CHARLES RICHARD CRANE Ulysses from Chicago (1858
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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.