Page:Nation v71 no1832.djvu/19

 Aug. 9, 1900]

The Nation.

119

Dulldings that once remain.

re in it or that still

Bome Reminiscences of @ Long Life. With a few Articles on Moral and Socal Sub- Jects of Present Interest. By John Hook- er. Hartford: Belknap & Warfield. 1899, Mr. Hooker's remfoiscences make their

principal appeal to his personal friends,

‘and especially to his surviving associates

of the Connecticut bar, of whose departed

elders he writes with generous and affec- tlonate appreciation. Mr. Hooker was born in Farmington, Connecticut, in 1816. He Is

‘a direct descendant of Thomas Hooker, the

first minister of Hartford, with five Inter-

vening generations. But his maternal

grandfather, Daggett, who lived till 1830,

was born in 1740, and might easily have

known old people who know the first set- tlers. Hon, William M. Evarts and Sena- tor Hoar are Mr. Hooker's second cousins.

His marriage brought him tnto another in-

teresting circle, his wife being Isabella, the

youngest daughter of Dr. Lyman Beecher.

For the general reader no part of Mr. Hooker's book 1s more interesting than his Introduction, which is supplemented, fur- ther on, by an account of his early life in Farmington, and the events and habits of those years. We have a beautiful picture of the half-century and longer ministry of Dr. Porter (father of President Noah Por- ter), who was born and died in Farming- ton, and was never settled anywhere else. It was his custom to preach one doctrinal sermon every Sunday—one of three, the evening one less formal than the others. Knowing every one from his birth up, n0 funeral baffied him; given the saddest rep- robate, he could revert to his days of In- nocency. He never could have been guilty of crediting a text from Romans to the Pagims, as Mr. Hooker causes him to do on page 15. At one tlme an attempt was made to persuade Mr. Hooker to give up the Jaw and settle as 8 minister in Farmington. He flatters himself that he might have bad ‘as long a ministry as Dr. Porter, but he would certainly have been tried for heresy if he had improved his Calvinism at the rate Indicated by his theological confes- sions In one of the later sections of the ook. Writing of everlasting punishment he says, “This dogma I reject with all the force that I can put Into the rejection.’ Concerning the atonement he Ix not more orthodox, while his Christology 1s uncer- tain, and his view of the Scriptures that of the modern critic.

He is a “judicious Hooker” in his cholce of stories drawn from his own experience and other sources. That is a good one of ‘the boy's translation of Sallust, where it was written that one of Catiline’s con- splratore was sul generie—"a kind of hog.” Lovers of animal stories will delight In that of the ox which by his own wit made ‘his way back from New York State to Farm- ington, swimming the Hudson on the way and arriving on Thankagiving Day. All of ‘his companions had been killed in an Indian ambush. When a young man, Mr. Hooker invited a very respectable colored man to it in his pew one Sunday morning; where- ‘upon one of the church members sald he had done more to break up the church than any- thing elge in Its whole history, There are ‘several good fugitive-slave stories, one of them about a colored preacher in Hart-

ford of whom, in the course of events, Mr. Hooker became the legal owner for a few days, It was a novel sensation to own a Doctor of Divinity—Mr. Pennington got bis degree in Germany, whither he bad gone for safety—and, when Mr. Hooker gave him his Iberty, he kept the degree, he tells u for his own glory.

Hooker was Evarte’s classmate. Much given to pleasantry, he must have been ‘an agreeable companion to his legal as- soclates and friends. He writes of th former with much good humor. His dial seems to have marked only the sunsy hours. One of his few regrets ts that he did not get a judgeship in the Supreme Court of Connecticut in 1864, which would have ‘meant a chief justicesbip in a few years. But the manner of his losing the office was as creditable as his discharge of it could have been.

Of the papers on varfous subjects includ- ed with the Reminiscences, the most in- teresting are those on Anarchy, Woman Suffrage, and Spiritualism. ‘There is a valu- able appendix—Mr. Julius Gay's "Social Lite tn Farmington Early in the Century"; and Mr. Hooker's “Early Abolition Movement” adds some particulars of interest in that connection.

Diacuasiona in Economica and Statistics, By Francis A, Walker. 2 volumes. Henry Holt & Co. 1899,

‘The publication of these papers will add nothing to Gen. Walker's reputation as an economist. He made some contributions to the sclence of political economy which were cortalnly suggestive, and, in the estimation of many, of permanent value. Such were Ibis contention that wages are pald out of product, and his application of the prin- ciple of rent in determining the recompense of the captains of industry. These views. Lowever, occupy a very subordinate place in the discussions that are here reprinted. Nevertheless, we think that Professor Dewey has done well to collect and arrange this material. It constitutes in a way a chapter in the economic history of the coun- try, to say nothing of its instructiveness as exhibiting the development of the author's views.

Gen. Walker possessed a very alert and active mind, and he was, during all his life, fn incessant contact with men and with af- fairs, He felt strongly, and spoke and wrote vigorously. He seems never to have hesi- tated to express his opinions with great positiveness; frequently, with great auda- city. While these opinions were in many cases 20 ill-considered as to be of little value, and were Indeed occasionally con- tradictory and even fallacious, they were vet advanced with so much vigor (and It ts fair to say, with so much authority) as to ive them Influence. Yet the danger of trusting to personal authority in matters of science has seldom been more clearly iIlu trated than in his case. The most ré markable illustration of the unfortunate consequences of such surrender of private judgment took place in the agitation for bimetallism. Gen. Walker's views are too well known to be recapitulated, but it may be forgotten that he practically demoral- ized financial opinion in Boston, and not Improbably influeuced the action of leading Congressmen from New England. Events have so completely falsified his predictions

as almost to make his untimely death seem merciful. It would have been bard for bim to Keep silent about the present situation of bimetallism, and harder still to say any- thing about it that would not amount to an abdteation of prophetic functtons.

‘The agitation for bimetallism may be re- garded as too controversial a subject to be properly introduced here. We may tlus- trate our point by other instances. Let us take the case of the Iabor-unions. Pollti- cal economists of the straiter sect have always looked on these unions with mingled feelings, because thelr avowed purpose was to attain advantages for certain classes of laborers by means which might prejudice the Interests of other and more helpless classes. It can scarcely be contended that events have not justified this apprehensior But Gen. Walker was positive that the trade-untons would not yleld to Socialistic tendencies. Trade-unlons, he said, were all ‘over Europe hostile to Socialist agitation.

T’think,” he observed, “‘we may count with certainty upon this attitude of the trade unlons toward Socialism being maintained. He pointed out at the same time (1887) that Socialism was declining in France ‘and explained why it must continue to do 0. Were any one to make such assertions fas these at the present day, he would be regarded as, to say the least, a very ill- Informed person. He would be told that he was evidently entirely unacquainted with current events in France, and reminded that the English trade-unions had declared in favor of “nationalizing” land, capital, and the means of exchange, and that they ob- Jected to the plan for universal old-age pen- sions only because It was limited to those who were too old, and because its pro- visions against fraud were too stringent.

‘We shall refer, not without melancholy, to one more iMlustration of the superficiality of view and the rashnees of judgment that Impaired the work of thls vigorous and talented man. In his oration at Brown Uni- versity, in 1889, he maintained the thesis that “quantity has with us determined quall- ty"; that our marvellous growth in num- bers, In territorial extent, and in industrial power, has caused us to develop to a re- markable degree “the spirit of civility, recl- precity, and fair play In the relations of this with other nations, as compared with the earlier days of the republic.” During the first half of this century we bebaved iI! toward nations of high rank, “while our course toward our weaker neighbors was not altogether exempt from the blame of wanton aggression.” After referring to our dealings with Spain—“always, in spite of niuch provocation, a good friend of the Unit- ed Btates"—and our abundant “tall talk” alout “manifest destiny,” be continued:

“How great the difference to-day! Let one ask himself when and where be last heard any of that vapid, confident talk about ‘manifest destiny,” once so common In the press and in the halls of Congress; Tet one ask himself what, in the America of our time, corresponds to the filibustering, bluster, the threats against weaker peopl of thirty or forty years ago, and he will obtain a perhaps unexpected view of the mighty change that bas passed over our temper asa nation. In the last few years Thave read the columns of a hundred news papers without meeting a paragraph that Breathed the old-time spirit; I have tra Jed many thousands of miles without hear- ing from the lips of any private citizen a ord whieh. testified to a disposition to Wrong even the weakest of our neighbors. A bit of buneombe now and then in Con-

�