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- Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
- Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
- Sprache: Englisch
In "The Story of My Life," Clarence Darrow crafts a poignant and candid autobiography that reflects not only his personal journey but also the sociopolitical landscape of early 20th-century America. This narrative, imbued with rich, reflective prose, delves into Darrow's philosophical musings as a prominent lawyer and civil libertarian, revealing the intricate interplay between individual rights and societal norms. He recounts his pivotal cases'—ranging from labor disputes to the famed Scopes "Monkey" Trial'—through which he champions justice, reason, and moral integrity, all while navigating the complexities of societal prejudices and legal challenges. Clarence Darrow (1857-1938) emerges as a larger-than-life figure, whose experiences as a child in a small-town family and his exposure to the injustices of the legal system fueled his lifelong commitment to justice and reform. A staunch advocate for the underprivileged, his background and fervent belief in the importance of civil liberties greatly influenced his perspective, making this autobiography not only a personal recount but a call for empathy and understanding in a rapidly changing society. "The Story of My Life" is an essential read for those interested in the evolution of American legal thought and civil rights. Darrow's eloquent narrative invites readers to engage with enduring themes of justice and morality, encouraging reflection on the role of law in human society. This book resonates beyond its time, making it a valuable resource for students of law, history, and social justice. In this enriched edition, we have carefully created added value for your reading experience: - A succinct Introduction situates the work's timeless appeal and themes. - The Synopsis outlines the central plot, highlighting key developments without spoiling critical twists. - A detailed Historical Context immerses you in the era's events and influences that shaped the writing. - A thorough Analysis dissects symbols, motifs, and character arcs to unearth underlying meanings. - Reflection questions prompt you to engage personally with the work's messages, connecting them to modern life. - Hand‐picked Memorable Quotes shine a spotlight on moments of literary brilliance. - Interactive footnotes clarify unusual references, historical allusions, and archaic phrases for an effortless, more informed read.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021
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The Story of my Life
Table of Contents
Introduction
A life spent testing the uses and limits of justice becomes its own argument about what a society owes the individual. In The Story of My Life, Clarence Darrow, one of the most recognizable American trial lawyers of his era, turns the courtroom gaze inward. Composed late in his career, the book presents a seasoned advocate reflecting on the people, places, and public battles that shaped his convictions. Rather than mounting a defense of any single case, Darrow examines how experience forged his skepticism, empathy, and appetite for dissent. The result is an intimate portrait of a lawyer’s conscience set against the tumult of modern America.
As autobiography, the book traces Darrow’s life across the United States from the late nineteenth century into the early decades of the twentieth, moving from small-town beginnings to the urban arenas where law and politics converge. Published in 1932, it looks backward from a moment of national crisis to decades marked by industrial expansion, social reform, and contested freedoms. The settings are courtrooms and streets, union halls and editorial pages, where public opinion and legal doctrine collide. Through this historical span, the narrative situates one career within the shifting landscape of American modernity, portraying its pressures, contradictions, and the human dramas they produce.
The premise is straightforward yet expansive: Darrow recounts how he became a lawyer, why he chose the clients he did, and what those choices taught him about power and responsibility. The voice is plainspoken, argumentative, and reflective, shaped by a lifetime of persuading juries and confronting institutions. Episodes unfold as personal recollections framed by commentary on law and society, yielding a mood that is candid, sometimes combative, and often humane. Readers encounter not just public controversies but the habits of mind behind them—how a case begins, how a principle hardens or bends, how a belief survives contact with lived complexity.
Across these pages run themes that have long defined Darrow’s public reputation: an insistence on individual dignity, a wary eye toward authority, and a commitment to reason leavened by compassion. He probes the difference between legality and justice, asking what punishment accomplishes and what it erases. He reflects on labor and capital, science and belief, and the role of dissent in a democracy. Throughout, the book presents skepticism not as detachment but as moral attention, inviting readers to weigh evidence, entertain doubt, and consider the social costs of certainty. The autobiography becomes a forum for testing principles under pressure.
Equally compelling is the book’s portrait of the craft of advocacy. Darrow demystifies the everyday mechanics of practicing law—investigating facts, reading a jury, negotiating with prosecutors, navigating publicity—while acknowledging the ethical tensions that shadow each decision. He considers the responsibilities a defense lawyer bears to clients, to the court, and to the larger community, and the uneasy balance between strategy and conscience. These reflections do not merely recount victories or defeats; they show how persuasion works, how narratives are built, and why rhetoric matters when lives and reputations are at stake. The courtroom emerges as both stage and crucible.
For contemporary readers, the book’s questions feel urgently familiar. It challenges assumptions about criminal justice, free expression, and the reach of the state, while exploring how inequality shapes who is heard and who is harmed. Its arguments about mercy, bias, and the human fallibility that haunts any system of judgment resonate amid ongoing debates about punishment and reform. The narrative also models a civic posture—engaged, skeptical, and empathetic—that can inform public life beyond the law. By tracing how convictions are formed in practice, the autobiography offers a framework for thinking about responsibility in institutions that wield real power.
The Story of My Life offers more than a record of cases; it is a self-scrutiny that reads like an extended closing argument for humility and courage. Readers will find a lived history of American law told from the witness stand of memory, accessible to newcomers and illuminating for those who know the public events it touches. It is at once personal and public, animated by narrative drive and by the steady testing of ideas. Without demanding agreement, Darrow invites engagement. To read him is to enter a conversation about justice that remains unfinished, and to decide what evidence persuades.
Synopsis
The Story of My Life is Clarence Darrow’s autobiographical account, tracing his path from rural Ohio to national prominence as an American trial lawyer. The book proceeds chronologically, combining personal background with descriptions of major cases and public controversies. Darrow recounts formative influences, the evolution of his legal practice, and the social currents that shaped his clients’ struggles. He outlines his participation in labor disputes, high-profile criminal defenses, and constitutional challenges. Alongside case narratives, he explains his views on crime, punishment, and human behavior. The synopsis that follows mirrors the book’s sequence, noting central events and themes without interpretation or critique.
Born in Kinsman, Ohio, Darrow describes a household steeped in books, debate, and skepticism. His father’s free-thinking outlook and his mother’s practical disposition formed his earliest impressions of authority and morality. He recalls local schools, early jobs, and a habit of wide reading that led him toward the law. After a short period at the University of Michigan, he read law and gained admission to the bar. Darrow practiced in small Ohio communities, handling routine disputes while absorbing the economic strains of the era. Seeking a broader arena and steadier work, he decided to relocate to Chicago, where industry and conflict met.
In Chicago, Darrow entered corporate practice, serving as house counsel for a major railroad. The work brought steady income and exposure to complex litigation involving commerce, accidents, and regulations. He also encountered municipal issues and the city’s growing labor movement, observing the tensions between employers and workers. Darrow explains how these experiences sharpened his interest in social questions and led him to reconsider the aims of legal advocacy. As industrial disputes intensified, he left corporate employment to represent labor leaders and unions. This transition marked a turning point in his career, aligning his cases with broader conflicts over wages, strikes, and collective action.
The Pullman Strike of 1894 anchors an early section of the narrative. Darrow joined the defense of Eugene V. Debs and the American Railway Union after federal injunctions and troop deployments escalated the conflict. He outlines the legal theories advanced against the union and the government’s enforcement efforts. The proceedings highlighted the reach of injunctions, the criminalization of organizing, and the challenges of mounting a defense amid public scrutiny. Darrow describes the hearings and outcomes, noting their consequences for labor and for his own professional reputation. The episode cemented his identity as counsel in industrial disputes and opened doors to later cases.
Continuing chronologically, Darrow recounts his role in the Idaho trial arising from the assassination of former Governor Frank Steunenberg. He joined the defense of Western Federation of Miners leaders, including William “Big Bill” Haywood. The book summarizes pretrial maneuvering, jury selection, and strategies concerning accomplice testimony. Darrow details cross-examinations and the use of contradictory statements to challenge the prosecution’s narrative. He records the verdicts and immediate aftermath without sensationalism, emphasizing procedural developments and public interest. The case’s scale and attention reinforced his national standing and demonstrated the interplay between legal advocacy, political rhetoric, and the organization of labor in the West.
Darrow then addresses the Los Angeles Times bombing case, representing James and John McNamara after an explosion killed employees at the newspaper. He outlines investigative pressures, publicity, and difficult negotiations that culminated in guilty pleas to avert possible death sentences. Immediately afterward, Darrow faced accusations of attempting to bribe jurors. He narrates two trials on those charges, describing the evidence, witness credibility disputes, and his ultimate acquittal in one case and unresolved result in another. The controversy damaged finances and reputation, forcing a reassessment of his practice. The book presents these events as professional challenges embedded in a charged political environment.
Following the Los Angeles episode, Darrow recounts rebuilding his career through selected criminal defenses and public lectures. He emphasizes mitigation in capital cases, arguing that social conditions and individual histories should weigh against execution. The Leopold and Loeb case receives extended treatment as an example of a sentencing hearing focused on causation rather than denial of guilt. Darrow also discusses the Ossian Sweet trials in Detroit, centering on self-defense and the right to occupy one’s home in the face of mob threats. These chapters illustrate his sustained opposition to the death penalty and his preference for thorough, evidence-based pleas for mercy.
The narrative proceeds to the Tennessee evolution case, commonly known as the Scopes Trial. Darrow joined the defense of a teacher charged with violating a statute restricting instruction on human origins. He explains the legal posture, the aims of the defense, and the public character of the proceedings. The courtroom exchanges, including examinations of expert witnesses and opposing counsel, receive concise attention. Darrow notes the verdict against the defendant and the subsequent appellate reversal on a procedural ground, keeping the legal issues distinct from broader publicity. He closes the episode by recording its impact on debates over education, science, and individual liberties.
The closing chapters step back from specific cases to outline Darrow’s general views on law and society. He summarizes a belief in determinism, skepticism toward retributive punishment, and the importance of understanding environment and circumstance in judging conduct. The book presents jury persuasion as an appeal to reason, empathy, and doubt within the rules of evidence. Darrow also reviews his relationships with colleagues, clients, and political allies, noting the demands of travel and public speaking. He ends by revisiting themes of tolerance, civil liberties, and incremental reform. The overall message emphasizes mercy and realism as guiding principles for legal institutions.
Historical Context
Clarence Darrow’s The Story of My Life situates itself in the United States from the late nineteenth century through the early 1930s, with primary geographies in the industrial Midwest—Ohio, Illinois (especially Chicago), and extending to courtroom venues nationwide. The era spans the Gilded Age, Progressive Era, World War I aftermath, and the cultural conflicts of the 1920s. Rapid urbanization, mass immigration, concentrated industrial capital, and volatile labor relations defined the period. Jim Crow in the South and racially restrictive housing in Northern cities shaped social life. By the time the book appeared in 1932, the Great Depression had shattered faith in laissez-faire orthodoxy, giving Darrow’s retrospective on law, labor, science, and punishment a sharpened contemporaneity.
The Pullman Strike of 1894 anchors Darrow’s entry into national prominence. In May–July 1894, workers at the Pullman Palace Car Company in Chicago struck over wage cuts and high rents, prompting a nationwide railroad boycott led by the American Railway Union under Eugene V. Debs. President Grover Cleveland sent federal troops; at least 30 people were killed in clashes. Federal courts issued sweeping injunctions, and Debs was jailed for contempt, a power later upheld in In re Debs, 158 U.S. 564 (1895). Darrow resigned from railroad counsel work to join Debs’s defense, an act the book presents as a moral pivot from corporate law to championing labor rights against industrial and governmental power.
The 1907 Boise trial of Western Federation of Miners leader William D. “Big Bill” Haywood, accused in the 1905 assassination of former Idaho Governor Frank Steunenberg at Caldwell, crystallized national anxieties about radical labor. The prosecution, led by James H. Hawley with assistance from Senator-elect William E. Borah, relied on the testimony of Harry Orchard, cultivated by Pinkerton operative James McParland. Darrow’s cross-examinations emphasized coercion and political framing of labor militancy. Haywood’s acquittal on July 28, 1907, was a landmark for organized labor. In the autobiography, Darrow interprets the case as evidence of how capital, private detectives, and the state converged to criminalize collective action.
The Los Angeles Times bombing of October 1, 1910, which killed 21 people, led to the 1911–1912 prosecutions of brothers James and John J. McNamara by Los Angeles District Attorney John D. Fredericks. After extensive investigations, James pleaded guilty to murder and John to conspiracy on December 1, 1911. Darrow, who had helped broker the pleas, was then indicted for attempting to bribe jurors; he was defended by Earl Rogers and acquitted in August 1912, while a second 1913 trial ended with a hung jury and the case was dropped. In Darrow’s account, the episode exposes the pressure-cooker politics of labor violence, jury selection, and the perilous boundary between zealous advocacy and prosecutorial retaliation.
The 1924 Leopold and Loeb case in Chicago showcased the death penalty debate in a modern, media-saturated setting. Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, affluent University of Chicago students, kidnapped and murdered 14-year-old Robert “Bobby” Franks on May 21, 1924. With overwhelming evidence, Darrow entered a guilty plea and focused on mitigation before Judge John R. Caverly, invoking youth, psychology, and determinism rather than retribution. On September 10, 1924, both defendants received life imprisonment plus 99 years, not death. The book presents this as a strategic and moral stand against capital punishment, illustrating how scientific discourse and social context could reshape penal outcomes.
The 1925 Scopes “Monkey Trial” in Dayton, Tennessee, dramatized the clash between evolutionary science and religious fundamentalism under the state’s Butler Act. John T. Scopes, a high-school teacher, was tried in July 1925 for teaching evolution; the prosecution featured William Jennings Bryan, while Darrow led the defense with ACLU support before Judge John T. Raulston. Darrow’s extraordinary decision to examine Bryan on biblical literalism turned the trial into a national referendum on modernity. Scopes was convicted and fined $100; in 1927 the Tennessee Supreme Court set aside the verdict on a technicality. Darrow depicts the trial as a constitutional and cultural struggle over academic freedom, secular governance, and the role of expert knowledge.
The Ossian Sweet case (Detroit, 1925–1926) unfolded amid the Great Migration, which raised Detroit’s Black population from 5,741 (1910) to 120,066 (1930), and in a climate of restrictive covenants and white neighborhood vigilantism. On September 9, 1925, a white crowd gathered at 2905 Garland Avenue, where Dr. Sweet had moved; gunfire ensued, and a white man, Leon Breiner, was killed. After a first hung jury, Darrow secured the May 1926 acquittal of Henry Sweet before Judge Frank Murphy; charges were then dropped for the others. In Darrow’s narrative, the case indicts racially biased policing and prosecutions, asserting the right of Black homeowners to self-defense against mob terror.
As social and political critique, the book indicts the industrial order’s use of injunctions, troops, and courts to suppress labor; the racial regime that criminalized Black self-assertion; and a penal system inclined toward spectacle and death rather than mitigation and reform. Darrow exposes how prosecutors, private detectives, and newspapers could align to predetermine guilt, and how juries were shaped by class and prejudice. He challenges majoritarian moralism in the Scopes trial and the inequities of capital punishment in Leopold and Loeb. Across these episodes, the autobiography portrays the law not as neutral, but as a battleground where power, ideology, and social science compete for authority.
The Story of my Life
CHAPTER 1
BEFORE THE BEGINNING
It may seem absurd that I should be sitting here trying to write about myself in an age when only a mystery story has any chance as a best-seller. I can think of nothing about myself to distort into any such popular fiction. If I tell anything it will be but a plain unvarnished account of how things really have happened, as nearly as I can possibly hold to the truth.
First of all, I have noticed that most autobiographers begin with ancestors. As a rule they start out with the purpose of linking themselves by blood and birth to some well-known family or personage. No doubt this is due to egotism, and the hazy, unscientific notions that people have about heredity. For my part, I seldom think about my ancestors; but I had them; plenty of them, of course. In fact, I could fill this book with their names if I knew them all, and deemed it of the least worth.
I have been told that I came of a very old family. A considerable number of people say that it runs back to Adam and Eve, although this, of course, is only hearsay, and I should not like to guarantee the title. Anyhow, very few pedigrees really go back any farther than mine. With reasonable certainty I could run it back to a little town in England that has the same name as mine, though the spelling is slightly altered. But this does not matter. I am sure that my forbears run a long, long way back of that, even--but what of it, anyhow?
The earliest ancestor of the Darrow[1] family that I feel sure belonged to our branch was one of sixteen men who came to New England the century before the Revolutionary War. This Darrow, with fifteen other men, brought a grant from the King of England for the town of New London, Conn. He was an undertaker, so we are told, which shows that he had some appreciation of a good business, and so chose a profession where the demand for his services would be fairly steady. One could imagine a more pleasant means of livelihood, but, almost any trade is bearable if the customers are sure. This Darrow, or rather his descendants, seemed to forget the lavish gift of the King, and took up arms against England under George Washington. So far as having an ancestor in the Revolutionary War counts for anything, I would be eligible to a membership of the D. A. R., although I would not exactly fit this organization, for, amongst other handicaps, I am proud of my rebel ancestors, and would be glad to greet them on the street, should they chance my way.
But it is not for love of looking up my ancestry, or a desire to brag, that I am setting all this down, but for a much more personal reason. All of it had an important bearing upon me, and shows the many, many close calls I had when I was casting about for an ancestral line and yearning to be born. The farther back I go, the more unlikely it seems that I am really here, and I sometimes pinch myself to make sure that it is not a dream; but I assume that I am I, and that I really came all the way from Adam, with all the vicissitudes of time and tide that are so entwined with mortal life.
Did you, who read this, ever figure what a scant chance you had of getting here? If you did come from Adam, you must have had millions on millions of direct forbears, and, if one ancestor had failed to come into the combination, you would not be you, but would be some one else entirely, if any one at all. So I do not allow myself to worry about the long-lost trail, but am content with thinking over the slight chance my father and mother had to meet, and hence my own still lesser chance for life after I had jumped all the hurdles between Adam and my parents.
If a man really has charge of his destiny at all, he should have something to say about getting born; and I only came through by a hair's-breadth. What had I to do with this momentous first step? In the language of the lawyer, I was not even a party of the second part. Two generations back is not so very far away; the reader will not need to try to consider all the near-accidents since Adam, but I will illustrate the whole venture by one narrow escape I had seventy-five years before I was born.
It seems that my grandfathers from both sides came from Connecticut. They had never met in the East, and did not come at the same time. Both of them drove from New England, for there were no railroads in that day, much less automobiles. The journey was long, and more or less disagreeable. My father's parents came first, but, for some reason, stopped at the little town of Henrietta, near Rochester, N. Y. Why they stopped there, I cannot imagine. I was there once myself, but I did not stop. When I visualize the paternal grandfather Darrow driving off on a thousand-mile trip into a near-wilderness I can hardly refrain from shouting to tell him that he has left Grandfather Eddy behind. But later on my grandfather on my mother's side drove away into the unknown West as if in search of a mate for one of his unborn daughters, so that I could have a couple of parents after many years. He drove and drove for weeks and months into the West until he pitched his tent in the wilds that later were named Windsor, Ohio. No doubt they drove through Henrietta, for that was along the main road into the West, but they did not stop, even long enough to meet my future mother's parent. Some years later my father's father drove from Henrietta to western Ohio and stopped at the little hamlet of Kinsman, twenty-five miles from Windsor, the town where my mother was waiting to be born. Thus far, my chance for getting into the scheme was about zero. It was necessary for the boy and girl to meet before they could become my father and mother, and this chance seemed less than one in a million when the families lived in Connecticut.
Both grandfathers were poor and obscure, else they would have stayed where they were. But their children, as they grew up, were sent to school. About thirty-five miles from Windsor and sixty from Kinsman, was a little town called Amboy, in northern Ohio, near Oberlin. In Amboy was a well-known school. Emily Eddy and Amirus Darrow were destined to go to that school, and so they went. I can leave the rest to the reader's imagination. When I think of the chances that I was up against, even when so near the goal, it scares me to realize how easily I might have missed out. Of all the infinite accidents of fate farther back of that, I do not care or dare to think.
It is obvious that I had nothing to do with getting born. Had I known about life in advance and been given any choice in the matter, I most likely would have declined the adventure. At least, that is the way I think about it now. There are times when I feel otherwise, but on the whole I believe that life is not worth while. This does not mean that I am gloomy, or that this book will sadden the Tired Business Man, for I shall write only when I have the inclination to do so, and at such times I am generally almost unmindful of existence.
But as I write these words the sun is shining, the birds are making merry in the bright summer day, and I am asking why I sit and plague my brain to recall the dead and misty past while light and warmth and color are urging me to go outdoors and play.
Doubtless a certain vanity has its part in moving me to write about myself. I am quite sure that this is true, even though I am aware that neither I nor any one else has the slightest importance in time and space. I know that the earth where I have spent my life is only a speck of mud floating in the endless sky. I am quite sure that there are millions of other worlds in the universe whose size and importance are most likely greater than the tiny graveyard on which I ride. I know that at this time there are nearly two billion other human entities madly holding fast to this ball of dirt to which I cling. I know that since I began this page hundreds of these have loosened their grip and sunk to eternal sleep. I know that for half a million years men and women have lived and died and been mingled with the elements that combine to make our earth, and are known no more. I know that only the smallest fraction of my fellow castaways have even so much as heard my name, and that those who have will soon be a part of trees and plants and animal and clay. Still, here am I sitting down, with the mists already gathering about my head, to write about the people, desires, disappointments and despairs that have moved me in my brief stay on what we are pleased to call this earth.
Doubtless, too, the emotion to live makes most of us seek to project our personality a short distance beyond the waiting grave. But whatever the reason may be, I am doing what many, many men have done before, and will do again--talking and gossiping about the past. I am doing this as a boy plays baseball by the hour or dances through the night. I am doing it because all living things crave activity, and I am still alive. Whether the movement is a journey around the globe or an unsteady walk from the bedroom to the dining room and back, it is but a response to what is left of the emotions, appetites and energies that we call being.
The young man's reflections of unfolding life concern the future--the great, broad, tempestuous sea on whose hither shore he stands eagerly waiting to learn of other lands and climes. The reactions and recollections of the old concern the stormy journey drawing to a close; he no longer builds castles or plans conquests of the unknown; he recalls the tempests and tumults encountered on the way, and babbles of the passengers and crew that one by one dropped silently into the icy depths. No longer does the aging transient yearn for new adventures or unexplored highways. His greatest ambition is to find some snug harbor where he can doze and dream the fleeting days away. So, elderly men who speak or write turn to autobiography. This is all they have to tell, and they cannot sit idly in silence and wait for the night to come.
Autobiography is never entirely true. No one can get the right perspective on himself. Every fact is colored by imagination and dream. The young look forth across the sea to a mirage of fairylands filled with hidden treasures; the aged turn to the fading past, and through the mist and haze that veils once familiar scenes, bygone events assume weird and fanciful proportions. Almost forgotten men, women and children reappear along the far-off shore, and their shadows are reflected back in dimmed or magnified outlines in the softly setting sun. Then, too, all human egos, and perhaps other egos, place prime importance upon themselves; each is the centre of the great circle around which all else revolves; no one can see and feel in any other way. Although all intelligent people realize that they are as nothing in the procession that is ever moving on, yet we cannot but feel that when we are dead the parade will no longer move. So while we can still vibrate with tongue and pen and with every manifestation of our beings, we instinctively shout to the crowd to pause and for a little time turn their eyes and ears toward us. That is what I am doing now, and am doing it because I have nothing else to do. I am doing it because it helps topass away the time that still remains. I know that life consists of the impressions made upon the puppet as it moves across the stage. I shall endeavor not to magnify the manikin. I am interested not in the way that I have fashioned the world, but in the way that the world has moulded me.
I hope that no one will turn from this book for fear it is sad and will make him unhappy. I am not an optimist in the ordinary sense of the word. I can tell of my life only as I see it, but I fancy that the story will not be unduly serious or tragic. I have never taken any one very seriously, and least of all myself. I am not trying to teach any moral or point any way. The billions on billions of humans that have come upon the stage, made their bow, and then retired beyond the scenes, have one and all played the same part. One and all they, for a time, have taken a distinctive form and name, and then disappeared forever. One and all, they have known joys and sorrows, and most of them are now lost in sleep and oblivion. My life has not been sad, and as the end approaches it brings no sorrow. When the evening hours have crept on I have always looked forward with satisfaction, if not pleasure, to the night of rest; a space of time with no consciousness to mar the peace and serenity of the void between the evening and the coming dawn. So, to-day, after a long life of work and play and joy and sorrow, I am fully aware of the friendly night that is stealing on apace. The inevitable destiny brings no fear or pain, so why should others be saddened by what I have to tell?
One cannot live through a long stretch of years without forming some philosophy of life. As one journeys along he gains experiences and even some ideas. Accumulated opinions and philosophy may be more important to others than the bare facts about how he lived, so my ambition is not so much to relate the occurrences as to record the ideas that life has forced me to accept; and, after all, thoughts, impressions and feelings are really life itself. I should like to think that these reflections might make existence a trifle easier for some of those who may chance to read this story.
As I have already said, my father's ancestors were rebels and traitors who took up arms against Great Britain in the War of the Revolution. It is easy for me to believe that my father came of rebel stock; at least he was always in rebellion against religious and political creeds of the narrow and smug community in which he dwelt. But ancestors do not mean so much. The rebel who succeeds generally makes it easier for the posterity that follows him; so these descendants are usually contented and smug and soft. Rebels are made from life, not ancestors.
My father, in his early life, was a religious man. He was born into the Methodist Church[2]. This indicates that he came of plebeian stock, for there were also an Episcopalian and a Presbyterian Church in the little town. Either his parents were too humble for one of these aristocratic temples, or, perhaps my grandfather was converted at a Methodist revival, which was one of the affairs to go to, even after I was born. My father had a serious but kindly face. In his leisure hours he was always poring over books. I wish I knew more about his youth; it might furnish some interesting data as to the development of the family and the pranks of heredity and environment. He was one of seven children who came with their father to eastern Ohio, which was then almost a frontier land. The family must have been very poor, and their means of existence precarious in those early days, at the beginning of the nineteenth century. When a boy, I knew most of my uncles and aunts; they seemed fairly intelligent, but I cannot remember ever seeing a book in the house of any member of my father's family excepting in my father's home.
Not only were there no books in my grandfather's house, but there were practically none anywhere in the community. One of my earliest recollections is the books in our home. They were in bookcases, on tables, on chairs, and even on the floor. The house was small, the family large, the furnishings meagre, but there were books whichever way one turned. How my father managed to buy the books I cannot tell. Neither by nature nor by training had he any business ability or any faculty for getting money.
My mother's father was a fairly prosperous farmer. Neither he nor any of his family were church attendants. Out of the five or six children, my mother alone cared especially for books. Her family were substantial people of fair intelligence, but were inclined to believe that a love of books was a distinct weakness, and likely to develop into a very bad habit. One who spent his time reading or studying when he might be at work was "shiftless" and improvident. Benjamin Franklin's Almanac, with its foolish lessons about industry and thrift, was the gospel of the family.
Aside from one uncle who seemed fairly well-informed, I do not remember that a single one of my mother's brothers and sisters cared at all for books. Of my father's children, seven of us grew to mature years, and all but one had a liking for reading and learning; most of us would leave almost any sort of work or amusement to spend our time with books. How did it come about that of my father's family he alone, out of seven or eight, had any thirst for learning? And why was it that of my mother's family she was the only one that cared for books? And why did it happen that of the children of my father and mother all but one always had an abiding love for reading?
Of the group interwoven with my father's early life, why had he alone that overwhelming desire for books?--a love so strong that it remained with him and solaced him to his dying day, at the age of eighty-six. Was it imparted to him through the seed from which he grew? Was heredity the cause? Apparently his father did not care for books, and certainly conveyed no fondness for learning to his other sons and daughters. My grandparents on both sides each reared one child who in the yearning for education seemed as strangers to the rest.
I know nothing of my great-grandparents, but they must have been still more obscure. Is there any reason for speculating upon some possible spark of life from some unknown and improbable outside source? In my parents' offspring, the case was reversed; but the problem is the same; one child cared nothing for the intellectual life, and all the others prized books. If I knew my father's and mother's childhood associates I might find that some companion or school teacher at the right time kindled the quenchless flame in their young minds; but of this I have no knowledge. It is clear that both my parents, who met at school, away from home, had already shown a bent for study; and this was doubtless nurtured by the school. They married, and their zest for books was a part of the new home life, and we children were brought up in an atmosphere of books, and were trained to love them. It is easier for me to believe that our taste for them came from our early environment than that it was carried down in the germ-plasm of which so little is really known. Why did one brother not care at all for books? Who can tell? He was older than I, and of course I did not know his closest friends or when some alien influence might have entered and moulded his life. It seems reasonable to believe that by some intervention at a critical period he was led into another direction that perhaps changed the whole tenor of his nature and his life.
Soon after the marriage of my father and mother they went to Meadville, Penna., for a time. My father chose Meadville on account of Allegheny College, a Methodist institution, located in the town. I know nothing of how they lived. I should have known, but, long before I ever thought of beguiling my last years with a story of my life, the lips which could have spoken were closed forever. It would be hopeless to search for the happenings and doings of an obscure man. My father must have undergone great privations. He graduated from the college, where my two sisters received diplomas later on. He was still religious. His religion was born from a sensitive nature that made him pity the sad and suffering, and which, first and last, tied him to every hopeless cause that came his way.
On one hill in Meadville stood Allegheny College, sponsored by the Methodist Church. On another elevation was a Unitarian seminary, and in the town was a Unitarian Church. Both my parents must have strayed to this church, for when my father's time had come to take a theological course he went to the Unitarian school in Meadville, on the other hill from the Methodist college, where he took his first degree. In due time he completed his theological course, but when he had finished his studies he found that he had lost his faith. Even the mild tenets of Unitarianism he could not accept. Unitarianism, then, was closer to Orthodoxy than it is to-day, or he might have been a clergyman and lived an easier life. In the Unitarian school he read Newman and Channing, but later went on to Emerson and Theodore Parker. His trend of mind was shown by the fact that his first son was Edward Everett. When it came my turn to be born and named, my parents had left the Unitarian faith behind and were sailing out on the open sea without a rudder or compass, and with no port in sight, and so I could not be named after any prominent Unitarian. Where they found the name to which I have answered so many years I never knew. Perhaps my mother read a story where a minor character was called Clarence, but I fancy I have not turned out to be anything like him. The one satisfaction I have had in connection with this cross was that the boys never could think up any nickname half so inane as the real one my parents adorned me with.
CHAPTER 2
MY CHILDHOOD IN KINSMAN
Some years before I was born my parents left Meadville and moved back to the little village of Kinsman, about twenty miles away. I have no idea why they made this change, unless because my father's sister lived in Kinsman. All life hangs on a thread, so long as it hangs; a little movement this way or that is all-controlling. So I cannot tell why I was born on the 18th of April in 1857, or why the obscure village of Kinsman was the first place in which I beheld the light of day. When I was born the village must have boasted some four or five hundred inhabitants, and its importance and vitality is evident because it has held its own for seventy-five years or more. If any one wants to see the place he must search for the town, for in spite of the fact that I was born there it has never been put on the map.
But in truth, Kinsman is a quiet, peaceful and picturesque spot. Almost any one living in its vicinity will inform the stranger that it is well worth visiting, if one happens to be near. The landscape is gently rolling, the soil is fertile, beautiful shade trees line the streets, and a lazy stream winds its way into what to us boys was the far-off unknown world. Years ago the deep places of the stream were used for swimming-holes, and the shores were favorite lounging-places for boys dangling their fishing-lines above the shaded waters. There I spent many a day expectantly waiting for a bite. I recall few fishesthat ever rewarded my patience; but this never prevented my haunting the famous pools and watching where the line disappeared into the mysterious unfathomed depths.
The dominating building in Kinsman was the Presbyterian Church, which stood on a hill and towered high above all the rest. On Sunday the great bell clanged across the surrounding country calling all the people to come and worship under its sheltering roof. Loudly it tolled at the death of every one who died in the Lord. Its measured tones seemed cold and solemn while the funeral procession was moving up the hillside where the departed was to be forevermore protected under the shadow of the church.
If I had chosen to be born I probably should not have selected Kinsman, Ohio, for that honor; instead, I would have started in a hard and noisy city where the crowds surged back and forth as if they knew where they were going, and why. And yet my mind continuously returns to the old place, although not more than fiveor six that were once my schoolmates are still outside the churchyard gate. My mind goes back to Kinsman because I lived there in childhood, and to me it was once the centre of the world, and however far I have roamed since then it has never fully lost that place in the storehouse of miscellaneous memories gathered along the path of life.
I have never been able to visualize the early history of my parents. Not only had they no money, but no occupation; and under those conditions they began the accumulation of a family of children which ultimately totalled eight. These were born about two years apart. I was the fifth, but one before me died in infancy; it is evident that my parents knew nothing of birth-control, for they certainly could not afford so many doubtful luxuries. Perhaps my own existence, as fifth in a family, is one reason why I never have been especially enthusiastic about keeping others from being born; whenever I hear people discussing birth-control I always remember that I was the fifth.
All his life my father was a visionary and dreamer. Even when he sorely needed money he would neglect his work to read some book. My mother was more efficient and practical. She was the one who saved the family from dire want. Her industry and intelligence were evident in her household affairs and in my father's small business, too. In spite of this, she kept abreast of the thought of her day. She was an ardent woman's-rights advocate, as they called the advanced woman seventy years ago. Both she and my father were friends of all oppressed people, and every new and humane and despised cause and ism.
Neither of my parents held any orthodox religious views. They were both readers of Jefferson, Voltaire, and Paine; both looked at revealed religion as these masters thought. And still, we children not only went to Sunday school but were encouraged to attend. Almost every Sunday our mother took us to the church, and our pew was too near the minister to permit our slipping out while the service was going on. I wonder why children are taken to church? Or perhaps they are not, nowadays. I can never forget the horror and torture of listening to an endless sermon when I was a child. Of course I never understood a word of it, any more than did the preacher who harangued to his afflicted audiences.
At Sunday school I learned endless verses from the Testaments. I studied the lesson paper as though every word had a meaning and was true. I sang hymns that I remember to this day. Among these was one in which each child loudly shouted "I want to be an angel!--and with the angels stand; a crown upon my forehead, a harp within my hand!" Well do I remember that foolish hymn to this very day. As a boy I sang it often and earnestly, but in spite of my stout and steady insistence that I wanted to wear wings, here I am, at seventy-five, still fighting to stay on earth.
On religious and social questions our family early learned to stand alone. My father was the village infidel[4], and gradually came to glory in his reputation. Within a radius of five miles were other "infidels" as well, and these men formed a select group of their own. We were not denied association with the church members; the communicants of the smaller churches were our friends. For instance, there was a Catholic society that met at the home of one of its adherents once in two or three weeks, and between them and our family there grew up a sort of kinship. We were alike strangers in a more or less hostile land.
Although my father was a graduate of a theological seminary when he settled in Kinsman, he could not and would not preach. He must have been puzzled and perplexed at the growing brood that looked so trustingly to the parents for food and clothes. He must have wearily wondered which way to turn to be able to meet the demand. He undertook the manufacture and sale of furniture. His neighbors and the farmers round about were the customers with whom he dealt. Even now when I go back to Kinsman I am shown chairs and bedsteads that he made. He must have done honest work, for it has been more than fifty years since he laid down his tools. Now and then some old native shows me a bed or table or chair said to have been made by me in those distant days, but though I never contradict the statement, but rather encourage it instead, I am quite sure that the claim is more than doubtful.
Besides being a furniture maker, my father was the undertaker of the little town. I did not know it then, but I now suppose that the two pursuits went together in small settlements in those days. I know that the sale of a coffin meant much more to him and his family than any piece of furniture that he could make. My father was as kind and gentle as any one could possibly be, but I always realized his financial needs and even when very young used to wonder in a cynical way whether he felt more pain or pleasure over the death of a neighbor or friend. Any pain he felt must have been for himself, and the pleasure that he could not crowd aside must have come for the large family that looked to him for bread. I remember the coffins piled in one corner of the shop, and I always stayed as far away from them as possible, which I have done ever since. Neither did I ever want to visit the little shop after dark.
All of us boys had a weird idea about darkness, anyhow. The night was peopled with ghosts and the wandering spirits of those who were dead. Along two sides of the graveyard was a substantial fence between that and the road, and we always ran when we passed the white stones after dusk. No doubt early teaching is responsible for these foolish fears. Much of the terror of children would be avoided under sane and proper training, free of all fable and superstition.
My mother died when I was very young, and my remembrance of her is not very clear. It is sixty years since she laid down the hard burden that fate and fortune had placed upon her shoulders. Since that far-off day this loving, kindly, tireless and almost nameless mother has been slowly changed in Nature's laboratory into flowers and weeds and trees and dust. Her gravestone stands inside the white fence in the little country town where I was born, and beside her lies a brother who died in youth. I have been back to the old village and passed the yard where she rests forever, but only once have gone inside the gate since I left my old home so long ago. Somehow it is hard for me to lift the latch or go down the walk or stand at the marble slab which marks the spot where she was laid away. Still I know that in countless ways her work and teaching, her mastering personality, and her infinite kindness and sympathy have done much to shape my life.
My father died only twenty-five years ago. He is not buried in the churchyard at Kinsman. The same process of the reduction of the body to its elements has gone on with him as with my mother. But in her case it has come about through accumulating years; with him it was accomplished more quickly in the fiery furnace of the crematorium and his ashes were given to his children and were wafted to the winds.
Who am I--the man who has lived and retained this special form of personality for so many years? Aside from the strength or weakness of my structure, I am mainly the product of my mother, who helped to shape the wanton instincts of the child, and of the gentle, kindly, loving, human man whose presence was with me for so many years that I could not change, and did not want to change.
Since then a brother and sister, Everett and Mary, have passed into eternal sleep and have gone directly through the fiery furnace and their ashes are strewn upon the sands. I know that it can be but a short time until I shall go the way of all who live; I cannot honestly say that I want to be cremated, but I am sure that I prefer this method of losing my identity to any other I might choose.
The memory pictures of the first fifteen years of life that drift back to me now are a medley of all sorts of things, mainly play and school. Never was there a time when I did not like to go to school. I always welcomed the first day of the term and regretted the last. The school life brought together all the children of the town. These were in the main simple and democratic. The study hours, from nine to four, were broken by two recesses of fifteen minutes each and the "nooning" of one hour which provided an ideal chance to play. It seems to me that one unalloyed joy in life, whether in school or vacation time, was baseball. The noon time gave us a fairly good game each day. The long summer evenings were often utilized as well, but Saturday afternoon furnished the only perfect pleasure we ever knew. Whether we grew proficient in our studies or not, we enjoyed renown in our community for our skill in playing ball. Saturday afternoons permitted us to visit neighboring towns to play match games, and be visited by other teams in return.
I have snatched my share of joys from the grudging hand of Fate as I have jogged along, but never has life held for me anything quite so entrancing as baseball; and this, at least, I learned at district school. When we heard of the professional game in which men cared nothing whatever for patriotism but only for money--games in which rival towns would hire the best players from a natural enemy--we could scarcely believe the tale was true. No Kinsman boy would any more give aid and comfort to a rival town than would a loyal soldier open a gate in the wall to let an enemy march in.
We could not play when the snow was on the ground, but Kinsman had ponds and a river, and when the marvellous stream overran its banks it made fine skating in the winter months. Then there were the high hills; at any rate, they seemed high to me, and the spring was slower in coming than in these degenerate days, it seemed. To aid us in our sports there was a vast amount of snow and ice for the lofty, swift slides downhill, and few experiences have brought keener enjoyment, which easily repaid us for the tedious tug back to the top. I am not at all sure about the lessons that I learned in school, but I do know that we got a great deal of fun between the study hours, and I have always been glad that I took all the play I could as it came along.
But I am quite sure that I learned something, too. I know that I began at the primer and read over and over the McGuffey readers[3], up to the sixth, while at the district school. I have often wondered if there was such a man as Mr. McGuffey and what he looked like. To me his name suggested side-whiskers which, in Kinsman, meant distinction. I never could understand how he learned so much and how he could have been so good. I am sure that no set of books ever came from any press that was so packed with love and righteousness as were those readers. Their religious and ethical stories seem silly now, but at that time it never occurred to me that those tales were utterly impossible lies which average children should easily have seen through.
McGuffey furnished us many choice and generally poetical instructions on conduct and morals. And the same sort were found in other books, also. I remember one that I used to declaim, but I do not recall the book where it was found; this was an arraignment of the tobacco habit. It is not unlikely that this gem had something to do with the Methodist Church not permitting a man who smokes to be ordained as a preacher. Anyhow, I haven't heard of or seen this choice bit of literature and morals for sixty years, but here it is, as I remember it:
The girls made their hatred of liquor just as clear, although I do not recall their words, but I do know the title of one recitation. The name carried a threat to all of us boys, declaring:
From what I see and hear of the present generation I should guess that Doctor McGuffey and his ilk lived in vain.
I am inclined to think that I had the advantage of most of the boys and girls, for, as I have said, my home was well supplied with books, and my father was eager that all of us should learn. He watched our studies with the greatest care and diligently elaborated and supplemented whatever we absorbed in school. No one in town had an education anywhere near so thorough as his education that hard work and rigorous self-denial had afforded him.
I am never certain whether I have accomplished much or little. This depends entirely upon what comparisons I make. Judged with relation to my father, who reared so large a family and gave us all so good an education from the skimpy earnings of a little furniture store in a country town, I feel that my life has been unproductive indeed. How he did it I cannot understand. It must have been due largely to the work and management of my mother, who died before I was old enough to comprehend. But from the little that I remember, and from all that my older brothers and sisters and the neighbors have told me, I feel that it was her ability and devotion that kept us together, that made so little go so far, and did so much to give my father a chance for the study and contemplation that made up the real world in which he lived. In all the practical affairs of our life, my mother's hand and brain were the guiding force. Through my mother's good sense my father was able to give his children a glimpse into the realm of ideas and ideals in which he himself really lived.
But I must linger no longer at the threshold of life, which has such a magic hold on my conscious being.
In due time I finished my studies at the district school, and now, grown to feel myself almost a man, was given newer and larger clothes, and more books, along with which came a little larger vision; and I went to the academy on the hill, and timorously entered a new world.
My eldest brother, Everett, who was always the example for the younger children, was then, by what saving and stinting I cannot tell, pursuing his studies at the University of Michigan; and my oldest sister, Mary, was following close behind. I have not the faintest conception how my father and mother were able to accomplish these miracles, working and planning, saving and managing, to put us through.
Any one who desires to write a story of his ideas and philosophy should omit childhood, for this is sacred ground, and when the old man turns back to that fairyland he lingers until any other undertaking seems in vain.
But the first bell in the academy tower has stopped ringing and I must betake myself and my books up the hill.
