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Monday, January
7, 1889.
7.45 P. M. W. lying on his bed. Got up later. Said he was "very
tired," but, as usual, "thanked God it was no worse." Had stayed
up last night till half-past ten reading: got up this morning a little earlier than usual.
Perhaps these unusual hours accounted for it. He "could not tell,"
however, if he "wished to." I called for Dave's book this morning but
Mrs. Davis said Ed was not up. But W. said to-night: "I had intended Ed should put it on the stairway so you could get hold of
it for yourself: anyhow, you can get it now." He had written this dedication on a
fly-leaf: For David McKay from his friend the author Walt
Whitman with best regards and luck wishes not forgetting by any means Mrs: McK and the young
ones Jan: 7 1889."
W. asked me: "Do you get Liberty? does Tucker send it to you?"
Then: "Well, I laid it out for you: it came to-day: I can't say I enthuse much over it: Tucker seems to be a man with a belief:
his paper is there for that belief: that 's about as far as I can
see. I do not understand what they are driving at#8212;what the anarchists want: I do not
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understand what they want: I do not understand what the Henry George
men want: nor do I trouble myself about it."
"But you do trouble yourself about it," I said. "What do you mean?"
"Your book is full of anarchism and Henry George." He looked at me:
"You mean by implication? that I throw off sparks that way?"
"Yes."
"Well, I suppose I do: I am sure, taken that way, that I might be
convicted of a hundred philosophies."
"You say you don't know what the anarchists want, what the Henry George
men want: are you sure you don't?" He replied: "if you ask me to
tell you what their contention is I can't tell you."
"Their contention is the same as yours. You remember what you told
Pease here in this room."
"Oh! he was the Socialist? that English fellow: a nice fellow, too: what
did I tell Pease?"
"You said you did n't so much object to
Socialism as to being talked to about it." He laughed. "Did I say
that? Well, why should n't I have said that: that 's what I 'm trying to say now."
"But why don't you say it then? The way you talked I should judge your
objection to Tucker and the other fellows to be general, wholesale."
"No indeed: I would not have that implied: I honor them: I know they are
probably working in their own way to produce what I working in my own way am trying to
produce." I said: "You ask: what do they want? what do they want?
Let me ask you: what do you want?"
"Do you mean that as a question for me to answer?"
"Yes: I'd like to hear you answer it."
"Suppose I would rather not answer it?"
"I would continue to want to hear you answer it anyhow."
W. stopped. Closed his eyes a few winks. Then: "You mean economically
speaking?"
"Yes." Then he stopped again. I waited. Finally he got going with
great feeling and vehemence: "I want the people: most of all the people:
the crowd, the mass, the whole body of the people: men, women, and children: I want them to
have what belongs to them: not a part of it, not most of it, but all of it: I want anything
done that will give the people their proper
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opportunities#8212;their full life: anything, anything: whether by one means or another, I
want the people to be given their due." I said: "That don't sound
like a plea for millionaires."
"I suppose not: the millionaires don't need any one to plead for them:
they are in possession." I inquired: "You want the people to have
it all: how are they to get all?"
"Oh! there is the rub: how are they? Do you know: who knows? I wonder if
anybody knows?"
"Well, Tucker thinks he knows: Henry George thinks he knows: Pease
thought he knew."
"But do they know?" W. cried: "Every doctor
knows, but do the doctors cure people?" I asked W.: "How do you
know these men don't know if you don't look into what they propose?" He smiled. "Damn you! You 're like a lawyer! That was a blow
between the eyes." I added: "What they want#8212;what Tucker
wants, what George wants, what Pease wants-is exactly what you want#8212;you all want the
people to own their product#8212;to not make beautiful and useful things for their masters to
enjoy. There must be a way out. Why isn't it as much your business as any other's to try to
find what this way out is?" He answered at once: "I suppose you are
holding me up with good reason: I have no right to discourage the boys: they are doing their
work#8212;big work it is, too, I acknowledge: they are devoted-they sacrifice themselves to
it: it needs to be done: the people must resume their inheritance."
"Or assume it," I said: "they have never so
far had it#8212;therefore they have not lost it."
"You are cute: you see all around it#8212;all around me, in fact: I
acknowledge that I am wholly ignorant#8212;that I might brush up a bit in this line and not be
hurt by it. My general position is plain: the people: all the people: not forgetting the bad
with the good: they are to-day swindled, robbed, outraged,
discredited, despised: I say they must assert their priority#8212;that they come first: not
the swells, the parlors, the superiors, the elect, the polished: no, not them: the people, the
fraternal eternal people: evil and righteous, no matter: the people."
"Do
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you think the class that has robbed the
people will hand their loot back?"
"I 'm afraid not: I 'm
afraid the people will have to fight for what they get."
"How will they fight?"
"There are several ways: Tucker suggests one way: George suggests another
way: Pease suggests Socialism." W.: "I don't dispute with them. Why
should I? I want the real things to get said and done whether they please me or please anybody
in particular or not: the real things: the people's things. I am always outspoken on this
point. When I say I even include kings I would n't like to be
understood as making a plea for kingcraft: I include Carnegie but I would not make a plea for
Homestead: God forbid!#8212;yes, I say damn Homestead! But I can't get myself into a personal
boil in the matter: I want the arrogant money powers disciplined, called to time: I think I
shall rejoice in anything the people do to demonstrate their contempt for the conditions under
which they are despoiled." I exclaimed: "Hurrah!" Then: "All these fellows find texts in Leaves of Grass: not figures, not names,
but electrifying intimations. They don't any of them claim you as a partisan: they only claim
you in the general way. We say Jesus is on our side. In the same sense we say you are on our
side. With the people as against the elect few: with the people: even when things go wrong,
with the people."
I was feeling gratified to hear him talk so. "You
're pretty radical after all, Walt: a good bit more radical than you probably realize
yourself—you 've gone farther than you think." He
assented: "It 's quite possible: the growth of a
man is so subtle: he sometimes goes along in entire innocence until he is reminded of his
heresy." I asked W: "Suppose the millionaires were
abolished#8212;that millionairism became impossible, would you feel unhappy over it?"
"What?
me?
God no! Ain't that my program?"
"That 's what I 'm
trying to find out: I want to see if you do have a program." W. raised his arm and brought
his hand down with a slap on the arm of his chair: "I say
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that if the people know any way to get rid of the millionaires, to get
the old man of the sea off their backs (God knows they 've
staggered on under the burden long enough!): I say that if they know any way, let 'em embrace
it: now#8212;any day: the sooner the better: to hurl the nasty mess into oblivion!" His
eyes flamed out. I exclaimed: "Why Walt, you
're a damned good revolutionist after all!" He was amused. "Did n't you always know it? What could I be if I was n't?"
"I thought from what you said of Tucker and George that you were maybe
a bit reactionary!" He fairly yelled at me: "To hell with your
reaction! to hell with it! I may be dodging your doctrines: I 'm not
dodging your purpose: I am with you all in what you aim for: solidarity, the supremacy of the
people: all the people in possession of what belongs to all the people but has been stolen
from them: I 'm with you in that: but I can't follow you in all the
intricate involvements, theories, through which you pursue your fierce agitations."
W. touched this subject again later on. Spoke of Johnston. "Johnston
came in yesterday: and Richard Hunter: Dick Hunter: you know about Dick? They were here about
fifteen minutes. They are both great talkers#8212;vigorous: and very radical, too-radical of
radical#8212;free thinking, socialistic, even anarchistic, maybe. But, as I said before, I
know so little about the aims of these reformers I ought not to say anything one way or the
other"#8212;here he paused: "Dick is a tremendous little
fellow!" Then "wondered" if Johnston knew Adler. They were both
"of the good sort and come-outers by nature." Letter from Morse. "I can't think what day: certainly within a week. He tells me of the death
of his mother but gives no news of himself." Did I know Harry Bonsall#8212;the son? "He is dead#8212;died up in the asylum." Exclaimed then of Harry the
father: "Poor Harry! he has a siege of it!" Then he added: "But every man has siege of it sooner or later if he will only wait!"
I saw Dave McKay. He showed me review (brief) of N. Boughs in Springfield Republican,
Christmas day#8212;favor-
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able. I sent for two copies#8212;one for
Bucke, one for us here. Dave had already heard of The Herald notice through Boston inquiries
after the big book. I spoke of this to W. Thought we might send a few copies to Dave on sale.
"But it will be six dollars just the same." McKay too thinks a heavy
cover advisable. He will be over to see W. to-morrow. Bill for N.
B. due from McKay. W. spoke of Kennedy's letters. "I always call them
scrappy: they are not foolish: they are like him#8212;thoroughly like him: nervous, quick,
discursive, always nteresting." Letter from Bucke. "He complains of
the irregularity of my letters. They seem to have a strange perkish way up at the post office.
Bucke says he often finds letters I date and send one day stamped Camden the next. I am always
statistically careful about the dates of my letters. These letters should go off the night I
send them up: I wait till night, till after nightfall, a little beyond seven then send Eddy
up. I did there for a time write Doctor every day: he would receive none perhaps for two days,
then the third day receive three." Appeared to be excessively exercised about a trivial
matter. I told him I thought it was at seven, not eight, that the mails went out. "If that is so," he retorted, "I have been
working under a wrong supposition for years and years. But we must submit: whatever they
decree we must obey."
Whittier has written a poem on Dick Spofford: W. has not seen it, but said: "Poor Dick! Good Dick! Dick was one of the dead earnest men#8212;Italian in
that#8212;risking all for a conviction!" Met Brinton and Coates at Contemporary board
meeting this afternoon: both asked after W. W. acknowledged. Bucke has received slip containing
dedication. Expresses himself as satisfied. Speaking of the Philadelphia symposium on W. he
said: "Did n't I think at the time that Frank
Williams' paper was pretty good?" Then said: "These young men are
honestly though narrowly animated." W. reads so much better now: longer spells: and writes
with even greater ease than he reads. For a while right after the attack in December, "a minute
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#8212;two minutes—finished
me." Now he can read right ahead for an hour or two. Asks me invariably about the weather,
news, people. Did to-night. No longer expresses any desire to get
downstairs or go out. I told him of something from Will Walsh in yesterday's Press. "I had not seen it: in fact I have n't read half
of yesterday's Press yet: I hope I have not sent it away." Always interested in what Walsh
does. W. gave me another one of the "avowals" as he calls them. I
said: "We want to know who saw you, recognized you, stuck by you, when
you needed friends."
"Yes," said he: "that
's it: I feel that way myself: I have known the sweetness of being loved." Eldridge
did not enclose the original of Mrs. Ritter's letter but O'Connor's copy of it.
Washington, D. C., May 2, 1876.
Dear Walt:
Enclosed I send you a copy of a letter received by William. He says he knew the writer by
correspondence only, when he was on The Saturday Evening Post. Her name was then Fanny
Malone Raymond, and she was said to be extremely beautiful and is probably so yet. You had
better accept their invitation.
How did you like William's article? And how is your health? Write me if you can. All your
friends well here as far as I know.
Faithfully yours
Charley.
Poughkeepsie, April 26, 1876.
W. D. O'Connor, Esq.
Dear Sir:
The name at the end of this letter is now perhaps
unfamiliar to you; the first part of it you may remember as having been that of a young lady
whose girlish poetic attempts you once took the trouble of kindly and sometimes (more
kindly) unkindly criticising and encouraging.
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My husband's name, may be unknown to you, unless you take an interest in music; if you do
you will recognize him as having been a professor of that art at Vassar College for some
years; as composer of symphonies, etc.; and as lately the author of the history of music-the
first written and published in America. (Mr. Ritter is Alsatian, however.)
I do not write to-day to claim an old acquaintance of mere
correspondence, but to tell you, on both our parts, how delighted we were with your manly
defense of Mr. Whitman in The Tribune last week, and also to beg you to give our respects
and a message to your friend.
He may, perhaps, feel interest enough in the aspirations of his young countrywomen at
Vassar College to wish to see for himself what they can do at Commencement season; if so, we
shall feel honored in receiving him as our guest towards the end of next June, in our quiet
artist home, where he will find a fine library, plenty of music, our two selves, and a warm
welcome.
We should be most happy to see you also, and should good fortune ever lead you hitherward,
you will be welcomed by Professor Ritter and yours truly,
Fanny Raymond Ritter.
W. said: "You are right to feel warm about the people who felt warm
about me when for the most part most people froze me out: you are right when you say they must
not be forgotten. I do not dare to say that it was important to preserve the Leaves: I can
only say that if it was important then my friends must be regarded as the saviors of the book:
my friends: many of them unknown but preciously beautiful and far-seeing."
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