Posterity (24 page)

“. . . it would be impossible to connect you with
any of the business projects of mine.”

Thomas Edison, the “Wizard,” was an inventor and entrepreneur for the ages. At the time of his death he held more patents than any American before or since. With his team of researchers and assistants he invented the electric lightbulb, made valuable improvements to the telegraph and telephone, and contributed significantly to the founding of new industries, including telephone, recorded sound, motion picture, and electrical utilities. His Edison General Electric Company became General Electric.

Working eighteen hours a day, he seemed inconvenienced by the necessities of life—eating, bathing and sleeping. It seemed, too, that his six children were mere distractions.

In 1903 Edison employed hundreds of people in his vast and prolific inventing laboratory and business ventures. His troubled eldest son, twenty-seven-year-old Tom, Jr., had already been fired from a lowly laboring job at his father's mining company. Of his father he was both reverent and resentful, and their correspondence with each other was normally conducted through Edison's assistant, John Randolph. But here Edison himself responds to a pathetic four-page letter in which Tom, Jr., begs for a job, any job, or even a note to help him get a job, and pleads with his father to “answer this letter personally.”

[1903]

Tom—

You must know that with your record of passing bad checks and use of liquor all of which is known to every one having business connection with my concerns that it would be impossible to connect you with any of the business projects of mine. It is strange that with your income you cant go into some small business—there are more than 10 000 such little businesses, William seems to be doing well.

TAE

T
HEODORE
R
OOSEVELT TO
A
LICE
L
EE
R
OOSEVELT

“. . . when you do foolish things, you make it certain that worse than foolish things will be ascribed to you.”

Alice Roosevelt was a joy to her father—and a handful. It was reported that Theodore Roosevelt once told a friend, “I can be President of the United States—or—I can attend to Alice.” Here Roosevelt writes to his eldest child, his twenty-year-old daughter, about her unladylike behavior—betting at the racetrack and circulating stories about her pet snake, “Emily Spinach.”

Sagamore Hill
August 28, 1904

Dear Alice:

Do you know how much talk there has been recently in the newspapers about your betting and courting notoriety with that unfortunate snake. I gave you permission to keep the snake because I thought you liked it as children like their pets. But you used it in a way that seems to show that you did as a matter of fact court notoriety . . . You must not get a snake or anything like it, and do try to remember that to court notoriety by bizarre actions is underbred and unladylike. You should not bet at all, and never in public. I wish you had some little sense of responsibility towards others. In your present position your example might be one for good; but at least you need not make it one for evil. The effect is unfortunate in many ways. Remember that when you do foolish things, you make it certain that worse than foolish things will be ascribed to you. To run into debt and be extravagant as to your clothes—such pointless extravagance, too—is not only foolish, but wicked.

Your father
Theodore Roosevelt

J
ACK
L
ONDON TO
J
OAN
L
ONDON

“Am I dirt under your feet?”

“My face changed forever in that year of 1913. It has never been the same since,” Jack London told his second wife. The year was a downward spiral for the author of
The Call of the Wild
and “To Build a Fire,” arguably the most widely read American short story ever. Someone had shot his prized mare in the head, he was losing crops on his ranch, his finances were in trouble, he was fatally ill with diseased kidneys, and, during the summer, a dream of his lifetime literally went up in smoke. On his 1,500-acre Beauty Ranch in California, London was building a grand stone mansion which, on August 22, burned to the ground. So devastated was he by the loss of the house that those close to him felt he never fully recovered.

Just two days after the fire, he wrote to his twelve-year-old daughter, Joan, from whom he felt he deserved a letter. Joan lived with her mother, who had been divorced from Jack London for eight years.

Glen Ellen
August 24, 1913

Dear Joan:—

I feel too miserable to write this at my desk. I am sitting up in bed to write it.

First, please remember that I am your father, I have fed you, clothed you, and housed you, and
loved
you since the moment you first drew breath. I have all of a father's heart of love for you.

And now we come to brass tacks. What have you done for me in all the days of your life? What do you
feel
for me? Am I merely your meal-ticket? Do you look upon me as merely a creature with a
whim
, or
fancy
, or
fantasy
, that compels him to care for you and to take care of you?—because he is a fool who gives much and receives . . . well, receives nothing?

Please answer the foregoing questions. I want to know how I stand with you.

You have your dreams of education. I try to give you the best of my wisdom. You write me about the demands of the U.C. in relation to selection of high school courses. I reply by (1) telegram, (2) by letter. And I receive no word from you. Am I dirt under your feet? Am I beneath your contempt in every way save as a meal-ticket? Do you love me at all? What do I
mean
to you?

Answer the above queries of mine.

My home, as yet unoccupied, burns down—and I receive no word from you. When you were sick I came to see you. I gave you flowers and canary birds.

Now I am sick—and you are silent. My home—one of my dreams—is destroyed. You have no word to say.

Your education is mixed up by conflict between high school and university. You write me. I reply by telegram and letter. I spring to help you with my wisdom in your trouble, in the realization of your dream.

I say, very sadly, that when my dream is ruined, I do not notice that you spring to me.

Joan, my daughter, please know that the world belongs to the honest ones, to the true ones, to the right ones, to the ones who talk right out; and that the world does not belong to the ones who remain silent, who, by their very silence lie and cheat and make a mock of love and a meal ticket of their father.

Don't you think it is about time I heard from you? Or do you want me to cease forever from caring to hear from you?

Daddy

“If . . . you . . . elect for yourself to become
a little person in a little place in a little portion
of the world, it will be a great misfortune
for which there will be no help.”

Rising from poverty through his own hard work and determination, London grew to hate polite society and anything that hinted at what he felt was mediocrity. Under the roof and influence of his first wife, he was certain his daughters were living just such a disdainful existence.

In October 1913 London asked twelve-year-old Joan to choose a new way of life by coming to live with him and his second wife. He was asking his daughter to make a choice between her mother and father.

[Glen Ellen]
October 11, 1913

Dear Joan:

I am in a great hurry. Find inclosed check for $4.00 to pay the Whitaker boy for the work he did on the back-yard. The $80 for the front steps, and the $185 for the back-yard is too extortionate to be considered by me if I did have the money, and at the present time I haven't any such sum of money. I have inclosed your letter describing the front and back yards to Uncle Ernest, and asked him to go up and take a look at what is needed. I have told him I haven't the money for the back-yard improvement, and have told him I have no such sum as $80 for the front steps. Also, I have told Uncle Ernest to show the letter I have written him to your mother, so she may know it is all right for him to go ahead and do his best with the least amount of money I can spare at the present time for the front steps alone.

The estimate for the awning comes to $11.50. Do I understand this means canvas alone? Please give me details. What does this $11.50 pay for? Does it pay for the mere canvas, or does it pay for the canvas, for the wood, for the nails, for the ropes, pulleys, etc., etc. Also, you failed to tell me what your friend Mr. Thoms will do the work for. How do I know what his work will amount to? Please give me full details about the total cost of this canvas, and of the labor involved in putting the canvas in place, and about what sort of guaranty this Mr. Thoms will give that the thing will work after he has put it up. Give me this clearly and immediately, so I may be able to tell you to go ahead and work on it.

In your excitement, you forgot, or did not hear me tell you, that I had sent the order for $3 for renewal of the
St. Nicholas
directly to The Century Co. That was done before I came out to Piedmont and saw you.

And now to other things. Please know that silence on your part and a sore hand on your mother's part, means satisfaction on your part and on your mother's part with your mother's present policy and attitude concerning the matter I talked over with you on Sunday evening.

And please, please remember what I told you on Sunday evening, concerning the fact that the less I see of you and Bess, the less I would be bound to be interested in you. Just as a token of this state of mind, which is common to all human beings, namely, to be interested in the things one sees and is in some sort of contact with, let me tell you an incident that happened last night: I was thinking over this matter at table. Nakata, my Japanese boy, was waiting on the table; and the thought so suddenly came to me, and came to me with such strength, that I immediately said to Nakata: “Nakata, you know that I have two daughters. When I knew these daughters they were little babies and did not count. I know scarcely anything about them since. Nakata, for six or seven years you have been with me night and day. You have been with me through every danger over the whole world. Storm and violent death have been common in your and my experience. I remember the times in storms when you have stood nobly by. I remember the time when the cannibals assailed us 1500-strong, when you stood on the wreck of our vessel, dashing to pieces on the reef, a rifle in either hand ready to pass me whenever I wanted to use it. I remember the hours of sickness when you nursed me. I remember the hours of fun when you laughed with me and I laughed with you. I remember so many, many of these hours of all sorts, of contact with you, that I know that I know you ten thousand times better than I know my two daughters.”

Now, Joan. Remember that the world is populated by big people and by little people. Almost the entire population of the world consists of little people. Here and there are a few of the big people. It is a hard proposition to put up to you at your age, and the chances are that in deciding on this proposition that I put up to you on Sunday night, you will make the mistake of deciding to be a little person in a little place in a little part of the world. You will make this mistake because you listened to your mother, who is a little person in a little place in little part of the world, and who, out of her female sex jealousy against another woman, has sacrificed your future for you. If you join with your mother in this little sex jealousy of a thwarted female, you will doom yourself to grow up in the little environment of the little place called Piedmont, which is populated by little people. On the other hand, I offer you the big things of the world; the big things that the big people live and know and think and act. You are now a little woman. You will grow into a mature woman. In the next four or five years your entire future life, so far as your development be concerned, will be determined. The chances are since you know more about Jim Whitaker, or Jim Whitaker's boys, or your mother, or Uncle Ernest, or Aunt Florrie, or all the other persons about you, than you do know about me, your Daddy—the chances are that you will decide to follow your mother's policy which, as I have already told you, is based upon sex jealousy of a thwarted female. The result will be that when you are a mature woman of eighteen or twenty, you will be merely the little person in the little place in a little portion of the world.

This will be too bad for you, for at about that time you will begin to read with understanding all the books I have written, and you will come to realize the smallness of yourself and of your place. Unfortunately, it will then be too late. You will not then be able to change yourself. You will have been already developed. The developing time is now. From now until you are eighteen years of age. Having developed, you cannot change yourself any more than the leopard can change its spots. You will know your tragedy, you will know what you missed, but you will be unable to remedy it, and so shall I be unable to remedy it for you.

And this also will be my tragedy: The thing will have happened to you. You will be as small as the persons around you are small, and it will then be too late for me to lend you a helping hand, because you will have already been fully developed. Also, what will you mean to me when you are eighteen or twenty years old, developed in such an environment? I will know as a matter of fact, that you are my daughter. But I shall also know that you are a strange sort of wizened, pinched, human female creature of eighteen or twenty years, and that it is too late to change you into anything bigger.

Well, anyway, I gave you on last Sunday night several problems. I referred you to the New Testament and the study of Christ. Christ was a big man. He was not a little person in a little place in a little portion of the world. If you do not study out these problems, or if in studying out these simple problems I gave you, you come to the wrong conclusion and elect for yourself to become a little person in a little place in a little portion of the world, it will be a great misfortune for which there will be no help. Although it will not avail you any to do so, you will then be able to charge this malformation of you in your developmental period, this wizening and pinching of you into the little person—you may be able to charge this directly to your mother's conduct in influencing your conduct, because your mother is so small, so primitive, so savage, that she cherishes a sex hatred for a woman who is bigger than she to such an extent that her face is distorted with passion while she talks about it, as it was distorted last Sunday night.