Benjamin De Casseres (April 3, 1873 – December 7, 1945) (often DeCasseres) was an American

journalist A journalist is a person who gathers information in the form of text, audio or pictures, processes it into a newsworthy form and disseminates it to the public. This is called journalism. Roles Journalists can work in broadcast, print, advertis ...

critic A critic is a person who communicates an assessment and an opinion of various forms of creative works such as Art criticism, art, Literary criticism, literature, Music journalism, music, Film criticism, cinema, Theater criticism, theater, Fas ...

essayist An essay ( ) is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a Letter (message), letter, a term paper, paper, an article (publishing), article, a pamphlet, and a s ...

and

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator (thought, thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral t ...

. He was born in

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

and began working at the

Philadelphia Press ''The Philadelphia Press'' (or ''The Press'') is a defunct newspaper that was published from August 1, 1857, to October 1, 1920. The paper was founded by John Weiss Forney. Charles Emory Smith was editor and owned a stake in the paper from 1880 ...

at an early age, but spent most of his professional career in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

, where he wrote for various newspapers including ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'', ''

The Sun The Sun is the star at the centre of the Solar System. It is a massive, nearly perfect sphere of hot Plasma (physics), plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core, radiating the energy from its surface mainly as ...

'' and '' The New York Herald''. He was married to author Bio De Casseres, and corresponded with prominent literary figures of his time, including

H. L. Mencken Henry Louis Mencken (September 12, 1880 – January 29, 1956) was an American journalist, essayist, satirist, cultural critic, and scholar of American English. He commented widely on the social scene, literature, music, prominent politicians, ...

Edgar Lee Masters Edgar Lee Masters (August 23, 1868 – March 5, 1950) was an American attorney, poet, biographer, and dramatist. He is the author of '' Spoon River Anthology'', ''The New Star Chamber and Other Essays'', ''Songs and Satires'', ''The Great V ...

, and

Eugene O'Neill Eugene Gladstone O'Neill (October 16, 1888 – November 27, 1953) was an American playwright. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into the U.S. the drama techniques of Realism (theatre), realism, earlier associated with ...

. He was a distant relative of

Baruch Spinoza Baruch (de) Spinoza (24 November 163221 February 1677), also known under his Latinized pen name Benedictus de Spinoza, was a philosopher of Portuguese-Jewish origin, who was born in the Dutch Republic. A forerunner of the Age of Enlightenmen ...

and was of

Sephardic Sephardic Jews, also known as Sephardi Jews or Sephardim, and rarely as Iberian Peninsular Jews, are a Jewish diaspora population associated with the historic Jewish communities of the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) and their descendant ...

descent.

Writing career

At the age of sixteen, De Casseres started working as an assistant to Charles Emory Smith, editor of the ''

'', for $4 per week. At the ''Press'', De Casseres rose from his position as an assistant to become a "copy boy," editorial paragrapher, dramatic critic, proofreader, and (briefly) city editor. During his ten years at the press, De Casseres had a few publications, including one of his first signed editorials, an article that appeared in ''Belford's Magazine'' praising

Thomas Brackett Reed Thomas Brackett Reed Jr. (October 18, 1839 – December 7, 1902) was an American attorney, author, parliamentarian and Republican Party politician from Maine who served as the 32nd Speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 188 ...

. In 1899, De Casseres moved from Philadelphia to New York, he worked as a proofreader first for ''

The New York Sun ''The New York Sun'' is an American Conservatism in the United States, conservative Online newspaper, news website and former newspaper based in Manhattan, Manhattan, New York. From 2009 to 2021, it operated as an (occasional and erratic) onlin ...

'' until 1903 and then for the ''

New York Herald The ''New York Herald'' was a large-distribution newspaper based in New York City that existed between 1835 and 1924. At that point it was acquired by its smaller rival the '' New-York Tribune'' to form the '' New York Herald Tribune''. Hi ...

'', where he remained until 1916. Although his employment at ''The Sun'' lasted for only four years, he continued to have periodic letters, poems, and reviews published in the book review section. He also wrote reviews for ''

'' and '' The Bookman''. De Casseres' first notable work was an article on "

Thomas Hardy Thomas Hardy (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Literary realism, Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, including the poetry ...

's Women," which was published in the October 1902 issue of '' The Bookman''. Upon receiving a copy of the article from De Casseres, Hardy wrote back and thanked him "for writing so sympathetic an article." By 1904, De Casseres was starting to receive notice in newspapers and magazines as having "an aptitude for saying clever aphoristic things." An essay on Hawthorn written in the same year and published in ''The Critic'' received a fair amount of attention, with portions of the piece being reprinted in various other publications such as the ''New York Times Book Review'', and was cited in a Hawthorn bibliography published the following year. In 1922, some of De Casseres's early essays were collected in his book ''Chameleon: Being the Book of My Selves''. In 1906, De Casseres moved to Mexico City, where he worked on the newspaper '' El Diario'' along with his friend, the cartoonist

Carlo de Fornaro Carlo de Fornaro (sometimes spelled Carlo di Fornaro) (1872–1949) was an artist, caricaturist, writer, humorist, and revolutionary. His work is in the collection of the US National Gallery of Art and Harvard's Fogg Art Museum."bachman", "The M ...

. In 1915, De Casseres published his first book, a collection of poetry titled ''The Shadow-Eater'', to mixed reviews. Blanche Shoemaker Wagstaff called the volume "a welcome tribute to individualism and defiance" and the poems themselves "metaphysical meteors, searching, cataclysmic and rich in satire." A review in ''

'' favorably compared De Casseres to Walt Whitman, claiming "if his alien, highly individual genius remains unrecognized, criticism will lie upon the public, not upon him." Others, however, received it less favorably.

Clement Wood Clement Richardson Wood (September 1, 1888 – October 26, 1950) was an American writer, lawyer and political activist. He graduated from the University of Alabama in 1909 and received his law degree from Yale in 1911. Wood's second marriage was ...

, writing in the ''New York Call'', mocked both De Casseres' book and Wagstaff's review, writing, "It must be admitted that Mr. De Casseres often uses good rhythms; what they are about is another thing. They are mainly about Nothing, as far as we can gather." By 1923, when the book was reissued by the American Library Service, a reviewer for ''Poetry'' wrote that De Casseres had lost "the simple sincerity of utterance which is the birthright of the true prophet." Starting in 1918, De Casseres reviewed books for ''

'', the editor of which ( Grant M. Overton) described him as having "a dramatic gift" as a reviewer. During the same period, he reviewed books for '' The Bookman'', which advertised that "the best of Mr. De Casseres's work appears in the ''Bookman''" – to which ''The Sun'' responded with the claim that "the most glorious book review ever published on any page was Mr. De Casseres's in ''Books and the Book World'', of ''Broome Street Straws'' by Robert Cortes Holliday." De Casseres also wrote humorous articles and reviews for the ''

'' and ''

''.

Politics

De Casseres was interested in politics from an early age. His first signed editorial, published in 1890 when De Casseres was 17, praised the administrative changes

had recently made as

Speaker of the House The speaker of a deliberative assembly, especially a legislative body, is its presiding officer, or the chair. The title was first used in 1377 in England. Usage The title was first recorded in 1377 to describe the role of Thomas de Hung ...

. De Casseres described himself as a defender of American liberty and

individualism Individualism is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology, and social outlook that emphasizes the intrinsic worth of the individual. Individualists promote realizing one's goals and desires, valuing independence and self-reliance, and a ...

, and supported the preservation of

civil liberties Civil liberties are guarantees and freedoms that governments commit not to abridge, either by constitution, legislation, or judicial interpretation, without due process. Though the scope of the term differs between countries, civil liberties of ...

while opposing

collectivist In sociology, a social organization is a pattern of relationships between and among individuals and groups. Characteristics of social organization can include qualities such as sexual composition, spatiotemporal cohesion, leadership, struct ...

ideologies like

communism Communism () is a political sociology, sociopolitical, political philosophy, philosophical, and economic ideology, economic ideology within the history of socialism, socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a ...

and

fascism Fascism ( ) is a far-right, authoritarian, and ultranationalist political ideology and movement. It is characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hie ...

. While he supported

capitalism Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their use for the purpose of obtaining profit. This socioeconomic system has developed historically through several stages and is defined by ...

, he also opposed "efforts of capitalism to monopolize the necessities of life". In October 1909, a letter to the editor of ''The Sun'' in which De Casseres called

socialism Socialism is an economic ideology, economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse Economic system, economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes ...

the "illusion of the twentieth century" sparked a series of responses in the same publication and others. His frequent comments against socialism peppered the articles that he wrote for popular magazines and journals as well. As a Hearst columnist, De Casseres routinely railed against socialism, communism, and other forms of collectivism, and he excoriated those who promoted such political structures, including

H. G. Wells Herbert George Wells (21 September 1866 – 13 August 1946) was an English writer, prolific in many genres. He wrote more than fifty novels and dozens of short stories. His non-fiction output included works of social commentary, politics, hist ...

Upton Sinclair Upton Beall Sinclair Jr. (September 20, 1878 – November 25, 1968) was an American author, muckraker journalist, and political activist, and the 1934 California gubernatorial election, 1934 Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party ...

, and

Franklin Delano Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), also known as FDR, was the 32nd president of the United States, serving from 1933 until his death in 1945. He is the longest-serving U.S. president, and the only one to have served ...

. De Casseres was also a staunch opponent of

Prohibition Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcoholic b ...

. He used his position as a well-known editorialist to criticize, often satirically, prohibition policies. In particular, he wrote about the effect of Prohibition on New York City, especially its ineffectiveness of actually preventing drinking. De Casseres was widely reported as the first person to take a legal drink after the ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment, he having previously arranged to receive a "flash" telegram from Utah, the last state to ratify the amendment. At various times De Casseres defended free speech. In 1909, he signed onto a petition calling out the police departments of New York City, Brooklyn, Yonkers and East Orange for their respective activities in preventing anarchist Emma Goldman from speaking in those cities.

Personal life

De Casseres met Adele Mary Jones (''née'' Terrill) in 1902. They were both staying at the same

boarding house A boarding house is a house (frequently a family home) in which lodging, lodgers renting, rent one or more rooms on a nightly basis and sometimes for extended periods of weeks, months, or years. The common parts of the house are maintained, and ...

and only saw each other a few times before Bio (as she preferred to be called) moved West with her husband Harry O. Jones in early 1903. Over the next 16 years, De Casseres and Bio Jones corresponded frequently, developing a long-distance romantic relationship, until Jones divorced her husband in 1919 and married De Casseres the same year. They remained married until De Casseres' death in 1945. In 1931, De Casseres published a collection of letters the couple sent each other during their courtship, titled '' The Love Letters of a Living Poet'', which highlights the unusual nature of their relationship. In one of the letters, De Casseres describes a dream in which "after thirty years together we were both cremated and our ashes mixed inextricably" and "cast into the depths of the sea" where eventually they are "returned to the ecstatic hermaphroditic union of a great biological-mystical fable." De Casseres died at his home on

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

's Riverside Drive at the age of 72. After his death, Bio De Casseres published his final collection of essays, titled ''Finis'', for which she wrote a brief preface. She also authored several works of her own.

Social influence

De Casseres held "an aggressively individualist form of anarchist politics derived primarily from a discomfiting reading of

Nietzsche Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher. He began his career as a classical philologist, turning to philosophy early in his academic career. In 1869, aged 24, Nietzsche became the youngest pro ...

." His views on the idea of the

Superman Superman is a superhero created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster, which first appeared in the comic book ''Action Comics'' Action Comics 1, #1, published in the United States on April 18, 1938.The copyright date of ''Action Comics ...

were influential on contemporary writers such as

, who called De Casseres an "American Nietzsche" in the foreword to '' Anathema: Litanies of Negation'', and

Jack London John Griffith London (; January 12, 1876 – November 22, 1916), better known as Jack London, was an American novelist, journalist and activist. A pioneer of commercial fiction and American magazines, he was one of the first American authors t ...

, who wrote that "no man in my own hilosophicalcamp stirs me as does Nietzsche or as does De Casseres." In '' The Mutiny of the Elsinore'', London named a character with a

nihilistic Nihilism () encompasses various views that reject certain aspects of existence. There have been different nihilist positions, including the views that life is meaningless, that moral values are baseless, and that knowledge is impossible. Thes ...

point of view "De Casseres" based on their mutual admiration for

French French may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France ** French people, a nation and ethnic group ** French cuisine, cooking traditions and practices Arts and media * The French (band), ...

philosopher

Jules de Gaultier Jules is the French form of the Latin "Julius" (e.g. Jules César, the French name for Julius Caesar). In the anglosphere, it is also used for females although it is still a predominantly masculine name.One of the few notable examples of a femal ...

. According to Marie Saltus, writer and philosopher

Edgar Saltus Edgar Evertson Saltus (October 8, 1855 – July 31, 1921) was an American writer known for his highly refined prose style. His works paralleled those by European decadent authors such as Joris-Karl Huysmans, Gabriele D'Annunzio and Oscar Wilde. ...

would read the newspaper immediately each morning only if it contained a book review or an article by De Casseres, although the two never met. Artistically, De Casseres has been described as adopting proto-

Dada Dada () or Dadaism was an anti-establishment art movement that developed in 1915 in the context of the Great War and the earlier anti-art movement. Early centers for dadaism included Zürich and Berlin. Within a few years, the movement had s ...

rhetoric as early as 1910.

Bibliography

De Casseres wrote a variety of articles, essays and books on a wide-ranging topics including criticism, international relations and philosophy, as well as drama, fiction and poetry, often adopting a ''

fin de siècle "''Fin de siècle''" () is a French term meaning , a phrase which typically encompasses both the meaning of the similar English idiom '' turn of the century'' and also makes reference to the closing of one era and onset of another. Without co ...

'' style. De Casseres was "an outspoken foe of communism" and, like fellow

, he was particularly interested in the writings of

, having written several articles and books about the philosopher's ideas, including a foreword to '' Germans, Jews and France'', a compilation of Nietzsche's correspondence. The poem "Moth-Terror" is perhaps De Casseres' most famous work. It was originally collected in the '' Second Book of Modern Verse'' (edited by De Casseres' colleague Jessie Rittenhouse) and has been included in various other anthologies since then. In 1935, De Casseres self-published a three-volume collection of his work through Blackstone Publishers.

Gordon Press Gordon may refer to: People * Gordon (given name), a masculine given name, including list of persons and fictional characters * Gordon (surname), the surname * Gordon (slave), escaped to a Union Army camp during the U.S. Civil War * Gordon Heucke ...

reprinted the set in 1976.

Short works

* "A Conversation between George Bernard Shaw and the Dictionary," ''

The Smart Set ''The Smart Set'' was an American monthly literary magazine, founded by Colonel William d'Alton Mann and published from March 1900 to June 1930. Its headquarters was in New York City. During its Jazz Age heyday under the editorship of H. L. Men ...

'', December 1914 * "Variation on an Old Theme," ''

'', September 1917 * "The Resignation of New York," ''

'', October 1917 * "The Psychology of the Avenue," ''

'', May 1918 * '"Little Scenarios," ''

'', March 1920 * "Four One-Reel Movies," ''

'', April 1920 * "The Lost Satire of a Famous Titan," ''

'', June 1920 * "Queer Antics of Old Madame Ouija," '' People's Favorite Magazine'', August 1920 * "The Caste of the Newly Educated," '' People's Favorite Magazine'', November 1920 * "The Hamlet-Like Nature of Charlie Chaplin," ''

The New York Times Book Review ''The New York Times Book Review'' (''NYTBR'') is a weekly paper-magazine supplement to the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times'' in which current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed. It is one of the most influential and widely rea ...

'', 12 December 1920 * "Sub Specie Eternitatus," ''

'', June 1922 * "The Nietzschean Follies", ''

'', September–October 1922 * "The New Girl—I Hate Her," '' Metropolitan Magazine'', February–March 1923 * "The Babbitts of Radicalism," '' Haldeman-Julius Monthly'', November 1926 * "Five Portraits on Galvanized Iron," ''

American Mercury ''The American Mercury'' was an American magazine published from 1924Staff (Dec. 31, 1923)"Bichloride of Mercury."''Time''. to 1981. It was founded as the brainchild of H. L. Mencken and drama critic George Jean Nathan. The magazine featured wr ...

'', December 1926 * "A Woman for President!," '' Gay Book Magazine'', January 1933

Books

* ''The Shadow-Eater'' (1915) - poetry * ''Chameleon: Being a Book of My Selves'' (1922) * ''James Gibbons Huneker'' (1925) * ''Mirrors of New York'' (1925) * ''Forty Immortals'' (1926) * ''The Shadow-Eater'' (New edition, 1927) * ''Anathema! Litanies of Negation'' (1928) * ''The Superman in America'' (1929) * ''Mencken and Shaw'' (1930) * ''The Love Letters of a Living Poet'' (1931) * ''Spinoza, Liberator of God and Man'' (1932) * ''When Huck Finn Went Highbrow'' (1934) * ''The Muse of Lies'' (1936) * ''The Works of Benjamin DeCasseres'' (3 Volumes, Blackstone Publishers, 1939) * ''The Works of Benjamin DeCasseres'' (3 volumes,

, 1976) * ''Anathema! Litanies of Negation'' (New edition, 2013) * ''IMP: The Poetry of Benjamin DeCasseres'' (2013) * ''Fantasia Impromptu & Finis'' (2016) * ''New York is Hell: Thinking and Drinking in the Beautiful Beast'' (2016) * ''Fulminations: Caustic, Capricious & Cosmic'' (2019) * ''Spinoza: Liberator of God and Man & Against the Rabbis'' (2020)

Pamphlets

* Sex in Inhibitia (?, ?) * Clark Ashton Smith (?, 2 pages) * I am Private Enterprise (?, ?) * What Is a Doodle-Goof? (1926, 4 pages) * Robinson Jeffers, Tragic Terror (1928, Privately printed by John S. Mayfield) * The Holy Wesleyan Empire (4 pages, 1928) * The Hit and Run Thinker (1931, seven 10″x5″ strips of paper, staple at the top) * Prelude to DeCasseres' Magazine (?, 1932) * From Olympus to Independence Hall (1935, 4 pages) * The Individual against Moloch (1936, 48 pages, Blackstone Publishers) * The Communist-Parasite State (1936, 10 pages) * Germans, Jews and France by Nietzsche (1935, 31 pages, Rose Publishers) * To Hell with DeCasseres! (play, 1937, 16 pages) * Don Marquis (1938) * Finis (1945, 20 pages)

References

External links

De Casseres collection at the New York Public Library

BenjaminDeCasseres.com
* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:De Casseres, Benjamin 1873 births 1945 deaths 20th-century American essayists 20th-century American Jews 20th-century American journalists 20th-century American male writers 20th-century American non-fiction writers 20th-century American poets 20th-century anarchists American anarchist writers American anti-capitalists American columnists American free speech activists American male journalists American male non-fiction writers American opinion journalists American political journalists American political writers American satirical columnists American satirical poets American satirists Burials at Ferncliff Cemetery Dada Individualist anarchists Jewish American journalists Jewish American non-fiction writers Jewish anarchists Jewish anti-communists Journalists from New York City New York Journal-American people The New York Times journalists Writers from Philadelphia