Section 2 of 25 - Table of Contents
The village of East Aurora, Erie County, New York, the
home of The Roycrofters, is eighteen miles southeast of the city of
Buffalo. The place has a population of about three thousand people.
There is no wealth in the town and no poverty. In East Aurora there are
six churches, with pastors' salaries varying from three hundred to one
thousand dollars a year; and we have a most excellent school. The place
is not especially picturesque or attractive, being simply a
representative New York State village. Lake Erie is ten miles distant,
and Cazenovia Creek winds its lazy way along by the village.
The land around East Aurora is poor, and so reduced in purse are the
farmers that no insurance-company will insure farm property in Erie
County under any conditions unless the farmer has some business outside
of agriculture--the experience of the underwriters being that when a man
is poor enough, he is also dishonest; insure a farmer's barn in New York
State, and there is a strong probability that he will soon invest in
kerosene.
However, there is no real destitution, for a farmer can always raise
enough produce to feed his family, and in a wooded country he can get
fuel, even if he has to lift it between the dawn and the day.
Most of the workers in the Roycroft Shop are children of farming folk,
and it is needless to add that they are not college-bred, nor have they
had the advantages of foreign travel. One of our best helpers, Uncle
Billy Bushnell, has never been to Niagara Falls, and does not care to go.
Uncle Billy says if you stay at home and do your work well enough, the
world will come to you; which aphorism the old man backs up with another,
probably derived from experience, to the effect that a man is a fool to
chase after women, because, if he doesn't, the women will chase after
him.
The wisdom of this hard-headed old son of the soil--who abandoned
agriculture for art at seventy--is exemplified in the fact that during
the year just past, over twenty-eight thousand pilgrims have visited the
Roycroft Shop--representing every State and Territory of the Union and
every civilized country on the globe, even far-off Iceland, New Zealand
and the Isle of Guam.
Three hundred ten people are on the payroll at the present writing. The
principal work is printing, illuminating and binding books. We also have
a furniture shop, where Mission furniture of the highest grade is made; a
modeled-leather shop, where the most wonderful creations in calfskin are
to be seen; and a smithy, where copper utensils of great beauty are
hammered out by hand.
Quite as important as the printing and binding is the illuminating of
initials and title-pages. This is a revival of a lost art, gone with so
much of the artistic work done by the monks of the olden time. Yet there
is a demand for such work; and so far as I know, we are the first
concern in America to take up the hand-illumination of books as a
business. Of course we have had to train our helpers, and from very crude
attempts at decoration we have attained to a point where the British
Museum and the "Bibliotheke" at The Hague have deigned to order and pay
good golden guineas for specimens of our handicraft. Very naturally we
want to do the best work possible, and so self-interest prompts us to be
on the lookout for budding genius. The Roycroft is a quest for talent.
There is a market for the best, and the surest way, we think, to get away
from competition is to do your work a little better than the other
fellow. The old tendency to make things cheaper, instead of better, in
the book line is a fallacy, as shown in the fact that within ten years
there have been a dozen failures of big publishing-houses in the United
States. The liabilities of these bankrupt concerns footed the fine total
of fourteen million dollars. The man who made more books and cheaper
books than any one concern ever made, had the felicity to fail very
shortly, with liabilities of something over a million dollars. He overdid
the thing in matter of cheapness--mistook his market. Our motto is, "Not
How Cheap, But How Good."
This is the richest country the world has ever known, far richer per
capita than England--lending money to Europe. Once Americans were all
shoddy--pioneers have to be, I'm told--but now only a part of us are
shoddy. As men and women increase in culture and refinement, they want
fewer things, and they want better things. The cheap article, I will
admit, ministers to a certain grade of intellect; but if the man grows,
there will come a time when, instead of a great many cheap and shoddy
things, he will want a few good things. He will want things that symbol
solidity, truth, genuineness and beauty.
The Roycrofters have many opportunities for improvement not the least of
which is the seeing, hearing and meeting distinguished people. We have a
public dining-room, and not a day passes but men and women of note sit at
meat with us. At the evening meal, if our visitors are so inclined, and
are of the right fiber, I ask them to talk. And if there is no one else
to speak, I sometimes read a little from William Morris, Shakespeare,
Walt Whitman or Ruskin. David Bispham has sung for us. Maude Adams and
Minnie Maddern Fiske have also favored us with a taste of their quality.
Judge Lindsey, Alfred Henry Lewis, Richard Le Gallienne, Robert Barr,
have visited us; but to give a list of all the eminent men and women who
have spoken, sung or played for us would lay me liable for infringement
in printing "Who's Who." However, let me name one typical incident. The
Boston Ideal Opera Company was playing in Buffalo, and Henry Clay
Barnabee and half a dozen of his players took a run out to East Aurora.
They were shown through the Shop by one of the girls whose work it is to
receive visitors. A young woman of the company sat down at one of the
pianos and played. I chanced to be near and asked Mr. Barnabee if he
would not sing, and graciously he answered, "Fra Elbertus, I'll do
anything that you say." I gave the signal that all the workers should
quit their tasks and meet at the Chapel. In five minutes we had an
audience of three hundred--men in blouses and overalls, girls in big
aprons--a very jolly, kindly, receptive company.
Mr. Barnabee was at his best--I never saw him so funny. He sang, danced,
recited, and told stories for forty minutes. The Roycrofters were, of
course, delighted.
One girl whispered to me as she went out, "I wonder what great sorrow is
gnawing at Barnabee's heart, that he is so wondrous gay!" Need I say that
the girl who made the remark just quoted had drunk of life's cup to the
very lees? We have a few such with us--and several of them are among our
most loyal helpers.
* * * * *
One fortuitous event that has worked to our decided
advantage was "A Message to Garcia."
This article, not much more than a paragraph, covering only fifteen
hundred words, was written one evening after supper in a single hour. It
was the Twenty-second of February, Eighteen Hundred Ninety-Nine,
Washington's Birthday, and we were just going to press with the March
"Philistine." The thing leaped hot from my heart, written after a rather
trying day, when I had been endeavoring to train some rather delinquent
helpers in the way they should go.
The immediate suggestion, though, came from a little argument over the
teacups when my son Bert suggested that Rowan was the real hero of the
Cuban war. Rowan had gone alone and done the thing--carried the message
to Garcia.
It came to me like a flash! Yes, the boy is right, the hero is the man
who does the thing--does his work--carries the message.
I got up from the table and wrote "A Message to Garcia."
I thought so little of it that we ran it in without a heading. The
edition went out, and soon orders began to come for extra March
"Philistines," a dozen, fifty, a hundred; and when the American News
Company ordered a thousand I asked one of my helpers which article it was
that had stirred things up.
"It's that stuff about Garcia," he said.
The next day a telegram came from George H. Daniels, of the New York
Central Railroad, thus: "Give price on one hundred thousand Rowan article
in pamphlet form--Empire State Express advertisement on back--also state
how soon can ship."
I replied giving price and stated we could supply the pamphlets in two
years. Our facilities were small, and a hundred thousand pamphlets looked
like an awful undertaking.
The result was that I gave Mr. Daniels permission to reprint the article
in his own way. He issued it in booklet form in editions of one hundred
thousand each. Five editions were sent out, and then he got out an
edition of half a million. Two or three of these half-million lots were
sent out by Mr. Daniels, and in addition the article was reprinted in
over two hundred magazines and newspapers. It has been translated into
eleven languages, and been given a total circulation of over twenty-two
million copies. It has attained, I believe, a larger circulation in the
same length of time than any written article has ever before reached.
Of course, we can not tell just how much good "A Message to Garcia" has
done the Shop, but it probably doubled the circulation of "The
Philistine." I do not consider it by any means my best piece of writing;
but it was opportune--the time was ripe. Truth demands a certain
expression, and too much had been said on the other side about the
downtrodden, honest man, looking for work and not being able to find it.
The article in question states the other side. Men are needed--loyal,
honest men who will do their work. "The world cries out for him--the man
who can carry a message to Garcia."
The man who sent the message and the man who received it are dead. The
man who carried it is still carrying other messages. The combination of
theme, condition of the country, and method of circulation was so
favorable that their conjunction will probably never occur again. Other
men will write better articles, but they may go a-begging for lack of a
Daniels to bring them to judgment.
* * * * *
Concerning my own personal history, I'll not tarry long to
tell. It has been too much like the career of many another born in the
semi-pioneer times of the Middle West, to attract much attention, unless
one should go into the psychology of the thing with intent to show the
evolution of a soul. But that will require a book--and some day I'll
write it, after the manner of Saint Augustine or Jean Jacques.
But just now I 'll only say that I was born in Illinois, June Nineteenth,
Eighteen Hundred Fifty-six. My father was a country doctor, whose income
never exceeded five hundred dollars a year. I left school at fifteen,
with a fair hold on the three R's, and beyond this my education in
"manual training" had been good. I knew all the forest-trees, all wild
animals thereabout, every kind of fish, frog, fowl or bird that swam, ran
or flew. I knew every kind of grain or vegetable, and its comparative
value. I knew the different breeds of cattle, horses, sheep and swine.
I could teach wild cows to stand while being milked; break horses to
saddle or harness; could sow, plow and reap; knew the mysteries of
apple-butter, pumpkin pie pickled beef, smoked side-meat, and could make
lye at a leach and formulate soft soap.
That is to say, I was a bright, strong, active country boy who had been
brought up to help his father and mother get a living for a large
family.
I was not so densely ignorant--don't feel sorry for country boys: God is
often on their side.
At fifteen I worked on a farm and did a man's work for a boy's pay. I did
not like it and told the man so. He replied, "You know what you can do."
And I replied, "Yes." I went westward like the course of empire and
became a cowboy; tired of this and went to Chicago; worked in a
printing-office; peddled soap from house to house; shoved lumber on the
docks; read all the books I could find; wrote letters back to country
newspapers and became a reporter; next got a job as traveling salesman;
taught in a district school; read Emerson, Carlyle and Macaulay; worked
in a soap factory; read Shakespeare and committed most of "Hamlet" to
memory with an eye on the stage; became manager of the soap-factory, then
partner; evolved an Idea for the concern and put it on the track of
making millions--knew it was going to make millions--did not want them;
sold out my interest for seventy-five thousand dollars and went to
Harvard College; tramped through Europe; wrote for sundry newspapers;
penned two books (couldn't find a publisher); taught night school in
Buffalo; tramped through Europe some more and met William Morris (caught
it); came back to East Aurora and started "Chautauqua Circles"; studied
Greek and Latin with a local clergyman; raised trotting-horses; wrote
"Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great."
So that is how I got my education, such as it is. I am a graduate of the
University of Hard Knocks, and I've taken several postgraduate courses. I
have worked at five different trades enough to be familiar with the
tools. In Eighteen Hundred Ninety-nine, Tufts College bestowed on me the
degree of Master of Arts; but since I did not earn the degree, it really
does not count.
I have never been sick a day, never lost a meal through disinclination to
eat, never consulted a doctor, never used tobacco or intoxicants. My work
has never been regulated by the eight-hour clause.
Horses have been my only extravagance, and I ride horseback daily now: a
horse that I broke myself, that has never been saddled by another, and
that has never been harnessed.
My best friends have been workingmen, homely women and children. My
father and mother are members of my household, and they work in the Shop
when they are so inclined. My mother's business now is mostly to care for
the flowers, and my father we call "Physician to The Roycrofters," as he
gives free advice and attendance to all who desire his services. Needless
to say, his medicine is mostly a matter of the mind. Unfortunately for
him, we do not enjoy poor health, so there is very seldom any one sick to
be cured. Fresh air is free, and outdoor exercise is not discouraged.
* * * * *
The Roycroft Shop and belongings represent an investment
of about three hundred thousand dollars. We have no liabilities, making
it a strict business policy to sign no notes or other instruments of debt
that may in the future prove inopportune and tend to disturb digestion.
Fortune has favored us.
First, the country has grown tired of soft platitude, silly truism and
undisputed things said in such a solemn way. So when "The Philistine"
stepped into the ring and voiced in no uncertain tones what its editor
thought, thinking men and women stopped and listened. Editors of
magazines refused my manuscript because they said it was too plain, too
blunt, sometimes indelicate--it would give offense, subscribers would
cancel, et cetera. To get my thoughts published I had to publish them
myself; and people bought for the very reason for which the editors said
they would cancel. The readers wanted brevity and plain statement--the
editors said they didn't.
The editors were wrong. They failed to properly diagnose a demand. I saw
the demand and supplied it--for a consideration.
Next I believed the American public. A portion of it, at least, wanted a
few good and beautiful books instead of a great many cheap books. The
truth came to me in the early Nineties, when John B. Alden and half a
dozen other publishers of cheap books went to the wall. I read the R.G.
Dun & Company bulletin and I said, "The publishers have mistaken their
public--we want better books, not cheaper." In Eighteen Hundred
Ninety-two, I met William Morris, and after that I was sure I was right.
Again I had gauged the public correctly--the publishers were wrong, as
wrong as the editors. There was a market for the best, and the problem
was to supply it. At first I bound my books in paper covers and simple
boards. Men wrote to me wanting fine bindings. I said, "There is a market
in America for the best--cheap boards, covered with cloth, stamped by
machinery in gaudy tinsel and gilt, are not enough." I discovered that
nearly all the bookbinders were dead. I found five hundred people in a
book-factory in Chicago binding books, but not a bookbinder among them.
They simply fed the books into hoppers and shot them out of chutes, and
said they were bound.
Next the public wanted to know about this thing--"What are you folks
doing out there in that buckwheat town?" Since my twentieth year I have
had one eye on the histrionic stage. I could talk in public a bit, had
made political speeches, given entertainments in crossroads schoolhouses,
made temperance harangues, was always called upon to introduce the
speaker of the evening, and several times had given readings from my own
amusing works for the modest stipend of ten dollars and keep. I would
have taken the lecture platform had it not been nailed down.
In Eighteen Hundred Ninety-eight, my friend Major Pond wanted to book me
on a partnership deal at the Waldorf-Astoria. I didn't want to speak
there--I had been saying unkind things in "The Philistine" about the
Waldorf-Astoria folks. But the Major went ahead and made arrangements. I
expected to be mobbed.
But Mr. Boldt, the manager of the hotel, had placed a suite of rooms at
my disposal without money and without price. He treated me most
cordially; never referred to the outrageous things I had said about his
tavern; assured me that he enjoyed my writings, and told me of the
pleasure he had in welcoming me.
Thus did he heap hot cinders upon my occiput. The Astor gallery seats
eight hundred people. Major Pond had packed in nine hundred at one dollar
each--three hundred were turned away. After the lecture the Major awaited
me in the anteroom, fell on my neck and rained Pond's Extract down my
back, crying: "Oh! Oh! Oh! Why didn't we charge them two dollars apiece!"
The next move was to make a tour of the principal cities under Major
Pond's management. Neither of us lost money--the Major surely did not.
Last season I gave eighty-one lectures, with a net profit to myself of a
little over ten thousand dollars. I spoke at Tremont Temple in Boston, to
twenty-two hundred people; at Carnegie Hall, New York; at Central Music
Hall, Chicago. I spoke to all the house would hold; at Chautauqua, my
audience was five thousand people. It will be noted by the Discerning
that my lectures have been of double importance, in that they have given
an income and at the same time advertised the Roycroft Wares.
The success of the Roycroft Shop has not been brought about by any one
scheme or plan. The business is really a combination of several ideas,
any one of which would make a paying enterprise in itself. So it stands
about thus:
First, the printing and publication of three magazines.
Second, the printing of books (it being well known that some of the
largest publishers in America--Scribner and Appleton, for instance--have
no printing-plants, but have the work done for them).
Third, the publication of books.
Fourth, the artistic binding of books.
Fifth, authorship. Since I began printing my own manuscript, there is
quite an eager demand for my writing, so I do a little of Class B for
various publishers and editors.
Sixth, the Lecture Lyceum.
Seventh, blacksmithing, carpenter-work and basket-weaving. These
industries have sprung up under the Roycroft care as a necessity. Men and
women in the village came to us and wanted work, and we simply gave them
opportunity to do the things they could do best. We have found a market
for all our wares, so no line of work has ever been a bill of expense.
I want no better clothing, no better food, no more comforts and
conveniences than my helpers and fellow-workers have. I would be ashamed
to monopolize a luxury--to take a beautiful work of art, say a painting
or a marble statue, and keep it for my own pleasure and for the select
few I might invite to see my beautiful things. Art is for all--beauty is
for all. Harmony in all of its manifold forms should be like a
sunset--free to all who can drink it in. The Roycroft Shop is for The
Roycrofters, and each is limited only by his capacity to absorb.
* * * * *
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