The Laurens advertiser. (Laurens, S.C.) 1885-1973, 1908-04-08
Our Men of Genius.
WILLIAM ERNEST LUCAS.

York, but our entire country, expert
enced a great loss I'm a literary way-as
in the death of that wonderful musical
genius, Edward Mcdowell, whose mu-
seal career was cut short by the cruel
scythe of Death before he could enjoy
the fruits of his labor in composition or
reap the praise of an appreciative popu-
lace, did we suffer a great loss in a
musical way. So, also, did America
lose, as well as Baltimore, in the death
of that Southern poet, James Ryder
Randall, whose one poetic gem "Mary-
land, Ny Maryland" is brilliant enough
to place him beside our poets in the
Hall of Fame.
And in the death of William Ernest
Lucas, manufacturer, of Laurens, S.
c., which occurred very near the same
time a that of Randall, not only his
State, but the entire cotton belt region
of our country has experienced a great
loss in a mercantile way. In the pass
ing out of such men of genius as these
our country loses more than we take
cogniGance of in the great push and
stir of this Twentieth century rush.
Since Mr.. Lucas is least widely known,
though beginning to be recognized and
appreciated as a man of mark in his
own State and in cotton mill circles, it
is to him this sketch is devoted, with
the hope that his memory may be linked
with those of Stedman, and Randall,
| thn noafo onl hooDnuyo1l tho p,,,ci-
clan, for his poems were the construc-
ton Of beautiful mill villages, and his
music was the throbbing machinery of
the mill, the great heart of the village
whose musical vibrating chords were to
his soul the sublimest of musical melo-
dies, as with whir and hum his poems
in cloth were sent forth to the world.
That he looked beyond the mere ma
chinery and labor of his work is un-
questioned by those who knew him in
timately, and that he was a genius in
his line Of work had begun to be fully
recognized, and not only a genius with
unusual gifts of mind, but a reformer
with unusual gifts of soul, for he was
not content with running cotton mills
according to the laws of his predeces-
sors, nor even of his contemporaries;
but he stood firmly for all that was for
the best good for his mill, his stock
holders AID his mill people, and his
greatest endeavor was to come in closer
touch and sympathy with his mill peo-
pie and make them feel that they were
something in his eyes beyond machinery
rather an integral part in Gods great
scheme of work, the controlling of loom
and spindle to weave the fabric that
clothes a nation.
For the uplifting and lettering of the
condition of his mill people physically,
he saw to it personally that their homes
and the mill were comfortable and the
entire village in a sanitary condition.
Far back in the Lucas family there was
a Lucas : England who was a famous
architect, and it must have beer from
this ancestor that Mr.. Lucas inherited
his taste and wonderful talent in the
construction of buildings. He was the
architect of his mills to a great extent,
The Watts Mill, and this latter is a
model cotton mill village, so beautifully
situated, so sunny and clean, with its
splendid mill, it's neat, comfortable
homes, c%ommodious store and offices
and pretty school building, far nicer
and better built han most of the free
school buildings in our mountain towns
of Tennessee, and l daresay far nicer
also than the free school buildings in
many of the villages of South Carolina.
But his work for the betterment of
mill people did not stop with their physi-
cal needs, bat went beyond to their
mental and spiritual needs. When
president of the Laurens Mill he had a
public reading room for them, and for
several winters before he gave up that
mill he had a Lyceum course for their
benefit. u was my great pleasure to
attend q" of these lectures, given in
a large hall over the store-one by the
State 6 Ilogist of North Carolina, and
the Other or Robert E. Lee by Prof.
Montague, of Greenville, S. c., and |
felt that such an effort as this, done in
love and good fellowship, without
thought of acknowledgements, was in
its way equal to the ministry-for, first
educate; then the ground Of the mind
is fit soil for Outstanding. That his
mill people appreciated his efforts in
their behalf was fully shown during
the M~illiken-Lucas contest, when Mr..
Lucas was elected president for another
year. when they thought he was to DO
put out, They bought the incest chair
they could find in Laurens and went
that night, two or three hundred strong,
to present it to him. This gift he APP
preciated as much as any token of
friendship and sympathy that he re-
ceived during the long-drawn-out liti-
cation between Milli!len and himself,
when again laying aside all thought of
self he stood for his stockholders and
the good Of all Southern mills in the
reduction of commission rates. In this
he was as much a reformer as was
Martin Luther when he risked his life
for the translation of the Bible so that
the common people could read 1T, for
Mr.. Lucas said at the time when every
thing seemed going against him: "The