new blockades of ports, embargoes, and acts of non-intercourse against the offending countries. Then, to complete the disaster, in 1810 Napoleon annexed Holland to France and issued a decree “by which American ships and cargoes, seized in the ports of Holland, Spain, France, and Naples, to the value of ten million dollars, were condemned and sold.” Five of Girard’s ships which had sailed for northern ports were now seized and held by the Danes, and it was many months before their release could be secured. Trade with Europe was at an end; but despite the heavy losses which Girard had suffered, he did not hesitate or allow himself to be mastered by the situation. If Europe was closed, South America and the Far East were open to him, and now his ships began new commerce with new continents, and in December, 1810, the ship Montesquieu set sail for Valparaiso and Canton.

During these years of commercial activity Girard had become a large investor in real estate, and of his profits from his trading ventures at sea he had in 1812 almost four hundred thousand dollars invested in farm acres and lots and buildings in Philadelphia. In 1812 the United States declared war against Great Britain. Bad feeling had long existed, due primarily to the disregard of the British for the rights of American vessels. For a long time Great Britain persisted in stopping our ships, taking American seamen out of them and forcing them to serve on British vessels. It was more than patriotism could bear, and the nation enthusiastically entered the war with the cry of “Free Trade and Sailor’s Rights.” Forced practically from the sea, Girard turned his great abilities to finance and the service of his country.

Girard was now sixty-two years old, but age did not deter him from a new enterprise. A bank had long been needed in Philadelphia, and to take advantage of the opportunity, Girard established a banking institution with a capital of over a million dollars, which was called Stephen Girard’s Bank. The cost of the war which was being fought with Great Britain was a severe strain on the finances of the United States, and at the close of the year 1812 it became necessary for the Treasury to borrow money or the nation would become bankrupt. Sixteen million dollars was all that was required, but the loan was a failure, and less than four millions was subscribed. In April a new offering of the loan was prepared, but again the effort to float it ended in failure. In all only $5,838,000 was subscribed. More than ten million dollars must still be borrowed.

Now came an opportunity for Girard to repay to the United States the debt of gratitude for all that his citizenship had brought him. To the United States he owed his all, for in this free and fearless country he had been enabled to amass his great fortune. With two other men of means, Girard came forward and offered to subscribe for the entire balance of the loan. The offer was promptly accepted, and a situation of great embarrassment to the country was avoided.

With the defeat of Napoleon at Leipsic in 1813, and his abdication in 1814, Great Britain found herself free to conduct a more strenuous attack on the United States, and for a time matters went badly with the youthful nation. A British raid on the city of Washington resulted in the burning of the Capitol, the President’s house, and other public buildings; and this was followed in September by a raid on Baltimore, which, however, resulted in failure. Great panic was caused by these actions, and for a time banking was demoralized and business practically suspended. But on Christmas Eve, 1814, a treaty of peace was signed at Ghent, and once more Girard promptly resumed his world-wide trading, and once more the Stars and Stripes blew free from halyards.

Girard suffered two severe losses by reason of the war, in the loss of his ship Good Friends and in a ransom of $180,000 which he was required to pay for his ship Montesquieu and cargo, captured while returning from Canton, China. But in spite of this, so greatly had his wealth increased, that he now paid more than a hundredth part of the total taxes of the city of Philadelphia and his commercial capital was sufficient to enable him to sell goods on credit and to carry on a maritime business throughout the world without aid of discount. “All this,” he has stated, “do I owe principally to my close attention to business, and to the resources which this fine country affords to all active or industrious men.”

In the years which followed, Girard found declining profit in European cargoes brought to Philadelphia, and in 1821 he began to trade heavily with the Far East. Two of his ships, the Voltaire and the Montesquieu, were wrecked during this period; but Girard was as good a loser as a gainer, and pocketed his losses with small comment. Out of his fleet only four ships remained. Girard was now an old man, markets were bad owing to the panic in England and on the Continent, and the prospect for continuous profitable trading seemed ominous. It was only natural that he should turn from the sea.

Speculation in land had proved to be as fascinating as his speculations in ships and cargoes. Girard began to buy land, and soon his total holdings amounted in all to 200,370 acres. In March 1830 he purchased for $30,000 certain tracts of Pennsylvania coal lands which have to-day a fabulous value. But the land which chiefly held his interest was those few acres of his farm. “At my age the sole amusement which I enjoy is to be in the country constantly busy in attending to the work of the farm generally.” The peace and happiness of this final episode made a happy ending of Girard’s long, useful, and successful life.

“The accumulation of money interested him but little. He had now entered on his eighty-first year. His will was made and his great wealth dedicated to the good of posterity. He was under no incentive to labor for its increase. Yet in his bank, in his counting-house, on his farm, he continued to toil as of old from the sheer love of work.”

At the time of his death in 1831, Girard had for fifty-five years been a resident of Philadelphia, and for practically his entire mature life a citizen of the United States. His funeral was of “immense extent”; the streets were thronged by people assembled to pay “a last tribute of respect to a great public benefactor.”

The estate left by Girard amounted to almost seven million dollars, an amount which, in consideration of the times, would compare with the greatest fortunes of the present day. By the terms of his will, although there were many large charitable bequests, the bulk of the fortune was bequeathed to the city of Philadelphia, to be used in building and maintaining a school “to provide for such a number of poor male white orphan children ... a better education as well as a more comfortable maintenance than they usually receive from the application of the public funds.”

Certain other provisions have kept alive the memory of the testator’s downrightness and individuality. In a paragraph of the will, Girard enjoined and required that “no ecclesiastic, missionary, or minister of any sect whatsoever shall ever hold or exercise any station or duty whatever in the said college, nor shall any such person ever be admitted for any purpose, or as a visitor, within the premises appropriated to the purposes of the said college. In making this restriction, I do not mean to cast any reflection upon any sect or person whatever; but as there is such a multitude of sects, and such diversity of opinion among them, I desire to keep the tender minds of the orphans, who are to derive advantage from this bequest, free from the excitements which clashing doctrines and sectarian controversy are apt to produce.”

Under the wise management of the trustees of the estate, the public bequests of Girard can now be reckoned in millions. By the thrift, daring, and vision of a poor French sailor lad a great city of a mighty nation has received incalculable benefit throughout a century past, and will receive increasing benefit for centuries to come. Grasping eagerly the unlimited opportunities of the Republic where all men stand sure-footed in the equal race for the highest rewards that civilization can bestow, he seized for himself the honors of high citizenship, the satisfaction of sincere philanthropy, and the pleasures that the possession of vast wealth profitably employed can bring.

To every boy of foreign birth the United States to-day holds equal promise. Not in mass movements, where progress is measured in the terms of the slowest, is the reward to be achieved. Only by effort honestly and sincerely given, in a land where opportunity is free to all, can the heights be reached. America, oldest of republics, cradle of liberty, extends its welcome to the youth that is and is to come, as its welcome has been extended to the youth of generations past.

II

JOHN ERICSSON

_Born in Nordmark, Sweden, 1803_
_Died in New York City, 1889_

High up in the dark forests of Wermland, an ancient division of Sweden, where deep cold lakes feed the great rivers with clear water and send them down the mountains to the sea, was born, in the year 1803, a baby, John Ericsson, who in the years that followed made for himself a name which brought glory to the United States, the land of his adoption, and undying fame to the country of his birth.

There were few comforts or pleasures waiting to welcome young Ericsson into the world. The little village where he was born rested high in the mountains within six degrees of the Arctic Circle. All around were dark and gloomy forests, filled with strange legends and tales of ancient heroes, handed down from grandfather to father and from father to son. The hard thin soil of the mountains was unfit for cultivation, and it was difficult for the people of the forest villages to live on the poor crops which they produced in the few acres hewn from the forests.

But down beneath the tree-roots, deep-lying in the mountain-sides, were vast deposits of iron ore, renowned throughout the world as the material of the finest cutlery. So the deep iron-mines gave to the inhabitants of these mountain villages a hard-earned living which tempered their own spirits with that same quality which the Swedish iron developed in the blade of steel.

Olaf Ericsson, the father of John, was part owner of a small iron-mine and also superintendent of an iron-works, and so the small boy, with few playmates and none of the school advantages of the American lad of the present day, found his play and early education in the machinery at the mine and foundry. He was an industrious boy, and he was quick to discover the interest and inspiration of the things which surrounded him. All day, with pieces of paper, a pencil, and some drawing-tools which he had made for himself, he studied the principles of the machines and drew clear designs of them to illustrate their construction.

When John was eleven years old, his father left the mining village of Langbanshyttan and took with him his wife and his three children: John, Nils, a year older than John, and a sister, the oldest of the three. For many years the Swedish Government had considered the building of a great ship-canal which would open navigation across the Swedish peninsular, and it was as foreman of this project that Olaf Ericsson settled his family at Forsvik, a hundred miles from the old mountain home.

The mechanical features of this great engineering work filled young Ericsson with wonder and enthusiasm, and in his eagerness to obtain knowledge, in order that he too might participate, he sought information and education from everyone who had the time and inclination to help him. From a boarder in his father’s household John learned to draw maps and plans with skill and accuracy. A friendly professor aided his architectural drawing, and one winter he studied chemistry and learned to make his own inks and colors with a few pennies’ worth of chemicals bought from the town druggist. In these years he also learned the French language, Latin, and grammar; a fine foundation which enabled him in after years to express himself in speech and writing with a clearness and exactness that proved of immeasurable assistance to him.

At the age of twelve the boy had so progressed in his studies that he was commissioned to make some drawings for the canal company; and in the following year he became assistant leveler, and a year later, leveler. In this work he was required to make plans and calculations for the canal, and had a monthly salary, quarters, and traveling expenses. Undoubtedly John possessed unusual ability, but this extraordinary promotion of so young a boy must in large measure have been the result of his conscientious devotion to his studies and his enthusiasm and ambition in his work.

In his leisure hours the boy found pleasure in building small working models of machinery, and among these was a model of a saw-mill which many years later he counted as the first in the long list of celebrated inventions which had brought him fame and prosperity. This model was built entirely of wood, with the exception of the band-saw, which was filed out by hand from a broken watch-spring and was operated by a crank cast from an old tin spoon. A cord served for the driving-band. No detail was omitted, and when water was turned into the miniature waterwheel, the machinery operated perfectly. With similar ingenuity he made for himself draughtsman’s compasses, from birchwood and broken needles; and from the hairs in an old fur garment of his mother’s he laboriously fashioned brushes with which to apply colors, also of his own making, to his drawings.

But now the father’s health broke beneath the weight of his work; the small earnings which supported the family dwindled, and each year that went by gave to the growing boys added responsibilities. In 1820 John realized that the time had come for him to take his own path and begin actively to build for his future. His father had died in the previous year and his mother and sister were supporting themselves by taking as boarders the workers on the canal. It was necessary that he also should contribute to their comfort.

Realizing the physical and moral value of military training, young Ericsson joined the Swedish army. He was now seventeen, a fine powerful fellow with smooth active muscles, a clear eye, and a well-trained brain. When he was eighteen there were few, if any, of his fellows who could match him in feats of strength or agility, and on one occasion he is said to have lifted a cannon weighing over six hundred pounds.

Advancement came rapidly, and he was soon recognized as an expert artillery draughtsman and an expert in the science of artillery, a branch of the service in which he had begun to specialize. It will be interesting to see how this early army experience gave to Ericsson knowledge which in later life brought him his greatest fame and enabled him to turn the tide of history and hold nations attentive before his words.

The stirring mind of the young man now yearned for a wider horizon than the Swedish army afforded, and for a greater opportunity than his own country presented. For several years he had been experimenting with a new type of engine by which he hoped to obtain greater horse-power with economy of fuel. England seemed to offer the opportunity, and in 1826 he left his native land and took up his residence in London.

Ericsson went to England at the opening of an engineering era. The employment of steam as a motive power was in its infancy. Travel by sea was entirely by ships; on land the stage-coach and canal-boat furnished the only means of transportation. The steam-engine was an undeveloped toy of science. Electricity in its industrial application was unknown.

Forming a business partnership with an English machine manufacturer, John Braithwaite, under the firm name of Ericsson and Braithwaite, Ericsson immediately turned his tremendous faculties to various engineering improvements and inventions. First a gas-engine occupied his interest; then he turned to his former conception of a “flame-engine,” in which, by putting the actual fire directly under the piston, the expanding air would supply the motor power. In 1828 he built and put into operation in a tin-mine in Cornwall a water-pump driven by compressed air—an invention on which he later based his claim as inventor of a machine utilizing compressed air for transmitting power.

It was in the year 1819 that the Atlantic was for the first time crossed by a steam vessel, the United States ship Savannah, and this revolutionizing event stimulated Ericsson to new endeavors. In the months following he produced a number of important improvements by which smaller and lighter boilers were made possible by increasing the heat, and hence the power, of the fire by forced draught, as well as many other radical improvements in steam-engines and boiler-construction. Of these he claims particularly the credit of the invention of “surface condensation applied to steam navigation.”

The first steam fire-engine—an apparatus which to-day constitutes perhaps the most important feature of a city’s fire department—was invented and built by Ericsson in 1829. Previously, and as a matter of fact for years afterward, hand-operated engines, manned by crews of volunteer firemen, fought the fires which so frequently destroyed vast sections of the wood-constructed cities of those early days. It is not surprising that this valuable invention did not receive immediate recognition, for inventors rarely obtain such recognition from the people whom their inventions benefit. In fact, Ericsson’s portable steam fire-engine was actually condemned as an impracticable contrivance that could serve no useful purpose.

To-day we travel thousands of miles by railroad; a hundred years ago our great-great-grandfathers traveled by horse-drawn coaches. Where we may now speed a mile a minute behind a giant steam locomotive, they were content with what seemed to them the tremendous speed of eleven miles an hour. But all things change. There are always leaders in the world’s progress. Of these leaders was John Ericsson. Travel had been a luxury of the rich; the invention of the steam locomotive made fast and economical travel possible to the poor as well.

In 1829 a prize of two thousand five hundred dollars was offered for the best steam locomotive which could draw a weight of twenty tons at the rate of ten miles an hour. Ericsson had never built a locomotive, but he entered the contest. His greatest competitor was George Stephenson, who for several years had built small locomotives for use in coal mines.

On the great day of the trial thousands of people thronged the track to witness the novel sight. Never in the world’s history had there been a public experiment so momentous, unless we except the journey of the American inventor’s steamship, the Clermont, on her first historic progress up the Hudson River.

The locomotive entered in the contest by Stephenson was named the Rocket, a strong well-built engine that ultimately was awarded the prize. But although he was not the winner in this great competition, to Ericsson belongs great credit, for his locomotive, the Novelty, passed the Rocket at the amazing speed, for those days, of thirty miles an hour, and failed to win the prize only because of certain defects in its construction which caused it to break down before the goal was reached.

Ericsson was twenty-six years old when he built the Novelty. Already he had contributed many useful inventions to the world. But his greatest triumphs were still to come. He had been beaten fairly and squarely by Stephenson, but his was not the spirit that is easily subdued. Ericsson, like the hero of Greek mythology, rose the stronger each time an adversary cast him to the earth.

In 1836 he married a nineteen-year-old English girl, Amelia Byam, granddaughter of Sir Charles Byam, some time British Commissioner for Antigua.

For a short time he devoted himself to the perfection of a hot-air engine, and a sounding device by which ships might ascertain the depth of the water over which they were passing. Then he turned to a new activity. The result was revolutionary. What he had almost accomplished in the field of land-transportation with the Novelty, he now actually achieved in steam-navigation on the sea. To Ericsson should be credited the perfection and application of the screw for the propulsion of steam-driven vessels.

Up to the dawn of the nineteenth century the sailing-ship had ruled the seas. And even until the middle of that century the fast clippers, with their towers of widespread canvas, had held supreme domination over the world’s waterways. But in the year 1835 Ericsson designed a rotary propeller driven by a steam-engine, which marked the beginning of the end of sailing days. The steam-engine, first placed in a ship by Robert Fulton, the American inventor, was no novelty, but it had been used only to propel vessels by means of paddle-wheels attached to each side of the vessels, huge cumbersome contrivances, which were easily damaged by heavy seas and which on ships of war afforded easy targets for the enemy.

The screw of Ericsson’s was designed to operate underneath the stern of the vessel, under water and just forward of the rudder, exactly as it is placed to-day. To test this new invention Ericsson built a small vessel, the Francis B. Ogden, which was launched in the Thames River in the spring of 1837. The experiment was a great success and a speed of over ten miles an hour was attained, to the wonder of the stolid English boatmen who watched in amazement this strange ship move rapidly through the water with no visible means of propulsion.

Later in the summer Ericsson invited the Lords of the British Admiralty to inspect his steamship, and even conducted them on a trial trip on the Thames; but the amazing performance of the Ogden created but little interest in the minds of the British officials, who dismissed the affair as an “interesting experiment.”

But Ericsson had a friend who stood him in good stead. This friend was an American, Francis B. Ogden, our counsul at Liverpool, after whom Ericsson’s first vessel was named. Ogden was not an engineer, but he recognized in the Swedish inventor a man of sincerity and genius, and to his friendship Ericsson owed much in the way of advice and assistance.

In 1838 Ericsson built and launched a larger steamship, the Robert F. Stockton which sailed from Gravesend, England, on April 13, 1839, and made a successful passage to New York City, the first screw-driven steamship ever to cross the Atlantic. As the result of this remarkable achievement Ericsson was assured that the government of the United States would try out his invention on a large scale, and persuaded him to go to America.

Ericsson was not reluctant. For years he had struggled under the old-world conservatism. With his energy and ambition, he realized that only in the great land of opportunity beyond the sea could lie his hope of recognition. In November, 1839, he sailed for the United States.

There were no steam vessels in our navy when Ericsson reached our shores, and it was not until 1842 that the building of the Princeton gave him the opportunity to display his great invention. The Princeton was a small iron warship of six hundred tons, and to her construction Ericsson contributed not only his screw-propeller, but also a new construction for the gun-carriage, and, of even greater importance, a cannon reinforced by steel hoops shrunk on to the breech of the gun. This reinforcing of the breech of a cannon may be said to have established the recognized construction of the modern high-power naval guns of the present day.

The Princeton marked a new advance in naval construction. Her speed, the location of her machinery below the water-line and hence out of danger from an enemy’s guns, her novel screw-propulsion, and her powerful armament made her the centre, not only of national, but of world interest.

For a number of years following, Ericsson continued his development of the science of naval engineering, and in 1843 applied for the first time twin-screw engines to the steamship Marmora. During these years recognition began to bring to the great inventor the financial rewards which he had long deserved. In the year 1844 his receipts from his inventions and contracts amounted to almost $40,000, and the following year he received almost $85,000. But the road to wealth and glory contains many obstacles, and the successes that crowned the work of these few years were in a large measure balanced by reverses, although in the end triumph out-balanced all.

For several years Ericsson devoted his energies to the perfection of a model type of warship, but his untiring efforts received scant recognition from the government. October 28, 1848, was, however, a day memorable, not only in the life of Ericsson, but in the history of the United States, for on that day he became a naturalized citizen. Born in a foreign land, a sojourner in European countries, it was but natural that the Swedish genius should find in this young nation of opportunity the field which he needed for the expression of his wonderful faculties. By his naturalization, Ericsson brought to the United States the fine inheritance of an ancient nation, and infused into the blood of the new republic additional strength and virility. Save for the native Indian, there is no true American; but in the mingled blood of the people of many lands may be found to-day a race that combines the best of the nations of the earth, a composite people, free, prosperous, and masters of their own glorious destiny.

For many years Ericsson had held faith in the theory of a hot-air engine in which heated air would produce the effect of steam, but with greater economy. With characteristic confidence he carried his experiments to their completion, and expended practically his entire capital on the necessary models and machines which the working-out of his plans required. Success crowned his efforts, and the hot-air, or caloric, engine was generally conceded to be a success.

As the result of these experiments a number of New York capitalists supplied the necessary money to construct a large steamship, the paddle-wheels of which were operated by caloric engines designed by Ericsson. The vessel was named after the inventor and was a most novel and radical departure from any vessel up to that time designed. Her cost exceeded half a million dollars: an investment which showed the high esteem in which her designer was held. The Ericsson was launched in September, 1852, and made her trial trip on January 4, 1853. Never had so strong or fine a ship been built; the newspapers of the day were filled with praise, and her designer received from every quarter the most extravagant congratulations for the mechanical marvel which he had created.

But unexpected disaster destroyed in a few seconds the product of these months of thought and energy. Within a few weeks of her launching the Ericsson encountered a tornado, and capsized and sank a few miles off New York Light. Although she was believed by many to mark the end of the use of steam-power and the beginning of a new era of hot-air dynamics, it is now recognized that this invention reached its maximum development in the Ericsson; and it is in connection with a later and far greater invention that history has accorded recognition to the designer’s great mechanical genius.

Long before Ericsson left England he had thought out the plans for a strange kind of vessel, protected with iron, which would be able to fight and defeat any warship of any size. In 1854, the year in which he perfected the plan for his new type of warship, the navies of all the great nations were composed, in large part, of huge wooden vessels, usually sailing-ships, but a few combining sails and steam. For a number of years the use of iron-plating, or armor, on the sides of battleships had been discussed, and in 1845 R. L. Stevens, an American engineer, actually began the construction of a vessel, or “floating battery,” encased in metal.