testify that in our efforts to teach our people to put brains and skill
and dignity into the common occupations of life, we have not only the
active help of all classes of citizens in the little town of Tuskegee,
but of the best people of the South. Said our present Governor, in his
recent message to the legislature: ‘Every dollar given to the cause of
education becomes invested capital that cannot be lost or destroyed,
but will continue to pay dividends from one generation to another.’
These are the words, this is the spirit, that governs the actions of the
present Governor of Alabama, and I am sure that no one can more fitly
welcome our distinguished guest to the State than Governor Johnston.”
Mr. Washington is a star lyceum lecturer when he can afford the time,
but he devotes nearly his entire time and gives all his earnings to the
institute, and is able through his persuasive powers to secure from rich
contributors far more money than the largest pay audiences would yield.
Still, many of our first-class lecture courses are able to secure him,
and invariably with handsome profit.
PREACHERS
[Illustration:
_COPYRIGHT BY ROCKWOOD N.Y._
HENRY WARD BEECHER]
Henry Ward Beecher was my nearest and dearest friend for eleven years.
Excepting only Arizona and New Mexico, there was not a State or
Territory in the Union in which we had not travelled together. In
sunshine and in storm, by night, by day, by every conceivable mode of
travel, in special Pullman cars, the regular passenger trains, mixed
trains, freight trains, on steamboats and rowboats, by stage and on the
backs of mules, I had journeyed at his side. I was near him in the days
of 1875-77, at the time of his deepest sorrow, when he was reviled and
spit upon; I saw the majestic courage with which he passed through
gaping crowds at railroad stations, and at the entrances of hotels and
public halls--a courage which I had not conceived mere humanity could
possess. I have looked upon him when I felt that I would give my poor
life a thousand times could that sacrifice alleviate the mental
sufferings that I knew he was undergoing. There were times when it
seemed as though he must give way; times when I was the only friend
within his reach, and he sought refuge near and with me. It was thus
that he came to love and trust me, and that my love and veneration for
him became so strong that to lose him left me like a ship without a helm
or a commander.
Especially during those three darkest years was he the subject of my sad
admiration. Often have I seen him on our entering a strange town hooted
at by a swarming crowd and greeted with indecent salutations. On such
occasions he would pass on, seemingly unmoved, to his hotel, and remain
there until the hour for his public appearance; then, confronted by
great throngs, he would lift up his voice, always for humanity and
godliness. He always saw and seized the opportunity to speak to the
whole great people, and after he had spoken, the assemblages would
linger to draw near, seemingly to touch the hem of his garments, to
greet the man whom they had so lately despised. How changed I have often
seen the public attitude toward him when he left a town to which he had
come but the day before! Thus he went from city to city, making friends
and advocates of all who heard or met him, and thus for eleven years was
it my delight to accompany him in his work of re-establishing himself in
that love and confidence of the people from which unprincipled enemies
and an often merciless press had attempted to thrust him out forever.
I thank God that it was my privilege to attend his fortunes to the end,
and to see and to hear, on both sides of the continent and on both sides
of the ocean, demonstrations of love and confidence that came at length
in so unsullied and vast a stream from the church, his friends, his
country, and his race, toward him who had brought many thousands of them
much nearer than they had been to the common Master of us all.
John Bright told me that Henry Ward Beecher was the greatest orator who
spoke the English tongue. When Beecher came to Plymouth Church, in 1847,
he was thirty-four years of age, strong and rugged in health,
unconventional in manners, but never ungentlemanly. In his free, brusque
address and direct approach he was different from more polished
clergymen, and no man ever lived more directly under the public gaze
than did Mr. Beecher for forty years; his life was seen and read by all
men,--his public life,--but few have known of his domestic gentleness
and invariable sweetness of nature. He was the centre of loving hearts.
Strong and powerful as he knew he was, to those he loved he was as
gentle as a mother. As to enmities, he had none, and he hardly knew he
had enemies. He was the most joyous, radiantly happy man that ever
lived.
I remember saying to him one day after I had seen him walking arm in arm
with a man who had injured him, who had been abusing him: “I think you
are carrying the doctrine of forgiveness too far.”
He said: “Pond, can we go further than to bless those who curse us, and
pray for those who despitefully use us? Ah, there is so little known of
the spirit of Christ in the world that when a man is trying feebly and
afar off to follow Him, even Christians do not understand it.”
No answer could be made to such reasoning, and friends knew and learned
from him what was meant by being a Christian. His theory was that as a
son of God and in unison with his Father, he had a right to happiness,
and this right he would allow no man or set of men to take from him.
He had, as I can bear witness, the power of abstraction, by which he
could put away all thoughts of care and trouble, and rise to a higher
atmosphere where the heavens were blue and unclouded, while his eyes and
ears seemed closed to all lower considerations. To those nearest to him
at these times this power seemed almost superhuman.
From my earliest recollection, in our log cabin on the frontier of
Wisconsin, the name of Dr. Lyman Beecher was a household word. One
day--I think it was in the summer of 1846--my mother was reading a paper
that some friend had sent from the East containing a sermon by Henry
Ward Beecher, a young son of Lyman Beecher, pastor of a new church in
Indianapolis, in which the young man had dared to denounce slavery.
Garrison, Thurlow Weed, Phillips, Beecher, Theodore Parker, Finney, were
names as familiar to me in boyhood as those of my own relatives. Then
came the Kansas conflict, Captain John Brown, and Sharp’s rifles (known
as Beecher Bibles).
Educated, trained, and a participant in those early conflicts in Kansas,
as I was, with the name of Beecher as a beacon light, one may perhaps be
able to realize my feelings of reverence and awe for this great man when
I met him for the first time in Brooklyn, in his own house, in April,
1875. I never had experienced such a feeling before. My lips trembled,
my tongue seemed paralyzed, my throat clogged, my eyes flooded. I was
helpless; I was joyous; so filled to overflowing with something that I
must have made a fool of myself. Holding fast to my hand, Mr. Beecher
walked over to the sofa in the parlor, set me down, and began
questioning me about James Redpath, who had owned the Redpath Lyceum
Bureau, in Boston, and for whom Mr. Beecher had lectured. I told him
that Mr. Redpath had gone out of the business and had returned to
journalism in New York, and that Mr. Hathaway and I had bought out the
concern; that a number of engagements for him to lecture had been
indefinitely postponed the season before, with a promise on his (Mr.
Beecher’s) part that new dates should be given the management as soon as
he himself could forecast his own time. Nearly a year had passed, and
these people were waiting.
To make a long story short, the time was arranged for, and new dates for
New England, to begin Monday, April 18, 1875, in New London, Conn. This
was the first lecture given by Mr. Beecher under my auspices. From that
time until February, 1887, three weeks before his death, Mr. Beecher and
I travelled together nearly 300,000 miles. He lectured 1261 times for
me.
On many of our lecture tours we were favored with Mrs. Beecher’s
companionship. Mr. and Mrs. Beecher were both good travellers--never the
slightest trouble. They carried their own hand baggage, and would allow
no outsider to touch it. One little journey we made together, a sort of
“vacation excursion.” Mr. Beecher delivered seventy-five lectures on
that little circuit of the continent, preached sixteen sermons, many of
them in Plymouth churches, and travelled 17,000 miles.
I cannot undertake to give a connected, chronological account of even a
part of my wonderful experiences with Mr. Beecher. I have simply
selected here and there an episode which will serve to illustrate some
characteristic of the man I knew.
We had returned from Mr. Beecher’s first visit to Nashville and Memphis,
in May, 1879. It had been a short tour of unusual interest to him; he
had never before been south of Mason and Dixon’s line, except for a
single night in Richmond, Va., in 1877. I accompanied him on the tour,
and to his first Friday evening prayer-meeting in Plymouth Church after
our return, for I was quite certain his people were to be treated to
some interesting comments on our journey. I asked Mr. Ellingwood (Mr.
Beecher’s stenographer) to take down the “talk” and write it out for me
privately, which he did, and here it is--the first time it has ever seen
the light of day:
[Illustration]
* * * * *
NOTE.--This reproduction is from the last photograph Mr. Beecher ever
had taken. It was made by Elliot & Fry in London, September, 1886. As he
started to leave the gallery, he said to me: “Now, sir, I am ready to be
led to the next block for slaughter.” He was looking me squarely in the
eye as he spoke. The photographer said: “Stand right where you are, just
a moment, Mr. Beecher.” He shifted his apparatus and caught this
picture.
J. B. POND.
* * * * *
“After the war, for the first time in my life it seemed to me that it
was possible for me to visit the Southern portion of my native land.
There had always been a sting in the thought that I, a citizen of the
United States, who if need be would lay down his life for his country,
could not cross Mason and Dixon’s line with any certainty of coming
back, and that my name was a name to conjure with and bring up evil
spirits. It had always hurt my pride of patriotism that I, a loyal and
freedom-loving man, could not go where I pleased on this continent, that
I could not go into any of thirteen or fourteen of these United States.
I had feared that I should die without the sight.
“I did not know how the change was to be brought about, but I believed
that there would be emancipation; that the conscience of mankind would
slowly unfold and work in secret ways toward liberty, and that in the
remote future free labor, applied to the raising of cotton and sugar,
would compete in the market with slave labor and lead to abolition. That
was my theory; but the Lord cut it short in righteousness; He severed
the Gordian knot with the sword; this country was made free from end to
end; and ever since I have said within myself, ‘Before I die I hope to
tread the soil of every State in this Union.’ And now I have actually
been away down South.
“I went first to Nashville--a beautiful city. The Fisk University, one
of the marvels of the world, is there. It is really a very remarkable
building, and it is very nobly manned. The whole of it has been sung
into existence by men and women that had been in slavery. And, do you
know, they look upon you at this church as being the author of their
success. For you will recollect that the ‘Jubilee Singers’ came here
impoverished and discouraged, hoping that they might raise a little
money by singing. They were hardly able to meet their expenses in
getting here. In this lecture-room, on a Friday evening, they were asked
to sing some of their songs; and you said, after hearing them, ‘Those
songs must be heard in the great church’; and when Sunday came they sang
there; the fire was kindled, and invitations came in to them to sing in
other places. Dr. Cuyler opened his church for them, and other churches
were opened. Then they began to have calls from New England; and finally
they went abroad. The result was that they earned over $200,000 singing
through America, England, Germany, and France; and they have built with
their breath that great collegiate institution, where five hundred of
their kind are being instructed.
“Talk about old Rome, her achievements and her cathedrals. They are
grand; but I will point to the rearing of the Fisk University by
ex-slaves and their singing, and say, ‘It is the most wonderful thing
that has yet been done in architecture.’
“I went the next day to Memphis. I shall never be President of the
United States--I have made up my mind to that; but I had a taste of
what it would be to be President, for they gave me twenty-one guns when
I went into the town. I thought to myself, ‘Am I on earth? and am I in
Memphis, on the Mississippi River, clear down in the southwest corner of
the State of Tennessee, and only twelve miles from the State of
Mississippi? And are these twenty-one guns for the pastor of Plymouth
Church? Well, things have turned around pretty lively!’ I do not know
how many people saw that spectacle; I only know that I saw it.
“I was taken about the city by the editor of the Memphis _Appeal_, one
of the most stirring of the Southern papers. I could not ask for a more
kind reception than I received at his hands. It was about six o’clock in
the evening when I arrived, and the lecture was at eight. As there was
no lecture-room large enough to hold the people that wanted to gather,
Agricultural Hall was taken, and 4,000 seats were put into it, and out
from a gallery, looking down upon the people, I delivered my lecture,
and I delivered it just as plump and as fair as I ever did anywhere
else. I received just as cordial and respectful a hearing as ever I had,
and I never desire to speak to a more thoughtful, cultivated, courteous,
sympathetic, and respectful audience than I had in Memphis. Yet they
knew who I was, and they very well knew what my sentiments had been and
were.
“I bless God that the day has come when a true heart, with kind and
sympathetic feelings, will give a man entrance into every State of this
Union to discuss any question that it is necessary to discuss before the
people of the United States.”
It was on January 23, 1877, that I had arranged with W. T. Powell of
Richmond, Va., for Mr. Beecher to lecture in that city. Mr. Powell was
manager of the Richmond Theatre, and was to pay $400 for the lecture. It
was to be on Tuesday evening, and as Mr. Beecher lectured Monday evening
in Baltimore, we had arranged to take the sleeper immediately after the
Baltimore lecture and be in Richmond early the following morning.
As we went aboard the sleeper at Baltimore a telegram was put into my
hands which read as follows:
* * * * *
“Richmond, Va., January 22, 1877.
“To J. B. Pond, Baltimore, Md.
“No use coming. Beecher will not be allowed to speak in Richmond. No
tickets sold.
“W. T. POWELL.”
* * * * *
I at once replied: “Have started. Mr. Beecher will be on hand to keep
his contract.” I did not mention the incident to Mr. Beecher.
Just before our arrival in Richmond the following morning, Mr. Powell
came to me on the train and told me that the feeling against Mr. Beecher
was so bitter that it would not do for him to attempt to speak; that not
a ticket had been sold, and he dared not advertise.
Mr. Beecher and I went direct to the Exchange Hotel, and as he
registered our names I saw at once that there was a general disposition,
from the hotel clerk down to the negro porter and the bell-boy, to guy
us.
We went down to breakfast, and the waiter and head waiter who seated us
were disgustingly uncivil. Mr. Beecher made no remarks. We ate our
breakfast, and as we passed out of the dining-room into a long hall we
met a pretty little golden-haired child. Mr. Beecher, in his
characteristic manner, stopped and began talking to and caressing the
child, taking some candy from his pocket (he never was without bait for
children), offered it, and was just getting into the little girl’s favor
when the mother came along and snatched her away, as though she were
rescuing her from a fierce beast of prey.
Mr. Beecher walked quietly to his room. I left instructions at the hotel
office that no one was to knock at his door. Mr. Powell called and
assured me that it would be all Mr. Beecher’s life was worth to attempt
to speak in Richmond. I told him that I would let him off that night
from his contract if he would rent me the theatre. He consented, and I
at once got out some bills and dodgers and advertised Mr. Beecher to
speak that evening. The Legislature was in session, and passed an
informal vote that none of them would go near the theatre. The Tobacco
Board did the same.
Evening arrived, and I could get no one to attend the door, so I did it
myself. Mr. Powell applied for an extra force of a dozen police, which
was of no account, as they were wholly in sympathy with the crowd.
The Rev. Dr. Grey, the principal Presbyterian minister, and the head of
a leading institution of learning in Richmond, wrote the chief of police
that though he distinctly wished it to be understood that he did not
indorse or favor Mr. Beecher’s speaking in Richmond, he sincerely hoped
that the threat to egg Mr. Beecher would not be carried into effect. As
each member of the Legislature and the Tobacco Board knew that none of
the other members would attend the lecture, each embraced the
opportunity to go; and there, to their surprise, they all met. It was a
crowd of men who made the best of the joke they had played upon
themselves. They were hilarious and disrespectful.
The time came for me to go after Mr. Beecher. I had no door-tender, but
the theatre was full of men, and my pockets were stuffed with dollars,
so I left the door to take care of itself. I found him ready. While in
the carriage on our way from the hotel to the theatre not a word passed
between us, and during the day neither of us had spoken of the
situation. When we arrived at the stage door of the theatre the dozen
policemen were keeping the crowd back. As we alighted from the carriage
at the door, a general yell went up. We met Mr. Powell on the stage. He
called me to one side and said:
“Don’t you introduce Mr. Beecher. The gallery is full of eggs. You will
have trouble.”
I stepped into the waiting-room. Mr. Beecher said: “Go ahead; I am
ready.”
I walked on the stage, and he followed. As we sat down I saw the theatre
full of men only. The crowd was disposed to be uncivil; canes began to
rake the baluster of the balcony railing, and feet to pound the floor,
and in less than a minute a yell fairly shook the theatre. Mr. Beecher
signaled me to proceed.
I stood a moment for them to get quiet, and then introduced him to his
first Virginian audience.
Mr. Beecher was to speak on “Hard Times,” but had decided to change the
subject to the “Ministry of Wealth.” As he arose and stepped toward the
footlights, another yell went up. He stood unmoved, and waited for some
time; finally a lull came, and he began. He said that there was a
natural law that brains and capital controlled the commercial world, and
it could not be changed even by the Virginia Legislature, which opened
with prayer and closed with the benediction. The Legislature were all
there, and the public, like any other public, were ready to accept any
good-natured drive at the Legislature.
It was not many minutes before the audience was in full sympathy with
the speaker, and for two and a half hours Mr. Beecher addressed that
crowd, swaying them with his mighty eloquence and telling them such
truths as they never before had listened to. His peroration was a
tribute to the Commonwealth of Virginia, the Mother of Presidents, her
history and her people, and closed with a brief retrospect: how she had
prospered when she set her mark high and bred her sons for Presidents
and position, but how changed when she came to breed men for the market;
how manfully and nobly her worthy sons had kissed the sod, and how sad
had been her lot. But in all her prosperity and adversity God had not
forsaken her. Industry brought prosperity, and soon, very soon, Virginia
was to be one of the brightest stars in the constellation of States.
Such applause and cheers as he got during that address I have never
before or since heard.
He stepped off the stage and into the carriage, and we were in our rooms
at the hotel before half the audience could get out of the theatre.
After getting to his room Mr. Beecher threw himself back in a large
chair in front of a blazing wood fire and laughingly said:
“Don’t you think we have captured Richmond?”
He had no more than spoken when the door opened and a crowd of men came
rushing in. My first impression was that it was a mob, as it did not
seem that there had been time for them to come from the theatre; but I
was mistaken.
The foremost was a tall man with a slouch hat. (They were all in slouch
hats.) He said:
“Mr. Beecher, this is our ‘Leftenant’-Governor. We have come to thank
you for that great speech. This is our member for So-and-So, and this is
Judge Harris,” and so on, introducing a score or more of prominent
Virginians.
“Mr. Beecher, we want you to stay and speak for us to-morrow evening. We
want our women to hear you,” etc.
Mr. Beecher was in his most happy humor. He shook the Virginians warmly
by the hand. He told them that he was announced for Washington the
following evening, and his time was all booked for the season. They
offered to raise $500 if he would remain over. The following morning at
seven o’clock many Virginians were at the station to see him off. All
the morning papers contained extensive synopses of the lecture and
favorable notices.
After that first appearance Mr. Beecher spoke twice in Richmond to the
choicest audiences that the old capital could turn out. I consider this
the greatest lecture I ever knew Mr. Beecher to give.
Mr. Beecher had preached in Davenport, Iowa, Sunday, March 4th, and
lectured Monday evening. The crowds had been enormous on both occasions.
People had come great distances from all directions.
While on the train from Iowa City, the morning of the 6th, a number of
people in the same car were returning home from Davenport. Directly
behind Mr. Beecher sat two very charming, refined ladies, dressed in
black. I was seated directly opposite them, and noticed that they were
amusing themselves by trying to gather up a number of Mr. Beecher’s
long, white, silky hairs which had fallen on the velvet collar of his
overcoat and about his shoulders. The ladies were proceeding so
delicately and accumulating so fine a lock of his hair that it attracted
the attention of a number of passengers, who seemed so intently
interested in their success as to cause absolute silence all over the
car. Mr. Beecher seemed interested in a book and unaware of what was
going on about him. All of a sudden he quietly turned his head toward
me. I noticed the twinkle in his eye, and at once knew something was
coming.
“Pond, are there flies in this car?” he asked, as he quietly raised his
hand to his shoulder as if to brush away a fly.
The spectators at once burst into a general laugh. The two ladies were,
for a moment, apparently paralyzed. Finally one of them plucked up
courage to say:
“Mr. Beecher, we have been all the way to Davenport to hear you preach
and lecture. We are Brooklyn people. We saw some loose hairs on your
shoulders, and could not resist the temptation to secure them as
souvenirs. We hope you will pardon us.”
“Well,” said Mr. Beecher, “my wife never could have been so careful as
that.”
Everybody in the car heard the conversation, and there was general
merriment.
These ladies lived at Muscatine. They had once been members of Plymouth
Church. Mr. Beecher entertained them until we reached the junction,
where they left us for their home. He had given them all the late news
from Plymouth and Brooklyn.
At Burlington, a week later, they came to the lecture with their
husbands and families. They also came to the lecture in Washington,
Iowa, and Monmouth, Ill. We never made a Western tour that they did not
appear in some of the audiences.