WZ 100 B8517m 1920 55310320R NLfl DSETEEfll fl NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE SURGEON GENERAL'S OFFICE LIBRARY. Section - No. 113, W.D.S.G.O. No , %-_M.tk0 17 3—613 NLM052922818 KAR':Oi322 OFFICE^ The Marching Years By Norman Bridge m.d., a.m.!Tl.d. ^■■:' '"HS?^ \v lioRARY / NEW YORK DUFFIELD & COMPANY 1920 10 O m Copyright, 1920, by Norman Bridge PRINTED BY FAULKNER-RYAN CO. CHICAGO To M. M. B. CONTENTS chapter PAGE Introduction..........1 I The Tribe.......... 3 II Vermont...........14 III Illinois........... 39 IV Farm Training..........47 V Sophistication......... 53 VI Expansion...........62 VII Education.......... 76 VIII Indispensable Study........90 IX Teaching Medicine........ 97 X Hospitals...........108 XI Medical Press.........117 XII Public Office..........123 XIII Charity...........136 XIV Chicago...........140 XV California..........153 XVI Europe...........164 XVII Authorship..........168 XVIII Courts and Doctors........187 XIX Secular Business........206 XX Los Angeles..........221 XXI Clubs and Societies........227 XXII War Time Activities........234 XXIII The Emotional Side........238 XXIV Music............245 XXV Friendships..........253 Appendix I Newspaper War........261 Appendix II Boston Medical and Surgical Journal - 266 Appendix III Recollections of Childhood.....267 Appendix IV A Letter to a Friend......279 Appendix V The Psychology of the Thing .... 288 Appendix VI List of Publications......291 The Marching Years INTRODUCTION. IT is the fate of many men of advancing years to be given to reminiscence, and ofttimes to think of their own family history. They feel a tenderness for their old friends, and find it easy to recall things of long ago, while memory begins to show treachery for names and events of more recent time. As their vigor diminishes, their families and friends grow solicitous for them, tell them to watch their steps, and be sure to have within reach always an overcoat or a cane—or both. As the solicitude deepens and business cares decrease, some of them are urged to write memoirs of their lives—of such consequence do they seem to those who are nearest to them. This is not an unlaudable purpose, and men like to talk and sometimes write about their own lives, especially about their boyhood and youth. To do so creates and indulges an egoistic warmth that is common to us all, and that, under restraint, may escape being an infliction to neighbors and friends. I have a suspicion that the urging of such exploits, by those who love us, often has back of it unwittingly a vision —perhaps hazy and indefinite—of an autobiographical hiding of various stumblings and faults, in a glamour of magni- fied virtues, successes and wisdom. Anyway, we like to see these last in a concave mirror, for this is a universal weakness. We love stories, and if they are often enough retold they are apt to grow in the qualities and shadings that we like. So gentle fiction may even come to be a very seeming of truth. [1] 2 THE MARCHING YEARS It is probably true that most men who, by the urge of friends or their own impulses, come to write the story of their lives, endeavor to give a truthful account; but no man, however candid, could tell the whole story if he tried to; or even a large fraction of it without some coloration or varnish in spots—so unavoidable is bias, and so certain is some measure of egoism. The average autobiography is written to satisfy the desire of the subject, or for his family and friends—or for his critics, or to settle with enemies if he has such. Few such writings are of much consequence to the general public—outside of those who have known the author or have been interested in the purposes of his life or his opinions. In apology for inflicting such a work on a public larger than his immediate group of relatives and friends, the present writer ventures to hope that, apart from his own personality which must run through it like a red line, he has succeeded in infusing the record with some not unprofitable light of his time and thought. CHAPTER I. THE TRIBE. IN 1632 John Bridge came to this country from England and settled in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He soon became a citizen of importance, and was made a Deacon in the Church, which was itself the most vital institution in the new settlement. He was a Deacon for twenty-three years. To be a Deacon was then the highest certificate of character, as well as of responsibility. In this settlement at that early day the only land owners were the church mem- bers; and the officers of the Church, chiefly the Pastor and Deacons, were sometimes required to act in the capacity of Magistrate in matters concerning landed property. He owned and lived on the land on which was afterwards built the Craigie House, Washington's Headquarters, later the home of the poet Longfellow. In a small park in front of one of the buildings of Harvard University stands a bronze statue of John Bridge in the guise of a Puritan, which was erected to his memory in 1882. It bears a legend recording his usefulness and uprightness and the fact that he was a Deacon. It is said that he was in- directly responsible for the present location in Cambridge of Harvard University. The present writer is of the eighth generation in direct descent from Deacon John. In the fifth generation was one Ebenezer Bridge, a Colonel in General Washington's army. His home before the Revolution was Fitchburg, Massa- chusetts. Before the war he was forehanded; after the war was over he found himself a poor man, and then moved with his large family to Vermont. Several of his sons became farmers; but some of the next generation were merchants and manufacturers. [3] 4 THE MARCHING YEARS My father, James Madison Bridge, only child of James B., and grandson of the Colonel, was a farmer in a small way in West Windsor, Vermont, on a little tract of about eighty, possibly one hundred acres, largely of unarable hills, mostly belonging to his father. The farm, before he and his father bought it, had been the poor-farm of the town, and some years after we left for the West it once again became the property of the town, and housed its few paupers. In 1906 I visited the old home and was allowed by the cus- todian to remove and bring away for trophies some of the ancient forged hinges and hooks from one of the buildings. The town of West Windsor was, at the time of my birth, a part of the town of Windsor, from which it was excised by the Legislature in 1848. My father's parents lived with us, in a separate part of the house, until we moved to Illinois at the end of 1856. In two years they followed us and lived in our family until their death, a few years later. This grandfather was, during all my memory of him, a valetudi- narian—weakly and unvigorous, but never very sick. My grandmother, Susan Ralph Bridge, came of a large family of stalwart and hard working people. My mother was Nancy Ann (Bagley) Bridge, daughter of Thomas and Nancy Marsh Bagley. This branch of the Bagley family is descended from one Orlando Bagley of Massachusetts. He was married in 1653 to Sarah Colby, who died in Boston ten years later, after bearing five children. The family probably was of English stock, although there is some evidence of its Irish origin. There was a tradition in the family that the mother of my Grandfather Bagley had Indian blood in her veins; it was said that she showed it in her face—and some members of the family were rather proud to believe it. But later research and the discovery of re- corded evidence of authenticity, show that, with scarcely a doubt, the tradition was a myth, founded on nothing better than the brunette complexion and strong features of the THE MARCHING YEARS 5 woman, and the fact that one of her progenitors had been shot to death by Indians in front of his own door. My Great-grandfather Bagley, Thomas, Sr., was a soldier of the Revolution, and during the war lost whatsoever for- tune he had. He had several sons and one daughter. My mother was the eldest of eight children. Her youth was passed in a time of great privation, and no family ever grew up with a keener appreciation of the value of money. Their educational advantages were most meagre, and my mother was the greatest sufferer of the family in this par- ticular. One or two terms in a country school gave all the formal education she ever had. She helped her mother raise her younger children. The youngest, twenty years her junior, was John Parker B. who was killed in the battle of Shiloh, April 6, 1862. Of my mother's three children, two were sons, eighteen months apart, and one a daughter, Susan, born seven years later. The elder son, Edward, when eighteen years old, went to the war with his young uncle in 1861, and died of sickness early in 1864, after many battles, with never a scratch except in the first one, Shiloh, where he had a slight wound that invalided him home for a few weeks. Neither his mother, nor any of us, ever saw him again in life. When we heard that he was sick, my father started to go to him. After many obstacles he reached the camp of his regiment, the 55th 111. Vols., at Larkinsville, Alabama, to find that the boy had been dead over a week. His comrades exhumed the body and encased it in a proper casket. Then they, in rank violation of military orders, smuggled my father with the casket into an empty freight car, bound north. There the living and the dead rode, the sole occupants of the car, for some two hundred miles, in the unmitigated cold of January, to Nashville. Thence home the way was easy—and the boy was buried among his own. His comrades afterward told us that, as the end approached and he knew he was about to die, he asked passionately—maybe on the borderland of 6 THE MARCHING YEARS delirium—if his body would be left there to be kicked about by the "Rebs." He was calmed by their assurances that he should be buried at home. It was a promise they made in love and pity, without any serious expectation that it could ever be fulfilled—and now it was made good. My several grandparents had very dissimilar traits. The paternal grandfather was a gentle soul, rather lacking in force, quite a reader of the few books we had, a good letter- writer, and a capital story-teller for boys. His education was the best of the four, and was acquired in the country district school, which was the sole resource of his generation. Years later there was an "Academy" in South Woodstock, a near-by town, that gave further instruction and even embel- lishments to a few young people, mostly women. For a girl or boy to have attended this school was quite a dis- tinction, and led to envy and jealousy in the neighborhood. One or two of my distant cousins had been pupils there, but none of our immediate family. Across the Green Mountains to the west of us was Middlebury College. Not only did none of our community ever attend it, but at my twelfth year I had never heard of its existence, so little did these people, amid their struggles for a living, think or know about higher education. Grandfather Bridge was full of historical anecdotes and reminiscences, especially of the Revolutionary War, in which his father, Colonel Ebenezer, had been a soldier. He was always a half invalid, and almost daily took medicine of some sort, mostly herb teas—which were probably harmless. He would lie on a lounge after supper and let us boys lie beside him while he told us stories of wars and adventures with wild animals—but never of his own exploits. His stock of such stories was limited, but that made no difference to us; we enjoyed the fortieth telling of a story almost as much as the first. His phraseology was always the same, and we learned it so well by iteration that we could have repeated the stories, but we preferred to have him tell them, and never THE MARCHING YEARS 7 tired of hearing them. We knew when the climax was coming, and were ready to laugh or exclaim at it, but always restrained ourselves until it came. His outlook was narrowed by his poor health, and when my father proposed to move from the infertile hills to the prairies of the Middle West and better prospects, it was a shock to him; it seemed as terrible as going to China, and he deeply lamented it. My paternal grandmother was a very good, but not a very forceful woman. Her life had been overshadowed by her husband and his invalidism. She was always kind to her grandchildren, but in dealing with them she was evidently obsessed with her duty not to interfere with the family government of her daughter-in-law, and this she never did. There are thousands of good and dutiful women who fit into their narrow grooves so perfectly that they go through life noiselessly, avoiding all controversies, even in conversation, and so the world rarely discovers their true worth. Such a woman was this grandmother. One of the surprising things about them is that when some accident of life shoves them out of their groove and upon their own resources, they sur- prise both their neighbors and themselves by their efficiency. My maternal grandfather was a character. He was erect, had dark stiff hair, small dark eyes and positive features. He spoke deliberately, with few, and no useless, words, unless he was joking his friends or his grandchildren. He was a stranger to gossip, especially disparaging gossip about his neighbors. He rarely hurried about anything, and usually accomplished his purposes. He was a most peaceful man, yet had more kinds of real courage than most men who are reputed courageous. He was a great reader of newspapers, and read the best of them, but I do not remember ever to have seen him read a book. He wrote few letters, and they were brief, but crowded with his message. He had a warm affec- tion for us all, and was shy about showing it—rarely did show it save in some act of kindness wholly devoid of ostentation; 8 THE MARCHING YEARS and if anyone thanked him profusely he was surprised and embarrassed. He enjoyed joking certain people, especially some of his grandsons. He knew that we boys were rather proud of our great-grandfather, Colonel Bridge, for his soldierly exploits; and that we resented any reflection upon his fame. So, in order to see me sputter, he would tell in my presence how the Colonel had once in battle sent for the surgeon, reporting himself as severely wounded, with blood flowing down into his boots; and that the surgeon found the blood to be nothing but perspiration, due to fright. The story was pure fiction, but it had its effect, which he enjoyed. My Grandmother Bagley was a smallish woman with light hair and eyes. She was one of the finest characters I ever knew. She had all the best sentiments and ideals. Unusually fond of children, and always glad to have them about her (even if they were not her own grandchildren, of whom she had a swarm), she understood girls and drew them to her for sympathy and strength. And for many of the boys she had the rarest powers of attraction and influence. She could make a small boy ashamed of any mean conduct or sentiment, and give him a sense of moral principle as a guide, keeping all the time her complete hold on him. It was a rare power, and she seemed wholly unconscious of having it. I was allowed in my tenth year to live a full twelvemonth with these grandparents. It was an advantage for me; my grandmother seemed to enjoy it; and my parents evidently were glad to reduce, by at least half, the boy mischief in their house. It was a great year for me, for I had the distinction of being the only child in the house, and all the attention which that meant. I worked little and played much. My grandmother had almost my entire confidence, but I had for a long time one secret from her. After the stock of butternuts was gone I often appeared with my pockets full of them. They were from the store of the squirrels—my discovery among a random pile of old shingles THE MARCHING YEARS 9 in the attic of the woodshed. I went to school in the summer as well as winter, and was the bearer of love letters between my Uncle Parker and the teacher, Miss Furber, whom he afterwards married. I was always a timid boy, and was easily startled by sudden sounds and sights—and was afraid of the dark. On going to live at Grandfather Bagley's it was necessary for me to sleep in a room alone. Always previously having slept with my older brother, this change taxed my courage. It would not do to tell Grandma of my fear, for that would be babyish. I went to bed alone and comforted myself by promptly covering my head with the bedclothes—would go to sleep in this way, but always wakened with my head uncovered. It was long years before that fear wholly wore away. One of the greatest tests of courage of that time was to walk a quarter of a mile alone through a wood after dark from my uncle's to my grandfather's house. Few tough situations that I have had to face since that time have been severer tests of true courage than that act. The memory of it, and of a few others similar to it, have given me a feeling of sympathy for the soldier going into battle, who would like to run away except for the awful grip of personal pride and fear of ignominy. My mother was a woman of great character, utterly dependable, and of untiring industry. She was for her neighborhood in times of trouble and sickness the one woman everybody seemed to turn to and lean upon. Her children instinctively turned to her as the strongest personality in their world. She always believed in her children, although her sons (not her daughter) were amazingly roguish, and often needed restraint, which they did not fail to get. Her faith in us probably kept us from being as bad as we might have been. There was always as much comradeship between her and her children as the austere amenities of that time and country allowed, for the mothers of that day and place had rarely 10 THE MARCHING YEARS any caresses or words of endearment for children nearing the school-going age, or for anybody else except infants. They kissed their babies, but seldom their children. The fathers virtually never had any words of endearment for anybody or thing. Such words meant softness and effeminacy in boys and men. The parents were Father and Mother. The words Pa and Papa sounded silly to me the first time I heard them, and for a long time afterward. It is a rather curious fact that, although we two boys got into various sorts of scrapes together, and out of our selfishness and jealousy often quarreled with each other before our thirteenth year, after that time this tendency wholly disappeared, and we became the most constant and unself- ish friends and comrades. And I cannot recall that either of us ever got into a serious fight with another boy. This may seem to indicate a lack of self-assertiveness; certainly there was no such lack in the case of my brother. My father was more distant with his children, with- out either knowing that he was, or wishing to be. He was truthful but not frank with us, although he doubtless tried to be, and would have been glad to be. It was hard for us to go to him with our troubles, and easy to go to our mother, and we did not then know why. He was honest, upright and just, but he was the more moderate and less active of the two. This I am sure at times rather irritated my mother. She could scold a fellow soundly and easily— he never could. He had much more education than she had, but was less actively intellectual. He lacked the aptitude or power to play; to my knowledge he was never known to hunt, fish or otherwise play with us or anyone else—except an occasional game of checkers that he would have with us boys or some friend. Our mother never played. She never sat down at home without some work in her hands—knitting, sewing or what-not—unless she was reading; and she did a great deal of reading aloud, and read very well. She read short stories and some books to us—and this was the most THE MARCHING YEARS 11 vital part of our early education. One notable book that she read to us was "Uncle Tom's Cabin." My early memories of my mother are vivid and precious. Over the long years I can still see her at her many tasks. Now she is mending or darning the family apparel—and we boys are almost as proud of a freshly patched garment as of a new one. Our garments for every-day wear are nearly always patched. Next, she is spinning woolen yarn from rolls fresh from the carding mill. It was a previous genera- tion of Vermont housewives who made shorter rolls by the manipulation of two hand-cards. Now the carding mill in the near-by village made rolls twice as long and more even and beautiful—little fluffy rods of snowy wool, so light that a puff of wind would blow them away. She stood up to the tall spinning wheel, and moved rapidly forward and back as each roll lengthened and nar- rowed into a long stretch of yarn as she drove the great wheel forward. To spin a roll and wind it on the base of the spindle required her to stop and start the wheel four times— twice forward and twice back, and each roll had to be caught by a deft twist of the fingers to the vanishing end of the previous one. She worked with amazing energy, and seemed never to be tired. We saw her dye the yarn, and then from it knit socks and mittens, and weave cloth for our homespun clothes, which she later made for us. There was a loom in the attic that served for this purpose, as well as, with some changes, to weave rag-carpets—and she was expert at both. I enjoyed seeing my mother at work, and sometimes helped her. But washing dishes was always distasteful; and churning, like turning the grindstone, was too monotonous and tiring—mentally as well as physically tiring. Children dislike monotony in most things, even play; and I was ex- treme in this particular. To see her make cheese was always fun; and we were glad to help her, especially in the manipula- tion of the cheese press. We chopped the curd in a chopping bowl for her, and helped her put it into the press, surrounded 12 THE MARCHING YEARS by a cloth that had been washed to immaculateness. Every step in her work, especially when it touched any food stuff, was marked by such ardor of cleanliness as to be a continuing lesson in aseptic good housekeeping. In that same bowl with the chopping-knife I used to chop apples, as well as other fruits and vegetables; and in the family mortar pounded to powder such things as cloves, cinnamon, allspice and black pepper—which were used to give an appetizing piquancy to our food. She made soap and dipped candles with equal facility and skill—the making of candles with tin molds she never liked as well—and we early dispensed with the old-fashioned candles that required the constant use of snuffers, with poor results at best, for lamps and the stearine candles of commerce. There were two of mother's tasks that we specially en- joyed with her, the sugaring-off of the maple syrup in the early spring and the semi-weekly cooking of doughnuts. The boys had a distinct part in both processes—chiefly in causing the products to disappear. These Yankee people used sweet milk moderately for cooking and to eat in the famous "bread and milk." They ought to have eaten, but rarely did, save in some of their cookery, the sour milk or clabber. It took the people of our Southern States to learn the food value and succulent tang of clabber. Perhaps their lack of natural ice led them to it—or was it the habits of their negro servants? But in early New England the odor of clabber at the dinner table was offensive. It was only proper for the swill-pail, where all the other refuse from the table and pantry went for the pigs—and the mixture took and held chiefly the odor of sour milk. The pigs found it a delightful aroma (as the humans ought to have found it) * and, when they sniffed it, they rushed with squealing joy to their feeding trough and sucked up the luscious mixture, actually fighting for the best places for *If one doubts this let him take a saucer full of cold clabber, with its own cream un- touched, sprinkle over it some sugar with a dash of nutmeg or powdered cinnamon, and see what a refreshing dessert he has. THE MARCHING YEARS 13 their noses, with the most outlandish table manners. Pigs have more sense and more cleanly (not to say decorous) manners than they are usually credited with. My mother once on the farm had a pet pig. It was born in the winter—a little runt of a fellow, likely to die of hunger and cold. She kept it for weeks in a padded box (an ex- temporized incubator) by the kitchen stove by day, and at night by the sitting room stove, whose fire never went out. It was fed from a make-believe nursing bottle. The white, scrupulously clean little fellow grew to be a pet, much like a puppy, quite as intelligent and more commendable in his instinctively correct habits. When hungry he would pull at the skirt of his benefactress with a gentle grunt to remind her of his wants. If this tender hint was not effective his grunt soon became a high tenor squeal. After he was fed he would run away and go to sleep, perhaps beside the friendly collie dog. Both of my grandmothers wore the white cloth caps tied under the chin, that were so common with old ladies of that day—but not my mother, even in her advanced age. Late in life she wore a little affair of black lace on the very top of her head, and this with her wavy white hair added to her dignity and mature beauty. CHAPTER II. VERMONT. THE house in West Windsor, in which we three children were born,* had originally been painted red, with white door and window trimmings. But the paint was faded and the house looked old; and we never knew of its having been repainted. It was a longish, rambling, one-story building with a high attic; its east end was toward the road, and it faced to the south upon a wide and open front yard, bounded on the farther side by a stone wall, just beyond a large, beautiful hard-maple tree. (That tree still retained much of its symmetry and beauty nearly sixty years afterward.) Toward the west and in plain view of the house was the barn- yard—bounded on the north and west by two ample barns. An extension of the house to the west was a woodshed and storage place, under a part of which was a space for vehicles, farm utensils and tools. On the farther side of the wall in front of the house, and at a slightly lower level, was a kitchen garden. Near the wall by the side of the garden were a few bee hives for the family honey. These were brought into the attic and kept there during the winter. There we boys sometimes amused ourselves by listening at the hives to the gentle, low-toned hum of the bees, that could be heard almost any time all winter; and the place was pervaded by the faint waxy odor of the hives. The wall continued along the road for some distance; and we boys in summer time—often barefooted—would walk on the top of it toward the east, to an enormous mass of rose bushes that once a year were covered with the most beautiful and fragrant red roses — I can recall vividly their odor after many decades. Farther along the wall were •Edward June 30, 1843, Norman December 30, 1844, Susan some seven years later. [14] THE MARCHING YEARS 15 raspberry and blackberry bushes that grew wild on both sides of it. They were each year heavily laden with sweet and fragrant berries, although they never had any cultiva- tion; their annual thick dropping of leaves fertilized their roots and repressed the weeds. Back of the house grew artichokes—not those of the modern hotel table (brothers of the thistle), the base of whose bracts we nibble after dipping them in mayonnaise—but a tuber that grew in the ground— the real Jerusalem variety, that we used to eat raw as we would a carrot or a toothsome turnip. There also was a bunch of lovage which annually grew a great mass of leaves with large hollow stems that were fragrant with a pleasing odor all their own. We used to cut little rings from them to cook with candy and certain condiments and foods, to which they imparted a pleasing flavor. But the plant was never thought of as a remedy for sickness. Grandfather Bagley's house was over the hill and out of sight, a third of a mile to the east. There, almost equally with our own home, was our play place through those few early years. The house was old then, and had evidently not seen a paint pot for decades. There was a good barn across the road. By 1906 that house and barn had disappeared, only a few bricks and stones of the foundations remaining. In the house there had been an old fashioned brick oven, which fixed the origin of the house as of an earlier date than our own. This oven was never used as such in my time; the modern stove had succeeded it some years before; it was a storage place for certain things that needed to be hidden. When I was a very little chap the family lived for about two years in Windsor village. My father was in poor health, and on advice took up during this time a lighter occupation than farming. He drove a wagon for a distributing company. He was advised also to take a daily morning plunge into a pond of water, which he foolishly did until far into the autumn. We lived on the east side of the main street of the village, in a house that was one story high on the street, and three 16 THE MARCHING YEARS stories down the bank in the back yard, where we looked off across the Connecticut river to the Cornish hills. My memory is dim as to most of the events of that village life, but some of them stand out prominently. I remember being nursed through measles there, and that I had later a severe earache, for which my mother inserted into the ear the diminutive hot core of a baked onion. It must have been the left ear, for years later the hearing of that ear was found to be less acute than the right—a condition that was permanent. It was a family tradition, for which my mother vouched, that before I had discarded skirts I was one day playing with other children among some freight cars at the station, and fell in front of a car that was being slowly pushed along the track by some workmen. The freight cars of that day were small affairs. Just as a forward wheel struck my loose clothing a workman jerked me away, tearing out a piece of the cloth, which was left under the wheel. I have no memory of the incident, and the story may have been invented by the other children to account for the torn clothes; but my mother believed it. What a misfortune that the human brain should be unable to register its observations and remember them until about the fourth year of life! A later event is recalled vividly, namely, my setting fire to the house. One evening when the family and some visitors were sitting in the dining room downstairs, I was allowed to go on an errand alone upstairs with a lighted candle—having a reputation (with my mother) of being "very careful with a lighted candle." I had to enter a closet containing numerous garments hanging by nails driven into the walls; there were no hooks. Among these a quilted woolen petticoat caught my notice. I remembered then the queer odor of burning wool; whereupon a curious psychological phenomenon took place. By a strange freak of juvenile diabolism the candle was held under a projecting point of the garment until a slight crisping sound and the peculiar odor were produced. Then THE MARCHING YEARS 17 appeared a black spot at the burnt point. This was ominous, for it might be a telltale. But there was no fire to be seen— nothing but the black spot, and I turned the garment so as to hide the spot, and ran downstairs. There, among the family, some sort of fun was going on that drove all thought of the black spot out of my mind. In half an hour the smell of smoke was perceived in the house, and there was a rush to locate the fire. It was found in the family closet upstairs; the clothing was on fire. The men ran for buckets of water; but an Irish house girl boldly tore from their nails the burning garments, and at her peril stamped out the fire on the bed- room floor. The floor was charred a little in one or two places. Numerous were the conjectures as to the origin of the fire. It was soon learned that a small boy had gone to the bedroom shortly before with a lighted candle. That must be the explanation. But his mother scouted such a theory; it was impossible; the boy was always careful with a lighted candle! In the excitement the boy forgot all about his exploits with the petticoat, until he overheard himself being discussed— then he remembered and, as he was not interrogated directly, he kept still. Indeed he could not see how the petticoat could have started the fire, because he had not seen a blaze. There was no blaze, but the garment was lined with cotton, which held and spread the fire, until heat enough developed to cause an outburst of flame. That night when the boy was put into his trundle bed, pulled out over the charred floor, he cried for fear he should fall through the boards into some abyss below. He was naturally timid, and the thought of his possible responsi- bility for the calamity may have troubled him. Years after- ward, when he was a man, he told his mother the exact truth about that fire. She believed he was joking, and would never take his statement seriously. So he escaped convic- tion at the time of the fire; and his after-confession was discredited. It was a dangerous but not unique immunity. 18 THE MARCHING YEARS My life up to twelve years in Vermont was the boy's romantic world of wonder. My elder brother and I had to work at times, but never much, and the work was chiefly the family chores, consisting of short and varied tasks. We played a great deal, and had all sorts of incentives to play. The hills, the woods and the brooks invited us. We had many playmates, numerous cousins whom we visited and received, and at each of our houses and barns and farms were varying opportunities in games and exploits. Each visit meant also a feast, for my mother and all the aunts were good cooks, and all had the old New England notion of hospitality. All visitors must eat, and eat a great deal. Any failure to eat with apparent relish was a discourtesy to the cook and the food. Among the Vermont hills were many little farms, and numerous diversions between times—hunting, fishing and a great variety of occupations, due to the many kinds of industry carried on within the boundaries of a single farm. And each of the tasks as it annually recurred wras a novelty to the boys; so, if the task was not too long, it took on the character of play. One of the early harbingers of spring, as the sun warmed the tree trunks and branches, and began to melt the snow— long before the snow had disappeared in the woods—was the running of sweet sap under the bark of the hard-maple trees. Then there was some work and vast fun for the boys. The sap buckets of wood were brought out from their storage in the woodshed loft; their hoops driven tight, they were filled with water for a time to swell their wood; then the inside of each was thoroughly scalded. This done, they were carted to the sugar woods with a lot of wooden sap spouts that had also been scalded, and a great, oblong, shallow sheet-iron pan for the boiling down of the sap. The pan was scrubbed clean and fixed on top of a rude furnace made of bricks and stones, with a low chimney at the farther end. The boys THE MARCHING YEARS 19 helped gather the wood for the fires, and afterward helped at the firing. Then the trees were tapped; a shallow hole, two or three feet from the ground, was bored with an auger. Into this a sap spout was driven. This was a plug of wood a few inches long with a small hole lengthwise through its center, the upper half of the projecting part of the spout being shaved away so as to expose the hole as a groove. If the conditions were right, the sap began to flow at once, drop by drop. A sap tub to catch the fluid was suspended to a nail driven into the tree at a convenient place. Maple sap in prime condition looks like water with the faintest possible amber tinge. It has a sweetish taste, and a faint pleasing aroma. While we all liked the taste of it, I do not recall that anyone ever drank much of the sap—not even the children. They had visions of coming hot biscuits with butter and hot maple syrup, and could not waste their emotions on sap. The sap was gathered by a man carrying two large buckets suspended from the tapering arms of a sap yoke. This device was a dug-out piece of wood, fitting the shoulders easily, with a deep half-circle notch to fit about the neck, and with arms projecting well beyond the shoulders. My brother and I were left many hours at a time to keep the fire going under the boiling pan. It was an easy job, merely to throw on sticks of wood and poke the fire occasion- ally. Three-quarters of the time we were idle, and toward the end of the process the heat had to be reduced by cutting down the fire for fear of harming the syrupy product. When the concentration reached a certain point, the fire was put out, and the thin syrup was taken out of the pan for further concentration in a large cauldron mounted near by, or else, as was usual with us, owing to the small number of producing trees, taken down to the house to be sugared off over the kitchen stove. Here my mother presided with ample skill. She used a slow fire, and skimmed off every 20 THE MARCHING YEARS particle of foreign matter—scum—as it floated to the top of the boiling substance. Once when we were tending fire in the woods I suffered one of the great humiliations of my life. Weeks before, somebody had given us a pack of very old and much worn playing cards, and taught us the game known as "High, low, jack and the game." Another name for it that we learned later was "Old Sledge." Who this benefactor was is wholly forgotten, if benefactor indeed he was; for we soon learned that our maternal grandmother strongly disapproved of cards, especially for boys. She was not an austere person; she had a loving heart for all hopeful boys. She was not specially religious; she rarely went to church, and wras not a church member, and she never preached to us; but she hated meanness, and discouraged deception and rude and un- generous conduct, and she believed that cards held for boys some snaky deviltry. We were positive that we were proof against any bad influence of the cards, but we found ourselves a little ashamed of doing anything that she frowned upon; so we fell to playing surreptitiously, although our parents did not object to our playing, except that it grieved grandmother. We played in our room, in the barn, behind the barn, any- where we happened to be together and alone, for the pack was always sure to be in the clothes of one of us. On the day of my humiliation we were alone, tending the fire. In a lull of work we sat on a log, got out the cards and began to play. After a few minutes we were startled to see in the distance a much respected neighbor approaching. We felt instantly that we had a great deal of character and repu- tation to maintain; we must hide the cards. I had on a large homespun woolen frock, fastened at the throat and wrists by buttons and at the waist by a belt. Above the belt it made a capacious and wonderful hiding place for things—it had held quantities of apples, nuts and cake on occasion; and into it were instantly thrust the gathered-up cards. Then we arose and greeted the neighbor, like faithful custodians THE MARCHING YEARS 21 and firemen. He complimented us on the ideal flow of the sap and the pile of wood we had in reserve. It was evident he had not seen the cards. Just then perhaps the fire needed poking; anyway, it was necessary to show that we had dex- terity, so my brother poked the fire and I took a big stick of wood, bent myself forward, swung it back to get momentum to drive it powerfully into the furnace—and the cards fell out on the ground! What happened the next few minutes is hazy in my memory. I do remember vividly that a small boy had very hot ears and cheeks—so hot that he could think of nothing else—and that this heat passed off slowly. It was an im- mense relief to find that the neighbor had gone. No, we did not burn the cards! But after that the game lost much of its fascination for us, and before long we dropped it altogether. We had played too much, and did not touch a card again for many years. We had squeezed the orange dry, and it wasn't very sweet, anyway. The sap flowing season was always short; soon enough it ceased, and not long afterward the buds began to swell; then the leaves came out, and the trees began the slow process of closing up, by a healing growth, the auger holes that had been bored into them. Some of the older trees had a dozen such evidences of repair in as many stages of progress, per- haps one or two of them showing complete closure. From the sugar woods we turned, in the spring, to other activities. We unbanked the mass of straw, compost and earth that had been piled two feet high about the house foundations the fall before, to keep out the cold of winter, or rather to keep in the heat. We carted the muck and compost from the barnyard to the fields, where it would do good. The men plowed the little fields, and we boys fol- lowed along—amused at the rolling-over earth as the plow- share slid its nose forward under the ground—until we were tired. The plow occasionally turned up the nests of mice 22 THE MARCHING YEARS and moles, and this interested us, and evoked our sympathy for the helpless little things. The sowing of the grain and the planting of the corn, potatoes, beans and peas was an entertainment, and we helped in little ways—perhaps carrying the seed, and cer- tainly carrying the jug of drinking water for the workers. There was a glory to come in the harvest, but none such nor all its vast significance could equal for our boy imagina- tion the bursting expansion and the manifold revelations of the springtime. The long winter gave way to melting days and freezing nights. Later the freezings vanished, and then the frosts; and the sun began to warm the skin of the earth each day beyond the measure of the heat radiation by night. This gave the eager rootlets their chance to take in moisture, and through their terminal laboratories to add the needed sap extracts and drive it all upward. So the buds swelled and pushed their whorls of tiny leaves out to the light and to the chemistry of the green. Each day we could note their lengthening and unfolding. We trod the plowed-up dark earth; our feet felt its soft- ness and we took in its infusing fragrance as we followed afoot the plow and harrow. Then we prepared for a new creation; we buried dry, inanimate seeds; then a few days of waiting and the new life was discovered at eventide to speck the field. In the morning there was a verdant sheen over the field, and soon it was hidden by the purest, rich green— to fill and rest and delight our vision. Not the wind-waving of the tall grain and the lush corn fields—inspiring sight that it was—could equal to our eyes and imagination the wonder of that first miracle of virgin green stealing out of the dead earth. We enjoyed every phase of the spring farm work. Much of the plowing and hauling were done by oxen, and the yoking and driving of these gentle and slow moving animals was always an interesting performance, in which a boy could THE MARCHING YEARS 23 take part. He could carry a whip and shout haw and gee, which brought the animals to the left or right. This com- manding of something vastly more bulky than himself, and seeing it docilely do his bidding gave him a great sense of authority—like a man commanding an elephant, and seeing his hulking form obey. Shearing the wool from the sheep was one of our tasks of the settled warm weather of spring or early summer. The time was fixed (early in June, usually) when the sheep would be least likely to shiver and get sick after losing their fleeces. Spring-opening shears were used, which in the hands of the shearers worked so rapidly that they occasionally snipped out small pieces of the skin. This lessened the wool growing surface of the sheep, and was therefore unprofitable, besides being brutal and proof of poor workmanship. There was little evidence that these wounds of the skin were specially painful, perhaps because of the high speed of the shears. The sheep rarely suffered any sickness from thus suddenly being deprived of all their clothing—which ought to serve as a comfort to mothers who fear that their daughters will take cold and die from going out with thin clothes. The wool merchants always paid a higher price for wool that had been washed on the sheep, than for unwashed wool —and, I think, cheated themselves by doing it, for the wash- ing took out but little of the dirt and debris of a year's accumulation. It was done in some deep pool of a brook or river, where the washers could stand waist deep in the water. The sheep were thrown to the washer one by one, and for a minute or two each fleece was given a little rubbing and scrubbing—just enough to call it washing. Sometimes sev- eral days elapsed after the washing before the sheep were sheared, and a stock of fresh dirt was acquired. If the washing pool was cold, as it often was, the washers thought they were in danger of taking cold, and so sometimes took swigs of whiskey or rum as a prophylactic. In my observation they usually took it clear—straight from the 24 THE MARCHING YEARS bottle. It was a terrible dose, and was given me one chilly spring day when, being wet to the skin, it was thought I might be in peril. What I needed was an overcoat, not rum. One swallow was enough; it was a coal of fire traveling down my poor little gullet, and burned after it entered the stomach. For any boy of ten or eleven, in danger of taking to drink later, I commend a dose of half a dozen small swallows of this terrible stuff, taken clear in rapid succession out of a bottle. One such dose ought to be effective in turning the fellow against it for the rest of his life. Of course no sheep washer was ever prevented from cold-catching by taking a dose of liquor; it would rather predispose to this disorder. The hardest, the hottest and sweatiest work on the hill farms was the haying. Then sometimes the neighbors would join in the work—"change works" as we called it— so that there might be half a dozen hay makers working together for a few days on our little farm. My father and maternal grandfather would sometimes, if the weather was hot, serve out to these men in the mid-forenoon and mid-after- noon some toddy made of sweetened water and a little rum. The men came into the dining room for it, and were back at work in a few minutes. Once or twice a small boy of an investigating turn of mind, hanging about the table, drained the few drops left in the glasses, after the men had gone. It tasted very good to him; so good that afterward, when nobody else was in the house, he tried to reproduce the toddy, and swallowed a little of his concoction. But it did not taste right; he had evidently not used the right proportions of the ingredients, or his taste was perverted by the fear of being discovered. When the Maine liquor law was passed in Vermont, my grandfathers, who were strictly temperate, but not teetotalers, were indignant, because they thought the law abridged their natural personal rights. They always had rum in the house, and rarely drank it; when they did, it was in minute quantities THE MARCHING YEARS 25 and greatly diluted with water—as alcoholics should always be taken, if taken at all. The average rural Vermonter of that day was an upright person. Good neighborliness was the rule, and there were few disagreements of a serious sort. They were a sober people. I recall seeing there but one intoxicated man, and he was a fellow of no character, and notoriously a tippler. On some political questions they were very strict. While it might be allowable for a man to desire public elective office, like that of Selectman, or town representative in the Legislature, and while a man might ask one friend, pledged to secrecy, to manage a canvass for him, he must not on any account ask a casual citizen to vote for him. If he did this and it became known—and if he did it, it would become known—he would surely be defeated, as happened to more than one avowed candidate. And a man who had this experience never outgrew the odium of it—it was told of him for many years afterwards. The early settlers of Vermont were largely from Massa- chusetts. They had come to this new country in the hope of avoiding the severe conditions of the old. The new land was cheaper, but not more hospitable. They had constant work, many hardships and few or no luxuries; but they had perforce frugality; they had cheerfulness and a high order of self-respect. If they did not know Latin and other classics, they had clean bodies, clean clothes and clean houses; and all these conspired to industry and helpfulness of each other. It was such influences, with the schooling of frugality and the enforced knowledge and use of tools and other practical devices, that enabled the sons of those Vermont pioneers to go out into the world of affairs and succeed. The haying experience was an exciting one, and never to be forgotten. The use of the scythe was always fascinating to the boys. They were learning to mow, but their swaths were scraggly and amusing to the expert men. To use the whetstone on the scythe with the rapid, graceful swing of 26 THE MARCHING YEARS an expert, and not cut their fingers, was evidence that the boys were becoming men, and they were ambitious to try it. Our education in this sort was not finished when we moved to the land of prairies and mowing machines. Turning the grindstone for the scythes, axes and knives was a boy's job. It was interesting for, say, ten or fifteen minutes; but the fact that the task frequently lasted an hour, has deprived me of any pleasure whatever in remembering the function. The odor of the cut grass (timothy and clover), and its changed odor as it turned to hay, then first became familiar. They were always pleasant odors, and whenever perceived afterward through half a century, have called back to memory those joyous scenes. I wonder how many of us ever note that odors are things, infinitesimally small particles emanating from the substance smelled, which go into our nostrils, to be perhaps absorbed into our tissues. The return to us of an uncommon, pleasing odor brings a smile to our faces, because our first whiff of it years before was associated with pleasure. It calls up long-forgotten scenes, voices and faces. For me, after sev- eral decades, a whiff from a pile of hemlock lumber always recreates the old saw-mill where we played in boyhood. It has actually been in ruins for a generation, but it lives again in that rare fragrance. In mowing, the scythe would occasionally expose a bumble bees' nest, and we would kill the bees and taste the honey. There was little of it; the taste was sweet but less agreeable than the honey of commerce. The cells containing it were larger than those of the honey bee; they were globular and not so compact and workmanlike. We destroyed the little nests ruthlessly—blind to the value of these bees to the perpetuation of the very clover we were growing. The spreading of the hay in the mow (rhyming with now, not hoe)—mowing as we called it—was a boy's duty. It was sweaty work and often dusty, and the men who pitched THE MARCHING YEARS 27 the hay frequently tried to bury the boys in it; but they had forgotten their own boy ability to climb atop of a pile of hay that any athlete could pitch. Many men forget the details of their own boy life—especially their thoughts and emotions. In the winter when the mows were full of hay the boys would, like industrious rats, dig out tunnels or runways two feet in diameter in various directions through the mass. Rarely would the neighboring boys come to help in the digging; but they would always come to enjoy the novelty and the play after the work was done. This was the sport for many stormy days and very cold days when there might not be good coasting for us outside. In two seasons of the year the boys turned with glee to the brooks and springs—when they were covered with ice, and on a hot summer day. Forty rods or so back of our house was a spring, under a low, overhanging bank, and by the side of a noble elm tree. Years before, it had been dug out in the form of a little well that was lined with stone and covered with a lid of boards. One or two trout could be found in it; they were put there to devour the insects—ex- changing one animal contamination for another. In previous years an underground conduit of wood had carried the water of this spring to the barn; the barn actually was a few feet lower than the spring, but seemed to be of the same level, or a little higher, and I used to wonder how the water could flow to the barn and into the watering trough. In my time a small leaden pipe had replaced the wood—it had been forced through the larger bore of the wood conduit—and the water flowed into the trough through a goose quill in the center of a cork driven into the end of the pipe. The spring overflowed its walls and formed a little stream that ran down a shallow ravine, a tiny brook with a plentiful growth of peppermint along its banks. Here a boy in his eleventh year built a little dam spanning the ravine, a few rods below the spring, and carried the water through a small tortuous flume dug in the earth, to a bank some rods away, 28 THE MARCHING YEARS where a piece of old V-shaped wooden eaves trough carried the stream to a toy water-wheel which he had built. The power of the wheel was transmitted by a crank to a vertical wire rod that was made to play up and down like a mill- saw. The water was let into the flume by a toy gate, and passed through a strainer made of vertical twigs—all to simulate the parts of a standard saw-mill. He had great pleasure in building the toy, but after it had been played with a few weeks, his interest in it waned. His parents enjoyed showing it off to visitors with some laudation of the boy, which made him blush and feel foolish, if he heard it. Then the prize bad boy of the neighborhood, bent on pure mischief and without the slightest provocation, went alone to the spot and tore up the whole mill—strainer, gate, water-wheel, and all. The first intimation any of us had of it was his shouting from a hill-top, back of the spring, a boastful notification of his exploit. Afterwards he appeared to feel neglected because no resentment was shown him, and no notice taken of him. As a boy this fellow was several shades worse than useless, and was by spells a great trouble to the neighbors—and more to his parents—for his badness was erratic, irregular and apparently unprovoked. It is questionable that he was entirely sane. But in the end he did something to redeem himself, for he enlisted in the northern army in the Civil War, and died in battle, with his back to a tree, facing the enemy and firing until he sank. To all of the children the annual advent of the young of the domestic animals and the wild animals and birds was occasion for delight and wonder. The kittens and puppies especially challenged our sympathy because they were born blind. Watching for the chickens to come out of their shells, and for puppies and kittens to open their eyes kept us alert. And the performance of the mother cat in moving her family by the nape of each neck was as good as a circus, as well as a lesson in the conservation of nature. THE MARCHING YEARS 29 If our experience was at all typical, the study and care of the young of animals has a humanizing influence on boys and youths in general. The helplessness of the young animals makes for sympathy toward all defenseless things. The utter dependence of the human infant has, of course, the strongest appeal of all, but that is for adults and girls mostly, not so much for boys, who often regard babies as an imperti- nent intrusion. But a boy of the right timber is ready to fight for a mistreated lamb or puppy, a birdling or a younger child; and that spells character of a commendable sort. One day a small boy rushed into the Vermont home to tell his parents that he had found under an overhanging rock on the far side of a hay field a litter of kittens; and that the old cat wasn't there. His father asked about their color, and when told they were black and white, he said "skunks." There was no water near the overhanging rock, but there is reason to believe the little things died of drowning soon afterward. One of my very early memories was the departure for California of my uncle Edwin Bagley. He was a tinsmith, and worked at his trade there. In four years he returned, and soon thereafter bought a small rifle and began to educate his nephews in shooting. I was eleven, and soon learned to shoot with some precision. We shot squirrels, woodchucks and other game. One day my mother allowed me to take the gun and go out into the woods alone to hunt. To me now her faith in my reliability with a gun is unaccountable. It was as blind as it was when, some years before, I had set the house on fire. But in this later case she was justified by the result, for I came home whole, with myself and the gun unharmed—and I had shot a chipmunk. That was the last of my hunting. Before many months we were on the prairies, where work was our play—nearly all the play we had—and there was no hunting or fishing for me. There were no trout streams or wooded hills. There were for a few years prairie chickens, and my brother hunted them a 30 THE MARCHING YEARS few times only. That sport was left for city visitors whom we despised as intruders. My uncle determined to give four or five of us boys a good Fourth of July celebration. I was the youngest boy. We had a wonderful time, but in the end a great grief came to me. The plan was to have a tent on a hill where we should sleep, the night of the third, and to fire off a lot of fireworks there in the early morning. We played we were soldiers who might be attacked by an enemy; so we took turns at standing guard with the gun outside the tent. Really none of us slept much that night. We cooked and ate supper there. In the early morning, after a hurried snack, we shot off our fireworks. The program was carried out faithfully. When we came down to our house we ate again; then took a rest till four o'clock, when we were to meet at Grandfather Bagley's house for more and greater celebration of fireworks and more eating. I took a nap on the promise to be called in time; but at four o'clock my people thought it would be wicked to waken a boy out of so sweet a slumber. I wakened finally with a start, and the clock struck six—the celebration was over, and I had missed it. Many hard knocks have come since that day—sorrows of many sorts—and have been borne with what fortitude was possible, but not in all the years has one come with what seemed such poignant intensity as the grief that was crowded into the striking of that hour. In the winter we helped break roads through the snow with horses or oxen with sleds, and we shoveled the snow where it had drifted deep. That was work. We coasted a great deal for fun. A few of the boys had sleds for coasting; they were aristocrats. Sleds cost money, and most of the boys had none of this, nor could their families afford luxuries; and a sled for a boy was a luxury. The commoner coasting device was a thing called a jumper; and that no boy was too poor to have. It was lighter in weight than a sled; it cost nothing, and could be THE MARCHING YEARS 31 carried under the arm. It was as easily steered as a sled— and its sliding qualities were good. It was made of two hard-wood barrel staves that were smooth on the outside, which was of course the running surface. These were fixed about six inches apart by two cross-pieces of wood nailed or screwed to the staves within a few inches of their ends. The cross-pieces were connected by a board running length- wise, for the rider to sit on. Forty times a day would the boys carry their jumpers up a hill for the fun of sliding down. It was labor, but never "work," and we came home tired, for supper and sleep. In the aggregate of many thousands of such coasting trips in those days, a serious accident was almost unknown, and I personally never saw one. One of the sad memories of those winters is of the cold feet, hands and ears, especially the feet. It was the fashion among the boys to wear as small boots as possible; we never wore shoes in winter, but always high boots. We hated big boots, and made fun of the boy who had to wear them. Years later, when athletics came into vogue, the footwear of boys and young men grew larger, and the fellows were proud of it. Tight boots reduced the power of resistance to cold, and increased the severity of chilblain, which with loose footwear would have been bad enough. None of us ever had overshoes. The chilblain was a most painful disorder; it was a varying mixture of burning, smarting, aching and tingling sensations, and deep congestion of the surface of the feet, mostly about the toes, which became dark-red or purple. Sometimes the congestion was so deep as to cause an ulcera- tion on one or more toes; but this rarely happened to a vigorous fellow. It happened to me one winter when I was twenty-one years old, and sent me to bed for a week. There were no overcoats for the boys; thick frocks and jackets had to do. When we were nearly man-grown, we began to have overcoats and overshoes, but it was a long time before we learned to protect ourselves adequately against the cold of winter by large sizes and warm substance 32 THE MARCHING YEARS in our garments. It was after my thirtieth year that this sort of wisdom came to me in its fulness. In my boyhood and youth a favorite sport for us in the winter was the sleigh-ride, with half a dozen or more jolly young people in a big sleigh or in a wagon box on bob-sleds, for a drive of an hour behind fleet horses. It was great fun for most of us, especially when the weather was not very cold. I often took such rides, but my memory of this sport records that cold feet—actual, not metaphoric—neutralized most of the joy of the occasion. All the children went to the district school in the winter, and those too young to do effective work on the farm went also in the summer. We enjoyed the winter schools more because the big boys were there. In their hand-ball and base-ball playing of that time—the latter not much like the game of today—in their snow-balling, and even in the to- bacco chewing of some of them, and the profuse and projectile spitting of the darkish juice, they were the hope and admira- tion of the smaller boys, who looked forward with ardent anticipation to the time when they could do things as remarkable. In our day the teachers were all women, and the small women seemed to be more successful than the large ones. There were plentiful stories of a previous time when only men teachers were employed in the winter, on account of the turbulent character of the larger boys. The teacher had at times been obliged to fight to maintain his authority. I recall some grave discussions by my elders as to whether it was entirely safe or humane to tax a frail woman with the responsibility of such a winter school. But the women teachers never had any trouble of the sort that had been feared. If they laid down the law, as they usually did, and insisted on obedience, the big boys might meet them with blushes, especially if the teacher were young and good looking, but never with a serious defiance. A little teacher with fine nerve one day early in the term called up on the THE MARCHING YEARS 33 floor a big boy who had annoyed her with his indolence and loutish disobedience. He was at least a foot taller than she was. She quietly told him and the school of his various offenses; then she mounted a chair so that she could reach him easily, and soundly boxed his ears. He slunk to his seat in humiliation, and was thereafter both obedient and industrious. And all the other big boys took the cue. In rural Vermont at that time there were peripatetic teachers of singing, who had classes in neighboring villages during the winter season. The singing school, one or two evenings a week, was an institution. Many of the young people and older children learned to sing, and their specialty was church music, although they sang popular songs, and took part in choruses in some of the larger villages. This education was a great blessing to them, for it gave them pleasure, and often led them into other lines of culture. My brother and I were too young to have these advantages in Vermont; later in Illinois we did have a try at them. One of the most noted of these teachers was one Moses Cheney, whose work was known by at least two generations of youths. Once, when an old man, he came to our house and amused us immensely by his boyish drollery and infectious cheerfulness. He was evidently a good teacher, and he radiated joy wherever he went. He illustrated to us how the tune "Old Hundred" might, by being played rapidly, become a good dance tune; and how "Yankee Doodle" by a reverse process, might become fine anthem music. He enjoyed telling a good story, and none such ever grew tamer in his hands. He told us of having copied some epitaphs from tombstones in or near Burlington. One of these ran as follows: Here lies the body of old John Hildebrod. Have mercy on his soul, O Lord, As he would do if he were God, And thou wert old John Hildebrod. 34 THE MARCHING YEARS This epitaph was really found in Scotland, not Vermont. It is recorded in one of the stories of George MacDonald. Cheney had heard of it somewhere and located it in this country, probably for better effect in telling. In the early fifties of the last century there spread among the country people of Vermont a great wave of spiritualistic propaganda and excitement. Many simple-minded people believed in the miraculous character of the phenomena of table tipping and rapping, and of clairvoyance, and that these were evidence of the return to earth of departed spirits. The phenomena were certainly weird enough, as I observed many times in my childhood, and the simple folk could not see the manifest absurdity of the thing, and so some of them swallowed it whole. Most of them afterward became disgusted with the subject, and ceased to talk or think about it. No relative of mine ever took the slightest stock in spiritualism, and my mother boldly scorned it whenever the subject was mentioned. From that day to this in some parts of the country, among certain people, this faith has been preached, and many have believed in it in spite of the multi- tude of proven instances of imposture and fraud on the part of the "mediums," and of the further fact that any one of a dozen avowed sleight-of-hand experts has been able to outdo the mediums in wonder performances. These people say the belief has been a great comfort to them, which I hope is the case, even if the thing is a delusion and has done no other good. It has done the harm of disturbing and dis- tracting the minds of some good people who have lost their religious anchor, and who have been covered with shame when they discovered that those who assured them of communi- cating with their departed loved ones have been shown to be frauds. And a few have lost their minds or become nervous wrecks. When we left for the prairies of Illinois the scene changed. Then we played little and worked much, and in the fields. THE MARCHING YEARS 35 We were coming to be men, and there were few playmates; there were no hills, and few forests and running streams. There were no real brooks; there were creeks and sloughs on our prairies, which had low banks of dirt—neither rocks, gravel, trees nor other features to make the romantic thing we called a brook—and they were mostly dry in summer. There is no doubt that work for boys, hard work, is a good preventive of dangerous mischief. This has been often shown in college boys who, by athletics and necessary work, escape a lot of later punishment that comes to the idle. Certainly my brother and I on the Illinois farm had work in plenty, and no time for serious mischief. We didn't even acquire the tobacco habit; and the other sophistications of city life my soldier brother, by reason of his early death, was prevented from ever knowing. To me they came by slow degrees and with both joy and grief. There was, how- ever, no temptation to use tobacco; I had tasted it once at eleven or twelve, and no temptation to ape the bigger boys ever led me to try it again. Among the Vermont hills in my boyhood there were current various dialectic expressions—slang and expletives, including many mild swear words, or what stood for such. Probably similar habits were in vogue in the rural regions of other New England states, where the people mostly lived and died in the country and seldom associated much with city folks. Rarely did I hear the words God, Jesus or Christ used irreverently; the words damn and damned were seldom used; but I'll be darned, goll darned, gosh and by gosh were in common use. By gum and / swan were even very proper expressions. By the Lord Harry was a great favorite with even staid and religious persons. In my hearing there was substantially never a lewd, salacious or smutty story or reference uttered. But such 36 THE MARCHING YEARS talk may have been more common than I knew, for vulgar speech is often repressed in the hearing of young ears—and mine were under twelve—so instinctive it is with most vulgar people that childhood ought not to be corrupted. There were numerous forms of salutation, exclamations and jocular expressions that were peculiar to the country; and some of these have gone out to the western regions in the wonderful "Expansion of New England." Do tell! You don't say! You don't tell me! How be youf You tell him who you be, are examples. Here are others: He is worse than all git out; He is working like a house afire; You'll upset your apple cart if you don't look out. The word certain was by many old people pronounced sartin. Sarvent, Sir, was a response to a salutation, and was equivalent to saying / am your servant or at your service. It was an expression of rather formal politeness, and was used in my hearing only by old men, showing that it was old- fashioned even then. In our rural districts the people used awkwardly and diffidently any language of special politeness. They were good folks, but blunt in speech—and blunt people seldom use handily the speech of formal courtesy. By our modern habits of pronouncing English there were many crudities in that old Vermont—although some of their accents were classical in England two hundred years ago, and they are still in vogue in parts of England. The old Vermonters, many of them, said nothin', goin', workin', and the like. When demanding rather defiantly payment for something, they would say, You fork over; plaguey bad meant very bad; collate was used instead of to calculate or guess; to bark up the wrong tree was common; an active person was spry; an inefficient person was small potatoes; a declaration of a doubted or unexpected difference was frequently described as a horse of another color; dander meant anger—as, he got his dander up; bile instead of boil meant a furuncle; nohow and lickety split were familiar; to cowhide THE MARCHING YEARS 37 meant to flog severely; he is a goner meant the dog was dead; the weight of a thing was its heft; Lord a massey was Lord of mercy; conniption meant a pet of anger; scrumptious meant well gotten up or personally efficient; tarnal was a politer swear word than damned; it meant infernal; I sort o' thought so, that aire and this ere were often heard; as were critter for creature, meaning a member of the kine or bos family; sassy for saucy, rassel for wrestle, ketch for catch and gardeen for guardian. To use the word indeed as an exclamation would smack of affectation. I knew a young man who had gone to school in a great city and then engaged in business there. He came back to his father's farm for a visit, and once was heard to use the expression thus far. It was to his great discredit, and it was quoted against him for years by the neighbors as proof that the city had corrupted him and made him vain. So every class of people adopt with avidity the fashions and customs that are common to their ilk; and brace them- selves against the customs of classes foreign to their own. Some rural statesmen have scorned evening clothes even after they have been elected to Congress, for fear some of their constituents would scorn them. My late friend President Charles K. Adams once revisited his birthplace in northern Vermont and called on the farmer who had bought the Adams home farm some forty years before. He introduced himself, when the following colloquy ensued: "So you're Charley Adams, be you?" "Yes, I'm Charley Adams." "Didn't I hear you'd been keepin' skule?" "Yes, I taught school." "Well, didn't I hear you'd been keepin' skule in Iowy?" "Yes," said Adams. He had been a professor in a college in Iowa for some years. "Well, I heerd that you'd been in Michigan." "Yes, I was in Michi- gan, too." He was that moment President of Cornell University, but had been a professor for many years just previous to this time, in the University of Michigan. 38 THE MARCHING YEARS Adams had a boyhood friend who migrated to Michigan, entered business and became a millionaire in a legitimate, honorable way. He was fond of visiting his old Vermont home, and he made various gifts to the community, but the rumor of his wealth reached the neighborhood, after which his old neighbors, because they could not imagine a man starting with nothing and getting a million dollars honestly, began to receive him coldly. Then he ceased to revisit the place. CHAPTER III. ILLINOIS. WHEN my father determined to move to Illinois with his family, he was met by opposition from his father, who begged him not to go. The son was only forty, and could see the wisdom of trying to better his condition by farming on a richer soil; while to the father, who was near seventy-five, any change was a shock. We reached the neighborhood of Sycamore, Illinois, in December, 1856, after a journey by rail of two and one-half days. There were no sleeping cars, but many delays and discomforts. In Chicago we found that the process of raising the grade of the downtown streets some six or eight feet was going forward. In walking three blocks on Lake and Randolph Streets we passed up and down stairs from one level to the other several times. The Illinois Central Railroad tracks were, for quite a stretch south of the depot at Randolph and Lake Streets, supported on piles driven in the lake some distance from shore. I think the tracks are now in substantially the same position as then, though of course there are more of them, and the shore, by filling in, has been moved far out into the lake. We lived near Sycamore until spring. Then a farm of 260 acres of virgin prairie was bought, west of Malta, a little village near the west line of DeKalb county, on the Iowa division of the Northwestern Railroad, whose right of way was the boundary line of the farm on the south. The land cost some sixteen dollars per acre, and was bought on long time and easy payments; it had to be thus, otherwise it could not have been bought at all. A little house of three rooms and an unfinished attic was soon built, and the family [39] 40 THE MARCHING YEARS moved in. A pair of elderly cream-colored horses, a yoke of oxen and various farm utensils were speedily bought, and we boys proceeded to help break a hundred acres of the land— to break it was to plow it for the first time in its history of perhaps a million years. On the turned-over sod, tough from its dense network of strong roots, the boys planted sod-corn, melons, pumpkins, beans and the like. They killed during the summer some dozens of rattlesnakes—the small massasaugus variety. The next year they killed two or three, and thereafter rarely any. Our parents had some curious experiences with the rattle- snakes. My father's ears evidently had some peculiarity that made him unable to hear certain tones. He could see the tremulous, hazy blur of vision made by the rattler's tail when in motion, but declared he could not hear the buzzing tone it produced. And my mother was one day in great danger of being bitten by a snake, whose warning buzz, as it lay hidden in deep grass, she mistook for some unusual sort of a cricket. She had never before heard the sound; and I found her with her hands poking about among the grass in search of the cricket, and within a few inches of the coiled- up rattler. Breaking the virgin prairie was different from ordinary plowing. The plow turned a rather wide furrow, but only two or three inches deep. The plowshare had to be sharp to cut the tough roots of the grass and an occasional "red- root" which sometimes was so large that we had to plow around it or cut it out with an axe. The red-root was a very large, hard root of a small, tough, woody shrub. Every mile or so that the plow traveled through the earth the share had to be sharpened with a coarse file; and every few days the share had to go to the blacksmith and have its edge hammered thinner under a red heat. The sod was too tough and tenacious to be broken up with a harrow for any ordinary agricultural purpose. To THE MARCHING YEARS 41 render the sod pulverulent it had to lie upturned to the weather for nearly or quite a year for the roots to rot. Then deeper plowing and harrowing would prepare the ground for a regular crop. We planted the corn and other seeds by cutting a little gash in the overturned sod with a small ax, and dropping in the seeds, then cutting another gash near by to close the first one, or closing it by a firm blow with the boot-heel. Quite a crop of these plants rewarded us—and they had not required any hoeing or other attention to destroy weeds. Some weeds did/indeed, grow, but not until after our planted seeds had a good start. Our farm was on the edge of a wide prairie, and for a year had only a few rods of fence, save that which was built by the railroad company along its right-of-way. Our few cattle and sheep roamed the prairie at will, and had to be gathered in at night. We traveled across the country, regardless of roads, often to Sycamore, which was our metropolis. Once, when returning, night and a fog came on, and we lost our way. After some confusion and doubt, we gave the horses their heads, and they brought us home. In a few years this prairie was all settled, and the roads were all on the regularly laid out highways. Unimproved roads they were for long, and amazingly muddy in a wet time. The wet roads were made rough by the vehicles; freezing weather would change the rough spots to the hardness of rocks. In the breaking up of spring some of these roads were well nigh impassable for a week or two at a time. In two years after we went west my father brought his parents from Vermont, and they lived with us the rest of their lives. His mother had, a year before, suffered a fracture of a hip—the neck of the femur. She had experienced little pain from the injury, but a great deal of agony from the wholly useless manipulations of the surgeons. She never walked normally afterward, but hobbled about the house, 42 THE MARCHING YEARS most of the time with the aid of a chair which she pushed ahead of her.* After we had been on the farm four years, an addition of a few rooms was made to the house, which added much to our comfort. A respectable barn and other outbuildings were built; more stock and tools were procured, and farming became more successful and satisfactory. The farm was now entirely fenced, and some hedges of osage orange and of w7illow were planted along the road; a few fruit trees and some shrubs about the house were also planted, but only a few trees of any kind to make a grove. Neither did our neighbors plant forest trees; nor did more than a small percentage of the farmers of the prairies of the middle west anywhere do this, unless, as was the case in some states, the government en- couraged tree planting by bonuses, reduction of taxes or other favors. Little groves are so easily planted, and grow so rapidly; they are things of such beauty and so profitable for firewood finally, that it is surprising that so few farmers take the trouble to plant them. In our case two reasons perhaps partially excused the neglect: One the drudgery of the farm work, which kept us busy with the most pressing demands; the other, the grudging of the few acres of ground necessary for the grove, which might be used for a more immediately profitable crop. The present and immediate future were the chief interests in mind. In 1863 my father tried to buy some sheep to add to his stock. Failing to find any that suited him in the neighbor- hood, he went back East in October and bought a carload of his favorite breed and shipped them to Chicago; and drove them from there to our home, about sixty miles. We continued to develop the farm and the farm work for four years, we boys and our younger sister getting each winter what education we could in the district country schoolhouse, or in the neighboring villages of Dement (later called Creston) and Malta. *She died February 20, 1865. THE MARCHING YEARS 43 In 1860 occurred the great political campaign that elected Lincoln. To our boyish eyes it was the most remarkable event that could ever happen. Nor, in any one of the fourteen campaigns that have followed, has anything quite so thrilling occurred. The republican voters, young and old, formed themselves into companies of men and drilled in marching, the companies from the different towns vying with each other for the best appearance and the largest numbers in proportion to the population of their commu- nities. They marched nearly every evening to political meetings, led by bands of music, and every man carried a torch burning a heavy sort of oil that made both flame and smoke. The uniform was a cheap cap and cape, both glazed and of a bright color. They called themselves Wide-Awakes, and marching in column in a moonless night, they made a thrilling appearance. The democrats tried by various schemes to foil and nullify the effect of the Wide-Awake movement, but without success. In 1861 the Civil War was upon us, and my brother and uncle were early with the Army of the Union, and went to Camp Douglas in Chicago to be trained into soldiers. In the autumn I went to the village of DeKalb, eight miles away, to school. I had begun at fifteen to keep a sort of diary, which was never more than a brief record of events that occurred directly about me. It was faithfully kept for many years, and until professional cares in Chicago made it too irksome. Then, too, for a daily record it ceased to be of much consequence, for it was superseded to a large extent by professional records that had to be kept. As I look over that diary now, I am rather ashamed of it for its sameness and monotony; and for the paucity of any opinions on things, events and people. After all, it is perhaps fortunate that the record contains so few opinions—otherwise I might have still less respect for it. On January 3, 1860, this is written: "Went to school and stayed to the debate. Question: 'Resolved, that John 44 THE MARCHING YEARS Brown was justly executed.' Decision in the affirmative." On January 6 and 9 "had a sick headache." Think of a boy of fifteen having two such attacks in three days! They were severe—disabling for a few hours—and it is no wonder that the record characterizes them as "damnable." They had then been an experience many times a year for two or three years, and still recurred afterward in the same way for more than thirty years, although toward the end of that period growing less frequent and severe. The diary contains all shades and varieties of boy chirog- raphy. Some days it was written in a hurry, other times it shows deliberation and care and more correct spelling. On the hurry days it drops back to the earlier habit of wrong spelling of certain words; on the careful days these words are spelled correctly. It reveals an effort to create a new and correct habit—in haste the old habit reasserted itself. So it is all through life; we try to drive out the old, bad habits by creating new and better ones; but it often requires con- stant vigilance for a long time. In this farming life we had many interesting experiences. One of these was to observe the coming and going of some of our neighbors. There was developing in the East the notion that whoever came to the prairies of Illinois and settled on land bought at fifteen to twenty dollars per acre, was sure to get rich. Many families came with too little money to make a good start, depending on good prices for a first crop to keep them from bankruptcy. Low prices and a poor crop, with unexpected expenses, ruined some of them, and a few got discouraged and moved away. One of the neighboring women, about to leave the country, asked my mother one day if she and her family would not have to go too. The reply was that we would be obliged to stay and fight it out, because we did not have money enough to get away. For- tunately our creditor who sold us the farm, to whom we owed nearly the whole purchase price, was indulgent, saw that we were working hard, and did not press us. Our farm, THE MARCHING YEARS 45 which had cost sixteen dollars per acre in 1857, my father sold some dozen years later for over three times as much; and thirty years afterward this land was bought for double the price my father got. At least three of our neighbors were city bred people who came west because they had developed the not uncommon city ambition to be farmers. Each of them had money enough to make a good start; each bought a farm, built a house—rather pretentious for the purpose—and each got tired and moved away in less than four years. They went back to pursuits like, or akin to, those of their previous ex- perience, having lost something in grasp of city affairs by their years of absence, which meant less efficiency. While they had to their credit some new human experience, they had acquired a disgust for farming, and had learned little from it that could be directly useful to them afterwards. But they had had a touch of another side of life; and their experience probably was worth all it had cost, for they had a better human philosophy. My father sold his Malta* farm in February, 1869, and moved to Sycamore, with the intention of having a long period of leisure, but after a year or two of idleness he became restless to get back to farming again. He took a long journey through Iowa in search of the ideal unimproved farm for sale at a fair price. The ideal was to have a due proportion of woodland and prairie, running water, good soil and nearness to railroad and postoffice. He traveled slowly with horses and buggy, and finally found such a farm near the little town of Scranton in western Iowa. He bought the land, and he and mother began there, in April, 1871, to make a new home; they built farm buildings and developed the property; and there he died in 1879. f After a few years mother sold the farm and went to live with her daughter. •My father was elected town assessor in 1868—the last year of his residence in Malta. I left my "practice" in June and came home to act as his clerk in making out his assessment lists. tFebruary 20. 46 THE MARCHING YEARS While the family lived at Sycamore my sister Susan was married to Mr. Hardin Hatch.* They were soon living in Iowa; later were in Chicago for a time, then moved back to Iowa, making their home finally in Des Moines, where Mr. Hatch conducted a successful business. Finally they moved to San Mateo, Cal. •December 20, 1870. CHAPTER IV. FARM TRAINING. FOR a boy on a farm, especially one among the New England hills of half a century ago, the revelations of a single year were a procession of instructive wonders. Each season presented not one but a dozen new processes, tools and the use of them, developments and miracles of Nature and work, in which the boy often played some part, and might always be a keen observer. It was educational in a high degree, though the boy did not know it. No boy could at the time appreciate it for half its worth; nothing but the perspective of time and maturity of thought could enable him to do that. It is a little startling to see a list of tools and utensils that farmer boys formerly had to use or become familiar with before the fifteenth year of their lives. Here is a list of a hundred or more of such articles, all within the range of my boy experience: Adz, auger, common ax, broad ax, pick ax, apple parer, bolts, brush for horses, bellows, buggy, bits and bit stock, chisel, cultivator, cradle for grain, crowbar, cart, curry comb, corn sheller, corn grinder, coal scuttle, cheese press, churn, cider mill, candle moulds, candle snuffers, log chain, dog and horse chain, drag, pitch fork, manure fork, flail, fan (for grain), fanning mill, gimlet, shot gun, rifle, grindstone, hand hammer, sledge hammer, tack hammer, hatchet, hoe, harrow, hone, harness, hay cutter, husking peg, jug, jack knife, butcher knife, hay knife, corn cutting knife, locks, lantern, mallet, monkey wrench, mowing machine, mortar and pestle, nails, water pail, milk pail, plow, coarse plane, finishing plane, poke, hand rake, horse rake, garden rake, reaper, hand saw, buck saw, log saw (two handles), shave, square, try square, screw driver, saw horse, shovel, [47] 48 THE MARCHING YEARS scoop shovel, coal shovel, spade, scythe, sickle, milking stool, steel yards, scales, screws, staples and hooks, saddle and bridle, sap yoke, sled, bob sleds, sleigh, sap tubs, sap spouts, sap pan, tacks, threshing machine, tongs, steel wedge, whet- stone, wagon, ox yoke and yardstick. The list could be considerably increased. Almost as surprising is a list of processes of Nature and work covered by one twelvemonth. Here are a few of them— something over sixty: Chores: Milking the cows; taking them to and from pasture in summer; feeding the animals—horses, cattle, pigs, sheep and poultry; watering them all; putting the animals in and out of the barn daily in winter, the cattle in stanchions; keeping the stables clean; bringing in wood; taking out ashes; keeping in repair and in working order the many tools and machines used on the farm. This last is one of the most useful and educative of the whole list. In the house: Churning; helping make cheese; making candles by repeatedly dipping them in molten tallow floating on hot water, or by pouring the hot tallow into moulds; pounding things to powder in a mortar—allspice, pepper, cinnamon and cloves; percolating the ashes with water to get lye, and then the making of soft soap with this in combina- tion with the saved-up refuse grease, the reaction taking place under boiling heat. Out-of-doors: Felling trees; sawing logs; splitting them; hauling the logs or wood on sleds; splitting rails; making rail fences; gathering stones about the farm; making stone wall; maple sugar making; grafting and budding trees; fertilizing the soil from the barn accumulations; plowing; harrowing; planting and sowing seed; hoeing and cultivating crops; haying, involving five different processes; grain harvesting; threshing; corn cutting, shocking and husking; storing seed corn; pulling beans and peas; threshing them; digging and gathering potatoes; harvesting apples; making cider; paring and drying apples for winter; turning the grindstone; banking THE MARCHING YEARS 49 up about the house for winter; gathering butternuts, hickory nuts, beach nuts and filberts. Animal industry: Caring for the young animals, colts, calves, lambs, pigs, chickens and other poultry, as well as puppies and kittens; washing and shearing the sheep; slaugh- tering animals for food; salting and otherwise preserving the meat; making sausage; taking wool to the carding mill and watching the making of rolls for the women folk. Other things being equal, any boy having such a training has a positive lead in the grasp of things over the city boy, who has been deprived of it. Any boy fortunate enough to have such experiences, and having at his side one man with intimate knowledge of the meaning of it all, is, without knowing it, in the midst of a cardinal course in a world uni- versity. But it is by the veriest chance that a boy has such a teacher to help him; and so he is likely to miss the intellectual thrill, and fail to get the real starting point of making his experience consciously educative. Why are non-college men of the intellectual life more efficient in attacking the problems of life than college men not technically educated (if it be true)? 1—More keen in observing cause and effect. 2—Lack of curiosity of the col- legian; lack of desire to know what makes the wheels go round. The academician is full of the things he has learned and remembered. The non-college man of the same age and years of thought has lived his four years working and think- ing in things of the world—its people and their processes of thought and action—so at his twenty-second year he has given twice as much thought to these matters as his neighbor who has at the same age just graduated from a college with a degree. While the collegian has for four years spent his spare time from his studies and recitations (sometimes stealing time from them) in the various social, club, athletic and artistic activities of the college, his neighbor boy has spent much more of his time in home life activities and learning how to 50 THE MARCHING YEARS get on in the world, much less time in social amenities. So at twenty-two the uneducated boy is less elegant, less at home in society than the A.B. neighbor, but can do more effective things. He, maybe, cannot play foot-ball or base-ball or dance as well, but he has handled more tools and is defter with them. A few years after our boy experiences, the educators found out that all boys and some girls, especially the city bred, needed the touch of the tools. Then came manual training schools, where work was done with a few tools and in a narrow range of effort, but with vast benefit to the educational product, being done under expert observation, and being standardized with fixed credit values. The boy on the farm is always unconscious of how much he is being educated; of what ultimate value his growing knowledge and knack may have. But if he is naturally industrious, has a sense of humor, can see beyond his sky- line, and has not been betrayed into despising the small and present things, his days of work are sure to be joyous, and a conscious part of a great building for the future. Other- wise, he has a dimmed vision, and his work is apt to be only a matter of drudgery—perhaps despised at the moment, and waiting for years to be appreciated by him at its real value. The farmer boy of today has, if he is sensible enough to grasp it, a great advantage over those of a former time, in the large amount of valuable literature being constantly issued by the Government through the agricultural and other departments. Good use of such advantages, with a few months each year in school, for the right kind of a boy, is enough to set him on the road toward scholarship, if he can avoid hating his daily toil. But the average farmer boy needs also some starting impulse toward an intellectual life —the stimulation of sorne larger and maturer mind, some book or school experience, that may open his eyes, if only for an hour. For it often happens that the impulse to such a life is sudden, like a new birth religiously; and even a brief THE MARCHING YEARS 51 association with the right sort of man, or the reading of the right kind of a book, perhaps a primer of knowledge, may open for a boy a current of thought that shall be the guiding motive of his whole after life. In my early days on the farm there were few books within the comprehension of members of the family, and mostly not of the best sort. And we did not have the teacher with a vision.* There were too many cheap weekly papers, whose chief attraction was lurid and exciting fiction that absorbed the souls of the children, and dissatisfied many of them with their environment. The district country schools dealt with the few rudiments of learning—really the tools of learning and human intercourse; they taught little about books and literature—nothing that I remember that ever led us into a course of reading of the best books. I read so many of the novels of those cheap publications that at fifteen or younger the point of satiety had been reached; disgust came on, and a vow not to read another bit of fiction. That vow was kept for six or seven years, and was broken only when a friend who had grown up in a bookish family convinced me that "David Copperfield" was a beneficial as well as an enjoyable book. This novel was read with delight, and helped to create a taste for fiction of a wholesome sort, that has fortunately continued. A proportion of husky boys, from reading trashy books of fiction and adventure, or from some instinctive impulse of "One book that I recall vividly was "Papal Conspiracy Exposed," by Rev. Dr. Edward Beecher. This, added to the general feeling in the community on the subject, tended to impress one that the Catholic Church must be or have been amazingly wicked. In my Vermont boyhood Christmas was little observed, as that was regarded as specially a Catholic festival; instead we always made much of Thanksgiving Day, late in November. Another book (that ought to have been burned) was called "Re- markable Events." We boys at eleven to thirteen enjoyed reading it. It was an ingathering of lurid accounts of murders, hangings, prize fights, dark days, total eclipses, etc. Many of them were illustrated by the crudest wood-cuts. The book had prob- ably found its way many years before into the house of my grandparents through some subscription book agent. There were a few great books which were never read or consulted. One was a Bible Dictionary; another was a little book, very old and badly dilapidated, that contained Young's "Night Thoughts on Life, Death and Immortality"; another was a larger and imposing volume of Clark's "Commentaries on the Bible." How these books came into the family is beyond my knowledge. 52 THE MARCHING YEARS world yearning, are seized with a desire to roam. They may run away from home and try wandering for a while. But starvation or some other form of hard knocks usually brings them back soon enough, and with varying degrees of humilia- tion. This impulse might have seized me, but for my natural timidity and the fact that at about the wandering age I was taken to the prairies, a virgin soil of daily adventure and hard work. While we were young boys, and before we could read understandingly, there came into the neighborhood a wonder- ful book. A copy was passed from house to house, and was read with absorbing greed. My mother read it aloud to us, and its effect was instant and profound in a loathing of human slavery, for the book was "Uncle Tom's Cabin." Among the boys who were stirred to the depths by this book, two out of our family circle went to the war against slavery. Both were shot in their first battle—Shiloh—the uncle, John Parker Bagley, dying instantly, the other, my brother Ed- ward, recovering from his wound, to die of exposure and sickness nearly two years later, after having gone unscathed through many later battles. CHAPTER V. SOPHISTICATION. THE process of adjustment of a real country boy to the ways of a city, with its peculiar shades of civilization and habit, is always a curiosity to a mature observer. It is more so if the observer has sufficient detachment to see the evolution in all its humor and pathos, and especially if he has in his boyhood himself been the subject or victim of such an evolution. It is not certain that the evolution is always from a worse to a better moral and spiritual condition; for it often happens that, measured by the larger values of life, the simple ways, emotions and ambitions of some country people are superior to those current in cities. But it is an evolution that the boy who yearns for the city is anxious to make, and he believes he can make it in short order. He is unwilling to admit, even to himself, that the way is long and beset with difficulties. He begins by aping city ways that he thinks are good, and soon or late takes on some of its foibles, and per- haps some of its sins. His first attempts are likely to be crude; if he is aware of this fact, he keeps on trying. He will have a hard enough time at best; and certain bad ways he has fallen into, and the unmeant neglect of his parents, frequently make his transformation a great deal harder. Usually his greatest handicap is his own conceit—his diffidence and bashfulness — which are at bottom always egoistic emotions. He constantly introspects, and yearns to be superior and greater than he is. This is a noble desire, only it leads him while yet a small boy into habits that may harm his entire career. It causes him to parade his own per- sonality and to "show off" in a way demoralizing to himself and offensive to others. [53] 54 THE MARCHING YEARS As he grows from childhood to youth, his diffidence out- side his own home develops more, which leads to other and further troubles. He becomes obsessed by the fear that he may appear awkward and blush with shame, while he is an hourly exhibition of awkwardness. Another fear is that in the process he may make a blunder and become a laughing stock for others—and he is a blunderer incessantly. He may, when among his fellows, make fun of another, but he is in terror of being laughed at in the presence of those whose good opinion he covets. He is fearful he may show some lack of common knowledge that will stamp him as an igno- ramus. In his efforts to avoid this, he becomes reserved and taciturn; or when he does speak he tries to say some wise thing that will do him credit—and often what he says neither does him credit nor helps others. He would never in a burst of confidence say to an acquaint- ance, "I don't know anything about this matter, or how to behave on this occasion. Will you tell me?" Such a confession would reveal his ignorance — which he fancies that he has hidden from those about him—and it would humiliate him. He could never lead another into comfortable conversation, because that would be to forget himself and think of what the other might wish to say, and he could not do that; he is constantly thinking of himself and what he shall say, and whether it is to credit or discredit himself. If he should attempt to talk to a girl he might wish to please, his tongue would probably get dry, and his conver- sation also, the while he would be pulling at his buttons or putting his hands in and out of his pockets several times a minute, in order to escape from his embarrassment—and without succeeding. Once on a time a country boy of sixteen went away from home to school for the first time. It was to a high school in a small city some miles away. He had always lived on the farm, and knew but few people, and they mostly his neigh- bors, good country folk. He was not clothed after the fashion THE MARCHING YEARS 55 of city boys, and he worked for his board in a city family, and a part of the time he slept on a cot with insufficient blankets. When he entered the school he was in a new world of novelty and wonder. He was actually studying the rudiments of Latin. Everything charmed; the schoolhouse, its bell sounding the call to school, the children going to school and from it, and the teachers. He walked on air. Even the chores he did night and morning took on a glamour of romance. He was in a city. The friendly mooing of the cow he fed, watered and milked, was music. In the schoolroom he soon discovered a picture of art and beauty that was unique in his world. On the opposite side of the room, sitting in a group, were half a dozen girls in varied autumnal colors. He had never seen such a sight before. No two of them were alike in voice, in complexion, color of hair or clothes, in the character of their facial ex- pression, or in general personality. There was a variety in the doing of their hair and in their ribbons. To his eyes each one had some peculiar charm; and the group! It must have come out of the clouds. Of course their presence stimulated his ambition to study and be somebody. He studied hard; and what a joy to study! Possibly he was a trifle pompous in recitation, es- pecially if he felt sure that he knew the lesson, or thought the girls might be looking at him. He must, alas, have acted awkward; and his rapture at his discovery of the picture must have betrayed itself to others only too well, as it soon be- trayed him; for, a week or two after school opened, there happened one day a directing event in his life. In the anteroom of the schoolhouse he overheard some girls talking on the other side of a board partition; they were talking about a boy in the school, to whom they had evidently given a sobriquet that spelt awkwardness of several sorts. One of them remarked, as though more curiously than unkindly, that the boy could not keep his eyes off the girls—he was looking at them almost constantly. As he listened it slowly 56 THE MARCHING YEARS dawned upon his mind that it must be he who was thus honored. Then he discovered that the weather had suddenly become very warm, especially about his face and ears. He rushed out of the house and walked away in silence—he walked alone and felt very humble. He was a changed boy from that hour. He did not know for a certainty which girl had changed the weather for him, but he knew after- ward that the revelation was good for his soul; and he was inwardly thankful to that girl. He could not banish his awkwardness at once, if ever, for he could not see it; and he had to guess its character and quality. But thereafter any toploftiness he may have shown was gone, and he knew there were girls in the school only by their voices and by the rustle of the clothes of the more expensively dressed of them as they passed near him. Afterward he often wondered if the girl who revealed him to himself knew she was the perhaps unwitting means of a metamorphosis which they all must have seen. If she made her little speech on purpose to have him hear it—as she probably did—she must have smiled many times at her success. He never knew, and did not need to know. But the event was so determining in his life, that years afterward if he could have identified her, living, he would have made her some thank-offering to show his gratitude for an unspeak- able favor in his boyhood; and if too late for this he would have placed a wreath upon her grave, could he have found it. The country boy undergoing his metamorphosis into city ways is likely to have few close friends; he is probably a trifle austere, aloof, introspective, and tries to fool others by his unmeant bluff, for such it is; and he may try it so diligently as to come to believe in it himself. He would like to have a boy intimate, but he gains nothing in his ambitions from those who are as crude as he is; he would like as an intimate one who is nearly or quite out of his shell, but he rarely can have such, for his pride and diffidence are a bar THE MARCHING YEARS 57 to that sort of frankness that alone would make such intimacy possible. The boy shows his diffidence again when he tries to thank people for something. Psychologically he is afraid he will blush; it is an ordeal to him; nobody knows why it should be, but it is—like asking a girl to marry you. He will blurt out "much obliged" if the occasion is immediate; if it is past or long past, so that he must make an occasion for his thanks, he will put the ordeal off and off, until he forgets it. Later in life he gets over this foolishness, largely by the example of others, and especially of those who are wont to make their friends blush by their ostentatious thanks. The troubles of the youth to a great extent grow out of the bad habits of his childhood, especially the showing-off habit that is so common, and so little understood by parents, and so rarely restrained in any sane way. The fault is really as much with the parents as the children. The boys, full of conceit, on all possible occasions when strangers or company are present, yield to their egotistic inclination to show off; they never do it when alone with the family. They do and say things pompously, and violate many of the proprieties; they put themselves forward, and take and keep the center of the stage in their talk and questions. A minority of their fathers frown on such things, and utter the ancient gag that boys should be seen and not heard. But a majority of them think themselves more modern and humane than their predecessors, and that the boys ought to have a chance. They lament the days of their own repression in childhood; say that their children shall never suffer so; and not only condone these bad habits in their children, but rather encourage them; they think the outlandishness is "cunning," and they tell of their children's exploits in the presence of the children—which always makes matters worse. I well recall, in the old Ver- mont days, a discussion between two men about some of the pranks of a small son of one of them. This one said: "I think we oughten to discourage a boy from bein' cunnin'." 58 THE MARCHING YEARS His boy was an egoistic little imp who needed to be dipped several times daily in a tub of cold water. The conceited, showing-off child, vain of attention and of his own prowess, is likely to be brutal toward whomever and whatever he can dominate, as younger children and animals. There are some cases on record of a brutality of this kind that is positively fiendish. The parents are usually blind to this sort of mis- behavior of their children, and if they do know and appreciate it, they are innocent of any grasp of the egotistic emotion which is always back of it. And without that knowledge they cannot know the great havoc that is sure to come to the life of any boy if the habit continues. It is a thing for wonder that so many men forget their own emotions in boyhood, and never even try to analyze their own earliest psychology. It is just as true that the boy is wholly ignorant of his thraldom to a demoralizing emotion. Probably if you were to try in the most friendly and heart-to- heart way, to make such a boy understand, you would fail. But many of them do come later to know, and then they are both transformed and transfigured. Most often they make the discovery through some accident, or some rebuff at the hands of a stranger, rarely from persuasion of a parent or friend. If one tries, however gently, to tell them of their faults or foibles, they think he fails to understand them, or is an enemy. The impulse of the boy to strut is first cousin to the impulse of the youth and man to talk loud or in bravado, or with little giggles of inane laughter. In each case it is likely to be a trick to avoid breaking down in embarrassment and blushing consciously. Blushing is endurable if we are un- conscious of it, not otherwise—to avoid it we are ready to do any foolish thing. If these foolish habits continue in boys and men. they do so to the peril of their life career. They color the conduct and lessen the success of multitudes of men. And the habits do continue in a large number of persons; no shocks of rebuff or self-discovery or lessons have THE MARCHING YEARS 59 ever broken in on their conceited satisfaction with them- selves as they are. Many boys come to their senses by or before they reach manhood; and many are greatly helped by some one of a few potent and fortunate influences. One of these is to be thrown with other and strange boys in schools and colleges, where by the favor of their fellows they discover themselves, sometimes at the cost of a hazing that takes the nonsense out of them. Another help is to come up against some rebuff or humiliation which hits them full in the face, and gives them a sense of their foundation in sand. A few there are who, when thus hit, never discover it—and they are hopeless, if indeed they are worth saving. The greatest help of all—a real salvation to many a boy —is to fall in with a likable young fellow, who is frank and candid, clean and jolly, not afraid to say he is ignorant of many things, or to ask freely for information about simple things, thus revealing his own ignorance; a fellow who is always friendly and helpful. When a boy has such a friend, he has found his hero, and is saved. He is not only saved from his bad habits; he is beginning to learn one of the greatest of lessons, namely, that only the ignorant or rela- tively ignorant are afraid to say they don't know—and that the wisest are never afraid to say it, because they can afford to say it. Sensitive and bashful boys who have some personal peculiarity or deformity are sure to suffer from it in spirit. I knew a much freckled boy, who habitually breathed through his mouth without knowing it, until at the age of eleven he discovered it with a shock. The freckles were the occasion for many mortifying jokes, but never from any member of the family. There were among the neighbors certain standing jokes about nearly every unusual event or condition that they knew of, and these jokes were repealed whenever they could be made to apply, wholly regardless of the feelings of those hit by them. The jokes made 60 THE MARCHING YEARS conversation, and eased the diffidence of those who told them, especially if a laugh could be evoked. I have known one young person—only one—who was not annoyed by being freckled; that was a girl who was proud of it, because thereby she resembled her mother, whom she adored. If the children could always keep in mind the fact that freckles come only to a clear, white skin, which is coveted by a large part of the human race, it would save them some grief. As to the mouth breathing, the shock came to the boy one day when he was in a factory and much interested in the machinery. A machinist said to him in an undertone that he ought to keep his mouth closed, or flies and dust might get into it. The boy was not slow to grasp the full meaning of the remark, and he turned away instantly to hide his blushes and chagrin. On closing his mouth and breathing wholly through the nose he felt a moderate sensation of smothering. This convinced him that for years he must have been breathing mostly through his mouth; and if that was true, then not only this man had seen it, but everybody who had seen him must have noticed the disfigurement— everybody except his own family, no member of which had ever mentioned the thing to him. The machinist alone was his benefactor, his real neighbor. From that moment the deformity ended. To overcome the mouth-breathing habit constant watch- fulness was necessary for many days; finally a new habit succeeded the old one, and there was never afterward any tendency to relapse. He had a great deal of quiet pleasure in that victory, and he never spoke to anyone about his humiliation or struggle. And probably no one but himself noticed what a change had taken place in his facial ap- pearance—for no one ever mentioned it to him. His family and friends must have seen some change in him, probably without being able to define exactly what it was. THE MARCHING YEARS 61 It is impossible to know whether this was a case of moderate adenoids. There was no dullness of hearing, which often attends adenoids; but the event showed that even a small boy, if sufficiently shocked by ridicule, can by himself overcome a mouth-breathing habit, against a sense of suffo- cation at the beginning. There can be no doubt that many children who are mouth-breathers from small adenoids could overcome the habit if they would try. Few of them ever try, for want of a compelling knowledge and pride. If they do try and succeed, does that discourage the growth of the adenoids? Who knows? In the case of many parents, the wide-open mouth of one of their children is a normal and unavoidable feature, like freckles and mother's marks. Parents often take such things as a matter of course; as they take lisping and stammering. Lisping they regard as some evidence of defect in the organs of speech, and remediless; as a cross to be borne humbly, like a visitation from God. Stammering is a fault of the nervous system, and can be, but rarely is, overcome. Most victims fail to try long enough and in the right way. But lisping is due to no defect of the organs, and is as unnecessary and almost as reprehensible as a dirty face. Any victim can correct it any moment if he will observe how his vocal organs make the sibilant sounds, and how normal people speak them; and will then imitate them—as anyone can. He will see that normal talkers make their sibilants by blowing through their closed front teeth, against which the tongue does not press or even touch; while he makes his by putting his tongue against the upper teeth, making the sound of th instead of s. To correct the fault one needs only the ordinary sense that tells him to seek cover when it rains. CHAPTER VI. EXPANSION. IN Illinois the farm life was interesting, but less so than it seemed in Vermont. I did not have sense enough—the right kind of sense—to see that farming might be an intel- lectual pursuit. The call to the city was strong, and to an intellectual life stronger. Every outward seeming of the city was attractive to me, the streets, the houses, the stores, the public buildings and churches; the people with their more attractive clothes—even the odors of coal smoke that I got a whiff of on approaching the town. To attend a high or higher school in a city was naturally an early ambition. The first experience was in the winter term of 1861—2 in the village of DeKalb. This was a great experience; it was educative and developmental in a high degree, although attended with some hardships, such as doing chores for a family in return for my board. It had certain social situations of embarrass- ment and chagrin, and there was a dearth of money for necessary clothes and incidentals. The studies were Latin, mathematics, English grammar and incidental subjects. With the exception of Latin they were greatly enjoyed. I entered the school in the beginning of September, and remained until the following March, a matter of twenty-five weeks. In the middle of November I went to Chicago for two days to visit my brother and uncle, who were in the volunteer army in Camp Douglas. This camp was just west of Cottage Grove Avenue near Thirty- first Street. The camp life, the drilling and the military thrill produced a great effect on my mind. None of these soldiers, and apparently none of the officers, then had any idea that the war was to be a protracted one. This mental attitude was changed in six months, when a large number of [62] THE MARCHING YEARS 63 the regiment, including my uncle, were lost at the battle of Shiloh.* This was the battle that gave my brother a gunshot wound in the left upper arm, from which he recovered. At the battle of Shiloh, my uncle, Orderly Sergeant Bagley, early in the action was slightly wounded in the arm, and could no longer use his gun. Then he gave himself to the help of the wounded. He was shot through the heart by a sharp- shooter while helping a wounded officer—Lieutenant Crooker —from the field. The bullet that killed Bagley grazed the back of Crooker, who recovered and lived many years afterward. The experiences of that school in DeKalb, although severe, were of signal value to me, both for the learning ac- quired and for the beginnings of a transformation from a crude farmer boy to something different—whether or not to something better. Some of the experiences were hard enough; they were sobering and useful. The next summer there came to me, largely from the need of earning a little money, an ambition to teach school. The only school available for a boy of eighteen was sure to be in a country district, not sought by experienced teachers, but whatever it was, it would furnish an outlet for some pent-up energy; it would be an intellectual effort of a sort; and even its diminutive salary would make it a little less necessary to ask my father for money—which was hard for me, and prob- ably harder for him. A school was found in the neighboring town of Milan, a few miles south of our home, where the trustees were willing to take a youth with nothing to commend him but a county certificate and the commendations of some of his teachers— nothing unless it was a face that appeared to be five years older than it was. The salary was to be twenty dollars a month. The term began November 24, 1862, and was to continue four months. One of his teachers in Malta gave him a few weeks of freshening up in certain studies before he began his ♦April 6, 1862. 64 THE MARCHING YEARS career as a schoolmaster. There was a family living near the school by the name of Downer, with whom he could board —a wife of education and fine spirit, a husband who was a very good man and one of the school trustees, and two charming little children. This family housed, fed and com- forted the teacher. He was to pay $1,635 per week for his board, and was to have a rebate for doing the chores when the farmer was away from home on business, which happened frequently. A few weeks before the beginning of the term he had met in Malta an old farmer of his acquaintance, who lived in the school district where he was to teach. He told the farmer of his engagement for the school; the farmer took a good look at him, and remarked, "You look pretty green to teach that school." He looked green enough, without doubt; he had a fuzzy little beard that a grotesque prejudice against a razor had allowed to grow, and this added to his rusticity. It cannot be denied that the farmer had dampened his spirit, and given him a more serious view of coming responsibilities. There was afterward discovered another reason beside the greenness of the teacher for the old man's misgivings: He had three children in the school, a man-grown son, a daughter twenty-three years old, and a smaller child. The older children were not noted for their refinement. The daughter had light red hair, whitish eyes, and an air of importance. The pupils of the school were found to be of many ages, from seven years upward, and the grades and classes were numerous. Not many classes had fewer than two, nor any one more than eight pupils—and not over twenty pupils, all told. With the many classes the teacher was busy every minute of the school sessions. The work was agreeable, and most of the pupils were earnest and orderly; but before many weeks there appeared vague symptoms of friction with a few of the older ones. The teacher had introduced some exercises, mostly oral, calculated to give a better grasp of the English language. These were novel in character and revolutionary THE MARCHING YEARS 65 to the larger boys and girls, whose whole school life had been along the old and stereotyped methods of study. It is hardly any wonder that they thought the new methods were nonsense, especially when offered by a teacher younger than some of them, who may have presented his innovations with an offensive air of superiority. One day a six-footer boy—son of the old farmer—when it came his turn to do one of the oral exercises, blurted out: "Oh, my God!" His big sister revealed some resentment, but less offensively. The teacher offered no rebuke, but explained that the exercises were in vogue in the most progressive schools in the country, and were solely in the interest of the pupils—and went on with the lesson. The session closed without further incident, and the children went home very quietly, but with furtive glances, as though they expected something to happen. That night the farmer's wife, in whose home the teacher boarded, told him in a kindly way of a rumor that the big boys were planning either to throw him out of the school house, or visit upon him some other humiliation. He natur- ally spent a rather restless night, and went to school next morning with an inquiring, if not an open mind. He could not see how such a plot could brew seriously when he had neither attempted to discipline any of the possible ring- leaders, nor quarreled with them or anybody else. The school as a whole had been singularly orderly, and most of the pupils studious and obedient. That the teaching had been poor was likely enough; but it was probably not worse than the school had had before; and it could not be denied that the teacher earned his salary. At the school house the next morning he tried to act as though nothing had occurred or could occur to mar the course of education going on in that center of learning. The children were playing in the yard when he arrived, but only one of the older pupils was there—the big girl with the red hair and whitish eyes. No one was present when he lifted 66 THE MARCHING YEARS his bell to call the school, and found beneath it a disgusting object, meant to humiliate him. It was an amusing anti- climax of mischief, and greatly relieved his mind. He dis- posed of the thing without observation, rang the bell, and the pupils filed in without a look on any of their faces to suggest that they knew of the episode, except perhaps on that of the big girl, who seemed in an expectant frame of mind, and as though she were disappointed at something. Perhaps it was because the teacher was apparently amused, and went on with the normal work of the school, without rebuking any- body or revealing irritation. I have often thought since, that she may have been entitled to some sympathy for the cowardly desertion by her big brother and perhaps others, who had left her alone to do a foolish thing that they perhaps inspired—and a futile thing at that. There was no trouble in the school after that. In a few days the teacher was stricken with a fever (a contagion that had prevailed in the neighborhood for some days, and had reduced the school attendance), and was kept in bed at home for a month. It was three months before he fully recovered; and another teacher had to be engaged to finish the term. This was the last of his teaching until nearly six years later, when he began to instruct medical students—after his graduation from a medical college. I never knew whether the plot the good woman told of was a very real thing or more of a joke; or whether, if it were a serious matter, her husband may not have quietly put his firm hand upon it in discouragement of any formidable act. The thoughtful kindness of these good Downer people was never forgotten; they were of the salt of the earth. I never saw any of them after going home, sick; but half a century later I traced out and corresponded with the middle-aged man whom I had known as one of the Downer children. Then I had further justification of the high opinion early formed of the family. THE MARCHING YEARS 67 The summer of 1863 was a time of hard work on the farm, with preparations for going to school somewhere in the fall. A large new school house in Sycamore and its locally famous school were attractive. The principal was Mr. A. J. Blan- chard, a middle-aged man, tall, austere, deliberate, and very dignified and firm. He wore a full, bushy beard, except for a shaved upper lip. He had been principal here some years before—had gone away to a distant school, and had just been called back to his old position. He was being mildly lionized in the town. Sycamore was then larger than DeKalb—it is now half as large—which fact was, to a city-seeking youth, an argument in its favor; and there was found a family of good people who would board him for the few chores they had for him to do. He began school with the opening of the term in the new school house, December 21, 1863. He had already spent two weeks in the school at Malta in reviewing his studies, especially his Latin, under an able teacher. The school at Sycamore was superior in many ways, and all the pupils seemed agreeable and smart. There were many fine-looking young girls in the high school room, as fine, without doubt, as those in DeKalb two years before, but they failed to make on the youth so profound an impression; this, however, was not their fault. Principal Blanchard's administration was firm and effec- tive. He was loyal and kind to his teachers and to all pupils, but never soft or trivial; and both the teachers and the school stood in some awe of him. The little teaching he did was quiet, but keen and stimulating. He taught some of the Latin that I pursued to the extent of thirty-two chapters in Caesar. And he gave me a few lessons in Greek, which were distinctly valuable in my after-study. Our school room was presided over by a fine woman assistant, a middle-aged spinster, who was very prim and proper. She was always faultlessly and richly dressed, and had rather too much of an effect of over-refinement to have 68 THE MARCHING YEARS a particle of comradery with the girls; and she did not escape some ridicule at their hands; in this the boys never joined. Moreover, the girls often took advantage of her, which the principal was prompt to repress whenever he knew of it. It is doubtful that she had ever been a real girl—she must have been a very proper young lady directly after her early childhood. One day early in February, when I had gone home to attend the funeral of my brother, it seems that our school room had been left for a few minutes without a teacher or monitor of any sort. The pupils had, constructively if not in terms, been put upon their honor to keep quiet and orderly, and go on with their study. But soon there began a gale of hilarity and fun-making among the girls; one of the bolder among them started it, and several others followed in a mild rough-house. The boys were evidently startled by the suddenness and fury of it all, and they kept still. The presumption is that the principal had a door-crack look into the room before he entered. When he came in there was instant silence, but he had spotted the chief of- fenders. There were half a dozen of them, and all from prominent families in the town; they were among the older pupils, and they were all fine young women. They had merely done what all sorts of people do occasionally—in a crowd impulse they had followed a daring leader into losing their heads and doing collectively what perhaps no one of them would have thought of doing alone. Later in the day the leaders were called to the floor in a squad, and the principal gave each in turn the traditional treatment of feruling the palm of the hand—and he was not tender about it, either. They took their punishment bravely, even stoically. When I returned the next day, the school was the most quiet, orderly and business-like institution that can be imagined; but the air outside seethed with intense gossip and a good deal of indignation at what many regarded as a THE MARCHING YEARS 69 great outrage done to the young women. There was talk of discipline of the principal by the School Board, and of the parents taking the girls out of the school, but neither was done. Some of the patrons of the school who were not hit by the incident said the girls got only what was coming to them, and that the principal was justified. Others declared that corporal punishment in school, and especially a high school, was a return to the barbarism of earlier ages, and should be abolished by law—also that in this case the school master was a brute. A few declared that the trustees did not dare to discipline the principal, even if they would like to. Through it all Blanchard maintained his usual reserve and dignity, as though nothing of consequence had happened; and the school went on better and more efficiently than before. He afterward remained principal of this school continuously for over twenty years. The excitement about the event died out slowly, but it died, and in a few weeks was gone. The air in and out of the school seemed to have been cleared by the explosion, which certainly was not due to the sort of punishment inflicted, but rather to the force of the strong character of the man, and the evident fact that the school was more useful after the event. One circumstance enabled the girls the easier to bear their humiliation: There was a community of suffering; they could comfort and joke each other about it. That misery loves company is a very true adage. Had there been only one or two girls to be singled out for punishment, it might have been felt as a life-long humiliation, but with half a dozen in the same calamity there was a fellowship in suffering that lessened the individual sting. Nor did any of the girls ever complain, so far as the public knew, that their punish- ment was undeserved. I once saw a large part of a great city literally at the mercy of a fire, for there was no water supply for the fire department. All one day people moved out of their houses ahead of the fire, carrying a few of their belongings, clothes 70 THE MARCHING YEARS and household goods, and marched away, they knew not where, except that they were going away from the fire. There were no tears, no lamentations; the people all suffered and lost together, and they saluted and rallied each other about the relative value of the things they had saved. At the end of February, long before the close of the school year, I had to leave and go home for the farm work. This was the end of my schoo1. education, except that in medical colleges. I had given to high school studies here and at DeKalb only about thirty-three weeks, all told—a little less than a school year. After being at home during the spring work I got the consent of my parents to try a career in town, and on May 23, 1864, began work in the postoffice at Sycamore as the sole clerk to the postmaster. I served there until the fall. The postmaster was Chauncey Ellwood. He and I did all the postal work, besides selling stationery and candy. I slept at the office and ate at the Ellwood house. The hours were long, and the office was dingy, impossible to be even fairly ventilated, and my health was poor, with some diges- tive troubles all summer. The salary was twelve dollars a month, with board and washing. Ellwood maintained that the educational value of the experience was nearly pay enough. And the experience was valuable, no doubt—any- way, I tried to think so. For a little while my fancy ran toward the law as a vocation, and I borrowed a copy of Blackstone and tried to read it. But after my day's work was over I was always tired and debilitated, and did not read half a dozen chapters. Once in the summer I felt so tired and dragged out that it was necessary to go home for three days to rest. The post- master was willing, and hired a substitute for the three days, whose pay he afterward deducted from my own, and it absorbed two-thirds of my month's salary. The wonder is that I was not seized with tuberculosis then, rather than two decades and a half later. Perhaps I had it then; who can tell? THE MARCHING YEARS 71 While working there I had a few intellectual diversions; one was attending two, and sometimes three different churches each Sunday; another was helping in a school play at the end of the term in June. I delivered the speech of Marc Antony over the body of Caesar—doing it in an absurdly grandilo- quent style, to make it as ridiculous as possible; in this last particular it was a success. The most valuable intellectual advantage of that year was hearing an address by President Richard Edwards, and a paper by Professor Metcalf, of the State Normal School, at a Teachers' Institute in October. The paper by Metcalf was so scholarly and superior, and was put in such simple and faultless English, that it stands out as one of the inspiring and formative influences for whatever scholarship has ever come to me. I do not remember the title of his paper, or a thing he actually said—his paper dealt with study and scholarship—but there is no question of the general effect on my mind; and that was of a scholar who stated his thesis in refined language; stated it logically, with great felicity in the use of words, without a shadow of extravagance, and with each syllable pronounced with accu- rate distinctness. It was a spoken symphony, never to be forgotten! Another influence of the same sort that came to me during that period of my life and later, was the personality of a cousin of my father's by marriage, Mrs. Abba Willard. She made us brief visits at long intervals, and I once spent a day at her home in Boston. I have preserved her occasional letters and their sometimes enclosed clippings of her fugitive poems and prose writings, and a few copies of these in her own delicate chirography. They all bore evidence of such refinement, scholarship and a delicate sense of humor, as to be a positive help to my slowly growing taste for the more genuine things of life and literature. And her quiet, un- paraded personality was an influence in the same direction, for which I have always been thankful. 72 THE MARCHING YEARS I left the postoffice November 12, 1864, and went to Morris, Illinois, to be a traveling agent for Grundy county of a fire insurance company, insuring mainly farm buildings. My father was reluctant to have me take up any kind of business but farming, and so, I suspect, had little faith in me as an insurance agent. But he fitted me out with an old open buggy and a horse—one of the original cream colored pair—a horse now approaching superannuation. My mother gave me for a lap-robe a reddish checkered woolen blanket that she had woven in her youth out of yarn she had spun and dyed. With my few belongings in a couple of old satchels, I fared forth across the country, stopping for meals and lodgings at farm houses on the way. These families were almost uniformly kind to me on this journey, as on all the later ones made in the many months that followed in pursuit of business, albeit they sometimes embarrassed me by refusing to accept any pay for their favors. I soon found a boarding place at Morris, in a family of good people, ardent Methodists, where I stopped the two days or more each week when not traveling through the country. After some weeks this family moved out of town, and I got another boarding place, this time in the family of a physician by the name of Harper. Here, with some of his books I commenced in my spare time the study of medicine. Here, also, I met a fellow-boarder, Mr. Ormond Stone, a young bank clerk, son of a Methodist clergyman. He was a bright, clean fellow, ambitious and rather aggressively opinionated. When he learned that my parents were Uni- versalists, and that I must be infected with that heresy, he set about correcting my perilous tendencies. We had many discussions on religious and other subjects, and became warm friends. Afterward Stone was a student in astronomy under Pro- fessor Safford at the first University of Chicago; then he became an assistant in the U. S. Naval Observatory in Washington. Later he was the Astronomer of the University THE MARCHING YEARS 73 of Cincinnati, and later still at the University of Virginia, where he served many years, and finally retired to a farm in Virginia on a Carnegie pension. In June, 1866, in Chicago, he introduced me to his parents—who were living there and who entertained me, and who then and afterward were thoughtfully kind to me—and to his younger brother, Mel- ville E., who has since become world famous in the newspaper field, and whose friendship I have had and prized through all the accumulating years. He founded the Chicago Daily News, which became a great success; afterward was a banker, and later the General Manager of the "Associated Press," which grew under his hand to be a great globe-encircling system for the gathering of news and the distribution of it, uncolored and unprejudiced, to its hundreds of member newspapers all over the country. The Harper family were Methodists, and I often attended church with them and Stone. Mrs. H. had serious concern about the salvation of my soul, and urged me to attend revival meetings with her. One evening I accepted and went, telling her that I had a business appointment at 9 o'clock, and must then leave the church. She forgot about this statement, so when I left her pew, she believed it was because of an accusing sense of conviction of sin. This thought she harbored for more than a year, when she told me of it. In Sycamore I had attended the Universalist Church rather regularly. My parents had attended that church whenever they could, from my earliest memory. Always since childhood I have been interested in religious books and observancies; and have profited by attending churches of many denominations and religions, later including the Catholic and Jewish. This must be in part due to my never having been in childhood forced into religious observ- ances of any kind. A few times when little, I did go with my parents to the occasional country church service, but was infinitely bored by sitting and wiggling in irksome silence 74 THE MARCHING YEARS through a service, none of which could be understood or enjoyed, except the singing, which pleased me, and made me wish the whole service could be musical. The music also gave me the joy of rising and stretching my fidgety legs. My parents never required this discipline of me afterward. That was not only the merciful course, but it was the wisest one. What a host of men grew up in the last century in this country to hate and ridicule church-going and religion, being unavoidably set against them by the punishment they suffered in childhood by being compelled to endure rigid and solemn Sunday programs, usually long drawn out! If those old religionists had deliberately planned to discredit their own faith and harm the religious life of their children, they could not have done it more effectively than by the course they took with them. While working in Morris, came my first and only horse swapping experience. My horse was very gentle, but getting old. A farmer had a younger horse he was willing to trade, but it had some slight fault of behavior that I believed could be easily managed. He told me frankly and rather circum- stantially of this fault, but he failed to say that the beast was a fearful halter-puller. He was willing to swap even. We swapped, and I drove the new acquisition home without difficulty. That night or some night soon afterward (May, 1865) the horse—hitched by a neck halter—hanged himself dead, around the inclined edge of a partition between stalls. Then I remembered that my father had often told me never to hitch a horse long, but always short—in a stable or else- where. What a foolish persistent horse! When he pulled his neck around the edge of that partition and began to feel the choking sensation due to pressure on his windpipe, instead of relaxing his pull and getting his breath (like a sensible horse), he pulled the harder, and as he began to slide down from exhaustion the incline of the edge of the THE MARCHING YEARS 75 partition increased the pressure, and soon stopped his breath altogether. Some men are just that way, and quite as foolish under thwarting difficulties. Persistency is good for any man in a good cause; but persistency that cuts off the wind of the man himself—well, some men show their kinship to some horses! CHAPTER VII. EDUCATION. THERE were several reasons why I did not go to college. One must have been the lack of a college atmosphere strong enough to overcome all obstacles. Among all my boy fellows, in the schools I attended and out of them, hardly one is recalled who went to college or was going. And after my professional studies were begun, so low were the requirements for admission to a medical school that there was scarcely a classmate who had even attended a college or the academic department of a university. Boys go to college because, among other reasons, it is the fashion in their family groups. Their fathers or their grand- fathers have been so educated, or their uncles; or some or many of their acquaintances have been, or are going. They are in the atmosphere of college thought and habit; to fail of some sort of a college education may even be thought to disgrace the family. In some cases this atmosphere is created by the fact that a college training seems indispensable or invaluable to the selected life work, and that makes the atmosphere. Again, ambitious parents create it for their children. They wish them to have a college education be- cause it is a highly creditable thing in itself, and because it gives them—and quite properly—a better standing in the community. Other things being equal, it gives them the inside track in the race of business and social life. But often other things are not equal, and so the college fellows sometimes fall down in business pursuits. My own family history was peculiar in the fact that among all my relatives, of my own age and older—except an invalid second cousin, after whom I was named, who wished to attend a college and was never able to—not one ever thought of going to college. They did not live and work [76] THE MARCHING YEARS 77 in an environment that made it seem necessary that they should have a college education, or that their sons should. My father could not see the necessity, nor could he afford the expense. My mother had no particular thought about it, further than the desire that her sons should have any sort or amount of education they wished for, or could take; and that they should always acquit themselves creditably, both in and out of school. After my limited experience in high school study, I did have a desire to go to college. But poor health, lack of robust vigor, frequent attacks of migraine, the state of the family treasury, and a feeling that it was necessary to make my education point toward an early earning power—all these worked against it. So, after a brief toying with Black- stone in 1864, the study of medicine was chosen as the most promising and, withal, most agreeable trail to take. From youth up, my vigor was below that of my brother and of other fellows near my own age. They had larger masses of muscle than I, and could outdo me in every sport that required firm muscles and long endurance. I could not even sit still in one position long without fatigue; my muscles required frequent change of position—frequent shifting of the load. My digestive organs got out of order easily, and this was a positive and continuous handicap. After a protracted fever at eighteen my health was more precarious than ever, and on this account the study of medicine seemed almost a duty. I wished to know more about human physiology and pathology, and the only way to do this effectively was to take up the study in earnest. The study of medicine in that day was superficial enough, but it gave something substantial, and it could and did lead to more thorough study and wider knowledge later on. My college ambition must have been rather theoretic, for my Latin, studied at school, was always disliked, and to look forward to four years of the classics, which seemed of little direct use, was not alluring. The enterprise looked like a 78 THE MARCHING YEARS large price to pay for a college degree. That is not to say it was a large price; it looked that way to the rustic mind. It is true, there were then some scientific college courses with very little or none of the classics, but in academic circles they were almost as unpopular as the complete absence of college training. The few students who took such courses were regarded as lowering the standard of college education, and were frowned upon and generally refused full recognition and fellowship by the other students. After I had taught some years in medical colleges, the Latin that I had early learned, and tried to forget, began to come back to me, and to become a living thing in its vital relation to other languages and to the terminology of science. So did also the little touch of Greek that came at the end of my time in the High School at Sycamore. To those who lament the lack of a college education, as most studious non-college men do, there are some compensa- tions. They usually regard themselves as uneducated men, and so all the rest of their lives they study to make up for their defects, or because they love to study. And they are likely to accumulate quite a body of useful learning. They enjoy the contact with men more learned than themselves; and, since they have no airs of early advantage, they are more avid to learn from others; and every new branch of world study which they take up, whether in connection with their business, from other needs, or from mere love of learn- ing, they enjoy the more because it is taken for its own sake, as well as a duty. I know that many men—some of them learned—who have wished for a college education and failed to get it, feel de- frauded, as they are, of many precious associations that college men have all through life. They sometimes feel this acutely from a possible air of superiority on the part of the elect toward them. But it is usually their own sensitiveness that makes them imagine an air of condescension where it does not exist. College men are mostly good fellows—not THE MARCHING YEARS 79 cads; and they generally measure other men for what they are and are capable of, regardless of the particular road they have traveled in their development. And a non-college man with real attainments and worth will be merely amused at any caddishness on the part of the occasional college man who is greatly impressed with his own brand and breed. The achievements of men with no academic and little school education, the records they have made by the things they have accomplished, may well make us fairly satisfied with Time's great yard-stick that measures men for what they are, what they know, and what they can do. Early in 1865 in Morris, Illinois, I began the study of medicine, reading mornings and evenings in borrowed books. The doctors that I knew best were not learned or scientific, and there was from them little encouragement to go into the study with thoroughness. One friendly practitioner told me confidentially that in order to succeed it was only necessary for a doctor to know enough to be able to appear creditably in a consultation with other physicians. But it was my fortune about that time to meet a scholarly fellow by the name of Allen, who had been a year at the medical school of the University of Michigan, and who gave me a good account of the work done there—also telling me that the fees were very small. This kindled in me an ambition to go to Michi- gan. I went home for the harvesting, and was back in Morris in the fall, and doing mostly office work for a Mr. McBride, who was an agent for several insurance companies, besides being a justice of the peace. This work was more agreeable than my previous insurance business, and gave me more time to study. The office was re-arranged so that a room and desk were at my service, and there came to me visions of a possible career as a business man in this line. I was often sent off to distant towns on the business of the office, and was usually successful on these missions; but no temptation of this or any sort was able now to divert me from a professional career. 80 THE MARCHING YEARS Near the end of June, 1866, I left Morris for good, and went home for the harvest. My job was to rake off the grain, for bundles, from an old-time reaper, and afterward to stack it all, which latter task I now know was done very poorly. In my spare time I read Dalton's book on physiology. Late in September I went to Ann Arbor, paying eight dollars to the State of Michigan and entering the medical class. The course ran from October first to about the middle of March. Money was scarce, rigid economy was imperative, and I joined a small club of students with the arrangement that our landlady would cook for us whatever provisions we bought. The fare was poor, largely of corn meal; the work of the sessions was confining—several didactic lectures each day, and more or less work, first and last, in the chemical laboratory and the anatomy room; also a quiz class among the students several evenings a week. This last I always attended, but usually under physical conditions of great drowsiness and with the acquisition or fixation of very little learning. During the winter I was several times depressed by minor ills, and once was in bed a week with an ulcerated toe, due to chilblain and lowered vitality. There was resulting lymphatic inflammation in the leg and groin. Like most foolish youths of that day, I had worn boots that were too tight for me, and over them in cold days close fitting rubbers, which added to the trouble. With all the discomforts and handicaps, the season was profitable in the knowledge acquired, and in some ideals gained through contact with a faculty of superior men. These men were Drs. Ford, Palmer, Douglas, Sager, Armour, Gunn, Prescott, Cheever and Rose. They had a high order of attainments, and were good teachers where teaching had to be done mostly by lectures to large classes. The class was too large or the time too short to permit the teacher to do any quizzing, thus depriving us of one of the most useful forms of teaching. THE MARCHING YEARS 81 The students were much amused at some of the idiosyn- crasies of the professors. Dr. Gunn, the professor of surgery, was an imposing man; tall, erect, with a reddish beard, which he wore a la Burnside, and which was becoming tinged with gray. His graying hair was very long, and hung in large depending ringlets, made each morning around the moist fingers of his adoring wife. This gave him a fantastic ap- pearance and a reputation for foppishness that he hardly deserved. He was a rapid and elegant operator, and had to his credit at least one striking addition to the art: He dem- onstrated a new rule in dislocation of joints, which was to put the parts in the exact position they occupied at the moment of the injury, when the dislocated part easily slides back into position. The next year he went to Rush College as Professor of Surgery, following Dr. Daniel Brainard, who had died of cholera. Eight years after this time I became a junior colleague of his, and had his friendship and comrade- ship up to the time of his death in the late eighties. Dr. Palmer, the professor of medicine, was a fine teacher, but somewhat given to fads. One of these was an abounding faith in the efficacy of chlorate of potash, which he recom- mended for all sorts of symptoms and in liberal doses—all because it contains a large proportion of oxygen. The drug long ago fell into desuetude, since it was found to be useless as a remedy, and a poison to the kidneys when taken in large doses. Dr. Ford was lame, and walked with a cane. He was a strikingly handsome man, used the most refined language, and was a great teacher. He taught anatomy, and amused us by a few set expressions; for instance, when he was de- scribing an anatomical groove or foramen, he would put a probe in it and say "probe in it." Some irreverent members of the class called him "Old probe in it," but it was a sobri- quet of affection, for everyone loved him. His ideals for the profession were a small fortune to any student who had the sense to imbibe them. 82 THE MARCHING YEARS Dr. Armour, who taught the Institute of Medicine (other- wise the principles of medicine), invariably read his lectures, which therefore might have been expected to seem dull; yet he was a true orator without knowing it, and the enthusiasm for him on the part of the students was boundless. When, before the end of the term, he left to deliver lectures at Long Island College Hospital, the students formed a procession and escorted him to the train. The medical class numbered 300 strong, and averaged rather high in forcefulness and character. Yet very few of them had ever been to a college, and fewer had graduated from one. Some of the college graduates were heard to express regret that in college they were taught so much of the classics, and so little science that would have been helpful in the study of medicine. The winter had for us many advantages outside the cur- riculum. We heard nearly every Sunday afternoon a lecture by the President of the University, Rev. E. O. Haven, afterward a bishop in the Methodist Church. These dis- courses were a labor of love on his part, and they were most inspiring and valuable. They were delivered in the largest hall on the campus, the great law lecture room, which was crowded with students and townspeople. Frequently the lecture was in response to a request, and I recall one such especially, which was in answer to the question, "Is there a God?" It was a most satisfying discussion of the subject, and made a profound impression. The Rev. Mr. Brigham, of the Unitarian Church, had a Bible class that I attended with much profit. He occasion- ally read to us one of his own scholarly essays, of which he had a large bundle, on subjects of great interest to students and scholars. Several distinguished men came to Ann Arbor to lecture in a lyceum course that winter, all of whom we heard. They were Gough, Greeley, Schurz, Theodore Tilton, Wendell Phillips, Fred Douglass, Bayard Taylor and Rev. Robert Collyer. THE MARCHING YEARS 83 By the end of March I was in Chicago attending the summer term in the Chicago Medical College, afterward the Medical Department of the Northwestern University. This was a pleasant relief from the tedium of listening to lectures at Michigan, for there was a small class, and a relatively large amount of clinical teaching. I joined some other impecunious students, who took rooms near the college and boarded themselves.* One of the number was Charles B. Johnson, who has since made an honorable career in the profession, and has published two creditable books, one on his Civil War experiences as a soldier. He was a good fellow, besides being a good cook and a fair dish washer. This club arrangement lasted only a month, when I became the personal student of Edmund Andrews, professor of surgery, and moved into his office at the northeast corner of Monroe and Dearborn Streets, opposite the post- office of that day. Dr. J. S. Sherman, a brilliant young surgeon, was an office associate of Andrews; and on the same floor were Drs. E. L. Holmes, of the Rush faculty, Thomas Bevan and John M. Woodworth, all of blessed memory. I spent many charmed hours with Dr. Bevan. He revealed to me such practical wisdom as I could never have found and recognized in books. He was a man of fine erudition—he had studied medicine in Paris. He was a helpful human philosopher, and immensely stimulating to any young fellow like myself, lately from the farm, with little education and with a world of things to learn about city life and the ways of a profession that touches humanity so intimately. He died while still a young man, and left his son Arthur, to carry on and increase the family fame in medicine, as a professor, first of anatomy and later of surg- ery in Rush College. Woodworth, although young, had been a surgeon in our army during the Civil War, on the staff of General Logan, *The college was then in a two-story brick business building on State Street, the second building south of Twenty-second Street, facing west. 84 THE MARCHING YEARS who became greatly attached to him. Later, on Logan's recommendation, he became the first Surgeon-General of the LT. S. Marine Hospital Service, after its reorganization. He remained Surgeon-General until his death, many years later. I once asked him the basis of Logan's attachment to him. Then he told me a story of their army service. It was the habit of the General to rise early in the morning and ride rapidly for inspection over every part of the camp of his division. The temptation to young staff officers was to sleep as late as possible, while the rule was that his staff should ride with their commander in the morning—and Woodworth was never late. He was punctual in everything. He was a gentleman of great refinement, fastidious in deport- ment and dress—he wore with a military air, a large and elegant army cape instead of an overcoat, and a soft hat. He had a genius for organization which made his selection for the public service a fortunate one. He was the embodi- ment of true friendship, which he showed by unobtrusive acts to those he liked. He was the Demonstrator of Anatomy in the College, and soon after my graduation he invited me to become the Assistant Demonstrator and do most of the practical teaching for a year, after which he would resign, hoping the trustees would elect me to his place. Of course the proffer was promptly accepted, and the first part of the scheme was carried out, somewhat crudely, but as well as possible to me. How, after his resignation, the second part of the plan failed, is described elsewhere. Dr. Holmes was a rare and genuine soul. He had studied eye surgery under the great von Graefe in Europe. He had now a large and exacting practice, but found time to bestow on me a fatherly friendship. Then began an attachment that was to last until his death (as President of Rush College) quite thirty years later. Then I had been his colleague in the faculty for more than twenty years. His was a friend- ship that was true and abiding; he was the only man who THE MARCHING YEARS 85 put tears into his goodby, as (early in 1891) he relieved me indefinitely from college duty and sent me off to California, as he thought, to die. I spent ten weeks of my summer vacation (1867) at home for the harvest; made a short visit to Morris in the last days of September, and was back in the office of my friend at the opening of the college term, the first of October. I never went back to Malta to live after that. Before many months my father sold the farm, and I did not see it again for over a third of a century; by that time its buildings were extremely dilapidated—although its fields were more fertile than ever—and I did not care to see it again. The course at the college was pleasant and uneventful, and I went through it in better health and courage. I assisted Andrews and Sherman in much of their surgery— and tried to collect their bills, often succeeding, although it was a disagreeable task. When in later years it became necessary to get money thus out of my own bills, it was quite as irksome. In November, at the suggestion of Dr. Andrews, I agreed to try, in time borrowed from my study, to reproduce in plaster the missing bones (about one-third in number) of two mastodon skeletons that had been found buried deep in the earth near Fort Wayne, Indiana, and been given to the young and struggling Chicago Academy of Sciences. The Academy was then erecting a fireproof museum building to house its collection, at the rear of St. Paul's Universalist Church, on the northwest corner of Wabash Avenue and Van Buren Street. Dr. Andrews took great interest in the Academy, and all its friends were anxious to have the skeletons mounted when the new building should be finished, the following summer. The occasion was to be made notable by the meeting in Chicago at that time, of the "American Association for the Advancement of Science." The Academy had a temporary laboratory, on the top floor of the building 86 THE MARCHING YEARS on the northwest corner of Randolph and La Salle Streets.* There I got together modeling clay, plaster of Paris and various tools, and went to work. Leonard W. Volk, the eminent sculptor, gave me some suggestions, and Dr. Andrews was my constant counselor. I worked at it faithfully at convenient times, afternoons and evenings mostly. From my diary, it appears that I must have spent an aggregate of about two hundred hours on the task. When the skeletons were set up, and the plaster painted the dark brownish color of the earth-stained bones, the casual visitor to the museum failed to distinguish the real bones from the counterfeits. At the end of the season I was elected a member of the Academy, and later became its recorder (or recording secre- tary), continuing in that capacity for many years. Dr. Wm. Stimson was then the curator and scientific head of the institution, and a fine man for the place. The chief financial angel of the Academy was Mr. George C. Walker, a staunch friend of mine and a good citizen who, years afterward, presented to the University of Chicago the "Walker Museum" building, f Mr. E. W. Blatchford was a friend of the Acad- emy, and gave it much material support. Both these men were on its Board of Trustees. The great fire of 1871 destroyed this "fireproof" building of ours and all its contents. I searched the ruins afterward, and found a fragment of the cancellated structure of one of the large mastodon bones. That was all there was left of my skeletons and my labor. It was a melancholy loss, but the labor had paid for itself by the doing. The faculty of the Chicago Medical College contained some notable men, pioneers in a new plan in the teaching of medicine. That plan was the beginning of the better peda- gogic methods of later years in this country. The leaders of the faculty had a few years before seceded from the Rush *There was a great audience hall in this building, called Metropolitan Hall. Here it was, as I recall, where I heard Charles Sumner deliver his lecture entitled, "Are We a Nation?" fMr. Julius Rosenwald has in later years made a noble addition to this building. THE MARCHING YEARS 87 faculty, and founded the new college because Rush refused to adopt their new idea. This idea was that instead of having two required courses of lectures, which should be repetitions of each other, as they had always been, the students should be graded, the elementary branches of anatomy, physiology, chemistry, etc., being taught in the first year, and the practical ones of surgery, practice of medicine, etc., in the second; so "the graded course of instruction" became the slogan of the new college. It was logical and good, as far as it went, but wholly inadequate because it added nothing to the things taught. Moreover, it was later something of a handicap, for the new plan seemed to some collegians to be the acme of things to be attained, instead of a very small first step toward the great educational development that was needed and bound to come—and that has come. On March 4, 1868, I received my diploma of graduation as Doctor of Medicine. Ten years later Rush College gave me the degree of M.D. ad eundem. In that faculty of the Chicago College there were, for their day and generation, several strong men. Davis, Andrews, Johnson, Jewell, Hollister, Isham and Patterson are especially remembered. Isham was one of the most satisfying lecturers on surgery that I heard in those days; Andrews was a great philosopher and world student; Johnson was an eloquent lecturer, a good practitioner and refined gentleman. Jewell was a tireless worker; he tried to make us all work as hard as he did—he scorned vacations, and he died of consumption not many years afterward. Patterson taught mental diseases and legal medicine—and it would be hard to imagine a better didactic teacher. Hollister was a fine teacher and man, and was the friend of us all. Dr. Nathan S. Davis, the president of the College and its chief professor of medicine, was the dominating personality of the faculty. He was a great spirit, a great organizer, philosopher, practitioner and orator. He took life in deep seriousness; he rarely smiled, more rarely laughed aloud. He 88 THE MARCHING YEARS was serious in his lecturing, and very serious with his patients, of whom he had a great number; but he was always genial and helpful to other doctors, especially the younger ones, as I afterward had many occasions to know. Early in his professional life he founded the American Medical Association, that has become a great benefit to the profession and the public. He induced the Association in the early eighties to found and maintain a weekly journal— Journal of the American Medical Association—and he was its first editor. The first issue was dated July 14, 1883. It immediately gave dignity to the Association; in successive hands it has grown to a large size and has attained an enor- mous circulation; and its usefulness has grown faster than its age and its circulation. Dr. Davis was largely responsible for the early adoption by the Association of a "Code of Medical Ethics." This is one of the highest expressions of human ethics, of the prin- ciples of correct conduct, ever stated in words. Although this instrument was supplemented later by a shorter one called the "Principles of Medical Ethics," it could not super- sede the original, which is matchless. At a still later time a very necessary new rule or principle was added, which absolves the physician from his usually inviolable respect for the confidences of his patient, when the latter is about to marry an innocent person, to whom he is nearly certain to transmit an infectious disease. Then the physician is justified in taking steps to prevent the marriage. The reasoning of Dr. Davis about the sick, about human life and conduct, was masterful—and he was a lifelong, implacable enemy of alcohol in every form and for any pur- pose. His fault as a teacher was in placing too much reliance on drugs and too little on the influence of good regimen and hygiene and the curing power of the normal forces of the body. His teaching was extremely valuable in most ways, but too many of his students got the habit of prescribing drugs and rarely giving directions for management. Many THE MARCHING YEARS 89 of them—myself among others—spent years in evolving out of that bad habit. Perhaps later my pendulum in prescribing and teaching swung to the opposite extreme, for after lecturing one day against the prevalent habit of over-drugging the sick, one of the smart students sent down to me a note saying, "Do you really believe in the value of any drug?" My faith in a few drugs was never lost, but I was trying to think, and trying to lead students to think, what would probably happen to a patient (under initial study) if nothing was done for him but to protect him with good hygiene, good care and rest. The unavoidable conclusion was that in more than ninety- five per cent of cases recovery would happen. CHAPTER VIII. AN INDISPENSABLE STUDY. THE fact that medical students must, when under proper instruction, dissect the human body, is usually hazy in the casual lay mind; is often spoken of under the breath; and is doubted by many persons of superficial minds who are wont to take the world about them for granted. That a person competent to treat and operate on the sick human body must have had practical study of anatomy, never occurs to half the people; hence it is not strange that many good souls should think it horrid or sacrilegious, and that the procurement of bodies for dissection seems an outrage on human rights and the sanctity of the dead. Not only is it indispensable that every practitioner shall have had this study, in order to be competent, but for this purpose bodies have, until recent time, usually had to be procured in illegal or unlegal ways. As from my graduation in medicine it fell to my lot to teach anatomy for two years, and sometimes, then and later, to be concerned in the procurement of material for study, a record is here made of some of these experiences. In the spring of 1868 Dr. Charles T. Parkes was graduated from Rush as I was from the Chicago College. He was soon appointed Demonstrator of Anatomy in his Alma Mater, and I was made Assistant Demonstrator in mine. Dr. John M. Woodworth was the Demonstrator of record, and my chief. He was one of the finest gentlemen I was ever asso- ciated with; but he was fastidious, and hated the program of daily teaching in a practical-anatomy room; it was too untidy and malodorous—besides, he was diffident with students. Parkes was a man of great force and a fine anatomist. He afterward became a superior surgeon; and died Professor [90] THE MARCHING YEARS 91 of Surgery in his Alma Mater.* He was my colleague and friend during the last fifteen years of his life. He began his work as Demonstrator with enthusiasm, and prepared for the next college session. One of his most important and delicate duties was to supply material for dissection. Up to that time, and for years afterward, substantially all cadavers for American medical schools were procured in some illicit way. In many of the states it was a crime to procure bodies, and it was an offense against the law to practice without a knowledge of anatomy that dissection alone can give. In our state they could be had only from the Potter's Field or, with daring recklessness, from other cemeteries—or finally by some secret pecuniary arrangement with public officials for the unclaimed bodies from almshouses and prisons. In the summer of 1868 Parkes and Woodworth agreed that the former should procure all the material for both colleges, and assign it to them according to their respective numbers of students. Parkes made a secret arrangement with the county undertaker; and we were to share all expenses in proportion to material used. For a time after the college term began all seemed to go well, but later there was complaint among our students of shortage of material. Some of them visited friends in the rooms of the other college, and reported that they had found there an abundance of good subjects, while ours were few and poor for study. Woodworth made gentle complaint to Parkes, was told that we were getting a square deal, and that we would have to be patient. But matters grew worse rather than better, and it finally became evident that we must act for ourselves or lose our reputation. It was a disagreeable business to tackle; and as my chief had, to my benefit and pleasure, given me all the demonstrating to do, he invited me to assume this task also. He gave me a free hand and no instructions—and did not care to know my plans. He told me in detail of the secret trade Parkes had *In the spring of 1891. 92 THE MARCHING YEARS with the county undertaker, through whom all the material was being secured. This was the way of it: The bodies were put in boxes and assembled in a large vault in an old and mostly vacated cemetery, that had been added to the south end of Lincoln Park. (The vault was nearly the last evidence of the cemetery to disappear.) When a wagon load of boxes had accumulated, the undertaker notified the county inspec- tor to go, late at night, and inspect them, and give him a permit to take them to Jefferson* at daylight the next morning and bury them in the paupers' cemetery. The inspector was an official appointed by the County Board to watch the undertaker and prevent any irregular schemes for his own profit. The Board was jealous of its own and the undertaker's public virtue. Between the visit of the inspector and daylight there was time for various manipula- tions. A bag of sand was usually the only thing buried in each box—if even the box was buried. The undertaker was a man of caution as well as acumen, and in order to avoid any possible hitch in the arrangements he always himself made a preliminary inspection before calling the public inspector. Once when he made such an inspec- tion he found to his amazement that one of the boxes was empty. If the inspector discovered this the undertaker would probably lose his job, and with it his irregular profits. In fear and anger he hurried to Parkes with the fact of the empty box, and accused him of having allowed his man, in violation of the compact, to steal its contents. Parkes of course denied it, but the man was both unyielding and furious; he said there were only two keys to the vault, of which Parkes had one and he himself the other, and that he knew well that his key had not been near the vault, and therefore the other key must have been used—and more talk and much threatening. Parkes saw that it was useless to protest, and told him that it should be made right. The only way to do ♦Jefferson was some miles northwest of the city; later to be incorporated into the city. THE MARCHING YEARS 93 this was to send men to the Potter's Field in Jefferson, dig up a cadaver through four feet of frozen earth, and bring it back and put it into the empty box before the inspection— all of which was promptly done. Whether the undertaker was ever convinced that Parkes had told him the truth about the affair was never learned. But it was his own precious key that opened the vault for the theft. A young bearded anatomist who looked ministerially honest had visited the undertaker's place one evening after the proprietor had gone home, and had talked in an extremely friendly way with the Scandinavian helper who had been left in charge. Under a promise to return it early the next morning and to remember the man for his kindness, the key was borrowed. The man said, "Aif you don't get that key back here by seven o'clock tomorror mornin' I'll lose my yob." The key was there on time by the hand that had borrowed it, and the man received two dollars with a smile of satisfaction that showed he had probably not expected more. The anatomist had, the evening before, reconnoitered Lincoln Park, and he now sent a trusted man with the key, and instructions to get everything he found in the vault, and take it to a barn in the rear of a drug store on West Lake Street. * The man found only one specimen in the vault that was fit for study, and he brought that away, covered with a gunny sack and folded in a barrel. After making his promise good to his Scandinavian friend, the anatomist rode with an ex- pressman and the barrel to the college, four miles away. The express wagon was a rickety affair, and he rode with constant fear that the thing would break down. To add to this peril the cover on the barrel—an inverted, lidless box, held with poorly nailed cleats—was shaken loose, and he had to hold it in its place manually during the rest of the journey. *This was the store of Dr. J. S. Hunt, a friend whose former home had been Syca- more. I knew his father and brother there. 94 THE MARCHING YEARS And the curiosity of the driver as to the contents of the barrel had to be appeased. Dr. Parkes promptly charged Woodworth with what he called a despicable trick, and the latter disavowed any part in the affair—in which he was literally if not constructively justified. Afterward, on my casually meeting Parkes, he charged me with the conspiracy—in a profusion of colorful verbal expletives. The only response made to him was to the effect that I refused to discuss this or any other bygones, but that if we got a square deal thereafter there would probably be no more trouble. And we had a square deal from that time on. One quandary was never answered—why the undertaker's man took the risk of secretly loaning the key (the importance of which he must have known) to an utter stranger, on no promise of any definite reward. The fact of the awful and unintended practical joke, in connection with the frozen earth, leaked out through a student who was in the office of Dr. Parkes; and for prudential reasons I never afterward referred to it in the presence of the latter. Years afterward, when I was on the teaching staff of Rush, a law was passed by the legislature permitting alms- houses, prisons and hospitals to turn over their unclaimed dead to medical colleges within the State. This of course meant some official graft, which the colleges knew they had to stand, with or without the law. When the law was passed we thought all our troubles about anatomical material were over. And they were, until some members of the County Board fell out with the undertaker because, as was hinted, they failed to get their share of the rake-off. They forbade any further deliveries of subjects to anybody under any circumstances. Then the colleges were confronted with a most desperate situation; they were substantially compelled to buy material at fabulous prices from reckless people, who did some scandalous things to procure it; and some of these THE MARCHING YEARS 95 people were medical students—more was the pity.* This state of things went on for two years or more before an aroused public sentiment throughout the State compelled the legis- lature to make the law compulsory instead of permissive. This permanently ended the trouble and put a stop to the heartrending outrages against decency. During this time of defiance by the county authorities they guarded the unclaimed dead with intense scruple, and tried to have them buried and stay buried. Toward the end of this period, Dr. Strong, the Demonstrator of Rush, came to me in midwinter in great distress, and begged for help in procuring material. He had been to Dr. Parkes, then Pro- fessor of Anatomy, for advice and direction. Parkes had declined either to advise or direct him—naturally fearing to be involved personally in a risk that properly belonged to the Demonstrator. There was at that time a warm friend of mine at Dunning, an assistant physician to the County Poorhouse and Insane Asylum, who had long desired to do me a favor. He was asked now to help Strong in any way he could, without involving himself in trouble. He promptly called to his aid a close friend of his, the most prominent man in that part of the town, an elderly, staid citizen who was anxious to do him a favor, and who had not lost the love of adventure of his youth. Together they soon brought results. A curious thing happened. The unclaimed bodies were then being gathered in an old smokehouse near the Asylum until a wagon load had accumulated, when they were all supposed to be buried at one time. The smokehouse was not merely kept locked; it was guarded by a special watchman who was on duty every night. But one morning it was found that some half dozen bodies which were there the night before had disappeared. The county authorities were furious, and at once started an inquisition. The watchman was put *One of the students, the lesser of two offenders, went to the penitentiary for a year; while his pal and the greater offender ran away, and afterward committed suicide. 96 THE MARCHING YEARS upon the rack, and swore that he had been at his post every minute during the night, and saw nobody. One policeman on Milwaukee Avenue testified that in the morning twilight he had seen a team, hitched to bob-sleds carrying a wagon box filled with hay, and with two men on the seat, which passed down the avenue toward the city. He thought it was merely a farmer going to town on normal business. This was all the County Board ever discovered about the theft. The poor watchman was discharged, of course. His con- duct was never explained to the inquisition. He was an honest old fellow who tried to tell the truth; but he forgot to state that, at near midnight, the kind apothecary had come out and said, "Mike, you'll freeze; come into the drug room and get warm"; that he came in, and that this good friend had treated him to a toddy; that he drank the toddy and, after warming himself and swapping stories with the apothe- cary, got up to go back to his duty, when the friend enter- tained him further with conversation and another toddy. Mike's warming inside and out kept him there more than half an hour, enough time for two husky men to hide several objects in a near-by barn. So when Mike came back to his duty the smokehouse was locked, and his beat was waiting for him, apparently as he had left it. CHAPTER IX. TEACHING MEDICINE. I BEGAN teaching medical students the fall after my graduation, having been appointed Assistant Demonstra- tor of Anatomy in my Alma Mater. Dr. Woodworth was the Demonstrator, but he hated the business of teaching in the anatomy room—he had asked for my appointment—and I did all that work, none too well, certainly, throughout the college year of 1868-9. The study and attention necessary to this, as well as the doing of it, were of great advantage to me, and the work itself was fascinating. It was during this season that my search for dissecting material occurred, which for a time strained my relations with my late friend Dr. Parkes, as described elsewhere in this narrative. At the end of the year Dr. Woodworth resigned, and Dr. Thos. Bond was appointed in his place. In that period of my career my ambitions were large. I had hoped to succeed Dr. Woodworth as Demonstrator, but the college authorities evidently knew some of my limitations, and probably felt that in professional Chicago I was a good deal of an experi- ment—which was true. Bond was a good fellow; older by some years than I, both in age and in the profession; was highly connected socially; was married and becoming estab- lished in practice. A year or two later I was a candidate for the chair of Materia Medica that was then vacant, and suffered some wholesome grief when it went to another. But the other was my classmate and lifelong friend, Wm. E. Quine, a gentleman of refinement and character, and an orator born. He has had an enviable career as a teacher and physician. He always preferred to lecture didactically, which has seemed curious to me, who have from the beginning preferred the clinical side. No professional brother [97] 98 THE MARCHING YEARS of his was more glad than I of his early promotion, as none knew better his sterling qualities. My own disappointments did me good; they taught me that probably I was not yet fit for anything better. There was a new Professor of Anatomy, Dr. Boyd, who had come up from Quincy, Illinois, and he made me his assistant, to help him in dissections and to quiz the class in anatomy. This was a most important work for me; for it led to the dis- covery of the great educational value and spur to thought, of an intense searching quiz of a class of students; it confirmed in me then a habit of quizzing that continued through all my teaching years, often to the worry but sure benefit of all my students; and usually to my satisfaction—though sometimes to my grief. In the following year, 1870, Dr. Mary Thompson, who had a little hospital for women and children on the North Side, together with numerous friends of hers—both men and women—determined to establish a Woman's Medical College, since women were not admitted to either of the existing colleges. I was asked to take a chair in its faculty, and selected that of pathology. This relation continued three years with pleasure on my part and apparent satisfaction to the institution. The most attentive, business-like and serious minded medical students I ever taught were women. Women did not then, nor have they since, gone into medicine except with serious purpose. Men enter it with all shades of purpose, from serious to the most trivial. In 1872 Rush College decided to have a reorganized and enlarged spring faculty and a full course of instruction for about three months, beginning soon after the Com- mencement, early in the spring of each year. A less formid- able spring course had been going on for some time. I was asked to apply for the chair of the Practice of Medicine, and was told that it would be necessary to lecture competitively before the faculty and students. This I did, and was awarded the place. There was only one other competitor, and to THE MARCHING YEARS 99 satisfy the faculty we had to lecture two evenings.* I gave the address f at the opening of the next spring course of lectures in the temporary college building "under the side- walk," and there all our lectures were given until the summer of 1876, inclusive, continuing afterward in the new college building, which was first occupied in the fall of that year. Thus began an association that has continued to the hour these lines are penned; an association that has brought me into close personal relations with some of the choicest souls in all the world, and has endowed my life with professional, social and spiritual joys that cannot be measured in words. In 1877 my weekly clinic on general medicine was begun and continued as a permanent institution. I began to teach in the regular winter term in 1882, and taught successively and variously hygiene, pathology, clinical medicine, physical diagnosis and general medicine, t From 1873 to 1905, inclusive, I lectured every year except in 1891-2, when I was expatriated to California with tubercu- losis. Partially recovered, I came back in the autumn of 1893 and lectured a few weeks. This service was thereafter repeated every fall up to and including 1905. In the begin- ning of 1906, business interests in Mexico were engrossing my attention very much—interests that I was unwilling to neglect. For that reason the lecturing in the college was not resumed, but my interest in the institution never ceased or lessened. In 1900 I tendered my resignation as a professor in the college. This step had been long contemplated, as some of my colleagues knew, and had been delayed at their request. ♦December 26 and 30, 1872. fMarch 5, 1873. JMy titles in Rush College were successively: "Lecturer on the Theory and Prin- ciples of Medicine" (1873); "Lecturer on the Principles and Practice of Medicine" (1876); "Adjunct Professor of the Principles and Practice of Medicine" (1881); "Pro- fessor of Hygiene and Adjunct," etc. (1882); Professor of Pathology and Adjunct," etc. (1886); "Professor of Clinical Medicine and Physical Diagnosis" (1889); "Professor of Medicine" (1898) (this last was after the affiliation with the University of Chicago); and "Emeritus Professor of Medicine" (1900) (this last after I tried to retire from the college and was not allowed to). 100 THE MARCHING YEARS But the college had been for two years in affiliation with the University of Chicago, and university methods and smaller classes at lectures had been introduced. The arrangement was apparently working well, the faculty had been augmented and a larger career was ahead for the institution. It seemed to me that I could with good taste and propriety drop out; so I wrote my letter of resignation without consulting any- body. The college accepted my resignation by making me Emeritus Professor; and my name was kept on the list with a request to lecture on any subject at any time, as long as I cared to. It is a safe statement that of all the kinds of work I have ever done, teaching medicine has been the most enjoyable. The didactic teaching was pleasant, but not so much so as the clinical. I would rather give a clinic on medicine—a study of a disease with a case of it before us—to a class of critical, inquiring students, present by their own desire, than do any other piece of work in all my experience. My habit in didactic lecturing was to spend the first ten minutes of the hour in quizzing a few students on the subject of a previous lecture, making records of their answers, to be used in my final reckoning with them. More or less quizzing was also done regularly in the clinics. It was early discovered that I had an unenviable reputation among the students for severity in these quizzes. The quizzing was not meant to be severe, but only helpful in the process of learning, and especially in the art of close and critical observation. It is, however, true that, when a student's answer needed explana- tion or elaboration (as evidence that he had not guessed it) he was allowed, by a few kindly questions, to make his case solid. But the reputation was unpleasant, and would have been more so if it had not been true that this sort of quizzing is one of the most effective methods of teaching, and if, as the years came along, a lot of practicing graduates had not come THE MARCHING YEARS 101 back to say how much advantage they were conscious of having derived from the quizzing they had received from me while in the college. In the presence of a large class of his fellows, it is small wonder the youth thus interrogated was often embarrassed, especially if he thought he was being cornered. One student who had just been dismayed by such an experience said in despair to a seat neighbor: "That man would quiz the devil on sulphur, and corner him." Nor was my reputation any better in final written exami- nations. The questions seemed to the students to be very difficult, but they were not. There were never any "catch questions," which are nearly always unfair; but some of the usual half dozen were so framed as to test the capacity of the student to think and reason—they could not be answered by simply remembering. Once a notice appeared on the hall blackboard to the effect that I would give at a certain hour the next day a final examination to the senior class. An hour after the exercise was over a student had written under the notice: "He did give it," underscoring the "did." An hour later, another and less reverent student had written under all, in red chalk, "Yes, you are damned right, he did." This teaching had to be done in the midst of the exacting demands of a general practice, and sometimes under pressure of official duties for the city of Chicago, which lasted seven years, three on the School Board and four on the Board of Election Commissioners. My practice in the early years was extremely small, but was during many of the later years a large one, much of it for the poor, who could pay only small fees or none at all. I once had a colleague who boasted that he never had any non-paying patients on his list—which I told the man he ought to be ashamed to say, if it were true. For every normal-hearted physician unavoidably has people on his list who cannot pay at the time of the services, or ever. My list of such cases was always large. Many of them were people who had employed and paid me in my days of small 102 THE MARCHING YEARS things, and whom I would serve, pay or no pay; many were struggling people of refinement and worth, caught by material misfortunes, whom it was always a pleasure to serve. For several years many hours of my time each week were given to the poor in the Central Free Dispensary—usually in the presence of students, for whom it was a continuing clinic. Likewise for many years a large amount of time was given to hospital work in the Cook County and the Presbyterian hospitals. This labor was always a pleasure, and valuable for teaching, as well as for equipment professionally—yet it took nervous energy as well as time. The methods of teaching doctors in the olden time, half a century or more ago, were mostly by didactic lectures nearly an hour long, three or four each day in close succession. There was very little in the way of illustration, things shown or done to aid the memory, except in the chemical laboratory and the anatomy room. It was a monotonous business, tiresome to body and mind—a memory-goading process.* Two courses of lectures of three or four months each (usually the same lectures repeated) were required for gradua- tion, and the student had to present a letter from a practi- tioner of medicine, presumably in good standing, to the effect that he had been studying medicine at least three years prior to his graduation. (Sometimes students gave letters from men who themselves had never been graduated from even one of the cheap schools.) Few or no questions were asked of the student, on admission, as to his general education, whether he had attended school, high school or college—or whether he could even read and write. Most of the medical schools were called "proprietary," since their trustees were senior members of the faculty, and any profits derived from fees were divided among the latter. In many of the medical colleges, so-called, the teaching was less practical than the teaching of trades to apprentices, *Some recent experimental studies have shown that only ten per cent of things taught by words are remembered, while of things perceived by the eye thirty per cent are remembered. THE MARCHING YEARS 103 for these were at least required not only to handle the tools of their craft, but to become by practice expert with them. As the years came along, clinical studies, clinics in the colleges, and laboratory exercises of many sorts gradually came into vogue in response to a growing public sentiment, a belief, both in the profession and out of it, that medical education averaged altogether too low. In response to the same influence many of the proprietary schools were gradually driven into union with universities or with other weak colleges, to make stronger ones, and so afford more laboratories and clinical advantages; and more and much better teaching. Many of the weaker schools ceased to exist. More serious conditions began to be required for admis- sion to medical schools, easy conditions at first, which progressively grew more severe until some college work, largely along scientific lines (usually at least two years of it), came finally to be a fixed requirement in every first-class school in the country. This progress in medical teaching was hastened by the legislatures of many of the states, which passed laws fixing conditions of admission to practice, some states making them extremely severe. As a result of all this progress, medical incompetence and quackery have been much reduced—but only reduced, not abolished. Perhaps they never can be wholly done away with, owing to the mental tendency on the part of many simple minds to believe in the things that quacks promise, and to think that the prosecution of a professional mountebank is unfair. Through all the years of improvement in medical teaching, the credit for the progress made is largely due to the teachers themselves—especially the junior teachers, who were more often fired with the progressive spirit—aided by educators in general; they together aroused a wholesome public senti- ment that has helped. The progress has been more or less of a fight, because of the several sects of so-called healers who have had little difficulty in convincing some sections of 104 THE MARCHING YEARS the public, and always some legislators, that the true art of healing comes by intuition to certain persons, or comes direct from God, and not through learning, patient investi- gation and experience. But there has been some advantage in such opposition, for it has spurred on scientific research and thoroughness to a point that, half a century ago, had not entered the vision of reformers as among the possibilities. This progress has been a greater and more beneficent boon to the people as a whole than they know, or can well know, for it has done two things that are the chief purpose and duty of the profession: It has made attacks of sickness less painful and long; and it has lengthened the average span of human life. A volume of amusing history could be related of the old time medical schools, and some of it would seem the more curious to those doctors who have no memory of it themselves. Some of the story shows the unsophistication, the mental and spiritual innocence, of the students; some of it reveals their acumen, for they were not fools, if they did come mostly from the farms and shops, with little preliminary schooling; and they sometimes revealed a shrewdness that surprised the classicists. The experiences of students then were altogether different from tfiose of today. There was a dearth of practical things in the teaching; things for the learners to do in the learning. There was some slight compensation in the differing person- alities, ways of saying and doing things, among the several members of the faculty. In the lectures they frequently con- tradicted each other, teaching somewhat conflicting doc- trines, to the confusion of students who had read so little and heard so little of men's opinions on debatable questions as not to know that in medicine there must be many such questions. The students metaphorically dissected each teacher in his ways, opinions and character. This was a diversion from the monotony of lectures, and it helped. It was especially THE MARCHING YEARS 105 the case if there was something peculiar about the teacher or his teaching; if he was elegant or awkward, or used good, bad or bizarre language (only many of the students were unable to distinguish between good and bizarre language); or if he told stories and jokes to relieve the tedium of his talk, as one wise and venerable professor in the old Rush College always did. If there was a large class of young men crowded together in a steep amphitheatre, men who met there day after day and were not dominated by some restraining influence, and if they were kept waiting long for the lecturer to appear, they often broke into song. The favorite was "John Brown's Body," in the familiar tune to which the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" is usually sung. When sung by two hundred or more men it was rather grand music, and it always filled the time, and worked off some surplus energy. But if no- body started the singing, perhaps a couple of fellows sitting back of the first or second row of seats might reach down in front of them and lay hold of some selected victim and lift him bodily, and pass him up to those sitting back of them, who in turn would pass him to others, till he might land on the topmost seat, if he were not specially vigorous or an expert wriggler or scrapper. Sometimes his clothing would be badly torn, and some seats might be broken, but that would not matter to the participants. However normally demure and decorous the men on the successive rows of seats might be, there were nearly always some who could not resist taking a part in the scrimmage the moment it began. The performance was familiarly known as passing up. These things often happened in certain schools, and almost never in others where the conditions were apparently the same, and the reason was not easy to tell. The explanation of them must probably be found in several circumstances. One is the pent-up energy of a lot of young men, sitting still and listening almost continuously for hours each day, and having too little exercise. Another is the lack of things to 106 THE MARCHING YEARS do by themselves that they must record and be judged by, like work in a laboratory or a hospital. Something must be charged to numbers—large groups take impulsive tangents more often than small ones. Aggravation at a tardy lec- turer, and the demoralizing effect on some of idleness, even of short duration, count for something; so may also the presence of a few fellows with no bad motives, but with a spirit of pure mischief, and maybe an itching to display their daring among their comrades, as egotistic children often do. The very fashion in mischief is a temptation to start some of it, like the fashions in clothes and slang. Dissatisfaction with the school might lead certain minds to do mischief as a protest, while pure love of adventure is always present and must account for a lot of fireworks, first and last. Some critics insist that lack of preliminary education and want of essential refinement of character must be mostly responsible for the explosions, but this theory is untenable. Hazings and other forms of college lawlessness have occurred in many lands and times, among educated men from the best families rather oftener than otherwise. Indeed, the boys with little schooling, who are poor and struggling for an education, are rather freer from such dangers than their more (or less) fortunate fellows. We know with more certainty of influences that conspire to orderliness and decorum in college activities, and to the highest efficiency in the business of learning. Some of these are small classes, relative intimacy and nearness of teachers, the presence of women, hard and diversified work, and some outdoor exercise each day. Rush College in the early days had some of the troubles referred to, but never since the affiliation with the University of Chicago, with severer conditions of admission, university methods, small classes, and more intensive work for the students. To the young lecturer on medicine in a former regime there were many perplexities beside turmoils in his classes. Usually he did not study his own psychology, and he nearly THE MARCHING YEARS 107 always failed to grasp the psychology of his students. He misjudged the capacity for memory on the part of the men who listened to him. So he usually loaded his discourse with a flood of details that choked the memory of the students and left them with a jumble of indistinct impressions—to grow afterward more indistinct. In his clarifying maturity he came to know that if a lecture could impress half a dozen points of real value, and if half of them could be remembered, and become a basis for after-reasoning, it was a successful lecture—and that it had the further virtue of being interesting. CHAPTER X. HOSPITALS. The Cook County Hospital: WHEN I was first graduated in medicine the Cook County Hospital was a building of wholly inadequate size, in the center of a large lot at the southwest corner of Eighteenth and Arnold Streets, Chicago. I often attended clinics there during my undergraduate days, when Dr. Senn was the sole interne and Drs. Edwin Powell, R. G. Bogue, J. P. Ross and H. Webster Jones were among the attendants. The building had been erected many years before by the city for a City Hospital, and had been operated as such— and for and by the Federal Government during the Civil War—until it was discovered that the city was not legally obliged to take care of its ordinary indigent sick, but that such duty belonged to the county. Then the hospital passed under control of the county and became a county charge, housing only the sick poor. When the building of Rush College on the North Side was destroyed by the great fire in 1871, the county allowed the college corporation to build a temporary structure on the corner of its lot, to serve until a new County Hospital should be built, the intention being to erect a proper college building near the hospital, wherever it might be. The temporary building was referred to as "under the sidewalk" because the level of the lot was many feet lower than the sidewalk, so that in entering the college we had to go down stairs. This rough looking building was used until the end of the spring course of 1876. The new college building was then finished, and was duly dedicated October fourth of that year, Dr. Ross giving the chief address. There had been for years an increasing need for a larger hospital, one that would to some extent meet the demands [108] THE MARCHING YEARS 109 of the future; and all who studied the subject believed that the building ought to be located nearer the geographical center of the city. It would naturally require a large tract of land for its particular and varied purposes, and for future additional buildings. But the County Board was reluctant to act; the members had to be convinced of the public need or demand for a new hospital. Some advocates of it were suspicious that certain members of the Board were looking for private pecuniary "arguments," but I am not at all certain that they were right. The public, outside of the medical profession, soon began to clamor for a new hospital, or seemed to clamor. Numerous letters were published in the daily papers, evidently written at if not to the County Board, arguing, coaxing and scolding that body for its dilatoriness. This series of letters continued for months; they were signed by such names as "Publicus," "Citizen," "Progress," "Kicker," and by various misleading initials. They were inspired chiefly by Dr. J. P. Ross, and many of them were written by Dr. I.N. Danforth and myself. Thus we created public opinion—we expressed what we were fully convinced public opinion ought to be, and what it would have been, had the public known, as well as we did, the need for a new and larger hospital. Our consciences were helped by the editors, who believed our campaign was a just one, and who were as glad to print the letters as we were to write them, and they occasionally printed an editorial to the same end. Some of the letters and many interviewed persons urged the loca- tion of the hospital on a particular large tract of land that was known to be for sale—the one that was finally bought— at the southwest corner of Wood and Harrison Streets. In response to the "manifest" public demand the County Board had to act; it bought the large tract of land, two or more ordinary city blocks, where the hospital was finally built. There is reason to think that some of the members of the County Board were glad to have the letters before the public, for they could be quoted in their own defense in case 110 THE MARCHING YEARS of criticism for extravagance in buying the land or building the hospital. And before the hospital was finished there was reason enough for criticism of extravagance, especially in the erection of the central or executive wing, with an amphitheatre for lectures that was two or three times the size that ever could be required; and other rooms so vast and costly as to be a scandal. Years afterward, in order to find use for some of these rooms, the institution began to take pay patients, thereby competing with the various private hospitals of the city. But whether or not the hospital cost too much, it was a great benefit to the county, and the Board was entitled to credit for building it. Some years later, a few members of a subsequent County Board were caught in graft charges or some other form of felony in their official conduct, and went to the penitentiary. It was a pitiful scandal, because it revealed dishonesty in public officials—some of it being connected with the hospital —and because it led the public to wonder if it did not include every member of the Board. There was a group of honest members who knew nothing whatever about the grafting. The guilty ones did not dare to have them know of it, much less approach them about it. For a long time before any arrests were made, those in the confidence of the prosecuting officers knew that positive proof was being gathered, and that the storm might break any day. I knew it was liable to involve one of the highest employes of the Board, a man who, through many years, had built up a good reputation as a public official and otherwise, and toward whom I felt a genuine friendship. I was loath to believe that he could be the chief engineer and boss of the grafting—actually handling and dividing the graft, as was freely alleged; and one evening I invited him by telephone to come to my house. He came at once and I told him the kind of evidence the prosecutor appeared to have against certain of the commissioners and himself. It was on my part an act of disinterested friendship, and I hoped he would THE MARCHING YEARS 111 so regard it. But he did not; he resented it, and seemed to infer that I expected him to desert his friends and help con- vict them. This he said, in the most positive manner, he would never do. He denied nothing, and confessed nothing; but left me to assume that the accusations against him were true. But he had shown me one trait that is always ad- mirable: he would not desert his friends, even if they were felons. He was arrested, and by various devices avoided the penitentiary, but his career was wrecked—a pitiful waste of a good reputation and an undeserved blow to a worthy family. First and last, I did a great deal of faithful service as an attending physician for the County Hospital; and I enjoyed the work immensely. Its rewards were great in professional experience; in the gratitude of the poor for every kindness and attention given them; in working with a suc- cession of superior internes—who got their positions by competitive examinations, and who were as stimulating as they were superior; and finally in seeing created and developed, in connection with the hospital, the Illinois Training School for Nurses, and working with the pupils and graduates of that school. The progress in the science and art of medicine since my study of it began has been astounding; and with every step of progress life has been made easier and the average span of life a little longer. But few contributions to these values have exceeded the benefits that-came to us when we began to have women trained in the business of nursing the sick. The practice became more scientific, both doctor and nurse were stimulated to do better work, and for the doctor the nurse provided and furnished him new hands and eyes and ears, and loyal watchfulness. The training school was inaugurated in 1880 by Miss Mary E. Brown (later Mrs. Richard Dewey). Her superior work as a superintendent has been carried on by a succession of women who have done ample credit to the school and the 112 THE MARCHING YEARS calling. As with all other first-class schools, the conditions of admission, of study and of graduation have been growing more severe, so that progressively better service has been rendered the public, and more honor brought to the profession. There has been no break in the continuity of the services of the school in the County Hospital. Plentiful rumors have arisen at times that it was to be turned out; but the authori- ties have doubtless discovered that such a task was too big for them, under any but the most extraordinary circumstances of abuse of privileges and neglect of duty—conditions that never have occurred, and that in all human probability never will occur. While I was on the staff of the Hospital in 1881, the County Commissioners ordained that women should be ad- mitted, the same as men, to competitive examination for interneships. This was a radical innovation, and several members of the staff were strongly opposed to it. They believed that a woman in the midst of a group of young men internes would be an element of demoralization, and the destruction of discipline; and that it ought to be prevented if possible. I was benighted enough to agree with them that it was unfortunate that women were to be admitted to the examination; and I hoped that none would apply. But if they came it was clear that they must have the same tests as the men, and be judged fairly by the same standards. At the next examination two women and half a dozen or more men appeared as competitors for four positions to be filled. The women were both graduates of the Woman's Medical College of Chicago. One by one, the candidates came before the eight austere members of the staff, sitting en banc, and were examined orally by each of us. Each ex- aminer made penciled memoranda of the value of the answers to his questions, respectively. As the quizzing came to an end it was evident that, because of her scholarship and quick mind, at least one woman would come dangerously near being entitled to a position. THE MARCHING YEARS 113 After the ordeal was over for the grilled applicants, it was agreed that we should decide their fate by ballot, all their names being written on one slip of paper or ballot for each member of the staff, he affixing a number to each name in the order of their merit according to his judgment. Number 1 would indicate the highest standing. This plan would give the lowest combined number to the best, and the highest one to the poorest of them. The ballot was taken, and Dr. Frank Billings stood first on each paper; his combination was therefore eight; the poorest standing was in the forties or fifties. Dr. Mary Bates was found to have won the lowest position by one figure or numeral. After the result had been recorded by the Secretary, and the papers used for ballots were about to be destroyed, Dr. M., a member of the staff, arose and announced that Dr. C. had made a mistake in the figures of his memorandum slip, and that his ballot therefore was slightly in error. He moved that the gentleman be allowed to change his vote. I stoutly opposed this as being wholly irregular. To go back of the correctly announced result of a vote by ballot; to identify the slip of paper voted by a certain man, allow him to alter it, and then to revise the result, was to throw all usage to the winds. The discussion became very warm among certain members of the staff. The warmth was not assuaged by the statement from Dr. C, in response to a question, that his changed vote would deprive Dr. Bates of her one numeral of victory. Drs. M. and C. were known to be opposed to women internes, and I could not resist the suspicion that if the person to be defeated had not been a woman, this question would never have been raised. This suspicion led me finally to do the only piece of political sharp practice of my life. I would not agree to have the finished ballot tampered with, but suggested that a legal way to get over the difficulty would be to abolish and declare void the ballot already taken, and order another one. Moreover, this would allow 114 THE MARCHING YEARS other members of the staff to change their votes as the result of further reflection—maybe Drs. Gunn and Parkes had discovered reasons other than mathematical for changing their votes; maybe I had. My suggestion was unanimously and promptly agreed to. Then another suspicion seized me, namely, that in the new voting the young woman would not merely lose her place by one numeral, but that several figures would be the measure of a determination to defeat her beyond all accidents. Then it was that I speculated on the superiority of my friend—my friend then, and increasingly so through all the years since. I knew that Dr. Billings was safe for first place if on my ballot he and Dr. Bates were made to change places. It could not harm him, and would give her four numbers to the good—and in view of the probable plot against her she needed the four numbers. The new vote was taken, the ballots were counted, and behold, she had again won her position by one figure! The outcome showed that my last suspicion was well founded, and that probably the first was also. Four figures were voted against Dr. Bates, which my four balanced exactly. Dr. Billings took first place, and has since become, as he then gave promise of becoming, a great physician, a great dean, a great citizen, and a great army officer as the colonel in charge of the restoration of soldiers wounded and in- valided in the Great War. Dr. Bates, far from demoralizing the hospital, set an efficiency mark for all internes that have followed her. She was afterward a professor in the Woman's College, and has made a creditable career in the profession. It was while I was an attending physician in the County Hospital that I had a private patient in the pay department of the institution, when some enemies that I did not deserve —probably political ones—tried to make it appear that I had violated a rule of the hospital that applied solely to the poor wards. It was a clumsy piece of persecutive fraud—so easily refuted by the simple record. This incident is further THE MARCHING YEARS 115 described in another part of this narrative, and in the Appendix. I was a medical attendant at the Emergency Hospital of the Chicago Relief and Aid Society in the fall and winter of 1871, which had been erected for the relief of the sick among the burnt-out people of the great fire.* The Presbyterian Hospital: Our Professor Ross, of Rush College, was a Presbyterian with a brain for construction. He knew, as we all did, that there was a dearth of hospitals on the West Side of the city, and that the college ought to have for its clinical teaching more hospital facilities than the county institution could afford. He determined that there should be a hospital next to, and attached to, the college, with doors opening directly into it. He began to work for this soon after the completion of the college building, and all his friends in and out of the college helped as much as they could. Ross naturally turned for a name and permanent manage- ment to his own religious denomination, and the Presbyterian order gave the hospital its name and created its organization as it has developed, and has maintained it to a large degree ever since. The institution was never sectarian; and long ago its reputation became so good and well established that a large part of its support has come from outside the one religious denomination. Repeated additions have been made to its land and buildings until the hospital covers an entire block, with the exception of the corner occupied by a part of the college buildings. It is a great, fireproof, modern hospital, equipped with all sorts of necessary scientific facilities. Its scientific, humanitarian and teaching work are second to none. Its training school for nurses was one of the first to demand at least a high school diploma as a condition for admission to ♦See Chapter on "Chicago Charity." 116 THE MARCHING YEARS its classes, and its standard of work has always been as high as any. I was one of the attending staff in the department of medicine for nearly or quite two decades. Time and service were given without stint, but no work that I ever did was more richly rewarded. The recompense was greater than money, for it was made up of experience useful to others (and passed on to others through successive groups of stu- dents), of a conscious mental ripening, and of a fellowship with some great and unselfish souls in a work of devotion to the sick and afflicted. CHAPTER XI. THE MEDICAL PRESS. IN 1872 the late Dr. T. D. Fitch and I published the first volume of the "Chicago Medical Register and Directory." It was a little affair of 360 pages, duodecimo, and was sold mostly to physicians and druggists. It con- tained "A Description of the Medical Colleges, Hospitals, Infirmaries, Asylums and Charitable Institutions, together with the Medical and Other Scientific Associations of the Entire State of Illinois." It gave a list of physicians in Chicago who were in good and regular standing in the profession, as determined by a board of revisers consisting of the presidents of Rush, the Chicago, and the Woman's Medical Colleges; the Chicago Medical Society, the Chicago Association of Physicians and Surgeons, and of the Illinois State Medical Society. No list of this sort could be made and published in any city in the country without some criticism from those who were left out, and their friends. We reduced the blame to ourselves by referring the complaints to those veterans in the profession, Drs. J. W. Freer, N. S. Davis, W. H. Byford, G. C. Paoli, D. B. Trimble and D. W. Young. The list of physicians contained 305 names. In January, 1920, there were known to me to be living only twenty- three of these people. The copies sold and the advertisements barely paid for publishing the book; I did substantially all the work of the publication, and it was profitable to me by the exercise as editor and compiler of a book that required above all things accuracy at every step. Some experience in medical journalism and the formation of a medical library came to me in 1875. For many years the monthly Chicago Medical Journal had been published [117] 118 THE MARCHING YEARS rather in the interest of Rush College; likewise the Chicago Medical Examiner in the interest of the Chicago College. They had been edited for years by Dr. J. Adams Allen and Dr. N. S. Davis, respectively. There had been brewing for some time a movement to consolidate the two and make one stronger journal, divested of any college leaning. The effort materialized in the formation of a joint stock company called the "Chicago Medical Press Association," with two distinct functions: The issuing of a monthly journal by merging the two rivals under the title of the Chicago Medical Journal and Examiner, and the creation of a medical library for the use of the profession. The first issue of the new Journal was in September, 1875. Dr. Wm. H. Byford was Chief Editor and Drs. Etheridge, Bridge, Hyde and Hotz* were Associate Editors, who were to do the serious work of editorial management. The publishers were Messrs. Wm. B. Keen, Cooke & Co. Early in 1877 the Press Association became its own pub- lisher and so remained until 1889, when the journal was discontinued. The Associate Editors took turns—changing each month— in doing the heavy work of the sanctum, which was good for their own development, but not the best way for the journal. For the most effective results there should be always one hand constantly at the details of such a job; and later this was provided for by the appointment of Dr. E. Fletcher Ingals as Assistant Editor. For several years he had constant charge of all details, and did his work well—as he always did well whatever he undertook. He was succeeded by Dr. D. R. Brower, who was a most worthy successor. I look back on my work-fellowship with these editorial associates with great pleasure. They were all superior in character, knowledge and refinement, and they were capable of the most harmonious team work. Each one was superior in his own field of special study, and they were all imbued *James H. Etheridge, James Nevins Hyde and F. C Hotz. THE MARCHING YEARS 119 with the highest ideals of professional and personal ethics. I retired from the editorial field in December, 1877, to give more personal attention to the library, having been for over a year the Librarian of record. Dr. Etheridge retired at the same time, having assumed the exacting duties of Secretary of Rush College. My editorial experience of twenty-seven months impressed me with the value of such work to develop a critical habit in the use of language, for telling things cleverly and dis- tinctly. No more useful addition could be made to the course of study of English in schools and colleges, than some systematic drill in proof-reading and the editing of manu- scripts written on many subjects, by all sorts of writers. We developed the Journal in a creditable way; it was twice as large as either of its predecessors, and satisfied the Association that substantial progress had been made in local medical journalism. But the growing fame and usefulness of the new Journal of the American Medical Association, issued weekly, published in Chicago, begun in 1883, made the local journal a work of diminishing necessity. Medical journalism in this country has advanced rapidly since that day. The great leader has been the Journal of the American Medical Association. In connection with the Journal itself, its organization has kept up extensive research in several lines for the advantage of the profession, and through it of the public. The Journal has been the mouth- piece of the profession, and it has enhanced the value and extended the membership of the Association enormously. It has powerfully fostered the movement for the betterment of medical education throughout the country; and has done what was possible to repress medical quackery. As a part of this great movement, there have been estab- lished during the past thirty years a dozen or more journals devoted exclusively to the publication of the results of original research in the different departments of medicine. Sub- stantially all these publications prosper, and this fact is one 120 THE MARCHING YEARS of the most solid and convincing proofs of the progress in ambition and scholarship of the American profession. Before the great fire of 1871 the Cook County Medical Association had begun the gathering of books for a library. Its accumulation of a few hundred volumes was destroyed by that calamity, and the project was not resumed. Our Library of the Press Association was started in the rooms of the Academy of Sciences at 263 Wabash Avenue. There were formal inaugural ceremonies there on the evening of June 30, 1876. Dr. R. C. Hamill was President, and presided. Dr. Etheridge was Secretary. Enthusiasm was there in plenty, and speeches to voice it. In a year the Library was moved to rooms of its own at 188 South Clark Street, where it remained until it was merged with the medical department of the Chicago Public Library, on May 10, 1884. The Public Library later gave it to the Newberry Library; and in February, 1906, the collection went from the Newberry to the John Crerar Library, in the heart of the business section of the city.* Along with it went a great collection of medical books, previously presented to the Newberry by Dr. Nicholas Senn, comprising his own personal collection and a large library he had purchased abroad. Our collection was small (1,600 bound volumes and many of unbound periodicals) compared with what Dr. Senn was able to give, but it had the distinction of being the pioneer medical library in Chicago that attained the maturity of practical usefulness. With the Senn Library and our modest collection there were also turned over to the Crerar more than 26,000 books that had been given the Newberry by the Medical Library Association of Chicago from 1890 to 1903, inclusive. This Association was formed by the Chicago Medical Society in 1889, and was incorporated in September of that year. It must have been enterprising to accomplish so much in so short a time. *The Field Building, Wabash Avenue and Washington Street. THE MARCHING YEARS 121 Our Library was open on business days from 10 to 4 o'clock, but was consulted by only a few, comparatively, of the many who needed it. This is, I am sure, the experience of all similar libraries; only the few who are studying special subjects consult them much; and this is an argument for every man to have a good working library of his own if he can afford it. But although only a few practitioners consult the large libraries, the need of them for that few is sufficient justification for all the expense and trouble to create and maintain them. After we had started the Medical Press Library we learned that Dr. J. M. Toner, of Washington, D. C, had a large collection of medical books that he was willing to give us if we could and would take care of it, open it to the public and preserve it in connection with the donor's name. It illustrates the thoughtless enthusiasm that we had at the beginning of our library project, that we actually thought we might buy ground in the heart of the city, build a library building, take the Toner library for a nucleus and go on to become a rival of the great library of the Surgeon General's office in Washington—and do it all through voluntary sub- scriptions, mostly from medical men. One of the curiosities I have preserved is our first subscription paper for this purpose, which I circulated myself. The very few small subscriptions we got gave us an insight into the only way that such a scheme can develop properly, namely, by public appropriation by city or state, or by the gift of wealthy philanthropists in amounts large enough to start and main- tain the work in a useful manner, without the need to pass the hat around for gifts from a class of men who rarely ac- cumulate surplus money. The great John Crerar Library of Chicago is a striking illustration in point. It has a magni- ficent medical as well as general collection of books, and an income from the gift of its far-seeing founder to maintain and add to it perpetually. It has also funds for a new 122 THE MARCHING YEARS building of its own, the erection of which on the corner of Michigan Avenue and Randolph Street was begun in 1920. Only a decade after we had learned our lesson, the wise men of the Library Association of the Chicago Medical Society had the fatuous faith that they might be able to buy ground and erect a building and maintain a great medical library. The records show that they soon began to give their books to the Newberry Library. Maybe they too have some old subscription paper with a few signatures. CHAPTER XII. PUBLIC OFFICE. The Board of Education of Chicago: I WAS appointed a member of the Board of Education of Chicago by the first Mayor Harrison in 1881, for a term of three years. The Board consisted of fifteen members, five going out of office each year, and their places being filled by nomination by the Mayor, and confirmation by the Common Council of the city. The Mayor was a democrat, and his custom was to appoint each year three democrats and two republicans. I was a republican, and on entering the Board on July 14 there were ten democrats and five republicans. It was the ambi- tion of most of the members that there should be no politics in the business of the Board, and, to emphasize this attitude, I was, on September 8, upon the nomination of Mr. Thomas Brenan, a democrat, elected Vice-President of the Board, to take the place of the previous incumbent, whose term on the Board had expired. Mr. M. A. DeLany was then President. The term of Mr. DeLany on the Board soon expired, and he ceased to be President. The rules required that the Vice- President should for the rest of the year perform the duties of President, but the Board decided, on the motion of Mr. A. C. Story, a democrat, that I should have the title as well as the duties of President. At the end of my first year of membership my brief term as President ended, and some of the democrats thought, not unnaturally, that the minority had received all the honors it was entitled to—which was true enough—and that now a democrat should be elected President. But some of the democrats and all the republicans thought that to fail to elect me for a full term would be equivalent to a vote of want [123] 124 THE MARCHING YEARS of confidence, and that I deserved the privilege of naming the standing committees of the Board for a year's work, my brief service as President having been with the DeLany committees. They also said I ought to have the honor of signing one annual report of the Board; so they elected* me by a sufficient majority. Any log rolling that was done for my re-election was the work of my friends, certainly not my own work; but I was asked by a democratic friend, a member who was anxious to be President, whether if re-elected I would be a candidate for the same office the following year, and I answered no. My list of committees was promptly approved, and we had a year of prosperity in the school system. But toward the end of the year disquieting rumors were in the air that some of the democratic members had unfriendly designs against the Superintendent of Schools, Mr. George Howland, who had looked with disfavor upon some efforts to establish political and personal privilege in the educational department of the school system. Several members of both parties had the impression that if a certain member were to succeed me it might lead not only to the displacement of Howland, but to a general shake-up, if not demoralization, throughout the department. Mr. Howland had been in the schools for over twenty years; for a long time as principal of the sole high school of the city. He had the respect and confidence of teachers and public to a high degree. The suggestion that he might be displaced aroused widespread and loud protest wherever it was heard. A quiet canvass was made by members of the Board to prevent such a possible calamity; and one of the measures suggested to forestall it, was to re-elect me President. They did not consult me as to the use of my name—and I kept silence on that phase of the subject, but freely denounced any scheme to invade the school depart- ment with partisan purposes. Before the election, the ♦September 14, 1882. THE MARCHING YEARS 125 members supposed to have sinister designs disavowed any intention or desire to disturb the policy or personnel of the school department, or make it a field for political contention or spoils—and the after-history of the Board for some years has seemed to justify them. Up to the time of the election, many of the members supposed that I was to be re-elected. The fear of this in certain quarters, and the reasons for it were, I knew, a whole- some influence for the good of the schools. Nobody pre- sumed to ask me, and I made no statement or protest until just before the ballot on the evening of the election, after my name had been placed in nomination in opposition to that of my democratic friend. Then I arose and thanked my friends for their confidence; told them that I was not a candidate by any wish of my own, and asked them kindly to refrain from voting for me. My friend, Mr. Adolph Kraus, was elected, and served his year with, I believe, complete faithfulness to the best interests of the schools. Mr. How- land was not only undisturbed, but continued to be the superintendent for years afterward—until broken health compelled his retirement. Mrs. Ella Flagg Young, who later became the principal of the Normal School and afterward for several years the general superintendent, was at that time the principal of the Skinner School, near our home. It was plain to any competent observer who watched her management and work, that she was a superior and progressive educator, with capabilities for school management of the highest order. Her promotions were deserved—she was no accident. During my presidency it was my fortune to serve her in an unusual way. Her school building came to possess and was possessed by a terrible odor, of which neither the janitor, plumber, health officer nor her own committeeman from the Board could discover the cause. The nuisance had continued for many days, and was getting on the nerves of everybody in the schoolhouse. She came with apologies for bothering 126 THE MARCHING YEARS me, and asked me to help her. Various tests had been made, some of them quite scientific, to discover the trouble, and none had succeeded. But no one had resorted to the simple trick of the great odor hunter of the world, the common bloodhound. I went to the school and soon found that the strongest odor was easily located in the lower hall, on the main floor, with its greatest concentration about the main stairway. Then by ambulating up and down the stairs on hands and feet, and behaving as much like a hound following a scent as is possible to a human being, it was easy to locate the very stair-tread under which the janitor, with the aid of a crowbar, soon found the malorodous body of a long-dead rat. The school system of Chicago has expanded enormously since my day on the Board. During the year 1882-3 the amount of money spent on the schools of Chicago was $1,327,837.63. The number of teachers was 1,107, and of the pupils, 72,509. There were seventy-six schools, of which eight were in rented buildings. The annual cost per pupil was $18.31. In the year 1913-4 the money spent on running the schools was $12,132,631; on new buildings $5,434,784. The records do not show the number of teachers. The number of schools was 301, of which thirty were normal, high and special schools; sixteen were in rented buildings. Pupils numbered 370,262. The annual cost per pupil was $32.76. The Election Commission of Chicago: In the summer of 1886 there was a republican vacancy in the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners. It was a legal requirement that it should be filled by a republican. The appointment was in the gift of the county judge—then Richard Prendergast—under whose jurisdiction the Board acted. The law creating the body required that at least one of the three commissioners must belong to each of the two THE MARCHING YEARS 127 leading political parties in the State. The judge was a democrat, and the republican was a minority member. Evidently thinking I would be as little trouble to him as any republican, the judge appointed me. I took office on September 9 to serve out a fractional term of some fifteen months. My first colleagues were a democrat and a labor party man. They were pleasant gentlemen to get along with. In all activities outside the routine of the office, in all matters of appointment of subordinates, or that could affect party influence, the majority members were under the constant sway of the judge, who was a shrewd politician and an ardent partisan. They followed his wishes with apparent faithfulness—as it was his belief that they ought to do. The minority member was under no such handicap; his function, so far as it was a party one, was to watch, criticise, help faithfully in the public duties of the office, and to protest if any step was proposed that seemed unfair to the public or to his party. The business of the Board was to supervise and conduct all elections, appoint and control all judges and clerks of election, and see to it especially that all elections were honest, fair and legal. It was its duty, sitting with the county judge and the city attorney as a canvassing board of five, to canvass all returns from the judges and clerks of election, and certify all results of the election. In cases of error in returns or misbehavior of judges and clerks of election, these officers could be called in for consultation, correction or discipline. There were a chief clerk and many subordinates in the office, necessary to conduct the business, and they were, of course, all political appointments and made on the direction of the county judge, except one deputy, whose appointment was always, as a courtesy, accorded to the minority member, to represent him and his party. I appointed Mr. Samuel Parker, who served in this capacity during my incumbency of four years. He was a fair man, superior, alert, honest and a staunch republican. He was helpful in a large way, 128 THE MARCHING YEARS and spared me a flood of annoyance and trouble that, with a less efficient assistant, would have been unavoidable. In appointing judges and clerks of election the republicans were allowed one of each in every precinct, so that we were represented in every election booth. As a practical fact the regular organizations of both parties, in each ward and district, nominated the judges and clerks for the respective parties, and sent the lists to our office for the confirmation of the Board. They were always confirmed unless some complaint was lodged against an individual, when the case was investigated and the proper action taken or attempted. Complaints against republican nominees were always referred to me for any action I deemed best; and my colleagues never attempted to interfere with my decisions. The Chicago Tribune, the leading republican newspaper, had from the first been a little suspicious of me as representing the republican party on the Board, presumptively because of my friendly relations with the editor of the Daily News, Mr. Melville E. Stone. The News was independent, and had opposed Blaine for President and favored Cleveland. The Tribune called the News a mugwump sheet, and the News had for a long time printed daily some item ridiculing or poking fun at Mr. Joseph Medill, the chief editor of the Tribune. Relations between the two papers were hostile, whether or not the editors personally were hostile at heart. The Tribune had interviewed me at the time of my appoint- ment, especially as to my republicanism, which I declared was so perfect that it would stand the strongest acid test, except as to one defection, which was the result of following the lead of the Tribune itself—namely, voting for Greeley for President in 1872. But there was evidence all the time in the Tribune office, of a wish for an excuse to knife me, both for my sake and for that of my friend. The occasion seemed to come in the fall of 1887, when a permissive law of the legislature called the "jury commission law" was submitted to the voters for their THE MARCHING YEARS 129 confirmation or rejection. The Tribune was intensely anxious for a favorable vote; it was a pet measure of its editor, and was probably a good law which ought to have been approved at the polls; but it was defeated, and for this it appeared to be necessary to punish somebody; so the republican com- missioner was selected for a victim. There began then a nine days' war—newspaper and otherwise—of the Tribune against me; and of the Tribune against two or three other papers, chiefly the Inter-Ocean and the Daily News. The Tribune well illustrated the bashfulness that usually prevents editors from confessing their own mistakes. On a certain Saturday the Tribune local page truthfully stated that in the Canvassing Board, the day before, I had moved that the election judges and clerks of one or two precincts, whose returns were irregular, be haled before the Board for explanation and possible discipline; and that all the other members of the Board had voted against me—this included the county judge and the republican city attorney, Hempstead Washburne, afterward Mayor of the city. The next day, Sunday, the editorial page of this paper had a venomous paragraph attacking me for not having tried to do on Friday the very thing I had attempted, and been defeated. The Inter-Ocean and the Daily News were not slow to take advantage of the blunder in the office of the Tribune, and they proceeded with one of the bitterest of all unbloody weapons, ridicule. They used it in parallel columns and otherwise with smarting effect. As the Tribune could not reply to them, it ignored them, and bestowed its ire with new invective upon me. On the Saturday following there appeared in the Inter-Ocean an open letter on the issue from the republican commissioner himself, in which he paid his respects to the Tribune in terms that appear to have been somewhat lacking in elegance, but did not lack in force.* The next day, Sunday, there was printed on the editorial page of the Tribune a paragraph regarding my relations with the County Hospital, ♦See Appendix I. 130 THE MARCHING YEARS of which I was one of the attending physicians, that was libelous against my professional character and standing. Then, with my attorney, Mr. J. J. Knickerbocker, I visited the managing editor of the paper, Mr. Robert Patterson— Mr. Medill was out of town and had been since before the trouble began. We had a quiet talk with the editor, the result of which was a retraction and attempt at correction in the paper of the next morning, on the editorial page. It was poorly written, to tell the exact truth, and perhaps that was not intended; it was surely reluctant enough—and it ended the "war," so far as I was concerned; but the rival papers did not stop until they had made sport of the retrac- tion—in parallel columns and otherwise. Two days after this a letter came to me from the county judge commending my official conduct and begging me to accept again the burden of the commissionership and for a full term of three years. It inclosed a certificate from the clerk of the court, of my appointment to succeed myself. I accepted with reluctance, for I had promised myself, my family and friends that, being already overloaded with cares and work, I would not accept further public office. But after the "war," to have declined the appointment would have given the newspaper the chance to say that it drove me out. Moreover, the paper had fairly earned and deserved the privilege of seeing me in the same office for three more years. A few clippings that illustrate some sides of this "war," and that are illuminating of the gentle amenities between editors of daily papers in Chicago at that time, are printed in the Appendix to this volume—also correspondence with the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal on the hospital incident. As to the County Hospital affair, the hospital, in ad- dition to its normal function of taking care of the indigent sick without price, was, by order of the County Board, taking into its fine, and foolishly extravagant, rooms in the THE MARCHING YEARS 131 executive building, any pay patient who cared to come and pay for his board and find his own doctor. I had one such pay patient, and of course got a fee. The Tribune- searching for some ground for slander—pretended to believe that I had violated the rules of the hospital applicable to paupers; and it printed a whole-cloth falsehood about my collecting fees and returning them. My experience as an election commissioner for four years was to me one of education, and satisfaction in serving the public. The actual time spent on the work was perhaps an average of one hour each day. Had more been required it would have been impossible to give it and do justice to my professional work, including the college and hospital duties. With the aid of my deputy, Mr. Parker, I was unquestionably able to give the office as much intelligent attention as any of my colleagues did. Only in a few instances during my first two years of ser- vice did differences arise between my colleagues and myself, and the county judge, on questions of policy where I thought injustice to my party might be threatened. Then, by per- suasion and argument and without loud talk, it was usually possible to have my views accepted. At times it seemed to me a good joke on the judge who appointed me, thinking he would thereby escape trouble from the minority member, for on several occasions he found me very troublesome. But at the end of about two years, to my delight he appointed for my democratic colleague Mr. S. S. Gregory, a superior lawyer and one of the most upright of men. Thereafter few propositions that were unfair to my party or to myself were offered; and none of them succeeded, and I did not need to protest, for Gregory was there. Another pleasant experience of that service was my acquaintance with Judge Elbert Henry Gary,* who occa- sionally sat in our County Court to relieve Judge Prendergast, and with whom the Election Commission came into official *Later the head of the United States Steel Corporation. 132 THE MARCHING YEARS contact. Gary lived in an adjoining county, where he was the county judge and held court on certain days each week. His law practice was mostly in Chicago, where his office was, and so he was easily "borrowed" for service, now and then, to help our overworked judge. He had studied law with my great and good philosopher friend, the late Judge H. H. Cody, and had been for a number of years his law partner. We found him judicial and able in mind; magnanimous and courteous in manner; superior and dependable always— qualities that made his after-career in the business world both natural and logical. Judge Prendergast was, I believe, a true friend to me, and the sentiment was reciprocated. He had a mind of great activity and fertility. He had been elected county judge soon after his admission to the bar. At the end of his term of four years he was re-elected. As the end of his second term approached, he was troubled with the fear that, because he had been so many years out of law practice, he might not be able to get clients and cases enough to support his increasing family. He several times talked with me about his gloomy prospects. I was positive he would succeed, and told him so. I also told him more than once that he was more fitted for the bar than the bench. This was true, for while he was probably always a consciously honest one, he was too instinctively a partisan to be the best sort of a judge. He was what might be called a contesting lawyer. His mind was prolific in novel and unusual devices for winning tough law cases; and he was a man of great persistency and de- termination. These arts he must have used effectively, for, after his retirement from the bench, he opened a law office, and in the few years he was able to practice—before the onset of the disease that finally destroyed him—he gathered together a fortune of several hundred thousand dollars. The Election Commission gave me a very good insight into the mysteries of politics and the ways of political leaders. I discovered how bad some bosses of that day in Chicago THE MARCHING YEARS 133 could be. The worst of them could not have been as bad as some of those of two or three of our coast cities; nor has Chicago since that time had such bad bosses. And some of the leaders in our local politics were among the straightest men I ever knew—yet they were dubbed bosses as the severest unactionable word to apply to them. One example of such a local leader was the late Mr. E. G. Keith—a man of the greatest probity and usefulness, who was lampooned by certain newspapers as a reprehensible boss. It was common with a certain class of critics, mostly men who rarely or never took the trouble to go to the polls and vote, to call anyone who became a leader in political activities, a boss. Giving the word this larger meaning, there always have been bosses in governments of the people, and there always must be; bad bosses will always make them- selves felt; the vital need is to have good bosses in greater numbers and more cunning to foil them. And the only effective way to such a consummation is for more good men and women to study the political affairs of their communities and be unselfishly active in them. Such activity is always a school for the development of statesmanship—and for the discovery of both kinds of bosses. The badge of the bad boss is selfishness—usually sordid selfishness—while the good boss goes in for clean government and seeks the candidates who are most likely to carry the majorities for that purpose. , The lack of such good leaders has too often caused to be sent to our legislatures and city council chambers a majority of men either disloyal to the interests of the public or too ignorant to study and know what such interests are—or both disloyal and ignorant. For many years Chicago has possessed a civic organization— sustained by a few faithful souls—whose vocation has been to learn the history, record and qualifications of every candidate for alderman, and to send a statement of their findings to every voter in the ward. As a result, for years 134 THE MARCHING YEARS a majority of the Common Council have been fair and faith- ful men. The Pasadena Freeholders: In 1901, during my absence in the east, I was elected to a public office in Pasadena, the one elective office of my experience. I became one of a Board of Freeholders to frame a new charter for the city (and by the highest vote of any of the Board save one—the late Judge Willett). We had many sessions and framed a document that cer- tainly was the result of faithful work and study. When submitted to the voters, it was, to our surprise, adopted by only a very small majority. Some time before the election it was found that many prohibitionists opposed the new charter because the prohibition section was not drastic enough, although it was a verbatim copy of the ordinance under which the town had been "dry" from the beginning. When it was noised about that the "drys" were likely to defeat the charter, a lot of men who did not care a rap for it, or whether the city had a government, but who were ready to vote against the prohibitionists on any issue, came up at the last hour and prevented defeat. I never had any ambition for the honor of public office, either elective or appointive. The two appointive offices came wholly unsolicited; and the elective office in Pasadena came in my absence from the State, and without my knowl- edge or connivance. In later years there came from many active republicans in California, suggestions and invitations to enter the race for governor, and then later for senator, but I succeeded in discouraging all of them. They were looking for "available" candidates. I believe in citizens giving attention to politics in the best way, as unselfishly as possible; and in seeking to be elected to office—in the Abraham Lincoln way. My own intense preoccupation with the vocations and avocations of my life has prevented my giving as much attention to local THE MARCHING YEARS 135 politics as my desires and real duty required. The men who refuse to "dabble" in politics because they discredit the so-called ward politicians; who refuse to go to the polls and vote because they either fancy the election will go right without them or believe it is bound to go wrong in spite of them, are entitled to very little sympathy in their plaint about the degradation of our political life. They are among the citizens who make corrupt politics not only possible but certain. (See Appendix IV.) CHAPTER XIII. CHICAGO CHARITY. THE Chicago Relief and Aid Society was a voluntary organization, chartered by the State legislature of Illinois in 1859, to care for the temporarily destitute people, not of the pauper class which is always relieved by the county. Its chief function was to help, over a distressful period of misfortune, persons and families who were usually self-supporting. The law required it to report its doings annually to the Common Council of Chicago. Naturally, its chief work was in the winter, when food, fuel and clothing were most needed. Of its rather large Board of Directors, nearly all were substantial and representative citizens. Dr. H. A. Johnson, my beloved teacher and friend, was for long the sole medical man on the Board. When the great fire of October, 1871, came, an enormous amount of relief work had to be done, and done in a great hurry, for the destitute of nearly a hundred thousand burnt- out people. Donations in great floods of money and materials began to come to the city government, from all over the country—and from abroad also they came, but a little later. Four days after the fire the Mayor wisely turned over to the Society the entire relief work, the handling of all money received, and the directing of all relief of every kind. The organization carried through all that colossal task with suc- cess and general satisfaction. The money donations were only a little short of $5,000,000. The disbursements were made with scrupulous correctness, and the relief measures were wise and efficient. After all necessary expenditures had been made, there was left a considerable surplus, which it was impossible to return to the donors, who were scattered over the world, and had given various sums from a dollar up, and often given in needful things instead of money. It was [136] THE MARCHING YEARS 137 wisely determined to devote a part of this surplus to providing for the care of the poor of Chicago for the years to come. This was the advice of Dr. Johnson—and it was good advice; so one hundred beds were endowed in the various permanent hospitals of the city at $1,000 each, the Society to have the right to send patients to occupy these beds at any time without further cost. Several small donations were made to establish dispensaries doing service for the poor. The dispensaries obligated themselves to keep the funds as a perpetual endowment, only the interest to be used from year to year, and that used faithfully to treat the sick poor. Of these gifts, the Herrick Free Dispensary received $5,000. The Herrick was founded in 1871, after the fire, primarily to care for the burnt-out people. It was, in 1873, with its property and contracts, united with the Central Free Dis- pensary, under the latter name. The Central had received $4,000 from the relief fund. Rooms for the dispensary were provided in the new Rush College building in 1876. A long time ago I gave several years of service as a regular attendant on this dispensary, and gathered a lot of useful knowledge in human nature, as well as in the study and treatment of the sick. The medical relief was managed by a committee, of which Dr. Johnson was chairman; artd well did it do its work. My modest contribution was to serve as an attendant at the temporary hospital built by the Society at the corner of Harrison Street and Center (now Racine) Avenue, where many patients were cared for who could not be admitted to the hospitals of the city. This was in the fall and winter of 1871. The fire was a greater calamity than most people supposed. More than 2,124 acres of the thickly built city were burnt over, and the loss in values could not be known, but was probably $200,000,000. Many people were destroyed; how many is not known, but one historian in a magazine article a few years ago wrote that in that fire not a life was lost— 138 THE MARCHING YEARS and he thought it a remarkable statement to be able to make. It was a remarkable statement, especially as I recorded in my diary three days after the fire, that I had that day seen in a building on Milwaukee Avenue, where the dead were gathered by the city forces, sixty-two bodies, most of them burned or otherwise disfigured beyond the possibility of identification. Few of them were ever claimed by their friends. Dr. Johnson had always given much time and thought to the work of the Society. In 1885 he asked to be relieved of the burden, and that I be appointed in his place. I re- garded this as a great compliment from him, as it was an honor to serve the Society. I continued a director until 1891, when I was banished to California. This long experience was instructive in many ways, especially in the study of poverty of manifold forms; of the best and safest methods of relief; of the bad effect on weak people of indiscriminate and too free giving; of the discretion required to give needed help to the most worthy unfortunates, and to avoid wounding their commendable feelings of self- respect and pride; and finally in the study of sad cases of noble souls in want, and too humiliated and crushed to ask for relief—facing starvation like the stoics that they were. So many impostors, professional beggars, and brazen, unworthy persons were constantly applying for help, that I am sure the Superintendent and his helpers had to struggle against the impulse to regard every applicant as an impostor. That is the experience of every such organization doing similar work in a metropolitan city. It is sad to see an almoner so impressed by the frauds that he is gruff to the worthy poor; and it is ruinous to the system if he is so soft and trusting as to be easily imposed upon. His work in such a society as this is always difficult; it requires the highest degree of common sense, great-heartedness, uniform courtesy, and a smiling, firm purpose to distinguish between the worthy and THE MARCHING YEARS 139 unworthy, and to weigh well where the benefit of the doubt belongs. Our funds were acquired mostly by donations from the few people who were able to give, and were moved to help in this sort of charity. Never was enough collected for the really urgent needs of the service. Most of the members of the Board were deeply engrossed in their own affairs, and few could or did give time to importune their friends for money for this need. Probably others besides myself found this an irksome task. Throughout my service it seemed to me that the Society succeeded as well as it could with the funds at its disposal, in carrying relief to the right people and in the best way. The cost of investigating every case asking for relief was sometimes complained of, but this was necessary in order to avoid creating mendicancy, and to encourage people to stand on their own feet as soon and as far as possible. There were several other charity bodies in the city, and more or less overlapping of relief was unavoidable. This is always demoralizing to the best system of charity for a great city, the aim of which should be to do good always or nearly always, and never to do harm. The proposition to unite all these agencies into one general charity organization for the whole city had been agitated for a long time; and this was finally accomplished a few years after the end of my service. The Chicago Relief and Aid Society thus went out of existence as such, and closed a useful career of half a century. CHAPTER XIV. CHICAGO. MY professional shingle was hung out from three suc- cessive offices on West Madison Street, in each of which I slept at night on a "disappearing" bed, and was my own janitor. The last of these locations was at the corner of Peoria Street in the Thompson Block. Dr. A. H. Foster officed with me, and my association with him was a great comfort, for he was a man of superior mentality, a good practitioner, a true and lifelong friend. A unique bond of sympathy existed between us in the slowness with which the public discovered us as doctors. Probably we both had too much uncompromising bluffness, to begin with. I envied him his family of a wife and children, to whom he was in a special manner devoted. Foster was six years my senior, but had pink cheeks and a young look. He enjoyed telling how in my absence some patient of mine had refused his proffered services, remarking that he would wait for the "old doctor." We were at the Peoria Street place when the fire of 1871 occurred.* We gave office hours temporarily to two doc- tor friends who had been burned out, Charles Gilman Smith and R. C. Bogue. The former was one of the most popular physicians of the city; he had hosts of friends and patients, and deserved them all. He was then a bachelor, past the age when men usually marry, and had become the despair of many interested matrons. A few years later, how- ever, he married a brilliant woman of mature years, a widow with a grown-up daughter; and it was a happy marriage. He was something of a wag, but a wag with sentiment, for *The next year after the great fire my office was moved to the house. No. 267 West Monroe Street, where it remained until it went to 64 Throop Street early in 1874, at the time of my marriage. [140] THE MARCHING YEARS 141 he once told us how, after traveling over Europe, and coming back to Liverpool to set sail for home, he shed tears on seeing the American flag. Dr. Bogue was one of the faithful sur- geons of the County Hospital. From this time he and his family were among my warmest friends. I had been engaged to Miss Mae Manford for many months, waiting for my professional income to grow to the dimensions necessary for two persons with frugal tastes to live on. After the great fire I was for a time one of the small- pox inspectors for the health department of the city, and was receiving a very moderate compensation. It was my duty to examine cases of suspected smallpox, and, if found to be genuine, to report them for the smallpox hospital, and after- ward to vaccinate persons known to have been exposed to the infection, and to fumigate the premises. If a person so sent to the pest-house turned out not to be a genuine case, it was bad for the inspector. It was my good fortune to escape such a calamity, for I played safe; if there was any doubt of the diagnosis, I called the chief inspector and divided the responsibility with him. The fumigation was supposed to destroy all germs of the disease in the house, but we are now positive that it did no good whatever, except to give the people concerned a precious sense of security. The materials used were a certain form of lime and some crude carbolic acid, put together on a dinner plate, set on the floor in the middle of the room to be fumigated. The mixture sizzled and smudged, and sent forth a detestable odor that filled the house, went into the street, and was remembered afterward with horror. How much money I got for this work is entirely forgotten, but I recall that it just paid for a very modest engagement ring—a fact which amused us both. My income was not sufficient for us when we were married on May 21, 1874, and began boarding at 64 Throop Street, whither my office had been moved. 142 THE MARCHING YEARS The next year, December 30, 1875, we set up house- keeping at 81 Throop Street, in a rented house owned by a friend who could afford to trust us for the rent, and this he had to do for long periods of time. It was during those months that our financial struggle was most severe. I remember saying to my wife at the time that if we could have twenty-five thousand dollars I would willingly sign an obliga- tion never to possess any more. Of course it was a foolish speech to make; and it was a long, long day before we had that amount of property; not until after my breakdown in health, when my earning days seemed to be over. We were happy in our first housekeeping home. Living with us in those days was a widowed aunt of my wife, whom we loved as a mother—Mrs. Emily Morse. To us she was always "Aunt Em." She was a superior personality, and was great company and strength for us. She was a member of our family until her death.* I can think of nothing much worse for a physician than to have a wife with extravagant tastes, or with a disposition to gossip with others about his patients. The fact that Mrs. Bridge was wholly free from such weaknesses made it much easier to bear professional burdens that multiplied fast enough as time went on. Through the years she was inter- rogated hundreds of times by neighbors and friends—and sometimes by total strangers—as to the affairs and diseases of my patients, and especially as to what I thought and said about them. Her answer was almost invariably to the effect that her husband never talked to her about his patients. She had inherited sense and caution from her forbears, and had improved on both. Her father was the Rev. Erasmus Manford, and her mother Hannah Bryant Manford. They were from frugal, hard-working, thoughtful families. To- gether they published the Manford's Magazine, a religious monthly in the interest of the Universalist faith. The daughter was an only child, a fact she always lamented. She ♦September 30, 1879. THE MARCHING YEARS 143 had been graduated from the Normal Department of the Chicago High School in 1867 and had taught in the Dore School for three years. Frugal and faithful, we struggled on, and by 1881 had paid our debts, and were accumulating enough to lead us to think of having a home of our own. During all these early years I had numerous warm friends, but somehow when they fell sick those who had money usually went to some other practitioner. People would even come and ask me to tell them of a good doctor for a particular disorder, saying they knew they could trust my candor and judgment to steer them right. All this was very amusing, and in a way flattering, but it did not pay the rent nor the grocer. We tried to believe our slow growth of fortune was good for discipline; it certainly was discipline. I had been in practice quite seven years before being able to afford a horse to carry me about. In seven years more two horses were required—and this continued until the failure of my health in the winter of 1890-91. The streets of Chicago in that day were mostly unpaved, rough—especially in the winter—and in a wet time very disagreeable. I tried various experiments in vehicles to make riding less of a punishment when driving over a rough road. My friend Dr. Wadsworth had a one-horse chaise that he was greatly attached to for the apparently incredible reason that it was an easy-riding affair. It had no springs except the wood framework, within which the body of the vehicle was suspended by long, inelastic straps of leather, called thorough- braces. Once I rode with him in the chaise and found it actually free from discomfort when moving rapidly over rough streets. This gave me an ambition to see the thorough- brace idea applied to an ordinary buggy, and I had a vehicle designed and built for this purpose. It had both springs and short thoroughbraces to support the body of the vehicle; but it was only a moderate success—nothing comparable to the chaise. It succeeded in attracting the attention of our 144 THE MARCHING YEARS neighbors as evidence of some possible mental weakness on the part of the owner. In the second decade of the new century the doctors of Chicago were riding about in their inclosed automobiles over hundreds of miles of well paved streets, in the pride of com- fort undreamed of in the days of my beginnings. What a change—and what a contrast! In the fall of 1883, October 10, we moved into the house that we had built at 550 West Jackson Street, near Ashland. It was at least our house, barring a mortgage which fortu- nately was soon afterward paid off. It was a two-story and basement brick structure, with rooms for a doctor's office in the front of the basement, the kitchen and dining room being further back. The house was built by an architect who had erratic ideas of heating and ventilation. He provided ab- surdly large pipes and furnace (sufficient for a metropolitan church), all of which in a year or two we discarded. In their place we installed a steam heating apparatus, having built on an addition to receive the boiler. The house was built to last centuries, and I freely declared that it was our permanent home, and that I expected to die there. But in seven years I found myself touched with what appeared to be a mortal blight of pulmonary tuberculosis, and, early in 1891, got out of the house and to California as fast as possible.* Mrs. Bridge and her mother, who a few years after the death of her husband in 1884, had come to make her home with us permanently, came to California in May, and we never went back to the Chicago house again. In a few months it was sold to another physician. *For two or three years I had had frequent "colds" with cough and occasional slight blood spitting. It became apparent in 1890 that I must reduce my burdens of work. My term as election commissioner would end late in the fall, and so bring some relief. I determined to open an office in the down-town district, and cease to see patients at my house or visit so many at their homes. An office was found at the corner of La Salle and Madison Streets (where the Hotel La Salle now stands), and after a vacation trip to Las Vegas Hot Springs with my friend Prof. Walter Haines the office was fitted up and occupied—but only a few weeks, for the day after Christmas my "blight" was discovered by myself, with the help of my own microscope. THE MARCHING YEARS 145 As places to migrate to, in the hope of recovery from pulmonary tuberculosis, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico had better reputations than southern California. But the last had a good reputation, and it offered the elements of climate that seemed to me then, and have increasingly seemed to me since, to offer most hope of recovery in such cases— namely, such elements as make it possible to live an outdoor life comfortably at all seasons of the year. There is nothing medicinal in any climate; the same atmosphere surrounds the earth; but conditions that favor outdoor living are the best. High altitude has little value over sea level, except for an occasional case; and may be harmful as compared with the lower levels for more cases than it specially helps. Very dry climates are good for cases of profuse expectoration, since the dryness reduces the amount of the watery element of the phlegm, and so lessens the labor of coughing. I had visited California in winter twice already; had many friends and acquaintances there; and it was natural to elect Los Angeles County as the place of sojourn. My first trip was taken in February, 1882, with my friend and colleague, Prof. Walter Haines, his mother and our mutual friend, Frank Tobey; the second one, six years later, with Mrs. Bridge, Mr. and Mrs. M. E. Stone and daughter, and Mr. and Mrs. Yaggy with their two sons, all of Chicago. The occasion of the first trip was the precarious health of Prof. Haines. He was slowly recovering from a severe chest disease, and consented to go to Los Angeles if his mother could go with him, sufficiently attended—so Tobey and I went along. We traveled over the Santa Fe Railroad to Deming, New Mexico, thence by the Southern Pacific (the Santa Fe line was not yet built west from Albuquerque by way of Needles, Barstow and San Bernardino). We found Los Angeles a little city of, say, 13,000 people, with wonderful weather, wholly unpaved streets—dusty or muddy according to the weather; and with unwarmed houses. It was impossible to locate the invalid and his mother in a 146 THE MARCHING YEARS house where both could be comfortable in a cold day, even in that mild climate. We could not learn of a single house in the city that had means of heating all of its rooms, including bathroom, except by gas or kerosene stoves, the products of whose combustion went into the rooms and not through flues and out of doors. Beyond these facilities, there was hardly a house that had more than a kitchen stove and one fireplace in a living room—and these usually discharged into the one chimney of the house, an arrangement which made no provision for bedrooms. We found a boarding place for the invalid in a house with a fireplace in the parlor, but no heat in any bedroom. His mother had to stay in a house two long blocks away, and her room had only a kerosene stove in the center of the floor for evening heat; the sun furnished her needful heat in the daytimes on cloudless days. The people who had come even from the northern states, and settled here, seemed to have become possessed of a notion that, as the country was called semi-tropical, it must be impossible that one needed a fire in his house at any time— in spite of the experience of the world generally that a tem- perature between 30°and 40° F. is one of the most disagreeable, especially if there is a wind. We drove to Pasadena and saw a few scattered houses and unfinished streets of the future city of beauty and com- fort; and we went out to the Sierra Madre Villa, a mile west of what was later the village of Sierra Madre. The villa was a green spot in the view of the San Gabriel Valley—made green by a grove of orange trees on a hillside, surmounted by a rambling white frame inn with a grass lawn in front of it. Tobey and I soon left our friends at Los Angeles and went to San Francisco, stopping at the Baldwin Hotel—after- wards burned to the ground, and not rebuilt. E. J., better known as Lucky, Baldwin, was the proprietor, and the cashier was a handsome fellow by the name of Unruh, with whom I was fated ten years later to have a legal tussle when he was Baldwin's agent near Sierra Madre. THE MARCHING YEARS 147 Tobey and I were seized with a desire to go to the Yose- mite Valley. We were thought to be lunatics to think of such a thing in winter. But the Stage Company, which took people to the Valley, told us they would take us in if we cared to go, and would promise not to growl at minor dis- comforts and delays. The snow was liable to be deep on the top of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and if a very heavy fall of it came, we might have to come out on snowshoes. We took a night train to Merced, arriving in the morning; took there a stage to Mariposa, where we stopped for the night. Next morning we drove to Cold Springs, where we struck the snow, and had to contract our luggage, get sad- dles and mount the horses. We wallowed through deep snow to Clark Station,* which we reached after dark. All the next day we spent riding through deeper snow six miles to the Mariposa Grove of giant sequoias, and back. The big trees are a moderate curiosity only; among other very large trees they look less impressive than you expect them to. The next day we rode to the top of the mountains, preceded by a four-horse team hitched to a heavy sled, with two men, as road breakers. Here was a Stage Company station with two custodians. They entertained us with supper, lodging and breakfast. They fed us sumptuously, regaled us with yarns of the mountains in the evening, and gave us to sleep on the floor with our clothes on, and our feet towards the fire.f The following day (preceded by our convoy) we reached the Valley, before noon. In two days we were on the way out of the Valley. In that time we had rested ourselves and our horses, had ascended to a moderate height the Columbia Trail, the only one that was open; we had seen many of the sights; had heard the echoing detonation of huge masses of ice falling from the top of the Yosemite Falls to the rocks 500 feet below; we had seen a greenish blue, sunlight illumi- nated cathedral of colossal icicles at the Bridal Veil Falls— ♦Since named, I think, Wawona. tSee the author's book "Fragments and Addresses" on this topic. 148 THE MARCHING YEARS and we had eaten a turkey dinner and drunk the champagne of Hotel Leidig on Washington's birthday anniversary. This trip was spiced with several minor circumstances. Tobey was giddy, or thought he was, on the heights of the Columbia Trail, especially when he looked down the declivity; then he would give a thousand dollars to be back on the floor of the Valley; and he longed for a canoe on the waters of Cape Cod, which he said had never frightened him, however rough the waves. But he was really a good sport, and after- wards laughed over his peculiar sensibilities. When we were about to start on this trip from San Francisco a debilitated looking Quaker from the east, who was on his wedding trip, asked to join our party with his wife, and we were agreeable. She was a gentle, pleasing personality, while he was a protestant by nature, made worse, evidently, by his poor health. Throughout the journey he found abundant things to object to and complain about, and virtually nothing to approve or commend. This attitude led Tobey and me to exclaim the more at the beauties and wonders, and to excuse the delays and hardships. When the amazing glories of Inspiration Point flashed upon us, the man insisted on telling us of the superior beauties of a place in New York called Watkins Glen. On the morning we started from Clark's for the mountain top his wife was too fatigued to go farther, and remained at the hotel until our return, five days later. The previous presence of his wife must have exercised some restraint upon him, for now that she was absent his complaints grew more rash and irritating, and they were nearly all directed toward our guide, who was a patient, faithful fellow by the name of Joe. But there was a limit, and once or twice the guide retorted in a proper manner—which made the fellow more voluble in his insulting talk. We were riding tandem, coming out of the Valley, when a climax occurred. The guide was ahead, Tobey next, then myself and the Quaker behind me. He was keeping up his THE MARCHING YEARS 149 loud talk against the guide, whom he held responsible for all the sins, real and supposititious, of the Stage Company; and he took out of his hip pocket a pistol, which he not only dis- played, but talked about as being in prime condition. Then the guide got off his horse, and walked back, saying, "Mr. --------, this has gone far enough." It was evident that an ugly fight was imminent; and in a spurt of impulsiveness I roared at the guide: "What's the matter with you, Joe? Don't you know that fellow is an irresponsible boy? You are too big a man to mind what he says. Get on to your horse and go ahead." This ended the incident, and we journeyed on in relative silence. The pistol disappeared, and the growling ceased, but I have a suspicion that afterward the man did not like me. That was bearable, but it was sad to see his expectant, beautiful wife, who had been sick in his absence, greet him; to see him glum, with a few perfunctory words and not a smile or any word about the wonders he had seen. We rode the horses down to our stagecoach, all the way pitying the poor animals for the terrific hardships we had imposed upon them. When they were hitched to the stage and we started down the hill out of the snow, they kicked up their heels and squealed with glee. No human speech was ever more intelligible or eloquent. Tobey and I returned to Los Angeles, and soon started for home by the way of Colo- rado Springs, Manitou and Denver. The second California trip was early in the year 1888. The great boom in real estate that had kept all southern California agog for several years had just stopped suddenly, and a large part of the business of the community had fallen flat. The change affected Los Angeles, Pasadena and San Diego severely. Pasadena had had great expectations, especially for its famous Orange Grove Avenue. Here the street was all torn up, to be widened; the curbs were being moved back several feet, to make an avenue worthy of the City of Ambition for 150 THE MARCHING YEARS the future. This wide street was maintained for over twenty years with a sort of macadam that was dusty and muddy by spells; and in the later years the automobiles sucked up the dust and threw it into clouds, to be blown into the dwellings. Then the street was again torn up, the curbs brought toward the center, the grass plots made wider, and the street returned to its original width; and it was given an asphalt pavement. We went to Santa Barbara, stopping at the Arlington Hotel. On the evening of our arrival the illuminating gas had an intensely unpleasant odor. We were told that this happened frequently; that complaints had been made again and again, with only a brief little improvement after each complaint. The next morning the hotel manager asked me to go with him to the gas works and try to get permanent relief from this nuisance. He evidently thought me an expert in such matters. I denied having any special knowl- edge of gas making. He smiled, apologized profusely for imposing on me when on a much deserved vacation, and again begged me to help him. He talked as a polite gentle- man does to a friend he suspects of prevarication. Plainly he took no stock in my protestations of ignorance—plainly, also, Stone and Yaggy had started his scheme; had told him that I could certainly help him, and that he must expect my protestations, but not to listen to them seriously. I thought I saw through the plot, consented and rode away with him. The only fact I knew bearing on the problem was that lime in some form was sometimes used to deodorize gas, and on this slender basis, and with a great deal of politeness and thankfulness to the gas man, and profuse apologies for bothering him, and a disavowal of any wish for any secrets he might have, I succeeded in making successfully one of the most audacious bluffs ever perpetrated by an ignoramus. And finally, I shook hands with him and bowed myself out, without giving him a chance to ask me a single question vital to the business. Had he asked me one such I should have been lost. To my tentative and cautious questioning he THE MARCHING YEARS 151 confessed that he used lime in the process; told me the amount used for each thousand feet of gas; agreed that it was hardly enough; gave me the amount of his production, and the amount of additional lime necessary to make a perfect product, and what this would cost, and finally admitted that if the product was good, the town ought to and probably would take enough more gas to make the profit far greater than the price of the additional lime. Three years afterwards when I went to Santa Barbara sick, this hotelkeeper told me that from the day of our visit to the gas works the gas had been continuously perfect. I have often wondered whether he thought I had told him the truth about my ignorance, or had fibbed to him, and was really as wise to the business as the gas man evidently thought me. At Santa Barbara I found my friend and former patient, Charles Dwight Willard, whom I had driven out of Chicago a year or two before in the hope of saving his life. He had improved so much as to be able to do a little journalistic work, and was hopeful and courageous. He was destined to struggle against his infirmity and work on for more than twenty years, a vital factor in the intellectual, civic and industrial life of southern California, and to die there missed by a large group of loving people. Later, when I went to California on my journey of banish- ment in 1891, Willard was in Los Angeles, looking well; and on seeing me and learning of my mission, he laughed explosively, because, as he said, he had rebelled against leaving Chicago on my insistence, and now I had been com- pelled to take my own medicine. When Mrs. Bridge came in May of that year, Miss Mary McGregor came with her, and, two days later, she and Willard were married in our house. It was on this second journey to California that I was so pleased with the balmy, bracing climate that I jocularly said to my traveling companions one day that I should like to be just sick enough sometime to be compelled to come 152 THE MARCHING YEARS to California to live. In less than three years that wish, whether wise or wicked, was granted, and I was living among the scenes of delight. Dropping then my professional work, becoming perhaps a permanent invalid and going away, was so awful a punishment that it would have taken only a moderate streak of superstition to make it appear to be a just infliction for a sinful speech. But even a clinched superstition could not for long have withstood the glory of that winter sunshine and my returning health. At the time of this second visit Stone was still editor of the Chicago Daily News, on which as a regular writer was our friend, that erratic genius, Eugene Field. While on our journey we received several of his inimitable drawings, whose wit was directed at our search for pleasure. One of these was labeled: "Dr. Bridge Enjoys a Quiet Night's Rest in Los Angeles." It showed a bewhiskered fellow lying upon his back on a mattress, on the floor, just awakened in terror at a colossal spider that was letting itself down by its thread, and dangling a foot above his head. The picture was a pencil drawing, a fair likeness, and the terror shown by the face and hands was vivid and artistic. It is much to be regretted that this picture was lost. Another drawing he sent to Stone represented three little skeleton-lined figures running away from a colossal bug—and the bug as tall as the figures. That drawing I have preserved. It is inscribed: "Mr. Stone, Dr. Bridge and Deacon Yaggy Enjoyed Them- selves in Southern California." CHAPTER XV. CALIFORNIA. ONCE in the new land, and free from the cares and worries of my incessant treadmill, I began to improve. Even before Mrs. Bridge arrived we had determined to make our home in the village of Sierra Madre. I had boarded there almost from the time of my arrival; it seemed a fairy spot of romance to us, and we soon began to make plans for a new house. This was built and ready for occupancy about Thanksgiving time of that year. It was a two-story frame structure, lighted by gas made from gasoline by an auto- matic machine in the barn, and heated by a hot water system. The plan was designed by Mrs. Bridge, whose talent in this direction was destined to develop several subsequent houses, which we built or built over—one in Pasadena, one near Beverly Hills for a country house, and two in Los Angeles, one for ourselves and one for employes. The lack of house heat for winter in southern California had impressed us as a great and unnecessary hardship for both the sick and the well; and we determined that this fault should not obtain in any house we built. Visitors were going back east in numbers every spring, and telling about the coldness of the dwellings, the boarding houses and hotels. Two years afterward Eugene Field had some expe- riences of cold rooms and halls in Los Angeles and San Francisco, and went back and rang all sorts of changes on the frigidness of California in winter—and he probably had not seen snow or ice out of doors while he was there. The next fall when I returned to Chicago for my lectures, he promptly inserted a paragraph in his column in the news- paper to the effect that I had just arrived from California ostensibly to deliver some lectures in Rush College, but really for the purpose of getting warm. [153] 154 THE MARCHING YEARS Although Field was in poor health when he came to Cali- fornia, nothing could repress his spontaneity and lawlessness of humor. The day of his arrival he came to my office, and after salutations were over he noticed the framed picture of Melville Stone hanging over my desk, and wrote his own name on a slip of paper and pasted it at the bottom of the picture. He knew Stone was expected to arrive in a few days and would discover this theft of his personality; he did not come, but many people afterward seeing the label, expressed sur- prise that Eugene Field looked like that. After Field's death that slip of paper was removed, and is preserved with other relics of the man. He came to my office another time, and brought his friend and traveling companion, Leigh Lynch. Learning from my secretary that there was a lady patient in my consulting room, he sat down close to the door of the latter, and in his loud sonorous voice, that would have gone through a stone wall, said to the secretary: "So you say Dr. Bridge has always treated you like a gentleman, do you? Well, you're the first woman he ever treated in that way." Field and Lynch wanted to see the Public Library. I took them over and introduced them to the librarian, Miss Kelso, in her office. She had with her other guests, and we all sat down and chatted a few minutes. Then Field recited some of his poems for our edification. Soon a demure library assistant entered the room for a book, when Field instantly broke out with: "Well, if you think we must cut down the salaries of this force of people, I suppose we shall have to agree to it—but only a cut of ten per cent, not a penny more." The girl supposed we were a new Library Board. She rushed out of the room and in five minutes every assistant in the library was in tears or anger over the cut in her salary. In ten minutes another assistant entered the room, and Field declaimed: "No, gentlemen, I refuse to agree to any reduction in the salaries of these women. They are low enough already." The girl brightened, hurriedly left THE MARCHING YEARS 155 the room, and told her fellows that the tide had turned, and that their salaries were not to be disturbed. At a subsequent time at a hotel in Chicago, when Field, Stone, Edgar C. Bradley and I entered a descending elevator, we found two passengers already there. They were elderly women, both over-dressed and over-decorated. Field looked at them and instantly became roguish. He turned to me and said in a carrying undertone: "Doctor, I don't think that is a case of true smallpox. I believe it's only varioloid." The ladies gave a gentle shriek to the elevator man to stop the car quick—which he did at the next landing, and they rushed out precipitately. Our Sierra Madre house was on a square of nearly an acre of land, situated high in the village, near the Sierra Madre mountains, and overlooking the town, the San Gabriel Valley, and the city of Pasadena, six miles to the west. It was a glorious view and a glorious vision. While the house was building we lived comfortably next door, with the assist- ance of a talented and faithful Chinese cook yclept Ah Gipp, who continued thereafter to serve us for nine years. In Sierra Madre we had our first real joy of a garden. We planted fruit and ornamental trees, shrubs and flowers in profusion, altogether some hundreds of them, and were acquainted with and nursed every one of the expanding things. It was a continuing pleasure through the three years of our residence there. I had opened an office in Los Angeles, and traveled to it by rail daily except Sundays. At first it was a diversion, and furnished amusement; later on, some patients began to come, and there was more or less practice in Sierra Madre and Pasadena. We enjoyed the life in Sierra Madre greatly. We had for neighbors some of the choicest people, most of whom lived in a simple and unostentatious way that was comforting to our nerves. In August, '92, Dr. Walter Haines was coming from Chicago to see us and to have a little vacation himself. It was arranged 156 THE MARCHING YEARS that I, with General Henry C. Corbin, the Adjutant General of the Western Department of the Army, stationed at Los Angeles, should meet him at Flagstaff, Arizona, and all go to the Grand Canon of the Colorado. We met there on August 20, and the next day rode in a wagon seventy miles to the rim, arriving in the evening. We slept in a tent, and next day made such an inspection of the wonders as we could by 11 o'clock, when we were obliged to start back. We walked down a trail for half a mile, and made no attempt to go farther. Corbin characterized the sight as terribly—not beautifully—awful; and we agreed with him. In three days we were all back in southern California. After our first year in Sierra Madre I became the presi- dent of the water company of the village, and soon found that we had on our hands a dispute over water rights and business with our near neighbor at Santa Anita, "Lucky Baldwin." Three lawsuits grew out of it, all of which were finally decided in favor of the company. The business was annoying to me and to us all; and the success of the suits seemed only part compensation for the trouble; but the experience in life, in the law, in courts and in human nature probably were sufficient reward for all our efforts. It was on arrival from the Grand Canon with Dr. Haines that I was taken at once to our waterworks, where I smashed the water pipe that Baldwin's agent had surreptitiously in- stalled to appropriate the water from our tunnel. It was for this act that the agent sought to have me arrested— further described in another chapter. Some curious fictions grew up in connection with my sickness and journey to California. I did not appear to be very ill, but left soon after my disease was known. I had to go, for, having advised some hundreds of people to run away from Chicago the moment they found they had the pul- monary form of the disease, it was impossible to escape taking my own advice. THE MARCHING YEARS 157 A certain Irishman, whom I barely knew by sight, lived in Sierra Madre. He conducted people up the mountain trails by horse- or burro-back. He was a good-hearted fellow, and entertained his patrons by tales about the mountains and the people he knew. He found that the bigger the story the louder his hearers exclaimed; and some of his tales grew from month to month, and spread far and wide wherever the story of those mountains was recited. He frequently entertained acquaintances of mine from the east who would inquire if he knew me. "Sure, I know him. I helped take him off the train on a stretcher when he arrived in this country." When asked if I had got better he would reply, "He did. It was the climate and whiskey that did it." Did they ask if I drank much whiskey, he would tell how he had cared for me in a tent in the mountains, and of seeing me drink a half pint of whiskey daily. The diurnal portion grew as this story was repeated; and the last edition that we heard of made the amount a full quart. If our Irish friend had been charged with romancing he probably would have asked if it wasn't known all over the village that I took two or three eggnogs each day—and didn't such things always contain liquor? That would have been a true story for the first year, after which this delectable and nourishing beverage was omitted altogether. Each nog con- tained two teaspoonfuls of liquor, and was made specially by Ah Gipp with great precision. Those eggnogs became notorious, if not famous, by the correspondence of the first Mayor Harrison, who came to see me in those early months. He drank one of my nogs at the California Club, and after- ward wrote home to his own newspaper, the Chicago Times, that you could ask at any bar in southern California for a "Bridge eggnog" and get the correct mixture. My resort to this form of food for invalids who are unable to eat solid foods, but can drink liquid ones, brought me a lot of gentle chaffing; it also once, in the city of Stockton, brought an amusing compliment. At the Yosemite Hotel I had been 158 THE MARCHING YEARS trying without success to eat a dinner that perhaps was good enough for a well man, but repulsive to me. Failing in this, I went to the hotel bar and asked for an eggnog. The bartender did not know how to make such a thing, and had neither eggs nor milk. I coaxed him to get the materials of the hotel steward, and then gave him minute directions how to proceed. In the midst of his manipulations he raised his smiling face to me, and said: "I see, you have been a bar- tender in your day." That compliment reminds me of one that, many years afterward, came to my neighbor and friend, Sprague, and my- self. Wm. E. Curtis, the correspondent of the Chicago Daily News, was in southern California. He wrote a letter to his paper every day. One day he was short on facts, and proceeded to pay his respects to some of his Chicago friends who were sojourning there. Mr. Andrew McNally lived in Altadena winters, and owned a large ranch at La Mirada, some miles south of Los Angeles. At the latter place he had bored a deep well for artesian water, and got none. But, according to the report of Curtis, he did strike a veritable vein of ripe old whiskey, and reported the same to his neigh- bors, who doubted it, and asked for positive proof. To sat- isfy everybody McNally summoned several of his Chicago friends and his neighbors to come on a certain day and test the product of the well. "Among his guests were O. S. A. Sprague and Norman Bridge." The verdict of the company was that the product of the well was whiskey of a fine quality. And McNally then and there declared that he would im- mediately start another well in the hope of finding a flow of mint juleps. Mr. Sprague and I first knew of the story through the newspapers. By the end of three years from our settlement in Sierra Madre I was nearly recovered, and my practice in Pasadena and Los Angeles had increased so much that the labor of attending to it made it necessary to move nearer. So we built a house in Pasadena at 100 South Grand Avenue, and THE MARCHING YEARS 159 moved into it in August, 1894. It was a two-story, nine- room frame house with a high attic. It was on a half acre lot, and here we made another garden, this time altogether ornamental. Within a year we found that the house needed to be enlarged, and soon began to plan additions to it. During the next half dozen years we made no less than five such suc- cessive changes in the building. Some were large, and some small, a few were for esthetic effect, most of them added greatly to the livableness of the home—all increased its attractiveness, and all bore evidence of the artistic taste and domestic skill of the designer. The house was heated by a hot water system, the boiler being in the basement; it burned petroleum distillate, fed to it by a pipe from a high tank in the back yard. The new-fangled burner with which it was equipped made a roaring sound all over the house, until we built a brick wall around and over the boiler, a foot or two away from it. In eight years we used four successive patterns of burner, each an improvement over the previous one. We lived in that house sixteen years, when we left it to move to Los Angeles. During our life in Pasadena we entered more or less into the various activities of the city—social, educational, financial and even political. Mrs. Bridge was busy in a quiet way with her social affairs, gave some time to the women's organi- zation of her church (Universalist), and more to the care and comfort of two remarkable women, our mothers. Our house was called by many of our friends "The House of the Two Mothers." We ourselves often called them "The girls." They enjoyed each other greatly, and enjoyed us, their two children, perhaps even more. My mother told a neighbor one day what a fortunate woman her daughter-in-law was to have such a husband, and my mother-in-law on another day told the same neighbor what a fortunate man her son- in-law was to have such a wife. Each was entirely satisfied with the situation as she saw it. 160 THE MARCHING YEARS These women were unlike each other in almost every particular; unlike in life history, in education, in their looks and ways of walking and acting; in view-point on many subjects. They were alike in having a staunch, liberal religious faith. Mrs. Manford was an educated woman, and before her marriage had been a teacher. She kept a diary and wrote a great deal, and she read extensively, espe- cially in denominational literature. She lived with us over two decades, and was always fearful she would be an annoy- ance to her son-in-law. During all that time I never saw her have in her hands any sewing or other like "work." My mother, on the other hand, had the misfortune to have had almost no schooling, had spent years in the hard work of a farmer's wife, and had gloried in doing her housework even after it ceased to be necessary. Now she amused herself in reading newspapers and books, and in doing some wonderful specimens of needlework. She was a dyspeptic invalid for years. Earlier in life she had been a great sufferer from sick- headaches ; and when she was over seventy-five years old she found that lager beer at dinner helped her digestion, and she liked the taste of it. But because she liked it she would not drink it, fearing she might contract a bad habit—she who was incapable of having a habit that she could not conquer in an instant! She died in our Pasadena home at eighty- five years;* the other mother fell asleep there five years later at over ninety-two years, f During those years Pasadena got the reputation of being a small city of millionaires. Really the rich people were few; the large numerical majority were poor people, living in little inexpensive bungalows, most of which were wrongly con- structed for protection of their occupants against the heat of a few hot days of summer, and the nights following such days. The fault was that the roofs of most of them were relatively flat, and set down close to the ceilings of the rooms. *June 15, 1903. tAugust 16, 1908. THE MARCHING YEARS 161 There should have been a six-foot ventilated attic with an opening in the ceiling to let the hot air rise and find its way out of doors. That would have saved the need of a summer sojourn to the beaches, which many families who could ill afford it, had to take. Soon after moving to Pasadena I joined with a few of my neighbors in forming the Union Savings Bank (afterward also the Union National), and was one of its directors as long as we lived there. Some of my associates urged me to take the office of vice-president, but this was declined because of a lack of any technical knowledge of banking, and the lack of time. I told this incident to my friend and neighbor, Mr. Sprague, one day when he and his wife were dining with us, with the remark that I didn't see why my associates and others should persist in regarding me as a rich man. He instantly retorted: "Oh, it must be because they have em- ployed you." He was capable of that sort of repartee any day when he felt well. Once, in Chicago, walking with his friends Keith and Bartlett, the former was urging the latter not to resign from the board of trustees of a certain college, saying: "It takes none of your time except once a year when you have to go to commencement, sit on the platform and look wise." Sprague instantly said: "Sit on the platform and look wise! Bartlett couldn't do that; he's too con- scientious." Sprague's was one of the rarest natures I have ever known —and I knew and loved him from the time of the great fire of '71 to his death in 1909. His friends in Chicago, who were legion, built a stately and costly nurses' home for the Pres- byterian Hospital and dedicated it to his memory. There is now in Chicago an institution of enormous value to mankind, the result of a testamentary foundation by him, that will do him honor through the generations to come, "The Otho S. A. Sprague Memorial Institute for Medical Research." It encourages research in human disease, by supporting with funds the research workers—a thing that is greatly 162 THE MARCHING YEARS needed in this country. Research workers are usually unable to support themselves and pay their incidental expenses in their various investigations; the Sprague Memorial comes to their assistance. There is hardly another kind of phil- anthropy so useful as this. The pity is that more wealthy people do not know that fact. Throop Polytechnic Institute of Pasadena was founded in 1891 by Amos G. Throop, a greatly respected resident of the town. I had known him before he left Chicago, where he was a sometime member of the common council, and was esteemed far and wide as a man of sterling worth. I soon became a member (1894) of the Board of Trustees of the Institute, and so continued until the end of 1916, and for the last twenty- one years was chairman of the Board. The institution de- veloped from a small manual training school to an ambitious institute with a small college department, doing work of a serious and substantial character. Finally the city built a manual training high school, which made our manual training work no longer needed. The Institute then dropped all departments save the college, and that was developed into an engineering college of the highest character. Its name was changed to Throop College of Technology. Its career since has justified the hopes of its friends; and it has made of Pasadena in the most creditable sense a college town. It has a large campus, modern fireproof college buildings of artistic design and adaptation to its work, and a respectable endowment that is growing. Its usefulness and fame are sure to go on increasing. It was during the later years of our residence in Pasadena that La Vina—the Vineyard—came into existence. It origi- nated in the brain of that unselfish genius in philanthropy and business management, Dr. Henry B. Stehman,* and its upbuilding has been his handiwork chiefly. He saw the need of a sanatorium for tuberculosis in the neighborhood. *Dr. Stehman was for many years superintendent of the Presbyterian Hospital in Chicago. He died in Pasadena, February 17, 1918. THE MARCHING YEARS 163 It would do the best work if located outside the town. There was a farm a few miles to the northwest that was for sale at $30,000. It was at the foot of the mountain, and had an abundant water supply. Ten men quickly rallied around him with subscriptions of $3,000 each, to buy the farm and let him attempt to build up an institution upon it. Then he needed buildings, and his neighbors and friends began to offer money for them, each donation covering the cost of a build- ing. In ten years he had there a little village of simple, rude and efficient buildings, and was caring for sixty or more patients, mostly indigent and non-paying. The cost of maintenance was of course large, but donations, annual subscriptions, and gifts of gratitude and sympathy with this form of service, have kept the institution out of debt, and made it in every way a success in philanthropy and mercy. It is now accumulating an endowment whose income will be used for maintenance alone. I am sure that no giver of little or much to La Vina has ever regretted it or ever will regret it. It was while living in Pasadena with the office in Los Angeles that my professional work attained its greatest measure; and it was here too that I began in 1906 deliberately to reduce it. The moving of our residence to Los Angeles, in September, 1910, helped toward this result, but it was not till several years afterward that I was able definitely to go out of practice, except for an occasional consultation. CHAPTER XVI. EUROPE. OF the many thousands of American doctors who visited the hospitals and laboratories of Europe during the past forty years, few of them did much hard work. Those who did were mostly young men, and some of them engaged in serious work for long periods in both laboratories and hospitals. But all brought away the illumination and refreshment that comes of seeing others do the things we are trying to do, and that require expertness. Some of those travelers have come back to tell us that in foreign hospitals things are not done any better than we do them; and this has been increasingly true during the last few years prior to the Great War. But we always had something to learn from them, and frequently a great deal. It always benefits us to go away from home to learn anything, even though we might by application and industry learn it at home just as truly. Away from home, with novel surroundings, we grasp new factors and thoughts with more speed, avidity and joy. One of the great profits of those years of wandering was the growth of a desire to see America develop schools and labora- tories, scholars and investigators, that would make such foreign study less necessary. Fortunately that consumma- tion has come about. We have the laboratories and research workers, and the research is going forward largely by private endowment, only in part by the grace of public appropriations. Mrs. Bridge and I visited Europe twice, in the summers of 1889 and 1896, spending about four months each time. We combined vacation and sight-seeing with some casual study of Europe, and especially for such professional observa- tion as I could make in hospitals and schools without serious interference with the pleasures of our traveling groups. On the first journey we had the company, after our arrival [164] THE MARCHING YEARS 165 abroad, of Mr. and Mrs. M. E. Stone and Mr. and Mrs. 0. S. A. Sprague; on the second Mrs. Robert J. Burdette and her son, Mr. Roy B. Wheeler, and a part of the time Mrs. and Miss Reid of Belmont, California. We traveled the routes that others had taken, and saw many of the sights that had general interest. We saw Europe's mountains, lakes and rivers, its fjords and coasts, and, in the first journey, the North Cape and the midnight sun;* and rode in two-wheeled carts in Norway some four hundred miles. We visited the museums and art galleries, and saw the august ruins and the excavated wonders of ancient life and civili- zation. We did not go to Egypt for its wonders in this sort; but Rome we saw (in '96) with its amazing tracks of the genus homo through the ages—and these tracks are the chief valid reason for going abroad. We were both sick in Rome the first week in July—some fever that kept us in bed for a week. We saw acres of the Old Masters in paintings—a few of them were real masters; only a few—and we saw the ingath- ering of things in art and objects and utensils of human life throughout history, and aeons before, in the galleries and museums, as well as out of doors. We saw these things in London, Paris, Milan, Rome, Naples, Pompeii, Florence, Venice, Berlin, Vienna; in Strassburg, Dresden, Niirnberg, Munich, Leipsic and Geneva; in Amsterdam, Brussels, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Christiania and Trondhjem; we saw the charms of nature and art in Cadenabia. We tried to see—and did somewhat—many of the scenes of daily life among the people which most Americans miss in their rush to check off the Baedekerian lists of things to look at. In the babel of tongues we had the reward of curiosity, and saw how very much alike is human nature everywhere and in all time. ♦Bishop Chas. H. Fowler and family were with us on the North Cape trip. He took a little American flag with him to the Cape; and we held him up on the little monument there while he waved it at midnight of July 19. 166 THE MARCHING YEARS I was fortunate in getting a touch—in some centers much more than a touch—of hospital and laboratory methods in several cities where good work was being done. London, Vienna, Berlin, Geneva, Heidelberg, Strassburg, Zurich, Leipsic, Dresden, Hamburg, Munich and Erlangen were the principal ones. There was a deal of very good work going on; and an occasional error in diagnosis in life was revealed in the necropsy, to the sad discomfiture of the clinicians—exactly as was being done in America. The pathologists seemed to take a poorly disguised delight in revealing the mistakes of their clinical brothers, showing a very human weakness that seems to be universal. I saw how some of the junior men, working hard and struggling for advancement and fame, and conceiving new theories of various diseases, would unwit- tingly try to make irrelevant facts and circumstances bend to the support of them. This is the way of enthusiastic theorists and students the world over—and some of those young men have since been heard from in a large way in the scientific world. I left my party one day at Niirnberg and went to the near-by town of Erlangen in the hope of seeing Prof. Strumpel, of the university. He had just gone off on a vacation, and his assistants very kindly entertained me. They showed me the hospital, and took me to a fraternity house, where a sham duel was fought for my edification—the principals having their heads covered by a cuirass of wire, the show in all other respects being true to custom. They gave me a dinner under the trees in the hospital grounds. In the evening they took me to a room in the university, where there was in session a medical society, composed of professors in the university and outside practitioners. The subject under discussion was the "Methods of Medical Education in German Universities." About thirty members were seated around three long tables, and in front of each man was a large measure of beer— it must have been nearly or quite a quart. Four or five of THE MARCHING YEARS 167 the men drank four each of these measures during the evening, and all drank some of the beer except the secretary of the meeting and myself. The meeting adjourned at midnight. Some of the eyes were a little suffused, but the men all walked out of the room with steady gait. It is refreshing to know that the use of alcoholics by students and professors in German universities has been greatly reduced by the advice and example of the professors themselves, who have demon- strated that alcohol hampers the mental processes. In April, 1906, I made a hurried trip to London with some of my business associates—Messrs. Doheny and Kellogg, with their families—for purely business purposes. We remained but a few days, and came directly back. There was little time for sight-seeing, but we visited the House of Commons in session, the National Gallery, the Museum, Westminster Abbey and Hyde Park on a Sunday, where we heard ten or a dozen different men haranguing separate small groups of quiet listeners (from two to twenty in each group) on various subjects. They nearly all denounced something, some people or laws or customs—and took themselves in all seriousness as reformers, ready to save society if not the world. CHAPTER XVII. AUTHORSHIP. MY first experience in authorship, if such it can be called, was in compiling and publishing, in association with Dr. T. D. Fitch, a little duodecimo book of 360 pages, called the "Chicago Medical Register and Directory."* It contained, besides a register of the regular profession, a description of the non-sectarian medical colleges, and of the hospitals, infirmaries, asylums and charitable institutions, together with the medical and scientific associations of the State of Illinois. It was revised by the presidents of the regular medical colleges and societies of Chicago, and of the State Medical Society. It was designated Volume I. The preface was dated October, 1872. The next volume was published in 1874 by the Chicago Medico-Historical Society, an organization created for the purposes indicated by its title. The editor was Dr. A. Reeves Jackson, assisted by a committee on publication, consisting of Drs. Thomas Bevan, Norman Bridge, R. C. Hamill, J. E. Owens and the editor. A third volume was brought out in 1877 by the State Medical Society and the Chicago Medico-Historical Society. Dr. D. W. Graham was the editor. It was called the " Illinois State Medical Register." A fourth volume was published two years later under the same auspices. This publication was of value to the profession of the city and state. Its chief value to me was in the doing of the work; a lesson in the getting through the press of a book of some sort—any sort. It was the creation of a critical sense, rude though it was, in the art of book-making. It was an exercise and an experience that made it easier for me to do medical editorial work a few years later; and two decades afterward ♦See also Chapter XI. [168] THE MARCHING YEARS 169 to begin the creation of books of my very own—the tenta- tive breaking into authorship. The activities of my life have been such as to offer little opportunity for vacations as such purely, or for writing books in the best way. The ideal way must be to have enough leisure, enough time to sit down and write deliberately—to make a business of it. Yet much good writing has been done under pressure and in a rush; and some of it has found a place in enduring literature. From June, 1869, when I had been a graduate in medicine a little over a year, to September, 1874, I was a regular con- tributor to the Prairie Farmer, a weekly paper that circulated extensively among farmers in the middle west. My articles were devoted to questions of health, sanitation and sickness, and to helping the farmer and his family to keep well as far as possible, and take sensible care of themselves when they were sick. They appeared under the caption of "Hy- giene on the Farm. By a Physician." My name was never divulged by the paper except to correspondents who asked for it. The articles averaged about one column in length, and appeared irregularly. During the five years there were some ninety articles printed. Measured by their compensa- tion, these writings could not have been very valuable, but as I look over them now they seem calculated to be useful; and they must have attracted some attention, for numerous letters were received by the paper addressed to "The Physi- cian," and asking questions about health and disease, and suggesting subjects for discussion in the column. Some of these letters were flattering to me; and I am bound to say that now, after more than four decades, a rereading of the papers shows them to be rather well reasoned out, rather well written, and distinctly useful to lay people. If they were to be republished now they would require but little revision to make them tally with the science of today. Whatever value they may have had for the country lay public, their writing had undoubtedly vastly more value for me. 170 THE MARCHING YEARS At the time these contributions were begun the late Mr. Rodney Welch was a regular writer on the paper (afterward on the Chicago Times), and I believe it was due to his friendly suggestions that I was invited to write for it. Welch was a valued friend to the time of his death. He was an unusual character—rather droll, something of an iconoclast, and a good deal of a philosopher. My little output of books has largely consisted of the accumulations of papers, essays and addresses that have been read to clubs, societies, schools and colleges on various occasions. The papers were mostly written under many disadvantages, due to pressing daily cares. No one of them was written in a day; most were composed at several, some at many, sittings. Sometimes a paper would be started by jotting down hurriedly a few leading thoughts, covering one or two pages, and not be seen again for weeks, then to be revised, added to, elaborated and perhaps typed in triple spaces—later to have one or several revisions before reaching a stage at all satisfying to the writer. And if he laid the paper away for a few weeks, he was sure to find some call for further revision on rereading it. When the manuscript drawer grew plethoric it was not unnatural to wish to see some of the articles in book form. So "The Penalties of Taste and Other Essays," a diminutive volume, came out in 1898. In four years "The Rewards of Taste and Other Papers" appeared. Five years later the drawer was again full, and "House Health and Other Papers" was printed. This was in 1907. In 1914 the drawer again offered fresh temptation; there was also another drawer, long neglected and almost forgotten, that held a lot of ancient fragments, some of which, being read again, had an interest for the writer that provoked a desire to see them in better form, for his own satisfaction at least. So in a few months—out of the two drawers—came the book, larger than any of its predecessors, called "Fragments and Addresses." THE MARCHING YEARS 171 The publishers of the last book asked to have a picture of the author tipped into each copy intended for presentation —which was the major part of the edition. The scheme was agreed to, and so a photograph that flattered him most and was least severe in visage was selected and used. The work of the publishers of this book was much complimented; indeed, one author and editor, in a middle western univer- sity, wrote me, saying: "Your effusions are sent forth in such elegance of form that I feel like putting on my dress suit when I sit down to read them!" Some of the articles in these books have appeared in various periodicals, and in reprints for special distribution; and, in using them for the books, they have all undergone revision and more or less enlargement. A wise observer—perhaps himself the author of un- popular books—has said in substance that many books of great merit have had small sales, and that the size of the sales is often in inverse ratio to the real value of the book. If this is true I must have written some rare literature. Really, these books were published chiefly for my personal satisfaction and for the few friends who might care to have and perhaps read them. In the book "Penalties," the name of the author was printed without any degree marks, and some amusing inquiries were made of the publishers and booksellers, as to whether the author could be a relative of the physician of the same name. This incident led to the use of the M.D. after the author's name in the second and third books. When "Fragments" came to be printed he had so far overcome his scruples as to use also the A.M. of a degree that had been given him complimentarily by Lake Forest College in 1889 —when he was abroad.* He never by academic attendance had earned such a degree; and he really disapproved of them, as many of his friends knew—some of these probably con- nived to procure the degree when he was in Europe. "The degree of LL.D. was bestowed by Occidental College in 1920. 172 THE MARCHING YEARS It is interesting, at least to the author, to review the cir- cumstances that prompted the preparation of some of the papers in these books. "The Penalties of Taste" as an essay grew out of my observation of a large number of good people of refinement who, by their emotional instability and their critical irritability, showed that they plainly bore the stripes of the "penalties." Such excessive so-called refinement of taste was clearly a misfortune to many of them, since it exposed them to constant carking from the lack of re- finement all about them. Some of them had "nervous prostration"; some had much worse mental troubles. The essay was written in the hope of helping such unfortunates. " Bashfulness" was first an address delivered in 1895 in the First Presbyterian Church of Los Angeles (then located on the southeast corner of Second Street and Broadway). The subject was suggested by some of the author's own ex- periences; and a discriminating listener to the address, when asked what he thought of it, said that it was a good subject, as well as a new one, and that the speaker had "in his own person illustrated his theme." That the topic was one that much needed to be studied was shown by the number of readers who, after the book was published, thanked the author for the comfort and aid they had personally received from this article. He was a trifle swollen with the notion that he had treated a neglected subject of great importance in a wholly novel and useful way. He had made some search of the literature for anything on the subject, and had found nothing. But years afterwards he chanced to be looking through a volume of Plutarch's miscellaneous writings, and there was an article on bashfulness. His own paper was not enough like this ever to have led to a charge of plagiarism, yet a carping critic who had known of the ancient article could have made him uncomfortable if he had cared to, by printing parts of the two in parallel columns. "The Nerves of the Modern Child" was written in the interest of children born nervous, often of nervous parents, THE MARCHING YEARS 173 who are handicapped by influences that tend to make them grow worse, and have less stability of brain and nerves than their parents had, and so pass into adult life with less power, where they ought to have more. To no other person in the community is this dangerous tendency so apparent as to the observant physician; and he, more than any other, is able to suggest how it may be lessened—although his suggestions are rarely followed. "Our Poorly Educated Educators" was prompted by a knowledge of numerous teachers of narrow subjects, many of them good in their respective fields, who were woefully ignorant about nearly everything else—especially about the commonest things of life. Nothing showed this more vividly than an attempt to find tutors for a few non-vigorous boys who needed to be much out of doors, and to have such a companion-teacher capable of answering with some intelli- gence all the questions a bright boy would naturally ask; and of teaching at least the primer of the sciences that can be studied out of doors. Among such subjects are botany, forestry, agriculture, horticulture, animal industry, zoology, geology, astronomy and meteorology. To find a tutor with such capabilities, who can make himself agreeable to a boy, and be able to influence him for his largest good, is nearly as difficult as to find a good president for a college. "Some Tangents of the Ego" was a study of that maze of human peculiarities, aberrations from the ideal or average, which we see so often in the lives of people. It is these peculiarities and habits that not only handicap the indi- vidual through life (usually without his knowing it), but which lead some psychiatrists to say, because there are so many queer and unaverage people, that most of us are hover- ing near the border line of insanity. How to lead some such unfortunates to discover their handicaps and remove them, and so conspire to more power and easier living, seemed a problem worthy of the most serious treatment. It was the intention of the author that this essay should give the 174 THE MARCHING YEARS title to the second book, instead of "The Rewards of Taste," but he was unfortunately persuaded otherwise by his publishers. "The Mind for a Remedy," as it appeared in the book, led some good people to think the author must be a so-called Christian Scientist, but the paper gives no ground for such a suspicion. It is an attempt to set forth in a simple and rational manner the influence of mental moods on the sensa- tions and nervous symptoms of the body; and to tell how we can ameliorate or control some of the abnormal sensations and conditions of the body by voluntary effort. Its conten- tions are scientific and demonstrable, without a particle of mystery. There are many sane-minded people who are glad to look on life and living in this rational way, and they get comfort from this manner of reasoning. There are others who love mystery, and are unhappy if they are asked to see many of the phenomena of life explained in a rational way —yet their bodies function constantly by physiological rules that vary only a little. The essay is a most practical one, and closes with some eight plain rules for attaining the best results. "The Etiology of Lying," once read before an assembly of high school teachers in Chicago, was an argument leveled at a group of literalists, doctrinaires, moralists and religionists, who say—and think they believe—that when we speak at all we should speak the exact truth, and usually the whole truth, at all times and in all situations; and that anything short of this is a grievous sin. Many of them are excellent people who are anxious about their own conduct, even if they are more anxious about that of their neighbors. Of course they do not live up to their theories. They hide their own foibles from those about them (whatever they do with their confessors), and they do a world of mischief by accusing others—saner and better people than themselves often—of sins of omission and commission that are either THE MARCHING YEARS 175 never committed or, if so, are not sins, but commendable virtues. The fact is that every normal person has some parts of his thoughts, motives and life that are his own, indubitably, and that he cannot fully reveal to others, if he would. If he tries and pretends to do this he makes a mess of it, as when one who is responsible for the safety and perhaps the life of the sick reveals to the patient unnecessarily and often brutally his every fear and misgiving. He then perhaps carries dismay to a soul that is holding on to life by the slenderest thread of hope and courage, which may be snapped by such an indiscretion. Loyalty to one's self and to others, to the troubled, the weak and defenseless, and those who may be struggling to rise above their foibles to better things, usually shows the sane well-wisher of his race what to tell, what to hide, what to forget, or hold that he never knew, and what to shout from the house tops. We should cultivate that sort of loyalty. And the letter of the truth can never excuse us from construc- tive falsehood, that is told with a selfish purpose, or that ignores the rights and true interests of others. There can be no final salvation for those guilty in this sort. When we veer from the literal line it must never be for an ignoble purpose; and all wholesome people must agree with that American statesman (sometime Speaker of the House of Representatives) that we must lose respect for those people "who waste lies." "Man as an Air-eating Animal" was written to emphasize the fact, generally unknown, that man is to a large degree an air-eating animal; to show how the food of man, the sub- stances that build up and sustain his body, are largely such compounds of carbon as finally derive this element from the very small quantity of carbon dioxide (carbonic acid gas) in the atmosphere, and for which, and to capture which, all the leaves of the plant kingdom spread out their broad sur- faces during the seasons when this function can be performed. 176 THE MARCHING YEARS Our reasoning on a subject is often faulty because we fail to comprehend a simple basic fact; and this truth of the way animals grow and live is a basic one, that it is comforting to know. "The Rewards of Taste" was written to catalogue a few of the advantages of good taste which those without it can never know, much less have; to argue that, if we are sensible, the rewards far outweigh and outnumber the penalties; and that we may not only secure these advantages, but continue to hold them and have the joy of seeing them grow under our hand. "The Psychology of the Corset" is a piece of extravagant, hyperbolic glorification of the corset and its congeners, as used in one form or another through the ages. It embodies some fun-poking satire at the almost universal wearing of the garment—or the thing, if it is not a garment—by women of all history. This purpose of the essay must have been adroitly hidden or be very dull, for the woman readers of it do not seem to have discovered it, to any extent. My impression is that the woman readers of the book have usually skipped this article. "The Physical Basis of Hypercriticism." For all art there are abroad many critics with standards so high and exacting that they may be called hypercritics. To them there is one standard for all people; and they find so much to object to in every work of art of every kind, that they become great fault finders. They sometimes actually seem malevolent, and they are very unhappy; they are never quite satisfied with anything. But most of them were not always so; they have grown, developed—or degenerated— into their more extreme state from a previous one of fairer judgment and more joyous outlook. How did they come to change? It was not by premeditation or design; it must have come about in a rational way by the operation of dis- coverable causes. This essay is an attempt to explain the mental and spiritual phenomena, in the physical laws and THE MARCHING YEARS 177 attributes of the something we rather loosely call the faculties of the mind. "The Discordant Children" was written in the interest of a class of troublesome children, mostly boys, who are fre- quently out of agreement with their home discipline, and always object to the course of education and training that is designed for and fits the majority of children. The dis- cordant child hates the memory studies and set regulations of indoor schools; he cannot or will not learn, and ceases to try to make any creditable record in either studies or conduct. He is unhappy in his relations with parents, teachers and his more normal fellows. But he is docile, tractable and pro- gressive with outdoor studies that deal with things, and in shops with tools and materials to work with. When put under such conditions, which for him are the right ones, the transformation is startling and immediate. The child be- comes responsive and is happy; soon he is a creditable member of society. The trouble with these children is not plain viciousness, as is usually supposed, but a peculiar mental constitution that differentiates them from the majority, and for which they are no more responsible than they are for the shape of their faces. They have some natural rights, and one of them is to have at least an attempt made to find for them some field of activity that they will take to and pursue continuously. Five minutes of sympathetic conversation with such a child is usually enough to solve the riddle, and discover with him the trail that he will be glad to travel— and along which he will find both pleasure and success. "House Health," as an argument, grew out of a paper on "Housing of the Poor," read before the "National Con- ference of Charities and Correction" at Portland, Oregon. There it was contended that one of the first requirements of good housing is more fresh air in the house, more cracks and crannies, fewer weather strips, more ventilation—always with dry floors. The habit of most people, rich and poor, in winter is to have living rooms too hot, and to wear clothes 178 THE MARCHING YEARS too thin; hence the demand for high room-heat. Rooms in winter should be cool; the occupants should be clad with more and warmer clothing, and sleeping should be with open windows and outdoor air. To the contention that outdoor air is too cold for sleeping in winter, it may be replied that hundreds of delicate persons are doing this very thing without difficulty; and to the claims that with even moderate ventilation in winter the cost of the added fuel and clothes would be too great for people of moderate means, the reply is that no more than the usual amount of fuel would be required, since the rooms would be at least ten degrees F. lower in temperature, and that the added cost of clothes would be saved in better health, more vigor of body, and a reduction in that most expensive of all calamities, the family sickness. Some fresh air and some motion of the air in the house are necessary for health and vigor. The man who can have only a loosely built shack that he cannot keep the fresh air out of, and who must therefore at all times be something of an outdoor animal, is better off than his rich neighbor with a fine house, from which he shuts out all he can of the fresh air. Hibernation may be good for the bears and squirrels, but hardly for human beings. " Human Talk." Next to the vital processes of the body, talk is the most inevitable function of human kind. It powerfully contributes to the indispensable interests of life. It is the major instrument of the social life of us all. It is vital to our industries, our companionships and defense. More than any other function it reveals man's personal peculiarities, and throws many side-lights on his real self, that he often tries to disguise. It occasionally shows him strong where he thinks himself weak, and uncovers his foibles that he thinks he knows how to hide, and tries to hide. It divulges for each some characteristic that he hopes and believes he lacks, and all of this apart from the aspect of language as an organized means of expression. One of the most interesting as well as exclusive phases of this function is THE MARCHING YEARS 179 laughter. This forms a part of most of the talk peculiarities of the race. This essay was begun as a matter of record of the gro- tesque phases of talk, as observed from time to time. Then the subject grew, new forms appeared and a new interest in them, and so the paper became a document of dimensions, without even getting sight of the end of the study. The paper was read before two bodies of superior people, one being the friends of Mrs. Robert Burdette at her monthly "Tuesday evening." "The Blind Side of the Average Parent" was written to emphasize the obliviousness of most parents to certain foibles of their children. It is curious, as most parents recall and tell of the ways they in childhood fooled and circumvented their parents, that they are not canny enough to avoid being fooled by their children in similar ways. This refers to the ordinary course of discipline and faith; but the blindness extends much farther than that, namely, to habits and manners the children have acquired, and that frequently make them disagreeable to others, and that often handicap them in life, and fate them to fall behind their fellows in the struggles for success. That this last result should follow is, when they find it out, a great shock to every thoughtful parent. Nor are their feelings helped when they learn that the basis of such habits and foibles is aboriginal egotism, otherwise selfishness, the most fundamental impulse of the race—the one that, more than almost any other, betrays us into excesses that grow to be habits and shunt us into the track we should never wish to take. What glory there is in right parenthood, and what rewards it deserves! And how lamentable that the best guides for the weal of the average child should have to be found in those who have never raised, been fooled by, or worshiped blindly, a child of their own! 180 THE MARCHING YEARS "Some Commencement Ideals" was delivered at a com- mencement in Rush Medical College of the University of Chicago. "A Domestic Clearing House." My great friend, the late Dr. H. B. Stehman, told me one day of his notion that an honest and honestly managed matrimonial bureau would be a commendable thing; that it might do a great deal of good, and ought to be encouraged. He was willing to elaborate the idea for the public, although he foresaw that his thesis might be unpopular. I told him of an unpopular project of my own, namely, that a lot of nervous children, made worse by their nervous parents, ought to be adopted into tranquil, un-nervous families; and that the tranquil, perhaps dullish, children of these families ought to be sent into the nervous households of the over-alert people, in order to spur them to more activity. This swapping process would make for saner and better balanced children, and ought to be adopted. We agreed to write out our ideas, and, if we should be allowed, read them on some ladies' night before "The Twi- light Club" of Pasadena. I wrote my paper with fairly full elaboration and grim humor, and read it. But my friend weakened, and presented a paper with the bold features of his theory, as he had explained it to me, left out. He evidently thought his original plan was too radical, but it was capable of realization; while my scheme, although excellent in theory, was incapable of any extended practical use. Two brilliant women had been appointed to discuss my paper. Each had read the manuscript beforehand. One of them treated the paper as a sober scheme put forward as a working basis for actual life, with the expectation of its extensive adoption. And she cleverly set forth the practical difficulties in the way of carrying it out. The other woman, with a larger sense of humor, uncovered, in a gale of merri- ment, the grotesque side of the proposal, and made it even more funny than it was. She added immensely to the THE MARCHING YEARS 181 interest in the paper and the amusement of the occasion, and she helped the paper to reveal the decided and opposite needs of two classes of unfortunate children. "The True Gospel of Sleep" was written in behalf of a great number of poor sleepers, mostly intellectual people, who worry and fume because they cannot sleep when and as long as they think they ought to, and who actually keep themselves awake by their state of mind. These good people are entitled to our largest sympathy. Some of them have made themselves nearly insane with worry or sleeping drugs, or both, and with no final benefit, but great harm, from both. The contention of the paper is that we need less sleep than is usually supposed, but that we should have at least eight hours daily of horizontal rest of the body. Also that if we put ourselves in the condition to invite sleep normally, enough of it will come for our needs, provided we cease to fret about it. The essay must have fulfilled its mission to a large degree in proportion to its reading, for the author has received many evidences of sincere thankfulness from those who have said they were helped and comforted by it. "Some Usually Unconsidered Rights of Parents and Children" is a further study of the general subject of parents and children, and an effort to state some of the rarely con- sidered rights of each class, the better understanding of which would lead to less friction in families and more power and success to the children in their after lives. "The Trained Nurse and the Larger Life" was a com- mencement address at the Pasadena Training School for Nurses. "The Physical Basis of Expertness" in its early form was read before a company of theological students in Chicago. It is a study of the process by which all acquired expertness is produced, and this means, of course, all education—but not instinct. The thing that was found to happen was the creation, by the effect of a cerebral act oft repeated in a set way, of a habit of automatic action by the cells of the brain 182 THE MARCHING YEARS and other nerve centers, whereby at a suggestion they work in a fixed and therefore deft manner. The formation of a habit, which is education, consists in the creation of an automatism of nerve centers; the changing of a habit or the abolition of one is the slow process of inducing the centers to forget their tendency, to dull their automatism, usually by the formation of another and a different habit. The highest expertness is where the will and taste of the individual, by repeated effort and the performance of a given act thousands of times, are able to bring the automatism up to a high degree of refined perfection—well shown in musicians. "Am I Really my Brother's Keeper?" was a discourse delivered at the Westminster Presbyterian Church in Minne- apolis, preceding an annual meeting of the American Medical Association. It was a plea in behalf of the innocent victims —actual and prospective—of the frightful havoc of infirmity and death due to the diseases of social irregularity, dissipa- tion and lechery. It discussed with approval a new article in the principles of medical ethics of the Association, which gives the physician a new opportunity and power for the protection of the innocent. "The Ultimate Goal" was an address delivered at the University of Southern California at the inauguration of the college year of 1913-14. "Claypole, the Man" was an address at the memorial exercises at Throop College of Technology in Pasadena, in honor of the late Dr. E. W. Claypole, a professor in that institution. He was a greatly learned man, a phenomenal teacher, and as modest as he was great. He was a lifelong teacher, born in England, and working many years in this country. He made distinct contributions to American scholarship, especially in the field of geology. "An Induction Address" was delivered, as chairman of the trustees of Throop College, at the induction into the presidency, of Dr. Jas. A. B. Scherer, in 1908. THE MARCHING YEARS 183 The address "Charles Dwight Willard" was spoken, in behalf of the "Sunset Club" of Los Angeles, at the funeral of that long-suffering, great soul—himself the founder of the Club—who had for a fifth of a century been a notable figure in the intellectual life of the southwest. "The Southwest Museum" was an address delivered on the occasion of the laying of the memorial stone of the Museum building on Museum Hill in Los Angeles, in 1913. I was then the president of the board of trustees, succeeding General Adna Chaffee, who was its first president. The Museum as a corporation was a voluntary enterprise, started some years before by a few citizens, out of an ambi- tion to preserve the relics, archaeological, ethnological and otherwise, of the southwest; and for art, general culture and scholarship. This was the first building constructed for the housing of its collections and libraries, and for the center of its ambitious educational activities. "Vermont" was a presidential address delivered many years ago in Chicago at an annual dinner of the "Illinois Association of the Sons of Vermont." For many years this was a flourishing society of native Vermonters and their relatives, and the annual dinner was quite an event. "A Program for America" was written for a symposium on the best program for the permanent ambition of American thought, invited by the editors of the American Journal of Sociology, and printed in that periodical in 1914. The pro- gram proposed was, in brief, for such activities as will lengthen the average span of human life. In half a century the average has been extended, in enlightened countries, fifty per cent, and it may be still further advanced. The argument was that, if the average life is growing longer, America is on the right track; that the measures required to produce this result are sure to be such as are in general best for the nation, now and permanently. "Woman in Business as Affecting Health and Morals" was a paper written for the American Academy of Medicine, 184 THE MARCHING YEARS and printed in its Bulletin in 1908. The conclusions reached were that the health and morals of women—and so of the community—were safe, so far as affected by the business lives of women; and that the intellectual development, self- reliance and trustworthiness of the business women them- selves were improved rather than otherwise by their work; finally, that under certain circumstances business pursuits for many women are unavoidable, as well as commendable—and in the exercise of their manifest rights. "The Best Bath for Mankind" was first published in a professional journal, that of the American Medical Associa- tion, and was afterwards recast and printed in the Journal of the Outdoor Life in 1907. It was a plea for the very hot, quick bath instead of the shivering cold one that so many good people habitually tax their courage to take, in the belief that it will somehow invigorate them—and about which some of them gently prevaricate when they declare they like it. It was shown that the hot, quick bath neither causes relaxation and debility nor cold-catching or any other calamity, and that a dash of cold water after the hot is wholly unnecessary; also that cold baths are not necessary to toughen the body or ward off sickness; and that to prescribe for the weak, debilitated and sick the frigid bath is a mild crime, if nothing worse. As to the prevarication referred to above, the editor of Outdoor Life was right, if perhaps a trifle irreverent, when he wrote that he "long ago came to believe that any man who says he enjoys getting out of a warm bed, and into a tub of cold water, is a liar by the clock." "The Prevention of Railroad Accidents Due to the Personal Equation" was read before a national convention of railway surgeons at Chicago. Many accidents occur from blunders of the most experienced and trustworthy employes engaged in what may be called danger jobs, such as engineers, switchmen and train dispatchers. Why is it? One answer was that long habituation to a like movement or situation THE MARCHING YEARS 185 creates a habit of expertness and an ease and naturalness of performance that lead a man often to forget that his task is a danger job; the mental attention he gives to the task because of its danger relaxes—then in a fateful moment is gone. He blunders, and there is a wreck and people are killed. The remedy suggested was to change the jobs of old employes long engaged in hazard work, to wholly different ones for months at a time; then to bring them back to their former work a little strange to it, so that they would be obliged to give it more concentration of mind. It was perhaps a rather paradoxical remedy for carelessness. As a practical remedy it was not very defensible; but the theory of the cause of the occurrence of many of the accidents is un- doubtedly correct. The more practical remedy would be a more constant supervision and watchfulness of all the employes, young and old, in hazard work, and the prompt discharge of the old employes discovered to be care- less. The tendency of superintendents is to forgive the older employe, and hold to severe account the younger one. The rule ought to be that years of service in hazard jobs should in their ratio lessen the right to mercy for a blunder. Such a rule would help the old engineer to keep his mental attention and sense of responsibility always alert. The book on "Tuberculosis," prepared for students and practitioners of medicine—although much more read by lay people interested in the subject—grew out of a course of lectures in Rush College. The lectures were taken down in shorthand, and then recast somewhat and considerably con- densed for the book. The volume is a modest little affair in the midst of a great wealth of literature on tuberculosis that has grown up—and filled the lay mind as well as the professional— since the discovery of the tubercle bacillus. With the literature have come hospitals and sanatoriums for the vic- tims, scattered in great numbers over the whole enlightened world. There have been formed many societies for the 186 THE MARCHING YEARS study and prevention of the disease, and the most painstaking and exhaustive research has been carried on for the purpose of finding some means of destroying the bacilli in the body without harming the patient. And such a discovery is likely to be made. Many years ago I joined in the work of writing an encyclo- pedia of medicine, published by Wm. Wood & Co. under the general editorship of Dr. A. H. Buck. The work filled nine large volumes, and was for years a valuable "Reference Handbook" (as it was well named) to many progressive practitioners of medicine. Mine was a very minor part, covering only a few articles*; but the research and careful writing that attended the task were mentally both pleasant and profitable. First and last, I wrote many papers on professional sub- jects that appeared in medical journals, and some of them in books. The more notable of these included one on a certain cough and wheezing symptom or sign in one-sided pulmonary tuberculosis (sometimes called later by physicians the "Bridge sign"); a paper entitled "Some Truths about Sleep," another on "The Draught Fetish," and that on "The Best Bath for All People." These last three, under slightly different titles, went into my books. I read a paper on "Appendicitis from the Standpoint of the Physician" early in the history of the modern pathology of that disease, before the Association of American Physi- cians, of which I was a member. The paper took strong ground in favor of early surgical interference, a position|that has only been confirmed by all the experience since. ""'Headache," "Intestinal Colic," "Diarrhoea" and "Gonorrhoea! Rheumatism." (See Appendix VI for partial list of publications.) CHAPTER XVIII. COURTS AND DOCTORS. THE experience as an expert witness under cross-ex- amination in court has been the triumph and the discomfiture of many doctors. Sometimes the dis- comfiture is in part the fault of the doctors themselves. They don't like to reveal any appearance of ignorance on the witness stand; they are afraid of saying they don't know, so they bluff and pretend and guess—and a shrewd lawyer is quick to see this, and to try to humiliate them, and he frequently succeeds. Average the cases, and it is the superior, courageous doctor who hews to the line and boldly says he doesn't know, when he is not sure of himself. But the best of them fall into a bad habit, very common in the practice of medicine, of making dogmatic statements which a moment's reflection should show them they cannot prove or defend—and this habit is likely to betray them on the witness stand, to the delight of the counsel on the other side, who is watching like a hawk for just this sort of a slip, ready to pounce upon them. The bad habit referred to leads a man to make such statements as, "Oh, he will get well" or " He will die," when he does not really mean either of them. He means that the percentage of certainty is large that he will get well, or will die. And he ought to speak in percentages or with the qualification "probably" or some other that gives a truer meaning. Everyone ought to master a few rules and principles that may help to avoid trouble. Many years ago in Chicago, Lawyer Van Arman led a medical witness to swear that he was familiar with and had read several wholly mythical medical books, and then humiliated him by stating the facts to the judge and jury. Since that day at least three reputable medical men have walked into similar traps set [187] 188 THE MARCHING YEARS for them by cross-examining lawyers in the Chicago courts —yet Van Arman's trick has been all the while familiar history to the Chicago profession. My own court experience has been considerable; and my effort has been to remember always some injunctions received from a great teacher of legal medicine in Chicago Medical College many years ago, Dr. R. J. Patterson. He looked like the poet Tennyson, and read his lectures in a simple way. They might have been prosy, but they were so plain, and worded with such linguistic finish, and in spots they were so spicy as to make them an informing luxury to listen to. His lecture on expert testimony is vividly remembered, and has, I am sure, kept me out of trouble many times. He advised us to use plain, simple, terse statements that we could be sure of and defend; rarely if ever to volunteer testimony, and, especially when not absolutely sure, to say, "I don't know" or "I am not prepared to answer without further reflection and reference to authorities." "This last statement," he said, "is a bulwark behind which you can retreat, and from which the court, the lawyers and the devil cannot drive you." My first experience with courts was at the beginning of my medical studies when passing through Chicago. A bailiff had been ordered by the court to go out and bring in a juryman, and he caught me. It was in the summer of 1866, when I was on the way from Morris to Malta to help in the harvesting. Having a few hours to wait in Chicago, I went to the Court House and climbed to the top of its tower to get a view of the city and see the monster bell, hung in the open on the roof of the building by the side of the tower. The bell struck the hours of the day by the power of a man's hand bearing down a big lever that swung the clapper. The tower was the tallest structure in the city. The man who struck the hours was out in plain sight while operating his lever—which made the sight more interesting to boys of all ages. THE MARCHING YEARS 189 Years afterward, when a great fire was raging, that destroyed the business section of the city, that bell brought me a significant message. The fire had been moving for- ward for many hours, the fire department was crippled by the broken-down water works, and it was evident that every- thing combustible in the path of the wind was bound to go. But I could not feel that this was true, and was hoping against all reason that somehow the fire would stop. Then the big bell began to toll rapidly, and continued for five minutes. That settled it; the fire would take everything ahead of it, and I felt it. The fact is that the bell watchman saw that he must leave his post in a few minutes or be destroyed, and he tolled his knell of the city. The Court House was ablaze in thirty minutes. But this is digression. I came down from the tower and was passing out of the building when a bailiff took me by the arm and marched me into the presence of the court, to become a juryman. To my protest that I was a stranger in the city he replied that for that reason I would make a good juror. He probably thought I was lying to escape jury duty. In the court room I was sworn to tell the truth, etc.; then a lot of questions were asked by the lawyers—my name, age, residence, and whether I knew the parties to the suit. They promptly accepted me for a juror, and I arose and asked to have the ear of the court. This surprised the bailiff and the lawyers, and one of them said: "Your Honor, this juror wishes to speak to you," The judge said, with a surprised look, "Well, what is it?" I explained that I wished to be excused from service, as I was a stranger in the city, on my way home, sixty miles away, for the benefit of my health, which was poor—and that last was literally true at that moment. He said, "Do you swear that you are not a resident of this county?" I said, "Yes, sir. I am a citizen of DeKalb County." "Then you are excused." He turned to the lawyers and said: "We cannot 190 THE MARCHING YEARS hold this man for jury service against his wish. Bailiff, bring in another man." Physicians have one legal advantage over most of their neighbors: They are substantially never drawn for jury duty, except occasionally in the insane courts, where the law re- quires a physician on the jury of six persons. The sole jury service of my life was in a case of this sort, and in Chicago while I was still a citizen of California. It was at the request of County Judge Carter, a request instead of an order, owing to my foreign citizenship. The man involved was one of the so-called border-line cases, where the patients, although clearly insane, show it so little to the appreciation of the lay mind, that it is always difficult to procure their commitment to a suitable hospital, where alone there is much chance for their recovery. In this case it was not strange that five uneducated, simple minded lay jurors failed to see how the man could possibly be insane when he had behaved so normally before them. So the jury failed to agree, and was discharged; it stood 5 to 1 for acquittal. The patient proved the case later by a convincing climax that left no doubt that the one juror was in the right. I studied this case closely as the evidence was being presented, and, when this part of the proceedings was finished, thought I knew every argument and evidence for and against considering the case a real one. I had given such cases more study, had had more experience and opportunity for knowledge about them, than most practitioners who are not specialists in psychiatry, and ought to have had a better understanding of the case than any lawyer. But Mr. John P. Wilson, Sr., put my self-sufficiency to shame in a phe- nomenal speech to the jury, in which he presented arguments that I had not even thought of. It was the most masterly argument upon evidence of fact that I have ever heard in court or anywhere else. THE MARCHING YEARS 191 A few years before my expatriation from Chicago, I was an expert witness, as well as a witness of fact, for the plaintiff, in a case rather celebrated because of the large verdict of damages for personal injuries against a railroad —$25,000. It was finally confirmed by the Appellate and Supreme Courts of the State, and paid with interest. It was said to be the largest verdict ever collected in this country in a case of this kind, up to that time; there have been larger verdicts since. The plaintiff, a passenger con- ductor, had, in a collision, been thrown against a seat in the car in which he was riding, and had then fallen to the floor. He at first thought his injuries trifling, and soon went on about his work. There was no external injury, but in a few days he began to have pains in the back, and other symptoms of so-called—and improperly called—"spinal irrita- tion." He had to quit work, and never went back to it. He went on from bad to worse; was soon confined to his house, and then to his bed—and was there still when, many months after the accident, his case was called for trial. Neither the judge nor jury ever even saw him, although all the expert witnesses had examined him at his home twenty miles away. He had many nervous and neuralgic symptoms, lost weight extremely, and once, some weeks before the trial, had what appeared from the accounts of it to have been an epileptic convulsion. The railroad people believed the man was shamming, and refused to make an adequate settlement with him; and this fact worried him greatly and undoubtedly added to his invalidism. This course of things nearly always happens in cases of personal injury where the victim harbors for a long time a deep sense of wrong against the corporation or the man responsible for his injury. He rarely recovers as long as his claim is unsettled; he often gets worse, and not seldom is ruined for life—and in many cases without the slightest conscious attempt at malingering. Undoubtedly there is in 192 THE MARCHING YEARS many of these cases unconscious shamming, and not a little that is purposeful, and entitled to no consideration. The plaintiff in this case remained a pitiful invalid until the final decision of the Supreme Court affirming the verdict of the court below, and the money was in the course of being paid; then he began to improve, and was soon out of bed and going about, but for a long time was weak and emaciated. I don't know if he ever fully recovered; but this I do know, that in all such cases it is for the interest of the injured person to have a settlement of some sort as soon as possible, so as to avoid such an agony of suspense and sense of wrong as this man had for many months. No verdict can pay for the havoc to the nervous system from such an experience. In this case the amount of money it cost the railroad company to defend the suit would doubtless have settled the claim; and the amount of the verdict would have been saved to the corporation, and the man might have saved himself. Long before any lawsuit was thought of in this case, the patient was brought to me by his doctor for examination. The only tangible evidence of spinal cord disease then found was an inequality in the tendon reflexes of the two sides, i. e., the jerking of the foot when the tendon is tapped just below the patella or knee cap. This was evidence, if not proof, of something wrong with the cord, and I had recorded this in my notes of the case, which I was allowed to consult on the witness stand. There were numerous complaints of pain in the back and elsewhere—which was, of course, wholly subjective, and not demonstrable by any physician, but had to be taken on faith in the word of the patient. The plaintiff's counsel* was an intense, alert, highly equipped fighting lawyer; his opponent was no match for him, and failed to get as much for his case out of his cross- examinations of the plaintiff's experts as he was entitled to. His chief medical expert was one of my very erudite friends, who knew vastly more about the nervous system than I did. •George W. Kretzinger. THE MARCHING YEARS 193 He had examined the plaintiff, had subjected him to many tests, and reached the conclusion that the man was sham- ming. But unfortunately his testimony for convincing effect on the jury was marred by two circumstances: one that he seemed a more than willing witness, and allowed himself to make a few statements that seemed gratuitous and prejudiced; and though he gave a fine scientific lecture on the functions of the spinal cord, he shot over the heads of the jury, and they believed he was a witness who was in league with a soulless corporation to abuse a man who was down. The other circumstance was a wrong interpretation of a physical sign. He had tested the plaintiff's hand grasp by a machine that registers the pressure, called a dynamom- eter. The man was asked to squeeze the thing with all his might, and seemed to be doing so, but the pressure shown was very low. Then the doctor felt of the man's forearm while he made the test, and found that the muscles on the inside or flexor side of the arm were not perceptibly harder than the opposing or extensor muscles on the outside, and jumped to the conclusion that the man was setting the two groups of muscles against each other, in order to deceive. But it was not and could not be true, and the doctor had failed to analyze the phenomenon or test it on his own arm. The extensor muscles were hard because they were holding the wrist straight, at extension; it was a condition indispensable to the firm hand grasp—everybody does it. He told this at the end of his testimony, just before a noon adjournment. On the opening of court after lunch the attorney for the plaintiff asked permission to recall me to the stand, to be asked one or two questions. Counsel for the defense evi- dently thought it was a harmless suggestion, and consented. I was asked my opinion of the theory about the forearm, and replied that at first thought it seemed correct, but that a moment's test with my own arm showed it to be erroneous, and I was illustrating with my arm, when the judge, the venerable Joseph E. Gary, who had been trying to read a 194 THE MARCHING YEARS Spanish law book and follow the trial at the same time, broke in sharply with: "Stop! What was that question? Let the reporter read it and his answer." The question and answer were read, and then the judge said, "It's wholly improper. Strike it all out." "Then I withdraw the question," said plaintiff's counsel demurely. This kept the point out of the record, but the jury had heard it, and were experimenting with their own forearms and fists. It seems that at that point in the trial this testimony was "wholly improper," while it might have been admissible at another time. This was one of the lawyer's sharp manceuvers to reach the jury—he doubtless knew it was improper all the time. In my own expert testimony I remembered my early instruction, and refused to volunteer a word of evidence for the plaintiff. What I swore to was of great value to him, but it had to be drawn out by questions, and seemed to be a trifle reluctant; and I was painstakingly polite to the counsel for the defense—even tried to help him to a better under- standing of his side of the case. And the jury believed me. The Judge Gary who tried this case was a unique char- acter. He served on the bench continuously over forty years, and was still in service at the time of his death. He was a shortish, stocky man, with a smooth face and serious countenance; quiet and gentle in manner, of domestic tastes and a retiring disposition. Through all his service he was popular with litigants, lawyers and jurors because of an unusual combination of personal traits and methods of conducting court. He was manifestly fair and just to all, and he seemed to be wholly without bias—he was a real judge, and not merely an advocate on the bench; he expe- dited business, was not conscious overmuch of his own dignity and prerogatives; he found it unnecessary to defend these by fining lawyers for contempt, and otherwise. It was said of him that he never fined a lawyer in his life. When counsel got to abusing each other he might say: "Quit your THE MARCHING YEARS 195 quarreling, and go on with your case!" That was always effective. He was a great student of law, and was so well armed that he could make vast numbers of off-hand decisions from the bench without being reversed for them by a higher court. In the hotly contested trial of the "anarchists" for murder, that continued many weeks, he made hundreds of such decisions, with a rapidity that sometimes seemed flippant, yet he was sustained in every particular by the higher courts. With all these wonderful qualities he had a streak of waggish humor that was the most spontaneous thing imaginable. He rarely smiled, and more rarely laughed, on the bench, but was liable on some provocation to break out in such unexpected drollery that people in his court room waited in smiling anticipation of it. But through it all he never lost his altogether serious dignity, or the respect of the public. Probably no other judge in Chicago could have done what he did without losing both. I had always supposed that he was unconscious of how laughable some of his sayings were, until he made a speech in my hearing, at a dinner given by the Chicago Bar Association to Mr. Justice Holmes. He revealed there some consciousness of how his sayings affected the public, for in his talk he used the quotation from a forgotten somebody: "I never dare to be as funny as I can." We guessed that he was applying the saying to himself. Many stories are current among the long time frequenters of his court, of the droll and unexpected sayings of Judge Gary. Some of them have perhaps grown in the repetition, but many of them were funny enough at the beginning. Here are two that are well vouched for: He made a quick ruling from the bench one day, and the lawyer who felt the adverse effect of it said: "Why, your Honor, a week ago you made a ruling in an analogous case that was diametrically opposite to your ruling now." And the judge retorted instantly: "Oh, that was before election." As a matter of 196 THE MARCHING YEARS fact he had been, during that week, re-elected for another term. On another occasion a young lawyer had tried a case before him without a jury, and it was decided against him. He was much cast down by his defeat, and asked if he might talk with the judge in his chambers. "Certainly," the jurist said; "come in and we'll talk it over." The conversa- tion soon satisfied the young man that all the arguments he had presented to the court had been considered in making the decision; and in deep despondency he exclaimed: "I don't know what to say to my clients down home. I told them I was sure to win this case for them." "Oh," said the judge comfortingly, "tell them that the court was a damn fool." Once on a time in Chicago I was called into court to give testimony that was very unpleasant. The first question was: "Do you know Mr. R. S.?" I did. Then: "Are you familiar with his general reputation for honesty and relia- bility?" "Yes." "What is his general reputation for hon- esty and reliability?" "It is bad." "That's all," said the lawyer. The opposing counsel in cross-examination asked: "What facts and events do you know of in the man's life that led you to say that his reputation is bad?" After hesitating long enough to draw the gaze of everybody in the room to my embarrassment, I answered very deliberately: "It is hardly proper for me to answer that question. My direct testimony was solely as to the man's general reputa- tion, and I cannot properly be interrogated as to specific instances. You are too good a lawyer to expect me to answer the question." Really, he was not a good lawyer; and may not have known the rule of evidence referred to. He appealed to the court to compel me to answer; but the court sustained me, and I left the witness stand. The question of privileged communications to medical men, as excusing them from answering, has led at times to serious situations in court. Most states of our Union THE MARCHING YEARS 197 excuse such witnesses from divulging facts about a patient that were learned from him in order to prescribe for him. But some states have no such regulations, and a doctor may be required to disclose the most confidential and the most sacred facts about him, exactly as he would state any other fact. Illinois was a few years ago such a state—and may be so still. In such states physicians some- times refuse to divulge in court such communications as they believe ought by sound ethics to be privileged, and risk being sent to jail for contempt. In a few instances they have been sentenced to jail, to serve until they purged themselves of contempt by answering. But I do not know of the sentence having been actually carried out; the doctor usually escapes this by either concluding that he has done his duty by his protest, and then answering the question; or by a considerate lawyer saving him by withdrawing the question. In rare instances the doctor is relieved of embarrassment by the consent of the patient's counsel. I had this expe- rience in a Chicago court a few years ago. The plaintiff in a damage suit against a street railway was an elderly woman who had been a patient of mine fifteen or more years before. She swore in her cross-examination that I had been one of her physicians, and I was sent for at once by the defense, and happened to be found in Chicago. The first questions identified my professional character; then, did I know the plaintiff and was she ever a patient of mine, and when, and for how long? These questions were, of course, readily answered. Next came the question: "For what disease did you treat her?" And the answer: "That question cannot be answered, as it calls for a fact of the strictest confidence between physician and patient." While the counsel for the railroad was telling the judge—Chetlain —that he thought he was entitled to an answer to the ques- tion, the lawyer for the woman shouted: "Let him answer; we don't object." This, of course, lifted the embargo. But the judge, who was a long-time acquaintance of mine, 198 THE MARCHING YEARS leaned over and said in an undertone: "Under the law, doctor, you would have been obliged to answer, anyway." My theory of the willingness of the plaintiff's attorney to have me answer is that my unrelieved refusal might lead the jury to think something awful must have been the matter with her, and so harm his case. Really there had been nothing embarrassing in her sickness, and my refusal was solely on the ground that, without her consent, actual or implied, I had no right to talk about her case. As a matter of fact I fear my answers did harm her case, for it was wander- ing neuralgia that she had had; and that was what she had set up in this case as the result of her fall from a car two years before. After acquiring a village lot, and building a house in Sierra Madre, and coming into possession of a few shares of the stock of the Sierra Madre Water Company, I soon found myself president of that corporation. The company and Lucky Baldwin were partners in the ownership of the mountain water that supplied both. Each was entitled to and received one-half the water that came out of a tunnel in Little Santa Anita Canon, near by. The water supply was too small, and it was proposed that we should join in drilling another tunnel at a different place in the canon. It was necessary to buy the land on which it was to be located, and Baldwin refused to join in this, but was willing to join in the expense of drilling. The company then bought the land and determined to drill on its own account, and claim whatever water was found. Out of this situation grew three lawsuits. All of these were won by the company finally. Only one of them was directly with Baldwin, and that was to test the ownership of the water from the new-bought land. All the suits furnished us with both amusing and vexatious experiences. The main suit was started by Baldwin after some preliminary fencing by both sides. In due time our new tunnel was flowing quite a stream of water, perhaps two miner's inches. THE MARCHING YEARS 199 (A miner's inch is what will flow through a square hole one inch in diameter in a thin board, with a head or depth of four inches of water behind and above it. It means some- thing over thirteen thousand gallons daily.) This tunnel water was flowing into the canon, and in the darkness of one night Baldwin's agent connected this stream with the supply pipe to the dividing box, by means of a sheet iron pipe. Thus the water mixed with that from the old tunnel, to be divided and sent on to the respective owners. If we allowed this pipe to remain without protest it would be a confession of the right of Baldwin to half of the new water. When this high-handed thing occurred I was on a visit to the Grand Canon of the Colorado with Prof. Walter Haines, of. Chicago, and Gen. Corbin, of the Army. On my return some of the directors of the company were at the train to take me to the waterworks. Arriving there, I took a pickax and tore up and smashed the offensive pipe, and allowed the water again to flow down the canon. The next day a new pipe was laid by the agent, and at the same moment we were enjoined from interfering with it until further order of the court. This turn pleased us, for it brought the issue into court for a fair adjudication. Months afterward I learned that the Baldwin people had, the day after my pickax episode, besought the prosecut- ing attorney, Mr. James McLachlan, to cause my arrest for smashing their pipe, and he had refused. In one of the lawsuits we had an amusing experience with the senior opposing counsel over a word I used in my testimony in cross-examination. It showed that lawyers (or attorneys) as well as doctors, are sometimes reluctant to reveal their ignorance in open court. In one of my answers I used the word patulous in describing an unglazed cement water main, to indicate that it was clear for the carrying of water, and not choked with roots or other substances. It was evident in an instant that the lawyer was ignorant of the meaning of the word, for he asked me a dozen other 200 THE MARCHING YEARS questions to try to find out its meaning without directly asking me to explain it—meanwhile the judge and his audi- ence in the court room were smiling at the lawyer's attempts at hiding what he more and more revealed as he went on. After he had finished his efforts, our attorney quietly asked me: "Doctor, will you kindly tell the court what you mean by the word patulous?" I explained, and the court—the late Judge Wade—began to giggle, then adjourned the hear- ing and rushed into his chambers to explode with laughter. It was in one of the minor suits that a junior member of the opposing counsel, Mr. Charles Monroe—afterward for many years a judge—perpetrated a practical joke upon our attorney and me by continuing an inane and useless cross- examination until he was sure I had missed my train home to Sierra Madre. Our lawyer had asked him in open court if he could not terminate his cross-examination, so that I might not miss the last train. But there was a special later train that neither of them knew of, which took me home. The judge and I have many times since laughed over this incident, as well as over another joke or bluff of his, some years later. This was at a fiesta parade in Los Angeles, and I, with two ladies, was an early comer to a grand stand to view the parade. Soon after we had taken our seats the judge and his wife entered and sat down two seats in front of us. Then two young men ambled in with glances of suspicion and took seats far down in front. Then came a belated police officer, whose business it was to keep every- body out who could not show a ticket. He hurried to us and we showed our tickets; then the judge called the officer to him rather urgently, and told him that the two young men down in front were evidently there without tickets. The officer hurried down and spoke to them in- an undertone, and they sheepishly walked out. Seeing all this, I leaned over, and said: "Judge, I see that you are still looking after the conduct of this community." His retort was: "Sh! I haven't any tickets myself." Then I recalled that the offi- THE MARCHING YEARS 201 cer's attention had been so completely diverted that he had not asked if the judge himself had tickets. By this time he was at the gate inspecting the tickets of the oncoming crowd, and had probably forgotten Monroe, or remembered him only as one who had helped him in the performance of his duty. My first duty as president of the water company was to see Mr. Baldwin and try to persuade him to join us amicably in buying the land for water exploration. I saw him one evening at his house at Santa Anita, but he was adamant, and refused to yield. When our major case was on trial before Judge Lucien Shaw (since then for many years on the State Supreme Bench) Baldwin swore positively that at my visit in his house the only matter discussed was the question of joint drilling for water—not a word about land. I was sworn immediately afterward, and denied his statement in toto on the point referred to. Then Attorney Monroe took me for cross-examination. He asked me about the visit, the num- ber of persons present, and who they were. Then he asked, "What were they doing in the room?" The answer was, "Several of them, including Mr. Baldwin, were playing some game around a small table." "What was the game?" "I don't know, sir; they had cards and a lot of little disks, of bone or ivory, but I don't know what the game was." There was a concert of laughter in the courtroom, and I was excused. As I came down from the witness chair Mr. Bald- win, who had been sitting in front of me, grasped my hand and said: "You were right, and I was wrong—I had for- gotten about it—you were right." Once a degenerate scoundrel was arrested for a felony in Pasadena. Certain medical examinations were required in the case, and I made them and testified in the preliminary examination before a magistrate, who sent the man to jail to await trial in the Superior Court. My testimony was taken down and typed. The trial before a jury occurred many months afterward, and, of course, I was a witness. In the 202 THE MARCHING YEARS cross-examination the lawyer had before him what appeared to be a transcript of my earlier testimony, from which he was evidently checking up my testimony as I proceeded. At one point (apparently reading) he said: "Doctor, did you not in your former testimony say" thus and so? The answer was a very positive no. "Do you think you can remember all the things you said at that examination?" "No, sir; I don't pretend to remember everything I then said." "Then how do you know you didn't say the thing I have stated?" "Because, sir; that would have been un- true; I would have then known it was not true, as I now know it to be false—and I was then, as now, under two obli- gations to tell the truth: my own inclination and my oath." That finished him, and the cross-examination ended there. This chapter would not be complete without some ref- erence to the Claypole case, which concerned our professional office for many months, and was terminated by an act of the Supreme Court of California. This was at beginning a case of the application of Dr. Edith Jane Claypole to the State Board of Medical Examiners for a license to practice in the state. It ended by being a case before the Supreme Court of the State, of Claypole versus the State Board, in which all the members of the Board were cited to appear before the court en banc on a certain day to show cause why they should not be compelled to issue the license asked for. The attorney for the Board, after this citation by the court, it was reported, hurriedly sought the assistance of the Attorney General of the State in the defense of the Board before the court, as was his duty under the law. That officer, on learning the facts, promptly told the attorney that he had no case, and that the only thing to do was to issue the license, as the applicant was clearly entitled to it. Whether or not this happened exactly as thus stated, it is of record that the Board's attorney asked one of the attorneys for the plaintiff, the late Edward C. Bailey, for a delay of one week to allow the Board to issue the license; and that THE MARCHING YEARS 203 the court was asked in open session for that delay for the purpose named, the two attorneys being present. The time was granted, and before the end of the week the doctor had her license. Dr. Claypole was a woman of great character, talents and education; a fine pathologist and microscopist. She lived with an aunt near our home in Pasadena. They were greatly prized friends of Mrs. Bridge and myself. She had spent an hour or two each day in our office as a pathologist for two years before her graduation in medicine at the University of Southern California. She was for seven years continuously thereafter our regular office pathologist, and for a part of that time also the pathologist to the Pasadena Hospital. She resigned from our service, and went to Berkeley to live with her twin sister, Mrs. Agnes Claypole Moody, Ph.D., and to do research work, for which she was highly capable, in the State University, where she became an assist- ant to the professor of pathology. When she was graduated in medicine she had no intention of practicing, but desired a license as a legal right: After her examinations were successfully over—and she had to take a second examination in pathology while standing high in all other branches (a fate that befell several others of her class of applicants) — the Board made a condition that before a license could issue she would have to go back to her Alma Mater and attend three months more to make up a required four years of college study. This she naturally resented, and she refused to comply. Her Alma Mater was satisfied with her time, credentials and examinations, and had graduated her—and she knew she was within her rights under the law. I advised her to stand upon her rights, and proffered the services of my personal attorneys,* and agreed to pay any expenses in the case, on condition she would not worry about it. She agreed to the condition, and justi- fied the compact through the months. ♦Walpole Wood and E. C Bailey, of Los Angeles. 204 THE MARCHING YEARS After correspondence between the secretary and members of the Board and myself—some of it, on my own part, evidently aggravating to the Board, for I regarded their attitude as outrageous—the latter issued a notice to Dr. Claypole to appear before the Board in San Francisco on a certain day and show cause why a license should not be refused her. On the advice of the attorneys she did not appear on the day named, but Attorney Bailey appeared for her, with certain documents which he presented with arguments. He showed by the law in force at the time of her graduation that neither the college nor the Board could require four years of college time, but only three, provided the candidate had earned an academic degree at a college. He presented evidence of two degrees, a diploma of Bachelor of Philosophy from Buchtel College and one of Master of Science from Cornell University; and insisted that she thus had overtime to her credit, and was entitled to her license. The Board on the same day voted—unanimously, it was said—to refuse her a license. As soon as an official certificate of this action of the Board, over the signature of its secretary, was received, the attorneys presented their case to the Supreme Court, and promptly got the order already referred to—with the result described. There was never any legal ground for the attitude of the Board; and the wonder was that they should adopt a policy that was bound to come to grief. But the Board was appar- ently under the domination in this case of a single member, who had a peculiar temperament and unusual animosities. The wonder is that the rest of the members could agree by vote to an outrageous act, wantonly violating the clear rights of a citizen, when the act was illegal to even a lay mind. It is unthinkable that the members could have had any spite against Dr. Claypole personally, yet there must have been a strong psychological reason for their actions. One such was probably the fact that they had already declared individually THE MARCHING YEARS 205 that no license should issue until the candidate served her sentence of three months—it was hard to retract at the argu- ments of a lawyer. Even this intensely human weakness seems hardly a sufficient explanation. I can think of only one other, namely, that the members may have regarded as discourteous some of the letters written them in Dr. C.'s behalf, phrases in some of my own letters particularly. If they judged some of the language to be intense and undiplo- matic, they were evidently correct. But to have punished her in order to rebuke me was most unchivalrous—and the effort failed.* *After the case was finally won, the attorneys had the license tastefully framed by the side of the first page of their brief to the Supreme Court, giving the names of the judges, the attorneys and of the Board, and presented it to the doctor as a trophy of triumph. But she was magnanimously unresentful, and I think never displayed the picture. CHAPTER XIX. SECULAR PURSUITS. IT was necessary in the Bridge family all through its history as I know it, to consider constantly the needs and value of money for the necessities of existence. All my forbears had to be industrious and economical; our New England experience and much that followed it led to a keen appreciation of the value of a dollar. My own slow acquisi- tion of a paying professional practice was a continuation of that experience. There were among my early air castles varying Utopian schemes that would fill my purse and give me a bank account, so that the hard daily grind would be unnecessary. I was then too immature to see the value, for development and health of body and mind, of steady daily labor that is effec- tive and that provides the essential needs of modest living. Later, when I learned of easy methods that had made some of my acquaintances rich, the temptation came to take an occasional flyer, but three potent forces prevented. One was the purely speculative or gambling character of the schemes; and gambling or plunging had early become to me a very questionable if not sinful practice—to be always doubted and usually shunned. Another influence was my early admiration for stability, perseverance in work and business, and consequent success, as illustrated by many men within my knowledge. This was a growing feeling as time went on, and made it natural for me to take my cue from men of affairs who understood their business, and pursued it in storm and sunshine, rather than to follow the plungers, who regarded such business men as old-fashioned and not to be imitated. There were plentiful examples among my friends, pro- fessional and otherwise, of men watching the stock and grain [206] THE MARCHING YEARS 207 markets, who had small knowledge of the causes of the rise and fall of prices, and very juvenile sense to take advantage of such knowledge as they had. They variously gained and lost by their speculations—and nearly always failed finally and were completely snuffed out, with only their experience for their gain. And while this experience tended to after-safety in business affairs, it rarely helped much in mental satisfaction with themselves until, through years of slow success in more patient methods, they saw prosperity coming as their justification. Another influence for caution in business lines was my intense preoccupation in the professional work of study, practice and teaching, which sent me to bed nightly with a feeling of unfinished tasks. There was no time and little temptation to follow pursuits of chance in secular affairs; and it was easy to put surplus earnings—when finally and slowly such things came to be a reality—into certain of the safer investments in bonds and mortgages which were recom- mended by people of experience, and by which I had seen some of my friends become forehanded. I am quite aware of the popular theory of business men, that professional people are generally gullible and amateurish in secular matters, and there is some ground for the notion. If a medical man acquires a fortune by secular business it is often a matter of smiling amusement and wonder among his public that such luck could happen. But there is no reason —and there never was any reason—why one may not dis- cover the basis of successful business by observing the history, the successes and the failures, of dozens of business men whose careers are open to the easy vision of their neighbors. The rules of commerce that usually bring success are few, easily learned and of easy application; and any professional man can learn them without difficulty and with- out disturbing his vocational pursuits—learn them as an avocation of both pleasure and profit. 208 THE MARCHING YEARS It is true that many such men refuse to follow the rules when they have had the chance to know them, because the rules seem too simple, or because they fancy there must be some short-cut, some legerdemain for making quick and sure money, which the mass of business men have been too dull or too indolent to grasp. But this is a weakness that is not confined to professional folk, albeit belonging to many of them. And it cannot be admitted for a moment that there is anything in the studies or labor of a profession that tends to blind the eyes of persons of sense to the habits in business of people all about them. Any person of average perspicacity can easily learn why men succeed in business, and why they fail. It involves merely the faculty of observation and the use of common sense; and if someone claims he can demon- strate that the professions are short on the commodity of common sense, the answer is, if that be true, that then it is evidence that the professions are sought by many persons with a dearth of the sanest sense in the world's affairs, rather than that professional study and work dwarf or de- moralize the judgment. And I deny that a majority of medical men belong to this class, however it may be with the other professions. Nor is it true that, following the safe rules of business, and avoiding the speculative impulses that are common to most people of both sexes, the devotion of a moderate recreative attention to business interests need ever lessen one's professional capacity or success. And, in the cases where success in business has led men gradually to restrict their professional activities or even abandon them altogether, the very pecuniary success may enable them to give more help to the larger things of the profession, not only for its benefit, but for that of the public at large—an example of a vocation changing places with an avocation. In the early days of the last decade of the last century petroleum was discovered in the city of Los Angeles by Mr. E. L. Doheny. In some of his explorations here he was joined by the late Mr. C. A. Canfield, a former mining THE MARCHING YEARS 209 partner of his. In a short time some dozens of wells were drilled inside the city limits, some of them in choice residence districts. Within a few years the number had increased to hundreds, and the city began to take legal steps to restrict them. It was a narrow field; the wells were relatively shallow, and none of them produced much oil, although a few were pumped for many years. Most of the producers lost money in the enterprise, and no one made a great deal. These two self-developed chiefs in the business soon sought and found other oil fields in California, far away from the city, and amassed fortunes from them. The oil excitement grew; many rivals entered the business, and the state which had produced a little oil in a few spots for many years became a considerable factor in the oil producing world. Still later it became a very large factor, and at times was the largest producing state in the Union. I had invested small sums in the stock of two or three oil companies, along in the last years of the old and the beginning of the new century, and sold them out later at a profit. One little investment (of $500) came properly to grief, and was a total loss. Thereby it taught a wholesome lesson. The company was a so-called wild-cat affair; was organized by people who knew nothing about the oil business, and started its drilling on a patch of leased land where it was guessed that oil might be found. The twenty-five thousand dollars' put up by the stockholders was soon gone into a "dry hole," and the enterprise was abandoned. The lesson to me was that if one wished to go into the oil business it ought to be with people who understood it, and who had a reputation for success at it. Thereupon I began to buy stock in the oldest and most stable oil company in the state. The amount purchased was as large as my means and my credit at the bank would allow. It paid fair dividends for several years, and was finally sold to raise money for enterprises in Mexico, at more than double what it had cost. 210 THE MARCHING YEARS Doheny and Canfield organized the Mexican Petroleum Company (a California corporation) in the early months of this century, to develop an oil field they had purchased in Mexico, some forty miles west of Tampico, on the Mexican Central Railroad—a tract of 450,000 acres, more or less, on a portion of which extensive and active oil exudes were found. The company was capitalized for $10,000,000, and the work of developing an oil field in a jungle country was actively begun. I invested $5,000 in the stock at the begin- ning. Mr. E. P. Ripley, president of the Santa Fe Railroad, was the first president, and Mr. Doheny was vice-president and general manager; the late Mr. A. P. Maginnis was borrowed from his work with the Santa Fe Railroad and sent to Mexico to be the temporary superintendent of the work. Mr. Ripley soon resigned as president, Mr. Doheny taking his place. Mr. Canfield was vice-president. The drillings early discovered oil in moderate quantities. But soon it became evident that a large amount of money would be required to produce here a successful oil business on a large scale, and that it would be necessary to have on the ground a manager who was experienced in the business, and who had energy and efficiency in a high degree. Mr. Herbert George Wylie was selected for this work, and under his hand the great development and success of the property was carried forward. In 1903 I became a member of the Board of Directors of the company, and in 1904 first visited the property, a few weeks after the first gusher well had been brought in on Easter Sunday of that year. Such visits were repeated with in- creasing frequency from this time on until the beginning of the Mexican revolutions in 1911. By June, 1905, we had begun to sell oil to the Mexican Central Railroad under a new contract (an earlier contract had been repudiated by a new management of the railroad), and the company was a prosperous concern in the full sense of the word. Money was coming into its coffers in a very encouraging way. It had THE MARCHING YEARS 211 previously marketed some of its product in the form of asphal- tum, through a paving company that a few of the directors had formed for this purpose, which was operating in the City of Mexico, and later in other cities of that country. The product of the wells was a heavy oil containing a high percentage of asphaltum; and this branch of the business was greatly increased afterward, and the product was shipped abroad in commercial quantities. This trade grew and was fairly profitable, until it was destroyed by the revolution and the general demoralization of the country that continued for many years. During the year 1905 the evidence was accumulating that fifty and more miles south of Tampico, along the Gulf coast, and reaching to the Tuxpan River and beyond, was a greater oil field than any of us had ever seen. Doheny and Canfield determined to try and get control of that field. They had already purchased some land in the northern portion of it. They made their desires known to the directors of the com- pany, and gave the latter the opportunity to take over the enterprise. But the stockholders had been several times assessed on their stock to raise money for the upbuilding of the business, and the directors feared to undertake any new scheme, and so declined. Then these pioneers took steps to enter the southern field in a large way independently. This was in January, 1906. Their plan was to form a syndicate of four men, including themselves, to acquire holdings and build up an organization for the development of the field and the market- ing of its product; and they invited me to become one of the number. The other, afterward chosen, was Mr. Ripley. The two novices in the petroleum business were to bear minor parts of the expense; the two masters of the science and art of it shouldered the major burdens. The situation presented for me a parting of the ways. Up to that time my little acquisitions in oil interests had not been allowed to interfere with my professional work, and at 212 THE MARCHING YEARS this time the practice was large and exacting. I had spent six weeks or more each autumn at Rush College, lecturing to the senior class. This was a great pleasure; and the practice, large as it was, was carried easily, for I was perfectly well and enjoyed every day of it. If I accepted the invitation of these friends it would mean giving a large amount of time to secular affairs, also the end of college work in Chicago, and the gradual cutting down to the vanishing point of the pro- fessional line, and making it an avocation instead of the absorbing purpose in life, as it had been for many years. The pull of the proposal was strong because it meant a cer- tainty of success in material things for us, and a great addition to the wealth of the world without hurting anybody—unless it might finally hurt us through the vanity of success. The regret was that it meant also the termination of another work that had become successful beyond all expectation at begin- ning, and that had brought joy in the doing. It was a strain of soul to decide the question, and although the plunge was made quickly, there was a change that had to come gradually. It took time to get used to so radical a shift. To agree to join the syndicate and go to Mexico with my friends to get titles to a great oil field was easy, and this I did promptly. My family and near friends agreed that it was best. But it took time to wean me from the habit—that seemed a century old—of attending to the pains and physical perils of many people, and of being thus a servant of the public. It took time to regard my profession as a great institution which, though I should cease to work at it actively, might come to be regarded with an interest of even broader scope and catholicity than ever before. That change finally came about with that wider interest, and a sense of satis- faction with it all. After making my decision there was never a moment's hesitation; my senior associates, themselves full of effective power, had my time, attention and energy from that time on THE MARCHING YEARS 213 for anything that came to my hand to advance the enter- prise, and the work went forward steadily. In that year I made with Mr. Doheny and others four journeys to Mexico, remaining sometimes for weeks, traveling on horseback, by water and rail, negotiating, exploring, arguing, learning; and having some adventures and dangers. We went to New York twice and to London once, and were gone from home three-quarters of the year. Mr. Canfield was an invalid much of the time during those months; and Mr. Ripley with his railroad burdens could give us only an occasional consultation. He never went to Mexico with us. The oil lands that we were after—known as the Huasteca region, from the name of the Indians who lived there—were held largely in leaseholds by parties who had gone there years before in search of asphaltum for road making in America. The asphaltum lay in great beds of hard sub- stance on the surface, the result of ages of evaporation from the oil exudes that were still active in spots. One pioneer and successful street paver* in our country held many of these leases, which in their original form carried the rights to asphaltum on the surface as well as other substances, but not petroleum—so dull was the American mind in general to the fact that everywhere and always asphaltum means previous petroleum. Someone had told this leaseholder that if the leases could be amended so as to include the oil and gas beneath the surface they would in the future be worth many-fold more; and he had sent down agents to negotiate new leases with this provision. Even then, neither he nor his engineers had any conception of what the exudes of oil on the surface in many places meant in ultimate values; probably our own high estimate of these values fell far short of the reality. We acquired all of the leases of the party referred to, and several besides, and purchased some lands outright during that year. Subsequently other large tracts were purchased, *A. L. Barber. 214 THE MARCHING YEARS and other tracts leased for long periods for a cash rental, and directly from the owners; never from the Government. The country of the Huasteca region is often called jungle, but it is such only in spots, the major part of the land being cleared, and small tracts under cultivation in a primitive way. Some of the jungle regions are very dense and almost impossible to penetrate except by cutting a brecha through them; a thing usually done with a machete. The farm houses are rude, often thatched, their walls of adobe or mud plastered on loose bamboo wattle-work, and the floors of earth. A few of the houses are better built, with wooden floors, and offer more of the comforts of life. In our exploratory horseback journeys through the country we tried to stop for food and lodgings at the better of the country houses, but were not always able to do so. We slept often on cots in the main room of the house, sometimes on a porch, and at times, when the weather allowed, out in the open. Most of the highways were bridle roads—only occasionally in the country was it possible to use wheeled vehicles. Even if the streams were bridged and the roads graded it would in many places be difficult to use wagons, owing to the steepness of the hills. The houses are mostly on hill-tops, as though built there for protection (or to catch better the sea breezes), which was probably the case in earlier times. The villages are mostly on the higher elevations also. At first thought the hill roads suggest that the people who planned them had never discovered that it is often no farther around the hill than it is over it; but the early Indians doubtless knew their business. These rural people were almost invariably kind and obliging. They saluted when we met, total strangers, on the road, with a gentle "a Dios"—meaning a commendation "to God." They gave us the best they had to eat, and served it as well as they could. There were eggs, chicken, tortillas and frijoles nearly always, and coffee with brown, coarse sugar and sometimes milk. The eggs were often THE MARCHING YEARS 215 cooked in hot lard or other fat, as we cook doughnuts, which is an excellent way; and the dark beans—frijoles—are cooked there more and better than anywhere else in my experience. There was usually piquante, a hot condiment. The table utensils were few, sometimes not a spoon, knife or fork to be seen, except one big ladle. The natives feed themselves deftly by dipping up frijoles, eggs and chopped meat either with their fingers or with pieces of tortillas folded like a little scoop, the scoop being eaten with the food it carries. We found difficulty in doing this ideally; and once in my embarrassment I asked for a spoon, and saw the host and hostess exchange glances of surprise. Then one of them disappeared and soon returned with one very old iron teaspoon, one-half of the bowl of which was deeply covered with rust. At that meal Mr. Canfield had produced a pocket combination of knife, fork and spoon, which he unlimbered, and gave two others besides himself a decided advantage over me. A mile from that spot four years later we brought in a well that in eight and a half years had flowed some 70,000,000 barrels of oil that was saved, pumped to our terminal near Tampico, and sold. In our journeys to the Huasteca field it was necessary to travel at least fifty miles south of Tampico by water— through a canal a few miles long into the shallow Lake Tamiahua—before taking horses for the interior. We went by gasoline launches, usually rather unreliable, rented af- fairs, operated by Mexicans who knew little of the best channel through the shallow lake, to avoid being either grounded or caught in vast fields of sea-weeds that would soon put our propellers out of business. We several times had these calamities, and spent hours—half a night some- times—in getting ourselves free. These journeys were long and wearisome—often vexatious—until we began to have good launches of our own with competent Mexican pilots. Lake Tamiahua is a gentle sea except when a fierce north wind sweeps the length of it; then it shows its teeth. Messrs. 216 THE MARCHING YEARS Doheny and Canfield were once caught in such a spiteful squall when crossing the lake in a small launch with a hesi- tating gas engine and a frightened pilot. Nothing but their own efforts saved them from destruction. On this lake one mild morning I was rushing south in a good launch called the "Silver King," with a very competent pilot, on the way to meet one of my associates who was sick and coming north from Tuxpan. One of our employes, Mr. Finley, was also on board. As we were passing the mouth of the Cucharas River, about a mile off the west shore of the lake, our port bow struck a big root of a submerged tree that some freshet had washed out of the river. It stove a hole in the boat below the water line, and she took water rapidly. The tree root remained in the hole for a time and held the bow up and prevented it from sinking, while the stern was submerged, but soon the waves rocked the boat free, and she sank in six feet of water, with the port gunwale forward out of water. We three men roosted on that rail, leaning against the boat canopy, for four hours, when we were taken off by a Mexican and a boy who came from far down the lake in a canoe. They had seen our signals of distress (the waving of our hats and coats). We had for two or three hours observed a Mexican with a boat at the mouth of the river, a mile away, and had waved and shouted ourselves hoarse at him, but he paid no attention to us. Finley allowed that if we ever got ashore he would kill that man. When we reached the man it was evident that he had that terrible disease of the eyes called trachoma, and could not see an object a hundred feet away, and he was also hard of hearing. We forgave the man; and Finley later remarked that the man and boy in that canoe were the handsomest Mexicans he had ever seen. One of the hardships of travel in the Mexican jungle country when you come in contact with the brush, is the pest of wood ticks, called pinalillas, that get on your body and THE MARCHING YEARS 217 stick closer than any brother, although they do not burrow be- neath the skin, as is popularly supposed; they insinuate their claws into the skin. Nor do they transmit human disease. These insects, we are told, have several stages of develop- ment, emerging from each successive stage with two additional claws. The final stage takes the name garapata, the name in its plural of a village where one of our pipe line pump stations is located. One summer day half a dozen of us were going south in a launch on Lake Tamiahua. At nightfall we put into the mouth of a small river and tied up for the night. It was only a few rods across a tongue of land to the lake. We had a small cooking outfit, and I built a fire out of fagots and dead wood—some other campers had preceded us and left a few live coals among their ashes. Mr. Doheny made the perfec- tion of a shortcake, and baked it in a pan leaned up toward the fire. Mr. Canfield cooked bacon and made syrup out of sugar for us. He was an expert with the bacon; but he had a sweet tooth and made twice as much syrup as we could eat. It was a banquet we had that night. Two old Mexicans with a large canoe full of fine water- melons tied up near us, ate their simple food and lay down to sleep near their boat. We tried to buy a melon of them, but they refused to sell. They told us the melons were to be delivered the next morning to a steamboat due down the lake. We divined that their melons had been counted out to them, and that if they sold one their count would be wrong and they would be in disgrace. The faithfulness of the poor, humble and ignorant Mexican when he is charged with a trust of consequence is interesting. He will nearly always execute the trust faithfully, even if he is guilty, before and afcer it, of some minor peccadillos like stealing your cigars or your bottle of whiskey, if you chance to have such things about you. We bathed in the lake that night, then slept soundly under the stars on packing cots—a sort that folds into a compact 218 THE MARCHING YEARS mass hardly larger than a golf-stick bag. We were fed, packed and off soon after sunrise the next morning. On one of our lake voyages in a canoe, failing to find at nightfall the steamboat that was by prearrangement to take us on, we tied up for the night on the bank of an island— Toro or Idolo Island. It was a wooded spot, and there were swarms of insects to annoy us. Next morning there was no steamboat and no food for us, except a few left-over pecans. They were being devoured by ants, which I brushed away, and amused my friends by forcing them to eat them —the pecans, not the ants. We started toward the mainland, and in an hour sighted the flat bottomed steamer, which soon picked us up. It was on another voyage—to the village of Tamiahua and south through a tortuous narrow channel, the Canal Angosta— to the Tuxpan River, that we were out of drink, not food, and sought the left-over half of a quart bottle of unfermented grape juice—to be told by a colored servant that he had discovered it to have begun to ferment, and had thrown it out, supposing it was spoiled. How little he knew what a thirsty traveler likes! This narrow canal and the wider one at the north of the lake, connecting it with the Panuco River, gave us on a few occasions some rare fishing experiences. If our boat was well lighted at night the fish in their haste to get away from us would sometimes jump into the boat—or did they jump in out of curiosity? Anyway, they got in and made fine food for us. One of our traveling companions on a trip in a larger boat, a man who had scouted this story about the fish, was fast asleep in his bunk when one of the fish, more than a foot long, landed on the deck. A roguish member of the company took the fish and, quietly lifting the gentleman's bed covers, laid its wet and wriggling form beside him. All the company who were awake were present to see the man's waking welcome of his new bedfellow. They saw it! He and they ate the fish afterward. THE MARCHING YEARS 219 From Tamiahua south through the Canal Angosta most of the journey was through a tortuous narrow channel in a dense forest. We traveled this by canoes, poled by two men, one at each end of the boat. Sometimes we traveled by night, sleeping on the bottom of the boat while the polers, half the time till daylight, sang gentle, soft yodels to each other. The singing was a lullaby to us. At Tamiahua once we met a young Scandinavian who was canvassing the village and country round about, selling gaudy chromo pictures at from five to fifteen dollars each, including a frame. He first took orders for the pictures from samples which he showed; and later brought the framed product and received his first monthly payments—they were nearly all sold on the installment plan. And he told me that he had been in the business among these people for a long time, and that no one there had ever defaulted in his (usually her) contract for a picture. The explanation he gave of this phenomenal record was that the pictures established a social cleavage among the houses of these people. They were fast segregating the homes into two classes, those which could afford to have a picture and those too poor to have one. This was the spur that stabilized the business. My personal experience on Lake Tamiahua gave me a hint as to the pathology of seasickness. I had always been a temporary victim to the malady whenever sailing on a large ship with a sea at all rough. But on this lake in a twenty- foot launch, pitching and plunging in a rough sea for hours at a time, there was never a qualm. And numerous of my associates who were the same sort of victims, or even more sensitive than I, had the same immunity in this sailing in the gasoline launches. One friend in particular was so sick on an ocean trip from Tampico to Vera Cruz that he was unable to get his land legs for a day or two after going ashore. I made several journeys on the lake in a launch in a rough sea with this man, and he never had the slightest discomfort. 220 THE MARCHING YEARS This experience suggests an explanation of mal de mer, in the relation of nausea to vertigo or dizziness. In nausea there is nearly always vertigo—all visible objects seem to be moving about rather slowly. The two are so closely associa- ted that either suggests the other, and may produce it. Nau- sea makes all objects seem to move about. When, without nausea, all the environment seems to be moving, as on a ship rolling so slowly as to fool the nervous system into the im- pression that the man is not moving up and down, then the nausea soon appears and persists for a while—not for long, for soon, in a day or two usually, the brain learns the counter- feit unconsciously and refuses to be fooled any longer. The pitching and rolling of the little boat is so quick and jerky that the physical sensation gives the impression that the body itself and not the environment is moving; so no association with nausea is produced. It is more like the effect of horse- back riding, which almost never produces anything even akin to seasickness. (See Appendix V for some details of the oil corporations.) CHAPTER XX. LOS ANGELES. IN the autumn of 1910, after a continuous residence of sixteen years in Pasadena, we moved into Los Angeles to live, leaving our home in the finest residence city of the world, and friends and neighbors unsurpassed anywhere. My office had been in Los Angeles continuously from early in 1891, and I had made the journey to it daily except Sun- days. At first it was in the Potomac Block at 217 South Broadway. In 1907 it was moved to the Auditorium Build- ing, on the corner of Fifth and Olive Streets—and it was substantially abandoned in 1917. The move of the home to the metropolis was made in the interest, for me, of economy of time and energy, and for business convenience. It saved me the time, never very great, devoted to civic affairs in Pasadena; and it enabled me to reduce my professional work, and gave me more time for secular interests that were daily becoming more exacting. I then even found time to make frequent social calls with my wife, a thing previously almost impossible. Our new home was at No. 10 Chester Place—a beautiful house belonging to the Dohenys, and next door to their own residence. We lived there six years. Chester Place had been for many years one of the finest private-park residence parts of the city, and during our stay there it grew more beautiful each year. As we prepared to move, the lure of the neighborhood was too strong to permit us to leave it, and we bought a place at 718 West Adams Street, facing Chester Place, with an old colonial house, white pillars and all, standing far back from the street. This we in a large measure rebuilt, and with as many closets and bathrooms as Mrs. Bridge wished for. When finished, it not only had these conveniences, with many others that housekeepers [221] 222 THE MARCHING YEARS find desirable, but it had an adequate and convenient library room—a thing not possessed by any other of the eight houses we had previously lived in. We moved in, early in January of the year 1917, and another beautiful garden was soon growing up about us. We bought a lot on Twenty-seventh Street, back of our home, on which were soon built a garage, a greenhouse and a duplex house for a gardener and a chauffeur. We had, a few years before, built a little brown house by the mountain near Beverly Hills, on the Doheny ranch, for a country place, and had developed rather elaborate and ornate grounds about it. We were never able to occupy it much—a few week-ends that were greatly enjoyed, and finally three months continuously while the town house was being rebuilt. Soon after our moving into the latter the country place was given up—transferred to our friends the Dohenys, under an option existing from the first. The developing of that place, the house, the garden, the grounds; seeing the planted things grow in size and beauty; the enjoyment of the little time spent there, and our entertainment of friends who enjoyed it all with us; the vision of the valley below, the city of Los Angeles in the distance to the left (at night with its thousands of lights) and the ocean to the right; the trails and beauties of the Doheny ranch—all these are a wonderful green spot in the memory of my life that cannot be erased, but happily shall remain as a permanent intellectual asset of pleasure. Years before we moved our residence to Los Angeles, Dr. W. Jarvis Barlow had organized the "Barlow Sanatorium"* for cases of tuberculosis, and had asked several of his friends, myself among the number, to join him on its Board of Di- rectors. I was in this way connected with the work until the end of 1916, when for legal reasons—the necessity of confirm- ing our transfer of citizenship to Chicago—I resigned as a director. •Founded in 1902. THE MARCHING YEARS 223 The ambition from the first was to build up, in the city if possible, an institution for the early cases of tuberculosis, that offer most hope of recovery. Some acres of land were secured, adjoining and nearly surrounded by Elysian Park; and there the institution has developed. It has an infirmary, an executive building, a recreation hall, a doctors' building, and many small cottages for the housing of patients. These buildings have all been the free gift offerings of friends of this work. The Sanatorium continuously has had from 50 to 150 patients, mostly non-paying. It has done a great deal of good. As its list of friends is increasing and their gifts are greater from year to year, it is destined to have still greater usefulness in the future. Already quite an endowment has accumulated, the gifts or bequests of many good friends for this specific purpose. This is a fund inviolate—only the income from it can be used. The Southwest Museum had been incorporated under the laws of California, and had a modest collection housed in rooms in the top of the Hamburger Building, when Gen. Adna R. Chaffee, its first president, announced his determina- tion to retire from the office. The corporation had a tract of land of fifteen acres, more or less (on a hill fronting on Marmion Way, opposite Sycamore Grove) that had been bought some years before by gifts of money from numerous citizens, for the permanent home of the Museum. I was appointed to succeed Chaffee in 1912. The plans for the building were then well under way. If all that the plans included was to be built, the cost was bound to be over a hundred thousand dollars, and the inside fixtures would cost several thousand more, and the cash in sight would fall far short of the amount. It was a question whether to build the structure in parts, at first omitting the two noble towers, keeping within our means and having an ugly looking building finally for the public to disparage and pity; or to take the risk of building the whole of the magnificent structure as the plans called for, and trust to fate, luck and our own 224 THE MARCHING YEARS efforts to find the money to pay the debt. This latter, not without some trepidation, we concluded to do, and take the consequences. We completed the building,* moved the collection into it in 1914—a large part of it in boxes waiting for display cases—and built the cases as fast as possible to accommodate the choicest part of the specimens, and to provide for the gifts that came thick and fast. In two years the institution was a noble thing inside as well as outside, and everywhere showed the facile handiwork of its cultivated director, Hector Alliot, Ph.D. But the "consequences" we had taken stared us in the face fast enough. We had a debt that soon frightened us. To make matters worse, some of the most active friends of the Museum were called out of the country; hard times came on; then the Great War and the demands upon our people for vast sums to ameliorate the agony of non-combatants. So our debt was forgotten by all but the creditors and such of us as were officially obliged to remember \t. It was finally paid—and no money was ever spent more economically, or with a more sure and adequate return for all of it, than that spent on the building and its fittings. The Museum had more for its money than anybody expected, or had reason to expect. The Museum is devoted to art, archaeology and ethnology especially, while it does not neglect other sciences and lines of study. Its ambition is to co-ordinate its work with that of the schools and colleges of the city and surrounding country, and be a true educational center; and it is realizing all this. A museum of this character is one of the greatest monuments of any community, always provided it is properly supported and has efficient and scholarly management. But no great proportion of citizens ever take an active interest in such institutions; they are supported by the few, with or without the aid of public appropriations. Probably the *The memorial stone was placed in the front of the building with appropriate ceremonies, December 6, 1913. THE MARCHING YEARS 225 contributions to the Southwest Museum have been fewer for the reason that the county of Los Angeles has created a museum, situated in Exposition Park, and some people not unnaturally question why they should be asked to give to an unendowed museum, when they pay taxes for the county to support one. The County Museum has made good if rather extravagant use of its large appropriations, and it has a unique fortune in the enormous number of bones of extinct animals taken from the Hancock Brea Pits, of which it has the custody. But the stamp of superior quality of any large community is in the institutions of learning, history, art and religion, that are the voluntary gifts of the people. The city of Los Angeles and its vicinity have some half dozen such noble monuments, and not the least of these is the Southwest Museum. The friends of this modest institution are increas- ing in number and, if it continues to pursue the policy of the past, which is substantially certain, it will probably some day have an endowment that, with the normal income from its membership, will enable it to go on in its good work, build other halls to accommodate its fast growing collection, and be of increasing benefit to the educational influences of southern California. The building on the hill has become a thing for wonder and exclamation on the part of the thousands who cannot fail to see it. To the people of taste in such things it stands as a signal triumph of architecture,* and its location makes it a conspicuous object of satisfaction and pride in all the country roundabout. The interior architecture and the arrangement and quality of the collection are as wonderful as the exterior. The cases are of improved designs for safety and usefulness. While the Museum was being built and for some time afterward the air was full of quandaries and guesses as to the purpose of it. Somebody guessed it was for a convent; another guessed that it would be a cathedral, and some wondered if it might not be a hospital or a fort. These ♦The architects were Messrs. Hunt and Burns, of Los Angeles. 226 THE MARCHING YEARS guesses and interrogative gropings were soon translated into statements as of facts, and created much amusement. In 1916, on the advice of my attorneys, I resigned from the Boards of five institutions in California—the Throop College of Technology, the Southwest Museum, the Los Angeles Symphony, the Barlow Sanatorium and the La Vina Sanatorium* in Pasadena. The reason for this was no loss of interest in these most worthy institutions, but merely to add authority by this act to the change of legal residence to Chicago, which Mrs. Bridge and I had made in 1915. Since my resignation from these institutions they have all grown in importance and strength, so my elimination might be said to have been useful rather than otherwise. Our legal residence was changed for the reason that under the laws of California it was impossible for one to make a legal will giving more than one-third of his gross estate to institutions. This was a condition we were no longer willing to be bound by, and we were unwilling to try to evade the law by such subterfuges as were often resorted to. We took up our legal residence at the Blackstone Hotel and began to vote from there in 1916. *La Vina is a sanatorium for tuberculosis, situated at the foothills northwest of Pasadena. It was started in 1908 by the late Dr. H. B. Stehman, who gave his time and unselfish devotion to it until his death, early in 1918. It is situated on a farm of two hundred acres and has some twenty buildings—all the gifts of friends of the move- ment and of its founder. Dr. Stehman had been superintendent of the Presbyterian Hospital in Chicago for many years, during most of which I was one of the attending physicians. He broke down in health and came to Pasadena in 1899, where he soon after engaged in practice and in all manner of good works. He was a man of great personal charm and capacity, capable and high minded; a religious man who lived his faith without ostentation, In spite of constant ill health he gave ten years of ardent work to La Vina, which stands today a monument to his devotion and wise administration. (See also page 162 ante.) CHAPTER XXI. CLUBS AND SOCIETIES. OUR club life in American cities has been overdone in recent years. There are too many sorts of clubs, and men are tempted to join too many of them. Too many clubs are started by groups of people bent on making some interest or some town famous and up-to-date. Golf has led to a swarm of country clubs. University clubs have become fashionable; in every town of even moderate size the college men have either started a club or wished they might do so, or been a little apologetic if they have not made the attempt. Athletics is another influence that has bred clubs; and political parties have theirs also. The clubs have all done some good, and perhaps no one of them is wholly free from abuses in some direction—extrava- gance, if nothing worse. I lived in Chicago for many years near clubs, none of which I even sought to join. But soon after reaching California the California Club of Los Angeles admitted me. This is a social club of a high class. Later the Union League Club of Chicago elected me. This is a social club with civic activities of the best kind. The Union League was organized in Civil War time, and was composed of Union men only, which made it in all its earlier years mostly a republican club. It has an inscription on its great mantel that was very meaningful at the beginning; but to a newer generation of members it means little, because the issues of that day have been settled for now half a century. It reads, "Welcome to Loyal Hearts. We Join Ourselves to No Party That does Not Carry the Flag and Keep Step to the Music of the Union." After we resumed our legal residence in Chicago in 1915 my relation in this club was changed from non-resident to resident membership. [227] 228 THE MARCHING YEARS The Union League has no political party color today; but it studies political conditions and stands for a high order of civic virtue and efficiency. It has done much to lessen political and civic abuses.* The Hamilton Club of Chicago has been a republican club of high character from the first. I was for several years a non-resident member of it. On the strength of my graduation from two professional schools that afterward became connected with the universi- ties, or because of my connection with the faculty of one of them, two university clubs have admitted me, one in Chicago and one in Los Angeles. I have enjoyed both of these, but never was wholly satisfied with their basis of membership. A club whose membership is based largely on learning or achievement, or authorship, or on capacity or judgment in art of some sort has a natural commendableness; but to make membership depend on the place or circumstances of the acquisition of knowledge seems artificial, if not aristocratic, and would have a phase of the absurd, except for its fostering the spirit of scholarship and the encouragement of education and educational movements and institutions. This good influence is not able to divest the club entirely of a certain mark of the peculiar branding iron. This reasoning also applies against such societies as the Sons of the Revolution—there are two sets of "Sons," of both of which I am a member. There the membership depends on whether some ancestor did certain things—an aristocracy of *In the Union League Club, Chicago, "the condition of membership shall be absolute and unqualified loyalty to the Government of the United States. "The primary objects of this Association shall be: "1st. To encourage and promote by moral, social and political influence uncon- ditioned loyalty to the Federal Government, and to defend and protect the integrity and perpetuity of this nation. "2nd. To inculcate a higher appreciation of the value and sacred obligations of American citizenship; to maintain the civil and political equality of all citizens in every section of our common country, and to aid in the enforcement of all laws enacted to preserve the purity of the ballot box. "3rd. To resist and oppose corruption and promote economy in office, and to secure honesty and efficiency in the administration of national, state and municipal affair?." THE MARCHING YEARS 229 commendable heritage. But the saving virtue is that it is a leaven for the development of patriotism—a thing that the country needs more than it needs more colleges. Los Angeles had from 1900 a phenomenal growth in population. It had several gentlemen's clubs—enough and more than a city of its pretensions needed—but some ambi- tious spirits thought they must have an Athletic Club. So they financed and built a very sumptuous club home at a time when cautious minds were thinking of a slowing down on new developments. Many citizens joined the organiza- tion to show their appreciation of the enterprise, when they were members of too many clubs already. I was among these, and kept up my membership for several years. The Sierra Madre Club of Los Angeles was organized as a miners' club, to bring together as many men as possible engaged in the mining business—the oil business being reckoned in this category. I was a member for several years. But the membership could not be restricted to the mining and oil business, nor was that desirable. This club, while altogether worthy in social ways, was never strong financially, and it went out of existence during the Great War. There are two highly creditable clubs in Los Angeles that I succeeded in keeping out of, the Jonathan Club and the Union League; but I have been a member of three golf clubs, the Pasadena (now out of existence), the Annandale and the Midwick—the last two made up mainly of citizens of Los Angeles and Pasadena. These were all first-class organiza- tions, and for this reason I had some regrets at resigning from them. The oldest club in Pasadena that has a club house is the Valley Hunt. It is a social organization for ladies and gentlemen, and has had a useful career of many years. Mrs. Bridge and I were members for several years while we lived in Pasadena. The club took its name from an ambition on the part of a few of the early settlers to ride to hounds through San Gabriel Valley in the style of the English. Of course 230 THE MARCHING YEARS the hunting could not be kept up, with the thick settling up of the San Gabriel Valley, but the name has remained. One of the early movers in this enterprise was, I think, the late Charles Frederick Holder, a great lover of sports, of nature and wild life, and author of several worthy books. One of my late experiences has been as member of the Bankers' Club of America, of New York City—which is not a club of bankers specially, but of men of many classes. Being situated in one of the largest buildings of the metro- polis, it brings together at the lunch hour a small army of superior business men. The latest experience is membership in the Cosmos Club, of Washington, D. C. The effort seems to have been from the first to restrict admissions largely to authors, writers, college men, educators, men of large accomplishment in the affairs of life and Bohemians in general. It is quartered in the house last occupied by President Madison, and has a superb full-length portrait of Dolly Madison. All the clubs referred to above have their own houses or quarters, and all entertain and feed their members. There is one small Los Angeles Club that has been in existence since 1895, that has never had quarters of its own, but has enter- tained its members once each month, except in summer, with a simple dinner early in the evening, followed by some intel- lectual program provided for beforehand. The lights are put out at ten o'clock. Its membership, of congenial spirits of many professions and occupations, numbers some seventy men, and its name is the Sunset Club. Its members are known colloquially as " Sunsetters." It was founded by the late Charles Dwight Willard. Usually the Sunsetters have a winter holiday celebration of some sort, sometimes called their High Jinks, and a cele- bration out of doors at the end of the club season in June. These occasions have always been enjoyable, as well as sur- prising. I was one of the charter members, and was president of the club in 1916. The same two men served as secretary THE MARCHING YEARS 231 and treasurer from the beginning, for many years, the only officer that has been changed annually being the president. The club has been characterized throughout its history by good-fellowship and pleasant and profitable association among the members. It is an unwritten law that no visitors are ever brought to the club meetings; the intellectual exercises are always the work of the members. When I was still an active member of the Chicago Academy of Sciences, the Wisconsin Academy of Science, Arts and Letters honored me with a corresponding membership. My inability ever to be present at any meeting of that dignified and useful society has been matter for regret. As early as possible after my graduation I joined the American Medical Association, and have kept up the member- ship. I also helped many years afterward in the reorganization of the Association, so as to keep its legislative and scientific work separate, to the benefit of both. Another measure of great value was introduced, namely, a system whereby mem- bership in the national body is reached through membership in the county and state medical societies. This insures an active interest in the professional weal of the member's own neighborhood and state, as well as in that of the nation. In the later decades of the last century the American profession had the beginning of a great awakening. Many of the medical schools added to their equipment and efficiency; some united with universities or other schools; some ceased to exist. There was a new growth of laboratories; the pursuit of special studies increased, and in the larger towns there was a division of the profession, to a considerable degree, into specialties. The devotees of each specialty formed societies and issued regular publications devoted to their work—a specialty literature. Some of the societies were organized as early as the sixties. Research increased in each society as time went on. In the eighties some fourteen of these special societies began to meet together every third year in the spring time, 232 THE MARCHING YEARS in Washington, District of Columbia, for two days, under the name of the "Congress of American Physicians and Surgeons." There were some general exercises of the Congress at certain hours, and the constituent societies held their regular meetings at other hours of each day. The proceedings of each Congress were printed in book form, and of course each of the constituent societies published annually its own proceedings. This triennial meeting together of the several societies was stimulating and profitable to all of them. It gave the members the opportunity to visit other organiza- tions besides their own, which added to their acquaintance- ship, as well as to their mental breadth. I was early elected to the Association of American Physi- cians, and later to the American Climatological and Clinical Association. Of the latter I was president in 1903, one of the years of my participation in the Congress of Physicians and Surgeons. The American Academy of Medicine was founded in the middle seventies. It was to be an encourager not merely of learning, but of college education and degrees, antedating medical graduation. Only men with academic degrees were eligible for membership. It was a laudable ambition, but the Academy never succeeded greatly in either membership or scientific output, although it was always composed of a group of most excellent gentlemen of high personal and professional character. It lacked the drawing social motive of the University Club. Its numbers were small, and its influence not what it was hoped it would be. Finally the rule as to eligibility was changed and made more liberal; then I was invited to become a member, and did so. In the early eighties tuberculosis was discovered to be due to the ravages of a peculiar bacillus operating in the animal body. From that time professional and lay opinion on the subject began to be more scientific and practical. Gradually a new literature of it grew up, and more rational THE MARCHING YEARS 233 efforts were made to prevent the spread of the disease, as well as to cure it. In 1905 a national association for the study and prevention of tuberculosis was formed. It held a convention annually, published its proceedings and circulated various publications in vast numbers, and increased greatly the attention of the public to the subject. Numerous state and local societies were formed, and sanatoriums and hospitals in many states. By 1918 there were in this country some 600 such institutions with provision for 40,000 patients, besides some 500 dispen- saries and tuberculosis clinics, and there were employed about 3,000 special woman nurses for this disease. During the early years of the movement I gave much time and attention to its furtherance, not only joining the national and local associations, but helping in any way possible to call attention to the better things to do to save the victims and spare the public. The work was interesting and profitable, and I regretted the fate that finally curtailed my efforts in this direction. The movement has unquestionably accom- plished a great deal of good. CHAPTER XXII. WARTIME ACTIVITIES. I WENT to Washington in July, 1917, three months after our own declaration of war, and was there and in New York and Chicago most of the time till a year after the armistice was signed in early November, 1918. Two months the first winter and one the second was all the time available to me in Los Angeles. My service was first on various com- mittees of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States (deliberations made necessary by the war), and finally as chairman of the National Alien Enemy Relief Committee, whose work continued till six months after the armistice. This committee was a nation-wide body of men and women— some nineteen in number—whose duties were to assist the Departments of State and Justice, and the legations of Sweden and Switzerland, by acting as a sort of clearing house for the class of persons named in the title of the committee. The name of the committee was devised by the chairman by and with the advice of the departments and legations. Its work throughout the country was primarily to learn the needs and identity of dependents of the men who had been interned by our Government as dangerous enemy aliens, and who were thereby unable to provide for the support of their families. Our duty was to determine as to the genuineness of the claims of dependents and the extent of the urgent needs, and report our findings to the proper legation, which promptly supplied the required funds—the Swedish legation if the claim was Austro-Hungarian, and the Swiss if it was German. These legations were in charge of the affairs of those nations during the war; and they were anxious, as our Government was, that relief should be limited to actual and dire needs, and only to genuine dependents of the internees. [234] THE MARCHING YEARS 235 There were many innocent aliens of German and Austro- Hungarian nationality or descent—some of them to their surprise had just discovered that they were not American citizens—who were wholly loyal to this nation, but who suffered from local prejudice and often unfair treatment by their neighbors. These we were asked to assist by counsel, admonition and persuasion, to them and to their neighbors. We had no means of direct material assistance, but we were able to find ways of encouragement and amelioration for many of these unfortunates. Our committee work was helped greatly by—indeed it was largely performed with the ready and loyal assistance of— the various charity organizations which exist in nearly every city in the country. Every one of these to which we ap- pealed for investigation of cases, was prompt and efficient in supplying the information required, and their assistance was rendered—like our own—with no other compensation than a sense of useful service in the great consummation to which the nation was committed. Moreover, these organizations showed an encouraging degree of standardization in the function of relief to which they were all devoted—a system' calculated to render relief as and when really needed, and without either producing or fostering mendicancy. These charity organizations uniformly extended their aid and mercy to all people in dire need, and no questions were asked as to nationality, except to exclude the dependents of internees, who were promptly referred to us. When we began to function, our committee was told by the State Department that the Government had not a dollar that could legally be devoted to us; that the committee must finance itself; and this we did to the end, and gladly. And at the end we had the commendations of the Departments of State and Justice and of the two legations for the efficient and timely performance of our duties. During these war months, and for months afterward, it was my fortune to come in contact with many officials, 236 THE MARCHING YEARS departments, commissions and committees of the Govern- ment. The first year there was, owing to intense pressure, a great deal of confusion, many overlappings and short- comings. A great army was being gathered and drilled in the field and at sea, and another army of Government servants and officials in Washington and elsewhere were trying the best that was in them, at almost wholly unfamiliar and very exacting tasks, to bring and keep order out of confusion. But much disorder and lost motion were at first unavoidable; these grew less as the months passed, and the following year showed a marked improvement everywhere. The workers knew their jobs were brief; that they would get out of them and go home as soon as the war was over, and they were fearful of making mistakes and being criticised or punished therefor. This led to a great timidity in assuming responsi- bility, so there was, in the slang of the hour, much "passing of the buck" from one official to another, to find one able and willing to act officially and to take responsibility. To add to the embarrassment there was a dearth of office room. Many departments and sections had to be housed in private buildings of all sorts—commandeered by the Govern- ment—scattered about in different parts of the city, every office being moved as often as it could get into better quarters. The Government was all the while pushing the construction of enormous temporary buildings for offices for its workers, as well as for the dwellings of many of them-—so that by the end of the fighting the pressure had become considerably reduced. The Treasury Department had grown to such enormous proportions that it was housed in more than two dozen different buildings, and two great buildings, noble in proportions and solid in structure, were in the process of construction for this department. With all the handicaps it is no wonder that the confusion was great and unavoidable—the wonder is that it was not greater. The volunteers did the best they could; they were mostly commendably industrious and I believe conscientious THE MARCHING YEARS 237 in the public service. The best blood and brain of the country were working there for a dollar a year or nothing; and in a few months the improvement in the service was remarkable. The history of the public service during the nineteen months of active war was probably as creditable as is possible in this generation, with such a colossal task to be done in such a rush. Of course many mistakes were made; there was a vast wastage of money—and doubtless in spots dishonesty and peculations, for which certain persons have settled or will later settle with the courts. But on the whole the Government, as well as the army and navy, did tasks of which the ages will be proud. CHAPTER XXIII. THE EMOTIONAL SIDE. AIR castles are the creation of most boys and many men, and probably of all girls and women. They are the fruitage of hope, aspiration, wish; they are the flower of necessity, the call of life. Hunger, thirst, fatigue, cold, heat; friendships, companionships, comradery; the love and desire of friendships; ambitions in life and life work; the mating impulse—all these are emotions that grow air castles. The push of competition, the yearning for excellence, for the comforts and luxuries of life, the love of family and friends and money (in a way the call on the world), all are blue- printed in imagination; they are emotional and begin as the children of fancy. So are sports, games and the pull of fashion. Men and women talk, write and preach about the intel- lectual life. There is hardly such a thing apart from emotion —which really is thought and likes and dislikes, all brazed together. It is the emotional life that is of universal potency; it is the thing that directs, absorbs, restrains, pushes and hauls us hither and yon; the union of thought with wish or desire for or against things, people, work and play. It is the egoistic, the selfism. Life is made up of likes and dislikes, loves and hates, attractions and repulsions; of patriotism, philanthropy, altruism, benevolence; love of attention and fame; ambition, avarice, pride, envy, jealousy, avidity for favors; self-respect, self-reproach, self-conviction, remorse and even laziness. What a catalogue of variations—and quite incomplete! The pictures of fancy, and the storms and calms of emotion, change and fly like the flying fictions of a dream. Verily, emotion moves the world and makes possible the intellectual life, the stability of society and the world's [238] THE MARCHING YEARS 239 progress—if there is such a thing. It is the sanity and un- sanity of the human pilgrimage. And in this phase of our being perhaps no two of us are exactly alike. We marvel that an exact duplicate of finger prints can be found only among some millions of individuals. But it is infinitely unlikely that we could find a true duplication of emotional experience. Nobody ever built more air castles in his childhood and youth than I did; or ever fancied himself in more kinds of circumstances, or as following more different trails. The fancies were rarely of glory or wealth, or of an impossible situation, but rather of doing things. In childhood there were numerous mental excursions into a realm of romance and the unreal, usually as an egotist who in his air castles was an individual of importance. Later the egotist dis- covered what a shallow basis there was for his airs, and settled down to a more deliberate tramp along the road with his feet on the earth. But he was always emotionally sus- ceptible, whatever his outward appearance may have indicated. Some of my small child reasonings and fancies were grotesque, if not a little stupid. For example, I had many times seen my father drive a horse with reins, before the discovery that he guided the animal with them. That must have been the experience of thousands of boys; but my reasoning about it was peculiar, for I wondered how the horse knew which way to go, and concluded that he knew by hearing my father tell me where he was going, when I had asked him and begged to go along. I remember too my surprise and chagrin on discovering my stupidity, and that I was careful not to tell it to my brother or parents, who would properly have made fun of me. In my adolescence the activities of the hour or the day led to fancies that were natural enough. As my work was sometimes hard, the fancy was of an easier job, like riding instead of walking behind a plow, or driving a stage coach 240 THE MARCHING YEARS or an express wagon. If the weather was hot, the fatigue considerable, and the thirst great, fancy pictured a seat in the shade beside a spring of cool water or a gurgling brook. If the weather was frigid, fancy provided warm clothes, houses and beds. The fancies came in a flash, and more often when I was at work. When, as often happened, they were about the work, they would run on ahead of it, even to its termina- tion and beyond, so that the task of the moment seemed far away and foreign. Thus the fancies seemed to divert the attention from the immediate present. This constituted the absent-mindedness that was often enough observed in me by others. The same habit showed, years later, in lecturing to classes of students. A sentence would be started, then the mind would rush on along the subject ahead of the words; and the best way to end the sentence would be lost in the haze of distracted attention. Then would come a quick shadow of fear that the sentence might end in bad English or inanity, and a vocal dash would be thrown in and the sentence be recast. These occurrences were humiliating, and could not be wholly prevented, although lessened by delib- erateness in thought and speech. As a boy—and through life—to see another do an expert thing that I could not do, always had a peculiar fascination for me. Once when a mere lad, on seeing a shoemaker's deft handling of tools and leather, I was seized with an ambition to be a shoemaker. On coming to Illinois and living beside a railroad, and daily seeing an engineer sitting in his cab and, with a few handles, managing the grand locomotive, while I was trudging on foot behind a plow or harrow, I longed to be an engineman. I knew the names of many of the passenger engines that passed by—in that day they had names as well as numbers. The "Greyhawk" and "Blackhawk" were my favorites; these names had a romantic ring. And that feeling has never been wholly lost; for now, the sight of a fine looking locomotive in rapid action brings back that early thrill. THE MARCHING YEARS 241 The rapidity with which thoughts daily rush through the brain is startling. But a striking event or a mental or iroral shock may blind us to a multitude of details that we really see and hear, and a bump on the head may knock out the memory of even the accident itself. I have no doubt of my own frequent dullness in observa- tion of important events and details going on about me— without having a bump on the head; but once a series of rapidly succeeding thoughts rushed through my mind in a few seconds, that were afterward a source of much interest. They occurred during a fall in an elevator and at the moment of its striking the bottom of the shaft.* The fall was through several stories, and the last part of the journey was of course more rapid than the first; ten seconds or less was perhaps the time of the fall. In that brief moment there were half a dozen acts of thought that were as clear and distinct as though formed in the calm of tranquil deliberation. The elevator was used for freight, and had no cage, but a cross-beam top. I was sitting on a stool by a pile of large boxes when the fall began, and the first thought was of what I had often advised others to do under like circumstances— to stand with slightly bent knees to avoid a shock to the brain and spinal cord at the moment of striking bottom; and I quickly rose to that position. The next thought was to grab a knob of one of the closed doors of the elevator shaft, and hold on, so as to avoid going to the bottom. But the rush past the first two floors was so rapid that my courage failed me. Then I thought of jumping out at the main floor where I had entered the elevator, supposing this door would surely be open, but it was closed, and as we shot past it the thought or feeling was distinctly one of gloom, because we were rushing into the basement that I had never seen. Fortunately there was no door to the shaft in the basement, and as we struck I tumbled forward on the floor, helped by the knee-flexed position to fall like a man dreaming. The ♦July 9, 1880. 242 THE MARCHING YEARS pile of boxes tumbled on top of my feet and legs, and the next thought was one of relief, because I perceived that only my legs would be lost! The next instant my legs were felt to be safe, and the calamity only a matter of bruises and barked shins (the boxes contained only letter envelopes). The other two men in the elevator fared worse; one jumped out into the alley as we passed its open door, and was nearly killed; the other was the elevator boy, who clung to the wire rope and had the inside of his hands skinned. All these thoughts were clean cut, swift acts of the think- ing brain, that were remembered vividly afterward. A blow on the head severe enough to produce a concussion of the brain would have made any memory of these events and thoughts impossible. With the brain in a normal state, and no physical jar to it, or lack of good blood, what a flying of dispatches there must be constantly going on between the centers of the classical five and other senses in this organ— the cortical, thinking cells of the brain, between the different groups and centers of these cells! All the wonders of the telegraph, telephone and wireless wizardry fail even to ap- proach it. It is not always easy for the mind to take in as final what is proven by abundant evidence. We know things must be so, but we cannot quite feel that they are, until some shock to our senses drives away all shadowy doubt. Probably this is the experience of the common mind—anyway, many experiences of the sort came to my own youth, and some in much later life. It needed the long tolling of the court house bell in the great Chicago fire, when the bell watchman was being driven from his post by the flames, to make me feel what was already shown by the facts, that the whole north division of the city was doomed. When my brother's body was brought home in a casket, and I saw his shrunken, indubitable form—that was final. But in the case of that beloved young uncle, even after reading letters that told of his death in battle, THE MARCHING YEARS 243 my boy mind clung to the phantom, the feeling, that maybe it was not true, and that he might yet again appear to us in the flesh. For some weeks afterward whenever a man's form would come into distant view, walking from the railroad station toward our house, the feeling and hope would rush upon me that it might be Uncle Parker alive. This ended only when one of his comrades, who had buried him, came home and brought some of his personal belongings and told us the story. The moods of the day often determine success or failure in its tasks, as well as its comforts and discomforts. If the day starts with an unexpected jolt, like a sharp pain or a metaphoric slap in the face, this may send a shadow over the mind for hours, and until long after the nature of the blow has been forgotten. I have many times had such a mood of mind, and later wondered what had started it; and my experiences of the opposite sort would be numbered by the thousands. A great business man of the west was so fastidious about his office desk and his papers, that if his office boy had left them in disorder he was cross for half the day. And who has not known some lady to rise in the morning rather petulant, and have her day glorified because it started off with some unexpected compliment to her appearance, or maybe a gift of flowers? But let any fastidious man or woman try to be composed and go on with the day's tasks and amenities after a splash of mud has struck a white shirt front or a white gown! For myself there is no question that such depressing hours have led to the creation of a counter-mood of stoicism, a determination to hold to the task of the time, regardless of clouds and storms. And following this stoical mood would nearly always come—early or late—a sense of comfort, rest- fulness and quiet. A common cause of such a mood of depression was some strain or a sense of diffidence (an egoistic emotion, of a kind) 244 THE MARCHING YEARS that was, early in life, a nearly constant experience in certain human contacts, and that disappeared very slowly, but never entirely. This was marked in my lecturing through all the early years, and led to many tricks and devices to mask and overcome it. Here the forced stoicism helped encouragingly. For many years I preached the lesson of imperturbability to students, when the teacher was saying two words for himself and one for them. When as a child the care-taking function of my mind was developing I often borrowed troubles. Sometimes when my parents went to town I would imagine them meeting with some calamity; and if I went to town I might imagine coming home to find our house on fire. These mental sensations are what by some people would be called presentiments or significant forebodings—but only if the calamities happened. As in my case no such calamities ever did happen and the fore- bodings were frequent, the significance of presentiments acquired a negative dignity in my philosophy. The forebod- ings were probably due to indigestion, fatigue, disappointment or the longing of a sensitive child in his expanding years. CHAPTER XXIV. MUSIC. MUSIC has always given me pleasure and made me a debtor to it. But what to a small boy seemed exquisite music, in later life was largely trash. Yet in middle life and later, after I had tasted deeply the pleasure of the best music, if many weeks passed without hearing some of it, the sound of even a melodious hand-organ would give some pleasure—it would suggest by contrast the sound of better things. My earliest memory of music that thrilled me to my finger tips was when called to our house from the hay field at ten or eleven years of age, to hear a traveling blind violinist play. His name was Beers, and he went about the country playing for any one who cared to listen, and accepted the free hospitality of the people and little gifts of money. The real violinist of today would call his playing crude indeed; but to my ears then it came out of the heavens! I had heard a little singing in church and elsewhere, that was enjoyable, and this created an ambition to learn to sing. At fourteen or fifteen this seemed near realization when in the near-by village I attended a few elementary lessons at a singing school. There were twenty or more pupils of all ages. It seemed to me that I had a good voice, a musical one—and it still seems so. But in singing there is one indis- pensable condition; you must make your tone on the key intended. And here I failed deplorably, got discouraged with the singing school, and never afterward took up the study. Farmer boys had few opportunities to enjoy music unless they or their families could play or sing—and there was none of that sort of music in my family. [245] 246 THE MARCHING YEARS The political campaign of 1860 gave me a taste of martial music; and that taste has given pleasure in all the years since. I do not expect, this side of the grave, to cease to enjoy acutely this sort of music when well played. In 1867-8 in Chicago the opportunity came to hear the best music—an occasional opera; the Thomas Orchestra a few times each year; and later some musical festivals and oratorios in the old Exposition Building on the lake front. My musical appreciation grew, and with it a critical sense, which always adds to the joy of music unless it becomes so intense as to magnify defects that cark our nerves to the point where we fail to hear the perfections. In a few years my taste had completely changed; better music was appreciated; and, like childish things, certain previously admired music was put away and, as far as possible, forgotten. The change was notable especially in an increasing apprecia- tion of Beethoven and Wagner. That old Exposition Building is remembered for many days and evenings of amusement. Many kinds of entertain- ment were held there. One that interested me greatly, and which I helped Mr. Elias Colbert to produce (under the auspices of the Chicago Academy of Sciences), was the pendulum experiment to illustrate how the equator travels faster than the rest of the earth's surface. In this wise it was done: In the center of the building was a high dome made for architectural effect. From the highest point of it we suspended a small, strong, steel wire, long enough (120^ feet) to reach nearly to the floor. To this wire was attached a globular leaden bob that weighed some 120 pounds, and had a projecting needle at the bottom of it. A chalked circle several feet in diameter was made on the floor around the bob as a center, and the surface of this was sprinkled with sand that was slightly brushed by the needle as it swung. The experiment consisted in setting the bob swinging widely in the exact meridian (north and south) at a recorded moment. It continued to swing for days, and seemed gradually to veer THE MARCHING YEARS 247 to the right—so that by the time it came to rest it appeared to be swinging in a southwest-northeast axis. As a matter of fact it continued to swing in the very line where it started; the ring on the floor had moved in a circle to the left under it, because the south side of the ring was moving toward the east faster than the north side. It was a sight for wonder to a large number of people who daily thronged the place. I wonder if the cause of this gyration can produce the twisted growth to the left {i.e., like the clock hands turned backward) of certain trees that thrive north of the equator —the eucalyptus globulus especially; and if perchance similar trees south of the equator twist in the opposite direction. My conscious debt of gratitude to the Thomas Orchestra was so great that when there was a movement to provide a permanent hall for its concerts, and its friends everywhere were asked to contribute, I sent from California my little check to satisfy my sentiment and to help a trifle. In the late nineties Mr. Harley Hamilton, an accomplished musician of Los Angeles, brought about the organization of a Symphony Association; got together an orchestra of local talent, and began to give each winter a series of symphony concerts. He gave freely of his time, talents and money, and with the funds at his disposal did as well as anybody could. Comparatively few people contributed toward the Sym- phony funds, and no large gifts were made during all the years of his struggle. Evidently the mass of cultivated peo- ple and music lovers, those who were able to contribute liberally, had never discovered that a fine large orchestra, drilled sufficiently to compare favorably with the best, is not merely a means of musical enjoyment, elevation and culture, but a positive asset of value to the community, and an investment that always pays indirectly. Such an orchestra requires a large annual outlay; and the people of Los Angeles have never been aroused to the point of providing con- tinuously the funds for such an expense. It is a serious 248 THE MARCHING YEARS question whether they will, before the middle of the century, reach that point. A few citizens who were believers in the movement, and were able to give, gave liberally; but they, with a considerable number who gave small sums, were never able to carry a season through without a deficit—which is always a difficult thing to manage. After some sixteen years of service to the Symphony, Mr. Hamilton was obliged, on account of ill health, to resign the leadership and go abroad for a long rest. In appreciation of his work and faithfulness, the printed matter of the Sym- phony organization bears the legend: "Founded by Harley Hamilton." The new director, Mr. Adolf Tandler, was a musician of great capacity and fine discrimination. He insisted at the beginning on more rehearsals than his predecessor had ever secured. His artistic results from year to year were excellent, and showed the good effect of more and thorough drill. The public appreciation increased, as did the audiences, and the enthusiasm was great—but the seasons always ended with a deficit, sometimes a large one. I had for years been a small contributor, and on coming to Los Angeles to live, took more interest in the Symphony organization, and finally consented to serve a few years as its president, and to give it still more time and thought. My experience with the Los Angeles Symphony (Inc.), my admiration and sympathy for it, have led to a study in a practical way of the subject of symphony orchestras for American cities. Here are a few conclusions that seem unavoidable: 1. The work of the large symphony orchestra at its best represents the highest attained point of musical culture and refinement. 2. Any city that hopes to possess and enjoy regularly within its own borders the highest musical expression and THE MARCHING YEARS 249 effects must have such an orchestra. Any city can have one if it will pay the price. 3. Smaller cities with less musical ambition and smaller means—or small inclination to give—can have fine quartets, quintets or larger combination for so-called chamber music, and concerts where the very best music can be played, and with as much refinement as is possible to a symphony orchestra; but of course with less glorious musical effects. 4. In general, only such ambition as can be paid for should be indulged. It is demoralizing to end a season with a deficit unless it can be promptly subscribed and paid. 5. The organization of a band of musicians, small or great, should have for its development and a fair return to the public in musical cultivation and entertainment, as well as community prestige, at least four years of security ahead of it. There should be at first an adequate, signed guaranty fund for not less than four successive years. 6. In general, notwithstanding the experience of Chicago, no attempt should be made to build a hall or home for a sym- phony orchestra unless a few rich men and women have a spontaneous ambition to build one and pay for it, which nothing else will satisfy. An orchestra can always find some place to play; it does not greatly need a home of its own, however pleasant one with good acoustics may be; it does need the income of an endowment or a guaranty fund, to make sure of an adequate wage to its musicians; and it needs for its encouragement large audiences, which can usually be had if admission fees are low enough. 7. The most important personage in the artistic body is the musical director. And to find foot-loose (and willing to come for what salary there is for him) a director with high musical capacity and ideals; one capable of pleasing, even fascinating the public, and of keeping on good terms with the musicians, and getting the best possible musical effects through them, is a most unusual fortune. It is quite as 250 THE MARCHING YEARS difficult as to find a good 'president for a university; more difficult than to find a good state or national executive. To make a symphony season or a succession of them successful, the director, musicians and the attending and sup- porting public must work together and be pleased—and many of these people have high sensibilities and a low emotional flash point. Sentimental troubles come easily, and criticism is easier than sin—and when inconsiderate, is a sin. 8. To make a symphony organization most successful there should be a supreme small body of persons capable of doing the most vital thing in the business—raising the neces- sary money. The box office receipts are never half enough. The body may be called a Board of Directors or any other acceptable name; and its decisions on all business questions should be final and absolute. It would better be composed entirely of sympathetic, helpful business men of civic pride and of large means of their own, or with a large following of stable people. Such a body can always raise money, and usually will. 9. Symphony concerts are never so popular as they deserve to be in a community of rather high average culture. The first reason is the usually high, or heavy, and often tire- some character of the programs. These please the musicians and the more highly cultivated of the audience; but this means a small minority of those who ought to attend, and of those who usually do attend. The majority need to be amused more; they will enjoy and appreciate one long classic symphony; beyond that they need amusing music, so-called popular music of the highest grade for the rest of the program. It is always difficult to get a musical director—who usually likes to play for musicians and critics—to see this fact for what it is worth. The employment of one soloist often draws a larger audience and always pleases and entertains. Contrary to some of my former views, it now seems to me that there THE MARCHING YEARS 251 should always be in the program a soloist who pleases the people—a soloist or some very popular music, or, better, both. Another reason for some unpopularity is the frequent playing of poor music because it is both new and novel; playing it because the director is obsessed with a sense of duty to try out novelties because they are such. Novelties, unless known to please, ought to be tried out by endowed orchestras, or those that have money enough—not by those seeking and needing popular favor for their existence. There are extant some hundreds of known musical com- positions that are great music by an established consensus of the best judges. We can get on very well with these and without new ones that do not approach them in excellence. There is little place—only an occasional small place—in the work of the average symphony orchestra for music whose almost sole recommendation is its technical difficulties and musical gymnastics. Rarely does such a piece give special pleasure to the average music lover. The orchestra must elevate the musical taste of the average music lover while it amuses him—and it must amuse him. Let us have new music by all means, provided it be musical, and does not fall below our better standards of excellence. 10. The opera is more popular with a class of the public than the symphony orchestra. Why? Because it is more of a show; the story and the dramatic action stand for much; there is more style in the audience—ladies go to see and exhibit costumes, and in some details the lack of them. Then there is a zest in the love affairs, murders, suicide or betrayal of woman, that occur variously in most operas. Much of the music is good, but a great deal in nearly every opera is necessarily commonplace—and of course in each case it is the work of one composer. The experience of the opera should lead the symphony management to make their concerts attractive—and it can be done without lowering their artistic standard. A good lesson may be found in the experience of a superior marching 252 THE MARCHING YEARS band, as on some fete day it passes along a city street crowded with all classes of people. It plays a piece of novel and difficult music, showing great practice and perfect attack, and the music critics are charmed, but the great crowd is silent. Next let the band strike up a superior popular air, and at the first bar of it the crowd roars with cheers and handclapping. Yet the bandmaster probably thinks the crowd incapable of musical appreciation, and perhaps thinks it vulgar. CHAPTER XXV. FRIENDSHIPS. THROUGH life I have had more friends than were ever deserved; and to express my full thankfulness for them and what they have been to me would tax even extravagant language. In looking back over these many people of multifarious qualities and shades of good character; considering how they have appeared to me, and trying to guess how I may have appeared to them, it is perfectly evident that few of us ever give any serious thought to friendships—our own and the friendships of others—as a factor of our social existence, in order to make these relations contribute to a mutual profit of a lasting kind. Any scanning of such a field, especially if reaching over a long stretch of years, gives much material for thought and many lessons of profit; and really the study seems to be thrust upon us, if we have a disposition to think on such things. This life is a sorry mess if we try to travel alone, for we never succeed. We touch elbows with others unavoidably. Some of them are bound to be our neighbors in the social sense, and it is better if many of them can be our friends. A successful life connotes—or ought to—a happy life; and such a life means friends that we can respect, work and live beside and with, and love. To most of us it is, to all of us it ought to be, a necessity to have friends of the right sort; and it profits us to try to deserve them. It ought to be with us an art and a religion to give and receive those friendships that are mutually profitable and that harm no one. Most people prize such ties and have numerous friends. But some who covet friends have few, and they wonder why, and rarely discover the reason. Their neighbors know, [253] 254 THE MARCHING YEARS but cannot tell them; they would not believe if they were told. Others seem not to care for friends; they never try to cultivate them, and yet have some; still others have a peevish aversion to everyone who tries to be friendly with them. Their neighbors know them for sour egoists—irri- tated by the smiles of those who would like to be neighborly. People who are wholesome in their friendships have the best of life; their attachments are sane, comforting and beneficial. But there are intense and abnormal folks, whose attachments seem more trouble than gain. They are doubly unfortunate, for they waste happiness, and that is a sin. Their friendships are too intense to hold out; they mortgage their future for the joy of the moment—and have regrets and ashes later on. Between true friends who have a secure belief in each other there is an atmosphere of tranquil contentment. Each takes the other in a faith that abides, and defies everything short of a moral earthquake. But now and again one is not quite able to take his friend on such faith, but would know just what his friend thinks of him. This is really the first whispering of doubt; yet it is not an unnatural attitude for sensitive souls. But how can he know just what his friend thinks of him? Shall it be by what the friend says, what he does or how he looks—or by all three together? But the looks, words and acts appear not to be in entire accord; they don't quite agree. Then how shall he judge? In such a situation ten persons would have ten different shades of reaction. At the top of the list would be one who takes his friend fully, on faith in his attitude, character and past conduct. The tenth instinctively watches every word, act and look, for evidence of defection; and whosoever looks for such evidence usually believes he finds it. The top of the column is most fortunate of all; and there are all gradations down to the bottom. Some deny any true friendship or love without perfect understanding. This last is highly desirable, but impossible THE MARCHING YEARS 255 if we mean understanding in every detail. To make it pos- sible one must know the mind of the other to the farthest limit; and that can never be. No telepathy goes to that length, or can go. No one can tell to the last word what his own mind and point of view are or would be in every possible situation. That would be necessary if the above rule is a good one. And if any man could know all the depths and angles of his own mind, he could not tell them all; and he would not if he could. A complete understanding between friends must mean a worthy and correct estimate by each of the other and of himself. But a correct estimate on the part of both is sub- stantially impossible; for each forms his judgment of both himself and the other, and he unavoidably fails at some point. As in a conversation, so in friendship and love between two persons, there are not merely two but six thinking beings concerned. There are you as you regard yourself; you as your friend thinks you; and you as you really are; and there is your friend as he thinks he is; he as you regard him; and himself as God sees him. Two people can probably never have these six personalities in complete harmony; nor do they need to. Through all memorial time people of many shades of mental and moral quality have traveled together over rough trails and smooth, and in all weathers—in friendship and love to the end, and without knowing they represented multiple personalities. There is only one safe way: That is to believe in each other, trust and defend each other always, unless the evidence of defection becomes irresistible—and even then that the one be true even though the other fails or seems to. But what about the desolation when the other does fail, and you see the wreck of an ideal? Is there any recompense? Yes, decidedly, in your own moral growth in having yourself been faithful. The trouble with many parlous friendships is that each guesses at the mind and motives of the other, and usually 256 THE MARCHING YEARS guesses wrong. And we refuse to concede that we are guess- ing; we have a fatuous faith in our own intuitions, and refuse to the accused the poor benefit of a doubt. If our wrong guesses usually did credit to the friend, the world would be better; but three times out of four they discredit him, and not seldom discredit us. If these bad guesses could be told to the friends involved, there would be some of the most surprised folks on earth. Every person of experience knows of such surprises. I could name dozens of them. And if we interrogate a friend about some act or word or omission, whether it did not mean an adverse arrow point directed toward us, and he denies it, we are reluctant to believe him, or unwilling to credit his denial to a wish to spare our feelings —and sometimes accuse him of outright prevarication. When we allow ourselves to get into such a state of raw nerves—if we are not born with it—the best and most lasting friendships are difficult or impossible. I have known life- long friendships to be blasted because of the misdirection of a letter or by an inadvertent slip in the complicated cogs of courtesy. A superior woman friend of mine married a man who was merely a friend, because the longed-for letter of proposal from the man she loved miscarried in the mail. She believed this love had cooled and was gone. The letter came after she married the other man; then she had thirty years threaded with the pathos of what might have been. What is the remedy? It is to cover the raw nerves with a protective dressing of unselfishness and joy in being a friend. Then we can truly be a friend to our friend, without pestering our nerves over the minute curves and angles of his attitude toward us. These angles and curves are his responsi- bility, not ours. Probably they are partly his idiosyncrasy, anyway. In my hearing one day a man said to another: "Is Mr. X a friend of yours?" The answer was: "I don't know if he is my friend, but I am his friend permanently." "Yes," was the retort, "but I hear he said so and so, which is very THE MARCHING YEARS 257 reprehensible." " Don't you believe it," came back instantly, "I refuse to, until he tells me he said it. And if he did say it, and worse things, I am still his friend." There was no skidding tire in that speech, and the earth seemed firmer under the feet of those who heard it. It spoke for the man who held his duty to his friend as his own first concern; and that character, made by the habits of a life and a record of years of conduct, entitled the accused to the faith of his friends. And in the welter of this life is there much that is finer than that? My counsel was once asked regarding two good women who had been close friends for many years—to be known here as Mrs. A and Mrs. B. They had long borne similar poverty. Both were superior, intellectual, fine in spirit, and in their sense of self-respect. They had always accepted many little gifts of friendship from each other with equal grace and pleasure. One day Mrs. A became suddenly wealthy, and her first thought was, out of her abundance to lighten the burdens of Mrs. B. But the latter would not take the gifts; she seemed to regard herself as humiliated if she accepted them, as though they must have been offered in a wrong spirit, which everybody else acquainted with Mrs. A knew was impossible. From being frank and joyous for many years, their friendship had suddenly run into a decided frost, and great was the perplexity of both of them. What counsel could be given in such a case? If the sensi- tive one had come for advice, she could have been told that she had too much egoistic pride; that her friend deserved no such suspicion as she had; that she had unfairly assumed in the other a vanity of riches (riches which she knew to be accidental) and a desire to parade gifts to a poor friend whom she looked down upon. But she was the last person in the world to have come for advice; and the other could only be told that she had discovered one of the many penalties of wealth; and that she ought to let this be a lesson of humility to herself, and to be even more steadfast to her friend than 258 THE MARCHING YEARS ever before. At last accounts the two were trying to forget that there had been a frost, and to believe that the relations between them were the same as of old. But the relations were not the same, and could not be. They might be better, higher, and nearer the divine as a result of the strain—but they would be different. It is difficult or impossible to keep our friendship accounts in perfect balance. We have regrets that we have not always responded sufficiently to the kindness of our friends; that we have not sufficiently shown them gratitude. We have had greater regrets that possibly our friends have thought us cold and unresponsive. Then we at times fear that very effusive thanks for gifts received may annoy the giver, by implying to him that we guess his gifts might have been made for this purpose. Do you see the tangle? Some of us have been such constant debtors for favors received that if we had always given adequate acknowledgment of our obligations it might have materially lessened our capacity for the business of our lives, which ought to be in part to do good things for our friends. There are some outstanding rules of friendship that, be- cause of our tendency to blunder, we need to keep constantly in mind. It is a pity if the love we have had for any friend has led us to disloyalty to any other friend, or if it has led either of us to stumble, for our friendships ought always to elevate, never degrade us. Our friendship for another ought never to encourage him in his faults if he has any, or lead him to think we condone them. How rich are the results of our friendship to both of us, if he has lessened his faults, and we have reduced, because we have discovered, our own faults that may all along have been manifest to others! What a calamity—and what a common stumble it is—if in trying to help a friend we have neutralized our efforts by hinting at our own real or alleged virtues! That we give a great deal of thought to the failings of others is only too true. We have also sometimes overestimated the fine qualities of our friends; THE MARCHING YEARS 259 have we shown it in a way to lead them to grow egoistic and forget that they are of much the same clay as the rest of us? If so we have done harm, for we have created a disagreeable foible where we tried to please a friend. One of the minor faults that have marred our happiness in our friends is our hope and expectation of gifts to come; and our obsession that we must make gifts because we think they are expected. We behave like children looking for some present from their parents every time they come home from town, when they ought to be glad to have their parents home, and happy if gifts were not brought. The gifts we don't expect are the most precious; and most of all to be prized when they seem to us more than we deserve. This experience gives us a mood of mind that helps us to banish two of the worst of emotions—envy and jealousy. Jealousy is a most demor- alizing emotion. It is a vice that makes us magnify what is or may be due to ourselves, and tend to ignore the rights of others. So it may lead us to overvalue our own merits, and take on airs that are always harmful. Envy is a close companion of jealousy; it is a trifle less offensive, but it is mostly a useless emotion; it is often much worse than use- less, for it may retard our effectiveness and growth in grace. One of the most useless forms of it is envy of people who are rich in mere money. A helpful form of the emotion is envy of the fine personal qualities of others, and of the happiness they give those about them; for these are riches that we can acquire and have. Money we may never acquire, and if we could it might demoralize us. The selfish demand for the sole possession of the regard of a friend is worse than plain jealousy and envy. And it is an emotion often harbored by certain close friends, notably friends among women. It has a dwarfing effect on the moral nature. When we find ourselves falling into such a shriveling tangle of egoism, we ought to go for a month into some retreat for solitude and meditation, and prayer to be spared from being a fool. 260 THE MARCHING YEARS When one reaches the age of the long perspectives, the memory of helpful friendships through the years becomes a rare fortune, a continuing comfort that no thief can steal. It is one of the inalienable gifts of the human soul. In my own life of friendships two facts stand out as ground for contentment; one that my faith in others has usually been justified sooner or later by their conduct; the other that I have found stalwart virtues and dependable traits in most unex- pected quarters. So my faith in human nature has increased, not lessened, through the years, and this faith is in itself a fortune. THE END APPENDIX I. "THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. BRIDGE AND MR. MEDILL." "swallowed again." (From the Daily News, November 23, 1887. Editorial.) "A correspondent, 'F. W. R.,' asks the attention of the Daily News to the following, and wonders 'why this glaring instance of ignoring its own words, printed in one issue and traversed in the next, has been over- looked' : (From the Chicago Tribune, November 19, 1887.) "Notwithstanding the palpable and glaring errors made by the judges in returning the vote upon the jury commission bill, only two sets of them will probably be called to account, and even that would have been denied had it not been for Dr. Bridge. The judge (Prendergast) was about to get away with that difficulty by ignor- ing it, when Dr. Bridge made a mild but firm protest, . but was overruled by the vote of the other four members of the canvassing board, Messrs. Washburne, Coyne. Oehne and Prendergast." (From the Chicago Tribune, November 20, 1887. Editorial.) "Dr. Bridge, the alleged republican member of the board, appointed at the instance of the mugwump print, was wanting in his duty in not protesting against the Prender- gast ruling. If he is a republican in fact he should resign his position and permit the selection of some republican who will better attend to the duties of the office. He is an absolutely useless functionary, and the republicans—the dominant party of the county—have practically no representation on the board." "'F. W. R.' can have but a limited acquaintance with Mr. Medill and his methods if he thinks a little thing like this would affect the vener- able old troglodyte. It is his custom to swallow himself two or three times a week, and he lives only as an illustration of the tolerance which use may breed a habit of in the stomach for the most noxious things." "SCOLDING THE WRONG MAN." (From the Inter-Ocean, November 23, 1887.) ******** " It was thought wise not to exercise a doubtful power and incur any unnecessary expense when no good could be accomplished thereby. "That appears to be what Judge Prendergast thought, and three other members of the board agreed with him. The fourth member, however, disagreed with his colleagues, and voted in favor of the investi- gation, and this fourth member, who held out and tried to get them to do what ye ancient editor is now scolding them for not doing, was none other than Dr. Bridge, the republican election commissioner who was asked to resign on Sunday last by ye ancient editor of ye gas trust organ because he did not protest. Further, the motion to pass the returns in accordance with Judge Prendergast's opinion was made by City Attorney Washburne, [261] 262 APPENDIX a republican whom ye ancient editor is always glad to pat on the head in a fatherly and patronizing way. "His friends will doubtless excuse ye ancient editor by saying that he knew no better; that if he had known the facts he would not have said what he did. This will not excuse him in the eyes of honest people. If he means to be fair let him come out honestly and apologize to Dr. Bridge, then take the city attorney, who ought to know what the law is, and soundly spank him for 'jinin' in' with the wicked Prendergast to bury the corpse of the poor dear jury commission without asking ye ancient editor if they might do so. If he will do these things and then employ someone to keep him advised of what the actual facts are in regard to matters about which he intends to write, in time honest people may open their hearts in forgiveness to him." "DR. BRIDGE TO THE TRIBUNE." "the editor of the gas trust organ charged with SOMETHING WORSE THAN FALSEHOOD." (From the Inter-Ocean, November 26, 1887.) "Chicago, November 25. " To the Editor—When the average man lies about you wickedly and knows it, he will meet you sullenly on the street, refuse to say he has wronged you, and go on lying. You may be as gracious and serene as you please; he will continue to be dogged and nurse his spleen. The matter is always worse if it becomes public, if he has been exposed, and especially if he has been laughed at. It requires rather more grace and magnanimity than the average man has, to do the decent thing under such circumstances. It is evident the editor of the Tribune has no more grace than the average man. His editorial of this morning is the legitimate result of the scor- ing the Inter-Ocean gave him two days ago on his falsehoods about the republican election commissioner. Probably no exposure of his errors could lead him to correct the most wanton falsehood for which there was no remedy at law. He often enough knows he is wrong, but never says so. "The Tribune says I was absent from the sessions of the canvassing board till the sixteenth ward was reached. This is untrue. I was present at the opening of the count, at the closing of it, and a part of the time at most of the sessions of the Board. "No member of the Board was present during the whole count, nor has it been supposed to be necessary for all the members to be present every moment of the time, so long as it has always been the agreement that whenever any question of doubt or irregularity is reached in the count its consideration shall be postponed till all the members are present APPENDIX 263 This rule and basis have never been departed from. All questions about which there could be the slightest doubt, all that touched the result of an election in any way have always been settled by the whole Board. "The Inter-Ocean is right that there was no legal ground for the investigation by the canvassing board of the returns from the precincts the Tribune is scolding about. It was only regarding one precinct in the second ward and one in the sixteenth that there was such evidence, and had I not been overruled by the majority of the board no other good could have been accomplished by further investigation than the establishment of what I thought a good precedent. "The real trouble with Mr. Medill is, the jury commission law was defeated. I was the republican commissioner, and ought in his view to have counted it in. To have done what he suggests was impossible, and its attempt would have been a crime. "As to the epithets he bestows with such richness of grace upon me personally, in view of the performances of the Tribune of Sunday, after its truthful statement of Saturday, they are amusing. But the sublimity of freshness is reached when Mr. Medill says in this editorial—full of venom, of vinegar and fibs, and ignoring the lies of Sunday—that 'if he,' (the republican commissioner) 'had a particle of decency or sense of delicacy he would resign,' etc. "If this is really not play, or wholly aimed at the Inter-Ocean, the gentleman may know that the republican commissioner will serve out his term*—unless removed by death or the county court—and that he will continue to insist on every right the election law allows his party, as well as that the law be executed for all citizens, of whatever party or condition, with honesty and faithfulness. " Norman Bridge. " "DR. NORMAN BRIDGE AND THE COUNTY HOSPITAL." (From the Tribune, November 28, 1887. Editorial.) "The Tribune does not wish to do injustice to anybody in its comments on political news; yet it appears that we unconsciously did some wrong to the professional reputation of Dr. Norman Bridge in certain remarks offered yesterday with reference to his action as a member of the Board of Election Commissioners. The passage objected to by Dr. Bridge and his friends was the following: '"His only public experience has been as a mild member of the Harrison Board of Education and as a member of the boodler-appointed Medical Board of the County Hospital. In the latter position his lack of experience and lack of knowledge led him into a grave violation of the law, which he had to publicly acknowledge—restoring to the public treasury funds which he had unlawfully collected from patients who were presumably paupers.' *Dr. Bridge had supposed his term expired December 31. 264 APPENDIX "We are informed by Dr. Bridge that the part of the above extract relating to his connection with the medical staff of the County Hospital does him an injustice. He has never 'acknowledged, publicly or privately,' that he has been 'led into a grave violation of the law'; he has never re- funded any money to the county treasury; he does not now believe that he has ' unlawfully collected money' from patients in the hospital, or that he has violated any law. On the contrary, he declares and believes that all his acts run in accordance with the practice in such cases and were warranted by the authority of the Board of County Commissioners. Dr. Bridge admits that he sent one pay patient to the hospital and collected $50 in fees from that patient; but he has always supposed that the patient referred to paid for her board, nursing and expenses incurred in conse- quence of her residence at the hospital. Her residence at the hospital as a pay patient was authorized, he says, by the practice of Warden McGarigle and the action of the County Board; and he believes that his conduct in the matter was in accordance with professional ethics and usage. The patient was not 'a pauper,' but one abundantly able to pay for treatment and for the conveniences afforded at the hospital, and he does not consider that in charging a fee from a hospital patient usage was departed from by him in any respect. Dr. Bridge is a man of admitted veracity, and one whose statements may be relied upon." (From the Inter-Ocean, November 29, 1887. Editorial.) "Ye ancient editor of ye gas trust organ, with the fear of the law before his eyes, published an article yesterday morning taking back some of his slanders on Dr. Bridge. After telling what Dr. Bridge said, ye ancient editor closes with the following significant remark: 'Dr. Bridge is a man of admitted veracity, and one whose statements may be relied upon.' "To fully understand the significance of this it is necessary to remember what Dr. Bridge said about ye ancient editor in the Inter-Ocean last Saturday. We quote from his letter as follows: ******** "Now, with this letter before him and read of all men, ye ancient editor makes the above broad admission. Verily, verily, things more wonderful than the triumph of the gas trust come to pass now and then. The fear of the law works wonders sometimes. The great G. T. feared the law and bought out its tormentor. But words of humiliation and apology are less expensive than dollars to ye ancient editor." APPENDIX 265 "STRANGER THAN FICTION." (From the Daily News, November 29, 1887. Editorial.) "The most pathetic incident we have met with in a long time is enti- tled 'The Strange Case of Dr. Bridge and Mr. Medill.' "Mr. Medill winds up a singularly erratic career by recanting every- thing he ever said or intimated; then he blows out the gas and goes to bed." (From the Inter-Ocean, December 1, 1887. Editorial.) "Dr. Norman Bridge, who has made so good a record as election commissioner, was yesterday treated to a surprise in the shape of the following letter: "'County Court.'Chicago, November 30, 1887. " 'My Dear Doctor—Inclosed find certified copy of an order of the County Court appointing you to the office of election commissioner for the term of three years, beginning November 9, 1887. " 'Your discharge of arduous duties has been marked by such fidelity and ability that I deem it my duty to urge you to accept the burden for a new term. "'Yours very truly. Richard Prendergast.' "This was a surprise, because Dr. Bridge difl not know that his term as commissioner had expired. . . . The compliment paid him by Judge Prendergast is well deserved, and whatever the doctor's personal inclinations may be, he ought to accept. The reappointment is based on the one year's good service of Dr. Bridge as election commissioner, and for this reason will be satisfactory to the great majority of citizens." "CAUSE AND EFFECT." (From the Daily News, December 2, 1887. Editorial.) '' Dr. Norman Bridge is to be congratulated on the efficacy of the Tribune's attacks upon his conduct as election commissioner. His term expired November 9 last. The attacks began immediately after it was clear that the jury commission law was defeated. They continued until Sunday, November 27-. He was reappointed by Judge Prendergast Wednesday, November 30, with warm approval of the 'fidelity and ability' with which he had discharged his official duties. This must be regarded as a signal, but by no means surprising, illustration of the relations between cause and effect. Honors naturally fall upon the head which does not bend before baseless insinuations and calumnies." APPENDIX II. (From the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, January 5, 1888.) " Dr. Norman Bridge, one of the attending physicians of Cook County Hospital, recently refused to treat as charity patients persons able to pay, but admitted to the hospital by political favoritism, and for his refusal was severely criticised by the Chicago Tribune." In a subsequent issue the Journal printed the following: "NORMAN BRIDGE AND THE COOK COUNTY HOSPITAL." "Chicago, January 10, 1888. "Mr. Editor: "The Journal of the 5th inst. is in error in saying that I had refused to treat as charity patients persons able to pay, but admitted to the (Cook County) hospital under political favoritism, and for this refusal was severely criticised by the Chicago Tribune. "The hospital incident consisted simply in my sending a private patient to the hospital to board as a pay patient while I made a surgical operation for her, for which I received the usual fee. This was a con- venience for the patient, and was in pursuance of a regulation of the hospital long in vogue. The personal malice of the Tribune, growing out of other and chiefly political considerations, led that paper to charge— among the manifold wickednesses it has attributed to me—that I had violated a rule that applies solely to the usual hospital or charity patients, that is, that doctors should serve without fee or reward. This rule was never violated to the breadth of a hair by myself or by any other attendant, so far as I know. "Very respectfully, Norman Bridge." [266] APPENDIX III. RECOLLECTIONS OF CHILDHOOD. From a Long Lost and Lately Discovered MS., Here Printed as Showing the Difference between the Recollections of the Early Twenties and Those of the Late Sixties, as Revealed in the Main Narrative. Exactly the first thing I remember ever to have seen, thought or done I do not know, for several events which impressed me very forcibly seem so long ago that it is impossible to tell which came first. I distinctly remember having been a—rather large, perhaps—baby in my mother's arms, she having taken me, on an occasion when in sorrow, to quiet me. I have no idea that I was at all a precocious child; but the contrary, for the main reason why I remember this circumstance is that of her chiding me as being "too big a baby" to be held; besides, she has often told me—before I left home to live—that I never had been weaned, for I was always clinging to her apron strings, so it was no evidence of precocity that I remember my "babyhood." My first home was among the Green Mountains of Vermont, in the county of Windsor and town of West Windsor. It was a farm which had formerly been the poor farm of the town, and been bought a few years before my birth by my father and his father. It lies a mile or two from the little village of Sheddsville, which was too small a place to have a postoffice of its own, although it had a "store," to which letters were brought from Brownsville to be delivered to people living in the north part of town, and where letters were received for Brownsville. Letters addressed to West Windsor were always sent to Brownsville. The first home was about seven miles from Windsor village, com- monly with us called "the street." On the southeast, two or three miles away, in full view rose Ascutney Mountain, while high hills, both wooded and bare, surrounded us on all sides. Great rocks could be seen on many hills, while stone fences, stretching their dark and rustic lines in every direction, cut the hillsides and few level places into many small fields. A few fences of wood could be seen, some "crooked" or "snake" fences, some to which the farmers applied the adjective "bristle" or "pitchpole," some rail fences, but none of posts and boards. Aside from Mt. Ascutney, I think the farthest we could see was a mile and a half from home, and this in only one direction; half a dozen houses could be seen, and this to my first notion was the world, and the horizon the "jumping-off place," about which many grave questions were asked. Our house was on the [267] 268 APPENDIX west side of a road running north and south; the road was lost on the south within twenty rods, as it wound around a hill, but could be seen in the other direction quite a djstance, while a little way north of the house a road turned off in an easterly direction, which could be seen as it wound over the hill toward my Grandfather Bagley's house. Few persons ever passed on either road in the daytime who were not seen; and most often it was questioned as to the passers-by who they were, where they lived, where they were going, and what for. Hearing the rattle of a vehicle or the clatter of hoofs on the stony road without someone going to see who was going by was an offense hardly known among us. Ascutney was beautiful, although up to the time we left New England I had not learned to see much beauty in any natural scenery, except the deep forests in summer time or when carpeted in snow, but the vivid remembrance of that old peak, as well as the woods and hills I used to roam among, has given me many pleasant thoughts. Most of Ascutney was covered with trees, many evergreens, a few that changed color with the seasons, while on the southwest side were great masses of white rock. , Near the fork in the road above referred to, between the diverging paths indeed, was a pond of a hundred or more feet in length, and half as wide when full, which was dry in midsummer. Some elm trees stood in the midst of and about it, and there was a little space between it and the roads; this with most of the pond was unfenced and common with the highway. This spot probably was the scene of more good times among the boys than any other one place; in the spring we used to bathe and play in the pond—my brother and I-—and when undressed would crouch down in the water so that only our heads could be seen by passers-by. We made rafts of boards and pushed ourselves about with poles, played with bunches of frogs' eggs which we found among the stones, or stood back on the bank and watched a muskrat as he rose to the top and sank again. Later we played with the "pollywogs," tadpoles which were slaughtered in vast numbers as the pond dried up. The trunk of a dead tree stood near, which a red-headed woodpecker used to inhabit, and peck holes into. We used to watch her and wonder if her beak was of iron; we tried often to climb to where she had her nest, and succeeding finally, were annoyed to find it empty. Among the yellow weeds and grass near by, birds' nests were often found, but I don't remember ever to have robbed one of them. We used to visit them daily to see if the birdlings had hatched, and later to watch their development till they could fly. The instant opening wide of their mouths upon any noise or movement near by was a source of amusement, and we used to gather strawberries and feed them. The gathering of wild berries was one of our earliest amusements in summer time; with me it was especially pleasant, for most of my pickings APPENDIX 269 I ate—and had a portion again with the family at meal time. Straw- berries we got on grassy knolls usually in the pastures, where they grew in abundance; the cattle and sheep seemed to shun such spots as sacred and not to be polluted by their feet or feasting; and they were sacred too, for as we sat down on the grass under the warm sun of early summer and ate and filled the dishes we had brought—each in size according to his industry—we laughed and talked and built air castles and laid plans for the future and for manhood. A few berries of a peculiar kind, sharply pointed and with a spicy fragrance, we used to find in the edge of the wood; and the reaching down after them among the plants and flowers of the forest, which are always tender looking and beautiful, the peculiar and very pleasant taste of the berry, with the sensation of coolness of the shade, made a combination of associations not soon to be forgotten. Red raspberries we picked by the fences where the bushes grew in large or long thickets among the stones; and later black raspberries, which grew more in clumps by the roadside usually; blackberries in large thickets and often in whole fields, where in their natural eagerness to spread themselves they had outstripped the farmers, who naturally enough wanted to stop them; mulberries by the walls we used to get in small numbers as we went for the cows, and were never guilty of bringing any home. Mother or grandmother often used to be company for us in our berrying; then we picked faster and ate less. He who has lived in or visited New England in the summer time and failed to pick wild berries has failed of one of the best of amusements—perhaps of some of the best of scratchings. Our house was partly ancient and partly modern; made in sections at different times, it was a long affair, and in its whole length used for a variety of purposes. Larger, more venerable and majestic than the rest stood the "old house," half a century or so in age, somewhat as a central figure; it was a story-and-a-half structure, very broad, and was painted red, or had been. It looked decidedly old, as it was. East of this was an old woodshed, which was perhaps the oldest structure of all. It had formerly been a house, I think. It always looked ready to fall of its own weight, and was taken down just before we removed to the west; still east of this shed grandfather had a little pig pen built, which was always inhabited by one pig. A tub of swill was kept always in summer in front of it, and when our grandparents went visiting, which was quite often, the boys were charged to give the pig so many dishes full of the mixture at noon—an injunction which to my knowledge was not seldom forgotten, to the great chagrin of the pig. In the woodshed were kept also grand- father's wagon and buggy. West of the old house was the "new house," an unpainted structure of a later day, but which looked brown and dingy. It was one-story; still west of this was another house for swine, the "hog house." 270 APPENDIX I remember less about the apartments for the swine than of the little low room overhead, where all the old hog yokes and various tools and trinkets were kept; as also the sap tubs, used in maple sugar time, which we used every spring to take down, drive tighter the hoops and fill with water, preparatory to sugar making. The whole house had been built on a sort of side hill, the knoll in front and the ground sinking under the western part of the structure. Under the "old house" a very good cellar had been made, which in autumn always received its complement of vegetables, apples and cider. Under half the new house was another cellar, which contained an ash pit, and a cauldron and furnace for boiling feed for the pigs, and for other purposes. Under the other half of the new house was an open space for wagons, the hill in front so receding that they could be easily run in. From this space was a door opening into the last named cellar. So the structure was variously useful. In the east part of the old house grandfather and grandmother lived, using three rooms on the first floor. Here they spent several years that I remember, and I recall much about their home and life, for grandparents are always more indulgent to the children than parents. We were not long in finding this out and availing ourselves of the greater freedom of their apartment. With occupants that were old, rooms that were old, old paper on the walls, old windows and doors, fireplace and hearth of bricks, old stove, chairs, table, lounge and bedstead of generations before, their home bore decidedly an ancient look. The old clock in the corner, reaching nearly to the ceiling from the floor, with three rudely executed paintings on its dial plate, and with its case dingy ~md dark with age, ticked the moments and struck in its clear bell tones the hours. From the ceiling in the kitchen hung hooks, upon which in autumn poles were placed to receive strips of pumpkin and strings of pared and quartered apples to dry. Grandfather was a valetudinarian, and had for years done little or no work, save his chores and the braiding of whip lashes from calf skins. This latter occupation he used to follow quite sedulously, and I have watched him by the hour cut with remarkable evenness his strands from the skin, bright russet in color, and smelling fragrantly of the tan bark; and then tie one end of a bunch of these of varying lengths to a chair back, and sitting in another chair braid his whip. An old pewter dish he had with water, from which he would wet his leather as he braided. The whip finished, he would roll it between two boards, to make it even and smooth. He sold his whips at the country store. He was constantly taking medicine; no day passed without it, and his chest of drugs and herbs was large and always filled; but his main potions were teas of herbs, such as smartweed and thoroughwort, of which he APPENDIX 271 always had one or more dishes on the mantel. This was good, for with auch weak decoctions there was less danger of doing harm; besides, it furnished him exercise in the open air to gather the leaves in summer. His evenings, especially in winter, were spent upon the lounge, or bunk, as we called it, and my brother and I many times spent ours there with him. We crawled over behind him, lying half upon him, and teased him to tell stories. He always did this, and told the same half dozen tales over and over; and like some oft-repeated plays, they never lost their interest for us. They were all about wolves, bears and catamounts and the adventures the early settlers had with them. Grandmother the while was usually knitting with her big needles, with one thrust into her knitting sheath made of a roll of leather—one end tucked beneath her apron string— while from a single tallow candle or the little japanned lamp with a single wick there was given out just light enough to make everything look weird. She used sometimes to repeat to us some hymn or poem she had learned in her youth. One of her rhyming riddles used to please us; it closed with the lines: "Great drops of sweat ran down my side, and I, alas, by inches died." The answer was a candle. She had always been healthy, and had worked hard. She wore old- fashioned, home-made dresses, a white lace cap on the back of her head, and a band of false hair on the front part, and spectacles with heavy silver bows. On account of ill health, grandfather always in the mornings remained in bed, while she made the fire and prepared breakfast. She always cut her kindling the night before. Her table, save when company was present, was spread with oilcloth instead of linen; her dishes were of the most ancient make, and the knives were rude, strong and narrow pointed. Milk porridge was often made, and my dishful was always forthcoming when wanted. She made apple pies with plain crust, and flavored with caraway seed; this I liked, and to this day I never taste a pie with caraway without my mind going back to those early days. In the upper story of the house was an unfinished room for general storage; farther on was one finished off, in which the boys and the some- time hired man slept. This last had been a room for the confinement of lunatics when the place had been a poor farm, and there were holes in the floor and ceiling, in which vertical bars were formerly put for a cage. One window opened out upon the old woodshed. In winter we had the bees for our companions, several hives being placed in a distant corner for protection from the cold and storms. In the storeroom was an ancient loom, where mother and grandmother wove carpets and linen cloth for towels and the like. To watch them work was always entertaining. We sometimes broke the flax, then to separate he tow would draw it through a hetchel (or hackle), a short plank with a 272 APPENDIX thicket of upright spindles of iron. Grandmother carded and spun it, and mother wove it into towels and coarse cloth. She once made a towel and presented it to me as compensation for my labor, although she after- Avard appropriated it to the general use of the family. She promised me another whenever I should get married, should such an event occur and she be living. The ancient New Englanders were wont to build in their houses monstrous chimneys with a very large base forming a part of the wall of several rooms, and a large fireplace for each, and with brick enough for a small house. When I was quite small ours was taken down and a smaller chimney without fireplaces put in its place. This saved space enough for a small bedroom, which was finished off in the place of the old structure. This feature of their dwellings was one of the main causes of the good health of the early inhabitants; for with such fireplaces they always had good ventilation, which in this time and country not one house in forty has. In the storeroom was a high doorway leading to an attic over the new house. The opening was about three feet square, and so high that we used to be obliged to climb to get through it. The attic was not lighted, and we used to climb over and play upon the joists and use our skill to keep from falling upon the lath and breaking through into the room below. There was a space of a foot or so between adjoining walls of the two houses, down which once fell a kitten, and made a task for the family to get it out. Under the eaves of the storeroom were kept all sorts of rubbish, around which and in the spaces each side of our bedroom we used to play hide and seek. Here often were piles of butternuts, which we used to crack and eat at our pleasure. I remember well my joy when I was first able to crack a nut holding it upright between my thumb and fingers without pounding them. Up here, too, was put the old meal chest of grandmother's, with its half dozen compartments. I think no flour was ever kept here, but India wheat (a brother to buckwheat, if not the same) and oats were; and we used to get old bottles and fill them with these varied sorts and play doctor, dealing out powders to each other. Here too was hung the corn for hominy, large yellow ears, which were gathered early and hung up to dry. Here was a barrel half full of beans, from which with unerring regularity a "mess" was baked—and baked long—every week. This was a custom among the people. The families in the neighborhood, so far as I know, all of them had their baked beans and brown bread—both usually baked in six-quart pans, the process taking nearly all day. In the attic too was kept the old shoemaker's bench and kit of tools which my father had used in former times, when in youth he partly learned the trade of a shoemaker. During my memory he never molested it, save APPENDIX 273 to mend or tap a little for the family or friends—and that rather reluctantly. Here the swifts for winding yarn were kept, here the reel which snapped when turned around a certain number of times. Also the hand reel was here—a stick a couple of feet or so in length, with a cross-piece on each end and at right angles to each other; the old spinning wheel, too, which mother often made to hum. The part of the house occupied by our family consisted of a living room, three bedrooms, a parlor, a pantry (buttery) and a kitchen. The family bedroom was large; indeed, it was used often as a sitting room. When quite small, brother and I slept there. In this room hung the family record, a rude print which early attracted my attention. A large eques- trian picture of Gen. Zachary Taylor, a large tablet like a map, hung here also. On the margin of this were several pictures representing scenes in General Taylor's army life, such as battles, marches, etc. I spent hours looking at this. It was put there during the political campaign which elected Taylor President. A few events associated with this room are well remembered, for this was the nursery, if any room in the house was. Once in this room when sick, castor oil had been ordered for me, and mother after vainly trying to induce me to take it called in father, who told me if I did not swallow it he would force it down me. It was taken at once, to be re- membered with a shudder ever afterward. Once, too, a sweat was ordered for brother and me—sage tea in quantities was given us, then we were put to bed and heavily covered with clothes. Soon I began to roll and kick off the covers to cool off, and succeeded in spite of all mother's efforts to the contrary. By the side of the passage to the pantry was a small cupboard built in the wall, high up. I had to climb up on a step to get to it. It was filled with trinkets, straps, strings and tools, among which last was a whetstone, which reminds me that I had a jackknife when young. The step spoken of was movable. On lifting it up a passage was seen leading down to the cellar, originally intended for dumping ashes down, but in my memory nothing ever passed through it save a gust of wind, which always came up when it was opened. The pantry beyond is well remembered, for here was kept all the cooked food for the family; cakes and pies there were often, and never was a pan turned bottom side up without my knowing what was under it. We were never charged to keep out of the room; we would have found the temptation to go in too great, probably, to have obeyed any such injunc- tion, but seldom if ever did we take any food, especially pastry, clandes- tinely. High up on a shelf was kept a decanter of New England rum, which had formerly been a regular drink with all the people, but was ^gradually ceasing to be such. My father partook of it very rarely; 274 APPENDIX indeed, only in haying time in the summer, as a general thing. Distinctly do I remember to have taken this down, when all the family, save perhaps my brother, were away, and poured into a tumbler a half teaspoonful, added sugar and water, and drank it. A few days before I had drained the bottoms of some tumblers from which a similar beverage had been taken in my presence by the men folks, and which had been left on the table, and this is how I got a taste of it and learned how to prepare it. This act was never found out, but was never repeated, why, I don't know, unless the fear of discovery deterred me, and the fact that my mixture somehow did not taste just like the other. It was in this pantry or at the table in the large room that I used to watch mother knead her dough, roll it out and make pie crust, lay the nicely pared quarters of the apples in rows around the plate and put the cover on and make those little indentations around the edge with the prongs of a table fork. She would sometimes let me place the apples, after washing my hands, which was rich amusement (the apple placing, not the hand washing). I saw her cut out and twist the doughnuts, then drop them in the hot lard; saw them sink to the bottom, then come up bubbling to the top as I waited anxiously for the first one to get done, to be appropriated to my own use. Here I saw made the bread, biscuits, johnny-cake and brown bread, and the pumpkin pies (of which a modern poet has sung), and here I got the first parcel of dough to shape into an image of a man. I am surprised almost when I think how vividly I remember all those household functions that I saw my mother perform in those days, and as I think of it I can see her again moving about that room engaged in cooking, washing, ironing or mending garments and darning stockings; spinning, weaving or making frocks for us boys. These operations were watched closely, and questions, many necessary, but more unnecessary, were asked about them all, for they were not merely curious to me at that age, but I was directly interested in many of them, especially in the cooking and in the garments being made for myself. And the wool was often watched closely in all the processes through which it passed, from the crude state till it found lodgment on my person; and then, like the urchin who was anxious to have everybody see his new boots, I felt perceptibly taller. In connection with this living room, too, the cradle of the baby is well remembered. When I was seven years old a sister was born; and when she was old enough to be lulled to sleep by rocking, this was often my task, and I well remember having not to only rock her to sleep, but being left to sit by the cradle and rock her whenever she began to wake up. My mother often left me and went upstairs to spin or weave, and once in a while in spite of my rocking the baby would persist in waking and crying—in the latter she indulged quite freely when small—then APPENDIX 275 mother would come down and relieve me, and I would go out to play. And mother sometimes seemed to suspect me of waking the baby. The barns and farm yards were of almost equal interest with the house; here was the scene of the sports at the cold season of the year, when the boys were visited by their comrades, and here there was no danger of disturbing the baby or interrupting older people in reading or conver- sation; here were the mows of hay, and the corn in the stalk, as it had been cut and brought from the field, piled up on the floor; here too was put the pile of pumpkins, red, yellow and green, with long and short stems, curly and straight. Upon the hay we romped, and through it we dug tunnels—long, narrow, round passageways, reaching through and around the mows. Upon these we spent days in enthusiastic effort, pulling and tugging like beavers. Under the barns in some places the space was not more than two feet in height. We used to crawl under here on our hands and knees after hens' nests, and would come out covered with cobwebs, dust and dirt, and usually without eggs. The cattle, horses and sheep were all known to us by countenance and name. To see them eat was fun, espe- cially to see the cows munch pumpkins and the sheep nibble beans; then we took delight in seeing the forkfuls of hay taken to them and seeing them try to outstrip each other in getting most; they were of interest to us in another light, for on a pleasant winter evening several of us would get together and play I-spy and slide down hill till we were tired of such work, and we would catch the young cattle by the tails and strive to see which of us could hang on longest without the animal in its fright and effort throwing us off. This, when we were caught at it, was the cause of some chastisements which I don't care now to reflect on. The barns were two, partly forming two sides of the barn yard; between them and the house was a corn barn, as we called it, and by it was the watering trough. The water was brought to this (it was a large, wide, deep trough made of planks) by a lead pipe some twenty rods from a spring, and emptied, in a small stream through a quill put through a cork in the end of the pipe, into a little bucket which was placed above the trough, and over the sides of which the water trickled into the trough. This was at one end of the trough, which projected beneath the fence—or through it—outside the yard; and from this bucket it was that we got water for the house. When small, I often wondered how the water rose in the pipe to empty itself into the trough, and my wonder did not cease when I learned the principle of the water rising as high as its source, for to this day as I see it in memory it seems to me that the spring was no higher than that part of the pipe at the barn which lay in the ground. By the side of the corn barn was a shed for farm tools, containing also a grindstone which, when I got large enough, it was my task to turn. I did not like this; it was too hard, and it is only pleasant to recall as it is 276 APPENDIX pleasant to think of any severe task which we have finished. Axes at times, but mostly scythes in haying time, and knives were the tools to be ground. Our door yard was not fenced; it had to be crossed in getting from the road to the barns. Directly in front of the house stood a maple tree, old, staid and beautiful. A robin used regularly to build her nest he»e and rear her young. She built it near the top of the tree, but if she fancied the boys did not keep posted as to the number of eggs and the time of hatching and the flight of the birdlings, she was mistaken, for the branches of the tree came down so low that we could climb it. Just back of the tree was a stone wall, which on the door yard side rose not more than a couple of feet, but on the other side it was twice as high, the door yard, as it were, being a terrace. On the other side and close by it grew flowers and shrubs, a bunch of yellow lilies, sweet william, bunches of striped grass in which we could never find two spears exactly alike, although we often hunted, unwilling to believe the story that no two ever grew alike. Then there was here a bed of lovage. This is remembered for its odor. It was as fragrant as onions and a hundred times more pleasant. Mother used the large hollow stalks, cut in little rings, for flavoring pickles and other condiments. There was a lot of grape vines which never bore fruit. Further on toward the road was a shed for hives of bees. We could reach its top from the wall, and we have lain many hours, stretched out upon its roof and looked over its front edge to the bees at work, to see them come home with their hind legs loaded with red, brown and yellow masses, and go into their hives—and the file of bees that came out empty of such loads, and flew away. In these hives there were drones—large and lazy—that were always driven out by the smaller and more industrious of the swarm. Farther on, near the road, was a monster dense cluster of rose bushes, which used to blossom so thickly that they appeared above the wall as a mass of red glory. It was beautiful, and filled the air with its fragrance. We used to gather the roses to take to school with us. We ate the petals, or plucked and threw them in each other's faces. We watched them as from the little buds they became full blown, and then grew pale and withered. Notwithstanding our frequent quarrels, we boys were happy, and undreamt of were the cares and trials, the rebuffs and the riper joys of maturity—and the Providence that should, in the strength of his early manhood, carry that beloved brother to his soldier's grave. Very early—at what age I cannot tell—I was taken by my parents one day on a visit to Uncle Zeal and Aunt Emily, near by. The old folks were talking about the new railroad which had just been built through Windsor village. One Jira Hammond was sitting in the room. Jira heard, or thought he heard, the whistle of a locomotive. No sooner had APPENDIX 277 he told it than the whole company rushed to the door to listen, as though all their lives depended upon their ability to hear the novel noise. (The railroad had just been finished to Windsor village, some miles away.) This was when I was quite young, for it was, I think, the first time I remember to have visited this uncle's family. I was taken to their house soon after this—or it may possibly have been before—to the funeral of one of their children, a boy, Henry, who had played with me at my home, and who in his coffin, when my father held me up to look at him and told me who it was, looked so lifelike that I called his name and asked him to come and play with me—it was my first vision of the dead. I now know that he was three years and eight months old. He was a little older than I—and this marks the date of my beginning of memory, at about three and one-half years of age. It was about this time that I began to enjoy buggy riding, and now began a habit which was more pleasant to me than agreeable to those around me, that of teasing father for a ride, and to go with him when he harnessed his horse. Here I first consciously reasoned on any subject. I wondered how the horse knew which way to go and what road to take in going to town. My inquisitive- ness was greater than my observation, for I had not observed enough to take cognizance of any reins or any details of a harness, and in my imagina- tion the horse, hearing my father's reply to my inquiry as to where he was going, had got a clue to the course to take, and thus my teasing and quizzing were of vital importance. Can anything more stupid be imagined, even for a small boy? It must have been the next winter that our folks moved to Windsor village to live, where we remained about three years, so that a large part of my earliest remembrances were of that place. Indeed, the settled memory of my early home in the country was the fruit of a season subsequent to this sojourn. Purely as a matter of guesswork, I should state the popula- tion of Windsor at this time to have been 1,000 —a village situated on the Connecticut River, very pleasant and inviting in some of the parts, but quite the opposite in others, with several long streets, with trees of the maple and other woods lining and shading some of them. The streets are laid out with a view somewhat of obviating the impediment of the hills, for the village, although on the river, is on ground quite hilly, and the main street running north and south had on its east side part of the way a steep declivity, so that some of the houses on that side are twice as high on the back side as on the front. It was in one of these houses that we lived. It was a large house, and our people kept boarders. Besides the entrance in front there was one from each end into the basement. To one of these from the street there was a stairway leading down outside. The stairs were of square hewn logs, and along the outside there was a large bar or railing, against which there were slabs of marble 278 APPENDIX leaning. These belonged to the marble cutter—West was his name, I think—who had a shop next door. Now this marble man and his shop were sources of much amusement to me, and some chagrin. He was much given to perpetrating jokes on me, and that was a very easy thing to do, for when young, as well as later in life, I was exceedingly green. I had freckles on my face, and he used to tell me to go home and clean the fly specks from my nose. Once after eating some chokecherries, he asked me, on observing that my tongue was black, what negro I had exchanged tongues with. I was so chagrined that I went home and asked my mother what I could say to him mean enough. She told me to go back, put my thumb to my nose, wiggle my fingers and say "spoons" to him. I did so, and was never molested again by him. It was the daughter of this man who was my first schobl teacher, she having taught a class of juveniles in her father's house. She was very kind to us all, taught me the alphabet, allowed us to play and take our naps in the schoolroom. Some of the oldest of the girls she taught sewing—piecing bed quilts was the work they did. Her mother disliked children, as I found from experience. Two of her brothers had a shop in their woodshed, where they manufactured kites. I watched them do this, and fly them, with much interest, but failed to see the need of the long tails they made for them. APPENDIX IV. A LETTER TO A FRIEND. August, 1912. My Dear Friend: Your quandary about some of the current political and economic issues in this country is not surprising, and you have a lot of good company in perplexity. The great trouble with our study of such questions is that it is next to impossible to consider them calmly and with complete candor. The moment we begin to consider them our self-interest, the opinions of friends, the fashions of the hour and our preconceived notions, make a force of prejudice that is hard to discount or overcome. Probably for world economy free trade is justified as an academic proposition. "Buy in the cheapest market and sell in the dearest one the world over" is an attractive motto, especially for college professors. If we can buy firearms, explosives, machinery, sugar and other goods abroad cheaper than we can make them at home, why not do it and let our workers in these industries change their occupation, work at some other employ- ment? The woman operatives could go out to domestic service in the large cities where there is a demand for them, and the men are much needed on the highways, railroads and farms. Only, with free trade in this country the farming business as well as the manufacturing would have to be reorganized, and there would be fewer crops raised. Sugar beets and citrus fruit growing would go out of fashion and numerous other changes would come about, but the farmers could find something to grow. And the nation would survive if its industries were reduced in number by a large percentage. In making the changes of occupation, in pulling up the family stakes and getting readjusted in new work, often in distant states, there might be some hardships, loss of money, necessary breaking up of families and incidental sorrows, but this would not be worse than many other of the exigencies and accidents of life compel us to suffer. People bear hardships well if great numbers have to take them together —they even laugh at each other and joke about them. Once in Chicago I saw some thousands of people burned out of their homes, many of them losing all their possessions save the clothes they then wore (and some of these were scanty enough), but there were few expressions of grief, and there was much cheerfulness, of a sort. Many of the "Titanic" victims were cheerful under difficulties, some of them graciously deferred to each [279] 280 APPENDIX other in privileges, and some even played musical instruments while the ship was sinking. This reasoning is of course specious and has elements of nonsense. The subject must be viewed with the human and material elements as they are. As a people most of us are fixed in our homes, our associations and our industrial pursuits. While the rich can change their occupations with moderate trouble and even lose much of their property and still live comfortably, wage earners cannot do this, and if they are compelled to do it by the ruin of their industries through purposeful human agencies, they will rebel in some way. You cannot change human nature; their rebellion may not be wise; for the moment it may even do more harm than good, but it will be rebellion, and it ought to be. Any party or policy is a menace to the nation if not to society, when, without some adequate equivalent, it threatens the homes and livelihood of great numbers of toiling people. On account of the difference in cost of manufacture here and abroad many of our industries are kept alive by a protective tariff. Some of the duties are excessive and have led to abuses by protected interests that have combined to keep prices too high. The remedy is to lower the tariffs, but the reduction does not need to destroy the industries. The impulse comes to many, because of such abuses, to wish to destroy the tariff entirely or rob it of its protective influence. But this is as foolish as it would be to destroy the railroads because they have some- times abused their powers. We have regulated the railroads fairly well to the advantage of both the roads and the people; and we can, if we will, do the same thing with the tariff. The fact is that until recent months we have never taken the first step toward making an equitable tariff bill. Now we have a Tariff Board that is working to ascertain what duty on each essential article is needed to ensure its home production without business demoralization. Here- tofore our tariffs have been made by taking the testimony of the people directly interested, as to how much duty they needed respectively, and they have rarely stated it too low. On a few occasions some of the different manufacturers have disagreed, as was the case in framing the last tariff bill. Then Mr. Carnegie and Judge Gary said the iron and steel industries needed no protective duties, but the small operators said that they did need protection. Our senators and representatives in Congress have traded and log-rolled industriously, each to secure for his constituents the protection that he believed the majority of them thought they needed. Could any method be better calculated than this to throw together a tariff bill that would be an absurdity of misfits, if it did not make some undeserving men richer and some other people poorer? APPENDIX 281 You are asking, as I am, if it will be possible for our senators and congressmen to agree to a correct and scientific tariff when we learn what that is—for we are as certain as fate, sooner or later, to learn it through the Tariff Board or some other means. Some of them will be terribly squeezed between the facts and the clamor of their constituents for more privileges. War will be made on the figures of the Tariff Board, but it will be a losing fight if the figures are made with such care and research as the present Board has used. As to what the parties offer us, the democrats say,"tariff for revenue only," and that most of the duties are too high. But the present tariff does not furnish enough revenue. The republicans in framing the last tariff bill had to tax corporations to take care of the deficit, and many of them now advocate an income tax to meet further reductions in duties. But the policy of the democrats is to discard the Tariff Board and all scientific study of the needs of a protective tariff, and to go back to the absurd grab-bag methods. What assurance does such a policy offer of better results than we have had in the past? None. If they could carry out their schemes they would cripple some of the largest industries of the country and disturb and depress the lives of an army of workmen. If they, or any party in power, would reduce the duties to the lowest possible point without endangering our industries, nobody ought to com- plain. The deficit of revenue could be made up by internal taxation of some sort without hardships. But they spurn the only means under the skies that can enable us to make a sane tariff law. They are bent on leaving the gate wide open for their own individual selfishness. They are like the so-called progressives in their despising of the Constitution. They are unwilling to be bound by any rules that will prevent themselves from hasty, selfish and arbitrary legislation. The present democratic house of representatives has shown what the party will do if it can. It passed a bill that, had it become a law, would probably have closed some scores of factories, ruined some millions of property, and stopped the business of thousands of wage earners. The so-called progressive party has a tariff policy for political purposes. It is brought forward because the party had to have some policy on this subject, so it turns aside from its obsession of vengeance against one man in favor of another, to restore the government "back to the people," to say that the tariff must be revised, but in the interest of all the people. Could anything be more sweetly childlike? It is as much as to say that if they get control of the Government everybody shall be unselfish and very good. But all animal life, including mankind, is selfish, always has been and always must be, otherwise the race would run down and die. And the first and only serious step ever taken toward a tariff "for all the 282 APPENDIX people" is Mr. Taft's plan of a Tariff Board to ascertain how we can create such a tariff. Heretofore no party has known how to do it, even if it was disposed to do it. But the tariff is too practical, difficult and vital an issue for the new party to tackle seriously. These people must have easier and more personal shibboleths, like "thieves," "robbery" and the "bosses." The Tariff Board project, to be effective, must be a sus- tained, steady, permanent policy of government. The democrats repudiate it. Do you seriously think the personal, independent party offers hope of such stability and continuity? Moreover, on this subject, as on many others, statesmanship and safety require that we shall agree, not only to the Constitution, but to other rules as well, that shall guard us against hasty, inconsiderate and arbitrary action that may be unfair to minorities and the defenseless generally. Such is not the policy of the new party. You say, "Have not the people been robbed of their rights by the bosses?" No. This has always been a government of the people. The people have always ruled, if they would. If all or even most of the people entitled to, come out and vote, they have their rights and they rule. Boss-rule is a thing invited by neglect of civic duties on the part of most of those who complain. There have been bosses in plenty and in all parties, even in the latest party. The bosses are simply the forceful people who give attention to politics and have many followers and friends. There are good and bad bosses; and the bad ones have substantially always been turned out when the good people have taken the trouble to go to the polls and vote against them. You cannot abolish personal leadership from politics any more than you can from business, religion or art; nor would you. The most positive examples living, of such leadership, are Roosevelt, Johnson and La Follette. They are among the good bosses by their own confession. It is in the air that the people have as good representatives and as good a government as the average of themselves. But this is not strictly true; it is true that the people have generally had as good a government and as good representatives as they deserve. Both government and representatives have often been below the average of all the people, including those who abstain from voting. So far has the neglect of our political duties gone that many of our best people boast that they never go to the polls or "mix in politics," and they discredit those who do. Have such people any ground for complaint of being boss-ridden? Rather they get what they deserve, or less than they deserve, for to their sins of neglect of a civic duty they add that of pride in their neglect. But have not the people been betrayed by their representatives in legislative bodies? In a few instances, yes. When such things have occurred, the people have sometimes sent back better representatives. They substantially always have had the power to do this if they would APPENDIX 283 only use it. But now we are told that to remedy this "robbery" it is necessary for the people to legislate and govern directly by their votes through the initiative, referendum and recall. These remedies are whole- some or unwholesome, according to circumstances. They are rarely or never used except when the people are moved by anger and a sense of outrage. If there is a bad elective officer, the remedy is to recall him, or try to. If a bad legislature or common council refuses to pass a law popularly demanded, invoke the initiative. If an unwelcome law is passed, use the referendum and repeal it, as a small minority of the people of Los Angeles did recently with the ordinance protecting them against tuberculous milk. All these cases mean anger and a sense of outrage on the part of those who invoke the new devices, not the power or disposition calmly to consider and thrash out knotty questions and reach wise results. The new methods require for their wholesome exercise deliberation on the part of voters, their continuing study of civic questions, and fourfold the general knowledge of these that is required for representative govern- ment. Do you think the voters will rise to this duty while most of them must earn their living and follow the fashions? With all your serene faith, you are hardly credulous enough to believe that. But you say, "Have not the people the right to what laws they want?" Yes, the laws they want (not necessarily and for the strenuous moment what laws they may wish) and when most of the people can be consulted. They never are all consulted, for in direct legislation it is those with a sense of outrage and their friends and enemies who do most of the voting. While these three powers for popular safety are at times useful, they are expensive. Invoked often, they tire the people, as well as disgust some of them, who more and more refrain from voting, and so put control of the government into the hands of progressively smaller minorities. Evidence is growing that they may be their own corrective, for in certain quarters citizens are coming to look with suspicion and disfavor upon any petition for either of these measures unless the abuse to be corrected is widely felt, and felt to be intolerable. You ask if the rich people, with their rapid increase in numbers and wealth, are not stealing rights away from the poor. That is a most natural question. You say the rich spend money lavishly to pass laws for the spoliation of the poor. But as iong as one man has as much voting power as another, and as long as the poor people are a great majority of all, they can, if they act wisely, maintain their rights. They often vote unwisely, chase rainbows, and scatter their influence. They need to study and concentrate on those measures of amelioration that are attain- able and may be permanent. When they do this—and they are capable of it—they will have a power that will be as irresistible as it will be whole- some for the nation. 284 APPENDIX What are the rights of the poor people? They are the natural rights of all people. One is a place to stand on the earth. Unhindered in avarice, a few men might conceivably come to own the earth and most of the personal property—and that would never do. Every man has the right to a living if he will work and respect the rights of others—not a champagne, silk and porterhouse steak living, but a living that makes for health and contentment, and not dissipation. That is axiomatic. And it ought to become axiomatic that the poor man has a natural right to a better chance in the race of life than the rich. Riches are odds in favor of their possessor; they are a call on the labor and substance of the world. The poor should have odds of some other sort. The making of a fortune is often due to personal superiority of some sort, and another man—not you—is asking if one has not a natural right to the unlimited use for himself of his own superiority in the making and using of money. The only safe answer is no, not unlimited so long as we live in communities that we wish to have secure and peaceable. " No man liveth unto himself " in society; every man owes something to his fellow-men, and the rich owe most because they have most. You cannot stop the accumulation of money, and you would not if you could, for it is an ambition of most men of our kind of civilization. Nor can you kill the millionaires, for most of those in America began life with nothing and worked for small wages, and many now so working will become millionaires. It is true that measures ought to be found to make it progressively difficult for people to accumulate enormous wealth—and many such exist. The best of them are the inheritance tax laws, which give to the public a portion of every large fortune at the death of the owner; and such laws are hard to evade, since all large estates are revealed finally through the courts. Popular sentiment is rapidly growing toward a national income tax, so graduated as to bear lightly upon the poor. This is, of all tax measures, the most just, and it is possible to execute it efficiently in this country. By the initiative of President Taft we are, I hope, soon to have a consti- tutional amendment that will make such a tax possible. With all their alleged wickedness, there was never a time in all history when people of wealth were so conscious as now of their duty to the public. Already several hundred millions of dollars have been given to education and to institutions for the alleviation of suffering and for the prolongation of ljfe in this country. There is evidence that our currency is too abundant; hence the high cost of living. If the currency should be contracted, prices would fall. They always do under such circumstances. The regulation point of the world's economies has risen because of the increase of circulating money. APPENDIX 285 But this is probably not the sole cause of the high cost of living here and in Europe, for we have philosophers who tell us that the cause is among these: The tariff, the trusts, the flowing of population to the cities, and the work-day of eight hours. You ask if a change in administration would not bring down the cost of living. No, but a financial panic would, for it would contract the cur- rency in circulation. It would also depress business, shut down shops and throw men out of work. How can a panic contract the circulation? By scaring people who have money in banks, so they draw it out and hide it in safety boxes, pockets and stockings. There are a hundred-fold more safety vault boxes than there were thirty years ago, and the people are not less timid. What makes a financial panic? Sudden loss by the people of faith in each other's financial safety—then begin runs on the banks, the hiding of money, the halt in buying goods and in building new industries. Then men go about with the best bonds and other valuables, vainly trying to borrow money on them for their urgent needs; then some foreign banks refuse to pay money on letters of credit, and some American travelers are stranded abroad. What makes this sudden loss of confidence that starts a panic? It is the dawning upon the people that they have been running their business and speculative dynamos at a reckless rate. Suspicion is contagious; in times of high tension it starts at the rolling of a pebble; it spreads rapidly, and a squeeze in one part of the country soon affects all the rest, because we are so interdependent in our business relations. Can panics be prevented? Not entirely, but their severest shocks can be, if the people in times of pressure can borrow money on good securities like bonds and their equivalent, for this enables them to go on with their unavoidable expenses until conditions become settled and confidence returns. The best remedy must be some means for the quick issue of temporary money to take the place of part of that withdrawn from circulation and hoarded, the temporary issue being retired the moment it ceases to be needed—this to be compelled by heavy taxation of it. Such a measure would add a quality of flexibility to our currency that it has never had, but ought to have. The advanced foreign nations have such flexibility in their money, and so have escaped most of the calamities of financial panics that we have had to bear. Why do we lack legal means for so good a purpose! Because Congress refuses to pass a good bill for that purpose now before it and drawn by the ablest minds in this country. It refuses because the democratic party is afraid its passage might bring some advantage to its opponents, and because some sincere republican progressives like Mr. La Follette 286 APPENDIX believe the bill would put increased power into the hands of a few big bankers in New York and Chicago. The fact is the bill reduces the power of these men. There is one sovereign remedy for the high cost of living, namely, increase of income—more wages. Nobody ought to complain if all busi- ness transactions and wages were on the same scale. But there are several obstacles to such a solution. First, many employers forget to raise wages when they can afford to. Then, some employers, with severe competition and low profits, cannot raise wages and escape bankruptcy—they would go to the wall if they attempted it. But their employes believe that they are disingenuous when they say they cannot afford to raise wages. Then the employers think their workmen are unreasonable; hence the need of laws for arbitration of wage disputes. Another difficulty is that a large number of people have small, fixed incomes that cannot be raised, and higher living expense is to them often a grievous hardship. They are lucky when the currency contracts and unlucky when it expands; and when times are easy they save money for future trouble less often than they discover needs for more luxuries. There is one personal and very practical remedy for the high cost of living. We can cut down or cut out some of the costly items, and without harm to our totality of pleasures, health, longevity or capacity for work. People in this country on the average probably eat double the amount of lean meat that they need, and they could all with ultimate benefit do without such brain drugs as tea, coffee, tobacco and alcoholics, not to mention other so-called table luxuries, and many other items of living expenses that contribute solely to expensive and needless pleasures and display, and are chiefly indulged in at the behest of fashion. As to candidates for the presidency, Mr. Wilson is personally above reproach. Temperate and staunch, he would make a strong President. But he has at or on his back the democratic party. And that party is trying to destroy the protective force of the tariff, as well as to destroy the essence of our civil service reform (after forty years of struggle to establish it) and send us back to the old basis of spoils of office. The history of Mr. Roosevelt is known to most of the people, who are now divided into two groups, those favoring him and those against him. Among the latter are thousands who were formerly his ardent admirers, and who feel that he has degraded the ex-presidential character, as he has outraged the devotion of these former admirers by proving that he has the bad qualities and unreliability that his enemies said he had. His campaign is a personal one, largely founded on hate, egoistic and quixotic, and without sane policies that are either novel or necessary. His claim of stealing at the Chicago convention is untrue. His managers tried to steal there, and are planning other stealings next fall, while he and they APPENDIX 287 are browbeating many of their embarrassed friends with threats of local reprisals if they do not violate their personal obligations. They would place on the ticket of the republican party for electors names of men pledged to vote against the nominees of the party. Some of them retain official positions in the republican party while joining in the formation of another party whose purpose is to destroy it. And when an honest senator, elected by'their own faction, rebukes them for this "treachery of the worst kind" they first ask him to resign, and then attempt to defend their conduct as the only "legal" means by which, as they say, they can make head against their opponents. Legal, because in California such offenses are not punishable in jail or penitentiary, but outside of them. And some of these people have been admitted to the bar. They are attorneys, if not lawyers. Mr. Taft's history is also well known. It is prejudiced partisanship to say that he is not progressive, for he has advocated and helped enact more progressive measures than any other president, and he has by his official power and influence brought about more of them than any other. Nor is it any fairer to say that he is weak or lacks courage; indeed, to say this is disingenuous if not dishonest. It took consummate courage to write some of his vetoes, which he knew would be criticised as poor politics, but which he knew were good statesmanship, to be finally justi- fied of history. His mistakes! Everybody makes mistakes, and he has made fewer than most men with like problems and responsibilities. His faults! They are such as come of zeal in duty, in candor and frankness with the people, in conscientiousness and magnanimity. And you are too good a citizen to condemn any man for that sort of zeal. Mr. Taft, as President, has shown all the courage, honesty, industry, good intentions, dignity and statesmanship that Mr. Roosevelt said years ago that he possessed. He has been a President for sane, thoughtful and fair men to be proud of; and he has shown patience of the highest order with the wave of unjust, groundless, even hysterical criticism, that has been aimed at him. He knows well that the deliberate judgment of mankind, not the hasty and inconsiderate one, is to be relied on; and he evidently intends to conduct himself and his office looking to the final verdict of the people sober; and this is the better part. Most truly yours, Los Angeles, California. Norman Bridge. APPENDIX V. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE THING Contributed in 1917, by Norman Bridge, to the "Pan-American Record," a Publication in the Interest of the Pan- American Petroleum & Transport Company. Has a corporation a soul? Why do people say, "Corporations have no souls"? Is it because corporations do not die, while their officers and managers do—and their affairs go to the probate court? Or because corporations are thought to have no mercy or compassion, and are moved solely by the selfish impulses of their managers? But corporations are really not more heartless than individuals— often less so—and their managers usually have for justification of their conduct that they are custodians of the interests of absent stockholders, who have a right to know that their servants are watching their interests, conserving their property and saving their money. Managers—other- wise officers—of corporations are trustees, and in business morals there is no duty more sacred than that of a trustee of the interests of others. The fact is that the current notion is wrong, and corporations have souls. Their souls are the collective or composite spirit of their manage- ment. If this is honest, high-minded and straight it means a good soul • If it is dishonest and crooked, then it is a bad soul. The soul of the corporation is determined legally by its board of directors, but essentially and practically by its officers, who direct and carry out the policy of the institution as designed by the board of directors; and the spirit of the chief is invariably carried down through the ranks of the employes, and usually permeates the entire outfit. On the president and chief manag- ing officer, more than on all others, rest the creation and transmission of the spirit of the corporation. In a practical sense a corporation is, in ultimate analysis, only a soul, an imaginary entity. It has a charter and by-laws, to be sure, and property and officers and employes, and all sorts of manifestations of power and weakness; perhaps it has a seal and keeps a bank account. It surely has an office, desks and stationery, and books of accounts. It may earn money and pay its debts, or it may fail. Its officers may be rewarded for good management, or go to jail for bad conduct if it runs counter to the statutes on misdemeanor and felony. But try to touch the corporation itself, the very it, and your hand grasps nothing. It is like a man's name or his character; we have a word for each, but it is a mental image; it is psychological, spiritual. [288] APPENDIX 289 When we undertake to weigh moral qualities, it is safe to say that the proportion of corporations that live fair and upright lives is greater than that of the individuals of the community—even allowing for a lot of organizations that are created for fraudulent purposes. Many corporations are for years—even centuries—managed on lines of moral and legal rectitude that make them models for all men and groups of men. Such is the ambition of every laudable corporation. Of course it is its duty to try to earn an income for its stockholders, for this comports with the unavoidable duty of mankind everywhere; if its managers should fail to do this they would soon be turned out, as they ought to be. In its efforts it has one great satisfaction: Its business is to create wealth where it did not exist before—and it does that. This petroleum and transport combination has, from the start, been carried on with wisdom and fairness; and, on the part of the workers, with faithfulness and an industry that has been tireless, even sleepless. The Mexicans have often called the operating corps "effectivos"—that is, people who accomplish things; and no finer compliment could be paid to the force, from the top down to the lowest ranks. They bring things to pass, as the public, the petroleum and shipping industry, have discovered and shall further discover. Great have been the struggles and adventures to blaze the way and develop a new industry in the jungles of a foreign state. Countless dis- comforts and dangers have been borne cheerfully on land and lake and river, in the push of an enterprise of incalculable benefit to the business of the world, and especially to the good people of Mexico. President Doheny and Vice-President Canfield once were caught in a norther on Lake Tamiahua in a little launch, and for some hours were terribly buf- feted, and by the rules of probabilities should have gone to the bottom, but were saved miraculously. Some of the force have been lost by shipwreck, others have survived shipwreck and other calamities, from torrents to wood-ticks (pinolillos). Loyalty, faith and energy have characterized the great force of junior officers and employes. They have been proud of the combination, and believed in it. They have caught the spirit and thrill of the human dynamo in the general manager's office,* and have infused their work with an energy that has astonished their rivals and the public in general. Good wages—in Mexico double what prevailed at first—have made good living conditions and contentment; and when an emergency has required work over-time, even under severe and sometimes dangerous conditions, all hands have rushed to the task like soldiers or firemen. And there has been no hesitation to allow the workers to dicker over the wages to come for the effort; their material rewards for such tasks have usually been greater than they would have presumed to expect. •Herbert G. Wylie. 290 APPENDIX In the growth of this business there have arisen hundreds of un- expected questions—material, legal and managerial—that have had to be dealt with, often without the aid of any precedent whatever. Out of them has grown a body of experience and expertness that is today an asset of large consequence to the corporation. Nobody would pretend that every step of the work has been perfect. Fit and try, overcome new obstacles by new devices, change a good plan for a better one, have been the policy of this, as of every great and suc- cessful enterprise. The work in a foreign country, and under changing conditions in our own country, has found snags in plenty. To have overcome so many of them, and brought the system to its present success, is a signal accomplishment, and has a luminous promise for the future. Certain elements of policy were easily fixed at the beginning, because founded on basic morals and common sense, and consonant with univer- sal ethics—like the rule to mind our own business in a foreign country, and avoid mixing in the political problems of its people. Other and minor rules have been the result of discussions and the comparison of views and experiences between the chiefs and lieutenants and operatives. As the business expands, other and new questions constantly arise, and so, like the growth of law, the evolution goes on. The general aims have been consistent and continuous from the first. There has been from the first but one president*—a man with a vision and a unique comprehension of the oil industry and of business of many sorts— and one general manager. They have always had willing and effective support from subordinates of all classes; and they had, during all the early and formative years, the assistance of that wise and loyal fellow-worker, the late Vice-President Charles A. Canfield. To the spirit of the institu- tion in its best sense his contribution was material and lasting. The general staff, and all of its branches in a half dozen different places, are today composed of men, many of whom are tried in their respective tasks, or in others from which they have been promoted. Many have come from service elsewhere, and have acquired with the veterans in the service the dominant impulse of the force, and all are doing first-class team work, work that is absolutely indispensable to success in any business of such magnitude as this. On land and sea, in the offices, shops and fields, on our railroads and ships a-sail and in harbor, they work together for the general purpose, like the many pieces of wood in a stringed instrument that must vibrate in unison in order to produce harmony. These men and women work in harmony for the common end; and they are making the music of laudable industry that is heard afar. Verily, corporations have souls, and this corporation group has one of which it is not ashamed. *Edward L. Doheny. APPENDIX VI. A Partial List of Papers and Publications by Dr. Bridge. 1873 Opening Address, Rush Medical College. Spring Course, March 5, 1873. 1874 "Trichiniasis"—A Clinical Lecture. Chicago Medical Journal, 1874, p. 147) 1874 "Stammering, Loss of Voice and Neuralgia, Due to Constipation." (Ibid., p. 431.) 1878 "Unusual Distension of Cavity of Cervix Uteri, with Spasmodic Contraction of the Internal Os, in Miscarriage." (Ibid., 1878, VoL II, p. 487.) 1879 "Deep Ulceration of Face in Scarlet Fever." (The Medical Record, August 9, 1879.) 1881 "A Case of Hydrophobia in Man." (Chicago Medical Journal and Examiner, Vol. II, p. 402.) 1884 "The New Science of Medicine." Doctorate Address, Rush College. 1884 "The Therapeutics of Mineral Waters." (Journal American Medical Association, December 27, 1884.) 1885 Report on the "Practice of Medicine." Transactions Illinois State Medical Society, 1885.) 1885 "Pseudo-hypertrophic Muscular Paralysis." (The Medical News, January 10, 1885.) 1885 Reference Handbook (Wood), Articles on "Colic" and "Diarrhoea." 1886 "Headache." 1887 "Gonorrhceal Rheumatism." 1890 "Inflammation of the Appendix and Caecum and the Duty of the Physician Regarding Them.'' (Transactions A ssociation A meri- can Physicians, 1890.) 1891 "The Climate of Southern California for Pulmonary Diseases." (Ibid., 1891.) 1893 Articles on "Headache," "Diarrhoea" and "Gonorrhceal Rheuma- tism" in Supplement to the Reference Handbook. 1893 "Coffee Drinking as a Frequent Cause of Symptoms of Disease." (Transactions Association of American Physicians, 1893.) 1894 "Cough Induced by Posture as a Symptom Nearly Diagnostic of Phthisis." (Ibid., 1894.) 1897 "Some Reflex Neuroses Connected with the Abdomen." (Ibid., 1897.) [291] 292 APPENDIX 1898 "Some Usually Overlooked Signs and Symptoms of Chest Diseases." (Transactions Association of American Physicians, 1898.) 1898 Book: "The Penalties of Taste." 1900 "Some Observations on Human Temperature in Disease." (Trans- actions Association of American Physicians, 1900.) 1902 Book: "The Rewards of Taste." 1902 "Drainage in Chronic Intestinal Catarrh," etc. (Transactions Association of American Physicians, 1902.) 1903 Book: "Tuberculosis." 1906 "Some Truths about Sleep." (Transactions Association of American Physicians, 1906.) 1907 Book: "House Health." 1915 Book: "Fragments and Addresses." 1915 "The Economic Waste of Sickness and Premature Death." (Journal of the American Medical Association, December 11, 1915.) 1916 "A Defraudation of Youth." Read before Chicago Woman's Club, November 8, 1916. 1918 "Ephraim Fletcher Ingals; the Man." Doctorate Address, Rush College, 1918. 1920 "Looking Ahead." Doctorate Address, Rush College, June 16, 1920. Other Books by Norman Bridge "The Penalties of Taste," Revised Edition. (Duffield & Co.) 'The Rewards of Taste." (Duffield & Co.) "House Health." (Duffield & Co.) "Fragments and Addresses." (Birely & Elson, Los Angeles.) "Tuberculosis." (W. B. Saunders & Co.) NLM052922818