James Graham Phelps Stokes
James Graham Phelps Stokes | |
---|---|
Born | March 18, 1872 New York City, New York, U.S. |
Died | April 8, 1960 New York City, New York, U.S. | (aged 88)
Education | Columbia University Yale University |
Occupation | railroad president |
Employer | Nevada Central Railroad |
Organization | Intercollegiate Socialist Society |
Known for | "Millionaire Socialist" |
Spouse | Rose Pastor Stokes |
James Graham Phelps Stokes, known as Graham Stokes (March 18, 1872 – April 8, 1960) was an American
He is best remembered as a founding member and key figure in the
Early years
Stokes was born in New York City to one of the city's most prosperous families. His parents were Helen Louisa Phelps and Anson Phelps Stokes, a banker, railroad owner, and real estate developer.[2][3] He grew up in a large house on 229 Madison Avenue in Manhattan.[2] His family spent the summers in their 100-room house in the Berkshires— the largest private home in the United States at the time.[4] The family fortune came from Manhattan real estate, the Phelps Dodge mining empire, a and railroad in Nevada.[4]
He attended the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University, receiving his Ph.B. degree there in 1892.[1] There, he was a member of the Fraternity of Delta Psi (St. Anthony Hall).[2] He celebrated his graduation with a trip around the world in 1892.[1]
He also attended the
Stokes served in Squadron A of
Career
Stokes was president of the Nevada Central Railroad from 1898 to 1938.[1] He was also president of the Nevada Company with offices at 47 Cedar Street and president of the Woodbridge Company at 100 Williams Street.[2] While Stokes did participate in commercial affairs throughout his life, serving variously as an officer of businesses such as the Phelps Stokes Corporation, the Austin Mining Company, and the State Bank of Nevada, Stokes's primary interests and concerns lay in the realm of public affairs.[8]
In 1902, Stocks moved to the Lower East Side to take up settlement work.[2] One of his friends explained, "Mr. Stokes is very much interested in social problems and he takes deep interest in questions concerning capital and labor. He is a thorough democrat in his spirit and feeling, and is opposed to social distinctions which separate the classes… He believes in plain people and feels that every effort which helps them to develop themselves is something to their advantage. He therefore feels that he can serve society best by living in a house which denies the existence of classes and which claims equal opportunities for everybody."[2]
Volunteer workers at the
In addition to being a member of the Council of the University Settlement, Stokes founded and became chair of the board of
In 1905, Stokes became a candidate for public office, running for president of the
"One evening, passing my living-room window, I heard Graham's name flung upward from the street below. I leaned out to see. A very fiery young man was making a speech from a soapbox on the corner. A little knot of men, women, and children had collected about him. He was pointing up at my window—at me. He was saying things about us. I strained to hear… 'Municipal Ownership is no solution,' he cried, 'so long as the propertied classes own the municipalities. J.G. Phelps Stokes is a rich man—a man of property; he belongs to the capitalist class. The Municipal Ownership League is a rich man's creation. W.R. Hearst belongs to the millionaire class. This is his government. He doesn't want to change the government. The Socialist Party, the workers' party, and what we want is a government of, for, and by the people who work.' 'Hear, hear!' I called down, leaning far out of the window and clapping my hands.[13]
The campaign did well, but Stokes was disillusioned with the reform movement at the end of the campaign.[5] He joined the Socialist Party of America in 1906.[4] Even before that, Stokes was enlisted in the Socialist cause by the author Upton Sinclair, who sought to establish a new group fostering the dispassionate study of socialist ideas on college campuses around America, an organization to be called the Intercollegiate Socialist Society (ISS). Stokes was one of ten signatories of the published call for the new organization which appeared in the spring of 1905, joining Sinclair, author Jack London, attorney Clarence Darrow, sociologist and author Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and others.[14] The first formal meeting of the organization, held at a restaurant in New York City late in the summer of 1905, elected Stokes as second vice president of the ISS, serving with London as president and Sinclair as first vice president.[15]
In May 1907, London resigned from the ISS presidency and Stokes assumed the position.[16] Stokes had a leading role in the organization for the next decade, serving as president until 1917 and speaking far and wide on topics of contemporary concern under ISS auspices.[17] In the spring of 1909, Stokes and his wife went on the road for a full month, speaking at colleges throughout New England, where they distributed ISS literature for free or at a nominal charge to interested undergraduates.[17]
Stokes ran for New York State Assembly in 1908 as a Socialist candidate.[4] However, he was not an effective speaker and could not engage well with audiences.[4] He also ran for mayor of Stamford, Connecticut.[1] However, Stokes was living a split life—a socialist who was running the family railroad and silver mine.[4]
Stokes resigned from the
Stokes was a frequent author of articles on current social problems and letters of opinion to various journals and newspapers.
Publications
Books and pamphlets
- Hartley House: And Its Relations to the Social Reform Movement. New York: Hartley House, 1897.
- Dear Comrade: The Intercollegiate Socialist Society Has Now Entered Upon its Second Year. with Jack London and Upton Sinclair. New York City: The Society, 1906.
- Down with Democracy! Down with Authority!: Lenine. New York : National Security League, circa 1919.
- Industrial Paralysis under the Bolsheviki: An Examination of Falling Off of Productivity of Manufacturing Centers under 'Dictatorship of Proletariat'. New York: American Alliance for Labor and Democracy, 1919.
- A Brief Sketch of the History of the 244th Coast Artillery (9th Regiment, N.Y.) 1673-1924. New York: 1924.
- The Gap in the "Lineage of the Ninth Regiment of the State of New York," with Leonhard A. Keyes. New York: 1953.
- The One Lord of East and West. (Introduction by Yoga-Vedanta Forest Academy, 1956.
- The Ever-Returning Christ: And Other Writings. Rishikesh, India: Yoga Vedanta Forest University, 1958.
Articles
- "On the Relation of Settlement Work to the Evils of Poverty," International Journal of Ethics, vol. 11, no. 3, (April 1901) pp. 340–345.[19]
- "Public Schools as Social Centres," The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, vol. 23 (May 1904), pp. 49–55.[20]
As editor
- The Socialism of To-day: A Source-Book of the Present Position and Recent Development of the Socialist and Labor Parties in All Countries, Consisting Mainly of Original Documents. Editor, with William English Walling, Jessie Wallace Hughan, and Harry W. Laidler. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1916
Honors
- He received the Military Cross of the State of New York in 1920.[1]
- Stokes' papers are housed at Columbia University in New York City. The collection includes more than 1600 cataloged letters.[10]
- A collection of letters received by Stokes and his wife are housed at Yale University.[21]
- The Hartley House records, which include extensive correspondence with Graham Phelps Stokes, are housed at the Minneapolis.[22]
Personal life
In November 1902, Stokes moved from his father's house to live in the
Their marriage was "the" celebrity wedding of its day, and newspapers reported their every move for nearly two decades.[4] However, they separated when he left radical politics during World War I.[1] He told a reporter for the New York Tribune, "Mrs. Stokes and I still have the same ideals, the same aims, but we differ on the means of attaining them."[4] Stokes was so supportive of the war that he enlisted, serving as a major in the New York National Guard because he was too old to serve overseas.[4] His promotion of the war resulted in an invitation to the White House to meet President Woodrow Wilson.[4]
In the meantime, Rose persisted in war and other protests, getting arrested in Kansas City and sentenced to ten years in prison.[4] Although Stokes rushed to his wife's aid and paid her $10,000 bail—and her conviction was overturned—they divorced in 1925.[1][4] She refused alimony on principle and lived in poverty.[4] When she became ill with cancer, she was unable to pay for a doctor.[4] Their mutual friend Upton Sinclair wrote Stokes, asking for help to cover the cost of her treatment.[4] Stokes replied, "I am now assured by friends of hers in New York, that sufficient funds for her care for a year have been raised. If I could help her without helping her work, much of which appears to me to be so very abominable, I should gladly do so, but I don’t see how I can."[4] Rose died of cancer in 1933.[1][23][4]
Stokes joined the
On November 9, 1931, Stokes was among a small group that was the first to meet Meher Baba when he travel to the United States.[26] Stokes invited Bab to stay at his Greenwich Village home at 88 Grove Street whenever he was in New York.[26] Baba stayed for two days in November, and returned in December 1931.[26] On May 22, 1932, the Stokes hosted a dinner party for Baba at their home that had more than 300 guests.[26] They hosted a reception and silent darshan for Baba and some 200 people on December 13, 1934.[26]
Stokes was an active supporter of the Humane Society.[1] He was a member of the City Club of New York, the Knickerbocker Club, the Riding Club, the St. Anthony Club of New York, the University Club of New York, and The Yale Club of New York City.[2]
In 1960, Stokes died at his home on Grove Street in New York City at the age of 88 years.[1]
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v "J. G. Phelps Stokes Dies at 88; Former 'Millionaire Socialist'" (PDF). The New York Times. New York City. 9 April 1960. Retrieved 26 January 2016.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l "J.G. Phelps Stokes on Lower East Side, New York Times, November 28, 1902.
- ^ Arthur Zipser and Pearl Zipser, Fire and Grace: The Life of Rose Pastor Stokes. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1989; pg. 28.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Hochschild, Adam (2020-03-02). "For Richer, For Poorer". The American Scholar. Retrieved 2022-05-29.
- ^ JSTOR 23170033.
- ^ a b c d Zipser and Zipser, Fire and Grace, pg. 29.
- ^ a b "Stokes, James Graham Phelps (1872-960) · Jane Addams Digital Edition". digital.janeaddams.ramapo.edu. Retrieved 2022-05-29.
- ^ a b Zipser and Zipser, Fire and Grace, pg. 30.
- ^ Zipser and Zipser, Fire and Grace, pp. 30-31.
- ^ a b c "James Graham Phelps Stokes papers, 1779-1960, bulk 1884-1960 | Rare Book & Manuscript Library | Columbia University Libraries Finding Aids". findingaids.library.columbia.edu. Retrieved 2022-05-29.
- ^ Max Horn, The Intercollegiate Socialist Society, 1905-1921: Origins of the Modern American Student Movement. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1979; pg. 6.
- ^ Stokes, I Belong to the Working Class, pg. 108.
- ^ Stokes, I Belong to the Working Class, pg. 109.
- ^ Horn, The Intercollegiate Socialist Society, pg. 5.
- ^ Horn, The Intercollegiate Socialist Society, pp. 9-10.
- ^ Horn, The Intercollegiate Socialist Society, pg. 25.
- ^ a b Horn, The Intercollegiate Socialist Society, pg. 36.
- ^ Rose Pastor Stokes, I Belong to the Working Class: The Unfinished Autobiography of Rose Pastor Stokes. Herbert Shapiro and David L. Sterling, eds. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1992; pg. 112.
- JSTOR 2376295.
- JSTOR 1009856.
- ^ James Graham Phelps Stokes Papers (MS 1587). Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library. accessed May 29, 2022.
- ^ "Collection: Hartley House records | University of Minnesota Archival Collections Guides". archives.lib.umn.edu. Retrieved 2022-05-29.
- ^ a b c d "James Graham Phelps Stokes announces engagement to Rose Pastor". Jewish Women's Archive. Retrieved 2022-05-29.
- ^ "Stokes (Wieslander), Rose Pastor". www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org. Retrieved 2022-05-29.
- ^ "J. G. Phelps Stokes Weds Miss Sands", New York Times, New York, pp. E8, 14 March 1926
- ^ a b c d e Gray, Christopher (August 2, 1998). "J. Graham Phelps and Lettice Stokes nee Sands". Meher Baba Travels. Retrieved 2022-05-29.
Further reading
- Robert D. Reynolds, Jr., "Millionaire Socialist and Omnist Episcopalian: J. G. Phelps Stokes's Political and Spiritual Search for the 'All,'" in Jacob H. Dorn (ed.), Socialism and Christianity in Early 20th Century America. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1998.