John Patric
John Patric was an American writer. He was a contributing writer for National Geographic during the mid to late 1930s and early 1940s and was the author of two books. His 1943 book Yankee Hobo in the Orient, sold twelve million copies domestically and internationally in both hardcover and digest format. In the 1940s, he was one of the best-known Oregon writers.
He wrote a National Geographic feature article, Imperial Rome Reborn, about fascist Italy, and after writing on World War II shipyard labor practices for Reader's Digest, he gave testimony at a United States congressional hearing. Patric or his works are briefly mentioned by other writers on a diverse range of topics, including political history, an artist biography, an author biography, media history, cultural criticism, ship building, fascism, and Korean history.
In later life, Patric was an early influence on portrait artist Chuck Close, and he was a local political activist and satirical political candidate in his home state of Washington.
Childhood
John Patric was born in Snohomish, Washington on May 22, 1902. The ground floor of the family home in which he was raised served as the Snohomish public library, surrounding him with books and ideas from an early age. The Patric household consisted of John, his parents, and four siblings. His father, Arthur Noah Patric, originally from Mill City Pennsylvania, was a Snohomish hardware merchant. His mother, Emmeline Eleanor Crueger, originally from Racine Wisconsin, served as the town librarian.At one point during his childhood, Patric "ran away, and hoboed way from Seattle to Mexico and back, and nearly all railway men met were kind to . They shared their lunches with , they helped locate other trains, and sometimes let ride in the cab." Patric returned to Snohomish, and graduated from Snohomish High School as valedictorian and student body President of his senior high school class. He left home shortly thereafter to continue his education, writing, and travels. This period of his life is covered in more detail in his unfinished memoir Hobo Years.
Education, career, and travels
Roaring twenties
A self-styled "hobo", John Patric traveled extensively throughout the Roaring Twenties. He worked sporadically as a journalist, and studied at a number of universities across the United States. By 1920, 18-year-old Patric was listed among the "Who's Who of Washington Journalists" as a staff member of The Snohomish Tribune writing on assignment to travel with a friend named Norman Brown from the state of Washington to New York City. In 1922, Patric was writing for the American Insurance Digest.Universities he attended during this time included the University of Michigan, the University of Oregon, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and several others in Idaho, Minnesota, and California. John Patric proudly pointed to the fact that he had never actually received a degree from any of these institutions, and that he had been expelled from eight schools in the course of his academic career. These and many other experiences are recounted in his nearly complete memoir manuscript Hobo Years.
Depression era
Blunderbuss
Nearing the height of the Great Depression, John Patric studied writing and journalism at The University of Texas at Austin because it was "the cheapest school in the country, considering its facilities". Patric involved himself in campus politics, and wrote a number of articles and editorial pieces for the University newspaper named The Daily Texan. Following a highly contentious student body election, Patric got into an altercation with the university's student body President Allan Shivers, who was both the primary target of Patric's "vicious" satire and the man who would later become one of the longest serving governors in Texas history:This episode is covered in great detail in Patric's work entitled Simon Legree's Book as well as The Austin Statesman and Austin Daily Dispatch newspaper articles of the time. Having already been expelled from multiple universities by this point in his academic career, the Blunderbuss controversy ended his time at The University of Texas at Austin. Less than two weeks later, Patric's abrupt departure from Austin was noted in an article in the Austin Daily Texan May 25, 1933, stating that police were searching for a missing person following an apparent abduction:
Any concerns about Patric's whereabouts or well-being disappeared when it was learned that Patric had departed Texas in favor of the West Coast in his recently purchased 1927 Lincoln sedan. Living out of his car and selling surplus passenger capacity to fellow west-bound travelers, he wrote of his travel and experiences in a series of letters from the road that were published in The Daily Texan. At turns light-hearted or biting, these letters addressed a number of aspects American life during the Depression, The final installment announced his arrival in Carmel, California by October 10, 1933.
''Friendly Journeys in Japan''
Saving nearly $400 during the Great Depression selling rubber-stamp supplies while living in his Lincoln, Patric traveled to Seattle in order to book passage for Japan in 1934 aboard the NYK vessel Heian Maru. In her memoir I Married a Korean, American expatriate Agnes Davis Kim wrote of her chance ship-board encounter with Patric, during which his mischievous sense of humor nearly got them arrested for threatening to "assassinate the Mikado" before they even got off the boat in Yokohama, Japan. Patric's first-person narrative account of his two-year tour through 1930s Japan, China, and Korea on a very low budget were first published as a collection of articles for National Geographic under the title Friendly Journeys in Japan : A Young American Finds a Ready Welcome in the Homes of the Japanese During Leisurely Travels Through the Islands.Libertarian views
In 1940, John Patric spent a few months touring the country in his automobile with the writer and Libertarian political theorist Rose Wilder Lane, daughter of author Laura Ingalls Wilder. Patric and Wilder Lane's writings from this time expressed similar deep concerns about governmental expansion and "the rise of the state's role in the lives of individuals" as Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal struggled to help the nation recover from the Great Depression.WWII era
National Geographic
John Patric was still writing and traveling extensively for National Geographic while fascism and tensions were on the rise in Europe. Patric wrote profiles on Benito Mussolini's Italy, and pre-war Czechoslovakia.''A Yankee Hobo in the Orient''
When war broke out in the Pacific, Patric quickly reworked his National Geographic Friendly Journeys in Japan material on Asian travel to fulfill the public's demand for more information on Japan. The repackaged and expanded book became his most notable work. First published in 1943 by Doubleday Doran, Inc. under the title Why Japan was Strong. The book was retitled Yankee Hobo in the Orient for the British edition by Methuen Publishing, and that title was used for subsequent editions.The edition of June 20, 1943 of The New York Times featured a review of this work, stating that Patric displayed "qualities of good sense and poise and instinct for honest reporting sufficiently to give his excellent account of Japan's 'common man' the favorable reception it deserves." In the book's second month of sales, it had climbed as high as seventh place in a list of nationwide best sellers.
The September 1945 7th edition of the book, was substantially revised and illuminated by the author, adding detailed maps and numerous illustrations to accompany the significantly expanded narrative. By November 1945, Yankee Hobo had grown from the 1st edition's 22 chapters in 320 pages, to 45 chapters in 512 pages in the 8th edition. Writing in a foreword, the author described the pains taken in the layout and printing of his still-$2.50 hardcover edition, stating that due to its "especially fine typography and sturdy binding, it is the author's belief that physically, this book has become one of the best for the money ever published." Released only months after the August 1945 atomic bombings of Japan and Japan's surrender, the book now contained lengthy parenthetical asides conveying the author's thoughts on those events, as they pertained to his original work.
In the book and subsequent interviews, Patric emphasized his opinion that the most important point in the book was that a person should seek to reduce "by whatever peaceful means his ingenuity may devise, the power of government – any government – to tell him what to do." In accordance with this doctrine, Patric supported his deliberately modest lifestyle by directly selling his reprinted and personally-inscribed copies of the book from person-to-person, and town to town throughout most of his later life:
War time production
Patric's war time contributions to the Reader's Digest stirred controversy, and in May 1943 he was invited to give testimony before the House of Representatives' Committee on the Merchant Marine and Fisheries executive hearings, in which he contended that labor union rules were having a negative impact on shipyard productivity during World War II, and made controversial recommendations to address them.Mid-later life
Frying Pan Creek Ranch
During the 1940s and early 1950s, Patric lived frugally on his remote 160-acre backwoods ranch at Frying Pan Creek, near Florence, Oregon. During the war, he was involved in various efforts on the home front to support the war effort, ranging from a drive to collect used nylons, to working with tire shops to retread discarded tires from the dump and fitting these "War Treads" to his automobile for a cross-country "endurance test". He made sporadic but regular appearances in the print media of this period, on book tours, commenting on events of the day in letters to the editor, and interviews in Libertarian and conservative publications such as the following excerpts from Faith and Freedom, March 1955:Retirement
After many years of worldwide travel, writing, and life at Frying Pan Creek, Patric retired to his childhood home in Snohomish, Washington. Patric commenced publication of a weekly newsletter called The Snohomish Free Press later renamed The Saturday Evening Free Press under his pseudonym "Hugo N. Frye". For many years, the newsletter espoused Libertarian views on events of the day. Under this pseudonym, Patric made regular appearances on Washington state election ballots over a period lasting more than two decades beginning in late 1960. He is listed on the Hoax Museum's list of satirical political candidates. Use of this pseudonym landed Patric in jail for a short while on a felony charge, until Patric's appeal to the State Supreme Court prevailed. On May 21, 1962, the prosecuting attorney filed an information charging John Patric as follows:At the trial, it was established that John Patric signed the proposed initiative petition as alleged, "Hugo N. Frye," and that he was a registered voter and registered to vote under the name of John Patric. When exhibit No. 1, the proposed initiative petition, was offered in evidence, he objected to its admission on several grounds, stating "I challenge the validity of this document." He testified that he signed the name as he did because it was his pen name; that most people knew him by his pen name, and that he never intended to defraud the Secretary of State or anyone. The jury returned a guilty verdict, Patric's motions for arrest of judgement and new trial were denied, however, and he was sentenced to serve up to 10 years in prison. On appeal, his conviction was overturned on 13 Feb 1964 in a split decision in which the majority held that "the document which John Patric signed never reached the status of a legal petition" because the sheriff had confiscated the petition as the prosecution's evidence exhibit No. 1, it was never delivered to the League of Women Voters for inclusion in their proposed initiative, and never submitted to the Secretary of State.
The Spokesman-Review praised the decision, saying "Hugo N. Frye may be a fictitious character. But in this case he symbolizes a spirit of individual freedom and independence that must always remain alive in a free America".
Insanity trial
In May 1958, Patric's unconventional lifestyle and controversial newsletter attracted official attention. Pursuant to a complaint signed by Snohomish Police Chief Clarence Boyd charging Patric with mental incompetence, John Patric waived his right to counsel during a Snohomish County Superior Court hearing, and "launched into a tirade against the county". Judge Ed Nollmeyer signed an order requiring 60 days of observation at the hospital, which led to more than four months in Northern State Hospital in Sedro Wooley, Washington and the Snohomish County jail. He eventually won his release in a subsequent hearing, while "acting as his own attorney, Patric based his defense on the contention that he had always been a screwball", wrote Jack O'Donnell of The Herald. The insanity trial is covered in great detail in produced by his local Everett Public Library.Political candidacies
Owing to populist reforms advocated by the Washington State Grange movement and other allies, the unusual blanket primary system in use by Washington State in 1936–2003 enabled qualified candidates to list their party of preference without approval of the political parties themselves. Making use of this unique feature of the Washington election system for partisan offices, John "Hugo N. Frye" Patric ran five times as a Republican, and eight times as a Democrat for statewide political office, as well as numerous other local offices in Snohomish County. Patric was known to make a point of paying his candidacy filing fee entirely with loose change, and to happily supply unwary journalists who fail to check their facts with an untruthful list of his qualifications for public office such as being an "FBI Special Agent", "Mayor", "acting treasurer", "deputy sheriff", "school board member", and being "married with three children". Talking to newsmen in 1960, he explained his reasons for running for office thus "Nobody has a right to criticize public officials as bitterly and cynically as I criticize them if he is not willing to file for public office." In the same interview, he distributed a written sheet of paper that was stamped at the top, "Patric for governor, temporary headquarters, Snohomish county jail, Everett, WA".Patric ran in the following elections:
| Date | Contest | Type | Party | Result | Percentage of vote |
| September 13, 1960 | WA Governor | Blanket primary | Democratic | Lost | 4.10% |
| September 18, 1962 | WA US Senate | Blanket primary | Democratic | Lost | 3.65% |
| September 15, 1964 | WA Governor | Blanket primary | Democratic | Lost | 1.18% |
| September 20, 1966 | WA US House | Blanket primary | Democratic | Lost | 4.76% |
| September 17, 1968 | WA Governor | Blanket primary | Republican | Lost | 0.76% |
| September 15, 1970 | WA US Senate | Blanket primary | Democratic | Lost | 1.07% |
| September 19, 1972 | WA Governor | Blanket primary | Republican | Lost | 0.37% |
| September 17, 1974 | WA US Senate | Blanket primary | Democratic | Lost | 4.87% |
| September 21, 1976 | WA Governor | Blanket primary | Republican | Lost | 0.19% |
| September 19, 1978 | WA US House | Blanket primary | Republican | Lost | 0.81% |
| September 16, 1980 | WA US Senate | Blanket primary | Democratic | Lost | 1.07% |
| September 14, 1982 | WA US Senate | Blanket primary | Democratic | Lost | 0.79% |
| November 10, 1983 | WA US Senate | Blanket primary | Republican | Lost | 0.03% |
Final years
From an interview with Northwest historian and Everett Public Library librarian David Dilgard on April 2, 2015:John Patric died on August 31, 1985 at the age of 83 in Everett, WA.
Selected works
Plays- A play produced by The Carolina Playmakers.
- A compilation of hoaxes and humor columns from The Daily Texan
- * Reissued as:
- * Reissued as:
- The Daily Texan, The University of Texas at Austin student newspaper.
- The Blunderbuss, "a devilish rebel newspaper of ten pages", self-published by John Patric while attending The University of Texas at Austin.
- The Snohomish Free Press, later renamed The Saturday Evening Free Press, was a weekly newsletter edited, printed, and circulated by Patric.