Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1901-07-16
CHARLES NoRDHoFF DEAD
THE END CAME HI A sANITARIUM
IN FRISCO.
Brief Sketch af His Long, Varied and
4
Active CareeE-His Views
ON labor.

The death of Charles Nordhofr last Sum
day in a sanitariunf in San Francisco, at
the age of seventy-one years, marked the
closing of long and industrious life and
the end of distinguished career in jour-
naHsm and in the literature of sociology
and travel.
The zenith of this career was perhaps
reached during the years Mr.. Nordhon
spent in this city as the Washington cor
respondent Of the New York Herald. His
letters analysing and portraying the social
and political conditions of the southern
states during the reconstruction period will
be readily remembered by Washingtonians
familiar with events twenty-five years ago.
So we'll were Mr.. Nordhoff's services APP
preciated by the Herald that when he re-
tired from the staff Of that paper to the
home he built for himself at Coronado.
Cal, he was retained on the pay roll of
that paper at an annual salary of $1,000.
he was also beneficiary in the VIII OF the
late william Walter Phelps to the extent
OF $4,000. which was bequeathed simply as
a mark OF good will and esteem.
His Early Career.
Mr.. Nordhoff was born in Westphalia,
Prussia, In 1890 When five years old he
came to America with his parents. He at
apprenticed to a printer in 1913. A year
later he was compositor In Philadelphia
newspaper Office, but love for the sea
soon took him into the United States navy,
"here ne served three years and made
voyage around the world. In the mer-
chant' whaling and mackerel fishing serv-
ICE ne remained at sea until 1883.
AFTER that he gave up the life of a sailor
and returned to the printers case, From
LOO Ieo' 20 1851 he was in the employ of Har-
per brothers, and did much valuable edi-
torial work. From. 1861 to 1871 he was at
tached to the staff Of the Evening Post.
Ihere he became the trusted lieutenant of
William Cullen Bryant. After leaving the
star OF the Post he travelled in California
and visited the Hawaiian Islands.
MI. Nordhof became the New York Her
1874.
among them ''Man-of-Wars Life, A Boys
experience in the United States Navy"
aWhaling and Fishing" Nine Years a
Sailor, Stories from the Island World"
soluble THE Freedmen Of South Caro-
lima America for the Workingmen,'
cape Cod and All Along Shore" a col
lection of short stories; Politics for Young
Americans, The Communistic Societies
Of the United States" and God and the
Future Life
His Views on Labor.
Mr.. Nordhofr was no great believer in
the efficacy Of trades unionism as a solu-
ton of the labor problem, and often con-
trasted present conditions with those Of q
former generation.
In letter addressed to Henry Herkimer
in 1895. in which Mr.. Nerdhoff was discuss
ing the causes Of Industrial depression and
hard times, he gives this bit Of personal
"reminiscences: SlE
Il began my working life before l was
thirteen in western printing office. When
was a little past fourteen 1 left that
place to go to sea-, and remained a sailor
before the mast, with the exception of one
brief voyage, when l was made second
mate Tor what my captain was pleased to
call an act of daring, until my twenty
fourth year.
When 1 left the sea I again took up for
a little while the trade Of a compostor,
and quitting that, and many other kinds of
hard work, farming In the west among
them, until at last / found my way, very
slowly and hardly. through the proofread-
er's desk, to the use Of my pen AS a re-
porter and journalist.
Il have been an employed person. a wage
worker, a servant of others all my working
life. and l will add that 1 hate the stupid
word employee which has come I'D in these
later days among snobbish workingmen,
as though service were disgraceful and not
honorable and needed to be disguised by
what is thought fine word.
MY frst teacher was bitter scotchman.
could commit was to misspell a word or to
use slovenly or incorrect English, and he
kept painful switch for those of us who
did not come UP to his rigid ideas on SPELL
ing. I owe it to him and his switch that
from the beginning / got my spelling safe
and sound, and with 1t such a respect for
good English as makes the word employee
as hateful and contemplate to me as those
twin denominations, pants and gents
We'll, what / meant to show you by this
over long personal Renaissance Is that in
those days, when interest was high when
the hours Of labor were long, when wages
were low-and these were the happiest and
most independent days for the American
workingman-it did not occur to any of us
to regard ourselves as carpenters, or brick
layers, or masons, or shoemakers, or taiIors
or wheelwrights, and only that. We re-
garded ourselves first and above all as men,
equal to any fate, ready to do any honest
work, very wide awake for better things,
and the brightest and ablest looking on
their trade as a mere stepping stone to a
larger business or most often to independ-
ence on a farm"