WANAMAKER 



6134 



WAR 



tween the parties to a treaty or public agree- 

 ment. 



WANAMAKER, vxthn'ama k'r, JOHN (1838- 

 >, an American merchant, capitalist and 

 philanthropist, born at Philadelphia, Pa. After 

 u brief school course in that city, he secured 

 at fourteen a position as an errand boy in a 

 bookstore, and until 1861 was a clerk in vari- 

 ous Philadelphia stores. In that year he estab- 

 lished with Nathan Brown the Philadelphia 

 clothing store of Wanamaker & Brown, and in 

 1876 founded there a great department store. 

 In a most vigorous campaign within three years 

 he practically overcame all competition in that 

 city and made his enterprise so successful that 

 it soon was one of the largest houses of its 

 kind in the world. In 1896 he established a 

 similar store on a vast scale in New York City. 



For many years he was active in politics, 

 but repeatedly declined public offices, such as 

 a Republican nomination for Congress and an 

 independent candidacy for mayor of Philadel- 

 phia. In 1889, however, he accepted from Presi- 

 dent Harrison the position of Postmaster- 

 General of the United States, and under his 

 supervision the Department became for the first 

 time in its history a model business organiza- 

 tion. 



As a worker in religious and philanthropic 

 fields he has rendered valuable service. He 

 founded in 1858, and ever since has supervised, 

 the Bethany Sunday School of Philadelphia, 

 which is now the largest in the United States. 

 The same year he was chosen the first salaried 

 Y. M. C. A. secretary in America. During the 

 War of Secession he was one of the founders of 

 the Christian Commission, and devoted much 

 time and money to its work among the sol- 

 diers. As a member of the financial board of 

 the Centennial Exposition of 1876, as one of 

 the founders of the Presbyterian Hospital of 

 Philadelphia and Bethany Dispensary, as origi- 

 nator and president of the first Penny Savings 

 Bank, and as the donor of numerous Y. M. 

 C. A. and college buildings in Asia, he has ex- 

 erted an influence for good throughout a wide 

 territory. In recent years he has frequently 

 been called upon by the United States Gov- 

 ernment for advice in postal affairs, and in this 

 field is considered a high authority. R.D.M. 



WANDERING JEW, the subject of a medie- 

 val legend taking various forms, the best known 

 of which is a German version, published in 

 1602. In this a Jew is represented as telling 

 the Bishop of Schleswig that he was a cobbler 

 in Jerusalem at the time of the Crucifixion and 



had joined in the mockings of the people; that 

 he ordered Jesus to hurry on and not to rest, 

 when, bearing His cross, He paused for a mo 

 inent at his shop door, to which Jesus answered, 

 "I will stop and rest, but thou shalt go on." 

 From that time the cobbler had wandered 

 about* the earth. After the spread of the tale, 

 many Jews who claimed to have lived since 

 the time of Jesus appeared at different point > 

 in Europe. Several modern writers have made 

 the story the subject of drama or romance. 

 The most famous writing of this nature is Eu- 

 gene Sue's The Wandering Jew. 



Consult Conway's The Wandering Jew. 



WANDERING JEW, a name given to certain 

 species of the spiderwort family, because they 

 cling to life tenaciously. These plants are found 

 usually in greenhouses, but are also grown in 

 hanging baskets in houses. If a small branch 

 is placed in water it will put forth roots and 

 grow indefinitely. The leaves of the wander- 

 ing Jew have a shining, silvery tinge, and when 

 exposed to an abundance of sunlight they be- 

 come striped with cream or white and turn 

 red-purple below. In the dim light of a green- 

 house they are silvery green. The plants bear 

 white, rose-red or blue flowers, and both leaves 

 and stem are juicy. The plants are native to- 

 Mexico and South America. 



WAPITI, wop'iti, a species of deer living in 

 the Northwestern United States and Canada. 

 It is usually called elk. See ELK, subhead The 

 American Elk; also DEER, where an illustration 

 will be found. 



WAR, a contest carried on between sovereign 

 powers by force of arms by which each seeks 

 to force its will upon the other. While war is 

 the opposite of peace, it has for its definite ob- 

 ject the establishment of peace, and the more 

 vigorously war is prosecuted the more quickly, 

 as a rule, may that object be attained. The 

 causes of war, or the alleged causes, are many 

 and various. War may spring from jealousy of 

 power, from religious prejudices, from racial 

 hatred, from mere lust of conquest, or from the 

 impulse of a strong nation to help defend the 

 weak. Whether it be between sovereign states 

 or nations or between divided parties of the 

 same people, war becomes an established fact 

 only by the sovereign will of the people. 

 Whether just or unjust, desirable or unde- 

 sirable, or whether war could have been 

 avoided, are considerations which have no bear- 

 ing on the fact that war exists. Once ac- 

 knowledged to exist, war and its conduct have 

 been clearly defined by civilized nations, and 



