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Ghent (WILLIAM JAMES American writer)

WILLIAM JAMES, American writer and economist, born in Frankfort, Ind., in 1866. He was educated in the public schools and for a time worked as a compositor and proofreader in various cities. He became a regular contributor to magazines and in Fabian." He was one of the founders of the Social Reform Club of New York, 1897-1899 was editor of the "American and was secretary of the Rand School of Social Science from 1906 to 1909. From the latter year to 1911 he was president of this school. He was National executive committeeman of the American Alliance for Labor and Democracy for 1917. He wrote "Our Benevolent Feudalism" (1902); "Mass and Class" (1904); and "Socialism and Success" (1910).

GHERARDESCA (gā-rär-des'kä), a family of Tuscan origin which plays an important part in the history of the Italian republics of the Middle Ages. Historically the most prominent member of the family is Ugolino, whose death, and that of his two sons and grandsons, by starvation in the "Tower of Hunger," is described in one of the celebrated passages of Dante's "Divine Comedy."

Ugolino had made himself master of Pisa, and had behaved in the most cruel and arbitrary manner for four years, when, in 1288, he was overthrown by a conspiracy.