William T. Stead: English Editor and Author of "If Christ Came to Chicago."

New York Times (April 16, 1912)

William T. Stead is the editor of the English Review of Reviews. He is known as an advocate of international peace and an investigator of psychical phenomena. He was born in Embleton, England, July 5, 1849. His father was the Rev. W. Stead, a Congregational Minister. He was educated in Silcoats School, Wakefield, and upon leaving that Institution at the age of 14 was made an apprentice in a merchant's office.

He entered journalism and at 22 years of age was editor of The Northern Echo, published at Darlington, later becoming an assistant editor of The Pall Mail Gazette in 1880. Three years later he became editor of that publication, and in 1885 was imprisoned for three months for a political article entitled the "Maiden Tribute." He founded The Review of Reviews in 1890 and The American Review of Reviews a year later.

Following these publications, he entered journalism In Australia with a publication known as The Australasian Review of Reviews. After a visit to the Czar in 1898 he began preaching the propaganda of universal peace, founding and editing a weekly called War Against War. He attended the Hague Conferene and later strongly opposed the Boer War with a philippic entitled "Shall I Slay my Brother Boer?" During the South African conflict he published weekly organ of the "Stop-the-War Committee," which was widely read throughout England and was entitled “War Against War in South Africa."

In 1900 he proposed the formation of the International Union to combat militarism and to secure the adoption of the recommendations of the Hague Conference. He wrote many works and made many visits to this country. One of his most remarkable articles, which created a furor in the United States, was entitled “If Christ Came to Chicago," published in 1893.