^tirftmtHfrolfe flitetarf| €Wb THE LITERARY CLUB an historical memoir compiled by Francis H. Insley, Secretary

A particular debt is due to Stephen C. Noland's paper read, December 7, 1934, be­ fore the Historical Society (printed for the Club in 1934) and to John H. Holliday's address, "A Third of a Century", read before the Club on January 10, 1910, and printed for the Club in that year.

Printed for the Club - 1970 INDIANAPOLIS LITERARY CLUB In the middle seventies of the last century, with its pioneer days behind it, the bitter memories of the Civil War beginning to recede, its industries and its cities growing space, the middle west acquired some measure of substance and leisure and began to flex its cultural muscles. Says Arthur W. Shumaker, in his^ HISTORY OF INDIANA LITERA­ TURE: "The Golden age of Indiana literature, the fifty year period from 1871 through 1921, was the era during which the most significant writing was produced, the writing for which Hoosier literature is best known and remembered." A little further on he remarks, "It was the age of famous men and their famous books. In it Indiana, and particu­ larly Indianapolis, became a literary center which in many ways rivaled the East." So, on January 10, 1877, all the omens were propitious for the six citizens of Indianapolis who met at the home of John D. Howfand, clerk of the Federal Court, and organized the Indianapolis Literary Club. They were, in addition to Mr. Howland, the Rev. William Alvin Bartlett, clergyman; George H. Chapman, lawyer; Charles Evans, librar­ ian; William P. Fishback, lawyer - three lawyers, a librarian, a clergyman and the clerk of the Federal Court. They appointed a committee to draw up a constitution and invited twelve others to Join them as charter members. The eleven who accepted included one clergyman, Hanford A. Edson, four physicians, Albert E. Fletcher, William B. Fletcher, Theophilus Parvin and Luther D. Waterman; three lawyers, Walter Q. Gresham, Livingston Howland and Albert G. Porter; one teacher, J. Henry Kappes, one journalist, John H. Holliday; and one banker, Ebenezer Sharpe. It was a representative group, very fairly paralleling the composition of the Club today, except that the preachers have dimished. The cloth is still represented on the roll but no longer takes the active part that it did during the early days of the Club. The teachers, however, have grown in numbers and influence until after, or, perhaps, along with, the lawyers they are very nearly the dominating power in the Club.

History is not silent as to who had the original idea for an Indiana­ polis Literary Club. If it were we would be distressed but would accept what Sir Thomas Browne calls "the iniquitous oblivion of time" and forget it. Unfortunately history has been unable to make up its mind.

-1 - . There are no less than three equally acceptable versions. An unsigned Indianapolis News account of a dinner at the University Club, January 10, 1905, celebrating the Club's twenty-eighth anniversary, pays tribute to Mr. Howland as the founder. "It is to the late John D. Howland, more than to any other, that the Club owes its existence. Mr. Howland was for many years the clerk of the United States courts in this city, a quiet man of forceful character, a lover of good books, fond of the society of cultured men. He organized the Indianapolis Library Associa­ tion which was the fore-runner of the present city library, and the books of this institution formed the nucleus of the later institution." In a paper on "The Club's Secretaries", read at the tenth anniversary dinner, January 10,1887, Theodore L. Sewall, then secretary, suggested another candidate. "By a happy coincidence," he said, "we meet to­ night on the very date of the first Club meeting ten years ago. The man who brought about that first meeting was Charles Evans. It was my fortune to meet Mr. Evans soon after my arrival in this city, ten and a half years ago. He was then full of his plan for a literary club, and told me much about it." Charles Evans, of course, was the young man whom the city broughtfrom Boston to establish the new city library. In addi­ tion to being a charter member of the Club and its first secretary he has, obviously, a strong claim to consideration as the Club's founder. There is a third claimant. At the thirty-third anniversary dinner, John H. Holliday, a charter member, said, in his paper on the history of the Club: "There were literary clubs in Indianapolis before ours. The soil was congenial to them and, even 'long before the war', they sprouted into being, flourished with more or less success, fulfilled some sort of mission and died. They were the forerunners, the field pre­ parers. Into this ground fell the acorn from which sprang the mighty oak of tonight. Whose idea was it? Well, probably it was due more to the Rev. William Alvin Bartlett than to any other, though the time was ripe and somebody would have started it if he had not. The doctor came here in 1876 to succeed John L. Witherow as pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church. He was a live wire and immediately became popu­ lar. There was no clericalism about him. He would have thrown a fit if he had been made to wear a choker or a high-cut vest. He was from Chicago and was saturated with the breezy spirit of that town, quick

-2- action, mental alertness, magnetic enthusiasm, a tendency to hustle and no indisposition to scrap . . . What made the doctor bethink him­ self to start a literary society I can not tell. I have the impression that there was one of prominence in Chicago of which he was a member" {Note: There was. Dr. Bartlett was elected a member of the Chicago Literary Club in March of 1874.) "and that may have given him the notion. Perhaps he needed an arena in which to cross swords and work off his surplus energy, and perhaps he thought the town needed an en­ livening institution. Whatever the stimulus, it took effect quickly, and according to Club tradition Mr. Charles Evans, the public librarian, was the first congenial spirit chosen." So take your choice, John D, Howland, Charles Evans or Dr. Bartlett. "It is too much to hope, of course," remarked Stephen C. Noland, one of my distinguished secretarial predecessors; "that these men conspired then and there to lay a trap for historians and with quizzical ceremony agreed that in subsequent accounts of the inspiration of the event they would erect three conflicting authorities of great probity, thus weaving about their origin a mystery to confound the historian obliged to rely upon their records more than half a century later. It is too much to hope, but it is a fair conjecture that if the suggestion had been offered they would not have hesitated to carry it out, for one of the delights of these early members was to pillory a controversialist, a mere picker at detail." Out of professional secretarial pride I am, naturally, inclined to plump for Charles Evans; but I am bound to admit that the evidence is split very fairly into three disconcertingly equal parts. Now, nearly a century after the event, there is no real way to make a choice. The Club has had a variety of meeting places. Of course, it began by meeting in the homes of various members, but that lasted only five months. It was, and remains, an all male assembly, and such a gathering is not happy without its own 'hide-out'. The instinct that prompts this behavior is sure and sound. A private home is inevitably dominated by the female of the species. She is altogether delightful, indispensable, and well meaning — but she is always there, in spirit if not in body, and sooner or later that club meeting turns into a tea-party. When that happens the men's club ends. Another and very pleasant sort of or­ ganization may succeed it (I happen to belong to one such), but it

-3- won't be agentleman's literary club. So the Club appointed a committee to find a sanctuary, and an appropriate room was found in the old Halcyon Block at the Northwest corner of Delaware and New York Streets. At the end of the season the rendezvous was changed to the Kappes seminary, the popular name of an institution variously known as the Indianapolis Young Ladies' Institute and the Indianapolis Female Seminary. J. H. Kappes, a charter member of the Club, had started this school a year earlier in his residence on North Street, but it had out­ grown such restricted quarters and had soon moved to 345 (Old Num­ ber) North Pennsylvania Street. The Club still did not feel entirely at home and, after a year in a Female Seminary, it yielded completely to its instincts and removed its meetings, on November 14, 1881, to the parlors of the Denison Hotel, then, and for many years thereafter, the center of such night life as the city offered. The Club was happy there, but there soon ensued what can only be described as problems domestic! Too many wives apparently mistrust­ ed the atmosphere of the Denison, and too many members had to undergo a searching cross-examination on the evening's activities when they returned home. Such occurrences have not been altogether un­ known even later in the Club's history. One of our members, an amiable gentleman of blameless reputation (he was even a non-smoker), once confided to me that he was condemned to spend every Monday night on the couch in his studio because his clothes became so impreg­ nated with cigar smoke during the course of a Club meeting that his wife considered him unfit to be introduced into the regular living quar­ ters of the family until he had, so to speak, been 'aired' all night! So the Denison venture was doomed. Mr. Sewall, in his tenth anni­ versary paper, mentioned "... that band of roistering spirits, whom I seen even before me now, but whom I will spare the exposure of nam­ ing, who used stealthily to return to the Club room, after the evening lights were out, and honest men were abed, and spend hours over the card table with a dingy pack whose faces they could scarcely discern through an atmosphere that one of our members would call 'the Stygian and fuliginous abomination of narcotic fumes'." The Club put a good face on things and yielded gracefully. It announced that it had come to the conclusion that the weekly meetings at the hotel were distracting the attention of some members from the literary principles and purposes of the Club. No compromise was possible! After three years the Club was notified, on February 2, 1884, in the midst of a Club year, that a committee had decided that they would meet henceforth at Plymouth Church! This, of course, was a stroke of genius. "In one gesture," remarks Mr. Noland; "all the domestic objections were overcome, and the mem­ bers were thenceforth for many years relieved of the twinge of con­ science that assailed them when, on arriving home, the door was opened so promptly as to reveal that an anxious wife had been occupying the hall bench in a state of apprehension and dared not intrust the recep­ tion to anyone else." For the benefit of our younger members, brought up on these present enlightened and servantless days, l would remark that, at the time of which I write, household 'help' was both plentiful and usual. It was ordinarily the province of maid, butler, or houseman to stay on duty until the 'master' returned, to open the door to him, and to relieve him of his hat, coat and walking stick, items with which he was presumed to be unable to deal unassisted! Plymouth Church stood on the southeast corner of Meridian and New York Streets and was the charge of the Rev. Oscar C. McCul lough, "a Congregation a list who sympathies and following embraced the whole town. He was the father of Dr. Carleton B. McCul lough." Both father and son were, in due time and season, prominent members of the Club. "The church included a room admirably suited to the purposes of the Club, and there it met in security of person and conscience until May 27, 1901, when it bade a sorrowful farewell both to the church and to the room." The property on which the church stood was requir­ ed for a new Federal building, the old one, at the southeast corner of Market and Pennsylvania streets, being no longer adequate for the de­ mands of a growing city. That building, until recently occupied by the American National Bank, has now been torn down to make way for a new office building. Now the 'new' Federal building, in its turn, is too small, and a still newer and larger one fills the site of the old Atkins saw works. In the meantime the Club was homeless and had to find new quarters. It tried the Denison again, but the old objections were raised. "The -5- situation proved to be too lively", and the Club found a room in the old Propylaeum on East North Street, on the south side just west of Pennsylvania. There it moved on October 6, 1902. The building was a fine stone structure that gave every evidence of being able to outlast the Pyramids, not to mention the Club. Unfortunately the Club had not reckoned on the possibility of war and what proved to be a certainty that the end of the war ("the war to end war", you may recall!) would bring a demand for a memorial to outdo the one on the circle. The Propylaeum property was included in the site chosen for a War Memorial Plaza, and, on April 2, 1923, the Club was evicted to make room for the U.S. Naval Reserve. It met for six weeks at 1203 North Meridian Street while it looked around for new quarters, and, during the summer, it found a suitable room in the Chapter House of the Caroline Scott Harri­ son Chapter of the D. A. R., where it met for the first time on October 1, 1923. Here, surely, the Club thought was a permanent home. It settled in accordingly. It moved its chairs and its pictures (of which more later), bought a new rug, redecorated, replaced the light fixtures and the win­ dow ventilators ('air-conditioning'was, as yet, only a faint chill on the horizon!), and established itself for "always". There was a big room down the hall, suitable for the larger "Ladies' Nights", and, all in all, it was as desirable a location as could have been found. "Always" is a big word, however, and all good things come at length to an end. Park­ ing, a trifling matter in 1923, was becoming a major problem by the early fifties; the City Library needed more room; and finally our house was sold out from under us and we had to move again, on November 15, 1954. We found a fairly satisfactory room in the basement of the new Propylaeum, where accommodation for our chairs could be arranged; but our beloved pictures, alas, had to go to storage. The room was also used by the Portfolio Club, and that organization, being the prior tenant, had its own pictures on the walls. Fortunately there was quite a bit of cross-membership, so the portraits were mostly Literary Club as well as Portfolio Club personalities. The Club met here for some years but was never entirely happy. During the first part of its stay there was an increasingly serious parking problem; and later, after the

-6- Propyiaeum installed its new paved parking tot, the deterioration of the neighborhood made the members increasingly reluctant to subject their limbs and their vehicles to the hazards of the inner city after dark. Also there were fewer and fewer who lived south of 38th Street, except for a hardy and faithful Irvington contingent. Every year the drive into town grew longer and attendance suffered. Accordingly, during the summer of 1964, the Club decided to move again. It met for the first time in what is now its regular meeting place, the Social Room of the Merchants Bank at 21 West 38th Street, with the opening of the 1965-1966 season. This is a pleasant room, much more suitably situated for our members than the Propylaeum. There is a large and well lighted parking lot, and the obliging custodian is most faithful in the maintenance of the Club coffee-pot. The one great draw­ back is that there is no room for our "wide and comfortable chairs". When we moved, they had to go into storage. Shortly thereafter there was a suggestion that the chairs be offered for sale to the members. Storage charges were weighing uncomfortably on the exchequer, and the proposal went to the point of being presented formally to the Club for action. Although reluctant approval was ob­ tained, a strong under-current of sentimental objection soon became apparent and the project was abandoned. Finally, in 1968, a sort of 'eat your cake and have it'solution was devised. The Irvington Histori­ cal Society had obtained and restored the old on South Downey Avenue in Irvington. This house was at one time the home of Dr. A, R. Benton, vice president of the Club in 1885-1886. It dates back to the 70s, the period when the Club was organized, and the time when the fine walnut chairs were first acquired. The restoration was done with great skill and taste, and the two downstairs rooms, thrown into one, are ideal for meeting purposes. It was, accordingly, agreed to lend the chairs to the Irvington Historical Society for use in the Benton House (thus relieving the Club of liability for storage and insurance) with the expectation that the Club would hold an occasional meeting there, in surroundings reminiscent of its early days. The chairs, after some repairs which were paid for by the Club, were, accord­ ingly, delivered to the Benton House; and a meeting was held there, with great success, on October 6, 1969.

.7. The pictures make a story in themselves. In the days when the Club had its own presumably permanent and exclusive quarters (and when the cost of maintaining its ordinary activities weighed less heavily on the budget) the Club fell into the pleasant habit of investing its surplus revenues in pictures. There were a number of portraits of early presi­ dents, a particularly fine portrait of its (literarily speaking) most dis­ tinguished member, James Whitcomb Riley, several valuable etchings, including two of the large and good Piranesi views of the ruins of classical Rome (not to be confused with the presently available rather dubious reproductions), and quite a number of nice landscapes by, among others, T.C. Steele, William Forsyth and Clifton Wheeler. Even before the Club moved from the D.A.R, Building it had found itself embarassed by an overstock of objects of art, so, in 1939, six pictures were presented, on permanent loan, to Howe High School as a memorial to Dr. Thomas Carr Howe, a former president of the Club for whom the school was named. This particular transaction did not turn out well. There was, after awhile, a change of administration at Howe. The new authorities knew little, and cared less, about the Club's pictures; there was much rebuilding and consequent confusion at the school; and, predictably, the little collection perished from indifference, carelessness and neglect. The remainder of the Club's pictures have, so far, had a happier history. The portraits of its early presidents are preserved in the Indiana State Library. The Riley portrait is in the public school near Lockerbie Street, the old Riley neighborhood. The rest of the pictures are hung in the halls of and appear to be in good condition and accounted for. There is still some doubt about the future of the collection. Were the Club, through some happy stroke of fortune, to acquire its own quarters again, it would, of course, reclaim its possessions for the adorn­ ment of its walls, but the chances of such an occurrence seem remote. Eccentric millionaires looking for worthy institutions (such as the Literary Club!) on which to lavish unexpected largess have always been in scant supply. These days they are practically extinct. That is prob­ ably fortunate. A club-house would mean maintenance, and main­ tenance would mean expense, and expense would mean increased dues, and increased dues would mean decreased membership, and . . . but why go on? We have problems enough in this life without fretting over those we don't have! Naturally the Club has a Constitution, but it is generally referred to only in extreme emergency, such as a need to raise the dues. Of it Mr. Holliday said: "The fundamental idea was to have as little of it as possible, to make it a tie that would hold, but would not chafe or be irksome . . . The result was a good job." it has been subjected to very little amendment, from time to time to change the dues, to provide for 'retirement status' under certain conditions, to permit the essayist to invite one guest, to permit one person to hold the offices of Secretary and Treasurer. In essentials it remains unchanged from the document adopted January 20, 1877. it is, in fact a nice, elastic piece of work, with plenty of stretch in it! The Club itself, as distinguished from its legal framework and its physical surroundings for the time being, has changed very little from its original plan of operation. It meets now only twice a month (except for December), October through May, instead of the original every Monday night barring Christmas and New Year's Eve when distances were shorter and lives were less cluttered, but that is almost the only concession it has made to modernity. Of course, it has substituted coffee for the once famous Club cigars, but that is a change in taste, not in philosophy. The first meetings were devoted to discussions led by a member. He would discourse on some current magazine article or book in which he was particularly interested. When he had finished the president would open the discussion and then pass the subject to the Club for general comment. Within a few months, however, the scheme of exercises settled to a formality which has obtained for nearly a century. The president intones, "The Club will become formal", and then asks the secretary if there is any business. Usually there is none, unless there is a memorial to be read on a deceased member, or unless a nomination for membership is before the Club for a vote. There was a time when the members were accustomed to exercise the right to 'black-ball' with considerable abandon, to the point indeed where a vote was frequently referred to coloquially, as a "Kitten- drowning". There is a story, perhaps apocryphal, about a Governor of Indiana (whom I shall not name) who was proposed for membership

-9- during his term of office. As is the case with most active politicians he had many enemies and so, when his name came up for a vote, he was rejected. Someone 'leaked' the story to the newspapers and there was quite a flurry about the whole affair. The Club, however, rose nobly, and hurriedly, to the emergency. It reversed itself at the next meeting and elected the Governor unanimously. The Governor then resigned from the Club and the papers were blandly informed that the earlier reports were incorrect and exaggerated! Fortunately the modern Club is more charitable, and rejections have been very, very few during the present secretary's tenure of office. The Secretary keeps minutes faithfully, but, so far as I am aware, they have never been read in open meeting. In fact they are not read at all except, as a matter of historical interest, by his successors. That is, perhaps, just as well. The Secretary, traditionally, records his private verdict on the merits of the paper and of the discussion, and public dis­ closure might cause some heart-burning! I don't mean to imply that this Secretary has ever heard a bad paper, or a stupid discussion, but it is just possible that all of his predecessors were not so fortunate. If there is no business the President addresses himself immediately to the exercise. He announces the title of the paper for the next meeting and the name of the reader. Then he introduces the "essayist of the evening" (a hallowed Literary Club phrase), usually with a bare state­ ment of the title and the reader's name. Occasionally he will go beyond that if he feels, for some reason, that the reader is not too well known to the membership. The reading usually occupies about forty-five minutes, occasionally as much as an hour; though I remember one occasion when the reader, after an hour and a half, was only half-way through his manuscript and had to defer the second half of his paper till another meeting, later in the year! Once or twice, in the very early years of the Club, the program was given by a non-member, notably a "poetry reading" by Riley on April 5, 1879, prior to his election on January 26, 1880, but since that time the papers have always been the original work of sitting members. The essayist has complete freedom of choice in picking his subject. When he has finished reading, the Presi­ dent comments as the spirit may move him and then announces: "The Paper is before the Club." Mr. Stephen Noland says that "in former

-10- times, and for many years, this announcement was followed by a period of silence. The members were supposed to be recovering themselves from the thrall of admiration and fancy into which they had been car­ ried by the brilliance of the essayist, and rousing their minds to a pitch commensurate with the pace that he had set." That may be, but the story as told to me during my first days in the Club by older members was a little different. According to them, one or two members usually had to be revived from inadvertent slumbers, while the remainder were too busy getting their pipes and cigars drawing properly to do any talk­ ing for a few minutes. In any event, if the silence is too prolonged, it is up to the President to think of something else to say that, happily, may stimulate some response from the members. In these later years the Club, having acquired a secretary with opinions about everything, no inhibitions about expressing them and quite undeterred by any slavish adherence to relevance, has left to him the post of "second starter" when the President's remarks have failed to produce the desired reac­ tion. Perhaps the Club will show more prudence when the time comes to choose a successor to the present secretary!

There is a story from my early years as secretary that deserves a place in the Club's permanent history. Oscar Watkins, a loved and faithful member, president in 1926-1927, was quite elderly at the time of my tale. He had grown very hard of hearing and had equipped him­ self with a hearing-aid which he despised and used as little as possible. During the course of the discussion he turned to me and asked, in a penetrating whisper that could be heard all over the room: "Francis, is the discussion relevant or anecdotal? I want to say something." I regret to report that the ordinarily impeccable manners of the Club were unequal to the task of maintaining decorum, and poor Mr. Watkins was quite puzzled by the outbreak of what seemed, to him, to be wholly unprovoked hilarity. Occasionally even the President strays from the reservation. This usually happens when he has based his preparation for the evening's discussion on the essayist's announced title, only to find, what is not unusually the case, that the title was designed to conceal rather than to clarify the actual subject. If he is strong-minded, and economically reluctant to waste a week's preparation, he has been known to hold

-11 - forth on what he expected to hear rather than on what the reader actually said. If, in the process, he trespasses on the treacherous fields of politics or theology, the Club may well follow him, rather than the reader, and range far from the subject, never to return. In any event, relevant or anecdotal, somewhere around ten o'clock, or a little earlier if the discussion has flagged, the President will ask the reader to make any closing remarks that he chooses and will then adjourn the Club, without a motion, by declaring, "The Club will become informal." A perennial complaint, going back to the first decade of the Club's life and continuing to the present, is that the comment is apt to run too much to compliment. The adduced objection is that any paper written by a member of the Club is, by definition, good and needs no praise to fortify it or to please the reader. The Club even passed a motion to outlaw favorable comment, but it was unable to make the rule stick, People like to please, and to be flattered, so I suppose we shall always have those who say "1 enjoyed your paper very much." Of course we also have those who say, "1 liked your paper, but. . ." Arid then beware! The Club, as a body, has been everywhere, seen everything and, or so it seems, read every book ever published; and woe to the poor member who comes unprepared and insufficiently fortified to his appointed even­ ing. I recall a paper, once, on the Incas of Peru. It was a good paper but a bookish one, leaning heavily and of necessity on Prescott and Bernal Diaz. Shortly after the conclusion of the President's remarks a voice spoke up from the back of the room; "Now the/asf time I was on Lake Titicaca . . ." and continued with a fascinating, eye-witness account of several visits to the ruins of the Inca civilization. Ed Ben­ nett once read a first rate and most entertaining account of the Belle Gunness murder mystery - and one of the members present turned out to have been a boyhood chum of the sheriff who conducted the official investigation and to have heard all about the case from the inside. Once, I remember, Dr. Harrison of Butler read a paper that elicted what he considered to be unfair comment. He sat there, growing redder and redder in the face by the minute. Finally he could stand it no longer. "It's my paper!" he proclaimed, pounding the arm of his chair with his fist. "It's my paper, and / like it, and that's all that matters!" Whereupon there naturally ensued apologies, reconciliation and an

-12- hasty end to the discussion. "The Club (I quote at length from Mr. Noland's 1934 paper) can be quick to resent injustice and to rise to the defense of a member unfairly put upon. One night the late Charles Den­ nis offered a paper entitled "An Intimate History", which treated in some detail of the loves of Napoleon. Owing to failing eyes Mr. Dennis was unable to read the paper, but laid his offering at the feet of another member, Hilton U. Brown, who read it for him. Mr. Brown, being un­ prepared for the nature of some passages, probably lent an unusual emphasis to them by his manner. When the paper was submitted to dis­ cussion, a member famous for his candor rose from his seat, which was a violation of custom sufficiently startling to incite a gasp, and addressing not the Club but the President, another offense to tradition, delivered himself of this comment: 'For years it has been my pleasure to go to my home from these meetings and be greeted at the door by my good wife with an inquiry as to what I learned and observed at "The Gentle­ men's Club" that had enriched my life and ennobled my spirit. For many years I have never failed to carry home to her, and to share with her, my delight in some morsel of wit or wisdom that has pleased both her and me. But tonight when she propounds the question, I will be obliged to hang my head in shame and tell her that, alas! it is no longer a gentlemen's club, but has given its attention to unworthy explorations of the baser side of men in high places.' The members sat aghast but, knowing the resourcefulness of Mr. Dennis, awaited his retort. In due time it came. From his place in the back row he recited: King Solomon and King David led merry, merry lives, With many many concubines and many many wives; But when age overtook them, with its many many qualms, King Solomon wrote the proverbs, and King David wrote the psalms." That must have been the high point of all Club debate. I have never ceased to regret that, since I was not then of "Literary Club age", I missed it.

There is a curious contradiction between the formal organization of the Club and that which maintains in actual practice. The President is, of course, the first person in the Club, and the three Vice Presidents are the Chairmen of its standing committees. They have the power among

- 13- them, if they choose to use it, to run the Club. Originally that was ex­ actly what they did. Rather early, however, in the Club's life incon­ veniences developed from the regular yearly 'changeover' in its official family, and the Club contracted the habit of asking its Secretary and Treasurer to 'hold over'. It has had only seven treasurers since its or­ ganization, and only eleven secretaries; and five of these secretaries span all the years since 1898. So the Secretary and the Treasurer, particularly the Secretary, through sheer persistence in office and the knowledge that only time can give of the 'arcana imperii' have acquired an influence far surpassing their place in the organization table. It has been remarked, in the present Secretary's hearing, that he "runs the Club"! This is not strictly true. He does most of the non-financial 'paper work', arranges the program and tries to keep the wheels turning with a minimum of friction, but he doesn't "run the Club". No one does, or can, do that. The Club, in large measure, runs itself. When it ceases to do so it will have come to the end of its allotted span, and no secretary, however wise, however learned in tradition, will be able to breathe life into its mummified remains. May that day be long deferred.

And then there are the Club dinners. "The briefest history of the Club," Mr. Noland justly remarks; "would be incomplete without some mention of its dinners, for they were famous in their day for the brilli­ ance of their toasts and the tax that they put upon the talents of the town's leading chefs. The hotel or club favored with this custome proverbially drilled its menials for the occasion, consulted the leading authorities here and abroad as to the menu, and spared no expense to provide a suitable repast." Our appetites, our spirit, and our endurance have, alas, decayed from the standard of our ancestors. "There were giants in the earth in those days." When the Club assembled for dinner on the night of February 19, 1883, it began with Saddle Rock, Siberian Style, and Diamond Back Terrapin. Its appetite thus whetted, it really went to work. Baked Halibut, Sliced Cucumbers, New Potatoes, Stuffed Turkey with Chestnuts, French String Beans, New Potatoes (this time with cream), Venison Cutlet with Mushrooms, Green Peas, Larded Quail, Sliced New Tomatoes, Patties of Goose Liver with Triffules, Lobster Salad, Nesselrode Pudding, Assorted Cake, Fruit of the Seaosn, Roquefort and Chilton Cheese with Biscuit, Mocha Coffee,

-14- each followed in its turn. After this there were speeches, not just three ten minute toasts but six orators, one after another. Even the menu entered into the expansive spirit of the evening. It was printed on gilt edged card with a pink silk fringe, had a folding cover embossed with representations of a lobster and a trout, and was tied with a pink ribbon. But I can hear you say, that must have been an extraordinary occasion, a once in a lifetime dinner for a man to look back on and fondle in his memory, something to trot out in dinner-table conversa­ tion whenever his hostess seemed unduly proud of her fare and needed taking down a peg. After all, even a member of the Literary Club is but a man, and subject to the common limitations of humanity. Once he might eat his way through such a formidable array of comestibles, but once, you would think, would be enough. You are wrong. The next year they came back for more. They started with the menu. It was not only on gilt edged card with pink silk fringe; it possessed, in addition, a full pink silk cover fastened by a pink gros-grain ribbon just twice as wide as that which had sufficed to retain the pages of the previous year's effort. 1883 had a lobster and a fish embossed in gilt on the cover. 1884 smiled pityingly and proceeded to emboss repre­ sentation of a knife, a fork, a plate, two fish, a steak, a turkey and a string of sausages, all in colors and on the inside where you could see them while you were eating. The bill of fare was comparable in length and substance, and, since 1883 had offered six speakers, 1884 presented seven. I wonder what time they rose? Later than we do nowadays, I am sure, but not so late as on the famous and only occasion when the ladies were invited to join their husbands. Dinner was served at nine; the last of the twelve courses came on the table at midnight, and the last speaker did not sit down until three A.M. "That", a Club historian remarks; "was the last of the ladies' dinners." The printed menu (there must have been one) has not survived. One can only surmise that the members were so exhausted by their ordeal that they lacked the strength to carry home even one copy.

As the years went on, appetites diminished. By 1898 the pink rib­ bons, the fringe and the embossed decorations had vanished. There were only six courses (enlivened, however, by five different wines!); but the Club still retained its pristine intellectual endurance. Seven

15- speakers, among whom was James Whitcomb Riley, answered Toast- master Alembert W, Brayton's call, and the evening was undoubtedly worthy of a place in the long catalogue of Literary Club occasions. With the advent of the First World War, however, the Club's dinners could not be continued; and after the war it proved difficult to revive them, except for the occasion of the Fiftieth Anniversary Dinner, in January of 1927, when Charles Evans, the Club's first secretary, was the principal speaker- It has been rumored by uncharitable souls that the blight of prohibition (the phrase is Louis Howland's) had something to do with this lamentable lapse from honorable and ancient custom. Be that as it may, when prohibition died the dinners came back and bid fair to continue for many years to come, despite the wagging of envious tongues. "There were giants in the earth in those days", ran the text i quoted awhile back. The verse continues, "and also after that." May it be so.

The Club's archives are fairly complete. There are some breaks in the minutes, due to the sudden death of James A. Rohbach, secretary from 1915 to 1930. Many of his papers could not be found, but the record for those fifteen years has been "pieced out" with considerable accuracy. Much interesting material, incidentally, was found when, on the occasion of the move from the old D.A.R. house, an ancient desk collapsed and disclosed an hidden trove of correspondence from the Club's earliest years, including, among other items, Riley's letter accepting election. The Club's spirit does not change, ft continues still in its old ways and in its reverence for ancient tradition, but it is neither hide-bound nor averse to reasonable and necessary change. It still values a member solely for his intellectual attainments and his literary skill; it still offers a forum for diverse and, on occasion, heretical opinion, demanding only honesty and good faith in presentation. It remains very nearly the last refuge for good conversation, where first-class minds can address them­ selves to an idea and agree, or disagree, as the occasion demands. It asks as much, perhaps, of its members-at-Jarge as it does of those who are chosen, in the Club phrase, "to read". It requires of a good member that he attend with reasonable regularity, at least often enough to absorb

-16 the Club's atmosphere. It is, in a way, like a fine wine, wasted on those who gulp it ignorantly, yielding its aroma and flavor only to those patient, and knowing, enough to sip slowly, regularly, until the bottle is gone, and the year is over, and it is time to open a new bottle - and a new year.

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