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By ELMO SCOTT WATSON
E WAS BOHN 150 year', ago—on Lep
tember 1, 1785.
At the age of seventeen he was an
“exhorter.”
By the time he was a year older, he
■ was a regularly ordained preacher (at
the munificent salary of $80 a year—
"which nine times out of ten 1 got
only In part”) ami for the next 70
years he rode up and down the land
carrying the Word to the remotest
settlements.
During Unit time he preached more than 15,000
sermons and baptised more than 12,000 persons.
And those are only the highlights In the career
of Peter Cartwright, backwoods Methodist
preacher, circuit rider and one of the most pic
turesque figures In the history of the American
frontier. Because he spoke Hie language of the
pioneering folk, could hold ids own as a man
among men In the rough-and tumble of debate
or of physical encounter but, more particularly,
because of Ids eccentricities, the legends of him
“were almost numberless. They were as famil
iar at ttie firesides of an older generation as the
(ales of the Cid were to the people of Spain in
the olden times. Not Mr. Travers or Davy
Crockett nor hardly even President Lincoln was
the subject of more anecdotes than this ouch
beloved itinerant preacher.”
A native of Amherst county, Virginia, Cart
wright, when six years old, was taken by Ills
parents to Kentucky. They settled first In Lin
coln county, near the present site of Lancaster,
then moved to a place south of Rushville In
I-ogan county, within a mile of the Kentucky
Tennessee boundary line. Cartwright describes
this section as such a haunt for refugees from
justice that It was called “Rogues’ Harbor,”
filled with "murderers, horse thieves, highway
robbers and counterfeiters.” Certainly it was
virgin soil for the labors of the future preacher
and It gave him valuable experience for the role
which be was to play In the future In the from
tier country of the Mislsslppl Valley.
in 15111 young Lariwnglll was rouimru uiiu
united with the Ebenezer Methodist Episcopal
church. lie displayed such talent and fervor
in speaking that the following year he received
from the Society of Kbenez.er permission to ex
ercise his gifts ns an exhorter so long as his
exhorting conformed to its doctrines. In 1803
he became a rogulnr traveling preacher or circuit
rider on the Ited ltiver circuit. Within nine
years lie was a presiding elder In Kentucky and
in Illinois to which he removed In 1823. He held
that office for half a century, during which time
the membership of the church within his juris
diction grew from 72,000 to 1,750,000.
One of his contemporaries has left us thla
vivid word picture of the famous circuit rider.
Telling of attending services in a little church
In Illinois, he says:
“Our attention was arrested by a strange ap
parition striding up the aisle. All seemed whis
pering to their neighbors, ‘There he goes!1 nnd
all eyes were riveted upon a man of medium
height, thickset, with enormous bone and muscle,
and although his Iron-gray hair and wrinkled
brew told of the advance of years his step was
still vigorous and firm. His face was bronzed
by exposure to the weather; he carried a white
Quaker hat In Ids hand, and his upper garment
was a furniture-calico dressing gown without
wadding. The truant breeze seemed to seize
tills garment by its skirt, nnd, lifting it to a level
with ills armpits, disclosed to the gazing congre
gation a full view of the copperas-colored panta
loons and shirt of the divine—for lie was a dl
vine, and one worth a dny’s Journey to see.
“He hud then been a backwoods preacher for
nearly 40 years, ranging the country from the
takes to the (lulf nnd from the Alleghenies to
the Mississippi. He was Inured to every form
of hardship and had looked calmly at peril of
every kind—the tomahawk of the Indian, the
spring of the panther, the hug of the bear, the
sweep of the tornado, the rush of swollen tor
rents, nnd the fearful chasm of the earthquake.
He had Iain In the canebrake nnd made his bed
upon the snow of the prairie and on the oozy
soil of the swamp, and had wandered, hunger
bitten, among the solitudes of the mountains. He
had been In Jeopardy among robbers and in dan
ger from desperadoes who had sworn to take his
life. He had preached In the cabin of the slave
and the mansion of the master, to the Indians
and to the men of the border. He had taken
his life In his hands and had ridden In the path
of whizzing bullets, that he might proclaim peace.
He had stood on the outskirts of civilization and
welcomed the first comers to the woods and
prairies.
“Many a son of Anak had been leveled in the
dust by his sledgellke fist, and when the blind
fury of his assailants urged him headlong lntc
personal conflict with him Ills agility, strength
and resolution gave them cause for bitter re
pentance.
"Such was the man that now stood before us
la the desk, the famous presiding elder of 1111
nols—the renowned Peter Cartwright.”
Truly a churchman militant was this same
rioowued Peter Cartwright. One story told ol
i
him Is he handled a hand of rowdies who had
boasted that they would break up a revival meet
ing which he was holding In a little Illinois
church. They gathered in the back of the church
and began causing a disturbance while Cart
wright was praying. He continued praying but
opened one eye to locate the troublemakers. Sud
denly he sprang over the pulpit, strode down the
aisle and seized the two ringleaders. Bearing
them down to the floor he sat astride of them
and began pounding their heads on the floor.
“Well, . .. boys, ... if ... I .. . can't . . . beat
. . . religion . . . into . . . you . . . I’ll . . . beat
. . . the . . . devil . . . out . . . of . . . you!” ex
claimed the sturdy circuit rider, punctuating Ids
remarks with the thumps of the rowdies' heads
upon the floor
Because of such picturesque fents ns this, It
wns only natural the legends should cluster
around tlie name of Peter Cartwright, some of
them having a slight basis of fact and some no
such basis at all. Of the latter class was the
yarn of Cartwright's encounter with Mike Fink,
the renowned "King of the Mississippi Flatboal
Men" and the terror of that river nnd of the
Ohio. It was Fink's custom to challenge a new
acquaintance to a knock-dcwn-and-drag-out en
counter to see if~rh»rm?wWtRer was worthy of
his friendship. According to the story, Cart
wright was so challenged, promptly accepted and
gnve Fink a .sound thrashing, thereby winning
I jMWWHII11 iiiii
3Vic Circuit Rkten/Statue Salcrn^O/io*
his enduring friendship. Cartwright himself Is
authority for the statement that, although he
had heard a great deal about Mike during his
travels throughout the Mississippi valley, he had
never met the flotboat man, so naturally no such
encounter ever took place. •
Another such story has to do with Andrew
Jackson. It relates how Jackson attended a
meeting at which Cartwright was preaching.
Seeing “Old Hickory” enter the church one of
tlie elders whispered to the circuit rider: ‘’Broth
er Cartwright, you must he careful how you
preach tonight. General Jackson has just come
In.” Thereupon Cartwright replied In a loud
voice: "What do you suppose I care for General
Jackson? If he don't repent his sins, he will
go to hell like any other man.” This produced
great consternation In the minds of the congre
gation, for they believed that the flery-tempered
Jackson would cane the preacher at the first op
portunity. Instead Jackson Is said to have met
him the next morning, greeted him cordially and
said: “Sir, you are a preacher after my own
heart. If I had a regiment of such men as you
I'd conquer the earth."
It seems a shame to spoil such a good story,
but here Is what Cartwright lias to say about It:
"There Is no truth in that story. It is true 1
had a preaching place In the neighborhood of the
Hermitage (Jackson's home near Nashville,
Tenn.) The General occasionally caine to our
meetings, and I had been Invited to the Hermi
tage. We were always on friendly terms.”
Cartwright Is also said to have been the orlg
Inal of the story, told by Edward Eggleston In
his book “The Circuit Rider," of the preacher
who worked a turbulent audience up to a pitch
of fury by tils fearless denunciation of their
wickedness, and then just as they were making
a rush toward him, he blew out the candles on
the pulpit—the only light In the church—and
escaped unharmed while the members of the
crowd, milling around in the darkness, were
clawing, scratching and belaboring each other
in their frenzy.
Religion In those days was frequently a strenu
ous affair, as Cartwright himself has testified.
"A new exercise broke out among us, called
the jerks," he says, “which was overwhelming
In its effects upon the bodies and minds of the
people. Whether saints or sinners, they would
be taken under a warm song or sermon and
seized with a convulsive Jerking all over, which
they could not avoid. I have seen more than
500 persons Jerking at one time. To obtain re
lief, they would rise up and dance. Some would
run, but could not get away.
“To see these proud young gentlemen and
young ladles, dressed In their silks, Jewelry and
prunella from top to toe, take the Jerks would
often excite my risibilities. The first Jerk or so,
you would see their fine bonnets, caps and combs
Qf 'VTletkodvAt- CiAcuit- Ri.cUa/
( 3>vnru OivOfd- Y/oocb Cutd
fly; ami so sudden would be the Jerking of the
head that their long loose hair would crack al
most as loud as a wagoner's whip.”
From tills it may he inferred that this ex
pounder of the ‘‘old-time religion" didn't ap
prove of “ladles of fashion.” This Impression
is strengthened by his statement that “they
would faint If they had to walk 100 yards In
the sun without a parasol; they wore braced and
stayed to such an extent that they could not
step more than six or eight Inches at a time.
Should they by any accident happen to lose their
moorings and fall, they are Imprisoned with so
many unmentionables that they could not get up
again."
Just as he disapproved of such vainglorious
folk in the larger settlements of the Middle West,
so did he have his own methods of rebuking the
supercilious attitude of big city dwellers toward
country folk. On his first visit to New York
he went to the famed Astor House. A haughty
clerk, regarding the roughly-clad frontiersman
as a “regular hayseed," assigned him to a room
away up tinder the roof. In a little while a bell
from that room summoned the servnnt who had
shown the circuit rider to ills quar^prg.
No sooner hnd the servant returhed from his
trip up several flights of stairs (for there were
no elevators in those days) than he was called
back. This was repeated several times until
finally the servant reported to the clerk that the
guest in that room “must be crazy.” Asked to
explain, he replied: "The first time he called me
up there he wanted to know how we were get
ting nlong down here. The next time he was
bothered by the bell on the city hall and want
ed to know where the lire was. This last time
he said he wanted an ax."
“An ax?" asked the clerk incredulously.
“Yes, sir, an ax.”
“What In creation docs he want with an ax."
“I don't know, sir, but he insisted that he must
have one.”
So the clerk climbed up to the distant room
and demanded an explanation of the unusual re
quest.
__» t .1 ntionsfullir
'back In my state when a man has a distance
to go In a strange country he blnzes his way
with an ax, so that he may know how to get
back. I want to leave my room, and I want to
blaze my way so that I can find it again."
“Who are you, anyway?" asked the astonished
clerk.
“My name Is Peter Cartwright,” replied the old
man humbly and Immediately he was given a
better room, for the fame of the great circuit
rider had penetrated even to the benighted In
habitants of Manhattan.
Cartwright was not only one of the most noted
circuit riders this country has ever known but
he was also a prominent figure in politics In the
period before the Civil war. When the Metho
dist church divided on the slavery question In
1844 (a schism which lasted for. 80 yenrs) Cart
wright stood firmly upon his principles, declar
ing “God will show my deluded brethren tin
error of their way and bring them back to the
way of righteousness.” However, lie was not In
favor of trying to solve the slavery problem by
force, for lie said: “I believe the most successful
way to ameliorate the condition ef the slaves
and Christianize them and finally secure their
freedom Is to treat their owners kindly and not
meddle politically with slavery."
In 1840 Cartwright was the Democratic candi
date for congress from an Illinois district but
he lost In the election to a young lawyer named
Abraham Lincoln. Thirteen years later he was
an ardent supporter of the candidacy of Lin
coln's famous debate opponent, Stephen A. Doug
las, for the Democratic nomination for President,
and made impassioned speeches In Douglas’ be
half.
By 1803, when the Civil war was at Its height,
Cartwright's views on slavery had undergone a
change. In that year a Methodist conference
was held at Springfield, 111., and It was to be
opened with a prayer meeting to ask for success
for the Union army and a speedy peace. The
venerable “Uncle Peter” Cartwright was chosen
to ofTer up the first prayer. "0, Lord, If slavery
be the cause of this cruel war, remove It,” he
cried. A loud chorus of a mens followed. Then
Cartwright cried out “O, Lord, remove It any
way !’* and a louder chorus of “amens I" than
ever before went up from the throng gathered
there.
Cartwright lived to see bis prayer answered.
Be died at his home near Pleasant Plains, 111.,
on September 25, 1872, at the age of eighty-eight,
leaving behind him a record which has few
equal* In the annals of the church In America
C WstMra Nawspips Uoisa.
II What Do We Mean by “America”?
_
I1..: -
By WILLIAM C. UTLEY
YOU'RE going to hear plenty in the 1935 election cam
paigns about “what American wants” and “what Ameri
ca needs.” These are phrases which roll off a political
orator's tongue like peas off a boarding house knife.
It takes all kinds of people to make a nation. Left: Nearly
5,000,000 Americans are criminals, but more than 4,000,000 are at
large. Center: Probably 20,000,000 are on the dole. Right: Only 46
persons have a million-dollar income.
And before you and I try to fig
ure out which one of these spell
binders Is right about ‘‘what Amer
ica needs" It might be well to know
Just what they're talking about when
they say •‘America.” Certainly when
they tell us that what will solve
America’s problem ‘‘from the rock
hound const of Maine to the shores
of sunny California" Is a tax on
mustache cups or a return to mul
tiple petticoats, they are not talk
ing about the land itself.
No elm tree ever started a com
munist meeting under Its shade In
the public park. No mountain ever
wrote a letter to the editor which
hegnn: ‘‘Sir: I note, not without
gome due alarm, that things have
come to a pretty pass when, etc."
The land never needed anything un
til we started living on It.
When the stump-speakers refer to
‘‘America” they mean us—you and
I and those awful Smiths or Joneses
or Czerwinskls who ran that un
speakable speakeasy below the
tracks. They mean society.
And what is Iwclety In Ame$|ca‘?
There nre some 130,000,000 of ‘‘us."
To decide what 130,000,000 people
need, let’s find out what kind of
people they are.
The contrasts between class
groups Is really as startling as that
between Individuals. To begin at
the very bottom of our society, there
are, according to J. Edgar Hoover
and the Department of Justice, no
less than 4,811,80(5 active criminals
whose fingerprints are on file In
Washington. A few thousand of
these nre conscienceless, bold ras
cals who would slit their own grand
mother's throat for five bucks, hut
the vast majority are only petty
crooks who would steal the pennies
out of a blind man’s cup, or put on
dark glasses and pretend to be blind
men themselves.
Probably 20,000,000 nre on the
dole—getting relief. There Is un
doubtedly some overlapping be
tween tills and the first group.
Three-fourths of all the nation’s
families live on Incomes of less than
$2,000 a year. And there nre only
40 persons—one In every 2,820,087—
whose Income Is $1,000,000 a year or
more.
main/ v*i uuno uw n se.
Roughly, and purely for the pur
pose of comparison, our society may
be cleaved Into two divisions, ad
mittedly arbitrary. They are 75
per cent of the families on less than
$2/100 Income and the other 25 per
cent, some merely solvent, some
"well-to-do” and some wealthy.
In the larger group are approxi
mately 97,000,000 persons. These
Include all but a few of the 4,S11,
806 criminals, proving that crime
does not pay. Only about 12,000 are
regarded os “big shots,” public en
emies, by the Department of Jus
tice. Yet crime is said to cost $12,
000,000/100 to $15,000,000,000 In
America.
Federal and stnte prisons and re
formatories In 19,12 were entertain
ing only 64,447 "guests." The num
ber of persons In city and county
Jails Is believed to fluctuate around
300,000. These totals leave more
than 4,000,000 criminals actually
practicing their art.
Living conditions of the great
mass of 20,000,000 on relief are cer
tainly much below standard, but
these conditions vary greatly with
the geography of the country. To
people on relief In Mississippi or
Arkansas, the living standards of
relief families In Chicago, New York
or one of the other larger cities
would look pretty good. The whole
group Is equal In the condition that
it has been parted from all valu
able possessions.
Research conducted by the PWA
reveals that 36 per cent of all the
housing In the United States Is
“definitely substandard.” In some
southern states, where the share
cropper and Ills 111 lot are a famil
iar tigure, there are many cnses of
10 or 12 persons living In shncks of
one or two rooms.
Relief Standards Are Poor.
In 1930 any apartment in Chicago
which rented for less than $30
a month was likely to be far be
low standard, with such a thing as
a bath tub regarded as a luxury,
and with rooms having no outside
window a commonplace. Yet at that
time nearly one-fourth of all hous
ing In Chicago rented for less than
$30 a month and nearly one-tenth
for less than $20.
Not all relief families live by
such standards, of course, hut those
who don’t nre the exception—re
habilitated farm families, for ex
ample. But It may be said that at
best all relief living is subsistence
living or less, and that malnutri
tion Is common and starvation some
times existent.
A large portion of the farm fami
lies of course fall Into the class
which have a yearly Income of less
than $2,000. Since the fnrmer Is
abw to raise much of what he and
his family eat, this income would
he proportionately grenter than the
same Income for a city family.
Yet that would be speaking Of
the average In the class. It must
be remembered that Individuals in
each one of these class groups vary
with amazing difference. In the
southern Appalachians, even in the
golden year 1929, there were 52
counties where the annual Income
per farm person was less than $100
—and even this Is an average!
These people, too, must he consid
ered when we speak of “what
America needs"—yet they, with their
primitive methods and manners, be
long to the Eighteenth century
more thnn to the Twentieth.
More than 10,000,000 of the 49,
000,000 gainfully employed persons
In 1930 were employed in agricul
ture. Most of these fall below the
$2,000 line. In fact In only a few
farm counties was Income equal to
that In Industrial areas.
Thirty Million on Farms.
Some light may be thrown on the
living status of the farmer today
when it Is cited that even In town
62 per cent of all the farmers nre
tenants. The tenant-farmer situa
tion In the South, with Its desper
ate plight of the share-cropper, who
lives at the very lowest ebb of sub
sistence standards, has been widely
publicised of late.
When the political orator says
“we, the people," he Includes,
whether he knows It or not, 30,000,
000 persons who are dependent upon
farming for a living. Ilow do these
people live? The fucts may surprise
you.
■ If the figures compounded by
Morris L. Cooke, head of the It oral
Electrification administration, are
correct, 23,000,000 of those people
have derived little benefit from the
inventions and the advances of sci
ence which nre said to have so much
bettered our living standards In re
cent years.
Here is what he claims to have
found out: That 03 per cent of all
persons who make their living from
the soil have neither bath tub nor
shower. That 76 per cent are still
lighting their homes with either
gasoline or kerosene or less effi
cient means; that 10 per cent of
this figure either use candles or go
without artificial light. That 73 per
cent have to carry wnter from wells
or other sources of supply. That 33
per cent use fireplaces In heating
their homes.
These estimates seem to have
been substantiated by another gov
ernment bureau, the PWA, whose
research men say that between 75
and 80 per cent of all farm homes
have no modern conveniences what
ever. It Is safe to say that all of
anch homes fall below the $2,000
Income.
i\ow we come to another group,
and in the transition it Is well to
remind ourselves that there is
bound to he some dupllcntion In
segregating the various classes.
Six Kinds of Workers.
The census bureau divides all
workers into six classes—profes
sional persons, proprietors and man
agers, clerks, skilled workers and
foremen, semi skilled workers, and
unskilled workers. At least the un
skilled and semi-skilled workers
come Into the class of less than
$2,000 Income. There were nearly
.1,000,000 semi-skilled workers listed
In the 1930 census, but this figure
has probably shrunk considerably
since then because of the Increase
In unemployment.
Among the “clerks and kindred
workers” In 1930 there were 4,877,
235 men and 3,072,220 women, most
of whom were office workers and
hovered just a little below the $2,000
mark. Most of them live In houses
or flats of three to five rooms, and
some have a small car. You don’t
really begin to get above the $2,000
mark until you get into the "skilled
workers and foremen,” and even
then It Is difficult to tell Just how
many are above. The group which
the depression has injured least is
that labeled “proprietors and man
agers.” Unskilled workers, of course,
have suffered most, although not
much more than the "professional
persons.”
jiik great uuik or tile
persons whose Income In 1933 was
between $2,500 and $5,000 comprises
“proprietors and managers.” These
folk, on the whole, live comfortably
In the better suburbs In houses that
cost $12,500 up and were all built
severnl years ago. They have econ
omized largely by limiting them
selves to only one car, cutting down
on the number of servants and send
ing their children to the state uni
versities Instead of the more ex
pensive private schools.
They and their families are the
great “middle class." Figuring four
to a family, this class totals about
13,350,000 persons. Of all the Amer
icans filing Income tax returns on
Incomes of more than $2,500, 91 per
cent were In the $2,500 to $5,000
class. There were only 318,456 per
sons, or about 1,273,824 In families
with revenues between $5,000 and
$10,000. Certainly this would Indi
cate that the top class, In regard
to Income, the class making more
than $10,000 a year, constitutes a
very small slice of the nation's pop
ulation.
Another group severely hit by the
depression has been the “profes
sional” class—doctors, lawyers, ar
tists, actors, reporters and the like.
Many of these In the pnst two or
three years have dropped Into the
division below $2,000 and many
more are even worse off. Relief
rolls Include plenty of dentists, doc
tors and nrtists.
Teachers Have Suffered.
There are of course a few at the
peak of each profession who have
large Incomes. Rut the majority
of artists, authors, actors and re
porters have not. A recent survey,
which was concerned principally
with metropolitan newspapers, where
the wage scale Is higher than It Is
on small town papers, placed the
average reporter’s salary at a little
more than $38 a week.
At the end of our study of the
population are the 46 persons whose
incomes are more than $1,000,000 a
year. They are, to most of ns who
read newspapers, not a class but a
group of Individuals whose names
are more or less familiar In head
lines.
This, then, Is “America." We have
to remember the problems of all
these vastly different classes when
we ponder with the orator ovat
| "what America needs.”
1 • WMUrn Newvp&pcr Untom.