The Henson Journals

[157]

Monday, October 28th, 1912.

Ella showed signs of distress, said that she must breakfast in bed, must'nt travel today & so forth, accompanying the statement with significant snuffings & coughings indicative of extreme guttural affliction. It seems a humiliating thing to propose an extension of our stay to this excellent Suffragette, whose activities – educational & political – are endless, & just now acute, but Que voulez vous? Necessity has no law.

Ella having retired from the expedition to Valley Forge, I had as my comrade Miss Maud Lowrie, who proved to be a pleasant & intelligent companion. The day was perfect: soft air, bright sun, a gentle illusive haze, & a most beautiful country all radiant in the moribund majesties of autumn. We read all the monuments to the soldiers; were shown the holes in which the men burrowed for heat during the bitter weather; the rough (re–constructed) log–hospital: the museum (filled with unspeakable rubbish); the memorial chapel; & the great oven. I observed two men engaged in tapping & handling a chestnut tree: they told me that they were collecting specimens of the strange disease which is destroying the chestnuts, to the great loss & defacement of the country. The disease is spread by contagion, & is a rotting fungus, not an insect pest. We returned 'each with other pleased, & loth to part', vowing everlasting friendship.

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I conducted prayers at 8.45 a.m. & addressed the students.

At lunch Miss Thomas poured out her soul on the subject of American corruption & plutocratic tyranny. It was a truly amazing picture that she drew in vigourous [sic] word–strokes of description of the situation in Pennsylvania. The Quaker State has an evil record in respect of corruption. The monopolies play into one another's unclean hands, & thus create a meticulous system of corrupt control, which is fatal to every person & every interest which seems to threaten its power. The Pennsylvania Railway owns, or partly owns, coal mines: it compels the citizen to buy the coal from those mines, by rendering the delivery of any other coal practically impossible. Typhoid ravaged the Philadelphians, but the unclean water supply was owned by another monopolizing trust, which for 30 years was able to stop any provision of a purer water supply. The corruption is enormously extended by the indirect action of a well–meant law which orders the distribution of the annual state surplus among charities, at the discretion of the legislators. This surplus commonly amounts to a very large sum; & the various charities are bound to the support of the reigning corruption by the annual grants which from this source they receive. Miss Thomas gave instances from her own knowledge of philanthropic individuals refusing to assist in social reform, because their appearance on a reforming [159] [symbol] platform wd endanger the annual state grant, on which some specific philanthropical work depended in order to make both ends meet. The educational system was the victim of the prevailing debasement. In order to get a post in a school, the most effectual form of application was to collect the names of as many voters as possible, & pledge these to the local Boss in return for his assistance! She gave the case of an acquaintance of her own, a notable thick–head, who yet succeeded against all expectation in passing the examination required for an important position in the Department of Police. She pressed him to explain his success, for the supposition that he could have passed the examination honestly was frankly admitted to be absurd. He explained that he had been furnished beforehand with a complete list of the questions & the answers; & had merely contributed the exertion of copying the last on to his papers! The police are the avowed allies & servants of the corrupting Monopolists, & thus an evil circle is created in which the honest man is imprisoned without hope of relief. She gave a case of an honest Philadelphian grocer who had been rash enough to express his sympathy with the Social Reformers. The police at once embarrassed his business by their cynical activities. No waggon might come up to his door to discharge goods: &, in fine, he found the conduct of his business impossible, & had given up the struggle, going westwards as an emigrant.

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Miss Thomas is a partisan, & an enthusiast: but she is an unusually intelligent & well–informed woman. It is not necessary to take so dark a view of her opponents as she offers, or to regard with such indiscriminating fervour those whom she approves: but, when all allowances are made, it cannot be doubted that the condition of public life in this country is very bad.

She told me this story. When Murray Butler was appointed President of Columbia University, of which it is said that no less than half the students are Jews, he received a telegram from Mr Choate consisting merely a Biblical reference. He looked it out in his Bible, & read the words: "He that watched over Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps…" The Jews are said to be notably niggards in the matter of contributing to the Universities which they frequent. Miss Thomas said the Jewish girls at her college were more difficult to manage than the rest, being far more disposed to 'stand on their rights', as they expressed it! They have an unamiable record, & are not popular.

We left Bryn Mawr after lunch, & proceeded to Philadelphia, where we put up at the Bellevue–Stratford.

We had tea to the accompaniment of music & singing, and paid 70 cents for it, to which we added a tip of 20 c. This means at least 3/6 for what in England could certainly have been obtained for half that money.

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I reflect on the significance of the Dean's telegram. It ran thus: 'Would you accept deanery Durham Official Herbert Ryle.' It may surely be assumed that 'official' means 'I am authorized by the Prime Minister to inquire.' Surely, if it does not mean that – if the Dean merely wished to know whether he might press my name on the P.M. for that preferment – he wd have been bound to say 'unofficial'. Would it be a defensible proceeding to send such a telegram with any less authority than that of the P.M.? Could the P.M. authorize the sending of such a telegram without being morally bound, in the event of an affirmative answer, to offer the Deanery? Could he reasonably incur such a responsibility without first ascertaining whether H.M. wd be willing to approve such an appointment? The Dean is not inexperienced in public affairs: he is not by temperament a rash or unconsidering person: he could not be ignorant of the inevitable consequence of such a telegram in creating an expectation: in compelling an expression of my mind he could only be justified by a definite & imperative reason: & nothing less than the P.M.'s explicit direction cd provide such a reason. I concluded, therefore, that if I am not appointed to the Deanery of Durham, I shall have a just cause of complaint against the Dean of Westminster, or against the Prime Minister, or, conceivably, against both. Nevertheless, the dubiety of the whole method is irritating & disconcerting.

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It was a curious circumstance that Miss Thomas calls her house 'the Deanery'. It is also significant that the Deanery of Durham satisfies the condition suggested by the text which has run in my head for years: 'Promotion cometh neither from the east nor from the west: nor yet from the South'. The moment also accords with my common surmise, that, if I do yield to my wife's insistence, & spend some money on the house in Dean's Yard, I shall probably be promoted before I can get any use of the expenditure. In point of fact I shall have just thrown away £50 or £60 in excess of the dilapidations. To leave Westminster is to surrender the chance of becoming Chaplain to the House of Commons. Probably, as soon as I am out of the way, Wilberforce will die, or resign: & my successor will become Chaplain. It is in accordance with the precedents of my life that decisive experiences shd take place on or about my Birthday. November is the fatal month with me. Then I was born: then I went to a detestable private school: then I was elected a Fellow of All Souls: then I was appointed Vicar of Barking: then my Father died: then I was appointed Canon of Westr. If then, I become Dean of Durham in November, it will but add another to the list of critical events, which have determined the course & colour of my life. What a strange & persistent thing is superstition! How often we are cheated & yet how ready we continue for fresh impositions!

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Issues and controversies: female suffrage