Locust

by Jeffrey A. Lockwood

  The fearless jibes of this trenchant fellow extended to those who attempted to dupe farmers with snake oil remedies for insect infestations. For example, Walsh rendered this assessment of a patent remedy’s promoter: “We fear greatly that, instead of being a decently good entomologist, tolerably well acquainted with the noxious insects of the United States, you are a mere entomological quack; and that, instead of talking, good, common horse sense to us, you are uttering all the time nothing but bosh.” Riley would eventually come to match, even surpass, both his mentor’s skeptical disposition and his impolitic style.

  Not only were bureaucrats and charlatans fair game for the normally good-humored Walsh, but even scientific colleagues were targets of his acerbic pen. In criticizing a taxonomist who insisted on using an older—and perhaps technically more valid—name for a species rather than the commonly accepted name, Walsh could not be accused of subtlety or tact:To my mind the naturalist who rakes out of the dust of old libraries some long-forgotten name and demands that it shall take the place of a name of universal acceptance, ought to be indicted before the High Court of Science as a public nuisance, and on conviction sent to a Scientific Penitentiary and fed there for the whole remaining term of his scientific life upon a diet of chinch bugs and formic acid.

  Walsh, however, managed to build, as well as burn, bridges with agricultural and political kingpins. At fifty-nine, he was appointed Illinois state entomologist, and a year later, he used his formidable influence to see that Riley was made the first state entomologist of Missouri—only the third state in the nation to create such a post. Riley began to model his career after that of his guru, but just a year and a half later Walsh met a most tragic end. Although his total devotion to the lives of insects created a harmless but quirky demeanor, this utter fascination apparently played a central role in his bizarre death. While returning from the post office, Walsh became so engrossed in reading what we can only surmise to have been an entomological publication that had arrived in his mail that he was oblivious of the warning bell of an oncoming train. At the last moment he dove from the tracks, but his left foot was horribly mangled.

  After the requisite amputation, Walsh gaily told his wife, “Why, don’t you see what an advantage a cork foot will be to me when I am hunting bugs in the woods: I can make an excellent pincushion of it, and if perchance I lose the cork from one of my bottles, I shall simply have to cut another one out of my foot.” Walsh typically wore a long cloak and high-peaked hat lined with cork, into which he pinned insects that were unfortunate enough to cross his meandering path through the countryside. But a hat can only hold so many specimens, so by the reckoning of this devoted entomologist his cork foot would be a further asset. With an irrepressible spirit, he wrote to his young colleague on the day of the amputation, briefly recounting the accident, and then going on at length to carefully explain some matters concerning his next state report. Ever jovial with his young worshiper, Walsh gaily concluded with, “Adieu, Yours ever, the 99th part of a man!”

  This would be the last that Riley ever heard from his colleague and hero, as Walsh’s condition rapidly declined and he died just six days later. Riley came to Rock Island to offer his condolences—and to take Walsh’s insect collection, claiming that his mentor would surely have left it to him and that he needed it to complete a joint publication. The state of Illinois intervened and purchased the collection. By all accounts, however, Walsh’s greatest legacy was not his pinned specimens (which were destroyed in the Chicago fire) nor his voluminous publications, but his protégé, C. V. Riley.

  The brash young entomologist was in for a rude awakening in his new role as a government employee. In his move to St. Louis, Riley crashed headlong into Missouri politics and bureaucracy. He argued constantly with his superiors, with the most intense quarrels focused on his reports. Riley’s background in art, gift for writing, and penchant for perfectionism fueled conflicts over the refinement of illustrations, the quality of paper, the number of pages, and the distribution of the documents. To his irrefutable credit, Riley’s annual reports were far superior in their scientific depth and presentation quality to anything else of the day—and, for that matter, to a great deal of modern technical publications. Of course, Riley also left his own irascible stamp on the pages, using the opportunity for spirited attacks on his colleagues and their misguided views. The reports combined the terse professionalism of technical writing with the lyrical elegance of Victorian prose, all illustrated with the finest artwork ever to grace such practical pages. Indeed, these reports were the birth announcements of modern economic entomology. And so, in what was to become a lifelong pattern, Riley had been absolutely right in arguing for his position while managing to do so in the most aggravating manner possible.

  Despite these victorious battles, Riley became convinced that written and illustrated text was insufficient to the task of educating agriculturalists. The fiery young scientist increasingly shifted time and energy to lecturing. Riley spoke at the Kansas State Agricultural College and Cornell University, but the center of his newfound academic life was the University of Missouri in Columbia. And given Riley’s proclivity for controversy, it’s hardly surprising that this institution soon became a source of conflict.

  With typical brusqueness, Riley offered his harsh and unsolicited evaluation of the quality of agricultural education at the university. The three-year-old institution was one of the first to offer courses in entomology—which should have elicited Riley’s praise—but he chose to alienate the administration. And university administrators can be vindictive. The college charged that as state entomologist Riley was obligated to provide an insect collection as part of his duties. Riley argued that there were no such conditions attached to his work. The ill will escalated and the dean retaliated by canceling Riley’s classes, alleging a lack of funds and students. The bitter contention regarding whether or not Riley should provide an insect collection was referred to a university committee. This body adjudicated that the terms of Riley’s employment as the state entomologist included the expectation that he would provide a collection for use by the State Board of Agriculture and the Agricultural College. However, the committee ruled that Riley was not obligated to provide two collections, only to ensure that the college had access to the one he’d established in St. Louis. Once again, in characteristic Riley style, his facts were correct and his approach was inflammatory.

  Fortunately, university administrators also tend to have limited memories and unlimited crises, so Riley was able to return to his weekly lecturing and eventually to the good graces of the institution. With no experience in the norms of college teaching, he was not a particularly effective lecturer, but he was a mesmerizing illustrator on the blackboard. The entire student body was given the chance to attend his presentations, and many students availed themselves of the opportunity to see the flamboyant teacher render fabulous drawings with both hands at the same time. Over the next few years he became known as Professor Riley, a title that clearly fed his voracious ego and one that he used for the rest of his life. In 1873 he was given an honorary doctorate by the university, which he also conspicuously included in subsequent references to his credentials.

  In the midst of professional squabbles and honors, Riley was able to pull off what has become one of the legendary victories in the annals of agriculture’s battle against pests. This annoyingly arrogant, unconventionally trained entomologist single-handedly saved the French wine industry. In 1871, France’s agriculture was in dire straits. Its cotton industry had declined during our Civil War, its silk industry was in crisis because of a disease wiping out colonies of silkworms, and a new pest was ravaging French vineyards. The grape phylloxera is a minuscule insect that forms tumors on the plant’s roots, allowing secondary soil-borne pathogens to infect and kill the vine. Riley suspected that the insect had been accidentally introduced from its native land, the United States—where grape rootstocks had become resistant to the insect. Applying his studies of gr
ape phylloxera in Missouri, Riley collaborated with French scientists in grafting their vines to American roots, and 6 million acres of devastated vineyards were restored to health. In 1873 Riley was awarded a gold medal by a deeply grateful French government.

  This narrowly averted disaster presaged much of what would come to be the core of modern pest challenges. With the increasing mobility of people among distant lands came the arrival of stowaway insects, weeds, and pathogens. Riley was at the forefront of applying scientific principles to agricultural problems. He was perhaps the first to fully appreciate that evolution could generate stable ecological relationships and that reestablishing these associations could be the key to solving new pest problems. This insight would allow him to later save the California citrus industry from a foreign insect and would provide the fundamental principle for much of modern pest management. There was no doubt that this young scientist could work wonders for agriculture, if only he could remember that the insects—not his underlings, colleagues, or superiors—were the enemy.

  7

  The Triumvirate

  RILEY ’ S CONFLICTS OFTEN INVOLVED MATTERS OF power and control, but he also wrestled with deeper, more philosophical disputes. His was a naturalistic theology, in which humans had the capacity to disturb—and, most important for an economic entomologist, to understand and thereby restore—the balance of an idyllic world. For Riley, there was a creative tension between fact and faith so that our true comprehension of God’s work and our purpose came through firsthand experience of the glories of his creation. Riley maintained, “There is no better textbook, however, than that which lies open before us on every hand—the great textbook prepared for our reading by the Creator. There it is, ready to unfold the great truths it contains, to all who earnestly seek them.” With the material being a manifestation of the divine, whatever nature revealed had to be consistent with God’s will. And so, the process of evolution was the handiwork of the Creator, and Riley became a staunch supporter of Darwin’s theory.

  Riley had been introduced to Darwin through a letter sent by Walsh in 1868. Encouraged by Darwin’s correspondence, Riley sent his annual reports to the great biologist, who replied, “There is a vast number of facts and generalizations of value to me, and I am struck with admiration at your power of observation. The discussion on mimetic insects seems to me particularly good and original.” And when he first met Darwin in 1871 at Down House outside of London, Riley was delighted to find his reports well worn and heavily annotated. Between Walsh’s rejection of the clergy and Darwin’s vilification by the Church, Riley became antagonistic to overt and organized religion while retaining his own, private faith in Natural Theology.

  Riley’s experience with the grape phylloxera convinced him that understanding natural selection—the American vines had evolved resistance to the insect pest—could provide vital insights for agriculture. In his capacity as state entomologist for Missouri, he also saw how practical entomology could be undermined by misplaced religiosity. Riley published an unusually tempered and diplomatic critique of the governor’s religious approach to pest management in the May 19, 1875, edition of the St. Louis Globe:I deeply and sincerely appreciate the sympathy which our worthy Governor manifests for the suffering people of our western counties, through the proclamation which sets apart the 3d of June as a day of fasting and prayer that the great Author of our being may be invoked to remove impending calamities. Yet, without discussing the question as to the efficacy of prayer in affecting the physical world, no one will for a moment doubt that the supplications of the people will more surely be granted if accompanied by well-directed, energetic work. When, in 1853, Lord Palmerston was besought by the Scotch Presbyterians to appoint a day for national fasting, humiliation and prayer, that the cholera might be averted, he suggested that it would be more beneficial to feed the poor, cleanse the cesspools, ventilate the houses and remove the causes and sources of contagion, which, if allowed to remain, will infallibly breed pestilence, “in spite of all the prayers and fastings of a united but inactive nation.” We are commanded by the best authority to prove our faith by work. For my part, I would like to see the prayers of the people take on the substantial form of collections, made in the churches throughout the State, for the benefit of the sufferers, and distribution by organized authority: or, what would be still better, the State authorities, if it is in their power, should offer a premium for every bushel of young locusts destroyed.

  In recounting events on the day of prayer, Riley later told the tale of having come upon a farm in Warrensburg that had escaped the first waves of locusts. He advised the owner to dig ditches around the field to save his crop. In Riley’s words, “[The farmer’s] piety exceeded his good sense, however, and instead of genuflecting on a spade he was performing the operation in another way, while his beautiful vineyard was being destroyed at so speedy a rate that it would not show a green leaf by the morrow. I respect every man’s faith, but there are instances where I would respect his work a good deal more.”

  Riley’s public opposition to reliance on divine intervention put him at odds with some of the clergy. He was taken to task by Reverend Doctor W. Pope Yeaman of the Third Baptist Church of St. Louis, who accused Riley of ridiculing religion. Riley’s limited capacity for tact had apparently been exhausted in his letter to the newspaper, so his retort to Rev. Yeaman was rather more direct:Though I may not have overmuch piety and faith myself, I at least know how to respect those qualities in others, and however much I believe that the insect which was the remote cause of Dr. Yeaman’s sermon, is governed by natural laws, which should guide us in understanding and overcoming it, the reverend gentleman forgot his calling, and made himself ridiculous, in charging, for such reasons, that I took pains to “sneer at Providence.”

  Riley was even more outraged by the claims of church leaders that the locusts were “a chastisement of the Lord [for] wickedness, fraud, falsehood, and corruption [which] abound in every department of society.” Bristling with indignation, he asserted, “The expression of such opinions is a downright insult to the hard-working, industrious and suffering farmers of the Western country, who certainly deserve no more to be thus visited by Divine wrath than the people of other parts of the State and country.”

  Riley was a complicated man, a mixture of art and science, faith and facts, idealism and pragmatism, ego and altruism. Perhaps the one quality that failed to have a counterpoint was ambition. And so, he did not hesitate to leap at the opportunity to chair the first U.S. Entomological Commission. He knew that he could handle the political conflicts, and he relished public exposure. However, he had never worked as an equal, let alone a superior, to first-rate scientists. Cyrus Thomas and Alpheus Packard were no threat to Riley’s ascendancy to power, but they amplified his dreaded companion, the demon of insecurity.

  Many scientists are haunted by uncertainty as to their talents, skills, and insights. These insecurities are fed by traditions of elitism based on the status of one’s alma mater and mentor. This self-doubt is further exacerbated by the harsh system of peer review, which reached an apogee of nastiness in some of the scientific debates in the 1800s. Although we must here step across the line of historical objectivity (presuming one exists in the first place), what we know of Riley’s life, combined with his subtle hints and circumstantial evidence, suggests that the Entomological Commission was a less-than-cordial trio of great minds and strong personalities. For Riley, the tensions seemed most intense with regard to his lifelong efforts to cast himself as both a brilliant scholar grounded in intellectual thought and an expert practitioner rooted in pragmatic experience. The presence of Packard and Thomas threatened to belie these idealized images.

  Riley prominently displayed his adopted titles and academic credentials, referring to himself as “Professor” and invariably noting his Doctor of Philosophy degree (dispensing with the “honorary” qualifier). He even listed himself as having a Master of Arts, although the origin of this degree is not evi
dent from the historical record. But this allowed him to create the coveted string of accolades when presenting himself as “Charles V. Riley, M.A., Ph.D., State Entomologist of Missouri; Chief of the U.S. Entomological Commission, Lecturer of Entomological in Various Colleges; Author of ‘Potato Pests,’ etc.” The academic status to which Riley aspired through his constructed pedigree was exemplified by Alpheus Packard.

  “Alpha” Packard was born into intellectual privilege. His father held a doctor of divinity degree and was professor of Greek and Latin at Bowdoin College; his mother was the daughter of the college’s president. Packard might well have been a threat to Riley’s political ambitions, if not for a lifelong reticence in public speech. Packard had been born with a cleft palate, which caused a speech defect and engendered a pattern of shyness. Although the deformity had been corrected by an anesthesia-free operation when he was eighteen, Packard’s diffidence was firmly entrenched.