II.—In England "practical politicians among the advanced liberal party avoid him as honest men avoid a felon, as virtuous women avoid a prostitute."[180]
On the 6th of September he left Liverpool for his first journey across the Atlantic by the Cunard steamship the Scotia, which arrived at New York on the 17th—a long passage, as it seems in these days when vessels make the journey in little more than half that time. He had been told of the insulting paragraphs so industriously circulated about himself, and he had so much at stake, that as the Scotia neared New York he felt oppressed with anxieties and nervousness as to what was in store for him in this yet untried land. From the very outset, however, he met with cheery welcome and friendly greeting. When he landed he presented his customs declaration in the usual way to the chief collector in order to get his baggage opened, but the collector surprised and pleased him by saying, "Mr Bradlaugh, we know you here, and the least we can do is to pass you through comfortably"—and he was passed through comfortably, for without more ado the chalk "sesame" was scrawled upon his portmanteau and rugs. He had barely established himself in his hotel when representatives from several New York journals came to interview him, and his arrival was advertised by the press to such an extent that within seven days of landing he had seen close upon three hundred newspaper notices of himself.[181]
On the Saturday after his arrival he was invited to dine at the Lotos Club, where he received the warmest and most hospitable welcome, the Directory afterwards voting him the privileges of the Club during his stay in New York. A few days later he was asked to a reception given by the Lotos to Wilkie Collins. The guests were received by the President, Whitelaw Reid, and amongst them were Dr Ludwig Büchner and Bret Harte. Mr Bradlaugh was called upon to speak, and I gather that he made a very favourable impression. O'Donovan Rossa called upon him soon after his arrival, and thanked him for his work for Ireland, and showed him several small courtesies. On Sunday the 28th he was received by the New York Positivists and welcomed in extremely kind terms by the President of the Society. The religious journals were greatly irritated at the attention paid to Mr Bradlaugh, and did not neglect to show it, one even refusing to insert the advertisement of his lectures sent by the advertising agency.
Misfortune met him within a few days of his landing in the shape of a financial panic of unusual severity, which, commencing in New York, spread through the States. Speaking of this panic in one of his earliest letters home, he says: "I entered the house of Henry Clews & Co., about five minutes after Jay Cooke and Co. had stopped payment. Then the excitement was not so great; people seemed stupefied with the incredible news, as Jay Cooke was a name like Baring and Rothschild. Later every one seemed to grow delirious, and crowds gathered round the doors of several banks, clamouring for admittance, the inside of each bank being already filled with anxious and angry people waiting to cash cheques, and doubting while they waited. On Friday things got worse, and the sight on Friday night, in the hall and reading room and smoking room of the Fifth Avenue Hotel, was something to remember. There was a dense mass of men, packed together—Jay Gould, Vanderbilt, Clews, and hundreds of others who had commenced the week with enormous fortunes, some entirely ruined in the last two days, and others not knowing whether or not bankruptcy awaited them in the morning. The élite of New York as seen in that seething crowd did not show to advantage; the Money Devil had gripped their entrails and disfigured their faces. On Saturday the President of the Republic arrived at the hotel in which I was staying, and then staircases, hall, corridors, smoking and reading rooms were besieged, and outside, in the streets, were carriages and uneasy waiters to gather scraps of news or comfort. I guess that very few went to church on Sunday, September 21st. On Sunday evening President Grant left for Washington, but the multitude did not decrease until midnight came. Each one who had seen or who had spoken to the President was waylaid, buttonholed, and became the centre of an eager group of questioners. The trouble was so intense that the bankers, brokers, and railway contractors actually forgot whether they were well or ill dressed." These financial troubles greatly affected all lecturing engagements, as one might easily imagine, and Mr Bradlaugh in particular found his difficulties considerably increased by the suicide of his agent, whose affairs had become considerably involved in consequence of the panic.
His first lecture was given in the Steinway Hall at New York, on October 3rd. Considering the home troubles, the audience was a good one, one which he himself felt to be very remarkable. Amongst those present were many members of the Lotos Club, including their President, Whitelaw Reid, and D. J. Croly, "Jenny June," Colonel Olcott, General Kilpatrick, Andrew Jackson Davis, Theodore Tilton, Mrs Victoria Woodhull, O'Donovan Rossa, the Rev. O. B. Frothingham, Colonel Hay, Bret Harte, and Mr Andrews were also amongst his listeners. My father had been feeling very nervous about this first lecture. When he arrived in New York he was asked how long he expected to remain in America. "If I fail at Steinway Hall on October 3rd, I shall take the next steamer for England," was the reply. But there was no question of failure; he met with an immediate and wonderful success; his audience came to criticise and remained to applaud. In the papers of the following day his speech was greatly praised, and he himself pronounced one of "the greatest of living orators." The Brindley episode,[182] which by covering him with ridicule might have done him serious injury, was, by his coolness and quick wit, turned into a decided advantage. On the day after his lecture he had numerous kindly callers and congratulations. Amongst those who called was Mrs Victoria Woodhull, and Mr Bradlaugh's impressions of this much-talked-of lady are not without a certain interest. When Mrs Woodhull called he was talking to Stephen Pearl Andrews, the author of a learned book entitled "The Basic Outlines of Universology," and, "while chatting with Mr Andrews," said my father, "a slightly built lady entered, who was presented to me as Mrs Victoria Woodhull, the present President of the American Spiritualists, and advocate of very advanced doctrines on social questions. The energy and enthusiasm manifested by this lady in our extremely brief conversation were marvellous; her eyes brightened, her whole face lit up, and she seemed all life. It would have been impossible to have brought together two persons more exactly opposite than Victoria Woodhull and Stephen Pearl Andrews—one all fire, the other all quiet thought; the one intent on active out-door war, the other content to work almost isolated in his closet on a huge book, which few can read and fewer still will care to read. Mrs Woodhull is evidently made for sharp strife of tongue and pen. Her face lights up with a beauty which does not belong to it ordinarily, but which gilds it as she speaks. Mr Andrews uses his pen only to note down the record of his thought, without the slightest regard to the never-ceasing strife around him. His forehead is marked with the furrows hard thinking has ploughed upon it. Many people here speak very bitterly against Victoria Woodhull; at present I prefer to take sides with none. It is enough to say that she is most certainly a marvellously audacious woman." Before he quitted New York for the New England States the Lotos Club gave him another dinner, at which he met Petroleum V. Nasby and Colonel John Hay.
In Boston, despite all the prejudices excited against him by the Boston papers, Mr Bradlaugh met with a really splendid reception. His first meeting was presided over by Wendell Phillips, who introduced him as "a man who, Sir Charles Dilke says, does the thinking for more minds, has more influence, than any other man in England;"[183] and who himself compared him with Samuel Adams, "the eloquent agitator, the most statesmanlike mind God lent New England in 1776." Boston people remarked that the audience was a curious one, unusual to the regular lyceum lectures. It included many cultivated people, many scholarly and solid men, many accomplished and delicate women, but in addition to these, who were customary attendants at lecture courses, there was an unusually large number of young men present, and more remarkable still was the large attendance of working men, the whole forming a "strangely composite" but wonderfully sympathetic audience. On the platform were Charles Sumner, who, at the close of the address, spoke words of warm encouragement to my father; William Lloyd Garrison, who cheered him repeatedly; and other prominent Boston men.
The next day, with Wendell Phillips and George Julian Harney as guides, he visited the different places of interest in Boston, including Theodore Parker's house, where he was deeply affected by the reverent care Mrs Parker bestowed on the rooms formerly occupied by her husband, and by the evident worship in which she held every memory of him. Mrs Parker gave him photographs of Theodore Parker and of the library; with these in his hand, he said, "I hurried away, almost too much moved to thank the widow for her gentle courtesy."
A large part of his first Sunday in Boston was passed with Charles Sumner in his rooms at the Coolidge House. They had a very interesting talk together on the politics of the hour and future possibilities, and also on matters connected with the Abolition struggle. Mr Bradlaugh felt a deep admiration for Sumner, and Sumner, in his turn, was most kind to my father and warm in his praises.
He was invited by Dr Loring, President of the Massachusetts Senate, to a dinner at the Massachusetts Club, given to Charles Sumner, to congratulate him on his supposed recovery to health—congratulations which proved, alas! all too premature. At this dinner he met Henry Wilson, Vice-President of the United States, and Joshua B. Smith—born a slave, then a Senator—besides other distinguished men. Every one was kind to him: Henry Wilson gave him a pressing invitation to Washington; Sumner bade him disregard the unfair attacks made upon him. When his health was proposed, and they all rose to their feet to give him three hearty cheers of greeting, he felt amply repaid for the pain he had suffered from those coarse attacks, bred by bigotry, which had alike preceded and pursued him from the Old World to the New. He dined with Sumner on other occasions, and receptions were given him in Boston, to which most of the leading men were invited. In fact, such honours and hospitalities were heaped upon him that, as one journal remarked, he seemed to have persuaded some people at least "that there are others besides Satan who are not so black as they are painted."