Chapter XXVII: Introduction (25)

THE story of Sodom and Gomorrah epitomizes the Gospel. Every act in the great, the awful drama of life is here foreshadowed. The analogy is so perfect that we might almost be tempted to believe that the story is a prophetic allegory, did not nature itself witness its historic truthfulness. The fertile plain contained, imbedded in its own soil, the elements of its own destruction. There is reason to believe that this is true of this world on which we live. A few years ago an unusually brilliant star was observed in a certain quarter of the heavens. At first it was thought to be a newly discovered sun; more careful examination resulted in a different hypothesis. Its evanescent character indicated combustion. Its brilliancy was marked for a few hours――a few nights at most――then it faded, and was gone. Astronomers believe that it was a burning world. Our own earth is a globe of living fire. Only a thin crust intervenes between us and this fearful interior. Ever and anon, in the rumbling earthquake, or the sublime volcano, it gives us warning of its presence. These are themselves gospel messengers. They say if we would but hear them――“Prepare to meet thy God.” The intimations of science confirm those of Revelation: “The heavens and the earth ... are kept in store, reserved unto the fire against the Day of Judgment and perdition of ungodly men.” What was true of Sodom and Gomorrah――what was true of the earth we live on――is true of the human soul. It contains within itself the instruments of its own punishment. There is a fearful significance in the words of the Apostle: “After thy hardness and impenitent heart treasureth up to thyself wrath against the day of wrath.” Men gather, with their own hands, the fuel to feed the flame that is not quenched; they nurture in their own bosoms the worm that dieth not. In habits formed never to be broken; in words spoken, incapable of recall; in deeds committed, never to be forgotten; in a life wasted and cast away that can never be made to bloom again, man prepares for himself his own deserved and inevitable chastisement. “Son, remember!”――to the soul who has spent its all in riotous living, there can be no more awful condemnation.

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HENRY WATTERSON.

EDITOR OF THE LOUISVILLE “COURIER-JOURNAL.”

FEW men connected with modern journalism have wider influence than Henry Watterson. He was born in Washington, D. C., in 1850, and because of defective eyesight, was educated chiefly by a private tutor. Entering journalism, at first in Washington and later in Tennessee, he made his reputation as editor of the “Republican Banner,” in Nashville. He served in the Confederate Army in various capacities, being a staff officer at one time and Chief of Scouts in General Joseph E. Johnston’s army in 1864. After the war he returned to Nashville, but soon removed to Louisville, Kentucky, where he succeeded George D. Prentice as editor of the “Journal.” In the following year he succeeded in uniting with the “Journal,” the “Courier” and the “Times,” thus founding the “Courier-Journal,” of which he has since been editor, and which, under his management, has come to be one of the foremost papers of the country.

Mr. Watterson has taken a prominent part in politics, having been a member of every Presidential convention beginning with 1876. He was a personal friend and a resolute follower of Samuel J. Tilden. He has often appeared as a public speaker, particularly in political campaigns, and his judgment has had great weight in the councils of the Democratic party. Mr. Watterson is a pronounced “free-trader,” but has had no sympathy with the political movements under the leadership of Grover Cleveland.

He has been a frequent contributor to periodicals and has edited one or two books, notably that entitled “Oddities of Southern Life and Character.” The sustained vigor of his mind, the force of his personality and the wide-spread admiration for his abilities, make Mr. Watterson one of the leading men, not only of his party, but of the country.

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THE NEW SOUTH.

(FROM “SPEECH AT THE NATIONAL BANKERS’ CONVENTION,
LOUISVILLE, KY., OCTOBER 11, 1883.”)

IT was not, however, to hear of banks and bankers and banking that you did me the honor to call me before you. I am told that to-day you are considering that problem which has so disturbed the politicians――the South――and that you wish me to talk to you about the South. The South! The South! It is no problem at all. I thank God that at last we can say with truth, it is simply a geographic expression. The whole story of the South may be summoned up in a sentence: She was rich, and she lost her riches; she was poor and in bondage; she was set free, and she had to go to work; she went to work, and she is richer than ever before. You can see it was a groundhog case. The soil was here, the climate was here, but along with them was a curse, the curse of slavery. God passed the rod across the land and smote the people. Then, in His goodness and mercy, He waved the wand of enchantment, and lo, like a flower, His blessing burst forth! Indeed, may the South say, as in the experience of men it is rare for any to say with perfect sincerity:

“Sweet are the uses of adversity.”

The South never knew what independence meant until she was taught by subjection to subdue herself. She lived from hand to mouth. We had our debts and our niggers. Under the old system we paid our debts and walloped our niggers. Under the new we pay our niggers and wallop our debts. We have no longer any slaves, but we have no longer any debts, and can exclaim with the old darkey at the camp-meeting, who, whenever he got happy, went about shouting, “Bless the Lord! I’m gettin’ fatter an’ fatter!”

The truth is, that behind the great ruffle the South wore to its shirt, there lay concealed a superb manhood. That this manhood was perverted, there is no doubt. That it wasted its energies upon trifles, is beyond dispute. That it took a pride in cultivating what it called “the vices of a gentleman,” I am afraid must be admitted. But, at heart, it was sound; from that heart flowed honest Anglo-Saxon blood; and, when it had to lay aside its “store-clothes” and put on its homespun, it was equal to the emergency. And the women of the South took their place by the side of the men of the South, and, with spinning-wheel and ploughshare, together they made a stand against the wolf at the door. That was fifteen years ago, and to-day there is not a reward offered in a single Southern State for wolf-skins. The fact is, the very wolves have got ashamed of themselves and gone to work.

I beg you to believe that, in saying this, my purpose is neither to amuse nor mislead you. Although my words may seem to carry with them an unbusiness-like levity, I assure you that my design is wholly business-like. You can see for yourselves what the South has done; what the South can do. If all this has been achieved without credit, and without your powerful aid――and I am now addressing myself to the North and East, which have feared to come South with their money――what might not be achieved if the vast aggregations of capital in the fiscal centres should add this land of wine, milk and honey to their fields of investment, and give us the same chief rates which are enjoyed by nearer, but not safer, borrowers? The future of the South is not a whit less assured than the future of the West. Why should money which is freely loaned to Iowa and Illinois be refused to Alabama and Mississippi? I perfectly understand that business is business, and that capital is as unsectional as unsentimental. I am speaking from neither spirit. You have money to loan. We have a great country to develop.

We need the money. You can make a profit off the development. When I say that we need money, I do not mean the sort of money once demanded by an old Georgia farmer, who, in the early days, came up to Milledgeville to see General Robert Toombs, at the time a director of the State Bank. “Robert,” says he, “the folks down our way air in need of more money.” The profane Robert replied: “Well, how in ―――― are they going to get it?” “Why,” says the farmer, “can’t you _stomp_ it?” “Suppose we do _stomp_ it, how are we going to redeem it?” “Exactly, Robert, exactly. That was just what I was coming to. You see the folks down our way air agin redemption.” We want good money, honest money, hard money, money that will redeem itself.

We have given hostages to fortune and our works are before you. I know that the capital is proverbially timid. But what are you afraid of? Is it our cotton that alarms you, or our corn, or our sugar? Perhaps it is our coal and iron. Without you, in truth, many of these products must make slow progress, whilst others will continue to lie hid in the bowels of the earth. With you the South will bloom as a garden and sparkle as a gold-mine; for, whether you tickle her fertile plains with a straw or apply a more violent titillation to her fat mountain-sides, she is ready to laugh a harvest of untold riches.

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MURAT HALSTEAD.

JOURNALIST AND POLITICIAN.

THE editor of “The Cincinnati Commercial Gazette” may be ranked as one of the greatest living journalists. He has directed the policy first of “The Commercial” and then of “The Commercial Gazette” for a space of forty years, and has wielded an influence over the people of the vast region in which his paper circulates, and, indeed, upon the whole nation, hardly second to that of any other single man. Sometimes mistaken, but always honest, fearless and persistent, his work as a journalist may be cited as a model of excellence, and he may well be described as typical of the highest form of American manhood. He is now sixty-seven years of age, but he bears his years with such buoyancy and retains so fully his powers of mind and body that he distinguished himself in 1896 by going as special correspondent to the scene of the rebellion in Cuba, writing from that island, not only a daily letter to “The New York Journal” on the military and political situation, but also a series of daily articles in “The Standard-Union,” describing the manners and customs of Havana, and relating incidents of life in the tropics in a delightfully characteristic manner.

Mr. Halstead is a native of Butler County, Ohio, a locality which has produced its full share of the notable men of our time. As the inhabitants of the neighborhood were of Welsh extraction, with no one of Irish descent among them, the name, “Paddy’s Run,” borne by their Post Office, was a cause of great offence to them. A strong party, however, among whom was Mr. Halstead, made consistent opposition to every effort to change the name, but, though the struggle was long, the whimsical title which referred to an almost forgotten incident in General Wayne’s expedition had finally to be abandoned, and the fastidious inhabitants now have their mail addressed to “Shandon.” The Halstead family came from North Carolina at the time when so many of her noble sons bore practical testimony to their belief in free institutions by refusing to remain longer in a slave state, and making, in many cases, the greatest sacrifices in order to live on free soil in the Northwest Territory.

Murat Halstead grew up on a farm and made his way through the Farmer’s College, at College Hill, Ohio, as so many men of his class have done, by alternating college work with teaching a district school. He went immediately from college into newspaper life, contributing a great variety of articles to the Cincinnati papers, and in 1853 joined the staff of “The Commercial.” He soon became part owner and controlling editor. The success of his paper has been continuous from that time, and the fact is due in greatest measure to the foresight, energy and skill of Mr. Halstead. He became prominent in a national sense during the presidential campaign of 1856, and he was probably the only man who was present at all the national conventions of 1860, and one of the very few who foresaw the terrible conflict which was to follow. He had seen the hanging of John Brown, and reported it in vigorous fashion for his paper, and he was the Washington correspondent of “The Commercial” during the trying sessions of Congress which followed. He served as correspondent at the front during a part of the war, and “The Commercial” was no small factor in the national councils during that stormy time. His independence of mind is shown in his frequent criticism of the policy of the government. On one occasion he wrote a long letter to Secretary Stanton censuring in the strongest terms the measures which had been taken and outlining those which, in his opinion, would result in success. The document was afterwards filed away in the archives of the war department, bearing an inscription characteristic of the grim humor of the great war secretary: “How to Conduct the War――Halstead, M.”

He went to Europe in 1870 with the purpose of joining the French armies, but not succeeding, managed to attach himself to those of the Germans. The experiences thus obtained not only furnished the basis of his newspaper correspondence at the time, but supplied the material for a number of delightfully instructive magazine articles. He has since visited Europe on several occasions, and in 1874 formed one of a distinguished company which made a journey to Iceland and took part in the celebration of the thousandth anniversary of its settlement. In 1872 Mr. Halstead again demonstrated his independence by breaking loose from the regular organization of the Republican party and taking part in the bolt which resulted in the nomination of Greeley for the Presidency. He was not long, however, in getting back into the ranks, but his unwillingness to submit to party discipline and his persistence in criticising men and measures when he considered that they were opposed to the public interest, has probably been the means of preventing him from election on at least one occasion to the United States Senate. When he was nominated by President Harrison to be Minister to Germany, it was undoubtedly the same cause which insured his rejection in the Senate.

For many years the “Cincinnati Gazette” and the “Commercial” had continued an energetic rivalry. Their political attitude was very much the same, and there was everything to gain and little to lose by the consolidation of the two papers which occurred early in the eighties, with Mr. Halstead as editor-in-chief, and Mr. Richard Smith, of the “Gazette,” as business Manager. Since 1884 Mr. Halstead has made his headquarters in Washington or New York; his editorial contributions going by telegraph to his paper and for several years past he has been editor of the Brooklyn “Standard Union,” and has contributed very largely to other papers, his signed articles upon the money question in “The New York Herald” being notable examples of his ability as a writer and of his grasp of the great questions of the time. The amount of work turned off by such a writer is prodigious. He says that he has undoubtedly written and published an average of more than a million words a year for forty years. If put in book form this would make in the aggregate some five hundred volumes of good size.

Mr. Halstead was married in 1857 to Miss Mary Banks. They have four grown sons, all engaged in journalism; three younger ones, and three daughters. Their family life has been all that such life should be, and the present generation of the Halsteads bears every promise of maintaining the high standard of honest thought and persistent effort set by the florid faced man, whose large figure and massive head――hair and beard long since snow white――seem likely to be conspicuous in many presidential conventions yet to come, as they have been in almost every one for nearly half a century.

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TO THE YOUNG MAN AT THE DOOR.

(FROM ADDRESS ON “THE MAXIMS, MARKETS,
AND MISSIONS OF THE PRESS,”
DELIVERED BEFORE THE WISCONSIN PRESS ASSOCIATION, 1889.)

WE need to guard against ways of exclusiveness――against the assumption that for some mysterious reason the press has rights that the people have not; that there are privileges of the press in which the masses and classes do not participate. The claim of privilege is a serious error. One either gains or loses rights in a profession. We have the same authority to speak as editors that we have as citizens. If we use a longer “pole to knock the persimmons,” it is because we have a larger constituency for our conversational ability; that doesn’t affect rights. It simply increases responsibility. One can say of a meritorious man or enterprise, or of a rascally schemer or scheme, as an editor the same that he could as a citizen, a tax-payer, a lawyer, minister, farmer, or blacksmith. It conduces to the better understanding of our business to know that we are like other folks, and not set apart, baptized, anointed, or otherwise sanctified, for an appointed and exclusive and unique service.

It is in our line of occupation to buy white paper, impress ink upon it in such form as may be expressive of the news and our views, and agreeable to our friends or disagreeable to our foes, and sell the sheet when the paper becomes, by the inking thereof, that peculiar manufactured product, a newspaper, for a margin of profit. We are as gifted and good as anybody, so far as our natural rights are concerned, and are better or worse according to our behavior. It is our position to stand on the common ground with the people, and publish the news, and tell the truth about it as well as we can; and we shall, through influences certain in their operation, find the places wherein we belong. No one can escape the logic of his labor.

Communications from young gentlemen in, or fresh from college, or active in other shops, who propose to go into journalism or newspaperdom, and want to know how to do it, are a common experience, for there is a popular fascination about our employment. There is nothing one could know――neither faculty to perform nor ability to endure――perfection of recollection, thoroughness in history, capacity to apply the lessons of philosophy, comprehension of the law, or cultivated intuition of the Gospel――that would not be of servicegoing into newspaperdom. But it is beyond me to prescribe a course of study. It is easier, when you have the knack, to do than to tell.

When the young man comes to say that he would be willing to undertake to run a newspaper――and we know that young man as soon as we see his anxious face at the door――and we sympathize with him, for we may remember to have been at the door instead of the desk, and willing to undertake the task of the gentleman who sat at the desk and asked what was wanted――when, perhaps, the youth at the door had in his pocket an essay on the “Mound Builders” that he believed was the news of the day――and we don’t like to speak unkindly to the young man. But there are so many of him. He is so numerous that he is monotonous, and it is not always fair to utter the commonplaces of encouragement. It is well to ask the young man, who is willing to come in and do things, what he has done (and often he hasn’t done anything but have his being). What is it that he knows how to do better than anyone else can do it? If there be anything, the question settles itself, for one who knows how to do right well something that is to do, has a trade. The world is under his feet, and its hardness is firm footing. We must ask what the young man wants to do? and he comes back with the awful vagueness that he is willing to do anything; and that always means nothing at all. It is the intensity of the current of electricity that makes the carbon incandescent and illuminating. The vital flame is the mystery that is immortal in the soul and in the universe.

Who can tell the young man how to grasp the magic clew of the globe that spins with us? There is no turnpike or railroad that leads into journalism. There are vacancies for didactic amateurs. Nobody is wanted. And yet we are always looking out for somebody, and once in awhile he comes. He does not ask for a place, but takes that which is his. Do not say to the young man there are no possibilities. There certainly are more than ever before. Young man, if you want to get into journalism, break in. Don’t ask how. It is the finding of it out that will educate you to do the essential thing. The young man must enter the newspaper office by main strength and awkwardness, and make a place for himself.

The machines upon which we impress the sheets we produce for the market――and we all know how costly they are in their infinite variety of improvements, for the earnings of the editor are swept away by the incessant, insatiable requirements of the pressmaker――this facile mechanism is not more changeable than the press itself, in its larger sense――and the one thing needful, first and last, is man. With all the changes, the intelligence of the printer and the personal force of the editor are indispensable.

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WHITELAW REID.

EDITOR OF THE NEW YORK “TRIBUNE.”

THERE is an old adage which declares “fortune favors the brave.” This seems to be eminently true in the case of Whitelaw Reid, than whose life few in American literature are more inspiring to the ambitious but poor youth struggling upward for recognition among his fellow-men; for it was by dint of hard work, heroic energy and unflagging perseverance that he has worked himself from the ranks of obscurity to one of the most prominent and honorable positions in modern journalism.

Whitelaw Reid was born near Xenia, Ohio, October 27, 1837. The principle of industry was early inculcated in his life; and, besides doing his share in the work of the family, he found so much time for study that he graduated from the Miami University before he was twenty years of age and was actively engaged in journalism and politics before his majority,――making speeches in the Fremont campaign on the Republican side,――and was made editor of the “Xenian News” when only twenty-one years of age. When the Civil War began, he had attained such a reputation as a newspaper writer that the “Cincinnati Gazette” sent him to the field as its special correspondent. He made his headquarters at Washington, and his letters concerned not only the war, but dwelt as well on the current politics. These attracted attention by their thorough information and pungent style. He made excursions to the army wherever there was prospect of active operation, was aide-de-camp to General Rosecrans and was present at the battles of Shiloh and Gettysburg. In 1863, he was elected Librarian of the House of Representatives at Washington, in which capacity he served until 1866. After the war, he engaged for one year in a cotton plantation in Louisiana and embodied the result of his observations in his first book entitled “After the War” (1867).

One of the most important of all the State histories of the Civil War is Mr. Reid’s “Ohio in the War,” which was issued in two volumes in 1868. It contained elaborate biographies of the chief Ohio participants of the army and a complete history of that State from 1861 to 1865. This work so attracted Horace Greeley, of the New York “Tribune,” that he employed Mr. Reid as an editorial writer upon his paper, and the latter removed to New York City in 1868, and after Mr. Greeley’s death, in 1872, ♦succeeded as editor-in-chief and principal owner of the “Tribune.” “Schools of Journalism” appeared in 1871, and “Scholars in Politics” in 1873.

♦ ‘succeded’ replaced with ‘succeeded’

The Legislature of New York in 1878 manifested the popular esteem in which Mr. Reid was held by electing him to be a regent of the State University for life. He was also offered by President Hayes the post of Minister to Germany and a similar appointment by President Garfield, both of which he declined, preferring rather to devote his attention to his paper, which was one of the leading organs of the Republican Party in the United States. In 1879, Mr. Reid published a volume entitled “Some Newspaper Tendencies,” and in 1881 appeared his book, “Town Hall Suggestions.” During President Harrison’s administration, though he had already twice declined a foreign portfolio, he accepted, in 1889, the United States mission to France. At the Republican Convention which met at Chicago in 1892, he was nominated for Vice-President of the United States and ran on the ticket with President Harrison.

Mr. Reid has a magnificent home in the vicinity of New York, where he delights with his charming family, consisting of a wife and several children, to entertain his friends. He has traveled extensively in foreign countries and many of the celebrities of Europe have enjoyed the hospitality of his palatial home. In 1897, Whitelaw Reid was appointed a special envoy to represent the United States at the celebration of the Queen’s Jubilee. His wife attended him on this mission, and, in company with the United States Ambassador, Colonel John Hay, they were the recipients of many honors, among which was an invitation to Mr. and Mrs. Reid to visit the Queen on the afternoon of July 6, when they dined with Her Majesty, and, at her special request, slept that night in Windsor Castle. It may be of interest to state in this connection that, though Mr. Reid was the United States’ special envoy, he and his secretaries are said to have paid their own expenses. This statement, if it be true, notwithstanding the fact that Mr. Reid is a very wealthy man, evinces a liberality in the service of the government which should not pass unnoticed.

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“PICTURES OF A LOUISIANA PLANTATION.”¹

(FROM “SOME SOUTHERN REMINISCENCES.”)

¹ Copyright, Wm. F. Gill & Co.

I SPENT a year or two, after the close of the war in the Southern States, mostly on Louisiana and Alabama cotton-plantations; and I shall try to revive some recollections of that experience.

It was one of those perfect days which Louisianians get in February, instead of waiting, like poor Massachusetts Yankees, till June for them, when I crossed from Natchez to take possession of two or three river plantations on which I dreamed of making my fortune in a year. The road led directly down the levee. On the right rolled the Mississippi, still far below its banks, and giving no sign of the flood that a few months later was to drown our hopes. To the left stretched westward for a mile the unbroken expanse of cotton land, bounded by the dark fringe of cypress and the swamp. Through a drove of scrawny cattle and broken-down mules, pasturing on the rich Bermuda grass along the levee, under the lazy care of the one-armed “stock-minder,” I made my way at last down a grassy lane to the broad-porched, many-windowed cottage propped up four or five feet from the damp soil by pillars of cypress, which the agent had called the “mansion.” It looked out pleasantly from the foliage of a grove of China and pecan trees, and was flanked, on the one hand by a beautifully cultivated vegetable garden, several acres in extent, and on the other by the “quarters,”――a double row of cabins, each with two rooms and a projecting roof, covering an earthen-floored porch. A street, overgrown with grass and weeds, ran from the “mansion” down between the rows of cabins, and stopped at the plantation blacksmith and carpenter shop. Behind each cabin was a little garden, jealously fenced off from all the rest with the roughest of cypress pickets, and its gate guarded by an enormous padlock. “Niggers never trust one another about their gardens or hen-houses,” explained the overseer, who was making me acquainted with my new home.

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Illustration: A COTTON FIELD IN LOUISIANA.

I rode out first, that perfect day, among the gang of a hundred and fifty negroes, who, on these plantations, were for the year to compromise between their respect and their newborn spirit of independence by calling me Mistah instead of Massa, there were no forebodings. Two “plough-gangs” and two “hoe-gangs” were slowly measuring their length along the two-mile front. Among each rode its own negro driver, sometimes lounging in his saddle with one leg lodged on the pommel, sometimes shouting sharp, abrupt orders to the delinquents. In each plough-gang were fifteen scrawny mules, with corn-husk collars, gunny-bags, and bedcord plough-lines. The Calhoun ploughs (the favorite implement through all that region, then, and doubtless still, retaining the name given it long before war was dreamed of) were rather lazily managed by the picked hands of the plantation. Among them were several women, who proved among the best laborers of the gang. A quarter of a mile ahead a picturesque sight presented itself. A great crowd of women and children, with a few aged or weakly men among them, were scattered along the old cotton-rows, chopping down weeds, gathering together the trash that covered the land, and firing little heaps of it, while through the clouds of smoke came an incessant chatter of the girls, and an occasional snatch of a camp-meeting hymn from the elders. “Gib me some backey, please,” was the first salutation I received. They were dressed in a stout blue cottonade, the skirts drawn up to the knees, and reefed in a loose bunch at the waists; brogans of incredible sizes covered their feet, and there was a little waste of money on the useless decency of stockings, but gay bandannas were wound in profuse splendor around their heads.

The moment the sun disappeared every hoe was shouldered. Some took up army-blouses or stout men’s overcoats, and drew them on; others gathered fragments of bark to kindle their evening fires, and balanced them nicely on their heads. In a moment the whole noisy crowd was filing across the plantation towards the quarters, joining the plough-gang, pleading for rides on the mules, or flirting with the drivers, and looking as much like a troop flocking to a circus or rustic fair as a party of weary farm-laborers. At the house the drivers soon reported their grievances. “Dem women done been squabblin ’mong dei’ selves dis a’ternoon, so I’s hardly git any wuck at all out of ’em.” “Fanny and Milly done got sick to-day; an’ Sally heerd dat her husban’s mustered out ob de army, an’ she gone up to Natchez to fine him.” “Dem sucklers ain’t jus’ wuf nuffin at all. ’Bout eight o’clock dey goes off to de quarters of deir babies, an’ I don’ nebber see nuffin mo’ ob ’em till ’bout elebben. Den de same way in de a’ternoon, till I’s sick ob de hull lot. De moody (Bermuda grass) mighty tough ’long heah, an’ I could’nt make dem women put in deir hoes to suit me nohow.” Presently men and women trooped up for the ticket representing their day’s work. The women were soon busy preparing their supper of mess pork and early vegetables; while the plough-gang gathered about the overseer. “He’d done promise dem a drink o’ wiskey, if dey’d finish dat cut, and dey’d done it.” The whiskey was soon forthcoming, well watered with a trifle of Cayenne pepper to conceal the lack of spirit, and a little tobacco soaked in it to preserve the color. The most drank it down at a gulp from the glass into which, for one after another, the overseer poured “de lowance.” A few, as their turns came, passed up tin cups and went off with their treasure, chuckling about “de splendid toddy we’s hab to-night.” Then came a little trade with the overseer at “the store.” Some wanted a pound or two of sugar; others, a paper of needles or a bar of soap; many of the young men, “two bits’ wuf” of candy or a brass ring. In an hour trade was over, and the quarters were as silent as a churchyard. But, next morning, at four o’clock, I was aroused by the shrill “driber’s horn.” Two hours later it was blown again, and, looking from my window just as the first rays of light came level across the field, I saw the women filing out, with their hoes, and the ploughmen leisurely sauntering down to the stables, each with corn-husk collar and bedcord plough-lines in his hands. The passion for whiskey among the negroes seemed universal. I never saw a man, woman or child, reckless young scapegrace or sanctimonious old preacher, among them, who would refuse it; and the most had no hesitancy in begging it whenever they could. Many of them spent half their earnings buying whiskey. That sold on any of the plantations I ever visited or heard of was always watered down at least one-fourth. Perhaps it was owing to this fact, though it seemed rather an evidence of unexpected powers of self-restraint, that so few were to be seen intoxicated.

During the two or three years in which I spent most of my time among them, seeing scores and sometimes hundreds in a day, I do not remember seeing more than one man absolutely drunk. He had bought a quart of whiskey, one Saturday night, at a low liquor shop in Natchez. Next morning early he attacked it, and in about an hour the whiskey and he were used up together. Hearing an unusual noise in the quarters, I walked down that way and found the plough-driver and the overseer both trying to quiet Horace. He was unable to stand alone, but he contrived to do a vast deal of shouting. As I approached, the driver said, “Horace, don’t make so much noise; don’t you see Mr. R.?” He looked around as if surprised at learning it.

“Boss, is dat you?”

“Yes.”

“Boss, I’s drunk; boss, I’s ’shamed o’ myself! but I’s drunk! I ’sarve good w’ipping. Boss,――boss, s-s-slap me in de face, boss.”

I was not much disposed to administer the “slapping;” but Horace kept repeating, with a drunken man’s persistency, “Slap me in de face, boss; please, boss.” Finally I did give him a ringing cuff on the ear. Horace jerked off his cap, and ducked down his head with great respect, saying, “T’ank you, boss.” Then, grinning his maudlin smile, he threw open his arms as if to embrace me, and exclaimed, “Now kiss me, boss!” Next morning Horace was at work with the rest, and though he bought many quarts of whiskey afterwards, I never saw him drunk again.

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ALBERT SHAW.

EDITOR OF THE “REVIEW OF REVIEWS.”

IT seems, sometimes, that the influence of the editor has departed, and that notwithstanding the survival of a few men like Halstead and Reid, who helped to make the papers which moulded public opinion thirty years ago, the newspaper fills no such place as it did in the day of their prime, but a different place, not a lower or a less important one. Among the men who through the medium of the press are doing most to promote the spread of intelligence, and particularly to further the cause of good government and to elevate the civic life of our country, Albert Shaw fills a prominent place.

Dr. Shaw is a young man of Western birth, tall and slender in figure, with a keen eye, a quick and rather nervous manner, and features expressing in an unusual degree intelligence, energy, and character. Born in Ohio, the central West, Dr. Shaw represents a catholicity of feeling and knowledge which very few Americans possess. He knows the whole country. He is not distinctly an Eastern man, a Western man, or a man of the Pacific slope: he is a man of America. He knows the characteristics of each section, its strength and its weakness. With New England blood in his veins, but with the energizing influences of the West about his boyhood, Dr. Shaw graduated at Iowa College, the oldest institution of its class west of the Mississippi. During his college life the future journalist and writer devoted a great deal of time to the study of literature and of literary style, disclosing very early two qualities which are pre-eminently characteristic of him to-day, lucidity and directness. After graduation Dr. Shaw began his professional life as editor of “The Grinnell Herald,” a position which enabled him to master all the mechanical and routine work of journalism.

His aims were not the aims of the ordinary journalist. He saw with unusual clearness the possibilities of his profession, and he saw also that he needed a wider educational basis. His interest in social and political topics was the interest of a man of philosophic mind, eager to learn the principles and not simply to record the varying aspects from day to day. In order the better to secure the equipment of which he felt the need, he entered the Johns Hopkins University and took a post-graduate course. It was during his residence in Baltimore that he met Professor Bryce, who recognized his rare ability and intelligence, and who used his unusually large knowledge of social and political conditions in the country. While carrying on his special studies at the Johns Hopkins University, Dr. Shaw joined the editorial staff of the Minneapolis daily “Tribune.” After receiving the degree of Ph.D. in 1884, he removed permanently to Minneapolis, and took his place at the head of the staff of the “Tribune.” His work almost at once attracted attention. Its breadth, its thoroughness, its candor, and its ability were of a kind which made themselves recognized on the instant. Four years later Dr. Shaw spent a year and a half studying social and political conditions in Europe, traveling extensively and devoting much time to the examination of the condition of municipalities. It was this study which has borne fruit in the two volumes on Municipal Government which have come from the press of the Century Company, and which have given Dr. Shaw the first rank as an authority on these matters. When the “Review of Reviews” was established in this country in 1891, Dr. Shaw became its editor, and his success in the management of this very important periodical has justified the earlier expectations entertained by his friends, for he has given the “Review of Reviews” a commanding position. He is one of the very few journalists in this country who treat their work from the professional standpoint, who are thoroughly equipped for it, and who regard themselves as standing in a responsible relation to a great and intelligent public. Dr. Shaw’s presentation of news is pre-eminently full, candid, and unpartisan; his discussion of principles is broad-minded, rational, and persuasive. He is entirely free from the short-sighted partisanship of the great majority of newspaper editors, and he appreciates to the full the power of intelligent, judicial statement. His opinions, for this reason, carry great weight, and it is not too much to say that he has not his superior in the field of American journalism.

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RECENT DEVELOPMENT OF THE WEST.

LET us imagine a man from the East who has visited the Northwestern States and Territories at some time between the years 1870 and 1875, and who retains a strong impression of what he saw, but who has not been west of Chicago since that time, until, in the World’s Fair year he determines upon a new exploration of Iowa, Nebraska, the Dakotas, Minnesota and Wisconsin. However well informed he had tried to keep himself through written descriptions and statistical records of Western progress, he would see what nothing but the evidence of his own eyes could have made him believe to be possible. Iowa in 1870 was already producing a large crop of cereals, and was inhabited by a thriving, though very new, farming population. But the aspect of the country was bare and uninviting, except in the vicinity of the older communities on the Mississippi River. As one advanced across the State the farmhouses were very small, and looked like isolated dry-goods boxes; there were few well-built barns or farm buildings; and the struggling young cottonwood and soft-maple saplings planted in close groves about the tiny houses were so slight an obstruction to the sweep of vision across the open prairie that they only seemed to emphasize the monotonous stretches of fertile, but uninteresting plain. Now the landscape is wholly transformed. A railroad ride in June through the best parts of Iowa reminds one of a ride through some of the pleasantest farming districts of England. The primitive “claim shanties” of thirty years ago have given place to commodious farm-houses flanked by great barns and hay-ricks, and the well-appointed structures of a prosperous agriculture. In the rich, deep meadows herds of fine-blooded cattle are grazing. What was once a blank, dreary landscape is now garden-like and inviting. The poor little saplings of the earlier days, which seemed to be apologizing to the robust corn-stalks in the neighboring fields, have grown on that deep soil into great, spreading trees. One can easily imagine, as he looks off in every direction and notes a wooded horizon, that he is――as in Ohio, Indiana, or Kentucky――in a farming region which has been cleared out of primeval forests. There are many towns I might mention which twenty-five years ago, with their new, wooden shanties scattered over the bare face of the prairie, seemed the hottest place on earth as the summer sun beat upon their unshaded streets and roofs, and seemed the coldest places on earth when the fierce blizzards of winter swept unchecked across the prairie expanses. To-day the density of shade in those towns is deemed of positive detriment to health, and for several years past there has been a systematic thinning out and trimming up of the great, clustering elms. Trees of from six to ten feet in girth are found everywhere by the hundreds of thousands. Each farm-house is sheltered from winter winds by its own dense groves. Many of the farmers are able from the surplus growth of wood upon their estates to provide themselves with a large and regular supply of fuel. If I have dwelt at some length upon this picture of the transformation of the bleak, grain-producing Iowa prairies of thirty years ago into the dairy and live-stock farms of to-day, with their fragrant meadows and ample groves, it is because the picture is one which reveals so much as to the nature and meaning of Northwestern progress.

The tendency to rely upon united public action is illustrated in the growth of Northwestern educational systems. The universities of these commonwealths are State universities. Professional education is under the State auspices and control. The normal schools and the agricultural schools belong to the State. The public high school provides intermediate instruction. The common district school, supported jointly by local taxation and State subvention, gives elementary education to the children of all classes. As the towns grow the tendency to graft manual and technical courses upon the ordinary public school curriculum is unmistakably strong. The Northwest, more than any other part of the country, is disposed to make every kind of education a public function.

Radicalism has flourished in the homogeneous agricultural society of the Northwest. In the anti-monopoly conflict there seemed to have survived some of the intensity of feeling that characterized the anti-slavery movement; and a tinge of this fanatical quality has always been apparent in the Western and Northwestern monetary heresies. But it is in the temperance movement that this sweep of radical impulse has been most irresistible. It was natural that the movement should become political and take the form of an agitation for prohibition. The history of prohibition in Iowa, Kansas and the Dakotas, and of temperance legislation in Minnesota and Nebraska, reveals――even better perhaps than the history of the anti-monopoly movement――the radicalism, homogeneity, and powerful socializing tendencies of the Northwestern people. Between these different agitations there has been in reality no slight degree of relationship; at least their origin is to be traced to the same general condition of society.

The extent to which a modern community resorts to State action depends in no small measure upon the accumulation of private resources. Public or organized initiative will be relatively strongest where the impulse to progress is positive but the ability of individuals is small. There are few rich men in the Northwest. Iowa, great as is the Hawkeye State, has no large city and no large fortunes. Of Kansas the same thing may be said. The Dakotas have no rich men and no cities. Minnesota has Minneapolis and St. Paul, and Nebraska has Omaha; but otherwise these two States are farming communities, without large cities or concentrated private capital. Accordingly the recourse to public action is comparatively easy. South Dakota farmers desire to guard against drought by opening artesian wells for irrigation. They resort to State legislation and the sale of county bonds. North Dakota wheat growers are unfortunate in the failure of crops. They secure seed-wheat, through State action and their county governments. A similarity of condition fosters associated action, and facilitates the progress of popular movements.

In such a society the spirit of action is intense. If there are few philosophers, there is remarkable diffusion of popular knowledge and elementary education. The dry atmosphere and the cold winters are nerve-stimulants, and life seems to have a higher tension and velocity than in other parts of the country.

Illustration: (‡ decoration)

JULIAN HAWTHORNE.

THE POPULAR NOVELIST AND CONTRIBUTOR.

JULIAN HAWTHORNE has inherited much of his father’s literary ability. His recent celebrity has been largely due to his success in portraying to the readers of popular magazines facts of world-wide interest like the famine in India, but to the special power of vivid statement which belongs to the newspaper reporter, he joins the imaginative power which enables him to recognize the materials of romance and the gift of clear and graceful expression. He is the son of Nathaniel Hawthorne, and was born in Boston in 1846. He traveled abroad with his parents, returning and entering Harvard in 1863. His college life seems to have been devoted more to athletics than to serious learning. He took up the study of civil engineering and went to Dresden to carry it on, but the Franco-Prussian war breaking out while he was visiting at home, he found employment as an engineer under General George B. McClellan in the department of docks in New York. He began soon after to write stories and sketches for the magazines, and losing his position in 1872, he determined to devote himself to literature. He now went abroad, living for several years, first in England and then in Dresden, and again in England, where he remained until 1881, and then after a short stay in Ireland, returned to New York. A number of his stories were published while he was abroad. Of these the most important were “Bressant” and “Idolatry.” For two years he was connected with the London “Spectator,” and he contributed to the “Contemporary Review” a series of sketches called “Saxon Studies,” which were afterwards published in book form. The novel “Garth” followed and collections of stories and novelettes entitled “The Laughing Mill;” “Archibald Malmaison;” “Ellice Quentin;” “Prince Saroni’s Wife;” and the “Yellow Cap” fairy stories. These were all published abroad, but a part of them were afterward reprinted in America. Later he published “Sebastian Strome;” “Fortune’s Fool,” and in 1884 “Dust” and “Noble Blood.” On his return to America he edited his father’s posthumous romance “Dr. Grimshaw’s Secret,” and prepared the biography of his father and mother. Since that time he has contributed a large number of stories and sketches to magazines. His most recent work has been an expedition to India to write for American periodicals an account of the famine in that country. One of our extracts is taken from this account and will very adequately illustrate his power of telling things so that his readers can see them with his eyes. Mr. ♦Hawthorne’s activity does not abate and his friends and admirers expect from him even better work than he has yet done.

♦ “Hawthrone’s” replaced with “Hawthorne’s”

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THE WAYSIDE AND THE WAR.¹

(FROM “NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE AND HIS WIFE.”)

¹ Copyright, Ticknor & Co.

IT was a hot day towards the close of June, 1860, when Hawthorne alighted from a train at Concord station, and drove up in the railway wagon to the Wayside. The fields looked brown, the trees were dusty, and the sun white and brilliant. At certain seasons in Concord the heat stagnates and simmers, until it seems as if nothing but a grasshopper could live. The water in the river is so warm that to bathe in it is merely to exchange one kind of heat for another. The very shadow of the trees is torrid; and I have known the thermometer to touch 112° in the shade. No breeze stirs throughout the long sultry day; and the feverish nights bring mosquitoes, but no relief. To come from the salt freshness of the Atlantic into this living oven is a startling change, especially when one has his memory full of cool, green England. Such was America’s first greeting to Hawthorne, on his return from a seven years’ absence; it was to this that he had looked forward so lovingly and so long. As he passed one little wooden house after another, with their white clap boards and their green blinds, perhaps he found his thoughts not quite so cloudless as the sky. It is dangerous to have a home; too much is required of it.

The Wayside, however, was not white, it was painted a dingy buff color. The larches and Norway pines, several hundred of which had been sent out from England, were planted along the paths, and were for the most part doing well. The well-remembered hillside, with its rude terraces, shadowed by apple-trees, and its summit green with pines, rose behind the house; and in front, on the other side of the highway, extended a broad meadow of seven acres, bounded by a brook, above which hung drooping willows. It was, upon the whole, as pleasant a place as any in the village, and much might be done to enhance its beauty. It had been occupied, during our absence, by a brother of Mrs. Hawthorne; and the house itself was in excellent order, and looked just the same as in our last memory of it. A good many alterations have been made since then; another story was added to the western wing, the tower was built up behind, and two other rooms were put on in the rear. These changes, together with some modifications about the place, such as opening up of paths, the cutting down of some trees, and the planting of others, were among the last things that engaged Hawthorne’s attention in this life.

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FIRST MONTHS IN ENGLAND.¹

FROM “NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE AND HIS WIFE.”

¹ Copyright, Ticknor & Co.

WE are told, truly enough, that goodness does not always command good fortune in this world, that just hopes are often deferred until it is too late to enjoy their realization, that fame and honor only discover a man after he has ceased to value them; and a large and respectable portion of modern fiction is occupied in impressing these sober lessons upon us. It is pleasant, nevertheless, to believe that sometimes fate condescends not to be so unmitigable, and that a cloudy and gusty morning does occasionally brighten into a sunny and genial afternoon. Too long a course of apparently perverse and unreasonable accidents bewilders the mind, and the few and fleeting gleams of compensation seem a mockery. One source of the perennial charm of Goldsmith’s “Vicar of Wakefield” is, I think, that in it the dividing line between the good and the bad fortune is so distinctly drawn. Just when a man has done his utmost, and all seems lost, Providence steps in, brings aid from the most unexpected quarter, and kindles everything into brighter and ever brighter prosperity. The action and reaction are positive and complete, and we arise refreshed and comforted from the experience.