TKANSCBrPT, MONDAY, FMIUUTARY M, .1.1)27 



Brooks Adams 



By Albert E. Pillsbury 



Tho man in whose memory this Is 

 written Is not a subject for pious plati- 

 tudes. Ho sacrificed to hia rusgcd Inde- 

 Iiondonce ot character a career which his 

 I origin seemed to mark out for him; ho 

 would not flatter the people nor pay 

 court to tho little great. For this, If for 

 nothing else, ho deserves to be remem- 

 bered, and his contemporaries owe him 

 this debt for public no less than for per- 

 sonal reasons. The death of the last sur- 

 vivor of President John Adams's great- 

 brandsons may be said to mark a period, 

 If not an epoch. In the history of this 

 community and to call for more than 

 ordinary notice. For a century and a 

 half that great man and his immediate 

 descendants have maintained a position 

 that entitles them to bo accounted the 

 most remarkable as well as the most dis- 

 tinguished family of this Commonwealth 

 or country. It furnishes the only In- 

 stance In which father and son have 

 successively been crowned with tho high- 

 est political honor which the. Nation has 

 to bestow, though In this It Is approached 

 by the Harrisons, who produced historic 

 characters in the same line In three gen- 

 erations, but the connection between the 

 two President Harrisons is made by an 

 intervener who was not especially dis- 

 tinguished except as he was the son of 

 one ot them and the father of the other, 

 no mean distinction indeed, by Itself. 

 There Is no such Interruption ot the 

 Adams line. Political dl.stlnctlon In this 

 country Is, to be sure, more or less ad- 

 ventitious, depending largely upon arts 

 of popularity or accidents of fortune, If 

 nothing worse, which establish no valid 

 claim to permanent remembrance. .Some 

 names on the roll ot our Presidents we 

 would gladly forget. 



Perhaps the most remarkable It not 



tho highest distinction ot the John 

 Adams line Is Us Intellectual persistence 

 through so long a period, and In an 

 ascending scale if Henry and Broo!<s 

 may bo taken, as scholars would take 

 them, to bo Its deepest thinkers. For 

 three generations the Adams family was 

 making history, in the persons of Presi- 

 dent John, President John Quincy, and 

 Ills son Charles Francis, the value of 

 whoso diplomatic service In England dur- 

 ing the rebellion and later in the Geneva 

 arbitration is unequalled In our annals 

 since Franklin was at the court of 

 France. 



After throe generations of statesmen 

 Identified with the greatest public affairs, 

 in the fourtli, wMle tho older sons ' 

 minrlrs It-rnncls not without publin 



iind lUonu-y dlsLInctlon, prol)abiy (he 

 wider intplipcttial pre-omihenco ot tlio 

 Ad.Tms family must bo ascribed to Hen- 

 ry and Bronlis as two of the protoundest 

 thinkers and moat accomplished writers 

 nC their time In history and philosophy, 

 in which thry attained International rec- 

 ognition. 'Inhere is room for difference ot 

 opinion about tho respective merits of 

 tho members of this illustrious line; 

 there has been difference of opinion 

 about it In the Adams family Itself. It 

 may be doubtful if any two of them 

 fully agreed as to whether John or John 

 Quincy was the greater man, and Brooks 

 was accustomed to say, perhaps not unin- 

 fluenced by filial pride, that he regarded 

 his father, Charles Francis, as the great- 

 est man and his brother Henry as the 

 greatest mind he ever knew. This at 

 least discredits the gibe of a hundred 

 years, having no other foundation than 

 the family traits of independence of 

 thought and unbridled plainness of 



cnl on<l economic iiliasios of man's de- 

 velopment as c.xhiljltod in history, nil 

 liiiving Its root In Um poBtulate that llfo 

 Is a compctltlvo struggle for e.'ilHlenco In 

 which tho wcnlter are bound to KO to tho 

 wall. 



In 1907 he interrupted his literary 

 work so f.ar as to fill succcsfully for 

 several years tho chair ot constitutional 

 Law In Boston University. That such a 

 man could translate his views of such 

 a subject into language Intelligible to a 

 class In a modern law school is a testi- 

 mony to the variety of his powers. No 

 other college ever offered him' a chair, 

 nor an honorary degree, perhaps antici- 

 pating refusal of such a doubtful dis- 

 tinction, which would have been quite 

 characteristic of him. 



In 1916 he was sent by the city ot 

 Quincy to the Constitutional Convention, 

 his only adventure into public life, where 

 he talked political philosophy to the 

 members, who listened respectfully, but 

 most of them with the amused curiosity 

 of a child at the appearance ot a new 

 and strange animal. His voice and vote 

 were given for the Initiative and Refer- 

 endum, which seemed Inconsistent with 

 his lack of faith in democracy, but he 

 privately defended his position on the 

 ground that the measure would furnish a 

 safety-valve against the oppressions ot 

 capital. 



+ + + 



Brooks Adams possessed talents near- 

 ly akin to genius, which a difterent man 

 could, perhaps, have put to a better use. 

 Subject as all men are to the limitations 

 of his nature, he was perfectly conscious 

 L'C his own fallings and never seemed to 

 care to avoid or coirect them. If they 

 leaned to virtue's side, as most of them 

 did, this did not help him in the world, 

 and his freedom from the common am- 

 bitions of common men still further dis- 

 abled him for the career that might have 

 been his If he had been differently con- 

 stituted. So far from courting popularity 

 he seemed to despise it. He wasted with 

 a careless hand many gifts of fortune 

 that might have aided a self-seeking am- 

 bition. He held unpopular opinions, 

 which he never attempted to conceal. 



He believed, with other philosophers, 

 that the government of Rome under the 

 Antonlnes was the best the world has 

 ever seen. He had no faith in the per- 

 manence of democracy, declaring his 

 conviction that our experiment In free 

 government is already an assured failure, 

 that sinister but irresistible Influences 

 are driving us rapidly on the road to 

 some form of autocracy, and serious as 

 this situation may be, that "it is naught 

 beside the terrors which threaten our so- 

 ciety, as at present organized, by the 

 unsoxing of woman." He scouted all 

 theologies, and was indifferent to religion, 

 though a regular attendant at the old 

 family place of worship whenever Sun- 

 day found hira In Quincy. Some of hl.i 

 contemporaries unjustly regnrdnfl him 

 as no inuro tlian a brlUlant cviilc; un- 

 justly, because no views or opinions of 

 his were lightly held; they were the re- 

 sult of profound study and conviction. 



Ho was a philosopher ot history; tho 

 greatest questions that havo arisen out 

 of collective human society were tho f;i- 

 vorlte subjects ot his tliought, which 

 never seemed to turn toward tho indi- 

 vidual, though he appeared to entertain 

 the doctrine of fatalism. If his phlloso- 1 

 phy would be stigmatized as pessimistic, i 

 perhaps nothing else could be expected' 

 of a man of his mental reach and vision 

 who never hesitated to face the truth or 

 to accept the logical results of it. 

 + + + 



Among friends he was a companionable- 

 man, hospitable, witty and entertaining 

 He was especially fond of his dogs and 

 his garden. Punctilious in the etiquette 

 of small social customs, for many of th's 

 conventions of modern society he had no 

 expression hut contemnt. WHh nr, (von 



