Memories of Jane Cunningham Croly, Jenny June by Various
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Various >> Memories of Jane Cunningham Croly, Jenny June
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ST. CLAIR MCKELWAY.
The _Eagle_ Office, Brooklyn, May 14, 1889.
From a Testimonial by John Elderkin
David G. Croly was a strong man. He was strong in his convictions, his
honesty, and his capacity to meet all the requirements of life in the
most populous, enterprising, and brilliant city of the continent. His
strength begot independence, and he was before all else independent in
the formation and expression of his views, both on public affairs and
those which are more personal and philosophical. He never apologized
for his opinions, and his life needs no apology. His mind dwelt on
that side of every question which involved the interest and welfare of
the whole mass of mankind, and his religious philosophy was pure
Humanitarianism. His reverence for Comte was the result of his
intellectual conviction that in his altruistic teaching was to be
found the only remedy for the wrongs and sufferings of the world.
In personal intercourse Mr. Croly was suggestive, inspiring and
encouraging. It was always with a slight shock to preconceived
notions and prejudices that one listened to his comments on any
current movement or event, for he was sure to take an original and
characteristic view which could not be calculated.
From Mrs. Croly's Contribution to Her Husband's Memorial
Mr. Croly was in his twenty-seventh year when I first knew him, but as
yet had made no mark in journalism. He had not found his place in it.
He was employed as City Editor of the New York _Herald_--a position
which had not then developed the importance which attaches to it
to-day--and his duties consisted mainly of making out the "slate" for
the staff of reporters, and doing such reportorial work as it was the
province and habit of the City Editor to perform. This afforded little
scope for a man of Mr. Croly's latent power; and his dissatisfaction
and desire to find a new field was the cause of our going West within
three years after our marriage and starting a daily paper in a Western
town. Had the town been larger the story would have been different. As
it was, we spent our money, not without result; for Mr. Croly
discovered that his forte was not execution, but direction, and that
his fertility of brain only needed a sufficiently wide field to
develop powers capable of greater expansion.
He was the most utterly destitute of the mechanical or "doing" faculty
of any man I ever saw, and never used his own hands if he could
possibly help it. But ideas flowed freely upon all subjects in which
he was interested, and he distributed them as freely, knowing that the
reservoir though forever emptied was always full. This amazing
fertility was in some respects a detriment, for it led him into too
many projects, and made him careless whom he enriched, while his
dislike of the mechanism of his work made profit for others at his
expense. I know no other journalist in New York City, during my own
journalistic career of thirty-three years, who has made so many and
such diverse publications, or put so much originality and force into
the detail of his work. The _World_, and particularly the Sunday
_World_, which was the foundation of the Sunday newspaper, the New
York illustrated _Graphic_, the _Round Table_, and other journals were
built up by his energy, and owed their most striking and successful
features to his suggestiveness. He was particularly unselfish in his
estimate of other men and his appreciation of their work. He was as
proud of discovering the good qualities of a man on his staff as a
miner of finding a nugget, and never wearied of expatiating upon them.
Indeed, he did this more than once to his own disadvantage, thus
furnishing an instrument to treachery.
I am sure the "boys" of the old _World_ staff, St. Clair McKelway,
A.C. Wheeler ("Nym Crinkle"), T.E. Wilson, H.G. Crickmore, Montgomery
Schuyler, E.C. Stedman, and others, will look back with a little sigh
for the "old times," and for the generous recognition they received
from one who was never at a loss for a subject, or for the treatment
of a topic, and was always a good comrade and heart and soul
sympathizer in their work, its trials and its achievements.
A chief quality with Mr. Croly was faithfulness to the interests he
served. This was put to some severe tests; but they could not be
called temptations, for disloyalty did not present itself as a
possibility to him. His faults were those of a nervous temperament,
combined with great intellectual force and a strength of feeling which
in some directions and under certain circumstances became prejudice.
He could never, in any case, be made to run a machine. He hated the
obvious way of saying or doing a thing. He cultivated the "unexpected"
almost to a fault, and always gave a touch of originality even to the
commonplace. His pessimistic and unhopeful temperament was doubtless
due to inherent and hereditary bodily weakness, and to the lack of
muscular cultivation in his youth, which might have modified inherent
tendencies. His mental lack was form not force; and he had enough
original elemental ideas to have supplied a dozen men. In that respect
he was superior to every other journalist I have ever known--not
excepting Horace Greeley, Henry J. Raymond and Frederick Hudson.
But the time has gone by for ideas. It is not that they are a drug in
the market, but that there is no market for them. To-day is the
apotheosis of the commonplace, the iteration of the cries of the
street, the gabble of the sidewalk, and the gossip of the tea-table;
neither originality nor force is needed for such journalism as this,
and they may therefore well rest to the music of the pines.
One of the strongest influences in Mr. Croly's life was his
acquaintance with the Positivist movement in England, and his interest
in the works of Auguste Comte. Up to this time he had experienced none
of the undoubted benefit which accrues to every man and woman from the
possession of an ideal standard, and settled convictions which inspire
or take the place of religious aspiration. Positivism did all this for
Mr. Croly, so far as anything could, and he became one of its most
eager and devoted adherents.
Mr. T.B. Wakeman, himself one of the earliest and most able leaders,
credits Mr. Croly with being the "father" of the movement in this
country, and in fact he was the first to make known that any
representative of Positivist ideas existed in America. He invited and
paid for the first lecture ever delivered in New York City upon the
subject; it was given by Mr. Edgar, an unknown "apostle," in a little
hall (De Garmo) on the corner of 14th street and Fifth avenue, on a
certain Sunday some twenty or more years ago. The result of the
lecture was that a dozen people formed a little society and engaged
Mr. Edgar to give them a series of Sunday talks on the practical
bearings of the religion of humanity. Mr. Edgar was not in himself an
interesting exponent of his ideas, but his message inculcated duty,
love to man, a life open and free from concealments, the possession of
personal gifts or acquired property as trusts to be used for the good
of others, and the recognition of value in all that has been and is.
These ideas became more or less an actuating principle. They brought
together a circle of men and women of the best quality, who endeavored
to live up to their standard, and by work and daily life, rather than
by active propagandism, to crystallize opinions into a vital force.
For several years the regular meetings were held at our house, the
"festivals" of the year being often given at the residences of other
members of the society--Mr. T.B. Wakeman, or Mr. Courtlandt Palmer.
There is still an "old guard" left, of as good, brave, and unselfish
men and women as ever walked on this earth, and though some differed
from. Mr. Croly, and from each other on some points, yet they all knew
and acknowledged that he brought to them the beginning of the best
inspiration of their lives.
Mr. Croly's latest expressed wish was that all the usual forms should
be disregarded in the event of his death, except the simplest service
and the presence of flowers. "If any one thinks enough of me," he
said, "to bring me flowers, let them; but have no elaborate mourning,
and bury me close to the earth, near the pines, and facing the sea."
The legend he left for his grave-stone was: "I meant well, tried a
little, failed much." But this will not be the verdict of those who
came under the influence of his strong and many-sided personality.
Mrs. Croly's Club Life
_By Haryot Holt Dey_
There is a pleasant and not irrational fancy in the mind of the writer
that somewhere in space there exists the abiding-place of ideas, and
that as fast as earth-dwellers are ready for them they are released.
Like a bird the idea takes flight and seeks a home in the brain of
some one who is singled out to forward and exploit it for the benefit
of humanity. Thenceforward, that person becomes the apostle of the
idea. "We are not in the possession of our ideas," says Heine, "but
are possessed by them; they master us and force us into the arena
where like gladiators we must fight for them." But it is only to the
elect that great ideas are assigned, one who either through heredity
or by special development is qualified to carry the message. This
fanciful reasoning applies admirably to the idea for women's
clubs--organizations for women--and in its selection of Jenny June it
made no mistake in the character of its agent.
The first woman's club was organized in March, 1868, and was the
outcome of feminine protest, because women were barred from the
reception and banquet tendered to Charles Dickens by the Press Club of
New York City. Among those who applied for tickets on equal grounds
with men was Mrs. Croly, then an active, recognized force in
journalism, and when the idea of a woman's club took possession of her
she had become the most indignant and spirited woman ever locked out
of a banquet hall.
Forty years ago it required courage for a woman to step aside from the
ranks of conservatism and organize a woman's club; it was regarded as
a side issue of "woman's rights," a movement then in grave disrepute.
But Mrs. Croly had dared untrodden paths once before when she stepped
into the field of journalism, and her experience there had developed
self-confidence. She had been writing for women for many years, and
through her mission had acquired instinctive knowledge of their needs;
and so when the affront was put upon her by her male colleagues of the
press she conceived the idea of a club for women. It should be one
that would manage its own affairs, represent as far as possible the
active interests of women, and create a bond of fellowship between
them, which many women as well as men thought at that time would be
impossible of accomplishment. Mrs. Croly wrote in her "History of
Clubs" thirty years later: "At this period no one of those connected
with the undertaking had ever heard of a woman's club, or of any
secular organization composed entirely of women for the purpose of
bringing all kinds of women together to work out their objects in
their own way." And then again: "When the history of the nineteenth
century comes to be written women will appear as organizers and
leaders of great organized movements among their own sex for the first
time in the history of the world."
"The originator specially disavowed any specific object, only asking
for a representative woman's organization based on perfectly equal
terms in which women might acquire methods, learn how to work together
for general objects, not for charity or a propaganda."
"This declaration of principles was the cause of much abusive
criticism, as well as failure to obtain aid and sympathy. Had Sorosis
started to _do_ any one thing, from building an asylum for aged and
indigent 'females' to supplying the natives of Timbuctoo with pocket
handkerchiefs, it would have found a public already made. But its
attitude was frankly ignorant and inquiring. It laid no claims to
wisdom or knowledge that could be of any use to anybody. It simply
felt the stirring of an intense desire that women should come
together--all together, not from one church, or one neighborhood, or
one walk of life, but from all quarters, and take counsel together,
find the cause of separations and failures, of ignorance and
wrong-doing, and try to discover better ways, more intelligent
methods."
Under this banner Sorosis was launched. Alice Cary was its first
president. The story of Sorosis from the beginning is a very
interesting one; from the view-point of the press its doings and
sayings and business affairs generally have always afforded
subject-matter for comment and conjecture. Of its early days Mrs.
Croly wrote: "The social events of the first year were memorable, for
they were the first of their kind, and practically changed the custom
of confining public dinner-giving to men. The first was offered as an
_amende honorable_ on the part of the New York Press Club, and
consisted of a 'breakfast' to which the Press Club invited Sorosis,
but did not invite it to speak or do anything but sit still and eat,
and be talked and sung to. The second was a 'tea' given by Sorosis to
the Press Club at which it reversed the order, furnishing all the
speakers and allowing the men no chance, not even to respond to their
own toast. The third was a 'dinner,'--the brightest and best of the
whole--at which the ladies and gentlemen each paid their own way and
shared equally the honors and responsibilities." This is said to be
the first public dinner at which men and women ever sat down on equal
terms. A report of it in a daily newspaper closed as follows: "The
entire affair was one of the most delightful events of the season, and
will long be held in pleasantest memory by all who had the honor to
participate in it. We believe we violate no secret when we say that
the gentlemen were most agreeably surprised to find their rival club
composed of charming women, representing the best aristocracy of the
metropolis, an aristocracy of sterling good sense, earnest thought,
aspiration and progressive intellect, with no perceptible taint of
strong-mindedness."
The growth and expansion of Sorosis were watched by Mrs. Croly with
the same eager interest with which a mother contemplates the
development of a child, not knowing just how its character will shape,
guarding it always with love, for a potential force in its directing.
It was her spirit that steered it over rough places; that brought
harmony out of discord; that inspired, soothed, provided wise counsel,
and that many times sacrificed personal feelings for the good of the
whole. To do this required mental qualities of a high order--courage,
foresight, judgment, and not a little of the martyr spirit. Women had
never organized before, and the conditions to be met and the problems
to be solved stood absolutely alone, with no precedent to build upon
or decide even the simplest question. What firmness was required in
the leader at that time, when, for example, women who had been her
staunchest allies deserted the ranks because they could not select the
club name! It was a firm hand that kept the unorganized body from
going to pieces on the rocks of dissension, and it was at that time
that the leader proved her inalienable right to her title. She had led
women into the field of journalism, and now she was leading them into
organization. Clubs began to form in all parts of the country, and
when Sorosis arrived at its twenty-first birthday, it was Mrs. Croly's
idea that they should all come together, and when the invitation was
issued they came. Thus was formed the General Federation of Women's
Clubs. At present there are 800,000 women belonging to that
federation; each State has its own federation, New York forming first,
at Mrs. Croly's suggestion, and now containing 32,000 enrolled
members. The General Federation was formed in 1889. The writer recalls
the triumph in Mrs. Croly's tone when she replied to the appeal of a
man who came to her to beg to be given the names of the women
belonging to the federation. "If you choose to send a woman to copy
the names," she said, "you may do so, but it will take her more than a
week." And the General Federation was less than three years old at the
time.
Mrs. Croly organized the Woman's Press Club of New York in 1889. It is
due to her wisdom that it was carried through many crises. She was its
president from the day it was founded to the day of her death; always
its loving teacher, her enthusiasm regarding its development never
flagged. She lived to see it firmly established, a harmonious and
delightful organization, and she was satisfied.
Mrs. Croly was neither parliamentarian, orator, nor politician, but
she had a fund of good sense, wise judgment, and a power of expression
which, could clarify an atmosphere when mere knowledge of the "Rules
of Order" would have failed. She had spiritual vision, and by it she
knew the soul of the club; no amount of dissension could shake her
faith in its ultimate good, and in times of crisis she presided with a
serenity only accountable in the fact that she viewed from the
mountain summit what her associates saw only from the housetop. What
years of development she enjoyed long before the club idea possessed
her, endowing her with wisdom and mental breadth, and what
associations that urged and demanded that she become a student of
sociology! The seeds of thought planted in those early days of
journalistic experience, inclusive of what she terms the "Positivist
Episode," blossomed in her later, more mature years, and all the
harvest she brought and applied to the organization of women. To the
casual observer an organized body of women differed in no particular
form from any ordinary assembly of women. What it was to her one can
only realize by a careful perusal of her writings on club formation,
and the moral awakening that sounded the bugle note of progress when
women began to organize.
Once it came to the hearing of this gentle apostle of development,
that she had been said to represent a cult. The occasion was a
reception given in her honor by one of her clubs on her seventieth
birthday. There had been speeches and congratulations, and the scene
was one of general rejoicing. "Oh, she is the leader of a cult,"
whispered a guest, and the remark was repeated to Mrs. Croly. She
received it with a sorry smile of regret that any one should so
misinterpret the significance of the scene. As if the narrow and
exclusive word "cult" could be applied to an assembly that stood for
organization and human development, which, in her prophetic vision,
only needed time to unite races, and ultimately to extend around the
globe. To her it signified "the opening of the door, the stepping out
into the freedom of the outer air, and the sweet sense of fellowship
with the whole universe, that comes with liberty and light."
Few women carry their enthusiasm till past three-score-and-ten, as
Mrs. Croly did. With the failing of physical strength the wand of
power passed into the hands of younger women whom she hailed as her
successors, and whose growth and development were the blossoms
springing from the seed she herself had planted; and in the last years
of her noble life, when the glow of sunset was on the garden of her
activities, the love she bore her fellow-women was her unfailing joy
and inspiration.
At the time of life when people recognize the fact that their forces
are waning, and that a well-earned period of rest has arrived, Mrs.
Croly set for herself the last task of her busy life. She felt she had
something to tell about the success of her great idea, her message to
women, and she wrote the "History of the Woman's Club Movement in
America," a volume containing eleven hundred and eighty pages, which
told the story of nearly all the clubs in the General Federation. This
book will remain a monument to the founder of women's clubs. Into it
she put the skill and experience of her long years of editorship,
urging every faculty to the work, and applying herself with a degree
of industry that characterized the zeal of her best working years. And
it testifies to the martyr-like nature of her spirit, that she even
rallied from the disappointment consequent upon the financial failure
of the book. The dedication of the work reads as follows: "This book
has been a labor of love, and it is lovingly dedicated to the
Twentieth Century Woman by one who has seen and shared in the
struggles of the Woman of the Nineteenth Century." But nothing that is
good is lost, and the book testifies to the illimitable ideas, the
trust in eternal goodness, and the strength of purpose of one who had
a glorified estimate of latent feminine forces that require to be
developed.
Essays and Addresses by Jane Cunningham Croly
Beginnings of Organization[1]
Women in Religious Organization
When the history of the Nineteenth Century comes to be written, women
will appear for the first time in the history of the world as
organizers, and leaders of great organized movements among their own
sex.
[Footnote 1: _History of the Woman's Club Movement in America._]
The world of to-day, both for men and women, is a different world from
that which furnished the outlook for the men and women of a hundred
years ago. Science, invention, have changed its material aspects; and
while retiring some individual activities and occupations, they have
created new fields of industry that are rapidly changing the face of
the world, and making new demands upon strength and energy.
The world which man has conquered, and is still conquering, is no
longer the purely physical. He is working now toward the discovery and
control of the powers of the air, and has already harnessed some of
them to do his bidding. The succession of great events and discoveries
will mark this century as an epoch in the world's history, and is
responsible for economic changes which create social disturbance, and
to which both men and women must adjust themselves, often without
knowing the why or wherefore of that which is so different from what
has been. It is one of the paradoxes in human nature that women, while
being made responsible for human conditions, have been condemned to
individual isolation. It has been largely the result of general
physical differentiation and the dependence that grew out of it, and,
secondarily, the long ages required to produce settled social
conditions and a reversal of that great unwritten law of kings and
men--that might made right.
It is true that there was a time, some traditions of which are still
preserved among the Indian tribes of North America, when the woman
possessed controlling influence and power. This matriarchal or mother
age passed with the primitive period in which the energies of men were
absorbed in hunting and fighting. It was a tribal effort through
tribal women to formulate and give importance to family life, and it
must have been accepted and more or less sanctioned by the men. This
tribal leadership, at first domestic and social, disappeared with the
development of military leaders, the acquisition of military powers,
and the centralization of property in lands, houses, and personal
belongings, that required constant and effective methods of protection
and defence.
Instances are not wanting of heroic women of those early days who were
capable of holding and defending person and property against
aggression and warfare. But the logic of events was strong then, as
now, and the destiny of the woman was not that of military supremacy.
The first step in associated life taken by women was a simple protest
against the use and abuse of power on the part of men, wrought up by
fear or loathing to the point of desperation. Women, usually of rank,
fled to the desert with one or two companions, and encountered
unheard-of hardships rather than submit to the fate to which they had
been condemned by father, brother, or some other man who could
exercise authority over them. The first Church-sisterhood grew out of
such beginnings, and gradually obtained the sanction of the Church. A
recent remarkable work, "Women in Monasticism," shows how wide and
powerful the system of religious sisterhoods had become as early as
the fifth century, and traces its growing strength and enlargement
until its decline, which was coeval with the Reformation.
The strength of this extraordinary development lay in the fact that it
furnished women with a vocation; it gave employment to faculty. The
sisterhoods of the convents and monasteries were the nurses, the
teachers, the students, the caretakers of the poor, and the guardians
of the orphaned rich. The Fathers of the Church--St. Jerome, St.
Chrysostom, St. Augustine--all bear witness to the high character of
these sisterhoods and to their individual members, to their virtues
and lives of self-sacrificing devotion. Many of these women became
learned by the exercise of memory alone, for they had no books. Many
enriched their convents with manuscript books--the result of lives of
painstaking labor. The Beguines, who founded hospitals and schools,
were the best educated women of their day--the eleventh century. They
read Tacitus and Virgil in the original, and were skilled in medicine.
Disease often took loathsome forms, and only women whose lives were
consecrated to self-denying labor could have been the patient
ministers to the diseased poor.
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