John R. de Camp, by Elizabeth Wright, his wife, was a native of Westfield, Essex county, New Jersey, and was five years old when, in 1812, he first saw Cincinnati. In the twenty-second year of his age, he began business in Cincinnati as a carpenter and builder. During the next thirty years, he built more houses than any other single person in that city. Among the principal structures which he built and superintended are the Wesleyan Female college and St. Paul's Methodist Episcopal church. He also built and owned-one of which was his residence-four stone front residences upon West Fourth street. He engaged in the manufacture of paper, as De Camp, Haldeman & Parker, now the Haldeman Paper Company of Lockland; was five years a member of the city council; was one of the founders of the First National Bank of Cincinnati; was one of the founders and a director of the Union Central Life Insurance company; was the founder of the Farmer's Insurance company and president of the same at his death, and a director of the Strobridge Lithographing company. He was a partner in the bank of Larkin, Wright & Co., and had the largest investment of any other individual in the business. For nearly fifty years he was a member of the Methodist church, holding all the offices in the church and Sabbath school, besides being a director and constant benefactor of various charitable institutions.

Thus Harvey de Camp, the son of Ezekiel, the son of Moses, the descendant of Normanus de Camp, was one of the most useful and honorable citizens Cincinnati ever had. He died in 1878.

Of such family genealogy and such

parentage is John R. De Camp, vice-pres. ident of the Metropolitan National bank, who was born in Cincinnati, December 20, 1848. After acquiring a liberal education in the public schools of Cincinnati, Mr. De Camp entered the bank of Larkin, Wright & Co., as a clerk, in 1863, and served thus two years. In 1870 he returned to the same bank and remained until 1877, when he was made acting cashier with a power of attorney to sign the firm's name. The death of his father left this son as his representative in the bank, the estate having a large investment, as stated therein. His interest in the welfare of the bank was therefore redoubled when, as successor of his father and as cashier of the bank, he applied himself all the more assiduously to becoming proficient in the profession thus chosen for him by his lamented father.

In 1881, three years after his father's death, Mr. De Camp conceived the idea of converting this private institution into a National bank. Obtaining the concurrence of all interested, he addressed himself to the task with his accustomed energy. The stock of the old bank was sold at 112%; the capital, $500,000 of the new bank, rapidly taken, and the name "Metropolitan," adopted; and thus the "Metropolitan National Bank" had its origin.

All this was chiefly the work of Mr. De Camp-the conception, the execution, and the particular designation-Metropolitan ;-being the first instance under the National banking law where a private institution whose stock sold at a premium, was converted into a National bank. From 1881 to 1883 Mr. De Camp served

as cashier; but in 1883 was elected vicepresident, upon the accession of the Honorable William Means as president, whose name brought to the bank the strength of his unlimited credit and whose reputation as a born and professional banker is not surpassed even by his popularity as a distinguished citizen of Ohio and the west. The splendid proportions into which the business of this bank has grown are the immediate results of the management of President Means and Vice-President De Camp.

When, therefore, a trained and trustworthy banker was needed as receiver of the Fidelity National, when it suspended, Mr. De Camp was selected and, for the time being, had charge of the affairs of that unfortunate bank. It was a high compliment to Mr. De Camp. The fact that he did not continue in that position was owing to his expressed intention to resign when he ascertained that to remain as receiver would necessitate his resignation as vice-president of the Metropolitan; a step he never for a moment seriously contemplated.

assistant cashier, F. M. Riegel. Its capital stock is $1,000,000, with a surplus and undivided profits exceeding $200,000. Mr. De Camp, though yet in middle life, has the reputation of being one of the ablest financiers and one of the safest bankers in southern Ohio. Nothing but success has attended his career. His judgment upon the every-day affairs of the bank is regarded as almost unerring.

It is a common saying-" De Camp is all business." This is emphatically true when he is seen within the precincts of his elegant banking house and office. There he meets all alike on business principles

those principles which are hereditary with him as a descendant of a family whose well-known characteristics-honesty, integrity, industry-have rendered them nearly all wealthy, while they have not failed to maintain their ancient respectability.

In tracing this family to its origin, the writer found their old armorial bearings and their heraldic motto-Honestas et veritas-a motto also adopted by VicePresident De Camp, because of its association with the remembrance of his father, who, acting upon that sentiment, achieved the most gratifying success in the business world, and dying, left to his children, to the church and to the state the grateful memory of a useful life and a stainless reputation as a man.

Mr. De Camp is president of the Thomas Sherlock Transportation company; president of the New Orleans Wharfboat company; is a director in the Farmers' Insurance company; of the Evans-Newhall Music company; of the

Strobridge Lithographing company; of the Covington Railway and Transportation company, etc.

In 1868 Mr. De Camp married Miss Adele Sowles of Urbana, Ohio. They live in a beautiful home in Avondale, where their domestic circle is enlarged and enlivened by their children, SarahAlice, Edna and David Ralph De Camp. Between business occupations and the pleasurable care of his family, Mr. De Camp has little time to give to the outside. world. But calls are seldom made in

vain upon him when the church of his fathers and all charitable institutions need a helping hand.

Esteemed by his neighbors, admired for his business qualities, and commended by every unenvious tongue for his success in the battle of life, John R. De Camp has proven himself to be a worthy descendant of a family distinguished for its "worthies" in the history of the church and state both of England and America.

HENRY DUDLEY TEETOR.

FEW persons suspected six years ago when Henry George first prominently advanced his theory against private property in land, that it would end in anything beyond the transient airing of some abstract notions. Upon his remedies for existing evils most men looked as they would upon any visionary scheme. Nor were the doctrines wholly new, for before the French Revolution substantially the same principles were not quietly avowed merely but were loudly and zealously proclaimed by some of the most gifted men of the age, such as Voltaire and others. Surely no modern enemy of private property has gone beyond Rousseau, who said: "The first man who, having inclosed some ground, dared say, this is mine,' and found persons simple enough to believe him, was the true founder of civil society." He would regard as a benefactor of the human race the man

who, pulling up the stakes or filling the ditch, had cried out to his equals: "Beware of this impostor. You are ruined if you forget that the earth does not belong to any individual." Gardezvous d' ecouter cet imposteur, vous etes perdus si vous oubliez que la terre n'est a personne! Is it not very nearly the same statement, the same sentiment even, that our modern innovators make use of and on which they do not seem to have much enlarged or improved?

For a few years but little heed was taken of Henry George's ideas. They were relegated by the public mind to the list of utterly impracticable, harmless speculations. But recent well-known events have entirely changed the aspect of the question. If there is anything that arrests American attention and quickens American thought, it is political bearings and tendencies, and thither the George ideas have suddenly and

rapidly drifted. A political party has been hastily organized which in the short space of one year has just succeeded in commanding a following of seventy thousand voters in a single state. Some had predicted more, some less, while others, as soon as the result became known, asserted that the new party having suffered a great defeat was virtually at an end. It is a poor cause and worse grit that cannot stand its first reverse, and when at a late hour on the night of the last election, with the news of defeat before him, Henry George exclaimed: "Now we will go forward without the weak ones. You have seen votes bought to-day, but there remain thirty-five thousand men who can't be bought. Now from this moment let the new campaign begin," he announced himself as undismayed by defeat and as one resolved to try the issues of yet another contest. The outcome can be told in November, 1888.

The new movement has been likened by some of its adherents to the great anti-corn law agitation in England, which ended just forty years ago in complete triumph. Similar results, they flatter themselves, await this that were achieved by that if they will but bring to the task the same energy, perseverance and resistless skill. In this hope, we think, they shall be disappointed.

Let us consider briefly the anti-corn law movement. Although that agitation was waged against great odds and vested interests, effected a marvelous change of both opinion and law and was attended with splendid success, yet it was quite unlike the movement we are

considering. Here are odds that are greater, and a change to be brought about which delves far deeper, is more radical, more revolutionary. The merchants of England, a large, powerful and growing class, had to be heard and had to have justice. The agitation was for the redress of a grievance. The corn laws, first passed in 1670, were for the benefit of farmers and imposed so high a duty on grain as practically to prohibit importation. They raised the prices of wheat and bread to enormous figures. Petitions and remonstrances from the manufacturing and commercial classes were sent to parliament against them. Almost from their first passage they were looked upon as an iniquitous measure, and on their renewal in 1815 they were attended with riots in various parts of the kingdom. When, therefore, two among the ablest men in Great Britain Richard Cobden and John Bright-entered into an alliance and began their famous agitation, many causes had already conspired, and others followed, to sustain them. There was an already existing and widespread sentiment. In parliament were to be found members whose voices had been already heard on the side of repeal, men even of the aristocracy and landed class, foremost among whom' was Charles Villiers. The corn laws were justly described by Lord John Russell, who was not one of the agitators but the leader of the Whig party-as "the blight of commerce, the bane of agriculture, the source of bitter division among classes and the cause of penury, fever, mortality, and crime among the people."

And finally toward the close of the agitation came famine in Ireland, during which to have maintained such duties would have seemed but cruelty and barbarity in the government. Here were potent influences that hastened the agitation that had been waged for but eight years and that enabled its leaders to bring it on to success, even during a conservative administration, as was done under the premiership of Sir Robert Peel in 1846. There is no such cause of action for the land movement, and no similar forces to operate a cause, were there one. Two powerful classes are found in any state, the merchants and traders in the cities and towns, the landlords and farmers throughout the country. On Cobden's side lay the interests and was arrayed the united influence of the whole trading and manufacturing class as well as the voice naturally of every laborer who ate bread and was not engaged in the tillage of land. Neither of these classes is with Henry George; nor is it too much to say that the sentiment on which his agitation relies is not yet, but must be created. And history will show that great reformers have not, as a rule, created sentiments, but have had the genius to discern and sieze the right moment to use and control a great sentiment and thus carry their measures on to triumph.

Of Mr. George's ability to create a sentiment in the difficult field he has chosen, or to control a great movement, most men will think unkindly. His numerous critics are severe and in many instances the strictures too plainly

disclose that their authors have not read his books. Nobody can even casually read Mr. George's book' Progress and Poverty' without being convinced that its author is a clever man, that he has reasoning faculties of a high order, that he is deeply and touchingly in earnest and that he possesses a vast fund of information relating to his theme, greater, perhaps, than any other man that has ever handled it, who is, however, so stirred by existing evils and so much engrossed with his own favorite theory as to fail to see its error or its fatal tendency.

The prominent connection last autumn of Rev. Dr. McGlynn of New York with the movement gave it a fresh impulse for awhile but as great a check soon after. The doctor's open advocacy of the theory led to his being at once censured by his church and it would seem to a speedy summons to repair to Rome. The direct citation to appear at Rome is significant as not being the usual mode in accordance with the canons of the Roman church and its common practice. A priest in that church is tried before his ordinary, or bishop, from whose decision he may appeal to Rome; or, what is as frequent in practice, his bishop may "ex informata conscientia," "if his conscience so instruct," suspend and condemn him without a trial, from which extra-judicial act there lies no technical appeal but merely what is known as "a recourse to the holy see." Whether the summons came from Rome because Dr. McGlynn's immediate superior, Archbishop Corrigan, shrank from the re