James

to allow a man to deliver a child. The tnidwives
were inexperienced and careless. James had a
definite feminine streak in his character, and
his delicacy and modesty made it possible for
him to break down gradually the antagonism of
pregnant women. He was fitted by temperament
for the work that he was called to do. He suc-
ceeded in laying a firm foundation for the prac-
tice of scientific obstetrics in America.

[H. L. Hodge, in Am. Jour. Medic. Sci., July 1843 ;
H. A. Kelly and W. L. Burrage, Am. Medic. Biogs.
(1920) ; Caspar Morris, in S. D. Gross, Lives of Emi-
nent American Physicians and Surgeons (1861); Au-
gust Hirsch, Biographisches Lexikon, III (1886), 380;
J. R. Tyson, in Hist. Soc. of Pa. Memoirs, vol. Ill, pt
2 (1836) ; R. C. Moon, The Morris Family of Phila.
(1898), II, 616; Henry Simpson, The Lives of Emi-
nent Philadelphia^ (1859) ; Poutsoris Am. Daily Ad-
vertiser, July 7, 10, 1835.] J.R.O.

JAMES, THOMAS LEMUEL (Mar. 29,
iSsi-Sept. n, 1916), postmaster general, a na-
tive of Utica, N. Y., was the son of William and
Jane Maria (Price) James, both of whose grand-
parents were emigrants from Wales. Though
in mature life he attained several honorary de-
grees, he had no formal education beyond the
common school and a short term at the Utica
Academy. "His great schooling," someone has
written, "was in a printer's office" (Bankers
Magazine, March 1910, p. 513). He began his
career in the shop of the Utica Liberty Press. By
1851 he was an owner of the paper, and that
year he bought the Madison County Journal, a
Whig newspaper of Hamilton, N. Y., which he
merged, five years later,- with another Whig
journal, the Democratic-Reflector, and published
until 1861 as the Democratic-Republican. In
1854-55 he was collector of tolls at Hamilton
on the Erie Canal, and from 1861 to 1864 was
inspector of customs for the port of New York.
For six years, beginning in 1864, he occupied
the office of weigher, and from 1870 to 1873 he
was deputy collector for the port In this posi-
tion he made a reputation for thoroughness and
dispatch, and Chester A. Arthur [g.vj, then
collector, made him chairman of the Civil Ser-
vice Board of the collector's and suveyor's of-
fices.

James's greatest achievements, however, were
to be in the postal service. In 1873 Grant ap-
pointed him postmaster of New York. He held
office eight years, for President Hayes reap-
pointed him in 1877. Hayes would have made
him postmaster-general that year, but James re-
fused the honor. His work in the New York
post-office was engrossing him. He eliminated
the lax methods of his predecessor, a typical
easy-going Irish politician, and strove to make
merit, not influence, the criterion for the per-

James

sonnel. His success was such that the New York
post-office became a model of efficiency, and Eu-
ropean countries sent delegations to study it.
In 1880 James declined another invitation from
President Hayes to become postmaster general,
but the next year, when Garfield was elected, he
was again offered the place and accepted it. He
plunged into his new work with his customary
zeal, and in cooperation with the attorney gen-
eral put an end to the so-called Star-Route
frauds. He succeeded in eliminating an annual
deficit of two million dollars and thus made pos-
sible the reduction of letter postage from three
to two cents. His term, however, lasted only
ten months, for after Garfield's assassination, he
resigned, and on Jan. 4, 1882, retired perma-
nently from public life.

In 1885 James moved to Tenany, N. J., but
some years later again returned to his native
state. At the time of his death he was chairman
of the board of directors of the Lincoln National
Bank, which office he had held since 1882. He
was also a director of the Metropolitan Life In-
surance Company and a vestryman of the Church
of Heavenly Rest, from which he was buried.
He contributed an article on "The Railway Mail
Service" to Scribner's Magazine (March 1889),
which was printed also in pamphlet form and in
The American Railway (1889) by T. C. Clarke,
John Bogart and others. A lecture, The Postal
Service of the United States^ delivered at Union
College, Schenectady, was published in 1895,
and the same year he contributed an article to
C. M. Depew's One Hundred Years of American
Commerce. He was also the author of a curious
article (published in the Independent, Oct. 13,
1892) in which he maintained not only that
America was discovered by Prince Madoc of
Wales in 1170 A.D., but that many of the primi-
tive American red men were perfectly conver-
sant with the Welsh tongue.

James was married four times. His first wife
was Emily Ida Freeburn, a niece of Thurlow
Weed [q.v.] ; his second wife was her sister, the
widow of Dr. E. R. Borden, of Aiken, S. C. He
married, third, Edith Colbourne, daughter of a
hotelkeeper of Stratford-on-Avon; and fourth,
Mrs. Florence (MacDonnell) Gaffney, who
survived him.

[Bankers Mag.t Mar. 1910; Who's Who in America,
1916-17; N. Y. Times, article and editorial, Sept. 12,
1916; C. E. Fitch, Encyc. of Biog. of N. Y., vol. IV
(1916); James's own writings, mentioned above,]

E.P.S.

JAMES, THOMAS POTTS (Sept. i, 1803-
Feb. 22, 1882), botanist, was born at Radnor,
Pa. His parents, Dr. Isaac James and Henrietta
(Potts) James, were both from families of prom-

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