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"The Governor's Prerogative"

6/23/2021

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  • Originally published in Century Magazine, XXXV (February 1888), pp. 555-61. Reprinted in Otto the Knight (1890).
  • McMichael reprints a letter on p. 112 from French to Gilder at Century Magazine where she mentions "If you have had too much Arkansas already, I can give you a Western sketch. You know you have one of mine on hand, 'The Governor's Prerogative'" (Alice French to Richard Watson Gilder, November 3, 1887, Century Collection. 
  • Also, see McMichael, p. 125 for the reprint of her letter to Horace Scudder regarding the collection of stories that became Otto the Knight (mentioned in a previous post regarding the title choices).
  • No other mention of the story appears in McMichael's book.
  • The story is interesting because of the focus on immigration and naturalization. This theme pops up elsewhere in this collection, not only with international immigration but immigration from North to South (Leidig, Thornton, Dr. Redden as New South).
Basic summary:
This is an oddly cute story about a Governor at home who is approached by the mother of Fritz Jansen, a man sentenced to hang for the murder of his fiancee. The woman is German and speaks very little English. Luckily, the Governor's wife, Annie, is fluent in German. The woman tells of walking 15 miles to get to him before her son's execution. She asks for a pardon, as her son is a good man who would never do such a crime. 

Annie pleads with her husband to stay the execution--if he's truly guilty, why not give him a life sentence so his mother doesn't suffer. The Governor counters that to do so would be worse for Fritz's mother than executing him. If she hates the Governor,  
Very well , so be it . She will still have her memories of his youth to console her, and her very conviction of the injustice of his fate will be a comfort to her; while, on the other hand, if I release him, he will dissipate all her illusions, neglect her, ill-treat her, very likely spend every cent of her hard earnings, and at last convince even that trusting soul what a brute he is. It is the truest kindness to her to refuse." (Thanet, 299)
The day after Fritz is hanged, the mother returns with her son, Fritz. It turns out there were two men with the same name, and her son was never arrested. Because he doesn't want to share the name with such a bad man, Fritz and his mother come to the Governor for a name change. Annie declares he'll change the name as a wedding gift to Greta and Fritz.  The wedding is briefly described and the story ends with Annie and the Governor relieved at the outcome.

In the end, the Governor makes the comment that he would have been so embarassed if he'd followed Annie's "feminine" mind and pardoned the evil Fritz. He asks her who was right, and she exclaims, "Both of us" (Thanet, p. 299).
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"The First Mayor"

6/23/2021

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  • First appeared in Atlantic Monthly, LXIV (November 1889 (pp. 611-27). Reprinted in Otto the Knight (1891). 
  • Only mentioned in McMichael on page 125 as part of Otto, but also he reprints from a letter by Alice French to Horace Scudder, July 31, 1890 (part of the Harvard College Library collection):  "I'm afraid there is a load of dialect in the stories written before I tried to reduce my dialect to the smallest proportions as I do now. . ./ Should we include other stories, there are two courses open. We might call the book 'Old and New Poor Folks,' and add two stories of the time of Edward VI. . .or we might add, instead, (a more feasible scheme, I fancy) three Western Stories, The Governor's Prerogative, The Day of the Cyclone, and The First Mayor. I will send you the stories tomorrow and you can judge for yourself about their value. / Were the book only about Arkansas, I should call it By the Cypress Swamp; but if we mix it up with the West, that won't do."

Basic summary: This is the story of Atherton--both the Western town and the man it was named for. Katy and Tom Ransome, young lovers who married despite family objections, are lured to Atherton for Tom to become the editor of the paper, The Citizen. Once there, they meet Atherton--the first mayor of the town, his wife (the widow Bainbridge and her daughter), and Renee, the Louisiana native who also followed the Westward expansion.

Initially, Katy is put off by Atherton, but the more she learns about him, the more she likes him. Over and over again he puts himself at risk to help others--first, it is the man who confronts him for putting him out of business. We learn later that he hired the man at a salary higher than he ever made when running the business, though, and that the business failing was a blessing. After his wife and children died of Cholera, he married the widow Bainbridge who was destitute after her own husband died. Her daughter Rose tried to stab Atherton with a penknife on their wedding day, but he was later her friend.

Atherton has gone so far as to guarantee currency, and when the bank goes bust, he is elected out of office. His wife dies in a carriage accident, and he winds up having a fit of apoplexy. Katy and Tom move, and when they return ten years later, the town has been renamed and it is only by finding the monument Atherton had built for his first wife and three lost children that they realize they've found his grave, as well.

Items of note: 
  • Mrs. Atherton mentions early on that her husband hopes to attract Germans to the area as they will remake the town. "The Governor's Prerogative" in this same collection also focuses on German immigrants.
  • Early in the story, there is mention of the railroad passing Atherton by; this is also mentioned in the story "Trusty, No. 49." Instead of Germans coming to save the town in that story, however, it is Thornton, the Northerner who plans to open a cannery in Lawrence County that is seen as the great hope.
  • Katy assumes that there is duty rather than love between the Athertons. When Miss Bainbridge tells how her stepfather saved her life and her mother's by marrying Mrs. Atherton, Katy assumes there's no love there, but only obligation.

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    About this project:

    I've been saying since 2004 that I was going to write a critical biography of Octave Thanet (Alice French). This blog is the start of that work and will include notes, links to research, and other OT related tidbits.

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