THE CLOCK DEBTS PAID--THE MUSEUM ONCE MORE UNDER BARNUM'S
MANAGEMENT--ENTHUSIASTIC RECEPTION--HIS SPEECH--TWO POEMS.
In 1859, Barnum returned to the United States. During his trip
abroad he had secured many novelties for the Museum, the Albino
Family, Thiodon's Mechanical Theatre, and others.
These afforded him a liberal commission, and he had beside made
considerable money from the Tom Thumb exhibitions and his
lectures.
All this, his wife's income, as well as a large sum derived from
the sale of some of her property, was faithfully devoted to the
one object of their lives--paying off the clock debts.
Mrs. Barnum and her daughter, Pauline, had either boarded in
Bridgeport or lived in a small house in the suburbs during the
entire four years of struggle. The land purchased by Mrs. Barnum
at the assignee's sale in East Bridgeport had increased in value
meanwhile, and they felt justified in borrowing on it, some of
the single lots were sold, and all this money went toward the
discharge of the debts.
At last, in March, 1860, all the clock indebtedness was
extinguished, except $20,000, which Barnum bound himself to take
up within a certain time, his friend James D. Johnson
guaranteeing his bond to that effect.
On the seventeenth day of March, Messrs. Butler and Greenwood
signed an agreement to sell and deliver to Barnum on the
following Saturday their entire good-will and interest in the
Museum collection. This fact was thoroughly circulated, and
blazing posters, placards, and advertisements announced that
"Barnum is on his feet again." It was furthermore stated that the
Museum would be closed for one week, opening March 31st, under
the management and proprietorship of its original owner. It was
also promised that Barnum would address the audience on the night
of closing.
The Museum, decked in its holiday dress of flags and banners, was
crowded to its utmost capacity when Barnum made his appearance.
His reception was an enthusiastic one, cheers and shouts rent the
air, and tears filled the showman's eyes as he thought of this
triumphant conclusion of his four years' struggle.
Recovering himself, he bowed his acknowledgments for the
reception, and addressed the audience as follows:
"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: I should be more or less than human, if I
could meet this unexpected and overwhelming testimonial at your
hands, without the deepest emotion. My own personal connection
with the Museum is now resumed, and I avail myself of the
circumstance to say why it is so. Never did I feel stronger in my
worldly prosperity than in September, 1855. Three months later I
was so deeply embarrassed that I felt certain of nothing, except
the uncertainty of everything. A combination of singular efforts
and circumstances tempted me to put faith in a certain clock
manufacturing company, and I placed my signature to papers which
ultimately broke me down. After nearly five years of hard
struggle to keep my head above water, I have touched bottom at
last, and here to-night I am happy to announce that I have waded
ashore. Every clock debt of which I have any knowledge has been
provided for. Perhaps, after the troubles and turmoils I have
experienced, I should feel no desire to re-engage in the
excitements of business; but a man like myself, less than fifty
years of age, and enjoying robust health, is scarcely old enough
to be embalmed and put in a glass case in the Museum as one of
its million of curiosities. 'It is better to wear out than rust
out.' Besides, if a man of active temperament is not busy, he is
apt to get into mischief. To avoid evil, therefore, and since
business activity is a necessity of my nature, here I am, once
more, in the Museum, and among those with whom I have been so
long and so pleasantly identified. I am confident of a cordial
welcome, and hence feel some claim to your indulgence while I
briefly allude to the means of my present deliverance from utter
financial ruin. Need I say, in the first place, that I am
somewhat indebted to the forbearance of generous creditors. In
the next place, permit me to speak of sympathizing friends, whose
volunteered loans and exertions vastly aided my rescue. When my
day of sorrow came, I first paid or secured every debt I owed of
a personal nature. This done, I felt bound in honor to give up
all of my property that remained toward liquidating my 'clock
debts.' I placed it in the hands of trustees and receivers for
the benefit of all the 'clock' creditors. But at the forced sale
of my Connecticut real estate, there was a purchaser behind the
screen, of whom the world had little knowledge. In the day of my
prosperity I made over to my wife much valuable property,
including the lease of this Museum building--a lease then having
about twenty-two years to run, and enhanced in value to more than
double its original worth. I sold the Museum collection to
Messrs. Greenwood & Butler, subject to my wife's separate
interest in the lease, and she has received more than $80,000
over and above the sums paid to the owners of the building.
Instead of selfishly applying this amount to private purposes, my
family lived with a due regard to economy, and the savings
(strictly belonging to my wife) were devoted to buying in
portions of my estate at the assignees' sales and to purchasing
'clock notes' bearing my indorsements. The Christian name of my
wife is Charity. I may well acknowledge, therefore, that I am not
only a proper 'subject of charity,' but that 'without Charity, I
am nothing.'
"But, ladies and gentlemen, while Charity thus labored in my
behalf, Faith and Hope were not idle. I have been anything but
indolent during the last four years. Driven from pillar to post,
and annoyed beyond description by all sorts of legal claims and
writs, I was perusing protests and summonses by day, and dreaming
of clocks run down by night. My head was ever whizzing with
dislocated cog-wheels and broken main-springs; my whole mind (and
my credit) was running upon tick, and everything pressing on me
like a dead weight.
"In this state of affairs I felt that I was of no use on this
side of the Atlantic, so, giving the pendulum a swing, and
seizing time by the forelock, I went to Europe. There I furtively
pulled the wires of several exhibitions, among which that of Tom
Thumb may be mentioned for example. I managed a variety of
musical and commercial speculations in Great Britain, Germany,
and Holland. These enterprises, together with the net profits of
my public lectures, enabled me to remit large sums to
confidential agents for the purchase of my obligations. In this
manner, I quietly extinguished, little by little, every dollar of
my clock liabilities. I could not have achieved this difficult
feat, however, without the able assistance of enthusiastic
friends--and among the chief of them let me gratefully
acknowledge the invaluable services of Mr. James D. Johnson, a
gentleman of wealth, in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Other gentlemen
have been generous with me. Some have loaned me large sums
without security, and have placed me under obligations which must
ever command my honest gratitude "but Mr. Johnson has been a
'friend in deed,' for he has been truly a 'friend in need.'
"You must not infer, from what I have said, that I have
completely recovered from the stunning blow to which I was
subjected four years ago. I have lost more in the way of tens of
thousands, yes, hundreds of thousands, than I care to remember. A
valuable portion of my real estate in Connecticut, however, has
been preserved, and as I feel all the ardor of twenty years ago,
and the prospect here is so flattering, my heart is animated with
the hope of ultimately, by enterprise and activity, obliterating
unpleasant reminiscences, and retrieving the losses of the past.
Experience, too, has taught me not only that, even in the matter
of money, 'enough is as good as a feast,' but that there are, in
this world, some things vastly better than the Almighty Dollar!
Possibly I may contemplate, at times, the painful day when I said
'Othello's occupation's gone'; but I shall the more frequently
cherish the memory of this moment, when I am permitted to
announce that Richard's himself again.'
"Many people have wondered that a man considered so acute as
myself should have been deluded into embarrassments like mine,
and not a few have declared, in short meter, that 'Barnum was a
fool.' I can only reply that I never made pretensions to the
sharpness of a pawnbroker, and I hope I shall never so entirely
lose confidence in human nature as to consider every man a scamp
by instinct, or a rogue by necessity. 'It is better to be
deceived sometimes, than to distrust always,' says Lord Bacon,
and I agree with him.
"Experience is said to be a hard schoolmaster, but I should be
sorry to feel that this great lesson in adversity has not brought
forth fruits of some value. I needed the discipline this
tribulation has given me, and I really feel, after all, that
this, like many other apparent evils, was only a blessing in
disguise. Indeed, I may mention that the very clock factory which
I built in Bridgeport for the purpose of bringing hundreds of
workmen to that city, has been purchased and quadrupled in size
by the Wheeler & Wilson Sewing-Machine Company, and is now filled
with intelligent New England mechanics, whose families add two
thousand to the population, and who are doing a great work in
building up and beautifying that flourishing city. So that the
same concern which prostrated me seems destined as a most
important agent toward my recuperation. I am certain that the
popular sympathy has been with me from the beginning; and this,
together with a consciousness of rectitude, is more than an
offset to all the vicissitudes to which I have been subjected.
"In conclusion, I beg to assure you and the public that my chief
pleasure, while health and strength are spared me, will be to
cater for your and their healthy amusement and instruction. In
future, such capabilities as I possess will be devoted to the
maintenance of this Museum as a popular place of family resort,
in which all that is novel and interesting shall be gathered from
the four quarters of the globe, and which ladies and children may
visit at all times unattended, without danger of encountering
anything of an objectionable nature. The dramas introduced in the
Lecture Room will never contain a profane expression or a vulgar
allusion; on the contrary, their tendency will always be to
encourage virtue and frown upon vice.
"I have established connections in Europe, which will enable me
to produce here a succession of interesting novelties otherwise
inaccessible. Although I shall be personally present much of the
time, and hope to meet many of my old acquaintances, as well as
to form many new ones, I am sure you will be glad to learn that I
have re-secured the services of one of the late proprietors, and
the active manager of this Museum, Mr. John Greenwood, Jr. As he
is a modest gentleman, who would be the last to praise himself,
allow me to add that he is one to whose successful qualities as a
caterer for the popular entertainments, the crowds that have
often filled this building may well bear testimony. But, more
than this, he is the unobtrusive one to whose integrity,
diligence, and devotion I owe much of my present position of
self-congratulation. Mr. Greenwood will hereafter act as
assistant manager, while his late co-partner, Mr. Butler, has
engaged in another branch of business. Once more, thanking you
all for your kind welcome, I bid you, till the re-opening, 'an
affectionate adieu.' "
The speech was received with wild enthusiasm, and after the
re-opening of the Museum the number of visitors was at once
almost doubled.
Among the many newspaper congratulations he received, none gave
Barnum more pleasure than a poem from his old admirer on the
Boston Saturday Evening Gazette.
ANOTHER WORD FOR BARNUM.
Barnum, your hand! The struggle o'er,
You face the world and ask no favor;
You stand where you have stood before,
The old salt hasn't lost its savor.
You now can laugh with friends, at foes'
Ne'er heeding Mrs. Grundy's tattle;
You've dealt and taken sturdy blows,
Regardless of the rabble's prattle.
Not yours the heart to harbor ill
'Gainst those who've dealt in trivial jesting;
You pass them with the same good will
Erst shown when they their wit were testing.
You're the same Barnum that we knew,
You're good for years, still fit for labor,
Be as of old, be bold and true,
Honest as man, as friend, as neighbor.
At about this period, the following poem was published in a
Pottsville, Pa., paper, and copied by many journals of the-day:
A HEALTH TO BARNUM.
Companions! fill your glasses round
And drink a health to one
Who has few coming after him,
To do as he has done;
Who made a fortune for himself,
Made fortunes, too, for many,
Yet wronged no bosom of a sigh,
No pocket of a penny.
Come! shout a gallant chorus,
And make the glasses ring,
Here's health and luck to Barnum!
The Exhibition King.
Who lured the Swedish Nightingale
To Western woods to come?
Who prosperous and happy made
The life of little Thumb?
Who oped Amusement's golden door
So cheaply to the crowd,
And taught Morality to smile
On all HIS stage allowed?
Come! shout a gallant chorus,
Until the glasses ring--
Here's health and luck to Barnum!
The Exhibition King.
And when the sad reverses came,
As come they may to all,
Who stood a Hero, bold and true,
Amid his fortune's fall?
Who to the utmost yielded up
What Honor could not keep,
Then took the field of life again
With courage calm and deep?
Come! shout a gallant chorus,
Until the glasses dance--
Here's health and luck to Barnum,
The Napoleon of Finance
Yet, no--OUR hero would not look
With smiles on such a cup;
Throw out the wine--with water clear,
Fill the pure crystal up
Then rise, and greet with deep respect,
The courage he has shown,
And drink to him who well deserves
A seat on Fortune's throne.
Here's health and luck to Barnum!
An ELBA he has seen,
And never may his map of life
Display a ST HELENE!
It is of interest to observe that the phrase "Napoleon of
Finance," which has in recent years been applied to several Wall
Street speculators, was first coined in honorable description of
Phineas T. Barnum, because of his honesty as well as his signal
success.