http://www.archive.org/details/sothisthenisprea00hubb
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Born in Bloomington, Illinois, in 1856, Elbert Hubbard was a major figure in the American Arts and Crafts movement. In 1895 he founded Roycroft, a reformist community of craft workers and artists in East Aurora, New York. "Participants were known as Roycrofters. The work and philosophy of the group, often referred to as the Roycroft movement, had a strong influence on the development of American architecture and design in the early 20th century." (Wikipedia) The Roycroft creed was a quotation from John Ruskin: "A belief in working with the head, hand and heart and mixing enough play with the work so that every task is pleasurable and makes for health and happiness." An admirer of William Morris, founder of the Kelmscott Press in England, Hubbard started his own fine press, the Roycroft Press, which published numerous small books and pamphlets, such as today's book So This Then is the Preachment Entitled Chicago Tongue. The "Chicago tongue" of the title refers to a habit of speaking unkindly about others. Elbert Hubbard and his second wife Alice Hubbard were on the Lusitania when it was torpedoed and sunk by a German submarine in 1915. The Hubbard's did not survive, but the Roycroft legacy did, as did many wonderful quotations from the man known as Fra Elbertus. Among them, "To avoid criticism do nothing, say nothing, be nothing" and "Never explain--your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe you anyway."
