The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1910-01-01
JOHN BROWN.


Fifty wears after the end of the stormy career
of John Brown of Kansas, the controversy winch
ragged violently for many years after his condemna
ton and execution by the Virginia authorizes
shows sufficient vitality to once more spring INTO
more or less prominence. 1t in the fall OF 1893
that Brown with party of twenty-five men, SUD
denly descended upon the government arsenal at
Harper's Ferry captured and held the place Tor
couple of DAYS and was finally captured and turned
over with six of his companions to the Virginia
authorities, tried, condemned and hanged Inc
popular conception of Brown is that he was mar
tyr and liberator and his name has been immortal
lied in the song "John Browns body lies mouider-
ing in the grave" This is the view expressed by
Professor F. B. Sanford of Concord, Mass, VINO
was associated with Brown previous to the Har-
per's Ferry episode and who recently delivered an
address in which he told his hearers that Brown
blazed the path which Lincoln compelled by
force of circumstances to follow; that early as
1855 the only practicable road to emancipation had
been marked out Professor Sanborn pronounced
Brown and Lincoln the great martyrs of American
history All the bitter conflicts resulting from the
passage of the Douglas Kansas-Nebraska bill by
Congress, the rush of the antisavery and proslav-
rival state governments and the civil war which
broke out between the factions recalled by the
passing of this fftieth anniversary of John Browns
death.
Mr. Oswald Garrison Willard, descendant of
William Lloyd Garrison, the great abolltionlst,
takes another view of Brown. Mr.. Willard says he
has new information upon which he bases his esti-
mate of Browns character. 1t is difficult to arrive
at Just estimate of this man. who is held by some
to have been a midnight assassin and horsethief,
and by others to have been martyr to the great
principle of personal liberty. The people on the
scene of Browns activities in Kansas were all more
or less prejudiced and swayed by the principles OF
their political party either the Free Sellers or the
Know Nothings. Mr.. Willard in his estimate of
Brown says the truth lies between the two ex-
tremes He says it is fact no longer disputed that
ohm Brown ordered the execution of five pro-slav-
cry settlers in Kansas, and that the crime precpi
tated the conflict which gave the Sunfower state
the name of ''beeding Kansas" Mr.. Willard is con-
WINGED by his study that John Browns acts in Kan
ss in no sense decided the fate of the state on the
slavery question but only served to intensity the
bitterness of the conflict.
What with the testimony of Professor Sanborn
who was associated with Brown, and the estimate
of Mr. Willard, who has made close study of
Browns career and the widely diverging analyses
of the man. the effect is to add to the confusion II
the minds Of those who would know the truth about
one of the leaders in the troublous times which Leo
un to the great civil war of the 60s. That he was
prominent figure IN thaf momen5ous period OF
our history is admitted, but whether he should be
hailed as a martyr and hero or denounced as trail
tor and perncious agtator, it is impossible to de
eide from the estimates we have cited.