Some Men Who Have Done Things Xiii James

Some Men Who Have Done Things. BY JOHN HENRY EVANS, OF THE LATTER-DAY SAINTS UNIVERSITY XIII. —James Dwyer. UTAH'S FIRST BOOK-SELLER. BUT HE WAS MORE THAN A BOOKSELLER. HE WAS A SIGN-POST POINTING THE WAY TO THOUSANDS OF YOUNG MEN OF PROMISE AND CAPACITY. "How can I find out what I ought to do in life?" is the great question every young man puts to himself who wants to do anything in the world; and blessed is he who does not continue to ask it after he is old. Now, James Dwyer answers this interesting query, not in words but in deeds. In the same effective way he tells how, when the young man has found his work, he ought to carry it on. The older generation will not need to be told who James Dwyer is. For the other day I asked one of them, whom I merely happened to meet, whether he knew anything about Mr. Dwyer. "Know anything about James Dwyer!" he exclaimed, "I should think I do! Who doesn't?" And then growing confidential, he added, "You see, I used to go to him for books. I've always been a great book-worm. James kept a book store down on Main street, where McCornick's bank is now. A keen, intellectual man, he always knew what books to recommend." These facts drawn out in detail, tell the whole story, almost. And an interesting story it is! I have never read or heard one more like an eighteenth century romance. Some day I hope to give it in all its richness of incident. But here is the dull outline of it:

SOME MEN WHO HAVE DONE THINGS. 697 James Dwyer is in his eightieth year. He was born, therefore, in 1831, the year after the one in which the Church was organized. He is Irish by birth and extraction. He came within an ace of being a Catholic priest. Whether he would have made a good priest, is a point concerning which there may be a difference of opinion. But there can be no doubt that his assumption of the clerical robes would have, been a calamity to the book business in Utah. He would doubtless have done less good, too, if he had followed the church. Also there would have been no Ada and Edna Dwyer to entertain us with play and song. His mother, some of whose brothers and uncles were high church dignitaries, wished this first boy dedicated to the Catholic priesthood. But she died when James was an infant. Reared partly by his father, a musician with mercantile proclivities—a rare combination—and partly by his clerical relatives, the priest in James died a rather violent death, and he cast about for other fields in which to play his ambitious part. After the mother's death, the family, including by this time a step-mother, found its way to America—first to Canada and then to Rochester, New York. At this latter place the father set up a wholesale general merchandise store, which soon developed into JAMES DWYER.

698 IMPROVEMENT ERA. a large and prosperous institution. James was one of the clerks there. Here first, according to all accounts, he learned the art of giving things away, of forgetting to make a record of transactions where they concerned the deserving poor. This was especially the case with a certain high-bred widow who had once been rich, who now took in washing, who drank up her small earnings and who had a son that looked like a prince. As things were going, James was to be a merchant. That was in the father's opinion. But James had his own idea of his future. He wanted to be a musician. And so occasionally he stole away to the Catholic cathedral across the street and played spiritual airs on the organ. This eased his soul in such a manner as could not be done by any amount of paper bags and wrapping twine. James Dwyer was devoutly religious, but in a way of his own. "I never could stand the fummydiddle of the Roman Catholics," he told me—"their pomp and circumstance, and Latin finery. I was always longing for the simple faith and worship of the primitive Saints." And so he was everlastingly asking the question, "Why don't we have prophets and apostles and miracles in our day?" Mostly he put the question to his father. But his father, being a musician and a merchant, sidetracked the issue. Not with great skill, however, nor with good temper, either; for James straightway pulled it back on the main line. Like a great many boys, though, he pulled it. back just once too many times. A quarrel arose between this Irish pair, and the elder put the younger, questions and all, out at the door, with the advice never to come back till he learned to quit being a religious interrogation point. Poor James was at his wit's end to know what to do. He was only about thirteen or fourteen, and thoroughly set in his Irish pride. So he went to the widow with the princely son. When she heard his story, she fell to crying plentifully, wondering what would become of her, now her benefactor had left the grocery department. But she said one word that proved a good seed fallen on fertile ground. "You go to Freeman Rogers, my boy. He'll tell you what you ought to do." "And who might Freeman Rogers be?"

SOME MEN WHO HAVE DONE THINGS. 699 "Oh, he's a friend of mine—a 'Mormon.' " But this was no light. James had never heard this word "Mormon" before. "Why he believes the same as you do—that we should have apostles and prophets and miracles!" That was enough. James hunted high and low for Freeman Rogers, to get not physical but religious food. He found him at last, making shoes, in which he was a skilled workman. The boy stayed with him till he had learned both the shoe business and all the man knew about "Mormonism." Now, while he was with Mr. Rogers, young Dwyer spent all his spare time at a book store. And here really begins our story. It was a large concern,employing many clerks and having a reading table for the accommodation of customers. Instead of going out with the boys and having a "good time," he came to this table. But it appears that James had his ears open as well as his eyes and his mind. For as he sat there he would hear customers come in and enquire for certain books which he knew were on the shelves, but which the clerk, after looking, said were not in stock. One day the young man went to the owner of the book store. "I think," said he, "that we can be of service to each other." "How's that?" James had a job in his mind's eye, but he only said shrewdly, "Why, almost every evening I hear customers ask for books that I know are on the shelves, but that the clerks can't find. You have no system in the arrangement of your books. Now, if you'll lock me in here Saturday night, and let me stay here till Monday morning, I'll arrange these bocks so that you can find any book in ten seconds." No sooner said than accepted. Young Dwyer was locked in the book store for two nights and a day, at the end of which he had all the books classified according to the publishers and the authors, with labels over each group. The owner was amazed and intensely pleased, and James was made head clerk on the spot. In one and the same moment he had found a good place and his life's work.

700 IMPROVEMENT ERA. Having joined the Church by this time, he wished to come to Utah. Presently, therefore, we find him establishing a book store in the Constitution building, where the post office was at the time. This was in 1866. His capital was the magnificent sum of five dollars. It has been stated that he started with ten dollars. But this is a mistake. He told me himself it was five dollars. Moreover, the five dollars was borrowed! The first things he sold, however, were not books, but papers and magazines. He had half a dozen or so on his list—the New York Ledger, the Fireside Companion, the Atlantic Monthly and a few others like them. These had come in the stage coach of those days, and were frequently encased in mud, due to the fact that they had been used to fill up chuck-holes for the easier passage cf the stage. There must have been a peculiar charm or fascination about the young book-seller, for in a very short time almost everybody here seemed to be reading the weeklies and monthlies. The Ledger was easily first in the hearts of Salt Lakers, of which three thousand were sold every week. The Dwyer book store in those days was a busy scene just after the stage drove up. Long rows of boys with nimble fingers folded papers and passed them along to the seller. Usually also there was a long row of customers, stretching out of doors and along the street for half a block, as at the theatre window, each taking his turn. If the policeman happened to be having a bad day, there was a rough word in the store. But everybody bought the Ledger. Now, whoever is old enough knows that these papers which Mr. Dwyer sold in such large numbers contained, besides the regular news, continued stories and literary knick-knacks. Some one expressed the opinion that the whole thing was michievous, but George Q. Cannon, then private secretary to President Brigham Young, and who at about this time began the publication of the Juvenile Instructor, thought otherwise, and said so. No doubt, he said, the literature was not classic, but it was good of its kind. For one, he was glad the people were reading something. After awhile, after they got into the habit of reading, they would call for better literature. s This actually proved to be the case. In a very short time not a copy of the Ledger, the Companion, or any of the other weekly

SOME MEN WHO HAVE DONE THINGS. 701 journals could be sold. The people were still reading, but they were reading the books Mr. Dwyer sold over his counter. At about the same time he set up a news stand and book shop on the southwest corner of West Temple and First South streets—the Townsend House. This was mainly to catch tourists. Hundreds of "Mormon" publications were disposed of in addition to his regular papers and magazines. Besides, Mr. Dwyer was the first bureau of information in Salt Lake City, and a better one and more enthusiastic it would be hard to get. In the early 70's he moved his book store from the Constitution building to a place of his own on the northern part of the lot now occupied by the McCornick bank, and put up the building himself. It was a two-story structure running back about a hundred and fifty feet, not including a lean-to about ten feet by twenty-five at the back. Here he remained for many years, dispensing books and enthusiasm and an outlook upon the future to everyone that was in need of them. Books lined both walls and the rear; a sort of round table was established in the back room; and anybody who wished to do so might come in and read whatever book struck his fancy. During many years it was the literary and educational center in Utah. Here were all the school books used in the territory; here was the gathering place for the teaching profession; here were held the teachers' institutes, the back room being especially fitted up for the purpose with instruments, maps, and up to-date things generally. Occasionally, too, Mr. Dwyer took the pedagogues to his home and gave them a banquet. Several fortunes were in this book concern of Mr. Dwyer's. First of all, there was a fortune in dollars and cents for the genial book-seller. But he was not in the business for the sake of money—he could have made money at anything. And so there was the fortune in happiness that came to him from doing others a service. Literally thousands of young persons, hungering and thirsting after mental food, received from this man an uplift and stimulus to learning, and these in turn have passed the good influence on to others. Penniless students of the University, moreover, were given books on credit, where otherwise they would have been hard put to it for means to continue their studies. And to

702 IMPROVEMENT ERA. the credit of these be it said that Mr. Dwyer declares he never lost a copper cent through any of these accounts. Besides, this unique and good bookman hunted most assiduously for avenues to do good through books. He knew, from experience, what a book may mean to a boy. Never a young man in need of sympathy and encouragement that did not get it from Mr. Dwyer. "Here, my boy, is a book," he would say. "Read it, and pay for it when you can; if you can't pay for it, take it anyway. If you get any good out of it, that will be pay enough." Is it any marvel that Utah is fairly honey-combed with middled-aged boys today who owe their first intellectual impulse, or their goings-on mentally to Mr. Dwyer. Herein lies the greatest fortune in the book-business of this kindly gentleman. Another thing, James Dwyer knew his work. One of those teachers who used to go to the institute in the book store, tells us that Mr. Dwyer knew every book on the shelves. He knew books that were not on his shelves,too, almost as well. He was like some of the book sellers that one occasionally meets with even today in the old Erglish book shops, who can tell you about every volume on the general market, or that is announced for the market. Not that Mr. Dwyer read every book for himself. "He found out who were competent to pass a reliable judgment upon a new book," says Dr. J. M. Tanner, "or to designate the qualifications of the mind to appreciate the great authors of the past. 'Take this book,' Mr. Dwyer would sometimes say to the writer, 'with my compliments. When you have read it, tell me briefly what it contains, and the quality of mind required to appreciate it, and in what way it will be especially helpful to those who read it.' " President Brigham Young but echoed the sentiment of every one who knew James Dwyer when he said, "James,you're a natural born book-man."