TO HELEN KELLER.

BY JAMES TAYLOR.

Forever veiled thy piteous eyes,Forever sealed thine ear;How dark and still creation lies,How distant, yet how near!Thy sightless orbs to heaven upturnTo crave the blessed light;Nor sun, nor stars, above thee burn—Alas, what hopeless night.The jeweled arch that bends above,The earth, the air, the sea,O’erspanned by wings of Boundless Love,How vainly smile for thee!The blush of morn, the sunset glow,The dew-gemmed paradiseWhere Summer’s roses blow,Are not for thy dim eyes.Hushed is the sound of Music’s voice,Hushed is the murmuring sea;No trembling harp bids thee rejoice,—’Tis silenceallto thee.On Beauty’s loom which Nature wieldsWith deft, mysterious skill,To deck with tapestries her fields,Her every vale and hill,She weaves with gorgeous threads of lightIn mist, and cloud and rain,Her irised gossamers so bright—But weaves for thee in vain.But God will make thee doubly whole,And give thy spirit sight,—His glory shall illume thy soul,For God is love and light!

Forever veiled thy piteous eyes,Forever sealed thine ear;How dark and still creation lies,How distant, yet how near!

Forever veiled thy piteous eyes,

Forever sealed thine ear;

How dark and still creation lies,

How distant, yet how near!

Thy sightless orbs to heaven upturnTo crave the blessed light;Nor sun, nor stars, above thee burn—Alas, what hopeless night.

Thy sightless orbs to heaven upturn

To crave the blessed light;

Nor sun, nor stars, above thee burn—

Alas, what hopeless night.

The jeweled arch that bends above,The earth, the air, the sea,O’erspanned by wings of Boundless Love,How vainly smile for thee!

The jeweled arch that bends above,

The earth, the air, the sea,

O’erspanned by wings of Boundless Love,

How vainly smile for thee!

The blush of morn, the sunset glow,The dew-gemmed paradiseWhere Summer’s roses blow,Are not for thy dim eyes.

The blush of morn, the sunset glow,

The dew-gemmed paradise

Where Summer’s roses blow,

Are not for thy dim eyes.

Hushed is the sound of Music’s voice,Hushed is the murmuring sea;No trembling harp bids thee rejoice,—’Tis silenceallto thee.

Hushed is the sound of Music’s voice,

Hushed is the murmuring sea;

No trembling harp bids thee rejoice,—

’Tis silenceallto thee.

On Beauty’s loom which Nature wieldsWith deft, mysterious skill,To deck with tapestries her fields,Her every vale and hill,

On Beauty’s loom which Nature wields

With deft, mysterious skill,

To deck with tapestries her fields,

Her every vale and hill,

She weaves with gorgeous threads of lightIn mist, and cloud and rain,Her irised gossamers so bright—But weaves for thee in vain.

She weaves with gorgeous threads of light

In mist, and cloud and rain,

Her irised gossamers so bright—

But weaves for thee in vain.

But God will make thee doubly whole,And give thy spirit sight,—His glory shall illume thy soul,For God is love and light!

But God will make thee doubly whole,

And give thy spirit sight,—

His glory shall illume thy soul,

For God is love and light!

MEN OF AFFAIRS

With the commercial awakening of the South and the increased importance of the section as a factor in the national life, has developed a new citizenship—a sub-structure of the Old South with a modernized superstructure—in which with the sterling and standard traits of the old regime is strongly blended the nervous activity of the new. As a means of paying special tribute to the work being accomplished in the local and general fields by new generation of the South it is the intention of this magazine to devote a department toward setting forth their achievements as well for public information as for acknowledgment of their services, and in offering the initial installment of this special column it is desired to direct attention to the highly representative types herein noticed with the significant intimation that all are yet in the prime of life with greater opportunities ahead of them.

The Manufacturers’ Record, the South’s, if not the country’s, most representative trades journal, had a modest origin less than a quarter of a century ago in a small desk in an obscure business office in Baltimore. Its founder and guiding spirit was Richard M. Edmonds, who from nothing in the way of working capital save sagacity, energy and determination, has developed a magnificent journalistic property, occupying its own seven-story building and has himself become a man of large affairs and wide influence.

In the development of the now admittedly fertile field of trades journalism, no one point may be more emphasized as having been significantly demonstrated than that it holds peculiar and pronounced opportunities for those desirous of actively participating in the vital activities of commerce.

In no less than three distinct phases of Southern development have Mr. Edmonds and his paper conspicuously figured—in the encouragement of industrial and technical education, in the promotion of the cause of immigration from among the most desirable domestic elements and the diverting of the cotton manufacturing business from New England to the cotton fields. It was Mr. Edmonds’ editorial columns that first started the now irresistible southward migration of the mills by pointing out the many and conclusive reasons why the advantages for cotton manufacturing were all in favor of the South.

As a commercial and financial figure it may be noted that Mr. Edmonds is now a member of the executive committee of the International Trust Company, a three million dollar Baltimore corporation, and is chairman of the executive committee of the Alabama Consolidated Coal and Iron Company, with a capitalization twice that of the former. He is a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Academy of Political and Social Science, the Southern History Association, the Maryland Historical Society, the Southern Society of New York, and other organizations.

Mr. Edmonds was born in Norfolk, Va., in 1857, receiving a common school education in Baltimore, where he started life as a clerk in the office of the oldJournal of Commerce.

RICHARD M. EDMONDS.

Successively a teacher, a practitioner of law, a railroad attorney, a teacher of law, Assistant Attorney General of the United States, general counsel for one of the country’s large railroad systems and a leading legal representative of the nation’s interests before the Alaskan boundary tribunal,—this is the record of this distinguished Southerner, yet in his physical and mental prime.

A native of Mississippi and a product of ultra Southern environment, himself a soldier of the gray at the very early age of fourteen, Mr. Dickinson’s evolution into a representative type of national citizenship comprises an interesting study in contemporary American life.

Educated at the old University of Nashville and at the Columbia Law School, New York, with a capstone of extensive travel abroad and special work in law and economics at the universities of Leipsic and Paris, Mr. Dickinson has combined an ideal working equipment with a tremendous energy and a capacity for laborious and sustained mental effort.

As a practitioner his unusual ability was several times recognized by gubernatorial appointments as special judge on the Tennessee Supreme Bench, to which he declined a permanent appointment, shortly thereafter being called to the very high duties of the position of Assistant Attorney General of the United States. After his retirement from this position he became District Attorney for Tennessee and northern Alabama for the Louisville and Nashville Railroad Company, from which he was promoted to his present position as Chief Counsel for the Illinois Central, with headquarters at Chicago.

His greatest public service, as is well known, was his representation of the government in the Alaskan boundary dispute, wherein his presentation of the nation’s claims is admitted to have had a material influence in the successful outcome of that famous piece of international litigation.

JAMES McGAVOCK DICKINSON.

Judge Dickinson maintains a close identity with Southern matters by keeping up his connection with various societies and organizations, among the number being the Isham Harris Confederate Bivouac, at his native town, Columbus, Miss.

In the executive feature of railroad operation Samuel Spencer is a prominent national figure. From an humble position in the ranks, a combination of native ability, splendid equipment and consistent application has resulted in his promotion to the presidency of six large roads, while he is in addition a member of the board of directors of nearly a score of others and of nearly a dozen of the country’s most representative banking and other corporations.

SAMUEL SPENCER.

A native of Georgia, where he was born at Columbus, in 1847, Mr. Spencer entered the Confederate army, serving the last two years and with much credit, after which he graduated from the University of Georgia with A.B., and subsequently from the University of Virginia with his engineering degree.

Since leaving college in 1869 Mr. Spencer has devoted his energies uniformly to his ambition to rise to the highest round of the railroad ladder, with the result that he is now president of the Southern, the Mobile and Ohio, the Alabama and Great Southern, the Cincinnati, New Orleans and Texas Pacific, the Georgia Southern and Florida, and the Northern Alabama, aggregating a mileage of over nine thousand miles and employing more than forty thousand men.

Besides innumerable other roads, in the management of which Mr. Spencer is director, he is also a director of the Western Union Telegraph Company, the Old Dominion Steamship Company, three large New York Trust companies, the Hanover National Bank of New York, and one of Boston’s large street railway systems.

Mr. Spencer is identified with the American Society of Civil Engineers and other representative political, scientific and forestry associations, and is socially very much of a cosmopolite, being a member of New York, Chicago, Cincinnati, Atlanta and Macon clubs, besides that wealthy sportsman’s paradise, the Jekyl Island Club.

One of the very few Southerners who have advanced into the circles of millionairedom, Mr. Spencer resides principally in New York and Washington, but is much in the South and is still in feeling and sentiment very much a Southerner.

JAMES C. McREYNOLDS

In the appointment of James C. McReynolds to be Assistant Attorney General of the United States the President followed his revolutionary precedent in the selection of Judge Thomas G. Jones, of Alabama, as occupant of the Federal Bench. In this instance conventional custom was further ignored in the elevation of a man considerably younger than the age generally considered requisite.

Born at Elkton, Ky., a little over forty years ago, Mr. McReynolds was graduated from Vanderbilt University and the University of Virginia with his academic and law degrees, respectively, in both of which institutions he ranked high in scholarship and character.

His initial experience in public life was gained as the private secretary of Judge Howell E. Jackson of the United States Supreme Bench, which, with his already ample legal equipment, served him in good stead in the general practice in Nashville where his career at the bar was characterized by ability, integrity and a high order of fidelity to the many large interests that he represented.

In civic and political movements Mr. McReynolds’ record was signalized by a notably courageous, independent and unselfish interest.

Since his promotion to the duties of Assistant Attorney General of the United States he has established principles of large governmental significance and his able presentation of the government’s litigation before the Supreme Court has elicited the unanimous commendation of that impartial and august body.

Mr. McReynolds’ appreciation by the President would have been further displayed by his appointment as United States District Judge to succeed Judge Hammond, had not a technicality involving residence interfered.

THOMAS DIXON, JR.

One of the most picturesque and dramatic figures in the limelight of to-day is the Rev. Thomas Dixon, Jr., a man who has at his age probably succeeded in as many different lines of endeavor as any other man of the times.

An intense product of the new South, Mr. Dixon speaks his opinions on his section’s great and peculiar problems with an incisive virility and a fearless conviction, and with his novels, “The Leopard’s Spots” and “The Clansman” has gained a popular audience for the Southern point of view, before unreached. He has also illumined the divorce evil and the subject of socialism in his dramatic story, “The One Woman.”

Born in North Carolina just forty years ago, and educated at Wake Forest, a Baptist denominational school, Mr. Dixon has in rapid succession essayed the fields of law, the ministry, lecturing and authorship, and has been prominently identified with each. He was a member of the North Carolina legislature at one time and is said to have essayed the histrionic for a brief spell.

First attaining more than casual prominence as a Baptist minister in New York, Mr. Dixon felt the opportunity of a non-sectarian evangelist fraught with higher possibilities in the metropolis and more in keeping with his temperament and convictions, founding a popular church wherein as a religious and civic free lance he attracted a large and influential hearing.

On the lecture platform he found a broader and more congenial labor still, and from lecturing he took to literature, to which he is now devoting his time exclusively. He has planned a trilogy of novels in exposition of the negro question, the second of which, “The Clansman,” takes its text from the vital role played by the Ku Klux in the redemption of the South from the triple scourge of the carpet bagger, the scalawag and their irresponsible tool, the ignorant African.

Mr. Dixon’s late successes have constituted him a man of affairs and he now resides upon his extensive Virginia plantation, where he does much of his literary work and incidentally lives the life of the Virginia planter and gentleman of the olden day.

He is proud to admit the valuable assistance rendered him by his wife, not only as literary critic but as a ready helper in the physical construction of his productions.

JOHN TEMPLE GRAVES.

As lecturer, orator and editor, John Temple Graves, of Atlanta, is well known to the country at large. As a lecturer he is classed by George R. Wendling as being in a class with Governor Taylor at the head of the Southern field; as an orator he has had the distinction of presenting his section’s sentiments and peculiar problems to the national ear as has no other man since Henry W. Grady; and as an editor he has by the forcefulness of his personality developed in a brief period of time an extensive business enterprise and a material public influence in his section.

Mr. Graves’ most telling work on the platform has doubtless been his contribution to the enlightenment of the Northern mind on the negro question, while on this and various other subjects he has appeared three times as the orator of the New England Society of Boston, twice of the Merchants’ Club of Boston, once of the New England Society of Philadelphia and twice of the Southern Society of New York. In the capacity of journalist he has officially represented the South as spokesman before the World’s Congress of Journalists at Chicago, in 1893, and also before the World’s Press Parliament at St. Louis, last summer.

As a memorial orator Mr. Graves is entitled to distinguished rank, it having devolved upon him to deliver the funeral orations over the remains of his state’s most eminent sons—Grady and Gordon.

Mr. Graves is still a young man and is a native of Rome, Ga., and a graduate of his state institution at Athens, of which he is a devoted alumnus. He now devotes his time chiefly to his journalistic interests and resides in Atlanta.

Though not a politician Mr. Graves has been twice elector at large in two consecutive presidential campaigns in different states, and has led the Democratic ticket in both instances.

BY ISABELLA HOWE FISKE.

All seems a dream of art—upon the archOf the grey bridge, the dim canal that spans,A child steps, hand-raised, and my eye that scans,Can scarce believe that here too, centuries march,For Titian might have painted her just so,Slow-foot Venetian centuries ago.

All seems a dream of art—upon the arch

Of the grey bridge, the dim canal that spans,

A child steps, hand-raised, and my eye that scans,

Can scarce believe that here too, centuries march,

For Titian might have painted her just so,

Slow-foot Venetian centuries ago.

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