January 1914: An authors evening for suffrage. Sitting left to right: Will Irwin, Edwin Markham, Lincoln Steffens, Arturo Giovannitti, Percy MacKay, W.E. Burghardt Du Bois. Standing left to right: Mrs. Flora Gaitlin, Ellis O. Jones, Elizabeth Freeman, William Hard, Mrs. Paula Jakobi, Frederick Howe, and Mrs. Frederick Howe. Photo by Paul Thompson.
There once was a reckless recluse, Who said to himself: "What's the Use?" The answer he got From himself on the spot "Get back in your grave you old goose!"
Some decades ago, I came into possession of a box of files: typscripts, clippings, notes, letters. So far as I know there are the only remaining collected literary remains of my great- grandfather Ellis Oliver Jones. I think they are partly the remains of his own files and partly the files of his son, my grandfather, Ellis Oliver Jones, Jr.
He was an interesting and by all accounts difficult man. At various times he was a socialist, journalist, essayist, playwright, editor, peace activist, isolationist, and fascist. In these pages I'll try to make some sense of his papers, and whatever I can discover about his life.
I acknowledge and thank my brothers and my father for not (yet) objecting to this experiment.