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Gentleman



Not many months ago the great-great-granddaughter of Benjamin Franklin applied for membership in one of the women's patriotic societies, and was refused admission because the ancestor named was not a gentleman.

I shall not discuss the question, “What constitutes a gentleman?” for the press was filled at the time with satirical paragraphs concerning the matter, but I shall look back for a few moments at the character and deeds of the great American — the most complete representative of his time; and as we gaze into his kindly face, or try to visualize him, with his stout, middle-sized figure, his trim, sober clothes, his fresh complexion; as we read his lazy, familiar letters; as we tell over his innumerable acts of kindness; as we follow, day by day, his life spread out before us in that genuine classic, the Autobiography, I think we shall find that, as a wit, scientist, leader, and man of letters, Franklin was the epitome of his age, and that his great-great- granddaughter's claim was not based too high.

Some one has recently said, with humorous sarcasm, in reference to a person who had much to say of his lineage, that “he perched on the upper branches of his genealogical tree, and hurled down the cocoanuts of his ancestors at common folk,” and if you will pardon a little clever nonsense in rhyme, I will quote it before taking up my serious study:

A Question Of Pedigree

‘Now who is that,’ asked a dignified hen,
‘That chicken in white and gray
She’s very well dressed, but whence did she come,
And her ancestors, who are they?'

‘She never can move in our set, my dear,’
Said the old hen's friend to her, later;
‘I’ve just found out, you'll be shocked to hear,
She was hatched in an incubator!’


Not to dwell too much upon the question of pedigree, let us quote a sentence from Burke's Peerage “Franklin, Josiah, of Ecton, Northamptonshire, came to Boston in 1682. The family of Ecton traced back four centuries to 1250. One of his sons, Benjamin, born in 1706.”

This son was our Franklin, appropriately christened Benjamin, as he was the youngest of seventeen children, born in Boston, January 17, 1706. It was intended that he should be a clergyman, but a tallow chandler who had sixteen other children to provide for naturally found this scheme impossible, and the late comer was set to making candles. However, Benjamin threatened to run away, so he was placed with his brother James to learn the trade of a printer.

Although only sixteen years of age, he already wrote poetry, and had read Locke on The Understanding, Xenophon's Memorabilia, Defoe's works, and many others; yet no one could foresee that he was destined to become the most famous master of his craft since Caxton. But Franklin soon tired of serving his brother, sold his books and ran away from Boston. This time it was more than a threat. He first tried his fortunes in New York, but failing there he went on to Philadelphia, where he arrived one Sunday morning in October, 1723. This is minutely described in his Autobiography. Whittington and his cat entering London were no more picturesque than Franklin, with his three rolls, one under each arm and the third in his mouth, walking up Market Street and passing before the eyes of the young girl destined to become his wife! He says, “Then I walked up the street, gazing about, till I met a boy with bread, and on inquiring where he got it, I went immediately to the baker's, in Second Street, and asked for bisket, intending such as we had in Boston, but they were not made in Philadelphia. Then I asked for a threepenny loaf, and was told they had none such. So then I bade him give me three-penny worth of any sort. He gave me, accordingly, three great puffy rolls. I was surprised at the quantity, but took it, and having no room in my pockets, walked off with a roll under each arm and eating the other. Thus I went up Market Street, as far as Fourth Street, passing by the door of Mr. Read, my future wife's father, when she, standing at the door, saw me, and thought I made, as I certainly did, a most awkward, ridiculous appearance.”

Time will not permit me to quote further from the Autobiography. Henry Cabot Lodge, in his admirable essay on Colonialism in the United States, calls Franklin's Autobiography “the corner stone, the first great work of American literature.” The next thirty-four years of Franklin's life are really the history of Philadelphia — I may say of Pennsylvania — if we except the time between December, 1724, and October, 1726, which he spent in London working at his trade, reading, studying, and gaining a knowledge of the world. In 1726 he returned to America and worked as a printer until 1729, when he took entire charge of The Pennsylvania Gazette.

On September 1, 1730, he married his old sweetheart, Deborah Read, and they lived happily together for more than forty years. Mrs. E. D. Gillespie, of Philadelphia, his great-granddaughter, and the records of Christ Church, in that city, are my authorities for this date.

In 1733 he began to publish Poor Richard's Almanac, and continued it until 1758. One smiles now to see the little, soiled brown pamphlets of a dozen leaves each, which were so eagerly anticipated and so widely read by our forefathers. We can hardly appreciate the importance of the little books, for to the present generation an almanac is merely a cover for soap or patent medicine advertisements; but then it was the vade mecum of every household, a calendar, diary, recipe, and sometimes school, book. Its jokes and anecdotes were served as fresh year after year, and were greeted by no chestnut bell. It is hardly necessary for me to tell you that Franklin, or Richard Saunders, as his pen-name reads, did not originate all the “sayings of Poor Richard,” and a reader of Bacon, La Rochefoucauld, and Rabelais will recognize many old friends. The subject is a fascinating one, and I should like to devote my entire paper to a study of the little almanac, but a few quotations must suffice.

First came the title-page: Poor Richard — An Almanack for the year of Christ —. This was followed by an address to the “Courteous Reader.” Then came a calendar for each month, with weather reports, as accurate, perhaps, as some of those of our forecasters! The remaining space was filled with rhymes, anecdotes, and advertisements. “Poor Richard” says, “Blessed is he that expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed; ” and were there ever truer words than these? “Three may keep a secret if two of them are dead.”

The following will delight the cynic: “Three things are men most likely to be cheated in: a horse, a wig, and a wife;” and we couple him with Lincoln as we relish the wit of a sentence like this: “We must all hang together, if we would not all hang separately;” or the ending of the letter to Strahan, “You are now my enemy, and I am Yours, B. FRANKLIN.”

This is true American humor, which we all can understand as well as we can Franklin's interest in silkworms and rice culture.

Interspersed among the proverbs we find such notices as the following: “Ready money for old rags may be had of the printer hereof, by whom is made and sold very good lamp-black.” With what rapture must the afflicted possessor of an aching tooth have read this: “An infallible remedy for the toothache is, wash the root of an aching tooth in elder vinegar, and let it dry half an hour in the sun, after which it will never ache more.”

But I must not linger over the little primer which gained for Franklin a reputation such as few men have enjoyed, for it has been, and will be, printed in every size, from a duo-decimo to an imperial folio, and in nearly every language, including Swedish, Chinese, and modern Greek!

Nor can I more than mention a few of the leading facts of his increasingly useful life before going on to my glance at “Franklin the Diplomat.” Franklin was the earliest American who had fame among foreigners, but his wide popularity was due rather to his successes as a physicist, as a statesman, as a philosopher, than as a writer, and Lord Jeffrey wrote of him, “He never lost sight of common sense,” and the following list of his achievements shows this most conclusively:
  1. He established the “Junto,” 1743, now the American Philosophical Society.
  2. He created the post-office system of America.
  3. He invented the Franklin stove and suggested valuable improvements in ventilation and the building of chimneys.
  4. He founded the Philadelphia Library, the parent of a thousand libraries.
  5. He made many wonderful experiments in electricity
  6. He measured the temperature of the Gulf Stream, and discovered that northeast storms may begin in the southwest.
  7. He pointed out the advantage of building ships with water-tight compartments, and first urged the use of oil as a means of quieting dangerous seas.
Franklin has helped the whole race of inventors by his words, now historic, in reply to some one who spoke contemptuously of Montgolfier's balloon experiments, asking of what use they were: “Of what use is a new-born babe?”

Franklin was as honest and proud as he was shrewd. He accepted with composure the honors paid him, and formed fast friendships with men like Lord Kames, Sir John Pringle, Burke, and others, but he never forgot that he was plain Ben Franklin, whose primary purpose for being in England in 1762 was to watch over the interests of the Province of Pennsylvania. And this brings us to the real reason of his being sent to France as a diplomat.

It is necessary to look back at France in 1770, when the Duc de Choiseul was overthrown, for this, strange to say, marks an important point in American independence. Had the colonies then taken part with France against England, a French general might have led our armies, and French gold paid our troops! In 1774, however, when Louis XVI. came to the throne and Vergennes was made foreign secretary, American affairs were again brought to their notice, and they could not fail to unite with us against a country that had openly violated international law by seizing three hundred French ships and casting ten thousand French sailors into prison.

Franklin's keen mind saw at once that a crisis was at hand, and in 1775, when the Committee of Secret Correspondence was formed in Philadelphia, he found from Monsieur de Bonvoulois, who had been sent from France, that his surmises were correct, and he asked the crucial question, “If we throw off our dependence on Great Britain, will any court enter into an alliance with us for the sake of our commerce?” This, then, was the starting point of our diplomatic history — “alliance and aid for the sake of our commerce.”

Then came the Declaration of Independence, which he signed with a witticism on his lips, and with it the question of recognition; but recognition was a declaration of war, and to bring the French government to this decided stand required the highest diplomatic skill. The colonies had but one man equal to the task, and that man was Benjamin Franklin.

We may fittingly apply to Franklin the words used by Dr. Lyman Whitney Allen with reference to Abraham Lincoln:
The hour was come, and with it rose the man
Ordained of God, and fashioned for the hour.
At this juncture he certainly merited Bancroft's encomium: “Franklin was the greatest diplomatist of the eighteenth century. He never spoke a word too soon; he never spoke a word too late; he never spoke a word too much; he never failed to speak the right word in the right place.”

Fancy this old man as he enters France unattended in December, 1776! They do not know of his coming until he stands before them, and as they look upon his serene yet grave face, upon his hand now stretched forth to strip from a scepter they all hated its richest jewel, a feeling of reverence steals over the French Court, and they bow before him as they have never done before to prince or king.

So great was the confidence of the French Government in Franklin that he was able to secure arms and loans, to effect a treaty of alliance, and to keep French interest in America from flagging during the progress of our war. How he managed to wring so much money from an exhausted treasury will always be a matter of wonder and gratitude, but he did not ask more than he was personally willing to perform, for he had loaned his country nearly all the money he could raise — about twenty thousand dollars.

It was not until February 6, 1778, that the first treaty between the United States and a foreign power was signed. What a scene that must have been on March 20th of the same year, when the commissioners were presented to the king and came forward to receive their recognition as the representatives of a nation which took its place, not by the divine right of kings, but in the name of the inalienable rights of the people! Only one condition was stipulated, and that as much in the interest of the colonies as of France, that they should never return to their allegiance, and one reciprocal obligation, that neither country should make peace with England without the consent of the other — an arbitration treaty that statesmen of our day find it hard to improve upon. It was not until September 3, 1783, however, that another “Treaty of Paris” gave us the precious boon of peace. It was signed by Franklin, Jay, and Adams, and to Franklin was assigned the task of explaining how the treaty came to be signed without due consultation with Vergennes. This he succeeded in doing, though English historians are still wondering how the three clever Yankees managed to make their infant country come out of such a complex diplomatic situation with all the honors and most of the profits.

On his return to America Dr. Franklin was enthusiastically greeted by all classes. General Washington thanked him publicly and privately. He was elected president of Pennsylvania a month after his return, and was reelected for two successive terms.

His last service, true philanthropist that he was, was for the cause of liberty — a petition to Congress for the abolition of the slave trade and the emancipation of slaves. Again we are reminded of Lincoln, who completed this noble thought. Two months later, April 17, 1790, he passed away, and the nation he had served so faithfully and so well gave him such homage as had never before been paid to an American citizen.

The following epitaph on Benjamin Franklin was written by himself many years before his death:

THE BODY

of

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, Printer,

Like the cover of an old book, its contents torn out,

and stripped of its lettering and gilding,

Lies here food for worms.

Yet the work itself shall not be lost, for it will

(as he believed) appear once more in

a new and beautiful edition,

Corrected and amended

by

THE AUTHOR.


Mirabeau says, “Antiquity would have raised altars to this mighty genius who alike was able to restrain thunderbolts and tyrants.”

What more can we say in conclusion and epitomizing this great man save to repeat that he is the most typical American of us all, and the most complete representative of his time, as well as of his age? For Howard was no greater philanthropist; Priestly had no keener interest in science. Franklin had the public spirit of a Turgot, and was a diplomatist whom Talleyrand would not have despised. There have been greater men, perhaps, but none who have succeeded in so many lines of activity

Have I not conclusively shown that his great-great-granddaughter may be proud to claim descent from Benjamin Franklin, patriot, philanthropist, philosopher, physicist, diplomat, gentleman?


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