31. CHAPTER XXXI.
AT HOME AGAIN,
THE CLOCK DEBTS PAID — THE MUSEUM ONCE MORE UNDER BARNUM'S
MANAGEMENT — ENTHUSIASTIC RECEPTION — HIS SPEECH — TWO POEMS.
In 1859, Barnum returned to the United States.
During his trip abroad he had secured many novelties
for the Museum, the Albino Family, Thiodon's
Mechanical Theatre, and others.
These afforded him a liberal commission, and he
had beside made considerable money from the Tom
Thumb exhibitions and his lectures.
All this, his wife's income, as well as a large sum
derived from the sale of some of her property, was
faithfully devoted to the one object of their lives —
paying off the clock debts.
Mrs. Barnum and her daughter, Pauline, had
either boarded in Bridgeport or lived in a small
house in the suburbs during the entire four years of
struggle. The land purchased by Mrs. Barnum at
the assignee's sale in East Bridgeport had increased
in value meanwhile, and they felt justified in borrowing
on it, some of the single lots were sold, and
all this money went toward the discharge of the
debts.
At last, in March, 1860, all the clock indebtedness
was extinguished, except $20,000, which Barnum
bound himself to take up within a certain time, his
friend James D. Johnson guaranteeing his bond to
that effect.
On the seventeenth day of March, Messrs. Butler
and Greenwood signed an agreement to sell and
deliver to Barnum on the following Saturday their
entire good-will and interest in the Museum collection.
This fact was thoroughly circulated, and
blazing posters, placards, and advertisements
announced that "Barnum is on his feet again.'' It
was furthermore stated that the Museum would be
closed for one week, opening March 31st, under the
management and proprietorship of its original
owner. It was also promised that Barnum would
address the audience on the night of closing.
The Museum, decked in its holiday dress of flags
and banners, was crowded to its utmost capacity
when Barnum made his appearance. His reception
was an enthusiastic one, cheers and shouts rent the
air, and tears filled the showman's eyes as he thought
of this triumphant conclusion of his four years'
struggle.
Recovering himself, he bowed his acknowledgments
for the reception, and addressed the audience
as follows:
"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: I should be more or
less than human, if I could meet this unexpected
and overwhelming testimonial at your hands, without
the deepest emotion. My own personal connection
with the Museum is now resumed, and I avail myself
of the circumstance to say why it is so. Never did
I feel stronger in my worldly prosperity than in
September, 1855. Three months later I was so
deeply embarrassed that I felt certain of nothing,
except the uncertainty of everything. A combination
of singular efforts and circumstances tempted
me to put faith in a certain clock manufacturing
company, and I placed my signature to papers which
ultimately broke me down. After nearly five years
of hard struggle to keep my head above water, I
have touched bottom at last, and here to-night I
am happy to announce that I have waded ashore.
Every clock debt of which I have any knowledge
has been provided for. Perhaps, after the troubles
and turmoils I have experienced, I should feel no
desire to re-engage in the excitements of business;
but a man like myself, less than fifty years of age,
and enjoying robust health, is scarcely old enough
to be embalmed and put in a glass case in the
Museum as one of its million of curiosities. `It is
better to wear out than rust out.' Besides, if a man
of active temperament is not busy, he is apt to get
into mischief. To avoid evil, therefore, and since
business activity is a necessity of my nature, here I
am, once more, in the Museum, and among those
with whom I have been so long and so pleasantly
identified. I am confident of a cordial welcome, and
hence feel some claim to your indulgence while I
briefly allude to the means of my present deliverance
from utter financial ruin. Need I say, in the first
place, that I am somewhat indebted to the forbearance
of generous creditors. In the next place,
permit me to speak of sympathizing friends, whose
volunteered loans and exertions vastly aided my
rescue. When my day of sorrow came, I first paid
or secured every debt I owed of a personal nature.
This done, I felt bound in honor to give up all of
my property that remained toward liquidating my
`clock debts.' I placed it in the hands of trustees
and receivers for the benefit of all the `clock'
creditors. But at the forced sale of my Connecticut
real estate, there was a purchaser behind the screen,
of whom the world had little knowledge. In the
day of my prosperity I made over to my wife much
valuable property, including the lease of this Museum
building — a lease then having about twenty-two
years to run, and enhanced in value to more
than double its original worth. I sold the Museum
collection to Messrs. Greenwood & Butler, subject
to my wife's separate interest in the lease, and she
has received more than $80,000 over and above the
sums paid to the owners of the building. Instead
of selfishly applying this amount to private purposes,
my family lived with a due regard to economy, and
the savings (strictly belonging to my wife) were
devoted to buying in portions of my estate at the
assignees' sales and to purchasing `clock notes'
bearing my indorsements. The Christian name of
my wife is Charity. I may well acknowledge, therefore,
that I am not only a proper `subject of charity,'
but that `without Charity, I am nothing.'
"But, ladies and gentlemen, while Charity thus
labored in my behalf, Faith and Hope were not idle.
I have been anything but indolent during the last
four years. Driven from pillar to post, and annoyed
beyond description by all sorts of legal claims and
writs, I was perusing protests and summonses by
day, and dreaming of clocks run down by night.
My head was ever whizzing with dislocated cog-wheels
and broken main-springs; my whole mind
(and my credit) was running upon tick, and everything
pressing on me like a dead weight.
"In this state of affairs I felt that I was of no use
on this side of the Atlantic, so, giving the pendulum
a swing, and seizing time by the forelock, I went to
Europe. There I furtively pulled the wires of several
exhibitions, among which that of Tom Thumb
may be mentioned for example. I managed a variety
of musical and commercial speculations in Great
Britain, Germany, and Holland. These enterprises,
together with the net profits of my public lectures,
enabled me to remit large sums to confidential agents
for the purchase of my obligations. In this manner,
I quietly extinguished, little by little, every dollar of
my clock liabilities. I could not have achieved this
difficult feat, however, without the able assistance
of enthusiastic friends — and among the chief of them
let me gratefully acknowledge the invaluable services
of Mr. James D. Johnson, a gentleman of wealth,
in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Other gentlemen have
been generous with me. Some have loaned me
large sums without security, and have placed me
under obligations which must ever command my
honest gratitude "but Mr. Johnson has been a `friend
in deed,' for he has been truly a `friend in need.'
"You most not infer, from what I have said, that
I have completely recovered from the stunning blow
to which I was subjected four years ago. I have
lost more in the way of tens of thousands, yes, hundreds
of thousands, than I care to remember. A
valuable portion of my real estate in Connecticut,
however, has been preserved, and as I feel all the
ardor of twenty years ago, and the prospect here is
so flattering, my heart is animated with the hope of
ultimately, by enterprise and activity, obliterating
unpleasant reminiscences, and retrieving the losses of
the past. Experience, too, has taught me not only
that, even in the matter of money, `enough is as
good as a feast,' but that there are, in this world,
some things vastly better than the Almighty Dollar!
Possibly I may contemplate, at times, the painful
day when I said `Othello's occupation's gone'; but I
shall the more frequently cherish the memory of
this moment, when I am permitted to announce that
Richard's himself again.'
"Many people have wondered that a man considered
so acute as myself should have been deluded
into embarrassments like mine, and not a few
have declared, in short meter, that `Barnum was a
fool.' I can only reply that I never made pretensions
to the sharpness of a pawnbroker, and I hope
I shall never so entirely lose confidence in human
nature as to consider every man a scamp by instinct,
or a rogue by necessity. `It is better to be
deceived sometimes, than to distrust always,' says
Lord Bacon, and I agree with him.
"Experience is said to be a hard schoolmaster,
but I should be sorry to feel that this great lesson
in adversity has not brought forth fruits of some
value. I needed the discipline this tribulation has
given me, and I really feel, after all, that this, like
many other apparent evils, was only a blessing in
disguise. Indeed, I may mention that the very
clock factory which I built in Bridgeport for the
purpose of bringing hundreds of workmen to that
city, has been purchased and quadrupled in size by
the Wheeler & Wilson Sewing-Machine Company,
and is now filled with intelligent New England
mechanics, whose families add two thousand to the
population, and who are doing a great work in
building up and beautifying that flourishing city.
So that the same concern which prostrated me
seems destined as a most important agent toward
my recuperation. I am certain that the popular
sympathy has been with me from the beginning;
and this, together with a consciousness of rectitude,
is more than an offset to all the vicissitudes to which
I have been subjected.
"In conclusion, I beg to assure you and the public
that my chief pleasure, while health and strength are
spared me, will be to cater for your and their healthy
amusement and instruction. In future, such capabilities
as I possess will be devoted to the maintenance
of this Museum as a popular place of family
resort, in which all that is novel and interesting
shall be gathered from the four quarters of the
globe, and which ladies and children may visit
at all times unattended, without danger of
encountering anything of an objectionable nature.
The dramas introduced in the Lecture Room will
never contain a profane expression or a vulgar allusion;
on the contrary, their tendency will always be
to encourage virtue and frown upon vice.
"I have established connections in Europe, which
will enable me to produce here a succession of interesting
novelties otherwise inaccessible. Although
I shall be personally present much of the time, and
hope to meet many of my old acquaintances, as well
as to form many new ones, I am sure you will be
glad to learn that I have re-secured the services of
one of the late proprietors, and the active manager
of this Museum, Mr. John Greenwood, Jr. As he is
a modest gentleman, who would be the last to praise
himself, allow me to add that he is one to whose
successful qualities as a caterer for the popular
entertainments, the crowds that have often filled this
building may well bear testimony. But, more than
this, he is the unobtrusive one to whose integrity,
diligence, and devotion I owe much of my present
position of self-congratulation. Mr. Greenwood will
hereafter act as assistant manager, while his late co-partner,
Mr. Butler, has engaged in another branch
of business. Once more, thanking you all for your
kind welcome, I bid you, till the re-opening, `an
affectionate adieu.' ''
The speech was received with wild enthusiasm,
and after the re-opening of the Museum the number
of visitors was at once almost doubled.
Among the many newspaper congratulations he
received, none gave Barnum more pleasure than a
poem from his old admirer on the Boston Saturday
Evening Gazette.
ANOTHER WORD FOR BARNUM.
Barnum, your hand! The struggle o'er,
You face the world and ask no favor;
You stand where you have stood before,
The old salt hasn't lost its savor.
You now can laugh with friends, at foes'
Ne'er heeding Mrs. Grundy's tattle;
You've dealt and taken sturdy blows,
Regardless of the rabble's prattle.
Not yours the heart to harbor ill
'Gainst those who've dealt in trivial jesting;
You pass them with the same good will
Erst shown when they their wit were testing.
You're the same Barnum that we knew,
You're good for years, still fit for labor,
Be as of old, be bold and true,
Honest as man, as friend, as neighbor.
At about this period, the following poem was published
in a Pottsville, Pa., paper, and copied by
many journals of the-day:
A HEALTH TO BARNUM.
Companions! fill your glasses round
And drink a health to one
Who has few coming after him,
To do as he has done;
Who made a fortune for himself,
Made fortunes, too, for many,
Yet wronged no bosom of a sigh,
No pocket of a penny.
Come! shout a gallant chorus,
And make the glasses ring,
Here's health and luck to Barnum!
The Exhibition King.
Who lured the Swedish Nightingale
To Western woods to come?
Who prosperous and happy made
The life of little Thumb?
Who oped Amusement's golden door
So cheaply to the crowd,
And taught Morality to smile
On all his stage allowed?
Come! shout a gallant chorus,
Until the glasses ring —
Here's health and luck to Barnum!
The Exhibition King.
And when the sad reverses came,
As come they may to all,
Who stood a Hero, bold and true,
Amid his fortune's fall?
Who to the utmost yielded up
What Honor could not keep,
Then took the field of life again
With courage calm and deep?
Come! shout a gallant chorus,
Until the glasses dance —
Here's health and luck to Barnum,
The Napoleon of Finance
Yet, no — our hero would not look
With smiles on such a cup;
Throw out the wine — with water clear,
Fill the pure crystal up
Then rise, and greet with deep respect,
The courage he has shown,
And drink to him who well deserves
A seat on Fortune's throne.
Here's health and luck to Barnum!
An Elba he has seen,
And never may his map of life
Display a St Helene?
It is of interest to observe that the phrase "Napoleon
of Finance,'' which has in recent years been
applied to several Wall Street speculators, was first
coined in honorable description of Phineas T. Barnum,
because of his honesty as well as his signal
success.