Pioneers of progress

Front matter

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Contents

Page.

Abraham Lincoln 17

Ulysses S. Grant 25

Introduction

By Rev. H. W. Thomas, D. D.

Crystals enlarge by accretion; cells multiply and grow. From the moneron and mollusk the life-work went forward and up to the body and mind of man.

A most wonderful fact, is the self-consciousness of the individual. The self, the I, that affirtns the self, and the other; that discriminates between the I and the me; that says, this is my body, my house; that draws the line between being and existence. The material world is objective; is perceived through the outward reading senses. It has to do with properties. The spiritual world is subjective; lies within, and has to do with qualities, or the principles of the moral order of the good.

The tremendous meaning of the life of man is found in this fact of the self-conscious individuality and volitional power to think and do. It is not possible for all these individuals to live in separateness ; the needs of each compel some form of association; hence the family, the state, the church, and the relations of industry and commerce. And in the progressive forms of civilization the facts of the one and the many; or indi- 7 vidualism and socialism must always be present; and both must be recognized and conserved; for each has its place in the one and larger social whole.

In this world-process of larger and better becoming, there have been in all the long years the "Pioneers of Progress/' Despotisms in government and religion, aristocracies of learning, wealth and the self-enforced authority of kings and ecclesiastics, have sought to enslave the millions. Even in Athens Socrates had to drink the poison; and two thousand years later Bruno was burned at the stake in Rome. The blood of martyrs has marked the slow, hard way of religious liberty through the long centuries; and countless millions have died in the battles of contending despots.

But Galileo came with his telescope; the old astronomy gave place to the new; the Reformation lifted up the rights of reason and conscience in religion; the infallibility of the Pope has been declared ; but the temporal sovereignty is forever gone. Under Louis XIV the authority of the church was supreme; and it owned one-third the wealth of France. The revolution wrought the secularization of the social order; and now that brilliant nation is a Republic; civil authority is supreme.

With the ever changing order of progressive becoming, is the vast commercialism of these great years; made possible by the mighty forces of machinery. With this have come the possibilities and dangers of new forms of the abuses of wealth and power. The trusts and the fabulous fortunes of the few are a growing menace to the rights and liberties of the many. The old slavery of the colored race came to an end with the War of the Rebellion; a new form of white slavery is arising in the oppressive power of a moneyed aristocracy, that not only seeks to control labor and commerce, but to corrupt legislatures and courts of justice.

The work of the "Pioneers of Progress ,, is never done; some of the old questions of dispute may be settled, but with new conditions others arise. There are always the two parties— the Conservatives and the Radicals; the one balancing the other. Man is self-transcending; the limits of the subconscious and the supra-conscious powers of his own being have not yet been reached. Prof. James, of Harvard, says psychology is now only where science was before Galileo and Bacon. Sociology has just come into the foreground; the problems of wealth and poverty, of war and peace, and the equalities of justice are coming into the great worldcourt of the higher hujnanity. In the larger light of the universal, religion will be less a matter of intellectual differences and disputations, and more and more a glad trust and hope in the Infinite Goodness and a life of love to man and God. And, meantime, the work of discovery and invention will go forward in the world of material forces, and may far transcend the wonders of the present. The rays of the Sun may soon turn all the wheels of labor and commerce, and light and wartn the holmes of the world.

Among the names of the "Pioneers of Progress" that of the author of this work should certainly have a place; and his many friends have so requested and urged, but Dr. Bland has just as positively protested. Somehow, this busy and self-forgetful life cannot bear the thought of being an autobiographer; nor can his friends forego their reasonable request.

As a solution of the problem, I have been asked to write an Introduction to the work, in which the life of the author will naturally call for at least some notice; and to this, being old friends, he has consented.

The parents of our author, Thomas and Sarah Thornton Bland, were members of a colony of North Carolina Quakers, who settled in Orange County, Indiana, in 1817. In 1829 they bought a tract of land in Greene County, near Bloomfield, the newly located capital, and built a log cabin in the thick forest; and there, this now distinguished son was born May 21, 1830; and there he lived the life of a pioneer farmer's boy till he was twenty years old. In his seventh year a log school house was built, in which he studied in winters and worked on the farm in the summers, until the age, of fifteen, when the father, thinking further education was not necessary for practical purposes, and needing his help all the year on the farm, the school days were ended. He had mastered Webster's spelling book, the Young and the English Readers, Pike's Arithmetic, and had read the Life of Dr. Franklin and the Bible; had almost memorized them.

From very early years, he had a hungry mind; he borrowed from Judge Cavins and lawyer Rousseau and other scholars in the town, works of history; and these learned men, coming often to his cabin home as friends of the family, was a great inspiration to the young student. His daily labor was hard; but he found time to read tw 7 o hours each working day, and six hours on Sundays. He studied English Grammar without a teacher, and also other subjects. He says "My mother sustained me by her love and her encouraging words gave me faith in myself and in the future."

But changes came to this earnest and aspiring life. When he was twenty years of age the loving mother died; the faithful toiling father, wishing to provide homes for the three sons, and hoping that all would be farmers, sold the old home and moved to

Illinois. Only the oldest son chose the life of the farmer.

And now comes another change in the life of our author, which he must tell in his own characteristic way. "At the age of twenty-two I married a girl of eighteen, Miss Mary C. Davis, a native of Virginia. In 1902 we celebrated our Golden Wedding. As wife, comrade, and co-worker she has been my faithful companion for more than fifty years. To her wise suggestions and kindly criticisms in the many fields of labor, I am indebted for much of the success achieved. She has journeyed with me from the realm of youthful ignorance and false beliefs through the various stages of intellectual growth, and literary, scientific and philosophical development, to a place in the ranks of progress and reforim."

Dr. Bland studied medicine after he was married, and on coming from college began practice in the village of Worthington, Indiana, six miles from where he was born. As a physician his studies were not limited to what is called medicine, but took the wider range of health reforms. He had been a student of phrenology from boyhood. He longed to reach and help the people in a larger way ; and hence took the platform as a lecturer on physiology and phrenology in their relations to the health of body and mind; his itinerary covered a number of the middle and western states and a few in the East.

In 1864 he accepted a commission from Governor Morton, of Indiana, as special surgeon in the army. Returning from that work he was joined by his wife, who had been for nearly two years studying in Dr. Jackson's Health Institute, Dansville, New York, and they established, at Indianapolis, a literary journal, "The Home Visitor." At the end of a successful year this was sold and the Northwestern, now Indiana Farmer, was founded. In 1868 they established the Ladies' Own Magazine, of which Mrs. Bland was Editor-in-Chief. In 1870 Dr. Bland published his first book, Farming as a Profession, which had a large sale. Having sold the "Fanmer" they removed the magazine to Chicago in the spring of 1872, and in 1874 they removed it to New York City, where a year later it was sold and Mrs. Bland entered a medical college, completed her course, and took her degree as a Doctor of Medicine

In April, 1878, the Drs. Bland located in Washington City, where for eighteen years the wife had a successful career both as a physician and a lecturer on health and related subjects; the husband on occasion assisting as counsel. But his time was fully occupied with his literary work and as Corresponding Secretary of the National Arbitration League and, also, of the Indian Defense Association and as President of the Eclectic Medical Society of the District of Columbia. During his residence in Washington Dr. Bland edited, for ten years, the Council Fire; for one year the True Commonwealth. In 1879 Dr. Bland's Life of General Butler was issued by Lee & Shepard, of Boston. In 1880 appeared his Reign of Monopoly; in 1881 How to Grow Rich, an anti-monopoly brochure; in 1882 the Life of A. B. Meacham; in 1892 Esau, a political novel, and in 1894 his medical work was issued.

Dr. and Mrs. Bland spent the three years froim 1895 to 1898 in Boston in professional, literary and reformatory work; and then removed to Chicago, where they now reside. In 1899 he was elected Secretary of the American Medical Union, which position he still holds. In 1902 his latest work, "In the World Celestial, " appeared and attracted quite wide attention, and its hold upon the public is still undiminished.

In this passing sketch of the life of Dr. Bland one must be surprised at the large amount of work accomplished; and yet not the half appears. His other writings for the magazines and the general press would make more than fifty volumes the size of his books, and in addition to this he has delivered hundreds of lectures upon various subjects. He has lived not in the quietude of seclusion but in public; with, and a part of the people; sharing in and trying to bear their burdens. Only as a life of love, and in the sharing or mutuality of love in return is such a life possible.

As a reformer the work of Dr. Bland has been large, wise and helpful. Large, in that it has not been limited to any specialty; his wide vision has looked upon the whole field of the needs and sufferings of a world. Wise, because his judgment has been that of a well-balanced mind. Helpful, because his sympathies have been with the sufferers; he has not stood as one apart from them, and talked at them ; but has been as one with them who has known hard work; what it is to sweat in the field, and live in a cabin, and all his life to be comparatively poor.

Looking at this life we can but be impressed with its noble and heroic qualities; its Quaker-like simplicity, purity and integrity; and its moral heroism; and it is beautiful, Divine, to see this husband and wife, who have so long been one in thought and work, growing old in a love that is deeper, Diviner than was possible in the long ago, when together they essayed the task and journey of earth and time. Beautiful as they so joyfully toil on in the brighter hope of the blessed forever.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

I stood four hours listening with deep interest to a debate between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas, at Charleston, 111., in 1858. Those men were pitted against each other by their respective parties, Republican and Democratic, as champions of free soil and squatter soverenty. That debate and the six others held by those mental giants, was the prelude to the memorable campaign of i860. In that opening skirmish Lincoln won his spurs and achieved a fame that eclipsed the prestige of the veteran leaders of the young antislavery party, which had been born in 1856. The prize nominally at stake was a seat in the United States Senate, which Douglas then occupied and which Lincoln was supposed to covet. If he had any higher ambition Lincoln kept it concealed. Some men afterward thought they discovered in the following incident a still loftier ambition in Lincoln. The Republican leaders, Joseph Medill, Leonard Swett, Richard Oglesby and others were in consultation with Lincoln on the political program of the proposed debates. After his 17 admirers had substantially agreed upon a policy to be pursued, Lincoln threw them into a panic by saying:

"Your proposed plan is too mild to suit me. I shall press the squatter soverenty issue and compel Douglas to defend his hybrid child or disown and abandon it."

"Abe, if you do that Douglas will beat you for the United States Senate," said Medill, and Lincoln replied:

"I know that, Joe, as well as you do, but it will make it impossible for him to be President of the United States."

"But, Abe," replied his friendly adviser, "you are not a candidate for President, but for the Senate."

"I understand your position and appreciate your view of things," replied Lincoln, "but I am after bigger game."

The sequel proved that both Medill and Lincoln were right from their standpoints. It is highly improbable that Lincoln thought of himself as a possible candidate for President in i860. His purpose, it is generally believed, was to sacrifice his possibility of a seat in the Senate upon his belief that to elect Douglas President would be to imperil the cause of liberty. In his reply to Douglas at Charleston he said:

"My friend, Judge Douglas, has decidedly the advantage of me, he is an avowed candidate for President; in his rotund and smiling face the politicians see possible cabinet positions, foreign appointments, postoffices, etc., etc., while in my homely old phiz they see no such possibilities."

The manner of saying this, a manner peculiarly Lincolnish, gave it a pith and pungency I have never found in the speech of any other man. His arguments were strong, but their strength was not all in the logic, though he was a powerful logician. There was a. quiet and peculiar humor in his illustrations and his manner of speech such as I have never observed in that of any other orator. To illustrate as best I may, I quote: "The Judge's argument is about as thin as homeopathic soup, made from the shadow of a pigeon that had starved to death/'

Only those who heard Lincoln utter this can fully appreciate its force. The shout that went up from the listening thousands made the leaves of the trees tremble like the foliage of the aspen.

My personal knowledge of Lincoln was limited, but from the lips of public men intimately associated with him I have heard many an anecdote which I stored in my memory.

Schuyler Colfax told me some amusing stories of the great emancipator. "He was," said Colfax, "a great admirer of Artemus

Ward and of Petroleum V. Nasby. During the dark days of the War of the Rebellion, when the responsibilities of his office seemed to be more than he could bear, he found temporary relief in reading selections from that prince of humorists, Ward, and the letters of Rev. Petroleum Vesuvius Nasby. He would sometimes prelude the most serious cabinet discussions by reading one of the great showman's funniest stories, or the latest fulminations of Nasby hurled at his administration of affairs. Once when I called upon him he asked me if I had read Nasby's latest letter. 'Of course I have,' I answered. 'Everybody reads them.' 'Do you know him personally?' 'Yes.' 'Well, the next time you meet him in Washington bring him to see me.'

"A few days later I met Nasby on Pennsylvania avenue and told him that the President wanted to meet him. 'No he don't, after what I have said about him.' 'Oh, he reads between the lines and understands you, and the quaint humor of your letters does him good; it helps to lift the pressure of his overburdened mind and heart.'

"Lincoln received us in his private room, on entering which I said, 'Mr. President, I have the honor and pleasure of introducing to you my esteemed friend, Rev. Petroleum

V. Nasby.' Extending both of his hands, which Nasby grasped, Lincoln said:

" 'Mr. Nasby, I am very glad to see you ; I read your letters with great pleasure. I envy you your wonderful gift of humor; indeed, I would rather be able to write as you do than to be President of the United States.'

"Then looking his distinguished visitor over from head to foot, he asked: 'What on earth is it about you that makes you so all-fired funny?' "

Lord Hartington of England, then a young man fresh from Oxford, visited this country during the Civil War, and the British minister, Sir Edward Thornton, introduced him to the President. Old Abe, as he was familiarly called, took the measure of this young sprig of English nobility, and sized him up as a coxcomb, a type of humanity that he held in supreme contempt. His sense of humor dominated, for the moment, his diplomatic courtesy, and on the young man being presented he grasped his hand with exuberant cordiality, and in a manner and voice peculiarly his own he said:

"My Lord Hartington, I am delighted to meet you, and I am very sure never to forget your name, for it rhymes so admirably with our Mrs. Partington."

Mr. Lincoln was a man of moods. He had fits of melancholy that at times bordered on despair, but if at such times a jovial friend would tell him a funny story or say something which would remind him of something humorous, he would laugh off his fit of blues. His wit has been obscured by his humor, but it was of a high order and it was spontaneous, as well as keen. A good illustration is found in the following anecdote:

A group of lawyers in the public room of a village tavern were amusing themselves by jokes on each other. Douglas and Lincoln were of the party. One lawyer started it and others joined in, chafing Douglas about his short legs. Lincoln took no part in this, till one of the jokers said, "I think Abe's legs are as much too long as Steve's are too short." This shot was meant to force Lincoln to defend himself, but it failed of its object. Abe was apparently absorbed in some deep mental problem which rendered him oblivious to the controversy which raged around him. Finally a member of the group fired this question at him:

"Abe, tell us how long you think a man's legs ought to be?"

"Well, I have never given that subject much thought, but it strikes me that they ought to be long enough to reach from his body to the ground."

On one occasion General Grant was being criticized by a member of Lincoln's cabinet quite severely. "Why," said he, "I have it on what I deem good authority that Grant is a very intemperate man. In fact, that he sometimes gets drunk."

"Do you know the brand of liquor he drinks ?" Lincoln wore a sober face as he asked that question, and the accuser of Grant answered as soberly: "No, I do not; but what has the quality of the liquor got to do with it?"

"To my mind, it has everything to do with it. I should like to order a few barrels of the same kind of liquor that Grant drinks for my other generals."

On one occasion a soldier had been sentenced to be shot for the crime of cowardice shown on the field of battle. His mother appealed to the President for a pardon. The appeal touched the great sympathetic heart of Lincoln and he resolved to pardon that soldier. But official courtesy required that he refer the case to the Secretary of War. He gave the mother a letter to Secretary Stanton, in which he recommended favorable consideration of the case. The great war secretary read the President's letter and without a word he drew a line across it with a pen dipped in red ink and handed it back to the sorrow-stricken mother, who carried it to the President, with conflicting emotions of hope and fear. She did not understand the meaning of the red cross, till Lincoln told her that it meant that the secretary had refused to recommend a pardon. "You see, madam, that I have very little influence with this administration, but," he added, "in this case I shall act on my own judgment and pardon your son without the recommendation of the Secretary of War. The poor boy probably has a brave and patriotic heart and head, but a pair of cowardly legs which ran away with him." The mother w r as so grateful for the pardon of her son that she could readily forgive the President's humorous reason for granting it.

ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT.

Gen. U. S. Grant was a native of Ohio. After graduating from West Point Military Academy he entered the United States Army as second lieutenant. His first active military service was in the Mexican war, where he was promoted to the rank of captain. He afterward resigned his commission and located near St. Louis, as a farmer. Not being very successful in that business, he became a clerk in the office of his brother Orville, who owned a tannery in Galena, 111. He was filling that useful position when, in 1 86 1, the Civil War began. In July of that year he went to Springfield with a letter of introduction to Governor Yates from ex- Governor Washburn, who believed that he could be of service to the nation as an officer in the army. Governor Yates introduced him to his adjutant-general, Thomas Mather, with a recommendation that he utilize his services. Mather asked Grant: "What can you do in the army?" "I can organize and command an army." "The h — 1 you can," responded Mather. "Well, there is an unorganized mob down at Mattoon, known as the Twenty-first Regiment of Illinois Infantry. I will give you a commission as captain and mustering officer and you may go down there and see if you can bring order out of the chaos that reigns in Camp Cunningham/'

Captain Good of Decatur had been elected by the boys as their colonel, but before a commission was issued to him his men decided that he was a failure, and a petition, signed by over two-thirds of the rank and file of the regiment, was forwarded to the Governor, praying him not to commission Good. This was the state of things when Captain Grant reported to Colonel Good for duty. Good was a politician, so he sought by flattery to secure Grant's influence in his behalf with the Governor. The camp had been named for Mattoon's most honored citizen, Hon. James Cunningham. Good issued an order changing it to Camp Grant. This insult to "Uncle Jimmie Cunningham" incensed every citizen and soldier of that section. It failed of the purpose Colonel Good had in view. Governor Yates sent Captain Grant a colonel's commission and assigned him to the command of the Twenty-first Infantry. Under his wise and strict discipline, what General Mather had. styled a mob became in a brief time a model regiment. I had assisted somewhat in recruiting that regiment and I was in Mattoon when Captain Grant arrived. I am therefore enabled to speak of the genesis of his career as a soldier in the Civil War from personal observation. I was with his command when, in January, 1862, he made his fa;mous reconnoissance in force in Kentucky, preparatory to his attack upon Fort Donelson. I did not meet him again until after the close of the war. I attended the first reception given him at Cincinnati, when the world was ringing with his praise. He greeted me cordially and introduced me to his wife, whom I found to be a very pleasant woman. The renowned hero of many brilliant achievements was, to all appearances. as modest and companionable as when he was only a captain and mustering officer. He was a man of few words, yet he was not reticent to an offensive degree. He simply did not use a surplusage of words in his public utterances or private conversation. He was as modest as he was reticent. His deeds spoke for him, but of these he not only never boasted, but he appeared to be entirely unconscious of having done anything but his plain duty, as the humblest soldier did his. That he had a great heart is proven by his fidelity to his friends, which has become proverbial. He gave Sherman and other generals all the credit that was their due, even at the expense of his own fame. His magnani'mity to General Lee and his command, when at Appomattox the generalin-chief of the Confederate Army tendered his sword to General Grant in token of final surrender, goes far toward proving Grant a great-hearted man, as well as a wise statesman. His generosity on that occasion did much towards softening sectional animosity in the hearts of the southern people, and helped make it possible for them to again fraternize with the people of the North.

In his treatment of his soldiers, and the prisoners who fell into his hands, General Grant was humane to an exceptional degree. A brother of my wife, Lieut. B. F. Davis of the Twenty-first Illinois, said to me that at first the boys did not like Grant, and that the Governor was roundly denounced for putting him over them as their colonel. They had not been accustomed to strict military discipline. But after we got into the field and had been in an engagement with the foe, they could see that the severe discipline they had complained of was just what they had needed to make good soldiers of them. He became the idol of his men. During his reconnoissance in 1862 a private in the Forty-eighth Illinois Infantry slept at his post one night while on picket duty. The relief officer brought him in as a prisoner and reported to the commander of the regiment, Colonel Haney. The penalty for such an offense was death. I called to see the prisoner, whom I had known before he enlisted, and asked him why he had slept while on guard. He replied, "My beautiful wife and my two lovely children have all died since I left them to fight for my country. When I learned that they were dangerously ill I asked for a furlough that I might see them once more in this world. My application was refused on the ground that the army was about starting on this campaign. I am crazed with grief and I want to die."

I told his story to General McClernand, his brigade commander, and said to him: "General, I beg to give it as my opinion that the poor fellow is insane." The General replied, "I will report the case to General Grant, telling the story as you have told it to me, and give him your opinion, as a medical man, of the case."

The result was that the heartbroken soldier was discharged on the ground of insanity instead of being shot to death. About this time I called one morning at the home of a farmer, in whose field the army had camped the night before. The purpose of my call was to get a hot breakfast. The family consisted of the farmer, his wife, one unmarried daughter and a daughter-in-law.

The old man wore a sad countenance and the women were all crying. On inquiry, I learned that the only son of the family, husband of the daughter-in-law, had been captured by Grant's scouts and was then a prisoner in our camp. They felt sure that he would be hung, though they insisted that he had not been guilty of any act of treason or disloyalty. I set their fears at rest by explaining that our scouts were under orders to arrest and hold as prisoners all young men of the country to prevent the possibility of their carrying news of the movements of the army to the enemy at Columbus, or Fort Donelson, and that the young man would be treated well and released within a week. My reward came quickly in the form of an excellent breakfast consisting of fried chicken, soda biscuit and coffee with real cream. I offered to pay for my breakfast in silver coin, but was not allowed to do so. I said to my host: "We encamped on your farm last night and made pretty free with your fence rails in building fires to cook our meals and warm ourselves, and we used about all your hay and corn to feed our horses."