The Franklin Fund

THE CONTRIBUTORS’ CLUB.

I HAVE a distant relative who glories in the possession of some silver spoons that once belonged to Benjamin Franklin’s mother and sister. She has also some cheese that was made about the time of the Revolutionary War. Its value if its cost at compound interest were computed would be absurdly disproportionate to its flavor, for its quality, whatever it may have been one hundred and thirty years ago, is somewhat like an ancient joke. Still, my cousin occasionally on great occasions carefully pares off a tiny shaving, and allows sympathetic friends to imagine that there is some saving grace connected with its antiquity. That, and a bit of tea rescued from the famous “ Boston Tea Party,” and likewise bereft of its flavor, but sipped from cups that came over in the Mayflower, and stirred with spoons which once kissed Franklin’s own lips, certainly carry the imagination back to the strenuous days when “ Georgius Secundus was still alive.”

This dignified ceremony took place on last Forefathers’ Day. Alas, not many times more to be repeated, for the preciously guarded loaf and the much reverenced fund of tea leaves are becoming homœopathic in quantity. On this occasion, several of us, having partaken with due solemnity, felt very strongly that Franklin was near us, as if he hovered in almost visible form over the table where the priceless relics stood. A day or two later, my wife had a professional masseuse as a relief for a slight attack of neuralgia. This woman does not claim to be a spiritual medium, and yet she always relapses into a sort of trance. Her voice changes and becomes decidedly masculine, and, under the guise of a certain Dr. Throgmorton, she treats simple ailments, and by the specifics which she prescribes often, so my wife thinks, dispels troubles that baffle our regular family physician. I take no stock in it, and laugh when I am told of future events which this wise and mysterious visitant sometimes prophesies. On this occasion I chanced to be present, and I was somewhat electrified when Mrs.in the deep bass voice of an old-school practitioner announced that Dr. Benjamin Franklin was in the room, and would like to communicate with me. Of course I was flattered, and expressed my willingness to listen.

“ Here he is,” said Dr. Throgmorton ; “I will let him speak for himself.”

And indeed a curious change instantly took place in the voice of the speaker: it became thinner and finer, it had a wheedling quality with the peculiar timbre of old age. He said : —

“ On the 22d you were at the house of my kinswoman, Mrs. -, and you drank tea from a cup that had descended to my mother, and you stirred it with a spoon that belonged to my sister.”

I acknowledged that such was the case. The spirit of Franklin proceeded :

“ I have been long desirous of sending a message to the chief persons both of my native and of my adopted city. I have watched eagerly for such an opportunity as this. Your contact with my family relics brought a strong influence to bear upon me, and the chance has at last come. You will do me the favor to take accurate note of my words, and report them to the proper parties. Listen : in a codicil to my will, dated June 23, 1789, I left Boston and Philadelphia each the sum of £1000 to let out at interest at five per cent to young married artificers. I expected that each principal would in the course of a hundred years amount to £131,000, and I explicitly directed that £100,000 of it should be laid out in public works, fortifications, bridges, aqueducts, roads, public buildings, baths, pavements, or whatever would make living in the town more convenient to its people, and render it more agreeable to strangers resorting thither for health or temporary residence. I directed that the residue — £31,000 — should be again let out for another space of a hundred years, when, according to my best calculations, it would amount to £4,061,000.”

I here ventured to inform Franklin that in Boston, at least, the fund had been faithfully nurtured, and that the purchase of the large tract of land forming the beautiful park that bears his name was in exact accordance with his will.

“ Very good, very good,” he replied, “ I have watched with great pleasure the transformation of that tract of land, and while I feel that the money could not have been more wisely expended, I have viewed with much solicitude the way in which further large sums have been borrowed in order to construct roads, build overlooks, gird it with costly walls, and, especially of late, undo what it had cost largely to perform. It would have been much better if the Park Commissioners had with a few proper exceptions made it a rule to pay as they proceeded instead of loading a vast debt on their descendants. You may remember my advice about borrowing. Poor Richard uttered many wise saws, if I do say it who should not. But that is not what I wanted to say. I believe the residue amounts to nearly $400,000.”

“Yes,” I said, “it was more than $365,000 three years ago.”

“ Well,” continued Franklin, “ that proves that there has been careful husbandry.”

I assured him that though at first the legacy was neglected by the selectmen, it afterwards fell into good hands, and “is now managed by the Board of Aldermen, assisted or corrected by the ministers of the oldest Episcopal, Congregationalist, and Presbyterian churches of the city. They have been long deliberating how best to expend the sum. Some wanted a trade school but ” —

“Yes, I know,” interrupted Franklin, “the trades unions antagonized that distribution of it, and it is in regard to this very thing that I wish to express an opinion. Naturally, though I am in another world, I have taken the keenest interest in the development of electricity on earth. I flatter myself that if I could be reincarnated I should have a hand in the electrical inventions that make your age memorable. I have been a constant observer of the progress made each year, and occasionally I have been led to make suggestions to Edison, Tesla, Marconi, as indeed I did to the earlier pioneers in telegraphy, and electric lighting, and other industries, thereby causing several improvements over my original epoch-making discovery. They did not know it, but I communicated these suggestions to them while they were asleep. That is one way in which the few of us that are allowed to be in touch with terrestrial affairs can influence the living,

— understand me, I mean living in the flesh, for if the word living is to be applied, it is to us who have shaken off the shackles of the body. This method of communication is very unsatisfactory, for sleep is akin to death, and when the spirit is partially loosened from the body, the memory generally fails to carry any true impression of what has happened.

— But my message is in danger of being not delivered. It would be a serious loss. Listen: I frequently travel back and forth in your electric cars, especially in the new elevated lines. I am delighted with that mode of locomotion when I compare it with the slow and tedious ways we had of getting about when I was Postmaster-General, and had to go by stagecoach from Philadelphia to New York. Of course it is all very crude compared with my present facilities.”

I was filled with desire to learn more of them, but he proceeded: —

“ I will tell you frankly that the noisy, unsatisfactory, and often dangerous trolley, and even the third rail, will some time be supplanted by a still better mode of locomotion, for electric travel is as yet only in its infancy. But again I wander. It troubles me greatly to see that the spaces around the cornices of the cars in all the American cities, and also those abroad, are sold for advertisements of the most heterogeneous sort. It is certainly unfortunate that such despicable doggerel and such hideous illustrations should be allowed to attract attention to such things as spirits — I mean liquors — and corsets and medicines. Now this is what I wish done with my unexpended fund : Let the trustees take possession of all the advertising space in the electric cars in Boston and Philadelphia, and devote it to a sort of traveling library or university. I see that each unit of space costs only two cents a day for each car. Let the President of Harvard, and other capable persons, lay out such a course of instruction as could be fitted to such an object. Let the great lessons of literature— inspiring poems, apothegms from Poor Richard, wise sayings from the Bible and the Koran, memorable passages from philosophy and political economy— be clearly printed and changed about from time to time. Suitable engravings and even beautiful and helpful paintings might be distributed at proper intervals, and the preparation of these paintings and the composition of appropriate poems might well serve as a stimulus to painters and poets, — both of which classes of your citizens seem to be sadly neglected at the present time. The notable events of history could be thus placed before the young ; moral maxims would elevate and encourage, and I am certain that in an incredibly short space of time there would be a vast improvement in the culture and morale of the two cities. This would be particularly desirable in Philadelphia, which, I am sorry to say, is in a Quaker state.”

I was not certain that I had heard correctly, or was it merely the old-fashioned pronunciation ? I thought Franklin had fallen into his bad habit of uttering puns. At all events I forgot myself and coughed, for the whole conversation was so real that I forgot that I was talking with a spirit. The noise I made disturbed the medium. She awoke with a start, rubbed her eyes, and, in her own delicately modulated voice, inquired of me if she had been asleep !

As for Franklin, he was cut off as inexorably as if he had been using a telephone. I simply record his message as I received it. It strikes me that it is marked by much of Franklin’s sound common sense, and deserves to be heeded.