The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-10-23
TOO UTTERLY litter.

TOO UTTERLY UTTER.
An article in the North American Review
for November is likely to attract wide atten-
ton, and provoke much and varied comment
1t is from the pen of Rev. David N. Utter, of
Kansas, who, in a lengthy review of the life
of John Brown, takes violent exceptions to
the general hero worship accorded his mem
ory, and proves to his own satisfaction at
least, that instead of being entitled to exalta-
ton, he should really be accorded infamy in
the general esteem. This is certainly new
view, and bold one to utter (no pun in
tended), and the facts upon which the Kan
sas iconoclast bases his judgment will not
only be critically examined, but, as we'll, their
life, and to those principles he enunciated in
the carrying out of his confessed chimerical
scheme, which form the pedestal, supposed
to be of granite, upon which, in the popular
heart, his statue has been erected. Ralph
Waldo Emerson spoke of Brown as "a saint
whose martyrdom will make the gallows
is extravaganza in which the seers of the
Concord school were wont to indulge, and
which dazzle the eyes of those disciples
whose trustful natures never attempt to dis
cover the difference between refined gold
and the best of brass. Even if the popular
conception of John Brown as martyr is to
indefinitely continue, and his reputation to
steadily enhance, it is still very like bias
phemy to indulge in such rhapsodcal fig
ure as Mr., Emerson's.
Mr.. Utter says that to-day such extrava-
giant eulogy is not only distasteful, but there
is slowly spreading eastward from Kansas a
doubt whether the man deserved any eulogy
whatever. His principles are declared to be
those of the Russian Nihilist; that he is not
a proper hero for the youth of this country
to worship, and the writer says that as his
true history, too long concealed, becomes
known, admiration for him will be changed
to disgust, and disgust to anger that we have
been so long deceived. And he closes his
review OF Browns life and career in Kansas
with the conclusion that
"Viewed in the largest way, there is little
that is admirable in this mans character
and, if our civilization is worth anything
his entire public or fighting career is to be
utterly condemned. 1t was right for free
State citizens in Kansas to defend their
homes; but old John Brown never had a
home there to defend, and his influence led
most of his sons to early graves. 1t may
have been justihable to steal slaves from
their masters and free them; such is the
writer's opinion but in this sort of work
Brown never acted with any discretion, not
even with common good sense, if freeing the
slaves had been his chief object"
1t is quite evident from the tone of these
brief excerpts from Mr. Utter's paper that the
character of John Brown must be ''viewed in
much larger way' than this before any
thing other than burlesque upon justice is
done him. Were it true that Brown, in
Kansas was not upon the highest plane,
and was fighting in a blind, unintelligent,
and even brutal and brutalizing way,
against the men who would have forced sla-
very upon that new-forming State, it is
still to be remembered that his blows were
right side; and as the altar sanctifies the gift,
SO the cause oftentimes redeems and ennobles
the nature of the blow given in its behalf.
But Kansas was but the vestibule of Browns
life. 1t is not for Kansas he is honored. 1t
is for what grew out of and from the Kan
sas conflict; and we can't see just how what
was said and done at and about Halper's
Ferry is to be set at naught because in Kan
sas John Brown may not have fought with the
white soul he seems to have shown in the
armory at Harper's Ferry, and in the court
and on the gallows at Charlestown. Atleast
Mr.. Utter's dictum will not be accepted as
the final word.