Read Ebook: A Century of Dishonor A Sketch of the United States Government's Dealings with Some of the Indian Tribes by Jackson Helen Hunt

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"In a dark room, unfriended and unseen, Toiled o'er his types, a poor unlearn'd young man. The place was low, unfurnitured and mean, But there the freedom of a race began."

I corresponded with them in their heroic days. It is one of the letters of Phillips to me I quote here:--

"Boston,

"July 22, 1874.

"My dear Sir,--I ought long ago to have thanked you for sending me copies of your pamphlets on John Stuart Mill and the Rochdale Pioneers--and with so kind and partial a recognition of my co-operation with you in your great cause.

"That on Mill was due certainly to a just estimate of him, but how sad that human jackals should make it necessary. That on Co-operation I read and read again, welcoming the light you throw on it, for it is one of my most hopeful stepping-stones to a higher future. Thank you for the lesson--it cleared one or two dark places--not the first by any means--for I've read everything of yours I could lay my hands on. There was one small volume on Rhetoric--'Public Speaking and Debate,' methods of address, hints towards effective speech, etc.--which I studied faithfully, until some one to whom I had praised and lent it, acting probably on something like Coleridge's rule, that books belong to those who most need them--never returned me my well-thumbed essay, to my keen regret. Probably you never knew that we had printed your book. This was an American reprint--wholly exhausted--proof that it did good service. We reprinted, some ten years ago, one of your wisest tracts, the 'Difficulties that obstruct Co-operation.' It did us yeoman service. But enough, I shall beg you to accept a volume of old speeches printed long ago, because it includes my only attempt to criticise you--which you probably never saw. In it I will put, when I mail it, the last and best photograph of Sumner, and if you'll exchange, I'll add one of

"Yours faithfully, and ever,

"Wendell Phillips.

"Mr. G.J. Holyoake."

With Mr. Charles Bradlaugh I had personal relations all his life. I took the chair for him at the first public lecture he delivered. I gave him ready applause and support. At the time of what was called his "Parliamentary struggle," I was entirely with him and ready to help him. It was with great reluctance and only in defence of principle, to which I had long been committed, that I appeared as opposed to him. He claimed to represent Free Thought, with which I had been identified long before his day. My conviction was that a Free Thinker should have as much courage, consistency, and self-respect as any Apostle, or Jew, or Catholic, or Quaker. All had in turn refused to make a profession of opinion they did not hold, at the peril of death, or, as in the case of O'Connell and the Jews, at the certainty of exclusion from Parliament. They had only to take an oath, to the terms of which they could not honestly subscribe. Mr. Bradlaugh had no scruple about doing this. In the House of Commons he openly kissed the Bible, in which he did not believe--a token of reverence he did not feel. He even administered to himself the oath, which was contrary to his professed convictions. This seemed to be a reflection upon the honour of Free Thought. Had I not dissented from it, I should have been a sharer in the scandal, and Free Thought--so far as I represented it--would have been regarded as below the Christian or Pagan level.

To take an oath when you do not believe in an avenging Deity who will enforce it, is to lie and know that you lie. This surely requires exceptional justification. It is nothing to the purpose to allege that the oath is binding upon you. The security of that are the terms of the oath. The law knows no other. To admit the terms to be unnecessary is to abolish the oath.

When a youth, attending lectures at the Mechanics' Institution, I soon discerned that the more eminent speakers were the clearer. They knew their subjects, were masters of the outlines, which by making bold and plain, we were instructed. Outline is the beginning of art and the charm of knowledge. Remembering this, I found no difficulty in teaching very little children to write in a week.

It is a great advantage to children to take care that their first notions are true. The primary element of truth is simplicity--with children it is their first fascination. I had only to show them that the alphabet meant no more than a line and a circle. A little child can make a "straight stroke" "and a round O."

The alphabet is made up of fifteen straight line and dozen curved line letters. The root of the fifteen straight line letters is J placed in various ways. The root of the eleven curved line letters is O or parts of O and I joined together.

A is made by two straight lines leaning against each other at the top, and a line across the middle.

H is made of two upright lines with a straight line between them.

V is made of two straight lines meeting at the bottom. If two upright lines are added to the V it becomes M.

Two V's put together make W. The letters L and T and X and Z make themselves, so easy is it to place the straight lines which compose them.

O makes itself. A short line makes it into Q. If the side of O be left open it is a C. If two half O's are joined together they make S. Half O and an upright line make D. An upright line and a half O make P. Another half added and B is made.

After a second or third time a child will understand the whole alphabet.

Such is the innate faculty of imitation and construction in children that they will put the letters together themselves when the method is made plain to them, and within a week will compose their own name and their mother's. At the same time they learn to read as well as to write. What they are told they are apt to forget, what they write they remember.

Reason is the faculty of seeing what follows as a consequence from what is, but to define distinction well is a divine gift. My one aim was to make things clear.

"On Wednesday evening last, the scrutineers appointed by the metropolitan localities attended at the office, 14, Southampton Street, Strand, and having inspected the votes received, gave the following as the result, in favour of the following nine:--

"Ernest Jones , Feargus O'Connor, John Arnott, T. M. Wheeler, James Grassby, John Shaw, W. J. Linton, J. J. Bezer, G. J. Holyoake.

"Messrs. J. B. O'Brien, Gerald Massey, and Arthur Trevelyan having declined to serve, the votes received on their behalf have not been recognised.

"We, the undersigned, hereby declare the nine persons first named to be duly elected to form the Executive Committee for the ensuing year.

"John Washington, City Locality.

"Edwd. John Loomes, Finsbury Locality.

"December 31, 1851."

"Be not troubled with the tide which bears O'er thy contents its strong necessities, But let determined things to destiny Hold, unbewailed their way"--

ought to be part of every code of health.

The conduciveness of my habits to longevity may be seen in this. More than forty of my colleagues, all far more likely to live than myself, have long been dead. Had I been as strong as they, I also should have died as they did. Lacking their power of hastening to the end, I have lingered behind.

For the rest--

"From my window is a glimpse of sea Enough for me, And every evening through the window bars Peer in the friendly stars."

The principles and aims of earlier years are confirmed by experience at 88. Principles are like plants and flowers. They suit only those whom they nourish. Nothing is adapted to everybody.

Goethe said: "When I was a youth I planted a cherry-tree, and watched its growth with delight. Spring frost killed the blossoms, and I had to wait another year before the cherries were ripe--then the birds ate them--another year the caterpillars ate them--another year a greedy neighbour stole them--another year the blight withered them. Nevertheless, when I have a garden again, I shall plant another cherry-tree." My years now are "dwindling to their shortest span "; if I should have my days over again, I shall plant my trees again--certain that if they do grow they will yield verdure and fruit in some of the barren places of this world.

My first public discussion in London was with Mr. Passmore Edwards--personally, the handsomest adversary I ever met. A mass of wavy black hair and pleasant expression made him picturesque. He was slim, alert, and fervid. The subject of debate was the famous delineation of the Bottle, by George Cruikshank, which I regarded as a libel on the wholesome virtue of Temperance. Exaggerations which inform and do not deceive, as American humour, or Swift's Lilliputians, Aztecs, and giants of Brobdingnag, have instruction and amusement. The exaggeration intended to deride and intimidate those who observe moderation is a hurtful and misleading extreme. Mr. Edwards took the opposite view. Cruikshank could not be moderate, and he did right to adopt the rule of absolute abstinence. It was his only salvation. To every man or woman of the Cruikshank tendency I would preach the same doctrine. To all others I, as fervently, commend the habit of use without abuse. Without that power no man would live a month. Had Mr. Edwards been of this way of thinking, there had been no debate between us.

Mr. Edwards had much reason on his side. Mankind are historically regarded as possessing insufficiency of brains, and it is bad economics to put an incorrigible thief into their mouths to steal away what brains they have.

I had respect for Mr. Edwards' side of the argument. For when a man makes a fool of himself, or fails to keep an engagement, or departs, in his behaviour from his best manner--through drink--he should take the next train to the safe and serene land of Abstinence.

When the Taxes on Knowledge were repealed, Mr. Collet and I attempted to procure the repeal of the Passenger Tax on Railways. For forty years after the imposition of the tax of Lord Halford, 1832, the workman was taxed who went in search of an employer. When a poor sailor, arriving in London after a long voyage, desired to visit his poor mother in Glasgow, the Government added to his fare a tax of three shillings, to encourage him in filial affection. In the interests of locomotion and trade, two or three associations had attempted to get this pernicious tax repealed, without success. It was remarked in Parliament in 1877 that no committee representing the working class asked for the repeal of this discreditable impost, which most concerned them. This was the reason of the formation of the Travelling Tax Abolition Committee, of which Mr. Collet became secretary and I the chairman. We were assisted by an influential committee of civic and industrial leaders. After six years' agitation we were mainly instrumental in obtaining the repeal of the penny a mile tax on all third-class fares, effected by Mr. Childers in 1883, which ever since has put into the pocket of working-class travellers ?400,000 a year, besides the improved carriages and improved service the repeal has enabled railway companies to give. We continued the committee many years longer in the hope of freeing the railways wholly from taxation, which still hampers the directors and is obstructive of commerce. I was chairman for twenty-four years, during which time twenty-two of the committee died. Our memorials, interviews with ministers, correspondence with officials, petitions to Parliament, public meetings and various publications, involved a large and incessant amount of work without payment of any kind. Subsequently a committee of publicists, journalists and members of Parliament, for whom Mr. Applegarth was the secretary, caused ?80 to be given to me, in recognition of my services. Though it represented less than ?4 a year as the salary of the chairman, it was valuable in my eyes from the persons who gave it, as they were not the persons much benefited by the work done, and who really taxed themselves on behalf of others. A subscription of a halfpenny each from the working-class travellers who had profited by the repeal would have amounted to a handsome acknowledgment. But from them it was impossible to collect it. Testimonials, I believe, are often given by persons who generously subscribe for others upon whom the obligation of making it more properly rests.

It would seem insensibility or ingratitude not to record, that on my eightieth birthday--now eight years ago--I was entertained at a numerously attended dinner party in the National Liberal Club, at which to my gratification, Mr. Walter Morrison presided. The speakers, and distinction of many in the assembly, were a surprise, transcending all I had foreseen. The words of Mr. Morrison's speech, to use Tennyson's words, were like

"Jewels That on the stretch'd forefinger of all time Sparkle forever"

in my memory.

Writing from 5, Percival Terrace, Brighton, March 28, 1903, Mr. Spencer said: "I have not been out of doors since last August, and as Mr. Holyoake knows, it is impossible for me to join in the Reception to be given to him on the occasion of his eighty-sixth birthday. I can do nothing more than express my warm feeling of concurrence. Not dwelling upon his intellectual capacity, which is high, I would emphasise my appreciation of his courage, sincerity, truthfulness, philanthropy, and unwearied perseverance. Such a combination of these qualities, it will, I think, be difficult to find."

But opulent opportunity of working was afforded me. As I was paid ten times as much as I had received before, I thought myself in a paradise of journalism.

In the correspondence of Robert Owen, now in possession of the Co-operative Union Memorial Committee, Manchester, is the following letter from his customary legal adviser, who then resided at Hornsey.

"6, Old Jewry, London,

"February 17, 1853. "R. Owen, Esq.,

"Dear Sir,--I am glad to see your handwriting upon an envelope conveying to me a pamphlet of yours.

"Holyoake I expect will breakfast with me on Sunday morning. He comes down by the railway to Hornsey, which leaves London at nine o'clock precisely.

"I am afraid it is too cold for you, and that the walk from the railway to our house, which is three quarters of a mile, may not be agreeable.

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