The Portland daily press., 1875-07-09
Robert Dale Owen.
From the Chicago Tribune,

From the Chicago Tribune July 81
A dispatch of this morning tells sorrowful
story. Robert Dale Owen has become insane.
After long life of earnest, unselfish effort for
the good of mankind, this terrible infiction
comes. The cause of it probably does not lie
many months back. When the heartless inn
posture of the Holmes mediums, the Phlladel-
phia conspirators with "Katie King" was ex-
posed the shock to Mr.. Owen was tremendous
He had accepted the pretended "manifesta-
tions" of these rascals with implicit faith. He
lived some time in Philadelphia in order to
miss none of the seances. The repeated appar-
itions of ''Katie' were to him conclusive proof
of Immortality. He pinned his faith In the
life hereafter, in reunion with bis father and
his wife, on what Spiritualsm, and especially
upon what this pretended spirit showed him.
Readers of his article in the Atlantic Month
ly upon "Kate King" will remember the syllo-
gism which the good old man painfully con-
strued therein, by which be proved to his own
perfect satisfaction, that the visitor was dis
embodied bit of supernaturalism. The day
before the article appeared the fraud was ex-
posed. Mr.. Owen wept bitterly, it is said when
a conviction that he had been made the dupe
of trio Of knayes forced itself upon him. He
telegraphed to Boston to cut out the article, but
it was too late. The magazine was already
printed. A thin slip of paper, dsolaiming any
editorial responsibility and thus ruthlessly in
creasing that of the author was prefixed to the
sketch. And thus it came to pass that Robert
Dale Ovens syllogistic proof that "Katie
King" was spirit and "Kate's' own confess
sion that she was fraud were published to-
gether throughout the country. The mind once
so vigorous could not stand the blow that shook
the faith of half a lifetime. The insanity fear
ed at that time has at last come. The sun that
rose in splendor sets in gloom.
The life SO sorrowfully ended-for insanity
is death, or worse than death-hegan in 1904
at New Lanark, an industrial settlement near
Glasgow, Scotland, which was long monu-
ment to the philanthropy of his father, Robert
Owen. The soI's fame has never equalled that
of the sire, but he has been even more self
sacrificing in his efforts to bless mankind
When the father came to America in order to
carry out his Communistic dreams the son was
his faithful assistant. He edited the paper
that served as the organ of the "New Hal
mony" colony. When that brave foolish ex-
pertinent failed, and the elder Owen returned
to England to conduct like failures there, to
SOW the seeds of cooperation, labor-leagues,
and Chartism. to found infant schools and to
preach Spirisualsm, Robert Dale remained in
America. He was by nature politician of the
old school, the good school, and he was soon in
the Indiana Legislature, where he succeeded in
emancipatDg women from the slavery of the
common law; then in Congress, and finally in
the diplomatic service of the country. Presi-
dent Pierce, who sent Hawthorne to Liverpool,
and so Indirectly endowed the world with The
Marble Faun" and "Our Old Home" made
owen Minister to Naples. Since he retired
from that position in 1858, he has been a stu
dent, writer, amateur politician and profession
oil philanthropist His published works fill
nearly dozen volumes. No one, we presume,
read .nowadays his unpopular Popular Tracts
his ''Plank Roads," and his "Pocahontas, a
Drama" We trust that no one will try to
read his Beyond the Breakers" But book
making was not his forte. A kindly, genial,
| whole soued man, the predestined prey of
| plausible rogues, the friend of every scheme of
| reform, combining the purity of childhood with
| the vigor of manhood, he has met fate worse
| than death-a fate for which a trio of sordid
| swindlers are probably responsible.