Mr. Croly was in his twenty-seventh year when I first knew him, but as
yet had made no mark in journalism. He had not found his place in it.
He was employed as City Editor of the New York _Herald_--a position
which had not then developed the importance which attaches to it
to-day--and his duties consisted mainly of making out the "slate" for
the staff of reporters, and doing such reportorial work as it was the
province and habit of the City Editor to perform. This afforded little
scope for a man of Mr. Croly's latent power; and his dissatisfaction
and desire to find a new field was the cause of our going West within
three years after our marriage and starting a daily paper in a Western
town. Had the town been larger the story would have been different. As
it was, we spent our money, not without result; for Mr. Croly
discovered that his forte was not execution, but direction, and that
his fertility of brain only needed a sufficiently wide field to
develop powers capable of greater expansion.
He was the most utterly destitute of the mechanical or "doing" faculty
of any man I ever saw, and never used his own hands if he could
possibly help it. But ideas flowed freely upon all subjects in which
he was interested, and he distributed them as freely, knowing that the
reservoir though forever emptied was always full. This amazing
fertility was in some respects a detriment, for it led him into too
many projects, and made him careless whom he enriched, while his
dislike of the mechanism of his work made profit for others at his
expense. I know no other journalist in New York City, during my own
journalistic career of thirty-three years, who has made so many and
such diverse publications, or put so much originality and force into
the detail of his work. The _World_, and particularly the Sunday
_World_, which was the foundation of the Sunday newspaper, the New
York illustrated _Graphic_, the _Round Table_, and other journals were
built up by his energy, and owed their most striking and successful
features to his suggestiveness. He was particularly unselfish in his
estimate of other men and his appreciation of their work. He was as
proud of discovering the good qualities of a man on his staff as a
miner of finding a nugget, and never wearied of expatiating upon them.
Indeed, he did this more than once to his own disadvantage, thus
furnishing an instrument to treachery.
I am sure the "boys" of the old _World_ staff, St. Clair McKelway,
A.C. Wheeler ("Nym Crinkle"), T.E. Wilson, H.G. Crickmore, Montgomery
Schuyler, E.C. Stedman, and others, will look back with a little sigh
for the "old times," and for the generous recognition they received
from one who was never at a loss for a subject, or for the treatment
of a topic, and was always a good comrade and heart and soul
sympathizer in their work, its trials and its achievements.
A chief quality with Mr. Croly was faithfulness to the interests he
served. This was put to some severe tests; but they could not be
called temptations, for disloyalty did not present itself as a
possibility to him. His faults were those of a nervous temperament,
combined with great intellectual force and a strength of feeling which
in some directions and under certain circumstances became prejudice.
He could never, in any case, be made to run a machine. He hated the
obvious way of saying or doing a thing. He cultivated the "unexpected"
almost to a fault, and always gave a touch of originality even to the
commonplace. His pessimistic and unhopeful temperament was doubtless
due to inherent and hereditary bodily weakness, and to the lack of
muscular cultivation in his youth, which might have modified inherent
tendencies. His mental lack was form not force; and he had enough
original elemental ideas to have supplied a dozen men. In that respect
he was superior to every other journalist I have ever known--not
excepting Horace Greeley, Henry J. Raymond and Frederick Hudson.
But the time has gone by for ideas. It is not that they are a drug in
the market, but that there is no market for them. To-day is the
apotheosis of the commonplace, the iteration of the cries of the
street, the gabble of the sidewalk, and the gossip of the tea-table;
neither originality nor force is needed for such journalism as this,
and they may therefore well rest to the music of the pines.
One of the strongest influences in Mr. Croly's life was his
acquaintance with the Positivist movement in England, and his interest
in the works of Auguste Comte. Up to this time he had experienced none
of the undoubted benefit which accrues to every man and woman from the
possession of an ideal standard, and settled convictions which inspire
or take the place of religious aspiration. Positivism did all this for
Mr. Croly, so far as anything could, and he became one of its most
eager and devoted adherents.
Mr. T.B. Wakeman, himself one of the earliest and most able leaders,
credits Mr. Croly with being the "father" of the movement in this
country, and in fact he was the first to make known that any
representative of Positivist ideas existed in America. He invited and
paid for the first lecture ever delivered in New York City upon the
subject; it was given by Mr. Edgar, an unknown "apostle," in a little
hall (De Garmo) on the corner of 14th street and Fifth avenue, on a
certain Sunday some twenty or more years ago. The result of the
lecture was that a dozen people formed a little society and engaged
Mr. Edgar to give them a series of Sunday talks on the practical
bearings of the religion of humanity. Mr. Edgar was not in himself an
interesting exponent of his ideas, but his message inculcated duty,
love to man, a life open and free from concealments, the possession of
personal gifts or acquired property as trusts to be used for the good
of others, and the recognition of value in all that has been and is.
These ideas became more or less an actuating principle. They brought
together a circle of men and women of the best quality, who endeavored
to live up to their standard, and by work and daily life, rather than
by active propagandism, to crystallize opinions into a vital force.
For several years the regular meetings were held at our house, the
"festivals" of the year being often given at the residences of other
members of the society--Mr. T.B. Wakeman, or Mr. Courtlandt Palmer.
There is still an "old guard" left, of as good, brave, and unselfish
men and women as ever walked on this earth, and though some differed
from. Mr. Croly, and from each other on some points, yet they all knew
and acknowledged that he brought to them the beginning of the best
inspiration of their lives.
Mr. Croly's latest expressed wish was that all the usual forms should
be disregarded in the event of his death, except the simplest service
and the presence of flowers. "If any one thinks enough of me," he
said, "to bring me flowers, let them; but have no elaborate mourning,
and bury me close to the earth, near the pines, and facing the sea."
The legend he left for his grave-stone was: "I meant well, tried a
little, failed much." But this will not be the verdict of those who
came under the influence of his strong and many-sided personality.