by Mim E. Rivas
Angell was the first to see Black Beauty as the “Uncle Tom’s Cabin of the horse” and rushed to have 100,000 copies published at his own expense for free distribution to any individual involved in working with horses. The American Humane Education Society then issued the first edition of the book in America, selling 226,000 copies in less than two years. Though this was only a fraction of the estimated thirty million copies it went on to sell in various incarnations, Angell had turned Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty into a classic. He followed suit in the early 1890s with a similarly conceived book about the sufferings and spirit of a dog named Beautiful Joe, which had been written by Canadian author Margaret Marshall Saunders.
Understanding the power of written stories, Angell also grasped the value of celebrity and invited the likes of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow to deliver a line of poetry or two to swooning members at organizational meetings, and he profiled leading thinkers such as Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes and Daniel Webster in the Education Society’s publication Our Dumb Animals. Dedicated “to speak for those who cannot speak for themselves,” the magazine was the first of its kind and went on to have international circulation that included distribution in schools across America.
A pragmatic idealist, as well as being a tall, handsome, articulate, socially gregarious and charismatic presence, George Angell used equal measures of humor and toughness to keep the three branches of his organization running smoothly. But in these later years of the 1890s, with the humane movement spreading yet fracturing, gaining steam on local levels but dissipating as a collective, there seemed to be some rumblings of discontent among his various board members. Maybe some believed he was too old to lead the cause; others might have been jockeying to take over his leadership role. The internal political climate, whether Albert Rogers had any sense of it or not, complicated his efforts to bring Jim to the attention of the organization.
Waiting for replies from one and all, he composed in a swirling, romantic font a two-page cover letter to accompany his three months’ accumulation of “newspaper clippings and testimonials regarding Beautiful Jim Key, The Educated Horse, valued at $50,000.” Emblazoned on his letterhead was a warm and friendly sketch of Jim holding an envelope in his mouth with the return address, “Mr. A. R. Rogers, New York City, Box 2368.” The second page was addressed “To Those Interested”:
We are now making dates for 1898, and to managers of Theatres, Fairs, Expositions, etc., who desire an attraction that is unique and which will draw large crowds, and one that at the same time will be high class…. Humane Societies, Ministers and the best people generally, will endorse this attraction…. Newspapers treat this marvelous exhibition very generously in their news columns. It is an attraction that advertises itself—for those who see it, will tell others. Doubt and curiosity will lead many to witness that which seems so improbable.
In the weeks leading up to Jim’s Broadway debut, the flood of requests to book the exhibit enabled Rogers and Doc Key to agree on a schedule for all of 1898, and some of the following year. Leaving no stone unturned, when the Tennesseans returned to New York, Rogers hosted yet another demonstration at Field’s Stables, which was very well attended and attracted a good smattering of the press, including a reporter from the New York Times. The newspaper had recently been purchased by Adolph Ochs, a newspaperman and Jewish entrepreneur, from Chattanooga, Tennessee. In this era of yellow journalism, made-up news, and sensationalism, the Times was out to distinguish itself with the intent of publishing legitimate news. Its motto, “All the news that’s fit to print,” had been born.
Reeking with seriousness, the New York Times reporter stood apart from the other press fellows, as though not sure the demonstration merited an article. But the story that ran under the headline “Jim Key a Clever Horse” on December 1, 1897—after he watched Jim add and subtract numbers, spell words, and play cards “like a gambler”—documented his change of opinion.
At this demonstration, Rogers and Dr. Key took turns inviting questions. Rogers began the spelling exercises, asking a young gentleman, “What is your name, sir?” When the answer was given as Thomas, Rogers turned to Jim and gave him the request, “Now, Jim, spell Thomas for us.”
The way that Beautiful Jim Key cavorted over to his letter rack, carefully picking out T-H-O-M-A-S, then going on to spell other words and names suggested at random, was interesting to the man from the New York Times. But it was Jim’s knowledge of mathematics that made the serious journalist a true believer. When asked to add 9 and 16, Jim Key bobbed his head, appearing to add the numbers mentally, and then hurried over to select the card reading 24 from his numbers rack.
“Now, Jim!” Dr. Key murmured. The Doc’s tone, the Times reporter later noted, was one a mother would use to calm a fretful child. For a moment, Jim Key contemplated the rack and then shook his mane, as if to say silly, me! and smugly pulled out the card reading 25. The New York Times article asserted: “His tutor did not appear to have any system of signals, nor to urge him in any set phrases.”
Rogers was overjoyed by the boost in legitimacy that the story gave Beautiful Jim Key, although he didn’t know what to make of its depiction of William Key. Some of it had come from the pamphlet, including the mention that as a “slave boy on a Southern plantation” Bill had the reputation of taming the most vicious mules and mollifying the ugliest tempered dogs. Rogers wasn’t overly concerned by the article’s mention that “by other Negroes” the Doc had been regarded as a “dabbler in the black art” and that “when he was of a mature age he was termed a ‘voodoo man.’” He didn’t especially mind that the reporter emphasized how all his life, William Key had “lugged around with him a host of talismans and potent charms.” But he was surprised by the exaggerated manner of “quaint Plantation speech” that the reporter used to portray Dr. Key in suggesting that Jim’s abilities were empowered by forces beyond mere training:
“Thar’s them rabbit foots,” he said yesterday, pointing to what onlookers had mistaken for festoons and garlands of corncobs, “neber knew them ahr to deceive meh.”
Rogers knew that Bill Key believed those words wholeheartedly, but he found it odd that Bill Key didn’t want himself quoted with the less colloquial speech he typically used. That aside, Rogers was pleased to see a quote from his press release in the December 1 article stating that following the Broadway run, “Jim will shortly go to his new master’s home at South Orange and rest his brain till early next year.”
Despite the positive impact the news piece had on New York theatergoers, not one word came from any of the humane societies.
Rogers was forced to apologize to Dr. Key. In Nashville, when they had formed their partnership, based on the promise that a part of their proceeds go to benefit the animal welfare cause, he had exaggerated his connections to the ASPCA. Doc Key didn’t appear to mind. But Rogers was no less frustrated. Without the stamp of approval from one of these national groups, the humane message would be diluted. An afterthought.
William Key merely encouraged Rogers, recommending one of his preferred words: “Patience.” The Doctor was feeling lucky. And, indeed, they were more than lucky, because before the curtain rose at the Star Theatre on the evening of December 20, 1897, they received a response from George Angell, letting them know he was very interested in meeting them and that they had matters of mutual interest to discuss.
It was as Key and Key had been trying to say to Rogers. The hard part was done. The gates had been opened. Now it was time to take the ride.
7
Service to Humanity
There are eleven million horses in the United States, and not one man in a million who knows how to educate them in the highest degree of usefulness. We say educate; for the horse is an animal of high and spirited organization…. Primarily, the word educate means to lead out or lead up; and it is by this process of leading out and leading up… that a colt becomes a useful horse. Now, teachers, like poets, are born, not made. Only a few are gifted to see…through any form
of highly organized life, discern its capacities, note the interior tendencies…and discover the method of developing the innate forces until they reach their noblest expression…. The few who have this gift are teachers indeed, and, next to the mothers of the world, deserve the world’s applause as foremost among its benefactors.
—D. MAGNER,
Magner’s Art of Taming and Educating Horses
October 26, 1901.
The Boston Food Fair.
DR. WILLIAM KEY HAD TO HAVE BEEN AMUSED by the sight of the small brigade of somber gentlemen, many whiskered and bespectacled, who filed into the front rows of the auditorium at Boston’s Mechanics Building. Glancing furtively around the cavernous hall where there hovered the ghosts of the Mechanics Society’s patron saints, Paul Revere and Benjamin Franklin, they carried notebooks and writing instruments which they began to use as soon as they were seated. Some seemed to be sketching the stage and the props on it; others made cursory notes of anything that, by the look of their flared nostrils, might smell suspicious to them. The sight of the aerial display of five thousand dangling rabbit’s feet appeared to confirm their worst expectations, as several nodded and pointed.
The Doc knew that this team of Harvard professors—leading names of academia from the fields of psychology, medicine, linguistics, and zoology—had come there under the supervision of Harvard president Charles Eliot. Probably the most influential individual in the field of American higher education, Eliot was a supporter of George Angell and one of Jim’s more devoted admirers, and had no doubt arranged this examination of Jim and his teacher.
This was obviously a consequence of the rising swell of accusations that some forms of hoax or hypnosis, or both, were the only explanations for Jim’s otherwise inexplicable abilities. But the ongoing bubble of controversy didn’t bother Bill Key. He knew it was only one of the costs of fame. And, as the Boston Globe declared in advance of their appearance at the Boston Food Fair, Beautiful Jim Key and Dr. William Key were now both quite famous: “Horse, the pupil, and man, teacher, have been in nearly all the large cities of the country, and in many of them the schools have been dismissed for the day to permit the children to see a horse who can ring up a telephone as easily as he can trot a mile.”
Dr. Key’s celebrity status may have surprised Albert Rogers, especially after the early press coverage had so often described the trainer as “an old colored man” and Jim’s “aging Negro valet” and after Rogers in their PR materials had first referred to him as a “faithful old Uncle Tom” (which led Southern newspapers like the Atlanta Journal to write about the Doctor, “Uncle Billy Key is one of the old time Southern negroes”). Even after Rogers had added notes in their pamphlet about Dr. Key’s financial success in the patent medicine business and his unrivaled ability as a horse trainer, it was not until George Angell met the three of them and connected instantly with William Key that Albert recognized how the Doc was as much a star as Jim.
Angell and Key were kindred spirits. They were both getting on in years, George Angell almost eighty years old in 1901 and the Doc almost seventy. Despite their differences in color and height, they actually resembled each other. Both were lean, distinguished, typically dressed in simple but elegant attire. About each of their faces was an aura of kindness and intelligence, each with an intellectual openness and expressions that could alternate between lighthearted amusement and serious concern. When the two first met three and a half years earlier, Angell and Key discovered they had interests in common other than the humane cause and could discourse at length about such topics as the pros and cons of unregulated patent medicines, the influence of diet on health, about roots and herbs, about current events, the Bible, and even the oddities of talk that outer space travel would one day be possible. The former lawyer made a gift to the self-taught veterinarian of several copies of Black Beauty and Beautiful Joe, inscribing them to Dr. William Key and Beautiful Jim Key.
Doc Key was genuinely delighted and promised to read both aloud to Jim, presumably at bedtime before saying their prayers and good night.
From the start, Rogers recognized that though Angell appreciated the promoter’s energy and ideas, and was immediately impressed with Jim Key, the reason that they received the full support of the officers and board of the American Humane Association was the impression that Dr. Key had made on the founder and president. Rogers now considered that he might not have had the level of resistance to “an animal act” from the other humane groups if he had thought to promote the visionary educator first, and then the horse second. Making up for lost time, he arranged for a photographic session to produce a publicity portrait of Dr. Key. Run in most of the newspapers and sold at exhibits, the photograph earned the trainer virtual overnight public recognition. At the same time, because of the almost eerie, mesmerizing look on William’s face, rumors that he had to be a voodoo hypnotist became even more widespread.
The Doc took it all in stride. He had always been special, different, gifted, suspect. But that had never stopped him from challenging people’s prejudices, and it wouldn’t now. For his part, Beautiful Jim Key took to his stardom with what some described as a trademark modesty, an attitude of Aw shucks, spelling, figuring, reading? That ain’t nothin’!
Would-be critics were nearly always caught off guard by Jim’s onstage inventions. No matter how prepared they were to say that he was being cued by his trainer, they couldn’t hold back the feeling of affection that his humanlike antics engendered in them, and that, by extension, made them feel that perhaps the goals of the humane movement were not so radical as all that. Jim’s rehearsed bits, such as bowing to the ladies or his act of going lame and even his political routine, merely convinced cynics that he was a great thespian. Because they were baffled by the other feats that required elements of memory, critical thinking, and reasoning, many still distrusted what they saw with their own eyes, insisting that there was a trick. But the stunt of submerging his head underwater and removing the silver dollar without drinking a drop was not one of those inexplicable feats; it was very clearly the result of an incredible amount of patience and encouragement in a training regimen that transcended the language barrier between teacher and student. If reporters managed to sit through the whole show as nonbelievers, they were won over by the silver dollar showstopper almost every time.
One such detractor was present at a Cincinnati performance of the The Scholar and a Model Office Boy, in which it was customary after the dutiful office boy had retrieved the silver dollar and returned it to the Employer that his boss would say, “Jim, your mouth is all wet. The customers will laugh at you. Go and get a towel in your trunk and I’ll wipe your mouth for you,” and to the amusement of all, Jim would go to one of his steamer trunks, nudge open the lid with his nose, and then pick up the towel in his teeth. Jim’s next rehearsed bit was to neatly fold the towel on a table and replace it in the trunk before closing the lid. At this particular performance, when Jim opened his trunk and removed the towel, he discovered that it was already soiled—obviously left there by mistake—and he immediately dropped the unclean towel on the floor, puckering his lips in disdain. From all accounts, his spontaneous reaction took the Doc and Will Griffin by surprise, challenging them both to keep a straight face.
Mrs. Long, a woman in the audience who had not until that moment been enthusiastic, was so impressed that a few days later she delivered to the star in person a half-dozen expensive fringed towels, each hand-embroidered with the name of Beautiful Jim Key.
In Philadelphia, where Jim was on exhibition for seven weeks for the 1900 Export Exposition, while he was preparing to give a demonstration to civic leaders, one of the city’s most illustrious citizens was heard to grumble to Dr. Key that he thought the furor over the “educated” horse was ridiculous. He’d seen trick horses before, which he found to be embarrassing to the animals and to the humans involved. “What makes this horse so special?” he asked bluntly. “What can he do that I haven’t seen before?”
/> “Well, sir,” said Dr. Key without hesitation, “he can spell your name.”
“Indeed? If he spells my name, I’ll…” He paused, perhaps wondering if he really wanted to eat his hat or do some other outlandish act, instead offering, “I’ll send him the finest blanket money can buy.”
Jim sidled up, throwing a look to the Doc that the Equine King’s grooms had seen him throw when reporters came back for interviews: oh, not another one?
Dr. Key asked the man to tell Jim his name, and to please speak slowly and clearly. The spelling of names was often where Jim made errors. Because the Doc had taught him to spell phonetically or to memorize the spelling of certain words and names, if Jim had never heard the word or name before, he was as capable as any student of making a mistake. Interestingly enough, this was how Bill Key spelled, inconsistently, although Jim, having had the tutelage of Stanley Davis and Will Griffin, could sometimes win in a spelling bee against his teacher.
“My name is Walton,” the man said, looking somewhat awkward as he talked to the big bay. “F. M. Walton.”
The name was either phonetically straightforward or one Dr. Key had practiced with Jim before, since they regularly had a list of names of prominent citizens in advance of arriving in new cities. In either case, Jim easily spelled and picked out the letters W-A-L-T-O-N, lining them up on his spelling rack.