"It is time for us to awake and be do. ^,. It is not only for ourselves that we are to write history. You know the history of this country. * * * Ton are the South. You and your like have made the history of the South. All that we want is that when you pass away, your children and your childrens children shall not, when they go to the records of the time, find that you were traitors to your country; that you were determined to establish a republic based upon human slavery or to destroy the Union; but that you went out of the Union inspired by as pure a purpose as ever animated a people." From an Address by THOMAS NELSOX PAGE to the Confederate Veterans of Virinia.
"History knows not, and never will know in all the course of time, any more superb figure than the private soldier of the Confederacy. He stands forever as one of the noblest types the world has ever known of the patriotic soldier." Baltimore Sitn.
A LITERARY FRAUD UNMASKED.
HOW IT FALSIFIES HISTORY
TRADUCES THE SOUTH
HOff IT IS IMPOSED UPON THE PUBLIC.
" History, poetry, romance, art, public opinion, have been most unjust to the South. By perverse reiteration, its annals, its acts, its inner feelings, its purposes, have been grossly misrepresented. * * * History, as written, if accepted in future years, will consign the South to infamy.* J. L. M. CURRY, in '-'The Southern States of the American Uniin" (Gk P. Putnams Sons, Xew York.)
EXTEKED ACCORDING TO ACT OF CONGRESS, ix THE YEAR 1895, BY T. K. OGLESBY,
Ix THE OFFICE OF THE LIBRARIAN* OF COXGUESS. AT "\VASHIXGTOX.
[Our readers remember the presence here a few months ago of a body of boomers from Chicago for a piratical edition of the encyclopedia Britannica. They also remember the part taken by the Houston Post ia the game the pirates played upon our people, and how Dick Dowling camp exposed and denounced the slanders of the South in the book which the Chi cago pirates and the Post were engaged in circulating, and how the pirates shortly thereafter speedily departed from Texas. They left here and never stopped till they got to Georgia, where, it seems, they thought they could safely and successfully resume the game they had played here so successfully, with the aid of the Post. They were badly mistaken. The Georgia Veterans have heard from Texas, and have appointed a committee to investigate the Britannica, and Mr. T. K. Oglesby, a Georgian now in Houston, who is known to be pretty fa miliar with the Britannica and the peculiar methods of its pirate boomers, has been written to for information on the subject. He has responded in a letter published in to-days Herald, which will be followed by other letters, all of which will be pub lished in the Herald, and will be of interest to all who like to see fraud exposed, and who want to know just what sort of a book the so-called Britannica is.] Houston (Texas) Daily Herald, Xov. 3, 1S94.
LETTER NO. I.
HOUSTON, TEX., Nov. 1., 94: DEAR SIR: I have your letter informing me that the Confederate Veterans of Atlanta have appointed a committee to consider the communication of Dick Dowling Camp touching the edition of the Encyclope dia Britannica (so-called) now being circulated in this country by a firm styled The Werner Company, of Chicago, and reqnesting me to give any information I can as to the book that will be of service to the committee in its investigation. The book is what is known as the R. S. Peale reprint of the Britannica, and was sold by Peale himself until he sold out to The Werner Company.
It will afford me pleasure to render the committee any service I can in the interest of truth and in checking the dissemination of literature that falsifies his tory and sla.nders the people of the South, as does the book under consideration. And I take especial pleasure in complying with your request because I have many friends in Atlanta and Georgia, where the book is -now being offered for sale, whom I should regret to see inveigled in the meshes of the tricksters who are im posing it upon the public. Many people here, are floundering in those meshes now, who would sell the book for a great deal less than it cost them.
I can give the committee much information that will be of service to them in the way of
UNMASKING THE HUGE FRAUD
called "the new up-to-date edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica." The in
formation that I can give them is much more, indeed, than can be conveniently or
appropriately embraced within the limits of one letter, and I shall, therefore, con
vey it in a series of communications or articles through the Houston Daily Herald,
with a view, first, to their serving, in this form, the immediate purpose of the
committee; and secondly, to their publication and circulation in pamphlet form
(with other matter that may not conveniently be embodied in these letters) for the
benefit of the public generally, and especially for the benefit of the particular com
munity in which that work may hereafter be offered for sale; though my opinion
is that, after I shall have completed the purposed publication and it has been
generally circulated, there will be no more efforts made to sell the "new up-to-date
edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica* in the South and that no man, North or
South, who may read the exposure of its untruthfulness an^who wants a trust
worthy book of reference, will buy it.
^fSjTvEfl
4
A LITERARY FRAUD UNMASKED.
SOLD UNDER FALSE REPRESENTATIONS.
Another object that I have in view is the putting together, in convenient shape for the use of many who ordered the book, the published representations that induced them to order it. Here those representations were made through and by the Houslon Post, and it was unquestionably because of their having been so made that many of the readers of that paper bought or gave their orders for the work. I shall show how far these representations fell short of no, how far they went beyond the truth, and this being shown, it is clear that no one misled by them into ordering the book is morally bound to take it or keep it and pay for it. And I think it will be difficult to find a jury in this country that will hold a man legally bqund to pay for a piece of property sold under such flagrant misrepresentation as that under which this book was sold to the unsuspecting people of Texas who bought it, especially after its blackening slanders of themselves and their ances tors have been read to the jury. In fact, one of the foremost lawyers of this State has given it as his opinion that one who has already paid for the book has good ground for the recovery of the purchase money, on account of failure of consid eration.
NOT A FACSIMILE OF THE GENUINE BRITANNICA.
One thing that I shall especially show is the falseness of the representation
that this Encyclopedia is a facsimile of the ninth Edinburgh edition of the Brit-
annica. Many who bought this Chicago book did so because they were assured
that it is a facsimile of the genuine Britannica, revised to date. I shall show
that it is not a facsimile and is not revised as represented.
Yours very truly,
T. K. OGLESBY.
LETTER NO. II.
JUDGE LOWNDES CALHOUN, GEN. CLEMENT A. EVANS, REV. T. P. CLEVELAND and others, committee of Fukon County Camp, U. C. V., Atlanta, Georgia. GEN TLEMEN: The veterans of Dick Dowling Camp, from whom you have recently received a communication, are gratified to learn of the appointment of )Tour com mittee, as a preliminary to proper action by the Fulton County Camp in regard to the subject matter of that communication, to wit: The falsification of history in the work called the new up-to-date edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, re cently circulated in this State and now being circulated in other sections of the country by the Werner Company of Chicago.
You have been correctly informed as to the exposure here of the slanderous misrepresentation of the South in that publication. The exposure was made through the columns of :he Houston Daily Herald, which editorially denounced the work as a falsifier of history,
A VILIFIER OF THE SOUTH,
and a fraud, a sham, and a swindle; and declared that no one who had been in duced to order it by the representations made of it by its agents and through the newspapers that were paid to publish, in their own names, false representations of it, could be held bound, either in law or morals, to take it or keep it and pay for it.
The Herald quoted some of its grossest and most offensive and injurious slan ders of the South, and said:
"It is enough to make the sacred dust of the Souths hero dead stir with in dignant life when those born and reared upon her own soil strike hands, for lucres sake, with her maligners in the work of circulating such statements as the truth of history!"
A LITERARY FRAUD UNMASKED.
&
THE CONFEDERATE VETERANS DENOUNCE IT/
Then the United Confederate Veterans of Houston (Dick DowlingCamp) held a special meeting at which they unanimously adopted resolutions denouncing the work for its utterly false, slanderous and misleading statements about the South, which, the} said, "show unmistakable evidence of having been inspired by a com bination of malice and ignorance," and they addeu: * v\Ve would impress upon all who want the truth concerning American history the necessity of seeking it else where than in the pages of that encyclopedia. Especially do we urge Southern parents not to point their children to it for that truth/
GENERAL LEES REsvLUil.JX.
I should state here, too, that in April last the Convention of United Confed erate Veterans at Birmingham adopted a resolution ;n these words:
4 We cannot impress too strongly upon :he prore <.-( the South the importance of guarding their children against the effecT s (-i literature in any foim that distorts the truth of history, either by misrepresentation or suppression, and in this con nection we would-especially direct attention to the gross violation both by asser tion and suppression of that truth, serious!} affecting the reputation of the South ern people, by tiie work called the Encyclopedia Britannica, now being cir culated in this country."
This resolution was introduced by General Stephen D. Lee.
WHY IT SHOULD BE REJECTED.
While this book should, unquestionably, be rejected by the people of the South because of the false light the degraded position in which it places them before the world, the methods by which 11 is sold should be sternly condemned by all who believe in honest dealing with the public by publishers if books, by all who believe in honest dealing between man and man. They are not. the methods by which books are sold by publishers of such standing as Houghton, Mifiiin : Co., G. P. Putnams Sons, D. Appleton & Co., Charles Scribners Sons, Harper & Brothers, the J. B. Lippincott Co., and others of like standing with these. The methods to which the publishers or managers of this book resort in order to sell it are disreputable, un truthful and deceptive, and should "be frowned down by the American people. In resorting to them those publishers or managers practice fraud upon the public fraud upon every one induced by those methods to buy the book.
*
HOW THEY GET NEWSPAPER ENDORSEMENTS.
Briefly and plainly, in each locality where they operate they pay a newspaper to publish false representations .of the book, and to publish them in the name of the paper itself, so that the public shall understand that the book is endorsed by the paper that the paper vouches for the truthfulness of their representations. In other words, they pay the paper to sign its name or permit its name to be signed to a false representation, by which the public is grossly deceived and many people are induced to buy what, without such representation, they would not have bought. For their ally in this plan they select, where practicable, the leading paper of the place where they are operating, and it is almost always practicable. They well know that the sale of the book depends urlon keeping trie public from being informed of its true character, hence, when circumstances seem to make it advisa ble, they do not hesitate to pay all the papers in the place such sums as may be necessary to close their columns against such information. For a money consid eration these papers agree to publish nothing that would interfere with the scheme of The Werner Company for imposing the book upon the public as a facsimile of
6
A LITERARY FRAUD UNMASKED.
the genuine Britannica and as an "absolutely reliable, up-to-date authority on all
subjects," and they at the same time agree not to accept advertisements of any
other encyclopedia. Having thus muzzled the press, the piratical publishers find
little or no difficulty in operating their fraudulent scheme. It is a shrewd
scheme, worthy of its Chicago concocters; but it is deeply to be deplored that
they have found ready allies among Southern newspapers.
In my next I will give some specimens cjf the representations made to the
people of Texas about this book, and in succeeding communications will contrast
those representations with the facts as revealed by an examination of it. My pur
pose is to inform you and through you the public at large thoroughly and indis
putably, of the fraudulent and slanderous character, the unveracity and inade-
quateness of this Chicago pubiicatfon.
Yours very truly,
Houston, Tex., Nov. 5, 1804:.
T. K. OGLESBV.
LETTER NO. III.
One of the tricks of the piratical Chicago publishers of the so-called up-todate Britannica is the telegram trick, which is played in this way: After a com munity has been dosed and bombarded with their flamboyant advertising until it has become evident that some new device is needed for the whetting of jaded pub lic interest and catching a few more of the uninformed, innocent and credulous natives, a telegram appears in the paper which they have hired to help them work their game on the public a telegram, purporting to have come directly from the Werner Company at Chicago, instructing the paper to withdraw the offer of intro ductory rates to purchasers of the Encyclopedia after a certain date in the near future. That date arrives and is past and the paper announces its deep regret that it cannot furnish the book at the introductory rates to the many who delayed the sending of their orcjers till after the date named It even mentions one or two instances wheie "introductory rates" were refused to persons who were "just a few minutes too late" with their orders.
Matters are allowed to stand in this shape for a short while, the paper in the meantime condoling with the unfortunate people who failed to avail themselves of the unparalleled offer that had been made them, when another telegram appears, permitting the renewal of that offer for a short time, or an announcement of per mission to renew it is made by the paper, which goes on to inform its readers what strenuous exertions it made to obtain the permission-exertions-that extended even to the sending to Chicago of a special representative of the paper to specially intercede with the publishers to give its readers one more chance to get the great, new, up-to-date Britannica at introductory rates, and those readers are then urged by all the power of Chicago English to avail themselves of the opportunity thus generous!} re-offered to them, for it is liable to be withdrawn at any moment, and then they will never, never, never have such a chance again. Such, at any rate, was the way and such the terms, in substance, in which the game was worked here by the Chicago sharpers and their newspaper ally, the Houston Post.
Now, the telegrams (so-called) were simply fakes simply a part of the elab orately and cunningly concocted scheme for duping the people. They appeared in papers published in different places and far apart, and yet they were in the same handwriting in all the papers. And it has been ascertained that the "unpar alleled introductory rates" which the Post was so proud of having obtained for its readers ranged from $12,00 to 20.00 higher than the rates for which the work was sold in the north. Do publishers who practice such trickery as this deserve the patronage or respect of the public? Can you imagine either of the firms named in my preceding letter resorting to fake telegrams and the other devices prac ticed by this Chicago company in order to sell books?
A LITERARY FRAUD UNMASKED.
7
Unless this exposure prevents it. or some other scheme, to be substituted for
it, has been evolved from the fertile brains of the Chicago tricksters, you will prob
ably soon have an opportunity of reading a "facsimile" of the fake telegram that
did duty for them in Houston. And when you do see it, if you have any friends
who are in danger of being moved by the powerful "last chance" exhortations that
accompany it, or follow hard after it, say to them that there are several car-loads
of the great new up-to-date Britannica that, before the exposure by the Herald
and the action of Dick Bowling Camp, were unloaded on the people of Texas, -which
they will gladly ship to their brethren in Georgia at rates far lower than the "unpar
alleled introductory rates" now offered them and the Texans they will pay the
freight.
The detailing of the telegram trick in this letter compels me to postpone till
the next one the representations by which the people here were duped into buying
the book.
Yours very truly,
T. K. OGLESEY.
Houston, Texas. Nov. 6, 1894.
LETTER NO. IV.
A hundred, or seventy-five, or fifty dollars is a considerable sum to pay for.a book, and when either of these amounts is invested in a book the person so in vesting it ought to get just what he was told he would get for it. A book, like any other article or piece of property offered for sale, ought to come up to the rep resentation made of it by the seller the representation that induced the purchaser to buy. If the owner of the book or other piece of property, or the agent of that owner, sells it by representing it to be what it is not, fraud has been perpetrated against the person induced by the false representation to buy the property, and he has the moral and legal right to refuse to pay for it or to recover his money if he has paid for it.
SUBSCRIBERS NOT BOUND TO PAY FOR IT.
I shall give in this letter the representations made by The Werner Company and by the Houston Post in regard to the encyclopedia published by that Compa ny, and shall then show that they were and are false representations. This being shown, it follows as a matter of course that no person induced by these representa tions to order the book is legally or morally bound to pay for it, and if he has paid for it he is legally and morally entitled to a recovery of his money. Many who ordered the work have discovered the fraud that was practiced on them, and have refused to take it or to pay for it, and many more will do so when they have read the exposure of the fraud in these letters. Some who have already made several payments on the book prefer to lose the amounts paid rather than to con tinue payments and keep the book in their houses, now that they have discovered its true character and the deception practiced on themselves to get their orders. If I were one of these I would bring suit against the publishers or sellers of the book for the mone\r they had fraudulent!}* obtained from ine. I should most as suredly do so, and I would read to and place in the hands of the jury the following
REPRESENTATIONS OF THE BOOK.
"This is the only Complete and Unabridged Edition of this Great Work" (the Encyclopedia Britannica) "in existence." Houston Daily Potf, March 8,1894.
"We will guarantee this work to be precisely as represented in every way." Post, March 9.
"Too much emphasis cannot be given to the fact that the edition of the En cyclopedia Britannica which we are offering to our readers upon such liberal terms, is a reproduction of the great Edinburgh work, with all its wealth of information,
8
A LITERARY FRAUD UNMASKED.
beauty of illustration, and completeness of finish." Post, March 12. (There are
blind men who would know that this is not so, by merely feeling of a volume of
each edition the Edinburgh and the Chicago edition. Any one who compares the
two editions together will see at a, glance how egregiously and preposterously un
true this statement is, and yet, on March 22, the Post went even further than this
and represented the Chicago book as being superior to the Edinburgh work,
"both from a literary* and mechanical standpointi ")
"The student, teacher, or busy man who turns to the pages of this work may
rest content that what he finds therein is the latest and best, no matter what topic
is dealt with. It is accurate. It is reliable." Post, March 14.
"Thirty thousand dollars has been expended in adding to the Ninth English
Edition . Nothing eliminated" Post, March 15.
"Do not forget that the great New Up To Date Edition is complete in 28 large
quarto volumes, revised to date, the revision consisting wholly in adding to the
original and not a line is taken away." Post, March 18, 19.
"Then, too, the information may be relied upon. It is absolute authority on
all subject^."
"It is the supreme authority to which appeal can be made * * * for a
limited time offered to Post subscribers upon the easy payments of 10 cents a day."
(I have not at hand the exact dates of these two statements, but think they were
between the last date above named and the 22d of April.)
"The complete set, as offered by the Post, contains not only all that is in the
Edinburgh latest edition, but much more; three volumes of American additions
and revisions, bringing all the subjects embraced in the entire work up to the pres
ent time." Post, April 21.
"You can get it for 10 cents a day, the famous Encyclopedia Britannica. The
ninth (the latest) edition, brought down to date. Everything complete, not a
word left out. Twenty-eight elegant volumes, on fine quality paper, and beau-
tifullv bound, and everything as elegant as can be desired for the finest library.*
Post, April 28, 30.
"Upon whatever subject, what is said may be depended upon as being the
latest and most accurate knowledge available." Post, June 5.
"An exact fac-simile copy of the ninth edition of the Encyclopedia Britan
nica. " Publisher's Preface.
Such is the book as it was. and is represented. In succeeding letters I shall
show you the book as it is. I will give you the facts versus the repre
sentations, just as I would give them to the jury before whom I had brought suit
to recover the money out of which I had been defrauded by those representations.
Yours Very Truly,
T. K. OGLESBY.
Houston, Texas, Nov., 7, 1894.-
LETTER XO. V.
In accordance with my promise in the Herald of yesterday, I proceed with the statement of the results of my examination of the work called the Encyclopedia Brit annica, published by The Werner Company, of Chicago, and sold here through the agency of the Houston Post, and now being offered for sale to the people of Georgia.
It is a pleasure to me to
UNMASK AND EXPOSE THE IMPOSTURE,
the fraud which has been palmed off upon this community and the people of Texas by that company of piratical publishers, and which they are now seeking to impose upon the people of Georgia. I derive much satisfaction from the knowledge that their fraudulent designs against the pockets of the people of Georgia will be thwarted
A LITERARY FRAUD UNMASKED.
by the circulation in that State of the letters I am now addressing to you. There should be no place left in the South whereon they could rest the soles of their feet as long as they are engaged in the prosecution of those designs. I mean that pub lishers who resort to the methods practiced by that company in the publication and sale of this so-called facsimile of the Encyclopedia Britannica publishers who, in order to sell their goods, deliberately and unscrupulously misrepresent them to the public, as that company has misrepresented this Encyclopedia are not entitled to, and should not receive the patronage nor the respectful treatment of the people of the South, but should be made to feel the lack of both in such a manner as to com pel them to abandon her soil.
THE HOUSTON POST*S ANNOUNCEMENT EXTRAORDINARY.
The Houston Post, on July ist, announced that the "great Werner Company" was going to establish "a great publishing house in the South/ and the prospect made The Post feel so good that it devoted over five columns to the laudation of the. "New Up-To-Date Britannica" and the "great Werner Company."
"The acquisition of such a large publishing concern as thev are taking steps to establish here, means much to the South", said the Post.
"It gives us assurance that we are at last to have a great publishing house in full sympathy with us, and determined to provide books in which even a rabid ob jector could find no flaw, and which should be especially suited for the oft needed reference of all classes," said the Pc-st.
"The value to the South of the location here of so great a publishing house, pledged to secure for the South complete vindication from aspersion, with ample cap ital to secure for the section just what she wants in.books, and with the skill to pro vide what is wanted,j is too ^sjrreat to be licgi*htly turned aside. " said the Post.
How this "great publishing house" has "vindicated the South from aspersion* was shown by the resolutions of the veterans of Dick Dowling Camp, and will be more fully shown in these letters, and many people in this community, who believed what the Post told them, have on their shelves now to their great regret and cha grin ocular and tangible demonstration of the "skill" with which this 4great publish ing house provides books especially suited to the oft-needed reference of all classes, and just what the South wants."
NOT WANTED IN THE SOUTH.
If the "Up-To-Date Britannica" is a fair sample of the work turned out by this "great publishing house," we want no such house in the South. If it illustrates that houses notion of what constitutes a "vindication of the South from aspersion," the South the Houston Post to the contrary notwithstanding neither wants nor needs any such house. If it illustrates that houses idea of the kind of books the South wants, it shows what a low estimate the house places upon the intelligence, spirit and patriotism of the people of the South. If it illustrates that houses idea of the kind of book "especially suited for the oft-needed reference of all classes," it shows that the house has no conception of the sort of book suited for the oft-needed reference of all classes. And the South neither wants nor needs any house of any kind that sets the corrupting example of misrepresenting its goods in order to sell them. Ex amples of that sort are pernicious and injurious to any community, and those who set them should, as I have said, have neither ihe respect nor the patronage of the public.
IT NEVER MATERIALIZED.
Visions of full page advertisements by the score must have floated before the Post when it published its five-column gusher about "the great Werner Company." But those visions were not destined to be realized, for the summer has come and
10
A LITERARY FRAUD UNMASKED.
gone, and all of the "great publishing house" that the ides of November find here is
a man on a bicycle, collecting or trying to collect money from the people who were
duped by the Post into investing "only 10 cents a day in "the great new up-to-date
Britannica/
The interesting extracts from the Post which I have given in this letter compel
me ,from lack of space, to defer till my next one the entering upon the exhibit of
facts showing the falseness of the representations quoted in my last letter.
Yours Very Truly,
T. K. OGLESBY.
Houston, Texas, Nov. 8, 1894.
LETTER NO. VI.
Of course the Werner Company was merely "stuffing" the Post when it talked about establishing a publishing house down here merely talking through its hat, as it were. It was simply a part of the game which that company, with the aid and connivance of the Post^ was playing on the people of Texas to induce them to invest "only 10 cents a day" in the huge fraud called the new up to-date Britannica. It must have been highly amusing to the piratical Chicago concern when it read The Posfs article telling the Texans how that concern loved the South so dearly that it was going to move down here on purpose to publish books vindicating her people from aspersion.
THE PEOPLE WERE MISLED BY THE POST.
In my letter of the 7th instant I gave you, verbatim, the representations upon which the so called up-to-date Britannica of The Werner Company was sold here, which representations were repeated by the Post^ in varying form, from day to day, for many weeks. By them the readers of the Post were given to understand, as plainly and unequivocally as words could convey the impression, that the Post was offering to them, upon remarkably liberal terms, a work which it guaranteed to be a facsimile of the ninth and latest Edinburgh editon of the Encyclopedia Britannica, together with three additional volumes, the whole constituting a work that contains the very latest information upon every subject known to the human mind, and \vhose every statement upon any and every subject is absolutely true. In conse quence of those representations by their home paper many of the readers of the Post bought the \vork.
THE FACTS VERSUS THE REPRESENTS TIOXS.
Nov.* the facts are that The Werner Companys publication the work offered by the Pest--" is not a facsimile of the ninth and latest Edinburgh edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. nor of any other edition of the Britannica. * Facsimile," says the Century Dictionary, means "an exact copy or counterpart, an imitation of an original in all its proportions, qualities, and peculiarities."
The work offered by the Posf is not, as stated by the Post, <4a reproduction of the great Edinburgh work, with all its wealth of information, beauty of illustraation, and completeness of finish."
It dees not, as stated by the Post, contain all that is in the Edinburgh latest edition." It has not, as stated by the Post, eliminated nothing" taken away no line" "left out no word in the Edinburgh edition. On the contrary it has
LEFT OUT WHOLE ARTICLED
that are in that edition and substituted other and inferior articles in their places. Irs piratical publishers did this because the eliminated articles were copyrighted, or "patented," in this country by the publishers of the Edinburgh edition, and they The Werner Company, the Chicago pirates knew they would be subjected to prosecution and damages if they put those articles in their pirated reprint.
A LITERARY FRAUD UNMASKED.
11
Therefore, of Saintsburys fine article on French Literature, comprising nearly fifty pages of the genuine Britannica, only the last fourteen lines are reproduced in the so-called facsimile (although its publishers unblushingly state, in the "Table of Principal Contents" of volume IX, of that work, that the entire article is from Saintsburys pen); and therefore that part of the article on Germany which treats of German History and makes more than fifty pages of the genuine Britannica,
does not appear in the Chicago "facsimile." For the same reason the genuine Britannicas article on
THE UNITED STATES,
comprising more than a hundred pages, does not appear in the "facsimile," but is substituted by one written by a Chicago preacher, whose ignorance of his subject arid whose prejudice and venom against the South are conspicuously displayed by glaring inaccuracies and gross misrepresentations. He is described as a bishop of the "Reformed Episcopal Church," but if his attempt at reforming the Encyclopedia Britannicas historical department is a fair sample of his capacity for and method of reforming things, I should say that the Episcopal church has not been improved by any reforming it has experienced at his hands.
It is as though one had bought a book represented as containing Shakespeares Plays, and found in it, instead of Shakespeares Hamlet, a Hamlet written by a Boston dilettante, or as if one had bought a book labelled Macaulays Essays and found in it, in place of Macaulays essay on Milton, an article on that sublime poet by a Chicago porkpacker.
ANOTHER OMITTED ARTICLE, AND A DISGUSTED PURCHASER.
The article on "Heat" in the original ninth edition of the genuine Britannica
was written by Sir William Thomson. Desiring to read a part of it the other day,
and not having that edition at hand, but being in the office of a gentleman who
had bought the Chicago book under the impression (produced by the Houston
Post's positive and unqualified representations) that it was a facsimile of the Brit
annica, I turned to it and found that it contained no part of Sir William Thom
sons article. This caused the gentleman who had bought it to institute an investi
gation of his "facsimile," and the further he proceeded with the investigation the
more disgusted he became and the more indignant over the fraud that had been
practiced on him in the name of the Britannica and of the Houston Post, and he
finally notified the agents of the Chicago concern that he would make no further
payments on the book that they could keep what he had already paid them, and
take the book back, as he had found that it fell so far short of the representations
made of i% and is so deficient and so inaccurate as to release him from all obligations
to pay anything more on it and from aH desire to keep it. He is a man who takes
.an intelligent interest in religious subjects, too, and he was much surprised to fine!
that a work represented to be so ail-embracing as the Encyclopedia Britacrnca has
no article on so important a subject as the "Atonement."
Further facts in contrast with the representations will be published to-morrow.
Yours very truly,
T. K. OGLESEY.
Houston, TV.v., N7ov. 9, 1804.
V
LETTER NO. VII.
I will not consume time and space in naming other important articles in the genuine Britannica that are not in the so-called facsimile. I have already shown the absolute falseness of the claim that "not a word of the original has been left out" of the pirated Chicago edition, and I have said nothing of omitted and de fective maps and plates, of which there are many. I "will allude here only to
12
A LITERARY FRAUD UNMASKED.
THE MAPS OF TEXAS AND GEORGIA
(as they appear in the copies of the work sold in this State), in the first of which ever forty counties that ought to be at the north-west corner of the map are put off by themselves in the south-west corner, while the map of Georgia (in all copies of the book I have seen here), instead of accompanying the article on that State, as it does in all properly constructed Encyclopedias, is attached to the article on the Georgia in Asiatic Russia.
DISTRESSING NEWS FROM GEORGIA.
Speaking of Georgia, by the way, I notice that, according to this Encyclopedia,
that State has undergone a very remarkable physical change since I was in it.
When I was last there the Stare contained more than 3^,000,000 acres of land
nearly twice as many as South Carolina has, but the up-to-date Britannica (as it
reads here in Tex.is), informs me that Georgia has now only 7.120,000 acres, or
but little more than one-third of the number of acres South Carolina has. This
is an astounding shrinkage of acreage to have taken place wilhin two years, and it
warns me that if I want to get one more glimpse (as I certainly do) of the sacred
soil of the dear old State before it has vanished from mortal sight forever, I have
no time to lose in getting 5c. In view of the Houston Post's positive assurance
that whatever this book says on any subject is absolutely accurate, you will under
stand, gentlemen, the distressing state of mind into which I am plunged by what
it says about Georgias acreage, and will sympathize with the emotions that make
it impossible for me to write more .on this occasion. It .is true that a ray of hope,
a morsel of comfort comes to me in the Atlanta Constitution of the 2d instant,
which editorially (fourth page, second column) declares that "there are just as
many acres of land tc-day in the State of Georgia as there has ever been," but then
there are still the up-to-date Britannica and the Houston Post against the Consti
tution, and I know it is but natural that the Constitution would be loth to admit
would be slow to perceive so distressing a fact as the up-to-date Britannica
announces, and I am so troubled about the matter that I must lay down my pen
or, rather, let it drop from 1113* nerveless grasp with the hope that the balm of
the intervening Sabbath will enable me to take it up again next week in a more
cheerful frame of mind.
Yours verv truly,
T. K. OGLESEV.
Houston, Tex., Nov. 10. 1804.
LETTER NO. VIII.
The Houston Post, in urging its readers to send in their orders to the Post for the "up-to date Britannica," assured them, as I have shown by extracts from thePost in my letter of the ?th instant (letter IV of this series), that the information in it "may be relied upon," that "it is absolute authority upon all subjects the supreme .authority to which appeal can be made," and it printed a picture of two men represented as having made a bet on some historical question and decided it by appealing to the said authority. The picture shows the .winning man, with a broad smile on his face and the Britannica in his hand, seated in a wheelbarrow which the other man was pushing. The picture is headed "You Bet!"
I will give you some statements by the "up-to-date Britannica" in regard to some subjects about which it has lately been consulted here.
NEWS FOR GENERAL GORDON.
Just before General Gordons visit to Houston on his recent lecturing tour a party of gentlemen were talking of the public men and affairs of the country, when allusion was made to the generals expected visit, and one of the party wanted to know where General Gordon was educated and what public positions he had held
A LITERARY FRAUD UNMASKED.
13
in civil life besides those of senator and governor. The gentleman in whose office the party was assembled was one of those who had been induced by the Houston Post to invest about a hundred dollars in the "up-to-date Britannica," and he promptly turned to it for the desired information and read from its pages that Gen. Gordon was educated at the university of Virginia, and that among the public positions he has held was that of State railroad commissioner.
Now I dont suppose that any of the members of your committee bet at all, but if you were to bet on this question Id bet that there is not one of you who wouldnt bet that Gen. Gordon was not educated at the university of Virginia, and that he never held the office of State railroad commissioner; that is, you would have bet that way before you got the information 1 have just given you from the "up-to-date Britannica the supreme authority to which appeal can be made." And Ill bet a wheelbarrow ride that Gen. Gordon himself has no recollec tion of the time when he was a student at the university of Virginia, nor of the time when he was a State railroad commissioner. But if you will call his attention to what the absolutely reliable up-to-date Britannica says on this subject perhaps his memory will be refreshed.
NEWS FOR IXGALLS TOO.
And ex-Senator Ingalls will doubtless be as much surprised to learn from this Encyclopedia that he was once secretary of State in Kansas as Gen. Gordonwill be when he is reminded by it of his having been railroad commissioner in Georgia. Ill go another wheelbarrow ride that neither Mr, Ingalls nor the people of Kansas have any recollection of his ever having been secretary of State in Kansas.
"MARSHALL" j. CRAWFORD.
In the same volume with the article on Gen. Gordon (American Revisions and Additions), is an article on John Forsyth, Jr., in which it is stated that he, "in 1861, with Marshall J. Crawford, represented the Confederate States as com missioner to the national government." Now I have always understood that the name of the Georgia commissioner who went with Mr. Forsyth to Washington in 18(51, was Martin J. Crawford, and I am sure that there is r>ot a member of your committee not under the same impression, but if one of you were to bet that way and leave the decision to the up-to-date Britannica, you see you would lose the bet. Vou will notice that the article on Mr. Forsyth doesnt say where he was born, neither does the article on his distinguished father say where he was born. Omis sion to give the birthplaces of the subjects of its biographical sketches is one of the remarkable features of this remarkable encyclopedia.
LINCOLN, DAVIS AND BUTLER.
You will doubtless be somewhat surprised to learn from this encyclopedia that Abraham Lincoln was the seventeenth president of the United States and that Jefferson Davis issued his proclamation of outlawry against B. F. Butler in retaliation for Lincolns emancipation proclamation but that is what the up-to-date Britannica furnished by the Houston Post\.Q its readers says in its article on Lincoln (Vol. 14, page 058), and its article on Davis (American Revisions, page 547, paragraph 2.)
Prior to the reading of the articles just named I was under the im pression that Lincoln was the sixteenth president, and that the proc lamation of outlawry against Butler >vas issued long before the emancipation proclamation, and in retaliation for his brutal order in regard to the ladies of Xew Orleans. I had been so informed by all other histories and biographies I had read on these subjects, and I wouldnt have hesitated to bet a wheelbarrow ride or even
14
A LITERARY FRAUD UNMASKED.
seventy-five cents that such were the facts. But "the supreme authority," you see, would have been against me, and I would have lost the bet by an appeal to that authority.
MORE ABOUT MR. DA VIS.
The same authority also informs me that Mr. Davis "was appointed commanderin-chief of the Southern army," and was afterwards, to wit, "on February 18, 18<jl,
elected president of the Confederate States." Per contra, Mr. Davis says that he was elected president on the 9th of February (Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Vol, 1, p. 230). And as the Confederate government did not begin its existence before that date, it is a little difficult to discover what agency, prior to the existence of that government, appointed Mr. Davis commander-in-chief of the Southern ariny, or how there could have been a Southern army organized before there was a government to organize it. But we must not presume to question the correctness of this encyclopedia, for does not the Houston Post say that it is ab solutely reliable?
THE REAL CONFEDERATE COMMANDER.
Now, gentlemen, if you were asked who, after April 61 till the end of the war, \vas
virtually the commander of the Confederate troops, who would you say? I should
like to hear the answer of each of you to this question, and then see how it tallies
with the statement of this encyclopedia that "from the time of the capture of Sumter
onward General Beauregard was virtually the commander of the Confederate
troops" (American Revisions and Additons, article "Beauregard.")
Yours very truly,
T. K. OGLESP.Y.
Houston, Tcx., Nov. 13, 1894.
LETTER NO. IX.
I should state that the article on Lincoln in the Chicago Britannica, quoted in my letter of the 13th instant, is not the one that is contained in the genuine Britan nica. Notwithstanding the Chicago publishers and the Houston Post's assurance that not a word in the Edinburgh (the genuine) edition is left out of the Chicago book, the article on Lincoln in the Edinburgh edition must be added to the other instances I have given showing the falseness of that assurance. The whole of that article is left out of the Chicago book.
ITS VENOM AGAINST THE SOUTH
In letter number VI (9th inst.) I told you that in the history of the United States given by this falsely called facsimile of the Britannica, ignorance of the sub ject and prejudice and venom against the South are conspicuously displayed by glaring inaccuracies and gross misrepresentations. In proof thereof I submit the following extracts:
"The Southern people felt themselves to be Virginians, Carolinians, Geor gians, rather than American citizens * * * * Calhoun never ceased his plotting." Vol. 20, p 763, paragraph 198.
"The book" (Uncle Toms Cabin) "was written in a wonderful spirit of fairness, rather understating than exaggerating the evils of slavery, and its truths were all the more convincing for that reason." Ib., page 769, par. 225.
"In the senate chamber Charles Sumner had been stricken to the floor with a bludgeon and nearly murdered by Brooks, in the presence of several Southern and unresisting Senators, for daring to criticise these unjust and one-sided proceedings. Brooks was expelled by Northern votes, but was immediately returned by his South ern constitnents." Ib., page 771, par. 237.
A LITERARY FRAUD UNMASKED.
15
"ItJ (the South) -became more aggressive than ever" (meaning in 1856 and 67.) "It demanded a renewal of the African slave trade, which had been forbidden since 1808, and without waiting for the question to be settled, the nefarious traffic was opened on an extensive scale, with but little attempt at con cealment " Ib., p. 771, par. 240.
"The importation of slaves had been prohibited by the constitution after i808." Ib., p. 760, par. 186.
"Between 1830 and i860 American civilization had shown a wonderful growth in all directions * * * and especially in the development and build ing up of that moral sense which" etc., etc. "But this moral progress was mostly confined to the North. The South was far from possessing an equal share in it *
* * * because their" (the Southern peoples) "moralsense and spirit of enterprise had been blighted by the curse of slavery. Labor was held to be degrad ing, and those who carried on the few branches of industry were considered an infe rior caste." Ib , p. 775, par., 255 and 256.
"The South brought on the war in defence of slavery." Ib., p. 779, par. 279.
DO THEY FAIRLY REPRESENT THE SOUTH?
I have given you here, gentlemen, literal quotations from this encyclopedias his tory of the United States. Do they or do they not show ignorance of the subject and prejudice and vendtn against the South ? The statements I have quoted repre sent the Southern people as lacking in their duty as American citizens as being disregardful of and disloyal to that duty. They represent the Souths greatest states man as constantly inciting her people to disloyalty by his ceaseless plotting against the constitution and the Union. They represent the monstrous caricature, "Uncle Toms Cabin," as an accurate, truthful picture of Southern society as a whole. They rep resent a Southern congressman as making a murderous and cowardly assault on a Nor thern senator for no other reason than because that Senator had dared to exercise his par liamentary right to criticise a public political body a body styled "border ruffians" by this encyclopedia because they were not of the band of Free-soil desperadoes led by the incendiary, murderer and midnight burglar, John Brown. According to this book John Brown and his band of marauders were gentlemen, patriots, heroes and martyrs, and those opposed to him and them were "border ruffians.5 *
\VAS THE SOUTH THE AGGRESSOR ?
These statements represent the South as being the aggressive section, and as having violated the Constitution by engaging openly and extensively in the African slave trade, and they represent that the South brought on the war, and brought it on in defence of slavery. The entire history from which they are taken puts the North forever in the right, the South forever in the wrong. They are in part the statements which your comrades of Dick Dowling Camp have pronounced false, slanderous and misleading, and because of which the}- have asked that you will join them in impressingupon all who want the truth concerning American history the necessity of seek ing it elsewhere than in the pages of this encyclopedia.
They are, in part, the statements which moved that typical Southerner and stainless soldier, General Stephen D. Lee, to introduce the resolution adopted at Birmingham, quoted in my letter of the 5th instant.
It was one of these statements that moved your comrades of Dick Dowling Camp (at a meeting subsequent to the one referred to in the communication they sent you) to say:
"We have no words to express our indignation at the venomous calumny that the people of the South were a people of blighted moral sense, nor the amazement and profound regret with which we have seen Southern journals actively engage in
16
A LITERARY FRAUD UNMASKED.
the business of disseminating the book that would thus blacken the fair name of our fathers and mothers, our wives, our sisters and daughters all of whom are touched by the charge of a blighted moral sense against the people of the South."
A SACRED OBLIGATION.
It fell to the lot of your comrades here to be the first to take action on a line with the resolution adopted at Birmingham, because it was here that, at that time, the book in question was being disseminated, by the active agency of the Hous ton Post. In sending to you a report of their action, they told you that it was "in performance of their duty to themselves and their posterity, as well as in discharge of their sacred obligation to the memory of their dead, after a careful examination of the statements of the book alluded to touching a matter of vital importance to all true men and women of the South," and as I am informed that the agents of that book now in Georgia say that those statements have all b^en eliminated from it; that no copies of it containing those statements are being sold or circulated now anywhere, and that they are exhibiting in Atlanta some copies of the latest (the 1891) edition to convince you of the truth of what they say; as I have been informed to this effect, I send to you along with this letter a copy of volume 23 of the latest or 1894 edition, in which you will find these statements marked, thus plainly showing the trickery with which
THE PIRATING CHICAGO PUBLISHERS ARE ATTEMPTING. TO HOODWINK
you and the people of Georgia. This volume is one of a set recently delivered here and it shows if those statements are not in the copies which the Chicago con cern has sent to Atlanta that a small part of the 1894 edition has been "fixed" for circulation in Georgia; that these particular slanders have been "sawed out" of the part so fixed, while the far greater part that is circulated through the rest of the country, North and South, disseminates the slanderous matter that you find in this volume.
If you wonder why the publishers *fixed" a separate lot for circulation in Georgia (if such fixing" has been done), you have the explanation in the fact that, before their agents left here, they had warning that the resolutions of Dick Bowling Camp had been or would be sent to you. This gave them time to "docfor" the books for Georgia, though to what extent they have been doctored I do not know, as I have not seen any of the volumes circulating in Georgia.
In sending their resolutions to Fulton County Camp, the Dick Dowling vet erans accompanied them with the special request that Fulton County Camp "add to them the emphasis of its utterance on the subject, and have them published in your local papers, in order the more speedily to expose and prevent the further dis semination ot the false statements concerning the South that are masquerading in the guise of history in the pages of this Encyclopedia.
It falls now, gentlemen, to the lot of Fulton County Camp to act in this mat ter. The organization of which you are members the United Confederate Vet erans seems to be the main, if not
THE SOLE SAFE-GUARD
left between the homes of the people of the South and their invasion by literature that falsifies history and poisons the mind of the growing generation against the character and memory of their ancestors; for the promptness with which South ern newspapers join in the scheme by which the Northern publishers of this book are circulating it shows that it cannot now be said of this land :
"Here does the press the peoples rights maintain, Unawed by power and unbribed by gain."
If that could now truthfully be said, Northern gold had not bought the en-
A LITERARY FRAUD UNMASKED.
dorsement of Southern newspapers for a book that wrongs and slanders Southern people, and their active aid in circulating such a book.
If there be those who say that it is not worth while to discuss or pay any at tention or devote any time to these matters now, I say that as long as Northern writers think it worth their while to falsify history and calumniate the South, and Northern publishers think it worth their while to publish the calumnies and send an army of agents on the mission of circulating them throughout the world,
an
HIRE SOUTHERN NEWSPAPERS TO AID IN CIRCULATING THEM,
just so long should it be worth the while of Southern people to repel and
refute those calumnies. They must either do this or go down in history and be regarded by the world at large and by coming ages as the savages, the ruffians
and traitors which they are represented to be by the aforesaid Northern writers.
The Southern man who has sunk to the condition in which he is indifferent to such
a result who thinks it "not worth while" to refute the misrepresentations that, unrefuted, must inevitably produce that result, is one for whom I have an ineradi
cable and inexpressible contempt. Heaven was kind to the sires of such a man when it permitted them not to live to witness the degeneracy of their offspring.
A distinguished member of your committee delivered an address at Birming
ham last April in which he protestingly said: "We even take histories written
by people prejudiced against us, and we let novels come to our libraries that teach
our children that we committed treason. It seems a persistent action on the part of some, who do not love us, to belittle and misrepresent us to our own children,
so that the time shall come when they shall induce our own grand-children to say
we were traitors."
THAT TmE WJLL SURELY COME
if such misrepresentation as is contained in this encyclopedia is permitted to pass,
unchallenged and unrefuted, to posterity. I believe that when an encyclopedia
has been made
THE MEDIUM OF MISREPRESENTATION OF THE SOUTH,
when it has been made a channel through which to inoculate the minds of South
ern youth with the virus of contempt for their ancestors, it should, as the Atlanta
Constitution once said, *be rejected by the South, instead of being purchased and
consulted as authority." I think that publishers of encyclopedias as well as of all
other books should be made to know that they cannot publish slanders of the
South and then make money by selling their publications to the very people whom
they traduce. And I think that Southern papers that aid such publishers in circu
lating books containing such slanders should be sternly and fittingly rebuked by
the Southern people.
VV
WHEN I SEE A SOUTHERN MAN
indifferent to these things, indifferent as to the result of-the teaching of such books foreshadowed by Gen. Evans in his Birmingham address, I think of the stirring
lines of Scott:
"Breathes there the man with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said, This is my own, my native tend!
Whose heart hath neer within him burned, As home his footsteps he hath turned.
From wandering on a foreign strand! If such there breathe, go, mark him well;
For him no minstrel raptures swell; High though his titles, proud his nr.me,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim; Despite those titles, power and pelf.
The wretch, concentered all in self, Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down To the vile dust from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonored, and unsung."
18
A LITERARY FRAUD UNMASKED.
Did not the Atlanta Constitution say truly, when, commenting (July 4th, 1891,) on certain Northern publications that were in the habit of traducing the South, it
said: "Why should we be expected to read and support publications in which our
leaders are branded as traitors, their followers as rebels, and the masses as illiter ate, lawless and half civilized? But we should not draw the line at magazines. We should hunt down every false history and keep it out of our schools and our li braries. If we litter our houses with such books, the next generation of South
erners will be prepared to agree with Ralph Waldo Emerson that our people were not civilized, but barbarous/ We should protect ourselves before it is too late."
THE WORDS OF LEE.
Your great captain, Robert E. Lee, left on record these words; "Every one
should do all in his power to collect and disseminate the truth, in the hope that
it may find a place in history and descend to posterity, to show that the South had
no other object than the defence of those principles of American liberty upon
which the Constitutions of the several States were originally founded."
Your comrades here do not doubt that these words are echoed in your hearts.
They have no doubt about your response to their communication no doubt about
the position you will take in this matter. They do not doubt that you will add
your utterance to theirs in vindication of the truth of history, and in repelling and
refuting the statement that you and they, and the far greater number who have
crossed over the river, offered and sacrificed life and fortune, in a long and terri
ble war, solely to defend and maintain African slavery.
Yours Very Truly,
T. K. OGLESBY.
Houston, Texas, Nov. 14, 1894.
LETTER NO. X.
After having read what I have written about the book published by this pirat ing Chicago concern The Werner Company^ do you wonder at the action of your comrades here in regard to it? Do you wonder at the resolution about it in troduced by General Lee at Birmingham, and unanimously adopted by the Veterans in convention there last April ?
THOMAS NELSON PAGE AND BILL ARP.
Do you wonder that Mr. Thomas Nelson Page, in an address before the Grand Camp of Confederate Veterans of Virginia, quoted to them this books slander of the South, and said: "Do you propose to submit to this misconstruction of the South any longer? * * It rests with us alone. And we are here to night to endeavor to awaken an impulse, which shall result in giving the history of the country as it should be written."
Do you wonder that "Bill Arp" when he read one of this books statements that I have quoted to you, wrote to the Atanta Constitution that "a more infamous slander on the South was never uttered;" and that of another of its statements he wrote: "There is no language to express our resentment at this foul imputation, and yet this book is sought to be placed upon our shelves as a standard authority on history. We must fortify; we must defend. Let the good name of our an cestors go down to posterity untarnished by the foul breath of slander. It is a shame upon our people that they will countenance such a work..
What good will Columbian fairs do us at Chicago as long as such pub lications are patronized at home and accredited abroad?"
Thus wrote that genuine son of Georgia to the Atlanta Constitution when he
A LITERARY FRAUD UNMASKED.
19
y
read this books aspersion of his people. I have before me now his words clipped from the columns of that paper.
No, gentlemen, I know you do not wonder at the utterances above quoted from Southern men and Southern journals. I know that they are the sentiments of your own hearts, and will be as long as you are true to the memory of your fathers and mothers, and to the principles in defense of which you fought with Lee and Jackson and that will be forever!
THE HOUSTON POSTS UNQUALIFIED ENDORSEMENT.
^
You do riot wonder at the expressions above quoted, but what think you of the following utterances of the only daily morning paper in this city (utter ances made after the publication of the resolutions sent you from Dick Bowling Camp):
"The attempt has been made to arouse sectional feelings to condemn Ameri can subjects in Britannica. No student of Britannica but will admit its absolute fairness in all such matters." The Houston (Texas) Daily Post, June 24, 1894.
"The great work" (the Encyclopedia above alluded to) "which the Post has placed into the hands of so many of its subscribers is a work which does full justice to Southern men, one entirely to be depended upon as telling them the cold plain truth." The Houston Daily Post, June 22, 1894.
The Post found no "sectional feelings" to deprecate in the statements I have quoted from the book it was engaged in selling, tut when a body of Confederate Veterans tried and true men and patriots criticised those statements and pro nounced them untrue, and objected to their being circulated as "true history," that was "an attempt to arouse sectional feelings"!
Ah, gentlemen, in the days of the Old South the South of your fathers and mothers the South whose moral sense this Encyclopedia says was blighted in, those days
COULD NORTHERN GOLD HAVE HIRED A SOUTHERN PAPER
to utter such an endorsement of such a book? Read again the statements I have quoted to you from that book, and the statements which Thomas Nelson Page quoted from it to your comrades in Virginia, and say if a paper of the Old South could have been hired to utter the unqualified endorsement of those state ments that was uttered by The Houston Daily Post in the above extracts from that paper.
Do you see now the significance and the force of the resolutions adopted by the Veterans of Bell county, in this State, saying:
"We hereby express our deep regret that apart of the press of the South seem so lost to the honor of our own beautiful Southland as to give encouragement and aid in disseminating said book among our people."
Yours very truly,
T. K. OGLESBY.
Houston, Texas., Nov. 16, 1894.
20
A LITERARY FRAUD UNMASKED.
RESOLUTIONS OF DICK BOWLING CAMP.
Following is a copy of the communication sent by Dick Dowling Camp to Ful ton County Camp:
HEADQUARTERS DICK DOWLING CAMP, No. 197
UNITED CONFEDERATE VETERANS, HOUSTON, TEXAS, JULY, 1, 1894.
COMRADES:
At a recent meeting of the Dick Dowling Camp of United Confederate Vete rans, of this city, the following resolutions were unanimously adopted:
"Whereas, The members of the Dick Dowling Camp of United Confederate Veterans here assembled do most heartily subscribe to the words of our great cap tain, Robert E. Lee, that every one should do all in his power to collect and dis seminate the truth (as to the war between the States) in the hope that it ma) find a place in history and descend to posterity;
"And whereas, one of the objects of the organization of the body known ai the United Confederate Veterans was to see to it, so far as in their power lay, tha those words shall be faithfully carried out, to the end that history shall transmit to posterity a truthful representation of the South and a true account of the wai between the States, such an account as shall show tha* the South to quote agaii the words of Lee had no other object than the defense of those principles o American liberty upon which the Constitutions of the several-States were originally founded;
"And whereas, a Northern publishing firm styled The Werner Company, o Chicago, is now circulating an edition of the R. S. Peale reprint of the Encyclope dia Britannica that falsifies history by stigmatizing the people of the South as beinj a people deficient in civilization and moral sense and untrue to their obligation under the Constitution, and by charging theai with having brought on the war ii violation of those principles, the defense of which the illustrious Lee declared wa his and the Souths only object, therefore,
"Resolved, That we hereby condemn as utterly false, slanderous and"mislead ing, the statements of the Encyclopedia alluded to, which show unmi takable evidence of having been inspired by a combination of malice and ignoranc and we would impress upon all who want the truth concerning American histor the necessity of seeking it elsewhere than in the pages of that encyclopedi; Especially do we urge Southern parents not to point their children to it for th; truth.
"Resolved further, That the camps throughout the South be requested to tal proper action in this matter, and the Southern press generally be requested to lei its aid in suppressing falsehood and disseminating the truth, either by publishii the foregoing or in such other way as will most effectively accomplish the desin end."
These resolutions are on a line with the resolutions introduced by Genei Lee and adopted at the late meeting of the United Confederate Veterans at B mingham, which was as follows:
"We cannot impress too strongly upon the people of the South the importan of guarding their children against the effects of literature in any form that disto: the truth of history, either by misrepresentation or suppression, and in this cc nection we would especially direct attention to the gross violation both by ass< tion and suppression of that truth, seriously affecting the reputation of t Southern people, by the work called the Encyclopedia Britannica, now bei circulated in this country."
In performance of our duty to ourselves and to our posterity, as well as in c
A LITERARY FRAUD UNMASKED.
21
charge of our sacied obligations to the memory of our dead, Dick Dowling Camp
adopted the foregoing resolutions, after a careful examination of the statements of
the book alluded to, touching a matter of such vital interest to all true men and women of the South, and this copy of them is transmitted to you with the special
request that Fulton County Camp add to them the emphasis of its utterance on the
subject, and have them published in your local papers, in order the more speedily
to expose and prevent the further dissemination of the false statements concern
ing the South that are masquerading in the guise of history in the pages of the said
Encyclopedia.
OFFCIAL;
Attest:
WILL LAMBERT,
C. C. BEAVENS,
Commander:
Adjutant.
LETTER XO. XL
HOUSTON, TEXAS, 26th DEC., 1894.
To the Members of Fulton County Camp, United Confederate Veterans, Atlanta, Georgia.
GENTLEMEN:
The persons engaged in the sale of an encyclopedia published by the Werner Company, of Chicago, and falsely called a facsimile of the Encyclopedia Britan nica, are distributing circulars here representing that the Fulton County Confede rate Veterans have completely vindicated that book from the charge of falsifying history ai.d misrepresenting the South. They say that the Fulton County Veterans have unanimously adopted a report that "establishes the falsity of the charge," and have declared themselves fully satisfied that the book "is perfectly free from objectionable statements concerning the South." * * * Knowing as I do
THE UNSCRUPULOUS METHODS
of the persons engaged in exploiting the pirated Chicago book which is falsely called a facsimile of the Encyclopedia Britannica, I shall not believe the state ments they are circulating her<t till they have been confirmed by the undoubted authoritative affirsuation of Fulton County Camp. Aud knowing, as I think I do, the material of which, to some extent at least,, that Camp is composed, I do not believe it will ever, as a body, affirm the truth of those statements. I am confident that the Chicago book agents have
MISREPRESENTED FULTON COUNTY CAMP
as grossly as the book they are selling has misrepresented the South. I do not believe that the Camp of Confederate Veterans can be found that will pronounce "perfectly free from objectionable statements" the book that says, among other things equally unjust and untrue, that "the South brought on the war, and brought it on indefense of slavery."
WHAT THE SOUTH FOUGHT FOR.
*
If there is one fact which, above all others, true, competent, representative Southern historians maintain, which enlightened, impartial history will ever main tain, it is the fact that war was forced on the South; that she acted on the defensive, and fought, not in defense of personal slavery, but in defense of political liberty to maintain the right of political self-government. When the people of the South
22
A LITERARY FRAUD UNMASKED.
yield that point, they yield all. When they shall have become so completely men tally subjugated by Northern writers as to yield that point, it will then be in order for them, instead of rearing monuments to the Confederate dead, to raze to the ground those already reared, and instead of keeping green and strewing with flowers the
GRAVES OF CONFEDERATE SOLDIERS,
to drive the plowshare through those graves and obliterate every vestige of them from the face of the earth. For when they yield that point they agree with the teaching of this Chicago encyclopaedia that those soldier? fought, not for political freedom, but for human slavery, and soldiers that fight simply for human slavery deserve no -monuments and no flower-strewn graves.
AS IT IS MADE TO APPEAR IN TEXAS.
The situtation, then, as it is made to appear now in Texas is this:
1. A book.is being circulated which proclaims to the world that the South brought on the bloodiest war of modern times, and brought it on, not for the sake of any principle worthy of the respect of mankind, but solely for the ignoble, de grading purpose of perpetuating human slavery.
2. A body of Confederate veterans in Texas has charged that book with "falsi fying history"-with uttering *false, slanderous and misleading statements1 con cerning the South, and has especially urged Southern parents "not to point their children to its pages for the truth of American history."
3. A body of Confederate Veterans in Georgia in a city built upon ground once reddened with the blood of their comrades-in-arms, and whose soil now holds the ashes of those comrades, has pronounced the charge to be "without found ation," has "unequivocally" endorsed the book has "completely vindicated" it from the charge, and commended it as "being a representative reference publi cation."
Such is the situation as told in circulars now being scattered in Texas by those engaged in selling the book in question. I deem it my duty to make known to you that situation, and to make it known in this public manner, so that not only every member of your body, especially, but the people of Georgia generally to whom that book is now being offered for sale may have a firm grasp on the facts in the case.
PATRONIZING OUR DEFAMERS.
It is bad enough that such misrepresentations as have been and are being dis seminated through this Chicago publication should be circulated at all, by anybody, anywhere; and it is deplorable in the extreme that the very people who are the objects and victims of the misrepresentation should themselves be the purchasers of the book that defames them, should themselves contribute to the enriching of the authors and publishers of the defamations, and the supporting of the army of agents engaged in disemiuating them. It is useless for us to complain of being misrepresented to the world if we not only do nothing to correct the misrepresent ations, but actually encourage their publication and enrich their authors and publishers by buying the books that utter them.
ARE YOU WILLING?
Are you willing to go down in history as soldiers who fought solely for the privilege of enslaving human beings? Are you willing to be regarded in that light by your children and your childrens children? Is it so that that is what you did fight
A LITERARY FRAUD UNMASKED.
23
for? The most of those who fought with you cannot be heard now on this great question, for their lips are speechless. They are dead. Their graves dot the earth from the Potomac to the Rio Grande. If they could speak from those graves would they admit it to be true that that is what they fought for? Shall the daugh ters of the Southland, who yearly cover those graves with flowers, be taught that they are honoring the graves of men who fought in a dishonorable cause? If it is true, then this book deserves the endorsement which its agents say you havegiren it, and it is your comrades of Dick Bowling Camp who have spoken falsely. If it is not true, then what does duty to the dead and to posterity require at the hands of the living?
TO WHOM SHALL WE LOOK?
And if the survivors of the Confederate Army do not for themselves and for their comrades whose lips are dumb and whose hands are shredless dust if they do not, with voice and pen, resent and repel the charge that they and those com rades left their homes, their fathers and mothers, their wives and children, to wage -a war in defense of human slavery, if they "endorse," and help to circulate the book that makes that charge, to whom is the South to look for the guarding of her name and fame against the blackening touch of the pens that would place her in so degrading an attitude in the eyes of the world and of posterity?
Veterans of Fulton County Camp, I cannot permit myself to doubt that you liave been slandered by the pen that has pictured you in the attitude of "endors ing" the book that .fixes that damning stigma on the South.
Is it not time, gentlemen, to teach the publishers of Encyclopaedias that if they incorporate into their volumes such libels of the South if they make them the medium for misrepresenting the South if they make it appear, as this ency clopaedia does, that the North was always in the right and the South always in the wrong is it not time to teach such publishers that they cannot find a market among Southern people for such encyclopaedias? Is it not the part of wisdom and common sense to place in your libraries and in the hands of your children ency clopaedias that do tnot so misrepresent you?
THE RICHMOND DISPATCHS WORDS.
Was not that staunch, representative Southern journal, Tfu Richmond DisJtatch, right when it said: "If our reading public will send its money North, in the name of common sense let us direct it to sources which are least objectionable. Some of the publications are less hostile to us than others. Let us, therefore, help ourselves by helping them." And so I say, as to encyclopaedias, let us take the one that is the least hostile the least objectionable; and there is more than one that is less objectionable and far more useful, far more valuable, as a practi cal reference book, than this much advertised so-called Britannica.
THE SO-CALLED REVISION.
I am informed of representations made by the publishers and agents of that book as to a "revision" of it, and I desire to state that those representations are of a piece with the general quackery, humbuggery and adamantine effrontery that characterize the methods of those engaged in the publication and sale of this pirat ed work, the fraudulent character of which will be shown in a forth-coming pam phlet ; and I shall show, too, in that pamphlet, as I have already shown through the columns of The Daily Herald of this city, that no one who was induced to order that encyclopaedia by the representations made of it by its publishers and agents through the papers and otherwise is bound either in law or morals to take it or to Iceep it and pay for it. I am, gentlemen, yours very truly,
T. K. OGLESBY.
24
t A LITERARY FRAUD. UNMASKED.
RESOLUTIONS OF FULTON COUNTY CAMP.
ATLANTA, GA., January 21st, 1895.
Whereas, Some weeks since the Dick Bowling Camp of Confederate Veterans of Houston, Texas, notified us that a work called the Encyclopaedia Britannica, pub lishedby the Werner Company of Chicago (which Company was at that time endeav oring to sell that work broadcast throughout the State of Texas) falsified history and misrepresented the South, and asked us to place our condemnation upon said work, and prevent it from being circulated throughout our State, and
Whereas, That we might act all the more intelligently, and with fairness tothe publishers, and at the same time arrive at the true character of said work, a commit tee from our Association was appointed to investigate, and report back their findings, which was done, and
Whereas, Said Committee in their report took especial pains not to endorse said work (so that the Company introducing it might not make capital of the Committees report in selling the work), but did report that they found objectionable features and sad omissions therein, and were told that said objectionable features had been elimi nated and that the old plates had been destroyed; and
Whereas, The said Werner Company are seeking ro make capital out of our Com mittees report by MISREPRESENTING THE SAME through circulars being distributed in Texas, saying that said committee, after a full and free investigation, reported that the^ charges preferred against said work were false, and declared themselves fully satisfied that the book is free from objectionable statements concerning the South, and that * said report was unanimously adopted by our Association, and
Whereas, If the statements contained in the circulars now being distributed by the Werner Company in Texas be allov,red to remain without some expression from us, it will appear that our Association has impeached the action of its comrade Camp, and that they have made false statements, therefore
Be It Resolved, That we hereby re-affirm our faith and belief in the honor and in tegrity of our comrade company, the Dick Dowling Camp, and MOST EMPHATICALLY DENY that we have ever made use of the language that the circulars now being dis tributed in Texas by The Werner Company attribute to us.
Resolved Further, That we extend our sincere and heartfelt thanks to Dick Dowling Camp for ferreting out and calling our attention to this gross misrepresenta tion and falsifying of history, and assure them that THEY WILL HAVE OUR ENTIRE CO
OPERATION IN SEEKING TO PREVENT THE CIRCULATION OF THIS OBJECTIONABLE WORK,
that our comrades throughout the South may not be deceived and misled, and that they may be assured that our love for and devotion to the traditions of the old South are unfaltering, and that they are S dear and precious to us as ever, and we will at all times use our utmost endeavor to have them transmitted to posterity in a truthful and correct form.
Resolved Further, THAT WE PLACE OUR SEVEREST CONDEMNATION UPON ANY
WORK OR PUBLICATION THAT SEEKS TO FALSIFY HISTORY OR DEGRADE THE SOUTH, and
that we court and invite the truth, as we feel assured that when it prevails we need have no fear that future history will contain a single item or enumerate one instance that will bring the blush of shame or fear of reproach to any true Southerner.
Resolved Further. That our Secretary be requested to furnish Dick Dowling Camp with a certified copy of these preambles and resolutions under the seal of our Association.
I hereby certify that the above is a true and correct copy of the preambles and resolutions introduced by me at a regular meeting cf the Fulton County Confederate
A LITERARY FRAUD UNMASKED.
25
Veteran Association held January21st, 1895, and the same were unanimously adopted
by that body.
^
.
FRANK T. RYAN,
Vice-President.
^
The resolutions above printed were copied from the original resolutions, now in my possession, that were introduced and adopted as above stated.
\V. G. WHIDBY,
Atlanta, Ga., January 23d, 1805.
Secy F. C. C. U. C. V.
THE ALLEGED "REV* ISION."
Since writing the preceding letters I have seen a copy of the edition of this so-called Encyclopedia Britannica which the Werner Company have been adver tising in Atlanta, and which they represent as quite a diiferent thing from the book they sold to the people of Texas j ist a few months ago. They say that the work has been thoroughly revised since then and all the "objectionable features" the misrepresentations of the South "eliminated;" that the plates that contained those mirepresentations, and from which was printed the edition they sold to the people* of Texas, have been destroyed, and that none of those "objectionable feat ures" those statements which the Texas Veterans denounced are in the edition they are now selling. Such are the assurances that were given to the Committee of Fulton County Camp, as stated in the preambles and resolutions of that Camp.
The Texans are not likely to derive much satisfaction from the knowledge that the slanderous edition of the book was worked off on them (by the collusion of the Houston Post with the Chicago publishers), but let us look into the alleged revision and see what it amounts to see how much truth there is in the represen tations made about it. Turn to Letter No. ix. and note again the statements there quoted from the edition which the publishers hired the Houston Post to help them work off on the people of Texas. The first of those statements is in these words:
"Southern people felt themselves to be Virginians, Carolinian?, Georgians, rather than American citizens. ***** Calhoun never ceased his plotting." Article "United States," Vol. 23, p 763, paragraph 198.
The meaning of the statement about the Southern people plainly is that they did not have a proper sense of their duty as American citizens, and were not loyal citizens.
HOW IT WAS "REVISED."
It was "revised" simpy by sawing out of the plates on which the page was printed that part of the paragraph that contained the words "rather than" and in serting in their place the words "as well as." They then took out the words "themselves to be" and in their place put the words "that they were," inserted the word "and" between "Carolinians" and "Georgians," plugged the new words into the hole made in the plate by sawing cut the old words, and there was your revision. And there, too, then, was a ridiculously superfluous and meaning less sentence in the^e words: "At this time the Southern people felt that" they were Virginians, Carolinians and Georgians, as well as American citizens."
BAD DESIGNS OF PROMINENT SOUTHERNERS THWARTED.
But what was the use in making any change at all in the first part of the paragraph and leaving unchanged the part immediately following, the plain pur pose of which is to show that the Southern people were not good and loyal Ameri-
26
A LITERARY FRAUD UNMASKED.
can citizens, to prove which it is related that "some of the prominent Southerners
met on a certain occasion to try the temper of President Jackson by an attempted
defiance of national authority," and that "the indignant and determined response of the President checked for a moment their designs." .
ANOTHER REVISION IN ORDER.
And what was the use in "revising" a statement on page 763 and not "revis
ing" the same statement on page 773? As it is now we are told on page 763 that "at this time the Southern people felt that they were Virginians, Carolinians and Georgians, as well as American citizens," and on page 773 we are told that the Southern people "were and always have been Carolinians or Georgians, rather
than Americans." See Article "United States," vol. 23, p 773 paragraph 245.
(It will be now in order to have another "thorough revision" and get out another "new up-to-date edition of the Britannica," within the next week or two, and ad vertise it as having been "endorsed by the United Confederate Veterans" of New
Orleans, or some other place. I should like to see the Werner Company or some
of their remarkably gifted agents try to get the endorsement, say of Lee Camp, of Richmond, for the book that says Virginians never were good Americans, and that the South was always the aggressor that the South brought on the war, and
brought it on in defense of slavery.
BUT LET US LOOK A LITTLE FURTHER
into the alleged revisions that were alleged to have gained for this alleged Ency clopedia Britannica the endorsement of the United Confederate Veterans of At lanta. After telling how the President momentarily checked the evil designs of some of the most prominent Southerners, it adds: "Calhoun, however, never ceased his plotting." That is the expression of the edition sold in Texas in June, 1894, the edition which the Houston Post assured its readers was "entirely to be depended upon as telling them the cold, plain truth." (See the Houston Daily Post, June 24, 1894). According to that edition the other wicked Southerners were "checked for a moment" in the prosecution of their bad designs, but Calhoun Calhoun, the great arch-fiend "never ceased his plotting." When the Veterans of Dick Dowling Camp found that a Chicago publishing concern and the Houston Post were placing in the homes of the people of Texas, for the instruction of their children, a book which portrays the greatest Southern statesman the pure, the incorruptible Calhoun in the role of a conspirator, a Catiline, plotting to subvert the government, they lost no time in vigorously denouncing the slander. The agents of the publishing concern at once sent the news to Chicago and advised the publishers to "revise" the statement about Calhoun if they didnt want their busi ness in the South "checked," and the publishers promptly "revised" it by sawing the word "plotting" out of the page and inserting or plugging the word "efforts" into the hole made by the sawing-out operation. ("Its as easy as lying" you see.)
In other words, they revised Mr. Calhoun out of the attitude of never ceasing "disloyal plotting," into the attitude of never ceasing "disloyal efforts," "in spite of of the hostility of the patriotic Jackson;" the meaning of which plainly is that the man who was making the efforts was not patriotic.
And this change of words without a change of meaning, this change of sound without a change of sense, this change of the letter without a change of the spirit is what they have the undiluted, frozen, paleocrystic gall to call a "revision," an "elimi nation of all slanderous and objectionable statements," a "destruction of the old plates," and "an issuing of a new edition!" They actually have the hardihood, the amazingly monumental cheek to attempt to make the people of Georgia and the South believe that a work comprising twenty-eight volumes of about 800 pages each,
A LITERARY FRAUD CNMASKEIX
27
can be and has been thoroughly revised and a new edition of it issued within six or eight weeks or between the first of July, when they quit selling it in Texas, and the middle of August or the first of September, when they begun to circulate it m Geor gia ! What fools they take the people of the South to be! An ordinary street fakir would not practice such
BARE-FACED JUGGLERY,
and the Chicago bookselling fakirs insult the intelligence of the people upon whom they seek to practice it. Talk no more of the cheek of a government mule. Banish the expression from your vocabulary. The facial anatomy of that worthy, venerable and melancholy hybrid is a delicate and sensitive structure in comparison with the cheek of the up-to-date Chicago Britannica agent.
There has been no new and revised edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica is sued by the Werner Company. There has been no edition at all of the Encyclo pedia Britannica issued by that company. The book to which they have fraudu lently given that title is not the Encyclopedia Britannica, because there are Hun dreds of pages of that encyclopedia that are not to be found in the work issued by the Werner Company. I have already mentioned that the genuine Britannicas history of the United States is not contained in the Werner Companys so-called Britannica. Let it be kept in mind that the history of the United States upon which I comment in these pages is not the one given in the genuine Britannica. It is the one contained in the Werner Companys falsely-called Britannica, and there has been no destroying of the plates upon which that history was first printed by the Werner Company, beyond the sawing out of a few words on the three pages (763, 771, 77o), as any printer who examines the book will testify, and the space that was previously filled by those words was plugged or refilled by other words, which, of course, had to be selected with a view to their fitting into that space. If they should happen to contain more letters than the original, sawed-out words, they could not be gotten into that space; hence, when the Werner Companys- able saw artist had (in consequence of the news from Texas) "eliminated" the word "plotting," the talented "reviser" had to find another word to fit into the place from which the original term had been "eliminated" by the able eliminator who is so handy with the saw. "Plotting," you will observe, has eight letters; so of course our reviser could not use a word of more than eight letters, for that could not be got into the vacant place. He could not find a suitable word with exactly that number of letters, so, coming as near it as he could, he took one with seven letters, and thus, as I have said, converted Mr. Calhouns wicked and unpatriotic "plotting" into merely wicked and unpatriotic "efforts." Then in order to make the line into which the new word had been inserted run out even with the other lines he just widened the spaces between the words of that line If you will com pare it with the lines below it (which have not been changed at all) you will see that its words are more widely apart than are the words of any of those lines. It would be impossible to make the "revised" or plugged line run out even with the other lines if the new word inserted or plugged into it were longer than the sawedout word, but if it happens to be shorter (as is usually the case) the matter is easily fixed by widening the spaces between the words of the line which has been subject ed to the manipulation of the able saw-artist.
THE PLUG EDITOR.
It was not so easy to find two words to take the place of the words "rather than" in the paragraph now under consideration, but something had to be done to fool the simple and credulous Southern people into the belief that there had been a revision of the Chicago "up-to-date Britannica" a conversion of it a complete change of heart in it since the Texas Veterans had shown it the error of its ways, and the
28.
A LITERARY FRAUD UNMASKED.
plugging (alias "revising") editor finally hit upon the bright idea of, inserting "as well as" into the place formerly rilled by "rather than," and the result is a nonsensical and contradictory jumble of words and sentences of which no really intelligent, well-edu cated man would be considered the author. Of course the author of the article that has been thus "revised" has never seen the so-called revision and probably never will unless a copy of this pamphlet happens to fall in his way. The "revising" is en tirely the work of The \Verner Companys able plug editor, done without any consul tation with and wholly without the knowledge of the author of the article Verily, great and marvelous institutions are the saw artist and plug editor ol the great new up-to-date Britannica so-called.
THE SAW ARTIST AND PLUG EDITOR SOME MORK.
There are two other pages and three other paragraphs in the.great new up-todate Britannica on which the saw artist-and the plug editor got in their work. The edition which The Werner Company hired the Houston Post to circulate in Texas makes this statement: "In the Senate chamber Charles Sumner had been stricken to the floor with a bludgeon and nearly murderd by Brooks, in the presence of several Southern and unresisting Senators, for daring to criticise these unjust and one-sided proceedings" (meaning the proceedings of the legislature in Kansas that was fairly disposed towards the South.) Vol. 23, p 711. par. 237.
The Texas Veterans, denounced this as unfair in spirit to the South and untruth ful, and here is the way the saw artist and the plug editor make it read in the "re vised" edition: il lnthe Senate chamber Charles Sumner Tiad been knocked clc\vn to the floor by Brooks with a stick, so as to be severely injured, fcr da; ing to criti cise what he held to be unjust and one sided proceedings."
I will not reilect upon the readers intelligence bv commenting upon this "re vision."* but will just refer him to a succeeding page of this pamphlet for a truthful account, from a non-sectional stand-point, of the Brooks-Simmer affair and the cause of it. And I am sure the plug editor will be obliged to me for calling his attention to the fact that
KE FORGOT TO "REVISE*
the account of the same affair that is given in the notice of Mr. Brooks on page 3.10 of the first volume of the "American Revisions and Add tionsr" so-called, (the vol ume is numbered 25 in the sets sold in Georgia). If he will put on his spectacles the plug editor will rind there these words:
"He" (Brooks) "is remembered chiefly from his brutal attack on Senator Sumner, May -2, iS5(>. on the lioor -of the Senate after the adjournment of the members. He repeatedly struck Sumner on the head with a cane, till the latter fell insensible to the floor. Sumners speech on Kansas had provoked the wrath of Southern mem bers, and Brooks took this method of showing his disapproval. * * * * * He was afterwards implicated in a quarrel with Anson Burlingame. and a duel was arranged to be fought in Canada, but Brooks failed to appear; he dared not risk going^ through the enemys country. "
Cai up the saw artist and the plug editor right away, and lets have another edition of the sjreat up-to daie Britannica got out, quick, before we begin to sell jt in South Carolina, and especially before our agents get into Edgefield county!
0
A LITTLE CONFLICTING.
The sketch from which I have just quoted says: The vote was taken after wards to expel him" (Brooks) "from the House, but his friends were in the major ity, and the motion did not pass." The article in vol. 23 from which 1 have quoted
A LITERARY FRAUD UNMASKED.
29
(p. 771, par. 237) says: *Brooks was expelled by northern votes but was immedi ately returned by his southern constituents." The plug editor will doubtless thank me for calling his attention to this slight conflict of statements in the great and glorious and absolutely eternally reliable up-to-date Britannica. (Vide The Hous ton Daily Post.)
THE SOUTHERNERS "STAGGERED."
On page 643 of volume 22 of this encyclopedia we are told that "Sumners fine personal presence and learning, his high culture and social standing, seem to have staggered his southern colleagues." The poor, uncultured, inferior South erners ! They were quite overcome when confronted by a gentleman of fine per sonal presence and learning, and high culture and social standing, and that, I sup pose, must be accepted as another reason why one of their number assaulted him!
"THE SOUTH GETTING MORE AND MORE AGGRESSIVE."
Paragraph 240 of page 771 of volume 23 says that the South, after the presi dential election in 1856, "became more aggressive than ever," in proof of which it alleges the reopening of the "African slave trade, which it says the Con stitution had forbidden to be carried on, after 1808. This paragraph has also been "treated" by the Chicago revising process, which, as has been seen, is a revis ion that doesnt revise. It is not true that the South has ever been the aggressor against any other section of this country, and the historian who so represents her greatly wrongs her. On the contrary she has ever been on the defensive. Neither is it true that the importation of slaves after 1808 was forbidden by the Constitution, as stated in the paragraph just quoted, and as stated also on page 760 of the same volume, paragraph 186. The Constitution of the Confederate States prohibited the importation of slaves; the Constitution of the United States never did.
THE UNCIVILIZED SOUTH.
On page 775 of volume 23 you can see more of the work of the saw slinger and the plug professor in the first thirteen lines of paragraph 256, but, as usual, it doesnt help the case. You can no more take the prejudice against the South out of this book by the sort of "revising" that has been done to it than you can change the color of the Ethiopian by cutting out a few bits of his cuticle and inserting bits of white skin in their stead. The paragraph just named, and the last sen tence of the one immediately preceding, is devoted to showing how superior was the civilization of the North to that of the South, and how mnch more of the "spirit of enterprise" there was in the Northern than in the Southern man. And this in the face of the historic fact that the establishment of the American Union and its subsequent enlargement to an ocean-bound republic, spanning a continent and stretching from the lakes to the Rio Grande, is chiefly due to the spirit of enterprise, the patriotism, the statesmanship, the courage aad daring of Southern men !
AGAINST EVERYTHING SOUTHERN PEOPLE DID.
But such is the prejudice of this encyclopedias historical writer against South ern people that he actually casts opprobrium upon them for much of what they did towards thus increasing the extent and grandeur of the Union, as witness the fol lowing words:
"Seeing no legitimate method to acquire territory, their former plan was re peated, if not by the Southern States themselves, certain!}- under the instigation of-many of their citizens, and by members of the State Rights party of the South, and for their advantage; for it was precisely at this period that WiHiam Walker,
30
A LITERARY FRAUD UNMASKED.
of Tennessee, the notorious filibuster, undertook to snatch Sonora from Mexico, exactly as his predecessors had done wiih Texas." (Vol. 23, p. 769, par. 229.) Here we have the Southern people censured and discredited for acquiring Texas for the Union!
Finally, according to this encyclopedia, the Souths long course of disloyalty to the Union and aggression against the rights of the patient, long enduring North, culminated in a war between the two sections a war brought on solely by the South,to perpetuate slavery!
And according to the Houston Post this encyclopedia "treats all subjects in a cool, dispassionate manner, not permitting any political bias to influence the forma tion of such articles as have historic interest or value," and is "entirely to be de pended upon as telling the cold, plain truth. (See the Postoi Tune 24 and July 1, 1894)
And this is the book that is advertised to the world as having been endorsed by a Camp of Confederate Veterans !
The Veterans ot Dick Bowling camp protested that the statements made by this encyclopedia misrepresent the South, but the Houston Post said (after the protest of the Veterans): "Britannica is for all time, and is therefore like all true things, eternal. No passion sweeping assault can prevail against such a rock of truth. It is the ne plus ultra of all reference works. "(See Post, July 1,1894, page 9.}
The Hon. Henry \V. Blair, a Republican member of Congress from the State of New Hampshire, in a speech in Congress, September 29, 1893, said: The war did not grow out of the fact of the existence of human slavery;" and the Hon. Alexander H. Stephens, a Democratic member of Congress from Georgia (and Vice-President of the Confederate States) said: "The soldiers on the Confederate side were animated by the highest sense of patriotism. The struggle with them was not for powet, dominion, or dynasty nor for fame, but to resist palpable and dangerous assumptions of power, and to repel wanton aggression upon long etablished rights. They fought for those principles and institutions of self-gov ernment which were the priceless heritage of their ancestors." (Stephenss History of the United States, page 625.)
And the Baltimore Sun (May 29, 1894) said: "The people of the South may claim with an honesty which future history will not question that their appeal was to a broader and higher patriotism than that of sections, to the unwritten but eter
nal law of liberty, whose proper observance meant true freedom for all alike." And so, with The Houston Post and its "rock of truth" on one side and ex-
United States Senator Blair, of New Hampshire, and the vice-president of the Confederate States, and the Baltimore Sun on the other side, we will pass on to some further review of the Post's "rock of truth" and "ne plus ultra of reference books."
INFORMATION GALORE POLITICAL AND MILITARY.
It is not in regard to the South alone that this encyclopedia is at variance with all previously accepted information, for in its article on Massachusetts (vol. 15, p. 616, paragraph 5) I read that "the Liberty Party, led by Garrison and Phillips, was the germ of the Federal party," and that "the old Whig Party finally became merged into the Democratic Party," and that a constitution was not adopted in Massachusetts until 1870.
I had for some years entertained the belief that tbe Federal Party, instead of having sprung from the Liberty Party, was born, had died and been buried long before the Liberty Party was ever heard of; and that the old Whig Party, espe cially in Massachusetts and throughout the Nonh, was merged into the present-
A LITERARY FRAUD UNMASKED.
31
Republican Party instead of the Democratic Party; and that Garrison and Phillips opposed the organization of the Liberty Party instead of having led it. I had also been of the opinion that Massachusetts had a constitution long before 1870, but here conies along this Chicago encyclopedia and tells me just the reverse offc what I had heretofore been taught as to all these matters, and The Houston Post most emphatically asserts and impressively reiterates that the Chicago book is absolutely infallible, and it would be the height of ridiculous presumption to doubt the accuracy, in anything, of this stupendous and faultless achievement of human learning.
I should not omit to state that the article on Massachusetts in this work is not the article on that State which is in the genuine Britannica. It is quite a dif ferent article from the one in the genuine work. This somewhat increases the dis figurement of The Posts facsimile assurances. ludeed, they are so badly disfig ured by this time that I think they may, without violation of truth, be pronounced out of the ring.
Another thing as to which this article confused me relates to the governor ship of that State. Page 615, paragraph 3, says that John A. Andrew was gov ernor from 1861 to 1865, while page 616, paragraph (5, says that John A. Andrews was governor from 1861 to 1866. It appears from this that Massachusetts had two governors filling her executive chair at the same time during the whole period from 1861 to 1865, namely, John A. Andrew and John A. Andrews, but that from 65 to 66 John A. Andrews alone filled the chair. This is calculated to be a little confusing until one has fully absorbed and become thoroughly converted to the doctrine of the infallibity of the Chicago book.
MORE CONFUSION.
*
The same may be said as to the following statements: In the article on the United States, vol. 23, p. 761, 5th line, 2d column, I read that "John B. Calhoun was generally supported for the vice-presidency in 1824," and in the 12th line that "John C. Calhoun received 18:2 votes for the vice-presi dency." On page 758 of the same article (par. 177) I read that "a British army under Gen. "Parkenham" landed below New Orleans," and a little further on it is Gen. "Pakenham."
DOESNT MIND ITS ps AND ITS QS.
This encyclopedia has no respect for the time-honored injunction about mind ing your Ps and your Qs. It adds a letter (\ superfluous "t") to the name of the eminent biblical scholar, Ezra Abbot, and in its history of the United States (vol. 23, p. 773, par 247) it takes two letters away from a celebrated statesmans name It says there that "Alexander H. Stevens was elected vice-president of the Confederate States." I have seen the Confederate vice-presidents name writ ten by himself many times, but never saw him spell it with a "y."
HOW CLEVELAND AND HENDRICKS GOT NEW YORK IN 84.
On page 788 of the same article I read the puzzling statement (par. 323) that, in the presidential election of 1884, "a small majority of the democratic candi dates in the State of New York gave them its electoral votes, and decided the election in their favor." It has been my understanding that a small. plurality of the votes of the people in the State of New York for the democratic presidential and vice-presidential candidates in 1884 gave them its electoral votes and decided the election in their favor, but it appears from this encyclopedia that it was a small majority of those candidates themselves that did it. Now, there were, as
32
A LITERARY FRAUD* UNMASKED.
you remember, only two of those candidates, to-wit: Grover Cleveland and Thomas A. Hendricks. And, according to this encyclopedia, it was a majority of these two in the State of New York that gave them its votes. You perceive the knotty problem presented by the encyclopedia, the comprehension of whicl is in no degree facilitated by the fact that one of those candidates lived in tht State of Indiana and could not vote in New York. The fallible mind only becomes.more and more perplexed in attempting to fathom the infallible and unfath omable, and there is nothing left for it but to accept the assurance of The Pos^ that "the student who turns to the pages of this great work may rest content thai what he finds therein is the latest and best, no matter what, topic is dealt with It is accurate. It is reliable. It is absolute authority upon all subjects. It i; the supreme authority to which appeal can be made the ne plus ultra of all ref erence works." Thus said the Post.
IT EXPOUNDS THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES.
The Post's Ne Plus Ultra says: "The first sentence of the Constitution is no a preamble in any sense, but is the enacting clause * * stating that it was the peopli of the whole United States who established it. It was ordained by the people o the United States as a nation." (Vol. 23, p. 746, par. 102 )
This of course clearly shows that the framers of the Constitution and sucl expounders of it as Calhoun, and Webster, and Clay, didnt know what they wen talking about when they called the first sentence a preamble; and that James Mad ison, "the father of the Constitution," was utterly wrong when he said that th Constitution could not be established by the vote "of a majority of the people nor yet by the vote of a majority of the States; but that it could be establishe< only by the unanimous assent of the several States that are parties to it." (See "TV/ Federalist, xxxix.) I presume that Mr. Madison said this because it was providei by the Constitution itself that it could not be established except by the unanimou assent of nine of the thirteen States, acting as States in conventions assembled, ani the statesmen of that day agreed with him, but this encyclopedia will not permi us longer to regard men like .Madison and Jefferson as competent and reliabl authorities on this subject.
And what egregious ignorance Alexander H. Stephens showed when he wrot the following words: "Even the very Preamble, which has been- so erroneousl misconstrued and misinterpreted, shows upon its very face and front, that it is Constitution of States and for States, not a Constitution for the mass of the pec pie in one consolidated Republic, to be the same municipal authority throughout. (Stephenss History of the United States, page 312. See also article, "Goverr ment," by Alexander H. Stephens, in Johnsons Universal Cyclopedia.)
IT TELLS THE NAME OF THE MAN WHO WROTE THE CONSTITUTION.
The last paragraph on page 413 of volume XI of this book says: "Hamiltc now reached the point in his remarkable career where he performed his most in portant service to his country, and erected a monument to his own fame more hoi orable and more permanent than fell to the lot of any other American patriot, sa^ Washington alone the formation and adoption of the Federal Constitution whic now unites, governs and protects the Union. While discussions on the plan < Edmund Randolph, of Virginia, were going on, Hamilton drew up an elabora plan of ten articles. This Federal Constitution, drawn up by Alexander Hamilto as finally adopted and recommended by the convention, secured the approbatic of all the States, and went into operation on the first Wednesday in March, 1789
In view of this statement it is to be regretted that Mr. Bancroft did not enj< the privilege of living till he had read the "up-to-date Britannica" before he wro
A LITERARY FRAUD UNMASKED.
33
his History of the Constitution of the United States. If he had enjoyed that priv ilege surely he would not have said in that History that Hamilton took "little part in the formation of the Constitution." and that "he accepted it merely as a choice between anarchy and convulsion without it, and the chance of good to be expected from it." (See Bancrofts History of the Constitution, vol.2, pp. 75 and 221.) Or, surely, if he were living now he would hasten to "revise" his History and get out a new edition in conformity with the "facts" of the up-to-date Britannica. Mr. Henry Cabot Lodge will of course proceed at once to "revise" his "Life of Alexander Hamilton" and "eliminate" therefrom the statement that "the leading principles of Hamiltons plan stood no chance of adoption, either by the people or the Convention." (See "Alexander Hamilton, "American Statesmen series, p. 62.)
But even if Mr. Bancroft were alive and had "revised" his History, and even after Mr. Lodge has "revised" his biography of Hamilton, there would still re main an apparently irreconcilable conflict between the up-to-date Britannica "and Mr. Hamilton himself, who, on the day when the Constitution was adopted by the Convention, said of it: "No mans ideas are more remote from the plan than my own are known to be." (See Elliots Debates in the Federal Convention, vol. 5 p. 556. J. B. Lippincott & Co., publishers, 1876.) From which it would appear either that Mr. Hamilton didnt kno^w "where he was at" when he spoke those words, or that the up-to-date Britannicas historian didnt know where he was at when he wrote the words quoted from him.
WHO WAS HANSING AND WHAT BECAME OF HIM?
"As delegates to the convention," says this encyclopedia, "Chief Justice Yates, Hamilton and Hansing were sent from New York State." If Mr. Hansing was sent as a delegate he must have got lost on the way, for he never got to the Convention. Its records show the name of no such delegate. The "plain, cold truth" is that nobody named Hansing was sent as a delegate to that Convention from New York.
NOT THE GENUINE BRITANNICAS ARTICLE.
Its article on Hamilton, by the way, is another instance of the falseness of the representation that this Chicago book is a facsimile of the genuine Britannica. The genuine Britannicas article on Alexander Hamilton is not in The Werner Companys bogus Britannica.
TOUCHING THE MUGWUMP.
Another really fresh bit of political information that I came across in this great work relates to the term "mugwump." This comes in that part of the work which The Post described as its "crowning glory" the "American Revisions and Additions." This great work, in its crowning glory department, says that the term "mugwump" was especially applied in 1888 to such of the Republicans as openly refused to stpport the Republican ticket in the national campaign of that year. That was the year, you remember, when Harrison and Morton ran on the Republican ticket, and were elected, and I declare it had entirely escaped my memory that any Republicans openly refused to support the ticket that year, and I would have bet fifty cents, or another wheelbarrow ride, that it was in 1884 the year when Blaine and Logan ran and were defeated that the term was espe cially applied to recalcitrant Republicans. How fortunate it is that I read the supreme authority on the subject before betting on it.
IT TELLS WHAT "LED TO THE WAR."
If there be ignorance or doubt on the part of anybody as to just what partic-
34
A LITERARY FRAUD UNMASKED.
ular thing it was that led to the war, let such ignorance or doubt be at once and forever dispelled by this statement:
<%It was the attempt to organize States from this territory" (the North-west Territory) "in defiance of this restriction" (as to slavery) "that led to the war oi 1861." (Vol. XIII, p. 615, 3d. par.)
The North-west Territory was the Territory between the Ohio and Missis sippi rivers, from which the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wis consin were formed. It was ceded to the United States by Virginia on condition that there should be no slavery, after the year 1800, in any state organized fron that territory, and the Britannica explains that it was the attempt to* organiz< States "in defiance of this restriction that led to the -war of 1861." The great his torical value of this information will be fully appreciated by the student of history when he learns that it is not to be found in any of the hundreds upon hundreds o: other books that treat of that war.
HOODS "FATAL MISTAKE."
This great work is no less au fait when it comes to the military operations o the war than it is in regard to the cause of ifie war. For instance, it says of Gen eral Hoods campaign into Tennessee: "Hood, by the direct command of Davis now made a fatal mistake, which materially hastened the downfall of the Confed eracy." (Vol. 23, p. 782, par. 291.)
In his book (Advance and-Retreat, p. 199) General Hood says: "Th< President did not, at any time, order what I should or should not do * * * ' and * * he gave his expressed disapproval of the contemplated campaign inti Tennessee."
There is some conflict between the two statements, but all difficulty as t which ^one to accept as the true one will be removed when one bears in mind th unqualified assurance of The Houston Post that the Britannica "is absolute authoi ity on all subjects."
IT EQUALS JULES VERNE.
The Encyclopedia Britannica" said The Atlanta Constitution some tim since "says that during the late war the Northern cavalry traversed the Soutt ern high roads on bicycles and tricycle*. There is something attractive aboi these bold and dashing statements. They pip^ie the readers curiosity. Whe the stern troopers of Custer and Kilpatrick trundled along on their bicych through Virginia and Georgia it is plain that they must have found a better sy tern of country roads than we know anything about. This fact alone is sufficient] puzzling, but when we reflect that bicycles were not in use till several years afti the close of the war, the matter assumes a very interesting aspect. How did tl federal cavalry get hold of bicycles ten years in- advance of their fellow-citizen But we cannot pursue this subject. * * * The description of American mi tary methods is as good as anything that Jules Vrerne has ever written."
HERE IS A PUZZLER.
When The Post's ne plus ultra conflicts only with all other authorities the can be no difficult}7 in deciding which is correct. All other authorities must course yield to "the supreme authority." But when that authority conflicts wi itself, then indeed must the reader be "perplexed in the extreme." For instanc when it tells him, on one page, that the Confederate loss at Gettysburg w "about 26,000 men," and on another page that it was "nearly 40,000," how is to know where he is at in a historical sense? (See page 752, American Rev ions, and page 780, vol. 23.) There are many such instances in the pages of tl
A LITERARY FRAUD UNMASKED.
absolutely reliable work, and they are calculated to get the seeker for facts con siderably tangled. It would be nothing more than fair for The Post to straighten all tangles of this sort for the many confiding patrons induced by it to buy this book.
"UP-TO-DATE" BIOGRAPHY.
Let us look a little into this "up-to-date" encyclopedias boast of the fullness, lateness and accuracy of its biographical department.
William L. Yancey was a man whose fame as an orator will never permit his name to fade from the memory of the American people. The desire to know where such a man was born will always exist in the minds of men. But it is a desire not gratified by this encyclopedia. It contains no mention of William L Yanceys birthplace.
George Mason was one of the greatest of American statesmen. The first recorded utterance, in the worlds history, of those inalienable rights of man upon which the world-famous Declaration of Independence was based, came from his pen in the "Bill of Rights" years before the Declaration saw the light. You can not learn from this encyclopedia where George Mason was born.
Robert Toombs was long one of the most prominent and potent men in Amer ican political life. All that you find about him in this book is one line in a mass of padding at the back of the last volume, saying that he was an "American poli tician and Confederate general," and naming the date of his birth and death. Only that, and nothing more, and that was copied from the biographical list in the back part of Websters International Dictionary. George M. Troup, Herschel V. Johnson and Charles J. Jenkins, three of Georgias most illustrious sons, are treated in the same way. The name of Jenkins does not appear even in the list of: governors of the state. You may read the whole work through from beginning to. end without learning from it that Georgia ever had a governor named Charles J^ Jenkins, but it spells Gov. Tatnalls name with only one "1" and tells us that there was a Governor "Lumpkins," of Georgia.
We are also informed that Texas had a governor named David G. Burnet in* 1836, and one named David J. Burnet in 1840.
Sidney Sherman was one of the heroes of the Texan struggle for independence. It was his voice that, at San Jaointo where that independence was won raised the battle-cry, "Remember the Alamo," and to his memory women of Texas have reared a monument in Galveston, and for him is named a beautiful park in that city. Search this encyclopedia through and you will not find the name of Sidney Sherman.
Anson Jones was a president of the Republic of Texas, but this book does not tell you where he was born, nor that he died by his own hand.
From its biography of J. Marion Sims you would never know that that great man ever lived in the State of Alabama, nor that he was ever president of the American Medical Association, nor that decorations were showered upon him by the crowned heads of Europe. It says that Dr. Sims visited Europe in 1857, but Dr. Sims himself says that he never went to Europe till 1861. (See "The Story of My Life," by J. Marion Sims, M. D., LL. D., p. 305.)
For many years Willie P. Mangum was the most conspicuous citizen of North Carolina, was often mentioned in connection with the presidency of the United States, and once a candidate for that office, but you could never know that such a man ever existed in North Carolina from all that can be found about him in this book. Neither could you learn from it that Geo. E. Badger, another very distinguished statesman, ever lived in North Carolina, or that Tennessee ever had a citizen
S6
A LITERARY FRAUD UNMASKED.
named Hugh L. White who defeated Andrew Jackson in that State and, in 1836, got nearly twice as many votes for the preiidency as did Daniel Webster, who was a candidate at the same time.
There are no biographical sketches in this book of Stephen D. Lee, Fitzhugh Lee, Richard Taylor and Earl Van Dorn, distinguished Confederate, soldiers. One line is given to Taylor and one to Van Dorn in what is called the condensed Bio graphical Dictionary at the end of the work, in which they are simply described as an "American soldier" and an "American general."
And, by the way, I learn from that Biographical Dictionary that W. C. P. Breckenridge is dead. Most people who have been keeping the run of events in the United States during the last few months are doubtless under the impression that Mr. Breckenridge is full of lusty life, but a glance at the great up-to-date Encyclopedia Britannica will show them their mistake. Mr. Breckenridge departed this life in 1855. The grasses on his grave have forty years been growing. He himself may not know it, but that he is dead there can be no doubt, for the supreme the infallible authority hath said it.
On the other hand, another celebrated personage, whom I supposed to be dead these many years, is represented by this encyclopedia as being still alive. Other encyclopedias say that General Tom Thumb is dead, and the newspapers chronicled his death ten years or more ago, but there was evidently some mistake about the matter, for the Chicago edition of the Britannica says that he lives, and as it is a thoroughly revised and squarely up-to-date edition, and absolutely relia ble in all its statements, it is clear that the newspapers and the other encyclope dias are wrong and that General Thumb is, as the up-to-date Britannica says, still living. (See vol. 7, p. 568.)
There is no article in this encyclopedia on the Mikado, and none on Mutsuhito, the reigning emperor of Japan; and isnt it surprising that a work such as the Chicago boomers and pirates would have us believe this to be tells us nothing of Stepniak, the famous Russian author, and gives us no biography of Max Muller, one of the worlds most distinguished scholars, to say nothing of its ignoring that brilliant American authoress, Mary N. Murfree (Charles Egbert Craddock), and Ann Hasseltine, the noble wife of Adoniram Judson? The great missionary him self is dismissed with fourteen lines, which is just thirteen more than are given to the great lawyer, James L. Petigru, and the distinguished statesman, Dixon H. Lewis, both of whom are packed away in the hundred-and-fifty-page list of names with which the last volume is stuffed, the native State of neither of them being given.
You will look in vain in this book for any evidence of the existence of Henry R. Jackson, soldier, orator, poet, statesman, diplomat; and )ou cannot learn from it where Hilary A. Herbert, the present Secretary of the Navy, was born, or J. J. Ingalls, or R. J. Ingersoll, or but the list is too long. I cannot begin to call over the names of prominent persons whose birthplaces are not mentioned in the sketches of them in this book. Nor can I tell of the meagreness of the great majority of the sketches.
Take the sketch of L. Q. C. Lamar. You would never know, from it, that he went to Europe as Commissioner for the Confederate States. Mr. Lamar was born in the good old county of Putnam, in Georgia, and always said he would rather live on Little river, in that county, than anywhere else, but you cannot find out from this book what State he was born in.
Take the sketch of the old patriot and hero, Duncan N. Ingraham, Not only are you not told where he was born, but there is no mention of the incident that brought him more prominently before the public than any other of his long and and honorable career his rescuing of Koszta from the Austrian government.
James Iredell was one of the very ablest jurists who ever sat on the bench of
A-LITERARY FRAUD UNMASKED.
3T
the United States Supreme Court. In one of the greatest, most momentous cases ever before that Court he stood alone in his construction of the law, and delivered the only dissenting opinion. The Constitution of the United States itself was
afterwards amended so as to make it specifically accord with that opinion. There is no mention of that case in the sketch of Iredell, nor does it tell where he was born.
Look at the sketch of William Moultrie, one of the foremost of the Revolu
tionary heroes. It comprises just three lines, without any mention of his Memoirs of the Revolution or of his having been Governor of South Carolina.
Lyman Trumbull once lived and taught school in Georgia, so did William H. Seward, but the Britannica doesnt tell it.
There was an eminent musician, whose concerts in London made an era in the history of music, and led to the production of Haydns grandest symphonies.
But you cannot find the name of Salomon in the Britannica.
. It was a Dutch physician of the 18th century who made the first medical use of carbonic acid, and made the discovery that plants when exposed to light exhale oxygen, but we can find no notice in this book of Jan Ingenhousz.
There are so many other notable characters especially Southern men of whom there are no notices in this encyclopedia that I cannot think of undertaking to enumerate them all here, or of dwelling at any length on any single one of
them, so I will just group a few of them in a condensed list. The person who has been induced to invest "10 cents a day" in the "up-to-date Britannica" will turn to it in vain for a biographical sketch of any of the following named characters:
Ashby, Turner; distinguished Confeder ate soldier.
Ashe, John; Revolutionary patriot. Dudley, Benjamin W.; distinguished
surgeon. Dunster, Henry; first president of Har
vard College, who was compelled to resign, tried by a jury and put under bonds because he said he didnt be lieve in infant baptism.
Eaton, John H.; Governor of Florida, United States Senator, Secretary of War, minister to Spain.
Aiken, Wm.; Governor of South Caro lina and congressman.
Alexander, James Waddell; preacher, educator, author.
Tennent, Gilbert; South Carolina, Preacher.
Alexander, Joseph Addison; preacher, educator, author.
Tennent, William; South Carolina; Preacher.
Allston, Robert F. W.; soldier and states man.
Baldwin, Joseph G.; jurist and author. Bankhead, John P.; distinguished naval
officer. German, Arthur P.; Maryland. U. S.
Senator.
Few, William; Revolutionary soldier, jurist, U. S. Senator from Georgia, a framer of the State and U. S. Consti tutions, member N. Y. legislature and mayor of New York city.
Fitzgerald, O. P.; North Carolina. Bishop M. E. Ch., South.
Gaillard, Edwin S.; South Carolina. Physician.
Galloway, Charles B.; Mississippi. Bishop M. E. Ch., South.
Gambrell, James B.; Preacher and edu cator. Born in South Carolina.
Garnett, A. Y. P.; Virginia. Physician. Garnett, James M.; Virginia. Educa
tor and author. Garnett, Robert S.; Virginia. Confed
erate general. George, J. Z.; Georgian. Jurist and
statesman. Gibson, William; Maryland. Surgeon.
First to perform the Csesarean opera tion twice on the same patient, suc cessful to both mother and children. Gilmer, Geo. R.; Georgia. Congress man and Governor. Girardeau, John L.; South Carolina. Preacher, educator, author.
Granbery, J. C.; bishop M. E. Church South.
38
A LITERARY FRAUD U&MASKED.
Barbour, James; Governor of Virginia, Green, William M.; bishop Protestant
U. S. Senator, Secretary of War, Episcopal church of Mississippi and
Minister to England.
one of the founders of the University
Barbour, John S.; U. S. Senator.
of the South at Sewanee. Tenn.
Barbour, Philip Pendleton; Speaker of Gregg, Maxcy; Confederate general.
the House of Representatives and (This encyclopedia couldnt find room
judge of U. S. Supreme Court.
for General Maxey Gregg, of the Con-
Barebones, Praisegod.
federate army, but it has sketches of
Barnwell, R. W.; U. S. Senator from two brigadiers of the same name in
South Carolina.
the Federal army.)
Barringer, D. M.; North Carolinian. Harris, Samuel; "the apostle of Vir-
Statesman and diplomat.
ginia."
Barron, James; Virginian. Commodore Hawkins, Benjamin; U. S. Senator from
in U. S. Navy.
North Carolina, Hawkinsville, Ga.,
Barry, Wm. T.; Virginian. U. S. Sen- named for him.
ator, chief justice of Kentucky, Post- Haygood, Atticus G.; Georgia. Bishop
master-General, Minister to Spain.
M. E. Church, South.
Bartow, Francis S.; Georgian. Confed- Hentz, Caroline Lee; authoress.
erate general.
Hoge, Moses D.; Virginia. Preacher.
Bassett, Richard; a framer of the Con- Holcombe, James P.; Virginia. Orator,
stitution, U. S. Senator, Governor.
author, statesman.
Bathori, Elizabeth; who bathed in the Holland, Robert A., Tennessee. Preach-
blood of murdered maidens to renew er and author.
her youth.
Holmes, Mary J.; authoress.
Battey, Robert; Georgian. Distinguish- Ingraham, Joseph H.; novelist and
ed surgeon.
preacher.
Beard, Richard; Tennesseean. Lead- Irwin, Jared; Revolutionary patriot and
ing Theologian of Cumberland Pres- twice governor of Georgia.
byterian church.
Ito, the Bismarck of Japan.
Becker, Thos. A.; Bishop Roman Cath- Jasper, William; Revolutionary hero.
olic church, Savannah.
Johnson, William B.; South Carolina,
Beckwith, John W.; North Carolinian. Judge U. S. Supreme court.
Bishop of Georgia, P. E. church.
Kershaw, J. B.; Confederate general.
Bee, Barnard E.; South Carolinian. Lamar, Mirabeau B. ; Georgia. Lawyer,
Hero of two wars.
soldier, statesman, diplomat.
Bell, Claiborne H.; Mississippian. Edu- Lamb, Martha J.; authoress.
cator.
Lane, Joseph; North Carolina. Soldier
Haywood, Henry; North Carolinian. and Senator, candidate for Vice-Pres-
Rear-admiral U. S. N. " .
ident U. S. (This encyclopedia has
Bernardo del Carpio. \ "
no room for the North Carolinian who
Berrien, Jno. McPhersonf U. S. Sena- was brevetted major-general for gal-
tor from Georgia, and Attorney-Gen- lantry in the Mexican war, but it finds
eral of United States.
ample space for a notice of James H.
Bibb, Geo. M.; Chief Justice of Ken- Lane, of Indiana, who led in the war-
tucky, U. S. Senator, Secretary of. fare against the Southern settlers in
Treasury.
Kansas.)
Bibb, Wm. Wyatt; U. S. Senator from Laveran, Alphonse; physician, discov-
Georgia, governor of Alabama.
erer of organism causing malaria.
Blair, John; Virginian. Judge Supreme Lay, Henry C.; Virginia. Bishop Pro-
Court U. S.
testant Episcopal Church.
Boone, Wm. J.; South Carolina. First Lewis, Andrew; Virginia. General in
missionary bishop of the Protestant in the Revolution.
Episcopal church to China.
Lumpkin, Joseph Henry; Georgia. Ora-
Harris, David B.; Confederate general. tor and jurist.
A LITERARY FRAUD UNMASKED.
39
Bowie, James; Georgian. Hero of the Mell, P. H.; preacher and educator.
Alamo.
Georgian.
Boyce, James P.; South Carolina. The Mercer, Jesse; preacher, founder of Mer
ologian and educator.
cer University in Georgia.
Bradford, Joseph M.; Tennessee. Naval Mills, Robert; South Carolina. Archi
officer.
tect, designer national Washington
Bradstreet, Anne; first American versi monument and other noted structures.
fier.
Nelson, David; Tennessee. Preacher,
Branch, John; North Carolina. Gov author.
ernor, U. S. Senator, Secretary of the Thornwell, J. H.; South Carolina.
Navy.
Preacher, educator, author.
Branch, Lawrence OBrien; North Car Palmer, Benjm. M.; South Carolina.
olina. Confederate general.
Preacher and author.
Breckenridge, James; Virginia. Revo Pendleton, Wm. N.; Virginia. Confed
lutionary soldier, eminent lawyer, con erate general.
gressman, co-operated with Jefferson Pickens, F. W.; South Carolina. States
in establishing the University of Vir man and diplomat.
ginia, one of the originators of the Pinckney, Thomas; South Carolina. Sol
Chesapeake and Ohio Canal.
dier, statesman, diplomat.
Breckenridge, John; U. S. Senator, and Pinkney, E. C.; Maryland. Poet.
Attorney-General under Jefferson.
Ticknor, F. O.; Georgia. Poet.
Brownson, Nathan; member Provisional Posey, Thomas; Virginia. Soldier and
and Continental Congresses from statesman.
Georgia, and governor of Georgia. Preston, Margaret J.; Virginia. Poetess.
Burleson, R. C.; of Texas. Preacher Cranch, Christopher P.; Virginia. Ar
and educator.
tist and poet.
Butler, Wiiliam; Virginia. Revolution Crawford, Geo. W.; Georgia. Con
ary soldier.
gressman, governor, Secretary of War.
Cabell, William; Virginia. First pre Crawford, Martin J.: Georgia. Jurist.
siding magistrate for the U. S. after Grimke, Angelina; South Carolina.
the Declaration of Independence.
Dale, Richard; Virginia. Commodore
Canrobert, French marshal.
in U. S. Navy. Had heroic and
Carrington, Edward; Virginia. Revo romantic career.
lutionary soldier and statesman.
Daniel, John W.; Virginia. Lawyer,
Carrington, Paul; Virginia. Legislator orator, author, senator.
and jurist.
Taylor, John; Virginia. Statesman and
Carrington, Paul; Virginia. Revolu author.
tionary soldier.
Capers, William; South Carolina. Bishop
Cheves, Langdon; South Carolina. M. E. Church, South.
Statesman.
Donaldson, Edward; Maryland. Rear-
Claggett, Thomas J.; Maryland. First admiral. - -
bishop consecrated in the U. S.
McKendree. William; Virginia. First
Clark, Francis E.; founder Christian bishop of the Methodist Episcopal
Endeavor Society.
Church in North America.
Clay, Clement C.; Alabama. Jurist and Mackenzie, Alexander Slidell, command
statesman.
er of the ship from thw yardarm of
Cobb, T. R. R.; Georgia. Lawyer, which was hung a son of the U. S.
author, soldier.
Secretary of War.
Curry, J. L. M; Georgia. Statesman, Walker, W. H. T.; Confederate general.
educator, diplomat.
Gist, S. R.; Confederate general.
Conner, James; South Carolina. Con Clingman, T. L.; North - Carolina. U.
federate general.
S. Senator, Confederate general.
Evans, Augusta J.; Georgia. Authoress. Ewell, Benjm. S.; Confederate general.
40
A LITERARY FRAUD UNMASKED.
Elliott, Stephen, Jr.; South Carolina. Wyeth, John A.; Alabamian. Eminent
Confederate general.
surgeon. Founder of the New York
Ewing, Finis; Virginia. One of the polyclinic and hospital, the first post-
fathers of the Cumberland Presbyte- graduate medical school in this coun-
rian church. -
try.
The foregoing list comprises but a comparatively small number of the names of
prominent characters of whom there are no sketches in this encyclopedia, and is the result of only a partial examination of it, and yet the Houston Post asserted that this "up-to-date Britannica" has "more biograpical sketches of the Souths great men
than all other encyclopedias combined!" (See Houston Post, June 19, 1894.) ,
SOME MORE SAMPLES OF ITS BIOGRAPHIES.
I have already shown how deficient are many of the "biographies" this book does contain, but here are a few more illustrations of the same sort:
Its biography of General Beauregard says nothing of his having been Superin tendent of the Military Academy at West Point, but it says that "from the time of the capture of Sumter onward he was virtually the commander of the Confederate troops." This will be news to the Confederate veterans, and would be news to Gen. Beaure gard himself if he were living.
All that it says of William W. Belknap is "that he rose during the civil war from the rank of major to that of brigadier general." Not a word of his being Secre tary of War, nor of his impeachment nor of his suicide. If Belknap had been a South ern man the charity of silence would not have been thus extended to him.
It says that Horace Binneys "last notable public services were in regard to the case between Bidal and Girards executors." There was never any such case. See
Howards Reports, Vol. 2, p. 127. Robert J. Breckenridge presided over the convention that nominated Lincoln for
the presidency in i864. This encyclopedias sketch of Breckenridge doesnt mention the fact.
S. B. Buckner was governor of Kentucky, but this books biography of him doesnt say so.
John At Campbell, the distinguished jurist, has been dead six years, but the sketch of him in this book makes no mention of his death.
The sketch of Ralph Waldo Emerson says nothing of his family history, nor of his educational course, nor of his school teaching. It says he was "pastor of the 2nd church, Boston," but leaves us in the dark as to the denomination of the church, and tells us that he resigned his pastorate without enlightening us as to why he re-? signed. And one would never know from this sketch that Emerson was ever mar
ried. Of Isaac Errett, the distinguished theologian, we are not told where he was
born, nor where he died, nor is a single one of his works named. The birth-place of James P. Espy, the "Storm King," is not given, nor can we
learn from the sketch of him the interesting fact that it was at the suggestion of Alexander H. Stephens that Espy instituted the service of daily weather-bulletins, that has developed into an important branch of the war department. (See Johnsons Universal Cyclopedia, i895 ed. vol. 3, p. 197.)
The sketch of Gen. R. S. Ewell (Confederate) is very \neager, while (as already noted) there is no sketch of Benjamin S. Ewell.
The biography of Jules Ferry gives only half his name, and says nothing of his candidacy for the presidency of France in 1887, nor of his being shot by Aubertin, nor of his journalistic connection, though he was one of the most brilliant of French journalists.
Its sketch of the great lawyer, David Dudley Field, says nothing of his having; been a member of the peace conference in Washington in 1861, nor of his having;
A LITERARY FRAUD UNMASKED.
41
been a Congressman, nor of his presiding at the great peace convention, in Londonr in 1890. It doesnt even say where he was born. Neither does its sketch of Ste phen J. Field say where he was born, nor that he was one of the presidential electoral commission in 1877, or a candidate for the presidency in 1880.
Its notice of Catling, inventor of the Catling gun, doesnt say where he was
born, or that he was a physician. The sketch of Cardinal Gibbons doesnt say where he was born nor where edu
cated, and that of Randall L. Gibson, doesnt even mention that he was a lawyer, nor that he reached a higher rank than Colonel in the Confederate army; and Glad stone and Gortschakoff are both very inadequately treated.
Its article on James Hamilton says nothing of his having been governor of South Carolina nor of his appointment as minister from Texas to the European powers, and the one on Wade Hampton records his military career in the statement that he "was a member of the Confederate army during the war." That is all. It does not say whether he was a private, or a corporal, or a sergeant major, or a quar termaster. He was simply a "member of the Confederate army."
The latest book by Thomas Hardy named in the sketch of that author was pub lished in 1887.. "Tess of the dUrbervilles" is not mentioned, though it was pub lished in 1890, and this encyclopedia claims to be "up-to-date" in everything.
To Benjamin H. Hill it gives nine lines, from which one could never learn that Mr. Hill was ever a member of the State legislature, nor of his attitude as to secession, nor of his imprisonment in Fort Lafayette, nor of the "Notes on the Situation."
Neither does its sketch of D. H. Hill, mention his presidency of the University of Arkansas nor of the college at Millegeville, Ga.; but it says that his works, "Ele ments of Algebra," "The Crucifixion of Christ," and "Consideration of the Sermon
on the Mount," were published after the war, when the fact is they were all pub lished before the war; and though General Hill died in 1889 his death is not noted
in this sketch. None of the works of Dr. J. G. Holland are named in the notice of that distin
guished author, and the article on the eminent educator, Geo. F. Holmes, doesnt say where he was born and educated.
We cannot leain from the sketch of John Eager Howard in this book that he was appointed brigadier-general by Washington, nor that he was a candidate for the vice-presidency, nor that he received a medal from congress for his valor at the Cowpens.
The sketch of Gen. Geo. B. McClellan says he "died in 1888," though the fact
is that he died in 1885. It says nothing of his book. The article on Lord Lytton (Owen Meredith) says nothing of his residence at
Washington and nothing of his best known work, "Lucile," and its statement that he
became "cfiarges d*affairs" at Lisbon, Madrid, etc., shows that the up-to-date Brit-
annicas French needs a little revising. The sketch of James Anthony Froude says nothing of his fascinating biogra
phy of Caesar, nor of his lectures in the United States, nor of his succeeding Free
man as Professor of History at Oxford, and what it says of his "The Nemesis of Faith" is plagiarized from Chamberss encyclopedia, and the sketch of Baglivi says nothing of his being the discover of the system of "solidism in medical science, nor does its notice of Thomas Dunn English mention that he was the author of the
song, "Sweet Alice, Ben Bolt." The sketch of William McKinley has nothing later than his election as Govern
or of Ohio in 1891, though he was elected in 93 by more than 80,000 majority; while pf Robert M. McLane we have the curious statement that "he was elected to the national congress in 1888 and received a re-election in i880," that is, Mr. Mc
Lane was re-elected eight years before he was first elected.
42
A LITERARY FRAUD UNMASKED.
The article on Marshal MacMahon is very meager, with no allusion to his his toric utterance in the Malakoff, "J'y mis; fy restc' (its stock of French was prob ably exhausted on Owen Meredith): and we are not told when bishop McTyeire was born nor that he is dead.
The sketch of Peter Minuit omits to state the fact that he was the founder of New York, while it does say that he was deacon in the "Walroon" church in his na tive town. There was a Walloon church in Minuits native town, but the up-to-date Britannica gives me my first information of a "Walroon" church.
The relatives and descendants of Waightstill Avery will be surprised to learn from this encyclopedia that he was the first attorney-general of Connecticut. They are aware that he was the first attorney-general of North Carolina, but I am quite sure that the information that he held the same office in Connecticut will be news to them. Waightstill Avery was a very prominent man in North Carolina, and was one of the signers of the Mecklenburg Declaration, but it doesnt appear from the up-todate Britannica that he was ever in North Carolina at all.
It gives two lines to H. M. Muhlenberg, the founder of the Lutheran Church in America; two lines to F. A. Muhlenberg, without noting the fact that he was the first speaker of the U. S. House of Representatives; and two and a half lines to Wm. A. Muhlenberg, without mentioning that he was the author of the famous hymn, "I Would not Live Alway."
It gives four lines to Andrew Pickens, from which it could never be learned that he ever lived in South Carolina, or was ever in Congress: and the people of Georgia will be surprised to learn from the three lines it gives to bishop George F. Pierce that he died in 1844.
Albert Pike has five lines, with no mention of his service in the Mexican war nor of his high Masonic rank.
Maria J. Mclntosh is referred to simply as an American authoress, without any intimation as to where she was born, and but one of her books is named. Neither is the nativity of Gen. Lachlan Mclntosh given, nor is there in the sketch of him any reference to the duel in which he killed Button Gwinnett, who had been President of Georgia: and there are but three lines on William Moultrie, with no mention of the fact that he was governor of South Carolina, and no allusion to his "Memoirs of the Revolution."
THE DISCOVERER OF ANAESTHESIA.
In a five line notice of Dr. Crawford W. Long, of Georgia, it says: "It is claimed on his behalf that he was the first to use ether in surgical operations." "If the "up-to-date Britannica" biographer will turn to vol. 5, p. 346, of Johnsons Uni versal Cyclopedia, 1895 edition, he will find there the facts to prove that claim, and he will see that Dr. Long is there put down as "the discoverer* of anaesthesia."
ABOUT THE HON. JOHN T. MORGAN
The "up-to-date Britannica" says that Mr. Morgan, U. S. Senator from Alabama, "practiced law in his native state." As his native state is Tennessee, and as he moved away from there when he was nine years old, and has never lived there since, this shows Mr. Morgan to have been an extraordinarily precocious youth.
MR MASON AND VENUS.
This Chicago masterpiece says that Charles Mason, surveyor of Mason and Dixons line, observed the transit of Venus at Cavan, Ireland, in 1869. Now I am not going to deny that Mr. Mason saw the transit of Venus in 1860 (since this abso lutely reliable book says he did), although I was not before aware that Venus did any transiting in i860 and have never seen it mentioned anywhere else. I would simply remark that if Mr. Mason did observe any caper cut by Venus in
A LITERARY FRAUD UNMASKED.
43
that year of our ]L,ord, he must have observed it from the translunar regions, for he made his exit from this sublunary sphere more than four-score years before 1869. In other words he died in 1787. And as Mr. Mason was born and bred in England, the statement of the Chicago book that he was an "American astronomer" makes another one of those tangles which I really think the Houston Post ought to straight en for those who were induced by it to buy the book, especially as this, tangle comes in one of those volumes which the Post (A pi. 19,) announced as "the crowning work of this edition " (See "American Revisions and Additions, p. 1058)
But I must call a halt in the review of this "up-to-date" encyclopedia. What I have written falls far short of giving an adequate idea of the unreliability and de ficiency of this work as a reference book, but time and space permit me to cite but
s
A FEW MORE INSTANCES
showing how unreliable and deficient it is. Turn to its pages tor an account of the battle of Waterloo, and see how long and in how many places you will have to look for the little information you get at last. See if you can find out from it who com
posed the first Triumvirate in Roman history and who the second. See how long it will take to find out from it who were the Thirty Tyrants of the Roman Empire, or what was the feast of the Three Kings, or the history of the Gordian Knot, or what was the Dilettanti Society, and when it was founded, or who Jack Straw was, and Mother Shipton, and Wat Tyler. See if you can get ftom it a concise, satisfac tory account of the Thirty Years. War, and what you can learn from it about The Iron Crown, or Pandoras Box, or the famous Peutingerian Table, and if you can find out from it who the Irredentists are, and who the Intransigentists. When the pa pers a few weeks ago published dispatches from Lowestoft about the loss. of the Elbe with her cargo of human freight, I looked in vain in the Encyclopedia Britan-
nica for Lowestoft. Turn to the titles Gettysburg," "Fredericksburg," "Chancellorsville," "Antie-
tam. and see the accounts given of the battles of those names. Here is one of them
in full: "At Fredericksburg the Federal troops sustained a repulse by the Confederate
forces, Dec. 13, 1862." (Vol. 9. p. 742.) That is all. Note how it ignores the whipping that Beauregard administered to Butler, at
Bermuda Hundred, and I searched it in vain for "Inkerman," where was fought one of the most desperate battles of modern times, and for "Ipsus," where was fought one of the greatest battles of ancient times, and for "Kings Mountain," the battle that
was the Valmy of the American Revolution. The Confederate States filled a large enough page in the worlds history to have
a separate title and article in a general encyclopedia, but no article on the Confed erate States is to be found in this book. The Emancipation Proclamation is cer tainly a paper of sufficient importance to be included in such a book, but it isnt in this book. Neither has it any article on the Declaration of Independence, nor on the Constitution of the United States, nor on* the important subject of Home Rule. When I wanted to read something about Nihilism I could find in this book no really enlightening article on the subject, nothing informing me as to the origin of the name and of the modern political movement called by by that name, and of the real meaning and object of the movement. Instead of finding in one satisfactory article what I wanted to learn about the doctrine of the 4 Infallibility of the Pope" J had to search articles under different titles in several volumes for it and then didnt get it; and I had the same experience in regard to "Nullification," the "Gulf Stream," and many other important subjects. I wanted to learn something about dew, but found no article on it in this book. I finally found a paragraph on it in a seventy-page article* on meteorology. I turned to another cyclopedia and found just what I wanted in one article under
44
A LITERARY FRAUD UNMASKED.
the title "Dew;" and I found that this otier cyclopedia has articles on all of the subjects named, giving in the place where one would naturally look for it the in formation most likely to be desired.
I had the same experience with regard to many other subjects, that is, I found either nothing at all about them in the Encyclopedia Britannica, or, if I found anything, it was but little, and that little usually had to be searched for under many different titles, in many different volumes. Such, for instance, was my ex perience in looking for information about Isis, the Cissoid Curve, Witch Hazel, Mountain Meadows Massacre, The Tichborne Trial, Holy Ghost, Holy Coat of Treves, Sisters of the Holy Communion, Hydrocyanic acid, Thirty Tyrants at Athens, Thirty Years War, Tiers Etat, Omar (Abu-Hafra), second caliph of the Moslems and founder of the Mohammedan power; Seven Wonders of the World, Dark Ages, Dred Scott Case, Dorr Rebellion, Peters Pence, Essex Junto, Feigned Diseases, Fort Moultrie, Fort Monroe, Fon Pulaski, Fourth Estate, The General Convention (Protestant Episcopal), General Assembly (Presbyterian), General Rules of the Methodist Episcopal Church, Berlin Congress (which resulted in the longest treaty ever written and was signed by a larger number of plenipotentiaries than had ever before fixed their names to a treaty), Catholic Emancipation, Cau cus, Electroscope, Eminent Domain, Equity of Rec^emption, Courts of the United States, Alabama Claims, Black-Mail, Hobsons Choice, Tinkers Dam, the Hippocratic Oath, and many other subjects that space will not permit me to name here, but all of which I did find satisfactorily treated in other encyclopedias.
SISTERS OF CHARITY AND THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY.
V
Of all religious orders the order known as the Sisters of Charity alone was able to weather the storm of the French Revolution, notwithstanding an edict in 1790 for the suppression of all religious orders. It was officially recognized by Napoleon, and became the center into which was gathered the whole practical re ligious energy of the time. A single sentence of two lines is ail this encyclopedia devotes to this noble, consecrated and historic order, and not even that much is given to the Catholic University of America, of which Cardinal Gibbons is chan cellor.
MORE FACTS FROM AND ABOUT THE GREAT AND ONLY AND
ABSOLUTELY RELIABLE UP-TO-DATE BRITANNICA.
The "up-to-date Britannica" says that "the name of Triple Alliance was first given in 1879 to a stipulation of mutual support between Germany, Austria and Italy." This information is given in an article entitled "Triple Alliance" on page 1508 of the so-called American Revisions and Additions. Now the fact is that the first time that name was given in history was to the alliance between Eng land, Holland and Sweden, in 1668; and the next alliance to which it was given was that between England, France and Holland in 1717; and the alliance be tween Germany, Austria and Italy is the third one to wfcich the name of "Triple Alliance" has been given, and it was formed in 1882, and not in 1879, as the uptc-date Britannica has it. But one could never know, from the article referred to,. that there was ever more than one "Triple Alliance" in history.
t
AS TO THE BURNING OF THE ALEXANDRIAN LIBRARY.
In its article on Alexandria it repeats the story about the burning of the library by Omar, whereas it has been shown that, whatever may have been Omars attitude towards learning, he did not burn the Alexandrian library, for the simple reason that there was no library to burn. It had been destroyed before.
A LITERARY FRAUD UNMASKED.
45
HOW THE GREAT FIRE IN CHICAGO WAS STARTED.
In the article on Chicago it repeats the story that the great fire in that city in 1871 was started by the overturning of a lamp, whereas it was not started in that way. The facts about it are these:
The OLeary house, 137 DeKoven street, was occupied by two families at the time of the fire, and the family in the rear gave an entertainment that night for the purpose of raising funds to start a new arrival -in business One of the young men attending the party had occasion to stand beside the barn, and wken the necessity of his so standing no longer existed he filled his pipe, lighted a match, used it "to light his pipe," and dropped the lighted match upon the ground, setting fire to the shavings beneath the stable and thus starting the fire which des troyed Chicago. The true origin of the fire was established by sworn testimony.
ABOUT THE GOVERNORS OF NORTH CAROLINA.
The list of governors of Xorth Carolina in one of the volumes of "American Revisions and Additions" of this work contains some information not to be found anywhere else, which of course makes the work especially valuable for the people of that state and all others interested in its history.
I .learn from that list that George Drummond was the first proprietary gover nor of North Carolina, whereas I have heretofore been under the impression (formed from the reading of other works represented as historical) that it was William Drummond. I learn from it that the name of the second proprietary governor was Stevens, instead of Stephens, and that he was succeeded by a Mr. Cartwright, whose first name is not given. I remember reading of a Governor Carteret, of North Carolina, but I never heard nor read of Governor Cartwright before. The omission of his name from all histories of North Carolina is a grave defect in them. I find in this list the name of Alexander Livingstone, which, of course, is the name that Dr. Hawks and other North Carolina historians skouM have written in their histories instead of Lillington; and it is equally clear that Hawks and all the other North Carolina historians who mention a Governor Glover of that State are wrong, for it should be "Grover" according to the upto-date Britannica. And according to the same authority it was Governor "Everhard" instead of Everard, and Governor "Nast" instead of Governor Nash. I learn from this list, too, that Edward Hyde was governor of North Carolina twelve years, or from 1710 till 1722. That is, he was governor for ten years after he died. And I learn from it that William W. Holden was governor for thirteen years consecutively, or from 1868 to 1881, and that Daniel G. Fowle was governor from 1889 to 1891. There are several other things in this list that are totally at vari ance with everything else I have read as to North Carolina, but I will not particu larize further than to say that the* books that name Charles Eden and Thomas M. Holt as having been governors of North Carolina must be mis taken, for neitker of those names appear in the up-to-date Britannicas list.
GOVERNOR GUT, OF SOUTH CAROLINA.
We are told on page 1450 of the "American Revisions and Additions" of this absolutely accurate encyclopedia that the chief executive of the State of South Carolina from 1858 to 1860 was a gentlemaM by the name of Gut, William H. Gut. ("Phoebus! what a name to fill the speaking trump of future fame!") The able editors of the up-to-date Britannica deserve great credit for unearthing this interesting fact from the records of South Carolina, for it is evident that all other chroniclers of the history of that State have either been ignorant as to Gut or have for some reason or other purposely and studiously ignored and suppressed him. What may have prompted them to desire to "eliminate" Gut from the an-
46
A LITERARY FRAUD UNMASKED.
nals of the State, and to have his very name perish from the memory of men, is of course matter for conjecture only. If such has been the desire of the people and the historians of South Carolina, it has been thwarted by the "corps of trained writers" who, *under the direct supervision of the widely known encyclo pedic editor, \V\ H. DePuy, D. D., LL. D.," have prepared the American Re visions and Additions that are the crowning work of this edition of the Britannica." (See the Houston Post si April 19, 1894.) That "widely known encyclopedic edi tor" and that "corps of trained writers" have discovered Gut, and it is confidentlyexpected that the next "revised edition" of the Chicago Britannica, will, as the result of their further research, disclose the fact that he was the governor of South Carolina to whom the historic, world-famous remark was made by the gov ernor of North Carolina.
SOME MORE GOVERNORS.
According to this encyclopedias gubernatorial list it was "Charles Pinkney" who was governor of South Carolina, not *Charles Pinckney; "and Robert "F." Hayne, not Robert Y. Hayne; and according to the same absolutely infallible authority the governor of that State from 1882 to 1886 was "Hush" S. Thomson. (Oh hush!) And it appears to be an erronoeous impression that Thomas Pinckney was once governor of South Carolina, for his name is not in the up-to-date Britannicas list. But I cannot further follow the gubernatorial lists of this book, though I dont know why it should omit from its up-to-date Alabama list the name of Thomas G. Jones, one of the very best governors that State or any other ever had.
SOMETHING NEW ABOUT ABRAHAM LINCOLN
comes to light erery now and then, and the latest is brought out by our indefati gable and everlastingly reliable and well known editor (with the invaluable aid of his trained corps of writers) in the statement (American Revisions and Additions, p. 613) that Lincoln defeated the celebrated Peter Cartwright in a contest for the United States Senate. As the annals of the United States Senate contain no ev idence that Mr. Lincoln was ever a member of that body, it is to be hoped that the next thoroughly revised, absolutely accurate, up-to-date edition of the Chicago literary chef-cTcevrc will make known the reason why, after being elected United States Senator, he failed to enter upon the discharge of the duties of the office.
THE XVITH AMENDMENT.
.
Page 1317, paragraph 4, of the "Revisions and Additions" informs me that a XYIth amendment to the Constitution has been adopted. I have not been able to come across it, but as the Houston Post says that the student, teacher or busy man who turns to the pages of this great work, may rest content that what he finds there in, no matter what topic is dealt with, is accurate and reliable," why, of course there is a XVIth amendment.
ABOUT JOHN WESLEY
The Encyclopedia Britaaica, (vol. 24, p. 504) makes another remarkable display of ignorance and narrow prejudice in the statement that "John Wesley was not the author of any original hymns, and has no claims to rank asa thinker, or even as a theologian."
And here is what Thomas Babington Macaulay wrote of Wesley: "He was a man whose eloquence and acuteness might have rendered him eminent in literature whose genius for government was not inferior to that of Richelieu." There is a decided difference between these estimates of Wesleys intellectual rank.
ITS ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION.
For the benefit of those who are interested in upholding the Christian religior I quote the expressions of some leading papers of that creed:
A LITERARY FRAUD UNMASKED.
47 .
The New York Christian Advocate says: "The Encyclopedia Britannica is per vaded by a spirit of prejudice against evangelical Christianity."
The Christian Intelligencer says: "We have betn asking ourselves, *Is this en cyclopedia edited in the1 interest of modern skepticism? We are beginning to ask our selves also, whether it would not be wise to request to be released from our subscrip tion to the work, and whether we might not as well subscribe to a new edition of Paines Age of Reason," revised and enlarged by the most eminent skeptics of the day."
And The New Orleans Presbyterian says: "It is clearly evident that this Ency clopedia is controlled by those who belong not to the army of the Defenders of the Faith, but to the host which are studiously seeking to undermine its battlements and to sap the foundations of the Christian religion."
A LITTLE GEOGRAPHY.
The article on Texas says of that State; "the extreme length is 740 miles and the extreme breadth 825," whereas the fact is just the reverse. The extreme length is 825 and the extreme breadth 740. Elsewhere (p. 670 Revisions and Additions) we are told that "Farquier White Sulphur Springs are in Farquier County. Vir ginia, " whereas no map of Virginia shows any such springs nor any such county. There is much geographical information of this sort scattered through the book.
THE AMERICAN FLAG
in Volume IX can hardly be called an up-to-date flag, in view of the fact that it has only thirty-six stars to represent the States of the Union.
A NEW METHOD.
According to the usual method of arranging subjects in a cyclopedia "Flori culture" should come before "Florida," but your up-to-date Chicago publishers do not hesitate to depart from the beaten track when the occasion in their judg ment requires it or makes it appropriate, hence they begin "Florida" on page 692 of the American Revisions and Additions, drop it at the end of that page and take up "Floriculture" on page 693, and resume "Florida" on page 694. It is sup posed by some that this arrangement was merely an experiment of the Chicago publishers, and that they will hereafter adhere to the customary alphabetical order if the public should manifest disapproval of the innovation.
HOW THE COTTON CROP IS TREATED.
The able editors of this great work are no less at home when it comes to telJing about cotton than they are when telfing about the Constitution, as will be seen from the statement that "after the crop has been secured it is spread out and dried." (American Revisions and Additions p. 64.) The spectacle of a gathered cotton crop spread out to dry is one that I have never seen, and I shall endeavor to find a chance to visit Col. Jim Smiths big cotton plantation in Oglethorpe county, next fall, after his crop has been gathered, and see it spread out to dry, as described in this book.
IT TELLS WHAT A LOUISIANA QUADROON IS.
"In Louisiana," says the up-to-date Britannica, "the ternTquadroon denotes the offspring of a white man and a griffin." (American Revisions and Additions, p. 95, 1st column.) Websters International Dictionary says that a "griffin" is "a species of large vulture." The encyclopedias statement about the Louisiana quadroon will doubtless cause more surprise than its statement that the cotton crop of the Southern plantation is spread out to dry after it has been gathered.
48
A LITERARY FRAUD UNMASKED.
"A RIDICULOUS SOUTHERNISM."
The "widely known encyclopedic editor" and his "corps of trained writers" say that " You all, or as it should be abbreviated, yall, is one of the most ridic ulous Southernisms" they "can call to mind," and that it "is sometimes used when only one person is meant." (American Revisions and Additions, <p. 96, 1st colnmn.) I have lived in the South all my life, and have never heard the expression "you all" applied to only one person.
SOUTHERN BARBARITY AGAIN.
When the Chicago Britannica editor and his trained writers came to the title "Andersonville" it afforded them a chance at the South that they couldnt let slip, so we find Andersonville put down as "the seat of the Confederate States military prison, notorious for barbarity of discipline." No barbarity at Elmira, no bar barity at Fort Delaware, no barbarity at Johnsons Island or Camp Douglas, nor .at Camp Morton, no barbarity at Fortress Monroe when Jefferson Davis, an old and a feeble man, was put in irons; no barbarity in the refusal of the United States authorities to permit the prisoners at Andersonville to be exchanged, nor in their refusal to send medicine for those prisoners in charge of the United States sur geons, as the Confederate government tried to get them to do; no barbarity never, anywhere, at any time in the North; only in the South was barbarity prac ticed, the uncivilized, disloyal South that, according to this book, sent brutal men, plotters and conspirators to represent her in congress. If a North ern prison is alluded to at all it is in a merely casual way, and is euphem-. istically described as a place used merely "for the detention of Confeder ate prisoners." (See "American Revisions and Additions," article "Rock Island.") And this is the book that Confederate Veterans are represented as having en dorsed !
Of course it is very wrong in me to mention these things. Southern writers should not refer to them, and the books of those Southern writers who have refer red to them should be burned. They are matters that only Northern pens should be permitted to write about; Southern writers should not "arouse sectional preju dice" by alluding to them. The South should keep silence, behave itself, and be properly grateful that Davis, and Stephens, and Lee, and her other leaders were not hung for having, as this encyclopedia says, "broken their oath of allegiance to the federal government by joining the Confederacy." (See vol. 23, p. 783, par. 208.) The Southern people should also buy all the up-to-date Britannioas that come along, and be thankful for the chance to get them at the rate of "only ten cents a day," and to give their children the opportunity of learning from the pages of the said Britannicas the "cold, plain truth" about all these things.
But, unfortunately for the up-to-date Britannicas and other books of its kind, official statistics have shown that the death rate among Southern prisoners in in Northern prisons exceeded the rate among Northern prisoners in Southern pris ons, and this conclusively shows where the excess of "barbarity," privation and suffering was. (See Stephenss War Between the States, vol. 2, pp. 507-:8-9; Speech of Benjamin H. Hill in the U. S. House of Representatives, January 11, 1876; History of the United States by Percy Greg, an Englishman, vol. 2, pp. 366-7, American edition; and Papers on Treatment of Prisoners at Camp Morton, by John A. Wyeth, M. D., in The Century Magazine, April and September 1891.)
*
BEN HILL AND HENRY GRADY.
It is now nearly twenty years since Benjamin H. Hill replied on the floor of Congress to the charge, made on that floor, of barbarous treatment of prisoners of war by the Confederate government, and the charge has not been repeated there
A LITERARY FRAUD UNMASKED.
49
since. "Ben ~Hill" (thus wrote Henry W. Grady) "said a grand thing when he
confronted Blaine and his angry adherents, and exclaimed: I tell you that this, reckless misrepresentation of the South must stop right here. I put you upon notice that hereafter when you make any assertion against her you must be pre pared to substantiate it with proof." "We thank God," added Mr. Grady, "that there is a man in Congress at once bold enough to say such a thing as this, and able enough to enforce it. _ With all respect to those who have thought and acted otherwise, it is what the South has needed for some time."
What would Ben Hill and what would Henry Grady say were they alive now to read a Southern newspapers endorsement of a book that abounds with reckless misrepresentation of the South, and to see a Southern newspaper, for lucres sake, engaged in introducing such a book into Southern homes?
~ A CORPS OF TRAINED PLAGIARISTS.
I should not omit to call attention to another feature of that part of this so-called edition of the Britannica, the feature which the Houston Post (April 19, 94) said was "the crowning workof the edition." Such were the terms in which the Post referred to the volumes of "American Revisions and Additions,"so-called, which were said to have been "prepared under the direct supervision of the widely known encyclo pedic editor, W. H. DePuy, D. D., LL. D,, assisted by a corps of trained wri ters, thoroughly revising the work to date," etc. If the reader will turn to the articles in the "Revisions and Additions" on the subjects named in the following^ list, and will then compare them with the articles on. the same subjects in an old edition of Chamberss Encyclopedia, he will see that the widely known editor and his corps of trained writers are a corps of trained plagiarists, for the articles are the same in the ufc-to-date Revisions and Additions that they are in an 1875 ed ition of Chambers that I have compared them with.
TITLES OF A FEW OF THEIR PLAGIARIZED ARTICLES.
Borodino, Bosworth, Bottle-Chart, Bottle-Gourd, Bouillon, Bourmont, Ayesha, Bower-Bird, Bravo, Brinvilliers^ Brochure, Bucephalus, Pip, Achilles Tendon, Aekermann (Rudolph), Bandana, Dovers Powder, Churching of Women, Chick en Pox, Ghickweed, Chicory, Honey Dew, Catalani, Centlemen-at-Arms, Gibbosity, Gimbals, Giovanni A. Teduccio (San), Glenroy (Parallel Roads of), Gossamer, Grace, Grease, Grandees, Grapple-Plant, Grassum, Grasswrack, Gratiola, Ground Ivy, Gulfweed, Guttiferae. Gymnocladus, Hair Grass, Hair-Powder, Seven Wise Men, Hecatomb, Hedge-Mustard; Heen, Chow, Ting and Foo; Hegesippus, "Jail Fever, Jasper, Kirchentag, Kirkdale Cave, Kraken, Kustenland. Kuvera, Lily of the Valley Lotophagi, Rammelsberg, Rappahannock, Red Liquor, Reverie, Rev olutionary Tribunal, Siam (Gulf of), Siamese Twins, Silk-worm Gut, Sodom (Apple of), Solway Firth, Sophia (St., the celebrated church in Constantinople), Sullivans Island, Florence Nightingale, Simplon, Marie Ellenrieder (she has been dead more than thirty years, but the widely known editor and the trained writers dont know it.)
These are but a very small proportion of the articles that are copied fromCbambers, and much other matter in the "Revisions and Additions" was simply clipped from magazines and newspapers.
A REMARKABLE THING
about many of the towns noticed in them ,is the fact that their population has not increased nor decreased at all in twenty years. Thus we find that Tarnow, a
/
50
A LITERARY FRAUD UNMASKED.
town in Austria, is put down in Chambers of 1875 as having 16,40Q iuhabitants, and that these Revisions and Additions show that it had the same number twenty years -later; not a birth nor a death, nor a moving into it nor a moving from it, "to add to or take from the population it had twenty years ago. And the same re markable fact appears as to Rahdunpur, a city of Hindustan, which, according to Chambers, had 15,000 inhabitants in 1875, and had exactly the same number when the "American Revisions and Additions" were prepared by the widely known editor and his trained writers in 1893. And so also as to Ramneghar, in India; Simonoseki, in Japan; Soignies, in Belgium; Szegszard, and many other towns and cities.
THE SAME OLD SHUGSHUT YET.
The population of Shugshut, in Asiatic Turkey, seems never to have been definite!} ascertained, for we find that Chambers, published in 1875, says that it was then "estimated at about 5,000," and the widely known editor and his trained writers put it down in 1893.as still "estimated at about 5,000."
The Shugshuters are evidently a hard set to get at so as to make an accurate count of them, but it is hoped that the widely known editor will send one or two of his trained writers out there and have a thoroughly revised up-to-date census taken especially for the next up-to-date edition of the Britannica. I think it is but fair to Shugshut that this should be done, for I believe that her population is now nearer 6,000 than 5,000. Let justice be done to Shugshut, though the whole corps of trained writers, yea, even though the the widely known encyclopedic edi tor, himself, perish in the doing of it!
The Werner Companys Preface to these "Revisions and Additions" says that their preparation was "accomplished at great cost." The facts I have given will enable the reader to form a fairly accurate idea as to how much the said "Revis ions and Additions" cost that Company.
*
THE CHICAGO FIRE AGAIN, AND ST. AUGUSTINE, FLA.
|
The widely known editor and his trained writers were determined to fix firmly
in the minds of their readers the account of the Chicago fire that is given in the
first column of page 612 of volume V. of the Britannica, for they rtpeat that
account word for word, in the "Revisions and Additions," even to the overturning
of the lamp that wasnt overturned. The account fills over a column in the "Re
visions and Additions," and is exactly the same as in volume V.
!
And if the reader will turn to the article on St. Augustine on page 158 of vol
ume XXI of the Britannica and compare it with the article on the same town in
the "Revisions and Additions, v p. 1371, he will see that the changing of one fig
ure is the extent of the "revising" done on that article. The Britannica (vol.
XXI) says that "in 1880 the total population was 2,293," and the widely known
editor and his trained writers, "at great cost," revised "1880" into "1890." But
they left the population just as it was in 1880, "2.293," from which it appears
that St. Augustines population, like that of Shugshut and the other Oriental cities,
remains perfectly stationary for whole decades.
WHAT THEY" ARE.
The "Revisions and Additions" are simply made up, in great part, of repeti tions of what has already been stated in the Britannica, and of articles copied from the old Chambers and scissored from magazines and newspapers. The article on Hypnotism, for instance, is from the Popular Science Monthly. I could give a great many more instances of repetition and scissoring, but I have not the time, and, besides, I do not deem it necessary. More than a hundred and fifty pages
A LITERARY FRAUD UNMASKED.
51
of names, under the heading "Condensed Biographical Dictionary," are printed twice in every copy of these "Revisions and Additions" that I saw in Texas. They are stuffed in the Index volume, and they are stuffed also in the last volume of the "Revisions and Additions." I find that this is not the case with the sets I have seen in Georgia. Is it because of their partiality for the Texans that the Werner Company sold them so many more pages in duplicate than they sold to the-people of Georgia?
A MISLEADING INDEX.
One of the most important parts of a book is the Index, for it is upon it that we rely for facilitating the finding of the page that treats of the topic we want to inquire about, but disappointment and perplexity await the person who, relying upon the 4 up-to-date Britannica" Index, expects to find anything about the Trent Affair on page 775 of volume 23 or page 661 of volume 14; orabout the Pinckneys Charles and Cotesworth or Thomas Sumter on page 790 of volume -23; or about Aaron Burr on pages 758 and 788 of the same volume; or about Geo. B. McClellan on pages 7T5 and 789; or about Geo. G. Meade on pages 778 and 790; or about Thos. A. Hendricks on page 789, or Winfield S. Hancock on pages 785 and and 789, or about the acquisition of Louisiana on page 758, or about "The Alabama," on pages 777 and 782, or but why continue to cite false references from an Index that is.so full of them!
If the reader will now turn to the special index at the end of the article on Germany* (vol. X) and test it he will find that it too abounds with false references, of which I will give only two as samples. It refers to page 478 of that^article for "Charlemagne" and "St. Boniface," but that page relates to a period several cen turies earlier than the time of Charlemagne and Boniface; and it refers to page 4:76 for "ClovisJ who. when twenty years old, fought the battle that terminated Roman rule in Gaul, but that page relates to a period nearly four hundred years before Clovis. These are but two of innumerable such instances in this index.
SOME LOST MAPS.
The article on the Indian Territory page 902, American Revisions and Ad ditions concludes thus: "For additional important information concerningpopulations of this Territory see R. S, Peales edition of the Britannica, vol. XII, pp. 822-835. Also maps of the Indian Territory and Oklahoma in these Revisions and Additions." If there are any such maps in these "Revisions and Additions" it will take a far keener vision than mine to discover them. I have looked for them in vain. They must have been lost "on the way," like the Mr. "Hansing" who was sent as a delegate from Xew York to the Convention of ,1787 in Philadel phia.
A LOST GERANIUM.
Under the title "Geranium" (Am. Revisions and Additions) the reader is re ferred to volume IX, p. 439, for further information on the subject, but when he turns to that page, instead of finding anything about Geranium, he will find him self confronted by a forty-page article on Fortifications.
A MARVEL OF THE BOOKMAKIXG ART
is a set of the "up-to-date Britannica" that I saw in the library of a sore and dis gusted purchaser. Several volumes of the set, including volume I, are shown by the title pages to have been published in 1894, while a number of the subsequent volumes and the index to them all were published in 1893. The publication of the fourth volume, for instance, of a work a year earlier than the first volume, is,
52
A LITERARY FRAUD UNMASKED.
to say the least, something unique in the book-making line; and the publication in 1893 of an index to volumes published in 1894 is a feat which I am positive could not be performed by any publishers in the world except the Chicago pub lishers of the great, new, up-to-date edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica.
"THE COLD,7 PLAIN TRUTH"
is that the Encyclopedia Britannica, in its complete genuine form is not the book of reference adapted to the needs either of the home-circle or the individual in this country, as must be known to every one who .has put it to the practical test of inquiry for concise information, quickly found, upon those subjects about which nine hundred and ninety-nine people out of a thousand are most likely to consult a cyclopedia; who has so often consulted it in vain for an swers to those questions that are constantly coming up in our every-day life, ques tions relating to the subjects of most interest and value to American readers. On preceding pages I have cited a number of subjects in illustration of this fact, and could fill many more pages with such illustrations.
He who turns to the Encyclopedia Britannica for information of the sort I have described, finds a discouraging mass of matter of the most abstruse scientific charac ter. He finds, technical subtleties, obscure terminology, and intricate discussions which he has neither the time nor, in all probability, the ability to grapple with. He finds a collection of elaborate and tiresome monographs rather than a useful book of ready reference for himself or his family. If he has bought it he finds that he has bought such a vast quantity of matter that he will never have the slightest use for. What does he want with its twenty two pages on Amphibia, its fifty-eight columns on Arachnida, its sixty-eight columns on Crustacea, its hundred and sixty-three columns on Infini tesimal Calculus, and its long treatises on Mollusca, Orthorhopha, Cyclorhapha, Nematocera, Bibroniae, Psychodida?, etc, etc? Of what interest to him is the inform ation that "the vagus or pneumogastric, in the perennibranchiate amphibia, supplies the second and third branchia, and the cucullaris muscle?" What cares he whether "the ganglion of the glossopharyngeal nerve appears to coalesce with that of the va gus" or not? What difference does it make to him? Of what earthly use to him is the fact (if it be a fact) that "in the teleosteous fishes the spinous column consists of
completely ossified amphicrelous vertebrae, with a homocercal termination," and that "the Polypteroidei have their spinous column formed by distinct osseous amphiccelous vertebrae, and is nearly diphycercal." Its all the same to him whether the spin ous column of the Polypteroidei is homocercal or diphycercal. He can catch fish just as well without being informed on that point, and he would derive a great deal more profit and pleasure from the Encyclopedia if the space that is devoted to that sort of matter (and there is a great deal of it) were filled with facts about subjects that a good, honest, level-headed, average American citizen is likely to have occasion to talk about or to write about or to think about every day. So much for the Brit annica in its genuine original form.
SOME WORDS FROM THE FACULTY OF YALE.
The reprint which The Werner Company of Chicago is representing as a fac simile of the Britannica I have shown to be a literary fraud and abomination o the first water, and I will therefore only add to what I have said some words fron the Faculty o"f Yale University, and two letters from prominent ministers of thi gospel, one of whom is at the head of a" leading Southern educational institution Yale Faculty says:
"The cheaply made reprints of the Encyclopedia Britannica do not deserv confidence. They are not only inferior in print and illustration, but mutilated
f
A LITERARY FRAUD UNMASKED.
%*
53
defective, and unreliable for reference, and as unauthorized reprints are unworthy of honest support."
Such are the words of the Faculty of Yale University concerning such literary frauds as The Werner Company is palming off on the public as a facsimile of the Encyclopedia Britannica.
LFTTER FROM A PROMINENT MINISTER.
HOUST&N, TEX., Nov. 14, 1894. To the Editor of t?ie Herald:
Allow me to say that I have read with no small degree of interest Mr. Oglesbys exposure of the Britannica fraud. I am sorry to acknowjedge that I was one of the victims "taken in" by the misrepresentations made as to the Encyclopedia Britannica that was being sold in this city recently by the Werner Company of Chicago, and I feel it my duty to the public to give my testimony in corroboration of what Mr. Oglesby has said of that book in the columns of the Herald. Had I known the work before getting it as 1 know it now, I should never have pur chased it. So far does it fall short in almost every respect from what I was told, that I feel myself justly entitled to the refunding of the money I have already paid on it, and under no moral obligation to pay another cent. You are doing the public a service in making the Herald a medium for informing them properly about this book, and you are doing your duty, for tfcfe press of the country should, when ever practicable, protect the people against imposition in any form.
L. D. LAMKIN,
Pastor First Baptist Church.
FROM A LEADING SOUTHERN EDUCATOR.
*
BAYLOR UNIVERSITY, WACO, TEX., May 31st, 1894..
MR. T. K. OGLESBY, Houston, Texas.
Dear Sir:
I will take great pleasure in giving immediate attention to the document you sent me correcting the fearful misrepresentations of Southern and especially Texas history. I have been greatly annoyed at the indifference with which our people submit to these vile slanders. I have had occasion several times to call attention to these misrepresentations and have rejected several histories from our school be cause of them, but it is amazing to see how thoroughly our people are subordi nated to Northern text book writers. One history of Texas has ten egregious mistakes on two pages, and these shameful misrepresentations of our history are in no small degree due to the indifference with which our people regard them. I re peat I will take great pleasure in aiding you and all lovers of truth to get the facts before posterity, at least. I repeat, too, that the indifference of our people is one cause of this wide spreading misrepresentation.
Yours truly,
RUFUS C. BURLESON (President). ,
SOUTHERN AUTHORS UNPATRONIZED AND UNREAD.
What Dr. Burleson says as to "one cause of this wide-spreading misrepres%ntation," namely, the indifference of the Southern people themselves ^their failure to give to this matter the serious attention it demands is too true. They buy and give prominent place in their libraries to books of Northern and foreign writers that falsify history and misrepresent and slander the South, while-books of South ern authorship go unpatronized and unread. Being in a public library in a South-
54
*
A LITERARY FRAUD UNMASKED.
\
era city not very long ago, I inquired for Mr. Daviss History of the Confederate Government. It was not there. But Bryants History of the United States was there, that History which says: *Webster would not or could not see that the question was not one simply of the ownership of black men, but of the supremacy of an ill-born, ill-bred, uneducated and brutal handful of slave-holders over a peo ple of a higher strain of blood, with centuries of gentle breeding, and a high de gree of moral and intellectual training behind them."
This statement of Bryants History is in thorough accord with the statement of the Encyclopedia Britannica that "mainly by their connection with the North the Carolinas have been saved from sinking to the level of Mexico or the Antilles." When the Texas Veterans denounced this statement the Werner Company "sawed it out" before they began operations in Georgia, and plugged into its place a para graph copied from another cyclopedia, and then tried to create the impression in Georgia that they never had reproduced that slander in any of their editions. Ifut it is on page 719 of volume 1 of every set they sold in Texas, just as it is on the same page of volume 1 (1st col., 1st par.) of every cop}7 of the original Britannica. And after they have thus mutilated the original text not from any desire to subserve the truth of history, but solely from mercenary motives the Werner Company and their agents still represent that they are selling "an exact facsimile of the genuine orig inal ninth Edinburgh edition of the Britannica, not a line eliminated, not a word left out!" Was not the Faculty of .Vale right in saying that such publications as
this so-called facsimile "are unworthy of honest support?" In another public library in a Southern town I failed to find either Mr. Daviss
or Mr. Stephenss volumes, but I did find in it Mackenzies History of America, which says of Mr. Davis: "His moral tone was low. A great English statesman, who made his acquaintance some years before the war broke out, pronounced him one of the ablest and one of the most wicked men in America."
In still another public library in another Southern city, when I inquired for
Stephenss History of the United States, or his other work, "The War Between the States," the librarian a young man about twenty years of age, probably pointed to "Stephenss Travels in Yucatan" as the only one of Stephenss works they had. And so it goes.
There has lately been published by a distinguished Southern writer a book that should be read by every Southern youth, especially, but how many people are there in the South who even know that Dr. J. L. M. Curry has written a book enti
tled "The Southern States of the American Union?"
MORE POLITICAL HISTORY CALHOUN AGAIN.
Page 472 of volume 24 of the Encyclopedia Britannica tells how Hayne, of South, Carolina, was completely and crushingly answered by Webster, of Massachusetts, in the Senate of 1830, and how the second speech of Calhoun on the resolutions introduced by him in the Senate in 1833 was still more fully answered by Webster. According to this encyclopedia the South was always on the wrong side of the question and always worsted in the argument. But Alexander H. Stephens, a fair-minded man and a patriot, distinguished both as statesman1 and historian, has left on record in regard to that speech of Calhoun, these words: Webster made no rejoinder on the real questions at issue. The speech was not answered then, it has not been answered since, and in my judgment never will be or can be answered while truth has its legitimate influence and reason controls the judgment of men." (Stephenss Constitutional "View of the War Between the States, vol. 1., p, 387,)
A LITERARY FRAUD UNMASKED. "
55
t
t
Whose statements in regard to American history are more entitled to credence, those of such a writer as Alexander H. Stephens, or those of such writers as have made the statements I have quoted from the Encyclopedia Britannica?
ABOUT NULLIFICATION.
The same volume and page of the Britannica from* which I have just quoted says that nullification was a new doctrine" in 1830, and was the product of Calhouns intellect;" and again, in Volume IV, page 683, we are told that "Calhoun is best known as the author of the doctrine of nullification." Now, those who know American history know that Mr. Calhoun was not the author of the doctrine of nullification, and they know that it was not a new doctrine in 183P. They know that it was first formally expressed in resolutions adopted by the Ken tucky legislature in 1798, and that those resolutions were written by Thomas Jefferson, who was elected to the presidency upon the political issue made by them; and they know that it was next formally expressed in resolutions adopted by the Vir ginia legislature in the same year, which resolutions were written by James Mad ison. They know that it was again expressed by a convention of the New Eng land States at Hartford in 1814, that Ohio approved it in 1820, that the legisl* ture of Maine asserted it in 1831, and that the people of Wisconsin declared their intention to enforce it in 1843.
THE KENTUCKY AND VIRGINIA RESOLUTIONS.
The distinguished authorship of these Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, the fact that they first definitely formulated the doctrine of nullification, and the part they played in shaping the political destinies of this country, have giv en them a notable place in American history, and as the real spirit and meaning of them, and the object sought to be accomplished and that was accomplished by them, is so little understood at the present day, I give here an ^extract in regard to them, from Johnsons Universal Cyclopedia, and would also refer the reader to an able and a fair minded article on Nullification in the same work (edition of 1895.) Here is the extract about the Resolutions:
"Perhaps the first formal platform of any party were the Virginia and Ken tucky Resolutions of 1798 those in Virginia drawn by Mr. Madison, those passed by Kentucky approved by Mr. Jefferson, and drafted in part by him and in part by John Breckenridge, who offered them and drew up the resolutions passed by the Kentucky legisature in 1799.
"These resolutions were at the time, strange as it may seem, Union resolutions. They consolidated the Union. Kentucky had come to the conclusion that the Eastern States under the Federalist construction of the Constitution were inimical to her interests; that under their control Kentucky would never secure the free navigation of the Mississippi river; and that the larger States close to the Federal capital would dominate the republic. The growing sentiment that continued union with th^ Eastern States was not profitable, further aroused by the election of John Adams and the consequent refusal to annex Louisiana, would in all proba bility have led to an attempt to dismember the republic at the Alleghany Moun tains; but if the construction put upon the Constitution by the resolutions of 1798 and 1799 was received as the proper construction, and the Federal Government should be controled thereby, then Kentucky was urgently desirous to strengthen her ties, to the Federal Union, and intensely loyal to it. The election of Mr. Jefferson upon this platform obliterated all desire in the West for separation and insured the loyalty of the entire West and Southwest. It created a national party based upon that construction of the Federal Constitution which secured to each State the control of its own affairs, which limited the general Government to Fed- "
56
A LITERARY FRAUD UNMASKED.
i
eral matters, and yet gave to the Federal Government the sovereign power of in
creasing the territory ofthe republic, and furnished hope of unlimited expansion/* Before leaving the subject of the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions I should
state that the up-to-date Britannica contains one piece of information about them that is not to be found elsewhere, and that is that both States repealed the Resolutions
the year after they adoptedthem. (See vol. 23, pp. 754-5, par. 156-7.) This is a discovery that cannot fail to give the up-to-date Chicago writer very high rank among those engaged in historical research.
EXTRACTS FROM AN ENGLISH HISTORIAN.
THE BROOKS-SUMNER AFFAIR, THE SOUTH, AND CALHOUN, FROM A NON-SECTIONAL
STANDPOINT.
"On May 20, 1856, Mr Sumner delivered in the Senate a diatribe of most Unparliamentary violence, applying to the South the favorite metaphors of Exeter Hall, the choicest rhetoric of Billingsgate. * * * When he passed from uni versal to individual denunciation, his gross personal attack on Senator Butler, of South Carolina, a man whose stainless character and veteran fame commanded the reverence of the whole South, was felt as a deliberate outrage, a wanton insult to the State, and a direct challenge to themselves, by all her younger representatives. Among those representatives none stood higher in personal and political reputa tion than Preston S. Brooks. Brooks was no fire-eater, no brawler of the type characteristic of the West. His demeanour, both in the House and in society, had been dignified and courteous. * * * The Senator for^ Massachusetts was a man in the prime of manhood, of very exceptional strength and sta,ture. Brooks was a man of average size and vigour. The insult to his aged uncle and revered political teacher Southern feeling and opinion, as that of every country but Eng land, required him to resent. He endeavoured, but in vain, to encounter Sumner in the street; and on May 22, accompanied by a colleague," he-entered the Senate Chamber.
"The Senate had adjourned, but several of its members were busy at their desks. Brooks addressed Sumner, and warned him that he was about to chastise the slanderer of Senator Butler. Such a warning gave Sumner ample time to de fend himself. * * Sumner, however, declined to avail himself of his antago nists ample warning, or of his conscious physical superiority. He did not even rise, but received the intended chastisement in a sitting posture. Consequently one or two blows intended for his back fell on his head; and as he was assisted out of the Senate Chamber, the blood trickling from his wounded scalp afforded the pretext for the-diligently circulated calumny that Brooks had intended murder rather than chastisement.
"The breach of privilege was the graver as committed by a member of Con gress. But cowardly, as the North chose to call it, Brookss act certainly was not. Sumner was neither taken by surprise nor at a x disadvantage. * * He received at the time a notice which gave any man of ordiaary promptitude abun dant opportunity."
The foregoing account of the Brooks-Sumner affair puts a very different fac< on it from that put upon it by the Chicago encyclopedia, as quoted on a preceding page. It is the true story of the affair, and is from the History of the Unite< States by Percy Greg, a distinguished English writer who came to this country am
A LITERARY FRAUD UNMASKED.
57
spent some time in it preparing for the work of writing that History. It was
published in London several years ago, but no Northern house would reproduce it nor advertise it, and it was therefore virtually suppressed in this country. I have seen it stated, indeed, that a wealthy New Englander bought all the copies that originally came to the United States and destroyed them or withdrew them from circulation-. But an American edition has recently been published by West, Johnston & Co., Richmond, Virginia, and it is from a copy of that edition that I take the following extract showing that
THE SOUTH WAS NOT THE AGGRESSIVE SECTION.
"The Union," says Mr. Greg, (vol. 2, pp! 100,114.) "could endure only while the
South was secure against aggression. * * * The popular vote (1856) left no doubt from
which section came the danger of disruption. The disunionist party, which had made
the repudiation of every compromise, including those of 1789, its first principle the
party of avowed aggressive sectionalism, received in the Northern States alone just
one million and one-third of suffrages. Of 886,000 cast for Fillmore, half a million
were given by the South; showing that three-fifths of the strength of the only party
which was for the .Union before all things, lay in the States which stood solely
on the defensive; that there was no element in the North from which that forbear
ance, that moderation which might restrain the aggressions and use for pacification
the strength of the stronger section, could be hoped.
"It is a signal proof of Southern caution, endurance and patience that even this
lesson did not drive the solid South into the Democratic ranks. The Democrats,
North and South, gave 1,851,000 suffrages for Buchanan. Of 296 electoral votes,
Fremont, the representative of pure sectionalism, received 114.
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
"The ignorance of Southern feelings, the pretensions to a law higher than the Constitution, a morality superior to obligations, which had prompted the Republicans in their long course of political aggression, blinded them to its consequences."
This locates, and correctly locates, the "aggressive" section in quite a different quarter from that in which it is located by the historian of the up-to-date Britannica.
And here is
A VERY DIFFERENT PICTURE OF CALHOUN
from that drawn by the up-to-date Britannica. Writing of the last speech arid death
of Calhoun, Mr. Greg says:
fc
"On March 4, 1850, occurred one of the most picturesque and pathetic scenes
in American history; a scene which has its nearest parallel in Chathams dying vin
dication of the integrity of the British Empire. The greatest of American states
men uttered his last warning, bequeathed his final counsel, the last remaining hope
he could discern of perpetuating the Union, in rendering the South secure within the
lines of the Constitution, to the assembled Senators who represented the majesty of
thirty sovereign States. He was dying and he knew it; and the truth came suddenly
home to his hearers when they found that that thrilling voice was already hushed
that they should never again hear the eloquence of profound and passionate con
viction, of devoted and unselfish loyalty and patriotism, of a wisdom almost prophet
ic, from the lips that had never paltered with the truth, never pandered to selfish
interests or popular passion, never shrunk from utterances wounding to party spirit
and fatal to personal ambition. Calhoun sat pale, feeble and suffering, the fire
an those dark eyes contrasting the wasted form and worn fape, while his last speech
was read, amid the deep silence of intense attention and universal emotion, by Mason, of Virginia. *-******
"On March 13 the dying statesman made his last appearance in the Senate.
58
A LITERARY FRAUD UNMASKED.
On the 31sL the network .of telegraphic wires recently stretched over the Union carried to East and West, to North and South the tidings that John Caldwell Calhoun had passed from the strife of politics that a life of stainless honour and selfless public service had reached its close."
This is a /very different Calhoun from the Britannica Calhoun, and these ex tracts from Gregs History of the United States show why that book does not cir culate among our Northern brethren. They do not encourage tae circulation of such books on their side of the line. They do not want and will not have in their homes such pictures of Calhoun and the South as this English historian draws. But they send their up-to-date Britahnicas down here and sell them by the car load, with the hired aid of Southern newspapers. How long is this to be kept up? How long are we to continue to stock our libraries with books that belittle and malign us, and point the world to us as the descendants of uncivilized, oath-break ing ancestors? I quote again the words of The Atlanta Constitution (July 4,1891) :
"If we litter our houses with such books the next generation of Southerners will be prepared to agree with Ralph Waldo Emersori that our people were not civ ilized, but barbarous. We should protect ourselves before it is too late."
True yesterday, true to-day, forever true are the words the Constitution then uttered, and that paper could not have chosen a more appropriate occasion for their utterance than the natal day of that Independence which the South did somuch to establish, and suffered and sacrificed more in establishing than any other section.
And to the Constitution's words I add the query of the Baltimore Sun : "Will the South have to write its own encyclopedia to escape the disgust the perusal cf the Britannica inspires?"
And to both these I add the question addressed by Mr. Thomas Nelson Page to the Virginia Veterans when he told them of-the Britannicas misrepresentation : "Is it not time for us to awake and be doing?"
IS MENTAL SUBJUGATION NOW TO BE THE FATE OF THE SOUTH.
The reckless misrepresentation of the South that was once so rife in the halls of Congress has not been repeated there since Ben Hill answered it with his mas terly array of overwhelming facts, but it is persistently reiterated through the more harmful because the more* insidious and enduring medium of books, that are introduced into Southern homes and placed in the hands of Southern, youth. No reflecting mind can doubt what will be the result of the continued existence of this state of things. The South will come to be ashamed of its rjast, and for the memory of the men and women who made that Past the generations of the "new" and coming South will have no reverence, no respect. Already the legis lature of one Southern State has adjourned in honor of the memory of Frederick Dodglass after having refused a similar tritute to the memory of Robert E. Lee. This was doubtless very gratifying to the Britannica historian and writers of his ilk, who of course regard it as an evidence of the Souths advancement in civilizazation, an evidence that their teaching is bearing the sort of fruit they like to see it bear, is producing the result wnich they are delighted to see it produce. They will not have to wait long to see the example thus set followed by other States of the "new, regenerated South" if the Southern people of this day continue to sup ply their homes with literature that represents the South of Lee, of Davis, and of Calhoun, as a South of low morals, a barbarous and a treasonable South.
It was Voltaire who said that all the world, except savage nations, is gov erned by books. Is the South to be reduced, by Northern books, to a state of mental subjection as complete as and far more degrading than the physical subjec tion to which she was reduced by Norther&wms^, ^
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