of his hearers, and binding them to his own deep religious convictions.”10
Although Browne continued to denounce Ingersoll, it is uncertain if they ever confronted each other in person after their initial encounter in Peoria. Had Browne devoted himself to preaching the compatibility of science and religion with the same intensity as Ingersoll preached against it, he might have hastened the day when the world could accept both. He might even have averted the Scopes “Monkey” Trial or the current twenty-first century brush with Creationism.
Browne had other interests though, and as a congregational rabbi, other responsibilities. In 1873, he represented Peoria at the founding conference of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, Wise’s first landmark achievement in his mammoth effort to organize American Judaism. Besides serving on the committee for permanent organization, Browne proposed reforms that addressed such ongoing issues as the still competing prayer books and problems caused by self-proclaimed rabbis who had neither training for the position nor compensating intellectual achievements. He wanted the UAHC to exercise jurisdiction over its congregations and their rabbis, appoint a council to adjudicate problems arising between them, and form a committee (from which he excluded himself) to examine the credentials of men who claimed to be rabbis, licensing those who were qualified and exposing the fraud of those who were not.11
Both motions were ruled out of order. Lay leaders remained wary of any suggestion that implied imposition of authority, and Wise, having witnessed Isaac Leeser’s failed attempts to form a union, was not disposed to entertain any proposal that threatened divisiveness. He understood the delicate balance needed to keep all parties at the table, and knew that in order to achieve his goal of a rabbinical seminary, he must gather under his banner all of the dissident factions. Eventually— when the timing was right—he embraced Browne’s issues as his own.12
Although social anti-Semitism had not yet highlighted an obvious need for rabbis to be ambassadors to the gentiles, Peoria’s Jews increasingly appreciated their rabbi’s spectacular success in that role. They reelected him unanimously in 1874, and again sent him to the UAHC conference. Whereas business at the first conference had centered on organization, delegates at the second one concentrated on resolutions concerning ecumenism and patriotism, religious education, obtaining English Bibles, circuit preaching (apparently needed due to the scarcity of qualified rabbis fluent in English), the sharing of rabbis for communities too small to support one full time, properly honoring major donors, and organization of the rabbinical seminary. No rabbis were listed as members of reporting committees. Browne again pressed for regulations to improve the treatment of qualified rabbis and weed out the unqualified, still without success.13
Later that year, Browne became inadvertently involved in the personal life of his mentor. The Wise family had not heard from son Leo or known his whereabouts for four years, at which time he had absconded with funds entrusted to his father for the forthcoming Hebrew Union College. Long considered a “wild boy,” Leo had run away from home at least once before, supposedly to join the Mexican army. Browne had been like an older brother to Leo while living in Cincinnati, sometimes interceding for him with his father. Fully realizing that the boy might resent him for doing so, Browne nonetheless occasionally tried to “put him straight” with brotherly counsel.14
On November 5, 1874, Leo sent Browne a note indicating that he was in Peoria and needed to see him. Browne welcomed him and listened to his confession. Leo admitted having spent all of the stolen money, then signing onto an English ship bound for Africa, and frequently landing in the brig. Despairing that his life was hopeless, he told Browne, “If they give me an unkind word at home, I shall leave at once and forever.”15
Browne tried to console Leo, assured him of a home if he ever needed one, and then hurried him off to Cincinnati where his mother lay dying. At her funeral a month later, Leo told Browne that he felt he had killed her.16
Theresa Wise had been like a mother to Browne, and her death was as much a blow to him as to her own children. Wise understood his grief and acknowledged it by including him in the family circle for the mourning rituals. As they observed Theresa’s casket being taken from her home to the hearse and on to Wise’s Temple B’nai Jeshurun for the funeral, it was Browne who read from Psalms and led the recitation of kaddish, the traditional mourner’s prayer. At the service itself Browne co-officiated with Wise’s distinguished Cincinnati colleague and dearest friend, Rabbi Max Lilienthal.17
That sorrowful event marked the end of an era for Browne as well as for the Wises. The patriarch soon remarried, sired more children, and changed forever the ambience at Floral House on College Hill. Its new mistress, Selma Bondi Wise, busy with her own growing family, had neither time nor interest in cultivating her husband’s former student.
Leo vowed to repent and promised Browne to become “a different man”in the future. Within a year he again appealed for help, this time in a frantic plea for medication with which to abort a friend’s pregnancy. Browne balked at that one. Ethics, law and morality overrode his sense of brotherhood. Leo never forgave him for refusing. Soon thereafter Leo became his father’s surrogate as editor of the American Israelite, an ongoing position that enabled him to exact revenge upon those who offended him. Browne was not alone in receiving that revenge as years went by.18
Soon after Theresa Wise’s death, Browne received a terrifying prognosis from Dr. Joseph Aub, the famous Cincinnati ophthalmologist who had been treating him for a serious eye disease. Browne learned that his condition had greatly deteriorated and in Aub’s opinion, he would lose his sight completely unless he left the rabbinate for work in a profession less demanding on his eyes. He had no choice but to resign his position and seek other employment.19
Because he knew his subjects and spoke extemporaneously without further study, lecturing to the public seemed a viable option not likely to worsen his condition. The lecture circuit, however, required him to be away from home for long periods of time touring the country. He was loathe to leave Sophie because they were trying to start a family and she had already suffered several miscarriages. He considered moving to Chicago, headquarters of his journal, the Jewish Independent, as well as that of his lecture bureau. Although he inquired about renting office space there, he ultimately opted to keep his residence in Peoria, intermittently sojourning with Sophie at her parents’ home in Evansville.20
In addition to signing onto the lecture circuit, Browne applied for a position in the diplomatic corps, a move that led to his friendship with President Ulysses S. Grant.
While still in Wisconsin, the summer of 1871, the rabbi had initially written to Grant applying for the chaplaincy at West Point. This seemed odd at the time, for Browne had just received his law degree and had been invited to serve a prestigious congregation. His action becomes somewhat plausible in hindsight, however, as we shall see. Possibly he wanted to make a point rather than obtain a job when he addressed the president:
Your Excellency:
I figure upon the full amount of your charity in allowing myself this importunity, emanating wholly from motives selfish in their nature. Having learnt of the vacancy created in the West Point Academy by the resignation of Prof. French, I ventured my application to the Secretary of War for the position of Chaplain to West Point. The press throughout the land dwells largely on the claims of the Episcopalians and Methodists to that office, so much so that President Grant is at a loss to make a choice between them...
Now I fail to see (I am convinced your Excellency will side with my views) what claims any particular denomination can have upon that office. It appears to me that we, the Jews, have equal rights with them, hence I applied and lay my prayer before your Excellency. In fact it seems to me that the Jews have perhaps more just claims as the Christian clergy, because no Jewish minister has yet been given a single office while the Christian clergy is very well represented in the offices of the U. S. I am the rabbi of Emanuel Temple in this city, duly graduated Rev. A.M., M.D.,LL.B, 26 years of age, and am willing
