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Art  Young,  his  life  and  times 


ART  YOUNG 


ART  YOUNG 

HIS  LIFE 
AND  TIMES 


ART  JLOUNG 


/tVec/  Ly 

JOHN  NICHOLAS  BEFFEL 


NEW   YORK 


SHERIDAN   HOUSE 


'COPYRIGHT  1939  BY  ART  YOUNG 


PRINTED    IN    THE    UNITED  'ST'ATES    0?    AMERICA 
BY    J.    J,    LITTLE    AND   IYES    COMPANY,    NEW    YO*K 


ACKNOWLEDGEMENT 

Without  the  assistance  of  John  Nicholas  Beffel  the  writ- 
ing of  this  book  might  possibly  have  been  finished  sometime 
around  1950. 

Although  it  was  earnestly  undertaken  I  found  myself 
involved  in  debates  with  my  own  ego  to  such  an  extent  I 
had  to  have  the  first  dead-line  moved  ahead  one  year,  then 
another  year,  and  no  doubt  would  have  continued  indefi- 
nitely asking  for  extensions  of  time.  Then,  too,  I  had  periods 
of  indifference  as  to  whether  it  was  worth  doing  at  all.  But 
Beffel  was  a  stimulating  adviser  and  an  agreeable  companion 
in  helping  me  retrace  my  steps  to  look  at  it  all  again.  Indeed 
it  was  he  in  the  first  place  who  proposed  the  book.  Beffel 
kept  me  interested,  took  notes  of  my  memory  talks,  assembled 
my  long-hand  pages  in  proper  sequence,  and  conferred  with 
me  on  many  occasions  to  discuss  contents  and  weigh  values. 
I  found  it  best  to  let  him  have  his  own  way  when  I  couldn't 
see  the  best  way  myself  to  present  some  of  the  phases  of  a 
long  life  overcrowded  with  memories. 

If  there  is  any  show  of  vainglory  in  the  book,  I'll  blame 
it  on  Beffel.  The  modesty,  if  any,  is  mine. 

And  if  there  are  any  mistakes  as  to  names  or  dates,  they, 
too,  are  mine,  for  Beffel  will  find  the  right  date  or  the  cor- 
rect spelling  of  a  name  if  they  can  be  found  in  any  place  on 
earth.  He  will  not  rest  until  a  statement  of  fact  is  authenti- 
cated by  checking  up  with  other  chroniclers  of  the  same  pe- 
riod of  American  history. 

In  writing  personal  names  of  the  old  home  town,  how- 
ever, it  was  often  a  hit-or-miss  recollection  and  not  always 
strict  identity  that  resulted. 

Special  thanks  are  due  also  to  Ruth  Collat  for  her 
thoughtful  reading  of  the  proofs  of  this  narrative;  to  Charles 


vi  ACKNOWLEDGEMENT 

Scribner's  Sons  and  Harper  &  Brothers  for  permission  to 
quote  respectively  from  Mr.  Dooley  Says  and  Mr.  Dooley's 
Philosophy;  and  to  the  publishers  of  the  Encyclopedia 
Britannica  for  leave  to  use  some  paragraphs  from  the  authors 
article  therein  on  the  theory  and  technique  of  the  cartoon. 

A.Y. 

Chestnut  Ridge  Road, 
Bethel,  Connecticut, 
October,  1939, 


CONTENTS 


1.  Sunlight  and  Shadow  in  Paris 3 

2.  A  Chinese  Army  Gets  in  My  Way 17 

3.  Back  to  the  Old  Home  Town 27 

4.  Any  Boy  Could  Become  President  Then   ....  35 

5.  A  Small-Town  Lad  Chooses  a  Career      ....  49 

6.  I  Capture  the  Nimble  Nickel 62 

7.  The  Stage  is  Set  for  a  Supreme  Tragedy   ....  74 

8.  I  See  Chicago  Justice  at  Close  Range 82 

9.  Melville  E.  Stone  Sends  for  Me 88 

10.  Four  Dissenters   Silenced  by  the  Rope       .        .        .        .  101 

11.  Patterson  of  the  Tribune  Fires  Me 109 

12.  I  Go  to  New  York  with  High  Hopes 115 

13.  We  Learn  About  the  English  and  Welsh   .       .       .       .  126 

14.  On  the  Stage;  Pictures  Set  to  Music 136 

15.  Return  to  Health  and  Chicago 144 

16.  I  Work  With  Thomas  Nast 155 

17.  Altgeld  Pardons  the   Anarchists 165 

18.  Mayor  Harrison  is  Shot  Down 169 

19.  I   Marry   Elizabeth  North 175 

20.  Helping  the  Yellow  Press  Start  a  War      .       .       .       .  188 

21.  Matrimony  Hits  a  Reef 200 

22.  I  Become  Aware  of  the  Class  Struggle    .       .       .       .  213 

23.  Another   Child   and  New  Worries 225 

24.  But  the  Back-to-Nature  Experiment  Fails      .       .       .  243 

25.  All  Too  Slowly  I  Sec  the  Light 254 

26.  At  Last  I  Know  Where  I'm  Going 269 

27.  In  Washington  for  the  Metropolitan        .       .       .       .  282 

28.  The  A.  P.  Robes  Itself  in  White 295 

29.  War^Makers  Beat  Their  Drums 302 

30.  The  Censorship  Picks  on  the  Masses   *        .       .       .       .  318 

31.  We  Go  to  Trial  in  Tense  Days 328 


viii  CONTENTS 

I'HAPTHR 

32.  Stifling  the  Voices  Against  War    .... 

33.  Some  Optimists  Launch  Another  Magazine 

34.  Successful  Publishing  Requires  Hardness    . 

35.  My  Younger  Son  Picks  a  College  .... 

36.  Battles  on  the  Liberator  Board      ..... 

37.  An  Art  Gallery  and  Two  Books   ..... 

38.  I  Move  Along  a  Shadowy  Road    ...  - 

39.  Among  the  Silk  Hats  at  Brisbane's  Funeral  ,  424 

40.  Overflow  Meeting  of  Memories      ....  4^1 
Epilogue:  Watching  the  Old  Order  Crack   .       .       .       .  450 
Index ,       .                     461 


ILLUSTRATIONS 
Art  Young Frontispiece 


PAGE 


Buffalo  Bill  in  Paris,  1889 7 

Bougeaureau 9 

End  of  the  Paris  Exposition,   1889 13 

My  Day  Nurse 19 

My  Boyhood  Home 28 

Remembrance  of  My  Father  and  Mother 32 

Scene  in  Father's  Store  Around  1886 39 

Old  Fashioned  Grandpa 44 

Youthful  Entry  in  a  Prize  Contest 55 

Early  Art  School  Drawings,  Chicago,   1884    ....  63 

My  First  Published  Cartoon 64 

William  Frederick  Poole 71 

Judge  Joseph  E.  Gary  .                          84 

Fashion  in   1886 90 

Booth  and  Barrett 91 

Finley  Peter  Dunne 96 

Before   the   Bicycle 97 

The  Chatsworth  Train  Wreck 99 

The  Haymarket  Prisoners  in  Jail 103 

When  I  Was  Misled 107 

Eugene  Field's  Letter 114 

Arrival  in  New  York,  1888 117 

Joseph  Keppler,  Sr .       .  122 

Bernard  Gillam 122 

Clarence  Webster  and  His  Kodak 132 

When  I  Was  on  the  Stage 141 

Preview  of  World's  Columbian  Exposition     ,       .       .       .  157 

Elizabeth  North 176 

Vanguard  of  Coxey's  Army 182 

Keir  Hardie 185 

ix 


x  ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAftK 

A  Comic  Suggested  by  My  Wife 189 

From  an  Early  Art  Young  Book 194 

The  Terrible  Teddy 197 

Artists  and  Editors: 

Frederic  Remington,  Arthur  Brisbane,  Thomas  Nast 

and  Bob  Davis 203 

Frederick  B.  Opper 204 

When  'Hiram  Pennick'  Was  Merely  Comic     .       ,       .       -  211 

Just  Alike 226 

Connecticut  Crime  Against  Art 234 

Mark  Twain 241 

A  Success 246 

Shots  at  Truth 248 

All  Is  Vanity 250 

Graduation  Night  at  Cooper  Union,  1906      ....  254 

Ella  Reeve  Bloor 257 

Alexander  Irvine 258 

American  Mothers 259 

The  In  and  Out  of  Our  Penal  System 261 

Charles  Edward  Russell .263 

Some  Day.  A  prophetic  cartoon 265 

Piet  Vlag 270 

Just  People 273 

Time  to  Butcher 278 

Holy  Trinity ,280 

The  Lawrence  Way 282 

Taft;  "Eyes  Front!" ,  284 

At  the  1912  Socialist  Convention 286 

Oscar  Ameringer ,      .      .       .       ,287 

When  the  Village  Rich  Man  Dies 290 

Susan  B.  Anthony 292 

"He  Stirreth  Up  the  People" 294 

When  I  Was  Under  a  Cloud 300 

Mother  Jones 303 

Not  Harmonious 304 

Where  Will  It  Strike? 306 

Charles  A.  Lindbergh .309 


ILLUSTRATIONS  ad 


PAGB 


The  White  Man's  Burden 312 

Terence  V.  Powderly 316 

Having  Their  Fling 325 

The  Boss 326 

A  Case  of  Heresy 329 

Morris  Hillquit 333 

Bill  Haywood 344 

The   Sower 348 

Charles  W.  Ervin 353 

A  Good  Morning  Poster 358 

Small  Favors  Thankfully  Received 361 

James  Eads  How 365 

Fixing  Up  the  World  War  Soldiers 367 

The  Poor  Fish 370 

The  Harding  Inaugural  Parade 373 

A  Private  View  for  the  Best  People 376 

Bonus  or  No  Bonus 377 

Looking   On 379 

Convention  Notes 380 

Fight  La  Follcttc 381 

Editor  of  the  County  Gazette 382 

Hope  Springs  Eternal 384 

Steffens  Reports  On  His  Visit  to  Russia 393 

My  Art  Gallery 401 

Mary  Heaton  Vorse 403 

Defeat 404 

Sketching  Devils 417 

Ghosts 419 

One  Bystander  to  Another 420 

Heywood  Broun 422 

A  Greek  Fable  Up  to  Date 426 

My  Slouch  Hat     , 427 

Remember  Whence  You  Came 430 

For  Adoption 43 1 

Rounding  Up  the  Unbridled  Past 433 

The  Joke  Is  On  You,  Baby 435 

O.  Henry 436 


xii  ILLUSTRATIONS 


PAQR 


Robert  G.  Ingersoll ,436 

Carlo   Trcsca ...  438 

Sacco  and  Vanzetti ....  439 

Alexander  Woollcott 441 

For  an  Upton  Sinclair  Book    .                                          ,  443 

Elizabeth   Gurley   Flynn 445 

Clarence  Darrow 446 

Self-Portrait  of  Thomas  Nast 448 

Over  They  Go 454 


ART  YOUNG 

HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 


Chapter   1 
SUNLIGHT  AND  SHADOW  IN  PARIS 

PARIS  was  like  some  lovely  young  hostess  with  arms 
outstretched    that    September    afternoon    as    Clarence 
Webster  and  I  strolled  along  the  boulevards,   crossed 
the  bridges  over  the  Seine  with  its  gay  Exposition-bound 
boats,  and  revelled  in  the  sound  of  the  animate  voices  all 
around  us,  the  musical  cries,  the  bright  faces,  and  the  cracking 
of  cabmen's  whips — a  continual  cracking  above  all   other 
sounds.  For  months  I  had  been  hungering  for  all  this,  but 
my  visions  had  never  come  near  the  reality. 

Clear  skies  and  a  fresh  breeze,  and  Chicago  and  New 
York  far  behind.  Exquisite  women  passed  in  magnificent 
carriages,  and  on  the  wide  walks  were  men  of  leisure  topped 
by  silk  hats;  trim  nursemaids  with  their  convoys  of  children; 
artists  and  their  girls,  known  as  grtsettes,  whom  my  dictionary 
describes  as  having  "lively  and  free  manners  but  not  neces- 
sarily of  immoral  character/'  Spreading  green  trees,  statues 
of  historic  figures  at  every  turn,  fountains  pouring  forth 
sun-drenched  water.  And  in  the  distance,  dominating  the 
whole  scene,  the  black  outline  of  the  Eiffel  Tower.  The  year 
was  1889,  and  I  was  twenty-three. 

As  a  small  boy  at  home  in  Monroe,  Wisconsin,  I  had 
seen  only  one  person  who  had  been  to  Paris.  This  was  Mrs. 
Cook,  an  old  lady  who  occasionally  called  at  our  house.  She 
had  traveled  widely  in  European  countries,  an  unusual  thing 
for  an  American  sixty  years  ago,  before  the  day  of  popular 
cruises.  Mother  told  me  that  Mrs,  Cook  had  spent  many 
months  in  Paris,  and  had  played  cards  with  Victor  Hugo* 
I  didn't  know  who  Victor  Hugo  was,  but  he  sounded  im- 
portant, and  Mrs.  Cook  seemed  to  me  a  remarkable  woman 
just  to  look  at  because  she  had  traveled  and  met  famous 
people.  Afterward,  when  I  attended  art  schools  in  Chicago 
and  New  York,  the  talk  was  often  about  Paris — the  shining  - 
goal  of  those  students  who  wanted  to  finish  off  their  educa- 

3 


4          ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

tion.  My  Instructors  in  Chicago  and  New  York — J.  H,  Van- 
derpoel  Kenyon  Cox,  Carroll  Beckwith,  and  others—had 
studied  abroad.  Both  Paris  and  Munich  in  their  time  were 
close  rivals  for  aspiring  artists. 

"We  won't  think  about  work  for  a  week/'  Webster  in- 
sisted. "We're  going  to  examine  this  widely  advertised  town 
and  see  if  it  lives  up  to  all  we've  heard  about  it."  ^ 

I  was  not  so  sure  about  spending  more  time  in  loafing; 
for  I  was  eager  to  enroll  in  the  Academie  Jalien,  where  I 
would  study  drawing  and  painting  and  continue  my  art 
training  generally.  But  all  things  considered  I  decided  it  best 
to  be  an  idle  wanderer  for  a  while  longer,  and  get  oriented 
We  had  already  been  to  the  picturesque  town  of  Chester  in 
England  on  the  day  after  landing  in  Liverpool  and  had  gone 
over  into  Wales  to  do  some  sketching  and  because  Web  was 
keen  to  learn  if  Welshmen  really  could  pronounce  the  names 
of  their  towns.  Then  we  explored  London,  particularly  some 
of  the  places  made  familiar  in  Dickens's  writings,  for  Web 
was  an  ardent  Dickens  fan.  And  overnight  the  boat  had 
brought  us  from  Dover  to  Calais,  with  me  curled  up  on  a  big 
coil  of  rope  on  deck,  sicker  than  any  dog;  ^after  which  we 
had  proceeded  on  a  wheezing  and  halting  train  to  the  French 
capital 

Everywhere  we  went  Web  jotted  down  his  impressions 
and  observations  in  a  notebook.  For  he  was  doing  a  series 
of  travel  articles  for  the  Chicago  Sunday  Inter-Ocean  under 
the  now  de  plume  of  Conflagration  Jones,  and  I  was  illus- 
trating them  with  pen  and  ink  drawings.  Pale  faced,  and 
with  a  dark  Vandyke  beard,  Webster  had  been  mistaken  in 
Hyde  Park  for  John  Burns,  leader  of  the  London  dock- 
workers*  strike.  Carrying  a  camera  under  his  arm,  as  Burns 
had  carried  a  portfolio,  he  was  followed  for  blocks  by  an 
admiring  group  of  workers  until  he  finally  discovered  why 
they  were  doing  it,  and  explained — with  some  difficulty — 
that  he  was  not  John  Burns,  Webster's  camera  was  the 
novelty  of  that  season — a  kodak. 

My  own  appearance  in  Paris  that  first  day  is  a  strange 
memory  picture  to  look  back  upon,  I  wore  a  flat- top  black 
derby  hat,  cutaway  coat  with  tails,  trousers  which  flared 
around  the  feet  in  the  current  fashion,  a  cream-colored  Wind- 
sor tie,  and  a  winged  collar,  and  I  carried  a  cane,  swinging 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMJbt 

it  in  the  manner  of  one  who  thought  he  had  the  world  by 
the  tail.  The  flat- top  hat — I  think  it  was  called  a  "shell 
derby0 — was  in  the  prevailing  mode,  but  the  other  items  of 
attire  I  had  adopted  in  New  York  because  I  didn't  want  to 
look  like  other  young  men,  which  was,  I  suspect,  an  act  of 
protest  against  the  herd  instinct.  But  to  my  discomfiture  in 
Paris  I  saw  so  many  men  queerly  dressed  that  my  own  garb 
attracted  no  special  attention;  no  one  turned  to  look  after  me, 
saying;  "I  wonder  who  that  is/'  Nobody  cared  how  you 
dressed.  I  was  introduced  to  an  artist  who  wore  a  plug  hat, 
a  short  velvet  coat,  and  wooden  shoes,  and  who  passed  any- 
where without  comment. 

A  dyspeptic  who  at  home  was  regarded  by  many  ac- 
quaintances as  a  grouch,  Webster  had  excellent  qualities,  and 
his  surface  cheerfulness  on  our  travels  was  doubtless  often  a 
screen  for  internal  misery.  Certainly  much  of  the  cooking 
we  encountered  in  England  must  have  depressed  him.  He 
liked  tarts  and  pies — especially  the  British  pork  pie — and 
suffered  in  consequence,  then  resorted  to  taking  Carter's  Little 
Liver  Pills,  which  he  always  carried. 

He  had  been  my  best  friend  in  Chicago  during  the  four 
years  that  I  worked  as  cartoonist  and  news  sketch  artist  on 
the  dailies  there.  After  I  went  to  New  York  to  study,  I  kept 
in  close  touch  with  him  by  letter,  and  he  knew  that  I  was 
restless.  When  he  arranged  the  joint  assignment  I  approved 
of  the  plan  instantly.  Web  was  a  versatile  individual — jour- 
nalist art  critic,  humorous  writer,  lecturer.  From  the  begin- 
ning of  this  European  trip  we  both  made  sketches,  and  I 
attempted  some  painting  with  a  water  color  outfit  which  my 
companion  carried.  We  had  sailed  from  New  York  on  the 
maiden  voyage  of  the  Cunard  liner  Teutonic.  I  had  funds 
enough  to  carry  me  along  for  several  months  in  France — 
and  I  felt  that  it  would  be  simple  to  earn  more  when  needed, 
remembering  that  I  had  made  money  easily  in  Chicago; 
earned  more  at  eighteen  than  I  had  supposed  came  to  men 
twice  that  age. 

While  Web  commented  jocularly  on  people  and  incidents 
that  afternoon,  I  was  lost  in  daydreaming.  This  was  life,  and 
life  was  good.  Here  was  the  Queen  City  of  the  world,  with 
lovely  parks  and  boulevards,  glorious  women,  and  all  about 
one  the  marks  of  a  culture  centuries  old.  And  what  traditions 


5          ART  YOUNG;  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

ingercd!  Here  Dore,  Daumier,  Steinlen,  and  Millet  had 
worked,  here  one  could  see  the  drawings  of  the  masters  of 
the  Renaissance,  here  Napoleon  had  shaken  the  foundations 
of  the  world's  empires,  (Later  I  was  to  discover  that  Paris 
also  had  slums,  but  we  didn't  see  these  on  that  day,)  .  ,  . 
Breathing  in  that  romantic  air,  I  was  whispering  to  myself 
a  vow:  "I'm  going  to  be  recognized  as  an  artist — and  noth- 
ing can  stop  me/'  Hovering  in  my  mind,  though  not  defi- 
nitely a  part  of  the  vow,  was  a  thought  of  rich  rewards  to 
come;  in  that  hour  everything,  for  me,  was  wreathed  in  daz- 
zling golden  light, 

I  wanted  to  go  at  once  to  the  Louvre,  and  Web  assented. 
"We'll  ask  the  first  gendarme  we  see/'  Having  the  greater 
initiative,  he  voiced  the  questions,  and  got  profuse  answers, 
with  elaborate  gestures*  The  answers  were  not  clear  to  me, 
but  they  appeared  adequate  for  my  companion  who  had 
given  much  time  to  a  French  dictionary  on  the  ship,  though 
his  pronunciation  didn't  sound  at  all  like  that  of  a  native. 
Seizing  me  by  the  arm,  he  guided  me  triumphantly  in  the 
direction  indicated,  only  to  learn  from  an  Englishman  an 
hour  later  that  the  famous  museum  was  in  another  part  of 
the  city — in  fact,  not  far  from  our  hotel — and  by  the  time 
we  arrived  at  its  doors  it  was  closed* 

Web  amused  himself  by  asking  many  gendarmes;  " Where 
is  la  Tour  Eiffel?"  This  always  brought  a  look  of  quizzi- 
cal amazement  to  the  face  of  the  one  addressed,  since  the 
tallest  man-made  structure  then  in  the  world,  984  feet  high, 
towered  above  everything  else,  and  was  visible  all  over  Paris. 
But  we  kept  straight  faces  and  Web  would  say  "Out!  OuiVf 
when  the  guardian  of  law  and  order  pointed  impressively 
to  that  giant  steel  spire. 

Earlier  that  summer  Bill  Nye,  who  had  come  to  Paris  to 
do  some  articles  for  the  New  York  World,  had  been  taken 
into  custody  for  some  inadvertent  infraction  of  the  law,  and 
wrote  that  he  "would  willingly  go  a  hundred  miles  to  be 
arrested  by  a  John  Darm — they  are  so  courteous/' 

"How  about  going  to  the  Exposition  this  morning?" 
Web  inquired  on  our  second  day  in  France. 

"Let's  just  walk  around  the  streets/'  I  urged*  "The  Ex- 
position will  keep  until  tomorrow/'  Next  day  it  was  post- 
poned again,  there  being  so  many  other  things  to  see,  and 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES  7 

we  kept  postponing  it*  I  had  read  so  much  about  it,  and 
had  looked  at  many  illustrations  of  that  spectacle,  in  Harper's 
Weekly  and  other  periodicals,  that  my  thought  had  been 
that  I  would  rush  to  the  Exposition  grounds  as  soon  as  I 
reached  Paris.  But  now  there  seemed  no  special  reason  to 
hurry. 

We  had  taken  rooms  in  the  Hotel  de  Nice,  a  small  quiet 
establishment  in  the  Rue  des  Beaux  Arts,  a  short  street  in  the 
Latin  Quarter,  traversed  at  one  end  by  the  Rue  Bonaparte 


BUFFALO  BILL  IN  PARIS.  1889. 

and  the  other  by  the  Rue  de  Seine*  In  that  street  also  there 
had  lived  Prosper  Merimee,  author  of  the  Carmen  libretto; 
Corot;  and  Fantin  La  Tour,  who  had  painted  flowers  and 
done  masterful  lithographs  of  scenes  from  the  operas  of 
Wagner, 

Web  learned  that  Oscar  Wilde  was  staying  in  the  Hotel 
Alsace,  almost  opposite  our  quarters.  He  essayed  to  interview 
Wilde,  and  presented  his  card  to  the  concierge,  who  told  him 
that  the  playwright  was  too  ill  to  see  anyone.  This  was  five 
years  before  Wilde's  trial  and  disgrace,  but  he  was  well 
known  as  a  public  figure,  who  during  his  lecture  tour  in  the 
United  States  in  1882  had  reaped  perhaps  the  largest  array 


8  ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

of  unfavorable  press  comment,  ridicule,  derision,  and  cat- 
calling of  any  foreign-born  individual  who  had  ever  visited 
this  country.  Web's  day  was  spoiled  for  him  by  that  disap- 
pointment, as  another  day  had  been  clouded  in  London  when 
he  tried  to  get  an  audience  with  James  McNeill  Whistler, 
and  found  him  "busy  with  a  sitting/' 

Buffalo  Bill's  Wild  West  show  was  holding  forth  in  a 
tent  in  an  open  field  near  the  Exposition,  and  we  were  taken 
to  see  it  by  Theodore  Stanton,  Paris  correspondent  for  the 
Inter-Ocean,  son  of  Elizabeth  Cady  Stanton,  the  pioneer 
suffragist,  and  brother  of  Harriot  Stanton  Blatch,  Colonel 
Cody  was  then  in  his  prime,  a  dashing  and  dramatic  figure* 
The  Parisians  called  him  Gaillaame  Boofato,  cheering  him 
madly  as  he  shot  glass  balls  in  air  from  a  galloping  steed. 
We  were  thrilled,  and  thought  it  a  great  show*  Cody  intro- 
duced American  popcorn  balls  to  the  French,  who  didn't 
take  to  them.  It  was  amusing  to  see  the  people  outside  the 
tent  hesitatingly  buy  the  pink  and  white  balls  and  nibble  on 
them. 

Day  after  day  Web  and  I  moved  about  the  streets,  hav- 
ing fun,  We  were  looking  chiefly  for  the  comic  aspects  of 
life  for  the  Inter-Ocean  series,  for  it  was  the  comic  that  was 
wanted  back  in  Chicago.  With  that  attitude,  I  realize  now 
that  we  saw  only  surfaces.  If  there  was  a  social  problem  any- 
where in  Paris  then,  if  people  on  mean  streets  were  hungry, 
we  never  knew  it.  Even  in  the  Whitechapel  district  of  Lon- 
don, where  we  saw  hordes  of  ragged  and  lean  people,  they 
had  no  social  meaning  for  me.  It  was  poverty,  but  what 
could  be  done  about  it?  My  eyes  had  not  then  been  opened 
to  the  realities  of  the  human  struggle. 

We  sampled  some  of  the  night  life  of  Paris,  and  once 
we  went  to  a  theatre  which  had  a  reputation  for  being 
risque,  but  found  nothing  that  was  any  bolder  than  the  offer- 
ings of  Chicago  burlesque  houses.  True,  we  were  importuned 
by  guides  with  mysterious  eye-winks  to  go  with  them  to  see 
things  behind  locked  doors  in  out-of-the-way  corners,  but 
we  were  wary,  suspecting  they  might  be  runners  for  robbers* 
dens* 

After  the  week  of  loafing  I  signed  up  at  both  the  Acad* 
emie  Julian,  where  I  studied  by  day,  drawing  chiefly  from 
the  nude,  and  at  the  Colarossi  School,  which  I  attended  in 


YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES  9 

the  evenings,  sketching  models  in  costume.  At  the  Julian  I 
studied  under  Bougeaureau  and  Tony  Robert  Fleury.  Boug- 
eaureau  was  then  the  high  priest  of  French  painters.  I  liked 
his  work,  for  its  thoroughness  of  draftsmanship  and  his 
ability  to  impose  beauty  over  realism,  though  his  art  was 
being  assailed  as  sentimental  ' 'candy-box  stuff"  by  both  real- 
ists and  impressionists. 

Though  I  lived  in  the  Latin  Quarter  on  friendly  terms 
with  the  other  students,  I  did  not  enter  Parisian  life  with 
the  Bohemian  abandonment  you  read  about  in  novels  of  the 


BOUGEAUREAU,  From  a  pencil  sketch  made  when  I 
was  studying  in  the  Academic  Julian. 

Quarter*  I  was  in  deadly  earnest  about  developing  my  talent, 
and  carousing  had  no  lure  for  me. 

I  applied  myself  assiduously  to  the  work  in  hand,  and 
as  I  proceeded  I  became  more  and  more  convinced  that 
graphic  art  was  my  road  to  recognition*  Painting  interested 
me  no  less,  but  I  thought  of  it  as  having  no  influence.  If  one 
painted  a  portrait,  or  a  landscape,  or  whatever,  for  a  rich 
man  to  own  in  his  private  gallery,  what  was  the  use?  On 
the  other  hand,  a  cartoon  could  be  reproduced  by  simple  me- 
chanical processes  and  easily  made  accessible  to  hundreds  of 
thousands.  I  wanted  a  large  audience,  .  ,  .  The  prevailing 
art  of  that  period  embraced  a  thorough,  almost  photographic, 
lens-like  observance  of  detail.  Gerome,  Messonier,  Cabanel, 


10        ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

Vibert,  and  Bougeaurcau  were  in  the  forefront  of  the  art- 
world  then,  because  they  were  good  composers  and  accurate, 
precise  draftsmen.  In  a  sense  they  were  the  forerunners  of 
colored  photography,  though  of  course  their  work  was  su~ 
perior  to  the  candid  camera  as  imaginative-selection  always 
is  when  an  individuality,  not  a  machine,  reveals  a  scene. 

I  enjoyed  working  in  the  schools,  but  the  days  were  not 
all  pleasant.  I  was  angrily  resentful  when  a  poor  girl,  anxious 
to  qualify  as  a  model  for  a  week  of  posing,  would  be  hooted 
as  she  disrobed  for  approval  on  Monday  morning  before  a 
class  of  more  than  a  hundred  young  men*  Many  times  I  saw 
some  sad,  inexperienced  girl  jeered  down  because  her  hips 
were  too  large  or  too  small  according  to  majority  opinion, 
I  had  heard  much  about  French  courtesy,  but  in  the  Julian 
classroom  it  was  often  found  wanting,  when  cries  of  "La 
Basl"  and  worse  were  hurled  at  the  innocent  who  hoped 
that  her  figure  was  good  enough  to  earn  the  paltry  sums  paid 
for  this  tedious  labor  of  posing. 

One  day  I  had  sketched  a  big-muscled  male,  and  Bougeau- 
reau  came  around  inspecting  our  work.  When  he  saw  my 
drawing,  he  commented,  with  vigorous  shoulder-shrugging* 
I  didn't  understand  French,  and  it  was  my  custom  to  ask  a 
fellow-student  named  Robert  Henri  what  the  instructor  had 
said.  "He  says  your  drawing  is  too  brutal  The  model  looks 
brutal  enough  without  making  him  more  so/' 

But  I  knew  that  Hogarth,  Daumier,  and  Dore  also  had 
been  brutal  in  portraying  brutality,  and  that  caricature 
meant  the  ability  to  exaggerate,  Indeed,  that  all  good  art  had 
this  quality  in  some  degree* 

Web's  wife  was  soon  to  have  a  child  and  one  day,  after 
receiving  a  letter,  he  left  for  home  with  a  wave  of  the  hand, 
and  when  he  was  gone  I  felt  rather  lost.  I  had  depended 
upon  him  in  my  daily  life  much  more  than  I  had  realized, 
I  now  found  myself  overwhelmed  by  Paris.  The  few  words 
of  French  I  had  learned  failed  me  at  every  turn,  and  north 
always  proved  to  be  south,  except  when  the  sun  was  setting 
beyond  the  Eiffel  Tower — one  direction  I  had  learned  was 
west.  Looking  back  I  can  see  how  ill-prepared  I  was  for  the 
Gay  City,  and  how  much  more  I  might  have  got  out  of  it 
had  I  obtained  a  proper  background  of  understanding  by 
intensive  reading*  I  had  read  some  of  Hugo's  and  Balzac's 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES         11 

works,  and  a  few  other  books  by  artists  who  had  lived  in 
France,  but  of  the  things  of  deeper  significance  in  the  past 
of  that  nation  I  knew  little.  I  had  never  heard  of  Francois 
Villon  then,  nor  did  I  know  that  Dante  had  once  been  a 
student  at  the  University  of  Paris, 

In  those  first  days  of  being  alone  I  dared  not  venture  far 
from  the  bronze  statue  of  Voltaire,  in  front  of  the  Institute 
of  France,  which  was  around  the  corner  from  my  hotel. 
There  he  sat  on  his  pedestal  and  smiled  across  the  blue-black 
Seine.  Often  I  gazed  up  at  that  strong  lean  face,  and  pon- 
dered the  wisdom  and  courage  reflected  there,  recalling  a  line 
from  Hugo:  "Jesus  wept,  but  Voltaire  smiled." 

But  as  the  days  rolled  by  I  shed  some  of  my  timidity  and 
made  excursions  farther  from  my  base.  Just  to  look  at  all 
those  ancient  surroundings  enchanted  me — the  crooked  and 
winding  streets  of  the  Quarter,  through  which  the  wind 
howled  on  stormy  nights;  the  more  ponderous  statues,  many 
bearing  names  I  did  not  know;  the  Punch  and  Judy  shows  in 
the  Champs  Elysees;  the  book-stalls  flanking  the  Seine;  the 
tall,  narrow  dwellings  centuries  old.  Down  some  of  those 
little  streets  clear  rivulets  ran  all  the  time,  so  clean  that 
women  washed  clothes  in  the  gutters;  I  never  learned  where 
all  that  water  came  from* 

And  of  course  the  art  galleries.  On  Saturdays  and  Sun- 
days I  would  haunt  the  Louvre,  which  was  just  across  the 
Seine  from  the  hotel.  There  I  would  contemplate  the  paint- 
ings and  drawing  of  Raphael,  Millet,  Delacroix,  Gericault, 
and  others — weighing  with  what  I  hoped  was  an  intelligent 
eye  the  good  and  bad  features  in  each. 

One  day  I  paid  the  long  delayed  visit  to  the  Exposition. 
It  was  big,  but  I  was  less  thrilled  than  I  had  hoped  to  be. 
The  decorative  scheme  was  rococo  and  too  much  jeweled 
like  a  gaudy  wedding  cake.  I  hunted  out  the  United  States 
exhibit,  and  there  met  with  disappointment;  it  was  too  small 
to  do  justice  to  our  country,  I  thought,  and  not  at  all  up  to 
the  showing  made  by  England  and  Germany.  The  most  im- 
portant exhibit  there,  to  my  mind,  was  the  Edison  phono- 
graph, to  which  several  persons  could  listen  at  once  through 
ear-tubes.  It  was  uncanny,  to  hear  the  human  voice  coming 
out  of  a  machine,  both  in  song  and  speech,  and  band  music. 


12         ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

This  machine  used  the  cylindrical  record  which  preceded  the 
later  disk  form* 

Naturally  I  was  interested  in  watching  the  crowds,  and 
especially  in  hearing  the  comments  made  by  American  vis- 
itors. And  as  I  moved  about  I  found  a  good  many  things 
that  were  worth  stopping  to  look  at — outlandish  weapons, 
queer  foodstuffs,  exotic  color  schemes  in  the  buildings  and 
booths  occupied  by  the  darker  peoples. 

Several  times  that  day  I  paused  at  the  foot  of  the  Eiffel 
Tower,  gazing  up  at  its  incredible  height,  But  I  did  not  enter 
for  a  ride  in  its  elevator.  I  knew  that  many  of  ^the  famous 
artists  of  France  had  protested  against  its  erection,  on  the 
ground  that  it  would  violate  the  canons  of  art,  Bougeaureau, 
Dumas,  Sardou,  de  Maupassant,  Gounod,  and  other  well 
known  men  had  spoken  out  in  an  open  letter  "in  the^name 
of  our  national  good  taste,  against  such  an  erection  in^the 
very  heart  of  our  city,  as  the  monstrous  and  useless  Eiffel 
Tower/'  Yet  everywhere  in  Pari?  one  met  with  reproduc- 
tions of  the  tower  in  every  conceivable  material — chocolate, 
celluloid,  pewter,  wood,  pasteboard,  papier  mache,  glass, 
china,  even  in  gold,  The  commercially  minded  section  of  the 
French  people  had  overlooked  no  chance  to  cash  in  on  the 
Eiffel  idea. 

My  hotel  was  notable  for  good  food,  bad  coffee,  and  a 
motley  assortment  of  guests.  Like  many  Paris  hotels  then  it 
had  what  Webster  disparagingly  called  "he-chambermaids" 
— men  who  made  the  beds  and  polished  the  floors  with 
brushes  attached  to  their  shoes.  Two  women  conducted  the 
establishment — Madame  Medard  and  Madame  Franklin,  the 
first  a  handsome  Frenchwoman  and  the  second  an  English- 
woman, heavy  and  business-like  but  kindly  disposed,  espe- 
cially toward  art  students* 

Thomas  Corner  of  Baltimore,  a  Quaker  boy  who  later 
became  well  known  as  a  portrait  painter,  was  a  fellow- 
boarder.  He  and  I  had  a  good  deal  in  common.  One  person 
whom  I  sketched  often  was  a  woman  of  grand  manner  from 
New  York  whose  daughter  was  studying  art  and  who  liked 
to  tell  everybody  about  it.  She  sat  opposite  me  at  the  dinner 
table,  and  never  gave  the  good  looking  blonde  daughter  a 
chance  to  talk,  but  insisted  on  regaling  us  with  reminiscences 


NovrM»r,*  14,  1889,] 


PALL   MALL   BUDGET 


1449 


T  H  E      LAST      OF      THE      PARIS      E  X  H  I  B  I  T  I  O  N 


Pall  Mall  Budget 

END  OF  THE  PARIS  EXPOSITION,  1889.  I  was  the  last  spectator 

to  leave.  •  •  ,    •. 


13 


14        ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

of  her  travels.  At  the  dinner  table  she  would  always  assure 
us  that  "cheese  digests  everything  but  itself/' 

In  the  several  weeks  since  Webster  left,  I  had  made  no 
drawings  for  publication,  feeling  that  it  was  well  to  concen- 
trate on  study.  But  now  I  had  a  bright  idea:  I  would  attend 
the  Exposition  on  the  closing  night,  and  be  the  last  person 
shooed  off  the  grounds.  I  did  that,  and  it  was  a  curious  ex- 
perience, watching  the  spirit  of  antic  play  shown  by  visitors 
from  many  lands.  There  was  something  both  joyous  and  sad 
about  that  farewell  to  a  world  event.  I  looked  back  into  the 
grounds  as  two  gendarmes  politely  but  firmly  closed  the  main 
gates — the  walks  were  cluttered  with  newspapers,  candy 
boxes,  and  other  litter.  Ahead  of  me  were  students,  arms  over 
shoulders,  dancing  in  single  file  across  the  nearest  bridge  over 
the  Seine.  Behind  them  some  peasants  singing.  And  an  old 
gentleman  in  high  hat  and  shawl,  moving  along  with  spry 
step* 

I  had  made  numerous  pencil  sketches  during  the  evening, 
and  next  day  I  re- drew  them  in  ink,  grouped  them  on  a  large 
sheet  of  paper,  and  sent  them  post  haste  to  the  Pall  Mail 
Budget  in  London,  which  was  edited  by  W.  T.  Stead.  To 
my  surprise  that  publication  devoted  a  full  page  to  a  repro- 
duction of  my  pictures,  and  sent  a  prompt  check, 

That  called  for  a  celebration.  I  took  Corner  to  dinner  on 
a  Saturday  evening  in  a  cafe  where  there  was  good  wine, 
Talking  across  the  table,  I  dwelt  upon  things  I  was  going 
to  do — romantic  and  bizarre  features  for  the  papers  in  Lon- 
don, Chicago,  and  New  York.  The  market  was  waiting;  all 
I  had  to  do  was  turn  out  the  stuff. 

Next  day  I  was  up  early,  whistling  merrily,  and  after 
breakfast  hastened  forth  to  walk  along  the  Quai  in  the  sun- 
shine and  gaze  over  the  stone  parapet  at  the  busy  boating 
on  the  Seine.  My  emotions  were  riding  high;  I  needed  room 
for  my  wings.  Ahead  of  me  through  the  years  lay  glamorous 
adventure.  I  would  study  diligently  as  long  as  need  be,  but 
presently  I  would  begin  going  to  other  places  over  week- 
ends and  holidays  and  sketching  my  observations  for  publi- 
cation, doing  enough  writing  to  counterbalance  the  pictures 
in  print.  Perhaps  I  would  take  trips  to  Brussels,  Vienna,  the 
seacoast,  and  maybe  Florence.  Already  my  name  meant  some- 
thing to  Chicago  editors — and  now  here  was  London  show- 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES         15 

ing  receptivity.  I  could  have  everything  I  wanted  in  life. 
,  .  *  I  wrote  to  my  mother  and  father  in  Wisconsin,  sending 
them  a  marked  copy  of  the  Budget,  and  telling  of  my  plans. 

For  weeks  I  worked  with  great  enthusiasm,  Christmas 
approached,  and  I  sent  home  souvenirs  of  Paris,  and  wrote 
Mother  telling  of  the  festive  observance  of  the  holidays  there. 
At  Madame  Medard's  suggestion  I  attended  Christmas  morn- 
ing mass  in  the  Cathedral  of  Notre  Dame,  and  was  stirred  by 
the  music.  January  and  February  passed,  with  my  thoughts 
of  future  success  still  soaring.  I  was  living  in  a  dream-world. 

Never  had  I  felt  more  fit,  physically  and  mentally,  than 
I  did  as  I  came  downstairs  one  morning  in  March.  My  de- 
scent was  a  dance.  For  I  had  awakened  with  a  brilliant  vis- 
ualization of  certain  pictures  that  I  knew  I  could  do — a  series 
of  pen-and-ink  drawings  which  would  express  the  spirit  of 
Paris  from  the  viewpoint  of  a  dozen  different  types  of  hu- 
mans of  whom  I  had  made  note  in  the  streets.  I  had  lain  in 
bed  for  a  few  minutes,  clear-eyed  and  vibrant  with  the  joy 
of  prospective  creation. 

But  at  breakfast  the  talk  of  the  others  was  anything  but 
cheerful.  There  was  a  new  outbreak  of  la  grippe,  a  virulent 
form  of  influenza.  Some  of  my  fellow-lodgers  were  down 
with  it,  and  I  remembered  that  several  students  both  at  the 
J alien  and  at  Colarossi's  had  been  absent  on  that  account. 
In  the  previous  year  there  had  been  an  epidemic  of  la  grippe 
in  Paris,  and  I  heard  that  certain  scientists  had  seen  in  it  a 
counterpart  of  a  plague  lately  raging  in  China,  though  health 
officials  denied  this.  Directors  of  the  Exposition  had  indig- 
nantly repudiated  the  theory  that  Asiatic  visitors  to  the  Fair 
had  brought  the  germ  of  the  disease  into  France. 

Talk  of  sickness  always  annoyed  me;  I  had  never  been 
ill.  I  was  in  fine  trim,  weighing  around  140,  with  no  excess 
fat  then,  and  with  muscles  in  good  condition.  I  would  be 
immune  to  la  grippe,  partly  because  I  wasn't  afraid  of  it.  Days 
passed,  with  more  and  more  students  falling  ill,  and  I  re- 
mained untouched. 

One  afternoon  at  school,  however,  I  became  aware  of  a 
crowded  feeling  in  my  chest,  then  pain,  which  steadily  grew 
worse.  I  kept  on  working  for  an  hour,  until  the  suffering  be- 
came so  intense  that  I  asked  to  be  excused.  Madame  Frank- 
lin's face  paled  as  I  staggered  into  the  hotel.  "You  are  ill!" 


16          ART  YOUNG:   HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

she  cried.  "You  should  be  in  bed  .  .  *  Jean,  go  at  once  and 
call  young  Dr.  Delbet."  The  Delbets,  father  and  son,  lived 
near  by. 

Madame  Franklin  and  the  servants  helped  me  upstairs  to 
my  third  floor  room,  Woozily  I  managed  to  undress  and  get 
into  bed.  When  the  doctor  came  he  examined  me  and  looked 
grave,  "Did  you  strain  yourself,  by  lifting  or  falling?"  No, 
I  had  not,  I  could  not  recall  any  strain,  .  .  ,  "Pleurisy/' 
the  doctor  said,  and  so  badly  was  the  pleural  cavity  swollen 
that  my  heart  was  beating  on  the  right  side.  Young  Dr, 
Delbet  tried  to  reduce  the  inflammation  with  plasters.  No 
use!  But  I  got  through  till  next  morning.  Then  Delbet  called 
in  his  father,  a  noted  physician  of  that  time,  and  also  Dr. 
Peters  of  Hopitdl  de  la  Charite.  More  tests,  head-shakings, 
consultation  outside  my  room.  Then  the  elder  Dr.  Delbet 
came  in  alone.  My  condition  was  "serious",  he  explained. 
Did  I  have  any  relatives  in  Paris?  No?  Too  bad.  An  imme- 
diate operation  was  imperative.  He  and  the  others  would 
"do  everything  possible"  for  me.  He  tried  to  be  casual  about 
it,  but  his  efforts  could  not  hide  the  gravity  of  my  condition. 
I  could  read  it  in  all  of  the  faces  around  me,  I  felt  like  one 
doomed  to  the  scaffold. 

Nurses  came.  Madame  Franklin  tried  to  cheer  me  as 
preparations  for  the  operation  were  made.  Thomas  Corner 
had  cabled  my  father.  Madame  Medard  assured  me  she  would 
pray  to  the  Blessed  Virgin  for  my  recovery.  Corner  said: 
"Don't  worry,  Art,  you'll  get  through  all  right." 

I  was  not  so  sure.  I  thought  I  ought  to  send  some  kind 
of  a  message  to  the  folks  at  home,  but  I  didn't  know  what 
to  say.  I  dared  not  tell  them  what  was  in  my  mind,  I  was  on 
fire  with  the  fever,  but  my  legs  were  like  ice.  All  the  golden 
dreams  of  the  future  had  faded;  no  dazzling  light  before 
my  closed  eyes — only  blackness,  I  tried  to  lift  my  arms  to 
reach  out  and  grasp  something  tangible.  But  I  was  powerless. 
»  .  *  Outside  somewhere  a  bell  was  tolling,  I  could  hear  my 
own  footsteps,  going  to  somebody's  funeral — maybe  my 
own. 


Chapter  2 
A  CHINESE  ARMY  GETS  IN  MY  WAY 

THEY  moved  me  on  a  stretcher  into  a  large  front  room, 
I  could  hear  Madame  Medard  praying  in  the  halL  Such 
a  shuffling  and  concern — over  an  art  student  from  the 
prairies  of  Wisconsin — it  was  comical.  But  I  knew  I  was 
terribly  ill.  Low  but  insistent  voices  kept  calling  out:  "Af- 
tendezl  Attendez!"  *  .  .  The  pain  lessened,  then  came  again 
in  repeated  stabs.  Tom  Corner  was  bending  over  me,  and 
I  was  trying  to  tell  him  what  to  write  to  my  folks.  But  I 
gave  it  up.  * 'Never  mind  .  .  /'  It  would  take  more  than 
two  weeks  for  a  letter  to  reach  home.  The  Quaker  artist's 
face  was  hazy  to  my  eyes.  ...  I  heard  him  say:  "Your 
father  is  coming/'  He  would  be  too  late,  I  was  sure. 

Then  the  three  doctors  came  in,  and  a  nurse.  All  of 
them  advanced  toward  my  bed;  I  felt  them  closing  in  on  me. 
I  tried  to  cry  out,  but  no  words  would  come  from  my  throat. 
Now  some  one  was  holding  a  sponge  close  to  my  nostrils. 
Chloroform,  sickishly  sweet.  My  body  became  light;  I  was 
floating  in  air,  high  above  the  roof-tops  and  the  church- 
spires.  I  heard  a  crash  like  thunder,  and  I  sank  into  darkness, 
down,  down,  down. 

Long  afterward  I  was  fighting  my  way  upward  through 
the  blackness,  choking  until  I  found  light  once  more.  But 
instantly  the  light  blinded  me.  I  could  hear  voices,  all  jum- 
bled. They  were  talking  about  me,  I  was  certain,  but  I  could 
make  out  nothing  that  they  said.  .  .  .  After  a  long  time 
Dr.  Peters*  s  voice  grew  distinct.  "How  do  you  feel,  young 
man?"  I  struggled  to  answer,  uttering  something  I've  for- 
gotten— probably:  "Awful/' 

There  was  a  new  pain  in  my  body,  a  roving  pain.  Each 
time  I  wondered  about  it,  the  pain  leaped  to  another  region. 
Ice  packs  on  my  head.  Nausea. 

Somebody  at  some  time  explained  to  me  that  there  were 
three  rubber  tubes  in  my  side,  instead  of  the  usual  single 

17 


18        ART  YOUNG;  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

tube  for  draining  the  pleural  cavity,  and  that  I  must  be  care- 
ful not  to  turn  my  body  and  not  dislodge  them.  So  I  had 
to  lie  for  hours  in  unchanging  position,  until  I  would  plead 
for  relief,  and  the  nurses  would  shift  me, 

Time  passed  leadenly,  in  my  conscious  periods.  Then 
the  fever  would  rise  again,  and  days  and  nights  would  chase 
each  other,  like  silhouetted  figures  on  a  shadow-lantern.  All 
the  persons  who  entered  the  room,  if  I  could  see  them  at 
all,  were  like  shadows,  All  food  tasted  alike.  Damp  cold  was 
coming  in  from  outside,  and  the  skies  were  gray.  The  room 
was  heated  by  a  charcoal  grate,  which  gave  uneven  results,  t 
and  required  much  tending.  I  learned  one  French  phrase  from 
the  doctor,  "Fermer  la  potte,  s*it  vous  plait.'' 

My  hearing  became  supersensitive,  whispers  on  the  far 
side  of  the  room  being  audible  to  me.  Sounds  outside  came 
in  from  great  distances — bells,  whistles  of  boats  on  the  Seine, 
In  the  street  below  a  goat-milk  peddler,  cab  drivers  inces- 
santly cracking  their  whips,  a  hand-organ  grinder  playing 
doleful  tunes  from  grand  operas,  and,  this  being  a  time  of  a 
governmental  crisis — with  a  dictatorship  headed  by  General 
Boulanger  threatened  hourly — cavalry  troops  clattering  by. 

Often  thirst  was  upon  me,  my  throat  always  parched. 
Thoughts  carried  me  back  to  the  cool  clear  water  in  a  trough 
on  my  Uncle  Aly's  farm,  where  the  horses  drank.  I  thought, 
too,  of  my  mother,  father,  and  sister,  and  the  pony  of  my 
boyhood.  I  wondered  dimly  about  God,  if  there  was  one, 
as  I  heard  Madame  Medard  pray;  I  didn't  mind  her  doing 
that,  because  she  meant  it  kindly,  but  I  had  no  inclination 
to  pray  myself,  although  I  remembered  Hugo's  phrase,  some- 
thing like  this:  "There  are  times  when  the  soul  prays  though 
the  body  does  not  kneel/* 

I  had  two  nurses,  both  English.  The  one  who  served 
by  day,  whose  name  escapes  me,  was  a  large  woman  curi- 
ously resembling  Mrs,  Sairey  Gamp  in  Martin  Chuzzlewit* 
She  was  a  devout  Catholic,  and  one  day  I  saw  her  jabbing 
holes  with  a  hat-piti  through  a  newspaper  picture  of  Martin 
Luther.  But  she  was  conscientious  in  carrying  out  the  doc- 
tors' orders,  sometimes  a  bit  too  conscientious,  I  thought. 
Talkative  when  I  was  able  to  listen,  she  told  of  seeing  Victor 
Hugo  lying  in  state  during  the  great  public  funeral  cere- 
monies in  1885,  She  hadn't  a  good  word  to  say  of  him — 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES         iy 

lying  dead,  she  declared,  "looked  like  a  mean  old  bear/*  Her 
pet  hatred,  however,  was  Gambetta,  the  liberal  Premier,  who 
was  accidentally  shot  and  killed  in  1882;  she  was  glad  of 
that.  Naturally  I  didn't  form  any  special  liking  for  my  day 
nurse;  she  was  mostly  venom* 


MY  DAY  NURSE.  From  a  pencil  sketch  made  in  bed. 
She  jabbed  a  picture  of  Martin  Luther  with  a  hatpin. 

But  Mrs,  Stone,  who  watched  over  me  at  night,  was  a  joy 
serene.  She  was  kind,  and  lovely  for  a  sick  artist  just  to  look 
at.  She  had  an  industrious  husband,  whose  photograph  she 
showed  me  proudly,  and  six  small  children.  One  line  I  re- 
member from  her  quiet  talk  was:  "You  ought  to  see  me 
'usband  and  the  rest  of  us  a-walking  out  of  a  Sunday/' 

Days  of  rain  and  fog  came,  and  gloom  pressed  into  the 
room.  The  elder  Dr.  Delbet  appeared  daily,  gave  me  hypo- 
dermic injections,  and  conversed  in  anxious,  whispers  with 
the  nurse  and  Madame  Franklin.  I  was  only  half-conscious, 
and  presently  was  clutching  at  dark  shapes  in  ugly  dreams. 
Some  time  later  Madame  Franklin  was  at  my  bedside  saying, 
"Your  father  is  half  way  across  the  ocean/' 

That  night  I  grew  worse.  Could  I  last  till  my  father 
arrived?  If  I  should  have  a  relapse  I  was  sure  I  would  not 
live;  I  had  not  enough  strength  left.  It  was  hard  to  hold 
on  to  reality*  The  room  seemed  too  warm  and  I  needed 
oxygen.  I  tried  to  breathe  deeply,  but  found  that  it  brought 


20         ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

pain  to  the  lung  area,  and  seemed  likely  to  disturb  the  tubes. 
So  I  breathed  with  exceeding  care,  taking  in  all  the  air  1 
could  without  doing  damage  inside.  That  was  something  to 
think  about,  something  constructive;  oxygen  was  life-giving; 
the  more  I  got  of  it  the  better.  I  wanted  a  window  open. 
Mrs,  Stone  demurred  at  that;  but  after  an  argument  she 
opened  one  window  a  little  and  I  felt  better. 

Corner  came  in  whenever  permitted,  trying  to  interest 
me  with  reminders  that  Father  was  steadily  coming  nearer* 
"I'll  go  to  the  Gate  da  Nord  and  meet  him*  What  kind  of  a 
looking  man  is  he?"  I  was  able  to  answer  that  question,  in  a 
half-lucid  interval  "He  resembles  General  Grant  and  wears 
a  blue  broadcloth  suit/'  After  that  a  long  blank,  . 

When  my  father  arrived,  I  recognized  him,  although  I 
was  in  a  mental  haze  and  my  talk  was  incoherent.  I  felt  no 
surprise  at  his  being  there;  I  had  a  notion  that  he  had  been 
close  by  all  the  time,  and  it  seemed  as  if  he  had  just  dropped 
in  from  around  the  corner  instead  of  crossing  the  Atlantic. 
But  there  was  a  vague  comfort  in  knowing  that  he  was  near, 
He  would  come  and  go,  sitting  by  my  bed  for  hours,  some- 
times far  into  the  night.  He  would  bring  in  fruit,  which  I 
could  not  then  eat  freely,  but  it  was  cheerful  to  see  it,  and 
Sairey  Gamp  was  fond  of  fruit. 

There  was  trouble  with  the  drainage  from  my  wound, 
the  fever  mounted  again,  and  my  mind  rambled*  Late  one 
night,  after  Father  had  gone  to  sleep  in  his  room  down  the 
hall,  I  reached  the  high  point  of  delirium. 

For  hours,  it  seemed,  I  had  been  conscious  of  marching 
steps,  and  the  shadows  of  passing  people,  I  heard  voices  in 
a  strange  tongue,  commands,  the  clash  of  cymbals,  and  the 
clatter  of  horses'  hoofs,  I  asked  the  nurse  what  the  excite- 
ment was  all  about  She  said  it  was  nothing.  Then,  far  off, 
I  could  hear  drums,  coming  closer  and  closer.  More  com- 
mands, below  my  window. 

Suddenly  I  knew  what  all  these  maneuvers  meant:  There 
was  going  to  be  a  war — a  Chinese  army,  led  by  a  giant 
general  on  a  white  horse,  was  coming  across  the  Seine,  around 
the  Institute  of  France,  and  past  our  hotel.  The  general 
wore  a  huge  and  fierce  looking  mustache,  and  held  a  ponder- 
ous broad  sword  across  his  loins.  Sweeping  all  obstacles  aside, 
he  and  his  soldiers  were  pushing  on  to  seize  the  Eiffel  Tower 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES         21 

and  set  up  a  new  empire  with  Li  Hung  Chang  at  its  head. 

Where  were  all  the  French  patriots  who  should  be  here 
dying  for  France?  Why  hadn't  the  bridge  over  the  Seine  been 
guarded?  Why  hadn't  the  garrisons  on  the  frontier  kept  back 
these  barbarian  hordes?  Somebody  must  do  something  about 
this.  By  God,  I  would  do  it  myself,  I  would  go  out  there  on 
the  window  balcony  and  stop  these  Chinese  soldiers  from 
advancing  another  foot.  ...  I  tried  to  jump  out  of  bed 
and  hurry  to  the  window.  Mrs.  Stone  sought  to  stop  me, 
and  her  face  seemed  to  change.  Ah!  I  saw  her  now  as  a 
Chinese  spy. 

I  struck  at  her,  and  struggled  with  her,  determined  to 
get  out  on  the  balcony  and  stop  the  invasion.  But  the  nurse 
had  strong  arms,  and  managed  to  get  me  back  to  bed,  and 
after  a  while  quieted  me.  In  the  morning  I  was  clearer- 
headed.  The  elder  Dr.  Delbet  was  there  again,  very  solemn, 
as  he  talked  with  Father  and  Mrs,  Stone. 

After  this  delirium  I  began  to  show  marked  improve- 
ment. My  mind  cleared  and  I  was  able  to  carry  on  intelligent 
conversations. 

"How  is  Mother?'*  was  my  first  question. 

"She's  well,  and  anxious  for  you  to  come  home/' 

I  had  inquiries  to  make  about  my  sister  Nettie,  my 
brothers  Charles  and  Will,  and  other  people  and  institutions 
in  our  town.  And  as  I  sat  propped  up  against  pillows  and 
ate  milk  toast — the  first  food  that  tasted  right — Father  began 
remembering  things  that  had  been  happening  at  home  since 
I  visited  there  the  previous  summer. 

"Charlie  recited  some  poetry  at  the  fire  department's  en- 
tertainment/' he  said.  .  .  .  "We  went  to  see  Uncle  Dave 
the  Sunday  before  I  left.  He's  had  his  whiskers  cut  short, 
and  you  wouldn't  know  him.  .  .  .  Old  Man  Meyers  con- 
fided to  me  lately  that  he's  on  the  point  of  discovering  per- 
petual motion/' 

All  this  talk  of  home  lifted  my  spirits,  My  eyes  must  have 
lighted  up,  for  Father  was  encouraged  to  go  on,  with  a 
chuckle  now  and  then. 

"There's  a  new  iron  gate  at  the  poorhouse.  *  ,  ,  Ab 
Keeler  says  he's  going  to  sign  the  pledge  next  time  a  tem- 
perance lecturer  comes  to  town.  «,  .  .  Hank  Hussig  found  an 


22         ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

Indian  hatchet  with  a  head  ten  inches  long  in  his  cornfield, 
,  ,  .  The  county  officials  are  going  after  the  fast  drivers. 
Judge  Dobell  fined  two  men  from  Clarno  five  dollars  each  for 
driving  faster  than  a  walk  across  the  Pecontonica  River 
bridge." 

More  news  of  similar  kind  came  as  the  days  went  by,  in 
letters  from  my  mother  and  sister.  And  they  sent  copies  of 
the  Weekly  Sentinel.  Father  now  read  from  it  such  items  as 
these: 

"Carl  Marty  of  New  Glarus  sent  a  carload  of  cheese  to 
Milwaukee.  .  .  .  The  young  folks  report  Julia  Moore's 
party  a  success.  .  .  ,  Monroe  Band  concert  at  Turner  Hal! 
next  Thursday  night.  Hear  Strawn  Shrake  play  'The  Palms/ 
,  .  ,  Fred  Geiger  was  a  pleasant  calkr  Tuesday  from 
Blanchardville,  .  .  ,  Henry  Puffer  is  on  the  sick  list.  .  .  . 
George  Wagner  of  Orangeville  and  Billy  Blunt,  our  popular 
townsmen,  are  going  to  start  a  gents'  furnishing  store  on 
the  south  side  of  the  Square.  Good  luck,  George  and  Bill 
Don't  forget  to  advertise  in  the  SentineL  We  need  some  haber- 
dashing.  .  .  .  Mr.  and  Mrs,  Bat  Niles  of  Spring  Grove  are 
the  proud  parents  of  a  son,  born  last  Friday,  .  .  .  Steve 
Klassy  drove  up  to  New  Glarus  Tuesday  to  look  at  a  cow." 

Thus  the  history  of  Monroe  and  the  surrounding  coun- 
tryside, important  to  those  named  and  important  then  to  me 
as  I  took  hold  of  life  again. 

During  the  long  slow  weeks  of  convalescence  I  saw  my 
father  in  a  new  light,  developing  an  appreciation  for  his 
capacities  which  I  had  never  had  before.  Here  was  Dan 
Young,  a  small-town  general  storekeeper,  who  knew  little 
of  the  world,  suddenly  uprooted  by  a  crisis,  and  sent  hurtling 
across  4,000  miles  of  land  and  water  to  a  country  where  the 
language  and  customs  were  alien  to  him — yet  doing  every* 
thing  that  needed  to  be  done,  quietly,  effectively.  In  those 
first  days  when  I  was  babbling  in  delirium  he  scarcely  left 
my  side,  even  though  there  was  always  a  nurse  on  duty, 
And  when  my  senses  were  restored  he  was  constantly 
thoughtful. 

Presently  it  occurred  to  me  that  he  must  be  tired  staying 
indoors  so  much,  and  I  persuaded  him  to  go  out  exploring 
on  his  own.  Having  a  natural  instinct  for  direction,  he  walked 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES         23 

a  lot  and  saw  numerous  landmarks  that  I  had  never  got 
around  to  see — including  the  Tomb  of  Napoleon,  His  French 
was  as  bad  as  mine,  though  he  too  had  been  trying  to  fathom 
a  co-language  dictionary.  Going  to  a  barber-shop,  he  asked 
for  a  haircut  in  carefully  rehearsed  syllables,  but  was  not 
understood.  So  he  had  to  fall  back  upon  the  sign  language, 
imitating  scissor-blades  with  two  fingers,  gesturing  with  them 
around  his  head. 

I  never  asked  him  how  much  my  operation  cost;  I  hadn't 
the  courage.*  And  there  were  the  nurses'  services,  and  the 
hotel  expense.  My  morale  was  in  no  condition  then  to  con- 
cern myself  with  financial  problems.  Father  had  assumed 
all  the  responsibility,  and  I  let  things  take  their  course.  Each 
day  he  wrote  my  mother  and  sister.  It  was  understood  with- 
out discussion  that  I  was  to  go  home  as  soon  as  I  was  able 
to  travel.  I  offered  no  objections  to  this;  it  was  easier  to  let 
some  one  else  make  all  my  decisions. 

Toward  the  end  of  April,  I  was  definitely  on  the  up- 
grade, and  it  was  possible  to  dismiss  both  nurses.  The  tubes 
had  been  removed,  and  the  wound  was  healing.  Madame 
Medard  and  Madame  Franklin  looked  in  occasionally  to  talk 
with  Father,  and  Corner  came  in  each  evening.  But  I  was 
alone  a  good  deal  of  the  time,  and  I  welcomed  that.  I  wanted 
to  think,  to  re-plan  my  shattered  future.  My  ego  had  been 
dealt  a  devastating  blow.  Ego  was  not  a  layman's  word  in 
that  day;  we  called  it  self-esteem.  I  remembered  a  sermon 
I  had  once  heard  in  the  Presbyterian  church  at  home,  about 
the  deadly  sin  of  pride.  And  I  had  been  the  cock  of  the  walk 
in  Chicago — and  now  had  been  laid  low. 

Lying  there  weighing  all  that  had  happened  to  me,  I  knew 
that  it  was  too  early  for  any  planning.  I  was  not  even  sure 
that  I  would  be  able  to  do  any  drawing  when  I  got  back  on 
my  feet.  I  searched  my  brain  for  ideas  for  pictures,  but  none 
would  come.  Hitherto  ideas  had  flowed  easily. 

So  I  began  making  mental  journeys  back  to  the  scenes 
of  childhood.  What  a  marvelous  instrument  the  brain,  when 
it  performs  normally — a  magic  carpet,  annihilating  time  and 
space.  ,  ,  .  Gazing  across  the  distance  at  my  self  of  earlier 

*  As  these  pages  were  written,  a  letter  from  my  sister  gave  me  the  answer  to 
that  question,  almost  fifty  years  after  the  fact.  She  wrote:  "The  doctors  would 
not  operate  on  you  until  Father  had  cabled  $700." 


24        ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

years,  I  thought  that  if  I  could  live  life  over  again  I  would 
do  it  better,  would  be  more  considerate  of  my  parents,  more 
helpful  in  the  store  and  on  the  farm, 

"Why  do  the  French  say  'Out/  Ouil'  when  just  one  'OuiT 
would  do?"  Father  wanted  to  know* 

"That  is  one  of  the  mysteries  of  this  strange  land/'  I 
told  him.  "Clarence  Webster  devoted  a  great  deal  of  time 
and  energy  trying  to  learn  the  answer  to  that  question,  and 
he  was  never  able  to  get  any  light  on  it.  He  has  a  theory 
that  the  old  rhyme  about  one  of  the  ten  little  pigs  saying 
Vee,  wee,  all  the  way  home'  was  written  by  a  Frenchman/' 

Father  displayed  more  humor  in  Paris  than  I  had  ever 
suspected  him  of  having.  In  my  boyhood  he  had  usually 
appeared  rather  glum,  while  the  rest  of  us  laughed  a  good 
deal  I  couldn't  understand  that.  Yet  perhaps,,!  reflected,  as  I 
stared  at  the  ceiling  of  my  room,  raising  a  family  of  four 
children  was  a  pretty  serious  business,  ...  He  had  a  free 
and  easy  way  now,  as  of  one  on  a  holiday,  which  amused 
me — especially  when  he  would  say  to  the  elder  Dr.  Delbet 
(dignified  member  of  the  Legion  of  Honor)  :  "Well,  Doc, 
how  do  you  think  the  boy  is  today?" 

Late  April  brought  warmer  weather  and  sunshine  again, 
and  my  strength  increased.  Soon  I  was  able  to  get  out  of  bed, 
sitting  up  for  fifteen  minutes  one  day,  and  next  day  trying 
my  legs  in  the  hall,  A  week  later  I  was  permitted  to  go  out 
of  doors;  and  leaning  on  Father's  arm,  I  moved  slowly  and 
carefully  around  the  corner  of  the  Institute  to  the  Voltaire 
statue.  After  lying  in  bed  so  long,  I  felt  as  if  I  were  on  stilts 
ten  feet  tall,  and  in  danger  of  falling  at  every  step*  We  stood 
for  a  little  while  and  looked  over  the  parapet  into  the  Seine 
with  its  brisk  traffic;  then  sat  on  a  bench  and  watched  some 
children  at  play. 

When  I  felt  equal  to  a  longer  walk,  we  visited  the  Louvre 
together,  and  Father  seemed  a  bit  abashed  when  we  came 
to  a  room  full  of  paintings  of  nudes,  mostly  of  beautiful 
women.  Yet  I  noticed  he  wasn't  in  any  hurry  to  get  away. 

"I  suppose  it's  all  right/'  he  said,  as  we  finally  left,  "to 
have  pictures  like  that  in  a  big  city,  but  if  they  were  exhibited 
in  Monroe  it  would  be  kind  of  embarrassing  if  the  minister 


AJRT  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES         25 

and  his  wife  happened  to  come  in  while  a  fellow  was  looking 
at  them/' 

On  a  fine  day  in  May  we  boarded  a  boat  and  went  up 
the  river  to  the  Exposition  grounds.  When  Father  wanted 
to  go  up  in  the  Eiffel  Tower,  I  said  nothing  about  my  previ- 
ous indifference  to  it.  By  this  time  I  felt  that  perhaps  a  duty 
was  involved.  When  I  got  back  home  it  might  be  hard  to 
explain  why  I  hadn't  gone  up  when  every  other  visitor  to 
Paris  presumably  had. 

It  cost  five  francs  to  make  the  ascent.  The  elevators  ac- 
commodated fifty  passengers  at  a  time,  and  were  so  solidly 
constructed  that  there  was  a  fine  sense  of  security  as  one  was 
propelled  upward.  The  day  being  clear,  France  was  spread 
out  below  us  like  a  relief  map.  Lecturers  on  the  lofty  observa- 
tory floor,  750  feet  above  ground,  pointed  out  towns,  rivers, 
battlefields,  and  other  landmarks  as  we  gazed  through  field- 
glasses.  I  had  to  admit  to  myself  that  Alexandra  Gustave 
Eiffel  had  great  engineering  skill;  and  better  than  skill — 
imagination. 

I  was  still  shaky  as  the  ship  bore  us  homeward,  although 
the  sea  air  helped.  And  I  was  humbled.  There  was  still  much 
doubt  in  my  mind  about  the  future.  It  would  depend  on 
how  far  I  succeeded  in  building  back  to  normal  strength. 
I  had  no  immediate  wish  to  do  any  drawing.  Yet  I  had  no 
thought  of  any  other  career.  I  was  gripped  by  the  same 
inertia  which  had  held  me  during  those  last  weeks  in  Paris. 
Nothing  seemed  worth  doing  which  required  any  effort. 

But  my  father's  spirits  were  high.  He  was  taking  me  home 
upright  and  not  horizontally,  and  I  was  going  back  to  fresh 
country  air  and  sunshine  and  good  food.  That  anxious  jour- 
ney to  France  and  the  return  with  his  son  alive  was  of  course 
the  high  point  in  Father's  life.  He  had  never  before  been 
away  from  his  Wisconsin  home  farther  than  Iowa.  .  .  , 
And  now  he  was  enjoying  himself.  He  was  interested  in 
everything  on  the  ship — the  machinery,  the  pilot  house,  the 
changing  of  watches  by  the  seamen,  the  crisp  commands, 
the  clock- work  routine,  and  the  luxurious  meals.  We  did  a 
turn  around  the  deck  morning  and  afternoon,  and  it  was 
exhilarating  for  him  to  feel  the  surge  of  the  seas  when  the 
bow  of  the  liner  climbed  a  wave  as  we  rounded  the  fore- 


26         ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

cabin.   I  tried  to  pretend   that  I   felt  exhilaration  too,   but 
my  pretense  had  a  poor  foundation. 

Much  of  the  time  I  sat  in  a  deck  chair  and  had  little 
to  say,  even  when  Father  was  close  by.  I  was  still  trying  to 
recover  my  old  whistling  confidence. 


Chapter   3 
BACK  TO  THE  OLD  HOME  TOWN 

I  FELT  a  good  deal  stronger  when  we  landed  in  New 
York,  but  I  was  miserably  sunburned.  We  put  up  at  the 

Murray  Hill  Hotel,  and  I  took  Father  to  see  the  outside 
of  the  Art  Students'  League  building,  where  I  had  studied, 
viewing  it  from  across  the  street;  it  was  then  at  Twenty-third 
and  Lexington  avenue,  I  had  no  wish  to  meet  anyone  I  knew, 
because  I  didn't  want  to  do  any  explaining  about  Paris.  That 
was  mostly  a  nightmare  to  be  forgotten — the  wreck  of  a 
golden  dream. 

We  walked  over  to  Madison  Square,  where  I  grew  wob- 
bly again,  and  we  sat  for  awhile  on  a  bench.  Though  he  did 
not  say  it  in  words,  Father  was  plainly  concerned  about  those 
spells  of  weakness  which  kept  recurring,  and  he  was  not  so 
much  interested  in  seeing  New  York  as  in  getting  on  to 
Wisconsin.  I  felt  the  same  way. 

There  was  something  friendly  about  the  front  of  the 
Grand  Central  station  next  morning.  We  of  course  referred 
to  it  as  "the  depot",  as  railroad  stations  were  called  fifty 
years  ago.  Father  stocked  up  with  fruit.  I  went  to  bed  early 
in  the  Pullman  berth  that  evening,  and  succeeded  in  sleeping 
a  good  deal.  The  elder  Dr.  Delbet  had  said:  "Rest  as  much 
as  you  can." 

Clarence  Webster  was  waiting  for  us  when  we  pulled 
into  Chicago,  and  took  us  to  lunch  at  the  Grand  Pacific  Hotel. 
Web  had  much  to  tell  about  the  boys  I  had  worked  with,  and 
plied  me  with  questions  about  Paris.  "You're  looking  great, 
Art,  for  an  alleged  invalid,"  he  said  heartily.  "You'll  soon 
be  back  at  the  drawing  board." 

I  must  have  smiled  wanly,  for  I  wasn't  so  sure.  I  had 
not  touched  a  pen  since  my  last  day  at  the  Julian.  My  hands 
were  clumsy.  And  I  was  still  many  pounds  underweight, 
although  my  hair,  which  had  been  largely  burned  out  by  the 
fever,  had  grown  in  again  and  was  curling  naturally.  Some- 

27 


28         ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

times  in  the  nights  on  the  ship  there  had  been  a  dull,  pressing 
pain  beneath  the  four-inch  scar  where  the  incision  had  been 
made  in  my  left  side.  Often  I  said  to  myself:  "Oh,  Gosh, 
suppose  I  had  to  go  through  all  that  again  V* 

We  were  met  at  the  train  in  Monroe  by  the  rest  of  our 
family  and  a  little  group  of  friends.  What  I  recall  particu- 
larly is  that  I  gave  way  to  tears  when  I  caught  sight  of  my 
mother*  Weeping  is  frowned  upon  among  males  generally, 
but  I  seem  to  be  about  fifty-two  per  cent  weepy.  Mother  held 
me  close,  with  no  words.  My  sister  and  the  boys  did  the 
talking,  "Hello,  Art,  glad  them  foreign  doctors  didn't  kill 


MY  BOYHOOD  HOME. 

ye,"'  the  village  hackman  remarked.  And  Prank  Chenowethu 
volunteer  booking  agent  for  the  town's  brass  band,  explained 
that  "We  were  going  to  have  the  band  boys  here,  but  Scott 
Darling  is  out  of  town/'  Scott  was  the  pride  of  Monroe  as  a 
drummer.  He  could  rat-tat-tat  the  snare-drum  like  nobody 
else  I  ever  heard,  and  the  band  was  no  good  without  him* 
In  the  family  carriage  we  drove  to  our  home,  known  as 
the  Evergreen  Fruit  Farm.  Carrie,  our  Scandinavian  hired 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES         29 

girl,  had  supper  all  ready  for  us.  But  first  I  had  to  see  Nig, 
the  pony  which  Father  had  bought  for  me  when  I  was 
around  1 0  or  11;  he  was  still  frisky  and  recognized  me  with 
delight  when  I  patted  his  head. 

Supper  was  a  gay  affair,  with  much  talk.  Elizabeth 
North,  my  favorite  Monroe  girl,  was  there,  sitting  next  to 
me.  Father,  and  not  I,  answered  most  of  the  questions.  He 
told  them  how  kind  Mrs.  Stone,  the  night  nurse,  had  been, 
and  he  took  out  of  his  pocket  a  thermometer  which  he  had 
brought  away  from  my  sick-room  as  a  souvenir,  because 
there  was  a  story  attached  to  it.  When  he  found  that  the 
room  was  ten  degrees  cooler  than  he  thought  it  ought  to  be, 
he  arranged  with  the  concierge  to  have  more  heat,  then  cooled 
the  thermometer  in  a  glass  of  water  just  before  Dr.  Delbet's 
arrival,  to  make  it  register  the  lower  temperature  the  latter 
had  ordered.  When  the  doctoir  came,  he  said:  "It's  too  warm 
here/'  but  on  looking  at  the  thermometer  he  said:  "No,  it's 
correct.  It  must  be  I/' 

He  recalled  incidents  of  the  sea  voyages.  When  he  was 
leaving  the  boat  at  Havre,  a  sailor  pointed  to  his  collar  as  if 
something  were  wrong — and  Father  suspected  that  the  young 
man  was  alarmed  at  thinking  that  he  had  forgotten  to  put 
on  his  necktie,  an  article  of  apparel  he  had  never  worn  in  all 
his  life*  He  was  past  fifty  before  he  would  consent  to  put  on 
a  tie,  and  I  never  saw  him  wear  any  kind  of  clothes  except 
dark  blue  broadcloth* 

I  had  a  good  chance  to  observe  him  from  my  sick-bed 
and  on  the  boat  and  now  back  home.  A  ruddy,  handsome 
face,  with  a  close-cropped  beard.  His  crudities  often  amused 
me,  but  I  wondered  then  and  later  why  it  had  not  been 
Father's  fate  to  be  a  celebrity.  To  my  mind  he  was  a  great 
man.  And  sometimes  I  think  that  just  character,  regardless 
of  ambition  to  achieve,  ought  to  be  the  principal  test  of  fame. 

My  father  had  no  worldly  ambition.  I  couldn't  under- 
stand why  one  of  his  popularity  among  the  townspeople  and 
farmers  did  not  want  to  get  into  political  office  where  he 
could  exercise  an  influence  for  good  in  the  community.  Every- 
body knew  Dan  Young,  knew  him  to  be  a  man  who  had 
his  own  ideas  of  what  was  right  and  friendly  to  all — but  for 
political  distinction  of  any  kind,  he  had  no  yearning.  As  a 
youngster  of  ambition  I  thought  that  just  to  be  a  good  man, 


30         ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

a  forthright  citizen,  was  not  enough — why  was  he  not 
mayor,  as  the  local  managers  of  political  affairs  wanted  him 
to  be,  at  least  in  one  campaign  when  he  was  a  favorite  with 
the  Republican  leaders?  Now  I  know  that  to  be  honored  as 
this  or  that  in  the  Who's  Who  of  political  affairs  is  not 
always  the  way  of  a  wise  man.  It  may  take  as  much  courage 
not  to  be  "distinguished*'  as  to  become  so — it  depends  on 
one's  own  idea  of  integrity  and  usefulness, 

Next  day  I  went  into  town  with  my  younger  brother 
Will,  visited  Father's  store,  noting  improvements  there;  and 
looked  in  at  the  court  house  and  other  establishments  where 
old  acquaintances  held  forth.  Charlie  Booth,  editor  of  the 
Weekly  Sentinel,  interrupted  a  printing  job  to  welcome  me; 
a  genial  man,  he  appeared  glad  always  to  have  his  work 
interrupted,  so  he  would  have  an  excuse  for  conversation. 
There  was  the  usual  group  discussing  politics  around  the 
courthouse,  in  various  dialects,  Fred  Lund,  the  Populist,  was 
detailing  the  wrongs  suffered  by  the  farmers  under  the  Harri- 
son administration. 

On  the  west  side  of  the  Square  I  met  up  with  the  Meth- 
odist preacher,  who  inquired  sedately  after  my  welfare.  Bill 
Hoesly,  the  postmaster,  wanted  to  know  when  I'd  have  an- 
other exhibition  of  pictures  to  hang  in  the  post  office.  I  said 
I  appreciated  the  invitation,  but  that  I  lacked  inspiration 
and  didn't  know  when  I'd  get  at  my  drawing  again.  Elmer 
Peasley  told  me  he  had  intended  to  go  to  Paris  when  he 
was  twenty,  but  changed  his  mind  after  being  seasick  while 
crossing  Lake  Michigan. 

Talking  with  a  lot  of  the  old-timers  and  listening  with  a 
fresh  ear  to  their  voices,  I  realized  clearly  for  the  first  time 
what  a  racial  conglomerate  was  this  town  in  which  I  had 
grown  up.  In  having  this  mixture  of  people  from  many 
lands,  it  was  of  course  akin  to  countless  other  towns  that  had 
been  formed  in  pioneer  days  in  Wisconsin,  Illinois,  Minne- 
sota, and  Iowa.  Here  were  New  Englanders  who  had  left 
the  East  for  good  and  found  southern  Wisconsin  about  right; 
Germans  from  a  fatherland  where  war  had  been  flaring  up, 
and  who  liked  the  idea  of  peace  and  democracy;  Swiss,  who 
came  to  this  region  of  hills  and  lakes,  seeing  it  as  dairy  coun- 
try resembling  their  own;  Norwegians,  Swedes,  and  Danes, 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES         31 

who  stopped  here  instead  of  continuing  their  migration 
toward  the  upper  Mississippi  in  Minnesota;  and  a  goodly 
proportion  of  Irish,  Scotch,  English,  and  Welsh. 

Having  made  the  rounds  of  familiar  spots  in  Monroe, 
I  was  inclined  to  spend  most  of  my  time  on  the  farm  in  the 
days  that  followed.  It  was  good  to  wander  in  the  fields  and 
see  green  things  sprouting.  I  drank  in  the  clean  air  as  if  it 
were  wine. 

June  and  fine  weather,  and  arrangements  were  being 
made  for  a  lawn  party  at  our  place,  in  honor  of  my  return 
from  Paris,  My  sister  Nettie,  who  for  five  years  had  been 
Mrs.  Clyde  Copeland,  was  the  moving  spirit  behind  this  cele- 
bration. The  idea  pleased  me,  and  gave  me  an  incentive  to 
draw  some  pen-and-ink  pictures  to  herald  the  event,  the  first 
I  had  attempted  to  draw  since  my  illness.  My  pen-hand 
worked  well,  and  that  was  good  for  my  morale.  These  pic- 
tures were  sent  to  Chicago  by  Charlie  Booth  to  be  engraved, 
and  were  reproduced  in  the  Sentinel  with  an  announcement 
of  plans  for  the  party.  One  of  the  drawings  depicted  certain 
leading  citizens  of  Monroe  coming  to  the  big  event.  These 
citizens  I  had  often  made  sketches  of  before  I  left  home.  Some 
of  them  I  now  pictured  walking  on  our  telephone  wire,  with 
balancing  poles  in  their  hands,  to  get  to  this  brilliant  social 
affair. 

Horse-drawn  buses  brought  the  guests  to  the  farm.  Loads 
of  them  came — the  young  folks  and  some  of  the  older  ones. 
The  party  was  a  distinct  success,  as  those  things  go — the 
grand  picnic  event  of  that  summer  in  Monroe.  I  had  never 
realized  before  how  many  good-looking  girls  there  were  in 
our  town,  and  for  once  I  was  the  center  of  attraction.  Every- 
body present  seemed  carefree,  and  I  was  congratulated  over 
and  over  again  upon  having  come  safely  through  a  critical 
illness — and  was  asked  a  hundred  times  if  it  didn't  feel  good 
to  be  home  again.  And  of  course  the  boys  and  girls  wanted 
to  hear  all  about  Paris  and  the  Exposition  and  the  Eiffel 
Tower — and  was  the  Latin  Quarter  as  naughty  as  reports 
would  lead  you  to  believe? 

Nettie  was  at  her  best  that  day,  and  Mother  was  bright- 
eyed  and  youthful  looking  as  she  moved  from  one  group 
to  another,  to  make  sure  that  everyone  had  enough  ham 


32        ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

sandwiches,  coffee,  lemonade,  strawberries  fresh  from  our 
field,  ice-cream,  and  cake.  Father  shared  the  honors,  having 
left  the  store  in  charge  of  the  clerks. 

Sundays  were  pleasant  days.  Father  would  be  at  home 
and  would  trim  his  beard  in  the  morning  with  ceremonious 
regularity,  while  Mother  would  busy  herself  with  prepara- 
tions for  dinner.  Hammock,  chairs,  and  a  buffalo  robe  would 
be  out  on  the  lawn.  Charles  and  Will  and  I  would  read  the 
Chicago  Sunday  Inter-Ocean  and  George  W.  Peck's  Mil- 
waukee Sun,  in  which  the  "Peck's  Bad  Boy"  stories  were 
running,  and  then  perhaps  try  our  hand  at  croquet.  After 


REMEMBRANCE  OF  MY  FATHER  AND  MOTHER, 

dinner  Mother  would  join  us  on  the  lawn,  and  in  due  time 
somebody  would  make  a  pail  of  lemonade.  Often  Nettie  and 
her  husband  would  join  us. 

Sometimes  we  would  get  Father  and  Mother  talking 
about  pioneer  days,  and  there  was  rich  drama  in  their  mem- 
ories. Father  was  born  in  1838,  only  six  years  after  the 
Black  Hawk  War,  on  a  farm  near  Orangeville  in  Oneco  town- 
ship, Stephenson  County,  Illinois,  a  few  miles  south  of  the 
Wisconsin  line  and  only  ten  miles  from  Monroe*  This,  too, 
was  the  spot  where  I  came  into  the  world*  As  a  boy  Father 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES         33 

had  plowed  with  oxen,  when  the  settlers  thereabouts  were 
still  fearful  of  possible  Indian  raids,  despite  government  guar- 
antees that  there  would  be  no  more.  Father  was  the  son  of 
Stephen  and  Louisa  Miner  Young,  and  Stephen  had  come 
overland  from  somewhere  in  northern  New  York.  Family 
legend  says  that  both  the  Youngs  and  the  Miners  originally 
hailed  from  rural  England. 

My  mother's  people  were  Pennsylvania  Dutch,  which 
means  German;  her  great  grandparents  had  hailed  from  the 
Palatinate.  Her  father  was  Jacob  Wagner,  her  name  being 
Amanda.  When  she  was  five,  her  parents  and  her  several 
brothers  and  sisters  traveled  by  prairie  schooner  to  northern 
Illinois,  where  they  took  up  a  homestead  in  Stephenson 
county  in  the  same  township  where  my  father's  people  lived. 

When  Mother  was  a  young  girl  on  a  farm,  she  and  her 
three  sisters  would  go  barefooted  to  the  pasture  to  milk  the 
cows*  On  frosty  autumn  mornings,  once  the  cows  were  made 
to  stand  up,  the  girls  would  plant  their  feet  on  the  ground 
that  had  been  warmed  all  night  by  bovine  heat.  Young  people 
went  to  church,  carrying  their  shoes  to  save  sole-leather  and 
putting  them  on  at  the  church  door.  Traveling  cobblers  in 
those  days  repaired  and  sold  shoes  of  their  own  make. 

Father  served  as  a  mounted  usher  at  the  second  of  the 
Lincoln-Douglas  debates  in  1858;  this  in  Freeport,  the  seat 
of  Stephenson  county.  Some  15,000  people  attended,  coming 
from  as  far  away  as  Chicago.  The  railroads  gave  excursion 
rates,  and  the  crowds  came  on  special  trains,  as  well  as  in 
wagons,  on  horseback,  and  on  foot. 

Stephenson  county  had  been  divided  on  the  slavery  ques- 
tion, and  thus  there  were  big  demonstrations  for  both  these 
notable  candidates  for  the  United  States  Senate*  Stephen  A. 
Douglas  had  been  a  member  of  that  body  for  eleven  years, 
and  was  seeking  re-election.  On  the  previous  evening  the 
Democrats  welcomed  his  arrival  from  Galena  with  a  long 
torchlight  procession.  But  there  was  a  greater  throng  on  hand 
when  a  train  from  Dixon  brought  Lincoln,  the  Republican 
nominee,  in  the  morning* 

Lincoln  was  much  the  better  humored  of  the  two  de- 
baters that  day,  my  father  remembered.  He  towered  almost 
two  feet  above  his  rival*  Despite  the  apparent  enthusiasm  for 
Douglas  shown  by  the  parade,  jeers  met  some  of  the  Senator's 


34        ART  YOUNG;  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

assertions.  When  he  complained  that  the  interrupters  were 
lacking  in  respect,  Lincoln  retorted  that  Mr.  Douglas  would 
be  given  respect  if  he  were  careful  to  be  respectful  to  his 
audience. 

Some  man  in  the  overflow  crowd  back  of  the  speakers' 
platform  called  out  while  Abe  was  voicing  an  argument,  ask- 
ing him  to  turn  around  oftener  so  those  in  the  rear  could 
hear  him. 

"I'd  like  to  talk  to  you  folks  behind  me/'  Lincoln  an- 
swered, "but  I  think  I'd  better  talk  to  the  majority/' 

Father  was  always  receptive  to  mechanical  progress.  Ours 
was  the  first  telephone  in  Monroe.  It  connected  the  store  and 
the  farm,  being  powered  by  storage  batteries.  Mother  didn't 
like  it,  and  said  she  wouldn't  talk  into  the  thing.  It  got  out  of 
order  easily,  but  we  could  sometimes  hear  simple  statements 
like:  "Can't  get  home  for  supper" —  the  words  vague  and 
accompanied  by  such  electric  sputterings  as  to  cast  much  doubt 
on  the  early  Bell  phones  ever  being  practical  Years  before 
that  innovation  a  wire  had  been  strung  from  store  to  farm 
over  which  we  sent  dots-and-dashes  messages  by  hammering 
with  a  potato  masher,  or  an  implement  that  looked  like  one* 
on  metallic  diaphragms  encased  in  walnut  boxes. 

To  keep  up  to  date,  Father  never  neglected  to  renew  his 
subscription  to  the  Scientific  American,  He  was  inventively 
inclined,  and  got  one  of  the  earliest  patents  on  an  automatic 
gate-swinger,  designed  to  save  farmers  the  trouble  of  getting 
out  of  a  buggy  or  wagon  every  time  they  wanted  to  enter 
or  leave  their  enclosed  acres.  It  didn't  work  very  well,  how- 
ever, and  I  remember  how  patiently  and  hopefully  I  tried 
to  manipulate  the  leverage,  hoping  that  in  time  Father  would 
perfect  the  device  and  make  money  out  of  it.  But  after 
repeated  trials  I  found  that  it  was  simpler  to  get  out  of  the 
wagon  or  dismount  from  my  pony  when  I  wanted  to  open 
the  gate.  Yet  I  still  think  the  underlying  theory  of  that  in- 
vention was  all  right,  and  simply  needed  further  experiment 
to  have  made  it  practicable. 

The  leading  farm  periodicals  also  came  to  us  regularly, 
and  Father  was  always  among  the  first  in  that  vicinity  to 
cultivate  any  new  variety  of  strawberry,  raspberry,  potato, 
or  other  vegetable  or  fruit. 


Chapter  4 

ANY  BOY  COULD  BECOME  PRESIDENT  THEN 

I    HAVE  no  recollection  of  my  birthplace,  but  once  when 
I  was  a  young  man,  on  a  visit  home  from  Chicago  in  the 

Eighties,  I  drove  out  there  with  Father.  The  house  was 
gone,  its  site  being  marked  by  a  depression  which  showed  the 
outlines  of  the  foundation.  Father  traced  the  boundaries  of 
the  farm  for  me;  pointed  out  the  East  Forty,  and  the  cow 
pasture.  We  found  the  old  well,  now  almost  filled  in;  and 
only  a  single  tumbledown  shed  remained  of  the  outbuild- 
ings. A  wagon  wheel  was  sunk  into  the  grass.  And  down  by 
the  creek,  still  gurgling  on  its  way,  we  stood  where  the 
springhouse  had  been.  That  was  the  prototype  of  the  ice-box 
and  frigidaire.  A  simple  stone  house  built  around  a  cold 
bubbling  spring,  in  which  to  keep  eggs,  milk,  and  butter  cool 
through  the  summer  heat. 

I  was  raised  on  a  bottle — as  they  used  to  put  it — when 
a  mother's  breasts  went  dry.  And  I  can  remember  playing 
with  the  artificial  breasts  that  women  wore  in  those  days  to 
build  up  a  thin  bosom.  These  were  heavy  round  pads  with 
white  linen  covers,  filled  with  sawdust,  and  were  meant  only 
for  wear  on  the  street  or  at  social  functions.  But  we  children, 
getting  into  everything,  bandied  them  about  the  house.  My 
recollections  of  the  colored  fashion  plates  in  Godey's  Lady's 
Book  seem  to  go  back  to  the  age  of  three.  That  publication 
was  a  regular  visitor  in  our  house,  for  my  mother,  like  most 
pioneer  women,  was  taking  notice  of  correct  appearances. 
Reveling  in  "the  pretty  pictures,"  I  turned  the  pages  again 
and  again.  My  favorite  toys  were  not  soldiers,  but  Noah's 
Ark  and  the  animals  that  went  in  two  by  two. 

Mother  attended  the  Lutheran  church  when  we  lived  in 
Illinois.  After  we  moved  to  Monroe,  however,  when  I  was 
a  year  old  in  1867,  she  went  to  the  Methodist  church,  which 
was  across  the  way  from  our  house,  and  she  took  me  along 
for  Sunday  school.  All  I  remember  about  this  religious  expe- 

35 


36        ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

rience  is  that  one  Sunday  we  each  were  given  a  colored  card 
with  tinseled  angels  on  it. 

My  father  was  not  a  churchgoer  in  those  days,  and  when 
I  became  older  I  learned  that  he  was  an  agnostic.  But  he 
contributed  to  the  local  churches  regardless  of  creed,  and  he 
liked  to  discuss  religion  with  the  local  ministers  when  they 
came  into  our  store.  He  was  well  versed  in  the  arguments  of 
Robert  G.  Ingersoll,  whose  books  he  had  read.  In  his  old  age 
he  got  into  the  habit  of  going  with  Mother  to  the  Universalist 
church  every  Sunday. 

I  must  have  been  about  five  when  there  occurred  the  first 
manifestation  of  sex  that  I  can  recall  in  my  life.  Mother 
took  me  to  the  home  of  one  of  her  friends,  beyond  the  rail- 
road tracks  south  of  town.  It  was  fairyland  to  me  as  we 
moved  along  a  garden  walk,  amid  blue  and  pink  flowers, 

A  girl  of  my  own  age  was  there,  and  we  romped  together 
while  the  two  women  gossiped.  I  felt  like  some  playful  ani- 
mal chasing  this  girl  around  and  into  secret  places,  especially 
under  a  bed.  Why  couldn't  I  go  on  chasing  her  until  some- 
thing happened?  There  were  a  couple  of  similar  experiences 
with  the  same  girl  when  I  was  eight  or  nine.  Female-like — 
or  shall  I  say  cat-like — she  was  still  on  the  defensive  and 
unyielding.  She  was  on  my  mind  for  a  long  time  as  a  citadel 
to  be  taken.  When  I  saw  the  citadel  many  years  later,  I  didn't 
think  it  worth  taking.  But  she  was  the  essence  of  all  that  was 
beautiful  in  the  world  and  comes  back  in  my  dreams  even 
now.  If  this  interests  the  Freudians,  let  them  make  what  they 
can  of  it. 

Mother  doted  on  my  blond  curls,  and  made  me  wear 
them  much  longer  than  I  wanted  to,  as  she  did  my  kilts. 
I  must  have  been  five  and  a  half  before  I  got  rid  of  both — 
and  she  was  tearful,  of  course,  when  the  curls  were  sheared 
off.  She  had  them  saved  and  kept  them  for  years.  Now  that 
my  hair  was  cut  I  made  definite  declarations  of  my  mas- 
culinity. 

After  I  grew  up  my  mother  would  recall  the  time  she 
started  to  put  a  kind  of  Red  Riding  Hood  cape  on  me.  She 
was  wrapping  it  over  my  shoulders  as  she  had  done  before 
on  rainy  days.  I  protested,  saying,  "I  won't  wear  it  'cause 
I  wore  that  when  I  was  a  girl/' 

Sometimes  Pa  would  let  me  ride  with  him  to  the  store, 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES         37 

where  he  would  give  me  candy,  or  an  orange.  The  store 
looked  out  upon  the  Square,  in  the  center  of  which  was  the 
courthouse.  Public  celebrations  and  mass-meetings  were  held 
there,  and  parades  on  Fourth  of  July  and  Decoration  Day 
always  moved  through  the  Square.  There,  too,  the  fire  de- 
partment held  exhibition  drills,  including  speedy  ladder  scal- 
ing. A  lofty  flagpole  rose  near  a  bandstand. 

Traveling  men,  pausing  in  the  act  of  selling  a  bill  of 
merchandise,  would  make  much  of  me.  They  were  impressed 
by  the  pictures  I  was  constantly  drawing.  In  the  store  many 
objects  attracted  my  eyes,  especially  the  picture  labels  on 
packages  and  the  advertising  placards.  And  I  enjoyed  look- 
ing at  the  Chinese  posters  which  were  enclosed  in  chests  of  tea. 

From  infancy  I  had  been  fascinated  by  books,  magazines, 
and  newspapers  with  pictures  in  them.  Long  before  I  was 
able  to  write  I  had  begun  to  copy  those  pictures  with  a  pencil 
on  any  scraps  of  paper  I  could  find.  There  was  a  picture 
advertisement  of  a  livery  stable  in  the  Sentinel.  That  seemed 
to  me  more  interesting  and  amusing  than  anything  else  in  its 
columns.  It  was  nothing  but  a  wood-cut  of  a  horse  and 
buggy,  but  the  horse  was  going.  Because  of  continued  print- 
ing of  that  cut  for  years  the  whip  sticking  up  from  the  dash- 
board had  thickened  until  it  looked  like  a  heavy  club. 

We  had  fine  times — we  kids*  There  were  four  of  us. 
When  I  was  five,  Charles  was  eight,  Nettie  seven,  and  Will 
three,  Charles  kept  us  laughing  with  tales  of  fun  at  school, 
and  repeated  the  "pieces"  he  spoke  on  Friday  afternoons  or 
the  last  day  of  a  term.  We  had  an  Estey  organ,  which  Nettie 
learned  to  play  by  note  at  an  early  age. 

Fred  Darling,  the  boy  next  door,  knew  a  lot  of  valuable 
things.  He  was  eight  or  nine  when  I  was  five,  could  pick  up 
snakes  by  the  tail  without  fear,  and  had  stories  to  tell  as  good 
as  many  of  those  in  the  books  that  Charles  read  to  me.  One 
day  Fred  had  gone  with  his  father  out  to  Big  Prairie,  beyond 
the  poorhouse,  to  fish  for  suckers  and  bullheads  in  the  creek. 
Coming  back,  he  told  me  he  had  seen  a  camp  of  Indians,  and 
he  imitated  one  of  their  dances  and  their  war  whoops:  "Yea 
yu!  yea  yu!"  Another  time  he  said  he  saw  an  Indian  in  the 
Square  shoot  pennies  from  between  the  fingers  of  his  small 
son.  I  asked  Father  to  take  me  to  see  the  Indians  when  they 
came  to  town  again.  He  agreed  to,  but  the  redskins  did  not 


38         ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

reappear,  and  I  never  managed  to  see  them  emulate  William 
Tell  No  doubt  they  had  learned  at  last  that  they  hadn't 
really  belonged  in  southern  Wisconsin  after  the  Black  Hawk 
War,  and  were  on  their  way  farther  west. 

At  intervals  Mother  would  feel  a  need  to  get  away  from 
home  and  would  hitch  up  and  drive  to  Orangeville,  to  see 
her  sisters,  taking  along  one  of  us  children — choosing  the  one 
who  had  been  "the  best  this  week/'  Those  trips  were  joyful 
when  I  was  the  lucky  one,  for  Aunt  Mary  would  welcome 
us  with  cookies  and  jam  and  maybe  salt-rising  bread*  In  after 
years  James  Whitcomb  Riley's  "Out  to  Old  Aunt  Mary's" 
seemed  to  me  to  have  been  written  about  my  own  lovable 
relative. 

The  first  book  I  ever  owned  was  The  Three  Bears,  with 
colored  illustrations.  Other  books  which  were  mine  in  child- 
hood, and  which  contained  pictures,  were  Robinson  Crusoe, 
Aladdin  and  the  Magic  Lamp,  and  Aesop's  Fables. 

My  father  had  a  considerable  library,  or  what  was  called 
a  library  in  those  days.  That  is,  he  had  a  collection  of  books 
which  he  kept  in  a  locked  case  called  "the  secretary/'  with 
an  overflow  of  several  volumes  resting  on  a  table  in  the  sit- 
ting room.  I  remember  especially  The  Gilded  Age,  by  Mark 
Twain  and  Charles  Dudley  Warner;  Struggles  and  Tri- 
umphs, or  Forty  Years'  Recollections,  by  P.  T.  Barnum; 
Sunshine  and  Shadow  in  New  York;  Barriers  Burned  Away 
by  E.  P.  Roe;  Robert  G.  IngersolVs  Lectures;  The  Farmer's 
Almanac;  The  Lady  of  the  Lake,  by  Sir  Walter  Scott;  and 
Will  Carleton's  Farm  Ballads — most  of  them  illustrated  with 
wood-cuts. 

In  school  my  studies  were  often  interrupted  by  ideas  for 
pictures,  and  I  would  lose  myself  in  drawing.  Geography 
and  history  interested  me  more  than  other  school  books, 
because  the  text  was  relieved  by  engravings  on  wood  blocks. 
Even  at  an  early  age  I  delighted  in  the  wood-cut.  It  had 
direct  strength  and  simplicity.  I  liked  a  firm  line — no  hesi- 
tancy. Technical-teasing  or  whispering  in  art  has  never  ap- 
pealed to  me.  Whatever  the  artist  has  to  say  he  ought  to  say 
out  loud. 

I  had  no  thought  of  taking  drawing  lessons;  the  pictorial 
urge  had  come  naturally.  Often  I  copied  pictures  out  of 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES         39 

magazines  or  books,  to  see  if  I  could  improve  upon  them  or 
vary  their  features.  But  when  I  was  twelve  or  so  I  gave  up 
copying,  and  made  it  a  point,  to  do  original  work,  either 
from  observation  of  people  or  things  or  from  imagination* 
My  schoolmates  watched  over  my  shoulders  while  I  drew 
behind  the  screen  of  a  geography.  I  was  just  being  polite  to 
my  teachers  when  I  used  such  a  screen,  for  none  of  them  ap- 
peared to  mind  if  drawing  encroached  upon  the  studies  I 
was  supposed  to  be  pursuing.  One  day  I  drew  a  comic  picture 
on  the  long  white  hair-ribbon  of  Alice  Treat,  who  sat  in 
front  of  me.  I  thought  she  would  be  annoyed,  but  she  was 
complimented,  and  I  heard  that  she  hung  the  ribbon  over  the 
mantel-piece  at  home. 

To  the  people  of  Monroe  the  long  two-story  establish- 
ment on  the  north  side  of  the  Square  was  Dan  Young's  store, 
but  at  home  we  always  spoke  of  it  as  "our  store/'  It  was  a 
gathering  place  for  politicians  and  other  leading  citizens, 
and  for  farmers  who  came  in  from  the  country  for  miles 
around.  Here  they  swapped  horses,  told  off-color  stories,  dis- 
cussed the  Civil  War  and  the  hard  times  which  followed,  and 
talked  about  crops.  Their  tales  were  apt  to  become  tall  when 
boys  were  listening,  and  often  I  had  reason  to  be  skeptical 
of  the  war  reminiscences  of  some  of  the  veterans. 


SCENE  IN  FATHER'S  STORE  AROUND  1886. 
The  cronies  hear  the  funny  cracks. 

All  these  debaters  were  rugged  individualists,  who  be- 
lieved there  was  equal  opportunity  in  the  world  for  every- 
body who  was  willing  to  work  hard  and  keep  an  eye  open 
for  the  main  chance.  And  indeed  there  was  some  truth  in  th£ 
will-to-power  theory  in  the  Eighties.  Garfield,  widely  em- 


40        ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

blazoned  as  an  ex-canal-boat  boy,  got  into  the  White  House, 
and  the  Monroe  Hot  Stove  Club  echoed  the  stump-speakers 
and  editors  who  held  that  "any  boy  born  in  the  United 
States"  might  become  President.  I  was  frequently  reminded 
that  a  farm  boy  who  looked  much  like  my  father  also  had 
attained  to  the  nation's  highest  office.  .  .  .  The  exponents 
of  persevering  industry  and  unwavering  ambition  of  course 
never  mentioned  opportunities  for  women.  Their  place  was 
still  in  the  home,  and  the  few  who  stepped  put  of  it  for 
public  careers  met  with  raised  eyebrows  if  not  bitter  hostility. 
While  the  veterans  vocalized  the  part  they  had  played 
in  freeing  the  slaves,  and  the  other  talkers  figured  out  what 
was  wrong  with  the  country,  I  stood  behind  a  nearby  show- 
case and  put  their  portraits  on  paper,  with  contours  usually 
exaggerated.  The  subjects  of  such  caricature  were  apt  to  be 
startled  by  my  emphasis  on  whatever  was  personal,  but 
usually  they  were  flattered  by  the  attention  given  them  by  the 
town's  only  artist.  And  I  was  never  too  busy  with  customers 
to  draw  a  picture  of  any  one.  I  was  quite  willing  to  postpone 
delivering  groceries,  or  sweeping  out  the  store,  or  cleaning 
the  lamp  chimneys.  This  was  at  times  exasperating  to  my 
father,  but  it  hastened  my  artistic  education. 

New  chances  for  adventure  loomed  when  Father  bought 
the  farm  a  mile  north  of  town.  This  was  about  the  time 
when  I  was  finishing  first  grade  in  school.  Father  figured  that 
he  could  raise  fruit  and  vegetables  in  quantity  and  sell  them 
in  the  store,  besides  having  plenty  for  ourselves.  The  farm 
comprised  only  20  acres,  but  it  seemed  boundless,  especially 
when  I  grew  old  enough  to  attempt  plowing  and  was  assigned 
to  pick  potato-bugs  off  the  vines. 

Our  house  was  white,  with  green  blinds,  and  part  of  it 
was  two-storied.  There  was  an  attic  with  a  window  where 
on  rainy  days  I  would  explore  amid  a  hodge-podge  of  old 
furniture  for  cast-away  clocks  and  forgotten  toys.  Out  in 
front  was  a  broad,  clean  lawn  on  which  one  could  roll  a 
long  way.  A  line  of  evergreen  shrubs  along  the  roadside 
added  a  note  of  decorative  charm. 

In  the  barn  we  soon  had  a  cow  in  addition  to  our  horse; 
later  chickens,  ducks,  and  turkeys  were  added.  We  raised  a 
good  deal  of  sweet  corn,  which  was  sliced  from  the  cob  by 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES         41 

knives  and  then  dehydrated  (though  that  word  was  not  used 
then)  in  a  drying  house  heated  by  a  furnace*  Father  had 
invented  this  process,  and  the  dried  corn,  which  would  of 
course  keep  indefinitely,  was  sold  in  the  store. 

Wagons  loaded  with  grain  and  produce  moved  past; 
creaking  wheels  indicated  when  a  farmer  was  too  poor  to 
buy  axle-grease  or  was  negligent.  "Bummers"  in  faded  army 
uniforms  would  stop  in  to  ask  for  a  drink  at  our  well,  and 
maybe  get  a  meal  also.  The  hired  girl  was  likely  to  be  im- 
patient, classing  them  when  they  were  out  of  earshot  as  'lazy 
good-for-nothings/'  but  my  mother  was  sympathetic  and 
kind  to  these  uninvited  visitors.  Once  one  of  them  mapped 
the  Wilderness  battlefield  for  me,  with  a  stick  on  the  ground, 
and  explained  the  general  strategy  of  Grant's  and  Lee's  forces. 
He  was  wounded  and  left  for  dead  on  the  field,  he  said — and 
after  he  got  out  of  the  hospital  he  never  could  find  his 
regiment  again. 

I  was  industrious  then,  and  tried  to  help  the  hired  girl 
with  churning — but  I  wasn't  fast  enough  to  suit  her.  She 
said  I  was  "as  slow  as  molasses  in  January."  This  term  to 
describe  slowness  was  a  mid-western  idiom — and  another  to 
describe  speed  was  doing  a  task  "in  two  jerks  of  a  lamb's 
tail" 

My  mother  got  the  notion  when  I  was  about  10  that  I 
ought  to  take  piano  lessons.  She  talked  with  Carrie  Bloom, 
the  town's  leading  pianist,  who  consented  to  see  what  she 
could  do  with  me.  She  taught  me  to  play  two  short  exercises, 
but  somehow  I  couldn't  play  and  look  at  notes  at  the  same 
time.  The  notes  were  in  the  way.  Subsequently  Mother 
thought  Fd  better  try  again,  this  time  with  an  out-of-town 
teacher,  Clara  Porter  from  Janesville. 

By  dutiful  application  I  improved  considerably,  and  in 
due  time  was  billed  with  Miss  Porter's  other  pupils  for  a 
public  concert.  In  a  crowded  hall  before  the  elite  of  Janes- 
ville, I  walked  to  the  piano,  sat  down,  and  began  to  play 
The  Maiden's  Prayer  with  an  affected  boldness.  Before  me 
was  the  music,  and  my  teacher  stood  alongside  ready  to  turn 
the  leaves.  The  first  few  notes  went  over  with  a  resounding 
confidence.  Then  suddenly  a  tremulous  stage  fright  seized 
me.  I  could  go  no  further.  I  left  the  stage — a  failure — and 
Miss  Porter's  reputation  for  bringing  out  the  musical  talent 


42         ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

of  fond  mothers1  boys  and  girls  got  a  setback  that  night. 
I  never  recovered  from  this  defeat  I  couldn't  talk  about  it 
for  years. 

My  recitations  and  impersonations  were  better  than  my 
piano-playing,  and  various  townspeople  who  heard  them 
said  I  ought  to  study  for  the  stage.  But  the  actor  of  the 
family  was  my  brother  Charles.  I  had  a  deep  admiration  for 
him  when  he  acted  in  school  plays  and  other  local-talent 
productions.  I  thought  he  was  of  star  caliber,  and  still  think 
so.  His  voice  had  a  noble  resonance  when  he  declaimed  Mark 
Antony's  oration  over  the  body  of  Caesar:  "Look  you 
here  .  .  .  This  was  the  most  unkindest  cut  of  all  ...  Put 
a  tongue  in  every  wound  of  Caesar,  that  should  move  the 
stones  of  Rome  to  rise  and  mutiny."  I  hear  again  the  rhyth- 
mic echo  of  his  tones  in  lines  like  "Men  shut  their  doors 
against  a  setting  sun"  and  when  he  cried:  "Art  thou  that 
Thracian  robber?" 

Looking  at  him  on  or  off  the  stage,  I  felt  that  if  Booth 
or  Barrett  only  knew  him  they  would  say:  "Charles  Young 
has  no  equal  on  the  American  stage."  He  never  got  any 
further,  however,  than  Turner  Hall  in  Monroe  and  a  few 
theatres  in  nearby  towns.  Perhaps  he  didn't  take  his  own 
histrionic  talent  seriously  enough.  But  I  shall  always  think 
of  my  brother  Charles  as  a  potential  interpreter  of  drama 
who  should  have  become  widely  known.  To  the  mute  in- 
glorious Miltons,  one  can  add  the  inglorious  Booths  and 
Macreadys  and  the  unsung  of  all  the  arts. 

One  of  the  great  days  of  my  boyhood  was  that  on  which 
my  father  presented  me  with  an  Indian  pony  called  Nig. 
Father  paid  $25  for  him.  Such  ponies  were  brought  to  our 
part  of  the  country  in  droves.  Nig  was  coal-black*  Two  or 
three  times  a  week  I  rode  him,  sometimes  far  into  the  coun- 
try, and  would  mount  him  at  a  moment's  notice,  to  go  on 
some  hurried  errand — provided  only  that  I  was  not  busy 
drawing. 

I  can  remember  how  resentful  and  stubborn  I  was  at 
times  when  Mother  would  ask  me  to  go  to  town  for  a  beef- 
steak— if  I  was  absorbed  in  a  picture.  I  thought  she  should 
know  that  my  artistic  development  was  more  important 
than  a  steak.  She  would  use  diplomacy  then,  perhaps  re- 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES         43 

minding  me  that  Nig  looked  lonesome  and  needed  exercise. 
That  was  her  best  appeal. 

My  passion  for  riding  Nig  had  become  theatrical.  No 
doubt  about  it,  I  was  an  exhibitionist.  Whether  anybody 
saw  me  or  not  as  I  rode,  I  was  "the  man  on  horseback"  of 
the  future.  Especially  on  Sundays,  on  long  stretches  of  level 
road,  I  would  let  Nig  out,  and  he  would  run  a  close  race 
with  the  liveliest  wind.  I  liked  to  feel  his  prancing  under  me, 
see  the  proud  curve  of  his  neck,  and  hear  his  fretful  hoof- 
beats  when  he  was  all  lathered  up  and  apparently  enjoying 
it  as  much  as  I.  No  one  ever  saw  us  in  the  Square  except 
when  my  mount  was  dancing. 

Once  he  threw  me — I  had  become  too  dictatorial  and  he 
resented  it.  I  was  sprawled  upon  the  ground  a  half  mile  from 
town  on  a  back  street,  and  Nig  ran  wildly  through  the 
Square.  People  knew  from  this  that  something  had  happened 
to  Dan  Young's  boy — and  doubtless  felt  that  it  served  him 
right  for  getting  his  pony  all  het  up. 

Father  scolded  me  for  letting  myself  get  thrown.  "The 
idea!  Can't  you  hang  onto  a  horse?  You  ought  to  be 
ashamed." 

I  was  humiliated  and  was  never  thrown  again.  Nig  had 
taught  me  a  lesson.  I  never  gave  him  cause  to  repeat  his  anger, 
for  it  had  suddenly  dawned  upon  me  that  he  had  rights 
which  deserved  respect.  And  after  he  had  cooled  down  that 
day,  Nig  was  my  friend  always.  I  curried  him  daily  and  fed 
him  his  oats  for  several  years.  I  missed  him  when  I  went 
away.  In  my  letters  from  Chicago  and  New  York  I  wanted 
to  know:  "How's  Nig?"  He  lived  to  be  twenty-six  years  old. 
We  owned  him  more  than  twenty-three  years. 

Another  companion  of  mine  then  was  a  coach  dog  named 
Van,  a  black-and-white  polka-dot  Dalmatian  who  was  too 
good  for  his  own  good.  When  I  think  of  the  way  I  batted 
Van  around — pulling  his  ears ;  using  him  for  a  pillow  when 
I  was  inclined  to  rest,  especially  on  winter  nights  behind  the 
stove;  making  him  jump  high  for  food;  fooling  him  in  num- 
berless ways,  I  marvel  that  he  never  turned  on  me  in  mad 
revolt, 

I  tried  to  interpret  what  he  would  say  if  he  could  talk. 
He  had  a  wise  look  when  in  repose,  as  if  thinking  things 
over.  And  with  what  patience  he  followed  under  the  wheels 


44        ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

of  the  family  buggy,  close  to  Nig's  heels.  No  matter  how 
far  we  drove,  how  hot  the  day,  nor  how  much  dust  he 
breathed  in,  he  would  keep  on  to  the  end  of  the  journey. 

Although  we  had  cats,  cows,  pigs,  chickens,  geese,  ducks, 
etcetera,  they  were  not  enough  to  satisfy  Will  and  myself, 
so  we  caught  woodchucks,  owls,  and  gophers,  keeping  them 
for  a  few  days  to  study  their  habits,  and  then  turning  them 
loose  again,  I  was  good  at  mimicking  animal  voices,  and  one 
day  I  was  trying  to  outdo  a  rooster  that  was  crowing.  My 
mother  saw  rne  in  the  act  and  said  to  Nancy  Grant,  our 
washerwoman,  "Hear  the  rooster,  Nancy ?"  and  Nancy  an- 
swered, "Yes,  a  two-legged  rooster/' 

Often  I  wonder  if  being  raised  in  daily  contact  with 
animals  is  not  vitally  important  in  the  development  of  a 
child — whatever  his  future  calling  may  be,  One  curse  of  city 
upbringing,  I  would  say,  is  not  to  know  the  constant  kinship 
of  soil,  vegetation,  birds,  and  the  so-called  dumb  creatures. 

Monroe  had  its  share  of  eccentric  characters,  mention  of 
whom  would  invariably  bring  a  smile  to  the  faces  of  their 
townsmen* 

Bob  Crow  was  one  of  these.  We  boys  would  cross  his 
farm  when  we  went  to  Banty's  Mill  to  swim  in  the  pond 
there,  which  had  been  created  by  damning  up  a  creek*  He 
always  contended  that  a  man  was  not  dressed  up  unless  he 
wore  a  silk  hat.  And  whenever  he  came  to  town  he  was 
adorned  with  a  stove-pipe  head-piece  such  as  Abe  Lincoln 
used  to  wear. 

Casper  Disch  lived  out  at  the  poor  farm.  He  had  a  sunny 
nature,  laughing  a  great  deal, 

"Let's  see  you  stand  on  your  ear,  Casper/'  we  would 
say  when  we  met  him  as  we  cut  across  the  poorhouse  grounds 
to  gather  walnuts  or  hunt  for  birds'  eggs. 

And  he  would  immediately  oblige.  That  is,  he  would 
try  energetically  to  stand  on  his  ear,  though  he  never  quite 
succeeded.  He  seemed  to  think  we  were  complimenting  him 
by  making  the  request.  We  would  say,  "All  you  need  is  a  little 
more  practice,  Casper/'  and  he  would  believe  us, 

Billy  Rean,  the  village  grouch,  was  an  early  subject  of 
my  caricaturing.  He  could  just  sit  silently  in  the  Square 
and  exude  grouchiness  like  a  drum-stove  throwing  off  heat. 


OLD-FASHIONED  GRANDPA 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES         45 

In  boyhood  I  cherished  a  fond  ambition  to  attain  the 
majestic  dignity  of  George  Banks,  the  druggist,  who  had  a 
"bay  window"  in  front  and  who  walked  down  Main  Street 
with  his  shoulders  far  back  and  with  the  air  of  a  man  who 
owned  the  whole  town.  Often  I  would  walk  behind  him  and 
imitate  his  manner,  to  the  great  amusement  of  my  mother 
and  of  others  who  happened  to  see  my  performance. 

Father  wanted  at  least  one  of  us  three  boys  to  grow  up 
and  look  after  the  farm.  But  none  of  us  leaned  toward  tilling 
the  soil.  I  tried  being  an  agriculturist,  but  it  soon  palled  upon 
me.  The  days  were  too  long  and  the  tasks  endless — currying 
and  harnessing  the  horses;  watering,  feeding,  and  milking  the 
cows;  feeding  hogs;  weeding  potatoes;  making  boxes  to  be 
filled  by  the  hundred  berry  pickers  we  employed  in  season; 
plowing;  husking  corn,  cutting  wood;  picking  potato-bugs 
from  the  vines  and  burning  them  in  kerosene. 

There  was  no  money  to  be  made  by  a  farmer's  son  in 
farm-work.  Father  had  no  thought  of  offering  me  any  in- 
centive; he  would  pay  our  hired  man,  but  he  regarded  it 
as  a  son's  duty  to  help  his  parents  all  he  could  without  wages. 
Of  course  I  got  my  board,  lodging,  clothes,  but  I  was  inter- 
ested also  in  having  some  money  to  spend.  I  never  could 
keep  my  mind  on  the  job  before  me.  When  I  went  plowing 
I  would  put  a  copy  of  Pack  in  one  pocket  and  Harper's 
Weekly  in  another,  and  would  sit  down  at  the  far  end  of 
the  furrows  and  enjoy  myself. 

Charles,  my  eldest  brother,  was  ambitious  to  be  a  soldier. 
He  also  was  fond  of  reciting  poetry.  When  the  Spanish- 
American  War  broke  out  he  was  in  the  state  militia,  and  was 
quickly  promoted  to  Lieutenant-Colonel.  He  never  caught  up 
with  the  war,  but  like  William  Jennings  Bryan  he  got  side- 
tracked in  Jacksonville,  Florida,  where  he  enlivened  informal 
camp  gatherings  with  dramatic  recitations.  Returning  home, 
he  resumed  his  partnership  with  Father  in  the  store  and 
continued  it  until  after  1918. 

Will,  who  was  three  years  younger  than  I,  wanted  to  go 
to  college,  and  got  his  wish.  He  attended  the  University  of 
Wisconsin,  was  co-founder  of  the  Daily  Cardinal  there,  and 
subsequently  was  a  special  feature  writer  on  the  New  York 
World,  managing  editor  of  Hamptons  Magazine,  author  of 


46         ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

a  history  of  the  cigarette,  editor  of  the  British  government's 
official  war  films,  and  producing  director  of  the  first  " Alice 
in  Wonderland"  film  and  of  "The  Mystery  of  Life/'  a  sound 
movie  dealing  with  evolution,  in  which  Clarence  Darrow  was 
narrator. 

Circuses  made  every  boy's  heart  beat  faster,  and  perhaps 
they  had  the  same  effect  on  the  girls,  though  I  never  thought 
to  inquire  about  that.  Every  boy  who  was  footloose  was  up 
at  the  Fair  Grounds  watching  the  canvas-hands  put  up  the 
"big  top"  and  unload  the  animal  wagons,  but  few  girls  had 
the  temerity  to  hang  around;  if  they  did  they'd  be  called 
tomboys.  Forepaugh's  circus  had  its  winter  quarters  in  Janes- 
ville,  35  miles  east  Heralded  by  flamboyant  posters,  it  came 
to  Monroe  when  I  was  ten  or  eleven.  The  town's  whole 
population  was  standing  on  the  sidewalks  around  the  Square 
when  the  parade  came  down  the  hill.  Farmers  held  tightly  to 
their  horses  lest  they  bolt  and  run  away  when  the  smell  of 
the  camels  and  elephants  reached  them.  A  man  with  a  silk 
hat  in  a  carriage  made  a  speech  repeatedly  inviting  every- 
body to  a  free  show  at  the  Fair  Grounds,  to  be  given  by  "the 
Tightrope  King/' 

Generally  I  got  money  from  Father  and  went  with  my 
tall  chum,  Harry  Everett.  School  had  been  let  out  for  the 
afternoon.  I  liked  the  waxworks  in  the  sideshow,  and  the 
animals,  and  fell  in  love  with  the  winsome  girl  who  danced 
on  the  cushioned  back  of  a  galloping  white  horse.  Harry 
went  into  the  circus  in  the  midst  of  a  half  dozen  other  boys, 
bending  his  knees  so  he  could  get  in  for  a  quarter.  If  he  had 
stood  straight  up  they  would  have  charged  him  full  admis- 
sion price. 

Next  day  I  did  an  artistic  production  at  school  which 
was  a  nine  days'  sensation,  All  along  the  blackboards  in  my 
room  I  drew  a  circus  parade  with  chalk — band-wagon,  ele- 
phants, camels,  horses,  wild  animals  in  cages,  clowns,  calliope, 
and  the  rest.  Emma  Van  Wagenen,  my  teacher,  brought 
in  Mr.  Donaldson,  the  principal,  to  see  this  pageant,  and 
numerous  boys  and  girls  brought  their  parents  to  marvel  at 
it  Miss  Van  Wagenen  was  apologetic  when  it  finally  became 
necessary  to  have  the  parade  erased,  and  in  fact  it  was  re- 
moved only  one  section  at  a  time.  But  I  didn't  mind  seeing 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES         47 

those  chalk  pictures  destroyed.  I  could  draw  others  just  as 
good  any  time.  My  ego  was  flowering. 

And  in  another  school  vacation  I  did  better  than  that, 
with  my  brother  Will's  energetic  aid.  With  several  other  boys 
we  were  putting  on  a  show  at  the  home  of  Eddie  Mack. 
Having  constructed  a  tent  out  of  old  carpets  and  other  stray 
pieces  of  cloth,  Eddie's  father  allowed  us  to  pitch  it  on  the 
spacious  Mack  lawn. 

This  was  to  be  no  ordinary  kid-show,  but  one  on  a 
grand  scale,  like  Barnum's.  So  we  must  have  a  street  parade. 
Will  borrowed  all  the  available  boys'  wagons  and  topped 
them  with  cages  made  of  wooden  grocery  boxes.  In  these  we 
put  various  animals  and  birds  that  we  had  caught — wood- 
chucks,  rabbits,  hawks,  gophers,  and  snakes. 

I  decorated  the  cages  with  tropical  scenes — one  being  a 
tiger  hunt — with  bright  red,  green,  purple,  and  yellow  pre- 
dominating. This  presentation  was  designed  to  impress  the 
beholder  with  the  idea  that  our  menagerie  was  the  most 
wonderful  collection  of  wild  beasts  in  captivity. 

My  masterpiece  of  our  glittering  enterprise  was  the  cage 
containing  a  water-snake,  which  I  adorned  with  a  depiction 
of  an  Indian  shooting  a  boa-constrictor  with  bow  and  arrow. 
To  the  wagon  which  bore  that  exhibit  we  hitched  Fred 
Schuler's  dog. 

With  an  improvised  brass  band,  drum  major,  clowns, 
and  my  pony  Nig,  we  paraded  through  the  principal  streets 
and  around  the  Square,  amid  the  plaudits  of  Monroe's  busi- 
ness men,  who  remembered  that  they  were  once  boys  them- 
selves. 

At  the  show  grounds  we  took  in  about  50  cents,  the  ad- 
mission price  being  one  cent.  It  was  a  great  day. 

This  experience  might  well  stand  as  an  epitome  of  many 
an  artist's  life — fun  in  the  doing  of  his  job  but  with  small 
returns  on  the  investment  of  talent,  time,  and  energy. 

One  summer  the  Wisconsin  countryside  was  swept  by  a 
revival  of  religion.  Widely  advertised  evangelists  held  forth 
at  meetings  in  a  tented  grove  outside  the  town.  Here  they 
would  exhort  their  congregations  day  and  night,  making 
scarlet  sinners  "white  as  snow."  Scores  of  people  I  knew, 
including  two  of  my  cousins,  "got  the  power/'  These  cousins 


48         ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

seemed  so  happy  that  I  went  with  them  to  the  camp  meeting, 
and  tried  to  get  it.  But  in  spite  of  the  hard  work  of  the 
eloquent  soul-saver  on  the  platform,  the  "power"  evidently 
was  not  for  me. 

The  best  part  of  the  revivals,  I  thought,  was  the  songs, 
such  as  Bringing  in  the  Sheaves  and  Shalt  We  Gather  at  the 
River?  and  the  sad,  sweet  longing  for  some  place  to  go  to 
that  sounded  better  than  Monroe,  in  that  rousing  old  hymn, 
Sweet  Beulah  Land.  It  was  easy  for  me  to  play  those  tunes 
on  our  family  organ,  by  ear. 

In  Turner  Hall  we  saw  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,  East  Lynne, 
Hy  Henry's  Minstrels,  Diabolo  the  Fire  Demon — and  once 
we  had  Janauscheck,  a  noted  Polish  actress.  Topping  all 
these,  to  my  mind,  was  a  comedian  named  Jake  Simons, 
whom  I  picked  for  success  but  who  never  arrived.  The  charm 
of  his  funniness  lay  in  its  simplicity.  He  could  make  his  audi- 
ence laugh  by  just  standing  still  and  saying  nothing,  doing 
nothing  except  letting  his  feelings  play  across  his  face  as  he 
listened  to  the  talk  of  other  performers  on  the  stage.  He  knew 
the  value  of  slow  motion, 

What  an  enviable  life  actors  and  actresses  led,  traveling 
all  over  the  country,  seeing  the  sights,  meeting  important 
people,  having  their  names  on  show-bills,  and  being  ap- 
plauded nightly!  I  had  grown  restless  early  in  my  teens,  and 
the  theatrical  companies  which  came  to  town  fed  my  urge 
to  get  away  to  the  bigger  world  outside. 


Chapter  5 
A  SMALL-TOWN  LAD  CHOOSES  A  CAREER 

ONE  of  my  sorrows  in  adolescent  days  was  a  nose  with 
the  habits  of  a  chameleon**  If  I  had  been  born  with 
a  club-foot  or  a  stammering  tongue  it  could  not  have 
caused  me  more  worry  than  that  unruly  beak.  From  child- 
hood it  would  take  on  the  color  of  blue,  pink,  plain  red,  or 
carnation,  depending  upon  sluggish  circulation  or  the  weather, 
or  both.  Too  much  sun  or  too  much  cold  would  make  it 
conspicuous  over  my  other  features. 

A  spanked  and  cry-baby  complexion  was  my  booby-gift 
from  the  gods,  while  all  other  Youngs  near  or  distantly  re- 
lated were  endowed  with  normal  coloring  and  were  pleasing 
to  look  at  under  all  adversities  of  digestion,  liver  complaint, 
or  extremes  of  climate.  My  cheeks  were  often  pink  and  my 
mouth  usually  a  juicy  red,  but  the  flush  of  full  rosy  dawn 
seemed  to  prefer  hitting  me  right  on  the  snoot. 

Yet  despite  that  nose  I  was  always  popular,  especially 
with  the  girls.  They  still  tell  in  Monroe  how  this  odd  boy 
was  the  cause  of  a  battle  royal  between  two  of  the  village 
belles,  Lena  Myers  and  Nettie  Booth.  On  the  south  side  of 
the  Square,  with  people  looking  on  and  enjoying  the  show, 
they  fought  and  scratched  and  tore  each  other's  clothes,  all 
for  the  honor  of  being  the  sweetheart  of  yours  truly. 

This  affair  was  the  talk  of  the  town.  All  other  honors 
I  have  received  since  pale  into  insignificance  beside  it*  I  can- 
not remember  now  which  girl  was  considered  victorious,  and 
perhaps  the  outcome  was  not  clear.  Enough  for  me  to  know 
that  I  was  the  cause  of  such  a  sensation,  a  gossip  subject  for 
weeks.  Doubtless  it  was  my  ability  to  draw  pictures  which 

*  After  reaching  the  age  of  60  I  began  to  be  described  by  various  metro- 
politan writers  as  one  who  "looks  like  an  angel  much  the  worse  for  wear  and 
tear",  as  "a  Santa  Claus  without  whiskers",  and  again  as  ''one  who  might 
pass  for  the  kind  of  capitalist  he  likes  to  ridicule/'  Peggy  Bacon  states  in  her 
book,  Off  With  Their  Heads,  that  I  have  "a  light  comedy  nose."  But  to  have 
that  invaluable  part  of  my  anatomy  dismissed  with  such  a  casual  observation  by 
that  merciless  analyst  of  looks,  was  not  Peggy  at  her  best. 

49 


50        ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

led  them  to  forget  my  comic  nose  and  to  contend  for  my 
favor.  Is  it  because  women  are  themselves  creative  (or  better 
say  procreative)  that  they  are  inclined  to  admire  those  who 
can  create  in  the  arts?  I  think  there  is  something  to  that. 

After  I  got  out  in  the  world,  so  conscious  did  I  become 
of  the  blushing  shine  of  my  nose  on  occasions,  that  I  took  to 
carrying  in  my  vest-pocket  a  piece  of  chamois  laden  with 
talcum  powder.  With  this  I  would  surreptitiously  tone  down 
the  offending  organ  if  I  had  to  attend  a  public  affair.  Close 
friends  told  me  that  I  exaggerated  the  importance  of  per- 
sonal appearance,  and  harbored  unduly  high  ideals  of  physi- 
cal perfection.  And  perhaps  I  was  inclined  to  look  too  closely 
for  my  own  defects  and  eccentricities  as  I  looked  for  them  in 
others  as  a  caricaturist. 

Disgust  with  my  facial  map  was  lessened  somewhat, 
however,  when  I  began  to  read  history  and  learned  about 
the  bodily  shortcomings  of  the  great — that  Lincoln's  ears 
were  abnormally  large,  that  Alexander  Pope  was  a  hunch- 
back, Sir  Walter  Scott  had  a  lame  leg,  Michelangelo  a  broken 
nose,  and  so  on.  And  talking  with  people,  I  could  see  that 
often  those  really  worth  while  were  excessively  freckled,  had 
too  much  mouth,  or  were  lacking  in  some  other  way. 

With  all  my  self-consciousness  about  looks  (and  it  may 
be  a  feminine  streak  that  is  said  to  be  in  every  artist) ,  I  have 
long  had  a  dislike  for  individuals  who  judge  others  by  surface 
aspects,  whether  it  be  a  matter  of  clothes  regarded  as  incor- 
rect for  the  occasion,  a  spot  on  a  shirt-front,  or  need  of  a 
shave.  Keeping  up  appearances  all  too  often  is  the  concern 
of  persons  who  have  nothing  else  worth  keeping  up. 

My  contacts  with  girls  when  I  was  a  growing  boy  were 
of  course  necessarily  superficial.  However  much  I  felt  the 
need  of  some  sex  association,  I  was  hemmed  in  on  all  sides 
by  the  religious,  puritanical  taboo  that  young  people  must 
not  mate  in  advance  of  marriage.  That  taboo  was  always 
sounding,  like  a  bell-buoy  in  the  seas,  always  warning  me 
lugubriously  against  the  traditional  ''evil/*  It  kept  me  living 
in  a  world  of  self-deceptive  morality*  On  every  hand  I  was 
told  of  the  evil  of  sex  indulgence,  and  'lost  manhood"  ad- 
vertisements by  quack  doctors  helped  build  up  fear  within 
me  of  sexual  diseases. 

When  I  was  about  fourteen  I  heard  a  sermon  by  the  Rev. 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES         51 

Mr*  Bushnell  in  the  Methodist  Church  on  "Carnal  Sin/' 
Carnal  was  a  new  word  to  me,  but  there  was  no  mistaking 
what  he  meant.  He  condemned  the  sexual  act  without  qualifi- 
cation. Quoting  the  Bible,  he  skipped  the  pages  where  the 
tribes  of  Israel  seemed  to  do  nothing  but  "begat"  day  and 
night.  All  this  I  read  in  later  years.  My  youthful  mind  began 
struggling  with  the  problem  of  how  Mr.  Bushnell  could 
be  the  father  of  seven  children  without  having  gravely  sinned. 
Why  didn't  he  say  that  over-indulgence  in  sex  or  excess 
gratification  of  any  physical  or  emotional  appetite  was  evil? 
But  no;  it  was  wrong  any  way  you  looked  at  it.  And  his 
sermon  had  the  effect  of  making  me  think  of  him  ever  after- 
ward as  a  pulpit-pounding  fraud,  full  of  sin  himself  but 
demanding  that  others  remain  pure. 

Despite  all  the  apparent  hypocrisy  of  certain  leaders  of 
moral  conduct  in  our  town,  I  was  infected  during  those 
formative  years  with  the  thought  that  sexual  union  was 
really  a  sin.  The  grown  folks  said  so — so  it  must  be  so.  And 
this  dictatorship  of  bourgeois  morality  in  the  life  of  a  small 
community  made  of  one  young  man  something  of  an  ascetic 
— who  loved  vicariously  all  the  girls  he  looked  at  and  who 
looked  at  him,  that  being  as  far  as  he  dared  go. 

I  hark  back  to  my  first  feeling  for  poetry.  In  a  school- 
book  was  a  line:  "The  wind  came  howling  over  the  moun- 
tain." What  the  story  was  I  don't  recall.  Lines  in  another 
book  which  conjured  up  a  poetic  sense  within  me  were: 

Over  the  river  they  beckon  to  me — 

Loved  ones  who've  crossed  to  the  farther  side; 

The  gleam  of  their  snowy  robes  I  see, 

But  their  voices  are  drowned  in  the  rushing  tide. 

That  was  a  long  poem,  and  sad,  but  it  sounded  pretty 
good  to  my  crude  young  mind. 

Then  I  got  hold  of  a  volume  of  Longfellow.  "The 
Bridge  at  Midnight"  and  "The  Old  Clock  on  the  Stairs" 
were  quite  up  to  my  country-boy  standard  of  real  poetry. 
But  I  never  read  novels  nor  serial  stories.  I  saw  my  brother 
Will  reading  Golden  Days  and  the  Youth's  Companion,  and 
I  felt  that  my  lack  of  interest  in  them  marked  me  as  mentally 


52        ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

deficient  Novel  reading  called  for  wading  through  too  much 
type,  I  had  no  patience  for  that  The  very  word  "fiction" 
I  abhorred.  I  wanted  truth.  Short  stories,  poems,  paragraphs, 
brief  essays,  picture  books — anything  boiled  down  was  more 
to  my  liking. 

Dante's  Inferno  was  the  first  book  to  give  me  a  real 
thrilL  I  thought  Dore's  drawings  in  it  remarkable,  and  I 
became  exceedingly  curious  about  his  work.  No  one  in  town 
owned  a  Dore  Bible,  the  highest  priced  table  book  of  the 
period,  but  I  soon  began  to  see  Dore's  pictures  in  magazines. 
Who  was  he?  Then  a  man  came  to  town  opportunely  and 
lectured  about  Dore  in  Wells's  Opera  House,  Admission  15 
cents.  It  seems  strange  that  the  visiting  lecturer  on  that  sub- 
ject could  have  hoped  to  draw  much  of  an  audience  in  a 
town  of  2,000  in  1881.  But  there  was  a  goodly  turnout — > 
and  I  suppose  the  explanation  is  that  anyone  coming  to  a 
town  of  that  size  to  lecture  about  anything  was  an  event* 

That  was  a  great  night  for  me,  I  was  the  town's  fifteen- 
year-old  prodigy  in  art  and  I  remember  the  people  turning 
to  look  in  my  direction  as  the  speaker  proceeded.  Edith  Eaton 
leaned  over  and  said:  "This  ought  to  interest  you,  Artie. " 
I  sat  there  fascinated,  especially  by  the  lantern  slides  of  the 
imaginative  Dore's  paintings  and  illustrations.  Fires  of  am- 
bition flamed  within  me.  I  must  escape  from  the  humdrum 
life  of  Monroe,  and  get  away  to  Chicago,  There,  I  felt,  lay 
my  big  chance,  Chicago  newspapers  were  just  beginning  to 
use  pen  drawings.  If  I  could  only  get  to  the  Windy  City 
and  show  samples  of  my  work  to  an  editor,  I  was  sure  I 
could  get  a  job.  I  thought  of  mailing  some  specimens,  but 
reconsidered.  The  proper  way,  I  decided,  was  to  go  forth 
with  a  flower  in  my  buttonhole,  a  portfolio  of  pictures  under 
my  arm,  and  compete  on  the  ground, 

I  didn't  graduate.  Professor  Twining,  the  high  school 
principal,  who  was  my  last  teacher,  apparently  wasn't  con* 
cerned  about  that.  He  knew  that  I  spent  most  of  my  time 
drawing,  and  was  tolerant  when  I  flunked  in  my  classes, 
Evidently  he  deemed  it  more  important  for  me  to  follow 
my  artistic  bent  than  to  gain  marks  in  the  cut-and-dried 
curriculum  of  those  days.  Spelling  was  the  one  study  at  which 
I  was  good.  I  had  another  year  to  go  when  I  quit  school — 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES         53 

but  I  felt  that  I  was  getting  dumber  and  dumber  each  term, 
and  that  it  would  be  a  waste  of  time  to  continue, 

No  matter  what  other  possible  careers  I  contemplated  in 
day-dreams,  I  always  came  back  to  making  pictures.  I  prac- 
ticed on  all  the  town's  personalities  which  were  in  any  way 
distinctive  or  eccentric,  caricaturing  every  one  of  consequence 
around  the  Square.  My  subjects  included  Strawn  Shrake, 
leader  of  the  Monroe  brass  band;  John  Bolender,  grocer  and 
mayor;  Arabut  Ludlow  and  Joe  Treat,  bankers;  Dr.  Hall 
and  Dr.  Loofborough;  Charles  Booth,  editor  of  the  Weekly 
Sentinel;  A.  C.  Dodge,  Pete  Wells,  and  Bill  Rean,  local 
business  men;  fat  Louis  Schutze,  proprietor  of  the  Green 
County  House,  and  Alderman  Fred  WettengeL  Most  of  them 
took  it  in  good  part,  no  matter  how  loosely  I  played  with 
their  features. 

But  my  chef  d'cettvre  of  that  time  was  a  pen  sketch,  in 
color,  portraying  our  leading  lawyers — Colin  Wright,  A.  S. 
Douglas,  H.  J.  Dunwiddie,  and  P.  J.  Clawson — in  character- 
istic attitudes  before  the  Green  county  bar.  This  was  exhibited 
in  the  window  of  Father's  store,  where  for  weeks  it  con- 
stantly drew  onlookers, 

I  had  been  doing  a  lot  of  such  pictures  at  home,  show- 
ing them  to  a  few  people,  and  then  putting  them  aside.  I 
was  drawing  more  and  more,  day  and  night — especially 
night,  by  the  light  of  a  kerosene  lamp.  One  day,  however, 
I  handed  Bill  Hoesly,  our  postmaster,  a  sketch  of  himself, 
in  no  sense  complimentary.  But  Bill  said: 

"I  don't  think  I'm  that  good  lookin',  Art.  But  I  hear 
you  got  quite  a  gallery  of  pictures  of  better  lookin*  fellers 
than  me  at  home.  How  about  letting  the  public  see  them? 
There's  a  nice  blank  wall  goin*  to  waste.  I  guess  Uncle  Sam 
wouldn't  object  if  you  tacked  up  some  of  your  masterpieces." 

That  was  real  encouragement.  I  hurried  home  and  was 
back  in  an  hour  with  several  drawings  that  I  felt  proud  of. 
The  only  one  I  can  remember  now  was  that  of  a  sergeant 
drilling  a  squad  of  soldiers,  and  each  soldier  a  comic  of  some 
young  man  I  knew  about  town,  Bill  helped  me  tack  them  up, 
chuckling.  Everybody  in  town  saw  those  pictures,  and  every- 
body I  met  commented  on  them.  I  enjoyed  that  taste  of 
recognition. 

An  offer  of  a  substantial  cash  prize  by  the  Waterbury 


54        ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

Watch  Company  to  amateur  artists  for  the  best  pen-and-ink 
illustrated  advertisement  of  its  popular  dollar  watch  caused 
me  to  get  busy.  Painstakingly,  and  with  considerable  imagi- 
nation for  a  boy  of  fourteen,  I  worked  out  a  somewhat 
elaborate  but  symmetrical  and  rather  impressive  sketch  de- 
signed to  occupy  a  full  page  of  some  current  magazine.  I 
got  no  prize  for  this  effort,  but  received  a  letter  commend- 
ing my  picture,  I  still  feel  that  mine  was  as  good  as  the  prize- 
winner. Artists  will  notice  in  this  drawing  the  influence  of 
the  Thomas  Nast  cross-hatch  technique. 

I  got  into  a  jam  over  one  picture  I  made  when  I  was 
sixteen,  P.  J,  Clawson,  then  district  attorney,  was  running 
for  re-election.  His  opponents  prevailed  upon  me  to  draw  a 
cartoon  showing  P.  J.  before  and  after  election.  In  the  first 
scene  he  was  shaking  hands  with  his  constituents  and  beaming 
upon  them.  In  the  second  he  was  walking  along  as  if  he  were 
the  only  person  on  earth.  That  was  not  a  diplomatic  move 
on  my  part — for  I  was  enamored  of  the  district  attorney's 
daughter  Sophia,  and  had  been  spending  some  of  my  eve- 
nings at  their  home. 

My  lampoon  was  exhibited  in  an  upright  showcase  in 
Father's  store,  and  P.  J,  almost  burst  with  indignation  when 
he  heard  about  it.  He  forbade  his  daughter  ever  to  see  me 
again,  and  walked  into  the  store  brandishing  his  cane,  de- 
manding to  know  where  I  was.  Hearing  that  he  was  gunning 
for  me,  I  stayed  at  home  for  a  few  days,  working  indus- 
triously on  the  farm* 

Despite  the  manifest  truth  in  my  cartoon,  P,  J,  was 
elected  again — and  having  emerged  from  the  campaign  * 'tri- 
umphant over  traducers/'  as  he  said  in  a  victory  speech,  he 
soon  cooled  down.  Presently  I  was  going  around  with  Sophia 
once  more,  but  whenever  P»  X  saw  me,  for  a  long  while 
after  that,  he  always  scowled  and  looked  as  if  he  still  owed 
me  a  beating. 

Not  long  after  this  I  made  a  sketch,  the  effects  of  which 
taught  me  that  propaganda  may  sometimes  stir  people  into 
action,  but  produce  an  undesirable  result  I  drew  in  water 
colors  a  likeness  of  myself  addressing  a  classic  figure  of  a 
woman  emblematic  of  public  opinion,  while  members  of  the 
Green  County  bar  were  grouped  around  her.  Beneath  were 
the  words;  "Here  you  have  lawyers  to  be  proud  of*  Why 


tf  1 

YOUTHFUL  ENTRY  IN  A  PRIZE  CONTEST.  Modestly  I  signed 
name  backward. 


my 


55 


56        ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

don't  you  wake  up  and  build  a  courthouse  you  also  can  feel 
proud  of?"  .  .  .  Eventually  the  citizens  did  bestir  them- 
selves (or  rather  the  politicians  and  contractors  did) ,  tore 
down  the  old  courthouse,  and  built  a  new  one;  and  my 
cartoon  which  set  them  thinking  hung  for  many  years  in 
the  office  of  the  county  clerk,  Frank  Corson,  who  had  always 
been  an  admirer  of  my  work.  But  the  new  courthouse,  while 
much  larger  and  more  adequate  to  the  needs  of  the  growing 
town,  never  looked  so  picturesque  as  the  old  one.  That 
edifice  had  simple  lines  and  the  mellowness  of  a  weather- 
beaten  landmark,  I  wish  I  had  let  it  alone. 

Clerking  in  Father's  store  began  to  pall  upon  me.  I  knew 
I  was  not  a  good  clerk,  and  so  did  everybody  else.  For  a 
time  I  thought  it  might  be  sensible  to  apply  for  a  job  in  one 
of  Monroe's  three  carriage  shops.  It  would  be  easy  to  make 
stripes  and  rococo  flourishes  on  carriages  and  wagons.  And 
if  I  could  just  be  around  where  others  were  using  brushes 
and  paint,  I  could  develop  in  my  own  way  and  perhaps  make 
a  little  money. 

A  handsome  old  gentleman  named  Austin,  an  English- 
man, was  an  expert  carriage  painter  in  one  of  those  shops. 
He  had  a  private  studio  on  a  side  street,  where  he  made 
enlarged  copies  from  chromo  reproductions  of  popular  paint- 
ings. Knowing  that  he  was  rather  gruff  and  taciturn,  I 
watched  him  from  outside  of  his  front  window,  but  never 
ventured  inside.  Often  I  stood  fascinated,  while  he  slowly 
brushed  on  his  oil  colors  as  he  copied  Landseer's  famous 
"Monarch  of  the  Glen/'  or  "The  Stag  at  Bay/'  which  were 
his  specialties.  Some  of  these  faithful  copies  he  sold  in  town 
— others,  I  imagine,  he  gave  away,  At  a  party  one  evening 
in  the  home  of  the  well-to-do  McCrackens  I  saw  Austin's 
duplicate  of  the  "Monarch  of  the  Glen"  hanging  above  their 
new  piano. 

I  wondered  then  if  I  couldn't  open  a  studio  and  make  a 
living.  Mr;  Austin  had,  and  managed  to  support  a  family. 
I  must  become  master  of  my  own  fate — no  more  clerking  in 
a  store. 

While  I  pondered  this  desire,  Clyde  Copeland,  the  town's 
leading  photographer,  suddenly  discovered  that  he  could 
make  a  place  for  me  in  his  establishment  Clyde  was  an  alert. 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES         57 

genial  fellow,  who  had  been  keeping  company  with  my  sis- 
ter Nettie.  He  couldn't  pay  much,  he  explained — maybe  $3 
a  week — but  I  would  have  a  chance  to  learn  the  photograph 
business.  Though  I  was  secretly  doubtful  whether  I  would 
care  to  devote  my  life  to  photography,  I  accepted  the  job 
readily* 

One  inducement  to  make  the  Copeland  studio  my  head- 
quarters was  the  fact  that  Elizabeth  North  was  employed 
there  as  reception  girl  She  was  the  daughter  of  R  B.  North, 
who  owned  a  livery  stable  near  the  American  House.  Fred 
North  was  a  favorite  of  mine,  not  only  because  he  had  a 
rugged  face  I  liked  to  draw,  but  because  he  knew  so  much 
about  horses  and  had  raised  them  on  a  farm  of  his  own. 
I  had  known  Elizabeth  casually  in  school.  Now  I  learned 
that  she  had  certain  cultural  leanings.  She  read  good  books, 
and  showed  keen  interest  in  my  work.  I  liked  to  make  pencil 
drawings  of  her  head  with  its  wavy,  dark  brown  hair  and 
large,  well-lashed  eyes. 

Clyde  patiently  explained  to  me  the  whole  technique  of 
his  profession.  I  listened  attentively,  but  the  process  seemed 
intricate  and  formidable.  I  don't  know  how  much  Clyde 
really  expected  me  to  learn  about  photography — but  if  he 
expected  much,  I  must  have  disappointed  him. 

This  experience  among  photographs  impelled  me  to  do 
a  lot  of  thinking  about  the  value  of  the  creative  draftsman. 
Of  what  use  was  my  talent?  What  could  I  do  that  a  photog- 
rapher could  not?  I  was  drawing  "by  hand/'  painstakingly, 
while  here  was  a  machine  that  merely  winked  its  eye  and 
there  was  a  picture.  Where  was  this  invention  leading?  I  was 
not  much  interested  in  the  technical  side  of  photography. 
About  all  I  became  proficient  at  in  the  Copeland  gallery 
was  taking  tintypes.  Occasionally  I  would  do  retouching  and 
watch  photographic  prints  in  the  process  of  developing  and 
fixing. 

Joshua  Sweifel,  a  Swiss  boy  with  a  marked  dialect,  did 
most  of  the  work  requiring  skill.  He  spent  a  good  deal  of 
time  in  the  dark  room  "devil-upping,"  as  he  called  it,  while 
I  puttered  around  with  odd  jobs,  "devil-uppiiig"  in  my  own 
way,  and  wondering  if  my  hand-drawn  pictures  would  ever 
find  a  place  in  the  world. 

Clyde  knew,  of  course,  that  my  strongest  interest  lay  in 


58        ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

drawing,  and  with  his  co-operation  I  had  a  booth  (which 
I  called  a  "studio")  built  for  myself.  Little  larger  than  a 
modern  telephone  booth,  it  was  covered  with  canvas  and 
was  on  wheels,  so  that  it  could  easily  be  moved  about.  Sit- 
ting in  this  cubicle,  I  could  close  myself  in  and  make  cartoons 
in  complete  seclusion. 

The  more  I  thought  about  photography,  the  more  I  was 
troubled  by  it.  Was  it  the  open  sesame  to  visual  truth?  I  was 
skeptical  and  yet  I  was  being  lured  into  a  false  regard  for 
the  product  of  this  machine,  as  something  to  emulate.  Often 
I  would  think:  "If  I  can't  draw  as  realistically,  and  catch 
light  and  sliade  accurately  enough  so  that  my  pictures  will 
beat  a  camera,  then  I'd  better  give  up/'  Wasn't  my  eye  as 
sharp  and  sensitive  as  a  lens? 

Above  all  things  I  knew  I  wanted  the  ttuth,  and  it  ap- 
peared, except  for  color,  right  here  in  a  photograph.  It  fooled 
me,  and  I  tried  to  make  pictures  with  the  detail-quality  of 
photographs,  I  even  tried  pasting  facial  photographs  of  vil- 
lage acquaintances  on  my  drawing  paper  and  doing  their 
bodies  and  surroundings  in  free-hand  draftsmanship.  But  I 
didn't  like  the  result.  The  photograph  spoiled  the  whole 
picture. 

My  fear  of  the  camera  as  a  competitor  was  relieved,  how- 
ever, by  humorous  incidents  in  the  gallery,  especially  the 
posing  of  people  to  whom  it  was  a  new  experience.  There 
were  many  pictures  of  couples  just  married — the  barbered 
groom  sitting  and  the  bride  standing  just  so,  with  a  hand 
modestly  gripping  her  husband's  shoulder  but  nevertheless 
conveying  the  idea  that  she  had  finally  caught  him.  No  bride 
and  groom  could  be  posed  in  any  other  way.  That  was  the 
law  of  the  new  photographic  art. 

Sometimes  a  wife  and  her  daughters  would  bring  the 
head  of  the  household  to  be  photographed,  and  he  would 
register  deep  pain  in  the  process,  As  a  rule  the  early  settler 
didn't  want  to  be  bothered  having  his  picture  taken,  but  the 
others  would  insist  upon  it  as  a  social  duty.  They  would 
comb  the  chaff  out  of  Pa's  hair  and  whiskers  in  a  dressing- 
room  and  lead  him  to  the  slaughter,  watching  him  closely 
as  he  posed  in  the  clamp  of  a  head-rack  for  his  family's  sake. 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES         59 

If  photography  has  become  an  ''art/'  what  kind  is  it? 
Let  me  inject  here  my  mature  conclusions  for  what  they  may 
be  worth,  on  this  phenomenon — the  candid  camera  which 
has  almost  overwhelmed  the  graphic  arts. 

A  photograph  is  the  surface  of  something.  Of  course  an 
artist  is  concerned  with  surface  appearances,  but  only  as  a 
means  of  penetrating  to  the  spirit  of  the  thing.  Through  his 
own  temperament  he  reveals  the  way  he  is  impressed  as  a 
beholder  of  the  scene*  The  artist's  emotional  reactions  to  the 
subject  before  him,  and  his  obligation  to  stress  its  essentials, 
are  the  main  factors  in  a  work  of  art.  Sensitive  to  every 
element  in  nature,  the  draftsman  finds  his  hardest  task  in 
sacrificing  the  extraneous  detail  of  his  subject,  and  he  is  forced 
to  perform  many  difficult  operations,  while  holding  fast  to 
that  which  is  good  for  his  purpose. 

Real  art  transcends  the  personal  and  the  particular.  The 
photographer  cannot  make  a  portrait  nor  anything  else  that 
is  not  a  documentary  picture  of  a  particular  thing,  however 
skilful  he  may  be  in  the  professional  tricks  of  subduing  and 
heightening  the  effects  of  light  and  shade.  He  cannot  make 
a  picture  that  is  not  specific — and  therefore  lacks  universality. 
Art  must  transcend  positive  truth  to  reveal  it. 

A  photograph  of  your  grandfather  or  mine  may  show  a 
noble  head  and  features  of  unusual  character,  but  it  does  not 
belong  in  the  realm  of  great  art,  because  it  is  only  one  grand- 
father, documented  and  exact.  Even  a  silhouette  of  a  person 
in  the  foreground  of  a  photograph,  though  the  detail  is  lost 
in  the  darkness  and  therefore  something  is  left  to  the  im- 
agination, also  looks  too  much  like  a  certain  person.  A  good 
illustrator  may  draw  from  models  but  knows  how  to  forget 
them. 

A  painter  knows  how  to  draw  human  beings,  but  he  uses 
them  not  so  much  to  identify  individuals  as  to  represent  the 
kind  of  human  beings  they  are.  The  best  portraiture  is  not 
the  accurate  measurements  up  and  down  and  across  the  face, 
but  the  sensation  created  in  the  artist's  mind  from  watching 
the  subject,  and  his  ability  to  capture  whatever  is  character- 
istic. A  photograph  does  not  stimulate  the  imaginative  mood 
as  good  music,  poetry,  or  painting  does.  In  short,  photog- 
raphy is  too  literal.  And  yet  I  would  call  it  one  of  the  greatest 
inventions  of  the  nineteenth  century — because  of  its  useful- 


60        ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

ness  to  science  and  its  documentary  utility  in  all  the  arts* 
As  a  pictorial  feature  of  magazines  it  has  been  vastly  over- 
done and  is  tiresome. 

I  grew  steadily  more  confident  in  those  early  days  of 
photography  that  it  would  never  successfully  compete  with 
the  art  of  the  cartoon,  and  that  there  would  be  no  invasion 
by  the  camera  of  that  field  of  art  where  ideas,  imagination, 
fancy,  and  symbolism  are  factors  of  supreme  importance. 
There  the  hand-drawn  pictures  would  always  find  an  appre- 
ciative public. 

In  the  decade  following  the  Civil  War  the  American  peo- 
ple lauded  Thomas  Nast's  cartoons  of  Boss  Tweed,  and  the 
story  goes  that  Tweed,  fleeing  from  the  law,  was  captured 
in  a  Spanish  port  because  he  was  identified  through  Nast's 
well-known  caricatures.  For  the  police  records,  no  doubt, 
photographs  would  have  been  better.  Nast's  cartoons  did  not 
look  so  much  like  Tweed  if  you  compared  them  with  photo- 
graphs; they  were  more  than  mere  realism.  The  person  of 
Tweed  was  recreated  and  emphasized  by  Nast,  who  knew 
the  powerful  truth  of  figurative  expression.  He  found  that 
he  could  exaggerate  Tweed's  jowls  and  general  facial  con- 
struction in  a  way  to  suggest  a  money-bag  and  still  further 
convey  the  idea  with  a  belly- front  that  resembled  another  big 
bag  of  cash.  And  he  showed  the  boss  of  New  York  City  in 
arrogant  postures  defiantly  saying:  "What  are  you  going  to 
do  about  it?" 

To  add  to  the  marvelous  realism  of  the  camera  in  my 
boyhood  there  was  the  stereoscope,  to  be  found  on  the  parlor 
table  in  nearly  every  home.  Everybody  enjoyed  looking 
through  this  device,  which  made  photographs  three-dimen- 
sional. One  had  the  feeling  that  the  camera  had  pictured  the 
very  atmosphere.  I  would  peer  through  the  lenses  of  our 
stereoscope  spellbound  at  a  man  standing  on  the  bank  of  a 
tree-girt  lake — it  was  so  true  to  life — the  last  word  in  pic- 
torial representation,  except  for  motion  and  color.  And  now 
in  this  epoch,  color,  three  dimensions,  and  sound  are  becom- 
ing the  common  additions  to  photographic  actuality* 

Clyde  Copeland  never  complained  that  he  didn't  get  the 
worth  of  his  money  while  I  '* worked"  in  his  gallery,  so  per- 
haps I  earned  what  I  got.  Or  maybe  he  felt  that  he  was  help- 
ing a  deserving  youth  toward  an  art  career. 


ART  YOUNG:   HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES          61 

Will  Monroe,  a  school-chum  of  my  brother  Charles,  was 
studying  to  be  a  doctor  at  Bellevue  Hospital  in  New  York. 
Will  had  always  been  interested  in  my  pictures.  He  wrote  to 
Charles,  saying  that  if  I  would  send  him  some  drawings  he 
would  take  them  around  to  the  magazines.  He  was  sure  they 
were  marketable. 

Judge  liked  a  picture  I  had  made  of  a  boy  dragging  a  dog 
by  the  neck  while  a  meddlesome  old  pedant  protested:  "Why, 
this  is  an  ignominy/*  To  which  the  boy  answered:  "Naw, 
'tain't  neither,  it's  nothin'  but  a  common  pup/'  Not  a  very 
good  joke,  but  it  should  be  remembered  that  at  that  time  the 
comic  papers  were  fond  of  jests  that  ridiculed  literary 
Bostonese.  Judge  sent  me  a  check  for  seven  dollars,  and  I 
was  prancing  along  the  road  to  fame  and  fortune. 

Monroe  could  not  hold  me  long  after  that.  I  was  con- 
vinced that  Opportunity  was  knocking  insistently  at  my  door. 
A  few  weeks  passed,  punctuated  by  debates  with  my  parents 
on  the  relative  chances  of  an  artist  in  a  big  city  and  in  a 
town  of  2,250  population.  Then  I  packed  a  valise,  wrapped 
up  the  best  of  my  drawings,  and  bought  a  ticket  for  Chicago. 
I  was  then  seventeen. 

My  mother  was  tearfully  concerned  lest  some  dark  evil 
befall  me  in  the  city.  The  old  story:  "breaking  home  ties/' 
I  had  said  goodbye  to  Elizabeth  the  night  before.  Father  came 
over  to  the  train  with  me.  "You'll  get  along/'  he  said.  Mr. 
Puffer,  the  cheerful  station  agent,  yelled:  "Don't  buy  any 
gold  bricks,  Art,"  and  old  Joe  Gleissner,  who  drove  the  bus 
to  and  from  the  depot,  and  who  always  got  the  well-known 
maxims  twisted,  said:  "Veil,  Artie,  a  rolling  stone  gathers 
some  moss — yah!"  My  brother  Charles  rode  down  to  Chi- 
cago with  me  to  see  that  I  was  comfortably  located.  The 
sky  was  bright  as  the  train  sped  across  the  miles  toward  the 
promised  land. 


Chapter   6 
I  CAPTURE  THE   'NIMBLE  NICKEL' 

MY  first  residence  in  Chicago  was  a  dump  of  a  boarding 
house  on  Wabash  Avenue  near  15th  Street.  The 
place  had  been  recommended  by  Mel  Morse,  railroad 
baggageman  in  Monroe,  who  happened  to  know  the  land- 
lady. From  my  window,  which  faced  the  West,  I  could  see 
slums  and  low  life,  and  also  the  constant  movement  of  the 
masts  and  riggings  of  boats  in  the  Chicago  River  nearby. 
At  this  window  I  began  my  professional  career  as  a  cartoon- 
ist, with  an  improvised  easel  and  the  handicap  of  having  no 
heat  in  winter.  Whatever  the  hardships,  I  was  determined 
to  get  ahead  and  to  make  my  way  without  asking  for  money 
from  home. 

In  the  next  room  was  an  old  fellow  from  Texas  who 
thought  he  knew  politics  and  considered  himself  an  unrecog- 
nized statesman.  Immediately  he  set  out  to  enlist  my  talent 
on  an  idea  he  had  for  a  cartoon.  He  was  sure  that  Harper's 
Weekly  would  jump  at  the  chance  to  publish  it.  I  drew  the 
picture,  mailed  it  to  Harper's,  and  it  came  back  in  a  few 
weeks  with  regrets  from  the  editor.  I  have  that  cartoon  yet, 
and  looking  at  it  now  I  can  see  that  there  was  a  good  deal 
of  merit  in  the  old  Texan's  idea. 

Immediately  I  signed  up  at  the  Academy  of  Design, 
which  was  later  merged  with  the  present  Art  Institute.  Here 
I  began  to  learn  the  fundamentals  of  anatomy  under  John 
H.  Vanderpoel.  Short  and  deformed,  and  voicing  tart  humor, 
this  instructor  was  crisp  and  direct  in  his  criticism.  When  a 
student's  drawing  was  bad,  he  would  go  over  it  with  a 
firm  black  line  and  point  out  the  mistakes.  He  gave  each  of 
us  individual  attention. 

Soon  after  entering  the  Academy,  I  went  forth  with  a 
portfolio  of  drawings  and  called  on  the  W.  M.  Hoyt  Com- 
pany, a  wholesale  grocery  house  which  published  a  trade 
paper  called  the  Nimble  Nickel.  I  had  seen  this  periodical  in 

62 


EARLY  ART  SCHOOL  DRAWINGS.  CHICAGO,  1884. 

my  father's  store  and  had  sent  some  sketches  to  the  editor, 
receiving  in  return  a  friendly  letter  indicating  the  possibility 
of  my  drawing  regularly  for  him*  His  name  was  Eugene  J. 
HalL  His  handshake  was  hearty,  and  after  we  had  talked 
a  few  minutes  about  the  aims  of  the  Hoyt  house-organ  and 

63 


64         ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

the  power  of  attraction  which  lay  in  illustrations,  he  took 
me  in  to  meet  A.  C  Buttolph,  the  business  manager,  who 
looked  over  my  samples  and  saw  humor  in  several  of  my 
Monroe  caricatures. 

It  was  readily  agreed  that  comics  were  needed  to  liven 
up  the  Nimble  Nickel,  and  I  was  told  to  go  ahead  and  submit 
whatever  I  thought  would  fit  into  its  editorial  scheme.  The 


Nimbi*  Nicktl 


MY  FIRST  PUBLISHED  CARTOON,  bought  by  a 
Chicago  wholesale  grocery  company's  publication.  1884. 

pay  would  be  according  to  the  firm's  idea  of  value  in  each 
instance.  In  three  days  I  was  back  with  some  drawings,  in- 
cluding one  of  a  man  wearing  a  plug  hat  and  brandishing  a 
big  cleaver,  labeled  "Great  Slaughter  of  Prices/*  These  offer- 
ings were  immediately  accepted,  and  I  wrote  home  jubilantly* 
The  next  Monday  morning  a  check  for  $5  came.  Week 
after  week  I  submitted  other  pictures  to  Mr*  Hall,  with  slo- 
gans or  text  designed  to  pull  business  from  retail  grocers, 
and  nearly  all  were  taken.  Sometimes  I  was  paid  $7,  and 
occasionally  $10,  and  this  regular  income  covered  the  cost 
of  two  terms  in  the  Academy. 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES         65 

To  the  stand-up  collar  which  I  had  adopted  before  leav- 
ing home,  I  had  added  to  my  wardrobe  an  artist's  flowing 
black  bow  tie,  and  began  buying  clothes  a  bit  different  from 
the  conventional  style.  I  made  friends  easily,  probably  be- 
cause I  was  interested  in  everybody  and  everything,  and  I 
imagined  people  saying  behind  my  back:  "Rather  queer,  but 
he  means  well/'  Anyhow,  I  hoped  they  were  saying  some- 
thing like  that, 

Chicago  was  fascinating,  the  crowds  downtown  amazing. 
The  corners  at  State  and  Madison  streets  were  crowded 
with  people  at  all  hours,  like  nothing,  I  thought,  except 
the  business  section  of  Monjroe  on  circus  day*  I  wandered 
around  in  the  evenings  seeing  the  sights — the  Clark  Street 
Dime  Museum;  the  old  Exposition  Building  on  Michigan 
Avenue,  when  something  was  going  on  there;  McVicker's 
Theatre,  where  drama  and  melodrama  were  played;  and  oc- 
casionally, Sam  T.  Jack's  burlesque  house,  that  being  a  time 
when  big-hipped  women  were  the  rage  among  male  con- 
noisseurs. 

Then  there  was  the  Battle  of  Gettysburg  cyclorama,  in 
a  round  brick  building,  on  Wabash  Avenue*  I  passed  it  daily 
on  my  way  to  the  Academy,  and  after  a  couple  of  weeks 
could  no  longer  resist  the  temptation  to  go  inside.  It  was 
a  circular  mural  showing  the  various  phases  of  that  decisive 
battle,  a  curious  mixture  of  romanticism  and  realism,  painted 
by  the  French  artist  Henri  Philippoteaux.  A  lecturer  re- 
counted the  movements  of  the  armies  on  the  field.  Glory  of 
war  was  portrayed  here,  but  the  bloodiness  of  the  scene 
should  have  been  sufficient  antidote  to  cure  any  onlooking 
youth  of  a  wish  for  a  military  career.  Cavalry  dashed  across 
the  broken  terrain,  men  and  horses  fell  dying,  billows  of 
cannon-smoke  rolled  across  the  field,  infantry  pressed  on  to 
bayonet  charges  in  the  enemy's  trenches,  a  flag  had  fallen 
and  was  being  picked  up  again*  That  cyclorama  stayed  a 
long  time,  and  was  well  patronized  by  visitors  from  the 
country* 

On  Sundays  I  would  find  new  streets  to  explore,  or 
would  take  a  cable  car  to  one  of  the  parks.  When  walking 
I  was  always  on  the  lookout  for  displays  of  pictures  in  art 
store  windows,  confident  that  some  day  mine  also  would 
be  shown  thus.  And  constantly  I  was  sketching  scenes  along 


66         ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

the  way.  Foreign  faces  and  the  picturesque  garb  of  aliens 
were  much  in  evidence  in  Chicago  then,  for  great  numbers 
of  immigrants  were  arriving  every  year — Germans  and  Irish 
mainly,  also  Jews,  Italians,  and  Poles. 

During  my  first  year  in  Chicago,  it  seemed  to  be  my  fate 
that  no  matter  where  I  moved  I  would  find  myself  living  in 
a  bawdy  house.  After  a  few  months  in  the  place  on  lower 
Wabash  Avenue,  I  moved  two  blocks  north,  where  there  was 
a  row  of  houses  with  dignified  doorways,  stone  steps,  and 
front  yards  with  trees  and  iron  fences.  In  one  of  these  houses 
I  took  a  room.  Compared  with  my  first  quarters,  this  was 
like  dwelling  in  a  palace. 

The  landlady  who  rented  me  the  room  had  moist  eyes 
and  painted  cheeks,  and  lots  of  rings  on  her  fingers.  I  hadn't 
seen  women  dressed  like  this  in  Monroe,  but  I  was  prepared 
to  encounter  odd  customs  in  the  city,  and  thought  nothing 
of  her  appearance  except  to  admire  her  for  putting  on  an 
abundance  of  jewelry,  lace,  and  paint,  if  such  was  her  taste. 
For  she  was  pleasant-voiced  and  cordial. 

I  hadn't  been  at  my  new  address  more  than  a  few  weeks 
when  I  observed  that  a  well-dressed  man  who  looked  and 
acted  like  one  who  was  incognito  appeared  there  each  Satur- 
day and  slept  late  on  Sunday.  Two  or  three  times  I  saw  him 
in  the  landlady's  room  when  the  door  happened  to  be  ajar. 

"Aha!"  said  this  Wisconsin  youth  to  himself.  "It  doesn't 
look  respectable  around  here."  I  felt  a  bit  self-conscious,  and 
pondered  what  my  parents  would  say  if  they  knew  where 
I  was  living. 

There  was  a  cab  out  in  front  a  few  days  later,  and  an 
attractive  blonde  girl  alighted  and  tripped  up  our  steps, 
carrying  a  satchel.  I  was  just  coming  downstairs.  The  land- 
lady beamed  on  me  and  introduced  her  younger  sister,  who 
had  come  to  visit  her  from  St.  Joseph,  Michigan. 

"Mr.  Young  is  the  artist  I  told  you  about  in  my  last 
letter/' 

"Oh!"  the  blonde  exclaimed  sweetly.  "I  want  so  much  to 
see  your  pictures.  May  I?" 

I  was  a  little  embarrassed  by  her  curiosity,  but  I  managed 
to  say:  "It  will  be  a  pleasure." 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES         67 

Next  day  there  was  a  knock  at  my  door  while  I  was 
drawing*  She  had  come  to  pay  a  call,  in  a  gay  pink  frock. 

"Hellooo!"  she  said.  "Am  I  interrupting  your  work?  Or 
may  I  come  in?" 

Again  I  was  embarrassed,  for  I  wasn't  used  to  entertain- 
ing young  women.  But  her  self-assurance  was  refreshing,  and 
I  asked  her  to  sit  down.  We  immediately  found  a  good  deal 
to  talk  about — what  she  had  seen  and  liked  or  disliked  in 
Chicago  (she  had  been  over  on  State  Street  shopping  with 
her  sister) ,  the  fun  she  had  had  coming  across  Lake  Michigan 
on  the  boat,  and  what  life  was  like  in  St.  Joe,  Then  she 
reminded  me  of  the  pictures,  and  I  brought  forth  many 
sketches  that  I  had  stored  up,  copies  of  the  Nimble  Nickel 
containing  my  stuff,  and  the  exhibit  which  I  always  put  fore- 
most— the  copy  of  Judge  in  which  the  dog  joke  had  been 
published. 

Her  name  was  Clara  and  she  did  not  gush  over  my  work, 
but  displayed  just  the  right  amount  of  enthusiasm  over  the 
drawings  that  she  particularly  liked.  Sometimes  our  hands 
accidentally  touched  and  she  didn't  seem  to  mind.  Her  fingers 
were  slim  and  tapering  and  well  cared  for. 

Then  we  talked  some  more,  and  I  asked  questions  about 
her.  She  was  about  my  age,  and  since  she  left  high  school 
she  had  been  keeping  house  for  her  parents.  She  didn't  know 
yet  what  she  wanted  to  do,  whether  to  take  a  business  course 
and  become  a  stenographer,  or  go  into  training  as  a  hospital 
nurse. 

Watching  Clara's  face  from  many  angles,  I  had  been 
struck  by  the  beauty  of  her  profile,  and  told  her  so.  She 
blushed,  but  readily  agreed  to  come  back  next  day  to  let  me  do 
a  sketch  of  her. 

Posing  her  for  the  sketch,  in  the  right  light  and  at  the 
proper  angle,  gave  me  an  excuse  to  touch  her  arms  and  her 
shoulders.  Then  I  said:  "Now  forget  that  I  am  here." 

"But  I  can't,"  she  insisted. 

Before  I  was  through  I  did  two  sketches  of  her,  so  that 
we  each  could  have  one.  Afterward  she  was  standing  near  the 
door,  thanking  me  and  saying  she  must  go,  but  lingering. 
When  she  had  said  that  three  times,  we  both  laughed,  and 
suddenly  I  found  her  in  my  arms.  Then  that  cursed  demon 


68         ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

of  inhibition  began  to  ring  its  warning  bell,  and  I  let  her  go, 
and  was  soon  back  at  my  work. 

Now  I  wondered;  was  she  in  love  with  me?  Did  she 
intend  to  marry  some  day?  Probably,  for  most  girls  had  that 
on  their  minds.  Above  all,  I  knew  that  I  must  not  get  too 
deeply  involved  with  her.  A  few  days  later  I  met  her  in  the 
hall  and  was  relieved  when  she  told  me  she  was  going  back 
to  St.  Joe. 

"I  would  like  to  cross  the  lake  and  visit  you/'  I  said. 
I  half  meant  that  at  the  moment,  but  I  never  made  the  trip, 
and  never  saw  her  again. 

After  a  few  months,  Clay  Bennett,  a  boyhood  chum, 
came  from  Monroe  to  study  dentistry,  and  we  decided  to 
look  for  a  rooming  house  where  we  could  live  together  for 
the  sake  of  economy.  We  found  one  on  Clark  Street,  oppo- 
site Kohl  and  Middleton's  Dime  Museum.  It  was  called  a 
hotel 

We  hadn't  been  there  long  before  I  began  to  suspect  that 
it  was  another  one  of  those  places.  Soon  I  had  ample  evidence 
to  prove  it.  Again  I  began  to  think  of  myself  as  a  lost  soul 
if  my  environment  should  get  the  best  of  me.  Noises  in  the 
next  room  persisted — sounds  of  hilarity,  varied  by  quarrel- 
ing. One  forenoon  I  was  impelled  to  peer  through  a  crack 
in  the  thin  board  walls.  In  that  other  room  I  got  a  good 
view  of  a  lovely  looking  girl  in  the  near  nude. 

An  artist  has  one  great  advantage  over  others — he  can 
always  justify  his  inquisitiveness,  and  his  curiosity  about  all 
the  quirks  and  perversities  of  human  nature  because  it's  the 
sttmmam  bontim  of  his  profession  to  see  life.  Without  a  keen 
curiosity  no  one  can  be  an  artist.  And  seeing  what  is  unposed 
and  unconscious  in  the  actions  of  individuals  or  groups 
affords  more  inspiration  than  any  formal  posing  or  conscious 
parade. 

Now  I  set  out  to  show  my  work  to  editors  of  various 
publications,  and  found  a  market  for  drawings  with  the 
American  Field,  a  sportsman's  magazine — chiefly  comics  re- 
lating to  hunting  or  fishing,  but  occasionally  illustrations 
for  a  story.  Then  somebody  started  a  Sons  of  Veterans 
periodical,  which  bought  joke  drawings  from  me  at  $5  each. 

Having  made  good  on  the  Nimble  Nickel  and  the  Ameri- 
can Field,  I  began  looking  around  for  other  worlds  to  con- 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES         69 

quer.  I  had  waited  nearly  a  year  before  visiting  any  of  the 
newspaper  offices,  for  I  wanted  to  be  sure  of  my  technical 
facility  and  of  being  able  to  face  editors  and  listen  to  their 
critical  judgement*  When  I  left  Monroe,  excited  over  the 
sale  to  the  popular  Judge,  it  seemed  it  would  be  easy  for  me 
to  walk  right  in  to  the  office  of  the  editor  of  any  daily  and 
convince  him  that  he  needed  my  services*  But  my  confidence 
had  been  sadly  deflated  by  the  time  I  stood  in  front  of  a  news- 
paper building.  It  took  me  a  long  time  to  screw  up  courage 
enough  to  enter.  Then  the  editor  would  ask  me:  "How  much 
experience  have  you  had?"  and  I  would  show  him  the  Judge 
drawing,  and  some  of  my  pictures  in  the  Nimble  Nickel  and 
the  American  Field — hoping  these  would  impress  him.  I  no 
longer  felt  like  "the  wonder"  that  folks  thought  I  was  back 
home.  Thus  had  my  ego  been  flattened  out  by  the  weight 
of  the  city's  vast  impersonality. 

All  that  of  course  was  mental.  I  had  to  become  a  full- 
fledged  Chicagoan  before  I  could  generate  the  requisite 
bravado  to  beard  those  giants  of  the  sanctums. 

But  the  thing  seemed  easier  as  my  free-lance  sales  con- 
tinued. Having  studied  the  contents  of  the  various  dailies 
carefully  for  months,  I  picked  the  Evening  Mail  as  the  one 
most  likely  to  be  receptive.  Bundling  up  my  best  pictures, 
I  called  on  Clinton  Snowden,  editor  of  that  paper.  It  was 
published  by  Frank  Hatton,  who  had  been  First  Assistant 
Postmaster  General  under  President  Arthur.  Midafternoon, 
with  the  Mail  news-room  quieting  down  after  the  day's  rush. 
My  knees  were  shaky,  but  I  made  a  show  of  boldness.  Snow- 
den  was  cordial,  looked  at  my  work,  told  me  it  had  "promis- 
ing qualities." 

"We  may  be  able  to  use  some  of  your  stuff,"  he  said. 
"But  we  have  no  engraving  plant.  You'd  .have  to  draw  on 
chalk  plates.  Do  you  know  how  to  handle  them?" 

I  had  a  general  idea,  having  heard  them  discussed  by  a 
newspaper  artist  who  was  a  classroom  visitor  at  the  Academy. 

Snowden  took  me  into  a  back  room.  Here  flat  steel  plates 
were  covered  with  a  layer  of  hard  chalk  on  which  you  traced 
your  drawing  and  then  plowed  your  way  through  the  design 
with  a  sharp  steel  pencil — after  which  molten  lead  was 
poured  over  the  plate.  When  it  cooled  you  had  a,  cut  ready 
to  print.  As  you  plowed  you  had  to  blow  the  chalk  dust 


70         ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

away — and  some  artists  contended  it  was  dangerous  to  the 
lungs  to  breathe  in  that  dust.  I  didn't  like  this  roundabout 
way  of  making  a  picture  ready  for  printing,  but  nevertheless 
I  couldn't  pass  up  the  chance  when  Snowden  offered  to  try 

me  out. 

I  had  brought  in  some  sketches  of  street  scenes,  with 
action  in  them,  and  these  I  now  transferred  to  chalk.  The 
result  was  better  than  I  had  expected  from  this  experiment 
with  a  medium  new  to  me,  and  Snowden  liked  the  pictures; 
published  them  all  during  the  next  week,  and  gave  me  an 
order  on  the  cashier  for  $12.  I  made  more  chalk  sketches, 
which  he  took,  and  presently  he  began  giving  me  an  occa- 
sional assignment,  sometimes  to  illustrate  a  story  about  a 
news  event  or  to  sketch  some  celebrity  who  was  being  inter- 
viewed. The  pay  varied,  but  some  weeks  it  was  pretty  good, 
and  I  felt  that  I  had  practically  a  staff  job,  while  still  being 
free  to  do  odds  and  ends  for  magazines  and  trade  papers. 

On  one  of  the  Mail  assignments,  I  fell  in  with  a  cheerful 
person  named  Eugene  Wood,  who  had  been  a  country  boy 
in  Ohio,  but  who  had  by  this  time  made  a  reputation  as  a 
reporter  on  the  Snowden  paper.  After  a  month's  acquaint- 
ance Wood  irreverently  addressed  me  as  Nosey,  referring  to 
my  beak,  when  it  was  brilliant  from  too  much  sun.  His 
ambition  was  to  be  a  magazine  writer.  In  later  years  we  met 
often  in  New  York,  and  became  close  friends. 

Having  finished  the  dentistry  course  in  record  time,  Clay 
Bennett  returned  to  Monroe  to  set  up  an  office,  and  my  next 
move  was  back  to  Wabash  Avenue  and  the  familiar  sound  of 
the  cable  cars — the  purring  of  the  cable  underground  and  the 
imperious  clanging  of  the  gripman's  bell  as  he  tried  to  push 
his  way  through  clogged  wagon  traffic.  The  cable  cars  were 
like  short  railroad  trains — first  an  open  grip  car,  on  which 
the  seats  faced  in  four  directions  on  front,  back  and  sides; 
and  then  one  or  usually  two  closed  trailer  cars.  In  the  grip 
car  the  driver  stood  in  all  weathers  with  no  protection  against 
the  icy  winds  of  winter,  and  operated  long  heavy  upright 
levers,  one  of  which  clutched  the  moving  cable  beneath,  the 
other  controlling  the  brakes.  Only  in  warm  weather  did  the 
gripmen  appear  to  find  life  agreeable;  in  winter  they  were 
grim  looking,  red-faced,  wind-whipped. 

Safety  campaigns  hadn't  been  thought  of  in  those  days, 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 


71 


and  the  ways  of  crowds  were  free  and  easy.  When  there  was 
some  great  gathering  in  good  weather,  with  not  enough 
street  cars  available  to  accommodate  the  homeward  bound 
throng  afterward,  men  and  boys  would  climb  to  the  roofs 
of  the  cars  and  ride  there.  Seldom  did  the  police  interfere, 
and  the  conductors  wouldn't  trouble  too  much  to  collect 
fares.  They  would  collect  all  within  reach,  and  forget  the 
rest. 


WILLIAM  FREDERICK  POOLE,  head 
of   Chicago   Public  Library.    1885. 


On  the  east  side  of  Wabash  Avenue,  near  Van  Buren 
Street,  I  found  a  small  second-floor  room  just  large  enough 
for  a  bed,  bureau,  and  chair,  and  by  acrobatic  twisting  of 
my  body  managed  to  work  on  a  drawing  board  leaned 
against  the  window  ledge.  (I  must  remind  the  reader  that  I 
haven't  always  been  fat.)  Here  I  worked  hard,  turning  out 
a  good  many  pictures  beside  the  sketches  for  the  Evening 
Mail 

Sometimes  in  the  evenings  I  went  to  the  public  library, 
then  near  the  City  Hall.  On  my  first  visit  there  I  found  an 
engaging  subject  for  a  sketch— William  Frederick  Poole,  the 
librarian,  a  distinguished  looking  personage/  who  wore  long 


72         ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

Dundrearian  whiskers  and  peered  over  his  nose-glasses.  I 
could  easily  draw  him  from  memory  now,  fifty-three  years 
afterward.  It  was  he  who  established  that  invaluable  refer- 
ence work,  Poote's  Index  of  Periodicals,  forerunner  of  the 
present-day  Readers  Guide.  Mr.  Poole  was  always  obliging, 
always  ready  to  give  all  the  time  needed  to  help  an  inquirer 
find  an  elusive  book  or  magazine. 

I  delved  into  every  available  picture  book,  especially 
those  containing  drawings  by  Dore,  whose  fame  had  be- 
come world-wide.  I  also  liked  to  look  at  the  annual  illus- 
trated catalogue  of  the  Paris  Salon,  and  both  current  issues 
and  bound  volumes  of  the  London  Graphic,  Harper's 
Weekly,  the  Illustrated  News  of  London,  and  Punch.  I  ad- 
mired the  powerful  drawings  of  R.  Caton  Woodville;  the 
character  sketches  of  R  Barnard,  especially  his  illustrations 
for  the  household  edition  of  Dickens;  the  cartoons  of  John 
Leech,  Sir  John  Tenniel,  George  Cruikshank,  and  Harry 
Furniss.  People  speak  of  my  woodcut  style,  and  doubtless 
this  early  absorption  in  the  work  of  the  graphic  artists  of 
the  middle  nineteenth  century  had  its  effect  upon  my 
technique. 

Many  of  the  best  artists  of  that  period  in  Chicago  made 
their  living  by  painting  scenery  for  the  theatre.  There  was 
Walter  Burridge,  whose  canvases  were  usually  hung  on  the 
line  at  the  Academy  of  Design  annual  shows,  but  whose 
principal  activity  was  producing  background  curtains  for  the 
shows  at  McVicker's,  and  for  the  Dave  Henderson  produc- 
tions in  the  Grand  Opera  House  when  Eddie  Foy  was  the  big 
laugh.  One  Sunday  we  went  sketching  together  in  the  coun- 
try out  beyond  LaGrange,  and  Burridg£  said:  "The  way  to 
see  a  landscape  is  to  bend  down  frontward,  and  look  at  the 
scene  between  your  legs/'  I  tried  it,  and  certainly  found  that 
one's  legs  helped  to  frame  the  view,  but  there  was  danger 
of  having  a  rush  of  art  to  the  head. 

Then  there  was  Jules  Guerin,  also  doing  stage  scenery, 
whose  work  became  notable  in  art  circles  after  his  Chicago 
days.  He  was  slim  and  nimble,  an  accomplished  artist  in 
profanity  as  well  as  in  paint,  and  later  developed  that  re- 
markable talent  for  seeing  and  co-ordinating  large  spaces  of 
flat  color,  as  opposed  to  the  fretful  brush-tapping  school  of 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES         73 

the  impressionists.  He  painted  the  interior  of  the  Pennsyl- 
vania station  in  New  York  City. 

I  exhibited  a  few  times  at  the  Academy  of  Design  annual 
shows,  but  to  this  day  have  never  had  much  enthusiasm  for 
exhibitions.  To  go  to  the  trouble  of  having  your  picture 
framed,  carted,  and  then  if  accepted — to  be  just  one  among 
hundreds,  no  matter  how  much  your  work  is  acclaimed,  with 
always  the  doubtful  chance  of  a  sale — is  an  unsatisfactory 
way  of  becoming  a  recognized  artist.  A  solo  exhibition  is 
more  sensible,  but  that,  too,  has  its  penalties.  The  art  agents 
have  their  own  peculiar  methods  of  promoting  artists,  and 
all  things  considered,  I  have  thought  it  best  to  exhibit  niy 
work  in  periodicals  and  books. 


Chapter   7 
THE  STAGE  IS  SET  FOR  A  SUPREME  TRAGEDY 

SNOWDEN'S  occasional  assignments  to  me  were  varied, 
though  for  the  most  part  I  was  allowed  to  suggest  the 
pictures  I  wanted  to  draw.  Moving  about  the  city  pretty 
much  at  will,  I  knew  that  labor  was  stirring,  was  beginning 
to  raise  its  voice.  Sometimes  I  attended  a  mass  meeting  on 
the  lake  front  at  the  foot  of  Adams  Street,  and  heard  some 
impassioned  speaker  denounce  the  capitalists  and  the  daily 
press,  accusing  the  newspapers  generally  of  systematically  mis- 
representing the  facts  about  the  conditions  under  which  the 
working  masses  toiled  and  lived,  I  was  not  convinced  by 
these  fiery  charges.  Certainly,  I  felt,  the  Evening  Mail  could 
not  be  as  black  as  it  was  painted;  Snowden  struck  me  as 
an  honest  fellow,  who  in  conversations  had  expressed  con- 
siderable sympathy  for  the  underdog;  and  the  Mail  now  and 
then  published  editorials  voicing  such  sympathy. 

A  rugged  Swede  who  had  come  from  Seattle  a  few  years 
before,  Snowden  was  understood  to  have  worked  with  his 
hands  in  his  youth.  He  was  tireless  as  director  of  the  news 
staff,  which  was  small,  but  which  gave  everything  it  had  to 
help  this  appreciative  chief  build  up  the  paper.  Once  in  par- 
ticular Snowden  showed  a  crusading  spirit  for  the  benefit 
of  the  common  people  akin  to  that  shining  exemplar  of 
enterprising  journalism,  Joseph  Pulitzer.  For  many  months 
the  Mail  fought  for  a  three-cent  fare  on  street  cars.  I  remem- 
ber that  a  date  was  set  for  the  people  to  refuse  to  ride  at  the 
five-cent  rate.  The  boycott,  as  I  recall  it,  was  to  begin  in  a 
specified  area.  Snowden  and  others  in  our  office  had  it  all 
figured  out  that  this  action  would  bring  the  company  to 
terms  once  it  saw  an  indignant  populace  walk  out  in  protest. 
But  the  crusade  failed.  Only  a  few  persons  refused  to  use  the 
street  cars,  while  the  many  rode  and  paid  five  cents  as  usual. 
When  the  disappointing  reports  came  in,  there  was  gloom  in 
the  office  of  the  Evening  Mail. 

74 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES         75 

Early  in  1885  three  of  Jay  Gould's  railroads,  including 
the  Wabash,  had  given  notice  of  a  10  per  cent  cut  in  shop- 
men* s  wages.  These  workers  were  organized  in  the  Knights 
of  Labor,  which  was  headed  by  Terence  V,  Powderly.  In  a 
few  days  some  4,800  shopmen  quit  their  jobs,  and  the  train- 
men on  all  three  lines  backed  this  action  with  a  threat  of  a 
sympathy  strike*  Gould  gave  in;  there  was  no  wage  cut:  and 
the  managements  agreed  that  there  would  be  no  discrimina- 
tion against  any  of  the  strikers.  Within  six  months  that  agree- 
ment was  repudiated,  and  many  of  the  shopmen  were  fired 
by  the  Wabash. 

Immediately  the  Knights  of  Labor  announced  a  boycott 
against  that  road,  all  men  on  other  lines  being  ordered  to 
move  no  Wabash  freight  cars,  while  union  loaders  and  team- 
sters throughout  the  country  were  ordered  to  co-operate. 
Gould  knew  that  the  Knights  were  strong  enough  to  enforce 
that  boycott,  and  that  it  would  play  havoc  with  the  Wabash 
line's  operations;  so  he  promptly  capitulated.  The  discharged 
men  were  reinstated,  and  the  K.  of  L.  ban  was  called  off. 

This  victory  gave  a  strong  impetus  to  labor  organization 
in  all  the  nation's  industrial  centers.  In  those  times  of  bitter 
negotiations,  Jay  Gould  was  often  quoted  as  having  said: 
"I  could  hire  half  of  the  working  class  to  kill  the  other  half." 
And  William  H.  Vanderbilt,  another  rail  king,  had  attained 
dark  fame  by  his  retort  to  a  Chicago  Daily  News  reporter 
who  tried  to  interview  him  in  his  private  car:  "The  public 
be  damned!" 

For  more  than  a  year  there  had  been  "hard  times/'  Strikes 
followed  wage  cuts,  employers  retaliated  with  lockouts,  and 
great  numbers  of  men  were  out  of  work.  Many  of  them  took 
to  the  roads  as  tramps  (the  term  hobo  was  not  yet  in  use) , 
begging  their  way  from  town  to  town.  The  newspapers 
spoke  editorially  of  "the  tramp  menace."  Speakers  in  the  out- 
door meetings  and  in  labor  union  halls  advocated  the  eight- 
hour  day  as  a  cure  for  the  growing  unemployment.  Eight 
Hour  Leagues  were  springing  up  in  various  parts  of  the  coun- 
try, and  Chicago,  as  the  nation's  chief  industrial  city,  became 
the  center  of  this  movement.  The  soap-box  speakers  told  of 
"starvation  wages,"  long  hours  of  toil,  and  of  working  con- 
ditions "worse  than  slavery." 

That  summer  a  strike  of  street-car  men  was  broken  by 


76        ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

police  clubs;  the  police  heads  declared  that  "we  will  continue 
to  put  down  disorder  wherever  it  shows  itself/'  ^Workers' 
meetings  were  often  broken  up  by  the  forces  of  "law  and 

order/* 

"Unprincipled  foreigners"  and  "Anarchists"  were  blamed 
by  the  daily  press  for  the  eight-hour-day  demand.  The  edi- 
tors saw  "dirty  aliens  undermining  American  institutions/' 
Readers  began  to  hear  of  the  "Black  International,"  as  the 
papers  *  called  the  International  Working  People's  Associa- 
tion, which  had  been  organized  in  London  several  years 
before,  and  which  was  now  active  in  New  York,  with  Johann 
Most  as  its  leader.  Bloody  revolution  was  near  at  hand, 
unless  something  was  done  to  stop  it,  according  to  the  omi- 
nous editorials  in  the  dailies, 

Now  and  then,  when  I  had  turned  in  a  layout  of  pictures 
to  Snowden,  I  would  sit  down  in  a  corner  of  the  Evening 
Mail  local  room  to  talk  with  the  reporters.  Usually  the  con- 
versation was  frivolous,  but  sometimes  it  took  on  a  serious 
cast  Louis  Seibold  was  then  a  star  boy  reporter  on  our 
paper.  An  Irishman,  one  of  the  older  men,  whose  name  I've 
forgotten,  but  who  read  a  good  deal,  occasionally  made  com- 
ment which  gave  me  something  to  think  about. 

"There's  a  limit  to  how  far  the  police  can  go  in  the  name 
of  law  and  order/'  he  said  once,  "They'll  go  too  far  with 
the  clubbing  one  of  these  days,  and  the  workers  will  strike 
back.  Even  a  worm  will  turn.  Captain  Schaack  has  a  lot  of 
gall  to  talk  about  'trouble-makers/  You  can  bet  your  life  if 
there  was  no  trouble  Schaack  would  make  some.  He's  a  glory 
hunter  and  a  bastard  of  the  first  order!" 

Albert  Parsons  had  become  well  known  in  the  city  news- 
paper offices  as  the  editor  of  the  weekly  Alarm,  organ  of  the 
International  Working  People's  Association,  and  as  a  militant 
speaker  at  mass  meetings.  A  good-looking  man  with  dark 
hair  smoothed  back  tight  on  his  forehead,  a  dark  moustache, 
earnest  and  passionate  in  his  attacks  upon  the  "exploiters  of 
labor/'  there  was  no  mistaking  his  sincerity.  Even  Ed  Mona- 
han,  cynical  young  reporter  who  scoffed  at  all  reformers  and 
agitators,  conceded  that. 

What  I  knew  then  about  the  working  masses  and  their 
problems,  at  the  age  of  twenty,  was  fragmentary,  gleaned 
from  hearing  occasional  speeches  and  from  desultory  reading. 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES         77 

No  clear  realization  of  what  labor  was  up  against  had  yet 
sunk  into  my  consciousness,  nor  did  it  for  many  years  after- 
ward. I  lacked  a  foundation  for  such  understanding;  nothing 
I  had  learned  in  school  gave  me  anything  on  which  to  build. 
In  a  vague  way  I  sensed  that  the  social  system  was  not  perfect, 
but  all  that  seemed  remote  from  my  life.  The  questions  raised 
by  the  soap-boxers  were  disturbing  at  the  moment,  but  there 
was  little  I  could  dot  so  far  as  I  could  see,  to  better  the 
situation.  I  would  give  a  hungry  man  on  the  street  the  price 
of  a  meal  and  a  bed,  but  that  would  help  him  only  for  the 
time  being.  And  if  I  drew  pictures  of  hungry  people,  as  such, 
the  Evening  Mail  certainly  wouldn't  publish  them.  It  might 
use  a  news  report  of  some  man  dying  in  the  street  from  star- 
vation, but  it  wouldn't  go  out  of  its  way  to  air  the  causes 
which  led  to  deaths  of  that  kind.  Such  happenings  were  de- 
pressing to  think  about,  anyhow.  Instinct  led  me  to  hope 
that  the  Knights  of  Labor  would  win  the  fight  for  the  eight- 
hour  day;  that  would  put  many  jobless  men  back  to  work. 

My  thoughts  turned  to  more  pleasant  things  as  spring 
came  in  1886,  and  I  sketched  people  at  their  ease  on  Sunday 
in  the  parks,  pioneer  residents  of  Chicago,  quaint  street  scenes, 
important  guests  in  the  larger  hotels,  sandlot  baseball  games, 
and  other  innocuous  if  colorful  phases  of  the  city's  life. 

And  I  had  been  home  in  March  for  my  sister's  marriage 
to  Clyde  Copeland,  "by  Elder  Daniel  R.  Howe  of  the  Chris- 
tian Church,  at  the  residence  of  the  bride's  parents."  My 
wedding  gift  was  a  water  color  drawing  of  the  bride  and 
groom,  surrounded  by  ornate  decorations,  with  cupids  ram- 
pant over  the  heads  of  wedding  guests,  and  myself  in  the 
foreground,  dismissing  the  affair  with  a  wave  of  the  hand 
and  saying:  ''No  wedding  bells  for  me.'* 

Lingering  in  Monroe  for  a  few  days,  I  enjoyed  myself. 
My  friend  the  postmaster  was  displaying  clippings  of  some  of 
my  recent  pictures  from  the  Mail  on  the  government's  wall, 
and  so  everybody  in  town  was  kept  posted  about  my  produc- 
tions. But  old  Bill  Sutherland,  retired  plasterer,  was  sur- 
prised to  hear  that  I'd  been  away,  "I  don't  get  downtown 
much  nowadays,  on  account  of  my  sciaticy/'  Then  he  told 
me  'I've  tried  Swift's  Specific,  St.  Jacob's  Oil,  Packard's  Pain 


78         ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

Killer,  and  Peruna,  but  it  still  ketches  me  right  here/*  gestur- 
ing around  to  his  back* 

From  my  store  of  collected  material  I  have  come  across  a 
yellowed  copy  of  the  Monroe  Sentinel  which  reported  my  sis- 
ter's wedding.  Scores  of  compact  paragraphs  of  news  of  the 
outside  world  were  in  that  issue  of  Charlie  Booth's  weekly: 

"Again  is  the  assertion  made  in  New  York  dispatches 
that  ex-President  Arthur  is  in  very  bad  health,  and  not  likely 
to  recover.  ...  A  strike  of  street-car  employees  is  in  prog- 
ress at  Columbus,  Ohio,  and  plans  for  a  revolt  at  Pittsburgh 
have  been  made.  *  .  .  Duke  Calabeitti,  who  was  exiled  from 
Italy  for  fighting  with  Garibaldi,  died  Wednesday  in  Hobo- 
ken,  N.  J.,  where  he  was  a  hotel  manager*  .  .  .  The  eight- 
hour  ordinance  passed  by  the  Milwaukee  common  council, 
affecting  all  persons  paid  by  the  day,  has  been  signed  by 
Mayor  Wallber,  *  .  .  An  affliction  resembling  epizoot  is  so 
prevalent  at  Canton,  Ohio,  as  to  confine  1,000  school  chil- 
dren to  their  beds  or  homes. 

1 'Distress  prevailing  among  the  unemployed  of  Great 
Britain  is  not  deemed  by  Mr.  Gladstone  a  sufficient  reason  for 
asking  the  Queen  to  appoint  a  day  for  national  humiliation 
and  prayer.  ...  A  dispatch  from  Scituate,  Mass,  reports 
the  death  of  Miss  Abigail  Bates,  one  of  two  heroines  who  in 
the  war  of  1812  drove  away  the  British  by  playing  a  fife 
and  drum  in  the  bushes.  .  .  .  H.  M.  Hoxie,  vice-president 
of  the  Missouri  Pacific,  in  a  letter  to  T.  V.  Powderly,  de- 
clined to  hold  a  conference  with  the  Knights  of  Labor,  and 
argues  that  the  strike  is  devoid  of  a  redressable  grievance. 
.  .  .  Both  houses  of  Congress  have  passed  the  pension  bill 
which  increases  the  pensions  of  soldiers'  widows  and  depend- 
ent relatives  from  $8  to  $12  per  month.  It  will  require  about 
seven  million  dollars  to  meet  the  provisions  of  the  bill/' 

Back  in  Chicago  after  that  vacation,  I  stuck  close  to  the 
drawing  board.  I  was  doing  pretty  well  on  the  Mail,  but  I 
wanted  to  do  better,  to  put  money  in  the  bank  and  have  a 
substantial  cash  reserve.  Many  of  the  newspaper  men  I  knew 
spent  their  spare  time  in  gambling  and  drinking.  I  was  not 
inclined  in  that  direction.  This  was  not  at  all  a  moral  atti- 
tude. I  simply  found  no  fun  in  it.  I  saved  my  money  by 
holding  to  the  small  room  on  Wabash  Avenue,  for  which  I 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES         79 

paid  $3  a  week.  Few  friends  came  there,  and  I  had  no  wish 
to  have  large  and  impressive  quarters  as  an  accompaniment 
to  success. 

Easter  came  on  April  25,  and  I  watched  the  parade  that 
morning  in  the  vicinity  of  one  of  the  South  Side  churches 
where  the  wealthy  attended.  All  was  right  with  the  world,  if 
one  could  judge  from  the  beaming  faces  of  the  well-dressed 
churchgoers  as  they  moved  along  the  walks  homeward  or 
got  into  their  carriages.  Swelling  organ  music  poured  through 
the  open  church  doors  as  the  congregation  made  its  exit,  and 
a  sleek  clergyman  shook  hands  with  many  of  his  flock,  utter- 
ing polite,  stereotyped  phrases. 

But  in  the  downtown  section  some  3,500  workers,  bear- 
ing flags  and  union  banners,  and  headed  by  a  band,  marched 
through  the  streets  to  the  lake  front,  to  join  in  a  demonstra- 
tion in  behalf  of  the  eight-hour  work  day,  in  which  20,000 
persons  or  more  took  part.  Speeches  were  made  by  various 
leaders  of  the  movement,  including  four  whose  names  were 
soon  to  become  symbols  in  a  mighty  social  conflict — Parsons, 
Schwab,  Spies,  and  Fielden. 

The  speakers  dwelt  at  length  upon  the  wrongs  that  labor 
had  suffered  at  the  hands  of  the  railroads,  manufacturers,  and 
other  employers;  they  told  how  animosities  had  been  fos- 
tered by  agents  of  the  bosses  between  one  nationality  and  an- 
other, such  as  the  Germans  and  the  Irish,  to  keep  them  from 
organizing ;  they  excoriated  the  police  for  brutal  attacks  upon 
the  toilers  who  produced  the  wealth  for  capitalists  to  enjoy. 

All  this  reminded  the  newspapers  and  the  police  heads 
acutely  that  May  1  was  near,  and  that  organized  labor  had 
planned  strikes  in  major  industries  on  that  day,  to  enforce 
its  demand  for  the  eight-hour  day.  Chicago  employers  urged 
Mayor  Carter  H.  Harrison  to  have  state  troops  in  readiness, 
and  he  said  no,  as  he  had  in  the  past.  The  police  were  com- 
petent to  meet  any  emergency,  he  averred.  Elected  largely 
by  the  workers,  Harrison  was  in  his  fourth  term,  and  he 
had  kept  his  head,  despite  all  the  alarmist  talk  by  merchants 
and  financiers  that  revolution  was  at  the  city's  gates. 

So  bitter  and  far-reaching  had  been  the  attack  upon  the 
eight-hour-day  movement  that  the  local  executive  board  of 
the  Knights  of  Labor,  that  week,  rescinded  its  approval  of 
the  plan  for  the  May  Day  strikes.  For  this  the  board  was 


80         ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

assailed  as  cowardly  by  many  rank-and-file  members.  The 
Alarm  and  another  militant  labor  paper,  Die  Arbeiter  Zei~ 
tang,  called  on  the  workers  to  defend  themselves — with  force 
if  need  be — against  the  assaults  of  the  police  and  the  Pinker- 
tons  who  served  the  capitalists. 

Word  was  given  out  at  police  headquarters  on  Friday 
night,  April  30,  that  the  whole  force  would  be  on  reserve 
all  next  day,  and  that  arrangements  had  been  made  to  muster 
hundreds  of  special  policemen  "in  the  event  of  any  serious 
outbreak/' 

"Captain  Schaack  will  be  sadly  disappointed,"  said  my 
Irish  co-worker  on  May  Day  morning,  "if  his  men  can't 
find  an  excuse  to  smash  a  lot  of  skulls  today." 

But  there  was  no  outbreak,  no  disorder  of  any  kind. 
More  than  60,000  workers  paraded  or  took  part  in  gather- 
ings that  day,  and  no  occasion  arose  for  arrests.  The  "cele- 
bration" of  that  May  Day,  however,  lacked  any  aspect  of 
joyousness.  Defiance  was  its  keynote,  the  paraders  and  the 
police  eyeing  each  other  with  sullenness. 

Whatever  reassurance  there  was  for  the  general  public  in 
Saturday's  peacefulness,  new  trouble  blazed  forth  on  Mon- 
day at  the  McCormick  harvester  works  out  on  Blue  Island 
Avenue,  known  to  old-timers  as  the  Black  Road.  For  many 
weeks  this  had  been  a  sore  spot  for  the  workers.  Fourteen 
hundred  striking  employees  there  had  been  locked  out  in  Feb- 
ruary, the  company  bringing  in  scabs  and  300  Pinkerton 
thugs  to  guard  them.  Cyrus  H.  McCormick  told  the  press 
that  "the  right  to  hire  any  man,  white  or  black,  union  or  non- 
union, Protestant  or  Catholic,  is  something  I  will  not  sur- 
render/' 

Protest  meetings  arranged  by  Albert  Parsons  and  his 
associates  near  the  gates  of  the  McCormick  works  had  repeat- 
edly been  broken  up  by  the  police  with  clubs.  On  that  Mon- 
day, May  3,  August  Spies,  editor  of  the  Arbeit  er-Zeitung, 
was  one  of  those  who  addressed  such  a  meeting.  He  called 
upon  the  strikers  to  stand  solidly  together.  Soon  afterward 
there  was  a  clash  between  the  locked-out  men  and  a  group  of 
scabs.  Police  to  the  number  of  150  came,  fired  into  the 
throng,  killing  one  striker  and  wounding  at  least  five  others. 

Spies  went  back  to  the  Arbeiter-Zeitang  office,  and  wrote 
an  account  of  all  this  for  his  paper.  He  had  seen  the  strikers 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES         81 

fall  before  the  police  bullets,  and  that  afternoon  he  read  in 
the  Daily  News  that  six  men  had  been  killed  in  that  attack. 
This  report  was  not  accurate,  but  Spies  had  ample  reason  to 
believe  that  it  was.  Finishing  his  news  story,  he  talked  with 
others  about  the  situation,  and  then  wrote  copy  for  a  leaflet 
announcing  a  mass  meeting  of  protest  to  be  held  in  Hay- 
market  Square  on  the  West  Side  the  next  night.  This,  was 
headed:  "Workingmen!  To  Arms!*'  Without  consulting 
Spies,  the  compositor  who  set  the  type  inserted  ahead  of  that 
slogan  and  as  a  part  of  it  the  word  "Revenge!"  Thousands 
of  copies  of  this  leaflet  were  distributed  overnight  wherever 
workers  gathered* 

I  was  reading  about  the  industrial  turmoil,  or  hearing 
about  it  from  members  of  the  Mail  staff,  but  I  was  not  get- 
ting assignments  to  illustrate  any  news  stories  dealing  with  it. 
My  social  awareness  remained  undeveloped.  I  had  no  per- 
spective on  the  human  conflict,  and  had  not  found  out  how 
to  connect  up  an  effect  with  its  underlying  causes. 

When  I  came  from  the  country  I  had  a  strong  belief 
that  the  newspapers  of  the  big  cities  were  oracles,  beacon 
lights.  I  still  clung  to  that  belief,  though  a  bit  shakily.  Of 
course  I  knew  their  policies  were  inconsistent,  but  perhaps 
that  couldn't  be  helped — it  was  best  not  to  expect  it.  In  one 
election  a  Chicago  daily  would  thunderingly  assail  some  can- 
didate, and  a  year  later  would  be  lauding  him,  with  no  ex- 
planation of  its  reversal.  And  the  same  newspaper  would 
attack  the  railroads  for  victimizing  both  their  employees  and 
patrons,  but  would  assail  the  eight-hour  day  movement  and 
organized  labor's  program.  The  press  blew  hot  and  cold  at 
will.  I  was  often  bewildered  by  that. 


Chapter   8 
I  SEE  CHICAGO  JUSTICE  AT  CLOSE  RANGE 

I  NEED  not  dwell  at  length  upon  what  happened  in  Hay- 
market  Square  on  the  night  of  May  4,  1886.  The  story 
has  been  told  many  times — the  mass-meeting  of  some 
1,500  persons  in  protest  against  the  wanton  shooting  of 
workers  by  the  police;  Mayor  Carter  H.  Harrison  in  attend- 
ance; Albert  Parsons  speaking,  then  leaving  with  his  wife 
for  a  beer  garden  two  blocks  away;  Samuel  Fielden  mounting 
the  wagon  used  as  a  rostrum:  rain  beginning  to  fall,  and  the 
crowd  dwindling;  the  Mayor  departing,  and  visiting  the 
nearby  Desplaines  Street  police  station  to  report  to  Captain 
John  Bonfield  that  there  had  been  no  disorder  at  the  meet- 
ing; Bonfield  disregarding  the  Mayor's  words,  and  in  a  few 
minutes  leading  125  reserve  policemen  to  the  scene,  and 
ordering  the  remaining  audience  of  some  200  persons  to 
disperse;  then  from  above  or  behind  the  wagon  a  whizzing 
spark;  a  tremendous  explosion;  many  policemen  falling; 
their  comrades  firing  into  the  panic-stricken  crowd,  killing 
and  wounding.  Seven  of  the  police  died;  how  many  civilians 
were  killed  by  police  bullets  that  night  was  never  definitely 
known,  and  nothing  was  ever  done  about  it. 

Then  a  hue  and  cry — widespread  police  raids;  arrests  of 
hundreds  of  men  and  women  known  as  or  suspected  to  be 
Anarchists,  Socialists,  or  Communists;  announcements  of  the 
discovery  of  various  dynamite  "plots"  and  of  the  finding 
of  bombs  and  infernal  machines;  indictment  of  Albert  Par- 
sons and  others  as  conspirators  responsible  for  the  Haymarket 
explosion  and  deaths. 

Newspaper  editors  and  public  men  generally  cried  for  a 
quick  trial  of  the  defendants,  with  speedy  executions  to  fol- 
low, and  there  was  every  reason  to  believe  from  the  pub- 
lished reports  that  the  accused  were  guilty.  Public  opinion 
was  formed  almost  solely  by  the  daily  press,  and  in  its  col- 
umns "evidence"  was  steadily  piled  up  against  these  labor 

82 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES         83 

agitators.  Parsons  had  disappeared  on  the  night  of  the  bomb- 
ing— police  all  over  the  country  were  watching  for  him; 
was  not  his  flight  confession  of  guilt?  Rudolph  Schnaubelt 
also  was  gone;  he  had  been  arrested  twice  and  questioned 
briefly,  but  had  been  released — and  Police  Captain  Schaack 
was  incensed  at  the  * 'stupidity*'  of  the  detectives  who  had  let 
him  go;  Schnaubelt  specifically  was  suspected  of  the  actual 
bomb-throwing.  And  the  daily  newspapers  reproduced  a 
leaflet  announcing  the  Haymarket  meeting,  which  bore  a 
black- faced  line  urging  workers  to  come  armed. 

Like  the  great  mass  of  Chicagoans,  I  was  swayed  by  these 
detailed  reports  of  the  black-heartedness  of  the  defendants. 
Outstanding  business  and  professional  men,  and  prominent 
members  of  the  clergy,  denounced  the  accused,  who  were  now 
all  lumped  together  as  "Anarchists,"  and  condemned  the 
killing  of  the  seven  policemen  as  being  "the  most  wanton 
outrage  in  American  history/'  In  the  bloody  and  gruesome 
descriptions  of  the  tragedy  of  May  4,  the  city's  people  for- 
got the  needless  killing  and  wounding  of  workers  by  the 
police  on  May  3.  I,  too,  saw  "evidence* '  against  Parsons  in 
his  running  away.  He  had  spoken  at  the  mass-meeting,  and 
the  explosion  had  come  only  a  few  minutes  after  he  left — 
and  then  he  had  vanished.  Innocent  men  do  not  run  away 
when  a  crime  has  been  committed  (so  my  youthful  mind 
reasoned  then)  ;  they  stay  and  face  the  music. 

But  when  on  the  opening  day  of  the  trial,  June  21, 
Albert  Parsons  walked  into  court  and  declared  that  he  wanted 
to  be  tried  with  his  comrades,  my  sympathies  began  to  lean 
in  the  other  direction.  He  had  been  in  seclusion  in  Waukesha, 
Wisconsin,  working  as  a  carpenter  and  living  in  the  home  of 
Daniel  Hoan,  father  of  the  present  Mayor  of  Milwaukee.  If 
Parsons  were  guilty,  I  reasoned  now,  he  would  not  have 
come  back;  he  needn't  have  come;  the  police  had  been  unable 
to  find  any  trace  of  him. 

Shortly  after  the  jury  had  been  selected,  Clinton  Snow- 
den  assigned  me  to  make  some  pictures  of  scenes  in  the  court- 
room for  the  Evening  MaiL  The  place  was  crowded,  but  I 
managed  to  get  a  seat  with  the  reporters  at  a  table  near  the 
defense  attorneys.  The  prosecution  was  putting  in  its  case, 
and  there  were  continual  objections  by  the  defense  to  the  line 
of  questioning  by  Julius  S.  Grinnell,  the  State's  Attorney. 


84        ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

Usually  these  objections  were  overruled,  in  a  rasping  voice, 
by  Judge  Joseph  E.  Gary.  When  Grinnell  uttered  some  opin- 
ion which  the  defense  considered  prejudicial,  Gary  would 
say:  "The  jury  will  disregard  the  State's  Attorney's  remark" 
— but  Grinnell  kept  on  with  bold  assurance  that  he  was 
master  of  the  situation. 

Many  well-dressed  men  and  women,  obviously  from  the 
city's  better  families,  were  spectators,  craning  their  necks  to 


JUDGE  JOSEPH  E.  GARY,  who  presided  at  the  trial 
of  the  Haymarket  case  defendants. 

get  a  view  of  the  eight  defendants.  But  I  was  interested  quite 
as  much  in  the  lawyers  battling  on  both  sides  of  the  case. 
It  was  common  knowledge  that  it  had  been  difficult  to  find 
reputable  and  competent  attorneys  in  Chicago  willing  to  de- 
fend the  accused;  their  cause  was  too  unpopular;  notice  had 
been  plainly  served  that  only  a  pariah  and  an  enemy  of 
society  would  try  to  save  those  men  from  the  gallows.  In 
the  face  of  this  warning,  three  courageous  members  of  the 
bar,  who  hitherto  had  handled  only  civil  cases,  had  agreed  to 
undertake  the  Anarchists*  defense.  William  P*  Black  was  chief 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES         85 

of  these;  a  captain  in  the  Union  Army  during  the  Civil  War, 
he  was  known  as  a  fighter;  tall,  dark,  and  handsome,  with  a 
pronounced  jaw  that  shook  a  short  beard,  he  was  often  the 
center  of  all  eyes  in  court.  Assisting  Black  were  William  A. 
Foster,  said  to  be  capable  as  a  finder  of  evidence,  and  Sigis- 
mund  Zeisler,  an  earnest  and  studious  young  man  with  a 
blond  Vandyke  beard,  red  lips,  and  wavy  hair. 

On  the  other  side  of  this  desperate  contest  was  Grinnell, 
the  State's  Attorney,  who  was  understood  to  aspire  to  the 
Governor's  chair;  and  several  assistants,  whose  names  got 
into  print  much  less  often  than  GrinnelFs.  He  had  a  fresh, 
healthy  face  and  a  big  well-curled  moustache. 

At  that  stage  of  the  fight  the  Evening  Mail  was  particu- 
larly interested  in  the  make-up  of  the  jury,  for  it  had  been 
selected  only  after  the  examination  of  almost  a  thousand 
talesmen,  during  a  period  of  four  weeks.  That  jury  was 
representative  of  the  middle  class. 

Frank  S.  Osborne,  the  jury  foreman,  was  a  salesman  for 
Marshall  Field  and  Company;  and  the  other  eleven  "good 
men  and  true"  answered  to  these  descriptions:  former  rail- 
road construction  contractor,  clothing  salesman,  ex-broker 
from  Boston,  school  principal,  shipping  clerk,  traveling  paint 
salesman,  book-keeper,  stenographer  for  the  Chicago  and 
Northwestern  Railway,  voucher  clerk  for  the  same  railroad, 
hardware  merchant,  seed  salesman. 

Watching  the  accused  men  in  court,  I  wondered  whether 
it  was  indeed  possible  that  any  of  them  had  anything  to  do 
with  the  throwing  of  that  bomb,  which  wounded  countless 
working  people  as  well  as  killing  the  seven  policemen.  There 
were  reports,  repeatedly  published,  that  members  of  the  An- 
archist group  were  mortally  injured  on  the  night  of  May  4, 
but  that  they  were  "spirited  away*'  by  friends. 

The  defendants  were  neatly  dressed,  each  with  a  flower 
in  his  buttonhole.  They  sat  in  their  chairs  with  dignity,  and 
with  the  apparent  self-confidence  of  men  who  expected  to 
be  exonerated. 

There  was  a  breathless  tension  to  the  court  proceedings, 
the  air  electric.  Grinnell  talked  much  about  "protecting  so- 
ciety and  government  against  enemies  bent  on  their  destruc- 
tion/' Captain  Black  was  on  his  feet  often  with  objections. 

Back  at  the  Evening  Mail  office,  I  re-drew  my  sketches 


86        ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

on  chalk  plates*  By  this  time  I  had  acquired  a  ready  hand 
for  working  with  this  process,  though  I  never  liked  it.  These 
pictures  of  the  trial  attracted  considerable  attention,  both 
among  the  Mail  staff  and  outside.  Word  came  to  me  a  little 
later  that  Melville  E.  Stone,  editor  of  the  Daily  News,  had 
commented  favorably  upon  that  day's  work  of  mine.  And 
Snowden  praised  my  courtroom  pictures. 

Having  attended  a  few  sessions  of  the  trial,  and  in  a 
sense  having  been  for  several  days  a  part  of  that  dramatic 
spectacle,  I  followed  the  newspaper  reports  of  the  case  with 
deep  interest.  "Evidence"  steadily  mounted  against  them*  Of 
the  real  quality  of  that  "evidence"  I  knew  nothing  then. 

After  the  prosecution  had  rested  its  case,  the  defense 
attorneys  moved  that  the  jury  be  instructed  to  return  a  ver- 
dict of  not  guilty  for  Neebe,  on  the  ground  that  the  State 
had  failed  to  connect  him  in  any  way  with  either  the  bomb- 
throwing  or  the  alleged  conspiracy.  But  Judge  Gary  over- 
ruled the  motion. 

When  the  defense  was  putting  in  its  evidence,  I  was  in 
court  again,  and  now  the  accused  men  were  having  their 
inning.  The  structure  which  the  State  had  built  up  seemed 
to  be  breaking  down.  I  took  note  of  Parsons's  wife  in  the 
audience,  with  her  striking  Indian-hued  face;  of  Nina  Van 
Zandt,  sweetheart  of  Spies;  and  of  the  relatives  of  other 
defendants.  They  all  seemed  buoyed  up  by  new  hope. 

Reading  in  next  morning's  papers  about  the  sessions  I 
had  attended,  however,  the  case  appeared  in  a  much  different 
light  than  it  had  in  the  courtroom.  Did  the  reporters  have 
sharper  ears  and  keener  eyes  than  I?  Perhaps  so;  they  were 
trained  in  this  kind  of  work  while  I  was  new  at  it.  Yet  why 
was  one  side  of  the  case  over-emphasized,  and  the  other  sub- 
ordinated? I  know  now,  but  I  didn't  know  then. 

And  a  few  days  later,  the  State  had  the  last  word 
blasting  the  defendants  in  its  closing  arguments,  repairing 
any  damage  the  defense  had  done  to  the  prosecution's  case. 
Grinnell  spoke  all  one  day  and  part  of  the  next.  Out  over 
night,  the  jury  brought  in  a  verdict  finding  all  the  defend- 
ants guilty  of  murder  "as  charged  in  the  indictment/'  That 
verdict  specified  a  penalty  of  death  for  Spies,  Schwab,  Fielden, 
Parsons,  Fischer,  Engel,  and  Lingg;  and  fifteen  years'  im- 
prisonment for  Neebe, 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES         87 

I  listened  to  the  opinion  among  the  men  on  the  Mail  staff 
as  to  the  guilt  or  innocence  of  the  Anarchists.  Argument  over 
that  question  went  on  heatedly  for  days  in  the  news  room* 
The  champions  of  the  defendants,  who  were  in  the  minority, 
cited  various  alleged  flaws  in  the  State's  case*  I  remember 
there  was  a  good  deal  of  skepticism  over  the  testimony  of  a 
Tribune  reporter,  a  prosecution  witness,  who  told  what  was 
said  by  speakers  at  the  Haymarket  meeting,  and  swore  that 
he  took  notes  with  a  pencil  down  inside  of  his  overcoat 
pocket!  But  even  if  the  prosecution  was  weak  on  that  point, 
the  conservatives  declared,  there  was  plenty  of  other  evi- 
dence of  guilt — and  they  cited  it,  point  by  point.  'Til  trust 
that  jury/'  Fred  Martin  insisted.  "All  of  them  are  guilty  as 
hell/' 

Newspaper  editorials  and  prominent  citizens  in  inter- 
views lauded  the  jury  for  "intelligent  service  to  the  State" 
and  the  Tribune  printed  a  letter  from  an  ardent  reader  urging 
the  raising  of  a  $100,000  fund  to  be  presented  to  the  jurors 
as  a  fitting  reward  for  their  fearless  integrity,  etcetra. 

Immediately  after  the  verdict  the  defense  gave  notice  that 
it  would  appeal  to  the  higher  courts,  and  with  the  convicted 
men  locked  in  their  cells  in  the  county  jail,  the  press  began 
devoting  its  front  pages  to  other  affairs. 

I  was  to  see  more  of  the  class  struggle  in  the  near  future 
without  knowing  what  it  meant.  Indeed,  at  that  time,  when 
I  was  20  years  old,  I  knew  hardly  anything  except  that  I 
had  a  knack  for  drawing  pictures  and  was  pretty  good  at 
reciting  selections  from  books  of  poetry* 


Chapter   9 
MELVILLE  E.  STONE  SENDS  FOR  ME 

NOW  I  got  word  that  Melville  E*  Stone  wanted  to  see 
me.  Waiting  a  few  days  so  as  not  to  seem  too  anxious, 
I  went  over  to  the  Daily  News  office,  taking  along 
samples  of  the  best  of  my  drawings.  Stone  looked  them  over 
with  a  critical  eye. 

'Tve  been  watching  your  work/'  he  said,  "and  I  was 
impressed  particularly  by  your  sketches  of  the  Anarchists' 
trial.  I  think  we  could  make  a  place  for  you  here.  The  Daily 
News  is  expanding,  and  we  need  pictures — good  pictures* 
We've  just  put  in  a  zinc  etching  plant,  and  we've  stopped 
using  chalk  plates.  .  *  .  How  would  you  like  to  come  and 
work  for  us  in  the  art  department?" 

I  favored  the  idea. 

"How  much  money  do  you  want?" 

That  was  a  trying  moment.  I  was  still  afraid  of  editors, 
and  for  many  years  thereafter  my  heart  sank  whenever  I 
approached  any  of  them.  I  had  read  a  book,  Getting  on  in  the 
World,  by  William  Mathews.  Whether  it  fortified  me  at  this 
juncture,  I  don't  know,  but  I  kept  saying  to  myself:  "Look 
your  listener  right  in  the  eye  and  don't  sell  your  talent  too 
cheap/*  Stone's  question  was  a  tactical  error.  I  had  been 
getting  only  about  $12  a  week  from  the  Evening  Mail  for 
my  free-lance  contributions;  and  if  he  had  offered  me  $15 
or  $20  a  week  I  would  have  accepted  without  haggling,  for 
the  chance  to  work  on  such  an  enterprising  paper  as  the 
Daily  News. 

But  boldly  I  said:  "I  think  I  am  worth  $35 — a  week/' 

"Well,  you  are  worth  that  if  you  can  do  the  work," 
Stone  answered. 

Instantly  I  thought:  "My  God,  what  have  I  done?  I've 
got  to  make  good." 

So  I  was  given  a  key  to  the  art  department  and  a  salary 
that  was  large  for  a  country  boy,* in  those  days  before  artists 

88 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES         89 

and  pictures  were  thought  to  be  much  of  an  asset  to  news- 
papers. J.  C.  Selanders  had  been  doing  most  of  the  work  in 
that  department,  but  he  was  soon  to  leave  for  a  tour  of 
Europe. 

Stone  was  editor  and  part  owner  of  the  News,  with  Vic- 
tor R  Lawson  as  partner.  Tall  and  slim,  and  son  of  a  small- 
town clergyman,  Stone  was  an  energetic  and  ambitious  per- 
son, obviously  proud  of  the  contacts  with  notables  that  he 
made  through  his  position. 

Most  of  my  assignments  came  from  Charles  H.  Dennis, 
the  managing  editor,  and  from  Butch  White,  city  editor;  but 
occasionally  they  were  given  directly  by  Stone,  in  his  nasal 
voice.  Once  I  said  to  him,  after  proposing  a  certain  kind 
of  picture:  "I  think  the  public  likes  such  pictures/*  "Never 
mind  what  the  public  likes/'  Stone  answered.  'Til  take  care 
of  that/' 

Like  the  Evening  Mail,  the  Daily  News  was  in  an  old 
dingy  building.  In  fact  all  the  Chicago  papers  were  then  in 
such  rookeries.  My  working  environment  was  raw,  but  it 
didn't  matter.  The  adventure  of  being  in  a  bustling  metropo- 
lis constantly  took  on  new  color.  The  city  was  smoky  and 
blatant,  sprawled  out  and  smelly — with  odors  both  savory 
and  repellent:  blindfold,  I  could  have  told  with  a  high  per- 
centage of  accuracy  what  part  of  town  I  was  in*  There  were 
the  spice  mills  and  coffee  roasting  plants  around  the  Hoyt 
company's  quarters  near  the  Rush  Street  bridge;  the  fish, 
poultry,  fruit,  and  vegetable  markets  along  South  Water 
Street;  the  poisonous  river,  which  with  its  two  branches 
divided  the  city  into  three  segments;  and  more  potent  than 
all  else,  when  the  wind  was  from  the  Southwest,  the  unmis- 
takable breath  of  the  stockyards.  Another  odor  which,  how- 
ever, might  be  found  anywhere  in  Chicago  was  sewer  gas. 

Newspaper  standards  in  that  time  were  low,  though  I 
didn't  know  it,  having  no  yardstick  for  comparison.  The 
dailies  were  emotional  in  their  news  columns  as  well  as  in 
editorials,  profuse  with  derogatory  epithets  even  on  the  front 
pages  in  political  campaigns.  They  fawned  upon  visiting 
celebrities,  often  grew  maudlin  in  eulogies  of  them.  Some  of 
the  papers  systematically  stole  telegraph  news  from  the 
others;  one  way  of  achieving  such  theft  was  the  bribery  of 
a  telegraph  operator  in  one  office  to  provide  an  unofficial 


90         ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

client  with  carbon  copies  of  all  material  coming  over  the 
wires.  A  good  many  outlandish  fake  news  stories  found  their 
way  into  print,  and  were  all  too  often  believed  by  a  gullible 
public*  Many  reporters  were  careless  with  their  use  of  facts. 
The  less  prosperous  dailies,  weak  in  their  supply  of  tele- 
graphic intelligence  and  with  small  local  staffs,  brought  in- 
vention into  play;  anything  to  keep  up  with,  or  beat,  their 
rivals. 


FASHION  IN  1886,  from  one  of  my  sketch-books. 

It  was  good  sport  to  sit  around  with  the  reporters  after 
hours,  in  the  local  room  or  over  in  police  headquarters,  and 
hear  the  news-hounds  boast  about  their  achievements — how 
one  landed  a  big  story  by  hiding  under  a  sofa  in  an  alder- 
man's office;  how  another  impersonated  a  federal  officer  and 
thus  got  an  interview  with  a  fugitive  not  yet  caught  by  the 
authorities;  how  a  third  crouched  in  water  in  a  rainbarrel 
while  he  eavesdropped  on  a  well-known  couple  who  a  little 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES         91 

later  were  airing  dirty  linen  in  the  divorce  court.  There  were 
gory  tales,  too,  of  suspects  in  crime  cases  being  beaten  almost 
to  death  in  the  police  stations  to  force  them  to  talk;  these 
were  horrifying. 

Assignments  on  the  Daily  News  gave  me  entree  every- 
where that  I  wanted  to  go,  and  my  life  moved  along 
smoothly.  From  men  and  women  whose  names  were  known 
internationally  for  their  achievements,  I  learned  much.  True, 


Chicago  Daily  News 


BOOTH  AND  BARRETT.  Two  great  actors  view  the 
Lincoln  statue  by  St.  Gaudens. 

the  information  I  was  picking  up  was  in  unrelated  pieces; 
and  I  had  to  become  much  older  before  I  could  put  these 
jigsaw  pieces  together  and  make  a  clear  composite  of  them. 
Frances  Willard,  long  president  of  the  Woman's  Christian 
Temperance  Union,  made  a  deep  impression  on  me  when  I 
sketched  her.  She  was  the  first  woman  publicist  of  any  conse- 
quence that  I  ever  saw.  It  was  a  rare  thing  in  those  days  for 
a  woman  to  do  battle  on  social  questions  in  the  public  arena. 
Except  for  those  who  braved  ostracism  by  going  on  the 


92         ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

stage,  most  of  the  gentler  sex  either  remained  in  the  home, 
concerned  themselves  with  non-controversial  activities  like 
music,  became  missionaries  or  collected  money  for  the 
heathen,  taught  school,  or  went  into  nunneries.  Miss  Willard, 
a  finely  moulded  individual,  was  a  torch  of  eloquence, 

I  listened  spellbound  as  she  addressed  a  convention  of 
several  thousand  people  in  the  old  Exposition  building*  She 
was  attacking  the  exploitation  of  the  masses  by  the  rich,  and 
her  statements  seemed  unanswerable*  Some  years  later  I  got 
hold  of  a  pamphlet  in  which  she  advocated  such  radical  steps 
as  nationalization  of  transportation  and  communication; 
public  ownership  of  newspapers,  with  every  editorial  bearing 
the  signature  of  its  author;  compulsory  arbitration  in  indus- 
trial disputes;  and  minimum  wages  for  workers.  This  was 
one  of  the  first  Socialistic  appeals  that  I  ever  read,  although 
I  am  sure  there  was  no  mention  of  Socialism  in  Miss  Willard' s 
utterances.  I  could  see  nothing  fanatical  about  this  magnetic 
woman  or  her  ideas.  But  she  was  expected  to  stick  to  the 
subject  of  temperance  and  let  economics  alone. 

President  Grover  Cleveland  and  his  wife  came  to  town, 
and  I  made  sketches  of  them,  as  they  were  driven  along 
Michigan  Avenue  in  a  four-horse  carriage.  Cleveland  was  so 
bulky  that  he  looked  slightly  comic,  especially  because  of  his 
habit  of  wearing  his  silk  hat  tilted  a  bit  forward. 

One  day  in  Lincoln  Park,  by  sheer  chance,  I  came  upon 
Edwin  Booth  and  Lawrence  Barrett,  his  fellow  actor,  seated 
in  a  carriage  viewing  the  St.  Gaudens  statue  of  Abraham 
Lincoln,  which  was  being  made  ready  for  dedication.  I 
sketched  that  scene  and  it  was  reproduced  in  the  Daily  News. 
Booth  had  often  been  hooted  when  he  appeared  on  the  stage 
after  his  brother  Wilkes  had  killed  Lincoln,  but  he  neverthe- 
less had  continued  his  career,  and  finally  regained  public 
esteem. 

One  rarely  hears  of  Eugene  Field  nowadays,  save  when 
some  old-timer  harks  back  in  reminiscence  to  him  and  his 
work.  But  in  the  Eighties  he  was  an  institution  in  Chicago; 
and  like  all  who  are  in  the  limelight  he  had  detractors  as  well 
as  panegyrists.  Day  after  day  the  local  scene  was  enlivened 
by  his  column  in  the  Daily  News,  which  bore  the  title, 
''Sharps  and  Flats/' 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES         93 

His  writings  therein,  like  those  in  most  columns  of  the 
kind  in  newspapers,  were  words  traced  in  sand,  forgotten 
soon  afterward.  Most  of  his  poems  have  faded  out,  except 
"Winken,  Blynken,  and  Nod/'  "Little  Boy  Blue"  and  "See- 
ing Things  at  Night/'  Another  favorite  with  me  was  "That 
Was  Long  Ago/'  in  which  a  father  relates  youthful  memories 
to  his  child*  He  could  recite  his  own  poems  better  than  any 
of  the  professional  elocutionists.  I  knew  many  of  them  by 
heart. 

"I  don't  write  poetry/*  he  said  to  me.  "Call  it  just  verse/' 
Yet  some  of  it  was  poetry,  with  depth  of  feeling  and  a  lilt 
of  beauty  that  compels  remembrance. 

I  can  look  back  fifty  years  and  see  him  clearly  in  his 
cubby-hole,  exchanging  quips  with  a  side-whiskered  crony — 
Dr.  Frank  Reilly  of  the  editorial  staff,  later  Chicago's  health 
commissioner.  Field  has  an  architect's  drawing  board  on  his 
knees.  That  is  the  desk  on  which  he  does  his  writing;  and 
his  penmanship  is  as  clear  and  fine  as  copper-plate  print*  The 
walls  are  plastered  with  newspaper  clippings,  most  of  them 
about  himself  and  his  friends.  He  was  sixteen  years  older  than 
I,  but  having  youngsters  like  myself  around  seemed  to  be  his 
idea  of  right  living. 

Field  had  inherited  $8,000  from  his  father  at  the  age  of 
twenty-one,  and  set  out  immediately  to  see  how  fast  he 
could  get  rid  of  it.  With  a  brother  of  the  girl  he  was  to 
marry,  he  went  abroad,  "spending  six  months  and  my  patri- 
mony" in  France,  Italy,  Ireland,  and  England. 

"I  just  threw  the  money  around,"  he  said,  in  recalling 
that  splurge.  "I  paid  it  out  for  experience — and  experience 
was  lying  around  loose  everywhere  I  traveled.  When  I  got 
back  life  was  a  good  deal  simpler  than  when  I  thought  myself 
rich.  Practically  broke,  I  went  into  newspaper  work  in  St. 
Louis." 

After  I  had  come  to  know  him  he  made  a  second  visit  to 
England,  and  declared  on  his  return  that  he  didn't  care  much 
for  the  English.  Yet  he  had  brought  home  a  lot  of  souvenir 
photographs  of  British  men  of  letters  whom  he  liked — 
among  them  Andrew  Lang — and  an  axe  presented  to  him  by 
Prime  Minister  Gladstone,  who  had  chopped  down  number- 
less trees  with  it  for  exercise. 

Field  asked  Lang  to  translate  a  Latin  epigram  which  had 


94         ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

accompanied  the  axe,  and  Lang  promptly  obliged  with  the 
translation,  adding:  "If  your  countrymen  admire  Mr.  Glad- 
stone, I  wish  they  had  owned  him;  but  the  just  anger  of 
God  sent  him  to  punish  our  imperial  hypocrisy  and  humbug. 
Every  nation  has  the  Gladstone  it  deserves/' 

I  spent  many  pleasant  hours  with  Field  at  his  home  in 
suburban  Buena  Park.  Here,  in  a  spacious  "den/'  he  did  a 
great  deal  of  his  work,  flanked  by  books  and  piles  of  news- 
papers, and  surrounded  by  thousands  of  curios,  beautiful  or 
grotesque,  which  revealed  a  collector's  passion.  Especially  was 
he  fond  of  canes  from  all  countries.  He  sat  in  an  arm-chair 
which  had  belonged  to  Jefferson  Davis,  and  on  his  table  was 
an  inkstand  that  Napoleon  had  used  and  scissors  formerly 
Charles  A.  Dana's.  And  on  shelves  and  in  glass-fronted  cabi- 
nets were  hundreds  of  dolls,  old  china,  odd-shaped  bottles, 
mechanical  toys,  small  images,  and  strange  pewter  dishes. 

"Some  of  the  best  of  these  things  I  got  for  nothing/'  he 
explained.  "When  a  fellow  becomes  known  as  a  collector, 
and  can  show  just  the  right  shade  of  enthusiasm  for  some 
object  that  another  person  has,  he  finds  that  a  lot  of  people 
are  glad  to  contribute  to  his  collection." 

When  Field  knew  you  well  enough  he  would  show  you 
his  most  unusual  treasure — an  album  of  pornographic  pic- 
tures, curious  examples  of  erotica  from  many  lands,  in  which 
both  men  and  women  and  dumb  animals  were  portrayed  in 
amorous  ecstasies.  I  am  sure  that  Anthony  Comstock  would 
have  burned  with  envy  had  he  known  of  that  garner  of  for- 
bidden photographs  in  Buena  Park. 

Field  had  canaries  in  his  den,  but  their  cage-doors  were 
left  open.  They  flew  about  the  room,  alighting  on  his  shoul- 
ders or  anywhere  they  pleased,  while  he  wrote  or  read. 

He  thought  of  himself  as  a  hard  man  to  get  along  with, 
and  once  told  me  of  a  dream  he  had  had  the  night  before. 
"I  was  in  Heaven,  walking  along  the  golden  streets/'  he 
said,  "and  somebody  introduced  me  to  an  old  codger  he 
called  Job.  'What/  said  I,  'are  you  the  man  who  had  so 
much  trouble,  as  told  in  the  Bible?'  *  .  .  Tm  the  man/  said 
Job.  .  .  .  'Well,  Job/  I  said,  "y°u  don't  know  what  trouble 
is.  Wait  until  you  meet  the  woman  who  had  to  live  with 
me — Mrs*  Eugene  Field/  " 

Field  was  an  inveterate  practical  joker,  and  no  one  in 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES         95 

the  Daily  News  office  was  immune  from  his  humorous  frame- 
ups.  He  perpetrated  some  jokes  on  the  editor  which  de- 
lighted the  staff.  Once  when  he  felt  the  need  of  a  salary  in- 
crease, he  rounded  up  several  ragged  children  from  the  back 
streets,  gave  dimes  to  them,  cautioned  them  not  to  talk,  and 
marched  them  up  the  stairs  and  into  Stone's  presence. 

'Is  it  right/'  he  demanded,  "that  my  children  go  ragged 
in  the  streets  because  the  Daily  News  won't  pay  me  a  decent 
wage?" 

Stone  pretended  to  weep  over  the  columnist's  sad  plight, 
and  instructed  the  cashier  to  step  up  his  pay  envelope. 

Field  would  cheerfully  invite  any  uninitiated  caller  to 
sit  in  a  chair  with  a  camouflage  cushion  of  a  few  newspapers. 
It  originally  had  had  a  cane  seat,  but  this  had  long  since 
worn  out,  and  the  caller's  stern  would  sink  into  the  aperture 
along  with  his  dignity.  Eugene  always  apologized  profusely 
for  not  having  had  the  chair  fixed,  while  the  victim  struggled 
to  extricate  himself. 

A  man  of  reading  and  discernment,  Field  was  at  the  same 
time  Wild-Western  and  raw,  an  odd  combination.  He  chewed 
tobacco  with  avidity  and  swore  convincingly,  often  inventing 
unique  profane  phrases  which  aroused  admiration  among  his 
less  imaginative  co-workers. 

Like  Mark  Twain,  Field  was  an  ardent  dissenter  against 
the  prevailing  social  order  in  private  conversation,  although 
not  much  of  that  dissent  was  found  in  his  writings — nor  in 
Twain's.  Both  of  those  men  were  born  too  soon,  or  perhaps 
were  just  naturally  cautious  of  being  combative  in  public. 
They  were  cast  by  Fate  into  a  period  which  we  know  today 
as  the  era  of  rugged  individualism — a  nation  marching  be- 
hind a  banner  bearing  the  legend:  "Self  conquers  all!"  Mean- 
ing, of  course,  that  it's  up  to  you  alone — a  doctrine  which 
practically  everybody  across  the  land  took  for  granted,  and 
one  which  hangs  on  in  spite  of  its  falsity. 

Yet  Field  and  Twain  occasionally  exhibited  signs  of 
doubt  and  wrote  satirical  comment  on  American  life.  Field 
poked  fun  at  the  shallow  culture  of  the  Chicago  pork  packers, 
and  Mark  Twain  indulged  in  brief  outbursts  of  anarchistic 
protest.  None  of  their  onsets,  however,  was  incisive  enough 
to  make  the  big  financiers  question  their  loyalty  to  the  exist- 
ing economic  and  social  system. 


96         ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

Finley  Peter  Dunne  was  on  the  Daily  News  staff  then, 
writing  editorials  and  paragraphs  about  current  affairs.  He 
had  not  yet  conceived  the  Mr,  Dooley  series,  those  pithy 
comments  on  the  uneven  course  of  the  human  race  still  being 
ten  years  in  the  future,  Dunne's  small  office  was  on  the  second 
floor,  one  of  several  formed  by  eight-foot  partitions,  I  re- 
member dropping  in  one  day  to  show  him  a  picture  I  had 
just  finished.  He  laid  down  a  book  he  had  been  reading — 
the  story  of  a  trip  up  the  Hudson  and  to  New  York  summer 
resorts,  by  Charles  Dudley  Warner,  Looking  at  me  through 


FINLEY    PETER    DUNNE,    before    the 
Dooley  articles   brought   him   fame. 

spectacles  set  against  a  bulbous  nose,  Dunne  said;  'Tve  been 
wasting  my  time  reading  this.  Some  critics  say  Warner  is  a 
genius.  Genius  hell!" 

Irish  wit  often  cropped  out  in  his  daily  talk  even  then, 
and  so  the  Dooley  philosophy  had  a  familiar  ring  when  it 
was  being  featured  afterward  when  Dunne  was  on  the  Eve- 
ning Journal.  I  followed  the  observations  of  "the  sage  of 
Archey  Road"  with  delight,  and  Mr.  Dooley  frequently 
scored  a  bull's  eye  with  his  verbal  shafts.  He  managed  to  get 
in  a  lot  of  side-swipes  at  the  financiers,  the  politicians,  the 
war-makers,  and  other  evil  figures  and  institutions  in  Ameri- 
can life,  in  the  guise  of  humor*  In  his  Dooley  articles  he 
called  attention  to  stupidity  on  our  side  of  the  fence  in  the 
conduct  of  the  Spanish- American  War;  he  voiced  skepticism 
that  the  Standard  Oil  Company  would  ever  have  to  pay  the 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 


97 


famous  $29,000,000  fine,  and  it  never  did;  and  he  dealt 
with  the  national  tendency  to  begin  crusades  against  social 
wrongs  and  never  finish  them*  He  knew  the  value  of  ridicule 
as  a  weapon. 

Some  of  the  sayings  of  Mr.  Dooley  deserve  recalling  now: 

"High  finance  ain't  burglary,  an*  it  ain't  obtaining  money 

be  false  pretinses,   anJ  it  ain't  manslaughter.   It's  what  ye 

might  call  a  judicious  seliction  fr'm  th'  best  features  iv  thim 

ar-rts." 


Chicago  Daily  News 

BEFORE  THE  BICYCLE.  Young  women  sped 
along  on  tricycles  in  1887. 


*T11  niver  go  down  again  to  see  sojers  off  to  th'  war* 
But  yell  see  me  at  the  depot  with  a  brass  band  whin  th*  men 
that  causes  wars  starts  f  r  th'  scene  iv  carnage/' 

"Don't  ask  f  r  rights.  Take  thim.  An*  don't  let  anny  wan 
give  thim  to  ye.  A  right  that  is  handed  to  ye  f  r  nothin*  has 
somethin'  the  matter  with  it.  It's  more  than  likely  it's  only  a 
wrong  turned  inside  out/* 

And  when  his  friend  Hennessey  asked:  "What's  all  this 
that's  in  the  papers  about  the  open  shop?"  Mr.  Dooley 
answered: 


98         ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

".  .  .  Really,  Fm  surprised  at  yer  ignorance,  Hinnissey. 
What  is  th'  open  shop?  Sure,  'tis  where  they  kape  the  doors 
open  to  accommodate  th'  constant  stream  av  min  comin'  in  t' 
take  jobs  cheaper  than  th'  min  that  has  th'  jobs.  .  .  ." 

"But,"  said  Hennessy,  "these  open-shop  min  ye  minshun 
say  they  are  fur  the  unions  if  properly  conducted/' 

"Sure,"  said  Mr.  Dooley,  "if  properly  conducted.  An' 
there  we  are.  An'  how  would  they  have  thitn  conducted? 
No  strikes,  no  rules,  no  conthracts,  no  scales,  hardly  any 
wages,  and  damn  few  members." 

Robert  B.  Peattie  and  his  wife  Elia  also  were  energetic 
members  of  the  News  staff  in  my  time.  With  his  white  face 
and  nose  glasses,  Peattie  moved  about  the  office  like  an  ab- 
sorbed professor.  Elia  had  school-girl  cheeks.  In  summer  she 
edited  the  news  of  the  Wisconsin  resorts.  Whenever  she 
entered  the  art  department  all  four  artists  (the  staff  was 
growing)  stopped  their  work  to  gaze  upon  a  woman  as 
pretty  as  a  rose  fresh  from  outdoors.  I  had  heard  of  the 
literary  evenings  in  their  home,  and  was  invited  to  one  of 
them,  but  gave  an  excuse  to  stay  away.  I  felt  I  was  still  a  bit 
too  crude  to  mingle  with  the  elect. 

My  most  important  assignment  on  the  Daily  News,  up 
to  that  time,  came  on  August  11,  1887,  when  I  was  sent 
down  to  Chatsworth,  Illinois,  some  ninety  miles,  to  cover  the 
aftermath  of  an  appalling  disaster  there.  On  the  previous 
night  an  excursion  train  on  Jay  Gould's  bankrupt  railroad, 
the  Toledo,  Peoria  &  Western,  had  piled  up  in  a  corn-field 
when  a  burning  wooden  trestle  gave  way. 

First  reports  stated  that  more  than  100  persons  had  been 
killed,  and  400  injured.  The  actual  number  of  dead  was 
eighty. 

I  went  first  to  the  wreck  scene,  three  miles  east  of,  the 
town.  One  sleeping  car  had  somehow  remained  right  side  up, 
and  was  still  largely  intact.  But  the  others  were  mostly 
smashed  or  burned.  Amid  the  corn  rows  were  a  lot  of  car- 
seats,  on  which  the  injured  had  been  laid  until  they  could 
be  taken  to  Chatsworth.  Many  men  and  boys  and  a  few 
women  moved  about  amid  the  debris,  some  of  them  picking 
up  bits  of  charred  wood  or  scraps  of  twisted  metal  as 
souvenirs, 


THE  WRECK  AFTER  RECOVERING  THK  BODIES, 


SCENES  ON  THE  LOWER  FLOOR  OF  THE  TOWN  HALL  AT  CHATSWORTH. 


FREIGHT-ROOM  IN  THE'  DEPOT  AT  CHATSWORTH. 


Chicago  Daily 


THE  CHATSWORTH  TRAIN  WRECK.  Aftermath  of  an  1887  Illinois 
disaster  in  which  80  persons  were  killed. 

That  train  had  left  Peoria  at  8  p.m.  on  the  10th,  loaded 
to  the  limit  with  960  passengers,  all  bound  for  Niagara 
Falls  on  a  $7.50  round-trip  excursion*  Six  sleepers,  six  day 

99 


100      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

coaches  and  chair-cars,  three  baggage-cars — all  of  wood,  of 
course,  then — and  two  locomotives.  Being  an  hour  and  a 
half  behind  time,  the  train  was  running  nearly  a  mile  a 
minute  when  it  passed  Chatsworth. 

The  wooden  trestle  was  only  1 5  feet  wide,  bridging  a  dry 
creek-bed  10  feet  below.  Sparks  from  some  other  train  sup- 
posedly had  set  it  afire.  The  engineer  on  the  first  locomotive 
saw  the  flames  too  late.  The  first  locomotive  got  across;  the 
trestle  crumpled  under  the  weight  of  the  second,  and  the  cars 
piled  up  behind  it,  quickly  taking  fire. 

Many  of  the  injured  were  women  and  children.  Among 
those  unhurt  were  only  about  fifty  able-bodied  men.  They 
did  all  that  they  humanly  could  to  rescue  people  trapped  in 
the  burning  cars,  and  for  some  four  hours  they  fought  the 
flames  with  earth  carried  in  their  bare  hands.  Not  a  drop  of 
water  was  available,  and  the  dying  suffered  from  thirst. 

Arriving  in  Chatsworth  after  dark,  I  had  already  steeled 
my  emotions  against  the  sights  which  met  my  eyes.  News- 
paper men  take  on  fortitude  in  the  presence  of  catastrophes 
as  do  doctors  and  nurses.  The  city  hall,  depot,  and  another 
building  had  been  turned  into  hospitals,  serving  also  as 
morgues,  with  the  dead  lying  on  the  floor  covered  with  sheets 
or  other  pieces  of  cloth.  Homes  of  the  townsmen  had  been 
opened  to  survivors  of  the  wreck  who  had  to  remain  there 
with  injured  members  of  their  families.  I  made  sketches  in 
the  light  of  flickering  lanterns  and  oil  lamps.  I  can  remember 
the  sobbing  of  women  and  the  groaning  of  the  sufferers  on 
the  cots. 

Men  who  stood  around  waiting  to  learn  whether  some 
loved  one  would  live  discussed  the  cause  of  the  crash.  Some 
of  them  were  outspoken  in  blaming  Jay  Gould,  notorious 
for  exploiting  railroads  and  the  railroad-using  public.  He 
had  let  the  T.  P»  &  W.  run  down,  one  man  said,  until 
anybody  who  rode  on  it  was  in  danger  of  being  killed. 

My  drawings  were  used  in  the  Daily  News  next  day. 
Done  under  difficult  conditions,  I  can  see  now  that  they  were 
crude.  But  they  evidently  were  all  right  for  that  day,  and 
they  satisfied  the  editors.  Stone  complimented  me,  saying  I 
had  done  a  good  job, 


Chapter   10 
FOUR  DISSENTERS  SILENCED  BY  THE  ROPE 

MEANWHILE  the  attorneys  for  the  convicted  Anarch- 
ists had  carried  their  case  to  the  State  Supreme  Court, 
The  city  had  cooled  down;  one  no  longer  heard  of 
plots  to  blow  up  police  stations,  nor  of  plans  for  revolution. 
A  defense  committee  had  collected  money  to  cover  the  expense 
of  the  appeal;  in  the  Daily  News  office  we  understood  that  it 
was  having  tough  going;  most  people  in  Chicago  accepted 
the  jury's  verdict  as  just,  and  thought  the  convicted  men 
ought  to  be  hanged:  only  a  few  intrepid  souls  argued  other- 
wise* 

In  the  local  room,  occasionally  during  lulls  in  the  pres- 
sure of  work,  controversy  over  the  kind  of  evidence  presented 
would  flare  up  again.  Bits  of  the  speeches  made  by  the  de- 
fendants in  court  would  be  quoted.  Doubt  would  be  cast 
upon  some  of  the  "plots'*  uncovered  by  Captain  Schaack. 
But  the  defenders  of  'law  and  order"  among  the  reporters 
would  cite  an  array  of  evidence  developed  by  the  prosecution, 
to  show  that  "the  jury  did  right." 

When  in  November,  1886,  the  high  Illinois  tribunal 
granted  a  stay  of  execution  of  the  sentence,  bets  at  consider- 
able odds  were  offered  by  knowing  newspapermen  that  the 
courts  would  affirm  the  verdict.  I  recall  no  takers.  But  when 
the  appeal  was  filed  and  arguments  were  heard  in  Spring- 
field the  following  March,  the  prisoners  and  their  counsel 
were  hopeful  of  winning  a  new  trial.  The  lawyers  had  cited 
numerous  alleged  errors  in  Judge  Gary's  procedure,  and 
offered  affidavits  to  prove  that  the  jury  had  been  "packed/* 

Six  months  passed  before  the  court  handed  down  its  de- 
cision. It  unanimously  upheld  the  judgement.  Discussing  the 
case  at  great  length,  it  gave  many  technical  reasons  for  ap- 
proving the  jury's  findings.  This  decision  was  of  course  fea- 
tured in  the  Chicago  dailies. 

But  the  defense  would  not  yet  admit  defeat.  Preparations 

101 


102       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

were  immediately  begun  to  carry  the  fight  to  the  United  States 
Supreme  Court,  on  constitutional  grounds.  General  Ben- 
jamin F.  Butler  was  one  of  the  attorneys  who  presented  the 
argument  in  Washington  late  in  October,  1887,  After  five 
days'  consideration  by  the  full  bench,  Chief  Justice  Waite 
read  its  decision.  No  cause  for  reversal,  it  said* 

Earlier  Judge  Gary  had  sentenced  the  seven  men  in  the 
county  jail  to  die  by  hanging  there  on  November  11.  This 
left  them  only  nine  days  to  live.  Counsel  and  members  of  the 
defense  committee  began  circulating  petitions  addressed  to 
Gov.  Richard  Oglesby  urging  commutation  to  life  terms  in 
prison.  Many  prominent  individuals  wrote  the  state  chief 
executive  to  that  end,  and  various  delegations  visited  him  in 
behalf  of  the  doomed  men. 

It  was  apparent  now  that  sentiment  concerning  the  An- 
archists had  changed  a  good  deal.  Appeals  in  their  behalf 
were  signed  by  notables  including  Lyman  J.  Gage,  later 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury;  William  Dean  Ho  wells,  Robert 
G.  Ingersoll,  Henry  Demarest  Lloyd,  General  Roger  A.  Pryor, 
and  George  Francis  Train.  From  England  protests  against 
the  impending  execution  were  cabled  by  William  Morris, 
Walter  Crane,  Annie  Besant,  Sir  Walter  Besant,  and  Oscar 
Wilde.  And  16,000  members  of  working-class  organizations 
in  London,  on  a  single  day,  signed  a  plea  to  Oglesby  to  save 
the  doomed  men.  George  Bernard  Shaw  was  one  of  those 
who  circulated  that  petition. 

While  all  this  desperate  activity  was  being  generated  by 
the  defense,  various  well-known  Chicago  citizens  were  say- 
ing publicly  that  "the  killing  of  the  Haymarket  martyrs  must 
be  atoned'';  that  ''the  safety  of  our  whole  community  de- 
mands that  these  executions  proceed*';  that  "those  who  de- 
fend anarchy  by  speaking  in  behalf  of  these  red-handed 
murderers  ought  to  be  run  out  of  the  country." 

On  Wednesday,  November  9,  two  days  before  the  sched- 
uled hanging,  Butch  White,  city  editor  of  the  News,  assigned 
me  to  go  to  the  county  jail  and  do  pictures  of  the  "Anarch- 
ists." The  jail  was  adjacent  to  the  criminal  court  building  in 
which  the  trial  had  been  held.  After  my  credentials  had  estab- 
lished my  identity  at  the  entrance,  I  climbed  the  stairs  to  the 
tier  where  the  seven  were  confined,  and  was  allowed  to  roam 
freely  there  while  I  drew  my  sketches.  Other  visitors  also 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       103 

were  present  (presumably  friends  of  officials) ,  and  they  gazed 
into  the  cells  of  the  doomed  labor  leaders  curiously,  as  if  at 
animals  in  a  zoo. 

Albert  Parsons  sat  writing  at  a  table  piled  witjb  books 
and  papers.  He  reminded  me  of  a  country  editor — and,  in 


Chicago  Daily  News 

THE  HAYMARKET  PRISONERS  IN  JAIL.  I  sketched  them  there 
shortly  before  the  date  set  for  the  executions,  and  these  drawings  were 
published  on  that  day. 

fact  he  had  edited  a  weekly  in  Waco,  Texas,  before  coming 
to  Chicago.  .  .  .  Adolph  Fischer,  who  had  been  a  printer, 
looked  like  an  eagle — peering  up  through  the  bars  of  his  cell, 
still  hopeful,  .  .  *  George  Engel,  also  a  printer,  had  less  the 
appearance  of  an  intellectual  than  the  others.  His  eyes  seemed 
iull,  as  if  all  feeling  had  gone  from  him*  .  .  .  August  Spies, 
editor  of  the  Atbeiter  Zeitang,  was  strikingly  good  looking 


104      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

and  straightforward  in  his  talk,  .  .  .  Michael  Schwab, 
spectacled  editorial  writer,  had  a  solemn,  sad  face*  .  .  . 
Samuel'  Fielden,  a  bearded  ex-Methodist  preacher  from  a 
country  town  in  England,  was  a  familiar  speaker  in  halls  and 
working-class  street  meetings,  with  the  voice  and  intensity  of 
a  born  orator.  .  .  . 

But  it  is  Louis  Lingg  that  I  remember  best.  Perhaps  my 
memory  of  him  is  clearest  because  a  ray  of  sunlight,  coming 
through  a  little  high  window,  was  shining  in  his  cell  as  I 
sketched  him.  Only  twenty-two,  a  pale  blond,  he  had  a  look 
of  disdain  for  all.  He  sat  proudly  in  his  chair,  facing  me  with 
unblinking  eyes,  and  silent.  Had  he  opened  his  lips,  I  thought, 
he  probably  would  have  said:  "Go  ahead,  you  reporters,  do 
what  your  masters  want  you  to  do.  As  for  me,  nothing 
matters  now/' 

Engel  was  fifty-one,  Fielden  forty.  The  others  were  in 
the  thirties  or  twenties.  Schwab's  beard  and  Lingg's  mous- 
tache could  not  disguise  their  youthfulness. 

Thursday  brought  word  of  an  explosion  in  the  jail — it 
was  reported  that  Lingg  had  put  a  bomb  into  his  mouth 
and  lighted  the  fuse,  and  was  dying.  Considering  all  the 
precautions  taken  by  the  authorities,  the  searching  of  visitors, 
and  the  frequent  searching  of  the  Haymarket  defendants* 
cells,  no  one  has  ever  satisfactorily  explained  how  that  bomb 
got  past  the  guards.  I  was  chilled  with  the  horror  of  the  story 
as  details  kept  coming  in.  Suffering  untold  agony  with  his 
face  terribly  mutilated,  Lingg  remained  conscious  while  three 
physicians  worked  over  him,  and  lived  six  hours. 

Melville  Stone  was  in  the  local  room  a  great  deal  that 
day,  directing  arrangements  for  covering  the  execution. 
Friends  of  the  prisoners,  some  of  them  prominent  and  influ- 
ential in  civic  affairs,  were  in  Springfield,  trying  to  get  the 
Governor  to  intervene,  but  our  correspondent  wired  that 
Oglesby  could  find  no  reason  for  such  action.  Late  in  the 
afternoon,  however,  the  Governor  issued  a  formal  statement, 
commuting  the  sentences  of  Fielden  and  Schwab  to  life  im- 
prisonment, but  refusing  to  interfere  with  the  sentences 
against  the  other  four.  (Oscar  Neebe,  the  eighth  defendant, 
was  already  serving  a  15 -year  term.) 

Wild  rumors  were  in  circulation,  which  the  newspapers 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       105 

made  the  most  of,  increasing  the  fears  of  the  populace.  Police 
Captain  Schaack  had  announced  the  discovery  of  a  plot  to 
rescue  the  prisoners.  Detective  Herman  Schuettler  was  sup- 
posed to  have  heard,  through  a  peep-hole  cut  in  a  wall  of  a 
North  Side  rooming  house,  the  discussion  of  a  plan  to  blow 
up  the  jail  The  force  on  guard  there  was  doubled,  and 
Schaack's  men  searched  under  the  sidewalk  for  mines.  De- 
struction of  the  city  waterworks,  a  few  blocks  away,  was 
asserted  to  be  a  part  of  the  alleged  conspiracy,  and  it  was 
carefully  protected. 

Many  wealthy  citizens  had  left  town,  for  the  rumors 
had  it  that  if  the  four  prisoners  were  hanged  vengeance 
would  be  taken  against  the  rich.  Anarchists  from  other  cities 
were  declared  to  be  streaming  toward  Chicago  to  join  in  the 
rescue  attempt. 

I  was  much  relieved  when  I  learned  that  another  artist, 
and  not  I,  had  been  assigned  to  witness  the  execution  and 
sketch  the  scene.  I  would  have  gone,  of  course,  had  I  been 
ordered  to,  however  gruelling  the  task.  But  Butch  White 
gave  the  assignment  to  William  Schmedtgen,  an  older  man, 
who  had  joined  the  staff  after  me.  I  never  knew  why  he  was 
chosen,  but  figured  that  White  thought  I  was  too  young. 

Next  morning  I  saw  Schmedtgen  put  a  revolver  in  his 
hip  pocket  and  noticed  that  he  was  pale  and  trembling.  Out- 
side in  the  streets  an  ominous  quiet  prevailed.  Business  seemed 
to  have  come  to  a  halt.  Pedestrians  were  comparatively  few, 
and  every  face  was  tense.  We  who  stayed  in  the  office  didn't 
talk  much,  and  when  we  spoke  our  voices  were  subdued. 
It  was  like  sitting  near  the  bedside  of  some  one  who  is  dying. 
When  a  copy-boy  was  heard  yelling  to  another  boy  out  in 
the  corridor,  one  of  the  staff  hurried  out  to  shut  him  up. 

Reporters  worked  in  relays  covering  the  news  in  the 
vicinity  of  the  jail.  One  by  one  they  came  into  the  office  and 
wrote  their  individual  angles  of  the  story  for  the  early  edi- 
tions, then  returned  to  the  scene  of  action.  Thus  we  got 
frequent  bulletins  on  what  was  happening  there. 

Three  hundred  policemen  had  formed  a  cordon  around 
the  jail,  a  block  away  from  it  on  all  sides,  keeping  the  curious 
crowds  back  of  a  line  of  heavy  rope.  Only  those  persons  who 
could  satisfy  the  cops  that  they  had  bona  fide  passports  could 


106       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

get  through.  Once  a  newspaperman  got  into  the  jail,   the 
police  would  not  let  him  out. 

There  was  no  attempt  at  rescue.  The  hanging  proceeded 
efficiently,  from  the  viewpoint  of  officialdom.  When  the  four 
men  had  dropped  from  the  scaffold  and  the  doctors  had  pro- 
nounced them  dead,  the  tension  of  months  suddenly  was 
gone*  All  over  town  that  afternoon  there  were  drunken 
policemen,  in  and  out  of  the  saloons.  Their  honor  as  de- 
fenders of  law  and  order  had  been  vindicated. 

My  pictures  of  the  executed  men  and  their  fellow- 
defendants  were  used  in  the  Daily  News  that  day.  Schmedt- 
gen's  sketch  of  the  hanging  also  was  rushed  into  print.  I  saw 
him  early  that  afternoon.  He  was  white  and  silent.  We  were 
good  friends  for  years  afterward,  but  I  never  heard  him 
speak  of  what  was  done  in  the  jail-yard. 

Long  detailed  accounts  of  the  hangings  were  published 
in  the  dailies,  with  the  last  words  of  the  four  Anarchists. 
.  .  .  The  general  tenor  of  those  accounts  was  that  their 
final  speeches  were  stage  effects,  that  they  were  posing  as 
martyrs. 

When  another  night  had  passed  and  no  reprisals  had  been 
attempted,  the  mass  fear  of  the  populace  lifted,  the  skies  were 
clear  again,  and  people  returned  to  their  normal  ways  of  life. 
Now  the  whole  episode  seemed  like  some  weird  dream. 

Stone  congratulated  the  staff  on  its  "excellent  work"  in 
covering  the  Haymarket  case.  'It  was  a  good  job  well  ended/' 
he  said. 

Our  circulation  had  been  steadily  climbing  in  recent 
months. 

I  didn't  know  until  long  afterward  about  the  part  that 
Melville  Stone  had  played  in  the  prosecution  of  the  accused 
men.  Not  until  1921,  when  his  autobiography  was  published, 
did  I  know  that  he  wrote  the  verdict  of  the  coroner's  jury, 
although  he  was  not  a  member  of  it. 

Called  in  for  advice  by  the  prosecutor,  the  city  attorney, 
and  the  coroner,  Stone  took  the  position  that  it  did  not  matter 
who  threw  the  bomb,  but  that  inasmuch  as  Spies,  Parsons, 
and  Fielden  had  advocated  the  use  of  violence  against  the 
police,  "their  culpability  was  clear."  Then  he  wrote  the  ver- 
dict for  the  coroner's  jury,  which  formed  the  basis  for  the 


Anarchists  and 

Bomb  Throwers 


Tine  Greatest  Murder  Trial  on  Record,  with.  Speeches  In 

ney«  for  tne  Prosecution  and  Defense.    Profusely  Illustrated. 
Price  »S  Cents.    Agents  Wanted. 

G.  S,  BALDWIN,  PUBLISHER,  199  CLARK  STREET,  CHICAGO. 


WHEN  I  WAS  MISLED.  Carried  away  by  propaganda  against  the  Hay- 
market  case  defendants,  I  drew  this  illustration  for  the  cover  of  a  book  up- 
holding their  conviction.  I  regret  that  now. 


107 


108       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

theory  of  "constructive  conspiracy/'  on  which  the  prosecu- 
tion's case  was  based.  It  held  that  Mathias  Degan  (one  of 
the  seven  policemen  killed  in  the  Haymarket  Square  explo- 
sion) ,  had  come  to  his  death  from  a  bomb  thrown  by  a  per- 
son or  persons  acting  in  conspiracy  with  Spies,  Parsons,  Fiel- 
den,  and  others  unknown. 

Everything  I  read  about  the  Chicago  Anarchists  in  1886 
and  1887  and  nearly  everything  I  heard  about  them  indicated 
that  the  accused  men  were  guilty*  The  news  reports  of  the 
case  in  the  dailies  were  quite  as  biased  against  the  defendants 
as  were  the  editorials.  Few  who  read  the  charges  that  some 
of  them  had  advocated  violence  against  the  police  realized 
that  they  were  driven  to  that  extreme  by  the  wanton  club- 
bing, shooting,  and  killing  of  workers  by  the  police  in  the 
fight  of  the  big  industries  against  the  eight-hour  day  move- 
ment. 

Not  until  several  years  later  did  I  discover  that  there 
was  another  side  to  the  story.  So  when  asked  by  a  pub- 
lisher to  draw  a  cover  for  a  paper-bound  anti-Anarchist 
book  I  readily  assented.  Anarchists  and  Bomb-Throwers  was 
the  title  of  this  volume,  and  it  upheld  the  convictions.  My 
picture  showed  Law  and  Order,  personified  as  an  Amazonian 
woman,  throttling  a  bunch  of  dangerous-looking  men. 

If  the  dead  can  hear,  I  ask  forgiveness  now  for  that  act. 
I  was  young  and  I  had  been  misled  by  the  clamor  of  many 
voices  raised  to  justify  a  dark  and  shameful  deed. 


Chapter   11 
PATTERSON  OF  THE  TRIBUNE  FIRES  ME 

^ITEADILY  the  Daily  News  was  forging  ahead.  Its  cir- 
culation  was  far  in  the  lead  among  Chicago's  eight 
English  dailies,  and  it  took  delight  in  flaunting  its 
figures.  In  1885  its  daily  average  sale  had  been  131,992 
copies,  as  attested  to  the  American  Newspaper  Directory;  the 
Tribune,  Times,  and  Herald  each  claimed  "more  than 
25,000";  the  Mail  and  Inter-Ocean  had  "more  than  22,500." 
In  1886  the  News  average  had  increased  to  152,851,  while 
the  Tribune  had  climbed  above  37,500.  The  Times  and  Inter- 
Ocean  had  stood  still,  the  Herald  was  down  to  22,500,  and 
the  Mail  had  dropped  to  20,000. 

The  Tribune  was  a  sixteen-page  morning  paper,  with 
the  24-page  Sunday  edition;  the  News  had  only  eight  pages, 
appearing  both  morning  and  evening  six  days  a  week;  the 
Mail  had  only  four  pages. 

Much  older  than  the  Daily  News,  the  Tribune  (owned 
by  Joseph  Medill)  obviously  was  envious  of  the  strides  made 
by  the  Stone-Lawson  paper  since  its  establishment  in  1876. 
One  story  told  with  glee  by  men  on  the  News  had  to  do 
with  a  trap  engineered  by  that  paper  to  catch  the  Tribune 
in  a  theft  of  exclusive  news.  Repeatedly  the  Medill  sheet  had 
helped  itself  to  good  foreign  dispatches  originated  by  the 
News;  also  its  New  York  correspondent  found  the  press 
there  a  ready  source  of  intelligence  from  all  over  the  United 
States  and  from  other  countries  as  well. 

Matthew  Arnold  had  lately  completed  a  lecture  tour  in 
this  country,  with  Chicago  as  one  stop  on  his  itinerary,  and 
remembering  his  tendency  to  caustic  criticism,  the  Daily  News 
executives  saw  in  him  an  ideal  peg  on  which  to  hang  a  story 
which  would  tempt  the  pirates  over  on  Dearborn  Street. 
Under  Melville  Stone's  instructions  a  supposed  cable  dispatch 
from  London  was  written,  quoting  from  an  article  concern- 
ing the  English  poet's  impressions  of  Chicago,  declare^  to 

109 


110       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

have  just  been  published  in  the  Pali  Matt  Journal  In  that 
"article"  Arnold  was  represented  as  assailing  various  promi- 
nent Chicagoans  for  boorishness  and  thickheadedness. 

Stone  sent  the  purported  dispatch  to  the  editor  of  the 
New  York  Tribune  with  a  confidential  letter  of  explanation, 
and  soon  the  alleged  criticism  of  Windy  City  notables  was 
printed  in  a  single  copy  of  Whitelaw  Reid's  paper.  That  copy 
quickly  reached  the  desk  of  the  Chicago  Tribunes  correspond- 
ent, who  put  the  story  on  the  wire.  The  Daily  News  solemnly 
sent  reporters  to  interview  the  citizens  whose  toes  had  been 
stepped  on,  and  all  of  them  were  indignant.  Meanwhile 
Stone  cabled  to  Matthew  Arnold  explaining  the  hoax,  and  he 
answered  saying  he  had  not  written  any  such  article.  Then 
the  News  let  the  public  in  on  the  secret,  pointing  out  that 
the  Pall  Mall  Journal  was  non-existent. 

But  three  years  had  passed  since  that  incident,  and  the 
Tribune  was  showing  new  verve.  It  had  spruced  up  the  en- 
trance to  the  building  it  occupied  at  Madison  and  Dearborn 
Streets,  and  had  put  in  an  elevator,  the  Daily  News  not 
having  yet  installed  one.  And  that  winter  the  Tribune  re- 
vealed that  it  had  taken  notice  of  me. 

Robert  Patterson  was  running  the  Tribune.  He  was  a 
son-in-law  of  Joseph  Medill.  Patterson  sent  for  me,  indicated 
special  interest  in  my  pictures,  and  offered  me  a  job.  I  had 
no  trouble  in  getting  $50  a  week.  Giving  Stone  notice,  I  ex- 
plained that  I  felt  this  was  an  opportunity  that  I  couldn't 
pass  by.  He  said  he  was  sorry  I  was  leaving,  and  added:  "If 
at  any  time  you  get  tired  of  the  Tribune  there  will  be  a  place 
open  for  you  on  the  Daily  News/' 

Assignments  on  the  Tribune  were  often  vague;  the  editors 
seemed  to  have  trouble  in  deciding  what  they  wanted.  But 
one  order  that  challenged  my  imagination  was  for  sketches 
of  the  great  blizzard  in  New  York  City  in  March,  1888. 
''See  if  you  can  make  a  few  pictures  of  that  storm/'  was 
Patterson's  request.  Of  course  I  had  seen  various  woodcut 
illustrations  of  New  York  streets  and  some  photographs,  but 
now  I  had  before  me  not  a  shred  of  graphic  material — for  in 
that  day  the  Tribune  had  not  developed  a  reference  library. 
With  nothing  to  go  on  except  the  telegraphic  reports,  I  drew 
from  word  descriptions  several  pen-and-ink  sketches  which 
at  least  caught  the  spirit  of  the  mighty  snowdrifts  in  the 


EUGENE   FIELD'S   LETTER 

recommending  me   to   the   editor  of   the  7V«w;    ForA-    World, 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       111 

East  and  gave  the  Tribune  an  aspect  of  worthy  enterprise* 

With  money  from  my  increased  salary  piling  up  in  a 
savings  bank,  I  had  a  fine  sense  of  well-being.  I  went  to 
Monroe  for  a  weekend,  and  basked  in  the  warmth  of  ad- 
miring glances.  But  I  knew  that  this  admiration  was  not 
caused  so  much  by  my  drawings  that  my  fellow  Monroeites 
had  been  seeing  in  the  Chicago  papers  as  by  the  fact  that 
Dan  Young's  boy  was  making  $50  a  week.  My  imagination 
was  soaring  on  the  new  job,  and  I  think  that  the  quality 
of  my  work  decidedly  improved. 

Shortly  after  this,  however,  Robert  Patterson  informed 
me  that  "circumstances  have  compelled  us  to  make  some 
readjustments  in  the  staff/'  and  that  it  was  necessary  to  dis- 
pense with  my  services.  "Illustrations  in  newspapers  are  just 
a  passing  vogue/'  he  said.  "People  will  get  tired  of  them/' 
I  was  stunned,  of  course,  but  I  asked  no  questions,  did  not 
inquire  what  was  the  real  reason  for  my  being  discharged. 
I  have  never  asked  an  editor  why  he  didn't  want  my  work; 
it  would  have  been  too  much  like  asking  a  woman  why  she 
didn't  love  me.  I  had  a  suspicion  that  the  Tribune  had  hired 
me  away  from  the  Daily  News  simply  to  weaken  the  staff 
of  the  latter. 

Stone's  offer  to  make  a  place  for  me  at  any  time  had 
sounded  pleasant  when  he  uttered  it.  Yet  now  I  had  no 
thought  of  going  back  to  the  News.  Having  ample  money  in 
reserve,  I  was  inclined  to  relax  and  free-lance  for  a  while. 

My  living  quarters  were  still  in  the  little  room  on  Wabash 
Avenue.  But  though  my  own  room  was  cramped,  I  found 
ease  and  comfort  in  leisure  hours  in  visiting  upstairs  with  a 
fine  looking  blonde  of  about  thirty.  She  managed  a  depart- 
ment in  one  of  the  big  State  Street  stores,  but  never  talked 
shop.  Her  two  rooms  were  above  mine.  Edith  knew  about 
me,  from  our  landlady,  and  had  seen  my  drawings  in  the 
newspapers. 

When  her  evenings  were  lonely,  she  would  signal  to  me 
by  tapping  on  the  floor.  On  my  first  visit  she  had  thought- 
fully turned  the  lights  low  when  they  appeared  to  annoy 
my  eyes,  and  soon,  without  quite  knowing  how  it  happened, 
I  found  her  in  my  arms.  She  had  a  healthy  outlook,  and 
laughter  in  her  soul.  Presently  I  (or  perhaps  it  was  she) 
had  broken  down  all  the  barriers  of  convention  that  keep 


112      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

a  man  and  woman  apart.  For  me  it  was  akin  to  standing 
on  a  precipice  and  suddenly  gathering  courage  for  a  dive 
into  strange  waters  below. 

Knowing  much  more  of  life  than  I,  Edith  was  unafraid, 
and  her  ecstasy  was  like  wine  to  my  senses.  Here  was  roman- 
tic adventure  about  which  I  had  wondered  and  for  which  I 
had  often  longed.  But  quickly  afterward,  there  was  a  let- 
down. As  I  lay  alone  in  my  own  room  later  that  night,  I 
was  shaken.  Had  I  been  wise?  Echoes  of  the  Rev.  Mr.  Bush- 
nell's  voice,  thundering  against  the  iniquity  of  carnal  sin, 
swept  in  to  haunt  me.  Next  morning  uncertainty  lingered. 
Yet  when  on  another  of  Edith's  lonely  evenings  she  again 
tapped  the  signal,  I  could  not  say  no.  Once  more  the  tingling 
caresses  of  a  free  soul  lifted  me  to  mountain-tops. 

But  the  reaction  followed  as  before,  taking  my  mind  off 
my  work.  I  saw  that,  for  all  of  Edith's  charm  and  the  joy  of 
being  with  her,  I  was  steadily  being  drawn  into  an  impossible 
situation.  Walking  down  Michigan  Avenue  in  the  fresh  air 
to  think  things  out,  I  determined  not  to  become  involved  in 
any  other  passion  but  the  creating  of  pictures.  All  else  must 
be  subordinated  to  that.  It  was  not  economic  fear  which 
deterred  me  then;  not  until  later  in  life  did  I  collide  with  the 
frightening  financial  consequences  of  love.  At  that  time  I 
simply  did  not  want  to  assume  any  emotional  responsibilities 
other  than  that  of  pursuing  my  own  artistic  development; 
my  career  must  not  become  sidetracked  by  a  sentimental 
attachment. 

Overnight  I  decided  that  it  was  time  for  me  to  pack  up 
and  go  to  New  York.  I  would  study  in  the  art  schools  there. 
Newspaper  work  now  seemed  commonplace ;  I  wanted  to  go 
far  beyond  it — paint,  experiment  with  color,  deal  with  sub- 
tleties, weave  into  my  pictures  the  undertones  and  overtones 
of  life. 

New  York  City  had  something,  I  was  sure,  that  one  with 
artistic  leanings  could  never  find  in  Chicago.  Suddenly  that 
city  had  grown  crude  in  my  eyes.  My  work  was  not  appre- 
ciated, and  I  was  out  of  a  job.  Now  what?  All  the  world's 
great  lived  in  or  visited  New  York  at  some  time  or  other; 
tot  nearly  so  many  reached  Chicago. 

\  I  could  see  myself  growing  vastly  in  creative  stature  in 
£he  atmosphere  of  the  metropolis.  There  was  nothing  to  hold 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       113 

me  back*  I  had  saved  enough  money  to  carry  me  along  for 
many  months,  while  I  was  working  out  plans  for  the  future. 
Eugene  Field  gave  me  a  letter  to  CoL  John  A*  Cockerill,  who 
had  attained  renown  as  the  ' 'fighting  editor*'  of  the  Cincinnati 
Enquirer  and  the  Washington  Post,  and  who  at  that  time  was 
managing  editor  of  the  New  York  World  under  Joseph 
Pulitzer*  Gene  laid  it  on  thick.  He  wrote: 

Dear  Colonel  Cockerill: 

This  will  introduce  Mr.  A.  H.  Young,  by  all  odds 
the  brightest  and  best  caricaturist  and  artist  we  have  had 
here  in  Chicago.  Inasmuch  as  he  intends  to  make  his 
home  in  New  York,  you  will  do  the  smart  thing  if  you 
get  a  first  mortgage  on  him.  God  bless  you. 

Eugene  Field 

Also  I  had  an  invitation  from  the  art  editor  of  the  New 
York  Graphic  to  join  his  staff.  This  was  the  first  daily  news- 
paper anywhere  to  emphasize  the  importance  of  pictures  with 
text  reduced  to  a  minimum.  The  Graphic  staff  included  such 
able  cartoonists  and  humorous  illustrators  as  Kemble, 
Cusachs,  Frost,  and  the  inimitable  Hopkins  ("Hop"),  who 
after  the  fall  of  the  Graphic  went  to  Australia  and  was  that 
country's  leading  cartoonist  for  many  years. 

Before  making  the  900-mile  jump  to  the  East,  I  went 
home  to  Monroe  to  say  goodbye  to  the  folks,  and  to  lounge 
around  town  for  a  couple  of  days  and  tell  various  friends 
and  acquaintances  about  my  intentions.  My  father's  eyes 
lighted  up  as  he  told  customers  that  his  son  had  not  only 
been  working  for  Chicago  newspapers,  but  that  I  had  saved 
enough  cash  to  carry  me  for  a  year  or  more  through  art  school 
in  New  York.  My  mother  voiced  anxiety  about  my  going 
so  far  away  from  home,  but  I  could  see  that  she  too  was 
quietly  proud  of  my  progress.  I  spent  the  evenings  with 
Elizabeth  North,  agreeably.  "I  always  knew  you'd  be  a 
success/'  she  said. 

The  town  seemed  smaller  now  than  before.  And  there 
had  been  changes — some  of  the  old  characters  that  had  fre- 
quented our  store  had  died.  Bill  Blunt  had  been  appointed 
town  constable,  a  big  cherry  tree  in  Frank  Shindler's  yard 
had  been  cut  down  after  being  struck  by  lightning,  and  the 
Milwaukee  &  St.  Paul  depot  had  a  fresh  coat  of  paint. 


114       ART  YOUNG:   HIS  LIFE  AND   TIMES 

Charlie  Booth,  editor  of  the  Sentinel,  as  usual,  knocked  off 
work  for  a  half  hour  to  talk  with  me.  He'd  always  had 
ambitions  to  go  to  New  York  himself,  he  said,  but  had  been 
too  busy  to  get  around  to  it,  Jim  Fitzgibbons,  poolroom 
proprietor,  asked  me  to  keep  an  eye  open  for  a  cousin  of  his 
who  at  last  accounts  was  driving  a  street  car  somewhere  in 
New  York  City. 

Back  in  Chicago,  to  cut  my  moorings,  I  had  another  long 
evening  with  Edith,  and  was  relieved  when  she  raised  no 
tearful  fuss  about  my  going  away.  But  my  laughter  wasn't 
real  when  she  said  gayly:  "I  may  send  you  a  nice  little  boy 
some  day.  How  would  you  like  that?"  It  was  as  if  I  were 
fleeing  from  the  devil  when  I  boarded  a  Michigan  Central 
train.  Yet  as  the  clicking  wheels  bore  me  Eastward,  I  was 
warmed  anew  by  the  thought  of  her  laughter  and  her  supreme 
self-assurance.  I  knew  she  was  no  more  of  a  sinner  than  I — 
and  that  has  been  my  attitude  toward  intimate  relations 
between  the  sexes  ever  since. 

I  wish  I  could  brag  about  my  prowess  in  the  matter  of 
sex  in  those  growing  years.  I  wish  I  had  had  more  experience 
in  amorous  affairs,  not  so  much  as  my  friend  Frank  Harris 
claimed  to  have  had,  but  anyhow  bolder  and  with  less  re- 
gard for  the  consequences.  The  Puritan  bourgeois  ideas  of 
a  country  town  pressed  heavily  upon  me,  and  affected  my  ap- 
proach to  life.  Gloomy  admonitions  were  my  heritage:  Thou 
shah  not!  and  Beware  of  disease! 

Having  such  a  background  of  morality  and  fear,  it  was 
fortunate  that  I  also  had  a  talent  to  look  after,  which  helped 
me  to  forget  the  flesh.  But  I  saw  many  girls  whom  I  wanted 
to  love.  Vicariously  I  have  loved  and  still  love  thousands 
of  them.  Through  most  of  my  years  sex  in  my  life  has 
been  repressed.  Whether  I  am  the  better  or  worse  for  it  is  just 
idle  speculation  now.  .  .  .  Often  I  am  skeptical  when  I 
hear  of  the  vaunted  reputations  of  certain  authors  and  artists 
as  conquistadotes  among  women.  I  doubt  their  emotional 
capacity  to  keep  up  the  pace  of  which  they  boast. 


Chapter    1 2 
I  GO  TO  NEW  YORK  WITH  HIGH  HOPES 

A  the  train  sped  eastward  I  sat  in  the  luxurious  diner 
and  reveled  in  the  scene,  as  the  green~and~brown 
panorama  of  the  fields  flitted  past.  I  liked  to  see 
farmers  wave  their  straw  hats,  and  horses  out  to  pasture 
kick  up  their  heels  and  run  as  the  train  sped  by,  as  if  they 
were  showing  off  and  saying:  * 'Think  you're  going  fast? 
Look  at  us!"  As  we  went  a  bit  slower  through  small  villages 
I  liked  to  see  the  girls  and  boys  at  stations  and  cross-roads, 
gazing  at  this  express  train  bound  for  New  York.  I  suspected 
they  were  envious  of  us  lucky  passengers,  and  were  hoping 
that  some  day  they,  too,  would  be  riding  on  a  fast  train  to  a 
fast  city. 

I  read  again  the  letter  from  Eugene  Field  to  Colonel 
Cockerill,  and  the  invitation  from  the  Illustrated  Daily 
Graphic  editor  to  work  for  him.  There  was  satisfaction  in 
knowing  that  I  had  such  letters  to  fall  back  upon  if  needed. 
But  there  was  no  hurry  about  my  getting  a  job.  I  wanted  to 
study  for  a  while. 

My  emotions  flared  high.  I  whistled  a  tune  in  rhythm 
with  the  rumble  and  click  of  the  wheels.  At  ease  in  the  Pull- 
man, the  first  I  had  ever  ridden  in,  I  felt  that  boyhood  dreams 
were  coming  true.  Towns  and  cities  were  momentary  inci- 
dents along  the  way.  We  left  Indiana  behind  and  were  in 
Michigan.  One  knew  that  only  because  the  time-table  said 
so;  the  character  of  the  country  remained  unchanged.  A 
humorous  conception  of  my  childhood  came  back — the 
thought  that  each  state  was  of  a  different  color,  as  in  maps, 
and  that  between  them  was  a  clearly  marked  boundary. 

I  had  brought  along  some  reading  matter — Harper's 
Weekly,  the  Daily  Graphic,  Judge,  Puck,  and  Scribner's.  As 
usual  I  went  through  their  pages  more  than  once — scanning 
the  pictures  first,  then  the  text  and  the  advertisements.  The 
quality  of  the  illustrations  varied  considerably,  and  they 

115 


116       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

seemed  much  below  the  standard  of  the  European  draftsmen 
of  the  graphic  arts — in  social  satire,  political  cartoons,  and 
comics. 

Advertisements  of  that  time  included  names  of  firms  and 
products  which  are  still  familiar — Pear's  Soap;  Pond's  Ex- 
tract; Spencerian  Pens;  Ayer's  Cherry  Pectoral;  Baker's 
Breakfast  Cocoa;  Columbia  Bicycles;  Mellin's  Food;  Cuti- 
cura  Soap;  Royal  Baking  Powder,  and  Castoria:  "Children 
Cry  For  It"  After  I  had  studied  the  illustrations  in  the  maga- 
zines, and  read  the  short  pieces  of  text,  I  got  out  my  sketch- 
book and  began  drawing  the  faces  of  my  fellow-passengers, 
and  setting  down  memoranda  for  jokes  about  travel.  Then, 
and  for  many  years,  I  made  about  ten  drawings  with  a  joke 
comment  or  dialogue  for  every  one  that  I  finished  and  sold, 
Thus  I  kept  exercising  my  hand  and  eye. 

We  reached  Detroit  after  dark,  and  here  the  train  was 
broken  up  into  sections,  run  onto  a  huge  flatboat,  and  ferried 
across  the  river  to  Windsor.  The  Canadian  shore  seemed  far 
away,  the  Detroit  harbor  limitless.  There  was  a  stiff  wind 
blowing,  and  there  was  a  sense  of  pushing  into  an  unknown 
sea.  I  wondered  what  all  the  fuss  was  about,  as  we  were  towed 
across  to  the  rail- dock  on  the  other  side. 

On  Clarence  Webster's  advice  I  had  taken  a  lower  berth, 
and  was  glad  of  this  when  I  saw  that  the  uppers  had  no 
windows.  Marveling,  I  watched  the  porter  transform  the 
double  seat  into  a  sleeping  section  .  *  .  In  the  washroom 
several  traveling  men  were  smoking  and  indulging  in  small 
talk  about  business,  politics,  and  the  state  of  the  crops,  and 
uttering  commonplaces  of  banter. 

My  berth  was  comfortable,  but  it  was  not  easy  to  go  to 
sleep.  After  I  put  out  the  light  I  lay  awake  for  hours,  it 
seemed,  looking  out  the  window  at  the  countryside,  mysteri- 
ous under  the  stars.  I  had  hoped  to  see  Niagara  Falls,  but  was 
on  the  wrong  side  of  the  car,  and  anyhow  I  was  sound  asleep 
when  we  passed  that  famed  wonder,  before  dawn.  .  .  . 
There  was  a  thrill  in  seeing  the  Erie  canal,  about  which  I  had 
read  a  good  deal.  The  railroad  was  a  stiff  competitor,  but 
there  were  still  numerous  barges  moving  both  east  and  west  in 
"Clinton's  ditch." 

When  we  turned  southward  at  Albany,  my  heart 
pounded  faster.  Here  was  the  historic  Hudson,  which  grew 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       117 

lovelier  as  we  hurried  on  into  the  Highlands,  I  thought  of 
the  legends  of  Rip  Van  Winkle  and  the  gnomes  with  whom 
he  played  at  tenpins,  and  other  tales  that  Washington  Irving 
told  of  this  majestic  valley.  But  the  long  run  into  the  city 
after  we  passed  the  outskirts  made  me  conscious  of  an  ap- 
proach to  something  ominous — maybe  the  end  instead  of  the 
beginning. 

Outside  Grand  Central  Station  were  a  flock  of  men  with 
badges  on  their  hats,  all  offering  to  take  me  to  a  choice  hotel. 


ARRIVAL  IN  NEW  YORK,  1888. 
I  whistled  a  great  deal  in  those  days. 

But  I  knew  where  I  was  going.  Some  one  had  recommended 
the  Morton  House  in  Union  Square  as  home-like  and  cheap. 
So  I  hunted  around  till  I  found  a  policeman,  learned  how  to 
get  there,  and  then  took  a  hansom  cab. 

After  I  got  settled  in  the  hotel,  I  went  out  and  looked 
around  a  little.  That  afternoon  and  evening  I  walked  miles. 
New  York  was  full  of  wonders,  different  from  Chicago, 
brighter,  cleaner.  The  clear  sunlight  was  a  startling  contrast 
to  the  smoky  atmosphere  of  the  crude  city  I  had  left,  which 


118       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

Mayor  Carter  Harrison  excused  for  being  so  dirty  by  saying: 
"Chicago  is  like  a  growing  boy  who  doesn't  like  to  bother 
keeping  himself  clean/' 

Although  I  went  to  particular  places,  I  found  almost  any 
place  interesting  during  those  first  days  in  the  metropolis. 
Just  looking  on,  wherever  I  happen  to  be,  even  to  this  day,  is 
sure  to  reveal  something  that  holds  me  with  some  dramatic 
import  From  the  Morton  House  I  would  go  over  to  Bren- 
tano's  on  the  west  side  of  Union  Square,  to  scan  the  latest 
magazines.  Then  there  was  Tiffany's  on  the  southwest  corner 
of  Fifteenth  Street,  where  the  Amalgamated  Bank  is  now. 
Here  coaches  would  drive  up,  letting  out  women  shoppers 
dressed  in  style,  meaning  that  they  wore  bustles.  The  flar- 
ing hoop-skirt  had  had  its  day,  but  complete  coverage  was 
still  the  fashion,  woman's  form  being  left  to  one's  imagina- 
tion, 

I  walked  up  to  Nineteenth  Street  on  Broadway,  and  gazed 
into  the  windows  of  Lord  and  Taylor,  about  which  I  had 
heard  so  much.  They  reminded  me  of  a  poem  about  Broad- 
way that  I  had  read  in  school  about  "silks  and  satins  that 
shimmer  and  shine"  and  opals  that  gleam  "like  sullen  fires 
through  a  pallid  mist/' 

In  a  few  days  I  took  a  room  in  a  boarding  house  on 
Sixteenth  Street,  west  of  Fifth  Avenue.  W.  J.  Arkell,  pub- 
lisher of  Judge,  had  just  put  up  his  new  building  at  the 
northwest  corner  of  that  intersection.  I  clipped  one  of 
Thomas  Nast's  cartoons  from  a  copy  of  the  Daily  Graphic 
and  tacked  it  on  my  wall,  and  one  day  in  conversation  with 
the  servant  girl  who  made  up  my  room,  I  found  that  she 
had  worked  in  the  Nast  household  in  Morristown,  N.  J.  She 
told  me  stories  about  the  Nast  family.  Surely  now  I  was  near 
the  heart  of  things. 

New  York  agreed  with  me.  I  liked  the  sea-air.  I  was 
having  fun.  For  two  weeks  I  just  loafed  and  wandered  about 
town.  I  wasn't  ready  to  begin  systematic  study  yet,  nor  to 
attempt  selling  pictures,  though  of  course  I  made  sketches 
everywhere  of  people  and  scenes. 

I  explored  Chinatown,  and  went  down  to  see  the  site  of 
P.  T.  Barnum's  museum  at  Broadway  and  Ann  streets.  And 
one  day  I  walked  across  Brooklyn  Bridge,  and  was  stirred 
by  the  sight  of  those  tremendous  arches  and  the  monumental 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       119 

grace  of  the  whole  structure*  I  was  curiously  interested,  too, 
in  the  Richard  K.  Fox  building,  in  which  the  Police  Gazette 
was  published  near  the  bridge  on  the  Manhattan  side. 

Another  time  I  loafed  along  the  water's  edge  in  Battery 
Park,  and  was  impressed  by  Castle  Garden,  then  a  landing 
station  for  immigrants,  and  now  the  Aquarium.  Boats  were 
plying  to  the  Statue  of  Liberty,  unveiled  only  three  years 
before.  But  I  was  satisfied  to  view  that  at  a  distance,  even 
though  an  old  Irishman  standing  on  the  wharf  informed  me 
that  Bedloe's  Island,  on  which  the  statue  stands,  had  "a 
great  history/*  His  father,  he  said,  was  one  of  thousands  in 
excursion  boats  who  saw  Hicks,  the  last  pirate  in  those  waters, 
hanged  there. 

As  in  Chicago,  everywhere  in  New  York's  principal  busi- 
ness streets  then  there  were  networks  of  overhead  wires  strung 
on  poles.  These  were  chiefly  for  telegraphic  purposes,  al- 
though some  of  them  carried  telephone  conversations.  News- 
paper editors  frequently  urged  the  city  council  to  compel 
the  owning  companies  to  put  those  wires  underground,  since 
they  were  a  grave  handicap  in  fighting  fires.  Horse-cars  moved 
along  Broadway  from  the  Battery  to  some  point  far  north. 
Steve  Brodie  had  lately  jumped  from  Brooklyn  Bridge  into 
the  East  River — or  had  not,  depending  on  which  party  to 
that  controversy  one  belonged  to.  And  now  he  was  reported 
to  be  preparing  to  go  over  Niagara  Falls  in  a  barreL 

Remembering  that  to  my  regret  I  had  never  got  around  to 
visiting  the  Chamber  of  Horrors  in  Chicago,  I  made  it  a 
point  to  go  to  the  Eden  Musee  on  Twenty-third  Street,  a 
similar  institution.  Here  were  figures  of  famous  and  notorious 
individuals,  amazingly  modeled  in  wax — Queen  Victoria, 
Jesse  James,  Oscar  Wilde,  Brigham  Young,  Horace  Greeley, 
the  Prince  of  Wales,  Jay  Gould,  Boss  Tweed,  Garibaldi, 
John  Brown,  U.  S.  Grant,  Abraham  Lincoln,  John  Wilkes 
Booth,  Robert  G.  Ingersoll,  Jenny  Lind,  Guiteau,  who  mur- 
dered President  Garfield,  and  a  host  of  others. 

But  the  exhibit  which  intrigued  me  most  was  the  glass 
enclosed  Dying  Gypsy  Maiden.  Just  why  she  was  dying  was 
not  stated,  but  the  expiring  heave  of  her  bare  bosom  was  so 
realistically  achieved  by  hidden  mechanism  that  I  felt  almost 
tearful. 

Everybody  from  out  of  town  was  drawn  to  this  wonder 


120      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

palace.  It  was  the  high  spot  of  interest  in  New  York.  If 
a  farmer  was  seen  standing  on  a  street  corner  apparently  lost, 
it  was  taken  as  a  matter  of  course  that  he  wanted  to  be 
directed  to  the  Eden  Musee.  Once  I  saw  an  old  fellow  stand- 
ing near  the  site  of  the  present  Flatiron  Building,  stroking 
his  whiskers  and  looking  first  one  way  and  then  another.  I 
walked  over  to  him  and  said:  "The  Eden  Musee  is  right 
down  there — on  the  uptown  side  of  the  street/'  He  thanked 
me. 

Soon,  however,  I  had  my  fill  of  loafing  and  decided  that 
for  my  own  good  I  must  get  down  to  work  again*  So  I 
signed  up  at  the  Art  Students'  League,  and  began  studying 
there  industriously,  to  develop  thoroughness,  for  I  knew  that 
my  flip  sketches  needed  a  basic  understanding,  especially  of 
anatomy.  Teaching- routine  at  the  League  was  much  the  same 
as  at  the  Academy  of  Design  in  Chicago,  but  I  found  no  one 
among  the  instructors  who  would  give  the  same  individual 
attention  to  the  groping  student  as  Vanderpoel  had. 

Here,  too,  we  had  to  draw  from  casts,  which  always 
bored  me.  I  did  this  solemn  drafting  conscientiously,  none 
the  less,  though  I  considered  it  a  waste  of  time,  and  found 
compensation  for  such  tedious  labor  by  sketching  comic  pic- 
tures around  the  margin  of  the  paper  on  which  the  serious 
effort  awaited  criticism.  After  a  few  weeks  I  decided  to 
graduate  myself  to  the  life  classes  of  Kenyon  Cox  and  Carroll 
Beckwith  on  the  floor  above,  and  strangely  enough,  no  one 
objected ;  I  just  walked  in  as  if  I  belonged. 

Inspiration  from  my  youthful  partial  knowledge  of 
Dore's  work  had  carried  me  a  long  way.  But  now  I  was 
becoming  acquainted  with  the  political  and  social  satires  of 
other  leading  graphic  artists  in  England  and  France — Ho- 
garth, Rowlandson,  John  Leech,  George  Cruikshank,  John 
Tenniel,  Daumier,  and  Steinlen,  and  all  of  these  held  im- 
portant and  increasing  values  for  me. 

Feeling  financially  secure  and  being  engrossed  in  study,  I 
neglected  to  present  Eugene  Field's  letter  to  Colonel  Cock- 
erill  of  the  World,  and  had  no  inclination  to  submit  my  work 
to  the  magazines.  But  I  kept  close  watch  on  all  periodicals 
as  well  as  the  newspapers,  for  the  trend  in  cartoons  and  illus- 
trations. Puck,  Judge,  and  Life  were  at  their  best  Harper's 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       121 

Weekly  was  beginning  to  slip,  and  that  year  the  Illustrated 
Daily  Graphic  folded  up. 

Journalism  today  is  for  the  most  part  gentlemanly  and 
decorous,  in  so  far  as  the  relations  among  newspapers  in  the 
big  cities  are  concerned.  But  in  that  day  the  New  York  dailies 
openly  assailed  one  another's  actions  and  motives  with  all 
the  contempt  that  lily-white  citizens  might  express  toward 
horse-thieves  and  road  agents.  Dana  of  the  Sun  and  Pulitzer 
of  the  World  fought  a  long  feud,  widely  talked  about,  and 
the  World  and  Herald  frequently  snarled  at  each  other. 

I  knew,  of  course,  that  it  was  the  World  that  had  col- 
lected $300,000  to  provide  a  base  for  the  Statue  of  Liberty 
after  the  city,  state,  and  federal  governments  had  all  failed 
to  make  it  possible  for  the  French  people's  gift  to  be  set  up 
on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic.  The  World  was  fighting  Tam- 
many. Frequently  it  assailed  the  municipal  administration 
for  mismanagement,  pointing  to  the  failure  to  clean  the  back 
streets,  the  fire-trap  tenements,  sweat-shops,  and  the  condi- 
tions which  bred  tuberculosis. 

Now  and  then  I  meandered  into  the  heart  of  the  East 
Side.  Here  was  stark  poverty,  even  worse  than  I  had  seen  in 
the  slums  of  Chicago.  Great  numbers  of  children  played 
amid  filth  and  debris  in  the  narrow  streets.  Old  people  sat  on 
doorsteps  or  moved  listlessly  along  the  walks.  They  seemed 
to  have  lost  hope.  Gangs  of  toughs  congregated  on  corners. 

But  looking  at  all  this  squalor  I  felt  instinctively  that 
most  human  beings  did  not  prefer  dirt  to  cleanliness,  and 
they  did  not  like  stealing  better  than  earning,  nor  a  bad  name 
better  than  a  good  one.  I  made  sketches  here  and  there,  but 
did  not  remain  long  in  one  spot.  There  was  a  sense  of  escape 
in  getting  back  to  my  room.  The  World's  editorials  had  not 
exaggerated.  Yet  what  could  one  do  about  it?  Nothing,  it 
seemed  to  me,  except  through  reforms:  cleaning  streets,  pay- 
ing good  wages,  providing  for  cheap  carfare,  etcetera.  I  could 
come  no  nearer  to  an  answer  than  that. 

I  continued  to  read  Harper's  Weekly,  following  the 
work  of  W.  A.  Rogers  therein  (Nast  had  severed  his 
connection  with  that  periodical  a  couple  of  years  earlier) ; 
and  watched  Life,  Judge,  and  Puck.  The  latter  contained 
topical  cartoons,  and  editorial  comment  with  many  pages  of 
drawings  to  illustrate  what  are  known  today  as  gags.  The 


122       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

cartoons  by  Joseph  Keppler,  Bernard  Gillam,  Frederick 
Opper,  and  Zim  were  leading  features.  Pack,  too,  was  agitat- 
ing for  civic  virtue,  and  for  the  sending  of  bribe-taking  alder- 
men to  Sing  Sing.  But  it  viewed  the  Single  Tax  movement 
as  akin  to  anarchy;  had  fought  Henry  George  and  his  co- 
worker,  the  heroic  Catholic,  Father  Edward  McGlynn,  when 
the  former  ran  for  mayor;  and  attacked  Greenbackism  as 
spelling  national  ruin.  Frequently  it  ridiculed  the  United 
States  Senate  as  a  servant  of  the  moneyed  interests*  It  was 


JOSEPH  KEPPLER,   SENIOR,   founder 
of   Puck. 


BERNARD    GILLAM,    an    outstanding 
illustrator  in  the   Eighties. 


strong  for  civil  service  reform  and  a  low  tariff,  and  inten- 
tionally "mugwump",  as  liberal  Republicans  were  then  called. 
Whatever  the  mixed  social  ideas  I  was  thus  absorbing, 
the  lessons  I  gained  from  studying  Keppler' s  drawings  were 
valuable.  He  was  less  cumbersome  than  Nast,  having  that 
swing  of  line  reminiscent  of  the  early  nineteenth  century 
German  draftsmen.  Today,  as  one  turns  back  to  the  pages 
of  Pack  in  the  years  from  1870  to  1890,  it  will  be  seen  that, 
though  dated  in  subject,  Keppler's  pictures  have  an  arresting 
quality  of  color  and  a  spontaneity  agreeable  alike  to  student 
and  layman.  But  for  individuality,  and  for  ability  to  "make 
fun  of  something",  Nast  was  pre-eminent.  It  was  said  in 
those  days  that  his  cartoons  of  Horace  Greeley  during  the 
Greeley- Grant  campaign  for  the  Presidency  were  a  large  fac- 
tor in  causing  the  death  of  that  brilliant  but  eccentric  editor 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       123 

within  a  month  after  his  defeat  in  1872.  I  didn't  believe 
this,  but  I  knew  that  his  darts  of  satire  were  sharp* 

P.  T.  Barnum  was  then  living  in  New  York,  in  his  old 
age.  One  bright  Sunday  I  saw  him  attending  services  in 
Robert  Collyer's  Unitarian  church  at  Park  Avenue  and  34th 
Street.  I  sketched  him  as  he  bowed  his  head  in  prayer,  and  as 
he  talked  with  friends  afterward  in  the  sun  outside.  He  was 
round-shouldered,  and  had  a  curly  fringe  of  gray  hair  left 
under  the  rim  of  his  silk  hat.  Doubtless  he  would  have  been 
pleased  if  he  had  known  that  I  was  making  pictures  of  him. 
In  these  days  the  venerable  showman  often  stopped  people  on 
the  streets  and  engaged  them  in  conversation.  At  the  end  he 
would  say:  "Do  you  know  who  you've  been  talking  to?  .  .  . 
You've  been  talking  to  P.  T.  Barnum."  ...  I  had  no  idea 
then  that  years  later  I  would  own  a  home  in  Bethel,  Con- 
necticut, the  town  in  which  Barnum  was  born. 

As  the  months  went  on  I  thought  a  great  deal  about  the 
possibility  of  going  to  Paris,  for  I  had  been  hearing  of  the 
art  schools  there  ever  since  I  signed  up  with  the  League.  It 
seemed  to  be  the  ambition  of  most  of  my  fellow-students  to 
study  in  the  French  capital,  though  others  dreamed  of 
Munich.  They  talked  much,  also,  of  the  unrestricted  life  in 
the  Latin  Quarter,  as  something  else  to  look  forward  to. 

Clarence  Webster  knew  from  my  letters  that  I  had  con- 
siderable yearning  to  continue  my  art  education  abroad. 
Although  I  knew  that  art  schools  could  not  make  artists,  I 
enjoyed  the  environment  and  the  thought  that  I  had  an  aim 
in  life.  And  one  day  in  the  early  summer  of  1889,  Web 
wrote  me  saying:  "I  am  planning  to  go  to  Europe  for  a 
couple  of  months.  England,  Wales,  and  France.  The  Inter- 
Ocean  is  willing  to  let  me  do  a  series  of  travel  articles,  which 
will  cover  my  living  expense  over  there.  How  would  you 
like  to  go  along  and  illustrate  my  writings?  I  am  sure  that 
I  could  arrange  with  the  office  to  get  steamship  passage  for 
both  of  us  through  the  advertising  department/' 

I  answered  that  I  would  think  about  it.  And  the  more  I 
pondered  the  idea,  the  more  it  appealed  to  me.  I  began  to 
see  myself  as  an  art  student  in  Paris  for  at  least  a  year. 
So  in  a  few  days  I  packed  up  and  took  a  train  for  Chicago. 
There  Web  and  I  conferred  with  one  of  the  Inter-Ocean 


124       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

editors,  and  we  agreed  that  I  would  go  home  to  Wisconsin 
for  a  short  visit  before  we  started  East, 

In  Monroe  I  spent  a  few  days  with  the  folks,  and  had 
some  evenings  with  Elizabeth  North,  who  looked  more  at- 
tractive than  ever.  Now  that  I  had  become  a  New  Yorker, 
my  parents  had  taken  to  reading  every  bit  of  New  York 
news,  and  Harpers  Weekly  continued  to  be  a  regular  visitor 
at  home.  Father  was  interested  in  having  me  compare  the  Art 
Students'  League  with  the  Chicago  Academy  of  Design — 
which  had  benefited  me  the  most? 

Monroe  appeared  still  smaller.  But  the  cheese  business 
was  growing  in  Green  County,  with  the  steady  increase  in 
the  number  of  Swiss  immigrants*  Old  George  Banks,  the 
druggist,  whose  walk  I  used  to  imitate  to  the  great  amuse* 
ment  of  my  mother — he  walked  like  a  king  on  parade — had 
grown  fatter,  but  dignity  triumphed  with  his  every  step. 
Everybody  in  Monroe  was  talking  about  the  Johnstown  flood 
in  Pennsylvania  which  had  drowned  nearly  2,300  persons  a 
few  weeks  before. 

My  sister  Nettie  and  Clyde  Copeland  had  set  up  a  com- 
fortable home  over  on  the  north  side  of  town,  and  my  "No 
wedding  bells  for  me"  picture  was  in  plain  sight  in  the  parlor 
when  I  was  there  for  supper;  I  never  knew  whether  Nettie 
displayed  it  only  when  I  was  around,  but  I  grant  that  she 
would  have  been  justified  in  hiding  it  at  other  times.  Mother 
seemed  less  anxious  when  I  left  this  time,  even  though  I 
was  soon  to  cross  the  ocean,  than  she  had  when  I  was  going 
only  to  Chicago  the  first  time.  Perhaps  she  felt  that  I  was 
able  to  take  care  of  myself. 

We  had  railroad  passes  also,  and  on  the  Baltimore  &  Ohio 
train,  Web  posted  me  on  recent  happenings  in  Chicago.  .  .  . 
Melville  Stone  was  traveling  in  Europe,  spending  some  of 
the  money  he  got  from  Victor  Lawson  for  his  interest  in  the 
Daily  News.  .  .  .  The  jury  was  being  picked  for  the  trial 
of  the  alleged  Clan-na-Gael  conspirators  for  the  murder  of 
Dr.  Cronin.  He  had  been  lured  from  his  home  at  night  by  a 
purported  call  to  attend  a  sick  person,  and  his  body  had  been 
found  in  a  catch-basin  on  the  outskirts  of  the  city.  The 
doctor  had  been  a  member  of  the  Clan,  and  was  supposed  to 
have  been  killed  because  he  had  betrayed  some  of  its  secrets 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       125 

and  charged  Alexander  Sullivan,  a  lawyer,  and  others  with 
misappropriating  the  Clan's  funds.  .  .  .  There  was  new 
talk  of  building  a  broad  ship  canal  from  Lake  Michigan  to 
the  Mississippi.  .  .  .  Temperance  advocates  were  trying  to 
get  an  ordinance  passed  to  abolish  free  lunch  in  the  saloons, 
with  widespread  opposition.  .  .  .  The  police  were  investi- 
gating a  report  that  Rudolph  Schnaubelt,  who  was  supposed 
to  have  thrown  the  Haymarket  bomb,  had  been  seen  in  South 
America.  ...  A  man  named  Garfinkle  was  trying  to  finance 
a  balloon  trip  to  the  North  Pole.  .  .  .  And  Web  told  me 
the  gossip  in  art  circles,  and  around  the  Chicago  Press  Club, 
where  I  first  met  Opie  Read,  Stanley  Waterloo,  and  Ben  King. 
It  was  Ben  who  wrote  that  classic  parody  of  the  popular 
poem:  "If  I  Should  Die  Tonight/' 

Arriving  in  New  York,  I  was  feeling  hot,  sooty,  sticky, 
and  sick,  and  I  said  to  Web,  "If  a  B.  %$  O.  train  can  make 
me  miserable,  what  will  an  ocean  liner  do  to  me?" 


Chapter    13 
WE  LEARN  ABOUT  THE  ENGLISH  AND  WELSH 

EVERPOOL  was  our  destination,  on  the  Cunard  Line's 
Teutonic,  newest  and  finest  ocean  liner  afloat.  With 
the  gentlemanly  Bruce  Ismay,  president  of  the  line, 
mo.destly  receiving  congratulations  on  board,  we  sailed  on 
August  2 1  from  a  pier  in  the  Hudson  River:  Our  tickets  were 
second  class,  but  we  had  an  outside  cabin  with  permission  (a 
courtesy  to  the  press)  to  roam  anywhere  on  the  ship. 

Web  sauntered  about  the  decks  locating  notables  and 
interviewing  them,  everything  and  everybody  being  grist  to 
the  mill  of  the  Inter-Ocean's  humorous  correspondent  with 
the  pen-name  "Conflagration  Jones/*  But  we  spent  some  of 
our  time  sketching,  especially  down  in  the  steerage.  I  did  not 
care  to  meet  many  people,  for  I  soon  verified  my  fears  that 
I  was  not  a  good  sailor.  There  were  days  and  nights  when 
the  steamer  rared  up  and  pranced,  and  it  was  no  fun  to  be 
rolled  around  in  a  ship's  cabin  like  a  marble  in  a  pigs-iri- 
clover  puzzle.  .  .  .  On  calm  days,  however,  I  managed  Well 
with  the  drawings,  and  the  voyage  netted  me  numerous  pic- 
tures of  those  about  us.  Among  the  dignitaries  riding  first 
class  I  sketched  the  railroad  magnate,  Collis  P.  Huntington, 
and  his  wife.  I  talked  with  a  woman  devoted  to  a  small 
daughter  who  would  recite  on  the  slightest  provocation, 
"Curfew  Shall  Not  Ring  Tonight'*;  and  an  evangelist  who 
annoyed  people  by  asking  them:  "Have  you  found  Christ?" 
When  he  asked  me,  I  thought  of  the  Swede  in  the  old  story 
who  was  asked  the  same  question  and  answered  that  he 
"didn't  know  he  was  lost." 

I  had  several  chats  with  a  ruddy  Englishman  who  had 
been  traveling  in  the  States  and  had  not  been  favorably  im- 
pressed. His  main  objection  was:  "Your  bloomin'  country 
is  all  full  of  'ills  and  'oles."  Then  there  was  the  man  who 
was  always  keeping  tabs  on  the  ship's  course,  which  was  no 
concern  of  mine* 

126 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       127 

We  landed  in  Liverpool  a  week  later.  Walking  around 
the  streets,  my  legs  still  felt  as  if  swayed  by  the  steamer's 
roll.  I  made  sketches  of  boys  selling  matches,  and  turned  to 
gaze  at  tall,  stately  girls  with  rose-petal  complexions  who 
passed.  To  Web  I  said:  "DuMaurier  is  right.  He  knows  how 
to  draw  the  English  girls,  and  Burne-Jones  knows  how  to 
paint  them/'  We  went  to  the  Walker  art  gallery,  where  I 
saw  a  Dore  oil  painting  of  an  English  flower  girl — and  it 
stimulated  my  desire  to  see  the  Dore  gallery  in  London.  I 
had  not  known  that  he  had  mastered  painting  as  well  as 
illustration. 

But  before  going  on  to  London,  Web  had  a  notion  that 
we  ought  to  take  a  look  at  the  old  town  of  Chester,  and 
then  visit  Wales.  At  the  railway  station  a  hand-swung  school- 
bell  was  rung  by  the  conductor  when  it  was  time  for  our 
train  to  start.  The  ride  to  Chester  took  only  an  hour.  And 
here  I  was  looking  at  rural  England  of  which  I  had  seen  so 
many  woodcuts  and  steel  engravings.  The  fences  were  mostly 
hedges,  though  I  saw  a  few  of  barbed  wire,  and  wrote  home 
that  they  looked  as  uncomfortable  to  sit  on  as  the  American 
brand.  Trees  in  this  section  were  mostly  gnarled  and  twisted 
oaks,  and  the  old  broken- down  stiles,  with  their  frames  of 
overgrown  hedges,  were  just  as  the  English  artists  had  time 
and  again  pictured  them. 

We  walked  up  the  narrow  main  street  of  ancient  Chester, 
wending  our  way  through  the  slow  traffic,  where  people  were 
all  jumbled  together  with  donkey-carts,  horses,  wagons,  and 
market-baskets.  Our  eyes  were  kept  peeled  looking  for  a  place 
to  stop,  as  Webster  said,  "off  the  trail  of  the  deadly  tourists/' 
I  remember  passing  Blossom's  Hotel.  I  wonder  if  it  is  still 
there.  A  sturdy,  weathered  looking  establishment.  But  we 
didn't  stop.  It  seemed  a  likely  place  to  run  into  tourists* 

The  buildings  in  that  picturesque  city  may  have  been 
erected  in  the  time  of  King  Arthur,  for  all  I  know — their 
upper  stories  jutting  out  over  the  sidewalks,  propped  up,  but 
sagged  into  complacency  as  if  ready  for  another  century. 
The  general  effect  of  this  street  upon  my  eye  was  like  seeing 
a  stage-set  for  a  play  of  the  time  of  Cromwell — in  the  days 
of  old  "when  knights  were  bold  and  robbers  held  their 
sway." 

After  going  some  distance  from  the  main  thoroughfare 


128       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

we  discovered  a  hotel  called  the  Red  Lion.  Here  we  stayed 
four  days.  Both  of  us  began  to  realize  that  we  were  a  long 
way  from  home.  No  letters  from  loved  ones.  Of  course  it  was 
too  soon  to  expect  any,  but  "nobody  loves  us/'  we  thought, 
and  we  could  have  eaten  worms  or  paid  any  penance  then 
for  the  rash  conduct  of  quitting  our  native  soil. 

Proceeding  to  the  historic  Chester  Cathedral,  we  found 
the  portal  open  wide,  so  we  walked  in  and  sat  down.  There 
we  slumped,  shafts  of  sunshine  slanting  through  the  stained 
glass  windows,  but  not  for  us.  I  knew  I  wasn't  getting  re- 
ligion, but  I  was  sad  with  homesickness. 

After  our  morning  in  the  cathedral  we  began  to  get 
hold  of  ourselves.  We  found  a  boat  and  took  a  row  on  the 
River  Dee.  That  night  I  started  a  letter  to  the  Monroe  Senti- 
nel— which  wasn't  finished  until  we  reached  Paris — and  it 
told  a  good  deal  about  our  adventures  that  day.  In  my  early 
childhood  I  heard  a  poem  recited  (or  maybe  it  was  a  song 
sung)  the  refrain  of  which  was:  "Mary,  call  your  cattle 
home  across  the  sands  o'  Dee."  In  my  letter  I  reported  that 
"it  would  take  a  good  deal  of  loud  calling,  even  by  a  husky 
English  girl,  to  get  a  drove  of  tired  cows  across  the  sands 
of  Dee.  The  sand  of  this  country  is  what  we  call  plain  mud 
at  home/* 

We  passed  at  least  a  dozen  boatloads  of  boys  and  girls 
in  a  half  mile,  dressed  in  proper  boating  clothes,  the  girls 
rowing  as  efficiently  as  the  boys.  I  wrote  that  "the  American 
contingent  cut  quite  a  figure  on  the  River  Dee  that  beautiful 
morning.  Mr*  Webster,  with  a  big  sombrero  on  his  head 
and  a  section  of  an  American  flag  around  his  neck,  did  the 
rowing,  while  I  sat  at  the  helm  and  did  all  the  steering  and 
grumbling/' 

Chester  was  surrounded  by  a  high  stone  wall  supposed 
to  have  been  originally  built  by  the  Romans.  I  remember 
standing  on  the  very  stone  of  the  wall  where  Charles  I  stood 
watching  while  his  army  was  being  defeated  by  Crom well's 
troops  on  the  moor  below.  That  of  course  is  the  Baedeker 
thing  to  do  and  a  guide  who  caught  me  at  it  charged  me 
three  pence. 

Taking  a  cab  on  another  day,  we  rode  through  the  Duke 
of  Westminster's  estate,  my  companion  remarking  as  we 
passed  deer,  grouse,  and  other  wild  game,  "all  for  his  Royal 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       129 

Nibs  to  shoot/*  We  walked  around  outside  the  ancient  wall, 
and  I  made  a  pencil  drawing  of  the  cathedral  by  moonlight. 
We  had  planned  to  go  out  to  Gladstone's  summer  home, 
Hawarden  Castle,  six  miles  from  Chester,  but  the  fourth  day 
we  concluded  we'd  better  see  something  of  Wales. 

Back  at  the  hotel,  however,  we  learned  that  Wambold's 
circus,  then  swinging  through  the  provinces,  had  come  to 
town,  and  we  decided  to  stay  another  day.  Web  had  a  sudden 
notion  that  it  would  be  worth  our  while  to  travel  with 
Wambold's  aggregation.  His  idea  was  that  maybe  they  would 
take  on  two  live  Americans.  He  would  lecture  on  the  Ameri- 
can Indian,  while  I  would  draw  easel  pictures  to  illustrate 
the  lecture  as  he  talked.  We  went  in  the  evening,  and  found 
the  performance  much  like  that  of  the  small  wagon  shows  at 
home.  We  were  interested  particularly  in  the  animal  tent — 
and  saw  a  caged  stork  resent  being  pointed  at  and  catch  a 
man's  forefinger  in  the  grip  of  its  vise-like  bill. 

But  what  I  most  enjoyed  here  was  catching  fragments 
of  conversation — just  as  I  did  at  the  hotel — and  as  I  do  today 
wherever  I  go.  Around  the  bar  of  the  Red  Lion,  old-timers 
talked  much  about  the  Isle  of  Man,  which  was  only  sixteen 
miles  off  shore.  "I  'ear  'Awkins  went  to  the  h-island  today." 
Hall  Caine  had  not  then  written  his  play,  The  Manxman, 
for  Wilson  Barrett  to  produce  and  play  the  leading  role.  Some 
years  later  I  saw  the  play  and  met  Hall  Caine  in  New  York; 
the  play  made  me  cry — but  just  what  it  was  about  I  don't 
remember. 

Next  day  we  journeyed  by  train  down  into  Wales.  Our 
first  stop  was  Llangollen.  Arriving  after  dark  we  registered 
at  the  hotel  and  went  early  to  bed,  not  knowing  what  the 
town  was  like.  No  scene  actual  or  painted  ever  looked  more 
beautiful  to  me  than  the  morning  view  from  that  hotel  win- 
dow. A  sun-tinged  river  winding  and  laughing  its  rocky 
course  through  the  town,  while  a  street  musician  playing  a 
pipe  in  the  foreground  gave  just  the  right  touch  to  this  deco- 
rative bit  of  Wales. 

We  conversed  with  some  of  the  natives,  and  found  that 
none  of  them  could  or  would  explain  why  a  word  spelled 
Llowainwlmjdfsllwgd  was  pronounced  Gwillid,  as  we  had 
been  informed  by  non-Welshmen.  Walking  along  a  canal, 
we  met  up  with  two  ragged  boys  who  said  their  father 


130      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

worked  in  the  slate  mines*  They  asked  if  we  would  like  to 
hear  them  sing.  Of  course  we  said  yes,  so  they  sang  a  folk 
song,  not  knowing  that  I  was  also  putting  them  down  in 
my  sketch  book.  For  singing  and  posing  I  hope  that  we  paid 
them  generously.  Hardly  knowing  one  English  coin  from 
another,  I  wasn't  sure.  But  they  went  on  their  way  happy 
with  arms  around  each  other,  and  it  was  pleasant  to  see. 
I  do  not  think  they  expected  a  fee — but  like  most  Welsh 
children  for  centuries  past,  they  enjoyed  singing. 

Then  we  went  to  Conway  Castle  and  to  Holywell,  where 
we  saw  the  "miraculous  well/'  and  the  church  nearby  where 
hundreds  of  crutches  of  the  cured  had  been  left  as  proof. 
This  part  of  Wales  abounded  in  ancient  abbeys  and  ruined 
castles.  Webster  said:  "The  trouble  with  our  country  is  that 
we're  shy  on  ruins.  We  ought  to  blow  up  a  lot  of  old 
breweries,  let  the  ivy  and  owls  have  their  way,  and  call 
them  something  historic/* 

Three  days  in  Wales  were  all  too  short  for  this  charming 
country,  but  Web's  time  was  limited  and  the  next  stop  on 
our  schedule  was  London.  When  we  arrived  there  we  found 
lodgings  in  Bloomsbury  Square,  in  a  rooming  house  near 
the  British  Museum.  Being  a  Dickens  enthusiast,  Web  was 
interested  in  searching  out  landmarks  and  streets  mentioned 
in  that  author's  novels.  I  was  more  immediately  interested 
in  visiting  an  exhibition  of  a  hundred  years  of  English  carica- 
ture lately  opened  in  the  Royal  Arcade  Gallery.  Dickens  could 
wait.  We  compromised  by  going  to  the  caricature  exhibition 
first. 

It  was  inspiring,  for  it  comprised  many  originals  by  all 
the  outstanding  English  draftsmen  from  before  the  time  of 
Hogarth.  Thus  I  was  able  to  study  at  first-hand  the  work 
of  Rowlandson,  the  most  prolific  and  versatile  of  British 
caricaturists;  Gillray,  Isaac  and  George  Cruikshank,  Leech, 
Barnard,  Howitt,  Thackeray,  DuMaurier,  Xeene,  Phiz 
(Hablot  K.  Browne) ,  and  various  others.  It  was  Phiz  who 
illustrated  most  of  the  Dickens  narrative  when  they  first 
appeared.  Of  all  the  drawings  on  the  walls,  I  was  impressed 
most  by  those  of  Hogarth,  Rowlandson,  Gillray,  George 
Cruikshank,  and  Frederic  Barnard,  who  illustrated  The  Pil- 
grim's Progress  long  after  Bunyan's  day,  and  who  did  pic- 
tures for  some  of  the  Dickens  novels. 


ART  YO^NG;  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       131 

I  thought  Barnard  the  greatest  character  artist  of  all.  And 
to  think  that  I  was  face  to  face  with  Hogarth's  originals,  and 
his  own  engravings — the  picture  propagandist  for  good  con- 
duct and  morals,  a  preacher  with  paint*  Rowlandson's  themes 
were  much  more  varied.  He  depicted  the  lighter  side  of  Lon- 
don life,  the  gambling  parlors  and  the  cockpits,  and  was 
less  inclined  to  moralize,  but  not  without  taking  notice  of  the 
misery  all  about  him.  Both  he  and  Gillray  were  well  repre- 
sented by  a  series  of  lampoons  on  Napoleon  Bonaparte,  which 
helped  to  deflate  the  little  emperor* s  ego  and  pull  down  his 
star.  George  Cruikshank's  works  which  we  saw  that  day  cov- 
ered a  wide  range  of  subjects,  done  with  an  etching  needle 
tipped  with  fanciful  satire.  I.  felt  that  this  exhibition  alone 
was  worth  the  trip  across  the  Atlantic,  for  all  those  sad 
''Oh,  why  did  I  leave  home?"  days  of  both  sea-  and  home- 
sickness. 

And  now  we  were  looking  around  at  the  more  romantic 
parts  of  Old  London.  I  took  a  good  look  at  the  sacred  Bank 
of  England.  Moving  about  wherever  our  noses  led  us,  we 
saw  Whitehall  Palace,  where  Charles  I  was  tried  and  in  front 
of  which  he  was  beheaded;  Westminster  Abbey,  where  I  was 
glad  to  see  a  bust  of  my  fellow  countryman,  Henry  Wads- 
worth  Longfellow,  amid  the  tombs  of  ancient  kings,  St. 
Paul's  Cathedral,  the  Royal  Academy,  Buckingham  Palace, 
and  the  Houses  of  Parliament;  Petticoat  Lane,  that  famous 
pushcart  market,  where  bargain-sellers  of  many  nationali- 
ties gathered  to  take  the  public's  money;  the  Tower  of  Lon- 
don; Trafalgar  Square;  the  Thames  embankment;  and 
Westminster  Bridge. 

Having  steeped  himself  in  Dickens  lore,  Clarence  Web- 
ster was  able  to  rattle  off  a  great  deal  of  remembered  detail 
which  lighted  up  London  history  for  me  in  rich  colors. 
Barnaby  Radge  of  course  occupied  a  much  larger  stage  than 
any  other  of  the  Dickens  novels,  for  it  dealt  with  the  Gordon 
Riots  in  the  time  of  George  III.  Its  central  character  was  a 
member  of  Lord  George  Gordon's  "No  Popery"  mob  of 
60,000  persons  who  gathered  in  the  open  fields  east  of  the 
city  where  Gordon  harangued  them,  then  marchetl  them  in 
divisions  across  Westminster  Bridge,  London  Bridge,  and 
Blackfriars  Bridge.  For  six  days  and  nights  the  mob  held 
all  London  at  its  mercy,  besieged  Parliament,  emptied  the 


132       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

prisons,  pillaged  the  homes  of  well-to-do  Catholics,  raided 
the  distilleries  and  set  them  on  fire.  Benjamin  Franklin  was 
then  in  France  as  a  U.  S.  emissary,  and  wrote  home  about 
the  vast  destruction. 

Most  of  the  buildings  in  Whitechapel  were  old  and  doubt- 
less had  been  there  in  the  days  when  Dickens  wrote  of  Bill 
Sikes  murdering  Nancy.  Men  and  women  in  those  mean 


CLARENCE  WEBSTER  AND  HIS  KODAK  New  picture-making  device 
creates  a  sensation  in  London's  Whitechapel  district. 

streets  also  seemed  of  an  era  far  in  the  past;  from  their  looks 
they  might  have  been  the  very  people  who  moved  through 
the  pages  of  Oliver  Twist  or  followed  Lord  George  Gordon. 

When  the  natives  heard  that  Web  was  carrying  a  picture- 
taking  machine,  they  surrounded  us  in  droves.  A  large,  slat- 
ternly woman,  with  her  abdomen  thrown  out  proudly,  cried : 
"Tike -me,  Mister!" 

Many  places  we  came  to  in  London  were  instantly  con- 
nected up  with  Dickens' s  writings  by  Web's  extensive  mem- 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       133 

ory,  and  some  of  them  were  known  to  me  also — not  so  much 
from  my  reading,  for  I  cared  little  for  novels,  but  from  the 
hundreds  of  illustrations  over  which  I  had  often  pored.  The 
whole  scene  was  rich  in  picture  stuff,  a  constantly  changing 
panorama,  as  we  pushed  along.  I  remember  the  Tower,  Bill- 
ingsgate Fish  Market,  St.  Paul's  Cathedral,  the  Marble  Arch, 
Regent's  Park,  Cheapside,  and  various  inns — the  Cheshire 
Cheese,  the  Blue  Bull,  the  Maypole,  the  Rainbow  Tavern, 
the  Old  Ship,  the  Red  Lion,  and  Jenny's  Whim.  One  fog- 
enveloped  night  Webster  was  sure  we  had  found  the  Seven 
Dials,  and  I  made  a  sketch  of  two  outcasts,  an  old  man  and 
an  old  woman  talking  it  over  in  the  blear  gas  light  of  a  foggy 
night.  I  showed  it  to  Webster  and  he  said:  "Here's  Dickens 
and  Dore,  all  in  one  picture/' 

It  may  have  been  because  I  was  fed  on  the  latter' s  draw- 
ings in  my  adolescence,  that  I  admired  his  work  with  a  kind 
of  awe.  And  one  day,  when  we  again  visited  the  Dore  gal- 
lery on  Bond  Street,  it  was  with  difficulty  that  Web  finally 
got  me  to  leave  it  for  other  London  sights.  I  thought  then 
and  still  think  that  if  ever  there  was  a  born  artist  it  was  the 
Alsatian  Gustav  Dore.  He  was  an  engine  of  energy;  hand- 
some; with  an  Oedipus  complex,  but  having  futile  love 
affairs  with  Adelina  Patti  and  Sarah  Bernhardt;  the  talk  of 
Paris  at  twenty  for  his  Dante,  Rabelais,  and  Balzac  illustra- 
tions, his  paintings  and  comic  drawings.  At  forty  he  had  out- 
distanced all  other  artists,  not  only  illustrating  but  enhanc- 
ing the  text  of  his  favorites  in  classic  literature.  But  long 
before  his  fiftieth  year  he  was  a  miserable  melancholic,  mainly, 
it  is  said,  because  the  critics  would  not  recognize  him  as  a  great 
painter. 

Dore  had  at  least  one  admirer  who  accepted  all  that  he 
did — painting,  cartoons,  statuary,  and  illustrations — as  be- 
yond criticism.  A  young  man  from  Wisconsin  who  thought 
he  understood  him  and  counted  him  the  greatest  artist  of  his 
time.  I  estimated  the  gift  of  imagination  in  all  of  the  arts  as 
supreme.  And  Dore  had  it.  Rowlandson,  George  Cruikshank, 
the  elder  Peter  Breughel,  Gillray,  Callot,  Durer,  and  Ober- 
lander  also  had  it  in  the  graphic  arts,  as  did  most  of  the 
Renaissance  painters.  But  Dore's  torrential  ambition  and  his 
over-production  not  only  killed  him  at  fifty-one — it  dead- 
ened a  decent  appraisal  of  his  work.  He  was  a  sensation, 


134       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

and  it  may  have  been  only  "for  the  day  thereof/'  Time  will 
tell  whether  much  of  his  work  will  survive. 

Thomas  Nast  was  a  great  admirer  of  Dore.  Once,  so  Nast 
told  me,  they  almost  met.  He  was  going  into  the  Bond  Street 
Gallery  and  Dore  was  coming  out.  "He  looked  at  me/'  Nast 
said,  "as  if  he  ought  to  know  me,  and  I  looked  at  him  as  if 
I  ought  to  know  him — and  we  let  it  go  at  that/'  I  am  quot- 
ing this  from  a  conversation  I  had  with  him  when  I  visited 
Nast  at  his  home  in  Morristown,  New  Jersey,  in  1897.  Nast 
had  many  Dore  drawings  on  his  walls  there.  He  told  me  that 
the  editors  of  Harper's  Weekly  had  accused  him  of  plagiariz- 
ing Dore's  mannerisms.  Anyone  who  looks  through  that 
magazine  in  the  years  from  1862  to  1870  will  see  early  Nast 
drawings  which  certainly  have  the  powerful  dramatic  effects 
of  light  and  shade  associated  with  the  work  of  Dore.  But 
Nast  had  an  original  style  that  no  plagiaristic  admiration 
could  conceal. 

Being  older  than  I,  and  supposedly  better  versed  in  the 
ways  of  the  world,  Web  usually  took  the  initiative  in  ar- 
ranging our  travels.  But  I  found  it  necessary  to  prod  him 
to  make  sure  that  we  didn't  miss  trains  and  got  to  places  on 
schedule;  for  he  had  a  faulty  sense  of  time.  One  day,  how- 
ever, he  had  a  laugh  on  me  when  I  essayed  to  bargain  with 
the  driver  of  a  cab  who  had  deposited  us  at  our  house  in 
Bloomsbury  Square  after  an  hour  of  sight-seeing.  He  de- 
manded half  a  crown  for  the  ride.  That  sounded  like  a  lot 
of  money,  although  I  was  muddled  about  money  matters, 
rate  of  exchange,  and  all  that. 

I  objected  that  it  was  too  much,  and  offered  the  man  four 
shillings.  He  looked  at  me  strangely,  but  said:  "Orl  right, 
Guv'ner,  *av  it  yer  own  wye." 

"I'm  not  going  to  let  any  of  these  grasping  Britishers 
overcharge  us/'  I  said  with  a  glow  of  victory  when  the  cab 
had  gone. 

"How  much  do  you  think  half  a  crown  is,  in  American 
money?"  Web  inquired. 

"I— I  don't  know." 

"Just  61  cents.  You've  paid  him  36  cents  more  than  his 
price." 

After  that  I  let  Web  handle  the  finances. 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       135 

Though  our  lodgings  were  near  the  British  Museum,  I 
never  managed  to  visit  that  institution.  It  was  on  my  list, 
but  somehow  I  never  found  time  to  go  there,  and  was  sorry 
afterward. 

We  had  set  a  limit  of  three  weeks  for  our  stay  in  London. 
When  I  realized  that  we  were  going  next  into  a  foreign- 
language  country,  and  knowing  no  word  of  French  except 
Oar",  I  was  a  bit  timid.  Not  to  know  the  value  of  a  country's 
money  is  bad  enough,  but  not  to  know  its  language  is  to  be 
helpless,  I  thought — and  I  said  to  Web,  "Maybe  Fd  better 
stay  right  here/' 

But  in  this  mood  I  was  forgetting  my  objective,  which 
was  to  study  at  the  Academie  Julien.  In  a  few  days  we  were 
off  for  Paris  by  way  of  Dover  and  that  churning  ride  across 
the  English  Channel. 


Chapter    14 
ON  THE  STAGE;  PICTURES  SET  TO  MUSIC 

A~TER  my  illness  in  Paris,  the  journey  home  to  Wis- 
consin, and  the  strawberry  festival  which  celebrated 
my  return,  I  found  myself  with  time  on  my  hands 
and  the  problem  of  how  best  to  occupy  it.  First  of  course 
I  knew  I  must  look  out  for  my  health.  I  liked  the  walk  to 
town  (about  a  mile)  ,  not  ^>n  the  main  road  but  cross-cutting 
through  Ludlow's  farm — stopping  perhaps  to  lie  on  the 
bank  of  the  creek — and  sometimes  sketching  cows,  I  don't 
know  of  any  animal  more  difficult  to  draw  than  a  cow  lying 
down. 

Arriving  at  the  Square,  I  would  go  to  our  store,  hang 
around  for  an  hour  and  look  at  catalogs  and  other  advertising 
matter  that  had  come  in  the  mail,  help  myself  to  candy  or 
fruit,  and  then  perhaps  go  upstairs  to  the  Sentinel  office,  and 
chin  with  the  editor,  Charlie  Booth.  My  itinerary  also  in- 
cluded the  Court  House  and  the  stand  in  the  post  office  where 
Chicago  newspapers  were  sold. 

At  home  I  did  chores  around  the  farm,  whereas  in 
younger  days  I  had  usually  dodged  them,  especially  when  I 
was  engrossed  in  making  pictures.  The  whole  family  now 
cautioned  me  not  to  overdo,  but  I  knew  that  I  needed  physical 
activity.  I  was  still  much  underweight,  and  naturally  my 
mother  undertook  to  cure  that  with  tasty  home- cooked  food. 

Croquet  was  the  outdoor  sport  in  that  day,  and  I  thought 
it  fun,  playing  with  my  brother  BilL  Then  I  found  a  pair 
of  Indian  clubs  in  the  attic,  a  reminder  of  an  earlier  passion  of 
Billys,  and  I  began  exercising  with  these,  doing  fancy  gyra- 
tions in  the  front  yard.  This  was  a  decided  mistake.  Farmers 
going  by  in  their  wagons  disapproved  of  it.  Sometimes  I 
could  hear  their  acid  comment;  or  it  was  relayed  to  me 
promptly  by  others.  "If  he  was  my  boy/'  said  one  of  these 
critics,  "he'd  exercise  out  in  the  fields  with  a  hoe/*  I  didn't 
want  people  to  think  I  was  a  playboy  and  a  loafer.  I  had 

136 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       137 

been  a  great  expense  to  my  family;  I  knew  that,  and  the 
townspeople  knew  it.  And  I  did  try  hoeing,  dutifully;  but 
a  couple  of  hours  of  it  daily  was  enough  to  wear  me  out. 

So  I  took  things  more  easily  for  a  while.  And  as  the 
weeks  went  by,  I  had  to  learn  that  lesson  more  than  once* 
There  were  stretches  of  good  weather  when  I  would  move 
along  in  fine  fettle;  then  I  would  have  days  with  a  pain  in 
my  side,  and  a  feeling  of  dread*  Father  had  Dr.  Loofborough, 
our  family  physician,  come  in  to  see  me.  He  was  cheerful 
and  reassuring,  "Nothing  wrong  with  you,  Art.  Just  a  matter 
of  time  and  patience — and  you'll  be  all  right  again.  Get 
plenty  of  rest — not  necessarily  at  night,  but  whenever  you 
feel  tired — and  keep  your  mind  occupied.  And  if  what  you* re 
doing  seems  a  task,  switch  to  something  else.  Don't  feel  that 
you  have  to  do  today  anything  that  you  can  put  off  until 
tomorrow/' 

My  chief  diversion,  as  always,  was  drawing  pictures,  and 
in  running  through  any  illustrated  books  or  magazines  that 
I  could  get  hold  of.  Harper's  Weekly  came  to  us  regularly, 
and  I  was  first  to  look  it  over.  At  intervals  all  too  long  a 
show  would  come  to  Turner  Hall,  and  usually  I  would  go 
to  renew  my  childhood;  for  I  had  been  through  enough 
trouble  to  make  me  feel  like  one  who  was  getting  along  in 
years. 

Letters  from  Clarence  Webster  kept  me  informed  about 
what  the  fellows  I  knew  in  the  Chicago  newspaper  offices 
were  doing,  and  made  me  lonely  for  the  color  and  move- 
ment of  the  city.  Yet  when  I  thought  of  the  possibility  of 
going  back,  I  knew  I  wasn't  equal  to  it  yet.  The  fine  self- 
confidence  that  I  had  had  for  a  few  years  while  things  were 
going  well,  was  lacking  now.  But  I  was  keenly  interested  in 
what  Web  wrote  about  preparations  for  a  World's  Fair  to 
celebrate  the  discovery  of  America  by  one  Christopher  Co- 
lumbus— the  question  of  his  right  to  the  title  of  "discoverer" 
not  having  been  raised  in  that  era.  The  Fair  would  mean  a 
great  boom,  my  friend  and  advisor  said,  with  the  newspapers 
riding  on  the  crest  of  the  tide*  .  .  * 

And  now  I  began  toying  with  an  idea  that  had  long 
been  in  the  back  of  my  mind — the  writing  and  illustrating  of 
a  book  dealing  with  intimate  affairs  in  the  Hell  of  my  own 


138       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

time,  as  Dante  (with  the  subsequent  pictorial  aid  of  Dore) 
had  done,  I  figured  that  Hades  must  have  changed  a  good 
deal  through  the  centuries,  in  view  of  outside  influences,  just 
as  the  upper  world  had  changed  for  better  or  for  worse. 
Looking  through  the  Dante-Dore  volume  that  rested  on  the 
parlor  table,  I  was  sure  that  many  of  the  local  institutions 
shown  therein  would  now  be  obsolete. 

I  gave  attention  with  my  drawing  pen  to  various  arrivals 
in  Hell  since  the  Florentine  poet's  day.  New  subjects  of 
Satan  took  form  on  the  paper  before  me — small-town  gos- 
sips, cornet-fiends,  farmers  who  failed  to  blanket  their  horses 
in  winter,  chronic  kickers,  botch  tailors,  hypocritical  church 
pillars,  bunco-steerers,  and  kindred  souls  eligible  for  mem- 
bership in  the  society  of  the  nether  regions. 

Fitting  punishments  were  set  forth  in  other  pictures — 
quack  doctors  gulping  down  their  own  poison;  boodle  alder- 
men, each  in  a  superheated  oven;  confidence-men  on  a  sand- 
paper slide;  the  chronic  kickers  being  kicked  by  machinery; 
the  monopolists  and  snobbish  rich  sitting  in  frying  pans  over 
fires. 

Many  of  those  drawings  I  would  now  reject  as  inferior 
to  my  present  standard.  Yet  some  of  them  I  like  much,  and 
would  not  change.  One  which  I  prize  (if  one  may  unblush- 
ingly  admire  a  self-created  work)  is  my  portrait,  drawn  of 
course  from  imagination,  of  the  inventor  of  the  barbed-wire 
fence,  naked  except  for  a  high  silk  hat  and  a  walrus  mous- 
tache sitting  through  eternity  on  his  bare  behind  on  one  of 
the  fences  he  devised.  As  a  boy  in  farm  country  I  used  to  see 
cattle  and  horses  gashed  and  bleeding  from  encounters  with 
those  cruel  steel  points.* 

There  was  tonic  for  me  in  all  this.  But  when  I  had  com- 
pleted several  dozen  new  views  of  Gehenna,  I  made  no  move 
to  place  the  material  with  a  publisher.  That  seemed  a  formid- 
able task — and  remembering  the  doctor's  advice,  I  set  the 
whole  thing  aside  to  be  taken  up  again  when  I  happened  to 

*  Until  this  was  written  I  had  no  idea  who  invented  barbed- wire.  Then 
word  came  that  his  name  was  Jacob  Haish,  and  that  he  died  in  1926  in  DeKalb, 
Illinois,  only  sixty  miles  from  where  I  was  born.  He  was  99  years  old,  and  had 
made  millions  from  his  invention,  the  idea  for  which  came  to  him  around  1851, 
as  he  wound  pasture  fences  with  osage,  which  had  stiff  thorns.  When  he  died 
the  Illinois  Historical  Society  described  him  as  a  "man  of  peace",  who  had  lived 
to  see  the  farmer's  fence  turned  into  a  "tangle  of  horror  and  death  that  ran  like 
a  rusty  snake  through  northern  France." 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       139 

be  in  the  proper  mood.  Yet  I  mentioned  it  in  a  letter  to 
Eugene  Field,  and  I  asked  him  how  he  would  like  to  write 
some  reading  matter  to  go  with  the  pictures.  "Don't  be  so 
modest/'  he  replied.  "Write  it  yourself.  You  know  a  lot 
more  about  Hell  than  I  do.  Anybody  who  went  through  an 
illness  like  yours  in  Paris  ought  to  have  no  hesitation  in 
describing  the  tortures  of  Hades/' 

Webster  and  I  had  a  friend  in  Chicago  who  bore  the 
curious  name  of  Wyllys  S.  Abbot,  and  who  was  interested  in 
the  stage  as  well  as  in  journalism.  At  this  point  Abbot  had 
what  he  considered  a  scintillating  idea,  about  which  he  first 
wrote,  then  came  up  to  see  me.  He  proposed  to  organize  a 
traveling  company,  of  which  I  would  be  the  headlines  to 
edify  the  people  of  various  cities  and  towns  with  a  combina- 
tion of  art,  song,  and  music.  He  dwelt  strongly  upon  my 
having  "a  talent  which  ought  to  be  capitalized/'  My  part 
would  be  to  draw  quick  sketches  of  well-known  persons  and 
familiar  scenes  in  time  and  keeping  with  music.  Webster 
knew  of  this  stunt  of  mine  and  had  told  him  about  it. 

I  was  hesitant  about  carrying  out  the  scheme,  but  Abbot 
painted  its  advantages  in  such  glowing  colors  that  I  agreed — 
and  then  we  went  around  and  enlisted  Grant  Weber  as  one  of 
the  company.  Grant,  who  had  been  studying  music  in  Ger- 
many, was  the  boy  who  had  remembered  his  notes  on  the 
day  I  got  stage  fright  and  forgot  mine  at  the  Janesville 
concert  when  I  was  ten. 

Abbot  promptly  lined  up  other  performers  in  Chicago 
and  arranged  for  a  tryout  at  the  Press  Club  there.  Admission 
was  by  invitation  only,  and  the  membership  turned  out  in 
force.  Suzanne  Ella  Wood,  soprano,  described  as  "a  popular 
young  society  woman  on  the  South  Side/'  sang  well.  Grant 
Weber  played  creditably;  he  had  developed  a  fine  technique, 
with  both  power  and  delicacy. 

We  should  have  had  an  orchestra  accompanying  my  act 
to  make  it  effective,  but  I  managed  to  get  along  with  the  solo 
support  of  one  Signor  Tomaso,  a  find  of  Abbot's,  who  used 
a  mandolin.  While  he  rendered  appropriate  selections,  I  drew 
quick  charcoal  sketches  on  large  sheets  of  white  paper  of 
Napoleon  Bonaparte,  General  William  T.  Sherman,  Richard 
Wagner,  General  Boulanger,  and  Bob  Ingersoll,  with  a  pitch- 


140       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

fork  tossing  him  into  flames.  I  also  made  Devolution  sketches* ' 
— with  a  few  swift  strokes  of  my  crayon.  I  rhythmically 
changed  a  watermelon  into  the  face  of  a  grinning  darkey 
while  the  long-haired  Signor  obliged  with  the  tune  "Dancing 
in  the  Barn/* 

The  press  did  well  by  us,  so  that  we  were  able  to  quote 
favorable  comment  from  the  Daily  News,  Tribune,  Inter- 
Ocean,  and  Herald  in  a  leaflet — "novel  exhibition  ,  .  . 
pleasant  entertainment  .  .  .  clever  .  .  .  artistic  *  .  .  rare  finish 
and  brilliancy  .  .  .  refreshing/' 

Abbot  got  us  a  booking  at  Plymouth  Church,  and  here 
we  added  a  chorus  of  young  women*  This  brought  us  more 
publicity,  and  soon  we  were  billed  to  appear  at  the  Grand 
Opera  House  in  Bloomington,  Illinois,  Then  Abbot  spread 
himself  on  a  poster,  topped  by  the  bold-lettered  words: 
"Good  Morning,  have  you  seen  Art  Young?"  Below  was 
some  bragging  about  my  facility,  which,  however,  I  was  sure 
I  could  live  up  to.  Abbot  said:  "We've  got  to  do  it  that  way, 
Art  Everybody  does  it.  You're  not  heralding  your  own  vir- 
tues, I'm  doing  that,  as  your  manager/' 

His  ballyhoo  knew  no  limit:  "Art  Young's  political 
satires  have  widened  and  strengthened  the  influence  of  many 
journals,  among  them  the  Tribune,  Dally  News,  and  Inter- 
Ocean  of  Chicago,  Texas  Siftings  and  The  Judge  (sic)  of 
New  York,  and  the  Pall  Mall  Budget  of  London.  His  artistic 
pencil  has  accompanied  Lieutenant  Swatka  in  Alaska,  Rider 
Haggard  in  Africa,  and  'Conflagration  Jones'  abroad,  but — 

"His  greatest  triumph  is  the  presentation  of  the  most 
unique  entertainment  ever  presented  to  American  audiences 
in  which,  keeping  time  and  tune  with  his  crayon,  he  presents 
to  the  eye  an  artistically  beautiful  or  laughable  sketch  .  .  . 
suggested  by  the  melodious  strains.  .  .  . 

"The  performance  is  wonderful — the  effect  is  magical 
Among  his  spectators  cheers,  laughter,  and  tears  seem  at  his 
bidding.  Once  seen,  his  marvelous  talent  is  never  forgotten. 
No  wan  has  ever  before  displayed  it/' 

We  appeared  in  Bloomington  on  May  22,  1891.  The 
posters  had  said:  "While  the  band  plays  he  draws  a  picture  of 
a  song/'  But  this  must  have  been  press  agents'  license,  for 
no  band  or  orchestra  is  mentioned  on  the  program.  Instead 
a  Signor  Carolla  is  down  for  a  violin  solo,  and  I  seem  to 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       141 

remember  that  he  supplied  the  accompaniment  for  me.  I  drew 
pictures  illustrative  of  the  Marseillaise,  Boulanger's  March, 
Marching  Through  Georgia,  In  the  Sweet  Bye  and  Bye, 
Lohengrin's  Wedding  March,  McGinty,  Annie  Rooney,  We 
Won't  Go  Home  Until  Morning,  Hail  Columbia,  Tenting 
Tonight,  Nearer  My  God  to  Thee,  and  others.  I  am  amused 
now  at  the  memory  of  having  done  a  portrait  of  Napoleon 
to  illustrate  the  Marseillaise,  but  it  got  across  with  that 
audience. 


Svy  vy  I  0        Have  you  seen  Art  Yeafljg? 
^^i^     ^^tr      JL*H^    ^^^^ 

Artistic 'and  Musical 


ARTHUR  H.  YOUNG 
WHEN  I  WAS  ON  THE  STAGE. 

The  Bloomington  Daily  Leader  said  that  "the  critical 
audience  applauded  long  and  loud/'  and  the  local  corre- 
spondent of  the  Chicago  Inter-Ocean  reported  the  concert  as 
* 'an  event  of  much  social  importance"  and  said  the  audience 
was  "not  only  large  but  containing  the  very  elite  of  the 
city/'  Some  now  forgotten  co-worker  whom  I  had  known 
on  the  Daily  News  in  Chicago,  had  hooked  up  with  the 
Kansas  City  Star,  and  he  wrote  a  story  for  that  paper,  dwell- 
ing upon  my  method  of  drawing  a  picture  of  Mr*  McGinty 
in  rhythm  with  "the  orchestra"  as  it  played  the  tune  lament- 


142       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

ing  that  unfortunate  worthy's  descent  to  the  bottom  of 
the  sea. 

With  all  this  favorable  comment,  Abbot  contended  that 
it  was  time  for  us  to  move  on  my  home  town,  I  was  reluctant 
to  appear  in  Monroe,  especially  in  view  of  my  manager's 
proposal  that  we  stage  our  performance  as  a  benefit  to  a 
home-town  boy  who  had  come  through  a  desperate  illness. 
Finally  Abbot  agreed  to  omit  any  mention  of  a  benefit  from 
the  advertisements,  and  I  consented  to  let  him  go  ahead  with 
arrangements* 

So  he  got  out  a  large  four-page  leaflet,  with  pen-sketches 
of  the  principals,  and  with  five  bold  cuts  of  myself,  all  alike, 
spread  across  one  page.  "Admission  35  and  50  cents.  Tickets 
for  sale  at  the  Post  Office  and  at  D.  S.  Young  &  Co/s." 

June  1 1  was  the  date,  and  Turner  Hall  was  packed.  We 
gave  the  audience  a  long  program  for  its  money,  and  those 
present  demanded  more  from  every  performer.  But  I  was  not 
happy  that  night.  I  felt  that  even  though  the  ads  had  not 
called  the  show  a  benefit,  it  was  generally  understood  that  it 
was  intended  to  be  that — and  that  perhaps  all  the  generous 
applause  was  not  based  strictly  on  the  merits  of  our  offerings. 

Clarence  Webster  was  on  hand,  billed  as  "  'Conflagration 
Jones/  the  famous  humorist  of  the  Chicago  Inter-Ocean/' 
and  gave,  in  his  best  style,  a  recitation  entitled  "Pizen  Jim/' 
with  encores.  Suzanne  Wood,  Grant  Weber,  and  others  also 
were  on  the  program.  I  appeared  on  the  stage  with  two  sets 
of  sketches,  repeating  what  I  had  done  in  Bloomington. 

Many  friends  told  me  that  the  performance  was  a  great 
success,  but  to  me  that  evening  was  one  of  the  worst  ordeals 
I  ever  went  through.  As  I  stood  before  the  people  of  Monroe, 
I  felt  that  everyone  there  was  a  super-critic.  I  wondered 
whether  my  clothes  were  all  buttoned  properly,  and  if  my 
necktie  was  still  straight.  But  the  music  helped  a  lot,  and  I 
went  through  all  the  motions  of  the  routine  that  I  had  re- 
hearsed so  many  times. 

On  the  leaflets  heralding  our  Monroe  concert  was  an  an- 
nouncement of  a  forthcoming  Chicago  magazine,  the 
Ahkoond  of  Swat,  projected  by  Abbot,  with  Webster  and 
myself  as  associate  editors.  This  was  planned  as  a  monthly, 
the  title  being  borrowed  from  George  Thomas  Lanigan's 
poem.  In  1878,  when  he  was  on  the  night  news  desk  of  the 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       143 

New  York  World,  the  cable  brought  the  bare  announcement 
of  the  demise  of  a  king  in  a  small  country  in  India,  Unable 
to  find  data  in  any  reference  books  upon  which  to  base  an 
obituary,  Lanigan  was  impelled  to  write  that  now  famous 
threnody.  The  first  stanza  read: 

What,  what,  what 

What's  the  news  from  Swat? 
Sad  news, 
Bad  news, 
Comes  by  the  cable  led 

Through  the  Indian  Ocean's  bed, 

Through  the  Persian  Gulf,  the  Red 
Sea  and  the  Med- 
iterranean— he's  dead: 
The  Ahkoond  of  Swat  is  dead!" 

The  Ahkoond  of  Swat  started  bravely,  and  flamboyantly, 
as  such  publications  do.  It  was  largely  humorous,  but  also 
contained  editorials  dealing  with  political  and  other  affairs, 
The  first  issue  contained  two  of  my  Hell  pictures,  each  oc- 
cupying half  a  page.  Abbot  predicted  a  great  future  for  this 
periodical,  but  found  it  difficult  to  get  advertising  for  it. 
There  were  only  three  issues.  So  far  as  I  know  I  have  the 
only  copy  of  the  Ahkoond  that  has  survived. 

About  the  same  time  an  Englishman  we  knew  in  Chicago 
launched  a  magazine  called  Push,  and  Web  and  I  were  in  on 
the  ground  floor  there  also.  But  it  didn't  have  enough  push 
to  pay  its  way,  and  soon  gave  up  the  ghost. 

There  had  been  talk  of  our  concert  company  going  to 
Janesville  and  other  Wisconsin  cities,  but  after  the  Monroe 
appearance  we  all  felt  we  had  enough  of  it,  and  the  plan  was 
scrapped. 

I  went  back  to  work  on  the  Hell  book,  and  resumed  the 
physical  exercises.  Sometimes  the  old  weakness  recurred,  but 
the  intervals  of  well-being  were  much  longer.  My  share  of 
the  proceeds  of  the  concerts  was  enough  to  justify  my  loafing 
at  home  for  a  while  longer. 


Chapter    15 
RETURN  TO  HEALTH  AND  CHICAGO 

IT  seems  strange  now  that  I  lingered  in  Monroe  conva- 
lescing for  a  year  and  a  half — but  it  took  that  long  before 

I  was  my  normal  self  again.  Around  Christmas  in  1891 
I  realized  that  I  had  been  on  the  sidelines  long  enough;  I 
must  get  out  into  the  world  once  more.  A  national  campaign 
was  coming  on;  and  there  was  likely  to  be  a  hot  fight,  par- 
ticularly over  the  tariff.  I  didn't  know  much  about  the  tariif 
question,  but  I  wanted  to  be  where  there  was  action. 

New  York  seemed  my  best  bet.  I  still  had  that  letter  of 
introduction  from  Eugene  Field  to  Colonel  Cockerill  of  the 
World,  and  there  was  Puck,  in  which  a  good  many  pictures 
dealt  with  politics  and  topical  affairs.  There  ought  to  be  a 
place  for  me  somewhere  in  the  metropolis.  I  had  been  wait- 
ing for  something  to  happen  which  would  give  me  a  legiti- 
mate excuse  to  write  to  eastern  editors  and  ask  if  there  was 
an  opening.  But  I  figured  now  that  my  chances  would  be 
better  if  I  pulled  up  stakes  and  saw  the  editors  in  person. 
My  strength  had  returned  and  I  was  a  new  man,  ready  for 
anything. 

So  I  said  goodbye  again  and  started  east,  stopping  in 
Chicago,  of  course,  to  look  up  my  friends,  I  told  Field  some 
new  anecdote  at  which  he  laughed,  and  he  said:  "Write  it/' 
I  did,  and  also  made  an  illustration  for  it,  and  both  were 
published  next  day  in  his  column,  "Sharps  and  Flats/* 

Dropping  in  at  the  Inter-Ocean  office  to  see  Web,  I  was 
hailed  in  friendly  fashion  by  William  Penn  Nixon,  the  editor 
and  part-owner  whom  I  had  met  before.  He  inquired  solici- 
tously about  my  health  and  plans.  Then  he  asked  how  I 
would  like  to  do  political  cartoons  for  the  Inter-Ocean,  which 
at  that  time  was  as  influential  as  the  Tribune.  It  was,  in  fact, 
known  as  "the  farmers*  Bible",  so  completely  did  the  people 
in  the  rural  districts  read  and  believe  in  it. 

Evidently  Nixon  had  heard  about  my  being  let  out  by 

144 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       145 

the  Tribune.  He  knew  my  work  on  the  Daily  News,  and  also 
that  his  managing  editor,  Mr,  Busbey,  and  Webster  wanted 
me  on  the  staff.  He  offered  me  $50  a  week,  to  start  at  once 
if  I  was  ready,  and  it  took  me  no  more  than  a  couple  of 
minutes  to  say  yes.  This  was  a  definite  job,  offered  without 
being  asked  for,  and  I  liked  the  idea  of  being  so  close  to 
home,  Elizabeth  North  was  now  living  in  Milwaukee  with 
an  uncle,  which  fact  also  had  had  something  to  do  with  my 
acceptance, 

Webster  took  me  out  to  dinner  to  celebrate,  and  then  we 
went  to  look  at  the  two  great  new  skyscrapers  that  had 
sprung  up  in  my  absence — the  Masonic  Temple,  twenty-one 
stories  high,  the  tallest  building  in  the  land,  and  the  Audito- 
rium, in  which  were  combined  a  magnificent  opera  house, 
hotel,  and  office  floors.  And  with  the  stupendous  World's 
Fair  coming  on  in  the  fall,  this  surely  was  the  place  for  me. 
I  had  no  regret  about  not  going  on  to  New  York.  Web  and 
his  wife  had  a  house  out  in  LaGrange  and  next  day  he 
invited  me  to  share  it  with  them.  This  arrangement  was 
agreeable  and  advantageous  to  me, 

Nixon  wanted  me  to  do  a  cartoon  every  day.  This  was 
new  to  the  Mid-West,  although  Walt  McDougall,  whom  I 
was  soon  to  meet,  had  been  drawing  one  a  day  for  the  New 
York  World  as  early  as  1884.  Most  of  the  cartoons  which  I 
drew  for  the  Inter-Ocean  were  my  own  ideas,  but  occasion- 
ally Mr.  Busbey  would  suggest  a  subject,  and  I  would  devise 
a  way  to  present  it.  Usually  politics  was  my  theme,  varied 
now  and  then,  on  an  off  day,  by  some  travesty  on  prevailing 
fads. 

The  Inter-Ocean  was  Republican,  and  of  course  for  tariff- 
protected  industry.  I  had  some  knowledge  of  its  past,  for  I 
had  seen  that  past  dug  up  by  enemy  papers.  They  could  not 
forget  that  in  1880  the  /-O  had  supported  the  Greenback 
party,  an  act  classified  by  the  righteous  as  involving  gross 
moral  turpitude,  and  as  treason  to  society,  business  security, 
and  prosperity — but  the  farmers  liked  it.  By  1892  the  Inter- 
Ocean,  like  the  Tribune  (which  once  had  published  militant 
editorials  by  Henry  Demarest  Lloyd,  Socialist) ,  had  pulled 
in  its  horns,  and  was  now  generally  regarded  by  the  business 
interests  as  respectable  and  level-headed  on  most  issues* 

I  had  found  no  reason  in  that  day  to  regard  money- 


146      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

reform  as  anything  but  nonsense  and  it  was  necessary  for  me 
to  become  much  older  to  get  straightened  out  on  that*  And 
I  must  add  that  in  1933,  fifty-three  years  after  the  sweeping 
defeat  of  this  movement  which  had  reaped  so  much  editorial 
and  oratorical  abuse,  its  supposed  evil  nature  had  been  for- 
gotten, and  Congress  voted  for  the  payment  of  government 
bonds  in  currency,  one  of  the  demands  of  the  Greenback 
convention  in  1880.  And  in  the  intervening  years  other 
planks  in  the  Greenback  platform  had  been  embodied  in 
government  policies  or  had  been  generally  approved  in 
principle. 

H.  H.  Kohlsaat,  proprietor  of  a  chain  of  busy  lunch- 
rooms in  the  downtown  district,  was  then  principal  owner  of 
the  Inter-Ocean.  Active  in  Republican  politics,  it  was  well 
known  that  he  had  an  ardent  dislike  for  President  Benjamin 
Harrison,  who  hoped  to  be  nominated  to  succeed  himself. 

The  Republican  convention  was  scheduled  to  be  held  in 
Minneapolis  in  the  second  week  of  June,  1892,  and  Kohl- 
saat, who  had  taken  full  charge  of  the  newspaper,  assigned 
me  to  cover  the  pictorial  side.  He  was  to  be  a  delegate. 
Shortly  before  his  departure  for  Minneapolis,  he  reached  his 
office  one  morning  to  discover  a  large  number  of  Negro  men 
and  women  waiting  to  see  him.  All  of  them  had  seen  a  notice 
in  Eugene  Field's  column  in  the  Daily  News  which  stated 
that  Kohlsaat  was  going  to  Minneapolis  to  urge  the  nomina- 
tion of  a  colored  man  as  Vice-President,  and  that  he  was 
ready  to  pay  the  expense  of  any  Negro  who  would  go  to 
the  convention  to  help  achieve  that  end.  Kohlsaat  had  long 
shown  a  philanthropic  interest  toward  the  black  race.  He 
had  to  explain  that  this  announcement  was  a  joke  by  a 
writer  with  an  odd  sense  of  humor — and  it  was  difficult  for 
the  hoaxed  Negroes  to  understand  that  joke.  Many  southern 
editors  quoted  and  no  doubt  believed  the  story  invented  by 
Field. 

I  remember  no  hotter  place  in  my  life  than  the  vast 
temporary  wooden  building  in  which  the  Minneapolis  con- 
clave was  held.  Rosin  dripped  from  the  new  lumber  of 
which  it  was  made,  and  perspiration  dripped  from  the  15,000 
or  more  persons  in  attendance.  William  McKinley  of  Ohio 
was  chairman.  He  tried  to  cool  himself  frequently  with  a 
palm-leaf  fan,  as  did  everybody  else.  It  was  a  fan-fluttering 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       147 

convention.  The  thousands  of  fans  in  evidence  had  been 
presented  by  the  enterprising  Kohlsaat,  who  had  had  them 
stamped  with  an  advertisement:  "Keep  cool  and  read  the 
Inter-Ocean."  I  was  amazed  at  the  emotional  heights  to  which 
the  delegates  worked  up  in  that  atmosphere. 

The  fight  for  the  nomination  was  a  three-cornered  one, 
the  main  contestants  beside  Harrison  being  McKinley  and 
James  G.  Elaine,  the  "Plumed  Knight"  of  Maine.  Thomas 
B.  Reed,  also  of  Maine,  and  Robert  T.  Lincoln  of  Illinois, 
son  of  Abraham,  were  lesser  favorites  in  the  balloting.  A 
great  experience  for  me,  watching  that  first  of  many  national 
conventions  which  I  was  to  attend  during  the  following 
forty  years.  It  was  spectacular  drama.  Elaine  had  been  am- 
bitious for  years  to  attain  the  Presidency,  and  the  disappoint- 
ment of  his  followers  as  they  saw  him  losing  another  contest 
was  intense* 

I  sat  at  the  press  table  with  Walt  McDougall  of  the  New 
York  World  and  other  cartoonists  of  the  dailies.  And  what 
was  most  important,  I  met  Thomas  Nast,  who  was  doing 
some  special  pictures  for  the  Inter-Ocean  for  his  friend  Kohl- 
saat. Nast  was  then  fifty-two.  I  introduced  myself  to  him, 
and  we  talked  at  length.  He  stayed  only  a  day* 

Listening  to  speeches,  watching  the  thunderous  demon- 
strations staged  by  the  delegates,  and  playing  a  silent  part 
while  the  correspondents  and  artists  around  me  speculated 
on  what  was  happening  behind  the  scenes,  I  accumulated 
a  large  stock  of  material  for  use  in  the  campaign.  Here  were 
the  leaders  and  the  statesmen  (not  always  synonymous)  of 
the  Republican  party — the  best  minds,  in  action  at  close 
range. 

Chauncey  M.  Depew  made  a  clear  and  forceful  speech, 
proving  that  he  was  a  good  speaker  on  serious  subjects  as 
well  as  a  humorist.  At  the  end  he  placed  Harrison  in  nomina- 
tion, and  then  the  band  played  lustily.  Several  men  hurried 
down  the  center  aisle  with  a  big  portrait  of  the  President, 
adorned  with  the  national  colors,  and  fastened  it  to  a  standard 
on  the  platform.  ...  In  one  of  the  demonstrations  for 
Elaine,  the  cheering  was  led  by  the  portly  Thomas  B.  Reed, 
who  for  many  years  had  been  Elaine's  implacable  enemy;  he 
had  succumbed  to  the  pressure  of  what  is  known  as  political 
expediency.  ...  A  slim  girl  in  light  gray  aided  the  Harrison 


148      AJRT  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

cause  with  an  oft-repeated  Indian  war-whoop,  recalling  the 
President's  grandfather  ''Old  Tippecanoe." 

On  the  fourth  day  the  nomination  went  to  Harrison  on 
the  first  ballot.  He  got  535  1-6  votes,  while  McKinley  re- 
ceived 182  1-6;  Blaine,  182;  Reed,  4;  and  Lincoln  L  The 
Vice-Presidential  choice  was  Whitelaw  Reid,  editor  of  the 
New  York  Tribune,  who  was  chosen  by  acclamation, 

Two  weeks  later  I  attended  the  Democratic  national  con- 
vention at  the  Exposition  building  on  the  lake  front  in 
Chicago,  at  which  Grover  Cleveland  was  picked  to  head  the 
ticket,  with  Adlai  E.  Stevenson  as  his  running  mate.  ^  ,  , 
A  clergyman  with  a  weak  voice  delivered  the  invocation, 
amid  cries  of  "Louder !"  Before  the  prayer  was  ended  the 
Horace  Boies  Club,  which  had  been  vociferously  champion- 
ing Iowa's  favorite  son  and  Governor,  started  to  march 
down  the  aisle  to  the  platform.  The  club  was  halted  and 
quieted  by  the  police,  ,  .  .  One  ludicrous  incident  stands  out 
in  memory — a  faux  pas  of  a  German  bandmaster.  He  was  a 
capable  musician,  but  evidently  had  come  to  this  country 
some  time  after  the  Civil  War,  and  his  education  in  American 
history  was  incomplete.  For  just  as  the  Georgia  delegation 
was  entering  the  hall,  his  band  started  to  play  Marching 
Through  Georgia.  Immediately  there  was  a  riotous  demon- 
stration of  protest  among  the  mint-julep  fanciers  in  Section 
K  and  only  the  fact  that  the  band  playing  the  hated  reminder 
of  General  Sherman's  march  was  in  the  gallery  saved  the 
leader  and  his  men  from  physical  violence* 

Tammany's  representatives  were  drenched  by  a  down- 
pour of  rain  through  a  hole  in  the  roof.  Richard  Croker  and 
Charles  R  Murphy  were  among  those  who  got  their  clothes 
wet.  The  Tammany  crowd  was  backing  former  Governor 
David  B.  Hill  of  New  York,  and  fighting  with  every  possi- 
ble weapon  to  defeat  Cleveland.  ,  .  .  The  band  got  a  big 
hand  when  it  played  Dixie  and  Ta-ra-ra  boom  de~ay. 

Representative  William  L.  Wilson  of  West  Virginia  was 
the  chairman,  and  made  the  keynote  speech,  saying:  4t Who- 
ever may  be  chosen  leader  by  our  party  in  this  campaign, 
no  telegram  will  flash  across  the  sea  from  the  castle  of 
absentee  tariff  lords  to  congratulate  him.  But  from  the  home 
of  labor,  from  the  fireside  of  the  toiler,  from  the  hearts  of 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       149 

all  who  love  justice  and  do  equity,  who  wish  and  intend  that 
our  matchless  heritage  of  freedom  shall  be  the  common  wealth 
of  all  our  people  and  the  common  opportunity  of  all  our 
youth,  will  come  up  prayers  for  his  success  and  recruits  for 
the  great  Democratic  host  that  must  strike  down  the  beast  of 
sectionalism  and  the  moloch  of  monopoly  before  we  can 
ever  again  have  a  people's  government  run  by  a  people's 
faithful  representatives." 

That  sounded  reasonable  to  me,  but  I  was  a  Republican 
employed  by  a  Republican  paper  for  $50  a  week  and  not  to 
be  influenced  by  the  siren  song  of  our  opponents.  Neverthe- 
less I  have  always  been  sensitive  to  competent  oratory,  and 
from  that  year  to  the  present  time  have  heard  all  kinds — 
most  of  it  I  would  say,  as  one  of  Plutarch's  noble  Grecians 
or  Romans  put  it,  "tall  and  lofty  like  a  cypress  tree,  but 
bearing  no  fruit/' 

My  work  at  the  office  was  a  consistent  day-after-day 
show-up  of  the  iniquities  of  the  Democrats.  On  all  sides  the 
campaign  was  bitter,  and  grew  more  and  more  vituperative 
as  the  months  went  on. 

My  scrap-book  for  that  year  contains  all  of  my  cartoon 
attacks  on  Grover  Cleveland  and  the  Democratic  party.  On 
one  of  these  the  caption  reads:  "The  political  Darius  Green 
and  his  flying  machine:  The  greatest  invention  under  the 
sun.  'And  now/  says  Darius,  'hooray  for  some  fun/ " 
Cleveland,  with  makeshift  wings  attached  to  his  shoulders, 
labeled:  "My  letter  of  acceptance*'  .  .  .  "Meaningless  plati- 
tudes/' *  .  *  "Speeches  with  no  sense/'  Grover  stands  on  the 
Democratic  platform,  labeled:  "Free  trade  «  .  .  No  pensions 
.  .  .  Wildcat  currency  .  .  .  Fraudulent  elections/'  He  is  about 
to  try  a  flight  to  the  White  House  in  the  distance. 

Remembering  that  Tammany  Hall  fought  tooth-and- 
nail  to  keep  Cleveland  from  being  nominated  in  Chicago, 
there  is  a  queer  ring  now  to  another  of  my  Inter-Ocean  cat- 
toons  entitled  The  Beggars.  This  depicts  Joseph  Pulitzer, 
with  accented  nose,  playing  a  hand- organ  labeled  "New  York 
World"  and  leading  the  Tammany  tiger,  which  carries  a 
plate  in  its  mouth.  The  tiger  holds  in  a  claw  a  paper  bearing 
the  words:  "We  must  buy  votes  for  Cleveland  and  free 
trade",  while  Pulitzer  flaunts  a  banner  reading:  "Please  give 


150       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

a  helping  hand  to  the  democracy  of  the  Northwest;  it  is  all 
going  to  smash/' 

Another  picture  was  headed  The  Latest  from  the  South, 
with  an  underline:  "Adlai  Stevenson  is  still  grinding  out  his 
one  speech  to  large  and  enthusiastic  audiences/'  The  candi- 
date, adorned  with  a  silk  hat,  stands  on  a  tree  stump  grinding 
a  hand-organ.  Attached  to  his  coat  are  ribbons  labeled 
"Knight  of  the  Golden  Circle"  (the  Knights  were  a  secret 
society  of  Democrats  opposed  to  the  Civil  War)  and  "Green- 
back record/*  His  sole  listener  is  a  Negro  seated  on  a  rail  fence 
eating  watermelon. 

In  July  the  story  of  the  battle  between  Pinkerton  thugs 
and  locked-out  Carnegie  Steel  Company  workers  in  Home- 
stead, Pennsylvania,  screamed  from  the  front  pages.  When 
men  who  had  struck  against  a  wage- cut  gathered  to  pre- 
vent 300  Pinkerton  men  on  barges  from  landing  at  the 
plant,  the  leader  of  the  thugs  gave  an  order  to  fire  and  ten 
workers  fell,  two  being  instantly  killed.  That  was  the  be- 
ginning of  an  all-day  fight,  in  which  the  aroused  steel  workers 
met  repeated  attempts  of  the  Pinkertons  to  land  with  rocks, 
bullets,  dynamite,  and  burning  oil  cast  adrift  on  the  waters 
of  the  Monongahela  River.  Other  men  died  that  day  on  both 
sides  of  the  battle,  ten  in  all,  with  matiy  wounded. 

Around  three  o'clock  the  Pinkertons  ran  up  a  white  flag. 
It  was  shot  full  of  holes  by  the  enraged  strikers.  A  second 
white  flag  met  the  same  fate.  But  when  a  third  one  was  run 
up  cooler  heads  among  the  strikers  agreed  to  a  truce.  With 
women  and  children  jeering  at  them,  the  captured  thugs 
marched  with  their  hands  in  air  several  blocks  to  an  old 
skating  rink,  where  they  were  held  "prisoners  of  war"  for 
twenty-four  hours.  Then  they  were  taken  to  the  edge  of 
town  and  told  to  "hit  the  road/'  Overnight  the  strikers  had 
burned  the  Pinkerton  barges.  Henry  C.  Frick,  manager  for 
Andrew  Carnegie,  demanded  that  Governor  Pattison  of 
Pennsylvania  send  in  troops.  But  Pattison  was  slow  to  act. 

Of  course  the  press  dispatches  were  not  so  explicit  as  the 
summary  of  the  battle  that  I  have  given  here.  The  facts  of 
the  situation  were  slow  in  coming  through,  as  they  usually 
are  in  such  situations,  and  the  emphasis  of  the  telegraphic 
reports  was  on  "labor  rioting/' 

Editorially  the  daily  newspapers  displayed  two  distinct 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       151 

attitudes  toward  that  episode,  depending  on  whether  they 
were  Republican-tariff-protection  or  Democratic- free  trade 
organs.  We  of  the  Inter-Ocean  made  the  most  of  the  battle 
and  its  aftermath.  From  the  dispatches  I  drew  a  front  page 
cartoon-spread  of  the  tragedy,  ^and  underneath  it  the  editor 
put  this  caption:  'Who's  to  blame?*' 

I  note  three  cartoons  that  I  drew  in  the  next  few  days. 
One  has  this  underline:  "What  a  regiment — if  all  the  men 
who  have  made  asses  of  themselves  in  the  Homestead  riot 
case  would  fall  in  line/'  The  picture  shows  several  figures 
each  with  a  label:  Governor  Pattison,  "delay  in  calling  out 
militia";  Palmer,  "incendiary  speech";  Voorhees,  "wild 
talk";  a  donkey-headed  "agitator";  two  more  donkey  heads 
and  another  down  a  long  line  labeled  "free  trade  editor" 
*  .  .  The  second  picture  portrays  Public  Opinion  in  feminine 
personification  delivering  a  mandate  to  Governor  Pattison: 
"Write  that  letter!"  with  an  explanatory  label:  "Letter  order- 
ing out  the  militia  in  the  interest  of  law  and  order."  Below 
was  the  added  comment:  "And  he  wrote  it/' 

My  third  pictorial  preachment  on  Homestead  is  headed: 
"Dana  Shames  the  Small  Democratic  Editors/'  The  cartoon 
depicts  the  New  York  editor  in  a  silk  hat  pointing  an  ad- 
monitory finger  at  a  group  of  boys  as  they  stand  abashed  at 
the  foot  of  a  scarecrow  labeled:  "Homestead  riot  scare  to 
frighten  voters."  Underneath  is  a  long  quotation  from  Dana's 
paper,  the  New  York  San,  which  was  Democratic  but  not 
wedded  to  the  idea  of  free  trade;  thus: 

"We  regret  to  notice  that  some  (nearly  all)  of  our  Demo- 
cratic contemporaries  are  treating  the  Homestead  incident  in 
a  partisan  fashion,  for  which  there  is  no  excuse*  They  assume 
that  because  Mr.  Andrew  Carnegie  and  his  associates  at 
Homestead  have  been  engaged  in  an  industry  protected  by  the 
tariff,  and  because  a  dispute  as  to  wages  has  arisen  between 
the  employers  and  employed,  protection  is  responsible  for 
the  murders  and  mischiefs.  ...  If  strikes  were  never  heard 
of  in  unprotected  industries;  if,  in  fact,  the  greatest  strikes 
in  the  country  had  not  occurred  in  the  unprotected  indus- 
tries, like  the  steam  railroads  and  the  horse  railroads;  if  free 
trade  England  were  not  a  country  of  desperate  strikes,  and 
if  these  facts  were  not  known  to  everybody  with  education 
enough  to  read  large  print,  these  assumptions  might  be  worth 


152      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

contradicting.  As  the  case  is,  they  are  so  far  fetched  and 
wildly  absurd  that  we  fear  they  will  bring  discord  upon  the 
Democrats  in  the  national  campaign/' 

John  P.  Altgeld,  who  had  been  chief  justice  of  the  Cook 
County  Superior  Court,  was  running  for  the  governorship 
on  the  Democratic  ticket.  He  was  anathema  to  the  Inter- 
Ocean,  as  probably  any  Democratic  candidate  for  that  chair 
would  have  been  then.  I  look  back  over  the  anti-Altgeld 
cartoons  in  my  scrapbook  now  with  a  deep  sense  of  shame. 
Two  cited  here  will  be  sufficient  to  typify  my  assaults  upon 
that  clean  man's  character  in  those  far-off  days  of  youth. 

One  is  headed:  "Eighty  Per  Cent  Wrong/'  and  under- 
lines quote  the  S  treat  or  Free  Press  as  saying:  "Judge  Altgeld' s 
record  on  the  bench  is  about  the  worst  in  modern  history. 
Ten  cases  were  appealed  from  Altgeld's  court,  eight  of  which 
were  reversed  on  account  of  error  by  the  Judge.  He  couldn't 
have  been  wrong  oftener  if  he  had  tried/'  In  this  picture 
Altgeld  is  seen  leaning  on  "his  barrel"  (then  the  political 
symbol  of  wealth)  which  is  labeled  "Wrong  Argument/* 
and  a  string  is  fastened  to  one  of  his  legs,  which  is  being 
pulled  by  Mike  McDonald,  political  boss.  Back  of  Altgeld 
on  a  wall  are  numerous  signs:  "Says  the  wrong  things  at  the 
wrong  time  .  .  .  The  wrong  kind  of  man  to  nominate  for 
Governor  .  .  .  Does  wrong  by  his  poor  tenants  .  .  .  Combs 
his  hair  the  wrong  way  .  .  .  Makes  his  tenants  pay  in  gold 
coin  only,  which  is  wrong  .  .  .  Has  wrong  views  on  the 
labor  question." 

That  was  how  I  was  making  good  with  the  Inter-Ocean 
and  the  Republican  party.  It  seems  unbelievable  at  this  dis- 
tance that  we  assailed  a  candidate  because  he  combed  his 
hair  the  wrong  way,  but  that  is  a  part  of  the  record  of 
mud-slinging  in  American  politics.  And  I  was  a  participant 
on  the  front  page  of  a  leading  newspaper. 

But  for  sheer  abuse  the  following  is  perhaps  the  prize 
cartoon: 

"Shades  of  Departed  Governors,  Has  It  Come  to  This?" 
Shades  of  Yates  (1862)  and  Edwards  (1812),  tall  men, 
stand  beside  the  Illinois  executive  chair,  while  Altgeld,  shown 
as  a  diminutive  figure,  is  climbing  onto  the  dais  with  his 
hands  on  the  chair-arm.  On  his  back  is  a  keg  labeled  "$$$ 
Barrel  to  Buy  Votes/'  and  on  the  floor  are  papers  with  these 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       153 

inscriptions:  "Attempted  robbery  of  Chicago  *  .  .  Slander  of 
state  institutions  .  .  .  Alliance  with  thugs  and  bum  element/' 

Altgeld  had  attacked  the  prison  contract  labor  system, 
and  he  had  charged  Governor  Joe  Fifer's  administration  with 
gross  extravagance,  alleging,  for  instance,  that  there  were 
institutions  in  Illinois  where  "it  took  $600,000  to  pay  and 
keep  employees  to  expend  $400,000  on  the  inmates  of  the 
institution/'  In  answer  the  Republican  press,  with  the  Inter- 
Ocean  among  the  loudest,  denounced  Altgeld  as  a  liar  with- 
out conscience.  The  editorial  writers  assailed  his  charges  as 
"the  deliberate  and  malicious  falsehoods  of  a  brazen  dema- 
gogue/' they  called  him  an  Anarchist,  a  gold-bug,  a  fomenter 
of  "foreign  know-nothingism,"  and  asserted  that  he  was 
"never  in  the  army  at  all!'* 

In  all  this  smoky  conflict  I  followed  the  Inter-Ocean's 
editorials  and  trusted  the  editor  who  had  given  me  my  job 
and  H.  H.  Kohlsaat,  the  owner.  They  were  mature  men  and 
as  such  I  felt  ought  to  know  the  truth*  The  Inter-Ocean 
called  itself  a  paper  for  the  home,  and  it  was  careful  not  to 
print  anything  except  what  was  "moral/'  Sometimes,  it  is 
true,  I  detected  flaws  in  the  Republican  armor;  but  I  con- 
soled myself  with  the  thought  that  no  human  institution  was 
perfect.  Perhaps  politics  was  just  sordid,  unpleasant,  and  a 
necessary  evil;  when  I  got  away  from  the  office  at  night  I 
was  glad  to  forget  about  the  campaign. 

Despite  all  our  bitter  opposition  Cleveland  was  elected 
President  and  Altgeld  Governor  of  Illinois,  and  afterward 
the  Inter-Ocean  had  the  federal  and  state  administrations  to 
attack  instead  of  mere  candidates.  We  got  excited  once  about 
the  hardships  of  life  at  West  Point,  which  I  deplored  in  a 
cartoon  called  "Straining  at  a  Gnat  and  Swallowing  a 
Camel/'  This  depicts  the  Democratic  Congress  swallowing 
a  camel  labeled  "Southern  harbors  appropriations/'  with  an 
underline:  "Not  one  cent  for  soap  at  West  Point,  but  millions 
for  the  improvement  of  Southern  harbors/' 

We  found  time,  too,  to  hit  at  the  misdeeds  of  the  Demo- 
cratic municipal  administration.  In  one  picture  entitled  "A 
Ruler  Afraid  to  Rule,"  a  feminine  Chicago  points  to  "Gamb- 
ling dens  running  wide  open/*  and  Mayor  Hopkins  replies: 
44 You'  11  have  to  speak  to  the  chief  of  police  about  that/' 
.  .  .  John  Burns,  British  labor  leader,  came  to  the  city, 


154      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

and  I  quoted  him  in  a  cartoon  as  saying  "Your  streets  are 
vile,   horrible!"   and  city  contractors,   inspectors,   and  sub- 
contractors answering:  "They  suit  us,  see?" 
So  ran  my  first  year  on  the  Inter-Ocean. 

When  time  had  moved  along  to  1915  the  State  of 
Illinois  got  around  to  erecting  a  monument  to  Altgeld's 
memory  in  Chicago.  Writing  then  in  the  Metropolitan  Maga- 
zine, for  which  I  was  covering  Washington,  I  apologized 
for  having  ridiculed  the  courageous  little  Governor  in  my 
adolescence  as  a  cartoonist* 

"Almost  every  act  of  Altgeld's  offended  the  capitalist 
powers  of  the  state  and  nation,"  I  recalled.  "He  was  an 
idealist,  therefore  an  'insane  statesman/  He  believed  in  the 
rights  of  labor,  was  a  friend  of  common  people,  and  showed 
his  friendship  by  his  deeds.  .  *  . 

"I  thought  he  must  be  a  political  Beelzebub  because  re- 
spectable, well-dressed  people  said  so.  I  soon  learned,  how- 
ever, that  well-dressed,  respectable  judgement  is  not  reliable; 
indeed,  it  is  generally  wrong." 


Chapter    1 6 
I  WORK  WITH  THOMAS  NAST 

ONE  of  my  chief  compensations  in  working  on  the 
Inter-Ocean  was  that  I  got  to  know  Thomas  Nast 
intimately.  Long  a  friend  of  Mr.  Kohlsaat,  the  pub- 
lisher, he  had  come  to  Chicago  to  act  as  judge  in  a  contest 
staged  by  the  paper  for  a  drawing  which  would  best  sym- 
bolize the  spirit  of  that  fast- growing  city.  He  had  cut  loose 
from  Harper's  Weekly  at  the  end  of  1886  because  of  the 
limitations  which  George  William  Curtis,  the  editor,  put  upon 
his  work.  After  the  contest  in  Chicago,  he  stayed  on  to  do 
some  special  cartoons  for  a  bigger  and  better  Inter-Ocean 
-which  would  soon  make  other  newspaper  editors  in  the  Mid- 
dle West  sit  up  and  take  notice. 

In  that  autumn  of  1892  the  Inter-Ocean  made  its  big 
forward  step.*  It  had  installed  the  first  color  press  in  the 
country,  and  began  to  print  a  colored  supplement  with  its 
Sunday  issue.  In  this  Nast  and  I  were  presently  appearing 
with  full-page  pictures,  and  it  was  gratifying  to  see  my 
name  featured  in  advertisements  with  that  of  the  artist  I  had 
admired  so  much  in  the  dream-days  back  on  the  farm. 

While  color-printing  has  of  course  been  much  improved 
in  forty-seven  years,  the  productions  of  that  first  color  press, 
viewed  in  copies  of  the  supplement  which  I  have  preserved, 
compare  favorably  with  the  fast  color  printing  seen  in  comic 
supplements  and  feature  sections  of  newspapers  today.  Our 
Sunday  circulation  was  immediately  increased  by  many  thou- 
sands, and  the  editors  of  the  other  seven-day  papers  were 
given  something  serious  to  think  about. 

*  The  New  York  World  has  often  erroneously  been  given  credit  for  produc- 
ing the  first  colored  supplement.  Walt  McDougall,  in  his  autobiography,  gave 
the  date  of  that  "first'*  in  the  World  as  September,  1893;  while  a  New  York 
City  publication.  Highlights  of  the  Nineties,  timed  simultaneously  with  the 
opening  of  the  1939  World's  Fair,  reproduced  an  Atlantic  Garden  Saturday 
Night  Scene  from  the  World  of  November  19,  1893,  calling  it  "the  first  page 
of  color  appearing  in  any  American  newspaper."  But  I  have  pages  from  the 
Chicago  Inter-Ocean  colored  supplement  dated  as  early  as  September  18,  1892. 

155 


156       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

Nast's  cartoons  in  the  supplement  were  usually  political. 
Mine  dealt  with  various  topics  in  addition  to  politics.  One 
was  entitled  "Let  Uncle  Sam  Be  the  Arbitrator/'  and  por- 
trayed our  venerable  red-white-and-blue  relative  making 
Capital  and  Labor  shake  hands.  Another  was  called  'In  Dark- 
est Chicago/'  showing  crime  slinking  along  on  badly  lighted 
streets.  Occasionally  I  illustrated  feature  articles,  such  as 
"Highwaymen  of  the  Past." 

That  then  marvelous  color  press  had  been  acquired  at 
a  propitious  time,  enabling  the  Inter-Ocean  to  celebrate  im- 
pressively the  dedication  exercises  at  the  World's  Columbian 
Exposition,  which  took  place  in  October,  For  more  than  a 
year  an  army  of  workingmen  had  been  speeding  the  con- 
struction of  the  great  edifices,  lagoons,  waterways,  islands, 
fountains,  remodeled  landscape,  roads,  and  docks  to  com- 
prise the  dazzling  White  City  which  would  commemorate  the 
landing  of  Columbus  on  American  soiL 

All  Chicago's  people  seemingly  caught  the  spirit  of  that 
daring  enterprise,  and  felt  its  thrill,  as  did  the  multitudes 
across  the  hinterland — for  it  marked  the  rebirth  of  a  com- 
munity that  needed  to  cast  off  a  dingy  skin.  Architects  with 
soaring  imagination  from  various  cities,  engineers  with  un- 
fettered vision,  sculptors  and  painters  competent  to  work  on 
a  scale  of  immensity  until  then  unheard  of,  were  given  leave 
to  work  out  their  dreams,  with  ample  money  and  materials, 
the  one  handicap  being  the  pressure  of  a  time-schedule. 

There  was  a  glow  of  idealism  about  the  rising  of  all 
that  wonderland;  at  least  so  I,  and  most  people,  thought. 
I  did  not  know  that  hundreds  of  workers  on  the  Fair  were 
injured  in  accidents  due  to  the  speed-up,  nor  that  eighteen 
of  them  died  from  those  injuries  in  the  first  few  months. 
Such  unfortunate  circumstances  were  always  kept  in  the 
background. 

It  was  inspiring  to  do  pictures  of  those  monumental 
palaces  and  pavilions  as  their  towers  and  domes  rose  against 
the  sky.  Drawing  now  for  reproduction  in  much  larger  space 
than  ever  before,  I  could  see  my  drfftsmanship  definitely  im- 
proving. I  found  myself  taking  more  pains  with  this  work 
which  would  appear  in  color  than  with  the  daily  front-page 
political  cartoons — which  I  had  learned  to  turn  out  between 


157 


158       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

4  and  6  p.m.,  and  which  were  done  conscientiously  enough 
in  that  limited  time,  but  which  had  become  routine  exercises. 

Other  memorable  things  were  happening  that  year.  John 
L.  Sullivan  lost  the  heavy-weight  championship  to  Jim  Cor- 
bett  in  New  Orleans*  Nancy  Hanks  did  a  mile  trot  in  2:04. 
Work  was  begun  on  the  Drainage  Canal,  to  be  followed  in 
time  by  the  changing  of  the  current  in  the  Chicago  River,  so 
that  it  would  flow  away  from  Lake  Michigan  instead  of  into 
it  and  no  longer  pollute  the  source  of  the  city's  drinking 
water  supply.  And  prominent  Baptists  dedicated  the  first 
building  of  the  University  of  Chicago,  toward  which  John 
D.  Rockefeller  had  given  a  small  fortune. 

Meanwhile  the  fighting  in  the  national  political  campaign 
steadily  grew  hotter.  Backing  the  Republican  candidates, 
President  Benjamin  Harrison  and  Whitelaw  Reid,  the  Inter  - 
Ocean  was  straining  every  sinew  to  defeat  Cleveland  and 
Stevenson.  The  Populists,  too,  were  putting  on  a  campaign, 
and  were  'Viewed  with  alarm"  and  denounced  frequently 
by  the  press  serving  the  old  parties.  There  were  Prohibition 
and  Social  Labor  tickets  in  the  field  also,  but  to  the  press  in 
general  they  didn't  seem  worth  worrying  about. 

I  did  at  least  one  full-page  cartoon  in  the  Sunday  supple- 
ment assailing  Cleveland  for  his  free  trade  doctrines,  and  in 
the  week-day  issues  I  kept  throwing  pictorial  shafts  at  all 
the  vulnerable  spots  in  the  Democratic  party's  anatomy.  One 
of  the  daily  lampoons  is  titled  "Election  Day."  A  character 
identified  as  Demented  Democracy  is  speaking  to  another 
labeled  Voter.  The  former  is  a  frowsy  man  standing  along- 
side a  downcast  horse  called  Wildcat  Banks,  leading  him  with 
a  strap  bearing  the  words  Free  Trade.  Mr.  Voter  is  on  a 
sprightly  steed  named  National  Banks  and  Protection,  with  a 
paper  in  his  pocket  headed  Sound  Money.  Demented  Democ- 
racy is  saying:  "Don't  you  want  to  change?*'  and  Mr.  Voter 
says:  "Not  today." 

Reading  the  Inter-Ocean's  dispatches  from  the  political 
battle  fronts,  to  the  exclusion  of  opposition  newspapers,  one 
would  gather  that  only  the  Republicans  had  any  real  chance 
of  winning.  All  over  the  country,  it  appeared,  the  voters  were 
lining  up  in  huge  numbers  for  the  party  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 

But  on  election  night  the  sad  news  came  that  the  Demo- 
crats had  run  away  with  the  apple-cart.  Cleveland  and 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       159 

Stevenson  had  won  277  electoral  votes,  while  Harrison  and 
Reid  got  only  145,  and  the  Populists  (first  minority  party 
ever  to  poll  any  electoral  votes,  boasted  of  22) .  Six  states 
gave  the  Populists  a  majority,  and  their  national  total  was 
1,065,191  votes.  The  new  alarm  at  this,  voiced  now  by  both 
the  Republican  and  Democratic  press,  was  probably  genuine. 
Headed  by  James  Baird  Weaver,  who  had  been  the  party's 
Presidential  nominee  in  1880,  when  the  Inter-Ocean  had 
flown  its  banner,  the  Populists  had  waged  a  determined  cam- 
paign on  a  platform  demanding  government  ownership  of 
railroads  and  telegraph,  telephone,  and  express  systems;  free 
coinage  of  silver  at  the  ratio  of  sixteen  to  one;  the  initi- 
ative and  referendum;  restricted  immigration;  an  eight-hour 
workday;  and  election  of  U.  S.  Senators  by  direct  vote  of  the 
people. 

Altgeld  and  the  whole  state  Democratic  ticket  also  had 
won,  swept  into  office  despite  the  supposedly  strong  Repub- 
lican press.  The  Governor-elect  had  gone  into  half  a  hun- 
dred counties  meeting  farmers,  miners,  and  small-town  peo- 
ple on  their  own  ground,  discussing  their  problems,  talk- 
ing their  own  language  with  them,  rather  than  making  many 
public  speeches.  His  editorial  foes  of  course  looked  askance 
at  all  this,  harpooning  him  for  his  "political  handshake*'  and 
giving  the  impression  that  there  was  some  skullduggery  afoot 
when  a  gubernatorial  candidate  came  down  from  the  plat- 
form and  shook  a  voter's  hand  when  that  hand  was  grimy 
with  coal  dust  or  locomotive  oil.  This  close  contact  with  the 
plain  people  by  Altgeld  was  combined  with  attacks  on  the 
trusts,  and  with  exposures  of  Republican  extravagance  in 
state  institutions  and  of  the  dark  abuses  under  the  system 
which  permitted  the  contracting  of  convict  labor  in  the 
prisons.  f 

That  defeat  at  the  polls  saddened  the  Inter-Oceans 
official  family  on  election  night  and  next  day,  though  the 
gloom  quickly  wore  off.  Officially  the  paper  foresaw  calamity 
for  the  nation  under  Democratic  auspices,  but  privately  the 
editors  didn't  seem  to  mind.  And  sometimes  I  was  moved 
to  wonder  about  the  consistency  of  a  newspaper's  emotions 
and  actions  during  such  a  campaign.  Was  Cleveland  actually 
the  national  menace  that  the  Inter-Ocean  called  him?  I  had 
seen  and  sketched  him  when  I  was  on  the  Daily  News,  and 


160      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

he  seemed  a  decent,  level-headed  individual  And  was  Alt- 
geld  truly  muddle-brained  and  Mike  McDonald's  tool?  I 
noted  that  despite  the  detailed  instructions  given  by  William 
Penn  Nixon  for  cartoons  charging  the  Democratic  ticket 
leader  with  manifold  villainies,  Nixon,  after  working  hours, 
would  readily  concede  that  Altgeld  had  numerous  good 

points. 

I  could  see  that  working  on  a  daily  newspaper  when  a 
campaign  was  on  was  a  good  deal  like  being  a  soldier  in  a 
war,  on  one  side  or  the  other.  One's  personal  attitudes,  if  one 
had  any  attitudes,  were  shelved  for  the  time  being  if  they 
happened  to  run  counter  to  those  of  the  publication  on  which 
one  was  employed.  True,  there  were  men  on  the  Inter-Ocean, 
as  there  had  been  on  the  Daily  News,  who  frequently  damned 
the  owners  for  their  policies,  but  kept  on  working  for  them 
just  the  same  and  never  walked  in  and  expressed  their  opin- 
ions to  Melville  E.  Stone  or  H.  H.  Kohlsaat.  No  more  did  L 
All  of  us  obeyed. 

When  the  smoke  from  the  political  artillery  had  drifted 
away,  I  felt  it  was  time  for  me  to  do  something  tangible 
about  getting  my  Hell  book  published*  It  had  been  completed 
weeks  before,  save  for  a  few  finishing  touches  which  I  attended 
to  over  the  next  week-end.  When  Eugene  Field  advised  that 
I  do  my  own  narrative  for  that  volume,  his  opinion  of  me 
as  a  writer  was  better  than  mine.  He  had  seen  few  samples 
of  my  word-handling  in  the  infrequent  news  stories  I  had 
written  for  the  Daily  News  city  desk  when  dealing  pictorially 
with  some  event — hardly  enough  to  judge  by.  But  anyway, 
I  had  taken  his  advice. 

Pictures  and  text  totaled  only  100  pages,  but  that  seemed 
enough  to  do  justice  to  the  subject  in  that  day,  and  Field, 
Webster,  and  others  were  enthusiastic  over  my  manuscript. 
There  were  only  a  handful  of  book  publishers  in  Chicago, 
and  I  got  a  ready  acceptance  from  the  first  one  to  which  I 
went.  Francis  J.  Schulte  and  Company  brought  out  the  first 
edition  in  time  for  the  Christmas  trade. 

Hell  Up  to  Date  was  the  title  of  that  edition,  purporting 
to  deal  with  The  reckless  journey  of  R.  Palasco  Drant,  spe- 
cial correspondent  through  the  infernal  regions,  as  recorded 
by  himself:  with  illustrations  by  Art  Young.  I  dedicated  this 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       161 

highly  moral  work  to  Clarence  Webster  "in  the  hope  that  it 
will  make  him  a  better  man/'  The  frontispiece  was  a  full- 
page  portrait  of  the  author  with  bandaged  head,  standing 
alongside  a  bust  of  the  first  explorer  of  the  flaming  empire. 
Farther  on  was  another  portrait  labeled  "Mr.  Dante  of  Italy/' 
showing  him  with  a  generally  damaged  and  discouraged  look 
as  if  he  had  just  had  a  run-in  with  a  denful  of  devils.  Of 
all  the  pictures  in  that  report  of  my  initial  survey  of  Gehenna, 
that  one  of  the  pride  of  the  Alighieri  family  gave  me  the  most 
satisfaction.  The  cover  title  was  in  bold  red  ink  on  black. 

Issued  at  $1  and  displayed  by  stores,  news-stands,  and 
train  butchers,  the  book's  immediate  sales  appeared  brisk,  but 
the  cash  returns  to  the  author-artist  were  disappointing.  My 
royalty  checks  amounted  to  only  about  $500,  and  I  had 
paid  for  the  engravings.  Schultes*  put  out  another  edition  for 
the  Canadian  trade,  in  paper  covers,  for  50  cents.  There  also 
was  a  de  luxe  edition  with  the  title  softened  to  Hades  Up  to 
Date. 

But  if  my  profits  on  that  venture  were  small,  it  did  not 
diminish  my  interest  in  the  natural  history  and  the  social  and 
economic  conditions  in  the  woeful  region  farthest  down,  and 
I  returned  to  the  subject  in  after-years. 

I  sent  a  copy  of  my  book  to  A.  B.  Frost,  then  living  in 
Convent,  New  Jersey.  I  had  never  met  Mr.  Frost,  but  had 
long  followed  his  work  in  the  delineating  of  American  types, 
particularly  rural,  in  the  magazines.  He  replied  at  some 
length,  despite  the  fact  that  his  eyes  were  giving  him  trouble 
and  limiting  his  correspondence.  There  was  great  encourage- 
ment for  me  in  these  words: 

"I  think  you  have  a  strong  and  decided  talent  for  carica- 
ture, and  what  is  particularly  refreshing  in  these  times,  your 
work  is  your  own;  and  does  not  remind  one  instantly  of 
some  one  else's.  I  like  your  feeling  fpr  movement  and  action 
very  much/' 

Governor  Altgeld  was  ill  when  inaugurated  in  January; 
he  managed,  however,  to  go  through  his  speech;  then  was 
taken  hastily  to  his  new  home  in  Springfield  and  went  to  bed, 
where  he  stayed  for  weeks.  The  strain  of  travel  and  battle 
had  told  heavily  on  his  slight  physique,  There  were  hints 


162      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

in  the  air  that  he  might  not  survive,  and  the  newspapers 
ceased  firing  at  him. 

After  President  Cleveland  had  been  inaugurated  we  shot 
an  occasional  shaft  in  his  direction;  but  there  was  less  reason 
now  than  during  the  campaign.  Almost  immediately  he  with- 
drew from  the  Senate  the  Hawaii  annexation  treaty  which 
his  predecessor  had  signed  after  "an  uprising  by  Americans 
and  the  better  class  of  natives/'  and  offered  to  restore  the 
deposed  queen,  Liliuokalani,  on  conditions  that  she  rejected. 
That  gave  us  an  excuse  for  a  cartoon  headed  "Another  Ver- 
sion of  the  Song/'  with  this  underline:  "  'Two  little  boys 
that  are  blue' — black  and  blue/'  This  was  a  take-off  on  the 
then  popular  ballad,  "Two  Little  Girls  in  Blue/'  The  boys 
in  the  picture  are  named  Grover  and  Walt,  the  latter  being 
Walter  Gresham,  Secretary  of  State,  Both  are  crying,  and 
holding  their  behinds,  as  Uncle  Sam  leaves  after  whipping 
them  with  a  bunch  of  birch  rods  labeled  Public  Criticism. 
Above  them  is  a  bust  of  the  Queen  marked  Lil,  with  tears 
flowing  from  her  eyes. 

Interest  among  all  the  city's  newspapers  that  spring 
shifted  largely  to  the  opening  of  the  World's  Fair,  scheduled 
for  May  1.  We  of  the  Inter-Ocean  staff  were  called  upon  fre- 
quently to  visit  the  transformed  Jackson  Park,  where  the 
magic  white  metropolis  was  being  rushed  to  completion*  New 
wonders  greeted  us  each  time  we  went.  By  virtue  of  a  com- 
mand from  the  board  of  aldermen,  the  Illinois  Central  rail- 
road, which  would  carry  the  bulk  of  the  traffic  to  the  Fair, 
was  elevating  its  tracks,  and  thus  would  increase  its  speed 
and  eliminate  the  danger  to  life  and  limb  at  grade  crossings. 
The  hotels  and  restaurants  were  preparing  for  the  expected 
influx  of  people  from  all  over  the  world,  and  real  estate 
values  were  booming. 

On  Sunday,  April  30,  Page  1  of  our  Sunday  supplement 
featured  a  colored  sketch  by  Nast — showing  the  world's  na- 
tions, personified  in  the  figures  of  John  Bull  and  the  other 
males  which  we  cartoonists  used  as  typical,  romping  around 
a  May  Pole  in  honor  of  the  lovely  feminine  figure  of  Chicago, 
who  bore  the  magic  slogan  "I  Will"  upon  her  bodice.  In 
Nast's  bold  style,  the  picture  bore  the  words:  "Opening  Day 
of  the  World's  Fair/' 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       163 

Into  the  vast  Court  of  Honor  poured  some  450,000  men, 
women  and  children,  who  presently  were  milling  on  rain- wet 
ground  to  hear  if  they  could  the  words  of  the  notables  on  the 
platform  flanking  the  east  wall  of  the  Administration  Build- 
ing. Here  stood  President  Cleveland,  members  of  the  Spanish 
nobility,  Mrs.  Potter  Palmer,  Governor  Altgeld,  General 
Nelson  A.  Miles,  Mayor  Harrison,  and  executives  of  the  Fair. 

The  President  whose  election  the  Inter-Ocean  had  so  bit- 
terly fought  touched  an  electric  key,  and  all  the  silent  waiting 
machinery  of  the  Exposition  sprang  into  life — flags  were  un- 
furled on  all  those  gleaming  palaces,  crystal  water  flowed 
from  every  fountain,  heroic  statues  were  automatically  un- 
veiled, cannon  roared  from  warships  out  in  the  lake. 

And  what  astonishing  things  to  tell  of  to  faraway  rela- 
tives or  friends  in  letters,  or  for  the  people  in  the  country 
towns  to  read  of  in  their  newspapers — 633  acres  in  the  Fair 
grounds,  four  times  the  area  used  by  the  Paris  Exposition, 
which  I  had  seen  in  1889;  the  Ferris  Wheel,,  250  feet  tall; 
the  Palace  of  Manufactures,  1,687  feet  long  by  787  feet  wide; 
the  Palace  of  Fine  Arts,  crowded  with  aesthetic  treasures;  the 
magnificent  searchlight  illumination  of  the  Grand  Basin;  the 
replicas  of  Columbus's  three  caravels;  the  reproduction  of 
the  Convent  of  La  Rabida,  where  the  explorer  applied  for 
alms  before  starting  for  the  Indies;  the  Venetian  gondolas, 
with  singing  Italian  pole-men,  on  the  canals  and  lagoons; 
the  Midway  Plaisance,  with  its  Street  in  Cairo  and  undulant 
dancing  girls;  the  lovely  tall  German  building;  the  Japanese 
and  Javanese  villages;  and  many  scenes  that  typified  other 
far-off  countries.  «  ,  .  Opposite  the  Fair  grounds,  on  the 
west  side  of  Stony  Island  avenue,  Buffalo  Bill's  Wild  West 
had  set  up  its  weather-beaten  tents.  There  was  no  room  for 
that  show  within  the  Exposition  confines.  As  a  supplemental 
attraction,  it  prospered. 

And  what  do  you  think  I  liked  best?  The  art  galleries, 
of  course — the  native  art  of  many  countries.  But  for  sheer 
fascination  the  Javanese  village  and  its  theatre  of  native  actors 
got  to  me  strongest.  And  next  in  appeal  to  me  was  Robert 
Burns' s  home — a  replica,  I  believe,  of  the  simple  house  in 
which  many  of  his  familiar  poems  were  written  or  inspired. 

Almost  every  week  during  the  ensuing  five  months  there 
were  pictures  of  some  phase  of  the  Fair  to  be  drawn.  Those 


164       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

assignments  were  pleasant;  for  me  they  amounted  to  a  liberal 
education  in  the  history,  productions,  possessions,  and  cus- 
toms of  the  world's  peoples.  It  gave  me  an  illuminating  in- 
sight also  into  the  habits  of  human  beings,  when  gathered  in 
crowds*  Among  the  masses  of  visitors  there  was  a  certain 
curious  madness  which  I  too  have  felt  when  in  some  in- 
triguing gallery  or  museum — the  tendency  to  try  to  see  every- 
thing there  in  a  single  day  or  hour.  Actually  it  would  have 
required  six  months  of  constant  attendance  to  have  seen  all 
that  was  shown  at  the  Exposition  of  'Ninety-three.  And  to 
me  those  glorious  edifices  gave  a  lift  of  spirit  which  I  had 
not  felt  at  the  Paris  Fair. 


Chapter    1 7 
ALTGELD  PARDONS  THE  ANARCHISTS 

WILLIAM    PENN    NIXON    was    chairman    of    the 
Amnesty  Association,  which  for  three  years  had 
been  striving  to  obtain  pardons  or  commutations 
of  sentences  for  the  three  Anarchists  in  the  Joliet  penitentiary. 
It  will  be  remembered  that  Fielden  and  Schwab  were  serving 
life  terms,  while  Neebe  had  been  sentenced  to  fifteen  years. 
Union   labor  was  strongly   represented  in   the   association's 
membership  of   100,000   in  Chicago,  but  it  also  embraced 
numerous  prominent  business  and  professional  men. 

Countless  Chicagoans,  including  individuals  in  high 
places,  had  come  to  doubt  the  justice  of  the  verdict  which 
had  sent  four  other  defendants  to  the  gallows  and  led  one  to 
suicide.  One  of  various  reasons  for  this  doubt  was  a  charge 
made  by  former  Police  Chief  Ebersold,  in  an  interview  in 
the  Daily  News,  that  Captain  Michael  X  Schaack  had  manu- 
factured a  great  deal  of  the  evidence  against  the  Anarchists. 
That  interview  was  published  in  1889,  a  year  after  Melville 
Stone  had  sold  his  interest  in  the  paper  to  Victor  Lawson. 

'It  was  my  policy,"  Ebersold  said,  "to  quiet  matters 
down  as  soon  as  possible  after  the  4th  of  May.  The  general 
unsettled  state  of  things  was  an  injury  to  Chicago.  On  the 
other  hand,  Captain  Schaack  wanted  to  keep  things  stirring. 
He  wanted  bombs  to  be  found  here,  there,  all  around,  every- 
where. I  thought  people  would  lie  down  and  sleep  better  if 
they  were  not  afraid  that  their  homes  would  be  blown  to 
pieces  any  minute.  But  this  man  Schaack,  this  little  boy  who 
must  have  glory  or  his  heart  would  be  broken,  wanted  none 
of  that  policy.  .  .  .  After  we  got  the  Anarchist  societies 
broken  up,  Schaack  wanted  to  send  out  men  to  again  organize 
new  societies  right  away.  .  .  .  After  I  heard  all  that,  I  began 
to  think  there  was  perhaps  not  so  much  to  all  this  Anarchist 
business  as  they  claimed,  and  I  believe  I  was  right/' 

165 


166       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

And  the  Herald  had  revealed,  in  a  front-page  story  which 
no  one  took  the  trouble  to  deny,  that  a  secret  organization  of 
300  capitalists,  formed  immediately  after  the  Haymarket 
tragedy,  had  for  five  years  contributed  from  $50,000  to 
$140,000  annually  to  the  police  "to  crush  anarchy  in  Chi- 
cago/' In  1891  this  organization  ceased  these  contributions, 
according  to  the  Herald,  because  it  had  reason  to  believe  that 
"anarchy  no  longer  exists/'  The  finance  committee  which 
had  disbursed  the  money  gave  out  no  more,  but  issued  a 
report  in  which  it  averred  that  $487,000  had  been  expended 
and  that  "all  we  had  to  show  for  it  was  the  hanging  of  four 
men,  the  horrible  self-murder  of  one,  the  imprisonment  of 
three  others,  and  the  unearthing  of  an  alleged  plot  against 
Grinnell  (the  prosecutor  of  the  Anarchists)  and  Judge 
Gary/' 

An  unnamed  "attorney  of  great  prominence/'  who  had 
furnished  the  Herald  with  the  information  on  which  its  story 
was  based,  declared  that  a  police  raid  on  a  meeting  of 
Arbeiter-Zeitung  stockholders  in  Griefs  Hall  "was  simply  a 
scheme  to  show  men  who  had  been  putting  up  money  to 
keep  down  Anarchist  movements  that  the  followers  of  Par- 
sons and  Spies  were  not  yet  dead/' 

A  strong  showing  had  been  made  to  Governor  Fifer  that 
no  evidence  in  the  trial  had  connected  Neebe  in  any  way  with 
the  Haymarket  bomb.  But  Fifer  had  refused  to  act,  although 
it  was  understood  that  he  leaned  toward  clemency  for  Neebe. 
Pressure  of  the  opposition  forces  was  too  heavy* 

Altgeld's  election  gave  fresh  impetus  to  the  activities  of 
the  Amnesty  Association.  And  shortly  after  the  new  Governor 
rose  from  his  sick  bed  a  petition  for  pardons  for  all  three 
prisoners,  signed  by  more  than  60,000  Illinois  citizens,  was 
placed  before  him.  The  top  signer  was  Lyman  X  Gage, 
financier,  who  later  served  as  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  under 
McKinley,  Two  other  leading  Chicagoans,  who  with  Gage 
had  been  active  in  circulating  that  plea,  were  aged  Lyman 
Trumbull,  friend  of  Lincoln,  and  E,  S.  Dreyer,  a  banker  who 
had  been  foreman  of  the  grand  jury  that  indicted  the  Anarch- 
ists. Many  of  Chicago's  men  of  affairs  joined  in  the  appeal 
— financiers,  railroad  heads,  merchants,  lawyers,  physicians, 
clergymen.  Governor  Altgeld  said  he  would  weigh  the  argu- 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       167 

ments  in  the  petition  carefully,  and  would  get  the  trial  record 
and  study  it. 

While  that  study  was  in  progress  the  Century  Magazine 
for  April  came  out  with  a  long  article  by  Judge  Gary 
upholding  the  Haymarket  trial  verdict  and  defending  his 
own  procedure.  Champions  of  the  Anarchists  promptly  an- 
swered Gary,  in  pamphlets  and  magazine  articles,  assail- 
ing his  method  of  reasoning  and  accusing  him  of  bias.  Other 
individuals  took  up  verbal  cudgels  in  the  judged  behalf. 

There  was  no  police  interference  when  8,000  persons 
assembled  in  Waldheim  cemetery  on  Sunday,  June  25,  to 
witness  the  dedication  of  a  bronze-and-marble  monument 
over  the  graves  of  the  four  hanged  men  and  Lingg.  Justice  in 
bronze,  with  no  bandage  over  her  eyes,  is  seen  laying  a 
laurel  wreath  upon  the  head  of  a  worker  who  has  gone  down 
fighting  for  his  kind. 

Out  of  a  clear  sky  next  day  came  a  bolt  which  rocked  the 
nation — the  announcement  that  Governor  Altgeld  had  par- 
doned Fielden,  Schwab,  and  Neebe,  and  that  they  would  all 
be  out  of  prison  that  afternoon.  Not  only  did  he  exonerate 
and  free  those  three  men,  but  he  issued  an  accompanying 
statement  17,000  words  long  in  which  he  demonstrated 
clearly  that  the  jury  had  been  packed,  and  pointed  out  that 
the  prosecution  had  never  established  who  threw  the  bomb, 
and  that  there  was  no  evidence  that  any  of  the  defendants 
ever  had  any  connection  whatever  with  the  person  who  did 
throw  it,  nor  that  he  had  acted  on  any  advice  given  by  them. 
Emphasizing  the  charges  that  Judge  Gary  had  been  preju- 
diced against  the  defense,  he  said  he  did  not  care  to  discuss 
that  feature  of  the  case  "any  further,  because  it  is  not  neces- 
sary/' 

Newspapers  all  over  the  country,  regardless  of  political 
affiliations,  denounced  Altgeld  for  this  action.  Among  the 
most  bitter  were  the  New  York  World,  Times,  Evening  Post, 
Herald,  Sun,  and  Tribune;  the  Philadelphia  Press;  the  Wash- 
ington Post;  the  Louisville  Courier- Journal;  the  St.  Louis 
Globe-Democrat;  and  the  Chicago  Tribune  and  Inter-Ocean. 

Editorial  prose  was  not  sufficient  to  express  the  New  York 
Sun's  emotions.  It  published  an  apostrophe  "To  Anarchy " 
which  ended  with  this  stanza: 


168       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

O  wild  Chicago,  when  the  time 

Is  ripe  for  ruin's  deeds, 
When  constitutions,  courts,  and  laws 

Go  down  midst  crashing  creeds, 
Lift  up  your  weak  and  guilty  hands 

From  out  the  wreck  of  States, 
And  as  the  crumbling  towers  fall  down 

Write  ALTGELD  on  your  gates! 

All  the  old  derogatory  epithets  were  hurled,  and  others 
added.  The  little  man  with  the  close-cropped  hair  and  beard 
was  portrayed  as  an  Anarchist  himself,  a  bomb-thrower,  an 
enemy  of  society,  un-American,  a  reckless  demagogue,  a 
wrecker  of  democracy.  In  one  town  he  was  hanged  in  effigy. 
There  was  talk  of  starting  a  movement  for  his  impeachment. 
Many  of  the  newspapers  took  umbrage  at  Altgeld' s  implied 
criticism  of  Judge  Gary,  The  Inter-Ocean  was  one  of  these; 
conceding  that  the  Governor  was  within  his  legal  rights,  it 
called  his  arraignment  of  Gary  "outrageous/'  This  was  the 
paper's  official  attitude;  William  Penn  Nixon,  its  editor, 
obviously  thought  otherwise*  Judge  Gary  and  Prosecutor 
Grinnell  declined  to  comment  on  the  pardons.  It  was  notice- 
able also  that  Altgeld  made  no  answers  to  any  of  the  wide- 
spread condemnation  of  his  course*  He  had  said  all  that  he 
had  to  say  in  the  pardon  message,  and  he  stood  his  ground, 

I  was  beginning  to  admire  him  now,  though  I  was  not 
yet  ready  to  admit  that  we  were  all  wrong  in  our  crusade 
against  his  policies  during  the  campaign,  I  could  see  that  even 
with  all  the  new  cannonading  against  him,  his  silence  gave 
him  the  advantage.  And  there  were  a  few  voices  sounding 
which  called  the  Governor  brave. 

Mayor  Carter  H.  Harrison* s  paper,  the  Chicago  Times, 
held  that  "Governor  Altgeld  has  done  no  more  than  right  in 
giving  them  freedom  for  the  rest  of  their  days/'  The  Chicago 
Globe  was  confident  that  time  would  prove  the  "righteous- 
ness and  justice"  of  the  pardons. 

It  took  years,  however,  before  my  mind  got  straightened 
out  on  the  question  of  where  justice  really  lay  in  the  Hay- 
market  case.  That  mental  clearance  had  to  wait  until  after 
Altgeld  died,  as  this  narrative  will  show* 


Chapter   18 
MAYOR  HARRISON  IS  SHOT  DOWN 

THERE  was  an  uproar  that  summer  over  the  question  of 
the  World* s  Fair  remaining  open  on  Sundays,  Church 
people,  reformers,  the  Fair  directors,  the  courts,  and 
Congress  were  all  involved  in  this  momentous  issue.  Congress 
had  originally  specified  that  the  Fair  grounds  should  be  closed 
on  the  Sabbath,  in  authorizing  the  selling  of  Columbian 
souvenir  coins  to  the  tune  of  $2,500,000  to  help  cover  Ex- 
position costs*  Facing  a  heavy  deficit,  the  heads  of  the  Fair 
figured  that  a  seven-day  operating  week  would  be  a  life-saver. 
Their  lawyers  found  a  technical  reason  for  contending  that 
the  Congressional  stipulation  was  not  binding.  Fearing  a  de- 
ficit, the  Fair  officials  got  around  that — as  business  men 
usually  do — and  Sunday  opening  was  announced,  to  the 
horror  of  the  moralists. 

Meanwhile  the  reformers,  not  to  be  outdone,  obtained 
an  injunction  against  Sunday  operation  of  the  Fair.  It  was 
contested  in  the  district  courts  and  the  ban  was  upheld.  A 
higher  court  reversed  the  decision.  The  Fair  was  now  running 
seven  days  a  week,  attendance  increased  daily,  and  the  moral 
issue  was  lost  in  the  shuffle. 

I  continued  to  do  large  pictures  of  Exposition  scenes  for 
the  Inter-Ocean  supplement — of  the  Eskimo  Village,  and  of 
the  buildings  and  people  representing  various  states  and  coun- 
tries. Countless  unique  objects  lent  themselves  to  news  stories 
and  illustrations — the  Liberty  Bell,  borrowed  from  Phila- 
delphia, the  long-distance  telephone  to  New-  York,  LaFay- 
ette's  sword,  Miles  Standish's  pipe,  John  Alden's  Bible,  the 
Japanese  tea  house  on  Wooded  Island,  a  Bolivian  Indian  25 
years  old  and  nine  feet  ten  inches  tall,  and  the  moving  side- 
walk, 4,500  feet  long. 

There  were  elements  of  humor  also  in  the  scene.  Near 
the  Connecticut  building  wooden  nutmegs  were  sold  as 
souvenirs  at  five  cents  each,  a  little  joke  harking  back  to  the 

169 


170       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

days  of  an  ingenious  swindle  in  spice  selling  by  Yankee  ped- 
dlers in  that  state.  But  the  demand  for  the  wooden  souvenirs 
was  greater  than  the  supply,  and  when  these  ran  out  the 
vendors  took  to  selling  real  nutmegs  to  the  unsuspecting 
public,  representing  that  they  were  wooden.  This  hoax  pres- 
ently being  discovered  by  some  one  who  thoughtfully  grated 
a  souvenir  to  see  what  kind  of  wood  it  was  made  of,  pur- 
chasers now  began  clamoring  indignantly  for  the  return  of 
their  money  on  the  ground  that  they  had  been  defrauded. 

The  incident  furnished  a  nice  illustration  of  real  and 
artificial  values.  Bona  fide  nutmegs  were  then  worth  perhaps 
two  for  a  cent  at  retail;  the  wood  in  a  synthetic  nutmeg 
was  worth  much  less,  but  the  five-cent  "value  of  such  a  sou- 
venir was  built  up  by  the  cost  of  the  labor  involved  in  shaping 
and  coloring  the  facsimile,  the  chuckle  in  the  thought  of  how 
the  old-time  peddlers  put  it  over  on  customers  that  would 
never  see  them  again,  and  the  novelty  of  the  1893  buyers 
having  something  odd  to  talk  about  with  their  friends. 

Downtown,  for  years  before  the  World's  Fair  was 
thought  of,  there  was  a  popular  department  store  called  The 
Fair.  This  four-story  emporium  extended  from  State  Street 
to  Dearborn  Street  on  Adams.  As  I  write,  forty-six  years 
later,  it  has  grown  to  much  larger  proportions.  But  in  that 
day,  it  was  something  to  see  for  its  vast  display  of  goods. 

A  farmer  from  Wisconsin,  looking  up  and  down  State 
Street,  one  day  in  1893,  asked  a  passerby:  "Say,  Mister,  kin 
you  tell  me  where's  the  Fair?"  The  one  spoken  to  thought 
he  meant  the  big  store,  which  was  near  by,  and  pointed  it 
out  to  him. 

The  farmer  spent  three  days  looking  around  this  estab- 
lishment, from  kitchen  utensils  in  the  basement  to  furniture 
on  the  top  floor  and  back  again,  several  times.  Then  he  re- 
turned home*  The  natives  of  course  asked  him  how  he  liked 
the  World's  Fair, 

"I  enjoyed  every  minute  of  it"  he  said. 

Pressed  for  specific  information  about  the  Ferris  Wheel, 
the  Midway,  and  the  ostrich  farm,  his  mind  was  blank. 
Though  he  had  been  looking  at  the  wrong  Fair,  it  was  good 
enough  for  him. 

Visitors  from  the  country  at  that  time  flocked  to  the 
Palmer  House  to  see  an  exhibition  of  money  which  was 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       171 

regarded  by  many  of  them  as  one  of  the  world's  wonders. 
In  the  barber  shop  of  that  hotel  the  marble  floor  was  im- 
bedded with  hundreds  of  silver  dollars.  Potter  Palmer,  the 
owner,  once  said  that  that  was  the  most  profitable  form  of 
advertising  he  had  ever  tried. 

On  Wabash  Avenue,  near  my  first  lodging  house,  "John 
Brown's  fort"  was  on  exhibition*  This  was  the  fire-engine 
house  in  which  Brown  and  his  army  of  twenty-two  men 
barricaded  themselves  when  they  raided  the  town  of  Harper's 
Ferry,  Virginia.  Many  bullet  holes  were  in  its  walls,  made  by 
the  state  militia  in  its  siege.  Some  years  later  Kate  Field,  the 
lecturer  and  journalist  of  Washington,  D.  C,  raised  money 
to  have  the  "fort"  taken  back  to  Harper's  Ferry,  where  it 
stands  on  the  grounds  of  Storer  College,  a  school  for  Negroes. 

October  9,  anniversary  of  the  great  fire  in  1871,  was  set 
apart  as  Chicago  Day  at  the  Exposition.  Seven  hundred  thou- 
sand spectators  crowded  through  the  gates,  women  fainting 
in  the  crush,  children  getting  lost  or  mislaid — by  far  the 
greatest  turnout  the  city  had  ever  seen.  Mayor  Carter  H. 
Harrison  and  visiting  dignitaries  spoke,  in  celebration  of  the 
/  Will  spirit  with  which  the  community  had  risen  out  of  its 
ashes. 

For  nineteen  days  the  elation  of  that  gathering  lingered 
as  the  World's  Fair  moved  toward  its  end.  Then  it  was  shat- 
tered by  a  tragedy. 

Summoned  by  a  ring  of  the  doorbell  in  his  home,  the 
popular  Mayor  Harrison  was  shot  down  by  a  disappointed 
office-seeker  named  Prendergast,  who  had  a  mental  twist  and 
thought  the  mayor  had  plotted  to  keep  him  out  of  a  job.  Mr. 
Harrison  died  in  a  few  minutes,  and  the  city  he  loved  was 
plunged  into  gloom. 

Certainly  the  regret  of  every  Chicago  newspaper  worker 
for  his  death  was  whole-hearted,  and  his  bitterest  enemies  in 
life  did  not  hesitate  to  laud  him  now  for  his  good  sportsman- 
ship and  his  invariable  on-the-square  attitude. 

Harrison,  like  Altgeld,  had  made  it  a  point  to  get  out 
among  the  plain  people  and  learn  what  they  were  thinking 
about,  and  what  they  were  up  against.  Repeatedly  he  had 
taken  the  side  of  the  workers  when  they  were  being  exploited 


172       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

by  employers  or  beaten  down  by  the  police*  He  was  a  whole- 
some man  of  the  people  in  spite  of  his  shortcomings.  Among 
newspapermen,  I  used  to  hear  them  say  that  before  an  audi- 
ence of  Bohemian  workingmen,  he  would  tell  them  he  had 
Bohemian  blood  in  his  veins;  and  when  talking  to  Irish, 
Czechs,  Poles,  Italians,  Russians,  Syrians,  Greeks,  or  Jews, 
he  would  claim  a  similar  identity  with  them.  This  stretch  of 
his  imagination  appealed  to  me.  At  least  it  was  an  indication 
of  a  lack  of  racial  prejudice,  though  interpreted  by  his 
enemies  as  demagogy. 

Carter  Harrison  was  a  man  I  could  not  help  liking, 
though  he  was  a  Democrat  Earlier  I  had  illustrated  the 
Evening  Mail's  stories  of  his  journey  around  the  world. 
Those  pictures,  drawn  on  chalk  plates,  were  in  humorous 
vein,  showing  the  mayor  meeting  Queen  Victoria  and  smil- 
ing upon  her,  hobnobbing  with  Bismarck,  giving  diplomatic 
pointers  to  the  Sultan  of  Turkey,  and  encountering  the  in- 
evitable discomfitures  of  foreign  travel  in  the  Eighties. 

The  Inter-Ocean  of  course  kept  on  criticizing  the  acts 
and  policies  of  President  Cleveland's  administration.  But  not 
all  my  cartoons  of  Cleveland  had  to  do  with  politics;  some 
dealt  with  his  passion  for  fishing  and  other  diversions.  And 
because  we  were  not  now  trying  to  defeat  him  in  a  contest 
the  criticisms  were  usually  not  so  harsh  as  they  had  been  in 
the  campaign.  Two  years  earlier  his  daughter  Ruth  h'ad  been 
born,  and  various  photographs  of  her  had  been  published.  I 
took  occasion  to  put  the  child  in  many  of  my  Cleveland  car- 
toons, a  touch  of  sentimental  contrast  to  her  bulky  father; 
who  wore  a  size  19  collar.  I  was  told  by  our  Washington 
correspondent,  White  Busbey,  that  Mrs.  Cleveland  saved  all 
of  my  pictures  in  which  Ruth  appeared. 

Hard  times  followed  the  closing  of  the  Fair.  Real  estate 
values  dropped,  great  numbers  of  workers  were  made  jobless 
by  the  closing  of  mills  and  factories,  many  men  begged  food 
on  the  streets  with  watchful  eyes  out  for  the  police,  and  the 
newspapers  made  much  of  ''the  tramp  problem/'  They  gen- 
erally regarded  all  homeless  and  unemployed  men  as  tramps, 
assumed  that  all  these  wanderers  were  opposed  to  work,  and 
pictured  "the  tramp"  as  a  menace  to  society.  Supposedly  he 
was  what  he  was  because  he  had  a  shiftless  nature. 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       173 

Kohlsaat  sold  his  control  of  the  Inter-Ocean  in  May, 
1894.  The  identity  of  the  new  ownership  was  vague,  but  an 
official  announcement  said  that  the  policies  of  the  paper  would 
remain  unchanged,  and  that  the  Inter-Ocean  would  "continue 
to  serve  the  best  interests  of  Chicago  in  its  onward  march/' 
We  of  the  editorial  department  were  assured  that  our  jobs 
were  safe,  and  things  went  on  as  before* 

I  made  it  a  point  to  sketch  and  interview  celebrities  who 
came  to  town,  and  to  find  out,  for  my  own  information  if 
not  that  of  the  paper,  what  was  in  their  minds.  Some  day 
when  I  got  around  to  it,  I  figured  I  would  get  up  a  book 
containing  pictures  of  well-known  people  I  had  met. 

W»  T.  Stead  had  arrived  in  Chicago  in  February,  intent 
upon  a  crusade  against  drink,  gambling,  and  commercialized 
prostitution,  which  he  had  fought  in  London*  Clarence 
Webster  and  I  went  to  see  him  at  his  hotel,  and  he  readily 
remembered  the  page  of  pictures  of  the  last  night  of  the  Paris 
Exposition  which  I  had  done  for  his  Pall  Mall  Budget,  and 
Webster's  writings  for  the  Budget  and  Stead's  other  publica- 
tion, the  Pall  Mall  Gazette.  He  was  exploring  the  slums  in 
our  city,  he  told  us,  and  was  gathering  material  for  a  book  on 
his  findings.  This  man,  with  his  bushy  red  beard  and  burning 
blue  eyes,  struck  me  as  fearless,  and  sincere. 

He  wrote  his  book  with  white-hot  ardor,  and  when  it 
was  finished  he  had  me  draw  a  cover  design  for  it.  The  title 
was  If  Christ  Came  to  Chicago,  and  it  shocked  the  city,  for 
it  contained  names  of  distinguished  citizens,  some  of  them 
pillars  of  wealthy  churches,  who  owned  buildings  in  the  red- 
light  districts  and  leased  them  to  the  madams  at  high  rentals. 
And  he  listed  also  the  names  of  wealthy  but  respectable  tax- 
dodgers  and  grafting  politicians  then  known  as  "boodlers." 

Stead  had  intended  to  go  to  other  cities  in  the  United 
States  and  expose  similar  conditions,  but  the  outcry  against 
"the  mouthings  of  this  alien  interloper* '  was  so  loud  and  the 
power  of  the  gentlemen  attacked  so  far-reaching  that  he 
found  his  way  blocked  at  every  turn. 

The  press  threw  cold  water  on  his  fiery  crusade.  The 
publishers  and  the  business  interests  they  served  couldn't 
allow  such  "bad  advertising"  for  Chicago.  Another  thing 
Stead  did  to  arouse  antagonism  was  to  declare  his  belief  in 
the  innocence  of  Samuel  Fielden,  one  of  the  Haymarket  pris- 


174       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

oners  whom  Altgeld  had  pardoned.  Fielden  was  a  country- 
man of  his,  having  been  a  Methodist  minister  in  a  small  Eng- 
lish town* 

When  I  drew  a  picture  of  this  militant  journalist,  relaxing 
in  his  room  after  a  strenuous  day  in  the  slums,  he  wrote  be- 
neath my  drawing:  "These  are  my  legs,  but  the  face  is  too 
tranquilly  benevolent  for  W.  T.  Stead/' 


CHAPTER   19 
I  MARRY  ELIZABETH  NORTH 

THERE  had  long  been  an  unspoken  agreement  that  some 
day  Elizabeth  and  I  would  marry.  That  was  the  usual 
understanding  in  a  small  town  when  a  young  man  and 
a  girl  had  been  "going  together"  for  several  years.  And  as 
Christmas  approached  in  1894  I  was  in  a  romantic  mood. 
Having  seen  some  of  my  friends  evidently  happy  with  their 
children  clustered  about  them,  I  had  visualized  a  similar 
happiness.  Yet  I  hadn't  thought  much  of  marriage  as  an 
actuality  in  my  life. 

But  it  seemed  that  this  was  a  good  time  for  Elizabeth 
and  myself  to  make  the  venture.  I  was  now  nearly  twenty- 
nine  years  old.  I  had  saved  up  considerable  money,  and  the 
future  looked  bright.  For  seven  years  my  sweetheart  and  her 
sister  Kate  had  been  keeping  house  for* their  uncle,  Len 
Cheney,  in  Wauwatosa,  a  suburb  of  Milwaukee.  Elizabeth 
and  I  were  home  in  Monroe  for  the  holidays,  and  I  took 
occasion  to  suggest  a  quiet  wedding  soon. 

The  idea  was  agreeable  to  her,  and  we  were  married  in 
Uncle  Len's  house  on  New  Year's  Day,  1895,  by  a  clergy- 
man friend  of  Elizabeth's  family. 

I  wonder  if  any  bridegroom  ever  really  feels  ecstatic  dur- 
ing a  wedding  ceremony.  I  didn't.  I  felt  self-conscious,  and 
victimized  by  formality,  and  there  seemed  something  fateful, 
like  the  clicking  of  a  key  in  a  lock,  in  the  sound  of  the  words: 
"Do  you  take  this  woman  to  be  your  lawful  wife,  for  better 
or  for  worse,  until  death  do  you  part?"  and  in  my  answer: 
"I  do."  But  my  embarrassment  gave  way  to  a  feeling  of 
comic  sadness  that  every  young  man  was  expected  to  go 
through  marriage ;  now  it  was  my  turn.  We  honeymooned  in 
Chicago.  Returning,  we  stayed  on  at  Wauwatosa.  The  Cheney 
house  was  neat  and  cheerful  under  the  deft  hands  of  Eliza- 
beth and  Kate,  and  their  Uncle  Len  was  a  genial  host. 

Uncle  Len  liked  to  paint  in  oil.  His  canvases  he  called 

175 


176      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

"merely  impressions" — and  Elizabeth,  with  playful  sarcasm, 
would  say  quietly  to  me,  "merely  impressions/*  He  had  in- 
vested a  good  deal  of  money  in  a  silver  mine  near  Cripple 
Creek,  Colorado.  He  would  read  the  letters  from  the  company 
aloud  to  us.  All  the  mine  needed  now  was  another  shaft  or 
an  ore-crusher,  and  the  company  president  or  treasurer  in- 
variably closed  his  communication  with  "Thanks  for  the 
check/'  Through  seven  years  the  girls  had  become  so  familiar 


ELIZABETH   NORTH,  who  became   the 
author's   wife. 

with  these  letters  that  the  phrase,  "Thanks  for  the  check**, 
had  become  a  household  joke,  and  Uncle  Len  himself  would 
laugh  with  us,  although  I  do  not  think  he  ever  lost  faith  in 
the  mine* 

I  had  married  without  much  deliberation  as  to  the  next 
step.  We  had  no  definite  plans  yet  for  home-making,  and 
decided  it  would  be  best  for  Elizabeth  to  continue  living  in 
Wauwatosa  for  a  while,  and  I  would  run  up  from  Chicago 
for  week-ends.  This  was  a  pleasant  arrangement.  Through 
each  week  I  would  look  forward  eagerly  to  the  moment  on 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       177 

Saturday  when  I  would  hasten  to  the  depot  to  catch  the  late- 
afternoon  train.  We  spent  some  of  these  week-ends  in  the 
parks,  and  then  extended  our  walks  to  the  surrounding  coun- 
try. Always  I  carried  a  sketching  pad  in  a  pocket,  and  made 
pictures  of  my  wife  in  many  poses,  and  of  any  likely  subject 
that  we  came  upon.  The  next  time  we  visited  Monroe,  my 
brother-in-law,  Clyde  Copeland,  said:  "This  ought  to  be  a 
good  time  for  us  to  burn  that  'No  wedding  bells  for  me* 
masterpiece  of  yours."  I  made  a  lame  joke  about  it,  saying: 
"I  didn't  have  any  wedding  bells.  We  were  married  in  a 
house,  not  in  a  church/' 

While  the  glow  of  our  honeymoon  was  still  upon  us,  I 
began  to  note  signs  of  an  impending  upheaval  in  both  the 
editorial  and  business  departments  of  the  Inter-Ocean.  There 
had  been  some  change  in  control  behind  the  scenes,  rumor 
saying  that  Charles  Yerkes,  the  traction  magnate,  who  had 
been  grabbing  up  street  franchises  right  and  left,  had  bought 
a  majority  of  the  stock.  Some  time  later  his  control  of  the 
paper  was  public  knowledge. 

Working  schedules  were  tightened,  office  rules  rigidly 
enforced,  deadlines  pushed  ahead,  and  everybody  was  made 
uncomfortable.  Old  editors,  writers,  and  artists  were  being 
displaced  one  after  another.  Nobody  knew  where  the  axe 
would  strike  next.  Some  of  the  boys  found  other  berths  and 
resigned  before  they  could  be  pushed  out.  Each  time  a  man 
was  given  the  sack  he  was  assured  that  this  was  "no  reflection 
upon  your  ability,  but  simply  the  working  out  of  new  office 
policies/'  Victor  Murdock  was  one  of  the  reporters  on  the 
Inter-Ocean  then.  Later  he  was  elected  as  a  Representative  in 
Congress  from  Kansas,  and  succeeded  his  father  as  editor  of 
the  Wichita  Eagle. 

My  future  being  uncertain,  I  pondered  what  move  to 
make  next.  Clarence  Webster  was  planning  to  go  to  San 
Francisco,  having  been  offered  a  place  on  one  of  the  leading 
dailies  there  by  a  friend  who  had  risen  to  the  top  since  his 
journalistic  days  in  Chicago.  And  presently  I  also  received  an 
offer — from  Lansing  Warren,  a  former  member  of  the  Inter- 
Ocean  staff,  who  had  become  editor  of  the  Denver  Times,  an 
evening  paper  owned  by  David  H.  Moffatt,  the  banker.  He 


178       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

wrote  that  the  Times  was  willing  to  take  me  on  as  a  cartoon- 
ist at  the  same  salary  I  was  then  getting. 

Colorado  seemed  far  away,  out  in  the  vast  beyond — an 
unknown  quantity  to  me  as  a  spot  in  which  to  live.  But 
here  was  a  job  worth  considering.  So  I  took  the  first  train 
for  Milwaukee  to  discuss  the  situation  with  Elizabeth.  After 
weighing  all  the  elements  involved,  we  agreed  that  I'd  better 
go  alone  to  Denver,  try  it  out  for  a  few  weeks,  and  if  I  liked 
the  work  and  the  location  I  would  send  for  her. 

Denver  was  then  a  bustling  community  of  125,000  popu- 
lation. It  still  had  a  certain  frontier  rawness,  though  here 
and  there  were  evidences  of  up-to-date  ambition.  The  air  was 
not  at  all  like  that  of  Chicago.  On  a  summer  day,  if  you 
stepped  into  the  shadow  of  a  telegraph  pole  you  felt  as  if  you 
were  freezing;  step  out  into  the  sun,  and  you  were  frying. 

My  sponsor  made  me  at  home  in  the  Times  office.  After 
he  had  introduced  me  to  the  staff  and  explained  the  paper's 
program  and  the  kind  of  cartoons  it  wanted,  he  took  me  to 
lunch  at  the  Brown  Palace  Hotel,  the  show-place  of  the  city. 
Here  I  spent  a  leisurely  and  profitable  hour,  while  my  host 
pointed  out  local  persons  of  importance  and  gave  me  the 
highlights  of  Denver  history.  This  hotel  and  this  dining 
room  had  had  as  guests  General  Grant,  the  Prince  of  Wales, 
Sarah  Bernhardt,  Edwin  Booth,  General  William  T.  Sher- 
man, Oscar  Wilde,' John  L.  Sullivan,  Emma  Abbott,  and  the 
Duke  of  Manchester — and  of  course  I  was  duly  impressed. 

Warren  had  stories  to  tell  also  of  Eugene  Field's  years  as 
columnist  on  the  Denver  Tribune — his  comment  on  the 
Shakespearean  efforts  of  John  McCullough:  "He  played  the 
king  as  though  he  feared  somebody  would  play  the  ace"; 
his  entering  a  stray  mongrel  in  a  dog  show  and  winning  a 
blue  ribbon  with  it;  and  his  Oscar  Wilde  hoax.  Field  dressed 
up  a  friend  in  a  velvet  coat,  with  lace  cuffs  and  a  sunflower 
in  his  lapel,  and  drove  him  about  town  in  a  carriage  a  couple 
of  hours  before  the  poet  was  due  to  arrive.  The  pseudo- 
aesthete  bowed  to  onlookers  along  the  way  and  raised  a 
plumed  hat  resembling  a  British  admiral's  in  salute*  Wilde 
was  ready  to  bite  nails  when  he  learned  of  the  impersona- 
tion, and  delivered  his  scheduled  lecture  that  night  with 
resentment  showing  through  the  words. 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       179 

Coming  out  of  the  dining  room,  Warren  said:  "See  that 
man  leaning  over  the  desk?"  A  broad-shouldered  elderly 
person  with  a  black  slouch  hat,  drooping  moustaches,  and 
an  old  frock  coat,  was  asking  some  question,  and  the  clerk's 
answer  was  a  negative  nod.  The  inquirer  turned  glumly 
away. 

"That/*  said  Warren,  "is  ex-Senator  Tabor,  who  used  to 
be  the  richest  man  west  of  the  Mississippi.  He  was  cleaned 
out  when  the  silver  market  hit  the  rocks/*  Walking  along 
the  streets  Warren  pointed  out  the  landmarks  which  the 
Senator  had  built  in  his  heyday — the  Tabor  Block  and  the 
Tabor  Grand  Opera  House,  in  which  he  had  objected  to  a 
drop  curtain  bearing  the  likeness  of  William  Shakespeare, 
demanding  to  know:  "What  did  he  ever  do  for  Denver?" 
and  having  his  own  portrait  substituted  for  that  of  the  Avon 
bard* 

The  Times  had  lately  been  taken  over  by  Moffatt,  and 
though  he  was  reputed  to  have  plenty  of  money,  the  paper 
had  the  -look  of  being  on  a  precarious  footing.  It  was  trying 
to  cut  into  the  field  of  the  Rocky  Mountain  News,  a  property 
which  was  doing  well,  and  which  was  controlled  by  Thomas 
M.  Patterson,  attorney,  politician,  and  afterward  United 
States  Senator.  The  News  was  a  morning  sheet,  like  the 
Republican,  which  had  merged  with  and  absorbed  the  old 
Tribune,  on  which  Eugene  Field  had  written  his  lively  quips. 
Our  only  rival  in  the  afternoon  field  was  the  Post,  which 
also  was  struggling  along. 

Immediately  I  began  drawing  a  daily  cartoon,  in  three 
column-width,  and  the  Times  featured  these.  Some  of  them 
dealt  with  silver  and  gold  coinage  and  other  aspects  of  politics, 
but  a  good  many  had  to  do  with  purely  local  events*  My 
scrapbook  includes  one  on  a  vital  business  issue,  captioned: 
"Denver  Holds  the  Bag — the  Others  Bag  the  Game/*  This 
shows  a  hunter  personifying  the  Colorado  metropolis  holding 
a  sack  labeled  High  Freight  Rates,  while  other  hunters  (Kan- 
sas City,  Chicago,  Omaha,  Salt  Lake  City,  St.  Joseph)  are 
bringing  down  birds  with  guns  labeled  Low  Rates.  .  .  . 
Another  is  headed:  "Still  They  Come  to  the  Great  Conven- 
tion City/*  with  a  pictured  procession  revealing  the  Amalga- 
mated Order  of  Chinese  Laundrymen,  the  United  Order  of 
Hot  Tamale  Peddlers,  the  National  Asociation  of  Street 


180       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

Bands,  the  Mystic  Order  of  Phrenologists,  and  the  National 
Order  of  Veteran  Sports,  I  am  not  sure  how  much  benefit,  if 
any,  the  Queen  City  of  the  Silver  State  derived  from  that  free 
advertising,  but  the  idea  I  was  trying  to  convey  was  that 
Denver,  being  the  ideal  convention  city,  welcomed  all  comers. 

The  Times  didn't  think  much  of  the  government's  policy 
in  dealing  with  the  aboriginal  Americans,  There  was  some 
trouble  with  the  red  men  just  then,  and  I  drew  a  cartoon 
headed  "That  Bannock  Indian  War/'  with  an  underline: 
"We  think  Poor  Lo  has  the  laugh  on  you,  Uncle  Sam/' 
Uncle  is  seen  on  a  still  hunt  with  a  gun,  while  an  Indian 
brave  is  hiding  behind  a  rock.  .  ,  .  The  opening  of  the 
muskmelon  season  was  recognized  pictorially  under  the  cap- 
tion: Rocky  Ford's  Great  Day,  that  town  being  the  center  of 
a  vast  and  fertile  farm  region  where  luscious  melons  were 
grown* 

Once  the  business  manager  got  an  idea  from  somewhere 
that  some  of  my  pictures  might  be  useful  in  appeals  for 
circulation.  He  would  write  the  words  to  go  with  the  illus- 
trations. As  a  writer  he  was  a  good  deal  of  a  loss  to  the  Times. 
Whenever  he  sat  down  to  struggle  with  the  English  language 
great  beads  of  sweat  stood  out  on  his  brow.  One  of  our 
collaborations  showed  a  lot  of  frogs  around  a  pond  croaking 
the  words:  "Hard  times!''  The  caption  went  Stop  Croaking 
and  Read  the  Times,  and  beneath  the  picture  was  this  poetic 
atrocity : 

If  croaking  croakers  who  sit  all  day 
And  fill  the  air  with  their  sorrowful  lay 
Would  only  stop  croaking  for  a  minute  or  two, 
How  much  better  'twould  be  for  me  and  for  you. 

I  soon  learned  that  they  preferred  me  to  fill  my  cartoon 
space  with  glorifications  and  boostings  of  Denver — the  city 
a  mile  above  the  sea,  with  300  cloudless  days  a  year,  the 
greatest  health  resort  in  the  West,  and  kindred  claims.  Colo- 
rado's scenic  wonders  also  received  their  share  of  attention. 

There  were  other  features  of  Denver  life  and  industry, 
however,  that  the  Times  did  not  touch  upon,  but  which  I 
glimpsed  in  evening  walks  with  Warren  and  others  after 
dinner  in  the  Brown  Palace,  or  the  Windsor  Hotel,  where 
the  legendary  Horace  Tabor  had  held  forth  in  the  days 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       181 

when  he  threw  money  away  like  water.  The  city  was  wide 
open.  "The  powers-that-be  figure  it's  good  business/'  fellow 
staff-members  explained.  "Plenty  of  chance  for  the  flush 
boys  from  out  of  town  to  spend  their  money,  or  lose  it  on 
games  of  purported  chance.  It  all  means  that  that  money 
comes  into  Denver,  and  gets  into  general  circulation.  Some- 
body gets  a  cut  for  protection,  and  everybody  is  happy/' 

Down  in  the  night-life  section,  known  as  The  Lowers, 
various  salons  de  joie  were  well  patronized.  Sounds  of  well- 
pounded  pianos  came  from  all  sides.  Warren  pointed  out  the 
favorite  establishment  of  state  legislators  who  didn't  want  to 
be  lonesome  when  they  visited  the  capital.  In  the  gambling 
houses  one  could  find  any  game  that  his  heart  might  desire, 
and  there  was  no  limit  on  the  stakes. 

In  the  afternoons  after  I  had  finished  next  day's  picture, 
I  would  wander  about  town  looking  for  ideas,  dropping  in 
at  the  hotels  to  see  if  any  odd  characters  were  around,  talking 
with  any  local  old-timers  who  happened  along,  and  search- 
ing out  the  city's  landmarks. 

On  Larimer  street  I  came  upon  an  institution  full  of 
romantic  appeal — Tammen's  Free  Museum. 

All  sorts  of  relics  of  the  Old  West  were  here — mementoes 
of  Indian  and  cattle  wars,  of  prairie  schooner  journeys,  of 
bad  men  and  vigilantes,  horse  thieves  and  quick-on-the-draw 
sheriffs,  legal  hangings  and  lynchings.  Bows  and  arrows, 
arrow-heads,  stone  hatchets,  scalps,  outlaws'  guns,  deathbed- 
confessions,  dead  bandits'  boots*  The  public  was  welcomed 
to  come  in  and  see  these  historic  trophies  without  charge — 
but  every  curio  in  the  "museum"  was  for  sale.  A  thrilling 
show,  all  of  which  looked  real  to  my  unsuspecting  eye.  But 
I  was  not  moved  to  buy  any  of  those  articles. 

"Your  instinct  was  correct,"  a  former  Denverite  assured 
me  some  years  later.  "If  you  had  bought  Jesse  James's  favor- 
ite six-shooter,  there  would  have  been  another  just  like  it, 
and  with  the  same  label,  on  display  within  a  month.  Tarn- 
men  had  a  factory  nearby  turning  out  that -stuff  for  the 
visiting  trade/' 

Fortunately,  however,  there  were  some  things  in  Denver 
to  feed  the  intellect.  Occasionally  I  went  to  hear  a  militant 
independent  preacher  named  Myron  Reed,  who  gave  Sunday 


182       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

lectures  in  a  theatre.  My  recollection  is  that  he  had  been 
ousted  from  a  regular  pulpit  because  of  sermons  assailing  the 
methods  by  which  many  rich  men  had  gained  their  wealth* 
He  drew  big  audiences,  and  the  faces  of  his  hearers  lighted 
up  as  he  talked*  To  me,  he  gave  something  that  one  couldn't 
get  in  a  regular  church — for  he  dealt  with  the  realities  of 
that  day  instead  of  the  dim  happenings  of  1,900  years  ago. 

A  tall,  lank  Scotchman,  Reed  made  a  deep  impression 
upon  me.  His  eloquence  was  simple,  but  he  said  things  which 
one  remembered  on  the  way  home.  He  raised  questions  about 
justice  in  the  world,  the  rights  of  the  poor,  the  laws  that 
were  made  by  the  strong  to  keep  the  masses  "quiet  and  con- 
tent/' 

Listening  to  this  clear-speaking  man,  and  thinking  about 
his  words  afterward  as  I  walked  along  the  streets,  I  began  to 
wonder  about  the  justice  in  the  attitude  of  the  newspapers 
generally  toward  happenings  like  the  march  of  Coxey's 
Army,  and  the  American  Railroad  Union  strike,  in  which 
Eugene  Debs  had  seen  sent  to  jail.  The  movement  set  going 
by  "General"  Jacob  Coxey  had  failed,  it  was  true;  but  had  it 


THE  VANGUARD   OF  COXEY'S  ARMY.  Led  by  Carl  Brown  on  a 
white  horse,  it  enters  Washington. 

ever  been  given  a  chance  to  succeed?  From  the  start  the  press 
had  heaped  ridicule  upon  it;  and  another  countless  army — 
of  paid  molders  of  opinion- — had  seen  hilarious  comedy  in 
the  spectacle  of  thousands  of  ragged  and  hungry  men  beating 
their  way  across  the  country  to  demand  relief  in  Washing- 
ton** 

*  By  the  same  token,  a  multitude  of  theatre-goers  through  five  years  have 
laughed  uproariously  at  the  comedy  in  Tobacco  Road,  evidently  without  per~ 
ceiving  the  underlying  tragedy  in  the  dramatized  lives  of  Jeeter  Lester  and  his 
impoverished  family  in  the  back  country  of  Georgia.  Max  Eastman  explains  this 
phenomenon  in  his  Enjoyment  of  Laughter. 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       183 

But  what  was  wrong  In  that  attempted  protest?  I  re- 
called the  editorial  bleating  of  outrage  when  Coxey's  fol- 
lowers commandeered  freight  trains  to  speed  their  progress* 
That  was  trespass,  of  course;  or  confiscation,  if  you  pre- 
ferred the  word;  yet  what  was  there  so  terrible  about  it? 
Weren't  the  editors  and  captains  of  industry  really  incensed 
because  the  Coxey  migration  showed  up  the  vast  poverty  and 
degradation  in  the  United  States?  Wasn't  it  in  the  nature  of 
a  mortifying  "scene" — like  that  of  a  neglected  wife  berating 
her  husband  in  public?* 

I  reflected,  too,  that  one  Chicago  newspaper,  the  Times, 
had  held  that  the  treatment  of  the  Coxeyites  by  the  Washing- 
ton police  was  'Vicious  and  brutal**  and  "a  blunder/'  The 
Times  had  been  owned  by  the  assassinated  Mayor  Carter  H. 
Harrison  and  had  since  been  operated  by  his  son  Carter  Jr. 
and  another  son* 

That  paper,  too,  had  taken  the  side  of  the  railroad 
workers  in  the  great  Pullman  strike  when  George  M.  Pull- 
man had  answered  their  demands  for  a  living  wage  by  say- 
ing: "There  is  nothing  to  arbitrate/' 

It  was  in  such  a  mood  that  I  went  to  hear  an  address  by 
Keir  Hardie  at  a  labor  mass-meeting,  I  had  read  about  him, 
and  he  had  appealed  to  my  imagination.  I  knew  that  this 
Scotsman  had  been  a  coal  miner  and  a  union  leader,  and  that 
he  was  a  member  of  Parliament,  representing  a  London  dis- 
trict* 

Early  that  summer  Hardie  had  stood  up  in  the  House  of 
Commons  and  attacked  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  Sir 
William  Harcourt,  Leader  of  the  House,  and  his  fellow- 
members  for  refusing  to  express  a  vote  of  sympathy  to  the 
bereaved  families  of  more  than  250  miners  killed  in  a  South 

*  The  eminent  Mark  Sullivan,  in  Our  Times,  declares  that  Coxey's  Army 
marched  to  Washington  to  "take  control  of  the  government  in  the  interest  of 
the  people — or  what  Coxey  thought  was  the  people's  interest."  Mr.  Sullivan  is 
one  of  those  casual  historians  who  pick  up  their  "facts"  here  and  there.  I  doubt 
if  any  of  Coxey's  critics  in  1894  ever  went  so  far  as  to  accuse  him  of  any  in- 
tention to  take  over  the  government.  The  manifest  purpose  of  Coxey  and  his 
legions  of  the  dispossessed  was  to  demand  that  Congress  provide  aid  for  unem- 
ployed workers  and  their  families.  That  of  course  was  a  startling  proposal  in 
those  days  long  before  the  New  Deal.  If  the  federal  authorities  had  had  any 
tangible  evidence  of  subversive  plans,  the  leaders  of  the  march  surely  would 
have  been  prosecuted  for  treason,  instead  of  being  jailed  for  walking  on  the 
Capitol  lawn. 


184      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

Wales  colliery  explosion.  That  happened  because  the  grasp- 
ing mine  owners  had  not  provided  adequate  safety  devices. 

Harcourt  had  moved  a  vote  of  condolence  to  the  people 
of  France  when  President  Carnot  was  assassinated  the  next 
day,  and  called  upon  the  House  to  congratulate  Queen  Vic- 
toria upon  the  birth  of  her  great-grandson,  who  in  time 
became  King  Edward  VIII.  But  the  Chancellor  ruled  out  of 
order  a  move  for  an  expression  of  antipathy  to  the  system 
which  made  mine  disasters  inevitable. 

In  a  speech  which  nearly  caused  apoplexy  to  many  of  his 
hearers  and  which  brought  bitter  denunciation  to  him  from 
the  reactionary  English  press,  Keir  Hardie  stood  unwavering 
and  said: 

"The  life  of  one  Welsh  miner  is  of  greater  commercial 
and  moral  value  to  the  British  nation  than  the  whole  royal 
crowd  put  together.  .  .  .  Two  hundred  and  fifty  human 
beings,  full  of  strong  life  in  the  morning,  reduced  to  charred 
and  blackened  heaps  of  clay  in  the  evening!  .  .  .  Only 
those  who  have  witnessed  such  scenes,  as  I  have  twice  over, 
can  realize  what  they  mean.  .  .  . 

"Coal  must  be  got  cheap — even  if  twelve  hundred  sturdy 
miners  are  murdered  yearly  in  the  process — twelve  hundred 
hearths  made  desolate." 

He  was  shaggy  looking  like  a  Scotch  terrier,  his  head, 
chin,  and  cheeks  covered  with  brownish  curled  hair — and  his 
strong  voice  deeply  burred.  Thirty-seven  then,  he  looked 
considerably  older.  One  could  see  at  once  that  beneath  this 
rough  exterior  was  a  man  of  learning.  The  thing  that  he 
brought  home  most  forcibly  to  me  that  night  was  the  fact 
that  a  strike  or  a  lockout  or  an  industrial  disaster  was  not  an 
isolated  event;  it  was  part  of  a  struggle,  a  war,  which  had 
been  going  on  for  decades,  and  knew  no  national  boundaries. 

"The  employers  and  their  henchmen/'  he  said,  "have  a 
trick  of  appealing  to  your  sense  of  local  patriotism.  They 
blame  unrest  on  'outside  agitators/  and  infer  that  if  it  were 
not  for  these  evil  interlopers  everything  would  be  lovely  in 
your  community  and  that  nobody  would  be  complaining. 
That  trick  is  as  shoddy  as  the  other  one  of  setting  two  groups 
of  people  at  one  another's  throats  by  stirring  up  their  re- 
ligious differences/' 

He  quoted  a  line  from  Robert  Browning:  "God  give  us 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       185 

no  more  geniuses,  but  elevate  the  human  race!"  I  had  never 
read  anything  by  Browning,  and  this  aroused  my  interest  in 
him*  But  I  could  never  find  such  a  passage  in  any  of  his 
books. 

That  gathering  was  notable  also  because  its  chairman 
was  Governor  David  Hansen  Waite  of  Colorado,  who  had 
been  elected  by  the  Populists.  A  calm  enough  appearing  indi- 
vidual, who  looked  like  a  fine  old  farmer,  he  had  been  jeer- 


Denver  Times 

KEIR   HAS.DIE,   dealing  with   the  class 
struggle  in  a  Denver  speech. 

* 

ingly  characterized  by  the  press  as  '"Bloody  Bridles  Waite' ' 
for  a  speech  he  made  at  the  state  silver  convention  two  years 
before. 

India's  mints  had  stopped  coining  silver,  and  immediately 
the  Colorado  silver  producers  had  shut  down  their  mines.  It 
was  then  that  Waite,  addressing  that  convention,  was  quoted 
thus: 

"If  the  money  power  shall  attempt  to  sustain  its  usurpa- 
tion by  the  'strong  hand'  we  will  meet  that  issue  when  it  is 


186       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

forced  upon  us,  for  it  is  better  infinitely  that  blood  should 
flow  to  the  horses'  bridles  rather  than  that  our  natural  lib- 
erties be  destroyed*  .  .  . 

"If  it  is  true  that  the  United  States  is  unable  to  carry  out 
its  governmental  policy  without  the  dictation  or  consent  of 
foreign  powers;  if  we  are  a  province  of  European  monarchies, 
then  we  need  another  revolution,  another  appeal  to  arms/' 

But  he  talked  sensibly  enough  at  the  Hardie  meeting,  and 
had  none  of  the  look  of  a  fanatic  which  one  might  expect 
from  newspaper  descriptions  of  him. 

As  the  weeks  went  by  I  kept  postponing  my  decision  as 
to  whether  Elizabeth  ought  to  come  to  Colorado,  Though  it 
made  a  good  deal  of  noise,  the  Times  did  not  seem  to  be 
making  much  actual  headway,  and  I  felt  that  my  position, 
like  that  of  the  rest  of  the  staff,  was  not  secure. 

For  recreation  I  took  a  week-end  trip  farther  up  into  the 
mountains,  to  Silver  Plume,  went  riding  along  rugged  trails 
on  a  burro's  back,  and  did  some  sketching  and  water-color 
painting — as  well  as  a  lot  of  thinking  about  the  future.  The 
novelty  of  Denver  and  its  holdover  atmosphere  from  fron- 
tier days  was  wearing  thin.  I  missed  the  crowd-surge  of 
Chicago.  Perhaps  the  time  was  ripe  for  me  to  go  to  New 
York  as  a  cartoonist  and  illustrator  instead  of  as  a  student.  I 
would  weigh  that  possibility  further.  About  all  I  had  accom- 
plished in  Denver  was  a  reputation  for  boosting  a  locality. 

A  newspaper  publisher  in  Pueblo,  a  hundred  miles  south 
of  Denver,  who  had  got  me  to  draw  a  boosting  cartoon  for 
his  city,  annoyed  me  by  failing  to  pay  for  it  despite  repeated 
duns.  The  more  I  dwelt  on  this  publisher's  audacity,  the 
angrier  I  became.  Finally  I  sat  down  and  wrote  him  a  threat- 
ening letter,  saying  that  I  was  about  to  get  out  a  revised 
edition  of  my  book  Hell  Up  to  Date,  and  that  I  intended  to 
put  in  a  Department  of  Dead  Beats  with  him  in  a  front  seat 
fully  identified.  By  return  mail  I  received  an  answer:  "You 
win.  Here's  your  check/' 

Chill  autumn  weather  came,  and  I  felt  drawn  toward 
home.  Denver  had  a  feeling  of  isolation  about  it,  for  I  re- 
membered pictures  in  Harper's  Weekly  of  trains  snowbound 
for  days  in  the  mountains  of  the  West.  I  didn't  like  the 
thought  of  being  caught  and  held  in  Colorado  through  the 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       187 

winter.  And  the  Denver  newspaper  field  seemed  to  lack  life; 
the  dailies  dealt  with  all  sorts  of  trivialities,  reminding  one 
of  a  small  town  like  Monroe.  So  I  gave  two  weeks'  notice  of 
leaving.  Warren  was  sorry;  we  had  become  good  friends. 


CHAPTER   20 
HELPING  THE  YELLOW  PRESS  START  A  WAR 

ON  my  way  back  to  Wisconsin  I  kept  thinking  that  it 
would  be  best  for  us  to  live  in  New  York.  I  must  get 
into  a  broader  field.  Elizabeth  readily  assented  when 
I  rejoined  her  in  Wauwatosa,  and  in  a  few  weeks  we  were 
packed  up  and  set  forth.  Whether  I  would  seek  a  regular  job 
or  free-lance  was  still  an  open  question,  but  I  was  keen  for 
some  arrangement  whereby  I  could  do  steady  production. 

Constantly  in  my  mind  was  the  realization  that  it  was  a 
mistake  for  a  man  like  me  to  be  married.  I  had  chosen  a 
lovely,  intelligent  girl  for  a  mate,  and  yet  I  had  a  feeling  that 
the  freedom  I  had  enjoyed  when  single  was  no  more.  I  was 
no  longer  an  individual  thinking  in  terms  of  one.  Every 
thought,  every  plan,  now  had  to  include  another,  and  later 
on  probably  it  would  have  to  include  three  or  four.  I  am 
sure  that  Elizabeth  tried  hard  to  understand  what  kind  of  a 
man  it  was  to  whom  she  had  entrusted  her  future.  Still  I  felt 
there  was  something  wrong  in  the  idea  of  our  signing  a 
contract  agreeing  to  love  each  other  forever — when  Nature 
obviously  was  opposed  to  such  compacts. 

Yet  Elizabeth  was  patient.  She  saw  humor  and  beauty  in 
life,  and  our  journey  to  the  metropolis  was  an  enjoyable 
one.  I  found  fun  and  novelty  in  showing  my  wife  the  sights 
of  New  York.  We  lived  first  on  Washington  Place,  a  few 
doors  from  Washington  Square,  where  we  had  a  comfortable 
apartment.  As  soon  as  I  got  down  to  work  here  things  took 
on  a  brighter  hue,  and  I  began  to  feel  that  maybe  married 
life  would  turn  out  all  right  after  all;  perhaps  it  was  just  a 
matter  of  adjusting  myself  to  the  changed  conditions. 

Later  we  lived  in  the  top  studio  of  the  Winfield  Scott 
Moody  home  on  Ninth  Street  west  of  Fifth  Avenue.  Moody 
was  one  of  the  editors  of  Scribner's,  and  his  wife  was  a  writer 
for  the  Ladies'  Home  Journal  and  other  magazines.  After- 
ward, for  a  time,  we  had  a  cheerful  hall  room  in  a  boarding 

188 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       189 

house  on  West  16th  Street,  opposite  St.  Francis  Xavier  Col- 
lege. 

Here  I  began  to  see  that  Elizabeth  could  be  helpful  in 
suggesting  ideas  for  drawings.  Two  pictures  among  others 
for  which  she  gave  me  the  suggestions  come  to  mind.  One, 
published  in  Life,  bore  the  caption:  "Willie  Jones — as  he 
seems  to  his  teacher — to  the  cook — to  the  cat — to  his 
mother/'  Another,  used  in  Judge,  portrays  a  farmer  who 
looks  at  his  turkeys  as  they  stand  sadly  awaiting  the  Thanks- 
giving Day  axe,  and  beholding  the  long  necks  and  general 


"THE  TIE  THAT   BINDS/' 
FARMER—"  Mother.  I  hain't  got  the  heart  ter  do  It.    It  'd  seem  too  much  like  killln'  one  o'  the  family." 

A  COMIC  SUGGESTED  BY  MY  WIFE. 


Judge 


resemblance  to  his  own  kin,  says:  "Mother,  I  haint*  got  the 
heart  to  do  it — it's  too  much  like  killing  one  of  the  family/' 
At  that  time  I  had  my  first  experience  with  the  type  of 
man  who  might  be  termed  a  'city  slicker."  He  was  a  Wall 
Street  speculator  with  an  office  in  Exchange  Place.  My  wife 
met  his  wife  in  the  boarding  house  and  we  all  became  so- 
ciable. Free  with  cigars  and  with  an  air  of  prosperity,  he  got 
into  my  good  graces  by  praising  Elizabeth's  character  and 
looks.  And  one  day  he  mentioned  that  he  might  be  in  a  posi- 
tion soon  to  put  me  in  the  way  of  making  considerable 
money.  He  was  just  waiting  for  an  expected  turn  in  the  stock 
market  to  cash  in  on  it  in  a  large  way* 


190      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

Presently  he  announced  that  that  turn  had  come,  and  if 
I  could  put  up  $300  he  would  invest  it  for  me  so  that  I 
would  make  a  fat  profit.  By  adroitly  leading  Elizabeth  on  in 
conversation,  his  wife  had  learned  that  I  had  some  $3,000  in 
a  savings  hank,  which  I  had  drawn  out  of  a  Chicago  build- 
ing and  loan  association*  My  sense  of  caution  led  me  to  balk 
at  giving  him  the  sum  he  asked,  but  I  let  him  have  $200 — 
with  which  he  bought  the  rising  stock,  only  to  have  it  go 
down  like  a  punctured  balloon  next  day.  I  never  got  any  of 
the  money  back,  and  counted  the  experience  as  a  valuable 

lesson* 

In  this  boarding  house  lived  Volney  Streamer,  who 
worked  for  Brentano's  as  an  expert  in  English  bibliography. 
He  wore  a  wig,  had  been  an  actor  with  Booth,  and  was  now 
dyspeptic  and  a  misanthrope.  My  brother  Will,  who  had 
come  east  a  couple  of  years  before  and  was  on  the  World 
staff,  had  met  Streamer  on  several  occasions,  and  one  evening 
when  we  were  sitting  in  the  parlor  Streamer  came  in.  Will  in 
his  cordial  manner  said:  "Good  evening,  Brother  Streamer!" 
Scowling  darkly,  Streamer  retorted:  'Tin  brother  to  no- 
body!" 

I  made  no  move  to  get  a  job  in  New  York.  Free-lancing 
appealed  to  me  now  much  more  than  tying  up  to  office 
routine,  and  in  the  long  run,  I  thought,  I  would  make  more 
money  in  the  open  market 

My  drawings  in  that  period  of  frequent  change  of  resi- 
dence were  done  anywhere — in  bedroom  or  living  room  or 
wherever  I  could  slant  a  drawing-board,  and  usually  I  had 
difficulty  in  finding  a  good  light.  It  was  not  long,  however, 
until  I  bought  a  simple  collapsible  drawing  table,  which  I 
still  use.  For  forty-odd  years  I  have  drawn  most  of  my  car- 
toons on  this  table.  Later,  in  relatively  prosperous  days,  I 
bought  a  larger  one,  of  an  expensive  type  used  by  architects, 
on  which  I  drew  with  a  feeling  of  being  less  restricted  in  area 
— and  this  I  also  have  in  my  Bethel  studio. 

When  I  was  a  boy  I  remember  writing  to  Bernard  Gillam 
of  Pack  asking  him  what  kind  of  a  pen  and  what  kind  of 
paper  he  used  in  doing  his  cartoons.  He  didn't  answer.  Nor 
was  the  question  so  momentous  as  I  thought  I  didn't  ask 
him  what  kind  of  a  table  he  used,  but  details  concerning  the 
tools  of  any  profession  loom  large  in  significance  when 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       191 

you're  young — less  so  as  one  gets  older.  My  friend  T.  S. 
Sullivant  of  Life  was  one  who  never  got  over  his  keen  in- 
terest in  implements  and  materials.  He  would  be  jubilant  for 
days  over  the  discovery  of  a  certain  quality  of  paper  or  a  new 
pen  which  worked  just  right* 

During  those  first  years  of  married  life  and  trying  to 
succeed  I  found  that  I  could  not  make  sufficient  income  to 
meet  our  living  expense.  Gradually  my  bank  account  was 
dwindling,  but  not  through  other  reckless  loans  of  money 
for  speculation.  Some  months  I  would  break  even — then 
have  a  slump.  If  I  received  a  check  for  less  than  I  thought  I 
ought  to  get  from  Life,  I  would  spend  hours  trying  to  write 
a  tactful  letter  to  John  Ames  Mitchell,  the  editor,  explaining 
that  I  had  expected  at  least  ten  dollars  more  than  he  had  paid 
me;  and  invariably  he  would  send  me  an  extra  ten.  But 
generally  I  had  no  heart  for  arguing  about  money  and  would 
take  what  I  could  get. 

Soon  I  came  to  know  the  personnel  of  the  inner  sanctums 
of  Pack,  Judge,  and  Life,  and  what  was  quite  as  important 
I  knew  those  stationed  at  the  outer  gates,  so  that  I  wasn't 
kept  waiting  when  I  called  to  see  the  editors.  Frequently  I  had 
dinner  with  one  or  more  of  them — Tom  Masson  of  Life, 
Grant  Hamilton  and  James  Melvin  Lee  of  Judge,  young  Jo- 
seph Keppler,  Arthur  Folwell,  and  Bert  Leston  Taylor  of 
Puck. 

The  elder  Joseph  Keppler,  whose  cartoons  in  that  weekly 
had  been  a  national  institution  for  so  many  years,  had  died 
in  February,  1894,  and  I  had  done  a  memorial  cartoon  of 
him  then  for  the  Chicago  Inter-Ocean.  Young  Joe  thought- 
fully gave  me  a  fine  collection  of  prints  and  humorous  Euro- 
pean magazines  which  his  father  had  owned.  Looking  them 
over  is  one  of  my  pleasures  today. 

I  still  called  myself  a  Republican,  and  the  anti-Democrat 
atmosphere  of  the  Inter-Ocean  office  still  clung  to  me  as  the 
1896  national  campaign  got  into  full  swing.  McKinley  and 
Hobart  were  appealing  for  votes  on  the  promise  of  "a  full 
dinner  pail  for  every  workingman."  That  struck  me  as  a 
vulgar  issue,  and  I  told  Grant  Hamilton,  who  did  most  of 
the  full  dinner-pail  cartoons  for  Judge,  that  a  plea  to  the 
worker's  stomach,  as  if  that  was  the  only  thing  the  laboring 
man  could  understand,  was  insulting. 


192      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

But  I  remembered  the  hard  times  under  Democratic  rule, 
which  was  being  emphasized  in  Republican  campaign  litera- 
ture, and  I  was  pleased  with  the  opportunity  to  propagandize 
for  the  Grand  Old  Party — I  was  working  for  the  nation's 
"best  people" — the  same  party  which,  led  by  Herbert  Hoover 
years  later,  appealed  to  the  workers  with  the  slogan:  "A 
chicken  in  every  pot/' 

W.  J.  Bryan  had  been  nominated  by  both  the  Democrats 
and  the  Populists,  who  termed  themselves  the  People's  Party, 
and  to  us  Republicans  that  proved  there  was  something 
wrong  with  him.  He  had  won  the  nomination  by  a  speech  in 
Chicago,  which  was  being  repeated  by  other  orators  as  if  it 
were  a  trumpet  call  to  save  the  nation — that  speech  which 
had  this  grandiloquent  climax: 

"You  come  to  us  and  tell  us  that  the  great  cities  are  in  favor 
of  the  gold  standard:  we  reply  that  the  great  cities  rest  upon  our 
broad  and  fertile  prairies.  Burn  down  your  cities  and  leave  our 
farms,  and  your  cities  will  spring  up  again  as  if  by  magic;  but 
destroy  our  farms  and  the  grass  will  grow  in  the  streets  of  every 
city  in  the  country.  .  .  . 

"Having  behind  us  the  producing  masses  of  this  nation  and 
the  world,  supported  by  the  commercial  interests,  the  laboring 
interests,  and  the  toilers  everywhere,  we  will  answer  their  demand 
for  a  gold  standard  by  saying  to  them:  You  shall  not  press  down 
upon  the  brow  of  labor  this  crown  of  thorns,  you  shall  not  crucify 
mankind  upon  a  cross  of  gold." 

"Just  a  demagogue's  play  to  the  farmers  and  labor,  the 
seductive  words  of  a  master-hypnotist,"  the  Republicans 
said.  Bryan  as  a  Democrat  was  crusading  for  Free  Silver,  on 
a  16-to-l  coinage  ratio,  and  the  pro-McKinley  press  saw  a 
great  danger  in  that.  I  was  never  quite  clear  about  the  silver- 
and-gold  coinage  question,  and  in  fact  I  would  be  hazy  about 
it  now  if  some  visiting  foreigner  were  to  ask  me  point-blank 
to  explain  it*  But  as  the  candidate  of  the  Populists  the  Com- 
moner from  Nebraska  stood  for  government  ownership  of 
the  railroads,  the  telegraph,  and  the  telephone  systems — and 
that  practically  meant  Socialism,  or  Anarchism,  according  to 
the  newspapers  and  magazines  which  spoke  for  the  Repub- 
lican party. 

Judge  was  in  the  forefront  of  the  attack.  Its  methods  were 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       193 

far  from  scrupulous,  as  I  view  them  now,  though  at  the  time 
I  was  not  so  critical,  the  attitude  of  all  those  around  me 
being  that  anything  was  fair  in  politics.  Typical  of  Judge's 
onslaughts  was  a  full-page  front  cover  cartoon  in  colors, 
drawn  by  Grant  Hamilton,  and  captioned  "The  Sacrilegious 
Candidate/'  This  portrayed  Bryan,  bare-armed  and  with  torn 
shirt,  standing  with  booted  foot  on  a  Bible,  with  a  cross  of 
gold  in  his  left  arm  and  a  crown  of  thorns  in  his  right  hand. 
Speeches  "plagiarized  from  the  Bible'*  protruded  from  his 
pockets.  Beneath  the  picture  were  the  words:  "No  man  who 
drags  into  the  dust  the  most  sacred  symbols  of  the  Christian 
world  is  fit  to  be  President  of  the  United  States/'  Nearby  a 
tatterdemalion  figure  in  a  French  Revolution  cap  was  waving 
a  red  flag  labeled  Anarchy. 

But  if  Judge's  editors  were  horrified  by  the  idea  of  drag- 
ging sacred  symbols  in  the  dust,  its  advertising  department 
was  not.  For  in  the  same  year  that  periodical  ran  an  advertise- 
ment reading:  "The  modern  Joan  of  Arc  polishes  her  boots 
with  Brown's  French  dressing/*  with  a  half-tone  cut  of 
Joan,  sword  in  one  hand  and  flag  in  the  other. 

As  a  result  of  all  this  valiant  effort,  our  noble  candidates 
won.  The  villainous  Democrats  who  had  been  responsible  for 
all  the  hard  times  were  sent  up  Salt  Creek  by  vote  of  the 
people,  and  in  came  a  new  era  of  prosperity  and  full  stomachs 
for  the  workers — that  is,  if  you  read  the  Republican  press. 

But  my  own  income  was  still  low,  and  the  economic 
problem  was  pressing.  Mornings  I  spent  at  the  drawing  table, 
and  in  the  afternoon  I  would  set  out  to  visit  editorial  offices 
or  to  cultivate  contacts  through  which  I  could  learn  the 
political  inclination  of  editors  who  were  buying  pictures.  I 
would  study  current  magazines  for  their  "policy" — for  each 
had  some  definite  slant.  Most  of  this  studying  was  done  at 
the  periodical  counter  in  Brentano's  basement,  where  I  would 
browse  at  length  and  finally  pay  out  money  for  a  single 
magazine — as  a  sop  to  my  conscience  for  having  had  such  an 
educational  feast. 

I  had  been  working  at  intervals  on  pictures  and  text  for 
a  book  to  be  called  Authors'  Readings.  This  was  intended  to 
comprise  recitations  from  the  work  of  sixteen  well-known 
writers,  with  a  short  biography  of  each,  and  sketches  showing 


Authors'  Readings 


FROM  AN  EARLY  ART  YOUNG  BOOK.  Literary  notables  of  the  day. 
The  one  whose  name  is  not  shown  is  C.  B.  Lewis,  widely  known  then  as 
"M.  Quad." 

them  in  characteristic  attitudes,  as  I  had  seen  them  reading 
their  works*  Frederick  A.  Stokes  liked  the  idea,  but  thought 
my  manuscript  contained  enough  material  for  two  books. 

194 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       195 

So  a  single  volume  of  2 1 5  pages  was  published,  dealing  with 
nine  individuals — Eugene  Field,  James  Whitcomb  Riley,  Bill 
Nye,  Hamlin  Garland,  Ella  Wheeler  Wilcox,  Opie  Read,  Will 
Carleton,  Mary  Hartwell  Catherwood,  and  C  B.  Lewis,  who 
wrote  under  the  nom  de  plume  of  M.  Quad.  There  was  a 
foreword  implying  that  a  second  volume  would  be  issued  to 
cover  the  others,  who  were  named. 

Both  the  publishers  and  I  were  expectant  of  substantial 
sales.  But  the  returns  were  small,  and  so  the  plan  for  the 
second  volume  went  into  the  discard.  It  would  have  cele- 
brated the  literary  creations  of  General  Lew  Wallace,  Captain 
Charles  King,  Joaquin  Miller,  Octave  Thanet,  John  Vance 
Cheney,  Lillian  Bell,  Henry  B.  Fuller,  and  Robert  Burdette. 

I  had  a  notion  that  the  West  was  breeding  writers  who  in 
time  might  stand  the  test  of  enduring  worth  as  well  as  the 
New  England  breed.  Some  of  my  selections  were  amateurish 
— but  they  were  the  best  I  could  find  at  the  time. 

After  the  battleship  Maine  was  blown  up  I  made  several 
cartoons  for  Leslie's  Weekly  in  line  with  its  advocacy  of  war 
with  Spain.  For  months  various  New  York  newspapers  had 
been  emphasizing  the  tragedy  of  the  Spanish  domination  of 
Cuba,  against  which  the  Cubans  had  revolted,  and  calling  for 
intervention.  The  killing  of  257  American  seamen  in  Havana 
harbor  intensified  the  editorial  demands  to  the  point  of 
hysteria.  It  was  instantly  assumed  by  the  Hearst  papers  and 
others  not  ordinarily  thought  of  as  yellow  that  Spain's  hand 
was  behind  that  explosion — although  the  court  of  inquiry 
never  found  any  tangible  evidence  of  that,  simply  reporting 
that  in  its  opinion  the  explosion  was  due  to  a  submarine 
mine* 

But  it  was  easy  for  me  to  believe,  as  everybody  around 
me  did,  that  Spain  was  guilty.  Such  an  act  seemed  in  line  with 
its  treatment  of  the  Cubans,  and  its  surly  attitude  toward 
American  protests  against  its  policy  in  the  Caribbean  area. 
No  one  seemed  to  realize  that  it  might  have  been  perpetrated 
by  some  Cuban  who  wanted  the  United  States  to  intervene. 
And  on  all  sides  the  press  and  public  men  were  thundering 
that  it  was  a  sacred  duty  for  this  nation  to  chastise  Spain  and 
put  her  in  her  proper  place.  The  Hearst  papers  were  inter- 
spersed with  small  red-white-and-blue  American  flags  with 


196      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

the  words:  "Cuba  Libre!"  and  "Remember  the  Maine!"  And 
boys  and  men  were  wearing  celluloid  buttons  on  their  coat 
lapels  bearing  those  slogans  and  another:  "Remember  the 
Maine,  to  hell  with  Spain !" 

Instead  of  spreading  my  war  cartoons  across  several  issues, 
as  I  had  anticipated,  Leslie's  combined  them  into  a  full  page 
and  ran  all  at  once.  That  was  gratifying* 

Those  drawings  illustrated  quoted  passages  from  speeches 
by  four  United  States  Senators — Thurston,  Proctor,  Gallin- 
ger,  and  Mason — all  calling  for  revenge. 

In  one  issue  Leslie's  asked  that  the  public  suspend  judge- 
ment on  the  guilt  in  the  blowing  up  of  the  Maine  until  the 
wreck  could  be  raised  and  the  truth  about  the  cause  ascer- 
tained. But  that,  I  believe,  was  its  only  judicial  utterance  in 
that  period.  Week  after  week  it  whooped  up  the  war  spirit. 
If  there  were  indeed  any  voices  objecting  to  our  coming  to 
grips  with  Spain,  they  were  lost  in  the  din. 

To  me  that  war,  when  it  presently  came,  was  equally  as 
just  as  the  war  waged  by  the  North  to  free  the  slaves.  Even 
though  I  knew  that  the  South  had  fired  the  first  gun  in  1861, 
I  was  still  confused  about  that  conflict.  I  was  not  aware  then 
of  the  economic  causes  which  lie  behind  most  wars.  .  .  .  Spain 
needed  a  lesson,  I  thought,  and  needed  to  be  soundly  whipped. 

But  when  the  stories  began  to  come  through  from  Tampa 
of  the  "embalmed  beef"  fed  to  the  American  troops,  of  sol- 
diers dying  like  flies  of  fever  and  dysentery  in  unsanitary 
camps,  and  then  of  others  dying  in  battle,  some  of  whom  had 
been  my  friends  and  acquaintances,  doubt  entered  my  mind. 
Was  war,  after  all,  the  best  way  to  settle  international 
wrongs?  And  how  far,  I  asked  myself,  was  a  cartoonist  or  an 
editorial  writer  who  advocated  such  a  war,  responsible  for 
the  deaths  of  those  soldiers?  It  was  chiefly  members  of  the 
working  class  who  were  being  killed  and  wounded,  and  not 
the  sons  of  the  meat  packers  or  of  the  other  wealthy  men 
who  were  making  big  profits  on  sales  to  the  War  Department. 

Even  with  those  doubts,  I  was  thrilled  when  the  news 
came  of  Dewey's  victory  in  Manila  Bay.  Most  of  the  re- 
ports in  the  press  were  highly  dramatized,  and  throughout 
all  the  news  and  editorials  the  note  was  sounded  insistently 
that  this  was  a  righteous  war.  There  were  acts  of  individual 
daring,  like  that  of  Hobson  and  his  men  sinking  the  collier 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       197 

Merrimac  in  Santiago  harbor  to  bottle  up  Cervera's  fleet, 
which  made  patriotic  hearts  beat  faster — and  I  was  still  a 
super-patriot — my  country  right  or  wrong, 

Teddy  Roosevelt  leading  the  Rough  Riders  up  San  Juan 
Hill  was  great  stuff — reading  the  papers  one  got  the  idea  that 
Teddy  was  practically  the  one  who  won  that  war. 

Occasionally,  however,  there  were  notes  of  discord — for 
instance,  Stephen  Crane's  dispatch  to  the  World  which  told 


THE  TERRIBLE  TEDDY. 

of  the  Seventy-first  New  York  Volunteers,  a  militia  regi- 
ment, lying  down  to  keep  out  of  the  way  of  bullets  while 
other  regiments  pushed  forward  to  cope  with  the  Spaniards. 
Mr.  Hearst's  Journal  promptly  assailed  the  World  for  this 
dastardly  reflection  upon  the  bravery  of  local  boys,  although 
its  indignation  was  soon  deflated  when  the  redoubtable  Teddy 
confirmed  Crane's  story. 

All  the  heroes  came  home — except  those  who  had  died 
afield — and  New  York  yelled  itself  hoarse.  I  went  to  hear 
Roosevelt  speak  on  the  night  of  his  return  from  Cuba,  every- 


198       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

body,  including  myself,  shouting:  "Hurrah  for  Teddy!" 
.  .  Lieutenant  Hobson  was  kissed  by  countless  young 
women;  Admiral  Dewey  moved  up  Fifth  Avenue  and 
through  the  Victory  Arch,  acclaimed  by  the  greatest  throng 
the  city  had  ever  seen;  the  Hearst  papers  collected  pennies 
from  school  children  to  buy  a  house  in  Washington  for 
Dewey  and  his  bride;  and  Theodore  Roosevelt's  political  for- 
tunes prospered  because  of  his  war  reputation. 

After  T.  R.  became  President  the  Russian  painter 
Vereshtchagin  visited  Washington  and  spent  many  days  at 
Fort  Meyer  painting  a  big  canvas  showing  the  charge  up  San 
Juan  Hill.  The  belligerent  Teddy  was  revealed  in  the  thick 
of  the  fray,  on  a  white  horse.  This  simply  proved  that  the 
great  Russian  artist  had  read  the  early  dispatches  about  that 
battle,  and  not  the  later  corrected  accounts,  which  brought 
out  that  there  were  no  horses  in  the  San  Juan  assault.  The 
painting,  with  the  white  horse  still  in  it,  is  said  to  have  been 
sold  in  New  York  for  $10,000  a  few  years  later.  ...  In 
1917,  when  he  was  touring  the  army  camps,  T.  R.  got  a 
laugh  in  his  speeches  by  saying  of  the  Spanish-American 
imbroglio  that  "it  wasn't  much  of  a  war,  but  it  was  the  only 
war  we  had  just  then/' 

We  got  the  Philippines,  which  seemed  the  right  thing, 
on  the  theory  that  if  we  didn't  step  in  and  protect  the  helpless 
Filipinos,  no  longer  under  the  Spanish  yoke,  some  grasping 
nation  like  Japan  would  go  in  there  and  take  over  the  islands 
and  exploit  the  natives.  Thus  Uncle  Sam  was  being  mag- 
nanimous. I  didn't  know  until  long  after  the  fact  that 
600,000  men,  women,  and  children  died  in  Luzon  alone  as  a 
result  of  the  American-Filipino  War  which  followed  the 
Spanish-American  conflict. 

To  those  who  may  view  this  statement  as  incredible,  I 
suggest  that  they  read  the  evidence  on  page  121  of  The  Con- 
quest of  the  Philippines  by  the  United  States,  by  Moorfield 
Storey  andMarcialP.  Lichauco  (Putnam,  1926) .  The  charge 
is  based  on  an  estimate  made  by  Gen.  J.  M.  Bell,  who  spoke 
from  first-hand  knowledge.  That  figure  represented  one  sixth 
of  Luzon's  native  population. 

Two  sentences  from  General  Bell's  comment  on  his  own 
figures  clearly  illuminate  his  attitude  toward  the  situation: 
"The  loss  of  life  by  killing  alone  has  been  very  great,  but  I 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       199 

think  that  not  one  man  has  been  slain  except  where  his  death 
served  the  legitimate  purpose  of  war.  It  has  been  thought 
necessary  to  adopt  what  in  other  countries  would  probably 
be  thought  harsh  measures/'  The  italics  here  are  mine. 


CHAPTER  21 

MATRIMONY  HITS  A  REEF 

SOMETHING  was  wrong  with  me,  I  didn't  know  what. 
I  was  listless,  found  it  difficult  to  concentrate  on  my 
work,  and  lay  awake  nights.  So  I  went  to  see  a  doctor. 
"Nothing  organically  wrong,"  he  said.  "Just  a  case  of  'nerves/ 
You've  been  working  too  hard.  How  about  a  change  of  scene 
for  a  while?" 

I  knew  of  one  place  where  I  could  go  for  an  inexpensive 
outing.  A  couple  of  years  earlier  Father  had  bought  forty 
acres  of  timberland  in  Southern  Alabama,  which  the  Mobile 
and  Ohio  Railroad  had  been  selling  cheaply.  He  had  spent 
two  winters  down  there,  clearing  the  land  with  hired  help, 
and  planting  almond  trees.  His  plan  was  to  have  an  almond 
grove  for  each  of  his  four  children,  so  that  when  the  trees 
matured  we  all  would  have  a  profitable  inheritance.  He  stayed 
in  a  hotel  in  Citronelle,  the  nearest  town,  during  those  visits, 
and  Mother  was  with  him  through  one  of  the  winters.  A 
couple  employed  by  Father  did  the  general  work  on  the 
farm. 

I  took  a  train  for  Alabama,  and  in  a  few  days  Elizabeth 
joined  me.  We  occupied  a  little  house  just  outside  Citronelle, 
which  was  set  amid  healthful  wooded  country.  Here  one  saw 
incredibly  tall  and  straight  Caribbean  pines  in  great  pro- 
fusion. And  there  was  fine  sketching  material  hereabouts, 
both  in  the  landscape  and  among  the  primitive  white  folks 
and  the  happy-go-lucky  Negroes  (thus  I  thought  of  them 
then,  not  knowing  of  the  hard  lives  of  which  their  apparently 
care- free  attitude  gave  me  no  hint)  *  We  soon  got  acquainted 
with  the  neighborhood  pickaninnies.  Some  were  named  after 
perfume  brands  and  others  after  labels  on  package  groceries. 
I  liked  to  talk  with  them,  their  vocal  tones  and  their  dreamy 
ideas  about  life  delighting  me.  The  name  of  one  little  girl,  so 
she  insisted,  was  Pickle  Lily. 

I  sold  a  few  comic  pictures  at  that  time  to  Judge,  for  ten, 

200 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       201 

fifteen,  or  twenty  dollars.  My  income  was  nothing  to  brag 
about,  but  rent  was  low,  food  cheap,  and  fuel  cost  nothing. 
Pine  wood,  to  be  had  simply  for  picking  it  up,  made  an  ex- 
cellent cooking  fire. 

The  almond  farm  was  miles  back  from  the  railroad,  and 
to  get  to  it  one  had  to  travel  with  a  team  over  miry  roads 
through  bad  swampy  country.  Elizabeth  and  I  visited  it  a 
few  times,  and  the  thought  of  reaping  a  comfortable  living 
from  nut  groves  in  future  years  was  gratifying — but  I  was 
not  tempted  to  do  any  of  the  work  on  the  farm,  although 
Father  was  busy  all  the  time.  Clearing  that  land  for  nut 
cultivation  was  back-breaking  toil,  and  I  was  satisfied  to  let 
the  hired  help  earn  their  pay. 

After  several  months  in  Alabama,  I  felt  much  refreshed, 
and  we  returned  to  New  York.  My  brother-in-law  Clyde 
Copeland  also  went  to  Citronelle  for  a  few  weeks,  to  help 
along  the  almond  project  and  for  a  vacation.  But  I  never 
visited  Alabama  again.  The  almond  trees  did  not  thrive,  and 
presumably  the  soil  was  not  right  for  them.  In  time  Father 
gave  up  the  idea,  and  sold  that  land. 

"Well,  it  was  a  change  anyhow  and  a  good  way  to  escape 
Wisconsin  winters/'  he  said,  the  next  time  I  saw  him.  "But  I 
guess  I'd  better  stick  to  the  store  business/' 

We  took  a  small  upstairs  apartment  in  West  Ninety-third 
Street,  and  I  resumed  picture  production  with  considerable 
vim.  Frank  Nankivell,  illustrator,  Percival  Pollard,  then  a 
well-known  magazine  editor,  and  Robert  H.  Davis  had  the 
first  floor.  Hearst  was  then  buying  talent  away  from  Pulit- 
zer's World,  and  Bob  Davis  was  one  of  the  young  editors 
and  artists  from  the  West  who  were  making  the  Evening 
Journal  look  lively*  All  kinds  of  sensational  features  were 
being  tried  out. 

Davis  was  running  the  Journal's  editorial  page  for  a  while 
and  I  wrote  a  few  editorials  with  illustrations  for  him.  I 
suggested  that  they  be  printed  in  facsimile  typewriter  style, 
and  he  thought  this  a  worth-while  innovation.  But  I  couldn't 
keep  it  up.  When  it  came  to  pouring  out  my  thoughts  in 
words  on  paper  I  lacked  the  necessary  ability  to  keep  going 
and  sustain  my  theme.  I  could  spurt  now  and  then,  but 
routine  writing  has  %lways  been  too  much  for  me. 


202      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

I  made  the  acquaintance  of  other  editors  whenever  I  had 
a  tangible  excuse,  and  occasionally  opened  up  a  new  market. 
A  few  years  before  I  had  met  Arthur  Brisbane  when  he  was 
on  the  Sunday  World.  In  Pack  and  Life  I  had  caricatured 
him  as  "Whizzbrain."  Now  he  was  managing  editor  of 
Hearst's  Evening  Journal  One  evening  after  the  theatre  I  ran 
into  him  in  Allaire's  restaurant  (Scheffel  Hall)  on  East  Sev- 
enteenth Street,  where  the  beer  was  excellent  even  if  the  food, 
being  German-cooked,  was  a  bit  heavy. 

We  talked  at  length.  Brisbane  had  been  particularly  im- 
pressed by  pictures  of  mine  which  touched  upon  social  prob- 
lems— tenements,  hungry  people,  child  labor,  grafting 
politicians,  low  wages,  and  kindred  topics.  There  was  one 
drawing  of  mine  in  Life  that  had  attracted  wide  attention, 
and  he  made  much  of  that.  It  was  called  "The  Outcast,"  and 
depicted  an  old  man  in  rags  and  broken  shoes  standing  in  the 
rain,  with  these  lines  by  Shakespeare  below  it: 

Famine  is  in  thy  cheeks, 

Need  and  oppression  starveth  in  thy  eyes, 

Upon  thy  back  hangs  tagged  misery, 

The  world  is  not  thy  friend,  nor  the  world's  law. 

Shortly  after  that  talk  Brisbane  suggested  that  I  go  to 
work  regularly  on  the  Journal.  He  wanted  me  to  draw  car- 
toons and  illustrate  editorials.  He  had  shoved  aside  the  long, 
heavy  editorials  of  the  Greeley-Dana  and  Watterson  types 
and  substituted  easy-to-read  summaries  of  popular  issues.  His 
offer  of  $100  a  week  and  his  outline  of  the  kind  of  cartoon 
material  he  sought  appealed  to  me,  and  I  readily  accepted. 

Next  morning  I  reported  at  the  Journal  office  at  William 
and  Duane  Streets,  and  Brisbane  installed  me  with  my  draw- 
ing outfit  in  William  Randolph  Hearst's  private  sanctum, 
which  was  next  to  his.  Hearst  was  then  in  California.  Bris- 
bane brought  in  a  plentiful  supply  of  brushes,  pens,  pencils, 
and  drawing  ink,  and  said:  "Go  to  it/' 

This  spacious  room  was  quiet  and  well  appointed,  with 
mahogany  furniture  of  simple  design.  One  slight  disturbance 
lingers  in  memory.  Frederic  Remington  kept  bobbing  in  day 
after  day,  a  bit  tight  and  somewhat  voluble,  asking:  "Where 
is  Mr.  Hearst?"  I  gathered  that  he  wanted  some  money  from 
the  absent  owner,  and  when  told  that  he  was  out  of  town, 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       203 

would  shake  his  head  sadly  and  say  over  and  over:  "Can  you 
beat  it?"  * 

Hearst  stayed  away  a  month.  When  he  came  back  a  desk 
and  chair  were  assigned  to  me  in  the  art  department,  in  a 


ARTISTS     AND     EDITORS.     Top,     left     to     right:     Frederic 
Remington,   Arthur   Brisbane.    Bottom:   Thomas   Nast,   Bob   Davis. 

room  with  Frederick  Opper  and  T.  S.  Sullivant  Here  the 
atmosphere  was  less  conducive  to  concentration  than  in  the 
chiefs  secluded  sanctum. 

Lunch-time  would  usually  find  Brisbane  in  an  "exclu- 
sive" restaurant  just  south  of  the  stone  arches  of  Brooklyn 

*  Remington  died  at  the  age  of  forty-eight  in  1909,  soon  after  he  had  built 
a  house  and  studio  for  himself  near  Ridgefield,  Conn.  His  need  for  money  in 
the  days  when  I  was  with  the  Journal  is  recalled  in  contrast  by  a  news  report 
on  May  14,  1937,  telling  *of  the  sale  at  auction  of  a  Remington  painting, 
"Ouster's  Last  Stand0,  for  $7,700. 


204      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

Bridge.  He  favored  thick  mutton  chops,  and  invariably 
matched  coins  with  some  one  seated  at  a  table  reserved  for 
newspapermen  to  see  who  would  pay  for  the  meaL 

Around  four  o'clock  he  would  begin  pounding  out  edi- 
torials for  next  day  on  his  typewriter.  He  did  this  with  pre- 
cision, and  ordinarily  was  finished  in  a  couple  of  hours. 

In  the  art  department  I  enjoyed  the  frequent  badinage  — 
that  joshing  indulged  in  by  newspaper  artists  while  "the  fac- 


FREDERICK  B.  QPPER. 

tory"  is  turning  out  comics  and  political  cartoons.  The  char- 
acteristic sound  of  an  art  department  is  scratching — the 
scratch  of  pens  and  the  scratching  out  of  mistakes  in  the 
making  of  pictures,  not  unlike  the  scraping  sound  in  a  barber 
shop  when  a  razor  encounters  a  tough  beard,  T.  S.  Sullivant 
did  more  scratching  on  his  drawing  paper  than  any  other 
artist  I  ever  knew.  We  all  were  amused  by  it — he  was  always 
fretfully  scratching  out  his  pen-lines  and  starting  over  again. 
Once  Opper  turned  to  me  and  said:  "If  Sullivant  would 
scratch  his  head  more  and  his  paper  less^  he  could  draw  better 
cartoons/' 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       205 

Things  at  home  had  moved  along  all  right  for  a  few 
weeks  after  Elizabeth  and  I  had  returned  from  Alabama.  But 
this  condition  did  not  last.  My  interest  in  the  job  at  the 
Journal  office  and  its  future  possibilities  of  greater  income  did 
not  prevent  me  from  becoming  nervous  and  morose  again.  I 
would  wake  up  in  the  mornings  feeling  depressed,  as  a  caged 
bird  must  feel  when  it  wants  to  get  out  and  fly  and  knows  it 
can't.  The  fact  that  the  bars  which  formed  my  cage  were 
invisible  made  them  no  less  real.  I  realized  that  something 
had  happened  inside  of  me  when  I  married  that  had  crippled 
me — nothing,  of  course,  that  one  could  describe  in  words, 

I  had  no  criticism  to  make  of  my  wife.  There  was  noth- 
ing in  her  actions  to  which  I  could  object,  and  undoubtedly 
she  was  playing  her  part  as  a  wife  conscientiously.  She  had 
so  many  good  qualities,  and  I  am  sure  meant  well  for  me 
all  along  the  line.  Her  eyes  were  lovely,  she  was  slim  and 
neat,  and  walked  with  feet  toeing  in  just  a  little.  I  liked  that, 
as  I  have  always  liked  any  slight  deviation  from  the  norm. 
It  doesn't  always  mean  character,  but  it  suggests  it.  She  was 
fond  of  good  fiction;  her  favorites  included  Howells's  Rise 
of  Silas  Lapham,  Olive  Schreiner's  Story  of  an  African  Farm, 
George  Eliot's  novels,  and  the  stories  of  George  Meredith  and 
Thomas  Hardy. 

Elizabeth,  however,  had  no  special  interest  outside  of  our 
home,  as  I  had.  She  made  friends  and  I  accepted  them,  but 
she  couldn't  as  easily  accept  some  of  mine.  We  doubtless  saw 
too  much  of  each  other;  and  we  lacked  the  spiritual  replen- 
ishment that  outside  and  separate  friendly  contacts  would 
have  given  us.  I  was  half  conscious  of  this;  but  somehow  I 
was  unable  to  talk  about  it  with  Elizabeth.  And  I  was  fearful 
of  those  emotional  explosions  which  so  often  come  when  the 
relations  of  a  man  and  a  woman  have  become  strained;  it  is 
easier  to  remain  silent. 

Searching  back  in  my  thoughts  through  the  years  of  our 
life  together,  I  would  look  for  some  point  along  the  road 
where  I  might  have  taken  some  different  course  which  would 
have  made  for  happiness.  But  I  could  never  find  that  point 
short  of  going  back  to  the  days  when  I  was  single,  the  days 
when  I  was  not  in  constant  fear  of  being  thought  selfish  for 
thinking  more  of  my  work  than  of  the  household  routine. 

My  mind  being  troubled,  my  output  suffered.  And  evi- 


206       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

dcntly  the  uncertain  quality  of  my  pictures  was  manifest  to 
Brisbane,  for  at  the  end  of  five  or  six  months  he  decided 
that  we'd  better  end  our  arrangement. 

"But  I  want  you  to  submit  cartoons  on  a  free-lance 
basis/*  he  said.  "My  door  will  always  be  open  to  you.  I  think 
you'll  be  happier  free-lancing  than  tied  down  to  an  office 
grind.  Not  everybody  is  temperamentally  fitted  for  that/' 

I  wouldn't  have  quit  voluntarily  just  then,  for  the  hun- 
dred every  week  meant  that  I  could  take  out  life  insurance 
and  save  money.  Nevertheless,  I  felt  a  great  relief  when  Bris- 
bane dropped  me  from  the  staff.  It  meant  that  Fate  had  made 
a  decision  for  me.  I  walked  to  the  elevated  whistling. 

With  my  working  hours  no  longer  tied  to  an  employer's 
time  schedule,  I  now  found  it  even  more  difficult  than  before 
to  work  at  home.  So  I  invented  excuses  to  be  away  from  our 
rooms  a  great  deal.  I  had  to  see  editors,  and  I  had  to  go  to  the 
library  to  look  up  things. 

Very  soon  it  became  clear  to  both  of  us  that  the  atmos- 
phere was  too  tense;  we  couldn't  go  on  living  together  in 
those  cramped  quarters,  though  I  wasn't  sure  that  we  would 
have  been  any  better  off  in  a  ten-room  house. 

So  we  separated.  Elizabeth  packed  what  belongings  she 
needed,  and  I  carried  her  luggage  to  a  furnished  room  which 
she  had  taken  nearby.  There  were  tears  in  her  eyes  when  we 
said  goodbye,  and  I  felt  a  bit  tearful  myself,  but  we  said 
little,  beyond  wishing  each  other  good  luck. 

My  brother  Will,  who  had  been  watchful  of  our  un- 
happy state,  now  asked  me  to  come  and  live  with  him  in  his 
large  one-room  studio  at  81  Fifth  Avenue.  He  hoped  and 
believed  that  our  trouble  would  soon  be  adjusted.  I  readily  ac- 
cepted his  invitation.  His  quarters  were  in  a  fine  old  mansion 
with  a  beautiful  massive  stairway  leading  from  the  entrance 
hall  to  the  second  floor.  It  was  that  stairway  more  than  any- 
thing else  that  had  made  Will  want  to  live  there.  Boys  from 
the  farm,  where  simplicity  is  the  order,  are  apt  to  be  taken 
in  by  the  appearance  of  splendor.  Some  rich  family  had  lived 
in  that  house  in  earlier  days,  but  in  our  time  the  first  and 
second  floors  were  occupied  as  a  dancing  studio  by  a  then  cele- 
brated teacher  of  the  terpsichorean  art  named  Koch.  What 
had  once  been  the  grand  ballroom  on  the  second  floor  served 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       207 

for  his  larger  classes  and  for  occasional  social  affairs.  Koch 
had  leased  the  whole  house  and  sublet  the  third  and  fourth 
floors  to  us  tenants. 

Our  studio  had  large  windows  looking  out  on  a  little 
back  garden;  an  ornate  marble  mantle,  a  practical  fireplace, 
and  a  washroom  with  cold  water;  and  we  had  the  use  of  a 
bathroom  with  hot  water.  Will  had  had  a  cushioned  window- 
seat  made  for  the  wide  back  windows,  and  for  sleeping  facili- 
ties he  had  constructed  what  was  probably  the  largest  "cozy 
corner"  in  history,  built  around  and  over  a  box-couch  wider 
than  a  double  bed. 

The  most  bizarre  India  prints  to  be  found  in  Vantine's 
were  utilized  for  wall  coverings,  and  for  the  canopy  and 
side  and  front  drapings,  which  were  supported  by  antique 
spears  and  lances;  and  wherever  possible  a  Damascus  blade, 
a  kriss,  a  medieval  shield,  or  some  other  old-world  war  im- 
plement was  hung.  For  fear  that  there  might  not  be  enough 
cozy  atmosphere  in  these  quarters  Will  had  added  some  Civil 
War  muskets  and  swords  and  Cuban  machetes.  No  week  went 
by  without  his  bringing  in  a  porcelain  vase  or  other  decora- 
tion to  clutter  up  the  space.  On  that  massive  couch  was  the 
most  varied  and  numerous  collection  of  sofa  pillows  that  I 
ever  saw.  Several  that  my  brother  prized  most  were  covered 
with  fabrics  that  he  had  bought  from  the  Waldorf-Astoria 
when  that  hotel  decided  on  a  new  decorative  scheme  and  got 
rid  of  its  stock  on  hand. 

Other  objects  in  this  great  room  were  a  tall  inlaid  ma- 
hogany combination  bookcase  and  writing-desk,  a  golden 
oak  bureau,  a  green  arm-chair,  a  willow  rocker,  and  a  mas- 
sive carved  Flemish  oak  table  and  chair  set — a  typical  con- 
glomerate decorative  scheme  of  the  period.  On  the  walls 
among  the  array  of  weapons  were  framed  drawings  which 
had  illuminated  Sunday  World  feature  stories  that  Will  had 
written,  and  originals  done  by  the  artists  on  the  World  staff; 
also  drawings  for  the  ''funnies*'  of  that  era,  by  Dick  Out- 
cault,  George  Luks,  Anderson,  Bryans  (whose  silhouette 
pictures  were  then  popular) ,  Tony  Anthony,  Gus  and  Rudy 
Dirks,  Joe  Lemon,  Walt  McDougall;  and  illustrators  such 
as  Will  Crawford  (he  made  comics  as  well,  but  they  always 
seemed  too  dignified  and  artistic  to  be  classed  as  such)  ,  "Hod" 
Taylor,  Al  Levering,  and  others. 


208      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

Of  course  a  studio  furnished  so  lavishly  would  be  not  at 
all  to  my  taste  now,  nor  to  Will's,  but  I  liked  it  then.  The 
place  was  a  refuge  for  me,  and  I  could  work  again* 

Will  was  alert,  got  around  a  lot,  as  a  seeing  journalist, 
and  frequently  brought  in  new  and  worth-while  people  for 
me  to  meet.  Or  we  met  them  in  one  restaurant  or  another 
where  artists  and  writers  gathered.  At  that  time  Will  was 
on  the  Sunday  World  staff. 

He  had  come  to  New  York  late  in  1894,  ' 'absolutely  un- 
wanted by  any  publication",  as  he  recalls.  After  two  long 
weeks  of  job-hunting  he  had  been  taken  on  as  a  reporter 
by  the  World  (on  the  morning  daily)  at  $15  a  week.  This 
wage  didn't  seem  much  of  a  compliment  to  him,  for  he 
couldn't  forget  that  he  was  one  of  the  founders  of  the  Daily 
Cardinal  at  the  University  of  Wisconsin,  and  that  he  had 
been  news  editor  of  the  Madison  (Wis.)  Democrat  and  Madi- 
son correspondent  for  the  Chicago  Tribune  and  a  Milwaukee 
daily.  His  combined  income  in  Madison  had  been  about  $35 
a  week.  But  he  took  that  $15  job  none  the  less,  thinking  of 
the  "prestige"  of  working  on  a  New  York  paper. 

He  stayed  a  year  in  that  poorly  paid  berth,  then  went 
to  the  New  York  Mercury,  an  old-timer  that  had  just  been 
rejuvenated  by  the  injection  of  $200,000  in  new  capital; 
and  lingered  there  until  that  money  had  been  absorbed  and 
pay-checks  were  held  up,  which  took  only  about  six  months. 
Returning  to  the  World,  he  was  put  on  the  Sunday  staff  at  a 
time  when  Hearst  had  panicked  the  other  papers  by  buying 
their  editorial  talent  away  from  them.  The  rich  man's  son 
from  California,  who  was  still  regarded  by  his  New  York 
rivals  as  an  interloper,  had  induced  Morrill  Goddard,  the 
World's  Sunday  editor,  to  move  over  to  the  Journal;  Pulitzer 
had  persuaded  him  to  move  back;  and  Hearst  had  raised  his 
bid  still  higher,  and  got  Goddard  again,  all  in  a  single  week. 

Tom  McGill,  creator  of  the  comic  strip,  "The  Hall-room 
Boys",  which  was  credited  with  big  drawing  power  in  the 
continuing  fight  for  newspaper  circulation,  also  lived  at  81 
Fifth  Avenue  when  we  did.  And  he  lived  in  a  hall-room,  too, 
for  that  was  before  the  years  of  .big  money  for  the  comic 
strippers. 


Saturday    Evening   Post 

EDITOR  OF  THE  COUNTY  GAZETTE 
One  of  a  series  of  Old  Home  Town  types  used  in  the  Lorimer  weekly. 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       209 

In  the  spacious  front  room  on  our  floor  were  Gordon 
Grant,  then  and  ever  since  a  natural  composer  of  pictures  and 
a  fine  artist  withal,  and  his  roommate,  Jack  Haywood,  a  suc- 
cessful patent  attorney,  now  dead.  Haywood  had  social  con- 
nections and  he  and  the  well-groomed. Grant  gave  tone  to  the 
place.  They  had  a  large  organ  in  their  studio,  which  afforded 
me  much  pleasure,  for  I  would  frequently  go  in  and  play  on 
it,  thinking  of  days  back  on  the  farm.  I've  done  a  lot  of  rest- 
ful day-dreaming  while  playing  an  organ  or  toying  with  the 
keys  of  a  piano. 

Chuck  Connors  came  to  our  studio  several  times  with 
Will,  though  it  was  hard  to  get  him  to  leave  the  Bowery  and 
come  to  swell  Fifth  Avenue.  It  was  Will  who  had  discovered 
this  character  of  the  Chinatown  district  for  journalistic  pur- 
poses, and  who  had  written  the  Chuck  Connors  stories  in  the 
Sunday  World  that  had  made  the  ex-newsboy  a  notable  and 
led  to  his  national  fame.  Will  used  Chuck  as  the  mouthpiece 
for  a  wide  variety  of  observations  on  passing  events,  and 
thus  Chuck  gained  as  much  or  more  fame  than  Steve  Brodie 
without  going  to  the  trouble  of  jumping  off  the  Brooklyn 
Bridge  into  the  East  River. 

I  remember  the  thrill  I  felt  when  I  attended  the  first  of  a 
series  of  Chuck  Connors  balls  in  the  old  Tammany  Hall  on 
Fourteenth  Street*  This  was  rough  and  noisy,  with  beer 
flowing  free,  and  music  that  may  not  have  been  so  good  as 
that  in  the  Waldorf  ballroom  but  was  louder.  The  fun  began 
during  the  grand  march,  when  Chuck's  lady  friend,  known 
in  Chinatown  as  "The  Rummager",  had  her  train  stepped 
on  and  torn  off.  She  spent  the  rest  of  the  evening  in  a  box, 
where  she  slept  off  the  effects  of  too  much  liquor.  On  the 
program  I  noticed  the  typical  Connors  language,  which  de- 
scribed a  waltz  as  "Grab  a  rag  and  twist." 

When  my  old  friend  the  late  Walt  McDougall  wrote  his 
sprightly  autobiography,  This  is  the  Life,  he  reproduced  the 
names  of  some  of  the  members  of  the  "Chuck  Connors  Club", 
the  purported  sponsor  of  one  of  those  balls.  Walt  had  found 
a  program  of  the  event  printed  in  Moss's  "History  of  New 
York",  with  George  Francis  Train,  billed  as  financial  secre- 
tary, and  with  the  club  members  including:  R.  F.  Outcault, 
Walt  McDougall,  Al  Smith,  Mickey  Finn,  Charley  White, 


210      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

Steve  Brodie,  Roland  B.  Molineaux,  Timothy  D.  Sullivan, 
Oscar  Hammerstein,  James  J.  Corbett,  and  Bob  Fitzsimmons. 

"Judge  Moss  seems  to  regard  the  list  of  members  as  au- 
thentic— and  representative",  McDougall  wrote,  "but  his 
judicial  acumen  should  have  enabled  him  to  perceive  that 
this  was  Connors'  method  of  attracting  the  elite  to  his  low, 
coarse,  and  quite  disreputable  function." 

But  the  formation  of  that  "club"  on  paper  was  not  the 
handiwork  of  Mr.  Connors,  the  "mayor  of  Chinatown/'  It 
was  my  brother  Will  who  conceived  the  idea  of  the  Chuck 
Connors  balls  and  directed  the  arrangements  for  them,  coach- 
ing Chuck  in  the  part  he  was  to  play.  And  Chuck  was  a 
responsive  pupil.  Will  suggested  the  staging  of  those  affairs 
in  Tammany  Hall  because  they  made  good  newspaper  copy 
and  added  to  the  gayety  of  the  city. 

There  was  plenty  of  artistic  stimulus  at  8 1  Fifth  Avenue 
and  in  restaurants,  theatres,  and  bohemian  centers  which  we 
visited  around  town.  Will  frequently  had  passes  for  shows, 
or  was  assigned  to  do  a  feature  story  about  some  situation 
which  involved  the  gathering  of  a  queer  assortment  of  people, 
and  often  I  went  along,  watching  for  both  the  serious  and 
the  humorous  angles. 

For  Brisbane  was  buying  an  occasional  illustration  for 
an  editorial  or  for  an  article,  while  the  comic  periodicals  were 
taking  some  of  my  joke  pictures.  And  in  that  period,  too,  I 
sold  some  "Snapshots  in  Hades"  drawings  to  Life  and  began 
a  "Through  Hell"  series  in  the  Cosmopolitan.  John  Brisben 
Walker  was  then  publisher  of  the  latter,  and  at  his  invitation 
I  journeyed  up  to  Irvington-on-the-Hudson,  where  he  lived. 
Those  Inferno  scenes  were  subsequently  incorporated  in  my 
second  book  dealing  with  the  nether  regions,  which  was  called 
Through  Hell  with  Hiptah  Hunt.  This  was  published  by 
Clinton  S*  Zimmerman  in  1901. 

Will  went  to  Chicago  in  July,  1900,  becoming  Sunday 
editor  of  Hearst's  Evening  American  there,  taking  charge  of 
its  editorial  page,  and  also  working  on  the  editorial  page  of 
the  morning  Examiner,  then  under  the  direction  of  Charles 
Edward  RusselL  I  remained  in  the  studio  alone,  and  there 
was  a  great  sense  of  luxury  in  basking  amid  all  those  bargain 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES        211 

treasures  and  having  that  spaciousness  all  to  myself,  in  imita- 
tion of  one  who  was  wealthy. 

I  was  still  a  Republican  when  the  1900  national  cam- 
paign came  along,  with  McKinley  and  Roosevelt  asking  elec- 
tion with  the  promise  of  "four  years  more  of  the  full  dinner- 
pair*,  duly  featured  on  the  front  covers  of  Jadge  and  its 

^OUR  COUNTRY  CORRESPONDENT 

t  pen  in 
of  th«  royel  famlys  is  humbugs  &  says  if  its  true  what  he's  heerd  bout  sum  of  them 

I  mad?  a  speach  in  town  hall  here  satday  nite  that  shows  you  how  the  speerit  that, 
stured.the  boozums  of  our  four-fathers  haint  ded  yet  as  Toilers: 

Feller  Citzens  ;  Sum  famlys  of  ferrin  lands  has  to  be  high  up  &  others  has  to  be 
low  down.  That's  the  way  they  been  runnm  things  fer  so  long  in  them  countries  they 
dont  kno  no  better.  The  Royel  fcrnlys  that  got  to  the  top  of  the  lader  of  fame  as  the, 
poit  says  2  hunderd  yers  ago  is  still  up,  &  a  good  many  on  em  wuld  be  keepin  sloons 
er  worktn  in  cheez  factrys  if  the  peeplc  tuk  a  noshen  to  kick  the  lader  out  frum.  under 
em.  In  Amenky  the  land  of  the  free  one  man  ono  be  az  good  az  a  nuiher  &  a  blame 
site  Beter  if  he  fites  fer  his  place  &  behaves  hisself  &  has  branes  to  back  it. 

If  the  rich  city  peeple  wunt  to  pay  fer  dressm  up  2  or  3  tony  fellers  in  velvet  close- 
an  sendin  em  over  to  a  ferrin  country  fer  to  do  plite  bowin  &  scrapm  front  cf  a.  King 
thats  a  big  gun  caus  his  parunts  wuz,  wy  let  em  do  it  but  the  U  S.  Congres  &  the  pee- 


Josh  Melhm. 


DAVIS  JUNCTION.  O.. 

June  38th. 
EniTER  JUDOE: 

Uncle  Cyrus  Whif- 
fle ts  so's  to  he.  round 
agin.  Cyrus  says  they 


la 


to 


make    auttymobiles 
Josh     Mellun     82 

burthday  tuesday  fer 
las.t  9  y«rs  Josh  has 
turned  a.  hanspring 

owin  to  a  cowbunckle 
neck. 


Theresa  good  d 


Ohio  bout  the  way  the 
country  is  goin  crary 
over  royelty 

Fust  it  wus  that 
Princ  Henery  now  its 
the  King  of  England. 

Levi  Kirxk  leedin 
ciuen  here  says  most 


Uncle  Hiram  lecture*  his  fellow-townsmen. 


pie  of  Davis  Junction 
orto  stick  clost  to  the 
constitooshiui  &  rek- 
lect  that  this  nashun 
haint  founderd  on  A 
monarky  &  is  Jest  as 
much  ftr-  them  that 

them  that  has.  The 
cloait  of  glory  thats 
reddy  made  &  dont 
hav  to  be  paid  fer 
wuntfitthcAmcrikan 
Egle.  Cheers  fer  them 
that  fites  fer  there 
fame  but'  not  a.  gol- 

that  gets  it  fer  ootb> 
In. 
HlK 


Judge,   1900 


WHEN  'HIRAM  PENNICK'  WAS  MERELY  COMIC.  But  I  also  used 
this  character,  I  recall  with  shame  now,  in  aiding  the  widespread  campaign 
of  ridicule  which  killed  off  the  Populist  party. 

allies.  Still  a  victim  of  the  old  illusions.  I  had  not  yet  learned 
to  think  my  way  to  a  clear  understanding  of  realities.  Now 
and  then  some  of  nay  bourgeois  beliefs  had  been  shaken  a 
bit  by  some  ironic  episode  in  the  human  struggle,  or  by  some 
speech  like  that  of  Keir  Hardie  in  Denver,  but  I  clung  to  my 
inherited  beliefs. 

That  year  I  served  the  cause  by  writing  and  illustrating  a 
series  of  articles  for  Judge  under  the  general  title  of  "Cam- 


212       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

painin  for  the  Millenum",  which  purported  to  record  the 
travels  and  speeches  of  Hiram  Pennick,  a  Populist  of  a  Don 
Quixote  type,  who  was  shown  touring  the  Mid-West  on  a 
decrepit  horse.  With  my  pictures  were  alleged  letters  in  which 
Mr.  Pennick  reported  his  progress  in  badly  spelled  words  to 
the  editor  of  Judge. 

He  was  for  Free  Silver  and  against  Imperialism  and  the 
Trusts.  In  one  speech  he  said:  "We  must  bust  the  chanes  that 
fasens  us  to  the  charyot,  thats  all  made  out  of  gold,  when  one 
wheel  ort  to  be  made  out  of  silver/*  In  another  he  made  this 
prediction:  "When  the  smoke  of  battle  is  cleared  away  weel 
see  the  octipust  (the  Trusts)  thets  been  chewin  at  the 
nashun's  vitals  ded  as  a  herrin  while  over  the  hull  scene  the 
flag  of  Populism  is  floatin  in  a  breez  of  victry/' 

Mr*  Pennick  was  an  elderly  farmer.  I  showed  him  being 
met  by  committees  of  faithful  party  members,  making 
speeches  on  street  corners  and  in  halls,  and  enlisting  recruits 
after  which  the  motley  procession  would  move  on  to  the  next 
town.  Thus  I  helped  to  kill  off  Populism  by  poking  fun  at  it. 

Other  cartoonists  and  writers  used  the  slapstick  on  "Sock- 
less  Jerry"  Simpson,  Representative  from  Kansas,  who  was 
reputed  to  be  eccentric  in  his  footwear,  and  journalistic  winds 
fanned  the  whiskers  of  Senator  Peffer  of  Kansas,  also  a  Popu- 
list. And  again  the  sandbag  and  bludgeon  were  used  against 
Bryan.  I  had  heard  him  shout:  "You  must  not  put  the  dollar 
above  the  man!"  and  I  was  beginning  to  feel  that  here 
was  something  to  think  about,  even  though  I  was  helping 
McKinley  and  the  big-money  Republicans. 


Chapter   22 
I  BECOME  AWARE  OF  THE  CLASS  STRUGGLE 

IN  December  that  year  my  brother  returned  to  New  York 
to  be  married  on  New  Year's  Eve  and  to  have  a  brief 

honeymoon.  His  bride  was  Adelaide  Oehler,  whose  father 
had  a  shoe  store  at  Sixth  Avenue  and  Eighteenth  Street.  I 
felt  that  they  were  well  matched.  Anyway  Adelaide  was  good 
to  look  at. 

Both  were  evidently  happy,  and  they  became  anxious 
about  my  lone  state  of  existence.  Several  close  friends,  too, 
had  been  worrying  about  that.  They  seemed  to  think  it 
wasn't  right  for  Elizabeth  and  myself  to  remain  apart.  In- 
deed I  suddenly  found  myself  the  center  of  a  private  domestic 
relations  conference,  in  which  I  was  urged  to  rejoin  my  wife 
and  "try  it  again/'  Adelaide,  Will,  and  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Win- 
field  Scott  Moody  held  that  our  separation  was  simply  due 
to  some  lack  of  understanding  which  could  be  righted  if  both 
of  us  would  show  a  give-and-take  spirit. 

They  all  painted  a  rosy  picture  of  possibilities.  At  first 
I  was  skeptical,  but  in  the  face  of  their  well-meaning  concern 
I  didn't  want  to  be  stubborn.  They  offered  to  go  and  talk 
with  Elizabeth,  and  endeavor  to  smooth  the  way  for  a  recon- 
ciliation; afterward  I  suspected  that  the  Moodys  had  already 
talked  with  her.  Anyhow,  I  agreed;  I  let  myself  be  optimistic, 
and  I  was  ready  to  meet  Elizabeth  half-way.  As  a  result  of 
all  this  we  were  reconciled  (sentimentally  at  least)  to  the 
obligations  of  the  marriage  certificate.  Then  we  moved  into 
a  studio  apartment  on  West  Twenty-first  Street. 

At  the  time  of  our  reunion  we  had  not  discussed  nor  even 
admitted  the  existence  of  any  differences  between  us.  We 
simply  started  all  over  again,  with  a, sincere  effort  on  both 
sides  to  avoid  serious  misunderstandings.  Elizabeth  was 
thoughtful  of  my  sensibilities,  and  I  of  hers,  and  I  got  along 
>vell  with  my  work. 

213 


214       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

When  warm  weather  came  we  went  to  Leonia,  New  Jer- 
sey, where  we  found  a  vacant  barn  to  live  in,  within  shouting 
distance  of  Peter  Newell's  home.  New  and  dry  and  clean, 
this  barn  made  a  good  dwelling  for  us*  We  shared  it  with 
Alfred  Z.  Baker  (an  artist  whom  I  had  known  in  Paris)  and 
his  wife.  Baker  was  then  contributing  quaint  animal  draw- 
ings, signed  B.B.,  to  Pack. 

Elizabeth  and  Mrs.  Baker  occupied  themselves  by  mak- 
ing the  barn  ready  for  housekeeping  and  decorating  it  with 
curtains  and  other  feminine  essentials.  Baker  and  I  had  studios 
in  New  York  and  went  back  and  forth  daily.  In  the  eve- 
nings we  would  often  assemble  in  Newell's  house,  talk  about 
our  work,  grow  reminiscent  over  old  days,  quote  poetry, 
have  some  music,  and  then  back  to  the  barn. 

Peter  Newell  was  one  of  my  favorite  interpreters  of  the 
homely  characters  of  American  life — Negroes,  farmers,  and 
various  types  of  simple  folk.  He  also  did  many  drawings  of 
a  curiously  imaginative  flavor  and  a  quaint  humor.  His  pic- 
tures were  drawn  for  the  Harper  publications.  A  likeable, 
religious,  homey  fellow  from  Illinois.  In  some  Valhalla  get- 
together  of  artists,  I  want  to  see  that  tall,  lanky  man  smile 
at  me  and  say:  "Welcome,  Art!  .  .  .  As  we  were  saying — " 

After  the  summer  near  Leonia,  we  moved  into  an  apart- 
ment house  called  the  Corona,  at  Ninety-Ninth  Street  and 
Riverside  Drive.  Here  I  settled  down  to  work  with  a  fairly 
free  mind.  After  all,  I  thought,  maybe  I'm  adjusting  myself 
to  married  life.  But  this  new  equilibrium  was  upset  when 
Elizabeth  announced  that  she  was  going  to  have  a  child.  She 
had  known  it  for  some  time,  and  had  been  hesitant  about 
telling  me. 

I  tried  to  seem  cheerful — but  I  wasn't.  All  the  old  feel- 
ing of  being  caught  in  a  net  came  back.  Of  course  I  couldn't 
quarrel  with  Elizabeth  about  her  condition,  nor  blame  her. 
Thinking  about  the  whole  situation,  in  the  streets  or  lying 
awake  in  the  dark  at  night,  I  knew  that  any  friend  would 
say  that  I  had  gone  into  marriage  with  my  eyes  open;  and 
that  it  was  customary  for  married  people  to  have  children. 
But  I  was  more  and  more  unhappy  (and  not  proud  as  any 
normal  man  should  be) ,  as  the  date  for  Elizabeth's  confine- 
ment approached. 

The  cry  of  a  new-born  child!   *   .   .  Yesterday  there  were 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       215. 

two  of  us — now  there  are  three.  What  a  thought  to  have 
pounding  against  the  walls  of  my  mind!  In  Riverside  Park 
I  pushed  a  baby  carriage — and  I  really  liked  the  baby,  whom 
we  had  named  North.  I  like  all  babies — to  look  at,  but  not 
to  push.  And  yet  the  experience  was  a  good  thing.  Every 
man  ought  to  go  through  with  the  duty  of  pushing  a  baby 
carriage  for  one^  summer  at  least.  This  new  son  of  mine  was 
a  good-natured  child,  who  in  due  time  cooed  at  the  passing 
steamers  on  the  Hudson  and  was  not  afraid  of  dogs.  But  the 
sight  of  the  steamers  made  me  moody.  They  were  all  going 
somewhere,  up  the  river  to  Albany  or  southward  down  the 
coast,  and  I  was  chained  here  to  one  place.  Would  I  ever  get 
a  chance  to  travel  again?  To  escape  from  such  thoughts  I 
would  go  back  to  my  drawing  board  and  plunge  into  the 
making  of  pictures. 

And  now  I  found  a  new  means  of  escape — lectures  and 
libraries.  Both  enabled  me  to  get  away  for  a  little  while  from 
my  discontented  thoughts  because  of  loss  of  freedom  through 
wedlock.  Lately  I  realized  anew  that  my  education  was  inade- 
quate. So  many  questions  came  up  that  I  couldn't  answer, 
and  I  needed  to  fortify  myself  with  such  answers.  By  listen- 
ing to  the  lectures  and  reading  a  wide  variety  of  books  I 
nursed  the  seed  which  had  been  planted  in  my  mind  by  Keir 
Har die's  speech  in  Denver,  and  by  Myron  Reed's  discussions 
of  the  human  struggle  there. 

England  was  fighting  the  Boers,  and  my  sympathies  were 
with  the  weaker  nation  of  bearded  Dutchmen  who  were  put- 
ting up  such  a  courageous  fight  to  preserve  their  independence. 

Speakers  for  the  Social  Democratic  party  provided  me 
with  much  food  for  thought.  They  attacked  the  whole  capi- 
talistic system,  showed  how  its  different  units  combined  to 
exploit  the  producing  masses  to  the  nth  degree,  and  how  the 
press  distorted  or  suppressed  news  to  protect  this  system,  of 
which  it  was  a  part.  Being  loyal  to  the  press,  my  first  reac- 
tion to  this  denunciation  was  one  of  resentment,  though  I  had 
to  concede  that  some  of  the  charges  were  true. 

I  remembered  hearing  in  Chicago,  in  talks  among  the 
reporters,  of  department  store  elevator  accidents  in  which 
people  were  killed,  and  not  a  paper  printed  a  line  about  it. 
I  recalled  instances  of  news  stories  which  I  knew  were  far 
from  the  truth,  written  to  order  to  carry  out  a  newspaper's 


216      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

policy.  How  much  justification,  if  any,  was  there  for  the 
Inter-Oceans  attacks  on  Altgeld,  in  which  I  had  played  an 
active  part?  Altgeld's  administration  as  Governor  had  been 
creditable  in  many  ways,  I  could  see  now;  he  had  taken  the 
side  of  labor,  and  had  achieved  numerous  reforms. 

It  must  have  been  about  this  time  that  I  first  heard  Eugene 
Debs  speak.  He  was  facing  an  audience  which  packed  the 
Academy  of  Music.  On  that  same  stage  Henry  Ward  Beecher 
had  stood  and  upheld  the  cause  of  the  Democratic  party  in  a 
tense  campaign.  Some  one  interrupted  with  a  rude  question: 
"How  about  Cleveland  and  free  love?"  This  of  course  re- 
ferred to  the  affair  of  the  candidate  for  the  Presidency  with 
Maria  Halpin.  And  Beecher  answered:  "Let  him  who  is 
without  sin  cast  the  first  stone/' 

I  had  been  greatly  interested  in  seeing  Debs,  for  I  had 
read  and  been  told  much  about  him — of  his  fearless  leader- 
ship in  the  railroad  strike  of  1894,  his  term  in  jail  ^ as  a 
consequence,  and  his  fighting  spirit.  But  I  was  disappointed 
that  night — not  by  what  he  said,  but  by  his  manner.  I 
thought  him  too  much  like  a  school-boy  elocutionist. 

In  after  years,  however,  I  attended  several  mass-meetings 
at  which  Debs  was  the  main  speaker,  and  he  who  had  once 
been  amateurish  had  become  a  real  tribune  of  the  people  and 
a  master  of  chastisement  of  the  profit  pharisees.  No  question 
about  it — an  inspiring  man  because  he  was  himself  inspired. 
He  was  emotional,  and  used  the  logic  of  understanding  born 
of  long  experience  with  workers.  When  one  heard  him  voice 
a  natural  sympathy  for  the  enslaved,  one  felt  that  here  was 
a  champion  who  would  go  to  the  stake  rather  than  sacrifice 
his  own  beliefs. 

Listening  to  lectures  on  the  class  struggle  (after  I  discov- 
ered that  such  a  struggle  had  been  going  on  for  ages) ,  I  found 
that  I  had  a  great  deal  in  common  with  the  everyday  work- 
ers. In  other  years  I  had  felt  that  as  a  newspaper  artist  I 
was  a  member  of  a  profession  which  enjoyed  important  privi- 
leges and  in  which  a  man  might  possibly  rise  to  fame  and 
fortune.  But  I  saw  now  that  everyone  who  did  productive 
work  of  any  kind  was  at  the  mercy  of  those  who  employed 
him*  They  could  make  or  break  him  whenever  they  so  willed. 
...  I  was  living  in  a  world  morally  and  spiritually  dis- 
eased, and  I  was  learning  some  of  the  reasons  why. 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       217 

When  McKinley  was  shot  down  by  Leon  Czolgosz  in 
September,  1901,  and  important  newspapers  suspected  an 
Anarchist  conspiracy,  I  found  myself  analyzing  their  asser- 
tions. The  police  rounded  up  a  lot  of  Anarchists  with  a  great 
deal  of  publicity,  but  found  no  evidence  of  such  a  plot.  Mean- 
while the  New  York  World  laid  the  blame  for  the  assassina- 
tion directly  to  William  Randolph  Hearst  because  of  the 
editorial  attacks  in  his  papers  on  McKinley.  One  of  those 
editorials  said  that  "if  bad  institutions  and  bad  men  can  be 
got  rid  of  only  by  killing,  then  the  killing  must  be  done/'  * 

But  I  believed  then,  and  time  has  strengthened  my  belief, 
that  accusing  individuals  of  being  accessories  to,  or  instigators 
of,  murder  because  they  wrote  or  said  something  which  might 
have  planted  homicidal  thoughts  in  a  culprit's  mind  was 
stretching  legality  to  the  last  degree  of  absurdity.  And  law 
is  absurd  enough  without  dragging  in  "suspicious"  influences. 
Many  a  man  and  woman  has  been  accused  of  being  an  ac- 
cessory before  the  fact  because  he  or  she  rented  a  room  to  a 
murderer,  or  was  seen  talking  with  him  three  weeks  before 
the  deed.  The  logical  end  of  such  net-work  finesse  in  get- 
ting evidence  would  be  to  arrest  the  slayer's  father  and  mother 
who  brought  him  into  the  world  and  indict  them  as  accom- 
plices. 

Joseph  Pulitzer  was  "wild  and  impetuous"  in  his  youth, 
and  was  assailed  by  newspaper  foes  as  holding  "anarchistic 
beliefs"*  Nor  was  he  tame  in  attacking  public  men.  There 
was  not  much  sweetness  and  light  in  his  thoughts  when  he 
felt  it  necessary  to  condemn  men  in  positions  of  high  responsi- 
bility. Turn,  for  instance,  to  an  editorial  in  the  World  for 
September  3,  1913.  It  was  about  that  time  that  the  directors 
of  the  New  York,  New  Haven,  and  Hartford  Railroad  had 
been  through  a  Congressional  investigation,  and  President 
Charles  S.  Mellen  of  the  New  Haven  and  the  Rockefeller- 
Morgan  interests,  who  controlled  the  stock,  were  accused  as 
the  arch-criminals  who  had  got  away  with  the  loot  and  had 
ruined  thousands  of  stockholders.  And  to  make  matters  worse 
there  was  a  frightful  wreck  in  New  Haven,  the  White  Moun- 
tain express  ploughing  through  a  Bar  Harbor  train  and  killing 
and  injuring  many  passengers.  The  World  editorial  said: 

*  New  York  Journal,  April  10,  1901. 


218       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

4  'No  Rockefeller  is  ever  killed  in  any  of  the  wrecks  of  the  New 
Haven  Railroad. 

"No  Morgan  is  ever  killed. 

"No  director  is  ever  killed. 

"None  of  the  bankers  who  have  bled  the  system  white  is  ever 
killed.  .  .  . 

"This  is  Wall  Street's  wreck,  and  the  blood  of  the  victims  is 
on  the  hands  of  the  highly  respectable  financiers  who  for  their 
own  profit  have  converted  a  great  railroad  system  into  a  shambles/' 

But  no  maimed  victim  of  that  wreck  who  may  have  read 
the  World  editorial  took  a  pot  shot  at  any  one  of  the  highly 
respectable  men  mentioned. 

With  like  indignation  Pulitzer  lashed  out  at  John  D. 
Rockefeller  Jr.  after  the  Ludlow  massacre  in  Colorado, 
when  the  miners  employed  by  the  Colorado  Fuel  and  Iron 
Company  were  on  strike.  On  April  23,  1914,  the  World  said: 

"Mr.  Rockefeller  recently  testified  that  he  was  willing  to  sink 
his  entire  investment  in  Colorado  rather  than  yield  to  the  demand 
of  his  employees  that  they  be  permitted  to  organize. 

"He  has  not  sunk  and  he  does  not  intend  to  sink  his  entire 
investment,  but  he  has  debauched  an  American  commonwealth, 
and  the  blood  of  women  and  children  is  on  the  hands  of  his  bar- 
barous agents,  private  and  public/' 

In  quoting  these  as  samples  of  the  inflammatory  charac- 
ter of  newspapers,  I  am  merely  pointing  out  the  guilt  of  those 
who  perhaps  thought  themselves  innocent — like  Pulitzer — 
but  there  were  many  editors  who  let  loose  at  times  with 
innuendo  or  sensational  anger  as  they  saw  fit.  No  one  con- 
nected with  the  big  dailies,  however,  so  far  as  I  know,  was 
ever  prosecuted  as  Albert  Parsons  of  the  Alarm  was  in  the 
Haymarket  case  when  some  violent  crime  followed  an  edi- 
torial outburst.  But  the  Alarm  was  a  small  radical  weekly, 
and  not  a  large  daily  upholding  the  capitalist  system. 

Perhaps  no  editor  has  been  so  guilty  of  stirring  up  the 
baser  passions  of  human  beings  as  Hearst.  Often  in  his  early 
years  as  an  editor  and  publisher,  he  did  some  political  arous- 
ings  on  the  side  of  the  workers.  It  helped  him  get  circulation. 
Gradually,  however,  he  evolved  a  policy  which  prevailed 
over  all  liberal  doctrines  that  he  might  advocate — devoting 
his  publications  to  the  will  of  the  big  moneyed  interests  to 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       219 

have  and  to  retain  everything  that  they  possessed  and  to 
insure  their  hopes  of  getting  more  through  their  "superior 
intelligence/' 

But  to  hold  him  responsible  for  the  killing  of  McKinley 
because  of  a  bitter  editorial,  a  poem,  and  Frederick  Opper's 
cartoons  of  "Willie  and  his  Papa"  (Willie  being  the  Presi- 
dent and  Papa  being  Mark  Hanna,  both  favorites  of  the  big, 
overfed  trusts)  was  far-fetched. 

Altgeld  died  in  Joliet,  Illinois,  after  collapsing  at  a  pro- 
Boer  mass  meeting,  and  50,000  people  moved  sadly  past  his 
casket  in  the  Chicago  public  library;  many  of  those  thou- 
sands had  stood  for  hours  in  the  rain  waiting  to  do  him 
honor.  The  changed  tone  of  the  press  toward  this  man  was 
amazing;  newspapers  which  had  been  the  most  inimical  to 
him  now  lauded  his  deeds  without  indicating  that  they  had 
reversed  themselves.  Among  his  former  enemies  which  now 
spoke  well  of  him  were  Harper's  Weekly  and  the  Nation.  The 
latter  at  that  time  had  not  yet  come  into  liberal  hands.  This 
was  in  1902. 

There  was  an  Altgeld  memorial  meeting  in  Cooper 
Union,  the  place  being  packed  to  the  doors.  Many  notables, 
of  all  shades  of  political  opinion,  paid  tribute.  Emphasizing 
the  Haymarket  case  as  the  high  light  in  his  career,  the 
speakers  lauded  the  courage  of  the  little  man  who  had  dared 
to  antagonize  the  press  and  the  courts  and  to  do  all  that  lay 
within  his  power  to  correct  a  terrible  wrong. 

Many  well-meaning  persons  who  had  thought  the  Chi- 
cago Anarchists  guilty  or  who,  like  myself,  had  wavered  in 
their  attitude  toward  the  accused  men,  now  found  occasion 
to  read — or  re-read — Altgeld's  Reasons  for  Pardoning 
Fietden,  Neebe,  and  Schwab.  This  message  was  now  avail- 
able in  most  big  libraries,  in  pamphlet  form.  I  had  read  it, 
in  substance  at  least,  at  the  time  of  the  pardons,  but  it  was 
overshadowed  then  by  the  prejudiced  interpretations  of  hos- 
tile newspapers. 

Considering  it  in  1902  in  a  calm  environment,  I  could  see 
the  real  values  in  Altgeld*  s  presentation  of  the  Haymarket 
affair.  He  showed,  with  ample  documentation,  that  the  eight 
defendants  were  convicted  by  a  packed  jury;  that  they  were 
never  proven  guilty  of  the  crime  charged  (conspiracy  to  com- 


220      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

mit  murder)  ;  that  no  evidence  had  ever  been  produced  to 
show  who  threw  the  bomb,  and  that  there  was  no  proof  that 
the  defendants  had  had  any  connection  with  that  crime. 

The  Governor  also  pointed  out  that  at  the  close  of  the 
prosecution's  evidence,  Stated  Attorney  Grinnell  admitted 
to  Mayor  Harrison  that  he  did  not  think  he  had  a  case  against 
Neebe,  but  that  his  associates  objected  to  dismissing  him 
because  it  might  influence  the  jury  in  favor  of  the  other  de- 
fendants; and  that  all  the  circumstances  indicated  that  the 
throwing  of  the  bomb  was  an  act  of  some  unknown  person 
who  was  taking  his  revenge  against  the  police  for  their  wan- 
ton clubbing  and  killing  of  workers. 

Altgeld  brought  out  the  point  that  this  jury  was  not 
chosen  in  the  usual  manner,  by  drawing  names  out  of  a  box, 
and  thus  getting  a  selection  from  the  general  voting  public. 
Instead  Judge  Gary  had  appointed  a  special  bailiff  to  go 
out  and  summon  any  men  he  liked.  And  a  prominent  busi- 
ness man  who  was  summoned  attested  that  this  bailiff  said 
to  him,  in  the  presence  of  others:  "I  am  managing  this  case, 
and  know  what  I  am  about.  These  fellows  are  going  to  be 
hanged  as  certain  as  death,  I  am  calling  such  men  as  the 
defendants  will  have  to  challenge  peremptorily  and  waste 
their  time  and  challenges.  Then  they  will  have  to  take  such 
men  as  the  prosecution  wants/' 

The  court  records,  scanned  by  Altgeld,  showed  that  many 
of  the  talesmen  said  they  had  been  pointed  out  to  the  bailiff 
by  their  employers,  to  be  called  as  jurors.  Many  of  them 
declared  they  believed  the  defendants  guilty,  then  each  was 
examined  by  Judge  Gary  "in  a  manner  to  force  him  to  say 
that  he  would  try  the  case  fairly".  Even  a  man  related  to  one 
of  the  policemen  killed  by  the  bomb  was  passed  by  the  judge 
as  competent.  Several  of  the  jurors  who  were  eventually 
chosen  to  serve,  after  the  defense  had  exhausted  its  challenges, 
"stated  candidly  that  they  were  so  prejudiced  that  they  could 
not  try  the  case  fairly/'  Altgeld  found,  "but  each,  when 
examined  by  the  court,  was  finally  induced  to  say  that  he 
believed  he  could  try  the  case  fairly  upon  the  evidence/' 

Documents  cited  by  Altgeld  included  the  interview  with 
former  Police  Chief  Ebersold  published  in  the  Chicago  Daily 
News  in  1889  which  told  of  Captain  Schaack's  desire  "to 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       221 

keep  things  stirring",  of  his  wanting  "bombs  to  be  found 
here,  there,  all  around,  everywhere/* 

"It  is  further  shown  here/'  the  Governor  stated,  "that 
much  of  the  evidence  given  at  the  trial  was  a  pure  fabrication; 
that  some  of  the  prominent  police  officials  .  .  .  not  only  ter- 
rorized ignorant  men  by  ...  threatening  them  with  torture 
if  they  refused  to  swear  to  anything  desired,  but  that  they 
offered  money  and  employment  to  those  who  would  consent 
to  do  this/' 

Reading  and  weighing  all  this,  and  recalling  what  Altgeld 
suffered,  I  felt  a  deep  sense  of  shame  for  my  part  in  the  news- 
paper assaults  upon  him.  I  took  a  new  view  now  of  his  oppo- 
sition to  Cleveland's  sending  federal  troops  into^Chicago  in 
the  1894  railroad  strike,  when  neither  the  mayor  nor  sheriff 
had  asked  for  soldiers.  On  the  Inter-Ocean  I  had  been  in- 
fected by  the  widespread  indignation  against  the  strikers  for 
"interfering  with  the  United  States  mails"  when  they  pre- 
vented trains  from  running.  That  had  seemed  sacrilege  then. 
But,  I  asked  myself  now,  was  there  anything  more  criminal 
in  stopping  the  mails  than  in  an  employer  cutting  wages 
and  shutting  off  the  milk  supply  for  a  worker's  children? 

And  with  this  feeling,  I  poised  in  my  mind  some  other 
questions  as  to  the  soundness  of  beliefs  I  had  long  held,  based 
upon  copy-book  maxims  drilled  into  one  generation  of 
American  children  after  another:  "Merit  wins  .  .  .  Sur- 
vival of  the  fittest  .  .  .  You  can't  change  human  nature 
.  .  .  The  best  people  .  .  .  The  poor  you  have  with  you 
always  *  .  ."  and  the  whole  long  line  of  rubber-stamp 
moral  precepts*  What  were  these  but  glittering  emblems  set 
up  by  the  moneyed  class  to  serve  its  own  purposes?  Born 
bourgeois,  my  brain  had  been  filled  from  infancy  with  the 
nonsense  of  super-patriotism,  with  the  lily-white  virtues  of 
imperialism  added  in  due  time.  I  had  harbored  these  Jfalse 
values  because  I  didn't  know  any  better.  I  had  been  a  drifter, 
innocent  and  sheep-minded  long  enough. 

I  was  to  get  more  light  on  the  Haymarket  case  in  later 
years  from  Charles  Edward  Russell,  who  covered  the  execu- 
tion of  Parsons  and  his  comrades  for  the  New  York  World, 
and  who  subsequently  spent  several  months  on  an  assignment 
from  that  paper  investigating  to  see  if  he  could  find  any 
tangible  evidence  of  the  purported  dynamite  plots. 


222      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

"The  truth  is,"  Russell  wrote  in  summing  up  the  results 
of  his  work,  "that  Chicago  was  at  no  time  in  more  danger 
of  an  Anarchist  uprising,  in  more  danger  of  an  outbreak  by 
violence,  in  more  danger  of  destruction  by  dynamite,  than 
any  other  American  city  was  then  and  is  now.  .  ;  *  Slowly 
the  conclusion  was  forced  upon  me  that  the  idea  of  an 
Anarchist  conspiracy  was  purely  a  dream/' 

Altgeld  has  been  widely  quoted  as  saying,  when  he  par- 
doned the  Anarchists,  that  it  would  spell  his  political  death. 
Yet  when  he  died  in  1902,  the  Inter-Ocean,  which  had  fought 
him  so  ferociously  (now  no  longer  under  Kohlsaat  control) , 
said  that  "he  left  the  Governor's  office  the  most  influential 
Democrat  in  the  West,  and  with  his  bitterest  opponents  con- 
ceding his  personal  honesty  and  his  political  strength/'  And 
Kohlsaat,  in  his  memoirs,  published  in  1921,  said  that  Alt- 
geld  was  the  dominant  figure  at  the  1 896  national  Democratic 
convention,  and  that  if  he  had  not  been  foreign-born  and 
thus  ineligible  for  the  Presidency,  he  would  in  all  probability 
have  been  the  nominee. 

Now  that  I  was  awakening  to  the  realities  of  the  eco- 
nomic struggle,  I  realized  that  I  could  no  longer  conscien- 
tiously deal  with  certain  subjects  in  the  way  that  editors 
wanted  them  handled.  I  had  ideas  for  pictorial  attacks  on 
institutions  hooked  up  with  the  money  power,  but  there  was 
no  sale  for  these.  The  few  papers  which  dared  strike  at  the 
system  were  small  and  had  no  money  to  pay  for  my  prod- 
uct* And  I  had  to  live  and  support  a  family. 

Where  was  I  headed?  I  didn't  quite  know.  I  had  talent, 
facility,  and  a  desire  to  produce — but  steadily  my  market 
was  diminishing.  I  fell  back  on  illustrated  jokes,  and  even 
here  struck  a  snag.  Tramps  were  no  longer  so  funny  to  me 
as  they  had  been.  And  my  attitude  toward  the  farmer  had 
changed — I  no  longer  wanted  to  depict  him  as  a  mere  comic 
character.  His  life  was  all  too  often  bound  up  with  tragedy. 
The  Populists  had  been  right  in  many  of  the  things  they  had 
said  about  the  farmer's  plight. 

To  be  sure,  my  farmers  of  the  Hiram  Pennick  series  were 
not  the  straw-chewing  by-heck  type  made  familiar  by  the 
caricaturist  Zim,  but  came  from  my  sketch-books.  They  were 
the  folks  that  I  was  raised  among  out  in  the  Middle  West, 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       223 

but  it  was  ridicule  none  the  less  of  men  who  tilled  the  soil 
around  Monroe,  and  in  other  farm  sections  I  had  visited. 
I  had  had  the  temerity  to  have  Hiram  Pennick  date  one  of 
his  Campainin  for  the  Millenum  letters  from  Oneco  town- 
ship in  Illinois,  where  I  was  born. 

The  circulation  of  Judge  in  this  Presidential  campaign 
was  enormous — it  penetrated  to  all  parts  of  the  country.  If 
I  should  go  home  again,  I  reflected,  and  should  meet  any  of 
the  farmers  there,  I  would  have  to  explain  that  it  was  all 
done  in  fun;  but  would  any  of  them  believe  that?  I  wrote 
a  letter  to  a  friend  in  Wisconsin,  enclosing  a  sketch  of  my- 
self arriving  home  and  being  pursued  by  farmers  with  pitch- 
forks ready  to  lunge  at  me  while  I  tried  to  explain. 

Letters  and  news  clippings  sent  by  my  father  told  of  the 
campaign  Robert  M.  LaFollette  was  making  to  be  re-elected 
as  Governor  of  Wisconsin.  That  gave  me  an  inspiration.  I 
was  a  bit  tired  of  New  York,  and  needed  a  change  in  order 
to  take  new  reckonings  and  re-shape  the  course  of  my  work- 
ing life. 

LaFollette' s  friend  Isaac  Stephenson  had  established  the 
Milwaukee  Free  Press  chiefly,  if  my  memory  is  correct,  to 
back  the  Governor's  political  program.  I  wrote  volunteering 
my  services  as  a  cartoonist  during  the  critical  weeks  of  the 
contest,  asking  only  that  my  railroad  fare  both  ways  be  paid. 
This  offer  was  accepted,  and  I  immediately  left  New  York 
and  got  into  the  fight.  After  a  conference  on  strategy  with 
the  Free  Press  editors,  I  went  on  to  Monroe  to  visit  with  my 
folks  and  sent  my  cartoons  by  mail. 

My  appearance  had  an  effect  upon  the  enemy  which 
amused  me  greatly.  The  Milwaukee  Sentinel,  principal 
mouthpiece  for  the  "Stalwart  Republicans",  a  rival  faction 
in  LaFollette's  own  party,  published  a  long  editorial  about 
"the  desperate  situation"  of  the  LaFollette  following  indi- 
cated when  the  campaign  committee  "had  to  hire  a  high- 
priced  cartoonist  to  help."  But  evidently  it  was  his  foes  that 
were  desperate,  judging  by  the  amount  of  abuse  hurled  at 
him,  especially  by  the  Stalwart  crowd. 

To  that  effort  in  LaFollette's  behalf  I  gave  everything 
I  had.  I  believed  that  he  represented  the  honest  Americanism 
which  flowed  from  the  pioneers.  He  was  for  the  farmers, 


224       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

whether  Swedes,  German,  Swiss,  Irish,  or  what;  and  for  the 
industrial  workers,  native  and  foreign-born  alike.  His  record 
was  replete  with  activity  in  the  interests  of  both.  As  District 
Attorney,  as  Representative  in  Congress,  and  as  Governor, 
he  had  served  intelligently  and  conscientiously. 

Speaking  at  county  fairs,  chautauquas,  and  other  gather- 
ings all  over  the  state,  he  showed  up  the  rottenness  in  his 
own  party,  exposed  appalling  inequalities  in  the  Wisconsin 
taxing  system,  and  the  vital  importance  of  public  supervision 
of  railroad  rates.  And  now  he  won  re-election  as  he  had 
won  all  previous  contests  for  public  office.  All  the  mud- 
slinging  had  failed  to  stop  him. 


Chapter  23 
ANOTHER  CHILD  AND  NEW  WORRIES 

MY  wife  and  I  both  stemmed  from  healthy  stock.  And 
yet  I  always  had  foolish  misgivings  that  our  chil- 
dren might  be  born  with  some  kind  of  a  handicap — 
blindness,  or  a  lesser  affliction*  Out  west  they  used  to  tell  a 
lot  of  stories  about  Abraham  Lincoln,  a  good  many  of  them 
raw,  of  the  variety  known  as  "men's  stories/'  Some  of  them 
were  undoubtedly  inventions.  But  I  recall  one  that  to  me 
seemed  true  to  his  quaint  humor  and  imagination.  When  he 
had  a  law  office  in  Springfield  and  his  wife  was  expecting 
their  first  baby,  Abe  went  over  to  his  home  to  be  near  during 
the  event.  On  his  way  back  to  the  office,  a  friend  who  had 
heard  the  news  hailed  him  and  asked  for  more  information, 
and  Abe  answered: 

"It's  a  fine  boy.  ...  I  was  afraid  it  might  have  one 
of  my  long  legs  and  one  of  Mary's  short  ones.  But  it's  all 
right/' 

Another  baby  was  scheduled  to  arrive  late  in  1904,  and 
Elizabeth's  sister  Kate  came  on  from  Wisconsin  to  live  with 
us  and  help  take  care  of  our  growing  family.  We  needed 
more  room,  and  moved  into  a  larger  apartment  (five  rooms 
instead  of  four)  at  936  West  End  Avenue,  near  where  Broad- 
way joins  that  thoroughfare  around  107th  Street. 

Our  second  son,  Donald,  was  born  in  December.  Again 
Elizabeth  was  pleased,  saying:  "Now  North  will  have  a  play- 
mate/' And  Kate  was  elated.  To  me  this  addition  to  the 
household  spelled  another  problem,  although  I  was  glad  to 
see  such  a  fine  body  of  a  boy.  This  meant  being  even  more 
obligated  to  tread  a  path  of  duty.  Friends  congratulated 
me,  and  spoke  of  the  "proud  father",  making  jokes  more 
or  less  humorous,  mostly  less.  Of  course  I  responded  with  a 
synthetic  smile,  and  handed  out  the  customary  cigars.  How 
many  men  who  have  not  discovered  how  to  make  a  con- 
tinuously good  income  are  really  proud  fathers?  Yet  some- 

225 


226       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

how,  as  the  months  went  on,  I  managed  to  pay  rent  and 
grocery  bills,  although  more  of  my  drawings  had  lately  been 
rejected  than  in  the  past. 

Admittedly  Don  was  a  handsome  and  inspired  looking 
infant.  (My  portrait  of  a  youngster  often  reproduced  with 
the  caption,  "Every  child  is  a  genius  until  forced  to  surrender 
to  civilization/*  is  Don  at  the  age  of  three.)  But  that  didn't 
lessen  my  gloomy  thoughts. 

I  worked  harder  than  ever  now,  and  increased  my  efforts 
to  sell  pictures.  Constantly,  too,  I  was  reading  history  and 
economics,  to  improve  my  understanding  of  causes  behind  the 
human  struggle.  No  longer  could  any  defender  of  the  prevail- 
ing system  tell  me  that  there  were  no  social  classes  in  this 
country. 

One  evening  I  had  been  reading  in  the  Cooper  Union 
library.  On  my  way  out  I  passed  a  large  room  off  the  main 
hallway,  from  which  I  heard  the  voice  of  some  one  making 
a  speech.  I  stopped  to  listen.  Certain  sentences  in  the  declama- 
tion interested  me,  and  I  quietly  edged  into  the  room.  Here 
were  young  men  of  varied  races  and  many  nationalities  learn- 
ing to  talk  in  the  English  language  on  the  issues  of  the  hour. 
The  instructor  would  sum  up  the  merits  and  defects  of  the 
speakers  as  to  good  English,  construction,  delivery,  and  all 
that  makes  for  effective  speaking  in  public. 

I  decided  then  and  there  to  become  a  member  of  that  free 
night- class  in  parliamentary  law,  oratory,  and  debate  in  this 
institution  founded  by  Peter  Cooper.  I  had  read  about  this 
great  American  philanthropist  who  had  "queer"  ideas  of  re- 
forming our  national  currency  and  who  was  one  of  the  first 
of  the  Greenbackers.  Whether  he  was  right  on  the  money 
question  I  do  not  know.  But  his  idea  of  free  education  for 
all  who  wanted  it  seemed  sensible  to  me.  And  today  I  would 
have  less  excuse  for  my  attacks  on  the  educational  system 
if  colleges  were  free  and  democratically  administered. 

For  a  long  time  I  had  felt  the  need  of  learning  to  think 
and  speak  on  my  feet.  When  I  drew  a  cartoon  on  some  con- 
troversial theme,  and  an  editor  rejected  it  and  said  it  was 
illogical,  I  was  usually  unable  to  argue  against  the  objections. 
But  Cooper  Union,  I  was  certain,  would  show  me  how  to 
defend  my  point  of  view* 


w 
^ 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       227 

Some  of  the  sessions  on  debate  nights  brought  me  great 
illumination,  stirred  me  deep  within,  made  clear  what  was 
valid  evidence  in  support  of  contentions  on  one  side  or  the 
other  of  a  vital  question.  My  early  efforts  at  argument  in 
class  were  awkward,  but  I  persisted.  Soon  I  realized  that 
an  essential  thing  in  debate  was  preparation.  Often  the  con- 
tests on  the  floor  had  the  aspects  of  a  battle — each  con- 
testant determined  to  win.  Many  times  our  instructor  had  to 
pound  with  the  gavel  and  say:  "Come  now,  you  are  getting 
angry.  Anger  will  defeat  you/' 

And  as  I  went  along  with  my  reading  and  debating  I 
became  increasingly  conscious  of  widespread  social  injustice. 
All  the  veils  of  illusion  were  being  stripped  away  from  the 
thing  called  civilization,  and  I  saw  what  a  shameful  tribute 
man.  must  pay  to  her  whom  John  Swinton  called  "the  bitch 
goddess  Success/*  I  had  no  desire  just  to  be  a  fluent  talker 
like  a  lawyer,  politician,  or  salesman.  I,  too,  was  seeking 
success,  but  it  would  have  to  be  of  a  kind  consistent  with  my 
way  of  thinking. 

Throughout  this  course  in  debating  I  would  always  take 
the  side  which  seemed  to  me  right — if  for  no  other  reason 
than  that  I  couldn't  argue  convincingly  on  the  other  side. 
I  was  sure  that  the  Cooper  Union  training  was  going  to  help 
me  at  least  in  ordinary  controversies.  And  I  was  now  coming 
to  the  conclusion  that  I  would  no  longer  draw  cartoons  which 
illustrated  somebody  else's  will.  Henceforth  it  would  be  my 
own* way  of  looking  at  things^right  or  wrong,  I  would 
figure  things  out  for  myself.  If  success  came,  well  and  good; 
but  to  win  at  the  price  of  my  freedom  of  thought — that 
kind  of  success  was  not  for  me.  Though  I  perceived  that 
much  of  life  was  compromise,  in  dealing  with  world  affairs 
or  with  my  own,  I  would  have  to  sink  or  swim,  holding  on 
to  my  own  beliefs  on  questions  of  vital  importance. 

More  and  more  was  I  aware  that  I  was  totally  unfitted 
for  married  life.  I  could  not  adjust  myself  to  the  routine  of 
domesticity.  There  was  a  feeling  always  that  I  was  shut  in — 
that  I  didn't  belong  to  myself.  I  missed  my  old  solitude,  the 
easy-going  way  of  having  my  meals  any  time  I  wanted  to, 
of  going  to  bed  at  any  hour  and  getting  up  when  I  liked — 


228       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

unless  there  was  special  reason  to  arise  early  to  do  some 
drawing  for  which  an  editor  was  waiting.  Day  after  day  this 
kind  of  living  annoyed  me.  Why  must  I  stop  for  lunch  at 
twelve  o'clock  if  I  happened  to  be  right  in  the  swing  of 
an  absorbing  cartoon?  To  be  courteous?  Which  comes  first 
I  kept  asking  myself — dutiful  domesticity,  or  draftsman- 
ship and  dreams? 

In  our  family  relations  I  seldom  protested,  for  1  pre- 
ferred at  all  costs  to  avoid  a  scene.  Outwardly  everything 
was  all  right.  There  was  something  so  ridiculous  in  bicker- 
ing about  the  jarring  trivialities  while  living  together  in  a 
state  that  had  been  blessed,  certified,  stamped  and  sealed  for 
all  time.  I  could  show  anger  over  issues  like  government  and 
religion,  but  not  at  the  pin-pricks  of  everyday  life. 

Yet  these  things  continually  irked  me,  and  left  scars,  and 
I  was  envious  of  artists  who  could  'let  go"  when  their  emo- 
tions got  pent  up,  who  could  raise  hell  if  interrupted  at  their 
work  by  foolish  questions  or  if  blamed  for  something  they 
couldn't  help.  I  even  suppressed  my  whims  (harmless  enough 
I  am  sure) ,  if  I  thought  they  would  upset  the  daily  round  of 
married  life.  But  if  others  felt  their  whims  had  the  right  of 
way  I  made  no  objection.  It  ought  to  be  said  here,  however, 
that  I  was  never  a  victim  of  nagging.  Nevertheless  there  was 
deadly  discord — and  I  had  not  found  the  key  to  harmony. 

What  with  this  continued  repression,  the  struggle  to  make 
both  ends  meet,  and  the  feeling  that  the  freedom  I  knew  as  a 
young  man  was  dying  from  neglect,  I  was  on  the  verge  of 
becoming  a  hopeless  neurotic,  and  that  should  be  avoided  at 
all  costs — for  I  was  the  provider  for  my  family.  I  felt  that 
I  was  living  a  grave  mistake.  But  married  life  seemed  all  right 
for  some  artists — why  couldn't  I  make  the  necessary  adjust- 
ment? 

Uppermost  was  the  thought  that  I  ought  to  resign  myself 
to  wedlock  at  all  costs.  Was  it  not  the  natural  and  accepted 
relation  of  man  and  woman?  And  above  all  things  I  ought 
to  keep  the  tradition  of  the  Young  and  North  families  invio- 
late, for  most  of  them  knew  how  to  marry,  stay  married, 
and  be  contented.  Such  was  the  hold  of  a  conventional  up- 
bringing— and  I  fought  day  and  night  to  keep  contrary 
thoughts  out  of  my  mind* 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  juIFE  AND  TIMES       229 

Spring  came  again,  with  fine  weather,  new  ideas,  new 
stimulus,  and  the  pressing  conclusion  that  the  city  environ- 
ment was  all  wrong.  Cities  crushed  people's  souls.  All  these 
monolithic  piles  of  brick  and  stone,  these  hard  pavements, 
the  nerve-tearing  noise,  made  it  a  torture  chamber — an  in- 
ferno. Certainly  New  York  streets  were  no  proper  place  for 
children.  They  were  entitled  to  better  surroundings  in  which 
to  grow  up.  The  country  might  be  the  solution  of  my  own 
problem  and  Elizabeth's.  For  I  was  not  blind  to  the  fact 
that  she  had  a  problem. 

I  began  day-dreaming  about  open  roads  and  fields — the 
soil,  rippling  streams,  and  the  sunshine  as  I  knew  them  in 
boyhood.  If  only  I  could  go  barefoot  again,  wade  in  a  creek, 
and  feel  the  cool  touch  of  plowed  ground.  If  only  I  could 
let  the  warm  sun  soothe  the  back  of  my  neck  while  I  stood 
with  naked  feet  on  a  grassy  knoll, — that  would  be  the  true 
polarity  of  health,  sun  and  soil  meeting  in  my  system,  and 
I  would  be  well  again  mentally  as  well  as  physically.  And 
to  watch  horses,  cows,  birds,  and  trees — the  thought  of  it! 
I  had  heard  of  crippled  city  horses  that  had  pounded  their 
feet  on  cobblestones  for  years  being  restored  to  usefulness 
by  the  cushioned  pastures  of  the  country. 

Too  much  city — now  for  the  country!  Elizabeth  and 
Kate  both  hailed  the  idea  enthusiastically,  and  we  began  hunt- 
ing through  the  advertisements  of  farms  for  sale  in  the  Sun- 
day papers,  marking  the  likely  ones.  Then  we  took  stock 
of  the  family  finances.  Elizabeth  had  some  money  available 
that  had  been  left  her  by  Uncle  Len,  and  I  had  a  few  dollars 
remaining  from  the  proceeds  of  sales  to  magazines. 

We  inspected  several  of  the  farms  offered,  but  all  had 
something  wrong  with  them — they  were  too  far  from  a  town, 
or  were  on  land  too  rocky,  or  had  no  good  water  supply, 
and  all  too  often  did  not  bear  out  the  representations  of  the 
real  estate  dealer. 

But  each  time  we  fared  forth  hopefully.  And  one  day 
we  went  to  Connecticut  to  look  at  a  place  south  of  Bethel, 
two  hours  by  train  from  New  York.  "Maybe  this  will  be 
the  one/'  said  Elizabeth.  Mr.  Platt,  who  lived  a  quarter 
of  a  mile  from  the  farm  we  were  going  to  inspect,  and  who 
was  acting  as  agent  for  the  owner,  met  us  at  the  depot  with 
a  team  and  a  two-seated  buggy,  and  drove  us  out.  We  turned 


230       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

to  the  right  at  Shaker's  Corner,  and  moved  on  along  Chestnut 
Ridge  Road  which  climbed  amid  enchanting  wooded  hills. 

The  place  we  went  to  see  comprised  four  acres  of  land; 
a  gurgling  creek  which  ran  half-hidden  through  the  brush; 
a  two-story  frame  house  badly  in  need  of  repair,  with  a 
cellar  and  attic;  a  good  barn,  painted  red;  and  an  orchard 
which  was  worth  the  price  asked,  just  to  look  at.  The  land 
sloped  "every  which  way",  as  New  Englanders  say.  The 
house  was  on  a  higher  level  than  the  barn,  with  a  plot  of 
fairly  even  ground  between  which  was  suited  to  gardening. 
Back  of  the  house  was  a  trail  leading  upward  to  a  huge  gray 
boulder,  not  rounded  by  a  million  years  of  glacial  rolling, 
but  still  with  sharp  edges  and  a  pointed  apex,  as  if  it  might 
have  been  tossed  around  no  more  than  a  few  thousand  years. 
On  that  summit  one  could  stand  in  the  breeze  and  survey 
the  surrounding  foothills  of  the  Berkshires.  There  was  a  sense 
of  isolation  here,  of  protection  from  the  tearing  clamor  of  the 
outside  world.  I  stood  on  that  high  rock  a  long  time  that  first 
day,  thinking  and  hoping.  ...  It  was  amazing  how  much 
ground- space  there  could  be  in  four  acres.  And  the  area 
seemed  even  larger  when  I  set  out  later  to  cut  the  grass  and 
weeds  with  a  scythe. 

We  called  on  neighboring  farmers  to  inquire  about  the 
history  of  this  little  homestead.  Old  Mr.  Hickok,  who  lived 
dowa  the  road,  said:  "There  hain't  no  better  garden  ground 
and  no  better  well-water  in  these  parts/'  After  climbing  to 
the  lookout  rock  again  and  feasting  our  eyes  further  on  the 
whole  prospect,  we  returned  to  Bethel,  and  went  to  the  town 
clerk's  office  to  look  up  the  deed.  That  being  clear,  we  paid 
Mr.  Platt  a  few  dollars  to  bind  the  bargain  and  said  we'd 
bring  the  family  up  in  a  week  and  take  possession. 

I  felt  happier  that  day  than  I  had  in  ten  years.  And  Eliza- 
beth was  gay.  It  was  a  real  holiday  for  her,  away  from  the 
responsibility  of  caring  for  the  children.  She  wore  an  attrac- 
tive light  blue  frock  and  a  flower-trimmed  hat  to  match,  and 
seemed  no  older  than  when  I  came  back  from  Colorado. 

Packing  our  belongings  was  no  task  this  time;  it  was 
sport.  During  the  week  I  visited  several  editors  and  boasted 
about  my  back-to-the-farm  movement.  I  would  be  able  to 
do  better  work  in  the  country  air,  I  was  certain.  On  the 
strength  of  my  glowing  expectations  I  got  orders  for  enough 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       231 

drawings  to  cover  the  expense  of  moving — so  our  migration 
to  Connecticut  was  made  auspiciously* 

What  did  me  the  most  good  in  all  this  was  the  hopeful 
feeling  that  I  could  find  myself  again  out  where  there  was 
an  absence  of  confusion.  In  the  city  my  real  self  was  being 
rubbed  out  by  the  friction  of  conflicting  thoughts.  You  don't 
know  who  you  are  unless  you  stand  alone  among  the  hills 
and  trees.  Hills  and  trees  don't  argue  with  you;  they  take 
you  for  granted* 

We  all  stayed  for  a  few  days  in  Mr*  Platt's  house,  until 
our  household  goods  arrived.  They  came  by  freight.  I  was 
much  concerned  about  the  piano  and  a  large  Swiss  music-box 
which  had  been  given  to  me  by  a  Chicago  friend — but  every- 
thing arrived  in  good  order,  and  soon  was  moved  up  to  our 
hill.  For  another  day  we  were  busy  placing  furniture,  tacking 
down  carpets,  putting  up  curtains,  and  disposing  of  various 
little  tasks. 

Then  I  took  off  my  shoes  and  stockings,  rolled  up  my 
pants,  and  reveled  in  the  contact  with  grass  and  earth.  North 
joined  me,  while  his  mother  and  aunt  were  in  the  house  put- 
ting minor  things  to  rights.  Then  we  climbed  to  the  big 
rock,  and  North  was  excited  over  being  up  so  high  above 
our  house.  Between  us  and  the  house  the  apple  trees  were 
in  blossom,  and  the  air  was  fragrant.  We  went  down  to  the 
creek,  which  was  beyond  the  barn,  and  North  tried  to  catch 
frogs  and  minnows,  which  were  always  too  quick  for  him. 
The  barn  was  a  lure,  and  we  explored  that,  watching  the 
doves  which  had  cotes  inside  the  south  door;  they  had  been 
thrown  in  with  the  farm. 

I  did  no  drawing  that  day,  for  there  were  too  many  odds 
and  ends  to  be  done  before  we  would  be  settled.  But  my  brain 
was  active  with  planning.  I  arranged  to  have  Mr.  Hickok 
bring  his  horse  over  and  plow  up  the  garden.  In  the  evening 
I  walked  in  to  Bethel  and  bought  seeds.  Mr.  Hickok  would 
come  the  following  week,  we  would  plant  the  seeds  as  soon 
as  the  ground  was  ready,  and  I  figured  out  from  the  directions 
on  the  seed-envelopes  just  how  many  days  it  would  be  before 
we  would  be  eating  our  own  vegetables.  But  something  hap- 
pened that  year  so  that  the  garden  did  not  turn  out  well — 
too  much  rain,  or  maybe  it  was  drouth;  I've  forgotten  which, 

As  the  days  wore  on  I  began  to  feel  quite  at  home  in  the 


232      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

new  environment*  I  remembered  the  cartoons  I  had  promised 
the  editors.  I  put  my  drawing  table  in  the  northwest  room 
upstairs  which  looked  out  on  a  hill  of  apple  trees.  Picture 
production  had  begun  again,  and  I  could  hear  North  at  his 
play — and  later  at  the  supper  table  his  reports  of  discoveries 
of  insects  and  such  queer  things  (to  a  city  boy)  that  he  had 
found  down  by  the  creek.  He  had  captured  a  small  turtle  and 
had  put  several  fireflies  in  a  glass  jar  and  was  going  to  inves- 
tigate the  mystery  of  their  light.  The  quaint,  genius-like 
observations  of  children  as  they  voice  them  before  they  have 
been  told  what  their  elders  think  they  know  on  any  subject 
makes  child-thoughts  sound  like  the  highest  wisdom — and 
hence  are  real  poetry. 

After  Hickok  finished  the  plowing,  a  barefoot  walk  in 
the  moist  loam  became  a  daily  rite  with  me  before  breakfast. 
Then  a  footbath  in  the  creek.  If  there  is  any  greater  thrill 
of  health  than  this  I  have  never  felt  it.  And  many  times  I 
climbed  to  the  gray  rock,  inhaled  deeply,  and  saw  new  scenes 
in  the  surrounding  countryside;  in  changing  lights  and  at- 
mospheres the  beauties  of  the  view  were  inexhaustible. 

When  the  vegetables  began  to  show  themselves,  of  course 
the  weeds  sprang  up  to  beat  them.  I  hoed  earnestly  then  and 
with  more  interest  than  I  ever  had  on  my  father's  farm.  But 
as  weeks  passed  hoeing  became  a  nuisance,  and  the  crusade 
against  weeds  was  one  more  lost  cause.  I  busied  myself  in 
one  way  or  another  around  the  old  house,  giving  an  imita- 
tion of  a  carpenter. 

Then  I  found  it  convenient  to  set  up  a  studio  in  the  loft 
of  the  barn,  where  I  could  work  without  being  disturbed  by 
North's  romping.  Entrance  to  that  was  by  ladder,  and  I 
installed  a  trap-door  at  the  top  to  close  myself  off.  Not  much 
needed  to  be  done  to  make  that  loft  comfortable  for  me.  It 
was  dry,  the  roof  being  sound.  And  by  leaving  the  wide 
hay-door  open  I  could  have  good  light  by  day  and  a  view 
of  the  hills  to  the  East  that  seemed  often  to  change.  After  I 
had  swept  the  hay-dust  from  the  floor,  Elizabeth  contributed 
some  small  rugs  so  that  the  place  wouldn't  be  too  bare. 

My  books  were  in  the  house,  filling  many  shelves,  and 
in  the  evenings  I  would  be  there,  in  what  we  then  called  the 
sitting  room,  reading  while  Kate  and  Elizabeth  were  busy 
with  their  own  devices,  perhaps  crocheting,  playing  croki- 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       233 

nole,  or  telling  stories  to  North.  We  three  grown-ups  would 
vie  with  one  another  to  find  amusing  anecdotes  in  the  maga- 
zines or  newspapers  that  were  worth  repeating.  Sometimes 
we  would  pop  corn  or  have  a  candy-pull,  as  we  used  to  back 
in  Wisconsin.  And  the  glee  of  North  over  these  simple  treats 
reminded  me  of  my  own  childhood. 

In  the  fall  I  went  down  to  New  York  to  see  editors,  but 
stayed  only  overnight,  and  was  glad  to  get  back  to  the  farm 
and  the  clean  smell  of  earth,  the  early  morning  chorus  of 
birds,  the  peaceful  quiet  of  back  roads. 

We  had  rural  free  delivery,  with  mail  in  the  mornings. 
But  frequently  I  would  walk  to  the  village,  a  mile  away,  late 
in  the  afternoon,  to  mail  drawings  before  the  postoffice 
closed.  In  the  village  I  would  talk  with  old-timers  who  had 
long  since  retired  from  whatever  work  they  had  done,  and 
would  ask  them  questions  about  local  history.  Being  a  good 
listener,  I  was  willing  to  let  them  do  most  of  the  talking — 
and  often  I  would  sketch  them  as  they  gave  me  the  low-down 
on  village  happenings  in  the  past. 

The  best  of  their  stories  had  to  do  with  P.  T.  Barnum. 
That  great  showman,  three  times  member  of  the  state  legis- 
lature, and  mayor  of  Bridgeport,  first  saw  the  light  of  day 
in  Bethel  in  1810.  The  house  in  which  he  was  born  still 
stands. 

When  we  moved  to  the  Chestnut  Ridge  place,  there  stood 
in  the  center  of  the  village  in  a  triangular  grass  plot  an  ornate 
bronze  fountain  which  Barnum  presented  to  his  home  town 
in  1881.  I  have  read  his  presentation  speech,  and  seen  photo- 
graphs of  the  occasion — and  for  memory  reflections,  recalling 
names  and  incidents  of  his  boyhood,  I  have  never  read  a 
similar  extemporaneous  address  to  compare  with  it. 

"And  now,  my  friends/'  he  said  in  closing,  "I  take  great 
pleasure  in  presenting  this  fountain  to  the  town  and  borough 
of  Bethel,  as  a  small  evidence  of  the  love  which  I  bear  them 
and  the  respect  which  I  feel  for  my  successors,  the  present 
and  future  citizens  of  my  native  village/* 

But  there  followed  a  good  deal  of  criticism  of  the  gift. 
Some  said  he  "gave  it  to  Bethel  because  Bridgeport  didn't 
want  it/*  and  others  that  "it  took  too  much  water  to  keep 
it  going/'  Still  others  who  were  suspicious  that  P.  T.  might 


CONNECTICUT  CRIME  AGAINST  ART.  Bronze  fountain  given  by 
P.  T.  Barnum  to  Bethel,  his  home  town.  Razed  by  village  authorities  in 
1920  to  make  room  for  this  atrocious  war-statue. 

try  to  humbug  them,  opined  that  "like  as  not  it  hain't  hronze 
at  all." 

Unfortunately  this  heroic  figure  of  a  Triton  blowing  a 
horn  with  spouting  dolphins  arqund  the  base — such  a  foun- 
tain as  one  sees  in  public  parks  in  Europe,  and  which  Barnum 
had  had  cast  in  Germany — is  no  more.  I  think  it  sad  that 
the  village  selectmen  one  day  around  1920  had  the  fountain 
demolished.  They  said  it  was  cracking  and  sold  it  to  a  junk 
dealer.  Then  what?  In  its  stead  they  erected  one  of  those 

234 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       235 

libels  on  American  youth,  a  big  bronze  male  out  to  kill — 
typical  statue  in  American  towns  to  commemorate  the  "war 
for  democracy".  If  such  memorials  are  intended  to  stimulate 
and  revere  heroism,  they  are  jokes;  but  worst  of  all  they  are 
insulting  to  anyone  with  a  sense  of  the  artistic.  The  Barnum 
fountain  had  at  least  the  merit  of  classic  form. 

Passing  the  old  cider  mill  near  Shaker's  Corner,  and  pro- 
ceeding north  along  Plum  Tree  Road  for  a  couple  of  miles, 
one  comes  to  a  lane  which  leads  to  Ivy  Island,  the  five- acre 
tract  which  Barnum's  maternal  grandfather,  an  inveterate 
joker,  deeded  to  him  at  his  birth.  As  young  Phineas  grew 
into  boyhood,  the  grandfather  and  other  relatives  often  re- 
minded him  that  he  was  "the  richest  boy  in  town/*  Not 
until  he  was  perhaps  eleven  did  he  get  to  see  this  fabulously 
valuable  property  of  his. 

Then  he  persuaded  an  Irish  farmhand,  on  a  Sunday,  to 
take  him  to  Ivy  Island.  When  they  arrived  at  his  estate, 
Phineas  burst  into  tears  when  he  discovered  that  it  was  just 
a  piece  of  worthless  swamp-land.  He  was  chased  by  a  black- 
snake,  according  to  his  recital  of  that  disillusionment,  was 
stung  by  bees,  and  sank  to  his  waist  in  mire.  .  *  .  But  many 
years  later,  when  Barnum  was  buying  Scudder's  Museum  in 
New  York — he  blandly  put  up  Ivy  Island  as  part  of  the 
security — and  it  was  worth  just  as  much  then  as  it  had  been 
on  the  day  when  he  first  saw  it.  Today  it  is  still  worthless. 

Three  miles  north  of  Bethel  lies  Danbury,  the  county 
seat,  an  old  circus  town  rich  in  memories.  Barnum  was  a 
prisoner  there  for  sixty  days,  in  the  old  jail,  still  standing. 
As  a  young  man  he  was  publisher  of  the  Herald  of  Freedom 
in  Bethel,  and  got  into  trouble  by  criticising  one  Deacon 
Seeley  editorially.  Convicted  of  libel,  he  was  jailed.  But  he 
had  a  good  time  during  his  confinement.  The  sheriff  was  a 
friend,  and  provided  his  guest  with  comfortable  quarters  on 
the  third  floor,  where  the  windows  afforded  pleasing  views. 
P.  T.  continued  to  edit  the  Herald  of  Freedom  from  his  jail 
quarters,  and  when  he  was  released  a  large  delegation  of  citi- 
zens waited  outside  to  welcome  him.  They  put  him  into  a 
carriage,  drawn  by  plumed  horses,  and  with  a  brass  band  at 
its  head,  a  long  procession  escorted  him  through  the  principal 
streets  of  Danbury,  and  then  home  to  Bethel. 

As  an  editor  Barnum  assailed  slavery,  and  later  as  a  leg- 


236      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

islator  bore  down  heavily  on  the  New  Haven  railroad.  An 
ardent  temperance  lecturer,  he  fails  to  mention  in  his  auto- 
biography, Straggles  and  Triumphs,  that  he  had  a  brother 
Eben  who  was  the  town  drunkard  and  who  used  to  sleep  off 
his  jags  sometimes  on  the  grass  plot  where  the  Barnum  fresh- 
water fountain  was  erected. 

When  that  work  first  appeared,  a  book  agent  invaded 
Bethel  to  solicit  orders  for  it.  He  knocked  at  a  certain  door, 
and  when  it  was  opened  by  an  elderly  woman  he  launched 
into  a  description  of  the  book's  contents,  saying  that  "every 
American"  ought  to  know  the  story  of  P.  T.  Barnum's  life. 

"Young  man/*  she  said,  "I  know  more  about  P.  T. 
Barnum  than  you  can  ever  get  into  a  book.  I'm  his  mother/' 

I  learned  during  my  early  residence  in  these  parts  that 
Danbury  and  Bethel,  which  in  a  manner  of  speaking  were 
for  many  years  "all  one  place",  had  a  historic  background 
worth  knowing  about*  Much  of  renown  and  interest  beside 
the  world's  most  famous  showman  is  associated  with  these 
hills. 

Over  on  Redding  Ridge,  I  heard,  there  was  a  place  where 
Gen.  *  Israel  Putnam  camped  throughout  a  winter  with  his 
ragged  soldiers  during  the  American  Revolution*  It  was  only 
a  few  miles  from  my  home,  and  one  day  I  walked  over  and 
saw  a  serried  half-mile  stretch  of  camp-fire  sites.  Here  were 
a  lot  of  the  old  stones  which  encircled  the  fires  around  which 
the  boys  sang  and  cursed — but  knew  with  some  degree  of 
certainty  what  they  were  fighting  for.  That  area  has  been 
conserved,  and  is  now  known  as  Putnam  Park. 

Many  Tories  lived  in  this  part  of  the  state  in  Revolu- 
tionary years.  One  patriarch  informed  me  that  his  grand- 
father told  him  that  his  father  went  to  a  church  "right  here 
in  Bethel" — one  Sunday  in  those  anxious  days — and  after 
the  sermon  the  minister  said:  "Now  I'm  going  to  ask  all 
those  who  are  for  the  cause  of  the  Revolution  to  go  out  of 
the  door  on  the  left,  and  those  opposed  to  go  out  on  the 
right/'  The  old-timer  didn't  know  what  the  count  revealed. 
But  it  was  one  way  of  trying  to  find  out  who  was  for  a 
monarchy  and  who  for  a  radical  change  in  government. 

Our  nearest  neighbor  on  the  road  south  going  toward 
Redding  was  Mr.  Agnew,  a  good  carpenter,  who  had  built 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       237 

many  houses  in  and  around  BetheL  He  would  often  stop  at 
our  gate  on  his  way  to  and  from  the  village,  and  was  always 
ready  to  do  odd  jobs  of  carpentry.  Sometimes  he  would  work 
for  hours  and  laugh  it  off  when  I  tried  to  pay  him.  I  don't 
like  to  think  of  it,  but  those  men  who  enjoyed  doing  things 
for  others  with  no  thought  of  pay  have  mostly  passed  out 
of  the  scene — to  make  way  for  the  go-getters  in  all  profes- 
sions. 

Mr.  Agnew  had  never  been  to  New  York  City  since  he 
stopped  there  sometime  during  his  service  in  the  Union  Army. 
One  day  he  made  up  his  mind  to  go  in  and  visit  a  relative 
living  in  "the  Bronix."  When  I  next  saw  him  I  asked  if  he 
had  been  to  the  big  city.  He  had — for  just  one  day.  This 
was  his  story: 

"I  went  to  visit  my  cousin  in  the  Bronix.  After  dinner  I 
thought  Fd  better  take  a  look  around  the  city.  First  I  went 
to  Grant's  Tomb,  and  the  folks  told  me  I  ought  to  look  at 
Central  Park — so  I  went  there  and  hung  around  till  three 
o'clock.  Then  I  decided  I'd  take  the  four  o'clock  train  back 
to  Bethel.  Shucks!  I  don't  suppose  I  seen  half  what  there 
was  to  see/* 

In  discussing  the  Civil  War  with  Mr.  Agnew,  I  speke  of 
John  Brown.  He  laughed — and  I  suppose  that  laugh  was 
the  same  kind  that  was  heard  in  many  places  when  Old 
Osawatomie  was  mentioned  back  in  pre-Rebellion  days.  Then 
my  neighbor  said: 

"I  seen  him  up  in  Torrington,  where  he  was  born.  He'd 
been  living  and  fighting  out  in  Kansas,  and  folks  said  he 
came  back  to  Torrington  to  buy  knives  and  guns/' 

"What  kind  of  a  fellow  was  he?"  I  asked. 

"Crazy  as  a  bed-bug/*  said  Mr.  Agnew. 

One  evening  I  was  taking  a  walk  on  a  back  road.  Appar- 
ently no  one  lived  in  that  part  of  the  countryside.  But  finally 
I  came  to  a  worn  path  which  led  to  a  weather-beaten  shack 
by  the  side  of  a  swamp.  No  sound  except  at  intervals  the 
croak  of  a  frog — and  off  in  a  dark  grove  a  screech  owl  would 
shiver  the  doleful  air  in  reply.  In  this  scene  of  somber  desola- 
tion, with  the  twilight  almost  gone,  I  saw  a  man  sitting  by 
the  shack,  I  ventured  over  to  him  slowly*  After  the  "good 
evening''  salutation  I  found  that  he  was  willing  to  have  a 
little  conversation,  in  the  course  of  which  I  learned  that  he 


238      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

had  lived  in  this  same  place  "nigh  onto  thirty-one  years/'  I 
asked  him  if  he  had  ever  been  to  New  York  City. 

"Once/'  he  said.  "There  for  three  days — but  the  place 
is  too  dang  lonesome  for  me/' 

I  made  a  picture  with  similar  dialogue  which  was  pub- 
lished in  Life. 

Early  in  this  century  there  was  still  some  real  farming 
in  this  region  like  that  I  had  known  out  West.  Not  on  such 
a  large  scale,  of  course,  but  small  farms  on  which  a  hard- 
working man  with  a  small  family  could  live,  provided  he 
kept  a  cow,  horse,  chickens,  and  enough  pigs  for  winter 
meat.  Then  it  was  possible  to  survive  even  in  stony  Connecti- 
cut; so  if  the  worst  came  to  the  worst  I  figured  I  might  be 
able  to  do  the  same  on  my  four  acres. 

But  gradually  as  the  years  went  by  the  sturdy  American 
yeoman,  not  only  in  this  state  but  all  over  the  country,  was 
giving  up  the  idea  of  making  a  small  farm  pay  or  even  assure 
a  subsistence.  The  reason  is  well  known  to  those  who  fol- 
low the  trend  of  economic  determinism*  Some  of  these  small 
Connecticut  agriculturists  had  begun  even  around  1906  to 
see  the  futility  of  farming,  so  they  would  do  their  chores 
early  in  the  morning  and  late  in  the  evening — devoting  the 
interim  hours  to  work  in  one  of  the  many  hat  factories  in 
Danbury  and  BetheL 

One  fine  day  I  was  thinking  what  a  great  advantage  it 
was  to  have  escaped  from  scenes  of  debate,  controversy,  and 
taking  sides — that  the  quiet  countryside  was  the  right  place 
to  be — away  from  it  all — when  George  Agnew,  son  of  my 
neighbor,  called.  George  said  he  had  been  asked  by  his  fellow- 
workers  in  the  Short  hat  factory  to  see  me  about  an  impor- 
tant matter. 

Would  I  serve  as  an  arbitrator  in  a  serious  conflict  be- 
tween the  owner  and  the  employees? 

He  said  my  decision  would  stand,  as  both  parties  con- 
cerned had  agreed  to  that.  I  was  an  outsider,  so  to  speak,  and 
would  be  impartial.  He  showed  me  several  typewritten  sheets 
explaining  how  much  per  dozen  hats  the  workers  had  re- 
ceived under  a  previous  contract,  how  much  the  boss  would 
pay  if  another  contract  were  drawn  up — if  the  workers 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       239 

would  agree  to  this  and  that  and  other  things — and  so  on 
ad  infinitum* 

After  casually  looking  over  this  array  of  facts  and  fig- 
ures, I  said:  'Tm  willing  to  act  as  arbitrator,  but  frankly  I 
can't  be  impartial.  I'm  for  labor,  first,  last,  and  all  the  time/' 
But  George  was  keen  to  have  me  serve  in  spite  of  my  bias. 
So  I  read  the  document  carefully  and  rendered  my  decision, 
pronouncing  the  workers'  demands  reasonable  and  justified 
according  to  contract*  The  decision  was  accepted  all  around 
and  I  was  pleased  to  know  that  an  outsider  could  do  a  little 
to  help  the  cause  of  labor,  if  only  to  the  extent  of  a  few 
cents  per  day. 

During  the  years  that  I  have  lived  near  Bethel  there  have 
been  repeated  strikes  and  lockouts  in  the  two  towns — a  few 
flush  months,  then  gloom  for  the  rest  of  the  year. 

But  this  once  strong  union  sector  of  labor  was  de- 
moralized following  a  strike  in  1902,  when  the  D.  E,  Loewe 
Company,  hat  manufacturers  in  Danbury,  sued  the  members 
of  the  local  hatters'  union  as  individuals  for  injury  to  the 
corporation's  trade  because  of  a  boycott  used  to  aid  the  strike. 
The  suit  was  brought  under  the  Anti-Trust  Act.  Backed  by 
the  National  Manufacturers'  Association,  the  Loewe  com- 
pany claimed  damages,  and  was  awarded  $74,000  by  a  jury 
in  1910,  the  law  permitting  it  to  collect  as  much  as  three 
times  the  amount  of  the  award.  Under  this  judgement  the 
company  attached  the  workers'  homes  and  bank  accounts — 
if  they  had  any  to  attach. 

Many  sad  stories  are  told  around  here  of  the  desperate 
straits  of  those  workers  as  a  result  of  this  ruthless  assault, 
the  obvious  purpose  of  which  was  to  break  up  labor  unions 
in  the  United  States  for  all  time.  Organized  capital  had  de- 
cided that  it  would  no  longer  tolerate  organized  workers. 
This  was  to  be  one  of  the  final  tests  of  strength. 

The  judgement  was  appealed  and  carried  from  court  to 
court.  In  1915  the  United  States  Supreme  Court  affirmed  the 
jury's  verdict,  which  entitled  the  plaintiff  to  take  $222,000 
from  the  defendants — which  meant  taking  everything  they 
had. 

But  in  this  long-drawn  fight  the  boycott  persisted  despite 
the  Supreme  Court,  and  Loewe  himself  lost  his  business  and 
died  a  financial  wreck,  though  he  received  a  pension  from  the 


240      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

National  Manufacturers'  Association  up  to  his  death.  It  had 
used  Loewe  for  its  own  purpose,  and  the  courts  did  their 
part  in  upholding  the  right  of  capital  to  use  any  kind  of  a 
club  to  knock  labor  helpless. 

Chatting  with  the  townsmen  of  Danbury  and  Bethel,  I 
would  sometimes  meet  up  with  one  of  the  older  generation 
who  liked  to  talk  about  James  Montgomery  Bailey,  "the 
Danbury  News  man,"  who  died  in  1894.  When  I  was  a  boy 
out  west  "the  Danbury  News  man"  was  known  to  everybody 
— like  Josh  Billings,  George  W.  Peck,  and  Bill  Nye.  It  was 
pleasant  to  hear  those  who  had  lived  when  he  was  here  in 
the  flesh  tell  about  him. 

"You  know,"  said  the  veteran  Ezra  Judd,  "Monty  was 
in  the  Civil  War.  Got  his  reputation  writing  letters  home  to 
the  Danbury  Times — some  comical,  some  pretty  darn  sad. 
When  he  come  back  him  and  Tim  Donovan  got  hold  of  a 
little  money  and  bought  the  Times,  and  a  few  years  later 
they  changed  the  name  to  the  Danbury  News,  and  said  they 
were  going  to  keep  politics  out  of  it,  and  Monty  began  writ- 
ing about  anything  he  wanted  to.  I've  been  'round  the  old 
Danbury  postoffice  when  they  were  mailing  out  the  News; 
they  used  to  say  thirty  thousand  copies  went  out  every  week 
— pretty  good  for  a  country-town  paper." 

"What  kind  of  a  fellow  was  Bailey?"  I  asked  him. 

"Great  big  six-footer — good-looking — never  wore  a 
neck-tie — they  say  he  had  spells  of  the  blues — and  would 
stay  home  drunk  for  a  week.  He  liked  children,  but  didn't 
have  none  of  his  own.  Every  time  I  saw  him  he  had  a  big 
dog,  sometimes  two  or  three,  with  him.  Everybody  knew 
he'd  help  them  if  they  ever  got  in  trouble — didn't  care  for 
money.  Mr.  Young,  Monty  Bailey  was  as  fine  a  man  as  ever 
drew  breath,  and  you  can  say  that  Ezra  Judd  said  so." 

In  my  library  I  have  one  of  Bailey's  books,  Life  in  Dan- 
bury,  and  Fm  old-fashioned  enough  to  enjoy  the  homespun 
humor  of  his  time.  Taking  that  volume  from  the  shelf,  I 
open  it  casually  and  see  this  one  among  the  locals  (which  is 
typical  of  the  Bailey  manner  of  saying  things)  : 

"A  Sharon  man  stole  a  peck  of  dahlia  roots  under  the 
impression  that  they  were  sweet  potatoes.  He  feels  the  decep- 
tion keenly*" 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       241 

Mark  Twain  made  his  home  in  Redding  during  the  last 
six  years  of  his  life*  This  is  the  next  railroad  station  three 
miles  south  of  Bethel*  Once  I  talked  with  him  at  an  Illus- 
trators* Society  entertainment  in  his  honor  in  New  York.  I 
was  then  illustrating  epigrams  called  * 'Shots  at  Truth"  for 
Life,  and  I  told  him  he  ought  to  publish  the  sententious 
remarks  of  Puddinghead  Wilson  and  other  short  passages 
from  his  writings.  I  don't  know  whether  I  had  anything  to 
do  with  it,  but  about  a  year  later  I  saw  a  Christmas  brochure 


JC. 


MARK  TWAIN 


0' 

•f 


of  brief  quotations  from  the  works  of  Mark  Twain,  with 
emphasis  on  Puddinghead' s  philosophy* 

There  are  many  stories  in  circulation  about  Twain's  life 
in  Redding*  He  was  becoming  sick  and  depressed  in  those 
years.  I  asked  Albert  Bigelow  Paine,  his  biographer,  whose 
home  was  near  the  humorist's  then,  if  his  heart  trouble  (an- 
gina pectoris)  was  caused  by  his  incessant  smoking.  Paine 
said;  "It  is  not  the  cause,  but  it  aggravates  it/* 

Two  thieves  broke  into  Mark's  house  late  one  night 


242      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

when  everything  was  still,  and  stole  a  bag  full  of  precious 
silverware.  They  were  caught  next  day,  and  their  trial  was 
subsequently  held  in  the  old  schoolhouse  in  Redding  which 
was  used  for  the  administration  of  justice.  Louis  Ohlweiler, 
the  Bethel  barber,  went  down  to  attend  the  proceedings. 
When  he  arrived,  he  told  me,  Mark  was  walking  slowly  back 
and  forth  in  front  of  the  schoolhouse  and  smoking  a  cigar. 

During  the  trial,  the  judge  asked  the  author-  of  Hackle- 
berry  Finn  the  date  and  approximate  hour  of  the  burglary. 
Mark  drawled  out  an  answer — but  the  judge,  after  talking 
with  the  sheriff,  said:  "Mr.  Clemens,  I  think  you  must  be 
mistaken,"  and  named  a  different  date  and  hour  from  the 
official  record. 

''All  right,  Judge/'  Mark  replied,  "have  it  your  own 
way.  Fm  always  wrong.  That's  how  I  got  my  reputation/' 


CHAPTER  24 
BUT  THE  BACK-TO-NATURE  EXPERIMENT  FAILS 

THE  experiment  of  going  back  to  the  soil  did  not  work 
out  as  I  had  optimistically  planned.  As  the  months 
went  on  it  became  evident  that  there  was  an  excess  of 
conventional  sameness  in  my  life.  Each  day  was  too  much 
like  being  on  a  treadmill.  I  had  hoped  that  the  new  arrange- 
ment, in  which  I  had  more  room  to  myself  with  less  inter- 
ruption, and  where  my  wife  and  her  sister  saw  less  of  me — 
would  help  to  break  the  terrible  restraint  I  felt  as  a  man 
married.  But  try  as  hard  as  I  could,  even  praying  to  the  God- 
of-all-wisdom  for  guidance  (a  desperate  manifestation  of  my 
troubled  self)  ,  I  could  not  justify -my  nature  with  marriage. 
I  knew  many  artists  who  were  married  and  apparently  happy, 
and  I  blamed  myself  for  being  queer — a  non-adjustable, 
misfit  egoist.  Evidently  I  didn't  belong  among  normal  people. 

Day  after  day  the  situation  grew  worse.  I  was  miserable, 
couldn't  concentrate  on  my  work  and  was  turning  out  pic- 
.  tures  which  I  knew  were  far  below  my  standard,  and  nightly 
I  lay  awake  for  hours. 

I  realized  now  that  daily  contact  with  plowed  ground, 
the  blowing  clover,  trees  and  birds,  and  above  all  two  bright 
children,  couldn't  save  me.  Fd  have  to  tackle  the  world  with 
a  fresh  outlook  as  I  did  when  young — free  to  be  myself,  even 
if  wrong.  I  had  no  yearning  for  the  gay  life,  and  no  woman 
was  waiting  for  me  in  the  background.  I  was  simply  no 
longer  equal  to  the  duties  and  courtesies  of  married  life.  Only 
through  release  from  its  conventional  routine  and  binding 
exactions  could  I  function  as  a  provider  for  my  family. 

It  had  become  impossible  to  combine  domesticity  and 
creative  work.  I  was  capable  of  doing  a  small  drawing  now 
and  then  with  some  concentration  and  good  results — but  sus- 
tained effort  was  beyond  me  under  the  existing  circumstances. 

For  some  five  years  we  had  gone  on  with  our  second 
effort  to  live  together  in  harmony,  I  did  my  best  to  have  it 

243 


244      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

succeed,  and  I  am  sure  Elizabeth  did.  But  the  result  was  fail- 
ure. Now  I  was  through.  All  I  wanted  was  to  be  alone  to 
continue  my  work. 

During  all  the  harrowing  conflict  which  went  on  within 
me,  I  felt  that  neither  of  us  could  be  definitely  blamed  for 
what  happened.  We  were  in  the  grip  of  forces  over  which  we 
had  no  control.  Here  were  two  natures,  each  the  product  of 
countless  centuries  of  combining  physical  and  emotional 
attributes  and  defects.  With  some  other  man  Elizabeth  might 
have  been  supremely  happy,  and  he  with  her.  Or  if  we  had 
married  in  youth,  when  my  love  was  strong  and  possessive, 
it  might  have  turned  out  all  right — if.  That  word  if.  I  made 
a  picture  which  was  published  in  Life  of  that  word  if  as  a 
huge  rock  in  the  turbulent  sea  which  I  titled  "The  Grave  of 
Our  Dreams/'  Elizabeth  seemed  to  see  in  clear  outline  the 
reality  which  confronted  us,  and  did  not  try  to  fight  it. 
Elizabeth,  the  sweetheart  of  my  youth,  now  so  far  away,  is 
my  favorite  heroine.  What  she  went  through  in  her  years 
with  me  is  her  own  untold  story. 

An  artist  is  one  who  can  put  himself  in  another's  place. 
There  is  no  art  without  feeling,  and  the  better  the  artist  the 
more  intensely  he  feels.  He  is  sympathetic  and  imaginative  to 
a  degree  that  makes  him  *  'queer"  to  the  world  of  "normal" 
human  beings.  Seeing  others  in  despair  is  his  own  despair. 

One  thing  I  had  learned  through  that  long  drawn  out 
ordeal  was  this:  When  a  revolution  comes,  whether  in  the 
life  of  an  individual  or  of  a  nation,  it  is  seldom  justifiable  to 
those  who  must  endure  the  brunt  of  abrupt  change.  Some 
will  say  "it  could  have  been  avoided";  others  that  "I  don't 
object  to  it,  but  to  the  way  it  was  done";  still  others  deplore 
"the  innocent  sufferers."  Oh  yes,  many  sad  things  occur  as  a 
result  of  a  vital  change  in  private  or  social  living.  But  often 
it  is  pride  that  is  injured  most.  People  who  cannot  see  the 
true  inwardness  of  our  personal  problems  are  apt  to  think  us 
heartless  for  conduct  that  they  see  only  from  the  outside.  It 
may  have  required  every  bit  of  our  moral  courage,  but  for 
some  other  act  requiring  no  strain  of  morals  or  ethics  in  the 
doing,  we  are  thought  heroic* 

I  came  back  to  New  York  and  took  a  room  in  an  office 
building  rented  out  for  studios  on  Twenty-fourth  Street 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       245 

Under  the  same  roof  were  John  Cassell,  the  cartoonist;  Jim 
Conde,  picturesque  illustrator  of  the  Uncle  Remus  stories 
and  other  animal  books;  Philip  Dillon,  writer  and  dilettante 
in  politics;  and  Morgan  Robertson,  then  at  the  height  of  his 
production  of  sea  stories. 

Jim  Conde  introduced  me  to  one  of  the  first  stool-and- 
counter  lunchrooms  in  New  York,  around  the  corner  on 
Sixth  Avenue.  "Let's  go  over  to  Minx's/'  he  would  say, 
"and  sit  on  a  stool  like  a  frog  on  a  lily-pad/'  His  favorite 
dish  was  rice  pudding  because  you  got  so  much  for  your 
money. 

My  studio  was  up  five  flights.  The  elevator  stopped  run- 
ning at  6.  There  were  'bedbugs  to  fight  on  summer  nights, 
and  life  was  far  from  being  one  long  sweet  song — but  I 
accepted  the  hardships  willingly  as  part  of  the  price  of  my 
new  freedom. 

The  building  in  which  we  lived  and  worked  had  poor 
heating  facilities.  In  winter  it  was  hard  to  wield  a  pencil 
with  freezing  fingers.  Late  one  cold  December  night  I  hap- 
pened to  go  to  Jim's  room.  He  had  retired — in  a  cast-off 
barber's  chair,  one  of  his  studio  accessories.  Tilted  back  and 
fully  dressed,  with  newspapers  tucked  in  around  him,  he  had 
arranged  an  electric  light  bulb  so  that  it  touched  his  chest. 
In  his  colorful  language,  he  said: 

"By  the  billy-horned  Moses!  I  had  to  figure  out  some 
way  to  keep  warm  on  a  night  like  this." 

In  a  short  while  after  my  return  to  the  city  the  doors  of 
opportunity  were  opening  to  me  again  just  as  in  my  youth, 
and  I  soon  began  to  send  money  to  Elizabeth.  That  had  been 
my  first  thought.  But  I  was  now  developing  a  hatred  for  all 
bourgeois  institutions  in  addition  to  marriage,  and  trying 
hard  to  live  up  to  my  own  ideas  of  right  and  wrong.  Hence- 
forth no  one  could  hire  me  to  draw  a  cartoon  that  I  did  not 
believe  in.  This  had  become  an  obsession. 

Once  I  sent  back  to  Life  a  check  for  a  hundred  dollars, 
though  I  needed  it  badly,  because,  after  drawing  a  cartoon  at 
John  Ames  Mitchell's  suggestion,  I  decided  that  the  idea  ex- 
pressed in  it  was  not  true.  Life  had  been  attacking  what  it 
called  the  theatrical  trust,  contending  that  this  combine  was 
exclusively  Jewish  and  that  these  Jews  were  crucifying  the 
art  of  the  drama. 


246      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

My  picture  showed  a  swooning  woman,  The  Drama, 
nailed  to  a  cross,  with  various  Jewish  men  typifying  the 
theatre  owners  looking  on  with  delight.  After  the  picture  had 
been  delivered  to  the  office  of  Life  by  messenger  I  realized 
that  it  was  untrue  to  my  convictions.  I  asked  myself:  Why 
did  I  draw  that  cartoon?  Why  hadn't  Life  asked  some  other 
cartoonist  to  do  it,  who  didn't  bother  his  head  about  the 
ethics  of  ideas  so  long  as  there  was  money  in  them?  I  felt  that 


Life 


A  SUCCESS. 


the  editor's  suggestion  had  been  conceived  in  a  spirit  of  ani- 
mus against  a  race,  and  that  idea  I  never  could  believe  in. 

Anyone  who  believes  something  sincerely  usually  can 
make  me  believe  it  for  a  little  while  if  he  is  a  good  talker, 
even  if  his  idea  is  basically  wrong,  but  when  I  think  it  over 
alone  I  discover  that  his  thoughts  were  not  mine  at  all.  In  this 
instance  I  knew  I  had  been  trapped  by  my  own  tendency  to 
oblige.  It  is  this  tendency,  plus  the  damnable  coercion  of 
economic  need,  that  leads  to  the  deterioration  of  creative 
minds. 

When  I  told  Mr.  Mitchell  that  I  was  returning  his  check 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       247 

and  that  I  positively  did  not  want  Life  to  publish  that  draw- 
ing he  was  a  bit  peeved,  but  said  "All  right,  if  that's  the 
way  you  feel  about  it."  And  I  said  to  myself:  "That's  the 
end  of  me  as  a  contributor  to  Life,"  But  I  had  thought  the 
whole  question  through  and  was  ready  for  anything*  And  I 
knew  this:  that  I  would  not  sell  my  talent  to  be  used  for 
anti-Semitic  propaganda.  Certainly  commercialization  of  the 
arts  was  not  by  any  means  an  exclusively  Jewish  sin — there 
were  plenty  of  old-family  Americans  and  members  of  other 
races  ready  to  sacrifice  anything  for  profit.  Then,  too,  I 
wanted  to  save  such  a  tragic  concept  as  a  crucifixion  for  a 
cause  greater  than  that  of  the  drama — and  I  was  now  con- 
vinced that  it  should  be  reserved  for  use  in  some  stark  crisis 
of  the  under-privileged,  in  general  the  poor  and  despised  of 
earth,  who  were  everywhere  being  nailed  to  the  cross  of  profit 
at  the  behest  of  the  moneyed  interests. 

But  that  incident  did  not  close  Life's  doors  to  me;  on  the 
contrary,  as  time  went  on,  Mr.  Mitchell  seemed  even  more 
receptive  to  my  work  than  before.  Had  it  come  to  an  argu- 
ment, however,  I  felt  now  that  I  could  hold  my  own.  Be- 
cause of  the  training  I  was  getting  in  the  Cooper  Union  de- 
bating class  I  was  more  and  more  able  to  justify  my  point  of 
view. 

Despite  Life's  occasional  anti-Semitic  slant,  its  editor  had 
reverence  for  that  Jew  whose  other  name  is  Christianity.  In 
conversation  with  me  Mr.  Mitchell  once  said:  "The  average 
business  man  finds  one  great  fault  with  Jesus;  he  thinks  it  too 
bad  that  he  wasn't  practical/' 

"That  would  make  a  strong  cartoon/'  I  answered.  "A 
picture  of  a  group  of  business  men  calling  Christ  to  account 
for  being  an  impractical  man/' 

He  told  me  to  go  ahead  and  draw  it.  I  did,  and  he  voiced 
his  approval  and  sent  a  prompt  check  in  payment.  Yet  I  could 
see  that  his  sense  of  good  taste  was  a  little  upset  by  the  finished 
drawing.  Week  after  week  I  watched  the  pages  of  Life  hop- 
ing to  see  it  appear,  but  it  didn't,  though  later  work  of  mine 
continued  to  be  used.  More  than  once  Mr.  Mitchell  was 
apologetic,  saying:  "We're  trying  to  get  up  nerve  enough 
around  here  to  publish  your  Christ  picture/' 

Likely  that  cartoon  is  somewhere  in  the  archives  of  un- 
published works  of  art  among  the  effects  of  Life  Publishing 


248      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

Company.   It  was  drawn  with  enthusiasm  hecause  of  its 
truth. 

From  my  reading  I  would  cull  meaty  phrases  and 
maxims,  and  illustrate  them.  Batches  of  these  quotations  were 
printed  in  Life,  under  the  general  title  "Shots  at  Truth/'  At 


SHOTS  AT  TRUTH.  Under  this  general  title  I  illustrated  a  series  of 
epigrams  for  Life,  which  ran  singly.  Captions  for  the  above,  in  obvious  order, 
were :  "Fear  follows  crime  and  is  its  punishment"  (Voltaire)  ;  "It  is  difficult 
to  rise  if  your  poverty  is  greater  than  your  talent"  (Juvenal)  ;  "The  great 
are  only  great  because  we  carry  them  on  our  shoulders;  when  we  throw 
them  off  they  sprawl  upon  the  ground"  (Montandre)  ;  "He  who  abuses 
others  must  not  be  particular  about  the  answers  he  gets."  (Anonymous.) 

the  same  time  I  was  also  drawing  for  Puck,  principal  com- 
petitor of  Life,  My  friend  Bert  Leston  Taylor,  then  an  editor 
of  Puck,  didn't  think  much  of  these  "shots"  in  the  rival 
weekly.  One  day  Taylor  said:  "Say,  Art,  why  don't  you 
illustrate  Battletfs  Quotations?"  I  told  him  that  a  good 
illustrated  Bartlett  would  not  he  a  bad  idea,  and  for  a  long 
time  I  entertained  the  thought  of  doing  The  Best  of  Bartlett, 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       249 

Illustrated.  Had  I  been  given  any  encouragement  by  an  editor 
or  publisher,  I  could  have  found  many  epigrams  in  Bartlett 
worthy  of  such  handling.  Back  of  this  idea  of  illustrated 
quotes  was  the  belief  that  if  a  title  credited  to  Shakespeare  or 
some  other  famous  man  was  put  under  a  drawing  of  mine,  it 
would  have  more  weight  than  any  title  I  could  devise. 

In  the  debating  class  we  dealt  often  with  the  doctrine  of 
government  operation  of  utilities.  The  theme  appealed  to  me, 
and  I  joined  the  Municipal  Ownership  League  and  began 
making  speeches  for  it  around  New  York.  This  was  during 
a  political  campaign*  Carrying  an  easel  and  drawing  paper, 
I  would  frequently  illustrate  my  speeches  with  simple  dia- 
gram cartoons  drawn  while  the  audience  watched.  Cab  hire 
necessitated  by  the  easel  cost  a  good  deal,  and  not  until  late 
in  the  campaign  did  the  arrangements  committee  ever  pay 
for  my  cabs.  Being  an  unpaid  speaker,  I  was  considerably  in 
the  red  when  the  campaign  ended* 

One  of  the  arguments  used  by  the  opponents  of  municipal 
ownership  was  that  it  would  be  unjust  to  take  away  the 
franchise  held  by  the  utility  corporations — that  legally  or 
ethically  the  city  could  not  compel  a  corporation  to  forfeit 
such  a  franchise  no  matter  how  tyrannical  that  corporation 
had  been. 

"People  who  argue  this  way/'  I  said  in  my  speeches, 
"remind  me  of  the  small  boy  who  bought  a  green  pepper  at 
a  grocery,  thinking  it  a  pear.  A  gentleman  meeting  the  little 
fellow  a  few  blocks  down  the  street  noticed  the  boy  screwing 
up  his  face  in  disgust.  The  gentleman  said;  'What's  the  mat- 
ter?' .  .  .  *Oh/  said  the  boy,  1  bought  this  for  a  pear  and 
I  suppose  I've  got  to  eat  it/  " 

Only  five  years  earlier  I  had  been  poking  fun  at  Hiram 
Pennick  for  his  "campainin  for  the  millenum"  and  "against 
the  octipust"  and  now  I  was  crusading  for  one  of  the  chief 
demands  of  the  Populists.  And  often  my  audiences  were  not 
much  larger  than  the  handful  of  listeners  which  I  had  shown 
following  in  Hiram's  wake.  Changing  the  world  was  a  slow 
process;  people  in  mental  darkness  were  slow  in  seeing  the 
light,  as  I  had  been;  crusaders  for  the  betterment  of  human 
society  needed  extraordinary  patience. 

After  that  local  campaign  I  had  a  new  burst  of  produc- 


250      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

tive  energy,  for  I  must  earn  additional  money  and  build  up 
a  financial  reserve  to  keep  my  family  going.  The  easiest  mate- 
rial for  me  to  sell  then  was  the  illustrated  joke,  which  occa- 
sionally satirized  the  passing  show,  but  didn't  tread  on 
individual  toes  as  my  political  cartoons  had  done. 

Thus  I  produced  a  series  for  Pack  called  "Things  That 
Hit  Our  Funny  Bone/'  A  typical  specimen  of  this  series  shows 
two  pictures — first  Chester  Van  Daub,  artist,  painting  a 


ALL  IS  VANITY.  Wife  reading  local  paper:  "Ezra  Whitcomb  was  seen 
yesterday  driving  his  new  rubber-tired  carriage."  (Note  the  "Well,  I  guess" 
wiggle  of  that  leg.) 

canvas  in  his  studio,  and  second,  Mr.  Wright  Mush,  critic 
and  authority  on  pictures,  gushing  over  the  same  canvas 
to  some  awed  museum  visitors.  Van  Daub  at  work  says: 
"I  d'  know  wha'  thish  picture  means  (slashes  on  a  brash- fall 
of  burnt  sienna  and  pink)  but  it  looks  like  a  Hungarian 
goulash.  T'  hell  with  art  anyway!"  .  .  .  Mr.  Wright  Mush 
says;  "Ah,  this  is  Van  Daub's  'Moonlight  Splendor',  a  won- 
derful conception;  the  meaning  of  the  artist  is  so  clearly  and 
intellectually  expressed  and  shows  such  a  firm  grasp  of  his 
medium.  As  I  said  in  my  review,  such  a  picture  is  born  only 
in  the  brain  of  one  who  is  intensely  devoted  to  his  art." 

One  of  my  dialogue  pictures  in  Pack  reveals  people  seated 
at  two  tables  in  a  cafe.  A  soulful  woman  is  saying  to  her 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       251 

escort:  "Those  men  over  there  are  all  brilliant  writers. 
Wouldn't  it  be  a  treat  just  to  hear  their  conversation?*'  .  .  . 
And  one  of  the  brilliant  writers  is  reminiscing  just  then: 
"Gus,  do  you  remember  those  sausages  we  had  in  Berlin? 
Talk  about — but  say,  they  don't  know  how  to  cook  in  this 
country!" 

Other  illustrated  jokes  I  sold  to  Puck  dealt  with  The 
Reward  of  Virtue,  showing  the  lawyer  who  resolved  never 
to  defend  a  client  he  believed  guilty  (and  thus  remained  poor) 
and  the  lawyer  who  didn't  (and  got  rich)  ;  Street  Signs  in 
Plenty  Where  Nobody  Goes  (in  the  realty  developments) 
and  No  Signs  Where  Everybody  Goes  (in  the  center  of  a 
city) ;  Santa  Glaus  discovering  the  convenience  of  using  a 
dumb-waiter  instead  of  a  chimney;  and  automobiles  scaring 
farmers'  horses. 

I  note  that  once  I  poked  fun  at  my  own  back-to-nature 
ideas,  working  out  in  pictures  this  theme:  "Henry  Wilbur 
Puddin  reads  Dr.  Dippy's  book,  'Getting  Back  to  the  Earth' , 
and  tries  the  bare-foot  exercises  recommended  (doing  them  at 
night  in  the  snow) .  He  gets  back  to  earth  in  three  weeks." 
His  tombstone  read:  "He  had  a  gentle  trusting  nature/' 

In  the  editorial  waiting  rooms  I  would  meet  other  car- 
toonists and  illustrators  and  exchange  small  talk  with  them* 
There  was  no  other  regular  meeting  place  to  which  I  had 
entree.  Cartoonists  and  writers  didn't  know  much  about  each 
other's  personalities  then*  There  were  few  social  or  fraternal 
organizations  in  New  York  which  I  could  have  joined  that 
were  not  too  expensive.  Thomas  Nast  once  had  urged  me  to 
come  into  the  Players'  Club,  but  the  cost  was  too  much — 
and  the  Salmagundi  Club  likewise  was  beyond  the  reach  of 
a  struggling  free-lance.  Bills  that  I  couldn't  pay  have  always 
been  a  big  part  of  the  hell  that  has  surrounded  me  in  most 
of  my  years. 

In  a  later  period,  when  I  happened  to  be  making  money 
above  expenses,  I  was  almost  persuaded  by  C.  D.  Gibson 
and  Frank  Crowninshield  to  become  a  member  of  the  exclu- 
sive Coffee  House  Club.  Here  I  could  have  chinned  with 
Joseph  H.  Choate,  Chester  H.  Aldrich,  George  Arliss,  Win- 
throp  Ames,  Paul  Manship,  and  others,  and  no  doubt  it 
would  have  been  much  to  my  liking.  But  I  had  learned  to 


252      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

avoid  the  club  habit,  with  its  monthly  dues  staring  one  in 
the  face  like  a  bugaboo  in  the  night 

Some  of  us  got  together  now  and  then  at  dinners — par- 
ticularly in  Chinatown  on  Saturday  evenings.  Robert  Ryland, 
Sydney  Shaw,  Andrew  Schwartz,  Howard  Smith,  and  other 
kindred  souls  would  attend — all  painters,  and  some  of  them 
Prix  de  Rome  winners  and  others  with  prize  records.  At  those 
informal  affairs  there  was  sparkling  talk  and  keen  repartee. 
And  after  the  chow  mein  and  trimmings  had  been  disposed 
of,  and  many  cups  of  tea  had  been  downed,  we  would  walk 
home  through  dim  back  streets  to  our  uptown  studios. 

These  gatherings  grew  larger  as  the  years  went  by — and 
the  last  time  I  took  part  Mahonri  Young  and  John  Held  Jr., 
both  from  Salt  Lake  City,  and  many  more  of  the  rising 
generation  of  painters  and  illustrators  were  there.  The  group 
had  expanded  to  fifty  or  more — too  many  for  real  camerad- 
erie.  With  only  six  or  a  dozen  at  a  table  the  talk  was  intimate, 
and  all  of  us  could  be  in  on  it.  But  when  the  number  of 
diners  multiplied  the  Chinatown  dinners  became  confusing. 
Our  friendly  little  exchanges  had  become  institutionalized, 
and  for  me  the  lure  was  gone.  An  announcement  of  one  of 
those  later  conclaves  described  it  rightly  as  "a  dinner  to  make 
believe  we  are  having  a  better  time  than  we  are  having/' 

And  I  met  a  few  painters  in  those  days  whom  I  had  read 
about  in  my  youth — for  instance,  Walter  Shirlaw  (a  great 
artist  now  neglected)  — and  was  introduced  to  John  LaFarge 
once  when  he  was  out  walking  with  his  Japanese  servant.  I 
knew  the  picturesque  DeLeftwitch  Dodge,  who  was  one  of 
the  promising  wizards  of  sensual  and  fantastic  murals  even 
in  the  days  when  we  were  both  at  Julien's  in  Paris.  The  last 
time  I  saw  him  he  was  teaching  at  the  Art  Students*  League 
— and  in  one  of  those  casual  street  talks  with  him  it  was 
plain  that  the  tendency  of  the  younger  generation  to  see  some 
merit  in  the  new  cult  of  Picasso  and  the  other  modernists 
aggravated  him. 

After  our  breakup,  Elizabeth  and  Kate  and  the  children 
remained  on  the  farm  for  about  six  months.  Then  they  de- 
parted for  California  to  make  it  their  Borne.  Both  sisters  had 
been  left  small  legacies  by  their  Uncle  Len. 

We  kept  up  a  fairly  regular  correspondence  in  which  the 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       253 

progress  of  the  two  boys  was  the  principal  topic.  Several 
years  after  going  to  the  west  coast,  Elizabeth  indicated  that 
she  would  like  to  sell  her  share  in  the  Chestnut  Ridge  place, 
and  I  agreed  to  buy  it  and  pay  for  it  in  installments  during 
the  following  year. 

Around  1910  Elizabeth  and  the  youngsters  made  a  visit 
to  Wisconsin,  and  my  father  expressed  pride  in  the  brightness 
of  the  boys  and  the  consideration  they  showed  for  their 
mother. 


Chapter  25 
ALL  TOO  SLOWLY  I   SEE  THE  LIGHT 

FAITHFULLY   I   continued   to    attend   Cooper    Union. 
Each  Saturday  night  we  debated  such  subjects  as  the 
tariff,  immigration,  woman  suffrage,  public  ownership 
of   utilities,    taxation,    states'    rights,    and   others   of   timely 
interest. 


GRADUATION  NIGHT  AT  COOPER  UNION,  1906.  Class  in  oratory 
and  debate.  I  rise  to  the  occasion. 

In  the  spring  of  1906  I  graduated,  on  the  platform  where 
Lincoln  made  his  historic  speech  just  before  he  became  Presi- 
dent. That  speech  in  which  he  expressed  what  was  then  an 
unpopular  view  among  the  best  people  of  the  East,  that  the 
federal  government  had  the  right  to  exercise  control  over 

254 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       255 

slavery.  "Never  let  us  be  slandered  from  our  duty/*  he  said. 
"...  Let  us  have  faith  that  right  makes  might,  and  in  that 
faith  let  us  to  the  end  dare  to  do  our  duty  as  we  under- 
stand it/' 

And  from  this  same  platform  more  than  half  a  century 
later,  President-elect  William  Howard  Taft  had  been  con- 
fronted with  a  challenging  question: 

"What  would  you  advise  a  man  to  do  who  is  out  of  a 
job  and  whose  family  is  starving  because  he  can't  get  work?" 

There  was  little  comfort  for  the  unemployed  in  Taft's 
answer: 

"God  knows.  Such  a  man  has  my  deepest  sympathy. 
>» 

On  the  night  of  my  graduation,  there  was  a  debate: 
"Resolved,  that  a  tax  on  income  is  vital  to  the  welfare  of 
the  American  people/'  I  was  selected  as  one  of  the  four  de- 
baters from  a  class  of  more  than  100.  I  was  at  my  best  that 
evening,  and  our  side,  the  affirmative,  won.  The  late  Judge 
Morgan  J.  O'Brien  was  judge  of  the  contest,  and  presented 
the  diplomas. 

I  enjoyed  the  mind  exercise  I  was  getting  in  those  days; 
there  were  thrills  in  it  such  as  I  imagine  people  have  when 
they  fly  in  airplanes.  Disappointments  too.  Sometimes  I 
would  read  an  illuminating  book,  and  having  finished  it, 
would  lean  back  in  my  chair  with  the  satisfied  feeling  that 
I  knew  enough  to  last  me  for  awhile.  Next  night,  perhaps, 
I  would  hear  a  lecture  by  some  better  informed  individual 
than  I  could  ever  hope  to  be,  and  would  realize  that  I  had 
climbed  only  the  foothills  of  understanding. 

I  stocked  up  with  Socialist  pamphlets,  and  read,  or  tried 
to  read  them.  Often  they  were  in  language  too  deep  for  me; 
in  technical  terms  familiar  to  European  Socialists,  but  not  to 
unconverted  Americans.  But  it  never  occurred  to  me  to  be 
against  Socialism  or  any  other  theory  because  it  originated 
in  Europe.  I  felt  that  such  an  objection  was  just  plain  silly; 
that  "alien  theory",  "imported  doctrine*',  and  such  phrases 
of  contempt  were  deliberately  coined  to  discredit  a  growing 
cause.  If  this  was  good  reasoning,  I  figured,  why  accept  any- 
thing that  originated  outside  of  our  own  country?  That  our 
prevailing  religion  came  from  Asia — and  many  of  our  ac- 
cepted political  and  best  scientific  ideas  had  their  origin  in 


256      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

Europe — seemed  to  me  ample  justification  for  free  trade  in 
theories. 

For  several  years  the  scathing  articles  by  Lincoln  Steffens 
under  the  general  title  of  "The  Shame  of  our  Cities"  had  been 
appearing  in  McClares  Magazine,  and  they  exposed  the 
bribed  and  the  bribing  of  municipal  government  Seemingly 
one  city  was  as  rotten  as  another.  And  Ida  Tarbell  had  writ- 
ten "The  History  of  Standard  Oil/'  and  turned  the  search- 
light on  the  methods  by  which  John  D.  Rockefeller  acquired 
his  fortune. 

Thomas  W.  Lawson,  outspoken  Boston  stockbroker,  had 
held  the  center  of  the  American  stage  for  more  than  two  years 
with  his  "Frenzied  Finance"  series  in  Everybody's  Magazine. 
With  spectacular  wrath,  he  tore  the  feathers  out  of  the  buz- 
zards of  Wall  Street,  showing  up  their  evil  practices  and 
raising  hell  generally  among  his  own  tribe.  This  lone  bird 
sought  to  reform  the  predatory  birds  all  around  him.  Every- 
body's leaped  to  an  average  sale  of  750,000  copies  during 
that  expose.  Lawson's  brilliant  and  bitter  articles  aroused 
great  public  indignation  against  Wall  Street.  Then  they 
petered  out  with  the  crusader  discouraged  and  financially 
crushed. 

Upton  Sinclair  had  come  along,  a  young  man  with  a 
mighty  determination,  and  against  heavy  odds  forced  the 
publication  of  his  novel,  The  Jungle,  based  upon  his  first- 
hand observations  of  the  conditions  under  which  meat  was 
packed  in  the  Chicago  stockyards  and  under  which  the  work- 
ers there  lived.  And  President  Theodore  Roosevelt,  who  had 
testified  that  he  would  as  soon  have  eaten  his  old  hat  as  the 
canned  meat  furnished  the  American  troops  by  the  Chicago 
packers  in  1898,  appointed  a  commission  to  investigate  Sin- 
clair's charges.  Ella  Reeve  Bloor  was  a  member  of  this  body. 
Brisbane  lauded  the  book  in  two  editorials,  saying  "The 
Jungle'*  had  done  for  modern  industrial  slavery  what  "Uncle 
Tom's  Cabin"  did  for  black  slavery,  and  had  done  it  better. 
And  the  New  York  American  began  running  the  Sinclair 
novel  serially* 

Many  persons  lost  their  taste  for  meat  for  a  long  time 
because  of  the  horrors  shown  in  that  story*  Then  the  news- 
papers reported  that  conditions  had  been  cleaned  up  in  the 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       257 

stockyards  by  the  new  inspection  service  installed  by  the 
Department  of  Agriculture  at  the  urging  of  Roosevelt's  com- 
mission, and  the  public  clamor  died  down.  But  the  publicity 
given  to  the  investigation  had  painted  a  dark  picture  of  the 
whole  meat  industry  in  the  minds  of  millions  of  Americans.* 
Moyer,  Haywood,  and  Pettibone  were  kidnapped  in  Den- 
ver and  taken  to  Boise,  Idaho,  for  trial  on  a  charge  of  assassi- 
nating former  Governor  Steunenberg  with  dynamite.  The 
stories  that  came  through  on  this  in  the  daily  press  for  months 
gave  the  impression  that  these  men  and  their  associates  in  the 
Western  Federation  of  Miners  were  red-handed  murderers;  it 
was  easy  to  believe  that,  if  one  heard  nothing  of  the  other 


ELLA    REEVE   BLOOR 

side  of  the  story,  clear  up  to  the  time  of  the  defendants* 
acquittal. 

But  there  were  protest  meetings  in  behalf  of  the  defense 
in  New  York,  and  I  attended  one  of  these,  where  Eugene  V. 
Debs  spoke,  and  he  brought  home  to  us  who  listened  the 
black  story  of  the  frame-up  against  the  accused,  which  was 
designed  to  crush  unionism  among  the  metal  miners  of  the 
West.  Debs  was  dynamic  as  he  denounced  the  mining  mag- 
nates whose  agents  had  seized  the  three  union  leaders  in  Colo- 

*  The  Jungle  had  a  profound  effect  upon  me  when  I  read  it  in  1906. 
Sinclair  gives  a  graphic  picture  of  the  tenacious  nature  of  the  giant  evil  he  tried 
to  blot  out,  in  The  Brass  Check  and  American  Outpost.  Recalling  in  the  latter 
book,  in  1932,  that  he  aimed  at  the  public's  heart  and  by  accident  hit  it  in  the 
stomach,  he  says:  "I  am  supposed  to  have  helped  clean  up  the  Yards  and 
improve  the  country's  meat  supply — though  this  is  mostly  delusion.  But  nobody 
even  pretends  to  believe  that  I  improved  the  condition  of  the  stockyards  workers. 
They  have  no  unions  to  speak  of,  and  their  wages  are,  in  relation  to  the  cost  of 
living,  every  bit  as  low  as  they  were  twenty-eight  years  ago.  Yet  I  don't  want 
to  be  pessimistic.  .  .  .  Some  day  we  shall  ...  see  the  sprouting  of  the  seed 
we  have  been  scattering  all  these  weary  years-** 


258      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

rado  without  a  warrant,  carried  them  into  another  state,  and 
held  them  incommunicado  for  days  while  the  prosecution 
was  building  its  case  against  them,  His  voice  shrilled  with 
contempt  as  he  cited  Theodore  Roosevelt's  characterization 
of  the  defendants  and  their  friends  as  "undesirable  citizens/' 
What  a  nation  for  Washington  and  Lincoln  to  look 
upon,  if  they  could  have  returned  for  a  visit  then! 

Nineteen  Seven  brought  a  panic  in  Wall  Street,  and  hard 
times  again*  Factories  were  closing,  countless  thousands  of 
men  out  of  work.  That  autumn  a  mass-meeting  of  unem- 
ployed was  announced  under  Socialist  auspices  to  take  place 


ALEXANDER  IRVINE 


in  Union  Square.  A  permit  for  this  was  refused  by  the  police, 
but  the  crowd  gathered  anyhow.  Policemen  poured  into  the 
Square,  on  horse  and  on  foot,  and  began  clubbing  men  and 
women  right  and  left,  and  riding  them  down. 

In  the  midst  of  all  this  a  bomb  exploded — almost  a  re- 
enactment  of  the  Chicago  Haymarket  scene — one  youth  be- 
ing killed  and  many  persons  wounded.  The  police  "identified" 
the  young  fellow  who  was  killed  as  the  bomb-thrower.  His 
name  was  given  as  Sig  Silverstein,  and  he  was  described 
variously  as  a  Socialist,  Anarchist,  and  Nihilist.  One  of  those 
knocked  down  by  the  explosion  and  then  clubbed  by  a 
policeman  was  Alexander  Irvine,  a  young  Episcopal  clergy- 
man and  Socialist,  who  on  Sunday  evenings  conducted  an 
open  forum  in  the  Church  of  the  Ascension  on  Fifth  Avenue, 
where  Dr.  Percy  Stickney  Grant  was  rector*  Irish-born,  Irvine 


S 

O 


O 

P 


1 

G 
cd 


I 


O 

. 

* 


•§ 

P* 


I 


O 

O 


259 


260       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

had  been  raised  in  poverty.  He  wrote  of  his  life  in  a  hook, 
"From  the  Bottom  Up/* 

I  went  to  the  forum  on  the  following  Sunday,  and 
heard  him  tell  of  his  experience  at  the  Union  Square  meeting, 
after  which  he  explained  how  the  capitalists  used  the  police 
against  the  producers  of  their  wealth,  how  they  threw  the 
latter  out  of  jobs  without  pity.  Being  an  emotional  speaker 
and  a  Christian  minister,  Irvine  was  an  arousing  voice  in 
the  wilderness  of  New  York  churches,  convincing  all  his 
listeners  except  of  course  the  wealthy  members. 

On  various  occasions  I  attended  that  forum,  where  speak- 
ers on  both  sides  could  be  heard,  and  always  came  away  with 
a  clearer  insight  into  the  class  struggle.  Once  a  bourgeois- 
minded  gentleman  was  speaking  on  the  virtue  of  charity.  It 
was  winter-time,  and  he  said  he  had  just  seen  a  beautiful 
illustration  of  that  virtue  on  Eleventh  Street  near  Broadway. 
His  heart  was  thrilled  as  he  watched  a  long  line  of  hungry 
men  receiving  bread  free  of  charge. 

"The  true  Christian  spirit,"  he  shouted,  "My  friends,  it 
was  beautiful !" 

Whereupon  a  lean  figure,  who  looked  like  one  of  "those 
incorrigible  Socialists",  got  up  and  said:  "Then  the  longer 
the  line  the  more  beautiful  it  is?" 

At  that  time  I  had  not  thought  of  drawing  any  cartoons 
for  the  existing  Socialist  and  kindred  publications,  nor  had 
anyone  asked  me  to.  The  current  periodicals  of  that  type  in- 
cluded Wilshires  Magazine,  published  in  New  York;^  the 
Appeal  to  Reason  issuing  from  Girard,  Kansas;  the  Chicago 
Daily  Socialist;  Mother  Earth,  Anarchist  organ,  the  Inter- 
national Socialist  Review,  the  Weekly  People,  organ  of  the 
Socialist  Labor  Party,  and  Wayland's  Monthly,  also  pub- 
lished in  Girard. 

I  knew  where  my  sympathies  lay;  but  was  not  yet  ready 
to  speak  out,  although  Darwin  Meserole  and  other  friends 
were  saying:  "With  your  equipment  as  an  artist,  you  ought 
to  be  a  Socialist/'  Instead  I  was  holding  on  to  such  estab- 
lished publications  as  were  receptive  to  my  work,  and  en- 
deavoring to  put  across  pointed  cartoons  which  would  in 
some  way  help  the  cause  of  Socialism.  For  Life,  Pack,  and 
Judge  would  take  pictures  aimed  at  firetrap  tenements,  John 


261 


262       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

D.  Rockefeller,  child  labor,  grafting  public  officials,  sweat 
shops,  deified  money,  exploiters  of  the  poor,  and  related  evils. 

Meanwhile  Arthur  Brisbane  occasionally  reprinted  car- 
toons of  mine  from  Life  or  Pack  and  made  them  the  basis  of 
editorials,  sometimes  agreeing  with  my  contention,  but  quite 
as  often  as  not  pointing  out  that  there  was  much  to  be  said 
on  the  other  side,  and  that  Mr.  Young,  "able  and  well 
meaning",  had  erred  in  thinking  that  his  cartoon  was  as  true 
as  it  appeared  to  be.  Now  and  then  Brisbane  voiced  beliefs 
that  were  part  of  the  Socialist  party  program,  but  quieted 
the  fears  of  those  among  his  readers  who  might  object  by 
saying  that  "perhaps  ten  thousand  years  hence  these  ideas 
will  be  adopted  by  society/' 

And  as  I  moved  farther  into  the  field  of  social  satire 
Brisbane  called  upon  me  to  do  special  work  for  the  Journal, 
and  subsequently  for  the  Sunday  American,  when  he  began 
doing  editorials  for  what  was  then  the  World  Events  section. 
My  cartoons  for  this  purpose  were  drawn  for  full-width  use 
across  the  top  of  the  page.  In  that  day  practically  all  Ameri7 
can  dailies  were  seven  columns  wide  instead  of  eight  as  now. 

I  was  striking  at  effects  rather  than  at  causes,  and  it  was 
never  possible  to  point  to  the  institution  which  I  was  now 
convinced  lay  at  the  bottom  of  all  these  dark  manifestations. 
Once  in  a  moment  of  excess  confidence,  I  labeled  a  fat  silk- 
hatted  figure  in  a  picture  with  the  word  Capitalism. 

"We  can't  do  that/'  Hearst's  principal  editor  said.  "Call 
him  Creed.  That  means  the  same  thing,  and  it  won't  get 
us  into  trouble/' 

It  was  around  1910  that  I  realized  I  belonged  with  the 
Socialists  in  their  fight  to  destroy  capitalism.  I  had  been  a 
long  time  arriving  at  that  conclusion.  Often  I  have  been 
asked:  "What  made  you  a  radical?"  It  was  no  thunderbolt 
revelation  that  hit  me  like  the  one  which  struck  Paul  of 
Tarsus.  Many  elements  went  into  my  decision.  For  years  the 
truth  about  the  underlying  cause  of  the  exploitation  and 
misery  of  the  world's  multitudes  had  been  knocking  at  the 
door  of  my  consciousness,  but  not  until  that  year  did  it  begin 
to  sound  clearly. 

Earlier  I  had  devoted  a  great  deal  of  enthusiasm  in  cer- 
tain periods  to  profit-sharing  and  public  ownership,  but  I 


HAPPINESS       DCVELOPMENT  /  ORIJER       JUSTICE: 


CHARLES  EDWARD  RUSSELL.  The  Socialist  Party  used  this  drawing 
as  a  poster  when  he  ran  for  the  New  York  Governorship  in  1910. 


263 


264      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

saw  now  that  while  these  were  moves  in  the  right  direction, 
the  ultimate  solution  of  society's  greatest  problem  was  the 
co-operative  commonwealth,  with  production  for  use  as  the 
first  point  in  the  program,  so  that  no  human  would  ever 
again  have  to  suffer  for  want  of  food,  clothing,  or  shelter. 

Seeing  this,  I  began  to  draw  cartoons  hitting  directly  at 
capitalism,  placing  them  where  I  could,  or  saving  them  against 
a  day  when  a  friendly  editor  might  accept  them.  I  watched 
for  chances  to  hook  up  current  injustices  to  that  underlying 
cause.  Mitchell  of  Life  welcomed  so#ie  of  these  cartoons, 
although  he  held  that  there  was  a  limit  to  how  many  of  that 
type  he  could  intersperse  in  his  pages.  But  in  those  days,  for 
a  magazine  that  had  not  declared  war  upon  the  moneyed 
interests,  Life  did  pretty  well. 

One  of  my  drawings  used  by  Mitchell,  which  now  seems 
daring  for  that  time,  bore  the  one- word  caption,  "Capital- 
ism," later  reprinted  with  the  title,  "The  Last  Supper/' 
High  on  a  precipice,  symbolic  of  his  lofty  position  in  world 
affairs,  sits  a  grossly  fat  gentleman  at  a  table,  which  is  lit- 
tered with  the  leavings  from  a  rich  feast  which  he  has  just 
gorged.  As  he  leans  back  in  his  chair  to  drain  a  big  golden 
bowl  for  his  final  fill,  the  chair  is  dangerously  close  to  teeter- 
ing over  the  brink. 

One  day  after  I  had  turned  definitely  leftward,  I  ran  into 
Eugene  Wood  on  the  street.  I  had  not  seen  him  since  our 
Chicago  days.  He  expressed  gratification  that  I  had  become 
Socialistic  in  my  thinking  and  said:  "Everybody  will  see 
the  light  some  day/'  It  was  an  exhilarating  discovery  to  find 
that  a  farm  boy  from  my  mid-west  country  who  could  write 
effectively  also  had  some  "queer"  notions  about  political 
economy.  Most  of  the  many  writers  and  artists  in  New  York 
then  never  bothered  their  heads  about  economics  or  political 
trends.  I  felt  that  I  was  not  so  eccentric  after  all — if  Eugene 
Wood,  whose  humorous  stories  about  his  Ohio  home  folks 
were  popular  features  of  Everybody's  Magazine,  could  accept 
the  Marxian  philosophy, 

He  was  a  man  of  true  nobility,  self-sacrificing,  giving 
everything  he  had  to  the  cause.  As  writer,  speaker,  and  teacher 
he  served  valiantly.  He  wrote  Socialist  pamphlets,  spoke  in 
political  campaigns,  and  for  several  terms  taught  English 
and  pronunciation  to  large  classes  of  foreigners  in  the  Rand 


265 


266      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

School.  Simultaneously  with  that  teaching,  he  worked  on  the 
copy  desk  of  the  Daily  Call  .  .  .  The  death  of  his  wife  was 
a  heavy  blow  to  him;  they  had  been  devoted  to  each  other. 
After  that  loss  we  used  to  meet  occasionally  in  the  Union 
Square  district,  where  we  both  lived;  and  his  sadness  deepened 
as  the  months  went  by.  The  one  joy  left  in  his  life  was  his 
daughter  Peggy,  the  actress,  in  whose  talent  he  took  great 

pride. 

Like  myself,  he  was  born  amid  the  moral  restraints  of  a 
small  community,  and  was  a  bit  timid  about  some  of  the 
pictured  nudes  and  articles  on  sex  in  the  Masses,  and  resigned 
from  the  staff  when  some  of  the  numbers  displeased  him. 
His  best  humorous  writings  in  that  magazine  were  burlesques 
of  the  old  stories  in  the  Bible. 

Balfour  Ker  is  remembered  for  his  powerful  social  satires, 
and  above  all  for  a  certain  picture  entitled  From  the  Depths. 
It  shows  the  terror  of  revelers  in  a  palace  of  pleasure  as  a 
fist  is  thrust  up  through  the  floor  by  one  of  the  toilers  below 
whose  labor  enables  the  revelers  to  exist.  This  has  often  been 
reprinted,  and  has  been  the  subject  of  many  editorials  and 
sermons,  but  few  people  nowadays  know  where  it  first  ap- 
peared. It  was  one  of  the  illustrations  which  Ker  made  for 
a  novel  called  The  Silent  War,  written  by  John  Ames 
Mitchell  and  published  in  1906.  The  theme  was  the  class 
struggle. 

I  find  a  letter  which  Ker  sent  me  from  London  in  Decem- 
ber, 1910,  which  has  bearing  on  that  period,  and  I  feel  that 
it  is  well  worth  including  here. 

So  you  have  joined  in  the  good  fight  (Ker  wrote) — I  knew 
you  would  sooner  or  later.  It  takes  a  long  time  sometimes  to  just 
see  the  proposition  right,  but  once  that  is  done  the  rest  of  the 
way  is  sure  if  rough.  Well,  the  long  time  it  takes  us  to  see  it  shows 
how  much  the  future  of  Socialism  depends  on  the  mass  of  the 
people  being  educated  in  the  idea.  Constant  reiteration,  from  press, 
pulpit,  picture,  book,  platform,  everywhere,  in  every  conceivable 
way,  whether  it  be  labeled  Socialism  or  not.  We  must  din  it  into 
the  public  ear,  eye,  nose,  stomach,  and  purse.  You  remember  Mira- 
beau  said  that  there  were  three  essentials  in  convincing  oratory: 
"The  first  is  repetition;  the  second  repetition;  and  the  third  repe- 
tition/' I  guess  that's  about  right — and  would  apply  to  Socialist 
propaganda. 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       267 

No  human  being  could  stand  out  very  long  against  the  argu- 
ments for  the  necessity  of  the  complete  socialization  of  the  eco- 
nomic machine.  It's  our  business  to  keep  hammering  away.  And 
Gosh!  But  you  have  a  bully  old  sledge-hammer  in  that  pen  of 
yours.  Your  work  stands  head  and  shoulders  above  any  other 
work  of  its  kind  in  the  U.S.A.  It  ranks  with  the  little  fine  stuff 
in  cartooning  in  Germany  and  France.  I've  received  Life  regularly 
since  I  left  the  land  of  the  free — and  have  got  a  pretty  good  idea 
of  its  relative  merits  and  demerits.  It's  a  damn  bright  able  little 
sheet,  and  shows  up  well  even  at  3,000  miles  distance.  And  your 
stuff  is  about  the  strongest  of  it  all,  much  the  strongest  drawing, 
and  it  tickles  me  that  you  have  "seen  de  light/'  Brer  Young.  .  .  . 

How  is  that  capitalist  room-mate  of  yours?  Have  you  con- 
verted him  yet?  .  .  .  Vlag  gives  me  great  accounts  of  his  co-op 
society.  Co-operation  is  an  important  factor  over  here,  and  I  think 
Pete  deserves  all  sorts  of  credit  if  he  gets  it  going  in  the  U.S.A. 
with  a  Socialist  tag  on  it  too.  I  was  a  member  until  recently  of 
one  of  the  largest  co-ops  in  England,  but  I  found  that  the  thing 
was  not  really  democratically  run,  but  run  by  and  in  the  interest 
of  a  small  clique  of  officials  and  share-holders,  so  I  cleared  out.  It 
was  founded  purely  as  a  profit-sharing  concern,  and  called  co- 
operative to  draw  members.  Even  under  those  circumstances  they 
gave  far  better  value  for  the  money  than  the  ordinary  business 
houses. 

It's  my  private  opinion  that  only  through  labor  unions,  in- 
dustrial unionism,  and  some  form,  or  forms,  of  co-operation,  will 
the  people  receive  the  necessary  instruction  in  the  common  sense 
and  economy  of  complete  socialization  of  productive  machinery. 

You  should  have  heard  yours  truly  haranguing  British  crowds 
on  the  foolishness  of  'protection'  as  a  cure  for  unemployment, 
and  on  the  danger  of  trusts,  etc. — pretty  near  got  my  head  punched 
several  times  for  butting  into  'tariff  reform'  speeches  and  meetings. 

I've  met  some  damn  nice  fellows  here  in  the  movement.  They 
compare  well  with  any  bunch  of  men  in  any  profession  or  class, 
these  fellows  working  in  the  dark  corners  for  the  better  day,  Man 
for  man,  they  are  far  better  than  the  average  gink  or  capitalist. 
And  some  of  them  are  real  heroes — men  who  could  get  to  almost 
any  position  they  wanted  if  they  would  just  drop  their  propa- 
ganda work,  men  who  cannot  be  bought,  scared,  bluffed,  nor 
humbugged.  Men  of  very  real  ability  and  really  splendidly  edu- 
cated, plugging  away  day  and  night  year  in  and  year  out  educat- 
ing, arguing,  talking,  talking,  talking  the  truth  into  the  almost 
hopelessly 'indifferent  workers.  Surely  something  must  some  day 
come  of  such  effort — let's  hope  it  comes  soon. 

Do  you  still  attend  classes  at  the  Rand  School?  I  haven't  had 


268       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

a  chance  for  lectures  since  I  came  here,  I've  put  in  about  three 
hours  a  day  studying  drawing  though  in  different  schools,  and 
I'm  starting  to  paint  again  tomorrow  with  some  fellows,  one  of 
whom  is  a  cracking  fine  painter,  an  old  pupil  of  Whistler's  named 
Clifford  Adams.  Hope  to  learn  lots,  not  that  I  want  ever  to  ^  paint 
a  la  Whistler,  but  Adams  knows  Whistler's  "science''  of  painting 
down  to  the  ground,  and  has  offered  to  teach  me.  I'm  going  to 
keep  on  studying  this  time  I'm  over  here  until  I'm  a  thoroughly 
well  equipped  craftsman.  I'm  afraid  that  means  some  years  yet 
of  hard  work,  but  I'm  going  to  stick  it.  The  worst  of  the  damned 
business  is  that  I  have  to  keep  doing  pot-boiling,  which  lengthens 
the  time  necessary  more  than  I  can  really  spare.  However,  my 
"comrade",  as  you  called  her,  is  of  the  right  sort  and  willing  to 
rough  it  and  even  starve  if  necessary,  so  we  live  very  economically 
and  I  do  as  little  illustrating  and  as  much  studying  as  possible, 
and  methinks  I've  learned  a  thing  or  two  since  getting  here. 

When  I  look  over  the  field  of  modern  art  I  have  to  blush  for 
the  painters,  a  lot  of  silly  upper-class  parasites,  and  yours  truly 
is  going  to  try  to  show  that  a  painter  can  be  a  Socialist  and  use 
his  brush  like  the  splendid  weapon  it  is,  and  as  hundreds  have 
used  their  pens,  for  freedom  and  light.  Gee  whizz  ^  Doesn't  that 
sound  big?  And  it's  little  me — talking.  However,  since  you  are  a 
Socialist,  I  don't  mind  "talking  big"  to  you.  Socialism  makes  us 
think  of  big  things  and  long  to  do  them  whether  we  can  or  not. 

One  evening  I  went  to  hear  Emma  Goldman,  out  of 
curiosity.  She  was  an  emotional  speaker,  but  not  nearly  so 
dangerous  looking  as  she  had  been  pictured  by  the  news- 
papers. Her  talk  was  a  bit  bookish,  and  she  looked  like  a 
hausfratc,  and  more  maternal  in  appearance  and  manner  than 
destructive.  She  carried  her  audience  along  with  her  like  a 
mother  hen  followed  by  a  brood  of  chicks.  Sometimes,  how- 
ever, she  rose  to  heights  of  flaming  anger  as  she  cited  crimes 
of  the  police  against  workers  or  the  use  of  federal  or  state 
troops  to  break  strikes. 


Chapter  26 
AT  LAST  I  KNOW  WHERE  I'M  GOING 

NOW  I  was  past  forty  years  of  age  and  I  knew  definitely 
where  I  was  going.  I  was  in  such  a  state  as  our  Chris- 
tian forebears  would  have  called  "righteous  indigna- 
tion/' My  humorous  sense  had  to  keep  reminding  me  to  look 
out  for  fanaticism.  However,  I  was  filled  with  a  deep  resent- 
ment against  the  social  wrongs  that  were  manifest  wherever 
one  turned  to  look.  Henceforth  my  drawing  pen  must  be 
devoted — in  so  far  as  circumstances  would  permit — to  attack- 
ing the  System  which  engendered  so  much  woe. 

From  Twenty- fourth  Street  I  had  moved  to  9  East 
Seventeenth  Street,  on  the  edge  of  Greenwich  Village,  then 
the  radical  center  of  artistic  and  economic  ferment — in  a  sense 
the  American  Montmartre.  Here  I  occupied  a  large  skylight 
studio  with  my  friend  Howard  Smith,  painter  and  commer- 
cial artist.  We  had  to  walk  up  three  flights,  but  I  regarded 
this  as  good  exercise. 

There  was  a  new  zest  for  me  in  just  living.  Days  of 
real  doing  had  set  in.  But  I  still  had  my  own  economic  prob- 
lem, which  must  be  solved  anew  each  week.  Whatever  recog- 
nition my  talent  had  had  in  the  few  years  since  I  had  swung 
to  an  avowed  espousal  of  "the  cause",  none  of  the  radical 
publications  could  see  any  point  (if  they  ever  thought  of  it) 
in  turning  me  loose  against  the  System  and  paying  me  for  it, 
not  even  if  I  were  able  to  bring  about  the  industrial  common- 
wealth singlehanded.  What  money  they  had  went  to  business 
upkeep  and  to  sustain  editors  and  writers  expert  at  spreading 
out  columns  of  wordage  on  the  difference  between  the  twee- 
dledee  of  their  wing  of  the  movement  and  the  tweedledum 
of  the  other  wing.  Of  course  these  editorial  writers  had  to 
know  Karl  Marx,  the  materialist  conception  of  history,  and 
how  to  use  invective — with  such  equipment  they  would  write 
a  thousand  words  to  say  what  a  good  cartoon  could  say  at 

269 


270       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

a  glance.  So  I  had  to  keep  going  financially  by  continuing  to 
draw  for  the  established  periodicals. 

When  I  received  a  good  check  for  a  Socialistic  cartoon, 
such  as  those  which  Life  occasionally  used,  I  was  as  pleased 
as  the  Irishman  who  wrote  to  his  friend  in  the  old  country: 
"Jim,  come  on  over.  I'm  tearing  down  a  Protestant  church 
and  getting  paid  for  it  besides/*  My  main  support  came  from 
the  sale  of  comics  to  Life  and  Judge,  with  now  and  then  a 


PIET  VLAG,  founder  of  The  Masses. 

job  of  illustrating  for  Collier's  or  some  other  successful  maga- 
zine. Once  in  a  while,  too,  I  would  get  a  check  for  a  cartoon 
illustrating  a  labor  leaflet  which  would  just  about  cover  my 
week's  laundry  bill.  Add  to  these  a  few  pictures  for  book 
jackets  at  intervals,  and  my  days  were  well  occupied. 

Late  in  1910  Piet  Vlag,  a  young  Dutchman  whom  I  had 
met  at  the  Rand  School  of  Social  Science,  then  at  112  East 
19th  Street,  came  to  my  studio  and  said  he  was  going  to 
start  a  magazine.  He  had  a  restaurant  in  the  basement  of  the 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       271 

school  building.  If  you  saw  Piet  once  you  would  never  forget 
him.  He  had  the  large  nose  you  see  in  photographs  of  Dutch- 
men along  the  Zuyder  Zee,  black  penetrating  eyes,  and  an 
irresistible  smile.  With  contagious  ardor  he  explained  the 
policy  of  the  projected  magazine  and  sketched  its  format.  It 
would  have  to  do  with  co-operatives  in  which  Vlag  was 
directly  interested,  Socialism,  art,  and  literature,  among  other 
things.  And  Piet  had  a  backer  for  the  enterprise — Rufus  W. 
Weeks,  vice-president  of  the  New  York  Life  Insurance  Com- 
pany. 

"Will  you  contribute  to  the  magazine?"  he  asked. 

"Of  course/'  I  said,  "here's  one  now/'  And  I  handed 
Piet  a  cartoon  lately  finished. 

Various  names  for  the  new  periodical  were  suggested, 
and  the  question  was  discussed  at  some  length  before  all  those 
concerned  agreed  upon  calling  it  The  Masses,  a  name  pro- 
posed by  Thomas  Seltzer,  who  was  chosen  as  the  editor. 
Mr.  Weeks  was  ready  to  pay  the  cost  of  printing  and  engrav- 
ing for  "a  reasonable  length  of  time/'  Vlag,  always  an 
enthusiast  in  anything  he  undertook,  figured  that  in  six 
months  the  enterprise  ought  to  be  solidly  on  its  feet.  He 
plunged  into  it  with  admirable  industry,  spending  all  his 
waking  hours  in  visiting  writers  and  artists,  pledging  them 
to  contribute,  and  talking  about  the  virtues  of  the  forthcom- 
ing magazine  to  everyone  he  met. 

There  was  no  mention  of  paying  contributors,  and  cer- 
tainly none  of  us  expected  pay.  For  The  Masses  promised 
to  be  a  publication  for  the  release  of  socially  conscious  anti- 
capitalist  literary  and  artistic  expressions  for  which  there  was 
hardly  any  demand  by  the  well  printed  news-stand  variety 
of  magazine.  And  there  were  artists  and  writers  who  felt 
the  need  of  such  an  outlet — pay  or  no  pay. 

January,  1911,  saw  The  Masses  launched.  It  was  de- 
signed, the  publishers  explained,  to  help  improve  the  condi- 
tions of  the  working  people,  (f  whether  they  want  it  or  not/' 
Eugene  Wood  was  listed  as  president  of  the  publishing  com- 
pany, Hayden  Carruth  as  vice-president,  and  Andre  Tridon 
as  secretary. 

That  first  issue  included  articles  on  the  co-operative  move- 
ment by  W.  J.  Ghent  and  Eugene  Wood,  one  on  the  cost  of 
living  by  Gustavus  Myers,  a  cartoon  by  Cesare,  and  two 


272      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

cartoons  by  myself.  One  of  mine  dealt  with  the  evolution  of 
the  store,  forecasting  a  day  when  the  vulture  of  capitalism 
would  be  kicked  off  the  top  of  retail  business  and  ownership 
and  operation  would  be  taken  over  by  the  people  for  the 
common  good* 

While  the  quality  of  the  material  in  the  new  magazine 
varied  widely,  some  of  the  offerings  had  strength,  and  I  was 
optimistic.  There  would  be  improvement  as  the  months  went 
on.  Eugene  Debs,  always  ready  to  aid  any  effort  to  extend 
the  Socialist  press,  lauded  it. 

Charles  A.  Winter  made  the  cover  drawing.  This  re- 
markable artist  has  been  deplorably  overlooked  since  those 
days  when  he  had  but  recently  returned  from  study  abroad. 
His  work  showed  a  strong  classic  influence,  and  Dante  Gabriel 
Rossetti  at  his  best  could  not  have  surpassed  the  richness 
of  his  color*  Doubtless  those  superb  pictures,  which  have 
had  all  too  little  attention,  are  somewhere  piled  up  for  re- 
lease, some  time — after  awhile. 

Each  month  Piet  Vlag  would  hurry  into  my  studio  and 
say:  "Veil,  Art,  ve  got  to  have  a  picture  for  the  Messes/' 
His  pronunciation  was  delightful,  and  I  was  sometimes  wor- 
ried lest  Eugene  Wood  would  take  Piet  in  hand  and  smooth 
out  his  speech  into  pure  English.  If  I  had  nothing  suitable 
lying  around  I  would  draw  a  cartoon  touching  on  some 
current  topic.  A  theme  agreed  upon,  I  often  found  these  pic- 
tures much  easier  to  draw  than  those  I  was  selling  to  the 
conventional  magazines.  If  you  are  getting  paid  for  work 
most  editors,  like  true  business  men,  make  it  a  rule  to  find 
fault.  Anyhow  they  offer  no  praise,  for  fear  you  will  think 
they  need  you  and  that  your  money  is  earned  too  easily. 
With  Vlag  there  was  no  haggling  over  the  way  in  which 
I  had  interpreted  an  idea.  It  was  up  to  me,  and  I  felt  that 
an  audience  was  waiting  to  see  what  would  be  in  the  next 
issue.  For  the  first  time  in  my  life  I  could  cut  loose  and  express 
my  own  unhampered  point  of  view, 

Louis  Untermeyer  was  contributing  poems  which  dealt 
with  the  realities  of  the  class  struggle,  but  which  sounded 
a  note  of  hope.  There  were  articles  showing  how  the  workers 
were  robbed  through  exploitation  by  employers  as  the  cost 
of  living  went  up;  others  against  the  Boy  Scouts,  which  were 
viewed  as  a  potential  military  organization;  and  attacks  on 


w 

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273 


274      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

child  labor.  A  good  deal  was  printed  about  co-operatives. 
Portraits  of  contributors  were  occasionally  used  with  their 
articles.  Vlag's  writings  had  some  punch  in  them,  but  were 
not  in  any  sense  distinguished.  Rufus  Weeks' s  offerings  were 
inclined  to  be  too  leisurely  philosophical  to  be  appropriate 
in  a  periodical  designed  to  appeal  to  the  working  class. 

Weeks  was  a  quiet,  dignified  gentleman,  an  avowed  So- 
cialist with  an  inquiring  mind.  Rockwell  Kent,  who  knew 
him  better  than  I,  told  me  stories  about  him*  Rockwell  said 
that  on  election  days  in  Tarrytown,  where  Weeks  lived,  the 
family  carriage  would  be  driven  to  the  polling  place  by  his 
Negro  coachman,  who  also  was  a  Socialist.  Together  Weeks 
and  the  coachman  would  go  in  and  cast  their  ballots  for  the 
straight  Socialist  ticket.  Being  a  vice-president  of  a  big  insur- 
ance company,  I  suspect  that  Rufus  Weeks,  to  his  business 
associates,  was  one  of  those  fellows  of  whom  people  say: 
"He  means  well,  but  he's  kind  of  impractical  and  up  in  the 
clouds/' 

For  a  year  and  a  half  the  Masses  appeared  regularly,  but 
did  not  become  anywhere  near  being  self-supporting,  and  Mr. 
Weeks's  enthusiasm  waned  and  finally  came  to  a  full  stop. 
Vlag's  co-operative  stores  were  suffering  from  too  much  in- 
dividualism, and  he  had  lost  his  usual  buoyancy.  But  he  was 
busy  trying  to  solve  the  problem  of  survival  for  "the  Messes", 
and  he  went  to  Chicago  to  look  up  a  man  reputed  to  have  a 
lot  of  money  and  a  generous  nature.  That  man  had  just  left 
for  a  trip  around  the  world,  and  Vlag  worked  out  a  plan  to 
merge  his  publication  with  a  Socialist  women's  magazine  then 
appearing  in  the  midwestern  metropolis.  Impulsively  he 
promised  the  parties  of  the  other  part  to  throw  all  of  us 
contributors  into  the  combination.  When  he  returned  to  New 
York  with  a  wide  smile  of  satisfaction  over  having  fixed 
up  everything  for  the  future,  he  was  surprised  to  learn  that 
we  artists  and  writers  who  had  been  giving  time  and  energy 
to  keeping  the  Masses  alive  did  not  approve  of  his  plan. 

There  was  no  September  issue  in  1912,  and  Charles 
Winter,  who  had  been  an  active  contributor,  called  a  small 
group  together  for  a  crisis  meeting  in  his  studio.  Those  pres- 
ent included  Alice  Winter,  John  and  Dolly  Sloan,  Louis 
Untermeyer,  Eugene  Wood,  Maurice  Becker,  Glenn  Coleman, 
William  Washburn  Nutting,  H.  T.  Turner,  and  myself.  We 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       275 

were  unanimous  in  holding  that  the  magazine  must  go  on. 
Somehow  we  would  find  the  money  to  pay  the  cost,  from 
month  to  month.  But  who  would  be  editor?  There  were  no 
candidates  for  the  job  among  the  conferees. 

I  nominated  Max  Eastman,  who  had  lately  been  ousted 
from  a  Columbia  professorship  for  his  outspoken  opinions 
on  the  social  conflict  in  classroom  lectures.  Max  and  I  had 
met  at  a  Jack  London  dinner,  and  we  had  discussed  the  possi- 
bility of  building  up  the  Masses  into  a  magazine  which  would 
have  the  bold  tone  and  high  quality  of  Simplicissimus, 
Jugend,  Steinlen's  Gil  Bias,  and  Assiette  au  Beurre,  all  of 
which  were  inspiring  to  the  world's  rising  young  artists.  To 
show  how  Max  could  handle  words  and  ideas,  I  read  to  the 
conference  a  magazine  article  he  had  written,  describing  with 
charming  humor  how  he  had  organized  the  first  Men's  League 
for  Woman's  Suffrage  in  New  York.  All  the  others  acqui- 
esced in  the  nomination,  and  we  all  signed  a  letter  to  Max, 
which  said:  "You  are  elected  editor  of  the  Masses,  no  pay/' 

Max  was  not  keen  about  taking  a  no-pay  editorship  of  a 
literary  magazine,  for  at  that  stage  it  was  to  have  a  literary 
front,  but  he  thought  he  might  make  the  job  serve  a  useful 
purpose,  and  presently  consented  to  come  in.  In  private  con- 
versations with  him  we  who  had  assumed  control  made  it 
clear  that  of  course  he  could  have  a  salary,  even  a  good  one, 
if  we  succeeded  in  developing  the  magazine  into  a  self-sus- 
taining property.  But  the  main  thing  was  the  co-operative 
principle  in  editing  the  contents — art  and  literature.  Though 
we  of  the  executive  board  were  eager  to  resume  publication, 
it  took  time  to  raise  the  necessary  money  and  to  whip  into 
shape  text  and  pictures  for  an  issue  that  would  measure  up 
to  the  standard  we  had  visualized.  So  it  was  December  before 
the  Masses  blossomed  again,  now  with  a  colored  cover,  a 
new  make-up,  and  a  fresh  note  of  hope. 

Members  of  the  staff  listed  were:  Literature:  Max  East- 
man, Eugene  Wood,  Hayden  Carruth,  Inez  Haynes  Gilmore, 
Ellis  O.  Jones,  Horatio  Winslow,  Thomas  Seltzer,  Mary 
Heaton  Vorse,  Joseph  O'Brien,  Louis  Untermeyer,  Leroy 
Scott.  Art:  John  Sloan,  Art  Young,  Alice  Beach  Winter, 
Alexander  Popini,  H.  T.  Turner,  Charles  A.  Winter,  Maurice 
Becker,  William  Washburn  Nutting* 


276      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

And  in  announcing  the  revival  of  the  Masses,  and  its 
policy,  we  said: 

We  do  not  enter  the  field  of  any  Socialist  or  other 
magazine  now  published,  or  to  be  published.  We  shall 
have  no  further  part  in  the  factional  disputes  within  the 
Socialist  party;  we  are  opposed  to  the  dogmatic  spirit 
which  creates  and  sustains  these  disputes.  Our  appeal 
will  be  to  the  masses,  both  Socialist  and  non-Socialist, 
with  entertainment,  education,  and  the  livelier  kinds  of 
propaganda. 

In  February,  19 13,  the  contents  of  the  magazine  included 
two  drawings  by  Maurice  Becker  and  a  'little  testimonial 
from  Boston"  in  the  form  of  a  letter  from  the  Library  Club 
House  saying:  "Stop  sending  us  the  Masses;  we  never  ordered 
it  and  do  not  want  it."  And  John  Reed,  new  on  the  scene, 
had  written  a  further  statement  of  policy  in  collaboration 
with  Max  Eastman,  which  now  appeared: 

This  magazine  is  owned  and  published  co-opera- 
tively by  its  editors.  It  has  no  dividends  to  pay,  and  no- 
body is  trying  to  make  any  money  out  of  it.  A  revolu- 
tionary and  not  a  reform  magazine;  a  magazine  with  a 
sense  of  humor  and  no  respect  for  the  respectable;  frank, 
arrogant,  impertinent,  searching  for  the  true  causes;  a 
magazine  directed  against  rigidity  and  dogma  wherever 
it  is  found;  printing  what  is  too  naked  or  true  for  a 
money -making  press;  a  magazine  whose  final  policy  is 
to  do  what  it  pleases  and  conciliate  nobody,  not  even  its 
readers. 

Reed  became  a  contributing  editor  in  March,  and  other 
new  writers  and  artists  came  in  with  us  as  time  moved  along, 
replacing  some  who  for  one  reason  or  another  withdrew. 
These  additional  members  of  the  literary  and  art  boards  in- 
cluded Floyd  Dell,  Arthur  Bullard,  Frank  Bohn,  G.  S. 
Sparks,  Cornelia  Barns,  Stuart  Davis,  William  English  Wall- 
ing, B.  Russell  Hertz,  Robert  Carlton  Brown,  Glenn  O.  Cole- 
man,  1C  R.  Chamberlain,  E.  G.  Miska,  H.  J.  Glintenkamp, 
Edmund  McKenna,  Arturo  Giovannitti,  George  Bellows, 
Howard  Brubaker,  Charles  W.  Wood,  John  Barber,  Board- 
man  Robinson,  Robert  Minor,  and  Frank  Walts. 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       277 

Having  a  free  hand  on  the  Masses  to  attack  the  capitalist 
system  and  its  beneficiaries  loosed  energies  within  me  of  which 
I  had  been  unaware.  I  felt  as  many  a  Crusader  must  have  felt 
long  ago  as  he  set  forth  to  rescue  the  Holy  Land  from  the 
infidels.  For  the  first  time  I  could  draw  cartoons  striking 
openly  at  those  who  took  the  best  years  of  the  worker  and 
then  threw  him  on  the  scrap-heap.  I  didn't  have  to  think 
about  whether  a  picture  of  mine  might  offend  an  advertiser 
and  thus  violate  a  business-office  policy. 

And  one  was  not  confined  to  assailing  generalities;  I  could 
and  did  cast  my  pictorial  shafts  at  individuals  who  symbol- 
ized the  system — financiers,  politicians,  editors,  and  others. 
It  was  gratifying  to  have  a  responsive  audience,  and  also  occa- 
sionally to  hear  yelps  of  pain  from  the  persons  attacked. 
They  would  register  their  indignation  in  public  speeches  or 
in  newspaper  interviews  in  which  the  militant  labor  press 
would  be  condemned  as  a  "menace  to  decent  society." 

Reference  might  be  made  to  many  of  the  pictures  which 
I  drew  for  the  Masses  in  the  next  seven  years,  but  it  will 
suffice  to  mention  here  a  few  that  attracted  wide  attention. 

"Speaking  of  bandits,  the  American  soldiers  are  on  the 
wrong  trail"  was  the  title  of  one  cartoon  which  plainly  im- 
plied that  Pershing's  troops  should  go  to  Wall  Street  instead 
of  spending  their  time  hunting  Pancho  Villa  in  Mexico. 

Three  pictures  on  one  page,  alt  alike,  bore  these  labels: 
"Composite  photo  of  boards  of  patriot  organization  boost- 
ing preparedness.  .  .  .  Composite  photo  of  boards  of  mu- 
nition corporations.  .  .  .  Composite  photo  of  foreign  exploi- 
tation corporations/* 

I  depicted  a  preacher  exclaiming  to  a  workingman:  "You 
must  be  born  again!"  and  the  worker,  tired  of  the  struggle, 
replying:  "Once  is  enough,  Doc!" 

"Turning  to  Christianity"  was  the  title  of  a  scene  based 
on  a  newspaper  interview  in  which  a  missionary  declared 
that  "one  effect  of  the  war  (in  1916)  has  been  to  increase 
the  individual  Turk's  respect  for  Christianity."  My  drawing 
revealed  a  church  with  cannon  sticking  from  the  steeple,  a 
tractor-mortar  on  the  roof,  and  a  big  cannon  barrel  pointed 
from  out  of  a  window. 

Early  in  the  Masses  venture  I  contributed  a  drawing 
which  I  knew  would  not  be  acceptable  to  magazines  which 


October  26,^1912 


Price  5  Cents 


THE 

COMING  NATION 

A      JOURNAL      OF      THINGS      DOING       AND       TO        BE       DONE 


Time  to  Butcher 

For  the  sake  of  the  beatt  itself  at  well  as  the  people 

had  to  uphold  the  genteel  tradition.  Some  ideas  were  just 
bad  taste,  and  none  of.  the  old-line  editors  would  think  of 
offending  elderly  women  subscribers.  .  .  .  In  this  produc- 
tion of  mine  a  small  boy  and  his  sister  are  walking  along  a 
street  in  the  slums  on  a  star-lit  night.  Jimmie  looks  up  at 

278 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       279 

the  sky  and  says;   "Gee!  Annie,  look  at  the  stars,  thick  as 
bed-bugs!" 

But  the  cartoon  which  is  best  known  of  all  the  many 
I  made  for  the  Masses,  and  which  has  been  reprinted  around 
the  world,  portrays  a  workingman  just  home  from  a  day's 
toil.  As  he  slumps  in  a  chair  he  says: 

"  1  gorry,  I'm  tired!" 

And  his  wife  retorts:  "There  you  go!  You're  tired! 
Here  I  be  a~standinr  over  a  hot  stove  all  day,  an'  you 
workin'  in  a  nice  cool  sewer/' 

Editors  reprinting  that  picture  and  text  have  persistently 
altered  the  opening  words  to  read  "By  gorry*'  or  "Begorry", 
evidently  assuming  that  "  'I  gorry'*  was  a  misprint.  But  that 
was  the  form  in  which  it  originally  appeared  in  the  Masses, 
and  that  was  the  way  I  had  heard  that  expletive  in  the 
brogue  of  an  old  Irishman  back  in  Wisconsin. 

I  found  another  outlet  for  creative  expression  in  1911 
and  later  in  the  Cowing  Nation,  a  weekly  published  by  J.  A. 
Wayland  and  Fred  D.  Warren  in  Girard,  Kansas.  This  maga- 
zine displayed  my  cartoons  boldly,  and  now  and  then  I 
wrote  and  illustrated  an  editorial  for  it* 

In  its  columns,  on  July  22,  1911,  Charles  Edward  Rus- 
sell gave  me  special  credit  for  the  corrective  effect  of  a  cartoon 
which  I  had  done  some  three  years  before  for  Pack.  Writing 
at  length  about  the  episode,  Russell  said: 

"Trinity  Church  in  New  York  City  has  now  destroyed 
156  of  the  rotten  tenements  that  it  owned  on  January  1, 
1908.  .  .  .  When  the  character  of  the  tenements  was  first 
disclosed  and  denounced,  the  church  officers  arose  in  righteous 
wrath  and  vehemently  denied  every  charge.  .  .  .  Every- 
body was  a  liar  that  said  a  word  against  Holy  Trinity.  .  *  . 
The  public  was  assured  on  all  sides  that  the  tenements  were 
among  the  best  in  the  world  and  above  reproach. 

"But  almost  at  once  the  corporation  began  quietly  to  pull 
down  these  admired  structures.  Nothing  was  ever  said  in  the 
press  about  this,  but  the  work  was  steadily  pushed.  .  *  . 
They  *  .  .  will  breed  tuberculosis  and  typhoid  no  more. 

"What  settled  the  fate  of  the  Trinity  tenement  was  a 
cartoon  by  Art  Young*  He  called  it  'Holy  Trinity',  and  it  is 
one  of  the  great  cartoons  of  history*  From  it  there  was  no 


Puck 

HOLY  TRINITY.  Charles  Edward  '  Russell  credited  this  cartoon  of  mine 
with  forcing  Trinity  Church  to  destroy  a  vast  number  of  disease-breeding 
tenements  which  it  owned  in  1908. 


280 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       281 

escape;  the  wardens  might  fume  and  the  corporation  might 
dodge  and  twist;  whichever  way  they  turned,  there  before 
them  rose  that  tremendous  thing,  thrusting  a  finger  into  their 
faces:  'Holy  Trinity' — Sanctimony  praying  while  in  the 
dreadful  tenements  below  men,  women,  and  little  children 
suffered,  and  from  their  sufferings  arose  the  money  that  made 
Trinity  rich.  Terrible  picture!  And  terrible  truth!  No  one 
that  ever  looked  upon  that  great  cartoon  could  thereafter  get 
it  out  of  his  mind;  it  had  the  irresistible  and  convincing 
touch  of  truth  and  genius,  and  it  did  the  business/' 

The  cartoon  referred  to  was  drawn  at  a  time  when  Rus- 
sell was  crusading  in  Everybody's  Magazine  against  Trinity's 
ownership  of  those  disease-laden  tenements.  He  went  on  to 
say  in  the  Coming  Nation  that  I  could  feel  that  thousands 
of  people  in  New  York  were  better  housed  and  more  com- 
fortable because  of  the  power  of  my  pencil.  That  commenda- 
tion was  the  finest  reward  that  had  come  to  me  since  I  had 
begun  to  draw. 


Chapter   2  7 
IN  WASHINGTON  FOR  THE  METROPOLITAN 

OJOMETHING  happened  in  1912  which  was  highly  im- 
^^  portant  to  me  and  significant  of  the  spirit  of  protest  that 
was  in  the  air.  I  was  asked  to  go  to  Washington  for  the 
Metropolitan  Magazine  and  do  a  monthly  review  of  the  po- 
litical scene  in  words  and  pictures.  This  opened  up  a  broad 
new  field,  for  the  Metropolitan  had  a  wide  circulation, 
whereas  the  Masses  would  have  to  be  content  with  a  rather 


Collier's  Weekly,  1912 


THE  LAWRENCE  WAY. 


exclusive  folio  wing.  The  latter  had  been  running  a  year  in 
revised  form,  and  we  knew  its  limitations  for  general  appeal, 
Nice  people  didn't  want  it  around,  I  had  been  drawing  car- 
toons (and  sometimes  writing)  for  an  audience  -which  in  the 
main  was  already  converted,  but  now  I  could  appeal  to  those 
who  were  "sitting  in  darkness/'  It  was  understood  by  the 
Metropolitan  editors  that  my  pictures  would  continue  in  the 
Masses  and  other  magazines. 

282 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       283 

Up  to  that  time  the  newspapers  and  magazines  had  paid 
comparatively  little  attention  to  the  national  capital*  If  Con- 
gress had  advertised  like  the  theatres,  no  doubt  its  personnel 
and  daily  procedure  would  have  received  ample  publicity  on 
the  well-known  economic  principle  of  reciprocity:  "You 
scratch  my  back  and  I'll  scratch  yours/'  I  knew  that  the 
press  of  England  considered  Parliament  front-page  news  at 
all  times.  I  had  tried  before  to  interest  editors  in  sending 
me  to  Washington  to  illustrate  whatever  was  informative 
and  picturesque  from  my  point  of  view,  but  without  success. 

The  editor-in-chief  of  the  Metropolitan,  an  Englishman, 
H.  J.  Whigham,  thought  as  I  did — that  Congress  should  be 
played  up  as  British  newspapers  featured  the  doings  of  their 
law-makers,  and  as  Toby  M.P.  (H,  W.  Lucy)  was  doing 
each  week  in  his  *  'Essence  of  Parliament"  in  Punch  with 
splendid  caricatures  by  Harry  Furniss. 

When  the  matter  of  sending  me  to  the  capital  came  up, 
there  was  a  debate  in  the  editorial  room  as  to  whether  my 
friend  Fred  C  Kelly,  then  a  Washington  correspondent, 
should  not  do  the  writing  while  I  drew  the  cartoons.  Fred 
told  the  editors  they  ought  to  make  me  do  both.  I  argued 
that  I  would  rather  draw  than  write.  But  they  insisted  on 
trying  me  out  in  the  dual  role.  I  accepted  it,  and  the  arrange- 
ment continued  for  more  than  six  years. 

What  Congress  did  or  didn't  do  had  been  of  little  im- 
portance in  the  daily  life  of  the  average  American,  until  just 
before  the  war  broke  out  in  Europe.  As  time  went  on,  the 
newspaper  editors  observed  that  there  was  a  growing  public 
interest  in  this  powerful  aggregation  of  law-makers,  and  that 
the  people  were  becoming  conscious  that  politics  really  con- 
cerned them,  especially  when  the  conscription  law  was  passed 
and  the  government  reached  into  the  nation's  homes  for  its 
young  men,  the  citizenry  began  to  ask:  "Who's  doing  all 
this?" 

The  editors  had  come  to  realize  also  that  an  occasional 
editorial  on  what  Congress  was  doing  was  not  enough.  People 
wanted  to  know  more  about  it.  Much  of  the  legislation  favor- 
ing big  finance  was  put  over  on  the  American  populace  while 
they  were  unaware  of  its  significance.  A  long  period  of  public 
apathy,  and  concealment  of  facts  or  indifference  by  the  press, 
are  largely  responsible  for  the  humiliating  spectacle  of  a  great 


H 
fe 


284 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       285 

nation  ruled  by  the  monarchs  of  money,  who  have  become 
more  of  a  menace  to  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness 
than  George  III  and  his  Tory  tyrants  were  to  our  forefathers. 

Brand  Whitlock  and  I  covered  three  conventions  for  the 
Metropolitan  in  1912 — the  Republican  in  Chicago,  the 
Democratic  in  Baltimore,  and  the  Socialist  in  Indianapolis. 
We  were  given  a  great  deal  of  space  by  the  editors,  and  made 
the  most  of  it. 

"And  in  each  convention/'  Whitlock  wrote,  "there  was 
a  vigorous  personality,  dynamic  and  compelling,  which  em- 
bodied the  radical  principle  and  troubled  the  conservative — 
Haywood  at  Indianapolis,  Roosevelt  at  Chicago,  and  Bryan 
at  Baltimore.  In  each  its  colossus  bestrode  the  scene,  but  here 
the  lines  of  similarity  diverge;  Haywood  forced  a  compro- 
mise and  preserved  the  organization;  Roosevelt  was  defeated 
and  gallantly  withdrew  to  raise  his  flag  elsewhere;  Bryan 
was  victorious  and  for  the  fourth  time  in  twenty  years, 
wheeled  his  obstreperous  and  reluctant  party  into  line/' 

Battles  among  the  Socialists  that  year  centered  around  the 
question  of  supporting  the  Industrial  Workers  of  the  World 
in  their  free  speech  fight  in  San  Diego  and  the  question  of 
industrial  versus  craft  unionism.  And  after  those  issues  had 
been  threshed  out  at  length,  the  report  of  the  committee  on 
labor  "confessed  the  failure  of  craft  unionism  but  took  no 
decided  stand  on  the  subject  of  industrial  unionism,  declaring 
it  to  be  the  party's  duty  to  give  moral  and  material  support 
to  the  labor  organizations  in  their  offensive  and  defensive 
struggles  against  capitalist  oppression  and  exploitation/' 

That  committee  also  stated  that  the  Socialist  party  had 
no  part  in  controversies  over  the  question  of  form  of  organi- 
zation, or  technical  methods  of  action  in  the  industrial 
struggle. 

Thus  the  spokesmen  for  the  fighting  LW.W.  were  able 
to  boast  of  a  victory  without  dividing  the  party,  and  Bill 
Haywood,  in  a  ringing  speech  of  celebration,  said: 

"This  is  the  greatest  step  ever  taken  by  the  Socialist  party 
of  this  country.  Now  I  can  go  out  and  talk  Socialism  from  a 
Socialist  party  platform  to  the  entire  working  class,  to  the 
eight  million  women  and  children  who  have  no  votes,  .  .  . 


THE     METROPOLITAN     MA-GAZtNE 


Metropolitan 

AT  THE  1912  SOCIALIST  CONVENTION.  Brand  Whitlock  wrote  the 
story,  while  I  did  the  pictures.  Hay  wood  was  the  dominating  figure. 

to  the  blanket  stiffs  of  the  West  and  the  timber  wolves  of  the 
South  who  are  disfranchised  by  the  nature- of  their  jobs/* 

In  the  many  sketches  I  made  for  that  article  I  dealt  mainly 
with  personalities,  and  it  was  especially  gratifying  to  have  a 

286 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       287 

magazine  with  a  huge  circulation  publish  a  whole  gallery 
of  my  portraits  of  the  leading  lights  in  my  own  party*  Some 
of  those  I  portrayed  were:  Hay  wood,  "who  sees  enough  with 
one  eye*';  Debs,  "who  hovers  over  an  audience  like  a  big 
bird";  Dan  Hogan,  "from  Arkansas  and  proud  of  it"; 

Charles  W*  Ervin,  in  a  characteristic  "Well,  I'll  be  d " 

attitude;  Barney  Berlyn  of  Illinois,  veteran  Socialist;  Victor 
L.  Berger,  only  Socialist  in  Congress;  Oscar  Ameringer,  "a 
man  of  gestures";  Joshua  Wanhope,  a  big  man  wearing  a 
cap;  Meyer  London;  and  Alexander  Irvine. 


OSCAR  AMERINGER,  dean  of  American 
labor  editors.  Publisher  of  the  American 
Guardian,  Oklahoma  City. 

I  was  in  Washington  during  Woodrow  Wilson's  first  ad- 
ministration and  half  of  his  second.  Then  as  now  corporation 
lawyers  comprised  most  of  the  Senate  and  House,  and  they 
naturally  made  laws  for  the  benefit  of  the  corporations^! 
made  a  cartoon  picturing  the  situation:  "Laws  for  Capi- 
talism go  through  on  wings;  laws  for  Labor  go  through  on 
crutches/' 

Until  just  before  the  United  States  got  into  the  war,  the 
policy  of  the  Metropolitan  was  definitely  Socialistic,  and  it 
was  well  known  that  its  financial  backer  was  Harry  Payne 
Whitney,  a  multi-millionaire.  Finley  Peter  Dunne,  who  was 
Whitney's  close  friend,  once  told  me  he  often  twitted  "Harry" 


288       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

for  backing  such  a  publication.  He  said  he  liked  to  whisper 
to  him  through  clenched  teeth:  "Harry,  I'm  beginning  to 
think  you're  one  of  those  damned  Socialists/' 

William  Mailly  was  then  doing  a  social  comment  depart- 
ment in  the  Metropolitan,  and  Clarence  Day  Jr.  was  handling 
book  reviews.  Some  of  the  contributors  were  George  Bernard 
Shaw,  John  Reed,  Morris  Hillquit,  Ernestine  Evans,  Alger- 
non Lee,  Rudyard  Kipling,  W.  W.  Jacobs,  Gouverneur  Mor- 
ris, Walter  Lippmann,  Boardman  Robinson,  Willy  Pogany, 
Inez  Haynes  Gilmore,  Fannie  Hurst,  and  others. 

Usually  I  did  two  pages  a  month  on  the  activities  of 
Congress,  for  which  I  got  $300  a  page*  It  was  of  course 
worth  more,  for  out  of  that  I  had  to  pay  my  expenses  in  the 
Capital,  and  I  still  felt  it  necessary  to  retain  my  studio  in  New 
York. 

On  the  day  I  arrived  in  the  city  of  magnificent  distances, 
the  first  thing  that  caught  my  eye  as  I  stepped  out  of  the 
Pennsylvania  station  was  the  dome  of  the  capitol — the  dome 
which  I  had  drawn  so  many  times  in  the  background  of 
my  cartoons  but  had  never  before  seen.  There  it  was — the 
same  dome  which  Nast  and  all  cartoonists  had  used  as  a 
symbol  of  the  government  of  the  United  States.  Throughout 
most  of  my  years  in  Washington  I  lived  in  hotels  around 
Capitol  Park,  in  the  shadow  of  that  dome,  though  for  a 
few  months  I  roomed  a  little  farther  away,  north  of  the 
Congressional  Library,  with  Isaac  McBride,  who  was  then 
secretary  to  Senator  Harry  Lane  of  Oregon.  When  I  had  to 
go  up  Pennsylvania  Avenue,  to  the  White  House  or  to  some 
government  department,  I'd  roll  along  in  a  victoria. 

My  father  used  to  say  that  "an  artist  or  a  writer  has  an 
advantage  over  a  storekeeper  because  he  can  carry  his  capital 
stock  with  him/*  This  stock  of  paper,  pencils,  ink,  and  other 
essentials  of  my  profession,  I  could  carry  in  a  satchel,  but  I 
preferred  to  keep  a  supply  in  my  hotel  or  rooming  house 
ready  for  me  on  my  return  from  New  York,  where  I  was 
expected  to  report  once,  sometimes  twice,  a  month. 

It  took  me  a  few  days  to  get  my  bearings  when  I  first 
landed  in  the  Capital.  I  knew  I  did  not  want  the  regular  run 
of  news  that  the  Washington  correspondents  were  sending 
out.  Usually  they  just  touched  the  surface  of  the  stories  really 
vital  to  the  welfare  of  the  multitude. 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       289 

I  had  entree  to  the  House  and  Senate  press  galleries,  but 
the  atmosphere  was  not  very  cordial.  I  felt  that  there  was 
some  suspicion  that  because  of  my  identity  with  radical  publi- 
cations, I  might  be  a  disturbing  factor  to  the  morale  of  the 
other  correspondents,  or  that  I  was  up  to  some  sinister  plot 
to  push  over  the  pillars  of  the  Republic.  While  some  of  the 
newspapermen  were  friendly,  all  were  aware  that  I  was  not 
a  "regular' '. 

I  knew,  of  course,  that  I  could  not  ignore  the  conventional 
subjects  of  interest — the  stars  of  statesmanship  and  their 
ways,  and  I  got  the  whole  Wilson  Cabinet  except  William  G. 
McAdoo,  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  to  give  me  sittings  of  a 
few  minutes  each.  McAdoo  refused,  but  having  seen  him  on 
a  few  occasions,  I  drew  him  from  memory. 

I  had  a  swanky  card  printed*  It  was  folded — two  cards 
in  one.  Outside  was  printed:  "The  Metropolitan  Magazine 
.  .  *  Art  Young/'  Turn  it  over  and  there  was  space  for 
writing  my  request  to  the  Senator  or  to  whom  it  might  con- 
cern, and  space  for  his  answer. 

When  I  began  drawing  for  the  Masses  it  was  like  the 
unfolding  of  wings  to  soar;  but  the  Metropolitan  connection 
gave  me  an  opportunity  to  circle  around  and  then  peer  right 
in  at  government  in  the  making.  Whether  it  was  just  a  mental 
heritage,  I  don't  know,  but  I  never  could  understand  the 
Anarchist  philosophy  that  people  could  get  along  without 
government.  I  could  see  no  way  for  them  to  dispense  with 
recognized  laws  or  rules  of  some  kind.  If  government  was 
all  nonsense,  as  some  of  my  Anarchist  friends  believed,  now 
I  would  try  to  find  out* 

A  suffragette  once  asked  Bill  Haywood,  who  leaned  to- 
ward the  anarcho-syndicalist  faith,  if  he  thought  women 
should  have  the  vote,  and  Bill  said:  "Sure,  and  besides,  they 
can  have  mine/'  Such  was  the  indifference  to  political  action 
held  by  many  who  could  see  no  hope  in  the  ballot,  nor  in 
the  whole  set-up  of  parliaments,  but  put  their  full  faith 
in  the  organization  of  labor* 

During  my  years  in  Washington  I  learned  why  the  capi- 
talists believed  in  a  Congress,  a  Supreme  Court,  and  in 
bureaus  within  bureaus — and  I  saw  their  agents  swarming 
at  every  session  lobbying  in  their  interests. 


290 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       291 

It  was  a  privilege  to  circulate  among  the  "fittest"  who 
had  survived  in  the  race  for  political  preferment.  Here  they 
were.  From  President  down  to  doorkeepers,  I  felt  sociable 
with  them,  and  they  didn't  seem  to  object  to  me.  While  I 
found  it  difficult  to  select  my  daily  subjects  for  caricature 
because  there  was  so  much  to  select  from,  I  soon  felt  that  no 
one  in  the  wide  world  ever  had  such  luck.  The  magazine 
being  a  monthly  there  was  no  hurry,  and  I  could  take  ample 
time  to  draw  for  the  Masses  too.  Often  I  would  hark  back 
to  the  cartoons  of  national  politics  in  Harper's  Weekly  and 
Pack  which  so  absorbed  my  attention  in  early  youth — and 
here  I  was  walking  through  corridors  where  the  glamorous 
gods  of  American  statesmanship  once  trod. 

I  cultivated  an  old  doorman  of  the  Senate,  then  eighty- 
seven,  who  liked  to  talk  about  his  memories  of  the  long-ago 
years.  He  had  been  employed  in  the  Capitol  building  since 
boyhood.  I  was  a  good  listener,  and  would  ask  him:  "Did 
you  know  Matt  Carpenter  from  Wisconsin?  .  .  .  What 
kind  of  a  fellow  was  Pig  Iron  Kelley?  .  .  .  Was  Roscoe 
Conkling  really  so  dignified  and  proud?  .  .  „  Was  Blaine 
the  great  debater  they  say  he  was?  .  .  .  How  about  Garfield 
when  he  was  a  Representative — was  he  really  eloquent?" 

Almost  any  question  would  set  him  going  with  delightful 
reminiscence.  Once  I  said:  "Do  you  remember  Senator  Sam 
Houston?"  His  old  tired  eyes  lighted  up.  "Sam  used  to  wear 
a  panther-skin  vest — quite  a  man  for  the  ladies."  And  he 
would  recall  that  "Daniel  Webster  couldn't  let  liquor  alone." 
And  that  "Stephen  A.  Douglas  was  a  little  feller  but  a  good 
talker."  Over  in  his  room  on  a  side  street  not  far  from  the 
Capitol  he  had  many  inscribed  photographs  and  other  sou- 
venirs of  Presidents  and  Congressmen  he  had  known,  dating 
back  to  1850. 

I  had  a  sense  of  well-being  then.  Nearly  every  month 
Whigham  or  Carl  Hovey,  the  managing  editor,  would  write 
that  my  work  was  "splendid"  or  "you're  doing  good  stuff." 
What  with  my  appearance  in  the  Metropolitan  and  in  other 
magazines,  surely  I  was  getting  on.  Occasionally  I  would 
find  diversion  in  drawing  a  few  allegorical  pictures  for  other 
magazines.  Late  in  1912  Father  wrote  saying  that  the  min- 
ister of  the  Universalist  Church  in  Monroe  had  preached  a 


292      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

sermon  with  one  of  my  cartoons  as  the  text.  This  had  ap- 
peared in  Collier's.  In  the  background  was  a  forest  of  tower- 
ing, ruler-straight  pines,  such  as  I  had  seen  in  Alabama.  Down 
in  front  was  one  hopelessly  deformed  tree  and  a  man  similarly 
crippled  and  leaning  on  crutches.  The  caption  was  "Why?" 
and  the  minister  had  discussed  the  question:  "What  is  life, 
and  why?"  Holding  the  picture  up  before  his  congregation, 
he  said:  "Many  of  you  know  the  artist  who  drew  this  car- 
toon, for  his  first  drawings  were  made  in  Monroe/' 


Life,  1912 

SUSAN  B.  ANTHONY.  In  1872  she  was  fined  $100  for  voting  in 
Rochester,  N.  Y.  "The  spirit  of  revolt,  as  shown  by  this  splendid  woman," 
said  the  caption  with  my  cartoon,  "is  abroad  in  the  land." 

Every  week  or  two  I  was  sending  money  to  Elizabeth 
in  California.  In  November  she  wrote  from  Los  Angeles: 
"The  boys  are  growing  fast  and  doing  well  in  school.  Their 
teacher  wants  them  to  belong  to  a  nature  club.  Donald  will 
be  eight  the  seventh  of  next  month/*  Then  she  sent  a  batch 
of  drawings  done  by  both  boys,  North  having  attained  the 
age  of  ten.  Most  of  them,  I  thought,  were  much  like  the  usual 
child  art,  but  a  few  were  startlingly  original.  Elizabeth  said 
they  were  drawn  "especially  for  you",  and  added  that  "the 
boys  like  their  bicycles/' 

This  period  of  my  life  on  the  scene  of  national  politics 
where  I  saw  so  much  evidence  of  lying,  demagogy,  and  down- 
right betrayal  of  the  people,  was  enough  to  make  me  a  hope- 
less cynic;  nevertheless,  I  clung  to  an  inborn  faith  in  democ- 
racy. Hundreds  of  times  this  faith  has  been  made  to  look 
like  a  stupid  error,  yet  I  hang  on. 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       293 

I  want  the  men  in  a  factory  to  decide  who  shall  be  boss, 
I  want  the  people,  by  majority  vote  in  periodic  elections, 
to  decide  issues  and  choose  men  and  women  whom  they  be- 
lieve capable  of  holding  administrative  positions.  When  it 
came  to  the  question  of  the  United  States  entering  the  Euro- 
pean war,  I  wanted  the  people  to  say  whether  they  wished 
their  government  to  declare  war.  When  the  LaFollette  reso- 
lution for  such  a  referendum  was  killed  in  Congress,  I  knew 
it  was  because  Wall  Street  didn't  want  to  know  the  will 
of  the  people.  The  people's  desire  to  avoid  becoming  em- 
broiled in  a  foreign  conflict,  as  demonstrated  in  the  re-election 
of  Woodrow  Wilson  in  1916  because  he  had  so  far  "kept  us 
out  of  war",  might  be  repeated  in  another  test  vote,  if  the 
people  were  given  a  chance,  and  of  course  big  business  could 
not  afford  such  a  risk. 

Democracy  is  all  right  if  they  will  let  it  work.  By  they 
I  mean  those  who  don't  want  it  to  work.  And  they  have 
many  cunning  and  extra-legal  ways  of  defeating  it.  Democ- 
racy is  all  right  if  the  issue  is  fairly  clear — but  the  enemies  of 
democracy  are  masters  of  confusion;  they  stir  the  water  in 
the  spring- fed  pool  into  mud.  They  take  little  unimportant 
truths  and  blow  them  up  into  big  important-looking  truths. 
In  the  chaos  of  political  campaigns  you  try  to  find  out  what 
you  believe,  if  there  is  anything  to  be  believed.  Nevertheless 
I  continue  to  hold  that  even  an  imperfect  democracy  is  better 
than  other  forms  of  government.  Royalty  is  dying  as  it 
deserves,  but  the  first  king  was  called  that  because  he  was 
kind — king  and  kind  were  synonymous  in  ancient  times. 
Whoever  the  administrators  of  the  future  state,  they  must  be 
exemplars  of  kindness — or  perhaps  my  meaning  is  scientific 
helpfulness,  but  helpfulness  to  the  majority  who  do  the 
world's  work;  the  greatest  good  to  the  greatest  number. 

And  that  is  the  dream  which  must  some  day  come  true 
the  world  over — a  social  machinery  vastly  different  from 
today's  so-called  democracies,  which  bring  about  the  greatest 
good  to  the  few — not  to  the  many.  Surely,  Washington  was 
teaching  me  a  few  things. 

I  still  kept  my  studio  in  New  York  and  retained  my  vot- 
ing status  there.  And  my  work  in  the  national  capital  did 
not  prevent  my  running  for  office  in  the  Empire  State  in 


HE    STIRRETH    UP   THE     PEOPLE 


JCSUS   CHRIST 

THE     WORKINGMAN      OP    NAZARETH 

WILL          SPEAK 

AT          BROTHERHOOD       HALL. 
—    SUBJECT    — 

-THE     RIGHTS       OF      LABOR.       — 


The  Masses,   1913 

"HE  STIRRETH  UP  THE  PEOPLE."  This  portrait  of  Christ,  as  I 
conceived  him,  also  was  published  with  a  reward  notice  describing  him  as  a 
professional  agitator  "wanted  for  sedition." 

1913.  That  fall  I  was  a  candidate  for  the  Assembly  in  the 
Twenty-seventh  District  on  the  Socialist  ticket.  My  running 
mates  were  Charles  Edward  Russell,  who  sought  to  be 
Mayor;  S.  John  Block,  who  was  trying  for  the  Supreme 
Court;  and  John  Sloan,  who  was  candidate  for  the  Assembly 
in  the  Twenty-fifth  District. 

At  the  suggestion  of  the  campaign  committee,  some  of 
my  speeches  were  illustrated  with  rapid-fire  drawings  made 
on  big  sheets  of  paper  on  an  easel  as  I  talked.  The  audiences 
liked  those  pictorial  attacks  on  the  capitalist  system,  and 
demanded  numerous  encores,  but  their  ballots  did  not  total 
enough  to  elect  me. 

294 


Chapter  28 
THE  A.  P.   ROBES  ITSELF  IN  WHITE 

WHILE  the  West  Virginia  coal  strike  was  at  its  height 
in  November,  1913,  Max  Eastman  and  I  were  in- 
dicted on  a  charge  of  criminal  libel  preferred  by 
the  heads  of  the  Associated  Press,  This  was  based  on  a  Masses 
editorial  written  by  Max  entitled  "The  Worst  Monopoly" 
and  a  cartoon  of  mine  called  ' 'Poisoned  at  the  Source/'  On 
my  next  trip  to  New  York  I  appeared  in  court  voluntarily 
with  Max,  and  Justice  Grain  of  Special  Sessions  set  our  bail 
at  $1,000. 

Max  Eastman's  editorial  pointed  out  that  the  appalling 
industrial  conditions  in  West  Virginia  had  first  become  pub- 
licly known  through  a  demand  by  Senator  Kern  for  a  Sena- 
torial investigation  of  stories  of  atrocities  against  workers  and 
their  families  in  the  coal  regions. 

For  fourteen  months,  the  editorial  charged,  the  A.P.  had 
withheld  or  distorted  news  of  the  West  Virginia  conflict. 
Calling  the  A.P.  a  Truth  Trust,  the  Masses  comment  went 
on  to  say  that  "so  long  as  the  substance  of  current  history 
continues  to  be  held  in  cold  storage,  adulterated,  colored 
with  poisonous  intentions,  and  sold  to  the  highest  bidder  to 
suit  his  private  purposes,  there  is  small  hope  that  even  the 
free  and  the  intelligent  will  take  the  side  of  justice  in  the 
struggle  that  is  before  us/' 

My  cartoon  which  so  wrought  up  the  directors  of  the 
A.P.  shows  a  man  personifying  the  Associated  Press  kneel- 
ing at  the  edge  of  a  vast  reservoir  in  which  the  water  is 
labeled  The  News.  He  is  pouring  into  the  reservoir  the  dark 
contents  of  bottles  of  Lies,  Suppressed  Facts,  Prejudice,  Slan- 
der, and  Hatred  of  Labor  Organization.  In  the  background 
of  the  picture  is  a  suggestion  of  cities  and  towns  which  depend 
upon  the  reservoir  for  their  news  supply.  The  clear  water  is 
being  discolored  by  the  poisonous  dye-stuff  from  the  bottles. 

We  were  not  arrested.  Efforts  toward  this  end  had  been 

295 


296      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

made  by  the  A.P.  in  August,  when  one  of  its  counsel  appeared 
in  Jefferson  Market  Court  and  asked  for  warrants  for  the 
arrest  of  the  Masses  editors,  but  the  magistrate  sitting  there 
overruled  the  request  on  the  ground  of  insufficient  evidence. 

Reporting  our  arraignment,  the  New  York  Call  said: 

"The  attitude  of  the  Associated  Press  on  the  West  Vir- 
ginia strike  was  criticized  many  times  in  numerous  publica- 
tions, and  suppression  and  coloring  of  news  was  generally 
intimated.  These  allegations,  however,  being  in  some  cases 
in  large  and  powerful  publications,  backed  by  big  financial 
interests,  were  ignored  by  the  association. 

"It  was  not  until  the  occasional,  one-sided  stories  and  the 
long  periods  of  silence  from  the  strike  region  were  the  subject 
of  comment  in  the  columns  of  a  Socialist  magazine  that  efforts 
were  made  to  set  the  machinery  of  the  law  in  motion  against 
its  publishers/'  In  other  words,  the  great,  powerful  A.P. 
picked  on  a  magazine  so  small  that  it  created  wide  sentiment 
in  our  favor. 

At  the  same  time  the  Call  did  us  a  signal  service  by 
publishing  two  paragraphs  at  the  end  of  its  front-page  story 
which  presumably  gave  the  A.P.  bojums  pause. 

"Socialist  and  radical  magazine  men/'  the  Call  said, 
"have  been  working  for  the  past  month  in  several  of  the  cities 
of  the  Middle  West  gathering  material  in  the  interests  of  the 
Masses,  and  it  was  stated  last  night  that  should  the  charges 
of  the  A.P.  really  be  maintained  and  the  two  defendants 
brought  to  trial,  revelations  of  such  a  nature  as  to  make 
the  Associated  Press  regret  that  the  case  ever  came  to  court 
would  be  unreservedly  made. 

"Not  only  will  the  charges  against  the  news  association 
under  consideration  be  substantiated,  it  was  asserted,  but  other 
facts,  now  believed  to  be  inside  secrets  of  the  Associated  Press, 
will  be  made  public/' 

Immediately  many  friends,  old  and  new,  rallied  to  our 
aid.  Various  newspaper  men  who  had  formerly  worked  for 
the  Associated  Press,  and  some  who  were  then  employed  by 
it,  came  forward  with  information  and  documentary  evidence 
of  specific  news  suppression  and  distortion  by  that  organiza- 
tion. All  this  material  was  turned  over  to  a  group  of  indi- 
viduals with  research  experience  who  checked  it  minutely 
before  it  was  handed  to  our  counsel  for  use  as  evidence. 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       297 

Floyd  Dell  had  lately  come  East  from  Chicago,  where  he 
had  been  editor  of  the  Evening  Post  literary  supplement,  and 
he  was  promptly  picked  to  be  associate  editor  of  the  Masses, 
which  meant  that  he  would  share  the  work  with  Max  East- 
man, who  continued  as  editor.  There  would  be  plenty  for 
both  of  them  to  do.  By  this  time  the  magazine's  income  had 
reached  a  point  where  it  was  possible  to  pay  each  of  them 
twenty-five  dollars  a  week,  with  something  also  for  a  business 
manager.  In  January,  1914,  we  published  a  long  statement 
about  our  case,  signed  by  Floyd,  in  which  he  explained  that 
after  various  important  publications,  including  Collier's  and 
the  Independent,  had  "delicately  hinted''  that  the  Associated 
Press  had  given  the  country  no  fair  account  of  the  West  Vir- 
ginia situation,  the  Masses  decided  to  look  into  it,  with  the 
idea  that  if  the  stories  out  of  that  State  were  true,  they  ought 
to  be  explicitly  told,  and  not  just  hinted  at. 

Now  the  grand  jury  brought  in  a  second  indictment, 
this  time  charging  Max  and  me  with  criminally  libeling 
Frank  B.  Noyes,  president  of  the  A.P.  In  February  it  de- 
veloped that  this  was  designed  as  a  piece  of  shrewd  strategy. 
On  the  1  Oth  our  attorney,  Gilbert  E.  Roe,  asked  Judge  Wad- 
hams  for  an  order  permitting  the  defense  to  take  depositions 
from  those  in  charge  of  the  Associated  Press  office  in  Pitts- 
burgh, showing  what  news  was  actually  sent  out  on  the  West 
Virginia  strike.  Arthur  Train,  assistant  district  attorney  in 
charge  of  the  prosecution,  opposed  this,  and  in  the  course  of 
his  argument  mentioned  that  the  first  indictment,  charging 
libel  against  the  A.P.  as  an  organization,  would  be  dismissed. 

But  on  the  1 7th  Judge  Wadhams  granted  the  order  for 
the  depositions.  Then  Train  declared  that  he  would  oppose 
such  an  order  in  connection  with  the  second  indictment,  on 
the  ground  that  the  depositions  would  not  be  admissible  as 
evidence  concerning  the  alleged  libeling  of  the  A.P.  president, 
for  the  reason  that  the  truth  or  falsity  of  Associated  Press 
reports  was  immaterial  to  the  question  of  personal  damage 
against  Mr.  Noyes. 

Our  friends  arranged  a  mass-meeting  in  our  behalf  in 
Cooper  Union  on  March  5,  and  2,500  packed  the  Great  Hall 
there.  Hundreds  stood  in  the  aisles,  with  other  hundreds 
turned  away.  Inez  Milholland  presided,  and  the  speakers  were 
Amos  Pinchot  who  had  made  a  careful  study  of  our  case 


298      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

from  a  lawyer's  viewpoint;  John  Haynes  Holmes,  then  pastor 
of  the  Church  of  the  Messiah;  Lincoln  Steffens,  Charlotte 
Perkins  Oilman,  William  English  Walling,  Norman  Hap- 
good,  and  Joseph  D.  Cannon,  organizer  for  the  Western 
Federation  of  Miners.  Though  grateful  for  the  mass  demon- 
stration, on  that  night  the  two  who  were  accused  stayed 
away  from  the  meeting.  We  felt  that  the  issue  had  become  too 
big  to  make  it  personal. 

"I  have  had  a  long  acquaintance  with  the  Associated 
Press/'  said  Pinchot  in  his  speech.  "I  am  perfectly  willing 
to  stand  behind  the  charge  made  by  Eastman  and  Young  that 
it  does  color  and  distort  the  news,  that  it  is  not  impartial, 
and  that  it  is  a  monopolistic  corporation,  not  only  in  con- 
straint of  news  but  in  constraint  of  truth. 

"The  Associated  Press,  through  its  capitalistic  sympa- 
thies, is  inclined  to  take  the  part  of  capital  against  labor. 
It  has  produced  a  condition  where,  during  strikes  and  labor 
disputes  of  all  kinds,  the  working  people  have  grown  to 
feel  that  their  case,  if  given  at  all  to  the  public,  is  presented 
in  a  grossly  distorted  form. 

"I  believe  that  no  one  element  in  American  life  is  so 
powerfully  conducive  of  bitterness  and  that  feeling  of  help- 
lessness, which  so  often  results  in  violence,  as  the  coloring 
of  news  during  acute  conflicts  between  capital  and  labor.  On 
the  other  hand,  it  gives  to  men,  such  as  the  gunmen  recently 
imported  into  Calumet  by  the  mine  operators,  and  to  the 
mine  operators  themselves,  a  feeling  of  immunity  from  public 
criticism  which  is  inevitably  a  dangerous  element  in  the  case/' 

Two  days  later  the  Times  commented  on  the  mass-meet- 
ing in  an  editorial  more  than  a  column  long.  Defending  the 
A.P.,  the  Times  asserted  that  Mr*  Pinchot  was  careless  in  his 
statements,  and  that  it  would  be  impossible  for  the  Associated 
Press  to  color  and  distort  the  news  as  we  had  charged. 

"All  sorts  of  newspapers/'  the  Times  averred,  "are  served 
by  the  Associated  Press — Republican,  Democratic,  Bull 
Moose,  Independent,  pro-Bryan,  anti-Bryan,  some  that  insist 
that  the  corporations  are  too  much  abused,  and  others  insist- 
ing that  they  are  not  abused  enough — in  short,  newspapers 
representing  every  shade  of  opinion.*  Now,  if  Mr.  Noyes 

*  Italics  are  the  author's.  An  unnamed  spokesman  for  the  A.  P.  had  stated 
in   the  New  York  Evening  Post  that    "its   members,    some   nine   hundred   in 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       299 

should  attempt  to  use  his  dyestuffs  on  the  news  served  to  all 
these  papers,  there  would  be  a  deafening  uproar  and  tumult 
all  over  the  country.  The  Associated  Press  would  be  split 
into  fragments  and  the  views  openly  expressed  of  its  manage- 
ment would  make  the  cartoon  of  the  Masses  look  like  an  ex- 
pression of  confidence  and  esteem/* 

Amos  Pinchot  had  called  for  a  widespread  protest  against 
the  use  of  the  federal  district  attorney's  office  for  the  muzzling 
of  those  who  criticized  the  Associated  Press  procedure.  "Mr. 
Pinchot  should  understand/'  said  the  Times,  "that  this  is 
not  an  Associated  Press  suit;  it  is  a  Government  suit,  an 
action  brought  by  the  people  to  punish  the  lawless/* 

Meanwhile  I  traveled  back  and  forth  between  New  York 
and  Washington  frequently.  One  day  while  I  was  at  work  in 
my  hotel  room  in  the  capital,  there  was  a  knock  at  the  door, 
and  Senator  Robert  LaFollette  Sr.  looked  in  on  me.  "Hello, 
Art/'  he  said,  "I  just  want  to  say  that  if  I  can  do  anything 
for  you  in  regard  to  that  Associated  Press  case  let  me  know/' 
I  expressed  my  appreciation  of  this  magnanimous  offer,  and 
told  him  I  would  keep  it  in  mind  if  need  for  his  help  should 
arise.  LaFollette  had  long  been  the  subject  of  vitriolic  news- 
paper attacks  because  of  his  stand  against  the  big  corporations 
and  the  system  of  which  they  were  a  part. 

Months  passed,  and  our  case  did  not  come  to  trial.  It 
was  apparent  from  tips  we  got  from  friendly  sources  that 
the  A.P.  was  in  the  position  of  the  hunter  who  had  a  bear 
by  the  tail  and  didn't  know  how  to  let  go  of  it.  A  year 
after  the  accusation  the  newspapers  reported  that  the  indict- 
ments had  been  dismissed,  and  our  bail  was  returned  without 
explanation  by  the  district  attorney's  office, 

We  held  a  celebration  in  the  Masses  office,  and  in  high 
spirits  I  drew  two  cartoons  for  the  next  issue  which  conveyed 
the  prevailing  sentiments  of  our  editorial  and  art  boards  to- 
ward our  late  adversary.  In  one  I  depicted  the  Associated 
Press  as  a  stout  and  elegantly  dressed  woman  out  for  a  walk; 
she  was  carrying  several  packages,  one  being  labeled  Probity, 
and  a  poodle  dog  called  Aristocracy;  and  out  of  her  armful 
of  impedimenta  a  legal  scroll  bearing  the  words  The  Masses 
Case  had  fallen  to  the  ground.  The  caption  was:  "You 

number,  represent  every  shade  of  political  and  economic  opinion."  This  of  course 
was  not  quite  the  truth. 


300      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

Dropped  Something,  Madam/'  ...  In  the  other  cartoon, 
a  double-page  spread,  I  pictured  the  Associated  Press  as  an 
angel  hovering  over  the  news  reservoir  pouring  perfume  into 
it  from  a  pretty  bottle  labeled  Truth. 

Since  that  episode  the  A.P.  and  most  of  the  big  daily 
newspapers  in  this  country  have  been  more  careful  in  hand- 
ling news  of  strikes  and  the  whole  industrial  conflict.  That 
of  course  has  been  brought  about  largely  by  the  growing 


8  U  LLET  I 


Recove 


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Soci 

ANN  I  H 
BY  THC 

CLUB,  H 
CON 
SCIOUSNESS  % 


WHEN  I  WAS  UNDER  A  CLOUD,  as  a  result  of  the  libel  suit  brought 
by  the  Associated  Press. 

strength  of  labor  unionism  and  its  better  publicity  facilities. 
But  I  like  to  think  that  some  of  the  credit  for  this  improve- 
ment is  due  to  the  protest  which  we  of  the  Masses  made 
twenty-six  years  ago* 

Some  time  in  1914  I  was  proposed  for  membership 
in  the  National  Press  Club  in  Washington,  only  to  find 
that  my  record  was  against  me,  particularly  the  cartoon 
attacking  the  Associated  Press,  for  which  I  had  been  indicted. 
Some  of  the  membership  committee  (and  especially  one  who 
had  proposed  me)  dissented  vigorously  against  the  attitude 
of  those  to  whom  I  was  anathema.  But  it  did  no  good  then. 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       301 

Several  years  later,  however,  I  was  proposed  for  the  club 
again  and  was  elected  as  an  out-of-town  member.  By  that 
time  I  had  quit  Washington  for  good,  and  in  a  little  while 
I  resigned. 


Chapter  29 
WAR-MAKERS  BEAT  THEIR  DRUMS 

SOCIALISM  was  being  frankly  advocated  by  H.  J.  Whig- 
ham  in  his  editorials  in  the  Metropolitan  Magazine  in 
1914.  He  dealt  with  the  European  conflict  at  length  in 
October,  asking  and  answering  two  questions:  ."Where  is 
Socialism  now?  Why  did  not  the  Socialists  stop  the  war?" 
Algernon  Lee  did  social  comment  in  a  department  headed 
Tidings  of  the  Times,  Two  letters  from  John  Reed  in  Mexico 
were  published,  heralding  a  series  of  articles  on  Francisco 
Villa's  war  for  "land  and  liberty"  for  the  peons.  Lincoln 
Steffens  dealt  with  the  failure  of  government  by  "good 
people/' 

I  had  a  free  hand  in  portraying  the  solemn  gestures  and 
grotesque  antics  of  Congress  each  month,  often  in  a  double- 
page  spread.  Out  of  the  520  members  of  both  houses,  I  found 
that  at  least  500  were  lawyers.  Elected  by  and  for  the  people, 
the  bulk  of  that  august  assemblage  spent  most  of  its  time 
gumming  up  legislation  instead  of  working  for  the  benefit 
of  those  who  elected  them.  As  comedy,  if  one  could  overlook 
the  underlying  tragedy  of  the  whole  scene,  Congress  was  the 
best  show  in  the  country  for  a  cartoonist* 

My  pictures  and  text  appeared  under  a  different  heading 
each  month.  Some  of  the  titles  were:  "Here  They  Are  Again" 
.  ,  .  "Gumshoeing  Around  Washington"  .  .  .  "What's 
Doing  on  the  Potomac"  .  .  *  "Be  It  Resolved"  .  .  .  "Let 
the  Thinking  People  Rule"  .  .  .  "Making  History,  Such 
As  It  Is"  ,  .  ,  "This  Tragicomic  World"  .  .  .  "Can  Such 
Things  Be?" 

Once  I  had  occasion  to  remark  that  "The  old  judge  in  the 
trial  scene  in  a  well-known  vaudeville  act  never  tried  harder 
to  get  order  in  the  court  by  being  disorderly  himself  than 
does  Speaker  Champ  Clark."  .  ,  .  Senator  Ollie  James  of 
Kentucky,  who  weighed  270  pounds  and  looked  like  400 
was  always  good  copy.  He  never  denied  any  of  the  many 

302 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       303 

anecdotes  about  him,  most  of  which  concerned  his  bulk.  One 
told  of  his  dislike  for  upper  berths.  Once  he  drew  an  upper 
in  starting  from  Louisville  for  Washington.  A  man  weighing 
about  110  had  the  lower.  He  looked  worried  when  he  saw 
the  mountainous  Senator.  James  grabbed  the  framework  of 
his  bed  and  shook  it  violently.  'Tm  always  afraid  of  these 
damned  upper  berths/'  he  said.  "The  last  one  I  was  in  fell 
down  with  me/'  The  little  man  was  magnanimous.  '1*11 
change  with  you.  I  sleep  better  in  an  upper/' 

Mother  Jones  came  to  Washington  and  told  a  Congres- 
sional committee  about  the  terror  in  the  West  Virginia  coal 
regions.  I  pictured  her,  and  wrote  that  it  was  not  easy  to 


portray  that  "benign  and  yet  so  belligerent"  face.  When  she 
was  held  captive  by  the  West  Virginia  authorities  she  said 
to  them:  "You  can  stand  me  up  against  that  wall  and  riddle 
me  with  bullets,  but  you  can't  make  me  surrender/*  Whigham 
also  did  an  editorial  on  Mother  Jones  versus  Rockefeller. 

Jack  Reed  had  written  some  richly  colored  articles  about 
Villa's  war,  portraying  him  as  a  man  of  destiny*  After  the 
coal  operators'  machine  guns  had  rained  death  upon  the 
miners*  tent  colony  in  Ludlow,  Colorado,  the  Metropolitan 
telegraphed  Jack  to  jump  to  that  area.  He  got  there  in  time 
to  do  a  trenchant  article  for  the  next  issue,  which  said:  "There 
is  no  thing  .revolutionary  about  this  strike.  The  strikers  are 
neither  Socialists,  Anarchists,  nor  Syndicalists/'  The  article 
opened  with  this  excerpt  from  testimony  given  before  a  Con- 
gressional investigating  commission: 


304      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

HERRINGTON  (attorney  for  the  Colorado  Fuel 
and  Iron  Company) — "Just  what  is  meant  by  'social 
freedom*  I  don't  know.  Do  you  understand  what  the 
witness  meant  by  'social  freedom',  Mr.  Welborn?" 

MR.  WELBORN  (president  of  the  Colorado  Fuel 
and  Iron  Company) — "I  do  not/' 

Walter  Lippmann  contributed  to  the  Metropolitan  an 
article  on  President  Wilson  and  Little  Business,  which  I  illus- 


Metropolitan 


NOT  HARMONIOUS.  President  Wilson  tries  to  get  Secretary  of  State 
Bryan  in  key. 

trated.  It  quoted  Wilson's  declaration  in  The  New  Freedom: 
•"I  am  for  big  business,  and  I  am  against  the  trust*'.  And 
Lippmann  commented;  -"He  knows  that  there  is  a  new  world 
demanding  new  methods,  but  he  dreams  of  an  older  world: 
He  is  torn  between  the  two/*  .  .  .  When  Lippmann  did 
another  article  called  A  Key  to  the  Labor  Movement,  I  fur- 
nished a  cartoon  showing  capitalists  massed  in  regiments, 
with  a  caption  saying:  "Employers  should  organize—  sure, 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       305 

that's  sound  sense — but  the  workingman  should  go  it  alone/' 
Alongside  was  a  companion  picture  in  which  a  worker  stood 
reading  a  placard  on  a  factory  wall:  "TO  LABOR,  a  warn- 
ing: Be  free  to  work  independently — trust  the  generosity  of 
your  employers — Don't  submerge  your  individuality  in  a 
union.  (Signed)  EMPLOYERS'  ASSOCIATION/' 

In  one  of  my  articles  I  reprinted  the  first  two  published 
cartoons  of  Theodore  Roosevelt — one  from  Harpers  Weekly 
by  Nast  in  1884  and  the  other  from  Pack  in  1886.  T.  R. 
was  26  years  old  and  a  member  of  the  New  York  State  Leg- 
islature in  1884. 

"In  the  50  years  since  caricature  became  a  feature  of 
American  journalism/'  I  pointed  out,  "no  man  has  been  the 
subject  of  so  many  cartoons  as  Roosevelt.  A  cartoon  com- 
posite of  him  would  include  Don  Quixote,  Tamerlane,  Na- 
poleon, Ananias,  Cromwell,  Wallenstein,  Peter  the  Great, 
the  Wild  Horse  of  Tartary,  Dn  Dowie,  a  prize-fighter,  Savo- 
narola, a  circus  performer,  a  hyena,  a  snapping  turtle,  the 
Angel  of  Peace,  Ivan  the  Terrible,  Mohammed,  and  Moses." 

Jack  Reed  and  I  were  assigned  by  the  Metropolitan  to 
cover  the  national  political  conventions  in  1916.  And  at  the 
same  time  I  was  asked  by  the  Newspaper  Enterprise  Associa- 
tion of  Cleveland  to  draw  cartoons  at  the  conventions  in 
collaboration  with  Charles  Edward  Russell,  who  was  han- 
dling the  news  end  for  it  The  N.E.A.  was  then  an  offshoot 
of  the  Scripps-McRae  newspapers  (now  the  Scripps- 
Howard) ,  and  through  its  service  my  cartoons  went  in  ma- 
trix form  to  several  hundred  dailies,  including  the  New  York 
Call  Indianapolis  News,  New  Orleans  States,  Portland 
(Ore.)  News,  Seattle  Star,  Cleveland  Press,  Chicago  Evening 
Post,  Detroit  News,  Memphis  Press,  Oklahoma  News,  San 
Diego  Sun,  Cincinnati  Post,  Des  Moines  News. 

In  Chicago  the  work  was  hard,  since  there  were  two 
conclaves  to  attend,  the  Republican  in  the  Coliseum  and  the 
Progressive  iri  the  Auditorium,  several  blocks  apart.  There 
was  always  the  feeling  that  while  we  were  at  one  of  these, 
something  highly  exciting  might  happen  at  the  other  which 
we  ought  not  to  miss. 

Numerous  dark  horses  were  in  evidence  in  the  G.  O*  P. 
ranks  throughout  that  tense  week,  with  the  possibility  that 


306       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

any  one  of  them  might  break  loose  and  gallop  to  victory*  So 
it  was  real  news  when  Justice  Charles  E.  Hughes  of  the 
Supreme  Court  was  nominated  on  Saturday, 

Over  at  the  Bull  Moose  meeting  place  I  sat  just  be- 
hind William  Jennings  Bryan  and  his  wife.  He  was  there 
reporting  the  affair  for  a  newspaper  syndicate.  I  talked  with 
Bryan  during  a  lull,  commending  the  stand  he  had  taken  on 
the  European  mess,  which  had  led  to  his  resignation  as  Secre- 
tary of  State  under  Woodrow  Wilson.  He  said:  "It's  like  a 
terrible  fever  that  will  have  to  run  its  course/' 


Newspaper  Enterprise  Association 


WHERE  WILL  IT  STRIKE?  Line-up  of  willing  candidates  at  the  1916 
Republican  convention  at  Chicago,  where  I  saw  "all  the  favorite  sons,  and 
dark  horses,  too,  waiting  to  be  hit.''" 

I  saw  the  mighty  demonstration  that  had  its  climax  in  the 
nomination  of  Theodore  Roosevelt  by  the  Progressives,  fol- 
lowed by  the  reading  of  his  letter  declining  to  run — unless 
Hughes  proved  himself  unsound  on  the  issues  of  Americanism 
and  preparedness  and  pacifistic,  pussy- footed,  or  pro-German. 
This  was  a  bitter  blow  to  the  Bull  Moose  legions,  since  it 
plainly  left  them  out  on  a  limb.  In  a  long  telegram  of  accept- 
ance that  afternoon  Justice  Hughes  expressed  his  belief  in 
"unflinching  maintenance  of  all  the  rights  of  American 
citizens  on  land  and  sea  .  .  .  an  Americanism  that  knows  no 
ulterior  purpose  ...  adequate  preparedness  ...  the  ideals 
of  honorable  peace/'  So  T.  R.  was  quickly  out  of  the  running* 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       307 

We  went  on  that  night  to  St.  Louis,  where  the  Democrats 
were  assembling.  There  was  no  doubt  in  the  air  as  to  where 
the  lightning  would  strike  here;  Wilson  was  a  foregone  con- 
clusion. But  anyhow  the  delegates  went  through  all  the  usual 
motions  of  a  contest.  I  remember  chiefly  the  eloquent  speeches 
by  Senator  Ollie  James  of  Kentucky,  former  Governor  Mar- 
tin Glynn  of  New  York,  and  William  Jennings  Bryan.  When 
they  referred  to  the  President  as  "a  man  of  peace"  who  had 
"kept  us  out  of  war/'  the  spectators  in  the  galleries  and  many 
delegates  were  carried  to  such  emotional  heights  as  to  make  the 
scene  look  like  a  religious  revival. 

Cries  of  "Bryan!  Bryan!"  from  so  many  parts  of  the 
convention  hall  greeted  the  appearance  of  the  Commoner  in 
the  press  gallery  at  the  final  session  that  the  chairman  sus- 
pended the  rules  to  permit  him  to  speak  from  the  platform. 

"I  have  had  differences  of  opinion  with  President  Wil- 
son," he  said,  "but  I  join  the  people  in  thanking  God  that 
we  have  a  President  who  does  not  want  the  nation  to  fight." 
Those  who  had  feared  he  might  recall,  for  purposes  of 
party  disruption,  their  conflict  over  Wilson's  Lusitania  policy, 
were  now  set  at  ease.  Bryan  was  at  this  moment  the  perfect 
harmonizer,  forgetting  personal  ambition  and  old  quarrels. 
"As  a  Democrat,"  he  declared,  "I  want  my  party  to  have  the 
honor  of  bringing  the  peace  about,  and  I  want  the  country 
to  give  Woodrow  Wilson  a  chance  to  bring  it  about." 

Peggy  and  Orrick  Johns  attended  the  convention  regu- 
larly, and  Jack  and  I  lunched  with  them  in  the  Planters' 
Hotel  and  spent  some  pleasant  hours  in  their  country  home 
out  in  the  Meramec  hills.  Orrick  harks  back  to  my  "declaiming 
in  the  manner  of  a  Southern  Senator"  and  remembers  how 
Reed,  "a  big  curly-haired  kid  wearing  dark  workman's  shirts 
and  the  best  tweeds,  would  comment  on  the  wildeyed  ap- 
pearance of  the  delegates,  or  tear  into  the  fallacies  of  the 
windy  monologues." 

Often  the  correspondents  for  various  capitalist  papers 
would  tell  me  of  a  Congressman  or  of  some  one  in  a  federal 
department  who  would  make  good  copy  for  me,  but  not  for 
them.  They  had  to  concern  themselves  with  public  men  who 
were  strictly  "regular,"  or  on  occasion  those  wko  made  news 
because  no  one  took  them  seriously. 


308      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

"Say,  Young,  you  ought  to  see  Lindbergh.  There's  a 
man  for  you/'  said  one  of  these  correspondents.  He  secretly 
admired  Charles  A.  Lindbergh  Sr.,  but  knew  that  this  Min- 
nesota Representative  was  frowned  upon  by  his  paper  be- 
cause of  his  political  beliefs. 

In  Washington  no  observer  can  escape  from  the  consensus 
of  opinion  among  the  scores  of  correspondents  from  all  over 
the  country  as  to  what  is  news  of  public  interest  and  who 
should  get  publicity.  Lindbergh,  father  of  a  boy  then  in  short 
pants  who  in  a  few  years  would  suddenly  become  world- 
famous,  was  not  regular  news.  Elected  on  the  Farmer-Labor 
ticket,  he  was  so  irregular  that  he  started  an  investigation  of 
the  House  of  Morgan.  Also  I  had  heard  casually  of  a  bill  he 
had  introduced  to  provide  easy  credit  for  farmers,  and  of  his 
exposures  of  the  banking  system,  in  speeches  and  pamphlets 
that  everybody  could  understand.  Being  so  different,  he 
would  naturally  be  of  interest  only  to  a  cartoonist  and  com- 
mentator who  was  himself  outside  the  pale.  Such  was  my 
reputation  for  having  radical  views. 

I  found  Lindbergh  in  his  room  in  the  House  Office 
Building,  and  told  him  I'd  like  to  make  a  sketch  of  him  for 
the  Metropolitan.  Courteous  enough,  he  seemed  neither  will- 
ing nor  unwilling  to  have  me  go  ahead.  He  was  sitting  at  his 
desk,  and  I  said:  '"Just  as  you  are  is  all  right/'  A  stoical 
Swede,  I  thought,  as  I  began  drawing  from  the  brow  down, 
as  is  my  usual  way.  Stoical  and  a  man  of  home-spun  integrity, 
I  felt,  as  I  limned  the  contour  of  his  strong  face  and  came  to 
the  big  gnarled  hands.  I  was  not  long  at  my  work  as  he  sat 
patiently  looking  out  the  window,  and  occasionally  at  his 
desk,  where  correspondence  and  memoranda  of  a  Congress- 
man's duties  stared  him  in  the  face. 

My  informant  was  right — "You  ought  to  see  Lind- 
bergh/' I  had  seen  and  sketched  Knute  Nelson,  banker  Sena- 
tor from  the  same  state,  a  hard-boiled  regular,  also  a  Swede. 
Of  him  my  most  distinct  memory  is  that  he  could  make  the 
brass  spittoon  near  his  desk  on  the  Senate  floor  ring  with 
powerful  shots  of  tobacco  juice.  When  the  Senate  was  quiet 
Knute's  echoing  sluice  was  a  sure  sign  that  "God's  in  his 
heaven,  all's  right  with  the  world"  for  the  bankers.  Lindbergh 
had  vision,  while  the  seniof  Senator  from  Minnesota  was  a 
prize  example  of  a  man  without  vision. 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       309 

The  younger  Lindbergh  must  have  inherited  some  of  his 
father's  imagination — for  the  son  was  certain  he  could  do 
what  others  thought  foolhardy,  and  did  it.  Lindbergh  senior 
was  farther  ahead  of  time  than  his  boy.  But  what  he  ad- 


vocated  also  will  be  done.  The  spirit  of  Lindbergh  senior  will 
carry  on.  He  voted  against  American  entrance  into  the  Euro- 
pean war,  and  fought  for  peace  during  that  conflict.  His  idea 
was  that  human  life  is  at  least  as  sacred  as  wealth;  so  he 
urged  the  conscription  of  wealth  to  pay  the  money  costs  of 
the  fighting.  He  recommended  that  the  government  take  over 


310      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

the  telegraph,  telephone,  banking,  and  transportation  sys- 
tems. He  hated  Wall  Street  and  wrote  and  published  a  book, 
Why  Is  Your  Country  At  War?,  which  was  promptly  sup- 
pressed and  the  page  plates  confiscated  by  the  federal  au- 
thorities. 

So  inflamed  can  a  whole  nation  become  through  the  in- 
sidious propaganda  of  newspapers  that  on  more  than  one 
occasion  in  those  days  Lindbergh's  life  was  in  danger  while 
he  was  speaking  as  a  candidate  for  Governor  of  Minnesota, 
his  last  campaign  in  his  home  state,  where  his  record  for 
honesty  and  unswerving  principle  was  known  to  everybody. 
"You  ought  to  see  Lindbergh/'  and  I  saw  him — a  man  who 
deserves  to  live  endlessly  in  the  history  of  his  country.  He 
was  more  of  a  lone  eagle  than  his  son.  He  soared  higher  and 
with  a  nobler  purpose,  but  the  bitter  unreasoning  storm  of 
public  opinion  was  against  him. 

Wilson's  administration  was  a  shining  target  for  the 
Metropolitan  throughout  the  Princeton  professor's  first  term, 
and  the  magazine  kept  on  throwing  big  chunks  of  criticism 
at  him  long  after  this  country  was  dragged  into  the  war. 

"The  charge  against  Mr.  Wilson/*  Whigham  wrote  in 
December,  1916,  "is  that  he  has  poisoned  the  wells  of  truth. 
The  one  man  who  ought  to  be  candor  incarnate,  he  has  made 
the  written  word  of  the  President  of  the  United  States  a 
laughing  stock  of  all  the  world/'  And  a  month  later,  under 
the  heading  of  Farewell,  Old  Guard,  the  editor  added:  "For 
four  years  we  have  been  opposed  to  the  policy  of  Mr.  Wilson 
and  the  Democratic  party.  Long  before  the  war  broke  out  our 
opposition  to  Mr.  Wilson  was  based  on  the  fact  that  his  main 
ideas  of  government  were  reactionary  rather  than  progres- 
sive/* 

Theodore  Roosevelt,  who  by  this  time  was  being  widely 
advertised  as  a  contributing  editor  (having  resigned  as  an 
editor  of  the  Outlook) ,  had  an  article  in  the  same  issue 
entitled  "Good  Americans  Should  Support  Mr.  Hughes/' 

On  the  day  when  Wilson  signed  the  Porto  Rico  bill  I 
went  to  the  White  House,  curious  to  see  for  once  how  a  Presi- 
dent looked  when  he  affixed  his  name  to  such  a  document 
with  three  different  pens,  each  of  which  would  be  given  (like 
Babe  Ruth  baseballs)  to  notables  directly  concerned  with  the 
event.  I  arrived  late,  however,  because  the  cab-horse  which 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       311 

brought  me  was  tired  and  the  cab  needed  oiling,  and  Secretary 
Tumulty  said  the  ceremony  was  all  over — but  that  the  Presi- 
dent was  still  in  the  reception  room,  and  said  to  me,  "Go 
on  in/'  and  I  did.  The  President  was  shaking  hands  with 
some  of  the  guests,  and  when  they  left  him  I  introduced 
myself  as  the  Washington  correspondent  of  the  Metropolitan. 

He  didn't  show  any  emotion  at  that,  but  said,  "The 
Metropolitan  doesn't  like  me  very  much,  does  it?" 

"Well,  you  may  have  noticed,  Mr,  President/'  I  an- 
swered, "that  I've  never  drawn  any  especially  harsh  cartoons 
of  you,  nor  written  anything  libelous  about  you/' 

Then  I  made  some  conversation  about  the  difficulties  of 
his  high  office,  and  told  him  the  Porto  Rico  bill  "ought  to 
improve  that  situation,"  and  I  ended  by  asking  him  a  question 
that  I  heard  people  ask  in  Wisconsin  in  my  boyhood:  "Do 
you  sleep  well?" 

He  didn't  reply  to  that,  but  a  ghost  of  a  smile  crossed 
his  face,  and  he  said:  "Good  day,  Mr*  Young."  Going  out 
I  mentioned  to  Tumulty  that  I  saw  the  President  and  that 
"everything  went  all  right," 

Some  three  weeks  after  Wilson  began  his  second  term  I 
happened  to  be  in  the  office  of  Senator  Harry  Lane  of  Oregon 
one  morning.  He  handed  me  a  newspaper  he  had  been  reading, 
and  pointing  to  a  headline  which  stated  that  J.  Pierpont 
Morgan  was  a  Washington  visitor,  he  said:  "Our  government 
has  arrived!" 

Official  sources  had  just  announced  that  Morgan  had 
agreed  to  lend  $1,000,000  for  the  Army,  without  interest,  to 
permit  the  continued  purchase  of  supplies  for  which  Congress 
had  refused  money.  Next  day  the  Evening  Star  stated  that 
"indications  grew  stronger  today  that  President  Wilson  will 
ask  Congress  next  Tuesday  to  declare  that  a  state  of  war 
exists  between  Germany  and  the  United  States/' 

And  a  few  days  later  he  who  had  "kept  us  out  of  war" 
went  before  that  body  and  made  a  speech  about  the  failure 
of  neutrality.  What  followed  is  familiar  history — conscrip- 
tion of  youth,  the  beating  down  of  all  opposition  by  a  reign 
of  terror,  vast  profiteering,  and  a  deluge  of  blood  and  tears. 

I  sat  in  the  Senate  press  gallery  when  Wilson  delivered 
his  so-called  peace  message  to  Congress,  which  in  its  essence 


THE  WHITE  MAN'S  BURDEN, 

312 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       313 

was  a  preliminary  pronouncement  of  wan  So  well  groomed 
that  he  resembled  a  fashion-plate,  the  Chief  Executive  walked 
down  the  aisle  with  almost  everybody  cheering  as  he  mounted 
the  dais.  Here  he  shook  hands  with  Vice-President  Marshall 
adjusted  his  eye-glasses,  looked  out  over  the  audience  for 
several  seconds,  and  then  began  reading  the  fateful  message 
amid  a  great  silence. 

My  ears  caught  scarcely  any  of  his  words*  I  wasn't  listen- 
ing to  them ;  I  could  read  the  salient  points  in  the  newspapers. 
But  I  knew  the  die  had  been  cast.  I  was  thinking  of  what 
inevitably  lay  ahead,  and  wondering  what  my  radical  friends 
who  had  upheld  Wilson's  course  and  motives  would  have  to 
say  now.  Lincoln  Steffens,  John  Reed,  and  many  others  had 
contended  clear  up  to  that  point  that  he  would  stick  to  his 
announced  policy  and  "keep  us  out  of  war."  But  I  didn't 
believe  it,  and  had  said  so  over  and  over  again.  I  felt  he 
would  like  to,  but  I  said:  "They  won't  let  him." 

I  knew,  as  everyone  handling  news  did,  how  the  propa- 
ganda factories  were  working  ceaselessly  to  force  us  into  the 
slaughter.  .  .  ,  And  as  I  pondered  all  this,  sitting  there 
among  the  press  correspondents,  I  wasn't  looking  at  Wilson 
— I  was  watching  the  face  of  Uncle  Joe  Cannon  of  Illinois. 
It  was  the  color  of  an  old  plow-share  covered  with  red  rast, 
and  he  looked  at  the  President  as  if  approving  every  word  he 
said.  Hard-boiled  Republican  though  he  was,  for  once  he 
was  in  agreement  with  a  Democratic  President.  And  the  mem- 
bers of  the  Supreme  Court  also  were  there  looking  on  with 
satisfied  expressions. 

Jeannette  Rankin  had  just  begun  to  serve  her  term  as 
Representative  from  Montana  when  the  infamous  war  reso- 
lution sponsored  by  Wilson  came  crashing  into  Congress  for 
immediate  attention,  with  the  eyes  and  ears  of  the  world 
waiting  for  the  verdict.  I  had  been  hanging  around  the 
Capitol  all  day  on  April  5,  and  had  gone  home  late  that 
night,  sick  at  heart  because  I  was  sure  the  measure  was  going 
to  pass.  About  3  a.m.  the  vote  of  the  House  was  taken  with 
50  members  against  and  373  for  war. 

I  heard  about  the  ordeal  next  day  from  those  who  had 
seen  the  session  through.  As  the  roll  was  called,  and  the  read- 
ing clerk  shouted  "Rankin  of  Montana!",  there  was  no  re- 


314       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

sponse.  Then,  louder:  ' 'RANKIN  OF  MONTANA!"  Visibly 
overcome  and  sobbing  in  despair,  she  answered:  "I  want  to 
stand  by  my  country,  but  I  cannot  vote  for  war/* 

So  Jeannette  Rankin,  in  that  nest  of  dominant  males, 
made  herself  heard.  If  the  manner  was  essentially  feminine, 
nevertheless  it  was  truly  the  voice  of  the  maternal  instinct 
which  seeks  to  protect  life  rather  than  destroy  it. 

More  disillusionment  came  to  me  that  spring  when  the 
Socialist  party's  emergency  convention  in  St.  Louis  split  on 
the  question  of  opposing  the  war,  I  had  long  held  the  belief 
that  all  Socialists  would  logically  oppose  a  capitalistic  and 
imperialistic  war  in  which  the  proletarian  masses  of  the 
countries  involved  would  be  the  great  losers.  Ever  since  the 
carnage  had  begun  in  Europe,  the  Socialists  in  this  country 
had  been  almost  unanimously  against  entering  it  I  had 
felt  secure  in  the  belief  that  the  party  would  unflinchingly 
stand  its  ground. 

But  there  was  bitter  controversy  on  the  convention  floor 
when  a  resolution  condemning  the  entrance  of  the  United 
States  into  the  European  holocaust  was  offered  for  passage. 
After  acrimonious  debate  a  majority  comprising  some  three 
fourths  of  the  delegates  adopted  such  a  measure  which  said: 

The  only  struggle  which  would  justify  the  workers  in  taking 
up  arms  is  the  great  struggle  of  the  working  class  of  the  world 
to  free  itself  from  economic  exploitation  and  political  oppression. 
As  against  the  false  doctrine  of  national  patriotism,  we  uphold 
the  ideal  of  international  working  class  solidarity.  In  support  of 
capitalism,  we  will  not  willingly  give  a  single  life  or  a  single 
dollar;  in  support  of  the  struggle  of  the  workers  for  freedom,  we 
pledge  all.  .  .  .  We  brand  the  declaration  of  war  by  our  gov- 
ernment as  a  crime  against  the  people  of  the  United  States  and 
against  the  nations  of  the  world.  The  Socialist  Party  emphati- 
cally rejects  the  proposal  that  in  time  of  war  the  workers  should 
suspend  their  struggle  for  better  conditions.  On  the  contrary,  the 
acute  situation  created  by  war  calls  for  an  even  more  vigorous 
prosecution  of  the  class  struggle. 

Countering  this  position,  a  minority  resolution  uphold- 
ing the  war  was  insisted  upon  by  the  remaining  fourth  of  the 
delegates,  among  whom  were  Charles  Edward  Russell,  John 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES      315 

Spargo,  William  English  Walling,  Upton  Sinclair,  X  G. 
Phelps  Stokes,  W.  J.  Ghent,  Charmion  London,  and  George 
Sterling.  The  report  of  these  dissenters  held  that  now  that 
this  nation  was  in  the  war,  that  war  must  be  "recognized" 
as  a  fact;  that  Socialists  should  support  it  and  help  carry  it 
to  a  successful  conclusion  as  soon  as  possible* 

Rose  Pastor  Stokes  and  her  husband,  X  G.  Phelps  Stokes, 
subsequently  resigned  from  the  party  to  express  their  opposi- 
tion to  the  majority  resolution,  which  in  a  referendum  was 
adopted  by  the  party  membership  by  a  vote  of  about  ten  to 
one.  Printed  copies  of  that  resolution  were  confiscated  as 
"treasonable"  by  Department  of  Justice  agents. 

And  Clarence  Darrow,  supposedly  a  competent  thinker, 
also  took  a  pro-war  position.  Though  I  still  think  that  all  of 
that  group  were  wrong,  I  have  never  believed  that  personal 
antipathy  for  them,  because  of  their  attitude,  should  have 
been  carried  over  for  a  single  day  beyond  the  Armistice  by 
any  of  us  who  opposed  entry  of  the  United  States  into  the 
war.  I  have  a  talent  for  reserving  judgement,  sometimes  re- 
serving it  so  long,  however,  that  it  becomes  a  fault. 

That  session  of  Congress  had  opened  with  an  excited 
determination  of  many  members  to  reduce  the  cost  of  living, 
which  had  hit  top  figures.  Many  schemes  were  offered.  But 
only  one  man  in  this  conclave  of  statesmen  met  the  issue  with 
a  clear,  convincing  solution.  Champ  Clark,  Representative 
from  Missouri,  when  asked  by  a  reporter  how  the  people 
could  meet  the  rising  costs  of  subsistence,  said:  "Eat  mush" — 
and  added  that  "everyone  also  ought  to  keep  some  hens/' 
So  I  came  out  in  my  Metropolitan  department  for  Champ 
Clark  for  our  next  President  on  a  one-plank  platform: 
Eat  mash! 

Later,  in  a  page  headed  Flopping  Around,  I  had  a  cartoon 
of  Herbert  Hoover  tossing  out  advice  so  much  needed  by  the 
millions  of  families  living  on  $15  a  week:  "Save  the  scraps 
.  .  *  Economy  .  .  .  Don't  eat  unless  hungry  „  .  .  Don't 
buy  in  carload  lots." 

Memories  of  industrial  turmoil  in  the  Eighties,  and  the 
tendency  of  men  to  get  in  out  of  the  storm  when  the  elements 
battered  them  too  harshly,  were  recalled  by  my  discovery  of 
an  old-timer  at  a  desk  in  the  Department  of  Labor  on  which 


316      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

one  would  always  see  an  orange  or  an  apple  mixed  up  with 
the  documents  of  business.  This  was  Terence  V.  Powderly, 
who  in  the  Eighties  was  Grand  Master  Workman  (the  prin- 
cipal officer)  of  the  Knights  of  Labor,  the  first  powerful 
union  of  workers  in  the  United  States.  There  in  Washington, 
he  was  assistant  to  the  Commissioner  of  Immigration.  Seldom 
did  his  name  get  into  print;  he  was  no  longer  news  for  the 
press  which  had  once  regarded  him  as  a  force  to  reckon  with 
in  the  struggle  of  labor  for  a  decent  livelihood. 

Senator  Sherman  of  Illinois  was  often  a  good  source  of 
copy  for  me  on  dull  days.  He  had  a  large  store  of  anecdotes. 


S* ^v. 


Metropolitan 


TERENCE  V.  PQWDERLY.  Head  of  the  militant  Knights  of  Labor,  he 
was  National  Villain  No.  1  in  the  press  of  the  Eighties.  When  I  made  this 
profile  in  1918,  he  was  Assistant  Immigration  Commissioner. 

It  was  easy  to  get  him  to  slant  himself  against  his  desk  and 
start  telling  stories.  One  of  his  tales  was  about  an  illiterate 
man  leaning  against  the  frame  of  a  courtroom  doorway. 
Somebody  came  along  and  asked  him:  "What's  the  judge 
doing  in  there?"  and  the  illiterate  citizen  said:  "He's  giving 
his  obstructions  to  the  jury/' 

Roosevelt  clamored  in  the  Metropolitan  for  our  entrance 
into  the  war  in  an  article  entitled  Now  We  Must  Fight  and 
another  called  Put  the  Flag  on  the  Firing  Line.  After  that 
wish  was  gratified,  T.  R.  came  out  in  May,  1917,  with  a 
treatise  on  Liberal  Russia  in  which  he  said:  "The  great  demo- 
cratic revolution  in  Russia  was  successfully  carried  through 
just  before  the  United  States  entered  into  the  war  on  the 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       317 

side  of  the  Allies.  .  .  .  We  of  the  United  States  most  earn- 
estly wish  well  to  Russia.  We  believe  that  she  has  before  her 
a  career  of  really  stupendous  greatness/'  And  he  said  also: 
"We  .most  earnestly  hope  that  the  sinister  extremists,  always 
associated  with  any  revolution,  will  not  gain  control/'  This 
was  in  pre-Kerensky  days,  and  before  the  Bolsheviki  had 
been  heard  of  in  this  country. 

Whigham  continued  to  criticize  the  Wilson  administra- 
tion, holding  that  "our  democracy  was  on  trial/'  "If  we  want 
to  make  the  world  safe  for  democracy/'  he  said  editorially 
in  July,  "there  are  two  things  we  must  surely  do.  1.  We  must 
so  deal  with  Germany  that  neither  she  nor  any  other  great 
power  will  ever  again  think  it  worth  while  to  start  out  on  a 
career  of  world  conquest.  ...  2.  To  make  democracy  safe 
we  must  make  democracy  self-supporting.  Washington  at  the 
present  moment  is  rather  a  deplorable  spectacle." 

The  development  of  that  theme  brought  numerous  pro- 
tests, and  in  August  Whigham  was  clearly  on  the  defensive 
against  the  pressure  of  the  super-patriots.  Under  ,the  heading 
"This  Is  Our  War"  he  stated  the  Metropolitan's  position. 
Some  readers,  he  explained,  had  objected  to  the  July  editorial 
as  an  attack  on  the  national  administration.  But  neither  the 
President  nor  any  of  his  advisers  were  sacrosanct,  the  Metro- 
politan's editor  insisted,  and  it  deplored  the  idea  held  by  well- 
meaning  people  that  loyalty  and  patriotism  meant  standing 
by  the  Administration  and  doing  little  else.  "Whatever  the 
President  does  toward  winning  this  war  in  the  shortest  and 
most  effective  way  has  our  enthusiastic  support/* 


Chapter   30 
THE  CENSORSHIP  PICKS   ON  THE  MASSES 

K)UGH  going  had  been  encountered  by  the  Masses  in 
its  efforts  to  remain  a  medium  for  free  interpretation 
in  a  time  of  hysteria.  Because  of  its  pitiless  reporting 
in  trying  to  reveal  true  causes,  its  lack  of  respect  for  com- 
mercialized religion,  and  its  attacks  on  sex  taboos  in  art  and 
literature,  the  magazine  had  earlier  been  barred  from  the 
reading  rooms  of  many  libraries,  ousted  from  the  subway  and 
elevated  news  stands  in  New  York,  and  refused  by  the  large 
distributing  companies  of  Boston  and  Philadelphia;  and  our 
right  to  use  the  mails  in  Canada  had  been  revoked  by  the 
Dominion  government. 

One  poem  by  Carl  Sandburg  had  caused  an  issue  to  be 
held  up  in  the  New  York  post  office  for  two  days,  and  some 
subscriptions  were  stopped  on  account  of  it.  This  was  dedi- 
cated to  Billy  Sunday,  and  the  opening  lines  read: 

You  come  along  .  .  .  tearing  your  shirt  .  .  .  yelling 
about  Jesus. 

I  want  to  know  .  .  .  what  the  hell  .  .  .  you  know 
about  Jesus. 

Jesus  had  a  way  of  talking  soft  and  everybody  except 
a  few  bankers  and  higher-ups  among  the  con-men 
of  Jerusalem  liked  to  have  this  Jesus  around  because 
he  never  made  any  fake  passes  and  everything  he  said 
went  and  he  helped  the  sick  and  he  gave  the  people 
hope. 

Frequently  we  reprinted  bits  from  the  daily  newspapers 
which  needed  no  satirical  comment  to  give  them  bite.  For 
example,  the  mention  of  a  woman  who  wrote  to  the  Phila- 
delphia North  American  telling  how  she  fed  a  family  of  six 
on  $3  a  week,  and  that  publication's  response:  "The  North 
American  .  .  .  publicly  acknowledges  its  admiration  for  such 
a  fine  manager,  A  few  of  this  sort  in  each  community  in  the 

318 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       319 

land  would  soon  put  an  end  to  the  high  cost  of  living  agita- 
tion/* 

For  three  months  after  the  United  States  declared  war  on 
Germany  the  Masses  kept  on  assailing  the  jingoists,  the  profit- 
eers, and  the  capitalists  who  caused  the  beating  and  deporta- 
tion of  strikers,  the  Post  Office  censorship,  and  other  evils 
which  had  been  loosed  in  the  campaign  to  silence  all  critics 
of  the  war  administration.  If  anyone  questioned  the  maga- 
zine's course,  the  editors  were  able  to  point  to  a  statement  by 
President  Wilson  for  justification.  Shortly  after  the  declara- 
tion he  had  said : 

I  can  imagine  no  greater  dis-service  to  the  country 
than  to  establish  a  system  of  censorship  that  would 
deny  to  the  people  of  a  free  republic  like  our  own  their 
undisputable  right  to  criticize  their  own  public  officials. 
While  exercising  the  great  powers  of  the  office  I  hold,  I 
would  regret  in  a  crisis  like  the  one  which  we  are  now 
passing  to  lose  the  benefits  of  patriotic  and  intelligent 
criticism. 

On  July  3  the  August  issue  of  the  Masses  was  delivered  to 
the  New  York  Post  Office.  Copies  of  this  were  immediately 
sent  to  Washington  "for  examination/'  the  editors  were  in- 
formed. Two  days  later  a  letter  came  from  Postmaster  T.  G. 
Patten  of  Manhattan,  stating  that  according  to  advices  from 
the  Solicitor  of  the  Post  Office  Department,  that  issue  was 
unmailable  under  the  Act  of  June  15,  1917,  which  meant  the 
Espionage  Act.  It  was  understood  that  the  Solicitor,  the  At- 
torney General,  and  Judge  Advocate  General  Crowder  of  the 
U.  S.  Army  had  conferred  about  excluding  the  magazine 
from  the  mails.  In  a  statement  in  our  September  number, 
explaining  what  happened  to  the  August  issue,  there  was  a 
footnote:  "Date  of  conference  unknown;  rumor  that  the 
Generals,  in  spite  of  pressure  of  war-business,  celebrated  In- 
dependence Day  by  deciding  to  suppress  the  Masses,  cannot 
be  verified/ ' 

Merrill  Rogers,  our  business  manager,  hastened  to  Wash- 
ington and  interviewed  Solicitor  Lamar,  who  declined  to  say 
what  provisions  of  the  Espionage  Act  had  been  violated  by 
the  Masses  for  August,  or  what  parts  of  the  magazine  violated 
that  law. 


320    '  ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

Immediately  we  retained  Gilbert  E.  Roe  as  counsel.  He 
had  handled  our  fight  against  the  Associated  Press  libel  suit. 
On  July  12  he  filed  a  motion  in  the  federal  court  to  enjoin 
the  postmaster  from  excluding  the  magazine  from  the  mails. 
All-day  argument  on  this  motion  was  held  before  Judge 
Learned  Hand  on  July  21.  And  now  we  got  a  hint  of  how 
the  Espionage  Act  would  be  used  as  a  club  against  people 
with  anti-war  beliefs.  Assistant  U.  S.  District  Attorney  Earl 
Barnes  set  forth  that  the  Post  Office  Department  construed 
that  act  as  giving  it  power  to  bar  from  the  mails  anything 
which  might  interfere  with  the  successful  conduct  of  the  war, 

Barnes  offered  as  exhibits  four  cartoons  and  four  pieces 
of  text  in  the  August  issue  as  specific  law  violations.  These 
cartoons  were  Boardman  Robinson's  ''Making  the  World 
Safe  for  Democracy/'  two  by  H.  J.  Glintenkamp  having  to 
do  with  Conscription  and  the  Liberty  Bell,  and  one  by  my- 
self on  Congress  and  Big  Business.  The  objectionable  writ- 
ings were:  "A  Question/'  an  editorial  by  Max  Eastman;  "A 
Tribute/'  a  poem  by  Josephine  Bell;  an  editorial,  "Friends 
of  American  Freedom";  and  a  paragraph  in  an  article  on 
"Conscientious  Objectors/' 

"But/'  said  Roe,  in  his  argument,  "the  Espionage  Act 
was  designed  chiefly  to  strike  at  agents  of  enemy  countries, 
and  was  never  intended  to  prohibit  political  criticism  or  dis- 
cussion. To  permit  the  Post  Office  Department  to  use  it  as  a 
cover  for  arbitrary  acts  of  suppression  would  be  to  recognize 
a  censorship  set  up  without  warrant  of  law." 

Granting  a  temporary  injunction  against  the  postmaster, 
Judge  Hand  upheld  Roe's  contention  completely  in  a  memor- 
able decision.  That  decision,  boiled  down,  emphasized  the 
following  points:  There  was  no  valid  basis  for  the  peculiar 
construction  placed  by  the  postal  authorities  on  the  Espion- 
age Act.  The  Masses  for  August  did  not  violate  the  specific 
provisions  of  the  law.  Its  cartoons  and  editorials  fell  "within 
the  scope  of  that  right  to  criticize,  either  by  temperate  reason- 
ing or  by  immoderate  and  indecent  invective,  which  is  norm- 
ally the  privilege  of  the  individual  in  countries  dependent 
upon  the  free  expression  of  opinion  as  the  ultimate  source 
of  authority/' 

Expression  of  such  opinion  might  militate  against  the 
success  of  the  war,  Judge  Hand  pointed  out,  but  Congress 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       321 

had  not  seen  fit  to  exclude  it  from  the  mails,  and  only  Con- 
gress had  the  power  to  do  this.  The  pictures  and  text  com- 
plained of  might  tend  to  promote  disaffection  with  the  war, 
but  they  could  not  be  thought  to  counsel  insubordination  in 
the  military  or  naval  forces  "without  a  violation  of  their 
meaning  quite  beyond  any  tolerance  of  understanding/'  The 
Glintenkamp  cartoon  on  conscription  might  "breed  such 
animosity  toward  the  Draft  as  will  promote  resistance  and 
strengthen  the  determination  of  those  disposed  to  be  recal- 
citrant/' but  it  did  not  tell  people  that  it  was  their  duty  nor 
to  their  interest  to  resist  the  law.  The  text  objected  to  ex- 
pressed "high  admiration  for  those  who  have  held  and  are 
holding  out  for  their  convictions  even  to  the  extent  of  re- 
sisting the  law/'  But  the  expression  of  such  admiration,  Judge 
Hand  held,  was  not  a  violation  of  the  Espionage  Act. 

On  July  26  a  formal  order  requiring  the  postmaster  to 
transmit  the  August  Masses  through  the  mails  was  signed  by 
Judge  Hand.  And  on  the  same  day,  in  Windsor,  Vermont, 
250  miles  away,  U.  S.  Circuit  Judge  C.  M.  Hough  signed 
another  order  staying  execution  of  Judge  Hand's  injunction 
and  requiring  the  contending  parties  to  appear  before  him  in 
Windsor  on  August  2  to  show  cause  why  this  stay  should 
not  be  made  permanent  pending  an  appeal  which  had  been 
taken  by  Postmaster  Patten. 

It  would  be  several  months  before  the  appeal  could  be 
heard.  Meanwhile,  the  Masses  explained  in  its  September 
issue,  "our  attorney  will  oppose  the  staying  of  Judge  Hand's 
order.  If  he  succeeds,  you  will  get  your  August  issue  through 
the  mails — unless  the  Department  thinks  of  some  other  way 
to  stop  it.  If  our  attorney  doesn't  succeed,  we  will  have  to 
adopt  other  ways  and  means.  .  .  .  The  Masses  is  your  prop- 
erty. This  is  your  fight  as  much  as  it  is  ours.  We  are  not  going 
to  quit.  We  do  not  believe  you  are,  either.  We  need  money 
to  help  pay  expenses.  .  .  /' 

Yes,  the  fight  must  go  on.  Most  of  us  who  were  co- 
operatively bringing  out  the  Masses  were  agreed  upon  that. 
Some  channel  of  protest  must  be  safeguarded  for  those  who 
had  not  been  stampeded  into  dumb  obeisance  to  the  world's 
war-makers.  On  the  back  cover  of  the  September  issue  was  a 
bold  pronouncement  headed:  Challenging  the  Government, 
which  said: 


322       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

"Twelve  to  fifteen  hundred  radical  publications  have  heen 
declared  unmailable.  The  Masses  is  the  only  one  which  has 
challenged  the  censorship  in  the  courts  and  put  the  Govern- 
ment on  the  defensive.  Each  month  we  have  something 
vitally  important  to  say  on  the  war.  We  are  going  to  say 
it  and  continue  to  say  it.  We  are  going  to  fight  any  attempt 
to  prevent  us  from  saying  it.  The  Masses  has  proved  in  the 
last  few  issues  that  it  stands  as  the  foremost  critic  of  mili- 
tarism/' 

We  had  found  comfort  and  confidence  in  that  decision  of 
Judge  Hand,  even  though  it  had  been  immediately  blocked 
by  another  court.  Judge  Hand's  thoughtful  and  explicit  sanc- 
tion of  our  course  was  assurance  that  there  was  still  some 
sanity  left  in  the  judiciary. 

So  the  September  issue  of  the  magazine  continued  its 
policy  of  unremitting  protest.  A  lead  article  by  John  Reed 
headed  One  Solid  Month  of  Liberty,  said  that  "in  America 
the  month  just  past  has  been  the  blackest  month  for  freemen 
our  generation  has  known/*  .  .  .  A  full-page  cartoon  of 
mine  entitled  Having  Their  Fling,  pictured  an  editor,  capi- 
talist, politician,  and  clergyman  dancing  to  the  music  of  a 
deviFs  orchestra  playing  instruments  shaped  like  cannon,  ma- 
chine guns,  and  hand  grenades.  Placards  above  the  dancers 
read:  "All  for  Democracy  ...  All  for  Honor  ...  All  for 
World  Peace.  .  .  All  for  Jesus."  .  .  .  Sweatshop  conditions 
of  labor  among  the  women  employed  in  the  federal  Bureau 
of  Printing  and  Engraving  in  Washington  were  detailed  in 
an  editorial. 

There  was  a  double-page  cartoon  spread  by  Boardman 
Robinson  called  Deportations — Take  Your  Choice,  in  which 
he  showed  the  Kaiser  and  his  army  driving  Belgians  away 
from  their  homes  and  a  silk-hatted  Phelps-Dodge  Corpora- 
tion official  and  its  gunmen  herding  miners  into  box-cars  in 
Arizona.  .  .  .  Max  Eastman  had  an  article  assailing  the 
Post  Office  censorship.  .  .  .  Young  Lads  First  was  the  title 
of  a  poem  by  Willard  Wattles,  telling  of  gray-beards  who 
came  from  councils  and  set  young  men's  ears  aflame  with 
cries  of  "Honor!"  and  sent  them  off  to  die. 

All  of  these  features  were  of  course  red  rags  to  the  pro- 
war  crowd,  as  were  two  other  cartoons  I  drew  for  the  same 
issue.  One  represented  Postmaster  General  Burleson  as  4 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       323 

worried  knight  in  armor  who  had  broken  his  lance  in  the 
battle  with  radical  publications.  Burleson's  tattered  banner 
bore  the  legend:  "Death  to  all  newspapers  and  magazines 
that  haven't  'the  right  spirit/  "  .  .  .  My  other  cartoon  was 
a  simple  portrait  of  Assistant  U.  S.  District  Attorney  Barnes, 
identified  as  a  defender  of  relics,  with  a  quotation  from  his 
argument  for  exclusion  of  the  Masses  from  the  mails:  "The 
Liberty  Bell  cartoon,  sir,  to  my  mind,  is  objectionable,  be- 
cause it  shows  that  time-honored  relic  in  a  state  of  complete 
collapse/' 

It  would  be  hard  to  find  a  more  illuminating  commentary 
on  the  American  scene  in  that  period  than  John  Reed's 
article.  "With  a  sort  of  hideous  apathy/'  he  related,  "the 
country  has  acquiesced  in  a  regime  of  judicial  tyranny,  bu- 
reaucratic suppression,  and  industrial  barbarism,  which  fol- 
lowed inevitably  the  first  fine  careless  rapture  of  militarism/' 
...  He  declared  that  Emma  Goldman  and  Alexander  Berk- 
man  were  not  convicted  of  the  charges  on  which  they  were 
ostensibly  tried;  they  were  convicted  by  the  Assistant  District 
Attorney's  constant  stress  of  the  term  "Anarchist/'  and  by 
the  careful  definition  of  that  term,  brought  out  by  both  judge 
and  prosecutor,  as  one  who  wishes  wantonly  to  overthrow 
society  by  violence.  .  .  .  Reed  told  of  the  attack  of  soldiers 
and  sailors  on  the  Socialist  headquarters  in  Boston;  the  race 
riot  in  East  St.  Louis,  in  which  more  than  thirty  Negroes, 
men  and  women,  were  massacred  by  whites;  the  loading  of 
hundreds  of  striking  copper  miners  and  their  attorney,  into 
cattle  cars  in  Bisbee,  Arizona,  and  their  being  abandoned  in 
the  desert,  foodless  and  waterless, 

"Out  in  San  Francisco/'  Reed  wrote,  "the  bomb  trials  go 
merrily  on.  In  spite  of  the  exposure  of  Oxman,  the  utter  con- 
tradiction and  discrediting  of  the  state's  witnesses,  Mooney 
is  still  going  to  die.  .  .  .  And  so  the  most  patent  frame-up 
ever  conceived  by  a  Chamber  of  Commerce  to  extirpate  union 
labor  goes  on,  and  indictments  rain  upon  all  who  have  dared 
to  defend  the  Mooneys.  .  .  . 

"Meanwhile,  organized  labor  lies  down  and  takes  it — 
nay,  in  San  Francisco,  connives  at  it.  Gompers  is  too  busy 
running  the  war — he  has  not  time  for  anything  except  to 
appoint  upon  his  committees  labor's  bitterest  enemies.  I  sup- 
pose that  as  soon  as  Tom  Mooney  and  his  wife  are  executed, 


324      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

Gompers  will  invite  District  Attorney  Fickert  to  serve  upon 
the  Committee  on  Labor* 

"The  suffrage  pickets  in  front  of  the  White  House,  set 
upon  by  mobs  of  government  clerks,  then  by  the  police, 
arrested  time  and  time  again  upon  no  charge,  and  finally 
committed  to  the  work-house  for  sixty  days,  were,  as  the 
world  knows,  hurriedly  pardoned  by  the  President  as  soon 
as  it  was  evident  how  prominent  they  and  their  husbands 
were.  But  at  the  same  time  that  he  pardoned  them  for  their 
'crime/  he  intimated  that  he  was  too  busy  over  his  'War  for 
Democracy'  to  give  any  attention  to  their  petition — which 
was  a  petition  for  the  fundamental  rights  of  citizens/* 

It  was  inevitable,  in  the  temper  of  the  time,  that  the 
Masses  would  be  suppressed.  In  October  our  second-class  mail- 
ing privilege  was  rescinded,  and  the  grand  jury  indicted  Max 
Eastman,  Floyd  Dell,  Henry  J.  Glintenkamp,  Josephine  Bell, 
Merrill  Rogers,  business  manager,  and  myself.*  We  were 
charged,  under  the  Espionage  Act,  with  "conspiracy  to  ob- 
struct the  recruiting  and  enlistment  service  of  the  United 
States"  by  publishing  seditious  articles,  cartoons  and  poems. 
If  convicted,  we  faced  sentences  of  imprisonment  up  to 
twenty  years  each  and  fines  up  to  $10,000  each*  And  many 
twenty-year  prison  terms  had  already  been  handed  out  to 
dissenters. 

Stacker  had  come  into  the  language  as  a  term  of  frequent 
use.  Bundles  of  Hearst  newspapers  had  been  burned  in  Times 
Square  because  Hearst  was  slow  in  swinging  to  the  Allied 
cause  but  in  a  few  weeks  he  had  swung,  and  American  flags 
were  printed  all  over  his  daily  sheets.  So-called  pro-Germans 
were  being  tarred  and  feathered  by  mobs  in  the  West.  Frank 
Little  of  the  I.W.W.  executive  board  had  been  lynched  by 
business  men  in  Butte,  Montana.  And  new  and  appalling  tales 
of  cruelty  to  conscientious  objectors  were  coming  out  of  the 
prisons  where  they  were  confined. 

The  road  ahead  would  be  hard.  We  of  the  Masses  staff 
had  no  illusions  about  that. 

It  was  not  surprising,  in  view  of  the  editorial  switch  of 
the  Metropolitan  to  the  side  of  the  war  crowd,  that  my  space 

*  Subsequently  John  Reed  also  was  indicted. 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       325 

had  in  recent  months  been  reduced  from  two  pages  to  one 
page,  and  that  now  it  was  cut  to  two-thirds  of  a  page.  I 
had  felt  the  magazine's  policy  steadily  narrowing,  and  it  had 


EDITOR  CAPITALIST  POLITICIAN  MIIMlST€ll\ 

The  Masses 

HAVING  THEIR  FLING.  One  of  the  cartoons  for  which  I  was  indicted 
for  alleged  conspiracy  to  obstruct  recruiting. 

become  more  and  more  difficult  to  draw  cartoons  and  express 
opinions  on  the  situation  in  the  capital  that  would  get  by 
the  board  of  editors.  Still  I  kept  on,  satirizing  the  show  as 
vigorously  as  I  dared,  under  heads  such  as  Following  the 
Leaders  and  Let  the  Thinking  People  Rule. 


326       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

It  was  not  surprising  either  when  I  got  a  letter  from  the 
editors  of  the  Metropolitan  in  the  fall  of  1917  saying: 
"You're  not  catching  the  spirit  of  Washington.  We  wish  you 
would  come  to  New  York  and  talk  it  over/*  I  went,  but  I 
knew  what  the  outcome  would  be  before  I  entered  the  office. 
We  didn't  go  into  details  in  our  discussion.  Whigham  and 


^c 


THE  BOSS:   "Now,  children,  all  together,  three  cheers   for  the 
Supreme  Court!" 

This    appeared   soon  after  the   Keating  Child   Labor  Act   of  the 
Wilson  administration  was  declared  unconstitutional. 

Carl  Hovey,  the  managing  editor,  both  seemed  a  bit  abrupt 

and  it  was  all  over. 

Yet  it  was  a  relief  to  get  away  from  Washington  then. 
For  the  scene  in  the  capital  had  become  both  farcical  and  sad. 
Better  to  be  out  of  it  than  to  remain  with  my  hands  tied  and 
brain  clamped.  The  magnificent  distances  swarmed  with  busi- 
ness men  from  near  and  far  patriotically  giving  their  services 
at  "a  dollar  a  year"  with  a  cheerful  eye  on  large  orders  for 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       327 

their  products;  Congressmen  giving  out  pompous  interviews 
and  making  stuffed-shirt  speeches;  spurred  swivel-chair  offi- 
cers suddenly  growing  omnipotent;  members  of  the  Intelli- 
gence Service  hunting  for  spies;  members  of  the  American 
Protective  League  raiding  the  office  files  of  persons  suspected 
of  subversive  tendencies,  with  the  aid  of  building  superin- 
tendents and  janitors  by  night, 

Jeannette  Rankin  once  complained  to  Secretary  of  War 
Newton  Baker  that  she  was  being  followed  by  a  secret  service 
man,  ''Don't  pay  any  attention  to  him/'  said  Baker.  "Two 
of  them  have  been  following  me  for  three  months/' 

Rents  were  exorbitant,  food  prices  soared,  and  every  hotel 
was  crowded.  One  encountered  drunken  parties  in  profusion 
moving  about  the  town  by  night.  When  I  read  new  pro- 
nouncements by  Woodrow  Wilson  I  could  hear  the  voices  of 
all  the  stay-at-home  slogan  makers: 

"Hundred  per  cent  Americanism/' 

"Over  there — " 

"Give  till  it  hurts!" 

"Don't  be  a  slacker!" 

"Do  your  bit!" 

"Down  with  the  Huns!" 

"Kill  the  Kaiser!" 

"Make  the  world  safe — " 

"A  war  to  end  war!" 


Chapter   31 
WE  GO  TO  TRIAL  IN  TENSE  DAYS 

I  FELT,  as  others  among  my  radical  associates  did,  that 
the  spirit  of  protest  must  be  kept  alive.  And  with  pur 
trial  for  seditious  "conspiracy"  approaching,  it  was 
essential  that  we  have  some  dependable  medium  through 
which  we  could  present  our  case  to  the  public. 

Accordingly  some  of  us  who  had  been  active  in  promoting 
the  Masses  decided  early  in  1918  that  we  would  establish  a 
new  magazine  of  similar  format,  to  be  called  the  Liberator. 
Again  Max  Eastman  was  editor,  with  his  sister  Crystal  as 
managing  editor  and  Floyd  Dell  as  associate,  while  the  con- 
tributing editors  were:  Cornelia  Barns,  Howard  Brubaker, 
Hugo  Gellert,  Arturo  Giovannitti,  Charles  T.  Hallinan, 
Helen  Keller,  Ellen  LaMotte,  Robert  Minor,  John  Reed, 
Boardman  Robinson,  Louis  Untermeyer,  Charles  W.  Wood, 
and  Art  Young. 

"Never  was  the  moment  more  auspicious  to  issue  a  great 
magazine  of  liberty/*  our  leading  editorial  said  in  the  first 
issue  in  March.  "With  the  Russian  people  in  the  lead,  the 
world  is  entering  upon  the  experiment  of  industrial  and  real 
democracy*  .  .  .  The  possibilities  of  change  in  this  day  are 
beyond  all  imagination*  We  must  unite  our  hands  and  voices 
to  make  the  end  of  this  war  the  beginning  of  an  age  of  free- 
dom and  happiness  for  mankind  undreamed  by  those  whose 
minds  comprehend  only  political  and  military  events.  .  .  . 

"The  Liberator  .  .  .  will  advocate  the  opening  of  the 
land  to  the  people,  and  urge  the  immediate  taking  over  by  the 
people  of  railroads,  mines,  telegraph  and  telephone  systems, 
and  all  public  utilities.  »  *  . 

"The  Liberator  will  endorse  the  war  aims  outlined  by 
the  Russian  people  and  expounded  by  President  Wilson — a 
peace  without  forcible  annexations,  without  punitive  indem- 
nities, with  free  development  and  self-determination  for  all 
peoples.  Especially  it  will  support  the  President  in  his  demand 

328 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       329 

for  an  international  union,  based  upon  free  seas,  free  com- 
merce, and  general  disarmament,  as  the  central  principle 
upon  which  hang  all  hopes  of  permanent  peace  and  friend- 
ship among  nations/' 


The  Masses 


A  CASE  OF  HERESY.  Charles  M.   Schwab,  steel  magnate,  upsets  his 
class  by  an  outspoken  speech  at  an  alumni  dinner  in  New  York. 

That  issue  included  an  article  by  Helen  Keller  in  behalf 
of  the  LW.W.;  one  by  Bob  Minor  on  the  peril  of  Tom 
Mobneyv  with  a  cartoon  by  Bob  showing  "the  rope  still 
around  Mooneyes  neck";  while  Jack  Reed  dealt  with  Red 


330       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

Russia*  I  contributed  two  cartoons,  one  being  entitled  "A  Case 
of  Heresy/'  in  which  Charles  M.  Schwab  was  being  haled 
into  court  before  old  Judge  Capitalism  for  an  utterance  he 
made  at  a  banquet: 

"Some  people  call  it  Socialism.  Others  call  it  Bolshevism, 
It  means  but  one  thing,  and  that  is  that  the  man  who  labors 
with  his  hands,  yet  does  not  possess  property,  is  the  one  who 
is  going  to  dominate  the  affairs  of  the  world." 

Through  the  following  months  the  Liberator  contained  a 
good  deal  about  what  was  happening  abroad,  and  illuminat- 
ing news  material  and  comment  about  the  class  struggle  in 
the  United  States.  Some  pieces  worth  noting  here  were:  an 
article  on  an  atrocity  by  a  masked  mob  in  Tulsa,  Oklahoma, 
which  whipped,  tarred  and  feathered,  and  deported  seven- 
teen men,  some  of  them  I.W.W.  oil-workers  who  had  been 
taken  from  the  custody  of  the  city  police;  a  report  on  the 
growing  propaganda  for  compulsory  military  training;  and 
an  article  by  William  D.  Haywood,  general  secretary  of  the 
LW.W.,  telling  of  the  daily  life  of  himself  and  105  other 
class-war  prisoners  in  the  foul  air  of  the  county  jail  in 
Chicago. 

Cartoons  which  I  made  for  the  new  magazine  that  year 
included  one  in  which  a  capitalist  bows  his  head  in  prayer, 
saying:  "O  Lord,  control  my  appetite  if  you  must,  but  don't 
take  my  pie  (private  ownership)  away!";  another  called 
"Good  Night!"  in  which  private  ownership  of  public  institu- 
tions ("the  light  that  failed")  is  being  buried,  amid  the 
weeping  of  the  church,  press,  colleges,  and  stage;  and  a  third 
in  which  Karl  Marx  views  his  triumph  in  current  headlines. 
Such  cartoons  I  classify  now  as  wishful  thinking. 

Then  I  made  a  portrait  of  a  well-fed,  self-satisfied  look- 
ing man,  to  illustrate  this  supposed  news  dispatch: 

"RIDGEVILLE,  N.  HL— George  Turnip,  a  leading  citi- 
zen of  this  town,  was  given  a  birthday  dinner  today  in  honor 
of  his  sixty-third  birthday.  Mr.  Turnip,  who  is  a  bachelor, 
made  a  strong  speech  in  favor  of  military  training  for  every 
male  citizen  over  nineteen  and  under  sixty-three  years  of 
age." 

Looking  over  a  bound  volume  of  the  Liberator  for  1918, 
it  is  easy  to  discern  that  the  soft  pedal  was  being  used,  in 
contrast  to  the  outspokenness  of  the  Masses.  But  the  terror 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       331 

against  all  objectors  to  the  war  was  in  full  force,  and  with 
our  trial  coming  on,  we  were  not  inclined  to  aggravate  the 
situation  further — though  we  were  ready  to  stand  by  the 
written  and  pictorial  expressions  which  had  led  to  the  seven 
indictments. 

On  the  eve  of  our  trial  an  editorial  in  the  Liberator  for 
May,  in  discussing  it,  drew  a  comparison  between  our  position 
and  that  of  the  Metropolitan.  While  the  latter  had  been  aiding 
the  war,  it  had  lately  published  an  article  by  William  Hard 
declaring  that  America  was  not  honest  in  her  profession  of 
anti-imperial  war-aims,  that  she  was  in  fact  imperialistic. 
Thereupon  some  "automaton"  in  the  Post  Office  Department 
had  issued  a  mandate  to  the  New  York  postmaster  to  exclude 
Whigham's  periodical  from  the  mails*  But  this  action  was 
quickly  over-ridden  by  higher-ups,  who  explained  that  it  was 
all  a  mistake. 

Thus,  the  Liberator  commented,  "the  respectable  felonies, 
that  enliven  the  pages  of  the  Metropolitan,  and  the  Kansas 
City  Star,  and  Collier's,  and  the  newspapers  of  William  R. 
Hearst,  may  continue  with  impunity,  as  they  should  of  course 
in  a  society  whose  ultimate  and  really  admired  ideal  is  respect- 
ability." 

Our  new  magazine  was  being  consistently  more  diplo- 
matic than  militant  in  its  utterances,  and  that  issue  contained 
a  carefully  poised  article  by  Max  Eastman  headed  "Wilson 
and  the  World's  Future,"  in  which  various  wrongs  in  con- 
nection with  the  war  were  pointed  out,  in  the  manifest  hope 
that  the  man  in  the  White  House  might  deal  with  them  con- 
structively. 

"President  Wilson  conducts  his  own  thinking,"  this  ar- 
ticle began,  "with  a  large  freedom  and  interior  democracy 
that  is  not  usual  either  among  professors  or  politicians.  He 
gives  a  voice  to  every  new  fact  and  every  new  suggestion 
that  the  current  of  events  and  meditation  throws  out." 

Then  certain  recent  actions  of  the  Chief  Executive  "in  the 
single  interest  of  human  freedom"  were  listed. 

"A  thing  that  makes  me  especially  willing  to  travel  [in 
the  same  car  with  him],"  Eastman  stated,  "is  that  President 
Wilson  has  at  last  turned  his  attention  to  those  violations  of 
liberty  and  constitutional  right  in  our  domestic  affairs  which 
have  been  making  his  great  words  before  the  world  sound 


332      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

so  hollow/'  This  referred  to  an  order  for  a  review  of  courts- 
martial  and  sentences  dealt  out  to  several  hundred  conscien- 
tious objectors,  with  a  view  to  remedy  by  the  President  "if 
any  be  needed/' 

Moves  that  Wilson  might  make  to  ease  the  tensity  of 
the  whole  situation,  suggested  by  the  Liberator's  editor,  in- 
cluded recognition  of  the  Republic  of  Labor  Unions  in 
Russia,  indorsement  of  the  proposed  Inter-Belligerent  Con- 
ference of  Socialist  and  Labor  Delegates,  and  some  public 
statement  to  curb  "the  American  Prussians '  and  to  halt  the 
general  suppression  of  publications  and  the  persecution  of 
organizers  and  agitators  with  radical  opinions. 

Patriotic  music  was  being  played  lustily  by  an  army 
band  in  City  Hall  Park  as  we  of  the  Masses  went  to  trial 
in  the  old  Post  Office  building  before  Judge  Augustus  Hand 
in  April.  Only  five  defendants  were  present — Max  Eastman, 
Floyd  Dell,  Merrill  Rogers,  Josephine  Bell,  and  myself.  John 
Reed  was  in  Russia,  and  Henry  Glintenkamp's  whereabouts 
were  unknown.  He  had  been  out  of  town  when  the  indictment 
was  returned  by  the  grand  jury. 

Assistant  District  Attorney  Earl  Barnes  was  handling  the 
prosecution,  while  Morris  Hillquit  and  Dudley  Field  Malone 
were  our  attorneys.  Hillquit  had  been  under  fire  by  the  super- 
patriots  because  he  had  admittedly  written  most  of  the  St. 
Louis  and- war  proclamation  of  the  Socialist  party;  some  of 
the  newspapers  referred  to  him  as  "the  unindicted  Hillquit/' 
Malone  was  a  liberal  who  liked  to  exercise  his  independent 
spirit  right  in  the  open,  but  for  all  that  was  still  regarded  as 
respectable.  He  was  in  the  case  mainly  because  of  the  free 
press  issue. 

Among  the  exhibits  introduced  by  the  prosecution  as  evi- 
dence against  us,  these  six  stood  out: 

1.  Eastman's  editorial,  "A  Question/'  which  praised  the 
moral  courage  of  those  who  were  conscientious  objectors  to 
the  draft. 

2.  Letters  from  conscientious  objectors  in  English  pris- 
ons, with  a  foreword  by  Floyd  Dell  lauding  them. 

3.  Glintenkamp's  cartoon  in  which  Death  was  measuring 
a  drafted  soldier  for  a  coffin,  with  an  excerpt  from  a  news 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       333 

dispatch  stating  that  a  huge  number  of  coffins  had  been 
ordered  by  the  War  Department. 

4.  An  "article"  signed  by  Reed,  which  actually  was  a 
compilation  of  quotations  from  a  report  by  the  National 
Mental  Hygiene  Committee,  which  cited  the  great  frequency 
of  mental  diseases  among  soldiers  in  the  prevailing  war.  This 
report  had  been  published  by  the  New  York  Tribune,  but  no 
editor  of  that  newspaper  had  been  indicted.  The  only  part  of 


MORRIS  HILLQUIT,  one  of  the  defense 
counsel  in  the  Masses  sedition  case. 

the  "article* 'which  was  original  with  Reed  was  the  headline, 
"Knit  a  Strait- Jacket  for  Your  Soldier  Boy/' 

5.  Josephine  Bell's  free-verse  poem,  "A  Tribute/'  and 
dedicated  to  Emma  Goldman  and  Alexander  Berkman,  who 
had  lately  been  convicted  under  the  Espionage  Act. 

6.  My  anti-war  cartoon,  "Having  Their  Fling."  This 
was  just  one  of  various  pictures  of  mine  cited  by  the  State. 

Picking  the  jury  was  an  arduous  task,  which  often  im- 
pelled grave  doubts  of  our  chances  as  we  contemplated  the 
"peers"  who  were  to  decide  whether  we  should  spend  the  next 


334       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

twenty  years  in  or  out  of  prison.  Scores  of  middle  class  tales- 
men, many  of  them  elderly  and  "retired,"  were  examined  as 
to  their  social  views,  with  practically  the  same  answers  from 
all. 

"Are  you  prejudiced  against  pacifism  and  pacifists?"  Al- 
ways the  reply  would  be  "Yes/' 

There  was  no  hope  of  getting  twelve  men,  or  even  three, 
on  that  jury  who  were  open-minded*  The  best  that  our 
attorneys  could  get  from  the  talesmen  whom  we  thought 
looked  "human"  was  an  expression  of  belief  that  their  preju- 
dices "might  be  overcome  by  proof  and  argument."  It  was 
chilling  to  remember  that  in  the  Chicago  Haymarket  case 
most  of  the  jurors  who  sent  four  men  to  the  gallows  had 
voiced  the  same  belief.  Hillquit  requested  Judge  Hand  to 
excuse  talesmen  who  had  that  attitude,  but  the  judge  said: 
"You  cannot  get  a  jury  anywhere  in  the  United  States  not 
prejudiced  against  pacifism." 

My  love  for  music  suffered  during  that  triaL  While  the 
jury-picking  was  going  on,  and  through  the  whole  eight  days 
that  our  fate  was  in  abeyance,  the  bands  in  the  park  below, 
where  Liberty  Bonds  were  being  sold,  played  national  airs. 
To  me,  who  considered  myself  quite  as  patriotic  in  a  real 
sense  as  those  who  had  to  prove  it  by  emotional  excess,  this 
music  sounded  sad,  not  to  say  ominous,  like  the  relentless 
beat  of  a  funeral  march. 

Once  when  brass  horns  blared  out  "The  Star  Spangled 
Banner"  right  under  the  court- room  windows  some  one  in 
the  room  stood  up,  then  others,  till  everybody  present  was 
standing  at  attention.  It  was  like  some  solemn  religious  cere- 
mony with  God  looking  on  from  behind  a  cloud.  We  de- 
fendants stood  up  with  the  others,  knowing  that  if  we  didn't 
we  would  be  mobbed*  This  patriotic  gesture  seemed  to  be- 
wilder Judge  Hand*  He  arose  slowly  as  if  saying  to  himself: 
"What  started  all  this?"  For  there  was  no  custom  in  court- 
room behavior  of  standing  up  for  anything  or  anybody  ex- 
cept the  judge  himself* 

We  were  more  fortunate  than  the  Haymarket  men,  how- 
ever, in  having  a  conscientious  judge  on  the  bench*  Judge 
Hand  had  not  been  stampeded  by  the  war  mania,  and  he  con- 
sistently tried  to  be  fair  in  his  rulings  and  in  his  instructions 
to  the  jury. 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       335 

I  was  amazed  anew  at  the  vastness  of  evil  intent  which  a 
prosecutor  could  find  in  the  utterances  of  defendants  repre- 
senting an  unpopular  cause.  Earl  Barnes  took  great  pains  to 
point  out  to  the  jury  that  we  were  traitors  to  the  principles 
which  guided  the  Founding  Fathers  of  this  nation,  that  we 
had  entered  into  a  deliberate  conspiracy  to  undermine  the 
pillars  of  the  republic,  that  we  had  set  out  to  defeat  the 
purposes  of  the  army  and  navy  which  were  protecting  our 
country  against  the  mad  aims  of  the  Kaiser.  He  read  from 
the  exhibits  in  awe-inspiring  tones,  and  held  up  the  offend- 
ing cartoons  with  a  gesture  of  horror  as  if  he  were  displaying 
the  pistol  with  which  Booth  shot  Abraham  Lincoln. 

Hillquit,  in  his  opening  address,  contended  that  "true 
patriotism,  the  concern  for  one's  country  and  its  people,  is  at 
least  as  consistent  with  a  desire  to  protect  them  from  mass 
slaughter  as  with  honest  war  enthusiasm/'  and  he  concluded: 

"These  then  were  our  honest  views.  Were  we  wrong? 
Were  we  right  about  it?  Gentlemen,  you  are  not  called  upon 
to  pass  on  this  question.  History  will  be  our  jury.  No  human 
being  today  can  assume  to  render  final  judgment  on  the  great 
problems  which  the  world  catastrophe  has  put  before  us.  You 
are  called  upon  to  pass  on  only  one  thing:  Are  these  men 
criminals?  Did  they  conspire  to  injure  their  country?  Did  they 
conspire  with  the  Imperial  German  Government  in  this  war?" 

At  the  end  of  the  state's  case  Hillquit  asked  the  court  to 
quash  the  indictment  against  Josephine  Bell,  arguing  that  no 
part  of  her  poem  was  illegal.  Some  idea  of  its  character  may 
be  gained  from  this  portion: 

Emma  Goldman  and  Alexander  Berkman 

Are  in  prison  tonight 

But  they  have  made  themselves  elemental  forces 
Like  the  water  that  climbs  down  the  rocks; 
Like  the  wind  in  the  leaves; 
Like  the  gentle  night  that  holds  us; 
They  are  working  on  our  destinies; 
They  are  forging  the  loves  of  the  nations. 

Judge  Hand  read  the  poem  thoughtfully,  and  handing  it 
back  to  Hillquit  said:  "Do  you  call  that  a  poem?"  Hillquit 
answered:  "Your  Honor,  it  is  so  called  in  the  indictment/* 
Whereupon  the  judge  said:  "Indictment  dismissed/' 


336       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

Each  of  the  remaining  four  defendants  was  put  on  the 
witness  stand.  Max  Eastman  and  Floyd  Dell  discussed  at 
length,  in  response  to  our  attorney's  questions,  the  funda- 
mental rights  of  the  press  and  of  American  citizens  as  in- 
dividuals to  express  themselves  freely  on  issues  which  con- 
cerned their  own  welfare  or  that  of  their  countrymen.  Merrill 
Rogers  explained  the  business  end  of  the  Masses,  which  largely 
consisted  in  finding  money  each  month  to  meet  the  deficit. 

All  three  of  course  denied  that  there  had  ever  been  any 
conspiracy  by  those  who  devised  or  edited  the  contents  of  the 
magazine,  and  Eastman  and  Dell  tried  to  make  clear  that  it 
had  never  been  possible  to  get  all  the  "co-operating"  editors 
and  contributors  together  at  any  one  time.  (Actually  more  of 
us  had  attended  the  studio  meetings  after  the  indictment  than 
ever  before;  postcards  would  arrive  from  the  Masses  office 
saying:  "Come  over  to  B's  studio  Thursday  night — con- 
spiracy/') 

I  was  called  upon  to  identify  my  own  cartoons  and  to 
explain  them.  In  drawing  "Having  Their  Fling/'  I  stated,  I 
tried  to  show  a  mad  orgy  of  men  representing  our  country's 
principal  institutions:  press,  pulpit,  politics,  and  business.  I 
tried  to  picture  them  as  war- crazy. 

"But/'  said  the  prosecutor,  as  if  he  thought  I  was  holding 
something  back,  "when  you  put  that  orchestra  playing  on 
war-implements  in  the  background  of  your  cartoon  and  the 
Devil  leading  the  orchestra,  what  did  you  mean  by  that?" 

Nobody  but  a  war-time  prosecutor  would  have  asked 
such  a  question,  but  it  had  to  be  answered,  and  I  said:  "Well, 
since  General  Sherman  described  war  as  Hell,  it  seemed  to  me 
appropriate  that  the  Devil  should  lead  the  band/' 

Another  of  my  cartoons  which  had  excited  the  prosecu- 
tor's patriotic  ire  was  captioned  Iceland  Declares  War  on 
Africa,  and  a  third  depicted  Congress  as  a  humble  individual 
asking  a  war  board  of  financiers:  "Where  do  I  come  in?" 
and  the  board  answering:  "Run  along.  We  got  through  with 
you  when  you  declared  war  for  us/' 

In  cross-examining  me,  Barnes  insisted  on  knowing  what 
my  motives  were  in  drawing  these  cartoons.  "For  the  public 
good/*  I  said.  On  re-direct  examination  our  attorneys  sought 
to  bring  out  just  what  public  good  I  had  intended.  I  wasn't 
prepared  for  that  question — my  thoughts  had  not  gone  that 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       337 

far.  There  was  a  long  silence,  with  reporters'  pencils  poised 
waiting,  and  the  jurors  leaning  forward  to  catch  my  answer. 
I  felt  warm  and  uncomfortable. 

"I  intended — why — the  good  of  the  public/'  I  stam- 
mered. 

But  evidently  that  wasn't  sufficient.  Our  attorneys  re- 
phrased the  question,  only  to  find  me  still  at  sea.  Then  Judge 
Hand  came  to  my  aid.  He  gave  some  abstract  definitions  of 
public  good — which  were  Greek  to  me — and  asked  if  I  had 
intended  some  such  public  good  as  he  had  mentioned. 

"That's  it  exactly/'  I  said,  and  the  matter  was  dropped. 
I  had  reached  a  stage  of  weariness  with  the  whole  trial  where 
I  was  in  a  mood  to  say,  "Go  ahead  and  hang  me  if  you  must, 
but  stop  pushing." 

That  weariness  culminated  one  day  in  my  falling  asleep 
in  court.  Hillquit  shook  me,  with  a  warning  whisper:  "Wake 
up,  Art,  you'll  be  arrested  for  contempt!"  Even  if  that  had 
been  my  bad  luck  and  twenty  years  in  prison  my  future,  I 
don't  think  I  could  have  stayed  awake  throughout  that  hot, 
listless  afternoon  while  trivial  technicalities  were  being 
messed  over.  When  I  was  fully  awake,  I  made  a  sketch  of 
myself  as  I  must  have  looked  during  that  peaceful  nap. 

George  Creel,  director  of  American  publicity  forces  for 
the  war,  was  one  of  several  individuals  who  testified  that  the 
accused  were  of  good  character.  Considering  the  vilification 
turned  against  anyone  on  trial  for  anti-war  activities,  such 
testimony  was  thankfully  received,  especially  coming  from 
the  chief  bugle-blower  for  war  propaganda  and  the  new 
militarism.  Creel  had  shown  some  radical  tendencies  in  other 
years,  and  had  written  an  article  for  the  Masses  called  "Rocke- 
feller Law/'  exposing  the  action  of  the  Rockefeller  interests 
in  the  Colorado  mines. 

Various  notables  attended  the  trial,  sitting  inside  the 
rail  as  guests  of  our  attorneys  or  because  they  were  known 
to  the  court.  I  remember  seeing  Dean  George  W.  Kirchwey, 
Edna  St.  Vincent  Millay,  Richard  LeGallienne,  Amos  Pin- 
chot,  Edna  Kenton,  Darwin  Meserole,  and  Savel  Zimand. 
While  many  in  the  audience  were  no  doubt  strongly  against 
us,  I  often  recognized  friends  and  acquaintances — lawyers, 
teachers,  artists,  poets,  and  Socialists,  also  I.W.W.  members 
who  wisely  wore  no  identifying  buttons  just  then. 


338      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

Our  actions  were  not  those  of  conspirators,  but  of 
"straightforward  men/*  Hillquit  and  Malone  argued.  When 
Max  Eastman  sent  a  telegraphic  reply  to  a  youngster  in  New 
Orleans  who  was  troubled  as  to  what  attitude  he  should  take 
toward  the  question  of  fighting  in  the  war,  Max  wired  him 
what  he  would  do  if  he  were  in  the  inquirer's  place;  "con- 
spirators were  not  given  to  using  open  language  in  telegrams/* 
our  counsel  declared. 

"There's  Art  Young/'  said  Malone  in  developing  his 
defense*  "Everybody  likes  Art  Young.  Look  at  him*  There 
he  sits — like  a  big  friendly  Newfoundland  dog.  How  could 
anyone  conceive  of  him  playing  the  role  of  a  conspirator?" 

And  for  the  moment  I  felt  sorry  for  myself — it  was  a 
shame,  that's  what  it  was,  and  I  hoped  that  the  jury  would 
be  duly  impressed. 

In  view  of  the  somber  atmosphere  of  the  court  when 
Prosecutor  Barnes  excoriated  us  anew  in  his  closing  address, 
we  expected  a  quick  verdict  and  were  prepared  for  an  un- 
favorable one.  The  best  I  looked  for  was  several  years  in 
prison.  Not  a  pleasant  outlook,  but  I  consoled  myself  with 
the  thought  that  maybe  I  would  be  allowed  to  draw  pictures 
there.  We  had  told  the  truth  out  of  turn,  and  now  what? 
Kate  Richards  O'Hare  had  been  sentenced  to  five  years  for 
an  anti-war  speech,  and  Rose  Pastor  Stokes  had  lately  been 
convicted,  also  for  a  speech,  made  in  South  Dakota,  in  which 
she  said  that  "The  government  cannot  serve  both  the 
profiteers  and  the  employees  of  profiteers/' 

But  many  hours  went  by  with  no  verdict,  a  night,  and 
another  day,  and  still  another  night.  And  as  the  time  length- 
ened we  grew  more  and  more  hopeful  Somebody  was  hold- 
ing out  against  the  war  madness.  After  48  hours  the  jurors 
came  in,  weary,  some  of  them  with  bloodshot  eyes,  and 
reported  that  they  could  not  agree. 

Ten  of  the  twelve  were  for  conviction;  the  other  two 
insisted  that  there  was  no  evidence  that  we  had  taken  part  in 
any  conspiracy.  One  of  the  two,  H.  C.  Fredericks,  told  the 
others  that  he  would  hold  out  for  us  "till  Hell  freezes  over/' 
In  1923  I  happened  to  meet  Mr.  Fredericks,  and  he  told  me 
that,  after  many  years  of  regular  service  on  juries,  he  was 
never  again  called  to  serve.  Newspaper  accounts  of  our  trial 
related  that  some  of  the  jurors  had  complained  to  federal 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       339 

officials  that  two  "recalcitrant  jurors  who  displayed  Socialist 
and  pacifist  tendencies"  had  blocked  their  efforts  to  send  us 
to  prison.  A  "federal  inquiry"  was  forecast  by  the  reporters. 

While  our  trial  was  in  progress  I  had  received  word  from 
Clarina  Michelson,  recording  secretary  of  the  Socialist  party 
branch  in  my  district,  that  I  had  been  nominated  for  the 
State  Senate.  To  which  I  had  responded,  saying:  "I  am  happy 
to  accept,  but  don't  know  whether  I'll  be  a  resident  of  New 
York  or  Atlanta  when  election  day  rolls  around/' 

Thanks  to  those  two  jurors  who  had  persisted  in  doing 
their  own  thinking,  I  was  permitted  to  take  part  in  the 
campaign  that  fall  as  a  free  man.  I  made  a  good  many 
speeches,  speaking  wherever  I  was  asked  to  go,  but  learned 
afterward  that  I  had  never  spoken  in  my  own  district  once. 
Presumably  the  arrangements  committee  didn't  think  that 
necessary,  and  I  was  told  that  my  comrades  in  the  13th  S.D. 
gave  me  "the  regular  party  vote/'  That,  however,  was  not 
enough  to  send  me  to  Albany. 


Chapter   32 
STIFLING  THE  VOICES  AGAINST  WAR 

MY  world  had  grown  small  and  shaky.  I  learned  what 
ostracism  means.  Men  and  women  whom  I  had 
counted  as  friends  found  it  convenient  to  pass  me  on 
the  street  without  speaking,  or  were  brief  and  impersonal  in 
their  conversation.  And  often  I  felt  that  I  was  being  pointed 
out  as  a  treasonable  being  to  be  shunned  as  one  would  the 
plague.  At  the  Dutch  Treat  Club,  of  which  I  was  one  of  the 
founders,  the  atmosphere  exuded  by  some  of  the  members 
was  so  cold  whenever  I  hove  in  sight  that  I  handed  in  my 
resignation.  Jack  Reed  also  quit;  he  had  been  popular  and 
active  there,  and  once  he  wrote  the  libretto  for  a  comic  opera 
for  one  of  the  club's  annual  frolics. 

Editors  of  most  of  the  magazines  where  I  had  long  had 
entree  also  shied  at  my  offerings.  Sometimes  they  attempted 
to  explain,  but  there  was  no  need — it  was  obvious  that  they 
could  not  afford  to  continue  using  the  work  of  one  who  was 
being  prosecuted  by  the  government  on  sedition  charges.  Thus 
I  had  difficulty  in  making  a  living.  But  there  was  one  editor 
who  stood  by  me — Jacob  Marinoff,  of  the  Big  Stick,  a  Jewish 
humorous  weekly,  which  also  was  under  surveillance  by  the 
federal  authorities.  Each  week  he  used  my  drawings,  with 
lettering  such  as  is  frequently  necessary  in  a  cartoon  in 
Hebrew.  I  liked  this  because  it  gave  the  pictures  a  decorative 
effect  that  my  plain  English  lettering  lacked.  And  unfailingly 
each  week  Marinoff  sent  me  a  check,  and  thus  I  was  able  to 
eat  and  pay  rent. 

Early  that  summer  Jack  Reed  came  back  from  Russia, 
bursting  with  elation  over  the  social  and  economic  wonders 
which  were  being  worked  out  by  the  Workers'  and  Peasants' 
Government.  He  brought  with  him  a  mass  of  notes  which 
subsequently  grew  into  his  book,  Ten  Days  That  Shook 
the  World.  In  the  Liberator  for  June  he  said:  "Two  months 
ago,  at  No.  6  Dvortsovya  Ploshod,  I  saw  the  new  world 

340 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       341 

born/'  As  soon  as  Jack  returned,  he  notified  the  District 
Attorney's  office  that  he  would  be  ready  for  trial  with  the 
other  Masses  defendants  whenever  called. 

Soon  after  this,  he  and  I  went  to  Chicago  to  cover  the 
trial  of  the  LW.W.  leaders  before  Judge  Kenesaw  Mountain 
Landis.  They,  too,  stood  accused  of  interfering  with  enlist- 
ment. Bill  Hay  wood  and  100  other  "Wobblies"  *  were  the 
defendants — speakers,  organizers,  editors,  corralled  by  a  drag- 
net covering  many  states.  One  of  the  offenses  of  this  organ- 
ization, the  Industrial  Workers  of  the  World,  was  that  it  had 
persisted  in  striking  for  decent  wages  and  better  working 
conditions  even  in  war-time — while  the  American  Federation 
of  Labor,  headed  by  Samuel  Gompers,  had  in  effect  called  a 
truce  in  its  conflicts  with  employers  and  had  tamely  gone 
with  the  wind  of  war  propaganda. 

Out  in  the  Pacific  Northwest  the  war  profiteers  had 
fought  fiercely  against  an  LW.W.  strike  in  the  lumber  woods 
for  an  eight-hour  day,  shower-baths,  and  clean  bedding  in- 
stead of  unwashed  and  lousy  blankets.  The  timber-cutters 
were  working  eleven  or  twelve  hours  a  day.  Their  strike 
interfered  with  spruce  production.  Spruce  was  needed  for 
aeroplanes,  and  the  West  Coast  Lumbermen's  Association  was 
grieved  because  the  strike  cut  into  profits;  spruce  was  now 
bringing  $90  to  $120  a  thousand  feet  in  contrast  to  a  price 
of  only  $30  a  thousand  a  short  time  before. 

Hot  days  in  this  Chicago  court;  bands  below  playing 
national  anthems,  but  nobody  rising  to  their  feet  here  as  they 
had  in  New  York;  many  of  those  in  attendance  with  their 
coats  off,  and  the  judge  even  shedding  his  necktie.  Frank 
Nebeker,  chief  prosecutor;  he  had  been  counsel  for  big  cop- 
per corporations.  The  defense  was  being  handled  by  George 
F.  Vanderveer,  fearless  labor  attorney  from  Seattle;  Fred  H. 
Moore  of  Los  Angeles,  who  had  defended  Emma  Goldman 
in  the  free  speech  fight  in  San  Diego;  William  F.  Cleary,  who 
had  been  deported  into  the  desert  with  the  striking  Bisbee 
copper  miners;  Caroline  Lowe  of  Kansas;  and  Otto  Christen- 
sen  of  Chicago. 

Jack  Reed's  description  of  Judge  Landis  lingers  in  mem- 
ory: "Small  on  the  huge  bench  sits  a  wasted  man  with  untidy 

*  The  term  "Wobbly'*,  said  to  have  been  fastened  on  the  I.  W.  W.  members 
in  derision  by  a  Los  Angeles  editor,  had  been  adopted  by  them  with  enthusiasm. 


342       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

white  hair,  an  emaciated  face  in  which  two  burning  eyes  are 
set  like  jewels,  parchment  skin  split  by  a  crack  for  a  mouth; 
the  face  of  Andrew  Jackson  three  years  dead.  .  *  .  Upon 
this  man  has  devolved  the  historic  role  of  trying  the  Social 
Revolution.  He  is  doing  it  like  a  gentleman.  Not  that  he 
admits  the  existence  of  a  Social  Revolution.  The  other  day 
he  ruled  out  of  evidence  the  report  of  the  Committee  on 
Industrial  Relations,  which  the  defense  was  trying  to  intro- 
duce in  order  to  show  the  background  of  the  I.W.W/' 

Every  one  of  those  defendants  could  have  been  a  subject 
for  some  vivid  drama  of  struggle;  they  were  veterans  of 
industrial  battles  in  half  a  hundred  cities — their  names  and 
their  testimony  evoked  pictures  of  war  with  exploiting  em- 
ployers in  Lawrence,  Paterson,  Chicago,  Spokane,  Butte, 
Seattle,  Aberdeen,  San  Francisco,  San  Pedro,  Everett.  From 
the  witness  stand  one  heard  echoes  of  the  Ettor-Giovannitti 
trial  in  Salem;  the  lynching  of  Frank  Little  in  Butte;  the 
Spokane  free  speech  fight;  the  massacre  of  I.W.W.  members 
by  armed  business  men  and  deputy  sheriffs  on  the  docks  in 
Everett,  Washington;  the  Mooney-Billings  case  in  San  Fran- 
cisco. 

Plenty  of  publicity — of  the  wrong  kind — was  being 
given  to  the  case  by  the  Chicago  newspapers.  Whatever  the 
testimony,  almost  always  the  inference  was  that  these  de- 
fendants were  guilty  of  treason.  But  the  reality  of  the  trial 
was  being  shown  to  New  York  Call  readers  in  daily  wire 
dispatches  by  David  Karsner. 

Through  many  days  the  case  against  the  I.W.W.  was 
built  up,  mostly  with  accusations  that  these  men  had  no 
respect  for  property.  There  was  testimony  alleging  sabotage, 
copper-nails  driven  into  fruit  trees,  emery  dust  thrown  into 
the  cogs  of  machinery,  haystacks  set  on  fire — and  the  prose- 
cution had  asked  the  talesmen  at  the  start:  "You  believe,  do 
you  not,  that  all  children  should  be  taught  respect  for  other 
people's  property  ?"  Various  employers  testified,  and  Secret 
Service  men,  private  detectives,  sheriffs  and  deputies,  gun- 
men, stool-pigeons. 

"The  wage  system/'  said  Mr.  Clyne,  one  of  the  prose- 
cutors, once,  "is  established  by  law,  and  all  opposition  to  it  is 
opposition  to  law/'  And  again  Nebeker  asserted:  "A  man 
has  no  right  to  revolution  under  the  law/'  Whereupon  Judge 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       343 

Landis,  who  occasionally  surprised  both  sides  by  his  blunt- 
ness,  commented:  "Well,  that  depends  on  how  many  men  he 
can  get  to  go  in  with  him — in  other  words,  whether  he  can 
put  it  over/' 

Jack  Reed  saw  the  defendants  thus:  "Inside  the  rail  of 
the  courtroom,  crowded  together,  many  in  their  shirt-sleeves, 
some  reading  papers,  one  or  two  stretched  out  asleep,  some 
sitting,  some  standing  up;  the  faces  of  workers  and  fighters, 
for  the  most  part,  also  the  faces  of  orators,  of  poets,  the  sensi- 
tive and  passionate  faces  of  foreigners — but  all  strong  faces, 
all  faces  of  men  inspired  somehow;  many  scarred,  few  bit- 
ter/' 

Bill  Hay  wood,  head  of  the  I.W.W.,  was  on  the  witness 
stand  four  days;  and  no  juror  ever  dozed  in  that  time;  for 
always  the  story  he  told,  in  answer  to  questions  by  Vander- 
veer,  was  moving  and  vital.  Through  those  questions  Big 
Bill,  with  his  large  one-eyed  head,  bulky  body,  and  small 
hands  which  seldom  gestured,  sat  there  and  traced  his  own 
life  struggle — as  a  boy  in  the  mines,  as  an  organizer  for  the 
Western  Federation  of  Miners  in  territory  where  that  meant 
risking  death  from  gun-men's  bullets,  as  a  defendant  in  the 
famous  trial  in  Boise,  when  he  was  one  of  three  accused  of 
conspiracy  to  kill,  and  of  killing,  ex-Governor  Steunenberg 
of  Idaho  with  dynamite;  of  his  helping  to  organize  the 
Socialist  Party,  and  later  the  Industrial  Workers  of  the 
World ;  and  of  his  part  in  many  of  the  LW. W.  strikes  and 
free  speech  conflicts  across  the  land. 

John  T.  Doran,  known  as  "Red"  because  of  his  autumnal 
hued  hair,  and  adorned  with  a  green  eye-shade,  stood  up  in 
court  with  a  chart  before  him  and  combined  six  soap-box 
speeches  into  one  which  lasted  five  hours.  That  speech  was  a 
liberal  education  in  the  details  of  the  class  struggle,  what  the 
workers  were  up  against,  how  they  were  invariably  robbed 
at  the  point  of  production.  Every  juror  stayed  wide  awake 
during  his  testimony  also.  When  Red  Dorah  finished,  he  said: 
"It  is  customary  with  LW.W.  speakers  to  take  up  a  collec- 
tion; but  under  these  circumstances,  we  will  dispense  with  it 
today/' 

Ralph  Chaplin,  bronzed  young  descendant  of  New  Eng- 
land pioneers  of  1638,  veteran  of  the  West  Virginia  coal 
strike  of  1913,  when  machine-guns  mowed  down  strikers  and 


344      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

their  families,  and  editor  of  the  LW.W.  weekly  Solidarity 
in  Chicago,  faced  the  jury  and  took  full  responsibility  for  an 
editorial  unequivocally  opposing  the  entrance  of  the  United 


BILL  HAYWOOD. 

States  into  the  war.  He  could  have  shifted  or  divided  that 
responsibility,  but  he  chose  the  harder  way. 

Among  the  101  defendants  I  was  much  interested  in 
Meyer  Friedkin,  a  New  York  boy  of  wealthy  Jewish  parents. 
The  color  of  health  was  in  his  cheeks  and  he  had  bummed 
the  rails  and  taken  his  chances  with  the  migratory  workers  in 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       345 

many  of  the  hot  spots  across  the  country.  And  there  was 
Herbert  Mahler,  organizer  of  the  defense  committee  which 
had  successfully  acquitted  74  I.W.W.  members  of  murder 
charges  following  the  wanton  killing  of  five  Wobblies  by  a 
business  man's  mob  during  a  free  speech  fight  in  Everett, 
Washington.  No  one  was  tried  for  those  five  deaths,  but  the 
74  workers  were  held  for  the  slaying  of  two  sheriff's  deputies. 
The  defense  showed  conclusively  that  the  deputies  were 
killed  by  the  cross  fire  of  their  own  crowd. 

Stories  that  were  like  moving  panoramas  of  the  class 
struggle,  each  seen  from  a  different  angle,  were  related  from 
the  stand  by  a  long  line  of  defendants  including  Jim  Rowan, 
who  had  been  forced  to  run  the  gauntlet  of  a  vigilante  line- 
up and  beaten  into  insensibility  near  Everett  shortly  before 
the  massacre  there;  Vincent  St.  John,  another  of  the  I.W.W. 
founders,  former  head  of  the  organization,  and  once  in  the 
thick  of  the  troubles  centering  about  the  Western  Federation 
of  Miners;  Romola  Bobba,  editor  of  the  I.W.W.  Italian 
paper,  II  Proletariat,  who  told  of  conditions  among  textile 
workers;  Jim  Thompson,  one  of  the  best  of  the  I.W.W. 
speakers;  Bill  Moran,  Australian  sailor  who  had  recruited 
new  members  for  the  "One  Big  Union**  on  all  the  seas;  and 
J.  A.  MacDonald,  organizer  of  migratory  workers  in  the 
harvest  fields. 

Defense  witnesses  testified  that  the  I.W.W.  had  long 
since  withdrawn  the  pamphlets  it  once  circulated  advocating 
sabotage.  It  was  charged  that  members  had  destroyed  fruit 
trees  in  California,  but  there  was  testimony  that  the  organ- 
ization had  widely  distributed  stickers  bearing  the  words: 

"Don't  drive  copper  nails  into  fruit  trees.  It  harms  them." 

It  was  Jim  Rowan  who  was  asked  a  pointed  question  by 
Judge  Landis.  The  judge  stretched  his  thin  body  down  from 
his  throne  and  squinted  into  Jim's  black  eyes. 

"Mr.  Rowan,  what  is  sabotage?" 

"Well,"  said  Rowan,  'Td  say  it's  givin'  bum  work  for 
bum  pay/' 

That  jury  deliberated  only  fifty-five  minutes,  although 
the  evidence  against  the  101  defendants  varied  greatly.  It 
found  them  all  guilty,  on  five  counts.  But  Judge  Landis  had 
his  own  ideas  about  their  relative  guilt.  He  sentenced  Hay- 
wood,  St.  John,  Chaplin,  and  some  seven  others  to  serve 


346       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

twenty  years  in  Leavenworth;  another  group  got  ten  years 
each;  a  third  group  drew  five  years;  and  a  fourth  was  given 
terms  ranging  from  one  to  four  years.  Landis  dealt  out  these 
varying  sentences  on  the  ground,  implied  if  not  specified,  that 
the  lesser  lights  among  the  defendants  had  been  misled. 

One  week-end  during  that  trial  I  went  up  to  Monroe  to 
see  my  folks.  They  made  me  feel  at  home  as  always,  doing 
everything  possible  to  insure  my  comfort.  But  I  noticed  that 
greetings  from  some  of  my  old  acquaintances  around  town 
lacked  the  warmth  of  the  past.  They  talked  with  me  nerv- 
ously and  seemed  to  be  in  a  hurry,  as  if  they  might  be  open 
to  criticism  if  they  were  seen  tarrying  with  one  who  had  been 
accused  of  disloyalty  to  his  country. 

My  father  was  perceptibly  older  than  when  I  had  seen 
him  last.  And  he  had  changed  in  other  ways.  He  voiced  no 
specific  comment  upon  my  opposition  to  the  United  States 
entering  the  European  war,  nor  upon  my  being  tried  for 
alleged  sedition.  But  I  knew  without  his  mentioning  it  that 
he  could  not  comprehend  my  reasoning.  He  uttered  one 
sentence  which  recalled  in  contrast  his  liking  for  independent 
thinking  when  I  was  a  boy,  and  when  he  would  say:  "You've 
got  to  think  things  out  for  yourself/' 

I  had  got  to  talking  about  some  of  the  atrocities  by  Amer- 
ican super-patriots  against  unoffending  Germans — houses 
painted  yellow,  beatings,  tarring-and-feathering,  and  even 
murder.  From  my  experiences  in  Washington  I  cited  instances 
of  fake  news  stories,  widely  circulated  prior  to  April,  1917, 
to  arouse  bitterness  against  a  whole  nation  and  drive  this 
country  into  the  butchery  overseas.  And  I  said:  "I  am  proud 
of  the  German  blood  in  my  mother's  veins." 

Quietly  my  father  answered:  "If  I  were  a  young  man  I'd 
go  to  this  war/' 

I  said  nothing  more  on  that  subject,  nor  did  he.  I  could 
not  debate  it  with  him.  Our  emotions,  I  felt  sure,  were  too 
close  to  the  surface. 

His  arm  lingered  about  my  shoulders  as  he  wished  me 
good  luck  when  I  left.  He  was  almost  eighty  then,  still 
vigorous,  and  attending  to  business  in  the  store  daily.  "But," 
he  said,  "one  of  these  days  the  wheels  will  stop  running/* 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       347 

He  died  that  fall.  My  mother,  then  seventy-seven,  survived 
him  by  four  years* 

July  fourth  brought  a  welcome  holiday  amid  those  hot 
sessions  in  Judge  Landis's  courtroom,  and  Jack  Reed  and  I 
celebrated  by  going  down  to  see  Eugene  Debs  in  Terre  Haute, 
Indiana*  Out  on  bail  on  a  sedition  charge,  he  was  resting  at 
home  while  awaiting  triaL  His  wife  greeted  us  at  the  door, 
and  said  he  was  in  bed;  he  had  "not  been  well — not  for  a 
whole  year/*  But  he  immediately  got  up,  and  the  old  fire  that 
I  knew  came  back  into  the  eyes  in  that  worn  face  as  he  shook 
hands  with  both  of  us  at  once. 

Jack  reported  this  event  in  an  article  for  which  I  made 
pictures  in  the  Liberator  of  September,  1918.  A  few  excerpts 
from  what  Reed  wrote  are  pertinent  here. 

"The  sound  of  the  parade  came  drifting  down.  Looking 
through  the  darkened  windows  we  watched  the  people.  As 
they  passed  the  house  they  motioned  or  pointed  toward  it, 
with  expression  compounded  half  of  eager  malice,  and  half  of 
a  sort  of  fear.  'That's  where  Gene  Debs  lives/  you  could  see 
them  saying,  as  one  would  say,  'The  House  of  the  Traitor/ 

"  'Come  on/  said  Gene,  suddenly.  'Let's  go  out  and  sit 
on  the  front  porch  and  give  'em  a  good  show,  if  they  want  to 
see  me/ 

"So  we  went  out  on  the  porch  and  took  off  our  coats. 
And  those  who  passed  only  looked  furtively  our  way,  and 
whispered,  and  when  they  caught  Gene's  eye,  bowed  bver- 
cordially.  .  .  , 

"Before  the  war  Gene  added  luster  to  the  name  of  the 
town,  as  well  as  having  an  immense  personal  popularity.  In 
the  beginning,  practically  the  whole  population,  all  through 
that  section,  was  against  going  to  war.  .  .  .  But  since  the 
war  the  usual  phenomenon  has  happened  in  Terre  Haute. 
The  whole  place  has  been  mobilized  physically  and  spirit- 
ually. Except  Gene  Debs.  The  simpler  people  couldn't  un- 
derstand it.  The  bankers,  lawyers,  and  merchants  felt  for  him 
a  terrible  rancour.  Even  the  ministers  of  the  gospel,  who  had 
often  implored  him  to  address  their  conventions,  now  held 
meetings  denouncing  'the  enemy  in  our  midst/  " 

But  Debs  was  holding  solidly  to  his  principles.  Jack  asked 
him  if  he  wasn't  afraid  of  lynching.  No,  that  hadn't  come 


348       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

into  his  mind*  "I  guess  I'm  psychically  protected,  anyway/' 
he  said.  "I  know  that  so  long  as  I  keep  my  eye  on  them,  they 
won't  dare  to  do  anything.  As  a  rule  they* re  cowardly  curs 
anyway/' 


THE  SOWER.  Cartoon  made  for  the  Socialist  Party. 

I  drew  Gene's  profile  as  he  sat  there  in  the  sun  near  a 
porch-box  of  petunias,  and  made  a  sketch  of  his  lean,  expres- 
sive hands  as  they  punctuated  his  contempt  for  the  war- 
makers  and  his  hope  for  the  future:  "Socialism's  on  the  way. 


A.RT  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       349 

They  can't  stop  it,  no  matter  what  they  do.  The  more  breaks 
the  other  side  makes,  the  better  for  us.  .  .  /* 

Debs  was  tried  in  Cleveland  a  few  weeks  later,  with 
Seymour  Stedman  of  Chicago  as  his  attorney,  but  he  con- 
ducted his  own  defense.  He  made  no  attack  upon  the  prosecu- 
tion's case,  so  far  as  the  evidence  was  concerned,  but  he  went 
ahead  to  tell  the  jury  about  the  struggle  of  men  for  freedom. 

"Chattel  slavery  has  disappeared,"  he  said.  "But  we  are 
not  yet  free.  We  are  engaged  in  another  mighty  agitation 
today.  It  is  as  wide  as  the  world.  It  is  the  rise  of  the  toiling 
and  producing  masses,  who  are  gradually  becoming  conscious 
of  their  interest,  their  powers,  as  a  class,  who  are  organizing 
industrially  and  economically,  who  are  slowly  but  surely 
developing  the  economic  and  political  power  that  is  to  set 
them  free.  They  are  still  in  the  minority,  but  they  have 
learned  how  to  wait  and  to  bide  their  time.  It  is  because  I 
happen  to  be  in  this  minority  that  I  stand  in  your  presence 
today,  charged  with  crime/' 

Not  one  word  of  his  speech  in  Canton  did  he  take  back  or 
try  to  soften.  Instead  he  re-asserted  the  right  of  any  minority, 
or  any  individual,  to  speak  out  against  war  or  any  other  act 
of  a  nation  which  that  minority  or  individual  believed  wrong. 

The  indictment  charged  Debs  with  utterances  calculated 
to  incite  mutiny  in  the  army,  stirring  up  disloyalty  to  the 
government,  obstructing  the  enlistment  of  soldiers,  encourag- 
ing resistance  to  the  United  States  of  America,  and  promoting 
the  cause  of  the  enemy.  Then  sixty-three  years  old,  Debs  was 
found  guilty  and  sent  to  Atlanta  penitentiary  to  serve  ten 
years.* 

In  August  I  met  Jack  Reed  on  the  street  in  New  York, 
and  he  said:  "I've  just  been  up  to  Croton  having  a  long  talk 
with  Max.  I'm  resigning  from  the  Liberator/' 

He  told  me  why,  and  in  the  September  issue  Jack's  letter 
explaining  this  action  was  published.  "The  reason/'  he  wrote, 
"is  that  I  cannot  in  these  times  bring  myself  to  share  editorial 
responsibility  for  a  magazine  which  exists  upon  the  sufferance 
of  Mr.  Burleson/'  Then  he  stated  that  he  didn't  want  to  cease 
as  a  contributor,  and  ended  by  saying:  "And  in  the  happy 

*  There  he  contracted  the  heart  illness  which  shortened  his  life.  President 
Harding  commuted  his  sentence  in  1921,  but  five  years  later  he  died. 


*50       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

lay  when  we  can  again  call  a  spade  a  spade  without  tying 
bunting  on  it,  you  will  find  me  as  you  have  in  the  past,  yours 
for  the  profound  social  change/' 

Max  Eastman's  reply  also  appeared  in  that  issue: 

4 'I  haven* t  a  word  of  protest — only  a  deep  feeling  of 
regret. 

"In  your  absence  we  all  weighed  the  matter  and  decided 
it  was  our  duty  to  the  social  revolution  to  keep  this  instru- 
ment we  have  created  alive  toward  a  time  of  great  usefulness. 
You  will  help  us  with  your  writing  and  reporting,  and  that 
is  all  we  ask. 

'Personally  I  envy  you  the  power  to  cast  loose  when  not 
only  a  good  deal  of  the  dramatic  beauty,  but  also  the  glamour 
of  abstract  moral  principle,  is  gone  out  of  the  venture,  and  it 
remains  for  us  merely  the  most  effective  and  therefore  the 
right  thing  to  do/' 

Recalling  these  letters,  in  the  Modern  Monthly  for  Octo- 
ber, 1936,  Max  makes  Reed's  attitude  clear: 

"Jack  thought  that  my  editorials,  under  this  policy  of 
getting  by  with  [Postmaster-General]  Burleson — I  had 
actually  gone  to  see  him  in  Washington,  in  company  with 
E.  W.  Scripps,  and  deployed  4my  most  bourgeois  charms 
against  him — were  getting  a  little  yellow.  (I  think  so  too  as  - 
I  read  them  now.)  But  Jack  also  recognized  the  value  of  a 
legal  organ/  and  testified  to  it  by  promising  to  contribute 
in  the  future/' 

And  of  course  the  Liberator,  as  a  legal  organ,  had  already 
shown  its  value,  particularly  in  enabling  us  to  publish  a 
detailed  report  of  our  trial  a  few  months  earlier,  and  showing 
what  the  sponsors  of  a  magazine  attempting  to  tell  the  truth 
were  up  against  in  war-time. 

Now  we  of  the  Masses  were  ordered  to  trial  again.  Reed, 
who  had  been  in  Russia  when  we  others  faced  the  first  jury, 
was  eager  for  whatever  might  come.  All  this  would  help 
greatly  to  educate  the  public,  he  averreti;  soon  there  would 
be  more  good  people  in  prison  than  outside.  Glintenkamp 
had  not  reappeared,  but  we  heard  new  and  unverifiable 
rumors  of  his  whereabouts — he  was  painting  in  Tahiti; 
fomenting  a  revolution  in  Chile;  doing  wood-cuts  in  Cuba; 
and  running  a  duck  farm  near  Albia,  Iowa. 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       351 

The  second  trial  came  in  September,  with  Judge  Martin 
Manton  presiding.  Again  Barnes  was  prosecutor,  but  this 
time  we  were  defended  by  Seymour  Stedman  of  Chicago, 
Charles  Recht,  and  Walter  Nelles.  Before  a  jury  chosen  from 
another  large  list  of  middle-class  talesmen,  the  same  evidence 
was  set  forth,  and  with  much  the  same  kind  of  argument  on 
both  sides. 

Prosecutor  Barnes,  however,  added  some  colorful  touches. 
Citing  the  name  of  a  lawyer  who  had  been  in  the  army  and 
was  killed  in  battle,  he  said,  pointing  reprovingly  at  each 
defendant  in  turn:  "He  not  only  died  for  his  country,  but  he 
died  for  Max  Eastman,  he  died  for  Floyd  Dell,  he  died  for 
John  Reed,  he  died  for  Merrill  Rogers/'  I  was  waiting  for 
him  to  mention  me,  but  he  didn't,  and  I  leaned  over  and 
asked  Reed:  "Who  was  this  hero  who  didn't  die  for  me?" 
Just  then  a  recess  was  called,  and  on  the  way  out  Reed  said: 
"Cheer  up,  Art,  Jesus  died  for  you/' 

While  Barnes  was  cross-examining  me,  he  said  at  one 
point: 

"Now,  Mr.  Young,  you  have  told  us  a  good  deal  about 
your  beliefs  in  revolution  and  that  you  believe  that  the  Amer- 
ican Revolution  was  justified,  but,  Mr.  Yoang,  do  you  be- 
lieve in  the  theory  of  the  class  struggle?" 

And  I  answered  something  like  this: 

"If  you've  got  the  measles,  Mr.  Barnes,  it  doesn't  neces- 
sarily mean  that  you  believe  in  them." 

Again  the  jury  disagreed,  and  one  juror  shed  some  light 
on  the  character  of  the  deliberations  when  he  said  to  us:  "It 
was  a  good  thing  for  you  boys  that  you  were  all  American 
born;  otherwise  it  might  have  gone  pretty  hard  with  you/' 


Chapter   33 
SOME  OPTIMISTS  LAUNCH  ANOTHER  MAGAZINE 

"-V    "TOW  is  the  time  for  us  to  start  a  magazine,"  said  Ellis 

f^U     O.  Jones  early  in  1919.  Ellis  had  been  an  associate 

editor  of  Life.  The  war  was  over,  and  the  Post  Office 

Department  more  tolerant.  Survivors  of  the  late  horror  were 

reaching  out  to  recover  their  lost  sanity,   and  authors  long 

silent  were  writing  books  with  the  truth  in  them. 

We  agreed  that  people  ought  to  laugh  again  (or  at  least 
try  to  laugh)  ,  and  we  could  help  them  to  find  reasons  for 
fresh  hope.  Other  writers  and  cartoonists  liked  the  idea.  One 
factor  which  stirred  me  toward  this  new  move  was  my  feel- 
ing of  dissatisfaction  with  the  Liberator,  which  was  featur- 
ing my  work  but  not  paying  for  it. 

I  had  considered  it  a  privilege  to  draw  for  the  Liberator. 
But  a  few  of  us  on  the  staff  who  had  always  been  ready  to 
contribute  for  nothing  began  to  feel  that  it  wasn't  quite  right 
that  engravers,  printers,  paper  dealers,  and  desk- editors  should 
have  their  pay  or  the  magazine  would  not  go  on,  while  those 
who  did  the  creative  work  had  to  forego  compensation.  That 
was  and  still  is  a  condition  accepted  by  those  who  contribute 
to  radical  magazines  which  are  not  self-sustaining.  Yet  one's 
individual  economic  responsibilities  sometimes  call  for  a  more 
fruitful  arrangement* 

Boardman  Robinson  and  I  attended  an  editorial  meeting 
one  evening,  the  purpose  of  which  was  to  figure  out  some 
way  to  pay  us  something  for  our  cartoons.  I  remember  saying 
at  the  time  that  I  wanted  to  know  if  I  was  an  asset  to  the 
Liberator  or  just  an  ass.  I  made  a  plea  for  at  least  enough 
to  pay  for  our  drawing  paper  and  ink,  as  a  gesture  in  the 
right  direction.  It  was  agreed  that  thereafter  more  attention 
would  be  given  to  paying  a  fixed  rate  to  cartoonists — "if 
possible*'.  Robinson  and  I  left  the  meeting  with  those  com- 
forting words  "if  possible*'  to  repeat  to  ourselves. 

I   was  keen   about  Ellis  Jones's  suggestion   that  a   new 

352 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES      353 

magazine  be  launched.  We  promptly  arranged  to  hold  a  con- 
ference on  the  question  in  Allaire's  restaurant  During  the 
war  that  old-time  hang-out  of  the  literati  had  become  sad 
and  pretty  much  abandoned  because  it  was  German,  and  even 
after  it  had  been  lavishly  decorated  with  American  flags,  100 
per  cent  Americans  who  had  once  patronized  it  still  stayed 
away, 

It  was  one  of  those  "be  sure  to  come**  conferences,  and 
we  gathered  at  a  spacious  table  where  members  of  the  same 


CHARLES  W.  ERVIN,  managing  editor 
of  the  New  York  Daily   Call. 

group  had  met  often  to  discuss  the  tragic  aspects  of  a  war 
which  we  all  felt  had  been  an  inexcusable  wrong.  Those 
present  included  Charles  W.  Ervin,  managing  editor  of  the 
Call;  Ryan  Walker,  its  prolific  cartoonist;  Charles  W.  Wood, 
then  on  the  World,  and  several  others. 

We  thought  it  time  to  satirize  the  whole  capitalistic 
works.  Not  with  subtle  analysis  of  conditions  in  essays  and 
the  like,  but  with  straightforward  expose  in  cartoons  and 
comment,  and  with  comedy  rampant.  Certainly  now  the 


354       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

people  would  respond  to  such  truth.  But  we  were  conscious 
of  the  fact  that  many  radicals  and  liberals  were  weary — and 
worn  out  with  vain  hope.  After  the  Versailles  treaty  many 
of  them  had  thrown  up  their  hands  in  despair.  Wilson's  Four- 
teen Points,  a  covenant  which  promised  the  beginning  of  a 
new  and  honest  deal  for  the  sorrowing  world,  had  been 
choked  to  death,  to  the  satisfaction  of  Big  Business.  But  in 
spite  of  this  atmosphere  of  disillusion,  we  thought  the  people 
would  see  the  truth  that  would  eventually  make  them  free. 

Was  there  a  chance  for  a  magazine  that  would  try  to 
awaken  the  Socialist  spirit  anew,  give  new  hope,  and  yet 
keep  aloof  from  the  bias  of  politics?  Anyway  we  would  find 
out.  This  first  meeting  was  chiefly  for  the  purpose  of  choos- 
ing a  name  for  it.  Never  mind  about  the  money  to  keep  it 
going — we  would  decide  on  a  name,  and  start  from  there. 
The  business  meetings  would  come  later,  and  they  did,  often. 

I  had  first  met  Ellis  Jones  when  we  were  among  the 
founding  fathers  of  the  Dutch  Treat  Club.  For  a  time,  too, 
he  had  been  on  the  staff  of  the  Masses.  He  was  one  of  the 
first  to  enlist  for  the  voyage  on  Ford's  Peace  Ship,  and  Life 
(which  he  had  helped  to  edit  and  contributed  to  for  years) 
had  publicly  denounced  him  for  this  and  proclaimed  with 
pride  that  he  was  no  longer  connected  with  the  magazine. 

The  conferees  discussed  the  well-known  names  of  existing 
comic  papers — American,  English,  German,  French.  Then  I 
said,  "Why  not  call  it  by  some  familiar  name — some  name 
that  we  hear  every  day — ?" 

Ellis  chimed  in  with:  "Like  'Good  morning,  have  you 
used  Pear's  Soap?'  "  which  was  an  advertisment  long  familiar 
to  the  public. 

"That's  it,"  I  said,  "Let's  make  it  Good  Morning/' 

There  were  no  dissenters,  and  I  began  to  sketch  out  a  top 
for  the  editorial  page  (technically  known  as  a  mast-head)  — 
with  a  jovial  figure  personifying  the  rising  sun  as  our  emblem. 

All  those  present  promised  to  contribute  writings  or  pic- 
tures, and  we  foresaw  no  difficulty  in  getting  others  to  help 
in  the  same  way.  We  would  send  out  a  call  for  material. 
That  left  only  the  problem  of  finding  money  with  which  to 
pay  overhead.  From  his  experience  in  publishing,  Charlie 
Ervin  figured  we  would  need  $10,000  to  make  a  go  of  the 
enterprise* 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       355 

"Certainly  there  must  be  money  available  to  finance  this 
kind  of  a  magazine/'  said  one  conferee  or  another.  .  .  . 
"Satire  and  ridicule  can  be  more  effective  weapons  than  sol- 
emn statistics  and  shrill  denunciation.  *  *  .  Well  ask  the 
labor  unions  to  take  bulk  subscriptions.  And  well  get  un- 
employed men  to  sell  the  magazine  on  the  streets/' 

Ellis  Jones  and  I  came  away  with  the  understanding  that 
he  and  I  would  canvass  certain  likely  prospects  for  money, 
with  the  other  conferees  helping  "in  any  way  we  can/'  I  had 
high  hopes  that  day,  with  the  keen  interest  the  group  had 
shown  at  the  meeting  at  Allaire's.  At  this  time  I  was  53  years 
old,  and  a  bit  battered  and  sad  to  look  at  in  my  mirror.  But 
I  felt  that  the  magazine  venture  would  give  me  a  new  hold 
on  life.  I  needed  that  as  much  as  the  public  did — perhaps 
more. 

First  I  would  get  in  touch  with  a  well-to-do  friend  who 
had  been  enthusiastic  over  my  Washington  drawings  and 
articles  in  the  Metropolitan.  This  ^as  Morris  Rippenbein,  a 
tobacco  manufacturer  in  Perth  Amboy,  New  Jersey.  He  had 
come  to  this  country  as  a  young  man  from  Russia,  and  as  he 
put  it,  had  "worked  like  a  horse"  to  get  on,  and  though  he 
had  become  rich  he  was  unspoiled.  Now  past  middle  age, 
Rip  was  as  radical,  using  the  word  in  its  derivative  sense,  as 
any  of  the  flaming  youngsters  about  me,  but  quiet  about  it. 
He  had  read  widely  in  philosophy,  economics,  and  history; 
loved  pinochle  and  the  theatre;  and  had  a  sober  sense  of  the 
ridiculous. 

Long  before  our  planning  conference,  Rip  had  hinted  to 
me,  one  evening  when  we  dined  together  in  the  Lafayette, 
that  he  might  help  finance  a  comic  magazine  edited  by  me 
if  I  would  start  one. 

So  we  met  again  and  I  put  the  question  up  to  him.  He 
got  out  a  pencil  and  paper  and  begaa  figuring.  Yes,  he  would 
help,  with  money  and  otherwise,  but  he  could  not  give  any 
great  sum  of  money,  he  explained;  he  had  to  be  cautious 
with  his  income  because  he  had  a  large  family  to  support, 
including  aunts,  sisters,  brothers,  nieces,  nephews,  and  cousins 
here  and  abroad.  He  was  ready  to  be  one  of  a  group  of  indi- 
viduals who  would  give  $75  a  month  each  toward  expenses 
— provided  we  could  raise  the  essential  $10,000  preliminary 
fund.  To  have  a  chance  of  survival,  the  project  must  start 


356       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

with  enough  cash  in  hand  to  carry  us  safely  at  least  a  year 
without  worry. 

That  was  sound  sense,  of  course,  and  I  set  out  with  confi- 
dence to  round  up  that  money.  Systematically  I  made  ap- 
pointments by  telephone  and  went  to  see  the  best  of  the 
prospects  on  the  list — and  sometimes  Rip  went  with  me  and 
explained  better  than  I  the  importance  of  the  proposed  maga- 
zine. But  the  going  was  tough.  If  at  that  time  there  was  any 
lack  of  sympathy  in  my  heart  for  the  man  who  finds  it  nec- 
essary to  beg,  I've  had  a  full  complement  of  it  ever  since. 
No  harder  work  than  that. 

Some  days  I  would  do  pretty  well  but  other  days  were 
disheartening.  I  could  always  get  an  entree,  but  when  a  tired 
radical  with  a  comfortable  income  would  say,  "Good  luck, 
Art,  here's  a  check  for  fifty  dollars*',  I  would  wonder  how 
long  it  would  take  the  Good  Morning  sun  to  rise  if  that  was 
all  the  encouragement  it  was  going  to  get.  .  .  .  Then  I'd 
have  a  run  of  better  days.  And  my  spirits  would  lift  again. 
Eugen  Jan  Boissevain  wrote  a  check  for  $1,000  and  asked 
if  that  was  enough;  this  was  compensation  for  all  the  weeks 
of  weariness. 

Max  Eastman,  however,  was  plainly  vexed  at  the  pros- 
pect of  the  new  publication  starting.  He  felt  that  our  collec- 
tions were  cutting  into  the  Liberator's  sources  of  money,  for 
naturally  we  would  appeal  to  much  the  same  kind  of  people 
for  support.  There  was  of  course  no  denying  that  one  of  the 
principal  duties  of  the  Liberator's  editor  was  to  raise  funds 
to  meet  the  frequent  operating  deficit. 

After  three  months  I  had  gathered  in  about  $4,500  in 
cash.  Meanwhile  Ellis  Jones,  who  was  to  be  editor  of  Goorf 
Morning,  was  in  an  office  that  we  had  rented  in  the  People's 
House,  mainly  occupied  by  the  Rand  School,  at  7  East  15th 
Street.  He  was  impatient  to  go  ahead — fund  or  no  fund. 

I  knew  from  my  investigations  that  $10,000  was  little 
enough  to  have  in  starting  a  weekly  magazine  such  as  we  had 
planned.  But  Ellis  argued  that  the  important  thing  was  to 
get  out  the  first  issue.  After  that — after  people  saw  that  the 
magazine  was  a  fact  and  not  just  a  hope — money  could  be 
raised  more  easily.  He  had  been  working  on  the  dummy,  and 
was  practically  ready  to  go  to  press,  if  I  would  say  the  word. 

Though  reluctant,  I  acquiesced,  much  to  the  annoyance 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       357 

and  disappointment  of  Morris  Rippenbein.  "Foolish!"  he 
said*  .  .  .  "You're  right/'  I  answered,  "but  let  'er  go.  I'm 
not  a  tired  radical,  but  I'm  tired  of  begging  for  money/' 

So  Goorf  Morning  arose  with  this  pronouncement  on  its 
editorial  page:  "A  weekly  burst  of  humor,  satire,  and  fun — 
with  now  and  then  a  fleeting  beam  of  wisdom/'  The  first 
issue  of  10,000  copies  was  published  May  8,  1919,  and  sold 
out  quickly.  It  looked  like  a  success.  Obviously  peeved  at  the 
premature  start,  Rip  nevertheless  paid  in  the  promised  $75 
a  month,  and  continued  to  do  so  during  the  three  years  that 
the  magazine  lived*  And  now  that  Goocf  Morning  had  peered 
over  the  horizon,  cheerful  letters  came  in  to  commend  the 
new  day  from  Hendrik  Van  Loon,  William  Marion  Reedy, 
Clarence  Day  Jr.,  Stephen  Leacock,  Horace  Traubel,  Oscar 
Ameringer,  and  numerous  others. 

After  five  months,  Ellis  Jones,  who  had  been  writing  the 
editorials  and  a  capital  series  called  "Sinbad  and  the  Old  Man 
of  the  Sea",  which  I  illustrated,  became  critical  of  the  busi- 
ness management  and  resigned*  There  had  been  no  business 
management  to  speak  of,  ^  but  his  criticism  was  well  taken. 
Now  it  was  my  responsibility  alone.  I  was  editor,  publisher, 
and  goat. 

We  were  often  hard  put  to  raise  money  to  pay  for  paper 
(costly  at  that  time) ,  printing,  distribution,  and  office  ex- 
pense. As  I  remember,  I  received  $50  a  week  for  about  four 
months,  and  Ellis  Jones  received  the  same  during  his  connec- 
tion with  the  magazine.  Our  stenographer,  who  was  also 
receptionist,  received  $25  a  week,  although  later  we  raised 
that  to  $35. 

For  some  time  we  got  along  without  paying  much  atten- 
tion to  promotion  or  the  business  end  of  publishing.  But 
there  was  a  tradition  in  radical  circles  that  a  business  man- 
ager who  could  get  advertising  and  make  a  radical  magazine 
a  going  concern  was  some  kind  of  a  magician,  a  wand-waver 
worth  more  than  mere  editors.  As  a  consequence,  prospective 
business  managers  would  call  on  me  often,  each  one  assuring 
me  that  all  that  was  needed  to  build  Good  Morning's  circula- 
tion to  Saturday  Evening  Post  proportions  was  his  services. 
Finally  I  acceded  to  the  idea  that  a  business  manager  might 
be  useful.  But  I  made  it  plain  that  he  would  have  to  work 
more  for  glory  than  for  money.  During  its  precarious  life  our, 


358       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

magazine  had  three  business  managers — the  last  one,  A,  H. 
Howland,  generously  donating  his  services  most  of  the  time, 
as  I,  too,  was  doing.  The  receptionist-stenographer  was 
always  paid  first.  Income  from  news-stand  sales  and  4,000 
subscriptions  kept  us  afloat  and  in  good  humor  the  first  year. 
But  banquets  and  balls  for  the  purpose  of  money-raising 
and  a  lynx-eyed  hunt  for  an  angel  willing  to  take  a  chance 
on  a  promising  magazine  were  vitally  necessary — and  we 
staged  social  functions  of  picturesque  character  as  often  as  we 
thought  our  public  would  respond  to  them. 


A  GOOD  MORNING  POSTER,  announcing  a  spring-time  dance  to  aid 
its  treasury. 

One  of  these,  a  Harvest  Festival,  is  memorable  for  sev- 
eral reasons,  including  the  funds  which  it  inadvertently  failed 
to  produce.  This  was  held  in  Yorkville  Casino  on  Saturday, 
November  6,  1920.  Dinner  and  dance,  with  corn-stalks  and 
pumpkins  for  decorations.  Charles  W.  Wood  was  chairman, 
and  a  frolicsome  note  keyed  the  speeches.  Helen  Keller  spoke, 
saying: 

"I  came  tonight,  knowing  there  would  be  no  blue  devils 
here.  .  .  .  You  are  all  jolly  good  fellows.  You  have  kept 
alive,  through  the  bitter  winter  of  the  world's  discontent,  the 
spirit  of  spring  and  youth.  Your  gayety  has  blown  my  own 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES      359 

heart  into  a  glow.  .  .  .  The  world  needs  more  of  this  daunt- 
less spirit  of  laughter.  .  .  .  While  we  can  meet  together  and 
laugh,  there  is  hope  for  the  world.  With  laughter  and  hope 
and  the  Revolution  in  our  hearts,  all  the  powers  of  earth 
shall  not  prevail  against  us/' 

I  read  my  annual  report  on  the  status  of  Good"  Morning: 

"Cash  on  hand,  $2.33,  also  20  cents  worth  of  slightly 
damaged  postage  stamps;  assets,  about  $49*  As  for  liabilities, 
we  are  liable  to  do  almost  anything.  .  .  .  Disbursements 
have  been  considerable.  Exact  figures  are  hard  to  get  at.  Any 
money  that  we  received  was  so  quickly  snatched  from  us  by 
printers  and  paper  dealers  that  we  couldn't  get  time  to  record 
the  transaction.  .  .  . 

"One  day  last  week  two  subscriptions  came  in  the  same 
mail — one  from  a  woman  in  Iowa,  who  said  she  was  'dis- 
gusted', and  one  from  a  man  in  Milepost,  Missouri,  who  said 
he  was  'temporarily  in  an  insane  asylum/  but  that  he  was 
'with  us  heart  and  soul/  .  .  .  Goocf  Morning  was  partisan 
in  the  late  campaign.  It  opposed  Wilson  and  Bunk  and  advo- 
cated Harding  and  Hell.  Some  of  our  stockholders  think  we 
should  have  stayed  out  of  politics,  but  our  leading  contribu- 
tor, the  Poor  Fish,  said  he  would  resign  if  we  didn't  advocate 
a  change.  .  .  /' 

Charlie  Wood  was  supposed  to  have  followed  my  report 
with  an  appeal  for  funds,  but  everybody  was  having  such  a 
good  time  that  this  matter  slipped  his  mind.  I  didn't  notice 
the  omission  either. 

That  night  I  met  a  tall  young  man  named  John  Nicholas 
Beffel,  who  had  just  returned  from  the  Pacific  Coast,  where 
he  had  reported  for  the  New  York  Call  and  other  labor 
papers  the  trial  of  ten  I.W.W.  members  for  defending  their 
hall  in  Centralia,  Washington,  against  an  American  Legion 
mob.  He  had  come  back  lecturing  across  the  country  on  the 
class-war  in  the  West. 

Tables  and  chairs  were  being  cleared  away  for  the  dance 
as  Beffel  told  me  about  talking  with  Tom  Mooney  in  San 
Quentin  penitentiary  and  with  Carl  Haessler,  conscientious 
objector  from  Wisconsin,  in  Alcatraz.  Then  one  of  Good 
Morning's  trusty  henchmen  hove  in  sight  with  a  huge  colored 
papier-mache  head  of  the  Poor  Fish,  for  which  we  had  paid 
$30.  Instantly  Beffel's  husky  shoulders  suggested  something, 


360       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

and  I,  as  president  of  the  publishing  corporation,  elected  him 
to  wear  that  fantastic  costume.  Helen  Keller  stood  near,  and 
presently  her  sensitive  hands  were  exploring  the  contour  of 
the  Poor  Fish's  head,  asking  whether  he  was  a  whale  or  a 
shark,  and  feeding  him  red  apples. 

Now  the  orchestra  struck  up,  and  the  grand  march  began, 
led  by  the  Poor  Fish  and  Polly  Markowitz,  bobbed  Titian- 
haired  youngster,  who  was  then  with  the  Federated  Press. 
I  was  next  in  line,  with  my  lovely  partner  of  the  evening, 
Jessica  Milne, 

By  the  time  we  had  swung  into  the  dancing,  Charlie 
Wood  remembered  with  chagrin  that  he  had  overlooked  the 
main  purpose  of  the  affair.  In  a  valiant  attempt  to  save  the 
occasion,  he  and  others  who  knew  what  had  happened,  went 
among  the  guests  holding  out  their  hats  while  trying  to  ex- 
plain— but  too  late.  The  opportune  time  had  passed.  Appar- 
ently the  assembled  merry-makers  had  put  all  thoughts  of 
money  out  of  their  minds.  So  the  harvest  that  evening  was 
sparse,  though  as  a  festival  the  gathering  was  one  of  Good 
Morning's  best* 

However,  other  dances  and  parties  for  fund-raising  kept 
us  from  bankruptcy*  We  had  established  a  cartoon  mat  serv- 
ice, which  was  subscribed  to  by  many  labor  papers  through- 
out the  country,  but  starting  as  an  asset,  it  turned  out  to  be 
a  liability.  Our  clients  enthusiastically  published  the  material 
we  supplied,  but  most  of  them  were  low  on  cash,  and  collec- 
tions were  difficult,  often  impossible. 

Our  mainstays  among  contributing  writers  were  Charles 
W.  Wood  and  T.  Swann  Harding,  while  occasional  pieces 
in  prose  or  verse  came  from  Howard  Brubaker,  Samuel 
DeWitt,  Clement  Wood,  Phillips  Russell,  Mabel  Dwight, 
Miriam  Allen  DeFord,  Art  Shields,  Samuel  Roth,  John 
Nicholas  Beffel,  and  Skepticuss. 

Artists  who  drew  for  the  magazine  included  Boardman 
Robinson,  Hendrik  Van  Loon,  Robert  Minor,  Maurice 
Becker,  Reginald  Marsh,  Cornelia  Barns,  Peggy  Bacon,  Clara 
Tice,  Lou  Rogers,  Will  Crawford,  Edmund  Duffy,  William 
Auerbach  Levy,  Alice  Beach  Winter,  William  Cropper, 
Adolph  Dehn,  Frank  Hanley,  Norman  Jacobson,  Albert  Lev- 
ering, Frank  Walts,  John  Barber,  and  F.  F.  Jerger. 

Volunteers  were  plentiful  in  emergencies,  especially  when 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES      361 

we  needed  to  mail  out  circulars*  Martha  Foley  would  often 
assist  in  the  editing,  and  once  at  least  she  wrote  the  editorial 
page.  Arthur  Cole  and  Horace  Reis,  both  of  whom  were  then 
on  the  Nation,  would  come  to  the  office  and  help  on  make-up 
nights. 

Our  friends  among  the  writers  and  artists  were  glad  to 
contribute;  all  we  had  to  do  was  ask  them.  I  knew  that 
none  of  them  expected  pay— but  once  when  we  chanced  to 
have  some  extra  cash  in  the  bank  I  sent  checks  to  about 
20  contributors  as  a  surprise;  doubtless  it  also  was  a  shock* 


Good  Morning 


SMALL  FAVORS  THANKFULLY  RECEIVED. 


I  remember  letters  I  received  thanking  me — and  saying  they 
never  expected  it. 

When  Woodrow  Wilson  spoke  in  Kansas  City  shortly 
after  his  return  from  Versailles  and  told  the  real  cause  of  the 
war  of  19 14-18,  I  made  a  cartoon  about  it  for  Good  Morn- 
ing, entitling  it  "Letting  the  Cat  Out  of  the  Bag."  With 
this  we  reproduced  an  all-revealing  passage  from  his  speech: 

'Is  there  any  man  here,  or  any  woman,  .  .-  .is  there 
any  child  here,  who  does  not  know  that  the  seed  of  war  in 
the  modern  world  is  industrial  and  commercial  rivalry?  The 
real  reason  that  the  war  we  have  just  finished  took  place 
was  that  Germany  was  afraid  her  commercial  rivals  were 
going  to  get  the  better  of  her,  and  the  reason  why  some 


362      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

nations  went  into  the  war  was  that  they  thought  Germany 
would  get  the  commercial  advantage  of  them.  .  .  .  This 
war,  in  its  inception,  was  a  commercial  and  industrial  war* 
It  was  not  a  political  war/' 

Max  Eastman's  annoyance  at  the  launching  of  Goorf 
Morning  did  not  cause  any  break  between  us,  and  I  continued 
to  contribute  to  the  Liberator.  Late  in  August,  1919,  Max 
and  I  went  to  Chicago  to  report  for  that  magazine  the 
emergency  convention  of  the  Socialist  party,  which  immedi- 
ately split  off  into  conventions  at  which  two  other  radical 
movements  were  set  going — the  Communist  party  and  the 
Communist  Labor  party. 

Sitting  at  the  press  table  in  Machinists'  Hall  on  South 
Ashland  Avenue  on  the  opening  day  of  the  S.P.  gathering, 
we  saw  a  stirring  contest  for  power.  Adolph  Germer,  na- 
tional secretary,  and  member  of  the  right  wing,  was  in  the 
chair,  and  it  was  evident  at  the  start  that  he  faced  an  intense 
fight  from  the  militant  left  wing.  The  Socialist  party's  na- 
tional executive  committee  had  been  expelling  branches,  locals, 
and  individual  members  all  over  the  country  for  conduct 
which  it  thought  too  brash  and  disgracefully  radical. 

John  Reed  was  one  of  the  group  which  was  determined 
to  check  the  conservative  trend  of  the  old-line  Socialists.  It 
was  the  idea  of  Reed,  Louis  B.  Boudin,  C  E.  Ruthenberg, 
Alfred  Wagenknecht,  and  other  delegates  that  they  could 
capture  the  convention  and  make  the  party  over  in  the  image 
of  revolutionary  Marxism  as  they  understood  it.  It  was  wild 
ferment  from  the  beginning. 

Just  before  Max  and  I  arrived,  Jack  Reed  had  had  a 
fight  with  Julius  Gerber  of  the  right  wing  out  on  the  porch 
of  the  convention  hall.  Chuckling  as  he  described  it,  he  told 
me  that  it  began  like  a  boxing-match  and  that,  after  a  few 
bouts,  he  held  Julius  oif  at  arm's  length  clutched  by  his  neck. 
"It  was  a  great  fight.  Too  bad  you  missed  it,"  he  said.  I  made 
a  picture  of  it  from  Jack's  description,  published  in  the 
Liberator. 

When  it  looked  as  if  the  militants  actually  would  take 
control  of  the  convention,  the  police  came  and  cleared  the 
hall  of  all  persons  present  except  those  who  were  approved 
by  the  right  wing  leaders.  One  of  those  ejected  was  a  delegate 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       363 

who  had  received  the  largest  vote  in  Kansas,  Having  been 
forced  to  leave,  Reed  and  his  allies,  in  a  dramatic  walkout, 
marched  to  a  room  on  the  floor  below  and  opened  the  first 
convention  of  the  Communist  Labor  party.  That  room  not 
being  large  enough,  they  moved  over  to  the  I.W.W.  hall  on 
Throop  street.  A  third  group,  made  up  of  members  of  the 
blavic  Federations  and  of  Michigan  members  of  the  S.P.  who 
had  been  expelled  (all  Michigan  members  had  been  ousted 
in  a  bloc)  hastened  to  Smolny  Hall  on  Blue  Island  Avenue 
and  there  held  the  convention  of  the  Communist  party.  (Sub- 
sequently, the  Communist  Labor  party  faded  out  and  more 
or  less  of  its  substance  was  absorbed  by  the  Communist 
party.) 

Here  Jack  Reed  was  in  the  most  playful  and  yet  the  most 
serious  mood  in  which  I  had  ever  seen  him.  When  his  group 
opened  their  convention  they  sang  the  Internationale  with  a 
gusto  which  resounded  throughout  the  building  and  into  the 
street.  Both  right  and  left  wings  claimed  credit  for  victory 
that  day. 

I  met  Victor  Berger,  who  was  one  of  the  Old  Guard, 
as  we  left  the  scene.  "Say,  Art/'  he  said,  "you  tell  Jack  he 
better  write  another  book." 

"About  what?"  I  asked. 

"You  tell  Jack  to  write  a  book  about  the  Three  Days 
That  Shook  the  Left  Wing." 


Chapter  34 
SUCCESSFUL  PUBLISHING  REQUIRES  HARDNESS 

ATER  a  couple  of  years  there  were  times  when  volunteer 
cooperation  reached  a  low  ebb,  and  I  found  myself 
doing  most  of  the  cartoons,  reading  copy,  writing 
editorials,  making  up  the  magazine,  and  falling  asleep  at  my 
desk  when  I  should  have  been  on  the  move.  Surely  Good 
Morning  had  given  me  a  new  interest  in  life,  as  I  had  hoped, 
but  now  I  knew  that  the  burden  of  publication  routine  was 
becoming  too  much  for  me. 

Sometimes  when  my  spirits  sagged  under  the  strain,  I 
would  take  long  walks  through  quiet  back  streets  late  at 
night  to  reflect  on  the  future.  At  the  age  of  fifty-four  the 
man  or  woman  is  lucky  who  does  not  have  to  fight  off  gloom. 
When  you  reach  the  half-century  line  you  begin  to  think 
seriously  about  how  to  apportion  your  time,  to  get  the  best 
out  of  yourself  while  the  years  are  slipping  away.  As  a  young 
man  you  don't  care — all  the  time  in  the  world  is  ahead, 

I  would  berate  myself  for  not  having  drawn  on  the  stone 
to  get  those  variegated  values  of  light  and  shade  which  make 
lithography  so  fascinating.  I  wished  I  had  not  neglected 
etching.  I  was  sure  I  could  handle  the  dry  point  stylus  on  the 
copper  plate.  And  why  had  I  not  done,  or  tried  to  do,  car- 
toons in  oil-paint?  Certainly  all  of  the  great  paintings  of 
the  Renaissance  were  basically  cartoons,  to  propagandize  the 
cause  of  Christianity.  I,  too,  had  a  cause — and  why  not  try 
to  put  it  across  in  paintings?  Several  of  my  fellow  artists  on 
the  Masses  had  found  time  to  indulge  their  talent  in  media 
which  made  their  work  take  on  the  look  of  permanent  value 
to  connoisseurs  and  critics. 

But  here  I  was  drawing  cartoons  on  paper  with  whatever 
implement  was  nearest  at  hand — pen  or  crayon — when  not 
writing  and  bothering  about  a  publication  with  no  time  to 
think  of  anything  else.  And  how  much  influence  did  it  actu- 
ally have?  Did  it  any  more  than  touch  the  edge  of  its  possi- 

364 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES      365 

bilities?  Anyway,  I  knew  that  starting  with  only  $4,500 
instead  of  waiting  until  we  had  raised  the  whole  $10,000 — 
or  better  still  $50,000 — was  a  mistake* 

These  questions  would  come  into  my  mind  as  I  sat  at  my 
desk  laboring  over  copy*  In  "such  an  hour  of  retrospection  I 
was  visited  by  three  young  men  from  the  Art  Students' 
League*  The  spokesman,  David  Morrison,  achieved  consid- 
erable note  as  a  painter  a  few  years  later.  They  came  as  a 


JAMES    EADS    HOW,   millionaire   hobo, 
gave   me   marshmallows   but  no   money. 

committee  from  the  League  to  ask  if  I  would  become  an 
instructor  of  one  of  the  drawing  classes  there*  When  I  shook 
my  head  they  told  me  of  the  simple  and  seemingly  easy  re- 
quirements— just  going  to  the  school  twice  a  week  and  criti- 
cizing the  work  of  the  students — for  which  I  would  be 
paid  something  like  $60  weekly.  But  I  said  no,  that  I  had  a 
magazine  to  look  after  which  took  all  my  time— and  what 
was  more  to  the  point,  that  I  felt  I  was  not  equipped  tempera- 
mentally to  be  a  successful  instructor* 

On  another  day  when  die  problem  of  finances  was  press- 


366      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

ing  heavily  on  our  minds,  dear  old  James  Eads  How,  the 
"millionaire  hobo",  dropped  in.  While  I  was  welcoming  him, 
A.  H.  Howland,  the  business  manager,  hastened  to  remove 
a  pile  of  newspapers  from  the  extra  chair,  so  that  our  caller 
would  be  comfortable.  Then  I  explained  the  situation,  and 
tactfully  asked  How  if  he  could  help  out  with  a  loan  to  keep 
us  from  bankruptcy.  He  said  something  about  his  funds  being 
"all  tied  up",  but  he  appeared  interested  and  wrote  down 
the  address  of  an  acquaintance  who  might  be  able  to  aid  us. 
As  How  arose  to  leave  he  took  from  his  coat  pocket  a  box 
of  marshmallows  and  presented  it  to  me.  When  he  was  gone 
and  I  announced  the  net  result  of  the  conference,  "an  address 
and  a  box  of  marshmallows",  we  of  the  office  staff  looked  at 
one  another  silently  and  solemnly  shook  our  heads — then 
laughed. 

All  sorts  of  queer  literary  contributions  were  offered  to 
us  by  amateur  writers,  who  lived  in  the  city  as  well  as  in  the 
sticks — long  poems,  dissertations  on  theosophy,  cowboy 
humor  by  drugstore  cowboys,  automobile  jokes  which  were 
familiar  horse-and-buggy  jokes  adapted  to  the  machine  ^age, 
he-and-she  jokes,  quips  borrowed  from  vaudeville  comedians, 
bright  sayings  by  children  who  must  have  fallen  on  their 
heads  in  infancy,  Pat-and-Mike  jokes,  and  jokes  about  fu- 
nerals and  hangings.  Most  of  the  unsolicited  manuscripts  we 
received  came  from  persons  who  obviously  were  ignorant 
of  the  underlying  trend  of  our  magazine. 

Once  an  anxious  faced  middle-aged  woman  walked  in 
and  asked  me  to  read  a  poem  comprising  several  typed  sheets 
written  by  her  brother.  It  was  filled  with  saccharine  praise  for 
Goorf  Morning.  When  I  handed  it  back,  gently  breaking  the 
news  that  we  couldn't  pay  for  such  contributions,  she  said: 
"I'm  terribly  disappointed!  My  brother  had  depended  on  my 
selling  this  to  you — he's  got  to  have  his  teeth  fixed/' 

For  some  issues  of  Good  Morning  there  was  a  big  de- 
mand. Jobless  radicals  around  Union  Square,  a  block  away, 
seized  the  chance  to  make  some  change  by  selling  the  maga- 
zine on  street  corners.  These  young  men  (and  some  not  so 
young)  were  mostly  well-read  and  healthy  minded,  and  were 
opposed  to  working  like  slaves  for  the  capitalist  system.  I 
liked  them,  and  knew  many  of  them  by  name — Dan  O'Brien, 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES      367 

Frank  Strong  Hamilton,  Harvey  Stork,  Curly  Daniels,  the 
inimitable  Harry  Engels,  and  others. 

They  swarmed  into  our  fourth  floor  office  around  publi- 
cation days,  and  I  learned  things  from  them.  Many  of  them 
had  traveled  widely,  as  sailors;  others  had  been  itinerant 
workers  in  the  lumber  woods,  orchards,  and  grain  fields  of 
America,  and  some  had  been  "over  there"  in  the  so-called 
world  war.  Certain  ones  were  good  soap-boxers,  speaking 
effectively  for  industrial  unionism,  Socialism,  anarcho-syndi- 
calism, with  variations  on  the  pleasures  and  vicissitudes  of 
the  "free  life"  of  the  hobo.  A  few  had  no  regard  for  business 
ethics,  not  even  among  friends.  But  all  were  worth  knowing. 


FIXING  UP  THE  WORLD  WAR  SOLDIERS. 

Betty  Kaye,  our  secretary  and  office  manager,  called  my 
attention  to  the  fact  that  many  bundles  of  Good  Morning 
given  out  to  the  street-sellers  on  consignment  were  not  being 
paid  for.  She  said  I  was  too  easy  with  them,  that  the  office 
could  not  be  run  successfully  without  some  practical  sense, 
and  that  I  ought  to  be  firm  about  sales  on  trust.  "All  right," 
I  agreed,  "we'll  be  firm/'  So  Betty  began  to  treat  the  delin- 
quents with  peppery  resentment.  She  made  it  plain  that  she 
was  going  to  end  this  grafting  by  so-called  comrades  from 
Union  Square  benches. 

With  such  thoughts  in  her  mind  and  fire  in  her  eyes  she 
looked  up  from  het  typewriter  one  day  while  I  was  out,  and 
saw  a  man  enter  who  was  travel-dusty  and  had  the  untailored 
look  of  a  Wobbly.  He  said  he  wanted  to  see  me. 


368       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

"He  isn't  in/'  said  Betty  tartly,  "and  I  don't  know  when 
he's  coining  back.  But  listen — if  you  want  to  peddle  Goocf 
Mornings  we're  through — do  you  hear?"  "We're  through 
with  you  bums!" 

Soon  after  I  got  back  to  the  office  there  was  a  phone  call 
from  Upton  Sinclair  saying  he  was  in  town,  and  could  we 
get  together  for  dinner?  He  had  looked  in  at  my  office  but  had 
"met  with  a  screen  of  protective  coloration/'  Then  I  told 
Betty  I  wished  I  had  been  in  when  Upton  Sinclair  called. 

"My  God!"  said  Betty,  "Was  that  Upton  Sinclair?  And 
I  put  him  out!" 

Sometimes  the  boys  would  be  arrested.  One  night  Harry 
Engels  was  trying  to  sell  the  magazine  to  a  crowd  in  Brook- 
lyn. He  read  excerpts  from  its  pages,  held  up  a  double-page 
cartoon  of  mine  for  all  to  see,  and  declared  that  I  was  "a 
satirist  as  great  as  Voltaire." 

A  cop  interrupted  him.  "That's  enough  of  that.  Come 
with  me!" 

Taken  to  court,  the  prisoner  was  dismissed  with  a  repri- 
mand. Next  day  he  sent  me  a  clipping  from  the  Brooklyn 
Eagle  citing  the  offending  quotation  from  his  speech,  with  a 
note  pointing  out  that  those  who  sold  Goocf  Morning  had  to 
ran  risks,  and  that  the  business  office  ought  to  be  lenient  with 
them. 

Engels  had  a  clever  way  with  audiences,  and  always  put 
on  a  good  show.  From  his  well  dressed  appearance,  he  might 
have  been  a  rich  man's  son.  He  had  a  friend  who  owned  one 
of  the  better  makes  of  automobiles.  The  two  w6uld  drive  up 
to  a  $pot  where  a  radical  soap-boxer  was  making  a  speech 
to  a  crowd  of  workers.  Engels  would  interrupt  the  other, 
and  would  address  the  audience  from  a  capitalistic  point  of 
view. 

"Don't  we  give  you  parks  and  free  schools  and  bridges?" 
he  would  demand.  "Haven't  we  given  you  the  five-cent  farfc?" 

And  when  he  had  got  his  listeners  well  steamed  up  with 
indignation,  he  would  begin  talking  about  the  merits  of 
Goocf  Morning  as  a  literary  diet  for  those  who  were  not 
satisfied  with  the  "gifts"  from  the  capitalists. 

In  contrast  to  the  rough  boys  who  were  continual  callers 
— one  day  I  saw  a  well-groomed,  cultured-looking  old  gentle- 
man looking  over  a  bound  file  of  Goocf  Morning  in  the  recep- 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       369 

tion  room  and  heard  Betty  call  him  Mr.  Allen*  I  left  my  desk 
when  I  heard  that  name,  saying  to  myself:  "I'll  bet  that  is 
James  Lane  Allen,  author  of  The  Choir  Invisible",  and  it 
was!  I  told  him  his  stories  were  prose  poetry,  and  we  had 
a  mutual  admiration  chat. 

Lincoln  Steffens  came  in  soon  after  his  return  from  the 
Peace  Conference  in  Versailles,  where  he  had  seen  President 
Wilson's  fourteen-point  plan  for  healing  the  wounds  of  war 
ridiculed  and  spat  upon  by  his  European  rivals  in  diplomacy, 
backed  by  the  business  interests  of  their  nations. 

"You're  right,  Art/*  said  Steffens,  "keep  Good  Morning 
going.  There's  nothing  to  do  now  but  laugh — laugh  like 
Hell!" 

Wise  sayings  of  the  Poor  Fish,  a  character  I  originated 
in  the  early  days  of  Good"  Morning,  attracted  wide  attention 
and  comment.  Carl  Van  Doren,  then  literary  editor  of  Cen- 
tury Magazine,  called  it  "a  classic,  a  genuine  contribution  to 
the  scene  and  civilization/'  Lincoln  Steffens  wrote  an  essay 
on  Poor  Fish  philosophy,  with  permission  to  use  it  if  I  wanted 
to,  in  a  book  of  pictures  and  sayings  of  the  Fish — but  I  never 
got  around  to  assembling  the  material  for  that  volume.  Many 
labor  periodicals  reprinted  the  likeness  of  the  Poor  Fish,  in 
the  various  poses  in  which  I  portrayed  him,  while  emitting 
his  weighty  thoughts  on  current  topics.  Long  after  Goodf 
Morning  had  ceased  to  exist,  some  labor  editors  continued  to 
use  pictures  of  this  character  of  mine  (without  credit)  but 
with  new  sayings  which  they  invented,  not  always  in  the 
naive  language  of  common  street  talk  which  I  used  as  the 
true  Fish  idiom. 

Here  are  samples  of  authentic  wisdom  from  the  mouth 
of  the  Poor  Fish,  taken  from  Good  Morning: 

' 'Progress  is  all  right,  but  it  ought  to  stop  some- 
time/' 

"The  Poor  Fish  says  he  knows  that  many  of  our 
leading  citizens  got  their  wealth  dishonestly,  but  we 
ought  to  let  bygones  be  bygones/' 

"If  people  would  work  harder  we  would  not  have 
so  much  unrest." 

"Anybody  who  is  making  a  good  living  ought  to 
keep  his  mouth  dwt." 

"The  Poor  Fish  says  that  if  there  arc  any  ex-soldiers 


Good  Morning 


THE  POOR  FISH.  He  appeared  in  many  costumes  and  postures.  Specimens 
of  his  wisdom  are  cited  in  Chapter  34. 

370 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       371 

mixed  up  in  these  bomb  outrages  they  ought  to  know 
better/' 

"If  a  man  has  saved  up  a  billion  dollars,  he  is  en- 
titled to  enjoy  it.  Instead  of  trying  to  take  his  billion 
away  from  him,  every  man  should  try  to  save  up  a  bil- 
lion of  his  own/' 

"Liquor  is  not  injurious  if  taken  in  moderation* 
Unfortunately,  the  workingman  never  knows  when  he 
has  had  enough/' 

"The  Poor  Fish  says  agitators  just  stir  up  trouble, 
and  what  with  his  two  sons  crippled  in  the  War  for 
Democracy,  and  the  High  Cost  of  Living,  we  have 
enough  trouble  as  it  is/' 

We  brought  out  a  God  Number  of  Good  Morning  on 
July  1,  1920.  "Isn't  God  conscripted  to  support  war?"  we 
asked,  "Isn't  He  exploited  at  political  conventions?  Why  can't 
He  be  put  to  the  good  use  of  the  common  people?"  William 
Blake,  who  illustrated  his  own  verse,  left  to  posterity  several 
pictures  of  God,  one  of  which  we  reproduced,  pointing  out 
that  this  likeness  of  divine  omnipotence  resembled  a  well- 
known  American,  William  Cullen  Bryant. 

"Other  Blake  designs  of  the  Deity,"  we  recalled,  "look 
more  like  a  composite  of  an  Indiana  farmer  and  Moses.  Every 
artist  who  has  attempted  divine  interpretation  in  sculpture 
or  painting  insists  on  a  portrait  with  whiskers.  Is  that  set- 
tled? Can't  someone  think  of  a  new,  rejuvenated,  up-to-date 
God?  We  really  believe  that  God  would  like  to  see  a  new 
portrait  of  himself/'  Our  readers  were  invited  to  send  in 
such  pictures. 

"More  backbone  in  the  public  officials  of  the  Holy  Land" 
was  demanded  in  a  contributed  editorial  represented  as  having 
appeared  in  the  Palestine  Times,  conservative  organ  of  the 
Rome  Chamber  of  Commerce  at  the  time  of  Christ's  cruci- 
fixion. Percy  Atkinson,  then  circulation  manager  of  the 
Metropolitan,  was  the  author  of  this  editorial. 

"Pontius  Pilate  cannot  be  commended  too  highly,"  it  said, 
"for  having  upheld  the  cause  of  law  and  order  in  the  execution 
of  the  so-called  'King  of  the  Jews'  last  Tuesday.  All  right  think- 
ing people  will  sustain  him.  Hence,  it  seems  all  the  .more  regret- 
table that  he  should  have  shown  the  least  sign  of  weakness  in 


372      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

making  his  decision.  This  is  bound  to  react  unfavorably  upon  the 
rabble  who  may  accept  1  wash  my  hands  of  this  affair*  as  an 
incentive  toward  further  demonstrations.  .  .  . 

"We  must  not  forget  that  there  are  still  apostles  and  adher- 
ents of  the  new  religion  at  large.  Their  capacity  for  harm  is  by 
no  means  at  an  end.  They  should  be  immediately  apprehended 
and  summarily  dealt  with. 

"There  are  rumors  that  Pilate  will  be  recalled  by  Rome.  In 
that  event  we  trust  that  he  will  be  replaced  by  a  strong,  decisive, 
conservative  official.  At  this  time  we  need  a  business  man  at  the 
helm,  not  a  weakling  or  a  visionary. 

"Another  'sermon  on  the  mount*  should  be  made  impossible; 
further  spectacular  legerdemain  such  as  the  'miracle'  of  the  loaves 
and  the  fishes,  upsetting  the  food  market,  should  meet  with^  stern 
repression;  leniency  toward  prostitution,  another  'go  and  sin  no 
more*  incident,  affronting  the  moral  sense  of  the  community,  must 
not  be  repeated. 

"If  Pilate  cannot  deal  with  these  conditions  so  vitally  affecting 
our  business  interests  and  our  social  and  industrial  integrity,  he 
should  be  recalled  forthwith." 

And  in  that  issue,  the  Poor  Fish  said  that  "God  will  pro- 
vide" but  "at  the  same  time  he  feels  that  the  best  planks  in 
both  political  platforms  are  those  which  oppose  the  high  cost 
of  living/' 

One  of  the  most  successful  issues  of  Good  Morning, 
judged  by  sales  and  recorded  enthusiasm,  was  the  Harding 
Inaugural  Number  on  February  15,  192L  For  this  I  made 
drawings  of  a  grand  parade  in  nine  sections  stretching  across 
as  many  pages.  I  can  use  space  in  this  book  for  only  two 
illustrations  of  this  magnificent  turnout  of  notables;  de- 
scription of  the  others  must  suffice. 

1 .  First — leading  the  parade — came  the  editor,  myself, 
with  the  business  manager  of  Good  Morning  and 
the  Poor  Fish,  in  an  automobile,  all  ardent  sup- 
porters of  the  'Back  to  Normalcy'  movement. 

2.  General  Pershing  proudly  perched  on  a  high  horse 
with  his  chin  protruding  to  denote  bravery;  Presi- 
dent Harding  entirely   surrounded   by   the    "best 
minds*' — Root,  Hughes,  Weeks,  et  aL 

3.  The  best  people  of  Marion,  Ohio,  including  Henry 
Deuteronomy  Harding,  the  banker;  Doctor  Balaam 
Harding  of  Blooming  Grove,  Cousin  Em,  Old  Josh 


373 


374       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

Harding,  and  others.  Also  a  bandwagon  of  job- 
hunters  playing,  "What  a  friend  we  have  in 
Gamaliel/' 

4.  Group  of  underfed  school  children  doing  homage 
to  the  Packing  Trust    (a  gigantic  garlanded  hog). 
Col.  George  Harvey  and  Lillian  Russell  doing  their 
campaign  dance,   the   Harding  Hula-Hula.    Repre- 
sentatives  of  the   unemployed   strewing   roses   and 
chanting  the  same  old  hymns  of  hope. 

5.  Liberty  Bonds  getting  kicked  around  and  howling, 
"I  want  to  go  back  to  par/'  Dollar-a-year  patriotic 
profiteers,  including  the  57  varieties  of  trust  presi- 
dents,   with   Charlie   Schwab  sprinkling  the  street 
with  tears.    (Charlie  had  broken  down  and  sobbed 
before  a  committee  investigating  his  profits  in  the 
war.)   Ku  Klux  Klan,  bodyguard  for  the  profiteers 
and  standard-bearers  of  race-hatred,   reaction,   and 
private  vengeance. 

6.  William  Howard  Taft,  only  happy  ex-President, 
dancing  the  toddle.  Old  Aunty  Blue  Law,  Herbert 
Hoover,  eating  a  41 -cent  lunch  of  mush-and-milk 
to  relieve  the  children  of  Messarabia.  The  railroads 

(a  silk-hatted  figure  in  pauper's  rags  with  a  plea  to 
"help  the  poor/')  Henry  Ford  throwing  an  anti- 
Semitic  fit. 

7.  Grand  Old  Mummies  of  the  U.S.  Senate  taking  the 
air.    Touching  tableau   of  American  and   German 
capital  trying  to  get  together  after  "the  recent  mis- 
understanding/'  Splendiferous  float  typifying  the 
progress    of    religion.     (Mammon    atop    a    church 
equipped  with  cannon,  the  devil  driving,  Jesus  and 
his  cross  being  dragged  behind.) 

8.  Samuel  Gompers,  accompanied  by  his  valet  flying 
Sam's  overalls.  And  now:  Hats  off!  The  Supreme 
Court     (thunder    from    Sinai) ,    interpreting    laws 
with  dignity  and  respect  for  the  best  people.  The 
Tariff  Issue  coming  back  to  normalcy    (a  bearded 
ancient  sitting  up  in  his  coffin) . 

9.  Dramatic  Troupe  of  Near-Thinkers    (they  know 
something  is   wrong,  but  are  not  certain  what)  : 
Fighting  Bob  La  Follette  smiting  his  breast.  Sen- 
ator Borah,  who  tries  a  little  to  bore  from  within, 
The  Power  of  the  Press,  ably  performed  by  Wil- 
liam   Randolph    Hoist    and    Arthur    Whizzbrain. 
William  Jennings  Bryan,  playing  the  heavy  in  the 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES      375 

new  drama,  "Resurrection,  or  Democracy  Trium- 
phant". The  Fountain  of  Wrath,  Hiram  Johnson, 
rehearsing  for  his  next  appearance. 
10,  The  Fag  End:  a  private  citizen  (Woodrow  Wil- 
son) moving  his  household  effects  with  the  help 
of  Barney  Baruch,  accompanied  by  secretaries, 
waste  paper,  points,  presents  from  King  George, 
and  dilapidated  principles. 

Arthur  Brisbane  never  seemed  to  mind  my  cartoons  show- 
ing him  with  a  bulging  forehead  and  labeled  "Whizzbrain". 
Around  that  time  he  published  an  editorial  with  a  reprint 
of  one  of  my  drawings  saying: 

"Art  Young  will  die  pointing  to  'tomorrow*  without 
ever  having  seen  it,  just  as  Marcus  Aurelius  died,  or  Karl 
Marx,  or  one  of  the  Gracchi,  or  Madame  Roland,  just  as  all 
the  young,  ardent  souls  will  die  with  their  longings  un- 
satisfied/' 

Goocf  Morning  had  appeared  as  a  weekly  up  to  October, 
1919.  Then  we  were  compelled  to  skip  some  numbers 
through  lack  of  money,  and  in  January,  1920,  we  offered 
7  per  cent  preferred  stock  in  our  company  at  $10  a  share.* 
But  there  was  no  rush  to  buy  these  shares,  and  in  May  the 
magazine  became  a  semi-monthly.  We  came  out  regularly 
for  awhile,  then  had  to  skip  more  issues.  In  August,  Sep- 
tember, and  October,  1921,  the  magazine  appeared  only  once 
a  month,  although  the  masthead  still  blandly  carried  the 
legend:  ' 'published  twice  a  month*'  and  it  was  our  hope  to 
continue  as  a  fortnightly. 

But  the  October  number  was  the  last.  The  burden  of 
raising  the  necessary  money  had  become  too  great.  There  are 
many  pitfalls  in  magazine  publishing.  The  successful  pub- 
lisher requires  a  certain  hardness,  and  he  needs  to  surround 
himself  with  others  possessed  of  pile-driving  energy.  The 
babes  who  enter  the  woods  of  publishing  usually  are  not 
equipped  for  big-game  hunting  and  seldom  escape  the  bears. 

We  made  one  more  effort,  however,  in  the  name  of  the 
Good  Morning  Publishing  Company.  Selecting  the  best  of 
the  cartoons  against  war  that  we  had  used,  with  articles, 

*  Earlier  we  had  incorporated — hopefully. 


376 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES      377 

poems,  gags,  and  other  anti-militarist  materials,  we  put  out 
an  issue  entitled  The  Soldier,  and  sub-titled  Good  Morning 
Quarterly.  It  included  a  cartoon  of  mine  showing  a  disabled 
veteran  watering  a  small  tree  that  he  had  planted  in  a  bat- 
tered shoe  filled  with  dirt — with  the  caption:  "Bonus  or  no 
bonus,  Private  McGinnis  is  going  to  have  a  wooden  leg,  even 
if  he  has  to  grow  one/' 


Goad  Morning 


Bonus  or  no  bonus,  Private  McGinnis  is  going  to  have  a  wooden  leg,  if  he 
has  to  grow  one. 

This  edition  caught  the  public  fancy  and  was  the  most 
popular  issue  of  all.  Our  Union  Square  contingent,  many  of 
whom  had  been  in  the  war,  pushed  that  number  with  the 
zeal  of  crusaders,  and  brought  in  surprising  returns.  But  we 
were  so  far  in  the  red,  even  after  the  month's  receipts  were 
counted,  that  I  had  no  heart  to  go  on* 

With  that  longing  unsatisfied,  I  said  to  myself  as  I  went 
out  for  a  walk:  "Now  what,  Marcus  Aurelius?" 


Chapter  35 
MY  YOUNGER  SON  PICKS  A  COLLEGE 

JACOB  MARINOFF'S  purchase  of  my  cartoons  for  the 
Big  Stick  continued  to  be  my  mainstay.  I  was  still  a  con- 
tributing editor  of  the  Liberator,  which  was  then  in  an 
old  building  on  East  Union  Square  at  the  corner  of  Sixteenth 
Street.  But  the  Liberator  had  never  been  able  to  pay  its  con- 
tributing editors  or  others  whose  creations  appeared  in  its 
pages,  and  my  market  was  limited. 

Though  Life  and  Judge  were  friendly,  it  was  seldom  that 
I  could  produce  anything  to  their  liking.  Everything  was 
topsy-turvy  in  magazine  land;  old  editors  were  frequently 
being  kicked  out  for  new*  In  the  course  of  three  years  Life 
had  tried  out,  I  think,  six  editors — and  not  one  of  them  knew 
what  he  wanted.  For  a  time  the  two  Bobs,  Sherwood  and 
Benchley,  tried  to  keep  that  publication,  which  Mitchell  had 
so  long  guided,  from  slipping  into  "innocuous  desuetude," 
but  that's  about  all  they  could  do — hold  it,  and  issue  some 
brilliant  numbers. 

But  in  the  spring  of  1922  Oswald  Garrison  Villard 
opened  the  pages  of  the  Nation  to  me.  It  had  never  featured 
cartoons  before.  I  was  permitted  to  choose  my  own  themes, 
with  occasional  suggestions  from  Mr.  Villard  or  from  Ernest 
H.  Gruening,  then  managing  editor.  My  first  batch  of  pic- 
tures appeared  in  a  full  page  in  the  issue  of  May  3,  under  the 
title  "Looking  On."  This  same  title  was  used  on  various  pages 
of  mine  during  the  next  three  years.  In  addition  I  was  asked 
now  and  then  to  illustrate  an  article  written  for  the  Nation 
by  William  Hard  or  others.  One  portrait  sketch  I  did  at  this 
time  which  I  like  to  contemplate  because  the  subject  interested 
me  so  much  was  of  Rudolph  Schildkraut  in  "The  God  of 
Vengeance." 

That  connection  also  gave  me  opportunity  to  go  to  Cleve- 
land with  Mr.  Villard  to  cover  the  1924  Republican  conven- 

378 


Looking  On  by  Art  Young 


Sbatt  These  Be  the  Guardians  of  Our  Educationf 


There  are  those  who  jay  that  the  Dyer  bill  to  prevent  lynthiiv 
is  unconstitutional.  Perhaps,  Wt  are  fast  harnmo  who*  it  con- 
stitutional and  what  is  not.  Child  labor  afftars  to  be  unttitu- 
tional.  If  an  American  speculator  gets  hit  toes  slewed  on  «•  o 
small  Latin-American  country,  it's  constitutional  to  kill  o.  feit 
thousand  natives.  But  token  an  Ameriean  gets  killed  by  a  mob 
of  other  Americans,  maybe  that  »«  comej  tinder  the  toad  of 
"life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  haffwuss,^ 


tors,  ana  jiw.wr  assaults  on  t*e  C  onsitiutton.  x» 
those  happy  Convention  days  John  mat  made  Z>ena- 
ttr;  later  the  unthinking  rabble  refuted  to  return 
him  to  the  Senate.  That  Proves  fas  cote;  doesn  t  ttf 


"'"UP  Like  a  Rocket  and.  Down  £«'**  a  Stick," 


The  Nation 


LOOKING  ON.  One  of  various  full  pages  of  pictorial  comment  on  current 
happenings  that  I  made  for  the  Nation. 

tion  at  which  Calvin  Coolidge  and  Charles  G.  Dawes  were 
chosen  as  the  standard-bearers.  For  the -.Nation  also  that  year 
and  for  Life  and  Collier's  Weekly  I  made  cartoons  calcu- 
lated to  aid  LaFqllette's  candidacy  on  the  Progressive  ticket, 
and  some  sketches  of  principals  at  the  Democratic  conven- 

379 


Convention    Notes    by    Art    Young 


The  Nation 

My  impressions  of  the  Democratic  convention  at  Madison   Square  Garden 
in,  1924. 

tion  in  New  York,  where  John  W.  Davis  and  Charles  W. 
Bryan  were  picked  to  head  the  slate. 

Brisbane  also  had  continued  to  give  me  assignments  at 
intervals.  He  had  me  make  a  six-column  review  in  pictures 
for  the  Evening  Journal  headed:  "Art  Young  Sees  Chatcve- 
Souris- — You- Sec  It  With  Him/'  It  was  Brisbane's  suggestion 

380 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       381 

that  I  do  the  theatres  three  times  a  week  for  that  paper.  I 
was  not  sanguine  about  this,  but  being  fond  of  the  stage,  and 
knowing  there  was  good  money  in  the  assignment,  was  not 
unwilling  to  try  it  for  awhile.  Meanwhile,  however,  that 
wizard  of  caricature,  Ralph  Barton,  was  receptive  to  the  same 
job,  and  presently  got  it.  He  succeeded  Hanz  Stengel,  who 
committed  suicide — and  a  few  years  later  Ralph  Barton  did 
the  same.  Ralph  was  tired  of  it  alL 

This  boy  Barton  from  Kansas  was  a  better  choice  for 
that  regular  assignment  than  I  would  have  been,  although 
he  held  the  job  only  a  few  months.  His  work  derived,  like 


The  Nation 


"Fight  LaFollette  on  every  foot  of  ground  in  every  Northwestern  state." — 
The  cry  from  the  Coolidge  campaign  headquarters, 

that  of  Al  Frueh,  Covarrubias,  and  Steinegas,  from  a  school 
of  caricature  just  begining  to  be  appreciated  in  America — 
the  arch-exponent  of  which  was  Gulbransson  of  Simpticissi- 
mas  in  Germany:  the  school  of  abundant  emphasis  on  per- 
sonal characteristics,  done  with  the  greatest  possible  economy 
of  line  and  technique.  Such  caricatures  as  the  subject  looks 
at  and  says:  "O  my  God!  Do  I  look  like  that?"  Of  course 
people  say  that  about  any  picture  which  does  not  flatter  them. 
But  a  portrait  done  by  a  super- caricaturist  is  like  barbed 
wit — not  many  subjects  can  take  it. 

In  the  same  month  my  Chauue-Souris  review  appeared, 
the  Sunday  American  reprinted  a  four-column  cartoon  of 
mine  from  the  Big  Stick  about  government  ownership  in 


382      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

Russia,  to  illustrate  the  first  of  a  series  of  articles  by  Frank  P. 
Walsh  under  the  general  title:  "Russia  on  the  High  Road  to 
Prosperity/' 

Don,  my  younger  son,  wrote  from  Los  Angeles  in  the 
summer  of  1924  saying  that  he  wanted  to  go  to  Dartmouth 
College.  Answering,  I  said:  "All  right,  if  that's  what  you 
think  you  need/'  Yet  in  a  day  or  two  I  felt  that  I  had  been 
a  little  too  impulsive  in  giving  that  O.K.  For  I  could  see  that 
Don's  coming  East  would  put  a  new  responsibility  on  my 
shoulders.  The  expense  of  seeing  a  boy  all  the  way  across 
the  continent,  plus  tuition  and  living  expenses  while  being 
"educated/'  I  knew  would  be  another  big  financial  load  for 
me. 

And  I  had  met  so  many  young  men,  graduates  of  colleges, 
who  were  no  better  off  in  the  game  of  getting  on  than  those 
with  a  simple  public-school  training  that  I  was  doubtful  if 
the  so-called  higher  education  really  counted  for  anything. 
I  had  always  discounted  the  value  of  my  own  art-school 
experience.  Certainly  I  had  learned  much  more  outside  the 
academies  than  inside  their  walls.  And  what  made  the  modern 
college  seem  even  less  desirable  than  that  of  forty  years  earlier 
was  the  pace  young  men  from  middle-class  homes  had  to  keep 
up  in  their  association  with  the  sons  of  the  rich. 

But  I  had  said  yes  to  Don,  and  I  couldn't  reverse  myself. 
I  figured  it  might  be  well  for  him  to  look  the  situation  over 
for  himself*  I  sent  money,  and  he  hastened  to  New  York. 
We  had  a  good  time  together  for  a  few  days,  and  then  he 
went  to  New  Hampshire.  In  Dartmouth  he  elected  to  study 
Spanish,  Latin,  and  Greek,  and  also  took  English,  history, 
and  botany. 

My  concern  about  the  pace  Don  would  have  to  keep  up 
in  his  new  surroundings  was  borne  out  by  a  habit  he  soon 
got  into,  of  telegraphing  me,  usually  to  this  effect:  "Please 
send  me  one  hundred  dollars.  Urgent."  Always  urgent. 

I  had  made  the  mistake  of  not  telling  him  frankly  the 
state  of  my  finances.  Long  afterward,  when  we  had  achieved 
a  relation  in  which  we  could  discuss  such  things,  he  explained 
that  as  he  grew  up  in  California  he  had  gained  the  impres- 
sion that  his  father  in  the  East  was  well-to-do.  He  had  heard 
legends  of  large  sums  paid  to  artists  for  pictures,  and  sup- 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       383 

posed  that  the  rewards  to  workers  in  the  pictorial  field 
generally  were  handsome.  Thus  he  had  no  hesitation  in  ask- 
ing for  money,  by  mail  or  wire,  feeling  confident  that  he 
would  get  it. 

Despite  a  presumable  steady  round  of  social  activities, 
I  suppose  Don  studied  as  much  as  a  boy  could  be  expected 
to  at  Dartmouth,  for  when  I  saw  him  again  he  told  me  of  his 
high  marks  and  seemed  to  have  learned  a  good  deal  about 
things  he  wanted  to  know.  He  spent  the  following  summer 
with  me  on  Chestnut  Ridge,  and  occupied  himself  steadily 
with  drawings.  Not  a  few  of  the  sketches  he  made  had  con- 
siderable merit.  In  the  fall  he  returned  to  college,  but  as  the 
weeks  went  on  I  saw  my  bank  balance  sink  lower  and  lower. 
For  some  reason  sales  of  pictures  had  again  fallen  off. 

So  with  regret  I  had  to  make  clear  to  Don  that  I  was 
scraping  the  bottom  of  my  treasury.  Naturally  disappointed, 
he  accepted  the  situation  none  the  less  cheerfully,  and  said 
that  he  would  leave  college  at  the  end  of  October,  go  down 
to  New  York,  and  look  for  a  job.  He  managed  to  keep  em- 
ployed at  a  fair  wage,  and  after  a  while  began  studying 
in  the  night  classes  at  the  Art  Students'  League.  He  pursued 
sketching  industriously  and  experimented  with  water  colors. 

What  he  really  wanted  to  do  was  write.  Making  repeated 
efforts  to  put  stories  on  paper,  and  having  trouble  with  them, 
he  concluded  that  he  had  nothing  yet  worth  writing  about, 
and  that  in  order  to  become  a  writer  of  substance  he  must 
do  some  substantial  living.  So  he  set  out  to  get  experience, 
and  shipped  as  a  seaman  on  a  steamer  bound  for  Buenos 
Ayres.  This  doubtless  was  good  for  him  spiritually,  and  he 
seemed  to  have  broadened  mentally  on  his  return. 

Next  he  was  off  to  California  again,  to  see  his  mother, 
and  then  got  a  job  with  the  Associated  Press  in  Los  Angeles, 
tending  an  automatic  teletypewriter,  on  which  news  from 
all  the  corners  of  the  world  clicked  out  on  long  rolls  of  white 
paper.  Don  wasn't  earning  much,  but  he  was  paying  his 
own  way,  and  he  was  proud  of  that. 

North,  my  other  son,  showed  a  definite  inclination  to- 
ward pictorial  expression,  which  I  had  noticed  particularly 
when  both  he  and  Don  were  active  on  the  Los  Angeles  High 
School  weekly.  Don  was  editor  of  that  paper  for  a  season 
and  wrote  a  weekly  column,  while  North  did  illustrations 


384      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

for  it.  In  short,  my  progeny  seem  to  have  desired  the  pursuit 
of  the  creative  arts,  though  in  saying  this  I  cannot  lay  claim 
to  having  had  much  influence  upon  their  development  Re- 
cently North  illustrated  a  book,  Manners  for  Moderns,  pub- 
lished in  Boston. 

Shortly  after  Don  had  left  college  things  suddenly  began 
to  come  my  way  from  unexpected  sources*  To  my  surprise 
requests  for  drawings  arrived  from  respectable  magazines 
which  had  not  looked  in  my  direction  before.  When  I  heard 
from  Tom  Masson,  then  associate  editor  of  the  Saturday 
Evening  Post,  that  his  chief,  George  Horace  Lorimer,  wanted 
me  to  contribute  to  that  conservative  world-popular  weekly, 
I  said:  "Honest,  Tom,  you  don't  mean  it!"  He  assured  me 
that  Lorimer  did  want  some  Art  Young  cartoons. 

I  knew,  of  course,  that  my  kind  of  propaganda  would 
not  appeal  to  the  makers  of  this  magazine  with  its  editorial 
devotion  to  Big  Business  and  Big  Profits.  But  I  thought  of 
something  else  which  might  find  favor  there.  For  a  long  time 
I  had  contemplated  a  series  of  pictures  to  be  called  Trees  at 
Night.  Often  I  had  made  sketches  toward  this  end,  after  walks 
under  the  stars  on  the  roads  near  my  place  in  Connecticut. 
The  first  sheaf  of  these  pictures — eleven  of  them,  as  I  re- 
member it — were  sent  for  Lorimer's  approval,  and  I  got  a 
prompt  acceptance.  After  a  few  were  published,  I  was  asked 
to  draw  additional  ones.  For  more  than  a  year  the  series  ran, 
usually  every  other  week. 

My  conception  of  trees  showed  them  as  fantastic,  gro- 
tesque, humanized,  or  animalized,  with  trunks,  limbs,  and 
foliage  tossed  in  gayety  or  inert  and  solemn  against  the  night 
sky.  They  were  not  propaganda  as  that  term  is  generally 
understood,  but  I  have  heard  people  who  liked  them  say  they 
read  sermons  in  them  all.  For  this  series  I  received  $75  each. 
I  have  a  large  scrap-book  filled  with  complimentary  letters, 
poems,  and  tree-ideas  evoked  by  these  drawings, 

One  of  the  best  of  my  tree  drawings  occupied  a  double 
page  in  Life.  I  have  always  had  a  hopeful  outlook — even 
when  everything  seemed  lost.  Nevertheless,  as  an  onlooker 
I  had  seen  so  much  in  human  life  that  revealed  the  pathos 
of  hope,  that  I  had  to  put  the  theme  into  a  picture.  Among 
other  tragic  hopes  I  had  seen  was  an  old  man  and  his  wife 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       385 

living  in  poverty,  but  holding  onto  stock  in  one  of  those 
kid-'em-along  silver  mines  that  they  thought  might  some 
day  bring  them  joy.  In  my  picture  this  forlorn  old  man  is 
out  on  a  bleak  hill  with  his  hope  symbolized  as  a  dead  tree. 
With  a  sprinkling  pail  he  waters  its  roots.  The  caption,  as 
published  in  Life,  was:  "Hope  springs  eternal  in  the  human 
breast/' 

Later  the  Saturday  Evening  Post  took  another  series  from 
me  entitled  * 'Types  of  the  Old  Home-Town/*  These  pictures 
I  regard  as  my  best  contributions  to  foMore  Americana.  Here 
was  work  which  I  greatly  enjoyed,  conjuring  up  from  the 
days  of  my  youth  the  characters  that  I  had  known  back 
home.  And  I  had  traveled  enough  to  realize  that  they  were 
not  just  local,  but  that  their  prototypes  were  to  be  found 
in  hundreds  or  thousands  of  towns.  The  content  of  the  home- 
town drawings  is  suggested  by  some  of  the  captions: 

"Uncle  Dave  and  Aunt  Matilda — Every  Saturday  they  would 
drive  in,  hitch  the  old  horse  near  the  court-house,  and  do 
their  trading:  butter  and  eggs  for  sugar,  salt  mackerel,  etc. 
Uncle  Dave  was  a  'Greenbacker'.  He  said,  'Money  is  the 
root  of  all  evil/  but  had  figured  it  out  that  the  more  there 
was  in  circulation  the  less  the  evil/' 

''Ashley  the  Lamplighter — There  were  eight  street  lamps  in 
the  business  section.  Our  lamplighter's  name  was  Ashley. 
When  he  struck  his  phosphorus  the  square  took  on  a  glow. 
Not  much  in  kilowatts  and  such.  But— that  was  thirty 
years  ago/' 

ffAdnt  Nancy  Fillebrown — She  went  to  all  the  town  funerals. 
No  matter  what  she  had  said  of  the  deceased  in  life,  she 
was  there  when  it  came  to  a  post-mortem  respect.  Thus 
everybody  in  town  was  assured  of  one  mourner  at  least/' 

"Pawnee  Bill — -Every  year  the  town  would  be  visited  by  a 
Pawnee  Bill  or  a  Kickapoo  Charley,  who  would  sell  us 
Indian  medicine  made  from  the  roots  of  wild  cabbage  and 
liniment  from  the  bark  of  the  snake-tree.  He  would  cure 
farmers  of  their  rheumatism  right  before  our  eyes.  Them 
were  the  happy  days/' 

For  these  types  I  received  $125  a  drawing.  With  this 
new  income  and  sales  to  other  magazines,  I  was  enabled  to 
make  some  much  needed  improvements  around  my  home  on 
Chestnut  Ridge,  Once  more  I  was  tasting  the  pie -of  prosperity. 


Chapter   36 
BATTLES  ON  THE  LIBERATOR  BOARD 

A  ROSS   four  and  a  half  years  the  Liberator,   like   the 
Masses,  had  had  a  turbulent  time  of  it.  It  too  was  a 
free-lance  publication,  not  affiliated  with  any  political 
party.    Its    editors   and   contributors   theoretically    formed    a 
united  front,  and  they  wrote  on  many  phases  of  the  revolu- 
tionary movement,  attacking  the  money-power  from  various 
angles.  But  this  united  front  was  a  good  deal  like  the  "happy 
family**  in  P.   T.  Barnum's  museum  in  New  York,   which 
contained  a  lion,  a  lamb,  a  wolf,  a  boa  constrictor,  and  other 
oddly  assorted  creatures. 

"And  do  they  always  get  along  peacefully  like  this?" 
Barnum  was  asked  by  a  visiting  bishop. 

"Oh,  yes/*  said  Barnum,  " — except  that  we  have  to  re- 
new- the  lamb  once  in  a  while/* 

There  was  frequent  conflict  among  the  contributing  edi- 
tors of  the  Liberator  over  the  question  of  what  it  should 
print,  as  there  had  been  on  the  Masses  editorial  board*  Often 
these  arguments  had  to  do  with  the  relative  values  of  propa- 
ganda and  "pure  art"  or  "pure  literature**,  but  as  the  echoes 
of  the  war  receded  and  the  splits  in  the  radical  movement 
grew  wider,  battles  in  editorial  conferences  more  often  cen- 
tered upon  the  matter  of  tactics  to  forward  the  cause  of  social 
revolution  throughout  the  world. 

Meetings  of  the  Liberator  board  were  irregular  and  in- 
formal. I  attended  when  in  town,  but  tried  to  keep  out  of 
controversies.  I  was  much  more  interested  always  in  drawing 
cartoons  which  would  strike  at  a  vulnerable  point  in  the 
armor  of  the  common  enemy  than  in  battling  over  the  fine 
points  of  tactics.  In  my  years  as  a  Socialist  I  had  attended 
meetings  and  seen  members  of  my  party  argue  hotly  among 
themselves  far  into  the  night.  I  knew  tactics  were  necessary, 
but  I  didn't  want  to  be  bothered  with  them  so  long  as  I  was 
shooting  straight  and  making  a  hit  now  and  then. 

386 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       387 

Often  I  have  been  amazed  at  the  tendency  of  some  of  the 
controversialists  on  the  left  side  of  the  political  fence  to 
detect  the  darkest  motives  in  utterances  and  actions  of  erst- 
while friends  whose  opinions  disagreed  with  theirs.  I  took 
but  a  small  part  in  the  internecine  cross-fire.  I  knew  my  forte 
was  drawing  cartoons.  Others  were  better  fitted  to  endure 
the  polemical  heat.  But  I  would  not  be  understood  as  being 
unaware  of  the  importance  of  official  decisions  and  correct 
shaping  of  social  propaganda.  I  knew  that  it  had  to  be  done 
with  thought  and  care,  but  it  could  become  ridiculous  and 
frequently  did. 

In  February,  1919,  Eugene  Debs  was  listed  as  a  con- 
tributing editor,  and  K.  R.  Chamberlain  and  Minor  were 
missing  from  the  roster.  Minor  had  gone  to  Russia,  and  had 
been  writing  articles  about  the  situation  there,  from  the  view- 
point of  an  Anarchist.  This  was  the  philosophy  that  inter- 
ested him  most  at  that  time;  the  doctrine  that  the  individual 
should  be  free  to  live  his  own  life  unhampered  by  govern- 
mental restraints  imposed  against  his  will. 

Robert  Minor,  son  of  a  judge  in  San  Antonio,  Texas,  first 
came  into  public  notice  through  his  strong  cartoons  in  the 
St.  Louis  Post-Dispatch.  These  cartoons  looked  as  if  they 
had  been  done  with  a  blunt  marking  crayon  on  any  kind  of 
paper  that  was  handy,  and  were  never  cluttered  with  detail 
— only  an  eyeful,  and  just  a  glance  would  give  you  the  idea. 
His  work  was  the  forerunner  of  the  crayon  cartoons  in  the 
daily  press  of  today.  In  his  early  thirties  he  came  to  New 
York,  to  work  on  the  staff  of  the  Evening  World. 

Once  I  made  this  comment  on  him  in  Good  Morning: 

"When  he  talks,  it  is  as  if  he  thought  a  reporter  for 
posterity  were  listening  in,  and  his  words  and  sentences  are 
formed  with  precision,  and  are  grammatical  enough  to  sug- 
gest that  a  good  college  professor  was  lost  to  the  world  when 
Bob  joined  the  proletarian  movement." 

Beside  Minor,  many  of  the  best  artists  and  writers  of 
that  period  thought  of  themselves  as  Anarchists,  not  as  Social- 
ists. They  wanted  to  be  at  liberty  to  act  as  individuals  with- 
out the  restrictions  of  government,  Mrs.  Grundy's  opinion, 
or  any  other  frustrating  element.  John  Reed,  Lincoln  Stef- 


388      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

fens,  and  George  Bellows  also  come  to  my  mind  as  having 
anarchistic  ideas  in  those  days. 

But  most  of  the  many  I  knew  who  respected  that  philoso- 
phy lived  to  learn  that  something  came  before  the  Anarchist 
dream.  That  something  was  economic  freedom,  without 
which  one  could  only  give  a  feeble  imitation  of  calling  his 
soul  his  own, 

I  think  there  is  no  one  on  earth  who  is  not  in  some 
degree  both  Anarchist  and  Socialist.  Some  there  are  whose 
collective  sense  is  confined  to  their  own  family.  Others  go 
still  further  and  include  a  community  or  their  country,  and 
still  others  have  regard  for  the  welfare  of  the  whole  human 
race.  But  within  the  orbit  of  every  one's  social  circle  is  the 
individual's  desire  to  be  a  law  unto  himself. 

After  Minor  returned  to  New  York  he  was  acting  editor 
of  the  Liberator  in  the  spring  of  1921,  while  Max  Eastman 
was  in  California  finishing  a  book.  Max  criticised  the  April 
issue  by  telegraph,  and  Bob  wrote  a  long  letter  in  defense. 
But  to  me  this  was  just  one  more  of  those  hot  controversial 
matters,  and  as  usual  I  stayed  on  the  side-lines* 

As  I  turn  the  pages  of  the  Liberator  for  September,  1918, 
my  eye  lights  on  another  letter  which  takes  me  back  to  those 
feverish  days. 

Fairmont,  W.  Va., 
June  23,    1918. 
My  Dear  Comrades: 

Enclosed  find  draft  for  ten  dollars 
paying  for  the  Liberator. 

In  three  weeks  we  have  organized 
10,000  Slavs  who  were  in  bondage.  Put  the  profes- 
sional murderers  out  of  business;  these  Slavs  were  in 
bad. 

Tell  Art  Young  I  have  been  raising 
H— . 

Fraternally, 

MOTHER  JONES 

I  suspect  that  the  last  word  in  this  message  was  subdued 
as  a  Concession  to  the  supercritical  rules  of  the  Post  Office,  for 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       389 

Mother  Jones  had  a  delightfully  extensive  profane  vocabulary 
and  did  not  hesitate  to  use  it  in  conversation. 

In  the  same  issue  is  the  black  stamp  of  censorship,  blotting 
out  two  items  listed  among  the  book  advertisements. 

Thus  magazine  editing  was  a  game  of  quiz — to  guess 
when  you  were  within  the  law.  But  no  lawyer  was  smart 
enough  to  advise  you  in  advance  of  publication  what  you 
might  legally  publish. 

Whenever  Mother  Jones  came  to  New  York  she  would 
let  me  know.  She  was  moving  toward  the  century  mark,  but 
she  still  had  fire  in  her  eye.  For  hours  at  a  time  I  would  talk 
with  her  in  her  room  in  the  old  Union  Square  Hotel.  With 
a  pail  of  beer  on  the  table,  she  liked  to  tell  me  all  about 
"my  boys"  (the  miners) ,  her  experiences  in  jails,  and  what 
happened  during  strikes. 

John  Reed  and  Louise  Bryant  lived  at  1  Patchen  place, 
and  I  would  drop  in  there  of  an  evening  now  and  then.  In 
memory  I  can  see  this  dynamic  boy,  chuckling  at  some  angle 
of  his  daily  activity  and  then  looking  at  a  pad  of  paper 
on  his  desk  as  if  he  ought  to  be  writing  instead  of  chuckling. 

One  evening  Louise  told  me  that  she  had  been  talking 
with  one  of  Jack's  Harvard  class-mates.  And  he  said  to  her: 
'It's  really  too  bad  about  Jack.  He  used  to  write  good  libret- 
toes  for  light  opera.  Now  I  hear  he's  writing  this  humanity 
stuff." 

And  this  lovely  daughter  of  a  Fenian  laughed  in  her 
contagious  way,  and  we  all  laughed  together. 

A  few  years  after  Jack's  death  in  Russia,  Louise  married 
William  Bullitt,  long  a  Washington  correspondent,  friend 
of  Woodrow  Wilson,  friend  of  Jack,  and  later  Ambassador 
to  Russia  and  then  to  France.  Poor  Louise  committed  slow 
suicide — went  the  sad  road  of  narcotic  escape.  Only  a  few 
weeks  before  she  died  she  sent  me  a  postcard  from  her  Paris 
studio  at  50  Rue  Vavin. 

"I  suppose  in  the  end  life  gets  all  of  us,"  she  wrote.  "It 
nearly  has  got  me  now — getting  myself  and  my  friends  out 
of  jaii — living  under  curious  conditions — but  never  minding 
much.  .  .  .  Know  always  I  send  my  love  to  you  across  the 
stars.  If  you  get  there  before  I  do — or  later — tell  Jack  Reed 
J  love  him/1 


390      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

I  had  supplied  cartoons  to  the  Liberator  frequently  dur- 
ing its  existence,  and  a  good  deal  of  my  best  work,  I  think, 
was  done  in  that  period.  As  I  open  a  bound  volume,  I  see 
one  cartoon  of  mine,  entitled  We,  which  caused  widespread 
amusement.  It  depicted  two  tramps,  with  feet  sticking  out  of 
broken  shoes,  and  one  saying:  "Say,  Bill  whadd'ye  know 
about  this? — We've  got  to  raise  eight  billion  dollars  in  the 
next  Liberty  Loan!" 

The  Mollycoddles  Union  portrayed  a  group  of  workers 
registering  enthusiasm  as  their  employer  announced:  "Now, 
boys,  you've  been  very  good,  and  I'm  going  to  give  each 
of  you  a  five-cent  stick  of  candy  as  a  weekly  bonus." 

That's  For  Us,  Bill  showed  two  disabled  veterans  look- 
ing through  a  window  at  a  Victory  Dinner,  $6  a  plate,  in 
the  Hotel  Best  People.  ...  As  the  troops  came  back  from 
France  I  did  a  cartoon  of  an  employer  telling  a  one-legged 
doughboy;  "Sorry  I  can't  make  a  place  for  you.  But  you  see 
a  soldier  gets  much  of  his  compensation  in  glory  and  in  the 
thought  that  he  has  done  his  duty." 

Daughters  of  the  American  Revolution  Hearing  a  Revo- 
lutionary Speech  pictures  some  of  our  female  patriots  regis- 
tering indignation;  "Seditious!  ...  I  never  heard  of  such 
a  thing!  .  .  .  She's  terrible!  ...  If  she  doesn't  like  our 
government  she  ought  to  have  the  courtesy  to  keep  still 
about  it." 

When  Woodrow  Wilson  returned  from  France,  I  did  a 
full-page  feature  on  the  Washington  scene,  reporting  that 
about  half  of  the  political  population  in  the  capital  were  no 
longer  standing  behind  the  President,  "except  for  the  pur- 
pose of  kicking  him."  .  .  .  In  Six  Months  is  a  two-sided 
picture,  in  which  at  the  left  Wilson,  holding  his  sleek  silk 
hat  in  one  hand  and  his  Fourteen  Points  in  the  other,  stands 
at  the  large  end  of  a  horn  while  Fame  shines  upon  him;  at 
the  right  he  is  seen  with  battered  topper,  crawling  out  of  the 
small  end  into  the  darkness  of  oblivion. 

Early  in  1922  Max  Eastman  felt  that  he  had  to  get  away 
from  it  all.  He  resigned,  and  Mike  Gold  came  in  as  the  active 
editor,  with  William  Cropper,  another  energetic  youngster, 
strengthening  the  pictorial  art  in  the  Liberator  with  lively 
cartoons.  Presently  Joseph  Freeman,  a  young  writer  and 
"  way  ward"  son  of  a  millionaire  real  estate  operator,  joined 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       391 

the  editorial  staff.  Floyd  Dell  was  now  spending  a  good  deal 
of  time  in  Croton,  working  on  a  book,  but  appeared  at  the 
office  frequently  to  lend  a  hand. 

Circulation  had  fallen  off,  and  the  going  was  hard,  what 
with  the  steadily  widening  cleavage  in  the  radical  movement 
in  the  United  States.  There  were  vital  causes  to  fight  for — 
Sacco  and  Vanzetti,  Mooney  and  Billings,  the  liberation  of 
the  remaining  anti-war  prisoners — but  a  large  percentage  of 
the  Liberator's  audience  was  displaying  great  weariness,  espe- 
cially when  asked  to  pay  money  for  subscriptions.  It  was 
harder,  too,  to  get  people  to  attend  mass-meetings,  even  when 
issues  of  vast  import  to  the  downtrodden  were  to  be  discussed* 
Month  after  month  the  boys  in  the  editorial  office  had  to 
go  out  and  find  money  to  cover  printing  and  paper  and  dis- 
tribution costs.  Often  their  untiring  services  were  paid  for 
in  fragmentary  installments — if  at  all.  In  the  light  of  my 
own  struggles  on  Goocf  Morning,  I  could  understand  their 
problems. 

After  a  few  months  Mike  Gold  reached  his  physical  limit, 
and  departed  for  California,  to  rest  his  torn  nerves  and  write 
a  novel.  This  left  Joe  Freeman  holding  the  reins,  with  Floyd 
Dell  still  faithfully  co-operating. 

In  October,  1922,  I  had  a  note  from  Floyd  asking  me 
to  attend  "a  very  important  meeting,  at  which  a  decision  will 
be  made  concerning  the  future  of  the  Liberator — a  meeting 
at  which  some  very  good  news  or  very  bad  news  will  be 
announced. "  This  took  place  in  Bill  Cropper's  studio,  three 
flights  up,  at  149  West  14th  Street.  Those  present,  as  I  re- 
member it,  included  Hugo  Gellert  and  Joe  Freeman.  And 
here,  too,  was  a  genuine  soul  of  a  man — Charles  E.  Ruthen- 
berg,  secretary  of  the  Communist  party  in  this  country,  then 
known  as  the  Workers'  party.  He  had  served  a  term  in  an 
Ohio  prison  for  his  anti-war  beliefs  and  had  been  the  Social- 
ist party's  candidate  for  Governor  there.  Ruthenberg  had 
requested  the  meeting  inasmuch  as  he  was  returning  to  Chi- 
cago next  day.  Invitations  had  been  sent  to  all  those  still 
listed  as  editors  and  contributing  editors,  but  only  a  few 
responded.  Others  were  out  of  town,  and  still  others  appar- 
ently were  not  interested. 

Floyd  Dell  opened  the  discussion,  explaining  that  the 
Liberator's  financial  status  was  steadily  growing  worse.  The 


392      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

responsibility  was  too  great  for  those  in  charge  to  continue. 
If  we  stopped  publication  it  would  be  a  good  deal  like  killing 
a  child  If  we  changed  the  magazine  into  an  art  and  literary 
journal,  catering  to  those  who  wanted  to  escape  from  think- 
ing, the  effect  would  be  decorative  but  of  little  purpose. 

Ruthenberg  indicated  that  the  Communists  would  like 
to  have  the  Liberator,  and  Floyd  asked  us  each  for  our  opin- 
ions on  a  proposition  to  merge  whatever  was  left  of  the 
magazine — subscription  list,  news-stand  orders,  name,  pres- 
tige, and  good  will — with  the  Workers  Monthly,  then  being 
published  in  Chicago.  Naturally  Ruthenberg  was  negotiating 
not  only  for  the  Liberator,  but  also  for  the  prestige  of  its 
predecessor,  the  Masses,  which  in  memory  was  bathed  in  an 
aura  of  admiration  by  its  readers  as  the  first  magazine  of 
cultural  quality  in  America  to  espouse  the  cause  of  industrial 
freedom. 

"That  goes  with  me/'  I  said  in  reply  to  the  proposition. 
But  I  remember  with  what  indifference  I  supported  the  pro- 
posal If  a  broker  for  a  Wall  Street  syndicate  had  been  there 
and  had  offered  a  large  sum  of  money  for  our  name,  prestige, 
etcetera,  as  had  been  done  with  other  magazines  of  protest — 
to  make  them  conservative  while  outwardly  appearing  the 
same — I  think  I  might  have  approved  the  sale.  With  a  sub- 
stantial cash  payment,  we  could  have  sent  Christmas  gifts  to 
old  contributors  to  both  the  Liberator  and  the  Masses  who 
had  never  received  a  cent.  I  had  experienced  so  much  trouble 
as  an  editor,  publisher,  and  contributor  that  on  this  particular 
evening  I  was  in  one  of  my  what's-the-use?  moods. 

I  knew,  too,  that  the  original  Masses,  out  of  which  the 
Liberator  had  evolved,  had  receded  far  enough  into  history 
to  be  thought  better  than  it  really  was.  The  Masses  came 
along  at  that  well-known  "psychological  moment/'  at  least 
for  a  few  thousand  people  who  were  tired  of  the  conventional 
contents  of  bourgeois  publications.  By  1922  many"  of  them 
had  forgotten  that  the  time  and  the  innovation  had  much  to 
do  with  the  loving  acclaim  as  well  as  the  fierce  denunciation 
with  which  our  magazine  was  received.  The  devotees  of  the 
Masses  had  made  it  a  model,  a  shining  exemplar. 

Merging  of  the  two  publications  was  delayed  for  a  time, 
however,  and  the  Liberator  continued  to  be  issued  in  New 
York,  with  Minor  and  Freeman  at  the  editorial  helm,  and 


ART.  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       393 

with  the  board  now  including  several  members  of  the  central 
committee  of  the  Workers'  party*  But  in  1924  the  move  to 
Chicago  was  made,  and  the  Liberator  name  was  submerged 
in  that  of  the  Workers'  Monthly. 

Need  for  a  magazine  which  would  be  an  outlet  for  news 
and  interpretation  of  events  bearing  on  the  class  struggle 
from  the  leftward  viewpoint,  but  which  would  not  be  the 
organ  of  any  political  party,  made  itself  evident  in  1926,  and 


< 


^ 


«  HAVE  5fE.N  THE  FUTURE  /iNJ)  IT  WORKS  " 


New  Masses 


STEFFENS  REPORTS  ON  HIS  VISIT  TO  RUSSIA. 


the  New  Masses  was  born  in  May.  Sponsored  by  a  broad 
united  front  of  radical  and  liberal  writers  and  artists,  its 
initial  editors  were  Egmont  Arens,  Joseph  Freeman,  Hugo 
Gellert,  Michael  Gold,  James  Rorty,  and  John  Sloan.  In 
addition  to  these  five,  the  executive  board  included  Maurice 
Becker,  Helen  Black,  John  Dos  Passes,  Robert  Dunn,  Wil- 
liam Cropper,  Paxton  Hibben,  Freda  Kirchwey,  Robert  L. 
Leslie,  Louis  Lozowick,  and  Rex  Stout. 

With  the  desperate  Passaic  (N.  J.)  textile  strike,  where 
gas  bombs  were  being  used  by  the  employers,  as  a  cause  to 
fight  for,  the  new  publication  got  away  to  a  strong  start.  It 


394       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

experimented  widely  with  literary  and  art  forms  of  revolu- 
tionary propaganda* 

There  was  a  long  list  of  contributing  editors,  including 
myself,  with  both  old-timers  and  youngsters  represented. 
Establishment  of  the  enterprise  gave  me  a  sense  of  fresh  hope. 
The  pages  of  the  New  Masses  displayed  vitality  that  was 
electric  in  its  effect  upon  me,  and  undoubtedly  upon  other 
creative  workers. 

Welcoming  this  magazine  and  expressing  delight  that  the 
infant  seemed  so  lusty,  William  Allen  White,  editor  of  the 
Empotia  Gazette  in  Kansas,  gave  it  only  six  months  to  live. 
But  it  has  survived  all  the  fears  of  friends  and  hopes  of 
enemies  that  it  might  die  an  early  death,  and  has  gone  on 
functioning  for  the  remarkable  span  of  thirteen  years. 

It,  too,  has  had  its  internal  political  upheavals,  with  a 
changing  editorial  board,  and  repeated  financial  struggles,  yet 
somehow  it  has  survived  all  vicissitudes. 

I  have  found  satisfaction  in  numerous  pictorial  contribu- 
tions to  the  New  Masses — necessarily  less  often  in  recent  times 
— and  it  is  good  to  know  that  this  dependable  vehicle  of 
social  protest  exists. 


Chapter   3  7 
AN  ART  GALLERY  AND  TWO  BOOKS 

A  time  went  on  and  other  markets  opened  up,  I  began 
to  plan  anew  for  the  building  of  an  art  gallery  such 
as  I  had  dreamed  of  in  Paris  in  1889,  when  with  the 
optimism  of  youth,  I  foresaw  myself  as  some  day  having  an 
estate  within  easy  distance  of  New  York,  on  a  broad  hill  of 
which  I  would  build  a  studio  and  a  large  picture  gallery.  In  it 
would  be  a  Louvre  Room,  a  London  National  Gallery  Room, 
and  other  rooms  for  the  display  of  my  selected  reproductions 
of  the  world's  great  paintings,  etchings,  drawings,  and  stat- 
uary from  the  principal  museums  of  the  Old  World,  and  of 
course  there  would  be  an  American  room  for  my  favorite 
prints  of  native  art,  and  especially  the  work  of  the  early 
cartoonists,  including  Paul  Revere.  However  crude  his  car- 
toons, Revere,  besides  being  the  most  publicized  fast  rider 
in  American  history,  contributed  a  few  notable  concepts  done 
on  copper  plate  in  behalf  of  our  first  revolution.  And  I 
would  hang  on  the  line  Thomas  Nast,  Joseph  Keppler,  and 
Bernard  Gillam.  There,  too,  would  be  my  own  drawings, 
not  too  conspicuous,  but  in  a  spot  where  visitors  couldn't 
miss  seeing  them. 

Basking  in  the  glow  of  that  youthful  dream,  I  had  not 
bothered  to  figure  out  the  cost  in  detail.  Who  does?  Whether 
you  are  dreamy  or  practical,  building-construction  always 
costs  more  than  you  expected.  All  I  knew  was  this:  I  had 
over  $6,000  in  the  bank,  the  largest  sum  I  had  ever  accumu- 
lated. I  was  affluent,  and  friends  told  me  I  looked  like  the 
typical  man  of  big  business  whom  I  liked  to  ridicule. 

Knowing  that  I  was  going  to  spend  money  on  my 
"estate/'  acquaintances  were  free  with  advice.  Not  many  ap- 
proved the  plan  for  an  art  gallery.  Some  thought  I  ought 
to  be  practical  and  build  a  garage;  others  who  enjoyed  sports 
suggested  a  big  swimming  pool  down  by  the  creek,  and  a 

395 


396       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

tennis  court  to  displace  half  of  the  garden.  Still  others  felt 
that  I  ought  to  build  a  bungalow  or  two  to  rent, 

One  well-meaning  friend  said:  "Do  you  know  what  I'd 
do  if  I  owned  this  place?  I'd  have  a  chicken  farm.  There's 
money  in  chickens/'  Another  spoke  for  a  goat  farm;  said 
there  was  money  in  goats. 

Then  of  course  there  were  some  with  "conservative"  pro- 
posals. They  said:  "Now  that  you  are  making  money,  invest 
it.  Put  it  into  good  stocks  or  safe  securities."  To  me  the 
latter  suggestion  was  the  most  comical  of  all — as  if  you  could 
make  a  "good"  or  a  "safe"  investment. 

All  of  this  of  course  was  before  the  crash  of  1929 — and 
it  still  stands  as  my  opinion  of  profit- enterprise  in  general, 
with  more  financial  crashes  yet  to  come. 

I  can  anticipate  criticism  of  this  book  on  at  least  one 
point,  by  persons  who  have  read  thus  far — that  I  am  always 
taking  the  side  of  the  worker  with  apparently  no  under- 
standing of  the  problem  of  the  employer 

I  have  already  said  that  an  artist  is  one  who  can  put 
himself  in  the  place  of  others.  All  too  often,  I  think,  workers 
show  a  talent  for  seeing  the  employer's  side,  which  is  one 
cause  of  their  subjugation.  They  are  the  apologists  for  their 
masters;  whatever  they,  the  workers,  suffer,  they  feel  is  inevi- 
table like  bad  weather  and  can't  be  helped. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  masters  apparently  do  not  try 
to  put  themselves  in  the  place  of  their  workers — it  would  not 
be  good  business,  and  they  do  not  intend  to  be  their  brother's 
keeper.  That's  why  it's  a  class  war,  whether  we  like  it  or 
not,  and  whether  the  contestants  realize  it  or  not. 

The  story  goes  that  Pierpont  Morgan  the  elder  was  talk- 
ing with  a  former  employee  of  his  who  was  relating  a  tale 
of  hard-luck,  his  wife  and  children  starving,  etcetera.  Morgan 
pressed  a  button  on  his  desk  and  said  to  a  flunky:  "Put  this 
man  out — he's  breaking  my  heart." 

I  think  I  have  the  imagination  to  understand  the  prob- 
lems and  obligations  of  one  who  employs  others  to  work  for 
him  for  wages.  I  had  done  some  employing  as  an  editor  and 
publisher,  and  had  to  hire  and  fire  and  learn  from  experience 
that  business  responsibility  is  a  headache  much  of  the  time — 
even  a  small  business.  Nevertheless,  the  employed  manual 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       397 

worker  or  artist  worker  gets  the  worst  of  it.  He  is  the  under- 
dog. The  ditch  digger  and  the  concrete  layer  use  their  tools 
to  get  results  and  are  paid  whatever  the  boss  thinks  is  enough, 
unless  forced  by  unions  to  pay  more.  The  draughtsmen  use 
pen  or  pencil  and  dig  around  on  drawing  paper  in  another 
kind  of  work,  for  an  employer  who  takes  the  finished  product 
and  pays  whatever  it  pleases  him  to  pay. 

Artists  and  ditch-diggers  are  alike  producers,  whatever  the 
tools  used — pen,  pencil,  and  brush,  or  pick  and  shovel.  Those 
who  can  handle  these  tools  must  work  for  those  whose  busi- 
ness it  is  to  make  a  profit.  And  there  is  no  legal  limit  to  profit- 
making.  So  long  as  both  sides  are  compelled  to  struggle  for 
money  as  their  objective,  it  will  be  a  class  war,  a  war  between 
those  who  produce  and  those  who  prod  the  producer  to  work 
harder  and  cheaper. 

At  the  age  of  fifty-seven  I  had  again  become  an  employer 
— not  much  of  a  one,  to  be  sure,  but  enough  to  make  me 
understand  why  the  master  curses  the  worker.  While  my  mo- 
tive was  not  profit,  it  was  the  same  in  the  sense  that  I  had  to 
hire  others  at  a  reasonable  rate  and  get  a  building  job  done 
according  to  agreement. 

I  knew  a  versatile  New  York  artist  whose  rent  I  had  paid 
twice  when  he  couldn't  meet  it.  He  was  a  sculptor,  furniture 
craftsman,  carpenter,  painter,  writer  of  poetry,  and  interior 
decorator.  With  a  wealth  of  self-assurance,  he  prided  him- 
self on  "making  the  walls  of  a  room  sing"  and  in  doing 
substantial,  artistic  construction — "knitting  with  nails"  he 
called  it. 

A  familiar  figure  in  Greenwich  Village,  he  was  striking 
to  look  at — with  his  long  black  hair,  waxed  goatee,  and 
moustache — a  kind  of  composite  of  a  mediaeval  troubadour 
and  John  the  Baptist.  Friends  had  said  he  was  not  exactly 
reliable. 

One  day  he  came  into  my  New  York  quarters,  and  I  told 
him  of  my  plan  to  build  an  art  gallery  and  studio  on  my 
place  in  the  country.  My  idea  was  to  have  a  place  for  the 
housing  and  safe-keeping  of  my  original  drawings,  as  well  as 
the  exhibition  of  them — with  a  stone  vault  as  a  wing  of  the 
building,  to  obviate  paying  storage  as  I  had  done  for  years. 
But  first,  I  explained,  I  was  going  to  put  two  large  statues 
of  toads  or  devils  or  something  on  the  massive  stone  gate- 


398       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

posts  out  by  the  road.  This  was  to  be  the  entrance  to  the 
proposed  gallery,  and  I  must  have  a  grand  entrance. 

I  showed  him  my  small  clay  model  of  a  toad  which  I 
had  decided  would  make  the  best  statues  for  my  purpose,  and 
asked  if  he  could  reproduce  two  of  them  on  a  huge  scale  in 
concrete  or  terra  cotta.  His  eyes  were  wide  with  enthusiasm 
as  he  answered  that  he  had  a  secret  formula  for  making  a  kind 
of  cement  that  sculptors  could  use  like  clay — with  the  ad- 
vantage that  it  would  withstand  the  elements  for  countless 
years.  He  had  tested  it,  he  said,  with  a  vase  of  his  own  making, 
which  had  stood  a  long  time  outside  his  studio  window  with- 
out disintegrating.  It  was  a  secret  process — he  repeated — and 
he  was  not  yet  ready  to  reveal  it  to  the  world.  But  he  would 
not  only  make  the  toads  for  me — he  also  was  keen  to  help  me 
design,  and  build,  the  gallery* 

He  spent  a  week  of  research  in  the  New  York  public 
library  studying  the  species  and  habits  of  toads  the  world  over 
— and  came  back  with  sketches  of  a  dozen  kinds.  I  told  him 
this  was  all  unnecessary;  I  knew  the  common  American 
variety  of  toad,  and  my  model,  though  crude,  was  about 
what  I  wanted.  He  soon  agreed  and  told  me  he  had  enjoyed 
his  research  studies  of  toads.  His  enthusiasm  ran  up  to  such 
a  degree  that  my  own  began  to  mount  higher  for  both  the 
statuary  and  the  gallery.  His  work  would  be  initiated  by  the 
setting  up  of  those  great  squat  toads  of  indestructible  clay, 
or  whatever  he  called  it. 

It  was  early  spring.  We  went  to  Bethel,  and  immediately 
he  began  work  on  the  sculpture.  I  was  not  allowed  to  see 
him  mix  his  new  kind  of  cement.  It  must  be  kept  a  secret. 
There  was  a  fortune  in  it.  As  soon  as  he  finished  the  toads, 
it  was  understood  that  he  would  proceed  with  the  construction 
of  the  gallery.  I  agreed  to  pay  the  prevailing  carpenter's 
wage,  with  room  and  food  free  in  addition.  The  building 
was  to  be  completed  by  October,  and  I  promised  to  help  if 
necessary  or  to  hire  others  if  needed  on  the  job. 

But  the  work  moved  much  more  slowly  than  I  had  ex- 
pected. It  took  the  painter-sculptor-carpenter  a  month  to 
model  the  toads.  When  they  were  at  last  placed  on  their 
pedestals  on  either  side  of  the  gate,  I  sent  invitations  to  neigh- 
bors and  artist  friends  in  the  country  surrounding  Bethel  to 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       399 

come  to  the  unveiling,  which  I  assured  them  would  be  "a 
memorable  event  in  the  annals  of  art/' 

In  the  presence  of  a  goodly  crowd  on  a  Sunday  after- 
noon, Edna  Porter  and  Theodosia  Pearce,  both  from  New 
York,  pulled  the  covering  off  the  statues.  That  was  the  signal 
for  me  to  march  down  the  path  from  my  house  to  make  my 
speech.  Topped  by  an  old  high  hat  that  I  wore  for  fun  when 
such  serious  functions  demanded  it,  and  a  Daniel  Webster 
coat  that  I  found  in  my  attic,  I  thanked  everybody  for  their 
attendance  on  this  "auspicious  occasion/'  Clive  Weed  shouted: 
"Hear!  Hear!"  The  onlookers  included  Augusta  Georgia 
Gary,  her  young  son  Peter,  and  Dr.  A.  L.  Goldwater. 

I  then  told  the  audience  what  I  knew  about  toads,  and 
spoke  for  ten  minutes  or  so,  outlining  my  plans  for  the 
picture  gallery  toward  which  this  toad  entrance  led.  Some 
one  asked:  "Why  toads?" 

To  which  I  replied:  "The  humble  toad  has  at  last  been 
raised  to  the  dignity  it  deserves.  I  plan  some  day  to  inset 
jewels  that  will  shine  from  the  eyes  of  these  toads  of  mine. 
Thus  I  shall  pay  my  respect  to  Shakespeare,  who  said: 
'.  .  .  the  toad,  though  ugly  and  venomous,  wears  yet  a 
precious  jewel  in  his  head/  " 

Three  cheers  were  given  for  the  Orator  of  the  Day — and 
the  event  thus  passed  into  history,  though  unrecorded  until 
now. 

Construction  of  the  gallery  on  the  foundation  of  the  barn 
which  had  burned  down  in  1914,  while  I  was  in  Washington, 
moved  slowly.  The  old  foundation  needed  rebuilding,  for 
the  gallery  must  rest  on  a  solid  wall.  I  helped  trowel  the 
Connecticut  field-stones  (which  in  the  Mid-West  were  called 
nigger-heads),  and  there  was  satisfaction  in  observing  the 
massive  substance  of  that  wall. 

But  by  the  time  the  foundation  was  in  proper  shape 
more  than  two  months  had  sped  by.  The  artist-carpenter- 
mason  was  often  seized  by  poetic  moods  in  which  he  was 
impelled  to  climb  to  Lookout  Point,  the  towering  rock  on 
the  summit  of  the  hill  behind  my  house.  I  kept  saying:  "Now 
remember,  it's  got  to  be  finished  by  October/'  and  suggested 
that  we  hire  local  help. 


400       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

"Oh,  no,  that's  not  necessary/*  he  objected.  "I  can  do  it 
alone  in  time/' 

Another  month  passed,  however,  before  this  genius  got 
around  to  the  frame- work  and  the  side  walls  on  which  ^he  was 
going  to  show  me  his  way  of  "knitting  with  nails/'  I  had 
to  order  many  truckloads  of  lumber,  sheathing,  asbestos 
shingles,  and  nails.  With  their  arrival  I  would  look  at  the 
bills  with  alarm.  The  cost  had  already  run  higher  than  I  had 
figured  for  the  completed  job — and  his  poetry  pangs  persisted. 

"I'm  afraid  the  gallery  won't  be  finished  before  snow 
flies/' 

"Oh,  yes,  it  will"  he  assured  me.  "Don't  worry." 

I  paid  his  daily  wage,  without  thought  of  his  leisure 
hours  on  the  hill — until  he  began  putting  in  bills  for  half 
hours  overtime*  Then  the  employer  began  to  feel  injured. 

October  clicked  off  all  of  its  thirty-one  days,  and  in  the 
first  week  of  November  the  four  walls  were  partly  in  place 
and  the  floor  was  laid  in  a  way — but  there  was  no  roof.^ 

One  morning  on  arising  I  looked  out  toward  "the 
dream,"  and  saw  a  blanket  of  snow  over  everything  in  sight. 
In  feathery,  drifting  white  flakes,  it  was  still  falling,  and 
most  of  it  seemed  to  fall  into  the  open  top  of  my  studio- 
gallery. 

After  I  had  fortified  myself  with  breakfast  I  cursed  as  no 
employer  ever  cursed  before — using  words  that  sizzled  and 
emitted  acrid  smoke — and  ended  my  relations  with  the  artist 
craftsman  who  could  "knit  with  nails"  and  "paint  walls  in 
a  way  to  make  them  sing."  When  I  quieted  down,  I  said: 
"No  hard  feelings,  but  I'm  through,  and  so  are  you." 

Early  the  next  spring  I  employed  Mary  Ware  Dennett's 
son  Devon,  an  expert  carpenter,  to  carry  the  work  on  to  com- 
pletion* Now  it  moved  along  efficiently.  I  noted  how  well  he 
took  hold  of  the  problem,  and  marveled  at  the  agility  and 
skill  of  this  young  man  who  had  a  job  to  do  and  was  de- 
termined to  do  it  on  schedule  time. 

For  a  month  his  wife  was  in  the  Danbury  hospital  having 
a  baby,  yet  he  managed  to  see  her  every  day,  work  on  the 
gallery,  and  get  his  own  meals.  I  was  in  New  York  much  of 
the  time  that  spring  and  summer,  but  late  in  August  I  saw 
the  result  of  Devon's  work  and  was  well  pleased. 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       401 

All  the  gallery  needed  now  was  a  pair  of  lamps,  one  on 
each  side  of  the  main  door.  These  lamps  I  removed  from  an 
ancient  victoria  that  I  had  bought  from  a  veteran  cab-driver 
in  front  of  the  Hotel  Brevoort.  I  have  told  the  story  of  that 
purchase  in  On  My  Way.  All  that  remains  of  the  victoria 
now,  beside  the  lamps,  is  an  oil  painting  of  it  as  it  stood  for 
many  years  in  venerable  dignity  amid  the  high  grass  under  an 
apple  tree.  This  painting  was  done  by  Henry  Glintenkamp 


when  he  visited  me  for  a  week-end  in  1925  to  discuss  our 
experiences  in  the  late  war  and  a  new  way  of  cooking  spa- 
ghetti 

However  limited  the  physical  dimensions  of  my  so-called 
gallery,  it  has  been  a  comfortable  place  for  me  to  draw  more 
pictures  and  dream  more  dreams.  As  I  said  in  the  foreword 
to  The  Best  of  Art  Young: 

"I-  look  around  at  my  own  drawings  occasionally  all 
alone,  and  in  the  quiet  communion  with  my  past,  feel  that  I 


402       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

learn  something,  and  that,  given  another  ten  or  twenty  years, 
I  might  do  better/' 

Here  are  drawing  tables,  large  and  medium  sized;  the 
small  collection  of  reproductions  that  I  bought  in  Paris  in 
1889;  numerous  books  on  home-made  shelves,  including 
a  Daumier  book  presented  to  me  by  Erhard  Weyhe;  works 
illustrated  by  Dore  and  others,  including  Phil  May,  to  whom 
I  owe  much  as  early  guides;  a  biography  of  Thomas  Nast  by 
Albert  Bigelow  Paine;  a  bound  volume  of  the  original  Puck 
in  German;  and  bound  sets  of  several  magazines  in  which 
many  of  my  drawings  appeared. 

On  Saturdays  and  Sundays  in  summer,  my  gallery  is 
open  to  the  public.  Not  on  the  main  highway,  it  is  never 
crowded.  Those  who  come  have  heard  about  the  place  from 
others;  sometimes  they  are  visitors  from  far  away,  who 
perhaps  have  driven  out  from  New  York  or  down  from 
Boston,  bringing  me  friendly  messages  from  old-time  friends 
that  I  may  not  have  seen  for  years. 

If  the  toads  on  the  gate-posts  are  not  an  identification  for 
those  who  come  my  way,  there  is  a  brass  plate  on  the  gallery 
door  that  has  a  history: 

One  Sunday  some  eight  years  ago  a  man  of  seventy 
walked  all  the  way  from  Ansonia,  eighteen  miles,  to  tell  me 
he  wanted  to  make  a  door-plate  for  me.  He  asked  that  I 
sketch  out  an  appropriate  design  so  that  he,  who  had  worked 
all  his  life  in  an  Ansonia  brass  factory,  could  fashion  a  mold 
from  it  in  brass.  I  drew  a  design  around  my  signature,  and 
in  a  few  weeks  he  came  over  again  and  presented  me  with 
the  finished  door-plate,  which  he  had  partly  hand-engraved. 
He  was  familiar  with  my  cartoons  in  the  Socialist  and  labor 
papers,  and  the  occasion  was  one  of  pride  for  me.  We  never 
know,  until  some  incident  like  this  occurs,  who  is  interested 
in  our  work  and  wants  to  say  so  in  his  own  way.  That 
friend's  expression  of  appreciation  in  metal  is  one  of  my 
valued  mementoes. 

For  more  than  a  year  from  the  time  we  had  begun  to 
build  the  gallery  I  had  been  spending  many  of  my  evenings 
writing  down  reminiscences  and  reflections  on  happenings  of 
the  day  in  a  kind  of  diary.  Some  time  later,  at  the  Hotel 
Laclede  in  New  York,  I  showed  Mary  Heaton  Vorse  portions 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       403 

of  my  manuscript,  which  by  that  time  had  run  beyond  200 
pages  of  hand-written  material.  She  read  a  few  pages  and 
said:  "I'm  going  to  write  to  Horace  Liveright  about  this/' 

In  a  few  days  a  letter  came  from  Liveright  asking  me  to 
come  to  see  him.  And  when  I  was  in  New  York  again  I 
went  to  his  office. 

'1  want  to  be  your  publisher/'  he  said.  "Mary  Vorse 
tells  me  you  are  writing  a  book.  What  is  it?" 

I  explained  how  far  I  had  gone  with  my  reminiscences 
and  reflections.  "But,"  I  suggested,  "here's  a  series  of  pictures 


MARY  HEATON  VORSE 

called  'Trees  at  Night*  which  have  been  running  in  the 
Saturday  Evening  Post,  and  I've  added  a  few  that  appeared 
in  Collier's  and  Life.  Thirty- five  in  alL  How  about  publish- 
ing these  first  and  giving  me  a  few  months  more  on  the 
writing  of  the  other  book?" 

Liveright  turned  the  pages  of  a  dummy  volume  I  had 
made  up  of  the  tree  drawings.  "Good  stuff  .  .  .  but  of  course 
just  a  picture-book  .  .  .  won't  sell  very  well.  .  *  /' 

Nevertheless  he  was  ready  to  take  a  chance.  We  discussed 
terms  and  in  less  than  a  half  hour  publisher  and  author  had 
come  to  an  understanding. 

For  the  reminiscences  and  reflections  I  had  thought  of 
two  titles — All  Right  So  Far  and  On  My  Way.  After  con- 


404       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

saltation  with  Tom  Smith  and  Julian  Messner,  his  advisers, 
Liveright  told  me  they  all  liked  On  My  Way  best, 

He  had  enough  confidence  in  Trees  at  Night  to  issue  it  at 
a  price  of  $3,  though  it  contained  less  than  50  pages.  It 
evoked  some  gratifying  reviews,  especially  pleasing  to  me  be- 
cause it  meant  recognition  in  a  field  apart  from  my  politico- 
economic  cartoons.  At  the  risk  of  violating  the  canons  of 
modesty,  I  will  cite  here  some  of  the  published  comment  on 
that  work. 

Saturday  Review  of  Literature:  "It  is  a  surprise  to  find 
the  admirable  caricaturist  of  the  old  Masses  in  an  exercise  of 
pure  fancy.  His  success  in  the  new  adventure  shows  the  ready 
convertibility  of  great  talent.  Art  Young  has  let  the  dis- 
orderly arabesque  of  trees  and  plants  against  the  nocturnal  sky 
speak  to  him.  They  have  told  him  whimsical,  grave,  at  times 
terrible  things.  .  .  .  These  fantasies  are  rendered  in  black 
wash  with  a  rich  and  free  handling  which  a  Japanese  painter 
would  approve.  It  is  a  book  to  put  on  one's  shelves  and 
take  to  one's  heart/' 

Rockwell  Kent,  in  Creative  Art:  "Art  Young's  trees,  be- 
cause they  represent  the  playful  fancy  of  a  distinguished  man, 
are  more  convincing  with  illusion  than  the  graphic  imaginings 
of  the  whole  Rackham  school  of  professional  fanciers.  A  lot 
of  people  will  like  as  fairy  tales  these  pictures  of  Art  Young's. 
We  like  them  because  they  are  drawn  with  the  same  very 
personal  power  and  sensitiveness  that  has  made  us  like  every- 
thing he  has  ever  done/' 

Baltimore  Sun:  "A  fine  example,  a  lyrical  cross-section  of 
the  work  of  one  of  the  few  real  native  talents  that  this  coun- 
try has  produced  in  art." 

Edwin  Bjorkman,  in  the  Ashevitle,  (JV.  C.)  Times:  "Art 
Young  stands  alone.  In  the  thirty- nine  drawings  included  in 
Trees  at  Night  he  has  given  free  rein  to  his  pen  and  his 
imagination." 

The  first  edition  of  On  My  Way  was  published  in 
October,  1928,  with  a  map  showing  the  main  trails  of  my 
life-route  used  as  end-papers,  and  with  a  drawing  of  my 
friend  the  Brevoort  cab-driver  conveying  me  over  the  Con- 
necticut highways  on  the  title-page.  Liveright  thought  so 
well  of  this  literary  and  pictorial  enterprise  that  he  printed  a 


DEFEAT 


Trees  at  Night 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       405 

handsome  de  luxe  edition  as  a  private  gift  book  for  authors 
and  other  friends  of  the  publisher  and  myself.  The  regular 
edition  was  chosen  by  the  Institute  of  Graphic  Arts  as  one 
of  the  prize  illustrated  volumes  of  the  year.  There  was  a 
second  printing  in  February,  1929. 

Of  course  I  was  pleased  by  the  hand  given  to  my  work 
by  the  press.  Here  are  selections  from  some  of  the  many 
reviews. 

Carl  Sandburg,  in  the  Chicago  Daily  News:  "On  My, 
Way  is  the  diary  of  one  of  the  sane  and  serene  souls  of  the 
world — sometimes  getting  het-up  and  landing  a  wallop. 
.  .  .  Art  Young  is  a  living  definition  of  democracy,  what- 
ever that  may  be.  He  is  more  Jeffersonian  than  Jefferson, 
and  knows  things  Karl  Marx  never  had  time  for.  He  is  onto 
Omar  Khayyam,  has  Billy  Sunday's  number,  and  so  lives 
that  each  day  he  is  ready  for  Gabriel's  horn.  We  believe  this 
would  be  a  better  country  and  not  so  hard  to  save  for  those 
who  would  like  to  save  it,  if  On  My  Way  could  outsell  some 
of  the  best  sellers/' 

Lewis  Gannett,  in  the  New  York  Herald-Tribune:  "It 
has  all  the  sentimental  charm  of  a  Currier  and  Ives  print, 
with  the  added  chuckle  and  thrust  that  lie  in  Art  Young's 
pencil."  .  .  .  Hey  wood  Broun,  in  the  New  York  Telegram: 
"The  author  has  made  no  attempt  to  keep  his  narrative 
within  a  rounded  whole.  No  sequence  of  time  is  enforced; 
as  the  thoughts  stray,  so  does  the  pen.  The  effect  then,  is  of 
some  one  talking  at  his  ease  in  front  of  a  log  fire."  .  .  . 
Freda  Kirch wey,  in  the  Nation:  "With  cause,  Art  Young  is 
enormously  proud  of  his  talent;  yet  he  is  the  humblest  man 
that  ever  became  autobiographical." 

Shaemas  O'Sheel,  in  the  Saturday  Review  of  Literature: 
"He  has  achieved  that  most  difficult  of  all  things  to  achieve 
in  letters,  utter  simplicity — the  ability  to  just  tell  the  thing, 
not  get  tangled  up  in  words."  .  .  .  Llewellyn  Jones,  in  the 
Chicago  Evening  Post:  "Though  the  surface  of  his  book  is 
a  complex  play  of  ripples  in  every  direction,  there  is  under 
the  rippling  cross-currents  of  the  surface,  the  steady  pull  of  a 
life  that  has  always  kept  a  consistent  direction."  .  .  .  Harry 
Hansen,  in  the  New  York  World:  "At  my  house  we  are  very 
particular  about  the  books  that  go  on  the  parlor  table.  Today 
I  am  going  to  add  another  book  to  the  pure  reading  matter 


406       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

under  the  lamp.  It  is  called  On  My  Way/'  .  .  .  Time:  "A 
merry  masterpiece  of  shirt-sleeve  autobiography,  sketched  by 
a  pen  that  achieves  with  words  the  same  quaint  economy  for 
which  its  line  is  noted/' 

Right  here  I  think  I  ought  to  say  that  had  the  press  been 
hostile  with  reviews  such  as  "poor  old  Art  Young  is  flounder- 
ing around  where  he  doesn't  belong"  or  'This  picture-maker 
had  better  stick  to  his  last" — or  had  refused  to  notice  me  at 
all,  through  some  "conspiracy  of  silence" — or  had  I  simply 
been  overlooked  in  the  avalanche  of  books  that  pile  up  on  the 
critics'  desks — I  was  fully  prepared.  I  was  ready  to  take 
praise,  blame,  or  neglect — for  I  had  become  used  to  all  of 
them.  There  was,  in  fact,  one  review  devoid  of  all  enthusiasm; 
somebody  on  a  newspaper  in  Louisville,  Ky.,  said  (I  quote 
from  memory)  :  "On  My  Way  is  a  cartoonist  gone  gar- 
rulous." 

As  I  write  the  word  "neglect"  I  recall  meeting  my  friend 
Richard  Duffy  of  the  Literary  Digest  in  this  period.  He  said: 
"Why  don't  you  send  some  of  your  recently  published  car- 
toons to  our  office?  I'm  sure  the  cartoon  editor  would  like 
to  reprint  them." 

And  I  answered:  "Listen — I've  been  drawing  cartoons 
for  labor  papers  for  many  years.  If  the  editors  of  the  Literary 
Digest  ever  wanted  to  print  any  of  them,  they've  had  their 
chance."  Then  I  thought  that  perhaps  the  cartoon  editor  of 
this  magazine,  the  policy  of  which  was  to  print  both  sides  of 
controversies,  never  saw  any  of  the  labor  publications.  Any- 
way my  parting  word  to  Duffy  was:  "Tell  the  Literary 
Digest  editors  that  they  have  let  me  alone  for  30  years  and 
to  continue  to  let  me  alone — I'll  survive  the  neglect."  This 
sounds  a  bit  peevish  now,  but  that  was  the  way  I  felt  that  day. 

When  material  for  the  fourteenth  edition  of  the  Encyclo- 
pedia Britannica  was  being  assembled,  with  various  well- 
known  Americans  on  the  editorial  board,  I  was  asked  to 
write  an  article  for  it  on  the  Theory  and  Technique  of  the 
Cartoon.  This  appeared  in  that  useful  publication  when  it 
was  published  in  1930,  and  it  was  accompanied  by  a  full 
page  of  my  pictures  among  representative  examples  of  car- 
tooning in  this  country.  Subsequently  the  same  material  was 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       407 

used  in  a  large  volume  entitled  Graphic  Arts,  also  issued  by 
the  Britannica  company. 

"Materials  and  methods  of  reproduction  are  merely  in- 
cidental in  the  world  of  successful  cartooning,"  I  wrote; 
''the  main  factors  lie  in  the  ability  to  invent  ideas,  to  compose 
pictures,  and  to  understand  the  value  of  emphasis.  Creating 
ideas  can  become  habitual.  As  the  cartoonist  looks  about  him 
he  sees  in  the  everyday  walks  of  life  scenes  that  he  thinks 
might  apply  to  political  situations.  These  ideas  he  notes  and 
stores  away  in  his  subconscious  mind,  some  day  to  develop 
and  release  as  cartoons. 

"Like  the  poet  and  the  dramatist,  he  gets  suggestions  from 
the  natural  scene,  from  wide  and  purposeful  reading,  or  from 
cartoons  that  have  been  produced  in  another  era,  endeavoring 
to  improve  them.  We  might  say  that  the  cartoonist  is  like 
the  dramatist  and,  carrying  the  simile  further,  that  the  sur- 
face on  which  he  draws  is  at  once  his  stage-floor  and  pro- 
scenium arch.  Within  this  area  he  creates  a  scene.  „  .  . 

"Once  the  cartoonist  has  decided  on  his  idea,  then  comes 
the  composition  of  the  cartoon.  Good  composing  also  is 
something  one  must  feel,  as  there  are  no  set  rules.  But  just 
as  in  literature  and  all  of  the  arts,  to  compose  well  is  to  feel  a 
balanced  harmony  or  completeness,  which  means  that  the 
cartoonist  has  relegated  to  second  place  the  less  essential  fea- 
tures of  the  scene  and  stressed  the  most  important,  that  he 
is  alive  to  the  value  of  contrasts  and  above  all  knows  when 
it  is  time  to  leave  off,  having  said  enough/' 


Chapter   38 
I  MOVE  ALONG  A  SHADOWY  ROAD 

POLITICS  were  seething  again  in  1928.  Another  Presi- 
dential year,  with  Herbert  Hoover  nominated  by  the 
Republicans,  Alfred  E.  Smith  by  the  Democrats,  Nor- 
man Thomas  by  the  Socialists,  and  William  Z.  Foster  by  the 
Workers'  party.  That  contest  was  notable  for  mud-slinging 
and  poisonous  whispering.  Ordinarily  calm  Republicans 
solemnly  warned  me  that  if  Al  Smith  should  win  the  Pope 
of  Rome  would  immediately  take  over  this  noble  republic. 
And  a  middle-aged  Scotchwoman  whom  I  met  in  a  friend's 
home  in  Brooklyn  related  in  awed  tones  that  she  knew  "some- 
body who  saw  a  nun  in  Staten  Island"  put  a  curse  on  one  of 
Hoover's  lieutenants  there.  The  alleged  curse  involved  an 
elaborate  ceremony,  with  a  lot  of  gestures  that  savored  of 
black  magic.  It  was  evident  that  the  narrator  believed  this 
wild  gossip. 

The  opening  of  this  campaign,  with  all  the  weird  voices 
sounding,  affected  me  as  an  alarm  bell  affects  a  fire-horse  that 
is  tired  standing  in  his  stall.  I  was  r'arin'  to  go.  The  New 
Leader  wanted  my  cartoons.  Edward  Levinson  was  associate 
editor  then,  and  it  was  through  his  friendly  co-operation  that 
I  did  some  of  my  best  work.  He  insisted  on  large  cartoons 
and  printed  them  large.  And  as  the  election  drew  near  my 
current  drawings  were  reprinted  on  heavy  paper  and  issued 
in  portfolio  form,  under  the  title:  This  1928  Campaign  in 
Cartoons. 

But  1928  was  a  bad  year  for  the  Socialist  party,  for 
Thomas  got  only  267,420  votes,  compared  with  the  total  of 
919,799  that  Debs  had  rolled  up  in  1920.  (There  was  no 
regular  Socialist  Presidential  candidate  in  1924,  LaFollette 
having  received  a  combination  of  Progressive,  Socialist,  and 
Farmer-Labor  votes  in  various  states  aggregating  4,822,856.) 
Foster  got  48,770  votes  in  1928,  and  in  1924  his  total  was 

408 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       409 

33,361.  The  whispering  campaign  had  won  for  Hoover, 
and  the  social  millennium  seemed  farther  and  farther  away. 

Time  marched  on,  but  seemed  to  take  delight  in  stopping 
occasionally  at  my  door  just  long  enough  to  leave  something 
to  annoy  me.  I  could  expect  anything.  It  would  have  been 
no  surprise  if  some  morning  I  had  found  a  lusty,  squalling, 
red-faced  infant  in  a  clothes  basket  on  my  doorstep. 

Still  I  didn't  feel  old;  just  tired,  moody,  and  a  bit  irasci- 
ble. Perhaps  the  great  drop  in  the  protest-vote  had  something 
to  do  with  my  state  of  mind.  It  made  me  realize  what  a  pro- 
digious job  of  education  we  radicals  still  had  to  do  to  make 
the  American  people  see  how  they  were  being  victimized  by 
the  profit  system,  which  the  two  chief  political  parties  rigidly 
upheld.  The  flame  of  my  optimism  was  burning  low. 

As  always,  however,  I  found  a  lift  for  my  spirits  in  work. 
That,  I  believe,  is  generally  true  with  any  artist.  If  he  is  busy 
with  creative  expression,  in  whatever  medium  he  employs, 
his  mind  is  at  ease. 

And  in  the  next  few  months  not  a  few  of  my  days  were 
brightened  by  letters,  from  old  friends  or  new,  in  response 
to  what  they  had  discovered  in  the  pages  of  On  My  Way. 

When  the  stock  market  crash  came  in  October,  1929, 
and  the  depression  followed,  all  that  downpull  had  a  marked 
effect  upon  me.  Selling  cartoons  and  actually  getting  money 
for  them  became  more  and  more  difficult,  and  my  cash  reserve 
steadily  dwindled.  Gloom  dogged  my  steps. 

It  was  of  course  no  phenomenon  for  ijie  to  be  passing 
through  a  financial  depression.  I  had  seen  many  of  them, 
Republican  and  Democratic  depressions,  with  no  essential 
difference  between  them.  Like  the  lives  of  most  artists,  my 
life  had  been  one  depression  after  another,  with  the  intervals 
sometimes  only  a  few  months  long.  A  streamline  smoothness 
of  financial  going  for  a  while — then  a  big  bump. 

The  panic  of  1929  was  at  first  interpreted  by  many  as 
being  merely  psychological.  It  was  not  really  "hard  times'* 
that  had  descended  upon  us;  it  was  your  way  of  thinking. 
If  you  thought  that  times  were  hard,  why,  that's  what  they 
were.  I  was  one  who  had  no  wealth  to  lose  (in  the  general 
crash  of  accumulated  wealth  mine  made  no  noise  at  all)  but 


410       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

I  was  having  no  end  of  trouble  in  adjusting  myself  to  the 
havoc  wrought  by  the  panic  and  its  effect  on  my  personal 
affairs. 

Before  me  was  the  prospect  of  beginning  all  over  again 
to  peddle  my  pictures  and  conserve  as  best  I  could  my  connec- 
tions with  what  was  left  of  once  prosperous  publishing  houses 
on  which  I  had  long  depended,  I  had  seen  so  much  ruin  in 
the  wake  of  the  stock-gambling  insanity  and  the  tolerant  way 
in  which  the  people  generally  took  it  that  I  became  sick, 
mentally  and  physically,  as  I  contemplated  what  was  hap- 
pening. 

Now  in  my  sixties,  after  all  those  years  of  effort,  I  was 
poor  and  ailing,  and  fearful  lest  I  become  dependent  on 
others,  I  pictured  myself  as  an  inmate  of  the  county  farm — 
in  the  old  days  we  called  it  "the  poor-house/*  but  the  name 
had  been  changed  to  make  it  sound  less  humiliating.  I  saw 
myself  with  long  white  whiskers,  sitting  in  a  corner  chair, 
with  dim-watery  eyes,  a  blueish-pink  nose,  and  with  cracker 
crumbs  on  my  vest — waiting  for  the  end.  I  could  imagine 
the  superintendent  saying  to  visitors: 

"There's  Art  Young  over  there.  They  say  he  used  to  be 
quite  a  noted  feller,  a  c'toonist  or  something." 

And  I  thought:  Well,  if  that's  to  be  my  finish,  it's  no 
worse  than  that  of  millions  of  others.  But  there  was  small 
consolation  in  that. 

I  was  still  spending  the  colder  months  of  each  year  in 
New  York.  Howard  Smith  and  I  shared  the  fourth-floor 
bathroom  at  9  East  17th  street  with  the  occupants  of  an- 
other studio  on  that  floor.  Early  in  June,  1930,  I  was  re- 
laxing in  warm  water  in  the  tub  and  thinking  about  going  to 
the  country  soon,  so  as  to  escape  from  the  evidences  of  the 
depression  in  the  city.  When  I  got  through  I  found  that  while 
I  was  taking  that  leisurely  bath,  a  sneak  thief  had  entered 
our  studio  and  walked  off  with  my  best  suit  of  clothes  and  my 
pocket-book,  which  contained  $23  in  cash  and  a  $100  check. 
I  hastened  to  have  a  stop-order  put  against  the  check,  but  no 
attempt  was  made  to  cash  it.  Also  I  notified  the  police.  The 
thief  was  never  caught. 

Soon  I  got  away  to  Connecticut,  and  my  secretary,  Jeanne 
Duval,  went  along.  A  cheerful  and  conscientious  youngster, 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES      411 

who  had  studied  drawing  and  painting.  She  spent  that  sum- 
mer on  Chestnut  Ridge,  as  she  had  the  previous  summer, 
classifying  my  drawings,  taking  care  of  my  correspondence, 
and  keeping  the  gallery  open  Saturdays  and  Sundays  for 
casual  visitors.  On  other  days,  when  not  occupied  otherwise, 
she  roamed  the  countryside  painting  pictures. 

Going  back  to  New  York  in  the  fall,  I  heard  reports  on 
the  general  economic  situation  which  caused  me  to  have  mis- 
givings about  my  own  future.  Cartoons  were  harder  to  sell, 
my  market  narrower  than  ever.  What  pictures  I  sold  brought 
in  little  money. 

The  Socialist  party's  national  office  had  me  do  a  few  more 
drawings  for  a  new  edition  of  a  booklet  called  the  Socialist 
Primer,  which  I  had  written  and  illustrated  to  aid  Scott 
Hearing's  campaign  when  he  was  running  for  Congress  in  an 
East  Side  district  This  contained  such  questions  and  answers 
as  the  following: 

"Is  this  a  spider?  It  is.  What  is  its  other  name?  The  Capitalist 
System*  Has  he  got  an  ant  in  his  web?  He  has.  What  is  the  ant's 
other  name?  Workingman.  Does  the  spider  like  to  have  the  ants 
organize?  No,  he  prefers  to  deal  with  them  'individually.' 

"See  the  boss  and  the  worker.  What  are  they  doing— dividing 
up?  They  are.  Is  it  a  fair  divide?  Never  mind,  the  boss  decides 
that. 

"Does  the  man  like  to  jump  like  a  dog  for  his  food,  shelter, 
and  clothing?  No.  But  the  boss  pulling  the  strings  tells  him  it 
develops  his  character. 

"See  the  oil  well  .  .  .  and  the  river.  .  .  .  Who  owns  the 
oil  well?  A  private  company  of  speculators.  Who  owns  the  river? 
The  public.  Is  not  oil  used  by  the  public  just  as  water  is?  Of 
course.  Then  why  doesn't  the  public  own  the  oil  well?  That's 
what  Socialists  want  to  know." 

Shortly  before  Thanksgiving  Day  I  got  word  that  my 
son  Don  was  in  jail  in  Hoboken.  I  asked  my  lawyer  friend 
Abe  Friedman  to  see  what  he  could  find  out  about  that.  He 
phoned,  asking  what  the  charge  was,  and  was  told:  "Assault 
and  battery — in  a  street  fight." 

That  puzzled  me,  for  I  knew  Don  was  usually  able  to 
keep  out  of  trouble.  So  Abe  and  I  took  the  ferry  over  to 
New  Jersey*  We  found  Don  in  the  old  city  jail  in  Hoboken — 
with  several  other  prisoners  in  the  "bull  pen/'  the  sight  of 


412       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

him  as  he  was  led  out  into  an  ante-room  made  me  feel  ill, 
for  his  head  was  bound  with  a  bloody  bandage. 

Then  we  got  the  story.  Don  had  gone  to  Hoboken  the 
evening  before,  to  see  a  friend  off  who  was  sailing  to  Europe 
on  a  freighter.  While  they  were  walking  toward  the  docks, 
they  were  halted  by  two  men  who,  without  identifying  them- 
selves, began  to  ask  personal  questions  which  Don  answered 
was  "none  of  your  God-damned  business/'  One  of  the  men 
laid  a  hand  on  Don,  who  replied  by  soaking  the  stranger 
in  the  jaw.  Whereupon  the  questioners  hauled  out  black- 
jacks, proceeded  to  beat  up  Don  and  his  companion,  and 
when  they  got  through  with  that,  revealed  that  they  were 
detectives. 

Presently  Don  and  his  friend  were  taken  before  the 
police  magistrate,  with  Abe  Friedman  appearing  for  them. 
They  told  their  stories,  and  were  released.  Thinking  of  this 
incident,  and  what  could  happen  to  innocent  persons  mind- 
ing their  own  business  on  the  public  streets,  I  felt  weak  and 
nauseated,  Don  was  philosophic  enough  about  it  all,  charg- 
ing the  incident  off  to  experience,  but  it  took  something 
out  of  me. 

The  cold  early  days  of  December  seemed  to  chill  my 
bones,  and  I  was  low  on  energy.  I  would  get  up  after  a  full 
night's  sleep,  quite  as  tired  as  when  I  went  to  bed.  The  Seven- 
teenth Street  studio  no  longer  spelled  comfort.  And  I  was 
beginning  to  find  that  climbing  the  stairs  to  the  fourth  floor 
wasn't  so  easy  as  it  had  been;  indeed,  I  had  never  thought 
of  it  as  a  hardship  before.  Now  my  heart  would  have  spells 
of  fluttering  like  a  wounded  bird. 

I  could  understand  artists  getting  worn  out  when  they 
had  been  doing  a  kind  of  work  under  compulsion  in  which 
they  could  take  no  real  interest.  But  I  knew  I  was  not  over- 
worked. My  kind  of  labor  was  fundamentally  a  conserver 
of  health  and  youth.  Nevertheless  something  was  the  matter 
with  me.  I  was  too  irritable.  Bills  for  rent,  light,  telephone, 
and  laundry  would  make  me  mad.  In  the  ideal  world  I  visual- 
ize, these  necessary  adjuncts  to  living  would  not  be  such  a 
money-problem  as  to  make  them  worth  worrying  about. 
I  remembered  the  $3,000  that  the  building  of  the  gallery 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       413 

had  cost;  I  had  no  regrets  about  that,  but  I  wished  I  had 
that  much  money  again. 

Unquestionably  I  was  becoming  a  case  for  the  wise  men 
of  the  medical  profession.  "Maybe  I'm  one  of  those  terrible 
neurotics/'  I  thought. 

One  morning  I  was  crossing  Union  Square,  looking,  I 
have  reason  to  believe  now,  'like  the  wrath  of  God/'  Half 
way  to  Fourth  Avenue,  I  met  Eddie  Levinson,  who  appeared 
alarmed  when  he  saw  me,  and  said  I  ought  to  go  to  a  doctor. 
Immediately  I  went  to  see  my  old  friend,  Dr.  Harry  Lorber, 
who  stethoscoped  me,  and  gave  me  pertinent  advice.  Then 
a  few  days  later  to  Dr.  Abraham  Stone,  who  examined  me 
further  and  then  took  me  over  to  the  Union  Health  Center. 
There  Dr.  George  Price  and  his  coterie  of  doctors  led  me 
to  a  room,  where  they  examined  the  "artery  transit"  of  my 
blood  stream. 

I  didn't  look  at  the  machine  that  was  registering  my 
trouble,  but  I  saw  those  doctors  watch  it  as  closely  as  if 
they  were  discovering  some  valuable  information  that  I  ought 
to  know.  Their  eyes  registered  greater  and  greater  astonish- 
ment until  the  hand  of  the  meter  finally  stopped.  For  a 
normal  man  of  my  age  the  pressure  was  much  too  high — I 
had  read  that  in  their  faces.  I  asked:  How  high? 

Dr.  Price  shook  his  head,  saying:  "Over  two  hundred/' 

He  questioned  me  about  my  habits.  One  thing  he  told  me 
Td  have  to  do — "stop  walking  up  those  flights  of  stairs/* 

"Well/'  I  said,  "you  advise  people  to  do  mountain  climb- 
ing, don't  you?'* 

"Yes,  but  not  you." 

After  this,  at  the  suggestion  of  Samuel  DeWitt,  I  went 
to  see  Dr.  Solon  Bernstein — who  fluoroscoped  and  explored 
my  anatomical  jungle.  And  I  had  a  session  with  the  amiable 
Dr.  A,  L,  Goldwater,  who  prescribed  for  me  a  strict  diet. 

I  have  always  had  a  fondness  for  doctors,  for  they  are 
usually  fine  fellows  to  talk  with,  especially  out  of  hours. 
And  I  go  from  one  to  another  without  much  regard  for  the 
ethics  of  the  profession — which,  as  I  understand  it,  is  "one 
physician  at  a  time — don't  mix  them/' 

Eddie  Levinson  visited  me  often.  He  asked  me  to  tell 
him  how  I  was  fixed  financially.  I  handed  him  my  bankbook, 


414      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

/ 

which  showed  a  meager  balance.  Eddie  promptly  conferred 
with  Adelaide  Schulkind,  Norman  Thomas,  and  Sam  De- 
Witt.  Acting  as  a  voluntary  committee,  they  talked  wither 
wrote  to  others,  and  as  a  result  money  was  raised  which 
assured  me  of  being  able  to  cover  my  expenses  for  months  to 
come,  and  to  take  ample  time  in  which  to  get  well.  I  was 
told  that  I  could  loaf  as  long  as  I  wanted  to,  without  feeling 
that  I  had  to  produce  and  sell  pictures.  But  loafing  was  the 
hardest  of  all  things  for  me  to  do. 

To  eliminate  the  stair-climbing  I  moved  over  to  the 
Earle  Hotel  on  Waverly  Place,  recommended  as  quiet  and 
comfortable  by  Deborah  Camp.  A  month  later  Ben  Belsky 
invited  me  to  his  apartment  on  Columbia  Heights,  in  Brook- 
lyn, and  I  enjoyed  some  pleasant  weeks  there. 

I  looked  forward  to  the  warmth  of  spring.  I  knew  I 
needed  to  get  away  from  the  city's  tumult,  and  again  I  longed 
to  have  trees  and  grass  around  me  and  to  walk  barefooted  on 
plowed  ground.  While  I  rested  in  town,  Sam  DeWitt  went 
up  to  Bethel  and  inspected  my  house  on  Chestnut  Ridge 
Road,  to  make  certain  that  it  was  in  proper  shape  for  me  as 
a  place  of  convalescence.  He  had  repairs  made,  bought  some 
new  furniture,  and  saw  to  it  that  the  kitchen  equipment  was 
complete. 

In  April  I  took  a  train  for  Connecticut,  accompanied  by 
a  twenty-year-old  nurse  who  had  been  engaged  in  my  behalf. 
It  was  refreshing  to  return  to  the  soil  and  I  felt  that  here  I 
would  surely  get  well — though  my  energy  was  scant,  and 
it  was  essential  that  I  remain  in  bed  many  hours  out  of  each 
twenty-four. 

I  got  into  the  sun  daily,  and  that  was  the  best  part  of  the 
whole  scene.  Some  days  I  spent  a  few  minutes  in  the  gallery, 
noted  the  idle  drawing  table,  and  thought  wistfully  of  all 
the  work  I  had  turned  out  on  it,  but  had  no  inclination  now 
to  touch  a  pen.  Looking  at  the  backs  of  the  books  on  my 
library  shelves,  I  saw  old  favorites  that  I  had  long  intended 
to  re-read.  Yet  I  opened  none  of  them. 

But  a  bright  day  came  in  June  when  I  had  considerable 
more  strength  than  in  months,  and  soon  afterward  I  went 
down  to  New  York  for  another  examination,  which  showed 
some  hopeful  signs*  I  was  enough  better  so  that  it  was  pos- 
sible to  dispense  with  the  nurse's  services. 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES      415 

My  chief  need  at  this  stage  was  not  a  nurse,  but  a  man 
of  all  work,  especially  one  who  could  prepare  my  meals. 
Accordingly  the  committee  enlisted  an  old-time  "Soakalist," 
as  he  pronounced  the  word  Socialist,  a  veteran  migratory 
worker  named  Stahl,  who  was  a  familiar  figure  around  the 
Rand  School,  He  was  all  right  in  the  culinary  line,  but  he 
had  one  idiosyncrasy — he  refused  to  use  any  of  the  aluminum 
pots  and  pans  which  hung  in  my  kitchen,  holding  that  such 
utensils  generated  poison  in  food.  He  insisted  on  cooking  in 
old  tin  coffee-cans. 

I  learned  later  that  Stahl  had  been  a  lone  beach-comber 
on  the  south  shore  of  Long  Island  for  years.  He  had  a  col- 
lection of  reminiscences  that  were  fairly  interesting  the  first 
time  he  related  them,  but  he  wore  his  stories  thin  by  repeti- 
tion, and  after  two  months  he  had  ceased  to  be  either  of  real 
help  or  a  novelty  to  me.  So  I  had  to  give  him  notice. 

Then  the  committee  sent  up  a  Nicaraguan  boy  of  excellent 
qualities.  He  cooked  well,  introducing"  appetizing  dishes  na- 
tive to  his  home  land.  When  he  could  be  drawn  into  talk, 
he  had  good  stories  to  tell,  and  some  bitter  memories.  For  he 
had  seen  civil  war  in  Nicaragua,  and  his  family  were  active 
political  insurgents,  siding  with  the  cause  for  which  young 
General  Cesar  Sandino  gave  his  life.  Of  those  memories,  how- 
ever, he  said  little,  and  in  the  main  he  was  a  cheerful  person 
to  have  around. 

Though  I  was  manifestly  in  better  condition  physically, 
and  though  the  group  of  loyal  friends  in  New  York  assured 
me"  that  I  needn't  worry,  that  there  was  no  danger  of  my 
going  hungry,  I  still  had  dark  hours  in  which  I  was  fearful 
of  becoming  permanently  dependent  upon  others.  Days  would 
come  when  I  was  weighted  down  with  melancholy  that  I 
could  not  shake  off — and  nights  when  I  would  lie  awake 
thinking  of  dire  things  which  might  happen  to  me.  Often, 
for  no  tangible  reason,  I  would  feel  that  I  was  at  the  end  of 
my  long  journey. 

Those  dark  periods  were  lightened  now  and  then  by  the 
visits  of  friends,  some  from  New  York  and  others  who  lived 
elsewhere  in  Connecticut  They  would  drop  in  unannounced, 
bringing  news  of  the  outside  world,  and  we  would  repair 


416       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

to  the  gallery  and  talk  over  old  times,  old  battles  in  the 
class  struggle,  and  changing  situations  the  world  over. 

On  one  such  day  an  idea  took  hold  of  me  which  lifted 
my  spirits  away  up.  .  .  .  Before  I  go  to  the  poorhouse,  I  told 
myself,  I'll  write  and  illustrate  one  more  book.  Though 
nearly  forty  years  had  gone  by  since  the  publication  of  my 
first  volume,  Hell  Up  to  Date,  the  curious  interest  I  had  had 
then  in  the  infernal  regions  once  more  absorbed  my  thinking. 
I  had  seen  so  much  hell  on  earth  that  I  was  eager  now  to 
find  out  what  the  ancient  theological  region  was  like  after 
the  passage  of  four  decades. 

Early  in  September  I  began  to  map  out  the  new  Hell 
book.  The  morning  after  Labor  Day  was  cold,  but  I  didn't 
mind  that.  I  took  the  sun  on  my  bare  body  for  twenty 
minutes,  had  breakfast,  and  got  busy  on  the  manuscript, 
James  Rorty  happened  to  come  over  that  afternoon,  from 
his  place  in  Easton,  and  was  a  booster  for  my  explora- 
tion project.  And  in  a  few  days  Stuart  Chase  was  a  visitor, 
and  then  Manuel  Komroff,  each  voicing  encouragement.  .  *  . 
So  I  descended  into  Hell  again,  this  time  finding  an  entrance 
in  New  York  City  as  I  had  in  Chicago  in  1892. 

During  my  1892  exploration  of  the  smoky  regions  below, 
I  observed  that  so  much  mechanization  had  been  effected 
that  in  interviewing  His  Satanic  Majesty  I  asked  him  if  he 
was  not  afraid  that  the  capitalists  eventually  would  wrest 
control  from  him,  and  in  the  interest  of  progress  and  profit, 
force  him  to  abdicate.  Satan  laughed  merrily  and  asserted 
that  he  could  handle  any  emergency. 

But  he  was  more  confident  than  clever,  for  I  found  in 
1931  that  he  had  been  compelled  to  resign  his  power  to  the 
industrialists  and  bankers.  The  "malefactors  of  great  wealth" 
and  the  "economic  royalists"  who  had  gone  there  since  my 
first  visit  had  arrogated  to  themselves  the  right  to  rule  under 
a  constitution  written  by  their  lawyers,  a  Supreme  Court  of 
their  own  selection,  and  an  All-Hell  Congress,  representing 
their  interests. 

Nominally,  the  new  government  was  a  parliamentary 
monarchy,  with  Satan  at  its  head.  The  simple  natives  still 
called  him  king,  but  to  the  ruling  financiers  he  was  just  a 
rubber  stamp.  His  prerogatives  had  been  restricted  to  shaking 
hands,  receiving  committees,  laying  corner-stones,  and  talk- 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES  417 
ing  over  the  radio.  In  fact,  the  whole  domain  had  become  a 
plutocracy,  known  today  as  a  state  of  fascism  or  military 
capitalism,  with  most  of  the  punishments  and  horrors  of 
such  governments  which  curse  the  upper  world 


SKETCHING  DEVILS. 


Art  Young's  Inferno 


I  had  occasion  to  record  in  the  manuscript  of  my  book, 
as  it  grew  through  the  ensuing  months,  some  pathetic  re- 
unions and  interviews  with  still  sturdy  old-timers,  Charon, 
the  ancient  Greek  ferryman  of  the  Styx,  had  been  compelled 
to  retire,  being  displaced  by  a  young  sinner  called  Gharon  II, 


418      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

nicknamed  "the  Snappy/'  who  captained  a  handsomely 
equipped  passenger  boat,  Socrates,  Plato,  and  Homer  were  in 
a  sanitarium  for  the  queer,  where  I  also  talked  with  Thoreau, 
Walt  Whitman,  Cellini,  Karl  Marx,  Tom  Paine,  Louise 
Michel  and  many  others.  None  of  these  sinners  was  allowed 
to  participate  in  public  affairs.  Their  segregation  was  con- 
sidered a  necessary  precaution  against  their  upsetting  the 
normal  thinking  of  the  Gehenna  masses. 

Corporations  controlling  affairs  in  Hell  under  the  new 
regime  included  the  Sulphur  Toothpaste  Company,  the  Smell 
Syndicate,  United  Lava,  Vitriol  Distilleries,  Noise  Amplify- 
ing Corporation,  Cinders  Cigarette  Company,  Pitch  Chew- 
ing Gum,  Allied  Alarm  Clocks,  Juggernaut  Trucks,  Intestinal 
Gas  Company,  Amalgamated  Motor  Sirens,  Pink  Bathroom 
Equipment  Company,  Allied  Poison  Gas,  and  Pitchforks, 
Inc. 

One  of  the  oldest  inhabitants  complained  bitterly  to  me 
of  the  changes  in  Hell  He  was  boiled  in  oil  for  3,000  years, 
but  averred  that  the  medieval  Hades  was  preferable  to  the 
new  one  with  all  its  so-called  comforts  and  compensations — 
modern  plumbing,  motor  cars,  movies,  jazz,  and  the  radio. 

Money,  which  was  unknown  there  in  Dante's  time,  was 
now  minted,  and  the  problem  of  the  millions  of  suffering 
sinners  was  to  get  some  of  it  in  order  to  exist.  There  were  a 
Wall  Street,  subways,  insurance  payments  on  everything, 
ear-shattering  noises,  sickening  odors,  unemployment,  profit 
madness,  slums,  pay  toilets  (usually  two  miles  away) ,  rival 
wars  for  certain  areas  of  the  narrowing  open  spaces— quite 
as  on  the  earth's  crust. 

When  the  1932  Presidential  campaign  got  into  swing  I 
interrupted  my  work  on  the  Hell  book,  and  was  glad  to  be 
in  another  political  contest  The  national  office  of  the  Social- 
ist party  had  commissioned  me  to  produce  two  cartoons 
each  week* 

Herbert  Hoover  was  running  for  re-election  against 
Franklin  D.  Roosevelt,  then  Governor  of  New  York,  while 
Norman  Thomas  was  again  the  Socialist  standard-bearer,  and 
William  Z.  Foster  headed  the  Communist  ticket. 

One  of  my  cartoons  which  attracted  the  most  comment 
in  that  campaign  was  entitled  "Hoover  Mostly  Cheek/'  And 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES      419 

another  showed  the  Republican  and  Democratic  parties  as 
sloppy  silk-hatted  old  reprobates  lying  in  a  gutter,  while  a 
Republican  voter  was  saying  to  a  Democratic  voter;  "Must 
we  help  those  two  old  bums  up  again?" 

This  time  the  spirit  of  protest  was  strong  again,  and 
Thomas  came  close  to  the  Debs  showing  of  1920,  tallying 


GHOSTS.  Cartoon  syndicated  by  the  Socialist  Party. 
*Tm  the  Unknown  Soldier.  Who  are  you?" 

"1*01  the  Forgotten  Man.  The  way  I  figure  it  out,  they  make  us  famous 
because  we're  nobody  in  particular." 

884,781  votes,  while  Foster  got  102,991.  Jacob  Coxey  of 
the  famous  march  of  ragged  men  was  on  the  national  ballot 
also,  under  the  Farmer-Labor  emblem,  and  was  the  choice 
of  7,309  voters. 

I  went  back  then  to  the  writing  and  drawing  for  the 
report  on  my  visit  to  the  world  farthest  down,  and  early  in 
1933  it  was  in  final  shape.  Going  to  New  York,  I  offered 


420 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES      421 

it  to  four  or  five  publishers,  but  all  turned  it  down;  did 
not  think  it  would  be  profitable. 

Finally,  late  in  the  year,  it  was  brought  out  by  the 
Delphic  Studios.  My  book  was  entitled  Art  Young's  Inferno. 
It  comprised  176  large  pages  of  text  and  cartoons;  and  Jose 
Clemente  Orozco  did  a  brush-drawing  caricature  head  of  me 
for  the  jacket. 

In  launching  this  work,  the  Delphic  Studios  staged  an 
exhibition  of  my  drawings  which  was  billed  as  my  '  'first 
and  last  one-man  show/'  Published  in  a  limited  subscription 
edition,  the  Inferno  book  received  a  lot  of  favorable  and 
gratifying  reviews  though  it  never  became  a  best  seller. 

As  the  months  went  on  I  drew  occasional  cartoons  for 
the  radical  and  liberal  magazines,  and  some  for  Vincent 
Astor's  weekly,  Today,  and  thus  managed  to  keep  afloat  But 
my  income  was  uncertain,  and  my  spirits  were  up  and  down 
from  day  to  day.  As  summer  waned  I  realized  that  I  was 
nearer  bankruptcy  than  ever  before,  and  the  specter  of  the 
poorhouse  rose  again  before  me.  I  said  nothing  to  any  one 
about  this  fear.  It  was  never  easy  to  tell  people  about  my 
troubles — I  have  always  disliked  to  speak  of  them,  lest  I  be 
thought  a  whiner. 

But  again  at  this  stage  some  good  friends  suspected  what 
was  happening  to  me,  asked  questions,  and  thoughtfully 
came  to  my  rescue.  While  I  was  in  the  depths  of  gloom  a 
little  group  in  New  York  City  got  busy  and  arranged  a 
testimonial  benefit  for  me.  It  was  staged  in  the  Civic  Reper- 
tory Theatre  on  Fourteenth  Street  on  Sunday  evening, 
November  18,  1934.  That  historic  old  playhouse  was 
crowded  to  the  doors,  and  from  all  accounts  it  was  a  memor- 
able occasion.  An  important  factor  in  drawing  that  throng 
was  a  special  Art  Young  Supplement  issued  by  the  New 
Leader;  but  of  greatest  value  was  a  quiet  but  widespread 
promotion  campaign  conducted  by  the  testimonial  committee 
under  the  direction  of  its  treasurer,  Adelaide  Schulkind,  who 
has  endeared  herself  to  thousands  in  the  Ubor  movement  as 
the  tireless  executive  secretary  of  the  League  for  Mutual  Aid. 

To  show  the  united- front  character  of  tjbose  behind  the 
testimonial,  and  as  an  expression  of  my  deep  appreciation,  I 


422      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

want  to  set  down  here  the  names  of  all  on  the  sponsoring 
committee; 

Bruce  Bliven,  Arthur  Brisbane,  Heywood  Broun,  Earl 
Browder,  William  E.  Browder,  Saxe  Commins,  Floyd  Deli 
Samuel  A.  DeWitt,  Theodore  Dreiser,  Max  Eastman,  Morris 
L.  Ernst,  Bruno  Fischer,  Elizabeth  Gurley  Flynn,  Martha 
Foley,  Mary  Fox,  Al  J.  Frueh,  Lewis  S.  Gannett,  William 
C.  Gassner,  Susan  Glaspell,  Henry  Glintenkamp,  Michael 
Gold,  William  Cropper,  Albert  H.  Gross,  Henry  Hart  Arthur 
Garfield  Hays,  Harry  Kelly,  Herbert  Klein,  Manuel  Komroff, 
Walt  Kuhn,  Margaret  Larkin,  Dr.  Robert  L.  Leslie,  Hiram 
Motherwell,  James  Oneal,  Frank  L.  Palmer,  Amos  Pinchot, 


HEYWOOD    BROUN 

Charles  Recht,  Elmer  Rice,  Adelaide  Schulkind,  Gilbert 
Seldes,  John  Sloan,  Otto  Soglow,  Arthur  Spingarn,  John  L. 
Spivak,  Norman  Thomas,  Carlo  Tresca,  Hendrik  Van  Loon, 
Oswald  Garrison  Villard,  B.  Charney  Vladeck,  Anna  Strun- 
sky  Walling,  Harry  Weinberger,  Louis  Weitzenkorn,  Walter 
White,  Alexander  Woollcott,  Carl  Zigrosser. 

Unable  to  be  present  that  evening,  I  had  sent  a  letter  to 
Heywood  Broun,  the  master  of  ceremonies,  which  he  read 
from  the  stage.  In  part  that  letter  said: 

'Please  impress  upon  the  audience,  the  performers,  and 
the  League  for  Mutual  Aid  my  sincere  gratitude  for  this 
night  of  celebration  of  my  'century  of  progress/  (Or  is  it  only 
sixty-eight  years?  Anyhow,  the  time  doesn't  matter.)  As  a 
veteran  of  the  radical  movement,  I'm  a  little  the  worse  for 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       423 

wear,  and  am  advised  to  avoid  the  'wicked  city*  and  'undue 
excitement'  for  a  while  longer.  So  to  my  regret  I  cannot  be 
with  you  to  enjoy  the  comradeship  and  entertainment. 

"But  I  will  try  to  deserve  the  festivities  in  my  honor 
by  endeavoring  to  express  myself  hereafter  with  bigger  and 
better  bitterness,  for  it  has  been  truly  said  by  some  critics  of 
my  work  that  I  am  often  too  gentle  with  the  enemy. 

"When  one  reflects  upon  the  sorrow,  misery,  and  death 
caused  by  the  profit  system,  it  is  doubtful  if  it  deserves  any 
tolerance  at  all,  especially  at  this  stage  of  its  maniacal  stu- 
pidity. .  .  . 

"And  yet,  for  all  that  is  happening,  we  have  good  reason 
to  dance  and  sing,  not  only  as  a  brief  respite  from  the  punish- 
ment of  having  to  live  in  this  inferno,  but  because  the  end  of 
Capitalism  is  near  and  the  principles  of  Socialism  are  going 
to  be  applied  to  life  and  industry. 

"I  don't  know  the  meaning  of  'dialectic  materialism/  and 
many  other  terms  used  by  the  polemical  experts,  and  I  try 
not  to  get  overly  excited  about  them.  All  I  know  is  the  differ- 
ence between  right  and  wrong.  The  cause  of  the  workers  is 
right  and  the  rule  of  Capitalism  is  wrong,  and  right  will 
win.  .  .  ." 

This  testimonial  provided  a  fund  which  has  enabled 
me  to  go  on  for  four  and  a  half  years  without  anxiety  about 
income.  When  the  first  money  from  that  fund  was  sent  to  me, 
the  committee  wrote  saying:  "Be  assured  that  this  is  given 
not  in  any  sense  as  charity,  but  as  a  definite  tribute  to  the 
enduring  value  of  your  work/' 

And  my  spirit  was  further  warmed  by  receiving  number- 
less letters  of  appreciation  which  had  come  to  the  committee 
with  contributions  from  individuals  of  all  shades  of  political 
opinion  in  the  labor  and  radical  movements,  from  writers, 
artists,  actors,  musicians,  and  men  and  women  in  many 
other  walks  of  life. 


Chapter   39 
AMONG  THE  SILK  HATS  AT  BRISBANE'S  FUNERAL 

MY  Inferno  book  had  attracted  enough  attention  so 
that  early  in  1935  James  Henle  of  the  Vanguard 
Press  indicated  that  he  was  receptive  to  the  idea  of 
publishing  a  volume  which  would  contain  a  representative 
selection  of  my  pictures,  with  little  text*  A  contract  was  signed 
and  the  choosing  of  drawings  was  begun  by  an  informal 
committee.  A  long  arduous  job,  with  much  re-sifting  of 
material,  which  took  months. 

Publication  finally  came  in  November,  1936,  celebrated 
by  the  publishers  with  a  cocktail  party  in  a  studio  on  Fifty- 
seventh  Street.  The  title  of  the  book  was  The  Best  of  Art 
'Young,  and  it  included  an  introduction  by  Heywood  Broun, 
saying: 

"Like  most  efficient  radicals,  Art  Young  is  utterly  con- 
servative in  one  respect.  I  refer  to  his  art.  The  subject  might 
be  provocative  and  wholly  distasteful  to  standpatters,  but  the 
line  which  he  drew  was  tight  and  stern  and  as  ruggedly  in- 
dividualistic as  the  mind  of  Herbert  Hoover.  .  .  .  Modern 
art  never  so  much  as  rumpled  his  hair.  He  drew  the  most 
shocking  and  scandalous  cartoons,  all  done  in  the  somewhat 
nostalgic  manner  of  one  who  had  been  frightened  by  a  wood- 
cut in  his  early  life.  At  a  distance  an  Art  Young  drawing 
suggested  the  illustration  for  some  moral  maxim.  Closer  view- 
revealed  the  fact  that  he  was  saying  that  every  exploiter 
should  fry  eternally  for  his  sins/' 

After  that  work  came  out,  friends  would  ask:  "Why 
was  such-and-such  a  picture  omitted?"  and  I  could  only 
answer  that  the  selection  was  based  on  the  best  judgement 
of  the  committee  which  made  it,  and  that  probably  no  two 
persons  ever  could  agree  on  what  was  the  best  of  an  artist's 
work  during  fifty  years  as  a  producer. 

In  1936  I  was  asked  by  a  firm  of  New  York  art-book 
publishers  to  write  a  biography  of  Thomas  Rowlandson,  to 

424 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       425 

be  used  with  reproductions  of  his  pictures  as  one  of  a  series 
dealing  with  significant  artists.  The  series  included  an  estimate 
of  Van  Gogh  by  Walter  Pach,  and  of  the  elder  Pieter  Breughel 
by  Aldous  Huxley.  I  assented,  signed  a  contract,  and  put  in 
many  weeks  of  labor  on  the  job. 

That  was  an  unhappy  and  disillusioning  experience.  The 
book  came  out  in  March,  1938,  copyrighted  by  an  organiza- 
tion I  had  never  heard  of  and  bearing  the  imprint  of  a  com- 
pany also  unknown  to  me.  I  was  never  paid  the  agreed-upon 
advance  for  this  writing,  nor  did  the  publishers  take  me  into 
their  confidence  in  making  up  the  volume.  The  company 
with  which  I  had  made  my  original  contract  had  gone  into 
the  hands  of  a  creditors'  committee,  and  my  efforts  to  pin 
responsibility  on  anybody  were  futile.  The  book  was  wretch- 
edly produced,  most  of  the  Rowlandson  prints  being  mal- 
treated and  cheapened  in  the  engraving  process,  in  a  way  to 
discredit  the  English  caricaturist's  masterful  designs. 

Meanwhile  John  Beffel  came  up  to  Connecticut  occasion- 
ally, when  he  could  get  away  from  an  editorial  job  in  New 
York,  and  went  ahead  with  the  assembling  of  notes  for  this 
autobiography.  I  wrote  at  random  on  past  events;  we  had 
agreed  that  that  would  be  the  easiest  way.  Week  by  week 
the  manuscript  grew.  At  times  I  was  appalled  by  the  prodi- 
gious task  ahead — the  matter  of  getting  dates  correct,  for 
instance.  At  my  age  it  is  easy  to  be  ten  years  out  of  the  way 
on  some  happening  when  thinking  back.  And  there  was  the 
need  of  recalling  names  of  people  important  in  my  life  long 
ago  that  had  faded  from  my  memory. 

But  there  are  ways  of  refreshing  one's  memory,  as  I 
found .  to  my  frequent  surprise  and  gratification.  Some  old 
letter  or  newspaper  clipping  that  we  came  upon  in  the  attic 
of  my  house  on  Chestnut  Ridge,  or  in  the  studio,  would 
bring  a  completely  forgotten  episode  back,  as  clear  in  detail 
as  a  stereopticon  picture  thrown  upon  a  screen. 

Nineteen  Thirty-Six  also  saw  me  active  in  the  national 
political  campaign.  Among  other  output  I  did  a  series  of 
cartoons  for  the  Socialist  Call,  in  behalf  of  the  candidacy  of 
Norman  Thomas  and  George  Nelson,  who  headed  the  party 
ticket. 

In  this  contest,  however,  I  found  that  I  could  not  hon- 
estly draw  cartoons  of  attack  against  Franklin  D.  Roosevelt 


426      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

such  as  I  had  made  against  Al  Smith  and  other  past  can- 
didates for  the  Presidency.  All  I  could  do  was  to  be  mildly 
critical  of  an  honorable  man,  one  of  such  integrity  and  cour- 
age as  is  rarely  found  in  political  affairs. 

Today  I  think  of  Roosevelt's  problems  as  being  as  vast 
and  formidable  as  were  Lincoln's.  I  view  him  as  a  man  hold- 
ing to  his  duty  as  he  sees  it,  while  surrounded  by  national 
and  international  chaos,  a  man  who  is  trying  to  do  his  best 
for  his  own  country  and  deal  as  honorably  as  circumstances 
will  permit  in  the  nation's  diplomatic  relations  with  other 


^y 

Socialist  Call 

A  GREEK  FABLE  UP  TO  DATE.  Orpheus  plays  enchanting  music, 
but  what  can  he  do  to  rescue  the  people?  (The  New  Deal  looked  a  little  too 
optimistic  to  me.) 

countries.  And  I  think  of  Eleanor  Roosevelt  as  a  woman  of 
such  human  and  uncompromising  qualities  that  they  make  her 
not  just  in  name  but  truly  the  first  lady  of  the  land* 

One  of  my  cartoons  in  the  1936  campaign,  entitled 
"Can  He  Save  Them?"  portrayed  Roosevelt  as  Orpheus  in 
classic  robes  playing  beautiful  music  on  a  lyre  in  the  modern 
Hell  of  war,  poverty,  and  kindred  evils,  charming  all  who 
listened,  while  the  long-suffering  multitude  hopefully  ex- 
pected him  to  rescue  them  as  the  Orpheus  of  Greek  legend 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES      427 

had  rescued  the  maiden  Eurydice,  and  all  Hell  had  forgotten 
its  pain. 

Yet  I  would  hate  to  have  it  said  of  me  that  my  cartoons 
never  hurt.  To  live  a  life  as  a  caricaturist  of  the  kind  whose 
pictures  "never  hurt"  is  my  idea  of  futility.  It  should  not  be 
the  function  of  a  political  caricaturist  just  to  be  funny. 
Sometimes  his  job  calls  for  downright  cruelty,  but  to  produce 
a  cartoon  that  is  nothing  but  an  insulting  burlesque  of  a 
public  man  is  not  my  idea  of  forceful  attack.  It  often  happens, 
however,  that  a  public  man  serves  as  a  symbol  of  wrong 
because  of  his  record,  and  as  such  he  is  properly  a  subject 
for  lampooning,  but  to  be  assailed  less  as  an  individual  than 
as  a  sponsor  of  the  idea  for  which  he  stands. 

Of  course  when  one  feels  that  everybody,  even  the  most 
predatory  of  capitalists,  is  also  a  victim  of  the  system  of 


(\unJ 


MY    SLOUCH    HAT,    in    distinguished    company    at    Arthur    Brisbane's 
funeral. 

which  he  is  a  part,  one's  steel  is  in  danger  of  not  being  ground 
sharply  enough  for  effective  warfare.  But  not  to  hurt  with 
an  idea  and  his  manner  of  expressing  it  proves  that  the  car- 
toonist is  nothing  but  a  court  jester  whom  the  money  mon- 
archs  like  to  have  around,  and  when  he  dies  they  will  say 
"he  never  hurt/' 

Just  now  an  old  clipping  from  the  Rochester  (N.  Y.) 
Herald  turned  up;  under  a  photograph  of  myself  is  mention 
of  the  Associated  Press  libel  suit,  and  the  added  sentence: 
"Young  is  said  to  be  agreeable  to  know  socially,  but  he  puts 
vitriol  into  his  cartoons/' 

I  was  in  New  York  when  Arthur  Brisbane  died  on 
Christmas,  1936,  at  the  age  of  72.  His  funeral  rites  were  held 
in  St.  Bartholomew's  Church,  and  I  served  as  an  honorary 
pallbearer.  There  was  a  curious  feeling  for  me  in  being  there, 
suggested  in  a  cartoon  I  drew  later  that  day,  in  which  my 
slouch  hat  appeared  alone  in  a  sea  of  high  hats.  Those  shiny 


428      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

toppers  were  on  the  heads  of  big  shots  of  finance  and  politics 
including  Governor  Lehman.  I  noted  that  Mayor  LaGuardia 
and  Vincent  Astor  also  were  among  my  fellow  pallbearers. 

I  don't  know  what  was  in  the  minds  of  the  notables 
around  me,  but  I  was  feeling  sorry  not  only  for  the  late 
chief  editor  of  the  Hearst  papers  and  his  family,  but  for 
everybody  in  the  crowded  church,  the  many  who  had  known 
Brisbane's  acts  of  personal  kindness  outside  of  business  hours 
and  those  who  knew  that  his  unusual  talent,  however  cor- 
rupted, had  often  aroused4  thought  for  the  good  and  true.(  I 
was  sorry,  too,  for  everybody  who  had  to  die — or  live — in 
this  crooked  world. 

Brisbane's  passing  gave  me  much  to  think  about,  for 
we  had  kept  up  our  contact  through  the  years,  ever  since 
those  few  months  when  he  had  me  working  for  him  in  the 
Evening  Journal  art  department  around  1900.  I  had  seen 
him  become  more  and  more  cynical  and  hard,  increasingly 
subservient  to  the  Hearst  interests,  and  a  willing  defender  of 
and  apologist  for  militarism  and  the  power  of  money. 

The  last  time  I  saw  him  was  perhaps  in  1935,  when  I 
was  seldom  contributing  to  periodicals  and  to  all  appearances 
laid  on  the  shelf.  Nevertheless  I  was  still  drawing  and  writ- 
ing, with  a  view  to  possible  future  publication.  Always 
solicitous  about  my  work,  Brisbane  inquired:  'What  are  you 
doing  now?" 

"Oh,  trying  to  express  myself/*  I  said. 

He  gave  me  one  of  his  characteristic  snap-answers:  "No- 
body's self  is  worth  expressing/'  and  then  added  a  tired 
afterthought:  "But  perhaps  you're  right/' 

Kenneth  Chamberlain,  cartoonist  for  the  Sunday  Ameri~ 
can,  who  saw  him  frequently  during  his  final  illness,  told  me 
that  he  was  looking  over  my  latest  book,  while  propped  up 
in  bed,  a  few  days  before  his  death* 

I  remembered  my  first  meeting  with  Brisbane  when  he 
was  a  brilliant  young  man  on  the  World,  and  Joseph  Pulit- 
zer's favorite.  He  had  won  his  spurs  previously  under  Dana 
on  the  Sun.  I  recalled  when  he  went  with  Hearst  and  got  a 
bonus  for  each  thousand  increase  in  the  Journal's  circulation, 
and  was  soon  getting  rich.  One  of  his  first  editorials  in  that 
paper  created  a  sensation.  Headed  "A  little  truth  will  do  no 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES      429 

harm/'  it  had  to  do  with  an  old  woman  outcast,  whom  he 
described  as  a  victim  of  our  social  system. 

I  remembered  his  love  of  pictures — how  he  could  write 
"all  around"  a  cartoon  that  ignited  his  imagination;  his 
capacity  for  hard  work,  his  gift  of  imagination,  his  original- 
ity as  a  commentator  on  news,  his  passion  for  contrasts  and 
striking  cartoons,  his  dislike  of  ornate  diction.  But  singularly 
he  was  attracted  by  pen-and-ink  pictures  in  which  there  was 
an  abundance  of  technique. 

He  would  drop  me  a  line  now  and  then  asking  me  to 
show  him  my  latest  cartoons  when  he  was  writing  the  Sunday 
spread  of  sermonized  editorials,  for  he  always  could  write 
best  when  he  had  a  picture  before  him.  It  was  remarkable 
how  he  could  amplify,  quote,  and  discourse  on  whatever 
theme  he  chose. 

He  enjoyed  looking  at  the  ideas  that  I  carried  with  me, 
briefly  sketched  on  a  writing  pad.  Sometimes  he  would  O.K. 
two  or  three  at  a  time.  He  liked  my  way  of  putting  an  idea 
across  the  footlights — and  often,  told  me  so.  These  cartoons 
when  finished  invariably  expressed  my  own  thinking,  and  I 
was  keen  to  see  what  he  had  written  about  them  when  they 
appeared  in  the  Sunday  American.  As  a  rule  he  did  not  violate 
my  meaning,  as  he  might  have  done  in  later  years  when  the 
Hearst  policy  became  brutally  Fascist,  but  held  close  to  what 
I  had  sought  to  say  pictorially.  In  those  days  I  doubt  if  any 
other  writer  could  have  written  under  such  pressure  of  time 
and  with  such  facility  and  easy-to-read  clarity.  His  secre- 
taries knew  that  I  had  the  right  of  way  whenever  I  called 
to  see  him;  others  could  wait. 

It  was  Brisbane's  idea  that  modern  life  was  a  matter  of 
sheer  survival  of  the  fittest,  and  his  conception  of  the  fit  were 
those  with  brains  for  business.  I  had  arguments  with  him 
about  that,  my  belief  being  that  the  acquisitive  sense  and  the 
ability  to  succeed  as  a  money-maker  frequently  made  the 
possessor  the  most  unfit  to  survive. 

Around  4  p.m.  in  the  old  days  he  would  start  pounding 
out  editorials  for  the  next  day  on  his  typewriter.  Some  time 
later  he  increased  his  high  efficiency  by  installing  dictaphones 
in  his  office,  home,  and  automobile,  even  using  one  when 
traveling  by  rail.  Once  when  his  car  was  standing  at  the 
curb  outside  the  Hearst  building  with  no  one  in  it,  Gene 


430 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES      431 

Fowler,  then  managing  editor  of  the  American  and  an  in- 
corrigible joker,  stepped  into  it  and  dictated  a  half  dozen 
paragraphs  for  Arthur's  daily  column,  burlesquing  the  well- 
known  Brisbane  style.  He  dealt  with  the  gorilla's  ability  to 
lick  Jack  Dempsey  single-handed,  and  other  favorite  themes 
of  Hearst's  No,  1  man.  Brisbane's  temper  hit  the  roof  when 
he  read  the  draft  of  this  stuff  typed  out  by  his  private 
secretary. 

He  was  undoubtedly  the  leading  American  apostle  of 


Fight  Maga*inef  1933 


FOR  ADOPTION. 


speed  and  success.  One  day  we  were  talking  in  his  office  when 
he  asked  suddenly:  "How  old  are  you,  Young?" 

"Fifty-one/' 

"Just  my  age,"  he  said,  and  added:  "You'd  better  hurry/' 

My  friend  Walt  McDougall,  who  had  done  the  first 
daily  newspaper  cartoons  in  New  York  a  few  years  before 
I  did  the  first  in  Chicago,  found  an  exit  from  his  chaotic 
world  with  the  aid  of  an  old  long-muzzled  horse  pistol  in 
1938.  He  met  his  end  in  the  house  where  he  had  lived  alone 


432       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

on  the  bank  of  the  Niantic  river  near  Waterf  ord,  Connecticut. 
A  diary  in  his  handwriting  contained  a  recent  entry  telling  of 
* 'tough  times/' 

Walt  had  a  son  and  many  friends,  but  somehow  had  let 
himself  become  isolated,  and  mental  depression  closed  down 
on  him  in  his  old  age*  I  know  of  people  who  had  been  near 
to  him,  and  who  afterward  blamed  themselves  for  not  keep- 
ing a  better  eye  on  his  welfare.  Yet  I  realize  that  in  recent 
years,  with  all  the  economic  stress  in  the  world,  many  in- 
dividuals have  drifted  away  from  old  associates,  largely  be- 
cause they  have  had  their  own  difficult  problems  to  cope 
with  and  to  take  on  the  troubles  of  others  has  become  too 
much  for  them. 

Probably  no  cartoonist  of  my  acquaintance  had  more 
fun  than  Walt  McDougalL  Through  his  long  career  he  was 
both  an  industrious  worker  and  a  light-hearted  playboy,  and 
his  autobiography,  This  is  the  Life,  is  rich  in  colorful  anec- 
dote. 


Chapter  40 
OVERFLOW  MEETING  OF  MEMORIES 

HAVING  written  all  this,   I  am  conscious  of  the  fact 
that  much  has  been   left  out  of  my  story.   I  skim 
through  folders  of  letters,  newspaper  clippings,  pages 
from  magazines,  handbills  announcing  mass-meetings  called 
for  a  long  succession  of  causes,  and  sheaves  of  notes  on  the 
economic  struggle  and  the  passing  show — and  I  am  appalled 


ROUNDING  UP  THE  UNBRIDLED   PAST. 

at  the  realization  of  how  many  individuals  more  or  less  vital 
to  my  life  have  found  no  place  in  this  running  narrative. 

Leaning  back  in  my  chair  and  looking  at  my  living-room 
wall  or  off  into  the  green  Connecticut  hills,  I  ponder  the 
decades  through  which  I  have  come,  and  recall  countless  in- 
cidents which  might  properly  be  set  down  here.  If  it  were 
possible  to  take  an  additional  year,  all  these  stray  recollections 
might  be  assembled  in  orderly  fashion,  each  in  its  exact 
niche.  But  that  essential  year  is  not  available. 

433 


434      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

There  is,  however,  another  way  out.  Hence  this  chapter, 
in  which  many  extra  memories  can  be  thrown  in  pell-mell, 
with  no  attempt  at  correct  sequence  and  no  bothering  to  spend 
more  hours  checking  dates.  One's  thoughts  flow  thus,  so  why 
not  one  jumble-chapter  in  a  book  of  reminiscence? 

In  putting  my  autobiography  together,  I  have  often 
stopped  short  with  the  self-conscious  feeling  that  some  of  it 
perhaps  would  be  regarded  by  my  audience  as  shameless  ex- 
hibitionism. Yet  I  have  kept  on  with  the  telling  anyhow. 
And  I  have  tried  to  write  honestly,  difficult  though  it  be  for 
any  man  to  do  that  in  such  a  narrative,  for  he  necessarily 
lacks  perspective  on  himself. 

Here,  then,  are  odds  and  ends  dipped  from  the  overflow. 

Seeing  President  Sadi  Carnot  of  France  and  his  wife  in 
the  Louvre  four  years  before  an  assassin  stabbed  him  to 
death.  ...  A  night  with  Jack  Reed  exploring  the  Great 
White  Way,  which  resulted  in  an  illustrated  article  called 
"From  Omaha  to  Broadway "  for  the  Metropolitan  Maga- 
zine. .  .  .  Mary  Blair  and  Constant  Eakin  entertaining 
people  from  miles  around  at  an  old-fashioned  Fourth  of  July 
celebration  on  their  broad  lawn  at  Redding  Ridge,  Conn.; 
the  host  in  white  suit  and  red  sash  as  master  of  ceremonies, 
introducing  me  in  a  silk  hat  as  the  "renowned  Senator/'  My 
speech  contained  all  the  spread-eagle  oratory  I  used  to  hear 
as  a  boy. 

Eugene  Field  having  me  write  some  anecdotes,  illustrated 
with  thumb-nail  sketches,  which  he  used  in  his  Chicago  Daily 
News  column.  .  .  .  Visiting  the  famous  Hoffman  House  bar 
in  New  York  when  I  first  arrived  there,  to  see  Bouguereau's 
painting,  "Nymphs  and  Satyr/'  which  hung  beneath  a  plush 
canopy.  .  .  .  Letter  from  George  Cram  Cook  asking  me  to 
"rearrange  your  entire  plan  of  life  and  work"  and  to  play  a 
role  in  a  Greek  play  put  on  by  the  Provincetown  Players — 
"the  part  of  the  chief  magistrate  of  Athens  summoning  the 
Athenian  ladies  to  desist  from  their  feminist  revolt  against 
the  war  with  Sparta/'  Somehow  this  seemed  to  call  for  too 
much  effort. 

Louis  Gardy,  Sunday  editor  of  the  New  York  Call,  using 
a  cartoon  of  mine  in  a  special  Child  Labor  issue  in  January, 
191 7 — the  one  in  which  a  devil  with  a  forked  tongue  touches 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES      435 

an  infant  on  the  head.  "The  joke  is  on  you,  Baby/1  said  the 
caption.  "They  put  you  here  with  talent  for  music,  literature, 
art,  and  science — yes,  and  talent  for  goodness  and  play.  But 
they  make  you  spend  most  of  your  time  scheming  and  fight- 
ing for  the  necessities  of  life.  I  don't  like  to  tell  you,  Baby, 
but  it's  a  hell  of  a  joke,  and  it's  on  you/1  .  ,  .  Ida  Rauh 
sending  out  a  notice  in  1913  of  a  club  to  be  organized,  where 
men  and  women  could  eat,  drink,  and  talk — which  led  to 
the  establishment  of  Mabel  Dodge's  salon  at  23  Fifth  Ave- 
nue, .  .  .  Frank  Harris  holding  forth  there  one  evening  on 
personal  morals,  with  especial  reference  to  his  own  love 
affairs. 


New  York  Daily  Call 

THE  JOKE  IS  ON  YOU,  BABY. 

Meeting  Jack  London  at  a  dinner  in  New  York,  when  the 
Snark  was  being  made  ready  in  California  for  his  intended 
round-the-world  voyage;  his  inviting  me  to  "come  out  and 
see  us  off/'  .  ,  .  Sketching  O.  Henry  in  Luchow's  in  New 
York  in  1908,  and  his  depicting  me  "as  an  old  'un/'  as  we 
sat  at  dinner  with  my  brother  Will  and  Jim  Crane.  .  .  * 
Buying  bright  colored  socks  three  or  four  pairs  a  week  till  I 
had  an  old  trunk  full  of  them.  ...  Voting  for  William 
Randolph  Hearst  for  mayor  of  New  York  City  on  a  munici- 
pal ownership  platform.  .  .  .  Attempts  of  my  brother  Will, 
then  managing  editor  of  Hampton's  Magazine,  to  get  me  to 
illustrate  stories  by  Eugene  Wood  and  others  (around  1909), 


436      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

and  my  saying  I  would  not  illustrate  anything  except  what 
I  wrote  myself — an  attitude  which  I  reversed  after  I  joined 
the  Metropolitan  staff. 


Bob  Ingersoll  speaking  at  a  rally  of  the  McKinley  League 
in  Carnegie  Hall  in  1896*  Big  night.  Great  speech.  New  York 
Sun,  in  head-line,  says  Bob  "stripped  the  tinsel  from  Bryan/' 


ROBERT    G.    INGERSOLL 


And  as  an  example  of  partisan  news  reporting  in  that  day, 
its  opening  paragraph  asserts  that:  "In  the  sense  that  the 
audience  was  made  up  of  persons  too  intelligent  to  be  deceived 
by  Mr*  Bryan's  variety  of  political  twaddle,  the  meeting  was 
a  gathering  of  the  classes/'  ,  .  .  Getting  word  from  a  travel- 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       437 

ing  friend  that  a  Texas  clergyman  was  delivering  serious 
lectures  on  the  nether  world  and  using  stcreopticon  slides 
made  from  the  comic  pictures  in  my  first  book,  Hell  Up  to 
Date.  .  .  .  Gaston  Akoun,  "concessionaire,"  writing  me  in 
1907  from  Norfolk,  Virginia,  asking  for  the  privilege  of 
using  my  Hell  drawings  enlarged  in  an  amusement  enterprise 
at  the  Jamestown  Exposition  to  be  called  Up.  and  Down — 
''not  being  allowed  to  call  it  Hell  or  any  such  epithet  which 
might  offend  the  religious  element  who  will  attend/'  .  ,  . 

I  have  always  been  interested  in  men  and  women  from 
other  countries,  in  whatever  occupation,  that  I  might  learn 
their  attitudes  toward  fundamental  things.  .  .  .  About  a 
year  before  Ramsay  MacDonald  became  Premier  of  Great 
Britain,  I  heard  him  speak  at  a  banquet  in  New  York  and 
tried  to  extract  from  his  address  some  phrase  that  was  defi- 
nite. But  no — if  one  sounded  at  all  positive,  he  would,  by 
circumlocution  of  words,  qualify  it  beautifully  in  the  way  of 
an  adept  statesman.  Put  all  of  his  sentences  into  a  sieve,  shake 
them,  and  they  would  all  go  through,  leaving  no  nuggets  of 
convincing  quality.  That's  what  happens  to  one  who  stays 
too  long  in  politics;  in  his  youth  MacDonald  was  positive. 

Tom  Mann,  the  English  labor  leader,  I  saw  when  he  was 
eighty.  He  looked  more  like  an  ambassador  representing  an 
old  established  government  than  the  leader  of  a  minority 
group  of  workers.  His  speech  calling  on  English  soldiers  not 
to  shoot  their  fathers  in  a  bitter  strike  (which  the  Masses 
published  with  a  portrait  I  drew  of  Mann,  and  a  cartoon  of 
mine  to  illustrate  the  context  of  his  earnest  appeal)  was  to 
my  mind  one  of  the  most  eloquent  speeches  in  history,  not 
excepting  those  by  Marc  Antony,  Patrick  Henry,  and  Eugene 
Debs  while  on  trial  for  obstructing  the  war.  .  .  .  When  I 
talked  with  George  Lattsbury  at  a  studio  party  in  his  honor 
in  South  Washington  Square,  I  felt  that  he  lived  up  to  what 
I  had  heard  about  him;  that  he  was  the  kind  of  Christian 
who  would  try  to  persuade  Satan  himself  to  mend  his  ways. 
Later  he  wrote  asking  me  to  draw  cartoons  for  Lansbury's 
Weekly.  Another  one  of  the  things  I  wanted  to  do,  but 
couldn't  get  around  to  doing. 

Meeting  Finley  Peter  Dunne  on  the  street  in  New  York 
after  my  arrest  on  anti-war  charges  in  1 91  7,  He  was  no  longer 


438      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

a  dissenter;  was  writing  no  Dooley  observations  now  to  point 
out  the  stupidity  being  exhibited  on  many  sides  by  the  pro- 
war  crowd,  as  he  had  during  the  Spanish-American  im- 
broglio. He  seemed  a  bit  sympathetic  toward  my  point  of 
view,  but  said:  ''Art  when  the  world  goes  crazy,  you  have 
to  go  crazy  too/'  I  said  something  about  trying  to  stay  sane, 
...  A  bird  flying  in  through  the  open  door  of  my  gallery 
in  Connecticut,  one  day  when  I  was  sorting  pictures  there, 
and  then,  mistaking  the  skylight  for  the  real  sky  and  trying 


CARLO  TRESCA 

to  fly  out  again — with  such  anxious  cries,  flutterings,  and 
bumpings  that  I  feared  it  would  beat  its  brains  out.  But  the 
frightened  creature  finally  found  the  open  door  and  flew  out. 
.  .  .  When  I  was  fourteen  on  the  farm,  all  four  walls  of  my 
room  were  papered  with  cartoons  printed  in  that  period,  and 
my  drawing  table  touched  my  pillow.  And  so  throughout  my 
life.  When  I  get  up  in  the  morning,  I  look  first  at  the  draw- 
ing on  which  I  worked  yesterday, 

Stirring  speeches  by  Bill  Hay  wood,  Arturo  Giovannitti 
Elizabeth  Gurley  Flynn,  Eugene  Debs,  Carlo  Tresca,  Jim 
Larkin,  Norman  Thomas,  Mother  Jones,  Upton  Sinclair, 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       439 

Meyer  London,  Morris  Hillquit,  John  T.  Doran,  big  Jim 
Thompson,  Ella  Reeve  Bloor,  Herbert  Mahler,  and  others 
on  many  platforms,  for  outstanding  causes — the  Ettor- 


New  Masses 


Governor  Fuller:  "Cheer  up,  Judge,  it  will  soon  be  over/' 


Giovannitti-Caruso  defense;  the  LW*W*  war  cases;  the 
Mesaba  Range  case  in  Minnesota;  the  great  Paterson  silk 
workers'  strike;  the  striking  Colorado  and  West  Virginia 
miners  facing  machine-gun  fire;  the  Mooney-Billings,  Sacco- 


440       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

Vanzetti,  and  Terzani  defenses;  the  fight  to  free  the  four 
remaining  miners  among  seven  sentenced  to  life  in  Harlan 
County,  Kentucky,  because  strikers  defended  their  lives 
against  an  attack  by  mine  guards;  the  Centralia  defense  in 
Washington  State;  the  courageous  fighting  of  Irish  and  East 
Indian  revolutionists  for  independence;  the  Scottsboro  and 
Angelo  Herndon  defenses;  the  Imperial  Valley  strikers;  and 
the  share-croppers  in  the  South, 

Such  speeches  added  to  my  education,  often  moved  me  to 
action.  Going  back  to  my  drawing  board,  with  a  vivid  con- 
ception of  some  new  wrong,  I  would  do  a  timely  cartoon, 
feeling  that  it  couldn't  wait  till  morning.  Thus  I  made  pic- 
tures to  aid  most  of  those  causes,  for  one  publication  or  an- 
other. The  list  is  beyond  my  power  of  estimation;  there  was 
never  time  to  keep  systematic  record.  Day  after  day  I  am 
reminded  of  work  of  mine,  dealing  with  the  economic  con- 
flict, that  I  had  forgotten  for  years. 

I  know  that  in  preceding  chapters  of  this  book  I  have 
said  that  "some  of  my  best  work  was  done  for"  this  or  that 
publication.  And  perhaps  I'd  better  sum  up  here,  and  say  that 
that  statement  applies  pretty  much  to  numerous  pictorial 
contributions  of  mine  to  Life,  Pack,  the  Masses,  the  Libera- 
tor, the  Metropolitan,  and  Goorf  Morning. 

Calvin  Coolidge  was  the  only  President  I  had  missed 
seeing  and  putting  in  my  sketch-book  in  many  years.  Toward 
him  I  felt  as  my  Uncle  Lem  did  in  1886  when  Grover 
Cleveland  was  due  to  speak  in  his  town:  "I  wouldn't  go 
'cross  the  street  to  see  him."  I  had  seen  quite  enough  of  Cal 
in  the  news-reels,  which  had  begun  to  give  us  Presidents 
pictorially  raw,  sliced,  boiled,  baked,  fried  on  one  side  or 
turned  over,  and  served  in  the  juice  of  publicity.  One  wax- 
work figure  would  have  been  plenty — so  far  as  I  was  con- 
cerned in  the  Coolidge  kind  of  fame.  ...  I  find  pages  from 
the  New  York  Herald  Tribune  of  May  30,  1926,  in  which  I 
illustrated  an  article  by  Duff  Gilfond,  "The  School  for 
Verdant  Congressmen."  .  .  . 

Mike  Gold  phoned  me  one  day  in  1926.  Would  I  come 
over  to  his  place  for  dinner  next  evening?  Otto  Kahn  was  to 
be  there.  The  banker  wanted  to  meet  a  few  radical  writers 
and  artists.  Kahn  was  well  known  for  his  financial  help  to 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES      441 

straggling  artists.  Mike's  apartment  was  over  near  Hudson 
Street — walk  up  three  flights.  Informal;  about  a  dozen 
present.  Otto  arrived  around  9,  his  chauffeur  following  and 
puffing  as  he  made  the  climb  with  a  satchel  filled  with  bottles 
of  champagne. 

I  was  seated  next  to  the  guest  of  honor,  and  knowing 
that  his  father  was  a  red  in  Germany  in  1848  I  asked  ques- 


ALEXANDER  WOOLLCOTT 

tions  about  Kahn  senior.  Otto  seemed  to  have  a  great  love 
and  respect  for  his  memory. 

Conversation  turned  to  Italy  and  Mussolini's  rise  to 
power.  Something  was  said  about  the  dictator's  financial 
backing.  "You  ought  to  know  all  about  it,  Mr.  Kahn/'  Carlo 
Tresca  spoke  up.  "You  lent  money  to  him."  Kahn  smiled, 
but  made  no  reply. 

The  wine  had  its  effect  upon  all  of  us,  and  we  unbent  a 
good  deal.  We  had  dined  well  and  everything  was  lovely. 
After  we  had  left  the  table  Otto  began  to  defend  and  excuse 
the  capitalist's  point  of  view.  He  told  eloquently  of  the 


442      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

responsibilities  and  hardships  which  a  fortune  entails  upon 
its  owner.  Being  rich,  he  explained,  meant  nothing  but  trou- 
ble and  mental  suffering.  At  that  I  heard  Bill  Cropper  sob- 
bing and  saw  him  wipe  his  eyes  with  h&  handkerchief.  The 
banker  took  Bill's  acting  as  a  good  joke,  and  presently  was 
talking  of  other  things. 

Afterward  I  wished  we  had  asked  him  if  he  knew  any 
rich  men  who  had  parted  with  their  wealth,  to  enjoy  the 
serenity  of  want.  But  we  were  drinking  his  champagne,  and 
while  the  evening  was  pleasantly  informal,  we  still  followed 
the  rule  of  etiquette  that  one  must  not  be  too  rough  with  a 
guest. 

Illustrating  a  book  by  that  brilliant  West  Coast  satirist, 
Charles  Erskine  Scott  Wood,  entitled  Heavenly  Discourse,  in 
1927,  It  dealt  with  conversations  by  outstanding  dignitaries 
and  some  interlopers  in  the  celestial  regions.  For  this  volume 
I  enjoyed  doing  some  portraits  of  God,  a  venerable  old  gentle- 
man with  long  white  whiskers.  I  showed  him  at  the  wheel 
of  the  universe,  steering  a  course  through  space;  in  a  general's 
uniform,  sounding  a  call  for  preparedness;  and  exhibiting 
impatience  with  Aquarius  for  his  unintelligent  manner  of 
answering  prayers  for  rain  from  Denver.  .  .  .  Illustrating 
two  trenchant  books  by  Upton  Sinclair  about  education 
under  capitalism  in  the  United  States — The  Goose-step  and 
The  Goslings.  Both  of  these  added  materially  to  my  own 
education  concerning  the  malforming  of  the  thoughts  of 
youth  by  a  system  of  colleges  and  schools  dominated  by  the 
moneyed  interests. 

Other  work  I  did  in  various  years — cartoons  on  profit- 
sharing  which  I  could  sell  nowhere,  and  tried  to  give  to  the 
Socialist  press,  in  the  early  years  of  this  century,  only  to  find 
that  Socialist  editors  weren't  interested  in  profit-sharing,  .  .  * 
Feature  article  in  the  New  York  Evening  World  in  1907, 
about  my  experiences  as  a  juror,  when  I  saw  John  D.  Rocke- 
feller Jr.  sitting  as  a  guest  alongside  the  judge,  and  a  stream 
of  misery  pouring  in  from  the,  city  prison.  .  .  .  Pictures  for 
Brooklyn  Life,  1906;  for  Scribner's,  1907;  for  the  Woman's 
Journal,  official  organ  of  the  National  American  Woman 
Suffrage  Association,  1912;  Intercollegiate  Socialist,  1913; 
for  an  article  by  Walter  Prichard  Eaton,  "A  Poor  Man's 


AjRT  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES      443 

Bank/'  in  the  American  Magazine,  1914;  for  the  Sunday 
World,  1925;  a  cartoon  for  the  Nation  showing  a  cat  lab- 
eled Massachusetts  Law  toying  with  a  mouse,  identified  as 
the  Sacco-Vanzetti  case.  .  .  .  Topical  drawings  for  the 
Window  Ticker,  a  periodical  leaflet  showing  "the  world  in 


FOR  AN  UPTON   SINCLAIR  BOOK  Illustration  used  on  the  cover 
of  Tht 


cartoons"  sold  to  stores  for  display  to  passersby,   around 
192L  .  ,  , 

Throughout  all  the  years  of  the  Masses  and  the  Libera- 
tor, when  he  was  a  contributor  of  poems  with  an  elemental 
sweep,  I  never  happened  to  meet  Carl  Sandburg.  But  I  think 
of  him  as  a  voice  of  the  people,  and  with  more  reverence  for 
the  true  Christian  spirit  and  sympathy  for  the  lowly  than 
could  be  found  in  an  average  church  full  of  pious  members 


444      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

of  the  faith.  ...  A  big  day  at  the  Academie  Jalien  in  Paris, 
when  I  won  second  prize  in  the  weekly  competition  for 
painting  on  a  Biblical  subject — with  a  canvas  depicting 
David's  victory  over  Goliath.  How  proud  I  was  when  other 
students  congratulated  me  on  the  good  qualities  in  my  first 
real  effort  to  do  an  oil  painting. 

Speaking  at  a  dinner  to  Andre  Malraux  in  New  York  in 
March,  1937.  First  time  I  ever  spoke  over  the  air.  I  hate  to 
be  hurried,  and  I  approached  the  microphone  with  the  same 
sense  of  caution  that  one  feels  near  a  red-hot  stove.  "I  am 
allotted  five  minutes.  If  I  speak  only  four  minutes  and  ten 
seconds,  Mr.  Chairman,  I  hope  you  will  know  what  to  do 
about  it;  I  don't/'  And  of  Malraux  I  said: 

"It  is  one  thing  to  sit  in  a  quiet  room  and  write  or  draw 
pictures  of  revolt  against  tyranny,  and  quite  another  thing 
to  meet  the  enemy  face  to  face  in  armed  conflict.  Our  honored 
guest  not  only  has  studio  courage,  but  he  has  that  noble  dar- 
ing shown  by  the  rank-and-file  fighters — those  individually 
unknown  heroes  in  the  desperate  battle  against  the  insane 
scourge  of  Fascism.  It  is  these  heroes  of  the  background — the 
brave  men  and  women  of  farm  and  factory,  whether  on  the 
picket-lines  in  the  United  States,  or  enduring  the  horrors  of 
Hitler's  inferno,  or  fighting  and  dying  for  an  ideal  on  the 
barricades  in  Spain — it  is  all  of  these  that  we  have  in  mind 
when  we  pay  our  respects  to  Malraux.  His  eyes  see  what  the 
aroused  working  people  are  beginning  to  see  the  world  over ; 
his  will  is  their  will;  his  heart  beats  with  them  and  for  them/1 

If  I  had  no  other  pleasant  memories  to  recall  than  those 
of  the  beautiful  women  I  have  met  who  were  active  in  pro- 
gressive or  radical  affairs,  life  would  still  be  worth  while.  I 
fell  in  love  with  Elizabeth  Gurley  Flynn  when  as  a  young 
girl  she  aroused  uncounted  thousands  with  her  clear,  ringing 
voice  to  the  cause  of  social  revolt.  When  I  think  of  beauty 
I  know  that  some  on  my  list  would  not  have  passed  a  jury 
test  for  what  is  called  feminine  beauty  today.  But  as  a  jury 
of  one  I  attest  that  they  were  beautiful  to  my  eyes,  and  their 
loveliness  lingers  in  retrospect. 

With  no  attempt  at  alphabetical  arrangement  or  making 
a  complete  list,  I  think  of  Margaret  Larkin,  Ernestine  Evans, 
Rebecca  Drucker,  Ruth  and  Hannah  Pickering,  Jessica  Smith, 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES      445 

Crystal  Eastman,  Marguerite  Tucker,  Inez  Milholland,  Gene- 
vieve  Taggard,  Mary  Marcy,  Doris  Stevens,  Louise  Bryant, 
Edna  Porter,  Leane  Zugsmith,  Freda  Kirchwey,  Sara  Bard 
Field,  Lydia  Gibson,  Martha  Gruening,  Clara  Gruening 
Stillman,  Jane  Burr,  Caroline  Lowe,  Jessica  Milne,  Mary 
Ware  Dennett,  Harriot  Stanton  Blatch,  Margaret  Sanger, 
Helen  Black,  Mary  Heaton  Vorse,  Anna  Strunsky,  Louise 
Adams  Floyd,  Helen  Keller,  Grace  Potter,  Edna  Kenton, 
Helen  Todd,  Anne  Valentine,  Carrie  Giovannitti,  Rose 
Hanna,  Lucy  Branham,  and  Sophia  Wittenberg  Mumford. 


ELIZABETH   GURLEY   FLYNN 

And  these  are  only  a  few  of  the  many  I  have  watched  as 
they  did  their  part  in  the  fight  to  make  this  a  better  world  to 
live  in — organizing,  picketing,  speaking  to  crowds  in  halls 
or  on  street  corners,  writing,  and  raising  money. 

Delving  into  my  note  books,  I  come  upon  some  pages 
devoted  to  Edna  Porter,  She  was  born  in  a  Socialist  environ- 
ment. Her  father  and  mother  were  both  early  members  of 
the  party  in  New  Orleans.  She  went  on  the  stage  in  her  teens 
in  a  small  part  with  James  O'Neill  in  The  Count  of  Monte 
Crist  o,  traveled  widely  with  road  companies,  and  finally 
toured  in  Evert/woman,  playing  the  leading  role  some  2,000 
times.  When  the  Actors'  Equity  Association  was  organized, 
she  was  in  the  forefront  of  its  memorable  strike. 


446      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

I  knew  Edna  first  at  the  Rand  School  when  the  Masses 
was  getting  started.  And  for  twenty-eight  years  I  have  re- 
ceived at  least  two  postcards  from  her  each  month  from 
varying  parts  of  the  world.  She  has  a  passion  for  discovering 
people  submerged  yet  worthy  of  attention — the  lame,  halt, 
and  blind.  Often  she  has  taken  some  struggling  artist  or  poet 
in  hand  and  introduced  him  to  persons  in  a  position  to  aid 
and  encourage  him.  One  of  her  services  has  been  typing  in 
Braille  magazine  articles  and  even  whole  books  for  Helen 
Keller  to  read. 

It  was  Edna  Porter  who,  with  Dr.  A.  L.  Goldwater  and 
another  friend,  smuggled  a  bust  of  Walt  Whitman  into  the 


CLARENCE   DARROW 

Hall  of  Fame  on  May  30,  1919,  the  day  before  that  poet's 
birthday.  Next  morning's  papers,  especially  the  New  York 
Call,  published  diverting  accounts  of  the  mystery  connected 
with  this  occurrence.  Up  to  then  the  author  of  Leaves  of 
Grass  had  been  rigidly  barred  from  that  holy  section  of  New 
York  University,  By  1932  he  had  been  officially  admitted. 
I  remember  when  I  first  met  Marguerite  Tucker — at  a 
memorial  meeting  for  Jack  Reed  in  Beethoven  Hall.  She  sat 
near  me,  and  I  was  struck  by  the  expression  on  her  face  as 
some  woman  in  black  on  the  stage  went  through  the  convolu- 
tions of  a  "Dance  of  Death/'  which  seemed  a  bit  too  lugubri- 
ous for  the  occasion.  For  all  our  feeling  of  loss  over  Jack's 
end,  I  felt  that  he  would  have  preferred  less  grief  and  a  more 
cheerful  outlook  toward  the  future*  Girls  went  about  the 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES      447 

hall  offering  "red  roses"  for  sale,  and  I  heard  Marguerite  say 
to  one  of  them:  "But  these  are  carnations!"  To  which  the 
other  said:  "What's  the  difference?  They're  red/'  Talking 
with  this  animate  young  woman  afterward,  and  thus  begin- 
ning a  lasting  friendship,  I  learned  that  she  was  a  sister-in- 
law  of  Dame  Nellie  Melba  of  Australia,  and  that  she  had  seen 
copies  of  the  Masses  on  Melba's  boudoir  sofa  in  Melbourne. 

Florence  Kelley's  vibrant  personality  comes  back  to  me 
clearly.  In  Washington  I  often  heard  stories  of  the  independ- 
ent ways  of  her  father,  "Pig  Iron"  Kelley  of  Pennsylvania, 
who  was  a  member  of  Congress  for  thirty  years.  He  got  that 
nickname  because  of  his  insistence  upon  a  high  tariff  on  raw 
iron. 

I  had  a  special  interest  in  Florence  Kelley  because  she  had 
been  the  first  chief  factory  inspector  in  Illinois,  appointed  by 
Governor  Altgeld.  With  admiration  I  saw  her  war  on  child 
labor,  sweatshops,  and  laws  discriminating  against  women — 
often  in  the  face  of  great  obstacles,  including  whispering 
campaigns  of  slander  set  in  motion  by  her  enemies.  I  can  see 
her  now  on  the  platform,  answering  a  reactionary  opponent 
who  in  a  debate  on  a  vital  piece  of  legislation,  claimed  to  be 
"open-minded."  She  replied  that  some  people  were  so  open- 
minded  that  ideas  never  stayed  in  their  heads. 

In  all  my  life  from  youth  to  the  three-score-and-ten 
mark  I  have  had  mating-intimacy  with  only  eight  women. 
Not  a  record  to  boast  about  when  I  reflect  that  one  of  the 
American  Youngs  had  eighteen  wives — and  no  doubt  other 
opportunities. 

One  evening  when  I  talked  genealogy  with  Alexander 
Young,  the  New  York  lawyer,  he  said  that  all  of  us  were 
distantly  related  to  Brigham  Young.  Perhaps  the  "distant" 
relationship  accounts  for  the  difference  between  the  Amer- 
ican pioneer  zeal  for  breeding  and  the  cautious  way  of  at  least 
one  of  the  modern  Youngs.  If  we  could  be  reasonably  sure 
that  our  children  would  not  become  helpless  victims  of  war 
or  poverty,  then  abandonment  to  real  love  with  all  its  conse- 
quences could  be  as  nature  willed  it.  And  the  arguments  for 
birth-control  would  lose  some  of  their  meaning. 

Yet  even  without  these  fears,  I  know  that  there  should 
be  scientific  care  in  propagating  children,  with  a  view  to 


SELF-PORTRAIT   OF   THOMAS   NAST,   with  note  acknowledging  a 
copy  of  Authors'  Readings. 


448 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES       449 

quality  and  not  quantity.  But  my  kind  of  a  world  would  be 
one  in  which  even  the  accidents  of  birth,  twins  or  even  quin- 
tuplets— legitimate  babies  or  those  not  quite  so  legitimate — 
would  be  welcomed  by  their  parents*  And  there  would  be  no 
reason  for  dread  of  their  not  having  decent  upbringing  or 
finding  places  to  work  according  to  their  individual  abilities. 

When  I  sent  Thomas  Nast  a  copy  of  Authors  Readings 
in  1 897  he  replied  with  a  sketch  of  himself  in  an  elocutionary 
posture  and  this  inscription:  ''Will  take  the  book  in  but  feel 
out  because  I  am  not  in  it." 

Clarence  Darrow  wrote  me  in  1928:  "On  My  Way  is  a 
good  book  except  for  one  thing — you  didn't  mention  me/' 

But  no  one  has  ever  complained  about  being  left  out  of 
my  Inferno. 

Of  this  book  I  know  that  friends  will  say:  "But  why 
didn't  you  mention  So-and-so?"  No  doubt  some  dear  to 
memory  and  certain  personality  notations  that  might  interest 
the  reader  have  been  overlooked  and  the  omissions  will  come 
back  to  plague  me  in  later  years.  And  it  may  be  that  some  I 
have  included  will  think  there  is  no  honor  in  once  having  been 
associated  or  on  friendly  terms  with  one  who  has  acted  with 
such  impropriety  against  the  social  code. 

Nevertheless,  as  the  curtain  goes  down  on  these  memoirs 
I'm  thinking  of  countless  friends  and  acquaintances — most 
of  whom  I  have  sketched  and  kept  in  notebooks,  and  who 
belong  in  my  life-story.  Beside  those  already  mentioned  in 
the  foregoing  pages  and  in  the  revery  picture  at  the  end  of 
this  volume,  others  will  read  between  the  lines  and  find  them- 
selves. 


Epilogue: 
WATCHING  THE  OLD  ORDER  CRACK 

IN  my  youth  I  hoped  for  no  higher  status  in  life  than  to 
be  among  those  who  would  follow  in  the  wake  of 
Thomas  Nast,  Joseph  Keppler,  and  Bernard  Gillam,  out- 
standing artists  in  the  field  of  political  caricature.  And  when 
in  my  early  twenties  I  grew  familiar  with  the  political  and 
social  satires  of  the  graphic  artists  of  England  and  France 
across  two  centuries,  these  gave  even  greater  stimulus  to  my 
ambition.  Dreamily  I  anticipated  that  my  destiny  was  to 
succeed  as  a  caricaturist  of  some  influence  in  public  affairs. 

Sometimes  a  prosperous  individual  will  say  to  me:  "Any 
man  can  succeed  in  his  ambition  if  he  really  wants  to.  Take 
you,  for  instance.  Haven't  you  accomplished  what  you 
wanted  to  do?"  And  I  answer:  "Yes — "  Then  I  have  a 
repentant  feeling  for  saying  that  because  "No"  would  be 
quite  as  correct.  I  tell  him  that  "Yes"  is  only  one  small  word 
of  a  full,  honest  answer;  only  a  little  part  of  the  whole  truth. 

I  point  out  that  I  was  compelled  to  waste  about  half  of 
my  life  scheming  and  worrying  over  the  problem  of  making 
enough  money  to  keep  going,  while  attempting  at  the  same 
time  to  put  aside  some  of  it  for  lean  years  and  old  age,  like 
a  dog  hiding  a  bone.  This  exercise  of  my  acquisitive  sense, 
this  trying  to  mix  business  with  creative  ability — though  it 
did  not  strangle  nay  talent — might  have  done  so  except  for 
fortuitous  circumstances,  kind  and  encouraging  parents,  lim- 
ited competition,  and  an  instinct  which  told  me  it  ought  not 
to  be  strangled  if  I  could  possibly  help  it.  Or  perhaps  a  little 
bird  singing  in  a  tree-top  just  for  joy  helped  to  give  me  the 
hint.  Finally  I  achieved  a  kind  of  success. 

Material  considerations  thwarted  me  at  every  turn.  It 
was  my  money-earning  ability  that  determined  my  right  to 
exist,  and  I  got  through  in  a  way — but  what  a  way!  Having 
spent  so  much  of  my  time  maneuvering  to  make  enough  cash 
with  which  to  live  decently,  I  count  most  of  that  effort  a 

450 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES      451 

hindrance  to  my  development,  both  as  a  man  and  as  an  artist. 
Instinctively  most  men  are  proud  to  be  able  to  provide  for 
themselves  and  their  dependents,  and  I  was  no  exception  to 
the  rule*  That  duty  I  accepted  willingly*  Still  it  seemed  to 
me  unworthy  of  any  one  to  make  that  the  main  reason  for 
living. 

It  took  me  a  long  time  to  understand  why  so  much  that 
surrounded  me  was  too  ugly  to  tolerate  without  protest  But 
eventually  I  learned  the  reason.  I  saw  that  the  conduct  of  my 
fellow-men  could  not  be  otherwise  than  disappointing,  in 
fact  parisitical  and  corrupt,  and  that  most  of  our  troubles 
emanated  from  a  cause  which  manifestly  would  grow  worse 
so  long  as  we  put  up  with  it. 

That  cause  was  Capitalism.  Man's  natural  self-interest, 
become  perverted  and  ruthless!  The  motivating  principle  of 
business  (though  not  openly  confessed),  when  summed  up, 
meant:  "Get  yours;  never  mind  the  other  fellow/'  I  saw,  too, 
that  our  law-makers  and  judges  of  the  meaning  of  the  law 
put  property  rights  first  and  left  human  rights  to  shift  for 
themselves. 

Of  course  clergymen  and  other  paid  teachers  and  moral- 
ists admonished  us  to  be  upright  and  unselfish,  and  for  people 
with  good  incomes  it  was  easy  to  condemn  those  living  on 
the  edge  of  poverty  as  inferior,  impractical,  shiftless,  and 
lacking  respect  for  the  social  code.  It  was  easy  to  shout  thief 
at  the  other  fellow  when  you  had  no  temptation  to  steal — I 
mean  steal  in  a  petty  way.  But  stealing  in  a  big  way  was 
often  accepted  as  good  business  judgement. 

I  found  that  life  was  a  continual  struggle  for  most  of  us 
— and  this  on  a  plane  not  much  above  that  of  the  struggle 
of  wild  animals — and  that  society  dismissed  this  obvious 
truth  as  a  negligible  factor  in  determining  human  conduct  as 
well  as  our  mental  and  physical  well-being.  I  began  to  see 
that  this  economic  battle  persisted  even  in  the  midst  of  an 
exhaustless  plenty,  and  that  most  humans  lived  and  died  try- 
ing to  succeed  in  a  material  sense,  in  short,  to  reach  the  goal 
of  a  triumphant  animalism. 

For  that  was,  and  still  is,  "success/'  And  the  more  one 
can  acquire  of  physical  comforts  and  delights  the  more  is  this 
success  glorified.  I  know  of  course  that  in  these  days  the 
measure  of  a  man's  real  worth  is  not  taken  for  granted  because 


452      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

of  the  size  of  the  fortune  he  has  piled  up.  But  he  is  still^the 
envied  one — a  shining  example  for  having  reached  "the 
rugged  heights/'  He  is  the  winner,  just  as  his  kind  were 
acclaimed  back  in  the  early  years  of  the  twentieth  century, 
when  individualism  was  king,  and  Socialism  a  mere  theory 
of  the  crackpots  and  failures. 

I  think  of  myself  as  a  kind  of  sample  of  the  human  race; 
in  some  respects  a  poor  sample,  and  different,  if  not  peculiar. 
But  my  problems,  I  feel,  have  been  in  the  main  much  like 
those  of  most  men  and  women,  at  least  in  this  regional  habitat 
of  the  race,  the  United  States  of  America, 

Every  one  of  us  is  born  with  some  kind  of  talent.  In 
early  manhood  or  womanhood  each  individual  begins  to  see 
a  path,  though  perhaps  dimly,  that  beckons  to  him  or  her. 
All  of  us  have  this  leaning  toward,  or  desire  for  doing^  ably, 
a  certain  kind  of  work,  and  only  want  an  opportunity  to 
prove  our  capacity  in  that  direction.  These  hunches,  these 
signs  of  one's  natural  trend,  are  usually  right,  and  are  not  to 
be  thrust  aside  without  regret  in  later  life. 

I  am  antagonistic  to  the  money-making  fetish  because  it 
sidetracks  our  natural  selves,  leaving  us  no  alternative  but  to 
accept  the  situation  and  take  any  kind  of  work  for  a  weekly 
wage.  We  are  expected  to  "make  good/'  which  is  another 
way  of  saying  make  money.  Therefore  we  do  things  for 
which  we  have  no  real  understanding  and  often  no  liking, 
without  thought  as  to  whether  it  is  best  for  us,  and  soon  or 
late  find  that  living  has  become  drab  and  empty. 

The  retired  millionaire  trying  to  revert  to  a  youthful 
love  for  painting  or  other  tendency  in  the  fine  arts,  is  almost  as 
pathetic  as  the  poor  man  who  has  worked  hard  all  his  life  at 
something  in  which  he  has  no  particular  interest  and  nothing 
to  show  for  it,  in  either  money  or  recognition. 

We  are  all  caught  and  hurt  by  the  system,  and  the  more 
sensitive  we  are  to  life's  highest  values  the  harder  it  is  to  bear 
the  abuse. 

I  have  just  looked  again  at  a  splash  of  cartoon-bitterness 
against  the  money  incentive  which  I  made  for  an  early  issue 
of  the  Masses.  It  was  called  "Compulsory  Worship/'  A  pic- 
ture of  people  in  endless  droves  lashed  by  the  demons  of 
Want  and  Fear,  forcing  them  to  kneel  in  shameful  supplica- 
tion at  the  altar  of  Mammon*  It  matters  not  whether  you 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES      453 

believe  in  such  idolatry — your  tormentors  compel  your 
prayers.  So  most  of  us  pray  not  for  riches,  but  for  just  enough 
to  assure  our  living  in  normal  comfort  and  perhaps  a  little 
extra  for  funeral  expenses  at  the  end. 

I  do  not  think  of  myself  as  having  arrived  at  any  degree 
of  achievement  commensurate  with  my  potential  talent  and 
capacity  for  work.  I  am  just  one  among  the  many  who  have 
tried  to  approximate  some  measure  of  integrity  in  a  world 
that  is  a  sorry  bewilderment  of  wretchedness  and  affluence. 

Through  the  events  of  seventy- odd  years,  as  recorded  in 
these  pages,  one  man  managed  to  find  his  direction.  He 
reached  his  maturity  during  the  upsurge  of  individualism, 
with  its  so-called  "self-made"  men  (the  profit-hounds)  and 
their  rise  to  dominance  over  government,  the  press,  church, 
colleges,  public  business,  and  most  of  our  country's  institu- 
tions. Slowly  this  man  grew  aware  of  the  wrongs  resulting 
from  such  sovereignty,  and  then  in  his  limited  way  tried  to 
help  in  the  work  of  bringing  about  social  change. 

But  he  had  to  learn  that  many  traditional  customs  and 
beliefs,  however  unreasonable  and  absurd  they  looked  to  him, 
couldn't  be  changed,  and  that  to  compromise  with  them  was 
no  great  fault  He  saw  that  there  were  countless  follies  and 
minor  wrongs  which,  while  not  to  be  ignored,  were  not  to  be 
taken  too  seriously. 

During  the  last  four  decades  of  his  life- journey,  as  this 
chronicle  has  revealed,  it  became  more  and  more  evident  that 
there  was  one  wrong,  one  thing  over  all,  standing  in  the  way 
of  honest  and  contented  living — the  unjust  treatment  of 
those  who  produce  the  wealth  of  the  world  by  those  who 
own  most  of  that  wealth;  and  that  the  continual  fight  be- 
tween the  moneyed  interests  and  the  working  people  (includ- 
ing artists)  was  the  vital  problem  of  our  time.  Now,  during 
these  recurring  and  ever-increasing  conflicts,  is  it  not  obvious 
that  we  have  to  take  sides?  I  think  it  has  come  to  that,  for 
all  of  us. 

As  these  final  words  are  written,  there  is  mobilizing  and 
fighting  with  unspeakable  barbarity  in  many  parts  of  the 
world — the  last  drive  of  investment-finance  against  further 
advance  of  our  own  Lincolnian  ideal:  government  of,  for, 
and  by  the  people*  To  describe  other  outstanding  events  in 


454      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

recent  years  of  this  conflict  in  our  own  country  would  be 
repetition — the  same  old  fighting,  except  that  the  forces  of 
reaction  are  bolder  and  more  ruthless. 

Before  finishing,  I  would  like  to  speak  of  pleasant  and 
hopeful  signs  of  the  times — the  splendid  work  initiated  by 
many  federal  projects;  the  awakening  to  the  need  of  solidar- 
ity, especially  in  the  professional  fields;  the  League  of  Amer- 
ican Writers,  the  United  American  Artists,  the  American 


Circa  1927 

OVER  THEY  GO.  Drawing  for  an  LW.W,  leaflet  on  labor-saving1  devices 
as  a  cause  of  unemployment, 

Newspaper  Guild,  and  kindred  movements,  I  see  much  new 
life  and  beauty  that  give  reason  for  rejoicing,  but  it  is  ob- 
scured from  view  most  of  the  time  by  the  brutality  of  other 
facts — dark  realities  like  the  Memorial  Day  massacre  of 
Chicago  steel  strikers  in  1937,  inhuman  conditions  in 
the  California  fruit  industry,  the  fostering  of  race  and  re- 
ligious hatred,  suppression  of  protests  and  uprisings  of 
fanners  in  the  western  states,  persecution  of  southern  share- 
croppers, the  12,000,000  or  more  unemployed  in  this  land 
of  opportunity,  lockouts,  lost  strikes,  vigilante  terrorism; 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES      455 

the  countless  murders,  imprisonments,  and  suicides  caused  by 
the  pressure  of  need  for  money;  and  the  increase  in  psycho- 
pathic cases  growing  out  of  mental  anxiety  under  our  crazy 
economic  system. 

What  can  be  done  about  all  this?  I  do  not  believe  that 
making  the  world  better  depends  upon  each  one  of  us  becom- 
ing good.  That  is  asking  too  much  in  these  hostile  surround- 
ings. No  doubt  "inner  transformation*'  is  what  we  need,  but 
outside  conditions  will  not  give  inner  transformation  a 
chance.  Yet  I  do  believe  that  man  is  destined  to  be  released 
for  a  more  ennobling  life,  when  each  one  of  us  can  go  even 
farther  with  our  talent  or  natural  ability  than  we  thought 
possible.  First  of  all,  however,  our  social  life  must  be  rightly 
conditioned  before  anyone  can  grow  to  a  decent  stature  as  an 
honest  human  being  or  become  a  proficient  unit  in  the  world's 
work. 

By  "rightly  conditioned"  I  mean  the  common  ownership 
of  land  and  of  the  means  of  production  and  distribution  of 
essential  commodities.  And  this,  of  course,  assumes  the  elim- 
ination of  private  ownership  of  our  vital  industries  and  the 
substitution  of  co-operative  business  as  a  public  policy,  with 
no  concern  for  profits  beyond  the  self-sustaining  limit  of  each 
industry  and  the  assured  welfare  of  those  who  do  the  work. 

This  is  my  own  definition  of  Socialism  as  I  learned  to 
understand  it  and  to  believe  that  to  establish  it  would  make 
the  most  substantial  groundwork  for  our  individual  and  col- 
lective growth.  I  can  see  no  hope  for  humanity  so  long  as 
one's  right  to  live  depends  upon  one's  ability  to  pay  the  cost 
of  living  imposed  by  those  who  exploit  our  daily  needs. 

I  think  I  know  human  nature  well  enough  to  know  that 
the  average  individual  works  better  when  encouraged  and 
praised,  and  does  his  worst  when  humiliated  and  looked  upon 
as  a  slave.  Some  kind  of  congenial  work  is  necessary  to  con- 
tentment. From  the  small  boy  tinkering  with  the  construc- 
tion of  a  toy  to  the  old  lady  knitting,  with  no  thought  in 
their  minds  of  cash  payment — we  see  the  desire  of  human 
beings  to  be  doing  something  with  their  minds  and  hands. 

If  the  continual  pressure  for  monetary  gain  whenever 
we  render  any  kind  of  service  were  removed,  I  believe  people 
would  enjoy  working  for  the  common  good.  This  is  demon- 


456       ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

strated  over  and  over  again  in  time  of  floods  and  other  dis- 
asters when  the  call  to  communal  welfare  is  the  only^incentive. 

The  horror  of  unemployment  is  the  final  undoing  of  the 
worker.  When  he  sees  this  confronting  him  he  sells  him- 
self regardless  of  the  intrinsic  worth  of  his  ability.  Labor 
unions  and  collective  bargaining  arose  to  give  him  some 
show  of  power  and  dignity. 

Individual  development  depends  upon  mass-solution  of 
the  economic  problems  of  everyday  living.  The  inventors, 
thinkers,  and  the  common  man  have  made  this  world  ripe 
for  healthful  leisure,  and  have  created  far  more  than  enough 
goods  for  all.  But  through  all  this  progress  the  business  man 
has  assumed  the  right  to  the  lion's  share  while  those  who  did 
the  creating  and  hard  work  were  compelled  to  fight  for  what- 
ever they  could  get — or  starve.  If  money,  as  it  was  once 
meant  to  be,  were  a  true  symbol  of  individual  worth,  the 
problem  would  be  simpler,  but  no  one  is  so  benighted  as  to 
believe  that  in  this  day  it  represents  true  worth  any  more 
than  it  represents  mere  luck,  favoritism,  inheritance,  or  a 
drunken  thirst  for  money-power. 

In  the  beginning  of  this  narrative  I  told  about  one  of  my 
first  assignments  as  a  pictorial  interpreter  of  events — the  trial 
of  the  so-called  "Anarchists*'  in  Chicago,  when  the  primal 
reason  for  hanging  four  of  eight  labor  leaders  was  that  they 
had  agitated  for  the  eight-hour  day  and  better  wages.  From 
then  until  the  present  there  has  been  savage  and  ceaseless 
warfare.  There  has  been  so  much  purging  of  labor's  ranks  by 
the  dictatorship  of  the  privileged  interests  in  an  effort  to  stab- 
ilize its  power  that  the  record  is  one  long  scroll  of  infamy. 
But  the  change  is  at  hand — the  old  order  is  cracking.  It  has 
been  said  before  that  "the  cure  for  democracy  is  more  democ- 
racy/' 

Many  individuals  shy  at  the  word  "revolution"  because 
they  regard  it  as  a  plea  for  still  more  terror — still  more  blood 
and  tears,  as  if  humanity  had  not  had  enough.  When  I  have 
spoken  of  revolution  in  these  pages,  it  was  to  visualize  the 
cycles  merging  in  the  progress  of  governmental  ideas  through 
the  centuries. 

Having  moved  from  feudalism  into  concentrated  mon- 
archy, then  to  parliamentary  and  political  democracy,  and 
still  further,  to  include  participation  of  all  male  and  female 


ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES      457 

adults  (without  property  qualifications)  in  elections,  the 
forces  which  shape  and  re-shape  society  are  completing  the 
design  in  this  epoch  with  industrial  democracy.  All  this  evolv- 
ing did  not  just  happen.  It  was  accelerated  by  the  propa- 
gandists, the  statesmen,  the  writers,  the  artists,  and  all  who 
believed  in  the  natural  trend  and  inevitable  need  in  each 
period  of  changing  conditions.  It  is  the  opponents  of  change, 
those  who  will  not  see  that  conditions  demand  it,  who  deter- 
mine the  kind  of  revolution  that  is  impending — whether  it 
will  involve  a  minimum  or  a  maximum  of  obstruction  and 
violence. 

Trying  to  turn  back  the  clock  of  time  is  the  traditional 
impulse  of  the  Tories.  But  there  is  still  some  hope  that  they 
will  awaken  to  the  futility  of  hard  negation,  and  that  here 
in  our  own  country,  where  progressive  ideas  have  made  ma- 
terial headway  since  1932  and  militant  organization  of  labor 
has  gained  more  power  to  hold  this  progress,  we  can  come  out 
into  the  light  of  the  new  democracy  through  conscious  and 
planned  evolution.  This  is  my  hope,  not  a  prediction. 

While  on  trial  in  war-time  I  was  referred  to  by  my  com- 
rades as  the  only  pacifist  in  the  indicted  Masses  group.  To  be 
thought  such  was  pleasing  to  me.  Yet  I  often  wondered  if  I 
could  rightly  be  classed  among  the  noble  men  and  women  of 
that  cause.  Sometimes  I  asked  myself:  Isn't  every  moral  prin- 
ciple, every  good  thing  in  life,  in  danger  of  being  carried  too 
far?  We  know  it's  good  to  eat,  to  sleep,  to  be  kind,  to  be 
cautious,  and  to  be  tolerant.  But  to  overdo  any  good  thing — 
take  tolerance,  for  example — should  there  be  no  limit  to  that 
most  blessed  of  virtues? 

"Ah!"  says  the  pacifist,  "y°ur  tolerance  can  break,  of 
course,  but  you  must  not  use  force."  I  ponder  anew  the  ques- 
tion: In  the  long  run,  is  non-resistance  the  better  way  to  make 
the  world  right? 

I  do  not  know.  This,  however,  I  do  know — the  big  war 
of  1914-1918  was  not  my  war.  It  was  plainly  not  a  war  for 
democracy  but  for  plutocracy;  not  for  peace  but  for  plunder, 
and  to  make  our  country  military-minded.  It  was  capitalism's 
war — not  mine. 

Times  like  these  test  the  consistency  of  a  pacifist.  One 
sees  the  drive  to  plunge  the  whole  world  into  carnage.  Debate 
goes  on  in  the  press,  over  the  radio,  and  on  the  public  plat- 


458      ART  YOUNG:  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES 

form,  a$  to  the  possibility  of  the  United  States  becoming 
involved  again  in  a  general  wan  There  are  those  who  contend 
for  an  isolation  policy,  and  others  who  raise  the  pointed 
inquiry:  Can  this  country  stay  above  the  battle? 

As  I  pen  these  words,  the  old  feeling  stirs  me  anew, 
that  I  would  like  to  see  the  United  States  stay  out  of  another 
international  conflict.  Yet  with  all  my  hoping  I  know  that 
I  am  a  realist  and  that  new  conditions  make  new  truths.  To 
stay  at  home  and  be  neutral  is  not  so  logical  nor  so  possible 
as  it  could  have  been  in  1917.  If  in  my  time  another  wide- 
flung  conflict  should  come,  I  have  no  illusions  about  it.  It 
will  again  be  a  war  of  the  investment-capitalists — the  aristoc- 
racy of  wealth  in  collusion  with  what  is  left  of  that  decrepit 
aristocracy  of  lineage  will  be  back  of  the  intrigue  and  diplo- 
macy that  decide  the  fate  of  the  world. 

We  must  be  ready  to  hear  of  their  devotion  to  political 
democracy — which  they  have  learned  so  well  how  to  use  for 
their  own  ends.  And  we  must  be  ready  to  hear  of  their  enmity 
to  the  totalitarian  state,  which  is  just  the  kind  of  state  they 
want,  provided  it  totals  in  every  way  to  their  credit 

This  is  the  truth  as  I  see  it.  So,  if  governments  haven't 
learned  that  peace,  not  war,  is  what  people  desire,  my  kind  of 
pacifism  would  succumb  to  the  hope  that  at  last  the  time  had 
come  for  a  general  awakening  to  the  cause  of  it  all,  and  that 
the  next  big  war  (if  there  must  be  a  next)  would  end  as  the 
last  one  came  near  ending  (in  Germany,  Italy,  and  other 
countries)  with  the  rise  of  workers'  republics  in  many  parts 
of  the  world. 

With  more  and  more  governments,  however  crude  and 
experimental  dedicated  to  industrial  democracy  and  universal 
brotherhood,  the  era  of  peace  and  joy  in  living  will  come  on 
earth. 

Inadequately  though  it  may  sum  up,  if  my  work  can 
mortise  into  such  a  future,  whether  near  or  remote,  as  I 
believe  it  will — that  thought  is  consolation  and  payment. 
When  my  time  comes  I'll  lay  down  my  pencil  and  call  it 
a  day. 


INDEX 


Abbot,  Wyllis  S.,    139  ff. 
Academic,  Julian,  4,  8,  9,  135 
Academy    of    Design     (Chicago) ,    62, 

73 

Ahkoond  of  Swat,  142-143 
Alabama,  visit  to,  200-201 
Altgeld,  Gov.  John  P.,  152-153,  154, 

159,     160,     161-162,     219,     222; 

anarchists  pardoned  by,    166-168 
American  Field,  drawings  accepted  by, 

68 

Amnesty  Association,    165,    166 
"Anarchists,"  Chicago,  trial  of,   83  ff., 

101-108,   165-168;  philosophy  of, 

387 

Afbeiter  Zeitung,  labor  views  of,  80 
Arketl,  W.  J.,    118 
Arnold,  Matthew,    109-110 
Art   gallery,   395  ff. 
"Art,   song,   and  music"   performance, 

139-143 

Art  Students'  League,  120 
Aft  Young's  Inferno*  416-418,  419- 

420,    424 
Associated  Press,  libel  suit  brought  by, 

295  ff, 
Authors*  Readings,  193-195 


Baker,  Alfred  Z.,   214 
Barnard,  Frederic,   72,    130,   131 
Barnes,  Earl,  320,  332,  335,  337 
Barns,  Cornelia,   328 
Barnum,  P.  T.,   123,   233-236 
Barrett,  I^awrence,   92 
Barton,   Ralph,    381 
Beckwith,  Carroll,  4,    120 
Bell,  Josephine,  320,  324,  332,  335 
Bellows,  George,  388 
Benefit,  testimonial,  421-423 
Berkmarm,  Alexander,   323,   333 
Bethel,   Conn.,   home  at,    229  ff,,   art 
gallery  at,   395  ff. 


Big  Stick,  340,   378,   381 

Black,  William  P.,    84  ff. 

Blaine,   James  G*,    147 

Blizzard  of  '  8  8  sketches,   110 

Bloor,  Ella  Reeve,  256 

Boissevain,  Eugen  Jan,   356 

Booth,  Charles,  editor  Monroe  Senti- 
nel, 31,  114,  136 

Booth,   Edwin,    92 

Bougeaureau,  9,   10 

Breughel,   Peter,    133 

Brisbane,  Arthur,  202,  211,  256, 
262,  380,  427-431 

Browne,  Hablot  K..,   130 

Brubaker,  Howard,   328 

Bryan,  William  Jennings,  192,  306, 
307 

Bryant,  Louise,  389 

Burne- Jones,    127 

Burns,   John,    153 

Burridge,  Walter,    72 

Business  depression   (1892),   172-173 

Butler,  Benjamin  F.,    102 


Cabanel,    9 


Campaigns.    See   Political   campaigns. 
"Campainin  for  the  Millenum,"  211- 

212,  223 

Camp  meeting,  47-48 
Cannon,  Joseph  D.,   298 
Caricatures,  early,    14,   38-39,  46-47, 

52  ff.;   new  school  of,   381 
Carnegie,   Andrew,    149  ff, 
Carnegie  Steel  Company  strike  (1892), 

150  ff. 

Carruth,    Hay  den,    271 
Chalk  plates,   69 
Chamberlain,  K.  R.,  387 
Chatsworth  railroad  disaster,  98-100 
Chauve-Souris  review,  380,  381 
Chester,   England,    127-129 
Chicago,  life  in,  62  ff.f   144 
Chicago   Anarchists.   See  Anarchists 
Chicago  Daily  News,  88  ff.,    109-110 


461 


462 


INDEX 


Chicago  Evening  Mail,  69,  83 

Chicago  Herald  f  109 

Chicago  Inter-Ocean,    109,    123-124, 

144  ff.,  173,  177 
Chicago  Mail,  109 
Chicago  Times,  109 
Chicago  Tribune,    109-110 
Chicago  World's  Fair,  137,  145,  156- 

158,  162-164,   169-171 
Chinatown  dinners,  252 
Circus  drawings,   46-47 
Clan-na-Gael     conspirators,     trial    of, 

124 
Cleveland,  Grover,  92,  148,  149,  153, 

158-159,  162,   163,   172 
Cockerill,  John  A.,  113 
Cody,    Colonel     (Buffalo    Bill),     in 

Paris,   8 

Colarossi  School,   8 
Cottiers  Weekly,  270,  379 
Color  printing,  introduction  of,   155 
Coming  Nation,  cartoons  for,  278 
Concert  episode,  139-143 
Conde\  Jim,  245 

"Conflagration  Jones."  See  Webster. 
Congress,    United    States,    cartooning, 

282  ff.,  302,  315-317 
Connors,  Chuck,  209 
Conventions,  party.  See  Political  cam- 
paigns 

Coolidge,  Calvin,   440 
Cooper  Union,  debating  class  at,  226, 

247,  249,  254 

Copeland,  Clyde,  56-57,   177,  201 
Copeland,    Mrs.    Clyde,    31,    32,    77, 

124 

Corbett,  Jim,    158 
Corner,  Thomas,  12,   14,   17,  20 
Cosmopolitan,  drawings  sold  to,   210 
Covarrubias,  381 
Cox,  Kenyon,  4,  120 
Coxey's  Army,   182-183 
Creel,  George,  337 
Croker,  Richard,  148 
Cronin,  Dr.,  murder  of,   124 
Cruikshank,    George,    72,    130,    131f 

133 

Cruikshank,  Isaac,  130 
Cuba,  war  with,   195-199 


D 

Dana,  Charles  H.»  121 
Danbury,  Conn.,  236  ff. 


Darrow,  Clarence,  315 

Daumier,   10 

Davis,  Robert  R,  201 

Day,  Clarence,  Jr.,  288 

Debs,    Eugene,    216,    257-258,    272, 

387 
Dell,    Floyd,    297,    324,    328,    332, 

335,  391 

Democracy,  faith  in,  292-293 
Democratic   conventions.   See   Political 

conventions 

Dennis,  Charles  H.,  89 
Denver,  life  in,  178  ff. 
Denver  Post,  179 

Denver  Rocky  Mountain  News,   179 
Denver    Times,    work   on    the,    177- 

187 

Depew,  Chauncey  M.,  147 
Dickens  lore,    130ff. 
Dore",  Gustav,  10,  52,  120,  127,  133- 

134,  138 
Drainage  Canal    (Chicago),  work  on, 

158 

DuMaurier,  127,  130 
Dunne,  Finley  Peter,  96-98,  287, 

437-438 
Durer,  133 
Dutch  Treat  Club,  340,  354 


Eastman,  Crystal,  328 

Eastman,  Max,  275,  295,  320,  322, 

324,   328,    331,    332,    335,    356, 

362,  388,   390 
Ebersold,     Police     Chief,     quoted     on 

Haymarket  riot,   165,  220 
Economic  freedom,  388 
Economic     struggle,     awakening     to, 

215  ff. 

Eden  Musee,   119-120 
"Edith,"  111-112,  114 
Education,  widening,  215 
81   Fifth  Avenue,  206-211 
Elizabeth,    29,    57,    61,    124,    145, 

175-178,  188-190,  200-201,  205- 

206,     213-214,     225,     229-230, 

232,  244,  252-253,  292 
Encyclopedia    Britannica,    article    for, 

406-407 

Engel(  George,  86,   103 
Entertainment  episode,  139-143 
Espionage  Act,  Afam*  trial  under  tin, 

319  f.,  331,  332  ff.,  351 


INDEX 


463 


Field,  Eugene,  92-95,  113,  146,  160, 

178 
Fielden,    Samuel,    79,    82,    86,    104, 

165,  167,  173-74 
Fifer,  Governor,    166 
Fischer,  Adolph,  86,  103 
Fleury,   Tony  Robert,    9 
Flynn,  Elizabeth  Gurley,  444 
Folwell,   Arthur,    191 
Foster,  William  A.,   85 
Fox,  Richard  K.,  119 
Freeman,  Joseph,   390,  391 
Frick,  Henry  C,   150 
Frost,  A.  B.,   113,   161 
Frueh,  Al,  381 
Furniss,  Harry,   283 


Garden  party   (Monroe),  31-32 

Garfinkle,    125 

Gary,  Joseph  E.,  84,   102,   167,   168 

Gellert,  Hugo,  328,  391 

George,  Henry,   122 

Gerome,  9 

Gillam,  Bernard,   122,   190,  395 

Gillray,   130,   131,   133 

Gilman,  Charlotte  Perkins,   298 

Giovannitti,  Arturo,  328 

Gladstone,  William  H.,  93-94 

Glintenkamp,  H.  J.,  320,  324,  332 

Gold,  Mike,   390,   391 

Goldman,  Emma,  268,  323,  333 

Good  Morning,  354  ff.,  387 

Gould,  Jay,  75 

Greeley,    Horace,     Nast    cartoons    of, 

122-123 

Gresham,  Walter,   162 
Grinnell,  Julius  S-,  83,  168,  220 
Gropper,  William,  390,  39 1 
Gruening,  Ernest  H.,  378 
Guerin,  Jules,  72 
Gulbransson,   381 

H 

Hallinan,  Charles  T.,  328 
Hamilton,  Grant,   191 
Hand,  Judge  Augustus,  332  ff. 
Hand,  Judge  Learned,  320,  321 
Hapgood,  Norman,  298 
Harcourt,  Sir  William,   183-185 
Hard,  William,   331 


Hardie,  Keir,  183,  211,  215 
Harrison,  Benjamin,  146  ff.,  158,  159 
Harrison,    Carter    H.,    79,    82,     168; 

murder  of,   171 
Haymarket     riot      (Chicago) ,     82  ff., 

101  ff.,    125,    165-168,   219-221 
Haywood,    William    D.,     257,    284, 

289,    330,    341 
Hearst,  William  R.,   201,   217,   218- 

219,   324 
Hell  Up  to  Date,  137-139,  143,  160- 

161 

Hill,  David  B.,  148 
Hillquit,  Morris,  332  ff. 
"Hiram    Pennick"    articles,    211-212, 

223 

Hogarth,  10,  130,  131 
Holmes,  John  Haynes,  298 
Homestead       (Pennsylvania)       strike, 

150  ff. 

Hough,   C.   M.,  321 
Howitt,   130 

Hughes,  Charles  E.,  nomination,  306 
Huntington,  Collis  P.,  126 


I 


Illness  in  Paris,  and  recovery,    15-26, 

136-137 

Irvine,  Alexander,   258-259 
Ismay,  Bruce,   126 
I.    W.    W.,    330;    trials    in    Chicago, 

341  ff. 


"John  Brown's  Fort,"   171 
Jones,  Ellis  <X  352ff. 
Judge,  61,   189,  192-193,  200,  211, 
259,  270 

K 

Kahn,  Otto,  440-441 

Keene,  130 

Keller,  Helen,  328,  329 

Kelley,  Florence,  447 

Kelly,  Fred  C.,   283 

Kent,  Rockwell,  274 

Keppler,  Joseph,   122,   191,  395 

Ker,  Balfour,  quoted,  266-268 

King,  Ben,  125 

Knights  of  Labor,  activities  of,  75  ff. 

Kohlsaat,  H.  H.,  146  ff.,  155,  173 


464 


INDEX 


Labor,  early  stirrings  of,  74  ff. 

Labor  trial,  83  ff.;   101  ff. 

LaFollette,  Robert  M.,  223-224,  299, 
379 

La  grippe,  attack  ofr  in  Paris,  15-24 

LaMotte,  Ellen,  328 

Lang,  Andrew,  93-94 

Lawson,  Thomas  W.,  256 

Lawson,  Victor  P.,  89,  124,  165 

Leer  James  Melvin,   191 

Leech,  John,  72,   130 

Leslie's  Weekly,  cartoons  for,  195-196 

Libel  suits,  295  ff, 

Liberator,     328  ff,,     378,     386-387, 
390-393 

Life.  189,   191,  210,  246-247,  259, 

264,  270,  379,  384 
Liliuokalani,  Queen,   162 
Lincoln,  Robert  T.,   147 
Lincoln-Douglas   debates,    33-34 
Lindbergh,  Charles  A,,  Jr.,  309 
Lindbergh,  Charles  A.,  St.,  308-310 
Lingg,  Louis,  86,   104 
Lippmann,  Walter,  304 
London,  visit  to,  131-135 
"Looking  On/'  series,  378 
Lorimer,   George  Horace,   384 
Lucy,  H.  W.,   283 
Ludlow  (Colo,)  strike,  303-304 

M 

McAdoo,  William  G.,  289 
McCormick,  Cyrus  H.,  80 
MacDonald,  Ramsay,  437 
McDougall,  Walt,  145,  147,  207, 

209,   431-432 
McGill,  Tom,  208 
McGlynn,  Father  Edward,    122 
McKinley,   William,    146,    147,    191, 

211,    217 

Mailly,  William,   288 
Malone,  Dudley  Field,  332 
Malraux,  Andre,   444 
Mann,  Tom,  437 
Marinoff,  Jacob,  378 
Masses.  See  The  Masses 
Masson,  Tom,  191,  384 
May  Day  excitement,  79  ff. 
Medill,  Joseph,  109,   110 
Messonier,   9 
Metropolitan    Magazine,     154,     282, 

287  ff,,    302  ff.,    315-317,    324- 

325,  331 


Michelson,  Clarina,  339 

Milholland,  Inez,   297 

Milwaukee   Free    Press,    cartoons    for, 

223 

Minor,  Robert,  328,  329,  387 
Moffatt,  David  H.,  177ff. 
Monroe,   Wisconsin,   28-58,   70,    77- 

78,  113,  124,  136-142,  346-347 
Morgan,  J.  Pierpont,  311 
"Mother     Jones/'     303;     letter     of, 

quoted,  388-389 
Moyer,  257 

Municipal  Ownership  League,  249 
Murdock,  Victor,   177 
Murphy,  Charles  F.,  148 

N 

Nancy  Hanks,  158 

Nankivell,  Frank,  201 

Nast,    Thomas,    54,    60,    118,    121, 

122,    134,    147,    155,    156,    162, 

288,  305,  395 
Nation,  drawings  for,  378 
National     conventions.    See    Political 

campaigns 

National  Press  Club,    300-301 
Neebe,    Oscar,    86,    104,    165,    166, 

167,  220 

Nelson,  Knute,  308 
Newell,  Peter,   214 
New  Masses,  393 
Newspaper      Enterprise     Association, 

commissioned  by,  305 
Newspapers,     inflammatory     character 

of,    74-81,    83  ff.,    89-90,    101  ff., 

121,    149  ff.,    159,    167  ff.,    172, 

217,  221,  257 
New    York,    leaving    for,     112-114; 

journey     to,      115-117;     life     in, 

117ff.;  return  to,  188  ff. 
New  York  Call,  quoted,  296 
New  York  Evening  Journal,  201-206, 

262,  380 

New  York  Graphic,  1 1 3 
New   York   Sunday   American,    262 » 

381 

New  York  World,  113,  121 
"Nig/*   42  ff* 
Nimble  Nickel,  62  ff. 
Nixon,  William  Penn,  144-145,  160, 

165,  168 

North,  Elizabeth.  S>e  Elizabeth 
Noyea,  Frank  B,»   libel  suit  brought 

by,  297  ff, 


INDEX 


465 


o 

Oberlander,    133 

Oglesby,  Gov.  Richard,  102,   104 

On  My  Way,  402-406 

Opper,  Frederick,  122,  203,  204 


Pall  Malt  Budget,  14,   173 

Pall  Mail  Gazette,  173 

Palmer  House  (Chicago) ,  silver- dollar 

floor,   170-171 
Panic  of  1929,  409-410 
Paris,  first  visit  to,  3-25,   123  ff.;  ill- 
ness in,  15-26 
Parsons,   Albert,    76,    79,    80,    82  ff., 

103,  218,  221 

Passaic  textile  strike,  393-394 
Patterson,  Robert,    110,    111 
Patterson,  Thomas  M.,  179 
Peattie,  Elia,  98 
Peattie,  Robert  B.,  98 
Pettibone,  257 
"Phiz,"  130 

Photography,  limitations  of,  58-60 
Piano  lessons,  41 
Pinchot,  Amos,  297ff. 
Pinkerton  thugs  in  steel  strike,  150  ff. 
Political    campaigns:     1892,     146  ff., 

158-160,  162;  1896,  191-193; 

1900,  211-212;  1912,  284ff,; 

1916,  305  ff.;  1924,  378-379; 

1928,  408-409;  1932,  418-419; 

1936,  425-426 
Pollard,  Percival,  201 
Poole,  William  Frederick,  71-72 
"Poor  Fish"  scries,   369  ff. 
Populist  party  program,  159 
Porter,  Edna,  445-446 
Propaganda,  effects  of,  recognized,  54- 

55 

Puck,  122,  191,  248,  250,  259 
Pulitzer,  Joseph,  113,  121,  149,  217- 

218 

Pullman,  George  M.,  183 
Push,  143  . 


Railroad  strike  (1894),  221 
Rankin,  Jeannette,  313-314,  327 
Read,  Opie,  125 

Reed,    John,    276,    302,    303,    304, 
307,    313,   322,   328,    329,    332, 


362,  363,  388,  389;  quoted,  323- 
324,  340  ff.;  resigns  from  Libera- 
tor, 349-350 

Reed,  Myron,   181-182,  215 
Reed,  Thomas  B,,   147 
Reid,  Whitelaw,  148,  158,  159 
Reilly,  Dr.  Frank,  93 
Remington,  Frederic,  202 
Republican   conventions.   See   Political 

conventions 
Revere,  Paul,  395 
Rippenbein,  Morris,  355,  357 
Robinson,  Boardman,  320,  322,  328, 

352 

Rockefeller,  John  D.,  Jr.,   218 
Rockefeller,  John  D.,  Sr.,   158,  256 
Roe,  Gilbert  E.,  320-321 
Rogers,  Merrill,  319,  324,  332 
Rogers,  W.  A.,   121 
Roosevelt,  Franklin  D.,  425-426 
Roosevelt,    President   Theodore,    197, 

211,  256,  305,  306,  310,  316 
Rowlandson,    130,    131,    133 
Russell,    Charles    Edward,    221-222, 

278,  305 

Russia,  Reed  quoted  on,  340 
Ruthenberg,  Charles  E.,   391,  392 


Sandburg,  Carl,  318,  443-444 
Saturday  Evening  Post,  cartoons  for, 

384,   385 
Schaack,  Captain,  80,  83,   101,   105, 

165,  220-221 

Schmedtgen,  William,   105,   106 
Schnaubelt,  Rudolph,  83,   125 
Schwab,  Michael,  79,  86,   104,   165, 

167 

Scripps-Howard  newspapers,  305 
Scripps-McRae  newspapers,  305 
Selanders,  J.  C,  89 
Seltzer,  Thomas,  271 
Sex,   problems   in,    36,   50-51,    111- 

112,   114 

"Shots  at  Truth,"  248 
Sinclair,  Upton,  256 
Single  Tax  movement,  122 
"Snapshots  in  Hades,"  210 
Snowden,  Clinton,   69,   74 
Social    injustice,    awareness    to,    222, 

227 

Socialism,  the  World  War  and,  302 
Socialist  Call,  drawings  for,  425 


466 


INDEX 


Socialistic    doctrine,    growing    interest 

in,  254  ff. 
Socialist  party,   emergency  convention, 

314-315;    1919   convention,   362- 

363 

Socialist  Primer,  drawings  for,  411 
Socialist  sympathies,  254  ff. 
South  Wales  colliery  explosion,    183- 

184 

Spanish- American  war,    195-199 
Spies,  August,  79,  80-81,  86,  103 
Stanton,  Theodore,   8 
Stead,  William  T.,   14,  173-174 
Steffens,  Lincoln,  256,  298,  302,  313, 

369,  387-388 
Steinegas,  381 
Stengel,  Hans,  381 
Stephenson,   Isaac,    223 
Steunenberg,    Governor,    assassination 

of,  257 

Stevenson,  Adlai  E.,  148,  150,  159 
Stokes,  J.  G.  Phelps,  315 
Stokes,  Rose  Pastor,  315 
Stone,  Melville  E.,  86,  88,  104,  106, 

124,   165 

Sullivan,  John  L.,    158 
Sullivant,  T.  S.,  191,  203,  204 


Tammany  Hall,   148,   149 

Tarbell,  Ida,  256 

Taylor,  Bert  Leston,    191 

Tenniel,  Sir  John,    72 

Thackeray,    130 

The  Best  of  Art  Young,  424 

The  Masses,  277,  392;  beginning  and 
growth  of,  271  ff.,  282;  Max  East- 
man appointed  editor,  275;  East- 
man editorial  in,  295;  Floyd  Dell 
with,  297;  censorship  of,  318ff. 

"Things  That  Hit  Our  Funny  Bone" 
series,  250 

Through  Hetl  with  Hiprah  Hunt,  210 

"Toby  M.P.,"  283 

Today,  drawings  for,  421 

"Trees  at  Night"  series,  384 

Tridon,  Andre,  271 

Trinity  Church  (New  York)  tene- 
ments, 278-281 

Tucker,  Marguerite,  446-447 

Twain,  Mark,   95,   241-242 

"Types  of  the  Old  Home-Town" 
series,  385 


U 


University  of  Chicago,    158 
Union  Square  (New  York)   bomb  ex- 
plosion,  258  ff. 
Untermeyer,  Louis,  272,  328 

V 

Vanderbilt,  William  H.,   75 
Vanderpoel,  John  H.,  4,  62,   120 
Vibert,   10 

Villard,  Oswald  Garrison,  378 
Vlag,  Piet,  270-272 

V 

Wabash  Railroad,  strike  on,  75 
Waite,  Chief  Justice,    102 
Waite,  Gov.  David  Hansen,    185 
Wales,  visit  to,   129-130 
Walling,  William  English,  298 
Wall  Street  panic   (1907),  258 
War,     The     Masses     policy     against, 

319  ff. 

Warren,  Lansing,  177 
Washington,  life  in,  288  ff. 
Waterloo,   Stanley,   125 
Wattles,  Willard,   322 
Weaver,  James  Baird,   159 
Weber,  Grant,    139 
Webster,  Clarence,  3  ff.,  24,  27,   116, 

123  ff.,     126,     137,     139,     142, 

144  ff.,    160,    173,    177 
Weeks,  Rufus  W,,  271,  274 
West  Point  cartoons,    153 
West  Virginia  coal  regions,   303 
West  Virginia   coal  strike,    295  ff. 
Whigham,  H.  J.,  283,  302,  310,  317 
White,  Butch,  89,   102,  105 
Whitlock,  Brand,   284 
Whitney,  Harry  Payne,  287 
Whistler,  James  McNeill,  8 
Wilde,   Oscar,    7-8,    178 
Willard,  Frances,   91 
Winter,  Charles  A.,  272,  274 
Wilson,  William  L,,  148 
Wilson,  Woodrow,  307,  310  ff.,  319 
Wood,  Charles  W.,   328 
Wood,  Eugene,  264-266,  271 
Wood,  Suzanne  Ella,  139 
Woodville,  R,  Caton,   72 
Workers'  Monthly,  393 
World's    Columbian    Exposition.    See 
Chicago  World's  Fair 


INDEX 


467 


World's  Fair    (Chicago) .   See  Chicago 

World's  Fair 
World  War,  socialism  and  the,  302  ff., 

310  ff. 


Yerkes,  Charles,    177 

Young,  Art,  trip  to  Paris,  3-25, 
123  ff. ;  home  life  in  Monroe, 
27  ff. ;  young  manhood,  49  ff,;  life 
in  Chicago,  62  ff. ;  life  in  New 
York,  117ff,,  188ff.,  244  ff. ;  per- 
sonal attitudes,  159-160,  447-449; 
life  with  Elizabeth,  175-177, 
205  ff.,  213  ff.,  225  ff.,  243-244; 
goes  to  Washington,  282;  socialist 
activities,  222  ff. ;  later  years, 
408  ff. 


Young,  Charles,  37,  42,  45,  61 
Young,  Daniel,  20  ff.,  29,  32-34,  36, 

39,   346-347 
Young,  Mrs.  Daniel,   31-32,   33,   35, 

347 
Young,    Don,    225-226,    292,    382- 

383,  411-412 

Young,  Elizabeth.  See  Elizabeth 
Young,    Nettie.    See    Copeland,    Mrs. 

Clyde 
Young,    North,    214-215,    231-233, 

292,  383-384 
Young,    Will,    45-46,     190,    206  ff., 

213 


Zeisler,  Sigismund,   85 
Zim,   122 


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