James Ferdinand Morton Jr.

James Ferdinand Morton Jr. (October 18, 1870 – October 7, 1941) was an anarchist writer and political activist of the 1900s through the 1920s especially on the topics of the single tax system, racism, and advocacy for women. After about 1920 he was more known as a member of the Baháʼí Faith, a notable museum curator, an esperantist and a close friend of H. P. Lovecraft.

James F. Morton as a young man

Biography

Early years

Morton was born in Littleton, Massachusetts, lived in Andover, New Hampshire.[1] His family reached back to the pilgrims landing in 1620, his grandfather was Rev. Samuel Francis Smith.[2] A newspaper article from 1906 refers alittle to his youth - that he worked as a "newsboy, bootblack, an organ blower, and an employe(sic) in a jelly factory".[3] In 1892 he earned Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Arts degree from Harvard University,[2][4] simultaneously, in Classical Philology,[1] earning a "Gorham Thomas" scholarship,[1] graduated cum laude and was a member of the honors society Phi Beta Kappa.[2] He was a classmate of W.E.B. Du Bois[5] and carried on some correspondence with him.[6] He gained skills in Greek, Latin and French.[1] The Harvard Secretary's Report of 1896 noted by then he was in the temperate Independent Order of Good Templars, animal rights oriented New England Anti-Vivisection Society and had campaigned under the People's Party.[7]

Even at this early period he was actively involved in the amateur journalism movement, appearing in newspaper coverage of the developing practice in 1891,[8] and elected President of the National Amateur Press Association (NAPA) in 1896.[9] In his earlier days in New England he explored a number of alternatives to mainstream culture.[10]

Anarchism and the tour to the West and back

He converted to anarchism, especially as individualist anarchism in the United States, anarchism and issues related to love and sex and freethought and went on a cross-country speaking tour 1899-1900 to the West supporting these ideas.[11] Several of these talks appeared in newspapers.[12] By 1901 he was active on the West Coast.[13] When living in the West Morton wrote for or edited various anarchist journals[5][14] such as Free Society,[15] Discontent, The Demonstrator, and Emma Goldman's Mother Earth[16] as well as the Freethought periodical Truth Seeker and lived at the Home, Washington anarchist commune which had been raided though Morton was not arrested,[17] and was still present when the news of the assassination attempt against US President William McKinley arrived.[18] Morton's writings clarified that he favored a "non-retaliatory" anarchism.[14] In 1904 he made his way back to the East coast[19] and a talk of his on anarchist/free-thought and morality was carried in several newspapers.[20]

Initiatives

As early as 1903 Morton was visibly against racism in his writing for the anarchist Distcontent.[14] He campaigned actively for civil rights for blacks, challenged productions like Thomas Dixon's The Clansman,[3] and in 1906 published The Curse of Race Prejudice,[21] which the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's The Crisis listed among its suggested reading materials in many editions over the years.[22] Morton served on various committees of the NAACP in the 1910s,[23] and continued to speak on the issue across several years.[24] In 1922 he contributed to a conference on the history of racism.[25]

Perhaps no other subject consumed Morton's energy and focus in the earlier half of his life than the subject of a single-tax as originated by Henry George.[26] It was one the topics he spoke across several years about.[27] In 1916-17 Morton totaling 68 lectures in 54 cities, with over 2000 in attendance.[28] Many of these made the newspapers.[29] He also advocated for taxing churches.[30]

A third topic was of lasting concern to Morton—the facets of advocacy for women, including suffrage,[31] feminism,[32] and conventions on limitations on sexuality and contraception.[33]

In addition to particular topics that had his voice across the decades, and practicing law for some years in New York and Massachusetts,[2] he wrote or gave talks on a wide range of topics:

Literature and friendships

In addition to various individual topics he was also invested in several over a long term. From about 1915 he was a prominent member of the Blue Pencil Club of Brooklyn, named after the traditional Blue pencil editor's corrections, and supported appreciation of literature in a number of talks.[45] His close friendship with the author H. P. Lovecraft[10] is today perhaps the feature of his biography which arouses the most interest. Morton promoted Lovecraft to be president of National Amateur Press Association in 1922.[46] [47]

Association with Lovecraft

Morton was a key member of the Kalem Club, the close circle of friends around Lovecraft in New York City in the mid 1920s.[10] During the early part of that period he lived in Harlem, New York City, a predominantly black neighborhood.

Paterson Museum

Morton was an active student of mineralogy and a leading member of the Thomas Paine Natural History Association.[2] In the mid 1920s he was offered and took the post of head museum curator at the new museum at Paterson, New Jersey – then a regional locus of anarchism – where he would build a mineralogy collection which was admired nationally and internationally. This job enabled him to marry the writer Pearl K. Merritt in 1934; the couple had no children.[5] Morton became a leader in the American Association of Museums, and a leading member of the New York Mineralogical Club. Locally he enjoyed walking with the radical Paterson Rambling Club.

In the 1934 he was interested in his family history and wrote congratulating a local historian on research important to overcoming some limits in his own research.[48] An avid walker,[49] he died in 1941, due to being struck in the back by a moving car while walking to a meeting .[2][4]

Religion

Beginning in 1907 Morton also published a series of articles under "Fragments of a Mental Autobiography" in a journal named Libra[50] which outlines his religious background beginning with Baptist family heritage, goes through Unitarian relatives, and Theosophy exploration,[51] (he was president of the Boston Theosophical Society in 1895)[7] and placing Jesus and the Buddha among those on the highest level of his admiration even if he found fault with all scripture and organized religion.[51] In this period Morton was an avid "evangelist" atheist[10] and often spoke out against religion[52] but he had already encountered the Baháʼí Faith which:

At first, I regarded it with amused interest, as one of many little cults; but gradually I found myself drawn into closer and closer relation with it. There was a wideness in its attitude which I had not found elsewhere. It held place for what was best in Christianity, Judaism, Mohammedanism, Buddhism, Freethought and all the rest, warring with none of these, but finding each of them definitely serviceable to the larger spiritual plan of the universe. It is the great reconciler and harmonizer. I have discovered in it an abiding-place which I had sought in vain for many restless years. It increases, rather than decreases, my eagerness to continue the investigation of truth without bias, and to labor energetically in all branches of human service. I have no fault to find with the differing conclusions of other truth-lovers, and am ready to work with them all as occasion offers.[51] (near 1910)[9]

He became a convert to the religion in later life.[10][53] Morton is visibly in Baháʼí circles from 1915 on the program of presenters at Green Acre,[54] a Baháʼí center of lectures and conferences from about 1912, and got into some debates with a critic of the religion circa 1916.[55] He also served as an alternate delegate from New York to a national convention of the religion in 1918.[56] He received two letters (aka "Tablets") from ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, then head of the religion, in 1919 which were later published in the Baháʼí journal Star of the West.[57] Morton increasingly gave public talks related to the religion from the late 1910s through the 20s and into the 30s[58] and during the same period addressed the topic of Esperanto sometimes as a Baháʼí specifically.[59] He was vice-president of the Esperanto League for North America, and was the lead teacher of that language at the Ferrer Center (a long-running anarchist school) in New York City.[5]

Similarities, parallels and connections

It is worth noting perhaps that other Baháʼís were interested in the single tax movement originated around the ideas of Henry George, and other ideas also in common with the young Morton.[60] Among these were Paul Kingston Dealy and Marie Howland. Both had joined the religion some years earlier around 1897-8. Dealy and Howland had joined the religion in different cities - Chicago, the first national community of Baha'is in the US in the case of Dealy, and Howland in Enterpririse Kansas, the second such in the States. Dealy had also previously run for office under the People's Party circa 1895 but in Chicago. Howland and her husband had also been interested in the ideas of sexual freedom against the norms of the day and the cultural situation of women though Howland's husband soon died. Both Dealy (and his family) and Howland, independently, also moved to commune of sorts although this one was different, at Fairhope, Alabama, circa 1898-9. There Howland established the first library and worked on the first newspaper, another interest of Morton's, of the colony. Another Baháʼí couple - Honoré Jaxon and Aimée Montfort show similar interests as well. Jaxon had been an anarchist a decade before and been involved in another commune of sorts at Topolobampo Mexico, and then joined the religion about 1897 in Chicago shortly before Aimée. They had married and pursued worker's rights involvements though their long term interested turned to Canada.[61][62] It is not known if Morton, Dealy, Howland, Jaxon or Montfort ever knew of each other. Additionally Thornton Chase, called the first Baháʼí in the West, was a student of Morton's grandfather, Rev. Samuel Francis Smith, in his youth.[63]

Writings
  • James Ferdinand Morton. The Philosophy of the Single Tax.
  • Enrico Malatesta; James F. Morton Jr (June 1900). Anarchy, by Enrico Malatesta, and Is it all a dream?. Free Society Library. 5. San Francisco: A. Isaak. (note Morton's part is just pages 44 to 47.)
  • James Ferdinand Morton (1900). Do You Want Free Speech?. self published.
  • Morton, James F, Jr (1906). The curse of race prejudice. self published.
  • James Ferdinand Morton; John Eleazer Remsburg (1916). Exempting the Churches. The Truth seeker company.

References
  1. Harvard University (1884). General Catalogue Issue. University. pp. 214, 260, 280, 474, 480, 483, 487, 490.
  2. Lee, O. Ivan (March 1942). "Memorial of James F. Morton" (PDF). American Mineralogist. 27 (3): 200–202. ISSN 0003-004X. Retrieved Nov 2, 2014.
  3. "Dangers of Race prejudice". The New York Times. New York, New York. 22 Jan 1906. p. 7. Retrieved Nov 6, 2014.
  4. Paterson NJ Morning Call of Oct 8, 1941 which was reprinted in Schabrucker, Matilda A. (October 1941). "James F. Morton". Boys' Herald. 71 (1): 1. Archived from the original on November 4, 2014. Retrieved Nov 4, 2014.
  5. Katz, Esther (1999). "Morton, Jr., James Ferdinand (1870-1941)". The Margaret Sanger Papers Electronic Edition: Margaret Sanger and The Woman Rebel, 1914-1916. Model Editions Partnership. Archived from the original on October 11, 2017. Retrieved Nov 3, 2014.
  7. Harvard College (1780- ). Class of 1892 (1896). Secretary's Report. p. 54.
  8. "Young reformers". Boston Post. Boston, Massachusetts. 17 Jun 1891. p. 8. Retrieved Nov 6, 2014.
  9. William C. Ahlhauser (1919). Ex-presidents of the National Amateur Press Association: sketches. W. P. Cook. pp. 55–6.
  10. Joshi, S. T.; Schultz, David E., eds. (2001). "Morton, James Ferdinand, Jr. (1870-1941)". An H.P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 172–3. ISBN 978-0-313-31578-7.
  11. Candace Falk (1 April 2008). Emma Goldman: A Documentary History of the American Years Made for America, 1890-1901. University of Illinois Press. p. 393. ISBN 978-0-252-07541-4.
  14. Ernesto A. Longa (2 November 2009). Anarchist Periodicals in English Published in the United States (1833-1955): An Annotated Guide. Scarecrow Press. pp. 6, 18, 20, 40–52, 83–86, 94, 153, 182, 186. ISBN 978-0-8108-7255-4.
  15. Morton is noted in many editions of Free Society - see "James F. Morton, Jr". Radical, Libertarian, Individualist and Anarchist Periodicals: An Index. 4 May 2013. Retrieved Nov 7, 2014.
  16. "James F. Morton, Jr". The Libertarian Labyrinth. 10 May 2014. Retrieved Nov 7, 2014.
  17. "Raid on him of anarchists". The San Francisco Call. San Francisco, California. 25 Sep 1901. p. 9. Retrieved Nov 7, 2014.
  18. Wadland, Justin (March–April 2013). "The Anarchists must go". Believer. 11 (3). Retrieved Nov 7, 2013.
  21. Morton, James F, Jr (1906). The curse of race prejudice. self published.
    • "Books" (PDF). The Crisis. National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. 1 (5): 32. March 1911. Retrieved Nov 4, 2014.
    • "advert (and) Best Books" (PDF). The Crisis. National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. 4 (5): 214, 259. September 1912. Retrieved Nov 4, 2014.
    • "Best Books" (PDF). The Crisis. National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. 5 (5): advert page before index, and 213. March 1913. Retrieved Nov 4, 2014.
    • "advert" (PDF). The Crisis. National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. 7 (3): 109. January 1914. Retrieved Nov 4, 2014.
    • "advert" (PDF). The Crisis. National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. 19 (6): 325. April 1915. Retrieved Nov 4, 2014.
    • "advert" (PDF). The Crisis. National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. 20 (5): 44. May 1918. Retrieved Nov 4, 2014.
    • "A selected list of Books" (PDF). The Crisis. National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. 20 (5): advert page before index, and 213. September 1920. Retrieved Nov 4, 2014.
    • "A selected list of Books" (PDF). The Crisis. National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. 21 (3): advert page before index. January 1921. Retrieved Nov 4, 2014.
  25. "Spring Conference for study of Negro life and history". The New York Age. New York, NY. 8 Apr 1922. p. 1. Retrieved Nov 7, 2014.
  26. "Single-Taxers again laud Henry George" (PDF). Daily Standard Union. Brooklyn, NY. Sep 8, 1912. p. 12 (1st col from top). Retrieved Nov 7, 2014.
  28. Morton, James F., Jr. (July–August 1918). "Report of James F. Morton, Jr.'s Lecture Work". The Single Tax Review. 18 (4): 116. Retrieved Nov 7, 2014.
  32. "James F. Morton Jr., to talk on feminism" (PDF). Daily Standard Union. Brooklyn, NY. Nov 20, 1915. p. 3 (8th col bottom). Retrieved Nov 8, 2014.
  34. "All superstitions defied at Thirthee Club dinner". The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. Brooklyn, New York. 14 Feb 1907. p. 22. Retrieved Nov 6, 2014.
  35. "Thirteen Club at Brighton". The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. Brooklyn, New York. 11 Jul 1907. p. 7. Retrieved Nov 6, 2014.
  36. "Thomas Paine and the Hall of Fame". The New York Times. New York, New York. 21 Sep 1907. p. 26. Retrieved Nov 6, 2014.
    • "Postal Bureaucracy". The Chronicle-Telegram. Elyria, Ohio. 29 Apr 1908. p. 7. Retrieved Nov 6, 2014.
    • "Postal Bureaucracy". The Alexandria Times-Tribune. Elwood, Indiana. 26 May 1908. p. 2. Retrieved Nov 6, 2014.
  38. "Miscellaneous; Before the People's Forum to-morrow ..." (PDF). Daily Standard Union. Brooklyn, NY. Mar 6, 1908. p. 3 (3rd col near bottom). Retrieved Nov 7, 2014.
  39. "Freeethought funerals". Blue-Grass Blade. Lexington, Kentucky. 28 Jun 1908. p. 11. Retrieved Nov 6, 2014.
  40. "Memorial Services for T. B. Wakeman" (PDF). Daily Standard Union. Brooklyn, NY. May 3, 1912. p. 6 (6th col below mid). Retrieved Nov 7, 2014.
  41. "Pastors oppose Sunday Baseball; say only foreigners want game" (PDF). Daily Standard Union. Brooklyn, NY. Mar 18, 1909. p. 8 (see 3rd col above mid). Retrieved Nov 7, 2014.
  42. "Will lecture on "the Mob Spirit"" (PDF). Standard Union. Brooklyn, NY. Nov 27, 1909. pp. 10 (4th col below mid). Retrieved Nov 7, 2014.
    • James F. Morton, Jr. (1 November 2007) [1916]. "Prevention of conception as a duty". In William J. Robinson M. D.; William J. Robinson (eds.). Birth Control, Or, the Limitation of Offspring. Wildside Press LLC. pp. 195–204. ISBN 978-1-4344-9619-5.
    • Morton, James, F., Jr. (May 1919). Margaret Sanger; Mary Knoblauch (eds.). "Origin and Workings of the Comstock Laws" (PDF). The Birth Control Review. 3 (5): 3–5, 18. Retrieved Nov 7, 2014.
  44. "Lectures; Freethinkers' Society of New York" (PDF). New York Call. New York, NY. Dec 28, 1919. p. 2 (6th col below top). Retrieved Nov 7, 2014.
  46. "(book review) H. P. Lovecraft, Letters to Rheinhart Kleiner, New York: Hippocampus Press, 2005, trade paperback, 298pp. Edited by S. T. Joshi and David E. Schultz" (PDF). The Fossil. Glenview, Illinois: Historians of Amateur Journalism. 101 (4): 11–14. July 2005. Retrieved Nov 4, 2014. ISBN 978-0-9748789-5-9
  47. "(book review) H. P. Lovecraft, Letters from New York, Portland and San Francisco: Night Shade Books, 2005, hardcover, xx+332pp. Edited by S. T. Joshi and David E. Schultz" (PDF). The Fossil. Glenview, Illinois: Historians of Amateur Journalism. 101 (4): 11–14. July 2005. ISBN 1-892389-37-1. Retrieved Nov 4, 2014.
  48. "Combes praised as an historian" (PDF). The Nassau Daily Review. Long Island, NY. May 8, 1934. pp. 5 (4th col mid). Retrieved Nov 7, 2014.
  50. Schultz, David E.; Joshi, S. T., eds. (May 3, 2014). Letters to James F. Morton (Kindle ed.). Hippocampus Press. p. Kindle Location 9598. ISBN 978-1-61498-082-7.
  51. Morton Jr, James F. , Jr. (May 3, 2014). "Fragments of a Mental Autobiography"(V)". In Schultz, David E.; Joshi, S. T. (eds.). Letters to James F. Morton (Kindle ed.). Hippocampus Press. p. Kindle Locations 8211–8217, 8225–8227, 8258–8264. ISBN 978-1-61498-082-7.
  53. A Subtler Magick: The Writings and Philosophy of H. P. Lovecraft. Wildside Press LLC. 1 December 1996. p. 240. ISBN 978-1-880448-61-8.
  54. "Program for Green Acre Conferences". The Portsmouth Herald. Portsmouth, New Hampshire. 14 Aug 1915. p. 5. Retrieved Nov 3, 2014.
  55. The debates followed the publication of Richardson, Robert P. (August 1915). "The Persian Revival to Jesus, and his American Disciples". The Open Court. 29 (8): 460–483. Retrieved Nov 4, 2014. - see Richardson, Robert P. (March 1931). "The Rise and Fall of the Parliament of Religions at Greenacre". The Open Court. 45 (3): 129–166. Retrieved Nov 4, 2014.
  56. "Monday Afternoon Session". Star of the West. Chicago, Illinois: Baháʼí News service. 9 (4): 50–53. May 17, 1918. Retrieved Nov 3, 2014.
  57. * ʻAbdu'l-Bahá; Translated by Azizullah S. Bahadur (February 7, 1921). "Tablet to Bahais in American received in 1919 and 1920; James Morton, Jr". Star of the West. Chicago, Illinois: Baháʼí News service. 11 (18): 206. Retrieved Nov 3, 2014.
  60. Stockman, Robert (1985). The Baha'i Faith in America -. 1, Origins 1892-1900. Wilmette, Il.: Baha'i Publishing Trust. pp. 8, 86–88, 91–93, 106–108, 188. ISBN 0-87743-199-X.
  61. Donald B. Smith (2007). Honoré Jaxon: Prairie Visionary. Coteau Books. pp. 66–76, 102–108. ISBN 978-1-55050-367-8.
  62. Will C. van den Hoonaard (30 October 2010). The Origins of the Baháʼí Community of Canada, 1898-1948. Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press. pp. 18–35. ISBN 978-1-55458-706-3.
  63. Stockman, Robert H. (2002). Thornton Chase: First American Baháʼí. Wilmette, Ill.: Baháʼí Publishing Trust. p. 27. ISBN 978-0-87743-282-1.

Further reading
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