Hj

CHARLES RICHARD CRANE

Ulysses from Chicago

(1858 - 1939)

MEMOIR

Dictated by him between 1929 and'38

Edited by various hands, with an introduction by his niece

Mary Prentice Lillie Barrows

1973

Muse, Daughter of Memory, tell me of this myr iad -m inded Man . . . who saw the world and its cities And came to know the thoughts and temper of mankind Homer, The Odyssey, I, 1-3. I cannot rest from travel; I will drink Life to the lees; ... I am become a name For always roaming with a hungry heart. Much have I seen and known; cities of men And manners, climates, councils, governments, Myself not least, but honour'd of them all. Tennyson, Ulysses, 6-15 CHARLES RICHARD CRANE

I

First Impressions

Who was this Charles Crane, that now, more than thirty years

after his death, his name still evokes exclamations of passionate involve­ ment from "those who know"?f It is true that his name is not widely known -

he was a man of great modesty, and never blew his own horn, preferring

|to work quietly in the background of great events. But those who knew j

[him even slightly never forgot him, and many who have never heard of

him will find much of interest in the story of his life, his character, his

insight, wit, and accomplishments, while his influence lingers on in odd

corners of the world to this day.

I remember him as the fascinating uncle who would turn up myster­

iously at our vacation home at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, where he also

had a summer place. He might have blown in from Samarkand, Moscow,

Peking, Prague, or the Yemen — one never could know. He charmed us

children with his magic tricks - pulling a pair of folding scissors out of

our hair, or silver half-dollars out of our ears, amusing us with travellers'

tales and funny stories from Arabia, or the old song of the Wild Man from

Borneo who had just come to town. It was with talismans of this nature

that he had made his way into all the most remote parts of the globe - or

the highest places in our nation. He beguiled the sadder moments of Woodrow

asrej ssxsr '~ su, I Ill ...... I •;^whpn the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 son s 1Mlif?e with his stories, wnen way * <*•«•x was bogged down in futilities, Uncle Charles told Wilson the Arab story

of how Nasr-ed-Din Khodja was walking down the road one fine evening,

and, looking down into a well, saw the moon lying at its bottom. "This

19 is a bad state of affairs," said Nasr-ed-Din Khodja, "we must set it right.

So he sent a man for a long pole, and poked and pulled, until finally the

pole broke and he fell over on his back. He saw the moon riding high

in its right place again, and exclaimed, "That's a good job done! " and

w ent along on his way. When the Democratic Party lost the election of

1920, CRC raised Wilson's failing spirits by telling how the same Nasr-

iedrDin was heard one night exclaiming, "Praise Allah! Praise Allah! 19

'Why are you praising Allah£ M his friends asked. "Because my donkey

lis lost, " was the reply. "Why do you praise Allah for the loss of a donkey? 79

[they quite naturally returned. "Why? Because I was not on his back. If

I had been on his back, I'd be lost, too. > >

| "Charlie Crane was the best of the Chicago plutes, " Carl Sandburg

remarked. True, he was a plutjfocrat in a way — not in a class with the

Rockefellers or the Carnegies, but sufficiently endowed with worldly goods

to do pretty much what he wanted —to help a promising political reformer,

to have old Russian church music recorded, or to give a steel truss bridge

to an impoverished small country. The Chicago historian, Wayne Andrews, j told of his interest in local politics: "Wistfully, and fully conscious that

| the odds were hopeless, he put up the money for one campaign after another

| for responsible government in the City Hall. In the end his open-handedness

SVSraV? be Protected b* «WW* law became a legend. 'You never ha. dj t+roi astqqkc C^. Co.. ho»uw much mone-y» he was goin• g-* t«o giv„• e a« goo„^Jd cause, , , HaroiHcrnlud J.U»^Icke=s told the author, 'you always

, . , , ...... ,-+ • " /Andrews, p. 251) Andrews also knew he would give until it hurt. \A»UXCWB# F« <•' speaks of his amiable disposition, combined with love for travel: "As fond of travelling as he was averse to wrangling, Crane made it his princely business to wander over the world seeking out disinterested men. Like

Sidonia ... in Disraeli's novels, he had agents abroad who sent him confidential reports on political trends. When not poring over the dos­ siers of this personal State Department, he was likely to be calling on rising statesmen or leaders yet to be recognized. " (ibid., p. 250)

George Antonius dedicated his book, The Arab Awakening, to him him in these words: "To Charles R. Crane, aptly nicknamed Harun al

Rashid. " The aptness of this nickname was widely recognized: "As a philanthropist. Crane played an unusual role. A few of his gifts were known . . . but the majority were unknown. Two examples will suggest their variety. For years after 1919 the Russian monks at Mt. Athos were kept alive by his shipments of food, and after his first visit to$

Yemen, American engineers went there to build roads and water and irrigation systems, all at Crane's expense. " (Donald M. Brodie, Dic­ tionary of American Biography, Supplement II, pp. 129-30)

Because of his love for wandering far and wide, journalists liked to call him "the travelling Crane" - though he was not the only member of his family to be fond of travel. But none of the others made it a career as he did. For Charles Crane, travel also became a therapeutic

(TOe'l^u'rcSS1 Tmh-y bS P«*«cted by copyright law sssaausr ^ u f h «« H «ii his life from uncertain health. A well-known practice* for he suffered all nis X1X^ u- * • * ^ * kite that if he had not been able to get away when psychiatrist once said of him tnat u. " he was troublekl d, i.n min. d, _o r KrtHbodyv , hnec woulwww d have broken down completely,

T-. x x -, u i ~«+ ,QCPq able to take flight, and thus survived Fortunately, he was in most cases aoic tu tanv, 6 * to the age of eighty, suffering in his last year from being kept close to home by the infirmities of age. Wherever he went, he made friends, for he loved all sorts and conditions of men, and most of them reciprocated his friendliness. ft One of his host of friends, Lord Bryce, once remarked that Crane had more international friendships than anyone he knew. " (Brodie, loc. cit.)

There were, of course, a few exceptions. French journalists called him scornfully "le roi des baignoirs" - in reference to the somewhat lowly source of his prosperity, Crane Company, which had became widely known for producing the best in plumbing supplies. This line was not, however, the original nor the most important aspect of the

Company's activities. While Charles Crane was most actively involved in company business, the chief products were elevators and air-brakes, along with heating systems for homes and theaters, Corliss engines, huge valves for public water systems, and a host of other mechanical devices. It was only when Richard Crane Jr., the younger brother, took over the presidency of the company in 1914 thatvCrane*became a name for elegant plumbing fixtures. But this by the way. The mutual

regard of CRC and the French was often intense, but usually negative,

chiefly on account of Middle Eastern politics.

ives, m h* v. writers combine interestingly a snobbish Comments from British writer© condescension with reluctant, admiration^^ir-ation . Arnol^ d Toynbee'J s memoirs,

/Acquaintances, are characteristi, -0+1-oc Hnee epccuwspeakos of meeting the joint

^ _ .„..•„„ fnr q+udv of Middle Eastern affairs heads of the King-Crane Commission tor stuuy ui in Paris in 1919. President King of Oberlin impressed him at once as

being well chosen for this important mission: "Obviously President King was fully adequate for his present temporary assignment; but obviously. too, he was not unique. Not so Mr. Crane; his uniqueness hit one in the r eye as soon as one saw him. He looked like a parrot, and his quizzical air suggested that he might be speculating whether the humans who might be| laughing at him suspected that he was finding them far more funny than they were finding him. It struck me that he would have made a first-class jester if he had happened to live before that sly profession had gone out of vogue. The simpleton cast of his countenance might well be a mask for shrewdness. " (^ ***' T)

Toynbee speaks later about members of the Crane "personal State

Department" who were known to him in London, from a smart taxi driver who always knew when Crane was about, to another "staff-officer, Mrs.

George Young (Lady Young), who happened also to be a friend of mine.

I do not think Mrs. Young had taken shares in the taximan's intelligence service. I think she used to learn that Mr. Crane was coming by the ordinary prosaic means - a cablegram, probably. ..." Anyhow,

"whenever Mrs. Young had word, through whatever channel, she put her own household chores aside and was at Mr. Crane's disposal for the

^Mw"c!E,S2Sprotected by copyri°ht law ^ss^ssvsssrlnstitution Archives- •, her help, he would take her to duration of his stay. " As a reward fnforr tier neip, * • u *. +he opportunity of obtaining a French Paris "as his guest, to give her the oppux j hat and of dining with Mr. Crane i.n„ a„ TTvp-npFrencnh restaurantrestaurant.. The hat-re- ward was always satisfying The dinner reward, however, was always an anti-climax; for here the choices were Mr. Crane's. He did always choose one of the best restaurants in Paris; but this only made the sequel the more disappointing; for he kept the ordering of the dinner in his own hands, and his order was always for boiled chicken and rice pudding." trr ^'i-'O

In the end, however Toynbee had to confess that there was some­ thing more remarkable about Charles Crane than his quizzical expression and his weakness for ladies, French hats, and boiled chicken.

He speaks admiringly — though not always accurately — about CRC's famous exploit of crossing from China through Siberia and Russia by rail in the confused summer of 1921, when there was no valid currency of any sort, and no one knew who was responsible for railroad transit.

After telling this dramatic tale, he goes on to say: "Charles R. Crane's emergence from the Soviet Union into Poland in 1921 cannot have startled the Polish frontier-authorities more than the British frontier-authorities T £*<£ were startled, some years later, by his emergence from the Yaman into A the Aden Protectorate. This time, Charles R. and his party could not come riding on railway waggons; in Southern Arabia there are still no railways of any g^uge, broad or narrow. This time they came riding on camels; and Charles R. | performance as a cameleer must be accounted

Stan^c°A%^%HoToVer 'nStitUti°n ArChiV°*> r „ ce's- lor, by the date when Charles more remarkable than T. E. Lawrencm e s, . R Crane did the Queen ol Shaba's journey in reverse, he was already

well on in years. ZZSJZZS**.[Soyenty» t-rr-u** ^-^ MPLB] "How had Charles R. managed it? If one of those British officials

had put his foot across the frontier on to the Imam's side of the line, he

would have been a dead man within two seconds. Yet this American dilet­

tante had just traversed the Yaman highlands, unscathed. " Souvenirs

of this famous exploit, when CRC made peace between the Imam of Yemen

and King Ibn Saud, can still be found in the archives of the Institute for

Current World Affairs, in New York, in the shape of affectionate and

appreciative letters from both of the high contending parties. Toynbee

concludes his dramatic account with these words: "Give Charles R. Crane

time to prepare the ground, and you can be sure that, when he is ready,

no obstacle is going to stop him. " / pp' 3~L% "l^lj

A still more highly-colored (transparently fictionalized) account

: of this remarkable personage appeares in the romances of John Buchan

(Lord Tweedsmuir) beginning with Greenmantle, which deals with spy

adventures during the First World War. Charles Crane actually met

Buchan in 1917, and through him made arrangements to visit the Western

Front. Apparently he impressed Buchan in much the same way as he had

Toynbee. Thus he appears in Greenmantle disguised in the awkward shape

of a "stage American" - a character named Blenkiron, whose remarkable

and unexpected adroitness in handling difficult situations gives variety

and humor to Buchan's wild tale. The author's attempt to reproduce

Notice: This material may be protected by copyright law , , .arnt, i8i frankly, grotesque, but Buchan 1 American speech and mannerisms i»* ** «"» «=>

, . , - , afltpr and so Blenkiron's amazing trips was a shrewd observer of character*:*»"« » • .,•,•, »**. i u~ M« knowledge of the key personalities in into odd corners of the globe, his Knowicugc v, ^ ^ any situation, his quick grasp of what is going on, all founded on thorough

and subtle advance-intelligence work - point unmistakably to their original.!

Added to these important characteristics. Buchan gives Blenkiron certain

other unmistakable Cranean characteristics, such as his apparent im­

perturbability, bolstered by his habit of laying out a game of solitaire

w hen hard and deep thought was called for: "I find that a game of Patience

. . . conduces to quiet reflection, " Mr. Blenkiron remarks at a parti­

cularly tense moment (Greenmantle, p. 37). Like Toynbee, Buchan

notice^ the remarkable eyes: "He turned on me a pair of full, sleepy

eyes, like a ruminating ox. " (p. 25) "The large eyes seemed to be

»

gazing steadily at me without seeing me. They were as vacant as an

abstracted child's, but I had an uncomfortable feeling that they saw more

than mine. " (p. 27) These eyes — call them parrot's or ox eyes, as you

will — indeed took in a great deal. They saw not only with shrewd under­

standing, but with compassion as well, and penetrated deep below the

surface. For Charles Crane's great gift was intuition. His son John

said of him: "He was emotional and intuitional by nature; he worked^

by hunches." But these hunches turned out to be well based.

Buchan also noted the chronic dyspepsia, such ao occasioned

Lady Young's unfortunate boiled dinners: "He would go through hell

with a box of bismuth tablets and a pack of Patience cards. " Several u x, u .. L noint to their original. Blenkiron otheA r scattere dA observations alsrt1ano pumu *• & speaks of "my friend President Wilson, " (p. 28) and confesses that

"The Lord has blessed me with money to burn. " (p. 27) But while the latter remark expresses a kind of reality, I doubt that any Crane ever mentioned having money. Other people - including the romancer - might be aware of the Crane resources, but in my recollection of those days before the Depression, no Crane mentioned money outside the family any more than he would have spoken of sex in mixed company.

Among the varied peoples of the world whom he knew, Charles

Crane probably felt closer to the Moslems than to any other group. In the final section of his Memoirs, he given nn-imprcnnion of a great Moslem leader, Ibn Saud, as being more Christian than the Christians. He himself made an impression on Arabs and Turks alike as being one of their own kind. Harry Howard tells of a tense confrontation in Constantinople in

August of 1919, quoting that great Turkish woman patriot, Halide" Edib:

"The interview was extremely painful to me. ... As we walked out of the room it seemed to me that Suleiman Nazif Bey's face was ashy pale.

He smiled at my inquiring face and said, *If it had not been for the

Moslem-like understanding and benevolence of that old man's face in the middle, I could not have borne it.' . . . The 'Moslem-like under­ standing face' in this case was Charles Cranes." (Howard, p. 169)

Howard further comments: "in his unofficial capacity, Mr. Crane was

very friendly to the Turks, while Mr. King seemed a very cool-headed

man with an impartial view. "#(ibidj I think it i .ijf true to say that

e : T iS m a e ri m y be Pr tected c ri h t(™e1roe i 7 17U, u.SS .C Code)n H f .T ThiK-s copy° may no ^t be°Py furthe9r * 'aw reproduced or distributed without the specific authorization of the Hoover Institution Archives Stanford, CA 94305-6010. ^rcmves, ii with »n

(ibicfry Crane was more often ." Hhirirtrts Uucte-e*r*ta* m , xi u or, academic ideal of impartiality. He motivated by sympathy than by an acaaemiu was partial to the Turks as against the European powers who were trying

to exploit them; likewise he was sympathetic to the Arabs as against the j Turkish Empire that had oppressed them for centuries. In fact, his j sympathies with the Arab peoples and their religion and culture were a constant factor in his life. In view of this sympathy with the Moslem peoples, another ques-

I tion arises: did Charles Crane possibly entertain a prejudice against

I* the Jews? Since Hitler, and especially in view of the Arab-Jewish con-

I flict which has become so acute in our times, people are very highly

I sensitized to any suggestion of anti-Semitism - if* indeed, that term

I maybe used where two Semitic peoples, Arabs and Jews, are involved.

«5aaere inj kidccxl a sprinkling of remarks unsympathetic toward Jews

SCTT* in the Charles Crane Mmemoirs . But this kind of thing mu st be put into

its historical perspective, in order to determine whether there were any

such prejudices in his mind as would vitiate his judgement on Middle

Eastern affairs.

It needs to be realized that in the early part of this century, "anti-

Semitic " remarks were so common - before the conscience of mankind

had been awakened to the full implications of such an attitude - as to pass

almost unnoticed and unreprehended. Even so liberal-minded and great­

hearted a person as Eleanor Roosevelt was capable of writing comments ffr ~tr. i». / ! f

ffi^,^HLprehe« b* c°pyght .aw reproduced or distrihT^H-^ may not be furth«»r authori^on o? the 5£J T°.Ut the sPeclf>c nSt tUti0n ArCh Ves Stanford,c\7l305%0r ' ' ' fc ., t -c^ And in this she was not alone. Her that today strike us as horrific. A»U biographer. Joseph Lash, himself a Jew. comments: "her antisemitism

. . . belonged to the world of Henry Adams and Spring-Rice [the British ambassador of the time], whose hostility to materialism and the new power of money was mingled with dislike of Jews. She had to go to a party given by Admiral Harris for Bernard M. Baruch [in 1919] 'which

I'd rather be hung than seen at, ' she complained to her mother-in-law; I

•mostly Jews.' Two days later she wrote: 'The Jew party [was] appal­ ling. I never wish to hear money, jewels and . . . sables mentioned again.' " (Lash, p. 914) Ea^4e-rHn-the--same paragraph, Lash-speaks

©f- har attitude toward-Foliy E-j^nkferteTrr^'an inteyestinf little-aaan—

±>ut very jewa " were—he^-cxacl words. Lash further quotes her as saying, as late as 1928, in regard to the prevalence of Jews in New York State politics: "Gosh! the race has nerves of iron and tentacles of steel! tt

(Lash, p. 323)4l have nowhere in the writings of CRC seen anything so virulent, nor do I remember his ever saying any such things orally.

It is further notable that such anti-Semitic tendency as may be found in CRC is not deep-seated -1 find no trace of it in his early letters, nor-do I rcmembei any CApi'ijfliun uf anil Dftiniliom in the Crane family

(fairing the time in quiLfllimi..|lfJ later, any niembei s of the family spoke an in^-drar-s^^y-ak^^ be-a-coiitanimation- to rm.<

picked up from the air of ^^Manies^heny srs I have shn3wnr-pe^ple_Df_

4he-ealibxe^n£4hooc just nieiittened-were-not ombarraaoodto oay cucb-things.1

law

authorization of tho ii^ZT \"!Er* ",e sPec»«c Stanford, S'SS^SST 'nSt,tUtion A">"™> u u s *. T **w* nr Jewish culture, the tone is perfectly When he happens to mention Jews or jewj.oi± # ited synagogues in Warsaw with interest netttral* or even admiring. He vis in 1894, ang even earlier than that he had known Polish Jews in Chicago^ ^^ from whom he took language lessons and with whom he read plays. (Letters) |

He was a great admirer of Adrfph Ochs, and an admirer and supporter of

L. D. Brandeis, who, incidentally, made the lejigal arrangements for the settlement between Charles Crane and his brother in 1914.

There does seem to be some antagonism building up in his mind at the time of the First World War. The prominent Jews in America at that time were mostly of German origin; hence many of them were pro-

German, or at least very much opposed to the entry of the United States into the War. But it is not until Charles Crane ran across Trotsky that there is much anti-Jewish feeling expressed in his Memoirs. During his early experiences in Russia, he had associated chiefly with the prosperous middle class and to some extent with the liberal aristocracy, so it was natural for him to be a supporter of the first, moderate phase of the Revo­ lution when he visited Russia in 1917, as a member of the Elihu Root Com­ mission. This Provisional Government was still supporting the Allied cause, and naturally the arrival of a "group of New York Jews, headedn by Trotsky" (Mem, p. 175), who were instrumental in taking Russia out —- ^ & of the War, was very upsetting to him. And of course because of his upper-class associations, he seems to have been unaware of the extent of the persecution of Jews in Russia, which so largely accounts for the radicalism of many Russian Jews.ft anti-Jewish bias to underlie the Some people have suspected an which was sent to the Middle East fact that the King-Crane Commission, by President Wilson in the spring of 1919, came out strqjpgly against Zion­ ism. But the fact is that both President King and Charles Crane approached the Middle East with a certain sympathy for Zionism in their hearts. Dr.

King was a Protestant theologian, and the Cranes were brought up Presby­ terians, so like many American "Old Testament Christians/ they sympathized with the aspiration of the Lord's People to return to the Ho^asd. Antonius confirms this opinion: "The commissioners devoted a good deal of space to an analysis of the Zionist problem. They described themselves as having begun their study of it with minds predisposed in its favor; but thacf the facts of the situation they had found in Palestine had driven them to recommend a limitation of Zionist ambitions. The statements made to them by Jewish representatives had convinced them that the Zionists looked forward to a practically complete dispossession of the non-Jewish inhabitants of Pales­ tine by various forms of purchase; and they expressed the opinion that such a consummation, even if it were achieved within the forms of law, would be a gross violation of the rights of the people and of the principles pro­ claimed by the Allies and by President Wilson. " (p. 297) Indeed, anyone visiting Palestine in 1919 (with President Wilson's principle of self-deter­ mination in the forefront of his mind) could hardly come to any other con­ clusion after speaking to the native peoples, who were overwhelming of

Arab descent, whether they were Moslem or Christian. Nationalism was in the air. and it was only with reluctance that the former subjects of the

Turkish Empire could accept any kind of control or infiltration by other nationalities. ^r!lX^ailpro,*w by copyri°ht *» CO y may not be fu reproduUd or distrih„^!. W th? Ut the *her authori««on o?thh e KH Ver |,nstitu°. **>*<**o Stanford, C^%% 5% 0°1°0 «°n Archives, t t i o+»nt impression that a fondness for the Moslem To balance any persistent imp1 c ;m to the Jews as a people, I should world necessarily implies an antagoni , vwio vionette that appears in the Crane Mem­ like to quote here a charming little vignette mat <*PF oirs, at the very point where CRC was travelling through the Balkans on his way to take up his duties as a member of the Middle East Commission.

He had stopped in Rustchuk, just to look around: "In the streets there I ran across a little group of beautiful black-eyed children on the way to school. I walked along with them and found a delightful little place for serious study with about fifty children. The language was not Turkish or

Bulgarian, but Spanish. As I was the first visitor to the synagogue since the war they gave me a warm welcome. They wanted of course to know all about the Jewish world and asked particularly to hear about Justice

Brandeis. " (p. 230) Concerning Brandeis, he must have had much to say, for, as a result of his close acquaintance with him as a man and a lawyer, he was one of the strongest supporters of the Brandeis appointment to the

Supreme Court.

Over and over again in his letters and Memoirs one encounters such little pictures that had remained in his memory over many years —for the •i+e. laftt- ije.*4-s df-A** lift. Memoirs were dictated by him in hio later years. He was particularly captivated by isolated groups of peoples of most various backgrounds who had maintained their own culture and tradition against the flattening influence of modern civilization. It was this kind of human interest that kept his en- thusiasm for travel alive throughout his life. When it finaUy p ecame lm- possible for him to travel, he settled down to a life of leisure, in Woods Hole. I

family and a paternal interest in the Marine MassuefcottGj where he had much

I Biologica!->. i • lIT LaboratoryU 4. ; *\in NeAT^xwf YorvnrKk iwn thy*ev fall and springr ®#, to keep his finger

on the pulse of the nationi and in Palm Springs in the winter, near his

plantation of rare and valuable dates, the cuttings of which he had acquired

in Egypt some years earlier. The infirmities of age began to be a burden

to him there. The last words he is reported to have uttered were to his

faithful manservant, Johnson, who had accompanied him on many of his

far-ranging expeditions: "Johnson, come here, I have something to tell

you.' Johnson came, and the dying man whispered to him: "Never grow

old, Johnson, never grow old. I

reproduced or disXbnfi,. ?y may not be furthe? * authorization ASSSSSS? *he ***^ Stanford, CA 94305-60™' ,nst,tu«°n Archives,