The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, January 10, 1897, Page 17

P e — s «“'WMW"M‘W-.-. T e s THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, JANUARY 10, 1897 acent to my name; will | to sleep to-night on ed not do that,” was the an- is a dollar for your lodgings.” but T will save ne lounge and rand break- for my 0 was shabby and penni- ckety old lounge in & back :0 and (for he had no | head) the next He and penniless man, - having s fortunes by his own exertions ed the sur- w evenings ago | to an assem- 13, active | lar and | reg service, mostly men have become in the air, ago, when Lee nattox. The meeting a Commandery of val Legion of cea: fon was Speech- f the evening, and were General bop Newman, otic, standing robust and yes sy xeen enjoyment of the occa- | v well known asan | ed States, tall wed somewhat by years. w stories of General Grant, | ch bave never previously been in | it Those told by General Barnes ere local and brought into the consider- ion of the characteristics and exploits of e great m leader a racy touch of ifornia. The meetine of the mandery was held in the Occidental Hotel, not very far from that office where 1 pen: ss Grant, dreaming not of pt to save a doliar that he might to purchase two meals and avoia going hun The occasion and | the locality gave realism to a story which ere it not sober history, would be just considered as allied to Arabian romances of the days of Al Raschid. | ageof 32 vears,” said General | ien he (Grant) had aitained o and while serving | sregiment in Oregon, | mmission. After his | with good | resignation he came to San Francisco, in- | cash the certificate personally and can | the case to Mr. Babcock. We were pey- | fare across the isthmus, which the com- tending to take passage by steamer for ates q se time after my arrival in | 1a he told me a story concerning | cisco. Califor Captain send it back to Oregon for correction. now I must go and get my ticket.” “It occurred to me that I could help | nt, the entire accuracy of | him in that direction, too, possibly, and | way, said, ‘What do you want'? Isaid, ing the company thousands of dollars for Captain Richard L. Ogden | His face brightened up all at once and, | transportatior, and I frequently obtained se a clerk in the office of the | signing the usual voucher, he said, ‘I am | concessions for officers in the way of: free | free passto New York. rtermaster at San Fran- | greatly obliged to you for this favor, and | passes for their families; hence did not | | hesitate to act. “Mr. Babcock, in his prompt, off-hand | matter of course was delighted, »s the ar- which I have no reason to question, which | said, ‘I will zo to the office With you and | ‘As near a free pass as you can give in the illustrates very clea the condition in | which he was at that time.”” may get you some concession.’ over to the Pa Walking | cabin.’ fic Mail Steamship office | Havens, and gave orders to issue a cabin | He called to the ticket clerk, Mr. Then General Barnes, who has been | Ileft him outside, and, going in,explained | ticket on payment of the regular cabin | making s study of all that appertained to General Gr gave Captain Ogden's story for the first time, which he (Barnes) ecently copied from Captain Ogden’s ry, the narrative, in Captain Ogden’s s, Tunning as follows: I was about ciosing the office & snabbily dressed person came in and ine | quired for Major Allen, quertermaster, | who bad just left. I did not at first recognize him, but on asking if I could wo! ! attend to his business with the major he produced a certificate for per diem ser- vice on a court-martial, which, of course, identified him. The certificate entitled him to abcut $40, but it was incorrectly drawn and virtually voud, of which fac: I informed him, and also that we were destitute of funds wherewith to pay in any case, whereupon his countenance fell and a look of utter despair came over it. “He turned to leave the office, t: sitated a moment and, turning back, | ced me if 1 would allow him to sleep on h as { the old lounge in Major Allen’s room, “for,’ said he, ‘I have not a cent to my name.” I said, ‘You need not do that. Here is $1 for your lodgings.’ He replied, ‘I am greatly obliged, but, with your permission, I will use the dollar for my | dinner and breakfast and the lounge will save me the dollar.’ So heslept on the ckety old lounge and I found him there | when I went to the office early in the | morning, and when I said ‘You had a | hard bed’ he said ‘Oh, no; I'slept welland | saved my dollar.”’ | Some account of the straits to which | Ulysses . Grant was putoa.this occasion | of California interest has been made here- | tofore, but the full particulars are, it ia | believed, now told for the first time. A few days later than this Grant had left San Francisco, not to return again until he had been the victorious leader of the army of the United States in the greatest war of modern times, and President and | fresh from the honors which the crowned heads of the world delighted to bestow upon him, once more passed through the Golden Gate, which he had last gone out | | of in penury. ‘‘He told me that the certificate,” so runs Captain Ogden’s diary, in continu- | ance, ‘“was a matter of much importance | to him, as he had depended upon it to pay | his steerage passage East, ‘and without it | Ican’s do it.” I was so struck with his look of dejection tbat I said, ‘Well, I will | 1 | WHEN ULYSSES S. GRANT WAS PENNILESS \ /TI'IAT IS NOW S (Grant) again and he showed me the nice | stateroom that had fallen to his lot, and said: “ “This 15 a great luxury and what I did not expect, and I am indebted to vou for it. The prospzct of ever being able to re- ciprocate Is certainly remote, but strange things happen in this world and there is no knowing.” ” With these prophetic words on his lips | Ulysses S. Grant sailed. Four years he | vegetated on his Missouri farm. He was always a dreamer and always a mystery. He failed to make a success of farming and went to Galena, Illinois, where he at- | tempted to carry on the leather business with his father. He was clerk and shop- keeper, and delivered with his own hands | the goods that he sold. When he had | leisure he chopped wood for his own kitchen-stove. | The Government of the United States, when the Civil War broke out, did not ac- cept his offer to take a commission in the army. McClellan declined to give him a place on his staff. He recruited an Illi- | nois regiment and the Governor of that State made him a colonel in command of the regiment which he had brought into existence. Then he became a brigadier- pany had to pay for each passenger, which, in his case, was tantamount to a “I came out of the office and announced my success to Captain Grant, who as a | i rangement left him with some little | money ($15) in his pocket when he landed 1 New York to get home with. Having occasion to £o to the steamer again to see some friends off, I met the captain plich e = 2 IN SAN FRANCISCO. general of volunteers, and soon after, as General Barnes phrases it, “'this leather- dealer who did his own wash and split his own wood, this listless, sluggish, ineffec- | tive citizen upon his own motion, was per- | mitted to capture Fort Henry and Fort | | Donelson with 15,000 prisoners. i Amid the singular annals and reverses | | of those who have figured in the world’s | | history as conquerors, there is no circam- | stance more striking than that of the | man who, ten years later, was the greatest | of modern generals, coming into San | Francisco penniless and hungry and hop- ing, at the best, to be able to get in some | | way to New York in the steerage of a Pa- | cific Mail steamer, the full account of which is authenticalty given in the fore- | going. 1t ranks with the fact indicated by Ulyses S. Grant when he is reported to have said, recalling his early military training, “I had no fondness for military | duty and went into the army because I thought I would prefer that to the tan- ning business.” {How the Poor | Get Their Salads: How many poor people manage to exist in a great city like San Francisco is a puzzling query which remains unan- | | swered for many people, but how a great | many of them do manage to subsist is | | very easily ascertained if a person chooses im spend a little time upon the wnerl THE FIRST TIME.. GIVEN TO THE WORL FOR S D front and along the streets where the numerous cormmission-houses handle the country products. ‘In this locality there is to be found ar actual demonstration of the way some hundreds of families live without the expenditare of a single cent for their food. Most of the production of tne market, gardens, vineyards and ore chards destined for this market is brought by the low-draught, stern-wheeled steam= ers that ply the bayous and upper waters of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, and these unload their cargoes mostiy at Washington and Jackson street piers. At times these immense structures are piled deep with packages from the farm, and in bandling them, which is done in the greatest haste possible, some portion of their contents is sure to be emptied upon the ground, the flotsam and jetsam of the produce trade. But it 13 rarely that any portion of this scattering vegetable merchandise is wasted. There is always some women or men with baskets who are permitted, | upon the supposition of their extreme poverty, to gather up theestray vegetable, and very rareit is that they leave the whart umtil their baskets are filled to the top. Most of these gatherers are of foreign | birth, and a very large majority of them are Italians. This thrifty race, by en- forced experience in their own land, have reduced the economy of living to its finest point. They emigrate to this country ignorant of its language or its laws, but with habits of industry and thrift which strike the average American with amaze- ment. Their chief ambition is to ow their own homes. The rule of large fami- lies prevails, and each one is employed in some industry that will either produce money or else in an avocation that will save expenditure. The rapid accumula- lations of the Italian is thus accounted for. But the wharves are not the only places where the stray fruit and vegetable is gathered in. A hundred boys perambu- late the streets where the commission men abound, with a sack over their shoulders, who, with trained eye, per- ceive in the roadway the object of their search. No matter what it may be, to- mato or squash, in it goes into the mouth of the receptacle, to be sorted later when the day's work is done. The amount thus lost to the producer is great, many thou- sands of dollars a month, but it is not wasted and reappears at some humble table asa delightful salad covered with plenty of olive oil and washed down by fresh-pressed claret. These boy scavengersare a notable class. They are wonderfully sharp, and have been known to fill their sacks at the ex- pense of the unwatehiul merchant. but they are tolerated as a necessary evil and asan interesting feature of life in a great city. STRNFORD CLASHES WITH BERKELEY ON THE SOLUTION OF LIFE'S PROBLEM and philosophizing | there will probably be no end as | | ong @ human ciyilization en- | The what, th d the why | cont: to st into the | onale of meatal and material phe- | na as long as human intelligence has | nd the opportunity to reach s highest wave of its inclination. The ion of osophical pool at by sophical “angel,” ay not haye caused | btle waters for their | ual cleansing, but| wds have stood beside 1ts borders with ed and curious intent watching | e ouicome of the mental disquictude. to the merits or demerits involved in ( ) discussions, the daily journal must \¢criorce remain silent. Its only function rately reproduce what is said the reading public. Thus hilosophical talk Stan- to lave in its ectual or spir 1ew recently had with the | ation at Palo Alto and t colleagues by a CALL rep- | ipse may be had at the rom that thrifty seatof | d for their opinions | Dr. Harris and President Jordan ave a_brief but of the mooted tudes of the genial philosopher of the ate University. Said President Dayvid Jordan: I have read over as well as1 can the re- ports of the discussion of Professor Howi- has not been heard from. | , Jangunage of symbolism. David Starr Jordan Says That the Art of Life Lies in Finding Out Day by Day What Is Best, and Professor| Hudson Attacks the Dogma of Atonement and Inclines to the View That “The subtlety of metaphysical distinc- tions taxes to the utmost the practical English language most of us speak. Specu- lative philosophy, like higzher mathemat- ics, which is much the same thing, re- quires a speech of itsown. Besides, as no two thinkers quite asree in philosophical outlook esch should have an individual | language. For such reasons absolute in- telligibility in metaphysics is impossible, and the dividing line between arrant non- nse rnd the noblest efforts of specula- tive philosophy is often a very narrow one, and one not infrequently crossed. Hence | kindly tolerance which Professor | Howison and his dog ‘Socks’ (Socrates) | show for each other’s philosophy. Thus Professor Royce’s definition of the nature | of infinite personality might appeal to an ngel's sense of bumor. ually confusing to the Jay mind is the All theology re- solves itseif into figures of speech. Our 1deas as 10 the ultimate nature and pur- poses of the Divine Being must be child- ishly inadequate. Language is crystal lized from past experiences, and the unknown transcends experience. Hence we make use of symbolic expressions, witbout precise meaning, but which carry a feeling of sacredness we would not de- on and Dr. Harris. 1 always enjoy Pro- | fessor Howison, for I am sure that there two at leust who know what he is king about—himself and his Maker. with Dr. Harris it is not quite the me. He often transcends all intelli- gence. “In many regardsI must agree with the contentions of the genial philosopher of Berkeley. Certainly, 0 far as we know, the natural order of things js the only order there is, and it is natural because it is divine. It is the expression of the hest, t e best, the only way in which affairs of the universe couid be car- ed on. Itseems to me, moreover, that unique and transcendent as was the life and death of Christ, neither were in viola- tion of the natural order, which is the divine order as well. “In discussions of this kind we find two serious difficulties, the one arising from metaphysics, the other from symboliswa, fine if we could. These symbols change in meaning 28 the minds of men broaden, | but they are mever willingly discarded. We cling to their forms with greater per- | sistence than to the ideas which from | time to time they represent. In the prac- tical cxperience of a preacher one who uses these symbolic phrases readily passes as orthodox, whatever the meaning he may attach to them. One who tries to carry over their significance into familiar words is like to find himself accounted as a heretic. But from such heresies have sprung all genuine revivals of religion. Mysticism is fatal to religion asit isto other forms of sanity. “Certainly, too,as ‘Alice Rix’ observes, ‘the higher criticism,’ or the experience of the world which higher criticism is suffered to represent, will pass over all sorts of symbolism to get at the truth, It will find no warrant for withholding irom one set of documents tbe treatment 1 Unitarianism Is Not Ghristianity 1_ it accords to ail others, It will not regard miracles as an evidence of Christianity, though it may find in Christianity an evi- dence of miracles. But whatever it may take away from the Gospels it will not fail to leave there the plain record of the Man | of three. who of all men says most clearly that love and not hate is the essence of the natural order in human life. “I think that Dr. Howison is rightin combining his faith with his philosophy. | confused and incongruous, may become ce-ordinated and harmonious, but the material must all be there. So far as the reason is concerned, a universe of four di- mensions is just as real as the present one But such a universe has not presented itself as a fact of experience. “To add to knowledge is the function of sensation. The mind is the brain in ac- tion. The'brain sits in darkness without an idea of its own, or at the most domi- Whatever a man beiieves he must believe | nated by influences which, like itself, are with all bis might, and each thing which is true is the truest thing in the universe. Everything which one believes is inex- | tricably connected with everything else, and ‘every belief will influence conduct. It must sooner or later ail work itseif out into action. I cannot sympathize with those who put their religions belief into one casket, their scientific knowledge into another and their philosopby into a third, and keep each hermetically sealed from the others. When these caskets are opened each one will be found empty, the parable of the singie talent giving the clew to the cause of this, What one has ceased to believe is a minor matter. The question is, What is his positive faith? How does he stand related to the natural order of the universe? For as his faith is 80 will his life be. “But I cannot quite follow Dr. Howison in the method by which he seems to reach a solution of the problem of life. The only soiution I know of 1s that of doing each day and each hour tke best thing that one knows, and “thus on to the end, whatever be the number of the wortds traversed. This is an empirical answer and the art of life lies in finding out day by day what is best. Logic alone can solve no problems of life. It can give back as answer only what you put in it as assumptions. Logicis the name for ac- curate workings of the mind 1n gualita- tive ways, as mathematics represents its quantitative efforts. Together logic and mathematics constitute reason, and rea- son is powerless without experience. With nothing it can do nothing. It is not an independent source of truth. -Reason takes what is given it and brings out the included results. The subject-matter, inherited prodncts of variations adapted to past couditions. Sight, sound, hear, effort are all carefully kept away irom the direct knowledge of the brain. The nerves of sense bring from eye, ear, skin, muscle, tongue all sorts of sensations. These are considered by the brain and transiated into impulses to actior. All thought tends to work itself into acts, and the re- sult of the action is the only ultimate test of the soundness of the logic or the truth- fulness of the sensation. Unsound logic or Iying senses lead to death. The sever- ity of life is the gnarantee that mental pro- cesses shall be kept true. These are the | | inherited powers of ancestors’ who found them effective and accurate enough for the affairs of tife. Itisthe function of the sifted experience of the worid, which we call science, to make human conduct safe and effective. And the recognition that right conduct on ovr part is action in nar- mony with the natural order already ex- isting, ‘the law before all time.’ furnishes a broad basis for the development of re- ligious ideals. Such ideals are impuises to action which find in the welfare of oth- ers a higher motive than in the mere zood of self. “The aim of philosophy is to look at the universe without conditions. It is to be- hold it not through the human senses, with their narrow recognition of vari; tions in light and heat and sound. ‘to see things as they really are,” not as man sees them, for so they really are not, but as God sees them, This man cannot actually do, wherefore is philosopby im- possible, “But the effort to do the impossible en- larges the mind and broadens tue horizon. 1tenables the philosopher to iook with | offer. most carefully recorded testimony ; fourth, l on the acknowledged difficulty of sifting the evidence forthcoming from the | early days of Christianity; fifth, on the well-known mythoreic tendency of the | human mind in certain stages of culture, and sixth, on the gradual disappearance | of the miraculous with the progress of | knowledge and the development of scien- tific habit of thought. And Isay that in | the 1ight of these considerations the bal- ance of probability must in every case be as infinity to one agzinst an alleged mira- cle. The onus of proof thus resting with the defenders of the miraculous is a heavy | one indeed, and in view of the real issues involved in the problem one can only smile at the ingenious inaptitude of the argument about the rain and the grapes, which I find set forth by an interviewer as the utterance of one of Professor Howi- son’s clerical antagonists. Moreover, it does not seem to occur to the orthodox apologist that for evidential purposes a miracie, even if proved, would be value- less. Theological discussion of the rela- tion of doctrine to the supernatural at- testation of doctrine in Christian revela- tion is habitually characterized by the fault known as reasoning in a circle. “*So far as Professor Howison’s suggested calmness and toleration on those who ‘storming at the gates of sense’ are mu¢h troubled over the little happenings of this too little world. The ‘world with its joys, its sorrows, its sufferings and its sins is only a succession of experiences. The dawn of creation never was the everlast- ing darkness, never wiil be. For him is all eternity.” Hence it is natural that our own philosopher should ‘bear the kindest, tenderest eyes I ever saw with something in them widely helpful, encouraging and uplifting.’ ' “For in these eyes is tke impress of the | search for truth. To search for truth is the best we can do. The highest philoso- phy is sadly and absurdly human and ‘the perfect truth is but for Thee alone.’ " Professor Henry Hudson, cccupying the chair of English literature, aid not feel 1nelined fo go into a lengiby discussion of the recent controversy between Professor Howison and Dr. Harris, or their ortho- dox clerical critics, but he spoke candidly and to the purpose a few words on some of the essential points as follows: “I am, of course, in full agreement with Professor Howison in his ethical criticism of the great evangelical dozma of the atonement—a dogma which I conceive to be doubly disastrous in its bearings upon character as tending first, to sap the sense of individual responsibility, and second, to foster the belief in the forgiveness of sin. So far, too, as I am able to follow the printed reports of his arzuments I find myself at one with him on the question of the so-called supernatural elements in the Christian creed. I am not, let me say dis- tinctly, at all concerned to delend the popular thesis that a miracle—using the word 2s meaning an occurrence not to be accounted Jor by our limited knowi- edge of the processes of nature—never could happen, and thercfore never did happen. The problem, I take it, is not thus to be settled on purely a priori grounds. But I insist, first, on the'anteced ent improbability of any de- parture from the normal course of things; second, on the consequent need for the clearest proof of any such alleged depart- ure; third, on the notoriously uncertain character of even the best-intentioned and definition of Christianity is concerned, I; can only say that—waiving for the mo- ment any question of agreement or dis- agreement with the terms of his amended declaration of faith—I view with distrast any attempt to force new meanings into old phraseology. Of course it may be | urged that we have each one of usa per- fect right to define Christianity. or any- thing else in accordance with our theories; but what ultimately do we gain by this time of intellectual exertion? I dare say that I could so interpret the thirty-nine articles of the English cburch in such a way that I might logically justiiy myself in appending my signature to them. But the question, surely, is not what I can make them mean to myself, but what they were intended and are properly to be taken to mean. By the time we have, all of us, undertaken to give our own defini- tions of Christianity, the word Christian- ity will have ceased—even if it has not already ceased—to have any specific sige nification. Iam nota Unitarian myself, but I may be permitted to say that from my point of view there is logical and his- toric warrant for the statement of one of Professor Howison’s interlocutors—that Unitarianism is not Christianity. “Upon one other matter L have a word to Professor Howison makes much of the doctrine of the ‘Divine Personality.” This is an anthropomorphic phrase which for my own part I am not able to under- stand. Personality furnishes us with our highest conception of life, and therefore we attribute the qualities of personality to the power manifested in and through the universe. But such a procedure is, philo sophically considered, impossible. The course of thought has been slowly elimi- nating a!l lower human elements from the conception of Deity; it wiil end by elimi- nating all human elements whatsoever. Anthropomorphic theism, even in i highest and present form, is thus only a stage—a stage which will presently be outgrown. Bs the Sun Went Down. Two soldiers lay on the battlefield At night when the sun went down; One held a lock of thin gray hair And one held a lock of brown. One thought of his sweetheart back at home, Happy and young and gay, And one of his mother left alone, Feeble and old and gray. Each, in the thought that a woman cared, Murmured & prayer to God, Lifiing bis gaze to the blue above, There on the battle sod. Each in the joy of a woman’s love Smiled through the pain of death, Murmured the sound of & woman’s name, Though with his parting breath. Pale grew the dying lips oi each, ‘Then, as the sun went down, One kissed a lock of thin gray hair, And oue kissed a lock of brown. WALDRON W. ANDERSON, in Town Talk, Bereaved. Let me come in where you sit weeping; aye, Let me who nave not any child to die Weep with you for the little one whose love I have known nothing of. The little arms that slowly, slowly loosea Their pressure’round your neck; the hands you used To kiss; such arms, such hands I never knew; May Inot weep with you? Fain would I be of service, say something Between the tears that would be comforting; But, ah! so sadder than yourseives am I ‘Who have no child to die! JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY.