10
edition of The Wandering Jew by Eugene Sue came out
in a massive set that to my boyish mind seemed like twenty
volumes, Dad read the complete set. He was the only person
I ever knew who did.
He had been reared in the Church of England; after
marriage he joined the Cumberland Presbyterian Church
of my mother's people. During his later years he was an
agnostic, but even after his break with organized religion
his was always basically a Christian approach to life. I
heard him say many times, "You have to do unto others as
you would have them do unto you or you won't be able to
live with yourself." Logically, this outlook led him into
pacifism. He knew that nothing was settled by war, that
both sides lost, that war disrupted homes and society, that
its suffering had no meaning, and that those who started
wars were not the ones who fought them. At base, war was
an economic game that turned free men into pawns. If
honest differences could not be reconciled without armed
conflict, he believed, neither would war solve them. This
was the same view the Browns had.
In 1922 Dad's union went out on strike against the Chicago
and Eastern Illinois, and he left the railroad for good.
He never worked again. He was getting old and although
he was still as strong as an ox, his eyes were giving him
trouble, which was diagnosed as glaucoma. For the last
twenty years of his life he had poor sight or none. He wore
a thick mustache most of his adult life. When he could no
longer see to trim it himself, he shaved it off. He was an
independent man to the end.