The Square Pegs

by Irving Wallace

  In this book, the only one he wrote wholly in English, Harden-Hickey discusses suicide and justifies it with four hundred quotations ranging from the Bible to Shakespeare. While he claims to have written only the preface, it seems certain that many of the quotations “by the greatest thinkers the world has ever produced” are of doubtful parentage.

  Harden-Hickey does not credit the sources of his quotations, and many may have had the origin in the study of the Flagler residence.

  At any rate, the preface is the author’s own handiwork. On page 4, after a wordy attack on “avaricious and knavish priests … vain philosophers … cranky scientists” who would obscure the Truth, Harden-Hickey finally gets to the point.

  “Suicide has become such a common occurrence in our time the average being one every three minutes that it merits to attract more attention than the morbid curiosity of the readers of daily papers. To the Christian, suicide appears as a heinous crime; the followers of Christ seem to have forgotten that if the legend on which their religion was founded were true, Christ would occupy a very prominent place in the annals of suicide plenty of men have cut the thread of their own life, but we have no authentic record of any God having done so; it may also be added that we have no authentic record of a God performing any act whatsoever.”

  But Harden-Hickey is just warming to his subject. On pages 6 and 7, he continues with more vigor: “One can readily understand that priests who live off men should object to their dying without paying toll, under the form of sacraments and indulgencies, for crossing over the fatal bridge; but in the name of Reason why should free-thinkers indulge in snickering and bickering at the man independent and brave enough to throw off the burden of life when it has become cumbersome. In so doing they place themselves on the same level as the most blatant churchman.

  “To return to suicide, it has been universally approved of by all philosophical religions, and has been practiced by some of the most noted men of antiquity.

  “In the following pages will be found the pith of what has been written on the subject by the greatest thinkers the world has ever produced: Zeno, Epictetus, Diogenes, Seneca, Cicero, Marcus Aurelius, Montaigne, Rousseau, Donne, Hume, Gibbon, Montesquieu, etc.

  “May this little work contribute to the overthrow of the reign of fear! May it nerve the faltering arm of the poor wretch to whom life is loathsome, but death full of terrors; let him say with the noble Cato:

  ‘Thus I am doubly armed; my death and life,

  My bane and antidote, are both before me:

  This in a moment brings me to an end;

  But this informs me I shall never die.

  The soul, secured in her existence, smiles

  At the drawn dagger, and defies its point.’

  And let him calmly, without anger or joy, but with the utmost indifference, cast off the burden of existence.”

  The text and illustrations that follow are for adults only those with the thickest of skins and the strongest of stomachs. In collaboration with the “greatest thinkers,” Harden-Hickey suggests the best means of self-annihilation, mentioning fifty-one instruments (among them scissors) and eighty-eight poisons. The content of the book is further enlivened by a half dozen black-and-white drawings of men and women in various postures of suicide. Few, however, appear to be proper examples of Harden-Hickey’s theory that suicide is a privilege. Most seem distressed or downright miserable. The first picture exhibits a man in full attire seated on his bed with a revolver against his right temple. Another picture displays a woman slumped before a coal stove, expiring from the fumes. A third shows a fop writhing on the floor, his glass of poison overturned nearby.

  The quotations, whatever their sources, are more convincing and cheerful. On page 43 the intelligent are advised; “The wise man lives as long as he ought, not as long as he can.” On page 128 the hedonists are courted: “We must shake off this fond desire of life and learn that it is of little consequence when we suffer; that it is of greater moment to live well than to live long, and that oftentimes it is living well not to live long.”

  The very year this book appeared, Baron Harden-Hickey seemed suddenly to have found a reason for not committing suicide. Hemmed in, as he was, by Flagler’s New York—Wall Street, J. Pierpont Morgan, Sr., Procter and Gamble’s first $40,000 advertising campaign, the Plaza, the horseless carriage Harden-Hickey began to retreat more and more into the world of Napoleon III. Retreating, he remembered Trinidad. Or perhaps he had never forgotten it. At once the raucous new civilization of the stock exchange and the skyscraper seemed less real than the barren isle off Brazil. Harden-Hickey decided to claim the isle off Brazil for his very own.

  By the time the New York Tribune reporter came calling, in November 1893, Harden-Hickey had managed to endow his fantasy with a certain amount of legality. “I propose to take possession of the Island of Trinidad under a maxim of international law which declares that anybody may seize and hold waste land that is not claimed by anybody else,” he explained. “The island is uninhabited and has been so for more than a hundred years. Two or three centuries ago the Portuguese attempted to colonize it, probably by a penal colony. They soon gave up the attempt, however. The English also once made a feeble effort to plant a colony upon it, but the project was abandoned after a short settlement. The remains of these early settlements may still be seen upon the island.”

  The Tribune representative, still skeptical, then inquired: “How will other nations regard the fact of your possession? Does Portugal or England or any other nation lay claim on the island?”

  “No nation lays any claim on it,” Harden-Hickey insisted. “It has been abandoned for over a century. I do not expect any difficulty. I have already informed several governments of my purpose, and have received favorable replies from some of them. I am assured that at least one nation will formally recognize my government as soon as I get it established.”

  In succeeding months, after crowning himself King James I of Trinidad, and appointing Count de la Boissière his Foreign Minister, Harden-Hickey opened his chancellery at 217 West Thirty-six Street, New York City, to treat with potential subjects as well as with other powers. “Trinidad’s Chancellery is not a palace,” reported The New York Times. “It is in one of the rooms of a dwelling house built on the block system.” A Tribune man, going to visit de la Boissière, found it “a surprisingly humble place for so high a dignitary.” Richard Harding Davis, calling for an interview, reported: “The chancellery was not exactly in its proper setting. On its doorstep children of the tenements were playing dolls with clothes-pins; in the street a huckster in raucous tones was offering wilted cabbages to women in wrappers leaning from the fire-escapes; the smells and the heat of New York in midsummer rose from the asphalt. It was a far cry to the wave-swept island off the coast of Brazil.”

  Almost two decades later, Richard Harding Davis returned to Thirty-sixth Street, and then recorded: “Three weeks ago I revisited it and found it unchanged.” The neighborhood was the same except that the York Hotel had replaced the brownstone.

  Four decades after Davis’s last visit, I went to 217 West Thirty-sixth Street. The chancellery had undergone one more metamorphosis. It was now a narrow barbershop, with a watch-repair concession in the front of the shop near the window. This was located in what was called the Garment Center Building, and it looked out upon a street thick with trucks, vans, and taxis, and upon a sidewalk filled with workmen who were pushing racks of dresses. I did not go inside.

  In 1894 the interior of the chancellery, while it gave more promise of adventure than a barbershop, also invariably disappointed those who had been educated to expect a certain lushness in connection with the purple. On the door to the chancellery was pasted a strip of paper which, in the handwriting of de la Boissière, announced: Chancellerie de la Principaute de Trinidad. The austerity of the interior made a Trappist monastery, by comparison, seem positively frivolous. “There is an oilcloth covering on the floor of the room,” reported the Tri
bune, “and the furniture of the room consists of a small wooden table, much the worse for wear and having a covering of wrapping paper; three chairs, which bear the marks of age; a bookcase such as might be bought in a secondhand store for one dollar, and some shelves with pigeonholes. Some rubber-stamps on the table take the place of State seals.” Richard Harding Davis recalled that on the chancellery table were also copies of a recent royal proclamation, newly printed Trinidad postage stamps, and several pasteboard boxes filled with gold-and-red enameled crosses of the Order of Trinidad. On the wall hung a large announcement: Sailings To Trinidad March 1 and October 1.

  When the press asked the sorely tried John H. Flagler if he recognized King James I, he, busy as he was with his National Tube Company and his banking, insurance, and mining investments, replied seriously: “My son-in-law is a very determined man. He will carry out any scheme in which he is interested. Had he consulted me about this, I would have been glad to have aided him with money or advice. My son-in-law is an extremely well-read, refined, well-bred man. He does not court publicity. While he was staying in my house, he spent nearly all the time in the library translating an Indian book on Buddhism. My daughter has no ambition to be a queen or anything else than what she is an American girl. But my son-in-law means to carry on this Trinidad scheme and he will.”

  To carry out this scheme, Harden-Hickey produced a four-page prospectus of his kingdom, written in French. He began by stating that, having married the only daughter of an American millionaire, he had become a person of unlimited means this to prove his seriousness and solvency. He had stumbled upon and taken possession of Trinidad, he went on to explain, and on it he had decided to establish a new state. The government would be a military dictatorship. The officers would all sport mustaches “a la Louis Napoleon.” The first white colonists who settled on Trinidad would form the aristocracy. To become eligible as colonists, they must give evidence that their social standing in the United States was high, and that they could afford to buy twenty 1,000-franc government bonds. This investment assured each colonist of free passage from San Francisco to Trinidad on Harden-Hickey’s newly acquired schooner, and free passage back to the States after one year, if desired.

  Harden-Hickey carefully described the wonders of his empire in the prospectus. “In spite of its rugged and uninviting appearance, the inland plateaus are rich with luxuriant vegetation. Prominent among these is a peculiar species of bean, which is not only edible, but extremely palatable. The surrounding sea swarms with fish, which as yet are wholly unsuspicious of the hook. Dolphins, rock-cod, pigfish, and blackfish may be caught as quickly as they can be hauled out.

  “I look to the sea birds and the turtles to afford our principal source of revenue. Trinidad is the breeding place of almost the entire feathery population of the South Atlantic Ocean. The exportation of guano alone should make my little country prosperous. Turtles visit the island to deposit eggs and at certain seasons the beach is literally alive with them. The only drawback to my projected kingdom is the fact that it has no good harbor and can be approached only when the sea is calm.”

  Harden-Hickey went on to explain that, while the state would retain a monopoly on guano and turtle, the buried pirate treasure would be divided between those who discovered it and the government. All other delights were free the “vegetation luxuriante de fougères, d’acacias et de haricots sauvages, propres a la nourriture de l’homme,” and the “vie d’un genre tout nouveau, et la recherche de sensations nouvelles.”

  BARON JAMES A. HARDEN-HICKEY

  GEORGE FRANCIS TRAIN

  about 1860

  Harden-Hickey elaborated on certain points in his prospectus with a series of official royal proclamations. One of the earliest read:

  We, James, Prince of Trinidad, have resolved to commemorate our accession to the throne of Trinidad by the institution of an Order of Chivalry, destined to reward literature, industry, science, and the human virtues, and by these presents have established and do institute, with cross and crown, the Order of the Insignia of the Cross of Trinidad, of which we and our heirs and successors shall be the sovereigns.

  Given in our Chancellery the 8th of the month of December, 1893, and of our reign, the First Year.

  JAMES.

  All through 1894 the chancellery on Thirty-sixth Street hummed with activity. Sometimes King James I himself was there to greet the press or the curious. The Saturday Review found him “a big, handsome, overdressed fellow, apparently an Irishman by birth.” The Tribune described him as “a tall man, with a decided French manner. He wears a moustache and imperial, and has light brown hair. He speaks excellent English, emphasizing his remarks frequently with French gestures.” Often Harden-Hickey was out of town, and then the jovial Count de la Boissière, working for a salary, fenced with the press. The Tribune in an unkindly mood reported him as “a stout Frenchman of thirty in a loosely fitting summer suit of light straw color, flannel shirt and tan shoes … so much like an ordinary man that he could go anywhere without attracting suspicion.” The New York Times, on the other hand, was charmed by “his incandescent eyes under glasses, his hair, which is cut in the French military fashion, short and pointed at the forehead, his ample gestures and the optimisms evident in the enthusiastic, loving colors of his dress engrave.”

  By 1895 It appeared that King James’s Trinidad was here to stay. Harden-Hickey spoke of sending the first shipload of colonists to the island in the spring or early summer. There was every reason for optimism. The great powers were aware of his existence. “Several Central American Republics, for reasons known only to themselves, did recognize him,” admitted The Saturday Review, “and allowed their representatives in Europe, notably in Austria and at the Vatican, to inscribe Trinidad on their official cards.” As to colonists, it was never officially known how many agreed to settle on Trinidad. Harden-Hickey once remarked that he had a colony of 50 whites, and 300 of his 500 Chinese coolies, ready to leave in May 1895, though when that date came there was no such departure. De la Boissière intimated there were forty persons working for Harden-Hickey on Trinidad, presumably doing preliminary labor in laying out the lighthouse, wharves, and coaling station (for ships headed toward Cape Horn).

  Though Harden-Hickey left no accounting of sales of his 1,000-franc bonds, he did indicate that he was obtaining a small amount of revenue from sales of postage stamps to philatelists throughout the world. In November 1894 he offered the public seven varieties of postage stamps ranging in price from five centimes to five francs each. All of these stamps, in imitation of a North Borneo stamp issued the same year, showed a view of Trinidad from the south, with a sailing vessel in the foreground, and the inscription: “Principauté de Trinidad—Timbre Poste et Fiscal.” These stamps, explained de la Boissière, “have not been introduced to satisfy the curiosity of collectors, but for use… .” Few of these survived Harden-Hickey’s time. Recently H. E. Harris and Company of Boston, one of the world’s largest stamp firms, informed me that they did not “have any of the stamps available or know where they could be obtained.” These stamps were not Harden-Hickey’s only means of income.

  Several Crosses of Trinidad, the medal for chivalry and artistic accomplishment, were also sold. This was the highwater mark in the reign of King James I. He was everywhere, traveling constantly, too busy to see his wife, too busy to argue with his father-in-law. The homemade crown sat firmly on his head. He was a happy man.

  On January 3, 1895, a British warship, Barracouta, cast anchor off Trinidad, and proceeded to disembark troops and engineers. The British quietly garrisoned the island and began construction of a cable station for a new line stretching from Great Britain to Brazil. When word of this seizure reached South America there was “excitement” in Rio de Janeiro and angry crowds stoned the British Consulate in Baía. Brazil formally demanded that Britain withdraw its troops from Trinidad. Britain refused. The Latin press muttered about security and provocation. The British Foreign Office coolly suggested arb
itration; the Brazilian Foreign Office heatedly refused. No one consulted James I. It was not until July that Harden-Hickey learned that he was a king without a country.

  There is no record of the thoughts that passed through his mind in those first moments of crisis. We know only that he dictated, and Count de la Boissière transcribed and signed, a stern and detailed protest to the United States Department of State:

  New York, July 30, 1895

  Excellency:

  I have the honor to recall to your memory:

  First, That in the course of the month of September, 1893, Baron Harden-Hickey has officially notified all the powers of his taking of possession of the uninhabited island of Trinidad; and,

  Second, That in the course of January, 1894, he has renewed to all these powers the official notification of the said taking of possession, and has informed them at the same time from that date the land would be known as Principality of Trinidad; that he took the title of Prince of Trinidad, and would reign under the name of James I.