Collis P. Huntington, William S. Rainsford, and the Conclusion of Frank Norris's The Octopus

Frank Norris's The Octopus has had an uneven critical reputation. Initially greeted as a candidate for the long-awaited Great American Novel, it was embraced during the 1930s by the Left because of its ground-breaking attack on American corporate greed. Since then it has been mostly down hill. Both the novel's intellectual confusion and its stylistic excess now often receive the bulk of the attention afforded it, and, in recent decades, its racism and anti-Semitism have also increasingly raised hackles. Although some critics have sought to describe the coherent system of belief underlying the novel's events, even this group acknowledges that Norris has not succeeded in convincing most readers that his dramatization of this system is valid.

My purpose in this essay is to contribute to the ongoing debate about the meaning of The Octopus by discussing freshly the presence in the novel of two striking public figures Norris met and admired while he was preparing and writing the work. The two figures are Collis P. Huntington, president of the Southern Pacific Railroad, and William S. Rainsford, rector of New York's St. George's Episcopal Church. By "presence in the novel," I mean, for Huntington, both that he served as a model for the portrait of Shelgrim at the close of The Octopus and that Shelgrim's defense of railroad practices plays a significant thematic role in this section of the novel. For Rainsford, I mean that his ethical ideas provided Norris a counter-argument to those of Shelgrim both throughout the work and especially in the crucial period between Presley's initial acceptance of Shelgrim's defense of the railroad and his conversion to Vanamee's beliefs. Although the possible presence in the conclusion of The Octopus of ideas derived from Emerson, Whitman, and Joseph Le Conte has long been noted, I will be seeking to contribute to the discussion of what Norris was attempting to do in this much examined and usually attacked portion of the novel by examining the personalities and beliefs of the extremely forceful figures who served as principal sources for Norris's dramatization both of Presley's intellectual confusion and of his ultimate triumphant announcement of faith.

In October 1898, Norris returned to New York from San Francisco, where he had been recuperating after becoming ill during his Cuban adventure.¹ In December, he moved to Washington Square, and by January had become a member of St. George's, which was located at Stuyvesant Square, within easy walking distance of his home. Another stimulus to join this specific church may have been that several members of the McClure firm, including Frank N. Doubleday, were members, though, as we shall see, he may well have been drawn primarily by Rainsford's reputation. Norris announced in March 1899 his plan for a Trilogy of the Wheat and soon afterwards went to California on an extended research trip. He interviewed Huntington in San Francisco sometime during the spring of 1899 and then again in late August in New York after both he and Huntington had returned from the West. (Huntington's principal office and home were in New York, but he spent several months each year in San Francisco.) Norris married his San Francisco sweetheart, Jeannette Black, at St. George's in February 1900, after which they continued to live at Washington Square and to attend services at St. George's. The couple moved to New Jersey in September 1900, and Norris completed The Octopus in December. To sum up: During his preparation and composition of The Octopus, Norris met Huntington twice and was deeply impressed by him, and he not only attended Rainsford's church but was sufficiently acquainted with him for Rainsford to describe him, after Norris's death, as a friend (Rainsford, "Frank Norris").

Even before undertaking his research into the struggle between the railroad and the wheat ranchers that dominates The Octopus, Norris no doubt determined to make the Mussel Slough incident the climactic event of the novel. As a Californian during the 1890s, he had...