Cambridge Sketches Part 15

When the Mexican war began there was great indignation over it in New England, and Lowell wrote his most spirited verses in opposition to it.

Elizur Wright took advantage of the storm to establish a newspaper, the _Chronotype_, in opposition to the Government policy. He began this enterprise almost without help, but soon obtained a.s.sistance from leading Free-soilers like John A. Andrew, Dr. S. G. Howe, and especially Frank W.

Bird, the most disinterested of politicians, who gave several thousand dollars in support of the _Chronotype_. The object of the paper, stated in Mr. Wright's own words, was "To examine everything that is new and some things that are old, without fear or favor; to promote good nature, good neighborhood, and good government; to advocate a just distribution of the proper reward, whether material or immaterial, both of honest labor and rascally violence, cunning and idleness; last, but not least, to get an honest living." In 1848 he had a list of six thousand subscribers; and his incisive pen was greatly feared. The _Post_, which was the Government organ in Boston, attacked him once, but met with such a crus.h.i.+ng rejoinder that its editor concluded not to try that game again. His capacity for brain labor was wonderful. He could work fourteen hours a day, and did not seem to need recreation at all.

In the campaign of 1844 Elizur Wright made a number of speeches for the Free-soil candidate in various New England cities. One morning he was returning from a celebration at Nashua, when at the Lowell station Daniel Webster entered the train with two or three friends, and turned over the seat next to Mr. Wright. A newsboy followed Webster, and they all purchased papers. Elizur Wright purchased a Whig paper, and seeing a statement in it concerning the Free-soil candidate which he believed from internal evidence to be untrue, he said quite loud: "Well! this is the finest roorback I have met with." Webster inquired what it was, and, after looking at the statement, p.r.o.nounced it genuine. A short argument ensued, which closed with Webster's proposing to bet forty pounds that the allegation was true. "I am not a betting man," replied Wright, "but since the honor of my candidate is at stake, I accept your wager."

Webster then gave him his card, and Wright returned it by writing his name on a piece of the newspaper.

Elizur Wright no sooner reached his office than he found letters and doc.u.ments there disproving the Whig statement _in toto_, and later in the day he carried them over to Mr. Webster, who had an office in what was then Niles's Block. Mr. Webster looked carefully through them, congratulated Mr. Wright on his good fortune, and handed him two hundred- dollar bills. Peter Harvey, who was in Webster's office at the time, afterwards stopped Elizur Wright on the sidewalk and said to him: "Mr.

Wright, you could have afforded to lose that wager much better than Webster could."

It is remarkable how all the different interests in this man's life-- mathematics, philanthropy, journalism, and the translation of La Fontaine--united together like so many different currents to further the grand achievement of his life. While in England he had taken notice of the life-insurance companies there, which were in a more advanced stage than those in America. They interested him as a mathematical study, and also from the humanitarian point of view. He purchased "David Jones on Annuities," and the best works on life insurance. These he read with the same ardor with which young ladies devour an exciting novel, and without the least expectation that they might ever bring dollars and cents to him; until one day in the spring of 1852 an insurance solicitor placed an advertising booklet in his hand as he was entering the office of the _Chronotype_.

Elizur Wright looked it over and perceived quickly enough that no company could undertake to do what this one pretended to and remain solvent. The booklet served him for an editorial, and before one o'clock the next day agents from every life company in Boston were collected in his office.

They supposed at first that it was an attempt at blackmail, but soon discovered that Elizur Wright knew more about the subject than any of them. Neither threats nor persuasions had any effect on this uncompromising backwoodsman. Only on one condition would Mr. Wright retract his statements,--that the companies should reform their circulars and place their affairs in a more sound condition. The consequence of this was an invitation from the presidents of several of the companies for Mr. Wright to call at their offices and discuss the subject with them.

The situation was this, and Mr. Wright saw it clearly: the presidents of the companies were excellent men,--as honorable and trustworthy as the presidents of our best national banks,--and they knew how to organize and conduct their companies in all business matters, but of life insurance as a science they knew as little as they knew of Greek. In those days there was a prejudice against college graduates which prevented their obtaining the highest mercantile positions, and it is doubtful if there was any person connected with the life-insurance companies who could solve a problem in the higher mathematics. The consequence of this was that it placed the presidents quite at the mercy of their own accountants. Recent events have proved with what facility the teller of a bank can abstract twenty or thirty thousand dollars without its appearing in the accounts.

Temptations and opportunities of this sort must have been much greater in life-insurance companies, as they were formerly conducted, than it is now in banks. Money may have been stolen without its having been discovered.

Besides this, the temptations of the companies to continually over-bid one another for public favor was another evil which, sooner or later, would lead some of them into bankruptcy. This danger could only be averted by placing their rates of insurance on a scientific basis, which should be the same and unalterable for all companies.

The charters of the companies had been drafted in the interest of the management, without much consideration for the rights or advantages of those who were insured. There were no laws on the statute book which would practically prevent directors of life-insurance companies from doing as they pleased with the immense trust properties in their possession. After two or three interviews with Elizur Wright the presidents of the companies came to the conclusion that he was exactly the man that they wanted, and they commissioned him to draw up a revised set of tables and rates which could serve them for a uniform standard.

This work occupied him and two of his daughters for a full year, for which he was compensated with the paltry sum of two thousand dollars. The time was fast approaching, however, when Elizur Wright would be in a position to dictate his own terms to the insurance companies.

It was now that the Bird Club, the most distinguished political club of its time, became gradually formed out of the leading elements of the Free-soil party. At one time this club counted among its members two Senators, three Governors, and a number of Congressmen, and it was a power in the land. Elizur Wright's services as editor of the _Chronotype_ gave him an early entrance to it; and having life insurance on the brain, as it were, other members of the club soon became interested in the subject as a political question. In this way Mr. Wright was soon able to effect legislation. Sumner, Wilson, Andrew, and Bird gave him an almost unqualified support. In 1858 he was appointed Insurance Commissioner for Ma.s.sachusetts, a position which he held until 1866. As Commissioner he formulated the princ.i.p.al legislation on life insurance; and his reports, which have been published in a volume, are the best treatise in English on the practical application of life- insurance principles.

In 1852 he resigned the editors.h.i.+p of the _Chronotype_, and from that time till 1858 he was occupied with life-insurance work, the editing of a paper called the _Railroad Times_, and making a number of mechanical inventions, most important of which was a calculating machine, enough in itself to give a man distinction.

This machine was simply a Gunther rule thirty feet in length wrapped on a cylinder and turned by a crank. Gunther's rule is a measure on which logarithms are represented by s.p.a.ces, so that by adding and subtracting s.p.a.ces on this cylinder Mr. Wright could perform the longest sums in multiplication and division in two or three minutes of time.

Not only did the Ma.s.sachusetts insurance companies come under Mr.

Wright's surveillance, but the New York Life, the Connecticut Mutual, and the Mutual Benefit of New Jersey, all large and powerful companies, were obliged to conform to his regulations, for their Boston offices were too lucrative to be surrendered. About this time Gladstone caused an overhauling of the English life-insurance companies, and a number which proved to be unsound were obliged to surrender their charters. Among these latter were two companies which held offices in Boston, and whose character had already been exposed by Elizur Wright.

In 1850, when he became Commissioner, Mr. Wright sent to their agents for a statement of their financial standing, and not receiving a reply requested them to leave the State. Finding that the matter could not be evaded, they at length forwarded two reports signed by two actuaries, both Fellows of the Royal Society, which were not of a satisfactory character, so that Mr. Wright insisted on his previous order. The agents then applied for support to Prof. Benjamin Pierce, the distinguished mathematician of Harvard University, and one of the most aggressively pro-slavery men about Boston. He probably looked upon Elizur Wright as a vulgar fanatic, and supposing that a Fellow of the Royal Society must necessarily be an honorable man, came forward in support of Messrs.

Neisen and Woolhouse without sufficiently investigating the question at issue; and the result was a controversy between Elizur Wright and himself in which he was finally beaten off the field.

The statements of both Neisen and Woolhouse was proved to be fraudulent, and the two English companies were expelled from the State.

Mr. Wright's insurance reports brought him such celebrity that all the companies wished to have his name connected with them. His son, Walter C.

Wright, became actuary of the New England Life, and his daughter, Miss Jane Wright, was made actuary of the Mutual Union Company. Mr. Wright and his eldest son, John, set up a business for calculating the value of insurance policies, in which the logarithm machine helped them to obtain a large income. With his first ten thousand dollars Mr. Wright purchased a large house and a tract of land in Middles.e.x Fells, where his family still resides.

In 1865 the office of Life Insurance Commissioner was filched from him by a trade politician who knew as much of the subject as fresh college graduates do of the practical affairs of life. Mr. Wright always regretted this, for he felt that his work was not yet complete; and it is a fact that American life insurance, with its good and bad features, still remains almost exactly as he left it.

It was only after Elizur Wright had ceased to be Commissioner that he discovered a serious error in the calculation of the companies, which may be explained in the following manner:

In the beginning, nearly all the insurance policies were made payable at death, with annual premiums; but the introduction of endowment policies, payable at a certain age, effected a peculiar change in their affairs, of which the managers of the companies were not sensible. Elizur Wright perceived that there were two distinct elements in the endowment policies which placed them at a disadvantage with ordinary life policies, and he called this combination "savings-bank life insurance." An endowment policy, being payable at a fixed date, required a larger premium than one which ran on indefinitely and by customary usage, and the agent who negotiated the policy received the same percentage for commission that he would on an ordinary-life policy; that is, he received a much larger commission in proportion. This evil was increased in cases where endowment policies were paid for, as often happened, in five or ten instalments; and where they were paid for in a single instalment the agent received four or five times what he was properly ent.i.tled to.

The same principle was observed by the companies in the distribution of their surplus, so that the holders of endowment policies were practically mulcted at both ends of the line.

In his reports as Insurance Commissioner Elizur Wright had recommended this cla.s.s of policies as a salutary provision against poverty in old age, and he felt under obligations to the public to correct this injustice, [Footnote: On a policy of ten thousand dollars, it would amount to an appreciable sum.] but the insurance agents had also advocated them for evident reasons and were naturally opposed to any project of reform. The managers of the companies also treated the subject coldly, for the discrimination against endowments enabled them to acc.u.mulate a larger reserve which made them appear to better advantage before the general public. The numerous agents and solicitors formed a solid body of opposition and raised a chorus against Elizur Wright like that which the robins make when you pick your own cherries. This cla.s.s of persons when they are actuated by a common impulse make a formidable impression.

Mr. Wright, after arguing his case with the insurance companies for nearly a year without effect, appealed to the public through the newspapers. This, however, had unexpected consequences. Mr. Wright's letters produced the impression, which he did not intend at all, that the insurance companies were unsound, and policy-holders rushed to the offices to make inquiries. Many surrendered their policies.

In this emergency the officers of the companies went to the editors and explained to them that their business would be ruined if Mr. Wright was permitted to continue his attacks on them. They then made Mr. Wright what may have been intended for a magnanimous offer, though he did not look on it in that light,--namely, an offer of ten thousand dollars a year, if he would retire from the actuary business and not molest them any longer.

[Footnote: These events took place thirty years ago and have no relation to the present condition and practice of American insurance companies.]

Elizur Wright refused this, as he might have declined the offer of a cigar, and appealed to the Legislature. The companies then withdrew their business from Mr. Wright and thus reduced his income from twelve thousand dollars a year to about three thousand; but this troubled him no more than it would have Diogenes.

In the summer of 1872 a portly gentleman called at Elizur Wright's office on State Street and introduced himself as the president of a well-known Western insurance company. As it was a pleasant day Mr. Wright invited his visitor to Pine Hill, where they could converse to better advantage than in a Boston office; but being much absorbed in his subject, while pa.s.sing through Medford Centre, he neglected to order a dinner; and the consequence of this was that his portly friend was obliged to make a lunch on cold meat and potato salad. That same evening Mr. Wright's daughter twitted him on his lack of forethought, and hoped such a thing would not happen again, to which he only replied: "The kindest thing you can do for such a man is to starve him." Such was his philosophy on all occasions.

He devised a plan for combining life insurance with a savings bank, by which the laboring man could obtain a certain amount of insurance for his family (or old age) instead of interest upon his deposits. This was an admirable idea, and if he had undertaken to carry it out in the prime of life he might have succeeded in realizing it; but he was now upwards of seventy, and his friends concluded that the experiment would be a risky one, as a favorable result would depend entirely on Mr. Wright's longevity. At the same time he had another enterprise in hand, namely, to convert the Middles.e.x Fells, in which Pine Hill is situated, into a public park. This was greatly needed for the crowded population on the northern side of Boston, and though the plan was not carried out until after his death, he was the originator and earliest promoter of it.

Elizur Wright's most conspicuous trait was generosity. He lived for the world and not for himself. He was a man of broad views and great designs; a daring, original thinker. He respected Emerson, but preferred the philosophy of John Stuart Mill, from the study of which he became an advocate of free trade and woman suffrage.

He died November 21, 1885, in the midst of a rain-storm which lasted six days and nights. He lies interred at Mt. Hope Cemetery.

DR. W. T. G. MORTON

A distinguished American called upon Charles Darwin, and in the course of conversation asked him what he considered the most important discovery of the nineteenth century. To which Mr. Darwin replied, after a slight hesitation: "Painless surgery." He thought this more beneficial in its effects on human affairs than either the steam-engine or the telegraph.

Let it also be noted that he spoke of it as an invention, rather than as a discovery.

The person to whom all scientific men now attribute the honor of this discovery, or invention, is Dr. William T. G. Morton; and, although in that matter he was not without slight a.s.sistance from others, as well as predecessors in the way of tentative experiments, yet it was Doctor Morton who first proved the possibility of applying anaesthesia to surgical operations of a capital order; and it was he who pushed his theory to a practical success. It may also be admitted that Columbus could not have discovered the Western Hemisphere without the a.s.sistance of Ferdinand and Isabella; but it was Columbus who divined the existence of the American continent, and afterwards proved his theory to be true.

There is an underlying similarity between the labors and lives of Columbus and Morton, in spite of large superficial differences.

William Thomas Greene Morton was born August 19, 1819, in Charlton, Ma.s.sachusetts, a small town in the Connecticut Valley. His father was a flouris.h.i.+ng farmer and lived in an old-fas.h.i.+oned but commodious country house, with a large square chimney in the centre of it. William was not only a bright but a very dexterous boy, and was sent to school in the academy at Northfield, and afterwards at Leicester. It is a family tradition that he early showed an experimental tendency by brewing concoctions of various kinds for the benefit of his young companions, and that he once made his sister deathly sick in this manner. His father, finding him a more energetic boy than the average of farmers' sons, advised him to go to Boston, to seek whatever fortune he could find there.

This resulted in his obtaining employment, probably through the Charlton clergyman, in the office of a religious periodical, the _Christian Witness_; but the situation, though a comfortable one, was not adapted to his tastes, and from some unexplained attraction to the profession, he decided to study dentistry. This he accordingly did, graduating at the Baltimore Dental College in 1842. He then engaged an office in Boston, and soon acquired a lucrative practice. He was an uncommonly handsome man, with a determined look in his eye, but also a kindly expression and pleasing manners, which may have brought him more practice than his skill in dentistry,--although that was also good.

The following year he was married to Miss Elizabeth Whitman, of Farmington, Connecticut, whose uncle, at least, had been a member of Congress,--a highly genteel family in that region. In fact, her parents objected to Doctor Morton on account of his profession, and it was only after his promise to study medicine and become a regular pract.i.tioner that they consented to the match. Accordingly, Doctor Morton in the autumn of 1844 commenced a course at the Harvard Medical-School.

Mrs. Morton was a handsome young woman, with a fair face and elegant figure. It would have been difficult to find a better looking couple anywhere in the suburbs, and with good health and strength it seemed as if fortune would certainly smile on them. Doctor Morton built a summer cottage at Wellesley, where the public library now stands, and planted a grove of trees about it; but a mere earthly paradise could not satisfy him. He was not an ambitious man, or he would not have chosen the dental profession; but the food he lived on was not of this world. He had the daring spirit, the speculative temperament, and restless energy of the born discoverer. Already he had made improvements in the manufacture of artificial teeth. He was the first, or one of the first, to recognize the importance of chemistry in connection with the practice of medicine. He had no sooner returned to Boston than he commenced the study of chemistry with Dr. Charles T. Jackson, spending from six to ten hours a week in his laboratory; and he thus became acquainted with the properties and peculiarities of most of the chemical ingredients known at that time.

Mrs. Morton soon discovered with awe and trepidation that she had married no ordinary man. That he had a real skeleton in his closet was to have been expected; but, besides this, there were rows of mysterious-looking bottles, with substances in them quite different from the medicines which were prescribed by the doctors in Farmington. He tried experiments on their black water-spaniel and nearly killed him; and even descended to fishes and insects. He would muse for hours by himself, and if she asked him what he was thinking of he gave her no explanation that she could understand. Although he was so attractive and pleasing, he did not care much for human society. [Footnote: McClure's Magazine, September, 1896.]

He was kind and good to her, and with that she was content. A more devoted wife, or faithful mother, has not been portrayed in poetry or romance.

These phenomena in Doctor Morton's early life remind one of certain processes in the budding of a flower. They indicate a tendency to some object which perhaps was not at the time wholly clear to the man himself.

Impelled by the humanitarian spirit of the age, he moved forward with a clear eye and firm hand to grasp the opportunity when it arrived,--nor was it long delayed.

In considering the discovery of etherization we ought to eliminate all evidence of an _ex parte_ character, unless it is supported circ.u.mstantially; but there is no reason why we should disbelieve Mrs.

Morton's statement that her husband made experiments with sulphuric ether; that his clothes smelt of it; and that he tried to persuade laboring-men to allow him to experiment upon them with it. As Dr. J.

Collins Warren says: "Anaesthesia had been the dream of many surgeons and scientists, but it had been cla.s.sed with aerial navigation and other improbable inventions." [Footnote: Anaesthesia in Surgery, 15.] As long ago as 1818 Faraday had discovered the chief properties of ether, with the exception of its effect in deadening sensibility. In 1836 Dr. Morrill Wyman and Dr. Samuel Parkman had experimented with it on themselves at the Ma.s.sachusetts Hospital, but without taking a sufficient quant.i.ty to produce unconsciousness. It was actually employed in 1842 by Dr. Crawford W. Long, at the University of Pennsylvania, in some minor cases of surgery, but he would seem to have lost confidence in his method and afterwards abandoned it.

In December, 1844, Horace Wells, a dentist of Hartford, had a tooth extracted by his own request while under the influence of nitrous oxide; and the following month he came to Boston, and having made his discovery known, an operation at the hospital was undertaken with his a.s.sistance, but the patient screamed, and it proved a failure so far as anaesthesia was concerned.

From these facts we readily draw the following conclusions: That the discovery of painless surgery was essentially a practical affair for which only a slight knowledge of chemistry was required; that it was not a discovery made at hap-hazard, but one that necessitated a skilful hand and a clear understanding of the subject; and that the supposition which has sometimes been advanced that Doctor Morton was necessarily indebted to Doctor Jackson for a knowledge of the hypnotic effect of ether is wholly gratuitous.

We will now quote directly from Doctor Warren's lecture on "The Influence of Anaesthesia on the Surgery of the Nineteenth Century," delivered before the American Surgical a.s.sociation in 1897:

"Morton having acquainted himself by conversation with Mr. Metcalf and Mr. Burnett, both leading druggists, as to purity and qualities of ether, and having also conversed with Mr. Wightman, a philosophical instrument- maker, and with Doctor Jackson as to inhaling apparatus, proceeded to experiment upon himself. After inhaling the purer quality of ether from a handkerchief he awoke to find that he had been insensible for seven or eight minutes.