I do not value fortune. The love of labor is my sheet-anchor. I
work that I may forget, and forgetting, I am happy.
--_Stephen Girard_
[Illustration: STEPHEN GIRARD]
When we make a census of the sensible, and count the competent, we can
not leave out the name of William Penn. He was the founder of the City
of Philadelphia, and of the great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and gave
name and fame to both.
In this respect of being founded by an individual, Philadelphia, the
City of Brotherly Love, and the State of Pennsylvania, are unique and
peculiar in all the annals of American history.
Yet Philadelphia has no monument to Penn, save the hazy figure of a
dumpy nobody surmounted by an enormous hat, all lost in the incense of
commerce upon the topmost pinnacle of the City Hall.
If Philadelphia has been sky-piloted by her orthodox Witherspoons and
Albertsons, by her Converses and Conwells, and if they have taught her
to love her enemies and then hold balances true by hating her friends,
let Clio so record, for history is no longer a lie agreed upon. In her
magnificent park and in her public squares Philadelphia has done honor
in bronze and marble to Columbus, Humboldt, Schubert, Goethe, Schiller,
Garibaldi and Joan of Arc. But "Mad Anthony Wayne," and that fearless
fighting youth, Decatur, are absolutely forgotten. Doctor Benjamin
Rush, patriot, the near and dear friend of Franklin, and the man who
welcomed Thomas Paine to Pennsylvania and gave him a desk where he might
ply his pen and write the pamphlet, "Common Sense," sleeps in an unknown
grave. You will look in vain for effigies of Edgar Allan Poe, who was
once a Philadelphia editor; of Edwin Forrest, who, lionlike, trod her
boards; of Rittenhouse, mapping the stars; of Doctor Kane, facing Arctic
ice and Northern night; of Doctor Evans, who filed and filled the teeth
of royalty and made dentists popular; of Bartram, Gross, or Leidy.
Fulton lived here, yet only the searcher in dusty, musty tomes knows it.
Benjamin West, who founded England's Academy of Painting, is honored in
Westminster Abbey; but Harrisburg, too busy in her great game of grab
and graft, knows not his name. Robert Morris, who was rewarded for his
life of patriotic service by two years in a debtors' jail, is still in a
cell, the key of which is lost--and Sully, Peale, Taylor, Walter and
Fitch mingle their dust with his.
Yet all this might be forgiven on the plea that where so many names of
the strong and powerful bid for recognition, a good way to avoid
jealousies, is to ignore them all. So speaks proud and pious
Philadelphia--snug, smug, prosperous, priggish and pedantic
Philadelphia. But how about these five supremely great names--William
Penn, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, Stephen Girard and Walt Whitman!
Oh! ye Friends, innocent of friendship, will ye forever try to smother
these by your silence, simply because they failed to do theological
goose-step on your order, as your bum-beadles marked time with their
staves?
Oh! ye cities and nations, cherish, I pray you, the names of your heroes
in business, art, finance and poetry, for only by them and through them
shall the future know you. Have a care, ye cities! for the treatment
that ye accord to these, living, and to their memories, dead, is but the
telltale record of your own heart and brain!
* * * * *
Benjamin Franklin founded the Philadelphia Public Library, the
Philadelphia Hospital, the Philadelphia Orphan Asylum and the University
of Pennsylvania.
Franklin was also much interested in good roads, the building of
canals--steam-railroads were then, of course, a dream unguessed.
Girard got his philanthropic impetus from Franklin. Girard had watched
the progress of the University of Pennsylvania, and he had become
convinced that it fell short of doing the good it might do. It shot too
high.
Franklin had a beautiful contempt for Harvard. He called it a social
promotion plan, and thereby got the lasting enmity of John Adams and his
son, John Quincy Adams, and also of John Hancock.
Franklin had hoped to make the University of Pennsylvania a different
school. But after his death it followed in exactly the Harvard lines. It
fitted prosperous youth for the professions, but it left the orphan and
the outcast to struggle with the demons of darkness, discarded and
forgotten. Girard founded his college with the idea of helping the
helpless. Thomas Jefferson, also, had impressed Girard greatly. Girard
once made a trip to Monticello; and he spent two days at the University
of Virginia. This was really remarkable, for time with Girard was a very
precious commodity.
Thomas Jefferson was the man who introduced classic architecture into
America. All of those great white pillars that front the mansions of
Virginia, and in fact of the whole South, had their germ in the brain of
Jefferson, who reveled in all that was Greek. Jefferson was a composite
of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, and if Socrates was not the first
Jeffersonian Democrat, then who was?
Socrates dwelt on the rights and virtues of the "demos"--the Common
People. Jefferson uses the expression again and again, and was the one
man to popularize the word "Democrat." When Jefferson, wearing his suit
of butternut homespun, rode horseback up to the Washington Capitol and
tied his horse and walked over to the office of the Chief Justice and
took the oath of office as President of the United States his action was
essentially Socratic.
Girard got his ideals both of architecture and of education from
Jefferson.
Girard was too busy to do much original investigating, for he was a very
rich man--so he did the next best thing, and the thing that all wise,
busy men do: he picked a few authors and banked on them.
Girard loved Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine. And
one reason why he was drawn to them was because they all spoke French,
and he had a high regard for the French people. Franklin and Jefferson
were each sent on various important diplomatic missions to France. Paine
was a member of the French Assembly, and Girard never ceased to regret
that Paine was saved from the guillotine by that happy accident of the
death-messenger chalking the inside of his cell-door instead of the
outside. "If they had only cut off his head, he then would have been
recorded in American schoolbooks as the Honorable Thomas Paine,
assistant savior of his country, instead of being execrated as Tom
Paine, the infidel," said Girard.
In the time of Girard, the names of Franklin, Jefferson and Paine were
reviled, renounced and denounced by good society; and it was in
defending these men that Girard brought down upon himself the contumely
that endures--in attenuation, at least--even unto this day.
Let these facts stand: Franklin taught Girard the philosophy of business
and fixed in his mind the philanthropic bias.
Jefferson taught Girard the excellence of the "demos," and at the same
time gave him an unforgetable glimpse of Greek architecture.
Paine taught Girard the iniquity and folly of a dogmatic religion: the
religion that was so sure it was right, and so certain that all others
were wrong, that it would, if it could, force humanity at point of the
sword to accept its standards.
Franklin and Paine were citizens of Philadelphia, and Jefferson spent
many months there. The pavements that had echoed to their tread were
daily pressed by the feet of Girard. Their thoughts were his. And when
pestilence settled on the city like a shadow, and death had marked the
doorposts of more than half the homes in the city with the sign of
silence, Girard did not absolve himself by drawing a check and sending
it to a committee by mail. Not he! He asked himself, "What would
Franklin have done under these conditions?" And he answered the question
by going to the pesthouse, doing for the stricken, the dying and the
dead what the pitying Christ would have done had He been on earth.
Girard believed in humanity; he believed in men as did Franklin,
Jefferson and Paine, and as did that other great citizen of Philadelphia
who, too, was willing to give his life in the hospitals that men might
live--Walt Whitman.
No one ever called Walt Whitman a financier. Some have said that Stephen
Girard was nothing else. In any event, Girard and Whitman, between them,
hold averages true. And they both believed in and loved humanity. And
here is a fact: when we make up the composite man--the perfect
man--taking our human material from American history, we can not omit
from our formula Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine,
Stephen Girard and Walt Whitman.
* * * * *
Stephen Girard was born at Bordeaux, France, in Seventeen Hundred Fifty.
He died at Philadelphia in Eighteen Hundred Thirty-one.
Immediately after his death there was printed a book which purported to
be his biography. It was the work of a bank-clerk who had been
discharged by Girard. This man had been close enough to his employer to
lend plausibility to much that he had to say, and as the author called
himself Girard's private secretary, people with prejudices plus pointed
to the printed page as authority. The volume served to fill the popular
demand for pishmince. It was written with exactly the same intent that
Cheetham, who wrote his "Life of Thomas Paine," brought to bear. The
desire was to damn the subject for all time. Besides that, it was a
great business stroke--calumny was made to pay dividends. To libel the
dead is not, in the eyes of the law, a crime.
No such book as this "Life of Girard" could ever have been circulated
about a living man. "Once upon a time an ass kicked a lion, but the lion
was dead."
Yet this libelous production was reprinted as late as Eighteen Hundred
Ninety. Cheetham's book was quoted as an authority on Thomas Paine until
the year Nineteen Hundred, when Moncure D. Conway's exhaustive "Life"
made the pious prevaricators absurd.
From being a bitter "infidel," a hater of humanity, grossly ignorant and
wholly indifferent to the decencies, we now view Girard as a lonely and
pathetic figure, living out his long life in untiring industry, always
honest, direct, frank, handicapped by physical defects, wistful in his
longing for love, helpless to express what he felt, with a heart that
went out to children in a great welling desire to give them what Fate
had withheld from him.
Stephen Girard's parents were lowly and obscure people. They were
Catholics. His father was a sailor and fisherman. Fear, hate,
superstition, ignorance, ruled the household. When the father had money
it went for strong drink, or to the priest. Probably it would have been
as well if the priest had gotten it all. The mother went out as servant
and worked by the day for her more fortunate neighbors. The children
cared for one another, if the word "care" can be used to express a
condition of neglect and indifference.
It might be pleasant to show, if possible, that the mother of Stephen
Girard had certain tender, womanly qualities, but the fact is that no
such qualities were ever manifested. If there was ever any soft
sentiment in her character, the fond father of his flock had kicked it
out of her. That she was usually able to hold her own in fair fight was
the one redeeming memory that the son held concerning her.
Stephen was the eldest of the brood. He attended the parochial school
and learned to read. His playmates called him by a French term
meaning "Twisted." He was eight years of age before he realized that
the names his mother called him by, were of contempt and not of
endearment--"Wall-Eye" and "Mud-Sucker"--literally the vocabulary of a
fishwife. Then he knew for the first time that his eyes were not like
those of other children--that one eye had a bluish cast in it and turned
inward. That night he cried himself to sleep thinking over his dire
misfortune.
At school when he read he closed one eye, and this made the children
laugh. So much did their taunts prey upon him that he ran away from
school to escape their gibes.
One of the Friars Gray caught him; whipped him before the whole school;
put a dunce-cap on his head, and stood him on a high chair. Then his
humiliation seemed complete. He prayed for death. At home when he tried
to tell his mother about his trouble she laughed, and boxed his ears for
being a "cry-baby brat."
Back in this boy's ancestry, somewhere, there must have been a stream of
gentle blood. He was a song-bird in a cuckoo's nest. When the military
band played, his spirit was so moved that he shed tears. But when his
mother died, and her body was placed in a new board coffin made by a
neighbor who worked in the shipyard, he admired the coffin, but could
not cry even when the priest pinched him and called him hard-hearted. He
could not cry, even with his twisted eye. His mother, as a lovable
being, had gone out of his life, even before she died. He could only
think what a beautiful coffin she had and what a great man it was who
made it. And this man who made the coffin gave him a penny--perhaps
because the boy so appreciated his handiwork.
Stephen, unconsciously, won him on the side of art.
It's a terrible thing to kill love in the heart of a child. That popular
belief that we are "born in sin and conceived in iniquity," Girard once
said was true in his case, at least.
Yet so wondrous are the works of God, the hate and brutality visited
upon their child went into the making of his strong and self-reliant
character. He never said, "My mother's religion is good enough for me."
He despised her religion, and that of the Friars Gray who punished boys
to make them good. His mind turned inward--he became silent, secretive,
self-centered, and his repulsive exterior served him well as a tough
husk to hide his finer emotions.
In a few months--or was it a few weeks--after his mother's death, the
father married again. The stepmother was no improvement on the mother.
She had lofty ideas of discipline and being "minded." No doubt that
little Stephen, crooked in eyes, crooked in body, short and swart, with
brown, bare legs, was stubborn and wilful. He looked the part all right.
His brown, bare legs were a temptation for the stepmother's willow
switch. He decided to relieve everybody of the temptation to switch his
legs by running away to sea and taking his brown, bare legs with him.
There was a ship at the docks about to sail for the West Indies. He
could secrete himself among the bales and barrels, and once the ship was
out of port he would come out and take chances on being accepted as
cabin-boy. They could do no more than throw him overboard, anyway!
He told his little sisters of his intention. They cried, but he didn't.
He hadn't cried since he was eight years old, and his cheerful
biographer says he never shed a tear afterward, and I guess that is so.
At two o'clock in the morning, he whispered good-by to his little
sleeping sisters. He did not kiss them--he never kissed anybody in his
whole life, his biographer says, and I guess that may be so, too. He
stole downstairs and out into the moonlight. The dock was only a quarter
of a mile away. The ship was to sail at daylight, on the turn of the
tide. There was much commotion going on around the boat, battening down
hatches and doing the last few necessary things before braving the
reeling deep.
Little Stephen was watching his chance to get aboard. He was going as a
stowaway. A man came up to him. It was the captain, and before the lad
could escape the man said, "Here, I want a cabin-boy--will you go?"
The boy thanked God that it was night, so the captain could not see his
crooked eye, and gasped, "Yes--yes!"
The cook was making coffee in the galley for the stevedores, who had
just finished loading the ship. The captain took the boy by the hand and
leading him up the plank to the galley told the cook to give him a cup
of coffee and a biscuit.
The ship pushed off and hoisted sail just at daylight, on the turn of
the tide.
The tide, too, had turned for Stephen Girard.
* * * * *
A very little observation will show that physical defects, when backed
up by mental worth, transform themselves into "beauty-spots." To be
sure, no one was ever so bold as to speak of Girard's blemishes as
beauty-spots, but the fact is that his homely face and ungraceful body
were strong factors in making him a favorite of fortune. Handsome is
that handsome does. Disadvantages are often advantages--they serve as
stimulus and bring out the best.
Young Girard had long arms and short legs, and could climb fast and
high. And he could see more with his one eye than most men could with
two. He expected no favor on account of his family or his good looks,
and so made himself necessary to the captain of the craft as a matter of
self-preservation.
Not all sea-captains are brutal, nor do all sailors talk in a hoarse
guttural, shift their quids, hitch their trousers, and preface their
remarks with, "Shiver my timbers."
That first captain with whom Stephen Girard sailed was
young--twenty-six, a mere youth, with a first mate twice his years. He
was mild-mannered, gentle-voiced and owned a copy of Voltaire's
"Philosophical Dictionary." His name is lost to us; even the name of his
ship has foundered in the fog; but that he was young, gentle, and read
Voltaire, are facts recorded in the crooked and twisted handwriting of
Stephen Girard, facts which even his blackguard biographer admitted.
The new cabin-boy was astonished that one so young could be captain of a
ship; he was also astonished that a person who gave orders in a gentle
voice could have them executed. Later, he learned that the men whose
orders are always obeyed do not talk loudly nor in guttural. This first
boyish captain taught Girard a splendid lesson--to moderate both manner
and voice and be effective.
Of that first voyage, about all we know is that the boy slept on a pile
of gunny-sacks; that the captain let him read from the "Philosophical
Dictionary"; that he polished the bright work until it served as a
mirror; that the captain smiled his approval, and that the boy, short
and swart, with bullet head, followed him with one eye and worshiped him
as deity.
Men do not succeed by chance. Chance may toss you into a position of
power, but if you do not possess capacity, you can never hold the place.
Young Girard gravitated from the position of cabin-boy to clerk.
From this to mate came by easy stages, and so much as a matter of course
that it isn't worth while to mention how.
By the law of France no man under twenty-five could be captain of a
ship, but when Girard was twenty-two we find a shipowner falsifying the
record and putting the boy down as twenty-five, on the obliging oath of
the boy's father, who we hope was duly paid for his pains.
At twenty-four, Captain Stephen Girard sailed his sloop, "L'Amiable
Louise," around Sandy Hook and up New York Bay. Ship-captains then were
merchants, with power to sell, trade and buy.
The venture was a success, and young Girard took the liberty of picking
up a cargo and sailing for New Orleans--his knowledge of French being a
valuable asset for that particular destination.
Matters were prosperous, and Girard was twenty-six, just the age of that
heroic captain under whose care he first set sail, and the age of the
Corsican when he conquered Italy.
Girard had ceased to wonder about boys braving waves and going upon the
stormy sea in ships.
It was in July, Seventeen Hundred Seventy-six,--call it July
Fourth--that Captain Stephen Girard was skirting the coast of the
Atlantic, feeling his way through a fog toward New York. He was not sure
of his course and was sailing by dead-reckoning.
Suddenly the fog lifted. The sun stood out, a great golden ball in the
sky. The young captain swung his glass along the horizon and with his
one good eye saw a sail--it was bearing down upon him.
It was coming closer.
In an hour it was a mile away. He realized that he was the objective
point.
It was a British cruiser, and he realized that he was to be forced upon
the beach or captured.
Girard was not a praying man, but he prayed now for a friendly cove or
bay, or the mouth of a river. The fog rolled away to the west, the
shore-line showed sharp and clear--and there a half-mile away was the
inviting mouth of Chesapeake Bay. At least Girard thought it was, but it
proved to be the mouth of the Delaware. Girard crowded on all sail--the
cruiser did the same.
Night settled down.
Before morning Girard's little craft was safe under the frowning forts
of the Delaware, and the cruiser had turned back seeking fresh prey.
* * * * *
On one of his trips to the West Indies, the ship of which Stephen Girard
was mate stopped at the Isle of Martinique.
The captain and mate went ashore, and were invited to dine at the house
of a merchant and planter up on the hillside overlooking the sea. The
sugar with which the ship was loaded belonged to this planter, hence the
courtesies to the seafaring men. Of that seemingly uneventful day one
incident stood out in the mind of Girard to the day of his death. It
seems the merchant and planter had a niece who lived in his household.
This girl sat at the table next to Girard. She was only a child, about
twelve years of age. But women mature young in that climate, and her
presence caused the little first mate to lose all appetite. However,
nothing worse happened than the spilling of a dish of soup in his lap
when the girl tried to pass the plate to him, which was surely more
polite than to spill it in hers.
After dinner the young lady accompanied the party to the wharf. Going
down the hill she talked a good deal, but Girard could only say it was a
fine day and looked as if there was going to be a storm.
The girl was tall, angular and strong. She climbed the rigging to the
lookout, and then was scolded by her uncle, who was really proud of her
and chuckled at her performance. Her features were rather coarse, but
her lustrous eyes and bubbling vitality caused the one sound peeper of
Girard to follow her in awe and reverence.
She came into the cabin and looked at his books; this pleased Girard. He
asked her if she could read, and she loftily wrote her name for him,
thus: Marie Josephine Rose Tascher de la Pagerie. She handed him the
slip of paper and remarked, "You could never remember my name, so I
write it out for you like this."