Chapter XVII: A Boy at Shiloh (2)

In the Interparliamentary Union we have an organization composed of the most progressive statesmen in all the law-making bodies of the world, and they have been guided with remarkable wisdom to the declaration of a policy against which no sound argument can be raised, because it calls for arriving at the ultimate aim of permanent peace, by walking in the way that leads there, and by taking each step in due order. Thus no existing condition is ignored, however much we may be opposed to it as a permanent fact. Take, for instance, the question in regard to the arrest or limitation of armaments, which was raised by Baron d’Estournelles. It was inevitable that this should cause hostile comment from some quarter, and the closing scenes of the conference brought out this comment. The Duke of Argyll presided, and it was his privilege to respond to the toast of all the nations represented in the Interparliamentary Conference. The banquet was held in a hall decorated with flags of the various regiments of the British army; and in various parts of the great building there were figures of the men who had distinguished themselves in the countless battles which have been fought by the British people, not only in these islands, but in all parts of the world. The Duke of Argyll took advantage of this ocular demonstration of the fact of war, in the distant and near past, to express his belief that the people of England would see similar occurrences in the future. He then proceeded to remark that perhaps it might be better if the Interparliamentary people would fly nearer to the ground. He did not use these words, but the idea was that there was danger of getting in the clouds above the things that were capable of realization. This thought is but natural when one considers more or less carelessly the great questions which are being wrestled with by the Interparliamentary Union, and by the various organizations which have permanent peace as their ultimate aim. I believe, however, that a careful consideration of the things advocated by the Interparliamentary Union will prove that the Duke of Argyll has not differentiated between this organization and some of the other organizations which have peace as the object for which they struggle. Speaking from an American point of view, it would seem as natural to say that the men who formed the United States were idle dreamers seeking the impossible, because previous to the organization of the United States there was no such body in existence, as it is now to say that practical statesmen who can win and hold seats in national parliaments and who can control the action of great political parties are idle dreamers because they recognize the fact that existing conditions are not right, and that there is a way out of these wrong conditions, and that they propose to find that way. Everyone will admit that it is not right for people on two sides of a stream ten miles wide or twenty miles wide, or even a thousand miles wide, to continually go to war with one another when they all know how to administer justice through political institutions. Of course the question arises whether the people can be induced to establish institutions on a world-wide scale, such as have been established during past centuries, first on a small scale, then on a comparatively large scale, and finally on a continental scale. Passing from the abstract to the concrete, here we have in this conference of the Interparliamentary Union two men who have held a seat in the United States Congress for fourteen years, one a Republican and the other a Democrat. The Republican, the Hon. Richard Bartholdt, has proposed that an international deliberative body be formed as speedily as possible, but without authority to enact law, in which all the nations who have commercial dealings with each other shall have representatives. His idea is that this body will be able to discover ways of improving the law of nations, and the method of its administration, and that upon its suggestions the several nations will give effect to these good ideas. He believes also that in due time this international deliberative body will, by the wisdom with which it acts, be able to satisfy the responsible statesmen of all countries that they can safely trust to such a body the declaration of general principles of law to govern the conduct of the nations in their intercourse with each other. It is believed that in due time, through the development of this body, the people of the various nations will acquire the right to vote on international questions by ballot instead of bullet. To regard this as impracticable or even untimely is simply to ignore the essential facts of history during the past centuries, and the speed with which good ideas can be made effectual for large areas at the present time, on account of the great and valuable discoveries which have been made and applied recently to the intercourse between the people of the various nations.

Coupled with this proposition, Mr. Bartholdt has suggested as eminently practical the formulation of a general Treaty of Arbitration, which gives The Hague Court jurisdiction over the questions included in it, whether there is only one or half a dozen classes of questions that are made arbitrable according to its terms, or whether, as in the case of Denmark and Holland, no reservation whatever is made. Mr. Bartholdt simply proposes to let each nation designate the classes of questions which it will consent to refer to arbitration, and to grant The Hague Court jurisdiction over those questions, the treaty to become operative between all nations ratifying and between each nation and all other nations, so far as they designate the same classes of questions as arbitrable under its terms. In the meantime all nations, according to his proposition, shall remain free to arm themselves as heavily as they think their interests may require.

President British Group, Interparliamentary Union]

Mr. John Sharpe Williams, who has succeeded in placing himself at the head of the Democratic party in the Lower House in the United States Congress, not only approves of these practical propositions made by Mr. Bartholdt, but he proposes that the judges of The Hague Court shall be paid ample salaries, coupled with a prohibition against their appearing in any case that comes before this International Court, or acting as counsel to any government in any international controversy. This will enable these judges to devote themselves immediately to the task of codifying the law of nations, which is certainly in a most confused and unsatisfactory condition, owing to the fact that it contains many contradictory doctrines announced by particular nations to fit their interests at particular crises, and which have not received the approval of other countries. Certainly a commission of competent jurists to codify those principles of law which should be generally recognized by the nations, and to bring into harmony with sound principles those doctrines about which there is not a complete unity of opinion, can be counted upon to do work of this kind as successfully as similar commissions for the codification of national or State laws. Furthermore, the most capable statesmen of the various countries can be counted on to protect their countries’ interests as faithfully and effectually as if those gentlemen were sent out at the head of an armed force.

Mr. William Jennings Bryan, who has twice been the candidate of a great political party for the highest and most responsible office in one of the greatest countries in the world, and who has himself been one of its national law-makers, can hardly be looked upon as too idealistic for the practical affairs of the world. Mr. Bryan now comes forward and places his unqualified, indeed, his earnest approval, upon this plan for the earliest possible organization of the International Conference at The Hague upon a firm and permanent foundation, without authority at the beginning to enact their resolutions into laws binding upon the nations, but with the right to assemble at stated intervals, upon their own initiative, for the discussion of such international questions as the current of events may make paramount, and for suggesting to the various governments of the world suitable and timely amendments to the law of nations, and in the present method of its administration.

President Hungarian Group, Interparliamentary Union]

Furthermore, Mr. Bryan proposed at this conference and declared his intention of hereafter throwing the full weight of his influence in favor of an agreement between nations to refer all questions to arbitration in the first instance, even though the several governments reserve the right, in matters affecting their vital interests or national honor, to appeal from the decision of the arbitrators to a conflict upon the battlefield. Even if the nations of Europe found themselves unable at this moment to agree to this proposition, there is certainly nothing in the proposition that is unwise in the abstract, and if nothing is ever proposed which the world is not ready at the instant to adopt, it is utterly impossible to make any progress at all. But in the light of the salient facts of history, Mr. Bryan’s proposition is certainly entitled to the immediate consideration of every statesman in the world, and, in my judgment, it can count on acceptance in a comparatively short time. The people of England have probably not yet forgotten the fact that if the Duke of Argyll had lived previously to the twenty-second day of June, 1819, he would have had the right, under the laws of England, to prove that he owned the estate of which he is now the distinguished possessor, by defeating any claimant to the same on the field of personal encounter in the presence of the judges of this great nation. I do not happen to know how long the family of Argyll has been taking account of itself, but I venture to say that some of the ancestors of the present duke were among those whose sentiment against the trial by jury of questions affecting title to land made it impracticable to substitute judicial decisions for wage of battle in such questions several centuries ago. But opinions change—principles never. Therefore, it is eminently wise and practical for the progressive statesmen of to-day to put forward the idea of judicial decisions in the place of trials by battle, in those controversies which are international in character; and those statesmen who dare to do this are rendering to our day and generation a service similar in character, but greater in value, to that which was rendered in past ages by those noble men who dared to throw themselves against anything that was wrong, however firmly established in the customs of their country, and who gave over the struggle to substitute Right for Might, even though the fruition of their labors did not come in their own lifetime.

Member Hungarian Group, Interparliamentary Union]

It is certainly a cause for congratulation throughout the whole world that eminent and practical statesmen in both of the great parties in the United States have declared that, so far as the United States are concerned, the substitution of law for war is soon to be made a part of the practical politics of their country.

This is the time, therefore, for all men who have their country’s welfare at heart to come forward and labor for the present realization of these practical plans, because they are right, because they are the only way out of wrong conditions. The world will be brought to the adoption of these ideas quickly or after a long delay, according to the action or inaction of the men who have their hands upon the reins of government, and who are influential in the formation of public opinion in their own particular countries. Under such circumstances, the part of wisdom is to join hands in the effort to travel the right road, instead of pausing to consider the length of the journey or the obstacles to be overcome in taking it.

Looking over the crises which have brought the world forward, and at the conditions which surround us at the present time, it is plain that the prospects for achieving what is now proposed are much better than those which surrounded the men who achieved the best things in the past, in every country which now has a part to play in the world’s political drama. The prospects of peace and justice not only within the existing political organizations, but in their relations with one another, were never so good as to-day, because the principle of Parliamentary Representative government has been applied during the past few centuries, to a greater or less degree, in almost every nation of the world, and this has prepared each of these nations to participate more easily and more effectively in the application of this principle to the affairs common to them all. While it is certainly true that under existing conditions each nation must make such preparation for its own preservation and the enforcement of its rights in the world as may seem to it necessary, considering the dangers which surround it, and while the Duke of Argyll is only stating the truth in saying that England will probably have to add more flags to her present array of military decorations, it is also true that the principle which can minimize the danger of and in due time destroy the necessity for war, has been discovered and is now in operation, to some degree, in almost every nation in the world. This principle has been put forward for practical application in the affairs common to all nations, has been accepted by men who have heretofore been entrusted with the highest positions of responsibility in the operation of their national government, who have demonstrated that the confidence reposed in them was not undeserved. It is, therefore, simply a question of working out the problem according to a known rule, as truly as when the rule in mathematics is known and the work of solving the problem according to it is all that remains to be done.

FREDERICK A. BRIDGMAN

By Lillian Kendrick Byrn

Without the resolution in your hearts to do good work, so long
as your right hands have motion in them, and to do it whether
the issue be that you die or live, no life worthy the name will
ever be possible to you; while in once forming the resolution
that your work is to be well done, life is really won here and
forever.—_John Ruskin._

These words of the greatest art critic of modern times have been the inspiration of Mr. Bridgman’s work ever since, as a youth of nineteen, he commenced his artistic career as draughtsman in the American Bank Note Company, of New York. After six months’ experience in this department he was transferred to the vignette department, where he displayed the same fidelity and ability which has ever characterized his work. His hours were from nine until five, but he rose at four and painted until eight each morning and each evening he returned to his home to paint until a late hour. Occupying, as he now does, the enviable position of being a medallist of the Paris Salon several times over, not to mention medals from Münich, London and Berlin and the decoration of the Cross of the Legion of Honor and similar honors, Mr. Bridgman owes his eminence as much to his indefatigable work and his determination as to his talent.

There have been artists distinguished from the fact that their genius was bizarre or their point of view extraordinary, and others preëminent because they solved, with the ease of genius, the general problems of their art. It is to the latter class that this Southern painter belongs—the class which expresses clearly and forcefully the essential life elements, in contradistinction to the eccentric, exaggerated striving after the weird, which marks the work of the others, whose success is at best, ephemeral.

There is contained in a picture nothing less than all that it is capable of inspiring to our thoughts and imagination. Art, like nature, can only show us what we are capable of seeing and it is this faculty for showing not only the subtle sense of atmosphere to the critics but the beauty of life to all observers, which marks Mr. Bridgman’s pictures.

Mr. Bridgman’s studies in Paris were made at the celebrated Suisse atelier and at the Ecôle des Beaux Arts, under Gérôme. He painted in Brittany several years, and in 1872 he went to Algeria, where the beauty of the African scenes inspired him to write, as well as to paint. His _Winters in Algeria_, illustrated with his own sketches, was brought out by a leading American publishing house and was pronounced by Sir Lambert Playfair, thirty years British Consul at Algiers, to be the best book ever issued on this subject. His _Burial of a Mummy on the Nile_, painted in Africa, is owned by James Gordon Bennett. It was this picture which brought him the Cross of the Legion of Honor, as well as a medal, when exhibited at the Paris Exposition, 1878. At the second Exposition, held in 1889, he was made President of the American Section of Fine Arts. Other paintings owned by Americans are _The Family Bath_, in Mrs. Ayres’ gallery in New York, and _The Procession of the Sacred Bull Apis_, in the Corcoran Gallery, at Washington.

The Bridgman studio is one of the most interesting in Paris. The door is devoid of bell or knocker, but on pushing it open a zither-like instrument is struck, producing vibrant chords of harmony. A small ante-chamber containing a Renaissance marble and casts of Donatello’s angels opens into the studios, which consist of three rooms, charmingly surrounding an Oriental _patio_, with mosaic pavement and blue-tiled fountain and walled in by lattice work from Cairo. Moorish and Arabic mosque lamps and Persian and Indian tapestries give a complete Eastern tone to the court. The principal room is ornamented quite to the lofty ceiling with panels, hangings and furniture of the twelfth century, or Renaissance period. The keynote of this room is dull green, mingled with the brown of the old woodwork and the gold of its decorations. From this room one passes by way of the fountain, whose gold fish and lotus flowers tempt one to linger, to a quaint stairway of carved oak, which leads to the Egyptian and Greek rooms above. The sanctuary of the ancient Egyptian period is announced, so to speak, by the white lotus bud columns, supporting bas-reliefs of flamingoes and a boat carrying twenty donkeys and two men, crossing the Nile. At each side of the entrance statues of Isis and Osiris, in green basalt, sit as placidly as four thousand years ago.

Paris Salon, 1906]

While a large part of Mr. Bridgman’s furnishings have been collected during his travels, they have been supplemented by friezes, furniture and ornaments designed by the artist in keeping with his idea of giving each room a complete and distinct individuality. This character note is especially dominant in the Egyptian room, with its painted and gilded cedar wood chairs and its bas-reliefs of Egyptian life. The coloring is dark blue, relieved by gilding in the decorations and hieroglyphics, and lighted by electric lotus flowers.

In the Greek room a frieze of black and terra cotta, reproduced from the old Etruscan vases, runs round the ceiling. Over the mantel stands the frontal of a temple, copied after the lines of the Parthenon. Minerva presides in this shrine, guarded by small Tanagra figurines on the shelf below. There are also some fragments of Etruscan ware. It is a wonderful place to dream in, and a hard place to leave, the more so as Mr. Bridgman exercises hospitality on a scale of typical Southern generosity. There is something in the personality of the man himself—a certain candor or simplicity which, in spite of the cosmopolitan finish of world-wide travel and experience, in spite of honors and acclamation, remains typical of his native section. Tuskegee, Alabama, is his birthplace, his father being a physician of note throughout the state.

Besides _Winters in Algeria_, Mr. Bridgman has written several books in French, among them _Anarchy in Art_ and _The Idol and the Ideal_, the latter being a poem in blank verse, whose _dramatis personae_ are an artist and a young girl.

Nor do painting and writing complete the list of the Alabamian’s talents. He is a devoted musician, finding rest and inspiration in the study of harmonic sound. He always carries with him a musical notebook, jotting down, wherever he may be, any melody or detail of orchestration that strikes him. He is now finishing a symphony, parts of which have been played in classical concerts at Vichy and at Monte Carlo. With such varied gifts it is not surprising that his pictures have a lyrical, musical quality, pulsating with the rhythmical movement of life. He has the supreme painter’s gift of conveying not only the effect of air and sunlight, but also the psychic atmosphere of a scene, the glamor, the romance of the Orient.

Mr. Bridgman says, and his views are indicative of that noble discontent which incites artists to yet higher efforts, “The actual picture is never the perfect one. It is always the _next_ undertaking in which shall be realized the qualities so much sought after.”

Robert Joseph Fisher was born at Athens, Tennessee. His father, Richard M. Fisher, was of German descent, and moved to Tennessee from Virginia. His mother, Ann M. Gettys, is of Scotch-Irish descent, and was born at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, which town was founded by, and took its name from, her grandfather. Mr. Fisher received a collegiate education at the East Tennessee Wesleyan University, at Athens, and while at school stood at the head of his classes, showing a marked predilection for mathematics. On account of business reverses sustained by his father, he left school and began business life as a clerk in a store in his native town. Subsequently he became teller in the Cleveland National Bank, at Cleveland, in his native state. Upon the death of his father, in 1883, Mr. Fisher returned to Athens and organized the First National Bank of Athens, of which he was the cashier and principal executive officer for about thirteen years. During this period Mr. Fisher promoted, and was a leading spirit in, the organization of the principal industries of his home town, which resulted in doubling the population of the place in a few years.

He was offered the position of cashier in national banks at Chattanooga and Knoxville, but declined. In 1892 he conceived the idea of the Fisher Book Typewriter and Billing Machine, for writing in bound books and for billing in commercial houses. During the succeeding four years he devoted every spare moment to improving his machine, to making his own drawings therefor, to taking out numerous patents, and to overcoming the problems and difficulties which only those who attempt to originate a machine of more than two thousand parts can appreciate. In 1896 he resigned his position in the bank, to devote his entire attention to his inventions. The Fisher Typewriter Company was organized, and two years and one hundred thousand dollars were spent before his first perfect machine was produced. The machines were manufactured at Athens for several years, notwithstanding Mr. Fisher was laughed at when he stated that he was going to manufacture in the South a piece of mechanism as nice as a watch, and in which measurements of one-half of one-thousandth of an inch were common; but the machines were made in the South as accurately as they could have been made anywhere.

After a few years, realizing that it would require a million of dollars to successfully manufacture and introduce his machine, and that this money could not be obtained in the South, he sold his stock and royalty interests in the company to eastern capitalists. A large factory, employing nearly one thousand skilled mechanics, now manufactures his machines at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and several millions of dollars have been invested in the business. The principal office of the company is in New York, with branches in all of the principal cities of the world. There is scarcely a large business in the North and East that does not use his machine, one firm in Chicago alone using four hundred of them. For several years after disposing of his interests in the company, Mr. Fisher retained a connection with it as its inventor. After returning to Athens, Mr. Fisher erected the Athens Hosiery Mills, of which he is the sole proprietor, and which is the largest individual business enterprise in his native county.

Although this business lays a heavy tax on his time and energy, it does not prevent the continuance of his inventions. Over seventy-five different patents, in this and foreign countries, attest his unabated zeal in this work. In 1900 he was awarded the John Scott Medal for meritorious invention by the city of Philadelphia, on the recommendation of Franklin Institute.

The Fisher home, in Athens, is one of typical Southern comfort, Mrs. Fisher, who comes from the prominent Gauche family of New Orleans, delighting in the exercise of hospitality no less than in her devotion to the welfare of her husband and two young sons.

* * * * *

To rise, in a few short years, by sheer force of character—by pluck and brains—from a humble beginning as a clerk in a small retail business in a country town to an eminence where one becomes the cynosure of all eyes in business, is a rare experience, indeed.

And yet that has happened in the life of a citizen of New Orleans—William Perry Brown, the Cotton King.

He was born on a farm, and lived there until well advanced in his teens. When not at school, in his early years, the lad did chores about his home, the Civil War having left his father, who was a Confederate soldier of unblemished record, in reduced circumstances, as were all the people of his section. Under such circumstances, young Brown’s training and habits were on lines that tend to build character. They taught him, in his youth, the obligations of duty, the essentiality of self-denial and self-control, of faith in himself, and of hope for success. The lessons were not unheeded.

In meeting difficulties and overcoming obstacles in business which would paralyze an operator of less heroic mold, he is cool, collected, resourceful. Neither by change of countenance, speech nor manner does he ever betray any fear he may feel as to the outcome of the situation in which he is placed.

He is practical, and does things in a common-sense way, avoiding the spectacular as much as possible—his self-reliance and self-assertion being less conspicuous in speech than action.

Mr. Brown’s faith in the idea that cotton has been selling too low is not a thing of a day’s growth. He is an observer of men and a student of events, noting causes and the effects produced. Therein lies the secret of his success. He realizes that supply and demand regulate prices, when market conditions are normal—free from manipulation to produce, by artful management, deceptive situations.

In 1898-99 cotton was selling at and around 4¾ cents in New Orleans, and at still lower figures at interior points—a price showing on its face the staple was selling below the cost of production. The condition was abnormal. Mr. Brown saw it, and realized it could not long endure. Looking backward, he had the wisdom to perceive that for several years preceding the production of cotton had not kept pace with the consumption; that consumption was limited, not by the acreage, which, under favorable circumstances, could be planted, but by the labor that could be commanded to till the fields and gather the crop. He saw that the prosperity of the country, the world over, was drawing laborers from the cotton fields to furnish them more remunerative employment in industrial pursuits and enterprises, where the profits on manufactured products, and in their transportation and distribution, enabled capital to pay bigger wages than could be earned on the farm. As “the stars in their courses fought against Sisera” of old, so the sun and the seasons, and the prosperity of the country, producing a scarcity of labor for farm work, fought the bears, causing cotton production to lag while speeding its consumption. The inevitable followed. The demand exceeded the supply, and the natural tendency of prices was upward. Seeing the unusually strong statistical position of cotton, and anticipating the inescapable results that would follow such conditions, if the markets were intelligently watched and artful manipulation to lower prices prevented, Mr. Brown set himself to work legitimately to aid the staple to “corner itself.” The management of the campaign for months was all that could have been expected. The plan was happily conceived, and executed with great courage and skill. Prices advanced until, in January, 1904, it looked as though they would soar to the skies. The effort to punish the Southern operators leading the fight—the men who were reared on cotton plantations and sympathized with the producers, because brought up among them, and who also knew the long suffering entailed by low prices—proved unavailing, until Sully went by the board. The combinations of Wall Street and wealthy Wall Street bears to lower prices and break down the bull leaders so far succeeded, that, about February 1, 1904, Sully was driven to the wall and prices sank so rapidly that plethoric purses in a few seconds were reduced to aching voids. Excitement on the Cotton Exchanges of New York and New Orleans ran to tidal wave proportions. Seeing their fortunes melt like mist before the morning’s sun, men lost their heads and the panic became appalling. It was like Bedlam broken loose. Pandemonium reigned, and there is no telling where the decline would have stopped had it not been for the iron nerve and reckless indifference to the assaults of the enemy on the part of the Napoleonic bull leader. It was seemingly a Waterloo, there is no doubt about that. But the daring and intrepid leader rallied enough of the Old Guard to escape Helena. By many, it was thought, and apparently with reason, the day of his destiny was over with Captain Brown, but it proved not so. He has gone right along bulling the market off and on from that day to this, as though the dire day on which Sully’s sun went down was a mere incident in his career.

The old-time speculators, as well as spinners, have been made since then unwillingly to pay something like the prices which trade conditions undisturbed justified. No trick or scheme or effort known to the smooth manipulators to bring about the downfall of Brown, by a decline in cotton, have been spared. So far, he has weathered every storm and bids fair to continue to ride the gale.

* * * * *

Mr. Winston claims, with Patrick Henry, descent from the old Quaker family of Winston, among the earliest settlers of Virginia. His grandfather, Pleasant Winston, having married a Miss Clark, of Lynchburg, and thus coming into possession of a number of slaves which his religion forbade him to hold and the laws of his state forbade him to free, sent them to Liberia to join the new colony founded there. His oldest son, Bowling Henry Winston, on his graduation from the University of Virginia, removed to Indiana and married there, becoming a farmer. John Clark Winston was born here in 1856. He was educated in Virginia and at Haverford College in Pennsylvania, graduating in 1881. It was his intention to study law, but he accepted a tempting offer to take charge of the Western branch of a Philadelphia publishing house, and the fascination of this business so grew upon him that in 1884 he entered it on his own account. His first venture was made in a small building in Philadelphia, just opposite the imposing structure which now bears his name. While devoting himself to business Mr. Winston has always maintained an interest in religious, educational and civic affairs.

As chairman of the Committee of Seventy, he has taken a prominent part in the reform movement in Philadelphia which resulted in the overthrow of the corrupt Republican organization. Although a Republican in National affairs, he has steadily fought for non-partisanship in municipal matters. The City Party was organized by the Committee of Seventy on the platform that city officers should be chosen without regard to political party, and solely in the interest of honesty and efficiency.

Mr. Winston was made Chairman of the Committee of Seventy at the very beginning of the reform movement, and may be regarded as one of the originators of the movement. His name was prominently mentioned in connection with the nomination for governor, and again for that of mayor, but he has steadily avowed his disinclination for holding office.

Mr. Winston was president of the Haverford Alumni Association for two years and has also taken an active interest in the work of the Historical Association and in several athletic clubs.

* * * * *

Dr. Charles Chassaignac was born, reared and educated, with the exception of post-graduate work in European universities, in New Orleans. He graduated in medicine in 1883 at the age of twenty-one. Since beginning his practice Dr. Chassaignac has been identified with every movement looking to the sanitary and hygienic improvement of his native city. He was one of the founders of and a member of the first faculty of the New Orleans Training School for Nurses, which was the first of its kind established in the South. It is managed by the New Orleans Polyclinic, in conjunction with the New Orleans Sanitarium, a private hospital which it owns.

The New Orleans Polyclinic, of which Dr. Chassaignac is president, was the first post-graduate medical school in the South, having been established twenty years ago. It draws students from all parts of the union, but particularly from the South.

During the last epidemic of yellow fever the physicians of New Orleans did noteworthy work all through the infected districts, stamping out the scourge in a shorter time than has ever been done before. Dr. Chassaignac was one of the promoters of the organized and systematic effort which resulted so successfully, doing efficient work in the parish of Tallulah, where the epidemic was stopped in two weeks. It is safe to say that Louisiana’s doctors and State Board of Health have the situation too well in hand to permit the dread disease to gain a foothold again.

In the midst of the multitudinous duties imposed by his lectures, his public work and his large private practice, Dr. Chassaignac finds time to act as co-editor of the _New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal_, one of the oldest of its kind in the country. In addition, he has occupied many of the prominent medical positions in the city and state, having served as president of the State Medical Society, president of the Charity Hospital Alumni Association and three times president of the Orleans Parish Medical Society. Mrs. Chassaignac was Miss Jennie Morris, a member of one of the oldest and most distinguished families in New Orleans.

THE FIRST TWO GOVERNORS OF MISSISSIPPI

By A. C. Chase

I. GOVERNOR WINTHROP SARGENT

The first governor of Mississippi Territory was Winthrop Sargent, a New Englander, the record of whose administration lives in history because of the discontent and even open dissensions that marked it. Your true Mississippian has always been wont to hold this sour and selfish Puritan—so characterized—who had been foisted upon the young territory through the prejudice of President Adams, as solely answerable for all these troubles. The leading historian of Mississippi, J. F. H. Claiborne, has depicted Sargent as so lacking in the kindly virtues that the wonder is, not that he was removed at the close of his third year of office, but that he had not been sooner thrust forth through the just anger of the people.

Recently the Mississippi Department of History has sent out the first volume of “Territorial Archives,” containing the journals of the first two executives of that state. These papers, now for the first time printed, are important for the light which they throw upon Sargent’s character and official record.

Winthrop Sargent was a native of Massachusetts, well born and college bred, who achieved a good record as an officer of artillery during the Revolutionary War. After the war he worked as a surveyor, until in 1787 he was made secretary of the Northwest Territory. In May, 1798, he was made governor of the territory of Mississippi. He was in very poor health at the time and when he at last reached Natchez, August 6, he was so weak that he was taken to Concord House, the old home of the Spanish Governors, to rest and recover his strength. Twelve days later, however, he was able to make a brief address before a large assemblage of citizens at Natchez. In this he assured the people of his solicitude for their welfare, of his desire to so administer the government as to deserve and retain their confidence, and he pledged himself to consider merit only in his appointments to office.

It must be admitted that he showed a sincere desire to make a good impression upon his new constituency, and the reason for his total failure is not readily defined, from the evidence of the record.

The historian Claiborne ascribes the mistakes of Governor Sargent largely to the influence of Andrew Ellicott. The latter, sent to the territory in 1795 to lay out the boundary line under the Spanish treaty, applied himself after he arrived there to everything but his business. He claimed authority as a representative of the government which his commission in no way warranted, established himself as a sort of adviser-in-chief of all newcomers, and by ingratiating himself with the Indian tribes of the territory, he made no end of trouble for the government by lavish promises of gifts and privileges. It may well be that this man Ellicott was by no means as black as he has been painted, but there is sufficient contemporary evidence that he acted the part of a mischief-maker in Mississippi. From the journals, however, no evidence can be obtained that he had any particular influence with the governor. And before the close of his first year in office, Sargent fully recognized the mischief that the surveyor’s meddling in Indian affairs had caused.

Photographic facsimile of portrait by Gilbert Stuart, in the Mississippi Hall of Fame]

It should be remembered that Sargent, having had a military training, was disposed to expect more deference to law and order than could fairly be looked for in a frontier community. The population of Mississippi at that time was of a very mixed sort, being made up of Spaniards, Frenchmen, Indians, negroes, half-breeds of all grades of parentage, renegade Americans and British, and at the same time a ruling class of exceptional uprightness and intelligence. The fact that the better element was outnumbered by the heterogeneous class beneath them, fully justified the governor’s apprehension of lawless outbreaks, which he sought to forestall by urging the organization and arming of a strong militia force. The opposition which he met with in this eminently wise measure, is in itself proof that prejudice largely inspired the movement against him.

Political feeling had a share therein, beyond a doubt, for Sargent was a Federalist, the appointee of a Federalist President, whereas Mississippians were, almost to a man, Jefferson Republicans. Affiliation between them was impossible, even had it not been true that on one side was the frank, easy-going, ardent temperament of those resident in a land of torrid summers, and, on the other, the unbending austere, cold nature that has its home in the land of ice and snow.

The administration of the Spanish governors had been very lax, but it had been popular. There were no prisons in the territory when Sargent came thither, a fact which Claiborne adduces to prove the high grade of morals then prevalent, but which really recommend the territory no more than the further fact that there were no judges and no courts. Three persons had been named as territorial judges at the same time the executive appointment was made, but one of these only, Judge Bruin, was a resident of the territory. Judge Tilton did not arrive until January 10, 1799, and Judge McGuire delayed his coming until the following September. How the absence of these officials embarrassed the governor in his efforts to organize his administration becomes plain when we remember that the enabling act of the territory rested all legislative authority in the governor and these judges. They and they only were empowered to draw up a code of laws for the territory. These laws were imperatively needed, and upon Sargent, harassed with a thousand tasks and cares at once, rested the sole responsibility for their suitable nature and correct form. Bruin was not a lawyer, nor was Tilton; only McGuire, who did not appear upon the scene until the hard task was completed, possessed the necessary legal knowledge therefor.

As soon as Tilton arrived in January, the legislative work of the government was begun, and the first law of Mississippi Territory bears date of February 28, 1799; others followed as soon as they could be properly framed. Though the governor had declared, truthfully enough, in December, when writing to the Secretary of State, that the want of laws kept territorial affairs in a condition of absolute anarchy, yet no sooner was the code drawn up than it was violently attacked by the governor’s political opponents. They declared the laws to be unconstitutional, a charge which Claiborne’s “History of Mississippi” reiterates. But he also charges Tilton and McGuire with aiding the governor in this concoction of laws in conflict with the Constitution of the United States; whereas, McGuire did not arrive in the territory until nearly all of these laws had been enacted. And it is worthy of note, that notwithstanding all the outcry against them, only two of the Sargent laws were set aside, subsequently, by Congress.

April 2, 1799, Governor Sargent established the first two counties of Mississippi Territory, by proclamation, and provided a system of courts. And if we judge him from his written word, his efforts during following months to provide by careful appointments for worthy administration in these courts, to promote order by the organization of an efficient militia, to avoid conflicts with discontented Indians and disorderly white men, were unceasing. And this is the more noteworthy, since during this time, the political opposition to him was steadily growing, and, in spite of his efforts, taking on daily a more bitter tone. That this opposition was in a sense honest, cannot be doubted from the names of many connected with it, but that its main impulse was political malice, there is too much evidence to show; and that it was by no means warranted in any lack of principle or dereliction from duty on the part of the executive, the written record shows plainly.

July 6, 1799, a popular meeting was held under the Jeffersonian leaders, to express disaffection toward the governor. At this a circular was drawn up, which was printed and sent to each district urging the people to meet and name delegates to bring their grievances before the governor and before Congress. This committee drew up a letter to Governor Sargent, the burden of which was a protest against the machinations of Andrew Ellicott, which, it was alleged, had given rise to the many mistakes made by the governor, and his misunderstandings with his people. It further prepared a memorial to Congress, protesting against the laws that had been framed by Sargent, and urging the setting aside of the existing territorial government, and the substitution therefor of what was then known as “the second grade of government,” to-wit, a legislative assembly, chosen by the people. This petition laid before Congress in January, was referred to a committee, which in due time reported thereon, advocating the substitution of an elective general assembly for the existing territorial government of Mississippi. March 18, 1800, the House, in committee of the whole, voted upon this report, approving the change by a vote of 54 to 37. With a few exceptions, this was a strict party vote, the Federalists all voting against the measure, and the Jeffersonian Republicans voting in its favor. This change, it might be noted, was not desired by all Mississippians, as there accompanied it increased expense, and a decided augmentation of the taxes levied on the people. But it was an advance in the history of the territory that could not be retraced, and besides, it was a triumph for the Jeffersonian party not to be forgotten, especially as the great leader of this party had just taken his seat in the White House at Washington.

The unfortunate Sargent, occupied deeply with questions of administration, with preserving the true relations between the civil and military forces, with watching out for Spanish schemes to win the especial favor of the Indians, with expounding the details of the new laws to the untried judges, seems not to have “caught on” to the successful strategy of his enemies for some time. At last, June 15, a package of papers received from John Marshall, Secretary of State, told him the whole story. His long letter of reply to the secretary, intended to vindicate himself in that official’s good opinion, betrays not a little bitterness, which assures us that this austere, cold-blooded New Englander had considerable human nature in him after all.

He claimed, and unquestionably with truth, that his duties had been no light ones, saying: “To organize a new government upon the very confines of the power and energy of the United States—amongst a people of diversity of interests, sentiment and language—acknowledgedly unversed in jurisprudence, and not all distinguished for their complacency—without the aid of the territorial judges to a late period, in ill health and under the apprehension of an attack from a foreign enemy, must be confessed an arduous task; I draw not, however, upon the good nature of my countrymen, ’tis justice only that I ask.”

He then proceeded to show how much malice and misinformation lay behind the attacks upon him, showed that he had done the best that he could under all circumstances, had made the most careful appointments in his power, and had in no sense attempted to enrich himself at the expense of the people. In a word, he made a good defense, and if it was quite unavailing he was not to blame. The star of his party had come to its setting time, and the orb of the Jeffersonians was in the ascendant.

During the Adams administration Sargent had been promised a leave of absence when the general apprehension of trouble with France had passed away, and this privilege he claimed soon after Jefferson’s inauguration. He went to Washington early in April, 1801, desiring to vindicate the course of his administration against the “mighty obloquy” that had been cast upon it, and to seek the justification of re-appointment. His hopes, however, were dashed to the ground by the receipt of a letter from the President as soon as he reached the capitol, transmitted through James Madison, Secretary of State. This declared: “That from various and delicate considerations, which entered into the appointment of a governor for the Mississippi Territory, it was expedient to fill the station with another than himself, whose administration, with whatever meritorious intentions conducted, had not been so fortunate as to secure the general harmony, and the mutual attachment between the people and the public functionaries, so particularly necessary for the prosperity and happiness of an infant establishment.”

It was hard on Sargent, and I shall always think better of him that instead of shaking Mississippi dust from his shoes, then and forever, he returned to the territory a few months later, quietly took up the life of a planter, and bore a not unworthy part in the task of building up the new community, notably aiding in the establishment of the first banking house in the territory in 1809. He endured much from the malice of others, but gave none in return. He died while on a visit to New Orleans, June 3, 1820, and his ashes sleep on the site of his old plantation home, near Natchez.

II. GOVERNOR WILLIAM C. C. CLAIBORNE

Exit Sargent—enter Claiborne. Exit the man whose record as governor, whether through native fault or inexorable fate, was a conspicuous failure, and enter one whose story throughout was that of brilliant success. In characteristics, the two men were the very antipodes, each of the other. The one, of austere temperament, and stern, unbending manner; the other of warm and genial nature, in demeanor gracious and inviting. Claiborne possessed in preëminent degree the ready tact, the power of always saying and doing the right thing, in which the other was so noticeably wanting.

William Charles Cole Claiborne was a native of Virginia, born in Sussex county. At the age of fifteen he went to New York, then the seat of government, and there was given employment by the clerk of the Congress. It was his good fortune while in that work to attract the attention of a number of leading men, who became his friends for life. Jefferson especially took him as a protégé, and gave him books to read and good advice. He read law in his spare moments, went to Tennessee, was admitted to the bar there, and took part in the first constitutional convention of the state. He received appointment as Judge of the State Supreme Court, by Governor Sevier, when he was in his twenty-second year, and a few months later was elected to Congress.

Claiborne was in Congress as member from Tennessee when the petition from Mississippi against Sargent was presented; was on the committee to which it was referred, and strongly recommended the change of the form of government in the territory. He is known to have censured Sargent’s course, and there is proof that Sargent subsequently doubted whether his motives in so doing were free from self-interest. It is not, however, necessary to think of Claiborne as guilty of meanness of this sort. He was no place-hunter, nor one who, at any time in his life, placed self-seeking above principle. He was an ardent Jeffersonian, and his sympathy was naturally with the party opposing the governor. He was young, too, twenty years Sargent’s junior, and his rapid advancement had doubtless rendered him a trifle “bumptious.” But from his standpoint, the contentions between Sargent and his people were quite unnecessary, and should not be tolerated.

Photographic facsimile from the oil painting in the possession of W. C. C. Claiborne, New Orleans]

I think that Jefferson commissioned Claiborne as governor of Mississippi, not because he thought the young man wanted the place, or for the adjustment of any political bargain. He named him because he was convinced that such selection would prove to be the right man in the right place, and so indeed it was.

Claiborne reached Natchez, November 23, 1801, and one of his first official acts was a message to the first Legislature of Mississippi, meeting a few days later. Records of the time assure us that his suavity of manner and speech made him popular with all classes from the very first. But his efforts to ensure perfect harmony between contending factions of the people were not immediately successful, as is shown by a most unworthy attack made by some members of the new Legislature upon the justices of the Territorial Supreme Court. This came to nothing, however, and at the election for representatives held in July, 1802, so many of the contentious spirits were relegated to private life, that it might have been well judged that the people at large were already ashamed of their unfair actions toward the previous governor.

I like to think of Claiborne as becoming more charitable toward Sargent as time went on and he learned the many difficulties of the situation; less inclined to censure the “contumacy” of the older man in feeble health, as he found the problems besetting him difficult enough to tax the powers of his own vigorous strength. From his journals we learn that the same hindrances which harassed Sargent tormented his successor—the imperfect military equipment of the feeble garrisons, the need of a trained militia, the interference of Spanish plotters, the tendency of the floating population toward brigandage, the greed of the idle Indians, and so on. One of his very first requests of the authorities at Washington was that he be allowed the services of an interpreter, to aid him in carrying on his dealings with the Indians, a privilege for which Sargent had begged in vain.