Raymond Robins was a politician, religious activist and social reformer, a charismatic leader of strong and extreme views, and the most perceptive and dynamic member of a tiny group of western leaders who recognized the newly created Soviet Union.
Background
Raymond Robins was born 26 September 1873 on Staten Island, New York, the son of Charles Ephraim Robins and Hanna M. Crow Robins. The defeat of the Confederacy led to the disintegration of the parental family because of the despondency and death of Charles; and as a child Robins formed an extremely close relationship with his oldest sister, Elizabeth, who became the foremost Ibsen actress of her time in England, an intimate of Sir Edward Grey's circle, and an accomplished movelist (The Magnetic North). As the children scattered, Robins lived briefly with relatives in Ohio and Kentucky, then settled with cousins in Florida.
Education
He received his early education in country schools, in the workaday world of citrus farming and phosphate mining, and from a former slave who became a surrogate uncle.
In 1894 Robins decided to become "a great lawyer" in order to claim a position as a "leader in the mighty reforms of the coming crisis when the poverty and misery of this western world rise in their blind might. " He read law in Florida and in 1896 received his degree from Columbian (now George Washington) Law School.
Career
At the age of eighteen he organized a phosphate mining company and promptly sold it to a Wall Street banking firm.
Two years later he worked his way west through New Orleans and Texas and then north to Colorado, where he worked in coal and lead mines.
After receiving his degree from Columbian (now George Washington) Law School, Robins immediately established himself in San Francisco as an effective political campaigner for William Jennings Bryan, and as an unusually able lawyer who promptly won a major case before the California Supreme Court.
In July 1897 Raymond and his brother Saxton joined the rush for gold in Alaska. His drives for economic independence and fame were extremely powerful. So, also, was his commitment to reform.
After his first winter in Alaska Robins moved out of the wilderness to Nome, where he became a lay preacher and moral and political leader. Robins very probably would have remained, married Clare McCalmont, and become the first governor of Alaska if it had not been for his sister Elizabeth.
She came to Nome in 1900 and persuaded him to return to the United States.
They almost died from typhoid on their separate journeys home.
It is not clear whether Robins carried a fortune in gold; he denied this to Elizabeth in 1900--"I shall have little money when I leave here"--but other evidence indicates that he was less than candid.
He promptly acquired a large estate named Chinsegut Hill, near Brooksville, Florida, and deeded it to Elizabeth.
That sequence of events suggests either that Robins found gold in Alaska (and kept it secret) or that he made considerable money quickly after his return (and let it be thought it came from the Yukon).
Robins became a major figure in the settlement house movement, serving as superintendent of the Chicago Municipal Lodging House from 1902 to 1905 and working simultaneously at the Northwestern University Settlement House (1903 - 1905). He retained his membership in the miners' union and his advocacy of a sophisticated version of the single tax, but moved directly into reform politics.
His service on the Chicago Board of Education (1906 - 1909) was part of his close association with William Devere, who was elected mayor on a reform platform.
He became chairman of the Illinois State Central Committee of the Progressive party (and an unsuccessful candidate for United States senator) in 1914, and thereby began to move toward national political influence.
Always a man to put more trust in what he called "the outdoor mind of reality" than the "indoor mind of rationalization, " Robins preferred Theodore Roosevelt to Woodrow Wilson (although he disagreed with Roosevelt on several important issues).
Roosevelt responded warmly, and Robins served as temporary and permanent chairman of the 1916 Bull Moose convention.
Through Roosevelt's influence Robins was appointed as second in command of the Red Cross mission to Russia that the Wilson administration created in 1917 as part of its effort to keep the Kerensky government in power and in the war. After Lenin and the Bolsheviks came to power, Robins was the most perceptive and dynamic member of a tiny group of western leaders who recognized the futility and hypocrisy of counterrevolutionary intervention. He failed to block that action, but his relationship with V. I. Lenin and Leon Trotsky left a foundation for later recognition.
Robins might have maneuvered the recognition of the Soviet Union in 1923, despite his refusal to join President Warren Harding's cabinet as secretary of labor, if the president had not died. He retained his membership on the Executive Committee of the Republican National Committee (1920 - 1924), but quit in disgust over the nomination of Calvin Coolidge.
He then concentrated on supporting (and influencing) Senators William E. Borah and Hiram W. Johnson, the campaign for the outlawing of war (1923 - 1927) and agitation for local-option prohibition.
During the Great Depression Robins made a vigorous effort (1931) to organize a growers' cooperative movement among Florida citrus farmers.
His relationship with Herbert Hoover was strained by three conflicting commitments: the effort to secure the recognition of the Soviet Union, his increasingly serious doubts about national prohibition, and his growing conviction that the government needed to act more forcefully to deal with the economic disaster.
The terrible beating he received in Chicago may have contributed to his ensuing breakdown, and it is possible that he was the victim of a similar attack by bootleggers, but it seems more probable that he suffered a classic psychological fugue as the result of his internal conflicts. In any event, near the end of a 1932 tour of 286 cities to speak on prohibition, he disappeared for three months and was found living in Whittier, N. C. , under a different name. Given compassionate support by his wife and such friends as Harold Ickes, he quickly recovered and resumed his activities for the recognition of the Soviet Union.
Robins made an extended, quasi-official trip to the Soviet Union between April and July 1933 that clearly influenced the Roosevelt administration's decision to exchange ambassadors with Moscow. He wanted very much to be named the first envoy, and was led to believe that he would be so honored. When he was bypassed, he withdrew to local, state, and personal activities.
Robins was an earthy man who gloried in the land. He fell while trimming an oak tree in 1935 and was paralyzed below the waist, but he never stopped living: he fought back when harried by local vigilantes and the FBI for his reform work, and continued his intellectual activities.
He deeded the Chinsegut Hill estate to the United States Department of Agriculture as a wildlife refuge, a conservation center, and an experiment station long before he died there.
Religion
Robins' stay in Alaska was traumatic. The first winter (1897 - 1898) brought terrible climate, isolation, and no gold. He was in psychological limbo until a Jesuit priest helped him "rediscover the power of the Christian faith.
Although he remained a Protestant, Robins was ever after guided by a visceral sense of Christ as reformer--"he drove the money changers out of the temple and befriended the whore. " He allowed that "a man has as good a right to go to Hell if he wants to, as he has to go to Heaven, " but he wanted to tilt the scales toward the latter.
The Chicago phase of the progressive movement was often bitter and violent, and Robins suffered directly: he was brutally beaten and left for dead in the gutter. Robins' religious commitment emerged more formally during the next few years. He was a leader of the Men and Religion Forward movement and of its world tour (1911 - 1913), and was a featured speaker of the National Christian Evangelistic Camp that visited many American campuses during 1915 and 1916.
Politics
Robins was a vigorous Populist and "single-taxer, " identifying strongly with the "deep widespread dissatisfaction" among the common people.
He sought to be in the forefront of the struggle for reform.
He retained his membership on the Executive Committee of the Republican National Committee (1920 - 1924), but quit in disgust over the nomination of Calvin Coolidge.
Views
Quotations:
In 1948 he became a socialist: "We tried back there in Alaska and Chicago and with TR, " he explained, "and it was an honest try. And I don't like much of what's happened in Russia. But I've learned that the capitalist is too much the indoor man for me--too busy with profit sheets. I want to be outdoors with the socialists. "
Personality
Beingh at his early teens Robins displayed an ability to lead and a keen perception of social reality, as well as a strong will, a considerable ambition, and a deep aversion to "the grind of poverty. "
His dynamism and charisma were too great to be compartmentalized.
Connections
Robins had a close connection with his sister Elizabeth. After moving to California he invited her to join him. He was very generous with his brother Saxton. He needed help, which Robins gave freely. His dream was to "live together, neither will marry, each will be altogether free, yet united in the purpose to win for each the highest place in the profession of each. " Elizabeth refused, and within two months (July 1897) Raymond and Saxton joined the rush for gold in Alaska. Robins felt rejected, but he did not break with Elizabeth.
After coming back from Alaska in 1900, Robins promptly acquired a large estate named Chinsegut Hill, near Brooksville, Florida, and deeded it to Elizabeth. She returned half of it (2, 080 acres) when he married Margaret Dreier of Brooklyn, New York, on June 21, 1905.
Robins' wife brought a large inheritance to the marriage, but administered it independently. This independence was one part of their relationship, which was based on deep affection, mutual respect, and equal freedom. They had no children. They settled in Chicago, in a walk-up, cold-water tenement flat in the tough and dangerous Seventeenth Ward. She continued her leadership in the Women's Trade Union League, quickly joined Jane Addams and Mary McDowell in settlement work, and organized such major demonstrations as the 1906 protest parade in support of the labor leader "Big Bill" Haywood.
