YHt-h»: If. LizuRY M32322: Suite; 0 o 'fi1_ cl- ' v I' i- ’L'r-r-«r :"r in“. ' t" b- ; p .1. m... .v-‘r-l. «narrows «we-War u r \ This is to certify that the thesis entitled THE ART AND VISION 0F l IGNATIUS DONNELLY presented by J DAVID EDWIN WRIGHT has been accepted towards fulfillment of the requirements for Ph . D°_degree in English ”909C; ’f 2:4.sz l 0 Major professor . Date February 8. 1974 0-7639 iamnmo BY HUAE & SUNS' W 300K BlNB‘ERY lNC. fi'; LIBRARY BINDERS ‘ SPRIIGPD‘I‘. well“. 1% BCttle \ princi: D1 and th! prOVid politi 9 Dsta St ABSTRACT THE ART AND VISION OF IGNATIUS DONNELLY BY David Edwin Wright Ignatius Donnelly (1831-1901) is best remembered as the flamboyant Minnesota politician who helped found the People's (Populist) Party. But Donnelly was also a complex man of several other interests and talents. For instance, he numbered himself among the literary and scientific intelligentsia of his day. On both sides of the Atlantic he was recognized for his theories on the Baconian authorship of the "so-called" Shakespeare plays; and on the basis of his Atlantis (1882) he was invited to join The American Association for the Advancement of Science. More importantly, Donnelly was a novelist who authored Caesar's leggg (1889), a dystopian romance set in 1988, Qgg£g£_§ggggg (1891), a novel on race relations in the post Civil War South, and Egg leggg' Bottle (1892), a political tract in fictional form explicating Papulist principles. Donnelly's two scientific works, Atlantis (1882) and Ragnarok (1883), and the three novels are interrelated. Considered together, they provide an interesting interpretation of late nineteenth century cultural issues and tensions, and reveal the philosophic background for his political ideas. The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the substance and continuity of Donnelly's ideas as revealed in these five David Edwin Wright works and to explore the relationships between his ideas and those of other major intellectuals of his era. Such a study naturally involves consideration of the previous scholarship on Donnelly, much of which has been hostile to him. Specifically, Donnelly has been charged with reactionism, escapism, racism, and authoritarianism. This dissertation, however, will depict Donnelly as an essentially humane and incisive analyst of the cultural tensions of his milieu who was responding mainly to what he perceived as the deleterious influence of naturalistic ideas on society. Donnelly's interesting and complex views on science, including naturalism, are discussed throughout this study. He supported scientific investigation and admired technological prowess. At the same time, he felt that a primarily materialistic, causal interpretation of reality undermined more important Spiritual perceptions. While Donnelly's earliest works are somewhat vengeful in tone if not in theme, his later works are more and more concerned with reconciliation, cultural pluralism.and constructive reform. As a papular artist who deliberately employed the melodramatic literary forms best known to his audience, Donnelly wrote didactically, striving to reinculcate Christian values in what he saw as an increasingly materialistic and ruthless age. Chapter One examines Donnelly's relationship to his intellectual milieu. He was primarily preoccupied by the challenge to traditional views on human nature, freedom, and religion raised by the evolutionary naturalists. The pertinent ideas of Herbert Spencer, William Graham Sumner, Lewis Henry Morgan, Lester Frank Ward, John Dewey and others are briefly summarized and compared to Donnelly's. Chapter Two focuses on Atlantis and Ragnarok. Ostensibly scientific ‘.‘IFQ' 3w“! 0 DA QI- v 5V u: t - v-a‘. .34... l .4... . _.u‘.’_' 36:501. 5"." ; ms , D ~59 5:: re::if ?€‘-'ea'.s David Edwin Wright studies, they are in fact Donnelly's reevaluation of history in response to the evolutionary naturalists. Donnelly's apocalyptic, historical paradigm, a complex synthesis of biblical, medieval, eighteenth and nineteenth century attitudes toward history, emerges from these two works. This paradigm in modified form provides the basic structure for his subsequent novels. Chapter Three analyzes the transference of the historical paradigm to prose fiction. The cosmic forces of Atlantis and Ragnarok are personified as fictional characters in Caesar's Column. Essentially, this first novel warns that disaster awaits twentieth century society if the social and economic abuses of the late nineteenth century are not rectified. Analysis of structure and characterization in Caesar's Column reveals that the novel is flawed not because of Donnelly's alleged reactionism or nihilism, but rather because of his difficulty in transferring his vision from history to prose fiction. Chapter Four discusses Doctor Huguet, Donnelly's novel on race relations in the South. Donnelly's vision Operates in microcosm in this, his best novel. He argues that racism is part of the larger materialistic malaise affecting society. The chapter considers and defends Donnelly against charges that the novel is covertly racist. Chapter Five examines Donnelly's last novel, The Golden Bottle. Written during the campaign of 1892, it is the least impressive of Donnelly's works. However it does demonstrate the final synthesis of his ideas. The book documents Donnelly's thematic movement toward cultural pluralism and constructive reform and away from vengeful violence. The novel also includes Donnelly's blueprint for a modern utOpia. THE ART AND VISION OF IGNATIUS DONNELLY By David Edwin Wright A DISSERTATION Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of English For Leslie ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to thank the members of my committee, Professors Pickering, Head and Nye, for their advice and assistance during the researching and writing of the dissertation. I also want to express my appreciation to Professor Willard Thorp and to Professor Howard Anderson for their friendship and intellectual stimulation during my undergraduate and graduate careers. iii r1 ,- - ’ F o AztIOU 1L . Chip-tar ; The De: The De: Donnell Chapter '3 H 5. The Apll Chapter 1 Gabrie; The Vie new, Science DOnnel‘. From A; ChePter F critiCa The Edi Chalter j The Utj COchusic x°tes Appendix Bibliogra TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction Chapter One: Donnelly's Vision and Its Intellectual Milieu The Debate on the Lessons of History The Debate on Contemporary Society Donnelly's UtOpian Alternatives Chapter Two: Atlantis and Ragnarok: The Emerging Vision Atlantis Ragnarok The Apocalypse in Perspective Chapter Three: Caesar's Column: The Dark Night of Civilization Gabriel's Story: How the World Came to Be Ruined The Vision In New Form: Critical Issues A New, Complex Conception of Man Emerges Science, Religion and Society Donnelly's UtOpia From Atlantis and Ragnarok to Caesar's Column Chapter Four: Doctor Huguet: The Vision Individualized Critical Issues The Education of Doctor Huguet Chapter Five: The Golden Bottle: The Final Synthesis The UtOpian Vision: The Final Synthesis Conclusion Notes Appendix Bibliography iv 12 18 22 24 29 31 4O 46 51 54 65 75 79 82 88 90 103 112 121 138 145 147 161 178 IL Ir limesc: INTRODUCTION Ignatius Donnelly (1831-1901) is best remembered as the flamboyant Minnesota Populist of the late nineteenth century. His colorful and hectic political career is the subject of numerous studies which reveal that from the time he was twenty-eight until his death, Donnelly ran for some state or national office in nearly every election and was successful in roughly half his campaigns. At one time or another he served Minnesota as lieutenant-governor, acting governor, United States Congressman (three terms), state senator and state representative. He campaigned unsuccessfully for the governorship, the United States Senate and, just before he died, for the Vice-Presidency. In the chaotic arena of Minnesota politics, Donnelly changed parties with astounding regularity. He ran as a Republican, a Democrat, an independent, a Farmer-Laborite, and a Papulist. In addition he helped found the Minnesota Farmer's Alliance and the National Pe0p1e's (POpulist) Party. When not holding office, he held forth in the two political newspapers he founded and edited, Thg_AptifMonopolist and The Representatiyg, But Donnelly was also a novelist, cultural historian and analyst, and literary critic. This extensive aspect of his career has, until recently, received little scholarly attention. His works include: ThgyMourner's Vision (1850), an epic poem; Atlantis: The Antediluvigg M (1882) and Ragnarok: m Ag 93 Egg _a_n_<_1_ M (1883), both scientific, historical studies; The Great ngptogram; Francis Bacon's In relati: illust: a polit VOrks ( DOQUEHA future Portray Can Do Li scienti raeiCa] ideas c the Va} adhEre‘ to be I the Se} Cipher $3 the So-Called Shakespeare Plays (1888); Caesar's Column: A_§£g£y_g§_the Twentieth Century, a utOpian-dystOpian melodrama and his most famous novel; Doctor Huguet (1891), a novel concerning race relations in the South; The Golden Bottle (1892), a utOpian romance illustrating Pe0p1e's Party ideas; The American Pe0p1e's Money (1895), a political tract; and The Cipher ig_the Plays, and 23 the Tombstone (1899). Five of these works, Atlantis, Ragnarok, Caesar's Column, Doctor Hugget and Ihg Golden Bottle form a natural body which is the subject of this study. (I have chosen not to include the other works in this dissertation-~the two treatises on Bacon because of their specialized tapic and questionable interest, The Mourner's Vision because it is an adolescent and uninteresting poem, and The American People's Money because it is preperly part of his political career.) These five works (two scientific,historica1 studies and three novels) reveal Donnelly's assessment of the dynamics of history, the nature and future of man, and the major intellectual issues of his day. They portray a fundamentally coherent philosophy which I have chosen to call Donnelly's vision. Like many of his contemporaries Donnelly was aware that new scientific ideas and technological innovations were stimulating radical change in many phases of American life. Specifically, the ideas of Darwin and his papularizers raised fundamental questions about the validity of the Christian conception of life. To Donnelly, social adherence to the egalitarian ideals of brotherhood and charity seemed to be breaking down before the arguments of the Social Darwinists. At the same time technological innovations in the factory system, m1 dispute disloca nation' Those 3* nacihu‘ r“. "Plutoc transportation and communications were revolutionizing the market system. In the economic upheavals that followed, a small group of ingenious men accumulated vast fortunes. But thousands of farmers and laborers were crushed by cycles of inflation and depression, wage diaputes, lockouts, and rising railroad tariffs. Whether these dislocations were a natural, even though traumatic, part of the nation's economic and technological deve10pment is a moot question. Those who were adversely affected felt that they were being cynically manipulated by cartels whom they called the "interests" or the "plutocracy." These embattled farmers and laborers became Ignatius Donnelly's natural constituency. In defending them.he came to believe that Social Darwinism and the "oppression" of the "masses" were related because the wealthy and their intellectual allies used the arguments of Social Darwinism to Oppose new laws and reform measures made necessary by sweeping economic changes. So while Donnelly attacked the symptoms of the problemr-the economic and political injustice that he felt was being perpetrated on the peOple--in his political life, he went much deeper in his literary endeavors, trying to reconcile fundamental philosOphical questions raised by the evolutionary natural- ists with his own humanistic and egalitarian ideals. He began this analysis with his two scientific works, Atlantis and Ragnarok, at first only vaguely aware of his mission. They are, in fact, ostensibly scientific studies; but beneath the surface they are analyses of historical patterns and Donnelly's rebuttal of the Social Darwinist view of history. By the time he began his novels, Donnelly was well aware of his purpose. Caesar's Colwmn, Doctor ' - "1| t hoidc ’ ‘— ini the - DC.“ inevita: values ; Donnell; idly as; Of his C technol; they fit:_ ideals; MC: aeequate EVQlutiC explaine p°liticg it): no“ works he ninetee paPErs < and in B Moc the Popt during t can be t Hugget, and Th3 Golden Bottle examine the relationship of the spiritual and the material world, human.motivation and values, and various theories of social organization. Donnelly concluded, finally, that social progress is indeed not inevitable. Further, he found that a society based only on material values would inevitably become despotic. This is not to say that Donnelly was an enemy of science and progress. In fact, he was in many ways as enthusiastic an advocate of science and technology as any of his contemporaries. But he believed that if the scientific and technological advances of mankind were to lead to a better society, they must be guided by a commitment to higher and essentially spiritual ideals: Christian Brotherhood and charity. Most of the critical scholarship on Donnelly does not, unfortunately, adequately consider the complexity either of his ideas, or those of the evolutionary naturalists to which he was responding. This may be partly explained first by the fact that Donnelly was so visibly a partisan politician in his own time that his literary works were rarely searched for more than Populist prOpaganda, and second by the fact that his works have been ignored until recently by modern critics. Such nineteenth century criticism as survives is located in Donnelly's papers (collected and microfilmed by the Minnesota Historical Society) and in William Douglas O'Connor's Mr. Donnelly's Reviewers (Belford, 1889). Modern criticism of Donnelly usually considers him.as part of either the Papulist movement or the utOpian literary movement that flourished during the last twelve years of the nineteenth century. This criticism can be subdivided into three categories: the first is descriptive and Dal. - yaw -o'_~.‘ historical; the second contains a series of attacks on Donnelly's alleged reactionism, racism, escapism.and nihilism; and the third defends Donnelly against these charges. It should be noted that these charges and countercharges concern not only Donnelly's writing but the POpulist and to a lesser extent the utOpian movements as a whole. The list of historical and descriptive criticism is headed by Martin Ridge's excellent study of Donnelly's political career, Ignatius Donnelly: Portrait _f.p_Politician (Chicago, 1962). Although by far the most thorough historical treatment of Donnelly-- and one that also contains brief analyses of his literary works--Ridge's book is anticipated by the work of John D. Hicks. His treatments of Donnelly appear in "The Political Career of Ignatius Donnelly," (Mississippi Valley Historical Review, 1921); "Ignatius Donnelly," in.Thp_Dictionary pf_American Biography; and in various sections of his 1h; Populist Rpxplp (Minneapolis, 1931). There are, in addition, numerous works that deal with aspects of Donnelly's political career that do not fall within the scape of this study. However, they are recorded in the lengthy bibliography in Ridge's book. The first and only full length treatment of Donnelly's literary works-~including his adolescent poetry and his works on the authorship of Shakespeare's plays-~13 John R. Bovee's unpublished dissertation (Washington State University, 1969), "Ignatius Donnelly as a Man of Letters." These historical and descriptive studies provide an excellent introduction to Donnelly's political and literary careers. They point out both Donnelly's inconsistencies and his basic humanitarian nature and, although non-polemical, they are by and large sympathetic to Donnelly. Finally, Walter Rideout's "Introduction" to the modern IL editio 0 C318 (Fl agains is Do edition of Caesar's Column (Cambridge, 1960) also belongs to this category for even though it echoes a number of the charges laid against Donnelly by modern critics, it is largely descriptive and provides valuable historical information. The modern attack on Donnelly began with a revisionist view of Papulism.in the 1950's that discovered irrational, authoritarian, racist and backward-looking traits in the movement. This new line was first propounded by Richard Hofstadter in a chapter, "The Folklore of Populism," of his book, Tpg_égpwp§'gp§ppp (New York, 1955). While he does not contradict Hicks' findings (The POpulist 322215, 1931) that the Papulists were progressive and humane on several specific issues, he finds that the movement as a whole contained some malevolent qualities. Specifically, he charged that the POpulists yearned to return to some pre-industrial, agrarian age where the beneficence of the land and not the expediencies of big business influenced government. He also found that they entertained a "conspiracy theory of history" and saw social struggle simplistically and dualistically. Finally, he found that the Populists traced all social evil to the "money power" of the "Plutocracy" an inclination which, he concluded, was at the heart of their rhetorical anti-semitism. For Hofstadter no piece of Populist literature displays these failings as blatantly as Donnelly's Caesar's Column: "far more onimous, however, than any of the vivid and hideous predictions of the book is the sadistic and nihilistic spirit in.which it was written." Several critics writing after Hofstadter have expanded upon one or more of his charges. David W. Noble in the first chapter of his I g gppgressive Mind, 1890-1917, (Chicago, 1970) discusses what he says is Donnelly's backward-looking obsession with an Edenic Golden Age. Essentially, he argues that the American Founding Fathers thought that they were escaping the artificial and consequently corrupt societies of the middle ages in this new republic. Living in accordance with God's natural law would save the new country from ever degenerating into despotism. The POpulists felt, according to Noble, that this government by natural law had been achieved in Jacksonian American but was now in danger of being undermined by the artificial complexities of a new industrial order. Moreover, the Papulists in general and Donnelly in particular saw an international conspiracy behind this threat to the American garden paradise. To counteract this, Donnelly called upon the peOple, Noble concludes, to turn away from the dangers of an artificial society and back to the pastoral culture that lived in harmony with natural law. In "Ideology and UtOpia in the works of Ignatius Donnelly," (Amggippp_§tudies, 12, ii, 1971) Allan Axlerad ties Donnelly's desire to return to the Golden Age to his cyclic theory of history evidenced in Atlantis and Ragnarok. Axlerad contends that each of Donnelly's ancient societies achieved a Golden Age of pastoral splendor only to be destroyed by God when they became "voracious and immoral metropolitan" cultures. He cites the destruction of "metropolitan” America and the creation of the "garden society" in Uganda at the end of Caesar's Column to demonstrate the workings of Donnelly's historical ideas in fiction. While he contends that Donnelly's utopia lies in the past he does admit that, "although Donnelly was pessimistic over the prospect of ever building an urban-industrial utopia, he did explore the unlikely possibility in.ghg_§plden Bottle," and that, "the novel suggests that history is not inevitably cyclical; man can cape with natural forces Blackne Patters this s: by planning wisely." Charges of racism, especially anti-semitism, are leveled against Donnelly by several peOple beginning with Hofstadter. Indeed, it is commonly accepted that Donnelly was guilty of at least some rhetorical anti-semitism. That Donnelly was also Negro-phobic despite his professed benevolence toward blacks is the view of John S. Patterson in "Alliance and Antipathy: Ignatius Donnelly's Ambivalent Vision in Doctor Huguet," (American Quarterly XXII, 1970) and"From Yeoman to Beast: Images of Blackness in Caesar's Column," (American Studies 12, ii, 1970). Patterson's argument is outlined in some detail in chapter three of this study, and need not be recapitualed here. Frederic C. Jaher reasserts many of the charges against Donnelly from a psychoanalytical perspective in Doubters and Dissenters: Cataclysmic Thought 1p_America, 1885-1918 (London, 1964). For him Donnelly's predictions of cataclysm.and his alleged fondness for a Golden Age are pathological reactions to his economic and political failure in the new order of things: "Although the future may be eagerly anticipated by those who swim with the tide, for those who want to hold fast against the currents of change, innovation seems cataclysmic." Interpreting all Donnelly's behavior as pathological, Jaher finds that his "neurosis of defeat" began with the failure of Nininger City in 1857. Amidst these attacks Donnelly has had his defenders. Following Hicks and taking exception to Hofstadter, Paul F. Boller in American Thought ;p_Transition: The_Ippact p§.§golutionary Naturalism.1865- 1900 (Chicago, 1969) finds that Donnelly and the POpulists were reasonably shrewd analysts of nineteenth century political and economic conditions, that they accepted the industrial order as permanent but D, J» "T‘aos. .5“ 5- wanted to democratize it. The works of Ridge and Bovee (cited above as historical and descriptive criticism) take this same view without entering the polemical debate. Bovee in"Doctor Huguet: Donnelly On Being Black" (Minnesota History, XLI, 1969) also makes a kinder interpretation of Donnelly's racial views than does Patterson. Alexander Saxton in "Caesar's Column: The Dialogue of UtOpia and CatastrOphe," (American Quarterly 19, 1967) finds that Caesar's Column is neither simply aitOpia nor a dystOpia. He finds Donnelly complex but basically humanitarian and forward looking. Donnelly's most ardent defender is Norman Pollack who in "Ignatius Donnelly on Human Rights: A Study of Two Novels," (Mid-America 47, 1965), The POpulist Response pp Industrial America (New York, l962),and "Fear of Man: POpulism, Authoritarianism, and the Historian," (Agricultural Histogy 39, 1965) attempts to refute systematically charges that Donnelly and the papulists were racist, nihilistic or reactionary. Since this study attempts to defend Donnelly from most of the major charges of his critics, it falls into the last of the three critical categories. I will argue that Donnelly was a more consistent and saner man, despite his obvious intellectual eccentricities, than has heretofore been claimed. But more important, this study hapes to convince the reader that Donnelly's vision is nuch more complex and illuminating of the issues of his day than has been recognized. It is unfair to claim, as most of his critics have, that Donnelly was simply a vengeful frontier lunatic calling down plagues on the houses of his enemies and on a future with which he could not cape. Nor can it be said that he was merely a quixotic escapist more .iu_._l Fy- 5—14." i.“ m‘ ‘1‘ than and 3 cont: conce those on t? Couce COUtg — __ ii— i __' EVOIL COns; QXOng eStaE Summé fiVe intrc his ‘1 10 content in an Atlantean past or utOpian future than in his troubled present. Unfortunately, Donnelly's works have been too often used as an example of the traits of larger movements and too little for what they reveal themselves. In fact, Donnelly was more interested in the problem of materialism than with the problem of free silver, more interested in human nature and human rights than in temporary political coalitions, and more concerned with the future than with the past. Moreover, Donnelly's concerns were those not so much of alienated splinter parties but those of the major intellectuals of his day. For beneath the debate on the distribution of the new industrial wealth (which tapic aroused concern far beyond the Papulist enclaves), Donnelly and his intellectual contemporaries joined a more fundamental debate on the effect of evolutionary naturalism on traditional Christian values. A careful analysis of Donnelly's writings combined with a consideration of his vision in the larger philosOphical context both exonerates him from most of his critics' charges and reveals him to be a far more fascinating and incisive thinker than previously supposed. This study is organized so as to trace the develOpment and establish the context of Donnelly's vision. The first chapter sumarizes Donnelly's major ideas and compares them briefly with those of the major intellectuals of his day. Chapters two through five discuss Donnelly's works in the order in which they originally appeared. Each of the last four chapters begins with a biographical introduction so that connections between Donnelly's political life and his literary career may be easily made. The introductions are their Inn': .15.. C035: inter: each . Donne SEVer 11 followed by interpretative summaries of the works under discussion. Since Donnelly's scientific studies and novels are still little known and since analysis of them.necessarily involves discussion of their thematic and structural complexities, these summaries--sometimes lengthy-~are necessary. However, the summaries are selectively constructed so as to include only that information necessary to the interpretative argument. The summaries are, in turn, followed by analyses of the structure, themes, and central ideas. The chapters conclude with a discussion of each work's development of the major ideas and tensions that comprise Donnelly's evolving vision. Subtitles are employed to identify these several parts of each chapter. F‘." . “JV. QXa: Dam. res; Chapter One Donnelly's Vision and Its Intellectual Milieu In his time as well as our own Donnelly's intellect has seemed for some quixotic, dwelling as it does on lost continents, phantom comets, and millennial utOpias. For others Donnelly has revealed an irrational, nihilistic and even sadistic mind obsessed with the cataclysmic destruction of his enemies. To be sure Donnelly was a complex man grappling with intricate issues. Yet his vision is fundamentally sane and consistent. And his literary fictions-- including his scientific histories--reveal the power of his perceptions. Then why such divergence of interpretation? A large part of the problem of coming to grips with this extremely controversial man is finding a suitable historical context within which to assess his ideas. Until now critics have grouped Donnelly with either the POpulists or the utopian novelists of the late nineteenth century. And of course he does belong to both camps. But a problem arises when critics assume simply that both groups were responding to "industrialism" and "Social Darwinism" and then quickly proceed to debate Donnelly's attitudes on progress, race, and mankind. His views on these subjects are central issues in his work, but issues that cannot be satisfactorily examined without first learning what "industrialism” and "Social Darwinism” meant to Donnelly and to what extent his attitudes were a response to those ideas. 12 lat'J?‘ BOYCE: alter reali 0f t': atcuz l for 3 which iHtrc Plum S°Cia —_.— — — this the S °f hi Philo funda. 13 Conscious that a radically new scientific world view, evolutionary naturalism, and revolutions in the technologies of production, trans- portation and communication were ushering in a new age by permanently altering the economy and politics of the country, Donnelly attempted to gauge the effect of these powerful ideas and forces on the concepts of Christian Brotherhood and social justice that he thought essential to the sustenance of a democratic society. He found the naturalistic rejection of the Spiritual nature and individual autonomy of man not only repugnant but symptomatic of a despostic mentality. On the subject of industrialism Donnelly's views are complex. On the one hand he was, like most of his contemporaries, fascinated by science and technology. But on the other, he deplored many of the social realignments brought on by the new industrial order: the displacement of thousands of laborers and farmers simultaneous with the swift accumulation of vast wealth by a few entrepeneurs. Even more frightening for Donnelly was the materialistic, anti-egalitarian spirit of the age which seemed to justify itself, insofar as it was ever moved to introspection, in terms of Social Darwinism. Donnelly concluded that plutocratic industrial organization (not industrialism itself) and Social Darwinism were related and together threatened a nightmarish future of authoritarianism. So Donnelly began to attack in his work this new naturalistic phiIOSOphy and its social manifestations, and at the same time to lay out his alternatives for a constructive future. To expose and refute opposing ideas and to demonstrate the efficacy of his own alternatives, Donnelly was forced to reevaluate basic philosophical questions on the moral nature of the universe, the fundamental nature of man, and the lessons (if any) of history. To a 1 [vino r- 'c'XNL'V. .. COnt ‘3“ t1 14 this end he dedicated himself to the study of anthrOpology, history, psychology and secular theology. In all his works despite whatever immediate political goals they may propound, these questions are at the thematic core. While Donnelly's conclusions are, of course, unique to him, he was by no means alone in his investigations. Many of the major American intellectuals of his day shared his view that the world was on the brink of radical change. And like Donnelly they were attempting to test new scientific perspectives--usually those of evolutionary naturalism--on basic philosOphic questions. Biblical and historical revisions abounded. And the disciplines of anthropology and psychology attracted intense new interest. The fact that he shared so many of the central concerns of his day suggests that there is a more complex philosophical and historical context in which to view Donnelly's ideas than simply those of the Papulist or utopianist movements. Usually drawing different conclusions but preoccupied by similar questions, Donnelly was engaged in.much the same enterprise as were Herbert Spencer,‘William.Grahmm Sumner, Lewis Henry Morgan, Lester Frank Ward, Thorstein Veblen and even John Dewey. To examine Donnelly's ideas in this larger intellectual milieu puts the critical issues in Donnelly scholarship in another, broader perspective and will perhaps resolve some of their ambiguity. Further, such an examination offers an interesting complement to an internal analysis of his work. The philosOphical views Donnelly prOpounds throughout his works on the nature of man, religion, science and society are essentially ‘ 0-9 In. ‘5' 3“le Inf -.— ‘ - b q 3 gia mecha COn C. u “ithi °ther Has a inter nufit ide: Dre he 15 a reaction to evolutionary naturalism.and its social applications as posited by Darwin, Spencer and Sumner reSpectively.1 In general, they held that scientific fact was by far the most dependable form of knowledge. Further, they tended to analyze moral and social problems using the same organismic constructions that they applied to physical phenomena. Finally, in their view, the individual exercised little freedom of choice being as tightly constrained by inexorable social laws on the one hand as he was by physical laws on the other. Herbert Spencer, the best known Social Darwinist, saw society as a giant corpus evolving slowly but inevitably toward perfection. The mechanism.for this evolution Spencer discussed in terms of a kind of "conservation of energy," where matter divided up into the largest number of heterogeneous units possible. Functions were differentiated within society and although interdependent, some were subordinate to others.2 While steadfastly insisting that this process of evolution was automatic, he was adamant that no social welfare legislation should interfere with the mechanism.by providing for the survival of the unfittest. "Incidental" suffering and hardship of a certain unadaptive segment of the pOpulationtnme unavoidable and finally beneficial to the organism as a whole. While he professed a belief in natural rights of man, he did not explain the apparent conflict between these and his strong Opposition to any remedial, social action should these rights be violated. William Graham Sumner who further develOped and modified Spencer's ideas, took a considerably more somber view of man's fate than did his predecessor. ~An ordained minister turned sociologist and economist, he came to reject theology as irrelevant mystery and turned to a opti: self: 0f hu in up right Findi em. Begin PrEsg invet and ' that nigh freq to 1 all m, l6 causal-deterministic model to explain social problems. For him man was locked in a continual struggle for survival, pitted against nature ("survival Of the fittest") and against his fellow man ("the competition of life"). In this struggle it was, as far as Sumner was concerned, "Root, hog, or die," and like Spencer he asserted that any attempt to assuage the plight Of the poor weakened society. For Sumner man was governed by four basic drives: "hunger, sex, vanity, and ghost fear." And this finding tended to preclude any Optimistic prognosis for the species: "The truth is that cupidity, selfishness, envy, malice, lust, vindictiveness, are constant vices Of human nature." In keeping with this, he rejected Spencer's belief in natural rights; Sumner believed that man had no more intrinsic right to life "than a rattlesnake." Sumner also rejected Spencer's faith in inevitable progress. Finding Spencer's theory Of conservation Of energy inadequate to explain social change, he develOped a.more cogent, complex model. Beginning with a Malthusian premise, he argued essentially that the pressure Of increasedepulation on the means Of subsistence stimulates invention which leads in turn to more complex social institutions and consequently tO more intricate divisions of labor. He was afraid that eventually the pressure Of pOpulation on social institutions might become so great that it would lead to widespread starvation, frequent wars, and totalitarian governments. To prevent or at least- to forestall such an occurrence the institutions of society must be allowed to evolve as rapidly and efficiently as possible. On this basis Sumner defended the concentration of wealth in the hands Of the few because the captains Of industry promoted the development of 2x proc: Oppcs to wt They conti they dolir Sneh ICco: that desp; “Pat ctea: that race dead 17 of more productive institutions. Millionaires, he said, are "a product Of natural selection." Based on these findings Sumner had a more explicit reason for Opposing interference with the processes of social evolution than Spencer did. Governmental intrusions that promoted the survival of the unfittest might seriously weaken society and usher in the grim future that he feared. Therefore, Sumner found himself in bitter Opposition to men like Donnelly whom he felt weakened society as they naively sought to rescue it. SO the differences between Donnelly and the evolutionary naturalists, to whose ideas he was largely responding, could not be more striking. They saw nature and society in the grip Of natural forces beyond man's control and with which it was dangerous for him to tamper. Further, they perceived man as an animal with very little freedom because he was dominated by such base drives as "hunger, sex, vanity, and ghost fear." Such freedom as was possible was attainable only through living in accordance with social as well as physical laws. Donnelly wrote in a Christian, Idealistic, and humanistic tradition that was diametrically Opposed to these views. For him mankind, despite its glaring cupidities, was essentially good and possibly capable Of perfection. Further, the universe was human-centered, created for the purpose of allowing mankind the Opportunity to achieve that perfection. SO he shared the horror Of men such as Borden P. Bowne who felt that this naturalistic world view meant "life without meaning; death without meaning; and the universe without meaning. A race tortured to no purpose, and with no hOpe but annihilation. The dead only blessed; the living standing like beasts at bay, and ill . “’9 H.1fl natt: for 1 coal; the: evide unfo] 'eVea comm Hen? beCO dept Anti demo ciVi 18 shrieking half in defiance and half in fright."3 Denial of man's spiritual nature and of the doctrines Of Christian Brotherhood and charity could only lead, for Donnelly, to a dehumanized, nightmarish future. The Debate on the Lessons Of History As part Of the general controversy surrounding evolutionary naturalism, debate raged over historical and anthrOpOlogical issues, and for Obvious reason. If the idea Of evolution were valid, and if it could legitimately be applied to the growth and changes in civilization, then ancient history and anthrOpOlogy should provide conclusive supporting evidence. Spencer and Sumner, Of course, saw man as having evolved socially, via inmutable natural mechanisms, from a state of brutal savagery to the relatively advanced state Of modern civilization. Both found the romanticization of primitivism, such as in the concept of the noble savage, ludicrous. Others like John Dewey drew different conclusions. For Dewey, history demonstrated not an impersonal mechanism but the . unfolding of God's will.4 Moreover, his studies Of anthrOpOlogy revealed that primitive man was essentially good, that he shunned competition and private property for cooperative societies. Lewis Henry Morgan, an attorney whose interest in evolution led him to become the preeminent anthropologist Of his era, develOped a model that depicted seven stages Of growth from savagery to civilization. Anticipating Dewey, he tOO found prhmitive man cOOperative and democratic. But perhaps more important he traced the develOpment of civilization through a series Of complex changes in the relationship P351 tee] anx 19 Of technology and property from primitive communism to modern capi- talism. And he concluded much as Donnelly did--though through a different means Of analysis--that:5 the dissolution Of society bids fair to become the terminiation Of a career Of which prOperty is the end and aim; because such a career contains theelements Of self-destruction. Democracy in government, brotherhood in society, equality in rights and privileges, and universal education, foreshadows the next higher plane of society to which experience, intelligence, and knowledge are steadily tending . . . . This remarkable diversity Of Opinion even within the "scientific" community reveals the degree to which value judgments intruded into the Objective sanctuary Of scientific investigation. More important, it indicates the complexity Of the debate especially over such issues as freedom and determinism. Morgan and Dewey Obviously believed that the course Of history could and should be altered by rational human choice. Sumner claimed to the contrary that viewing man as if he were a rational creature capable Of free will was a counterproductive delusion. Donnelly's paradigm Of history, as it develops from.Atlantis to The Golden Bottle focuses on this very issue. For Donnelly history was, at least initially, the trial Of mankind before the will of God. In his historical works, Atlantis and Ragnarok, he discovered a series of complex, cyclical patterns that described the rise and fall Of past societies. In the two previous cyclical civilizations, The Tertiary and Atlantean Ages, mankind had achieved a high degree of technical sOphistication and social complexity only to be destroyed by God for its excessive materialism and social injustice. He was anxious that the lessons of these earlier ages not be lost on his 3L apex feel did that and but exit and. but and of } Ere hi: 20 own. For America had reached in the late nineteenth century the apex of a third major historical epoch. It now remained to be seen whether it would suffer the same disaster as its predecessors or achieve utopia through a recommitment to Christian Brotherhood. Donnelly differed from the evolutionary naturalists like Spencer and Sumner--and to a lesser extent Morgan and Dewey--in that he did not feel that there was anything automatic about social evolution. Nor did he credit any natural laws which were said to govern social change. For him civilization was fragile and progress always tentative; and it was achieved not through the passive acceptance Of natural law but through the dynamic utility Of creative human intelligence. There is some irony in Donnelly's initial position. While criticizing a mechanistic view Of history that allowed of no meaning and no human freedom, his initial alternative provided divine meaning but freedom only within the limits of divine will. But interestingly, and this is a point that most Of Donnelly's critics miss, his vision Of history wasaltered by his changing perceptions Of organic evolution. Like most Of his contemporaries including many scientists, Donnelly did not understand evolution clearly, especially the mechanism through which it proceeded, natural selection. (The genetic basis for natural selection was not discovered until the end Of the century.) In his first work, Atlantis, he seemed to totally reject the idea. But in subsequent works culminating with QpEEQEDHpgppp_and Th; Qplgpp Bottle he began to embrace the concept using it as an argument for greater social justice.6 As Donnelly's views on organic evolution changed, so did his historical paradigm. God intervenes in.human affairs with less and 21 less frequency as the novels progress until, in The Golden Bottle, Donnelly feels compelled to Offer a reason for His inactivity. This leads one to the tentative conclusion that Donnelly's earliest historical theories were an attempt to counter the lock-step idea Of social Darwinism with an equally ordered (and therefore possibly equally persuasive?) idea Of divine progress. In any case his final position taken in Th5 Golden Bottle is interesting. Having apparently come to realize something Of the hit and miss mechanism of natural selection, Donnelly's fiction Of history becomes correspondingly less rigid. But even though his position changed as he became more familiar with evolutionary ideas, the changes took him.further than ever from the positions Of the strict evolutionary naturalists like Spencer and Sumner. With each novel, human initiated change and control over society become ‘more and more important as God intervenes less frequently. Consequently, it was essential for Donnelly to see men as free, good, and finally perfectible if social progress was to be achieved. One of the most interesting aspects of the change in Donnelly's historical paradigm is the increased tolerance for cultural pluralism. As his novels progress, the societies he depicts become less vengeful toward their enemies. In contrast to Caesar's Column, for instance, Donnelly's final novel, 1p; Golden Bottle, displays a spirit of forgiveness for conquered enemies. Further, the social institutions of the world government at the end Of Thg_§plggp;§ppplp_are specifically designed to accomodate cultural conflict and change. On close examination, Donnelly's historical paradigm reveals a complex combination of earlier historical ideas. For instance, the ll. COW as - He . red. hot tha equ 22 cataclysms in Atlantis and Ragnarok exhibit the Puritan belief that God ordered and governed time and chance according to His own pleasure. There is also, in these two works, the echo of an even older idea, that history is the record of a retrogression away from a golden age. In the later chapters Of Ragnarok and in Caesar's Column, Doctor Hugpet and The Golden Bottle the eighteenth-century cyclic theory of history develOped by Gibbon, Condercet and Others appears. The cyclic theory is, in turn, modified by the Romantic idea of progress which, as exemplified in America by the works Of George Bancroft, became popular in the early nineteenth century. All Of these ideas are mingled in Donnelly's view of history. While the newer historical ideas are emphasized more as the novels progress, the Older ones, with the possible exception of the idea Of God's direct intervention in human affairs, remain. Donnelly never fully adapted the Optimistic creed Of progress, nor did he find any automatic mechanism.in social develOpment.7 The Debate on Contemporary Society Turning from'history and anthrOpOlogy to the problems of contemporary society, Donnelly unswervingly attacked Social Darwinism as the shallowest kind Of justification for the abuses Of the plutocracy. He disputed everything from the premise that human motivation could be reduced to the pleasure-pain continuum to the conclusion that men dare not tamper with natural social laws. TO the contrary, Donnelly believed that progress could only be achieved through recognizing the spiritual equality of all men. Further, he asserted that men were naturally cooperative and not ruthlessly competitive. This criticism.of Social 'l.‘ 13‘ ”4' men i: which in Ca COL-m- 23 Darwinism he shared with a number Of his contemporaries, both churchmen and sociologists,from Washington Gladden (Applied Christianity, 1886) tO Lester Frank Ward whose writings Offered an incisive rationale for Donnelly's position.§ Ward discussed at length the laborious and incredibly wasteful mechanism Of natural selection and pointed out that human society had never develOped passively and involuntarily but rather through "telesis," "planned, voluntary, rational growth."9 He concluded that the great advances in civilization had come when men had rejected competition in favor Of cooperation. The extent to which Donnelly shared these general views is indicated by his proposals in Caesar's Column and The Golden Bottle for the OOOperative and communal organization Of society. Apart from believing that the Social Darwiniam.ana1ysis Of society precluded positive social growth, Donnelly was bitterly Opposed to it for another reason: it sanctioned the abuse of the downtrodden by claiming that the poor were simply inherently inferior and unworthy Of aid.10 More specifically he was afraid that Social Darwinism-- especially its "germ theory" of racial origin-dwould lead, tO the "slow but certain dissolution Of the Negro."11 The elaborate, if sometimes confused, scientific arguments Donnelly Offers in Doctor Hugpet are an attempt to refute that concept. In works with GE PC the 1 the and mote 24 Donnelly's Utopian Alternatives Donnelly's utopian novels, Caesar's Column and The Golden pppplg, and his novel on racial problems, Doctor Huguet, reveal his alternatives to the naturalistic world view Of Social Darwinism.12 His societies rest on a very different, essentially Idealistic system of values and conception of man. For him, spiritual reality--dismissed as irrelevant mystery by Sumner and others--was more important than material reality and in fact controlled material reality. (By "spiritual reality" he meant that the universe was imbued with moral values accessible tO men in their most lucid moments.) In all Of his works, for instance, the basic conflict arises when societies obsessed with materialism degenerate to despotic conditions. Then some infusion Of power from the spiritual world remedies the situation either through the direct intervention Of God as in Atlantis and Ragnarok or through the leadership Of some spiritually motivated hero as in Doctor Huguet and The Golden Bottle.13 This idea Of a transcendent spiritual reality led Donnelly to a more complex conception Of man than that Of an animal motivated solely by pleasure and pain. Since men were fundamentally spiritual creatures who could grasp the higher purposes of the universe, they were for Donnelly basically noble. This goodness emanated from the soul, the spiritual component in man. The soul, which Donnelly equated with what we would call the dynamic unconscious, was also the source Of creative intelligence. Pe0p1e in touch with this higher force within themselves could see through the material surface Of things to deeper realities. For instance, Donnelly's "seeing" characters know that all men areequal in: 1133'. .4 F.“ for Spiq men par] COQ1 Vic If th t2 bl In 25 in the spiritual sight Of God despite seeming differences in race, nationality or economic conditions. And as he asserts again and again in his novels, the superficial differences between men are circumstantial and environmental while their fundamental kinship is spiritual. This is, Of course, Donnelly's philosophical rationale for the idea of Christian Brotherhood. Donnelly found that evil results when men lose touch with their spiritual natures. This can happen for two basic reasons: either men forsake their consciences for the sake Of material gain, or they are dehumanized by men.who do, the plutocracy of Donnelly's political parlance. This spiritual malaise, which since spiritual reality controls the material is always visible in the countenances Of its victims, is equally as destructive to the wealthy as to the downtrodden, for when materialism becomes the plutocrats' ultimate goal in life, they become the dissatisfied, soulless robots described in Caesar's Column. But in Donnelly's universe evil can never triumph indefinitely. If God will not intervene directly as he did in ancient times, then the souls Of the oppressed will eventually erupt in cleansing but tragic revolution. What Donnelly hoped, however, was that the pattern of tragic historical cycles could be broken and that a stable, benevolent society achieved. To this end he proposed his various utOpian schemes. Based on the ideas of Christian Brotherhood and charity, they incorporated new safeguards against despotism. New political structures were devised to insure that political power could not be wrested from the peOple; limits were imposed upon the amount of wealth any one individual could ll C03: atte 13;, SOQi 50m Elan 1 Sum of anc Che re; 311: th. Su 26 accumulate so that the masses could never again be manipulated by plutocrats; and finally, minimum support was provided for all families so that the crippled, chronically ill, or even the merely inept could live in dignity. Bitterly critical Of unregulated capitalism, but at the same time Opposed tO the anti-individualistic character Of Marxist conmunism, Donnelly thought Of his political ideals as Christian socialism. This brief comparison Of Donnelly's ideas with those Of his contemporaries reveals the degree to which his writings were an attempt to rebut the naturalistic world view with its multifarious implications. This was more than a debate over the validity Of Social Darwinism, as that term was narrowly interpreted, for Donnelly's interest went beyond the question of whether social develOp- ment followed inexorable social laws to the fundamental issues raised by such assertions. Along with the naturalistic sociologists like Sumner, Spencer, Morgan and even Dewey he was reevaluating the nature Of man and the universe from new perspectives. Donnelly's belief that social justice could Only be achieved and maintained through a commitment to Christian Brotherhood and charity is, Of course, not unique to him. Numerous theologians, social reformers and scientists shared this view. What is unique to Donnelly and what will probably assure him a place as an important figure in the late Nineteenth Century is his particular indictment of the substitution Of science for human values. Like Donnelly, many Of the intellectuals Of his day were millennialists in one sense or another. Of these some prOpounded in ins- De'. war- of; his neif evil are dyst But 0the “VI: OEI 1'8“ Pas c01. 311 nov Gut 27 utOpian schemes to create an ideal society; others, like Spencer, thought that society would evolve to perfection automatically. A third group--and by far the most pervasive--believed technology would insure the perfect society. Donnelly was most critical Of this view. Had he debated directly with its prOponents like Charles Beard, Dewey and later Frederick Winslow Taylor and Ford, he would have warned that the wonders Of applied science by themselves were no guarantee Of perfection. Donnelly understood what seems clear today but was not to many of his contemporaries: science and its technological applications are neither beneficial nor malevolent in and Of themselves. The good or evil they produce depends on the value system in whose service they are employed. Thus Donnelly in Caesar's Column predicts a futuristic dystOpian society that is extremely sOphisticated technologically. But that "progress" does not insure democracy as Dewey, Beard and others felt sure that it would. Rather the tacit creed Of material advancement on which it was based leads to an authoritarian sensuality Of power instead Of to egalitarian reforms. Hofstadter, Noble, and others have interpreted these views, as revealed in Caesar's Column to mean that Donnelly was a simple~minded pastoralist and an enemy Of science and progress that would banish some Golden Age. That contention is inaccurate. Despite its popularity among POpulists, Donnelly uses the term, "Golden Age," only once in all of his fiction and that during a rhetorical flourish in his first novel. More to the point, he reveals himself in his novels to be an enthusiastic admirer of scientific and technological capability. Like some scholarly Noah, his protagonist carries the modern world's 28 scientific knowledge with him to Uganda as civilization perishes at the end Of Caesar's Column. And in his final novel, The Golden Bottle, he creates an industrial, not a pastoral, utOpia. What Donnelly insisted with greater and greater clarity as his literary career progressed was that society must have a coherent and ennobling system Of values that transcends materialism if it aSpires to democracy and social justice. The next four chapters reveal the development Of Donnelly's historical, religious and social ideas. . 4| II‘. 1 I Miami. f? D‘ O (D (D (D . —'”’—"'— _. Chapter Two Atlantis and Ragnarok: The Emerging Vision We are not tO despise the imagination. There never was yet a great thought that had not wings to it; there never was a great mind that did not survey things from above the mountain-tops. Ignatius Donnelly In January 1881, Donnelly in his forty-ninth year, retired to the library Of his rambling homein.Nininger, Minnesota and began work on Atlantis: The Antediluvian World.1 This moment marked an important turning point in his complex and hectic career. Born and raised in Philadelphia, he moved west to Minnesota in 1857 to seek his fortune. He was twenty-six. Donnelly and a friend, John Nininger, were immediately caught up in the euphoria Of western expansion and together entered a land-develOpment scheme that was to have made them both rich. The town they created, Nininger City, was never a financial success and although Donnelly continued to live there, he soon lost interest in land speculation. By the age Of twenty-eight Donnelly was addicted tO local politics and was elected the first lieutenant governor Of Minnesota. Then, after a change Of parties, he was elected to three consecutive terms in the United States House Of Representatives. Stimulated by those early victories, Donnelly dreamed Of attaining the Senate and possibly even the Presidency but had no way Of realizing that in the 29 relatin- the 185 power c unnon "intere E2 politic time o; induSt: agains: leader; a four: was an "811 a} Seen at him Que the ra: decide: and th' the Pet latter Of his railroJ the re\ eight i But he 30 relative dawn of his political life he had won national Office for the last time. He was destined for a career outside the citadels Of power championing--as he came to see it--the rights Of the oppressed common man against the combined forces Of corrupt politics and the "interests." Even early in his career and while he was in grace with the major political powers, those forces that were tO define Donnelly's life- time Oppositionto the major parties and the develOping economic- industrial institutions they represented were already militating against him. He quarreled with the Minnesota Republican Party leadership over matters Of principle and was denied the nomination for a fourth term. He ran as an independent, in what his friends advised was an ill-conceived attempt to retain his seat, and although he ran well ahead of his predicted totals, he still lost. In his short association with big politics, however, Donnelly had seen enough Of Official corruption that victimized the public to make him question not only his early support Of such special interests as the railroads but his own get-rich-quick schemes.2 By 1870 he had decided that the burgeoning "plutocratic empire" threatened despotism and that politicians had to determine whether their loyalty lay with the peOple or with the capitalists, "and if they take the side of the latter they must not expect the former to sustain them."3 As evidence of his own decision he had, by the time of that statement, exposed railroad fraud in the use Of public lumber lands, taken stands against the revitalized Klu Klux Klan, and for the rights Of Negroes, the eight hour day, free universal education and a graduated income tax. But he knew that few politicians shared his views. “1 Si on Atla current i free i: l the hi: I direct; | Opposi: 5; career. reading maJOr H Changes Vision intelli and Soc taking treatis that re Vc interrE St. Pat histori hundred 31 So when Donnelly confided tO his diary that he had begun work on Atlantis in the depths of that Minnesota winter, his vision Of the current political condition Of the Republic and the future of its free institutions was as chilling as the weather.4 He had reached the bitter end Of a long period Of disillusionment with the new directions Of American society, and had just begun to articulate his Opposition. Significantly, it was at this point that he began his literary career. His ubiquitous mind, continually recharged by his cOpious reading in many fields, sensed that the world was on the brink Of a major historical transition due mainly tO the impact Of sweeping changes in science and technology. One Of the clearest things about this complex and Often contradictory man was that he needed a holistic vision of the world within which this cultural crisis might be made intelligible. Consequently, he felt compelled to re-evaluate historical and social patterns to explain the radical and sinister changes he saw taking place. His fiction--and here I include his two scientific treatises for reasons that will soon become c1ear--is the process of that re-evaluation and the articulation Of his new vision. Atlantis Working steadily in his library from January to mid-March 1881, interrupted only by occasional trips to D. D. Merrill's bookstore in St. Paul to pick up books and magazines on mythology, geology, and historical geography, Donnelly finished his first book, almost five hundred pages long, in an amazingly short time.5 Donnelly's speed may in part be attributable to the fact that the Atlantis myth was a Ii. pOpula; Veme' had a;: concei‘l world ' iazili: also 2: flatter exhibii his ev Vith0u| SUPPQI- letter 32 popular "scientific" issue Of the day following the publication Of Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea in 1870. And Donnelly had apparently been speculating on the idea for some time before he conceived his book. His fascination with the scientific news Of the world and his accumulation of scientific texts meant that he was already familiar with much Of the material on "Atlantean research" which may also explain the short writing time. But there is a third and less flattering reason for the rapid completion Of Atlantis. Donnelly exhibited very little Objectivity or care in gathering and evaluating his evidence; nor was he above dismissing contradictory evidence without careful consideration or manipulating indifferent evidence to support his thesis. Most Of Donnelly's contemporaries, however, evidently read Atlantis indulgently despite its Obvious methodological weaknesses. The book caused an immediate sensation when it was published in February 1882.6 By 1890 it had gone through twenty-three American and twenty-six British editions. He even got a highly complimentary letter from British Prime Minister William E. Gladstone. More amazingly, on the basis Of Atlantis he was elected a member Of the American Association for the Advancement Of Science. Seemingly, the only negative reaction that prefigured later and harsher appraisals was Charles Darwin's. He read his gift cOpy with interest but "a very skeptical spirit."7 The kindest thing that can be said about the scientific argument in Atlantis is that it was formulated by a mind Of extraordinary dexterity and breadth of knowledge. Actually, Donnelly's argument (that Atlantis existed as the seat of ancient civilization before its cat that h' nearly intere; Of his neithe: intere- 33 its cataclysmic destruction) is rather convincing aside from the fact that his evidence is unsubstantiated.8 The unkindest criticism Of Atlantis is that Donnelly, at a nadir in his political career and nearly destitute financially, wrote Atlantis to capitalize on recent interest in the subject and with an eye only to recouping something of his lost fortune and fame. In fact, both statements are correct; neither would indicate that the book should be Of more than casual interest today. And, as a scientific document it is not. But whatever his failings as a scientist, Donnelly was an astute political and cultural Observer. The vision that he was beginning to develOp when he wrote Atlantis is remarkable in locating and describing the central social problems his society would face in the next hundred years. Less willing to evade impending conflict than many Of his fellow utopian writers (like Bellamy), and at the same time less tied to ideology and mechanistic social analysis than.Marx, Donnelly developed his ideas. Because he had to find a new means by which to understand the present, he had to acquire, for the satisfaction of his synthetic drive, a new complementary vision Of the past. Through the fabric of a pOpular book Of science Donnelly began that process with Atlantis. In his Opening remarks Donnelly says that he intends to "demonstrate" several distinct and novel propositions: Atlantis existed at the mouth Of the Mediterranean as the last remnant Of an Atlantic continent; Atlantis was the birthplace of civilization and became a "pOpulous mighty nation" that colonized much Of the rest Of the world including western EurOpe, Africa and much Of the Americas. Atlantis "was the true Antediluvian world; the Gardenof Eden; ...the Elysian Fields; ..the where furthe was a natio: home 0 Atlant ships . former which I legend: T the til 1enath literai “m t Dumber sunker1 "Gaelo‘ pEriod 34 ...the Olympus ...representing a universal memory Of a great land, where early mankind dwelt for ages in peace and happiness." He further claims that the Atlanteans colonized Egypt "whose civilization was a reproduction Of that Of the Atlantic island," that the Atlantean nation develOped the first alphabet, and that Atlantis was the original home Of the races Of the modern world. And he concludes that as Atlantis sank midst a huge natural cataclysm "a few persons escaped in ships and on rafts" and carried to their new homes (in many cases the former colonies Of Atlantis) "tidings Of the appalling catastrOphe, which has [sic] survived to Our own time in the Flood and Deluge legends Of the different nations of the Old and new worlds."9 TO prove his case, Donnelly presents a five part argument. In the first part, entitled "The History of Atlantis," he recounts at length Plato's original portrait of the island which he accepts literally. He discusses what he calls the "probabilities" Of Plato's story and then turns to the "hard" evidence. He describes a great number Of earthquakes and volcanic cataclyams in the area Of the now sunken island, from the destruction Of Pompeii onward; and then concludes: "Geologically speaking, the submergence Of Atlantis, within the historical period, was simply the last Of a number Of vast changes, by which the continent which once occupied the greater part of the Atlantic had gradually sunk under the ocean, while the new lands were rising on both sides Of it."LoThen he claims that oceanographic surveys, especially one by the British research vessel Challenger which took depth soundings around the Azores, bear out his contentions and that "a member of the Challenger staff, in a lecture delivered in London soon after the ter- mination Of the expedition gave it as his Opinion that the great SL‘bflBl’lf and ty; that be have ex shnilar and was when he the tag: submari Upon."1 In the dElt Merica °f the This is similar. Set thel POSitiv reinter In 'iOns 0 that Ca °rigih a ReCo1 Civiliz the Rae 35 submarine plateau 'is the remains Of the lost Atlantis.'"11 Finally, and typical of his methodological leaps Of faith, Donnelly concludes that because he has "demonstrated" that an island like Atlantis could have existed and that a cataclysm.which might have destroyed it was similarly possible, that Q.E.D. it is proven that Atlantis did exist and was destroyed and that "even the wild imagination of Jules Verne, when he described Captain Nemo, in his diving armor, looking down upon the temples and towers of the lost island, lit by the fires Of submarine volcanoes, had some groundwork Of possibility to build upon."12’13 In his second section, entitled "The Deluge," Donnelly describes the deluge legends Of several ancient nations including those Of American Indian tribes which demonstrate, he says, that a few survivors of the sinking island must have escaped with word Of the catastrOphe. This is the only way tO account, he continues, for the "remarkable similarity" Of all the deluge myths. In fact, the reader begins to get the impression that all myths become for the enthusiastic Donnelly positive proof of the existence Of Atlantis and that he is happy tO reinterpret them all for the credulous reader. In the third section Donnelly purports to show that the civiliza- tions Of the Old and new world when carefully compared show similarities that can only be accounted for by the fact that they all had a common origin in Atlantis. In the fourth, "The Mythologies of the Old World a Recollection of Atlantis," he extends his analysis of ancient civilizations tO show that their religions and symbols were born on the Edenic plain of the Atlantic island. The gods of such diverse peoples as the Greeks, the Phoenicians and the Scandanavian countries were to I colon Irela villi faith woven his 1 that t SelVe famil; ralat. the C the fa subj6< with I 36 were in fact kings of Atlantis. The last part Of the book is devoted to a further, and frankly rather tedious, description Of the Atlantean colonies, from central American to Donnelly's ancestral homeof Ireland. This cursory summary reveals precisely the casual research, the willingness to overlook contradictory evidence, and the giant leaps Of faith that modern critics Of Atlantis have been so quick to point out. The student Of Donnelly's fiction and ideas can, however, see inter- woven in this tract the threads of Donnelly's cosmology. For instance, his insistence that Atlantis was the birthplace Of civilization and that most of the races of the earth first began to differentiate them- selves there reveals his central ideal of the solidarity Of the human family that is develOped fully in 292225 Hu et, his novel on racial relations in the United States after the Civil War. Similarly, some Of his attitudes toward science and its effect on the contemporary world begin tO emerge from the book. First of all, the fact that he wrote his first published book on a "scientific" subject when he had neither formal training nor occupational connection with science is indicative of the prestige that science enjoyed in the late nineteenth century and indicates Donnelly's awareness Of the radical effect it was having on culture and values. Second, he often alludes to the potential good that science can do for society through technology. At one point, for example, he defines progress of "material civilization" as "the result of inventions and discoveries, whereby man improves his condition, and controls the forces Of nature for his own advantage."14 Donnelly also manages tO intersperse his historical investigation with St to tie plutoc: origins were u: I and tir | associa | Primit; I depend; bankersi wept b} Atlanti Ba apocaly becomes Change, the pa mam Eden of wealthy 1...$8 Ci 1;, , Vi Of this retaini thmush Di his lat 37 with some contemporary political crithdsm, For instance, he attempts to tie the deflationary, gold-standard, monetary theories Of the plutocrats (a favorite target Of POpulist invective) to superstitions originating in Atlantis. Specifically, he claims that gold and silver were not honored in any early society for their intrinsic value (copper and tin were because Of their use in making tools); but, because Of their association with the sun and moon, gold and silver were Objects Of primitive religion.15 "The business Of our modern civilization is dependent upon the superstition Of a past civilization, and the bankers of the world are to-day perpetuating the adoration Of 'tears wept by the sun' which was commenced ages since on the island Of Atlantis."16 But most important, Atlantis reveals the beginning Of Donnelly's apocalyptic conception Of history. Originating here, the apocalypse becomes the paradigm for Donnelly's understanding Of major social change, the format into which his emerging ideas are fitted. Here the pattern is in its nascent stages but still clearly identifiable. Atlantis was the birth place Of civilization, in fact the "Garden Of Eden Of mankind." Through the ages it develOped into a populous, wealthy and powerful nation whose influence dominated the rest Of the less civilized world. Then after a golden age the mighty island perished in a violent cataclysm and the rest Of the world, without the influence of this highly advanced civilization, sunk back into barbarism retaining the knowledge and refinement of the parent society only through legend and superstition. Did Donnelly find a lesson in the destruction Of Atlantis? In his later fictions God or his agents destroy civilizations that repudia few sci found let th: suggest tentat; God beg doesn'1 civilifi 1'me a Bods. 38 repudiate the ideas Of spirituality and social justice. However, the few scholars that have paid serious attention to the bOOk have not found that Atlantis was destroyed by God for any moral culpability.17 Yet this is not precisely accurate. There are a number Of reasons to suggest that the patterns that inform Donnelly's later work begin tentatively in Atlantis and that the island was indeed destroyed by God because Of its moral degeneracy. First, even though Donnelly doesn't specifically claim that God destroyed Atlantis, most Of the civilizations described in the deluge legends, which he claims are remembrances of the destruction Of Atlantis, were ravaged by wrathful gods. Atlantis may be, by implication, included in this category. Second, the specific reasons for the destruction Of Atlantis are suggested by a composite Of the several Atlantean myths Donnelly cites: not onlydd the Atlanteans develOp into a wealthy and powerful nation but also into a cruel one. In discussing the deluge legends of Greece (a colony of Atlantis) Donnelly notes, for instance, that the Greeks had a slave pOpulation that revolted against its avaricious masters. Here he makes the connection between social injustice and natural catastrophe for the first time.18 Third, the structural idea that later informs his first novel, Caesar's Qplppp, first appears here. When Atlantis sinks a few inhabitants escape with the knowledge necessary to slowly rebuild civilization. In Caesar's Column the protagonists flee the destruction Of a corrupted America by airship, to carry their knowledge to the mountains of Uganda where they found a utopia that will gradually restore civilization to the world. Fourth and finally, Donnelly insists that Atlantis was a highly «I r11? .9 -Hl‘l'~h_ .‘K’l‘ .v‘ sophi whic? In a: civil a fra his 1 bitte of hi forCe Cause preQEt Was p: h°wev 39 sophisticated, materialistic society at the time Of its destruction, which suggests that he saw it as an ancient analogue to his own society. In addition, we come away from Atlantis with a strong feeling that civilization, however powerful and advanced it may be, is essentially a fragile structure susceptible to inner decay. This vision haunts his later work. Atlantis, then, was written at a natural dividing point in Donnelly's career. He had broken away from the major national political parties to identify himself for life with reform-minded splinter parties. At the same time he was becoming more acutely aware of the rapid redistribution Of wealth in an increasingly tech- nically organized society. Inevitably, he saw this as a sinister mal-distribution creating a nearly omnipotent plutocracy and a dehumanized poor class. Further, he saw certain scientific ideas, especially the Darwinian evolutionary model, made into instruments Of social analysis and used by many Of his philosophical enemies to justify what, Donnelly was sure, was a destructive flow Of power away from the peOple. Spurred by these events and ideas, and undoubtedly also by his bitterness at his own political defeats, Donnelly created a new fiction Of history, an elaborate pattern wherein he could analyze the social forces at work around him in terms Of historical precedents--past causes and effects--even if he had to invent the meaning in those precedents. This process informs Atlantis. In that bOOk, Donnelly was probably only vaguely conscious Of it; by the end Of his next, however, his world view is nearly fully conceived. "V A) P. n‘ I--‘ -— -—_ r-“u l relig That is The boo the man' that Uh Fina11y Vha causal o firSt ii ferret d chat-acte the Job The 0f the Wen, Scandina ”when, detail t continen 40 Ragnarok "It grew within me from small beginnings like an inspiration 19 "It tOOk possession and I hOpe it may do some gOOd in the world." Of my whole brain and being; and I could not rest until I had written it out and then the great dread Of my soul was that some accident would destroy the single cOpy I had and that the world would lose a revelation."20 SO Donnelly wrote about Ragnarok: Tpg_Agg_p£H§;£g‘§pg Gravel (1883), his sequel to Atlantis, in phrases more appropriate to a religious prophet than the scientist he fancied himself to be.21 That is Obviously what many Of the major publishing houses thought tOO. The book was rejected by Harper's and then by Scribners' who had sent the manuscript to a scientist at Yale for his Opinion. He responded that while the book.was well written it was scientifically absurd.22 Finally, Appleton accepted the book. What "grew" within Donnelly was not a brilliant insight into the causal mechanisms of the physical world, but the germ of the cosmology first intimated in Atlantis. Though the reader is forced again to ferret out emerging ideas from the huge bulk of evidence that Donnelly characteristically substitutes for a succinct, compelling argument, the job is not nearly so difficult as with Atlantis. The book attempts tO disprove the glacial theory Of the formation Of the geological drift as propounded by Louis Agassiz. Instead, Donnelly insists, the drift was formed when a huge comet, Ragnarok of Scandinavian legend, struck the earth. To substantiate his clahns Donnelly offers a four part argument. First, he examines in some detail the formation Of the drift and its distribution on the several continents. He recounts a few lesser theories, which claim the drift H D n. H‘ I” :7 convim 41 was formed by the action Of waves, icebergs, and the combination Of water and ice, and then turns his attention to his main target, the theory of the glacial ice sheet. He refutes this with some contemporary Opinion of unclear merit and launches Off into his own dubious thesis, laboriously drawn out, that great heat as well as great cold was necessary for the formation Of the drift and that only a comet could have provided such extremes Of heat and cold. The heat is furnished through Obvious means, the cold when all the warm, moist air created by comet-induced evaporation hits the cold arctic air. This cold, moist air becomes frozen percipitation which creates a small ice sheet which, in turn, accounts for the phenomena that cannot be explained by the impact Of a comet. Donnelly next reviews available information about comets by way Of answering questions about the possibility and consequences Of Ragnarok striking the earth. He concludes, Of course, that such a collision is eminently possible and that the results would be a geological drift exactly like the one described in the preceding section. In the third section, "The Legends," Donnelly relies heavily on what he later calls "The Universal Beliefs of Mankind" to prove his case for him. These include Scandanavian mythologies, American Indian legends and, more importantly, new interpretations Of the Bible, especially the Books of Genesis and. Job. In his "Conclusions" the author recapitulates his evidence and Offers a few more astounding theories on comets almost as if to convince the reader that his is rather on the conservative side. For instance, he claims that in early October, 1871 several fires erupted he. unexpe damage: on Oct _—" —'——— —-— cause .1 close hastil 42 unexpectedly all over the midwest, causing millions Of dollars in damage and costing thousands Of lives--the great Chicago fire occurred on October 8, 187l--and that these conflagrations could only have been caused by the vaporus tail of the lost Belia's Comet sweeping tOO close to the earth.23 As in Atlantis, the scientific theory set forth by Ragnarok is hastily sketched and poorly substantiated. Even Donnelly himself seems to have been less than totally convinced Of its validity for he wrote to the editor Of POpular Science Monthly (who had refused to print a review Of the book) saying in effect that even if the theory wasn't positively proven it was still interesting and worthy Of a reading. But as is much more clear in Ragnarok than in Atlantis, the scientific theory of the book is not its major interest, or even the major focus. Instead, Donnelly develOps for the first time a systematic historical world view into which he fitshis ideas. Further, his clearest statements tO date (1882) on science, religion, evolution, materialism, and social justice are found in Ragnarok. The first concept in Donnelly's more fully developed cultural paradigm is the clear emergence of divine agency in history. A summary Of the physical thesis Of Ragnarok has already been outlined. Beneath this, however, there is a social thesis that runs as follows. Before the impact Of the comet, most of the world possessed a tropical climate. Mankind, as evidenced in many Of the legends and artifacts that the author Offers as examples, was highly civilized, possessing sophisticated tools, money, and probably an alphabet. It was a Golden Age, an Edenic age, and what Donnelly chooses to call the Tertiary Age. But this tranquil age became a brutal one where sens althc was A down. I like ' that Catac 43 "sensual sins“ grew "huge" and "brother spoiled brother."24 And although to outward appearance order and progress prevailed, society was rotting from within because the laws Of social justice had broken down. Then God sent the "rejuvenating comet"--"something let loose, like a tiger of the heavens, athwart an orderly" world.25 Donnelly is so thoroughly gripped by this image Of God's vengeance that he describes it in the present tense as if he were there:26 God has withdrawn his face; his children are deserted; all the kindly adjustments Of generous Nature are gone. God has left man in the midst Of a material world without law; he is a wreck, a fragment, a lost particle, in the midst Of an illimitable and endless warfare Of giants. Some lie down tO die, hopeless, cursing their helpless gods; some die by their own hands; some gather around the fires Of volcanoes for warmth and light. . . . This remarkable passage looks backwards and forwards at the same time; backwards to the end of the Tertiary Age, and forward to the cataclysm described in Caesar's Column. In addition, while describing God's vengeance, the passage also describes a world without God or purpose where men are left to contend with the brutal and indifferent powers of nature, the "illimitable and endless warfare Of giants." History may ordinarily be a linear continuum; but when extraordinary events prevail, God intervenes directly to wipe the slate clean--except for a few e1ect--and restart errant mankind on its way to perfection. To explain this Donnelly provides an elaborate and complex mixture of cyclic (apocalyptic) and linear (progressive) views of history. In Ragnarok, Donnelly is most concerned with and explicit in describing the apocalyptic cycles. 'In fact, he lists the stages through which a cycle progresses in an elaborate scheme. First there exists a "Paradise," a "Golden Age," which is eventually inter- rupted by "the universal moral degeneracy Of mankind; the age Of crime . in the Hillic' and dit physic- the sk‘ COHblr; 44 crime and violence." This period ends with God's vengeance appearing in the form Of a comet, sometimes described in legends as a serpent. Millions are killed instantly; others are maimed and horribly burned and die slow painful deaths. Conditions for those who escape without physical injury are also horrible, for in the aftermath Of the comet the sky is covered with dense black clouds, and continual percipitation combines with the absence Of warmth from the sun to cause an age Of ice and darkness. Human beings are reduced tO cave men again. They struggle to keep warm and to find enough food in the demolished, darkened world tO scratch Out a meager existence. This cataclysm, according to Donnelly, represents the original Fall Of Man as described in Genesis. Finally, the physical conditions begin tO ameliorate slowly and a period of "reconstruction and regeneration" follows.27 At the same time this cataclysm has been selective. Donnelly manages to maintain the nineteenth century's basic belief in progress. "If I am right, despite these incalculable tons Of matter piled on the earth, deSpite heat and cyclones and darkness and ice and floods, not even a tender trOpical plant fit to adorn or sustain man's life was blotted out; not an animal valuable for domestication was exter- 'minated; and not even the great inventions which man had attained to, during the Tertiary Age, were lost. Nothing died but that which stood ."28 The few elect that God in the pathway Of man's develOpment. . . has spared, armed with the knowledge and art of the lost culture, begin to build civilization again. Along with the explication Of divine agency in human affairs Donnelly's fiction in this nearly completed form condenses and synthe- sizes history until it is one long morality play. As is clear from the p Ioral the A synth civil of me and C Veste 45 the preceding paragraphs, physical mechanism is made to conform tO moral purpose. In a chapter late in Ragnarok, "The Scene Of Man's Survival," the Atlantis and Ragnarok myths are fused in the process Of this synthesis. We learn that Atlantis was the seat Of the most develOped civilization before the impact Of the comet. It was also the site Of many early biblical narratives such as the stories Of Job and Sodom and Gomorrah. And it was on the island Of Atlantis that fragments of western civilization survived Ragnarok. Then the cycle repeats itself through a period Of thousands Of years. Building on the knowledge and the tools that were spared during the blazing night Of the comet, the Atlanteans evolve toward empire. In the equatorial climate, the fertile central plain Of Atlantis produces an abundance Of food and material for clothing that frees the peOple from toil. With this freedom they expand their pursuit Of art and science and colonize much Of the Atlantic shoreline including the Americas. But internal decay again blights this Edenic garden, and as the island sinks beneath the waves (again, a few elect escape), civilization sinks back into barbarism for hundreds Of years. From this fusion Of the Atlantis and Ragnarok myths more of Donnelly's complex, cyclical but also linear view of history emerges. It is possible to form three major epochs: The Tertiary Age, The Atlantean Age, and the present. Each Of the first two periods ended in a terrible God-sent catastrophe; and as the analysis Of Caesar's gplppp in the next chapter reveals, Donnelly feared the same fate for his age. The fact that the parallel is being drawn is emphasized highl; some ? mater seeai: will . that : t0 SCH: be We; histop Stage 46 when Donnelly insists throughout that both previous societies were highly civilized. Yet, there is a mitigating factor. Donnelly reveals some belief in the linear pattern Of man's spiritual as well as material progress. In each Of the preceding conflagrations God has seemingly spared those portions Of science and civilization that will facilitate man's ultimate perfection. It seems possible, then, that men will some time be able to seize the day, commit themselves to social justice and avert the next cataclysm. It is this tension between the possibility Of perfection and the terror of another historical cycle winding its way toward dmaster that informs the next stage Of Donnelly's thought in Caesar's Column.29 The Apocalypse in Perspective Before turning to the novels where the vision acquires new complexity in its artistic guise, the meaning Of Donnelly's apocalyptic vision in his own time needs some further discussion. Men need tO understand their lives and times in terms Of a continuity which gives them meaning.30 They see themselves in "the middest, in medias res" and need a vision Of concordance Of beginning and end.31 For this purpose they develOp an apprOpriate fiction. Fiction in this sense, of course, has nothing to do with the truth or falseness Of the vision. Rather, it refers to a model. Donnelly's view of history, with all its facile scientific analysis, is prompted by the same impulse to make sense Of the impending crises that produced a number of historical revisions in the period. Even in tenms of vision, if one considers Donnelly's apprehension that he stood on the brink Of radical and probably destructive historical change, he is not so different from those Adams sense he wa Donne forer Age a catas 60an 32 en' fitte This Progr D°nne ficti- t0 uh cultu thong model naive & div Was n undel fol- t 47 those much more saphisticated writers Of his relative era, Henry Adams and T. S. Eliot. Like previous prOphets Of the apocalypse, Donnelly saw that his sense of the ending charged the present with moral meaning. Although he was no student Of the apocalyptic view Of history, the world for Donnelly passed through the same patterns as it had for his ideological forerunners. Begun in innocence his world had evolved through Golden Age and Empire and was now on the brink Of that sickening slide into catastrophe. But as has been mentioned, Donnelly's vision was more complex than most. Rather than one beginning and end, he saw several. He envisioned a series Of cycles, each a little less catastrOphic, fitted end to end to form a line that might eventually reach perfection. This again represents the informing tension between cataclysm.and progress. Finally, to underscore the importance Of the forces that caused Donnelly to create his apocalyptic fiction and the importance Of that fiction itself, it is again necessary to briefly consider the model tO which it stood in Opposition. Donnelly was well aware that the impact of science on traditional culture and especially religion threatened the authority Of what he thought were mankind's most important ideas. If Darwin's evolutionary model meant, as many Of Donnelly's contemporaries feared, that the universe was a huge self-sustaining causal mechanism without need of a divine guiding hand, then it also meant, by extension, that there was no intrinsic meaning or purpose in the universe. If the evolutionary model were extended tO society, there would no longer be any reason for the practice of Christian charity, cOOperation, or even democracy. l; Donn. preps cool: look, 0f 5: his I 48 Donnelly wasn't ready for the existential dilemma, nor was he prepared for a world of vicious human competition where no quarter could be given. But, on the other hand, he was not willing to over- look, as many of his later critics argue he did, the positive benefits of science and technology. His comments in Atlantis, Ra narok, and his later novels make clear his belief that a truly advanced society has harnessed nature through science to free itself of bone-crushing, dehumanizing toil. But he also believed, as Ragnarok demonstrates, that a society without a commitment to God and, equally important, to social justice was doomed to failure and destruction. Donnelly's methodology in these two books, which are ostensibly analyses of the natural world, indicate the vast difference in funda- mental philosophical assumptions between the scientific world view and his own. He relies finally in both books on experiential rather than' scientific or empirical evidence to prove his case for him. In other words, he felt that humanism and spiritualism would always provide a more valuable central perspective than empiricism, a term that he and most Of his contemporaries roughly equated with materialism. Consider his format. In both Atlantis and Ragnarok he begins with sections which Offer supposedly empirical evidence to support his thesis. Not surprisingly, in both cases geology is the science he draws on, for geology was the most prestigious "hard" science in Donnelly's age. But he dispenses with that evidence within the first quarter Of each book and does not return to it except in summary. Instead, he turns for what really is the bulk of his case to myths and legends, what he calls "the universal beliefs of mankind." These he claims are "congealed history" and will some day be given as much weigi evid- evic inte some inhi 3532! Scier Scier relig desc: His 5 llccoE addre '7her an,“t and C theOr not t pr°9e 49 weight as the striations and layers of rock that comprise geological evidence. This idea is in some ways naive and in Others very interesting. 0n the one hand it indicates what these books themselves show, that Donnelly did not completely understand the nature of scientific evidence. But on the other hand, it shows Donnelly's penchant for internal evidence, a human centered vision of the world: "there are some thoughts and Opinions which we seem to take by inheritance; we imbibe them with our mothers' milk."32 The Bible, of course, is just such a vision and Often in Ragnarok Donnelly defends what he calls "this gigantic truth" from scientific attack. In this defense he makes clear that while both science and religion provide important perspectives on the world, religion is more essential for it reveals meaning where science describes only mechanism. His frequent comments on evolution clarify this point further. His stand resembles those of contemporary theologians like James McCosh and Henry Ward Beecher. He argues that science and religion address themselves to two different but complementary questions. "There are two things necessary to a comprehension of that which lies around us--development and design, evolution and purpose; God's way and God's intent . . . Why should the religious world shrink from the theory of evolution? To know the path by which God has advanced is not to disparage God."33 In fact, he claims, evolution, understood prOperly, points the way to spiritual as well as physical perfection:34 And what greater guarantee of the future can we have than evolution? If God has led life from the rudest beginnings, whose fossils are engraved, (blurred and obscured) on the many pages of the vast geological volume, up to this intellectual, charitable, merciful, powerful world of to-day, who can doubt that the same 50 hand will guide our posterity to even higher levels of develOpment? . . .If our thread Of life has expanded from Cain to Christ, from the man who murders to him who submits to murder for the love of man, who can doubt that the Cain-like in the race will gradually pass away and the Christ-like dominate the planet? This quotation represents faith in what might be called spiritual progress, although as will be seen by a look at Donnelly's full vision of history, this progress is by no means uninterrupted.3S So Donnelly's counter vision to the scientific world view was, anti-mechanistic. It restored the moral universe and demanded social adherence to Christian Brotherhood on pain of destruction. The mechanistic march toward perfection described by the evolutionary naturalists was alienating and tortuously slow; but time was telescoped in Donnelly's universe and divine intervention to insure justice was always imminent. In the novels following Atlantis and Ragnarok specific social issues provide the central focus, but the struggle to reassert the moral universe provides the structure and thematic tension. “Kw" Chapter Three Caesar's Column: The Dark Night Of Civilization There is an acceleration of events in the movement of human affairs even as there is in the Operation of gravity. The dead missile out of space at last blazes, and the very air takes fire. The masses grow more intelligent as they grow more wretched; and more capable of cOOperation as they become more desperate. . . .The fool may cry out: "There shall be no night!" But the feet of the hours march unrelentingly toward the darkness. Ignatius Donnelly from his introduction to Caesar's Column With his first novel, Caesar's Column: A §£p£y_p§ pp; Twentieth Centugy (1889), Donnelly turned from history to focus his vision on the present and the future where it becomes still more complex in its modern, artistic clothing.1 Part of the reason for his change in perspective and form was his need to warn his society, which for him had reached a state of unprecedented and ominous turmoil by 1889, about the ultimate fate of corrupt civilizations. As with Atlantis, at least some of the impetus behind the writing of_§gesar's Colppp_lay in Donnelly's personal political experience. In 1888, the year before the novel was published, Donnelly set out to run for governor on the Farmer Labor Party ticket. In the bewildering kaleidoscOpe of shifting positions that marked Minnesota politics in the last twenty years of the century, he found himself running against not only his acquaintances in the Republican and Democratic parties-- 51 52 on both of whose tickets he had previously run-~but also against most of the Farmers' Alliance Party which he had helped to create but a few years earlier. In the middle of the campaign the Republicans nominated William R. Merriman, a friend, whose policies for honest government Donnelly had always supported. After much soul searching, and encouraged by offers of patronage from Merriman's camp, Donnelly withdrew from the race and promised to campaign for his old friend. At the same time, paradoxically, he decided to run for a seat in the Minnesota House on the Dakota County Democratic slate. But even his admiring neighbors could not support a man who ran on one ticket locally and supported the state-wide slate of another, and the Sage of Nininger, who was fond of describing himself as the most pOpular man in.Minnesota between elections, lost his bid for office. Remarkably, that defeat did not end Donnelly's participation in the campaign. Instead, he set out immediately to capture the Republican nomination for United States Senator from a bitter political enemy, William D. Washburn. He plunged ahead, apparently counting on the support owed him by the newly elected governor, but as was so often his fate, the promised aid didn't materialize, and he found himself alone on the hustings. The night after Washburn's election to the Senate a disgusted and bitter Donnelly returned to his St. Paul hotel room.and began work on Caesar's Column.2 To his enemies and even some of his admirers, Donnelly's bitterness was that of a man who had simply bet on too many sides of the political coin at once and lost. Donnelly, of course, didn't see it that way. He portrayed himself as one of the few men running on the principles of 5c Minn». elec: "inte rathe defer artic that their got k book' and H 1‘erE MCCIJ 53 of social justice and not simply with the corrupt tide of power in Minnesota politics. Huge amounts of corporate money influenced every election; legislatures were too often in reality pawns of the "interests;" and many courts paid primary allegiance to politicians rather than the public. Donnelly saw his as one of the few voices defending the rights of the people. Robbed of the platform of office, he turned to literature to articulate his case and to issue a warning to the rich and powerful that their continued plundering of society would lead not only to their own destruction but to that of civilization itself. Donnelly got his hearing with the publication of Caesar's Column and saw the book's phenomenal sales as proof that his vision, opposed and distorted though it was by his political enemies, was shared by the peOple. The incidents surrounding the publication of the book tend to support his contention. The manuscript was rejected by Harper and Brothers, Scribners', Houghton Mifflin, and Appleton all of whom returned the manuscript saying that they would never publish such a "revolutionary" or "inflammatory" diatribe. Another publisher, A. C. McClurg, told Donnelly that he hOped the book would never see the light of day, but that if it did, it should definitely be sold for more than a dollar so that it wouldn't fall into the "wrong hands."3 Needless to say, those were precisely the hands for which Donnelly intended the book. Finally F. J. Schulte of Chicago agreed to publish the book and brought it out in April 1889. Major newspapers and magazines refused to review it--probab1y for the same reason that Appleton and McClurg refused to publish it. But the book sold anyway and the rural pres pape hand agai aao: in t gen: Bell and ‘ Donn on b trav: the the ,I of a the 1 Mode Broa that is 81%: intc dinj 54 press began to pick it up and boost it. By June an inexpensive paperbound edition was on the streets, putting the novel into the hands of thousands who could not afford the hardback. Sales soared again and Schulte wrote Donnelly that the book "makes its own way" among the peOple.4 By 1899 Caesar's Column had sold 230,000 c0pies in the United States and 450,000 in Europe.5 Only one book of its genre, Bellamy's Looking Backward, ever sold more copies, and considering Bellamy's much less threatening theme and his backing by Genteel critics and press, Donnelly's sales are even more remarkable. The power of Donnelly's vision had obviously captured the imaginations of thousands on both sides of the Atlantic. Gabriel's Story: How the World Came to be Ruined The plot of Caesar's Column opens in 1988 when Gabriel Welstein travels by airship from his native Uganda to New York, the hub of the technologically advanced world, for the purpose of selling some of the mineral resources of his tiny country. The book takes the form of a series of letters from Gabriel to his brother, Heinrich, describing the modern world. On his arrival Gabriel tours the city examining such wonders of modern America as trans-Atlantic airline terminals located between Broadway and the Bowery, the "noiseless and smokeless" elevated trains that crisscross the city, and a device that, as Gabriel describes it, is very much like television. Then he retires to his hotel, significantly named The Darwin, for dinner and rest. After checking into this air-conditioned structure, Gabriel rises to the roof-tap dining room via a magnificent, room-sized hydraulic elevator. There he 8U? at all ecu lie the cal dis: fev£ the he ( bUt 1 m.- in - Obs. f0U: In0d and thi 0f 55 he finds an engineered tropical climate with exotic birds and vegetation surrounding each table. At first Gabriel stands in awe of this splendid city and marvels at the creative capacity of mankind: "these swarming, laborious, all-capable ants seem great enough to attack heaven itself, if they could but find a resting-place for their ladders. Who can fix a limit to the intelligence of our species?"6 But even in Gabriel's initial praise for this marvelous world, there is an evocation of one of Donnelly's central fears: that techni- cal progress, if not humanely channelled, may produce social and personal dissolution. In suggesting that these all-capable ants may somehow be attacking heaven, Gabriel strikes the first note of a chord that reverberates throughout the novel. This apprehension is reinforced when he turns his attention from the material splendors to the citizens of this metrOpolis. First, he observes the faces of his fellow diners. The women are handsome but also hard. "Their looks were bold, penetrating, immodest, if I may so express it almost to fierceness," and "the chief features in the expression of the men were incredulity, unbelief, cunning observation and heartlessness."7 Gabriel begins to fear (what Donnelly found in the Atlantean utOpia) that there is something seriously amiss beneath this society's dazzling exterior. Most devastating for the Inodern reader is his assertion that despite their varied clothing land manners, these resplendent diners have somehow lost their indivi- <1uality and become carbon capies of each other. "I could not but think how universal and irresistible must have been the influences C>f the age that could mold all these men and women into the same I. sou; afte faci phi pets leas ; p— ,. disc it '.. Citi: as pd faci New ‘ of a driv Gabr hOrs 1&3! and the tip 56 soulless likeness."8 Whatever remains of Gabriel's admiration for modern society after this perception vanishes when a porter explains the city's facilities for mass suicide. Following the teachings of recent "philosophers and economists" the city fathers have decided that if a person doesn't have any choice about entering the world he should at least have the Option of leaving it when existence becomes unbearable. They have further reasoned that, rather than have the bodies of these discourageiindividuals polluting and clogging the rivers and reservoirs, it would be far more practical to provide suicide parlors where a citizen can go, choose his poison, and "leave the world as pleasantly as possible." And, the porter informs the horrified Gabriel, these facilities are in constant use. As he strolls through Central Park a day after his arrival in New York, Gabriel notices a ragged beggar who has fallen in front of an expensive carriage. Instead of stOpping to help the man, the driver whips him and goads his team to trample the prostrate victum. Gabriel springs to the rescue, pulls the beggar from beneath the horses and administers a well-deserved beating to the driver. But instead of receiving the expected approbation of the gathering crowd, he finds himself pursued by police. The only friendly face he sees in the crowd belongs to one of the passengers in the coach, a young and beautiful woman named Estella Washington, who later becomes one of the novers heroines. The beggar, who turns out to be the other prin- cipal protagonist, whisks Gabriel away before he can be arrested. Gabriel is astonished to learn that his benefactor is in reality Maximiliam Petion, one of the leaders of the secret Brotherhood of Des: twer drix inf: the desc with the Same and "3cm. 57 Destruction, the only force opposing plutocratic dictatorship in twentieth century America. Max informs him that he has whipped the driver of Prince Cabano, "the wealthiest and most vindictive man in the city," and the continental leader of the plutocrats. Max further informs Gabriel that the aristocracy control the courts, the judges, the juries and the press and to prove this shows him a newspaper already describing Gabriel as a vicious criminal. So the scene is set. Gabriel has by accident become associated with the enemies of the ruling class. He has already seen enough of the aristocrats to be surecf their wickedness and their dehumanized sameness. 0f the working class, however, he has as yet seen nothing, and so the obliging Max takes him on a tour of the workers' slums. There he observes incredibly squalid conditions and pitiful creatures on the brink of dissolution: "both men and women were undersized" and "there was no Spring to their steps and no laughter in their eyes. . . 'They knew that tomorrow could bring them nothing better than toda -- the same shameful, pitiable, contemptible, sordid struggle for a mere existence."9 From talking to a foreman he learns that most of these peOple never even have meat to eat except when they are fortunate enough to fish a rat from the sewers. The Iron Law of Wages, "the reduction, by competition, of wages of the worker to the least sum that will maintain life and muscular strength," controls the destiny of the worker in modern America. At this point Donnelly moves from the general to the specific, beginning the first of the novel's two love stories. Estella Washington, the woman Gabriel observed in the carriage, is an unknowing recruit for Prince Cabano's harem, sold into slavery by an unscrupulous 8po idea host Pria save' it i Cab: the extE W11] he ( the th. he 58 guardian. When Max tells Gabriel of her situation (Max has used his secret organization to satisfy Gabriel's curiosity about her), Gabriel shouts, "what are you talking about? This is free America and the twentieth century." Max replies, "it isn't anything half so good, it is enslaved America. . .there once was a Golden Age in America--an age of liberty; of comparatively equal distribution of wealth; of democratic institutions. Nowve have but the shell and semblance of all that. We are a republic only in name; free only in forms."10 As a lineal descendant of the first President's brother, Estella is a poignant symbol of that former age and a symbolic embodiment of its ideals. Gabriel resolves to save her and Max agrees to use the offices of the Brotherhood to help. Max learns that the Prince will soon host a meeting of the Council of the Oligarchy and deems that the appro- priate time, amidst the confusion of peOple entering and leaving, to save Estella. The Brotherhood also needs a spy at the meeting and it is decided that Gabriel will serve the dual function of rescuer and observer. Later, hiding behind potted plants in the plutocrats' board room, Gabriel overhears brutal plans to put down the expected revolution of the proletariat. ‘In Malthusian terms the aristocrats argue that the extermination of ten mdllion workers will crush dissent, "and the world will sleep in peace for centuries."11 As Gabriel watches horrified he can't help noticing the signs of "sensuality and dissipation" among the aristocrats. He remarks, without a trace of authorial irony, "there were no orators among them." Finally, unable to restrain himself, he leaps from his hiding place and begs the council to abandon its plani media crate view esca; Perm: the cata that "by Yiel S9 plans. He appeals to their sense of common humanity and offers to mediate a compromise that would ultimately benefit both the pluto- crats and the workers. Needless to say, the aristocrats take a dim view of his proposals and order that he be removed and shot. He escapes at the last minute and rescues Estella on his way out. In the next few weeks Gabriel has occasion to observe three more meetings of groups that comprise the various factions of modern society and to continue his analysis of social conditions. First, he visits a meeting of the Brotherhood of Destruction in the damp, dusky warehouse basement where they are plotting the overthrow of the plutocrats. They are, Gabriel writes his brother, the awful product of the aristocrats' greed. Had society's leaders allowed the workers the bare essentials necessary to live with dignity, and had they permitted "those capable individuals who are perpetually spawned by the masses" to rise to the level of their abilities, then the impending cataclysm.might have been averted. But, he laments, history has shown that "there is no bigotry so blind as caste," and that it is impossible "by any process of reasoning to induce a privileged class to peacefully yield up a single tittle of its advantages."12 In the face of this oppression, the Brotherhood develOped their terrible organization. Now, they are one hundred million members strong and are armed with the most modern weapons manufactured in their underground factories. They threaten to destroy not only the aristo- cratic elite but civilization itself, for the Brotherhood has no plans for the future other than the destruction of their oppressors. They think like wounded animals, conscious only of a last chance to kill the attacker before death. Caesar himself has the "eyes of a wild I F {I a . ,?b .r. t.L J OE ha :1 k1 ‘is I‘? , g t a h hel fi th 1110 0f it 6O beast, deep-set, sullen and glaring; they seemed to shine like those of the cat-tribe, with a luminosity of their own." The second in command, a crippled Russian Jew, has a face that is "mean and sinister; two fangs alone remained in his mouth; his nose was hooked; the eyes were small, sharp, penetrating and restless. . . ."13 So in physical appearance, Gabriel finds the members of the Brotherhood even more frightening than the plutocrats. But there is an essential difference. Although debased by their hatred, their depravity has been forced upon them. Caesar Lomenelli, for instance, had formerly been a simple Saskatchewan farmer. But lightening killed his team and he was forced to mortgage his land to purchase another. Because of a bankers' cartel he not only had to pay exceedingly high interest but an exorbitant bonus as well. When his craps failed, he was driven deeper into debt at higher and higher interest until finally he went under and lost his home. At the same time he learned that his oldest daughter had been seduced and impregnated by the moneylender's lawyer. "Then all the devil that lay hid in the depths of the man's nature broke forth. That night the lawyer was attacked in his bed and literally hewed to pieces; the same fate overtook the moneylender."14 Max too has plenty of reason to hate the aristocracy. His father, deepite his wealth a socialist idealist, had brought a law suit against another wealthy man. But the plutocracy, resenting his views, had bribed thecnurt against him, and he was sentenced to twenty years' imprisonment for perjury and forgery. The second place Gabriel visits is a meeting of workingmen. Although some of those present are undoubtedly members of the Brotherhood, fa US “11 to of mo: th. de f0 80 ho 61 this is a more Open meeting where reformsshort of total destruction of society are discussed and Gabriel is able to further plumb the ideological climate of the times. The first speaker discusses "the doctrines of Karl Marx and the German socialists of the last century." But the workers are familiar with his arguments and do not seem especially interested. The second speaker promotes the idea of cOOperation between the employers and the workers. Gabriel thinks his comments are "moderate and sensible," though others argue that cooperation cannot work because of the employers' greed. A teacher speaks next, arguing for universal education, but a British worker counters saying that even the best education cannot supply happiness in a corrupt economic system. Near the end of the meeting a minister mounts the podium saying that what is needed is "a new interest in the church--a revival of faith . . .this world is only a place of temporary trial, to prepare us for another and better world." But the workers are in no mood for a spiritual panacea and shout him down. Finally, Keller, a former university professor fired for his support of the common man, leaps forward to attack the minister, saying that religion has had control of the world for two thousand years and has been "in all ages, the moral police-force of tyrants." He becomes hoarse with shouting and the audience works itself into a frenzy. But when they try to seize the minister, Gabriel intervenes to. defend him. He offers "proof" of the existence of an afterlife and for the first time in the novel articulates his cure for the dying society: "in the doctrine of the brotherhood of man and the father- hood of God, which are the essential principles of Christianity, any Nth £011 but mak. Tue Opu Ody “hi f0] Cu: th. th- ha an EV 62 lies the redemption of mankind."15 He argues in essence for "a Brotherhood Of Justice" composed of "all men who desire to lift up the Oppressed and save civilization and society." Although the workers listen patiently to Gabriel, they point out that they are so destitute that even if they did form a brotherhood of justice, its members would sell out on election day for a loaf of bread for their families. Besides, they say, they have no longer anything to gain from the preservation of society. Max concludes, "those workmen told the truth . . .a hundred years ago you might have formed your Brotherhood of Justice and saved society. Now there is but one cure--the Brotherhood of Destruction."16 As the storm clouds gather over the troubled society, Gabriel makes his third and last visit, this time to hear "A Sermon of the Twentieth Century."17 There are guards stationed at the doors of the Opulent cathedral to keep the poor out. Within, the sensual Professor Odyard expounds upon the beauties of sensual love and Social Darwinism while the aristocratic woman in the pew with Gabriel gives him a look "which no son of Adam could misunderstand." Aghast, Gabriel leaps forward to challenge Odyard, charging that his gospel of love is a cult of bestiality. As he beseeches the congregation to realize that the essence of religion is man's love for his fellow man, the faithful throw hymnals at him and he is forced to beat a hasty retreat. After this series of experiences, Gabriel finally understands the process of the long downfall of civilization. A new economic system has evolved that allows power to accrue to a few very rich individuals and that actually makes it profitable for them to abuse the poor. Even more frightening for Gabriel, the new science has banished God P l 2...} 1n" H‘ "1 (T) ‘ bet: eth. for bozi The; of t iuv; ind; inte Vhi: ine Cha; Uni: of t begi ban roof Sabo of C town 1131: 63 from the universe; and the human mind, for all its advancement, has become a force without an Object. There is no longer any source of ethics and the paramount preoccupation of modern man is first a struggle for mere existence and then a drive for personal power. Significantly, both the masses and the aristocrats, despite the radical discrepancy in the distribution of wealth, suffer from the same modern malaise. They have all become dehumanized. Both in the ghetto and in the dens of the aristocracy depraved women have cast "shameless looks of invitation" toward Gabriel. And both rich and poor have lost their individuality. They are "merely automate, in the hands of some ruthless and unrelenting destiny."18 As the modern world seethes on the brink of disaster, Donnelly interjects another long love story (nearly fifty pages in length) in which Max discovers a young and beautiful working class girl singing in a tavern. He rescues her from the lascivious machinations of her "manager," the seductions of an upper class youth and finally, in a chapter entitled, "Elysium," marries her in a double ceremony that also unites Gabriel and Estella. But this idyllic interlude only serves to heighten the terror of the imminent revolution which, Max informs Gabriel, is scheduled to begin the next day. Max and Gabriel gather their families and barricade themselves in a house at the edge of the city, and from the rooftop watch destiny unfold. At twelve midnight the Brotherhood sabotages the city's lights and in this symbolic darkness the death of civilization begins. Gabriel observes the ragged mob marching into town to attack the central financial district: "I could see, an Open, lighted window, and a ray of pale faces, looking out with astonishment 1(. tr: is th SC at he 64 and terror at this dark and silent procession, which seemed to have arisen out of the earth, and was so vast that one might dream that the trumpet of the ark angel had been blown and all the dead of a thousand battlefields had risen up for one last grand review."19 They barricade the streets and light bonfires and Gabriel, in an image that captures his fear of the decline of the species sees "men lit by the red light, looking at the distance, like hoards of busy black insects. Behind them swarmed, as far as I could see, thousands upon thousands of dark forms, mere masses, touched here and there by the light of the bonfire, gleaming on glittering steel."20 Most of the city is burned, its riches are pillaged, and everyone thought to be associated with the plutocracy is summarily executed. Max, for instance, rounds up the judge and jury that were bribed to imprison his father and throws them shackled and screaming into the bonfire. In the meantime, Caesar, drunk with power and lust, has taken over Cabano's palace and is collecting his own harem of aristocratic women. The only creation of this cataclysm is the monument that Caesar self-indulgently creates. His lieutenants warn him that the thousands of bodies all over the city are beginning to decay and threaten an epidemic. Caesar orders that they be stacked up and cemented together in Union Square as a permanent remdnder of the proletariat's vengeance. Symbolically, this column is the last sight Gabriel sees as his party flees revolution that has become so frenzied that its members are beginning to turn on each other. As they mount the stairs of the airship, Gabriel turns back to see the mob carrying Caesar's head on a pole. "It stood out as if it had been painted in gory characters . . . I could see the glazed 65 and dusty eyes; the protruding tongue; the great lower jaw hanging down in hideous fashion." And as the ship rises Gabriel turns back for a last time: "the mighty city lay unrolled below us, like a great map, starred here and there with burning houses. Above the trees of Union Square, my glass showed me a white line, lighted by bonfires, where Caesar's Column was towering to the skies, bearing the epitaph of the world."21 Although this is the Obvious dramatic climax of the novel, Donnelly changes again to an idyllic tone as Gabriel's party arrives in Uganda. In that pastoral "garden in the mountains" Gabriel, his brother Heinrich, Max and his father fashion a Populist utOpia to preserve the best parts of civilization until the day that the rest of the world, after centuries of painful evolution, is ready to create an enlightened society. The Vision in New Form: Critical Issues Caesar's Column is a develOpment of the themes expressed in Atlantis and Ragnarok. In those first books, Donnelly discovered an apocalyptic pattern of history. History was divided in three huge epochs: The Tertiary Age, the Age of Atlantis, and the present. In the first two, remarkably advanced civilizations develOped only to be ultimately destroyed by God for their failure to retain their moral purpose and their commitment to social justice. In Caesar's Column Donnelly sees the world in the final stages of the third major epoch. Modern civilization has advanced far beyond the greatea:achievements of its predecessors, but like them has begun to decay from within. The worship of God has been replaced by the worship of material I I L I I I I de: for fit thi fee at: in and A her we the and tho bag 66 wealth, Christian charity by Social Darwinism. And so the cycle winds to completion again. This time, however, there are a number of important changes in both form and content. First, Donnelly is self-consciously creating a fiction of the present and future, exploring the cycle from the inside, and not discovering historical patterns. Second, this new perSpective requires that the tensions between progress and dehumanization, between utOpia and catastrophe, be embodied in an artistic framework where human motivation substantially supplants the divine will that was the dynamic force in the earlier books. Third, the melodrama is employed as the framework in which these tensions contend. Caesar's Column occupies an eminently important place in the development of Donnelly's vision because the new format of the novel demands that he bring the heretofore relatively anonymous social forces of the historical books to life in the persons of believable fictional characters. Donnelly has some initial difficulty in doing this and the resulting thematic confusion has become the central focus for critical denigration of the novel. Specifically, Donnelly at first attempts to divide the qualities of altruism.and vengeance, easily united in God in the previous books, between his two protagonists, Gabriel and Maximilian. Unfortunately, Gabriel comes off as something of a benign fool while the more believable Max is obsessed with only one idea, revenge. Combine this with the facts that the major part of the novel is taken up with the destruction of the modern civilization and that the formation of the Ugandan utOpia seems almost an after- thought, and it is easy to understand charges that the novel is basically nihilistic in spirit. I l l l A mo- 67 But what has been taken for nihilism is in reality the symptom of a considerably less sinister problem, that of transforming the apocalyptic scenario from the mythic world of Atlantis and Ragnarok to the environment of the novel. And, although Caesar's Column is flawed by his initial difficulty with that transformation, Donnelly begins to resolve the problem in the course of the novel and in the process gives new clarity to his vision. For instance,he discusses the intrinsic nature of man for the first time. Further, he begins to shift away from a preoccupation with destruction and toward the process of reform. A look at Donnelly's use of prose fiction, his critics' charges, and the nature of his solution to his initial thematic problems illustrates these important changes. Donnelly intended, as his introduction and Gabriel's frequent monologues testify, to write a novel that would preach into the ears of the able and rich and powerful the great truth that neglect of the sufferings of their fellows, indifference to the great bond of brotherhood which lies at the base of Christianity, and blind, brutal and degrading worship of mere wealth, must--given time and pressure enough--eventuate in the 2 overthrow of society and the destruction of civilization. The narrative and structural conventions he employs reflect both this stated purpose and his vision. Mbst obvious, for instance, is the use of an oratorical style where the protagonist often comes to stage center to lecture his audience. Nothing could be more fitting to the author's conception of his own role in society or in keeping with the didactic tone of the novel.23 Then, his use of the epistolary mode with one brother writing to another reinforces his theme of brotherhood and serves as a sharp contrast to the human 68 relationships in modern America. This same technique, employing a traveler in a strange land as narrator, also offers the "objective" overview of society necessary for Donnelly to build his indictment of the twentieth century. Considering his vision and his audience, Donnelly's use of the melodrama is not surprising. First, it says something about his awareness of his function as a pOpular artist, for although his intro- duction claims that the book is directed toward the rich and powerful, Donnelly was well aware that most of his readers would be from his own ideological constituency, namely workers and farmers. Hence, for instance, the early issue of the novel in a paperbound edition that working peOple could afford. And even though Donnelly repeatedly states that free public education has made the masses "wonderfully intelligent," he is still aware of the popular preference for dime novel melodrama. The central message of Caesar's Column is wrapped in just such clothing. The careful pacing of the novel is designed to hold the attention of the pOpular reader; chapters primarily concerned with ideas, like "How The World Game to be Ruined," a polemical analysis of late nineteenth century social ills, and "A Sermon of the Twentieth Century," a comparison of Christian charity and Social Darwinism, are carefully separated from each other by intervening chapters of melodramatic action or romance. Donnelly Obviously feels that a long intellectual tract by itself would not hold the attention of his readers nearly so well as one bound up with melodrama. The idea that Donnelly's use of the melodrama derives, at least in part, from a conscious artistic strategy is supported by what is 69 known of his education and reading habits. From his high school days Donnelly evinced a strong interest in sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth century British literature.: As is well known, he considered himself an expert in the pOpular controversy involving Shakespeare's plays and wrote two books purporting to prove that Bacon was the actual author.24 And Donnelly was something of a literary scholar in a broader sense. He was very well read in all the classic works of British and American literature.25 In fact, he obviously committed many of his favorite passages from them to memory, for his novels, Often written in railroad cars and country hotels on the campaign trail, contain innumerable allusions to and quotations from these classics.26 Finally, his journals contain interesting comments on literary form and style. So Donnelly wrote in the pOpular, melodramatic format to involve the working class reader and not because he was unable to conceive of any more SOphisticated form. Donnelly's use of the melodrama is also related to his vision of the dynamics of history. Having depicted moral tensions between God and evil civilizations in his first books as if history were a long morality play, it is natural that his vision should use the melodrama in prose fiction. But adOpting the melodrama raises moral and ethical questions about the true nature of that vision. Many critics (Richard Hofstadter, David Noble, Frederic Jaher, Jay Martin and others) are quick to associate Donnelly's use of the melodrama with the simplistic, dualistic vision with which the POpulists allegedly regarded social struggle: good against evil, farm against city, and producer against capitalist. Significantly, it is just here where theme and genre converge that the confusion arises. Expecting the d1 born < farms} Howeve be cor 70 the dualism they attribute to both POpulism and the melodrama to be born out thematically, critics balk when the downtrodden.workers and farmers do not rise up triumphantly and create the perfect utOpia. However simplistic and naive they would find such an ending, it would be consistent with their expectations. But when right doesn't conquer wrong, when the moral requirements of the melodrama do not seem to be met, these critics can only conclude that Donnelly is not even a simplistic reformer but rather a nihilist.27 And, at first glance there seems to be internal evidence to support such an attitude toward the novel. For instance, the author who could say that the Brotherhood amidst their bloodthirsty retribution "are raised by their terrible purposes to a certain dignity" does not seem to be writing in the same Spirit that Bellamy did. Is Donnelly a nihilist? Is he more interested in the destruction of a dystOpia than the construction of attOpia? These have been taken for the central critical questions in the novel. Actually, Donnelly's vision in Caesar's Column is a develOpment of, and certainly no more nihilistic than, the historical themes he uncovered in researching Atlantis and Ragnarok, books entirely concerned with the destruction of wicked societies. The fact that Caesar's Column contains the utOpian blueprint at all shows a shift in Donnelly's vision away from a preoccupation with retribution, however strong that theme remains, and toward reform. While this point answers one part of the complaint, another, more complex, still exists and it arises from the change from a mythic to a novelistic portrayal of the vision. Atlantis and Ragnarok are mythic in form. In them the commingling of benevolence and vengeance in God is not of his human c when th brutali Christi moral 1 it is a he is t the prc conclus CharaCt DOUnell Ga that th that: ass°¢ia leaderS alwaYS would COQVErE his fa' his De» 71 is not paradoxical. But when Donnelly, in meeting the requirements of his new fictional form, displaces these functions from God to human characters, moral and ethical difficulties arise. For instance, when the God-sent natural catastrOphies of the earlier books become a brutalized and crazed mob bent only on destruction and the voice of Christian charity appears impotent to reverse social decay, then the moral focus of the author's vision can be called into question. But it is already clear from Donnelly's inclusion of the final utopia that he is becoming concerned with reconstruction. And the way he resolves the problems presented in the course of the novel reinforces this conclusion. The developing relationship between the novel's two main characters typifies these problems and indicates the nature of Donnelly's solution. Gabriel is the closest thing to a heavenly voice of altruistic reform that the novel has to offer. In fact, Donnelly wrote to his publisher that: "Gabriel" has some reference to the Angel Gabriel,-- and "Welstein" means "the stone Of the world,"--the foundation stones; & so the name "Gabriel Welstein" may be supposed to imply a mystical meaning:--Gabriel blows a trumpet to revive the sleeping nations; & his 28 doctrines are the foundation stone of the world!! Maximilian Petion, on the other hand, is at first most clearly associated with the forces of destruction; indeed he is one of the leaders of the Brotherhood of Destruction. Gabriel notes, "Max had always had a dream that after the plutocracy was overthrown the insurgents would reconstruct a purer and better state of society; but of late my conversations with him, and his own observations, had begun to shake his faith in that particular." And Max confinms Gabriel's appraisal by his performance during the revolution. He does try briefly and 72 unsuccessfully to bring order to the mob; at the same time, however, much more of his energy is devoted to revenge, as he rounds up the aristocrats, the judge and jury who have wrongfully imprisoned his father, and burns them alive. The tension between Gabriel as a symbol of rejuvenation and Max as a symbol of retribution corresponds to the tension between progress and periodic catastrOphe in Atlantis and Ragnarok. In the social sphere of Caesar's Column Max and Gabriel become, respectively, Donnelly's need for redress and his desire to unify and forgive. Through the first part of the novel the former drive is more powerfully wrought than the latter, giving rise to the critics' charges. Gabriel's is the pattern of altruistic intervention. He carries his message of the solidarity of the human family and the need to found all societies on Christian Brotherhood to all segments of the beleaguered modern culture. At the "Council of the Oligarchy" he leaps from his hiding place to urge the debased leaders to abandon their plans to crush the proletariat and to dedicate themselves to helping the Oppressed. His reward in this instance is Cabano's order that he be shot. He is listened to more sympathetically at the workingmen's meeting but with no more success; his plea for a Brotherhood of Justice falls on deaf ears. At the Opulent and secularized cathedral where he hears the Social Darwinist's "Sermon of the Twentieth Century," his own counter-sermon which advocates the re-establishment of Christian charity is met by flying hymnals. In fact, his only real impact on this society comes after its destruction when he authors the epitaph on Caesar's Column: "from this ghastly pile let its[future civilization] derive the great lesson, that no earthly government can endure which is not b defeats novel fc utOpia. But ills of trying I keeps t4 3 hundn be the I D0nnell: to deal is an e: a membe is mgre seeming COUntry reform Fr his fat' the nov Yet eve. by the ‘ of disg1 ariStoc‘ Upstand While t] 73 is not built on mercy, justice, truth and love."29 Despite these defeats Gabriel does remain the principle reforming influence in the novel for he is the main force behind the formation of the Ugandan utOpia. But for all his benign qualities and his incisive analysis of the ills of modern society, Gabriel often comes off as a fool, a man trying to put out a raging inferno with a glass of water. Max, who keeps telling him that the solutions which might have been efficacious a hundred years ago (in the 1890's) will no longer work, appears to be the more perceptive character. This is significant for in terms of Donnelly's develOping vision Max is the first fully developed character to deal with its tensions from inside the social order. Where Gabriel is an external observer of modern oppression, Max is an internal victim, a member and leader of the Oppressed masses. Consequently, the reader is more clearly able to identify with him, his motives, and his seemingly more realistic assessment of a "cure" for his diseased country. But Max's "solution" only produces chaos and his instinct for reform is overshadowed by his need for revenge. From the first Max is motivated principally by his indignation at his father's wrongful imprisonment. He remains for the first part of the novel little more than Gabriel's access to society's inner sancta. Yet even early in the novel his character is complex. To avoid capture by the aristocrats who attacked his father, he must live with a series of disguises and aliases. In one guise he pretends to be a debauched aristocratic youth; in another he is a lawyer, who although morally upstanding, is too poor to be of any threat to the aristocracy. While this is a natural part of the melodrama's trappings, Max's shiftin; iron the between a more 1 both rig to demo: man's d2 tWO mai; In Wherein eventual and Este Suages t Gabriel waShing: to the \ women a: by natuj And as t but: Syn of Max'sn the two of the C the alte Stands 0 a more i particip 74 shifting character also indicates Donnelly's early discomfort arising from the dichotomy--splitting the roles of revenge and altruismr- between Max and Gabriel. In reassessing the situation he decides that a more integrative viSion of human motivation, one that can include both righteous anger and benevolence, is needed. And further, he wants to demonstrate that Christian Brotherhood will ultimately overcome man's darker qualities. Therefore in the last half of the novel the two main characters symbolically converge. In the middle of the novel Donnelly inserts the long love story wherein Max rescues a young girl and her family from the ghetto and eventually marries her in a double ceremony that also unites Gabriel and Estella. As is clear from a cursory reading of the plot, Donnelly guages the moral climate of any society by the virtue of its women. Gabriel is supported by the love of the impeccably chaste Estella Washington. Now, Max's character is uplifted by a similar marriage to the virtuous Christina. In fact, as they are described, the two women are almost identical: "the two girls flowed into one another, by natural affinity, like a couple of drOps of quicksilver. . . ."30 And as the wives merge, Gabriel and Max become not radical Opposites but, symbolically, different aSpects of the same person. The inclusion of Max's long love story is inexplicable except as a vehicle to unite the two protagonists. It is certainly not necessary for the development of the central plot; and in terms of the careful pacing of the novel, the alternating sections of polemics and action, it is anomalous. It stands out clearly as the beginning of Donnelly's attempt to articulate a more integrative vision of man. Max's ameliorating character, his participation with Gabriel in the formation of the new utopia, and the 75 fact that, in some of the later chapters, he shares the narrative role with Gabriel all point to this integration and to Donnelly's increasing concern for final reconstruction. A New, Complex Conception of Man Emerges The most interesting part of this shift in the form of the vision from mythic history to prose fiction lies inits secularization. For the first time the impulsesto both perfection and destruction must be depicted as facets of the human character. This process is visible in the changing relationship between Max and Gabriel. Now, the real polarities in Donnelly's melodrama lie not between a virtuous hero and a vicious villain, but between a choice of two futures, one utOpian, the other dystOpian, and correspondingly, between the tensions within the human mind. The novel's imagery reveals this new vision of the human psyche most vividly. Speaking, in the afterward of Ragnarok, to the rich and arrogant Dives, representative of the wealthy classes, Donnelly cautions that the earth is merely an eggshell filled with fire, capable of erupting the moment that social decay becomes intolerable to God. This image of the shell becomes central in Caesar's Column. All the members of the aristocracy live in extravagent, brilliantly-lighted palaces while the workers and members of the Brotherhood live in the smoldering underground. And in keeping with the image of the shell filled with fire and ready to burst, Gabriel notes that the continued Oppression of the workers is like "screwing down the safety valve while the steam continues to generate." Similarly, when Gabriel watches the Brotherhood in their silent march into the city at the beginnin of a tho And in a meeting the pain it is no meaningl The in BEEEE remarkat between to desCI Or "the by many from the Person 1- 1mmEdie: elaborat Darwin, his Sens undergrc In working "the QYe has the 76 beginning of the revolution, he notes that it seems as if "the dead of a thousand battlefields . . . have arisen out of the earth . . ." And in another context, Gabriel tells the workers at the workingmen's meeting that "we have inherited Christinaity without Christ; we have the painted shell of religion, and that which rattles around within it is not the burning soul of Christ, but a cold and shriveled and meaningless tradition."31 These examples of the shell image are consistent with its use in Ragnarok. But it also has a much more important function in Caesar's Column; it becomes a symbol of the human mind, one which, remarkably, anticipates the Freudian description of the tension between the conscious and unconscious. Naturally, Donnelly prefers to describe it as the tension between the "faculty" and the soul, or "the head and the heart." In Donnelly's times the soul was thought by many to be reflected in the countenance. This idea was derived from the nineteenth century pseudo-science of physiognomy. So if the person is dehumanized and the soul despiritualized, the effects are immediately apparent in the visage. This accounts for Donnelly's elaborate care in describing the faces of the diners atOp the Hotel Darwin, the brutalized workers in their ghettos, Professor Odyard in his sensual cathedral, and the members of the Brotherhood in their underground lair. In these descriptions, especially of the members of the brutalized working class, a great deal of animal imagery appears: Caesar has "the eyes of a wild beast," while the Russian Jew, second in command, has the "fangs" of a predatory animal. Butthis animality isn't reserved for the members of the working class alone; it permeates the whole society the ari animal: 77 society. If the workers have the look of wolves crazed by hunger, the aristocrats appear as cunning, vicious weasels and their women as animals in heat. The rich and poor are affected alike by the loss of moral purpose in Donnelly's vision of twentieth century society; all wear the same soulless mask. Evocative images of silence and death also permeate the novel. Gabriel writes to his brother, Heinrich, that what impresses him.most about the workers is "their multitude" and their "wretched silence." They look alike (so do the aristocrats) and they've been reduced to the status of "mere automata." They live the nightmare of death in life, and it is not surprising that Gabriel describes the Brotherhood's ominously quiet march that begins the revolutionjn the rising of the dead from a thousand battlefields. This remarkable galaxy of images, anticipating T.S. Eliot and others, probably provides the first clear depiction of twentieth century man as a soulless robot.32 All these images, the shell, the underworld, animality, the steam boiler with the safety valve shut down, evoke clear psychological associations to the unconscious. At this point in the evolution of Donnelly's vision the destruction of an offending civilization becomes a human rather than a divine function. God builds man in a certain way, with a pure soul aspiring to perfection. When this sacred part of the person is crushed by dehumanizing conditions, the body erupts into destructive violence, since soul and body are joined in all humanity. This accounts for Donnelly's ambiguous use of the Brotherhood. Dehumanized and crazed as men, they can still function as a divine agency of destruction, because God prepared for the self-destruction of the body--the society--if the soul were exterminated. Not 78 surprisingly, then, the destruction of modern civilization is described both in terms of natural catastrOphe and anarchy. For instance, one member of the Brotherhood can say, "We are all moving together on the face of the torrent, and whither it will eventually sweep us no one can tell," while Donnelly describes the revolution in a chapter entitled, "The Ocean Overpeers its List," and Gabriel writes his brother that, "I tremble with horrow when I think of what is crawling 33 toward us . . . scarce rustling the dry leaves as it moves." That Donnelly consciously intended this interpretation of the novel's symbolism is clear, for his protagonist, Gabriel, interrupts his description of the double wedding ceremony long enough to discuss the interrelationship of the different parts of the psyche. He is put in mind of this subject when he notices the profound difference between the virtuous Estella and Christina on the one hand, and the empty automate he has seen abroad in this dystOpia on the other. Rather than the dehumanized masks he has so often seen, Gabriel recognizes the "tranSparent souls" of these women and is moved to write a poem, apprOpriately titled "Artesian Waters," about the soul's ultimate supremacy over the "rational" intellect.34 There is a depth at which perpetual springs Fresh water, in all lands; The which once reached, the buried torrent flings Its treasures o'er the sands. . . . So shall we find no intellect so dull, No soul so cold to move, . No heart of self or sinfulness so full, But still hath power to love. . . . It lives immortal, universal all, The tenant of each breast; Locked in the silence of unbroken thrall, And deep and pulseless rest; Till, at a touch, with burst of power and pride, Its swollen torrents roll, 79 Dash all the trappings of the mind aside, And ride above the soul. This is no simple anti-intellectualism on Donnelly's part, but rather a poetic restatement of his ideas on the nature of man. The soul, the analogue of God in man, is the seat of the human potential for love and perfection. But this poem was written on Gabriel's wedding day and in contrast to the misery he has seen. What he doesn't say here but has made clear earlier is that the soul when abused sufficiently can "dash all the trappings of the mind aside" and become a God-created force of social destruction. So in addition to the other complexities that Caesar's Column adds to Donnelly's vision, a new view of man and the human mind emerges, on which becomes the symbolic framework for Donnelly's next, almost Kafkaesque, novel, Doctor Huguet. Science, Religion and Society Donnelly's vision in Caesar's Column is more incisive in its social comment than it was in Atlantis and Ragnarok. The relationship between the eddies and currents of ideas in Donnelly's time and the full sweep of his historical vision become clearly visible for the first time. Donnelly, like the rest of the POpulists, is often accused of being a simple-minded enemy of science, wistfully lookingback to some Golden Age before industrial technology reared its oppressive head. This charge is also wedded to the idea that the POpulists entertained a dualistic conception of social dynamics. A study of Caesar's Column cells both of these ideas, insofar as they apply to Donnelly, into serious question. First, Donnelly perceives that the applications 80 of science in any society depend on its social organization and goals. Although the science of modern America as depicted in the novel is dehumanizing, its deleterious effects do not stem from any inherent quality of science itself. When, however, it is coupled with the despiritualization of culture, the loss of commitment to social justice, and the brutal tyranny of the plutocracy, science becomes an Oppressive force. But just as technological knowledge can be used to create a dystOpia, so it can be used to create a utOpia. That is precisely whathappens in the last chapter of Caesar's Column. Critics who charge that the author of Caesar's Column, is a simple-minded enemy of science and progress, always neglect to consider the meaning of Gabriel's final acts before he and his friends flee America for Uganda. While Max and the others prepare their household belongings, Gabriel amasses the knowledge, theory 529 technology,of this modern civilization to take back with him: "I had likewise filled one large room full of great library books, which I had purchased to take with me--literature, science, art, encyclopedias, histories, philosophies, in fact all the treasures of the world's genius-- together with type, printing presses, telesc0pes, photographs, phemas- ticons and all the other great inventions which the last hundred years have given us."35 What is true for the technological manifestations of science is also true for its theoretical hypotheses such as evolution. Donnelly feels that scientific ideas may, depending on how they are interpreted, produce either positive or negative changes in culture and values. He points out in Ragnarok, for instance, that the idea of evolution should not be considered incompatible with a belief in a Christian God, "for 81 discovery of God's design only further glorifies Him." In Caesar's Column he even employs the idea of evolution to explain the social predisposition of some segments of modern America. For example, the POpulists are frequently belabored for their supposed anti-semitism and in fact Prince Cabano, the arch villian of Caesar's Column, is a Jew.36 But though he uses the stereotyped Jewish villian, Donnelly defends the Jews, saying that they became cunning and sometimes treacherous of necessity, to survive centuries of persecution at the hands of righteous Christians. 0n the other hand, Donnelly cannot tolerate the use of evolution as a philosophical rationalization for cynically abandoning the downtrodden. Consequently, he can Offer evolutionary explanations of Jewish cunning, and even suggest hereditary reasons for the superiority of the masses, and at the same time bitterly condemn Professor Odyard, minister to the plutocracy, for his advocacy of Social Darwinism.37 Donnelly's ideas concerning the technological and intellectual manifestations of science are much more satisfyingly complex than has heretofore been supposed. With what seems to be much more mid-twentieth rather than late nineteenth century perception, Donnelly argues that science has both utopian and dystOpian potential and that the outcome will depend on the social and ethical goals to which it is applied. Another of Donnelly's related arguments in Caesar's Column is even more clearly modern. He asserts that, whatever the potential benefits of science and technology to any culture (and for him.they are great), the goals of science and technology cannot be allowed to merge with society's cultural goals, for that leads to the kind of sterile materialism that finally destroys modern civilization in the novel. 82 For Donnelly any society that places ultimate value on material comfort and on knowledge of the physical universe to the exclusion of ethics and spirituality is inevitably doomed to decay and finally destruction. Thus the citizens of the modern metrOpolis, aristocrats and plebians alike, lose their individuality and become soulless and destructive automate. Another way of describing the melodramatic polarities in Caesar's Column is through the dichotomy between regenerating spirituality and charity on the one hand, and the cultivation of a purely materialistic intellect on the other. As Donnelly says in his introduction, "The world, to-day clemors for deeds, not creeds; for bread, not dogma; for charity, not ceremony; for love, not intellect."38 Interestingly, Donnelly distrusts the more strident and doctrinare forms of political radicalism on this same basis of "deeds, not creeds; bread, not dogma." A socialist democracy is for him.the most attractive and viable form of government possible, but form alone does not indicate direction or substance. A socialist democracy might provide for an equitable distribution of wealth and still be the domain of "soulles automata." A truly humane and workable society must be one where his new man, whose spiritual needs are greater than his material needs, can be fulfilled. Donnelly's UtOpia Donnelly outlines his idea of utOpia for the first time in Caesar's Columg. His plans call for an equitable, although not absolutely equal, distribution of wealth and more important, a system of values where material acquisition is subordinate to social justice and 83 personal develOpment. Initially, Gabriel, Heinrich, Max, his father, and a few other notables of the Ugandan community meet to formulate a constitution. (Gabriel notes that it is necessary for these few peOple to undertake this task because "for good purposes and honest instincts we may trust to the multitude; but for long-sighted thoughts of philanthropy, 3 statesmanship and state craft, we must look to a few superior intellects." After a preliminary draft is completed, these founding fathers meet with the general public for several days, debating the merits of their ideas, modifying them when necessary. Finally, a constitution is drawn up and ratified by the entire pOpulace. The document asserts that this society will always be dependent upon God and His teaching for the basis of their social ethic. To insure that those teachings are clearly understood, one day a week isset aside for religious training of the young. Turning to the mechanism of government, the document prescribes that a three part legislature, The Pe0ple, shall be the central governing body. (There is a chief executive but he is elected by the legislature and has no veto power.) The first branch of The Pe0ple is made of what Donnelly chooses to call the Producers, or workers; the second is composed of merchants and manufacturers; the third and smallest branch, although also the one which sometimes holds the balance of power, is comprised of the country's intellectuals. These officials are all elected by secret ballot of the general public. Racial and sexual qualifications for enfranchisement are prohibited. Once the basic machinery of government is established, the founding fathers prOpose a set of strict laws to assure that this new society is not politically or economically corrupted, "for the worst enemies of a 9) 84 people are always found in their own midst, in their passions and vanities. And the most dangerous foes of a nation do not advance with drums beating and colors flying, but creep upon it insidiously, with the noiseless feet of a fatal malady."40 The greatest crime against the new state, then, becomes corruption in public office ‘\\ or bribery of an offical or voter, and is punishable in severe cases by death. Further, the leaders of the new republic feel that such a charge might be impossible to prove in some cases where very high officials are involved. So they create a third possible verdict for such cases: suspected. An official deemed "suspected" of such a crime loses his right to vote and hold office for a period of not less than one nor more than five years, not as personal punishment, Gabriel claims, but for the protection of society. To maintainenonomic control and prevent fiscal corruption the constitution delegates sweeping powers to the government. The state owns and operates the mails, roads, streets, telegraph and telephone lines, railroads, mines and central industry. The "government will also regulate the number of apprentices who shall enter any given trade or pursuit and Congress shall have the right to fix the rate of compensation for all forms of labor so that the wages shall never fall below a rate that will afford the laborer a comfortable living, with a margin that will enable him to provide for his old age."41 The amount of land or money that any one person can acquire is strictly limited and all wealth above the limit is confiscated and donated, in the benefactor's name, to public works. As might be expected in a POpulist utopia, the government keeps especially strict control of the monetary system. All banks are owned 85 and Operated by the government. They issue exclusively paper money and in a fixed ratio to pOpulation. Naturally, all interest is abolished. At the same time the government assumes control over the economic management of society, it offers a broad range of services to the public from urban planning to medical care. Any new town in the country must sell land in half-acre plots only to those peOple who intend to build homes on them, thereby prohibiting speculation. Persons initially too poor to buy a lot and build a home will have an interest free loan from the state for that purpose, to be repaid out of taxes over the next twenty years. Since the state controls and guarantees employment, repayment is assured. Each municipality must also provide public parks, avenues "planted with fruit trees in double and treble rows," and a town hall large enough to house all the inhabitants of the city. Adjacent to the town hall in the center of the city public baths, a library, a reading room and all public offices are constructed. Concerts, lectures, plays and other entertainments are also provided by the municipality free of charge. The state cares for the physical as well as the aesthetic needs of the pOpulace through free public health care. Finally, the constitution declares that hours of labor be limited to eight hours a day, five days a week; Wednesday and Sunday are holidays. The successful operation of this state requires an informed and intelligent public. Universal and compulsory education is established and no one is allowed to vote or hold office who cannot read and write: "We believe that one man's ignorance should not countervail the just influence of another man's intelligence. Ignorance is not only ruinuous to the individual, but destructive to society. It is an 86 epidemic which scatters death everywhere."42 Besides eradicating ignorance, the public school system serves another end: "we believe it to be essential to the peace and safety of the commonwealth that the children of all the peOple, rich and poor, should, during the period of growth, associate together. In this way race, sectarian and caste prejudices are obliterated, and the whole community grows up together as brethren." To this end private and sectarian schools, except for colleges, are abolished. At the same time, religious pluralism in the society at large is encouraged. These are the Specific provisions for the Ugandan Republic, and they confirm what Gabriel and through him Donnelly have argued throughout the novel: technological and scientific progress must be accompanied by an enlightened social order holding Christian Brotherhood as the basis of its ethics and values. When that happens a utOpia is possible; when it doesn't, corruption, brutality and destruction are inevitable. In many ways Donnelly's utOpia is like those of many contemporary writers in its emphasis on social justice and Christian Brotherhood and charity. Many of these writers, including Donnelly--perhaps eSpecially Donnelly--have been accused of being secretly authoritarian. And certainly depriving a citizen of the right to vote or hold office because he is "suspected" of bribery or corruption does not seem to be in keeping with Donnelly's usual stalwart defense of civil liberties; nor possibly does restricting the profession a person can enter. But in the final analysis Donnelly does not display an authoritarian temperament, nor is he as radical in his social remodeling as he at first appears. Actually, Donnelly argues, in any governing scheme there is a balance between the rights of the individual and the rights 87 of the community. His record championing the civil liberties of the individual is impressively lengthy. But at the same time he sees the viability of the free institutions that protect those individual rights threatened by corrupt "interests" of unprecedented size and influence. So it is not surprising that in his Ugandan Republic he provides for the protection of the governing institutions and the stability of the economy as a priority second only to the establishment of individual rights and liberties. The governments in Bellamy's Looking Backward and H.G. Wells' A_Modern Utopia have considerably more power than Donnelly's and are different in another important way. Since Donnelly believes that civilization is fragile and is most easily destroyed by internal corruption, his utOpia has elaborate safeguards and clearly Specified balances of power to avert such a catastrOphe. Further, Donnelly believes that progress is a very tentative thing. Consequently, his society is not static but is geared to process strife and social discord. (He even makes provision for humanely Operated prisons.) Most of the other utOpias crafted in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, including Bellamy's and Wells', place considerably more faith than does Donnelly in the benign agency of all powerful government and in progress. Donnelly's utOpia is, finally, an attempt to make American constitu- tional government viable in the radically changed economic and social circumstances of late nineteenth century America. The chief executive has carefully controlled and delimited powers. There are now three houses in the legislature instead of two, but divided by economic and social functions, not on the basis of geography. In terms of the 88 distribution of wealth, not all peOple in Uganda make the same amount of money; individual initiative is rewarded and lethargy is not. But the range in which this economic freedom takes place is controlled to insure social justice. Thus no man, according to Donnelly, can control so much wealth that he can make it impossible for another man to succeed. Donnelly obviously feels that this is in keeping with the spirit of the original constitution. Finally, this social order is charitable: even those without the talent to succeed competitively are insured a stipend by the government that will allow them to live in dignity and care for their families. From.Atlentis and Ragnarok to Caesar's Column Donnelly's vision changes Significantly in form and emphasis. From an historical and mythic account of ancient social catastrOphe, he turns to an examination of the same apocalyptic forces in his own era. Caesar's Column also sees him clothe his vision in art for the first time and this adds considerable complexity. Working with the melodrama, he has to adapt the forces of altruism and retribution, attributed to God in the earlier books, to human characters. And the difficulty Donnelly has working out the thematic implications of his characterization--especial1y in the case of Max--causes him to carefully develOp and articulate his conception of human nature, and this is a major addition to his vision. In working out the conflicts represented in Max, Donnelly also turns his attention for the first time to a detailed description of what a near-perfect society might be. In all, this represents a shift from the external to the internal in perSpective, both historically 89 and artistically, and from a preoccupation with cataclysm to a concern for rejuvenation and reform. These develOpments in Donnelly's art and history are continued in his next and probably best novel, Doctor Huguet. Chapter Four Doctor Huguet: The Vision Individualized I was a Negro, cast among Negroes, but with a white man's education and eloquence. Was this the path that was marked out for me? Was this my avenue to do good? Had I been led, through all my miseries and misfortunes, to this task? And why not? IS it possible that the great and perfect mechanism of the universe which has endured for so many billions of years does not extend to the details of men's lives? I realized that no man could see the soul, the real man, but only the Shell which his vitality, by the great occult processes of nature had gathered around him from the material world. Doctor Huguet Unlike most of his other literary works, Doctor Huguet (1891) was written while Donnelly rode the crest of political triumph.1 Throughout 1890 he had been campaigning unsuccessfully for the presidency of the Minnesota Farmer's Alliance. But then the national Alliance convention being held in Ocala, Florida, learned that Caesar's Colgmg, originally written under the pseudonym of Edmund Boisgilbert, M.D., was actually authored by the Sage of Nininger. Donnelly immediately rose to national prominence. Up in Minnesota where Donnelly had remained to wage the fight for the state Alliance presidency, news that he had been acclaimed by the parent organization for his authorship of Caesar's Column routted his Opponents. He won the election in a landslide. The next year the national Alliance executive committee appointed Donnelly first delegate-at-large to the Cincinnati convention of farm, 90 91 labor, and reform parties. There, he campaigned for and won the chairmanship of the credentials committee. In that capacity Donnelly single handedly hammered out a unifying compromise when the convention became bitterly divided over when and how to organize a new PeOple's Party. Having produced unity, Donnelly was immediately heralded as "the father of the People's Party" by the national Populist press. And sensing the importance of his accomplishment, Donnelly told the ecstatic convention in his concluding speech, "We think we have performed work which will affect the politics of this country for the next fifty years."2 During this remarkable period in his life, Donnelly was using his spare time to write Doctor Huguet, a novel attacking racial bigotry in the South. Unlike Caesar's Column, this second novel was not marked for financial success. As Donnelly's biographer, Martin Ridge, notes: "Written forty years too late to fit into the radical anti-slavery literature and published at a time when the Negroes' struggle for legal and personal status was practically at a standstill, Doctor Hugget was not destined for pOpularity. The book trod too heavily on the manners and mores of too large a segment of the pOpulation."3 Aside from a few appreciative letters from black readers, the reaponse to the novel was negative. The press was vituperative in its reviews and even Donnelly's POpulist allies were lukewarm at best.4 Donnelly, of course, was never unwilling to invite Opposition when espousing some sacred principle: racial equality was such a cause. Early in his political career he had split with the Democrats and joined the radical wing of the Republican party over the slavery issue. As a Republican congressman he made several speeches attacking 92 the failure of reconstruction policies to really protect the rights of blacks. In the 1880's he watched the rights and treatment of blacks deteriorate still further and this may have persuaded him to write the novel. He was becoming more and more short-tempered with the Oppression of poor peOple by the "interests" and saw the persecution of blacks as a related injustice that needed attacking. As he told the Minnesota Alliance in December, 1890, "the fact is, my friends, that a wrong has no rights, except the right to die--and die at once."5 Doctor Huguet is not only a courageous attack on racial prejudice but also a remarkable and interesting book for a number of other reasons. It reveals the growth of Donnelly's vision in his use of fictional forms, his views on science and technology, his understanding of social dynamics and change, and his perception of the individual mind. Although not unflawed, Doctor Huguet is Donnelly's best novel in terms of its skillful integration of complex ideas and fictional form. The story depicts the transformation of a brilliant white Southern aristocrat, Doctor Anthony Huguet, into a Negro. Huguet lives a life of ease in Columbia, South Carolina where his wealth enables him to discontinue the practice of medicine and devote himself to the pleasures of reading and conversation. The tranquility of this existence is interrupted when he happens to meet Mary Ruddiman, the daughter of his elderly friend and distinguished Civil War veteran, Colonel Ruddiman. He finds her an extraordinarily beautiful woman, possessed of remarkable intellectual refinements and begins to fall in love. As their relationship develOps, he spends more and more time at Ruddiman's plantation whiling away the southern afternoons in aristocratic 93 conversations. On one such occasion the question of race arises and Huguet commits a social blunder, suggesting that blacks are capable of self-government. Astonished, the Colonel rejoins, "why surely, the principles that apply to white men do not reach those wretched creatures; they are scarcely human." Other members of the party echo his feelings, citing interpretations of Darwin's evolutionary theory as proof that blacks are sub-human. But Huguet persists, arguing that no race that produced Toussaint L'Ouverture can be compared with the apes. Even if the black race is presently inferior because of oppressive circumstances, he continues, it has the potential to become equal. In any case, he concludes, "all men are men, and none of then.monkeys; and the rights of a man should not depend upon the shade of his complexion."6 The Colonel is appalled that his daughter is engaged to an advocate of such radical views. Mary is even.more upset, but for different reasons. She wants to see Huguet in Congress and is confident that the combination of his education, his eloquence, and his heritage will insure his election if he can refrain from offending his aristo- cratic constituency with his views on race. So she tells Huguet that while she does not disagree with his views in principle, she must urge him to renounce them in the interest of his future career. A man who espouses such views, she warns, can never be elected to any office in the South. Huguet finally succumbs to her flattery and agrees to write an article for the local press "clarifying" his views on race. But even as he complies, his conscience pains him; "and something, away within me--a hundred miles within me--sneered at me and reviled me--yea, Spat 94 at me . . . It seemed to me that I was an outcast myself, that my conscience Spurned me out of this door into the wilderness."7 The same night, after drifting "peacefully over the silent waters of oblivion for some hours," he awakes to discover a "presence" in his room, a face "painted in light--I might almost say in fire." A voice "within me whispered to me: this is the Christ!"8 Around the face, just outside the pulsating nimbus, there seemed to be a dark, moving mass, in great and, apparently, endless circles. The trembling light from the hair beat over its margin, but it was sometime before I could discern what it was. To my extreme astonishment I at last perceived that it was made up of millions of dark hands, all clasped in the attitude of prayer, all directed toward the Christ. Something within me told me that they were the supplicating hands of Negroes. The vision of Christ Speaks to Huguet only once, saying: "THESE, T00, ARE MY CHILDREN. FOR THEM, ALSO, I DIED ON THE CROSS!"9 When he awakes, Huguet finds himself in a rude Negro cabin: his mind and soul have been transferred to the body of a black scoundrel and chicken thief named Sem.Johnsing. Johnsing's mind and soul have simultaneously been transferred to Huguet's body.10 Horrified, "Johnsing" tries to get in touch with members of his household and with Mary to seek aid and comfort. Ben, his body servant, is at first taken aback. But after hearing "Johnsing" speak with Huguet's eloquence and learning that he knows the whereabouts of all Huguet's possessions, Ben believes and helps him. So does Abigail, Mary's "octoroon" cousin. And why not? As "Johnsing" suddenly realizes, "here too, was a proud mind in a proscribed body." She herself says, "that which happened to you the other day happened to me at birth: a white soul was placed in one socially a Negro . . . my case is greatly worse than yours." Significantly, Mary refuses to believe him. While the Negroes 95 whose minds are trapped within the "shells" of socially unacceptable bodies readily give credence to "Johnsing's" real identity, the intellectual Mary dismisses as superstition his knowledge of Huguet's intimate conversations with her. "Johnsing" beseeches her to acknowledge him.and in his sorrow and frustration takes hold of her hand. She is appalled at being touched by a loathsome Negro and her screams bring the plantation hands to her rescue. And she would have allowed "Johnsing" to be lynched on the spot but for Abigail's intercession. After being rebuked by Mary, "Johnsing" decides to get a good job and help other blacks by his example. He seeks out the president of the most important university in Columbia and, demonstrating his ability to read Latin, Greek, French, and German flawlessly, asks for a job as a tutor. But the president, amazed as he is at "Johnsing's" erudition, tells him politely that it would be impossible for him to hire a colored instructor. "He added that such prejudices were foolish, he was ready to acknowledge, but they existed, and as a practical man he had to recognize them."11 This is the kindest treatment that "Johnsing" ever receives. Later, for example, when he applies for a job as a bookkeeper in a lumber yard, the foreman yells, "get out of here! It's a pretty state of things when damned niggers, like you, can speak French and German and know more than their betters, and ask to be bookkeepers."12 On another occasion he is imprisoned, ironically, for wearing Doctor Huguet's hat. While confined he tries to analyze the reasons for his failure to secure a decent job. He can only conclude that his color alone has precluded his success: "Never before had I comprehended the dreadful burden of disqualification and disability borne by the colored peOple of America."13 96 In his anguish "Johnsing" tries to kill himself, but is staid by an inner voice admonishing him to "think of the millions who, from the cradle to the grave, are enfolded in the horrors and injustice and Oppression from which you would escape by death."14 And so freed at last, "Johnsing" goes to work in the service of "his" peOple, Opening a school for blacks of all ages where he teaches his students to read and write and intersperses this secular education with religious instruction. He is so successful that poor whites begin to attend his classes despite having to mix with blacks. This relatively peaceful interlude of schoolkeeping is short- lived, however, for two reasons. First, the lawyer Buryhill, whom the Colonel has entertained many times as a friend, reveals himself to be a cunning scoundrel intent upon buying and foreclosing mortgages on plantations surrounding Columbia. His current attention is focused on the Colonel's estate and he intends to take control and turn out the Ruddiman family. At the same time, Buryhill intercepts a letter addressed to Colonel Ruddiman advising hum that he is heir to an estate worth over two hundred fifty thousand dollars. So in addition to robbing him of him home, Buryhill is also attempting to defraud the unknowing Colonel of his inheritance. "Johnsing" exposes this deception through some ingenious detective work and the Colonel is able to publicly embarrass Buryhill, gain his inheritance, and retire his debts. When Buryhill learns that he has been undone by a black man, he is furious. He begins keeping company with the other most bigoted man in the county, "Dr. Huguet," who, being the scoundrel that he is, revels in his new white superiority and hates blacks with a passion. These 97 two and their friends, a group of profligate young aristocrats, meet at a brothel named Mother Bindell's. There they inveigh against "Johnsing" for educating the "damned niggers" and decide that he must be run out of town or murdered. They visit "Johnsing's" school one night in the white capes of the Klan and horsewhip the schoolteacher until he nearly dies. Still "Johnsing" refuses to leave and persists in his teaching. The attackers return again, this time burning down the school and murdering the Negroes who attempt to escape. They decide to hang "Johnsing" in a near-by tree. Just as he is about to lose consciousness "Johnsing" sees "Dr. Huguet" leap to the front of the crowd and fire a shot at his heart. When "Johnsing" awakes he finds that he is Dr. Huguet again. His and Johnsing's souls were re-exchanged just at the moment the bullet entered "Johnsing's" heart. The real Johnsing has, in effect, conmitted suicide. Meanwhile, the virtuous segment of the white aristocracy in alliance with the upstanding Negroes who were not killed or badly injured in the school fire, attack.Mother Bindell's. They are enraged by what they think has been "Johnsing's" murder and also by news that "Dr. Huguet" has kidnapped and raped Abigail. During the fight that ensues, Abigail dashes out of the nearby barn where she has been kept prisoner and throws a bale of burning hay into the inn. Mother Bindell's and all its infamous occupants are destroyed in flames, although Abigail is herself killed by a last shot from the burning building. Leaving Mother Bindell's, Colonel Ruddiman returns to Columbia for one last act of vengeance: to kill "Huguet" for his part in the rape and murder of Abigail. He doesn't realize that Huguet has been 98 retransformed and attempts to shoot him. But Ben leaps before Huguet and receives the fatal bullet himself. Through this act of courage the Colonel is convinced that Huguet is himself again. Several weeks after Ben and Abigail are buried together in the white cemetery, Huguet and Mary are married. But now neither Huguet nor his bride desire a political career. Having learned that the essence of man is his soul and mind and not his material body, they dedicate their lives to eliminating racial prejudice. Despite striking superficial differences between the novels, the central themes in Doctor Huguet are essentially further develOpments of those in Caesar's Column. Both novels, for instance, reflect Donnelly's central contention that the displacement of Christian values by a cult of grasping, often scientifically rationalized materialism.is inevitably destructive both to society, as exemplified by Caesar's Column, and to the individual as revealed by Doctor Huguet. The moral choice presented to both societies is the same: reaffirm a commitment to social justice or perish. Yet the tone of Doctor Huguet is less violent, reflecting the thematic change in emphasis first suggested towards the end of Caesar's Column. In Donnelly's first novel the workers revolt and destroy modern civilization. In the less violent Docto; Huguet mass annihilation, although threatened, is avoided through constructive resolution of social conflict. When the alliance of white aristocrats and upstanding blacks attack and destroy the white profligates at.Mother Bindell's, they symbolically rededicate themselves to a just social order. This anticipates and emphasizes Huguet's final commitment to devote the remainder of his life to eradicating racial prejudice. 99 Fittingly, "Johnsing's" last lecture to his students of both races sunmarizes Donnelly's theme: "To the white race I would preach mercy and charity. I ask them to give the humblest and lowliest a chance in the great, fierce battle of life. Do not trample on the man who is down. To the black race I would preach patience and wisdom. The Negro's remedy is not in violence."15 He goes on to say that the key to racial harmony is social justice and integration. Whites and blacks must not divide along racial lines but rather realize the goals and problems they share. Doctor Huguet is a further develOpment of Donnelly's vision structurally as well as thematically. His historical cycle is visible in this novel. The edenic world of the South is corrupted internally by racial Oppression and externally by Northern materialistic cunning, represented respectively by Huguet's betrayal of his conscience and by lawyer Buryhill's machinations. This Oppression culminates in the rape of Abigail and the murder of "Johnsing" and his black students. Interestingly, the imagery in these violent scenes is very similar to that Donnelly uses to describe the cataclysms that conclude the historical cycles in Ragnarok and Caesar's Column. For instance, just before'UOhnsing's" final lecture is interrupted by the murderous attack on his school, he is saying: "we live in troubled times. Storm and danger brood over us. Violence and rapine--perhaps death--are around us. Crime is bursting out like a volcanic ebullition, hot with the flames of hell."16 And, as he is about to be hanged, "Johnsing" describes a scene reminiscent of the revolution in Caesar's Column: "1 was under a tree. The conflagration lighted up the whole scene with a blood-red glare that drowned the white moonlight. The screams 100 of the wounded in the barn, as the fire reached them, were dreadful to hear. The mob was wild with rage. All their eyes were centered on me. My hour had come."17 But this is not the last act. Unlike Caesar's Column, Doctor Huguet provides for the castructive triumph of justice within the troubled society. The silent, destructive march of the Brotherhood of Destruction becomes-~using Similar imagery--the march of the righteous avengers who will destroy the villains, not society itself: Fast and far, that fateful night, from that scene of terror and horror and death, lit by the massed flames that towered and roared to the skies, rode the messengers, black and white. . . .A clustered group of leaders held counsel together, speaking below their breaths; and then all rode away, the old man of many battles at their head, the quick-footed shadows running by their side, swift almost as horses, silent as the moveless trees. A ghostly, speechless cavalcade it was; now buried in the dark gloom of the overhanging forest, now sweeping out into the white moonlight, far streaming along the beaten, sounding road. An instinct told every man, horsemen and footman, what their destination was, though no one named that dark den of infamy, that sink of Sin, where innocence had been cruelly slaughtered, where ruffians had gathered to plot rapine and murder against peaceful18 men and women and little children. In addition to the historical cycle, Donnelly carries another informing structural idea from Caesar's Column to Doctor Hugget: melodrama. The novel's subplot is typical dime novel fare. The villain, Buryhill, is the product of the Northern "commercial Spirit." An avowed atheist, his only goal in life is the acquisition of material wealth and power, and in this spirit he lays his plot against Colonel Ruddiman's homestead. His plans are, of course, foiled at the last minute by "Johnsing." The use of the melodrama here, as in Caesar's Column, is intended to involve the reader and to make him identify the hero as a defender of justice and decency. 101 Once the apprOpriate attitude toward the hero is established, Donnelly adds an interesting and powerful twist to the standard melodrama for the purpose of emphasizing his theme of racial equality. The white reader for whom the novel is intended identifies with ”Johnsing" because his is the soul and "thinking faculty" of Doctor Huguet. But it is still a black hero who saves the Ruddiman plantation. As Donnelly has obviously forseen, this presents a quandry for a bigoted reader. If he accepts "Johnsing" as a black man, then he must accept him as an intelligent and resourceful hero able to do for the Ruddiman's what they are unable to do for themselves. But, if he insists that "Johnsing" is in reality a white man, then he acknowledges Donnelly's argument: that a man cannot be judged by the color of his skin but only by the quality of his mind and soul. This represents one of the most interesting aspects of Donnelly's work. Writing to a popular audience and therefore using the stereotyped and usually limiting form of the melodrama, he is able to fashion ingenious twists that challenge the reader's preconceptions and force him to experience new perspectives. The third major structural idea in Doctor Huguet is new. Donnelly organizes much of the plot as a Christian parable with Huguet functioning something like a hybridized biblical figure. Transformed into a Negro, "Johnsing" goes among the peOple as one of them. In his frustrations and persecutions he often questions God's will and even his existence; but each questioning eventually leads to greater affirmation. Soon, he finds his mission in teaching and his students come to regard him as a miracle, some embodiment of a biblical figure, "eder de angel Gabriel or Fader Abraham or Moses or John de Baptis'."19 Yet even though his teachings are completely non-violent and aimed at promoting 102 racial harmony, "Johnsing" is despised, persecuted, and eventually murdered by his tormentors. When he is reborn again as a white man, Huguet continues to strive for his peOple through his example and his teachings. This transparent analogy to the life of Christ allows Donnelly to accomplish a number of important things. First, it provides the most natural format for his theme of Christian Brotherhood and charity. For instance, "Johnsing" can befriend both the blacks and those whites who formerly enslaved them without contradiction. Similarly, it provides the basis for Donnelly's relationship to his reader. As "Johnsing" teaches his pupils, Donnelly instructs his readers: "I must, as far as possible, imitate the example of Christ, and teach in anecdotes, for the 'parables' are simply stories, containing, each one, an instructive moral."20 The second feature of the Christian parable is that it emphasizes Donnelly's Shift in focus from the cosmic to the individual. Atlantis and Ragnarok concern themselves with only the broad sweep of history; and while Caesar's Column brings one of the historical cycles to life in fiction, its emphasis is on social dynamics rather than human experience. Doctor Huguet, on the other hand, concerns itself with larger social issues through the plight of one man. This increased concern for the individual is revealed by the much more complex characterization in Doctor Huguet. Huguet himself is by far the most interesting character Donnelly creates in his fiction. Most utopian (and more recently science fiction) novels are finally somewhat disappointing for, no matter how powerful their ideas, their characters are usually flat and one-dimensional. Authors striving to 103 create new worlds for their audiences and working with sweeping social ideas or ideologies, seem to have little energy left to create convincing characters. To a certain extent this is the problem with Gabriel in Caesar's Column. In Doctor Huguet, however, Donnelly has managed both to employ his social ideas and themes from his earlier works and to embody them convincingly in the life of his main character. Huguet's attack on racial bigotry during the aristocrats' debate is much like Max's explanation of how the world came to be ruined in Caesar's Column: they both contain Donnelly's central polemical arguments couched in fiction to make them more interesting and palatable to the pOpular audience. Much more effective, however, and indicative of Donnelly's increased interest in the individual is the rendering of Huguet's experience as "Sam Johnsing". His transformation makes him tinderstend in a personal rather than an abstract intellectual sense what (Oppression means and this realization eventuates real personal growth for Huguet. Through Huguet's suffering and personal growth, Donnelly taxiderscores the need for Christian Brotherhood and charity more effectively than any abstract argument or any description of impersonal social ca tac lysm could . Critical Issues Unfortunately, even though Doctor Huguet is the most carefully W‘5’01-lght of Donnelly's fictions--including his scientific works--it is not unblemished. For all its technical SOphistication and its courageous moral stance, the novel admits of some troubling ambiguities and inconsistencies. At times, for instance, Donnelly seems to demean blacks even as he argues their case. When asked during the aristocrats' 104 debate to explain the apparently inferior status of Negroes, Huguet grudgingly admits that they are presently inferior, but insists that this is simply a matter of their evolution having been temporarily impaired by the inhospitable climate of Africa:21 It must be remembered, however, that for countless generations they have occupied the most malarial and unhealthy lands in the world--lands in which no white child can pass the age of puberty, in which the relations of bacteria to the races are as yet but little under- stood. We have simply progressed far enough in knowledge to understand their existence. It may be established hereafter that our white superiority of brain and beauty of body are due to the fact that our ancestors dwealt for long ages in lands so cold and inhospitable that microbe-life could not endure it. . . Their black skins, their swollen faces, their depressed noses, represent the physical degradations of ages of such conditions, with the pressure Of brutal ignorance and insufficient food. Not content to let his theorizing end there, Huguet hastens to agree with one of those present, a Doctor Magruder, who says that "science" has recently discovered that the "mental inferiority of Negroes is due to the fact that the sutures of the skull close at an tearlier age than those of other reces,[to protect the brain from the tsevere African sun]and the thick Skull, thus becoming solid, arrests the growth Of the brain."22 To this Huguet unfortunately adds, "and the school-teachers will tell you that the Negro child, up to a certain age, is fully as bright, and as capable of receiving education, as the white child; but then a change comes over him; he grows stolid, stupid, and indifferent."23 Even though he goes on to say that all l“lees come from the same stock and that the white man is "in a sense" a "bleached Negro," the damage has been done. When he There are other instances of apparent insensitivity. a"Wakes in Johnsing's cabin from a bout with "brain fever" "Johnsing" 105 learns fromeary that Emeline, Johnsing's wife and a kind and humble woman, has pawned all her belongings for medicine to bring him through his illness. But even as he expresses his gratitude, he can say to Mary in Emeline's presence, "I cannot bear that this miserable carcass should stand between me and your sympathy."2 Part of Donnelly's recourse to scientific argument is, of course, an attempt to disprove the myriad "scientific" theories abounding in the late Nineteenth Century purporting to prove that Negroes were inherently, not temporarily, inferior. And some of his other, seemingly insensitive remarks, like his reference to his mdserable black "carcass," can be attributed to Donnelly's awareness of his white audience. Just as Donnelly uses the melodrama to desensitize the racial fears of his white readers, he handles Huguet's transformation so that it arouses the sympathy of his audience without simultaneously stimulating their fears. SO, however unfortunate it may seem to the modern reader, it is understandable that Huguet--with whom Donnelly wants his white readers to clearly identify--is at first horrified by his black "carcass." Most of the criticism on Doctor Huguet supports this general view: that while some of Donnelly's arguments in defense of the Negro often seem.more denigrating than ennobling, these are unfortunate bi-products of the scientific and social climate of his day and do not seriously diminish the novel's power. There is another less sympathetic critical view, one that holds that Donnelly was in actuality a bigot, however unconscious, and that Huguet's scientific theories and occasional demeaning remarks are the real thematic core of the novel.26 While it is the contention of this study that most of the Specific charges generated by such a view of 106 the novel reveal a lack of careful analysis and are unfounded, it is worthwhile to examine them in some detail Since they help focus attention on the sources of ambiguity in the novel. Some of these charges, when examined carefully, reveal weaknesses in the novel; others reveal strengths not initially apparent. John 8. Patterson, for instance, cites six various facets of the novel that indicate, for him, Donnelly's "powerful . . . aversion to blacks and blackness." First, he points to the scientific arguments discussed above. Second, he examines several instances of what he calls Donnelly's ”protective qualifications" meant to "keep blacks in their place." For instance, when Huguet describes his servant, Ben, as "very black physically and quite bright mentally," or when he observes that the illiterate Reverend J. J. Love, whose Biblical interpretations are often "ludicrous," still possesses "a certain dignity of manner," Patterson takes offense. He claims these qualifying adjectives prove that Donnelly believes that "for the black minister to 'possess more than a certain dignity or for Ben to be ye£y_bright would plainly be unthinkable."27 Third, he cites "Johnsing's" horror at his own blackness as :revealed by his initial self-loathing and his attempted suicide. The final three charges deal with Donnelly's handling of the plot and Certain of its main characters. Patterson claims that in the two final conflagrations, the burning of "Johnsing's" school and Mother Bindell's brothel, the blacks suffer more, indicating Donnelly's aliltzipathy to them. Further, he charges that the handling of the noVel's major black characters reveals the same attitude. Johnsing c"ii‘tnmits a bizarre form of unintentional suicide; Ben is killed trying 107 to save his master; and Abigail dies in the attack on Mother Bindell's. Thus by the end of the novel all the important black characters are killed, further demonstrating for Patterson Donnelly's covert racism. He is especially critical of the way Donnelly uses Abigail. He claims the reader is led to anticipate her liberation only to see it snatched from her in the final scenes. To begin with the simplest ones, the charge that Donnelly invoked some kind of "protective qualification" is more Speculative than substantial. One must be prepared to perceive an invidious comparison between "quite bright" and "very bright" and between "had a certain dignity" and "was very dignified" to be persuaded. Second, to say that of the two conflagrations that end the novel the destruction of "Johnsing's" school is the more violent and thereby indicates Donnelly's .antipathy toward blacks is inaccurate. It bespeaks a lack of under- standing Of Donnelly's clearly established historical patterns and ‘the conventions of the melodrama where brutal Oppression is followed 13y righteous vengeance. And it misses the point that the novel reaches :its dramatic climax with the burning of Mother Bindell's brothel, not "Johnsing's" school. The assertion that the deaths of the major black characters are another indication of Donnelly's racism presents a more complex problem. While one at first wonderswhy Ben and Abigail, both virtuous, eVen noble, peOple, are not allowed to enjoy the fruits of the melodramatic victory of justice, it must be remembered that the final ‘Fixztory is made meaningful only by the suffering of the innocent that Precedes it. Further, the reader most completely identifies with the Vietims, and this, of course, is exactly Donnelly's intent: to 108 compel the reader to see virtuous blacks as the undeserving victims of vicious prejudice. With Donnelly's relationship to his white readers in mind, further reasons for Ben and Abigails' deaths suggest themselves. Donnelly is intent to demonstrate to the white race that they have nothing to fear from genuinely free blacks. He points out to his southern neighbors, for instance, that during the Civil War when the plantation blacks were left relatively unattended, they raised crOps to support the Confederate army instead of revolting. The modern reader winces at this example, of course, but given the mood of the country in the 1890's Donnelly probably felt this anecdote carried just the desired message. In several ways Ben's life and death parallels this historical example in the plot. Instead of deserting him, Ben sticks by Huguet throughout his entire ordeal from the moment he is transformed into "Johnsing." Further, he is the first person to recognize Huguet after his re-transformation and, like a true Christian, gives his life to save his friend. That his death is designed to emphasize black friendship for the white race and thus assuage the reader's fear and thereby diminish prejudice is indisputably clear. The suggestion that Donnelly mishandles the character of Abigail because of his alleged racism, also fails the test of close scrutiny. But, nevertheless, this charge is important because it points to one of the central ambiguities, even inconsistencies, in the novel. On close examination it does become clear that Donnelly diSpatches Abigail abruptly, perhaps even clumsily, at the end of the novel, but for just the Opposite reasons that Patterson alleges. Abigail is develOped in the course of the novel from a stock and minor 109 character to the actual heroine of the work. Finally Donnelly works himself into a position where he must either end the novel with Abigail's death or provide for her marriage to Huguet. A mixed marriage would have aroused the racial fears of Donnelly's white readers. Hence Abigail's death. To appreciate the quandary Donnelly creates for himself, it is only necessary to survey Abigail's develOpment as a character. She first appears as the stock octoroon of anti-slavery novels, designed to exemplify the absurdity of racial prejudice. Seven-eigths white in heritage and completely white in appearance, she is still treated as a Negro. She continually confronts the white reader with the question, "just how white, after all, do you have to be to be white."28 But initially, She functions as nothing more than this stock character. On first meeting her at the Ruddiman plantation, Huguet remarks, "I found that the hat which I had raised to her, as a Saxon, instinctively fell as I realized she was an octoroon."29 Yet she impresses him so thoroughly by her bearing and decorum that "when we parted I lifted my hat to her as I would have done to a duchess."30 Still, as he contemplates the girl's unhappy situation, trapped in an "inferior" caste even though to all intents and purposes she is white, he realizes that he could never marry such a woman despite her refinement. I felt, even while I pitied her, that I could not have married her--no, not if Mary did not exist. Beauty of mind, beauty of soul, exquisite beauty of body, such as fires the hearts of men and sets their brains throbbing passionately, all this She had; everything to make the life of man sunshine and his home a paradise, and yet. . . oh, strange sad world, where a thought of mind has such 31 power to undo all the work and merits of nature. Most probably, Donnelly at first set out to employ Abigail in 110 the same capacity as he does Ben, as a victim-hero designed to elicit the greatest possible sympathy and admiration from the white reader. She is ravaged by "Huguet" and his friends: "There was a fraction of Negro blood in my veins, and that justified the white scoundrels in carrying me off, to become the plaything of their lust. . . They would never have dared such villainy with a girl of pure white ancestry."32 And she is the hero of the attack on Mother Bindell's: The besieged have the advantage: they are sheltered and in the darkness; while their assailants are almost unprotected, and exposed, in the white glare of the full moon, to be picked off by the Skilled marksmen, who do not waste a Shot. Several of the attacking party are 3 killed and many wounded. They are having the worst of it. Abigail, by setting the fire, saves the righteous and destroys the villains in one fell swoop. This evidence certainly belies the suggestion that Donnelly simply eliminates Abigail because of some antipathy to blackness. Even as a stock character She is one of the most admirable peOple in the novel. But She becomes much more important than that. Donnelly, probably unconsciously, develops her beyond the stock character so thoroughly that she usurps Mary's role as the novel's heroine. By every conceivable Standard Abigail becomes more attractive than Mary, herself a stock character but one who never develops. Mary is ephemerally, not physically, beautiful, and intellectual in an abstract sort of way. In Sharp contrast, Donnelly describes Abigail as possessing a beautiful mind and soul in addition to a "luxurious" body of"exquisite beauty." Further, the real romance in the novel develOps between Huguet and Abigail, not Huguet and Mary. Abigail is second only to Ben in perceiving that "Johnsing" is really Huguet. She has the ability to 111 see the essentials of character beneath the "material shell." And because their situations are now alike, "proud minds" trapped in socially despised bodies, an immediate bond of tenderness unites them. On the other hand Mary, whose intellectual pride and ambition authors the temptation that leads to Huguet's transformation, refuses to acknowledge "Johnsing." She is spiritually blind. Abigail, not Mary, becomes "Johnsing's" nearly constant companion, visiting him in jail, and later at his school. And when "Huguet" begins to make advances toward her, another dimension of their relationship appears. The man who seems to be Huguet desires her physically, while Huguet himself, as "Johnsing," desires her friendship "spiritually." Always having admired both his person and his mind, Abigail succumbs to all this attention and begins to fall in love with "Johnsing" while she refuses "Huguet's" lascivious prOposals: I laughed at him. I told him he was not Doctor Huguet, but Sam Johnsing, the chicken-thief. And that he was likely, at any moment, when the heavenly powers relented, to go back into his own body, and then you would return to your true form, and '--here she blushed deeply--' you would repudiate such a marriage, for your heart was 34 devoted to Mary. More revealing is the conversation that occurs when Abigail comes to "Johnsing" after having been raped by "Huguet:" "I rose and took her in my arms. I kissed her. I understood it all. I could only cry. . . 'I came to bid you farewell,‘ she said, in the same impassive way, 'for I loved you--loved you well enough to have married you, despite that black skin. It is over now. Good--by."'35’36 Huguet's relationship with Abigail is exceedingly complex. Different parts of him, his body as "Huguet" and his mind as "Johnsing," love her body and her soul. Is Donnelly aware of the irony implicit 112 in this complex relationship? Is he even more attracted to Abigail spigitually and physically than he realizes? The answers to these questions are buried with the author. But we have two alternate perSpectives, both with substantial supporting evidence, from which to understand Abigail's function in the novel. First, she is, like Ben, used as a hero-victim designed to elicit both sympathy and admiration from the white reader. This is most probably the only funtion Donnelly originally intended for her. But as he develops her in the novel, Abigail becomes such an attractive women in all respects that she takes over Mary's role as the novel's heroine. This is the second and most probably unplanned role she fulfills. But Huguet cannot marry her if the novel is to have the desired effect and so Donnelly, finally, must find a thematically consistent way to end her relationship with the protagonist. So while the novel is ambivalent, even inconsistent at times, the source of that confusion is certainly not racial antipathy. Neither of the two roles Abigail fulfills, the only ones that take thorough account of the internal evidence in the novel, can be viewed pejoratively. If Donnelly says more than he originally intended about his major black characters, it is by way of making them.more, not less, attractive. The Education of Doctor Huguet The last and most serious of Patterson charges laid against Doctor Huguet concerns "Johnsing's" supposed rejection of his own blackness. Huguet's scientific theories during the debate which 113 admit to the temporary inferiority of Negroes are carried further, for Patterson, when "Johnsing" prays to be allowed to die rather than live as a Negro. Yet this charge--which correctly identifies "Johnsing's" initial response to his transformation--fails to appreciate the thematic purpose of the novel: the racial education of Doctor Anthony Huguet and, through him, the white audience. What some critics of the novel miss is that Huguet's is not a static character. What changes between his initial willingness to abandon the plight of Negroes to secure political office, and his final resolve to devote his life to the eradication of racial prejudice, is his growth in understanding the nature of man, good and evil. This new understanding is the very thematic core of the novel. What Huguet learns is that all men are fundamentally the same, despite differences of color, and only seem different because of society's delusion that material reality is the only reality. Huguet comes to see that the difference between black and white is incidental and super- ficial, caused by a history of exposure to different climates. The real man is inside, within the shell, and there all men are equal. "I realized that no man could see the soul, the real man, but only the shell which his vitality, by the great occult processes of nature, had gathered around him from the material world. We thought as souls; we met as bodies."37 It is the color of the soul not the color of the skin that he learns to value. (This reemphasizes Donnelly's affirmation of Ben and Abigail, the only characters in the novel who can see the soul through the shell.) When Donnelly refers to white affirmatively and black pejoratively, he is using the terms as metaphysical symbolism. 114 This creates some real confusion in a novel attacking racial prejudice-- but it is clearly part of Donnelly's use of the melodrama. So Johnsing and Buryhill have black souls deSpite their different races; and both Ben and Abigail, one a Negro of very dark coloring and the other an octoroon, have white souls. Huguet realizes that reality is essentially spiritual not material. He even mocks his own total reliance on science to explain life: "It is the peculiar and distinguishing characteristic of science that every ten or twenty years its conclusions are all reversed and set aside, as ridiculous absurdities, and a new set, brand new adOpted, to be in turn cast overboard, but to rule with pOpe-like infallibility while they are accepted."38 When Christ first appears to him.on the eve of his transformation, Huguet begins to understand the true nature of reality. Later, in his misery after awaking as a Negro, "Johnsing" raves, even questioning the existence of God, but ends by reaffirming the supremacy of Spirituality. Might not the philosophers I had deSpised be right after all? Were not God and the world beyond the grave the dreams of enthusiasts, and reminiscences of the credulous youth of the human race? Was there anything in nature more than we could see? My brain was whirling; for, on the instant, like a revolving panorama, it seemed to me that all Space flashed, circling around me; faces mdsty and shadowy through which other eyes looked; faces behind faces, mingling with each other, as if the illimitable void had not room enough for the intelligences with which God had packed and crowded it. And something within me seemed to cry out: "Fool! fool! thinkest thou that thy capacity for thought is but an orphan accident in the midst of a barren universe? No, no, the universe is thought. Thy mind is but a fragment, chipped off and dropped to earth, from the illimitable Soul of Things, bearing upon it the stamp of its divinity in its sense of right, its 39 imperial conscience." 115 From this perception, Huguet, as he develOps, goes on to conceive new ideas on the nature of good and evil. This new complexity in Donnelly's vision represents a substantial advance from Caesar's Column. One of the main thematic weaknesses in that novel is Donnelly's implicit assumption that men are inherently good and can only be driven to corruption or brutality through overpoweringly Oppressive social conditions. Thus the workers revolt because they simply cannot withstand any more pain. But what about the brutality of the aristocrats? Donnelly hints that Prince Cabano, in fact, is the product of centuries of persecution of the Jews. But what of the others? Donnelly himself does not seem to credit entirely the idea that with reform of social conditions evil will disappear. His utOpia contains strict sanctions against corruption and the abuse of power--criminal statutes provide the death penalty for official bribery. A society free of evil would have no need for such safeguards. In Doctor Huguet Donnelly takes a more complex view of the issue. To be sure, one source of evil remains what it was in Caesar's Column. Buryhill, the most systematically vicious man in the novel, is "the latest fruit of our 'commercial age;' of the 'business era,‘ proudly so called, which now dominates politics, religion and everything else; in which if a man steals enough and keeps out of the penitentiary, he becomes an aristocrat.""o But there is another source of evil, this one internal not external. It is the result of intellectual vanity, of trusting the rationalizing intellect, rather than the heart, for the source of moral truth. This is an extremely important idea in the develOpment of Donnelly's vision. In Caesar's Column he argues that it is science divorced from religion that produces dehumanizing and 116 destructive materialism. In Doctor Huguet he points to the kind of thinking that leads to this destructive world view. Mary Ruddiman first exemplifies this flaw when she urges Huguet to forgo the dictates of his conscience in order to promote his political future. Later she admits that she was Huguet's "temptress" and was largely responsible for his "fall." And Huguet, even as he succumbs to her seductions, realizes at some level of his consciousness that his intellectual rationalizations do not alter the betrayal of his higher nature: How sweet is the voice of flattery when it sounds from the lips of those we love! While I knew what was right, my sybaritic devotion to peace and luxury echoed in my heart the sentiments of my beloved. I feared the dislike of the vulgar. I would not face public ostracism. I was rather proud of my oratorical gifts, or the warm flow of language which I mistook for such, and I hungered for the applause of my race. The poor blacks! What did they know of eloquence? Would they even be grateful for any sacrifices I might make for them? And, after all, i§_egy men justified 13 the followigg,g£_£he emotions 9f his heart against the dictates g£_his common sense? [emphasis mine] Is not that the final arbiter of action? did not great enthusiasms lead to the stake and the scaffold? Who was to draw the line between unregulated fanaticism and insanity? All this I said to myself, but away in the depths of my inner consciousness, in that part of me where the God-in-man dwells, there was a still, smell voice that whispered: "All this is reasoned well, but you are a coward! You do not dare use your gifts for the purpose for which they were given you." Through his resulting suffering Huguet comes to realize that "we are what we are in our dealings with our inner conscience."42 Huguet's experience, his sin of intellectual pride and his resulting transformation, build upon the conception of the mind first introduced in Caesar's Column. There, the unconscious erupted into violence when the individual had been Oppressed beyond endurance. It became the internal analogue of the heaven-sent flood and fire of 117 the scientific books. In Doctor Huguet this conception is Still very much in force but with some interesting additions. Men can be in touch with that part of their minds at all times, and should be, for it is in the conscience where "God-in-man dwells." When Huguet commits a sin against his higher nature, he is not the victim of Oppression. But his unconscious reacts much like those of the mob in Caesar's Column, except that instead of destruction, God sentences Huguet to live as a black man for his own education. This represents another enlargement of Donnelly's vision. In the earlier books God intercedes when society degenerates, either through a natural catastrOphe or through mass revolution triggered when the Oppressed unconscious surfaces. Here Donnelly suggests that God may intervene just as dramatically in individual cases when the higher nature is corrupted. Interestingly, Donnelly combines the symbolism of the natural and psychological disasters in his description of Huguet's transformation. As was first hinted in Gabriel's poem in Caesar's Column, water becomes symbolic of the unconscious mind. The diluvial imagery in Atlantis which becomes symbolic of social upheaval in Caesar's Column (one chapter describing the revolution is entitled, “The Ocean Overpeers Its List") is continued in Doctor Huguet where it is employed to depict the surfacing of the "God-in-man" to override the vanity of the intellect. For instance, just before the sleeping Huguet awakes to his first vision he says he "drifted thus peacefully over the silent waters of oblivion for some hours." Then Christ appears to him; he has a premonition of his transformation: "feelings I had never experienced rushed over me, like high-mounting tidal waves, crested with terror. My innermost soul rose above the thought-producing faculty, and 118 dominated the conventional being I had known since childhood."43 Later, as "Sam Johnsing," Huguet understands the nature of the mind and its relation to God: What is the mind of man? Who is it that thinks because he intends to think? Who is it can anticipate his own thoughts? Where do they come from? Where did this voice come from? The mind is like a great, shoreless pool, and thoughts arise to its surface as mermaids project their Shining shoulders above the silent see. But from what unsoundable depths do they arise? How far down, toward the central ever-lasting purposes, do those waters reach? DO they not rest upon the Will of 44 the universe? For Donnelly, consciousness itself is man's link between the material and higher Spiritual world. When the mind attempts to deceive itself and to acquiesce to the seductions of the material world, the spiritual world intervenes. And the fact that Donnelly insists that Huguet's transformation "is no dream" serves as emphasis. It would not do for Huguet's experience to be an hallucination, for Donnelly is intent on demonstrating the supremacy of the Spiritual world. "Johnsing" learns this lesson and in his final sermon advises his congregation: "we leave nothing behind us on this earth that is permanent, except our influence for good or ill; that goes on, visible to God, but invisible to men-~a force in the affairs of humanity, Spreading like a great, undying ripple in the sea of mind."45 So Doctor Huguet is a novel bent on more than excoriating racial bigotry. Racial oppression, like the political oppression in Caesar's Column, becomes a symbol of a much larger social malaise. For Donnelly, the source of Oppression of all kinds lies in his age's abandonment of Spiritual values for materialism, a process where the "scientifid'intellect rather than the heart becomes the source of it”... Iii-d 119 ultimate truth. But it is precisely because the novel functions on two different levels, one a heated denunciation of racism and the other a more phiIOSOphical analysis of the problems of Donnelly's age, that some important confusions and interpretative problems arise. The most troubling example is Donnelly's use of black and white symbols. They function very differently on the two levels of the novel: on the first where they are associated with race, black and white are equal; on the second, more metaphysical level black represents evil and white, God's grace. Certainly the novel is flawed in this respect. Further, in managing the tone of the book so that it does not threaten his white audience, Donnelly often demeans through condescension the race that he purports to defend. There is no denying that. Yet, it is inaccurate to suggest that Donnelly is unconsciously a bigot, that his benign intentions are undercut by his racial antipathy. That is to take Doctor Huguet for a much simpler novel than it really is, and to ignore the connection between its themes and the ideas that Donnelly began develOping with Atlantis. Finally, we might wish for Donnelly what he demands of Huguet: that he Spend less time worrying about his audience and more time with the dictates of his own conscience. For Doctor Huguet is genuinely admirable in intent, the more so considering the climate in which it was written. Had Donnelly written more slowly and taken the time in his hectic political career to revise and rewrite carefully, Doctor Huguet might have been a very substantial novel. As it is, it is a surprisingly good novel, certainly the most complex, consistent and satisfying in its depiction of human experience that Donnelly produced. Even more important, since Donnelly will never be remembered as a 120 literary craftsman primarily, it reveals the further develOpment of his vision: that often penetrating analysis of nineteenth century culture by a remarkable mind. Chapter Five The Golden Bottle: The Final Synthesis . . . a few drOps out of the gold flash of creative power, dripped into a human intellect, is sufficient to transform the thought, the literature, and the history of a peOple. '. . . nothing is but thinking makes it SO.' Ignatius Donnelly Caesar's Column was written in the cold bitterness of political defeat, Doctor Huguet in the warm glow of victory and the hOpe of a bright political future. Unlike these, The Golden Bottle (1892) appeared during, not after a political crisis.1 Never before had Donnelly felt the apocalypse so close as he did during the campaign of 1892. The POpulists were at peak strength but their conservative opponents also seemed stronger than ever. Donnelly believed the future course of the Republic would be decided in the campaigns of 1892 and 1894 and felt that in those seminal years his vision had its best and probably last chance to save the country. So in a final attempt to rally support for his cause, he wrote The Golden Bottle bringing his imaginative vision, heretofore focused mostly on the past or on the future, to bear on the political nalities of the moment. After his triumph in forming the People's Party in Cincinnati in the Spring of 1891, Donnelly attended both the St. Louis and the famous 121 122 Omaha conventions in the Spring and summer of 1892 to plan the new party's campaign. Although never considered a serious Presidential candidate, Donnelly was the party's most pOpular and articulate spokesman and served as keynote Speaker on both occasions.2 The delegates, by now intimately familiar with Donnelly's prose and oratory, widely Shared his vision. The vividness of their Speeches and immense pOpularity of Caesar's Column among the delegates indicated that big business and all the machinery of a technological age haunted their thoughts with an apocalyptic image that seemed destined to be ghastly reality--a society from which had disappeared not only the early nineteenth- century political relationship between man and the state, but also the sense of humanity which had antedated the social application of Darwinian evolution. Donnelly delivered his famous preamble to the Pe0p1e's Party Platform at both conventions, a speech which has probably become the single most important document in POpulist literature. With it he again demonstrated his ability to feel the pulse of his audience and to Speak to the heart of their concerns. We meet in the midst of a nation brought to the verge of moral, political and material ruin. Corruption dominates the ballot box, the legislatures, the Congress, and touches even the ermine of the bench. The peOple are demoralized. . . The newspapers are subsidized or muzzled; public Opinion silenced; business prostrate, our homes covered with mort- gages, lebor impoverished, and the land concentrating in the hands of capitalists. The urban.workmen are denied the right of organization for self-protection; imported pauperized labor beats down their wages; a hireling standing army, unrecognized by our laws, is established to shoot them down, and they are rapidly disintegrating to European conditions. The fruits of all the toil of millions are boldly stolen to build up colossal fortunes, unprecedented in the history of the world, while their possessors despise the republic and endanger liberty. . . A vast conspiracy against mankind has been organized on two continents and is taking possession of the world. If not met and overthrown at once it forbodes terrible social convulsions, the destruction of civilization, or the establishment of an absolute despotism. 123 The impact of this speech at both conventions was tremendous. Delegates shouted themselves hoarse calling Donnelly's name and hundreds bolted from their seats and rushed the podium in an attempt to shake his hand. Donnelly had not altered his views to win the conventions' approval. Instead, he drew heavily on the rhetoric and imagery of Caesar's Column and the delegates' response indicates the degree to which they had come to share his analysis of the crisis in America. With the thunderous ovation to his address still ringing in his ears, Donnelly returned to Minnesota to run for the governorship on his party's ticket. During a campaign in which he stumped the state making over one hundred fifty major speeches Donnelly vacilated between euphoria and deSpair. On the one hand, his party seemed to be at peak strength and his public reception had never been better. But on the other, he knew that the two major parties were massing against him. And to further undermine his confidence, elements within his own party were already discussing fusion with the Democrats and were haranguing on the silver issue to the exclusion of what Donnelly considered the more important, underlying problems addressed in his preamble.5 During the heat of the 1892 campaign, in this spirit of guarded Optimism commingled with periodic anxiety, Donnelly produced his third and last novel, The Golden Bottle. Written in snatches between speeches, it is by far the least impressive of the works examined in this study. Donnelly himself was well aware of this and began the volume with a plea for the reader's indulgence: "I feel that some apology is due the public for the following book. . . . I am aware that it is without that polish and elaboration which should always distinguish literary work. It was hurriedly written, much of it on my knee, in 124 railroad cars, and at country hotels . . ."6 Yet even in his apology, Donnelly offers insight into his relationship to his readers and the didactic motivation for his prose: "It is not of so much importance that the author should glorify himself, by the perfection of his workmanship, as that he should set his readers to thinking; and thereby, perhaps, Open new gateways to better conditions of life for the multitude." Further, the novel itself, with all its faults, is not without considerable interest for it reveals Donnelly's final systematic treatment of science, religion, the nature of man, and the vision of a world-wide Christian utOpia. The plot depicts a consumptive Kansas farm boy's dream of universal social justice. He is Ephraim Benezet of Butler County, Kansas, and he and his family, driven deeper and deeper into debt by a combination of crop failures and predatory bankers, are about to lose their farm. The night before the scheduled foreclosure, Ephraim is visited by an apparition.who identifies himself as "The Pity of God" and who gives him a small phial of magical fluid capable of turning any object into gold. Ephraim tests his gift on some common house-nails. When he anxiously presents them to a local jeweler for assessment, he is told they are of an unknown but exquisitely pure form of the metal. Ephraim and his father then take a large amount of gold to Kansas City to sell while their credulous neighbors, believing that the Benezets have discovered a lost Aztec mine, dig up their farm. Word of their new wealth spreads rapidly as the Benezets return from Kansas City. The same men who had plotted to turn them out of 125 their homegrovel before them and Ephraim is afraid that these "most merciless plunderers of the poor and distressed" would "die from an utter and absolute collapse of servility." But Ephraim has no time for his new, obsequious friends. Instead he finds an honest lawyer named Hayes and plans to use his gold-making prowess to help the county's embattled farmers pay off their mortgages. To this end he takes out an advertisement in the local newspaper, offering to loan money to all mortgage holders, "including those whose mortgages have been foreclosed, but can still redeem them, at the rate of two percent per year." The principal citizens of the town are mortified. In fact, the banker tells Ephraim that he could get him a return of no less than forty-five percent on his money.7 And the "capitalists" and "middlemen" become more and more disturbed as Hayes' office is mobbed day after day by downtrodden but hOpeful farmers. Finally, convinced that he means to persist despite their warnings, the wealthy citizens conspire to have Ephraim committed to the state insane asylum for giving away money. 'When Hayes convinces him that not only are all the town's officials involved in the scheme but that his father has joined them as well, Ephraim flees to Philadelphia to continue his work. He has workers make up iron bars and converts them into a million dollars in gold which, changed to currency, he sends to Hayes to continue debt retirement in Kansas. Hayes reports on the success of his mission and concludes that his only concern is that this happy oasis will be crushed by an influx of miserable peOple from thousands of miles around. As Ephraim contemplates this problem, another confronts him. He reads in an Omaha new5paper that his former fianchehas been arrested 126 for allegedly attacking and horsewhipping an estranged paramour. He rushes to her aid deSpite his fears that he will be unable to marry her now that she has been "ruined." But when Ephraim arrives he learns that she has been victimized by the same kind of men who had attempted to drive his family from their farm. Her family having moved to the city after the foreclosure of their farm, SOphie had been forced to go to work in a textile factory. She worked for nearly nothing only to be fired when she refused to yield to the factory owner's lascivious advances. Ephraim marries SOphie and together they expose Morrill, her former employer (who, in addition to victimizing young women, has also been guilty of widespread fraud), and send him off to jail. SOphie then becomes Ephraim's ally in reform. Armed with a supply of money, she immediately turns Morrill's textile mill, bankrupt now that he is in prison, into a women's cooperative. The employees run the factory and the stores it supplies, share the profits, and use some of their capital to provide recreational and educational facilities for themselves. Anxious to extend to the whole nation the financial reforms he has pioneered in Kansas, Ephraim next asks permission to present his plan to Congress, a privilege which, in light of his Special talent, he is immediately accorded. He tells the legislators that only currency inflation will allow the "yeomanry" to retain their land, and warns that the destruction of this class will mean that the wealth of the nation will be concentrated in a smaller and smaller circle, a sure talisman, concludes Benezet, of despotism. His speech is enthusiastically received but the plutocracy bribe certain key senators and the bill that would provide for currency 127 inflation dies in committee. Because many of his other prOposed reforms are blocked by similar corruption, Ephraim eventually decides to run for the Presidency himself. Although there is tremendous initial Opposition to him from the Republicans and Democrats, these money hungry parties cannot finally bring themselves to vote against a man who can "make a million dollars a minute," and Benezet wins by acclamation. He immediately makes good on his promised reforms and, in addition, sets up a number of large industrial cities across America which are run by the workers on the cOOperative plan first advanced by SOphie. They are connected by transcontinental railroads and telegraph systems owned by the government. The monarchies of EurOpe are enraged by this turn of events in America. First, because of the currency inflation, "the purchasing power of money" is "decreasing rapidly," and the value of human labor is "rising with equal rapidity." This, of course, begins to restore the balance in favor of the "producers" over the "non-producers." Second, Benezet suspends immigration until the wages paid to American labor by the capitalists reach a subsistence level. He also says that the corrupt and Oppressive countries of EurOpe have been using America as a safety valve. And when the Oppressed of these countries can no longer escape to America, Benezet concludes, civil strife will increase and those governments tOpple within twenty years. As evidence of the apparent accuracy of Benezet's predictions, a number of EurOpean governments declare war against the United States. But Benezet attacks first, occupying Canada, then England and finally, after a few battles, the Continent. Not surprisingly in view of Donnelly's political imagination, the inhabitants of these foreign countries 128 usually welcome the "army of liberation" with Open arms. In fact, they frequently have overthrown their governments by the time Benezet's forces arrive. SO as the army advances, its ranks are swelled by members Of all nations, races and creeds. After their final victory in Russia, described by Donnelly as the most despotic country in the world, Benezet sets up a world-wide confederation of governments to arbitrate future disputes between countries and to set standards for social justice in the world. In its conception and structure the new organization anticipates the League of Nations. But in a remarkable departure from the earlier works, Ephraim's vision of the victory of righteousness turns out to be a dream. He awakes in his Kansas farmhouse to the sound of the deputy sheriff nailing the foreclosure notice to the door. And upon asking his parents what has happened to SOphie, he learns that she has "gone bad" and hung herself in Kansas City. Unable to bear this grief, Ephraim collapses in his room only to be visited by another vision who explains to him that his dream was an allegory, that the Golden Bottle is a symbol for a wise government's ability to cure social ills, and that Sophie was a representative of the women Of the future, "educated, intelligent, heroic, affectionate, refined. . . ." It only remains for Ephraim, concludes the apparition, to go to work to make his dream a reality. And so in precisely the same commingling Of hOpe and despair with which Donnelly waged his campaign, the novel ends. As is clear from this cursory summary of the plot, Donnelly draws heavily in The Golden Bottle on the themes and structural devices 129 of his earlier works.9 As always, he insists that the only way in which civilization can survive is through a commitment to social justice and brotherhood. And in the context of the politics of the 1890's, this means reforming the laws so that every citizen has an equal chance in what Donnelly, adOpting momentarily the Social Darwinists' rhetoric, calls "the fierce struggle for life." In The Golden Bottle the forces Of reform and justice contend in a typically Donnellian melodrama with the minions of corruption and Oppression. As in the earlier works, this struggle is charged with the awareness that the apocalypse is near at hand, that the struggle of the next days and months will determine whether America will ascend to utOpia or descend into a nightmare of despotism:10 a mighty transformation has taken place in the last quarter of a century. The country is becoming unfit to sustain a republic and busy mites are at work laying the foundations Of despotism. . . .We stand at the parting of the ways. From this eminence we can behold the future. Shall our posterity be free men or slaves? . . . Shall the soil of the earth be subdivided among the many, or shall it be concentrated in the hands Of the few? Naturally, and as Donnelly intends, this eschatological vision heightens the importance of seemingly normal, every day events. Thus the foreclosure by the "interests" of an Obscure Kansas farmer's mortgage and the "ruination" Of innocent women driven to prostitution by these same "interests" transcend the pathos Of the moment and take on cosmic importance. So the central theme and the apocalyptic and melodramatic framework of The Golden Bottle are clearly those of his earlier works. But there are some very important new nuances in this last novel. They indicate first that Donnelly is less sure than before of the inevitability Of God's righteous intervention in the affairs of men; 130 and second that ultimate faith must now be placed in the perfectibility of men and their social institutions. To recapitulate briefly, Atlantis and Ragnarok posited dramatic, divine intervention in the form of some natural cataclysm to punish wicked societies. In Caesar's Column the mechanism was secularized to the extent that men initiated the violence. TO be sure, Donnelly insisted that the unconscious mind was susceptible to influence by God and could be triggered by Him to destroy a wicked society, but this is still at one remove from direct divine intervention Of the first two books. In Doctor Huguet Christ intervenes through the agency of the unconscious again, but this time only in the life of a single individual. In The Golden Bottle Ephraim experiences two supernatural visitations but they are of a much more ambiguous character than those in Doctor Huguet. First, they occur to a grief-stricken and consumptive farm boy; and second, we find that at least the first Of these occurred to him in a dream (the second probablycfld) and that his subsequent victories are illusory. Further, the exuberant endings of the earlier novels are missing here. This might be accounted for by the fact that The Golden Bottle is a campaign novel, an exhortation to action. Donnelly does not want the reader to lie back waiting for divine intervention to cure social ills. But even with this qualifi- cation, it is clear from this novel and from the progression of Donnelly's literary works, that a certain amount Of religious doubt has entered his vision. He does still point to the Christian God as the creator of beauty and harmony in the world. At one point when praising women he extolls, 131 "For is not woman the representative of God; the life-bringer, the perpetuator, the heart principle, the lessor creator. God be praised 11 for woman, forever and ever!" And occasionally he makes reference to divine intervention. For instance, when the army Of liberation sails on EurOpe, Benezet notes, "The ocean roughened a little as we approached the British Islands, but Providence . . . stilled the winds in their caves, because He knew we carried with us the banner Of liberation for mankind."12 But more Often Benezet wonders why a just God would allow conditions to degenerate to the point that they have. In Doctor Huguet this same kind of questioning by the protagonist appears. But there it is clear that God (or Christ) is testing Huguet, and moreover, that each questioning is followed by an even greater affirmation of faith. That is not the case in The Golden Bottle. Ephraim does Offer a curious theory that will allow him to maintain his faith in the superiority of spirituality over materialism in the hierarchy Of truth, but that still explains God's inactivity in the face of social corruption: I used to go, in the night, and cry out in the Open fields, under the stars, for God to come again on earth and make things right; and drive the victorious devils back into their sulphurous dens. . . . And then I reasoned it out that the great God, the Father Almighty, maker of the immeasurable universe, must be Omnipotent and omniscient-~that was conceded by all. Being omniscient he knew the condition of this misgoverned little planet; and being omnipotent he had the power to remedy it all, in the twinkling of an eye. And he did not do it. Why?. . . I could only explain it upon the theory that this world was not the direct creation of God, but the clumsy work- manship of a lot of spiritual beings, above men in power, but like unto them in infirmity; and that they had been set to work, by the divine comand, and had been experi- menting for a million years to make something out of the elements committed to them; and had made a fearful muddle of it all. I thought I could also see that man was their deputy, to still further carry on this delegated work of creation, at second hand. . . . 132 This remarkable statement, certainly not the least unusual of Donnelly's unorthodox views on the functioning of the cosmos, reveals the complexity of its author's concerns. 0n the one hand, Donnelly's vision of justice, truth, and the ultimate primacy Of spiritual reality certainly will not admit of any religious doubt that undermines the authority of those values. But on the other, a way must be found to account for God's having allowed the continuation of such injustice. Hence the rationalization that the fault lies with inefficient subordinates. It is interesting, at this point, to speculate on the ramifications of Donnelly's reduced faith in divine, righteous intervention in human affairs. One wonders whether Donnelly's original insistence on an absolute plan of spiritual evolution for the human race was not Offered in rebuttal of deterministic social Darwinism. But by 1892 when this novel was written Donnelly seems to have a much clearer understanding of the random process of biological evolution. Further, the deterioration of political events most probably gave him cause to doubt his previous assertion that God directs human affairs. So Donnelly, in this last novel, seems to be contemplating a world that is much less ordered by forces beyond human control than he has heretofore assumed. And this leads him to contemplate the future with much less equanimity than before. But certainly this religious vacilation does not mean that Donnelly is any less adamant in his attack on the materialism that is the ultimate value in his technological age. Quite the contrary. He is never more vituperative than in The Golden Bottle when challenging materialism.and the concentration of wealth and the misgovernment it fosters. What is new in Donnelly's vision is the insistence that humans are 133 ultimately reSponsible for putting their own planet in order. They are, as he says "lessor creators" charged with God's "spiritual beings" with making something "of theelements committed to them." Again, this attitude can be partly explained by the exhortative nature of this campaign novel. But more important-~because we are interested in the development of Donnelly's vision as a whole--is the trend toward secularization in Donnelly's works that culminate in The Golden Bottle with the belief that man, not God, is responsible for reform. Atlantis and Ragnarok inform us only that God destroys despotic societies. In Caesar's Column Gabriel urges the American plutocrats to reform, and God destroys society--through human agency-~only when human reforms fail. Moreover, Gabriel and his colleagues form a utOpia in the wake of this destruction. God interacts only with the individual conscience in Doctor Huguet and "Johnsing" himself is responsible for conceiving and implementing reforms. Finally, in The Golden Bottle Ephraim Benezet only dreams that he sees "The Pity of God," (contrast this to Huguet's assertion that his vision of Christ "was no dream.") SO there is a steady decline in divine intercession in human affairs in Donnelly's works, until Ephraim Benezet, still believing fervently in God, realizes that he must face the iniquitous world alone. This realization substantially changes Donnelly's relationship to the reader. Heretofore, he has always seen fit to rehearse the POpulist line that goodness and intelligence flow inexorably from the peOple. The villains in his earlier works are always carefully defined as members Of that small but immensely powerful plutocratic cartel. Here, Donnelly insinuates that the pOpulace may not automatically understand the crucial importance of the issues that face them, or 134 worse, may be misled by their powerful enemies. Consequently, he chastises them for their lethargy and credulity. For instance, when the plutocracy, through the national press which it controls, attacks the reform prOposals that he has introduced to Congress, Benezet notes with disgust: "The public mind seems to be a tabula rasa, ready tO receive the last impress of the type," for "all the fools in the nation, and they constitute a large majority of the whole peOple, hurrahed I until they split their throats" in approval of the plutocratic h prOpaganda.14 Then Benezet beats the interests at their own game by i buying up some of the newspapers and ordering them to attack the bankers. The next day with the appearance of the newspapers, the public changes its position completely. Unquestionably, Donnelly intends that the newspapermen who editorialize for money not principle should bear the brunt of this satiric anecdote. Still, however, this scolding of the masses is unprecedented in Donnelly's work and is extremely rare in Populist literature. Donnelly's willingness to Openly upbraid his readers here--as Opposed, for instance, to his genuinely subtle manipulation of their consciences in Doctor Huguet--reveals a growing sense of urgency. If the apocalypse is near and if only human agency can assure that it will lead to utOpia instead of unredeemable deSpotism, then humanity must be prodded into immediate action. Furthermore, and this is more difficult, Donnelly must assert that humanity is perfectible if utOpia is to be attained. This necessity forces Donnelly to retreat somewhat from the complex vision Of human nature advanced in Doctor Huguet and to claim, as he did in Caesar's Column, that the mellenium can be achieved through 135 political reform. This leads him, in turn, to make extravagent claims for the regenerative abilities of mankind. For instance, elected President and with his reforms already in effect, Benezet surveys the crowd at his inaugural address:16 the whole country swarmed with smiling happy faces, and life looked like a universal pic-nic. And the children! Even the mechanics' children were handsome, hearty, and well dressed; and in their gay colors they looked like a flower garden. In fact, you could scarcely . tell the working-man and his family from the members of .T the mercantile class; shorter hours of labor and relief from a hundred Oppressions had lifted them up into a contented, well-fed, well-clad peOple. The increase of mental activity consequent on increased prosperity was something astonishing. Every man and woman had a book or a new3paper. . . .Men and women sang as they worked, and they worked with marvellous zeal, for every stroke of their muscles distilled money into their own pockets, and enjoyments into their Own souls. . . .And the churches swarmed. . . .They thanked Him for the glory of the world and the delights of loving one another . . . and Dogmas disappeared in deeds. And Christ came out of the dark and brutal and barbarous past, which murdered him, and walked triumphant through the hearts Of millions of happy, laughing, cultured peOple who loved him. Oh, it was a world worth living in! Even though this is a campaign novel and, further that this vision is part of Benezet's short-lived dream, Donnelly's claims for millenium by ehxtion (political not Puritan) are remarkable. Occasionally, echoes of his complex treatment of the source of evil from Doctor Huguet appear. In setting up his universal republic, for example, Benezet establishes laws that will protect society from "the natural wickedness and meanness of the human animal with all its inherited ape-like traits." And what is the source of this wickedness? "There too, above all, was the spirit of evil, which seems to be woven into all the warp and woof of the universe."17 But statements like these appear only rarely in the novel and Donnelly never concerns himself to reconcile the apparent contradiction between these two 136 views of human nature. Instead, he focuses on what seems to be the unlimited perfectibility of man. Even though Donnelly's ideas on the mechanisms of history and the nature of evil seem at times to waver, his source of values remains the same. As in the earlier novels, the spiritual nature of man is his final salvation. But in The Golden Bottle it appears in a slightly altered form. Instead of locating a part Of the mind (the unconscious) where the "God in man dwells" and describing it in terms of diluvial imagery as he does in Caesar's Column and Doctor Huguet, Donnelly adapts his idea to the more secular tone Of this novel and talks about the spirit in terms of human creativity. In this connection, he employs a series Of images central to the theme of the book. He begins describing the crises in America in terms of the diluvial images of earlier books; he follows these with images of pestilence; and then employs alchemic imagery to symbolize his spiritual cure. The first of these, a diluvial image is also an adaptation of the idea of the westward course of empire:18 A flood Of debt, as huge as that of water in which Noah floated, covers the whole land. If the down-pour is not stopped it will soon stand fathoms deep over the highest mountain-peaks of human endeavor. . . .And when swept off their homes, where are these yoemen to go? Where are their children to go? Are there any more Americas for a new Columbus to discover? No; this is the last camping- ground for the human family. Beyond the Pacific are the densely peOpled lands of the Orient--China, Japan, India-- already supporting all the pOpulation they can maintain. The waves of migration, which started ten thousand years ago from.Atlantis, have reached their last limits of expansion . . . to yield up the land now is to yield up everything; to fail now is to fail for eternity. From his traditional diluvial imagery, Donnelly turns to images of disease and decay. Benezet warns a crowd, "The land is covered with a filthy scab, an eczema of mortgages, under which vermin swarm 137 and fatten."19 This pervasive image finds both figurative and literal usage throughout the novel. For instance, many of the farmers driven from their land by the avaricious plutocrats are undernourished and ill. Like Ephraim himself, many suffer from consumption. And the city slums to which they are driven are hotbeds of pestilence. From this literal base, the image is extended beyond the economic victimization of farmers and workmen to describe a once great political system that has I been attacked by cancerous capitalism: "And down drOps in rotting - silence the mighty Republic, like a giant that, in the very prime of manhood, perishes of white and scaly leprosy, shaking the dust of pestilence athwart the world, with every movement Of his enfeebled limbs."20 The cure for this disease is symbolically represented in the novel by alchemy. This is one of Donnelly's most adept and subtle uses of imagery in an otherwise rather blatant book. Alchemy, of course, is a combination of science and spiritualism. And this is just exactly what Donnelly is after; a way to use science in the service of higher goals instead of the gaudy and dehumanizing materialism with which it is associated. So it is not by accident that the apparition gives Ephraim an alchemic phial, nor that Ephraim equips his Philadelphia laboratorytn look like a sorcerer's workshOp. Like the spiritual powers of the universe from which it descends, human creativity, in Donnelly's view, can supercede the shackles of natural laws and fashion a millenial soeiety. This becomes the central metaphor Of the novel. From direct intervention by God in the earlier books, Donnelly's vision has become secularized to the point that human creativity, indirectly stimulated by divine presence, must be counted upon to save mankind. 138 As Benezet says after demonstrating that one drOp from his phial can transform hundreds of iron bars into the purest gold:21 I then perceived that the Divine Power had no limitations as to quantity; and I could understand how, out of the coarse, unbolted oat-meal upon which he lived, the brain Of Robert Burns could distill the sweetest lyrics in human speech, full Of the divinest purity and most exquisite perfection. And, I said to myself, a few drOps out of the gold flask of creative power, dropped into a human intellect, is sufficient to transform the thought, the literature, and the history of a peOple. I could have gone down on my knees before my precious treasure, and the God who stood behind it; but I kissed it and whispered to it: "You and I together shall yet redeem mankind from its bondage!" And in the final pages of the novel, Ephraim's second spiritual visitation reemphasizes this saying that the Golden Bottle represents the power of peOples and their governments to rectify injustices and produce egalitarian societies.22 The UtOpian Vision: The Final Synthesis Having convinced himself that the responsibility for social reform falls on the forces of human creativity, Donnelly turns his attention to the organization of a utOpian society for the first time since Qgesar's Columg. Here the blueprint is more detailed because Donnelly feels that this society must be formed soon or lost forever. The plan he Offers provides a fascinating summary of his years of social analysis and a sense of the final synthesis Of his ideas. Some parts of his utOpian scheme are reminiscent of the Ugandan Republic in Caesar's Column. For instance, after his confederated army "liberates" Ireland, Benezet formulates a set of principles on Which a reformed republic will be built, a set of principles which, of course, coincides almost exactly with the PeOples' Party Platform:23 139 Universal education. Universal and impartial suffrage. Universal religious toleration. Absolute and complete separation of Church and State. 5. Absolute freedom of elections, and secrecy of the ballot secured by the Australian system. 6. Absolute equality of all persons before the law. 7. A graduated income tax that shall prevent the accumulation of enormous fortunes, by confiscating all above a reasonable sum. 8. Limitation of the amount of land that can, at any time in the future, be owned by any one person or corporation. 9. The punishment of official bribery by death; and the punishment of the bribery or intimidation of voters by imprisonment for life. 10. NO person to vote, after the expiration of ten years who cannot read and write. bump- .0 While the political organization of the Donnellian utOpia is much the same here as it was in Caesar's Column, the economic system is more complex and more thoroughly delineated. First of all, Donnelly conceives an alternative to the wage system for workers: namely, manufacturing cooperatives.24 For instance, SOphie once free from charges Of assault and promiscuity leveled against her by her former employer, uses Benezet's money to buy the textile factory where she worked. She radically changes the conditions of employment, intent upon abolishing a system that had ruined so many young women weaker than herself. In her speeches SOphie describes the "wage system" as more than an unjust means of distributing the fruits of production. Echoing Benezet's philosophy, she tells her audiences that women are basically good and are driven to debasement only by dire necessity. Such Oppressive conditions, she continues, exist in the nation's sweat shOps where employers, exploiting a huge unemployed labor force, drive down wages to the point where they are insufficient to maintain life. Then, when factory girls are driven to prostitution and other crimes, 140 the capitalists responsible for their ruin claim the women were intrinsically evil. Sophie creates nation-wide chains Of women's cOOperatives to remedy this situation. They manufacture and sell their own products and with their profits furnish their communal apartments with libraries, music and art studios, ballrooms, churches, and night schools. And because capitalistic greed is eliminated from the manufacturing formula and the benefits of production accrue to the producers, the retail price of the textiles is reduced even as the condition of the workers radically improves. Noting that Sophie also carefully provides for the democratic administration of these factories, Benezet reflects on their success: "The institutions were soon in self-sustaining condition. It was a sort of practical communism, but one not ignoring independent individualism."25 Nor is this economic reorganization limited to women or minor industries alone. Demonstrating his belief that government must puncture the "myth of Laissez-Faire" and insure economic justice to workers, Benezet creates his own industrial city. In the past, he says, cities were fine places for the middle and upper classes to live. But because of exploitation by the moneyed interests, the poor "were driven to shiver or swelter in some garrett or tenement house, or to spread themselves, in hot weather, upon the roofs of houses, panting to catch a breath of the devitalized air, while their children perished in the foul atmosphere, like mdce under the glass ball of an air-pump."26 It is clear from this, incidentally, that all of Donnelly's misgivings about the city do not extend from the pastoral fantasy about the city's ‘satanic qualities. Rather, many, perhaps most, stem from his observation 141 that while the rural poor at least have their meager plots Of land, the urban poor are completely destitute. Benezet's city, COOperation, is remarkable for a number of reasons. First, he notes that cities have usually develOped haphazardly around huge areas of industrial blight and squalid ghettoes. To insure that this won't happen, Benezet systematically plans his city. He buys up vast tracts of land around Great Egg Harbor on the New Jersey coast. ' He encloses the harbor itself with a huge dam that harnesses the tide I to produce hydroelectric power. The town is arranged in a series of circles and designed to accommodate five hundred thousand citizens. At the center of the main circle shOps and stores are erected. These in turn are encircled by a park and, outside the park, by residential areas. Four manufacturing centers are set up at equal distances around the circumference of the main circle. They too are encircled by parks and residential neighborhoods. All these areas are connected together by large tree-lined avenues that, as Benezet describes them, sound like modern expressways. Second, the economic structure of the town is substantially more complex than that of the Ugandan utOpia and reveals the further develOpment of Donnelly's ideas. Free electric power is furnished to all manufacturers who build mills and factories on the sites provided, "on condition that the work was to be conducted on the cooperative plan, each worker having a share of all the profits." Benezet Offers "the same terms to combinations of men themselves, with bank credit to enable them to carry on business."27 Interestingly, then, Donnelly tolerates both modified capitalism and his own brand of individualistic communism to flourish in the city. 142 Third and finally, Benezet finds a way to extend the personalized social services incorporated in the small town in Caesar's Column to the vast pOpulation of COOperation. Poor families are loaned money to buy homes On standard one-acre sites, the principal and interest (two percent) to be repaid through taxes over a twenty year period. A dispensary and a physician are provided for each large neighborhood. To insure that local government does not become too large to deal with I“ individual peOple, Benezet sets up small town halls within each Of the circles. Libraries, reading rooms, public baths and small neighborhood L shOps are also located within these complexes. Among the significant changes in Donnelly's vision over the course of the five books discussed in this study none is more remarkable than the change in tone from the almost vengeful early works to the pluralistic and conciliatory spirit of The Golden Bottle. The world of Caesar's Column is destroyed by wretched workers too dehumanized to initiate constructive reform. The utopian Republic of Uganda stands a lonely and, by necessity, defensive vigil in an anarchistic world. But in The Golden Bottle catastrOphe is averted as the force of philanthropic creativity, child of divine intervention from the earlier novels, sweeps away injustice. The apocalypse in this novel is nearly bloodless. American capitalists are encouraged to join in the new economic system and are assured that through treating workers fairly they too will prosper. Then, when Benezet's "army of liberation" sails on Europe the spirit of egalitarianism and reconciliation is visible again. Benezet's army is integrated with black soldiers and Officers. 143 Reformation of social and political injustice haseradicated racial prejudice. Along with blacks, women achieve their full stature in the new order. Sophie, for example, frequently overshadows Benezet as the central character. She originates the cooperative system in America and when the "army of liberation" engages the Russian zealots in the last battle of the campaign, her bravery saves the day. Finally, when victory is won, a world government is seated in the Azores.28 The resulting universal society is, while unified, remarkably pluralistic. Benezet notes that the world "swarmed with men, learned and unlearned, who propounded a thousand plans for the betterment of man's condition. But the press and the ballot box were Open to them all, and all the world became a great debating school, where one after the other they exposed each other's impracticable schemes, and eliminated out of the uproar and confusion those things which stood the test of discussion and were good for humanity."29 Again, Donnelly sees this civilization as the product of philan- thrOpic creativity. And he concludes his utOpian vision prOphesying 30 an even greater future for mankind: Civilization is tunneling the mountains and bridging the rivers and commingling all men into one great homogeneous whole. . . .Supplement this with electricity, and the whole planet will be as a brain, its cerebral grey-matter on its surface; a mass that will think, tied together by universal threads of fire; where the glow will be held in the hand of God for the delight of his swarming angels; for thought is as veritable a reality in nature as light or heat--yea more. Despite its Obvious artistic limitations, The Golden Bottle is important in the cannon of Donnelly's work because it reveals the final synthesis of his ideas. In it a number of important trends find culmination. First, the movement toward secularization is completed. 144 God not only fails to intervene to insure social justice-~Benezet's accomplishments occur in a dream--but Donnelly finds it necessary to develOp an amendment to his theology that relieves God of responsibility for the state of world affairs. While this creates tremendous anxiety and even despair, it would be a mistake not to note that this same movement toward secularization completes a second trend, that of decreasing divine determinacy and increasing human freedom. Third, and possibly most importantly, The Golden Bottle is the least violent and most pluralistic of Donnelly's works. There is virtually no recrimination against any of the plutocrats despite their former crimes. And the final utopia is anything but a static, authori- tarian society. Donnelly clearly expects heated debate and continual change. CONCLUSION In Atlantis, Ragnarok, Caesar's Column, Doctor Huguet and The Golden Bottle Donnelly develOped a series of complex perspectives on the central cultural tensions of his age. Essentially, he was responding , 1 to the galaxy of questions raised by the Social Darwinian analysis Of society, and to the injustice he thought accompanied the sweeping r 1 economic dislocations of the late nineteenth century. Donnelly rejected both the anti-egalitarianism of Social Darwinism and the materialism of the new industrial economy, and, in Opposition, he prOposed a utOpist philOSOphy based on a Christian, humanistic conception of man. Arguing that Spiritualism.was superior to materialism, Donnelly insisted that all men were intrinsically equal and entitled to equal treatment under the law. His fictional utOpian societies included provisions for the protection of civil rights and liberties. Economic controls guaranteed that no man could control money or prOperty to the extent that it would deny any other man an equal chance in the marketplace. Donnelly, of course, did not think or write in a vacuum. His historical and political ideas have their roots in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Unfortunately, his ideas have been narrowly interpreted and often misunderstood. Most critics have considered Donnelly's literature and ideas only as examples of the POpulist and utOpianist movements to which he belonged. In doing so they have often mistakenly found reactionary, escapist and racist qualities in 14S 146 Donnelly's work and further, have underestimated the complexity of his themes. By eXploring Donnelly's vision in detail and by establishing the connections between his ideas and a larger intellectual milieu, this dissertation hOpes to defend Donnelly from most of the major charges made against him and to demonstrate the full complexity of his ideas. NOTES Notes Chapter One 1It is important in this kind Of endeavor to attempt to ascertain just how familiar Donnelly was with the intellectual currents of his time, especially those beyond the scOpe of POpulist politics. The answer clearly is that Donnelly was very knowledgeable on a wide-ranging series of issues. Admirers Often said that he was the most widely read man ever to sit in the United States Congress. However true that particular assertion may be, it is true that Donnelly was a voracious reader. While in Washington during his three terms in Congress and as a lobbyist, he spent much of his spare time in the library of Congress. Further, he frequented the research libraries in Minnesota as well as the Minneapolis book shops regularly. Finally, the list of his library holdings from his house in Nininger indicates the depth of his reading. That list is included as an appendix to this study. Donnelly's journals and diaries also indicate that he was well read in the periodical literature of his day. 2Stow Persons in his American Minds: A_Histo§y 2f Ideas (New York, 1958) Offers an interesting analysis of the totalitarianism latent in naturalistic social analysis. This is all the more interesting because that charge is also laid at the door of one of its bitterest critics, Ignatius Donnelly. 3Bowne was professor of philosOphy at Boston University when he made that statement in 1878. See Paul F. Boller, American Thought i2 Transition: The Impact 2; Evolutionary Naturalism, 1865-1900, (Chicago, 1969), p. 23. 4For a summary of Dewey's ideas on the issues of the era see chapter four of David W. Noble's The Progressive Mind, 1890-1917, (Chicago, 1970). 5For Morgan's complete treatment see Part IV of his Ancient Societ , gijesearches i£_£hg_Lines g§_§umag Progress from Savagery through_Barbarisg:£g Civilization, (Chicago, 1877). For summary see Boller, p. 64. 6Chapters four and five of this study provide discussions of Donnelly's changing views of evolution. 7See Russel B. Nye, George Bancroft (New York, 1942), Bert J. Loewenberg, American History i2 American Thought (New York, 1972), and Arthur A. Ekirch, Jr., The Idea g£_Progress ig_America (New York, 1941). 147 148 8Lester F. Ward, Dynamic Sociology_g£ Applied Social Science, (New York, 1883). See especially chapter ten. For a summary of Ward's ideas see Boller, p. 65. It is unlikely that Donnelly was directly familiar with Ward's book since the first edition was little read. Only with the second edition in 1897 did it begin to attract attention. 9Boller, p. 66. 10Donnelly satirizes the position of the Social Darwinists on this issue in a chapter from Caesar's Column, "The Sermon of the Twentieth Century," wherein a minister encourages his congregation to enjoy the . sufferings of the poor that their own wealth might be more satisfying ‘ to them. 11This is a phrase used by Princeton theologian James McCosh. See Boller, p. 31. 12Again, it is an oversimplification to say that Donnelly was totally preoccupied with Social Darwinism. Much Of the social and economic injustice he deplored was the result of fundamental technological change that displaced many and made a few instantly wealthy. Still the new materialism and the non-egalitarian spirit of the age seemed to many including Donnelly to use for a rationale the ideas of Social Darwinism. Therefore the term, "Social Darwinism," was often the catch phrase for a debate on a much broader series of issues than the term, narrowly defined would suggest. 13The extent to which Donnelly was dedicated to the idea of spiritual supremacy is further indicated by fragments of an unfinished novel, The Devil's Needle, which appears in Donnelly's journals. In that fragment a villain, Spooner, and his female accomplice mesmerize the protagonist, Adams, and force him to take out a one hundred thousand dollar insurance policy to benefit the accomplice. Then they murder him and arrange for it to look like suicide. But Adam's daughter has the crime revealed to her in a dream and she and an insurance company detective uncover the plot. The idea for the novel may have been suggested to Donnelly by an undated newspaper clipping that appears with it in his journals. The article describes the work of one Harlow Gale (Yale '85) and the American Society for Psychical Research who were trying to ascertain the correspondence between dreams and waking occurrences. From what can be determined of the novel's excessive complexity and convoluted plot, it was probably best left unwritten. Still, it reemphasizes Donnelly's committment to spiritual supremacy. Notes Chapter Two 1Atlantis: The Antediluvian World (New York: Harper & Bros., 1882). 2Actually, Donnelly's early support for the railroads is not a real contradiction of his later views. At first the railroads helped settlers move west and offered them bargain rates until they were established. See John D. Hicks, The Populist Revolt (Minneapolis, 1931). 3Martin Ridge, Ignatius Donnelly: A Portrait g£_g_POlitician (Chicago, 1962). This is an excellent analysis of Donnelly's life and political career, and the source Of most of the biographical information used in this study. 4Minnesota Historical Society, Donnelly MSS, Diary, January 17, 1881. 5Ridge, p. 197. 6John R. Bovee, "Ignatius Donnelly As a Man of Letters," Diss. Washington State University, 1969, p. 27. 7Ridge, p. 201. 81bid., p. 202. 9Atlantis, pp. 1-2. 101bid., p. 34. 11Donnelly doesn't name his source or the date and place of the lecture. The plateau is the Azore shelf. 12Atlantis, p. 44. 13Ridge observes that Donnelly presents his evidence like a lawyer presents his brief, ignoring contradictory evidence and preparing his own for the greatest dramatic effect. 14Atlantis, p. 129. 151b1d., p. 343. 16Ibid., p. 347. 149 150 17Ridge, for instance, sees Atlantis as essentially agnostic. laéElflflfiiég P- 109 and p. 290. 19Donnelly MSS, Diary, July 8, 1882. 20Ibid., March 18, 1891. 21Ragnarok: The Age gf Fire and Gravel, (New York: D. Appleton, 1883). 22Ridge, p. 207. 23According to Donnelly's sources, Belia's Comet was first sighted -1 in 1826, swept by the earth in 1832, 1839, and 1846, and then apparently split in half and disappeared. See Ragnarok, pp. 408-423. 24Ibid., p. 439. "- 25Ibid., p. 439. 26Ibid., pp. 227-228. Ibid., p. 340. Ibid., p. 439. 291 am anticipated on part of this issue by Alan.M. Axlerad in "Ideology and Utopia in the Works of Ignatius Donnelly" (American Studies, 12, ii, 1971). Axlerad discovers a cyclic conception of history in Donnelly's works beginning in Atlantis and Ragnarok. However, he disputes the idea that Donnelly believed in "rational, Christian progress," or a lineal view of history. Axlerad claims that Donnelly's entire vision is bound up in a reactionary obsession with the Agrarian Garden Myth. Axlerad-~along with David Noble and others--clahms that Donnelly saw a departure from the agrarian society as wickedness that would be destroyed by God, and thereafter, society would again live in pastoral harmony. It is the position of this study that Axlerad is incorrect. Part of Donnelly's conception of history is cyclic; but it is much more than simply cyclic. It contains progressive elements as well. This is born out by his statement in Ragnarok that nothing necessary for the "advancement" of mankind is destroyed in the cataclysm. Other progressive aspects of Donnelly's vision are discussed in chapters three and five. 30For the source of this theoretical discussion see Frank Kermode, The Sense offianggnding: Studies in the Theory of Fiction (London, 1966). 31Kermode, p. 7. 32Ra narok, p. 424. 33 Ibid., p. 406. 151 341bid., p. 406 35In this passage Donnelly resembles-~in his Optimism if not in his admiration of the Social Darwinists--John Fiske. See Russel B. Nye's "John Fiske and His Cosmic PhilOSOphy," (Papers 2f_the Michigan Academy, 1942.). Notes Chapter Three 1Caesar's Column: A_Sto§y g; the Twentieth Century, (Chicago: Free Speech Publications, 1889). The edition used for this study is the only modern one: Walter Rideout, ed., Caesar's Column, (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1960). 2While the biographical material for this chapter is drawn from diverse sources including the Donnelly MSS microfilmed by the Minnesota Historical Society, Rideout's introduction to his edition of Caesar's Column, and John D. Hicks', The Populist Revolt, GMinneapolis, 1931), my major source is Martin Ridge's excellent Ignatius Donnelly: Ihg_ Portrait gfflg Politician, (Chicago, 1962). See especially chapter XVI, "gggsar's Column." 3Donnelly MSS, Minnesota Historical Society, A.C. McClurg to I.D., December 30, 1889, quoted in Ridge, p. 266. 4Donnelly MSS, Schulte to I.D., quoted in Rideout. 5Ridge, p. 267. 6Caesar's Column, p. 7. 7Ibid., p. 15. 81bid., p. 15. 9Ibid., p. 38. 101bid., p. 38. 111b1d., p. 136. 12Ibid., p. 68. 131b1do, PP. 149-150. Ibid., pp. 126-127. 15Ibid., p. 170. 16Ib1do, p0 1740 152 153 Ibid., pp. 178-190. 18Ibid., p. 38. 19Ibid., p. 248. 20Ibid., p. 249. Ibid., 22Ibid., p. 3. 290. 23Rideout discusses the relationship between Donnelly's political I career and his education and his style in the "introduction" to his .1 edition of Caesar's Column; see especially page xi. 24The Great Cryptogram, (Chicago: R.S. Peale & CO., 1887) and The Cipher, (Minneapolis: Verulam Publishing Co., 1899). f” 25See the appendix for a list of books in Donnelly's personal library at Nininger. 26Discussing this point in a footnote to his edition of Caesar's Column, Rideout remarks, "Donnelly outdoes himself in this paragraph. Beside allusions, there are three quotations from Shakespeare and one from Bailey: Othello, II, iii; Julius Caesar, IV, iii; Festus, p. 91; Othello, 1, iii." For the paragraph in question see p. 238 of Rideout's edition. 27This is the traditional attitude toward the novel. The charge of nihilism was first laid at Donnelly's doorstep by Richard Hofstadter in "The Folklore of Populism," the second chapter of his Eh; Ag; gf_Reform (New York, 1955). In his Doubters and Dissenters: Cataclysmic Though; ip_America, 1885-1918, Federic COple Jaher makes the same charge from a psychological perspective. They argue essentially that Donnelly was so threatened by the future-~cultural and persona1--that he symbolically destroyed it in his novel. While not Specifically charging Donnelly with nihilism, David W. Noble (The Progressive Mind, Chicago, 1970) and Jay Martin (Harvests 9; Chan e, Englewood Cliffs, 1967) explain the dynamics Of Caesar's Column-~both the destruction Of modern civilization and the formation of the Ugandan UtOpia--in terms of Donnelly's supposed wish to recapture the pastoral past. For a more sympathetic view see Alexander Saxton, "Caesar's Column: The Dialogue of Utopia and CatastrOphe," (American Quarterly, 19 (1967), p. 230). 28 Donnelly MSS, Donnelly to Schulte, January 31, 1890, cited by Rideout. 9Caesar's Column, p. 282. 301bid., p. 235. 311bid., p. 169. 154 32This is one of the first references to mechanized man anywhere in American Literature. Melville's "A Tartarus of Maids" clearly depicts the mechanization of the factory girls; but it seems to be more a comment on the factory system itself than a larger social commentary. 33Caesar's Column, p. 66 and p. 71. 34Ibid., pp. 240-241. 5"Phemasticons" are apparently an invention Of Donnelly's imagination. They indicate, as does most of the novel, a forward not backward looking imagination. 36That Donnelly was an anti-semite is not universally accepted. And there is some contrary evidence. Gabriel's last name, after all, is Welstein; and in his last novel, Donnelly--through his protagonist-- gives Palestine back to the Jews. For a further defense of Donnelly on charges of anti-semitism see Norman Pollack's "Ignatius Donnelly on Human Rights: A Study of Two Novels" (Mid-America, Vol. 47, no. 2, April 1965). 37Donnelly apparently became aware of natural selection with the writing of Doctor Huguet. Prior to that he seems to entertain a Lamarkian conception of evolution. In this he is joined by most of his contemporaries, including scientists. Natural selection was not widely understood until the end of the century. 8Caesar's Column, p. 4. 39Ibid., pp. 301-302. 40Ibid., p. 301. 411bid., p. 306. 421616., p. 303. Notes Chapter Four 1Doctor Huguet (Chicago: F.J. Schulte & CO., 1891). 2Ridge, p. 287. 3 Ibid., p. 290. 4For the sources of this biographical introduction see John R. Bovee's "Introduction" to his edition of Doctor Huguet (New York, 1969); John D. Hicks', "The Political Career of Ignatius Donnelly," (Mississippi Valley Historical Review, IX (December 1922), 203-26); and Ridge's Ignatius Donnelly, chapters XVI and XVII. 5Ridge, p. 278. 6 Doctor Huguet, p. 60. All page numbers refer to Bovee's edition. 7Ibid., p. 81. 8Ibid., p. 85. 9 Ibid., p. 86. 0Because of the new personalities created by the double transforma- tion, I have adOpted the following means to identify the characters. Huguet is the white Southern aristocrat. Johnsing is the black chicken thief. "Huguet“ is Johnsing's personality in Huguet's body, and conversely, "Johnsing" is Huguet in Johnsing's body. Since Donnelly is working with the tension between appearance and reality, I have identified the new characters with the name of the person they appear to be, indicating with quotation marks that another personality inhabits the body. 11Doctor Huguet, p. 197. Ibid., p. 199. Ibid., p. 163. Ibid., p. 170. Ibid., p. 287. Ibid., p. 287. 155 156 Ibid., p. 291. Ibid., pp. 296-297. Ibid., p. 211. Ibid., p. 215. Ibid., pp. 57-58. Ibid., p. 57. 23Ibid., p. 57. I 24Ibid., pp. 206-207. 25To refer to the "majority" of criticism on Doctor Huguet is perhaps slightly misleading for the novel has attracted very little critical attention. But of these few critics, Norman Pollack in “Ignatius Donnelly on Human Rights: A Study of Two Novels," (Mid-America XLVII (1965), 99-112) and John R. Bovee's "Doctor Huguet: Donnelly on Being Black," (Minnesota History XLI (1969) 286-295) represent the majority which sees some of Donnelly's theories and Huguet's remarks as unfortunate but not serious flaws in the novel. 26There is a persistent thread in the Donnelly scholarship, begin- ning with Hofstadter's Ihg_Agg_g£ Reform, that holds that Donnelly is a covert racist, either anti-semitic or Negro-phobic, or both. This attitude focused on this novel is represented by John S. Patterson's "Alliance and Antipathy: Ignatius Donnelly's Ambivalent Vision in Doctor Huguet," (American Quarterly, XXII (Winter 1970), 824-845). 27Patterson, p. 839. 28Ibid., p. 824. 29Doctor Huguet, p. 46. 30Ibid., p. 48. 31Ibid., p. 133. 321bid., p. 285. 33Ibid., p. 299. 341616., p. 263. 351bid., p. 285. 36Patterson additionally charges that Abigail is horrified by her 157 own blackness and rapudiates other blacks. Here is contradictory evidence: she is prepared to marry a black for love. 37 Doctor Huguet, p. 116. Ibid., p. 14. Ibid., p. 124. Ibid., p. 259. Ibid,, p. 79. Ibid., p. 119. Ibid., p. 87. Ibid., p. 171. Ibid., p. 267. Notes Chapter Five 1892). The modern reprint is published by the Johnson Reprint Corporation, 1968, and features an introduction by David W. Noble. All page references are to the modern edition. 1The Golden Bottle, (New York and St. Paul: D. D. Merrill CO., I 2Ridge, Ignatius Donnelly, pp. 279-309. 3Ibid., p. 295. 4Hicks, The Populist Revolt, pp. 435-437. SThe Pe0p1e's Party did, of course, eventually merge with, or more accurately was absorbed by the Democrats in the Presidential election of 1896 where, unfortunately for politicians like Donnelly whose reform proposals were wide ranging and complex, the currency inflation (silver issue) predominated. 6The Golden Bottle, p. 3. 7Although this kind of interest rate seems a figment of Donnelly's overheated imagination, in fact, it is relatively accurate. Hicks says, talking of the West after 1887, "Rates of seven or eight percent on real estate were now regarded as extremely low; and on chattels ten or twelve percent was considered liberal, from eighteen to twenty-four percent was not uncommon, and forty percent or above was not unknown." See The POpulist Revolt, p. 82. 8Hayes notifies him that the total amount of debt in the county was over a million and a half dollars levied against just over two thousand farmers who were forced to pay over three hundred twenty-five thousand dollars a year in interest. With Benezet's loan program, the interest payments have been reduced to one tenth of their former level. Hayes also points out that this has produced a local multiplier effect where, with more money in circulation, the business of local merchants and workmen has greatly increased. Donnelly is sketching here what he thinks will be the salutary effects of general currency inflation, one of the most important campaign issues for the PeOple's Party. 9Because this is a campaign novel, Donnelly pays more attention to specific economic issues--like currency inflation--than in his other works. Aside from this, however, the central elements of The Golden Bottle--the divinely appointed protagonist, the corrupt society, the 158 159 utOpian apocalypse--coincide with those Of the earlier works. 10The Golden Bottle, p. 127. 11Ibid., p. 243. The Golden Bottle extols the virtues of women even more than the earlier novels, and Donnelly has never been stinting in his praise. Given the election year, this extra adulation may reflect Donnelly's attempt to support the women's suffrage movement. 12Ibid., p. 212. 13 Ibid., pp. 10-11. 14Ibid., p. 176. 15To rehearse Donnelly's position on this issue briefly, he begins in Caesar's Column arguing that all evil derives not from the individual but from oppressive social systems. In Doctor Huguet, however, he takes the more satisfyingly complex line that while a great part of human evil can be attributed to the environment, incipient evil must be traced to the cupidities of the individual. Specifically, he traces evil to the rationalizing, Often scientifically oriented intellect, and good to the unconscious where "the God in man" dwells, thus reconciling human perversity which apparently can be remedied only Spiritually as with Doctor Huguet, and social inequity which can be ameliorated by political reform. 16The Golden Bottle, pp. 201-202. 17Ibid., p. 274. 181bid., p. 126. 19Ibid., p. 150. 20Ibid., p. 127. lebido, p. 64-65. 22Ibid., p. 308. 23Ibid., p. 217. 24Throughout the last thirty years of the nineteenth century the nascent labor unions fought the wage system. One principle means was the formation of the workers' cOOperatives. These inevitably failed either through mismanagement or, more Often, through their inability to compete with the giant corporations. The labor unions that first began to accommodate themselves to, and to work within, the wage system were the ones that survived. Donnelly was one of the few POpulist politicians who recognized the absolute necessity of united rural and urban political action if leftist third parties were to survive. Consequently, he endorsed the cooperative system favored by the radical Minnesota labor groups. 160 25The Golden Bottle, p. 102. 26Ibid., p. 164. 27 Ibid., p. 167. 28Perhaps in an effort for final symmetry in his vision, Donnelly locates his world government in the Azores above the remains of the Atlantean empire. 29The Golden Bottle, p. 251. 30Ibid., pp. 266-267. APPENDIX This list is included by permission of the Minnesota Historical Society and is reproduced exactly from the original document. 161 Appendix Books, MSS., etc. of Ignatius Donnelly's Library Author Francis Bacon Wm. Camden Miscellaneous Graf von Ekstadt Prof. Richardson Donnelly Donnelly Donnelly Donnelly Donnelly ShakeSpeare Curtis Clay Longlley Macauley Hudson Miscellaneous Davidem Chyrraeum Donnelly Donnelly Horace Cicero De Balzac Subject De Augmentis Annals, or History of the Most Renowned and Victorious Princess Elizabeth, late Queen Translated of the Latin by Gent. Pamphlets on the Bacon-Shakespeare Question. Bound. Shakspere und Shakespeare (German) PhiIOSOphical Analysis of some of Shakespeare's Remarkable Characters. (Glasgow) Original handwritten MS. of "Caesar's Column." Original handwritten MS. of "Cipher in Plays and on Tombstone." Excerpts of "Donnelliana." Original typewritten MS. of the "Cipher in Ben Jonson" Finished but never published. Original handwritten MS. of "The Golden Bottle." "Julius Caesar" (English-Latin) "Annals of the Swedes in Delaware." The New Astronomy. "Lays Of Ancient Rome" Scientific Demonstration of the Future Life. Pamphlets & letters on "Atlantis" Historia Der Augsprugischen Confession. German. 400 years. "Caesar's Kolonn" Swedish translation. Paper cover. "Caesar's Soile" Norwegian trans. "Aristippe" French 162 Date 1623 1635 1888 1808 1892 1899 1869 1835 1889 1874 1895 1577‘ 1734 1567 1658 163 Johan Albrecht Bengal "Erhlarte Offenbarung" 1758 German Aresta The Religious Books of the Parsees 1864 ArthuS H. Bleek "Analecta Graeca Minors" Greek 1822 C. Osborn Ward "Ancient Lowly" (A History of 1899 Ancient Working PeOple) Donnelly "The Great Cryptogram" (First 1888 copy of first edition) England. with annotations and letters Emerson "Conduct of Life" First edition 1861 Wilkenson "Memorials of Minnesota Fires." 1895 George Elliot "Daniel Deronda" Harper's N.Y. 1876 Philadelphia Chronicle Complete for year 1768 to 1769. Bound in neat volume. Scrap-book on "Caesar's Column." Pamphlets on the Farmer's Alliance. Bound. Pamphlets and letters on "Atlantis" and "Ragnarok". Bound. Pamphlets on the Bacon-Shakespeare Question. Bound. LeOpold's Complete Edition of Shakespeare with the Two Noble Kinsmen and Edward III. Used by Donnelly. Coleridge Complete Works. 6 volumes. 1853 C.A. Goodridge Greek Grammar 1836 Coleridge Letters ' 1836 H.W.H. The Politicians and Other Poems 1876 Edmund Lodge Illustrations of British History 1838 3 volumes. John Blois Gazeteer of the State of Michigan 1838 H.W. Halleck, Maj. Gen. Military Arts and Science 1869 G.D. Pike Jubilee Singers 1873 H.W. Spang Lightning Protection 1877 W.J. Hardee Rifle and Light Infantry Tactics 1861 2 vls. Handy Book for U.S. 1861 Soldier Uncle Dudley's Odd Hours 1882 J.W. Bond Minnesota and its Resources 1854 Mrs. L.H. Sigourney Zinzendorff 1836 Sargent and May Etymological Reader 1872 Jas. S. Ritchie Wisconsin and Its Resources 1857 Robt. Bridges Elementary Chemistry 1847 Mrs. Ellet Summer Rambles in the West 1853 Washington Irving "Alhambra" 1836 Schonberg-Cotta Family Chronicles, Autobiography 1865 W.C. Hazlitt Old English Plays (4th.) 1874 Shakespeare "Julius Caesar" Willard edition 1890 F. H. Head Shakespeare's Insomnia and the 1887 Causes thereof. Paper cover. Wm. O'Connor Hamlet's Note-book 1886 W. Given A Further Study Of Othello 1899 The Works of G. Herbert No date dated by Donnelly 1888 Montaigne Essays complete edition 1885 - trans. by Cotton. -- . 164 Authorship Of the Two Noble 1833 Kinsmen, Edinburgh Jomini Art of War (translated from French 1862 by Mendell) Papers of the New York Shakespeare Society. "Venus and Adonis" 1885 Paper-bound. J.J. Jusserand English Wayfaring Life in the 1889 Middle Ages Parnassus. Three Elizabethan Comedies. Oxford University 1886 Press. Biographies of Moore, Wolsey, Cranmer, Galileo. The Century of Sir Thomas More 1896 Flower G.P. Hansen The Legend of Hamlet 1887 W. D. Simonds Sermons from Shakespeare 1898 C.K. Davis The Law in Shakespeare 1884 W.C. Zeigler It Was Marlowe 1899 D T. Morgan The Shakespearean Myth 1881 D.T. Morgan The Shakespearean Myth (in German) 1885 (paper) O.W. Owen Sir Francis Bacon's Cipher Story 3 volumes. A.C. Swinburne A Study of Shakespeare 1880 S.E. Dixon Bacon and His Shakespeare 1885 G.L. Craik English of Shakespeare-- 1872 Philological Commentary on Julius Caesar. J.E. Roe The Mortal Moon; or Bacon and His 1891 Masks. W.H. Smith Bacon and Shakespeare 1857 W. B. Rye England as Seen by Foreigners 1865 Aldine edition Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser 1887 5 volumes dated 1887 by Donnelly Scott Pub., Phil. Shakespeariana 1885-6-7-8 Cut-outs, 1 volume Cowden-Clarke Complete Concordance to Shakespeare 1886 J. Jaques The History of Junius and His Works 1843 C.K. Davis The Law in Shakespeare (2nd edition) 1884 Malone's Inquiry into the Shakespeare Papers 1796 E. Dowden Shakespeare, His Mind and Art 1881 J. H. Glover Kingstherpiana 1883 Nathaniel Holmes Authorship of Shakespeare 1867 (2nd edition) Nathaniel Holmes Authorship Of Shakespeare 1875 (3rd edition) C. Q. Colton Shakespeare and the Bible 1888 W. G. Thorpe The Hidden Lives of Shakespeare 1897 and Bacon A. Morgan Shakespeare in Fact and in Criticism 1888 G. Wilkes ShakeSpeare from an American Point of View (3rd. edition) 1882 W.F.C. Wigston Hermes Stella upon the Bacon Cipher 1890 J.L. Campbell Shakespeare's Legal Acquirements 1859 W. H. Smith Mrs. J. Farrar W.F.C. Wigston Halliwell-Phillips Bernhard Tauchnitz (Leipzig) G. P. Bevan (London) R.G. White Donnelly F. Quarles (London) R. Waters Mallet Shakespeare 165 Bacon and Shakespeare Recollections of Seventy Years The Columbus Of Literature, or Bacon's New World of Science Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare Doubtful Plays of Wm. Shakespeare Tourists Guide to Warwickshire Memoirs of the Life of Wm. Shakespeare The Great Cryptogram Emblems, Divine and Moral Wm. Shakespeare Life of Francis Bacon Hamlet Exact reprints of the First and Second editions of His Grace, the Duke of Devonshire. G. H. Baker Printed by Josiah Allen. Anne Boleyn Works of Francis Bacon, edited by Spedding (6 vol.) Journal of Frances Anne Butler, vol.2 Hermippus Redivivus of the Sage's Triumph Guthrie's Grammar, 1783--Geographica1, Historical and Commercial Grammar C. StOpe G. H. Jennings The Bacon--Shakespeare Question Answered Anecdotal History Of the British Parliament Notes on some writing, which may be by Shakespeare in the Boston Public Library The Investigator, Mag. Vol 3, no. 3, April 1893 W. Owen Mrs. H. Pott W. H. Edwards Anon. Mrs. H. Pott T. Fowler W. H. Wyman M. Guizot M. Guizot Theo. Bacon Journal of the Bacon Society The Atlantic Monthly for P. F. Tytler Francis Bacon W.D. O'Connor Sir Francis Bacon's Cipher Story Bacon and His Secret Society Shaksper Not Shakespeare A New Study of Shakespeare (London) The Promus of Formularies and Elegancies (Private notes hitherto unpub.) English Philosophers Bacon Bibliography of the Bacon- ShakeSpeare Controversy Corneille and His Times Shakespeare and His Times Biographical Sketch of Delia Bacon 25 Paper-bound pamphlets June, 1859 Baconiana (Paper-bound pamphlets) Life of Sir Walter Raleigh The Tale of the Shakespeare Epitaph (Translated by Clarke) Mr. Donnelly's Reviewers 1857 1866 1892 1882 1869 1882 1865 1888 1816 1888 1740 1860 1850 1862 1835 1749 1783 1889 1881 1889 1893 1891 1900 1884 1883 1881 1884 1852 1852 1888 1889-1899 1897 1833 1888 1889 166 Journal of the Bacon Society (First An. Report, Vol. 1, London, 1888) The Mermaid Series T. Dekker J. Ford J. Shirley Beaumont & Fletcher F. G. Fleay (London) King Spedding F.F. Heard Mrs. Gallup Bartlett Rev. J. Sortain R. Simpson J. P. Collier T. Wright W. H. Hazlitt Wigston H. Ulrici Rev. H. N. Hudson R.M. Theobald Robison (Dublin) A.E. Waite W. Gifford W. J. Birch Baedeker Mackay Shakespeare's Sonnets, and a Lover's Complaint. The Best Plays of the Old Dramatists The Best Plays of the Old Dramatists The Best Plays of the Old Dramatists Edited by Havelock Ellis, London The Old Dramatists 2 vol., edited by Strachey Shakespeare Manual Bacon Versus Shakespeare Macauley and Bacon 2 vol. Shakespeare as a Lawyer Bi-Literal Cipher Of Bacon Shakespeare Phrase Book The Life of Francis Bacon (London) The School of Shakespeare 2 vol. The History of English Dramatic Poetry & Annals of the State, 1879 Reliquiae Antique. Scraps from Ancient M38. and by J. Halliwell Shakespeare Library 6 vol. Francis Bacon versus Shakespeare ShakeSpeare Dramatic Art (Trans. from German by L.D. Schmidtz) Shakespeare--His Life, Art, and Characters 2 vol. Dethroning Shakespeare Proofs Of 8 Conspiracy against all the Religions and Governments of EurOpe carried by Free Masons, etc. The Real History of the Rosicrucians The Works of Ben Jonson 3 vol. An Inquiry into the PhilOSOphy and Religions of Shakespeare London and Environs Medora Leigh (Paper pamphlet) Reprinted in the Orthography and Punctuation of the original ed. 1609 Shakespeare Memorial 1564-1864 with one colored lithograph (with illustrations) Anon. T. W. O'Niell Walter Scott Scott S. Janyns Anon. M. McGilchrist E. M. Haines H. Hydson by V. Brooks The Hills of the Shatemuc The Refutation of Darwinism Tales of a Grandfather (Fireside edition) Lucii Apuleji (Latin) 2 vol. Lessons in Elocution Evidences of Christianity dated by Donnelly Eugene Aram Life of John Bright (paper bound) General Laws Of the State of Illinois Essays 1887 1888 1888 1878 1873 1882 1883 1881 1881 1851 1878 1841 1875 1876 1880 1886 1798 1887 1816 1848 1882 1870 1856 1890 1838 1825 1857 1832 1869 1855 1881 167 Anon. Home as Found Disraeli The Young Duke vol. 2 Perkins Reef Rovings in the South Seas Victor Hugo Literary Life and Poetical Works (First English trans.) I. V. Scheffel Der Trompeter von Sakingen Gauvin Fundamentals of Freethought Lew Wallace The Fair God Lew Wallace Ben Hur Josh Billings Billings De Quincy Confessions of an Opium Eater (First edition) I. Frith Life of Giordano Bruno Thucydides History of the PelOponnesian War (trans.) Thos. E. Watson The Story of France Gordon Hanford Laconics Max Muller Chips from a German WorkshOp Chas. Wagner The Simple Life Robert Burns Poetical Works (illus.) John Tyndall Fragments of Science J. Whittier Snowbound (First ed.) W. D. O'Connor Mr. Donnelly's Reviewers Jacolliot The Bible in India Bern. von Cottal Kosmos (German) Ethne (History of Settlement of Ireland by Cromwell) S.T. Coleridge Poetical and Historical Works Sam Craig Half-length Portraits (2nd Ed.) E.F. Burr Pater Mundi Williams & Rogers Civil Gov. of U.S. Karl Gerok Pfingstrosen (German) W.D. Howells The Landlord at Lion's Head Henry George A Perplexed PhilOSOpher Sir Walter Scott Rob Roy Gladstone Time and Place of Homer Wright Clark Shakespeare (Globe Edit.) Isaak Walton The Complete Angler R. B. Anderson Viking Tales of the North Poetical Works of Lord Byron, illustrated Poetical Works of Milton (reprinted from original ed.) Burton Anatomy of Melancholy (3 vol.) Keary Primitive Relief Countess Guiccioli My Recollections of Lord Byron Spurr The Messabi Iron Bearing Rock Winchell Iron Ores Of Minnesota S.M. Betts Eminent Women Of the Age SOwe Men Of the Times Minnesota in the Civil War & Indian Wars--Board of Com. (2 vol.) Wharton Diplomatic Correspondence Of American Revolution (3 vol.) Lossing Memoir of Lieut.-Col. John T. Greble 1838 1831 1854 1883 1923 1888 1877 1896 1912 1881 1901 1856 1873 1865 1889 1872 1877 1887 1853 1879 1870 1890 1886 1900 1892 1876 1887 1882 1884 1885 1882 1869 1894 1891 1869 1868 1893 1889 1870 Carlos Martyn Swisher French Mathews J.A. Joyce E. Donnelly (D.'S sister) E. Donnelly E. B. Ramsey John Ruskin Rev. Sydney Rev. A. Murray J. A. Edgerton Bret Harte Whittier Donnelly Harry Hawser Fliesburg & Johnson E. S. Phelps R. Marvin Wilkie Collins Don Felix de Salamonca E. N. Beecher Emilia Marryat Donnelly A. P. Miller E. A. Allen J. Dalton H. W. Miller P. J. Bailey Flower J. C. Redpath Erastus Everett Robertson-Hingston Carroll Brewster Col. Jas. Creecy Wm. W. Campbell J. F. Watson B. L. Farjeon Rev. Sydney Smith Cummings Manning Renan Wininger Renan Renan 168 American Reformers "Florecita" Getting on in the World Peculiar Poems The Rhyme of Friar Stephen Children of the Golden Sheaf Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character Woman's Kingdom Wit and Wisdom Holy in Christ Voices of the Morning Poems The Tent on the Beach In Memorium of Mrs. Katherine Donnelly Poems by a Prisoner of E. S. Penitentiary Christoforo Colon The Gates Ajar Twilight Thoughts & Heart Records No Name PhilOSOphy of Handwriting The Lost Atlantis Henry Lyle, or Life and Existence Auditor of State Consolation Lives of Weaver & Field and Achievements of the People's Party Lyra Bicyclica The Custom of Barter Festus Gerald Massey Life and Work of Blaine English Versification Artemus Ward's Panorama The Students Hume Brewster's Disraeli Scenes in the South Life & Writings of DeWitt Clinton Olden Times Toilers of Babylon Essays, Social and Political (2nd series) The Great Tribulations Manning's Lectures St. Paul Protestantism and Infidelity The Apostles vol. 2 Life of Jesus Hughes & Breckenridges Oral Discussions Rev. J. Milner Rev. W. D. Smith End Of Religious Controversy What is Calvinism? 1894 1899 1874 1885 1899 1898 1871 1868 1878? 1896 1898 1878 1867 1896 1844 1893 1869 1889 1863 1878 1897 No date 1898 1886 No date 1885 1900 1855 1895 1893 1847 1869 1868 1890 1860 1849 1833 NO date 1891 No Date 1872 1855 1869 169 Wm. Cobbett Protestant Reformation vol. 1 Kath. A. O'Keefe Catholicity in Lawrence Journ Evidences of Religion Youmans Culture Demanded by Modern Life Mary H. Allies Leaves from St. Augustine Jos. Broeckaert The Fact Divine Life of Charles Life of Charles Dickens vol. 1 Dickens vol. 2 John Forster W. S. Lilly Characteristics of the Writings of Cardinal Manning Sam. Irenalus The Power of Prayer Alex. Gruden Concordance A. L. Bixby Driftwood Wm. Barnes The Fortieth Congress of U.S. Portraits on Steel de luxe leather The Thirty-ninth Congress Portraits on Steel de luxe leather Tributes of the Nations to Abraham Lincoln S. F. Norton Still the World Goes On U.S. Biographical Dictionary (Minn)1879 John H. Payne Home, Sweet Home Designs by L. B. Humphrey Chas. Reade The Cloister and the Hearth Thos. Nelson & Sons Tourists Guide to Oxford and Its University Brougham Lives of Men of Letters & Science Who Flourished in the Time of George III Elizabeth Barrett A.Drama of Exile and Other Poems Vol II Walter Scott The Waverly Novels Vol. IV The Traditional History of the Ojibway Nation, Ka-Ge-Ga-Gah-Bowk. Characteristic Sketches. Gillespie Roads & Railroads J. M. Barrie Auld Licht Idylls Proceedings of the Commercial Convention held in Detroit David M. Jones Lethe and Other Poems A.A.A.S. Hand-book of Minneapolis Nutshell of Knowledge The Land of Gold Poetical Works of Alfred Tennyson Seneca's Moral Essays The Poets and Poetry of Minnesota Ce Monsieur (French) The Table-Talk of John Seldon (3rd. edition) Truth and Poetry (Auto. of Goethe. Vol. 1 & 2; ed. by Goodwin) Posthumous Poems of Wm. Motherwell N. P. Willis Poems Langhorne Plutarch's Lives Memorial tributes to Wm. Windom Hubbard-Kerman The Flaming Meteor The Romance of London (Ballantyne Press) John L. Peck Kingdom of the Unselfish London Hinton Helper Hurst & Whiting Mrs. W. J. DeKock Arnold 1882 1877 1869 1886 1885 1873 1873 1885 No date No date 1895 1869 1867 1893 1881 1871 1846 1845 1851 1850 1853 No date 1865 1882 1873 1870 1855 1869 1877 1864 1842 1860 1850 1851 1849 1836 1891 1892 1889 170 Horatio Smith Festivals, Games and Amusements B. 0. Flower Civilization's Inferno The Love-Life of Dr. Kane History of Eliotia Kane and Margaret Fox Francis Galton Hereditary Genius One of the Fools A Fool's Errand Robert Buist Family Kitchen Garden H. T. Craven Meg's Diversion (2 act play) Confidential Correspondence of Napoleon Bonaparte with His Brother Joseph. Vol. I & II. A. C. Barton Life Of Col. Jesse Harper N. West Ancestry, Life & Times of H. H. Sibley Memoirs of Gen. Wm. T. Sherman Vol. I & II Leonard Hodges Forest Tree Planters Manual Brewster From Independence Hall Around the World Addresses on the Acceptance by Congress of the Statue of James A. Garfield, presented by Ohio Brig. Gen. R. W. Johnson A Soldier's Reminiscences in Peace and War Wisdom Series Selections from The Apocrypha Select Pamphlets on the Money Question H. C. Darrah Management of Fowls H. Clay Glover Diseases of the Dog and How to Feed Giacomette The Outlaw (Drama in V. Acts) The Bench and the Bar Vol. 11 W. Hickey The Constitution of the U.S. Edited by Wm. Bray Evelyn's Diary and Correspondence Charles Anthon Select Orations of Cicero Works of Lord Bolingbroke Vol. I, II, III, IV, V. From best authorities History of the Sioux War Massacre of 1862 & 1863 History of the Great Massacre by the Sioux Indians W. H. Folsom Fifty Years in the Northwest Williams History of Ramsey County & St. Paul Prescott History of the Conquest of Peru Vol. 1 Add Vol. N.B. Robert Bros. Ecce Homo N. G. Badeau Military History of U.S. Grant The Words of Wellington, Compiled by Walford, Edith Thos. Rorrall Slander & Defamation of Character Peter Claver and the African Slave Uncle Tom's Cabin. Dover & Fly-leaf gone. (First ed.) B. F. Powell The Bible of Reason Legislative Portraits Members Minnesota Legislature Referee, His Decision between the Gold Fanatics and the Silver Fanatics Havergal Kept for the Master's Use Letitia Noel St. John's letter from the Isle of Patmos Memorial Addresses of the Life and Character of Thadeus Stevens McPhearson's History of the Rebellion Emil Schalk Campaigns of 1862-1863 (2nd. ed.) 1868 1893 1865 1883 1879 1865 1856 1904 1889 1875 1879 1895 1886 1886 1878 1874 1897 1888 1839 1846 1818 1847 1844 1863 1864 1888 1876 1857 1866 1868 1869 1884 1868 1828 1893 1895 No date 1837 1868 1865 1863 171 Austin Willey Anti-Slavery History State and 1886 Nation Reports Of the Com. on the Conduct of the War 1864 Edw. Pollard Lost Cause Regained 1868 J. W. McClung Minnesota as It Is in 1870 1870 Robt. Patterson Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1861 1865 H. T. Johns Life of the 49th Massachusetts Volunteers 1864 Chas. Reade Constitution Rules and Manual 1886 The Oxford Book of Spanish Verse 1918 Geo. Julian Political Recollections 1884 John Stevens Minnesota & Its PeOple, & Early 1890 Farm History of Minneapolis Moschesker Guide to German Literature Vol. I & II 1850 Jas. Simpson Necessity of POpular Education 1834 Monthly Repository Vol. II 1832 Jas. G. Blaine Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. I 1884 Jeffrey Modern British Essayist 1854 Carlyle " " " 1855 Sydney Smith " " " 1855 Wilson " " " 1852 Mackintosh " " ” 1854 Macauley " " " 1854 Alison " " " 1854 Geo. Julian Speeches on Rflitical Questions 1872 L. P. Brookett Woman's Work in the Civil War 1868 N. D. Hillis Ideal Messages NO date R. G. White England Without and Within 1885 Julian Swift Field Flowers 1872 Carnes The Slave Power 1862 G. P. Marsh Lectures on the English Language 1867 Sadler Golden Sands 1880 Bishop Hay Pious Christian 1800 Esther Reed Life of Esther DeBerdt 1853 Annals Of Congress 1818-1820, 1821-1822, 1823, 1824 Senate Documents 1866 & 1867, 1866 & 1867-1867, -1865 & 1865-1866 Minnesota Convention Debates 1857 Index to Reports Comm's 26th to 40th Congress 1839 to 1869 Debate of Constitutional Convention 1857 House Miscellaneous 1867 1867 Commerce and Navigation 1868 & 1869 Report of Secretary of War 1868 & 1869 Senate Journal Minnesota 1861 & 1862 Senate Reports 35th Congress 1863 & 1864 Chamber EncyclOpedia 30 vol. Paper F. C. Dieudonne Rondah Pluribostah-Song (that is by no author) (Perpetrated by I. K. Philander Deesticks, 1856) Mrs. Ann Stevens Berta's Engagement ‘ 1876 A. B. Stickney The Railway Problem 1891 Sam. Leavitt Our Money Wars 1894 Branty Mayer Mexico, Aztec, Spanish and 1863 Republican Vol. I & 11 Minnesota State Auditor Vol. I & II 1892 172 Patent Office Report Vol. I & II 1862 Report on Internal Commerce of U.S. 1890 Lucy Aikin Life of Addison 1845 Phoebe Hanaford Life of Geo. Peabody 1875 Aug. Cochren Results of Emancipation 1863 (Trans. by Mary Booth) Sam'l. Johnson Memoirs of Bennett and His Time 1835-55 Mahon's Life of Conde Vol. I 1848 Geo. Baker Life of Wm. Seward 1855 W. Aldrich Farming Corporations 1892 Leuchars How to Build and Ventilate Hothouses 1850 Millenial Dawn for Bible Students 1891 John Loche Some Thoughts Concerning Education Macginni's Miscellaneous by Fraserian papers 1857 McMurthries Scientific Lexicon 1847 Walter Willard Julius Caesar 1890 Constitutional Manual, Rules and Practises of House of Rep. 52nd Congress Smithsonian Report 1867 1867 Memorial Address, Life & Character of Abraham Lincoln 1867 George Bancroft Herrick Manuals of Minnesota 1892 Minn. Geo. Society Hatch Notes of Birds of Minnesota Geo. & Natu. Hist. Survey The Nineteenth Annual Report of the Geo. and Nat. Hist. Survey 1892 of Minnesota Annual Report of Minn. State Hort. Soc'y. 1890 Contested Elections in Congress, 1834 to 1865 Minn. Executive Documents for 1890, Vol. 1., II., III., IV. " " " " 1891, Vol. 1. Journal of the American-Irish Society, Vol, I 1898 u H II M II n ’ V01, II 1899 MacgeOphegan History of Ireland, Ancient & Modern; trans. from French by Pat O'Kelly Moore's History of Ireland, Vol. I 1846 Prendergast Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland 1868 M.D. Fothergill The Vaso-Renal Change vs. Bright's 1887 Disease Bell The Hand 1852 Standish O'Grady Red Hughes Captivity 1889 O'Donovan History of Ireland in Verse 1854 Rock Memoirs of Capt. Rock. 2nd ed. 1824 Julia Young Thistledown 1893 Ellis M.D. The Medical Formulary 1834 The Battle of MaghLeana (Trans. by Curry) 1855 O'Donoghue Brendoniana 1893 Bierman Cathechism 1878 Cudmore The Irish Republic 1871 Hunt POpular Romance of the West of 1881 England Joyce Irish Names & Places 1875 The Tone-Masters--Handel & Hayden 1871 173 Moore Froude's History of Ireland Vol.I Froude's History of Ireland Vol. II M. P. Shiel Sketches of the Irish Bar Vol. I & II Thos. Carlyle French Revolution Vol. I & II Freeman Twilight Dreams O'Donovan Book of Rights (Dublin) Gregg Irish History of England Napier's Peninsular War Legislative Manual Minnesota Criminal Code of Minnesota O'Connor Chronicles of Erin, or Irish PeOple Vol. I & II (London) Hallam's Literature of EurOpe Vol. I & II Dawnt Eighty-five years Irish History (London) Meighan The Fate and Fortunes Of the Earls of Tyrone & Tyronell Curtin Myths & Folklore of Ireland Eliz. Berkmaier Poseidon's Paradise Wm. J. Doherty Inis-Owen & Triconnell Buckle History of Civilization in England Vol. I & II Theological Pamphlets (Rebound) Currans Speeches Hay History of The Irish Rebellion McGee Irish Settlers in America Johathan Pim Conditions & PrOSpects of Ireland Latham Prichards Celtic Nations Gilbert History of the Viceroys Ex-Member Cronin Mystery McEnnes The Clan-Na-Gael & The Murder of Dr. Eulogies of Adams & Jefferson S.N. Wood of Kansas. In Memorium Members Historical Society Of Montana Memorial Addresses on Life & Character of Thaddeus Stevens (two cOpies) Two Books of Addresses of Friends in Donnelly's handwriting Bennett A Breed of Barren Metal Currencies Eleanor Donnelly Petronilla & Other Stories Cronin Everett Fish, M.D. Donnelliana Blair Chronology McGee Life of Rt. Rev. Edward Maginn Eleanor Donnelly Our Birthday Bouquet Karl Gerok Palmblfltter (German poetry) Eleanor Donnelly Christian Carols of Love & Life Personal Pamphlets of Ignatius Donnelly Atlantis, die Vorsintflutliche Welt (German trans. of Atlantis) Miscellaneous Pamphlets bound by Donnelly Curios Pamphlets bound by Donnelly Pamphlets on Atlantis bound by Donnelly Parnham's Pictorial Travels in California & Oregon (Life, Adventure, Travels, Conquests in California) 1873 1835 1854 1873 1853 1847 1886 1855 1891 1885 1822 1842 1888 1868 1890 1892 1891 1873 1871 1798 1855 1848 1857 1865 1889 1889 1826 1892 1873 1869 1895 1895 1892 1832 1860 1884 1881 1898 1895 1850 174 Eleanor Donnelly Legend of the Best-beloved Poems Donnelly The Mourner's Vision (2 cOpies) (Donnelly wrote this at age 17) Caesar's Column (Swedish translation) Eleanor Donnelly Conversion of St. Augustine & Other Poems Eleanor Donnelly The Tuscan Magdalen & Other Poems Kelso Plantation of Ireland Eleanor Donnelly Domus Dei Donnelly The American PeOple's Money Eleanor Donnelly Life of Sister Mary Gonzaga Grace Analysis of Sounds in English Language. Pronunciation test. A. Mitchell The Past in the Present Wm. H. Lyon The Pe0p1e's Problem Comment on above: It is believed to be the first book ever published in the Territory of Dakota. E. Reclus The History of a Mountain A.C. Smith History of Meeker County, Minn. J. A. Seiss Miracle in Stone Stephens Travels in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan. 2 vol. Prince Adalbert's Travels 2 vol. G. Smith Sacred Annals 4 vols. E. Tregear Maori-Polynesian Comparative Diction. New Zealand edition J. Steele Fourteen Week's Course in Geology H. M. Field History of the Atlantic Telegraph Dana Text-book of Geology A. Guyot The Earth and Man A. Rosengarten Architectural Styles J. Droll Climate & Time J. Croll Stellar Evolution J. E. Taylor Geological Stories S.R. Van Campen The Dutch in the Arctic Seas F. Lenormant The Beginnings of History J. D. Beldwin Ancient America R. F. Burton Etruscan Bologna Agassiz & Gould Principles of Biology Capt. John Smith Advertisements for Inexperienced Planters Limited edition, 250 c0pies printed. Capt. John Smith Description of New England John Josselyn, Gent New England Rarities John Josselyn, Gent Two Voyages to New England Three above limited to 250 cOpies) T. Fitzpatrick An Autumn Cruise in the Aegean E. Tregear Arran Maori (Letter) B. Thorpe Northern Mythology A. Winchell Sketches of Creation A. Winchell Sparks from a Geologist's Hammer J. Wright Bricks from Babel J. G. Bourke Scatalogic Rites of All Nations D. Urquhart The Pillars Of Hercules 2 vol. LeOpold Ranke The History of Servia 1880 1850 1891 1887 1896 1865 1875 1895 1900 1803 1881 1886 1881 1877 1877 1877 1849 1891 1871 1866 1863 1855 1878 1875 1890 1874 1878 1882 1878 1876 1848 1865 1865 1865 1865 1877 1885 1851 1872 1881 1885 1891 1855 1853 O. Kendall J. Priest N. Davis R.M. Dorman R.B. Anderson E. Young J.E. Harting H. Schellen G. Smith Margaret Verrall Sir John Lubbock Max Muller Sir Geo. Grey S. Surtees 175 Uranagraph, or a Description of the Heavens American Antiquities Carthage and Her Remains The Origin of Primitive Superstitions The Younger Edda Labor in EurOpe and America Extinct British Animals Spectrum Analysis Assyrian Discoveries Mythology and Monuments of Ancient Athens Pre-Historic Times Chips from a German Workshop (2 vol. 1st vol. listed above) Polynesian Mythology Sir Anthony Sherley--The Authorship of Shakespeare's Plays 1844 1834 1861 1881 1880 1876 1880 1872 1875 1890 1872 1869 1885 1888 Journals of the Proceedings of the American Assoc. for the 1883-1884 Advancement of Science . P. Marsh . Whitney . Merriam . Totten O>£>>O Who's Who in America Collins J. P. MacLean H. R. Schoolcraft J. D. Baldwin W. D. Whitney Rudolf Falb W. K. Moorehead Curtin W. S. Blacket H. L. Gordon G. Rawlinson R. G. Latham Fr. Lenormant Mrs. H. Pott H. Spencer A. Forestier G. Rawlinson D. Kirkwood Carmona Diaz E. F. Berlioux de Quatrefages de Quatrefages Man and Nature 1867 The Human Species 1879 The Pygmies 1895 Life & Growth of Language 1876 The Phaecian Episode of the Odyssey 1880 The Millenium 1892 1899-1900 Guide for Pennsylvania Railroad 1855 A Manual of the Antiquity of Man 1879 The Myth of Hiawatha & Other Legends 1856 Prehistoric Nations 1877 Oriental and Linguistic Studies 1874 Das Land Der Incas 1883 (Leipzig) Prehistoric Implements of Pre-Columbian Man in America 1900 Creation Myths of Primitive America 1898 Lost Histories of America 1884 Legends of the Northwest 1881 Origin of Nations 1881 Man and His Migrations 1852 Ancient History of the East (2 vols.) 1871 Francis Bacon and His Secret Society 1891 An Examination of the PhilosOphy of the Unknowable 1883 Echoes from.Mistland, or the 1877 Nibelungen Egypt and Babylon 1855 Comets and Meteors 1873 La Atlantida (poem in Spanish) 1884 Les Atlantes 1883 176 W. F. Warren Paradise Found (Cradle of the Human Race at the North Pole) Sir C. Cox Mythology and Folklore J. Fiske Myths and Myth-Makers L. E. Poor Sanskrit and Kindred Literatures Mezzina Roth Book of Algoonah (Mound-builders) H. Miller Testimony of the Rocks T. H. Huxley Lay Sermons, Addresses, and Reviews L. Figuier World Before the Deluge The Comet, or the Earth in her Varied Phases "Non Quis? Sed Quid?" A Traveler Frost and Fire (2 vol.) D. McCausland The Builders of Babel H. H. Bancroft The Native Races of the Pacific States of North America American Hero-myths (A study in the native Religions of the Western Continent) Discoveries of America to the year 1525 Wonders of Geology Vol. 2 The Book, called "JOB" from the D. G. Brinton A. J. Weisse G. A. Mantell O. S. Halsted Hebrew E. B. Tylor Researches into the Early History of Mankind G. W. Fitch Outlines of Physical Geography W. B. Dawkins D. McCausland J. P. MacLean J. P. MacLean J. Evans Early Man in Britain Man Before Metals Mastodon, Mammoth, and Man Mound Builders Ancient Stone Implements, Weapons, and Ornaments of Great Britain D. G. Brinton Myths Of the New World Great Mackenzie Basin Resource. 3d. Report Of the Select Com. of the Senate Fourth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology First Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, J. W. Powell Contributions to North American Ethnology, Vol. 4 Powell Report upon U.S. Geographical Surveys Vol. VII Memorial Addresses of Allen T. Caperton Illustrations: Owen's Geological Survey of Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota Rational System of Mining--Sutro Tunnel in Nevada F. W. Doughty Evidences of Man in the Drift S. Salisbury The Mayas Mexican Calendar Stone Goldsmith's History Of the Earth and Animated Nature (Scotland) Book of Life and Light T. G. McCall Kaffir Folk-lore Ko-Ji-Ki--Records of Ancient Matters trans. by Chamberlain New Zealand Official Year-book 1890 1881 1881 1880 1884 1860 1871 1872 1869 1865 1874 1875 1882 1884 1839 1875 1878 1856 1880 1877 1880 1879 1872 1876 1888 1896 1881 1881 1879 1877 1868 1892 1877 1879 1891 1894 1894 177 Records of the American Catholic Hist. Soc'y. of 1886 Philadelphia C. A. L. Totten Our Race The Riddle