The Harris-Ingram Experiment

The Harris-Ingram Experiment

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Title: The Harris-Ingram Experiment
Author: Charles E. Bolton
Release Date: October 9, 2005 [EBook #16834]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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THE HARRIS-INGRAM EXPERIMENT
By CHARLES E. BOLTON, M.A.
AUTHOR OF "A MODEL VILLAGE AND OTHER PAPERS," "TRAVELS IN EUROPE AND AMERICA," ETC.
CLEVELAND
THE BURROWS BROTHERS COMPANY
1905

TO MY WIFE SARAH KNOWLES BOLTON AND MY SON CHARLES KNOWLES BOLTON

INTRODUCTION
This volume was ready for publication when my husband died, October 23, 1901. In it, in connection with a love story and some foreign travel, he strove to show how necessary capital and labor are to each other. He had always been a friend to labor, and there were no more sincere mourners at his funeral than the persons he employed. He believed capital should be conciliatory and helpful, and co-operate with labor in the most friendly manner, without either party being arrogant or indifferent.
Mr. Bolton took the deepest interest in all civic problems, and it is a comfort to those who loved him that his book, "A Model Village and Other Papers," came from the press a few days before his death. He had hoped after finishing a book of travel, having crossed the ocean many times and been in many lands, and doing some other active work in public life, to take a trip around the world and rest, but rest came in another way.
Sarah K. Bolton
Cleveland, Ohio.

PREFACE
Mr. W.D. Howells, in reply to a literary society in Ashtabula County, Ohio, said that most people had within their personal experience one book.
I have often quoted Howells's words to my best friend, who has written a score of books, and the answer as frequently comes, "Why not write a book yourself?" Encouraged by Howells's belief, and stimulated by the accepted challenge of my friend, to whom I promised a completed book in twelve months, I found time during a very busy year to pencil the chapters that follow. Most of the book was written while waiting at stations, or on the cars, and in hotels, using the spare moments of an eight-months' lecture season, and the four months at home occupied by business.
I am aware that some critics decry a novel written with a purpose. Permit me therefore in advance to admit that this book has a double purpose: To test the truth of Howells's words as applied to myself; and to describe a journey, both at home and abroad, which may possibly be enjoyed by the reader, the inconveniences of travel being lessened by incidentally tracing a love story to a strange but perhaps satisfactory conclusion; the whole leading to the evolution of a successful experiment, which in fragments is being tried in various parts of the civilized world.

CONTENTS
Chapter I
The Harrises in New York
Chapter II
Mr. Hugh Searles of London Arrives
Chapter III
A Bad Send-off
Chapter IV
Aboard the S.S. Majestic
Chapter V
Discomfitures at Sea
Chapter VI
Half Awake, Half Asleep
Chapter VII
Life at Sea a Kaleidoscope
Chapter VIII
Colonel Harris Returns to Harrisville
Chapter IX
Capital and Labor in Conference
Chapter X
Knowledge is Power
Chapter XI
In Touch with Nature
Chapter XII
The Strike at Harrisville
Chapter XIII
Anarchy and Results
Chapter XIV
Colonel Harris Follows his Family Abroad
Chapter XV
Safe Passage, and a Happy Reunion
Chapter XVI
A Search for Ideas
Chapter XVII
The Harrises Visit Paris
Chapter XVIII
In Belgium and Holland
Chapter XIX
Paris, and the Wedding
Chapter XX
Aboard the Yacht "Hallena"
Chapter XXI
Two Unanswered Letters
Chapter XXII
Colonel Harris's Big Blue Envelope
Chapter XXIII
Gold Marries Gold
Chapter XXIV
The Magic Band of Beaten Gold
Chapter XXV
Workings of the Harris-Ingram Experiment
Chapter XXVI
Unexpected Meetings
Chapter XXVII
The Crisis

THE HARRIS-INGRAM EXPERIMENT
CHAPTER I
THE HARRISES IN NEW YORK
It was five o'clock in the afternoon, when a bright little messenger boy in blue touched the electric button of Room No. ---- in Carnegie Studio, New York City. At once the door flew open and a handsome young artist received a Western Union telegram, and quickly signed his name, "Alfonso H. Harris" in the boy's book.
"Here, my boy, is twenty-five cents," he said, and tore open the message, which read as follows:--
Harrisville,--.
_Alfonso H. Harris, Carnegie Studio, New York._
We reach Grand Central Depot at 7:10 o'clock tomorrow evening in our new private car Alfonso. Family greetings; all well.
Reuben Harris.
Alfonso put the telegram in his pocket, completed packing his steamer trunk, wrote a letter to his landlord, enclosing a check for the last quarter's rent, and ran downstairs and over to the storage company, to leave an order to call for two big trunks of artist's belongings, not needed in Europe.
A hansom-cab took him to the Windsor Hotel, where he almost forgot to pay his barber for