Brand Whitlock's Macochee:
Puritan Theo-Politics in the
Midwest
By ABE C. RAVITZ*
TO BE REGARDED as "an American Hardy" or "an American
Turgenev" was a lifelong ambition
of Brand Whitlock, well-
known midwest political figure and diplomat, who, to
his
everlasting disappointment, failed in
his ambitious quest for
such literary renown.1 Held
in high esteem, however, by
political scientists and historians
alike for his successful meth-
ods in the administration of local
government and revered
by countless humanitarians who remember
his often bizarre
exploits in Belgium as head of the
relief commission there
during World War I, this one-time
firebrand mayor of Toledo
(1905-13) had established a reputation
for himself in the field
of journalism long before the call to
public service temporarily
halted his earnest efforts to scale
Parnassus.
As political reporter for the Chicago
Herald (1890-93),
Whitlock had caught the attention of
Governor John P. Alt-
geld, Illinois' famed "eagle forgotten,"
and subsequently spent
many hours at the executive mansion
talking occasionally
about politics but discoursing more
often on the literary con-
tributions of Tolstoy, Meredith, and
other luminaries in the
glamorous world of contemporary
letters.2 His first law office
in Toledo had on its walls not
portraits of supreme court
justices or photographs of other legal
titans, but rather a
prominent picture of William D.
Howells, fellow Ohioan and
* Abe C. Ravitz is associate professor
of English at Hiram College.
1 Allan Nevins, ed., The Letters and
Journal of Brand Whitlock (New York
and London, 1936), lxviii. Hereafter
cited as Letters.
2 Letters, xxxi.
258 THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
current "dean" of the
American literati.3 Whitlock's long and
warm friendship with Clarence Darrow,
the most famous
criminal lawyer of the twentieth
century, was sealed by a
bond having little to do with
jurisprudence: each admired the
other as a writer, and the Chicago
counselor encouraged and
even edited the early literary
endeavors of young Whitlock.4
By 1907 this "part-time"
writer had published six volumes of
prose fiction, and Howells, as supreme
literary arbiter of
America, observed shortly thereafter
that he considered Whit-
lock and Robert Herrick "the two
most hopeful figures in
American literature."5 Without
doubt, then, this phase of
Whitlock's creative life constituted
something more than a
mere transient aberration of the
intellect, for when bibliog-
raphers total the Whitlock canon, they
will find ten novels,
two short-story collections, two
full-length biographies, an
autobiography, and numerous uncollected
pieces of prose and
verse that appeared in the most popular
periodicals of the
day. The accolade of Howells alone
would attest somewhat
to the quality of these productions.
The purpose of this paper is not to
make a case for Whit-
lock's being the neglected major figure
of American realism.
I propose, rather, to study a unique
midwestern mythology
created by Whitlock, a schema of life
wrought as consciously
as the heralded Yoknapatawpha County,
Mississippi, of Wil-
liam Faulkner. Furthermore, well in
advance of Sherwood
Anderson's sensational Winesburg,
Ohio, which in 1919 burst
before the horrified eyes of the
American reading public to
shatter the conventional fiction of
uncomplicated, folksy mid-
west respectability, Whitlock, with the
creative sureness im-
plicit in the brand of realism embodied
by the work of his
idol Howells, was focusing a humane,
nonetheless analytical,
3 Brand Whitlock, Forty Years of It (New
York and London, 1914), 103.
4 "When he [Darrow] boarded his
train he had in his valise the MS. of my
story." Ibid., 86. On
November 7, 1900, Whitlock wrote Darrow: "Do you think
it would be out of the way to send the
MS ... to him [Howells] now? You will
know best-but I suggest it to you out of
all my anxiety, and shall impatiently
await your advice. Please don't be long
in giving it to me, for I must be guided
by your opinion." Letters, 33.
Darrow was liaison between Howells and Whitlock.
5 Letters, 110.
BRAND WHITLOCK'S MACOCHEE 259
eye on the very same attributes of the
Buckeye personality
and character. As early as 1899 he had
revealed his inten-
tions in a letter to Miss Octavia
Roberts, confidante of many
of his literary plans:
Sometimes I am tempted to abandon all
else and plunge into literature
alone . . . . I shall be happy if I can portray life
in two of its phases,
as I know it, at least. One is that
political world, and the other is
that existence to be found in certain
parts of Central and Southern
Ohio, with its deadly monotony, almost
total lack of colour; often sordid,
and yet, because the human heart is
everywhere the same, it has its
tragedies, its romances, its joys and
sorrows, as have more favored and
picturesque spots.6
Brand Whitlock then proceeded to place
under the sensitive
scrutiny of a creative artist the
fictitious town of Macochee,7
seat of Gordon County, Ohio. A reviewer
in 1912 blandly
remarked, "Odd old folk must have
lived and died there."8
I
While Whitlock as a youth had been part
and parcel of the
environment he now chose to portray in
fiction ("the family
removed from town to town" in Ohio
as the ecclesiastical au-
thorities ordered the Rev. Elias D.
Whitlock from one small
church to another), his flexible
literary methods enabled him
at times to assume the guise of a
spiritual Paul Pry--one who
deliberately removed himself from what
Hawthorne called
"the magnetic chain of
humanity" to study in detail the pass-
ing parade of life. To investigate life
in Macochee by choos-
ing as interpreters the local isolatoes
was his major literary
scheme; to dissect the political and
theological structures on
which the intellectual foundation of
the town depended, and
from this pivotal axis to examine the
social maladies stem-
6 Letters, 23.
7 Whitlock adopted the name from that of Mac-o-chee
Creek, a tributary of the
Mad River. As a boy he must have known
this lovely valley, which is located
only about ten miles north of his native
town of Urbana.
8 The Nation, XCV (1912), 126.
260
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
ming therefrom was his primary plan. In
studying the theo-
political architecture of this small
midwest town, Brand Whit-
lock pictured an area haunted by the
grim specter of doctrin-
aire Puritanism with its manifold
ramifications pervading all
life and movement in Macochee, Ohio.
In a tale from Whitlock's first
published collection, The
Gold Brick (1910), one gleans an initial insight into the
political superstructure of this town.
Young George Halliday,
a local boy recently graduated from the
Harvard College Law
School, returns to Macochee and reveals
to astonished neigh-
bors the decadent influence education
in the East has had
upon him: "He smoked cigarettes,
puffed a heavy briar pipe,
wore red neckties and knickerbockers,
and he drank beer.
And he did something else, something
that struck the moral
fiber of the town on the raw. He
changed his politics and
became a Democrat!"9 Such an
action was inexplicable in a
community dominated exclusively by the
Republican party,
whose youthful adherents followed the
Catholic children home
from their parochial school and
derisively chanted:
Fried rats and pickled cats,
Are good enough for Democrats.
The fall from innocence of Halliday was
particularly painful
to his fellow townsmen, for he, like
any ambitious hometown
boy, had at one time perceived the
local political truism that
the only respectable affiliation with
government a Gordon
Countian might have lay in the fold of
the Republican party.
The abandoned Democrats, unprincipled
all, as respectable
citizens of Macochee saw them, were
ne'er-do-wells whose le-
gal careers and business connections
had been for years in
varying stages of disrepute: Fowler
Brunton, who enraged
the "good people" of Macochee
because he was said "to play
poker night after night with a few
chosen cronies" and "to
drink . . . in Sullivan's Saloon"
where on occasion he "de-
9 "Macochee's First Campaign
Fund," in The Gold Brick (Indianapolis, 1910),
142.
BRAND WHITLOCK'S MACOCHEE 261
claimed passages from
Shakespeare";10 Wade Powell, who
was labeled "a drunkard,
practically," "an infidel," or "at least
a free-thinker," and who irritated
Macocheeans by his "sar-
donic" countenance and
"cynical" presence at their enthusiastic
political rallies;11 Malcolm Dyer,
another dissolute conspirator,
a nominal Episcopalian "who . . .
seldom went to church,"
who "worst of all . . . proclaimed
himself a Democrat," and
whose "spree" in celebration
of Cleveland's election in 1884
made respectable Macochee shiver in outraged
mortification.12
Indeed, as a jubilant torchlight
procession moved down Main
Street, with the brass band noisily
accompanying frenzied
Republican marchers to cries of
"Blaine! Blaine! James G.
Blaine!"13 the profligates Dyer
and Powell irreverently with-
drew to the local bar. Since "rum,
Romanism, and rebellion"14
were allegedly the intrinsic elements
in the personality of most
Democrats, citizens of Macochee could
only regard such a
political slogan with the awe accorded
a divinely inspired pro-
nouncement, for in the Catholic district of Lighttown,
in
Sullivan's Bar, and in the diabolic
wrongheadedness of the
local iconclasts were found living
emblems of these anarchical
traits.
There were in Macochee, however, not
enough Democrats
to disturb very seriously the political
peace, for their paucity
enabled them only (so the Republicans
contended) to enter
weak protest votes against the
principles of sound govern-
ment. Joshua Hardin, honest Macochee
carriage maker, ex-
emplifies, on the other hand, the type
of moral warfare political
vendettas engendered within the ranks
of the GOP itself.
Hardin "had poured the holy
enthusiasm of his youth into the
formation of the Republican Party; to
him it was sacrosanct;
he could not desert it."15 With
the advent of growing agitation
10
"Fowler Brunton," in The Fall Guy (Indianapolis, 1912), 150.
11 The Happy Average (Indianapolis,
1904), 64.
12 J. Hardin & Son (New York and London, 1923), 24, 79.
13 Ibid., 69.
14 Allan Nevins, Grover Cleveland: A
Study in Courage (New York, 1932),
182. This remark was passed by the Rev.
Samuel Burchard, a leading New
York clergyman and supporter of Blaine.
15 J. Hardin & Son, 109.
262
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
in the area for prohibition, this man
of acute moral sensibility
found himself obsessed by split
loyalties and went about fran-
tically seeking means whereby he could
support the cause of
prohibition "without compromising
his stand as a Republi-
can."16 Hardin at
length found his emotional panacea in the
Anti-Saloon League, where he could
reform society on
grounds other than political. The
Honorable Clyde Sturrock,
however, Macochee's proud representative in congress,
re-
mained leader of the local organization and vulgar
proponent
of the "wet" faction.
Sturrock made few amicable overtures
to Hardin and the small group of
intra-party dissenters, for
the shrewd congressman knew that
despite Hardin's professed
integrity he could never bring himself
to bolt the party of his
youth, but would release his aggressions on
"Cleveland and
his fool administration"17 whose
tenure in office meant nothing
but "hard times of course."
The political machinery in Brand
Whitlock's Macochee, Ohio, then, ran
with efficient smooth-
ness since so few wheels needed to be
manipulated. Battle
lines denoting good and evil were
clearly marked by party
label, and the political structure
categorized with accuracy
the attitudes and opinions of the
respectable majority--an
exalted group of quality and worth
whose major prerequisite
for membership was enrollment in the
Republican party.
Along with this fervid political spirit
in the town went an
accompanying muscular theological
system patterned after
the Calvinist blueprint that has come
to epitomize orthodoxy
in the Massachusetts Bay Colony of the
seventeenth century.
Young Paul Hardin, through whose
perceptive insights Whit-
lock studies most cogently the
spiritual temperament of Ma-
cochee, listened one evening to the
semi-weekly "summons of
evangelism":
First, the bell of the Lutheran Church
sounded a sullen detonation,
then paused, and waited. Then the bell
of the Presbyterian Church
struck its despairing note and there
followed the dissonant sound of the
bell in the United Presbyterian Church,
and then the impatient clangor
16 Ibid.
17 Ibid., 254.
BRAND WHITLOCK'S MACOCHEE 263
of the bell of the Methodist Church,
still sounding in loud vibrations
until after the United Methodist bell
had rung in its high pitched key.
Then the note of the Congregational
Church bell and after it the clang
of the Baptist bell, to which the Campbellite Church
dissented with a
sharp stroke and finally the United
Brethren Church bell joined the
tolerant antiphony, the Lutheran bell
rang again, and the round was
repeated. . . . The Roman Catholic Church . . .
contented itself with three
authoritative taps morning, noon, and night, while the
Episcopal Chapel
maintained the chilling silence of its
superior reserve.18
Thus was Macochee notified of
prayer-meeting time, and
Paul, coerced by his devout parents,
went to sit under the
preaching of the Rev. Mr. Sparrow, an
"evangelist" and a
man "of many devices" who
"spoke as though he held the
keys of Heaven in his hand."19
Throughout his life Paul
Hardin was never to forget the
"clear barytone [sic] voice"
of the Rev. Mr. Sparrow as
"without accompaniment and
with complete self-abandon" the
good preacher would sing
"Mother." Nor could he ever
forget this minister "standing
there stretching out his arms" and
exhorting, "Think, sinners,
think, while the clock in hell is
ticking--never, forever; for-
ever, never--it may tick your last
moment on earth and your
first in eternity."20 After
Sparrow in this manner had exposed
his flock to the perils of hellfire,
Mr. Popple, a church worker,
would scurry up and down the aisle
seeking possible "con-
verts." Paying particular
attention to the young, Popple
treated Master Hardin to another
version of the fiery pit:
"You know . . . that those who are
not saved go to hell, don't you?
. . . Think of the few short years of
this life, and the unending eternity.
Would you then decide deliberately to
spend that eternity in hell? . . .
You know what the Good Book says of hell--the
place where the worm
dieth not, and the fire is not
quenched."21
Succumbing to the multiplicity of
pressures brought to bear
upon him by family and community, Paul
Hardin at last
18 Ibid., 15, 16.
19 Ibid., 42, 43.
20 Ibid., 45.
21 Ibid., 46-47.
264 THE OHIO HISTORICAL
QUARTERLY
joined in full communion, although
despair and weariness
rather than the light of the gospel
motivated this step. Clyde
Sturrock, on the other hand, even as a
young man immersed
in the devious politics of acceptance
and adjustment, became
an immediate and expedient convert, to
the exultant joy of
all present visible saints. As each
prospective communicant
completed his probationary period of
six months and was
forthwith admitted to full status in
the church, the moral
fiber of Macochee was toughened; when
at the age of twenty-
one the individual was also granted the
privilege of enrolling
in the Republican party, the complete
spiritual and political
attainments of his lifetime were
achieved. He had then as-
sumed the full responsibility of his
mature status and had
found his peculiar niche within the
confines of a provincial
ethic that comprised the intellectual
framework of Macochee
and that transmitted all pulsating
ideas in control of thought
and action in Gordon County, Ohio.
II
The most evident analogy between Brand
Whitlock's fic-
tional town and the Massachusetts Bay
Colony is the potent
union of church and state maintaining
the social equilibrium
and providing the vital ethos most
necessary for wholesome
existence. Verging on the theocratic
organization evident
in the political and religious
structure set up by John Win-
throp and his associates as early as
1630, Macochee feels both
the pleasure and displeasure of Divine
Providence as its com-
munity leaders--akin to the Bay
Colony's governor, magis-
trates of the general court, and
clergy--act with the power
of appointed stewards of the Almighty,
responsible only to
Him. In the Bay Colony, outlanders and
interlopers were
persecuted: the Indians were divinely
slaughtered,22 the
Quakers were divinely stoned,23 and political
deviants, like
22 Thomas Shepard in his journal noted
that "the providence of God" guided
the English to "the divine
slaughter" of the "Pekoats." Perry Miller and T. H.
Johnson, eds., The Puritans (New
York, 1938), 473.
23 In his Puritan tale "The Gentle
Boy," Hawthorne speaks of "the fines, im-
prisonments, and stripes" inflicted
liberally on Quakers.
BRAND WHITLOCK'S MACOCHEE 265
Roger Williams, were divinely banished.
In Macochee, Smoke,
a Negro laborer, is lynched because of
his "uppity" ways
("Damn black niggers," cried
Mr. Tilling, one of the town's
strongest pillars of the church);
Evelyn Walling, illegitimate
daughter of "infidel"
transient actors, is taunted and chased
by a mob of "moral" ruffians
until she plunges hysterically
into a creek and nearly drowns; and
Wade Powell is right-
eously ostracized by the pious
community of saints. As "the
temporal arm vigorously supported the
ecclesiastical will" any
"speculator, scoffer, and
atheist"24 fared badly when caught in
the unified crossfire between the
secular and non-secular
guardians of the law.
The frontier brand of revivalism and
religious enthusiasm
prevalent in Macochee's theological
system, furthermore, bears
strong analogy with the well-known
"thorny points" of Bay
Colony Calvinism. The various steps
toward communion are
chronicled thus by Whitlock:
"lost," "saved," "come to Jesus"
or "stand up for Jesus,"
"conviction," and "experience."25
This process of achieving oneness with
the Deity evinces a
strikingly similar pattern to the
Puritan progression toward
salvation: Original Sin (lost),
Election (saved), Regeneration
(come to Jesus; spiritual re-birth
through personal experi-
ence), Justification (conviction;
forgiveness achieved through
the grace of Christ), and
Sanctification (experience; evidence
of a moral life through deed and
action). Indeed, both the
New England Calvinist and the midwest
neo-Puritan deeply
believed that ultimate judgment for the
"sheep" rather than
the "goats" could be realized
through the assiduous discharge
of secular duties--this despite the
omnipresent incubus of pre-
destination. Without such hope, the
ordeal of life would be
unbearable. Each person, then, had to
be punctual in his per-
formance of the day-to-day tasks
comprising the responsibili-
ties of existence as
"ethical" duties long after they had ceased
to be material necessities.26 Through
the colorless yet laborious
24 Henry
Adams, The United States in 1800 (Ithaca, N. Y., 1955), 56.
25 J. Hardin & Son, 44.
26 R. H. Tawney, Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (New York,
1926),
241-242.
266 THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
tedium of everyday routine one isolates
himself from, and
insulates himself against, the
frivolousness of life and the
temptations of Satan, who is forever nearby contending
with
the Almighty for the possession of
individual souls. Paul
Hardin's father, a blacksmith by trade,
reveals this economic
aspect of Puritanism in a significant
dialogue with his curious
son:
"Blacksmithing's hard work,"
Paul observed.
"Life's hard work," said J.
Hardin. . . .
"Yes," observed Paul, after a
time, "it must have been a hard life.
You hadn't many pleasures."
"We hadn't time for them,"
said J. Hardin; "we were a God-fearing
family."
"Then you were spared
temptations," Paul ventured.
J. Hardin reared up. . . . "I spent
many a day pounding them out
on my anvil!" he declared.27
In 1667 the Rev. Jonathan Mitchell, a
Bay Colony divine,
in preaching his election sermon,
"Nehemiah on the Wall,"
set down the resounding dicta that
Joshua Hardin, in an
awkward, non-esoteric manner, was
presenting with simple
power to his son more than two
centuries later:
Go on, therefore, in the work of the
Lord and in the service of your
several places, and be not taken off by
trouble, difficulties, oppositions,
felt infirmities in yourselves,
weaknesses and distempers in persons and
things round about you (which will
always be). When were there work
for patience, faith, fortitude,
self-denial, and for the spirit of a soldier,
wrestler, etc. if it were not for such
things? We must none of us say,
of one order or other, "I will
serve God in my place, and help build
the wall of Jerusalem, if I may do it
with ease and tranquility, without
trouble, without hazard, without
reproaches and ill requitals from men,
etc." Christ is little beholden to
us if that be all we will do for him.28
Time and space are insolubly fused. The
spiritual distance
between seventeenth-century Cambridge,
Massachusetts, and
nineteenth-century Macochee, Ohio,
becomes minute.
27 J.
Hardin & Son, 326-327.
28 Perry Miller, ed., The American
Puritans (New York, 1956), 111-112.
BRAND WHITLOCK'S MACOCHEE 267
In November 1913 Brand Whitlock wrote
his friend Rut-
ger B. Jewett of his "plan for the
novel about the Puritans
in Ohio."29 Five months
later he again mentioned in a letter
his scheme for a work "about
puritanism in Ohio and the
Middle West generally."30 Fortunately,
Whitlock intended an
incisive, honest delineation of the
Puritan ethic rather than
a scattershot, iconoclastic exercise
written under the imposing
contemporary shadow of H. L. Mencken,
who, as intellectual
doll-baby of the "sophisticated
thinkers," hopelessly confused
Puritanism with
"philistinism."31 Whitlock, rather, with the
integrity of a true craftsman analyzed
the political limits and
theological boundaries that encased the
social structure of his
fictional town. Through these
theo-politics he then set out
to reveal the divergent human
interrelationships of men bound
by this neo-Puritan ethic.
III
"I love Macochee so," cried
Glenn Marley, B.A., Ohio Wes-
leyan, and hero of Whitlock's novel The
Happy Average, "I
just couldn't leave it "32 In a
light, wispy tale of the tribula-
tions common to young love, a novel
into which one can see
Booth Tarkington dipping as he wrote
his classic of adoles-
cence, Seventeen, some twelve
years later, Brand Whitlock
chronicled the obstacles which Macochee
and its intellectual
atmosphere imposed upon the innocent
buoyancy of an aspir-
ing youth--one who "eagerly
identified himself" with a town
whose very name "meant
romance" to him. To Marley's
chagrin, he is ultimately brought face
to face with a dis-
heartening proposition: any ambitious
individual who desires
to make his mark on the face of the
universe must begin his
quest for achievement by renouncing his
Gordon County heri-
tage. Seeking to marry Lavinia Blair,
Glenn encounters
immediate opposition from her father, a
politically powerful
29 Letters, 172.
30 Ibid., 179.
31 Oscar Cargill, Intellectual America (New York, 1941), 491.
32 Whitlock, The Happy Average (Indianapolis,
1904), 142.
268
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
judge; for the young suitor has
unwisely chosen as his law
tutor Wade Powell, the notorious local
"free-thinker" ("per-
haps agnostic were the better
word," observed the charitable
Judge Blair). Marley soon becomes
hopelessly perplexed as
the currents of genuine youthful
optimism which generated
his happy sentimentalizing of the
"old hometown" clash with
the rude pessimism he imbibed in the
constantly impious com-
pany of Powell. Thus belabored into a
state of desperation
and looking for sound, stable, sensible
advice that might enable
him to combat the influence of the
diabolical lawyer, the de-
spondent Marley seeks out Mr. Dudley,
the local banker, who
he feels will re-orient the chaotic
universe in terms of com-
forting Macocheean philosophy. Dudley
emphatically informs
Glenn that the road to success lies in
total abstinence from
liquor and tobacco. Now, "failure
followed failure" as Mar-
ley began to question the values of his
community, and realiz-
ing the paucity of opportunity there,
he "began to feel more
and more an alien in Macochee."33
His mind in complete
shambles, the dilemma-ridden youth
seeks final counsel of
Wade Powell, despite more ominous
warnings against relying
too heavily on the advice of so
decadent an Antichrist. In
Powell's judgment Marley learns that
settling among the
local gentry "is utterly out of
the question for a man who
wants to make anything out of
himself"; the lawyer then goes
on to excoriate Macochee with such
vituperation that its at-
tractiveness for Glenn is destroyed
once and for all:
No one with ambition can stay here now.
The town, like all these
old county seats, is good for nothing
but impecunious old age and
cemeteries. It was nothing but a country
cross-roads before the railroad
came, and since then it's been nothing
but a water tank. . . . Its people
are industrious in nothing but gossip,
and genuine in nothing but
hypocrisy.34
Glenn goes off to Chicago and in a
short time succumbs to
the various intellectual vices of the
metropolis; he takes up
33 Ibid., 229.
34 Ibid., 126.
BRAND WHITLOCK'S MACOCHEE 269
journalism and begins reading Turgenev,
Tolstoy, George
Eliot, Jane Austen, Ibsen, Henry James,
and William Dean
Howells. The specter of Macochee fades,
but not the vision
of Lavinia. He returns for her,
receives a hero's welcome
at home, and, to his surprise, the
locale of his boyhood as-
sumes a new charm. Nevertheless,
he was disturbed by a certain
restlessness that came over him after he
had been in Macochee a few days and the
novelty and excitement of his
return had worn off. The glamour the
town had worn for him had left
it; it seemed to have withered and
shrunk away. He could no longer,
by any effort of the imagination,
realize it as the place he had carried
affectionately in his heart during the
long months of his absence; its
interests were so few and so petty, and
he found himself battling with
a wish to get away.35
As Glenn and his bride plan to leave
Macochee and he de-
cides to cut for all time the umbilical
cord that had once bound
him there with chauvinistic loyalty,
the young expatriate takes
a backward glance at the throbbing
symbol of life in Gordon
County, Ohio:
And there is the old town . . .
nestling among those trees, it seems
peaceful, and calm, and simple. But it
is different when you are in it;
for there are gossip and envy and spite.
. . . It is little and narrow and
provincial, and the real life is to be
lived out in the larger world.36
The superficial glitter of the town now
reflects for Marley
the stolid, immutable Puritan ethic,
whose theo-politics suffo-
cate intellectual and spiritual growth,
whose inflexible modus
vivendi encases
free will in a moral tomb, and whose righteous
force inhibits the emergence of
creativity. Fortunately, Mar-
ley discovered in time these anathemas
of life in Macochee.
Of J. Hardin & Son, Brand
Whitlock's most lasting contri-
bution to American realism, Hamlin
Garland, self-appointed
twentieth-century guardian of the
public's fictional morals,
had this to say:
35 Ibid., 325-326.
36 Ibid., 334-335.
270 THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
I read Whitlocks [sic] book and
was greatly disappointed in it. It
seemed to me--like Willa Gather's
latest--a concession to the people
who want female libertines in their
books. For a man of Whitlocks
[sic] position it seems a sad stooping to describe a hired
girls [sic]
seduction of a youth. I am disgusted
with a throng of my friends who
are lending their talents to this kind
of thing.37
By the prudish evaluation of Garland,
there are at least two
"female libertines" in this
Whitlock novel of Macochee, but
these fallen souls are not utilized as
literary lures for the
sensuality of a tasteless reading
public; rather they are sym-
bolic entities that purvey fallacies of
personal corruption and
that dramatize conflicts revolving
about material versus spir-
itual degradation. The true
"hero" of the novel is Macochee
and its all-consuming ethic,
maneuvering a helpless, wayward
humanity through the vortex of life
there. Paul Hardin, the
main character, grows to maturity in
Macochee and, along
the way, unhappily subscribes to the
acceptable codes of life
imposed by the neo-Puritanism of the
town. His lurid en-
counters with Mattie Briggs, the local
prostitute, gratify
Paul's vengeful desire to revolt
against the alleged respecta-
bility Macochee imposes upon his
personality. These brief
episodes terminated, Paul tediously
plods through life work-
ing with his reformist-minded father,
choosing a socially
prominent wife, and all the time feeling
that he has compro-
mised his integrity for the purposes of
peripheral peace and
easy adjustment. His wife, the former
Winona Dyer, hates
the memory of her father, for he had
been a close friend of
Wade Powell: "As though a man of
Papa's refinement and
education could be a boon companion of
a vulgar, half-
drunken fellow like Wade Powell!"
she cries, frustrated in
her knowledge that the comradeship did
exist. She and Paul
drift into separate worlds, and he
begins an affair with Evelyn
Laurie, a local hat maker. It becomes
evident that Paul
Hardin's only chance to achieve
happiness is to run off with
37 Hamlin
Garland to F. L. Pattee, November 24, [1923]. The manuscript is
located in the Pattee Collection of
Pennsylvania State University. A portion of
this letter was published in my article
"Willa Cather Under Fire: Hamlin Gar-
land Misreads A Lost Lady,"
Western Humanities Review, IX (1955), 182-184.
BRAND WHITLOCK'S MACOCHEE 271
Evelyn. His desire to cast off the
moral strait jacket in which
Macochee has outfitted him is powerful;
but so is the tug of
a conscience nurtured in the Puritan
tradition. He is now in
line for the presidency of a local
bank, his speculations in oil
have paid off, and in the final
analysis, he is clutched by the
octopus, Macochee. He must reject
Evelyn and again assume
his place among the saints. As he
trudges back into town,
returning from his final illicit
rendezvous, the beaten Paul
pauses atop a hill where he can look
down and see "the black
mass of Macochee"; he hears the
familiar sound of the church
bells beginning their habitual chimes,
and he goes down the
"long hill into the small
town."38 Glenn Marley,
who was
able to effect an escape, will achieve
self-fulfillment; Paul
Hardin, a study in failure, will
resolve his conflicts in self-
annihilation.
Whitlock dealt with Buckeye Puritanism
and other gro-
tesqueries of Macochee in several short
stories. "The Preach-
er's Son" contrasts the barren
monotony of Gordon County
with the jovial excitement of a circus
come to town. The
minister's boy is permitted to attend
the show after a tense
family scene. As the animated youngster
watches the gaiety
and action under the huge tent, he is
taken with the horrible
realization that "for him these
hours would quickly pass,
Macochee would sink back into her
normal slumber, the boys
would resume their normal life, but for
the boys of the Sie-
grist Family [big-top performers] there
would be an un-
ending circus."39 Life
will detour by Macochee while the
town remains a fixed, still point on
the pivotal axis of time,
for in the departure of the circus is
symbolized the exit of
youth's "long, long
thoughts." Macochee has prepared for
the minister's son a mold similar to
the one it had reserved
for Paul Hardin.
Another contrast is presented by
Whitlock in his tale of
"Fowler Brunton," a Macochee
lawyer who endeavored to
bring a measure of humanity into his
profession. Like Wade
38 J. Hardin & Son, 451.
39 "The Preacher's Son," in The Fall Guy,
246.
272
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
Powell, Brunton antagonized the
"minds and hearts" of local
citizens because "he could be so
witheringly sarcastic at their
pretensions, or so caustic in his wit
and satire at their self-
righteousness."40 His career is
juxtaposed with that of the
highly respected Judge Chaney,
counselor for the railroad,
whose immaculate premises were
uncluttered by the poor
and underprivileged daily seeking free
advice and assistance.
Chaney is the emblem of conformist
mediocrity; he has come
to terms with Macochee and is rewarded
with the admiration
of the town. Fowler Brunton has
rejected the Gordon County
ethic; for the maintenance of his
integrity he is rewarded
with hostility. The man of principle in
Macochee is a person
of consequence only if his convictions
are derived from the
very mainstream of the town's
philosophy, the unchallenged
divinity of theo-political Puritanism.
Brunton reads the Bible;
he studies Burns, Shakespeare, and
Dickens. Versed in the
literature of true Christianity and
steeped in the writings of
authors who crusaded for those durable
truths which in
Macochee are moral concepts reduced to
pulpit abstractions
and household platitudes, Fowler
Brunton is now content to
remain the social pariah, deliberately
removing himself from
townspeople who, as his fictional
counterpart, Wade Powell,
remarked, are "genuine in nothing
but hypocrisy."
"The Old House Across the
Street"41 reveals with disturb-
ing finality the spiritual poverty and
material decadence of
this fictional town. Mrs. Pratt peeks
through her window to
observe the funeral of an old maid who
had died. The de-
ceased and her maiden sister had lived
in the misty, close
atmosphere of their dreary Macochee
estate ever since each
had been disappointed in love by the
same young man, now
a dead Civil War hero. Mrs. Pratt
avidly observes the serv-
ices. As soon as the obsequies are
terminated and the visitors
depart, the old house is thrown open.
Almost immediately
two youngsters begin catching ball in
the front yard. Now
that the dismal mausoleum is
brightened, the freshness holds
40 "Fowler
Brunton," ibid., 150.
41 Ibid., 193-212.
BRAND WHITLOCK'S MACOCHEE 273
no interest for Mrs. Pratt, who, at
this point, draws her
curtains. Frolicking children on the
lawn of the old maids'
estate stand in direct contrast to the
symbols of self-restraint,
self-denial, and calm resignation their
decaying home stood
for. The superstructure of Macochee's
values were built in-
to the framework of this dilapidated
mansion, which, like the
deacon's "one hoss shay,"
remained a singular monument to
synod and covenant of antiquity.
Holgrave, Hawthorne's
daguerreotypist of The House of the
Seven Gables, who also
encountered the New England conscience
and its acute sense
of the past, was less suggestive but
more brutal than Whit-
lock:
Is it a wholesome place to live in,
with its black shingles, and the
green moss that shows how damp they
are?--its dark, low-studded
rooms?--its grime and sordidness, which
are the crystallization on its
walls of the human breath, that has
been drawn and exhaled here, in
discontent and anguish? The house ought
to be purified with fire,--
purified till only its ashes remain!42
As long as the symbol itself remains,
the town can gather
sustenance from it. Hawthorne, himself
forever haunted by
the phantasm of Calvinist orthodoxy,
emphatically noted the
tendency of institutions to perpetuate
themselves, and the
means at the disposal of society for
purging itself of haunting
relics of antiquity:
But we shall live to see the day, I
trust . . . when no man shall build
his house for posterity. Why should he?
He might just as reasonably
order a durable suit of
clothes--leather, or gutta percha, or whatever
else lasts longest--so that his
great-grandchildren should have the bene-
fit of them, and cut precisely the same
figure in the world that he
himself does. If each generation were
allowed to build its own houses,
that single change, comparatively
unimportant in itself, would imply
every reform which society is now
suffering for. I doubt whether even
our public edifices--our capitols, state-houses,
court-houses, city-halls,
and churches--ought to be built of such
permanent materials as stone or
brick. It were better that they should
crumble to ruin, once in twenty
42 Nathaniel Hawthorne, The House of the Seven Gables (New
York, 1954),
176.
274
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
years, or thereabouts, as a hint to the
people to examine into and reform
the institutions which they symbolize.43
From the solidly inbred ideas
comprising the intellectual
zeitgeist of
Macochee comes, then, that utter stagnation of
spirit that foretells eventual decay
and doom. The only hope
for the salvation of the town resides
in the local isolatoes,
for these saints' persecutors maintain
that vitality of spirit
and strength of liberal conviction
which can expand the in-
tellectual horizons of those who
discriminate against them.
On this paradox, unpalatable indeed to
the Macochee mind,
Whitlock rests the future of his town.
IV
Within the literary tradition of
American realism, Brand
Whitlock's tales and novels of Gordon County, Ohio,
portray-
ing the transplanted New England
conscience in the Middle
West, calculatedly avoided dealing with
that group of stereo-
typed rustics who, even by the early
twentieth century, had
been pilloried with thoroughness by
many an author revolting
against the village and its lack of
"real dreams that never go
smash."44 Whitlock, in concerning
himself rather with an
examination of the theo-political
structure of his community,
still managed to present as integral to
Gordon County the
humdrum, static elements that nearly
drove Carol Kennicott
insane on the Main Street of Gopher
Prairie, Minnesota; but
in Macochee these social anomalies
existed only as natural
consequences of the Puritan ethic that
Sinclair Lewis failed
to stress with adequate conviction in
his assualt on the small
midwest town. Gopher Prairie has only a
"social organiza-
tion,"45 whereas Macochee reflects
the logical impact of
Puritanism on the town in affairs
theological, political, and
43 Ibid.
44 Carl Sandburg, "Mamie," in Poems
of the Midwest (Cleveland and New
York, 1946), 46. The small town Indiana
girl hopes to find "romance" and "real
things" in Chicago.
45 H. M. Fuller, review of J. Hardin
& Son, in Literary Review, IV (1923),
145.
BRAND WHITLOCK'S MACOCHEE 275
economic. This powerful complicity of
forces traced the social
picture of Gordon County as if by
predestination.
More than a series of disdainful
philippics against the ba-
nalities and prejudices of small-town
life, Whitlock's thought-
ful scrutiny penetrates and illuminates
a real Bay Colony
microcosm as it existed in the Middle West of the late
nine-
teenth century.