REMINISCENCES OF AN OCTOGENARIAN

IN THE FIELDS OF INDUSTRIAL AND SOCIAL REFORM

BY JOSHUA KING INGALLS

Author of “Social Wealth,” “Economic Equities,” “Land and Labor,” “Work and Wealth,” Etc.

“Where Industry is not there can be neither honesty towards men nor worship of the Infinite Worker.”

J. H. Hunt.

PREFACE.

These Reminiscences, which largely refer to parties no longer dwellers of our sphere, are mainly the personal recollections of the author, who has never kept any regular diary. Where periodicals and books have been referred to, the memory has been relieved; but otherwise, it has been wholly relied upon. The motive leading to their publication, has been the request of friends, to have them put in readable form; but in addition to that, there are certain ideas I desired to put before the world in as familiar a form as possible.

I regard as essential to Social advancement, first: The apportionment of the land so as to allow no one to be deprived of its use, who is able and willing to utilize it.

Second: The recognition of the principle of joint-ownership in all increase from joint labor.

Third: Equal Freedom in the choice of occupation and association.

The trend of thought as these pages will show, has been towards a broader liberty in the pursuit of knowledge, and of every aim in life which does not invade the equal rights of others.

Of the ideas I have arrived at in respect to rent, interest, and profit as to their origin, and double meaning as they refer to increase under equity and freedom, and to the same increase under monopoly and subjection, I am not sufficiently well read to aver that they are wholly new; but they are original with me, as far as that term applies to ordinary composition.

For the statement of views on government and on all other Social matters, I have only to say that they are sincerely held and will be abandoned whenever the opposite or a more satisfactorily medium shall be made to appear rational.

I am under obligation to many minds with which I have come in contact through books, periodicals, and personal acquaintance, which cannot be referred to here. Carlyle, Emerson and Spencer, have been my favorite authors. I remember that Combe’s Constitution of Man, Vestiges of Creation, and other books of that period greatly stimulated my mental activities. But through life, I have endeavored to think for myself.

I think I may claim to have made some novel contributions to Economic Science, to wit: The nature and origin of profit, interest and rent. That they are one in character, and are divisible into economic and monopolistic according to the division made to labor, and the capture through legal privilege by landlord, banker, or holder of plant and stock:

That money is also duplicate; legal and commercial.

That it is legal money, not the commercial, which begets, inflation and contraction, and causes panics and business depressions.

That it is not the balances of commerce, but the adjustments at indebtedness or rather the payment of interest on funded debts, which produces the disasters, the compulsory idleness, and distress of those who labor.

That permanent debts or dominion of land, have no relation to production or exchange, except that they are legally made to form a lien on the products of industry without any equitable claim.

That Value, or rather Price, is determined by three Ratios of Utility, invariable, of Service, stable, and of Demand and Supply, variable; the ratio of service being affected by voluntary and involuntary Status and by free or obstructed opportunity; the ratio of supply and demand being widely varied by an open market, or by exclusive privilege to forestall and monopolize it.

That Contracts, as legally interpreted, are used for the purpose of excluding equity in adjustment; and however they may bind the parties thereto, cannot bind, rightfully, courts, juries or comrades to waive a rigid inquiry into what is just or unjust in their provisions, before attempting to enforce them.

For a concise and clear statement of this principle I acknowledge my indebtedness to George E. Macdonald: I should also credit Liberty and its many writers, for clear and comprehensive views of equal freedom: and I would here render a tribute to my late companion in life. Olive H. Fraser Ingalls, for her constant sympathy and encouragement in my investigations of Social and industrial problems, and for actual assistance in giving expression to important truths.

J. K. I.

Glenora, July 1. 1897.

JOSHUA KING INGALLS.

REMINISCENCES.

CHAPTER I.

IN a secluded spot of the town of Swansea, Bristol Co., in the State of Massachusetts, on the 21st day of July 1816, the writer first saw the light. His birth stands thus recorded in the town clerk’s office.

Between the towns of Dighton and Rehoboth, extends a district a mile wide and two miles long; at one time known as “the two mile purchase” which had been awarded to Swansea, under circumstances which are variously stated in colonial tradition. Nearly in the centre of this tract, remote from any public road, and partly surrounded by marshy forests, were two farms. At the beginning of this century, one was owned by Elkanah Ingalls, the father of the writer, and the other by Joseph Lewis, our only near neighbor. Our next neighbors were a half mile away through the woods, and only two other families within a mile. Our school-house, where, outside of home-teaching, I received my principal early education, was about a mile away, and adjoined the Dighton line. Our school was made up in nearly equal proportions from the parts of the districts of two towns, which held separate school-meetings, and agreed upon the hiring a common teacher, and other matters of detail for the school. My recollection goes back for more than seventy-five years, to the time when my father was yet living, but who died when I was four years of age. The first impression I remember, that things needed reforming occurred when I was about five years of age. It was the second season of going to school. I had not yet learned my letters, mainly because I could see no use in trying to repeat from memory the names given to certain characters contained in the alphabet. I remember with great distinctness of my mother’s visit to the school one day, and of my mortification when the teacher told her that I was a very backward child, and she had begun to despair of ever being able to teach me my letters. Then my mother quietly asked her if she would not begin to teach me words, and the use and sound of letters in them? At first, this was strenuously objected to. “It would be quite unusual,” the teacher said. But my mother still urged it, and intimated that the teacher need not spend more time than she usually gave in teaching the letters. She began to show me the relation of letters to words, and words to each other. To her astonishment I manifested an immediate interest in identifying the letters, and in two weeks time I was reading readily, and correctly short sentences in one and two syllables. In a few years I was only second in spelling, and at nine years of age took the coveted certificate at close of school, for being at the head of the spelling-class, although there were several scholars grown to manhood, and womanhood in the class. In this manner at the early age of five years, I had practical illustration, that authority and established methods of teaching were subject to question, and my mind was thus early directed to original thinking, and the investigation by myself, of any and all questions which became subjects of discussion. In a matter of similar character, I was greatly put back by faults in my early instruction. As soon as a slate was allowed me in school, as in other children, the desire to draw was awakened. This was strictly prohibited by the rules of the school, and many a scene between teacher and scholar, is remembered, when delinquency was discovered in that respect. No teaching would ever have made me an artist, probably; but in maturer life, a little knowledge of drawing would have been of vast benefit to me, saving an immense amount of tiresome labor and mortification when the necessities of my business as inventor, and constructor required it.

Our neighborhood was not an educated one, nor refined in the popular sense; but much kind feeling, and friendly service were exercised. There was a marked toleration of thought among the different religious societies and political parties, for those times, as compared with other localities. Amid these peaceful and quiet scenes I lived till in my fifteenth year, the necessity of doing something for self-support led me to seek employment in what is now, the City of Providence, and which about half a century since, abandoned the primitive town-meeting, for a Mayor, Aldermen and Council. To those days of childhood and youth, my mind is ever drawn with mingled emotions of pleasure and sadness. In imagination I see again the green fields, the dim woods, the streams and ponds, and even the swamps impassable to pedestrians except in winter frost and summer growth, the immense boulders, which to my childish imagination seemed mountains, but which at an early age I learned to climb, and so enjoy the wilder scene given from the elevation. I hear again, the singing of the sparrow, the thrush, and bobolink, and see the white birches, we children climbed so oft, to enjoy the sensation of the descent, bending them with our weight till we could reach the ground. This was often at the peril of being suspended too high in mid air to safely let go. All these things seem fresh in my memory, as the occurrences of yesterday, though more than three score years have flown, since these enjoyments were experienced in the simple and healthful sport.

It was our custom to climb the tree as near the top as possible, and clutch it with both hands, then throw the body clear to one side, and then, if we were not able to descend near enough to the, ground to reach it safely, run one hand over the other, until the flexibility of the extreme end would secure a sufficient depression. In eases of unusual resistance a comrade would climb upon the same tree and by his additional weight bring the suspended one safely to earth.

Running, wrestling, playing various games, requiring speed and shrewdness, gave us all the advantages of the modern gymnasium, to say nothing of chopping wood and engaging in the work of the farm and such handicrafts as were common in the country.

I have little doubt that my own development of muscle in the arms and chest was due in a considerable degree to those early sports and outdoor exercises which were always for “the fun of the thing” and never for a pecuniary reward or the wining of a prize. That prize money or gate money is necessary in any healthful sport, is the mere subterfuge of greed and the gambling habit. There is no more necessity for it as an inducement to the attainment of perfectibility in action than there is justification for the brutal maiming of a fellow being, to prove which of two well trained men can strike the hardest blow, or sustain the greatest and longest continual fatigue. Blows can be measured accurately to an ounce as to their effectiveness, and endurance can be as accurately determined, by proper contrivances; whereas, pugilism often turns, as contended by many in the late prize fights, on a mere chance hit or “scratch shot.” The gambling mania debauches every subject to which it attaches. Some one has said that the worst use you can put a man to is to hang him but much depends on the worth of the individual. To take so much pains to train a man and bring him into an excellent physical condition and then batter him to pieces, is as devoid of economic as of ethical justification.

Then there was the district school, (which I, myself taught at eighteen), the emulation in the spelling-school contests, the noonings and recesses, With mornings before and evenings after school; sliding on the ice—for the luxury of skates was scarcely known to us—the ice bending when thaws occurred, not really perilous, the ponds being shallow, but in which many of us were often thoroughly wet, eliciting a stern rebuke from our teacher and parents, when discovered. Later came the singing-school, the husking frolic, the rural parties of the young, with such plays as were tolerated but never dancing, as this with cards was strictly prohibited.

The religious meetings must not be forgotten. The Baptist “meeting house,” the only one within several miles of us, was under a cloud, through division, and the falling away of the pastor, who after many years of service succumbed at last to the bottle. We were early visited by the Methodists, and preachers of other sects; our school house being our place of worship, our meetings being usually held on week-day evenings, and only occasionally upon Sunday.

At an early age, I became deeply interested in religious questions; hut when I manifested a desire to identify myself with the religious revival proceeding when I was nine years of age, I was told I was too young. Thus early my eyes began to open to the inconsistencies, not to say the insincerity of professors of religion. But I kept on thinking nevertheless and when the excitement passed away, and the converts many of them became back-sliders, as they used to be called, I drew the conclusion that if their religion made them as happy as was claimed, it was strange that they did not hold on to it longer. The discussion of doctrines next drew my attention, and I began to speculate as to the reasonableness of the doctrine of the trinity, vicarious atonement and so forth, which I concluded should be made to appear reasonable, if true.

It was but a short time before, that the believers calling themselves Christians, but who were called by their opposers “Smithites,” began to disturb the orthodoxy of the time, and to create division, particularly among the Baptists. A number had left the church to which my father had belonged, and of which my mother, and an elder brother remained members, long after his decease. Among the seceders, was a cousin of my mother, Elder George Kelton, whose son, George N. Kelton, became a preacher of the new denomination, and whose ministry extended through a full half century, mainly I think in New York; in Columbia, Yates and other counties in the western part of the State.

Thus early in life I was brought face to face with the fact that sectarian profession had little to do with real character and that the best people could widely differ in their religious faith. Later, I learned that true merit depended in no way upon profession of any kind, but upon the growth of the inherited and attained principle of wisdom in the individual. Comparing the professors of the never faith with those of the old, I came to the conclusion that individual character, far oftener affects religious opinions than opinions affect character, for the piety and religious observances are often determined by the results of inheritance or early instruction. In New England the extension of the more liberal faith was largely due to the preaching and writings of Elias Smith, a self-taught man of limited acquirements, but of much vigor, and originality of thought. In the early part of this century, he started their first denominational newspaper “The Watchman,” which is still published, I believe. He had already made a success of it, when at a Convention of the “Elders,” it was requested that he should make it the organ of their order, subject to their supervision and control. This, he peremptorily refused to do, or submit in any way to a censorship. He offered however to sell his plant and good will on terms, which they accepted. His name is now seldom mentioned by their preachers, and to ministers, as well as laymen seems a name unknown.

They wished to make their movement embrace all the “reason of Harvard, with all the fire of Andover,” and did not want anything uttered which would imperil their relation with either side. This attitude they have apparently maintained to the present time, working with the orthodox in evangelical revival measures, while rejecting the doctrine of vicarious atonement, the main justification of such work, and while affiliating in more liberal things With the Unitarians and Universalists.

Mr. Smith afterwards became a physician, a “steam doctor,” or “Thomsonian,” as these practitioners were afterwards called, and did much by his ever ready wit, and versatile pen to make “blood letting” and “calomel” unpopular. [1] He was the father of Matthew Hale Smith, a very eccentric but talented preacher, who changed many times from his parent’s faith, to Universalism,—then to Orthodoxy, making at each change a telling point of the renunciation of the one, for the other. I last knew of him, as a brusque lawyer in the city of New York. [2]

CHAPTER II.

AS already stated, at the age of fifteen, I went to Providence, and obtained a place in the Bleaching and Callender works. I boarded with a family which came from our neighborhood, and whose members attended the Methodist Church in Chestnut Street. I was induced to attend the Sunday School, and was given a class to teach. It was while trying to make plain to young minds, the lessons in the “Union” question books, that I first became impressed with the absurdity of the claims put forth for the inerrancy of the Bible, and of the contradictory character of the tenets of the church generally. In the school, and during the sermons, which I weekly listened to, I gradually became a chronic critic of everything I heard or read upon the subject of religion. The bias of my early training constantly sought to assert itself by the suggestion that such attitude of mind was improper if not wicked. For several years this tendency to criticism increased, and naturally disposed me to argument. I often astonished, and no doubt pained my best friends by suggesting subjects of doubt and misgiving as to the truth of their beliefs.

I remember that while teaching my class, the pastor came to me one day, and sought to ascertain my method of instruction. I explained that the books gave, or suggested the answers, and that it was merely necessary to see that the children recited these verbal answers. He seemed satisfied, but said that I should not confine myself wholly to the printed questions; but should ask others, and that he wished I would question the children as to their home-teaching: whether they had family prayers, grace said at meals, reading of the Scriptures, and so forth. As I was beginning to doubt on general principles, the utility of these formalities, being acquainted with the views of the Friends or Quakers, and as I naturally revolted at playing the part of spy on the private home, I was at a loss what to say to him, but calling to mind that his son, a bright boy of eight or nine years was in my class, I gave consent, though not without mental reservation. So, when the lesson was through, and the tine of closing had not arrived, I called the boy to me, and quietly put the questions to him. And really I was not surprised that every one was answered in the negative.

It was about this time. I began to be interested in political affairs. Gen. Jackson was entering on his second term as President, and the questions of the Tariff, of nullification, and of the United States Bank (Biddle’s) created great excitement among the people. But while my untrained thought was mainly in approval of the General’s course it was his attitude in regard to the public lands, and his proposition to hold them simply as a trust for the actual settlers, and to abandon the idea of deriving a revenue from them, which completely won my heart.

The contrary policy had been followed from the formation of our government. Hamilton, the first Secretary of our Treasury, had thought to build up a landed aristocracy upon that basis, and to pay off the national debt, by sale of these lands, to native and to foreign purchasers, who wished to establish large estates. He ruled that only those who could purchase a mile square could deal directly with the Government, and that the hardy pioneers who were to settle and improve these lands, must hire or purchase of forestallers, unless they were prepared to buy six hundred and forty acres (640), requiring eight hundred dollars ($800) to be invested in land at the start; a sum, it is safe to say, scarcely one in one hundred of those possessed, Who sought to better their condition, by emigration. This policy was not changed until the administration of Thos. Jefferson and mainly through the persistent exertions of Gen. Wm. H. Harrison, at that time delegate in Congress from the North-west Territory. As former governor of that Territory he had seen the direful effects of Hamilton’s system of reducing the pioneers to the dependent condition of tenants or of debtors to speculators, who stood between them and the soil, through favor of the laws, or of those who administered them. I did not at that time apprehend the true nature of land ownership, that of occupation and use; but the injustice of giving the public heritage to a privileged class to perpetuate the dependency of the workers, and for purposes of wild speculation was apparent, and I could but feel that the old General was the true friend of the industrious poor, and of the whole people.

At this time too, there was great activity among the workingmen, and strikes were organized in many cities simultaneously to obtain the ten hour system. The bosses, and manufacturers combined against it. It was fruitless or nearly so. Seth Luther, of Rhode Island, Dr. Douglas of Connecticut, and ex-Rev. Jacob Frieze were among the leading spirits of the movement[3]. The establishment in which I worked, of its own motion, after the strike had failed, extended the hour of dinner from three quarters to one hour, and reduced the length of the day in summer to seven o’clock instead of sunset. Some other trades adopted eleven hours. I felt thus early a deep interest in the labor question, and my sympathies were enlisted upon the side of the workers. The question of manhood suffrage was also connected with the movement in Rhode Island. At that time only owners of real estate, and their eldest sons were entitled to vote. This latter question continued to be agitated after the ten hour question was allowed to slumber, culminating in 1841 in the Dorr Rebellion.

It was impossible that I should have failed to be stimulated by these occurrences, to the consideration of the nature of government, and the effect of legislation generally on the condition of the working people.

When scarcely in my teens, I had heard my school teacher explain the operation of the interest problem, and that it proceeded by geometrical progression, since by using the money paid as interest, and again investing it, it fulfilled the conditions of a duplicate ratio. I had learned enough of arithmetic to know what that meant, and was astounded to find that neither my teacher, nor any of the pupils had the least conception of its enormity and injustice. In thinking upon the subject of labor and capital at the period (of agitation) previously referred to, I imagined I had discovered the cause of the disadvantage in which the former stood to the latter; and seeing the stupendous power of wealth accumulated on the one hand, and the increasing dependence of the worker upon the other, thought the solution reached, and that it was only necessary to inaugurate a reform, to which all the force of morals, and of religion would be given, to redress the wrongs of labor, and give to all the just fruits of their toil. It seemed an easy thing to do to show the workingmen, and religious and moral people, that interest was derived from the profits which capital obtained from the production of labor, and that to remedy the ills of the toilers, it was only necessary to apply the principle of anti-usury so clearly maintained by the Bible, and by the old moralists, to settle the labor problem, and introduce the millennium, when “distributive justice should pervade the industrial World.” After sixty years of endeavor, I have found how difficult it is to induce the respectably pious, and exemplary moral to think, much less act, on the lines of industrial reform. With youthful expectation, I began to talk to working men on the subject, but found none who could understand me. Their leaders told me, it would not do to introduce such subjects. I sought to enlist religious people in it, but with no better success. Clergymen who should have known better, and possibly did, told me that the Scripture denunciations against usury meant illegal, not lawful interest. It was quite ten years, before I found a single individual who expressed sympathy with my view, or would give serious consideration to the subject.

CHAPTER III.

IN l833, I was apprenticed to Messrs. James Eames & Co., of Providence to learn the trade of sheet metal worker. I here came in contact with more cultivated people, than hitherto, Mr. Eames’ son, James, was preparing for college. He afterwards studied for orders in the Episcopal Church, and became a Doctor of Divinity. Another son, Henry, was in later years a Member of Congress. Their clerk was Amos C. Barstow, a young man of talent, who identified himself with the Temperance, and other reforms, and was ultimately made Mayor of the City. On entering this establishment, I was given a ticket entitling me to get books from the Mechanics and Apprentices’ Library. This would have been of more value to me, if I had been able to make judicious selections; but having previously read some books of romance, the love of fiction was indulged to the neglect of more solid reading. However, the reading of Scott, Cooper, Irving, and other English classics, gave me a general idea of the times and places they described, a taste for good English, and a better knowledge of history, than the more trashy literature would have done.

The cause of Temperance, then in its incipiency, had been frequently discussed in our rural neighborhood; but with no great favor. It interfered with the habits of the people, and was looked upon, by many as an insidious scheme to undermine liberty of thought and action. The drinking of New England Rum was a common thing. Every family kept it in the house, and few farmers thought they could get through the heavy farm work in hot weather, or the winter’s work in the cold, without constant resort to this popular stimulant. Both at weddings, and at funerals as well as at all social gatherings, it was freely used; but seldom to the extent of drunkenness.

In the winter of 1830, the wife of a neighbor died. He was a constant drinker, but always kept upright, and to appearance sober. It was in the midst of an unusual snow-fall, and no teams were able to get out. Neighboring women came to the house as they best could, to assist, and thought that the usual dinner and refreshments should be served. Whatever was obtained, was brought on foot over the drifted snow, from a store more than two miles away. The women suggested that they should have a little tea, as they could find none in the house. The man replied that he did not like to burden the young man who was to go for them, as he had already given him orders for more than he could well bring, under the circumstances, and as the two gallon jugs of “liquor which must be had,” were about all he ought to bring. I refer to this condition of things simply to emphasize the progress, which the Temperance Reform has made in the last sixty-five years. The cause of Temperance had all these conditions, habits and prejudices to contend with. I was too young when I left the country to have such prejudices exert a lasting influence on me.

Mr. Eames, his partner, and Mr. Barstow, were advocates of Temperance, as abstinence from distilled liquors only was termed. They required me to take the pledge which I felt compelled to do, though with a little reluctance. I do not remember attending any temperance meetings, or feeling any particular interest in the question, till about a year after signing the pledge. Then Sylvester Graham was giving lectures on Vegetarianism, and also lectures to young men. Mr. Barstow invited me to attend some of them. The earnest and eloquent words of the Lecturer, his fine address and engaging manners enlisted a deep interest in the man and his theme. It might have occurred to me, that his enthusiasm bordered on fanaticism, but I could not avoid the conclusion that there was abundant need of reform in the field he had chosen. It was then I resolved that total abstinence from all intoxicants was to be my rule in life. And this private resolution I was enabled to maintain for thirty years. Since then, as age crept on occasional stimulants have been employed, but their use has never become a habit with me. For the same length of time, I used no tea or coffee, and at times have used no animal food; but in this, I have found more difficulty, since in this respect, more depends on those, with whom one lives. If a family or community were united on the question, I am satisfied there would be little inconvenience in doing without flesh diet.

Be this as it may, Sylvester Graham, the innovator, and reformer is most certainly entitled to the respect and gratitude of mankind. His name has been immortalized, by being joined to unbolted flour and the bread made from it; but posterity can hardly appreciate the good he did, in arousing the attention of people to the importance of understanding how to correct the evils of sexual excess, springing from ignorance, and weakness of purpose. Everything of this nature was previously scrupulously tabooed in the family, and in society. Of the origin of life, and the physiology of sex, all was left to be learned surreptitiously by children, and from ignorant, and already corrupted associates. Laws against obscene literature, prints and so forth, have availed nothing, and never will against ignorance, and deception, and the false accounting for the facts of life, by parents and which can only for a very brief period deceive the dullest child. It is not a question for ill-digested, and ill-enforced laws, but of early education and development of self-respect, and self-control in the child which confronts parents, if they desire their children to grow up in intelligence and virtue.

To the influence of my associates in the shop, I owed much. There were several men, young and old, who were above the ordinary standard. A journeyman, by the name of Sargent, was well educated, and of highly refined nature and inclined to liberal views in religion. His precepts, and example were of great value to me, as was also that of one or two others. Samuel A. Briggs was an elder apprentice, who always stimulated my mental activities, though tending to the sardonic in humor, and the cynical in philosophy. Anson G. Lewis was less cultured, but of a vigorous tone in thought, he was exact and upright, although occasionally led to excess in drink. I have not met in after life, either of these parties, but their distinct individualities, deeply impressed themselves upon my mind, and are vividly distinct on the tablets of my memory, whenever I recur to those days now past, more than three score years.

My employers took more than usual interest in the intellectual, and religious improvement of their men, the apprentices, particularly. We were sent in winter to an evening school; but in which, we had little attention from the teachers. It was in this school, that I became acquainted with Edwin Eddy, who afterwards became a D. D. among the Baptists, and who with several others organized a debating society, which extended to me, and one other of our apprentices an invitation to join. It was in this, that my taste for discussion, and careful investigation manifested itself. I well remember my first essay to speak. The subject seemed plain enough, and there was much to be said, on one side at least. I arose, without any thought of difficulty, but had scarcely finished my opening sentence, when the sound of my voice quite confused, and alarmed me. The result was, ‘stage fright.” Luckily the question had proved an interesting one, and was continued till next week. I therefore prepared by writing out, what appeared pertinent to the question and experienced no inconvenience in reading it; and I was complimented, by those who were experienced in debate.

After working at the bench, some two years or more, my left arm was burned by an explosion of some melted solder. I was unable to work for some time, and when the burn was healed, remained an invalid for many weeks. I had gone home to my mother, in Swansea, and inconsiderately accepted an invitation to teach the district school, w here my limited education had been chiefly received. Yet the experience of that term was of value to me, in demonstrating the necessity of exactness in pursuing studies. I had several young men and women, older than myself, for pupils, and who were capable of reasoning upon questions, which arose in process of teaching. The school was well ordered, and the winter passed pleasantly. No corporeal punishment was employed, nor did I find difficulty in maintaining decorum, without it.

But the effect of my leaving my mechanical employment, was not advantageous to my material prosperity. Constant employment as teacher, was out of the question, unless I had been much better qualified and equipped. For a year, or more, I was without steady employment, when finally I went with Mr. James Smith of Warren, Rhode Island, to complete my trade, and with whom I remained till I was of age. He started a shop in Providence, quite near the old stand in Westminister St., and sent me to superintend it. At first it promised a success, but on the approach of the financial crisis of 1837, his limited means proved unequal to the emergency and with many others he had to succumb to the inevitable, and make an assignment to his creditors. It was during the winter of ‘36 and 37 that I renewed my acquaintance with the members of the earlier debating society. I do not remember whether the organization was the same; but there were many of the same persons. Messrs. Eddy, Weaver, Rounds, and a number of students of Brown University. Some of those who treated me with respect and even with deference as a debator in our meetings, would fail to recognize me in the street in my work day clothes. But I never allowed this to trouble me. I was pursuing a calling serviceable to society. It was those, in my estimation, who were living upon the labor of others, who needed to apologize for their position, however, laudable their efforts to improve their minds, and prepare themselves for future usefulness, might be. Perhaps this stimulated me also to give my leisure hours to reading and study.

In the winter of 1836 and ‘37, I became acquainted with John B. Gough, who afterwards made himself famous as a reformed drunkard and popular Temperance lecturer. He was learning the book binding business with a Mr. Gladding of New York City, who in the year of the great fire, had been burnt out. He removed his establishment to Bristol, R. I. in 1836, bringing young Gough with him and who soon made himself popular with the young men of Bristol. He had been a close attendant of theatres in New York, was somewhat versed in the elocution of the comic stage, naturally eloquent and a great mimic. Church temperance, had become at that time popular and Bristol was under “local option,” a “no license” town. I often heard Gough speak. He held forth on Temperance, and on religious topics also; and made himself conspicuous in Methodist prayer and revival meetings. He was also a favorite among a class of young men who were not noted for their religion or temperance, at whose clubs or coteries, he gave recitations, sang comic songs and gave other exhibitions of his versatile genius. On going to Providence from Warren, I found Mr. Gough at the boarding house which I had selected. He often entertained us, of an evening, with a song or recitation or story. Sometimes serious—but usually of a comic nature. He recited “The Sailor Boy’s Dream,” with peculiar tragic expression, and sang, “The Cork Leg,” a “Trip up to Richmond by Water,” with inimitable humor and grimace.

His exit from the boarding house was serio-comic. Our landlord had hardly obeyed the Scriptural injunction to “Owe no man anything,” but was running up accounts whenever he could. It was the era of expansion. A number of creditors had adopted the plan of “boarding it out,” either directly or by proxy. Mr. Gough’s employer happened to be a creditor, and was having Gough board there in order to get his pay. This was true of several others. Two young men and myself were paying cash every Saturday night. That year the cows seemed to have anticipated the period of contraction, soon to follow in the commercial world, and had left the market bare of good butter—at least so the landlord said. But what was short in quantity, was made up in quality, that is strength. That which found its way to our table was of the highest rank. We complained singly and collectively; but the strength increased. At last, at supper one evening, it proved so strong that it got up and moved from side to side, some of it trying to run up the ceiling, but sticking fast on the way. There was commotion in the kitchen, and next morning an investigation was held, and several boarders were discharged, among them was the very popular Gough, though he was really very little to blame. On inquiry it was found that of a good half dozen who had been turned away, no one who paid cash had been included in the number, though I fear myself and the two friends from Warren were as culpable as any.

There was, at this time, no theatre in Providence; but a company of quite respectable talent, had been playing in “Masonic Hall,” over the old market. After a short success some division arose in the company, and there were not enough left to make up the necessary parts. A number of amateurs came forward however, and entertainments were continued, though I think mainly at Washington hall on the west side. Mr. Gough and a young man by the name of Wheeler were the principal amateurs. Mr. Gough had taken a number of minor characters with success and by some contingency was put forward to take the role of Sir Edmund Mortimer, in the “Iron Chest.” His personal friends rallied to his support, and there was a good house, but considerable doubt was in the minds of his best friends as to whether he would be equal to the character. This he seemed to feel and the first act passed off without removing the doubt. He obtained little applause but escaped being hissed. The second act passed nearly in the same manner, and I could discern that the want of appreciation was telling on him when at a turn of the dialogue, peculiarly suitable to his style, he elicited a slight applause; this was taken up with great spirit by his personal friends, and prolonged till nearly the whole house joined in it. From this point onward he acquitted himself like an old actor, not without some breaks and faults, but with general success.

Mr. Gough was really a “sensitive,” whose success as a speaker depended mainly upon his tact of getting into sympathy with his audience. In later years I have met him but once and that was upon a steamer in the Sound. We recognized each other, and recalled the old scenes; but he had become conservative, and worldly, and seemed to take but little interest in anything but the special work of temperance reform and such religious and social questions as centered in his successful field of labor.

Not a year after my removal from Providence, the lapse of the Temperance Reformer was chronicled, and his damaging debauch made public. I think the thing was greatly exaggerated. When I last knew him, he was by no means a drunkard. I never saw him the least intoxicated. It may be true, as was circulated, that he went often from his Temperance lectures, to the saloons with his society friends and drank with them, but I never saw it manifest any marked effect upon his carriage. He would do similar things after a revival meeting; go out and meet his tony friends and joke about how he had “fooled the fanatics.” But those who best understood him, only saw that it was himself he had fooled. With his sensitive, sympathetic nervous system, he actually entered into the sphere of his mental surroundings, sad or gay, temperate or intemperate, religious or irreligious, with equal zest, and with equal sincerity.

In the Washingtonian movement, it had become a fad among the reform speakers to tell the hardest stories upon themselves and this rivalry among reformed men, was responsible for many tough, as well as touching stories. Mr. Gough was not an exception to this rule and he excelled in exaggeration, as well as in vivid description of the scenes he had or had not passed through. It was unquestionably his spiritual environment at the time which made attractive his temperance and religious utterances rather than any logical deductions from moral principles, or well established premises.

I was once told by an official of the Sing Sing Prison, that during revivals of religion in the prison, converts would often draw fearful pictures of their past lives, and were most deeply affected, when making the wildest drafts upon their imaginations for their statements. In the words of this matter of fact, and somewhat irreverent official, “The bigger the lies, the greater the religious fervor of the narrator became.” But his judgment was as wide of the mark, as that of Gough’s critics, who thought of him only as a hypocritical impostor. To correctly judge of the attitude of any mind to any subject whatever, the mental and moral atmosphere in which such mind moves must be given due consideration.

CHAPTER IV.

UPON the breaking up of the business occasioned by Mr. Smith’s failure there was great difficulty in obtaining steady and remunerative employment. I went to Fall River for a while; but returned to Providence after a few months. I now became acquainted with Rev. Wm. S. Balch, pastor of the First Universalist Church. The Young Peoples’ Institute, which I had joined, was held in the vestry of this Church. Mr. Balch often attended and took part in our discussions. It was here I was first introduced to him, and we were sometimes pitted in debate with each other. He invited me to his study and the use of his library, and finding that my employment was not constant, proposed that I should join a class who were studying with him. Among those I met at his house were a Mr. B. H. Davis, Mr. Wood a young student at Brown University, Zephaniah Baker

and a Mr. Richards, all of whom were studying with him for the ministry, Brought in personal contact with him, and with them, religious doctrines again became subjects of thought with me, and finding the mental atmosphere so free, and more exhilarating, than it had ever been among the other sects, I was very naturally drawn into sympathy with the broader faith, more particularly as it gave greater scope to my love of discussion, and theoretical investigation. Through Mr. Balch’s invitation, it was arranged that I should spend my leisure time in his study, and prepare to preach the “great salvation.” I know now, how little I was qualified and equipped for such an undertaking, but everything seemed possible to me then. The time I spent with him was serviceable in many ways, and by it, I attained some degree of culture, which otherwise might never have been enjoyed: but the teaching, and direction of thought, were too controversial, and disputatious to form the basis of a true culture. Mr. Balch was a man of much natural talent, but lacked careful training, and so jumped at conclusions, instead of proceeding through logical deduction. With great capacity for observation, he lacked the synthetic faculty for systematic thought. He stimulated one’s desire to know more individual things, and to a greater love of mental freedom. He was a Democrat of the New Hampshire pattern, and although at heart an Abolitionist, his interest in the success of the party never flagged, until the control of the party was abandoned to the Hunkers, and fraternized with the “Silver Grey Whigs.” Early in the War of the Rebellion he detected the centralizing tendency of the Republican party, and its evident fostering care of plutocratic trusts, and monied combinations. Although interested in him, to the very last, his course since the war, in relation to political partisanship has been little known to me. I judge however, he did not change his political or religious creed. He was gifted as an extemporaneous speaker, yet often confused his hearers, by rapid alternations of themes, and unconnected threads of discourse. He was on the whole of a just and generous temperament, but in which a natural acquisitiveness sometimes wrought a tumult. The memory of this kind, and almost fatherly interest in me, has by no means been dimmed by the half century of change, which has intervened; but it is sometimes relieved by amusing recollections of his parsimonious, and acquisitive peculiarities. He had assisted me pecuniarily in my time of study, and when I had obtained the ability to support myself, he asked me to give him a note, which I did. He kindly forbore to ask me for payment, but when, after two years or more I was able to pay it, I found he had calculated the interest, compounding it each year, and after the time I had removed to New York State, had computed it at seven per cent., the then legal rate there. I told him, the note had been made in Rhode Island, where the legal rate was six per cent.; that he had taught me “Gospel,” and not “Law,” and that the Bible condemned interest altogether. If he was right as to the law, he would have to go to law to collect his note. If he “appealed unto Caesar, unto Caesar he should go.” Seeing I took the matter seriously he said he did not really intend to insist upon it. I refer to this, only as an illustration, that quite conflicting elements enter into the composition of the best of men.

When in 1847 the New York Association came down to Southold to narrow the Universalist platform, Mr. Balch sided with the reactionists, although he had ever been treated by them, as a sort of doctrinal Anarchist. He stopped with a Sea-Captain over night, who in talking over the situation said he had “never liked Mr. Ingalls, since he became so active in the Temperance movement, and showed sympathy with the Dorr Rebellion; but now, he puts the Bible under his feet. I’ll be —— if I’ll stand it, any longer.” The humor of this, will be seen, when it is known that Mr. Balch had ever been conspicuous as a Temperance advocate, and had been compelled to leave Rhode Island, for his outspoken sympathy with Thomas W. Dorr.

In 1883, at about eighty years of age, he spoke to his old society in Bleecker St., New York City. I attended at the evening meeting. He was aged, and infirm, but the lineaments of the man of thirty-five were still plainly visible, and the volubility of utterance was still there. The sermon was on the Resurrection; Paul’s fifteenth chapter of first Corinthians being the basis. It took me back, nearly a half century, when I had listened admiringly to the same discourse—I say the same, although neither had been written. The manner, the treatment, and largely the language was the same. In religion, he had learned, and forgotten nothing it seemed, in that forty-five years since I had first listened to this same sermon.

After the meeting was dismissed, I sought an interview with him, and although it seemed difficult for him, to fully recognize his old pupil, he was cordial though expressing a regret at my agnosticism. How closely his character had held to its early tendencies, exhibited itself in the conversation which ensued with some of the monied men of the church, with whom he then and there made an appointment to meet in Wall Street, next morning, to invest in certain stocks, in which he was to give them, or be given points. Although afflicted with physical infirmities, most of his life, he lived to attain an age considerably past four score years.

CHAPTER V.

OF my studies in Theology and labors as a preacher, I have little to say; since they are hardly in a line with the social, industrial and economic investigations which have engrossed my more mature thoughts. I had spent a pleasant winter in Cape Cod in the beginning of 1840. Speaking at Hyannis, Yarmouthport, and Harwich, and afterwards visiting Southold, to which place I was called, and remained for three years. In 1841 I held a three days discussion, with Rev. Joseph Henson of the M. E. Church, and which reflected little credit on either of us, as it consisted mainly of quotations of opposing texts of Scripture, with more or less ingenious interpretations of obscure and conflicting passages. But, as I often think of it now, the Bible was vindicated from the charge of teaching unending punishment, in a future state of existence. It was in this year, that I was first able to get a public discussion of the usury question. Had often proposed it, in debating societies in Rhode Island, but only to be laughed at. Our society at Southold, entertained it only on condition, that it should be so worded, as to make me sustain the affirmative. In the discussion which followed, I had no assistance, but was allowed a number of opportunities to reply to the arguments on the other side. At that time, I had little knowledge of political economy, except what I had occasionally seen perverted in the political press: and Adam Smith, and his “Wealth of Nations,” was wholly unknown to me, except in name. Nevertheless, I laid down as fundamental, that all wealth was the product of labor: that money nor capital of any kind had power of multiplying themselves, except by exploiting the fruits of labor that labor produced wealth increased only arithmetically; while interest increased geometrically, and involved the absorption of all the wealth loaned, in every ten years: which vas about the period of recurrence of our great financial, and industrial crises. In the debate were two teachers from the Academy, two doctors, a lawyer, and a Judge of the County Court. They urged various platitudes, economic and ethical, but made no points. I was not promptly able to meet. They said that money, like commodities, was worth whatever it would bring, and they confounded use, with consumption. The principal of the Academy, desperate that no argument could stand against mine, finally endeavored to silence me, by saying that the earth produced spontaneously, and that it was Just as right to take interest on money, as it was to take rent for land, or to sell trees growing on land that was bought for money. It was then, that I first saw the actual relation of rent to usury, and the injustice of the ownership of unused land, since it was able to exclude man from his natural environment, and labor from means of self-employment, and of certain subsistence. This, so excited the venerable judge, that he was only able to give utterance to exclamations, and opprobrious epithets, to the disgust of many who had come with the expectation of seeing interest completely vindicated. And the Professor only replied, that as he had shown that property increased through land ownership, he was under no obligation to defend that, and declined to say more. After the discussion was over, a young man who had been about the world somewhat came to me, and said sympathetically, “You are right, I have seen, and noticed many things which confirm your views, and have no doubt that much of the general poverty of the world, and the recurring failures in business, are due to interest taking.” This was the first convert I had made, in ten years of talk upon the subject. Other warm friends, who could not account for the break down of the interest advocacy in the debate, still deemed me, a mono-maniac upon the question. After leaving Southold in 1843, one of my friends talking with another, who coincided, said, “Notwithstanding my great liking for Mr. Ingalls, I think his ideas about interest, are the silliest, I can conceive.” I have had the pleasure of having both these friends, and many other friends of those days, admit that I was right, and that it was astonishing they could have been so blind. Another, some years later, told me, he had found no point in which his judgment in things, did not correspond with mine, except on the question of interest, that he could not see as I did, and all my arguments were without effect. He was quite prosperous then, and had both taken, and paid interest. At the breaking out of the war in “61,” he met with business disasters, and finally went to St. Domingo, in search of gold. We had continued correspondence, and in 1865, I received a letter from him, expressive of disappointed hope, and broken health, in which he said: “Since I have been here, I have been thinking of our frequent talks of twenty years ago, on the Interest question. I could not see then, but I see now, that you were right. As I look hack over the reverses of my life, I see clearly now, that ignorance of that question, has been the main cause of all my embarrassments, and but for which I should now be in easy circumstances, and my family in comfort.” It was not long after this, that I learned, that his naturally robust constitution had given way, and that he had succumbed to the enervating climate, exposure, toil and mental care and anxiety. This friend was Captain Isaac Tuthill of New Suffolk, L. I.

After leaving Southold, I went to Danbury, Ct., Where I remained two years. I was then, recalled to Southold, and in addition to preaching assumed management of the Academy in 1845. But the confinement proved too much for me, and my health suffered. I remained however till the Spring of 1848. The action of the New York Association of Universalists, had divided our little society, into factions, more or less embittered with one another; and besides, I began to feel the pressure of the ecclesiastical spirit, and to desire freedom of thought, broader than their new made creed, contemplated.

Soon after returning to Southold in 1845, I had received from friends in New York City, copies of “Young America,” a working man’s paper, which drew my attention to the question of Private Land-Ownership, with great force, and at once convinced me, of what I had inferred, after the discussion on Interest, that usury of land, (rent) was the basic usury, on which that of money, and of other property chiefly rested. This paper was published by George H. Evans, an Englishman by birth, and a brother of the venerable Frederick W. Evans of the fraternity of the Shakers. He had previously published “The Man,” and also the “Working Man’s Advocate.” “Young America,” he devoted almost wholly to Land Reform. He was assisted by John Windt, Lewis Masquerier, Allen E. Bovay, Dr. Wilson, and a host of able correspondents, from every State of the Union, among whom were Judge Waite of Illinois, Senator Walker of Wisconsin, Lewis Ryckman, and Gerrit Smith of New York. In l847, I attended the Industrial Congress in New York City, and for the first time, became identified with the movement for Land Reform. Here, I first met a number of men, of earnest and devoted character, who never swerved from its advocacy while they lived.

CHAPTER VI.

IN 1848, I went as a delegate, to the Industrial Congress, which met that year in Philadelphia. This, was the Presidential year, and misled by the political spirit, the Congress resolved itself into a nominating convention. I had here, my first inside view of political strategy. Though of a mild form, it betrayed the peculiar methods of office-seeking, which has from the first, disgraced our politics, and has at last become almost unbearable.

The Land Reformers, wanted to make a clean ticket, with Judge Waite for President, and Senator Walker, or Andrew Johnson for Vice-president. But Mr. Evans. Mr. Windt, and Mr. Van Amringe, were Anti-Slavery men, with several of the Pennsylvania, Western and other delegates. After much electioneering, and some balloting, Gerrit Smith, v. as nominated for President, and Wm. S. Waite, for Vice-president. This did not suit some of the Land Reformers—especially those with party proclivities. John Campbell of Philadelphia, bolted outright, and went with the Democratic Party. One of the delegates, boasted that he had come with the money of a prominent politician in his pocket. Notwithstanding this political episode, there was good work done at this Congress. A number of prominent men were present. Among them Mr. Van Amringe, A. J. H. Duganne, John Sheddon, Lawyer Treadwell of Brooklyn, Theophilus Fiske, J. E. Snodgrass, of Baltimore, Geo. Lippard, and many others, and when the merely political issues were not involved, the discussions were profitable, spirited and harmonious. In discussing the question of the disposal of the public lands, there was much enthusiasm displayed, and many enphemistic prophecies were indulged in, as to the progress that would follow the realization of free, and inalienable homes, under the contemplated Homestead Law. I remember Mr. Evan’s speech, warning the Congress of the danger of indulging in too sanguine expectation of success, and urging unremitting action; launching out, into a semi-prophetic statement of what would be the consequence, if the purpose of the lobbyists, were carried out, to partition the public lands among corporations, and for the founding of immense estates, to reduce our people to the conditions of mere tenants, and dependent hirelings. He went on to say, that unless our measures were adopted soon, it would be too late, and the land once given up to the dominion of private monopoly, there would be no alternative, but the establishment of a landed aristocracy, and a titled nobility. Agreeing mainly With his forecast of the issue, I took occasion to say, that he did not seem to me, to have taken a sufficient extended view of the situation: that I had “enlisted for the War,” and anticipated a life-long fight, and if after a life-time spent in the conflict, I could then see signs of a thorough awakening of the people, to the subject of labor’s relation to the land, I could “depart in peace.”

But the Congress adjourned and the delegates went home: some to work for the Ticket, some to work for the Abolition cause: but more for the Free Soilers, and a few for both the Democratic and Whig parties respectively. Judge Waite declined to run on the ticket with Gerrit Smith, and so there was no Industrial ticket in the field. We partially endorsed the Abolition ticket, and a few voted for it but I suspect that most of the Land Reformers, were seduced to vote for Van Buren and Adams, cajoled by the false cry of “Free Soil. Free Men,” and other designing catch words.

Nearly fifty years has passed since then. A dozen years had scarcely elapsed, when in the very throes almost of national dissolution, a Homestead Law was passed: but so emasculated by political trickery that it has done little toward alleviating the condition of the increasing hordes of landless toilers. Advantage was taken of the good feeling effected by this act, to inaugurate a system of land jobbery, which has had no parallel in the history of land mal-appropriation. Many of the Rail-Road appropriations were already agreed to by the committee, ere the Homestead bill was acted on. Enough land was voted to railroads in a few years, to have given a farm of twenty-five acres (25) to every family in the Union. Subsidies of money, as well as of lands were voted to corporations, which have swallowed both lands and money, and swindled their stock holders as well as the people, by bonding the roads to themselves for more than the values expended in constructing and furnishing their lines. All that Mr. Evans prophesied has become true in the second generation, and labor has been reduced in his last decade of the Nineteenth Century to greater straits than under any system of slavery, or serfdom the world has ever known. But the necessity of recognizing man’s relation to the land, and of labor to the opportunity, has meantime become widely felt, among workers, and every well-wisher of his race, as never before: and little doubt can be entertained that commercial feudalism, has nearly run its course, and must soon be supplanted by intelligent co-operation, and equitable division and exchange. It could not happen, but that the older barbarism of personal bondage must give way before the present more subtle form which controls the opportunity of the toiler, and all access to, the passive factors of production, the field, the mine, the home, the shop and every sphere of activity, available to remunerative effort. If this does not also soon disappear, and become superseded by intelligent recognition of economic freedom, civilization itself, will succumb to the retroactive tendencies now in operation, and primitive savagery replace our moribund commercial monarchism.

It may be well to record here an incident that had occurred, a short time before the Industrial Congress held in 1848. The Land Reformers of New York City, had squelched the Whitney plan of building the Pacific Railroad, by pledging the public lands for that purpose. He had appointed a meeting of the Bankers and Capitalists, at the Broadway Tabernacle. He had made them a speech, and was preparing to organize a Company to carry out his scheme. He had not heard before, that there were Land Reformers; but he heard from them, that evening. As soon as he had closed his remarks, a call was made by them, (and they were there in force), for Lewis W. Ryckman, who took the platform, and made an eloquent, and most telling speech. After stating, in a careful manner, what must be the effect of betraying a trust, so vital to the well-being of the people, those who followed trades, as well as those who cultivated the soil, he demanded to be told, what the people had done, that their children who should dwell upon the fertile plains and the valleys of the West, who were to occupy, and improve them, should be doomed to lose their birth right in the Earth, and be made tenants and serfs, or helpless wage Workers to the end of time, for the benefit of titled, or untitled lords, and soulless corporations. The effect of this speech, and the thunders of applause it awoke, fairly frightened Whitney, and his pals, and they left by the rear entrance, giving up the meeting to the control of the Reformers, who discussed, and passed pronounced resolutions against all schemes, for endowing Railroad Companies, or Syndicates with the inheritance of the people. [4]

I had come to New York to reside, and was editing and publishing “The Landmark.” Soon after the “Congress,” I received an invitation from Gerrit Smith to visit Peterborough, and speak in Madison, Cayuga and Herkimer Counties. He offered to contribute twenty dollars towards my expenses. As it seemed probable that the circulation of my paper might be extended. I accepted the offer. Took the boat to Albany, and rail to Schenectady, and traveled by canal packet to a point nearest Peterborough. I enjoyed the hospitality of Mr. Smith and family, and attended a public meeting of the friends of the movement for Anti-Slavery, in the interest of their candidate, but as a Land Reformer, for they had a Land Reform plank in their platform.

I here met the Rev. Abijah Scofield, their preacher at Hamilton. He belonged to the orthodox wing of the free church movement, which was then making protests against the pro-slavery attitude of the Christian Church. He reported to Gerrit Smith, that he had to go away from home, the next day—Sunday—to attend the funeral of a deceased friend, and wished some one to supply his place in Hamilton. It was accordingly arranged that I should preach for him, the next day, although it was known to Mr. Smith and to Mr. Scofield that I was excluded from the New York Association of Universalists—that Infidel Sect. I preached in the morning on fraternity, and the necessity of charity and tolerance in the exercise of our religious duties, and in the evening upon land reform.

I spoke at Georgetown, Cazenovia, Oriskany Falls, Morristown, Hamilton. Madison, Pratt’s Hollow, and other places, and finally attended the Free Church Convention, which gave a day to the consideration of the Land Question. I here met again, Mr. H. H. Van Amringe, who had come from New York to attend this meeting, with Mr. Evans, and Mr. Wm. V. Barr, an active Land Reformer of a vigorous intellect, and much natural facility of speech. [5] I was both amused and instructed by a passage between Mr. Barr, and Mr. Beriah Green, whom he followed. The latter was President of a College at Whitesboro, and a strict constructionist of the moral and religious sentiment which pervaded a wing of the Anti-Slavery Crusaders. He met the demand for land, by a charge of irreligion, on the part of the laboring class, and of indifference to the plea for freedom for the slave. In following, Mr. Barr, apologizingly said, it might be presumption in him, to criticise his learned and logical friend. He had not graduated from any institution of learning, but from a shoe shop. “That is all in your favor,” interrupted Mr. Green, “you did not have to unlearn so much you had been mistaught, as I had.” Mr. Barr after sketching the situation of the worker, deprived of land and home, surrounded by the falses in business, and imposed upon by the educated fraternity of law, medicine and divinity, turned to Mr. Green, and demanded to know, how the ordinary toiler was to get proper notions of moral, and social duties. Mr. Green finally explained, that he in no wise desired to defend existing institutions, simply because they existed, but only so far as they could he demonstrated to be beneficent, but repeated his suggestion as to holding working men to the duty of siding with the Abolitionists, before they asked alleviation of their own wrongs. Mr. Barr enquired whether he would apply the same rule to the slaves, who not only did not protest against slavery, but were said to make the cruelest overseers, and when emancipated, and able, because the cruelest slave holders. And whether the laborer, ignorant and often as debased as the slave, should be held to the same degree of accountability, as those who had every advantage of circumstance, and education? Mr. Evans, Van Amringe, and myself were given also, opportunity to present our views upon the land question. Dr. J. H. Jackson, since of the Danville Sanitarium, spoke. Wm. Goodell, also.[6] Many of the clergymen present, thought the land question was hardly within the scope of their purpose, although all were Abolitionists; many of them so radical, they—not only would not fellowship slave holders, but no church or membership, which did not disfellowship them. Gerrit Smith, also sustained our points in all respects, stating that the Bible was far more explicit in regard to ownership of land than in respect of slavery, and that if the holder of persons as property was to be excommunicated, much more should the holder of peoples’ homes, and means of living. And moreover, that although the Abolition of Slavery, would not abolish land monopoly; the abolition of land monopoly would make slavery practically impossible.

Of this convention I sent this account to the Univercoelum:

Salisbury, N. Y., Oct. 10th, 1848.

Brothers Editors:

Having a few moments’ leisure, I have thought to employ them in a brief correspondence. Some of the readers of the Univercoelum already know that I am absent from the city on a lecturing tour. Although the object was to advocate an important political Reform, I have nevertheless had opportunity to observe the Spiritual tendencies in the region visited. Independence of all sectarian bias, has prepared me for the better consideration and arrangement of what elements, in the religious world, I have discovered, in progress of change and development.

On the first Sabbath after my arrival in the interior of the State, I was invited to speak in Rev. Mr. Scofield’s church at Hamilton. It was not inquired to what sect I belonged, for I was known to he a reformer: and the attention which was accorded me by these unsectarian people, who are nevertheless esteemed Orthodox, was flattering to one who has been marked as unsound, by a professed liberal and prescribed sect. The truth is, that there is a feeling among the noble hearted of all names, that this unbrotherly strife of sects is anything but christian; and that after all, he who has the spirit and does the work of a Christian, is most Christ-like. In this vicinity there are a number of free Churches, where reformers of all sects, and of no sect, assemble to worship, and hear the Gospel of Reform. Of course it does not essentially interest us to inquire, to what particular division they may have belonged, it is enough to know that they were zealously laboring in unison for the great cause of human advancement.

It was found not inconsistent with our object to be present at the Christian Convention at Canastota. Here were assembled some most earnest and advanced minds, to take into consideration the possibility of establishing a Christian union. The opinion seemed to prevail that in order to have union, it was necessary to have entire toleration. Resolutions were passed to this effect; also, that ministers might be ordained or chosen by the members, while any member had the right to administer the sacrament, or any other ordinance in which it is proper for an Elder to officiate.

It was gratifying to listen to the spirited debates which were excited by these and other resolutions. There were two or three who brought with them a portion of their love of Sect and forms; but they appeared like dwarfed minds, compared with those who unfettered, stood up manfully for liberty and truth. Here was Wm. Goodell, whose acquaintance would be interesting to any reformer. Linden King had come up from the depths of sectarism, to breathe an atmosphere of love and freedom; as well as his son, who is early making the most rapid strides in spiritual advancement. Here was also the enthusiastic Pryne, whose whole soul seems to war with clerical assumption and domination. Here were other earnest men, from different parts of the State, and the blows which they dealt, against the hydraheaded monster, were neither powerless nor misdirected. The eloquence with which they plead the cause of oppressed and down-trodden humanity, bleeding under the severance of all brotherly ties, through mere sectarian prejudice, is seldom exceeded. For myself, there was much to rejoice at in the signs of progress here evinced, and in the manner with which every reference to the great ideas of the common brotherhood were received. Thus while those preferring exclusive claim to these ideas, are treading the backward road of forms and creeds, and sundering ties on earth they believe will be reunited in heaven, true men are coming from the precincts of every denomination, whose love of Christ is greater than of a Church, whose devotion to humanity is greater than their reverence for a creed. That their professions of liberality were not simply formal, may be inferred from the fact that Mr. Van Amringe and myself, were invited to take part in their deliberations, and that what we had to say, was listened to with earnest attention.

That they are yet prepared for a general movement toward a better organization, and a more spiritual union, may be questioned; but the indifference of sectarian establishments to every form of oppression, and to all needful reforms; (especially, the subject of human bondage,) has opened the eyes of those who respect the rights of man, to the enormous evils which have their origin and end in this devotion to Party and strife for denominational supremacy. I ought to remark, also, that among the more advanced there are some differences of opinion with regard to what constitutes a Church; some regarding the church as a human, and others as a divine organization. Of the latter class, is Gerrit Smith, and there is a Church at Peterboro’ conducted in conformity to these views, and there are several others in the state, somewhat different from what are called free churches. In order that you may the better understand the character of these bodies, I will give you a synopsis of the basis of the Church at Peterboro,’ the form which I happen to have before me. It is prefaced with a beautiful motto from D’Aubigne. “In the beginning of the Gospel, whosoever had received the Spirit of Christ, was esteemed a member of the Church.”

You may be surprised to learn that after all, they have a Creed; but it is, as Mr. Grosh would say, a very small one; nay, it is a very large one; so comprehensive that all can be encircled in its embrace. I will not give it entire; yet this is the Spirit of the whole. “We believe that the Church of Christ on earth, is composed of all the Christians on earth, and that the Church of any location is composed of all the Christians in that location; and that members can neither be voted into Christ’s Church, nor out of it.”

Such is the Catholic Spirit under which they meet; and it is unnecessary to say that freedom and comparative harmony are the result. Being released from the duty of inquisitors, they cheerfully perform the duties of members, and so far from squaring their opinions with an abstract formula, they feel free to express their peculiar views on all points. The following sentiments, in the form of resolutions, will further illustrate their conceptions of what a church ought to be.

“A Church of Christ is a company of moral reformers, and, any organization which refuses to engage in the prosecution of such reforms, especially those that are nearest at hand and most urgent, however excellent may be the character of individuals in it, is not a Church of Christ.

“Sectarism, guilty as it so clearly is, of rending the seamless garment of the Savior—of dividing the Church of Christ into mutually warring parties—tearing asunder those who should esteem themselves to “be One,” even as the Father and Son are One—guilty also, as it manifestly is, of making the strongest and most successful appeals to the pride, bigotry and intolerance of the heart, is, therefore, the mightiest foe on earth to truth and reform, to God and Man.”

“The members of a Gospel Church are not only free to entertain their respective views, both of doctrine and practice, but are bound to inculcate them.”

An interesting feature of their “discipline” is to deal with schismatic, or in other words, those who circumscribe their christian sympathies within the limits of the Sects. If they find that any good man or woman has joined a sect or remains in it, they summon the person to answer to the charge of schism; and in several instances have succeeded in convincing them they had no right to give their affection to what they would admit was only a part of the true Church.

CHAPTER VII.

THE New York friends, Dr. Jackson and several others returned with us to Peterboro from the Canastota Convention where we were tendered a reception at the residence of Gerrit Smith, and we held an interesting discussion on the reforms of the day, carried on mostly by Mr. Smith, Van Amringe, Barr, Evans and Dr. Jackson. For my part I sang Dugenne’s “Acres and Hands,” to an old English air “The Carrier Dove,” to which I adapted it. Just before Gerrit Smith’s death, some thirty years later, I received a letter from him, saying, he wanted to see Mr. Ingalls again, and hear him sing “Acres and Hands.”

We had discussed the interest or usury questions, incidentally on that evening, Mr. Smith remarking that he saw nothing particularly wrong, in taking or paying interest; had himself done both, in the transaction of business, and thought he had been benefited when he received it, and had benefited others when he had paid it. A few years later, he wrote to me, requesting a formal statement of my views, on the subject, saying his wife said she could not reason the case with him; but she felt Mr. Ingalls was right. Whether my arguments produced any effect upon the minds of either, I am unable to say, as the Kansas Embroglio, fugitive slave law, and other matters of national concern, probably absorbed the attention of such thorough Abolitionists.

Dr. Jackson, on the evening referred to, related an amusing incident, which turned a joke upon Mr. Smith. He had, after becoming a convert to Land Reform, made a speech at Syracuse, in which he had squarely taken the ground, that every man had a right to the land which he tilled, and that no one, had a just right to dispossess him. The doctor had met a countryman on the ears who said he had been to Peterboro, to see Gerrit Smith. “I told him,” said he “that I had been unfortunate, that the season had been unfavorable, and the old woman sick, and that I could not pay the interest on the mortgage he held still on my farm.” “I told him, I did not think he would trouble me and had told my wife, when she insisted on my seeing him, but that whatever came, I was going to rely on his Syracuse speech.”

Gerrit Smith promptly on my arrival, had given me the twenty dollars, he had promised, and I obtained a number of subscribers for my paper, and besides had in some places where I had spoken, received some trifling compensation. Before leaving Peterboro, however, I sought an interview with Mr. Smith, and suggested that a little assistance would help me to keep the Landmark going, however disastrous the campaign might prove to the cause of Reform. He declined to assume any farther responsibility at that time. When however running for Governor in 1858, he placed with me five hundred dollars, to start a paper “The Land Reformer,” advocating the doctrine, and his candidacy. But the time was unpropitious, and the means used for the purpose, was a dead loss. Seeing its failure certain, I suspended the paper, and returned to him, about half the sum.

When the Landmark was suspended in 1849, there was a foundation which would have served as a basis for a rallying point. “Young America” was declining—the Harbinger, and the Univercoelum were merged in the Spirit of the Age, edited by Wm. H. Channing, but which succumbed after a short life. Numerous papers through the country dropped Reform advocacy, or confined themselves to the support of pure Anti-Slavery sentiment. Still there were friends enough to have sustained a well conducted reform paper, could it have been tided over the crisis. Whether Mr. Smith would assist or no was a matter for him to determine—I mention the matter merely as experiences I have met in reform work.

Mr. Smith’s connection with the John Brown raid, has been a matter of grave discussion among his friends. Mr. Frothingham’s Life of Gerrit Smith, it is said, was suppressed, because it told too much truth. Brown visited Mr. Thaddeus Hyatt of New York, shortly before the raid, and told him, that Gerrit Smith had let him have money for the purpose he had in view. But refused to communicate his plan, because just then, Mr. Hyatt, pending the extension of his patent, could let him have none. Hyatt was summoned before the United States Senate, but refused to testify, even that he knew nothing of the raid, and defied it, though kept in jail for several months.

From Madison Co. I went to Little Falls, where I lectured and on Sunday spoke to a colored congregation upon land and freedom. At Manheim I tarried with Mr. Zenas Brockett, and addressed a meeting there, also at Salisbury where we met a brother of Mr. Brockett. After speaking, as usual I invited remarks, when the brother arose, and denounced me, and his brother also, saying we deserved to be in states prison, for advocating doctrines so destructive of the rights of property. Mr. Zenas Brockett was a pious member of the Baptist Church at that time, and taking opportunity he confidentially submitted to me his trouble as to what was duty with respect to it. I expressed astonishment that he should come to me, whom he must know, looked with little favor on ecclesiastical organizations of any kind. He thought, he said, I might give him an unbiased opinion for that very reason. I asked him if his church allowed him freedom of expression, on the question of reform, in which he felt such deep interest. He said they did; but he did not know whether it was right to fellowship those who were indifferent to them. I said to him, that if in his place I should stay, and work where I was. If they could not tolerate me, I would go; but it was my opinion, that he should stay in the church and reform it, if possible, so long as he was in agreement with its religious teachings. Some ten years afterwards, these brothers came to our house in New York, staying all night with us. Mr. Zenas Brockett had outgrown his sectarian attachments, and the brother had cut loose from his party superstitions also. We had a most enjoyable visit.

At this point, I would like again to refer to Mr. A. Scofield, whose place I supplied at Hamilton. I enjoyed the neighborly friendship of Mr. Scofield, and his interesting family, some eighteen or twenty years later, both having moved to Glenora.

He preached hereabout, somewhat as a free lance, among the orthodox, and liberal Christians. He finally got into a discussion with Mr. Beach, the Professor of Greek in Starkey Seminary, the public meetings of which I attended. It was on the question of the “Godship of Christ.” The one, contending that Christ was God and man— the other, that He was the Son of God. The discussion waxed warm, until parting on mere definitions, the discussion was declared off, on the second evening. For some reason or other Mr. Scofield wished that I should speak, as there was a considerable audience, and the evening was not spent. Rising, I said, it was to be regretted, that two such able men, were spending time and talent in debating questions, at best, purely speculative, while a world of misdirection, ignorance and misery lay waiting the labors of the true disciples of the Christ of the Gospels. In referring to the discussion I said I had been impressed with Mr. Beach’s profession of faith in the power of truth, and his statement, that only error feared investigation: but I did not think his charge of intolerance against Trinitarians, however it might apply once, in the times of Calvin and Servetus was true now, certainly not, as to friend Scofield, who twenty years before had invited me to preach to his people, and had now insisted upon my speaking to them, although fully aware of my heretical views. Simply as a test of his sincerity, I then offered to discuss with Mr. Beach the question of the pure manhood of Jesus, as set forth in the Gospels. He declined, giving as a reason, that the orthodox charged his persuasion, with teaching that Jesus was a mere man,—though many in the audience thought the opportunity should have been improved to clear up that very point. A lay brother was found however, to take up the challenge, but the discussion was not allowed to be held in the Christian Church. It came off in the little chapel, near Big Stream, in which Mr. Scofield was preaching, himself presiding at the debate.

I now resume, the thread of my narrative. Returning to New York, after my visit to Peterboro, and other places, I found the Land Reformers completely disorganized—the pseudo “Free Soil” party having by the usual duplicity of catch words and phrases succeeded in alluring many, by making it appear, that their pretentious professions of interest, had some purpose, or meaning. How sincere was their cry, maybe inferred when it is known. that the next election found the following of Van Buren, back in the Democratic Party, out bidding the primitive “Hunkers” in their subserviency to the dominant slave power, and outrivaling them, in their efforts to enforce the “fugitive slave law.” It soon became evident, that Land Reform, and every progressive movement, must experience a set back from the reactionary tendency of things. I could keep the Landmark going, but it could no longer keep me going. I gave it up to a printer, William Haddock, who kept it running for several months.[7] I constantly writing for it, without compensation, as long as he was able to publish it.

I received an invitation to speak to the Unitarians in Southington, Ct., and subsequently served as pastor there, for two years.

Early in November of this year, (1848), I was passing through Providence, and called on Mr. and Mrs. Dunbar B. Harris.[8] I met there, and was introduced to George Bradburn, who quaintly said ‘‘I thought the editor of The Landmark was a bigger man.”[9] There was an anti-slavery convention in session and they insisted I should accompany them to it, which I did gladly. On entering Mechanics hall, we found the meeting just called to order. The chairman stated that the business committee, who had been appointed at the afternoon session, were still out, and that there was no regular business before the meeting, and called upon volunteers for addresses till the committee should come in. Mr. Bradburn immediately arose, and said that the editor of a Land Reform paper from New York was present and he, for one, was anxious to hear him speak upon this theme, and how it bore upon the anti-slavery question. The chairman promptly invited me to the platform. I took it, and thanked him for the unexpected opportunity, and supposing my time would be short, commenced without preliminary to explain the object of our movement—much to the following purport: Land is a necessity to life. The man, the animal, the plant, each die when denied access to the earth, and its growths. The right to life, involves the right to land to live and labor upon. Commercial ownership of land which enables one to exclude another from it, and thus enforces involuntary idleness, is as destructive of human freedom as ownership of the person, enforcing involuntary service. I remarked in passing, that our reform did not antagonize the anti-slavery movement, but complimented it—that Gerrit Smith, George H. Evans, John Windt, Mr. Van Amringe and many of our prominent men, were abolitionists in the strictest sense of the term. For myself, I had been a foe to slavery from my school days, when I read Cowper’s touching appeal to England for its abolition. But that we had here a much more complex question than ever confronted England. Her slaves were thousands of miles away and could not compete with her wage workers at home. Ours were at home. Liberation of the slaves would bring their labor in more direct competition with our over-crowded- and poorly paid wage-workers. I did not offer this as a reason against the abolition of chattel slavery, but as a reason why the friends of emancipation from chattel slavery, should unite with the friends for the emancipation of the wage-worker, by restoring to him the right to land, for the production of the means of life. I pointed out that setting the man free, without allowing him access to the land, would not benefit the slave, so far as the comforts of life were concerned, but would be a cruel mockery. That few instances of the starvation of slaves could he found, while wage-workers and tenants were starving by the hundreds, and the thousands, and sometimes by the million, as in the then recent landlord famine in Ireland. No menial, or even immoral service ever exacted from the slave, but could be obtained by the landlord, or money lord, and at a price less than the expense of the sane service from the slave. No doubt, but great cruelly is often perpetrated against the slave, but as a rule he is better fed and clothed and sheltered than miners, or even the agricultural laborers of England. No picture, general like that of the miners of Great Britain, can be found in the slave-holding states of this nation. There, men, women and children, bid adieu to the light of heaven, from one week’s end to the other, to dig the black diamonds from the bowels of the earth: women are chained to cars, and draw the loads, upon their hands and knees, where the human form cannot stand erect. The agricultural laborers are not as well housed and fed by the English nobility, and landholders, as are their horses, or even their dogs. The real issue was between the rights of man and the rights of property; between the rights of labor and the rights of ownership. It was not the love of being master, but the ability to appropriate the results of labor, which made slave-holding attractive. And it was not color or race-hatred which lay at the bottom of the prejudice, and enmity of the white laborer against the African slaves, so much as the fear that if liberty was given to them, they would crowd him from his opportunity to serve for wages.

I also remarked that the exigencies of the wage system, and of the rent system, had more effectually succeeded in breaking up families, taking away children and separating man and wife, than the chattel system had ever shown, unless under exceptional circumstances. After speaking for a half hour, I noticed the committee filing in, when, thanking the audience for their attention to the utterances of an outsider, I took my seat. Soon after commencing to speak I had observed the entrance of Frederick Douglass. He was then at the height of his popularity. Had just returned from his visit to England where he had been lionized, and patronized by the anti-slavery nobility, who had raised the money to purchase his freedom from his former master. He was not aware at whose instance I had been invited to speak. As soon as the report from the committee had been disposed of, Douglass took the platform, and began a reply to me. He said he had his idea as Well as Mr. Ingalls, about the rights of property; but that the anti-slavery question was a totally different one. It was the question of liberty, not property. He had been in England and saw nothing of the pictures Mr. Ingalls had been showing them; and he depicted in roseate hues, the social conditions of English life. He deprecated the bare idea of comparing the condition of the English worker, with his freedom of person and surrounded by wife and children, with the chattel-slave, who was not the owner of himself, and whose wife and children could be sold from him at any moment. In this vein he continued for a longer time than I had been speaking, then told the audience what they wanted. They wanted to have a speech from Mr. George Bradburn and some other speakers. They wanted to pass resolutions that had been offered by the committee, and to sing “Oh that will be Joyful,” and they did not want to hear anything more from Mr. Ingalls. He had scarcely ceased speaking, when a vociferous call was made by the audience for Mr. Bradburn, most of the audience knowing that it was he who had introduced me. He immediately took the stand, and brought the people into genial good humor, by saying, with mock seriousness, “here Mr. Ingalls has been talking to you about wages slavery, and Mr. Douglass about chattel-slavery—both have overlooked the great topic of the day”—he made an impressive pause, and then, “Old Zack is President of the United States for four years.” This “brought down the house.” Decisive news of the election of Taylor had been received that day. After referring in a satirical way to the great importance of the fact in our national history, he reverted again to us. saying substantially “we need raise no question as to the veracity of either Mr. Ingalls or Mr. Douglass— the former did not speak of what he had seen, and the latter only testified of what he had not seen. He had been with those who were interested in having him see what was best not what was worst under English rule. Mr. Ingalls neglected to tell you, how he derived his knowledge—I will supply the omission. In substance it is from a report of the Parliamentary Committee, appointed to examine into the condition of the mining population and is quite as reliable, I think, as if it had been seen by either gentlemen.” After the close of the meeting I was greeted by many friends, some of whom I had not seen for ten years, and also met a number of associationists who affiliated with the anti-slavery people. It was also arranged for me to speak in the same hall on Sunday evening—which I did, to a crowded house. It was the place of meeting for the Second Universalists Society, of which Rev. J. M. Cook was pastor, and to whose courtesy I was indebted for the opportunity.

Some twenty years later I read a report of an address made by Frederick Douglass at a colored people’s convention at Lexington, Ky., in which occurred, words in substance, like these: “When the Republican party emancipated and enfranchised you, it failed in justice, in that it did not also award you land.”

After the war I met Mr. Douglass at Waterloo, at a meeting of Progressive Friends, before whom I was permitted to present the Land and the usury questions and was treated with respect. I met at the same time Mrs. Lucy Stone, Mr. Powell and Professor Denton, all of whom listened with attention and expressed great interest. Mr. Douglass I met again on a railroad train, when an accident occurred which detained us several hours, and which gave us opportunity for comparison of views on many questions, on which much common ground of agreement was found. The last time I met him was on a Stonington steamer when going to Massachusetts. It was soon after the Freedman’s bank swindle had been effected. I began at once to denounce that as one of the most dastardly financial outrages I had ever known, and expressed a hope that he could satisfactorily account for his relations to it at the time, as president. He begged me to believe that he was wholly unaware of the condition of the bank at the time he accepted the office, and that all knowledge its operation was carefully kept from him till the crash came. He had afterward learned that his name had only been associated with the management of the bank to influence more victims to deposit money before the wreck was made.

Mr. Douglass has been eulogized as an early advocate of Woman Suffrage movement and justly so. But in 1868, at the Equal Rights Convention in Steinway Hall, he claimed that it was then the “Negroe’s hour,”—as the question of giving him the franchise was then before the country—and that woman should wait. In this he was opposed by Mrs. Stanton, Mrs. Stone, Miss Anthony and most of the advocates of equal rights, and among all the speakers at the convention was only supported by Charles C. Burleigh.

CHAPTER IX.

I first met Edward Kellogg, in 1848. He had just published book on “Labor and Other Capital;” in later editions known as the “New Monetary System.” It was at a public meeting of the Labor Reformers of New York City. He addressed them upon the subject of Finance recommending government loans on real estate, at a low rate of interest. I felt it necessary to criticise the scheme, and state that the result of his plan would be to give to large land holders the power to control the money of the country, to the exclusion of workers, and of business men. I had admired the sayings of Thos. H. Benton, “Old Bullion,” as he was called, and the reformers, were most “hard money men,” but they gave him respectful hearing. It first occurred to me, that a credit money might be serviceable, if it could be on a basis, not inviting to unsafe inflation, and the promotion of usury. It occurred to me also that the “legal tender” power of money was subversive of the principles of equity, and was essentially monarchical in its spirit, and tendency. I combated Mr. Kellogg’s idea that one of the proper functions of money, was “to earn an income for its owner.” In an interview with him, after the meeting he expressed regret that he could not get the endorsement of the audience to his money system since his sympathies were with the toiling and dependent. Later I obtained his book, and wrote an extended notice of it, for the “Univercoelum,” which appeared in two numbers, dated April 21st and April 28th, 1849 of that Magazine. In 1850 I called at his house in Brooklyn, and had a conversation of considerable length on the land and finance questions. He had read my criticisms, and admitted the points of danger I had urged; but having more faith in legislation, thought the rate (low) of interest might be determined by law, so as to keep down usury, and prevent increased monopoly of the land. In a subsequent edition, his daughter Mrs. Putnam states that he was, before his demise much exercised in his mind, as to what was a “true rate of interest,” and that he had told her he had come to the conclusion that it was the “cost of issuing and maintaining the money in circulation.” As the right to realize a gain from the use of money, anything more than the expense of making it, and keeping it good was a point we had especially discussed, it was gratifying to me to learn that he had abandoned entirely his theory put forth in the book that one power of money was to accumulate an income for its holder. His arguments against usury, and his illustrations of the workings of our existing monetary system, his generous sympathy with industrial progress and the well-being of the working people, made the book popular in the next generation, and a text book on finance for the movement in fax or of fiat money known as the greenback party. Taking his idea of money leased on real estate security, and confounding it with government indebtedness, and his “safety fund bonds,” with “the interchangeable government bonds,” they proposed a mere fiat money, wholly incompatible with his scheme. His scheme would have been a sound financial policy and would have destroyed all individual opportunity for other banking; theirs would have secured immediate relief from the effects of contraction, but would have laid the foundation for the most reckless expansion, and ultimate Public and private bankruptcy

In 1848 I became acquainted with Theodore D. Weld, his wife Angeline, and her sister Sarah Grimke. While absorbed In the Anti-Slavery issue, they each had considerate thought for the wrongs of the industrious poor. I met at their house, Frances Green, John H. Hunt and Llewllyn Heskell. All were progressive people. Mr. Hunt was a brother of Freeman Hunt, the long time editor of The Merchants Magazine, and also of Washington Hunt once Governor New York State. Both were friendly to our movement—John subsequently wrote the “Honest Man’s Book.” It was epigrammatic in style, and particularly lucid in statement, and treated the land and interest questions in a masterly manner. He was the first far as I have been able to ascertain, who treated the land question in this country, as a political issue, which he did in a speech to the working men, in the New York City Hall Park, at the time of the “bread riots” in 1836. Mr. Freeman Hunt first called my attention to Mr. Kellogg, of whom he was an admirer, and to the money reform Mr. Kellogg advocated.

The “Honest Man’s Book,” was too true to its name, to be popular with business men. Too abstract to be attractive to the working men, even if they