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* * * * *
[Illustration: Oscar S. Straus with signature]
Under Four Administrations
FROM CLEVELAND TO TAFT
RECOLLECTIONS OF OSCAR S. STRAUS, LITT.D., LL.D.
_Member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague
Three Times Minister and Ambassador to Turkey
Former Secretary of Commerce and Labor_
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
[Illustration: Publisher's Mark]
Boston and New York
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge
COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY OSCAR S. STRAUS
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
SECOND IMPRESSION
The Riverside Press
CAMBRIDGE.MASSACHUSETTS
PRINTED IN THE U.S.A
DEDICATED TO
MY GRANDCHILDREN
AND THEIR CONTEMPORARIES
OF EVERY RACE AND CREED
PREFACE
I am drawing these memories to a close in my log cabin in the primitive
Maine woods, where my wife and I have been coming for rest and for
fishing for the past twenty years. Here we renew our youth, and far from
tumult and crowds, near to nature, we realize anew how little is
required in order to be contented and happy. Here I am taken back to the
memories of my childhood in the little town in Georgia where too our
home was a log house, but for appearances had the luxurious outer and
inner dressing of clap-boarding painted white. The logs of the upper
story where we children played and slept had no covering, which pleased
us all the more.
In a highly organized society, we are often attracted by pomp and
circumstance, rather than by qualities of heart and mind, which after
all are the true measure of enlightenment. Here in these woods, fair
dealings and human relations are not regulated by statutes, but by the
golden rule of conduct. We need not hide our possessions behind locked
doors, honesty is the accepted rule of life; there are no treasures to
hide and no bars to break.
It has been permitted me to do useful work and to have interesting
experiences. Privileged opportunities have been afforded me for public
service. Of these I write.
Perhaps in chronicling the experiences of a life which at many points
touched vital affairs and the most interesting personalities, I may be
able to add something to the record of men, movements, and events during
those decades still absorbing to us because they are so near.
The story is one of service at home and abroad, of personal relations
with six of our Presidents, with diplomats, labor leaders, foreign
rulers, leaders of industry, and some plain unticketed citizens who were
the salt of the earth and certainly not the least of those whom it was a
pleasure to know.
To write of one's self requires a certain amount of egotism. The
autobiographer usually tries to justify this vanity by explaining it as
a desire to gratify his children and kinsmen, or as a yielding to the
urgent request of his friends. Benjamin Franklin, whose autobiography,
incomplete though it be, is one of the most human in our language,
frankly conceded that he was prompted by the weakness of praise. He
says: "I may as well confess it, since my denial of it will be believed
by nobody, perhaps I shall a good deal gratify my own vanity."
I do not wish to conceal from those who may from interest or curiosity
read what I write, that I am not entirely free from that vanity, even
though it be my chief aim and purpose to cast some additional light upon
our country's development and upon events in which, in public and
private life, I have been permitted to take part. Having held official
positions at home and abroad under four administrations, and having come
in close relationship with many of the statesmen and others of
distinction in this and foreign countries, perhaps my narrative will
serve to give more intimate knowledge and truer appreciation of their
personal traits and their exceptional qualities.
I have also been influenced by a desire to bring a message of
encouragement to the youth of our country, especially to those who may
be conscious of handicaps in the race, not to lose heart, but to be
patient, considerate, and tactful, and not to withhold the saving extra
ounce of effort which often spells the difference between failure and
success.
So long as our democracy remains true to its basic principles and
jealously guards the highways of opportunity, the golden age will not be
in the past, but ever in the future. In externals the age in which we
live has changed, but the qualities of effort, of industry, and the will
to succeed which were required when I was a boy, have not changed; they
lead to the same goals now as then, with this difference: that the boy
of to-day has greater advantages, better educational facilities, and
more avenues of advancement than the boy of two generations ago. There
never was a time in our history when more men of humble origin have
attained commanding positions in industry, in commerce, and in public
affairs than now. While our American system is not without fault, the
fact that an enlightened public is ever watchful to maintain our
democratic principles and to correct abuses is convincing proof of our
country's wholesome development in conformity with the changing
conditions of modern life.
I desire to make acknowledgment to my long-time and esteemed friend, Mr.
Lawrence Abbott, the President of "The Outlook," who encouraged and
advised me to write these memoirs and even outlined the chapter plan
which I have largely followed.
CONTENTS
I. ANCESTRY AND EARLY YEARS 1
II. LAW, BUSINESS, AND LETTERS 30
III. ENTERING DIPLOMACY 50
IV. FIRST TURKISH MISSION 70
V. HARRISON, CLEVELAND, AND MCKINLEY 105
VI. MY SECOND MISSION TO TURKEY 130
VII. THEODORE ROOSEVELT 163
VIII. INDUSTRIAL DIPLOMACY 194
IX. IN THE CABINET 207
X. THE TAFT CAMPAIGN OF 1908 248
XI. MY THIRD MISSION TO TURKEY 271
XII. THE PROGRESSIVES 307
XIII. THREATENING CLOUDS OF WAR 327
XIV. PERSONAL VIGNETTES 343
XV. THE WORLD WAR 370
XVI. PARIS PEACE CONFERENCE 396
INDEX 431
ILLUSTRATIONS
OSCAR S. STRAUS _Frontispiece_
Photograph by the Campbell Studios, New York
MOTHER AND FATHER OF OSCAR S. STRAUS 2
BIRTHPLACE OF OSCAR S. STRAUS, OTTERBERG, RHENISH
BAVARIA 8
CHAPEL AND SCHOOLHOUSE, COLLINSWORTH INSTITUTE,
TALBOTTON, GEORGIA 8
OSCAR S. STRAUS AT SIX 12
OSCAR S. STRAUS AT THE TIME OF HIS GRADUATION 28
LETTER OF HENRY WARD BEECHER TO PRESIDENT
CLEVELAND 46
MRS. STRAUS IN TURKEY 62
TESTIMONIAL GIVEN TO MR. STRAUS IN JERUSALEM IN
APPRECIATION OF THE RELEASE OF SEVERAL HUNDRED
PRISONERS 84
OSCAR S. STRAUS, CONSTANTINOPLE, 1888 96
PRESIDENT MCKINLEY SENDING THE AUTHOR TO TURKEY
ON HIS SECOND MISSION, 1898 124
MEMBERS OF THE RAILWAY BOARD OF ADMINISTRATION 200
THE ROOSEVELT CABINET 216
MRS. OSCAR S. STRAUS 246
NATHAN, OSCAR, AND ISIDOR STRAUS 312
Photograph by Pirie MacDonald, New York, 1912
ROGER W. STRAUS 392
Under Four Administrations
CHAPTER I
ANCESTRY AND EARLY YEARS
Napoleonic Era: the Sanhedrin--A forefather in Napoleon's
councils--My father and the German Revolution of 1848--My father
emigrates to America--My father starts business in Talbotton,
Georgia--My mother and her children arrive, 1854--We attend the
Baptist Church--My early schooling--Deacons duel with
knives--Household slaves--Life in a small Southern town--Frugal and
ingenious housekeeping--Outbreak of the Civil War--Our family moves
to Columbus, Georgia--First lessons in oratory--General Wilson's
capture of the city--The town is looted--Our family moves North
--My father surprises Northern creditor by insisting upon paying
his debts in full--I attend Columbia Grammar School in New York
City--My accidental schoolroom glory before Morse, the inventor--I
enter Columbia College in 1867 with Brander Matthews, Stuyvesant
Fish, and other distinguished classmates--My classroom debut in
diplomacy--Poetic ambitions--Military aspirations and an interview
with President Grant--Choosing law as a career.
My ancestors, on both my father's and my mother's side, were natives of
the Palatinate of Bavaria, of the town of Otterberg and immediate
vicinity. Up to the time of Napoleon's taking possession of that part of
the country the Jews of the Palatinate had not adopted family names.
This they did later, beginning in 1808, when, under Napoleon, the
Palatinate became the Department of Mont Tennerre and part of France. My
great-grandfather, for instance, before adopting the family name of
Straus, was known as Jacob Lazar, from Jacob ben Lazarus, or Jacob son
of Lazarus, as in biblical times.
Jacob Lazar, afterwards Jacob Straus, had three sons: Jacob, Lazarus,
and Salomon. My father, Lazarus Straus, born April 25, 1809, was the son
of the eldest, Jacob; and my mother, Sara Straus, born January 14,
1823, was the daughter of the youngest, Salomon. My paternal grandfather
died when my father was a young man, but my grandfather Salomon Straus
and his brother Lazarus were known to us as children, particularly to my
eldest brother, Isidor, who knew them quite well. They were men of
culture and education, landowners who sent their crops--mainly wheat,
oats, clover and clover seed--and those of their neighbors to the
markets of Kaiserslautern and Mannheim, the chief commercial towns of
the section. They spoke German and French fluently, and had also, of
course, been thoroughly educated in the Hebrew language and literature.
The name of Straus was well known among the Jews of Bavaria, and both my
great-grandfather and my father contributed to its prominence. During
1806 a spirit of reaction, political and religious, swept over France,
making itself especially troublesome in Alsace and in the German
departments of the upper and lower Rhine. Exceptionable and restrictive
laws were advocated to deprive the Jews there of rights they were
enjoying throughout France. As had happened often before, and not
unknown since, the reactionaries fanned the hatred against Jews, making
them the scapegoats in their campaign against the advancing spirit of
liberalism. Thus the cause of the Jews was linked with the cause of
liberty itself.
[Illustration: MOTHER AND FATHER OF OSCAR S. STRAUS]
Napoleon himself was at first prejudiced against the Jews, regarding
them as usurers and extortioners. He soon realized, however, that the
characteristics which confronted him could not be imputed to Judaism,
but were due rather to the restricted civil and industrial rights of the
Jews and to their general unhappy condition. It was made manifest to him
that in Bordeaux, Marseilles, and the Italian cities of France, as
well as in Holland, some of the most useful and patriotic citizens were
Jews. Napoleon always had an eye on his historical reputation, and
desiring to do nothing that would obscure his fame, he decided to
convene a council of representative Jews from the various provinces.
Accordingly, on May 30, 1806, he issued his decree, famous in the annals
of the Jews in modern times, summoning the Assembly of Notables of the
Jewish nation to meet in Paris the following July. The prefects in the
various provinces were required to aid in the selection of the most
distinguished men from among the rabbis and the laity.
The deputies came to Paris from all parts of the French Empire. They
numbered one hundred and eleven in all, and spoke French, German, and
Italian. Many of them were themselves well known, others achieved a
posthumous glamour in the deeds of descendants who have since won
distinction in European history and in the annals of Jewry. There were
Joseph Sinzheim, first rabbi of Strasbourg, foremost Talmudist and
considered the most scholarly member of the Assembly, who was made
president of the Assembly and later chairman of the Great Sanhedrin;
Michel Berr, afterwards the first French Jew to practice at the bar;
Abraham Furtado, son of a marano or crypto-Jewish Portuguese family from
which was also descended the wife of the first Benjamin D'Israeli and
Sir John Simon; Isaac Samuel d'Avigdor of Nice, grandfather of Jules
d'Avigdor who was a member of the Piedmont Parliament; Israel
Ottolenghi, an ancestor of Italy's late Minister of War; Abraham de
Cologna, rabbi of Mantua, a great political leader and reformer; and
many others of equal rank and caliber. Their task was a monumental one,
for it was nothing less than to justify Judaism and Jewry to the world;
and they assembled with a full consciousness of their responsibility.
At this Assembly my great-grandfather represented the Department of Mont
Tennerre. He evidently played an important part in the diplomacy which
this unprecedented council involved, for he was a member of the
sub-committee of fifteen delegated to meet the commissioners appointed
by Napoleon, also a member of the committee to which the Assembly gave
the delicate work of preparing the groundwork for discussion with the
commissioners. Subsequently he was appointed to the committee of nine of
the Great Sanhedrin which the following year presented to Napoleon's
committee the conclusions formulated and agreed upon by the Assembly,
and which helped to bring about their adoption.
* * * * *
My father, in turn, was active in the revolutionary movement in 1848.
This was an heroic effort on the part of the liberal forces of Europe to
achieve constitutional government, and when it failed many of those who
had borne a conspicuous part fled to other countries. Thus it was that
Generals Sigel, Schurz, Stahl, and others, who later were prominent in
our Civil War, came to America. These men and their immediate followers
constitute one of the most valuable groups of immigrants that have come
to these shores since our government was organized. In the land of their
birth they had already made sacrifices for constitutionalism and
democracy, and basically they had made them for American principles.
They were Americans in spirit, therefore, even before they arrived.
Having been active only locally in the revolutionary movement, my father
was not prosecuted. He was made aware, however, of the suspicions of the
authorities and was subjected to all those petty annoyances and
discriminations which a reactionary government never fails to lay upon
people who have revolted, and revolted in vain. My father decided, in
consequence, to emigrate. This purpose he did not carry into effect
until the spring of 1852. He had many ties, which it was difficult to
break at once. He had been in comfortable circumstances, like his father
and grandfather a landowner and dealer on a large scale in farm
products, principally grains. The revolution left him reduced in
circumstances and even to some extent in debt. He had four children, of
whom I was the youngest, being then less than a year and a half old.
Therefore, like the prudent man he was, he waited, and then came to
America alone with the purpose of establishing himself in some small way
before allowing his family to exchange the comparative security of their
familiar surroundings for the insecurity of an unknown land.
He landed at Philadelphia, where he met a number of former acquaintances
who had preceded him to America, some of whom were already established
in business. They advised him to go South. Acting on this suggestion he
went on to Oglethorpe, Georgia, where he met some more acquaintances
from the old country. Through them he made a connection with two
brothers Kaufman, who plied the peddler's trade. They owned a peddler's
wagon with which they dispensed through the several counties of the
State an assortment of dry goods and what was known as "Yankee notions."
For my father this was indeed a pioneer business in a pioneer country,
yet it was not like the peddling of to-day. In the fifties the
population of the whole State of Georgia was only about nine hundred
thousand. Because of the existence of slavery there were on the large
plantations often more colored people than there were whites living in
the near-by villages. The itinerant merchant, therefore, filled a real
want, and his vocation was looked upon as quite dignified. Indeed, he
was treated by the owners of the plantations with a spirit of equality
that it is hard to appreciate to-day. Then, too, the existence of
slavery drew a distinct line of demarcation between the white and black
races. This gave to the white visitor a status of equality that probably
otherwise he would not have enjoyed to such a degree.
Provided only, therefore, that the peddler proved himself an honorable,
upright man, who conscientiously treated his customers with fairness and
made no misrepresentations regarding his wares, he was treated as an
honored guest by the plantation owners--certainly a spirit of true
democracy. The visits were made periodically and were quite looked
forward to by the plantation owners. The peddler usually stayed one
night at the house of his customer and took his meals with the family.
Another ideally democratic feature about these sojourns was that spirit
of Southern hospitality which, even in the relationship between the
wealthiest, most aristocratic family and the humble peddler, permitted
no pay for board and lodging, and only a small charge for feed for the
horses. The peddler in turn usually made a gift to either the lady or
her daughter. Often he provided himself with articles for this purpose,
but usually on one visit he would find out what might be welcome and on
the next visit bring it. The bonds of friendship thus made are, I
venture to say, hardly understandable in our day.
* * * * *
In the course of these wanderings my father came to Talbotton, a town of
some eight or nine hundred inhabitants, the county seat of Talbot
County, and about forty miles east of the Alabama boundary. Talbotton
immediately impressed him so favorably that he selected it as the next
home for his family. It had an air of refinement that pleased him; there
were gardens with nicely cultivated flowers and shrubbery, and houses
that were neat, well kept, and properly painted. Upon inquiry he found
further that there were splendid schools for both boys and girls.
There was another factor which doubtless caused father to be favorably
impressed with Talbotton; it was court week when he arrived, at which
time a town has a more or less festive appearance and is at its best so
far as activity is concerned. Then there was a third factor that
influenced him to settle there. Before doing business in any county,
peddlers were required to go to the county seat to buy a license. At
Talbotton this license was very high, and my father doubted that his
business in Talbot County would warrant the expense. The idea occurred
to him to utilize the presence of the many strangers in town to test the
possibilities of the place by unpacking and displaying his goods in a
store. An interview with Captain Curley, the only tailor in the town,
developed the fact that the store he occupied was too large for his
needs and he would be willing to share it with my father. So this
arrangement was promptly made, and at a cost less than the expense of
the county license for itinerant merchandising.
The experiment proved most satisfactory. In a few weeks the stock was so
depleted that my father proposed to his partner that they rent a store
and settle in Talbotton. This they did. My father then prepared to go to
Philadelphia to get a stock of goods. His partner counseled against
this. There was a merchant in Oglethorpe who, up to this point, had
supplied them with all their merchandise; they would need to refer to
him for credit, and they were still indebted to him for the stock in
hand; also, he would probably not approve of their settling down in a
store instead of peddling. The new store offered large display space in
comparison with the wagon, and the partner doubted my father's ability
to get enough credit in Philadelphia to make a proper display. Still
another obstacle. The line of merchandise that was to constitute most of
their stock was what was then known as dry goods and domestics. This
business was entirely in the hands of the Yankees and the most difficult
one in which to gain a foothold, especially for a German immigrant
without capital.
However, in the end my father did go to Philadelphia. He had found
several acquaintances in that city, as I have already said, who had been
resident in his neighborhood in the old country. These people were
established in several of the wholesale houses in the different lines of
merchandise he required, except the dry goods. And solely on the
strength of his character and the reputation he had had in Europe he was
able to establish with them the necessary credit, which neither his
capital nor his business experience in a new field and a strange country
warranted. In fact, their faith in him was so strong that one of them
gladly introduced him to the wholesale dry goods merchants, and he was
able to accomplish the full purpose of his mission, to the great
amazement of his partner.
* * * * *
[Illustration: BIRTHPLACE OF OSCAR S. STRAUS OTTERBERG, RHENISH BAVARIA]
[Illustration: CHAPEL AND SCHOOLHOUSE COLLINSWORTH INSTITUTE, TALBOTTON,
GEORGIA]
That was in 1853, and marked the beginning of my family's history in
this country. This bit of success encouraged my father to write home
that he might be able to have us join him the following year.
Accordingly, on August 24, 1854, our little party left Otterberg. It
was a journey that required no little courage and resourcefulness. My
mother had three years before suffered a paralytic stroke, and of her
four children the eldest, my brother Isidor, was only nine years old. My
sister Hermina was a year and a half younger, Nathan was six, and I was
only three and a half. My mother's father accompanied us from Otterberg
to Kaiserslautern, he on horseback and the rest of us with our nursemaid
in a carriage; we then took the train to Forbach, a French frontier
town, where we remained overnight. The next morning we left for Paris.
There we stayed until August 29th, when we started for Havre to board
the steamer St. Louis on her maiden voyage. As our boat was being docked
in New York on September 12th, my mother recognized my father
energetically pacing the wharf. Minutes seemed like hours.
We did not go directly to Talbotton. Yellow fever was raging in
Savannah, and as we had to go through that port _en route_ to Talbotton,
we waited in Philadelphia for a few weeks, until the danger was
considered over. Even then we avoided entering the city until it was
time to board the train for Geneva, where we were to take the
stage-coach for the remaining seven miles to Talbotton. The boat docked
at Savannah in the morning, and we spent the day until evening in the
small shanty that was called the station. When finally we reached
Talbotton we found a very comfortable home ready for us. My precocious
brother Isidor immediately inspected the whole and thought it odd to be
in a house built on stilts, as he called it. The house, typical of that
locality, had no cellar, but was supported by an open foundation of
wooden pillars about twenty-five feet apart.
Our family was received with kindness and hospitality, so that in a
very few years our parents were made to feel much at home. My mother,
who had considerable experience in the cultivation of flowers and
vegetables, soon had a garden which was very helpful and instructive to
her circle of neighbors and friends. My father, always a student and
well versed in biblical literature and the Bible, which he read in the
original, was much sought by the ministers of the various denominations,
several of whom habitually dined at our house when in Talbotton on their
circuit. At such times the discussion usually ran along theological
lines. One of my earliest recollections is hearing my father take
passages from the Old Testament and translate them literally for the
information of these ministers.
We were the only Jewish family in the town. This at first aroused some
curiosity among those who had never met persons of our race or religion
before. I remember hearing some one doubt that we were Jews and
remarking to my father, who had very blond hair and blue eyes, that he
thought all Jews had black hair and dark complexion.
* * * * *
My brother Isidor and my sister were immediately sent to school, and my
second brother and I were sent as soon as we arrived at school age. I
was seven years old when I began learning my letters.
My main religious instruction came from conversations with my father and
from the discussions the ministers of various denominations had with
him, which I always followed with great interest. When my brother Nathan
and I were respectively about eleven and eight and a half years old, we
were sent to the Baptist Sunday school upon the persuasion of the
Baptist minister, who had become an intimate friend of my father's.
There we heard the Bible read and were taught principally from the Old
Testament. Our teacher was a gunsmith who had more piety than knowledge,
and what he lacked in erudition he made up by good intentions which,
after all, had a cultural value. We continued our attendance some two
years.
At eleven I entered Collinsworth Institute, a higher school for boys,
about a mile outside of Talbotton. Isidor had been there, and Nathan was
there then. It was not a large school, though it was the best of its
kind in our vicinity. The recitation hall or chapel was a little frame
building standing in a square, and around that were eight or ten
one-story frame houses where boys coming from a distance lived. The
pupils ranged in age from about ten to eighteen, and there were three
teachers. We were taught the three R's, and the advanced pupils studied
the classics.
In our small town, being the county seat, we had gala days each month
when the court convened and people came from the surrounding districts
as for a holiday. There was much drinking of gin and whiskey by the
young country squires, which frequently ended up in some fighting where
pistols and knives were freely used. This all left a deep impression on
my young mind and made me a prohibitionist long before I knew the
meaning of the word. In the North when boys got to fighting they used
their fists; in the South they used, besides their fists, sticks and
stones, and consequently it was a more serious and dangerous affair. If
in the North one boy cursed another or called him a liar, it would not
necessarily lead to a fist fight; in fact, it usually stopped at
recrimination. In the South that kind of quarreling meant a serious
fight. I think because of these facts the Southern boys were much more
guarded and polite to each other in speech than was customary among
Northern boys. Perhaps much of the so-called Southern politeness had
its roots in the use, in boyhood, of milder terms in case of
disagreement. I recall one fight between two of the leading men of
Talbotton, both deacons in the same church. One took out his pocket
knife and cut the other's throat, and he died. After considerable delay
the murderer was tried, but because of his high standing in the
community he was acquitted, doubtless on the plea of self-defense, and
he got off scot-free.
As a boy brought up in the South I never questioned the rights or wrongs
of slavery. Its existence I regarded as matter of course, as most other
customs or institutions. The grown people of the South, whatever they
thought about it, would not, except in rare instances, speak against it;
and even then in the most private and guarded manner. To do otherwise
would subject one to social ostracism. We heard it defended in the
pulpit and justified on biblical grounds by leading ministers. With my
father it was different. I frequently heard him discuss the subject with
the ministers who came to our house, and he would point out to them that
the Bible must be read with discrimination and in relation to the period
to which the chapters refer; and it must not be forgotten that it is the
history of a people covering more than a thousand years; and that even
then there had been no such thing as perpetual bondage, as all slaves
were declared free in the year of jubilee.
[Illustration: OSCAR S. STRAUS AT SIX]
Looking backward and making comparisons between my observations as a boy
in the South and later in the North, I find there was much more freedom
of expression in the North than in the South. Few people in the South
would venture to express themselves against the current of dominant
opinion upon matters of sectional importance. The institution of slavery
with all that it implied seemed to have had the effect of enslaving,
or, to use a milder term, checking, freedom of expression on the part of
the master class only in lesser degree than among the slaves themselves.
* * * * *
In our town, as in all Southern communities, the better families were
kind, especially to their household slaves, whom they regarded as
members of the family requiring guardianship and protection, in a degree
as if they were children. And the slaves addressed their masters by
their first names and their mistresses as "miss." My mother, for
instance, was "Miss Sara." I recall one of our servants pleading with my
mother: "Miss Sara, won't you buy me, I want to stay here. I love you
and the white folks here, and I am afraid my master will hire me out or
sell me to some one else." At that time we hired our servants from their
masters, whom we paid an agreed price. But as the result of such
constant pleadings my father purchased household slaves one by one from
their masters, although neither he nor my mother believed in slavery. If
we children spoke to the slaves harshly or disregarded their feelings,
we were promptly checked and reprimanded by our parents. My father also
saw to it that our two men servants learned a trade; the one learned
tailoring and the other how to make shoes, though it was regarded
disloyal, at any rate looked upon with suspicion, if a master permitted
a slave boy or girl to be taught even reading and writing. When later we
came North we took with us the two youngest servants, one a boy about my
age, and the other a girl a little older. They were too young to look
out for themselves, and so far as they knew they had no relatives. We
kept them with us until they grew up and could look out for themselves.
The people throughout the South, with the exception of the richer
plantation owners, lived simply. In our household, for instance, we
always lived well, but economically. My mother was very systematic and
frugal. She had an allowance of twenty dollars a month, and my brother
Isidor has well said that she would have managed to save something even
if it had been smaller. It was her pleasure to be her own financier, and
small as her allowance sounds now, she was able in the course of two or
three years to save enough to buy a piano for my sister. This she felt
to be an expense with which my father's exchequer should not be taxed.
We raised our own vegetables and chickens. Fresh meat, except pork,
might have been termed a luxury. Many of the families had their own
smokehouses, as we did, which were filled once a year, at the
hog-killing season. There was no such thing as a butcher in our little
town. When a farmer in the country round wanted to slaughter an ox or a
sheep, he would do so and bring it to town, exhibit it in the public
square in a shanty called the market (used for that particular occasion
and at other times empty), toll the bell that was there, and in that way
announce that some fresh meat was on sale. This procedure never occurred
oftener than once in two or three weeks during the cold weather.
Ice was another luxury in that community. It had to be shipped many
miles and was therefore brought in only occasionally, mainly for a
confectioner who at times offered ice cream to the people.
There was no gas lighting. Oil lamps were used, but to a larger extent
candles, which were manufactured in each household, of fat and bees'
wax. In that process we children all helped.
Indeed, with a small business in a small town in those days it was
possible for a man to accumulate a surplus only through the practice of
the strictest economy by his family as well as by himself, an economy
almost bordering parsimony. There were no public or free schools in that
part of the South; every textbook had to be bought and tuition paid for;
and there were four of us.
* * * * *
When the war broke out new economies were called for. A simple life has
its advantages; it is conducive to self-help, also to the ability to do
without things and meet emergencies without unhappiness. My father's
partner joined the Fourth Georgia Regiment, and my brother Isidor, then
sixteen, was withdrawn from Collinsworth Institute to take up work with
my father. He had gained some experience in carrying on the business by
helping father evenings, for our store was open until nine-thirty. It
was closed during the supper hour, but reopened thereafter.
In that part of the country coffee became unobtainable except when now
and then a few bags arrived on a ship that had run the blockade. Our
mothers learned to give us an acceptable substitute by cutting sweet
potatoes into little cubes, drying them in the sun, then roasting and
grinding them, together with grains of wheat, like the ordinary bean.
This made a hot and palatable drink having the color of coffee without
the harmful stimulus of its caffeine.
Salt also became scarce. It was difficult and at times impossible to
obtain enough to cure our pork. Some one discovered that the earthen
floors of the smokehouses were impregnated with considerable salt from
previous curings, so a method was invented for recovering it from that
source.
In the later years of the war, when railway transportation was very poor
and in many localities interrupted, we did not suffer for food, because,
as I have said, most households in the small towns and in the country
raised the major part of their food supplies; they had their own
chickens, eggs, milk, butter, garden provisions. Children of my age
lived largely on corn bread and molasses, of which there was an
ever-plentiful amount.
During the second year of the war my father's partner was discharged
from his regiment for physical disability. My father, always insistent
upon the best possible education for us all, therefore urged my brother
Isidor to continue his studies. Most of the high schools and colleges,
however, had been suspended because the teachers, as well as many of the
senior scholars, had joined the army. On the other hand, the war had
fired the whole South with the military spirit, and as was natural for a
young man barely seventeen, my brother chose to attend the Georgia
Military Academy at Marietta, which was running full blast. Earlier in
the war, when the Fourth Georgia Regiment, taking practically all the
able-bodied men of the town, had left for the front, the boys of
Talbotton organized a company of which Isidor was elected first
lieutenant. They had offered their services to the governor of the
State, but he replied that there were not enough arms to equip all the
men, so that equipping boys was out of the question. All these incidents
had influenced my brother in his choice, and he left quite
enthusiastically for the Georgia Military Academy to take his entrance
examinations. When he returned, however, his mood was much different.
Upon his arrival at Marietta he had about an hour's waiting before he
could see the proper person. Some acquaintances whom he met on the
campus invited him to visit their living quarters meanwhile. As he
entered one of the rooms the door stood ajar. Without noticing this he
gave the door a push, resulting in his being drenched to the skin by a
bucket of water that had been balanced over the door and held there by
the position of the door when ajar. He had to return to the hotel to
change his entire apparel. He had not heard of hazing before, and the
incident disgusted him so that he never returned to the academy. He
embarked upon his career as a merchant the very next morning.
* * * * *
In 1863 our family moved to Columbus, Georgia. It was a much larger
place than Talbotton, having a population of about twelve thousand,
offered more opportunities, and, too, my brother Isidor had already
found employment there. With its broad main street and brick residences
it looked like a great city to me.
As in Talbotton, there were no public schools in Columbus, so I was sent
to a private school kept by an Irish master named Flynn, who did not act
on the pedagogical principle, "Spare the rod and spoil the child." By
him I was taught the three R's and began Latin. I also experienced my
first stage-fright at Master Flynn's, when my turn came to speak a piece
before the entire school. In all Southern schools much emphasis was
placed upon elocution. I well remember practicing before a mirror and
reciting under the trees in stentorian voice with dramatic gesture the
great oration put into John Adams's mouth by Daniel Webster, beginning:
"Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish, I give my hand and my
heart to this vote."
After another year this school was discontinued and I was sent to one
kept by a Dr. Dews. He was a teacher trained in the classics and far
less severe than Flynn, more sympathetic and cultured. Under him I
began Virgil and afterwards Horace. It was not customary to teach
English grammar; we derived that from our laborious drilling in Latin
grammar.
There were no public libraries, and few families, other than those of
professional men, had many books. The standard assortment consisted of
the Bible, Josephus, Burns; some had Shakespeare's works. I do not
recall at this period reading any book outside of those we had for study
at school. Boys of my age led an outdoor life, indulging in seasonable
sports which rotated from top-spinning to marbles, to ball-playing,
principally a game called town-ball. We all had shot-guns, so that in
season and out we went bird-hunting and rabbit-hunting.
We went barefooted nine months of the year, both for comfort and
economy. As in Talbotton we lived most economically. We were not poor in
the sense of being needy; we never felt in any way dependent. Our home
was comfortable, wholesome, full of sunshine and good cheer, and always
hospitable to friends. Our wants were few and simple, so we had plenty,
and I felt as independent as any child of the rich.
We were now in the midst of the Civil War, and money, measured in gold,
was worth about five cents per dollar. My brother Nathan seemed to be
affected by this into constant scheming for making pocket money. He was
fifteen years old, and out of school hours helped father in the store;
but he seemed to be in need of more pin-money. He finally hit on a plan
that proved quite lucrative. He collected or bought up pieces of hemp
rope and sold them to a manufacturer. Hemp was very scarce and much
needed. With the proceeds he bought a beautiful bay pony, which he and I
prized more than any possession we have ever had, before or since.
* * * * *
On the 16th of April, 1865, after a feeble skirmish on the part of the
citizen soldiers, mainly superannuated men and schoolboys, Columbus was
captured by General James H. Wilson at the head of a cavalry corps of
fifteen thousand men. The war had practically ended seven days before,
as Lee surrendered on the 9th at Appomattox Court House in Virginia; but
as telegraph and railroad communication had been disrupted, this fact
was not yet known in our part of Georgia. As soon as Wilson's army took
possession of our debilitated city general confusion reigned. Looting
began by the town rabble, led by several drunken Federal soldiers;
cotton warehouses were burned, the contents of which represented the
savings of many, including most of my father's; all horses were seized,
and among them our little pony, which I never saw again, though I still
retain a vivid picture of him in my mind's eye. Frequently since, when I
have met that fine and accomplished old veteran, General Wilson, who is
still among the living, hale and hearty, I have jestingly reproached him
for taking from me the most treasured possession I ever had.
This incident and others served to give me a most vivid impression of
the closing years of the Civil War. Another very vivid impression that
occurred shortly before the beginning of the war clings to my memory.
Robert Toombs, one of Georgia's most conspicuous United States Senators,
was making a speech at the Masonic Temple in Columbus, Georgia. It was a
hot summer day. Toombs was a short, thick, heavy-set man of the
Websterian type, and one of the South's most picturesque orators. After
the election of Lincoln, however, Toombs advocated secession and
resigned from the Senate, was talked of for the Confederate presidency,
did become Confederate Secretary of State, and was later commissioned a
brigadier-general, and commanded with distinction in numerous battles of
the Civil War. During the speech I heard him make, he drew a large white
handkerchief from his pocket with a flourish, and pausing before mopping
his perspiring forehead, he exclaimed:
"The Yankees will not and can not fight! I will guarantee to wipe up
with this handkerchief every drop of blood that is spilt."
Neither he nor the audience foresaw what was coming. The Civil War was a
family affair, yet the hostility it engendered and the misconception it
brought in its train regarding the valor, and even the standards of
civilization, of the enemy, were as extreme and virulent as in a war
between nations of different continents and races. Such are the
brutalizing passions war arouses in banishing from the individual mind
the most elementary ideas of brotherhood.
When the war ended my father had to begin life anew, and because of the
discouraging prospects and conditions of the South he decided to move
North. In the North, too, he could more readily dispose of the remainder
of his cotton, his chief asset, to pay off debts which he owed in New
York and Philadelphia for goods purchased before the war. With the few
thousand dollars remaining after paying these debts, and with good
credit, he thought he could begin some new business in a small way.
Simultaneously with our arrival in Philadelphia my brother Isidor
arrived in New York from Europe, where he had gone two years before as
secretary of a commission to buy supplies for the State of Georgia. The
blockade of the Southern ports became so effective that ships could not
get through, so that he did not succeed in getting over the supplies;
but he made several thousand dollars in the sale of Confederate bonds.
Upon learning in New York that we were in Philadelphia, he immediately
came there to find out my father's plans. He persuaded father that New
York, as the chief market, was preferable to Philadelphia as a secondary
one. Consequently we moved to New York, and father and Isidor, together
with Nathan, planned to establish themselves in the wholesale crockery
business. Isidor, twenty years old, first used part of his fortune to
buy for my mother a high-stoop, three-story brick house at 220 West
Forty-Ninth Street, now long since torn down, but which we occupied for
over eighteen years.
It was fully six months before the new business venture was launched. My
father depended for his part of the capital upon the sale of the
remainder of his cotton, which had been shipped to Liverpool, and this
was not effected until early in 1866. In the intervening months he
visited his creditors in New York to arrange for paying his debts. In
this connection I remember one significant incident: His principal New
York creditor was the dry goods house of George Bliss & Co., to whom he
owed an amount between four and five thousand dollars. (Bliss afterward
became a member of the banking firm of Morton, Bliss & Co.) When he
called regarding the payment of this, Mr. Bliss asked how old he was,
what family he had, and what he intended doing. My father answered that
he was fifty-seven, that he had a wife and four children, and that he
hoped to make a new start in the wholesale crockery business. "I don't
think you are fair to your family and yourself," said Mr. Bliss, "to
deprive yourself of the slender means you tell me you possess by paying
out your available resources. I will compromise with you for less than
the full amount in view of the hardships of the war and your family
obligations."
My father had a very high sense of honor and was always more concerned
in maintaining it beyond possible reproach than in making money. Some
parents forget that they cannot successfully live by one standard
outside and another inside the home, and many never realize that
children are influenced not so much by the preaching as by the true and
real spirit of their parents. My father believed that "a good name is
better than riches," and within the home or without he lived up to that
standard. I clearly remember the impression I received of his integrity
at the time of this Bliss incident, and of a certain feeling of
compunction on the part of his creditor, as though he had expected
something different. Most Southern merchants regarded themselves morally
freed from paying Northern creditors because the Confederate government
had confiscated such debts and compelled the debtors to pay the amounts
to the government. But my father held true to his standard, and I well
remember his parting words to Bliss that day: "I propose to pay my debts
in full and leave to my children a good name even if I should leave them
nothing else."
* * * * *
My brother Isidor, always my guide, philosopher, and friend, now
arranged for my schooling. In my geography textbook was a picture of
Columbia College, and I had the fixed idea that when we came to New York
I wanted to go there. On inquiry we learned that I was too young, for I
was only fourteen and a half, and that I had not the requirements for
admission. So in the autumn of 1865 Isidor had me enter Columbia Grammar
School, then one of the best schools in the city. It was my first
experience in a really first-rate school, and the teaching was so much
more thorough and exact than my previous training had been that it
seemed to me I had to learn everything anew. The tuition fee and the
cost of books was considerable, in view of the modest income of the
family; but my father, economical in all other respects, was liberal
beyond his means where the education of his children was concerned. My
brother, moreover, was desirous that I should have the advantages of the
college training which circumstances, notably the war, had withheld from
him.
I appreciated to the full the privileges I was permitted to enjoy and
studied with all my might. The school regulations required that parents
fill out a blank each week stating, among other things, the number of
hours we studied at home. The average number of hours daily reported
were three or four, and as my record was fully double that, I felt
rather ashamed to give the true number, so I always gave less. The
school was on Fourth Avenue and Twenty-Seventh Street, and our home on
Forty-Ninth Street was near Eighth Avenue. I invariably walked both
ways, saving car fares and at the same time conserving my health, for
aside from a half-hour of gymnastics twice a week in school I had
neither time nor opportunity otherwise to get the exercise my body
required.
Owing to the careless preparation I had received at the schools in the
South, I made a poor showing in spite of my hard work now, though on one
occasion I shone with accidental glory. It was the custom for the
instructor to put the same question to pupil after pupil, and to elevate
the one who gave the correct answer to the head of the class. In this
instance, it so happened that I gave the fortunate answer and thus
qualified for the seat of scholastic eminence. As I sat there enjoying a
near view of the teacher's countenance, I wondered how long I should
remain thus distinguished, and was unable to resist the impulse to cast
an occasional backward glance at the rows of seats in the rear.
At about this time, an elderly gentleman of distinguished appearance
entered the classroom. He was S. F. B. Morse, inventor of the telegraph.
Morse, whose grandson was in my class, knowing the custom and observing
me in the seat of honor, complimented me. He observed that I, like
himself, had a large head in comparison with the body, and remarked that
I must be a bright boy. But I felt embarrassed rather than gratified at
the praise, for I knew, and so did the rest, that I did not deserve it.
I still recall that scene, and see the venerable old man, then
seventy-five years old, with the long white beard that made him look
even older.
When the time came, in the spring of 1867, for our class to go up for
college examination, the Rev. Dr. Bacon, successor as principal of the
school to Charles Anthon, the distinguished classical scholar and editor
of classical works, called the boys of our class before him and gave us
each a blessing with some encouraging words. When my turn came he was
very kind, telling me he knew I had tried hard, but because of my early
training, or lack of it, he feared I might not pass. I saw my chances of
a college education go glimmering. There were, however, still two weeks
before the examinations, and I determined to use those for all they were
worth. I worked night and day, cramming with a vengeance. I felt I could
not expect my father to keep me in school another year when after two
years of preparation I had shown myself so deficient. That thought was
my spur, though in point of fact I am sure both my brother Isidor and my
father, realizing I had done the best I could, would have insisted upon
my taking another year for preparation.
The result of my entrance examinations was more favorable than I could
have hoped. It turned out that I was the only one from our grammar
school class to pass in all subjects without a single condition. It was
luck rather than brilliancy. The professor who examined my classmates in
ancient geography, being the author of the book upon which the
examination was held, was so meticulous that unless the student gave the
answer exactly as in the book he was marked deficient. By the time it
came my turn to be examined another and more generous-minded professor
had taken his place and passed me with the highest mark. The others, who
had all flunked, regarded me, in their own language, as "the lucky dog."
* * * * *
My college course began on October 7, 1867. Here I did not find the
studies hard. I had ample leisure for reading and took full advantage of
the college library, from which we were free to select and take home
whatever books we desired. Then, as now, I cared little for fiction. To
me the literature of facts was more interesting and therefore lighter
reading, and I read much biography and history.
Our class matriculated fifty-two, but dwindled down to thirty-one by
graduation. In the class were Brander Matthews, now professor of
literature at Columbia as well as literary and dramatic critic; Robert
Fulton Cutting, financier and ideal citizen, descendant of an old and
famous New York family, as his name indicates; Stuyvesant Fish, banker,
also of a well-known New York family, whose father, Hamilton Fish, was
Secretary of State in the Grant Cabinet, and whose grandfather and
father both were among Columbia alumni; and Henry Van Rensselaer, who
became a Jesuit father and is now no longer among the living.
At the commemoration of the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the
founding of the college three of us--Robert Fulton Cutting, Brander
Matthews, and myself--received the honorary degree of LL.D. At this
writing, fifty years after graduation, there are but ten of us
remaining.
The most coveted honors in those days were to be had for literary
achievement and class rank. Among the few prizes was one known as the
Alumni Prize, awarded to the most deserving student in the graduating
class. The college board nominated for that honor William Henry Sage,
now our class historian, Joseph Fenelon Vermilye, and myself; and the
class elected Vermilye for the prize.
Athletics had not attained the vogue it has in American universities
to-day, and was particularly absent in our college, confined then to a
city block. Doubtless due to this lack the boys of our class, on the
whole a spirited and boisterous lot, found self-expression in a
disregard for proper decorum in the lecture rooms. There was one period
where this was conspicuously the case. The subject was Evidences of
Christianity. It was compulsory and along denominational lines. It did
not interest many of the boys, and some of those who were not
Episcopalians even resented it; to boot, the professor, Rev. Dr.
McVickar, was a mild-mannered man, entirely unable to maintain
discipline. The result was frequent and various disturbances during the
sessions of his class, which often put the good-natured and
unsophisticated man at his wits' end. He complained to the college
board, and President Barnard took the matter up with some seriousness,
but no real appeasement.
I felt great sympathy for Dr. McVickar, for he was earnest and gentle,
and took much to heart the conduct of the men in his class. Of course,
in common with most of my classmates I strongly favored that the
subject be elective instead of compulsory; yet I realized that, as
colleges were then constituted, the original Columbia being largely an
Episcopalian foundation, there was a legal right, as distinguished from
reason, for the requirement that the course in Evidences of Christianity
be compulsory.
One day when the disturbances became most flagrant, and the poor
professor was really quite helpless, I ventured to point out to him how
he might bring about order. He received my suggestion most favorably, so
I asked him to let me take his chair for a few moments. I made a brief
appeal to the class, reminding them that we were now seniors, and that
there were some, especially those intending to study for the ministry,
who were interested in the subject and prevented from following it by
the boisterous behavior of the rest. I was jeeringly dubbed Professor
Straus, but I went right on. I said I knew there were a number who were
opposed to the study of Evidences of Christianity, and I proposed that
they rise. To those who got up I gave permission to leave the room, and
as I recall it, there were some eight or ten left. Then I turned to Dr.
McVickar and said, "Here is a class you can teach." And the session went
on smoothly enough. Subsequently a petition was drawn up and signed by a
large majority of the class, asking that we be excused from examinations
in this particular subject; but President Barnard replied that the
request could not be entertained.
* * * * *
On the whole my four years at college were full of serious effort and
not altogether free from anxiety. I had a restless ambition to have a
useful career and it seemed difficult to discover for what I was best
fitted. For a while, in those dreamy days, I even believed I might
achieve some measure of success as a poet. I recall with a smile that
the choice for class poet at commencement lay between Brander Matthews,
whom we then knew as James Brander Matthews, and myself. And for some
reason, which posterity will doubtless find even more difficult to
fathom than I have, I was chosen. Matthews had already given evidence of
his literary talents; he contributed much to the college papers, and
wrote humorous poems. However, at our graduation exercises held in the
Academy of Music, Fourteenth Street and Irving Place, the city's largest
auditorium then, my class poem was well received by a capacity audience
of proud parents and sympathetic friends. I had gravely entitled it
"Truth and Error."
A more fervent aspiration held by me in those years was to devote my
life to the nation, and I could conceive no better way of doing so than
to enter the army. One day I saw an item in the press that President
Grant had several appointments to make to the United States Military
Academy. I consulted with Dr. F. A. P. Barnard, president of Columbia,
and he gave me a letter of introduction to Grant, highly commending me
for an appointment. When President Grant came to New York I called on
him. He received me very kindly, but informed me that he had only
something like eight appointments allowed him by law, and he had decided
to give them where possible to the sons of officers who had been killed
in the war; if, however, there were not enough such candidates he would
be glad to give me a chance. I told him I thoroughly agreed that his
decision was so appropriate that I would not even ask to be appointed
under the circumstances.
[Illustration: OSCAR S. STRAUS
At the time of his graduation]
During the second half of my senior year I finally chose the law as
my vocation. I preferred it to a business career because I disliked the
idea of devoting my life to mere money-making, as business appeared to
me then. My outlook was idealistic rather than practical, and to
harmonize it with the workaday world caused me much mental anguish and
struggle, as it does many a young man, even where affluent fortune has
smiled. However, my father and brother had begun to prosper and had no
need for my cooperation unless on my own account I chose to join them.
Besides, I was the youngest and had the benefit of the brotherly
interest and economic protection of Isidor and Nathan, should I need it.
This gave me a feeling of security, and encouraged me to put forth my
best efforts not only to succeed for myself, but to show my appreciation
to them. Where, under moderate circumstances, a family puts forth
cooperative effort in making its way forward, closer family ties result,
with the advantages of stimulating unselfishness and common devotion,
which in turn promote a happiness that members of richer families often
miss because of their more independent relations.
So I prepared to enter Columbia Law School in the fall of 1871.
Meanwhile that summer I took my first vacation since coming to New York.
I went to Wyoming Valley, near Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, where I had a
good time despite the farmer with whom I boarded. Perhaps I had no right
to expect much for the five dollars a week I paid him; but whatever I
expected I know I got less. However, there were fish in the brooks and I
do not recall that I starved. I had spent other summers assisting in
some branch of my father's business, not because I relished work unduly,
but because I regarded it less as labor than as diversion. It was
interesting and useful activity which gave me an understanding of
business that was valuable later in following my chosen profession.