Days From Seventy Five To Ninety

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Days from Seventy- Five to Ninety

Also by Edward R. Hewitt

THOSE WERE THE DAYS

Days from
Seventy-Five to Ninety

by
EDWARD R. HEWITT

DUELL, SLOAN AND PEARCE
New York

COPYRIGHT 1957 BY EDWARD R, HEWITT

All rights reserved. No part of this book in excess of
five hundred words may be reproduced in any form
without the permission in writing from the publishers.

Library of Congress Catalog Card No, 57-5878

JRIHTED IN TIE UNITED STATIC OF AMKKICA
VAN RBK8 PUK88 * NEW YORK

DEDICATION

To my beloved wife, Mary Ashley Hewitt, with
whom I lived in perfect happiness for over fifty-three
years without a quarrel or any cross words ever pass-
Ing between us. She was truly the most wonderful
of women.

Preface

EVER SINCE THE PUBLICATION IN 1943 OF MY BOOK Those Were
the Days, I have received many requests to write a continua-
tion of my life story, so I am attempting it, although life after
seventy-five does not have the same types of interests and
experiences as those related in the earlier book.

Yet it has interesting episodes and tells of a life in old age
which can be both interesting and rewarding. The knowledge
gained after a long life can, I hope, be of use to many people
who fear old age as a time of frustration, illness, unhappiness,
and boredom. None of these has been my lot, and if Mrs. Hewitt
were only still with me, I would be as happy as ever. These
results are due partly to my good fortune, but I feel that what
I have done with my life has had a great deal to do with my
present state of mind and healthy body.

I want to tell this story so that others may take advantage
of my experiences so far as they can, and direct their own
lives into more pleasant channels than might otherwise be the
case. If I can succeed in doing this, the writing of the book
will have been well worth while. My chief desire during my
later years has been to do something for others rather than for
myself. Fortunately I now have sufficient income, even after
paying taxes, for all my needs, so I am free to do things which
I feel are worth while.

The greatest satisfaction in life is to feel that it has not been

vii

Preface

wasted and that one has returned a measure of good for what
one has received from the world. Each of us must decide
what he is fitted and able to do, and then one should do it
with a will. This is my basic philosophy of life and I intend
to carry it out to the end.

Contents

Preface, vii.

PART I

My Family and How I Live at Present, 3 .... New House
Built, 8. ... Burst Appendix, 14. ... My Diary, 15. ... Maga-
zines and Books, 17, ... A Dream in November 1948, 21 .... A
Most Distinguished Friend, 22. ... Grandpa's Decisions, 26.

PART II

Increasing the Feeding Value of Hay, 31 .... Garden, 38, ...
Trout Raising, 40 .... Japanese Saki Deer, 42 .... Salmon Fish-
ing in Ireland, 43 .... Spain, 46 .... Carpentry, Machine Work,
and Laboratory, 53. ... Distilled Liquors, 58. ... Book Mend,
60. ... Materials for Artistic Work, 62.

PART III

Good Health in Life and Old Age, 67 Paget's Disease,

75 .... Overweight, 76. . . . Alcohol, 78. . , . Smoking, 80. . . ,
Coffee, 8 1 . . . . Lecithin, 83 .... Sex Hormones, 86. ... Diet,
88 Commandments for Health, 93.

PART IV

The Modern Economic Revolution, 99 My Philosophy of

Life, 1 17 .... The Future, 127.

Parti

My Family and How I Live at Present

MRS. HEWITT AND I HAD FOUR CHILDREN. MY DAUGHTER LUCY
died of aplastic anaemia, for which there is no known cure.
She left two boys and one girl The girl married and has one
girl and one boy. One of the boys married and has a son and
a daughter. My daughter Candace has two sons, both of whom
have two girls. My son Ashley had two girls and one boy.
None of these grandchildren has yet married. My son Abram
has one married son with a boy and a girl and a married daugh-
ter with one son. His other daughter is still unmarried. Abram
also has three young sons, making five children in all. These
descendants provide much family interest and assurance that
the stock will not soon run out.

During winter I live in my house at 48 Gramercy Park,
New York, which my father gave me in 1900. It was built in
1846 and badly built at that. It is in constant need of repairs,
but it just suits me and I will live here until the end. My daugh-
ter, Mrs. Stevenson, and her husband Gordon live with me in
winter, but in summer I go to my farm in the Catskills and
now live there alone with many visits from my family.

I built this house for Mrs, Hewitt after our old house burned.
I have two sitting rooms and seven bedrooms so that I can
accommodate numbers of the family when they come. They
all like the farm, and I have made arrangements so my son
Abram can keep it going for a recreation place for the whole
family, after I pass away. The younger generation cannot pos-

3

Days from Seventy-Five to Ninety

sibly accumulate enough money to have a country home until
well along in life, and then it is too late for the children to get
anything from it. I feel that if I can provide a summer resort
for them I will be doing one of the best things possible for their
happiness and health. In order to accomplish this I must make
my farm self-supporting as I have not a large enough personal
estate to leave a trust fund for the support of the place. Later
I will tell how I am doing this.

In my old-fashioned twenty-five-foot house in New York,
the basement is used for the kitchen and servants' rooms. The
first floor has butler's pantry, dining room, and a large parlor.
The second floor has two sitting rooms, one for me and one
for my daughter. She and her husband sleep in the extension
over the butler's pantry. The front entry room is a clen and
workshop for my daughter. The third floor has my bedroom
and bath, and the two front rooms arc kept for guests or mem-
bers of the family when they come. The attic floor has three
storerooms and the rest of it is used for my carpenter shop,
machine shop, and laboratory. These arrangements make us
most comfortable,

Every day after lunch I take a nap for an hour. Then I work
in my shop, or write and read, till tcatimc at five o'clock. My
mother always had tea then and I feel that it is necessary,
Friends drop in and the family assembles. It is a delightful
custom. After tea, I generally read, look at the evening paper,
and listen to the radio. I don't care about television and rarely
look at it,

On Tuesdays I go to the Dutch Treat Club for lunch and
on Thursdays to the Anglers Club, as this is my girls' day out.
I often go to the Coffee House Club to lunch Fridays, and
almost always to the Century Club for lunch Saturdays* This

4

My Family and Ho<w I Live at Present

brings me in contact with enough people every week so I will
not get stale. I gave up my position as consulting engineer for
the Mack Truck Company in 1954, after forty-two years.
Younger men now do this better than I can.

My twenty-seven-hundred-acre place in the Catskills is
mostly woodland but I have several hundred acres which can
be put in hay. I have built a small chemical laboratory there
where I can make soil analyses and do general chemistry as
necessary. This keeps me busy all summer, with plenty to do.

During my two girls' two-week summer vacation, Mrs.
Stevenson generally drives me on a trip to visit friends or
places I want to go to. I move to the farm about the tenth of
May each year and, since I vote there, stay until the day after
election. All this provides me with an active and interesting
life. I can do as much as I feel I am able to do without getting
too tired. In old age, one must live within one's physical capac-
ity and not overdo as when younger. This was hard for me to
learn at first, but I am now used to it. Our hearts have only so
much work in them, and it is unwise to use them up too soon.

One of the most important things in life, in order to have a
pleasant old age, is to provide oneself with a number of inter-
ests or hobbies that can be carried on after business or pro-
fessional activities cease. Most people don't think of this during
their active years, and when retirement comes they are left
with nothing to do. One hobby is not enough to have as it may
be one which cannot be carried on in old age. A number of
interests is advisable to insure having at least one left. I have
always had many, but I am now able to do only a few of them.

I was very fond of upland bird shooting, but I can no
longer do this as the walking is too strenuous. I have fished
all my life, and still can for trout and salmon, but I can no

5

Days from Seventy -Five to Ninety

longer wade in swift rough water and therefore do not enjoy
it as much as I once did.

Musical instruments and playing them provided another of
my favorite activities, but I can no longer keep this up since
I injured my hands. I have to confine myself to things I can
do with my hands as they are. I can still do carpentry, machine
work, and chemical work in my laboratory as well as ever. 1
can also bind and repair books by my own process, which
I will describe later. These things, together with writing books
and papers, keep me busy.

I would like to tell about my two servant girls, in whom
I am so fortunate. They arc sisters and Mrs. Hewitt engaged
them thirty years ago, Now they are part of the family; they
know all our friends and just how we like to live. They devote
themselves to us. Betty is the best cook 1 have ever known;
they train them well in Scotland. Mary looks after the house
beautifully, but she is a demon cleaner. Few people are so
lucky these days to have such wonderful servants who will
stay with them for a lifetime. I have of course made provision
for them after I pass on. They more than deserve it.

Friends I meet at my clubs often remark on the wide range
of knowledge and interest I seem to have on all kinds of sub-
jects. One day, a while ago, 1 made a list of things I had
studied carefully and found they covered a wide range of
activities. While I no doubt would have been a much greater
success if I had devoted myself to one line of work, I feel now
that this great variety of interests which I have had in the
past, and the studies connected with them, his given me a
much wider view of the world than is common. I do not regret
not having made a great success of anything. I notice that those
who are very successful do not have the varied interest in the

6

My Family and How I Live at Present

activities of life that I have. After all, success is not a god to
be worshiped. It is far better for ourselves, and for our friends
and families, to make a life as interesting as possible. Our
economy is progressing faster than we can assimilate its results,
and it is not important to make it go any faster. I do not regret
not having accomplished more than I have.

As a matter of interest I will note some of the things I have
studied intensively in the past:

The manufacture of glue and gelatin.

The manufacture of iron in blast furnaces and the mining
of ore.

The principles of aerodynamics and aeroplanes.

The gas engine and automobile design. From this work
came the Mack Truck Company.

Mechanical engineering, which finally admitted me to pro-
fessional practice.

Chemistry, for fifteen years.

Farming and agriculture, with the running of two different
farms.

Fishing and practice of same for trout and salmon, with the
running of a hatchery and writing a number of fishing books.

Music in theory and also old instruments and collecting and
repairing them.

Invention of a new method of binding and repairing books.

Distilled liquors and development of a process for making
good distilled liquors rapidly.

Photography, beginning in Germany with a complete labo-
ratory course, even including making of plates.

Petroleum oil cracking.

Human nutrition.

Days from Seventy -Five to Ninety

Fly tying and the development of new patterns of flies.
New designs of fishing reels.
Making furniture.

Making motion-picture cameras and motion pictures.
Piston rings for gas engines.
The manufacture of radiators for automobiles.
Development of an improved method of growing hay high
in protein.

This makes quite a list of studies. In every case I always
secured all the books relative to the subject I could find. It
is no wonder that I now have quite a fund of information
stored up.

New House Built

IN 1940 MRS, HEWITT BECAME AN INCURABLE INVALID AND
I had to devote myself to looking after her. Our house in the
Gitskills burned in August, 1940, and the shock of this made
Mrs. Hewitt much worse. I felt that it would be good for her
if I rebuilt the house much as she had known it, so I began at
once making drawings and plaits. I had no architect, but did
all the work myself. All the timber was cut on the place and
I made use of the timbers of an old barn to great advantage.
Hemlock is very porous wood which dries out rapidly, and I
knew that it could be used freshly cut without danger of
rotting. My house construction was not orthodox as I wanted
to save lumber as much as possible, so I suspended the upper
floor from the roof rafters, using them in a truss. The room
partitions made the truss connections. In this way I used only
six-inch beams in place of ten- or twelve-inch beams which

8

New House Built

I would have had to use for a seventeen-foot span. Carried in
this way, the upper floor proved very firm and perfectly
satisfactory. The outside of the house and roof was made of
asbestos shingles to avoid repairs, painting, and fire danger. All
the outside trim was stained with linseed oil and turpentine,
half and half, with color added. This was done to avoid re-
painting every few years. Stained wood will last outdoors
indefinitely and there is no outside paint which will last more
than a few years.

The house was planned with two sitting rooms, with the
hall and stairs between, so when the children come they can
make all the noise they like in one sitting room and we can be
tpiet in the other. This is a great improvement over most
houses. The dining room, butler's pantry, and kitchen are in
a wing so we will not hear the servants. There are three bed-
rooms downstairs and four upstairsplenty of room for visi-
tors. All the doors on the ground floor are five-feet wide with
sliding doors hung from above. This way two people could
walk through, helping Mrs. Hewitt. Her wheel chair could go
anywhere for there are no door sills. All the trim and flooring
of the lower story is of wild cherry, cut from our land. The
walls are plywood so that I never have any papering or re-
decoration to do. There are five bathrooms, and every room
has a wash basin.

Since we cannot have an oil furnace, because we have to
make our own electricity, I took the insides out of a hot-air
furnace and replaced them with a bottled-gas burner, regu-
lated with a thermostat. The hot water, kitchen stove, icebox,
and my laboratory are all on the same bottled gas and it costs
me only a little over fifty dollars a month for this wonderful
service. This is surprisingly cheap.

9

Days from Seventy-Five to Ninety

When finished, the house cost exactly sixteen thousand dol-
lars to build and furnish, including what furniture I had to
buy. It could not be duplicated now for fifty thousand dollars.
I began work on the house, with fifteen carpenters, October
twelfth and had it enclosed with windows and roof on No-
vember twelfth. We closed down then because the men could
not get In on account of snow. We finished the inside trim
and floors in the spring and moved in, in May. There have
been no repairs on this house in sixteen years except for some
windows blown in by a hurricane. For an amateur architect
I did a good job, and it is the pleasantest house 1 have ever
lived in.

There is a spring which furnishes water, ten feet higher
than the peak of the roof, and it has never given less than ten
gallons of water a minute in the worst dry weather.

Mrs. Hewitt's bedroom looked out through u big window
onto her flower garden so she could sec her flowers from her
bed. I arranged a sprinkler system covering the whole garden
with sprinklers spaced ten feet apart. All played at once and
cooled the air remarkably when it was hot and Mrs. Hewitt
was sitting under her apple tree. Of course I had a big ten-
thousand-gallon cement tank to accumulate the water for this.

Mrs. Hewitt's illness finally became so severe that it required
two nurses to get her up at night This became a serious matter
in house arrangements and expenses, I made up my mind that
one nurse could do the work if she had the right apparatus,
I made a turntable to stand by the bed, which had two hand
rails for Mrs, Hewitt to steady herself with when she stood on
it. The nurse could then swing the table around 180 degrees
and Mrs. Hewitt could sit on a toilet chair which I made of
very heavy construction so there would be no danger of its

10

New House Built

moving on the floor. The nurse could easily swing her back
and get her to bed. This worked perfectly for over four years.
This device ought to be available for other sick people. I have
offered it for use to others.

Mrs. Hewitt's death in November, 1945, was the most won-
derful I have ever heard of. She suffered no pain whatever.
She had been up and was sitting on the side of her bed, when
she said to the nurse, "Mr. Hewitt says that when swans are
going to die, they fly high in the air and sing a song. I am
going to sing one now." She began "Onward Christian Sol-
diers" and then fell back unconscious. She never regained
consciousness again during the week before she died. Some
small artery must have burst in the brain just as she felt her
end coming. It was, of course, a dreadful shock to me, but
a most merciful dispensation for both of us.

la these days when there so many divorces and broken
homes it may be well to tell of one marriage which was per-
fect. We lived together for over fifty-three years and there
never was a cross word or any quarrel between us in all that
time. Of course we disagreed at times, but I soon found that
she was always right. I would have done far better with my
life if I had followed her advice more closely. She was far
wiser than I If there can be a mating of souls in marriage, it
did take place in our case. She was the most wonderful person
I have ever known in her kindness, generosity, unselfishness,
and complete understanding of others. She had a sincere desire
to see others live their own lives in their own way. Although
she almost always knew what was best to be done, she never
forced her ideas on anybody. This is a most rare quality, and
to that I attribute much of our great happiness. In all the years
we spent together, I never knew her to ask for anything for

Days from Seventy-Five to Ninety

herself. She was always looking out for others. Whenever I
became more prosperous, I set aside any money I could spare
In a joy account in her name, separate from any house or
personal accounts. She was to spend this in any way she chose,
with no accounting to anyone. At times this account was quite
large and at other times, when I had no money, small. I never
knew or asked what she did with it, although she sometimes
told me. After she died I received a letter from an old friend
of hers, who had married in Scotland, saying that Mrs, Hewitt
had helped put her three children through school and college.
They were now all well settled in life. One boy was a man-
ager for VIckers Sons and Maxim. Another was running a hig
iron furnace, and the girl was head nurse in a hospital She
wrote that her husband had sold some coal lands he had in-
herited and wanted to repay what Mrs. Hewitt had spent for
the children. He was placing a fund of fifty-five hundred dol-
lars in Barclays Bank to my account. Of course, this money
was again used for others. Many of her other gifts turned out
equally well. 1 believe that if more men would give their
wives greater freedom of action, their marriages might be more
successful

My life became so closely bound up with hers that even now
when some lady expects me to kiss her at meeting or when
saying good-by; a feeling of shock comes over me as if I
were doing something wrong to Mrs, Hewitt Of course no
one could suspect such a feeling after ten years, but it is still
there.

For her funeral I found two beautiful alabaster urns in one
of which her ashes were placed* They were copies of old
Roman urns and most suitable for her classic spirit. One urn
was cracked and this is the one in which my ashes will rest,

12

New House Built

My eldest son, Ashley, is a mechanical engineer. He was for
some years with the Mack Company and subsequently went
to California and has been doing engineering and inventing
there. He is just getting on the market a butane-gas carburetor
which seems to be an excellent job, and which I hope will
be financially successful.

My younger son, Abram, went through Oxford with honors
and became a lawyer. He has been in government service, first
in the electrical farm service and subsequently in the Intelli-
gence Department, where he did good work. He now resides
in New York and works with banks and trust companies in
establishing and financing new industries.

The grandchildren are just coming to the time when they
are in the beginnings of their professional careers. Peter Cooper
Stevenson is a chemist and physicist for the Atomic Energy
Commission at their plant in Livermore, California.

Abram's son, Edward R. Hewitt II, has just been made
head of the oil exploration expedition sent to Yemen by the
Empire Trust Company. He has made an excellent record as
an oil geologist.

Abram's daughter, Camilla, won a scholarship at Oxford in
competition with twenty-five hundred others, and is now
there for three or four years 7 study. She seems to do well in
everything she undertakes.

Another grandson, Hewitt Pantaleoni, is now completing
his work at Harvard for his Ph.D. in music. He intends to
conduct choruses and orchestras, for which he has a special
talent.

The others are not yet far enough along in their work to
know what they will do, or how well they will do it. So far
as I can see, they all have ability and a willingness to work

Days from Seventy-Five to Ninety

and produce, and are fine upstanding, moral people. That Is
the best we can expect. I look forward to a good life for all
of them.

Burst Appendix

ONE AFTERNOON, AS WE WERE HAVING TEA UNDER THE APPLE

tree by the garden, I felt a sudden chill come over me. I rose
and went Into the house, saying nothing to Mrs. Hewitt as
I did not want to alarm her. I lay down on the lounge and
called the medical student who was looking after the children
that summer. I told him to get out my microscope and make
a blood count. Doing this, he found the white blood cells were
17,000 Instead of the normal count of about 5,000. I knew at
once that I had a severe infection. I felt a pain just then, over
the appendix, and knew I had appendicitis.

My daughter, Mrs* Stevenson, was sent for, and in the mean-
time I called up Dr. Donald Guthric, whom I knew well, at
the Packard Hospital in Sayre, Pennsylvania. I told him of the
blood count and pain and that I thought I had appendicitis,
He told me to get to the hospital at once and he would be
ready to operate. Mrs. Stevenson drove me the 120 miles to
Sayrc as rapidly as possible. We reached there before ten
o'clock. During the drive, 1 felt that something had happened
and I was In quite a lot of pain.

Dr. Guthrie was to operate at once. I told him to sew me
up tight with no drains, for I had had them in a former opera-
tion and knew that they take a long time to heal and can be
very troublesome. Dr. Guthric told me they did not do this
with abdominal operations, but he would do it for me if I
insisted and operate again, if necessary* When he got inside,

14

My Diary

he found the appendix burst and the whole intestinal cavity
infected. He used twenty-five grams of sulfanilamide to steri-
lize this and told me that he doubted very much if I would
recover. The elimination of the sulfanilamide was very trouble-
some, but the infection disappeared and I was healed up and
fishing in the Neversink in twelve days. My insistence on no
drains saved me a lot of convalescence.

Here is a case where my scientific training, together with
instant decision, saved my life. I was operated on within five
hours of the chill. Longer delay would certainly have been
fatal.

My Diary

WHEN I WAS TWENTY-FOUR, I BEGAN A PERSONAL DIARY IN
which I recorded my beliefs and feelings at that time in full
for rny own perusal only. This diary covered the period while
I was in Germany and met Mrs. Hewitt and slowly fell in
love with her, my feelings when I returned to America after
leaving her in Europe, and my great burst of emotion when
she came back and I first saw her again, and knew at once that
I would win her, and must do so to fulfill my own life.

I can scarcely believe now that I ever was the person who
wrote this diary. I am surprised that she was willing to take
me as I was then. I have not looked at this diary since I closed
it after my marriage, honeymoon, and the birth of our first
child. It is revelation in the development of a human character
led and helped by a better influence.

Our attachment to each other did not have its origin in
physical attraction. In fact, my diary tells me that I did not
regard her as particularly good-looking. She was tall and had

Days "from Seventy -Five to Ninety

a good carriage, but her chest was not over four-inches thick
from front to back, and she did not have good color or skin.
I once heard one of my sisters say, "How could Teddy ever
fall in love with such a slab-sided girl?" However, her per-
sonality and spirit simply overpowered me and I felt that I
must live with her through life. The day after we became
engaged in New York she told me that she had never looked
in a mirror in her life to see how good-looking she was, as she
did not care. She looked for the first time the day we became
engaged. My family and I proved to be wrong. After our first
child was born she filled out in her chest and acquired a most
perfect figure. Her skin became wonderful and her color fine.
Her whole appearance changed. From the time she was
twenty-eight until her middle forties, she was one of the most
beautiful women I ever saw. Whenever she came into a large
gathering or a ballroom, everyone would turn and ask who
she was. She was always the most distinguished person in the
room.

I remember one little incident which amused both of us.
We had been to a show with friends and stopped at Dcl-
rnonico's for supper. The next day the following advertise-
ment appeared in the New York Herald personal column:
"Will the very beautiful tall brunette who left Delmonico's
about 12:30 last night, wearing an otter cape over a gray
dress, kindly communicate with most ardent admirer?" I an-
swered the advertisement as follows: "Brunette leaving Del-
monico's last evening after 1 2:00 P.M. will meet ardent admirer
in the center of the Brooklyn Bridge at midnight tomorrow."
Since it was zero weather, I thought that might cool him off.

Most fortunately for me the sex urge has never been domi-
nant. I can think of no worse curse than when it is, I speak

16

Magazines and Books

feelingly on this subject because my own brother's life was
wrecked by it. His was one of the most productive and valu-
able lives to save. I do not remember ever having noticed girls
at all until I was about sixteen years old, and then only casu-
ally. I was too busy with my own interests.

Sex is purely an animal instinct. It is all right at the proper
times and places as it is necessary for the reproduction of the
race. But it should never be allowed to become the dominant
passion in life if true happiness is to be achieved. Anything
can be sold by advertising and in our society the constant
worshiping of sex and advertisement of it do unlimited harm,
causing endless unhappiness and broken lives. I was indeed
fortunate to escape its domination.

Magazines and Books

ONE OF MY FRIENDS HAS SUGGESTED THAT IT WOULD BE OF

interest if I were to list the current magazines I read, to show
the range of my interests. It is wonderful that our monthly
technical literature enables one, in a remote farm in the Cats-
kills, to have the panorama of what is going on in the world
pass before him. Such a thing was not possible in past gen-
erations, for there was no such thing as this monthly literature.
Today, no one need be uninformed on any subject if he cares
to follow it from month to month.

Fortunately in my early years, I met and knew both Hein-
rich Schliernann, who excavated Troy, and Sir Austen Henry
Layard, who excavated Nineveh. They told me of their work
and fired my imagination. My interest in archaeology has con-
tinued all my life. I once helped dig up a treasure of British-

Days from Seventy-Five to Ninety

Saxon coins in the Roman Forum, but this was my only active
archaeological experience.

The following list comprises what I look over every month:

The Illustrated London Newsgives world pictures and
news and all new discoveries in archaeology.

The English journal, Nature best summary of all scientific
work in the world. They rarely miss anything.

The Reader's Digest genti^l literary information, current
articles, and amusement.

Scientific American authoritative articles on many scien-
tific subjects.

National Geographic Magazine world information.

Science Digestcovers general scientific news.

Journal of the American Medical Association htest medical
information.

Science News-Letter covers general science news.

Modern Plastics covers this new field.

Soil Science, The Rural New Yorker, The Farm Journal,
Crops and Soils, and The Chemtirgic Digest all keep me
abreast of our agricultural work.

Soils and Fertilizers an English publication which gives
digests of all agricultural papers in all countries the world
over. Nothing is overlooked.

Journal of the Society of Auto Engineers kttps me abreast
of aeroplane and car development.

Journal of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers
covers almost everything mechanical.

Industrial and Engineering Chemistryco'v^s the field of
industrial chemistry.

Science and The Scientific Monthly cover a wide scientific
field.

18

Magazines and Books

Antiquity covers newest in archaeology.

Blackivood's Magazinegood stories every month.

The Townsman gives me the local Catskill news.

While running through all these takes much time, in doing
so I feel that I am still part of the active productive world and
know what is going on in the fields in which I am interested,
No one can keep abreast of all that is taking place, of course.

In the last few years, I have read the Bible from cover to
cover, much of Dickens, Scott, Cooper, Mark Twain, much
of Stevenson, all of Longfellow, Stockton, and John Buchan,
whom I regard the master storyteller. Also I have read many
current books such as The Sea Around Us, Sir Leonard Wool-
ley's book on the excavations at Ur of the Chaldees, Huxley's
book on the Near East, and many historical novels and biog-
raphies. One book I recently read impressed me greatly. It is
entitled The True Believer but has nothing to do with reli-
gion. It treats of believers in causes and contains more real
wisdom than any book I have read.

A book called Topsoil and Civilization gives an excellent
account of the effects of agriculture on history, a subject on
which I had written a monograph which I will never publish
as Topsoil and Civilization covers the ground fairly well

Fairfield Osborn's book, Our Plundered Planet, tells well
what men have done to soils all over the world. The Road to
Survival, by William Vogt, treats the subject even better.

The book, How Strong Is Russia, gives a good factual ac-
count of Russian climate and primary resources and is very
illuminating.

These are only a few of the books I remember. There are
numerous others on all kinds of subjects, excepting detective
stories. There is enough of that stuff on the radio. I do not

19

Days from Seventy-Five to Ninety

waste my time on it. I like good literature by good authors,
spend little time on stories, and rarely read poetry. I have an
extreme dislike for modern poetry, modern art, and modern
music. They seem to me a return to the childhood of the race
and savagery.

I had one delightful experience with modern art and its dev-
otees. Mrs. Hewitt had a very good doctor friend, who was in
charge of the insane on Ward's Island. One day at tea she
asked him if the insane ever did any painting. He replied that
he used painting as one of the gauges indicating the type of
insanity a patient had, and found it very useful. When Mrs.
Hewitt asked him if he had any of these paintings, he said he
had a great number of them which were surprisingly like
modern art. She asked him if he would send a few of these
paintings over to our house, saying we would have a dinner
to see what the advocates of modern art thought of them.

I put sixteen of the paintings around the dining room and
Mrs. Hewitt asked the leading modern art fanciers to dinner.
The paintings were much admired and everyone wanted to
know where Mrs. Hewitt had discovered such talented artists.
At the end of the dinner, Dr. Simon Gregory arose and gave
the background of these paintings, all made by hopelessly in-
sane people. He detailed the type of insanity each different
kind of "modem art" represented. Of course, this created a
storm, but we enjoyed it greatly. I don't think any of these
art patrons ever came to my house again. It was worth it.

20

A Dream in November

A Dream in November 1948

THE FOLLOWING DREAM WAS SO VIVID AND CONTINUED SO LONG

that the song the figure sang was impressed on my memory. I
got up and wrote it down on a pad at once, just as I remem-
bered it. I have not changed the words I found on the pad
in the morning. As I have never written but two short verses
in my life, and rarely read poetry, it seems to me that this
record is of psychological interest.

I saw a figure wading down a beautiful stream overhung
with trees. He was fishing downstream with a wet fly and
singing at the top of his lungs in a beautiful voice. He had no
hat on, and his head was covered with yellow hair hanging
down in curls. I had curls just like them when I was a small
boy and my mother cried when they were cut off. He looked
like me as a young man, but he wore an Elizabethan ruff about
his neck, a jerkin, yellow leather pants, and jack boots. The
air, as I remember it, reminded me of that in Thau which I
once heard played in the moonlight beside a trout stream by
a Rumanian violinist. He sang the song over several times
before he passed me on the bank.

THE ANGLER'S SONG IN MY DREAM

Sing, little rivers, of your birth among the hills

From brooklets, springs, and raindrops making larger rills.

Sing, sparkling brooks and streamlets dancing over stones,
Pools 'with stiller waters holding trout in schools.

21

Days from Seventy-Five to Ninety

Sing, you larger rivers, with greater trout and salmon
Leaping skyward in the sunshine "for no one knows what
gammon.

Sing, my soul, with gladness, that / have known you well.
Life is better living since I have known your spell

A Most Distinguished Friend

WHEN ASKED TO TELL OF DISTINGUISHED PEOPLE I HAVE KNOWN
in the last fifteen years, I can think of only one. In the later
part of life I have not been about as much as formerly. This
one friend was the Right Hon. W. L. Mackenzie King, pre-
mier of Canada. Mrs. Hewitt met him many years ago at a
peace conference at Lake Mohunk where they both became
bored with the proceedings and spent their time wandering
about the grounds. This casual acquaintance developed into
a friendship which lasted until he died. He never came through
New York at any time that he did not come to see us, even
if he had only a few hours. Mrs. Hewitt was really the decid-
ing factor in his becoming premier. It came about in this way.

There was a serious and violent strike at the Colorado Fuel
and Iron Company properties. Young John Rockefeller de-
cided to go out there and settle it. Mr. King at that time was
his labor adviser. They went out together and King handled
the matter with such consummate skill that, when they re-
turned, Mr. Rockefeller offered him a permanent position as
his adviser, along with a house in New York and an ample
salary.

King came to see Mrs. Hewitt to talk it over before making

22

A Most Distinguished Friend

his decision. He explained that he was under obligation to put
his brother's two boys through college and he had only a
moderate salary at that time. Since he was much pinched for
income, he was very much tempted to accept Mr. Rocke-
feller's offer. But at the same time Sir Wilfrid Laurier, then
premier of Canada, wanted him to be his understudy in po-
litical work. This would ultimately lead to the premiership
when the Liberal party again came into power.

Mrs. Hewitt listened to him fully, and then said, "You know
perfectly well what you are going to do. Politics is in your
blood. Your grandfather engineered the Canadian Rebellion
in 1837 and you have been brought up to follow in his foot-
steps. You will never be happy or contented in a high-salaried
position in commercial work. Go back to Canada and fulfill
the destiny for which you are so well fitted. Don't give Mr.
Rockefeller's offer another thought."

He was persuaded and told Mr. Rockefeller the next day
that he had decided to return to Canada. When he became
prime minister he wrote Mrs. Hewitt his first letter saying,
"But for you I would not now be where I am." He served
longer than any other premier of the British dominions and
conducted Canada through two wars successfully. He left
Canada a great country through his administration.

During his frequent visits to us he told me many things.
Some of them can now be mentioned, for he has passed away,
and the events have gone by. He said that at one of the great
receptions at Buckingham Palace, after the First World War,
he was standing together with General Smuts and De Valera.
Smuts remarked that here were three men, King, whose grand-
father had had a price placed on his head, De Valera, who had
been proscribed in the Irish Revolution, and himself, who

23

Days from Seventy-Five to Ninety

had been condemned after the Boer War. Yet they were all
together at Buckingham Palace, well received. Just then King
George came to them and asked what they were conferring
about. Mackenzie King told him of Smuts's remark, and the
King said, "All my loyal subjects in this Empire are welcome
here, no matter what they have done in the past." This could
not have happened In any other country.

King also told me that he was deeply shocked at the men-
tal state of President Roosevelt when he was conferring
with him at the Quebec meeting during the Second World
War. He said that Roosevelt was in no condition to compre-
hend or consider sensibly any question that came up, and he
was very worried that the destinies of a great nation should
be in such hands at that critical time. He felt that any kind of
serious mistaken decision could be taken and confided to me
that he felt that Roosevelt was really quite insanely incom-
petent. I was not at all surprised at what happened at the end
of the war. It was this mental derangement which got us into
troubles that still plague us today. This was the opinion of
one of the sanest political minds of our times.

King also told me that when Gouzenko gave the informa-
tion about the Russian spy ring in Canada, his agents managed
to get into the Russian embassy and examine the premises. He
did not say how this was done. They found two rooms with
iron doors arranged as prisons, with heavy iron gratings over
the windows on the inside where they could not be seen from
outside. They also found a furnace in the cellar with an in-
cinerating device large enough to take in a human body, con-
sume it, and leave no trace. He advised our people that the
embassy in Washington was also so equipped. This may ac-

24

A Most Distinguished Friend

count for some disappearances which have occurred in recent
years.

It is a wonderful thing to have watched the career of such
a man, to have followed him intimately through all his troubles
and successes. I never had a better friend or one to whom I
was more attached. Mr. Mackenzie King was the most dis-
tinguished of my friends in my later years, but I have known
many other men of great ability and at the head of their pro-
fessions.

Dr. Peyton Rous, of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical
Research, has been one of my best fishing friends for many
years and I look forward to his visit every year. He keeps me
informed of the world progress in cancer research, which is
of great interest.

Dr. William Williams, who is now head of the Research
Foundation and who first isolated and synthesized Bi vitamins,
is one of my good friends.

Dr. Leo Beakeland, who invented velox paper and later
Bakelite, was an intimate friend of mine until he died. Our
acquaintance began when I first returned from Germany in
1892.

Gano Dunn, who was head of J. G. White and Company
and president of Cooper Union and one of our foremost engi-
neers, was always a good friend of mine.

Frank Bacon, head of Ford, Bacon and Davis, the great
engineering firm, was also a good friend of mine.

I knew Mr. J. P. Morgan well, for he was a trustee of
Cooper Union until his death.

Dr. Clyde Snook, chief physicist for the Bell Telephone
Laboratories, kept me abreast of the newest scientific develop-

25

Days from Seventy-Five to Ninety

ments. We often worked on schemes together. His early death
was a great shock to me.

Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, president of Columbia, was
one of my very best friends. I made two long trips with him,
one to California and another to Oxford to see him get his
Oxford degree. He told Mrs. Hewitt he intended to make
me a professor at Columbia. She asked him in what line, and he
replied, "In the new line, Professor of Mental Stimulation. We
need it." It never came off.

An amusing incident occurred during our Oxford visit. I
sat next to Dr. Butler during the proceedings when he was
to receive his doctor's degree. The chancellor of the university
arose and made his presentation speech, beginning in Latin,
"Vir ornatissimus" Butler turned to me, his face pale, and
said under his breath, "Do you suppose I am expected to reply
in Latin?" I told him of course he must. He then said, "I only
hope he makes a long speech so that I can get a vocabulary.
I have not thought of Latin for years." When he did receive
his degree, his speech was very short and his Latin was not
bad. He was scared to death.

Grandpa's Decisions

GRANDPAS SOMETIMES HAVE TO MAKE SERIOUS DECISIONS FOR
their descendants. One of my grandchildren came to me one
day, much disturbed, and said, "Grandpa, I want you to make
a decision for me at once, and you are the only one who can
do it. Mother told me to go and have the nurse wash my face,
That was all right because it was dirty, but the nurse wanted
to wash my ears, too. I told her my ears were part of my

26

Grandpa's Decisions

neck and there were no orders to wash them. Now I want you
to decide, once and for all. Do the ears belong to the neck or
the face?"

Solomon would have to decide that one.

I was telling one of my grandchildren tales about the former
generations of the family and what they had done and how
they had lived. After listening a long time, my grandchild
said, "Grandpa, I have often heard you tell about the former
generations of the family, but what I want to know is whether
you have stopped generating."

2 7

Part II

Increasing the Feeding Value of Hay

JUST AFTER THE FlRST WORLD WAR, WE MOVED FROM MY

farm in New Jersey to my place in the Catskills because the
cities of Newark and Paterson took my New Jersey farm for
a reservoir. The Catskill place was largely woods but it had
several old farms on it which were not cultivated. At the time
I did nothing to improve them because I knew well that it
would not be profitable. When the Second World War came,
everyone felt that he should grow as much food as possible
to help out, so I undertook to get something out of these farms.
I was already familiar with soil analysis and so I built a
small laboratory where I could make adequate soil tests to get
my land in good shape. Catskill soils are of a good type. They
usually have ample organic matter in them and can be very
productive when properly fertilized. Naturally I found these
soils exhausted of phosphoric acid and potash after being
farmed for one hundred years with no fertilizers added, There
was no boron in these soils, but the other required trace min-
erals were present in adequate amounts. The soil acidity was
generally about 6.0 to 6.2 pH. In the pH chemical notation
for acidity or alkalinity, pH 7.0 is neutral, and numbers less
than 7.0 indicate acidity and numbers more than 7.0, alkalinity.
If 6.5 is regarded as the desirable point for farm soils, I felt
that mine were not bad and only needed a small amount of
lime to make them right. One day, however, I tested a field
which I had tested the week before and found the pH was 4.5.

3*

Days from Seventy-Five to Ninety

It had been raining hard and the ground was soaked. In a week,
I tested this soil again and found it was again pH 6.2.1 wrote
to New Brunswick and Cornell for information about this
phenomenon, but received no useful explanation. I knew that
soil must not vary in this way to be fertile. If it docs, bene-
ficial soil bacteria will be killed out and little nitrogen will be
set free by them for plant use from the nitrogen locked up in
the soil organic matter, After considerable study, I found
that these acidity changes were due to a type of organic matter
in the soil which sets free acids when very wet, and not when
the soil held an ordinary amount of water. It took ten tons
of limestone to the acre before this field would hold a steady
pH of 6.5 when both wet and dry. It is now one of my best
fields.

After my land was properly fertilized and brought to the
point where I expected it to be fertile, I found that it would
only grow about two tons of hay to the acre at most. This
was too little for profit, I knew, of course, that this yield was
due to too little nitrogen in the land. I added nitrogen fer-
tilizers and did get some fields up to three tons to the acre,
but I did not succeed in getting hay with increased protein
content which I had to have for good cattle feed. It was only
8 per cent to 9 per cent at most in the best hay. I then studied
all the available literature on the subject to find out if there
was any known way to grow really good grass hay.

When 150 pounds of nitrogen per acre arc added in the
spring, the hay crop may be increased as much as a ton per
acre, but the protein is no higher. When 400 pounds of nitro-
gen are used the hay protein is increased, but this much ni-
trogen is far too expensive. It was also known that if nitrogen
is added to hay about half grown, the protein increases rapidly

32

Increasing the Feeding Value of Hay

for about ten days and then decreases fast. I tried this and
found that 9 per cent hay would have 13 per cent protein
in about ten days, but then it dropped so rapidly that it was
often not possible to get it cut before it reached the original
point again. This was not a practical method in itself.

Reading Waksman's Soil Microbiology cleared up what
happened to nitrogen applied to hay in the spring. Soil bacteria
were so stimulated and increased in number so rapidly that
they consumed most of the nitrogen before the hay roots could
get it. The hay only got from 20 per cent to 30 per cent of it.

When 400 pounds were used, the soil bacteria could only
consume as much as they had carbohydrates to balance it, so
this left more for the hay. Thus a means must be found to
outwit the soil bacteria and allow the hay to get more of the
nitrogen applied. As far as I could determine, no one had
studied the protein content of hay roots to see what happened
there. (Hay is different from other farm plants for it has an
extensive root system that remains in the soil from year to
year. Other farm plants must grow their roots each year from
the seed.)

I found that when hay was cut, the roots contained about
3 per cent to 3 % per cent protein in most fields, but they could
hold 9 per cent to 10 per cent. If I could apply some form of
nitrogen to be absorbed rapidly by the hay roots and fully
stock them up, the soil bacteria could no longer get any of
this nitrogen. It would then become available in the spring for
rapid hay growth. Urea gave me the best and most rapidly
absorbed form of nitrogen. When the soil was damp after hay
cutting, I found that the protein in hay roots would increase
as much as 5 per cent in two weeks from the applied urea.
Analyses showed that in this way the soil bacteria got 40 per

33

Days from Seventy-Five to Ninety

cent of the nitrogen, and the hay roots 60 per cent. Here was
the answer to growing high-protein hay economically.

I now use about 36 pounds of nitrogen, in the form of urea,
in early October when the soil is damp, and no nitrogen in
the spring. Hay grows with great rapidity in early spring, and
before the timothy heads come out of the sheath I add 72
more pounds of nitrogen. This raises the hay protein from
about 13 per cent, which It usually contains, to 20 per cent
to 25 per cent. It drops, in my highly fertilized soil, at the
rate of about half of i per cent a day, so I have time to get
the hay cut and dried at a protein content of from 18 per
cent to 20 per cent, or more.

As the proteins in hay and grain feeds are composed of the
same basic building blocks of aniino acids, there is no reason
why hay proteins will not furnish the same food for milk pro-
duction as grain feeds. But the twenty-five pounds of hay a
cow must eat daily must contain enough proteins to do this,
which means about 20 per cent to 25 per cent protein in the
hay. Such hay has never been available for cattle feeding and
this is why agronomists do not believe that hay alone can give
a high milk yield. Personally, I am confident that it will, and
that cattle so fed will have a longer milking life than those
fed hay with supplementary grain feeds.

I was recently informed by my farmer that two of my
neighbors, who bought my hay last summer, fed it during the
winter. When it ran out and they fed their own hay, they
found the milk yield dropped at once and could not be en-
tirely restored by grain feeding. They were very disappointed
to find that 1 had no more hay for sale, These results would
have been even more marked if this hay had contained more
protein. It held only from 13 per cent to 14 per cent

34

Increasing the Feeding Value of Hay

If this works out as well as I expect it will, then a farmer
with twenty head of cattle will end the year with from two
thousand to two thousand five hundred dollars more than he
would have had if he grain-fed his cattle. This is because the
proteins in hay cost less than half as much as those in grain
feeds. If this revolution in dairying takes place, as I expect it
will, the grain growers of the West will lose one of their big
markets. But this cannot be helped. The present method of
feeding cattle for milk is wrong and uneconomical.

I hope to continue this study of high-protein hay with more
analytical work to improve my method. I will have over
250 tons of high-protein hay for sale this season. I will
charge twenty-five dollars per ton for 8 per cent protein hay,
and one dollar a ton for each additional per cent of protein
in the hay. Hay has never been sold on its protein content
before and it will take some time to introduce this new prac-
tice, but it is highly approved of by the United States Depart-
ment of Agriculture. There is no reason why hay should not
be sold on an analyzed protein basis. Law requires it of all
other cattle foods.

Talking about milk production naturally brings up the sub-
ject of cattle breeding for high milk output and the laws which
govern the increase or decrease of special characteristics in
animal breeding. Few people seem to understand the funda-
mental laws of this subject, and I will digress a moment to
make them clear.

Sex-linked characteristics are transmitted through the op-
posite sex. Thus, milk yield, being a female characteristic, is
transmitted through the bull and not the cow. Even rather
low-grade cows can have high milking calves when mated to
a bull transmitting the high milk character. In the same way,

35

Days from Seventy-Five to Ninety

egg laying is transmitted through the cock, and not the hen.
For over fifty years, high-laying hens were selected for breed-
ing and only increased the average egg laying about 5 per cent.
When they bred from cocks which had shown high egg-
laying capacity in their offspring, the average egg laying per
year was increased over 50 per cent in ten years.

When the desired characteristic is not one belonging par-
ticularly to sex, it is transmitted equally through both sexes.
For instance, speed in horses is as useful for survival in both
sexes and is therefore transmitted equally through both the
mare and the stallion. The same is true of the capacity to gain
weight on less food, a marked characteristic in beef cattle. To
get the best breeding results, both male and female must be
well selected. We know, however, that speed for instance may
be the dominant character that an individual animal can trans-
mit. The stud book of race horses has many instances of cer-
tain stallions who transmitted the characteristic of speed better
than other horses who ran equally well. We must not, there-
fore, only select the individual for breeding with the char-
acteristic we want to reproduce; it is also necessary to obtain
an animal in whom this characteristic is dominant in trans-
mission. Here is where the skill in breeding, and the success
in it, lies, and where the time element can be shortened.

In human beings, the inheritance is so mixed at present that
we get reversions to a previous type in unexpected ways-
However, if both the father and the mother come of able
stock for a number of generations, the offspring, on the aver-
age, will be far superior to that of ordinary people, except for
sports as they happen to occur. We can see historically how,
after the fall of the Roman Empire and during the Middle
Ages, small groups of people formed in order to have protec-

Increasing the Feeding Value of Hay

tion to survive. These groups were led by those who had the
greatest physical vigor and ability and these families became
the ruling aristocracy of Europe. They intermarried and con-
tinued to produce superior individuals who were capable of
leading. From this came the respect which most Europeans
still have today for the aristocracy. When these families came
to intermarry more for the acquisition of estates than for
physical vigor and stamina, the aristocracy largely deteriorated
to the common level, or often even below, as was the case
with the Bourbons.

One of the best instances of the inheritance of mental ability
is that of the families of Darwin, Wedgewood, and Galton
which intermarried so frequently, producing, finally, Charles
Darwin. He was one of the world's outstanding intellects,
despite the fact that he was a hypochondriac. Young people
ought to look to the stock they intend to become connected
with, but they rarely do.

My own family came from people of ordinary social status
but they were all, so far as I can find out, of more than average
ability and character on all sides. One of the ancestors must
have had a mathematical bent because this crops out now in
every generation of the family, and has for four generations.
Among my own children and grandchildren there are four of
exceptional mathematical talent. There is also an inventive
strain which comes out frequently in each generation.

Perhaps it is because our people move about so much in this
country and do not breed continuously from settled strains
that we do not produce either literary, scientific, or musical
people of the very first rank. We do breed many of the second
grade and the average ability here is probably as high as any-

37

Days from Seventy -Five to Ninety

where. I have often thought about this phenomenon and the
foregoing is the only explanation I have arrived at.

Garden

WHEN I VISITED Louis BROMFIELD AT MALABAR FARM A FEW
years ago, he showed me his garden and told me that after he
had fertilized it properly with all the trace minerals, as well
as the regular fertilizers and manure, he found that there were
no more insects on the plants, and very few plant diseases;
and that he never had to use any sprays. I asked him just what
he had done as to amounts of the various mineral elements
per acre, and how much organic matter was present and what
its character was. Fie did not know, and never had made any
accurate analyses to find out.

When I returned home I thought I would try this plan out
and see if it worked. Not having any accurate information
from him, I had to figure out the amounts per acre of the
various mineral elements which would produce optimum re-
sults in a garden. To do this I looked up all the information
I could get, and then decided on what I should do and ordered
various things I would need. I first made a most elaborate
analysis of the garden soil as it was, embodying every mineral
I could hear of which was known to be useful to plants. I then
arranged to supply what was needed to bring the soil up to
the required condition. The organic matter in my garden was
already high, being about 9 per cent, and it had enough humus
soluble in 4 per cent ammonia to be fertile. The pH made
was 6.5.

The following spring the garden was planted as usual, and

38

Garden

when the plants were well up I looked for insects and found
just the same number as always. I made up my mind that
Bronifield was just telling me a tale. The following season I
again looked for insects and to my surprise there were almost
none. No cabbage worms, no bean beetles, and no potato bugs,
at least only four on 360 feet of potato rows. The last three
years, now, there have been practically no insects in my garden
at all But does it grow weeds! The only explanation I have
been able to think of for these results is that when conditions
of the soil are just right, enough antibiotics are produced to
come up through the plants and kill or repel insects. I have
no positive proof of this explanation, but the fact that it took
a full year before changes took place would seem to indicate
that time was required for the production of some toxic ma-
terial Anyway, I have no more trouble with insects and that
satisfies me.

For those who might want to experiment along these lines,
I will give the complete analysis of the soil in the garden which
grew plants having no insects.

Soil was a sandy loam containing 5 per cent clay derived
from slate rock containing some sand.

Total organic matter 10.05 P er cent -

Humus soluble in 4 per cent ammonia after treatment with
i per cent hydrochloric acid 2.9 per cent.

Water-holding capacity 59 per cent of the soil weight.

Acidity pH 6.6 determined by boiling 5 grams of soil
with 50 grams water for one hour.

Total combined nitrogen .336 per cent equal to 6,020
pounds per acre.

Potassium 48 1 pounds per acre.

Magnesium 70 pounds per acre.

39

Days from Seventy -Five to Ninety

Manganese 90 pounds per acre soil extracted with normal
ammonium acetate 20 ml. containing .2 grams hydrochinon.

Zinc 66 pounds per acre.

Copper 35 pounds per acre.

Boron 12 pounds per acre equivalent to 136 pounds of
borax.

Molybdenum 1.2 pounds per acre.

Cobalt 2 pounds per acre.

I do not know whether it was the combination of all these
elements which produced the results on the insects, or whether
it may have been some one element which had this effect. The
only way to settle that question would be to make plots, each
one with one of the elements missing, and cultivate them for
two years. This would involve about a dozen plots and I am
not equipped to do this at the present time.

Trout Raising

MY CATSKILL PROPERTY HAD ABOUT FOUR MILES OF THE
Neversink River running through it. This stretch was particu-
larly good for protection because there is no public road in my
valley. The Neversink is one of our very best trout streams
naturally, because of the purity of its water and the fact that
it lies about fourteen hundred feet above sea level, which
insures the water being cool enough for trout all summer in
the hot weather.

I wanted very much to have the best possible trout fishing
for myself and my friends. I was already familiar with trout
hatching and rearing. My brother Cooper and I had done this
as young men at our family place at Ringwood, I found a

40

Trout Raising

spring which gave me only about thirty gallons of water a
minute, but I made this do to supply my hatchery. I dug out
many pools and ponds, covered them with wire netting to
keep out the predatory birds, and was able to raise large num-
bers of fine trout. These were used for stocking the river. I
tried endless experiments in trout stocking so that I felt I knew
more about It than most professionals. I wrote a small book
about my methods. After a few years I did succeed in produc-
ing the finest trout fishing I have ever seen in this country.

At the end of the season, I myself caught out most of the
large fish, from two to five pounds, and placed them in my
rearing pools. I fed them for the purpose of getting eggs for
the hatchery. In the spring I again put them in the river. I
rarely lost more than one or two of these large fish, and gen-
erally got about two hundred each year. Some of these big
fish were marked and we caught them several times each.

I Imported the eggs of the Norwegian Blege, a landlocked
type of small salmon which lives all the year in swift water.
They were successfully grown to about a pound weight. I had
about two thousand ready to put In the river, when my hatch-
ery was robbed at night and all these fish stolen. I did however
put out a few, perhaps fifty, and last year three of these fish
were caught on flies. There is a chance that they may become
established In the Neversink. If so, we will have the only Blege
fishing outside Norway.

In recent years I have brought over from Scotland tea thou-
sand Atlantic Salmon eggs. I had them hatched in the State
hatchery and the parr put in the river. It is my hope that these
salmon will live in the new Neversink Reservoir, which is
thirteen hundred acres and sixty feet deep, and will not go to
sea. The outlet is sixty feet down, near the bottom. If these

41

Days from Seventy -Five to Ninety

fish do well, we might have fishing for small salmon, up to five
pounds, in a few years. I am doing this entirely for others as
my fishing days are about over. Still I want to see good fishing,
if I can make it. I still have almost two miles of river on my
property, above the reservoir, and we have put in several dams
to make better pools. We do have good fishing there now for
the members of the club I organized.

I did all this hatchery and stocking work after I was seventy.

Japanese Said Deer

ABOUT FIVE YEARS AGO I ENCLOSED ABOUT TEN ACRES OF WO00-

land, which had a spring, as a deer park, and got four does
and a buck from the Catsldll Game Farm. These were Japanese
deer, not the American white-tailed deer. These Japanese deer
have a heavier saddle than our American, and the meat is much
more tender. The fawns, when about six months old, have the
finest meat I have ever seen. This deer park was made as an
experiment to see if our wild woodland could be made to yield
anything besides timber. As these Said deer arc not game ani-
mals, they can be killed and sold at any time of the year. The
fawns can also be sold, and will weigh about thirty to fifty
pounds at the first of the year. They can easily be sold for
from $1.00 to $1.50 per pound* If one fawn could be produced
from two acres of woodland each year, this would give a good
yield from the wild land. I find that five deer keep the feed
down too much on ten acres and I have to give them some
hay to keep them fat. I rather think that it will take about
four acres for a fawn each year. Of course any extra bucks are

42

Salmon Fishing in Ireland

also sold, but since they only bring eighty cents a pound, the
main crop is expected to be the fawns.

The only trouble we have had so far is from wildcats which
kill the fawns. We have lost two this way. It is not hard to
trap all the wildcats, but then our fine house cat would also
be a victim, so I have to set the traps far off and don't get all
the wild ones. It looks to me as if wild woodland, properly
fenced and the cats kept out, would yield about ten dollars
an acre per year from the fawns. The Saki deer will browse
just as our deer do, but they will also graze on pasture and eat
hay, as our deer will not do. They could be made into a good
crop on wild land.

Salmon Fishing in Ireland

MY OLD FRIEND MlLES FLYNN AT THE ANGLERS CLUB WAS THE

son of the water keeper at Carysville on the Black Water in
Ireland. He told me in 1948 that this stream was a wonderful
salmon river which had been injured in the past by a killing
weir near the mouth, where they took most of the run of fish.
This weir had now been removed and he felt the river would
be full of salmon. If we could get the Carysville water to fish,
we would have a wonderful time. He could arrange accom-
modations for us in a fine cottage on the river not far from
Carysville, and I decided to go. The two other Anglers Club
members who also agreed to go had to back out, but I got
Mrs. Abbott Ingalls and her daughter to go with me.

We flew over to Shannon Airport. I had never flown the
ocean before, but wanted to because when I was working with
Sir Hiram Maxim on his aeroplane in 1888 and 1889, Lord

43

Days from Seventy-Five to Ninety

Kelvin visited us and spent some time figuring over the aero-
plane data we had secured. He told me he wanted to prophesy
that, since the main problems of flight were now solved, theo-
retically, if I were to live as old as he was then (about seventy-
five) , I would be able to breakfast in New York and dine in
London. This was fifteen years before the Wrights flew. A
friend of mine actually did this that year, but our party only
flew to Shannon; we could easily have gone on to London and
fulfilled his prophecy of sixty years before. I was eighty-two
on this trip.

The Carysville Black Water is very fine salmon water in
every way, but the water itself is dark-colored from the peat
bogs at the head of the river. I never saw as many salmon in
any river in my life. I counted as many as thirty large fish
breaking water at one time, in three pools. Although we did
succeed in getting about a dozen salmon, the fly fishing was
very difficult and the fish would not rise. I would have taken
more perhaps, if I had not given all the good water to Mrs.
Ingalls and her daughter, who at that time were not skilled in
salmon fishing.

I had some good fun with one fish which astonished Flynn,
This fish took the fly at the outflow of a big pool under the
falls and promptly turned and went down out of the pool
through a smaller run about 100 feet long, then over a rapid
to another long pool about 600 feet long, Flynn called to me
to run and get below the fish, but I just stood still and fed him
line. On my salmon reel I have about eight hundred feet of
backing which floats on top of the water. When the fish had
about six hundred feet of line out, I fed him line off the reel
faster than he was going downstream. This made a pull on
the fish downstream, which caused him to turn away from it,

44

Salmon Fishing In Ireland

upstream. He came back slowly while I reeled up the loose
line, keeping slack below him. I could see him come up over
the lower rapids and then over the upper rapid, right back
to the pool where he started. I then called to Flynn to go out
and gaff him, which he did skillfully. This fish weighed about
sixteen pounds. Flynn called out, "It never was done in Ire-
land before. I have seen it done and I can't believe it." This
is an old trick of mine which is fun to carry out. With my
fine backing, I rarely loose a salmon this way.

I was most interested to find out why so many salmon would
not take the fly well, so I tested the acidity of the water with
my meter. I found that the usual acidity of the river was about
pH 7.2, which is just alkaline. When there is rain at the head
waters, the water comes out very acid from the peat bogs at
a pH of 4.5. This is enough to turn the river water acid to
about pH 6.8 and makes the salmon rather sick. They can get
used to this condition in a few days or a week, but then the
peat water stops running and the river changes again. The fish
then have to get used to that condition, so they are continually
disturbed and restless. When there happens to be a long steady
spell of good weather without rain, the salmon will then take
well, and there is wonderful fishing. These conditions could
all be readily changed by adding some limestone to the river
when the peat water runs, but no Irishman will ever do any-
thing like that. The Black Water could be the finest salmon
fishing stream in the world if cared for properly. It carries
many very large fish.

At the Carysville house I saw, in the hall, the head of an
old Irish elk which had been dug out of a neighboring bog.
The horns were nine feet two inches across the head as I

45

Days from Seventy -Five to Ninety

measured them. There could not have been many trees where
this beast lived.

Mrs. Ingalls's father unfortunately died while we were there,
and this broke tip our fishing party. There are plenty of salmon
in Irish waters, but most of these waters suff cr from the peri-
odic acidity from the peat water, so the fishing is very irregular
after the early season. The peat water begins to run usually
in late May or June.

Spain

ONE DAY, IN JANUARY, 1950, I WAS SEATED NEXT TO A Dis-
tinguished foreigner at the Anglers Club table. I soon found
that he was the head of the Tourist Department of Spain and
we fell into conversation about salmon rivers and salmon fish-
ing. When he rose to go he said that he had been much im-
pressed with my knowledge of salmon fishing and that Spain,
in order to attract more tourist travel, was most eager to make
good fishing in the rivers of northern Spain along the Biscay
Coast. He said he would write General Franco and suggest
that he should get me to go to Spain, survey these rivers, and
advise them of what was best to do.

I thought no more of the matter until one day a letter from
General Franco arrived, asking me to come to Spain at his
expense and visit the Spanish rivers, I replied that I was eighty-
five years old and, although perfectly well, did not feel that
I should travel alone in a foreign country. But if fie would
allow my friends, Dr. and Mrs. L. W. Gorham, to travel with
me, I would be glad to come. He replied that he would be
glad to have the Gothams and pay their expenses also, I agreed
to go, of course, and we reached Madrid by plane May fifth.

Spain

I was much impressed by the aeroplane flight. I talked with
the captain and sat beside him in the co-pilot's seat for a time.
Just as we were coming into Lisbon, I asked him how much
fuel he used. He looked at his gauges and said he had used
3,000 gallons for 3,000 miles of flight, with 40,000 load pounds.
This is a most remarkable achievement in efficiency.

Mr. Borrell, the head of the Fish and Game Department of
Spain, met us and said he would accompany us on our trip
north. The next day he told me that General Franco had just
decided to go salmon fishing himself, for ten days, and our
trip would have to be delayed. However, he had arranged an
extended auto trip through the south of Spain for us to occupy
our time. We visited Cordova, Toledo, Seville, and then Gra-
nada, where we were entertained in the Hotel San Francisco.
This had originally been part of the Alhambra, but had been
made over into a most delightful place with modern conven-
iences, yet keeping all the old air. One got a good idea from
it of an ancient palace. The Alhambra has a most wonderful
situation on a side hill overlooking the Granada plain, which
is all irrigated. Its gardens extend up the side hill in three main
terraces and are beautifully kept in the old Moorish style. The
castle itself was never injured by war, as the Moors ran away
after their defeat in battle and did not defend it. It has suffered
only from neglect. Lately it has been extremely well repaired,
and it is now one of the finest sights in Europe. It was full
moon when we were there, and 1 arranged for the guardian
to take us through the place at midnight. It was eerie and
romantic going through the dark passages by lantern light, and
then suddenly coming out into those wonderful courts in full
moonlight. If anyone happens to be in Granada during a full

47

Days -from Seventy-Five to Ninety

moon, I can recommend this visit. It is one of the most worth-
while things I have done in Europe.

Leaving Granada, we went down to the coast at Malaga,
passing through some of the roughest mountain scenery I have
seen. I wondered how the armies of Ferdinand and Isabella,
since they came this way, ever got through these passes. In
Malaga, the Tourist Department has fitted up another old
Moorish castle, on a hill outside the town. It has a wonderful
view of the town and bay, and for the two hours we were at
lunch, we saw no movement in the town or harbor. The siesta
is certainly strictly observed.

From Malaga we went along the coast to Gibraltar. The
road is somewhat similar to the Corniche road along the south-
ern French coast and the Italian coast beyond Monaco. We
could not go to Gibraltar because special passports arc re-
quired and there was not time to get them. The hotel at
Algeciras, opposite Gibraltar, is of the old-fashioned Spanish
type. When I went to my room, I found that there was no
water flowing in the bathroom, I called the manager and he
sent his engineer to fix it. He worked on it a while and then
stood up saying, "The water used to run here." He then dis-
appeared never to return. By pounding the pipes, and working
at it, I finally got some water. It was rusted shut.

At Jerez we had a chance to see a, town fiesta, with girls
riding pillion behind the men something I had never seen
except in pictures. The elegance of the ladies' dresses seemed
to be measured by the number of flounces they had, one above
the other. All wore flowers in their hair. The whole scene was
as gay as possible.

There was one incident at the bullfight which amused me*
A boy of about fifteen jumped over the barrier and seized one

Spain

of the red capes and teased the bull to charge, just as the
matadors do. He did it just as well as the professionals and the
crowd cheered. Since he was stealing the whole show, the
police had to come in and chase him out.

When we got back to Madrid, General Franco had just
returned. This meant we could start out the next day. It is
about a four-hundred-mile auto trip to the north coast, but
we had time to stop at Burgos and see the cathedral. It is a far
better building than the other Spanish cathedrals, because it
was designed by a good German architect. Native Spanish
architecture has little to recommend it.

We went all along the north coast, down to the Portuguese
border, and looked at sixteen salmon rivers. These rise in high
mountains which in most places are from twelve to twenty-
miles back from the coast. In the hills the streams are so rough
they could not be poached. Here a few early-run salmon
always get up where they cannot be caught. The stock is thus
preserved. Between the mountains and the sea, the land Is un-
dulating, and the rivers have wonderful pools for fish. I found
that these Spanish rivers were better salmon rivers naturally
than any in Ireland, Norway, England, or Scotland with which
I was familiar. This is because they do not get below freez-
ing in winter, and the parr have a chance to grow well all the
year. I found that the five-year-old fish, returning from the
sea, were about eighteen pounds, as against fifteen pounds for
those of other countries.

There are no enemies to salmon in Spain no crawfish to eat
the eggs, no predatory birds that I heard of, no seals along
the coast, and netting is no longer permitted. The salmon
therefore have the best possible chance to survive in the four
rivers, which Borrell has policed so well. He has most excellent

49

Days from Seventy -Five to Ninety

records of all the salmon taken in any way. I found that they
get a return from the sea of three adult fish for every spawn-
ing fish, which is as good a result as anywhere. Five years
before, they had had only three hundred fish spawning in the
Deva River; on the fifth year they took one thousand salmon
by fishing. The year I visited Spain there were three thousand
fish spawning, which meant that in the five years that followed
they should have taken nine thousand fish. I have not heard
if that came about, but it should have occurred. They could
easily take forty thousand salmon a year from the four rivers
now protected.

Borrell made one serious mistake when he laid out his plans.
He divided all the fishing into fishing beats, enough for a day's
fishing. He then assigned half the beats to the natives and
reserved half for visiting sportsmen. This worked well the first
years, but then the natives found they could make more money
fishing than they could farming; so they all fished. There have
been as many as sixty fishermen on one pool, using all kinds
of bait and lures. This intense fishing so scared the salmon that
they no longer take a fly in the sportsmen's waters. Therefore,
the sportsman has poor fishing. Borrell has asked General
Franco to stop bait fishing on May first and allow fly fishing
only. I fear that even intense fly fishing will scare the fish and
there will never be good fly fishing again. It may be that they
will preserve other rivers under different regulations, which
would result in good fly fishing. But in the four rivers the
custom has been established and to change the rules would
cause political trouble.

It is doubtful that there will ever be the fine fly fishing there
could be in these rivers as long as the natives fish them so
intensely. Of course, these are their rivers, and they would not

50

Spain

get as much from them from sportsmen as from the natives'
taking more fish. Perhaps the government will set aside one
river solely for sportsmen fly fishing. If they do, they could
have the best salmon river anywhere because the water never
gets warmer than 60 F. and is never too warm for good fly
fishing. They could have a season from April first to Septem-
ber first, all good fishing.

Dr. Gorham and I agreed that Spain is now a wonderfully
well-governed country. Life and property are much safer
there than in the United States. Crimes of violence are almost
unknown, now. Typhoid has been eradicated and one can
drink the water anywhere in Spain. Fine tuberculosis hospitals
have been built in the hills. The roads, which were wrecked
by the civil war, are now in fine condition. We went twenty-
eight hundred miles over them and found only one rough
place. Without any help Franco has brought Spain to a self-
supporting economy, where there is enough food and clothing,
and little beggary. The Spanish people are poor, as they have
always been, but Spain is potentially a rich country when
developed. It has all the minerals iron, coal, lead, zinc, copper,
mercury, and silver. Its lands along the coasts, because they
get ample rain, are fertile, but the central part within the sur-
rounding mountains gets scanty rainfall, like our Nevada. The
land is well mineralized, and if water that now flows into the
sea from the mountains could be brought back to the central
part, it could be irrigated and produce ample crops. Spain then
could be an exporter of foods. At present they do not have
the capital to do this irrigation work, except slowly. In the
central parts, they now grow only a crop of wheat every two
years and they get only about sixteen bushels to the acre. They
could get thirty to forty bushels every year with irrigation.

5*

Days from Seventy-Five to Ninety

Along the northern coast I saw a type of farming I have
not seen so well done anywhere else. They have cattle on all
farms and, to keep off the flies, keep them in darkened cellars
all the time. Fresh grass is brought in for them every day and,
in addition, they put in any organic matter they can find, such
as leaves, ferns, and dead grass. This is all trodden down into
a wonderful compost which is put in the fields three times a
year, as they raise three crops a year. This has been done for
centuries, possibly since Roman times as this method of agri-
culture was known to the Romans. The result is their soils are
so high in organic matter that there is no erosion at all. I saw
land cultivated at an angle of forty-five degrees with no gullies
in it, although it had been raining hard for ten days. Long
years of farming without the addition of any mineral ferti-
lizers has reduced the potassium and phosphoric acid to a point
lower than it should be for good crops, but they still get about
half what could be grown. The man we stayed with told me
that when he could get any fertilizer, his crops increased
greatly. General Franco is now erecting some large fertilizer
plants. This Basque country of Spain has the best climate I
have ever seen anywhere, and if they can get fertilizers, it
will be a very rich agricultural region. The people are wonder-
fully hard workers and only need a fair chance to become
prosperous. They are fine people.

We owe a great debt of gratitude to General Franco. When
the civil war ended, Hitler arranged to meet General Franco
at the Pyrenees. He told Franco he intended to cross Spain,
take Gibraltar and all of North Africa and Egypt, and that he
had six hundred thousand troops he could easily do it with.
General Franco told Hitler that he could probably get to
Gibraltar, but that he could never supply his troops because

Carpentry, Machine Work, and Laboratory

there were seven mountain ranges to cross between the north
and south of Spain, and the Spaniards would cut all his supply
trains to pieces. The first German troops to enter Spain would
start the war. Hitler gave up his plans and invaded North
Africa through Italy. If he had taken Gibraltar and blocked
the Mediterranean, we probably never could have driven him
out of Africa and would have lost the war. As it was, a very
severe campaign was necessary to recover Africa and to pre-
vent his taking Egypt. General Franco really saved the Second
World War for our side by his action in blocking Hitler. We
ought to be grateful to him.

Borrell told me that General Franco told him that a limited
monarchy was the best government for Spain, and that he
intended to place the young Prince Juan on the throne if he
showed good brains and character. He is now being educated
to be king. His father has proved dissipated and impossible.
General Franco says he is very tired and would like to retire
as soon as he can assure a good government for Spain.

This Spanish trip gave me great pleasure. I did not find it too
tiresome at eighty-five and came home in excellent health.

Carpentry, Machine Work, and Laboratory

I HAVE A RATHER COMPLETE WOODWORKING SHOP IN THE ATTIC

of my house in Gramercy Park and have spent much time
making furniture during the last fifteen years. My grandfather,
Peter Cooper, had me trained as a skilled woodworker and
I have never lost the taste for it.

I designed and worked out a new type of tea table, which
I consider an improvement on any I have seen. The bottom

53

Days from Seventy -Five to Ninety

supporting frame is made of wild cherry, from niy farm, which
turns such a nice reddish color. The bottom supporting base
is made heavy, with a good cross piece to act as a footstool.
Everyone puts his feet on such a base so there is no reason
why it should not be a good footstool. I covered the top of
the frame with glued-on felt. The top is fastened onto this
felted frame. The top is a three-piece design with a center
section and two drop wings. When these are raised, the whole
top is rotated 90 degrees on a central shaft. The table frame
then acts as a solid support. The felt covering, which is im-
pregnated with talcum powder, makes it easy to turn the top.
When the top is completely rotated to a stop, the drop leaves
are secured in the top of the table frame by metal pieces which
engage in slots. In this way, the table is made absolutely solid
and secure. No one can hit one of the.supports to let the wings
down and dump all the tea things on the floor, as so often
occurs. I make the tops of the various hardwoods I can get:
black walnut, African white mahogany, maple, curly birch,
Australian lacewood, or Indian rosewood. All my tables are
different. I have made twenty-five of them in the last fifteen
years and have given one to each of my children and married
grandchildren. I also have four in my New York house for our
use, and four in the country. I have made several for intimate
friends, too.

I believe I am about through making tables, but there are
signs of another marriage, so I may have to make more. I
finish the tops with a varnish rubbed down smooth, which is
not affected by water or alcohol. These tables are much ad-
mired and there are many requests for them. I have tried to
get them made commercially so others could have them. So far
no one is willing to make them because they say the cost would

54

Carpentry, Machine Work, and Laboratory

be too much to sell them at any reasonably commercial price.
It takes me seventy hours to make one by hand.

I have also designed and made several wood racks for fire-
wood. I did not know of any which were really satisfactory
into which one could dump a whole armload of heavy wood.
The four uprights are made of wild cherry from my farm,
and the lower part is bolted together with %-inch steel bolts
so that it can never come apart. These racks are very good-
looking and we find them most useful.

I have also made a number of footstools copied from those
once used in England called "gout stools." They were intended
as a rest for gouty feet and are most useful There are various
other pieces of furniture about my two houses which I have
made at different times.

In my machine shop, I have made about twenty fishing
reels of my own design. I could not find any which I felt were
made as well as they should have been, or were really durable
and reliable. These reels have proved most satisfactory in use.
I have made and given them to my friends who prize them
greatly.

I have also made and repaired musical instruments, and have
all the tools necessary for this kind of work. However, since
I injured my hands, I can no longer play stringed instruments,
so I no longer do any of this kind of work. I still have my
collection of musical instruments in my parlor; most of them
I have repaired and many of them I have played.

In my collection is a viola da gamba which has the finest
tone I have ever heard in any stringed instrument, even a
Stradivarius. I got this in an unusual way. My brother and
I were walking in Paris and came to the old fish market down
by the Bastille site. It was here I spotted two instruments hang-

55

Days "from Seventy -Five to Ninety

ing up at the back of a butcher shop. We went in and I asked
if they might be for sale. The man said yes, that he had just
received them from his sister in Avignon and they were to be
sold for her. One was the da gamba made in Mantua in 1720,
and the other, which was played with it, a viola d'amore. I
purchased the two for eight hundred francs, or one hundred
and sixty dollars of our money, at that time. John Friedrich,
the violin repairer who put these in order for me, told me that
they were the best-toned instruments he had ever repaired.
Cassini, the celebrated cellist, used to come to my house often
to play this gamba. He tried to get it from me in every way
he could.

I have half a dozen old lutes, several old guitars, many
cithers, and other stringed instruments. I wanted, at one time,
to have a really good violin to go with our other good instru-
ments. I knew Mr. Colton of Brooklyn had the reputation of
having made the finest violins of our time. In fact, Ole Bull
thought so much of them that he left Colton his fine Guar-
nerius in his will. Mr. Colton agreed to make me a good vio-
lin, but said it would take three years to do it. When this
violin was finished, we had a party of musicians for it. The
Guarnerius and the Colton violin were played, one after the
other, in the dining room, while the music jury sat in the parlor
where they could not see the performer. The verdict was that
the Colton instrument was the better and the more powerful
of the two. I later took both of them to the laboratories of the
New York Telephone Company, where they have a delicate
analyzer that gives all the tones and overtones of sound. The
two were compared, and the Colton was fully as good as the
fine Guarnerius.

It is all nonsense that only old Italian instruments can be of

56

Carpentry, Machine Work, and Laboratory

the first class. George Gemunder made two violins which he
sent to the International Exhibition in Vienna one year. They
were returned to him with a note from the jury saying that he
could not get the prize because he had sent two old Stradi-
varius violins with his own name in them. We can make in-
struments today just as good as those made formerly, but no
one will pay the price which such work entails, or wait years
to have them made. A really fine violin could not be made
today for less than two thousand to three thousand dollars. No
one would pay that for a modern instrument so none are made
at present.

I have one interesting part of an instrument which I found
in a junk shop in Paris. It is the neck of an old arch lute, hand-
somely inlaid in ivory and ebony. The bowl of the instrument
is broken off at the end of the neck. On a piece of the remain-
ing sound board there is stamped in large letters, M.S., the
mark of Matteo Sellas, lute maker to the Doge of Venice when
Columbus discovered America. This lute was smashed during
the Paris Commune. The mate to it is now in the Conservatory
Museum at Paris.

I made a small lute, for my own playing, with a neck the
right length for modern concert pitch. The old instruments
were made for a lower pitch. I made the bowl of alternate
strips of spruce and ivory with the outside nicely grooved, so
that the bowl would not turn against rny body. In order to se-
cure the maximum noise from it, I made the center brace below
the sounding board of a truss construction in place of a single
piece of wood. This very light brace greatly increased the
volume of sound from the instrument. This was the finest small
instrument I have ever heard, and the one with the most power.

57

Days from Seventy-Five to Ninety

I played it for many years, often with orchestra, and it held
its own.

I only wish I could do instrument playing now, but that is
all over for me. I miss it greatly.

Distilled Liquors

I DO NOT REMEMBER WHAT STARTED ME OFF ON THIS LINE OF

investigation but I did make a very extensive study of the
subject. I tried to find some way in which distilled liquors
could be made rapidly, of as good quality as those aged over
long periods. I could see no reason why the chemical changes
brought about by aging could not be made much faster than
they are in a charred barrel. I found out what really takes
place in the aging of liquors and then tried to duplicate these
changes in a shorter time. The process I finally developed used
exactly the same materials as the regular aging, but I found
physical means of accelerating the process. In this way I could
make the best of aged liquors in two to three weeks instead
of five to ten years. The resulting product was exactly the
same in taste, smell, and chemical constitution.

I thought I had made a valuable discovery, and got in touch
with one of the largest distilling companies and told them
what I could do. They asked me to go to their main laboratory
in Ohio and demonstrate this process to their chief chemists.
I did this and they were perfectly satisfied that I had solved
the problem. But then came trouble. When they reported and
discussed this with the executives of the company, they de-
cided that such a process would have little or no value in their
business because the government obliges them to state the age

58

Distilled Liquors

of the liquor on the label. The public is used to regarding
age as a criterion of quality. It would take a long and expensive
campaign of advertising to secure any large sales of a quickly
made liquor, no matter how good it might be. Their present
process is cheap enough, for they can keep liquor In bond
without paying any tax on it until they want to sell it. The
only cost is the interest on the liquor cost itself and on the
storage space. There is no loss of alcohol in storage as it does
not get through wood. However, they did not want competi-
tion to have this process so they made me a proposition. For
a fee of ten thousand dollars, I was to take out no patents and
would not disclose the process to anyone else. I accepted this
arrangement and was well satisfied with my six months 7 lab-
oratory work.

I have never done anything more in this line. The process
is an absolutely perfect one, and cheap to operate. Liquors equal
to the very best old aged ones, including Scotch, can be made
in from two to three weeks. One might say that the process is
now bottled up.

I had made the mistake inventors so often make in not first
determining the value of the invention they propose, should
it be successful And, second, I had not determined whether
there was a ready market for it, without the expenditure of
much time and money to promote it. I have done this often
myself losing sight of the fact that the real value of an inven-
tion lies not in itself but in its sale, especially in the rapidity
with which a sale can be made to bring in some real return.
I have known a number of good inventions that took many
years to become profitable.

After the First World War we had an organization called
"The Inventors Guild." Many of the leading inventors of the

59

Days -from Seventy-Five to Ninety

time belonged, including Edison, Westinghouse, and others.
One night, at a dinner of twenty-seven, the question was raised
as to how long it had been before any of them had received
any real money from any invention. The question went all
around the table, and the earliest date mentioned by anyone
was nine years. To paraphrase Gilbert and Sullivan, "The
inventor's lot is not a happy one."

Book Mend

WE HAVE LARGE NUMBERS OF OLD BOOKS WHICH ARE IN BAD

shape, so my daughter, Mrs. Stevenson, took lessons in book-
binding. She found that the methods taught were so time-
consuming and cumbersome that she would never be able to
bind enough books to make it worth while. I gave this subject
some thought and could see no reason why a better and more
rapid way could not be devised. My idea was to secure a strong
flexible glue which could hold the pages together without the
tedious sewing of the signatures. If that could be done, the
rest would be easy.

I retired to my laboratory and, after reading what I had on
this subject, I went to work. It took me six months before I
had what I wanted. I also found that if we covered the outside
of books with any plastic resin varnish I could find, eventu-
ally it would peel off and injure the binding. This was due to
the fact that all these plastic varnishes are made soft and flex-
ible by a liquid plasticizer. This always has a vapor tension
and slowly evaporates, and also migrates down into the book
surface. I finally found that if I first covered the surfaces with
my glue suitably diluted with water, and let it get thoroughly

60

Book Mend

dry, the plastic resin varnish would remain in perfect condition
indefinitely. It proved to be a simple matter to make up the
cover separately and then glue it to the book after the pages
and back had been put solidly together. In this way, a book
can be completely bound in an hour to an hour and a half of
working time. This binding is superior to the ordinary type
because it is waterproof, grease-proof, and will not mildew
in dampness.

We were pleased with the results on old leather-bound
books, where the leather had become rotten and powdery.
When this old leather is impregnated with my glue, diluted,
and then made stronger with another coat, the leather becomes
strong again, even stronger than it was originally. When the
glue is dry it is coated with the plastic varnish, which I furnish
in either shiny or dull finish. The old books look like new,
and are even stronger. Loose backs can easily be fastened on
and made secure. The repair of old leather books is rapidly
done and the results are most satisfactory.

We felt that this process, which was developed for our own
use, would be very useful to others, so I made up a complete
kit for this work and finally organized a partnership to put
it on the market. I named this Hewitt Products and it operates
from Liberty, New York. We have made quite extensive sales
of these kits and have never had a complaint that they do not
bind and repair books as we state.

My daughter has become deeply interested in promoting
the use of these kits among old and invalid people who can
do this work at their leisure in a small space, even in bed.
Occupational therapy people have become much interested in
this type of work for the incapacitated. It means patients can

61

Days from Seventy -Five to Ninety

earn some income at home, besides having the pleasure of
doing something by themselves of real value.

It has given me much happiness to have developed this new
process which is going to be of such use to so many ill people.
I did all this work at the age of eighty-five and it shows that
we do not have to stop being active and creative.

Materials for Artistic Work

I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN INTERESTED IN PAINTINGS AND WONDERED

why those of the old Flemish school were so much more bril-
liant than many of those painted later. No one seems to have
explained it, so I thought that I would try to find the secret.

The first step was to make linseed oil by the cold extraction
process. I was certain they did not use hot-pressed linseed oil,
for this yellows with age and becomes darker. None of the
former is on sale at present, so far as I could find out, so I
set up in my shop a grinding mill attached to the milling
machine. I ground up flax seed and pressed it out in a screw
press. The yield was small, only about 8 per cent of the weight
of the seed, while pressing hot gave about 15 per cent. This
explained why there was no cold-pressed linseed oil for sale.
The cold-pressed oil was of pale color and did not turn dark
or yellow in light, and it made a nice clear film when painted
on glass. When observed through the microscope, this film has
small porous holes which allow air to pass through. My son-
in-law, Gordon Stevenson, who is one of the best portrait
painters in this country, was delighted with this oil He always
uses it now.

However, I felt that this improvement was not the whole

62

Materials for Artistic Work

story. By accident, I ran across a book written in Cincinnati
by Joseph Michelman. In it he detailed his work in the investi-
gation of the varnish of the old Italian violins, to which he
attributed their fine tone. This of course is sheer nonsense, for
the varnish has little or no effect on the tone of any instrument.
He finally succeeded in getting some scrapings from the var-
nish of a Stradivarius violin which was being repaired. He
submitted them to spectroscopic analysis and found that the
resin used was rosin, the basic gum of which is abietic acid. He
also found considerable amounts of both silica and alumina
which he could not account for in a varnish. Considerable
work revealed that this varnish had been made by using the
lye extract from hardwood ashes treated with lime, which will
dissolve about 2 Y 2 per cent of rosin. This solution was then
precipitated with alum, giving a resin powder, when dry,
which was an aluminum resinate of abietic acid. This was then
dissolved in linseed oil to make the varnish. This production
method accounted for the silica and alumina. He found that
varnish made in this way corresponded exactly with that of
the Stradivarius violin and he felt that he had then solved the
problem. When I read this, I tried making such resinates and
found that I could make an even better product by using
potassium hydroxide and then precipitating with aluminum
sulfate under the proper conditions. This resinate was found
to be soluble in both turpentine and linseed oil. It can be in-
corporated into paint either in the oil or in the turpentine, as
one chooses. Only a small amount is necessary to give the paint
a more brilliant look and make it reflect more light. It also
frees the paint film of those minute pores where air can pene-
trate. It further slows down the drying time of paint so that
the artist can regulate just when he wants his painting dry. It

Days from Seventy-Five to Ninety

also enables him to paint over wet paint the following day
without danger of a dry film on top. Gordon finds this a great
convenience, I feel that his paintings now are far better and
more durable than those he did before using this present
method.

Gordon has not been satisfied with any of the varnishes he
has used for paintings. I worked out an improved varnish for
him which is perfectly colorless and waterproof, and will not
turn yellow with age. It is easily applied and dries in an hour
or so. It can be removed easily with a solvent without injur-
ing the painting, if carefully done. This same type of varnish
is now used at the Metropolitan Museum, but they use a more
rapid-drying solvent than I do. I feel that my varnish is better.

Artists using pastels have complained that the fixatives they
have to preserve their work have not been satisfactory so far.
They change the colors of the pastels slightly, and often make
them run. I studied this subject carefully and found that the
solvents used were much too light and dried far too rapidly.
Using a good resin plastic that is soft and flexible naturally
and does not require any plasticizer, plus a solvent selected
from a vast number tried, I made a fixative which has all the
properties desired and works wonderfully well It does not,
in any way, change pastel colors. The Hewitt Products of
Liberty, New York, now market this fixative. The reports we
have had from artists using it are all enthusiastic, and they say
it is just what they have always wanted.

64

Part III

Good Health In Life and Old Age

MARK TWAIN ONCE REMARKED THAT THE BEST WAY TO A RIPE
healthy old age was "to acquire the habit of longevity in early
youth." This clever wisecrack contains, however, a basic
truth. Our length of life and good health in old age do depend
largely on our inheritance. There always have been, and
always will be, short- and long-lived families. But during the
last two generations, the sciences of medicine, nutrition, and
biochemistry have taught us many things which can prolong
the life of the individual from fifteen to twenty years, pro-
vided, of course, that people use this knowledge.

But here lies the real difficulty. Most people will do what
gives them pleasure at the time, regardless of the future, and
no advice or knowledge seems to have much effect on them
until they suffer bodily illness. Then they want a doctor to
give them a pill or a miracle drug to make them well again,
not realizing that they are sick because they have made them-
selves so. Generally, when their health improves, they go right
on doing what made them sick before. This is particularly true
of people who are overweight. They live for a time on a suit-
able diet and get themselves in good shape; then they stop
the diet, resume their former way of life, and get their weight
back. Few people have character enough to eat only the
amount of food they should to keep their weight where It
should be. Then they wonder why they are not well In their
old age. I have strong sympathy for doctors who are called
upon to care for such people.

Days from Seventy-Five to Ninety

Fortunately for me now, I was never well as a boy or a
young man. I suffered from malaria for many years and never
got rid of it entirely until I lived in Europe, where they don't
have it. At thirty I developed a severe case of Blight's disease
and was told that I had no more than two years to live, that
my case would end fatally. This was a great shock and I re-
solved that I would do everything I could to get well. I did
not want to end life then. I was treated by two of the best
doctors of that time in New York, my own family doctor,
Dr. Walter James, and Dr. Edward Keyes. My mother in-
sisted on calling the latter in as he was reported to be the best
man in this country for this disease. He treated me for a year
with little or no improvement. Then Dr. James told me one
day that they could not cure me, but that he felt that there
was a chance that I might cure myself if I would do as he
directed. He then told me that my case had arisen because I
was one of those people who could not eliminate too much
nitrogenous food through my kidneys. I had always eaten
large amounts of beef, red meat, and eggs. My kidneys had
finally broken down and the cells were allowing the blood
serum to leak through, and I could not make this up fast
enough. He said that the only way this could be helped was
not by any medicines, but by as complete a rest of the kidneys
as possible. He said no doctor could prescribe just what foods
were bad for my particular kidneys, but that if I would make
urine analyses every day in my laboratory and keep a diary
of what, and how much, I ate and drank, and how I lived,
that I would find that some foods made the kidneys worse and
some did not. Whenever I found a food bad for me, I was
to stop eating it; whenever I found one which did less damage,
I was to eat that food. He gave me a list of what he thought

68

Good Health in Life and Old Age

would be good and bad for me, and the amounts I should eat
and drink. I followed this advice most carefully and kept it
up for fifteen years. I soon found that I could eat no beef at
all, and no eggs. Alcohol, coffee, and tea were also bad for
me. I never smoked. I could take milk, fish, poultry, and fresh
vegetables, except peas and beans. After I had worked out a
suitable diet and way of life, I began to get a little better, but
not very much or fast enough. Dr. James then thought that
the rest of the trouble lay in the fermentative products formed
from the food in the intestines, which were poisoning the kid-
neys, since we could detect these in the urine.

He told me that there was an Indian remedy called pod-
ophyllin, derived from the May apple, which has the prop-
erty, when taken in just the right amounts, of increasing the
mucus on the walls of the intestinal tract. This slides the food
through more rapidly, mechanically. He then gave me a bis-
muth meal and X-ray, which had just been discovered, and
found the time was forty-eight hours. I then made up pod-
ophyllin pills in a whole series of strengths, and finally found
just the right amount to take in order to make the food pass
through more rapidly without making the bowels loose. This
took some time, but when I had it done we took more bismuth
rneals and found that the food was passing through in eighteen
hours. We also found the fermentative products shown in the
urine had disappeared, and the kidneys began to recover. I
was out of danger in a year, but it was a number of years
before the kidneys were completely well. I have continued this
practice continually for nearly sixty years. I find that the
amounts of podophyllin have to be varied constantly, depend-
ing on where I am and how I am living. The dosage is quite
different in summer than in winter. This is the trouble in this

Days from Seventy -Five to Ninety

type of treatment for other people, for they don't know how
to regulate the dose and will not do it properly. It might be
done under hospital care, but probably not otherwise. Any-
way, it has effected a complete cure for me and my kidneys
are today in perfectly normal condition. I take no chances and
have them tested twice a year.

This study of my kidneys taught me the lesson that I did
not have a body which could stand abnormal strains, so I must
look after it all my life, as I have done. If I had not had this
shock, I would no doubt have acted as everyone else does and
gone along until I became ill.

From that time to this I have made a study of health and,,
being a chemist, have studied biochemistry to a considerable
extent. I feel now that I know more along these lines than most
doctors, although I have no medical degree. My studies on
health have sound basis in scientific knowledge. I have five
brothers and sisters who all died around seventy years of age,
thus showing that my efforts toward good health have been
successful. At ninety, I have blood pressure of 125 over 80
and there is no sign of any circulatory difficulties anywhere.
The pulse in my ankle is as strong as in the wrist. I hear well
enough, have my hair, and lost my first tooth from natural
causes at eighty-five. I see well enough without glasses for out-
doors but wear them to read. I cannot walk far any more since
I get out of breath, although my heart is still strong and in
perfect shape. I am not quite satisfied that they know the
reason for this yet. I can go up and down stairs readily without
puffing. Altogether I feel that I have done a good job of keep-
ing my body well. I will now tell some of the things I have
done to accomplish this, and what I feel others should do if
they wish for good health in old age.

70

Good Health in Life and Old Age

In 1913 I happened to be in Dr. Casimir Funk's laboratory.
He had just discovered and isolated vitamin A, which was the
first vitamin discovered. He gave me some to take. I believe I
am the first person outside of his laboratory to have taken
vitamins. As the studies of vitamins rapidly developed, I fol-
lowed this work carefully and took them all as soon as they
were available. Dr. Henry C. Sherman of Columbia published
a paper in which he told of experiments he had tried with
animals to which he gave regular diets and diets supplemented
with ample vitamins. He found that the vitamin-fed animals
had a 1 5 per cent longer life. My good friend, Dr. Murray
Butler, gave me an introduction to Dr. Sherman and he told
me of this work. 1 asked him if this would be true of human
beings. He replied he saw no reason why this would not be
so, but it would take forty years to find out. I said I would
be the first person to try this. I have taken all the vitamins
regarded as necessary, as they have been discovered from that
time to this, without missing a day. I feel quite sure that this
has added greatly to my health, but there is no way to prove
this. I have found, however, that when ample vitamins are
taken for more than a year continually, the common cold dis-
appears. We rarely have colds any more in my own family.
I have had three colds in twenty-five years, all from very
severe exposures, and these only lasted for a few days of
sniffles. Many of my friends have had the same thing take
place when they take my multiple vitamins. One business firm
In New York has given them to their thirty-five employees; as
many as six to eight people used to be out at one time during
the winter. When they can make their people take the vita-
mins regularly they have few colds, but it is hard to make them
do it. I believe the multiple vitamins I made up were the first

71

Days from Seventy-Five to Ninety

complete set made, long before the medical profession ap-
proved of multiple vitamins at all. I made up the formula from
the best information I could gather from all sources. I have
not had reason to change the mixture. I have these made up
for my family and friends, and have not tried to make a busi-
ness of this. There are, at present, several formulas on the
market which are excellent, so there is no reason for me to get
into this business.

I have found out one or two other things about vitamins. I
read of some experiments in which rats that were deprived
of vitamin C, riboflavin, and vitamin A developed cataracts.
When they were again supplied with these vitamins, the cata-
racts recovered. Mrs. Hewitt told me that her eyes were get-
ting dimmer and she could not see too well. I had them exam-
ined and the doctor told me that she had the beginnings of
cataracts. I figured out the amounts of vitamins she ought to
have, according to the rat experiments, and gave them to her
without her knowledge. In six weeks her eyes cleared up en-
tirely and I had them tested again. The doctor said they were
entirely cured and asked me what I had done for her. I told
him and he then said, "We never give medicines for eyes, we
only operate." I told him I had done what he ought to have
known enough to do, and let him go. I have since found that
vitamins will only cure cataracts when they first begin, for
when the white material gets fixed in the vitreous lens, it
cannot be reabsorbed, I found that the eye is the tissue of the
body highest in vitamin C and that eyes with cataracts have
almost no vitamin C, It looks as if cataracts are caused by a
prolonged vitamin C deficiency.

Recently I gave these vitamins to a friend of mine who has
cataracts, although I felt that they were too old to cure. How-

72

Good Health in Life and Old Age

ever, he told me that when he went to his doctor after a
few weeks, the doctor asked him what lie had been doing.
He told him of my vitamins. The doctor said that he had not
told him before that he had glaucoma as well as cataracts;
the glaucoma had now entirely disappeared. He said he had
not seen this happen before without an operation. I will fol-
low this up and see if this really is a cure for glaucoma. It
might be so. Certainly my own eyes are in good shape.

Vitamin Bi is the only vitamin whose bodily effects we
can reproduce in the test tube. When muscular action takes
place, tissue is broken down through a series of changes which
finally produce peruvic acid. This is split by the blood into
water and carbonic acid, and is carried away. The active
agent in this reaction is vitamin Bi. If this is not present in
sufficient quantity, the peruvic acid is not removed from the
muscles with sufficient rapidity. The muscles then become
poisoned and sore, and ache until the acid is removed. As I
grew older, I found that whenever I exerted my muscles so
they made any considerable amounts of decomposition prod-
ucts, they became very sore and remained that way for a
day or so. After I read about the action of Bi in muscles, I
thought I would see just what its effects really were in my
case. I was then taking four milligrams of Bi a day, which
evidently was too little. I then took six milligrams, exercised
some muscles until they ached, and found they still remained
sore a long time. Then I took eight milligrams a day and
found that the soreness remained a much shorter time. When
I took twelve milligrams of vitamin Bi a day, I found that
the muscles ceased being sore just as rapidly as they did when
I was younger. I have continued taking this amount ever
since then, and I have no more sore muscles. Perhaps many

73

Days from Seventy-Five to Ninety

other old people could get the same beneficial results doing
the same thing; but they had better have a doctor's advice.

It is not that I have had continuous good health through
life that I am well now. I had typhoid fever which left
typhoid mucus in the gall bladder. This, in a few years, caused
severe gall-bladder trouble which could not be diagnosed with
certainty at that time with X-rays. I became very worried at
my continual ill health and asked my old friend, Dr. Herman
Biggs, what he would do if he had a similar condition him-
self. He told me he would have an immediate exploratory
operation. I told him that this was just what I wanted to hear.
I then went at once to my surgeon, Dr. Forbes Hawks, and
arranged for an operation at my own house the next day. I
asked him to sew me up extra well as I intended to get up
after the operation. He said he would, but thought I would
not want to get up for a long time. He told Mrs. Hewitt and
the nurse that I could get up. When he reached the gall
bladder, he found it full of pus and about ready to burst. This
immediate operation saved my life. In the middle of the night
after the operation, I was in great pain from gas. I told the
nurse to get me my dressing gown and I would sit by the fire.
There I soon fell asleep. Mrs. Hewitt came in and put her
hand on my bed and, when she found me gone, let out a
tremendous scream. I told her not to wake me up as I was by
the fire. Every day I was up and Dr. Biggs came to see me.
He said he had always wanted to see a patient get up after an
abdominal operation since he thought the patient would do
better, but he had never seen it done. Now it is regular prac-
tice, and I began it.

I had a burst appendix at seventy-five, have had a number
of fatty tumors removed, and have had grippe in my kidneys

74

Paget's Disease

with two severe bladder hemorrhages. Yet I recovered and
have not had grippe since. As a boy, I had diphtheria and was
ten days in a steam tent while they despaired of my life. I
coughed up the mucous lining from the windpipe and got well
This is preserved in a medical collection. About the only
common disease I have not had is scarlet fever.

Paget's Disease

WHEN I WAS ABOUT SEVENTY, I BEGAN TO HAVE SERIOUS
trouble with my knees and they became very painful. I finally
had to wear braces which I designed myself. My doctor diag-
nosed the trouble as "Paget's disease," in which the lime salts
are removed from the bones and they get soft; where the
muscles attach to the bones, there is pain. He told rne that
this was regarded as incurable and that I would probably get
much worse.

Fortunately, I happened to see an article in the Journal of
the American Medical Association in which some Berkeley
doctors had analyzed the blood of every fracture case they
had and observed the rate at which the bones repaired them-
selves. They found that when the ratio of the calcium to the
phosphoric acid in the blood was 3 calcium to i phosphoric
acid, the repairs were rapid. But when there was any other
ratio, the bones built slowly or sometimes not at all. When
they brought the blood to normal calcium-phosphoric acid
ratio, they always secured rapid bone repair. I called my doc-
tor's attention to this and said I believed that here was the cure
for Paget's disease.

We made blood analyses and found my blood was 5 calcium

75

Days from Seventy-Five to Ninety

and i phosphoric acid. I then took more lecithin which is 10
per cent phosphoric acid, and also ate much fish, which is
high in it. In two weeks the blood analysis showed a normal
calcium and phosphoric acid ratio, and the pains in the knees
were much better. In six months, they became bad again and
we made more blood analyses and found that the phosphoric
acid was too high for the calcium. I then got the idea that if
the blood could take lime salts from the bones to get in bal-
ance, it could also take them from the intestines if they were
in the right amounts. I then took a teaspoonful of calcium
gluconate and a teaspoonful of lecithin every morning for
breakfast, and the blood became perfectly balanced and has
remained so for five years. The lime salts have become replaced
to a great extent in the leg bones, and I have no more pain or
trouble with Paget's disease.

I broke my leg just below the knee two years ago and the
bone knitted perfectly, without a splint, in three weeks. This,
shows that lime salts are now being properly deposited in the
bones. My doctor tells me that he has treated forty-five cases
of Paget's by this method and that they are all getting well.
He expects to publish this soon. So far as I can see, my legs:
are now well enough and my braces are discarded.

Here was a case where my scientific reading saved me from,
a serious disability for life.

Overweight

OVERWEIGHT is ONE OF THE LEADING CAUSES OF ILL HEALTH IN
old age and is the cause of the premature death of many. In,
overweight people the heart is required to purnp blood

76

Overweight

through much useless tissue and therefore becomes exhausted
Few fat people ever reach great age. If one looks at a fat
animal when it is cut open, one will see that the fat is collected
around the internal organs, crowding them against the ribs and
allowing them less freedom than they should have. This must
be bad for the organism. In order to remain at normal weight
it is essential not to eat more food of any kind than will supply
the energy required for daily activities. If more food than this
is consumed, it will slowly be deposited as fat in the body.

The small boy who was asked by his mother whether he
was hungry and would have another piece of pie, replied, "No,
mother, I am not hungry, but thank God I am greedy." He
disclosed the truth about the behavior of most people.

Any kind of food in excess can make fat, some more than
others. As it is very difficult and troublesome to estimate the
calories in the foods one eats, I devised a method of my own
for keeping weight normal. This works perfectly for me; I
get plenty of food and never feel hungry at the close of a meal.
I divide my foods into two classes: those which are mostly
water (over 75 per cent), and those which are almost all solid
food. The watery foods are: meats, 75 per cent water; fruits,
80 per cent water; poultry and fish, 80 per cent water; fresh
vegetables, 90 per cent water; and milk, 85 per cent water.

The dry goods are such things as: butter, sugar, dry toast,
crackers, and candy (all over 90 per cent solid food); salad
oil, which is all food; and alcohol, which is also converted
largely into fats. Cream is about 40 per cent fats.

I eat amply of the wet foods and let the dry foods alone,
or take very sparingly of them. In this way, one gets a much
smaller amount of real solid food than usual, and weight can
be held down easily.

77

Days from Seventy-Five to Ninety

If I find at any time that I am gaining weight, I just reduce
the size of the food portions I take on my plate until my
weight reaches the point desired. It is not hard to do this. I
weigh 160 now and weighed 156 when I was married in 1892.
At times, before I realized that overweight was injurious, I
have weighed from 180 to 190.

In losing weight it is not desirable to lose more than a pound
or two a week. Weight changes should be made slowly, so as
not to disturb the regular rhythm of the body. All special
or restricted diets should be avoided as they are usually un-
balanced for nutrition and may cause serious deficiencies in
the body. Two members of my own family met their deaths
through restricted diets. They lost vitality and became prey
to the diseases that killed them. Losing weight, and also main-
taining a normal weight, is a perfectly simple matter. If one
does not do it, it simply means self -indulgence and lack of
character. Everyone ought to realize this and brace up. If one
cannot keep weight down, a psychologist, not a doctor, is
needed.

Alcohol

As I HAVE TOLD EARLIER, I HAVE NEVER CONSUMED ANY

alcohol, except an occasional drink, so I have not had to deal
with alcoholic problems myself. But I have studied much about
alcohol, observed others all my life, and have formed some
opinions about its use which are, I feel, correct.

A moderate amount of alcohol is not bad for most people
and may be very good for some. It should never, however, be
taken in concentrations higher than those found in wines,
or at most over 1 5 per cent. Stronger alcohol than this con-

78

Alcohol

gests the lining of the stomach and interferes with the secretion
of the digestive pepsin. Lower percentages of alcohol increase
the flow of pepsin and aid digestion. The highball is about the
best drink to take, or Rhine wine and seltzer. Here the alcohol
is diluted to the right percentage.

Strong alcoholic drinks, if taken in quantity over a long
time, will remove the vitamin Bi from the liver. Dr. Graham
Lusk told me that, when he was in charge of the alcoholic
ward at Bellevue, he tried giving the delirium-tremens patients
alcohol while at the same time he injected large amounts of Bi
vitamin. The delirium stopped although the patient was still
getting ample alcohol.

With most people, alcohol is partly converted into fats in
the body and it is difficult for even moderate drinkers to keep
their weight down since they don't realize that alcohol adds to
it. Alcohol also takes the place of other foods as it furnishes
energy though not the vitamins or food products needed in
the body.

Stimulation felt after an alcoholic drink is temporary, and
then after a time the vitality drops below normal. The Hud-
son's Bay Company would never allow its trappers to carry
alcohol on long trips where strenuous bodily work was re-
quired. They found that men stimulated by alcohol often had
such a slump in vitality that they froze to death.

It is still a debatable point as to whether alcohol causes cir-
culatory troubles or cirrhosis of the liver, but it is well known
that it causes gout in some people.

So far as I know, wine with meals in moderate amounts has
never done any harm and is good for most people.

79

Days from Seventy-Five to Ninety

Smoking

SMOKING DOES FAR MORE DAMAGE THAN MODERATE DRINKING.
This damage is not only the proven danger of cancer of the
lungs, throat, and mouth, but far commoner and practically
universal is the injury to the circulatory system and the nerves,
and often the eyes.

The danger of lung cancer is not a very active one. There
are only about twenty-seven thousand lung-cancer cases in the
United States now, while there are possibly seventy-five mil-
lion smokers. The danger of mouth and throat cancers is much
greater because there is not only the irritation due to the smoke
and its cancer-forming substances, but also the danger of
irritation to the lips and tongue. Pipe smokers often have
cancers of the lips due to this irritation over many years. This
is more true of cigar smokers than of those who smoke ciga-
rettes.

The nicotine of tobacco is a most violent poison and only
a small amount of the pure alkaloid will cause death. The very
small amounts obtained in smoke have a very distinct effect on
the nerves. It is also habit-forming as is shown by the great
difficulty many people have when they want to stop smoking.
Smokers seem to require a constant repetition of smoking to
quiet their nerves. This is certainly not a good thing for the
body.

The worst effects of smoking are on the circulatory system.
Circulatory diseases are almost universal in smokers in later
years. Raymond Pearl made a study of twenty-seven thousand
non-smokers, light smokers, and heavy smokers, and found
that the light smokers shortened their lives by about two years

80

(Joffee

over the non-smokers, and the heavy smokers five years. Is it
worth while?

Smoking seems also to have the effect of making people
careless of the comfort of others. They never seem to realize
that there are many people who hate smoke and even some
whom it makes ill. When I find people, and especially women,
smoking in a dining car, I always call the chief and ask if this
is a "smoking car." He replies, "No." I then tell him to stop
the smoking, and if he refuses I get his number and report
him. Yon ought to see the ladies glare. They ought to have
better manners and consideration for others. Smoking at meals
is bad manners at any time and should not take place any-
where. It is a form of selfishness which should be stopped.
Smoking in bed is most dangerous and has caused many deaths
from fires. I will not allow it under any conditions in my house.
If anyone docs it, I will not have him again. It is inexcusable.

Coffee

MOST PEOPLE, AND EVEN SOME DOCTORS, DO NOT UNDERSTAND

about coffee. It is found to be perfectly harmless for some
people they can take all they like while it is very bad indeed
for others. With some it causes sleeplessness and with others
it has no effect on sleep. This is my own case.

A few years ago I found the explanation of what coffee does
in a book by Dr. Harold Abramson, who was treating diabetic
cases. For diagnosis he gave patients the usual meal of sugar
and noted how this reacted in the blood and urine. This is the
regular procedure, and in this way is determined just what
the insulin dose should be. This test is made two hours after the

81

Days from Seventy-Five to Ninety

sugar is taken. Dr. Abraham thought he would follow the test
further and make examinations every hour for twelve hours,
and see just what happened over a longer period. He found
that when people take coffee, it liberates a large amount of
blood sugar from the liver. This raises the sugar of the blood
above normal and the pancreas secretes insulin in order to
bring the blood sugar back to normal. When this occurs, the
pancreas ought to stop secreting insulin in excess amounts and
hold the blood sugar to normal. However, he found that in
some people the pancreas went on secreting insulin and re-
duced the blood sugar way below normal in about two to
three hours. Low blood sugar slows brain action and makes
one feel logy, depressed, and tired. These people are then
likely to make mistakes in their work or have accidents. They
then take another cup of coffee, or a drink, and the process
starts all over again. When they go to bed, the blood sugar
drops, and they can't sleep and are restless. With these people
it is not the caffein itself which keeps them awake, but the
low blood sugar. If they take sugar or a carbohydrate on going
to bed, they will probably sleep well for a few hours while the
blood sugar is normal. People of this type should never touch
coffee yet there are many who do. No cure has yet been
found for this condition, except leaving coffee alone.

I found, when my kidneys were ill with Bright's disease,
that coffee was very bad for this condition, and I have never
taken it regularly during my life. I take it only when I go
out, as I get a great stimulation following it. With me it acts
much better than alcohol which congests my brain and makes
me dull and woozy. That is, if I take more than a minute
amount.

Coffee also dilates the capillaries of the urinary tract and for

82

Lecithin

this reason is not good for some people. Everyone should
investigate and find out if coffee is good for him physiolog-
ically. If it is not, he should let it alone if he wants to have
good health. There is nothing I like so well as coffee and yet
I must not indulge in it, and I don't.

Lecithin

WHEN I WAS A STUDENT IN BERLIN IN 1891, MY FATHER GAVE
me a letter of introduction to Geheimrath Rouleaux, who was
then the best-known physiological chemist of Germany. On
my father's account, he took pains to be very kind to me and
often asked me into his laboratory which was in the same
building where I worked. He told me of the work he was
doing on the physiological role of lecithin in the human or-
ganism and gave me some of his papers on it. He also told me
of books on the subject which I secured and read. He had
found that lecithin was present in all the cells of the body, and
in particularly significant amounts in the nerves and brain
cells. It must, therefore, have very important functions in the
body. At that time the only source of lecithin was from egg
yolk, where it exists in about 2% per cent. This makes it
expensive to isolate in quantity, and therefore the medical pro-
fession had never made very extensive studies of its physio-
logical value or used it to any large extent in medical prac-
tice. I kept this information in mind and retained the books
I had on the subject. It was one of those things stored away
for future use some time.

One of my fishing correspondents, whom I had never seen,
asked me to come to Cleveland and go with him to fish the

Days from Seventy-Five to Ninety

waters of the Castalia Club in Ohio, which are famous for their
large brown trout At breakfast in the railroad station, I asked
him what business he was in. He told me he was the son-in-law
to the president of the Glidden Company, who were large
extractors of soybean oil. He had just been detailed to find a
market for their crude lecithin which was a waste product of
soybean-oil refining. He said he supposed I knew nothing
about lecithin. I told him he was wrong there, as I probably
knew much more about it than his factory chemists. I sug-
gested that one outlet would be pure lecithin for medical use.
They had never heard of this before. I told him I would send
him some literature on the subject, which I did when I re-
turned home. A few weeks later I received a half-pound bottle
of lecithin with a note saying, "Here it is. Where do we go
from here?" I made some suggestions as to how to preserve
the product better and make it more palatable, and wrote
him of its value in human diets. The Lathe family and others
in the office took it and they soon began to feel its good
effects. It soon was in such demand that they had to establish
a small plant for its manufacture. From this, sales have grown
to a quarter of a million pounds a year, with no advertising.
This was the beginning of the sale of purified lecithin for
human use in this country, all by chance.

Lecithin is a very complex chemical molecule containing
two recognized vitamins, choline and inositol, as well as lec-
ithin itself and cephalin. It is very high in available phosphoric
acid and also contains some other valuable elements. Rouleaux's
discovery of its presence in all the cells of the body, and espe-
cially in the nerve cells, proves it is an absolute requirement
in human diets. It has been found that it generally is deficient
in most diets we eat. As it is in the nucleus of all cells where

Lecithin

their reproduction starts, an ample supply evidently favors cell
reproduction and renewal. This seems to me to be the explana-
tion of the effects we observe in people who regularly take
ample lecithin. They may recover from a great variety of
illnesses which must have originated in the cells of some part
of the body not being renewed with sufficient rapidity. This
view accounts for the large number of diseases that lecithin
seems to cure, such as arteriosclerosis, arthritis, lumbago, dia-
betes, high blood pressure, skin diseases, and even some brain
troubles. Such cures vary in rapidity from a few weeks to a
year or more, but there is nearly always a recovery or great
improvement. High blood pressure and coronary thrombosis are
caused by cholesterol deposits in the arteries. Lecithin will
emulsify and remove cholesterol when it is high enough in the
blood stream, after a lapse of time. I have seen a number of
coronary thrombosis cases entirely cured by lecithin. About
half the high blood pressure cases who have taken lecithin have
their blood pressure lowered considerably and often brought
to normal. I myself have taken lecithin for over fifteen years
and my blood pressure is 125 over 80, the same as it was in
youth, and there is no hardening of the arteries in my case.

About a tablespoonful of lecithin every day is recommended
for best health. I never omit it. There has been almost no
medical literature about lecithin so far and doctors know little
about its use or effects. They usually say, "Take it, it is good
food and will do you no harm.' 7 They are often surprised at
the results they see. There is much medical work 'going on
with lecithin at the present time and it is hoped that there will
soon be ample medical literature on the subject. I know my-
self, from personal experience, what it can do for the health
of many people; it is a good food and can do no harm.

85

Days from Seventy -Five to Ninety

It gives me great pleasure to feel that I have been instru-
mental in getting this most valuable help to human health be-
fore the American public. I have never made or tried to make
any money from this development. I felt that if I did, I could
not speak so freely about it and advocate its use. Besides, I
felt strongly that here was something I could do for others
with no return. I know that lecithin will become one of the
most important aids we have to human health in a few years.
It will probably prolong the lives of many people and cer-
tainly make their lives more enjoyable.

Sex Hormones

As WE GROW OLDER, FROM FIFTY-FIVE TO SIXTY, THE SEX

hormones are not produced in our system in sufficient amounts
to maintain our vitality. These hormones have many other
functions that affect us besides the sex impulse. They affect
our nervous system and muscular strength. When these proc-
esses begin to slow up, it is most useful to supply more sex
hormones than are naturally made in the body. Doctors can
prescribe the right amounts. They should never be taken ex-
cept under medical prescription, for in some cases they may
affect the heart or cause cancers. Testosterone propionate is
the one usually prescribed. Formerly this had to be injected
and it was a nuisance to have this done every few days. Also
the supply in the system would constantly fluctuate. A few
years ago it was found that these hormones could be absorbed
from under the tongue and get into the circulation through
the lingual vein. It takes twice as many hormones administered
in this way to produce the same effect as an injection but the

86

Sex Hormones

results are better. Ten milligrams a day are usually used, and ten-
milligram tablets cost eleven dollars per hundred. Still eleven
cents a day is not much for more vigorous health. I have per-
suaded a number of my elderly friends to get their doctors to
give them these hormones. In every case they told me that their
vitality increased greatly. These tablets have no eff ects on the
sex impulse whatever. I regard these hormones as one of the
most important things yet discovered to lengthen life before
crippling old age sets in. I have taken them for the past twenty-
five years.

I did not realize what they were doing for me until I went
to the country a few years ago with two bottles to last through
the summer. When I had used up one, I opened the other box
and found that the bottle was empty. My maid had put the
empty bottle back into the old package. It was a week before
I could get any more. In three days I felt like a miserable old
man, just full of aches and pains. I thought I was getting sick.
When the new supply arrived I was perfectly well again in
two days, without any aches or pains. Since then I have taken
care not to be without these hormones. During my trip to
Spain, I had to make a number of very long automobile drives,
which usually tire me greatly. In the morning, before such a
long day, I took two of these tablets and found that I was not
in the least tired at night, nor did I feel the strain. I was
eighty-four at the time.

Doctors have found that cancer of the prostate may come
from the continuous taking of this male hormone. They now
give female hormones, alternately, to balance the male hor-
mone so there is no danger of cancer. If these medicines are
properly controlled they are most beneficial, I am sure.

87

Day s from Seventy-Five to Ninety
Diet

A REALLY GOOD AND ADEQUATE DIET IS PROBABLY THE MOST

important factor in good health in active life as well as in
old age.

There can be no "one best" diet for all. Our inheritance is
so varied that what is suitable for one is not good for another.
Each person must work out his own diet for his particular
personal endowment. However, we do know many things
which are agreed to by all students of nutrition. There must
be a proper balance between proteins, fats, and carbohydrates,
and the proteins consumed must be properly balanced in the
composition of their constituent amino acids. No more total
food of any kind should be eaten than sufficient to supply
energy for daily bodily activities and for the repair of the
tissues used up. It has been found that a i6o~pound man, for
instance, requires about .1 pound, or 1.6 ounces, of protein
(dry basis) a day for the repair and maintenance of his bodily
tissues. This means roughly that, if he eats animal proteins,
he must consume about 8 ounces of wet proteins a day
roughly these have an average water content of 80 per cent.
More than this amount must be eliminated as waste or stored
as fat. Proteins and fats build bodily tissues while the carbo-
hydrates furnish heat and energy for work. When they are
consumed in excess of the bodily work performed, they are
largely converted into fats and are stored in the body tissues.
This was made clear in the section on overweight.

The main reason for the present fad of a high protein diet
for weight reduction is that the proteins we eat are largely
water. Without getting too much actual food we can eat more

88

Diet

of proteins than we can of carbohydrates, which are largely
taken in more concentrated form. While excess proteins are
readily eliminated through the kidneys, there are many people
whose kidneys will not stand much excess work (more than
the body requires normally) and these organs break down
eventually on a very high protein diet. I was a victim of this
myself. A very high protein diet can be really dangerous for
some people. The best chance of good health lies in a diet
containing protein moderately in excess of bodily require-
ments, supplemented with ample vitamins to supply whatever
happens to be deficient in the diet itself. About 35 per cent
of the diet in actual well-balanced proteins will generally fur-
nish an excellent diet.

When I was running my trout hatchery, I tried to find out
just how much proteins fish actually needed. I reduced the
proteins gradually little by little, until I found that trout would
do well on 15 per cent proteins, but would do badly on 14
per cent. Therefore 15 per cent seemed to be the lower limit
for them. I have no doubt that the same holds true of men
but have no proof of this. It is safe to have at least 35 per cent
protein in the diet.

Fats are necessary for health. During the First World War
the German people suffered many diseases which were caused
by a low fat diet. About 15 per cent of the weight of the
diet is generally considered about right for fats. Fats are of
two kinds: those called saturated that have little affinity for
any other compounds, and those called unsaturated having
more or less strong affinities for other chemical molecules,
particularly oxygen, These unsaturated fats easily become
rancid, or spoiled and unsuitable for eating, but they are excel-
lent dietary factors when fresh. Their very unsaturation allows

Days jrom Seventy-Five to Ninety

them to take part in the metabolism of the bodily processes
readily, while the fully saturated fats are assimilated with dif-
ficulty, become deposited in bodily tissues in unwanted places,
and are hard to remove. They are much more indigestible
than fresh unsaturated fats. Chemists sought for many years to
overcome the spoilage of these fats and finally succeeded in
saturating them with hydrogen, producing fats that do not get
rancid. At that time, no one thought of the digestibility of fats,
only of their spoilage, and its prevention was considered a great
advance. We now know that this makes fats much more in-
digestible and useless in the body, and not such good food.
There is probably no way to preserve unsaturated fats from
spoiling except by keeping them cold and away from the
oxygen of the air. What we ought to do is to arrange to con-
sume them fresh, just as we now do meats, vegetables, and fish.
Our diets would be far more healthy if this were done.

Fats have been blamed for the deposits of cholesterol in the
arteries which cause arteriosclerosis, but I strongly believe that
this is not the case. It is not the cholesterol carried by the fats
which causes the trouble, but the cholesterol made within the
walls of the arteries themselves which causes deposits when it
is not continuously removed by blood containing enough lec-
ithin to emulsify and remove it. If this is the case, then choles-
terol carried by fats will not cause unwanted cholesterol de-
posits. I have proved this to my own satisfaction by using
enough lecithin and taking a high cholesterol diet, and there
are no cholesterol deposits. I hope the medical profession will
soon take this point of view; when they do, they will cure
more arteriosclerosis cases.

There are large numbers of fatty acids which, combined

90

Diet

with glycerine, form the fats we ordinarily see. Butter has six
or eight different fatty acids in it, and they must be useful in
the dietary or they would not be present in milk which is sup-
plied for feeding the young of all mammals. One of the fatty
acids which seems to be particularly valuable in the diet is
linoleic acid. This is not present in significant amounts in ani-
mal fats, but it is in vegetable fats, such as cottonseed oil,
soybean oil, and peanut oil, where it exists in considerable
amounts. Olive oil has almost none. Therefore, in salad dress-
ings, cottonseed oil and soybean oil are better than olive oil
from a health point of view.

It is not wise to starve oneself for fats in order to keep
weight down. This should be done only by the reduction in
the total amount of all foods eaten, and not by the restriction
of any one type of food, a practice dangerous to health. We
should have a widely varied diet with every kind of good
food the body can tolerate. This way we get all kinds of
needed minerals and many other organic bodies; we do not
yet know the uses of many of these in our systems.

There is one thing about proteins everyone should know
and understand well There are twenty-three aniino acids now
known, and ten of these are necessary for bodily health. If
any one of these is absent from the diet health becomes poor
and death comes early. The deficiency of each one of these
causes different disease symptoms. When we eat our food con-
taining proteins, these ten aniino acids must all be present, at
the same time, and in definite amounts with relation to each
other, to be properly assimilated. When supplied at successive
times, even two hours apart, they are not assimilated because
they must all be present together to be taken up. The ammo
acids of the animal proteins such as meat, fish, eggs, and milk

91

Days from Seventy-Five to Ninety

have their amino acids well balanced and they are readily
assimilated. But the proteins of vegetable origin are much less
useful in the diet because they do not have their amino acids
in the right proportions. Often one or more of them are miss-
ing entirely. More of them must be eaten to get the same
results. Any continual starvation for sufficient amino acids
shortens the life span greatly. It also reduces vitality while liv-
ing. Protein starvation is largely the cause of the short-lived
peoples of Asia. They get enough carbohydrates for heat and
energy usually, but far too little properly balanced protein
foods. Their vegetable proteins could easily be properly bal-
anced by the addition of very small amounts of the deficient
amino acids. I have tried to get this matter considered by the
United Nations food committees, but so far without any actual
response. It is sure to come sooner or later since this is the
cheapest way to feed nations now underfed. Rather than try-
ing to grow far more foods of the same types they use at
present, which will take many years and great expense to
bring about, food supplements could be given now. However,
these ideas are far too new to take hold yet.

So far as I know, all nutritionists are agreed that for best
health and vigor one should have a good breakfast with ample
proteins in it. After the long night without food, it is necessary
for the body fires to be stoked up again amply for the day's
work. The common habit of a light breakfast with the tem-
porary stimulation of coffee is bad for health and vigor, and
will shorten life. The habit of a good breakfast is easily ac-
quired. The standard English breakfast of bacon and eggs is
excellent if supplemented with a glass of milk. Those who can
take coffee without injury can take this also. For those who

92

Commandments -for Health

can't, it should be eliminated. The breakfast protein will fur-
nish energy slowly through the morning until lunch.

It is not convenient for most people to eat a hearty meal
at lunchtime and rest a little afterward. This is all the more
reason why these people should have a good breakfast to carry
them on. Most people have their main meal at night which
gives them more food to carry them through the long period
until breakfast. Most people do rest somewhat after dinner as
they should.

For myself, I find that a breakfast of oatmeal and milk, with
a teaspoonful of lecithin mixed in the oatmeal, a glass of
milk, lamb chop, or hash with poached egg, or eggs and
bacon, or fish, with fruit after, together with a small glass of
orange juice, make me the ideal breakfast with no lowering
of blood sugar during the day. I do not take coffee as it is
bad for me.

I always have a good sleep after lunch, which is my heavy
meal. I have five o'clock tea and a very light supper. I have
a glass of milk at every meal, always. This is sure to supply
well-balanced proteins anyway, no matter what the rest of
the food may be.

So far as I can see now, my diet has been ideal and has kept
me well, both in mind and body, up to the age of ninety.

Commandments for Health

WHEN MY GOOD FRIEND DR. L. W. GORHAM, WHO is HEAD OF
the Public Health Research Association of New York, read
my manuscript, he said that my list of requirements for good
health in old age should be called the thirteen commandments

93

Days from Seventy -Five to Ninety

for health. He felt that I had not missed any. They are as
follows:

1. Avoid overeating at all times, and regulate the food
intake to maintain normal body weight.

2. Take all vitamins every day in the right amounts.

3. Take a tablespoonful of lecithin every day regularly.

4. Avoid straining the heart at any time by exercise;
take only moderate and reasonable exercise after middle age;
rest the heart as much as possible in old age.

5. After middle age, take sex hormones under competent
medical advice.

6. After sixty years of age, take a nap after lunch, if pos-
sible.

7. Avoid stimulation of alcohol, smoking, or coffee, if these
do not agree with one's health.

8. Avoid all sleeping pills, unless they are prescribed by a
doctor when absolutely necessary.

9. Avoid all narcotics, unless given by a doctor in a crisis.

10. Have no fear of surgical operations when performed
by a competent surgeon.

1 1. Attend all bodily ills without delay.

12. Eat a good diet with at least 35 per cent animal pro-
teins, about 1 5 per cent fats; and the balance carbohydrates.

13. Eat a hearty breakfast with ample animal protein.

If anyone still in reasonably good health will have character
and persistence enough to follow these thirteen command-
ments of health, he will probably enjoy from fifteen to twenty
years more of vigorous bodily and mental health than he
would otherwise. We will never be able to prolong life beyond

94

Commandments for Health

its natural span, and it is not desirable that we should, or the
world would soon be full of old people. But the natural span
of life ought to be much longer than it is now because it seems
to be the general rule in the mammalian kingdom that the
length of life is ten times the period of growth to maturity.
We ought, according to this, to live two hundred years. The
longest recorded cases are about one hundred and fifty years,
so far. It would be no advantage simply to prolong life unless
one were active and vigorous in mind and body. This is the
aim I have set myself to achieve and so far I have met with
some success.

95

Parr IV

The Modern Economic Revolution

AS I LOOK BACK ON THE CHANGES I HAVE SEEN TAKE PLACE

in my long life of ninety years, it seems to me that I ought to
record my impressions of what I have seen, and also the deduc-
tions which I have made as to what will happen in the future.
The point of view of one who has been through all these
changes is much more likely to be right than that of any
younger student of the subject, who has not had the actual
experience of what has taken place. Personally, I have no faith
in the conclusions of professional economists who get their
information from books and statistics. They cannot see the
forest for the trees, as they have more information than any
human mind can digest. I will point out what I have observed
and the personal conclusions I have drawn from what I have
seen.

During the Industrial Revolution in England in the early
part of the nineteenth century, large business enterprises grew
up under the ownership and management of men of the middle
and working class. They had great specialized abilities for this
work and carried it on with great vigor to financial success.
As England was ahead of the rest of the world in this develop-
ment, the rewards for this work were very great and large
fortunes were accumulated. Most of these successful enter-
prises were either owned by families, or individuals, or part-
nerships. Stock companies were the great exception during this
development. As these businesses grew, they naturally fol-

99

Days from Seventy-Five to Ninety

lowed the old shop employment system where the proprietor
engaged his workmen and paid them the smallest wages he
could get them to work for, in the belief that the less he paid
for labor the larger the profits. No one ever thought of build-
ing up a market for goods to be purchased by the laborers
themselves, if they only had more money to spend. It was this
attitude on the part of employers which shocked Karl Marx
and made him develop his theories of the relations of capital
to labor, which were quite correct under the conditions pre-
vailing in his time. However, when the relations between cap-
ital and labor changed with the years, his theories proved to
be absolutely erroneous; but they still make plenty of trouble
in the world. The gradual rise of labor unions to power has
greatly altered the relations between capital and labor, and
the employer no longer can make men work for just a sub-
sistence wage. Even when I was running an automobile manu-
facturing shop in 1907, at Hammersmith in London, the cur-
rent wages for mechanics were quoted to me by my Scotch
foreman as sixpence an hour. When I said that this was too
little to pay any man and suggested eight pence an hour, he
was shocked and said I would disrupt the whole wage scale.
This first generation of industrial employers in England was
made up of men brought up under frugal conditions. They
were not lavish spenders, but reinvested the profits of their
enterprises in their businesses to build them up. When their
sons came along, they wanted to have them brought up under
better conditions than they themselves had known. They sent
their sons to good schools and quite often to the university.
This second generation of industrialists often consisted of very
competent businessmen, who continued to build up their busi-
ness enterprises and pay attention to them, although they spent

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The Modern Economic Revolution

far more money in living than their parents had done and
reinvested less of the profits in their businesses. When the
third generation of these industrialists came along, the parents
wanted them to be gentlemen and to lead the lives of gentle-
men as the aristocracy was doing at that time, all over England.
When the third generation assumed control of their family
business enterprises they devoted too little attention to them
and left the management entirely to hired employees. They
took most of the profits from the business enterprises for their
own spending and personal expenses, and put back into the
businesses entirely inadequate amounts to maintain them in
up-to-date condition that could withstand competition.

And so it happened that when American, German, Belgian,
and French competition developed, after the adoption of the
machinery and factory methods invented mostly in England,
the British enterprises were rarely able to compete successfully
on a cost basis, This condition has rapidly become worse
since American factories have developed their mass-production
methods, even paying double the wages paid in Britain.

Of late years more and more British industry is going into
stock companies and giving up the older family and partner-
ship type of ownership. Where this is done, the companies
may get access to capital subscribed by the public, and com-
petent boards of directors can keep the equipment of the enter-
prises up to date. It would seem that this is the only salvation
for the British industry, but it may be too slow in taking place
to save the country from collapse.

When I first began going to England with my father, start-
ing in 1883, the big business enterprises were nearly all in
private hands. The owners of them were mostly the second
generation of the men who had originated and built up the

101

Days from Seventy-Five to Ninety

enterprises. I saw and knew many of these industrial families
at that time, and their sons were all being brought up to live
as gentlemen and not devote themselves to their family enter-
prises.

My next contact with British business was when I went
over there to establish an automobile manufacturing business
in 1905. By that time the third generation was taking control
and as a whole was paying little attention to family business.
They were devoting themselves to living like aristocrats and
spending the profits of their businesses. I could see at that time
what was already beginning to take place.

My third contact with British business was during the period
from 1924 to 1929. I then had a moor in Scotland and saw a
great deal of the gentleman class and often talked business
with them. I found, in all my contacts, that the family business
was declining in earnings and being seriously neglected. The
profits of the business were being drained out and the enter-
prises were almost universally going on the rocks. I foresaw
then what was coming and that, unless some great change
took place, England could no longer compete successfully in
the world in manufacturing business. They had developed
tremendous markets in all parts of the world, which they par-
tially controlled in various ways. This kept English business
alive, even though it was no longer in a competitive position.
The two world wars have largely wiped out most of these
markets and England no longer can hold them for herself.
When the Japanese and the Germans get really going again,
Britain will meet most severe competition and, under present
conditions, she can no longer make enough goods at competi-
tive prices to keep going successfully. There is a tremendous
amount of ability in England in engineering, chemistry, and

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The Modern Economic Revolution

technique, but at present they lack the capital to put this
talent successfully to work or the know-how to apply what
capital they have available to the best advantage. When Ameri-
can support is withdrawn I cannot see anything in sight but
most serious trouble for England and a much lowered stand-
ard of living. Unless their industry is put on a really competi-
tive basis, they must become a second-class nation for a long
time to come. The outlook is not hopeful.

When I was a young man just out of college and beginning
my business career, nearly all the large business enterprises
in this country were owned and operated by individuals,
families, or partnerships. There were comparatively few large
industrial business enterprises which were run as stock com-
panies, and in which the general public had a financial inter-
est. It was at the time when I returned from Germany and
entered business, in 1892, that the first manufacturing com-
panies were beginning to be made into stock companies by the
banking interests. The railroads and telephone and telegraph
enterprises were already operated as stock companies with
public participation, because the amounts of capital required
for these enterprises were too large for individuals to handle.
But the steel industry and most of the other manufacturing
enterprises were owned and operated mostly by individuals,
families, or partnerships. It was the organization of the U.S.
Steel Corporation that unloosed the dam holding back the
banking interests from taking over these enterprises and float-
ing stock issues with the general public. Since that time, nearly
all the large manufacturing enterprises have become stock
companies with public participation. So far as I know, the
Ford Company was the last very large company which was

103

Days from Seventy -Five to Ninety

entirely family-owned. Even the du Pont Company has placed
its stock on the market.

This change in the type of ownership of manufacturing en-
terprises has had very widespread effects on our economy,
and so far as I can see the effects have on the whole been
beneficial, although there have been gross abuses in the man-
agement of some of the stock companies and in the manipula-
tion of their securities. It took a number of years for the public
to realize what was going on. The anti-trust laws and the
Securities Exchange Commission have been evolved in order
to curb these abuses in the manipulation of the securities
owned by the public in business enterprises. There is no doubt
that these methods of regulation will need much more elabora-
tion and development as time goes on, but they were both
necessary and a step in the right direction for the protection
of the public against unscrupulous stock manipulations. This
is the system which is going to endure in this country: stock
companies in which the public participates, and the regulation
by law both of the way the securities of these companies can
be manipulated and of the way the companies are managed
for the interest of all their stockholders. There is no doubt
in my mind that we will evolve excellent methods of regula-
tion within a few years. It has taken over sixty years to elabo-
rate the Interstate Commerce Commission to the point where
it seems to operate satisfactorily in the interests of the rail-
roads, their stockholders, and the general public. As stock
interests in all kinds of business enterprises are a far more
complicated matter than the regulation of railroads, it is likely
that it will take quite a long time before we get a perfected
system which will be just to the public, the investors, and

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The Modern Economic Revolution

labor. If we keep a free press and free discussion, we are cer-
tain to work this matter out to a satisfactory end.

If we accept the fact that this system of public stock owner-
ship, under suitable government regulation and laws, is the
one which this country is going to operate under for the
future, as seems most likely, let us see what the great advan-
tages of this system may be in a competitive world. Large
corporations which have a long continued life have very great
advantages over privately owned and operated enterprises be-
cause the private enterprise must depend for its success on
the brains of the directing owners. If they are competent, as
is usually the case with those who first buld up a new enter-
prise, the business will be well run and can meet competition
on equal terms. But when private business is inherited by a
second or third generation, there is no assurance that the
direction of the business will be in really able and competent
hands. If it is not, it is not in a good competitive position and
will lose ground to better-managed enterprises. But the large
stock company with a long life, managed by a board of direc-
tors, has a constant supply of ability coming up through the
business itself to draw on for the managing brains to run the
business, and ability conies to the top positions by an evolu-
tionary process. Such companies are certain to be well run by
men of good training and ability, if the sifting process is
allowed to take place. The best man naturally gets to the top.
So far as I have observed, all our large stock companies are
well managed at present. There was a time years ago when
the banking interests, which floated the securities on the pub-
lic, retained a great measure of control of the companies they
floated and often appointed management which was not as
competent as it should have been. However, as these com-

105

Days from Seventy-Five to Ninety

panics have grown older, the evolutionary process for rising
ability seems to take place naturally, and all the older com-
panies are now managed well by men brought up in the busi-
ness. This is most important, because it is the managing brains
at the top which make companies successful in competition
and we must have sharp competition if we are to get the very
best results. Even in companies which have little or no com-
petition, such as the telephone companies, the selection of
ability from the ranks of the employees does give the most
excellent management and good service to the public.

Under the former system of private ownership of large
enterprises, there was no assurance that the profits of business
would be reinvested to a sufficient extent to assure its being
kept up to the best standards to meet competition. With some
companies, the business profits were almost entirely reinvested
in the enterprise, as was the case with the Ford Company.
This resulted in providing ample capital, for this company
provided large profits during its early years. With other enter-
prises, such as the textile mills of New England, there was
not a sufficient reinvestment of profits to maintain the plants
in prime competitive condition. They have therefore gone
way downhill and are today being displaced by newer and
better run mills in other parts of the country. The same thing
took place in the machine-tool industry which was originally
located almost entirely in New England. When the time for
expansion and renovation came, this industry did not invest
enough capital in new and modern plants to withstand the
competition of more enterprising firms in the Middle West,
and much of the machine-tool business was lost in New
England.

With many types of businesses, a system seems to be evolv-

106

The Modern Economic Revolution

ing at present which bodes well for the future. It is now re-
garded as the best practice to divide the profits of business
into three parts. One part is paid to the stockholder owners,
one part is reinvested in plant and floating capital, and one
part is used for lowering the price of goods to the public and
increasing the rewards of labor. The present tendency of
labor unions is to try to get a larger share than this, and to
restrict the amounts of capital reinvested in the business and
returned to the stockholders. It is the balancing of these forces
which provides the greatest problem at present for American
business. It will also receive the attention of the legislative
forces in the near future. Unless ample capital is continually
reinvested in business enterprises, we would get results similar
to those which occurred in England. There the railroads for
many years paid out dividends too large and kept increasing
their invested capital by borrowing on bonds at low interest
rates, until the final result was that the capital investment be-
came so large that the interest alone consumed the larger part
of the earnings, as none of the bonds were ever paid off.
Finally the total capital investment was so great that duplicate
railroads could have been built new for half of the capital
invested in the railroads. Then they were nationalized on this
capital basis and can never be profitable enterprises again. We
don't want our industries to get into any such shape or to make
so serious a mistake. There must be continually an ample
amount of reinvested profits in every business if we are to
have a healthy and a constantly developing economy. It is
also necessary that the capital furnished by the investing
public receive a fair return or this source of capital will dry
up. People will not put their money where they do not get
a proper return on it. Labor can receive increased rewards in

107

Days -from Seventy-Five to Ninety

future from the profits of business, but only when the other
two parties have received their share. Unless they do, the
business will not remain profitable and expanding, and labor
will have to be reduced whether it is desirable or not. The
plant of any enterprise must be maintained well to meet com-
petition, and capital must receive a fair return or it will not
invest. Labor can get more only when these two are satisfied.
It has been found that in America, with its immense internal
markets, the lowering of the price of goods will often increase
sales to the point where profits may be larger from goods at
lower prices. We have universally found that when we manu-
facture in vast quantity, the cost becomes less. Many types of
machinery can be employed in large-scale production which
would be useless in small plants. This is found to be true even
of farming, where with the use of large machines and areas,
grain can be grown for half the cost of that raised on small
farms with less machinery. Large enterprises can have ade-
quate laboratory facilities, skilled scientists, the best engineer-
ing and commercial talent things out of the range of any
small business. Therefore in many types of business, it is im-
possible for small enterprises to compete with large ones and
it is not to the interest of the public that they do so. The
large companies are the only ones that can get out the goods
at very low costs. It escapes the observation of most people
that the few things which have not increased in price due to
inflation are all those manufactured by the largest companies.
Automobile tires are cheaper today than they were before the
war, even though the prices of labor and materials have
doubled in the meantime. The prices of electric-light bulbs
have not gone up with increase in labor costs. Gasoline is still
about the same price as it was. So far as I know, the prices

108

The Modern Economic Revolution

of all goods made by smaller enterprises are now about double
what they were before the war. They have not been able to
apply the labor and material savings which the larger com-
panies have been able to introduce. Large companies believe
in a large volume of business with a small margin of profit.
This is the best and safest method of eliminating competition.
Besides, where very large investments are involved to get into
the business, few are likely to enter into competition. Mr.
William Levis, then of the Illinois Glass Company, told me
that it would take an investment of forty-five million dollars
to get into their glass business and that he was perfectly will-
ing for anyone to have the use of patents if he wanted to try.
He was not in the least afraid of competition. The big electric
companies are in the same position.

It is our vast untrammeled domestic market which has
placed American industry in such a favorable position. We
must realize that this market alone is as large as that of all
Europe with its many tariff walls and regulations. Here we
can plan business on a large scale and be sure of no domestic
interference.

There is another factor, which has been developed during
my business life, which has had the greatest effect on all our
thinking and business. This is the idea, propounded first by
Henry Ford, that it is in the interest of manufacturers to pay
high wages in order to make an enlarged market for their own
goods. Such an idea was revolutionary at the time and I well,
remember the great resentment it aroused among all business-
men at the time. I, myself, could not see far enough to imagine
the implications of the policy he was starting* Ford announced
he would pay no man less than $5.00 pay each day and that
if a workman could not earn $6.00 for his employer, it was

109

Days pom Seventy -Five to Ninety

evident that the employer was not competent to manage the
business. At that time the wage was about $2.50 a day. Of
course, when one factory began paying higher wages it was
only a short time before the others had to follow suit. The
result was that the working men had more money to spend
and this increased all business. Ford made his own market for
his own cars,

Those higher wages have had many effects on our econ-
omy. They have made everyone look about to see what could
be done to save high-priced labor, and this has, in turn, very
greatly increased the productivity of the whole country. In
many cases we have found that we can produce goods at
prices just as low as before, and pay more wages. It has acted
as an automatic tonic to all kinds of business, which has not
been the case in Europe, where wages have not increased an
equal amount. Of course, with their smaller markets Euro-
peans cannot always adopt labor-saving machines to the same
degree we can here. This gives us a great advantage over them,
and enables us to pay our labor more and therefore have a
higher standard of living. Europe will always excel in skilled
handicrafts, where goods are manufactured in smaller quan-
tities. As soon as the quantity gets large enough we can make
goods at less cost, even with our higher labor, than they can
in Europe. The attitude there is all toward restricting mar-
kets and maintaining prices and high profits. We have the
large-volume markets and find that moderate profits on large
volume are a sufficient restraint on competition. There can be
no doubt as to which system must succeed best in the future.

We often hear people advocating the idea that the rest of
the world, at some time in the future, ought to be brought
to the same standard of living we have here in America. These

no

The Modern Economic Revolution

people do not seem to know that even if this could be done,
there are not enough raw materials, such as metals, in the
whole world to provide for any such condition. If it were
brought about, it is calculated that all the world's iron would
be used up in ten years and the supplies of copper, zinc, lead,
tin, and other metals would last an even shorter time. The
whole world can never be brought to the standard of living we
enjoy in the United States, but it can have ample food sup-
plies, clothing, and housing as soon as birth control is brought
to the point where world populations have ceased to increase
materially. This may take a very long time, but it might be
brought to pass. Several countries now have approximately
stationary population, such as France and Cambodia. Eco-
nomic factors and birth control may reduce the population
increase in other lands. At present the outlook for the future
of the world is not good. Populations are increasing so much
faster than food supplies that the outlook for the coming years
is serious. Even great wars, such as we have had recently, have
not materially reduced populations, and we are devoting our-
selves to improving the health of people all over the world.
This in itself will increase the earth's inhabitants without
increasing the food supply. Are we doing good to improve
health or are we increasing the number who will suffer in the
future? It is difficult to see how improving health without
increasing food will ultimately do any real good; it will only
make more underfed people. The efforts of the world as a
whole should be devoted to preventing population increase
and to finding some way of producing more food. The food
supply can probably be doubled, if what we now know of
agriculture can be applied to all lands. We can also count on
vast amounts of food from the sea, which we do not get now.

in

Days -from Seventy-Five to Ninety

Let us hope that the United Nations may be of service along
these lines in the future, for there is little hope of the U.N.
being of any use in political matters or the relations between
countries.

We have an entirely new set of social and economic con-
ditions to adjust to in this country which never have existed
anywhere in the world before, but we fortunately have in-
herited a governmental system which is flexible and can be
changed to overcome the various troubles as they arise. People
are prone to expect these adjustments to take place too rapidly
and do not realize that large social masses must move very
slowly. We want to do things too quickly, things that ought
to take a long time for mature consideration and adjustment.
Prohibition was a very good instance of a mistake which had
to be corrected. It only took a few years before intelligent
people realized that Prohibition would not work and was
making serious trouble. However, it took sixteen years before
the mass of the public came to the same conclusion, and then
it was abolished promptly.

Our federal system consists of forty-eight states, each with
its own government and constitution. This system constitutes,
in reality, forty-eight governmental experiment stations where
all sorts of legislation and economic and social schemes may
be, and in fact are, tried out, without disturbing in the least
the rhythm of the nation as a whole. When any of these
various laws or experiments in government are successful, they
are likely to be adopted by other states. If taken up success-
fully by enough of them, they are gradually incorporated into
the national government. Failures serve as lessons to other
states the same way. Thus, radical things can be tried out on
a sufficient scale to see if they are advantageous, without in

The Modern Economic Revolution

the least disturbing the nation as a whole. No other type of
government, except our federal system, has such a safety
valve for trying out experiments on a political plant scale.
Others have to try them out on a national scale, often with
dire results to the nation. Look what socialism on a national
scale has done to England. We are indeed fortunate in having
inherited our peculiar federal system. It never would have
been devised by anyone, it just came into being from historical
causes.

We can, and will, adjust to any difficulties which exist, or
may arise, in future, but we must not expect this to take place
too rapidly. Ample time must be allowed for experimentation
and consideration before the mass of people reach the right
decision. Such a change is now taking place in this country
in the shift from the former philosophy of the Democratic
party to that of the Republican. If we can keep the avenues
of information entirely open, and our governmental system
flexible to meet changing conditions, nothing can stop forward
progress. It is to our very great benefit to have socialism and
communism tried out in England and Russia. We will see the
results before such ideas take too deep roots in this country.
When our people are once fully informed of what has really
taken place, there is small danger that they will choose a wrong
course.

The histories of Greece and Rome are one long series of
experimentation with various forms of democratic and repub-
lican governments, which all broke down after longer or
shorter periods of operation. Always some form of dictatorial
control took their place. Why did this occur when we now
feel that a democratic form is best for the great mass of the
people, and we now think that such a form may be made to

113

Days from Seventy-Five to Ninety

endure permanently? I can think of two reasons why so-called
democracy broke down in ancient times. The first was that
the political groups where these democracies operated were
rather restricted in area quite usually to one city state. Under
such conditions the larger groups of the population could be
reached and swayed by a dominating personality. Now demo-
cratic areas are much larger and only a small part of the voters
have direct contact with any political figure.

A second condition, and far more important, is the wide
dissemination of information through the press, radio, and
television. With a free press and free speech, nothing can be
kept from the public for long. Dangerous ideas are fully ex-
posed and discussed, and their merits evaluated before they
take possession of the mass of the voters. Our main hope of
avoiding mistakes lies in a completely informed public, and
we will meet and solve difficulties as they arise.

When one thinks over the foregoing observations on our
business and political economy, it is hard for me to see how
the Russian communist system can ever compete with the
efficient system we are developing in this country. While Rus-
sia has tremendous resources, both in materials and in man-
power, and even if these should turn out to be greater than
those we have or can obtain, it is hard to see how they will
ever be as efficiently exploited under their present system as
they could be under the one we now practice. It must be
remembered that in our day the world moves forward at an
increasing pace all the time and the laggard can never hope
to catch up with the country which gets ahead, and keeps
ahead. Russia can never make the most of the intelligence it
has to draw on, so long as that intelligence is not allowed free
opportunity to develop for its own advantage. If people are

114

The Modern Economic Revolution

continually ordered about to do only as they are directed, they
can never develop their maximum powers. Personally, Russian
competition in world business does not alarm me in the least,
either now or in the foreseeable future. They are on the wrong
track in human affairs, and until they get on the right track
their progress is bound to be much slower than ours, no matter
how much of our accomplishments they may steal and put
into practice. By the time they get things going, we will have
moved forward from that point,

The Soviets will certainly engage in a war with us if they
ever think it is to their advantage to do so and they think that
they can win. Their will for world domination is firmly fixed,
and they intend to carry it out. There is nothing we can do
to stop them, except to be so strong that they will not attempt
it. If war should come, it will result in a most terrible destruc-
tion both in our country and in theirs. Civilization will not be
wiped out as is so often predicted, but the world will be set
back many generations and our population may be greatly
reduced. Such an outcome is quite conceivable. There can
only be one end to such a war: we will win it eventually be-
cause we have the greater resources in industry, brains, and
capacity to make war materials. Any war equipment prepared
in advance of a war is certain to be outmoded after the war
has been in progress for some time. Both the last wars have
shown this to be the case. The country which can replace its
war materials most rapidly in the most advanced form is sure
to win the war in the end. This prospect is not a pleasant one
to contemplate, but we must face the conditions over which
we have no control

Few people will agree with what I am about to state, but
when they have thought these matters over more carefully,

05

Days -from Seventy -Five to Ninety

they may change their minds. Many have placed their hopes
in the United Nations, believing that in some magical way
this organization would secure universal peace. At the present
time such hopes seem to me entirely visionary. Neither the
League of Nations nor the United Nations has demonstrated
any ability to control any but the very weak peoples of the
world. Stronger nations universally have placed their own
interests ahead of the world good and have gone their own
ways to suit themselves. The United Nations has done and can
do nothing about it, and there is no likelihood that it will be
able to do so for a very long time to come. If this is so, what
must be the outcome in the near future? To me this seems
evident, but few will agree with me. Until such time as the
United Nations does acquire power to control strong nations,
if it ever does, there seems to be only one hopeful solution for
world peace. That is to have one nation strong enough to act
as world policeman and keep peace and order in the world.
This role at present is being thrust upon the United States,
whether we like it or not. Circumstances are rapidly bringing
this about. Should we defeat Russia either in war or peace, we
would have the world power to act as world policeman to keep
order and enforce peace. We would have to do this in our
own interest whether we like to do it or not. For the first time
three modern methods in development have made this both
practical and possible: the aeroplane, the atomic and hydrogen
bombs, and methods developed with landing craft so that any
country bordering the ocean may be successfully attacked. It
is most fortunate for the world that this power will fall into
the hands of a nation with no territorial ambitions and with
a traditional regard for freedom and fair play for others. We
could easily have taken over both Mexico and Canada. We

116

My Philosophy o] Life

have given up possession of both Cuba and the Philippines.
We have a historical training for this role, beginning with our
resistance to British oppression in colonial days. No other
nation has such a suitable training and background for this role
which is going to be thrust upon us. Should the United Na-
tions ever become able really to control strong nations, I am
certain we would gladly relinquish the role of world police-
man, a role which I feel sure is not to the taste of the Amer-
ican people.

I am certainly an optimist on the future of America. We
are heirs to all the best political experiments of the human race
in the past, and we have all types of human material here with
which to go on and develop what we have inherited, with less
outside interference on our continent than anywhere else in
the whole world. Our governmental system, while far from
perfect, is the best so far devised by man for forward develop-
ment, socially and politically. All we have to do is to keep on
in the path we have been following for the last 175 years, and
correct mistakes and overcome difficulties as they arise, one
after the other, and there is no limit to our advancement or
that of our descendants. The future is in our hands and will
be what we make it by our own works and character.

My Philosophy of Life

OF COURSE I APPRECIATE THAT MY OWN LIFE HAS BEEN ONE

of exceptional opportunity and ease, as I 'have always had
enough income for my needs except during periods when I
failed, but these were of short duration for I soon pulled my-
self out of my difficulties. My failures have proved my best

117

Days from Seventy -Five to Ninety

character builders and I do not regret them. There must be
many people who have had similar great opportunities and for
them my story can be of value.

Old age with me is, as it should be, the fruition of a long
and active life, full of joys, sorrows, mistakes, successes, and
failures, all condensed into one integrated personality which
ought to be able to give back something for what it has re-
ceived from life. At least this is my feeling in my later years.
In old age one must live well within one's physical capacity
and adjust life to the changed conditions old age brings about,
but such a life need not be less enjoyable than that which
preceded it, only different. If old people would only realize
this, many would be far happier. The man who says he is just
as well and as able as he ever was, is not only lying, but he is
fooling himself and no one else. Human life begins with a
period of growth and development, then comes a time of
maximum physical and mental activity, after which comes a
long period of gradual decline, its length depending on one's
inheritance and how well one has looked after one's body and
mind during life. Sometimes old age can last almost as long as
the active period of life. If this is a possibility, ought we not
to prepare for this long closing period, and not leave it to
chance or the ministration of others? We can make our old
age either the fruition of life, and enjoyable, or a time of
regrets, frustration, and sickness. Old age is likely to be what
we have made it during our active life. I fortunately realized
this early in life and was forced to look after my health
through the warning of an early death if I did not do so. My
grandfather, Peter Cooper, pointed out to me the necessity of
living so that life would have a happy ending. I have worked
hard to achieve this end and to make my own old age, if I was

118

My Philosophy of Life

to have one, as pleasant, active, and Interesting as possible. In
order to accomplish this, we must do many things actively
and conscientiously, and some of them are not easy or pleasant.
Our bodily health must be maintained in as good a condition
as possible, and we must not do those things which injure our
health, no matter how much we like to do them. We are re-
warded for this in the building of a stronger character, which
everyone needs to get through life. There is little pleasure in
an ailing and ineffective body. Few people see this clearly,
but continue to do those things which give them pleasure at
the time without regard to health, not realizing that the very
greatest pleasure in life lies in perfect health, because it is con-
tinuous and not temporary.

The most important thing is to have pleasant relations with
one's family. If members of the family prove difficult and make
mistakes you don't approve of, be tolerant and understanding,
not critical, trying to make them do as you think they should.
Be sympathetic and help them all you can, and realize that each
generation is brought up under different social and moral con-
ditions. Often the rules we thought were absolute, no longer
apply at present. Everyone must be allowed to make his own
mistakes. It is on this foundation that character and experience
are built up. When the older generation try to enforce their
ideas too strenuously on the younger, they are sure to become
disliked and distrusted. This is why so many younger people
have parent trouble. Parents will not give up the active direc-
tion of their children when they become adult, and this makes
for much unhappiness in the world. Be tolerant and sym-
pathetic, not critical Far more will be accomplished in this
way than in any other. When old age comes on, it is time for
older people to surrender their activities to the younger gen-

119

Days from Seventy-Five to Ninety

eration and not hold on to the direction of affairs to the last
moment. Keep enough property for security and comfort, but
give the rest to the younger members of the family so that
they can learn early to administer it properly. Young couples
getting married and starting out in life have a hard rime to get
ahead and need all the help which can be given them safely.
The tree of life can produce either sweet or bitter fruit, and
it is up to us to produce only sweet fruit.

If I have learned anything in a long life, it is that this is a
world of law, and if we transgress the law in either the physical
or moral spheres, we are sure to pay the penalty. If we trans-
gress the laws of nature by faulty living, we can often recover,
if too much damage has not been done to our bodies and we
follow the laws of health. The same is true of moral law. If
we transgress and injure our moral fiber, we can reform, if the
damage has not gone too far. If it has, it is often hopeless. My
father told me a story which well illustrates this. There was
a trustee of the Cooper Union, originally selected by Peter
Cooper for his good character and ability, who served many
years creditably. He was a most upright citizen and an excel-
lent businessman. When he realized that his end was near, he
sent for my father, who was then treasurer of the Cooper
Union, to tell him that he had made up his mind to leave his
large fortune to the Cooper Union as he had no family except
two nephews. They were dissipated young men, who ought
not to have his property. A short time later he sent for my
father to come to his rooms in the Clarendon Hotel to witness
the signing of his will. At five o'clock the lawyer was there
with the will, but the trustee delayed the signing under one
pretext or another until it became so late that the lawyer had
to go. After he had gone the trustee reached out his hand and

120

My Philosophy of Life

took my father's in his and said slowly, "Mr. Hewitt, I have
spent my whole life accumulating this money, and money has
been my god in life. Now I cannot bring myself to part with
it, even on paper." He burst into tears and turned his face to
the wall. He died that night, and the nephews dissipated the
fortune, as he had predicted. His moral purpose had been
wrong, and dominated him so that he could not take the right
course when the crisis came. It was too late.

Religious conversions, or taking the pledge, sometimes have
good lasting results, but it is surprising how often they fail
later on. The moral fiber is not strong enough to persist in the
right.

My own religious and moral beliefs have gone through
many phases during my long life. I was, in youth, instructed
both in the Presbyterian faith by my teachers and in the Epis-
copalian faith at Sunday school. As I matured and thought
about religious matters, I could not believe in the forgiveness
of sins. To me a sin was a sin, and no one could forgive it or
excuse it. The only cure was not to commit it again. I could
not believe in everlasting life because I could see that this came
about because no one can conceive of not being alive. There-
fore people believe in its continuance. I did not. I certainly
could never believe in the resurrection of the body when its
elements had been scattered far and wide, and I could not see
usefulness in this. I certainly never could see how an all-seeing
and beneficent God could begin to save people only after mil-
lions had existed, and then only save a few while the rest of
mankind never heard of salvation. This seemed ridiculous to
me. I could not understand a beneficent God allowing so much
sin and misery in the world. This to me seemed a contradiction
in terms. None of the religious beliefs I had been taught took

121

Days pom Seventy-Five to Ninety

any hold of me, and I could not believe in any of them and
stay rational myself. I felt that the Negro preacher was right
when he said, "Faith is believing something you know ain't
so." But what can take its place? Finally I saw a light. Edward
Caird in his Evolution of Religion defines religion as u the
efforts of man to get into better relations with things outside
of himself." If this idea is accepted, all religions fall into line.
They are good for people if they give strength and comfort.
As there are many kinds of people, there must be many kinds
of religious beliefs to suit their needs. An idol, a tree, or a
river may be as useful to primitives as any spiritual conception
is to a more highly developed person. Each should select that
which suits him best, and no one should disturb another's faith.
I feel very strongly about this. Instruction in ethical and moral
principles is good and useful, but even these principles vary
with time and circumstances and races. We have our moral
code and others have theirs, which they often follow far better
than we do ours. If they do, they are good people, so far as
their lights go.

Prayer is useful if it searches one's soul and leads one in the
right path. If it is for any specific benefit I regard it as an
impertinence to the Almighty. I never pray, as it has done me
no good in my life. My grandfather felt the same way. He told
me that his way was to go over what he had done that day
each night before going to sleep, and if he found he had done
nothing for others which he regarded as worth while, he felt
that that day had been wasted and he resolved to do better the
next day. He felt that his best course in life was to act honestly,
work hard, and be kind and helpful to others in every way he
could. He said that if he did this, the future would look after
itself. I am sure he was right.

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My Philosophy of Life

My own personal experience with people who have been
closely identified with formal religion has been most discour-
aging. I have found them not only not better than others, but
much worse. I have known nine ministers of the church in my
life, and five of them were either immoral or financially
crooked. This is too large a proportion and seems to indicate
that formal religion has little or no influence on conduct. Re-
ligious organizations seem often to get on the wrong track
as was the case with the Catholic Church when they sold
indulgences for committing sins; the greater the sin, the higher
the price. They also received money for the remission of sins.
The same kind of thing is going on today. A Methodist min-
ister came to see us to get a subscription for his church. After
lunch the conversation turned on the church's prohibiting card
playing. He said that, of course, ordinary playing cards were
wicked and an invention of the Devil, but that the Methodist
Church provided special Methodist cards, at two dollars a
pack, with which Methodist Poker could be played without
sin. He did not get any subscription from us.

Common sayings such as "Honesty is the best policy," or
Mark Twain's version of it, "Sonny, always tell the truth, it
will please some and astonish the rest," are not fundamentally
based on right and wrong, but they involve a reward. In fact
nearly all religious teachings derive their force from this
means. They are followed because they are based on personal
advantage in the future. In the Old Testament we read, "That
thy days shall be long in the land the Lord, thy God, giveth
thee." Christ's teachings are full of rewards in Heaven. Mo-
hammed promised a heaven, full of houris. Great religious
teachers did stress great moral laws, and Christ most of all.
This is what gave force to his teachings, together with per-

123

Days from Seventy-Five to Ninety

sonal righteousness and responsibility. This was part of his
powers, but pure moral or ethical teaching has little appeal to
the mass of people, as is seen in our times by the small f ollow-
ings of the Ethical Culture Society. The great following ob-
tained by the Christian Science Church is probably due to the
health rewards promised believers. In speaking of moral law,
I mean that which is accepted among civilized races and not
that of less developed peoples, where it is often followed better
than it is here.

Everyone knows that masses of people are swayed by dy-
namic personalities. We do not know what this powerful
force is, or how it works, but there is no doubt of it. Look at
the influence of Billy Graham, today preaching the same re-
ligion that is weekly heard in churches, and yet it falls by the
wayside there. Christ must have had similar and greater power.
This dynamic force can be either for good or evil; it has equal
force in each direction. Look at Lenin, Hitler, and Mussolini.
They swayed millions and induced them to give up their lib-
erty; they shook the world. It is not at all likely that the world
will ever be ruled by moral or ethical law. Its ruling force is
only for the few in this world. It has been preached by many
in various forms, by Confucius, Buddha, Zoroaster, Christ,
and Mohammed. But they all had to use the incentive of per-
sonal advantage to get their message across. Abstract right and
justice has little appeal to large numbers of people. Those who
do not require incentives are few in this world, and lonely.
They always will be.

I have read the Bible through from cover to cover recently,
to see what impression it would make on me in my old age.
When I was young, only the salient parts were stressed, and

124

My Philosophy oj Life

no idea given of the whole. How can anybody reading the
Bible through regard it as a divine book? It gives a wonderful
account of the Jewish race and their disgraceful conquest of
the Promised Land. If there ever was a worse people than this
so-called "chosen people," we have no record of them. There
is much beautiful poetic literature, the best of it written by
David, who was a murderer. The Deity pictured in the Old
Testament is a God of wrath, jealous, autocratic, unreasonable,
and fickle. He is pictured as a despot, ruling only by fear and
rewards. There is no teaching of personal morality or respon-
sibility. Only obedience to decrees.

In the New Testament, there is teaching of love of fellow-
man, personal morality, forgiveness, compassion, and personal
righteousness. But it is based on rewards in the after life, not
goodness for its own sake. It is the most advanced moral teach-
ing yet set forth, and in that sense it is divine.

The teachings of Christ had little following in his own time,
and for a long time after. There would have been no Christian
church if it had not been organized by St. Paul, who had the
dialectic genius of the Greek philosophers. He was the only
educated man among the early Christians.

The early Church found that it made little headway without
a feminine member of the divinity and introduced the per-
sonality of the Virgin Mary, with no warrant whatever in
Scripture. It also found that Christian festivals were little
observed and made no headway against the old pagan customs;
so it changed the Christian dates to correspond with the old
pagan ones. The Resurrection at Easter was made to corre-
spond with the spring festival which had always been ob-
served. Finally, the Christian religion became formalized, with
all kinds of separate beliefs. It remains so today.

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Days from Seventy-Five to Ninety

The divinity of Christ was discussed for hundreds of years,
and finally a great conclave of all the dignitaries of the existing
church assembled at Nicea to decide the question. They de-
bated for six months, but just remained equally divided on the
issue. Finally the Emperor Constantine became very weary of
this endless debate and journeyed to Nicea, and, sitting on
his throne, he said that as the church was unable to settle the
divinity of Christ, he would settle it himself. He decided that
Christ was divine and told them they could all go home. Christ
was made divine by Constantine and not by the church. He
has been accepted as such by most Christians since then.

Knowing all this, how can I accept the doctrines of any
Christian belief? No rational person could, if he knew the
facts.

I think I can say that my ruling desire through life has been
an accomplishment through work and study. Whenever I have
completed a job it loses interest for me, and I want to get on
to the next thing. My sister Sally once said truly, "Drink runs
in some families, and work runs in ours. I don't know which
is worse."

I perhaps have been fortunate in not having been submitted
to as many temptations as most people. I have never had any
desire for dissipation, I have always disliked smoking, and I
never cared for the stimulation of alcohol in any form. This
is not virtue, it just happens to be the way I am made. If I had
been made the same as many other people, I might easily have
behaved as they did, but I have been fortunate in my make-up
and inheritance. Few of our family, for several generations,
have smoked, and none of them were ever addicted to drink.
I only hope these traits will be carried on to succeeding gen-

126

The Future

erations as they are of the greatest help in life. So far as I
have observed, none of the children or grandchildren seem
to have any tendencies toward dissipation in any way; few of
them smoke.

The Future

A SHORT TIME AGO I HAD A DREAM ABOUT THE FUTURE. I

dreamed that I was engineer on an old-fashioned steam loco-
motive, such as I used to drive as a young man on the New
York and Greenwood Lake Railroad, which my father owned.
It was night and four cars were attached to the engine. The
bell rang and I pulled back the throttle, and the engine sped
out into the darkness. After a few miles the oil headlight went
out, and the fireman and I relit it. This occurred several times
and then I sent the fireman back for the conductor, as I could
not go ahead in the dark. He came, and was a Russian officer
with astrakan cap and medals and with two large revolvers in
his belt. He said, "You will drive ahead full speed, and drive
like hell." Then he poked a revolver in my ribs, so I pulled
the throttle. He disappeared, and Mrs. Hewitt was sitting at
my side with her hand on my knee. She said, "Drive ahead,
Teddy, into the dark without fear. Everything will be all
right, for I know."

What will that future be? Who knows? I am ready for it.

On the night of my ninetieth birthday I had the following
dream which I wrote down at once:

Dammit, I am ninety years of age,
But I can still write and work and rage.
There are compensations at this stage.

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Days from Seventy-Five to Ninety

To friends and family by the score
I can talk, amuse, and bore.
I have my health and sight and hair,
So why not stay for my hundredth year?

I have never met anyone who seemed more at peace with
himself than I am, and this would indicate that the religious
views I hold are the right ones for me. I take full responsi-
bility for the actions of my past life and want no remission
of sins or atonement. I have led a full life and believe I have
added my mite to the sum of human knowledge and some-
what to its material wealth. I have the love and respect of my
family and friends and no enemies that I know of. In summing
up, 1 feel that I have lived a most successful life, and one full
of continued interest. I have been blessed with the best life
companion a man ever had. I only wish I could feel that I
would join her in the great beyond.

128

My Latest and Best Work

AFTER i HAD READ THE PROOF SHEETS OF THIS BOOK AND
returned them to the publishers, I started work on a new
project I had had in mind for a long time. It has been known
for many years that when a nitrogenous fertilizer liberates
ammonia into the soil, soil bacteria are stimulated to consume
this ammonia as food, and they do this rapidly, locking up
much of this ammonia in their bodies and making it unavail-
able to plants. When these bacteria die, the decay of these
organisms again sets free the nitrogen for plant use. Some of
this ammonia gets locked up in the humus of the soil and may
stay there for many years before the decay of this humus
again sets this ammonia free for plant sustenance. It has been
stated that under favorable conditions of temperature and
moisture, the soil bacteria can consume as much as 25 pounds
of nitrogen a day per acre. This is of course a most serious
loss and expense to agriculture. As much as 400 pounds of
nitrogen to the acre have been added to land in the early
spring without materially increasing the protein in the hay
when cut.

Before doing any work on this project, I wrote to several
of the leading authorities on this subject, asking if anything
was yet known which would prevent soil bacteria from con-
suming ammonia for a reasonable time without injury to
growing plants or killing all the other soil bacteria, which
would injure the fertility of the land, thus allowing the grow-

Ing plants to get more of the nitrogen applied to the soil.
They all replied that this had been done so far only by steriliz-
ing the soil with strong chemicals and that this process was
both expensive and impractical.

It happened that my grandson, Peter Cooper Stevenson,
was spending his vacation with us and we discussed this prob-
lem. He is a chemist and physicist for the Atomic Energy
Commission at their great laboratory at Livermore, California.
He suggested the use of a material of which he happened to
know the properties in relation to bacteria. I secured some
of this and went to work on the problem. My experiments
were crude at first, but I soon developed simple and accurate
means of experimentation and it became evident that this
material would do what was wanted if properly used. It had
no injurious effects on plants when used at a concentration
ten times as high as was necessary for my purposes. Used in
only one part to 5,000 parts of urea, it makes nearly all the
ammonia available to hay plants while soil bacteria get little
of it for two or three weeks. It does not kill all the soil
bacteria or injure the fertility of the land in any way. The cost
of accomplishing this result is nominalonly a few cents an
acre and the material can be incorporated in urea or in gase-
ous ammonia or in ammonia solutions with equally good
results. I have not yet had time to find out just how long the
effects of this material will last in the soil, but I do know
that it disappears in time. The time of its action seems to be
just right for increasing the protein in growing hay so that it
can be cut with a high protein content. There has not yet
been time to try this out on a growing crop. This will be
done exhaustively. I do not yet know what effects it will have

on the consumption of nitrates by soil bacteria, but this will
be investigated.

I believe that this discovery is by far the most valuable I
have ever made in my life, and that it will prove to be worth
hundreds of millions to the farmers of the United States as
they will be able to get results with less than half the nitrogen
which must be used at present. Nitrogen costs farmers about
12 cents a pound and if they can save half of it, this will
amount to an enormous sum. I have no doubt now that this
will take place in time. I will of course make a full disclosure
of this process as soon as the patents, which are now being
drawn up, are in hand.

This discovery, I am convinced, is the most far-reaching and
useful of any I have made in my life, and I am delighted to
have it come at the end, after my ninetieth birthday. I felt
strongly that it would be of interest to readers to know that
original work of value can be done in old age and that it does
not have to stop with middle life. I thought it worth while
to ask my publishers if they could not add a few more pages
to the book, which was already off press, and they have kindly
consented to do this for me.

This will probably be my last contribution to our economy,
and I am glad to have the best come at the end of life.

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