(ISSN 0043-6534) WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY

The State Historical Society of Wisconsin • Vol. 67, No. 2 • Winter, 1983—1984

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ii£Sli&i •&fti THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN RICHARD A. ERNEY, Director Officers WILLIAM C. KIDD, President WILSON B. THIEDE, Treasurer NEWELL G. MEYER, First Vice-President RICHARD A. ERNEY, Secretary MRS. L. PRENTICE EAGER, JR., Second Vice-President

THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN is both a state agency and a private membership organization. Founded in 1846-two years before statehood-and chartered in 1853, it is the oldest American historical society to receive continuous public funding. By statute, it is charged with collecting, advancing, and disseminating knowledge of Wisconsin and of the trans-Allegheny West. The Society serves as the archive of the State of Wisconsin; it collects all manner of books, periodicals, maps, manuscripts, relics, newspapers, and aural and graphic materials as they relate to North America; it maintains a museum, library, and research facility in Madison as well as a statewide system of historic sites, school services, area research centers, and affiliated local societies; it administers a broad program of historic preservation; and publishes a wide variety of historical materials, both scholarly and popular.

MEMBERSHIP in the Society is open to the public. Annual membership is |15, or $12.50 for persons over 65 or members of affiliated societies. Family membership is $20, or |15 for persons over 65 or members of affiliated societies. Contributing membership is |50; supporting, $100; sustaining, $200-500; patron, $500 or more. THE SOCIETY is governed by a Board of Curators which includes, ex officio, the Governor (or his designee) and three citizens appointed by the Governor with the approval ofthe Senate; the Speaker ofthe Assembly and the President ofthe Senate, or a member from the majority party and a member from the minority party from each house designated by them; the President of the University of Wisconsin, the President of the Friends of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, the President of the Wisconsin History Foundation, Inc., and the Chairman ofthe Administrative Committee ofthe Wisconsin Council for Local History. The other twenty-four members of the Board of Curators are elected by the membership. A complete listing of the Curators appears inside the back cover. NOTE: The Board of Curators will be reduced from thirty-six to twenty-four members on or before the annual meeting in 1986.

The Society is headquartered at 816 State Street, Madison, Wisconsin 53706, at the juncture of State and Park streets on the University of Wisconsin campus. A partial listing of phone numbers (Area Code 608) follows:

General Administration 262-3266 Library circulation desk 262-3421 General information 262-3271 Maps 262-5867 Affiliated local societies 262-2316 Membership 262-9613 Archives reading room 262-3338 Microforms reading room 262-9621 Contribution of manuscript materials 262-3248 Museum tours 262-2704 Editorial offices 262-9603 Newspapers reference 262-9584 Film collections 262-058.5 Picture and sound collections 262-9581 (ienealogical and general reference inquiries. . . .262-9590 Public information office 262-9606 Government publications and reference 262-2781 Sales desk 262-3271 Historic preservation 262-1339 School services 262-9567 Historic sites 262-3271 Speakers bureau 262-2704

ON THE COVER: John Lloyd Jones on his farm near Old Helena, with his wife and two unidentified young women, about 1907. Courtesy the Joseph Regenstein Library, Chicago. Volume 67, Number 2 / Winter, 1983-1984 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY (ISSN 0043-6534)

Published quarterly by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 816 State Street, Diplomat Among Kings: Madison, Wisconsin 53706. John Cudahy and Leopold III 83 Distributed to members as part oftheir dues. (Annual Timothy P. Maga membership, $15, or $12.50 for those over 65 or members of affiliated societies; family membership, $20, or $15 for Nicholas Murray Butler's those over 65 or members of 99 affiliated societies; contribut­ Crusade for a Warless World ing, $50; supporting, $100; C. F. Howlett sustaining, $200-500; patron, $500 or more.) Single num­ bers from Volume 57 forward are $2. Microhlmed copies Jenkin Lloyd Jones and available through University Microhlms, 300 North Zeeb "The Gospel ofthe Farm" 121 Road, Ann Arbor, Michigan ' Edited by Thomas E. Graham 48106; reprints of Volumes 1 through 20 and most issues of Volumes 21 through 56 are available from Kraus Reprint Company, Route 100, 149 Millwood, New York 10546. Book Reviews Communications should be addressed to the editor. The Book Review Index 154 Society does not assume re­ sponsibility for statements Wisconsin History Checklist 155 made by contributors. Second-class postage paid at Accessions 157 Madison, Wisconsin, and at additional mailing offices. Contributors 160 POSTMA.STER: Send address changes to Wisconsin Maga­ zine of History, Madison, Wis­ consin 53706. Copyright © 1984 by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin.

The Wisconsin Magazine of His­ tory is indexed annually by the editors; cumulative in­ dexes are assembled decenni­ ally. In addition, articles are abstracted and indexed in America: History and Life, His­ Editor torical Abstracts, Index to Litera­ ture on the American Indian, PAUL fi. LI ASS and the Combined Retrospective Index to Journals m History, Associate Editors 1858-1974. WILLIAM C. MARTEN JOHN O. tioLZHUETER MARILYN GRANT m 3

H. M. King Leopold III, who ruled Belgium from 1934 to 1951. 82 Diplomat Among Kings: John Cudahy and Leopold III

By Timothy P. Maga

f the many tragic questions Anna Cudahy's eight children to become in­ O raised by the Second World terested in Democratic party politics. War, few have been more discussed and less In 1908, shortly before his twenty-first completely understood than the question of birthday, Cudahy assisted in another of Bry­ whether or not King Leopold III of Belgium an's ill-fated attempts to win the presidency. betrayed his country and the Allies during the He considered it a great honor to work on be­ Nazi blitzkrieg of May, 1940. One Wiscon- half of his childhood hero. While making the sinite, John Cudahy, the American ambassa­ first political speech of his life, Cudahy dor to Belgium at the time of the invasion, stressed the point that Bryan represented a risked his diplomatic career and political fu­ special independent breed of politician, a man ture on the assumption that the Belgian mon­ unafraid "to stand for the principles of right arch was a patriot and innocent of all wrong­ and justice."'^ Independence of mind and de­ doing. Cudahy lost the gamble, fiis role in the votion to noble principles likewise became the surrender of Belgium to the Germans, his re­ legacies of the Cudahy political career. lationship with Leopold III, and his signific­ Whether as the losing candidate for ance in modern Belgian-American diplomacy lieutenant-governor of Wisconsin in 1916 or constitute an interesting and often poignant as ambassador to Poland, Ireland, and finally chapter in the history of that catastrophic Belgium during Franklin D. Roosevelt's ad­ spring of 1940. ministration, John Cudahy maintained his John Cudahy (1887-1943) is a complicated personal approach to politics. figure in both New Deal diplomacy and Wis­ Cudahy's participation in the First World consin Democratic politics. A millionaire War was another element which shaped his member of Milwaukee's famous Cudahy perception of politics as well as diplomacy. meat-packing family, he was also a successful During the war, the Milwaukeean served in lawyer, big-game hunter, explorer, and au­ the army's Eighty-Fifth Division as a first lieu­ thor. Attracted by the populist oratory of Wil­ tenant, and was later promoted to the rank of liam Jennings Bryan during Bryan's unsuc­ captain. The high point of his military service cessful 1896 Democratic presidential came in late 1918 when he became part ofthe campaign, Cudahy liked to tell his friends that American expeditionary force in North Rus­ he had become a E)emocrat at the age of nine.' sia, fighting against the Bolsheviks. America's Indeed, he was the only one of Patrick and presence there was a controversial one. The British and the French had requested the as-

'"John Cudahy," in The Magazine of Sigma Chi (Septem­ ber, 1943), 100, box 1 of thejohn Cudahy Papers, State ^Stump speech, summer, 1908, box 2 ofthe John (AI- Historical Society of Wisconsin (hereinafter cited as JCP- dahy Papers, Milwaukee County Historical Society (here­ SHSW). inafter cited as JC;P). Copyright © 1984 by The State Historical Society of Wisconsin 83 All riglits of reproduction in any form reserved WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1983-1984

John Cudahy (light suit) dining aboard ship sistance of the United States to defend their I experiences soured him, and he avoided pol­ interests against the new communist regime. itics. His primary interests became hunting Furthermore, the State Department was con­ and exploring on behalf of the Milwaukee cerned about the growing Japanese presence Public Museum. in the area. For a number of American vet­ Cudahy's interest in Democratic politics erans, the Russian campaign was a waste of made him something of a black sheep in his time and lives. To Cudahy, it symbolized the family. While his brothers remained associ­ recklessness of presidential power, as well as ated with the meat-packing industry, the fu­ the need to stress negotiations and peace over ture ambassador considered himself destined interventionism and war.'^ for greater things. Moreover, he had little in­ Upon returning to what he called his "gen­ terest in the ruthless ethics of big business. Ac­ tleman's estate" in Milwaukee, Cudahy pub­ cording to Cudahy, the educated and wealthy lished a scathing indictment of President elite possessed a certain responsibility to uplift Woodrow Wilson's Russian adventure. Using and enlighten the common man. Especially the pseudonym "A Chronicler," Cudahy de­ during the 1920's, the Republican party ap­ manded in his book Archangel: The American peared to represent the best interests of the War with Russia that future policy-makers be business class alone, renouncing all direct gov­ humanists, always acting in the name of peace­ ernment intervention on behalf of the labor­ ful progress.^ For a time, Cudahy's World War ing classes. Indeed, Cudahy's rejection of this approach to politics made him suspect among ^The best source on ."Xmerica's intervention in Russia his relatives who, although they remained po­ remains George F. Kennan, The Decision to Intervene litically passive, at least voted for conservative (Princeton, 1958). For Cudahy's position, see John C^u- Republican candidates. Throughout the dahy to Michael Cudahy, March 18, April 2, Mav 16, 1920's, Cudahy's adventures in hunting and 1919, box 1,JCP. exploring came as a distinct relief to the Cu­ ••A Chronicler [John C^udahv], Archangel: The American WarWithRussia (Chicago, 1924), 1-5, 2ll-216. dahy clan. It appeared to them that his wan-

84 MAGA: JOHN CUDAHY AND LEOPOLD III derings into the political wilderness were over. Cudahy's African safaris of the 1920's, however, were simply an interlude between political crusades. To him, these overseas ad­ ventures constituted a personal approach to political reflection, not an escape from his po­ litical past. He would emerge from the African bushland more committed than ever to hu­ manist politics. For example, one ofthe major objectives of the safaris concerned Cudahy's desire to better the average Wisconsinite's knowledge of zoological and anthropological matters. Ofthe over three hundred mammal specimens that his expedititm "bagged" for the Milwaukee Public Museum, forty of them were shot by Cudahy personally. The speci­ mens included rare birds, antelope, and even elephants that were not displayed elsewhere, helping to make the Milwaukee Public Mu­ seum one ofthe most significant institutions of its kind in the late I920's.^

UDAHY returned home to a c country plunged deep in eco­ nomic chaos. The Great Depression had be­ gun. With deep conviction, he believed that the Democratic party deserved to win both the Congress and the White House after a decade of Republican rule. Only the Democrats, as he told anyone who would listen, could rescue the "Brussels: The passive defense done by the population." The pho­ common man from misery or even death. The tographs illustrating this article were selected from thejohn Cu­ Wisconsin Democrats, largely moribund since dahy collection in the Milwaukee County Historical Society. The the 1890's, enjoyed a brief resurgence as the captions are translations by Isabelle Vermeulen from the French written on the reverse ofthe original photographs. economy foundered and the Hoover admin­ istration in Washington failed to cope with the hard times. Beginning in 1930, Cudahy cam­ paigned vigorously for Wisconsin Democratic wide Roosevelt campaign organization. In candidates, stressing anti-Prohibition con­ 1933, thanks to Duffy's personal interven­ cerns such as the need to reopen the "booze in­ tions, the support of the largely Democratic dustry" in Wisconsin for the purpose of em­ Polish-American community in Milwaukee, ploying the unemployed. He became one of and President Roosevelt's expression of grati­ the first Wisconsin politicians to endorse the tude for his excellent showing in Wisconsin, presidential aspirations of Franklin Roosevelt, Cudahy was rewarded with an ambassadorial the governor of New York. Together with F. post to Poland.'' Ryan Duffy, a Wisconsin Senator and an old Before this diplomatic appointment was friend, the two men led an early grassroots announced, Cudahy's friends in the Wiscon- campaign effort on behalf of Roosevelt which only later, after the New York governor be­ ^Cudahy to Colonel Edward M. House, September 15, came an active candidate, joined the nation- 1933. For a brief look at Cudahy's role in the 1932 cam­ paign as well as a summary of his life, see the only second­ ary source devoted to him: Sharon M. Mailman, "Milwau­ "For Cudahy's adventures in Africa and the Cudahy kee's John Cudahy," in the Historical Messenger of the family's reaction, see John Cudahy, African Horizons (New Milwaukee County Historical Society, 32:70-87 (Autumn, York, 1930). 1976). 85 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1983-1984 sin Democratic party had hoped to position and former Roosevelt campaign organizer, him as a candidate for office, perhaps as mayor Cudahy had little difficulty achieving this of Milwaukee, or governor of Wisconsin, or transfer. Once in Dublin, however, Cudahy even United States Senator. The position ap­ found his new assignment quiet and dull. In peared flexible, but the party temporarily Germany, the Nazi Fuehrer, Adolf Hitler, found this adventurous millionaire an attrac­ threatened another world war. Diplomatic tive candidate. Despite his opinions on elitist tensions were high across continental Europe. responsibility to the less fortunate classes, Cu­ Cudahy began to feel exiled from this activity, dahy had mixed feelings about holding politi­ and it appeared unlikely that he could achieve cal office himself. Apparently, he now prefer­ yet another transfer of posts.*^ In the mean­ red to assist others to achieve political prestige, time, he strongly supported Irish neutrality, for in the future he consistently frustrated and his political interests turned to ideological those who wished to campaign for him. The problems, namely the position of the real focus of Cudahy's interest in politics re­ Roosevelt administration on world affairs. mained his quest for peace. From Cudahy's By 1938, Rooseveltbelieved that the United point of view, a tireless campaign on behalf of States might have to abandon its seventeen- a Roosevelt presidency was necessary for the year policy of isolation from global difficulties. future of mankind. The Milwaukeean's sin­ A more interventionist posture was needed, cere concern for a peaceful world and his lack he concluded, in order to rescue the remain­ of personal political ambition combined to ing democratic states from fascism. Bowing to make him a potentially great diplomat. What the electorate's strong isolationist sentiments, Cudahy failed to learn during this period of the President maintained a cautious stance on political apprenticeship was that good ideo­ interventionism. Cudahy felt that an interven­ logical intentions and practical politics often tionist posture would only lead to Wilsonian conflict. His education in this area began adventures, like the Russian campaign, and slowly. the ignoring of peaceful negotiations. As Eu­ While in Warsaw, Cudahy proved to be an rope moved closer to war and Roosevelt's adequate spokesman for the new Democratic statements became more aggressive, Cudahy administration, urging the Polish government began to support his friend. Ambassador Ken­ to resolve its differences with Nazi Germany in nedy, in his defense of Britain's appeasement a peaceful fashion. Indeed, he took credit for approach to Nazi conquests. After the out­ Poland's strong stance on disarmament dur­ break of war in September, 1939, Cudahy con­ ing the European disarmament discussions of templated whether or not he should join one the mid-1930's. Cudahy's only real difhculties of tbe several political pressure groups that in Poland involved his tendency to speak more favored the continuation of United States on behalf of his own formula for peace than neutrality and isolationism.'^ But before he on his superiors'. He called for a swifter dis­ arming of Europe than Roosevelt preferred; ''Cudahy to Roosevelt, December 15, 1937, January 22, but this argument soon became academic and March 1, 1938, in box 1, CP-SHSW; Roosevelt'to Cudahy, February 9, 1938, Cudahy to Secretary of State Cordell Hull, did not lead to any serious problems in his new February 26, 1938, Cudahy to Joseph Kennedy, March 1, foreign service career.' 1938, and Cudahy to Roosevelt, April 6, 1938, all in box 1, In 1933, Cudahy had sought an assignment JCP. to the Irish Free State, his favorite foreign na­ 'Roosevelt's attempts to alert the nation to the fascist threat remains a popular topic for American diplomatic tion, rather than to Poland. Four years later, historians. For a basic outline of Roosevelt's involvement his wish was granted. With the assistance of in the interventionist versus isolationist debate, see, for in­ fellow Irish-Americans and friends such as Jo­ stance, Robert Divine, The Illusion of Neutrality (CJhicago, seph Kennedy, the ambassador to Great Brit­ 1962), 229-335, and the final chapter of William E. Kin- sella. Leadership in Isolation: FDR and the Origins of the Sec­ ain, and James Farley, the Postmaster General ond World War {Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1978). For Cu­ dahy's views on foreign affairs while in Dublin, see "Cudahy to Judge F. Ryan Duffy, December 29, 1933, Cudahy to House, September 21, 1937, Cudahy to R. Cudahy to House, March 12, April 24, October 19, 1934, Walton Moore, counselor of the Department of State, Cudahy to Duffy, October 22, 1935, Cudahy to President April 7, 1938, James Farley to Cudahy, September 15, Franklin Roosevelt, December 27, 1935, and Ambassado­ 1939, and Cudahy to Charles Broughton, October 23, rial Memorandums, February 13 and March 20, 1936, all 1939, all in box 1, JCP; also Cudahy's speech on Irish radio, inboxEJCP. February 22, 1938', box 2, ibid..

86 Courtesy the Milwaukee County Historical Society "Tournai." reached a decision in this matter, his long­ Ireland, Ambassador Cudahy was able to standing request for a transfer was granted. In avoid direct association with this squabble, January, I940, he arrived at his new ambassa­ which resulted in Kennedy's bitter resignation dorial post in neutral Belgium. in November, 1940. Nevertheless, the new Cudahy's friendship with Joseph Kennedy ambassador to Belgium was soon to win an had almost resulted in a liability with regard to equal share of animosity from the White the White House. Much as Roosevelt admired House. Kennedy's fine reports on London's attempts to appease Hitler's demands for greater au­ thority in European affairs, he disliked his am­ bassador's growing identification with British HEN Cudahy arrived in Brus­ policy. Kennedy's views were a matter of pub­ w sels, the Western Front was lic record, especially in England. They ap­ stable. Following Hitler's lightning-like con­ peared in opposition to the President's desire quest of Poland, there had been only sporadic to awaken the American electorate to the fas­ and limited military engagements along Ger­ cist threat and the need to arm against it. many's western borders. Each belligerent had Moreover, the personalities of these two East its own colorful name for this quiet period; in Coast politicians clashed. Roosevelt doubted English, it was simply known as the Phony Kennedy's allegiance to the New Deal, while War. In some instances, the Western demo­ Kennedy feared that the President's domestic cratic press criticized the Allies for their ap­ program had become too liberal and that his parent contentment with this situation, often foreign policy might lead to war. There urging France and Great Britain to undertake seemed to be no room for compromise. dramatic offensives against Hitler before the Largely because of his timely transfer from war developed into bloody, static fronts remi-

87 t ourtcsv llie Mihiiuikrr Cmuil "Louvain: The brown library, destroyed m 1914, rebuilt after the war, was again burned, llie two wmgs are completely destroyed. Only the tower stayed the .same; the balcony was a favorite place for writers." niscent ofthe First World War. While the Na­ man blitzkrieg to the Atlantic coast would zis prosecuted their war against Poland in the most certainly involve that country. He prom­ east, such journalistic opinion stressed, the Al­ ised to do his best to save the Belgians.'" From lies could strike at Hitler's back door. This the­ the very first day of work at his new post, Cu­ ory, however, did not enjoy significant popu­ dahy learned that he would have little time to lar support, nor was it part of the Allied contemplate ideological difficulties or debate military strategy. Indeed, the Western Euro­ points of policy with his friends. In contrast to pean democratic governments planned to re­ Poland and especially Ireland, the ambassa­ main on the defensive, hoping that perhaps dor's work schedule in Belgium was full and Hitler might have a change of heart once the exhausting. Meanwhile, he was forced to lead situation in Eastern Europe had been stabi­ a spartan existence. The ambassador's resi­ lized. It was an unrealistic hope, but to varying dence in Brussels was a substandard one, as degrees all of the Allied governments feared diplomatic accommodations went." Cudahy's the inevitable clash with Hitler's war machine, elitist tastes in "gentlemanly" living were com­ particularly after the rapid destruction of the promised, but he made few complaints. Polish armed forces. Hopes for peace were With diplomatic duties occupying all of his quite naturally more comforting than the pos­ time, Cudahy temporarily divorced himself sibilities of defeat. In the meantime, Belgium from the 1940 presidential campaign. James and the Allies waited for the Nazi invasion.

Belgium, as Cudahy wrote the President, '"Cudahy to Roosevelt, January 25, 1940, box l.JCP. was the crossroads of Western Europe. A Ger­ "Cudahy to Dufify, January 24, 1940, ibid. MAGA: JOHN CUDAHY AND LEOPOLD III

Farley, a weak presidential hopeful, expected Roosevelt's foreign policy. He had demon­ an endorsement from his friend, the ambassa­ strated this approach with only minor difficul­ dor to Belgium. This did not occur. Such an ties in Poland and Ireland, d'he Belgian expe­ endorsement, Cudahy concluded, might con­ rience was to prove a different matter. fuse the Belgian government and alienate him Leopold III was a controversial monarch, forever from the Roosevelt administration. and Cudahy quickly became part of that con­ The Milwaukeean attempted to avoid partisan troversy. The thirty-three-year-old Belgian disputes, despite his doubts about Roosevelt's ruler had succeeded his father, Albert I, only third term and the direction of his foreign pol­ five years before the outbreak of the Second icy.'^ World War. His coming to power was viewed One of the major reasons for Cudahy's re­ with skepticism by many Belgians. A man of treat from partisan politics involved the ruling limited intelligence and ambitions, Leopold at monarch of Belgium, Leopold III. On Janu­ first publicly rejected the idea of becoming an ary 17, 1940, after two days of delays, Cudahy influential leader. He did not see himself in was finally permitted to present his credentials the same role as his powerful forefathers, such to the young King. It was an unusual cere­ as Leopold II, founder ofthe Belgian empire; mony, devoid of the pomp and grace that ac­ he preferred that the Parliament, namely Paul companied official diplomatic receptions. Cu­ van Zeeland, argue points of policy. During dahy was greeted first by a tired-looking 1935, Leopold became even more steadfast in group of Belgian army officers, who in turn in­ this approach to government following the troduced the monarch. Leopold III presented death of his wife, Princess Astrid of Sweden, in a favorable impression that Cudahy never for­ an automobile accident. He devoted most of got. the time to his three children.'"' According to the ambassador, the King's In 1936, Leopold's opinions on the proper friendliness towards him seemed genuine. role of a monarch began to shift. The motiva­ Leopold complimented Cudahy on his inter­ tion behind this change of heart stemmed ests in peace and praised Roosevelt for his sim­ from the growth of the Rexist or fascist party ilar interests and strong desires for a more hu­ throughout the nation. Belgium's fascists manitarian world. Together, Leopold promised to destroy not only the Parliament suggested, the American ambassador and the but the monarchy as well. In addition to this Belgian government might spare the nation problem of domestic security, Hitler's remili­ from the ravages of war. The specific means of tarization of the Rhineland in 1936 suggested achieving this were unclear; however, Cudahy that Leopold's countrymen were also threat­ shared the same goal and appreciated the ened by their fascist neighbors. Van Zeeland King's warm gesture.'•' Consequently, in the and van Cauwelaert demanded a united dem­ hope of winning the peace, Cudahy decided to ocratic front in Belgium to oppose these fascist remain on the good side of the Roosevelt ad­ threats. Consequently, they solicited the ministration while assisting Leopold and the King's active support in this endeavor, and he Belgians all he could. agreed. Cudahy's approach to politics and diplo­ With Britain and France pursuing a policy macy in Brussels did not necessarily conflict of appeasement to Nazi aggression, Leopold with his ideas on personal independence. The and the parliamentary ministers decided that ambassador believed that a government rep­ the only realistic policy for Belgium to pursue resentative abroad had the moral responsibil­ remained a neutral one. The King considered ity to advise his host country on the best policy this a logical conclusion, since Belgium had for peace.'* Ideally, this responsibility could traditionally maintained such a policy during be accomplished without contravening previous European crises and conflicts. The political benefits of neutrality, Leopold '^Cudahy to Dulfy, January 26, 1940, and (kidahy to Farley, February 14 and March 5, 1940, ibid. hoped, would be great. The Rexists might be '•'John Cudahy, The Case for the King of the Belgians quieted and political civil violence avoided if (New York, 1940), 1-16. This thirly-four-page booklet Belgium remained outside the Allied camp. was published by Cudahy himself following his return from Belgium. '^For a general review of Leopold's early years as King, '"•Cudahy to Duffy, October 22, 1935, and Cudahy to see the opening chapter of Robert Aron, Leopold III ou le Roosevelt, January 25, 1940, box 1,JC;P. chotx impossible fP'Aris, 1977). 89 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1983-1984

Moreover, Hitler might be less tempted to in­ The Germans quickly followed suit with a vade Belgium, knowing that the country had written pledge of their own. Hitler promised rejected any pro-Allied posture. never to invade Belgium and scoffed at the The dangers of neutrality were of course fact that Leopold still sought Allied protec­ apparent. During the First World War, Ger­ tors. Few Belgians believed his promise."^ many had violated Belgium's neutrality, using The atmosphere of fear and confusion still the tiny nation as an invasion route to France. existed nearly three years later when Cudahy Memories of the harsh German occupation arrived in Brussels. During the first month of were still fresh for most Belgians. Like many his assignment, the entire nation was on full of his subjects, Leopold began to worry that military alert. A massive invasion was ex­ neutrality might be only a temporary conven­ pected within days. The King's military intelli­ ience. Meanwhile the Belgian fascists argued gence officers based their expectations on that the government had not severed eco­ front-line rumors. When the information was nomic ties with the Allies, and that because of found to be false, a feeling of confidence swept these connections, Belgium's neutrality was a the nation. Since Belgium had been spared ruse. Indeed, Belgium remained economi­ from attack thus far, it was widely hoped that cally interdependent on the AUied nations and this good fortune might continue.'' the similarly neutral United States. Cudahy considered the new wave of con­ fidence misleading, and had little faith in Bel­ gian neutrality. It was this opinion that Cu­ dahy first impressed upon Leopold. N 1937, Leopold, this time with the According to the ambassador, the onus was on I Belgian Parliament strongly sup­ Britain and France to rescue Belgium from a porting his own initiative, decided to cultivate the Allied relationship. The British and the French agreed with the Belgian govern­ "'Belgium's neutrality decision and the diplomadc ment that coming to the aid of Belgium once it problems related to it is the major focus of David Owen Knight's Belgium's Return to Neutrality: An Essay in the Frus­ was attacked remained in the best interests of trations of Small Power DifAomacy (Oxiord, England, 1972), the Allies. They signed a pledge to that effect. 185-188.

"Tournai." Courtesy the Milwaukee County Historical Society MAGA; JOHN CUDAHY AND LEOPOLD III

Nazi invasion. He suggested to Leopold that Thrust onto the scene at an unfortunate time, the King must take a vigorous stance on behalf with little wisdom and less power to guide him, of Belgium and somehow force the British the Belgian King was representative of the and the French to reinforce their pledge to post-Great War generation and its disgust for Belgium before it was too late.'^ This, Cu­ war. Like John Cudahy, he found it extremely dahy concluded, was the best policy for peace. difficult to cope with a world society grown in­ The ambassador's strong words avoided creasingly aggressive and inhumane. The fu­ any direct American involvement in the mat­ ture offered little solace for him. ter. Cudahy believed that the Roosevelt ad­ In a desperate and probably hopeless ministration had a moral responsibility to see effort, Leopold courted the United States. He that its friends, Britain and France, followed began to dispute the idea that a strong Allied through on their commitments to America's presence in neutral Belgium would spur a "fellow neutral," but that further intervention German attack. Moreover, he now shared his in the problem was unnecessary.'^ Cudahy's ideas on defense with the American ambassa­ interpretation of the Belgian situation was dor, and but rarely with his own unreceptive uniquely his own. Apparently, he expected his Parliament.^' As Cudahy suggested, Ameri­ superiors in the foreign service to be in con­ can influence on Britain and France might be stant contact with the French and British gov­ the key to a successful defense. In March, ernments vis-a-vis Belgian affairs. This never 1940, the King enjoyed the opportunity to dis­ occurred. Roosevelt had little desire to preach cuss the issue with Sumner Welles, the Ameri­ military strategy to the Allies. He supported can undersecretary of state, who was on a spe­ the British and French view that an immediate cial diplomatic mission to Europe, mainly to Allied march into Belgium would make a survey the strength of democratic resistance to mockery of the concept of neutrality, and Hitler. Originally, he had no intention of visit­ would only invite a Nazi invasion.^" But after ing Belgium and the neutral states. Cudahy over three years of contemplating the perils of lodged a series of complaints with the State neutrality, King Leopold welcomed Cudahy's Department, arguing that Welles's mission blunt advice, crediting the ambassador for the would not be complete unless he met with the personal appeals that he now planned to leaders of all the European democracies.''^^ His make. complaining won results. In many respects, Leopold and Cudahy Welles listened to King Leopold, but made had similar personalities. Both harbored a sin­ no promises. On the other hand, the under­ cere desire for peace, but remained unsure as secretary's suggestion of a peace conference to the proper policy to achieve that goal. Both fell on deaf ears. It was too late for talks, the were minor figures caught in the middle ofthe King said.^^ Meanwhile, Belgium and its larger struggle of fascism versus democracy. It neighboring countries were gripped by unu­ remained unlikely that the United States sual midwinter conditions, including heavy would rush to the assistance of Belgium once snowfall and intense cold. An invasion in the Nazi invasion began. A German assault on March or even April appeared unlikely. This Britain, on the other hand, might elicit a dif­ would give Leopold time to appeal to the Pres­ ferent American response. Leopold sus­ ident, either on his own or through Cudahy. pected that his small nation was considered ex­ Welles had given the impression that he had pendable in the coming struggle. Although he visited Belgium as a polite afterthought fol­ refused to accept a defeatist posture until days lowing agreements with the British and the after the invasion, Leopold's commitment to French on wartime priorities. military defense was never enthusiastic. France and Britain's strategy for the West­ ern Front was a defensive one. The Maginot "Cudahy to Moore, February 14, 1940, box 1,JCP. '"Cudahy to Roosevelt, January 25, 1940, ibid. ^'Leopold's relationship with Parliament deteriorated '^sCudahy, Case for the King, 19-23; Cudahy to over defense issues in 1940. See Aron, Le choix impossible, Roosevelt, March 29, 1940, box 1, JCP. chapter 2. ^"The Position of Belgium (State Department memo­ ^^Cudahy to Moore and Farley, February 14, 1940, randum), March, 1940, Official File 3186, Franklin D. box 1, JCP. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, New York (hereinafter ^•'Welles to Roosevelt, Report on a Mission (Belgium), cited as FDRL). March, 1940, President's Secretary File, FDRL. 91 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1983-1984

Line, a recently built system of fixed fortifica­ the French. It appeared to guarantee the na­ tions on the eastern frontiers of France, was tion's security. In reality, however, its de­ expected to thwart any Nazi advance— fenders worried that they could not withstand provided of course that it was similar to the a heavy and extended assault without massive German invasion of I9I4. The Ardennes re­ Allied assistance. gion of northern France and southeastern Bel­ During the early spring of 1940, the rela­ gium remained the weakest point on the West­ tionship between King Leopold and John Cu­ ern Front, since both the Allied and Belgian dahy developed into a warm personal friend­ High Commands agreed that the area's hilly, ship. The two men were often inseparable. heavily wooded terrain was impenetrable by Many oftheir discussions on policy took place German armor.'^^ during private hunting expeditions. Both of them had a passion for hunting, and the war did not interfere with their pursuit of game.-'' At the same time, Cudahy's relationship with ELGIUM was significant to both the Roosevelt administration cooled. The Bel­ B Allied and Nazi military strate­ gians, he wrote Roosevelt on behalf of the gists. To the Allies, Belgium was essentially a King, were willing to defend themselves from buffer zone, protecting the reserve of the the Nazi invaders; but they could never rejjel French and British armies from the initial them, he stressed, if the President failed to German thrust. In short. Allied commanders pressure the Allies into a large and immediate hoped to stop the German advance in Belgium defensive operation in Belgium. America, the before it reached French soil. It was, from the ambassador noted, was still highly respected point of view of the Belgian General Staff, a in Belgium; however, he refused to predict selfish plan to spare France the misfortunes of how long this opinion might last.2" combat; and technically this was correct. The As a gesture of good faith to the Belgian Germans, on the other hand, saw Belgium as people, Cudahy recommended that the an area that could be easily traversed by dar­ United States reject its strict policy of immi­ ing tank columns. Consequently, the Allied gration quotas and accept some of the several fixed defenses could be quickly breached and thousand German and Eastern European ref­ a dash to the Atlantic coast launched, splitting ugees present in Belgium. Such a gesture the Allied forces as well as creating chaos would relieve the Belgian government of a se­ among the enemy's reserves. ries of economic and political problems as well Although they were concerned that Bel­ as demonstrate America's humanitarian con­ gium could eventually be overwhelmed by su­ cern for the plight of helpless people. To perior German forces, Leopold's generals also prove his point, the ambassador sponsored believed in the entrenched defensive line.''^" the immigration to Milwaukee of a twenty- Belgium's first and toughest line of defense two-year-old refugee, Irena Bninski (and was the Albert Canal, a narrow waterway eventually also her father, Konstanty which paralleled the Dutch frontier a few Bninski), paying their passage out of his own miles from the border and extended from salary.^** Antwerp east to the River Meuse. The Bel­ Roosevelt disapproved of the gesture. Im­ gians called it the Iron Wall, for along the wa­ migration was a controversial political issue in ter's edge stood a Maginot Line-type system of the United States, and the government de­ fixed fortifications, including artillery posts, fended the immigration quota. Roosevelt steel tank barriers, and machine-gun nests. wanted no complications to his third-term Built quickly and at tremendous expense, the campaign.^^ Cudahy found this position dis- Albert Canal held as much symbolic meaning for the Belgians as the Maginot Line did for *For instance, one of their major discussions on Bel­ gium's position in Europe took place during a hastily ar­ -^The defensive mentality of the Allies between the ranged hunt. Leopold HI to Cudahy and (Aidahv to wars has been heavily criticized by historians and otheis Leopold III, Maixh 6, 1940, box 1, JCP. since 1940. One ofthe more prominent critics is a former "Cudahy to Roosevelt, March 29, 1940, ibid. member of the French General Stati, General Andre ^^'Cudahy to Lawrence Steinhardt, American Ambas­ Beaufre. See his 1940: The Fall of France (New York, sador to the Soviet Union, March 28, 1940, ibid. 1968),39-40, 60, 165. ^•'Roosevelt reviews his negative decision on refugee ''•'Ibid., 166, 192. admittances from Belgium and elsewhere in Roosevelt to 92 MAGA: JOHN CUDAHY AND LEOPOLD III

%

I .Jt

e r V*'

Courtesv the Miluaukee Counts Histoi ical Sotiet\ "Tournai: Only the cathedral with the five towers stayed the same in the middle of town. The town center was all destroyed. One side ofthe cathedral has been hit a little." heartening. He worried that the Roosevelt nearly 700,000 men at the time of attack to administration had not only abandoned Bel­ help man the Albert Canal and rear area de­ gium but also its much-touted interests in hu­ fenses. British and French army units would manitarian issues. Indeed, by April, 1940, Cu­ then rush to their assistance. By April 2, 1940, dahy himself felt abandoned, a representative Leopold had already contradicted Plan D by of an administration that he no longer recog­ beginning the full mobilization process. He re­ nized. Writing to his wife in Milwaukee, he ceived no protests from the Germans or the predicted a quick Nazi occupation of Belgium Allies. But of the 700,000 men in arms, only after the spring thaw. Hopes for peace were 17,000 were considered well-trained and well- meaningless, he wrote, and life in the diplo­ equipped. Moreover, effective air support matic corps no longer suited him. He prom­ would have to be provided by the British and ised her a summer reunion and a quiet life in the French. Wisconsin.^" Together, the Allies and the Belgians faced Cudahy's last major project as ambassador seventy-two German divisions containing before the German onslaught was to supervise more than 1.5 million men, many of them vet­ a thorough report on the political and military erans of the Polish campaign. Given a quick situation of Belgium. It was to serve as a hand­ and successful linkup of Belgian and Allied book for the White House and the State De­ troops, the Cudahy report estimated, the Bel­ partment on how to respond to a Nazi invasion gians could stem the German advance for a of that country. Cudahy painted a dim pic­ maximum often days. Occupation, therefore, ture. According to Plan D of the Allied and was a likely event, unless thousands of Allied Belgian forces, Leopold would mobilize troops were positioned immediately alongside the Belgian defense forces. Further planning along these lines, the report concluded, might Harold Ickes, Secretary ofthe Interior, ,\ugust 13, 1940, prevent a Nazi victory. As always, Cudahy Official File 3186-3, FDRL. "John Cudahv to Katherine Cudahy, April 2, 1940, maintained that the one crucial factor that box i,JCP. could push the Allies immediately into Bel- 93 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1983-1984 gium was the United States government. (He when the air raid began; he had just met the recommended no American military inter­ King to discuss the latest disturbing reports on vention once the invasion had begun, for this the massing of German forces near the bor­ assistance would come too late.)-" der. The American Embassy was not hit by the Cudahy's report was easily ignored. The bombs, but the surrounding buildings were Allies remained content with their defense severely damaged, including the German Em­ plans, and Roosevelt's position also remained bassy. Cudahy was frightened and became firm. The President still had no desire to insti­ nauseated during the attack, and he tempo­ gate an invasion, nor to interfere with long­ rarily lost his hearing because of nearby explo­ standing Allied strategies either before or af'- sions.'^'' ter the invasion commenced.'-^ The Albert Canal fell to the invaders in a The ambassador's report had been top se­ matter of hours. Most of the organized Bel­ cret. Consequently, he was outraged when the gian forces retreated to a secondary system of State Department released several pages of it fortifications forty miles behind the shattered to the press in America. With some anger, Cu­ Iron Wall. It was there that they joined the dahy complained to Roosevelt about the leak, main body of the British and French troops, noting that the press was now spreading scur­ who were just then advancing into the coun­ rilous rumors about Leopold's supposedly de­ try. Meanwhile, German armor punched featist attitude. He blamed this turn of events through the thinly defended Ardennes, envel­ on the President personally.^'' To Cudahy, the oping the Allies as well as the Belgians in a incident seemed to prove that his heartless su­ well-planned trap. periors had litde interest in the fate of Bel­ On May 11, 1940, Leopold announced that gium. In reality, Roosevelt had been genu­ he was taking personal command of all Bel­ inely shocked by the sorry state ofthe Belgian gian troops. General Maurice Gamelin, the defense forces at that late date. By releasing Frenchman who was Supreme Commander of selections of the Cudahy report to the press, the Allied forces, disagreed with this decision, he prepared the American electorate for what finding the King unqualified to lead in this appeared to be the inevitable loss of another desperate situation. Lord Gort, the British democratic state to Nazi aggression. Appar­ commander, offered contradictory opinions ently, the President also saw the story as an ex­ throughout the dispute.'^^ The result was a con­ cellent vehicle for supporting his own case for tinuing clash of personalities and a marked increased American preparedness. In any lack of cooperation at most levels of com­ event, time had run out for Belgium and the mand. From the beginning of the invasion, Allies. Leopold realized that the most important res­ cue was probably in the United States. With­ out consulting Cudahy, he launched a per­ t 5:00 A.M. on May 10, 1940, the sonal appeal to Roosevelt for "support," dreaded Nazi invasion began. A' leaving it up to the President to decide what It was heralded by a massive air attack on that "support" must entail. Roosevelt's answer Brussels, a surprise armored assault through was not what the King desired. The President the Ardennes, and an airborne blitzkrieg of simply replied: "The people of the United Belgian fixed defenses. Cudahy was already States hope, as do I, that policies which seek to present at the American Embassy in Brussels dominate peaceful and independent peoples through force and military aggression may be "Cudahy to Hull, "Report on the Position ot Belgium: Political and Military Phases," .\pril 2, 1940, ibid. Al­ arrested, and that the Government and peo­ though they often differ with Cudahy's own contempo­ ple of Belgium may preserve their integrity rary conclusions, some military historians oflFer similar de­ and their freedom. As an old personal friend I scriptions of Belgian and Allied military weaknesses. See, send you my warm personal regards."^*' for example, B. H. Liddell Hart, History ofthe Second World War (New York, 1971), 41, 70, 707. '2Roosevek to Cudahy, April 17, 1940, box 1, JCP- 'iCudahy to Hull, May 11, 1940, FRUS, Vol 1, General, SHSW. 195; Cudahy, Case for the King, 17—18. ''Cudahy to Hull, April 18, 1940, Foreign Relations of 3»Hart, Second World War,'75-78. the United States, 1940, Vol. 1, General (Washington, D.C, "'Leopold III to Roosevelt, May 10, 1940, and 1959), 185 (hereinafter cited as FPUS); Cudahy to Roosevek to Leopold III, May 11, 1940, both in FRUS, Roosevek, May 3, 1940, box 1, JCP. Vol. 1, Genera/, 194, 196. 94 "Bridge over the Lys [River]." Courtesy the Milwa ^ County Historical Society With Leopold at the front, Cudahy lost members of the Belgian Parliament who had touch with his royal friend. He made one at­ not already fled were consulted after his deci­ tempt to reach him in mid-May, 1940, but the sion was firm. Cudahy encouraged surrender, roads were clogged with refugees and he advising the King that it was the "honorable abandoned the journey. Before long, the thing" to do. Leopold, in turn, voiced his con­ front came to Cudahy. By May 26, the Allied cern that the Allies and the United States and Belgian forces in the north were virtually might consider such a decision treacherous, surrounded while the major battle for the fu­ given the fact that intense fighting continued ture of Western Europe was raging in France. in various sectors in Belgium. The Germans Leopold accused the Allies of devodng only fighting in Belgium would be unleashed to half-efforts to the defense of Belgium. They crush the struggling Allied effort in France. were too concerned about events in France, he Regarding the flight of Belgian government said. Cudahy issued identical complaints to officials to London as more despicable than Washington.'" surrender, King Leopold decided to remain in During the morning of May 27, 1940, the Belgium with his subjects. Cudahy applauded finest fighting troops of France's elite Seventh this latter decision as well.'^^ Finally, with a Army fled Belgium, leaving only isolated tearful farewell, the two men parted. French units still in combat. Many of the Al­ At 4:00 A.M. on May 28, 1940, the King sur­ lied troops retreating from the country sought rendered his nation to the Nazis. After years evacuation to Britain, because the battle for "Leopold III and Cudahy to Roosevek, May 26, 1940, France was also being won by the Nazis. Facing box l.JCP. defeat, Leopold contemplated a quick surren­ '^Fernand Vanlangenhove, La Belgique et ses garants: L'ete 1940 (Brussels, 1972), 5-12, raises the point that der. It appeared to be the only alternative to Leopold hoped that the surrender might save Belgian total destruction. Perhaps the Germans would businesses from destruction, so that the nation's economy be generous to Belgium, the King concluded, might survive under Hider's New Order economic sys­ if a surrender was announced before the ring tem. around the surviving Allied and Belgian units •'^Leopold III to Cudahy and Roosevelt, Cudahy to Roosevek, May 28, 1940, box 1, both in JCP; The Charge was completely closed.'*** in Germany (Heath) to Huk, May 28, and June 8, 1940, Prior to making a final decision, Leopold both in FRUS, Vol. \, General, 211-213; Cudahy, Case for consulted Ambassador Cudahy. Those few the King, 19-23. 95 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, I983-I984 of vacillation with regards to his role as King, on Cudahy was negative. The press supported Leopold believed that he acted with great Winston Churchill, the British Prime Minis­ strength when issuing the capitulation order. ter, in his contention that Leopold had be­ Ironically, his decision would soon be seen as trayed his country and the Allies through his symbolic of the Belgian monarch's weakness premature surrender. Britain and France, as a leader. The battle for Belgium had contin­ Churchill said, had done their best to save Bel­ ued for eighteen days, eight more than the gium; Leopold's action had permitted the re­ Cudahy report had predicted. Moreover, lease of more Nazi troops to the battle of Hitler offered no deals beyond unconditional France, signaling the end of the Allied de­ surrender. Leopold had assumed that the fense.'" German Fuehrer was a reasonable man. In Churchill's self-serving argument failed to this he was mistaken. move Cudahy. Following his return to Mil­ Cudahy remained at his post until July, waukee, he made a number of speeches, inte­ 1940, when he was asked to leave by the Ger­ grating the points he had made in London man occupation authorities. During the inter­ within a general argument calling for a val between the surrender and his expulsion, Roosevelt peace initiative and non-military in­ the ambassador was not allowed to see the tervention in the European war. '^ The former King, who remained a prisoner in his own ambassador's public criticism of the Allies and country. Cudahy, on the other hand, spent American foreign policy was too strident for most of his time answering complaints and in­ Washington's taste. In December, 1940, Cu­ quiries from American businesses that had in­ dahy was asked to resign from the diplomatic terests in Belgium, a task he found dull. He corps, and was politely told by the President longed to return to the United States and be­ that he had no future in the Roosevelt admin­ gin his campaign on behalf of the Belgian istration.''^ Considering the differences that monarch. he had long voiced with the Roosevelt admin­ istration, Cudahy could not have found this request surprising or unreasonable. In late 1940, when he privately published HORTLY before sailing for the his book. The Case for the King of the Belgians, S United States, Cudahy was wel­ Cudahy had truly fulfilled his personal obliga­ comed as a guest of honor at the American tion to Leopold. Yet, during the spring of Embassy in London. Joseph Kennedy was still 1941, he also made a successful effort to visit America's representative there, and he ar­ the imprisoned King in Belgium while work­ ranged an interview for his friend with the ea­ ing as a Time-Life foreign correspondent. Cu­ gerly awaiting American and British press dahy had felt that he would be more useful as a corps. It proved to be an embarrassing exjDcri- champion of peace if he left Milwaukee and ence for both men. Cudahy was bitter about discussed the issue with various world leaders, the turn of events in Belgium. For the first and especially with Adolf Hitler. The role of time since that country was overrun by the Na­ foreign correspondent gave him this opportu­ zis, he publicly ridiculed the British and nity, and he became the last American to speak French for their inadequate defense. Without with the Nazi dictator before the United States elaborating, Cudahy also accused the United entered the war. According to Cudahy, whose States of being indirecdy responsible for Bel­ attitude was uncomfortably close to Neville gium's fate. King Leopold, he stressed, had Chamberlain's, Hitler was evil but was none­ no alternative other than surrender, given the theless a reasonable man. Cudahy, forever op­ poor assistance from the Western democratic timistic, believed that war was never inevita- powers. As Cudahy's words became angrier, Kennedy attempted to end the interview as "On June 4, 1940, Churchill denounced Leopold's well as disassociate himself from it. He failed, action before the House of Commons. See Winston (Church­ and Cudahy continued his assault despite ill, Their Finest Hour (London, 1949), 91, 95-96. ^^Cudahy address before Veterans of Foreign Wars Kennedy's demands for adjournment.'" convention, August 26, 1940, "Leopold, Cowaid or To no one's surprise, the resulting publicity Hero?"; Cudahy radio speech, n.d., probably September, 1940, "War or Peace"; Cudahy radio speech, October 18, ''""National Affairs" (interview transcript), August 1940, akin box 2, JCP. 1940, box 3, JCP. •'•'Roosevek to Cudahv, December 30, 1940, box 1, ibid. 96 WHi(X3)39950 John Cudahy boarding ship. ble, that peace was always possible. The killed in a horseback-riding accident on his editors of Life, however, did not agree with Milwaukee estate during the summer of 1943. this assessment. When the Hitler interview For a generation after Cudahy's death, the was published in June, 1941, it was accompa­ Milwaukeean's interpretation of what had oc­ nied by a special disclaimer from the editorial curred in Belgium in the spring of 1940 was staff, making it clear to their readers that the scoffed at by historians and others as un­ comments of both Cudahy and Hitler were founded and naive. Winston Churchill's argu­ their own and were not supported by Time- ment was taken for granted. In fact, after the Life.^'' war, Leopold III found few supporters of his After a brief flirtation with the Wisconsin wartime conduct and never regained his chapter ofthe America First Committee, a na­ throne. Upon the declassification of relevant tionwide organization of isolationists, Cudahy documentary materials in Britain, the United shifted his interests back to Wisconsin Demo­ States, and France during the early I970's, cratic party politics once the nation entered however, the historical view of Leopold began the war. In February, 1943, he became direc­ to change. Recent historical works, such as tor of the Wisconsin Council of Defense, the Robert Aron's Leopold III ou le choix impossible state organ of civil defense preparedness. Ac­ (1977), David Owen Knight's Belgium's Return cording to Cudahy, this position did not inter­ to Neutrality: An Essay in the Frustration of Small fere with his avowed interests in peace and hu­ Power Diplomacy (1972), and Fernand manity, for he was more concerned with Vanlangenhove's La Belgique et ses garants: L'ete employing Wisconsinites in war jobs than pre­ 1940 (1972), have depicted the Belgian mon­ paring the state for an unlikely attack by the arch as a beleaguered hero, deprived of ade- then-retreating fascist armies.''^ He had little time to expound on this position, for he was '''John Cudahy, "Don't Kill Civilian Defense," reprint of an editorial placed in The Sheboygan Press, February 9, '•''"A Meeting with Hitler," box 2, \CV, and "Hitler on 1943, in the records of the Wisconsin Council of Defense, Americans," inLz/e, 10:.33-37 (June9, 1941). State Historical Society of Wisconsin. 97 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1983-1984 quate military and economic assistance from The Milwaukeean's impeccable integrity and his fellow democracies, who was forced to sur­ honesty, displayed in Brussels and other posts, render in the name of humanity. The argu­ is worthy of respect. Writing in 1941, Cudahy ment is familiar, but still controversial. More­ noted that one of the most important quali­ over, these recent historians have been fications for an aspiring diplomat concerned reluctant to discuss Ambassador Cudahy and the ability to tell the truth. The late ambassa­ his analysis of events, for Cudahy was too dor to Belgium possessed this ability. "I have closely associated with the King. This relation­ tried to tell the truth," he said near the end of ship, however, is important in any consider­ his life, "and whatever my shortcomings, they ation ofthe events leading to the surrender. are not due to lack of good faith and honest in­ In America, the entire Cudahy story has tention. . . . The course of human progress largely been ignored by historians and chroni­ has never been one of unbroken advance­ clers of the New Deal period. John Cudahy's ment, and sometimes retreat from the light independent and humanist approach to poli­ has almost broken the heart ofthe world. The tics was symbolic of what the New Deal was next peace must be a peace without victory, supposed to encourage. But the Ambassador backed by the united force of every great failed to reconcile his noble principles with power in the world, but most powerful of all, practical politics, and this failure, coupled the awakened conscience of all civilization, or with his closeness to King Leopold, eventually the armies will always march.'""^ These plain made him a poor representative for the words, uttered by an honest man who had United States government. Furthermore, al­ been trapped and ultimately destroyed in the though Winston Churchill exaggerated the maelstrom of global war, command renewed case for the benefit of the British Army and attention in these final decades of the twenti­ electorate, Leopold's surrender did in fact eth century. hasten the collapse of Allied resistance in 1940. It remains too easy, however, to dismiss •"•John Cudahv, The Armies March: A Personal Report John Cudahy, like King Leopold, as a failure. (New York, 1941)', x-xi, 295.

Courtesy the Milwaukee County Historical Society

"Louvain: Along the Canal of Louvain, the Ing indnstruil building burned by bomb." Nicholas Murray Butler's Crusade for a Warless World

By C. F. Howlett

We are all resolved to have maintenance of Peace, even if we have to file for it. Neither Root, Butler, nor I are 'peace at any price' men. . . . While we might be the last to draw the sword, if compelled to do so we should be among the last to sheathe it. ANDREW CARNEGIE Letter to Theodore Roosevelt December 24, 1909

VERY November for the past six­ for International Peace, one of the most in­ E teen years, Nicholas Murray fluential conservative peace organizations in Butler had reminded his fellow Americans the world, therefore declared: "So it is that the about the horrors of war. Yet on this cool and appeal on this Armistice Day must be to the overcast autumn day—it was November 11, free peoples tjf the world to unite their in­ 1940: Armistice Day as it was then known—his fluence and their achievements, their power tone was even more somber and serious than and their ideals, not only to resist and to repel usual. A word of caution was clearly in order. invasion and overthrow by the rule of force, Once again, all of Europe was involved in a but to serve as an example and a heartening terrible conflagration. How much longer encouragement to those oppressed peoples could America hold out? Was it realistic to ask which, we may be certain, will one day insist on Americans to stand firm in the crusade for being once more set free."' peace when military intervention seemed just That Butler was willing, at least, to draw the around the corner? Could the United States sword, points out an irony that has always remain faithful to its heritage as a beacon of plagued peace movements during times of in­ democracy—and at the same time stand idly ternational crisis. Unlike the single-minded by while democracy perished in Eurojje? pacifist who remains true right through a war, Butler thought not. In this Armistice Day refusing to fight or support the war speech he proclaimed that a free world must machine—a Norman Thomas or a Jane act to rid itself of militarism and dictatorship. Addams—Butler viewed peace as an eventual The president of the Carnegie Endowment end that must be won slowly through various

AUTHOR'S NOTE: An earlier version of this paper was pre­ 'Green Cover Report, November 11, 1940, in the sented at the Rocky Mountain Conference for British Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Papers, Studies, October 8-9, 1982. 1 would like to thank profes­ Special Collections, Butler Library, Columbia University. sors Thomas C. Kennedy, J. A. Thompson, and David (Cited hereafter as Carnegie Endowment Papers.) See Lukowitz for their helpful suggestions. 1 would also like to also Albert Marrin, Nicholas Murray Butler (Boston, 1976), offer a special word of thanks to professors Merle Curti chapter 3. For a complete listing of Buder's writings to and Arthur A. Ekirch, Jr., whose research in American 1934, consult Milton H. Thomas, A Bibliography of Nicholas peace history has been a source of inspiration. Murray Butler (New York, 1934). Copyright © 1984 by The State Historical Society of Wisconsin 99 All riglits of reproduction in any form reserved WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1983-1984 methods (a world court, for example), includ­ ing maintaining stable governments, which might entail an occasional war along the way. What may have been disconcerting to Butler, however, was the realization that only twenty- three years earlier he had delivered a similar message. And in each instance, Buffer had many receptive ears within the ranks of the peace movement. The question is, why? Nicholas Murray Butler remains an exem­ plary figure ofthe organized peace movement who grudgingly supported the call to arms in 1917 and again in 1940. Much can be learned about Butler the pacifist and Butler the milita­ rist, for his experience resembles that of mil­ lions of Americans, important and unimport­ ant, who talk up the antiwar line in peacetime but succumb to chauvinism once "national honor" is at stake. How is it that a leading peace advocate for nearly a half century—a man of ideas and ideals—twice supported the call to arms on the eve of global catastrophe? Was Nicholas Murray Butler merely a lifelong Anglophilic interventionist who spoke the in­ ternationalist vocabulary? Did he ever really wrestle with the paradoxes of peace and war? Does Butler's irony symbolize the built-in anx­ Courtesy Columbia University ieties and tensions of the American peace Nicholas Murray Butler. movement when confronted by the realities of twentieth-century global politics? Why has the pledge against man's inhumanity to man. To­ peace movement remained a historical aberra­ wards the end of the century, moreover, Tol- tion rather than a permanent garden in the stoyan pacifism began to permeate American landscape of reform? thought, influencing Jane Addams, William Jennings Bryan, and Clarence Darrow among others. HEN pacifism was trans­ Yet there was disappointment. All the pa­ w planted to the New World, its cifists' devotion and labor had been expended staunchest advocates continued to be scions of in bringing forth a tame lion. After three- the dissenting religious tradition. In the wake quarters of a century of organized existence, ofthe Napoleonic wars, Americans, predomi­ the American peace movement had frag­ nantly New Englanders of Quaker heritage, mented into a multitude of small, insolvent, organized the first peace societies. The oldest ineffectual groups advocating nostrums run­ and best known of these was the American ning the gamut from congresses of nations Peace Society, founded in 1828 by William and world federations to vegetarianism. Their Ladd to demonstrate war's inconsistency with fellow countrymen, if they knew about them at Christianity and to devise schemes for ensur­ all, thought them absurdly naive and wildly ing universal peace. In 1840 the abolitionist impractical. Conscious of their ineffectuality, William Lloyd Garrison founded the New En­ several leaders, especially Benjamin True- gland Nonresistant Society, devoted to a blood and Edwin D. Mead of the American unique combination of anarchism and Chris­ Peace Society, sought to change the image and tian pacifism. The next year, Adin Ballon, a course ofthe peace movement. They hoped to Universalist clergyman, founded the Hope- reinvigorate it by bringing its program into dale Community at Milford, Massachusetts, harmony with contemporary interests and designed to instill a sectarian nonresistant trends, and to expand its influence by attract- 100 HOWLETT: NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER

ing men of wealth, social standing, and orga­ its purity and at the same time enjoy wealth nizing ability.^ and power, all without becoming involved in Their goal coincided with the interests of the crises generated almost spontaneously by precisely the sort of person they sought to at­ the international system? Both as a vehicle for tract. Ironically, however, their efforts eventu­ expressing their concerns and in terms of ated in the ultimate demise ofthe peace move­ practical policies, the peace movement, rightly ment as they had known it. The nine­ conceived, held the promise of permitting teenth-century peace movement had been an Americans to have the best of both worlds. attempt to realize the Christian ideals of love, But of more far-reaching importance was brotherhood, and the sanctity of life in inter­ their approach to the "new" peace movement. national relations. None ofthe recruits to the It was distinctly elitist. Participation by the new peace movement were absolute pacifists, lower classes was deliberately discouraged. Christian or otherwise. They were "practical" With a few exceptions, most notably Jane Ad­ men: academicians, men of Mugwump back­ dams (who shared the 1931 Nobel Peace Prize grounds, leaders in the business world, mem­ with Butler) and William Jennings Bryan, they bers of the emerging profession of interna­ assumed that literate gentlemen ofthe middle tional law. They were not interested in peace and upper classes could more easily under­ because they felt war to be an unmitigated evil; stand and identify with the civilized quality of rather, to them peace represented a secondary their movement than could the unenlightened reform to be trumpeted and abandoned ac­ masses. Not surprisingly, they relied upon cording to circumstance. their contacts with friends in governmental A variety of motives brought them to the circles for their influence and shunned in­ peace movement. There were those who, im­ volvement in politics and contacts with immi­ pelled by a sense of civic responsibility and a grant, moderate socialist, or labor groups. craving for status, were attracted to peace as a Reflecting the Mugwump traditions and safe, uncontroversial, undemanding cause. teachings common among many reformers of "No reform," remarks the historian Merle that era, they assumed that the man in the Curti, "demanded less sacrifice on the part of street was an important factor in public opin­ the American middle class."' Others were at­ ion only to the extent of his ability to absorb tracted out of concern for their country's re­ ideas transmitted by "the better classes." Until cently acquired position in the world. Between education could enlighten the general public, the conquest of the Philippines and the start of these leaders assumed that they alone were the the Great War, overseas investments multi­ proper custodians ofthe peace movement. In plied fivefold; for the first time Americans consequence, the peace movement increas­ were extending rather than receiving credit in ingly acquired an aura of gentility and respect­ large amounts. Prosperity requires peace, ability, but at the expense of widening the gap which in turn requires a stable international between the peace leaders and the masses. order. Americans, long convinced of their moral superiority as a nation, doubted the ca­ pacity and goodwill of the international or­ der's chief custodians, the European powers, HE view that literate gentlemen with their privileged classes, cabinet politics, T' should be the proper custodi­ and secret diplomacy. They distrusted the bal­ ans of the peace movement was well suited to ance of power system, sensing its inherent in­ Nicholas Murray Butler's own social upbring­ stability. How could the United States retain ing. Butler was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey, on April 2, 1862, and was reared in comfort­ ^Sondra R. Heman, "Elihu Root and Nicholas Murray able surroundings. His father was a successful Butler: The Pokty as International Judiciary,"in Eleven textile importer and manufacturer of Pater­ Against War: Studies m American Internationalist Thought, 1898-1921 (Stanford, California, 1969); Robert L. son, New Jersey. In 1878, having been Beisner, Twelve Against Empire: The Anti-Imperialists, 1898— schooled in the virtues of Republicanism and 1900 (New York, 1968). See also Hugh Hawkins sketch of Calvinism, Butler entered Columbia College, Butler in the Dictionary of American Biography, Supplement hoping to major in law and religion. While an VI. 'Merle Curti, Peace or War: The American Struggle, undergraduate, however, he was persuaded 7656-7956 (New York, 1936), 196-227. to investigate the much-neglected field of edu- 101 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1983-1984 cation. Under the influence of the college of Immanuel Kant, who envisioned a peaceful president, Frederick A. P. Barnard, Butler world guided by moral reason and intellect, took an interest in the study of philosophy and thus enabled Butler to follow the elite, peace- educational theory. At the same time he was through-internationalism approach which very much impressed by Professor John W. emphasized the instruments of politics, Burgess' constitutional history classes, which finance, legalism, reason, and education as emphasized the fundamental distinction be­ necessary for a nation's, and ultimately the tween "the sphere of government" and "the world's, well-being. Unfortunately, his elitist sphere of liberty." Upon graduation in 1882, preferences prevented the development of a Butler received a three-year fellowship in let­ personal morality critical ofthe existing social ters from Columbia; he earned an M.A. in order. Butler's moralism was couched in apol­ 1882 with a thesis on "The Permanent In­ ogetic support for the prevailing order in soci­ fluence of Immanuel Kant," and a Ph.D. in ety, one which accepted war on behalf of na­ 1884 with "An Oudineof the History of Logi­ tional security and the "rightness" of cal Doctrine" as his dissertation. For a year be­ American values. Lastly, Butler's overseas fel­ ginning in June, 1884, Butler traveled and lowship offered him the opportunity to drink studied in Europe. from the font of European culture. In no way Returning to Columbia in 1885 as assistant should war threaten its existence as a contribu­ professor of philosophy, Butler rose rapidly tor to humanity's intellectual development. through the teaching ranks, becoming in 1890 Appropriately enough, it was not until the professor of philosophy, ethics and psychol­ conclusion of the Spanish-American War in ogy, and in 1895 professor of philosophy and 1898—a war Butler had mistakenly supported education; that same year he was appointed in the name of Darwinian advancement—that Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy. In 1902, Butler publicly engaged in peace action. In the having been instrumental in formulating summer of 1898, Czar Nicholas of Russia Teachers College's merger with Columbia as called for the first international peace confer­ well as serving as president ofthe National Ed­ ence to convene at The Hague the following ucation Association, Butler became president year. Peace advocates throughout the world of Columbia University. He held that post un­ were elated. Butler himself became ecstatic: til 1945, two years before his death. His rapid "Now for the first time in centuries, the door rise to the college presidency paralleled his seemed to be open to the building of a new growing interest in the peace movement. federation of civilized nations which would A number of factors account for Butler's in­ make possible prosperity and peace for them terest in internationalism. No doubt his family each and all."'^ He began to promote Fhe background, based on the elevation of busi­ Hague idea among his educational colleagues. ness virtues and the Mugwump tradition, led In July, 1899, for instance, the board of direc­ him in the direction ofthe "new" peace move­ tors of the National Education Association ment which had been created to ensure an ec­ passed at his urging a resolution bidding onomically stable world order. Another "Godspeed and success" in his quest for peace strong factor was John W. Burgess' influence. to Andrew White, president of Cornell Uni­ Burgess' views on constitutional law suited versity, recendy appointed head ofthe delega­ nicely Butler's own Hamiltonian preferences tion.'' for reform. Although a persistent tinkerer Butler's support for the first Hague Con­ with organizational mechanisms, Butler be­ ference, which stimulated his interest in the lieved society to be essentially "an organism, peace movement in general, also brought him not a machine."^ For all his eclecticism and into contact with a number of interesting for­ adroitness at political compromise, his essen­ eign personalities. Among them was Baron tial conservatism stood out in sharp relief. Op­ 'Nicholas Murray Butler, Across the Busy Years, 2:80- posed to direct democracy, he wanted govern­ 87. During the Spanish-American-Filipino conflict, But­ ment operated by the trained and enlightened ler tied his Kantian ideals to Darwinian practices. He envi­ elite. This view, coupled with his own studies sioned the war an instrument "advanced nations" could employ to civilize "backward areas" which in turn would ensure a more permanent world structure. ''Lawrence Veysey, The Emergence of the American Uni­ '•Buder, Across the Busy Years, 86-88: Andrew D. White, versity {Chicago, 1965), 364. The First Hague Convention (Boston, 1912). 102 Jr I

WHi(X3)9199 Quartermaster sergeants of the 3rd Wisconsin Volunteer I nfantiy. May 28, 1898. d' Estournelles de Constant of the French Sen­ ence, devoted to discussing problems of peace, ate. They quickly became close friends, d' Es­ proved instrumental in shaping the organized tournelles introducing him to French states­ peace movement in America. He served as men and Butler returning the favor with an president ofthe conference in 1907 and every honorary degree from Columbia University in year between 1909 and 1912. 1911. Together they founded in 1905 the Butler's Mohonk presidential addresses pamphlet series Conciliation Internationale, were collected and published in 1913 as The which gave way two years later to International International Mind: An Argument for the Judicial Conciliation, published under the auspices of Settlement of International Disputes. The book the American Association for International proved to be a continuous source of inspira­ Conciliation—an organization Butler tion to peacemakers and gave currency to the founded and headed, and which received gen­ term "internationalism." In this important erous financial support from the steel mag­ work, Butler saw lasting peace as emanating nate, Andrew Carnegie.' from enlightened public opinion based on moral leadership, armament limitations, and an independent international judiciary as originally conceived at the second Hague Con­ ROM 1905 until 1914, Butler at­ ference in 1907. For Butler, "international- F tended and participated in the major gatherings of the peace societies in Eu­ 'Butler's financial support from C^arnegie was due to a rope and the United States. One of his most friendship that began in 1892 in connection with various important contributions to the peace move­ educational matters. The relationship grew with each sub­ sequent meeting and communication. Butler affectiona­ ment, as the historian Albert Marrin percep­ tely referred to Carnegie as "Dear Laird." In 1924, Inter­ tively notes, was in gathering and harmoniz­ national Conciliation was taken over by the Division of ing, organizing and contemplating, diverse Intercourse and Education of the Carnegie Endowment tendencies—and in giving them wide and con­ for International Peace. See also Warren F. Kuehl, Seeking stant publicity. Butler was not an original World Order: The United States and International Order to 1920 (Nashvdle, Tennessee, 1969), 106-108; Charles thinker but rather a skillful organizer. His at­ Chatfield, For Peace and Justice: Pacifism in America, 1914— tendance at the annual Lake Mohonk Confer­ 1941 (Knoxville, Tennessee, 1971).

103 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1983-1984 ism" was as much an educational and cultural movement in many respects; it was, in the state of mind as it was economic and political." words of the historian Charles DeBenedetti, The book contains Butler's own ideological "an ethos that suffused the thinking of a signi­ support for peace, including his own practical ficant number of . . . peace leaders."" (Such a suggestions for achieving it. His international­ conception would characterize the approach ism could be traced in large measure to his dis­ several conservative peace organizations un­ taste for a world of nations uncontrolled by dertook to eliminate the problem of modern law." He therefore followed the lead of inter­ war after the great debacle of 1914—1918.) In­ national lawyers who favored exclusively judi­ ternationalists like Butler perceived peace as a cial settlements of disputes as opposed to set­ state attendant upon the triumph of justice, tlement through arbitration and diplomacy. via enlightened leadership; peace was contin­ His attitude towards courts and the law was gent upon the extension of justice throughout directly affected by his domestic views and pol­ international politics. The extension of justice, itics. Revering the United States Supreme in turn, consisted of the codification by Court as he did, Butler saw infinite potential experts—the knowledgeable leaders of for good in a world supreme court. The inde­ society—of international rules of equity, the pendent judiciary, linchpin of the Constitu­ application of these rules by an international tion, was the unique contribution of the court of justice, and final acceptance by liti­ United States to political science. What it had gants respectful of the sanction of world pub­ accomplished there, he maintained, it could lic opinion. Through a tightening web of pro­ accomplish the world over. He thus advocated cedure, substantive "legal justice"—making establishing justice among nations in the the law itself its own best argument for transformation ofthe Hague Court into a per­ obedience—would gradually be gained and manent tribunal, isolated from political pres­ peace assured. Legalists made clear that they sures and with paid judges for life: "The strik­ did not seek the "abstract justice" of the "re­ ing service performed by an independent former and the idealist," but rather the "legal judiciary will offer the best solution of the justice" of courts and codes that could be problems international in character that arise "counted upon to function with certainty" in out of international business and international minimizing the possibilities of future war.'^ rivalries." Enforcing the Court's decisions be­ This particular proposition held sway came a matter of supreme importance, and al­ among a large number of peace advocates be­ though Butler occasionally mentioned an in­ fore World War I. In the largest sense, the ternational legislature and a world police peace movement was perhaps the ultimate ex­ force he believed, somewhat naively, that the pression of the nineteenth century's faith in main force behind the Court's rulings would progress. Great technological advances gave be the moral weight of public opinion, "the rise to a belief that mankind was on the way to true international executive."'" solving its age-old problems of war, disease, Butler's legalistic view, depicted in The In­ and poverty by the application of reason and ternational Mind, was more than an ideology or science. Furthermore, not only had enlight­ 'Nicholas Murray Butler, The International Mind: An ened nations controlled the spread of war— Argument for the Judicial Settlement of International Disputes European powers had been successful in (New York, 1913), 6-9, 102; Butler, "The Development avoiding a general war for nearly a century af­ of the International Mind," in International Conciliation, ter Waterloo—but they had also begun to ex­ 192:83-85, 777-781 (November, 1923). periment with a substitute for war: interna­ 'Nicholas Murray Butler, "Carnegie Endowment for International Peace," in the Christian Science Monitor tional litigation. John Bassett Moore, the dean (April 15, 1930), \%-24:; Across the Busy Years, 2:105; Ni­ of American authorities on international law, cholas Murray Butler, The American As He Is (New York, was able to cite at least 136 treaties or agree­ 1908); Butler, The International Mind, 79-80. ments signed during that century which had '"Butler, The International Mind, ix-x, 156. In many ways Elihu Root was Butler's mentor in the pre-World included comprehensive settlements embrac- War I legalist movement. Root, and numerous interna- donal lawyers who flocked to the "new" peace movement, "Charles DeBenedetti, "Alternative Strategies in the favored the exclusive Judicial settlement of disputes. In American Peace Movement in the 1920's," in Charles his lectures on the international mind, Butler agreed: "If Chatfield, ed.. Peace Movements in America (New York, justice is established between nations, peace will follow as a 1973), 57-67. matter of course." '^Chatfield, ed., Peace Movements in America, 58.

104 t

WHi(A62)7365 A battle demonstration at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, 1904. ing hundreds of particular cases and involving As head of the Division of Intercourse and millions of dollars.'' Education, one ofthe three main branches of the Carnegie Endowment, Butler stressed the need to educate public opinion, urging the use HE positive development of in­ of lectureships, publication series, and ex­ T' ternational litigation caused a change visits abroad on an expanded scale."' number of lawyers and jurists to swell the In keeping with his elitist preferences for a ranks of peace advocates. They saw a gradu­ knowledgeable citizenry, he recommended ally developing body of international law as an enlisting "respectable citizens," "level­ outgrowth of the increased recourse to litiga­ headed" community leaders from boards of tion among nations. More specifically, many trade, chambers of commerce, and other busi­ of them joined the newly formed Carnegie ness groups who had previously attended the Endowment for International Peace.'' As one Mohonk Arbitration Conferences. Moreover, of many peace organizations founded before thinking in terms of an organization that tran­ the war, the Endowment became famous for scended national boundaries, Butler sug­ sponsoring research and cooperating closely gested that adherents be sought in every siz- with government officials in developing the "international mind" (this was the elite, '^Butler believed that international visits helped oil the establishment-oriented approach to peace). It machinery of peace. He acquired this piece of advice from Baron d'Estournelles: "He [d'Estournelles] emphasized hoped to accomplish this noble goal by en­ again and again the importance of international visits on couraging the application of the Anglo- the part of representative men or groups as a most effec­ American legal experience to world politics tive means of increasing international understanding and and practice. Nicholas Murray Butler e- international interest. He pointed out how inuch more merged as one ofthe principal leaders of this or­ could be expected from personal and group contacts of this kind than from merely formal and diplomatic govern­ ganization.'^ mental relationships. . . ." Across the Busy Years, 2:139. "'One of the functions of his division was to allocate '•'"The Federal Tendency," in The Independent, 70: funds to various peace groups. However, he seemed al­ 601-604 (March 23,1911); John Bassett Moore, "Interna­ ways reluctant to do so, caking instead for the reorganiza­ tional Arbitration," in Harper's, 110:610 (March, 1905). tion and centralization of peace groups. "I think the tiine '''Michael A. Lutzker, "4 he 'Practical' Peace Advo­ has come," he informed peace activist Edwin Mead, cates: An Interpretation of the American Peace Move­ "when we simply must induce the supporters and benefac­ ment, 1898-1917" (doctoral dissertation, Rutgers Univer­ tors of the peace movement to take steps to prevent the sity, 1969), chapter 3. For an excellent iiuroduction to the further development of overlapping and . . . competing shifting coalitions of the new peace movement which e- agencies." Butler to Edwin Mead, Deceinber 22, 1909, in merged between 1914 and 1917, consult chapter 1 of the Nicholas Murray Butler Papers, Columbia University, (jhatfield's For Peace and Justice. Special Collections.

105 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1983-1984 able city in the world, both to distribute Butler suggested that the Endowment should publications and to exercise influence on the project no future course of action until the war Endowment's behalf.'' had ended and the terms of peace had been When the guns of August resounded determined. "No other course was possible," throughout the lowlands and the German war he asserted. "To continue . . . peace propa­ machine moved ever closer to Paris, Butler ganda in the face of the war that raged was to found the European world, at least, trapped make ourselves ridiculous, while nothing was by demands for unyielding patriotic conform­ clearer than that the advent of war and its is­ ity. '* But who was to blame for this horrible di­ sue would completely alter our program of lemma? What had happened to enlightened work."^' Rejecting the protests of European statesmanship?'-' Much to his chagrin and dis­ affiliates, the Carnegie's directors terminated may the war, Butler explained in September, support for European peace societies and sus­ 1914, to Columbia students, had not been pended publication of potentially controver­ forced upon unwilling governments by the sial works on armaments and socialism. Docu­ masses; it has been forced upon the innocent ments revealing Allied as well as German people by kings and cabinets, the people ac­ responsibility for the war were hidden away in cepting it with "grim resignation and reluctant its vaults. Only in this way could the Endow­ enthusiasm."-" ment retain its reputation for high-minded Butler was perplexed and disappointed. nonpartisanship and preserve its influence He felt betrayed by his own appeal to enlight­ among statesmen, regardless of who was right ened statesmanship and the Kantian concep­ or wrong. tion of a powerful intellectual elite bonded by In line with his position of neutrality, But­ reason. National leaders and not the masses ler was a leading supporter of the anti- were supposed to lead the way to international preparedness campaign in America. In De­ peace and stable world order. But such was cember, 1914, he created a stir by giving a not the case. In the early days of the struggle, press interview declaring his belief that Eu­ therefore, Butler publicly declared his strict rope's large-scale armaments had led directly personal neutrality, pleading to remain silent to war and rejoicing that the country had in upon every aspect of the war's meaning and Woodrow Wilson a president able to with­ conduct. stand the preparedness pressure. "In modern The Carnegie Endowment followed suit. democracies the functions of the army and "Nicholas Murray Butler, "The Carnegie Endowment navy are police, philanthropic, and sanitary," for International Peace," in the Independent, 76:397—398 he proclaimed, and he urged the American (November, 27, 1913); Minutes of Annual Meeting of people "to put behind us forever the notion Board of Trustees, December 12, 1912, pp. 5-6, 10-11, that we must arm in peace as a preventive of and April 17, 1914, pp. 32, 44, in the Carnegie Endow­ ment Papers; David S. Patterson, Toward a Warless World: war, and that we must be perpetually defend­ The Travail of the American Peace Movement, 1887—1914 ing ourselves, or getting ready to defend our­ (Bloomington, Indiana, 1976), 150-155; Michael A. selves against new enemies. No people will be Lutzker, "The Pacifist as Militarist: A Critique of the hostile to us unless we, by our conduct, make American Peace Movement. 1898-1914," in Societas, them so." In the letter to the New York Times he 5:87-104 (Spring, 1975); Charles DeBenedetti, The Peace Reform in American Histoiy (Bloomington, Indiana, 1980), reaffirmed his opposition to preparedness: "It 127-130; Michael A. Lutzker, "The Formation of the must not be forgotten that militarism has its Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: A Study of origin in a state of mind and that in reality it is the Establishment-Centered Peace Movement, 1910- a state of mind."^^ 1914," in Jerry Israel, ed., Building the Organizational Soci­ ety (New 'York, 1972), 143-162. The latter is a convincing Gradually, however, this "state of mind" be­ assessment of Butler's conservative ideology, his role in came a state of "reality." The breaking of the the Endowment, and his biases towards converting peace Sussex Pledge, British propaganda, American organizations into unofficial agencies of the federal gov­ ernment. economic ties to the Allies, the Zimmerman "Butler, Across the Busy Years, 2: 62, 66-67. '•^'Arthur A. Ekirch, Jr., The Civilian and the Militaty "Nicholas Murray Buder, A World in Ferment (New (New York, 1956), 160-161; Butler to Edwin Mead, Janu­ York, 1917), 17. ary 2, 1913, in the Butler Papers. ^"Butler to Lord Weardale, January 12. 1915, in the '^'^New York Times, Septeniber 27,Ocioher 19, 1917, and Butler Papers; Butler to Henri La Fontaine, October 22, September 4, September 18, 1918; Butler to Master of 1914, in Volume 3. Carnegie Endowment Papers 9114, Balliol College, Oxford, April 17 and September 30, #2299-2301. 1917, in the Butler Papers.

106 t;!

WHi(X3)39730 Company G ofthe 15th Infantry in Germany, March, 1919.

Telegram, and unrestricted German subma­ to fulfill "to those nations and those men who rine warfare altered Butler's tune. His broad in darkness and in daylight had been fighting sympathies for the British and his intense feel­ for your property and mine, for your govern­ ing that the Allies were fighting "our fight" far ment and mine, for your ideas and mine!"^'' outweighed his dim and merely intellectual Temporarily, at least, unilateral nationalism awareness of the war's imperialist origins. superseded his vision of world community. Suddenly "our conduct" in international Why did Butler support Washington's affairs was beyond reproach, thus permitting overseas war while simultaneously proclaim­ him fully and satisfactorily to resolve whatever ing his peace concerns? Had he abandoned his personal inner conflict he may have had be­ international vision? Not really. He attributed tween the choices of war and peace. Conse­ to the war the very values for which he had quently, Butler chose war, his doubts con­ worked before: the search for international verted into an intellectual and moral equity, law, and order. Butler and the Carne­ justification on behalf of a crusade to "make gie Endowment, as well as the entire conserva- the world safe for democracy." '•^-'Butler, A World m Ferment, 185. ^'Nicholas Murray Butler, Scholarship and Service (New York, 1921), 225. On military training Butler had this to UTLER now abandoned his po­ say: "It is my belief that the interests of the United States as a whole, in peace as well as in war, require the prompt B sition of neutrality. Germany establishment of a period of universal training, under na­ must be defeated at all costs: "Fhis war offers tional authority and direction. ... It is my belief that this no ground for compromise or for equivoca­ training can be so organized as to be not only valuable in tion, because it goes to the very bottom of hu­ laying the basis for a trained military reserve, but valuable man life and of human government. It must also for training men to appreciate the obligations and op­ portunities of their American citizenship." Nicholas M. be prosecuted until the world can be made se­ Butier to James A. Wadsworth, April 10 and 13, 1917, in cure."--' America now had a definite obligation the Carnegie Endowment Papers. 107 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1983-1984 tive wing of the peace movement, worked on alty." Indeed, when Butler was asked to define the assumption that the defeat ofthe German university freedom he did so in terms of orga­ imperial government was requisite for peace. nizational loyalty and service to the state. This Consequently, Butler stumped the country was a corporate definition that ignored indi­ for the Liberty Loans, sponsored many patri­ vidual prerogatives. He argued the right of otic meetings on campus, endorsed the Re­ the university as a whole to pursue its ideals serve Officers Training Corps, and became an unhampered by the actions of any of its mem­ early advocate of compulsory national service bers in contrast to academic freedom. But and of military conscription—hitherto what about those unusual situations, such as deemed the supreme violation of individual war, when the issue of freedom applies equally liberty. He even permitted George Creel's to both sides? Committee on Public Information, the arm of Apparently, Butler had no concrete an­ America's wartime propaganda machine, to swer. For him freedom imposed responsibil­ utilize the Carnegie Endowment's offices, ity, and in this case that meant loyalty to major­ which he relinquished for the duration of the ity will: "A teacher who cannot give to the war. institution which maintains him what common In his own vigorous prosecution ofthe war loyalty implies ought not to be retained effort, Butler was quick to denounce any and through fear of clamor or of criticism." In­ all dissenters. He ignored the principles of deed, according to Butler, "a university conscientious objectors and those whose aca­ teacher owes a decent respect to the opinions demic reasoning would not allow them to sup­ of mankind. Men who feel that their personal port the call to arms. (This was a particularly convictions require them to treat the mature sensitive issue, and one which Butler came to opinion of the civilized world without respect regret.) or with contempt may well be given an oppor­ In his efforts to support government poli­ tunity to do so from private station and with­ cies, Butler quickly came into conflict with his out the added influence and prestige of a uni­ own views on liberty. He always maintained versity's name."^'' that government is subordinate to liberty; that The war had caused Butler to elevate the is­ government exists to preserve and promote sue of university loyalty to national patriotism. liberty. However, like many academicians who Service to the university now meant conform­ steadfastly defended their Lockean predispo­ ity to the dictates of the state. In his com­ sitions, the Great War caught him totally un­ mencement day speech to the class of 1917, he prepared for contingency operations. In at­ stated boldly:^' tempting to win the war quickly, and in the So long as national policies were in de­ process seeking complete support, the con­ bate, we gave complete freedom, as is cept of liberty was forsaken for the goals of ex­ our wont, and as becomes a university— pediency and conformity. In Butler's case it freedom of assembly, freedom of took the form of abrogating academic free­ speech, and freedom of publication to all dom. members ofthe University who in lawful Much has been written on this score. Histo­ and decent ways might wish to inform and to guide public policy. Wronghead- rians Walter P. Metzger, Albert Marrin, and edness and folly we might deplore, but Carol Gruber have examined in detail how we are bound to tolerate. So soon, how­ Butler blatantly ignored the issue of academic ever, as the nation spoke by the Congress freedom for the cause of patriotic loyalty.'--"' and by the President, declaring that it Yet what has not been mentioned is the way would volunteer as one man for the pro­ Butler interpreted academic freedom and tection and defense of civil liberty and how he juxtaposed it under the rubric of "loy- self-government, conditions sharply changed. What had been tolerated be­ ^-''Walter P. Metzger, Academic Freedom in the Age of the fore becomes intolerable now. What had University (New York, 1961), 225-229; Marrin, Nicholas been folly was now treason. This is the Murray Butler, 84-92; Carol Gruber, Mars and Minerva: University's last and only warning to any World War I and the Uses of the Higher Learning in America among us, if such there be, who are not (Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 1976). Also consult (Charles F. Howlett, Troubled Philosopher: John Dewey and the Struggle ^"Butler, Scholarship and Service, 115. for World Peace (Port Washington, New York, 1977), 33- ^'Quoted in Metzger, Academic Freedom in the Age of the .34. University, 225.

108 WHi(X3)32470 Inductees from Racine, November 18, 1917.

with whole heart and mind and strength ees had simply become more important than committed to fight with us to make the academic freedom and individual free choice. world safe for democracy. Charles Beard's letter of resignation, ad­ Conditions had changed; only it was Ran­ dressed to Butler, put it best:^" dolph Bourne, a Columbia graduate, not But­ Having observed closely the inner life of ler, who correctly assessed the war's impact on Colunibia for many years, I have been the American psyche when he stated, "War is driven to the conclusion that the Univer­ the health of the State."2** sity is really under the control of a small The issue of academic freedom tormented and active group of trustees who have no the Columbia campus. Faculty members Leon standing in the world of educadon, who Eraser, James McKeen Catell, Charles A. are reactionary and visionless in politics, narrow and medieval in religion. ... I Beard, Henry R. Mussey, and Ellery C. Stowell have, from the beginning, believed that a either were dismissed or resigned in protest victory for the German Imperial Gov­ over the loyalty craze. It was extremely dif­ ernment would plunge all of^ us into the ficult for them to understand Butler's position black night of military barbarism. . . . when only a couple of years earlier he had But thousands of my countrymen do not stated that "a university owes it to itself to de­ share this view. Their opinions cannot be fend members of its teaching staff from unjust changed by curses or bludgeons. Argu­ and improper attacks made upon them, when ments addressed to their reason and un­ in sincerely seeking truth they arrive at results derstanding are our best hope. which are either novel in themselves or in op­ position to some prevailing opinion."^^ How was it possible to maintain impartiality and ob­ HILE at the same time chastis­ jectivity on the part ofthe university when the ing certain members of his pressures of war demanded another set of val­ w faculty for their lack of patriotism, Buder also ues based on conformity at all costs? Butler found time to comment on President Wilson's had no pat answer. To him, allegiance to the proposal for a League of Nadons. In a series of government and to Columbia's board of trust- articles appearing in the New York Times dur­ ^^C^arl Resek, ed., War and the Intellectuals (New York, ing the fall of I9I6, and later published as The 1964). Basis of Durable Peace, Buder praised certain ^"Butler, Scholarship and Service, 158. Almost all of But­ ler's books on politics and society were reprints of articles •'"Quoted in Metzger, Academic Freedom in the Age ofthe and speeches rnade earlier in his career; they are repeti­ University, 227-228; New York Times, February 14, 1917, p. tious and contain few novel insights. 5, October 9, 1917, p. 1. 109 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1983-1984 aspects of Wilson's Covenant; he agreed in Republican colleague. Senator Henry Cabot principle with the Covenant's reliance upon Lodge, chairman of the powerful Committee the allegiance of free peoples, its recognition on Foreign Relations, was determined either of international responsibility for labor condi­ to defeat Wilson's creation or, preferably, to tions, health, and the welfare of backward make it over into a Republican document peoples, and its provision of a world court to through extensive reservations and amend­ hear disputes.-" However, Wilson's arbitrari­ ments. Therefore, rather than total rejection ness regarding American interdependence of the League, as advocated by isolationists with Europe, and his insistence upon combin­ and Republican "irreconcilables," Butler sug­ ing the Covenant for the League of Nations gested amending its Covenant in line with his with a peace treaty upon cessation of warfare, own juridical preferences. He suggested the ultimately led Butler to argue that the Presi­ following proposals: "the establishment of a dent had committed a "monumental blun- High International Court of Justice "; "the es­ der."32 tablishment of international conferences at Spurred on by Elihu Root's opposition to stated intervals to codify and revise the rules the League in support of a more juridical of international law"; "an amendment pro­ world order in The Hague tradition, Butler tecting the Monroe Doctrine in a proper form criticized Wilson's emphasis upon consulta­ and not in the stupid form in which it has been tion and diplomacy, processes favoring expe­ attempted in the revised covenant."-'"' What diency at the expense of right. Legalists and Butler had in mind, of course, was a juridical- political conservatives lined up behind Butler legalist world order, which preserved Ameri­ in expressing their fear of concentrated power can freedom, in place of a nebulous plan for in the hands ofthe central government, which collective security. now took an international form. In numerous Interestingly, Butler's concern for the pres­ speeches, Butler argued that the League of ervation of American autonomy clearly illus­ Nations meant "majority rule" in the form of a trates the confusion many peace seekers had "supergovernment" by the same blundering with regard to the vital issue of national politicians responsible for the tragedy of security—a confusion that would intensify 1914.-" among peace groups during the interwar per­ Butler's most serious objection to the iod when it came to the troublesome problem League plan as it stood, however, rested with of national security and collective sanctions. Article X and its provisions for sanctions. He Indeed, for all Butler's efforts on behalf of a believed that the Covenant conflicted with the united coalition for peace action, he held firm United States Constitution. What would hap­ to his internationalist view, like most conserva­ pen, he asked, should the League decide upon tive apostles of peace, refusing to support any military action? Only Congress could commit surrender of a significant portion of American American forces. He reasoned that to join the sovereignty to the League in actual practice. League without guaranteeing American free­ Despite his concern for cooperation with the dom of action in disposing of its armed forces League, he simply paid lip-service to interna­ might create a situation where, if Congress tionalism. He generally envisaged nothing refused to participate in League imposed more than the voluntary cooperation of fully sanctions, the nation would become a law­ sovereign states, a visionary and unrealistic breaker.-''' concept that masked the basic incompatibility Butler also recognized that once the peace of nationalism and internationalism. treaty came before the Senate for ratification, Such confusion and hair-splitting debate the problem of partisanship would spell its de­ regarding the League of Nations also accounts mise. He knew that the treaty would be exclu­ for the complete collapse of the peace move­ sively Wilsonian and Democratic, and that his ment during the war. Internationalists like Butler who favored the establishment of a 3'Buder, The Basis of Durable Peace, 109. '^Buderto Senator Everett Hale, May 23, 1919, in the •'^Butler to Senator Hale, May 23, 1919; Butler to Butler Papers; huder, Across the Busy Years, 1:137-138. Frank B. Kellogg, June 2, 1919; Kellogg to Butler, Sep­ ^'^Ibid, 2: 199; New York Times, March 3, 1919, p. 7. tember 27, 1935, all in the Butler Papers; New York Times, -^-iButler, The Basis of Durable Peace, 98-109. Nicholas March 3, 1919, p. 3; Butier, The Bases of Durable Peace, 78- Murray Butler, "Three Cireat Perils to International 79; Nicholas Murray Buder, Why War? (Port Washington, Peace," in Current Opinion, 70: 46.3-465 (April, 1921). New York, 1969), 17. 110 WHi(X3)34092 Peace celebration on the steps oftheWisconsin State Capitol, 4 A.M., November 11,1918. world court rather than some form of world logical beliefs. No doubt, this factor also in­ federation did not concentrate on the morality creased tensions within the peace movement. of war or the wrongness of killing other hu­ Without informing himself about the scruples man beings. Fc:)r them the war was merely a of conscientious objectors or distinguishing temporary and expected setback; a problem them from "draft dodgers," for example, he not to be internalized as a personal concern. condemned everyone unwilling to bear arms The inability ofthe peace movement to create for Flag and Constitution. Instead of follow­ a viable alternative to patriotic honor and na­ ing fellow peace advocate James T. Shotwell's tional security accounts for internationalists in advice that "a peace movement without pa­ the Butler mold who supported armed inter­ cifists would be an absurdity," Butler re­ vention and, at the same time, prevented the marked candidly that "no one has less sympa­ creation of a world federation that would have thy with these morally half-witted people than required America to hand over a portion of its I have." His attitude regarding pacifists is dis­ national autont^my. concerting. Butler's assertions and oversights betoken something deeper than lapse of mem­ ory or suspension ofthe logical faculties; they S for Butler's personal crisis, the are, instead, indicative of the shallowness and A=wa r certainly demonstrated his self-serving idealism ofthe "new" peace move­ intolerance towards those of different ideo- ment. For when the unthinkable—WAR!— 111 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, I983-I984 burst upon it, the peace movement's veneer of Equally important, the elitist assumptions intellectual and moral commitment cracked, which dominated the pre-war organized inaugurating a search for explanations at once peace movement also account for the failure satisfying and serviceable in terms of Ameri­ of the movement to prevent war. Despite its can interests. In Butler's case he no longer growth, the pre-war peace movement never could tolerate pacifists, essential to the survival developed meaningful contacts with move­ of any peace movement, who would refuse to ments for social and political change. Respect­ "use force in order that right may speedily able leaders like Butler feared contact with come to rule." A united peace movement in radicals who might corrupt their lofty goals; wartime was an impossibility because the such "unimportant" people threatened their rightness of American virtues became para­ access to governmental circles—those same mount to the morality of conscientious objec­ circles which coaxed them into supporting the tion. "Life," Butler admonished Columbia war. The rhetoric of Butler and his colleagues graduates serving in the army, "will not be reflected this elitism. While it was always lofty worth living for any of us unless you win this in tone, it became less warmly humanistic and war." more coldly intellectual. Its idealistic message Yet the failure of Butler and his lot was not could arouse the interest of high-minded indi­ their inability to prevent the European blood­ viduals in the peace movement, but because it bath. That was beyond their control. They expressed no urgent social message it could failed, rather, because oftheir optimistic and not sustain the active involvement of a reform- rather shallow assumptions about world poli­ minded generation in the cause. Butler felt no tics. Surely they placed too much faith in the compunction to apologize to pacifists as did his rationality of man, were too confident in their Columbia colleague, John Dewey, in 1919. reliance on moral education, overestimated the applicability of American values and insti­ tutions, and underestimated the importance of national self-interest and power in interna­ HE failure of the United Stales tional relations. Moreover, in emphasizing in­ T' Senate to approve the Ver­ evitable progress, they tolerated the status quo sailles Treaty, thus preventing American par­ in international life while holding out hope for ticipation in the League of Nations, did not di­ a gradual evolution towards a peaceful world minish the enthusiasm of peace seekers. In order. Such talk tended to gloss over the real fact, the crusade for democracy of 1917—1918 and menacing international problems oftheir turned into a crusade against war; peace be­ day. In particular, while disliking excessive na­ came an obsession for millions of Americans. tionalism, they advanced neither trenchant Through the decade of the 1920's, conserva­ nor persistent critiques of it. tive peace groups such as legalists favoring a Furthermore, if Butler and his peace advo­ World Court (American Peace Society, Carne­ cates disagreed with the ultranationalists' em­ gie Endowment, and American Association of phasis on national power and prestige as the International Law) and world federationists legitimate ends of foreign policy, they ex­ (League of Nations Non-Partisan Association, pressed a sense of mission which they could in­ Foreign Policy Association, World Peace Fed­ voke to justify the forceful application of eration), who placed their highest hopes for American ideals of peace, freedom, and jus­ the creation of a "definitized" world order in tice on an aberrant Europe. As the pressures the League of Nations and its associated agen­ for American involvement in the European cies, joined hands with radical groups like the conflict increased, only the most pacific- Women's International League for Peace and minded—among them Jane Addams, Ran­ Freedom, the National Council for the Pre­ dolph Bourne, Max Eastman, Norman vention of War, the Committee on Militarism Thomas, and socialist members ofthe People's in Education, and the War Resisters' League Council—consistently resisted the temptation in promoting the idea of international cooper­ to approve military intervention as a prerequi­ ation. During this decade of harmony, peace site for obtaining an American version of in­ groups actively debated the merits and demer­ ternational order. Nicholas Murray Butler its of the League of Nations, participated in was not one of them. disarmament conferences, discussed ways to

112 WHi(X3)23721 A meeting of the League of Nations. Geneva. Sii'itzerland, 1932.

Strengthen international law, and encouraged of national policy on the grounds that law had American acceptance of a treaty to outlaw war. to be codified before it could be applied, and It would have been easy for Butler, at this that an international treaty agreement would point, to have backed off his commitment to alleviate American apprehensions of involve­ internationalism and devote all his energies to ment with the League. Using his financial as­ administrative duties at Columbia. He chose sets, he established the American Committee not to largely because of his unyielding Kant­ for the Outlawry of War. He enlisted a num­ ian belief in man's fundamental rationality— ber of supporters, including Senator William an illusion the war should have destroyed— Borah of Idaho and the educator John Dewey. and the prospects for world order bonded by From 1923 to 1928 the movement spread rap­ judicial integrity. Because he did not suffer idly. the emotional scars of pragmatic intellectuals But while Levinson, Borah, and Dewey who mistakenly viewed the war as a vehicle for were launching their own outlawry campaign, reform, Butler was able to sustain his interest Butler and James T. Shotwell, professor of in­ in world peace as a matter of academic discus­ ternational relations at Columbia, took up the sion and "level-headed" leadership. What cudgels and pronounced their own plan for stands out clearly in terms of Butler's peace in­ abolishing war. Their practical solution was volvement is his resiliency, l^hough one may not to use the term "outlaw" but rather to have question his moral position in defense of na­ tional security, he nevertheless remained a persistent advocate on behalf of international •"•For an excellent discussion of the interwar peace peace. This was most evident when, bolstered movement, see Robert H. Ferrell, "The Peace Move­ by a rejuvenated peace movement, Butler ment," in Alexander DeConde, ed.. Isolation and Security: sought to shape the Outlawry of War move­ Ideas and Interests in Twentieth Century American Foreign Pol­ icy (Durham, North Carolina, 1957); Howlett, Troubled ment according to his own legalistic views. Philosopher, chapters 6 and 7; John C. Vinson, William E. The idea to outlaw war was the brainchild Borah and the Outlawry of War (Athens, Georgia, 1957); of a Chicago lawyer, Salmon O. Levinson.-"' Charles DeBenedetti, Origins ofthe Modern American Peace Movement, 1915-1929 (Millwood, New York, 1978); John Levinson proposed outlawing the institution E. Stoner, S. 0. Levinson and the Pact of Paris (Chicago, of war by universal declaration. He argued for 1943); Robert E. Ferrell, Peace in Their Time: The Origins of the notion of outlawing war as an instrument the Kellogg-Briand Pact (^evi Haven, 1953). 113 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, I983-I984 nations agree to a treaty which called for the the one hand, and temperance and pro­ renunciationof war as an instrument of public hibition on the other. Renunciation policy. (Part ofthe reason for Butler's interest would be a moral act by a free agent, in the alternative plan may have been based on while outlawTy would be merely a legal his extreme dislike for the senator from act with all the weaknesses, limitations and violations which laws carry in their Idaho, of whom he said, "Borah's relation to train. an advanced and progressive foreign policy is absolutely nil. He is violently and persistently opposed to every step that will allow us to help in building up institutions to represent the CTUALLY, Butler did not peace-loving sentiment ofthe world.")-^^ A'abando n his legalistic instincts. He had hoped for an enlightened public opin­ Another reason for Butler's version of war ion in all countries so that when a judicial deci­ renunciation was its implication of important sion was handed down, moral reason, not mili­ ties between the United States and the League. tary force, would ease tensions. He was During the postwar period Butler supported consistent in opposing the use of force to keep Shotwell's League of Nations Non-Partisan peace. With his rivals in the "outlawry" camp, Association. Butler, now head ofthe Carnegie he agreed that the proposal depended for its Endowment (he succeeded Elihu Root in effectiveness on the "plighted word" of all na­ 1925), supported Shotwell's organization in its tions: "The alternative to war is simple, com­ efforts to work for changes that would make mon, ordinary honesty. That is all. Unless all the international experiment more effective at men and governments are liars, national poli­ the same time it sought to make it more accept­ cies will, without delay, be adjusted to the new able to the public. The Carnegie Endowment international life that has been so gratefully joined other League supporters—the World brought into being.'""' This was a noble belief. Peace Foundation, Foreign Policy Association, But honesty means little in terms of a nation's and Woodrow Wilson Foundation—in an in­ own perception of its national security—a view formal coalition to increase the involvement of Butler himself paradoxically supported by up­ the United States in an advisory capacity.^* Al­ holding renunciation as an "act by a free though Butler remained firmly committed to agent." American entry into the World Court and preservation of American autonomy in inter­ Nevertheless, Butler was one of the prime national relations, he saw no reason why the movers behind the formulation of the American government should not lend its ex­ Kellogg-Briand Pact (or Pact of Paris), signed pertise to the League. on August 28, 1928. He was responsible for arousing American support for French For­ But perhaps Butler's main objection to eign Minister Aristide Briand's overture to the Levinson's scheme had to do with the word American government calling for a treaty to "outlaw." He did not feel it was a realistic term renounce war. No one is absolutely sure which to employ. Substituting the word "renuncia­ camp got the better of the deal in their own tion" for "outlawry," he felt, would inject a personal crusade for a warless world; but it sense of realism into the peace campaign. As seems certain that Butler's international con­ he recollected in a letter to John H. Finley, edi­ tacts, a result of his association with the Carne­ tor of the New York Times:^^ gie Endowment, made it easier for such a pro­ I pointed out that to outlaw war meant to posal to be brought forth in the United be ready to punish violators of that law, States."" And when the idea finally did catch which punishment could be nothing hold, Butler pushed the proposal through let­ other than war itself. I drew the parallel ters, speeches, and all the resources he could between renunciation and outlawry on muster at the Endowment. Between Septem­ "Buder to Edwin D. Mead, February 3, 1927, in the ber, 1927, and April, 1928, he delivered nu­ Butler Papers. For a complete description of Shotwell's merous major addresses on the Kellogg- contribution to the peace movement, see Harold Jo- sephson, James T. Shotwell and the Rise of Internationalism in *''New York Herald Tribune, January 12, 1934; Nicholas America (Rutherford, Newjersey, 1975). Murray Buder, The Paths to Peace (New York, 1930), 208- ^^Chatfield, ed., Peace Movements in America, 1-22. 211. ^'Butier to Dr. John H. Finley. January 8, 1930, in the ""See "Divergent Paths to Peace" in Howlett, Troubled Butler Papers. Philosopher. 114 HOWLETT: NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER

Briand Pact in New York, St. Louis, Chicago, not precede it as a cause."*' Clearly, an arma­ Philadelphia, Boston, and other United States ments race causes serious domestic conse­ cities.''^ Even after the pact had been ratified quences.*^ by the Senate, he was the prime sponsor of Using the mechanism of the Carnegie En­ Senator Arthur Capper's resolution which dowment, Butler began publicizing the prob­ sought to strengthen the pact by defining an lem of armaments. On Christmas Eve, 1930, aggressor during times of international cri­ for example, he asked James Shotwell to pro­ sis.*-' vide him with "a reasonably accurate state­ Congress paid little attention to the resolu­ ment in round numbers of the amount being tion by the senator from Kansas. A military ap­ spent by the leading governments in arma­ propriations bill seemed more pressing at the ments and in preparation for war. Several time. As Butler correctly concluded:*'' more or less responsible European public men have said that the amount was annually be­ We shall make no progress until we keep tween five billion and six billion dollars. I do admirals and generals out ofthe discus­ sions, and turn these over to representa­ not want to quote or refer to this statement tives of enlightened and progressive without first justifying it."*' Armed with such public opinion. . . . These gentlemen "facts," he then proposed a Worldwide Broad­ constantly tell us that they do not make cast over the National Broadcasting Network wars, but only fight them to speedy con­ in 1932 "To Arouse and Inform Public Opin­ clusion when made by politicians. There­ ion Regarding Problems Before Coming Dis­ fore, if politicians agree to renounce war armament Conference." (It never material­ as an instrument of national policy, the ized because the situation in Europe cooperation of military men will not be worsened.)** needed in arranging the details of inter­ national procedure. . . . By the mid-thirties the realities of milita­ rism had replaced the idealism of peace. In a Unfortunately, it made no difference. The letter to his friend the peace advocate Lucia rise of fascism in Europe and the Japanese in­ Ames Mead, Butler commented: "The great vasion of Manchuria in 1931 tipped the scales and wholly unnecessary navy which the gov­ in favor of the militarists. To all intents and ernment of the United States has been main­ purposes the Kellogg-Briand Pact was dead. taining is and must always be a temptation to its use and that use cannot be entered upon without rendering insecure the life of every­ one who stands in any relation, direct or indi­ 'HROUGHOUT these interwar rect, to the undertaking." And at Columbia's years Butler spoke out ada­ T' 181st commencement, Butler's resignation at mantly against any military buildup. "Disarm­ the turn of events clearly showed:*^ ament," he stated, "will never come by pres­ sure from without a nation, but only by When sixty odd nations, including our pressure from within. . . . The reign of peace own, quickly ratified the Pact of Paris will cause armaments to atrophy from disuse. [i.e., tfie Kellogg-Briand Pact] by which Disarmament will follow peace as an effect, war was renounced as an instrument of national policy, and then immediately entered upon a huge increase in their ap­ ''^Nicholas Murray Butler, "Briand Proposes Eternal propriations for all the instruments of Peace with US," in New York Times, April 25, 1927; Butier war, they did as much to bring about, to to Finley, January 8, 1930; Butler to Edwin D. Mead, Oc­ deepen and to prolong the worldwide ec­ tober 26, 1928; Butier to Gilbert Murray, February 7, 1929; Buder to Aristide Briand, January 16, 1929, all in onomic depression as any single force or the Butler Papers. influence could possibly have done. ''•''Butler to Arthur Capper, November 2, 1931, in the Carnegie Endowment Papers. Actually, the Capper reso­ ''"Butler, The International Mind, 11. lution indicated that Butler was out for more than the '"'Butier, The Basis of Durable Peace, 12. "plighted word" of nations signatory to the Kellogg Pact. '"Butler to James T. ShotweU, December 24, 1930, in He and Shotwell were out to keep the United States a the Butler Papers. friendly neutral in conflicts affecting the League, which is ''*'1932 telegram, in the Carnegie Endowment Papers. to say, France and Britain. '"Nicholas Murray Butler, The Family of Nations (New •'•'Buder to Edwin Mead, October 26, 1928, in the But­ York, 1938), 164-165; Butler to Lucia Ames Mead, Feb­ ler Papers. ruary 10, 1936, in the Butler Papers. 115 Strike Against War!

Fellow Classmates:

WE CALL upon the student* of the United Statea in high schools, in FRIDAY preparatory schools, in college* and universities to leave their classrooms on Friday, April I2tih, at eleven »,ia.t eighteen years after our entrance into tKe APRIL World War, in solemn protest against the hhkck pall of war that today encircles the world. ALTHOUGH the storm spot* shift, the threat of war remains everpresent. Imperiaiists still cry lor new lands and markets and are willing to sacrifice the youth of the world to get them- At present fresh contingents o^ troops are embarking for Abyssinia. Conflicting oil tntereals prolong the war in the Gran at II o. m. Otaco between Bolivia and Paraguay. Japan and Germany, although their populations are starving, racket their budgets in preparation for the march ^HRMHJHHHBHHHI over the bordem of the Soviet Union. WE CALL upon you to act against the war makers in our own country. William Randolph Hearirt, notorious for his war mongering. slanders and attacks professors and student organizations in his attempt to reduce the schools to servile instrtiments of the jingoists and the war department. Our govemmenl pro­ fesses peace but, with an eye upon Japan, brins^ ta the largest peace time military budget, including a $4,000,000 appropriation for the R.O.T.C. ^udent objectors to R.O.T.C. are being disciplined by the same administrations which converted the schools into barracks in 1917. Tbe Supreme Court, upholding con^ puisory drill, h&a further entrenched militarism tn esiucation. We a^e threatened with universal military training. IN BRUSSELS last December students from 3 I countries pledged solidarity in the fight against war. Jiwt one year ago. 25,000 students in America went out on strike. This year our strike will know no riational boundaries—in North and South America students will rise on April ! 2th and strike against American im­ perialism. We strike in solidarity with the students and teachers of Cuba who are demonstrating the effec­ tiveness of this student weapon. WE CALL upon the progressive and liberal forces on the American cam­ pus to take a stand. We ask the cooperation of the faculty and administration in our anti-war strike. We call upon them at this particular hour when the at­ mosphere is so ominously like that of 1914 to support us. IF WE are not willing to accept this responsibility, how grotesque it will seem to the youth who will be drafted into another world conBagration. Our lives are at stake. We have no alternative. Strike against war!

Strike Against Imperialist War National Counca of MeUiodiit Ya^ «-< . n I Yxr lat«-Seimnaiy Movement (Middle Atiantk Dtvi«

WHi(X3)21S59 Strike call is.sued in 1935 by several anti-war organizations.

They absolutely destroyed confidence in debts unnecessarily provoked bitterness and their plighted word. saddled future generations with an enormous The world economic crisis that began in charge upon productivity.'' He agreed with 1929 also compounded the inequities of the Versailles Treaty. The Depression, coupled consideration of War Debts: "It is needless to say that I share to the full views which you express about war debts with inter-Allied war debts, Butler feared, had and general international situation." Butler to George polluted the climate of international rela­ Peabody.MaySl and June 19, 1928; Jane Addams to But­ tions.^" He believed that the collection of war ler, September 14, 1931; James T. Shotwell to Elihu Root, December 8, 1930, all in the Butler Papers. ^°In the late 1920's Butler supported George Pea- ''New York Herald Tribune, July 29, 1931; New York body's Platform of American Association Favoring Re- Times, July 28, 1931; Nicholas Murray Butler, "On Inter-

1 16 HOWLETT: NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER

the financier John Henry Hammond, who in­ tional monetary stabilization and the lowering formed him, "To permanently improve the of barriers to international trade are essential economic situation, I believe that tariflFs must to that return of confidence upon which alone be reduced, commodity price levels raised, cooperating action by men or nations can be war debts and reparations suspended for built."55 years—and cancelled, if possible—and the danger of war averted. We must visualize an era of justice, good will and cooperation and work toward it, if world problems are to be IURING this same period Butler, solved."^^ D together with Shotwell, helped organize a mass action campaign for peace. During frequent trips to Britain, Butler Prodded on by the defeat of the World Court also expressed his opinions on war debts. In bill in 1934, they set up a committee in the 1932, in London, in an address sponsored by spring of 1935 which worked out a statement the Dunford House Association, Butler's Cob- that included world economic cooperation den Memorial Lecture appealed for a confer­ (expressly noting the status quo must be al­ ence to remove tariffs, quotas, prohibitions, tered), American association with the League etc. "It is in our own interest," he proclaimed, (without any obligation involving the use of "to take the lead with our debtor nations—in armed force), and an oblique reference to sitting down with the rest of the world, and negative cooperation with collective sanctions. saying, what we are going to do. It is perfectly It also addressed matters much in the public useless for us to say, legalistically, that there is mind; control of arms traffic, war profits, and no connection between Reparations and gov­ disarmament.^*' The committee concluded the ernmental War Debts, when really the two are statement with a recommendation that fur­ so intertwined that a surgeon cannot separate ther meetings be held in the fall. them."^^ Three years later, through tfie En­ dowment, he sponsored the Chatham House Accordingly, on October 3, 1935, forty- Conference in London. Sixty businessmen, four persons gathered at Columbia Univer­ statesmen, and academicians—a throwback to sity; most came from the upper crust of soci­ Butler's elitist belief in "enlightened entrepre­ ety. President Butler was empowered to create neurs" working for peace through economic a committee and to arrange a program of stabilization—of ten nations suggested easing action, and he appointed former Secretary of the burdens of debtor nations and lowering War Newton D. Baker as chairman. What e- tariffs resulting from the Great War. Among merged was the formation of the National the proposals suggested at the conference were efforts to strengthen the League of Na­ •^••Buder, The Family of Nations, 174-175; "The Chat­ ham House Conference," in the San Francisco Argonaut, tions, establish a Court of International Justice August 23, 1935; New York Herald Tribune, April 2, 1934, and Arbitration, check the growth of arma­ and June 29, 1936. ments, increase the effectiveness ofthe Pact of "'Statement to London Times, July 8, 1936; Buder, The Paris through a regular method of consulta­ International Mind, 79—80. In a special Green Cover Re­ tion, and cooperation among nations for rais­ port, July 15, 1936, issued by the presidentof the Endow­ ment, Butler reported on his conversations with states­ ing the standard of living.'''' Throughout these men, economists, and men of affairs in Europe pertaining years, Butler continued to argue that "interna- to the problem of economic nationalism. He concluded: "It is believed that the United States, as the world's great­ national Peace," in Vital Speeches, 1:127-128 (November est creditor nation, should take the lead and . . . call an in­ 19, 1934); Butler, "Joint Responsibilities of England and ternational conference before the power of the govern­ America to Insure Peace," in Vital Speeches, 1:174—176 ments to raise credit is ended. That conference would not (December 17, 1934); Butler, "War Debts," International be primarily polidcal in character but would be an en­ Conciliation, 287: 103-105 (February, 1933); Butler, "Lu- deavor to solve the economic and the monetary problems sanne Reparations Settlement and What It Means to the which are fundamental." Green Cover Report, July 15, United States," in International Conciliation, 282:317-321 1936, in the Carnegie Endowment Papers. (September, 1932); Butler, "Should America Cancel Her "^Chatfield, For Peace and Justice, 262-268; Lawrence Foreign War Debts?" Congressional Digest, 10:246 (Octo­ S. Wittner, Rebels Against War: The American Peace Move­ ber, 1931). ment, 1941-1960 (New York, 1969), chapter 1; Josephson, 52john Henry Hammond to Butler, April 14, 1932, in James T. Shotwell, 221-224; Clark M. Eichelberger to Ni­ the Butler Papers. cholas M. Buder, May 12, 1935; "National Peace Confer­ "'Pamphlet, War Debts and the World CWisis (London, ence, 'Statement of Principles,' "June 3, 1935, both in the 1932), in the Carnegie Endowment Papers. Carnegie Endowment Papers. 117 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1983-1984

Peace Conference, with Butler as an honorary collective efforts to counter aggression. The president.^' Eventually, the National Peace peace movement once more cracked under Conference merged with other peace groups the pressure of global politics. Traditional in­ lo form a broad-based coalition known as the ternationalists became increasingly political in Emergency Peace Campaign; this new coali­ their support of collective security—Butler tion later evolved into a public campaign that typically standing on the fence and leaning in supported collective security in the face of the that direction—while liberal pacifists, who in fascist threat. the twenties had related to every internation­ Yet opposing as he did military expendi­ alist approach, became isolated from the tures. Article X of the League Covenant, and broad peace movement in their pursuit of entangling alliances to protect American au­ neutrality. tonomy while half-heartedly supporting col­ Still Nicholas Murray Butler continued to lective security, all Butler could do by the late believe that it was possible for nations to act 1930's was call for a revision of the Pact of like principled gentlemen. His high-minded Paris to define aggressors and tell the Ameri­ elitism remained intact. In a speech delivered can people, somewhat vaguely, that what the in London, he held firm to his moral convic­ world needed was another Alexander Hamil­ tions that mankind could judge right from ton.^* Although many of his speeches con­ wrong: "The most searching question before tained renewed references to collective secu­ mankind then is: Can man be moral? Can he rity and an international police force, he never put human services above self-seeking, or discussed the nature and extent of "police must he be held in place and made to do so by a actions," the coordination of international force which is essentially non-moral and in forces with American troops, or the financial highest degree compulsory?"*'*' Yet he pri­ wherewithal to carry out their responsibili­ vately confided to Shotwell: "Conditions in ties 59 Germany, I look upon as distinctly psycho­ Butler's dilemma in the face of these incon­ pathic. How long it will take for that mania to sistencies aptly characterized the failure ofthe run its course, or what the cure may be, I do interwar peace movement to form a lasting co­ not know. But surely while it lasts, it eliminates alition against the forces of fascism. Despite all Germany from the list of important progres­ efforts, these differences disrupted efforts for sive nations. After all that the German people a broad-based movement on behalf of arms have accomplished during the past two and limitation, neutrality legislation, and an inter­ one-half centuries, this is a downfall which no national conference for economic redistribu­ one could have ventured to predict."*'' tion and neutral mediation. By 1938 the tenu­ By 1940, Butler was once more supporting ous harmony that had existed a decade earlier the call to arms. His convictions for a world between radical and conservative peace free from militarism and dictatorship had not groups broke apart when radical groups changed. But an unacknowledged chau­ swung sharply towards isolation when the vinism—itself the cause and consequence of League of Nations proved unable to organize war—complicated Butler's world outlook. "'Robert A. Devine, The Illusion of Neutrality (Chicago, Once again, as in 1917, his cosmopolitan and 1962), 56-59, 121-123; Chatfield, For Peace and Justice, international rhetoric crumbled and gave way 269-286; James T. Shotwell to Butler, September 25, to latent nationalism. He still believed it possi­ 1935, in the Butler Papers; Plan of Organization adopted ble for one world to mirror the image of the December 18, 1935, Nationai Peace Conference (New York, National Peace Conference, n.d.); Newton Baker to But­ United States. But he could no longer main­ ler, November 15, 1935; Henry S. Haskell to Butler, No­ tain a pacific posture while America was pre­ vember 19, 1935; Walter W. Van Kirk, "The National paring to do battle with Nazi Germany. A year Peace Conference—Report to the Carnegie Endowment later, following Pearl Harbor, Nicholas Mur­ for International Peace," April 1, 1936, pp. 1-3; Nicholas ray Butler had been fitted out in a suit of ar­ M. Butler, "Memorandum on Columbia Conference," n.d.; Walter 'Van Kirk to Butler, December 21, 1935; mor and had sallied forth to slay the dragon of Henry Haskell, "Memorandum for President Butler," totalitarianism. "The warning of destiny," he January 2, 1936, all in the Carnegie Endowment Papers. "^Butler, The Family of Nations, 71-72; Memorandum ™Green Cover Report, July 20, 1936, in the Carnegie from Samuel McCune Lindsay, December 15, 1938, in the Endowment Papers. Carnegie Endowment Papers. "Butler to James T. Shotwell, August 3, 1934, in the '"^New York Times, November 30, 1937, p. 4. Butler Papers. 118 HOWLETT: NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER solemnly intoned, "must inspire in the highest But can mankind's intellect and rationality authorities and the humblest citizens, reverent move civilization forward by caging up the understanding of the formidable task that dogs of war? Butler was by no means a devout America has assumed, and must impose the militarist, but his support of both world wars is resolve to work, produce, feel, fight without surely a contradiction of his lifelong struggle hesitations and restrictions, with all forces and for peace. His efTorts to tie the conservative determination, bravely and to the end."*''^ peace movement faction to the arm ofthe gov­ Among the peace seekers of the world, he ernment afforded him absolutely no opportu­ would be among the last to sheathe his sword. nity to distinguish between nationalism and chauvinism once the winds of war swept over the political landscape. His unwillingness to criticize his own government's policies, and his HAT lessons can be learned inability to differentiate between individual w from Butler's association with loyalty to one's conscience and group loyalty to the peace movement? Why could he not come a national government, indicated how easily to grips with the paradox of war and peace? morality and idealism could be swayed in fa­ Nicholas Murray Butler represented the vor of national conformity. Another educator, breed of internationalist characteristic of the David Starr Jordan, president of Stanford nineteenth-century Kantian approach to University, recognized this when he wrote be­ peace; this may have been Butler's most im­ tween the wars:^** portant contribution to the peace movement. Balance-of-power diplomacy could no longer It was plain that while the people of prevent wars. What was needed was the devel­ every country generally abhorred war, opment of legal machinery for the peaceful their pacifism was often only skin deep, settlement of disputes. Legalists like Butler overlying international hatred and dom­ sought to universalize the principles of the inated by false patriotism which regards all other nations as potential en­ American legal system. They contended that emies. . . . This opportunist pacifism the foundations of the American Constitu­ was not devoted to peace and its con­ tional system lay in the power of the Supreme structive possibilities; it was merely na­ Court to adjudicate vital differences among tionalism sweetened, tempered and sovereign states. They believed that a world enfeebled—a thin veil drawn across na­ court could civilize the natural aggressiveness tionalism. of mankind, and that competition among the nations could evolve peacefully. It is easy to smile cynically at Butler's sud­ den conversions to national security and war Serious-minded, proper, and humorless, to the hilt. Yet his shifting position represents Butler never abandoned his noble commit­ a central dilemma that peace groups, pacifist ment to morality—developed by upper-class and non-pacifist alike, have been unable to re­ custodians of proper upbringing—as an in­ solve in the face of war. Bitter sectarian squab­ strument for creating an enlightened public bling, hair-splitting, and the psychic exhaus­ opinion. He believed that man was rational, tion of day-to-day ad hoc politics sapped the and that those fit to lead would protect human peace movement's strength as an effective bul­ freedom and the sacredness ofthe individual. wark against the forces of nationalism and mil­ If moral decisions are possible, he asserted, itarism during the Great War. Thus the at­ the individual must be free to choose and act. tempt to bring divergent coalitions together in Thejob ofthe educator, as societal leader, is to the name of lasting peace proved futile in elevate humanity and to assist in carrying "for­ 1917 and during the subsequent twenty years. ward that complex of ideas, acts, and institu­ tions which we call civilization."*''^ Between the wars, the peace movement suf­ fered internally from an irresolvable tension ''^Green Cover Report, "America at War," December between the pacifists who had steadfastly op­ 28, 1941, in the Carnegie Endowment Papers; Nicholas posed American entry into World War I and Murray Butier, "There Can Be No Isolation," in Vital the more flexible internationalists (among Speeches, 8:262-264 (February 15, 1942): Buder, "What Does Freedom Mean?" in Vital Speeches, 9: 710-713 (Sep­ "'Nicholas Murray Butler, The World Today: Essays and tember 15, 1943); Butler to James T. Shotwell, August 6, Addresses (New York, 1946), 126. 1941, in the Butler Papers. ^''Quoted in Lutzker, "The Pacifist as Militarist," 103. 119 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1983-1984 them Nicholas Murray Butler) who had sup­ rism were all dwarfed by this single overshad­ ported it. Neither wing of the movement owing dilemma. In time of peace, the question formed a unified political whole; each repre­ seemed to fade in significance; but each time sented a loose, shifting coalition; and even the threat of war loomed large and menacing, though each advocated some ofthe same posi­ it arose again to test the courage and the prin­ tions, they remained, for a generation at least, ciples of those who sought a world without two distinct and frequently conflicting bodies war. In a world at peace, Nicholas Murray of thought and action. At the very core, the is­ Butler solemnly pursued his well-informed, sue dividing the peace movement was whether well-bred, and rational search for interna­ commitments to a wider world community, or tional order; but in time of war, he rallied to instead to a narrower nationalism, should ulti­ the colors like the noisiestjingo. It is well to re­ mately command the peace seekers' alle­ member that he was not alone in so respond­ giance. The practical and philosophical ques­ ing to the imminence of war. The paradox tions of a world court, the outlawry of war, continues to vex all movements that seek inter­ economic sanctions, disarmament, and milita­ national harmony.

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120 Jenkin Lloyd Jones and "The Gospel ofthe Farm"

Edited by Thomas E. Graham

Introduction

N the years just before the First sions, mediated strikes, superintended relief I World War it would seem that activities, and ceaselessly promoted the wel­ nearly everyone in the United States knew the fare of Chicago's disadvantaged. In 1893 Wil­ Reverend Jenkin Lloyd Jones, and that he liam Stead of London selected him to be vice- counted as a friend nearly everyone of impor­ president (second to Cardinal Gibbons) ofthe tance. City newspapers headlined his presence imaginary "Civic Church" described in his for a lecture. Boston and San Francisco knew book If Christ Came to Chicago. John Henry him almost as well as Chicago did. His national Barrows of Oberlin College called him "our fame rested on his lecturing and his frequent ad­ humanitarian cyclone." vocacy of most ofthe current causes of social re­ While Chicago and the nation was the stage form. He crusaded with Jane Addams, for his activity, Wisconsin was his home. He ar­ Booker F. Washington, Frances Willard, Wil­ rived as an infant with his Welsh immigrant liam Jennings Bryan, Baroness von Suttner, family in 1845 to a homestead near Ixonia, in David Starr Jordan, and a host of others. Fie Jefferson County. He grew up on pioneer was in the forefront of campaigns for prohibi­ farmsteads there and near Spring Green. tion, peace, racial justice, better education, Service in the Civil War with the Sixth Wiscon­ women's rights, economic reforms, clean gov­ sin Battery gave him a distaste for farm life.' ernment, poverty relief, humane treatment of He escaped it by entering Fhe Unitarian semi­ animals, and nearly every other progressive nary in Meadville, Pennsylvania. His ties to his attempt to improve American society. His home were too strong, though, and the rest of name was prominent as founder or officer of his life after seminary was spent within a day's many reform groups. journey of the family farm in the Wisconsin The base for his nationwide activity was the River valley near Old Helena, across the river Abraham Lincoln Center in Chicago—the so­ from Spring Green. After a short pastorate in cial agency cum church he founded in 1905. Winnetka, Illinois, and a year as a missionary Here he edited his newspaper. Unity, pastored in his home territory, he settled in Janesville in All Souls Church, and practiced on a local ba­ 1873. There he revitalized a moribund All sis the grand ideas that he crusaded and lec­ Souls Unitarian Church, created a Sunday tured for. School program for Western Unitarians, in­ Jones's Chicago reputation outstripped his vented the Unity Club, and helped start national reputation. Since his arrival there in Unity—the Western Unitarian newspaper. 1881, he had become a voice to be reckoned The energy which Jenkin Lloyd Jones with and a resource to be drawn upon. Fhe Chicago papers printed his sermons, politi­ 'The journal of Jones's military service was printed as cians sought his inffuence, reformers counted An Artilleryman's Diary (Wisconsin History Commission, on his support. He served on public commis- Madison, 1914). Copynght © 1984 by The State Historical Society ofWisconsin 121 All riglits of reproduction in any form reserved Jenkin Lloyd J ones at the "reading desk" on the platform ofthe Abraham Lincoln Center, Oakwood at Langley Avenue, Chicago, April/May, 1905. brought to his work, the optimism he radiated, go's south side, reorganized it as All Soul's and the evident success that attended his labor Unitarian Church, and continued as its pastor brought him into the forefront ofthe Western to his death. Exhausted by the demands of the Unitarian Conference. With a few like- secretaryship, he resigned in 1884. Within two minded souls, he pumped new life into a years the Conference was divided over the nearly dead conference, set it on the course of matter of its Christian basis. Jones and his sup­ aggressive religious liberalism, and drove it porters fought a bitter fight on behalf of open­ through a ten-year period of spectacular ex­ ness to all theological positions, upholding the pansion and exciting vitalit\. "ethical basis" ofthe Western Unitarian work. In 1875 he was appointed Cx)nference The final compromise settlement of 1892 dis­ Missionary-at-Large for one-third of his time. appointed and alienated him. The post grew into the position of "field secre­ In the midst of this dispute, known in Uni­ tary," and by 1881 had become too demand­ tarian circles as "The Issue in the West," Jones ing to combine with his parish duties in Janes­ became involved in the preparation for Chica­ ville. Jones moved to Chicago and full-time go's World Columbian Exposition of 1893. In Conference work. As field secretarv, he was particular he had a large role in planning and Bishop, circuit rider, office bov, and Dear superintending the World's Parliament of Re­ Abby to a constituency from western New ligion. The event affected him deeply. The York to the Rocky Mountains. Parliament brought together for the first time His heart, though, was still in the parish. In members of religious groups from all over the 1882, despite his heavy responsibilities, he world to meet each other and celebrate their took another defunct congregation, on Chica­ common interests. While the Parliament was 122 GRAHAM: JENKIN LLOYD JONES

dominated by American Protestants, the small after 1917. He was under constant criticism contingent of Asians, mostly Buddhists and for his stand and was harrassed by the govern­ Hindus, had a disproportionately large im­ ment. The United States Post Office refused to pact. accept Unity for the mails in the spring of 1918 The combination of the Parliament and the and Jones's summer was spent trying to get the Issue in the West showed Jones that the Uni­ judgment reversed. After an operation for tarian Church was too constricting an organi­ hernia in August, he suffered a heart attack. zation for the work he wanted to do. In 1894 The news finally came that Unity was again to he formed the World's Congress of Liberal be accepted for mailing, and he read the proof Religions to embody the wider values of the of the first accepted issue as his last act. He Parliament, and by 1898 had severed the con­ died on September 12, 1918, two months nection between his congregation and the short of his seventy-fifth birthday and the ar­ American Unitarian Association. It became mistice. just "All Soul's Church" (without the "Unitar­ The fame of Jenkin Lloyd Jones in his own ian"), its pulpit open to all "from the Pope to day derived from his work on the speaker's [Robert] Ingersoll, from the Brahmin priest to platform—his ability to inform, motivate, and the captain of the Salvation Army." move his audiences. He often lectured outside While the Congress struggled vainly to church situations even as early as the 1870's, maintain a precarious existence. All Soul's but the form that was most congenial to him ffourished. Immediately Jones began plan­ was the sermon; even his lectures have a ser- ning for an institutional home to put into prac­ monic ffavor to them. He developed his skills tice his humanitarian and progressive reli­ and honed his style in the pulpits of Unitarian gious ideals. In 1905 the Abraham Lincoln churches in Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Center, a seven-story building in south Chi­ Michigan, and Iowa. From a very timid start as cago, was completed with a sanctuary, gymna­ a self-conscious farm boy, ill at ease in the not- sium, classrooms, meeting rooms, library, and very-sophisticated Meadville seminary, within residents' quarters. It was Jones's dream of five years he had become a preacher of quite what a church should be: a seven-day-a-week some power. The sermons of his early years institution that ministered to the whole person were mostly ethical and inspirational exhorta­ and was dedicated to promoting the evolution tions, more or less based on Biblical texts. In of the human race towards its inevitable fu­ the mid-1870's, however, he shifted to an ag­ ture of unity, peace, and prosperity. gressive proclamation ofthe liberal position in theology, science, and Biblical criticism. By the time he moved to Chicago he had found or in­ LREADY a public figure before vented the sermon form that would be the A 1905, the remaining thirteen main vehicle for the rest of his life, and he pro­ years of life saw him at the height of his activ­ ceeded to perfect it. ity. Among the many causes that drew him, his More often than not his mature sermons efforts for prohibition and world peace stand would begin with an event from his own expe­ out. At the end of his life it was the peace effort rience, a book he had read, or some scientific that dominated. He had been preaching the advance. He would narrate the experience, peace cause since the Spanish-American War, summarize the book, or explain the science at and with the approach of World War I, he considerable length. The factual material stepped up his work to convince America that would then be explored for the "lessons" war was inhumane and irrational. As the war which could be drawn for the profit ofthe au­ came closer to home, many of his peace- dience. comrades fell away, but he firmly maintained If, as often happened, the factual section his position. When Henry Ford's Peace Ship overshadowed the lessons, that did not make it sailed for Europe in 1915,Jones was aboard as any less religious. Knowledge, in itself, was re­ partof the directorate. Even after America en­ ligiously important to Jones. To know more tered the war, Jones held out for peace. He re­ about the physical world, about social struc­ mained one of the few consistent pacifists tures, about psychology, about the historical throughout the war, and one of a small hand­ evolution of thought and life was fully a reli­ ful of pacifist clergymen to retain their pulpits gious activity. In studying the way the world

123 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1983-1984 operated, one could learn the wav that God honor the memory oftheir mother and father. operated. In Jones's thinking all reality was a And here Jenkin came each summer (and of­ unity; the spiritual and material were continu­ ten at Christmas) to serve as family pastor on ous and the processes of one were the proc­ his vacation. esses ofthe other. In 1889 Jenkin bought the desolate and "Evolution" was the key word for those useless Power Hill at a tax sale for $60.00. processes. Everywhere Jones saw the steady With his brothers and a couple of neighbors, development from simplicity towards com­ he formed the Tower Hill Pleasure Company plexity, separation towards unity, irrationality to guarantee his summer retreat. In a few towards reason, discord towards harmony. years it had become a thriving summer school His sermons, both implicitly and explicitly, set for religion. At Tower Hill he brought the city out to show his audience how that process is at and the farm together. Chicago families came work. The lessons also aimed at arousing the to hear the best speakers and teachers the cit­ desire to become an active part of evolution, to ies could offer. be on the creating frontier of development. It is fitdng that it was at Tower Hill that To do this, one had to have "character." Jenkin Lloyd Jones fought his last battle—and That old-fashioned word was another key for that that is where he died, to be buried in the Jones. By it he meant things like a sense of grove around Unity Chapel. From Wisconsin duty, self-discipline, high aspirations, integ­ earth he came, to Wisconsin earth he re­ rity, altruism, perseverance, and courage. Hu­ turned. man beings had, for him, almost limitless pos­ Farm themes figure frequently in his ser­ sibilities. Only "character" was needed to mons from the very beginning, and his own bring them into being. boyhood was a rich mine from which he dug The world—especially human society and sermon illustrations. In 1908 he preached a technology—had no visible limit to its devel­ sermon, "Barn Building," which caught the at­ opment. The United States was the most ad­ tention of former governor William Dempster vanced place ofthe world; he gloried in its ac­ Hoard, the evangelist ofthe cow and editor of complishments (and criticized its betrayals of Hoard's Dairyman. He suggested to Jones (of its own ideals). But the United States as it was course he was a friend of Jenkin's) that he in 1900 and 1918 was only a way station on the write a series of sermons for his paper, to be road to a better society, a more advanced tech­ called "The Gospel of the Farm." Obliging, nology, a more unified world. Jones submitted six sermons which were pub­ In all his work in the city and for the nation lished, more or less monthly, from January to at large, it was the soil of rural Wisconsin that July, 1910. A year and a half later, a Christmas nourished his vision and restored his strength. sermon, "The Gospel ofthe Manger," also ap­ Farming as an occupation may have been too peared in Hoard's. narrow for his soul and too grueling for his body, but his early life on a pioneer farm cre­ ated the ideals which drove his life. For him, the farm was to the city what the primary ONES regularly saw his sermons school is to the university.- If in the city the J into print. Besides those which higher purposes of human life are worked the Chicago dailies published in their Monday out, the foundation for those higher purposes morning editions, he printed many himself in is laid by the farm. Unity. Six collections of sermons were printed in book form. The Faith Tliat Makes Faithful 'Fhe Wyoming Valley, where his father and (with William C. Gannett) was very popular, brothers had their farms—and later his sisters going through several editions and remaining their Hillside School—was where he returned in print from 1886 undl the 1920's.'' year after year to regather his energies and re­ In the autumn of 1917 Mrs. Susan Quack- cover his poise. In the 1880's, the locus for this enbush of Portage, Wisconsin, a devoted ad- was brother Thomas' house and the grave­ yard under the trees where his mother lay bur­ ied. In 1886 the family built Unity Chapel, to •'The other books of sermons are: Religion ofthe World, (\?>9'i); Jess: Bits of a Wayside Gospel (1899); A Search for an ^Jones used this image in a sermon to his congregation Infidel: Bits of a Wayside Gospel (1901); Love and Loyalty in Chicago on September 15, 1895. (1909); Love for the Battle-torn People (1916).

124 ff

Courtesy the Regenstein Library Jenkin Lloyd Jones with his cows at Tower Hill, probably 1916 or 191 /

mirer of Jones and one of his part-time secre­ Lincoln, which intensified in 1904 with the taries, began prodding him to give a wider campaign to save the Lincoln birthplace as a audience to his work by publishing a number national memorial. Besides gathering to­ of pieces. In November she sent a vague feeler gether his sermons on Lincoln, Jones unchar­ to Macmillan in New York about several possi­ acteristically began a careful research of Lin­ ble books and received a cautious expression coln's ancestry, intending to write three of interest. By mid-January, Jones was won chapters especially for publication. Even over. At the age of seventy-four he accepted though the missing chapters were never writ­ that if he were to publish the books he had ten, the uncompleted manuscript was submit­ been thinking about, he had to make it a very ted to several publishers, looking both to a present concern. book and serial publication in national maga­ He busied his two secretaries editing and zines. typing, and took up the task of seeking pub­ "Fhe Gospel of the Farm" was virtually lishers. He had several projects in mind: an complete. It consisted ofthe six sermons from autobiography, a study of Mark Twain, a Sun­ the original series in Hoard's with the addition day School guide, a religious treatment of evo­ of eight others on rural themes preached be­ lution. None of these got beyond a sketch or tween 1898 and 1917. Eventually Jones added outline. Four others did reach the stage of be­ three more-or-less autobiographical sermons ing submitted to publishers, but the only one at Mrs. Quackenbush's insistence. He in­ that was actually published was a new edition tended to preface each chapter with a poem, of The Faith That Makes Faithful. His book on but did not finish selecting the poems for all "Peace" had no chance of being published in seventeen. Otherwise, the book existed in a the war-fever of 1918, and he knew it. A book carefully edited manuscript. on Abraham Lincoln and "The Gospel of the At one point it seemed certain that Macmil­ Farm" were the two to which he devoted the lan was going to accept both books. Jones and most energy. Mrs. Quackenbush were elated. A month Jones had a lifelong interest in Abraham later, though, they went through "beieave- 125 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1983-1984 ment" when the final decision was to reject of a master preacher of two generations back. both. The two made the rounds of publishers, The homiletic art is at a high polish. These are finding no welcome anywhere. In 1921, three the written form of that on which his fame years after Jones's death, Mrs. Quackenbush rested. His delivery is reported as compelling was still trying (unsuccessfully) to get the two and exciting, but that we must necessarily into print. miss. It is regrettable that no phonograph re­ cord of Jones's voice exists. Even in written form, though, his mastery ofthe language car­ HE failure to publish these books, ries the power to the inner ear.* T-after the successful pub­ Perhaps the most important value of these lishing record of Jones in the previous thirty sermons is the view they provide into the years, is somewhat surprising. Jones and Mrs. world of thought inhabited by the turn-of-the- Quackenbush found the explanation in the century liberals. In Jones's sermons we can wartime situation. One publisher's rejection catch a glimpse of the greatness of their aspi­ seems to support this interpretation. Fewer ration, the passion of their concern, their books were being published, and those few breadth of mind, their stiffness of spine, the were not likely to include a collection of ser­ glow of their hope. If we can also see blind mons on such an untimely subject as the vir­ spots, naivete, and over-simplifications, it tues of rural life. should not distract us from the real strength The war had also caused a serious eclipse of they possessed. We may no longer be able to Jones's popularity. His persistent pacifism and think as they did—or even want to. Neverthe­ his participation in Ford's Peace Ship caused less we live in the world they helped to make, the admiration which Jones had enjoyed to and we think as we do because they went be­ give way to a mixture of ridicule and anger. fore us. Jenkin Lloyd Jones and people like His fame had become notoriety. A book by him deserve more appreciation from us than him was not likely to be a commercial success. they usually receive. We can understand our­ One suspects, too, that the era of which selves better for knowing more of this part of Jones was such an eloquent representation our roots. was already rapidly passing away. The inspira­ The sermons give us a bonus as well. Sprin­ tional orator, the preacher of optimism, the kled throughout them are bits of autobiogra­ purveyor of "lessons" of character was no phy: fragments of the memories of a Wiscon­ longer eagerly heard or heeded. The automo­ sin farm boy growing up in the 1850's and bile and the motion picture, both of which 1860's. They show us, in a kind of album of were affecting Jones's life, were providing homely snapshots, something of life on a fron­ more interesting ways to spend leisure than tier farm a century and a quarter ago. reading sermons and hearing lectures. A man and his books that found a ready audience in T.E.G. 1886 or 1901 had lost the power to command attention in 1918. It is suggestive that after Jones's death there was no continuing interest This sermon was first delivered at All Souls in his life or ideas. After standing in a brilliant Church, Chicago, on September 20, 1908. It limelight for nearly thirty years, Jones disap­ marked Jones's return to the city after his summer peared completely and abruptly from na­ rest m Wisconsin and the beginning of the autumn tional, and even sectional, interest. activity at All Souls. Like many sermons on similar occasions, it is based on an experience from his recent Despite the efforts of Mrs. Quackenbush, stay at Tower Hill. Characteristically, it evolves into Mrs. Jones, and the other literary executors, a challenge to his congregation to face and attack "The Gospel ofthe Farm" found no publisher. Chicago problems. The manuscript, with Jones's last revisions, was filed among his other papers when they 'These sermons, despite Jones's editing tor publica- found a home at Meadville/Lombard Theo­ don, betray their origin as spoken word. In my editing I logical School in Chicago in 1964. The ser­ have tried to keep tfie oral flavor. I frequently have al­ tered Jones's punctuation in the interest of clarity and mons which follow are selections from that consistency, but have changed the words themselves only manuscript. in cases where his long, ear-oriented sentences worked They are samples ofthe style and structure themselves into grammatical or syntactical difficulties. 126 GRAHAM:JENKIN LLOYDJONES

// was printed in the next issue of Unity, Septem­ two winter's chopping was necessary before ber 24. Governor Hoard was attracted by it and re­ the traveling sawmill would deign to come printed it in Hoard's Dairyman on November 20. and make a "setting." In my boyhood the This sermon was the one which inspired Hoard to ask problem of the countryside was to get logs to Jones for the series of sermons on rural themes that the mill; now it is the simpler, but quite as in­ became "The Gospel of the Farm." The sermons in teresting, problem of getting the mill to the the projected book were to be prefaced by a poem. The logs. The product ofthe sawing was a promis­ selection of the poems was one of Jones's half- cuous pile of oak, ash, elm, poplar and f)ass- finished tasks; no indication is given of what he in­ wood lumber—a rough output compared with tended as the preface to "Barn Building." the neatly piled, edged and planed product of The barn, the construction of which is described, the lumber yard supplied from the cypress was dismantled several years ago. Only the lower swamps ofthe South, the great pine forests of stone fou7idation remains on the grtmnds of what is the far West or the remnants of the pineries of now Tower Hill State Park. Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota. But my lumber cost me four dollars and seventy cents per thousand for the sawing, while the prices of the lumber yard range upward from thirty Barn Building dollars per thousand. And so my barn became possible. The first story was built of stone that had to I have no where to bestow mv fruits .... I will pull down my barns and build be brought from the quarry three miles away. greater. . . . 4'hou foolish one, this night The forethought that tried to arrange for the IS thy soul required of thee. . . . So is he hauling of the stone in winter time when the that layeth up treasure to himself, and is roads were hard and the weather cold, miscar­ not rich toward God. . . . ried, and much of the stone had to be hauled (Luke 12:17-21). in the sweltering weather of the summer, in­ curring a free flow of sweat in men and horses. I built me a barn one summer. The exigencies The upper story was to be frame, but suitable of Tower Hill, my summer home, require siding and shingles were priced too high, so, milk, and milk calls for cows, and cows must after the solid "sheeting" in rough boards needs be sheltered. The interrupted farmer in from the home lumber yard, this barn was me asserted himself in the days of my gray roofed and "sided" with felt paper—an inno­ hairs, and barn-building became an interest­ vation which awakened the distrust of neigh­ ing and, as I found, a profitable vacation pas­ bors. But my barn was small and was to be a time. preacher's barn; I could afford to Sixty years ago in Wisconsin, as I remember experiment—nay, the missionary opportunity it, a cow-barn was a very simple thing. A few tempted—and so I ventured on the "paper boards or rails over which the straw-stack was barn." built would suffice. Indeed, many cows were But to build a barn as becomes one in the wintered on the sunny side ofthe straw pile or full light of modern science and academic hus­ in side-hill excavations of buildings devoted to bandry is serious business. I was mastering a other uses. Not so now. How to build an up-to- new science; I was taking at least a short course date cow-barn is an academic problem. Ex­ in agriculture. perts in many departments must be consulted; Here I found the resources of the State materials from many sources must be assem­ ready to serve me. The agricultural architect bled; patented contrivances and substances of of the University came, at the expense of the intricate and mysterious manufacture must be State, to show me how to build a poor man's used. barn that would carry with it the sanitation I was getting ready for at least two years for and conveniences which the wealthy man's the building of this barn. The price of the barn oftentimes misses. Fhe first plans were plainest lumber climbed so high that it was furnished free of cost. Then came confer­ simply prohibitive in my barn-building ences, more or less non-commercial, with scheme. So the trees had to be found and inventors, manufacturers and dealers, taking felled on the place, and the accumulation of up questions of stanchions, mangers, ven- 127 The construction ofthe barn described in'Barn Building," summer, 1908. tilation—problems of intake, circulation and would have none ofthe American twenty-inch draughts. wall—nothing less than twenty-four inches; There were economic questions to settle. Is and the stone must be laid in courses, hewn it right or economically wise to patronize Chi­ and true, such as would befit a cathedral wall. cago mail-order houses and save ten or twenty He wrought like the workers of old: per cent of cost, while the local dealers, the home industries, the village merchants—my In the elder days of art. old friends and neighbors—are thereby Builders wrought with greatest care crowded to the wall? Each minute and unseen part; Industrial questions were involved in the For the gods see everywhere.*' buildingof my barn. Would 1 build bv contract The upper structure is paper-covered and or day labor? In finding an honest and skilful elm-lined, with its well-lighted and ventilated country carpenter, you find one of the most mow for thirty tons of hay, and its hay-fork mechanically competent and industrially and track to be handled by horse power. efficient workmen of modern times. I found Below is the cow palace with adjustable such a one and trusted all to him, without con­ stanchions, gas-pipe stalls, swinging metal tract or estimate. So there was no labor union manger, separating-room and gasoline to interfere, no walking delegate to watch me engine-house. Wooden slat platforms, upon or be watched by me. It was all one to my barn which my lady cow is to lie, protect her from builder and his men whether they shoveled the chill ofthe cement floor just below. sand, laid stone, mixed concrete, drove a All this for eighteen cows, the maximum ca­ team, connected pipes, painted, framed tim­ pacity. For the building of this cow-barn, ber or laid a floor. forces had been directed, materials had been And so my barn grew, with its foundations assembling, plans had been maturing and ex­ of solid masonry. My good Welsh mason-' tra dimes and dollars had been surreptitiously 'David Timothv. a highlv skilled stone mason and snatched from the current outflow and set craftsman, came from South Wales to the Spring Green apart in a barn-pocket, for over two years. area around the vear 1880. At his f imeral in Unity (Chapel. This barn represents the conscious effort, the Jenkin Lloydjones eulogized Timothy as "a barn-builder, a cellar-maker, a shaper of stone walls, a builder of houses often he would drop his hammer and slowly, laboriously, for men to dwell in. . . . [His] handcraft is left to his great come to our Westhope (Cottage where I work, with some credit on at least three notable buildings, permanently as­ anecdote or noble passage, with an Englyn on his lip or a sociated with the higher life of the communities thev quotation from some of his great preachers." Jenkin serve—the beautiful new chapel of Llwynrhdowen, built Lloyd Jones, Funeral services of David Timothy at Hill­ under most inspiring conditions for the mother Unitarian side, Wisconsin, June 9, 1909, pp. 5-6, 10, unpublished church in Wales; the Hillside Home School, and the Unity manuscript on file in the Jane Lloyd Jones Papers, 1899- Cjhapel in this valley." Later in his address, Jones reiriem- 1'940, Box 1, Archives, State Historical Society ofWiscon­ bered that "perhaps the last piece of work to which [Timo­ sin, Madison. thv] gave his heart was the little barn on Tower Hill last '^Selection from "Builders" bv Henry Wadsworth summer. He was then feeble and could not do much; . . . Longfellow.

128 GRAHAM: JENKIN LLOYDJONES deliberate planning, of many minds, btit who justify it. And so the barn-builder was busy can tabulate the unconscious forces that cul­ that summer in studying pedigrees, problems minated in this bit of paper-covered, gambrel- of butter-fat, rations and ratios, the respective roofed barn, built amid the bluffs in an out-of- claims of Jersey, Guernsey and Holstein. As an the-way corner ofWisconsin? immediate result, three adult cows were sold Fhe materials took shape and form within in order to find money enough to buy one calf the limits of a summer vacation, but the lines with which to improve the herd. that center in that cow-barn reach back But the delightful trouble does not end through the architectural struggles of history. here. Problems thicken, responsibilities The purline plates, rafters and jack rafters, deepen. A model barn, housing high-bred joists and studding, involve more geometry, cows, even though it be covered with paper mathematical calculation, knowledge of the and the herd be made of eighteen heads, calls bearing power and the strains and the stresses for masterly handling, a "herdsman" to grace of joints and limbers than the wisest individ­ the barn and to manage scientifically the bo­ ual could compute. My barn seems to be the vine ladies housed therein. fabric of today, but it is older than the Pyra­ So the barn-builder must go in search of all mids. It is made possible by virtue of experi­ this—the competent man, not a hired hand. mentations made six thousand years ago on The new barn called for no stable boy, but a the banks of the Euphrates. The castings on dairy-man, one tutored of the schools, one the bearings of my hayfork carrier are illumi­ who would love his charge and profit by the nated with a long list of patents running back wisdom of the ages, one who could apply the through many years, and behind each patent latest inventions, profit by the experiments lie wakeful nights, distressing disappoint­ and use the formulas of the agricultural col­ ments and anxious hopes. My felt paper cov­ lege and the dairy stations. All this must be ering, for which I paid one dollar and ninety- found in the person of one who was still willing five cents per hundred square feet, is to work, and for farmer wages; and so the enshrouded in mystery, buried in secrets, barn-builder laid hold of another modern guarded by bristling patents. I fancy it is some contrivance—he advertised, and of course in by-product of that commercial centipede, the the journal of highest standard—Hoard's all-conquering and ever-to-be suspected Dairyman. Standard Oil Company. WANTED: Man and wife to work small Thus you see, he who would build a cow- farm, equipped with dozen cows and the barn today—for not more than eighteen usual complement of horses, pigs, etc. cows—must make friends with all the arts, Good house, with fair wages, privilege of must count on all the sciences, must avail him­ keeping cow, two pigs, garden patch, self of the accumulated experience ofthe cen­ wood, etc. Well equipped poultry yard to turies, the common sense of the ages. There be run on shares with the wife. Must be are rustless nails, ball-bearing wheels, devices tidy and careful workers in and out of to lift poison gases from the floor and bring doors. Position open about September fresh air from the ceiling, a dustless room for first. Address Box 161, c/o Hoard's Dairy­ man, Fort Atkinson, Wis. the milk separator, separator test-tubes— Babcock's triumph—which tell awful tales All this care and science, this caution and about "robber" cows that look so comely, fat provision, for the sheltering, feeding, breed­ and strong, but who do not pay for their ing and training of a cow! All this splendid board, so thin is their milk. On the other hand, combination of discoveries, inventions, me­ these tests often cover the modest, homely, ob­ chanical patents, chemical tests, laboratory scure, runt-like little cow with compliments. contrivances was in the interests of a quadru­ Science has made the last of the herd first and ped, an animal of the barn-yard. The interest the first of the herd last, in the estimation of culminates in the cow chieffy because under the intelligent barn owner. this care she becomes a more marvelous milk- This meeting of the sciences, this conspir­ producing mechanism, a more fertile source acy ofthe laboratory, puts the cow in the lime­ of butter and cream, the indispensable factor light, and the barn necessitates the reconstruc­ in the great cheese industry ofthe world. Why tion ofthe herd. Such a barn calls for cows that not? Cheese and butter and cream are whole-

129 :*<.^^-

And then the color, shading from delicate fawn to rich mahogany, and the slender tail with its ample bush! An artist may paint with pigment but no poet with words can possibly suggest the beauty of the Jersey. She seems to stand on the border-line where matter breaks into spirit, body takes on soul, the useful clothes itself with the beautiful. "Treat your cow as though she were a lady," is the dictum which W. D. Hoard, the cow- loving governor of Wisconsin, has made fa­ mous. How could one do otherwise in the HF presence of a perfect Jersey cow? I always feel like taking off my hat to her and begging her pardon for my rudeness in staring at her. The cow has improved the manners and to a degree transformed the morals of the west­ ern fann hand. Fhe "hired man" of my boy­ hood was a profane, boisterous, banging fel­ low. He has given place to the quiet, courteous, respectful and respectable barn man. The owner of cows cannot afford to have any other type of man around. The insulted cow resents the indignity promptly by lessen­ ing the ffow and degrading the quality of the wonderful return she makes to man for his care and guidance. Slowly but surely the cow is helping to transform society in the dairy re­ gions of the West. Cheese factories and cream­ eries are supplanting the country saloons which used to occupy the crossroads corners, and the traveler slakes his thirst with butter­ milk or sweet fresh whey where he used to get his whiskey or beer. Jenkin Lloydjones standing beside his barn during its construc­ Thus the cow becomes a minister of the tion ill the summer e)f 1908. beautiful as well as of the useful. In the con­ some articles of diet, and the improvement of struction of my barn the utilities alone were cow conditions is for the purpose of increasing considered; the canons of severest plainness, her product, which is to feed the human world cheapness and simplicity were enforced. But better. lo! to the surprise of everyone, the adequate But there is something more than an eco­ windows, the provisions for air, light and feed, nomic element, something more than dollars even the economic and suspect paper cover­ and cents, more than food and drink, in my ing, with its battened joints and parallel lines, barn problem. Here as elsewhere, beauty waits satisfy the eye; the farmer neighbor and city on utility; refinement and profit go hand in visitor of Tower Hill talk about the "beautiful" hand.' barn. It certainly shames its surroimdings, the What an exquisite product is the Jerse\ slattern horse-barn, the ragged pig])en. the cow. She is the lily of the bovine world! Fhe inadequate carriage shelter, the disheveled gentle but alert eye, the delicately sculptured yard with its clutter of tools and unwashed ve­ head, the gracefully curved, tapering horns, hicles. As the barn approached completion, I which have almost wholly passed from a noticed that the men began to pick things up, weapon of defense into a matchless ornament! and there is an increased motive if not an im­ 'I have omitted the next paragraph about the Island of perative necessity for the snatching of more Jersey because it disrupted the How ofthe sermon. dimes and dollars froin the current outflow of

130 GRAHAM: JENKIN LLOYDJONES the preacher's pocket-book and putting the and all the wealth connected with her repre­ same away in the special barn-pocket, so that sent low rungs in the ladder of evolution, the barn-yard may not disgrace the barn. upon the higher rungs of which have long The ministry of the barn will not only ame­ since been planted the feet of man. "Foday the liorate the condition of the calves, but it will battle line of creation is away up there, where make the lives of the colts, the pigs and the human babies cry for pure air, where the chil­ chickens, the tasks ofthe farmer's wife and the dren of men and women grow pale for want of surroundings of the new baby more comfort­ nourishment, where souls grow faint, hearts able, more humane, more righteous. If my pa­ grow sick, and minds grow vacant from over­ per barn transforms the Tower Hill barn­ work and under-feeding. yard, the zone of its influence will surely Well did the Master startle the barn-builder widen. Neighbors will take note. Other barn with the demand, "This night is thy soul re­ builders have been watching the process and quired of thee. The things which thou hast are already prepared to improve on my barn. prepared, whose shall they be?" Miserable is (My successes they will copy; my mistakes they the triumph that layeth up treasures for one's will avoid.) It is already adverdsing the "James self! Alas for the treasure-gathering, the barn- patent swinging manger," the "flint-surfaced building, that leaves the man poorer in the felt roofing," the iron stalls and concrete things of God, penurious towards the soul, in­ floors, the patent milk-pails and the labor- different at the very point where goods be­ saving contrivances looking towards neatness, come precious and treasure desirable, where economy and thrift connected therewith. self is lost in the fuller life of the community If the new barn is persistently lived up to, it and things are transformed into ideas, posses­ will help uplift the county, contribute towards sions into powers, wealth into influence and the reformation ofthe State, and help bring in plenty into character, social potency, civic the kingdom: righteousness. It is all very well to preach the gospel ofthe Wherein no man can fail. cow. I think it is well to build larger barns, par­ Where whoso faileth and dieth ticularly better barns, but only when they Yet his deed shall still prevail.*^ make the soul "rich toward God," only when they enlarge rather than stultify the builder, But there is a menace in the barn. I have not widen his sympathies, and increase not alone yet touched the innermost ethical elements in his relish for food but his relish for good. the new barn which stirred the mind of the The quest of evolution today, as John Fiske Great Preacher of all the world. He called the said in his dying days, is the perfection of soci­ barn-builder the "foolish one," but if I read ety, the development of the community, the the parable aright, the offense was not in the construction of the state. And John Flske did new barn or in the plentiful store of grain and not tardily confirm, in terms of science, the goods, but in the complacency, the social indo­ purest, divinest declaration of the Nazarene lence and spiritual apathy which said, "Soul, prophet, the carpenter-preacher, when he de­ thou hast much goods laid up for many years; clared that the Kingdom of God is at hand, take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry." that its foundations are within, that it is the The sin ofthe New Testament barn-builder kingdom of justice and purity, brotherhood was not in the treasures that he had laid up, and progress. Mere plenty, bursting barns, but in that he had laid them up for himself and never saved a soul, never upheld and enno­ was not "rich toward God." It was the satisfied bled society or secured the permanence ofthe ambition, the carnal indulgence, the material­ state. The poorest, most deceptive test ever in­ ized goal, the selfish life of the barn-builder vented by the politician is the test of "prosper­ which received the condemnation ofthe Mas­ ity." The man who will go to the polls at the ter who rejoiced in sowing and sowers, who next election, guided only by the desire for a noted with pleasure the growing lily, the birds restoration of "good times" or a perpetuation of the air and the beasts ofthe field. of the "prosperity" that now exists, is Devil- Nature has long since passed beyond the guided and hell-inspired. Not that prosperity quadruped in her supreme concern. The cow is to be regretted—nay, it is much to be de­ **I have been unable to trace this quotation. sired; but when pursued as an end, when 131 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1983-1984 taken as a measure of civic values and public ety, with the so-called "best citizens," the up- righteousness, it is a delusion and a snare. to-date men and women who form our so- Prosperity may in the future, as it has so often called "good society," the laws of birth and done in the past, mark the damnation of the breeding are more respected and better en­ individual, the degradation of the family, the forced in the stable than in the nursery. disintegration and ultimate death ofthe State. We can not ignore the distressing, heart­ Corinth and Ephesus, Tyre and Sidon, Car­ breaking revealments of labor conditions, thage and Memphis, Babylon and Nineveh, chieffy of women and children in all our large Alexandria, ancient Rome and modern Petro­ cities—the horribly unsanitary atmosphere grad are indisputable cases in point, and it and inhuman strain in which women and chil­ may be that Paris, London, New York, and dren by the thousand make the cigars for Chicago will be added to the list before two "gentlemen,"—if indeed such ever smoke millenia more have been passed. Aye, they are "stogies,"—make dainty the laundry of "my doomed by a law as inexorable as the law of lady" of the boulevard and manufacture the gravitation to a place in the list unless they take crackers that reach the table of everybody timely heed and lay hold of the other law that from the boot-black to the millionaire. conserves ideas and ideals, the law that saves Truly, we eat and drink to our damnation; souls from the mortality of bodies and the de­ we are clothed in unrighteousness, on the hu­ cay of things. man side, to an extent that would ruin the I have at last arrived at the real lesson of my dairy business and would supplant my paper paper barn. How do easy triumphs and our barn with the fetid, mud-stained dung-heaps pride in them shame our deadly complacency, ofthe primitive pig-sty. our awful indiflerence, the assumed helpless­ The gospel of the new barn cuts across so­ ness and uselessness of soul-breeding, of cial lines and arraigns with equal force and society-housing and community renovation! power the human husbandry on the "favored My little barn among the bluffs of Wiscon­ side," so-called, of society. O the social damna­ sin, awaiting its little bunch of a dozen cows, tion, the human degradation, the spiritual and inviting the triumphs of the breeder, rises in bodily debility, that so often go along with the accusing contrast to the wretched, rat-ridden greater barns bursting with the accumulated rookeries, the solid blocks of fire-traps, in stores of wealth! I know not which is more to which Chicago men and women are living to­ be deplored, the condition of the under-fed day, into which babies are being born by scores baby and the over-worked woman who dwell every twenty-four hours, places where no self- on the "other side ofthe river" or "behind the respecting breeder of Jerseys would harbor yards," or the over-fed baby and the wickedly his calves, from which no health commission over-dressed woman who is exhausted in us­ would accept the milk even of the best bred ing up her indolence and justifying her ex- Jersey cow, so infectious is the district, so un­ travagence, along our avenues, boulevards sanitary the surroundings, so corrupting to and lake shore drives. good milk and to good cows is the environ­ Surely both are to be pitied; nay, the condi­ ment. And still, in such surroundings we are tions of both should be remedied. My paper breeding men and women; aye, "breeding" is barn in Wisconsin sent me back to my work in the word. How careful are we of the inheri­ Chicago with a newly dated commission, with tance of a cow! How careless ofthe ancestry of my task freshly interpreted, which in brief is a citizen! How wise are we getting concerning simply this: To join with others more effec­ the laws of reproduction, the principles of tively than ever before in applying the princi­ generation, in the barnyard! How reckless and ples of good husbandry and progressive farm­ defiant are we of the same laws at the marriage ing to soul-culture, to community-farming, to altar! Proudly, with pomp and parade, music, tilling the fields of heaven, making ourselves dancing and gifts, the capitalist of the boule­ "rich toward God," which is being rich injus­ vard gives his daughter in marriage to one tice, in beauty, in righteousness, generous to­ tainted with a corruption, marked with a de­ ward the things of the spirit, diligent in the generacy, from the parallel of which he would cultivation of soul. religiously guard his brood mare. Today, It behooves the favored citizens of the among the most progressive sections of soci­ country to hear and heed the voice of God

132 GRAHAM: JENKIN LLOYDJONES speaking through the anguish of little ones, vide for a large and growing family. So out of through the cry of the orphaned whose par­ pathetic ignorance, he accepted the challenge ents are still alive, ofthe widows with unburied to battle. He made his claim to one hundred husbands and the widowers with undivorced and twenty acres of the heaviest forest in the wives, the famished souls, the starving minds, Rock River Valley in the county of Jefferson in the confused consciences about us, exclaiming what was then (1845) the territory ofWiscon­ in the stern tones of the Day of Judgment, sin. Hither the wife and seven cfiildren were "Foolish one, this night is thy soul required of brought, myself the babe in arms. It was neces­ thee. Thou hast been laying up treasures for sary to chop a tree in order to catch a glimpse thyself and art not rich toward God." ofthe sky; the logs for the house were near at hand. In this log house the first twelve years of my life were spent. I cannot remember the earlier "The Transformation of a County" was also a privations nor yet the more numerous plea­ sermon to mark the beginning of the fall activity at sures that gathered around this home in the All Souls. In the late spring of 1905, though, the woods, the second house in what came to be a Abraham Lincoln Center had been dedicated and thrifty Welsh settlement, rejoicing in Welsh Henry M. Simmons, a long-time, close friend of lore and worshipping the God oftheir fathers Jones's, had died. These called for observances that in the love of their fellows. But my recollec­ postponed this sermon until October. It was preached tions do reach back to the Indian, the deer, the on Octobers, 1905, and printed in Unity on Octo­ trapper, the peddler, the weekly mail, the itin­ ber 26. erant preacher and the gruesome battle with At the conclusion of the Tower Hill Summer mosquitoes and malaria. The heavy timber School on August 22, J ones and the teaching staff of land that followed the valley ofthe Rock River the summer school rewarded themselves with a week- was interlaid with marshes like jelly in a layer long excursion by horse and wagon—"gypsying" cake. The marshes could be crossed only on they called it—through southeastern Wisconsin. It log-ways—the logs laid side by side for wagon became a bit of a pilgrimage for J ones as he led the roads and end to end for pedestrians. These group to the first family homestead near Ixonia. The marshes were the despair of the traveler and sermon is based on that experience. the fertile hatching place of mosquitoes and Jones's notes indicate that the poem to be used as a malaria. We now know the connection be­ preface to this chapter was "The East and The tween the two, then unsuspected. It was a for­ West." It is most likely that he meant Matthew tunate year that did not bring with it three or Arnold's sonnet "East and West." more months of ague in the spring and fall seasons. The Transformation of a County Next to saleratus and salt, quinine was the most staple necessity. The shelves ofthe coun­ My earliest recollections of life are in a log try store carried large supplies of "India col- house surrounded by heavy forests, the clear­ ogogue," "Wahoo bitters," "Bile Beans" and ing scarcely reaching at any point the bounda­ other sure cures for chills and fevers. She was ries of the little farm, the title to which came a thriftless housewife who did not lay in a direct from the government at a dollar and a goodly store of smart weed, boneset, penny­ quarter per acre. The presence of neighbors royal, prickly ash-berries, and other "yarbs" was testified to by our ears more often than by that would come handy in the ague season. our eyes. The ring of the woodman's ax and When all other topics for conversation the tinkle of the cow-bells revealed more than failed—when even the weather was ex­ we could see. hausted, the fireside talk was sustained with My father avoided the broad prairies or new cures or old recipes for "breaking" the even the more accessible "openings" that were "chills and fever." He was uninitiated indeed available to the adventurous pioneer who who did not have a personal experience, with dared make a "claim," because to the eyes of its special cure, to offer. The curative merits of the Welsh immigrant the absence of trees sug­ jallop, mandrake, ipecac, blue mass, castor oil, gested a desert. Land that "could not grow a seidlitz powders and wet sheet packs were dis­ horse switch" was no place for a man to pro­ cussed by experts. Never was empiricism in

133 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1983-1984 medicine more honestly based on actual ex­ When the trees were chopped off and the periments. stumps had slowly rotted away, the little field The industrial problems of my childhood was still peppered with "nigger heads"— were the removal of the forests, getting rid of boulders big and small. These must be gath­ the logs, building roads through the marshes, ered in piles and worked into stone fences, or and clearing the land of boulders, for the gla­ piled up so that in the fulness of time they ciers had done a rollicking business in the made ready-to-hand material for basements transportation of "hard heads" and boulders of barns, walls, bridges, wells, quaint store­ into Jefferson county. houses and the foundations of roads across The first problem of the farmer was to get the marshes. rid of the trees. How the great blazing log- After twelve years of what seemed to be an heaps lit up with lurid light the springtime almost hopeless battle with stumps, stones and nights! I remember how my father used to get ague, my parents once more ventured on a up at midnight to rebuild the burning piles of change, and gathering their children, now ten oak, elm and basswood, the ashes of which in number, moved into the more open coun­ offered the only article of commerce in the try. Eighty miles away they found more elbow process. These were carefully heaped up and room on the prairie—land less infected with protected from the rain until the big wagon malaria germs. would come along and buy the ashes at a cent Fifty years after this escape from the woods, or a cent and a half a bushel, to be carried off I led a touring party on a vacation ride back to to the ashery and there converted into crude and around the old homestead. We potash for shipment further east where it breakfasted sumptuously in the brick house would be made into saleratus. In the back end reared on the spot where once the old log of the big wagon was a case of goods—blue house offered its unbounded hospitality to the jeans, needles, threads, calico and tinware— emigrants. We traveled the length and from which store the ashes were paid for. breadth of Jefferson county, found every-

A cottage—probably "Leafring" owned by Cordelia Kirkland—at Tower Hill in the early 1900's. Courtesy the Regenstein Librarv

• « GRAHAM: JENKIN LLOYDJONES where improved roads, beautiful homes, well- frame or brick one, and even that is now men­ trimmed lawns and, so far as Wisconsin per­ aced by the town grammar and high school. mits, attractive orchards and gardens still The grandchildren of those who were happy continuing the thought and skill of the "old if they could win attendance for a short winter country." Cows stood belly-deep in clover term while they worked in the fields in sum­ where fifty years ago they sank in the mire. mer time are now full of university ambitions, Many a time as a bare-footed boy, I was sent steeped in the college lore of fraternities and dying through the woods to summon the football. neighbors to come and help pull a cow out of What has brought about this marvelous the marsh. Now happy Jerseys walk daintily physical transformation? What has made of with unsoiled feet over the same ground. The the formidable forests in the county of chills forests are gone; only here and there along the and fever, a park of beauty—a county not only roadside a veteran oak or a maternal elm re­ of home comforts but of home luxuries, a mains as honored witnesses to the marvelous country-side famous for its prosperity. And transformation—survivals of a lost glory. this within the memory of one who, without In my boyhood recollection, oxen were the boasting, can say, "All of which I have seen only beasts of burden and the ox-sled was the and a part of which I have been?" vehicle for summer and winter. When the new My friend, ex-governor Hoard, whose wagon, all green and red, came to our house weekly paper, The Dairyman, is read wherever and when some years later the three-year-old progressive farmers live and is an authority in filly was bought from the drove of horses that Denmark, Scotland and Australia as it is in came all the way from Ohio, tied head to tail in Pennsylvania and Oregon, would say that the single file, the children on the way home from cow has been an important factor in this trans­ school came out of their way to see the inter­ formation, and his claim is well substantiated esting curiosities.^ Since then prancing coach by facts. Mr. Hoard has served his state well as horses and cushioned surreys have become governor; he was the defender of the public the commonplaces of that countryside, while schools at a time when they were seriously the automobile everywhere menaces the menaced by organized political forces. But he safety and disturbs the serenity of the turn- has served his day and generation best by piked road. In short, the backwoods settle­ preaching what he calls "The gospel of the ment of fifty years ago is now on the main cow." In the interest of this gospel he has street of summer tourists. It is the center of brought the farm nearer to the university; he one of the most favored agricultural regions has courted science; converted the secrets of of the Northwest. The county has a world­ the laboratory into their economic equivalents wide reputation for its cheese, its butter and its in the creamery. Once he wrote to me: eggs, for it is the home of W. D. Hoard and his Dairyman, he who has made classic the phrase The literature of the cow is a broad sea, "Treat your cow as if she were a lady." hard to determine without much patient Here and there, black on the hillside or research as tojust what would be of inter­ down by a springside, is still to be seen the est to you. crumbling relic of some old log house that for Going back into the old Hindoo litera­ a time did service as a barn or as a chicken ture, we find an abundance of allusions to their ideas of the great question of the house, on its way to oblivion. But the farm motherhood of the cow. Max Mueller houses now are solid brick or stone mansions, tells us that in the old Sanscrit they com­ oftentimes with stained glass transoms over pare the clouds of heaven to the cows, the front windows and doors and hard-wood calling them 'the cows of heaven,' and ffoors on the inside. They are furnished with when they dispense genial rain they refrigerators for summer and steam heaters speak of it as 'the milk of the clouds.' for winter. Of course the log school house has When Cadmus set out in search of his long since given way to the more commodious lost sister, Europa, and consulted the or­ acle of Delphi, tne oracle told him to fol­ ^One sentence was omitted here because it disrupted low a cow and wherever she went he the progression of his idea. "Now and then parents should go, and when she stopped finally stretched their piety enough to come round by way of our and filled herself and lay down to rest, house as they went home from church." there he should build a city, and thus we 135 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1983-1984

are told arose the city of Thebes. So you yields a profit comparable to any ofthe profit­ see, way back in the early dawn of his­ able farms of Jefferson county. tory, the cow was a home-builder, city- But with all due respect to the cow, I must builder, and a nation-builder. Mr. White urge that she is but a secondary cause for the of Kenosha County many years ago said, prosperity of the county. Fhe cow herself is 'I always speak to a cow as I would a lady.' the effect of a more primal cause. This county In this he recognized instinctively the femininity and motherhood of the cow. abounds in Jerseys, Guernseys and Holsteins; In this instance, as in many others, the it has great butter and cheese industries. We refinements of a perfect humanity is the found these hundreds, aye, thousands, of summum bonum of commercial wisdom. workmen busy in manufacturing dairy sup­ Those dairymen and breeders who carry plies, and barn equipment. But back of the out these doctrines to the fullest extent, cow are the Hoards, the Fargos, the Good- who treat their cows with the utmost riches, the Favilles, and the Jameses who are kindness, are almost universally success­ products of Jefferson county. Fo study the ful financially with them. story of the pioneers in any county of the up­ Yoti sjjeak of Jefferson County and its per Mississippi Valley is to take a course of in­ high cultivation and comfortable home­ struction in the development of spiritual steads. This has been the field of my most strenuous labor, of course, being in close power. It is to come upon a first-hand revela­ contact with the people. My two papers tion of the potency of mind. Fo apprehend have been teaching the doctrine of dairy the story of this county's transformation is to improvement, soil improvement, home discover the foundations of morals and the se­ improvement and particularly stable im­ crets of religion. provement for a good many years, and The first pioneers in the valley of the Rock while a large proportion of the farmers were young men from the hills and valleys of seem on the surface to pay but little at­ New England and eastern New York. They tention to what is said, yet, on the whole, I can see there is a constant upward climb represented the stalwart stock of the Green in the conduct of the herds and farms mountains, the Adirondacks and the Genesee and the results obtained therefrom. valley. Born in the woods and forest-trained, they were drawn hither by the timber and the All credit, then, to this benignant connect­ water power; they set themselves early to the ing link between the grass ofthe field and the work of harnessing the Rock River and its trib­ stomach ofthe man; the cow is a milk-making utaries. This county was staked out by these di­ machine, designed by nature but perfected by rect descendants of Puritan power. These im­ human nature. All honor to him who has migrants of the 30's represent the American caused alfalfa fields to flourish in Wisconsin, fore-runners. Then in the 40's the waves of hundreds of acres of which we see in early European immigration broke upon the forests September yielding their third crop ofthe sea­ of the Rock River Valley; on the crest of this son. It was worth a pilgrimage of a hundred wave I was carried thither. German, Irish, miles to see the serene faces and to look into Norwegian, English, Scotch and Welsh home- the gentle eyes of Hoard's herd of forty pure- seekers poured in. In 1838 there were but blooded Guernseys that looked up half in love four hundred and sixty-eight people in the and half in wonder as the admiring tourists county, but those four hundred and sixty- drove into their velvet pasture. It did not de­ eight included a band of men who could con­ tract from the amenities, the poetry, the civili­ struct dams, build saw mills and grist mills with ties, the inspiration of the scene to know that their own hands, and manage them. Those each member of the herd was estimated by four hundred and sixty-eight bear names that hundreds—and not by tens—of dollars and have long since become household words, not that there were those whose commercial value only in the county but in the state and nation. would be told in four figures. It is an added ar­ The men who laid the foundations of that gument for the civilizing power of progressive county's prosperity were men who believed farming to know that this prophet of the not only in the resources of the wilderness but creamery, this champion ofthe Guernsey and in the resources hid in the more mystic depths friend of the Jersey is financially successful in of their own souls. They believed in human his venture—that Hoard's farm probably nature; they stood with open arms to welcome

136 The ten children of Richard andMallie Lloydjones, August, 1884 or 1886. Back row, left to right Enos, Jennie, Jenkin, Mary, John; front row, left to right; James, Nell, Anna, Margaret, Thomas. the creative tide of foreign lives that surged to­ while I will open an account with you and keep ward them; they received them as a banker re­ your family in ffour and salt until the logs ar­ ceives fresh deposits over his counter. rive for pay." When my father had bought his one hun­ This or something like it was the story of dred and twenty acres of land for one dollar thousands of the pioneers who helped bring and a quarter an acre, land which is now worth about the marvelous transformation of Jeffer­ more dollars than it was then worth cents, and son county. Wit, aptitude, energy made com­ had bought a yoke of oxen and two cows, he mon cause with industry, with honesty, with had one round gold sovereign left in the palm tireless patience and unconquerable ideals. of his hand. There he found himself in that The statistics of this county's cows pale in in­ forest, in the month of May—too late for any terest and significance when compared with plowing or planting for that year, with a family the story of this county's brains. The county of nine to feed. A son of New York had al­ has raised men whose names are familiar in ready harnessed the Rock River to a sawmill the nation's annals—men who have made six miles away from the claim. He looked into themselves felt in the pulpit, at the bar, by the the eyes of this Welshman and with prophetic bedside of the sick and in the legislative halls insight saw something to trust, something to of state and nation. When the union was im­ invest in. Through an interpreter he said to periled and when freedom was threatened in the man who knew no English, "Go back to the the house of her friends, Jefferson county woods; go to chopping and chop, chop, chop wrote its story with the blood of these patriots all summer and next fall. Next winter when and their successors bred in these log houses. the snow is on the ground, haul the logs to the But Jefferson county has sent out a larger bank of the river two miles distant, roll them army still who have fought and are still fight­ onto the ice and when the spring freshets ing the forces of ignorance—who have made come, float your logs down to my mill. Mean­ the country schoolhouses glow-points in the 137 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1983-1984 history of our advancement, by the light of My father's log house was one with a loft which this marvelous transformation has been reached by a ladder for the older children and wrought well within the limits of a century and trundle beds for the younger ones, and still it the memory of thousands still living. To study promptly became the objective point for hun­ the transformation of this county is to study dreds and thousands of immigrants, the dis­ the power of the human mind, the possibilities tributing point for a continuous stream of of human growth, the resources of common Welsh settlers. During twelve years of strenu­ humanity, triumphant whenever humanity is ous test the limits of the hospitalities of that crowded to its best, compelled to its mightiest, house were never reached. When the inside lured to its noblest, either by inward or out­ was full, there was the "stoop" on the outside ward necessity. and then the hay mow in the barn and the The material statistics of our county chal­ shade of the garden trees. Always there was lenge the admiration, aye, the wonder of the ample room for all who came. intelligent student, but the social history, the I have spoken of the neighborly rally when spiritual story of Jefferson county is still more a cow had sunk in the mire, but only those who interesting. Watertown, Jefferson, Fort Atkin­ have lived in that net-work of pioneer son and Lake Mills, are pearls strung on this sympathies—who have inherited the blessed patient river and its obedient tributaries. memories of neighborly exchanges which be­ These towns and others have their shaded long to the frontiei-—can understand how the streets, parks, public libraries and high poverty of things helped swell the riches of schools, wherein the best methods of educa­ spirit; how the inspirations and consolations tion are brought to bear upon hopeful, indus­ of the intangible nerved the arm to fight with trious boys and girls. All this in fifty years forest trees, poisonous ferns, pestilential makes the epic of Jefferson county, short as it breezes, arctic cold in winter and torrid heats is, a classic in spiritual transformation. and forest fires in summer. When we pass from a study ofthe economic The sociology of the pioneer was simple but aspects—may I say the physiology of the it was intense. The social fabric ofthe "settle­ county—into a study of its sociology, we ment" had few decorations but it was vital; cut awaken another class of emotions, perhaps it anywhere and it would bleed. The commu­ find sources of grave anxiety as well as high nion of the backwoods was more sacramental encouragement, for these early pioneers had than anything the creed could define or un­ other trials than mosquitoes and malaria; derstand. The logging bee, the house-raising, stumps, marshes and stones were not the only the quilting bees, the butchering and harvest­ enemies to be overcome or obstacles to be re­ ing days, the rally to help the widow, the co­ moved before the wilderness could be trans­ operative harvesting of the sick man's crop formed into a garden, and rose and apple and the husking of the orphan's corn were eu- trees be made to grow in the place of bramble charistic seasons in which the communicants and poison ivy. partook of the very body and blood of the The immigrants of the 40's were a home­ Master in ways they little realized and to an ex­ sick lot. Well might they read with choking tent they could never understand. voices the plaint of the Hebrew when they "Here it is! Right here is the spot, Jenkin! hung their harps on the willow tree and could Here is where the old schoolhouse stood. Here not sing the songs of Zion in the land of the is where the door was where you used to go in, stranger. I can well remember the terror that Jenkin, Bach!" The old man was bent and seized me and the cry that followed me when, twisted under the burdens of eighty-three in the new log schoolhouse (which turned out years as he located for the tourists the long- to be literally in the middle of the road, for it vanished log schoolhouse. Meager was the was built before the road was surveyed), the curriculum, crude was the instruction, far, far new "school ma'am" spoke to me in a language away from the boasted "new education." That I could not understand—the English of the schoolhouse knew nothing of "nature studies" statute. Fortunately my first "school ma'am" of "character-building" or "manual training" was a bi-linguist and she could dispel the for­ in a pedagogical sense, and still there was lorn feeling which her English inspired by more than academic tuition in those old log some soothing sentences in my mother schoolhouses which laid the foundation of a tongue. democracy magnificent, because it was democ- 138 GRAHAM: JENKIN LLOYDJONES racy actual. Within those old log schoolhouses ma'am"—whose gingham apron and blue rib­ Scandinavian and Celtic, Germanic and En­ bon daintily arranged at the throat lifted her glish, French, Canadian and Indian blood into the realms of fairyland—made her seem, U) were mixed as in a witch's cauldron and out of the bare-footed boys and girls who blushed the mixture came a new something, unlike any when she spoke to them and trembled when she of them, but still partaking of the virtues of all kissed them, a sylph-like being dwelling apait in of them—the true American citizen. The citi­ a land of sweetness. I speak from tender and zen's pride of birth was lost in the joy of living. well defined memory. The clannishness of the home was trans­ If culture is to be interpreted in terms of formed in the school room. Webster's Elemen­ character and character is to be tested by the tary Spelling Book disintegrated the creeds, potency of the will, the joy of the heart, it is a ameliorated the prejudices of the sects, elimi­ question which educators may well face— nated the dogma from practical ethics and whether the physical transformation of Jeffer­ from the working religion ofthe settlement. It son county is paralleled with an equivalent cul­ was the hand-book that introduced the sons tural advance. and daughters of foreigners into the univer­ One study more is due this story of a coun­ salities of literature and formed the Esperanto ty's transformation. The old-fashioned circuit in which the various dialects of Europe were rider is largely a thing of the past; the primi­ merged. tive exhorter, the camp meeting, the crude I dare not attempt to compare the sociology theology, the grievous chasm between things of the Jefferson county of today with the soci­ sacred and things secular are largely gone. Let ology of the Jefferson county of the 40's and them go, if only the devoutness, the consecra­ 50's, as I remember it and as it is written in the tion, the delight in heavenly things, the peace earlier annals of which the rising generation is of spirit, the serenity of soul, the sense of God far too careless. We may well wonder if the in the heart and of providence in the life re­ larger house with its carpet on the ffoor, its pi­ main! Do they? ano and picture embellishments, contains a I will not venture an answer. I am content if contentment and sincerity, a simplicity of the this study of the transformation of Jefferson spiritual life as much richer and larger than county leaves us in the presence of great spiri­ that of the old log house as is the brick man­ tual facts, real sjjiritual questions. sion than the house in the clearing. When the old prophet called for a "highway Webster's Spelling Book and the New York in the desert," a "straight path for our God" "Trybune," perhaps one religious paper, and his problem may have been a roadmaking the weekly mail, formed the connection be­ problem; he may have been speaking in the in­ tween the home and the great world. On these terest of better traffic-ways between Jerusalem lines did the mind of the child travel towards and the storehouses ofthe East. But so strong its culture. In mastering these it received its was the parallel, so pressing was the religious training. analogy, that the ages have taken his text in a How meager were the privileges! What par­ spiritual sense. ent now-a-days would trust a child to such in­ So I would fain convert this story of Jeffer­ adequate tutoring? And still it is a perfectly son county into a parable of the heavenly proper problem in pedagogy to ask whether life—the life of today. The United States still your "manual training," your "special has its spiritual forests with their miasmatic courses," your examinations and reviews, swamps and pestiferous mosquitoes. There are even your high school preparations and col­ sociological hard-heads, social boulders, polit­ lege accomplishments are giving the children ical stumps to be removed in our country be­ of today the relish for knowledge, the appetite fore garden beauty and meadow wealth will for information, the vital acquaintance with become possible. the heroes of history, the working intimacy What man has accomplished in the realms with the forces that make for good citizenship of nature, man can and must and will accom­ and high government, which the boys and plish in the realms ofthe spirit. We could not, girls received in the old schoolhouses with if we would, return to the simplicities of the their spelling schools and speaking days, and wilderness, the perplexities of the "settle­ the love that clung to the apron strings of the ment." But we are still confronted with pio­ sweet though unsophisticated little "school neer tasks in the realm of morals, politics, civic 139 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER,1983-1984

weal and religious liberty. What the fathers ac­ grain," "the good health and good cheer" of complished on the lower fields, the sons must each particular year. achieve on the upper fields. Blessed be the pio­ This is well. But there is danger that these neers who are busy ditching the marshes of phrases may grow conventional and stilted political corruption, converting the wilderness and carry with them a degree of cant and hy­ in the realms of morals into corn fields and or­ pocrisy. The sweat-hardened farmer sings his chards. The analogies are so palpable, so Thanksgiving hymn to the "bountiful God" pressing, so convincing that I need not at­ with a mental reservation, and responds with a tempt to state, much less enforce, them. Let chuckle to the more honest qualified prayer of the men and women of this second decade of the devout come-outer whose grace before a the twentieth century apply themselves to meager meal was "Lord, we thank thee for the their tasks with the courage, fortitude, conse­ salt; the potatoes we raised ourselves!" cration and single-mindedness which the pio­ I would not abate one whit the reverential neers of Jefferson county applied to their tasks gratitude for the primal forces of nature— in the fourth and fifth decade of the nine­ light, heat, water and soil, for the beauty as teenth century. Then when their bodies are well as the fertility of hillside and valley, the dust in grass-grown graves, others will bless glory of mountain and river, the sublimity of them for their pioneering as we now bless the the stars, the inspiration of the sunrise, the pioneers who prepared for us a way in the wil­ peace of the sunset, the benignancy of the derness. darkness that brings sleep to tired eyes and restoration to weary mind and body. I still would urge that all this and similar catalogings Thanksgiving Day was a festival that Jones of Thanksgiving proclamations and harvest never failed to celebrate. It was for him the major home congratulations stop short of the finer, ' American holy day and called forth some of his best higher and consequently later, marvels of the sermons. "The Harvest Field: Reaping" was his harvest field. Old Bible texts and the swing of Thanksgiving Day sermon for 1909, preached on the old hymn tunes dear to our grandparents, November 21. are precious to us, but from them we miss The beginning, with its disparagement of official something of the glory that belongs to human­ proclamations for their hypocrisy, is typical of many ity. Why cannot we bring our piety down to Thanksgiving Day sermons. The matter of harvest­ date? Why in church on Sunday must we still ing gives him his connection with Thanksgiving, but sing, pray and preach about "sickles," "ffails," the sermon itself is rather distantly tied to the usual "threshing ffoors," "winnowing fans" and "mill themes ofthe day. Again a sermon that begins on the stones," instead of talking about "reapers," farm ends in the city and with the challenges of an "threshing machines" and "roller-mills?" urbanized society. I share with Mr. McAndrew in Kipling's Although this was All Soul's Thanksgiving ser­ hymn an impatience boidering on indignation mon, it was also the sixth and last of the series pre­ with the "Viscount-loon—wi' Russian leather pared for Hoard's Dairyman. Hoard published tennis-shoon an' spar-decked yachtin'-cap," the series beginning on January 21, 1910. This one who, after having been shown around and appeared in two parts, July 8 and 15,1910. Recog­ through the great ocean liner, said: nizing Hoard's first claim, Jones did not print it m "Mister McAndrew, don't you think steam Unity until October 6, 1910. spoils romance at sea?" Jones's note on the prefatory poem for this sermon F)amned ijit! I'd been doon that morn to is partly illegible. It appears to say "Peabody Marks, see what ailed the throws, 'Swinging Man'." I have not been able to locate ei­ Manholin', on my back—the cranks three ther the poem or the author. inches off my nose. Romance! Fhose first-class passengers they like it very well. The Harvest Field: Reaping Printed an' bound in little books; but why don't poets tell? Thanksgiving proclamations are loaded I'm sick of all their quirks and turns—the with phrases about "the divine forethought loves and doves they dream— and care," "the bounty of the year," "abun­ Lord, send a man like Robbie Burns to dance of the fields," "teeming acres," "golden sing the Song o' Steam! 140 Bm.

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Jenkin Lloydjones and his horse at Tower Hilt, about 1917. Cotirtcsy the Regenstein Library To match wi' Scotia's noblest speech yon "Not unto us the praise, or men—not tmto orchestra sublime us the praise!" Whaurto—uplifted like the Just—the tail- Now, a'together, hear them lift their rods mark the time. lessons—theirs and mine: The crank-throws give the double-bass, "Law, Orrder, Duty an' Restraint, Obedi­ the feed-pump sobs an' heaves. ence, Discipline!" An' now the main eccentrics start their Mill, forge and try-pit taught them that quarrel on the sheaves; when roarin' they arose. Her time, her own apjjointed time, the An' whiles 1 wonder if a soul was gien rocking linkhead bides. them wi' the blows. Till—hear that note?—the rod's return Oh, for a man to weld it then, in one trijj- whings glimmerin' through the guides. hammer strain, 'Lhey're all awa! 'Frue beat, full pcjwer, the 'Fill even first-class passengers could tell clangin'-chorus goes the meaning plain!'" Clear U) the tunnel where they sit, my pur- rin' dynamoes. Interdependence absolute, foreseen, or­ Rudyard Kipling has come very near to dained, decreed. singing the Song of the Steam Engine. He is as To work, ye'll note, at any tilt an' every rate yet the Poet Laureate of the ocean liner, that o' speed. greyhound of the deep. For this, in spite of the Era' skylight-lift to furnace-bars, backed, imperfections and, in many directions, lamen­ bolted, braced and stayed. table reactions of his songs, he deserves an An' singing like the Mornin' stars for joy honored place upon our book shelves. Let us that they are made; While, out o' touch o' vanity, the sweadn' thrust-block says: "Rudyard Kipling, "Mc.Andrew's Hymn.' 141 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1983-1984

try to think devoutly and with religious humil­ tive man to quit his killing industries and take ity ofthe human investment that should enter up instead his tilling activities. W'hen man began into our harvest song of gratitude. to turn up the sod and to plant seed, he ceased Who will sing for us the Song of the wandering in search of more game and better Reaper—not the man but the machine? Who grazing. The nomad became a settler. Then the will write for us the Epic of the Wheat Field, marvelous drama of civilization began, and man the Drama ofthe Modern Harvest? The Lord entered upon the sublime career during which of Heaven and Earth was made manifest in the he has become the home-maker, the conquerer flesh and brains of Jethro Wood, James Oli­ of continents, the builder of cathedrals, the ver, John Deere, and William Parlin, the great founder of colleges. plow-makers, who made the big crops of the My father brought with him from over the West possible. Let us note how Cyrus McCor­ sea his "hook"—a smooth-edged sickle, ham­ mick, the Mannys, William Deering and their mered out by hand on the anvil. My earliest har­ brilliant associates made the saving of that vest field recollections are of a little golden field crop possible. Paraphrasing George Eliot, we in the clearing with half a dozen or more men may well say: God gives us wheat, but not with­ and women, diligent with their sickles, cutting out the help of man in the harvesting of the the precious grain, literally by the handfuls, af­ same. God himself cannot fill our elevators ter the manner practiced on the rugged hillsides with the best of wheat without the best men to of Wales. This soon gave way to the more rapid help him. Wheat itself, which has been called swing of that inar\'elous Yankee device, the the food of civilization, the staff of life, repre- American "cradle." One ofthe last things 1 did sendng as it does thirty-four per cent of the before giving up my boyhood life on the farm bread-producing products of the world, is for the service of the Union, and exchanging largely man-made. Grant Allen, the scientist, my blue jeans for the blue uniform ofthe north, says, "Wheat, to the botandst, is a grass, a de­ was to "cradle" with an older brother a ten-acre graded lily." Primitive man, far back, began U) fi.eld of oats. tame and train that lily. Herbert N. Casson, au­ But some six years before this the reaper thor of The Romance ofthe Reaper and the Life of had entered our harvest field. The first one I Cyrus Hall McCormick, to whom I am indebted remember required a man to follow after it on for much material in this study, says: foot, pulling off the sheaves as they were laid low on the platform. The next reaper made We do not know when or where the pre­ provision for the man to ride as he "raked off." historic Burbank lived who undertook In some machines he was hung behind the this education of the wheat-lily. But we driver and was dragged backwards while, with do know that wheat has been a food for a curiously constructed tool, he pulled off the at least five thousand years. We find it in grain as it accumulated. An advance was made the oldest tombs of Egypt and pictures when the man was permitted to stand face for­ on the stones of the Pyramids. We know ward, watching the grain as it fell and throw­ that Solomon sent wheat as a present to ing it off with a pitch-fork. How well I remem­ his friend, the King of Tyre; and we have ber the anxious harvest weeks with the old reason to believe that its first appearance was in the valleys of the Tigris and the John P. Manny reaper, with its sickle-bar for­ Euphrates, near where the ancient city of ever breaking, every break calling for the ces­ Babylon rose to greatness. sation of activities and idle hours for seven or eight high-priced "binders." Meanwhile, 1, the Wheat, like so many of our domesdc ani­ boy, dispatched on old "Jane"—the one-eyed, mals, is a plant that cannot live without man's white mare—would gallop as for life across help. It is a tamed weed, dependent upon the three miles of prairie to the shop ofthe hunch­ co-operative hand of man. Mr. Casson esti­ back blacksmith who would weld the broken mated that if the human race were to perish weapon with which the battle against hunger from the earth, wheat could not survive more and debts was being desperately waged! than three years. A German economist argues Next there swept into our wheat field with that wheat was the original cause of civiliza­ great pomp and procession the first "self- tion, not primarily because it is the most avail­ raking" reaper of the neighborhood, the able of foods, but because it persuaded primi­ "Palmer & Williams." The neighbors had

142 GRAHAM: JENKIN LLOYDJONES gathered to watch with incredulous eyes the can trace in their own experience the reveal­ marvelous deeds of a machine that would rake ing inspirations. off its own sheaves. A high functionary ofthe My story begins with the annus mirabilis, the company came out to set it a-going, but alas! it wonderful year of 1809. It was theyear of Lin­ was a short-lived triumph. The reel and the coln, the great emancipator of the slave; of rake, like the legs of an epileptic, were poorly Darwin, the great emancipator of the human coordinated; they were constantly getting en­ mind; of Gladstone, the great commoner; of tangled with one another. The reel, if high Tennyson, the Poet Laureate; of Mendels­ enough to give the rake a chance to steal in and sohn, the sweet singer; of Bonar, the great catch the short grain that grew on sandy soil, hymn-writer; of Holmes, the Autocrat of the would be too high for efficiency: when low­ Breakfast Table. But an emancipator second ered so as to secure good cutting, the rake to none of them, a prophet whose message is would be interfered with in its work of scratch­ as far-reaching as any, was born the same year, ing the grain off the platform. The verdict of to whom little homage has as yet been paid by that season, in that neighborhood, was that the purblind readers of books, the sophistica­ self-raking reapers were plausible for long, ted dwellers in cities, and alas! sadder yet, the straight grain on ideal fields, but unavailable graceless and complacent rustics who regret for short and tangled grain on rough fields. their descent and their surroundings. Consequently they were impractical: "they Away off among the beautiful hills of Vir­ would never work." ginia, on the margin of the Shenandoah Val­ So the non-raking Manny led the strenuous ley, through which, fifty-four years later, harvest with five to eight binders following Sheridan's horsemen raided the fields, Cyrus hard after, binding the sheaves dropped in the Hall McCormick was born. Robert McCor­ trail of the machine. The circuit was divided mick, his father, was a Scotch-Irish immigrant into stations; round on round the men went, after the order of John Knox; a thrifty Presby­ travelling one-fifth or one-eighth ofthe circuit terian who owned four farms, two grist mills, while the machine completed the round. two saw mills, a melting furnace, a distillery Happy and efficient was the man who could and a blacksmith shop. His dexterous hands reach the end of his "station" in time to could make a walnut cabinet or an iron crane. straighten his back, catch a moment's breath His humble blacksmith shop built of logs is, I or take a swig at the jug sheltered in the shock believe, still standing. The Muse of Invention with its refreshing mixture of vinegar, molas­ haunted the place, and this shop was the cra­ ses, ginger and water (known by a familiar dle ofthe Romance ofthe Reaper. Robert, the name which I have forgotten) before the ma­ father, had invented a hemp brake, a clover chine was on him for the next race. huller, a bellows, a threshing machine, and In due time came the exhilarating news that had tried his hand at a reaping machine, but a couple of boys in Illinois had perfected a ma­ had given it up; he could not make it go. Cy­ chine by which the grain was elevated to a plat­ rus, the son, grew up in a home where the form on which two men stood erect while they wool, ffax and cotton were spun and made into bound the wheat and threw off "bundles " clothing. His mittens, caps, coats, trousers, while they rode, as it were, in their carriage. shirts, stockings and shoes were all home­ This "Marsh Harvester" was the wonder of the made. Candles were molded, carpets woven, time and seemed to be perfection in the way of hams cured, soap boiled, apples dried and reaping machines. But its triumph was short­ sugar made all in and around the home where lived. Its success bargained for a noble defeat. the McCormick children—eight of them— Then to the incredulous farmer came the grew up, and whatever of character, power, news of a machine that itself could bind the courage and vision can be studied was also sheaves (first with wire, later with twine) and home-made. carry them along until they could be dropped Cyrus inherited the dreams of his father in piles ready for the shockers. and his father's failures as well. He began This story of the reaper was at one time where the fifteen-year failure of his father overwhelming to the enlightened imagina­ ended, and in 1831, less than a century ago, tion, and yet it has all been achieved within my with one horse in the shafts and a boy on the memory. And thousands are still living who back of the horse, Cyrus McCormick, at 143 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1983-1984 twenty-two years of age, started his reaping Lincoln made the man that derided him his in­ machine—and it worked! imitable Secretary of War. The next year he ventured to advertise, but Mr. McCormick was beaten at Cincinnati, nobody wanted to buy. It was nine years be­ as he was in most ofthe courts, says his biogra­ fore he sold a single machine. In 1840 he sold pher. But the greatest battles of the reaper three; in 1841 there were no sales; in 1842, were not fought in courts of law. It was a seven; in 1843, twenty-nine; in 1844, fifty; in merry war of manufacturers and agents fifty 1845, one hundred and ninety-six. Some time years long. The trials of strength and skill, the in 1847 the young inventor had a vision, a wild contests of the harvest field, rendered the dream, that perhaps he could make a million struggles of the race-course and the fierce dollars out of that machine. With three hun­ strain of football teams tame and vulgar in dred dollars in his belt he started westward, comparison. The perennial theme for discus­ travelling mainly on horseback. He studied sion among the farm boys of my day was the the pioneer villages, saw cattle and pigs eating rival merits ofthe various reapers represented grain on the prairies of Illinois, to garner in the neighborhood. Bearded grangers for­ which was beyond the ability of the human got to talk politics and ignored sectarian dif­ hands available. He determined to plant him­ ferences when they fell to discussing the mer­ self in the muddy, swamp-soaked, ragged vil­ its of their respective reapers. Was it the lage on the banks of Lake Michigan, and the Buckeye, the Manny, the Champion, the next year, 1848, five hundred machines were Clow, the Piano, or the McCormick? I remem­ made in Chicago. In 1884, thirty-six years ber with amusement how, then as now, my later, fifty thousand machines were made in sympathies naturally gravitated to the under his own shop, and there were five hundred dog in the fight. Delicacy of adjustment, thousand reaping machines in use throughout uniqueness of device, lightness and adaptabil­ the world, doing the work of five million men ity went with many other machines, while so­ in the harvest field. The little town of ten thou­ lidity, safety, thoroughness of construction sand in 1847 was by then a city of six hundred and strength of material stayed with the Mc­ thousand. It had become the great wheat city Cormick, for the inventor in Cyrus McCor­ ofthe West, the granary ofthe world, because mick promptly gave way to the craftsman, the it was and has continued to be the reaper city business man, and the administrator. It is ofthe world. needless to say that my boyish enthusiasm went with the machines which embodied the But large, inspiring, thrilling as is the story newer devices. of Cyrus Hall McCormick, it is not so large as the story of the reaper. There are pre- Competition in America probably reached McCormick, extra-McCormick and post- its high-water mark in the reaper struggle, McCormick elements in the reaper romance. and Cyrus McCormick was the most indomita­ McCormick's was the forty-seventh patent is­ ble warrior of them all. He wanted to make all sued. Twenty-three men in Europe and 27 the machines that were to be made; he deter­ men in the United States besides himself had mined to hold the field against all enemies—a bent themselves to the task. The pages of the field which he had so successfully pre-empted. patent office reports are gory with reaper His long years of brooding between the me­ fights. Some ofthe most famous legal battles in chanical success and the first commercial re­ the history of the United States courts were ward toughened his sinews and equipped him fought over reaper patents. Some of the for a life that was largely battle. "Meet Hussey brightest achievements of American lawyers in Maryland and put him down," was the clos­ are recorded here. It was in a reaper fight— ing of a letter which began with a pious recog­ McCormick vs. Manny—that Edwin H. Stan­ nition of a providence that "seemed to assist ton made his ten thousand dollar speech in me in all our business." Cincinnati. In the same trial Abraham Lincoln The reaper tests in the Middle West in the figured and was snubbed by the pompous but nineteenth century took the place of the tour­ brilliant Stanton. Later as President he heaped neys of chivalry in the Middle Ages. Here was coals of fire upon the head ofthe cocky Cincin­ fun, courage, strategy and oftentimes some­ nati attorney by giving Stanton's great power thing less innocent. We are told that machines an unexpected and adequate field for action. were secretly tested and slyly strengthened for

144 GRAHAM: JENKIN LLOYD JONES special strains. Rival machines were chained wheat, he cried, "Hold! This will not do." together back to back, and pulled to pieces. Then the Honorable William Taylor, who When the Marsh harvester was being tried at owned the wheat field on the opposite side of Piano and the untrained farm hands in their the road said, "Pull down the fence on the new and awkward situation pronounced it a other side; I will give the young man a fair "mankiller," declaring that no two men could chance to try his machine if I lose my crop!" bind as fast as the sheaves were placed on the When in a severe test at the London Exposi­ table, the Marsh Brothers picked two vigorous tion in 1851, the neighbors urged an Anglo- German maidens, deft and skillful binders, Italian farmer, Mechi by name, not to allow put them on the machine and put the men to the further destruction of his grain, he re­ shame. At another test they took along with plied: them a couple of trained men disguised as "Weary Willies." They put those hoboes on the Gentlemen, this is a great experiment. platform and showed how even "tramps" When a new principle is about to be es­ could do it. One of the brothers achieved the tablished, individual interest must al­ marvelous feat of binding a whole acre himself ways give way. If it is necessary for the in fifty-five minutes. After that their machines success of this test, you may take my sev­ went like hot cakes. enty acres of wheat. Whiteley, the exploiter of the Champion reaper, has been called the Charlemagne of And the American McCormick swept in the harvest field. In an Ohio test, finding him­ and won out. Horace Greeley was present at self making no headway against his competi­ that test and thus described the scene: tor, he unhitched one of his horses and went around with the other. His competitor did the In seventy seconds McCjOrmick had be­ same. Then this Hercules ofthe field shouted, come famous; he was the lion of the "Take off the other horse!" and he put his own hour. Had he brought five hundred shoulders into the collar and cut a full swath. reapers with him, he could have sold That ten minutes in a horse collar, the histo­ them all. rian says, made him two million dollars. His competitor became his partner and they made The story of the American reaper as the common cause against all rivals. As high as one conquering hero in foreign lands is as exciting hundred and sixty thousand of those ma­ as it is unique. Crowned heads came out to be chines went out in a year. Two million "Cham­ amused, perhaps to scoff; they stayed to ad­ pions" were made in Springfield, Ohio, at a mire and, what is more to the point, to pur­ profit of eighteen million dollars. At the Phila­ chase. They dismounted to take the hands of delphia Centennial in 1876 this machine was the men in shirt sleeves. With their own hands exhibited, one quarter natural size, made in they pinned their ribbons of honor upon the rosewood and gold. The next season a train of inventors and returned to their palaces to pro­ seventy cars, three quarters of a mile in length, mote the sales. hauled the output toward Baltimore alone. Casson's Romance of the Reaper is illustrated I have said that McCormick the inventor with American reapers drawn by camels, soon developed into McCormick the business oxen, mules, as well as by horses, with photo­ man. Here is a chance to glorify business, to graphs taken in the harvest fields of Siberia, crown the dollar with fame, and to call down India, Japan and Argentina. upon it the benedictions of religion. If the William B. Ogden preceded McCormick in combinations of capital and the organization Chicago. He was already a rich man when the of vast industrial units have made hardships Virginia inventor arrived. He welcomed the for individuals, the method of combination reaper man and put twenty-five thousand dol­ has been wrong, not the principle. What is so lars into his hands to build the first factory. right, nay, so inevitable—economically Here was a striking case of genius meeting considered—must be made ethically right. capital and doubling the opportunity of both. When one Neighbor Ruff found the Mc­ William Deering was a dry goods merchant Cormick machine, way back in the experimen­ from Maine. He came west looking for a tal days in Virginia, rattling the heads off his chance to invest the forty thousand he had 145 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1983-1984 made behind the counter. He met an old Methodist elder from Maine, his former pas­ tor, who had already abandoned the circuit in order to sell reapers. Gammon was his name. He persuaded his former parishioner to put his cash into the reaper venture, which he did. Deering, who was neither a farmer nor an in­ ventor, said, "1 will beat them by making a bet­ ter machine," and his interest in money- making was speedily lost in a greater interest in machine-making. At last, at the height of the merry war, there came a lull and then a great calm in the reaper market, as strange and unexpected as that which settled down on Vicksburg on the fourth day of July, 1863, when the white flags appeared over the bristling battlements. Four men, stalwart warriors all of them, men who had delighted in competition, who believed profoundly in individualism, particularly in their own individuality, who liked the battle, were corralled, imprisoned, entranced and then they surrendered to a new genius—the genius of Combination. The managers of this genius did not dare put these fighters together in one room. Experts in the business of merg­ ing, those trained in the school of John Pier- pont Morgan, flew from one room to the other until these stalwart fighters were coerced and persuaded to ground arms and make common cause with what were before rival interests. So in 1903 the International Harvestor Company came into being with its one hundred and twenty million capital, its annual output of seven hundred thousand harvesters. The combine owns or controls its own ore beds, steel mills and forests, and now makes most of the machines and implements necessary to successful farming, from cream separators to threshing machines, from horse-rakes to steam engines. The democracy prefigured by Courtesy the Regenstein Library this stupendous combination as it is may be far Jenkin Lloydjones preaching at Lincoln Memorial University in away, but it is coming, along the lines indicated Harrogate, Tennessee, about 1915. by the words "International" and "company." items which Casson gives in the expense bills Time and space forbid giving the bewilder­ of this combine for 1907. To the intelligent ing figures a mere recital of which appeals to these figures fly out of the ledger, escape the the enlightened imagination with as much trammels of book-keeping! They are not only power as a Shakespearian drama. Nothing in items in the world's economic life, but senten­ the poetry of Robert Browning or the fiction ces in the great Declaration of Independence of Victor Hugo can parallel this Epic of the that releases the worker from the slavery of Reaper. Two hundred and thirty-five miles of toil, the drudgery ofthe field, the fear of star­ leather belting, nine hundred and forty miles vation. They glow as so many illuminated sign of cotton belting, four million pounds of wire, posts directing the way to liberty. They are fifteen million pounds of nails are among the stanzas in the great epic of bread which, when 146 GRAHAM: JENKIN LLOYD JONES pushed a little farther and lifted a little higher, man, in its last analysis is resolvable into spirit­ come to be psalms ofthe spirit, texts in the Bi­ ual power, and is best expressed in terms of ble of love. human intelligence, will and consecration. Here again, the gospel ofthe farm parallels The upshot of this study of the harvest field the Gospels of the New Testament. ..." is that the problem of garnering is quite as These inventors and manufacturers were pro­ much an element in the gospel of life as the found evangelists ofthe better life. problem of growing. Our plowing, sowing and I have said that E. H. Gammon, a Method­ hoeing are vain if we are not able to harvest the ist minister, persuaded his parishioner, Mr. product. What avail fertile fields or even dili­ Deering, to invest, that together they might gent tillage, if at the critical moment—how become reaper men. Somewhere and some­ critical only farmers in this northwestern lati­ how on the road, the wheat harvesting ma­ tude can understand—the joint product of chine helped make Evanston, Illinois, a uni­ man and God be not promptly conserved? versity town and, by strange fitness and The law ofthe field is the law of mind; civiliza­ heavenly logic, the McCormick Harvester, the tion depends upon harvesting. McCormick Theological School and the Em­ The mighty mills of Minneapolis, the thou­ mons Blaine School of Education are children sand elevators on lakeshore and railroad sid­ ofthe same father. It they are sometimes slow ing, transcontinental trains and the mighty to recognize their common paternity, we must grain ships of ocean are all indispensable parts be patient while the children are being of the great feeding machinery of the world. brought up to their majority. They are not only the logical sequences but the Casson traces the last and highest triumph logical necessities of the self-binding har­ ofthe harvester to the rather windy eloquence vester. And it is these great harvesting of a Wisconsin editor. Fifty years or more ago, schemes of humanity that are to make hunger, "Pump" Carpenter, as he was called, was a starvation and famine impossible; for the noisy figure in Wisconsin politics, an agitating abundance in one harvest field of the great editor.'^ In his political fights upon the stump farmer, by adequate harvesting, can be he loved to dwell on the coming time when the promptly made to supply the deficiencies of grain would be bound by machinery and the the blighted fields elsewhere. drudgery of the harvest field would be lifted Libraries and laboratories, schools, col­ from the shoulders of men. Says Casson: leges, churches, homes are only so many de­ positories of the higher wheat—storehouses It is a most interesting fact, and certainly of that which nourishes the imperishable part, not an accidental one, that the group of distributing stations where the wealth of the noted inventors who together produced harvest is made accessible to the hungry souls the self-binders, all appeared from the of men and women, where the abundance of region south of Madison. summer is saved to the needs of winter. I have tried to lay hold of the last triumph Withington of Janesville, Wisconsin, gave to of the farm and convert it into a gospel hope. McCormick the wire binder, which worked The International combine—what of it? Ad­ well and held the field until Appleby of Mazo- mit, as I fear we must, that its basis was largely manie, gave to Deering the twine binder, greed, that its economies were material, 1 for which knocked out the wire binder of McCor­ one will hope and believe that that triumph on mick. We are left to infer that the brains of the lower field will inevitably bear us on to sim­ both Withington and Appleby were quick­ ilar triumphs in the upper field. It is over this ened by the oratory of "Pump" Carpenter. rough road that the Mount of Vision is to be While it is true that the final perfecters of reached and the victory of the spirit is to be the reaper—many of them—were farmers, won. Cooperation and not competition is to di­ the early inventors were dreamers of the rect the industries ofthe future. Are the com­ study, men of the closet. The story of the binations of to-day tyrannical, relentless, reaper, like all the other great triumphs of building up vast fortunes and at the same time sinking great groups of laborers to a condition ' 'A confusing sentence has been omitted. '^Stephen Decatur Carpenter (c. 1821-1906), Demo­ where they are inadequately fed, clothed and cratic newspaper editor, Greenbacker, and inventor. housed? The remedy is in more co-operation, 147 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1983-1984 not less, a more intimate combination of capi­ He was already a man of millions; he had won tal and labor, a shortening of the distance be­ out: it was a good place to stop. "What shall 1 tween the shops and the counting rooms. The do?" said the halting man to the clear-eyed interests of the consumer of farm machinery wife, "close up and retire, or rebuild?" "Re­ has been greatly advanced by the combina­ build," said the sagacious wife. "I do not want tions; the farmer is buying better and cheaper my boys to grow up in idleness; we want to give machines than he could under the regime of them something to do." cut-throat competition. If the makers of the The boys and girls were given something to machines, the toiling artisans and diligent do. What are the children of these recent con­ "hands," are not also profiting by the coopera­ querors to accomplish? Is the combination tion, then the still larger combination repre­ which their fathers proved so economically sented by the state must see that a more equita­ feasible to be carried higher by their children? ble distribution is secured. Are we to realize "great combines" in religion? Robert McCormick, the Scotch-Irishman of Are rival forces, disputing sects and quarrel­ Virginia, could afford to buy shoes for all the ing creeds to ground arms, recognize their children, but the wise mother of Cyrus de­ kindred interests, confess their common du­ creed that he should run bare-foot in summer ties, and together proceed to feed the hungry lest he be weakened by luxury. After the Chi­ world, to humanize and civilize warring fac­ cago fire, when the great factories were all in tions, brutal forces and bloodspilling national­ ashes, Cyrus McCormick summoned his wife. ities?

Community Historians in Residence Project The State Historical Society of Wisconsin is again conducting the Community Historians in Residence Project, July 7 to July 21, 1984, funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Fen nonprofessional historians will spend the two weeks learning about research strategies and resources and ex­ ploring methods of studying community history. Project faculty include Society staff members and Allan Bogue (University of Wisconsin), Kathleen Conzen (University of Chicago), Michael Conzen (University of Chicago), Stanley K. Schultz (University of Wisconsin), Shelton Stromquist (University of Iowa), and Dale Treleven (UCLA). After several months of indefjendent research on their topics, the program participants will return to Madison, December 27 to December 29, 1984, for further consultation with Society staff members and to have a preliminary draft oftheir pa­ per critiqued. Final drafts of their articles, suitable for publica­ tion, will be due in April, 1985. Further information about the program is available from: Michael Gordon, Project Coordinator, Community Historians in Residence Project, State Historical So­ ciety ofWisconsin, 816 State Street, Madison, Wisconsin, 53706.

148 BOOK REVIEWS

Roughneck: The Life and Times of Big Bill Hay­ thetically (and well) written and is a fairly de­ wood. By Peter Carlson. (W. W. Norton & Co., tailed synthesis drawn mostly from various New York, 1983. Pp. 352. Photographs, notes other works on the WFM and the IWW and on sources, index. $17.50.) less from archival materials and author- conducted interviews. In the concluding portion of Roughneck, a The events of the Haywood/WFM/IWW biography of William D. "Big Bill" Haywood, saga are basically covered. Among them are author Peter Carlson perceives the Haywood Haywood's birth in 1869 at Salt Lake City and legend as something which "withered and his boyhood in Ophir, his early work in the died" soon after his 1928 death in the Soviet mines of Nevada and his experiences as cow­ Union, becoming "a footnote in history books, boy and homesteader, the impact on Hay­ a name entombed in dusty archives, a faded wood of Haymarket anarchist martyrdom photograph on a yellowed newspaper clip­ (1887), his growing involvement within the ping." This may have been true in the fickle WFM in the late 1890's and early 1900's, and U.S. East. But when this reviewer was growing his rise to national secretary-treasurer of that up in the northern Arizona mountains in the increasingly radical industrial union, the l950's, the memories of Utah-born Haywood, founding of the egalitarian and syndicalist one of America's great radicals, and of his two primary organizations—the Western Federa­ tion of Miners (WFM) and the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)—had lost little Special Book Orders oftheir freshness and lustre. And in the early 1960's at Tougaloo College, my students and 1 The Society will order any book currently studied the historical IWW, its tactics, and its offered by any American publisher at 10 leaders very closely as we developed the mas­ per cent discount for members or at full sive. Wobbly-type Jackson Movement in Mis­ list price for non-members. Please send sissippi's capital. the author's name, the full title, and (if known) the publisher to: Special Book Carlson's book, more than a half-century after Haywood's passing and in an era wfien Orders, State Historical Society of Wis­ too few survive of the red card-carrying old- consin, 816 State Street, Madison, WI timers who followed the shooting-stars of the 53706. A handling charge of $ 1.50 will be IWW ("Organization, Education, Emancipa­ added to each order under $20.00, and tion"), is designed to cover the activist and per­ $2.50 for orders over $20.00. Please do not sonal dimensions of Haywood from the send payment with your order. The Society will nineteenth-century western frontier through ship and bill you when the order is filled. increasingly embittered class warfare into the late 1920's and his death. Roughneck is sympa­

149 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1983-1984

IWW in 1905 and Haywood's eventual as­ cent St. John, could be much more fully de­ cendancy some years later to the top post of picted. secretary-treasurer, the Haywood/Moyer/ Carlson's assessment of Haywood is general Pettibone Idaho murder frameup (1906— and not much more than two paragraphs ex­ 1907), the great strikes such as Cripple Creek emplified by "the blows he landed left his ene­ (1903-1904), Lawrence (1912), Paterson mies a little weaker and a lot more willing to (1913), Western copper and lumber (1917), compromise with the reformers who followed and farmworker organizational drives in the in his wake." Carlson's perception of Hay­ 1910's. The roll call of Wobbly martyrs is set wood's relationship to the Soviet Union forth, e.g., Joe Hill (1915), Everett Massacre ("When his naivete was crushed by the cruel vicdms (1916), Frank Litde (1917), Wesley Ev­ realities of the Russian Revolution, Haywood erest (1919). Carlson touches the IWW con­ was left a bitter, broken man") may very well flicts with the craft-oriented AFL and the "yel­ be true. But little evidence is offered by low" Socialists, and sketches a graphic picture Carlson to justify this conclusion, for which of the corporation-initiated and government- considerably more evidence does in fact exist backed domestic hysteria and repression than, say, in the case of John Reed. which culminated in U.S. of America vs. William Within its limits. Roughneck is a sound piece D. Haywood et al. and related examples of "le­ of craftsmanship. But it is not art nor is it a full gal" attacks and in bloody vigilante activity— study of Haywood. It is popular biography, all of which made a mockery of the Constitu­ offering little that is new to those already fa­ tion and the United States justice system miliar with the period and its issues and orga­ during and after World War I. The rise ofthe nizations and participants. It is, however, fun Communist movement and the decline of the to read and a good introductory stream which, IWW, Haywood's 1921 flight to the Soviet Un­ hopefully, will encourage those interested ion, and his final years in that setting round "new-timers" to pursue the man and the les­ out the chronological scope ofthe book. Prob­ sons in such important works as Bill Haywood's lems between Haywood and his wife, Nevada Book: The Autobiography of William D. Haywood Jane, their eventual separation, his mistresses, (1929 and various recent editions), The his great love for his daughters, as well as his I.W.W.: Its First Seventy Years (1905-1975) by drinking and health problems, are all well in­ Fred Thompson and Patrick Murfin, Wobbly: tegrated into the primarily activist-oriented The R ough and Tumble Story of an American Radi­ thrust ofthe book. cal (1948) by Ralph Chaplin, and Joseph Con­ Minor flaws involve misspelling several in­ lin's Big Bill Haywood and the Radical Union dividuals' names, inaccurately naming several Movement (1969). Hopefully, too, a full biogra­ reference works, and misspelling Mormon phy of Big Bill will ultimately appear—doing (Morman) a number of times. More funda­ so well before the centennial of his death! mentally, several important works are not listed and, too, there is little exploration ofthe JOHN R. SALTER, JR. key issues in radical circles of the period (is­ University of North Dakota sues which are still very much to the fore to­ day) in which Haywood was deeply involved: pragmatism vs. ideology, centralization vs. de­ The Rise ofthe Midwestern Meat Packing Industry. centralization, political action vs. direct action, By MARGARET WALSH. (The University Press nonviolence vs. violence, the rights of minori­ of Kentucky, Lexington, 1982. Pp. x, 182. Ta­ ties and women. The frontier origins of Amer­ bles, maps, appendix, notes, bibliography, in­ ican syndicalism and its development—still an dex. $14.50.) appealing perspective to many in a time when the same basic socio-economic-political prob­ Margaret Walsh sees a bias in economic his­ lems faced by Haywood and his colleagues tory ofthe mid-nineteenth century which con­ continue, with the more recent addition of siders the Middle West only in the "agrarian massive bureaucracy—is scarcely discussed. context." In particular there is a lack of study Various individuals closely associated with of industrial development, and the present Haywood, e.g., Ralph Chaplin, Clarence Dar­ volume is to redress the situation somewhat by row, Eugene Debs, Daniel DeLeon, Mabel considering the industrialization of one of the Dodge, Elizabeth Flynn, Emma Goldman, agricultural processing enterprises—pork Samuel Gompers, Thomas J. Hagerty, packing. Thus the title is somewhat mislead­ Mother Jones, Frank Little, John Reed, Vin- ing. Cattle and beef packing are mentioned 150 BOOK REVIEWS very briefly in the text and notes, but the argu­ sion of sources of supply, the process of pack­ ment and the evidence is concerned solely ing, financing, and market outlets. with pork packing. This is entrepreneurial history focusing on chapter one is an introduction to the argu­ the aggregate. It tells us about swine raising ment, which is essentially that from the 1840's and feeding only briefly and, for my taste, to the mid-1870's pork packing went from be­ could have a fuller narrative and more use of ing a part-time adjunct to commission mer­ the details of individual firms. However, the chant firms to being a full-fledged industrial study fills a gap in our knowledge of the meat enterprise. Chapter two discusses the pioneer processing business that was so important for period characterized by the seasonal nature of individual farmers of the Middle West. The hog slaughter, geographic dispersion of pack­ rise of packing increased the market for hogs ers, and a poor transportation system. This re­ and cattle. To now, we have had a better sense sulted in a lack of steady market demand for of the beef packing business. The Walsh study pork and a varied supply of hogs at uneven enlightens us on pork packing. prices. Chapter three has a brief discussion of the financial needs of packers and then a dis­ JAMES W. WHITAKER cussion of the impact of the developing rail­ Iowa State University road network during the 1850's. Chicago by having a larger hinterland than Cincinnati be­ gan to rise as a packing center while Cincinnati stayed static. Chapter four discusses the The American Inquisition: Justice and Injustice in changes during the Civil War era when new the Cold War. By STANLEY I. KUTLER. (Hill and entrepreneurs seized the opportunity to con­ Wang, New York, 1982. Pp. xiv, 285. Notes, centrate on packing only. The war years also index. $16.50.) encouraged consolidation of packing in fewer urban centers in the hands of larger firms The American Inquisition is an important ad­ which contributed an increasing percentage dition to the historical literature on the Cold ofthe western pork pack. War era. Utilizing the Freedom of Informa­ Chapter five discusses the emergence of a tion Act (FOIA), Stanley I. Kutler has written permanent industry in which the use of ice a set of seven case studies showing how gov­ cooling is a key element by allowing year ernment agencies and their officials inter- around meat packing. The establishment of ferred with the administration of justice and centralized stockyards, increased capital in­ threatened civil liberties. Overall, the picture vestment, systematically arranged packing he paints is one in which government agencies houses, and the entrepreneurial spirit com­ were pressured by outside groups, individual plete the transition to a full industrial enter­ officials (buttressed by allies in Congress or prise on the threshold of oligopoly by the outside government) pursued their own agen­ 1880's. lhe merchant packers, while not all das, and administrative officers sacrificed the gone, were left behind by the industrial enter­ rights of individuals for partisan political rea­ prises. Finally, the argument is summarized in sons. Reading this book may lead some to the a brief chapter six. depressing conclusion that civil liberties sur­ The work is well researched and contains a vived the Cold War years more on the basis of wealth of material in the tables, a total of luck than anything else. thirty-nine, which accompany the ninety-two In some cases, such as those treating "To­ pages of narrative, twelve pages of appendix, kyo Rose" and Owen Lattimore, Kutler's sub­ and forty pages of notes. The notes contain jects are well known; in others, they are ob­ much information in addition to the source ci­ scure. Beatrice Braude was a dedicated tations. The tables indicate numbers of hogs, government employee who lost her United packing centers (major and minor), the States Information Agency post in late 1953, amount of pork packed, and changes in these ostensibly for budgetary reasons. In reality, relationships over thirty years. A series of four however, her termination was for security maps give a good visual impression of the dis­ considerations (despite the fact that she had tribution and concentration of midwestern been cleared in earlier reviews) and the budg­ packing centers. The appendix concerns a etary explanation deprived her of a proce­ stratified sample of pork packing establish­ dural right to a hearing. Upon learning the ments Professor Walsh constructed to provide real cause of her termination through discov­ biographical details for the narrative discus­ eries under the 1974 Privacy Act, she filed a 151 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1983-1984 suit for damages. The Court of Claims ruled respect the Rule of Law that they impose. . . . that the statute of limitations applied and her If law is to maintain its hegemony and su­ suit was thrown out. Subsequent efforts to premacy, then power holders sometimes have provide a remedy through a private bill in to risk losing their immediate goals." At times, Congress also ended in failure. this subtle truth may seem a slender reed. Not all of the injustices visited upon Cold Many have suffered without redress from gov­ War victims treated by Kutler were at the ernment wrongdoing, and there is no guaran­ hands of government officials. Private individ­ tee that our independent judiciary will remain uals and groups sometimes pressured officials truly independent or that its representatives to act and, in some cases, followed the govern­ will act responsibly. Yet, despite the flawed re­ ment's lead in harassing and punishing those cord of the Cold War era, as Kutler writes, deemed "disloyal." A West Coast American "still it was not 'Darkness at Noon.' It was not a Legion figure and the AFL helped orchestrate closed system. We have a society that permits the assault on Harry Bridges (long before the the individual to resist under the Rule of Law Cold War) and eventually the ClOjoined in as and to use it to rectify the violations of the well. Kutler's discussion on the five attorneys norms of that system." who represented Communist party leaders in In the context of Kutler's research, these the 1949 Smith Act trial is of particular inter­ lines do not encourage complacency. Civil lib­ est in this regard. After the defendants were erties were threatened here at home during convicted, the presiding judge charged their the Cold War era and, as this book and others lawyers with contempt of court and sentenced suggest, it was not inevitable that they pre­ them to prison terms ranging from thirty days vailed. With this work, Kutler has made a ma­ to six months. These sentences were upheld jor contribution to our understanding of how on appeal and all of the attorneys went to various government agencies functioned in prison. In addition, bar associations in several regard to domestic Cold War issues. Hope­ states sought to disbar four of them. Though fully, The American Inquisition will be widely such efforts were not always successful, these read, and not just by scholars. men were greatly inconvenienced and two of them were disbarred for several years. Obvi­ WILLIAM C. PRATT ously, the harassment of attorneys who de­ University of Nebraska at Omaha fended unpopular defendants had a chilling effect. Perhaps my chief reservation with Kutler's License for Empire: Colonialism by Treaty in Early book concerns its inclusion ofthe Ezra Pound America. By DOROTHY V. JONES. (University of case. This episode was not related even tan- Chicago Press, Chicago, 1982. Pp. xiv, 256. gentially to the Cold War. Pound had been in­ Figures, tables, notes, bibliography, index. dicted for treason as a result of his wartime $23.00.) propaganda broadcasts from Italy. His case, however, unlike that of "Tokyo Rose," was not Through the instruments of treaties much affected by Cold War tensions at home. of the land in the United States was acquired Kutler's efforts to demonstrate that it was an from the native Americans. In the popular injustice that Pound was not brought to trial mind treaties are regarded as enlightened pol­ for treason may be strained. Perhaps, as he icy or, at the least, as documents embracing maintains. Pound was sane and his twelve-year high legal principles. Fhe historical reality confinement in a government mental institu­ shows this conception to be an illusion. License tion was contrived by the hospital's superin­ for Empire probes into the origin of the Indian tendent to protect him from prosecution. But treaty system and defines its purpose for both in this case, Kutler abandons the presumption the European and Indian societies involved. of innocence that he seemingly accords other Fhe formal treaties are rooted in the extended individuals studied in this volume. European treaty system developed first in con­ Overall, however. The American Inquisition is tinental disputes and then carried overseas as a fine book, which again demonstrates the empires were carved out in Africa, South and value of the FOIA and how important an West Asia, including India, and ultimately in even-handed administration of this law is to North America. historians and an informed citizenry. Kutler's After the Treaty of Paris (1763) when Brit­ concluding discussion is worth noting as well: ain sought to affirm her territorial acquisitions "Power holders, in short, must to some extent in the west, Indian tribes denied that she had 152 BOOK REVIEWS the right to dispose of Indian lands and also minds of some ofthe American formulators of rejected a concept that regarded a nation as a the treaty concept which was certainly not al­ "group of people" shorn of territory. Indians ways present with the British. also viewed empire differently, as mutually ac­ knowledged rights and duties holding be­ DAVID R. WRONE tween the Indian nations, or, as in Iroquois University of Wisconsin—Stevens Point terminology, "fires." To Britain an empire meant the right to convey land regardless of the rights of those who occupied it. Indian cul­ tural perseverance, diplomacy, and warriors American Farmers: The New Minority. By GIL­ forced a rough equality from the British not BERT C. FiTE. (Minorities in Modern America Se­ unlike that enjoyed between European na­ ries. Indiana University Press, Bloomington, tions who were parties to treaties. 1981. Pp. ix, 224. Illustrations, charts, notes, Considerable space is given to the pivotal index. $19.50.) role in colonial affairs played by the League of the Iroquois. With few warriors (the author es­ Gilbert Fite, a well-known agricultural his­ timates 3,960 in 1763) it was locked in extraor­ torian, has chronicled the transformation of a dinary diplomatic intrigue and constant battle majority, farmers, into what he calls the New for much of the century. During the Revolu­ Minority. The work is a nice overview of the tionary War American armies crushed the political, economic, technological, and social League, scattering the remnants. One, the forces that have turned the family farmer Oneida, eventually ended up in Wisconsin. from a dominant majority to a minority that Chaos marked Indian affairs for the next feels misunderstood and neglected by govern­ fifteen years. Private individuals, land com­ ment and urban consumers. panies, and states pushed in upon the tribes, Fite, from a South Dakota farm back­ creating dissension and incessant border war­ ground, holds no brief for the "good old days" fare. To remove friction, impose order upon on the farm. He acknowledges that the work the frontier, and regulate the westward move­ was long, difficult, and unrewarding and ac­ ment, the federal government gradually cen­ cepts the basic structure of American com­ tralized Indian affairs, finally creating a treaty mercial agriculture. system based on the British model with Indian This volume is designed for the general commissioners, medals, goods distributed, pa­ reader rather than the specialist in agricul­ lavers, formal documents, and Senate ratifica­ tural history. It is a nice summarization ofthe tion before purchasing the lands involved. major trends in modern American agriculture The crucial difference with the European and maybe the one book to recommend to model was the disparity between the treaty someone who wants a capsule view of agricul­ partners, for the Indians were now defeated tural change. and severely demoralized. The treaties placed The political and economic forces that the Indians external to the political process shaped American agriculture constitute the but not to the economic and cultural spheres major threads in this story. Fite shows the un- of American life, thereby reducing them to profitability of farming throughout most of the status of colonials in an American empire. the 1880's and 1890's and the resulting politi­ Treaties were designed for and became a rude cal unrest expressed by the Grangers, Green- form of centralized land acquisition; a license backers, and Populists. McKinley's victory in for empire, not a way to establish harmony be­ 1896 provided political confirmation of the tween nations and define intertwined desti­ shift in economic power away from agricul­ nies. ture. This volume is extensively researched. The first part of the twentieth century was There are nineteen figures and tables on trea­ basically profitable for farmers. The years ties and tribes. There is an excellent bibliogra­ 1909—1914 became the base period for phy. Some additional comment might have farmers seeking "parity" between farm and been made on the constitutional aspects of the non-farm prices. Despite the apparent eco­ treaties and the role ofthe courts in interpret­ nomic advances in agriculture, by 1920 only ing them. Since an Indian treaty became, in 29.9 per cent of Americans lived on farms. fact, an organic part of the Constitution of the In the 1920's farmers mobilized politically United States, it would appear there was an el­ through the Farm Bloc and groups like the ement of reason and humanity present in the Farm Bureau, Farmers Union, and the 153 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1983-1984

Grange. Farmers were infuriated that govern­ supporting prices, or increasing consumption ment was, in their opinion, uniting with busi­ begun in the late twenties and thirties contin­ ness, industry, and even labor, at their ex­ ued. Farmers saw the need for political action, pense. Farmers gained passage of a raft of bills but because of their diversity and indepen­ such as the Packers and Stockyards Act, the dence they could not agree on a concerted Federal Farm Loan Act, and the Capper- plan. So, despite all the debate, the policies of Volstead Act aiding cooperatives, but the fight the thirties prevailed into the fifties. for the McNary-Haugen bill went down to World War II was a watershed for Ameri­ President Calvin Coolidge's vetoes. can agriculture. The trends that emerged of In the 1920's and 1930's major technolog­ fewer, bettter technologically equipped ical changes occurred in agriculture. Fite la­ farmers producing more food, cheaper than bels the change from horses to tractors the their predecessors continue to the present. most important development in American ag­ Most Americans still hold attitudes of respect riculture in this period. Low prices encour­ and admiration for farmers and a nostalgic aged farmers to cut costs by increasing mecha­ sense of farming as a good life. They are will­ nization and improving efficiency. Hybrid ing to spend money aiding farmers, but food corn, thatcher wheat, and increasing use of prices had better stay low. The political impli­ chemicals put agriculture on the eve of a revo­ cations of these attitudes is reflected in the ma­ lution by World War II. On 38 million acres neuverings ofthe food stamp program. less land, farmers produced 10 per cent more The American commercial farmer of the crops in 1939 than they did ten years earlier. seventies was basically prosperous, but always Economically the United States had a surplus under cost-price squeeze pressure. He was of crops and farmers by 1940. also one ofthe most politically active groups in The Roosevelt Administration's attempts to Congress. By 1981 the New Minority consti­ deal with the price-depressing crop surplus tuted slightly less than 3 per cent of the popu­ benefitted commercial farmers, "tenants, lation. sharecroppers, and farmers on small plots did The future, according to Fite, will most not gain much. likely see the cost-price squeeze continue to World War II provided economic options eliminate the marginal producer, and some for the rural agriculturalists. Many chose to not so marginal. Family farmers and commer­ leave the poverty of the land for opportunity cial farmers will become an ever shrinking mi­ in a defense plant. Over five million people, or nority while we try to reconcile modern agri­ one-sixth ofthe total farm population, left the culture, economics, and emotions that have farm between 1940 and 1945. In 1946 prices their roots in pre-industrial farming. averaged 123 per cent of parity and farmers paid off mortgages, bought cars, and worried DAVID L. NASS about surpluses. Southwest State University The debate over controlling production. Marshall, Minnesota

Book Reviews

Carlson, Roughneck: The Life and Times of Big Bill Haywood, reviewed b\ John R. Salter, Jr ' ' 149 Fite, American Farmers: The New Minority, reviewed by Da\'id L. Nass \b?> Jones, License for Empire: Colonialism by Treaty in Early America, reviewed by Da\ id R. W'rone 152 Kutler, The American Inquisition: Justice and Injustice in the Cold War, reviewed by William C. Pratt 151 Walsh, The Rise of the Midwestern Meat Packing Industry, reviewed b\ James W. Whi­ taker 150

154 Wisconsin History etery Society, 1983. Pp. v, 127. Illus. $7.00 plus $ 1.00 postage and handling. Available Checklist from author, 809 John Adams Street, Sauk City, Wisconsin 53583.)

Recently published and currently available Wisconsiana Dopkins, Dale R. The Janesville Ninety-Nine. added to the Society's Library are listed below. The (Janesville?, Wi.sconsin, ©1981. Pp.'45. Il­ compilers, Gerald R. Eggleston, Acquisitions Librarian, lus. No price listed. Available from author, and Susan Dorst, Order Librarian, are interested in obtaining information about (or copies of) items that are 2518 Wesley Avenue, Janesville, Wisconsin not widely advertised, such as publications of local 53545.) History ofthe experiences of Com­ historical societies, family histories and genealogies, pany A from Janesville, Wisconsin, during privately printed works, and histories of churches, the Bataan Death March and as Japanese institutions, or organizations. Authors and publishers prisoners of war. wishing to reach a wider audience and also to perform a valuable bibliographic service are urged to inform the compilers of their publications, including the following Engel, Dave. River City Mermnrs. (Wisconsin information: author, title, location and name of publisher, Rapids, Wisconsin, 1983. Pp. 119. Illus. date of publication, price, pagination, and address of $13.95. Available from South Wood supplier. Write Susan Dorst, Acquisidons Section. County Historical Corp., 540 Third Street South, Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin Anderson, Anna. Footprints. (Plum City, Wis­ 54494.) A series of articles that originally consin, 1982. Pp. 1*7. Illus. No price listed. appeared in the Wisconsin Rapids Daily Available from author. Route 1, Box 76, Tribune between 1980 and 1982 about the Plum City, Wisconsin 54761.) Story of the early history ofWisconsin Rapids, formerly author's life up to her marriage in 1916. known as Grand Rapids.

Blodgett, Dennis and Blodgett, Joan. Blodgett's Funny Judge: Milwaukee's Christ T. Seraphim, and Other Families in Wisctmsin. (Eau Claire?, edited by David Schreiner ancl Denis Wisconsin, 1983. 24 leaves. Illus. $10.00. Kitchen. (Princeton, Wisconsin, © 1983. Pp. Available from author, 921 Lakeside Ave­ 87. Illus. $6.95. Available from Kitchen nue, Eau Claire, Wisconsin 54703.) Sink Press, No. 2 Swamp Road, Princeton, Wisconsin 54968.) The cover's subtitle is A Blue Ribbon Walking Tour, Ten Historical Homes: Collection of Kaleidoscope Columns & Sanders a Look Back in Merrill's History, 1883—1983. Cartoons on the State's Most Controversial (Merrill, Wisconsin, 1983. Pp. [12]. Illus. fudge. No price listed. Available from Val L. Rohr- bacher, 615 North Center Avenue, Merrill, Heritage of Love, Faith and Hope . . . : the First Wi.sconsin 54452.) One Hundred Twenty-Five Years (1858— 1983), A. (Burlington, Wisconsin, 1983. Pp. Colson, John Calvin. Academic Ambitiims and Li­ 37. Illus. No price listed. Available from brary Development: the American Bureau of In­ Plymouth Congregational United C^hurch dustrial Research and the State Historica I Society of Christ, 124 West Washington, ofWisconsin 1904—18. (ChamjDaign, Illinois, Burlington, Wisconsin 53105.) 1983. Pp. 53. $3.00. Available from Occa­ sional Papers, Graduate School of Library Historical Collections tif Washburn County and the and Information Science, Publications Surrounding Indianhead Country, edited by Kay Oflfice, University of Illinois at Urbana- Brown Winton, Volume III. (Shell Lake, Wis­ Champaign, 249 Armory Building, 505 consin, 1983. Pp. 293, [17]. Illus. $20.00 East Armory Street, Champaign, Illinois plus $2.00 postage and handling. Available 61820.) from Washburn County Historical Society, Box 359, Shell Lake, Wisconsin 54871.) Gushing, Myrtle E. Cemetery Inscriptions t)fSauk County, Wisconsin, volume 4: Delton, Fairfield, History of LaFayette County, Wisconsin, Contain­ Greenfield and Merrimac Tt>wnships. (Sauk ing an Account of Its Settlement, Growth, Devel­ City, Wisconsin, Wisconsin State Old Cem­ opment and Resources . . . (Darlington, Wis- 155 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1983-1984

consin, 1983. Pp. 799, 55. Illus. $35.00 plus Pattison, Mary Ann and Kinney, Greg. Frtnn $3.00 postage and handling. Available County Mayo to St. Croix County: a History of from Lafayette County Historical Society, the Northern Branch of the Kinney Family. 525 Main Street, Darlington, Wisconsin (River Falls?, Wisconsin, 1983? Pp. 108. Il­ 53530.) Reprint of the 1881 edition with an lus. $7.00. Available from Greg Kinney, added index. 722 North Seventh, River Falls, Wisconsin 54022.) Hoff, Evelyn. Dauve Data: a Histoiy of Nonce- gian Ancestry. (Whitehall, Wisconsin, 1983. Return lo—Ancient Glory . . . Lake of the Tmrties Pp. 404. Illus. $21.50. Available from au­ (Lac Du Flambeau, Wisconsin) 1984 Calendar, thor, 1719 Lincoln Street, Whitehall, Wis­ The (Lac Du Flambeau, Wisconsin, 1983. consin 54773.) Pp. [26]. Illus. $3.50 plus $ 1.00 postage and handling. Available from Blue Winds Johnson, Catheryn R. Washburn Memories. Printing & Design, Inc., 14155 Highway 70 (Washburn, Wisconsin, 1983? Pp. 236. Il­ West, Lac Du Flambeau, Wisconsin 54538.) lus. $14.50. Available from Washburn Includes information about the Lac Du Woman's Civic Club, c/o Mr. & Mrs. Earl Flambeau powwow held in 1983 and leg­ Johnson, 621 Washington Avenue, ends and photographs. Washburn, Wisconsin 54891.) Ritzenthaler, Robert F^. and Ritzenthaler, Pat. Kettner, Carol J. M. The Pierce County Fair, The Woodland Indians of the Western Great 1883-1983: A Centennial History. (Belden- Lakes. (Milwaukee, Wisconsin, ©1983. Pp. ville?, Wisconsin, 1983. Pp. 56. Illus. $3.00 154. Illus. $7.95. Available from Editor, plus $.50 postage and handling. Available Publications, Milwaukee Public Museum, from Bernard Drewiske, County Extension 800 West Wells Street, Milwaukee, Wiscon­ Office, County Courthouse, Elkhorn, Wis­ sin 53233.) Reprint ofthe 1970 edition. consin 54011.) Seefelt, Edward R. The SeefehU Family History: a Kewaunee, a Harbor Community, Centennial, Wisconsin Immigrant Family. (Amherst Junc­ 1883-1983. (Kewaunee, Wisconsin, 1983. tion, Wisconsin, ©1983. Pp. 136. Illus. No Pp. 176. Illus. $17.00. Available from Ke­ price listed. Available from author, 1370 waunee Chamber of Commerce, P.O. Box County T, Amherst Junction, Wisconsin 243, Kewaunee, Wisconsin 54216.) 54407.)

Merrill Centennial Record, 1983. (Merrill?, Wis­ Teresinski, Jane. Along tlte Old Marsh RotuI consin, 1983. Pp. 144. Illus. No price listed. (Early 1900 Dwellings in the Vicinity ofthe Old Available from the T. B. Scott Free Library, Marsh Road as Remembered by Local Residents). Merrill, Wisconsin 54452.) (Waupun, Wisconsin, 1982. [23] leaves. Il­ lus. No price listed. Available from Friends Merrill High School, the First Hundred Years. of Waupun Library, Watipun Public Li­ (Merrill?, Wisconsin, Merrill Area Public brary, 120 South Mills Street, Waupun, Schools Centennial Committee, 1983. Pp. Wisconsin 53963.) The Old Marsh Road is 36, Illus. $1.00. Available from the T. B. located within the townships of Chester and Scott Free Library, Merrill, Wisconsin LeRoy in Dodge County. 54452.) Winn, Delbert L. First United Methodist Church Olson, Char. Merrimac: 140 Years of Ferry Tales of I ronton. Wis., One Hundred Twenty Fifth 'Et Cetera. (Merrimac, Wisconsin, ©1983. Anniversary 1857—1982. (Ironton?, Wiscon­ Pp. 289. Illus. $20.00. Available from Shop­ sin, 1983. Pp. 82. Illus. $5.00. Available per Stopper, Ltd., Merrimac, Wisconsin from the First United Methodist Church, 53561.) Ironton, Wisconsin 53938.)

156 Accessions and partially loaned for copying by Arthur Kaftan, De Pere. Civil War letters written from Tennessee Services for microfilming, xeroxing, and photostating all and Mississippi by Private William R. F^n- but certain restricted items in its manuscript collections are provided by the Society. For details write Harold L. derby. Company H, 12th Wisconsin Volun­ Miller. teer Infantry, to his parents in Green Bay; in­ cluding a description of a battle at Natchez, Mississippi, and comments on his willingness to fight to preserve the Union but not to free Area Research Centers the slaves; presented by George R. Enderby, Green Bay. Eau Claire: Collection entitled Church and Records, 1904—1962, of two corporations, Cemetery Records (Genealogical Society of the Potter Lumber Company, Calumet Utah Project)—Chippewa County, Wisconsin, County, and the Rudolph Greve Hardware consisting of records, 1858—1982, of many Company of Kiel, as kept by their tax consul­ churches and cemeteries in Chippewa tant, Elmer E. Mayer, including minutes, ledg­ County, plus a few other records of genealogi­ ers and account books, other business records, cal interest, microfilmed by the Genealogical and miscellaneous papers of Henry L. and Society of Utah; originals loaned to the State Elmer E. Meyer; presented by Elmer Meyer, Historical Society of Wisconsin by the record Madison. owners for copying by the Genealogical Soci­ ety of Utah which now holds the negative mi­ La Crosse: Record book, 1873-1875, 1886- crofilm. 1913, containing minutes of annual meetings Collection entitled Church and Cemetery of the Galena District of the Northwest Con­ Records (Genealogical Society of Utah ference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, Project)—F.au Claire County, Wisconsin, con­ and some financial records; presented bv Ed sisting of records, 1857—1982, of many Hill, La Crosse. churches ancl cemeteries in Eau Claire Subscription book, 1889-1890, listing County, microfilmed by the Genealogical Soci­ those pledging money to build a church for ety of Utah; loaned to the State Historical Soci­ the Second German Methodist Episcopal ety of Wisconsin by the record owners for cop­ Church congregation in North La Crosse; ying by the Genealogical Society of Utah presented by Ed Hill, La Crosse. which now holds the negative microfilm. Five items, 1895-1910, from the possession Milwaukee: Papers, 1933-1982, of Lloyd A. of William H. Schulz, superintendent of Eau Barbee (b. 1925), a civil rights activist, lawyer, Claire Public Schools, 1906-1918, consisting and Wisconsin state legislator; including per­ of a history of the city public school systein, sonal papers on his family and law practice; perhaps written by Schulz; a "Brief Regarding political campaign records; files on organiza­ the Immediate Construction ofthe Eau Claire tions in which he participated; legislative and State Normal School"; and three calendars of subject files reflecting Barbee's interest in teachers institutes, 1895-1897; presented by abortion, capital punishment, education, Dr. Marvin Lansing, Eau Claire. health care, and other areas; and extensive re­ search and legal files pertaining to the deseg­ Green Bay: A translation of excerpts from the regation suit filed against the Milwaukee Moravian Church Miscellany, 1850—1855, con­ School Board by the NAACP in 1965 in which sisting of letters and reports from A. M. Iver- Barbee was lawyer for the plaintiffs; pre­ sen, J. F. Fett, and others working in the sented and loaned for copying by Lloyd A. church's behalf among settlers in Wisconsin; Barbee, Milwaukee. compiler unknown; presented by Heritage Papers, 1836—1887, of Hans Crocker Hill via Nick Clark, curator. Green Bay. (1815—1889), a Milwaukeean active in Wiscon­ Addidons, 1948-1970, to the papers of law­ sin economic development; consisting largely yer Arthur Kaftan documenting efforts to of quitclaims, property tax receipts, and finan­ combat sewage and industrial pollution ofthe cial records from Crocker's activities as a rail­ Fox River and Green Bay; partially presented road receiver and an investor in land and 157 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1983-1984 other ventures; presented bv Mrs. Ralph youth and family in the River Falls area; pre­ Peirce, Hinsdale, Illinois. sented by Charles N. Cox, Sun City, Arizona. District questionnaire, 1981, of Joseph J. Papers, 1871-1945, of Albinus Webster Czarnezki, Democratic representative of Mil­ (1832-1910) and his son Frank B. Webster waukee's 7th Assembly District; consisting of a (1867-1949) who farmed in the down of Kin- tally of results and a 25 per cent random sam­ nickinnic, St. Croix County; consisting of brief pling of questionnaires with comments; pre­ daily diary entries, account books, genealogi­ sented by Mr. Czarnezki, Milwaukee. cal charts, and other items; presented by Records, 1972-1978, ofthe Eastside Hous­ George Hoff meyer. River Falls, and by the St. ing Action Committee, Milwaukee, a tenant Croix County Historical Society. union organizing committee focusing on the problems of an ethnically mixed, deteriorat­ Stevens Point: .\ brief history, written by an un­ ing neighborhood plagued with a high rate of known author in 1975, ofthe Loed Corpora­ absentee landlordism: including funding re­ tion, founded in Wausau in 1907 and known cords, correspondence, legal papers, educa­ for most of its existence as the Wausau Iron tional materials, and other records; presented Works; presented by Kim Peters, Madison. by the committee via Carol Brill, director. Albums, ante 1924—1942, containing por­ Stout: Advertising brochure, 1884, sent by the trait photographs and biographical informa­ D. E. Barber Livery Sale and F^eed Stable, Ce­ tion on members of the Veterans' Association dar Falls, Dunn County, to A. W. Brown, in­ of The Milwaukee Electric Railway and Light viting him to a sale on May 12; presented by Company and Its Controlled and Associated David A. Brown, Federal Way, Washington. Companies; presented by Donald Mueller, Miscellaneous papers of Inga Bogstad (b. Milwaukee. 1868), a teacher for forty-two years in Meno­ Papers, 1916-1940, 1946, of Jo.seph A. monie schools; consisting of an 1894 certi­ Padway (1801-1947), a labor lawyer, Wiscon­ ficate licensing her to teach, clippings and let­ sin state senator, and Milwaukee County ters on her retirement in 1928, a diarv kept in judge; including subject files on his political 1963-1964 while a nursing home resident, in­ activities, personal interests, ancl travel, and spirational poems and thoughts which she scrapbooks of clippings on his legal interests saved, and other items; presented by the and cases; presented by the Goldberg, Pre- Dunn County Historical Society, Dwight D. viant, and Uelmen law firm, Milwaukee. Agnew, and Minda Dockar. Records, 1947—1951, of a Great Lakes com­ Addidons to the papers, 1942-1945, 1965- mercial fishermen's association, the Wisconsin 1980, of Minda Dockar, a Menomonie school Fish Producers Association, kept bv Nelson librarian; consisting largely of letters from LeClair, a district director; including bulletins World War II servicemen from the Menomo­ and newsletters of the association and of the nie area, plus a few papers on her library work Great Lakes Fisheries Association, convention and items concerning Menomonie history; programs, and correspondence ancl briefs presented by Minda Dockar, Menomonie. sent the Wisconsin Conservation Department; Records, 1934-1943, of the Dunn County presented by Nelson LeClair, I'wo Rivers. Farmer-Labor Progressive Federation and its predecessor, the Dunn County Progressive Parkside: Papers, 1951-1960, documenting Club; including; minutes, financial statements, the service as state senator (1950-1954) and as and correspondence; presented by Mary First District Congressman (1959-1960) of Richards, Boyceville. Gerald T. Flynn (b. 1910), Racine; including Minutes, 1919-1957, of meetings of the constituent correspondence and subject files; Dunn County School of Agriculture and Do­ presented by Mr. Flynn, Racine. mestic Economy's alumni association whose main activity was sponsoring annual banquets; presented by Ruth Olson, Menomonie. River Falls: Papers, 1974—1976 ancl undated, Genealogical and historical essays by Eliza­ including genealogical information. Xeroxed beth Holzhueter, including a genealogy of photographs, and biographical recollections "The Descendants of Christian Fredrich of Charles N. Cox (b. 1900) concerning his Holzhueter (1818-1893) and Carolvn 158 ACCESSIONS

Friedericke Polzin (1829-1903)," 1976; a ge­ a brief history, and an alphabetical index of nealogy of descendants of Charles McCurtain people buried there; presented by Michaela C. (d. ca. 1796) and Margaret Ogden, 1980; and Sitzman, Menomonie. an essay entitled "Fhe Old (ierman Baptist Fwo items concerning Oaklawn Stock Church or Dunkards in Dunn Cx)unty," 1980 Farm, owned by Andrew S. Fainter (1823— and 1981, plus associated papers; presented 1899) and located near Menomonie; a list, by Elizabeth Holzhueter, Menomonie. post 1899, of animals and other personal Papers of John E. Olson (b. 1892) consisting property at the farm indicating the value of of business records, 1941 — 1974, of eight Wis­ each item and annotated "Iransferred to consin cooperatives (primarily electric power Fanny Macmillan and Louis S. Fainter," and a cooperatives) in which Olson was an active reduced positive photostat of a bird's eye view member, including minutes, reports, financial ofthe farm in 1899 drawn by Jim McCracken statements, and other records; plus a few in 1982 and commissioned by Andrew J. Mac­ items frtmi Olson's 1949 campaign for the millan and Margaret Macmillan Walter; pre­ Wisconsin state senate; presented by Mr. sented by Mrs. A. R. Walter, Lebanon, Penn­ Olson, Chetek. sylvania, via Dwight Agnew. Biographical sketch, n.d., by an unknown author, of the Reverend Joseph Rasskopf Superior: Xeroxed copy of a minute book, (1835—1918), the first Evangelical minister to 1904—1955, ofthe Hebrew Cemetery Associa­ preach at Iron Creek, Dunn County: pre­ tion, Superior, Wisconsin, mostly written in sented by Lenora Laustad, Colfax. Yiddish; presented by Barry Singer, Superior "The Life and Times of John Holly Knapp, Public Library. 1825—1888," a historiography class paper sub­ mitted in 1979 by Kathryn Schulz, a student at Whitewater: C^orrespondence and administra­ the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire; pre­ tive papers, 1928—1974, concerning the pro­ sented by Teresa Schulz, Menomonie. fessional activities of Iva Louise Hartman Cemetery inscriptions copied by Michaela (1892—1975), the superintendent of Pinehurst C. Sitzman and Constance Hill in 1981 from tuberculosis sanitorium in Janesville; includ­ St. Katherine's F^vangelical Lutheran Church ing correspondence, reports, patient records, Cemetery, Town of Red Cedar, Dunn and clippings; presented by the Hartman Es­ County; also including a map ofthe cemetery. tate via Leon Feingold, Janesville.

159 Contributors

TIMOTHY P. MAGA received a master's degree from the University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee in 1977 and a doctoral degree in American and French history from McGill University in 1981. He is in his second year as a Lecturer for the University of Maryland—Asian Division in Japan. During the past year he has published several articles on American diplomatic his­ tory and has begun circulating his book-length manuscript, "Politics of Shame: America, France, and the European Refugee Problem, 1933-1947." CHARLES F. HOWLETT, a native of West Islip, New York, earned a B.A. from Marist College (1968), a Ph.D. from the State University of New York at Albany (1974), and an Ed.M. from Columbia University (1983). He has taught at Dowling College and is currently di­ rector of advanced placement history at Ami- tyville Memorial High School, Long Island. Mr. Hewlett's research is in twentieth-century American intellectual history. He is the author of Troubled Philosopher: John Dewey and the Struggle for World Peace (1977) and More Than Business Unionism: Brookwood Labor College and the (hiestfor Social Reform (forthcoming, 1984), and co-author oiThe American Peace Movement: History and Historiography (forthcoming, 1984). In addition he has contributed articles to Mid- America, World Affairs, Teachers College Record, THOMAS GRAHAM is chairman ofthe Religious Labor Studies, Negro History Bulletin, and the Studies Department at the University of Win­ Dictionary of American Biography. nipeg (Canada). Since 1977 he has been re­ searching in the Jenkin Lloydjones papers in the Joseph Regenstein Library and Meadville/ Lombard Theological School, both in Chi­ cago. The Social Sciences and Humanities Re­ search Council of Canada and the University of Winnipeg have supported the research sub­ stantially. Mr. Graham is himself a member of the Lloyd-Jones family and is active in the family effort to maintain and preserve the chapel and cemetery in the valley, across the river from Spring Green.

160 THE BOARD OF CURATORS

THOMAS H. BARLAND, Eau Claire WILLIAM HUFFMAN, Wisconsin Rapids

PATRICIA A. BOGE, La Crosse MRS. PETER D. HUMLEKER, JR., Fond du Lac OSCAR C. BOLDT, Appleton BLAKE R. KELLOGC;, Madison

DAVID E. CLARENBACH, Madison WILLIAM C. KIDD, Racine

E. DAVID CRONON, Madison NEWELL G. MEYER, Eagle

MRS. JAMES P. CZAJKOWSKI, Wauzeka GEORGE H. MILLER, Ripon MRS. L. PRENTICE EAGER, JR., Evansville JOHN M. MURRY, Hales Corners CHARLES P. Fox, Baraboo FREDERICK I. OLSON, Wauwatosa MRS. WILLIAM B. GAGE, Williams Bay FRED A. RISSER, Madison PAUL C. GARTZKE, Madison DR. LOUIS C. SMITH, Cassville

JOHN C. GEILFUSS, Milwaukee ROBERT SMITH, Seymour

MRS. HUGH F. GWIN, Hudson MRS. WILLIAM H. L. SMYTHE, Milwaukee JOHNT. HARRINGTON, Milwaukee WILLIAM F. STARK, Pewaukee

WILFREDJ. HARRIS, Madison DANIEL O. THENO, Ashland

MRS. RICHARD L. HARTZELL, Grantsburg WILSON B. THIEDE, Madison

MRS. WILLIAM E. HAYES, De Pere ROBERT S. TRAVIS, Platteville

NATHAN S. HEFFERNAN, Madison CHARLES TWINING, Ashland MRS. JEAN M. HELLIESEN, La Crosse EDWARDJ. VIRNIG, New Berlin

KIRBY HENDEE, Madison GERALD D. VISTE, Wausau

MRS. FANNIE HICKLIN, Madison CLARK WILKINSON, Baraboo

RoBERr M. O'NEIL, President ofthe University ROBERT B. L. MVRI'H\ , President of the Wisconsin History Foundation MRS. WILLIAM B. JONES, President ofthe Friends ofthe State Historical Society ofWisconsin MRS. SONDRA ROCKENBACH, Chairman, Wisconsin Council for Local History

Friends ofthe State Historical Society ofWisconsin

MRS. WILLIAM B.JONES, MRS. CHARLES LOHMEYER, Lake Barrington Fort Atkinson, President Shores, Illinois, Secretaiy MRS. RICHARD G. JACOBUS, Milwaukee, MRS. CONNOR T. HANSEN, Lake Mills, Treasurer Vice-President MRS. JOHN ERSKINE, K-Acme, Past Presiderd

Fellows Curators Emeritus

VERNON CARSTENSEN ROBERT H. IRRMANN, Beloit MERLE CURTI MRS. EDWARD C. JONES, Fort Atkinson ALICE E. SMITH HOWARD W. MEAD, Madison MILO K. SWANTON, Madison THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY SHALL promote a wider appreciation of the American heritage with particular emphasis on the collection, advancement and dissemination of knowledge of the history of Wisconsin and ofthe West. —Wisconsin Statutes, Chapter 44

Wlli(\:l)M040 Wisconsin Rapids men in the Spanish-American War, 1898. Left to right: Charles N. Laramie, "Patsy" Podaiuilitz, Earl Ridgman, and Fred Brahmstedt; center, kneeling: Arthur J. Houston. Courtesy the Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune.

^-^KTE HISTQ^ I sbs g en CD >'OF WIS*-^