“We talked of Father Taylor, and he [Atkinson] told us that the great orator once began a sermon by leaning over the pulpit, with his arms folded, and saying, ‘You people ought to be very good, if you’re not, for you live in Paradise already.’
“The conversation, in which Sir Louis Malet took part, turned to Mill’s economical heresies, especially that which relates to the fostering of infant industries. Atkinson drew a striking picture of the highly primitive economic condition of the South before the war, and said that now factories of all kinds are springing up throughout the country in spite of the keen competition of the North. He cited a piece of advice given to his brother by Theodore Parker, ‘Never try to lecture down to your audience.’ This maxim is in strict accordance with an opinion expressed by Hugh Miller, whom, having to address on the other side of the Firth just the same sort of people as those amongst whom he lived at Cromarty, I took as my guide in this matter during the long period in which I was connected with the Elgin Burghs.
“Atkinson went on to relate that at the time of Mr. Hayes’s election to the presidency there was great danger of an outbreak, and he sat in council with General Taylor and Abraham Hewitt, doing his best to prevent it. At length he exclaimed: ‘Now I think we may fairly say that the war is over. Here are we three acting together for a common object, and who are we? You, Mr. Hewitt, are the leader of the Democratic party in New York; I am an old Abolitionist who subscribed to furnish John Brown and his companions with rifles; you, General Taylor, are the last Confederate officer who surrendered an army, and you surrendered it not because you were willing to do so, but, as you yourself admit, because you couldn’t help it.’”
The publication which will perhaps be much consulted in coming years as the best periodical organ of that party in the nation which was most opposed to the Philippine war will doubtless be the work issued by Mr. Atkinson on his own responsibility and by his own editing, from June 3, 1899, to September, 1900, under the name of “The Anti-Imperialist.” It makes a solid volume of about 400 octavo pages, and was conducted wholly on Atkinson’s own responsibility, financially and otherwise, though a large part of the expense was paid him by volunteers, to the extent of $5,657.87 or more, covering an outlay of $5,870.62, this amount being largely received in sums of one dollar, obtained under what is known as the chain method. For this amount were printed more than 100,000 copies of a series of pamphlets, of which the first two were withdrawn from the mail as seditious under President McKinley’s administration. A more complete triumph of personal independence was perhaps never seen in our literature, and it is easy to recognize the triumph it achieved for a high-minded and courageous as well as constitutionally self-willed man. The periodical exerted an influence which lasts to this day, although the rapidity of political change has now thrown it into the background for all except the systematic student of history. It seemed to Mr. Atkinson, at any rate, his crowning work.
The books published by Edward Atkinson were the following: “The Distribution of Profits,” 1885; “The Industrial Progress of the Nation,” 1889; “The Margin of Profit,” 1890; “Taxation and Work,” 1892; “Facts and Figures the Basis of Economic Science,” 1894. This last was printed at the Riverside Press, the others being issued by Putnam & Co., New York. He wrote also the following papers in leading periodicals: “Is Cotton our King?” (“Continental Monthly,” March, 1862); “Revenue Reform” (“Atlantic,” October, 1871); “An American View of American Competition” (“Fortnightly,” London, March, 1879); “The Unlearned Professions” (“Atlantic,” June, 1880); “What makes the Rate of Interest” (“Forum,” 1880); “Elementary Instruction in the Mechanics Arts” (“Century,” May, 1881); “Leguminous Plants suggested for Ensilage” (“Agricultural,” 1882); “Economy in Domestic Cookery” (“American Architect,” May, 1887); “Must Humanity starve at Last?” “How can Wages be increased?” “The Struggle for Subsistence,” “The Price of Life” (all in “Forum” for 1888); “How Society reforms Itself,” and “The Problem of Poverty” (both in “Forum” for 1889); “A Single Tax on Land” (“Century,” 1890); and many others. When the amount of useful labor performed by the men of this generation comes to be reviewed a century hence, it is doubtful whether a more substantial and varied list will be found credited to the memory of any one in America than that which attaches to the memory of Edward Atkinson.