Cambridge Sketches

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They lived at first in a log-cabin, and afterwards his father built a
square frame-house with a piazza and veranda in front, which is still
standing. The school where Elizur, Jr., met John Brown was at a long
distance for a boy to walk. He does not appear to have made friends with
John, remarkably alike as they were in veracity, earnestness, and
adherence to principle; but John was somewhat the elder, and two or three
years among boys counts for more than ten among grown people. In later
life, however, Mr. Wright told an interesting anecdote of young Brown,
which runs as follows:

John was the best-behaved boy in the school, and for this reason the
teacher selected him to occupy a vacant place beside the girls. Some
other boys were jealous of this, and after calling Brown a milk-sop,
attacked him with snowballs. John proved himself as good a fighter then
as he did afterwards at Black Jack. He made two or three snow-balls,
rushed in at close quarters, and fought with such energy that he finally
drove all the boys before him.

Elizur Wright may have taken note of this affair, and it served him when
he entered Yale College in 1822. He had never heard of hazing, and when
the Sophomores came to his room to tease him, he received them with true
Western cordiality. He found out his mistake quickly enough, and at the
first insult he rose in wrath and ordered them out with such furious
looks that they concluded it was best to go.

He helped to support himself during his college course not only by
teaching in winter, but by making fires, waiting on table, and ringing
the recitation bell. In spite of these menial services, he was popular in
his class and had a number of aristocratic friends,--among them Philip
Van Rensselaer. He was one of the best scholars in his class,--first in
mathematics, and so fluent in Greek that to the end of his life he could
read it with ease.

He did not wait for graduation. In May, 1826, the Groton Academy suddenly
wanted a teacher, and Elizur Wright was invited to take the position. The
college faculty sent him his degree a month later,--which they might not
have done if they had known how little he cared for it. In his school at
Groton was a pretty, dark-eyed girl named Susan Clark, who, for two years
previously, had been at school with Margaret Fuller and was very well
acquainted with her. Elizur Wright became interested in Miss Clark, and
three years later they were married.

One day, while he was living at Groton, Mr. Wright went by the Boston
stage to Fitchburg, and on his return held a long conversation with a
fellow-passenger, a tall, slender young man with aquiline features, who
gave his name as Ralph Waldo Emerson. Mr. Wright found him an exceedingly
interesting gentleman, but of so fragile an appearance that it seemed
impossible that he should live many years.

From this time the paths of these two young scholars diverged. Emerson
became an idealist and an ethical reformer. Elizur Wright became a
realist and a political reformer. Realism seems to belong to the soil of
Ohio.

Ill health came next in turn, a natural consequence of his severe life at
Yale College. He was obliged to leave his school, and for an occupation
he circulated tracts for the American Congregational Society, making a
stipulation, however, which was characteristic of him, that he should not
distribute any that ran contrary to his convictions. In this itinerant
fashion he became sufficiently recuperated at the end of a year to marry
Miss Clark, September 13, 1829, and accept the professorship of
mathematics at Western Reserve College, at Hudson, Ohio. There he
remained till 1833, strengthening himself in the repose of matrimony for
the conflict that lay before him,--a conflict that every justice-loving
man feels that he will have to face at one time or another.

This probably came sooner than he expected. Some anti-slavery tracts,
circulated by Garrison, reached Western Reserve College and set the place
in a ferment. Elizur Wright became the champion of the anti-slavery
movement, not only in the town of Hudson but throughout the State. What
Garrison was in New England he became in the West. In the spring of 1833
he resigned his professorship and spent the next five months delivering
lectures on the slavery question. In December of the same year the first
national anti-slavery convention met in Philadelphia, and Elizur Wright
was unanimously chosen secretary of it. After that he went to New York to
edit a newspaper, the _Anti-Slavery Reporter_, remaining until 1839.
During the pro-slavery riot in New York he was attacked on the sidewalk
by two men with knives, but instantly rescued by some teamsters who were
passing. When he reached his home in Brooklyn he found a note from the
Mayor advising him to leave the city for some days; to which he replied
advising the Mayor to stop the New York ferry-boats. Meanwhile, as Mrs.
Wright was too ill to be removed, he purchased an axe and prepared to
defend his house to the last extremity. The Mayor, however, adopted his
advice, and by this excellent stratagem Brooklyn was saved from the fury
of the mob. In 1837 he moved to Dorchester, Massachusetts, to prosecute a
similar work in Boston.

Nothing is more remarkable in Mr. Wright's life than his perfect self-
poise and peace of mind during such a long period of external agitation.
It is doubtful, in spite of his highly nervous temperament, if he ever
lost a night's sleep. When he was editing the _Chronotype_, and
waiting for the telegraphic news to arrive, he would sometimes lie down
on a pile of newspapers and go to sleep in less than half a minute. For
mental relaxation he studied the higher mathematics and wrote poetry--
much of it very good. His faith in Divine Providence was absolute. He had
the soul of a hero.

During his first years in Boston, Elizur Wright translated La Fontaine's
Fables into English verse,--one of the best metrical versions of a
foreign poet,--and it is much to be regretted that the book is out of
print. It did not sell, of course, and Elizur Wright, determined that
neither he nor the publisher should lose money on it, undertook to sell
it himself. In carrying out this plan he met with some curious
experiences. He called on Professor Ticknor, who received him kindly,
spoke well of his translation, offered to dispose of a number of copies,
but--advised him to keep clear of the slavery question.

He went to Washington with the twofold object of selling his book and
talking emancipation to our national legislators; and he succeeded in
both attempts, for there were few men who liked to argue with Elizur
Wright. His brain was a store-house of facts and his analysis of them
equally keen and cutting. One Congressman, a very gentlemanly Virginian,
said to him: "Mr. Wright, I wish you could go across the Potomac and look
over my district. I think you will find that African slavery is not half
as bad as it is represented." Elizur Wright went and returned with the
emphatic reply: "I find it much worse than I expected." Having disposed
of more than half of his edition in this manner, in the spring of 1842 he
went to England, and with the kind assistance of Browning and Pringle
succeeded in placing the rest of his books there to his satisfaction.
Having a great admiration for Wordsworth's poetry, he made a long journey
to see that celebrated author, but only to be affronted by Wordsworth's
saying that America would be a good place if there were only a few
gentlemen in it. With Carlyle he had, as might have been expected, a
furious argument on the slavery question, and "King Thomas," as Dr.
Holmes calls him, encountered for once a head as hard as his own. The
Brownings, Robert and Elizabeth, received him with true English
hospitality. More experienced than Wordsworth in the great world, they
recognized Elizur Wright to be what he was,--a man of intellect and rare
integrity. Mr. Wright always spoke of Browning as one of the most
satisfactory men with whom he had ever conversed.

In 1840, as is well known, the anti-slavery movement became divided into
those who still believed in the efficacy of "moral suasion" and those who
considered that the time had come for introducing the question into
practical politics. The Texas question made the latter course inevitable,
and Elizur Wright concluded that moral suasion had done its work. As he
expressed it, in a letter to Mrs. Maria Chapman: "Garrison has already
left his enemies thrice dead behind him." He was a delegate to the
convention of April 1, 1840, which nominated James G. Birney for the
Presidency, and took an active share in the Free-soil movement of 1844,--
a movement which produced exactly the opposite effect from that which was
intended; for the defeat of Henry Clay opened the door for the Mexican
war and the annexation of a much larger territory than Texas. If Clay had
been elected, the history of the United States must have been different
from what it has proved.

How Elizur Wright supported his family during this long period of
philanthropy will always be a mystery, but support them he did. He had no
regular salary like Garrison, but, in an emergency, he could turn his
hand to almost anything, and earn money by odd jobs. Fortunately, he had
a wife who was not afraid of any kind of house-work. He purchased his
clothes of a tailor named Curtis, who kept a sailors' clothing store on
North Street, and his mode of living otherwise was not less economical.

That his children suffered by their father's philanthropy must be
admitted, but it is a general rule that the families of public
benefactors also contribute largely to the general good. His eldest
daughters inherited their father's intellect, and as they grew up
cheerfully assisted him in various ways.

When the Mexican war began there was great indignation over it in New
England, and Lowell wrote his most spirited verses in opposition to it.
Elizur Wright took advantage of the storm to establish a newspaper, the
_Chronotype_, in opposition to the Government policy. He began this
enterprise almost without help, but soon obtained assistance from leading
Free-soilers like John A. Andrew, Dr. S. G. Howe, and especially Frank W.
Bird, the most disinterested of politicians, who gave several thousand
dollars in support of the _Chronotype_. The object of the paper,
stated in Mr. Wright's own words, was "To examine everything that is new
and some things that are old, without fear or favor; to promote good
nature, good neighborhood, and good government; to advocate a just
distribution of the proper reward, whether material or immaterial, both
of honest labor and rascally violence, cunning and idleness; last, but
not least, to get an honest living." In 1848 he had a list of six
thousand subscribers; and his incisive pen was greatly feared. The
_Post_, which was the Government organ in Boston, attacked him once,
but met with such a crushing rejoinder that its editor concluded not to
try that game again. His capacity for brain labor was wonderful. He could
work fourteen hours a day, and did not seem to need recreation at all.

In the campaign of 1844 Elizur Wright made a number of speeches for the
Free-soil candidate in various New England cities. One morning he was
returning from a celebration at Nashua, when at the Lowell station Daniel
Webster entered the train with two or three friends, and turned over the
seat next to Mr. Wright. A newsboy followed Webster, and they all
purchased papers. Elizur Wright purchased a Whig paper, and seeing a
statement in it concerning the Free-soil candidate which he believed from
internal evidence to be untrue, he said quite loud: "Well! this is the
finest roorback I have met with." Webster inquired what it was, and,
after looking at the statement, pronounced it genuine. A short argument
ensued, which closed with Webster's proposing to bet forty pounds
that the allegation was true. "I am not a betting man," replied Wright,
"but since the honor of my candidate is at stake, I accept your wager."
Webster then gave him his card, and Wright returned it by writing
his name on a piece of the newspaper.

Elizur Wright no sooner reached his office than he found letters and
documents there disproving the Whig statement _in toto_, and later
in the day he carried them over to Mr. Webster, who had an office in what
was then Niles's Block. Mr. Webster looked carefully through them,
congratulated Mr. Wright on his good fortune, and handed him two hundred-
dollar bills. Peter Harvey, who was in Webster's office at the time,
afterwards stopped Elizur Wright on the sidewalk and said to him: "Mr.
Wright, you could have afforded to lose that wager much better than
Webster could."

It is remarkable how all the different interests in this man's life--
mathematics, philanthropy, journalism, and the translation of La
Fontaine--united together like so many different currents to further the
grand achievement of his life. While in England he had taken notice of
the life-insurance companies there, which were in a more advanced stage
than those in America. They interested him as a mathematical study, and
also from the humanitarian point of view. He purchased "David Jones on
Annuities," and the best works on life insurance. These he read with the
same ardor with which young ladies devour an exciting novel, and without
the least expectation that they might ever bring dollars and cents to
him; until one day in the spring of 1852 an insurance solicitor placed an
advertising booklet in his hand as he was entering the office of the
_Chronotype_.

Elizur Wright looked it over and perceived quickly enough that no company
could undertake to do what this one pretended to and remain solvent. The
booklet served him for an editorial, and before one o'clock the next day
agents from every life company in Boston were collected in his office.
They supposed at first that it was an attempt at blackmail, but soon
discovered that Elizur Wright knew more about the subject than any of
them. Neither threats nor persuasions had any effect on this
uncompromising backwoodsman. Only on one condition would Mr. Wright
retract his statements,--that the companies should reform their circulars
and place their affairs in a more sound condition. The consequence of
this was an invitation from the presidents of several of the companies
for Mr. Wright to call at their offices and discuss the subject with
them.

The situation was this, and Mr. Wright saw it clearly: the presidents of
the companies were excellent men,--as honorable and trustworthy as the
presidents of our best national banks,--and they knew how to organize and
conduct their companies in all business matters, but of life insurance as
a science they knew as little as they knew of Greek. In those days there
was a prejudice against college graduates which prevented their obtaining
the highest mercantile positions, and it is doubtful if there was any
person connected with the life-insurance companies who could solve a
problem in the higher mathematics. The consequence of this was that it
placed the presidents quite at the mercy of their own accountants. Recent
events have proved with what facility the teller of a bank can abstract
twenty or thirty thousand dollars without its appearing in the accounts.
Temptations and opportunities of this sort must have been much greater in
life-insurance companies, as they were formerly conducted, than it is now
in banks. Money may have been stolen without its having been discovered.

Besides this, the temptations of the companies to continually over-bid
one another for public favor was another evil which, sooner or later,
would lead some of them into bankruptcy. This danger could only be
averted by placing their rates of insurance on a scientific basis, which
should be the same and unalterable for all companies.

The charters of the companies had been drafted in the interest of the
management, without much consideration for the rights or advantages of
those who were insured. There were no laws on the statute book which
would practically prevent directors of life-insurance companies from
doing as they pleased with the immense trust properties in their
possession. After two or three interviews with Elizur Wright the
presidents of the companies came to the conclusion that he was exactly
the man that they wanted, and they commissioned him to draw up a revised
set of tables and rates which could serve them for a uniform standard.
This work occupied him and two of his daughters for a full year, for
which he was compensated with the paltry sum of two thousand dollars. The
time was fast approaching, however, when Elizur Wright would be in a
position to dictate his own terms to the insurance companies.

It was now that the Bird Club, the most distinguished political club of
its time, became gradually formed out of the leading elements of the
Free-soil party. At one time this club counted among its members two
Senators, three Governors, and a number of Congressmen, and it was a
power in the land. Elizur Wright's services as editor of the
_Chronotype_ gave him an early entrance to it; and having life
insurance on the brain, as it were, other members of the club soon became
interested in the subject as a political question. In this way Mr. Wright
was soon able to effect legislation. Sumner, Wilson, Andrew, and Bird
gave him an almost unqualified support. In 1858 he was appointed
Insurance Commissioner for Massachusetts, a position which he held until
1866. As Commissioner he formulated the principal legislation on life
insurance; and his reports, which have been published in a volume, are
the best treatise in English on the practical application of life-
insurance principles.

In 1852 he resigned the editorship of the _Chronotype_, and from
that time till 1858 he was occupied with life-insurance work, the editing
of a paper called the _Railroad Times_, and making a number of
mechanical inventions, most important of which was a calculating machine,
enough in itself to give a man distinction.

This machine was simply a Gunther rule thirty feet in length wrapped on a
cylinder and turned by a crank. Gunther's rule is a measure on which
logarithms are represented by spaces, so that by adding and subtracting
spaces on this cylinder Mr. Wright could perform the longest sums in
multiplication and division in two or three minutes of time.

Not only did the Massachusetts insurance companies come under Mr.
Wright's surveillance, but the New York Life, the Connecticut Mutual, and
the Mutual Benefit of New Jersey, all large and powerful companies, were
obliged to conform to his regulations, for their Boston offices were too
lucrative to be surrendered. About this time Gladstone caused an
overhauling of the English life-insurance companies, and a number which
proved to be unsound were obliged to surrender their charters. Among
these latter were two companies which held offices in Boston, and whose
character had already been exposed by Elizur Wright.

In 1850, when he became Commissioner, Mr. Wright sent to their agents for
a statement of their financial standing, and not receiving a reply
requested them to leave the State. Finding that the matter could not be
evaded, they at length forwarded two reports signed by two actuaries,
both Fellows of the Royal Society, which were not of a satisfactory
character, so that Mr. Wright insisted on his previous order. The agents
then applied for support to Prof. Benjamin Pierce, the distinguished
mathematician of Harvard University, and one of the most aggressively
pro-slavery men about Boston. He probably looked upon Elizur Wright as a
vulgar fanatic, and supposing that a Fellow of the Royal Society must
necessarily be an honorable man, came forward in support of Messrs.
Neisen and Woolhouse without sufficiently investigating the question at
issue; and the result was a controversy between Elizur Wright and himself
in which he was finally beaten off the field.

The statements of both Neisen and Woolhouse was proved to be fraudulent,
and the two English companies were expelled from the State.

Mr. Wright's insurance reports brought him such celebrity that all the
companies wished to have his name connected with them. His son, Walter C.
Wright, became actuary of the New England Life, and his daughter, Miss
Jane Wright, was made actuary of the Mutual Union Company. Mr. Wright and
his eldest son, John, set up a business for calculating the value of
insurance policies, in which the logarithm machine helped them to obtain
a large income. With his first ten thousand dollars Mr. Wright purchased
a large house and a tract of land in Middlesex Fells, where his family
still resides.

In 1865 the office of Life Insurance Commissioner was filched from him by
a trade politician who knew as much of the subject as fresh college
graduates do of the practical affairs of life. Mr. Wright always
regretted this, for he felt that his work was not yet complete; and it is
a fact that American life insurance, with its good and bad features,
still remains almost exactly as he left it.

It was only after Elizur Wright had ceased to be Commissioner that he
discovered a serious error in the calculation of the companies, which may
be explained in the following manner:

In the beginning, nearly all the insurance policies were made payable at
death, with annual premiums; but the introduction of endowment policies,
payable at a certain age, effected a peculiar change in their affairs, of
which the managers of the companies were not sensible. Elizur Wright
perceived that there were two distinct elements in the endowment policies
which placed them at a disadvantage with ordinary life policies, and he
called this combination "savings-bank life insurance." An endowment
policy, being payable at a fixed date, required a larger premium than one
which ran on indefinitely and by customary usage, and the agent who
negotiated the policy received the same percentage for commission that he
would on an ordinary-life policy; that is, he received a much larger
commission in proportion. This evil was increased in cases where
endowment policies were paid for, as often happened, in five or ten
instalments; and where they were paid for in a single instalment the
agent received four or five times what he was properly entitled to.

The same principle was observed by the companies in the distribution of
their surplus, so that the holders of endowment policies were practically
mulcted at both ends of the line.

In his reports as Insurance Commissioner Elizur Wright had recommended
this class of policies as a salutary provision against poverty in old
age, and he felt under obligations to the public to correct this
injustice, [Footnote: On a policy of ten thousand dollars, it would
amount to an appreciable sum.] but the insurance agents had also
advocated them for evident reasons and were naturally opposed to any
project of reform. The managers of the companies also treated the subject
coldly, for the discrimination against endowments enabled them to
accumulate a larger reserve which made them appear to better advantage
before the general public. The numerous agents and solicitors formed a
solid body of opposition and raised a chorus against Elizur Wright like
that which the robins make when you pick your own cherries. This class of
persons when they are actuated by a common impulse make a formidable
impression.

Mr. Wright, after arguing his case with the insurance companies for
nearly a year without effect, appealed to the public through the
newspapers. This, however, had unexpected consequences. Mr. Wright's
letters produced the impression, which he did not intend at all, that the
insurance companies were unsound, and policy-holders rushed to the
offices to make inquiries. Many surrendered their policies.

In this emergency the officers of the companies went to the editors and
explained to them that their business would be ruined if Mr. Wright was
permitted to continue his attacks on them. They then made Mr. Wright what
may have been intended for a magnanimous offer, though he did not look on
it in that light,--namely, an offer of ten thousand dollars a year, if he
would retire from the actuary business and not molest them any longer.
[Footnote: These events took place thirty years ago and have no relation
to the present condition and practice of American insurance companies.]
Elizur Wright refused this, as he might have declined the offer of a
cigar, and appealed to the Legislature. The companies then withdrew their
business from Mr. Wright and thus reduced his income from twelve thousand
dollars a year to about three thousand; but this troubled him no more
than it would have Diogenes.

In the summer of 1872 a portly gentleman called at Elizur Wright's office
on State Street and introduced himself as the president of a well-known
Western insurance company. As it was a pleasant day Mr. Wright invited
his visitor to Pine Hill, where they could converse to better advantage
than in a Boston office; but being much absorbed in his subject, while
passing through Medford Centre, he neglected to order a dinner; and the
consequence of this was that his portly friend was obliged to make a
lunch on cold meat and potato salad. That same evening Mr. Wright's
daughter twitted him on his lack of forethought, and hoped such a thing
would not happen again, to which he only replied: "The kindest thing you
can do for such a man is to starve him." Such was his philosophy on all
occasions.

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