.


SCI LIBRARY

John Sherwin Crosby: Life and Work

Sigmund Knag



[September, 2012]


JOHN SHERWIN CROSBY - LIFE AND WORK Sigmund Knag - Bergen, Norway, September 9, 2012 John Sherwin Crosby was an American limited-government liberal who, in the decades before WW1, became a follower of Henry George's land reform and single tax movement, delivered a moving eulogy at Henry George's funeral, and wrote two accessible books on political and ethical theory, which included criticism of land monopoly and of the principle of limited liability of corporations. From the 1890s he lived in New York, moving in Single Tax Club circles, which were rife in those days. He seems otherwise unknown. If I were to guess as to his profession, I would say school teacher or similar. His portrait in his 1915 work, a studio portrait, shows a well-dressed, genial, refined man round sixty perhaps, with light-coloured or graying hair parted in the middle. Another portrait, in "The Mission of Henry George", shows a somewhat younger and slimmer, rather good-looking man with poise and personality.

Nellie Fassett Crosby, his second wife, was prominent in New York Democrat circles for two decades up to the end of WW1. [See Sources]

Ernest Crosby (1856-1906), a writer on Tolstoy and also a Georgist, who visited Tolstoy in 1894 and discussed Henry George with him, was a distant relative of John S. Crosby. [FC] [R.F. Christian]

Chronology


  • 1842. (January 14) John Sherwin Crosby is born in Freedom, Maine, as one of seven children. 1865. Marriage, in Hanover, Massachusetts, to Abby Josephine Gardner (b. 1842 in Mansfield, Maine).
  • 18-. (Dates unknown:) Birth of son John Sherwin C. (the younger) and daughter Louise Leonard C. (who married Frank Albert Drew).
  • 1872. Writes the catalogue of the library at the St. Joseph, Missouri, public high school.
  • 1877. Mother, b. 1808, dies. [FC]
  • 1886. Father, b. 1805, dies. [FC]
  • 1890. (circa) Death of wife Abby.
  • -. (Date unknown:) Marries second wife Nellie [FC says Bertie] Fassett, in St. Louis, Missouri. I have found no record of children in this marriage.
  • 1894. (May) Ernest Howard Crosby (1856-1907), a distant relative, visits Tolstoy in Russia, who suggests that he collaborate with Henry George on tax reform, which he subsequently does. He publishes an article the same year about the visit.
  • 1890s. Is a follower of Henry George.
  • 1896. Publication of Government, in Kansas City, Mo.
  • 1897. (October 31, a Sunday) Is one of several speakers at the funeral of Henry George in New York City. His eloquent oration makes a deep impression, say contemporary sources.
  • 1901. (January) Writes foreword to new edn of Government in New York.
  • 1905. Nellie Fassett Crosby founds Women's Democratic Club of New York. She had been active in various political clubs during the 1890s. [Jo Freeman]
  • 1909. Death of son John.
  • 1912. Wife Nellie is active on behalf of women's issues in the Federal elections in New York; is elected President of the Women's National Democratic League, founded that year. [Jo Freeman]
  • 1913. Writes the Dedication in The Orthocratic State, in New York, "in an hour of physical darkness."
  • 1914. (February 24) Dies.
  • 1915. (May) Posthumous publication, in New York, of The Orthocratic State.
  • 1918. Nellie named as the representative of New York State on the Woman's Advisory Committee of the Democratic Party. [NYT 1918]


Works by Crosby


John Sherwin Crosby published two main works on the ethics of government. They give the impression of a Herbert-Spencerian Liberal (but with a pronounced natural-rights perspective) who later adopted and integrated Henry George's ideas. The writing is succinct and elegant, with old-fashioned pomp, his thought independent and clear, and he marshalls well his thoughts on an ambitious subject. Both works discuss the land issue. More strikingly, Crosby, while praising the free market, voices principled criticism of the limited-liability corporation and its effects of anti-competition and gigantism; a rare thing among even revisionist liberals. One chapter of Government is devoted to that subject. I suggest that J.C. Crosby's writings strongly deserve re-publication.

His two main works cover the same subject. The latter may be essentially a revision of the first, with a new title. Government (in the Danish edition) has 7 chapters, Orthocratic has 5 (the Introduction being the first chapter). Remarks about the female franchise in Government are absent in Orthocratic (since they were no longer an issue).

1896. Government : An Inquiry into the Nature and Functions of the State. By John S. Crosby. Kansas City, Mo., Hailman Print. Co. 1896. 112 p., portrait. [LOC]

Later editions? Since the author's foreword published in the Danish edition is dated 1901, the translator must have worked from a later edition than the first (unless the author provided a foreword specially for the Danish edn, of which there is no hint). So far, I have not found any trace of such a later edition. - Danish edn: Copenhagen, 1908, see below.

1897. Address at the Funeral of Henry George. On p. 45 of: Edmund Yardley (compiler), Addresses at the Funeral of Henry George, Sunday, October 31, 1897, at the Grand Central Palace, New York City. [See Sources] At Henry George's funeral, the congregation was large and the atmosphere emotional. In the printed text of the speeches, there are frequent notes of "Great applause", "Sensation" and outcries. Crosby spoke as the last of four speakers. The other three were: the Rev. Lyman Abbott. D.D., Dr. Gustav Gottheil (a rabbi), and the Rev. Edward McGlynn (leader of the Anti-Poverty League, who got into severe trouble with his Church for his Georgist views on land tenure).

1897 or later. The Mission of Henry George. Addresses by John S. Crosby. Published in Dodson, USA (Co-Cz). On cover, photo of author, a quote from the funeral address of 1897, and an advertisement for lectures by Crosby by H.C.S. Stimpson, Secretary of Manhattan Single Tax Club, N.Y. [Cover shown in N.Y. Public Library Digital Gallery, in web pages of H. George-related illustrations. Also in Dodson; see Sources.]

1915. The Orthocratic State : The Unchanging Principles of Civics and Government. By John Sherwin Crosby. New York: Sturgis and Walton Company. [May] 1915. Foreword dated New York, 1913. 166 p. B/w photo of author on frontispiece. [LOC]

A notice on the colophon page says "Published May, 1915". Author's printed dedication: "To John J. Murphy, Lawson Purdy, Charles H. Ingersoll and Wiliam Lustgarten : But for whose kind offices it might not have been published, this booklet is affectionately dedicated (in an hour of physical darkness). J.S. C."

From English Wikipedia:


Charles Henry Ingersoll (1865-1948), American entrepreneur and business executive who, with his older brother, Robert (1860-1929), co-founded, in 1892, Ingersoll Watch Company, which produced forty million "dollar watches".

Lawson Purdy was president of the office of Tax Commissioner of New York (q.v.) City circa 1908, president of the National Civic League (q.v.) 1915-1919, and president of the National Municipal League until 1919 (succeeded by Charles Evans Hughes, q.v.).


In translation


1908. Kunsten at regere retfærdigt : En Haandbog for Politikere. Transl. by J.N. Brande. København: Dansk Andels Forlag, 1908. 106 pages. Author's foreword, 2 pages, dated New York, July 1901. Translator's foreword, 3 pages. One page of quotations - Locke, Blackstone, Jefferson, Lincoln, Henry George, Pope Gregory the Great. (Transl. of Government, although original title is not stated.) [UBB] [KB]


Sources:


  • FC: Freeman M. Crosby's website(genealogy of Crosby family, "Crosby, John Sherwin") 08.12.2002
  • Dodson: E.J. Dodson: A Biographical History of the Georgist Movement (U.S.A., Co-Cz) (30.06.2003)
  • Wikipedia listing for John Sherwin Crosby
  • LOC: Library of Congress Online Catalog (01.07.2003)
  • LMP: Online catalogue, Libertarian Microfiche Publishing (John Zube, AU) (06.07.2003)
  • UBB: Bergen University Library
  • KB: Royal Library, Copenhagen
  • BL: British Library, on-line catalogue (13.08.2003)
  • NYPL: New York Public Library's "Digital Gallery" has web pages of H. George-related ill.s
  • Leo Tolstoy, letter of 24 November 1894 to Ernest Crosby; in Tolstoy's Letters, London 1978, p. 512.
  • Tolstoy's Letters, ed. R.F. Christian, London University, The Athlone Press, 1978, p. 512.
  • Tolstoy's Diaries, 2 vols (I: 1847; II: 1895-1910), trl. and ed. R.F. Christian, Athlone, London, 1985.(Or, abridged one-vol. paperback, Flamingo, London, 1994.) [BL]
  • Letter from R.F. Christian to the author (Edinburgh, 21 August 2003) concerning Ernest Crosby.
  • English Wikipedia: John Sherwin Crosby (short article) Retrieved 25-08-2012. S.K.
  • Edmund Yardley (compiler), Addresses at the Funeral of Henry George, Sunday, October 31, 1897, at the Grand Central Palace, New York City, with an Introduction by Henry George, Jr., [The Georgist Bookshop, Melbourne], reprinted by The Robert Schalkenbach Foundation, New York, 1931. [LMP, in microfiche PP 625]
  • Jo Freeman. "The Rise of Political Woman in the Election of 1912". University of Illinois. Retrieved 2009-07-25.
  • "One of those attending the breakfast was Nellie Fassett (Mrs. John Sherwin) Crosby of New York City. She was not a political wife, but a political organizer and the personal friend of William Jennings Bryan. Mrs. Crosby had been organizing and presiding over women's political clubs since the 1890s. She had founded the Woman's Democratic Club of New York City in 1905 - "the only organization of Democratic women [in New York] to outlive its birth year" - and was still its only president."
  • NYT 1918: "Democrats Choose Mrs. J.S. Crosby." (PDF). New York Times. February 28, 1918. Retrieved 2009-07-25.
  • "Mrs. John Sherwin Crosby of New York City has been named as the representative of New York State on the Woman's Advisory Committee of the Democratic [Party] ..."