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Vol. 24

JANUARY, MCMIX

No. 1

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TO THE HOME^ OR

BY ELEERT

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REALLY

great man is
known by
three signs-
generosity in the design,
humanity in the execu-
tion and moderation in

success.— B IS MA RCK

Entered at the postofBce at East Aarora, New Tork, for transmiflsifm as «scond-clas« matter
C:cH[>yri^t. 1906, by Elbert Hubbard, Editor and PaUidier.

Is Christianity Declining?

^^p^HAT Debate was pulled off, without
I \ police interference, exactly as scheduled.

There was enough of the unexpected, so
no one went to sleep, leaving word to be
called when it was over. No favor was asked or
given. The rounds were rapid and exciting.
One thing I discovered, and that was that Dr.
Albertson is a great talker. He is also a good looker.
His manly six feet of height, and two hundred
pounds of chest=tone,with faultless double-breast=
ed Prince Albert, put me to the bad in betting
circles. It was two to one in favor of the Dominie.
^ But when it came to logic I put the thing all over
him. And I so explained to the Roycrofters, in
conclave assembled, when I got home at Sun-up.
^ Afterward, I learned that on the same evening
that I was telling the truth to my flock, he was
explaining to his congregation how he had run
the oratorical Steam=Roller over me.
So both sides are smiling. A full report of the
Debate will be found in THE FR A, that Magazine
of Kosmic Kilowatts, for January. Start your sub-
scription to THE FRA with the January issue^

special Attention

All Loyal Royal Roycrofters — members of
the Immortal Clan — are urgently requested
not to display Roycroft Books in unpro-
tected places, fl It is not fair to your friend
to introduce an unexpected temptation
while he awaits your arrival in the Library.
flTo avoid Temptation, insure that sense
of Ease and Security on your part, and
make possible many Happy Hours for
your Friends, just send them a Roycroft
Book for their very own ^ ^ ^ ^ ,^ ^

Our Two Dollar Books

make friends of the uninitiated, and con-
stant patrons of our friends, fl Our little
Books and Things are * * Something New
under the Sun" — and We want the whole
World to Know it. fl List of Titles and
Prices furnished on request.
The Roycrofters, East Aurora, N. Y.

By Special Appointment— Bookmakers to His Most Gracious Highness,
the Prince of Good Taste.

Ilotu 'Pout Jt?

Hey thar,

Fra,

Whar yer goin',

Snortin' an' blowin'

Like all-persessed ?

Say, you jest

Stop

An' listen to my yawp,

Just a minit.

Cause they ' s something in it.

You been a-lambastin'

Folks 'bout tastin' an' wastin'

Stuff they bolt an' gulp an' guzzle

Inter their arliment'ry puzzle.

An' hollerin'

' Bout swollerin'

An' tellin' 'em ter chew,

An' chew an' chew.

An' CHEW IT,

An' stick to it

Ter beat ther band,

An' show some grit an' sand,

— Jest like ol' Hod Fletcher,

But, say Fra — I betcher

Yer didn't stop ter think

Whilst yer waz a-slingin' uv all that there ink

'Bout gittin ev'ry drop uv mastikashun jooce.

That was a-goin' to wear yer teeth out like th' Dooce !

— Arthur Plummer

THE ROYCROFTERS

EAST AURORA, ERIE COUNTY, NEW YORK

FRIENDS:—

I enclose Two Dollars to pay for a yearly
subscription to THE FRA Magazine.

Name

Address

Date

Check Your Choice. One of these beautiful Roy-
croft books, gratis, with every subscription for

THE FRA MAGAZINE

HEALTH AND WEALTH - - - - Hubbard
The Broncho Book _ _ _ _ Capt. Jack Crawford

Woman's Work ----- Alice Hubbard

Battle of Waterloo _ _ _ - Victor Hugo

White Hyacinths - - - - Elbert Hubbard

The Rubaiyat - _ _ - _ Omar Khayyam

A William Morris Book - - - Hubbard and Thomson
Crimes Against Criminals - . - - Robert G. Ingersoll

A Christmas Carol ----- Charles Dickens
The Ballad of Reading Gaol - _ _ Oscar Wilde

Justinian and Theodora - - Elbert and Alice Hubbard

BOUND VOL. LITTLE JOURNEYS - - Hubbard

ARE YOU WITH US?

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NOMF • IMTQ-rn

BOOK-BY-THB

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T HAVE always expended to the last shilling my surplus wealth
■^ in promoting this great and good cause of industrial betterment.
The right reverend prelate is greatly deceived when he says that I
have squandered my wealth in profligacy and luxury. I have never
expended a pound in either; all my habits are habits of temperance
in all things, and I challenge the right reverend prelate and all his
abettors to prove the contrary, and I will give him and them the
means of following me through every stage and month of my life.
— ROBERT OWEN, in Speech before the House of Lords.

TYP

ROBERT OWEN

LITTLE JOURNEYS

N Germany, the land of philosophy,
when the savants sail into a sea of
doubt, some one cries, "Back to
Kant!"

In America, when professed democ-
racy^ grows ambitious and evolves
a lust for power, men say, "Back
to Jefferson!"

In business, when employer forgets
employee and both forget their better
manhood, we say, "Back to Robert
Owen."

We will not go back to Robert Owen— we will go on to Robert
Owen, for his philosophy is still in the vanguard.
Robert Owen was a business man. His first intent was to
attain a practical success. He produced the article, and sold
it at a profit.

In this operation of taking raw material and manufacturing
it into forms of use and beauty, from the time the seed was
planted in the ground on up to the consumer who purchased
the finished fabric and wove it, Owen believed that all should
profit — all shoxild be made happier by every transaction.
That is to say, Robert Owen believed that a business trans-
action where both sides do not make money is immoral.
There is a legal maxim still cited in the courts, "Caveat
emptor"— let the buyer beware.

For this maxim Robert Owen had no respect. He scorned
the thought of selling a man something the man did not

ROBERT OWEN

want; or of selling an article for anything excepting exactly
what it was, or of exacting a price for it by hook or crook,
beyond its value.

Robert Owen believed in himself, and in his product, and
he believed in the people. He was a democratic optimist.
He had faith in the demos; and the reason was that his
estimate of the people was formed by seeing into his own
heart. He realized that he was a part of the people, and he
knew that he wanted nothing for himself which the world
could not have on the same terms. He looked into the calm
depths of his own heart and saw that he hated tyranny,
pretense, vice, hypocrisy, extravagance and untruth. He
knew in the silence of his own soul that he loved harmony,
health, industry, reciprocity, truth and helpfulness. His
desire was to benefit mankind, and to help himself by
helping others.

Therefore he concluded that, the source of all life being
the same, he was but a sample of the average man, and
all men would, if not intimidated and repressed, desire
what he desired.

When physically depressed through lack of diversified
exercise, bad air, or wrong conditions, he realized that
his mind was apt to be at war, not only with its best self,
but with any person who chanced to be near. From this
he argued that all departures in society were occasioned
by wrong physical conditions, and in order to get a full
and free expression of the Divine Mind, of which we are
all reflectors or mediums, our bodies must have a right
a

ROBERT 0 W E N

environment. ^ To get this Right Environment became the
chief business and study of his life.

To think that a man who always considers "the other
fellow" should be a great success in a business way is to
us more or less of a paradox. "Keep your eye on Number
One," we advise the youth intent on success. "Take care
of yourself," say the bucolic Solons when we start on a
little journey. And "Self-preservation is the first law of
life," voice the wise ones.

And yet we know that the man who thinks only of himself,
acquires the distrust of the whole community. He sets in
motion forces that work against him, and has thereby
created a handicap that blocks him at every step.
Robert Owen was one of those quiet, wise men who win
the confidence of men, and thereby siphon to themselves
all good things. That the psychology of success should
have been known to this man in Seventeen Hundred and
Ninety, we might call miraculous, were it not for the fact
that the miraculous is always the natural.
Those were troublous times when Robert Owen entered
trade. The French Revolution was on, and its fires lit up
the intellectual sky of the whole world. The Colonies had
been lost to England ; it was a time of tumult in Threadneedle
Street; the armies of the world were lying on their arms
awaiting orders. And out of this great unrest emerged Robert
Owen, handsome, intelligent, honest, filled with a holy zeal
to help himself by helping humanity.
Robert Owen was born at the village of Newtown, Wales,

ROBERT OWEN

in Seventeen Hundred and Seventy-one. After being away
from his native village for many years, he returned, as did
Shakespeare and as have so many successful men, and again
made the place of his boyhood the home of his old age. Owen
died in the house in which he was born. His body was buried
in the same grave where sleeps the dust of his father and
mother. During the eighty-seven years of his life he accom-
plished many things and taught the world lessons which it has
not yet memorized.

In point of time, Robert Owen seems to have been the
world's first Business Man. Private business was to him
a public trust. He was a creator, a builder, an economist,
an educator, a humanitarian. He got his education from
his work, at his work, and strove throughout his long life
to make it possible for others to do the same.
He believed in the Divinity of Business. He anticipated
Emerson by saying, "Commerce consists in making things
for people who need them, and carrying them from where
they are plentiful to where they are wanted."
Every economist should be a humanitarian; and every
humanitarian should be an economist.
Charles Dickens, writing in Eighteen Himdred and Sixty,
puts forth Scrooge, Carker and Bumball as economists.
When Dickens wanted to picture ideal business men, he
gave us the Cherryble brothers — men with soft hearts, giving
pennies to all beggars, shillings to poor widows, and coal
and loaves of bread to families living in rickety tenements.
The Dickens idea of betterment was the priestly plan of dole.

ROBERT OWEN

Dickens did not know that indiscriminate alms-giving pau-
perizes humanity, and never did he supply the worid a glimpse
of a man like Robert Owen, whose charity was something
more than palliation.

Robert Owen was born in decent poverty, of parents who
knew the simple, beautiful and necessary virtues of industry,
sobriety and economy. Where this son got his hunger for
books and his restless desire for achievement we do not
know. He was a business genius, and from genius of any
kind no hovel is immune.

He was sent to London at the age of ten to learn the
saddler's trade; at twelve he graduated from making wax-
ends, blacking leather and greasing harness and took a
position as salesman in the same business.
From this he was induced to become a salesman for a
haberdasher. He had charm of manner — fluidity, sympathy
and health. At seventeen he asked to be paid a commission
on sales instead of a salary, and on this basis he saved a
hundred pounds in a year.

At eighteen a customer told him of a wonderful invention —
a machine that was run by steam — ^for spinning cotton into
yarn. Robert was familiar with the old process of making
woolen yam on a spinning-wheel by hand — his mother did
it and had taught him and his brothers and sisters how.
^ C6tton was just coming in, since the close of "George
Washington's Rebellion." Watt had watched his mother's
teakettle to a purpose. Here were two big things destined
to revolutionize trade — the use of cotton in place of flax

B E

WEN

UST here let us take a side trip
in this LITTLE JOURNEY long
enough to inspect the peculiar
conditions of the time.
It was a period of transition — the
old was dying, the new was being
born ^ Both experiences were
painful.

There was a rapid displacement of
hand labor. One machine did the
work of ten or more persons. What
were these people who were thrown
out to do? Adjust themselves to the new conditions, you
say. True, but many could not. They starved, grew sick, ate
their hearts out in useless complaining.
Only a few years before, and the spinning of flax and wool
was exclusively a home industry. Every cottage had its
spinning-wheel and loom. There was a garden, a cow, a
pig, poultry and fruits and flowers. The whole household
worked, and the wheel and loom were never idle while it
was light. The family worked in relays.
It was a very happy and prosperous time. Life was simple
and natural. There was constant labor, but it was diversified.
The large flocks of sheep, raised chiefly for wool, made mutton
cheap. Everything was homemade. People made things for
themselves and if they acquired a superior skill they supplied
their neighbors, or exchanged products with them. As the
manixfacturing was done in the homes there was no crowding
8

ROBERT OWEN

of population. The factory boarding-house and the tenement
were yet to come.

This was the condition up to Seventeen Hundred and Seventy.
From then until Seventeen Hundred and Ninety was the time
of transition. By Seventeen Hundred and Ninety, mills were
erected wherever there was water power, and the village
artisans were moving to the towns to work in the mills.
^ For the young men and women it was an alluring life.
The old way gave them no time to themselves — there was
the cow to milk, the pigs and poultry to care for, or the
garden making insistent demands. Now they worked at
certain hours for certain wages, and rested. Tenements
took the place of cottages and the "public," with its
smiling barkeep, was always right at the corner.
Hargreaves, Arkwright, Watt and Eli Whitney had worked
a revolution more far-reaching than did Mirabeau, Danton,
Robespierre and Marat.

Here creeps in an item interesting to our friends who revel
in syntax and prosody. Any machine or apparatus for lifting
has been called a "jack" since the days of Shakespeare.
The jack was a bearer of bundles, a lifter, a puller, a worker.
Any coarse bit of mechanism was called a jack, and is yet.
In most factories there are testing jacks, gearing jacks,
lifting jacks. Falstaff tells of a jack-of-all-trades. The jack
was anything strong, patient and serviceable.
When Hargreaves, the Lancashire carpenter, invented his
spinning-machine a village wit called it a "jenny." The
machine was fine, delicate, subtle and, as spinning was a

ROBERT OWEN

woman's business anyway, the new machine was parsed
in the feminine gender.

Soon the new invention took on a heavier and stronger
form, and its persistency suggested to some other merry
villager a new variation and it was called a "mule." The
word stuck, and the mule-spinner is with us wherever
cotton is spun.

The discovery that coal was valuable for fuel followed the
invention of the steam engine.

When things are needed we dig down and find them, or
reach up and secure them. You could not run a steamship,
excepting along a river with well-wooded banks, any more
than you could run an automobile with coal.
The dealing in coal, or "coals** as our English cousins
still use the word, began in Eighteen Hundred and Nineteen.
That was the year the first steamship, the Savannah, crossed
the ocean. She ran from Savannah to London. Her time was
twenty-five days. She burned four hundred and fifty tons of
coal, or about two-thirds of her entire carrying capacity.
Robert Fulton had begun running his steamer "Clermont'*
on the Hudson in Eighteen Hundred and Seven, but there
were wooding stations every twenty miles.
It was argued in the House of Commons that no steamship
could ever cross the Atlantic with steam, alone, as a pro-
pelling power. And even as it was being mathematically
proved, the whistle of the ^Savannah drowned the voice of
the orator.
But the Savannah also carried sail, and so the doubters

. ROBERT OWEN

still held the floor. An iron boat with no sails that could
cross the Atlantic in five days, was a miracle that no optimist
had forseen — much less, dared to prophecy.
The new conditions almost threatened to depopulate the
rural districts. Farmers forsook the soil. The uncertainty
of a crop was replaced with the certainty of a given wage.
Children could tend the spinning-jennies as well as men.
There was a demand for child labor. Any poor man with
a big family counted himself rich. Many a man who could
not find a job at a man*s wage quit work and was supported
by his wife and children. To rear a family became a
paying enterprise.

Various mill-owners adopted children or took them under
the apprentice system, agreeing to teach them the trade.
Girls and boys from orphan asylums and workhouses were
secured and held as practical slaves. They were herded in
sheep-sheds where they slept on straw and were fed in
troughs. They were worked in two shifts, night and day,
so the straw was never really cold. They worked twelve
hours, slept eight, and one hour was allowed for meals.
Their clothing was not removed excepting on Saturday.
^ Any alteration in the business life of a people is fraught
with great danger. Recklessness, greed and brutality at
such a time are rife.

Almost all workingmen of forty or over were out of work.
Naturally, employers hired only the young, the active, the
athletic. These made more money than they were used to
making, so they spent it lavishly and foolishly. It was a

ROBERT OWEN

woman's business an5rway, the new machine was parsed
in the feminine gender.

The discovery that coal was valuable for fuel followed the
invention of the steam engine.

When things are needed we dig down and find them, or
reach up and secure them. You could not run a steamship,
excepting along a river with well-wooded banks, any more
than you could run an automobile with coal.
The dealing in coal, or "coals** as our English cousins
still use the word, began in Eighteen Hundred and Nineteen.
That was the year the first steamship, the Savannah, crossed
the ocean. She ran from Savannah to London. Her time was
twenty-five days. She burned four hundred and fifty tons of
coal, or about two-thirds of her entire carrying capacity.
Robert Fulton had begim running his steamer "Clermont**
on the Hudson in Eighteen Hundred and Seven, but there
were wooding stations every twenty miles.
It was argued in the House of Commons that no steamship
cotild ever cross the Atlantic with steam, alone, as a pro-
pelling power. And even as it was being mathematically
proved, the whistle of the ^Savannah drowned the voice of
the orator.
But the Savannah also carried sail, and so the doubters

rr OBERT OWEN

still held the floor. An iron boat with no sails that could
cross the Atlantic in five days, was a miracle that no optimist
had forseen — much less, dared to prophecy.
The new conditions almost threatened to depopulate the
rural districts. Farmers forsook the soil. The uncertainty
of a crop was replaced with the certainty of a given wage.
Children could tend the spinning-jennies as well as men.
There was a demand for child labor. Any poor man with
a big family counted himself rich. Many a man who could
not find a job at a man's wage quit work and was supported
by his wife and children. To rear a family became a
paying enterprise.

ROBERT OWEN

prosperous time, yet strangely enough, prosperity brought
starvation to thousands. Family life in many instances was
destroyed and thus were built those long rows of houses,
all alike, with no mark of individuality — no yards, no flowers,
no gardens — that still in places mar the landscape in factory
towns. Pretty girls went to the towns to work in the mills,
and thus lost home ties. Later they drifted to London.
Drunkenness increased.

In Seventeen Hundred and Ninety-six, there was formed
the Manchester Board of Health. Its intent was to guard
the interests of factory workers. Its desire was to insure
light, ventilation and sanitary conveniences for the workers.
Beyond this it did not seek to go.

The mill superintendents lifted a howl. They talked about
interference, and depriving the poor people of the right to
labor. They declared it was all a private matter between
themselves and the workers — a matter of contract.
Robert Owen, it seems, was the first factory superintendent
to invite inspection of his plant. He worked with the Board
of Health, not against it. He refused to employ children
under ten years of age, and although there was a tax on
windows, he supplied plenty of light and also fresh air.
So great was the ignorance of the workers, that they
regarded the Factory Laws as an infringement on their
rights. The greed and foolish fears of the mill-owners
prompted them to put out the good old argument that a
man's children were his own, and that for the state to dictate
to him where they should work, when and how, was a species

ROBERT OWEN

of tyranny. Work was good for children! Let them run the
streets? Never!

It is a curious thing to note that when Senator Albert J.
Beveridge endeavored to have a Federal Bill passed at
Washington, in Nineteen Hundred and Seven, the argu-
ments he had to meet and answer were those which Robert
Owen and Sir Robert Peel were obliged to answer in Seven-
teen Hundred and Ninety-five.

When a man who worked a hundred orphans fourteen
hours a day, boys and girls of from six to twelve, was
accused of cruelty he defended himself by saying, "If I
doesn't work *em all the time 'cept when they sleep and
eat, they will learn to play, and then never work." This
argument was repeated by many fond parents as conclusive.
^ The stress of the times — having many machines in one
btxilding, all run by one motor power, the necessity of
buying raw material in quantities, the expense of finding
a market — all these combined to force the invention of a
very curious economic expediency. It was called a Joint
Stock Company. From a man and his wife and his children
making things at home, we get two or three men going
into partnership and hiring a few of their neighbors at day
wages J^ J.

Then we get the system of "share-holding," with hundreds
or thousands of people as partners in a manufacturing
enterprise which they never visit.

The people who owned shares were the ones who owned
the tools. Very naturally, they wanted and expected divi-

ROBERT OWEN

dends for the use of the tools. That was all they wanted —
dividends. The manager of the mill held his position only
through his ability to make the venture bring returns. The
people who owned the shares or the tools, never saw the
people who used the tools. A great gulf lay between them.
For the wrongs and injustice visited upon the workers no
one^person was to blame. The fault was shifted. Everybody
justified himself. And then came the saying, "Corporations
have no souls.'*

Robert Owen was manager of a mill, yet he saw the misery,
the ignorance and the mental indifference that resulted from
the factory system. He, too, must produce dividends, but
the desire of his heart was also to mitigate the lot of the
workers ^ .^

Books were written by good men picturing the evils of the
factory system. Comparisons were made between the old
and new in which the hideousness of the new was etched
in biting phrase. Some tried to turn the dial backward and
revive the cottage industries, as did Ruskin a little later.
"A Dream of John Ball" was anticipated and many sighed
for "the good old times."

But among the many philosophers and philanthropists who
wrestled with the problem, Robert Owen seems to have stood
alone in the belief that success lay in going on, and not in
turning back. He set himself to making the new condition
tolerable and prophesied a day when out of the smoke and
din of strife would emerge a condition that would make for
health, happiness and prosperity such as this tired old world

B E

WEN

never has seen. Robert Owen was England's first Socialist.
9 Very naturally, he was called a dreamer. Some called
him an infidel, and the enemy of society.
Very many now call him a seer and a prophet.

N Robert Owen's day cotton yarn
was packaged and sold in five-
pound btmdles. These packages
were made up in hanks of a
given number of yards jt One
hundred and twenty counts to a
package was fixed upon as ** par"
or "standard count." If the thread
was very fine of course more hanks
were required to make up the five
pounds. The price ranged up or
down, below or above the one
hundred and twenty mark. That is, if a package contained
two hundred and forty hanks, its value was just double
what it would have been if merely standard.
Robert Owen knew fabrics before he began to spin. First,
he was a salesman. Second, he made the things he could sell.
^ The one supremely difficult thing in business is sales-
manship. Goods can be manufactured on formula, but it

ROBERT OWEN

takes a man to sell. He who can sell is a success — others
may be. ^ The only men who succeed in dictating the policy
of the house are those in the Sales Department; that is,
those who are on the side of income, not of expense.
The man with a "secret process" of manufacture always
imparts his secret, sooner or later, but the salesman does
not impart his secret, because he can't. It is not trans-
ferable. It is a matter of personality. Not only does the
salesman have to know his goods, but he must know the
buyer — he must know humanity.

And humanity was the raw stock in which Robert Owen
dealt. Robert Owen never tried to increase his sales by
decreasing his price. His product was always higher than
standard. '^Anybody can cut prices," he said, "but it takes
brains to make a better article." He focused on fineness.
qAnd soon buyers were coming to him. A finer article
meant a finer trade. And now, on each package of yam
that Owen sent out he placed a label that read thus, "This
package was made under the supervision of Robert Owen. "
Thus his name gradually became a synonym for quality.
^ Among other curious ideas held by Owen was that to
make finer goods you must have a finer quality of workman.
To produce this finer type of person now became his dream.
^ Mr. Drinkwater smiled at the idea and emphasized
"dividends."

Now Mr. Drinkwater had a son-in-law who looked in on
things once a month, signed his voucher|^and went away
fox-hunting. He thought he was helping run the mill.
z6

ROBERT OWEN

This man grew jealous of the young manager and suggested
that Drinkwater increase the boy's pay and buy off the
percentage clause in the contract so to keep the youngster
from getting meglacephalia.

Drinkwater asked Owen what he would take for the contract
and Owen handed it to him and said, "Nothing." It gave
him a chance to get out into a larger field. Drinkwater
never thought of the value of that little Robert Owen label.
No wise employer should ever allow a thing like that.
Owen had won both a name and fame among the mer-
chants and he now engaged with several mills, to superintend
their output and sell their goods with his label on each
package. In other words he was a Manufacturer's Broker.
From a five-hundred-pound-a-year man he had grown to
be worth two thousand pounds a year.
No mill owned him. He was free — he was making money.
The dream of human betterment was still in his heart.
^ On one of his trips to Glasgow to sell goods, he met a
daughter of David Dale, a mill-owner who was in active
competition with him. Dale made a fine yarn, too.
The girl had heard of Owen — they met as enemies — a very
good way to begin an acquaintance. It was Nature's old,
old game of stamen, pistil and pollen, that fertilizes the
world of business, betterment and beauty. They quarreled.
"You are the man who puts your name on the package?"
"Yes."

"And^yet you own no mill I"
"True— but— "

ROBERT OWEN

"Never mind. You certainly are proud of your name."
" I am — would n't you be?"
"Not of yours."

Then they stared at each other in defiance. To relieve the
tension, Mr. Owen proposed a stroll. They took a walk
through the park and discovered that they both were inter-
ested in Social Reform. David Dale owned the mills at New
Lanark — a most picturesque site. He was trying to carry on
a big business, so as to make money and help the workers.
He was doing neither, because his investment in the plant
had consumed too much of his working capital.
They discussed the issue until eleven forty-five by the clock.
^ The girl knew business and knew society. The latter she
had no use for.

The next day they met again, and quite accidentally found
themselves engaged, neither of *em knew how.
It was very embarrassing I How could they break the news
to Papa Dale?

They devised a way. It was this: Robert Owen was to go
and offer to buy Mr. Dale's mills.

Owen went over to Lanark and called on Mr. Dale, and
told him he wanted to buy his business. Mr. Dale looked at
the boy, and smiled. Owen was twenty-seven, but appeared
twenty, being beardless, slight and fair-haired.
The youth said he could get all the money that was needed.
They sparred for a time — neither side naming figures. It
being about noon time, Mr. Dale asked young Mr. Owen
to go over to his house to lunch. Mr. Dale was a widower,
i8

but his daughter kept the house. Mr. Dale introduced Mr.

Owen to Miss Dale.

The young folks played their parts with a coolness that

would have delighted John Drew, and would have been

suspicious to anybody but a fussy old mill-owner.

Finally as the crumbs were being brushed from the rich

man's table, Mr. Dale fixed on the sum of sixty thousand

pounds for his property.

Owen was satisfied and named as terms three thousand

pounds and interest each year for twenty years, touching

the young lady's toe with his own under the table.

Mr. Dale agreed. Mr. Owen had the money to make the

first payment. The papers were drawn up. The deal was

closed — all but the difficult part. This was done by rushing

the enemy in his library, after a good meal. "It keeps the

business in the family, you see, " said the girl on her knees,

pouting prettily.

The point was gained and when Robert Owen, a few

weeks later, came to New Lanark to take possession of

the property, he did as much for the girl. So they were

married and lived happily ever afterward.

B E

f\ OBERT OWEN took up his work
at New Lanark with all the en-
thusiasm that hope, youth and
love could bring to bear.
Mr. Dale had carried the flag as
far to the front as he thought
it could be safely carried; that is
to say, as far as he was able to
carry it.

Owen had his work cut out for
him. The workers were mostly
Lowland Scotch and spoke in an

almost different language from Owen. They looked upon
him with suspicion. The place had been sold and they had
gone with it — how were they to be treated? Were wages
to be lowered and hours extended? Probably.
Pilfering had been reduced to a system, and to get the start
of the soft-hearted owner was considered smart.
Mr. Dale had tried to have a school and to this end had
hired an elderly Irishman, who gave hard lessons and a
taste of the birch to children who had exhausted themselves
in the mills and had no zest for learning. Mr. Dale had
taken on over two hundred pauper children from the work-
houses and these were a sore trial to him.
Owen*s first move was to reduce the working hours from
twelve to ten hours. Indeed, he was the first mill-owner
to adopt the ten-hour plan. He improved the sanitary
arrangements, put in shower baths and took a personal
20

ROBERT OWEN

interest in the diet of his little wards, often dining with
them J> Jt>

A special school building was built at a cost of thirty thousand
dollars. This was both a day and a night school jt It also
took children of one year old and over, in order to relieve
mothers who worked in the mills. "The little mothers,"
often only four or five years old, took care of babies a year
old and younger all day. Owen instructed his teachers
never to scold or punish by inflicting physical pain. His
was the first school in Christendom to abolish the rod.
^ His plan anticipated the Kindergarten and the Creche. He
called mothers* meetings and tried to show the uselessness
of scolding and beating, because to do these things was
really to teach the children to do them. He abolished the
sale of strong drink in New Lanark. Model houses were
erected, gardens planted and prizes given for the raising
of flowers.

In order not to pauperize his people, Owen had them pay
a slight tuition for the care of the children and there was
also a small tax levied to buy flower seeds.
In the school building was a dance hall and an auditorium.
fl At one time the supply of raw cotton was cut off for
four months. During this time Owen paid his people full
wages, insisted that they should all, old and young, go to
school for two hours a day and work also two hours a day
at tree planting, grading and gardening. During this period
of idleness he paid out seven thousand pounds in wages.
This was done to keep the workmen from wandering away.

ROBERT OWEN

^ It need not be imagined that Owen did not have other
cares besides those of social betterment jt Much of the
machinery in the mills was worn and becoming obsolete.
To replace this he borrowed a hundred thousand dollars.
Then he reorganized his business as a stock company and
sold shares to several London merchants with whom he
dealt. He interested Jeremy Bentham, the great jurist
and humanitarian, and Bentham proved his faith by buying
stock in the New Lanark Company.

Joseph Lancaster, the Quaker, a mill-owner and philan-
thropist, did the same.

Owen paid a dividend of five per cent on his shares. A
surplus was also set aside to pay dividends in case of a
setback, but beyond this the money was invested in bettering
the environment of his people.

New Lanark had been running fourteen years under Owen's
management. It had attracted the attention of the civilized
world. The Grand Duke Nicholas, afterwards the Czar, spent
a month with Owen studying his methods. The Dukes of
Kent, Sussex, Bedford and Portland; the Archbishop of
Canterbury ; the Bishops of London, Peterborough and Car-
lisle; the Marquis of Huntly; Lords Grosvenor, Carnarvon,
Granville, Westmoreland, Shaftesbury and Manners ; General
Sir Thomas Dyce and General Brown ; Ricardo, De Crespigny,
Wilberf orce, Joseph Butterworth and Sir Francis Baring all
visited New Lanark. Writers, preachers, doctors, in fact almost
every man of intellect and worth in the Kingdom knew of
Robert Owen and his wonderful work at New Lanark. Sir

Robert owen

Robert Peel had been to New Lanark and had gone back
home and issued an official bulletin inviting mill-owners to
study and pattern after the system.

The House of Commons invited Owen to appear and explain
his plan for abolishing poverty from the Kingdom. He was
invited to lecture in many cities. He issued a general call
to all mill-owners in the Kingdom to co-operate with him
in banishing ignorance and poverty.
But to a great degree Owen worked alone and New Lanark
was a curiosity. Most mill towns had long rows of dingy
tenements, all alike, guiltless of paint, with not a flower
bed or tree to mitigate the unloveliness of the scene. Down
there in the dirt and squalor lived the working-folks; while
away up on the hillside, surrounded by a vast park, with
stables, kennels and conservatories, resided the owner.
Owen lived with his people. And the one himdred and fifty
acres that made up the village of New Lanark contained a
happy, healthy and prosperous population of about two
thousand people.

There was neither pauperism nor disease, neither gamblers
nor drunkards. All worked and all went to school.
It was an object lesson of thrift and beauty.
Visitors came from all over Europe — often hundreds a day.
^ Why could not this example be extended indefinitely so that
hundreds of such villages should grow instead of only one?
There could, and there can and there will be, but the people
must evolve their own ideal environment and not have to
have it supplied for them.

ROBERT OWEN

By Owen's strength of purpose he kept the village ideal,
but he failed to evolve an ideal people. All around were
unideal surroundings, and the people came and went.
Strong drink was to be had only a few miles away. To have
an ideal village, it must be located in an ideal country.
Owen called on the clergy to unite with him in bringing
about an ideal material environment. He said that good
water, sewerage and trees and flowers worked a better
spiritual condition. They replied by calling him a materialist.
He admitted that he worked for a material good. His
followers added to his troubles by comparing his work
with that of the clergy round about, where vice, poverty
and strong drink grouped themselves about a steeple upon
which was a cross of gold to which labor was nailed — a
simile to be used later by a great orator, with profit.
Owen was a Unitarian, with a Quaker bias. Any clergyman
was welcome to come to New Lanark — it was a free platform.
A few preachers accepted the invitation, with the intent to
convert Robert Owen to their particular cause. New Lanark
was pointed out all over England as a godless town. The
bishops issued a general address to all rectors and curates
warning them against "any system of morals that does
away with God and His Son, Jesus Christ, fixing its salvation
on flower beds and ragged schools."
New Lanark was making money, because it was producing
goods the world wanted. But its workers were tabu in
respectable society and priestly hands were held aloft in
pretended horror whenever the name of Robert Owen, or
24

ROBE

the word ** Socialism" was used. Owen refused to employ
child labor and issued a book directing the attention of
society to this deadly traffic in human beings. The parents,
the clergy and the other mill-owners combined against him
and he was denounced by press and pulpit.
He began to look around f r a better environment for an
ideal community. His gaze was turned toward America.

OBERT OWEN»S plan for abol-
ishing vice and poverty was simply
to set the people to work under
ideal conditions, and then allow
them time enough for recreation
and mental exercise, so that thrift
might follow farming.
In reply to the argument that the
workman should evolve his own
standard of life, independent of
his employer, Owen said that
^ the mill with its vast aggregation
of hands was an artificial condition. The invention, ingenuity
and enterprise that evolved the mill were exceptional. The
operators for the most part lacked this constructive genius,
the proof of which lay in the very fact that they were

ROBERT OWEN

operators. ^ To take advantage of their limitations, disrupt
their natural and accustomed mode of life and then throw
the blame back upon them for not evolving a new and better
environment, was not reasonable nor right.
The same constructive genius that built the mill and operated
it, should be actively interested in the welfare of the people
who worked in the mill.

To this end there should be an ideal village adjacent to
every great mill. This village should afford at least half
an acre of ground for every family. In the way of economy,
one building should house a thousand people. It should be
built in the form of a parallelogram and contain co-operative
kitchens, dining-rooms, libraries, art galleries and gym-
nasia. It should be, in fact, a great University, not unlike
the great collection of schools at Oxford or Cambridge.
All would be workers — all would be students.
The villages should be under the general supervision of the
government, in order to secure stability and permanency.
If the mill management failed, the government should
continue the business, because even if the government lost
money in the venture, at times, this was better than always
to be building jails, prisons, insane asylums, almshouses and
hospitals .^ Ji

In sections where there were no mills or factories, the
government would construct both mills and villages, to
the intent that idleness and ignorance might be without
excuse. To this end Owen would ask all landowners, or
holders of estates of a thousand acres or more, to set apart
a6

ROBERT OWEN

one-tenth of their land for ideal villages and co-operative
mills to be managed by the government.
As proof that his plans were feasible, Owen pointed to New
Lanark and invited investigation.

Among others who answered the invitation was Henry Hase,
cashier of the Bank of England. Hase reported that New
Lanark had the look of a place that had taken a century
to evolve and, in his mind, the nation could not do better
than to follow the example of Owen. He then added, **U
the clergy, nobility and mill-owners will adopt the general
scientific method proposed by Mr. Owen for the abolition of
poverty, ignorance and crime, it will be the greatest step
of progress ever seen in the history of the world."
In proposing that the clergy, nobility and mill-owners
should unite for the good of mankind, Mr. Hase was not
guilty of subtle humor or ironical suggestion. He was an
honest and sincere man who had been exposed to the con-
tagious enthusiasm of Mr. Owen.

Owen was fifty-seven years of age, practical man that he
was, before he realized that the clergy, the nobility and
the rich mill-owners had already entered into an unconscious
pact to let mankind go to Gehenna — just so long as the
honors, emoluments and dividends were preserved.
That is to say, the solicitation of the Church is not and
never has been for the welfare of the people; it is for the
welfare of the Church for which churchmen fight ,^ All
persecution turns on this point.
If stability of the Church is threatened, the churchmen

B E

WEN

awake and cry, "To Arms!" In this respect the Church,
the nobility and vested capital have everything in common
— they want perpetuity and security. They seek safety. All
of the big joint stock companies had in their directorates
members of the nobility and the clergy. The bishops held
vast estates — they were Lords.

The Church livings were rooted in the estates of the nobility
and both traced to a common ancestor — greed ^ The Gov-
ernment was a government of the people, by the Church
and nobility, for the Church and nobility.
Robert Owen did not represent either the Church or nobility.
He was a very exceptional and unique product; he was a
workingman who had become a philanthropic capitalist. He
was a lover of humanity, filled with a holy zeal to better the
condition of the laborer.

WEN

HE mills at New Lanark were
making money, but the share-
holders in London were not
satisfied with their dividends Jt>
They considered Owen's plans
for educating the workingman
chimerical. In one respect they
knew that Owen was sane — he
could take the raw stock and
produce the quality of goods
that had a market value. He
had trained up a valuable and
skilled force of foremen and workers. Things were pros-
perous and would be much more so if Owen would only
cease dreaming dreams and devote himself to the com-
mercial end of the game.

If he would not do this, then he must buy their stock or
sell them a controlling interest of his own.
He chose the latter.

In Eighteen Hundred and Twenty-five, when he was fifty-
five years old, he sailed for America. He gave lectures in
New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Washington on his
new order of economics. He was listened to with profound
attention. At Washington he was the guest of the President,
and on invitation addressed a joint session of the Senate
and the House, setting forth his arguments for Socialism.
5 The Moravians at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, had founded
their colony as early as Seventeen Hundred and Twenty.

ROBERT OWEN

The Zoarites, the Economites, the Separatists, the Shakers,
and the Rappites had been in existence and maintained
successful communities for a score of years.
Robert Owen visited these various colonies and saw that
they were all prosperous. There was neither sickness, vice,
poverty, drunkenness nor disease to be found among them.
He became more and more convinced that the demands
of an advancing civilization would certainly be co-operative
in nature. Chance might unhorse the individual, but with
a community the element of chance was eliminated. He
laid it down as a maxim, evolved from his study, observation
and experience, that the community that exists for three
years is a success. That no industrial community had ever
endured for three years, save as it was founded on a religious
concept, was a fact that he overlooked. Also, he failed to
see that the second generation of communists did not
coalesce, and as a result that thirty-three years was the
age limit for even a successful community; and that if it
still survived, it was because it was reorganized under a
strong and dominant leadership.

Communists or Socialists are of two classes — those who
wish to give and those who wish to get. When fifty-one
per cent of the people in a community are filled with a
desire to give, Socialism will be a success.
Perhaps the most successful social experiment in America
was the Oneida Community, but next to this was the Har-
monyites, founded by George Rapp «^ The Harmonyites
fotmded Harmony, Indiana, in Eighteen Hundred and
30

ROBERT OWEN

Fourteen. They moved from Pennsylvania and had been
located at their present site for eleven years. They
owned thirty thousand acres of splendid land at the junction
of the Wabash and Ohio Rivers. They had built over a
hundred houses, had barns, stores, a church, a hall, a saw-
mill, a hotel and a woolen factory.
Now when Owen went to Pittsburg, he floated down the
Ohio to Cincinnati and then on to Harmony ^ He was
graciously received and was delighted with all he saw and
heard ^ J>

Owen saw the success of the woolen mill and declared that
to bring cotton up by steamboats from the South, would
be easy. He would found cotton mills and here New Lanark
should bloom again only on an increased scale.
Would the Rappites sell?

Yes, they wanted to move back to Pennsylvania, where
there were other groups of similar faith.
Their place, they figured, was worth two hundred and
fifty thousand dollars. Owen made an offer of one hundred
and fifty thousand dollars, which to his surprise was quietly
accepted. It was a quick deal.

The Rappites moved out, and the Owenites moved in.
Just across the Ohio River they founded the town of
Owensboro jt j,

Then Owen went back to England and sent over about
three hundred of his people, including his own son, Robert
Dale Owen.
Robert Owen had large interests in England, and New

ROBERT OWEN

Harmony on the banks of the Wabash was incidental.
Robert Dale Owen was then twenty-five years old. He was
a philosopher, not an economist, and since the place lacked
a business head, dissensions arose. Let some one else tell
how quickly a community can evaporate when it lacks the
cement of religious oneness:

For the first few weeks, all entered into the new system
with a will. Service was the order of the day. Men who seldom
or never before labored with their hands, devoted themselves
to agriculture and the mechanical arts with a zeal which
was at least commendable, though not always well directed.
Ministers of the gospel guided the plow and called swine to
their corn instead of sinners to repentance, and let patience
have her perfect work over an unruly yoke of oxen »^ Mer-
chants exchanged the yardstick for the rake or pitchfork ;
and all appeared to labor cheerfully for the common weal.
Among the women there was even more apparent self-
sacrifice. Those who had seldom seen the inside of their
own^kitchens went into that of the common eating-house
(formerly a hotel) and made themselves useful among pots
and kettles. Refined young ladies who had been waited upon
all their lives, took turns in waiting upon others at the table.
And several times a week all parties who chose, mingled in
the social dance in the great dining-hall.
But notwithstanding the apparent heartiness and cordiality
of this auspicious opening, it was in the social atmosphere of
the Community that the first cloud arose. Self-love was a
spirit which could not be exorcised. It whispered to the lowly
maidens, whose former position in society had cultivated the
spirit of meekness — "Thou art as good as the formerly rich
and fortunate ; insist upon your equality. " It reminded the
former favorites of society of their lost superiority, and de-

ROBERT OWEN

spite all rules tinctured their words and actions with **airs"
and conceit. Similar thoughts and feelings soon arose among
the men; and though not so soon exhibited they were none
the less deep and strong. Suffice it to say, that at the end of
three months — three months I — the leading minds in the com-
munity were compelled to acknowledge to each other that the
social life of the Community could not be botmded by a single
circle. They therefore acquiesced, though reluctantly, in its
division into many. But they still hoped and many of them
no doubt believed that though social equality was a failure,
commimity of property was not. Whether the law of mine and
thine is natural or incidental in human character, it soon
began to develope its sway. The industrious, the skilful and
the strong saw the product of their labor enjoyed by the
indolent, the unskilled and the improvident; and self-love
rose against benevolence. A band of musicians thought their
brassy harmony was as necessary to the common happiness
as bread and meat, and declined to enter the harvest-field
or the workshop. A lecturer upon natural science insisted
upon talking while others worked. Mechanics, whose single
day's labor brought two dollars into the common stock, in-
sisted that they should in justice work only half as long as
the agriculturist whose day*s work brought but one.
Of course, for a while, these jealousies were concealed,
but soon they began to be expressed. It was useless to remind
all parties that the common labor of all ministered to the
prosperity of the Community. Individual happiness was the
law of nature and it could not be obliterated. And before a
single year had passed, this law had scattered the members
of that society which had come together so earnestly and
under such favorable circumstances and driven them back
into the selfish world from which they came.
The writer of this sketch has since heard the history of

that eventful year reviewed with honesty and earnestness
by the best men and most intelligent parties of that unfor-
tunate social experiment ^ They admitted the favorable
circumstances which surrounded its commencement; the
intelligence, devotion and earnestness which were brought
to the cause by its projectors and its final total failure. And
they rested ever after in the belief that man though disposed
to philanthropy, is essentially selfish and a community of
social equality and common property an impossibility.

HE loss of two hundred thousand
dollars did not dampen the ardor
of Robert Owen. He paid up the
debts of New Harmony, had the
property surveyed and subdivided
and then deeded it to his children
and immediate relatives and a few
of the "staunch friends who have
such a lavish and unwise faith in
my wisdom" — to use his own ex-
pression ^ ^

To give work to the unemployed
of England now became his immediate solicitation. He was
sixty years old when he inaugurated his first co-operative
store, which in fact is the parent of our modern Department
Store jt j»
34

ROBERT OWEN

In this store he proposed to buy any useful article or product
which any man might make or produce, figuring on cost of
the raw material and six pence an hour for labor. This labor
was to be paid for in Labor Script, receivable in payment
for anything the man might want to buy. Here we get the
Labor Exchange ^ Owen proposed that the Government
should set delinquent men to work, instead of sending them
to prison. Any man who would work, no matter what he
had done, should be made free. The Government would
then pay the man in Labor Exchange Script. Of course,
if the Government guaranteed the script, it was real money ;
otherwise it was wild-cat money, subject to fluctuation and
depreciation. Very naturally the Government refused to
guarantee this script, or to invest in the co-operative stores.
To make the script valuable, it had to be issued in the form
of a note, redeemable in gold at a certain time.
The stores were started, and many idle men found work in
building mills and starting various industries.
Three years passed and some of the script became due. It
was found to be largely held by saloon-keepers who had
accepted it at half price. Efforts had been constantly made
to hurt Owen's standing and depreciate the market value
of this currency.

The Labor Exchange that had issued the script was a
corporation, and Robert Owen was not individually liable,
but he stepped into the breach and paid every penny out
of his own purse, saying, '*No man shall ever say that he
lost money by following my plans."

ROBERT OWEN

Next he founded the co-operative village of Harmony or
Queenswood. The same general plan that he had followed
at New Lanark was here carried out, save that he endeavored
to have the mill owned by the workers instead of by outside
capital ^ ^

Through his very able leadership, this new venture continued
for ten years and was indeed a school and a workshop. The
workers had gardens, flowers, books. There were debates,
classes and much intellectual exercise that struck sparks
from heads that were once punk. John Tyndall was one of
the teachers and also a worker in this mill. Let the fact stand
out that Owen discovered Tyndall — a great, divinely human
nautilus — and sent him sailing down the tides of Time.
At eighty years of age, Owen appeared before the House
of Commons and read a paper which he had spent a year
in preparing — "The Abolition of Poverty and Crime." He
held the Government responsible for both, and said that until
the ruling class took up the reform idea and quit their policy
of palliation, society would wander in the wilderness. To
gain the Promised Land we must all move together in a
government "of the people, by the people and for the
people." He was listened to with profound respect and a
vote of thanks was tendered him; but his speech never
reached the public printer.

Robert Dale Owen became a naturalized citizen of the
United States, and for several years was a member of
Congress. And at the time of the death of his father was
pur minister to Italy, having been appointed by President
36

B E

0 W

Pierce. ^ At the time he was in England, and announced
the passing of Robert Owen to the family at New Harmony,
Indiana, in the following letter:

Newtown, Wales,

November 17th, 1858.
It is all over. Our dear father passed away this morning,
at a quarter before seven, as quietly and gently as if he had
been falling asleep. There was not the least struggle, not
the contraction of a limb or a muscle, not an expression
of pain on his face. His breathing stopped so gradually
that, even as I held his hand, I could scarcely tell the
moment when he no longer lived. His last words, distinctly
pronounced about twenty minutes before his death, were:
"Relief has come."

will give his Heart to Heart Talk,
"The March of the Centuries," as follows:

ST. LOUIS, MO.— Friday Evening, February 12th. Fine

Arts, "Memorial Hall," Locust and 19th St. Seats on

sale at Bollman Bros. Piano Co., 1120 Olive St.
PIITSBURG, PA.— Tuesday Evening, February 23rd.

Carnegie Hall, (North Side). Seats on sale at Boggs

& Buhl's Book Department one week in advance.
BOSTON, MASS.— Thursday Evening, March 4th. Chick-

ering Hall, Huntington Ave. Seats on sale at Box

Office.
PHILADELPHIA, PA.— Friday Evening, March the 19th.

Witherspoon Hall, Walnut, Juniper and Sansom Sts.

Seats on sale at John Wanamaker's Book Department.
NEW YORK CITY— Sunday Evening, March 28th.

Carnegie Hall, 53rd and 7th Ave. Seats on sale at Box

Office one week in advance.
CHICAGO, ILL.— Sunday Afternoon at Three o'Clock,

April 4th. Studebaker Theatre. Seats at Box Office.
DENVER, COL.— Tuesday Evening, April 6th. Woman's

Club Hall, Glenam Street. Seats on sale at Business

Office of "The Denver Post."
SAN FRANCISCO, CAL.— Sunday Afternoon, at Three

o'clock, April 11th. Van Ness Theatre, Van Ness Ave.

Seats on sale at Box Office one week in advance.

On these Joyous Occasions named above, the Price of Reserved
Seats will be just Fifty Cents, and no more. The best seats
will be sold to those Wise Children of Light who first apply

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ADDRESS-

HARACTER
AND
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FORCE ARE

THE ONLY INVEST-
MENTS THAT ARE
WORTH ANYTHING

W H I T M A N

T IS A WISE
MAN WHO
KNOWS HIS
OWN BUS-

INESS; AND IT IS
A WISER MAN
WHO THOROUGHLY
ATTENDS TO IT

Vol. 24

FEBRUARY, MCMIX

No. 2

ifflQDZm

TO THE hOM^jrm

iriF^9 Mm

BY ELgERT

HL/BBFiRN

E3Z

'^H-i^-insigw

izora

DO NOT

BLAME THE
MAN WHO
MAKES MIS-

TAKES, UNLESS HE
MAKES THE SAME
MISTAKE THE SECOND

TIME.— />4M£5 OLIVER

Entered at the postofflce in East Aurora, New York, for transmission as second-class
Copyright, 190&, by Elbert Hubbard, Editor and Publisher.

THE FRA is the bibliozinc
that is never thrown away.
The paper upon which THE
FRA is printed costs four
times as much as that which
is used in ""Mumsley's" and
other stock magazines. And
as for the text, Elbert Hubbard
endeavors to have it as much
better than *'the six best
sellers" as the paper he uses
is better than the popular
periodical pishmince. Law-
yers, writers, orators, business
captains, preachers^ farmers —
all who prize phosphorus
plus, take THE FRA, be-
cause it supplies the needed
Mental Martini. The question
is, can a thinker afford to do
without THE FRA—not for what THE FRA may tell
him, but for what THE FRA v^l make him think ?
The best printed and most artistic magazine in America.

EXTRA SPECIAL

THE FRA MAGAZINE, One Year - - - - ;S2.00

LITTLE JOURNEYS, One Year j^l.OO

Two Dollars For Both If Subscription Is Sent To Us Soon
The Roycrofters, East Aurora, N. Y.

Enclosed find Two Dollars, and I request you to send me THE FRA
Magazine for 1909, and Little Journeys for 1909, all as per your special offer.

Date.

Remit by draft or Post OfiBce order; it is unsafe to send money by mail unless by registered letter

A Message to Garcia

was first printed in The Philistine of March, 1899. The
merit of the article was instantly recognized, and the
edition disappeared ^ The article was then reprinted by
George H. Daniels of the New York Central Lines, and over
three million copies were distributed. It was also reprinted
by the Westinghouse Company in England. In France,
the Bon Marche of Paris distributed a million copies.
Prince Hilakoff, Director of Railways in Russia, translated
the essay into Russian and presented a copy to every officer
in the Russian Army ^ The Mikado of Japan, not to be
outdone, had the "Message" printed in Japanese, and a
copy was placed in the hands of every Japanese soldier.
Q In all, the ''Message" has been translated into eleven
languages, and reprinted over twenty-five million times. It
is believed that it has a wider circulation than any other
article ever written by an American, and a larger circula-
tion in the same space of time than any other article ever
produced in all the history of literature .^ We have a

Few Volumes of the "Message"

in English, followed by the ''Message" translated into
Japanese, which in turn is succeeded by the "Message"
retranslated into English ^ These books are bound in
limp leather in Japanese style, to be in keeping with
the text . . . Price One Dollar by Mail

We also have the Message in paper covers, price 10c a copy

THE R O Y C R O F T E R S

EAST AURORA, ERIE COUNTY, NEW YORK

Health and Wealth

A Book by Elbert Hubbard of East Aurora, New York

HEREIN is pleasantly told how
to be happy — but not too happy
— and yet be rich; containing
thoughts, always sincere and
sometimes serious, concerning
the best methods of preventing one from
becoming a burden to himself, a weariness
to his friends, a trial to his neighbors and a
reflection on his Maker. This volume tells of
Roycroftism. ^Roycroftism is here, and it is
slowly but surely increasing in influence.
^ Roycroftism does not claim to be a religion
— it is a system of life. This system, plan,
method or habit, does not seek to separate
religion from work, literature from life, or art
from play, any more than it would separate
love from sociology, or ethics from finance.

The price of Health and Wealth is Two Dollars, bound
either in limp leather or in boards, leather back.

THE ROYCROFTERS, East Aurora, New York

So here then is a Hand-Clasp across the fertile fields of
America— NORTH— EAST— SOUTH— WEST from

The Wanamaker Stores

PHILADELPHIA PARIS NEW YORK

The Great Stores of the World

They invite you to be their guests in their great business homes in New York
and Philadelphia, whenever you visit these cities. The Wanamaker salesmen
and salesgirls constitute a big, happy family, and they '11 greet you as a friend
when you pay them a visit, fl These folks invite you to inspect the largest
buildings in the World devoted exclusively to retail merchandizing; to make
yourself at home; to use the free conveniences of the stores; to attend the free
entertainments in the great Wanamaker Auditoriums, and listen to the great
pipe-organs, among the largest and sweetest-toned instruments ever erected;
to see and enjoy the quarter-million dollar "House Palatial" built of solid
masonry— into the New York Store. They want you to make one day a
Wanamaker Day when next you come to town, flin the meantime, just to get
acquainted, they invite you to send your name and address, clearly written on
a postcard, and they will send you, absolutely free, their handsomely illustrated
store catalogues, leaflets, booklets and other business literature and descriptions
of these marvelous stores, whose service will thus be brought

DIRECT HOMETOYOU

Every post-oflSce is a branch of the Wanamaker Stores, and every man who
totes an Uncle Samuel mail-bag is glad to carry a ^anamaker package to
your home. ^SpecisJ Announcement: — ^The Wanamaker Stores, having
bought the factory and good-will of the SCHOMACKER GOLD-STRING
PIANO also invite you to send for the illustrated catalogue of this

PIANO OF THE PRESIDENTS

The piano that Lincoln used, and Grant, and Hayes and Garfield. The piano
that is more substantial in cbnstruction than any other piano, and whose tone
is not surpassed by any — and yet, whose price is moderate, and may be paid
for a little at a time, on the partial payment plan, originated by the Wana-
maker Stores, fl Write to Wanamaker 's TO-DAY, and keep in touch with the
WORLD! q Address either PHILADELPHIA or NEW YORK CITY

JOHN WANAMAKER

Philadelphia WANAMAKER SQUARE New York

Everybody who is anybody trades with — Wanamaker

ELBERT HUBBARD

iiouRnrY:^

[TO THE HOhflF^T^

BOOK • RY-TFn=l

^ g '^■'^■i^j'' 'I^Tig S E S( g

EHaZHEE3KH

fflffl^^^z^ffl^:

The sluggard will not plow by reason of the cold ; therefore
shall he beg in harvest.

— Proverbs 20:4

You benefit yourself only as you benefit humanity.

—James Oliver.

LITTLE JOURNEYS

AMES OLIVER was born in Rox-
buryshire, Scotland, August the
28th, 1823. He died March 2nd,
1908. He was the youngest of a
brood of eight — six boys and two
girls t^ He was "the last run of
shad, " to use the phrase of Theo-
dore Parker, who had a similar
honor jf^ Just why the youngest
should eclipse the rest, as occa-
sionally happens, is explained by
Dr. Tilden on the hypothesis that
a mother gives this last little surprise party an amount of
love and tenderness not vouchsafed to the rest.
Let the philosophers philosophize — ^we deal with facts not
theories, and no one will deny that James Oliver was a
very potent, huir^an and stubborn fact. He was Scotch.
ClHis father was a shepherd on a landed estate, where the
noses of the sheep grew sharp that they might feed between
the stones. The family was very poor, but poverty in the
old world grows into a habit, and so the Olivers did not
suffer. They huddled close for warmth in their little cottage
and were grateful for porritch and s'leHer.
In Eighteen Hundred and Thirty, the oldest boy, John,
filled with the spirit of unrest, tied up all of his earthly
goods in a red handkerchief and came to America.
He found work at a dollar a day, and wrote glowing letters
home of a country where no one picked up faggots for fires,
but where forests were actually in the way. He also declared
that he ate at his employer's table, and they had meat three
times a week. Of course he had meat three times a day, but

JAM ES ^® ^^ ^'* want to run the risk of being placed in tlie Ananias

OLIVER ^^^^ ^y telling the truth. ^A little later Andrew and Jane,

the next in point of age, came too, and slipped at once

into money-making jobs, piling up wealth at the rate of three

dollars a week.

When three of a brood have gone from the home nest,
they pull hard on the heartstrings of the mother. Women,
at the last, have more courage than men — ^when they have.
^ Partnerships are very seldom equal partnerships — one
takes the lead. In this case the gray mare was the better
horse, and James Oliver got his initiative from his mother.
^ **We are all going to America," the mother would say.
^ And then the worthy shepherd-man would give a hundred
and fifty reasons why it was impossible.
He had become pot-bound. Fear and inertia had him by
the foot. He was too old to try to do anything but care for
sheep, he pleaded.

And persistently, as she knitted furiously, the mother would
repeat, "We are all going to America!"
Little Jamie was eleven years old. He was a swart and sandy
little Scot, with freckles, a fidl moon face and a head of
towsled hair that defied the comb.

**We are all going to America," echoed Jamie — **we are
going to America to make our fortunes."
John, Andrew and Jane had sent back real money — they
must have earned it. All the debts were cleaned up, and the
things they had borrowed were returned. The mother took
charge and sold all the little surplus belongings, and the
day came when they locked the door of the old stone cottage
and took the key to the landlord in his big house and left it.
^ They rode away in a kind neighbor's cart, bound for the sea-
coast. Everybody cried but Jamie. It was glorious to go away,
such wonderful things cotdd be seen all along the route.
40

l^m^'W^^

4p/mzd

&Sm

^ They took passage in a sailing ship crowded with emigrants. JAMES
It was a stormy trip. Everybody was sick. Several died, and OLIVER
there were burials at sea when the plank was tilted and the
body slid into the yeasty deep.

Jamie got into trouble once by asking how the dead man
could ever be found when it came Judgment-day. And
also the captain got after him with a rope's end because
he scrambled upon the quarter-deck when the mate went
aft. The disposition to take charge was even then germinating ;
and he asked more questions than ten men could answer.
^Once when the hatches were battened down, and the angry
waves washed the deck, and the elder Oliver prophesied that
all were soon going to Davy Jones* locker, Jamie reported
that the sailors on deck were swearing, and all took courage.
fl The storm blew over, as storms usually do, and the friendly
shores of America came in sight.

There were prayer-meetings on deck, and songs of thanks-
giving were sung as the ship tacked slowly up the Narrows.
^ Some of our ancestors landed at Jamestown, some at
Plymouth Rock and some at Castle Garden. If the last
named had less to boast of in way of ancestry, they had
fewer follies to explain away than either of the others.
They may have fallen on their knees, but they did not fall
on the aborigines. They were for the most part friendly,
kind and full of the right spirit — the spirit of helpfulness.
^ At Castle Garden, one man gave Jamie an orange and
another man gave him a kick. He never forgot either, and
would tmdoubtedly have paid both parties back, if he had
met them in later life.

There was a trip to Albany by a steamboat, the first our
friends had ever seen. It burned wood, and stopped every
few miles for fuel. They ate brown bread and oatmeal, and
at New York bought some smoked bear's meat and venison.

JAMES At Albany an Indian sold them sassafras for tea, also some
OLIVER dried blackberries — it was a regular feast.

At Albany there was a wonderful invention, a railroad. The
coaches ran up the hill without horses or an engine, and
the father explained that it was n't a miracle either. A long
rope ran around a big wheel at the top of the hill, and there
was a car ran down the hill as another one ran up.
The railroad extended to Schenectady — sixteen miles away
— and the trip was made in less than half a day if the weather
was good. There they transferred to a canal-boat. They had
no money to pay for a stateroom, and so camped on deck —
it was lots of fun. Jamie then and there decided that some
day he would be the captain of a fast packet on a raging
canal. His fond hope was never realized.
After the cooped-up quarters on the ocean the smoothness
and freedom of the Erie Canal were heavenly. They saw
birds and squirrels and once caught a glimpse of a wolf.
At Montezuma they changed canal-boats, because the craft
they were on went through to Buffalo, and they wished to go
to Geneva where John, Andrew and Jane were getting rich.
^ Two miles out of Geneva the boat slowed up, a plank was
run out and all went ashore. John worked for a farmer a
mile away. They foimd him. And in the dusty road another
prayer-meeting was held, when everybody kneeled and
thanked God that the long journey was ended. Paterfamilias
had predicted they would never arrive, but he was wrong.
^ The next day they saw Andrew and Jane, and tears of joy
were rained down everybody's back. Now for the first time
they had plenty to eat — meat every meal, potatoes, onions
and corn on the ear. There is no corn in Scotland, and Jamie
thought that corn on the ear was merely a new way of cook-
ing beans. He cleaned off the cob and then sent the stick
back to have it refilled.
42

America was a wonderful cotintry, and Brother John had not
really half told the truth about it. Jamie got a job at fifty
cents a week with board. Fifty cents was a great deal more
than half a dollar — I guess so ! He woxild have been paid more
only the. farmer said he was a greenhorn and could n*t speak
English. Jamie inwardly resented and denied both accusa-
tions, but kept silent for fear he might lose his job. His only
sorrow was that he could only see his mother once a week.
His chief care was as to what he should do with his money.

JAMES
OLIVER

N the fall of Eighteen Hundred
and Thirty-six, there were several
Scotch families going from Geneva
to the "Far West"— that is to say,
Indiana. The Oliver family was
induced to go, too, because in
Indiana the Government was giv-
ing away farms to any one who
would live on them and hold them
down J> J.

They settled first in Lagrange
County, and later moved to Mish-
awaka, St. Joseph County, where Andrew Oliver had taken
up his abode. Mishawaka was a thriving little city, made so
largely by the fact that iron ore — bog iron — was being found
thereabouts. The town was on the St. Joseph River, right on
the line of transportation, and boats were poled down and
up, clear to Lake Michigan. It was much easier and cheaper
to pole a boat than to drive a wagon through the woods and

JAMES across the muddy prairies. Mishawaka was going to be a great
OLIVER *^^*y — everybody said so. ^ There was a good log schoolhouse
at Mishawaka, kept by a worthy man by the name of Merri-
field, who knew how to use the birch. Here James went to
school for just one winter — that was his entire schooling,
although he was a student and a learner to the day of his death.
^The elder Oliver fell sick of chills and fever. He sort of
languished for the hills of bonny Scotlando He could not
adapt himself to pioneer life, and in the fall of Eighteen
Hundred and Thirty-seven, he died. This was the end of a
school education for James — he had to go to work earning
money. He became the little father of the family, which
James J. Hill says is the luckiest thing that can happen
to a boy. He hired out for six dollars a month, and at the
end of every month took five dollars home to his mother.
^ Jamie was fourteen, and could do a man's work at most
anything ^ **He has a man's appetite at least," said the
farmer's wife, for he took dinner with the man he worked
for. He soon proved he could do a man's work, too. This
man had a pole boat on the river, and James was given a
chance to try his seamanship. He might have settled down
for life as a poleman, but he saw little chance for promotion,
and he wanted to work at something that would fit him for
a better job. Then the worst about life on the river was that
each poleman was paid a portion of his wages in whiskey,
and the rivermen seemed intent on drinking the stills dry.
James not only had a strong desire to be decent, but liked
to be with decent people.

Now in Mishawaka there were some very fine folks — the
family of Joseph Doty, for instance. The Dotys lived in a
two-story house and had a picket fence. James had dug a
ditch for Mr. Doty, and split out shingles for a roof for the
Doty bam. At such times he got his dinner at Doty's, for
44

it was the rule then that you always had to feed your help, JAMES
no matter who they were, just as you feed the threshers OLIVEF
and harvesters and silo men now.

About this time, James began to put bear's grease on his
unruly shock of yellow hair, and tried to part it and bring it
down in a nice smooth pat on the side. That *s a sure sign !
flThe few who noticed the change said it was all on account
of Susan Doty. Once when Susan passed the johnnycake
to James, he emptied the whole plate in his lap, to his eternal
shame and the joy of the whole town, that soon heard of it
through a talkative hired man who was present and laughed
uproariously — as hired men are apt to do.
James once heard Susan say that she did n't like rivermen,
and that is probably the reason James quit the river, but he
did n't tell her so — not then at least.

He got a job in the iron mill and learned to smelt iron, and
he became a pretty good molder, too. Then the hard times
came on, and the iron mill shut down. But there was a
cooper's shop in town, and James was already very handy
with a drawshave in getting out staves. Most of the men
worked by the day, but he asked to work by the piece. They
humored him and he made over two dollars a day.
Joseph Doty was a subscriber to "Gleason's Pictorial" and
**Godey's Lady's Book." They also had bound copies of
"Poor Richard's Almanac" and "The Spectator," with
nearly forty other books beside.
James Oliver read them all — with Susan's !ielp.
Then something terrible happened! The young rolks suddenly
discovered that they were very much in love v ith each other.
The Doty family saw it, too, and disapproved.
The Dotys were English, but as the family had been in
America for a century, that made a big difference.
Susan was the handsomest and smartest girl in town —

JAMES
OLIVER

everybody said so. She seemed much older tnan James
Oliver, but the fact was they were of the same age. The
Doty family objected to the match, but Doty the Elder
one day dropped a hint that if that young Oliver owned
a house to take his wife to, he might consider the matter.
fl[The news reached Oliver. He knew of a man who wanted
to sell his house, as he was going to move to a town called
Fort Dearborn — now known as Chicago — that had recently
been incorporated and had nearly a thousand inhabitants.
The house was a well built cottage — not very large but big
enough for two. It was a slab house, with a mud chimney
and a nice floor of pounded blue clay. It had two rooms, a
cupboard across the corner, a loft to store things in, and forty
wooden pegs to hang things on. The owner was going away
and would sell the house for twenty dollars and throw in
the lot — which was really worth nothing, because there was
so much out-of-doors to spare in Indiana at that time.
^Oliver offered the man eighteen dollars for the mansion,
cash down. The offer was accepted, the money paid and the
receipt was duly shown to Joseph Doty, Esq.
And so James and Susan were married on May the Thirtieth,
Eighteen Hundred and Forty-four, and all Mishawaka gave
them a " shower. " To say that they lived happily ever
afterward would be trite, but also it would be true.

AMES OLIVER was thirty-two
years old before he really struck
his pace. He had worked at the
cooper's trade, at molding and
farming ^ ^

His twenty-dollar house at Mish-
awaka had transformed itself into
one worth a thousand, fully paid
for. The God's half -acre had become
a quarter-section.
His wife had beauty and compe-
tence, two things which do not
always go together jfc She was industrious, economical,
intelligent and ambitious. She was a helpmeet in all that
the word implies. The man whose heart is at rest is the only
one who can win. Jealousy gnaws. Doubt disrupts. But love
and faith mean sanity, strength, usefulness and length of
days. The man who succeeds is that one who is helped by
a good woman.

Two children had come to them. These were Joseph D.
and Josephine. Napoleon was always a hero to James Oliver
— his courage, initiative and welling sense of power, more
than his actual deeds, were the attraction. The Empress
Josephine was a better woman than Napoleon was a man,
contended Susan. Susan was right and James acknowledged
it, so the girl baby was named Josephine. The boy was named
Joseph, in honor of his grandfather Doty who had passed
away; but who, before his passing, had come to see that
Nature was nearer right than he had been.
Children should exercise great care in the selection of their
parents. Very, very few children are ever dowered with a
love that makes for strength of head, hand and heart, as
were these. §In Eighteen Hundred and Fifty-five, James

JAMES
OLIVER

JAMES Oliver was over to South Bend, a town that had started up a
OLIVER few miles down the river from Mishawaka, and accidentally
met a man who wanted to sell his one-fourth interest in a
foimdry. He would sell at absolutely inventory value. They
made an inventory and the one-fourth came to just eighty-
eight dollars and ninety-six cents. Oliver had a hundred
dollars in his pocket, and paid the man at once.
Cast-iron plows formed one item of this little foundry's
work. Oliver, being a farmer, knew plows — and knew that
there was not a good plow in the world. Where others saw
and accepted, he rebelled. He insisted that an approximately
perfect plow could be made. He realized that a good plow
should stay in the grotmd without wearing out the man
at the handles.

The man who has n't been jerked up astride of plow handles
or been flung into the furrow by a balky plow has never had
his vocabulary tested.

Oliver had a theory that the plow should be as light in weight
as was consistent with endurance and good work, and that a
moldboard shotdd scour, so as to turn the soil with a singing
sound; then the share, or cutting edge, must be made
separate from the moldboard so as to be easily and cheaply
replaced. A plow could be made that need n't be fought to
keep it furrow-wise.

Without tiring the reader with mechanical details, let the
fact be stated that after twelve years of experimenting —
planning, dreaming, thinking, working, striving, often
perplexed, disappointed and ridiculed — James Oliver perfected
his Chilled Plow. He had a moldboard nearly as bright as a
diamond and about as hard, one that "sang" at its work.
Instead of a dead pull, **it sort of sails through the soil,"
a surprised farmer said. To be exact, it reduced the draft
on the team from twenty per cent to one-half, depending
4«

upon the nature of the soil. It was the difference between
pulling a low-wheel lumber wagon, and riding in a buggy
with your girl. Then the old share, if worn, could be replaced
by the farmer himself, without even calling on the local
blacksmith J^ ^

From this on, the business grew slowly, steadily, surely.
James Oliver anticipated that other plow-wise Scot, Andrew
Carnegie, who said, "Young man, put all of your eggs in
one basket and then watch the basket."
On this policy has the Oliver Chilled Plow Works been built
up and maintained, until the plant now covers seventy-five
acres, with a floor space of over thirty acres and a capacity of
over half a million plows a year. The enterprise supplies bread
and butter to over twenty thousand mouths, and is without a
serious rival in its chosen field. If the horse tribe could speak,
it would arise and whinny paeons to the name of Oliver,
joining in the chorus of farmers. For a moldboard that
always scours gives a peace to a farmer like unto that given
to a prima donna by a dress that fits in the back.

JAMES
OLIVER

HILE James Oliver was not a
distinctively religious man, yet
many passages of Scripture that
he had learned at his mother's
knee clung to him through his
long life and leaped easily to his
tongue. One of his favorite and
oft quoted verses was this from
Isaiah, **And they shall beat their
swords into plowshares, and their
spears into pnming-hooks : nation
shall not lift up sword against

nation, neither shall they learn war any more. "

JAMES The Big Idea of chilled metal for the moldboard of a plow,
OLIVER probably had its germ in the mind of James Oliver from this
very passage of Scripture.

"When Cincinnatus left his plow in the field to go in defense
of his country, his excuse was the only one that could pardon
such a breach, " he once said.

Oliver hated war; his bent was for the peaceful arts — that
which would give fruits and flowers and better homes for the
people ; love, joy and all that makes for the good of women
and children and those who have lived long. James Oliver
loved old people and he loved children. He realized that the
awful burdens and woes of war fall on the innocent and the
helpless. And so the business of converting sword metal into
plow metal made an appeal to him. Being a metal-worker
and knowing much of the history of the metals, he knew of
the "Toledo blade" — that secret and marvellous invention
with its tremendous strength, keen cutting edge and lightness.
To make a moldboard as finely tempered in its way as a
"Toledo blade," was his ambition.

He used to declare that the secret of the sword makers of
old Toledo in Spain was his secret, too. Whether this was
absolutely true is not for us to question; perhaps a little
egotism in a man of this character should be allowable.
Cast-iron plows, as well as the steel plows of that date,
were very heavy, wore out rapidly — the metal being soft —
and did n*t "scour, " excepting in the purer sands and gravels.
The share and moldboard quickly accumulated soil, and
increased the "draft," forced the plow out of the ground,
destroyed the regularity of the furrows, killed the horses
and the temper of the farmer. Every few minutes the plowman
had to scrape off the soil from the moldboard with his
boot-heel, or stick, or paddle.

When a local rival fitted out a plow with a leather pocket
50

tacked on to his plow-beam, and offered to give a paddle JAMES
with every plow, James Oliver laughed aloud. **I give no OLIVER
paddles, because I do not believe in them, either for punish-
ment or plow use — my plows and my children do not need
paddles, '' was his remark.

The one particular thing — the Big Idea — in the Oliver Plow
was the chilled moldboard. Chilling the iron, by having a
compartment of water adjoining the casting clay, gives a
temper to the metal that can be attained in no other way.
To produce a chilled moldboard was the one particular
achievement of James Oliver. Others had tried it, but the
sudden cooling of the metal had caused the moldboard to
warp and lose its shape, and all good plowmen know that
a moldboard has to have a form as exact in its way as the
back of a violin, otherwise it simply pushes its way through
the ground, gathering soil and rubbish in front of it, until
horses, lines, lash and cuss words drop in despair, and give
it up. The desirable and necessary thing was to preserve the
exact and delicate shape^of the moldboard so that it would
scour as bright as a new silver dollar in any soil, rolling and
tossing the dirt from it. QAn Oliver moldboard has little
checkerboard lines across it. These come from marks in the
mold, made to allow the gas to escape when the metal is
chilled, and thus all warping and twisting is prevented.
Morse, in inventing the telegraph key, worked out his miracle
of dot and dash in a single night. The thought came to him
that electricity flowed in a continuous current, and that by
breaking or intercepting this current, a flash of light could
be made or a lever moved. Then these breaks in the current
could stand for letters or words. It was a very simple propo-
sition, so simple that men marveled that no one had ever
thought of it before.

Watt's discovery of the expansive power of steam was made

JAMES 111 watching the cover of his mother's teakettle vibrate jt
OLIVER Gutenberg^s invention of printing from movable type, Ark-
w^'ght with his spinning- jenny and Eli Whitney with his
cotton-gin, worked on mechanical principles that were very
simple — after they were explained. Exactly so!
Oliver's invention was a simple one, but tremendously effective .
When we consider that one-half of our population is farmers,
and that sixty per cent of the annual wealth of the world is
the production of men who follow the fresh furrow, we see
how mighty and far-reaching is an invention that lightens
labor, as this most efficient tool certainly does.
Accidentally, I found an interesting item on page two hundred
and seventy-six, of the Senate Report of the Forty-fifth Con-
gress. Mr. Coffin, statistician, was testifying as an expert on the
value of patents to the people. Mr. Coffin says, "My estimate
h that for a single year, if all of the farmers in the United
States had used the Oliver Chilled Plows, instead of the
regular steel or iron plow, the saving in labor would have
totaled the sum of forty-five million dollars."
When the papers announced the passing of James Oliver
some of them stated that, "He was probably the richest
man in Indiana." This fact, of itself, would not make him
worthy of the world's special attention. There are two things
we want to know about a very rich man: How did he get
his wealth? and. What is he doing with it? But the fact that
wealth was not the end or aim of this man, that riches came
to him merely as an incident of human service, and that his
wealth was used to give paying employment to a vast army
of workmen, makes the name of Oliver one that merits
our remembrance.

James Oliver worked for one thing and got another.
We lose that for which we clutch. The hot attempt to secure
a thing sets in motion an opposition which defeats us. All
52

the beautiful rewards of life come by indirection, and are
the incidental results of simply doing your work up to your
highest and best. The striker, with a lust for more money
and shorter hours, the party who wears the face off the clock
and the man with a continual eye on the pay envelope, all
have their reward — and it is mighty small. Nemesis with
her barrel stave lies in wait for them around the corner.
They get what is coming to them.

JAMES
OLIVER

AMES OLIVER was the inventor of
an implement which is supplied
to the user at a moderate cost Ji>
This tool — one particular pattern
of Oliver Plow — has been made for
over forty years, better finished and
lightened possibly, but unchanged
in style and design. This plow has
been used and is still being used
in every corner of the wide world
where men tickle the soil that it
may laugh a harvest. Hundreds
of attempts have been made to improve on this plow, to change
or modify it. Oliver himself tried to revise it, but the so-called
improvements were eliminated by time and the plow reverted
to type. And it remains to-day the biggest seller in the plow
world. Elderly men come now to buy this plow that they
used in boyhood and refuse to take any other. In fact, the
present writer recently bought one of these plows — an exact
duplicate of one he used in McLean County, Illinois, in 1869.

JAMES The idea of this plow sprang from the brain of James Oliver
OLIVER ^s Minerva sprang from the brain of Jove, full armed. Its tests
for eflBlciency and endurance have been the most searching
possible. It has been used by three generations of men, and
to-day the Oliver Chilled Plow Works are producing seven
times as many chilled plows as their largest competitor.
The Olivers have never been in a "trust" or "combine."
And moreover, they will never lend themselves to any trust
in the future. This is their determined and unalterable policy.
Their goods are sold in the open market, in competition with
many other manufacturers — the field is a free one. And not
even their most prejudiced competitor has ever accused them
of coercing the consumer, of banking on his necessities, or
of oppressing labor.

When James Oliver was last approached on this theme, after
the matter had been pushed upon his attention several times
with various and sundry tempting offers to put the Plow
Works into a "Community of Interest," or what is vulgarly
called a Trust, he replied, "I do not care for your money,
neither do I nor my family wish to go out of business. We
are not looking for ease or rest or luxury. I love this insti-
tution, and if I go into this combine, granting I will make
more money than now, what is to prevent your shutting
down these works and throwing all these people who have
worked for me all these years out of employment? And how
would that affect this city which has been my home and
the home of those I love? No, sir, your talk of more money
and less responsibility means nothing to me. I want my
children to always feel the stress and strain of work, and
never to forget the burdens of life, in order that they may
respect the burdens of others. To be free to come and go
is death — morally and mentally, if not financially. Not only
do the Olivers run this business to make good plows, but
54

they run it for the economic and educational good of them- j a m F q
selves, and of all the great Oliver Family who make Oliver ^ , i v F P
Plows and who follow in fresh furrows behind them. So you
see, gentlemen, how little your argument is worth as regards
more money, greater ease and less responsibility. And if it
ever comes to a show-down, I '11 take less money and more
work, rather than greater ease and more money. That is
the Oliver Policy — more work and work for everybody who
wants to work. Next, more plows, and if it is possible, better
plows. And as for the money part, that will take care of
itself.'' And this same sentiment has since been repeated
by Joseph D. Oliver.

The Oliver fortune is founded on reciprocity. James Oliver
was a farmer — in fact it was the joke of his friends to say
that he took as much pride in his farming as in his manufac-
turing. Mr. Oliver considered himself a farmer, and regarded
every farmer as a brother or partner to himself. "I am a
partner of the farmer, and the farmer is a partner of Nature, "
he used to say. He always looked forward to the time when
he would go back to the farm and earn his living by tilling
the soil. He studied the wants of the farmer, knew the value
of good roads, of fertilizers, drainage, and would argue long
and vigorously as to the saving in plowing with three horses
instead of two, or on the use of mules vs. horses. He loved
trees, and liked to plant them himself and encouraged boys
to plant them ^ He had positive views as to the value of
Clydesdales compared with Percherons.
So did he love the Clydes that for many years he drove a
half-breed, shaggy-legged and flat-tailed plow horse to a
buggy, and used to declare that all a good Clyde really
needed was patience in training to make him a race-horse.
He used to declare the horse he drove could trot very fast,
— "if I would let him out." Unhappily he never let him out,

JAMES but the suspicion was that the speed limit of the honest nag
OLIVER was about six miles an hour, with the driver working his
passage. Ayrshire cattle always caught his eye, and he
would stop farmers in the field and interrogate them as to
their success in cattle breeding. When told that his love for
Ayrshire cattle was only a prejudice on account of his love
for Robert Burns, who was born at Ayr, he would say " A mon 's
a mon for a' that.'* He declared that great men and great
animals always came from the same soil, and that where you
could produce good horses and cattle you could grow great men.
Mr. Oliver was always devising ways to benefit and brighten
the lives of families on the farms.

For music he cared little, yet during the seventies and
eighties he had a way of buying "Mason and Hamlin"
organs, and sending them as Christmas presents to some of
his farmer friends where there were growing girls. "A sewing-
machine, a Mason and Hamlin organ, and an Oliver Plow
form a trinity of necessities for a farmer," he once said.
^ When Orange Judd first began to issue his "Rural Amer-
ican, " the enterprise received the hearty interest and support
of Mr. Oliver and he subscribed for hundreds of copies.
He thought that farmers should be the most intelligent,
the most healthy and the happiest people on earth — nothing
was too good for a farmer. "Your business men are only
middlemen — the farmer digs his wealth out of the ground, "
he used to say. He quoted Brigham Young's advice to the
Mormons, "Raise food products and feed the miners and
you will all get rich. But if you mine for gold and silver,
a very few will get rich, and the most of you will die poor. "

0 here is the point, James Oliver
was more interested in industri-
alism than in finance. His interest
in humanity arose out of his desire
to benefit humanity, and not a
wish to exploit it.
If that is not a great lesson for
the young, as well as old, then
write me down as a soused gurnet.
^ The gentle art of four-flushing
was absolutely beyond his ken. He
was like those South Sea Islanders
told of by Robert Louis Stevenson, who did n't know enough
to lie, until after the missionaries came, when they partially
overcame the disability.

James Oliver did n*t know enough to lie. He knew only one
way to do business, and that was the simple, frank, honest
and direct way. That great New York politician whose shib-
boleth was, **Find your sucker, play your bucker, land your
sucker — and then beat it, " would have been to him hope-
less Choctaw.

To sell a man a plow at a price beyond its worth, or to sell
a man anything he did not need, was to him a calamity
for the seller, just as it was for the buyer.
His ambition was to make a better plow than any other living
man could make, and then sell it at a price the farmer could
afford to pay J^ His own personal profit was a secondary mat-
ter. In fact, at board meetings, when ways and means were
under discussion, he would break in and display a mold-
board, a coulter or a new clevis, with a letter from Farmer
John Johnson of Jones' Cross Roads, as to its efficiency.
Then when the board did not wax enthusiastic over his new
toy he would slide out and forget to come back. His heart

JAMES
OLIVER

JAMES was set on making a better tool, at less expense to the

OLIVER consumer, than the world had ever seen. Thus would he

lessen labor and increase production. So beside great talent

he had a unique simplicity, which often supplied smiles for

his friends.

James Oliver had a warm sort of feeling for every man who
had ever held the handles of an Oliver Plow — he regarded
such an one as belonging to the great family of Olivers.
He believed that success depended upon supplying a com-
modity that made the buyer a friend ; and Heaven, to him, was
a vast County Fair, largely attended by farmers, where exhibi-
tions of plowing were important items on the program.
Streets paved with gold were no lure for him.
In various ways he resembled William Morris, who when
asked what was his greatest ambition, answered, "I hope
to make a perfect blue, " and the dye on his hands attested
his endeavors in this line.

Both were workingmen, and delighted in the society of
toilers. They lived like poor men, and wore the garb of
mechanics. Neither had any use for the cards, curds and
custards of what is called polite society. They hated hypoc-
risy, sham, pretense, and scorned the soft, the warm, the
pleasant, the luxurious. They liked stormy weather, the
sweep of the wind, the splash of the rain and the creak of
cordage. They gloried in difficulties, reveled in the opposition
of things and smiled at the tug of inertia. In their mltures
was a granitic outcrop that defied failure. It was the Anglo-
Saxon, with a goodly cross of the Norse, that gave them
this disdain of danger, and made levitation in their natures
the supreme thing — not gravitation.

The stubbornness of the Scot is an inheritance from his
Norse forbears, who discovered America five himdred years
before Columbus turned the trick. These men were well
58

called the "Wolves of the Sea." About the year One Thou- JAMES
sand, a troop of them sailed up the Seine in their rude but OLIVER
staunch ships. The people on the shore seeing these strange
giants, their yellow hair flying in the wind, called to them,
** Where are you from, and who are your masters?"
And the defiant answer rang back over the waters, "We
are from the round world, and we call no man master."
fl James Oliver called no man mastero Yet with him, the
violent had given way to the psychic and mental. His battle-
ground was the world of ideas. The love of freedom he im-
bibed with his mother's milk. It was the thing that prompted
their leaving Scotland.

James Oliver had the defect of his qualities. He was essen-
tially Cromwellian. He too would have said, "Take away
that bauble ! " He did not look outside of himself for help.
Emerson's essay on "Self -Reliance" made small impression
on him, because he had the thing of which Emerson wrote.
His strength came from within, not without. And it was this
dominant note of self-reliance which made him seem in-
different to the strong men of his own town and vicinity.
It was not a contempt for strong men, it was only the natural
indifference of one who called no man master.
He was a big body himself, big in brain, big in initiative,
big in self-suflaciency.

He could do without men; and there lies the paradox — ^if
you would have friends you must be able to do without
them. James Oliver had a host of personal friends, and he
also had a goodly list of enemies, for a man of his tempera-
ment does not trim ship. He was a good hater. He hugged
his enemies to his heart with hoops of steel, and at times
they inspired him as soft and mawkish concession never
could. And well could he say, "A little more grape. Captain
Bragg." Also, "We love him for the enemies he made."

JAMES He had a beautiful disdain tor society — society in its Smart
O L I.V E R Set sense. He used to say, "In ordei to get into Heaven you
have to be good and you have to be dead, but in order to get
into society you do not have to be either."
Exclusion and caste were abhorrent to him.
Oliver gave all, and doing so he won all in the way of fame
and fortune that the world has to offer. His was a full, free,
happy and useftxl life. Across the sky in letters of light I
would write these words of James Oliver: TO BENEFIT
YOURSELF, YOU MUST BENEFIT HUMANITY.

ANGWILL has written it down in
fadeless ink that Scotland has pro-
duced three bad things: Scotch
humor, Scotch religion and Scotch
whiskey. James Oliver had use for
only one of the commodities just
named — and that was humor jt
Through his cosmos ran a silver
thread of quiet chuckle that added
light to his life and endeared him
to thousands. Laughter is the sol-
vent for most of our ills!
All of his own personal religion — and he had a deal of it —
was never saved up for Sunday; he used it in his business.
But James Oliver was a Scotchman and, this being so, the
fires of his theological nature were merely banked. When
Death was at the door an hour before his passing, this hardy
son of heath and heather, of bog and fen and bleak north
60

wind, roused himself from stupor and in his deep, impressive
voice, soon to be stilled forever, startled the attendants by
the stern order, **Let us Pray!" Then he repeated slowly
the Lord^s Prayer, and with the word **Amen," sank back
upon his pillow to arise no more.

For Scotch whiskey he had less use than he had for Scotch
religion. He cursed the stuff in good, stiff, unco words, that
were not always to be found in Webster's Unabridged.
For the occasional drimken workman, he had terms of pity
and sentences of scorn in alternation. At such times the
Scotch burr would come to his lips, and the blood of his
ancestors would tangle his tongue.

One of his clerks once said to me, "As long as Mr. James
talks United States, I am not alarmed, but when he begins
to roll it out with a burr on his tongue, as if his mouth were
full of hot mush, I am scared to death. "
It shotild be here explained that there were two of these
Olivers, "Mr. James" and "Mr. Joseph D. " — ^father and son.
And there be many good men and discerning who aver
that without the son, the father would not have come into
the lime-light, and that the greatest achievement of James
Oliver was not tho Oliver Chilled Plow, but Joseph D.
Oliver, still happily unchilled.

JAMES
OLIVER

N Eighteen Hundred and Ninety-
three, James Oliver spent several
months at the Chicago Exposition.
He was one of the World's Fair
Commissioners.

Hundreds of people shook hands
with him daily. He was a com-
manding figure, with personality
plus. No one ever asked him, any
more than they did old Doctor
Johnson, "Sir, are you anybody
in particular?" He was some-
body in particular, all over and all of the time.
That story about how the stevedores on the docks in Liverpool
turned and looked at Daniel Webster and said, "There goes
the King of America, " has been related of James Oliver. He
was a commanding figure, with the face and front of a man
in whom there was no parley. He was a good man to agree
with. In any emergency, even up to his eightieth year, he
would have at once taken charge of affairs by divine right.
His voice was the voice of command.
So there at Chicago he was always the center of an admiring
group. He was Exhibit A of the Oliver Plow Works Exhibition
and yet he never realized it. One day, when he was in a par-
ticularly happy mood, and the Scotch burr was delightfully
apparent, as it was when he was either very angry or very
happy, an elderly woman pushed her way through the throng
and seizing the hand that ruled the Oliver Plow Works in
both of her own, said in ecstatic tones, "Oh! it is such a joy
to see you again. Twenty years ago I used to hear you preach
every Sunday ! '* ^ For once, James Oliver was undone. He
hesitated, stammered and then exclaimed in flat contradic-
tion, "Madam, you never heard me preach I"
62

* * Why, are n't you Robert Collyer — the Rev. Robert Collyer? *• JAMES
^ "Not I, madam. My name is Oliver, and I make plows,'* OLIVER
was the proud reply.

That night Oliver asked his trusted helper. Captain Nicar,
this question, "I say, Nicar, who is this man Collyer — that
woman was the third person within a week who mistook me
for that preacher. I don't look like a dominie do I, Captain? "
^ And then Captain Nicar explained Tyhat Mr. Oliver had
known, but which had temporarily slipped his mind — that
Robert Collyer was a very great preacher, a Unitarian who
had graduated out of orthodoxy, and who in his youth had
been a blacksmith. ^ "Why did n't he stay a blacksmith,
if he was a good one, and let it go at that?"
But this Nicar couldn't answer. However, the very next day-
Robert Collyer came along, piloted by Marshall Field, and
Oliver had an opportunity to put the question to the man
himself J^ J>

Robert Collyer was much impressed by Mr. Oliver, and Mr.
Oliver declared that Mr. Collyer was not to blame for his
looks. And so they shook hands.

Collyer was at Chicago to attend the Parliament of Religions,
This department of the great Exposition had not before espec-
ially appealed to Oliver — machinery was his bent. But now he
forgot plows long enough to go and hear Robert Collyer
speak on, "Why I am a Unitarian."

After the address Mr. Oliver said to Mr. Collyer, "Almost thou
persuadest me to be a Unitarian. "

"Had you taken to the pulpit, you would have made a great
preacher, Mr. Oliver," said Mr. Collyer.
"And if you had stuck to your bellows and forge you might
have been a great plow maker, " replied Mr. Oliver, — "and
it 's lucky for me you did n't. "

"Which is no pleasantry," replied Mr. Collyer, "for if I had

JAMES made plows I would, like you, only have made the best."
OLIVER fl"Mr. Oliver, I wish you would make me a mental mold-
board that will cause my ideas to scour and thus reduce the
draft on my ego, " once said Mr. Collyer.
**I think you have a mighty good outfit for stirring up the
spiritual soil, as it is, " replied Oliver.

The Oliver Exhibit at the great Fair, was a kind of meeting
place for a group of such choice spirits as Philip D. Armour,
Sam Allerton, ** Higginbotham Himself," Clark E. Carr
and [oseph Medill ; and then David Swing, Robert
Collyer, Dr. Frank Gunsaulus and 'Gene^Field were added
to the coterie. 'Gene Field's column of "Sharps and Flats"
used to get the benefit of the persiflage.
Collyer and Oliver were born the same year — Eighteen Hun-
dred and Twenty -three. Both, had the same magnificent
health, the same high hope and courage that never falters,
and either would have succeeded in anything into which he
might have turned his energies.

Chance made Oliver a mechanic and an inventor. He evolved
the industrial side of his nature. Chance also lifted Collyer
out of a blacksmith shop, and tossed him into the pulpit.
^ Collyer was born in Yorkshire, but his ancestors were
Scotch. Oliver's mother's name was Irving, and the Irvings
appear in the Collyer pedigree, tracing to Edward Irving,
that strong and earnest preacher who played such a part in
influencing Tammas the Titan, of Ecclefechan. Whether
Oliver and Collyer ever followed up their spiritual rela-
tionship to see whether it was a blood tie, I do not know
— probably not, since both, like all superbly strong men,
have a beautiful indifference to climbing geneological trees.
fl I once heard Robert Collyer speak in a sermon of James
Oliver as **a transplanted thistle evolved into a beautiftd
flower," and "the man of many manly virtues."
64

Seemingly Mr. Collyer was unconscious of the fact that in JAMES

describing Mr. Oliver, he was picturing himself. Industry, OLIVER

economy, the love of fresh air, the enjoyment of the early

morning, the hatred of laziness, shiftlessness, sharp practice

and all that savors of graft, grab and get-by-any-means —

these characteristics were strong in both. And surely Robert

Collyer was right — if the world ever produces a race of noble

men, that race will be founded on the simple virtues, upon

which there is neither caveat nor copyright, the virtues

possessed by James Oliver in such a rare and rich degree.

EORGE H. DANIELS, of the New
York Central Railroad and James
Oliver were close, personal friends.
Both were graduates of the Uni-
versity of Hard Knocks, both
loved their Alma Mater.
When Daniels printed that literary
trifle, "A Message to Garcia," he
sent five thousand copies to Oliver,
who gave one to every man in his
factory ^ J(>

Daniels was one of the lUini, and
had held the handles of an Oliver Plow. He had seen the great
business of the Olivers at South Bend evolve. Oliver admired
Daniels, as he did any man who could do big things in a big
way. Daniels had an exhibition of locomotives and passenger
cars at the Chicago Exposition, and personally spent muca
time there. Among the very interesting items in the New

JAMES York Central's exhibit was the locomotive that once ran
OLIVER ^T^om Albany to Schenectady, when that streak of strap iron
rust, sixteen miles long, constituted the whole of the New
York Central Railroad; and this locomotive, the "Dewitt
Clinton," had been the entire motor equipment, save two
good mules used for switching purposes.
Oliver and Daniels stood side by side looking at the quaint
curiosity, the direct ancestor of old **999." **You own the
teakettle, George, but I 've got the start of you — I rode
behind the thing as a paid passenger in Eighteen Himdred
and Thirty-five," said Oliver to Daniels.
And this was an actual fact; the Oliver family had ridden
over the road on their way from Scotland to the West.
It was during the Exposition that Oliver incidentally told
Daniels about how he had been mistaken for the Rev.
Robert CoUyer.

**I can sympathize with you," said Daniels, "for the plague
of my life is a preacher who looks like me. Only last week
I was stopped on the street by a man who wanted me to go
to his house and perform a marriage ceremony."
**And you punched his ticket?" asked Oliver.
**No, I accepted and sent for the sky-pilot to do the job, and
the happy couple never knew of the break."
The man who so closely resembled Daniels was Rev. Dr.
Thomas R. Slicer of Buffalo, an eminent clergyman now
in New York City. Besides other points of resemblance, the
one thing that marked them as twins was a beautiful red
chin whisker, about the color of an Irish setter. Once
Daniels challenged the reverend gentleman to toss up to
see who should sacrifice the lilacs. Dr. Slicer got tails but
lost his nerve before he reached the barber's, and so still
clings to his beauty-mark.

Dr. Slicer was once going through the Grand Central Station
66

when he was approached by a man who struck him for a pass JAMES

to Niagara Falls. OLIVER

**I regret," said the preacher, "that I cannot issue you a

pass to Niagara Falls; all I can do is to give you a pass to

Paradise. "

"Which," said Mr. Oliver, when Mr. Daniels told him the

story, "which was only a preacher's way of telling the man

to go to hades. You and I, George, express ourselves much

more simply."

ITHOUT detracting from the meed
of praise that is due James Oliver,
the truth should be stated that
alone he could never have built
up or extended this business to
its present colossal proportions.
^ The fact that an invention is
useful and much needed does
not insure its success.
For while it is true that only a
useful invention or appliance can
at the last succeed, yet the further
fact remains that because it is good is no sign it will go.
It will not necessarily succeed any more than moral virtue
and spiritual beauty will be popular next year at Atlantic
City and on Fifth Avenue.

Good things go only when captained by big men. It is a
question of generalship, or salesmanship. It is a matter of
marketing your wares. The superior man is not the one

JAMES who thinks great thoughts, but he who expresses them so
OLIVER as to give humanity a vibe and a list to starboard.

Success is voltage imder control — keeping one hand on the
transformer of your kosmic kilowatts.
So to the argument: Excellent inventions and mines with
pay gravel are nil and nit and mox nix ouse, as we say in
the classics, until a man with phosphorus in his ego takes
the management and transforms chaos into cosmos.
We all see big pictures in our dream mirror when drunk on
art, love, dope or religion, but the boy who puts his picture
on the canvas and sells it to Col. Pierpont Morgan — he is
the only one who is really IT.

So when you tell me of your wonderful invention and want
to sell me stock in your company, just bring me a snap-shot
of the man who is going to manage your concern, as well
as a list of what he eats and drinks, the hours he sleeps and
how he exercises both his body and sky-piece.
Then I '11 talk with you about investing.
While Joseph D. Oliver lacks the picturesque crankiness
of the older man, he has a mental reach and a judicial
outlook upon the world which James Oliver never had. He
is a diplomat, a financier, an organizer. He is a judge of
men, and never does a thing he can get some one else to do
for him. Big men succeed through the process of selection.
Joseph D. Oliver has a wise sense of values, and rare good
taste as to the eternal fitness of things. He manages men
without their knowing it. And let this be said, James Oliver
was big enough to leave all questions of salesmanship and
finance to his son. For over thirty years, Joseph D. Oliver
has been the actual working manager of the business. He
knows every corner and cranny of this vast industry, and
has the broad, prophetic outlook of a great Captain of
Industry. He holds the ship safe and true to her course.
68

^ The Oliver Opera House and that paragon of hostelriee, JAMES

"The Oliver Hotel, " were the ideas of James Oliver, mate- OLIVER

rialized by Joseph D.

When I was told that James Oliver was the richest man in

Indiana, I said to myself, "Well, his son is the best ballasted

man, mentally and physically and spiritually, in Indiana —

and perhaps in America. '' That sounds like oxaline, I know,

but the remark is carefully considered. I weigh my words.

^ When we so often see great wealth coupled with great

weakness, is it not a satisfaction to find a rich man who is

moderate in all the affairs of life, who is liberal but not

lavish, who conserves his nerve-force and who realizes that

great wealth is a responsibility — a stewardship?

Joseph D. Oliver is so big and great that he has always

been quite willing to stand in the shadow. He has not clutched

for honors ; he has not asked for applause. The sycophant and

flatterer have never been able to move him. He is an educated

gentleman in the best sense of the word, and he is also a work-

ingman. His life is devoted to this great science of business —

to creation and distribution jt Yet he knows history, loves

music and literature, delights in Nature, appreciates the plain,

simple joys of Life and practices the great and manly virtues,

without which the greatest and richest is something less than

a man. His family relations are the happiest, sweetest and

sunniest. He has two sons — ^James and Joseph Doty, jr. —

fine hearty yotmg men, who are being brought up to work,

as boys should and must if they would elude the frowns of

Fate and dodge her Stuffed Club.

The social and financial bounder may have his use, but I

do not know what it is unless it be as a microbe of dissolution.

But of such is not the House of Oliver.

JAMES |H^S7|^7xpir>5^ISSpl|'^ ^^ ^^* ^^ *° make James Oliver
OLIVER kf3i/lLN>l/lli\i/WLfs^ out a religious man in a sectarian

sense J^ He did however have a
great abiding faith in the Supreme
Intelligence in which we are bathed
and of which we are a part. He
saw the wisdom and goodness of
the Creator on every hand. He
loved Nature — the birds in the
hedgerows and the flowers in
the field. He gloried in the sun-
rise, and probably saw the sun
rise more times than any other man in Indiana.
"The morning is full of perfume," he used to say. And so
it is, but most of us need to be so informed.
He believed most of all in his own mission and in his own
divinity. Therefore he prized good health, and looked upon
sickness and sick people with a touch of scorn. He reverenced
the laws of health as God's Laws, and so he would not put
an enemy in his mouth to steal away his brains. He used no
tobacco, was wedded to the daily cold bath and was a regular
amphibian for splashing. He had a system of calisthenics
which he followed as religiously as the Mohammedan prays
to the East. The pasteboard proclivity was not one of his
accomplishments.

But a few months before his death he was missed one day
at the works. His son thought he would drive out to his farm
and see if he was there. He was there all right, and had just
one hundred and twenty-seven men, by actual count, digging
a ditch and laying out a road.

James Oliver was n't a man given to explanations, apologies
or excuses. His working motto usually was that of Rev. Dr.
Jowett of Baliol, ** Never explain, never apologize — get the
70

thing done, and let them howl!" ^ But on this occasion, JAMES
anticipating a gentle reproach from his son for his extrav- OLIVER
agance, he said, **A11 right, Joe, all right. You see I 've
been postponing this tarnashun job for twenty years, and I
thought I M just take hold and clean it up, because I knew
you never would!"

He was let off with a warning, but Joseph had to go behind
the barn and laugh.

One thing that was as much gratification to Mr. Oliver as
making the road, was the sense of motion, action, bustle
and doing things. He delighted in looking after a rush job,
and often took charge of "the boys" personally.
For the men who made the plows, his regard was as great
as for those who used them. He moved among the men as
one of them, and while his discipline never relaxed, he was
always approachable and ready to advise even with the most
lowly. His sense of justice and his consideration are shown
in the fact that in all the long years that the Oliver Plow
Works has existed, it has never once been defendant in a
lawsuit in their home county, damage or otherwise.
Thousands of men have been employed and accidents have
occasionally happened but the unfortunate man and his
family have always been cared for. Indeed, the Olivers carry
a pension roll for the benefit of widows, orphans and old
people, the extent of which is known only to the confidential
cashier. They do not proclaim their charities with a brass band.
fl James Oliver thought that a man should live so as to be useful
all of his days. Getting old was to him a bad habit. He did not
believe in retiring from business, either to have a good time
or because you were old and bughouse. "Use your faculties
and you will keep them, " he used to repeat again and again.
He agreed with Herbert Spencer that men have softening
of the brain because they have failed to use that organ.

JAMES ^^ certainly he proved his theories, for he, himself, was
OLIVER ^^°® ^^^ sensible to the day of his death. Yet when certain
of his helpers, bowed beneath the weight of years and life's
vicissitudes, would become weak and needful of care, he
would say, "Well, old John has done us good work, and we
must look after him. " And he did.

He would have denied that he was either charitable or
philanthropic; but the fact was that the Golden Rule was
a part of his business policy, and beneath his brusque outside,
there beat a very warm and generous heart.
When the financial panic of Eighteen Hundred and Ninety-
three struck the country, and dealers were canceling their
• orders, and everybody was shortening sail, the Olivers kept
right along manufacturing and stored their product.
Never have they laid off labor on account of hard times. Never
have they even shortened hours or pay. This is a record, I
believe, equaled by no big manufacturing concern in America.
^ In October, Nineteen Hundred and Seven, when workmen
were being laid off on every hand, the Olivers simply started
in and increased their area for the storage of surplus product.
They had faith that the tide would turn, and this faith was
founded on the experience of forty years and more in business.
Said James Oliver, "Man's first business was to till the soil;
his last business will be to till the soil ; I help the farmer to do
his work, and for my product there will always be a demand. "

AMES OLIVER had no fear of j^mES
death. He had an abiding faith @ L I V E R
that the Power that cared for him
here, would never desert him
there. He looked upon death as
being as natural as life and prob-
ably just as good. For the quibbles
of theology he had small patience.
"Live right here — wait, and we
shall know," he used to say.
When his wife died, in Nineteen
Hundred and Two, he bore the
blow like a Spartan. Fifty-eight years had they journeyed
together. She was a woman of great good sense, and a very
handsome woman, even in her old age. Her husband had
always depended on her, telling her his plans and thus clari-
fying them in his own mind. They were companions, friends,
chums, lovers — man and wife. After her death he redoubled
his activities, and fought valiantly to keep from depressing
the household with the grief that was gnawing at his heart.
^ A year passed, and one day he said to his son, **Joe, I
do miss your mother awfully — ^but then I '11 not have to
endure this loneliness forever!"

And this was as near a sign of weakness as he ever showed.
^ A woman once came to Mr. Oliver soliciting subscriptions
for some sort of doubtful charity. She was so persistent, that
to get rid of her Mr. Oliver took out of his pocket a silver
dollar and pushed it across the desk to her.
With lofty contempt the woman said, "I have no use for
such an insignificant sum."

And with great courtesy, Mr. Oliver replied, "Madam, I
have," and promptly picked up the dollar and put it back
in his pocket.

#!i 1 T VK* p ^® ^^^ neither a miser nor a spendthrift. He always knew
O L 1 V t. K ^j^g value of a dollar, and always his earnest desire was to
so invest his money that it would add to the business pros-
perity of the community, and in fact the whole coimtry.
^ James Oliver was a successful man, but it was not always
smooth sailing. In the early days the Plow Plant caught fire
at night and was absolutely consumed ^ Returning home
at three o'clock in the morning, exhausted, and with clothing
wet and frozen in a sheet of ice, this man sorely kicked by
an unkind fate, turned a chair over on the floor before the
fireplace, and reclining on it, there with eyes closed, endeav-
ored to forget the trying scenes of the night.
Mrs. Oliver had made coffee and prepared a simple breakfast
for the tired man. But rest was never for her or her family
when there was pressing^ work demanding attention.
** James, why are you wasting time! Drink this coffee, put
on these dry clothes and go at once before daylight and order
lumber and brick so the men can begin at seven o'clock to
rebuild. We have orders to fill ! " And the man arousing him-
self, obeyed the command. At seven o'clock the lumber was on
the ground and the men were at work preparing to rebuild.
^ James Oliver was a man of courage, but his patience,
persistency and unfaltering faith were largely the reflection
of his wife's soul and brain. When seventy years of age,
a neighbor once dropped in for a little visit and in conver-
sation referred to Mr. Oliver's being a rich man.
"Yes," said this kindly old Spartan, **Yes, they say I am
rich, but if I didn't have a dollar, I would si ill be rich —
with a wife like that!" and he pointed to his partner of
nearly half a century.

Mrs. Oliver smiled and said chidingly, "Now James!" But
he continued, "I say, mother, if we did not have a dollar,
we could still earn our living with our hands at just plain
74

hard work, could n't we? " ^ And the old lady (who really . * •• w^. «
was never old) replied, "Yes, James, we could earn our '^ftj^Z^ ^
living with our hands, and we would not be miserable ^ ^ * ^ '^^
over it either."

Near the close of his wonderful career, Pericles said, "I
have caused no one to wear crepe." The Hon. Marvin
Campbell, in a speech at South Bend, once quoted this
remark of the man who built the city of Athens and added,
"Not only can we pay James Oliver the compliment of saying
that he never caused any one to wear crepe, but no one ever
lost money by investing either in his goods or his enterprises,
and moreover no one ever associated with him who did not
prosper and grow wiser and better through the association. "
A few weeks before his passing, some one told him this little
story of Tolstoy's: A priest, seeing a peasant plowing, ap-
proached him and said, "If you knew you were to die to-
night how would you spend the rest of the day?"
And the peasant promptly answered, "I would plow."
It seems the priest thought the man would answer, "In
confession," or "In prayer," or "At church." The priest
heard the answer in surprise. He thought a moment, and
then replied, "My friend, you have given the wisest answer
a man can possibly make, for to plow is to pray, since the
prayer of honest labor is always answered."
The story impressed Mr. Oliver. He told it to several people,
and then made a personal application of it, thus: "If I
knew I were to die to-night, I would make plows lo-day,"

ND THEY SHALL
BEAT THEIR
SWORDS INTO
PLOWSHARES,
AND THEIR
SPEARS INTO

PRUNING-HOOKS: NATION
SHALL NOT LIFT UP SWORD
AGAINST NATION. NEITHER
SHALL THEY LEARN WAR
ANY MORE.— ISAIAH 2:4

LITTLE JOURNEYS

by Elbert Hubbard in Booklet Form —
Frontispiece Portrait of Each Subject.

Frederick Chopin
Felix Mendelssohn
Samuel Coleridge
Benjamin Disraeli
Mark Antony
Whistler
Pericles
Savonarola
John Wesley
Henry George
Thomas Paine
Richard Cobden
John Knox
Garibaldi
John Bright
Robert Owen

Charles Bradlaugh

Theodore Parker

Oliver Crpmvi^ell

Anne Hutchinson

Jean Rousseau

Moses

Confucius

Pythagoras

Plato

King Alfred

Friedrich Froebel

Booker Washington

Thomas Arnold

Erasmus

Hypatia

Mary Baker Eddy

The Price is TEN CENTS Each, or One Dollar
for Ten — as long as they last.

THE ROYCROFTERS

East Aurora, Erie County, New York

THE ROYCROFTERS

EAST AURORA, ERIE COUNTY, NEW YORK

FRIENDS :-

I enclose Two Dollars to pay for a yearly
subscription to THE FRA Magazine.

Name

Address-
Date

CHECK YOUR CHOICE. One of these beautiful
Roycroft books, gratis, with every subscription for

THE FRA MAGAZINE

HEALTH AND WEALTH Hubbard

The Broncho Book ------ Capt, Jack Crawford

Woman's Work -------- Alice Hubbard

Battle of Waterloo -------- Victor Hugo

White Hyacinths -------- Elbert Hubbard

TheRubaiyat --------- Omar Khayyam

A William Morris Book - - - Hubbard and Thomson
Crimes against Criminals ^ - - - - Robert G. Ingersoll

A Christmas Carol -------- Charles Dickens

The Ballad of Reading Gaol ----- Oscar Wilde

Justinian and Theodora - - * Elbert and Alice Hubbard
BOUND VOL. LITTLE JOURNEYS - Hubbard

LITTLE JOURNEYS

FIFTEENTH YEAR

-— OR Nineteen Hundred and Nine, Little Journeys
by Elbert Hubbard will be to the homes of Great
Business Men. Mr. Hubbard has been farm-hand,
ffl office boy, printer's devil, foreman, editor, mana-
ger, proprietor. He is an economist himself— an economist
of time, money and materials. Mr. Hubbard is a Farmer;
he also operates a Bank, a Hotel, a Printing-shop, a Book-
bindery and a Guinea-hen Garage.

SUBJECTS OF LITTLE JOURNEYS FOR 1909

ROBERT OWEN H. J. HEINZ JOHN JACOB ASTOR

JAMES OLIVER PHILIP D. ARMOUR AUGUST SCHILLING

STEPHEN GIRARD 'MAXER ROTHSCHILD JOHN WANAMAKER
ALBERT A. POPE JAMES J. HILL ANDREW CARNEGIE

THE FRA Magazine, Two Dollars a year
LITTLE JOURNEYS, One Dollar a year

BOTH FOR TWO DOLLARS if you Subscribe at Once

The Roycrofters, East Aurora, New York

I am a writing man and I know the difficulties of the craft; and I say that
Elbert Hubbard is the greatest writer — vocabulary and range of ideas consid-
ered— tl\at the world has ever seen, ancient or modern. — ROBERT BARR
Young writers intent on style can not do better than read Elbert Hubbard.
He says big things in tabloid.— ALFRED HENRY LEWIS
Elbert Hubbard is the only man in America who has the English language
firmly by the tail.— JOAQUIN MILLER

We are not surprised that Elbert Hubbard's Little Journeys are being introduced
into our High Schools as text books. FraElbertus writes as he feels and he usually
feels right. He is more interested in life than in literature ; he is so full of his
subject that he radiates it. And if he occasionally walks all over our old-time
rules of rhetoric, we are the gainers. Many a book has been regarded as
profound when it was only stupid. In his writing, Elbert Hubbard is as vivid
as Victor Hugo, as rippling as Heinrich Heine, as tender as Jean Paul ; and
we must remember that the chief charge brought against all of the^e men was
that they were interesting. Nowadays we do not consider dullness a virtue. We
shun the turgid and lugubrious. We ask for life.— CHICAGO INTER-OCEAN

Books by Elbert Hubbard

Respectability - - - - - $ 2.00

The Man of Sorrows - - - 2.00

Love, Life and Work - - - - 2.00

White Hyacinths - - - - 2.00

Health and Wealth - - - - 2. 00
Time and Chance — A Narrative Life of John Brown ;

350 pages, in limp leather, silk hned - 2.50

No Enemy But Himself - - - 1.25

The following LITTLE JOURNEYS are on hand-made paper, hand illumined,
limp leather, silk lined, illustrated, a very beautiful book (some folks think)

Little Journeys to Homes of Good Men and Great $ 3.00

American Authors - - - - 3.00

Famous Women - - - - 3.00

American Statesmen - - - 8.00

Eminent Painters - - - - 3.00

English Authors, Book 1 - - .. g.oo

English Authors, Book II - - - 3.00

Great Musicians, Book I - - - 3.00

Great Musicians, Book II - - - 8.00

Eminent Artists, Book I - - - 8.00

Eminent Artists, Book II - - - 3.00

Eminent Orators, Book I - - - 3.00

Eminent Orators, Book II - - - 3.00

Great Philosophers, Book I - - 3.00

Great Philosophers, Book II - - 3.00

Great Scientists, Book I - - - 3.00

Great Scientists, Book II - - - 3.00

Great Lovers, Book I - - 3.00

Great Lovers, Book II - - - 3.00

Great Reformers, Book I - - - 3.00

Great Reformers, Book II - - - 8.00

Great Teachers, Book I - - - 3.00

Great Teachers, Book II - - - 3.00

THE ROYCROFTERS, East Aurora, New York

E who gives us
better homes,
better books,
better tools-^-
a fairer outlook and a
wider hope — him will
we crown with laurel

UCKY IS
THE LAND
THAT IS

TILLED BY THE
MEN WHO OWN IT

JAMES OLIVER

■■>>^» VI Kl^<f9 V> >V liw*

Vol. 24

MARCH, MCMIX

Ho. 3

[um

TO THg HQKfg^O=^

inE^^ MEH

BY ELBERT

^BE^^^j^r l!l"!^ ^^ 5^

otcputii sur.

isortF • iriTQ ■ h

KDHK-nY-THB

SOS

^■^„^EI?IF^OI^riTYI sg SB

HE law of Nature
is, that a certain
quantity of work is
necessary to pro-
duce a certain quan-

tity of good of any kind whatever.
If you want knowledge, you must
toil for it; if food, you must toil for it;
e, you must toil for it

pleaj
U

Entered at the postofflce at East Aurora. New York, for transmisiion as second-clasa matter
Copyright. 1008, by Elbert Hubbard, Editor and Publisher

LITTLE JOURNEYS

FIFTEENTH YEAR

FOR Nineteen Hundred Nine, LITTLE
JOURNEYS by Elbert Hubbard will be
to the homes of Great Business Men. Mr. Hub-
bard has been farm-hand, office-boy, printer's
devil, foreman, editor, manager, proprietor. He
is an economist himself — an economist of time,
money and materials. Mr. Hubbard is a Farmer;
he also operates a Bank, a Hotel, a Printing
Shop, a Bookbindery and a Guinea-hen Garage

Subjects of "Little Journeys" for 1909

ROBERT OWEN JAMES J. HILL

JAMES OLIVER MAYER ROTHSCHILD

STEPHEN GIRARD PETER COOPER

JOHN D. ARCHBOLD AUGUST SCHILLING

JOHN JACOB ASTOR JOHN WANAMAKER

PHILIP D. ARMOUR ANDREW CARNEGIE

LITTLE JOURNEYS, - One Dollar a Year
THE ERA Magazine, - Two Dollars a Year

Both for TWO DOLLARS if you Subscribeat Once

THE ROYCROFTERS, EAST AURORA, N.^Y.

Health and Wealth

BY BLBERT HUBBARD. OF EAST AURORA

HEREIN is pleasingly told how to
be happy — but not too happy — and
yet be rich ; containing thoughts,
always sincere and sometimes

serious, concerning the best methods of
preventing one from becoming a burden to
himself, a weariness to his friends, a trial
to his neighbors and a reflection on his
Maker. This volume tells of Roycroftism.
C Roycroftism is here, and it is slowly but
surely increasing in influence.
Roycroftism does not claim to be a relig-
ion— it is a system of life. This system, plan,
method or habit, does not seek to separate
religion from work, literature from life, or
art from play, any more than it would separate
love from sociology or ethics from finance.
The price of Health and W5:alth is
TWO DOLLARS, bound either
in limp leather or in boards, leather back.

THE ROY CROFTERS
EAST AURORA, ERIE COUNTY, NEW YORK

De Luxe Little Journeys

€LBERT HUBBARD writes with the freedom
and enthusiasm of youth. He interests. He
educates. He inspires. He never takes one round
and round the bush to a fact. Hubbard magnet-
izes words. Occasionally he shocks a few of the
Grandmother Tipsytoe Variety — naturally, but he
electrifies the many. Q This man's pen is never
gagged, chained or chloroformed. He thinks big,
virile, vital thoughts, and as he thinks, he writes.

Elbert Hubbard's * 'Little Journeys

to the Homes of Famous People are a treat alike
to the scholar and sage. Q The following on hand:

William Morris

Brahms

Marat

Tennyson

Raphael

Patrick Henry

Milton

Leonardo

Martin Luther

Dr. Johnson

Botticelli

Beecher

Addison

Thorwaldsen

Phillips

Southey

Gainsborough

Socrates

Coleridge

Velasquez

Seneca

Paganini

Corot

Aristotle

Mozart

Correggio

Aurelius

Sebastian Bach

Bellini

Spinoza

Mendelssohn

Cellini

Swedenborg

Franz Liszt

Abbey

Kant

Browning

Whistler

Comte

Handel

Pericles

Voltaire

Verdi

Antony

Herbert Spencer

Schumann

Pitt

Thoreau

Printed on Holland Hand-Made watermarked paper
in two colors, very beautiful type, and bound
scrumptiously for the Elect - - - $1.00 just

TO THE HOSTS OF PHILISTIA

GREETING

►OU are requested to meet at Mecca
— otherwise East Aurora — ^July 1st
to 10th, 1909, inclusive, for Mental
massage and Spiritual rejuvenation.
If you can't come, you are ordered
to shrive yourself at your own cos-
mic shrine, grant yourself absolution, read the
'•Essay on Silence" for five minutes night and
morning, during the dates above named, and
think well of everybody, including Bok. Hypoc-
risy, hypo-neurasthenia, false pride and gossip
germs should be left at home, as the spirit of
Brotherhood will be supreme and only Good
immanent. There are two formal services daily,
afternoon and evening. Tips are tabu, and the
offertory auskerspiel. The only tariff is for
room and meals (like those mother used to
make), the rate being Two Dolodocci a day, and
up, according to apartments. Reservations can
be made now J'>Jt>J>J^Jt>J'jf'J>J'

THE PHALANSTERIE
East Aurora, Erie County, New York

iio^unm

TO THI= HOhflg513R

IHE^^l^im

BY ELBERT

STEPHEN GIRARD

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I DO not value fortune. The love of labor is my sheet-
anchor. I work that I may forget, and forgetting, I am
happy. — Stephen Girard.

STEPHEN GIRARD

TT-P

K-O' I,

LITTLE JOURNEYS

The character of the people is shown by the regard they
have for their great men, their heroes and their benefactors.

HEN we make a census of the
sensible, and count the competent,
we cannot leave out the name of
William Penn. He was the founder
of the City of Philadelphia, and of

W-^iiy-\ the great Commonwealth of Penn-
^P^ sylvania, and gave name and fame
^fc>43 to both.

In this respect of being founded by
an individual, Philadelphia, the
City of Brotherly Love, and the
State of Pennsylvania, are unique
and peculiar in all the annals of American history.
Yet Philadelphia has no monument of Penn, save the hazy
figure of a dumpy nobody surmounted by an enormous hat,
all lost in the incense of commerce upon the topmost pin-
nacle of the City Hall.

If Philadelphia has been sky-piloted by her orthodox Wither-
spoons and Albertsons, by her Converses and Conwells,
and if they have taught her to love her enemies and then
hold balances true by hating her friends, let Clio so record,
for history is no longer a lie agreed upon. In her magnificent
park and in her public squares Philadelphia has done honor
in bronze and marble to Columbus, Humboldt, Schubert,
Goethe, Schiller, Garibaldi and Joan of Arc. But ''Mad
Anthony Wayne, " and that fearless fighting youth, Decatur,

STEPHEN GIRARD

are absolutely forgotten. Dr. Benjamin Rush, patriot, the
near and dear friend of Franklin, and the man who welcomed
Thomas Paine to Pennsylvania, and gave him a desk where
he might ply his pen and write the pamphlet, "Common
Sense, " sleeps in an unknown grave. You will look in vain
for eflSgies of Edgar Allan Poe, who was once a Philadelphia
editor; of Edwin Forrest, who lion-like, trod her boards;
of Ritterhouse, mapping the stars; of Dr. Kane, facing
Arctic ice and Northern night; of Dr. Evans, who filed and
filled the teeth of royalty and made dentists popular; of
Bartram, Gross, or Leidy. Fulton lived here, yet only the
searcher in dusty, musty tomes knows it, and Benjamin
West, who founded England's Academy of Painting, is
honored in Westminster Abbey, but Harrisburg, too busy
in her great game of grab and graft, knows not his name.
Robert Morris, who was rewarded for his life of patriotic
service by two years in a debtor's jail, is still in a cell, the
key of which is lost — and Sully, Peale, Taylor, Walter and
Fitch mingle their dust with his.

Yet all this might be forgiven on the plea that where so
many names of the strong and powerful bid for recognition,
to avoid jealousies, a good way is to ignore them all. So
speaks proud and pious Philadelphia — snug, smug, pros-
perous, priggish and pedantic Philadelphia. But how about
these five supremely great names — William Penn, Benjamin
Franklin, Thomas Paine, Stephen Girard and Walt Whitman i
^ Oh ! ye Friends, innocent of friendship, will ye forever
try to smother these by your silence, simply because they
failed to do theological goose-step on your order, as your
78

STEPHEN GIRARD

bum-beadles marked time with their staves? Q Oh ! ye cities
and nations, cherish, I pray you, the names of your heroes
in business, art, finance and poetry, for only by them'^and
through these shall the future know you. Have a care, ye cities !
for the treatment that ye accord to these living and to their
memories, dead, is the record of your heart and brain!

He who influences the thought of his time, influences the
thought of all the times that follow.

ENJAMIN FRANKLIN founded the
Philadelphia Public Library, the
Philadelphia Hospital, the Phil-
adelphia Orphan Asylum and the
University of Pennsylvania.
Franklin was also much inter-
ested in good roads, the building
of canals — steam railroads were
then, of course, a dream un-
guessed J> J>

Girard got his philanthropic im-
petus from Franklin. Girard had

watched the progress of the University of Pennsylvania,

and he had become convinced that it fell short of doing

the good it might do. It shot too high.

Franklin had a beautiful contempt for Harvard. He called

STEPHEN GIRARD

it a: social promotion plan, and thereby got the lasting
enmity of John Adams and his son, John Quincy Adams,
and also John Hancock.

Franklin had hoped to make the University of Pennsylvania
a different school. But after his death it followed in exactly
the Harvard lines. It fitted prosperous youth for the pro-
fessions, but it left the orphan and the outcast to struggle
with the demons of darkness, discarded and forgotten. Girard
founded his college with the idea of helping the helpless.
Thomas Jefferson, also, had impressed Girard greatly.
Girard once made a trip to Monticello; and had spent two
days at the University of Virginia. This was really remark-
able, for time with Girard was a very precious commodity.
^ Thomas Jefferson was the man who introduced Classic
Architecture in America. All of those great white pillars
that front the mansions of Virginia, and in fact the whole
South, had their germ in the brain of Jefferson, who reveled
in all that was Greek. Jefferson was a composite of Socrates,
Plato and Aristotle, and if Socrates were not the first Jeffer-
sonian Democrat, then who was?

Socrates dwelt on the rights and virtues of the "demos'*
— the Common People. Jefferson uses the expression again
and again and was the one man to popularize the word,
"Democrat." When Jefferson, wearing his suit of butternut
homespun, rode horseback up to the Washington Capitol
and tied his horse and walked over to the office of the Chief
Justice as President of the United States and took the oath
of office, his action was essentially Socratic.
Girard got both his ideals of architecture and education
80

STEPHEN GIRARD

from Jefferson. C|Girard was too busy to do much
original investigation, for he was a very rich man-
so he did the next best thing, and the thing that all
wise, busy men do — he picked a few authors and banked
on them.

Girard loved Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and
Thomas Paine. And one reason why he was drawn to them
was because they all spoke French, and he had a high regard
for the French people. Franklin and Jefferson were each
sent on various important diplomatic missions to France.
Paine was a member of the French Assembly, and Girard
never ceased to regret that Paine was saved from the guil-
lotine by that happy accident of the death messenger chalking
the inside of his cell door instead of the outside. "If they had
only cut off his head, he then would have been recorded in
American schoolbooks as the Hon. Thomas Paine, assis-
tant Savior of his country, instead of being execrated as Tom
Paine, the infidel," said Girard.

In the time of Girard, the names of Franklin, Jefferson and
Paine were reviled, renounced and denounced by good
society, and it was in defending these men that Girard
brought down upon himself the contumely that endures,
in attenuation, at least, even unto this day.
Let these facts stand : Franklin taught Girard the philosophy
of business and fixed in his mind the philanthropic bias.
^Jefferson taught Girard the excellence of the "demos,"
and at the same time gave him an unforgetable glimpse
of Greek architecture.

Paine taught Girard the iniquity and folly of a dogmatic

Stephen girard

religion — the religion that was so sure it was right, and so
certain that all others were wrong that it v/ould, if it could,
force humanity at point of the sword to accept its standards.
^ Franklin and Paine were citizens of Philadelphia, and
Jefferson spent many months there. The pavements that had
echoed to their tread, were daily pressed by the feet of Girard.
Their thoughts were his. And when pestilence settled on the
city like a shadow, and death had marked the doorposts of
over half the homes in the city with the sign of silence,
Girard did not absolve himself by drawing a check and send-
ing it to a committee by mail. Not he! He asked himself,
"What would Franklin have done under these conditions?**
And he answered the question by going into the pest-house,
doing for the stricken, the dying and the dead what the
pitying Christ would have done had He been on earth.
Girard believed in humanity, he believed in men as did
Franklin, Jefferson and Paine, and as did that other great
citizen of Philadelphia, who, too, was willing to give his
life in the hospitals that men might live — Walt Whitman.
^ No one ever called Walt Whitman a financier. Some
have said that Stephen Girard was nothing else. In any
event Girard and Whitman, between them, hold averages
true. And they both believed in and loved humanity. And here
is a fact : when we make up the composite man — the perfect
man — taking our human material from American history,
we cannot omit from our formula Benjamin Franklin,Thoma8
Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Stephen Girard and Walt Whitman.

STEPHEN GIRARD

Conquer your grief; or it will conquer you. Conquer your

grief and Vrno-r thereby that you are a man.

TEPHEN GIRARD was bom at
Bordeaux, France, in Seventeen
Hundred and Fifty. He died at
Philadelphia in Eighteen Hundred
and Thirty-one.

Immediately after his death there
was printed a book which pur-
ported to be his biography. It was
the work of a bank clerk who had
been discharged by Girard. This
man had been close enough to his
employer to lend plausibility to
much that he had to say, and as the author called himself
Girard's private secretary, people with prejudices plus,
pointed to the printed page as authority. The voliune served
to fill the popular demand for pishmince. It was written with
exactly the same intent which Cheetham, who wrote his
"Life of Thomas Paine," brought to bear. The desire was
to damn the subject for all time. Beside that, it was a great
business stroke— calumny was made to pay dividends. To
libel the dead is not, in the eyes of the law, a crime.
No such book as this **Life of Girard" could ever have
been circulated about a living man. "Once upon a time an
ass kicked a lion, but the lion was dead."
Yet this libelous production was reprinted as late as
Eighteen Hundred and Ninety. Cheetham's book was

STEPHEN GIRARD

quoted as an authority on Thomas Paine until the year
Nineteen Hundred, when Moncure D. Conway's exhaust-
ive "Life" made the pious prevaricators absurd.
From being a bitter "infidel," a hater of humanity, grossly
ignorant and wholly indifferent to the decencies, we now
view Girard as a lonely and pathetic figure, living out his
long life in untiring industry, always honest, direct, frank,
handicapped by physical defects, wistful in his longing for
love, helpless to express what he felt, with a heart that went
out to children in a great welling desire to give them what
fate had withheld from him.

Stephen Girard's parents were lowly and obscure people.
They were Catholics. His father was a sailor and fisherman.
Fear, hate, superstition, ignorance, ruled the household. When
the father had money it went for strong drink, or to the priest.
Probably, it would have been as well if the priest had gotten
it all. The mother went out as servant and worked by the day
for her more fortunate neighbors. The children cared for each
other, if the word "care" can be used to express a condition
of neglect and indifference.

It might be pleasant to show, if possible, that the mother
of Stephen Girard had certain tender, womanly qualities,
but the fact is that none such were ever manifested. If there
was ever any soft sentiment in her character the fond father
of his flock had kicked it out of her. That she was usually
able to hold her own in fair fight was the one redeeming
memory that the son held concerning her.
Stephen was the eldest of the brood ^ He attended the
parochial school and learned to read. His playmates called
84

STEPHEN GIRARD

him by a French term meaning ** Twisted." He was eight
years of age before he realized that the names his mother
called him by were of contempt and not of endearment —
"Wall-eye" and "Mud-sucker" — literally the vocabulary of
a fishwife. Then he knew for the first time that his eyes were
not like those of other children — that one eye had a bluish
cast in it and turned inward. That night he cried himself to
sleep thinking over his dire misfortune.
At school when he read he closed one eye and this made
the children laugh. So did their taunts prey upon him that
he ran away from school to escape their gibes.
One of the Friars Grey caught him; whipped him before
the whole school; put a dtmce-cap on his head and stood
him on a high chair. Then his humiliation seemed complete.
He prayed for death. At home when he tried to tell his mother
about his trouble, she laughed, and boxed his ears for being
a "cry-baby brat." ^ Back in this boy's ancestry, some-
where, there must have been a stream of gentle blood. He
was a song-bird in a cuckoo's nest. When the military
band played, his spirit was so moved that he shed tears.
But when his mother died, and her body was placed in a
new board coffin, made by a neighbor who worked in the
shipyard, he admired the coffin, but could not cry even
when the priest pinched him and called him hard-hearted.
He could not cry even with his twisted eye. His mother, as
a lovable being, had gone out of his life, even before she
died. He could only think what a beautiful coffin she had
and what a great man it was who made it. And this man
who made the coffin gave him a penny — perhaps because the

STEPHEN GIRARD

boy so appreciated his handiwork. ^ Stephen, unconsciously,
won him on the side of art.

It 's a terrible thing to kill love in the heart of a child. That
popular belief that we are "bom in sin and conceived in
iniquity," Girard once said, was true in his case, at least.
^ Yet so wondrous were the works of God, the hate and
brutality visited upon their child went into the making
of his strong and self-reliant character. He never said,
"My mother's religion is good enough for me." He de-
spised her religion, and that of the Friars Grey who punished
boys to make them good. His mind turned inward — he
became silent, secretive, self-centered, and his repulsive
exterior served him well as a tough husk to hide his finer
emotions .^ ^

In a few months — or was it a few weeks? — after his mother's
death, the father married again. The stepmother was no
improvement on the mother. She had lofty ideas of discipline
and being "minded." No doubt but that little Stephen,
crooked in eyes, crooked in body, short and swart, with
brown, bare legs, was stubborn and wilful. He looked the
part all right. His brown, bare legs were a temptation for
the stepmother's willow switch. He decided to relieve
everybody of the temptation of switching his legs by numing
away to sea and taking his brown, bare legs with him.
There was a ship at the docks about to sail for the West
Indies. He could secrete himself among the bales and barrels,
and once the ship was out of port he would come out and
take chances on being accepted as cabin-boy. They could
do no more than throw him overboard, anyway I
86

STEPHEN GIRARD

He told his little sisters of his intention. They cried, but
he did n't. He had n't cried since he was eight years old, and
his cheerfxil biographer says he never shed a tear afterward,
and I guess that is so.

At two o'clock in the morning, he whispered good-bye to
his little sleeping sisters. He did not kiss them — he never
kissed anybody in his whole life, his biographer says, and
I guess that may be so, too. He stole down-stairs and out
into the moonlight. The dock was only a quarter of a mile
away. The ship was to sail at daylight, on the turn of the
tide. There was much commotion going on around the boat,
battening down hatches and doing the last few necessary
things before braving the reeling deep.
Little Stephen was watching his chance to get aboard. He
was going as a stowaway. A man came up to him. It was
the captain, and before the lad could escape the man said,
**Here, I want a cabin-boy — will you go?"
The boy thanked God that it was night, so the captain
could not see his crooked eye, and gasped, "Yes— yes!"
^ The cook was making coffee in the galley for the steve-
dores who had just finished loading the ship. The captain
took the boy by the hand and leading him up the plank to
the galley told the cook to give him a cup of coffee and a
biscuit. §The ship pushed off, and hoisted sail, just at
daylight on the turn of the tide.
The tide, too, had turned for Stephen Girard.

STEPHEN GIRARD

Happiness is the rightful heritage of childhood.

VERY little observation will show
that physical defects, when backed
up by mental worth, transform
themselves into "beauty spots."
To be sure, no one was ever so
bold as to speak of Girard*s blem-
ishes as beauty spots, but the fact
is that his homely face and un-
graceful body were strong factors
in making him a favorite of
fortime. Handsome is that hand-
some does .^ Disadvantages are
often advantages — they serve as stimulus and bring out
the best.

Young Girard had long arms and short legs, and could climb
fast and high. And he could see more with his one eye than
most men could with two. He expected no favor on account
of his family or good looks, and so made himself necessary
to the captain of the craft as a matter of self-preservation.
^Not all sea-captains are brutal, nor do all sailors talk
in a hoarse guttural, shift their quids, hitch their trousers
and preface their remarks with, "Shiver my timbers."
That first captain with whom Stephen Girard sailed was
young — twenty-six, a mere youth, with a first mate twice
his years. He was mild-mannered, gentle-voiced and owned
a copy of Voltaire's "Philosophical Dictionary." His name
is lost to us even the name of his ship has foundered in
88

STEPHEN GIRARD

the fog, but that he was yoting, gentle and read Voltaire
are facts recorded in the crooked and twisted handwriting
of Stephen Girard, facts which even his blackguard biog-
rapher admitted.

The new cabin-boy was astonished that one so young could
be captain of a ship; he was also astonished that a person
who gave orders in a gentle voice could have them executed.
Later, he learned that the men whose orders are always
obeyed do not talk loudly nor in guttural. This first boyish
captain taught Girard a splendid lesson — to moderate both
manner and voice and be effective.

Of that first voyage, about all we know is that the boy slept
on a pile of gunny sacks ; that the captain let him read from
the "Philosophical Dictionary;" that he polished the bright
work until it served as a mirror; that the captain smiled
his approval, and that the boy, short and swart, with bullet
head, followed him with one eye and worshiped him as
Deity jt jt

Men do not succeed by chance. Chance may toss you into
a position of power, but if you do not possess capacity, you
can never hold the place.

Young Girard gravitated from the position of cabin-boy to
clerk ^ J^

From this to mate came by easy stages, and so much as a
matter of course that it isn't worth while to mention how.
^ By the law of France no man under twenty-five could be
captain of a ship, but when Girard was twenty-two we find
a ship-owner falsifying the record and putting the boy down
as twenty-five, on the obliging oath of the boy's father,

STEPHEN GIRARD

whom we hope was duly paid for his pains. ^ At twenty-four,
Captain Stephen Girard sailed his sloop, ** L*Amiable Louise, "
around Sandy Hook and up New York Bay. Ship captains
then were merchants, with power to sell, trade and buy.
The venture was a success, and young Girard took the liberty
of picking up a cargo and sailing for New Orleans — his
knowledge of French being a valuable asset for that par-
ticular destination.

Matters were prosperous, and Girard was twenty-six, just
the age of that heroic captain, under whose care he first
set sail, and the age of the Corsican when he conquered
Italy J^ J^

Girard had ceased to wonder about boys braving waves and
going upon the stormy sea in ships.

It was in July, Seventeen Hundred and Seventy-six, — call
it July Fourth — that Captain Stephen Girard was skirting
the coast of the Atlantic, feeling his way through a fog
toward New York. He was not sure of his course and was
sailing by dead reckoning.

Suddenly the fog lifted. The sun stood out, a great golden
ball in the sky. The young captain swung his glass along
the horizon and with his one good eye saw a sail — it was
bearing down upon him.
It was coming closer.

In an hour it was a mile away. He realized that he was the
objective point. ^ It was a British cruiser, and he then real-
ized that he was to be forced upon the beach or captured.
5 Girard was not a praying man, but he prayed now for a
friendly cove or bay, or the mouth of a river. The fog rolled
90

STEPHEN GIRARD

away to the west, the shore-line showed sharp and clear —
and there a half-mile away was the inviting mouth of Chesa-
peake Bay. At least Girard thought it was, but it proved to
be the mouth of the Delaware. Girard crowded on all sail
— the cruiser did the same.
Night settled down.

Before morning Girard*s little craft was safe tmder the
frowning forts of the Delaware, and the cruiser had turned
back seeking fresh prey.

Only the good can reach me, and no thought of love you
send me can be lost.

N one of his trips to the West
Indies, the ship of which Stephen
Girard was mate stopped at the
Isle of Martinique.
The captain and mate went ashore,
and were invited to dine at the
house of a merchant and planter
up on the hillside overlooking the
sea. The sugar with which the
ship was loading belonged to this
planter, hence the courtesies to
the seafaring men. It was a great
event to Girard. He would have evaded it if he could, and

STEPHEN GIRARD

yet he wanted to see how folks who lived in houses reaUy
acted Ji J'

Of that seemingly uneventful day one incident stood out
in the mind of Girard to the day of his death. It seems the
merchant and planter had a niece who lived in his household.
This girl sat at the table next to Girard. She was only a child,
about twelve years of age. But women mature yoimg in
that climate, and her presence caused the little first mate
to lose all appetite. However, nothing worse happened than
the spilling of a dish of soup in his lap, when the girl tried
to pass the plate to him, which was surely more polite than
to spill it in hers.

After dinner the young lady accompanied the party down
to the wharf .Going down the hill she talked, and talked a
good deal, but Girard could only say it was a fine day and
looked as if there was going to be a storm.
This girl was tall, angular and strong. She climbed the
rigging to the lookout, and then was scolded by her uncle,
who was really proud of her and chuckled at her perfor-
mance. Her features were rather coarse, but her lustrous
eyes and bubbling vitality caused the one sound peeper of
Girard to follow her in awe and reverence.
She came into the cabin and looked at his books ; this pleased
Girard. He asked her if she could read and she loftily wrote
her name for him, thus: Marie Josephine Rose Tascher de
la Pagerie.

She handed him the slip of paper and remarked, **You
could never remember my name so I write it out for you
like this.»»

STEPHEN GIRARD

In a few minutes the order was given, "All ashore who are
going ashore!"

Girard kept that slip of paper, and a few years afterward,
in a generous mood, sent the girl a present of a blue shawl.
fl She wrote in acknowledgment, and incidentally said she
was soon to sail for France "to get an education."
Girard was surprised that any woman would want an
education, and still more amazed at the probability that
she could acquire one. In fact, when the girl had written
her name for him, he kept the slip of paper more as a
curiosity than anything else — it was the handwriting of
a woman ! ^ Girard never received but that one letter from
the young lady, but from his shipping agent in Martinique
word came that Marie Josephine Rose had married, when
sixteen, the Vicomte Beauharnais.

Some years after, Girard heard from the same source that
she was a widow.

Later, he learned that she married a Corsican by the name
of Napoleon Bonaparte.

STEPHEN

G I R A R D

The less you require looking after, the more valuable is
vour life.

IRARD used to say that he did
not come to Philadelphia of his
own accord, but having been sent
there by Providence, he made the
best of it.

War was on, and all American
ports were blockaded. How long
this war would last, no one knew.
Girard*s sympathies were with the
Colonies, and the cause of liberty
was strong in his heart. He was
glad that France — his La Belle
France — had loaned us money wherewith to fight England.
Yet all his instincts were opposed to violence and the pomps
of army life for him had no lure.

He unloaded his ship, put the craft at safe anchorage and
settled down, trying to be patient. He could have sold his
cargo outright, but he had a head for business — prices were
rising, and he had time — he had all the time there was. He
rented a store on Water Street and opened up at retail. It
was the best way to kill time until the war closed.
The rogue biographer has told us that Girard*s ship was
loaded with **niggers," and that these were sold by the
mercenary captain and . the money pocketed by himself,
"all being fair in love and war."

This tale of business buccaneering has long been exploded,
94

STEPHEN GIRARD

but it is a fact that the cargo was used by Girard as his
first capital. He used the money wisely and well, and repaid
the other owners — one-third being, his own property — with
interest «^ J^

When the war was over, it was expected that Captain Girard
would again take to the deck and manage his craft. But
this was not to be. That there was a goodly dash of sentiment^
in his nature is shown in that, after ten years, he bought
the boat and would have kept her for life, had she not been
wrecked on the Florida Reefs and her bones given to the
barracout ^ Jt^

In front of Girard's little store on Water Street there was a
pump, patronized by the neighbors.

Girard had been there about three months. He was lonely,
cooped up there on land, sighing for the open sea. Every
day he would row across to his ship and look her over,
sweeping the deck, tarring the ropes, greasing the chains,
calculating how soon she could be made ready for sea,
should news of peace come.
The weeks dragged slowly away.

Girard sat on a box and watched the neighbors who came
to the pump for water. Occasionally, there would toddle a
child with jug or pail, and then the crooked little store-
keeper would come forward and work the pump-handle.
Among others, came PoUie Lumm, plump, pretty, pink and
sixteen J> ^

Girard pimiped for her, too.

He got into the habit of pumping for her. If he was busy,
she would wait.

STEPHEN GIRARD

Pollie Lumm was a sort of cousin to Sallie Lunn. Neither had
intellect to speak of. Pollie had the cosmic urge, that is all,
and the marooned sea-captain had in him a little — just a
little — of the salt of the sea.

Fate is a trickster. Her game is based on false pretences —
she should be forbidden the mails.

She sacrifices individuals by the thousand, for the good of
the race. All she cares for is to perpetuate the kind.
Poor sailor man, innocent of petticoats, caught in the
esoteric web, pumping water for Pollie Lumm — Pollie Lumm
— plump, pert, pink and pretty. ^ And so they were married.
^ Their wedding journey was in a scow, across to the bride-
groom's ship, riding at anchor, her cordage creaking in the
rising breeze.

Pollie Lumm, the bride of a day, was frightened, there alone
with a one-eyed man, when the rats went scurrying through
the hold. She was n't pink now, her color had turned to
ashy yellow and her heart to ashes of roses. Girard could
face the wind of the North, but a crying woman on a ship
at anchor, whose rusty chains groaned to the dismal screech
of tugging cordage, undid him. A lesser man — a devil-may-
care fellow — could have met the issue. Girard, practical,
sensible, silent, was no mate for prettiness, plump and pink.
He should have wedded a widow who could have passed
him a prehensile hawser and taken his soul in tow.
The bride and groom rowed back, bedraggled, to the room
over the store.

Polly could n't cook — she could not figure — she could not
keep store — she could not read the "Philosophical Dic-
96,

STEPHEN GIRARD

tionary" — nor cotild she even listen while her husband

read, without nodding her sleepy head. No baby came to

rescue her from the shoals, and by responsibility and care

win her safely back to sanity.

Poor Pollie Lumm Girard!

Poor Silly Sailor Man!

Venus played a trick on you — didn't she, and on herself,

too, the jade!

Pollie became stout — enormously stout — the pearl-like pink

of her cheek now looked like burnt sienna, mixed with

chrome yellow. She used to sit all day in front of the store,

looking at the pump.

She ceased to see the pump ; she did not even hear its creak,

which she once thought musical. Q Her husband sent for a

doctor. "Chronic dementia," the doctor diagnosed it.

She was sent to an asylum, and there lived for thirty-eight

years jt jt

Religiously, once a month, her husband went to visit her,

but her brain was melted and her dull, dead eyes gave no

sign. She was only a derelict, waiting for death.

STEPHEN GIRARD

If I knew I were to die tomorrow, I would plant a tree today.
HE first six years that Girard was

in Philadelphia he made little head-
way. But he did not lose courage.
He knew that the war must end
sometime, and that when it did,
there would be a great revival of
business J> ,^

When others were beaten out and
ready to give up, and prices were
down, he bought. Merchant ships
were practically useless, and so
were for sale. He bought one brand-
new boat and named it "The Water Witch," for this was
the name he had for Pollie Lumm when she used to come
with her jug to his pump.

As soon as the war closed and peace was declared, Girard
loaded his two ships with grain and cotton and dis-
patched them to Bordeaux.

They were back in five months, having sold their cargoes,
bringing silks, wines and tea. These were at once sold at
a profit of nearly a hundred thousand dollars.
The ships were quickly loaded again. The captains were
ordered to go to Bordeaux, sell their cargoes and load with
fruit and wine for St. Petersburg. There they were to sell
their cargoes and buy hemp and iron, and sail for Amsterdam.
At Amsterdam they were to buy dry-goods and sail for Cal-
cutta. There they were to sell out and with the proceeds buy
silks, teas, and coffees and make for America.

98 ,

STEPHEN GIRARD

These trips took a year to make, but proved immensely
profitable j^ J-

Girard now bought more ships, and named, very properly,
the first one "Voltaire," and the next "Rousseau.**
By Seventeen Hundred and Ninety-five, he owned twenty-
two ships and was worth over a million dollars. In fact he
was the first man in America to have a million dollars in
paying property at his disposal.

After he was thirty he was called "Old Girard.'* He centered
on business and his life was as regular as a town clock. He
lived over his warehouse on Water Street and opened the
doors in the morning himself. He was regarded as cold and
selfish.

He talked little, but he had a way of listening and making
calculations while others were arguing jt Suddenly, he
would reach a conclusion and make his decision. When
this was done that was all there was about it. The folks with
whom he traded grew to respect his judgment and knew
better than to rob him of his time by haggling. His business
judgment was remarkably good, but not unerring. Yet he
never cried over lacteal fluid on the ground. When one of
his captains came in and reported a loss of ten thousand
dollars through having been robbed by pirates, Girard made
him a present of a hundred, so to get his nerve back and told
him he should be thankful that he got off with his life.
He loaded the ship up again, and in a year the man came back
with a cargo that netted twenty-five thousand dollars. Girard
gave him a silver watch worth twenty dollars and chided him
for having been gone so long.

STEPHEN GIRARD

Then Girard made a pot of tea for both, on the little stove
in the office back of his bank, for the millionaire always
prided himself on being a cook.

His brother, Jean, had now come to join him. Jean was
also a ship-captain. Stephen bought a third ship and called
it "The Two Brothers," in loving token of the ownership.
^ When his brother Jean proved to be a bad business man,
although a good sailor, Stephen presented him his own half-
interest in the ship, and told him to go off and make his
fortune alone. Jean sailed away, mortgaged his boat to get
capital to trade upon, lost money and eventually lost the
boat. When he wanted to come back and work for his brother,
Stephen sent him a check, but declined to take him back.
"The way to help your poor relatives is to remit them. When
you go partners with them everybody loses. "
Girard was a man of courage — moral, financial and physical.
When his ship, the "Montesquiae," arrived at the mouth
of the Delaware on March Twenty-sixth, Eighteen Hundred
and Thirteen, she was headed off and captured by an English
gunboat. Word was sent to Girard that he could have his boat
by bringing an inventory of the craft and cargo and paying
over British gold to the amount. He went down the bay in a
small boat, met the enemy on a frank business basis, paid
over one hundred and eighty thousand dollars in English
guineas and came sailing back to his own calm satisfaction,
even if to the embarrassment of the crew. The boat was
loaded with tea and Girard was essentially a tea merchant.
He knew his market and sold the "Montesquiae's" cargo
for just five hundred thousand dollars.

100

STEPHEN GIRARD

When yellow fever came like a blight to the city, and the grass
grew in the streets, Girard gave bountifully to relieve the dis-
tress of the people. But a panic of fear was upon them. They
forgot how to live and began to pray. Preachers proclaimed
the day of judgment was at hand. Whole families died, and
left no one to look after their affairs.
Every night wagons went through the street and the hoarse
cry was heard, "Bring out your dead — Bring out your dead ! "
^ Then the old millionaire showed the heroic side of his nature.
He organized a hospital at Bush Hill, and took personal charge
of it. Every office that could be done for the sick and dying
he did. With his own carriage he would go to houses, and
lifting the stricken ones in his arms, carry them out and
transport them to a place where they could have attention.
^ As the spirits of others sank, his soared. To the men who
walked in the middle of the street with a sponge to their
noses, he would call in banter. He laughed, danced and sang
at the pesthouse, things he was never known to do before.
"Fear is the only devil," he wrote on a big board and put
it up on Chestnut Street. He would often call at fifty houses
a day, carrying food and medicine, but best of all, good cheer.
"If death catches me, he *11 find me busy," he used to say.
^ He showed the same courage when the financial panic
was on in Eighteen Hundred and Ten. At this time every one
was hoarding and business was paralyzed. Girard had one
million dollars to his credit with Baring Brothers in London.
He drew out the whole smn and invested it in shares of the
United States Bank. This bold move inspired confidence and
broke the back of the panic.

101

STEPHEN GIRARD

In Eighteen Hundred and Eleven, when the charter of the

United States Bank had expired, and Congress foolishly

declined to renew it, Girard bought the whole outfit-— or all

there was left of it — and established "The Bank of Stephen

Girard, " with a capital of one million, two hundred thousand

dollars ^ J*

When near the close of the war the Government was trying

to float a loan of five million dollars, only twentj^ thousand

was taken. "The Colonies are going back to the Mother

Country, " the croakers said. If so all public debts would be

repudiated.

Girard stepped forward and took the entire loan, although

it was really more than his entire fortune.

The effect was magical — if Old Girard was not afraid, the

people were not, and the money began to come out of the

stockings and ginger-jars.

Girard believed in America and in her future. "I want to

live so as to see the United States supreme in liberty, justice

and education,'* he used to say.

He loved pets and children, and if he was cold it was only to

grown-ups J> J-

On each of his ships he placed a big Newfoundland dog —

"To keep the sailors company, " he said. The wise ones said it

was because a dog was cheaper than a watchman. An)rway,

he loved dogs, and in his yellow gig, or under it, was always

a big, shaggy dog. He drove a slow-going, big, fat horse and

used to say that if times got hard he at least had a horse that

could plow. During the last twenty years of his life he used

to make daily trips to his farm, where Girard College now

102

STEPHEN GIRARD

standS) and work there like a laborer with his trees and
flowers. If he did not love Venus, he certainly did Ceres
and Pomona. **If I knew I should die tomorrow, I should
plant a tree today, " he once wrote.

Wealth, like education, is onl^ valuable to those who know
how to use it.

y his will, Girard left many bene-
factions for the betterment of
humanity. His bequests to the
City of Philadelphia and the State
of Pennsylvania were these : To the
Philadelphia Hospital, $30,000 ; to
the Pennsylvania Institute for the
Deaf, $20,000 ; to the Philadelphia
Orphan Asylum, $10,000; to the
Philadelphia Public Schools, $10,-
000; to the City of Philadelphia,
for the distribution of fuel among
the poor, $10,000 ; to the Masonic Loan Association, $20,000 ;
to the City of Philadelphia for the improvement of its streets
and public squares, $500,000; to the Philadelphia Public
Library, $40,000 ; for the improvement of canals in the state
of Pennsylvania, $300,000; and greatest of all, $2,000,000
for the founding of Girard College. Beside this was a residue

103

STEPHENGIRARD

of the estate which went also to Girard College, the total
value of which endowment has increased until it is now over
sixteen million dollars.

At the time of the death of Girard his bequests to public
institutions had never been equaled by individual philan-
thropies in the history of the world.

And since then, I believe, only two men have given as much
for the cause of education. ^ However, it so happened that
no public statue or material acknowledgment of Girard*s
great gifts to Philadelphia and the State of Pennsylvania
were made — except at his own expense — until the year
Eighteen Hundred and Ninety-seven, when a bronze statue
of this great business man and philanthropist was erected
on the north plaza of the City Hall. This statue has no special
setting and is merely one of a dozen decorative objects that
surround the square.

That particular clause in Girard's will which provided that
no clergyman, preacher or priest should ever be allowed to
act as trustee for the school, or ever be allowed to enter
the school, is still outwardly respected, at least.
The gatekeeper challenges you thus: "Are you a clergy-
man?" And those who fail to flatly say, "No," are not
allowed to enter.

Horace Greeley once approached the gate at Girard College
wearing his usual little white necktie, his spectacles and his
beatific, innocent smile.
"You can't enter," said the grim St. Peter.
"Why not?" was the astonished reply.
"You are a clergyman!"
T04,

STEPHEN GIRARD

"The hell I am!" said Horace. ^**Excuse me — walk right
in," said St. Peter.

The heirs tried to break the will, basing their argument
on that item concerning clergymen.

The Supreme Court upheld the will, finding nothing derog-
atory in it to the Christian religion or public policy.
Girard did not say, ** Christian Clergymen" — he was opposed
to all formal religions. ^ Girard had very positive ideas on
the subject of education and he was the first man in America
to put manual training to a practical test as a part of the
school curriculum. ^ He was certainly far in advance of his
time in his efforts to bring about hiunan eflSciency, instead
of an education for bric-a-brac.

At Girard College there are now constantly over two thou-
sand boys, who have a home and school advantages. There
are certain grave dangers about institutional homes for
children in that there is a strong tendency to kill individu-
ality. But certain it is that Girard College has ever labored,
and in a great degree succeeded, in minimizing this tendency.
It is the proud boast that any boy who graduates from
Girard is able to take care of himself — he can do things that
the world wants done and is willing to pay for.
The boys graduate at eighteen, which is the age that most
students who go to universities, enter. But Girard boys,
almost without exception, go right into practical business,
and Philadelphia merchants are not slow to hire them.
Girard College has a long honor roll of noble men who have
succeeded beyond the average, helping themselves by adding
to the wealth and happiness of the world.

105

STEPHEN GIRARD

And it is good to know that Girard College is managed by
men who are in the line of progress in pedagogy. Girard
is a better school now than it has ever been, and I am sure
that there will be still a more excellent Girard. Great was the
mariner and merchant Who made these things possible!

io6 ,

for what
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[LBERT HUBBARD is at once the despair
. . and the inspiration of every writer and
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He will be canonized and take his honored place
on the calendar of the Saints of sanity, sweetness
and human freedom. ^ Those who raise the foolish
question, "Is Hubbard sincere?" write themselves
down as ignorant of the laws of nature and consequently
incompetent to judge. ^ No man can accomplish what
this man has done and not be sincere, because only
in sincerity and whole-heartedness could he have the
co-operation of the forces of nature, which would
enable him to do his work. It would not be possible
for any man to do the marvelous things that Elbert
Hubbard has done and is doing every day unless he
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—BRUCE T. CALVERT

Q$€l

ART BOOKS!

/^■■i^HE following books are rare and peculiar in
^1 binding, distinctly Roycrof tie — nothing to be
^■■^ had at the book-stores like them Jt> Flexible

velvet calf, finished with turned edge jt ^ j( ^

The Last Ride, Browning - - - $ 5.00

Walt Whitman, Hubbard and Stevenson

Will o' the Mill, Stevenson

Full Leather, Modeled: a

Rip Van Winkle, Irving

Respectability, Hubbard

A Dog of Flanders, Ouida -

Law of Love, Reedy

Nature, Emerson _ _ _

Ballad of Reading Gaol, Wilde

Love, Life and Work, Elbert Hubbard

5.00

Revival of Medieval Binding

$ 10.00
10.00
10.00
10.00
10.00
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Justinian and Theodora, Alice and Elbert Hubbard 10.00
The Man of Sorrows, Hubbard - $10.00 and 25.00

Full Levant, Hand-Tooled by Kinder
Thoreau*s Friendship, Tall copy on genuine Vellum,

forty free-hand drawings - - $250.00

Thoreau's Friendship — Japan Vellum, Hlumined 60.00

Contemplations, Hubbard _ _ _

Song of Myself, Whitman
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam - - -

Self-Reliance, Emerson _ _ _

The Man of Sorrows, Hubbard - - -

Last Ride, Browning — Classic Vellum, specially
Illumined _ _ _ _

Law of Love, Beedy _ _ _

The Roycrofters, East Aurora, New York

w W

HEN

rue

Genius Appears
in the World,
You May

Know Him by This Sign,
That the Dunces are all in
Confederacy Against Him

E Sometimes
Meet an Orig-
inal Gentle-
man, Who, if

Manners had not Existed,
Would Have Invented
Them — E me r s o n

Vol. 24

APRIL, MCMIX

No. 4

t^QHE ■ IHTOZZg

^::^'==vT?iK«">^'^:^

UOOK-UY-THR

^^^ ~~ — gg ^^

EaszazEMH

EEEZSaZHTSl

Sg SjgMt-w-vrnTwSE

EBffl^^^^^ia

SJZ^K

^iik?n=ig»J!;^ ;»;a»lg<=<iifearti A-agil^i^?RTg

EN ARE
SELDOM
IF EVER
MORE
INNOCENTLY
EMPLOYED THAN
WHEN THEY
ARE HONESTLY
MAKING MONEY

•^ O H N 3

*~7J!«C~w

Eflter<yi at the poatofflce at East Aurora. New fork, for transmission as second-claas matter
r vpyriirht, \@m, by Elbert Hubbefd, EditorAWdpHWisher

without THE FRA—not
him, but for what THE
The best printed and most artistic magazine

THE FRA is the bibliozinc
that is never thrown away.
The paper upon which THE
FRA is printed costs four
times as much as that which
is used in "^Mumsley's" and
other stock magazines. And
as for the text, Elbert Hubbard
endeavors to have it as mu6h
better than "the six best
sellers" as the paper he uses
is better than the popular
periodical pishmince. Law-
yers, writers, orators, business
captains, preachers, farmers-
all who prize phosphorus
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R«Dit by draft or Post OfBce order; it is unsafe to send money by mail unless by registered letter

A Message to Garcia

was first printed in The Philistine of March, 1899. The
merit of the article was instantly recognized, and the
edition disappeared ^ The article was then reprinted by
George H. Daniels of the New York Central Lines, and over
three million copies were distributed. It was also reprinted
by the Westinghouse Company in England. In France,
the Bon Marche of Paris distributed a million copies.
Prince Hilakoff, Director of Railways in Russia, translated
the essay into Russian and presented a copy to every officer
in the Russian Army ^ The Mikado of Japan, not to be
outdone, had the ** Message" printed in Japanese, and a
copy was placed in the hands of every Japanese soldier.
Cf In all, the "Message" has been translated into eleven
languages, and reprinted over twenty-five million times. It
is believed that it has a wider circulation than any other
article ever written by an American, and a larger circula-
tion in the same space of time than any other article ever
produced in all the history of literature ^ We have a

Few Volumes of the * 'Message' '

in English, followed by the ** Message" translated into
Japanese, which in turn is succeeded by the "Message"
retranslated into English ^ These books are bound in
limp leather in Japanese style, to be in keeping with
the text • . . Price One Dollar by Mail

We also have the Message in paper covers, price 10c a copy

THE R O Y C R O F T E R S

EAST AUBOBA. EBIE COUNTY, NEW YOBK

Health and Wealth

A Book by Elbert Hubbard of East Aurora, New York

The price of Health and Wealth is Two Dollars, bound
either in limp leather or in boeurds, leather back.

THE ROYCROFTERS, East Aurora, New York

So here then is a Hand-Clasp across the fertile fields of
America— NORTH— EAST— SOUTH— WEST from

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IT takes a great deal of boldness, mixed with a vast deal of caution^
to acquire a great fortune ; and then it takes ten times as much
wit to keep it after you have got it, as it took to make it.

— Mayer A. Rothschild

MAYER A. ROTHSCHILD

LITTLE JOURNEYS

HAT the Jews are a joyous people
and find much sweet solace in
their sorrowful religion is proven
by one fact too obvious to be over-
looked— they reproduce.
Children are born of love and joy.
The sorrows of Jewry are more
apparent than real. After every
Black Fast, when the congrega-
tions used to sit shoeless on the
stone floors of the synagogues,
weeping and wailing on account
of the destruction of Jerusalem, the youngsters, and the
grown-ups as well, were counting the hours before the Feast
of Pentecost would begin. ^The sorrow over the loss of
things destroyed a thousand years or so ago, is reduced by the
lapse of years to rather a pleasant emotional exercise.
Fasts were followed by feasts, also pro and con, as Mrs.
Malaprop would say, so in the home of an orthodox Jewish
family there was always something doing. Fasts, feasts,
flowers, sweetmeats, lights, candles, little journeys, visits,
calls, dances, prayers, responses, wails, cries of exultation,
shouts of triumph — "Rejoicing of the Law," — these pre-
vented monotony, stagnation and introspection.
And these are the things which have pressed their influences
upon the Jew until the fume and reek of the Ghetto, the
bubble and squeak of the rabble, and the babble of bazaars
are more acceptable to him than the breeze blowing across
silent mesa and prairie, or the low, moaning lullaby of lonely
pine forests. ^ The Jew is no hermit — if anything is going
on, he is literally and poetically in it. ^ The sense of sepa-

107

MAYER A. ration is hell. If continued it becomes insanity. The sense
ROTHSCHILD of separation is a- thing that seldom presses upon the Jew,
and this is why insanity passes him by and seeks a Christian
as a victim. The Jew has an animating purpose that is a
saving salt, even if this purpose is not always an ideal one.
His family, friends, clan, tribe, are close about him.
Zangwill, himself a child of the Ghetto, comes to the rescue
of the despised and misunderstood Christian, and expresses
a doubt as to whether the Ghetto was not devised by Jews
in order to keep Christians at a safe and discreet distance.
^ For certain it is that the wall which shut the Jews in, shut
the Christians out. The contempt of the Christian for the
Jew is fully reciprocated. One-sided hate does not endure
any more than does a one-sided love.

The first Ghetto was at Venice. It came into being during
the Italian Renaissance, say about Fourteen Hundred and
Fifty. The Jews had settled in one corner of the City, as they
always have done, and are still prone to do. They had their
own shops, stores, bazaars, booths, schools and synagogues.
There they were packed, busied with their own affairs,
jostling, quibbling, arguing, praying, taking no interest in
the social life outside. Jehovah lead them out of captivity
in order that He might make them slaves to Himself. He
surely was a jealous God! flOf course, they traded with
Christians, bought, sold, ran, walked with them, but did not
dine with Christians nor pray with them. There were Jewish
architects, painters, printers, lawyers, doctors, bankers, and
many of the richest and most practical men in Venice were
Jews. ^They made money out of the Christians, and no
doubt helped Christians to make money, for, as I said, things
not founded on reciprocity do not last long.
One fact that looks like corroborating proof of Zangwill's
pleasantry, is that upon one of the Ghetto gates was a marble
zo8

slab, warning all Jews that if any of them turned Christian MAYER A.
he would never be allowed again to live in the Ghetto, nor ROTHSCHILD
would he be saluted or spoken to if he returned, nor so much
as be given a cup of water, but that the cord, scourge, gallows,
prison and pillory should be his portion. Qlt was a curse
somewhat like that cheerful one visited upon Spinoza, the
lens-maker, when he forsook the synagogue and took up his
home with the Mennonites. ^ Children born and brought up
in the Ghetto always felt a certain pity for those who were
obliged to live beyond the gates, in the great, selfish, grasping,
wicked world. Those inside the Ghetto were the Chosen People
of God; those outside were the Children of the Devil.
No matter who built the wall, it is a fact that the Government
of Venice, which was Christian and under the immediate
jurisdiction of the Church, kept guards at the gates and
allowed no Jew to leave after a certain early hour of the
evening, nor on Sundays or holidays, or when the Emperor
visited the city. The only exception to this was on Holy
Cross Day, which occurred once a year. On this day all adult
Jews were ordered out and marched by the soldiers to some
Christian Church, where they were compelled to listen to
the service and repeat the Apostles' Creed. Robert Browning
says that they were rounded up all right, but when it came
to saying the Creed they twiddled their thumbs and said Ben
Ezra's Prayer. It is also quite probable that they crossed their
fingers, for the Jews are a stubborn sort, given to contumacy
and contravention. ^ On all other days, any Jew who went
out into the city had to wear a big yellow O on his breast,
and a yellow hat on his head. The Jewish women wore the
0 and also a veil across which were yellow stripes.
These chromatic signs were changed a few times in the
course of the three hundred years that the Ghetto existed,
and so were the hours in which the Jews were allowed to

log

MAYER A. ^Qjjjg g^jj^ gQ^ Ij^j^ g^g o'clock in the evening and seven in
ROTHSCHILD ^|jg morning were the regular closing and opening times.
The watchmen at the gates and the guards who rowed round
and round in their barcas were paid out of a special tax col-
lected from the Jews. It was argued that it was all a sort of
beneficent police protection, devised by kindly persons who
loved their enemies, and did good to those who despitefuUy
used them. Q The man who cannot make a good argument
for the Ghetto lacks imagination. ^ We have all seen that
particular type of mother who calls out of the window,
** Johnnie, come in here at once, do you hear?"
Johnnie does n't hear, so the call is repeated in a tone a
trifle more shrill. This time Johnnie hears and shouts back,
"I won't!"

And the answer is, **Well, stay out there, then!"
Perhaps it was something like this with the Jews in the
Ghetto. They chose to congregate in this way, and the
salutation finally was, "Stay there, then!"
Gibbon, who was a deist or monotheist and really liked the
Jews, intimates that it was lucky for the Christians that
Constantine did n't embrace Judaism instead of Christianity,
for if he had, the Jews would have treated the Christians
exactly as the Christians have since treated the Jews. Of
course, nobody claims that Christianity is the religion of
Christ — it is the religious rule of pagan Rome, with the
Jewish Christ as a convenient label. Just why Christians
should worship a Jew, and pray to a Jewess, and yet despise
Jews, is a matter so subtle that it has never been explained.
Gibbon in this connection says at least one irrefutable thing,
and that is, that the Jewish people are men and women.
Christians are men and women, also. All are human beings,
and it is quite likely that the race is not to the swift, nor the
battle tQ the strong, but time and chance happeneth to them
no

all. fl I am not sure that Gibbon was right when he says that MAYER A.
the Christians were lucky in that Constantine did not turn ROTHSCHILD
Jew. To be persecuted is not wholly a calamity, but to per-
secute is to do that for which Nature affords no compensation.
The persecutor dies, but the persecuted lives on forever.
The struggle for existence which the Jew has had to make
is the thing that has differentiated him and made him strong.
Those first Christians — Primitive Christians — who lived from
the time of Paul to that of Constantine, were a simple, direct,
sincere and honest people — opinionated no doubt, and obsti-
nately dogmatic, but with virtues that can never be omitted
nor waived. They were economical, industrious and filled
with the spirit of brotherhood, and they possessed a fine pride
concerning their humility, as most ascetics do. Humility is
a form of energy. It is simply going after the thing by another
route, and deceiving yourself as to the motive.
The Primitive Christians had every characteristic that dis-
tinguished the Jew of the Middle Ages — those characteristics
which invite persecution and wax strong under it.
Poverty and persecution seem necessary factors in fixing
upon a people a distinctive and peculiar religion. Persecution
and poverty have no power to stamp out a religion — all they
do is to stain it deeper into the hearts of its votaries. Centuries
of starvation and repression deepened the religious impulses
of the Irish, and it has ever been the same with the Jews.
^ If the Jew is criticized in America, it is on account of that
buttinski bumptiousness upon which he has no monopoly,
but which goes with the newly made rich of any nationality
who have little to recommend them beyond the walletoski.
fl There are no poor Jews natives of America, and it is worth
while noting that our richest citizens are not Jews, either.
American-born Jews have enough. The poverty-stricken Jews
in this country come from Russia, Bulgaria and Roumania ;

III

MAYER A. and their children will have money to loan, if not to incin-
ROTHSCHILD erate, because they possess the virtues that beckon all good
things in their direction. ^ America is the true Judaic Zion.
Here there are nearly two million Jews, and their religion
is fast taking the form of a healthful Roycroftism.
The downfall of Primitive Christianity dates from the day
Constantine embraced it, and thereby made it popular J^
Prosperity is a form of disintegration — a ripening of the
fruit. Things succeed only that they may wither. The business
of every great religion is to die, and thus fertilize others.
The Jew has survived every foe save success. Civilization
is now adopting him, and Liberal Judaism is fast becoming
a Universal Religion, taught in fact, if not in name, by
priests, preachers and muftis of all denominations ^ The
end of the Jew is near — he has ceased to be peculiar.

OLFGANG GOETHE was born in
the city of Frankfort in Seventeen
Hundred and Forty-nine. Goethe
gives us a very vivid description of
Frankfort as he remembered it in

W-^IK- his childhood days. He describes it
^p^ as a town within a town, fortress
within fortress. Then he tells us of
a walled inclosure in this walled
city, which was to him a very
terrible place — it was the Ghetto,
or Jews' Quarter. Through it ran
the Judengasse, or street of the Jews. It was a place packed
with human beings — houses, hallways, alleys, sidewalks and

112

porches swarming with children. Goethe tells how he at MAYER A.
times would peep through the iron gates of the Ghetto, but ROTHSCHILD
as a child he never ventured in. The children told each other
how human sacrifices were offered in the synagogues, and
as proof, pictures of Abraham and Isaac were brought forth,
— that proved the point J^ There were plenty of men in
the Ghetto who looked exactly like Abraham — goodness
gracious!

In this Ghetto at Frankfort was bom in Seventeen Hundred
and Forty-three, Mayer Anselm, afterward Mayer Anselm
Rothschild. When Goethe took his peep into the Ghetto,
this lad was about twelve years old — Goethe was six. Forty
years later these men were to meet, and meet as equals.
The father of Mayer Anselm was Anselm Moses. He could
not boast a surname, for Jews, not being legal citizens,
simply aliens, had no use for family names. If they occa-
sionally took them on, the reigning duke might deprive
them of the luxury at any time, without anesthetics.
If a man had two names, say "Anselm Moses," it meant
that his name was Anselm and that he was the son of Moses.
Mayer Anselm was the son of Anselm. Rothschild means
**Red Shield," and this was the distinguishing sign on the
house. All the people in that house were "Red Shields."
The house was seven stories high and at one time a hundred
people lived in it. Later, when the name became popular,
all of the people in that house called themselves, "Roths-
chUds."

In Goethe's time, there were just one hundred and sixty
houses in the Frankfort Ghetto, and these were occupied by
two thousand, three hundred Jews.

Goethe says that the practice of walling the Jews in was to
facilitate taxation — the Jews being honored by an assessment
quite double that which Christians paid. At one time any Jew

MAYER A. who paid two hundred and fifty florins was exempt from
ROTHSCHILD wearing a yellow hat and the yellow 0 on his breast.

Many private houses, everywhere, have walls around them,
and the plan of dividing different nationalities from each
other, by setting apart a certain section of the town for each,
was a matter of natural selection, everywhere practiced.
Mayer Anselm grew up with never a thought that he belonged
to a ** peculiar people," nor did the idea of persecution ever
trouble him. The only peculiar people are those who do not
act and think as we do. Who are peculiar? Oh, the others,
the others, the others. ^ There was a big family for Anselm
Moses to look after. All were hearty and healthy. The Mosaic
Law says nothing about ventilation, but outside of this little
lapse it is based on a very commonsense plan of hygiene.
^One thing which adds greatly to the physical endowment
of Jewish children, and almost makes up to the child of the
Ghetto for the lack of woods and fields, is that he is not
launched on the sea of life with a limited supply of love.
Jewish children do not refer to their father as "the Gov*ner,"
and elderly women as ** Salem Witches," because the Jews
as a people recognize the rights of the child.
And the first right of a child is the right to be loved.
In the average Christian household, until a very few years
ago, the child grew up with the feeling constantly pressed
upon him that he was a usurper and an interloper. Such
questions as, ** Where would you get anything to eat if I
did not provide it?" were everywhere flying at the heads of
lisping babyhood. The words **must" and "shall" were
often heard, and that obedience was a privilege and not a
duty was nowhere taught. All parents quoted Solomon as
to the beauties of the rod, and that all children were perverse,
obstinate and stiff-necked was assumed as a fact. To break
the will of a child was a very essential thing to do.
114

The lack of the spirit of brotherhood that the Jew has MAYER A.
encountered from the outside world, has found a balance in ROTHSCHILD
an increased expression of love within his family. That most
atrocious English plan of taking the child from his parents
at a tender age and placing him in a boarding-school managed
by holluschickies, has never been adopted by the Jews.
The tendency to "run away" to sea, or go **out West,"
or **skip out," are results of the loveless plan of cheating
childhood of its divine or natural rights ^ The houses of
prostitution are recruited from respectable families where
the formula, * * Do-not-darken-that-door-again, " leaps lightly
to lips that read the New Testament aloud night and morning
and recite the Lord's Prayer in a bishop's voice.
Fear, repression and shock to vibrating nerves through
threats, injunctions and beatings have fixed in the Christian
races a whole round of "children's diseases," which in our
ignorance we attribute to "the will of God."
Let this fact be stated, that old folks who are sent over the
hill to the poorhouse, have invited their fate. And conversely,
elderly people who are treated with courtesy, consideration,
kindness and respect are those who, in manhood's morning,
have sown the seeds of love and kindness. Water rises to the
height of its source; results follow causes; chickens come
home to roost; action and reaction are equal; forces set in
motion continue indefinitely in one direction. The laws of
love are as exact as the laws of the tides that moan and cry
and beat upon the shores, the round world over.
A family of ten children born and reared in a noisome Ghetto,
and all healthy and strong? Impossible. Yet such is the fact,
and not a rare exception either. Happiness is the great pro-
phylactic, and nothing is so sanitary as love, even though it
be flavored with garlic.

MAYER A.
ROTHSCHILD

HE father of Mayer Anselm was
a traveling merchant — call him a
peddler, a Jewish peddler, and have
done with it. He made trips out-
side of the Ghetto, and used to
come back with interesting tales
of adventure, that he would relate
to the household and neighbors
who would drop in.
Not many Jews ventured outside
the Ghetto — to do so was to invite
insult, robbery and violence J>
However, to get out is to grow. This man traded safety for
experience and so got out and grew. He evidently knew how
to take care of himself J> He was courageous, courteous,
intelligent, diplomatic. He made money. And always he
wore the yellow hat and the yellow patch upon his breast.
^^ In the "Red Shield" there was usually at least one Rabbi.
One of the sons of Anselm Moses must be a Rabbi. The
parents of little Mayer Anselm set him apart for the syna-
gogue— he was so clever at reciting prayers and so glib
with responses. Then he had an eczema for management,
and took charge of all the games when the children played
Hebrew I-Spy through the hallways and dark corners of
the big, rambling and mysterious "Red Shield."
Little Mayer must have been nine years old when his father
first took him along on one of his trips. It was a wonderful
event — they were gone three days, and when they returned
the boy entertained the whole Judengasse with tales, slightly
hand-illumined, about the wonderful things they had seen.
Q One thing he learned, and that was that Christians were
not the drunken, fighting, treacherous and bloodthirsty
people he had supposed, at least they were not all bad. Not
ii6

once were they insulted or molested. ^They had called at MAYER A.
the great house or castle of the Landgrave to sell handker- ROTHSCHILD
chiefs, combs and beads to the servants, and accidentally
they had met the Landgrave, himself. He it was who owned
the "Red Shield." The agent of the Landgrave came every
month to collect the rent from everybody. That word "Land-
grave, " simply meant "Landlord, " a term still used even in
America, where there are, of course, no Lords, only * * ramrods. "
^ The Landgrave had invited Anselm Moses into his library
to see his wonderful collection of coins, and Mayer Anselm,
of course, slipped in, too. To describe the wonders of that
house would take a book as big as the Torah — I think so!
q The Landgrave had a son, aged eleven, going on twelve,
and his name was William. He was n't as big as Mayer, and
Mayer would n't be as old as William for a year, and even
then he would n't.

Children know nothing of social caste. Caste is a disease of
grown-ups. It is caused by uric acid in the ego. Children meet
as equals — they respond naturally without so much as a
thought as to whether they ought to love one another or not.
^ William got acquainted with Mayer by holding up a big
speckled marble, and then in a burst of good-fellowship
giving the marble to the little stranger boy, all before a word
had been said. Then while the Landgrave was showing his
treasures to Anselm Moses, who himself was a collector in
a small way, the boys slipped out of the door, and William
took Mayer to see the stables.

"What 's it for?" asked William pointing to the yellow patch
sewed tight to the breast of Mayer's jacket.
"That?" answered Mayer proudly, "Why, that means that
I am a Jew, and I live in the Ghetto ! "
William gave a little start of alarm. He looked at the other
lad, so brown and sturdy and frankly open-eyed, and said

117

MAYER A. slowly, "You can't be a Jew, because — because Jews eat
ROTHSCHILD children!"

" I 'm a Jew — my father is a Jew — all our folks are Jews — the
Jews are the Chosen People of God!" Little Mayer spoke
slowly and with feeling.

**The Chosen People of God?" echoed William.
"Yes!"

They saw the horses, and Mayer looked at them with won-
dering eyes. There were no horses in the Ghetto — just push-
carts and wheelbarrows.

William had been lame — hip disease, or something, and so
had never been away down to the city, excepting with a nurse,
or in a carriage with his tutor.

The boys entered the house and the Landgrave was still
explaining to Anselm Moses how all coins made by the Assyr-
ians were modeled by hand, not stamped out with a die, as
was done by the Greeks. ^The boys had n't been missed.
"Can't I have one of those to wear on my coat, too?" asked
William, pulling at his father's sleeve, and pointing to the
yellow patch on Mayer's jacket.

"One of what, my son?" asked the Landgrave seriously.
^ "One of those yellow medals ! "

The Landgrave looked at Mayer's yellow patch, and then
involuntarily at the badge worn by the boy's father.
The Landgrave's fine face flushed scarlet.
His gaze met the steady, manly look of Anselm Moses.
They understood each other. No one was near, save the two
hoys. They met as equals, as men meet on the plain or desert.
^*It 's all a mistake — a foolish mistake, Anselm, and some
day we will outgrow it. A man 's a man ! "
He held out his hand. QThe Jew grasped it firmly, and both
men smiled — the smile of friendship and understanding J^
As the Jew and his son started to go, the Landgrave gave
ii8

little Mayer a big copper penny, and asked him to come back MAYER A.

some day and play with William. ROTHSCHILD

And Anselm Moses, the Jew, took up his pack that he had

left at the servant's quarters, and holding the hand of little

Mayer Anselm, they walked out of the castle yard, down

among the winding trees to the road.

"We '11 go back some day and see him," said little Mayer

Anselm as his tongue began to run fast recounting the strange

things he had just seen.

** Impossible, my son, impossible — we are Jews, and they are

Christians!" Q Little Mayer couldn't see why that should

make any difference.

AYER ANSELM took to his father's
business as a bird takes to the air.
^ From selling trinkets he began
dealing in jewelry, old coins, curi-
osities and paintings. He picked
his customers, and knew the weak-
nesses of each — certain things were
bought for certain people.
The idea of becoming a Rabbi was
abandoned — he wanted temporal
power, not spiritual. Money to the
intelligent Jew is the symbol of
power — of independence. There may be men who love the
money itself, but surely this man did n't. He was daring in
its use — he had the courage to take risks. His was a quest
for power.

When about twenty, he traveled as far as Hanover to visit

119

MAYER A. ^ kinsman, and there he served for several months as clerk
ROTHSCHILD '^^ ^ bank. He had a mind like those Japanese who travel to
absorb, and waste no time in battling error.
Returning to Frankfort he transformed his father's little
store into a bank and filled the window with real money to
the great delight and astonishment of the neighbors. From
Hanover he brought a collection of rare coins. The business
his father had established gradually took on a cosmopolitan
look. The house of the Red Shield became a sort of center
of trade for the whole Judengasse.

And all the time the friendship with the Landgrave and his
son had continued. Commissions were given to Mayer to
buy certain coins and pictures. Finally he was entrusted to
collect the rents of the Red Shield. He did this so thoroughly
and well, and was so prompt in his reports, that he was
finally named as custodian of the property.
Other property was given to him to look after.
Jews came to him for advice, and Christians counseled with
him as to loans.

He became known as **The Honest Jew," which title, we
hope, carried with it no refiection on his co-religionists.
There are men — a very, very few — who are thus honored
with the title of "Honest John." Gamblers can be recalled
whose word was worth more than their bond. There are
horsemen, gamblers, too, if you please, who have little
respect for the moral code, but who never prove false to a
trust. ^ Mayer Anselm had the coolness and the courage of
a good gambler — in business he surely was ever ready to
back his opinion. He would pay five hundred thalers for a
jewel, give the man his price, and pocket the gem silently,
while the hagglers and quibblers were screwing up their
courage to offer a hundred for it. But here was the difference
— Mayer Anselm knew what he was going to do with the
lao

jewel. He had a customer in mind. He knew the customer, MAYER A.
he knew the jewel, and he knew his own mind. ROTHSCHILD

The Landgrave grew to lean on Mayer Anselm of the Red
Shield. He made him "Court Jew," or official treasurer of
the principality. This carried with it "the freedom of the
city," and being a free man — no longer technically a Jew
— he had a name, and the name he chose was "Rothschild,"
or the Red Shield, Mayer Anselm Rothschild. ^ He no longer
wore the yellow badge of a despised race. Yet he refused to
leave the Ghetto — the House of the Red Shield was his birth-
place, here his parents had lived and died. Here would he live
and die. He was still a Jew, earnest and zealous in keeping
the Law, the "President" or head of the synagogue.
He was happily married to Letizia — she had no other name
— and babies were coming along with astonishing regularity.
^ To him and his good wife were born five sons and five
daughters. The Red Shield was now his own property, he
having purchased the freehold — a thing he could not do
until he had attained "the freedom of the city."
Then we get the rather curious condition of Mayer Anselm
supervising the municipal affairs of the whole city; and
his sons, grown to manhood, still wearing the yellow badge,
and obliged to keep within the Ghetto at certain hours, on
serious penalty.

And it is worth while noting that Mayer Anselm kept the
laws of the Ghetto, and asked no favor for himself beyond
that granted to other Jews, save that he did not wear the
badge. Beyond this he was a Jew, and his pride refused to
allow him to be anything else. And yet he served the Christian
public with a purity of purpose and an unselfishness that won
for him the reputation of honesty that was his all his life Jt>
By his influence the Ghetto was enlarged, several of the
streets widened, and all houses were'placed under sanitary

121

MAYER A. inspection. He established a compulsory free school system
ROTHSCHILD and maintained an art gallery in the Ghetto that was a center
of education for the entire district. ^ When this gallery was
dedicated) Goethe came, and made a speech of congratulation.
He was the guest of the Red Shield. Afterward, Rothschild re-
turned the visit and spent several days at Weimar with the
great poet, and always they were on very friendly terms.

HE son of the Landgrave became,
himself, the Landgrave of Hesse-
Cassel, and afterward Elector. He
is also known as William IX.
He was book-lover, numismatist,
and a man of many gentle virtues.
I know of only one blot on his
official 'scutcheon, but this was so
serious that, for a time, it blocked
his political fortune. In this affair,
Rothschild was co-respondent J^
Rothschild was Court Jew, and
beyond a doubt, attended to all details.
During the American Revolutionary War, William IX.
loaned twelve thousand soldiers, a goodly portion of his
army, to one George III. of England, to go and fight the
American Colonies. This is the first and only time that Ger-
mans have ever carried arms against Americans. These
Hessians were splendid, sturdy soldiers and would have
been almost invincible if fighting to protect their homes,
but in America they were only half-hearted.
The bones of many of these poor fellows were scattered

122

through New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and most of those MAYER A.
who survived until Cornwallis offered his sword to Wash- ROTHSCHILD
ington — and had it refused — settled down and became
good Pennsylvania Dutch.

Around Reading and Lancaster, are various worthy Daugh-
ters of the Revolution, whose credential is that their grand-
sires fought with Washington. The fact that the grandsires
aforesaid were from Hesse, sold at so much a head by a
Governor in need of ready cash, need not weigh in the scale.
A woman 's a woman for a * that. ^ The amount of money
which the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel received from the
English Government for the use of his twelve thousand men
was six hundred thousand thalers; and while a thaler is
equivalent to only about seventy-five cents, it was then
worth as much as an American dollar is worth now.
These six hundred thousand thalers were a straight bonus,
for the English Government agreed to pay the Hessian
soldiers the same that they paid their own English soldiers,
and to treat them in all other ways as their own.
A second division of four thousand men was afterward
supplied, for which the Landgrave of Hesse was paid two
hundred thousand thalers.

Alluring tales of loot were held out to the soldiers, also
educational advantages, somewhat after the style of the
recruiting posters in this Year of Grace, Nineteen Hundred
and Nine, that seek to lead and lure the lusty youth of America
to enlist in the cause of Mars. ^Of course the common
people knew nothing of the details of this deal of Hesse with
England ^ The Americans were represented to them as
savages who had arisen against their masters, and were
massacring men, women and children. flTo stop this blood-
shed was looked upon as a duty for the sake of humanity.
Let it be stated that these Hessian soldiers were not sent to

123

MAYER A. America against their will. They voted by regiments to go to
ROTHSCHILD the defense of their English Cousins. All of the officers were
given a month's pay as a bonus, and this no doubt helped
their zeal. The soldiers were to go simply until the war was
over, which was represented would be in one year, or pos-
sibly less. QThe money came so easily, that the Landgrave
of Hesse in Seventeen Hundred and Ninety-four, supplied
the English with a third detachment of four thousand troops^
this time, to fight the French.

It is not always the case that the terms of sale of human
beings in war-time is so well known as are these particular
deals. The Hessian officials kept no books. They made no
records, and wrote no letters ^ Boards of Investigation were
powerless. The business was transacted by personal messen-
gers who went to London and closed the deal by word of
mouth, and later brought back the coin. Wise men write
few letters. What would you? Is Farley a rogue and a varlet!
However, things in Threadneedle Street cannot be done in.
secret. England has a wonderful system of bookkeeping and
bureau-craft — there are spies upon spies, and checks and
counterchecks, so that filching a large sum from the Bank of
England has been a trick never so far successfully turned.
^England's share in this transaction was not dishonorable —
that is to say, to buy a man is not so bad as to sell one.
All she did was to hire strike-breakers.
English statesmen generally regarded the matter as a bit
of necessary war-time expediency. If the rebel Colonies
could be put down by hiring a few extra soldiers, why hire
them, of course.

Not so, said Edmund Burke, who gave the matter an un-
looked-for publicity, by denouncing the Hessians as
"hired assassins.'* He prophesied that the American would
not consider these hirelings as amenable to the rules of
124

civilized warfare, but would "welcome them with bloody MAYER A.
hands to hospitable graves" — a phrase so fine that it was, ROTHSCHILD
years after, seized upon by Tom Corwin and applied to the
conquest of Mexico. ^ Charles Fox took a like view of the
situation, and between him and Burke the word " Hessian"
reached America with a taint upon it which a century of
use has been unable to disinfect.

The protest in the House of Commons did not directly avail,
but there is a suspicion that a wise protest against a great
wrong never dies on the empty air. Burke's accusation of
tarter and sale rumbled throughout Europe, and created
a sentiment of S5ntnpathy for America, especially in
France. Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, and Silas
Deane made capital of it, and repeated the words ** hired
assassins" and thereby helped us to borrow money to fight
said assassins. So much for the law of compensation.
As for the Landgrave, there was a cool million in bullion in
his strong-box. He smiled, shrugged his shoulders, and
calmly explained that George Washington the Rebel, had
united with the Indian Savages and was murdering all loyal
English subjects in America, and for a few good Germans to
go to the rescue of England and help put down the insur-
rection was a Christian act, and moreover, **It was nobody's
business but their own. " He thought that this disposed of the
matter, but the ghost would not down. ^In Eighteen
Hundred and Eight, an Imperial Decree was issued by the
Emperor to this effect, ** Whereas, it seems that the House
of Hesse-Cassel has for some years persisted in selling its
subjects to the English Crown, to bear arms in quarrels that
are none of ours, and that by this means has amassed a large
fortune, therefore this detestable avarice has now brought
its own punishment, and Hesse-Cassel from now on ceases to
exist, being incorporated with the Kingdom of Westphalia."

125

MAYER A.
ROTHSCHILD

ROUBLES, we are told, never
come singly. Of this William the
Elector was convinced ^ The
Emperor had cut off his official
head with a stroke of the pen.
The money he possessed was to be
taken by legal attachment, its
lawful ownership to be determined
in the courts.

The lawsuit would have been a
long and tedious one, but happily
it was not to be. Napoleon with
his conquering army was sweeping Europe. The Corsican
was approaching Frankfort. The rumor was that the city
was to be wiped out of existence. Napoleon hated the Hessians
— he knew all about their having hired themselves out to
fight the Americans. Aye! and the French! The Hessians
must be punished. Justice ! The late Elector of Hesse-Cassel
was now only a private citizen, but his record was his offense.
Word had been brought to him that Napoleon had said he
would hang him — when he caught him. It is not at all likely
that this would have happened — Napoleon must have
secretly admired the business stroke that could extract so
large a sum from England 's exchequer. It was on this same
excursion that Napoleon placed a guard in Goethe *s house to
protect the poet from possible harm. "If I were not Napoleon,
I would be Wolfgang Goethe," bluntly said the little man
without removing his cocked hat, when he met the King of
Letters, thus paraphrasing his prototype, Alexander. Goethe
gave him a copy of his last book. **It lacks one thing — your
autograph ! "said the man who, was busy conquering a world.
Goethe, being an author, had waited, expecting this, and so
was not disappointed.
126

Frankfort was looted, but not burned. Money, jewelry and MAYER A.
portable wealth were all the French wanted. The Castle was ROTHSCHILD
used as a stable, and the paintings and statuary served as
targets for the rollicking soldiers who had exploited the
wine-cellars. The vast amount of specie, which was reported
the Elector possessed, was missing — the strong-boxes were
empty. Soldiers were set to work digging all about the house
for signs of hidden treasure, but none was found.
The Elector and his family were distributed, as they say of
the type in limited editions. Gone — no one knew where !
The French visited the Ghetto, but by order of Napoleon,
his soldiers were never severe upon the Jews. The Jews had
little or nothing to do with politics, and Napoleon with his
usual nonchalance said, "They have suffered enough!"
Napoleon called himself **The Protector of the Oppressed,''
and tried occasionally to live up to his self-conferred title.
^The Red Shield received a call, and Mayer Rothschild
handed over his keys to the officer, in person. The house was
searched, and cash to the extent of ten thousand thalers
appropriated. The officer gave Rothschild a receipt for the
amount, and assured the banker it was but a loan. He
thanked Rothschild for his courtesy. They drank a bottle of
wine together, and the Frenchman, with profuse apologies,
excused himself, having pressing duties to perform, and
withdrew, first cordially shaking hands. The French were
convinced that when William the Elector fled, he had taken
with him his money. That he should have entrusted it to an-
other, and especially a Jew, seemed preposterous. Yet such
was the case. William had fled, disguised as a civil engineer,
carrying with him in his chaise an outfit of surveying instru-
ments. All of his money had been turned over to Mayer
Anselm Rothschild. The many biographers place the sum
anywhere from one to fifty million dollars. The fact seems

127

MAYER A. to be that it was a little less than two million. Not even
ROTHSCHILD a receipt was given for the money, for such a document
might have led to locating the gold ^ The Elector would
not even count it. He said, **If I do not come back, it is yours
— you helped me to get it. If I return, you are an honest
man — and that is all there is about it." The Jew was touched
to tears. The obligation was one fraught with great risk, for
the money, and for himself. But there was only one thing to
do — assume the responsibility.

That this vast sum of money was given into the hands of
Rothschild, no one has ever denied. But as to how he secreted
it from the French has been explained by the very childlike
tale that he buried it in the garden back of his house.
In the first place, there were no gardens in the Ghetto, and
in the second place, money buried in a garden yields no
return, and cannot to advantage be left there forever.
At this time England was just becoming a Mecca for Jews,
for no matter how much the Corsican had to say about his
regard for the Jews, they had no regard for him. He stood for
war and violence, and his soldiers, as a rule, knew not their
master's leniency for the Jew. Banks, vaults, and the shops
of jewelers stood small chance in the face of an advancing
army, drunk on success. QMany Jews, rich and poor, were
fleeing to England. Rothschild had special boats under his
direction upon which he sold passages to his brethren J^
Even before the treasure of the Elector was placed in his
hands he had inwardly planned for its transportation. Eng-
land was then the safest country in Europe. England, alone,
was the one country that had not been seriously threatened
by revolution. And it was the one country that was reasonably
safe from the grasp of the French. ^ Rothschild's faith in
England was proven when he sent all of his own spare cash
to London. That he would transport there the treasure of
128

William the Elector, was the one purpose in his mind. And MAYER A.
how to carry it ! You may send treasure by armed guards, in ROTHSCHILD
which case you invite attack by advertising what you are doing.
Or you can divide your money up among poor travelers, and
by sending your people at different times, thus lessen the risk.
Rothschild had been entrusting the safe transportation of
money to London in the care of Jews — poor Jews. And now
he picked his immigrants and took them into his confidence.
^He was an honest man — the title of the Honest Jew was
his by divine right. To serve him was looked upon as a
precious privilege. And now almost every mother of a big
family, bound for England and freedom, carried around her
ample waist a belt of gold. It was to be given to Nathan
Rothschild, the son of Mayer Rothschild, who was now
established as a banker in London, as soon as she and her
brood reached London.

Rothschild trusted the poor and lowly, and in so doing his
faith, so far as we know, was never misplaced. It is not at
all likely that the Jews knew whose money it was they were
carrying, nor did they know that several hundred other Jews
were being trusted in a similar way. All they knew was that
Mayer Anselm had come to them and asked them as a great
favor, as a friend, to carry this belt and give it to his dear ^

son, Nathan, in England. Of course Rothschild's confidence
was not misplaced. A few years later this was the Rothschild
method of transporting treasure all over Europe — to dispatch
say a hundred poor Jews at different times, and mixed up
among them was the treasure. Honest men can safely trust
others — honest men, as a rule, are safe even with rogues.
There is a spiritual law which governs here — askBenLindseyl
And so the treasure which had originally come from England,
found its way back to Britain. It was deposited among
various banks and bankers, to the personal credit of the

129

MAYER A. House of Rothschild, drawing interest at five per cent.
ROTHSCHELD qin the meantime Mayer Anselm remained at Frankfort,
living in the Red Shield, occupying the little shop which had
been occupied by his father. He smoked his big pipe, smiled,
went to prayers — and waited. When the French soldiers
had gutted his safe, he sighed, shrugged his shoulders, and
said, **It is the Lord's will — those whom he loveth he
chasteneth. Blessed be the name of the Lord. " ^ He waited.

OTHSCHILD brought his children
up to economize time and money,
and to be useful. In childhood, all
had served as clerks and helpers in
the little bank — the girls included.
They were bankers by prenatal
tendency and by education. So
strong was the banking instinct in
the family, that three of the girls
married men who afterward be-
came bankers, probably being led
into the financial way they should
walk through marital influences. And so they were duly
absorbed into the great House of Rothschild. In order to facili-
tate the business of the Landgrave, who had considerable
property in Hanover, Rothschild sent his third son, Nathan
there and established a bank. This boy Nathan was the finan-
cial genius of the family. He was the only one of the five boys
who surpassed their father in initiative. And this is saying
much, because the other four were all strong and able men.
Anselm, the oldest boy, took his father's work and became
130

head of the Frankfort house. Salomon managed the branch MAYER A.
at Vienna; Nathan founded the branch in Hanover, and ROTHSCHILD
turned it over to one of his brothers-in-law and went to
London; Carl did good work at Paris, and James was at
Naples and Rome. In addition to these six principal banks,
the House of Rothschild had agencies in over forty different
European cities. William the Elector had turned his money
over to Rothschild in the year Eighteen Hundred and Six. He
had remained in hiding for four years. The French had placed
a price upon his head on account of his having sold his
troops to the English to fight the French. He had not com-
municated with Rothschild for fear of involving him.
And now behold! like lightning out of a clear sky, came a
pardon from Napoleon, **for all alleged offenses," and a
reinstatement of the House of Hesse-Cassel to its former
proud position. This whole procedure was essentially
Napoleonic. The Corsican killed or kissed, as the mood took
him. Napoleon hated the Emperor Frederick II. who had
done the deposing, and as a sort of insult or rebuke to that
particular royal party, he sought out the man's enemies and
exalted them. ^ William came out of hiding, back to Frank-
fort, and was received by the people with open arms. He
sought out Rothschild at his office in the Judengasse of the
Ghetto. The banker received him with courtesy, but with-
out emotion. fl**My money — my treasure, Mayer Anselm,
— the French stole it from you I know,'* said William.
** Spare me the details, I only come to you now for a loan —
you will not refuse me — we were boys together, Mayer
Anselm, boys together. I loved you. Fate has smitten me sore,
but now I have my name back and my broken estate — I
must begin all over jt The loan — you will not refuse me?"
The banker coughed gently, smiled, and answered, **I regret
I have no money to loan now, but the funds you deposited

131

MAYER A. with me are safe. The best I can do is to give you Exchange
ROTHSCHILD on London, with such little ready money as you now require.
^I have been expecting you, so here is the schedule. The
principal, with interest at five per cent makes me your
debtor for a little over two million thalers. My son Nathan,
in London, has the money subject to your check."
William stared, started, clutched the bars across the little
window for support, and burst into tears. He was taken to
the residence part of the house, and Letizia served him with
tea and things Kosher. William became calm, and then
declared, "The principal, Mayer, I shall never touch. I should
not know what to do with it, anyway. Pay me two per cent
interest on it and it is all I shall ever ask. "And it was so done.

AYER ANSELM died in Eighteen
Hundred and Twelve, aged sixty-
nine. But long before he passed
out he had fixed in the minds of
his children the wisdom of being
loyal to the family interests. **One
banking house may fail, but five
standing true to each other, in
different countries, never can,"
he said.

Nathan had gravitated by divine
right to the head of the concern.
flin times of doubt all the others looked to him.
To Nathan Rothschild must be given the credit for a financial
stroke that lifted the Rothschilds absolutely out and away
from competition. ^ It was the spring of Eighteen Hundred
132

and Fifteen. Napoleon had been banished to Elba, and now MAYER A.
returned like a conquering hero. His magnetic name was ROTHSCHILD
rolling opposition before him as the sun dissipates the clouds.
Europe was in a tumult of terror!

Would Napoleon do again what he had done before — trample
the cities beneath his inconsiderate feet and parcel out the
people and the land among his favorites !
England was shaken to her centre. "This time Britain shall
not go unpunished,' * declared the Corsican.
Business was paralyzed. The banks were not loaning a dollar ;
many had closed and refused to honor the checks of de-
positors. People with money were hoarding it. England was
trjdng to raise funds to strengthen her defenses, and fit out
her soldiery in better fighting shape, but the money was not
forthcoming. Government bonds had dropped to sixty-five,
and a new loan at seven per cent had met with only a few
straggling applications.

This was the condition on the First of June, Eighteen Hun-
dred and Fifteen. The Armies of the Allies were gathering
gear for a final struggle, but there were those who declared
that if Napoleon should walk out before certain divisions of
this Army, wearing his uniform of the Little Corporal,
bearing no weapons, and address the soldiers as brothers,
they would throw down their guns and cry, **Command us!"
q Nathan Rothschild there in London made his plans. With
him to think was to act. There was no time to consult his
brothers or his mother, as he usually did on affairs of great
moment. He called his cashier, and gave him quick and
final orders: "I am going across to the Continent. I shall
see the downfall of Napoleon — or his triumph. If Napoleon
goes down, I shall send a letter to myself — a blank sheet of
paper in an envelope. When you get this, buy English Bonds
— buy quickly, but use a dozen different men, so as not to

133

MAYER A. stampede the market. We have a million pounds in British
ROTHSCHILD go^^ — ^^e it all, and buy, if necessary up to five points of par."
He rode away on horseback. He left a man with a strong
and fast horse every forty miles from London to Dover,
then from Calais to Brussels. A swift-sailing yacht waited
at Calais, and there was a reward of one hundred guineas
for the captain if he crossed the Channel inside of four hours,
after getting a special letter addressed to Nathan Roths-
child. There was a rich reward also for each rider if he rode
his forty miles in less than four hours.
Rothschild watched away the night of the Seventeenth of
June, circling uneasily the outposts of Brussels.
He saw the Battle of Waterloo — or such of that mad con-
fusion as was visible. He saw the French ride headlong into
that open ditch ; and he saw the last stand of the Old Guard.
^Whether Napoleon was beaten or not no one could say.
**He '11 be back tomorrow with reinforcements,** many said.
Nathan Rothschild thought otherwise.
At nightfall he drew the girth of his saddle two holes tighter,
threw away his pistols, coat and hat, and rode away, on a
gentle patter. After two miles this was increased to a stiff
gallop. He knew his horse — he was turning off each mile in
just five minutes. He rode sixty miles in five hours, using up
three horses. The messenger to whom he tossed his saddle-
bags asked no questions, but leaping astride his horse,
dived into the darkness and was gone. Rothschild's men were
twenty-four hours ahead of the regular post.
When the news reached London that Wellington had won,
the Banking House of Rothschild had no cash, but its safe
was stuffed with English Securities.

Nathan Rothschild made his way leisurely back to London.
^On arriving there he found himself richer by over five
hundred thousand pounds, than he was when he rode away.

134

N Eighteen Hundred and Twenty- MAYER A.
two, the Emperor of Austria ROTHSCHILD
conferred the title of Baron on the
sons of Mayer Anselm Roths-
child J> Jt>

It was the first and only time in
history where five brothers were
so honored at one time.
Certain sarcastic persons have
pointed out the fact that this
wholesale decoration was done
immediately after the Roths-
childs had floated a rather large and risky loan for his
Kingship. This is irrelevant, inconsequential, and outside
the issue. That the house of Rothschild with its branches
had an open sesame upon the purse-strings of Europe for
half a century, is a fact. Nations in need of cash had to
apply to the Rothschilds. The Rothschilds did n't loan them
the money — they merely looked after the details of the
loan, and guaranteed the lender that the interest would
not be defaulted. Their agencies everywhere were in touch
with investors. The nobility are a timid sort — they like to
invest their hard-earned savings outside of their bailiwick
— nobody knows what will happen !

The Rothschilds would not float a loan until they were
assured that the premises were not mortgaged. More than
this, there was a superstition all 'round that they were backed
up by J. Bull, and J. Bull is a close collector.
The Rothschilds made government loans popular — before
this, kings got their cash mostly by coercion.
For their services the Rothschilds asked only the most modest
fee — a fee so small it was absurd — a sixteenth of one per
cent, or something like that.

135

MAYER A. The bonds were issued and offered at par. If they would
ROTHSCHILD not sell at par, they were placed on 'Change and sold at
what they would bring.

What was n't taken by the public, brought, oh, say around
seventy-five. Unkind people say the Rothschilds beared all
bonds which they, themselves, desired to buy. Concerning
this I am not competent to speak. It was n't their fault if
Leopold's credit was bad — mein Gott im Himmel!
It is safe to say that only one Government in the world, at
some time or other from Eighteen Hundred and Fifteen to
Eighteen Hundred and Seventy, never courted the Roths-
childs with** intentions." ^America never quite forgot, nor
forgave, that Hessian incident, and the Rothschilds were
never asked for favors by your Uncle Samuel.
There were four generations of the Rothschilds among
whom there have been very able men. This beats the rule
by three generations, and the record by one.
The Frankfort House of Rothschild was dissolved in
Nineteen Hundred and One. The London firm still continues,
but I am advised by John D. Rockefeller, J. Pierpont Morgan
and James J. Hill that the Rothschilds, while interesting
in an historic way, are no longer looked upon as a world
power. ^Letizia, the mother of ten, is worthy of more
space than I am able here to give her ^ There are those
who say she was the real founder of the House of Roths-
child. She died aged exactly one hundred, in the Red
Shield, where she was married and where all of her
children were bom. ^She outlived the fall of Napoleon
just forty years. She had a fine and pardonable pride in
her kingly sons. ^ Politics and world problems interested
her. She was sane and sensible and happy to the last.

LITTLE JOURNEYS

by Elbert Hubbard in Booklet Form-
Frontispiece Portrait of Each Subject.

Charles Bradlaugh

Theodore Parker

Oliver Cromwell

Anne Hutchinson

Jean Rousseau

Moses

Confucius

Pythagoras

Plato

King Alfred

Friedrich Froebel

Booker Washington

Thomas Arnold

Erasmus

Hypatia

Mary Baker Eddy

The Price is TEN CENTS Each, or One Dollar
for Ten — as long as they last.

THE ROYCROFTERS

East Aurora, Erie County, New York

THE ROYCROFTERS

EAST AURORA, ERIE COUNTY, NEW YORK

FRIENDS :-

I enclose Two Dollars to pay for a yearly
subscription to THE FRA Magazine.

Name

Address—-

Date ^

CHECK YOUR CHOICE. One of these beautiful
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THE FRA MAGAZINE

HEALTH AND WEALTH .... ^Hubbard

The Broncho Book - ----- Capt. Jack Crawford

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White Hyacinths - Elbert Hubbard

The Rubaiyat --------- Omar Khayyam

A William Morris Book - - - Hubbard and Thomson
Crimes against Criminals - - - - Robert G. Ingersoll

A Christmas Carol -------- Charles Dickens

The Ballad of Reading Gaol ----- Oscar Wilde

Justinian and Theodora - - Elbert and Alice Hubbard
BOUND VOL. LITTLE JOURNEYS - Hubbard

LITTLE JOURNEYS

FIFTEENTH YEAR

OR Nineteen Hundred and Nine, Little Journeys
by Elbert Hubbard will be to the homes of Great
Business Men. Mr. Hubbard has been farm-hand,
office boy, printer's devil, foreman, editor, mana-
ger, proprietor. He is an economist himself — an economist
of time, money and materials. Mr. Hubbard is a Farmer ;
he also operates a Bank, a Hotel, a Printing-shop, a Book-
bindery and a Guinea-hen Garage.

SUBJECTS OF LITTLE JOURNEYS FOR 1909

ROBERT OWEN H. J. HEINZ JOHN JACOB ASTOR

JAMES OLIVER PHILIP D. ARMOUR AUGUST SCHILLING

STEPHEN GIRARD MAYER ROTHSCHILD JOHN WANAMAKER

ALBERT A. POPE JAMES J. HILL ANDREW CARNEGIE

THE FRA Magazine, Two Dollars a year

LITTLE JOURNEYS, One Dollar a year

BOTH FOR TWO DOLLARS if you Subscribe at Once

The Roycrofters, East Aurora, New York

I am a writing man and I know the difficulties of the craft ; and I say that'
Elbert Hubbard is the greatest writer — vocabulary and range of ideas consid-
ered— that the world has ever seen, ancient or modern. — ROBERT BARR
Young writers intent on style can not do better than read Elbert Hubbard.
He says big things in tabloid.—ALFRED HENRY LEWIS
Elbert Hubbard is the only man in America who has the English language
firmly by the tail.— JOAQUIN MILLER

We are not surprised that Elbert Hubbard's Little Journeys are being introduced
into our High Schools as text books. Fra Elbertus writes as he feels and he usually
feels right. He is more interested in life than in literature ; he is so full of his
subject that he radiates it. And if he occasionally walks all over oiu* old-time
rules of rhetoric, we are the gainers. Many a book has been regarded as
profound when it was only stupid. In his writing, Elbert Hubbard is as vivid
as Victor Hugo, as rippling as Heinrich Heine, as tender as Jean Paul ; and
we must remember that the chief charge brought against all of these men was
that they were interesting. Nowadays we do not consider dullness a virtue. We
shun the turgid and lugubrious. We ask for life.— CHICAGO INTER-OCEAN

Books by Elbert Hubbard

Respectability - - - - - $ 2.00

The Man of Sorrows - - - 2*00

Love, Life and Work - - - - 2.00

White Hyacinths - _ . . " 2.00

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850 pages, in limp leather, silk lined - 2. 50

No Enemy But Himself - - - 1.25

The following LITTLE JOURNEYS are on hand-made paper, hand illumined,
limp leath^, silk lined, illustrated, a very beautiful book (some folks think)

Little JoimNEYS to Homes of Good Men and Great $ 3. 00

'American Authors - - - - 3.00

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Great Musicians, Book I - - - 3.00

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Great Philosophers, Book I . - s.oo

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Great Teachers, Book I - 8.00

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THE ROYCROFTERS, East Aurora, New York

OTHIN G IS mote

NobL

< ; I ^■j

! Venemlil

than Fidelity*

Faithfulness and Truth aie trie
most Sacred Excellences and
Endowments of the Humkh

Mind.— G/cero

,=sr ,x ,sr ,3sr

MM*

RUST MEN
AND THEY
WILL BE
TRUE TO

YOU; TREAT THEM
GREATLY AND THEY
WILL SHOW THEM-

SELVES GREAT.-£.e

rson

Vol. 24

MAY, MCMIX

TO THE HOMF^-Pff

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EEIEZS3ZQT2 ^ ^

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ANKIND are
more indebted
tolndustry
than Ingenui-
ty; the gods set up their
favors at a price, and
Industry is the purchaser

ADDISON

Entered at the postoffice at East Aurora. New York, for transmission as second^Iass matter
Copyright, 1908, by Elbert Hubbard, Editor and Publisher

THE ANNUAL ROYCROFT

CONVENTION

occurs at East Aurora, Erie County, New York,
July First to Tenth, Nineteen Hundred and
Nine, inclusive. On this very pleasant occasion
there will be present many men and women
of quality; honest, simple, sincere and friendly
folks who have thoughts and know how to
express them. §The Musical Events provided
this year are the best we have ever had — which
is saying much. Two Formal Programs daily,
with walks and talks afield, betimes, and much
good=fellowship and flow of soul. To guests
at The Roycroft Inn there is no charge for
admittance to any of our classes, lectures or
entertainments. §You are invited to be
present. ^ Rates at The Inn are Two Dollars
a day and up, according to apartments,
American Plan. ^A postal card, stating about
when you will arrive, will be appreciated.

THE ROYCROFTERS

EAST AURORA, ERIE CO., NEW YORK

Summer Advertisers

[AST AURORA will hold five Con-
ventions this Summer. Starting with
the Socialists, and ending with the
Merry Musicians, throngs of the
Intellectually Elect will commune
during the hot months, 'neath the shelter of
the Home Peristyle :fi;fi:fi:f::fi;fi^:fi:fi

q SOCIALISTIC CONVENTION — June

Twentieth to Thirtieth.
Q ROYCROFT CONVENTION-July First

to Tenth.
QNEW THOUGHT CONVENTION—

August First to Tenth.
Q WOMAN SUFFRAGE CONVENTION

— August Twelfth to Twentieth.
q MUSICAL CONGRESS— August

Twenty=third to September First.

This then would seem to be a splendid season for Wise
Advertisers to approach with a Good Proposition people
whose convolutions are not corroded. QSuch Folks lend
Class to your following Jt Win them today and they are
with you for all time. QTHE FRA will be the Magazine
on the Spot. Its Advertising Pages are Open to all (and
only) High-Grade Advertisers ^^^^jt^Jijt

WRITE TODAY FOR RATE CARD AND VIBRATIONS

THE FRA Advertising Department

EAST AURORA. ERIE COUNTY. NEW YORK

PHILIP D. ARMOUR

iiouRnm

TO THF HOME9 OR

ing^^Ttim

BY ELBERT

FHII II? mMCMZ

WW
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BOOK-BY-THB

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aaN//HKH-l9-ingjZSl)Z

ANYBODY can cut prices, but it
takes brains to make a better
article. — Philip D. Armour.

LITTLE JOURNEYS

HILIP ARMOUR was bom on May
Sixteenth, Eighteen Hundred and
Thirty-two, near the little village
of Stockbridge, New York. He died
at Chicago, January Sixth, Nine-
teen Hundred and One ^ The
farm owned by his father was
right on the line between Madison
and Oneida Counties. The boys
used to make a scratch in the road
and dare the boys from Madison
to come across in Oneida. The
Armour farm adjoined the land
of the famous Oneida Community,
where was worked out one of the most famous social
experiments ever attempted in the history of civilization.
However, the Armour family constituted a little community
of its own, and was never induced to abandon family life
for the group. Yet for John Humphrey Noyes, Danforth
Armour 5ways had great respect. But he was philosopher
enough to know that one generation would wind up the
scheme, for the young would all desert, secrete millinery
and mate as young men and maidens have done since time
began. ** Oneida is for those whose dream did not come
true — mine has," he said.

The Armours of Stockbridge traced a pedigree to Jean Armour,
of Ayr, brown as a berry, pink and twenty, sweet and thrifty,
beloved of Bobby Burns.

The father of Philip was Danforth Armour and the father
of Danforth Armour was James Armour, Puritan, who
emigrated from the north of Ireland jt James settled in
Connecticut and fortified his Scotch-Irish virtues with a
goodly mixture of the New England genius for hard work,
economy and religion. His grandfather had fought side by
side with Oliver Cromwell and had gone into battle with that
doughty hero singing the songs of Zion. He was a Congrega-
tionalist by prenatal influence ^ And I need not here
explain that the love of freedom fotmd form in Congrega-
tionalism, a religious denomination without a pope, and
without a bishop, where one congregation was never dictated
to nor ruled by any other. Each congregation was complete

137

PHILIP D. [n itself — or was supposed to be. ^This love of liberty was
ARMOUR the direct inheritance of James Armour. It descended to
Danforth Armour and by him was passed along to Philip
Danforth Armour. All of these men had a very sturdy pride
of ancestry, masked by modesty, which oft reiterated, **0h,
pedigree is nothing — it all lies in the man. You do or else
you don't. To your quilting, girls — to your quilting I "
When Nancy Brooks was beloved by Danforth Armour the
fates were propitious. The first women school-teachers in
America evolved in Connecticut. Miss Brooks was a school-
teacher, the daughter of a farmer for whom Danforth Armour
worked as a hired man.

Danforth was given to boasting a bit, as to the part his
ancestors had played as neighbors to Oliver Cromwell, at
the time, and the only time, when England was a republic.
Q|Miss Brooks did not like this kind of talk and told the
young man so straight at his red head. The Brooks family
was ^otch, too, but they had fought on the side of Royalty.
They were never rebels — they were true to the King — exactly
80 1 QNow there are two kinds of Scotch — the fair and the dark
— the Highland and the Lowland — the Aristocrats and the
Peasantry. Miss Brooks was dark, and she succeeded in
convincing the freckled and sandy-haired man that he was
of a race of rebels, also that the rule of the rebels was brief,
brief, my lord, as woman's love. Then they argued as to the
alleged brevity of woman's love. ^ Here they were getting on
dangerous ground. Nature is a trickster, and she spread her
net and caught the Highland maid and the Lowland laddie,
and bound them as with green withes as is her wont. So they
were married by the Congregational "meenister," and for a
wedding tour fared forth westward to fame and fortune. **Out
West " then meant York State, and the * * Far West " was Ohio.
They reached Oneida County, New York, and stopped for
a few days ere they pushed on to the frontier. The site was
beautiful, the location favorable. And the farmer at whose
house they were making their stay was restless and wanted
to sell out. ^ That night the young couple talked it over. They
liad a few hundred dollars saved, sewed in a belt and in a dress
bodice.They got the money out and recounted it. In the morning
they told their host how much money they had and offered
to give him all of this money for his farm. He was to leave
them a yoke of oxen, a cow, a pig and six sheep.QHe accepted
the offer, the money was paid, the deed made out and the man
138

vacated, leaving the bride and groom in possession. So here
they lived their lives; here they worked, planned, aspired,
prospered; here their children were born and raised; and
down at the village cemetery they sleep, side by side. In life
they were never separated and in death they are not divided.

PHILIP D,
ARMOUR

HE first requisite in education,"
said Herbert Spencer, "is that man
shall be a good animal."
Philip D. Armour fulfilled the re-
quirements. He was dowered with
a vital power that fed his restless
brain and made him a dynamo of
energy for sixty-nine years — and
with a little care at the last should
have run for ninety years with
never a hot box.

He used to say, "If my ancestors
had been selected for me by Greek
philosophers, specialists in heredity,
they could not have done better. I caimot imagine a better
woman than my mother. My childhood was ideal. God did
not overlook me. " ^ Well did this happy, exuberant, healthy
man say that his parentage and childhood environment were
ideal. Here was a family of six boys and three girls, brought
up on a beautiful hillside farm amid as peaceful and lovely a
landscape as ever the sun shone upon. Down across the creek
there were a hundred acres of bottom-land that always laughed
a harvest under the skilful management of Danforth Armour.
Yet the market for surplus products was distant, so luxury
and leisure were out of the question. And yet work was n't
drudgery. Woods, hills, running streams, the open road, the
sawmill and the grist-mill, the path across the meadow, —
the miracle of the seasons, the sugar-bush, the freshet that
carried away the bridge, the first spring flowers peeping
from beneath the snow on the south side of rotting logs, the
trees bursting into leaf, the hills white with blossoms of
wild cherry and hawthorn, the Saturday afternoon when
the boys could fish, the old swimming hole, the bathing of

139

PHILIP D. *^® ^^^^ o^®s in the creek, the growing crops in the bottom-
ARMOUR l^Jid, bee-trees and wild honey, coon hunts by moonlight,
the tracks of deer down by the salt-lick, bears in the green
corn, harvest-time, hog-killing days, frost upon the pumpkin
and fodder in the shock, wild turkeys in the clearing, revival
meetings, spelling-bees, debates at the schoolhouse, school
at the log schoolhouse in Stockbridge, barn raisings, dances
in the new barn, quilting-bees, steers to break, colts to ride,
apple butter, soft soap, pickled pig's feet, smoked hams, side
meat, shelled walnuts, coonskins on the barn door, winter
and the first fall of snow, boots to grease, harness to mend,
backlogs, hickory-nuts, cider, a few books and all the other
wonderfiil and enchanting things that a country life, not too
isolated, brings to the boys and girls born where the rain
makes musical patter on the roof and the hands of a loving
mother tucks you in at night I

Here was a mother who gave to the world six sons, five of
whom grew to an honored manhood and proved themselves
men of power. One of the girls, Marietta, was a woman of
extraordinary personality, as picturesquely heroic as Philip
Armour, himself.

This mother never had a servant-girl, a laundress or a dress-
maker. The manicure and the beauty doctor were still in
the matrix of time, as yet unguessed.

On Sunday there was a full wagon-load of Armours, big and
little, to go to the Congregational Church at Stockbridge. Let
us hope the wagon was yellow and the horses grey.
Do not imagine that a family like this is lonely. There is
constant work; the day is packed with duties, and night
comes with its grateful rest. There is no time to be either
bad or unhappy, nor is there leisure to reflect on your virtues.
No one line of thought receives enough attention to disturb
the balance of things. To be so busy that you **forget it," is
very fortunate. The child brought up with a happy proportion
of play and responsibility, of work and freedom, of love and
discipline has surely not been overlooked by Providence.
The ** problem of education, " is only a problem to the super-
latively wise and the tremendously great. To plain people
life is no problem. Things become complex only when we
worry over them.
So the recipe for educating children is this : Educate yourself.

140

HEN Philip Armour was nineteen puiLIP D.
the home nest seemed crowded. ARMOUR
The younger brothers were coming
along to do the work and the ab-
sence of one **will be one less to
feed" he said to his mother.

W^^JIKj The gold-fields of California were
^pcr^ calling. This mother was too sen-
^k>Vj sible and loving to allow her boy
to run away — if he was going, he
should go with her blessing. She
got together a hundred dollars in
cash. With this and a pack on his

back Philip started on foot for the

land of Eldorado jt Four men were in the party, all from
Oneida County.

He walked all the way and arrived on schedule, after a
six months* journey. Philip was the only one in the party
who did not grow sick nor weary. One died, two turned back,
but Philip trudged on with the procession that seemed to
increase as it neared the gold-fields.

Arriving in California, this very sensible country boy figured
it out that mining was a gamble. A very few grew rich, but
the many were desperately poor. Most of those who got a
little money ahead spent it in prospecting for bigger finds
and soon were again penniless. He decided that he would not
bet on anything but his own ability. Instead of digging for
gold, he set to work digging ditches for men who had mines,
but no water. This making ditches was plain labor, without
excitement, chance or glamour. You knew beforehand just
how much you would make. Philip was strong and patient —
he could work from sunrise to sunset.
He was paid five dollars a day. ^ Then he took contracts to
dig ditches and sometimes he made ten dollars a day. Parties
who were "busted" and wished to borrow were offered a job.
He set them to work and paid them for what they did, and
no more. It was all a question of mathematics. In five years
Philip Armour had saved eight thousand doUars.It was enough
to buy the best farm in Oneida County and this was all he
wanted. There was a girl back there who had taunted him
and dared him to go away and make his fortune. They parted
in a tiff — that 's the way she got rid of him. There was
another man in the case, but Philip was too innocent to know

141

PHILIP D. this. The peaceful hills of New York lured and beckoned. He
ARMOUR responded to the call and started back home. In half the time
it took to go, he had arrived. But alas, the hills had shrunken.
The mighty stream that once ran through Stockbridge was
but a rill. ^ And the girl — the girl had married another — a
worthy horse-doctor. ^ Philip called on her. She was yellow
and tired and had two fine babies. She was glad to see her old
friend Philip, but the past was as dead to her as the present.
In her hand-grasp there was no thrill. She had given him a
big chase ; and soon his sadness made way for gratitude in that
she had married the horse-doctor. He gave them his blessing.
Philip looked around at farms — several were for sale, but
none suited him.

On the way back from California he had traveled by way of
the Great Lakes and stopped two days at Milwaukee. It was
a fine city — a growing place, the gateway of the West and
the market-place where the vessels loaded for the East.
^ Milwaukee had one rival — Chicago, eighty-five miles south
— but Chicago was on low, flat, marshy ground. It would
always be a city, of course, because it was the end of navi-
gation, but Milwaukee would feed and stock the folks who
were westward bound. So to Milwaukee went Philip Armour,
resolved to there stake his fortune in trade Jt, Opportunity
offered and he joined with Fred B. Miles, on March First,
Eighteen Hundred and Fifty-nine, in the produce and com-
mission business. Each man put in five hundred dollars. The
business prospered. One of the great products in demand was
smoked and pickled meats. At that time farmers salted and
smoked hams and brought them to town, with furs, pelts
and bags of wheat, fl All the tide of humanity that streamed
into Milwaukee, westward bound, bought smoked or pickled
meats — something that would keep and be always handy.
fl These were winter-packed. The largest packer was John
Plankinton, who was a success. John was knowing, and he
made Phil. Armour his junior partner, as Plankinton &
Armour. Then business sizzled. They were at the plant at
four o'clock in the morning. They discovered how to make
a hog yield four hams. Our soldiers needed the hams and
the barreled pork, so shortly more hogs came to market.
The war's end found the new firm much stronger and well
stocked with large orders for mess pork, sold for future
delivery at war-time prices, which contracts they filled at
a much lower cost and to their financial satisfaction. Their
142

guesser was good and they prospered. ^Meantime, the city PHILIP D.

of Chicago grew. It grew faster than Milwaukee. There was ARMOUR

a rich country south of Chicago, as well as west, and of this

Philip Armour had really never thought. Q Chicago was a

better market for pickled pork and corned beef than

Milwaukee, as more boats fitted out there, and more emigrants

were landing on their way to take up government land.

flOne of Mr. Armour's brothers, Joe, was a packer in Chicago.

Another brother, H. O., was in the commission business

there. Joe's health was bad, so in Eighteen Hundred and

Seventy, Philip Armour came to Chicago, and shortly the

house of Armour & Company came into being — H. O.

Armour going to New York to look after Eastern trade and

financing. In those days branch houses were unknown and

packing house products were handled by jobbers.

HILIP DANFORTH ARMOUR was
the Father of the Packing House
Industry ^ The business of the
Packing House Industry is to
gather up the food products of
America and distribute them to
the world.

Let the fact here be stated that
the world is better fed today than
it ever has been since Herodotus
sharpened his faber and began
writing history, four hundred and
fifty years before Christ. ^ In this
matter of food, the danger today
lies in overeating and not in lack of provender. ^The business
of Armour & Company is to buy from the producer and
distribute to the consumer. flSo Armour & Company have
to satisfy two parties — the producer and the consumer. Both
being fairly treated have a perfect right to grumble.
The buyer of things which Nature forces the man to buy,
is usually a complainer, and he complains of the seller
because he is near, just as a man kicks the cat and takes
it out on his wife, or the mother scolds the children. ^To the

143

PHILIP D. farmers, Armour used to say with stunning truth, **You get
ARMOUR more for your produce today than you got before I showed
up on the scene ; and you get your money on the minute,
without haggle or question. I furnish you an instantaneous
market. "flTo the consumer he said, "I supply you with
regularity and I give you quality at a price more advan-
tageous to you than your local butcher can command. My profit
lies in that which has always been thrown away. As for
sanitation, go visit your village slaughter-house and then
come and see the way I do it!"

Upton Sinclair scored two big points on Packingtown and
its Boss Ogre. They were these: First, the Ogre hired men
and paid them to kill animals. Second, these dead animals
were distributed by the Ogre and his minions and the corpses
eaten by men, women and children. ^ It was a revolting
revelation. It even shook the nerves of a President, one of the
killingest men in the world, who, not finding enough things
to kill in America, has now gone to Africa to kill things,
that their pelts may decorate our parlors.
"You live on the dead," said the Eastern pundit, reproach-
fully, out of his yellow turban, to the American, who had
just ordered a ham sandwich. **And you eat the living,"
replied the American, as he handed a little hand microscope
to the pundit and asked him to focus it upon his dinner of dried
figs.The pundit looked at the figs through the glass, and behold,
they were covered with crawling, wiggling, wriggling, living
life I And then did the man from the East throw the micro-
scope out of the window, and say, "Now there are no bugs
on these figs ! " flThat which we behold too closely is apt to
be repulsive. Fix your vision upon any of the various functions
of life and the whole thing becomes disgusting, especially so if
we contemplate the details of existence in others. Personally,
of course, we, ourselves in thought and action are sweet
and wholesome — but the others, oh, ah, bah, phew, ouch
or words to that effect!

Armour's remark about the village slaughter-house was
getting close home. If bad meat was ever put out, it was
from these secret places, managed by one or two men who
did things in their own sweet way. Their work was not
inspected. They themselves were the sole judges. There were
not even employees to see and blackmail them if they failed
to walk the chalk-line. They bought up cattle, drove them
in at night and killed them. No effort was made to utilize
144

the blood or offal and this putrifying mass advertised itself PHILIP D,
for miles. Savage dogs and slaughter-houses go together, ARMOUR
as all villagers know, and there were various good reasons
why visitors did n*t go to see the local butcher perform his
pleasing obligations. ^ The first slaughter-houses in Chicago
were just like those in any village. They supplied the local
market. ^ At first the offal was simply flung out in a pile.
Then, when neighbors complained, holes were dug in the
prairie and the by-product buried. ^ About Eighteen Hundred
and Eighty-two, a decided change in methods occurred. The
first thing done was to dry the blood, bones and meat scrap,
and sell this for fertilizer. Next came the scientific treatment
of the waste for glues and other products. Chemists were
given a hearing, patient and most courteous. flOne day
Armour beckoned C. H. MacDowell into his private office and
said confidentially — **I say, Mac, if a man calls who looks
like a genius or a fool, wearing long hair, whiskers and
spectacles, treat him gently — he 's a German and may have
something in his head beside dandruff. " ^ MacDowell is one
of the big boys at Armour's. He was a stenographer, like my
old Bryant & Stratton chum, Cortelyou, and in fact is very
much such a man as Cortelyou. **Mac" is the head of the
Armour Fertilizer Works and is distressed because he can't
utilize the squeal — so much energy evaporating. It is his
business to capitalize waste. ^ It was the joke of the place
that if a German chemist arrived, all business was paralyzed
until his secret was seized. Jena, Gottingen and Heidelberg
became names to conjure with. Buttons were made from
bones, glue from feet, combs and ornaments from horns,
curled hair from tails, felt from wool, hair was cured for
plaster, and the Armour Fertilizer Works slowly became
grounded and founded on a scientific basis, where reliable
advice as to growing cotton, rice, yams, potatoes, roses or
violets could be had. ^**Meat" is the farmers' product. This
meat is consumed by the people. One-half of our population
are farmers and all farmers raise cattle, sheep, poultry and
hogs. Trade follows the line of least resistance; and the
natural thing is for the local butcher to slaughter, and supply
his neighborhood. Q There is only one reason why the people
in East Aurora should buy meat of Armour, as they
occasionally do, and that is because Armour supplies better
meat at a lower price than we can produce it. If Armour is
higher in price than our local butcher, we buy of the local

145

PHILIP D. man. The local butcher fixes the price, not Armour, and the
ARMOUR local farmer fixes the price for the local butcher. Armour
always and forever has to face this local competition. q**I am
in partnership with the farmer, " Philip Armour used to say.
"Their interests are mine and their confidence and good-will
I must merit, or over goes my calabash. " ^ The success of
capital lies in ministering to the people, not in taking
advantage of them. § And every successful business house
is built on the bed-rock of Reciprocity, Mutuality and Co-
operation. That legal Latin maxim, **Let the buyer beware, "
is a legal fiction. It should read, "Let the seller beware," for
he who is intent on selling the people a different article than
that which they want, or at a price beyond its value, will stay in
trade about as long as that famous snowball will last in Biloxi.

ESIDES being the father of the
Packing House Industry, Philip
D. Armour was a manufacturer
of and a dealer in Portable Wis-
dom. His teeming brain took in
raw suggestions and threw off the
completed product in the form of
epigrams, phrases, orphics, sym-
bols. To have caught these crumbs
of truth that fell from the rich
man's table, might have placed
many a penny-a-liner beyond the
reach of mental avarice. flOne
man, indeed, swept up the crumbs
into a book that is not half crumby. The man is George
Horace Lorimer and his book is called, "Letters of a Self-
made Merchant to his Son."

Lorimer was a department manager for Armour and busied
himself, it seems, a good deal of the time, in taking down
disjecta, or the by-product of business. Armour was always
sincere, but seldom serious. There is a lot of quiet fun yet
among the Armour folks. When the Big Boys dine daily
together, they always pass the persifiage. Lorimer showed
me a bushel of notes — with which he proposes some day

146

to Boswellize his former Chief. Incidentally, he requested PHILIP D.
me to never mention it, but secrets being to give away, I ARMOUR '
state the fact here, in order to help along a virtuous and
hard-working young man, the son of Rev. Dr. George C.
Lorimer, a worthy Baptist preacher.

"Keep at it, — do not be discouraged, Melville, a preacher's
son is usually an improvement on the sire," said Philip D.
Armour to Melville Stone, who was born at Hudson, McLean
County, Illinois, the son of a Presiding Elder.
**I 'm not worrying," replied the genealogical Stone, "You
and I were both born in log houses, which puts us straight
in line for the Presidency." q "Right you are, Melville, for a
log house is built on the earth, and not in the clouds. "
Then this came to Armour, and he could not resist the
temptation to fire it, "Boys, all buildings that really endure
are built from the ground up, never from the clouds down."
^ No living man ever handed out more gratuitous advice than
Philip Armour. He was the greatest preacher in Chicago.
With every transaction, he passed out a premium in way of
palaver ^ He loved the bustle of business, but into the
business he butted a lot of talk — helpful, good-natured,
kindly, paternal talk, and often there was a suspicion that
he talked for the same reason that prize-fighters spar for time.
^"Here, Robbins, get off this telegram, and remember that
if the rolling stone gathers no moss, it at least acquires a
bit of polish." ^ "Say — Urion, if you make a success as my
lawyer you have got to get into the rings of Orion — be there
yourself, the same as the man that 's ^to be hung. You can't
send a substitute."

To Comes — now Secretary of Armour & Company — "I
suppose if I told you to jump in the lake you 'd do it. Use
your head, young man — use your sky-piece I " And he did.
^ This preaching habit was never pedantic, stiff or formal —
it gushed out as the waters gushed forth from the rock after
Moses had given it a few stiff raps with his staff.
Armour called people by their first names as if they all
belonged to his family, as they really did, for all mankind
to him were one. He thought in millions, where other big
men thought in hundreds of thousands, or average men
thought in dozens. "Hiram," he once said to Rev. Hiram
W. Thomas, for when he met you, you imagined he had
been looking for you to tell you something; "Hiram, I like
to hear you preach, for you are so deliberate, that as you

147

PHILIP D. speak I am laying bets with myself as to which of a dozen
ARMOUR things you are going to say. You supply me lots of fun. I
can travel around the world before you get to your firstly."
^ For all preachers he had a great attraction, and it was n't
solely because he was a rich man. He supplied texts, and he
supplied voltage. Most men put on a pious manner and
become hypocritically proper when a preacher joins a group,
but not so Philip Armour. If he used a strong word, or a
simile uncurried, it was then. They liked it.
**Mr. Armour, you might use a little of your language for
fertilizer, if times were hard, " once said Robert Collyer.
And the answer was, "Robert, I *m fertilizing a few of your
fallow acres now, as any one who goes to hear you preach
next Sunday will find out, if they know me. "
A committee of four preachers once came to him from a
country town a few miles out of Chicago, asking him to
pay off the debt on their churches. It seems they had heard
of the Armour benevolence and decided to beard the lion
in his den. He listened to the plea, and then figured up on
a pad the amount of the debts. It was fifteen hundred dollars.
The preachers were encouraged — they had the ejaculation,
"God bless you!" on tap, when Mr. Armour said, "Gentle-
men, four churches in a town the size of yours are too many.
Now, if you will consolidate and three of you will resign and
go to farming, I *11 pay off this debt now. "
The offer was not accepted.

When Armour was asked to subscribe one thousand dollars
to a fund to provide an auditorium and keep Prof. Swing
in Chicago, Swing having just been tried for heresy, he said,
"Chicago must not lose Swing — we need him. If I had a
few of his qualities, and he had a few of mine, there would
be two better men in Chicago today. Yes, we must keep
Swing right here. Put me down for a thousand. I don't
always understand what Swing is driving at, but that may
' be my fault. And say, if you find you need five thousand
from me, just let me know, and the money is yours. "
There is no use trying to work the apotheosis of Philip D.
Armour: he was in good sooth a man. "I make mistakes —
but I do not respond to encores," he used to say. When a
man told of spending five thousand dollars on the education
of his son. Armour condoled with him thus, "Oh, never mind,
he '11 come out all right — my education is costing me that
inuch every week. " ^ Philip Armour was a very human
148

individual. He liked to play the big and magnanimous, — PHILIP D.
to give an elevator boy a dollar, or surprise a clerk by a ARMOUR
saying he always had in electrotype, to wit: "Keep the
change. " Often he would walk six blocks to save street-car
fare, and on the way, hand a crossing sweeper fifty cents.
Apple women were his protegees, and when newspapers came
down to three cents and finally one, he always paid the boy
five cents, and said, "Be honest, sonny, be industrious, be
saving and you *11 win. " §One of the Big Boys at Armour's
is a character called ** Alibi Tom." Time has tamed Alibi,
but when he was twenty-two — well, he was twenty-two.
flNow Philip Armour was an early riser, and at seven o'clock
he used to be at the office ready for business, the office
opening at eight. Sometimes he would come even earlier, and
if he saw a clerk at work before eight, he might, under the
inspiring spell of the brisk early morning walk, step over
and give the fellow a five-dollar bill.

Well, Alibi had never gotten one of those five-dollar bills,
because he was usually in just before St. Peter closed the
gate. Several times he had been reproved, and once Mr.
Armour had said, "Tom, be late once more and you are
a has-wazzer. " ^ Shortly after this, one night. Alibi Tom
nad a half-dozen stockmen to entertain. They had gone to
Hooley's and Sam T. Jack's, then to the Athletic Club and
then they called on Hinky Dink and "Bath House John,"
the famous Cook County literary light jt Where else they
had gone they could not remember. ^ It was about three
o'clock in the morning, when it came over Tom like a pall
that if he started for home now and went to bed he would
surely be late again, and it might cost him his job.
He proposed that they make a night of it. The stockmen were
quite willing. They headed for the Stock-yards, stopping
along the way to make little visits on certain celebrities. At
five o'clock they reached the Armour plant, and Tom stowed
his friends away with the help of a friendly watchman. Then
he made for the shower-bath, rubbed down, drank two cups
of coffee and went to his desk. It was just six-thirty, and
being winter, was yet dark. He had n't any more than yawned
twice and stretched himself, wondering if he could hold out
until noon, when he heard the quick step of "the old man."
Tom crouched over his pretended work like a devil-fish
devouring its prey. He never looked up, he was that busy.
q Mr. Armour stopped, stared, came closer — yes, it was Tom,

149

PHILIP D. the late Alibi Tom, the chronic derelict. q**Well, well, well,
ARMOUR Tom, the Lord be praised I you have given yourself a hunch
at last — keep this!" And Armour handed out a brand-new
crisp five-dollar bill. C|Tom had now set a stake for himself —
he had to make good, die or hike. flHe decided to make
good. ^ The next month his pay was raised twenty-five
dollars, and it has been climbing a little every year since.

HILIP D. ARMOUR was a man of
big mental and physical resources
— big in brain, rich in vital power,
bold in initiative and cautious
when he should be.
Armour had two peculiar charac-
teristics— he refused to own more
land than he could use. ^ His
second peculiarity was that his
only stimulant was tea. If he had
an unusually big problem to pass
upon, he cut down his food and
increased his tea ^ Tea was his
tipple. It opened up his mentalpores
and gave him cosmic consciousness. Armour had so much
personality — so much magnetism — that he had but few
competitors in his business. One of these was Nelson Morris.
^Now Morris was a type of man that Armour had never
met. Morris was a Jew — a Bavarian — who affected music,
art and philosophy. ^Nelson Morris, small, smooth of face,
humming bars from Bach and quoting Schopenhauer, buy-
ing hogs at the Chicago Stock-yards and then killing these
hogs for the gastronomical delectation of Christians, was a
sort of all 'round Judaic genius. ^ The Mosaic Law forbids
the Jews eating pork, but it places no ban or bar on their
dealing in it.

Nelson Morris bought hogs at Four A. M., or as soon as it
was light. Armour found him at it when he arrived, and
Philip Armour was usually the earliest bird on the job.
Yet Armour was n*t afraid of Morris — the Jew merely
perplexed him. One day Armour said to MacDowell, his
150

secretary, **I say, Mac, Nelson doesn't need a guardian I"
^ The Jew was getting on the Armour nerves — just a little.
Armour was always on friendly terms with his competitors
— he was on friendly terms with everybody — he had no
grouch and never got in a grump. Socially he was irresistible.
He got up close — invited confidence — made friends and held
them. There was never a man he would n't speak to. He was
above jealousy and beyond hate, yet of course, when it came
to a show-down, he might hit awfully hard and quick, but
he always passed out his commercial wallop with a smile jt
When Sullivan met Corbett at New Orleans, Gentleman Jim
landed the champion a terrific jolt with his right, smiled
sweetly and said, "To think, John, of your coming all the
way from Boston to get that — also this;" then he gave him
another with his left. One morning, at daylight, when Morris
got to the Stock-yards, he found dl the pens empty. Armour
and his pig buyers had been around with lanterns all night
hunting up the owners and bulling the market. "To think,"
said Armour to Morris, "to think of your coming all the way
from Bavaria hoping to get the start of me!" Both men
smiled serenely. ^ The next week whole train-loads of pigs
were coming to Chicago consigned to Nelson Morris. He had
sent his agents out and was buying of the farmers, direct.
^ Soon after. Armour casually met Morris and suggested that
they lunch together that day. The Jew smiled assent. He had
scored a point — Armour had come to him.
So they lunched together. The Jew ate very little. Both men
talked but said nothing. They were waiting. The Jew ate
little, but he drank three cups of tea.
Armour insisted on paying the check, excused himself
somewhat abruptly and hurried to his office. He sent for
his lieutenants. They came quickly, and Armour said, " Boys,
I 've just lunched with Nelson Morris. I think we *d better
come to an understanding with him as to a few little things we
shall do and a fewwe shall not do — he drinks nothing but tea."

PHILIP D,
ARMOUR

151

PHILIP D.
ARMOUR

HILIP D. ARMOUR, unlike many
other wise men, had a habit of
hiring his relatives ^ He took
his brothers off the farm and
made them bankers or packers. He
hired people he had known in his
boyhood or who had come from
"that dear Old Oneida County."
Some of these turned out well and
sometimes their benefactor got
their eternal enmity through help-
ing them into a position which
they could not fill. Armour set a
rapid pace ; he made big demands,
and only a right sterling character could stay in the game.
But one notable exception was Everett Wilson, a Madison
County boy J- This was credential enough to get him the
job, and then he had to hold it down of himself. Q And he
held it down. Everett Wilson is now Superintendent of the
Armour Branch Houses, and there are four hundred of these.
And you know what happens when meat does n*t get around
on time ! fl "Where do you get your best men?" I once heard
Joseph Medill ask Philip Armour.
"I raise them — I raise them!" was the answer.
This was only poetically true, for Philip Armour was always
looking for talent. Often, as he walked down the street he
would make comments on men that he passed thus : "Thinks
more of clothes than books — gets fifteen a week and is worth
ten. " ^"Late hours — booze — too smart — will be old at forty."
"Good boy — not too much top-head. He is going somewhere
on an errand — wish he would come to me for a job — he
does n't know too much." fl"He *s needlessly sensitive and
foolishly good — he *11 have to be coddled, or he '11 get a sour
spot in his soul and imagine you have it in for him. "
"Good man, educated and all that, but too much daylight
under the saddle girth. He won't stand without hitching.
Put him in the business bull-ring and he 'd spend most of
his time figuring how to get out of work."
" He 's a race-horse, and can do everything but go fast. "
This running comment was immensely amusing to his
companions, and when Armour got on what they called
a phrenological rampage, the listeners were glad to let him
go it. "He can estimate the number of grains on an ear of
152

corn, can guess the weight of a steer, or size up a human being PHILIP D.
better than any man in Chicago," once said Long John ARMOUR
Wentworth. ^George Robbins was hired on one of these
snap-shot judgments. **We will all be working for him yet,"
said Armour ^ And now this man Robbins is President
of the Armour Car Lines.

Another Armour discovery, Thomas J. Connors — who is
known as **Tom" by his friends — introduced the new
style Western dressed beef to the Eastern palate — he was
on the firing line in the early dressed-beef days — and that
meant something. The public took kindly to the new scheme,
but the Eastern butchers did not. The idea hurt their feelings
via their pocketbook — they were fighting mad — and sat
up nights thinking of mean things to say and new tricks
to turn. Tom, however, was too many for them. He was
such a resourceful scrapper and with it all so good-natured
and tactful about it that even after he had walloped them
they secretly liked the way he did it, and became strong
friends of the house. Connors located the branch house
outposts — they succeeded because they meant **more for
many" — and today the branch houses of Armour are all
over the world. ^ Of Connors, I once heard Armour say —
**He is descended from an Irish King, and yet if I tell him
to turn mason he does n't demand a mahogany hod. "
Arthur Meeker is one of the **old guard," as the leaders
of the time of Philip Armour are sometimes called. He was
grumbling one day — somewhat cautiously — at the prospect
of a winter trip to Europe. "Meeker," said Armour, "You
are like the Texan in the country store who yawningly
remarked — *I have got ter go ter Palestine tomorrer and
get drunk, and I hate it like the devil. * "
The Treasurer of the Company is S. McRoberts, hired
originally simply on account of the "Mc." "He put on that
Mc when he applied to me for a job, because he knew it
would catch me — and it did. Then the rogue really made
good, and now I could n*t do without him, " said Armour.
E. E. Chandler is another of Philip Armour's rich finds.
"I hired him because he was gawky, and could never bank
either on his grace or good looks. If he ever succeeded I
knew it would have to be by plain hard work, and I made no
mistake." flThis hearty interest in the possibilities of men
interested him quite as much as making money. He gloried
in seeing a young man placed in a trying position and master

153

PHILIP D P^^ip Armour in his life gave employment to more men
ARMOUR *^^^ ^^y ^^® single living man. J. Ogden Armour gives
work to twice as many people as his father ever did.
Philip Armour was the son of his mother, and so is J. Ogden
Armour. Philip Armour was a diamond in the rough. He
was a diamond all right, and at times he was rough. There
were several very noticeable flaws in the Armour crystallized
carbon. His exuberance was magnificent, but his habit of
giving advice would have been a weariness to the flesh if any
one else had tried it. He liked to go down to the Armour
Institute and make a little Samuel Smiles speech to the
assembled youth. His vocabulary at times surely needed to
be put on a buffing-wheel. His stories often required formalde-
hyde ; then his habit of giving out new dollar bills was not a
mark of greatness, and since I profited by this propensity, I
have a perfect right to criticize it. Armour liked to relax and
play the grand and magnificent, impulses sometimes called
Chicagoese. But these things are not spots on the son. Ogden
Armour is like a quail in a stubble-field. He is so modest in
dress, manner and action that he fades into the landscape,
and is merely a part of the ensemble. He never rivals the
acetylene, nor does he jostle those who have taken the centre
of the stage. He abjures the spot-light.
When the Hon. John Morley was in Chicago, and spent
several hours at the Armour plant, he said, **Now before I
go, I want to see the man at the head of this wonderful
business!'* And the answer was, **Why, you have been
talking with him for an hour." q** Impossible! I knew the
gentleman's name was Armour, but he never once said, *I
did it' — nor did he refer to my father. He spoke of *Mr.
Armour.'" q And John Morley mused and murmured, "But
how Chicago and Chicago men have been lied about!"
Belle Ogden, the mother of J. Ogden Armour, is a rare
woman — rare in her poise, grace and mental ballast. She
was a fit helpmeet for Philip Armour, and he never failed
to give his wife due credit for his own successes. Philip
Armour never went out to spend the evening, took few
holidays, attended no Four-o'clocks, went to few plays. His
life was devoted to business, and when he played it was
out-of-doors. He loved horses, and always had a few that
could **step along." His wife never ran rival to him, nor
attempted to drag him out and place him on display. She
knew his needs and ministered to them. She gave him peace.
156

She never publicly corrected his statements, nor put him PHILIP D.
straight as to facts and dates. And best of all, she always ARMOUR *
laughed at his jokes — and this is the final test of marital
fidelity. tI**My culture is mostly in my wife's name,** said
Philip Armour to Leonard Swett, and this was a jest in
earnest. If J. Ogden Armour ever thinks of that remark of his
father's, "I could not possibly have picked better parents —
God has been good to me" — he must instinctively echo,
"Here too!" Philip Armour valued money, but he prized
it only as a measure of power. His joy was in doing things —
in overcoming difiiculties — in planning, building, devising,
creating. His ambitions always outstripped his resources, and
so he usually felt poor. He did not hoard money, he invested
it so it would set more men to work. The house of Armour &
Company has always been a great borrower, for it is ever
growing, expanding, building.

Much of the recent criticism of our industrial leaders has
been by people unversed in both economics and psychology,
and unable by temperament to comprehend or appreciate
the burdens of a captain of industry. They do not know
that a man whose heart is set on making money, never
makes much money. Neither do they know that a life of
luxury and ease is not typical of **the men who own Amer-
ica." J. Ogden Armour inherited a vast business, and he
has met the responsibility of administering it bravely yet
modestly. He has conserved and protected this business
and thereby has he protected the interests of the vast army
of workers to whom it gives employment. And he has also
protected the public that this business serves.
At the new palatial office building of Armour & Company
there is a daily conference of the heads of departments.
The Big Boys dine together and talk things over with a
frankness of criticism that might be appalling if it were
not all delightfully good-natured jt Men who carry big
responsibilities, I haVe noticed, are always able to laugh.
^ They must relax and rest at times otherwise they could
not go on. **The Infinite Love that made the Burden, also
prepared the Back," says the Kasida. It was this joy in
life that gave Philip Armour his strength, and his heroic
soul still pervades the place. Let no theorist convince you
that corporations have no souls — the only corporation that
has no soul is a dead one. The idea of the corporation was
a legal device of the Romans, and it never ceased to excite

157

PHILIP D. the admiration of Lord Coke, who referred to it as **an
ARMOUR intellect without decline, a body without death, a soul
with a purpose that ever inspires. "

Certain fixed policies prevail at Armour's. One of these is
that there must be no misrepresentation. That absolute
frankness must prevail between the house and the patrons.
That all complaints must be carefully and courteously
considered and then adjusted. That no hasty or ill-tempered
letter shall ever be written. That no product is ever "good
enough " — it must, if possible, be made better.
In no position can one get so good a side-light on J. Ogden
Armour as at the daily lunch. There he is relaxed and at
his ease. His own order is very slight — his eating is simple.
He thanks you when you pass the brown bread, and is
courteous to the waiter, without being familiar. You can
always tell a gentleman by his attitude toward those who
are socially beneath him.

Ogden Armour inspires respect, but not fear. He is a good
listener, and to listen is a fine art. Undivided attention
confounds the fool, and encourages the man of brains.
Philip D. Armour used to "give the calf more rope," and
Ogden does the same. This habit has made his lieutenants
rapid, quick, alert and epigrammatic. If some one is going to
make close note of your vaporings, you soon learn to condense.
^ I noticed that when Ogden Armour wants something done
he has a way of asking, thus: "Mr. Merritt, don't you think
that we better," etc. It is a subtle form of compliment that
brings out the best — provided your man is really a man.
And when Mr. Armour was talking to E. B. Merritt he knew
his man ^ Merritt is a newspaper product who dotes on
printers* ink and is stuck on the glue-roller. He was once
a printers' devil and has never fully recovered. He knows
the science of advertising probably as well as any man in
Chicago — a city that has not hidden her light under a bushel
— and Mr. Armour knows he knows, hence his order put
in the form of asking advice.

In speaking of their Chief in his absence, these Big Boys
often call him "Mr. Ogden," a term which implies both
affection and respect. They abbreviate the name with
characteristic economy, yet without loss of dignity.
Mr. J. Ogden Armour is not a college graduate. He attended
the Yale Sheflield Scientific School for two years; then he
entered the service of Armour & Company, via the bill-
iS8

desk route, at eight dollars a week, with no favors asked
or given. He is, from a business viewpoint, decidedly friendly
to college men and is especially favorable to young men
educated in technical and manual training-schools. This is
shown by his keen interest in the Armour Institute of
Technology and its output. He feels that his business, from
an operating standpoint especially, is materially strengthened
when handled by men possessing trained technical minds
combined with **farm sense," the latter of course, being
primary. His greatest difficulty has been to secure educated
young men who keep their feet on the ground — who have
been bred close to the grass — who have definite objects in
life and who appreciate that honesty, sane invention, hard
work and patience will bring results. He wants young men
whose geometrical knowledge starts with a full appreciation
of the dimensions and value of a dollar and what must be
delivered to get it Jt> He approves of methodical, steady
thinkers and workers, educated men who have respect for
practical men — men who are willing to begin at the bottom
— to submit to discipline — ready to volunteer — anxious to
please by doing — and they are not growing on every campus.

PHILIP D,
ARMOUR

RIOR to the invention of the
refrigerator-car, the business of
the packer was to cure salt meats
and pack them for transportation.
Besides this, he supplied the local
market with fresh meats.
Up to the early eighties fresh
meat was not shipped any distance
except in midwinter, and then as
frozen meat J^ Surplus Western
cattle were shipped East alive —
and subject to heavy risks, shrink-
age and expense. About fifty per
cent of the live weight was dressed
beef — balance non-edible — so double freight was paid on
the edible portion. Could this freight be saved? ^About this
time Hammond, of Detroit, mounted a refrigerator on car-

159

PHILIP D. wheels, loaded it with dressed beef and headed it for New
ARMOUR York — where the condition of the meat on arrival satisfied
every one in the trade except the local slaughterer. ^ The
car was crude — but it turned the trick — a new era had
arrived ^ The corn belt came into its own — **Corn was
King" — the steer, the heir apparent. ^ Phil Armour saw the
point. Pay freight on edible portion only. Save the waste.
Make more out of the critter than the competitor can. Pay
morefor him — Get him J^ Sell the meat for less ^ Get
the business — grow ^ And he got busy perfecting the
refrigerator-car.

Armour called together railroad men and laid the project
before them. They objected that a car, for instance, sent
from Chicago to New York would require to be iced several
times during the journey, otherwise there might be the loss
of the entire load. A car of beef was worth fifteen hundred
dollars. The freight was two hundred dollars or less. The
railroad men raised their hands in horror. Beside transporting
goods they would have to turn insurance company. Armour
still insisted that they could and should provide suitable cars
for their patrons.

The railroad men then came back with this rejoinder: ** You
make your own cars and we will haul them, provided you
will ask us to incur only the ordinary risks of transportation."
Armour accepted the challenge — it was the only thing to
do. He made one car, and then twenty J^ Fresh beef was
shipped from Chicago to New York, and arrived in perfect
order. To ship live cattle long distances, he knew was unwise.
And he then declared that Omaha, Kansas City, St. Paul and
various other cities of the West would yet have great
slaughter-houses, where live stock could be received after
a very short haul. The product could then be passed along
in refrigerator-cars, and the expense of ice would not be
as much as to unload and feed the stock. But better than all
the product would be more wholesome.
Armour began to manufacture refrigerator-cars. He offered
to sell these to railroad companies. A few roads bought cars,
and after a few months proposed to sell them back to Armour
— the expense and care of operating them required too much
care and attention. Shippers would not ship unless it was
guaranteed that the car would be re-iced, and that it would
arrive at its destination within a certain time.
In the fall, fresh peaches were being shipped across the lake
i6o

to Chicago from Michigan. If the peaches were one night PHILIP D.
on the way they arrived in good order. ARMOUR

This gave Armour an idea — he sent a couple of refrigerator-
cars around to St. Joseph, loaded them with fresh peaches,
and shipped them to Boston. He sent a man with the cars
who personally attended to icing the cars, just as we used
to travel in the caboose to look after the live stock. ^ The
peaches reached Boston, cool and fresh, and were sold in an
hour at a good profit. At once there was a demand for refrig-
erator-cars from Michigan — the new way opened the markets
of America to the producer of fruits and vegetables. ^ There
was a clamorous demand for refrigerator-cars.
The reason a railroad cannot afford to have its own refriger-
ator-cars, is because the fruit or berry season in any one
place is short. For instance, six weeks covers the grape
period of the Lake Erie grape belt; one month is about
the limit on Michigan peaches; strawberries from Southern
Illinois are gone in two or three weeks.
Therefore to handle the cars advantageously, the railroads find
it much better to rent them, or simply haul them on a mileage.
^ The business is a specialty in itself, and requires most astute
generalship to make it pay. Cars have to be sent to Alabama
in February and March; North Carolina a little later, then
West Virginia. These same cars then do service in the fall
in Michigan jt It naturally follows that much of the time
cars have to be hauled empty, and this is a fact that few
people figure on when computing receipts from tonnage.
Now, instead of the good old way of sending a man in charge,
there are icing stations, where the car is looked for, carefully
examined and cared for as a woman would look after a baby.
In order to bring apples from Utah to Colorado, and oranges
from California to Arizona, ice houses have been built on the
desert at vast expense. And this in a climate where frost is
unknown. flTo work the miracle of modern industrialism
requires the help of bespectacled scientists from Germany,
and a fine army of artists, poets, painters, plumbers, doctors,
lawyers, beside the workers in wood and metals.
In the operation of the Private Car Lines, no doubt there have
been occasional errors and mistakes in judgment, but these
are being eliminated as time goes on. To make life hard does
not mean success to any one, and the modern business man
knows it. The charge that ice melts is probably true, but the
great fact remains that the producer and consumer are vastly

i6i

PHILIP D. benefited by this wonderful enterprise that carries things in
ARMOUR s^ety from where they are plentiful to where they are needed.
The whole business is a creation, and a beneficent one. It
has opened up vast territories to the farmer, gardener and
stock-raiser, where before cactus and sage-bush were supreme
and the prairie-dog, and his chum the rattlesnake, held un-
disputed sway. ^ To the wealth of the world it has added
untold millions, not to mention the matters of health, hygiene
and happiness for the people. If the world wants more fruits
and vegetables, and less meat, let it say the word, and the
Armour Ref rigerator-Cars will bring the savory things to your
door. ^ These truths came to me strangely the other day at
Norfolk, Virginia, where I saw an Armour Refrigerator-Car
being loaded with violets — afresh and fragrant — bound for
Pittsburgh jt ^

HE Scotch-Irish blood carries a
mighty persistent corpuscle. It is
the blood that made the Duke of
Wellington, Lord "Bobs,'' Robert
Fulton, James Oliver, Cyrus Hall
McCormick, James J. Hill and
Thomas A. Edison ^ It makes
fighters, inventors and creators —
stubborn men who never know
when they are licked. They can
live on nothing and follow an
idea to its lair. They laugh at
difficulties, grow fat on opposition
and obstacle only inspires them to
renewed efforts. ^ Yet their fight is fair, and in the true type
there is a delicate sense of personal honor which only the
strong possess. Philip D. Armour's word was his bond. He
never welched, and even his most persistent enemies never
accused him of double-dealing. When he fought, it was in
the open, and he fought to a finish. Then when his adversary
cried, ** Enough!" he would carry him in his arms to a
place of safety and bind up his wounds j^ When rightly
approached his heart was as tender as a girl's.
162

Once upon a time Armour had sold for May delivery through PHILIP D.

elevators in Chicago some three million odd bushels of wheat ARMOUR

he had purchased in the Northwest. During late March he

suspected that some of his friends owning wheat stored in

these elevators intended to keep it there during May so that

he could not make his deliveries. Things were doing — May

wheat sky-rocketed. Armour was in a pocket — newspaper

ways. Was he? In forty days he had a three million-bushel

elevator approaching completion — Dave Simpson his builder,

with three shifts of eight-hour workers, turning the trick jt

The new elevator did n*t cost him anjthing. He filled his

contracts. Qln business he paid to the last cent; and he

expected others to pay, too. For clerks in a comatose state,

and the shirker who would sell his labor and then connive to

give short count, he had no pity ; but for the stricken or the

fallen, his heart and his purse were always open. He gloried

in work and he could not understand why others shoxild not

get their enjoyment out of work also.

He kept farmers' hours throughout his life, going to bed at

nine o'clock and getting up at five. He prized sleep — God's

great gift of sleep — and used to quote Sancho Panza, "God

bless the man who first invented sleep. "

Yet he slept only that he might arise and work. To be well

and healthy and strong and joyous was to him not only a

privilege but a duty. If he used tobacco it was never during

business hours. For strong drink he had an abhorrence,

simply because he thought it useless, save possibly as a

medicine, and he believed that no man would need medicine

if he lived rightly.

That very able and usually sensible man, Arthur Brisbane,

in a recent article suggests that Armour & Company would

do well to install canteens on their plant for the benefit of

their workmen, instead of allowing these workmen to

patronize the cheap saloons that hang upon the fringe of

Packingtown. flThe suggestion was probably well-meant, but

nothing could be more un-Armourlike than a traffic in strong

drink jt One could as well imagine Ben Franklin doing a

like thing. As it is, the carper, the quibbler and the unco

gude have had their say of Armour, and now just imagine

their renewed howl of disapproval if Armour & Company

should follow the suggestion of this sincere and gentle

anarch, Arthur Brisbane, and supply an enemy to place in

the mouths of the toilers to steal away their brains 1

163

PHILIP D. ^ ^^^ years ago I read an article by Arthur Brisbane in
ARMOUR denunciation of the *' Company Store" which is operated
by certain boss coal-miners. And now this same man who
denounced company stores advocates company saloons. If
it were tried we might get a scathing article from the same
pen on **the greed that prompts our rich malefactors to
batten and fatten on the thirst of overworked employees. "
^ Anatole France has a philosophy, one tenet of which is,
**No matter what you do, you '11 be sorry for it. Also, if you
don't do it, you '11 be sorry you did n't. "
Verily, the industrial leader, like leaders of any kind, follows
a path that leads by the thorn road. The only man who is
really safe from unkind criticism is the man who does
nothing, says nothing and is nothing.

It so happened once that Mr. Armour was booked to leave
for New York for Europe on Thursday. He had taken the
eleven o'clock train Wednesday for Milwaukee. At three
o'clock the head of the office received a message instructing
that several men should break any personal engagements
they might have that night and be prepared to work all night
if necessary, and to cancel his European reservations jt
Further instructions were received by wire.
At seven o'clock Mr. Armour turned up at the office. It
seems that his friend Plankinton had become involved in
a wheat deal — was long some ten million bushels of wheat,
and was in trouble. Following wired instructions, one of the
office force had gone to a certain broker's office and had
returned with a bunch of warehouse receipts about a fo
high covering grain in warehouses. Mr. Armour immediately
got busy and the upshot of it was that Mr. Plankinton was
pulled out of his dilemma and both he and Mr. Armour had
harnessed up a pretty fair bunch of money.
He never entered a deal without first financing it. If he
figured that five million dollars would be all that would be
needed, he arranged for ten million, feeling that the interest
on the surplus money was cheap insurance.
One day he purchased on the New York Stock Exchange
fifty thousand shares of St. Paul Railroad stock and paid
for it. Fifty thousand share transactions today are not
enormous, but in the early eighties such deals were very large.
flHe foresaw the possibilities of the West and the Northwest,
and in company with Alex. Mitchell, "Diamond Joe"
Reynolds, Fred Layton, John Plankinton and others,rtook
164

great personal pride in the upbuilding of the country. He was PHILIP D.
possessed of an active imagination. In a bigger, broader ARMOUR
sense he was a dreamer. In his every action and thought
he was a doer. He was very fond of children and would drop
almost any work he had in hand to talk for a few minutes
with a small boy or girl. He kept a stock of small Swiss
watches in his desk to present to his junior callers. His
great hobby was presenting his men with a suit of clothes
should they suggest anything out of the ordinary or do
anything which attracted his commendation. Nearly all of
those close to him were presented with gold watches.
It was in the late seventies. Mr. Armour, with officials, was
inspecting the St. Paul Railway. A rumor was circulated
that Armour & Company was in financial trouble, and Mr.
Armour was so advised. His return was so prompt that it
was suggested that he must have come down over the wire.
He was very much incensed, and his first query was as to
who had started the rumor.

The president of a Chicago bank had loaned Armour &
Company one hundred thousand dollars, note due in ninety
days. For some reason known only to himself, he had made
a demand on the cashier for the payment of this note some
sixty days before it was due, and very naturally in the absence
of Mr. Armour, did not get his money.
Everett Wilson at that time was a member of the Ogden
Boat Club, and was quite friendly with a son of the president
of the bank above referred to. This young man remarked to
Mr. Wilson that he had never felt so sorry for a man in his
life as he did for his father the day before. He said Phil
Armour had come over to the bank — had bearded his father
in his den and had gone after him so fiercely — had gotten
under him in so many ways — had lampooned him up dale
and down hill, that there was nothing left of his father but
a bunch of apologetic confusion, and that the interview had
ended by Mr. Armour's throwing a hundred thousand dollars
in currency in the gentleman's face. The young man said he
never knew that a man could be so indignant and so
voluble as Mr. Armour was, and that it had made a lasting
impression on him. qPhilip Armour had very high business
ideals. To sell an article at more than it was worth, or to deceive
the buyer as to quality in any way, he would have regarded
as a calamity. He delighted in the thought that the men with
whom he traded were his friends. That his prosperity had

165

PHILIP D. been the prosperity of the producing West, and also to the
ARMOUR advantage of the consuming East, were great sources of
satisfaction ^ To personal criticism he very seldom made
reply, feeling that a man's life should justify itself, and that
explanation, excuse or apology are unworthy in a man who
is doing his best to help himself by helping humanity.
But in spite of his indifference to calumny his years were
shortened by the stab of a pen — the thing which killed
Keats — the tumult of wild talk concerning *^ embalmed
beef," started by a Dr. William Daly who shortly after
committed suicide, and taken up to divert public attention
from the unpreparedness of the country to properly take
care of the health of its volunteer soldiery.
Mr. Armour, as Father of the Packing House Industry,
was keenly sensitive to these slanders on the quality of the
product and the honesty of the packers. The charges were
thoroughly investigated by a board of army officers and
declared by them to be without foundation.
Scandal and defamation in war-time are imminent; the
literary stink-pot rivals the lyddite of the enemy; fever,
envy, malice and murderous tongues strike in the dark
and retreat in a miasmic fog. Here were forces that Philip
Armour, as unsullied and as honorable as Philip Sydney,
could not fight, because he could not locate them.
About the same time came one Joseph Leiter, who tried
to comer the wheat of the world. Chicago looked to Armour
to punish the presumptuous one. And so Armour, already
bowed with burdens, kept the Straights of Mackinaw open
in midwinter, and delivered millions of bushels of real
wheat for real money to meet the machinations of the
bounding Leiter. Here, too. Armour was fighting for Chicago,
if possible, to redeem her good name in the eyes of the nations.
^ And Armour won ; but it was like that last shot of Brann's,
sent after he, himself, had fallen. Philip Armour slipped down
into the valley and passed into the shadow, unafraid. Like
Cyrano he said, **I am dying, but I am not defeated, nor am
I dismayed ! " And so they laid his tired body in the window-
less house of rest.

i66

J. OGDEN ARMOUR

^^ When writing men like Gentile Bellini, William Caxton,
^1 Benjamin Franklin, Horace Walpole, William Morris and
^^ Thomas D e Vinne felt in the mood to exude some particularly-
hot copy, they hiked for the type-case and worked their energy up
into a galley of Good Stuff ,^ They set up the matter as they
composed it. Thus we get the words "composing-stick" and
"compositor." Qln those days the printer was always a man of
considerable literary ability. People used to doff their hats when
they met him on the street and address "Mr. Printer." And as
a follow-up custom, it was only the day before yesterday that
folks stopped saying "Mr. Editor." Q These early printer-authors
had pronounced preferences for different type faces and families,
and the adoption or rejection of these various choices segregated
all shops into exponents of certain "styles." Q Every print-shop
now has its particular conception of what constitutes style in
typography. No two offices have identical views on this subject,
though all of them are evolving towards an Idea which had its
first modern impulse in The Roycroft Shop. QThe beauty and
adaptability of this Idea found for it considerable favor, and
"Roycroft Style" is now a well-known phrase in commercial print-
ing circles. But the best printers in the country have been unable
to successfully reproduce "Roycroft Style." For "Roycroft Style"
is more than a style, it 's an Art — an Art born of Artistic
Environment and developed by boys and girls working ^
under conditions which approach the Ideal ^ At the ^
Roycroft Shop we produce both Art and Artists ^

If You Want Printing Done Very • j^
De Luxe, Let Us Know Your Needs

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EDUCATION

*HE great trouble with the public school is that
many things are taught that are of no immediate
use. I believe in manual training schools. I believe
in the kindergarten system. Every person ought
to be taught how to do something — ought to be
taught the use of their hands. They should en-
deavor to put in palpable form the ideas that
they gain. Such an education gives them a confidence in them-
selves, a confidence in the future — gives them a spirit and feeling
of independence that they do not now have.

Children should be taught to think, to investigate, to rely upon
the light of reason, of observation and experience; should be
taught to use all their senses; and they should be taught only
that which in some sense is really useful. They should be taught
to use tools, to use their hands, to embody their thoughts in the
construction of things. Their lives should not be wasted in the
acquisition of the useless, or of the almost useless. Years should
not be devoted to the acquisition of the dead languages, or to
the study of history which, for the most part, is a detailed
account of things that never occurred. It is useless to fill the
mind with dates of great battles, with the births and deaths of
kings. They should be taught the philosophy of history, the
growth of nations, of philosophies, theories, and above all, of
the sciences. They should be taught the importance, not only of
financial, but of mental, honesty; to be absolutely sincere; to
utter their real thoughts, and to give their actual opinions ; and
if parents want honest children, they should be honest them-
selves. It may be that hypocrites transmit their failing to their
offspring. Men and women who pretend to agree with the majority,
who think one way and talk another, can hardly expect their
children to be absolutely sincere.— ROBERT G. INGERSOLL

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HE fortunate

circumstances

of our lives are

generally found, at last,
to be of our own making

G O L D S M IT H

LAY it down
as a safe prop-
osition that
the fellow
who, every little while,
has to break into the*
baby's bank for car fare,
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PHILIP D .

ARMOUR

Vol. 24

JUNE, MCMIX

No. 6

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BY ELEERT

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Entered at the postoffice at East Aurora, New York, fw transmission as secood-dass matter
Copyright, iwe, by filbert Hubbard, Editor and Pul«Hi^er

THE ANNUAL ROYCROFT

CONVENTION

occtirs at East Aurora,Erie County,New York,
Jxily First to Tenth, Nineteen Hundred and
Nine, inclusive. On this very pleasant occasion
there will be present many men and women
of quality ;honest, simple, sincere and friendly
folks who have thoughts and know how to
express them. QThe Musical Events provided
this year are the best we have ever had — which
is saying much. Two Formal Programs daily,
with walks and talks afield, betimes, and much
good-fellowship and flow of soul. To guests
at The Roycroft Inn there is no charge for
admittance to any of our classes, lectures or
entertainments. QYou are invited to be
present. Q Rates at The Inn are Two Dollars
a day and up, according to apartments,
American Plan. Q A postal card, stating about
when you will arrive, will be appreciated.

THE ROYCROFTERS
EAST AURORA, ERIE CO., NEW YORK

Little Journeys

LIBRARY EDITION

[LBERTHUBBARD singlesout from
History, Characters that but yester=
day meant to you only a Name, a
Picture, or a piece of Statuary, and
presents them as living, breathing,
pulsing men and women. Q The reader of
LITTLE JOURNEYS feels himself on speaks
ing terms with Seneca, sympathizes with the
struggles of Wagner, and understands why
Coleridge wrote "Kubla Khan." Q Quite a
few of these LITTLE JOURNEYS have been
re=printed, and bound bosarty in Limp
Chamois, silk=lined, gilt = top, with silk=
marker. Six LITTLE JOURNEYS in each
Volume ^ THREE DOLLARS the Volume.

Vol. 6. Morris, Browning, Tennyson, Burns, Milton,

Johnson.
Vol. 7. Macaulay, Byron, Addison, Southey, Coleridge,

Disraeli.
Vol. 8. Wagner, Paganini, Chopin, Mozart, Bach,

Mendelssohn.
Vol. 9. Liszt, Beethoven, Handel, Verdi, Schumann,

Brahms.
Vol. 10. Raphael, Leonardo, Botticelli, Thorwaldsen,

Gainsborough, Velasquez.
Vol. 11. Corot, Correggio, Bellini, Cellini, Abbey,

Whistler.
Vol. 12. Pericles, Anthony, Savonarola, Luther, Burke,

Pitt.

Little Journeys, Library Edition — Cont.

Vol. 13,

Vol. 14,

Vol. 15,

Vol. 16

Vol. 17

Vol. 18

Marat, Ingersoll, Patrick Henry, Starr King,

Beecher, Phillips.

Socrates, Aristotle, Spinoza, Seneca, Aurelius,

Swedenborg.

Kant, Comte, Voltaire, Spencer, Schopenhauer,

Thoreau.

Copernicus, Newton, Herschel, Galileo,

Humboldt, Darwin.

Haeckel, Linnaeus, Huxley, Tyndall, Wallace,

Fiske.

Josiah and Sarah Wedgwood, W^illiam Godwin
and Mary Wollstonecraft, Dante and Beatrice,
John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor, Parnell
and Kitty O'Shea, Petrarch and Laura.

Vol. 19. Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Elizabeth Siddal,
Balzac and Madame Hanska, Fenelon and
Madame Guyon, Ferdinand Lassalle and Helen
vonDonniges, Lord Nelson and Lady Hamilton,
Robert Louis Stevenson and Fannie Osbourne.

Vol. 20. John Wesley, Henry George, Garibaldi, Richard
Cobden, Thomas Paine, John Knox.

Vol. 21. John Bright, Bradlaugh, Theodore Parker,
Oliver Cromwell, Anne Hutchinson, Jean
Jacques Rousseau.

Vol. 22. Moses, Confucius, Pythagoras, Plato, King
Alfred, Friedrich Froebel.

Vol. 23. Booker T. Washington, Thomas Arnold,
Erasmus, Hypatia, St. Benedict, Mary Baker
Eddy.

THE ROYCROFTERS

EAST AURORA, ERIE CO., NEW YORK

The Hubbard-Albertson

D E B A T E

Resolved, ''That Christianity Is Declining"

Affirmative — Elbert Hubbard, Foreman of
The Roycroft Shop, East Aurora, New York.

Negative — Reverend Doctor C. C. Albertson,
Pastor Central Presbyterian Church, Rochester.

This debate took place at Chickering
Hall, Boston, Massachusetts, Novem-
ber the Ninth, Nineteen Hundred and
Eight. A full report appeared in '*The
Fra" Magazine for January, Nineteen
Hundred and Nine. As all extra copies
of this issue of ''The Fra" have been
sold, and a demand still continues, the
Debate has been reprinted in booklet
form — Price, Twenty-five cents each.

THE ROYCROFTERS

Elast Aurora, Erie County, New York

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TO THF HOher^T^R

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JOHN JACOB ASTOR

□DHQUHZES

The man who makes it the habit of his life to go to bed at nine o'clock,
usually gets rich and is always reliable. Of course, going to bed does
not make him rich — I merely mean that such a man will in all
probability be up early in the morning and do a big day's work, so
his weary bones put him to bed early. Rogues do their work at night.
Honest men work by day. It 's all a matter of habit, and good habits in
America make any man rich. Wealth is a result of habit.

—JOHN JACOB ASTOR

LITTLE JOURNEYS

ICTOR HUGO says, **When you
open a school, you close a prison. **
J^ This seems to require a little
explanation. Victor Hugo did not
have in mind a theological school,
nor yet a young ladies' seminary,
nor an English boarding-school,
nor a military academy, and least
of all a parochial institute. What
he was thinking of was a school
where people — young and old —
were taught to be self-respecting,
self-reliant and efficient — to care for themselves, to help bear
the burdens of the world, to assist themselves by adding to the
happiness of others.

Victor Hugo fully realized that the only education that serves
is the one that increases human efficiency, not the one that
retards it. An education for honors, ease, medals, degrees,
titles, position— immunity — may tend to exalt the individual
ego, but it weakens the race and its gain on the whole is nil.
^ Men are rich only as they give. He who gives great service,
gets great returns. Action and reaction are equal, and the
radiatory power of the planets balances their attraction. The
love you keep is the love you give away.
A bumptious colored person wearing a derby tipped over one
eye, and a cigar in his mouth pointing to the northwest,
walked into a hardware store and remarked, "Lemme see
your razors."

167

JOHN xhe clerk smiled pleasantly and asked, **Do you want a
J. ASTOR razor to shave with?'*

"Naw," said the colored person, " — for social purposes."
^ An education for social purposes is n*t of any more use than
a razor purchased for a like use. An education which merely
fits a person to prey on society, and occasionally slash it up,
is a predatory preparation for a life of uselessness, and
closes no prison. Rather it opens a prison and takes captive
at least one man. The only education that makes free is the
one that tends to human efficiency. Teach children to work,
play, laugh, fletcherize, study, think, and yet again — work,
and we will raze every prison.

There is only one prison, and its name is Inefficiency. Amid
the bastions of this bastile of the brain the guards are Pride,
Pretense, Greed, Gluttony, Selfishness.
Increase human efficiency and you set the captives free.
"The Teutonic tribes have captured the world because of
their efficiency," says Lecky the historian.
He then adds that he himself is a Celt.
The two statements taken together reveal Lecky to be a man
without prejudice. When the Irish tell the truth about the
Dutch the millennium approaches.

Should the quibbler arise and say that the Dutch are not
Germans, I will reply, true, but the Germans are Dutch —
at least they are of Dutch descent.

The Germans are great simply because they have the homely
and indispensable virtues of prudence, patience and industry.
^ There is no copyright on these qualities. God can do many
things, but so far. He has never been able to make a strong
race of people and leave these ingredients out of the formula.
i68

Q As a nation, Holland first developed them so that they J*-'"^
became the characteristic of the whole people. J* -'^STOR

It was the slow, steady stream of Hollanders pushing south-
ward that civilized Germany.

Music as a science was born in Holland. The grandfather of
Beethoven was a Dutchman.
Gutenberg's forebears were from Holland.
And when the Hollanders had gone clear through Germany,
and then traversed Italy, and came back home by way of
Venice, they struck the rock of spiritual resources and the
waters gushed forth.

Since Rembrandt carried portraiture to the point of perfec-
tion, two hundred and fifty years ago, Holland has been a
land of artists — and it is so even unto this day.
John Jacob Astor was born of a Dutch family that had
migrated down to Heidelberg from Antwerp. Through some
strange freak of atavism the father of the boy bred back, and
was more or less of a stone-age cave-dweller. He was a
butcher by trade, in the little town of Waldorf, a few miles
from Heidelberg. A butcher's business then was to travel
around and kill the pet pig, or sheep, or cow that the tender-
hearted owners dare not harm. The butcher was a pariah, a
sort of unofficial, industrial hangman.
At the same time he was more or less of a genius, for he
climbed steeples, dug wells, and did all kinds of disagreeable
jobs that needed to be done, and from which sober and
cautious men shrank like unwashed wool.
One such man — a German, too — lives in East Aurora. I
joined him, accidentally, in walking along a country road,
the other day. He carried a big basket on his arm, and was

169

JOHN peacefully smoking a big Dutch pipe. We talked of music and
J. ASTOR ^® ^^^ regretting the decline of a taste for Bach, when he
shifted the basket to the other arm.
"What have you in the basket?" I asked.
And here is the answer, "Noddings— but dynamite. I vas
going up on der hill, already, to blow me oud some stumps
oud." And I suddenly bethought me of an engagement I had
at the village.

OHN JACOB ASTOR was the
youngest of four sons, and as
many daughters. The brothers
ran away early in life, and went to
sea or joined the army. One of
these boys came to America, and
followed his father's trade of
butcher Jt> j/i

Jacob Astor, the happy father of
John Jacob, used to take the boy
with him on his pig-killing expedi-
tions. This for two reasons — one,
so the lad would learn a trade, and the other to make sure
that the boy did not run away.

Parents who hold their children by force have a very slender
claim upon them. The pastor of the local Lutheran Church
took pity on this boy, who had such disgust for his father's
trade and hired him to work in his garden and run errands.
170

q The intelligence and alertness of the lad made him look JOHN
like good timber for a minister. J. ASTOR

He learned to read and was duly confirmed as a member of
the church.

Under the kindly care of the village parson John Jacob grew
in mind and body — his estate was to come later. When he
was seventeen, his father came and made a formal demand
for his services. The young man must take up his father's
work of butchering.

That night John Jacob walked out of Waldorf by the wan
light of the moon, headed for Antwerp. He carried a big red
handkerchief in which his worldly goods were knotted, and in
his heart he had the blessings of the Lutheran clergyman,
who walked with him for half a mile, and said a prayer at
parting J^ ^

To have youth, high hope, right intent, health and a big red
handkerchief is to be greatly blessed.
John Jacob got a job next day as oarsman on a lumber raft.
^ He reached Antwerp in a week. There he got a job on the
docks as a laborer. The next day he was promoted to checker-
off. The captain of a ship asked him to go to London and
figure up the manifests on the way. He went.
The captain of the ship recommended him to the company in
London, and the boy was soon piling up wealth at the rate of a
guinea a month.

In September, Seventeen Hundred and Eighty-three, came
the news to London that George Washington had sur-
rendered. In any event, peace had been declared — Corn-
wallis had forced the issue, so the Americans had stopped
fighting ^ ^

171

TOHN ^ ^^**^® ^^*®^ ^* ^^^ given out that England had given up her
J. ASTOR American Colonies, and they were free.

Intuitively John Jacob Astor felt that the **New World" was
the place for him. He bought passage on a sailing ship bound
for Baltimore, at a cost of five pounds. He then fastened five
pounds in a belt around his waist, and with the rest of his
money — after sending two pounds home to his father, with a
letter of love — bought a dozen German flutes.
He had learned to play on this instrument with proficiency,
and in America he thought there would be an opening for
musicians and musical instruments.
John Jacob was then nearly twenty years of age.
The ship sailed in November, but did not reach Baltimore
until the middle of March, having to put back to sea on account
of storms when within sight of the Chesapeake. Then a
month was spent later hunting for the Chesapeake. There
was plenty of time for flute-playing and making of plans.
^ On board ship he met a German, twenty years older than
himself, who was a fur trader and had been home on a visit.
^ John Jacob played the flute and the German friend told
stories of fur trading among the Indians.
Young Astor*s curiosity was excited. The Waldorf-Astoria
plan of flute-playing was forgotten. He fed on fur trading.
^ The habits of the animals, the value of their pelts, the
curing of the furs, their final market, was all gone over again
and again. The two extra months at sea gave him an insight
into a great business and he had the time to fletcherize his
ideas. He thought about it — wrote about it in his diary, for
he was at the journal-age. Wolves, bears badgers, minks,
and muskrats, filled his dreams.
172

Arriving in Baltimore he was disappointed to learn that there joHN
were no fur traders there. He started for New York. j aSTOR

Here he found work with a certain Robert Bowne, a Quaker,
who bought and sold furs.

Young Astor set himself to learn the business — every part of
it. He was always sitting on the curb at the door before the
owner got around in the morning, carrying a big key to open
the warehouse. He was the last to leave at night. He pounded
furs with a stick, salted them, sorted them, took them to the
tanners, brought them home.
He worked, and as he worked, learned.
To secure the absolute confidence of a man, obey him. Only
thus do you get him to lay aside his weapons, be he friend or
enemy ^ ^

Any dullard can be waited on and served, but to serve requires
judgment, skill, tact, patience and industry.
The qualities that make a youth a good servant are the basic
ones for mastership. Astor*s alertness, willingness, loyalty,
and ability to obey, delivered his employer over into his hands.
^ Robert Bowne, the good old Quaker, insisted that Jacob
should call him Robert; and from boarding the young man
with a near-by war widow who took cheap boarders, Bowne
took young Astor to his own house, and raised his pay from
two dollars a week to six.

Bowne had made an annual trip to Montreal for many years,
^ Montreal was the metropolis for furs. Bowne went to
Montreal himself because he did not know of any one he
could trust to carry the message to Garcia. Those who knew
furs and had judgment were not honest, and those who were
honest did not know furs. Honest fools are really no better

173

JOHN than rogues, as far as practical purposes are concerned.
J. ASTOR Bowne once found a man who was honest and also knew
furs, but alas! he had a passion for drink, and no prophet
could foretell his ** periodic, " until after it occurred.
Young Astor had been with Bowne only a year. He spoke
imperfect English, but he did not drink nor gamble, and he
knew furs and was honest.

Bowne started him off for Canada with a belt full of gold;
his only weapon was a German flute that he carried in his
hand. Bowne being a Quaker did not believe in guns. Flutes
were a little out of his line, too, but he preferred them to
flintlocks ^ ^

John Jacob Astor ascended the Hudson River to Albany, and
then with pack on his back, struck north, alone, through the
^ forest for Lake Champlain. As he approached an Indian

settlement he played his flute. The aborigines showed no
disposition to give him the hook. He hired Indians to paddle
him up to the Canadian border. He reached Montreal.
The fur traders there knew Bowne as a very sharp buyer, and
so had their quills out on his approach. But young Astor was
seemingly indifferent. His manner was courteous and easy.
^ He got close to his man, and took his pick of the pelts at
fair prices. He expended all of his money, and even bought on
credit, for there are men who always have credit.
Young Astor found Indian nature to be simply human nature.
fl The savage was a man, and courtesy, gentleness and fairly
good flute-playing soothed his savage breast. Astor had beads
and blankets, a flute and a smile. The Indians carried his
goods by relays and then passed him on with guttural
certificates as to character, to other red men, and at last he
174

reached New York without the loss of a pelt or the dampening JOHN
of his ardor. j. ASTOR

Bowne was delighted. To young Astor it was nothing. He had
in his blood the success corpuscle. He might have remained
with Bowne and become a partner in the business, but
Bowne had business limitations and Astor had n't.
So after a three years' apprenticeship, Astor knew all that
Bowne did and all he himself could imagine besides. So he
resigned .^ J^

In Seventeen Hundred and Eighty-six, John Jacob Astor be-
gan business on his own account in a little store on Water
Street, New York. There was one room and a basement. He
had saved a few hundred dollars; his brother, the butcher,
had loaned him a few hundred more, and Robert Bowne had
contributed a bale of skins to be paid for **at thy own price
and thy own convenience."

Astor had made friends with the Indians up the Hudson clear
to Albany, and they were acting as recruiting agents for him.
He was a bit boastful of the fact that he had taught an
Indian to play the flute, and anyway he had sold the savage
the instrument for a bale of beaver pelts, with a bearskin
thrown in for good measure. It was a musical achievement
as well as a commercial one.

Having collected several thousand dollars' worth of furs he
shipped them to London and embarked as a passenger in the
steerage. The trip showed him that ability to sell was quite
as necessary as the ability to buy — a point which with all of
his shrewdness Bowne had never guessed.
In London furs were becoming a fad. Astor sorted and sifted
his buyers, as he had his skins. He himself dressed in a suit

175

JOHN Qf fur and thus proved his ability as an advertiser. He picked
J. ASTOR his men and charged all the traffic would bear. He took
orders, on sample, from the nobility and sundry of the gentry,
and thereby cut the middleman. All of the money he received
for his skins, he invested in "Indian Goods" — colored cloth,
beads, blankets, knives, axes, and musical instruments.
His was the first store in New York that carried a stock of
musical instruments. These he sold to savages, and also he
supplied the stolid Dutch the best of everything in this
particular line from a bazoo to a Stradivarius violin.
When he got back to New York, he at once struck out
through the wilderness to buy furs of the Indians, or better
still, to interest them in bringing furs to him. ^ He knew the
value of friendship in trade as no man of the time did.
He went clear through to Lake Erie, down to Niagara Falls,
along Lake Ontario, across to Lake Champlain and then down
the Hudson. He foresaw the great city of Buffalo, and
Rochester as well, only he said that Rochester would
probably be situated directly on the Lake. But the water-
power of the Genesee Falls proved a stronger drawing power
than the Lake Front. He prophesied that along the banks of
the Niagara Falls would be built the greatest manufacturing
city in the world. There were flour-mills and sawmills there
then. The lumber first used in building the city of Buffalo
was brought from the sawmills at "The Falls."
Electric power, of course, was then a thing unguessed, but
Astor prophesied the Erie Canal, and made good guesses as
to where prosperous cities would appear along its line.
In Seventeen Hundred and Ninety, John Jacob Astor mar-
ried Sarah Todd. Her mother was a Brevoort, and it was
176

brought about by her coming to Astor to buy furs with which
to make herself a coat. Her ability to judge furs and make
them up won the heart of the dealer. The marriage brought
young Astor into "the best Dutch New York society," a
combination that was quite as exclusive then as now.
This marriage was a business partnership as well as marital,
and proved a success in every way. Sarah was a worker, with
all the good old Dutch qualities of patience, persistence,
industry and economy. When her husband went on trips she
kept store. She was the only partner in which he ever had
implicit faith. And faith is the first requisite in success.
Captain Cook had skirted the Pacific Coast from Cape Horn
to Alaska, and had brought to the attention of the fur-dealing
and fur-wearing world the sea-otter of the Northern Pacific.
^ He also gave a psychological prophetic glimpse of the
insidious sealskin sacque.

In Seventeen Hundred and Ninety, a ship from the Pacific
brought a hundred otterskins to New York. The skins were
quickly sold to London buyers at exorbitant prices.
The nobility wanted sea-otter, or ** Royal American Ermine, "
as they called it. The scarcity boomed the price. Ships were
quickly fitted out and dispatched. Boats bound for the whale
fisheries were diverted, and New Bedford had a spasm of
jealousy. ^ Astor encouraged these expeditions, but at first
invested no money in them, as he considered them ** extra
hazardous. " He was not a speculator.

JOHN

J. ASTOR

177

JOHN
ASTOR

NTIL the year Eighteen Hundred,
Astor lived over his store in Water
Street, but he then moved to the
plain and modest house at Two
Hundred and Twenty-three Broad-
way, on the site of the old Astor
House. Here he lived for twenty-
five years.

The fur business was simple and
very profitable. Astor now was
confining himself mostly to beaver-
skins. He fixed the price at one
dollar, to be paid to the Indians or trappers. It cost fifty
cents to prepare and transport the skin to London. There it
was sold at from five to ten dollars. All of the money received
for skins was then invested in English merchandise, which
was sold in New York at a profit. In Eighteen Hundred, Astor
owned three ships which he had bought so as to absolutely
control his trade. Ascertaining that London dealers were
reshipping furs to China, early in the century he dispatched
one of his ships directly to the Orient, loaded with furs, with
explicit written instructions to the captain as to what the
cargo should be sold for. The money was to be invested in teas
and silks. ^ The ship sailed away, and had been gone a year.
^ No tidings had come from her.

Suddenly a messenger came with news that the ship was in
the bay. We can imagine the interest of Mr. and Mrs. Astor
as they locked their store and ran to the Battery. Sure enough,
it was their ship, riding gently on the tide, snug, strong and
safe as when she had left.
178

The profit on this one voyage was seventy thousand dollars. JOHN
By Eighteen Hundred and Ten, John Jacob Astor was worth j aSTOR
two million dollars. He began to invest all his surplus money
in New York real estate. He bought acreage property in the
vicinity of Canal Street. Next he bought Richmond Hill, the
estate of Aaron Burr. It consisted of one hundred and sixty
acres just above Twenty-third Street. He paid for the land
a thousand dollars an acre. People said Astor was crazy.
In ten years he began to sell lots from the Richmond Hill
property at the rate of five thousand dollars an acre. Fortu-
nately for his estate he did not sell much of the land at this
price, for it is this particular dirt that makes up that vast
property known as "The Astor Estate."
During the Revolutionary War, Roger Morris, of Putnam
County, New York, made the mistake of siding with the
Tories.

A mob collected, and Morris and his family escaped, taking
ship to England.

Before leaving, Morris declared his intention of coming back
as soon as "the insurrection was quelled."
The British troops, we are reliably informed, failed to quell
the insurrection.
Roger Morris never came back.

Roger Morris is known in history as the man who married
Mary Philipse. And this lady lives in history because she had
the felicity of having been proposed to by George Washington.
It is George himself, tells of this in his Journal, and George
you remember could not tell a lie.

George was twenty-five, he was on his way to Boston, and
entertained at the Philipse house, the Plaza not having

179

JOHN ^jjgQ ijggjj built. ^Mary was twenty, pink and lissome. She
J. ASTOR played the harpsichord. Immediately after supper George,
finding himself alone in the parlor with the girl, proposed.
QHe was an opportunist.

The lady pleaded for time, which the Father of his Country
declined to give. He was a soldier and demanded immediate
surrender. A small quarrel followed, and George saddled his
horse and rode on his way to fame and fortune.
Mary thought he would come back, but George never pro-
posed to the same lady twice. Yet he thought kindly of Mary
and excused her conduct by recording, '*I think ye ladye was
not in ye moode."

Just twenty-two years after this bout with Cupid, General
George Washington, Commander-in-Chief of the Continental
Army, occupied the Roger Morris Mansion as headquarters,
the occupants having fled. Washington had a sly sense of
humor, and on the occasion of his moving into the mansion,
remarked to Colonel Aaron Burr, his aide, "I move in here
for sentimental reasons — ^^I have a small and indirect claim
on the place. "

It was Washington who formally confiscated the property,
and turned it over to the State of New York as contraband of
war t^ S'

The Morris estate of about fifty thousand acres was parceled
out and sold by the State of New York to settlers.
It seems, however, that Roger Morris had only a life interest
in the estate and this was a legal point so fine that it was en-
tirely overlooked in the joy of confiscation. Washington was
a great soldier, but an indifferent lawyer.
John Jacob Astor accidentally ascertained the facts. He was
i8o

convinced that the heirs could not be robbed of their rights
through the acts of a leaseholder, which, legally was the
status of Roger Morris. Astor was a good real estate lawyer
himself, but he referred the point to the best counsel he
could find. They agreed with him. He next hunted up the heirs
and bought their quitclaims for one hundred thousand
dollars ^ ^

He then notified the parties who had purchased the land, and
they in turn made claim upon the State for protection.
After much legal parleying the case was tried according to
stipulation with the State of New York, directly, as defendant
and Astor and the occupants as plaintiffs. Daniel Webster
and Martin Van Buren appeared for the State, and an array of
lesser legal lights for Astor.

The case was narrowed down to the plain and simple point
that Roger Morris was not the legal owner of the estate, and
that the rightful heirs could not be made to suffer for the
"treason, contumacy and contravention" of another. Astor
won, and as a compromise the State issued him twenty-year
bonds bearing six per cent interest, for the neat sum of five
hundred thousand dollars — not that Astor needed the money
but finance was to him a game, and he had won.

JOHN

J. ASTOR

i8i

JOHN
ASTOR

N front of the first A. T. Stewart
store there used to be an old
woman who sold apples. Regard-
less of weather, there she sat and
mumbled her wares at the passer-
by. She was a combination beggar
and merchant, with a blundering
wit, a ready tongue and a vocabu-
lary unfit for publication.
Her commercial genius is shown
in the fact that she secured one
good paying customer — Alexander
T. Stewart. Stewart grew to believe in her as his spirit of good
luck. Once when bargains had been offered at the Stewart
store and the old woman was not at her place on the curb,
the merchant-prince sent his carriage for her in hot haste
"lest offense be given." And the day was saved.
When the original store was abandoned for the Stewart
"Palace" the old apple woman with her box, basket and
umbrella were tenderly taken along, too.
John Jacob Astor had no such belief in luck omens, portents,
or mascots as had A. T. Stewart. With him success was a
sequence — a result — it was all cause and effect. A. T. Stewart
did not trust entirely to luck, for he too, carefully devised and
planned. But the difference between the Celtic and Teutonic
mind is shown in that Stewart hoped to succeed, while Astor
knew that he would. One was a bit anxious; the other
exasperatingly placid.

Astor took a deep interest in the Lewis and Clark expedition.
^ He went to Washington to see Lewis, and questioned him
182

at great length about the Northwest. Legend says that he JOHN
gave the hardy discoverer a thousand dollars, which was a J- ASTOR
big amount for him to give away.

Once a committee called on him with a subscription list for
some worthy charity. Astor subscribed fifty dollars. One of
the disappointed committee remarked, **0h, Mr. Astor, your
son William gave us a hundred dollars."
<*Yes," said the old man, "Put you must remember that
William has a rich father. '*

Washington Irving has told the story of Astoria at length. It
was the one financial plunge taken by John Jacob Astor.
And in spite of the fact that it failed, the whole affair does
credit to the prophetic brain of Astor.
"This country will see a chain of growing and prosperous
cities straight from New York to Astoria, Oregon, " said this
man in reply to a doubting questioner.
He laid his plans before Congress, urging a line of army posts,
forty miles apart, from the western extremity of Lake
Superior to the Pacific. "These forts or army posts will evolve
into cities, " said Astor, when he called on Thomas Jefferson,
who was then President of the United States. Jefferson was
interested, but non-committal. Astor exhibited maps of the
Great Lakes, and the country beyond. He argued with a
prescience then not possessed by any living man that at the
western extremity of Lake Superior would grow up a great
city. Yet in Eighteen Hundred and Seventy-six, Duluth was
ridiculed by the caustic tongue of Proctor Knott, who asked,
"What will become of Duluth when the lumber crop is cut?'*
Astor proceeded to say that another great city would grow
up at the southern extremity of Lake Michigan. General

183

JOHN ^^earborn, Secretary of War under Jefiferson had just estab-
T ASTOR ^^s^®^ ^^^* Dearborn on the present site of Chicago. Astor
commended this, and said : " From a fort you get a trading
post, and from a trading post you will get a city. "
He pointed out to Jefferson the site, on his map, of the Falls
of St. Anthony. "There you will have a fort some day, for
wherever there is water-power, there will grow up mills for
grinding grain and sawmills, as well. This place of power will
have to be protected, and so you will have there a post which
will eventually be replaced by a city. " Yet Fort Snelling was
nearly fifty years in the future and St. Paul and Minneapolis
were dreams undreamed.

Jefferson took time to think about it and then wrote Astor
thus, "Your beginning of a city on the Western Coast is a
great acquisition, and I look forward to a time when our
population will spread itself up and down along the whole
Pacific frontage, unconnected with us, excepting by ties of
blood and common interest, and enjoying like us, the rights
of self-government."

The Pilgrim Fathers thought land that lay inward from the sea
as valueless. The forest was an impassible barrier. Later, up
to the time of George Washington, the AUeghanies were
regarded as a natural barrier. Patrick Henry likened the
Alleghany Mountains to the Alps that separated Italy from
Germany and said, "The mountain ranges are lines that God
has set to separate one people from another. "
Later, statesmen have spoken of the ocean in the same way,
as proof that a union of all countries under an international
capital could never exist.

Great as was Jefferson, he regarded the achievement of
184

Lewis and Clarke as a feat and not an example. He looked jOHN
upon the Rocky Mountains as a natural separation of j AS TOR
peoples ** bound by ties of blood and mutual interest" but
otherwise unconnected. To pierce these mighty mountains
with tunnels, and whisper across them with the human voice,
were miracles unguessed. But Astor closed his eyes and saw
pack-trains, mules laden with skins, winding across these
mountains, and down to tide-water at Astoria. There his ships
would be lying at the docks, ready to sail for the Far East.
James J. Hill was yet to come.

COMPANY was formed, and two
expeditions set out for the mouth
of the Columbia River, one by
land and the other by sea.
The land expedition barely got
through alive — it was a perilous
undertaking, with accidents by
flood and field and in the imminent
deadly breech.

But the route by the water was
feasible.

The town was founded and soon
became a centre of commercial activity. Had Astor been on
thef ground to take personal charge, a city like Seattle would
have bloomed and blossomed on the Pacific, fifty years ago.
But power at Astoria was subdivided among several little men,

185

JOHN who wore themselves out in a struggle for honors, and to see
J. ASTOR who would be greatest in the kingdom of heaven. John Jacob
Astor was too far away to send a current of electricity through
the vacuum of their minds, light up the recesses with reason,
and shock them into sanity. Like those first settlers at
Jamestown, the pioneers at Astoria saw only failure ahead,
and that which we fear, we bring to pass. To settle a con-
tinent with men is almost as difficult as Nature's attempt to
form a soil on a rocky surface.

There came a grand grab at Astoria and it was each for him-
self and the devil take the hindermost— it was a stampede.
^ System and order went by the board. The strongest stole
the most, as usual, but all got a little. And England's gain in
citizens was our loss.

Astor lost a million dollars by the venture. He smiled calmly
and said, **The plan was right, but my men were weak, that
is all. The gateway to China will be from the northwest. My
plans were correct. Time will vindicate my reasoning. "
When the block on Broadway, bounded by Vesey and Barclay
Streets, was cleared of its plain two story houses, preparatory
to building the Astor House, wise men shook their heads and
said, **It's too far uptown."

But the free bus that met all boats solved the difficulty, and
gave the cue to hotel men all over the world. The hotel that
runs full is a gold mine. Hungry men feed, and the beautiful
part about the hotel business is that the customers are hungry
the next day — also thirsty. Astor was worth ten million, but
he took a personal delight in sitting in the lobby of the Astor
House and watching the dollars roll into this palace that his
brain had planned. To have an idea — to watch it grow — to
i86

then work it out, and see it made manifest in concrete sub- JOHN
stance, this was his joy. The Astor House was a bigger J. ASTOR
hostelry in its day than the Waldorf-Astoria is now.
Astor was tall, thin, and commanding in appearance. He had
only one hallucination, and that was that he spoke the Eng-
lish language. The accent he possessed at thirty was with him
in all its pristine effulgence at eighty-five. "Nopody vould
know I vas a Cherman — aind't it?" he used to say. He spoke
French, a dash of Spanish and could parley in Choctaw,
Ottawa, Mohawk and Huron. But they who speak several
languages must not be expected to speak any one language
well Ji> Jt>

Yet when John Jacob wrote it was English without a flaw.
In all of his dealings he was uniquely honorable and upright.
He paid and he made others pay. His word was his bond. He
was not charitable in the sense of indiscriminate giving. "To
give something for nothing is to weaken the giver, " was one
of his favorite sayings. That this attitude protected a miserly
spirit, it is easy to say, but it is not wholly true. In his later
years he carried with him a book containing a record of his
possessions. This was his breviary. In it he took a very
pardonable delight. He would visit a certain piece of property,
and then turn to his book and see what it had cost him ten or
twenty years before. To reaHze that his prophetic vision had
been correct was to him a great source of satisfaction.
His habits were of the best. He went to bed at nine o'clock,
and was up before six. At seven he was at his office. He knew
enough to eat sparingly and to walk, so he was never sick.
^ Millionaires as a rule are woefully ignorant. Up to a
certain sum, they grow with their acquisitions. Then they

187

JOHN tjegin to wither at the heart. The care of a fortune is a penalty
J. AS TOR I advise the gentle reader to think twice before accumulating
ten millions.

John Jacob Astor was exceptional in his combined love of
money and love of books. History was at his tongue's end,
and geography was his plaything. Fitz-Greene Halleck was
his private secretary, hired on a basis of literary friendship.
Washington Irving was a close friend, too, and first crossed
the Atlantic on an Astor pass. He banked on Washington
Irving's genius, and loaned him money to come and go, and
buy a house. Irving was named in Astor's will as one of the
trustees of the Astor Library Fund, and repaid all favors by
writing "Astoria.'*

Astor died, aged eighty-six. It was a natural death, a thing
that very seldom occurs. The machinery all ran down at once.
^ Realizing his lack of book advantages, he left by his will
four hundred thousand dollars to found the Astor Library,
in order that others might profit where he had lacked.
He also left fifty thousand dollars to his native town of
Waldorf, a part of which money was used to found an Astor
Library there. God is surely good, for if millionaires were
immortal, their money would cause them great misery and
the swollen fortunes would crowd mankind, not only 'gainst
the wall, but into the sea. Death is the deliverer, for Time
checks power and equalizes all things, and gives the new
generation a chance.

Astor hated gamblers. He never confused gambling, as a
mode of money getting, with actual production. He knew
that gambling produces nothing — it merely transfers wealth,
changes ownership. And since it involves loss of time and
i88

energy it is a positive waste. ^Yet to buy land and hold it, JO^N
thus betting on its rise in value, is not production, either. J- ASTOR
Nevertheless, this was to Astor, legitimate and right.
Henry George threw no shadow before, and no economist had
ever written that to secure land and hold it unused, awaiting
a rise in value, was a dog-in-the-manger, unethical and
selfish policy. Morality is a matter of longitude and time.
Astor was a member of the Dutch Reformed Church, and
yet he lived out his days with a beautiful and perfect dis-
belief in revealed religion.

He knew enough of biology to know that religions are not
"revealed" — they are evolved. Yet he recognized the value
of the Church as a social factor. To him it was a good police
system, and so when rightly importuned he gave, with be-
coming moderation, to all faiths and creeds.
A couple of generations back in his ancestry there was a
renegade Jew who loved a Christian girl, and thereby moulted
his religion. When Cupid crosses swords with a priest, religion
gets a death stroke. This stream of free blood was the inheri-
tance of John Jacob Astor.

William B. Astor, the son of John Jacob, was brought up in
the financial way he should go. He was studious, methodical,
conservative, and had the good sense to carry out the wishes
of his father. His son John Jacob Astor was very much like
him, only of more neutral tint. The time is now ripe for
another genius in the Astor family. If William B. Astor
lacked the courage and initiative of his parent, he had more
culture, and spoke English without an accent. The son of
John Jacob Astor second, is William Waldorf Astor, who
speaks English with an English accent, you know.

189

JOHN John Jacob Astor, besides having the first store for the sale

J. ASTOR of musical instruments in America, organized the first

orchestra of over twelve players. He brought over a leader

from Germany, and did much to foster the love of music in

the New World.

Every worthy Maecenas imagines that he is a great painter,
writer, sculptor or musician, side-tracked by material cares
thrust upon him by unkind fate. John Jacob Astor once told
Washington Irving that it was only business responsibility
that prevented his being a novelist; and at other times he
declared his intent to take up music as a profession as soon as
he had gotten all of his securities properly tied up. And
whether he worked out his dreams or not, there is no doubt
but that they added to his peace, happiness and length of
days. Happy is the man who escapes the critics by leaving his
literary masterpiece in the ink.

190

SOCIALISM AND LABOR

OU have heard me talk about
Elbert Hubbard, haven't you? I
think he is the best writer in the
world, and the clearest thinker. I
don't always agree with him, but
then, I don't always agree with
myself. I revere him because he
says what sets me to thinking, and
he has taught me more than any
other man I ever read. Of course I
understand the risk I run in
admiring a man that 's alive and
liable to go wrong ; but I 'm tak-
ing that risk with my eyes open,
with the sincere hope that Fra Elbertus will manage to
keep straight till the Reaper comes. He publishes **The
Philistine" and LITTLE JOURNEYS, every month, and
I can make you a subscriber to these two for ten shillings a
year. And the joke is, that when you pay your subscription,
the Fra sends you a de luxe book that is worth the ten shillings.
He is a wonder. He has a big place at East Aurora, New York
State, and the next time I go home I must surely get that far
to see the place. He employs about five hundred hands, under
ideal conditions ; he lives the life, and gets thousands of others
to do the same. Now, I want to tell you something about the
Fra Jt' J>

THE Federation of Labor has declared The Roycroft Shop
at East Aurora, on the Unfair List. And I 'm glad ! They
did that two years ago, but the Fra just found it out by an
advertiser calling off, and declaring that the Union will fix
him if he deals with a shop that does not use the *' Union
Label." I 'm glad the Fra has been declared a scab, because

first, the Fra is a friend of mine. I never met him, but you
don't need to meet your friends at all. I have friends who
have been dead thousands of years, and they are more real
to me than many of the folks I meet every day. The Fra and
I are friends, even if we never meet. I 'm glad they have boy-
cotted him, because he is a man with the power of expression,
with a soul to understand, with an eye to see, and with a
heart to feel. The Fra is the best man in America to put on
the Unfair List, because he can tell what has happened, and
his story will appeal to thousands, aye, to millions. It is the
best thing that ever happened to him, for as soon as ever I
heard of it, I wanted to declare my friendship for him, and
to say: **Buck up, ole man, I *m your backer."

THE Fra says that the reason he is boycotted is that, "The
Roycrof t Shop is teaching trades to an unlimited number
of boys and girls." He adds further: **Let it be said that The
Roycrof t Shop has never had a strike ; that the wages we pay
are above the Union Scale ; that the conditions under which
The Roycrofters work are better than any Union ever de-
manded or imagined." So The Federation of Labor has de-
clared the roy craft (the king's workers) a **scab shop."
^ Good, so let it be ! I want to say some things about Unions
in general, and this levelling down business, in particular.
^ You will notice that I headed this gossip, "Socialism and
Labor." I wrote that before I started, for I want to explain
some things in regard to my views, as I promised "Austra-
lienne " last week. When a man asks me if I 'm a Socialist I
answer him according to the sort of man I think he is. If he
is a Christian Socialist who wants to level all men up to be
the "Sons of God," then I 'm a Socialist. If he means — do I
want to level all men down to the same stage, where we shall
all be alike, then I say, "No, I 'm not a Socialist. " But no two
men mean the same thing when they use the same word.
I 'm not going to set up a straw man for the sake of knocking

him down again. I may as well say, here and now, that you
can't label me. No union label will fit me. I *m a free man, or
as near free as a foolish education and a silly world will allow
me to be. But Labor is n't the same as Socialism ! Is it? You
see, I *m a Labor man, if it means a man that labors ; but it
means something else. You will find that the difference be-
tween Labor and Socialism is but the difference between
tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum. But as very few men are
accurate thinkers we are under the impression that they are
different things. They are not !

THE aim of the Union is to make all men equal. That is a
noble ideal. The aim of the Union is that there shall be
no very rich, and no very poor, but that all men shall be
brothers. That is also a noble ideal, but the aim of Socialism
— or Labor, call it which you like — is to abolish all the moun-
tains, and reduce us all to a dead level. It aims at the lazy
people's heavenly ideal of eternal peace and idleness, and
that means mental degradation. The law of the Overland
is, **eat or be eaten." I think it is a hideously cruel law, but
I 'm not responsible for it. It was there when the human race
came into the world, and it will be there till the human race
has had its day and ceased to be. We are what we were born
to be, to an enormous extent, and the levellers are what they
are, owing to their ignorance. Life itself is but a brief con-
vulsion between two eternities, and we know not what it
means, as a steady thing. Old Saadi, the Persian, remarked a
few centuries ago —

Open the tombs and see the bones

there mixed in mockery!
Which dust was servant, which was

lord? open the tombs and see!

THE Federation of Labor has declared The Roycrof t Shop a
scab shop, unless it comes down to the union label, and

ill

gives itself over, soul and body, to the domination of the
Union. That is the simple desire of socialism and labor, to
reduce us all to the dead level of mediocrity. We are to be all
of one blood, all brethren, and the Ape and the Tiger are to be
eliminated by the union. God bless the union, merry gentle-
men ! Don*t laugh at it though, for, mind you, the ideal is a
lovely one. But there is no hope for it, because when one race
is levelled down to the Union platform, a more virile race
will come along and sweep it from off the face of the earth. If
we level the mountains, we shall have very level plains, and
Nature will not have levels for long. The volcano and the
earthquake are forever at work, and eternal motion and
movement is the law of the Universe. Nothing endures but
change! Dead levels are unthinkable. Life itself is exploita-
tion, dominance, destruction.

LOOK at all democracies, all forms of ** united" workers.
They object to paying for brains. If the wages of the
men are eight shillings a day, they would refuse to give a
man with brains a thousand pounds a year for supervision.
^ We are to be all full privates in the new democracy, and
the cry is, **Down with all that 's up, " but the law will not be
contemned of any, and the fact that the Fra*s shop at East
Aurora has been declared a scab shop will open the eyes of
millions. I am glad that my friend has been boycotted, for it
will help us to understand what Unionism means. Listen to
the Fra. He says: **A labor union may do good. I never ask
a man whether he belongs to a union any more than I would
ask if he belongs to a church. That is his business. I most
certainly would not ask him to renounce his union unless the
union were trying to throttle him. Even then it is his affair.
But certainly we will not be dictated to by men with less
intelligence, energy, initiative and ambition than we ourselves
possess. " Right, Fra, the men with brains and initiative must
rule, and they will rule in spite of all unions! I have spoken.
— R. McMillan, in the Sidney, Australia, "Journal."
iv

^Y'When writing men like Gentile Bellini, William Cazton,
%^l Benjamin Franklin, Horace Walpole, William Morris and
^ Thomas De Vinne felt in the mood to exude some particu-
larly hot copy, they hiked for the type-case and worked their
energy up into a galley of Good Stuff. They setup the matter as
they composed it. Thus we get the words "composing-stick"
and "compositor." Qln those days the printer was always a man
of considerable literary ability. People used to doff their hats
when they met him on the street and address "Mr. Printer." And
as a follow-up custom, it was only the day before yesterday that
folks stopped saying "Mr. Editor." <5 These early printer-authors
had pronounced preferences for different type faces and families,
and the adoption or rejection of these various choices segregated
all shops into exponents of certain "styles." QEvery print-shop
now has its particular conception of what constitutes style in
typography. No two offices have identical views on this subject,
though all of them are evolving towards an Idea which had its
first modern impulse in The Roycroft Shop. Q The beauty and
adaptability of this Idea found for it considerable favor, and
' 'Roycroft Style" is now a well-known phrase in commercial print-
ing circles. But the best printers in the country have been unable
to successfully reproduce "Roycroft Style." For "Roycroft
Style" is more than a style, it 's an Art— an Art born of
Artistic Environment and developed by boys and girls
working under conditions which approach the Ideal. At ^
The Roycroft Shop we produce both Art and Artists.

If You Want Printing Done Very i jq
De Lxixe, Let Us Know Your Needs

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STUDENTS of Current Events, also Literary Aspirants,
read THE PHILISTINE for Vibes, Vibrations and
Volts; for style in diction; for unbiased, intelligent
opinions on Things as Things. QMany choice articles have
decorated THE PHILISTINE pages during the past ten
years; Articles that attracted a following numbering into
the hundred thousands; Articles that gained and earned
the sanctified horror of Theological Tea-Drinkers. QtHE
PHILISTINE w&s and is the Advance Agent of Mental
Emancipation. You hear the Voice of Freedom in THE
PHILISTINE, q TWENTY-FIVE PHILISTINES ARE
A LIBERAL EDUCATION ^ ^ J' J' ^ Ji> Jt' ^ J- Ji>

The Good Stuff Never Grows Old

LITTLE JOURNEYS deal with the Great and Near-
Great of History. They tell in a friendly, confidential
way, the hopes and fears, the achievements and the dis-
appointments, the joys and the sorrows of the World's
Elect. A hfe is a wonderful thing, beheves the Fra, and not
a single scene in the panorama is without its use. QTho
preserving identities, he introduces a flesh-and-blood man,
whose struggles are your struggles and whose attainments
are your attainments. You meet the Genius on a Basis of
Equality. Q'Tis easy to tear down, to destroy, to muck-
rake— Hubbard upbuilds. C^Sent^ the Dollar Today

THE ROYCROFTERS, East Aurora, New York

MBITION
IS NOT
A VICE

OF LITTLE
PEOPLE

MONTAIGNE

LIFE spent

wor

thil

should be

measured by deeds,
not years % :p^ :5^ ^

SHERIDAN

Vol. 25

JULY, MCMIX

No. 1

iu/m

TO THg HOME^Tff]

IME^^ MEM

BY ELEER-r

^^^FgQY^

PETER COOPER

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HE BLPCK
OF GRANITE
WHICH IS AN
OBSTACLE

IN THE PATHWAY OF
THE WEAK, BECOMES
A STEPPING-STONE IN
THE PATHWAY OF
THE STROHG-cARLYLE

Ettterad at Uie p<«taface in East Aurora, New York, tor transmission as aecoud-claas matter
Copyright, 1»09, by Elbert Hubbard, Editor and Publisher,

0iuiml Conbention

August Twenty-third to September First

ARLY last September, Professor S. L. Barrow-
Clough, Master Musician of Winnipeg, and his
sixty-one bonnie, blue-eyed Band Boys paid us
a visit here in East Aurora. QOut on the Peri-
style, underneath an Orange Moon, surrounded
by giant trees, these men played to the greatest audiences
ever assembled in East Aurora. QOver three thousand
people. Royal, Loyal Roycrofters, gathered to greet the
Winnipeg Band J> They perched on the Peristyle, they
carried benches down around the Fountain in the Court,
they overflowed the lawns, clustered about the Well Sweep
and swarmed the Stone Walls and Tree Seats in the
Orchard like Locusts «^ Such Music ! G[And now, Barrow-
Clough and his Premier Performers are coming back. They
have accepted our Invitation; they will bring their Instru-
ments and spend a week. Q Other Musicians, Soloists,
Vocalists and Troifpes are coming too, and for a time the
Home of The Roycrofters will be transformed into a Garden
of Harmony. QSo now then we announce a Congress of
Musicians, August Twenty-third to September First «^
There is a place at the Roycroft Festal Board for every
lover of Sweet Sounds. Only, if you are coming you had
better let us know a bit beforehand »^ ^ j^ j^ j^ ^

Cfje a^opcrofterjs. Cast aiurora, ^t^ |?orfe

Inspirational Little Journeys

LIMP-LEATHER EDITION

^TT Progressive Educators consider a complete
^ij set of Little Journeys in many ways superior
to a four years' Course in College English.
Others value their condensed Historical teach-
ings; while the yield to the literary aspirant
is style in diction and virility. ^Free from the
Cumbersome and Conventional — Little Jour-
neys pulse "with interest. Subjects as follows:

Vol. 6. Morris, Browning, Tennyson, Burns, Milton,

Johnson.
Vol. 7. Macaulay, Byron, Addison, Southey, Coleridge,

Disraeli. ^
Vol. 8. Wagner, Paganini, Chopin, Mozart, Bach,

Mendelssohn.
Vol. 9. Liszt, Beethoven, Handel, Verdi, Schumann,

Brahms.
Vol. 10. Raphael, Leonardo, Botticelli, Thorwaldsen,

Gainsborough, Velasquez.
Vol. 11. Corot, Correggio, Bellini, Cellini, Whistler,

Abbey.
Vol. 12. Pericles, Anthony, Savonarola, Luther, Burke,

Pitt.
Vol. 13. Marat, Ingersoll, Patrick Henry, Starr King,

Beecher, Phillips.
Vol. 14. Socrates, Aristotle, Spinoza, Seneca, Aurelius,

Swedenborg.
Vol. 15. Kant, Comte, Voltaire, Spencer, Schopenhauer,

Thoreau.

INSPIRATIONAL UHLE JOURNEYS— Continued

Vol. 16. Copernicus, Newton, Herschel, Galileo, Hum-
boldt, Darwin.

Vol. 17. Haeckel, Linnaeus, Huxley, Tyndall, Wallace,
Fiske.

Vol. 18. Josiah and Sarah Wedgwood, William Godwin
and Mary Wollstonecraft, Dante and Beatrice,
John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor, Parnell
and Kitty O'Shea, Petrarch and Laura.

Vol. 19. Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Elizabeth Siddal,
Balzac and Madame Hanska, Fenelon and
Madame Guyon, Ferdinand Lassalle and Helen
von Donniges, Lord Nelson and Lady Hamilton,
Robert Louis Stevenson and Fannie Osbourne.

Vol. 20. John Wesley, Henry George, Garibaldi, Richard
Cobden, Thomas Paine, John Knox.

Vol. 21. John Bright, Oliver Cromwell, Theodore Parker,
Bradlaugh, Anne Hutchinson, Jean Jacques
Rousseau.

Vol. 22. Moses, Confucius, Pythagoras, Plato, King
Alfred, Friedrich Froebel,

Vol. 23. Booker T. Washington, Thomas Arnold, Eras-
mus, Hypatia, St. Benedict, Mary Baker Eddy.

The above-named Little Journeys have been
reprinted on Italian Hand-made paper, and
Bound artfully in Limp leather, silk-lined, gilt
top, with silk marker. Six Little Journeys in
each Volume — some few are illumined by hand.
THREE DOLLARS THE VOLUME.

THE ROYCROFTERS
East Aurora, Elrie County, New York

Poets, like painters thus unskilled to trace

The naked nature and the living grace.

With gold and jewels cover every part.

And hide with ornaments their want of art.— Pope

Roycroft Furniture

THE

ANTITHESIS OF CHIPPENDALE

'HE men who make
Roycroft Furniture
do not cover theit skill
with ornamentation. They
do not permit Rococo
finishes or Rocaille de-
signs to clutter the sur-
face of their work. Beds,
Bookcases and Tables
made by East Aurora
Craftsmen never border
on the Baroque, nor do
the chairs and benches
creak beneath the Seats
of the Mighty. Q Sturdy
and strong as the Artists
who liberate them from
the log, products of our
Wood Shop please those
people who see beauty in
utility and service. Roy-
croft Furniture presages
a 'day when Common-
sense shall hold sway in house decoration — when only the
things are considered Best, whose Makers dedicated their
work to Time. Catalogue on Application jIt ^ Jt jt Jt ji
THE ROYCROFTERS, East Aurora, N. Y.

iic^umhY:^

[EHHEZHDHE^DB

EE^ZHEH

BY ELBERT

PETER COOPER

LOriE ' IMTOZB

BOOK-BY-THB

S|)Z Ny H I \H -J^^ 3g S g

SlgEn^T- ni/RQRFI^g ^g

Sg sgEEEzmiziTra ^^ ^)Z

M • ^ ■ M ■ I ^PlqPE

PETER COOPER

LET our schools teach the nobility of labor, and the beauty of
human service, but the superstitions of ages past — never I
— PETER COOPER, Memorial to the Legislature of New York.

LITTLE JOURNEYS

ETER COOPER was born in New
York City in Seventeen Hundred
and Ninety-one. He lived to be
ninety-two years old, passing out
in Eighteen Hundred and Eighty-
three ^ Jt»

He was, successively, laborer,
clerk, mechanic, inventor, manu-
facturer, financier, teacher, phi-
lanthropist and philosopher.
If Robert Owen was the world's
first modern merchant, Peter
Cooper was America's first business man. He seems the first
prominent man in the United States to abandon that legal
wheeze, **caveat emptor." In fact, he worked for the buyer,
and considered the other man's interests before he did his
own. He practised the Golden Rule, and made it pay, while
the most of us yet regard it as a kind of interesting experi-
ment ^ J>

I have said a few oblique things about city-bred boys, and
city people in general, but I feel like apologizing for them
and doing penance when I think of restless, tireless, eager,
brave, honest and manly Peter Cooper.
When that New York City woman, last week, observing a
beautiful brass model of an Oliver Plow on my mantel asked
me, "What is this musical instrument?" she proved herself
not of the Peter Cooper tribe.
She was the other kind — the kind that seeing the poUywogs

PETER COOPER

remarks, **0h, how lovely — they will all be butterflies next
week!" Or, "Which cow is it that gives the buttermilk?"
a question that once made Nathan Straus walk on his hands.
^Although Peter Cooper was born in New York City and had
a home there most of his life, he loved the country, and for
many years made Sunday sacred for the woods and fields jt
Yet as a matter of strictest truth let it be stated that, although
Peter Cooper was born in New York City, when he was two
years old, like Bill Nye, he persuaded his parents to move.
The family gravitated to the then little village of Peekskill,
and here the lad lived until he was seventeen years old.
Next to Benjamin Franklin, Peter Cooper was our all-round,
educated American. His perfect health — living to a great
age — with sanity and happiness as his portion, proves him
to be one who knew the laws of health and also had the will
to obey them. He never ** retired from business" — if he quit
one kind of work it was to take up something more difficult.
^ He was in the fight to the day of his death ; and always he
carried the flag further to the front.

He was a Free Thinker at a time when to have thoughts of
your own was to be an outcast. His restless mind was no
more satisfied with an outworn theology than with an out-
grown system of transportation.

His religion was blended with his work and fused with his life.
^ He built the first railway locomotive in America, and was
its engineer, until he taught others how.
He rolled the first iron rails for railroads.
He made the first iron beams for use in constructing fire-

PETER

COOPER

proof buildings. ^He was the near and dear friend and
adviser of Cyrus W. Field and lent his inventive skill, his
genius and his money, to the laying of the Atlantic Cable ; and
was the President for eighteen years of the Atlantic Cable
Company.

In building and endowing Cooper Union, he outlined a system
of education, so beneficent that it attracted the attention of
the thinking men of the world. And it is even now serving as
a model upon which our entire public-school system will yet
be founded — a system that works not for culture, for bric-a-
brac purposes, but for character and competence. A what-not
education may be impressive but is worthless as collateral j>
The achievements of Peter Cooper make the average success-
ful man look like a pigmy.

What the world needs is a few more Peter Coopers — rich
men who do not absolve themselves by drawing checks for
charity, but who give their lives and inventive skill for
human betterment.
Let us catch up with Peter Cooper.

PETER

COOPER

OHN COOPER, the father of Peter
Cooper, was of English stock. He
was twenty-one years old in that
most unforgettable year, Seven-
teen Hundred and Seventy-six. At
the first call to arms, he enlisted as
a minuteman. He fought valiantly
through the war, in the field, and
in the fortifications surrounding
New York City, and came out of
Freedom's fight penniless, but with
one valuable possession — a wife.
C| In Seventeen Hundred and Seventy-nine, he had married the
daughter of General John Campbell, his commander, who
was then stationed at West Point. It was an outrageous thing
for a sergeant to do, and I am sorry to say it was absolutely
without orders or parental permission. The bride called it a
Cooper union.

The Campbells, very properly, were Scotch, and the Scotch
have a bad habit of thinking themselves a trifle better than
the English. Like the Irish, they regard an Englishman with
suspicion. The Scotch swear that they have never been con-
quered, certainly not by J. Bull, who has always been quite
willing to give them anything they ask for.
At the time of his marriage, Sergeant Cooper was engaged in
the laudable business of looking after General Campbell's
horses, and also making garden for the Campbell family ^ Jt>

PETER

COOPER

N the gardening, he worked under
the immediate orders of Margaret
Campbell. After hours, the Ser-
geant used to play a piccolo, and
among other tuneful lays he piped
one called, "The Campbells Are
Coming." ^ Jt>

It was on one such musical occa-
sion that the young couple simply
walked off and got married, thus
proving a point which I have long
held, to wit: Music is a secondary
love manifestation.

On being informed of the facts. General Campbell promptly
ordered that Sergeant John Cooper be shot.
Before the execution could take place, the sentence was
commuted to thirty days in the guard-house. After serving
one day, the culprit was pardoned on petition of his wife.
In a month he was made a Captain, and later a Lieutenant jk
The business of a soldier is not apt to be of a kind to develop
his mental resources. Soldiers fight under orders; and
initiative, production and economy are mere abstractions to
your man of the sword. A soldier has but two duties to per-
form, according to a book on military tactics which I have
been reading. These duties are respectively: to destroy the
enemy, and to evade the enemy. This is the sum of all fight-
ing, and the question of just how one can both evade the
enemy and destroy the enemy, and the further theme as to

PETER COOPER

the relative importance of these duties, must be left for a
later discussion.

Suffice it to say that in the War, John Campbell lost the
ability to become a civilian of the first rank.
He was industrious but improvident ; he made money and he
lost it. He had a habit of abandoning good inventions for
worse ones. The ability to eliminate is good, but in sifting
ideas let us cleave to those that are workable, until Fate
proves there is something really better.
Peter Cooper was the fifth child in a family of nine. Bees
know the secret of sex, but man does not. Peter Cooper's
mother thought that her fifth child was to be a girl, but it was
not until after the boy had grown to be a man, and was
proving his prowess, that his parents remembered why they
had called him Peter, and said, **0n this rock shall our
family be built."

To be born of parents who do not know how to get on, and
be one of a big family, is a great blessing. We are taught by
antithesis quite as much as by injunction and direction. And
chiefest of all we are taught through struggle, and not
through immunity in that vacuum called complete success.
^ Peter Cooper's childhood was one of toil and ceaseless en-
deavor. Just one year did he go to school, just one year in all
his life, and then for only half a day at a time. His short
ration of books made him anxious to know — anxious to
learn — and so his disadvantages gave him a thing which
college often fails to bestow, that is the Study Habit. And the
reason he got it was because he wanted to go to school and
6

P "E T E R

COOPER

could not. CIHappy Peter Cooper! ^And yet he never really
knew that many a youth is sent to school and dinged at by
pedagogues, until examinations become a nightmare, and
college a penalty ^ Thus it happens that many a college
graduate is so rejoiced on getting through and standing
"on the threshold," that he never looks in a book after-
ward Ji Of such a one we can properly say, **He got his
education in college" — when all the world knows that the
education that really counts is that which we get out of Life.

ETER COOPER, very early in life,
had the climbing propensity.
Later it developed into a habit;
and shifting ground from the
physical to the psychic he con-
tinued to climb all of his life.
Also he made others climb, for no
man climbeth by himself alone.
At twelve, Peter Cooper proudly
walked the ridge-pole of the
family residence, to the great
astonishment and admiration of
the little girls and the jealousy of the boys. When the chil-
dren would run in breathlessly and announce to the busy

PETER COOPER

mother, " Peter, he is on the house ! " the mother would reply,
**Then he will not get drowned in the Hudson River!"
At other times it was, ** Peter, he is swimming across the
River!" The mother then found solace in the thought that
the boy was not in immediate danger of sliding off the house
and breaking his neck.

Once little Peter climbed a lofty elm to get a hanging bird's
nest that was built far out on a high projecting limb. He
reached the nest all right, but his diagnosis was not correct,
for it proved to be a hornets' nest, beyond dispute.
To escape the wrath of the hornets, Peter descended the tree
"overhand," which being interpreted means that he dropped
and caught the limbs as he went down so as to decrease the
speed. The last drop was about thirty feet. The fall did n't
hurt, but the sudden stop broke his collar-bone, knocked out
three teeth and cut a scar on his chin that lasted him all of
his days Ji- jt

Life is a dangerous business — few get out of it alive.
Life consists in betting on your power to do — to achieve — to
accomplish — to climb — to become. If you mistake hornets
for birds, you pay the penalty for your error, as you pay for
all mistakes. The only men who do things are those who dare
fl Safety can be secured by doing nothing, saying nothing,
being nothing. Here 's to those who dare !
Because a thing had never been done before was to Peter
Cooper no reason why it should not be done now.
And although he innocently stirred up a few hornets' nests,
he became a good judge of both birds and hornets through
8

PETER COOPER

personal experience. QThat is the advantage of making mis-
takes. But wisdom lies in not responding to encores.
Peter Cooper's body was marked by the falls, mauls, hauls,
and scars of burns and explosions. Surely if God does not
look us over for medals and diplomas, but for scars, then
Peter Cooper fulfilled the requirements.
When seventeen years old, he went down to New York and
apprenticed himself to a coachmaker. Woodward by name.
^ He was to get his board, washing and mending, and twenty-
five dollars a year. It was a four years' contract — selling
himself into service and servitude.

The first two years he saved twenty dollars out of his wages.
^ The third year his employer voluntarily paid him fifty
dollars; and the fourth year seventy-five.
The young man had mastered the trade.
Woodward's shop was at the corner of Broadway and Cham-
bers Street, which was then the northern limit of the city.
Just beyond this was a big garden, worked by a prosperous
and enterprising Irishman who supplied vegetables to ship-
captains ^ ^

This garden later was transformed into City Hall Park, and
here the city buildings were erected, the finest in America
for their purpose.
The Irish still command the place.

New York City then had less than forty thousand inhabitants.
Peter Cooper was to see the city grow to two million. For
seventy-one years after his majority he was to take an active
and intelligent interest in its evolution, tinting its best

PETER COOPER

thought and hopes with his own aspiration J^ The building
of coaches then was a great trade. It was stage-coach
times, and a good coach was worth anywhere from three
hundred to a thousand dollars. The work was done by small
concerns, where the proprietors and their 'prentices would
turn out three or four vehicles a year. To build the finest
coaches in the world was the ambition of Peter Cooper.
But to get a little needed capital he hired out to a manu-
facturer of woolen cloth at Hempstead, Long Island, for a
dollar and a half a day. A dollar a day was good wages then,
but Cooper had inventive skill in working with machinery Ji>
He had already invented and patented a machine for mortis-
ing the hubs of wagon- wheels.

Now he perfected a machine for finishing woolen cloth. As
the invention was made on the time of, and in the mill where
he worked, he was only given a one-third interest in it.
He went on a visit to his old home at Peekskill, and there
met Michael Vassar, who was to send the name of Vassar
down the corridors of time, not as that of a weaver of wool
and the owner of a very good brewery, but as the founder of a
school for girls, or as it is somewhat anomalously called, **a
female seminary."

Peter Cooper sold the county-right of his patent to Michael
Vassar for five hundred dollars. It was more money than the
father had ever seen at one time in all of his life.
The War of Eighteen Hundred and Twelve was on, and
woolen cloth was in great demand, the supply from England
having been shut off.

PETER COOPER

Opportunity and Peter Cooper met, or is the man himself

Opportunity? j^ J'

The ratio of marriages, we are told, keeps pace with the price

of com ^ .^

On the strength of his five hundred dollars, Peter Cooper

embarked on the sea of matrimony, as the village editors

express it.

When Peter Cooper married Sarah Bedell, it was a fortunate

thing for the world. Peter Cooper was a Commonsense Man,

which is really better than to be a genius. A Commonsense

Man is one who does nothing to make people think he is

different from what he is.

He is one who would rather be than seem!

But a Commonsense Man needs a Commonsense Woman to

help him live a Commonsense Life. Mrs. Cooper was a

Commonsense Woman. She was of Huguenot parentage.

^ Persecution had given the Huguenots a sternness of mental

and moral fiber, just as it had blessed and benefited the

Puritans Ji> J^

The habit of independent thought got into the veins of these

Huguenots, and they played important parts in the War of

the Revolution. Like the Jews, they made good Free Thinkers.

^ They reason things out without an idolatrous regard for

precedent ^ j/^

^ For fifty-seven years Peter and Sarah fought the battle of

life together. He clarified his thought by explaining his plans

to her, and together they grew rich — rich in money, rich in

experience, rich in love.

PETER

COOPER

HERE are men who are not con-
tent to put all their eggs in one
basket, and then watch the basket.
^ Peter Cooper craved the excite-
ment of adventure. His nature
demanded new schemes, new
plans, new methods upon which to
break the impulse of his mind. The
trade-wind of his genius did not
blow constantly from one direction.
Had he been content to focus on
coach-building, he could have
become rich beyond the dream of avarice. As it was, the fact
that he could build as good a coach as any one else satisfied
that quarter-section of his nature.

When the war of Eighteen Hundred and Twelve closed, there
was a great shrinkage in wool. Peter Cooper sold his holdings
for a grocery-store, which he ran just long enough to restock
and sell to a man who wanted it more than he did.
Then he started a furniture-factory, for he was an expert
worker in wood.

But the bench for him was only by-play.
As he worked, his mind roamed the world.
He used glue in making the furniture. He bought his glue
from a man who had a little factory on the site of what is
now the Park Avenue Hotel.

The man who made the glue did not like the business. He
wanted to make furniture, just as comedians always want to
la

PETER COOPER

play Hamlet. flPeter Cooper's furniture-shop was in a rented
building. The glue man owned his site. Peter Cooper traded his
furniture-shop for the glue-factory, and got a deed to the
premises Jt> J>

He was then thirty-three years old. The glue-factory was the
foundation of his fortune. He made better glue and more glue
than any concern in America. Few men of brains would get
stuck on the glue business. There are features about it not
exactly pleasant.

The very difficulties of it, however, attracted Cooper. He
never referred to his glue-factory as a chemical aboratory,
nor did he call it a studio.

He was proud of his business. He made the first isinglass
manufactured in America, and for some years monopolized
the trade ^ J^

But one business was not enough for Peter Cooper. Attached
to the glue-factory was a machine-shop which was the scene
of many inventions.

Here in Eighteen Hundred and Twenty-seven and Eighteen
Hundred and Twenty-eight, Peter Cooper worked out and
made a steam-engine, which he felt sure was an improvement
on the one that Watt had made in England.
Peter Cooper's particular device was a plan to do away with
the crank, and transform the rectilinear motion of the piston
into rotary motion. He figured it out that this would save
two-fifths of the steam, and so stated in his application for a
patent, a copy of which is before the writer.
The Patent Office then was looked after by the President in

PETER COOPER

person. Peter Cooper's patent was signed by John Quincy
Adams, President, Henry Clay, Secretary of State, and Wil-
liam Wirt, Attorney General. The patent was good for
fourteen years, so any one who cares to infringe on it can do
so now without penalty.

There were then no trained patent-examiners and the
President and Secretary of State were not inclined to hamper
inventors with technicalities. You paid your fee, the patent was
granted, and all questions of priority were left to be fought
out in the courts. More patents have been granted to one
man — say Thomas A. Edison — than were issued in
America all told, up to the time that Peter Cooper went
down to Washington in person and explained his invention to
John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay, who evidently were
very glad to sign the patent, rather than bother to understand
the invention.

In his application Peter Cooper states, "This invention is a
suitable motor for hauling land-carriages. "
It was one year before this that Stephenson in England had
given an exhibition in Manchester, England, on a circular
two-mile track of his locomotive, the "Rocket."
Cooper had not seen the "Rocket, " but Stephenson's example
had fired his brain, and he had in his own mind hastened the
system ^^ ^

At this time he was thirty-six years old. His glue business
was prosperous. Several thousand dollars of his surplus he
had invested in charcoal-kilns near Baltimore. From this he
had gone into a land speculation in the suburbs of that city.
14

PETER COOPER

His partners had abandoned the enterprise and left him to
face the disgrace of failure.

Commerce was drifting away from Baltimore to Philadelphia
and New York. The Erie Canal had been opened, and it
looked as if this would be the one route to the west — the
Hudson River to Albany, thence by canal to Buffalo, and on
by the Great Lakes to the land of promise.
Pennsylvania had a system of canals, partially in use, and
the rest in building, which would open up a route to the Ohio
River at Pittsburgh. But engineers had looked the ground
over, and gave it as their opinion that Baltimore was hedged
in by insurmountable difficulties. Prophecies were made that
soon ships would cease to come to Baltimore at all. And under
this lowering commercial sky, Peter Cooper saw his Balti-
more investments fading away into the ether.
At this time the Manchester and Liverpool Railroad was in
operation. The coaches and wagons were simply those in use
on the roads, but with new tires that carried a flange to keep
the wheel on the rail. It was found that a team of horses
could draw double the load on a railroad that they could if the
wheels of the vehicle were on the ground.
The news was brought to America. Wooden rails were first
tried, and then these were strengthened by nailing strap iron
along the top.

It was a great idea — build a railroad from Baltimore to the
Ohio River, and thus compete with the Pennsylvania canals
to the Ohio!

In Eighteen Hundred and Twenty-seven the Baltimore and

PETER COOPER

Ohio Railroad Company was formed. It was the first raibroad
company in America. Peter Cooper bought shares to the
extent of his ability. It was a life-and-death struggle. If the
railroad was a success, Baltimore was saved, and Peter
Cooper was a rich man, otherwise he was a bankrupt.
Stephenson's "Rocket" in England was pulling three or four
carriages at a speed of ten miles an hour, while a team of
horses on the same track could only pull one carriage at the
rate of six or seven miles an hoiir.

The City of Baltimore and the State of Maryland were
empowered to buy shares in the new transportation company.
^ Thus we find government ownership of the first American
railroad ^ ^

The Mayor of the City and the Governor of the State had
heard of Peter Cooper's engine, which he said could be used
for *4and-carriages," and they now importuned him to come
to their rescue.

Robert Fulton had already proved that the steamship was
practicable ; but Fulton was n't interested in railroads. He
maintained, as did most every one else, that the water route
was the only safe and sure and economical way of trans-
portation. And when the railroad was built from Albany to
Schenectady the first idea was to have the engine tow canal-
boats J^ J-

Peter Cooper heard the wail of the Baltimoreans, and said,
**I '11 knock an engine together in six weeks, that will pull
carriages ten miles an hour and beat any canal-boat that
ever collected barnacles."
i6

PETER

COOPER

ETER COOPER went back from
Baltimore to New York with a few
.misgivings as to whether he had
^not promised too much.
The real fact was he had gotten a
patent on his engine before he had
put it to an actual test.
He had made the engine, but now
he must make a boiler in which
to generate the steam to make the
wheels go round. This boiler he
made and riveted with his own
hands. It stood upright and was as high as his shoulder. It
had a furnace beneath. It contained no tubes, and the propo-
sition was to fill it half full of water and then boil this water.
^ It took three weeks to make the boiler. It was about as big as
the tank in an average kitchen range. There were no water-
gauges or steam-gauges. The engineer had to guess as to the
pressure he was carrying.

When the boiler was complete, the great difficulty was how to
carry the steam from the boiler to the engine. There were no
wrought-iron pipes then made or sold in America. Cooper
took a couple of muskets and used the barrels for pipes to
connect his boiler and engine. These were duly soldered into
place. The engine and boiler were then placed on a small flat-
top wagon and bolted down. The engine had a wheel which
projected over the side, and an endless chain was run over
the projecting hub of the wagon.

PETER COOPER

Peter experimented and found that the water in the boiler
would last one hour ; then the fire would have to be drawn,
and the boiler cooled and refilled.

He tried the engine and it worked, but there was no railroad
upon which to try the wagon until the machine was taken
down to Baltimore. A team was hitched to the wagon, and
the drive was made to Baltimore in three days.
Peter placed his wagon with its flange-wheels on the track
and pushed it up and down along the rail. It fitted the track
all right. He then went back to his hotel with the two boys
who were helping him. After the boys were abed, he sneaked
off in the darkness, filled up his boiler, screwed down the top,
and fired up.

It was a moment of intense excitement.
He turned on the steam — the wheels revolved — then the
thing stuck. He had a pike-pole and using this pushed him-
self along for a few rods. The endless chain was working, and
the machine was going — flying — almost as fast as a man
could run. And Peter ran the machine back in the barn, went
home and went to bed. He had succeeded.
The next day he invited the President of the road and the
Mayor of the City to ride with him.

The machine had to be poled or pushed to start it, but it
proved the principle.

The following day a public exhibition was given. Volunteers
were asked for, who wished to ride. Forty men and one
woman responded. These rode on the engine and in a big
coach attached behind. They covered the top of the coach and
i8

PETER COOPER

clung to the sides. A dozen men got hold and gave a good
push and they were off !

The road was just thirteen miles long. The distance was made
in one hour and twelve minutes.

The fire was then drawn and the boiler refilled. Also, all of the
passengers refilled, for whisky flowed free.
Peter Cooper was ready to start back. He ordered every man
to hold on to his hat. A push and a pull, all together, and they
were off.

They ran the thirteen miles back in just fifty-eight minutes.
^ The engine was a success beyond the fondest hopes of
Peter ^ ^

There were diflSiculties in the way, however. One was that the
pulling only on one side caused a cramping of the flange on
the other side against the rail. This was remedied by putting
a wheel on both sides and running a chain on the two pro-
jecting hubs.

The pulling by hand to start was also criticized.
Next the fact that the engine had to be shut down every hour
for water was noted. Peter Cooper stopped the mouths of the
carpers by calling attention to the fact that even a horse had
to be watered. And as for giving a push on starting, it was a
passenger's duty to collaborate with the engineer.
Beside that, passengers get thirsty and hungry as well as
horses, and want a little change. Peter Cooper assured the
critics that the boiler could be refilled while a man was getting
a drink and stretching his legs.

The people who owned the stage-coach line that ran parallel

PETER COOPER

with the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad made a lot of fun of
Peter Cooper's teakettle.

On one occasion they loosened a rail, so the thing ran into the
ditch. For a time this sort of discouraged traffic, but there
were others who prophesied that in a few years horses could
not be given away.

Finally, the owner of the stage-coach line challenged the
railroad folks to race from Riley's Tavern to Baltimore, a
distance of nine miles. The race was between a noted gray
horse, famed for speed and endurance, and the teakettle. The
road ran right alongside of the wagon route. In truth, it took
up a part of the roadway, which was one cause of opposition.
The race occurred on September Eighteenth, Eighteen Hun-
dred and Thirty. Thousands of dollars were bet, and a throng
of people lined the route from start to finish. The engine
pulled but one coach, and had one passenger. The gray horse
was hitched to a buggy that carried one man besides the
driver J> ^

The engine led for five miles, when the boiler sprung a leak
and stopped, the engineer in his anxiety getting on too much
pressure.

The horse won, and this proved to many people a fact which
they had suspected and foretold, that the steam-engine for
land-carriages was only a plaything.

Farmers in that vicinity took heart and began again to
raise horses.

PETER

COOPER

N Eighteen Hundred and Thirty-
one, when Peter Cooper was forty
years old, he was worth fifty
thousand dollars; when he was
forty-five he was worth a hundred
thousand dollars; when he was
fifty, he was worth over two hun-
dred thousand dollars. He was one
of the richest men of New York,
and he was a man of influence.
^ Had he centered on money-
making, he might have become the
richest man in America.

He held political office that he might serve the people, not
that he might serve a party or himself.
In all deliberative bodies, the actual work is done by a few. A
dozen men or less run Congress.

For forty years Peter Cooper served the City of New York, and
the State, and always to his own financial loss.
He saw the last remains of the Indian Stockade removed
from Manhattan Island. When he was elected alderman, the
city was patrolled by night-watchmen, who made their
rounds and cried the hour and "All *s Well!'* For five hours,
from midnight until five o'clock in the morning, they walked
and watched. They were paid a dollar a night, and the money
was collected from the people who owned property on the
streets that they patrolled, just as in country towns they
sprinkle the streets in front of the residences owned by the

PETER COOPER

men who subscribe. flPeter Cooper inaugurated a system of
"public safety," or police protection. He also replaced the
old volunteer fire department with a paid service ^ He
was the first man to protest against the use of wells as a
water-supply for a growing city.

The first water-pipes used in New York City were bored logs ;
he fought against these, and finally induced the city to use
iron pipes. As there was no iron pipe at this time made in
America, he inaugurated a company to cast pipe. Very
naturally his motives in demanding iron pipes were assailed,
but he stood his ground and made the pipes and sold them to
the city rather than that the city should not have them.
He was brave enough to place himself in a suspicious position,
that the people might prosper.

In Eighteen Hundred and Thirty, he organized **The Free
School Society," to fight the division of the school funds
among sectarian schools. The idea that any form of religion
should be taught at public expense was abhorrent to him.
He was denounced as an infidel and an enemy of society, but
his purity of life and unselfish devotion to what he knew was
right were his shield and defense. The fight was kept up from
Eighteen Hundred and Thirty to Eighteen Hundred and
Fifty-three, when it was fixed in the statute that **no fund
raised by taxation should be provided or used for the support
of any school in which any religious or sectarian doctrine or
tenet is taught, inculcated or practised. "
The Free School Society was then fused with the School
Board, and ceased to exist as a separate institution. That the

PETER COOPER

amalgamation was a plan to shelve Peter Cooper's secular
ideas dawned upon him later. And that the struggle for a
school free from superstition's taint was not completely won,
Peter Cooper fully realized.

But perhaps it is well that his fine optimism could not foresee
the flavor of religious bigotry and superstition which would
exist in our whole school system for many years.
And the end is not yet.

During his long service on the School Board of New York
City, Peter Cooper worked out in his own mind an ideal of
education, which he was unable to impress upon his fellow
townsmen. No doubt their indifference and opposition tended
to crystallize his own ideas. Blessed be difficulty !
The many lag behind — the few go on. And if a man's actions
and thoughts outstrip the rabble, he surely should not com-
plain because the rabble does not sympathize with him.
His virtue lies in the very fact that he can do without popular
support and push on alone.

It will not do to say that Peter Cooper was exactly disgusted
with the public-school system of New York, for he, more than
any other one man, had evolved it and carried it forward
from very meager beginnings. Democracy has great dis-
advantages. Democracy is a safeguard against tyranny, but
it often cramps and hinders the man of genuine initiative. If
the entire public-school system of the state had been delegated
to Peter Cooper in Eighteen Hundred and Fifty, he as sole
commissioner could and would have set the world a pace in
pedagogy ^ J>

E T

The contention of Disraeli that democracy means the rule of
the worst has in it a basis of truth. Peter Cooper's appeals to
his colleagues on the school board fell on idle ears. And so he
decided to do the thing himself, and the extent to which he
would do it was to be limited only by his fortune.
Cooper Union was to be a model for every public school in
America J' J^

HE block bounded by Third and
Fourth Avenue and the Bowery
was bought up by Peter Cooper, a
lot at a time, with the idea of a
model school in mind. When Peter
Cooper bought the first lot there in
Eighteen Hundred and Thirty-six,
the site was at the extreme north
limit of the city. Later, A. T.
Stewart was to build his Business
Palace near at hand.
Cooper offered his block of land to

the city, gratis, provided a school would be built according

to his plans.

His offers were smilingly pigeonholed.

In Eighteen Hundred and Fifty-four, when Peter Cooper was
24

PETER COOPER

sixty-one years old, he began the building of his model school
on his own account.

His business affairs had prospered, and besides the glue-
factory he was making railroad-iron at Ringwood, New
Jersey, and Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
These mills were very crude according to our present-day
standards. But Peter Cooper believed the consumption of iron
would increase. Bridges were then built almost entirely of
wood. Peter Cooper built bridges, riveted together, of rolled
iron "boards," as they were first called. But he found it
difficult to compete with the wooden structures.
When he began building Cooper Union, he found himself
with a big stock of bridge-iron on hand for which there was
no market. The excavations were already made for the
foundations, when the idea came to Peter Cooper that he
could utilize this bridge-iron in his school-building and thus
get an absolutely fire-proof structure.

The ability of Peter Cooper to adapt himself to new con-
ditions, turning failure into success, is here well illustrated.
^ Not until he had accumulated an overstock of bridge-iron
did he think of using iron for the frames of buildings. It was
the first structural use of iron to re-enforce stone and brick, in
America jt ^

Cooper Union was nearly five years in building. A financial
panic had set in, and business was at a standstill. But Peter
did not cheapen his plan, and the idea of abandoning it never
occurred to him.

The land and building cost him six hundred and thirty

PETER COOPER

thousand dollars and came near throwing him into bank-
ruptcy. But business revived and he pulled through, to the
loss of reputation of many good men who had persistently
prophesied failure.

Be it said to the credit of his family that the household, too,
partook of the dream and lent their aid.
Altogether, the assets of Cooper Union are now above two
million dollars.

The ideal man in the mind of Peter Cooper was Benjamin
Franklin. He wanted to help the apprentice — the poor boy. He
saw many young men dissipating their energies at saloons
and other unprofitable places. If he could provide a place
where these young men could find entertainment and op-
portunity to improve their minds, it would be a great gain.
Peter Cooper thought that we are educated through the sense
of curiosity quite as much as in reading books. So Cooper
Union provided a museum of waxworks and many strange,
natural-history specimens. There was also an art-gallery, a
collection of maps, statuary ; and a lecture-hall was placed
in the basement of the building. Peter Cooper had once seen
a panic occur in a hall located on a second story and the
people fell over each other in a mass on the stairway. He
said a panic was not likely to occur going upstairs. This hall
is a beautiful and effective assembly-room, even yet. It seats
nineteen hundred people, and the audience so surrounds the
speaker that it does not impress one as being the vast
auditorium which it is.

Cooper Union has always been the home of free speech.
26

PETER COOPER

Next to Faneuil Hall it is the most distinguished auditorium
in America, from a historic standpoint.
William Cullen Bryant, Edward Everett, Henry Ward Beecher ,
Wendell Phillips, and every great speaker of the time spoke
here. Victoria WoodhuU brought much scandal on the devoted
head of Peter Cooper when he allowed her to use the plat-
form to ventilate her peculiar views. Peter Cooper met the
criticism by inviting her to come back and speak again.
She did so, being introduced by Theodore Tilton.
Here came Lincoln, the gaunt and homely, and spoke before
he was elected President. His "Cooper Union Speech" is a
memorable document, although it was given without notes
and afterwards written out by Lincoln, who seemed surprised
that any one should care to read it.

The speech given in Cooper Union by Robert G. IngersoU
lifted him from the rank of a western lawyer to national
prominence in a single day. Other men had criticized the
Christian religion, but no man of power on a public platform
had up to that time in America expressed his abhorrence and
contempt for it.

The reputation of IngersoU had preceded him. He had given
his lecture in Peoria, then in Chicago, and now he made bold
to ask Peter Cooper for permission to use the historic hall.
Cooper responded with eagerness. There was talk of a
mob when the papers announced an "infidel speech."
The auspicious night came, and Peter Cooper introduced the
speaker himself. He sat on the platform during the address,
at times applauding vigorously. It was an epoch, but then

PETER COOPER

Peter Cooper was an epoch-making man. flCooper Union is
now conducted along the identical lines laid out by its founder.
qit is a Free University, dedicated to the People. It has a
yearly enrolment of over thirty-five hundred pupils. Only
three Universities in America surpass it in numbers. Its
courses are designed to cover the needs of practical, busy
people. Art, architecture, engineering, business and chemis-
try are its principal features. Its fine reading-room and
library have a yearly attendance of a million visitors. The
great hall is used almost every night in the year.
And just remember that this has continued for fifty years jft
When the building was built, there were no passenger-
elevators in New York, or elsewhere. Peter Cooper's mechan-
ical mind saw that higher buildings would demand mechanical
lifts, and so he provided a special elevator-shaft. He saw his
prophecy come true, and there is now an elevator in the place
he provided.

The demand now upon the building overtaxes its capacity.
^ The influx of foreign population in New York City makes
the needs of Cooper Union even more imperative than they
were fifty years ago. So additional buildings are now under
way, and with increased funds from various worthy and noble
people. Cooper Union is taking a new lease of life and use-
fulness ^ jt

And into all the work there goes the unselfish devotion and
the untiring spirit of Peter Cooper, apprentice, mechanic,
inventor, business man, financier, philosopher and friend
of humanity.
28

THE FRA Magazine

for August will contain an Appreciation of
Elizabeth Cady Stanton by Alice Hubbard, with
Cover Portrait by Gaspard, on Alexandra Japan
Vellum ^^ Also several Special Articles on the
Suffrage Subject by Writers of International
Following. Folks who understand why women
should have the ballot, and folks who do not,
will alike derive much instruction and interest
from this Number of THE FRA.QIn conjunc-
tion with this Number, The Student, The
Thinker, The Agitator should read Alice Hub-
bard's Book— WOMAN'S WORK. This Book
clearly explains "what line of action women
should follow in order to gain the largest meas-
ure of good for themselves and the world. A
w^oman who has emancipated herself speaks.

Woman's Work

is printed in two colors on Boxmoor, with
Special Initials by Dard Hunter, and bound in
boards. Of an edition of forty thousand, thirty-
eight thousand have already been sold for tw^o
dollars per copy. G[ A SPECIAL OFFER of
THE FRA Magazine for one year with a Two
Dollar binding of ^Voman's W^ork — gratis — is
made to those Good and Intellectual Souls who
would help the Cause of Women. Two Dollars.

The Roycrofters, East Aurora, New York

ROYCROFT BOOKS

CONTEMPLATIONS

BY ELBERT HUBBARD

Q Doubtless the most bea'utiful book ever issued by The Roy-
crofters. Printed in a Special Style on Japan Vellum in two
colors. Title-page after the Decretales of Saint Gregory, as
done byjoanis Petit, at Venice, in Fifteen Hundred and Twenty-
nine ^ Illustrated with actual photographic print ( not a re-
production) by the Author ^ Bound in full Modeled Leather
with Silk doublure and marbled fly-leaves. Boxed in a velvet-
lined, hand-carved, mahogany case with hand-hammered,
copper clasp and hinges. Price $200.00

VIRGINIBUS PUERISQUE

BY ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

QWe have only One Copy of this lovely little Essay ^ It is
Number Fifty-three, the last unsold of a limited edition of one
hundred, numbered and signed by Elbert Hubbard ^ Printed
from the face of Elzevir Type (Stevenson's favorite font) on
Japan Vellum Ji Specially bound in full Levant with a
unique design in Gold and Ivory hand-tooled into the grain.
Price $50.00

FAMOUS W^OMEN

A BOOK BY ELBERT HUBBARD

Q Bound in marble and three-quarters Levant ^ Title and
original design on back in Gold. Printed on Roycroft Hand-
made Paper, hand-illumined with Special Initials. Paragraph-
marks and ornaments inserted by hand in color, after the
Sixteenth Century Style. Numbered and signed, blessed and
boxed by the Pastor. Price $25,00

ROYCROFT BOOKS— Cont,

FRIENDSHIP

BY HENRY DAVID THOREAU

Q Printed on Real Vellum from a new font of Cheltenham
Type ^ Forty beautiful free-hand illuminations, ornamental
initials. Bound in full Levant. Hand-tooled in Gold, on front
and back and inside covers. Hand-made Morocco Case. Tall
Copy, the only one of its kind in the world. Price . . $250.00

ESSAYS OF ELIA, by charles lamb

Q No Library can be complete without this book. Perhaps your
Copy is not so good as it might be. We have one or two printed
throughout in two colors on Whatman, with extra illuminations
done by hand. Bound in full Levant, title and cover-design in
Gold ^ Snugly boxed in a handsome case lined with Korean
Velvet. Price $100.00

THE TRAGEDY OF HAMLET

by William Shakespeare, or was it Francis Bacon ? This book
is bound in Alicia and suljstantial boards with title stamped in
Gold. Printed from a sharp new font of Bruce Roman, a very
suitable type, on Italian Hand-made Paper,Title-page illumined.
A very great Hamlet indeed. Price $7.50

The Essay on SELF-RELIANCE

BY RALPH WALDO EMERSON

QOn Roycroft Hand-made Paper in large, readable Type.
Frontispiece, a dry-point etching of the Author by Otto
Schneider. Scolii and Colophon in color. Bound in Boards and
Buckram. Title in Gold. Price $2.00

prior to printing

T^bere was a very
^^ little difference
between Letters &
Hrt. C Nearly all
6ood Cdork in
eitber brancb was
done by Cloistered
jVIonks in quiet
courts wbere Cime
was indeed an Il-
lusion* <L Coday
tbe band-work of
tbese early JMonas-
teries bas attained
an almost super-
stitious value — for
sucb is tbe result
of Infinite Care,
Skill and faitbful
Hpplication. CCde
believe tbere are
still many people,
perfectly sane, wbo
resent JVIacbine-
made Hrt, wbo con-
sider, tbe Classic

Cday tbe Better.
Cf or tbese, fra
Baldy, a man witb
tbe J^onastic Im-
pulse, of Simple
Cdays and 6reat
patience, does occa-
sional engrossing
on 7apan Vellum.
<LIf you do not
burry bim be will
design by band, as
did tbe jVIonks of
eid. Resolutions,
JMottoes, Book-
plates, f^avorite
poems. Diplomas,
JMemorial Cablets
and sucb like, con-
scientiously con-
forming to any
color Conception
tbat is desired.
Cdrite if interested.
Cbe Roycrof ters,
east Hurora, fi, Y*

imm

EST is val

II"

able only so
far as it is a

contrast Pursued as an
end it becomes a most

pitiable condition^ —

DAVID

'SWING

E are always
complaining
that our days

are few^ and acting as
thottgh there would be

no end of them*— s

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ARE RARE

ANDREW CARNEGIE

iWus^ical Contention

August Twenty-third to September First

jARLY last September, Professor S. L. Barrow-
Clough, Master Musician of Winnipeg, and his
sixty-one bonnie, blue-eyed Band Boys paid us
a visit here in East Aurora. QOut on the Peri-
style, underneath an Orange Moon, surrounded
by giant trees, these men played to the greatest audiences
ever assembled in East Aurora. QOver three thousand
people, Royal, Loyal Roycrofters, gathered to greet the
Winnipeg Band «^ They perched on the Peristyle, they
carried benches down around the Fountain in the Court,
they overflowed the lawns, clustered about the Well Sweep
and swarmed the Stone Walls and Tree Seats in the
Orchard like Locusts «5^ Such Music ! C^And now, Barrow-
Clough and his Premier Performers are coming back. They
have accepted our Invitation ; they will bring their Instru-
ments and spend a week. Q Other Musicians, Soloists,
Vocalists and Troupes are coming too, and for a time the
Home of The Roycrofters will be transformed into a Garden
of Harmony. HSo now then we announce a Congress of
Musicians, August Twenty-third to September First ^
There is a place at the Roycroft Festal Board for every
lover of Sweet Sounds. Only, if you are coming you had
better let us know a bit beforehand «^ jt .^ ^ ^ ^

Wbt JRopcrof terg, €a«t aiurora, J5eto |?otfe

Inspirational Little Journeys

LIMP^ LEATHER EDITION
^ Progressive Educators consider a complete
set of Little Journeys in many ways superior
to a four years' Course in College English.
Others value their condensed Historical
teachings; while the yield to the literary
aspirant is style in diction and virility. ^ Free
from the Cumbersome and Conventional —
Little Journeys pulse with interest. Subjects :

Vol. 6. Morris, Browning, Tennyson, Bums, Milton,

Johnson.
Vol. 7. Macaulay, Byron, Addison, Southey, Coleridge,

Disraeli.
Vol. 8. Wagner, Paganini, Chopin, Mozart, Bach,

Mendelssohn.
Vol. 9. Liszt, Beethoven, Handel, Verdi, Schumann,

Brahms.
Vol. 10. Raphael, Leonardo, Botticelli, Thorwaldsen,

Gainsborough, Velasquez.
Vol. 11. Corot, Correggio, Bellini, Cellini, Abbey,

Whistler.
Vol. 12. Pericles, Anthony, Savonarola, Luther, Burke,

Pitt.
Vol. 13. Marat, Ingersoll, Patrick Henry, Starr King,

Beecher, Phillips,
Vol. 14. Socrates, Aristotle, Spinoza, Seneca, Aurelius,

Swedenborg.
Vol. 15. Kant, Comte, Voltaire, Spencer, Schopenhauer,

Thoreau.

INSPIRATIONAL LITTLE JOURNEYS— Contiimcd

Vol. 16. Copernicus, Newton, Herschel, Galileo>
Humboldt, Darwin.

Vol. 17. Haeckel, Linnaeus, Huxley, Tyndall, Wallace,
Fiske.

Vol. 18. Josiah and Sarah Wedgwood, William Godwin
and Mary Wollstonecraft, Dante and Beatrice,
John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor, Pamell
and Kitty O'Shea, Petrarch and Laura.

Vol. 19. Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Elizabeth Siddal,
Balzac and Madame Hanska, Fenelon and
Madame Guyon, Ferdinand Lassalle and Helen
von Donniges, Lord Nelson and Lady Hamilton,
Robert Louis Stevenson and Fannie Osbourne.

Vol. 20. John Wesley, Henry George, Garibaldi, Richard
Cobden, Thomas Paine, John Knox.

Vol. 21. John Bright, Bradlaugh, Theodore Parker,
Oliver Cromwell, Anne Hutchinson, Jean
Jacques Rousseau.

Vol. 22. Moses, Confucius, Pythagoras, Plato, King
Alfred, Friedrich Froebel.

Vol. 23. Booker T. Washington, Thomas Arnold,
Erasmus, H3rpatia, St. Benedict, Mary Baker
Eddy.

THE ROYCROFTERS
East Aurora, Erie County, New York

Poets, like painters thus unskilled to trace

The naked nature and the living grace.

With gold and jewels cover every part,

And hide w^ith ornaments their want of art.— Pope

Roycroft Furniture

THE ANTITHESIS OF CHIPPENDALE

'HE men who make
Roycroft Furniture
do not cover their skill
with ornamentation.They
do not permit Rococo
finishes or Rocaille de-
signs to clutter the sur-
face of their work. Beds,
Bookcases and Tables
made by East Aurora
Craftsmen never border
on the Baroque, nor do
the chairs and benches
creak beneath the Seats
of the Mighty. Q Sturdy
and Strong as the Artists
who liberate them from
the log, products of our
Wood Shop please those
people who see beauty in
utility and service. Roy-
croft Furniture presages a day when Commonsense shall
hold sway in house decoration — when only the thmgs are
considered Best, whose Makers dedicated their work to
Time. Catalogue on Application jt ji ,^ j» jt ^ ^ ^

THE ROYCROFTERS, East Aurora, N. Y.

JDVurty':^

[TO THF HOMg^T^

irn=^?Tflm

Andrew Carnegie

HJnEHHTDTH

ROOK-RY-THFI

Sg IE QE52ZSIKH ag §g

sgsg^^^^fflEH

I CONGRATULATE poor young men upon being born to that
ancient and honorable degree which renders it necessary that they
should devote themselves to hard work. — ANDREW CARNEGIE.

TYr

ANDREW CARNEGIE

LITTLE JOURNEYS

HE fact that Andrew Carnegie is a
Scotsman, so far as I know, has
never been refuted nor denied.
Scotland is a wonderful country
in which to slip the human
product. Then when this product
is transplanted to a more sunshiny
soil we sometimes get a world-
beater ^ J'

Scotland is a good country to be
born in; and it is a good country
to get out of; and at times it may
be a good country to go back to.

I once attended a dinner given to James Barrie in London.
Q One of the speakers sprung the usual joke about how when
the Scotch leave Scotland they never go back. When Barrie
arose to reply he said : " Perhaps it is true that the Scotch,
when they leave their native land, seldom return. If so, there
is surely precedent. In truth. Englishmen have been known
to go to Scotland, and never return. Once there was quite a
company of Englishmen went to Scotland and they never
returned. The place where they went was Bannockbum."
q In literature Scotland has exceeded her quota. From Adam
Smith, with his deathless "Wealth of Nations," and Tammas,
the Techy Titan, with his "French Revolution, " to Bobbie
Bums and Robert Louis the Well-beloved, we have a people
who have been saying things and doing things, since John
Knox made pastoral calls on Mary Queen of Scots, and saw
the devil's tail behind her chair.

Dr. Johnson pretended to hate the Scotch, but he lives for us
only because he was well Boswellized by a Scotchman. And
now nobody knows just how much of Boswell is Dr. Johnson

ANDREW and how much is Boswell. ^What Connecticut has done
CARNEGIE for New England, Scotland did for Great Britain.

The Scotch gave us the iron ship, the lamp-chimney, the
telephone j^ jfc

Also, they supplied us Presbyterianism. And this being true,
they also supplied the antidote in David Hume.
We have been told that it is necessary to agree with a Scots-
man or else kill him. But this is a left-handed libel, like unto
the statement that the reason the Scotch cling to breeks is
because the breeks have no pockets, and when the drinks are
mentioned Sandy fumbles for siller, but is never able to find
the price, and so lets some one else foot the bill.
Another bit of classic persiflage is to the effect that there are
no Jews in Scotland, because they could no more exist there
than they could in New Hampshire, and this for a like reason
— they find competition too severe.

The canny Scot with his beautiful ** nearness" lives in legend
and story in a thousand forms. The pain a Scotsman suffers
on having to part with a shilling is pictured by Ian McLaren
and Sir Walter. Then came Christopher North and Dr. John
Brown with deathless Scotch stories of sacrifice and unsel-
fishness that shame the world, and secure the tribute of our
tears J^ ^

To speak of the Scotch as having certain exclusive character-
istics is to be a mental mollycoddle.

As a people they have all the characteristics that make strong
men and women, and they have them, plus. The Scotch supply
us the eternal paradox. Against the tales of money meanness
and miserly instincts, we have Andrew Carnegie, who has
given away more money in noble causes than any other man
who has ever lived since history began.
The Scotch stand in popular estimate for religious bigotry,
yet the offense of Andrew Carnegie to a vast number of
people is his liberal attitude of mind in all matters pertaining
30

to religion. ^ Then the Scotch are supposed to be a pugna- ANDREW
cious, quarrelsome and fighting people, but here is a man CARNEGIE
who has made his name known as the symbol of disarma-
ment and international peace.

In the list of twelve great business men that comprise the
present series of Little Journeys, we have, by a curious coin-
cidence, three Scotsmen ; James Oliver, Philip D. Armour and
Andrew Carnegie.

These three men were each the very antithesis of dogmatists
and sectarians. They respected all religions, but had implicit
faith in none. All were learners; all were men of peace; all
had a firm hold on the plain, old, simple virtues which can not
be waived when you make up your formula for a man. They
were industrious, systematic, economical, persistent and
physically sound.

If there is any secret in the success of the Scotch it lies in the
fact that they are such good animals.
The basis of life is physical.

The climate of Scotland makes for a sturdy manhood that
pays cash and seldom apologizes for being on earth.
Unlike James Oliver and Philip Armour, Andrew Carnegie is
small in stature. He belongs to the type of big little men, of
which Napoleon, Aaron Burr, Alexander Hamilton and
General Grant are examples — deep-chested, strong-jawed,
well-poised big little men who wear the crowns of their heads
high and their chins in. These are good men to agree with.
^ They carry no excess baggage. They travel light. They can
change their minds and change their plans easily. Such men
take charge of things by a sort of divine right.

ANDREW Ippyil^xyilSr^RT^^^^^^ CARNEGIEZwas born in
CARNEGIE kfs/WlJs*^LK/ilLfv^ decent poverty at Dunfermline in

fthe year Eighteen Hundred and
Thirty-seven.

His father was a weaver by trade.
This was in the day of the hand-
loom. There were four damask-
looms in the Carnegie house,
worked by the family and appren-
tices jt ^

There was no ring-up clock, and
no walking delegates.
When business was good these looms sang their merry tunes
far into the night. When business was dull, perhaps one loom
echoed its tired solo.

Then there came a time when there was no work ; hopeless
melancholy settled on the little household, and drawn, anxious
faces looked into other faces from which hope had fled.
Steam was coming in, and the factories were starving out the
roycrofters. It is hard to change — in order to change your
mind you must change your environment.
The merchants used to buy their materials and take them to
the weaver, and tell him how they wanted the cloth made.
^ The weaver never thought that he could get up a new
pattern, buy materials and devise a scheme whereby one man
could tend four looms — or fourteen — and advertise his
product, so the consumer would demand it, and thus force
the merchant to buy.

Aye, and if that did n't work, the whole blooming bunch of
middlemen who batten and fatten between the factory and
family could be eliminated, and the arrogant retailer, whole-
saler, factor and agent be placed on the retired list through
the Mail-order Plan. Or, aye again, the consumers' wants
could be anticipated as they are by the Standard Oil Company
32

and the gentlemanly salesman, psychic in his instincts, would ANDREW
be at the door in answer to your sincere desire, uttered or CARNEGIE
unexpressed J> J^

When the times changed Carnegie the Elder was undone. A
few years later and his son, Andy, could have shown him
fifty-seven ways by which the consumer could be reached.
^ Andy would have known only one defeat, and that would
have come when all the consumers were dead and ceased to
consume. When Carnegie the Elder quit the loom, the con-
sumers were using more cloth than ever, but the goods were
being made in a new way. ** Hunger is the first incentive to
migration, " says Adam Smith.

Hunger and danger in right proportion are good things.
It is a great idea for a woman who would give to the world
superior sons, to marry a man without too much ambition. If
too much is done for a woman she will never do much for
herself. This proves that she is a human being, whether she
can vote or not.

Hunger, hardship, deprivation breed big virtues. Before
deeds are born they are merely thoughts or aspirations. The
desire to better her condition, and the struggle with unkind
fate on behalf of her children, often is the heritage of mother
to son. The mother endows the child with a tendency — a
great moral tendency — a reaching out towards a success
which she has never seen, as planet responds to the attraction
of planet. And the things she dreamed her child grown to
manhood makes come true. Temperance fanatics are often
the offspring of drunken parents. Shiftless fathers breed
financiers ^ jt
We are taught by antithesis.

Andrew Carnegie is the son of his mother. When the looms
stopped and the piteous voice of the father said, "Andy, we
have no work," the mother lifted up her voice and sang one
of the songs of Zion. There were always morning prayers.

ANDREW fl When there was no work, the father would have forgotten
CARNEGIE the prayers, because there was nothing to be thankful for,
and prayer would n't stop the steam-factory.
*' What's the use!" was the motto of Carnegie the Elder.
qThe mother led the prayers just the same. There was a
reading from the Bible. Then each one present responded
with a verse of Scripture. Legend says that little Andy, once,
at seven years of age, when it came his turn to give a verse
from the Bible, handed in this: **Let every tub stand on its
own bottom." But as the quotation was not exactly accept-
able, he tried again with this: **Take care of the pence and
the pounds will take care of themselves." Thus do we see
that the orphic habit was already beginning to germinate.
^ Before Andrew Carnegie was ten years old he had evolved a
beautiful hatred of kings, princes and all hereditary titles.
^ There was only one nobility for him, and that was the
nobility of honest effort. To live off another's labor was to
him a sin. To eat and not earn was a crime. These sterling
truths were the inheritance of mother to son. And these
convictions Andrew Carnegie still holds and has firmly held
since childhood's days.

The other day in reading a book on military tactics, I came
across this: "An army has but two duties to perform, one is
to fight the enemy and the other is to evade the enemy. "
Which duty is the more important the writer did not say.
^ So let that pass. There are two ways of dealing with misery.
One is to stay and fight the demon to a finish, and the other
way is to beat a hasty and honorable retreat.
**There is no work."

**Then we will go where work is," said the mother of a
multi-millionaire to be.

The furniture went to pay the grocer. The looms were sold
for a song. The debts were paid, and there was enough, with
the contribution of a ten-pound note by a fond uncle, to buy
34

passage to New York for the father, mother, Thomas and ANDREW
Andrew. It was the year Eighteen Hundred and Forty-eight. CARNEGIE
Thomas was sixteen, and Andrew was eleven. Tom was more
handsome than Andy, but Andy had the most to say.
The Carnegies came to Pittsburgh, because the mother's two
sisters from Dunfermline were in Pittsburgh, and they
had always gotten enough to eat. Then the sound of the
name was good, and to this day Andrew Carnegie spells the
final syllable "burgh," and pronounces it with a loving oat-
meal burr.

It was seven weeks in a sailing-ship to New York, and one
week to Pittsburgh by rail and raging canal.
The land of promise proved all that had been promised.
The Carnegies wanted jobs — they did not wait to accept
situations. The father found a place in a cotton-mill at a
dollar and a half a day.

Andy slipped in as bobbin-boy and got one dollar and twenty
cents a week. Five shillings a week, all his own — to be laid
in his mother's lap each Saturday night — spelled paradise.
^ He was helping to support the household ! To know you are
useful, and realize that you are needed, is a great stimulus to
growth. Never again did the Carnegies hear that muffled
groan, ** There is no work!"
The synonym of the word ** Carnegie" is work.
In a year little Andy had graduated to the boiler-room at
two dollars a week. It was twelve hours a day, a constant
watching of water-gauges, and a feeling of bearings for
hot-boxes.

Andy used to awaken the family in the dead of the night by
roaring out in hot-mush accents, "The boiler, it ha' busted!"
^ And being shaken into wakefulness the boy was much re-
lieved to know that it was only a horrid dream, and the
factory had not been blown into kingdom come because a wee
laddie, red-headed and freckled, had nodded at his work.

ANDREW **A rolling stone gathers no moss." flThis is true. However,
CARNEGIE it is also true that if it does not gather moss, it may acquire
polish Ji jt

Andrew Carnegie from boyhood had the habit of using his
head as well as his hands. The two years in the boiler and
engine room of a little factory did him a lot of good.
But when fourteen he firmly felt that he had to get out
toward the sunlight, just as potatoes in a dark cellar will
at springtime send their sprouts reaching out towards the
windows J^ J^

In Pittsburgh at this time was a young man by the name of
Douglass Reid, who was born in Edinburgh. On Sunday
afternoon, Reid used to visit the Carnegies and talk about old
times and new. Reid was an expert telegraph-operator, and
afterwards wrote ** A History of the Telegraph. " The more he
saw of Andy the more sure he was that the lad could learn
the dot and dash, and be an honor to the profession.
The Carnegies had never had a telegraph message come to
them, and did n*t want one, for folks only get messages when
some one is dead.

The way you learned **the key" then was to start in as
messenger, and when there were no messages, to hang
around the office and pick up the mystery by induction.
q One great drawback to acting as messenger was that Andy
did not know the streets. So he started in memorizing the
names of all the business firms on Penn Avenue, up one side
and down the other. Then he tackled Liberty Street, Smith-
field Street and Fifth Avenue. At home nights, he would shut
his eyes and call the names until the household cried for mercy
and shrieked, "Hold — enough!"

Before the operators got around in the morning, the boys
used the keys, calling up other boys up and down the line.
^ Needless to say, young Andy did n't spend all of his time
on the streets. A substitute operator one day was needed and

Andy volunteered to fill the place. He filled it so well that the ANDREW |
regular man, who was a bit irregular in his habits, was given CARNEGIE
a permanent vacation.

At this time all of the telegraph business was taken care of
from the railroad-oflces, just as it is now in most villages.
^ "Who is the sandy, freckled one?" once asked Thomas
A. Scott, Superintendent of the Pittsburgh Division of the
Pennsylvania Railroad.

"He*s a Scot from Scotland, and his name is Carnegie,"
was the answer.

The play on words pleased Mr. Scott. He got into the habit
of sending his messages by young Carnegie. And when one
day he discovered the Scotch lad spoke of him as "Tomscot"
over the wire, the economy of the proceeding so pleased him
that he took Andy into his personal service at a raise of ten
dollars a month. About this time there came a sleet-storm
which carried down the wires.
Volunteers who could climb were in demand.
Young Carnegie's work indoors had reduced his physical
powers, so the climbing was beyond his ability. It was a
pivotal point. Had he been able to climb he might have
evolved into a boss of a construction-gang. As it was he stuck
to his desk, and eventually owned the telegraph-line.
Thus did he prove Darwin's dictum that we are evolved by
our weakness quite as much as through our strength.
Daniel Webster once said that the great disadvantage in the
practice of law is that the better you do your work, the
more diflSicult are the cases that come to you.
It is the same in railroading — or anything else, for that matter.
fl Cheap men can take care of the cheap jobs.
The reward for all good work is not rest, but more work, and
harder work. Thomas A. Scott was a man of immense
initiative, and he was also an immense joker. His was the
restless, tireless, ambitious nature which makes up the com-

ANDREW posite that we call the American Spirit. ^'*Tomscot" had
CARNEGIE the initiative which not only suggests the thing, but carries
it through to completion.

Andrew Carnegie very early in life developed the same
characteristics J> jt

He never made hasty and ill-digested suggestions and then
left them to others to carry out.

When young Carnegie, just turned into his twenties, became
private secretary to Thomas A. Scott, he was getting along as
well, I thank you, as could be expected.
And nobody was more delighted than Andy*s mother — not
even Andy himself. And most of Andy's joy in his promotions
came from the pleasure which his mother found in his
advancement. It was quite lover-like, the way Andy would
talk it all over with her.

'*I know what you are working for," once said Scott to his
secretary. ** You want my job."

** And I *11 have it as sure as life," replied Andy, as he went
right along with his work,
'*You certainly will," said Scott. And it was so.

HEN Thomas A. Scott became ANDREW
President of the Pennsylvania CARNEGIE
Railroad, Andrew Carnegie became
Superintendent of the Pittsburgh
Division, as a matter of course.
His salary was fifteen hundred dol-
lars a year. And this was the top-
most turret of the tower : it was as
far as the ambition of either the
mother or the young man could
fly. But the end was not yet.
Thomas Alexander Scott was born
at the forgotten hamlet of London, Franklin County, Penn-
sylvania. London, Pennsylvania, did not flourish as its
founders had expected. Behold the folly of giving big names
to little things ! Caesar Augustus Jones used to be the town
fool of East Aurora, until he was crowded to the wall by
Oliver Cromwell Robinson.

Scott walked out of his native village — a lad of ten who
warmed his feet on October mornings where the cows had
lain down. Later he came back and bought the county.
Scott was a graduate of the University of Hard Knocks, and
he also took several post-graduate courses. He received
knocks all his life — and gave them.

His parents had come from bonny Scotland, and it was a joke
along the whole line of the Pennsylvania Railroad that a man
with red hair and a hot-mush brogue could always get a job
by shouting **hoot, moni" at "Tomscot.**
Scott loved Andy as well, probably, as he ever loved any one
outside of his own family. He loved him because he was
Scotch, and he loved him because he rounded up every task
that he attempted. He loved him because he smiled at
difficulty ; and he loved him because he never talked back and
said, **We never did it that way before."

ANDREW In Eighteen Hundred and Sixty-one, President Lincoln made

CARNEGIE Simon Cameron, of Pennsylvania, Secretary of War. Cameron

was awfully Scotch, although I believe he was accidentally

born in America. Cameron in time made Thomas A. Scott

Assistant Secretary of War.

And Thomas A. Scott made Andrew Carnegie Superintendent
of United States Railways and Telegraphs. Lincoln once
said that it was the most difficult and exacting position in
the whole government service.

The bent of the minds of both Scott and Carnegie was towards
construction and peace.

They were builders, financiers and diplomats.
They accepted government position as a duty and they did
their work nobly and well. But if these men had had their way
there would have been no war. They would have bought the
slaves and paid for them, and at a price which we have paid
out for pensions and interest on the war debt every year
since. They would have organized the South on an industrial
basis and made it blossom like the rose, instead of stripping
it and starving it into a dogged submission.
The lessons Carnegie learned in war-time burned deep into
his soul, and helped to make him as he is today, the foremost
exponent of international disarmament in the world.
The game of finance Carnegie learned from Scott, his foster-
father Ji> ^

When but a salaried clerk Carnegie was once called into
Scott's office. **Andy, I know where you can buy ten shares
of Adams* Express stock — you better get it I"
**But I have no money," said Andy.
**Then go out and borrow some!"

And Andy did, the mother mortgaging their little home to
raise the money— she never failed her Andy.
He bought the stock at par. It was worth a third more, and
paid dividends ** every few minutes," to use the phrase of
40

Scott. There is a suspicion that Scott threw this little block of ANDREW
stock in the way of Andy on purpose. CARNEGIE

It was an object-lesson in finance. Scott taught by indirection
and did good by stealth.

When Carnegie helped to organize the Woodruff Sleeping Car
Company, which later was absorbed by the Pullman Com-
pany, he was well out on the highway to fortune. Next came
investments in oil-lands, and Andrew Carnegie, twenty-seven
years of age, sold his oil interests for a decently few hundred
thousand dollars.

At this time all of the bridges on the Pennsylvania Railroad
were made of wood. It was a wooded country, and the natural
thing was to use the material at hand.
But there were fires, accidents, washouts, and the prophetic
vision of Andrew Carnegie foresaw a time when all railroad-
bridges would be made of iron.

He organized the Keystone Bridge Works, and took a con-
tract to build a railroad-bridge across the Ohio River.
The work was a'success, and practically the Keystone Bridge
Works was without a competitor in America. But America
was buying most of her iron in Birmingham.
In Eighteen Hundred and Sixty-eight, Andrew Carnegie made
a trip to Europe, taking his mother with him. He was then
thirty-one years old and a man of recognized worth and
power. The pride of the mother in her son was modest yet
profound, and his regard for her judgment, even in bridge-
building and railroad affairs, was sincere and earnest.
Besides, she was a good listener, and by explaining his plans to
his mother, Andy got them straight in his own mind.
The trip to Europe was for the double /purpose of seeing
whether old Dunfermline was really the delightful spot that
memory pictured, and of getting the latest points in bridge-
building and iron-making.

Timber was scarce in England and iroH bridges and iron boats

ANDREW were coming as an actual necessity. ^ Sir Henry Bessemer
CARNEGIE had invented his process of blowing a blast of cold air
through the molten metal and thus converting iron into
steel. The plan was simple, easy and effective.
The distinguishing feature of Andrew Carnegie's mind has
always been his ability to put salt on the tail of an idea.
He came back from England with the Bessemer process well
outlined in his square red head. Others had put the invention
through the experimental stage — he waited. That shows your
good railroad man. Let your inventors invent — most of their
inventions are worthless — when the thing is right we will
take it on.
• The Carnegie fortune owes its secret to the Bessemer steel
rail. The fish-plate instead of the frog, and the steel rail in
place of the good old snake-head! "The song of the rail**
died out to a low continuous hum when Carnegie began
making steel rails and showed the section-hands how to
bolt them together as one.

Andrew Carnegie was a practical railroad man. He knew the
buyers of supplies and he knew how to convince them that
they needed his product.

Manufacturing is a matter of formula, but salesmanship is
genius. Moreover, to get the money to equip great factories
is genius, and up to the nineties the Carnegie Mills were
immense borrowers of capital.

Our socialistic friends sometimes criticize Andrew Carnegie
for making the vast amount of money which he has.
We can't swear a halibi for him, and so my excuse for the
man is this : He never knew it was loaded — it was largely
accidental. In truth he could n*t help making the money.
fl Fate forced it on him.

He has played this game of business for all there was in him.
^ And he has played it according to the rules. Carnegie has
never been a speculator. He is no gambler. He never bought
42

a share of stock on margin in his life. The only thing he has ANDREW

ever bet on has been his ability to execute. QHe has been a CARNEGIE

creator and a builder.

That his efforts should have brought him this tremendous

harvest of dolodocci is a surprise to him.

He knew there would be a return, but the size of the return no

living man was able to foresee or foretell.

Andrew Carnegie has acted on the times, and the times have

acted on him. He is a product — a child, if you please — of

Opportunity and Divine Energy.

HEN James Anderson, of Allegheny,
Pennsylvania, stage-coach boss
and ironmaster, about the year
Eighteen Hundred and Fifty threw
open his library to the public, he
did a great thing.
Anderson owned four or five
hundred books. Any one who
wanted to read these books was
welcome to do so. Especially were
the boys made welcome.
Anderson did not know what a
portentous thing he was doing — nobody does when he does
a big thing. Actions bear fruit — sometimes.
And into Anderson's library, one Sunday afternoon, walked a
diffident, wee Scotch laddie, who worked in a boiler-room all
the week. *' Where would you like to begin?" asked Mr.
Anderson, kindly. And the boy answered, as another boy by
the name of Thomas A. Edison answered on a like occa-
sion, "If you please, I '11 begin here." And he pointed to the

ANDREW end of a shelf. And he read through that library, a shelf at a
CARNEGIE time. He got the library habit.

Andrew Carnegie has given away two thousand libraries.
^ The first library built by Mr. Carnegie was in Eighteen
Hundred and Eighty-seven, at Braddock, Pennsylvania. This
was for the benefit, primarily, of the employees of the
Carnegie Steel Works.

In Eighteen Hundred and Eighty-nine, it was suggested that
the city of Allegheny was in need of a library, quite as much
as was Braddock.

Mr. Carnegie proposed to build a library, art-gallery and
music-hall combined, at a cost of three hundred thousand
dollars, provided the city would supply the site, and agree to
raise fifteen thousand dollars a year for maintenance.
The offer was accepted and the building built, but at a cost of
nearly one hundred thousand dollars more than was expected.
^ Yet Mr. Carnegie did not complain. To show that his heart
was with the venture, he also presented a ten-thousand-dollar
organ for the hall.

It was a first attempt, but the "North Side Library" is a
model of beauty and convenience today.
The way in which the people of Allegheny awakened,
responded, and availed themselves of the benefits to be
obtained from the Carnegie Library at Allegheny was most
gratifying. The place was formally dedicated on February
Thirteenth, Eighteen Hundred and Ninety.
President Harrison was present and made an address.
The music for the occasion was supplied by ** Young Dam-
rosch" and his orchestra.

Leopold Damrosch, the noted leader, had died only a few years
before, and his son Walter had taken up his work.
The manly ways of ** Young Damrosch" and his superb skill
as a conductor made an impression on Mr. Carnegie then
and there that bore speedy fruit.
44

In Eighteen Hundred and Ninety-one, Mr. Carnegie built the ANDREW
Carnegie Music Hall at Fifty-seventh Street and Seventh CARNEGIE
Avenue in New York, especially with Walter Damrosch and
the Damrosch needs in mind.

I have spoken in this hall a score and more of times, and I
never stand upon its spacious platform but that I think with
admiration of the ironmaster who had the courage to back
with two million dollars his faith in the musical appreciation
of New York City.

It is good to know that the prophetic business instincts of Mr.
Carnegie did not here play him false. The various offices and
studios connected with the splendid auditorium were quickly
rented and the investment has paid a fair return from the
first. When it was built it was the noblest auditorium in
America. One of its chief benefits has been to show the
people of America that such a building will pay. For one
thing, it gave certain Western capitalists heart to erect the
Fine Arts Building in Chicago.

And now in a dozen cities of the United States there are great
auditoriums where big events — musical and oratorical —
bring the people together in a way that enlarges their spiritual
horizon. Andrew Carnegie has ever had a passion for music.
At Skibo Castle the meals are announced by bagpipe J> Of
course I admit that whether the bagpipe is a musical instru-
ment or not is a matter of argument, for just what constitutes
music my Irish friend, George Bernard Shaw, says is a point
of view.

Andrew Carnegie has given the musical interests of America
an immense impulse. His presentation of pipe-organs to
churches, schools and halls bids fair to revive the age of
Sebastian Bach. ** Music helps us to get rid of our whims,
prejudices and petty notions, " says Andrew Carnegie.
The famous Pittsburgh Orchestra was first made possible by
his encouragement, and without Carnegie we would have had

ANDREW no Damrosch, or at least a different Damrosch. ^From
CARNEGIE almost its inauguration, Mr. Carnegie has been President of
the New York Oratorio, and for many years President of the
Philharmonic Society.

I was once present at a meeting of this Society when a
memorial volume of thanks from '*The Philharmonic" was
presented to Mr. Carnegie. The book contained the auto-
graphs of every member, working and honorary, of the
association. Among the rest I added my name to the list ^
Shortly after the presentation exercises I met Mr. Carnegie
on the stairs. He had the book under his arm. He graciously
thanked me for adding my name, and spoke of how he prized
my autograph.

I replied somewhat loftily, "Oh, don't mention it — it is
nothing — it is nothing!" And then I felt how feeble my
attempted pleasantry was. To Mr. Carnegie it was no joke. In
fact, he was as tickled with his book of names, and its
assurance of affection, as a girl who has just been presented
by her lover with a volume of Ella Wheeler Wilcox's poems.
Then I saw how sensitive and tender is the heart of this most
busy man, and how precious to him is human fellowship.
q This is a side of his nature that was new to me.
Shakespeare says, "Sad is the lot of princes." They are
pushed out and away from .the common heart of humanity.
Most of the men they meet want something, and as these
folks want the thing they want awful bad, they never tell the
prince the truth. In his presence they are like brass monkeys,
or, more properly, like monkeys filled with monkey desires.
^ They are shorn of all human attributes.
Pity the lot of the multi-millionaire who has most incau-
tiously allowed it to become known that he considers it "a
disgrace for any man to die rich."

Five hundred letters a day are sent to Andrew Carnegie, with
suggestions concerning the best way in which he can escape
46

disgrace. The lazzaroni of America are as bad as the same ANDREW
tribe in Italy, only they play for bigger stakes. The altruistic CARNEGIE
graft is as greedy as the grab of commercialism, that much
berated thing.

Mr. Carnegie cannot walk a block on Broadway without
being beset by would-be philanthropists who offer to pit their
time against his money, and thereby redeem the world from
its sin and folly.

And these philanthropists do not realize for a moment that
they are, for the most part, plain grabheimers from Grabville.
^ And all of their pious plans for human betterment have
their root in a selfish desire for personal aggrandizement.
Mr. Carnegie's plan of giving only where the parties them-
selves also agree to give is a most wise and prudent move.
^ The town that accepts thirty thousand dollars for a library,
and agrees to raise three thousand a year to maintain it, is
neither pamperized, patronized, nor pauperized. In ten years
the town has put as much money into the venture as did Mr.
Carnegie ^ J^

Like Nature, Andrew Carnegie is a good deal of a schemer.
Ask a town to start in and raise three thousand dollars a year
for library purposes, and the whole Common Council, His
Honor the Mayor, and the Board of Education will throw a
cataleptic fit. But get them fired with a desire to secure thirty
thousand dollars from Mr. Carnegie, and they make the
promise to love, honor, obey — and maintain — and strangely
enough, they do.

An action for non-support is a mighty disgraceful thing.
It is a wonderful bit of psychology — this giving with an
obligation — and Andrew Carnegie is not only the Prince of
Ironmasters, but he is a pedagogic prestidigitator, and an
artistic financial hypnotist.

Not only does he give the library, but he sets half the town
hustling to maintain it.

ANDREW The actual good comes, not from the library building, but

CARNEGIE from the human impulses set in motion — the direction given

to thousands of lives. The library is merely an excuse — a

rallying-point — and around it swings and centers the best life

of the town.

This working for a common cause dilutes the sectarian ego,
dissolves village caste, makes neighbor acquainted with
neighbor, and liberates a vast amount of human love, which
otherwise would remain hermetically sealed.
Gossip is only the lack of a worthy theme. A town library
supplies topics for talk, and the books there supply ten
thousand more.

To accept a Carnegie library means to take on an obligation.
^ Achievement always stands for responsibility. "Is it
possible that you are nervous?" asked the man of Abraham
Lincoln when the orator was about to appear before an
audience ^ ^

**Young man," was the reply, "young man, I have spoken
well. " To have done well and then live up to your record is a
serious matter. Responsibility is ballast. A town that has taken
on a Carnegie Library is one big committee intent on making
the thing a success.

There is furniture needed, pictures to secure, statuary to
select, books to buy.

A Carnegie Library is usually an annex to the High School.
^ The whole intellectual force of the place is engaged, first in
making the library a success, and second in avoiding the
disgrace of failure.

To gain paradise and escape perdition are two powerful factors
■ — a fulcrum and a pry.

0 most clever, cunning and canny Carnegie ! did you know
how great and wise was your scheme?
Not at all, any more than when you were a bobbin-boy you
could have guessed that one day you would own two hundred

and fifty million dollars in five-per-cent bonds. You are
much astonished as any one to see the perfection of your plan.
Like all great men you sail under sealed orders.
As you "worked" the people by allowing them to "work"
you for a gift, which once secured turns out not to be a gift
but a responsibility, so has a Supreme Something been using
you for a purpose you wist and wot not of.
And the end is not yet.

ANDREW
CARNEGIE

R. CARNEGIE has hoisted more
ammunition into his fighting-top
than any other millionaire in Amer-
ica, or, so far as I know, than any
other millionaire who ever lived,
q He has read political history ; he
knows the history of economics;
he loves literature; he dips into
philosophy; his taste is good in
architecture; he understands psy-
chology; and he appreciates art,
poetry and music. This is an equip-
ment which, for a very rich man, sets him apart in a class
by himself. Judge Jere Black said that the mind of an
average millionaire is a howling wilderness. But Andrew
Carnegie is a very exceptional millionaire.
Mr. Carnegie is an amateur millionaire, as opposed to the
professional money-getter — the difference being this : your
professional money-maker knows how to get money, but
your amateur knows not only how to get it but how to
spend it.

As a writer and thinker, Mr. Carnegie has added one distinct

ANDREW Jiew chapter to the world of thought. This is his "Gospel of
CARNEGIE Wealth." I say **his" advisedly, for no one has ever put the
matter in the same light before, in all the realm of books.
^In this "Gospel of Wealth," Mr. Carnegie makes two separate
and distinct divisions. One is the advantage and blessing of
poverty; and the other is the responsibility that falls on the
man who has surplus wealth.

I give two paragraphs from Mr. Carnegie's essay which
present the crux of his argument. But every thinking man
and woman would do well to read and ponder all that Mr.
Carnegie has to say on this subject of surplus wealth.
Most Carnegie Libraries have Mr. Carnegie's books, but I
heard of one that tabooed them, first because Mr. Carnegie is
not a member of a church ; and second, on the plea that his
books are unbiblical in their attitude, on the questions of
poverty and wealth, and therefore fall into the category of
** objectionable literature."
Says Mr. Carnegie:

The day is not far distant, when the man who dies, leaving
behind him millions of available wealth which was free for
him to administer during life, will pass away unwept, un-
honored and unsung, no matter to what use he leaves the
dross which he cannot take with him. Of such as these the
public verdict will be, **The man who dies thus rich dies
disgraced. " Such, in my opinion, is the true gospel concern-
ing wealth, obedience to which is destined some day to solve
the problem of rich and poor, and to bring peace on earth and
good will to men.

The aim of the millionaire should be, first, to set an example
of modest, unostentatious living, shunning display and extrav-
agances ; to provide moderately for the legitimate wants of
those dependent upon him; after doing so to consider all
surplus revenues which come to him simply as trust funds
which he is called upon to administer, and strictly bound as
a matter of duty to administer in the manner which in his
judgment is best calculated to benefit the community. The
TiO

man of wealth thus becomes the mere agent and trustee for ANDREW
his poorer brethren, bringing to their service his superior c^RNEGIE
wisdom, experience and ability to administer, and doing for
them better than they could or would do for themselves.

HE only time I ever heard Mr.
Carnegie relate one of my pleasing
stories was at a banquet of railroad
officials, some months ago, in New
York. Be it said, as a matter of
truth, that Mr. Carnegie gave me
due credit, although if he had not
mentioned my name I would have
been complimented to know that
he had read the Good Stuff closely
and pondered it well.
As brother authors, you will please

take notice that we observe the amenities.

So here is the story: One lowering fall day I was walking

along the road that leads from the village to my farm, two

miles out of town.

And as I trudged along I saw a horseshoe in the middle of the

road. Now I never go by a horseshoe — it means good luck !

^ So I picked up the horseshoe, and instantly my psychic sky

seemed to brighten.

And as I walked along with the horseshoe in my hand I saw

another horseshoe in the road.

**Everything is coming my way,'* I said. I picked up the

second horseshoe, and then I had one in each hand.

I had gone about a quarter of a mile when I saw two more

horseshoes right together in the road.

ANDREW **It seems as if some one is working me," I said. I looked

CARNEGIE around and could see no one. **And anyway, I accept the

bluff," I said to myself, as I picked up the two horseshoes.

^ Then I had two horseshoes in each hand, but I was n*t four

times as happy as when I had one.

I had gone about a quarter of a mile when I saw a pile of
horseshoes in the road.
*<I »ve got *em, I fear!" I said to myself.
But I braced up and walking up to the pile of horseshoes I
kicked into them. They were horseshoes all right.
And just then I saw a man coming down the street picking up
horseshoes in a bag.

I watched him with dazed eyes and swallowed hard as I tried
to comprehend the meaning of this strange combination.
Just then I saw the man's horse and wagon ahead.
He was a junk gentleman and had lost the tail-board out of
his wagon and had been strewing horseshoes all along the
way. He called to me and said, "Hey, ol' man, dem's my
horse-shoes ! "

**I know, " said I, '*I Ve been picking them up for you."
And the moral is this : While it is true that one horseshoe
brings you good luck, a load of horseshoes is junk.

N way of personal endowments, ANDREW
Mr. Carnegie has favored two CARNEGIE
individuals, Booker T. Washing-
ton and Luther Burbank. And so
far as I know these are the only
two men in America who should
be endowed.

Even the closest search, as well as
a careful scrutiny in the mirror,
fails to find any one else whom it
would be wise or safe to make im-
mune from the struggle.
To make a man secure against the exigencies of life is to kill
his ambition and destroy his incentive. To transform a man
into a jellyfish, give him a fixed allowance, regardless of
what he does. This truth also applies to women. Women will
never be free until they are economically free.
The fifteen million dollars which Mr. Carnegie has given for
a pension-fund for superannuated college professors, is quite
another thing from pensioning a man so he will be free to
work out his ideal.

The only people who have ideals are those in the fight.
But even this beneficent pension-fund for teachers turned
out to grass requires the most delicate and skilful handling.
^ Several instances have already arisen where colleges have
retired men well able to work, in order that these men might
secure the pensions and the college could put in younger
men at half the pay. There has even been a suspicion that
the pensioner "divied" with the college.
To supply an incentive or temptation for a man in middle
life to quit work in order that he may secure a pension is a
danger which the donor mildly anticipated, but which he
finds very hard to guard against. What is **middle life"?
Ah, it depends upon the man. Some men are young at seventy,

ANDREW and Professor Mommsen at eighty was at the very height of
CARNEGIE his power. Some teachers want to **retire," others don't.
^ Nature knows nothing of pensions. Let each man be paid for
his labor and let him understand that economy of expendi-
ture is the true and only insurance against want in old age.
^ The pensioning of the youth is really more dangerous than
to pension age. The youth should ask for nothing but op-
portunity. To make him immune from work and economy is
to supply him a ticket — one way — to Matteawan.
In order to educate a boy for life, we should not lift him out
of life. The training for life should slide into life at an un-
known and unrecognizable point. The boy born into poverty,
who fetches in wood for his mother and goes after the cows,
has already entered upon a career. His brown bare feet are
carrying messages, and his hands are taking on the habit of
helpfulness. He is getting under the burden ; and such a one
will never be a parasite on society.

In East Aurora there used to live a noted horseman. He bred,
raised, trained, and drove several trotters that made world's
records. Then behold another man comes on the scene —
and a good man, too — and says: '*Go to, I will raise and
train horses that will go so fast that Pa Hamlin's horses
will do only for the plow. "

So he built a covered and enclosed track, a mile around. It
cost nearly a hundred thousand dollars. And here the wise
one was to train his colts all winter, while the other man's
horses ran barefoot, and with long woolly coats plowed
through snow-drifts awaiting for spring to come with chirrup
of birds and good roads.

Result — the man with the covered track had his horses **fit"
in April, but in July and August when the races were to begin
they had "gone past." Moreover, it was discovered that
horses trained on a covered track could not be raced with
safety on an open course. ^ The roofed track had shut the
54

horse in, giving him a feeling of protection and safety ; but ANDREW
when he got on an open track, the sun, the sky, the crowds, CARNEGIE
the moving vehicles sent him into a nervous dance. A bird
flying overhead would stampede him. He lost his head and
wore out his nerve.

But the horses that had been woolly in February grew sleek
in May, and being trained in the open grew used to the
sights, and for them every day was a race-day. In August they
were hard and cool and level-headed, and always had one
link left when called upon at the home stretch.
The covered track was all right in theory, but false in prac-
tice. It ruined a thousand colts, and never produced a single
trotter. Don't train either horses or children indoors, and
out of season, and expect a world-beater.
Next, make your teaching and training life, not an indoor
make-believe. The school that approximates life will be the
school whose pupils make records. What is needed now is a
line of colleges in the North that will do for white folks what
Booker T. Washington does for the colored. And the reason
we do not have such schools is because we have not yet evolved
men big enough as teachers to couple business and books.
^ The men who can make money can't teach, and those who
can teach can't make money. The man of the future will do
both. Tuskeegee has no servants, no menials, and employs
no laborers. The work of housing and feeding two thousand
persons is all student labor. This is a great achievement.
But the University that is to come will go beyond Tuskeegee in
this : it will supply commodities to supply to the world what
the world wants.

Three or four hours of manual labor a day will not harm
either the body or brain of a growing youth. On the other
hand it will give steadiness to life. This labor will be paid for,
so the student will be independent at all times from all out-
side help J^ This will make for manhood and self-reliance.

ANDREW
CARNEGIE

R. CARNEGIE has given no money
to universities.

Various Technical Schools have
been greatly assisted, however, at
his hands.

The college that teaches men and
women how to earn a living — how
to add to the wealth and happiness
of the world and how to make men
useful instead of ornamental — this
kind of a school interests Andrew
Carnegie. His criticisms on the
old-time universities have been temperate, just as his ideas
concerning churches have not been offensively pressed. But
he has let the public know that just as a sect ministers, at
best, to only a fraction of the community, so does the educa-
tion de luxe have its grave limitations.
Mr. Carnegie knows that the great universities, like Oxford,
Cambridge, Yale, Harvard and Princeton, grew up out of the
divinity school which follows the monastery idea. The ideal
was the ideal of a priest, and to a great degree this conception
abides J^ The intent is not to fit the pupil for the struggle of
life, but to relieve him from it.

And any education that separates man from man is not
wholly good. College education has ruined a vast number of
men. All the great and fashionable universities are given over
to cigarettes, booze, bromide and the devious ways of
dalliance «^ ,^

^ Bodily exercise is optional — there is athletics, but physical
culture for those who need it most is carefully cut.
These universities are filled, for the most part, with remit-
tance men ^ If a boy is a burden at home, and has no incli-
nation to help his father in his business, the lad is sent to Har-
vard. This in the hope that a coUege^degree will make amends
56

for lack of phosphorus. As people under suspicion have been ANDREW
known to flash a marriage certificate, so does a card of mem- CARNEGIE
bership in a University Club supply the social benzoate of
soda. The college degree today is a social passport — it is no
proof of ability.

All of which does not apply to boys who work their way
through college — this is quite another matter.
The intent of Tuskeegee Institute is to show the youth how to
earn a living — to mind his own business, to be useful to him-
self and others. Its aim is to evolve character, not merely
culcha. Hence the ban on booze, the taboo on tobacco, and the
lessons in such homely themes as personal cleanliness, moral
integrity, manly abstinence, industry, and a strict looking
after of one person — and that the individual right under your
own hat. Mr. Carnegie would say that to write poetry, play
the piano, orate in orotund and gesticulate in curves, were
folly, if the party cultivated the poker-face and did n't pay
his debts.

Artistic genius is no excuse today for not walking the moral
chalk-line — all that lies behind.

And yet Mr. Carnegie is no Puritan — he believes in all nat-
ural, normal sports, and he loves the laughter that has in it
no bitterness.

He thinks an ounce of competence is worth a pound of
cleverness. The college that makes its pupils immune from
physical work is fitting them for the toboggan.
It may not destroy all, but it will maim many.
Have we not seen men with titles in front of their names and
degrees behind, who dived deep and soared high, and yet
were in debt to the tailor? The world is full of educated fools,
and Mr. Carnegie has done more than any other living man
to lessen the number and curtail their production. He has not
only preached the dignity of labor, but lived the lesson in a
hundred forms.

ANDREW The average millionaire has not had college advantages, and
CARNEGIE so he is apt to indulge in the foolish fancy that he has lost
something out of his life.

Hence, he sends his boys to college, especially, as stated, if
they do not show much aptitude for work. The final choice of
college is left to the mother and boy, with the sisters as ad-
visers. The advantage of social station here comes in, and it *s
Cecil for the pedagogic polish and a patent-leather Princeton
shine. Mr. Carnegie knows that this brand of youth may
possibly make a good head clerk, but very, very rarely does
he become a Superintendent or General Manager. The big boys
who run the railroads, banks, factories, grain-elevators and
steamship lines are men who **never had a chance in life."
^ College at its best is an artificial and unnatural scheme of
education. It may be a good make-believe, but it is not life.
fl It is like that method in the Elmira Reform School where
they eternally build brick buildings and eternally tear them
down. This is better than idleness, but the shroud that Penel-
ope wove during the day and raveled at night was n*t much
of a shroud. Every inmate at Elmira realizes that he is not
helping to erect a building — he is only pretending to do so.
^ That is the difference between Elmira and Tuskeegee. At
Tuskeegee the building is planned for use and built to stay,
and it is built in freedom and joy.

The nearer our schools approach life, the more useful they
are. There is great danger that a make-believe education will
evolve a make-believe man. The college of the future will
supply the opportunity, but the man will get his education
himself. And it will not be a surface shine. To earn a living
is quite as necessary as to parse the Greek verb and wrestle
the ablative.

Some day, no college will graduate a man or woman who
cannot at once earn a living. To make good is better than to
make an excuse Jt The college and life must be one. The
58

education of the future will be industrial, and opportunities ANDREW
will be afforded so the youth will get his living and his education CARNEGIE
at the same time. ^The college will then be a cross-section of
life, not a papier-mache imitation of it.

NCE at a wake a certain Milesian
by the name of Mickey Dolan sat
apart and refused to join in the
general praise of the deceased.
"Come," said one of the guests,
**come now, Mickey — be fair and
acknowledge it, he was a good
shoveler ! "

Mickey shifted his dudheen and
replied with acerbity, **Well, as
for that, I '11 be admittin* he was
a good shoveler, but he was n't
what ye could call a fancy shoveler. "
I am a writing man, and it seems to me absurd that a multi-
millionaire can write at all.

As for Andrew Carnegie's literary gifts, he is surely a good
writer, but he is not what you could call a fancy writer. He
says things in good clear straight English. We know what he
means, and his thought is always worth recording, but the
forensic frillsj say of Edgar Saltus, Alfred Henry Lewis and
William Marion Reedy, are not here. His books are no jig-saw
puzzle. The man has ideas and he states them. He is never
guilty of writing Johnsonese, nor does he trespass on the
preserve of Eleanor Glyn. His pages are flavored by subtle
dashes of wit, as when he speaks of a Wall Street broker,
** whose relatives with unconscious humor spoke of his being

ANDREW a business man." q**The Empire of Business," by Andrew
CARNEGIE Carnegie, is a book that every business man should read.
It is a book that should be in every High School Library.
^ Mr. Carnegie believes in the divinity of business — that it is
just as honorable and beautiful to serve the material wants of
humanity as to write poetry or play the piano. He would
make of business an art, and in this respect he is voicing the
best thought of the day.
I append a few specimen Carnegie nuggets :

^ HE young man who never had a chance is the same
^^ young man who has been canvassed over and over again
by his superiors, and found destitute of necessary qualifica-
tions, or is deemed unworthy of closer relations with the
firm, owing to some objectional act, habit, or association, of
which he thought his employers ignorant.

Perhaps some one in the vast audience which I have imagined
I am about to hold spellbound cries out: '*Who are you — a
gold-bug, a millionaire, an iron-baron, a beneficiary of the
McKinley Bill? " Before beginning my address, let me there-
fore reply to that imaginary gentleman that I have not seen a
thousand dollars in gold for many a year.

The young women who overfeed the dogs, and the fathers
who ruin their sons, have themselves to thank.

Let no man know more of your specialty than you do your-
self jft ^^

He prayeth best who worketh best.

Accumulated into a great fund and expended as Peter
Cooper expended it for the Cooper Institute, wealth es-
tablishes something that will last for generations.

You can not push any one up a ladder unless he is willing to
climb a little himself.
60

The epitaph which every rich man should wish himself justly ANDREW
entitled to is that seen upon the monument of Pitt : CARNEGIE

He lived without ostentation,

And he died poor.

By administering surplus wealth during life, great wealth
may become a blessing to the community, and the occupation
of the business man accumulating wealth may be elevated so
as to rank with any profession.

From the anxieties of poverty as from the responsibilities of
wealth, good Lord, deliver us.

First conquer your home market and the foreign market will
probably be added to you.

Never indorse until you have cash means not required for
your own debts, and never indorse bevond those means.

We do not so much need capital as we need the man who has
proved that he has the business habits which create capital ;
and to create it in the best of all possible ways, as far as self-
discipline is concerned, is by adjusting his habits as to his
means Jt- J>

No young man ever lived who had not a chance, and a
splendid chance, too, if he ever was employed at all.

Abolish poverty, and what would become of the race? Prog-
ress, development, would cease. The supply of the good and
the great would cease, and human society retrograde into
barbarism Jt> jt

ANDREW iRS^ISxPlFSq^lSSPil^- CARNEGIE'S success, like that
CARNEGIE s^i' sK4^ iKi ^^^ ^^ every master business man, has

turned on his selection of men. He
has always been on the lookout for
young men who could carry the
Message Jt J^

^ His success proves his ability to
judge humanity.

Whenever he was sure he had the
genuine article he would give the
young man an interest in the busi-
ness, often a percentage on sales
or output, q This was the plan of Marshall Field.
By this method he transformed a good man into a master,
and bound the man to him in a way that no outside influence
could lend a lure. The only disadvantage in this, Mr. Carnegie
says, is that when the young man becomes a millionaire you
may have him for a competitor, but even with this risk, it is
much wiser than to try to carry all the burden yourself.
fl A multi-millionaire should raise a goodly brood of million-
aires, and of necessity does.

Wise is the man who sees to it that he has an understudy.
Once upon a time, along in the eighties, Mr. Carnegie got
somewhat overworked and took a trip to Europe. Just before
going, he went around and bade good-by to each of the Big
Boys who ran the mills. One of these was Captain William
Jones, more familiarly known to fame as plain Bill Jones.
q **Bill,** said Mr. Carnegie, **I 'm a bit weary and I feel I
must get away, and the only place for me to go is Europe. I
have to place an ocean between me and this mighty hum of
industry before I can get rest. And do you know. Bill, no
matter how oppressed I am, just as soon as I round Sandy
Hook and get out of sight of land, I get perfect relief."
And Bill answered: "And, 0 Lord, just think of the relief
62

we all get," and everybody roared, Andy loudest of all. ANDREW

qAnd the last thing that Andy did before sailing was to CARNEGIE

raise Bill's salary just ten thousand dollars a year.

Mr. Carnegie has always liked men who are not afraid of

him; and when one of his workers could convince him that

he — the worker — knew more about some particular phase of

the business than Mr. Carnegie, that man was richly rewarded.

Mr. Carnegie has ever been on friendly terms with his men.

^ And had he been in America when the Homestead labor

trouble arose, there would have been no strike. He is firm

when he should be, but he is always friendly. He is wise enough

and big enough to give in a point. Like Lincoln, he likes to let

people have their own way. He manages them, if need be, by

indirection, rather than by formal edict, order and injunction.

>\RBARIC people prize gold and
make much use of silver.
But the consumption of iron is the
badge of civilization.
Iron rails, iron steam-boats, iron
buildings! And who was there
thirty years ago who foresaw the
modern sky-scraper, any more
than a hundred years ago men
foretold the iron steamship I
The business of Andrew Carnegie
has been to couple the iron mines
of Lake Superior with the coal-fields of Pennsylvania.
And to load the ore in Duluth and transport it to Pittsburgh,
a thousand miles away, and transform it into steel rails was a
matter of ten days. When the Carnegie Steel Company was

ANDREW reconstructed in Nineteen Hundred, it was with no intention
CARNEGIE of selling out. It was the biggest and best-organized business
concern in America, with possibly one exception.
Its capital was one hundred million dollars. It owned the
Homestead, the Edgar Thompson and the Duquesne Mills.
^ Besides this, it owned seven other smaller mills.
It owned thousands of acres of ore-land in the Lake
Superior country. It owned a line of iron steamships that
carried the ore to the Pittsburgh railroad connections. It
owned the railroads that brought the ore from the mines
to the docks, and it owned the docks. It owned vast coal-
mines in Pennsylvania, and it owned a controlling interest
in the Connellville coke-ovens, from whence five miles of
freight-cars, in fair times, were daily sent to the mills, loaded
with coke.

These properties were practically owned by Mr. Carnegie
personally, and his was the controlling hand. He had a daily
report from every mill, which in a few lines told just what
the concern was doing. There was also a daily report from
each branch ofiice, and a report from the head cashier where
one line of figures presaged the financial weather.
When **the billion-dollar trust"— the United States Steel
Corporation — was formed, Mr. Carnegie sold his interests in
the Carnegie plants to the new concern for two hundred and
fifty million dollars, and took his pay in five-per-cent bonds.
^ It was the biggest and cleanest clean-up ever consummated
in the business world.

As a financial get-away it has no rival in history.
There were many wise ones who said, "Oh, he will foreclose
and have the works back in a few years. " But not so — the
United States Steel Corporation has made money and is
making money because it is being managed by men who, for
the most part, were trained by Carnegie in the financial way
they should go.

As far as money is concerned, Mr. Carnegie could have made ANDREW

much more by staying in business than by selling out, but CARNEGIE

Andrew Carnegie quit one job to take up a harder one. ^

"To die a millionaire will yet be a disgrace, " he said. To give

away money is easy, but to give it away wisely, so it will

benefit the world for generations to come — that is a most

difficult and exacting task.

Money not earned is a curse to an individual — a mental, moral

and physical curse, and yet the vast majority of people want

something for nothing. To give away money wisely is like

feeding milk to a dozen hungry calves from one pail.

We remember the girl who, when advised by her mother as

to the folly of getting married, airily replied : "Well, I want to

learn the folly of it for myself I " And so it is with having money

not earned — we want to know the folly of it for ourselves.

Mr. Carnegie seems the only man in the world who is blazing

a trail through the forest that leads to the Science of Giving.

^ The quarter of a thousand million in Steel Bonds did not

constitute Mr. Carnegie's whole wealth. He had several little

investments outside of that. In fact, that clever saying, "Put

all your eggs in one basket, " is exoteric, not esoteric.

What Mr. Carnegie really meant was, if you are only big

enough to watch one basket, to have two were folly. Mr.

Carnegie himself has always had his eggs in a dozen or so

baskets, but he never has had any more baskets than he

could watch. His baskets were usually coupled together like

the "grasshopper," which pumps several oil-wells with one

engine. Wealth is good for those who can use it; power the

same ; but when you cease to manage a thing and the thing

begins to manage you, it may eat you up.

In East Aurora there used to be a good friend of mine who

had a peanut-stand at the station.

The business flourished and some one advised my friend that

be should put in popcorn as a side-line.

ANDREW He did so, and got nervous prostration. You see, he was a pea-
CARNEGIE nut man, and when he got outside of his specialty he was lost.
One realizes the herculean task of dying poor which confronts
Mr. Carnegie, when you think that he is worth, say, five
hundred million dollars. This is invested so that it brings an
income of five per cent, or twenty-five million dollars a
year ^ Jt>

So far Mr. Carnegie has been barely able to give away his
income, to say nothing of the principal. His total benefac-
tions up to the present time amount to about two hundred
millions. He has nearly worked the territory with libraries.
You can't give two libraries to a town, excepting in the big
cities — people protest and will not have them.
There is a limit to pipe-organs.

Heroes are so plentiful that it is more or less absurd to dis-
tinguish them with medals. Dunfermline is almost done for
by a liberality that would damn any American town.
To give faster than people grow is to run the grave risk of
arresting development. A benefaction must bestow a benefit.
^ Give to most people and they will quit work and get a job
with George Arliss, for the Devil still finds mischief for idle
hands to do.

To relieve the average man from work would simply increase
the trade in cigarettes, cocaine, bromide and strong drink,
and supply candidates for Sing Sing. To make a vast fortune
and then lose the tail-board out of your hearse and dump your
wealth on a lazy world merely causes the growler to circulate
rapidly. And so we sympathize with Andrew Carnegie in his
endeavor to live up to his dictum to die poor, and yet not
pauperize the world by his wealth. But let us not despond. The
man is only seventy-two. His eyes are bright ; his teeth are
firm ; his form is erect ; his limbs are agile ; and his brain is at
its best. Most hopeful sign of all, he can laugh. He can even
laugh at himself. This means sanity and length of days.
66

THE FRA Magazine

for August will contain an Appreciation of
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The Essay on SELF-RELIANCE

BY RALPH WALDO EMERSON

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EAST AURORA, ERIE COUNTY, NEW YORK

m^si^S!:E

EALTH
is a Re-

bility, and is Only
Good for Those
Who Know How

-EMERSON

HE heroes
ofbarbaric
times were
the men
who killed and des-
troyed; the heroes
of our day are those
who succor and

save.— y4 n dre w Carnegie

Vol. 25

SEPTEMBER, MCMIX

No. 3

□DZKQ

Hg HOMF^ Off

IME^^ MEfl

BY ELBERT

L/BBFIRN

George Peabody

EJQEZDTEIZH

uonK-Mv-rm

SlJZN^HKH-Tg-nnSgSg

H-Hbl-HiyUO|^SlgS[g

izirra

IBM b y/ ■ YOT^ §g ig

EYEHE

IFFICULTY,

trial, hard-
ship, obstacle,

are all necessary factors
I in the evolution of a
great soul ■V' ■¥-■¥' ■V> •¥>

jjost-offlce in t^.i.^i ;kui-ora, New York, for transmfasion as-seoojid-class matter.
Copyright, 1909, by Elbert Hubbard, Editor, and Publisher.

Message to Garcia

was first printed in "The Philistine'* of March, 1899.
The merit of the article was instantly recognized, and
the edition disappeared. The article was then reprinted
by George H. Daniels, of the New York Central Lines,
and over three million copies were distributed S^ It was
also reprinted by the Westinghouse Company in England.
In France the Bon Marche of Paris distributed a million
copies. Prince Hilakoff, Director of Railways in Russia,
translated the essay into Russian and presented a copy
to every officer in the Russian Army ^^ The Mikado of
Japan, not to be outdone, had the "Message" printed in
Japanese, and a copy was placed in the hands of every
Japanese soldier. C[ In all, the "Message" has been
translated into eleven languages, and reprinted over
twenty-five million times. It is believed that it has a
w^ider circulation than any other article ever written by
an American, and a larger circulation in the same space
of time than any other article ever produced in all the
history of literature. We have a S^ ^<^ S^ ^i^ ^^ ^i^

Few Vofemcs of the "Message"

in English, followed by the "Message" translated into
Japanese, which in turn is succeeded by the "Message"
retranslated into the English. These books are bound in
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text.>rice, $1.00 each by mail 5^ S^ S<^ S^ 5^ So»

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HEALTH AND WEALTH

Woman* s Work
Batde of Waterloo -
White Hyacinths
The Rubaiyat
A William Morris Book
Crimes Against Criminals
The Ballad of Reading Gaol
The Man of Sorrows
Justinian and Theodora -

Elbert Hubbard

Alice Hubbard

Victor Hugo

Elbert Hubbard

Omar Khayyam

- Hubbard and Thomson

Robert G. Ingersoll

Oscar Wilde

Elbert Hubbard

Elbert and J lice Hubbard

BOUND VOL. (Selected) LITTLE JOURNEYS

Elbert Hubbard

THE ROYCROFTERS, East Aurora, New York

[\ovun\-yy\

TO THE HOhflF^T^FI

irtE^^Tfim

George Peabody

" •"""•"KOMF • INTO • n"—

BOOK-RY-TFIFI

3E SZEEIEZS3233ia Sg ag

Sg SE HESEZZnKH ag Sg

SgSH^^^^fflEH

THE great deeds for human betterment must be done by individ-
uals— they can never be done by the many.

^-GEORGE PEABODY

GEORGE PEABODY

LITTLE JOURNEYS

EORGE PEABODY was a noted
American merchant and banker.
He was bom in the village of
Danvers, Massachusetts, in
Seventeen Hundred Ninety-five.
He died in London in Eighteen
Hundred Sixty-nine.
In childhood, poverty was his
portion. But he succeeded, for
he had the persistent corpuscle,
and he had charm of manner —
two things which will make any
man a winner in the game of life.

He gave away during his lifetime eight million dollars. When
he died he had four million dollars left, which was distributed
by his will, largely for the betterment of society.
The fact that Peabody left so much money was accidental. He
intended to give this money away, under his own personal,
supervision, but Death came suddenly.
Has the world made head the past forty years?
Listen, Terese, it has made more progress during the past-
forty years than in the two thousand years preceding.
The entire fortune of George Peabody, including what he
gave away during his life and what he left, was twelve
million dollars.

This is just the income of Andrew Carnegie for six months..
fl We scarcely realize how civilization smells of paint until
we remember that George Peabody was the world's first:

GEORGE PEABODY

philanthropist. flNo doubt there were many people with
philanthropic impulses before him, but they were poor. It *s
easy to sympathize with humanity when you have nothing
to give but advice.

The miracle comes in when great wealth and great love
of mankind are combined in one individual.
In the Occident, giving to the poor is lending to the devil.
The plan has always been more or less of a pastime to the
rich, but the giving has usually been limited to sixpences,
with absolute harm to the poor. All any one should ask is
opportunity. Sailors just ashore, with three months* pay,
are the most charitable men on earth — we might also say
they are the most loving and the least lovable.
The beggars wax glad when Jack lumbers their way with
a gaily painted galley in tow ; but alas, tomorrow Jack belongs
to the poor.

Charity in the past has been prompted by weakness and
whim — the penance of rogues — and often we give to get
rid of the troublesome applicant.

Beggary and virtue were imagined to have something akin.
Rags and honesty were sort of synonymous, and we spoke
of honest hearts that beat *neath ragged jackets J(> That
was poetry, but was it art? Or was it just a little harmless
exercise of the lachrymal glands? Riches and roguery were
spoken of in one breath, unless the gentleman was present
and then we curtsied, cringed or crawled, and laughed
loudly at all his jokes.

These things doubtless dated back to a time when the only
68

GEORGE PEABODY

mode of accumulating wealth was through oppression ^
Pirates were rich — honest men were poor J> To be poor
proved that you were not a robber. The heroes in war took
cities, and all they could carry away was theirs .^ The
monasteries were passing rich in the Middle Ages, because
their valves only opened one way — they received much
and paid out nothing. To save the souls of men was a just
equivalent for accepting their services for the little time
they were on earth. QThe monasteries owned the land, and
the rentals paid by the fiefs and villeins went into the church
treasuries. Sir Walter Scott has an abbot say this: "I took
the vow of poverty, and find myself with an income of
twenty thousand pounds a year."

But wealth did not burden the monks forever. Wealth
changes hands — that is one of its peculiarities.
War came, red of tooth and claw, and the soldiery, which
heretofore had been used only to protect the religious
orders, now flushed with victory, turned against them Jt>
Charges were trumped up against churchmen high in
authority, and without doubt the charges were often true,
because a robe and a rope girdle, or the reversal of haber-
dashery, do not change the nature of a man. Down under
the robe, you'll sometimes find a man frail of soul — grasp-
ing, sensual, selfish.

The monasteries were looked upon as contraband of war.
**To the victors belong the spoils," was the motto of a
certain man who was President of the United States, so
persistent was the war idea of acquiring wealth.

GEORGE PEABODY

The property of the religious orders was confiscated, and
as a reward for heroic services, great soldiers were given
great tracts of land, jt The big estates in Europe all have
their origin in this well-established custom of dividing the
spoils. The plan of taking the property of each or all who
were guilty of sedition, treason and contumacy was well
established by precedents that traced back to Cain. When
George Washington appropriated the estate of Roger Morris,
forty centuries of precedent looked down upon him.
Also, it might be added that if a man owned a particularly
valuable estate, and a soldier desired this estate, it was easy
for this soldier to massage his conscience by listening to and
believing the report that the owner had spoken ill of the king,
and given succor to the enemy.

Then the soldier felt it his **duty" to punish the recreant one
by taking his property.

And so the Age of the Barons followed the Age of the Monas-
teries J^ J^

And now the Barons have given way to the Age of the
Merchant.

The Monks multiplied the poor by a monopoly on education.
Superstition, poverty and incompetence formed the portion
of the many. **This world is but a desert drear," was the
actual fact as long as priests and soldiers were supreme.
^The Reign of the Barons was merely a transfer of power
with no revision of ideals. The choice between a miter and
a helmet is nil, and when the owner converses through his
head-gear, his logic is alike vulnerable and valueless.
70

(xEORGE PEABODY

So enters the Merchant, whose business it is to carry things

from where they are plentiful to where they are scarce.

And comes he so quietly and with so little ostentation that

men do not realize the change.

And George Peabody, an American, gives three million

dollars to the poor of London. This money was not tossed

out to purchase peace, and to encourage idleness, and to

be spent in strong drink and frills and finery, and the ways

that lead to Nowhere, but to provide better homes for men,

women and children.

"Lay hold on eternal life," said Paul, writing to Timothy.

The proper translation we now believe should be, "Lay hold

on the age to come. "

Philanthropy now seeks to lay hold on the age to come. We

are building for the future.

The embryo has eyes, ears and organs of speech. But the
embryo does not see, nor hear, nor speak. It is laying hold
on the age to come — it is preparing to live — it is getting
ready for the future. ^ The past is dead, the present is dying,
and only that which is to come is alive.
Philanthropy, up to the time of Peabody, was palliation,
just as the entire practise of medicine was palliation until
the Goths and Vandals, day before yesterday, razed the
walls of medical orthodoxy, and with the help of Dr. Eliot
demolished the god Terminus and his temple.
The life of George Peabody was not in what he gave, but
in what he taught. He inspired the millionaires that are
to be. He laid hold on the age to come.

GEORGE

P E A B 0 D Y

EORGE PEABODY is another ex-
ample of a boy who succeeded in
spite of his parents. The rigors of
climate and the unkindness of a
scanty soil may be good things.
They are good, like competition,
very excellent, provided you do
not get more than your consti-
tution requires.

New England has her ** white
trash," as well as the South J^
The Peabodys of Danvers were
good folks who never seemed to get on. They had come down
from the mountains of New Hampshire, headed for Boston,
but got stuck near Salem. If there was anything going on,
like mumps, measles, potato-bugs, blight, **janders" or the
cows-in-the-corn, they got it. Their roof leaked, the cistern
busted, the chimney fell in, and although they had nothing
worth stealing the house was once burglarized while the
family was at church ^ The moral to little George was
plain: Don't go to church and you'll not get burgled. Life
was such a grievous thing that the parents forgot how to
laugh, and so George's joke brought him a cuff on the ear
in the interests of pure religion and undefiled.
A couple of generations back there was a strain of right
valiant heroic Peabody blood. Among the "Green Mountain
Boys" there was a Peabody, and another Peabody was
captain of a packet that sailed out of Boston for London.
72

GEORGE PEABODY

To run away and join this uncle as cabin-boy, was George's
first ambition.

People in the country may be poor, but in America such
never suffer for food. If hunger threatens, the children can
skirmish among the neighbors. The village of Danvers
was separated by only a mile or so of swale and swamp
from Salem, a place that once rivaled Boston commercially,
and in matters of black cats, and elderly women who rode
broomsticks by night, set the world a pace. Fish, clams,
water-lilies, berries, eels and other such flora and fauna
were plentiful, and became objects of merchandizing for
the Peabody boys, bare of foot and filled with high emprise.
^ Parents often bestow upon their progeny the qualities
which they themselves do not possess — so wonderful is this
law of heredity.

George was the youngest boy in the brood, and was looked
after by his ** other mother, " that is to say, by an elder sister.
When this sister married, the boy was eleven years old. To
the lad this marriage was more like a funeral.
He could read and write and count to a hundred, having gone
to school for several months each winter since he was seven.
He could write better than his father or mother — he wrote
like copperplate, turning his head on one side and chewing
his tongue, keeping pace with his lips, as the pen glided
gracefully over the paper. His ambition was to make a bird
with a card in its bill, and on this card, written so small
no one could read it, the proud name, G. Peabody.
This ability to write brought him local fame, and Sylvester

GEORGE PEABODY

Proctor, who kept a general store in the village, offered to
take him on a four years' apprenticeship and let him learn
him the trade of Greengrocer and Dealer in W. I. Goods Jt>
The papers were duly made out and signed, the boy being
consulted afterward. What the consideration was, was not
stated, but rumor has it that the elder Peabody was paid
Twenty-five dollars in "W. I. Goods" and also wet goods.
^Proctor was a typical New England merchant of the Class B
type. He was up at daylight, shaved his upper lip, and swept
off the sidewalk in front of his store. At night he put up the
shutters with his own hands. He remembered every article
he had on his shelves and what it cost. He bought nothing
he could not pay for. There was one clerk beside the boy ^
After George came, the merchant and his clerk made all
the memoranda on brown paper, and the items were duly
copied into the ledger by George Peabody.
I have been told that a man who writes pure Spencerian can
never do anything else. This, however, is a hasty general-
ization, put forth by a party who wrote a Horace Greeley
hand J- J>

A country store is the place for a boy to learn merchandizing.
In such a place he is never swallowed up by a department.
He learns everything, from shaking down the ashes in the
big stove to buying and selling fadeless calico. He becomes
an expert with a nail-puller, knows strictly fresh eggs from
eggs, and learns how to adapt himself to the whims, caprices,
and notions of the customers who know little and assume
much j^ Jt>
74

GEORGE

P E A B 0 D Y

George Peabody slept in the attic over the store. He took his
meals with the Proctor family, and used to wipe the dishes
for Mrs. Proctor. He could tend store, tend baby, wash a blue
wagon, drive a ** horse and team" and say **back-sshe!" in
a way that would throw you off the front seat when the horse
stopped if you did n*t look out.

That is to say, he was a New England village boy, alive and
alert to every phase of village life — strong, rapid, willing,
helpful. The villager who knows too much gets "fresh" and
falls a victim of arrested development. The boy in a village
who works, and then gets out into a wider sphere at that
critical period when the wanderlust strikes him, is in the
line of evolution.

George Peabody remained at Proctor's store until nine o'clock
in the evening of the day that marked the close of his four
years of apprenticeship.

He was fifteen, and all tempting offers from Mr. Proctor to
pay him wages thereafter in real money were turned aside.
^ He had a new suit of clothes, five dollars in his pocket,
and ambition in his heart. He was going to be a draper, and
eliminate all **W. I. goods."

GEORGE

P E A B 0 D Y

VER at Newburyport, George had
a brother, David Peabody, who
ran a **draper*s shop." Tha is to
say, David Peabody was a dry-
goods merchant. This was a com-
paratively new thing in America,
for a "store" at that time, usually
kept everything that people wanted.
The exclusive draper idea came
from London. It seemed to work
in Boston, and so Newburyport
tried it ,5^ .^

David and George had talked it over together, and a partner-
ship was in mind. In the meantime George was only fifteen
years old, and David thirty. "I am twice as old as you,"
once said David to George, with intent to make the lad know
his proper place.

"Yes, I know ; but you will not be twice as old as I very long, "
replied George, who was up in mathematics.
The brothers did not mix very well. They were tuned to a
different vibration. One had speed — the other was built for
the plow ^ ^

And when the store caught fire and burned, and almost all
of Newburyport was burned up too, it was a good time for
George to strike for pastures new.

He walked down to Boston, and spent all his money for a
passage on a coaster that was about to sail for Washington, in
the District of Columbia. This was in the latter part of the
76

GEORGE PEABODY

year Eighteen Hundred Eleven. ^Washington was the capital
of the country, and there was an idea then that it was, also,
going to be the commercial metropolis. Hence the desire to
get in on the ground floor. Especially was the South to look
to Washington for her supplies.

George Peabody, aged sixteen, looked the ground over, and
thought he saw opportunity nodding in his direction.
He sat down and wrote to a wholesale dry-goods dealer by
the name of Todd in Newburyport, ordering draperies to
the amount of two thousand dollars.

Blessed is that man who knows what he wants, and asks
for it j^ »^

Todd remembered the boy who had given him orders in
Proctor's, and at once filled the order.
In three months Todd got his money and an order for double
the amount.

In those days the plan of calling on the well-to-do planters,,
and showing them the wares of Autolycus was in vogue ^
English dress-goods were a lure to the ladies. George Peabody
made a pack as big as he could carry, tramped, smiled and!
sold the stuff. When he had emptied his pack, he came back
to his room where his stock was stored and loaded up again..
If there were remnants he sold them out to some crossroads
store J^ jt

The fact that the Jews know a few things in a worldly way,
I trust will not be denied. George Peabody, the Yankee,
adopted the methods of the Chosen People jt And at that
early date, it comes to us as a bit of a miracle, that George

GEORGE PEABODY

Peabody said, "You can*t afford to sell anybody anything
which he does not need, nor can you afford to sell it at a
price beyond what it is worth." Also this, "When I sell a
woman draperies, I try to leave the transaction so I can go
back next week and sell her more. "

Also this, "Credit is the sympathetic nerve of commerce.
There are men who do not keep faith with those from whom
they buy, and such last only a little while. Others do not keep
faith with those to whom they sell, and such do not last long.
To build on the rock one must keep his credit absolutely
unsullied, and he must make a friend of each and all to
whom he sells."

The Judaic mental processes have been sharpened by
migration. To carry a pack and peddle is better than to
work for a Ph. D., save for the social usufruct and the eclat
of the unthinking.

We learn by indirection and not when we say, "Go to! Now
watch us take a college course and enlarge our phrenological
organs. "

Our knobs come from knocks, and not from the gentle
massage of hired tutors.

Selling subscription-books, maps, sewing-machines or Mason
& Hamlin organs, has given thousands of strong men their
initial impulse toward success. When you go from house to
house to sell things you catch the household in their old
clothes and the dog loose. To get your foot in the front door
and thus avoid the slam, sweetening acerbity by asking the
impatient housewife this question, "Is your mother at

GEORGE PEABODY

home?" and then making a sale, is an achievement Jb
**The greatest study of mankind is man," said Pope, and
for once he was right, although he might have said woman.
^ From fifteen to nineteen is the formative period, when the
cosmic cement sets, if ever.

During those years George Peabody had emerged from a
clerkship into a Business Man. QWhat is a Business Man?
9 Listen, Terese, a business man is one 'whoj gets the business,
and completes the transaction. Bookkeepers, correspondents,
system men, janitors, scrubwomen, stenographers, elec-
tricians, elevator-boys, cash-girls, are all good people and
necessary and worthy of sincere respect, but they are not
Business Men, because they are on the side|of expense and
not income.

When H. H. Rogers coupled the coal-mines of West Virginia
with tide-water, he proved himself a Business Man.
When James J. Hill created an Empire in the Northwest,
he proved his right to the title.
The Business Man is a salesman.

And no matter how great your invention, how sweet your
song, how sublime your picture, how perfect your card-
system, until you are able to convince the world that it needs
the thing, and you get the money for it, you are not a
Business Man.

The Business Man is one who supplies something great
and good to the world, and collects from the world for the
goods. Taffy, guff and oxaline are all good in their way,
but they have the disadvantage of not being legal tender.

GEORGE

P E A B 0 D Y

N migrating from New England
to the District of Columbia, George
Peabody had moved into a com-
paratively foreign country, and
in the process had sloughed most
of his provincialism. It is beautiful
to be a New Englander, but to be
nothing else is terrible.
George had proved for himself the
most valuable lesson in Self-
Reliance — that he could make
his way alone. He had kept his
credit and strengthened it.

He had served as a volunteer soldier in the War of Eighteen
Hundred Twelve, and done patrol duty on the banks of the
Potomac Jt> ^

And when the war was over, no one was quite so glad as he.
fl Serving in the volunteer ranks with him was one Elisha
Riggs, several years his senior, and also a draper. They had
met before, but as competitors, and on a cold business basis.
Now they were comrades in arms, and friends.
Riggs is today chiefly remembered to fame because he built
what in its day was the most palatial hotel in Washington,
just as John Jacob Astor was scarcely known outside of his
bailiwick until he built that grand hostelry, the Astor House.
Q Riggs had carried a pack among the Virginia plantations,
but now he had established a wholesale dry-goods house in
Georgetown, and sold only to storekeepers. He had felt the

GEORGE PEABODY

competitive force of Peabody*s pack, and would make friends
with it ,>t ^

He proposed a partnership.

Peabody explained that his years were but nineteen, and
therefore he was not legally of age.

Riggs argued that time would remedy the defect. Riggs was
rich — he had five thousand dollars, while Peabody had one
thousand six hundred fifty dollars and forty cents. I give the
figures exact, as the inventory showed.
But Peabody had one thing which will make any man or
woman rich. It is something so sweetly beneficent that well
can we call it the gift of the gods.
The asset to which I refer is Charm of Manner.
Its first requisite is glowing physical health J^ Its second
ingredient is absolute honesty. Its third is good will.
Nothing taints the breath like a lie.

The old parental plan of washing the bad boy's mouth out
with soft soap had a scientific basis.

Liars must possess good memories. They are fettered and
gyved by what they have said and done. The honest man is
free — his acts require neither explanation nor apology. He
is in possession of all of his armament.
The outdoor work of tramping Maryland and Virginia high-
ways had put the glow of high health on the cheek of George
Peabody. He was big in body, manly, intelligent and could
meet men on a basis of equality. If I were president of?a
college, I would have a chair devoted to Psychic Mixability,
or Charm of Manner ^ Ponderosity, profundity, and

GEORGE

P E A B 0 D Y

insipidity may have their place, but the man with Charm
of Manner keeps his capital active. His soul is fluid. I have
never been in possession of enough of this Social Radium
so to analyze it, but I know it has the power of dissolving
opposition, and melting human hearts. But so delicate and
illusive is it, that when used for a purely selfish purpose, it
evaporates into thin air, and the erstwhile possessor is left
with only the mask of beauty and the husk of a personality.
q George Peabody had Charm of Manner from his nineteenth
year to the day of his death. Col. Forney crossed the Atlantic
with him when Peabody was in his seventy-first year, and
here is what Forney says : " I sat on one side of the cabin
and he on the other. He was reading from a book, which
he finally merely held in his hands, as he sat idly dreaming.
I was melted into tears by the sight of his Jove-like head
framed against the window. His face and features beamed
with high and noble intellect, and the eyes looked forth in
divine love jt If ever soul revealed itself in the face, it was
here. He was the very King of Men, and I did not wonder
that in the past people had worked the apotheosis of such. "

GEORGE

P E A B 0 D Y

HE firm of Riggs & Peabody
prospered. It outgrew its quarters
in old "Congress Hall'* in George-
town, and ran over into a house
next door, which it pre-empted.
Moreover, it was apparent by this
time that neither Georgetown
nor Washington would ever be
the commercial metropolis of
America jt J^

The city of Baltimore had special
harbor advantages that Washing-
ton did not have ; the ships touched there according to natural
law. And when Riggs & Peabody found themselves carting
consignments to Baltimore so as to make shipment to
Savannah and Charleston, they knew the die was cast.
Q They packed up and moved to Baltimore.
This was in the year Eighteen Hundred Fifteen.
In order to do business you had better go to where business
is being done. Trade follows the lines of least resistance J^
The wholesale dealer saw the value of honesty as a busi-
ness asset, long before the retailer made the same unique
discovery ^ ^

Dr. Algernon S. Crapsey says that truth is a brand-new
virtue, and the clergy are not quite sure about it yet .^
To hold his trade the jobber found he had to be on the
dead level: he had to consider himself the attorney for his
client. Peabody was a merchant by instinct. He had good

GEORGE PEABODY

taste, and he had a prophetic instinct as to what the people
wanted. Instead of buying his supplies in Newburyport,
Boston and New York, he now established relations with
London, direct J> And London was then the Commercial
Center of the world, the arbiter of fashion, the molder of
form, the home of finance — frenzied and otherwise jt
Riggs & Peabody shipped American cotton to London, and
received back the manufactured production in its manifold
forms J' J>

In Eighteen Hundred Twenty-nine Riggs withdrew from
the firm, retaining a certain financial interest, merely, and
Peabody forged to the front, alone, as a financier.
For many years Peabody dealt largely with Robert Owen,
and thus there grew up a close and lasting friendship between
these very able men. Both were scouts for civilization. No
doubt they influenced each other for good. We find them
working out a new policy in business — the policy of reci-
procity, instead of exploitation.

Robert Owen always had almost unlimited credit, for he
prized his word as the immediate jewel of his soul. It was
exactly the same with Peabody.

In Eighteen Hundred Twenty-seven Peabody visited Eng-
land J' He was then thirty-two years old. The merchants
from whom he bought discovered a surprising thing when
they met Peabody — he was not the bounding, bragging,
bustling, hustling, typical American. He hustled of course,
but not visibly nor offensively. He had the appearance of
a man who had all the time there was. He was moderate
84

GEORGE PEABODY

in voice and gentle in manner, and we hear of a London
banker paying him the somewhat ambiguous compliment
of saying, "Why, you know, he is a perfect gentleman —
he does not seem like an American, at all, you know!"
Peabody had the rare gift of never defeating his ends through
haste and anxiety.

The second trip Peabody made to London was in Eighteen
Hundred Thirty-five, and it was on a very delicate and
important errand.

The State of Maryland was in sore financial distress. She
had issued bonds and these were coming due ^ Certain
Southern States had repudiated their debts, and it looked
as if Maryland was going to default.

Peabody issued an open letter calling upon the citizens of
Maryland to preserve their commercial honor. The state
bonds were held mostly in New York and Philadelphia,
and these were rival cities. Baltimore was to be tabu ^
Stephen Girard had loaned money to Maryland, and in
Eighteen Hundred Twenty-nine had declined to renew,
and this some said had led to the stringency which reached
its height in Eighteen Hundred Thirty-five. Then it was
that the State of Maryland empowered George Peabody to
go to London and negotiate a loan. The initiative was his
own ejt jt,

He went to London, and floated a loan of eight million
dollars J^ Robert Owen said that Peabody borrowed the
money "on his face."

He invited a dozen London bankers to a dinner, and when

GEORGE PEABODY

the cloth was removed he explained the matter in such a
lucid way that the moneybags loosened their strings and did
his bidding without parley. Peabody sailed back to Baltimore
with the gold coin.
Another case of Charm of Manner !

Peabody knew the loan was a good thing to both borrower
and lender.

And the man who knows what he is going to do with money,
and when and how he is going to pay it back, is never at a
loss for funds.

In Eighteen Hundred Ninety-three Andrew Carnegie called
upon the banks of Pittsburgh for a million-dollar loan. The
bankers said, **Why, Mr. Carnegie, this is unprecedented!*^
The reply was, "Well, I am a man who does unprecedented
things. If you believe that I know what I am doing, get this
money together for me — life is too short for apologies — PU
be back in an hour."

Three of the bankers coughed, one sneezed, but they got
the money and had it ready when Andy called in an hour.
^ In this transaction Andy held the whip-hand. The Carnegie
Mills were already owing the Pittsburgh banks a tidy million
or so, and they were compelled to uphold and support the
credit of their clients, or run the risk of having smoke-stacks
fall about their ears.

It was so, in degree, with Peabody and the London bankers.
A considerable portion of Maryland's old bond issue had been
hypothecated by the Philadelphia and New York bankers
with merchants in London. It was now Peabody's cue
86

GEORGE PEABODY

to show London that she must protect her own. His gracious
presence and his logic saved the day. It is a great man who
can flick a fly on the off -leader's ear, when occasion demands.
C[ As a commission for securing the London loan, the State
of Maryland gave Peabody a check for sixty thousand dollars.
He endorsed the check, "Presented to the State of Maryland
with the best wishes of G. Peabody, " and gave it back.
Peabody*s success with Threadneedle Street tapped for him
a reservoir of power. To bring Great Britain and America
into closer financial and industrial relatipnship now became
his life-work. In Eighteen Hundred Thirty-five he moved
his principal oflice to London. This was for the purpose of
facilitating the shipment of English goods to America. The
English manufacturers were afraid to sell to American
merchants ^ "Capital is timid," said Adam Smith, the
truth of which many of us can attest.
Peabody knew the trade of America; and his business now
was to make advances to English jobbers on shipments
gomg to "the States." Thus did he lubricate the wheels of
trade ^ Jt>

London bankers had been trying to show English manu-
facturers that trading with the "American Colonies" was
very risky, inasmuch as these "Colonies" were "rebels,**
and entertained a hate and jealousy toward the Mother
Country, which might manifest itself m repudiation most
any time.

This fanning of old embers was to keep up the rate of dis-
count. The postage on a letter carried from England to

GEORGE PEABODY

America, or America to England, was twenty-five cents
when Peabody first went to England J^ He saw the rate
reduced to ten cents, and this largely through his own
efforts e^ ^

Now we send a letter to Great Britain for two cents, or as
cheaply as a letter can be sent from New York City to
Yonkers J^ ^

Through the influence of George Peabody, more than any
other man of his time, the two great countries grew to
understand each other.

The business of Peabody was to maintain the credit of
America. To this end he made advances on shipments to
the States. Where brokers had formerly charged ten per
cent, he took five J^ And moreover, where he knew the
American importer, he advanced to the full amount of the
invoice ^ ^

He turned his money over four times a year, and thus got
an interest on it of twenty per cent J> His losses averaged
only one-half of one per cent. When he wanted funds he
found no difficulty in borrowing at a low rate of interest
on his own paper.

The business was simple, easy, and when once started
yielded an income to Peabody of from three hundred
thousand to half a million dollars a year ^ And no one
was more surprised than George Peabody, who had once
worked for Sylvester Proctor of Danvers for four years,
and at the end of that time been paid five dollars and given
a suit of clothes!
88

GEORGE

P E A B 0 D Y

EABODY lived and died a bachelor.
^ Bachelors are of two kinds :
There is the Rara Avis Other
Sort; and the common variety
known as the Bachelorum Vul-
garis ^ The latter variety may
always be recognized by its procliv-
ity to trespass on the preserve of
the Pshaw of Persia, thus lay-
ing the candidate open to a suit for
the collection of royalties. Beside
^ that, the Bachelorum Vulgaris
is apt to fall into the poison-ivy, lose his hair, teeth, charm
and digestion, and die at the top.

The other sort is wedded to his work — for man is a molecule
in the mass and must be wedded to something. To be wedded
to your work is to live long and well.

For a man to wed a woman who has no interest in his work,
and thus live his life in an orbit outside of hers, often causes
the party to oscillate into the course followed by the Bache-
lorum Vulgaris and the Honorable Pshaw, known as the
Devil and the Deep Sea, and thus he completes the circle,
revealing the Law of Antitheses, that the opposites of things
are alike.

The ideal condition is to be a bigamist, and wed a woman
and your work at the same time.

To wed a woman and be weaned from your work is a
tragedy; to wed your work and eliminate the woman may

GEORGE PEABODY

spell success. If compelled to choose, be loyal to your work.
As specimens of those who get along fairly well without either
a feminine helpmeet or a sinker, I give you Michelangelo,
Leonardo da Vinci, Titian, Sir Isaac Newton, Herbert Spencer
and George Peabody.

George Peabody was the true apostolic predecessor of Harry
G. Selfridge, of Chicago and the round world, who has
inaugurated American Merchandizing Methods in London,
selling to the swells of Picadilly the smart suits created
by Stein-Bloch.

Unlike most men of wealth! and position, Peabody never
assumed unusual importance nor demanded favors jft- In
London, where he lived for thirty years, he resided in simple
apartments, with no use for a valet nor the genus flunkey.
^ He was grateful to servants, courteous to porters, thankful
to everybody, always patient, never complaining of non-
attention. He grew to be a favorite among the bus men who
came to know him and sought to do him honor.
The poor of London blessed Jhim as he walked by— with
reasons, probably, not wholly' ^disinterested.
He used no tobacco, never touched spirituous liquors, and
at banquets usually partook of but a single dish.
His first great gift was three million dollars to erect model
tenements for the poor of London. The Peabody Apartments
occupy two squares in Islington, and are worth a visit today,
although they were built about Eighteen Hundred Fifty.
€[ The intent was to supply a home for working people that
was sanitary, wholesome and complete at a rental of exact
90

GEORGE PEABODY

cost. Peabody expected that his example would be imitated
by the rich men of the nobility, and that squalor and indi-
gence would soon become things of the past J' Alas, the
Peabody Apartments only accommodate about a thousand
people, and half a million or more of human beings live in
abasing poverty and misery in London today.
Excepting in a few instances, the nobility of London are
devoid of the Philanthropic Spirit.

In New York, the Mills Hotels are yet curiosities, and the
model tenements exist mostly on paper jt Trinity Church
with its millions draws an income today from property of
a type which Peabody prophesied would not exist in the
year Nineteen Hundred.

One thing which Peabody did not bank on was the indiffer-
ence of the poor to their surroundings, and the inherent taste
for strong drink. He thought that if the rich would come to
the rescue, the poor would welcome the new regime and be
grateful J> The truth seems to be that the poor must help
themselves, and that beautiful as philanthropy is, it is mostly
for the philanthropist.

The poor must be educated to secrete their surroundings,
otherwise if you supply them a palace they will transform
it into a slum, tomorrow.

**The sole object of philanthropy," said Story the Sculptor,
**is to model a face like George Peabody's."
When the news reached America of what George Peabody,
the American, was doing for London, there were many unkind
remarks about his having forsaken his native land jt To

GEORGE PEABODY

equalize matters Peabody then gave three million dollars,
just what he had given to London, for the cause of education
in the Southern States. This money was used to establish
schoolhouses. Wherever a town raised five hundred dollars
for a school Peabody would give a like sum.
A million dollars of the Peabody fund was finally used for
a Normal School at Nashville. The investment has proved a
wise and beneficent one.

He next gave a million and a half dollars to found the
Peabody Institute of Baltimore ,^ That this gift fired the
heart of Peter Cooper to do a similar work, and if possible
a better work, there is no doubt.

At the first World's Fair held in London in Eighteen Hundred
Fifty-one, Peabody gave fifteen thousand dollars toward the
exhibition of American inventions, the chief of which at this
time were the McCormick Reaper, Eli Whitney's Cotton Gin,
and Colt's Revolver.

Peabody backed Dr. Kane with a gift of twenty thousand
dollars in his search for Franklin. He established various
libraries; and gave a quarter of a million dollars to his
native town for a Peabody Institute Jf Danvers has now
disappeared from the map and the town is Peabody, a place
of pilgrimage for those who reverence that American
invention — a new virtue — the Art of Giving Wisely.
Joshua Bates, through whose generosity Boston secured
her Free Public Library, was an agent of Peabody's, and
afterward his partner. Later, Bates became a member of
the house of Barring Brothers, and carried on a business
92

GEORGE PEABODY

similar to that of George Peabody. There is no doubt
that Bates got his philanthropic impulse from Peabody.
^ In Eighteen Hundred Fifty-six Peabody visited his
native town of Danvers after an absence of over forty
years J^ There were great doings, in which all the school-
children, as well as the Governor of the State, had a part.
^ At Washington, Peabody was the guest of the President.
The House of Representatives and the Senate adjourned
their regular business to do him honor, and he made an
address to them. The judges of the Supreme Court invited
him to sit on the bench when he entered their Chamber.
^ For twenty years he was America's unofficial Chief
Representative in London, no matter who was Consul
or who Ambassador.

Every year on July Fourth he gave a dinner to the principal
Americans who happened to be in London. To be invited
to this dinner was an event ^ Peabody himself always
presided, and there was considerable oratory sometimes
of the brand known as Southwestern, which Peabody
tolerated with gentle smiles.

On one occasion, however, things did not go smoothly.
Daniel Sickles was Consul to London and James Buchanan,
afterwards our punkest President, was Ambassador. Sickles
was a good man, but a fire-eater, and a gentleman of marked
jingo proclivities.

Sickles had asked that Buchanan preside, in which case
Buchanan was to call on Sickles for the first toast, and
this toast was to be **The President of the United States."

GEORGE PEABODY

At the same time Sickles intended to give the British lion's
tail a few gratuitous twists.

Peabody declined to accede to Sickles' wish, but he himself
presided and offered the first, "To the Queen of England!"
^ Thereupon, Sickles walked out with needless clatter,
and Buchanan sat glued to his seat.
The affair came near being an international episode.
Peabody was always an American, and better, he was a
citizen of the world. He loved America, but when on English
soil, really guest of England, he gave the Queen the place
of honor ^ This seems to us proper and right, and at this
distance we smile at the whole transaction, but we are
glad that Peabody, who paid for the dinner, had his way
as to the oratorical guff.

The Queen offered Peabody a Knighthood, but he declined
saying that, "If Her Majesty write me a personal letter
endorsing my desire to help the poor of London, I will be
more than delighted."

Victoria then wrote the letter, and she also had a picture of
herself painted in miniature and gave it to him. The letter
and portrait are now in the Peabody Institute at Peabody,
Massachusetts J^ ^

When Peabody died in Eighteen Hundred Sixty-nine, Queen
Victoria ordered that his body be placed in Westminster
Abbey. The Queen in person attended the funeral, the flags
on Parliament House were lowered to half-mast, and the
body was attended to Westminster Abbey by the Royal
Guard. Gladstone was one of the pall-bearers.
94

GEORGE PEABODY

Later, it was discovered that Peabody had devised in his
will that his body should rest in Harmony Grove, the
village cemetery at Danvers, by the side of his father and
mother, and in a spot over which his boyish feet had trod.
^ The body was then removed from the Abbey and placed
on board the British man-of-war ** Monarch," in the
presence of the Prime Minister, the Secretary of Foreign
Affairs, and many distinguished citizens. The "Monarch"
was convoyed to America by a French and an American
gunboat J^ ^

No such honors have ever been paid to the memory of a
simple American citizen.

Well did the Rev. Newman Hall say, in his funeral oration :
"George Peabody waged a war against want and woe. He
created homes — he never desolated one ^ He sided with
the friendless, the houseless, and his life was guided by a
law of love which none could ever wish to repeal. His was
the task of cementing the hearts of Briton and American,
pointing both to their duty to God and to Hiunankind. **

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Vol. 25

OCTOBER, MCMIX

No. 4

iic:)^unrY^

no I HF HOIytE^TTR

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>> i W A N

KOOH-»Y-THR

fflfflE^^^DZxfflffi

UR REVER-
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Health and Wealth - - - Elbert Hubbard

Woman's Work - - - Alice Hubbard

Battle of Waterloo - - - Victor Hugo

White Hyacinths - - - Elbert Hubbard

The Rubaiyat - - - . Omar Khayyam

A William Morris Book - Hubbard and Thomson

Crimes Against Criminals - Robert G. Ingersoll

The Man of Sorrows ... Elbert Hubbard

Bound Vol. Little Journeys - - Elbert Hubbard

The Doctors ... - Fra Elbertus

THE merchant of the future will not only be an economist
and an industrial leader — he will be a teacher and a
humanitarian.— A. T. STEWART, in a Letter to President
Grant jt jt

A. T. STEWART

LITTLE JOURNEYS

HEN His Excellency Wu Ting Fang
was asked what country he would
live in, if he had his choice,
his unhesitating answer was,
**Ireland!"

The reply brought forth another
question, as his secretive and
clever Excellency knew it would,
namely, "Why?"
"Because Ireland is the only
country in the world in which
the Irish have no influence."
Also, it might be stated, although it has nothing to do
with the case, that the Jews are very much more influential
in New York City than they are in Jerusalem. The Turk is
to Palestine what the English are to Ireland.
The human product has to be transplanted in order to get
the best results, just as the finest roses of California are
slipped near Powers* Four Corners, Rochester, Monroe
County, New York, and are then shipped to the West J(r
A new environment means, often, spiritual power before
unguessed. The struggle of the man to fit himself into a
new condition and thus harmonize with his surrotmdings,
brings out his latent energies and discovers for him untapped
reservoirs ^ ^

It was Edmund Burke who said, "The Irish are all right,
but you must catch them young."

When England wants a superbly strong man she has to

A. T. STEWART

send to Ireland for him. Note Burke, her greatest orator;
Swift, her greatest satirist; Goldsmith, her sweetest poet;
Arthur Wellesley, her greatest fighter — not to mention
Lord Bobs — all awfully Irish.

And to America comes Alexander Turney Stewart, aged
twenty, very Irish, shy, pink, blue of eye, with downy
whiskers, intending to teach school until he could prepare
himself for the **meenistry."

It was the year Eighteen Hundred Twenty ; and at that time
the stars of the Irish schoolmaster were in the ascendant.
Por a space of forty years — say from Eighteen Hundred
Five to Eighteen Hundred Forty-five — eighty per cent of
all graduates of Trinity College, Dublin, came straight
to America and found situations awaiting them.
Young Stewart had been at Trinity College two years,
when by the death of his grandfather he found himself
without funds. His father died when he was three years
old, and his grandparents took him in charge. His mother,
it seems, married again, and was busy raising a goodly
brood of Callahans, several of whom in after years came
to New York, and were given jobs at the A. T. Stewart
button-counter.

Young Stewart could have borrowed money to keep him
in college, for he knew that when he was twenty-one he
would come into an inheritance from his father's estate.
However, on an impulse, he just sold his books, pawned
his watch and bought passage for America, the land of
promise J^ ^

The boy had the look of a scholar, and he had dignity,
as shy folks often have. Also, he had a Trinity College
brogue, a thing quite as desirable as a Trinity College
degree. Later, A. T. Stewart lost his brogue, but Trinity
College sent him all the degrees she had, including an
LL. D., which arrived on his seventieth birthday.
The Irish built our railroads, but Paddy no longer works
on the section — he owns the railroad. Note the Harrimans,
the Hanrahans, the McCreas, the McDougalls, the 0*Donnells>
the 0*Days, the Hills — all just one generation removed from
the bog, and the smell of peat-smoke still upon them.
The Irish schoolmasters glided easily from taking charge
of the school into taking charge of our municipal affairs
— for a consideration — and their younger brothers, their
cousins, their uncles and their aunts, found jobs yawning
for them as soon as they had pushed past the gates of
Castle Garden.

One year of school-teaching in New York City, and A. T.
Stewart reached his majority. He had saved just two
hundred dollars of his salary; and he sailed away, back
to Ould Ireland, a successful man. Now he would go
back to Trinity and complete his course, and be glorified.
He had proved his ability to meet the world on a fair footing
and take care of himself.

All of which speaks well for young Misther Stewart, and it
also speaks well for his grandparents, who had brought
him up in a good, sensible way to work, economize and
keep a civil tongue in his Irish head. His grandfather did n't

A. T. STEWART

exactly belong to the gentry — it was better than that — he
was an Irish clerque who had become a scrivener, and then
risen to a professorship.

A. T. Stewart was heir to a goodly amount of decent pride,
which always kept him in the society of educated people,
and made him walk with the crown of his head high and
his chin in. He thought well of himself — and the world is
very apt to take a man at his own estimate.
A year in **The States" had transformed the young man
from a greenhorn into a gentleman. The climate of the
West had agreed with him. He himself told how on going
back to Belfast the city seemed to have grown smaller and
very quiet J^ He compared everything to Broadway, and
smiled at a jaimting-car compared to a 'bus.
When he went to Trinity College, and saw his class, from
whom he had parted only a year before, all thought of
remaining two years to graduate faded from his mind.
^ An ocean seemed to divide him from both teachers
and pupils. The professors were stupid and slow; the pupils
were boys — he was a man. They, too, felt the difference,
and called him **Sir." And when one of them introduced
him to a Freshman as **an American," Freshy bowed low,
and the breast of A. T. Stewart expanded with pride. Not
even the offer of a professorship could have kept him in
Ireland. He saw himself the principal of an American College,
"filling" the pulpit of the college chapel on Sunday, pictur-
ing the fate of the unregenerate in fiery accents. The Yankee
atmosphere had made him a bit heady.

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The legacy left him by his grandfather was exactly one

thousand pounds — five thousand dollars. What to do with

this money, he did not know! Anjrway he would take it to

America and wisely invest it.

In New York he had boarded with an Irish family, of which

the head of the house was a draper. This man had a small

store on West Street, and Alexander had helped tend store

on Saturdays, and occasionally evenings when ships came

in and sailors with money to waste lumbered and lubbered

past, often with gaily-painted galleys in tow.

The things you do at twenty are making indelible marks

on your character. Stewart had no special taste for trade,

but experience spells power — potential or actual.

With five thousand dollars in his belt, all in gold, he felt

uncomfortable.

And so on a ventiure he expended half of it in good Irish

lace, insertions and scallop trimmings. Irish linens, Irish

poplins and Irish lace were being shipped to New York —

itjcould not be a loss! He would follow suit. If he was

robbed of his money he could not at the same time be

robbed of the drapery.

And so he sailed away for New York — and Ireland looked

more green and more beautiful as the great uplifting green

hills faded from sight and were lost to view in the mist jt

lOI

N the ship that carried Stewart
back to New York was a young
man who professed to be an
adept in the draper's line. Very
naturally, Stewart got acquainted
with this man, and told him of
his investment in dry-goods. The
man offered to sell the stock for
Stewart J> ^

In those days the Irish pedler
with his pack full of curious and
wonderful things was a common
sight at the farmhouses. He rivaled both Yankee-Gentile
and Jew, and his blarney was a commodity that stood him
in good stead.

Stewart's new-found friend promised to sell the stock in
short order, by going right out among the people. He had
no money of his own, and Stewart was doubly pleased to
think he could set a worthy man up in business, and help
himself at the same time.

On reaching New York, the friend was fitted out with all
the goods he could carry, and duly headed for New Jersey.
fl In two days he came back. He had sold most of the goods
all right, and with the money gotten gloriously drunk; also
he had bought drinks for all the Irishmen he could find, and
naturally they were many.

Stewart even then did not give up the case. He rented a small
store at Two Hundred Eighty-three Broadway, and decided

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that by staying close to his friend he could keep him in the

straight and narrow path of probity. As for himself he would

teach school as usual ; and he and his agent could use the

back of the little store for a sleeping-room.

It was a week before his school was to begin, but in that

week he became convinced that his friend was not a

merchant, and to get that first month's rent he would

have to run the store himself.

So he put the disciple of Bacchus on the slide, and started

in alone. ^Stewart had a little inconvenient pride which

prevented his turning pedler.

Instead of going to the world he would bring the world to

him. With this end in view the New York Daily Advertiser

for September Second, Eighteen Hundred Twenty-five,

contained this notice:

A. T. Stewart, just arrived from Belfast, offers for sale
to the Ladies of New York a choice selection of Fresh
Dry-Goods at Two Hundred Eighty-three Broadway.

The advertisement was a good one — the proof of which was

that many puffick ladies called to see the stock and the man

just arrived from Belfast.

Stewart was a wise advertiser. His use of the word "Ladies"

showed good psychology.

The young merchant had n't much more than taken down

his shutters before a lady entered the store and acknowledged

she was one. She lived in the next block, and as soon as she

read the advertisement in the paper, yet damp from the press,

she came right over.

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A. T. STEWART

Stewart spread out his wares with shaking hands — he must
make a sale to his first caller or he would never have luck.
The lady bought "scallops" and lace to the extent of two
dollars, on Stewart's throwing her in gratis sundry yards
of braid, a card of buttons and a paper of hooks and eyes.
^ The woman paid the money, and A. T. Stewart was
launched, then and there, on a career. ^ He was a handsome
young fellow — intelligent, and never too familiar, but just
familiar enough. Women liked him; he was so respectful,
almost reverent, in his attitude toward them.
It took a better man to be a salesman then than now ^
Every article was marked in cipher, with two prices. One
figure represented what the thing cost and the other was
the selling-price ^ You secxxred the selling-price, if you
could, and if you could n't, you took what you could get,
right down to the cost figure. The motto was, never let a
customer go without selling him something. The rule now
is to sell people what they want, but never urge any one
to buy ^ J^

Both buyer and seller then enjoyed these fencing-bouts
of the bazaar. The time for simple dealing between man
and man had not yet come. To haggle, banter and blarney
were parts of the game, and parts which the buyer demanded
asfhis right. He would only trade at places where he thought
he was getting the start of the dealer and where his cleverness
had an opportunity for exercise ^ The thought of getting
something for nothing was in the air, and to get the better
of somebody was regarded as proper and right.
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A. T. STEWART

Had a retail dealer then advertised One Price and no
deviation to any one, the customers would surely have
given him absent treatment Ji> The verbal fencing, the
forays of wit, the clash of accusation and the final forlorn
sigh of surrender of the seller, were things which the buyer
demanded as his, or more properly her right.
Often these encounters attracted interested bystanders,
who saw the skilful buyer berate the seller and run down
his goods, until the poor iman, abjectjand undone, gave
up. To get the better of the imale man and force him to
his knees is the pleasant diversion of a certain type of
feminine mind. Before marriage the jwoman always, I
am told, takes this high-handed attitude. Perhaps she
dimly realizes that her time for tyranny is short Jt> To
make the man a suppliant is the delight of her soul. After
marriage the positions are reversed. But in the good old
days, most women, not absolutely dessicated by age or
ironed out by life's vicissitudes, found a sort of secondary
sexual delight in these shopping assaults on the gentlemanly
party on the other side of the counter.
We have all seen women enter into heated arguments,
and indulge in a half-quarrel with attractive men, about
nothing. If the man is wise he allows the woman to force
him into a comer, where he yields with a grace, ill-concealed,
and thus is he victor, without the lady knowing it. This is a
sort of salesmanship that Sheldon knows nothing of, and
that, happily, is, for the most part, not yet obsolete. A. T.
Stewart was a natural salesman of the old school. He was a

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success from the very start. He was tall ; he had good teeth, a
handsome face, a graceful form and dressed with exquisite care.
flXhis personal charm of manner was his chief asset. And
while business then was barter, and the methods of booth and
bazaar prevailed, Stewart was wise enough never to take
advantage of a customer, regarding either price or quality.
If the buyer held off long enough she might buy very close
to cost, but if she bought quickly and at Stewart^s figures,
he had a way of throwing in a yard of ribbon, or elastic,
or a spool or two of thread, all unasked for, that equalized
the transaction. He seems to have been the very first man in
trade to realize that to hold your trade you must make a
friend of the customer. In a year he had outgrown the little
store at Two Hundred Eighty-three Broadway, and he moved
to a larger place at Two Hundred Sixty-two Broadway J-
Then came a new store, built for him by a worthy real-estate
owner, John Jacob Astor, by name.

This store was thirty feet wide, one hundred feet deep, and
three stories high, with a basement.
It was a genuine Dry-Goods Store.

It had a ladies' parlor on the second floor, and a dressing-
room with full-length mirrors, ordered from Paris J>
They were the first full-length mirrors in America, and
A. T. Stewart issued a special invitation to the ladies of
New York to come and see them and see themselves as
others saw them. To arrange these mirrors so that a lady
could see the buttons on the back of her dress was regarded
as the final achievement of legerdemain.
1 06

A. T. STEWART

The A. T. Stewart store was a woman's store ^ In hiring
salesmen the owner picked only gentlemen of presence.
The "floor-walker** had his rise in A. T. Stewart. Once a
woman asked a floor-walker this question, **Do you keep
stationery?** and the answer was, "If I did Td never draw
my salary.** This is a silly story and if it ever happened,
it did not transpire at A. T. Stewart*s. There the floor-walker
was always as a cow that is being milked. For the first
fifteen years of his career Stewart made it a rule to meet
and greet every customer, personally.
The floor-walker — or "head usher,** as he was called — was
either the proprietor or his personal representative.
Stewart never offered to shake hands with a customer, no
matter how well he knew the lady, but bowed low, and
with becoming gravity and gentle voice inquired her wishes.
He then conducted her to the counter where the goods she
wanted were kept. As the clerk would take down his goods
Stewart had a way of reproving the man thus: "Not that,
Mr. Johnson, not that — you seem to forget whom you are
waiting on!**

When the lady left, Stewart accompanied her to the door.
He wore a long beard, shaved his upper lip, and looked like
a Presbyterian clergyman making pastoral calls.
Silks, dress-goods and laces gradually grew to be the A. T.
Stewart specialties. That the man had taste and never ran
stripes around a stout lady, or made a very slim one look
more so, is a matter of history. "I have been hoping you
would come, for we have a piece of silk that seems to have

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been made for you. I ordered it put aside until you could see
it. Mr. Johnson, that silk pattern, please, that I told you not
to show to any one until Mrs. Brevoort called. Thank you ;
yes, that is the one."

Then there were ways of saying, "Oh, Mr. Johnson, you
remember the duplicate of that silk-dress pattern which
was made for Queen Victoria — I think Mrs. Astor would
like to examine it ! '* ^Thus was the subtle art of compliment
fused with commerce and made to yield a dividend.

HE prevailing methods in trade
are always keyed by the public.
The merchant is a part of the public ;
he ministers to the public. A public
that demands a high degree of
honesty and unselfish service will
get it. Sharp practise and double-
dealing among the people find an
outcrop in public affairs. Rogues
in a community will have no
trouble in finding rogue lawyers
to do their bidding. In fact, rogue
clients evolve rogue attorneys. Foolish patients evolve fool
doctors. And superstition'and silliness in the pew find a fitting
expression in the pulpit.
io8

A. T. STEWART

The first man in New York to work the "Cost-Sale" scheme
was A. T. Stewart. In Eighteen Hundred Thirty he advertised :
"Mr. A. T. Stewart, having purchased a large amount of
goods soon to arrive, is obliged, in order to make room for
these, to dispose of all the stock he has on hand, which will
be sold at Actual Cost, beginning Monday at eight A. M.
Ladies are requested to come early and avoid the crush.**
^ At another time he advertised: "A. T. Stewart is obliged
to raise a large amount of money to pay for silks and dress-
goods that are now being made for him in Europe. To secure
this money he is obliged to hold a Cost Sale of everything
in his store. This sale will begin Friday at noon, and end
at midnight on Saturday, the day after.**
Stewart also had "Fire Sales,** although it speaks well for
himself that he never had a fire in his own store. If others
had fires he was on hand to buy the salvage, and whether
he bought it or not he managed to have a "Fire Sale.**
He loved the smoke of commercial rhetoric, and the excite-
ment of seeing the crowd. This applies more particularly to
the first twenty years of his career.

During those first years he used to have a way of opening
cases on the sidewalk and selling from the case to the first
person who made an offer. This brought him good luck,
especially if the person had cross-eyes or was a hunchback.
The messy clutter in front of the store and the pushing
crowds advertised the business. ^Finally, a competitor next
door complained to the police about Stewart*s blocking the
sidewalk. The police interfered and Stewart was given one

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day to clear off the walk. At once he put up a big sign: "Our
neighbors to the right, not being able to compete with us,
demand that we shall open no more goods on the sidewalk.
To make room we are obliged to have a Cost Sale. You buy
your goods, pay for them and carry them away — we can*t
even afford to pay for wrapping-paper and string. "
All this tended to keep the town awake, and the old Irish
adage of "Where McGinty sits is the head of the table"
became true of A. T. Stewart. His store was the center of
trade. When he moved, the trade moved with him.
To all charitable objects he gave liberally. He gave to all
churches, and was recognized as a sort of clergyman himself,
and in his dress he managed to look the part.
The ten per cent off to clergymen and school-teachers was
his innovation. This ten per cent was supposed to be his
profit, but forty per cent would have been nearer it J' Of
course the same discount had to be given to any member
of a clergyman's or a teacher's family. And so we hear of one
of Stewart's cashiers saying, "Over half of the people in
New York are clergymen or teachers." The temptation to
pass one's self off for a clergyman at Stewart's was a bait
that had no lure when you visited Girard College.
All this was but a part and parcel of the times — an index of
the Zeitgeist. Bear-baiting, dog-fighting and open gambling
had given way to milder excitements, and the sweet desire
to smuggle or get an unauthorized discount was the lingering
joy of the chase.

T .

•w

R^ :t

BOUT lEighteen Hundred Sixty,
the **Cost Sales" which took place
at Stewart's, usually twice a year,
gave way to "Remnant Sales."
This meant to the buyer that she
bought all that was left of the
piece. In many instances this was
so, but in the main, not.
Experience had shown that a buyer
bought at a purchase a certain
"number of yards of sheeting,
toweling /or| dress-goods. Antici-
pating the Remnant Sale, the whole|Stewart force would
work all night cutting up cloth and preparing remnants of
a kind and quantity to catch the average buyer. The piece
or remnant was marked in^'plain figures, and here there
was no bidding and no haggle. The trade was made quickly
or not at all. Occasionally, the receipts on a Remnant Sale
would run up to a hundred thousand dollars in a single day.
This was only possible through''one}price and rapid trading,
with all the fiction of barter [eliminated.
And it did one great thing -.fitf^forced upon the growing
intelligence of the world that\the One-Price System was
a big economizer of time and|]money, and was to the best
interests of both buyer and seller Ji> The seller could do
more business in the same space. ^Much friction was avoided,
since the seller in the days of haggle"always had the best of
It: He pitted his experience and knowledge against that of

III

A. T. STEWART

the buyer. This clash of minds required a salesman of superior
ability, and if the buyer was not also clever there was great
danger of his being cheated.

There has been considerable argument as to who introduced
the One-Price System. The fact is that the righteousness of
the idea gradually became racial. It was in the air. Buyer and
seller alike had come to feel a dissatisfaction with the old
methods of "dog eat dog."

A. T. Stewart used to stand his salesmen up in line and give
them lectures on the proper way to handle customers. One
thing he used to say was this: "You will deal with ignorant,
opinionated and innocent people. You will often have an
opportunity to cheat them. If they could, they would cheat
you, or force you to sell at less than cost. You must be wise,
but not too wise d'' You must never actually cheat the
customer, even if you can. If she pays the full figure, present
her a hank of dress-braid, a card of buttons, a pair of shoe-
strings. You must make her happy and satisfied, so she will
come back.*'

Honesty as a business asset was being realized, but the
salesman had to think twice and hard, often, in order to
be fairly decent. Women would buy an article and then
hearing that a neighbor had bought for less would come back
and levy blackmail, demanding a comb or a yard of lace
as the price of peace.

Then it was, about the year Eighteen Hundred Sixty-five,
that John Wanamaker, a young merchant of Philadelphia,
cut the Gordian knot by boldly advertising, "One Price,

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always and forever, and your money back, if not satisfied."

^ It was a heroic and daring thing to do. It lessened the

work of shopping immensely ; it reduced the toil of salesmen ;

it saved time for everybody. Moreover, there was a saving

in salaries of salesmen, since a person of moderate experience

could now wait on customers. Women were hired, and girls

were used where before only men grown gray could be trusted

to parry the thrust of the buyer.

The plan worked.

And A. T. Stewart, who had his finger on the pulse of the

world of trade, sent one of his lieutenants over to Philadelphia

to investigate.

The man handed in a written report and gave it as his opinion

that the One-Price System had come to stay.

And A. T. Stewart soon adopted it as a part of the working

policy of the Business Palace.

It will not do to say that John Wanamaker invented the

One-Price System in retail trade, but it is a fact that he was

the first man to put it into execution, and widely advertise

it. A. T. Stewart taught John Wanamaker a great many

things, and it is very certain that John Wanamaker taught

A. T. Stewart at least one.

T. STEWART was alive, alert and
sensitive to the spirit of the times.
He kept abreast with the best
thought of the best people. The
idea of opening boxes and bales
on the sidewalk was abandoned
early in the game; and the en-
deavor was to show the fabric
only under the most favorable
conditions. Stewart was reaching
out |for a higher clientele. The
motto became, "Not how cheap,
but how good."

If A. T. Stewart sold goods at an average proj&t of, say,
thirty per cent, he could well afford to sell a small portion
of his stock at cost, or even at ten per cent below cost. He
knew his stocks, and he made it a point never to carry goods
over from one year to another.

Before he held one of his famous '*Cost Sales," he would
personally work all night, taking down from the shelves
and out of drawers and show-cases everything in the store.
Then he himself would dictate what each article should be
sold for. Here was exercise for a mind that worked by
intuition J> Ji>

The master decided instantly on how much this thing would
bring J^ jt

In railroad managing there are two kinds of making rates.
One is the carefully figured-out cost of transportation. The
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A. T. STEWART

other plan is to make a rate that will move the tonnage J'
A regular passenger rate is the rate that will afford a profit.
An "excursion rate,'* a "homeseekers* rate,'* an ** old-home
rate," is the one that experience shows is necessary to tempt
people to travel.

Dry-goods deteriorate in quality when kept on the shelves for
several months. Worse than that, they cease to attract the
buyers. People go where there is life, activity, and are moved
by that which is youthful, new and fresh ^ Old stocks
become dead stocks, and dead stocks mean dead business
and dead men — bankruptcy.

When it came to selling old stocks, Stewart paid no attention
to the cost. He marked the tag in big, plain figures in red ink
at the price he thought would move the goods. And usually
he was right.

We hear once of his marking a piece of dress-goods forty-nine
cents a yard. A department salesman came and in alarm
explained that the goods cost fifty-three.
"That has nothing to do with the case," replied Stewart;
"we would not buy it today at fifty-three, and we do not
want the stuff on our shelves even at forty-nine."
"But," said the manager, "this is a Cost Sale, and if we
sell below cost we should explain that fact to the customers."
Q And the answer was, "Young man, you must tell the
customer only what she will believe. The actual truth is
for ourselves."

Stewart worked for an average of profit and this he secured.
His receipts mounted steadily year by year, until in Eighteen

115

Hundred Fifty they were ten thousand dollars a day. In
Eighteen Hundred Sixty they were over twenty thousand
dollars a day. And when he moved into his Business Palace
at Astor Place, Tenth Street and Broadway, the sales jumped
to an average of over fifty thousand dollars a day.

HEN A. T. Stewart built his Busi-
ness Palace in Eighteen Hundred
Sixty-five, it was the noblest busi-
ness structure in America.
Much of the iron used in it was
supplied by Peter Cooper, and that
worthy man was also consulted
as to the plans.

Just a square away from Stewart's
Business Palace stands Cooper
Union ^ J-
In selecting this location A. T.

Stewart was influenced largely by the fact that it was

so near to that center of art and education which Peter

Cooper had made world-wide in fame.

Stewart said, "My store shall vie with your museum, and

people will throng it as they do an exposition."

And his prophecy proved true.

At his death in Eighteen Hundred Seventy-six Stewart was
ii6

the richest man in New York, save an Astor and a Vanderbilt,

and these had mherited their wealth — wealth made through

the rise of real estate, while Stewart had made his money in

legitimate trade.

A. T. Stewart was worth forty million dollars.

This vast estate was mostly frittered away, honey-combed

and moth-eaten, by hungry attorneys.

The business was carried on by Hessians who worked both

ends against the middle, and let the estate foot the deficits.

^ A. T. Stewart had a genius for trade, but he had no gift

for giving. The world needs a school for millionaires, so

that, since they can not take their millions with them, they

can learn to leave their money wisely and well.

After an up-and-down — mostly down — career of a decade,

the Business Palace was bought by John Wanamaker, who

no doubt felt a thrill of delight on coming into possession

of a business that years before had been to him an inspiration.

^ Mr. Wanamaker placed his trusted lieutenant, that very

able man, Robert C. Ogden, in charge.

The scattered forces were reformed, and new goods, new

methods and live men brought the buyers back, penitent.

Again, and almost instantly, the Business Palace became

a center of light and education, and the splendid aisles that

a generation before had known the tread of the best people

of Manhattan, again felt their step.

When Stewart built the Business Palace, people said, **0h,

it is too far uptown — nobody will go there."

But they were wrong.

117

A. T. STEWART

When John Wanamaker moved in, many said, **0h, it 's
beautiful — but you know, it is too far down town — nobody
will go there."

And these were as wrong as the first.

"Where McGinty sits is the head of the table." The trade
siphoned itself thither under the magic name of Wanamaker
as though the shade of A. T. Stewart had been summoned
from its confines in the Isles of Death.
In Stewart's day no sign had been placed on the building.
He said, ** Everybody will know it is A. T. Stewart's!" And
they did. After his death the place was plastered with signs
that called in throaty falsetto at the passer-by, like eager
salesmen on the Midway who try to entice people to enter.
The new management took all these signs down, and by
the main entrance placed a modest tablet carrying this
inscription ;

John Wanamaker
Successor to
A. T. Stewart

It was a comment so subtle that it took New York a year
to awaken to its flavor of tincture of iron.
That little sign reminds one of how once Disraeli was
dining with an American and two other Englishmen. In
the course of the conversation the American proudly let
slip the information that he traced a pedigree to parents
who came to America in the Mayflower.
One of the Englishmen here coughed, and vouchsafed
the fact that he traced a lineage to Oliver Cromwell.
ii8

A. T. STEWART

A little pause followed, and the other guest spat, muzzled
his modesty, and said he traced to William the Conqueror.
^ Disraeli, with great deliberation, made a hieroglyphic on
the table-cloth with his fork and said, "And I trace a
pedigree to Moses, who walked and talked with God on
Mount Sinai, fifteen centuries before the birth of Christ."
John Wanamaker leaped the gulf of twenty years and
traced direct to A. T. Stewart, as well he might, for it was
Stewart's achievement that had first fired his imagination
to do and become.

A. T. Stewart was the greatest merchant of his time. And
John Wanamaker has been not only a great merchant, but a
teacher of merchants. And the John Wanamaker Stores
now form a High School of economic industrialism.
John Wanamaker is still teaching, tapping new reservoirs
of power as the swift-changing seasons pass. As a preacher
and a teacher he has surely surpassed the versatile Stewart.
^ The Stewart Business Palace proved too small to
accommodate the tide of trade that so soon set in the
Wanamaker direction J^ Adjoining the Stewart store
another Business Palace has been built, towering far
above its sturdy little parent. The New Wanamaker Store
is sixteen stories high. The Stewart store is five stories,
which Peter Cooper said was as high as it was possible
to build with safety.

A. T. Stewart left no successor after the flesh ; but Rodman
Wanamaker, the son of John Wanamaker, is the practical
working manager of the Philadelphia Wanamaker Stores

119

A. T. STEWART

and will be his father's successor in all his business.
^ I am glad to discover Rodman Wanamaker and give him
to the world. He has been so thrown into the shadow by
his picturesque and many-sided father that the world
knows little or nothing of him ^ And this is just what
Rodman Wanamaker has desired. My idea is that he
should now walk out into the lime-light ^ Rodman
Wanamaker is a man of, say, forty — strong, earnest,
capable, poised, competent. He is so big that he asks for
no recognition — no applause — no bouquets. His name
has neither been bulletined on Wall Street nor featured
in the Police Gazette ^ He does his work and holds his
peace. He is that rare being, an economist who is also
an educator. Stewart was a great man, but in his love for
the race Rodman Wanamaker is a greater one.
Of course, there are very many able men at the head of
the Wanamaker departments ; but superb skill as a general
is shown in the selection and management of these marshals.
^ John Wanamaker built on the methods of A. T. Stewart.
He invented that water-tight compartment plan of business
known as the Department Store. He banked all and won
on the One-Price System. ^ But in the final evolution of the
Wanamaker business let a modicum of the credit go to that
tireless worker of whom the world sees and knows so little —
Rodman Wanamaker, educator, economist, conservator and
humanist. ^ Napoleon won his battles with his marshals.
But behind the marshals was the master mind. His restless
spirit animated theirs.

120

A. T. STEWART

Napoleon produced in his army a something which he

called an "Esprit de Corps," and thereby did he prove

his greatness.

Without this Esprit de Corps, he said, he would have been

defeated from the first ; and when at last he met his Waterloo

it was because the Esprit de Corps was lacking. A grand

game of grab and graft had begun; it was a clutch for

personal perquisites and honors. The eagles of France

were secondary.

In all big institutions that win their way to success there

must be an Esprit de Corps — a oneness of aim, intent,

desire and ambition.

At John Wanamaker's there is an animating spirit which

I call Esprit de Store!

The place is permeated with a motive — it has a soul. This

motive is to serve the buyer — to anticipate his needs, and

supply him the necessary and beautiful things of life at

the lowest possible margin of profit.

There seems to be a fine, friendly relation between salesmen

and customers which constitutes a sort of Big Wanamaker

Family Ji> Jt>

It is part of this Esprit de Store to speak well of everybody,

if you mention him at all. Wanamaker clerks speak no ill

of competitors. They speak well of each other, and think

well of each other.

Another element in this Esprit de Store is a continual restless

desire to do it better!

Nothing is ever quite good enough.

121

The entire spirit of the place works toward eliminating waste
motion. I find here no bigwig bosses — no costly figure-heads
— no fuss and feathers ^ Everybody works and all work
cheerily jl^ ^

0 succeed in business today it is
not enough that you should look
out for Number One: you must
also look out for Number Two.
that is, you must consider the
needs of the buyer and make his
interests your own.
To sell a person something he
does not want, or to sell him
something at a price above its
actual value, is a calamity — for
the seller.

Business is built on confidence. We make our money out
of our friends — our enemies will not trade with us.
In law the buyer and the seller are supposed to be people
with equal opportunity to judge of an article and pass on
its value.

Hence there is a legal maxim. Caveat emptor — **Let the
buyer beware" — and this provides that when an article
is once purchased and passes into the possession of the

122

A. T. STEWART

buyer it is his, and he has no redress for short weight,
count or inferior quality.

Behind that legal Latin maxim, Caveat Emptor, the
merchant stood for centuries, safely entrenched.
It was about Eighteen Hundred Sixty-five that it came
to John Wanamaker, a young merchant just starting
business in Philadelphia, that the law is wrong in assuming
that buyer and seller stand on a parity, and have an equal
opportunity for judging of values. The dealer is a specialist,
while the buyer, being a consumer of a great number of
different things, has only a general knowledge, at best jt
The person with only a general idea as to values, pitted
against a trained specialist, is at a great disadvantage.
^ Therefore, to be on ethical ground the seller must be
the friend of the buyer — not his antagonist. For a seller
to regard the buyer as his prey is worse than non-ethical
— it is immoral — a violation of the Golden Rule.
Moreover, it is a poor business policy.
You must treat people so they will come back.
There is no advertisement equal to a pleased customer.
^ These things came to the young man, John Wanamaker,
with a great throb and thrill. Many had taken this view,
but where was the merchant who had ever thought it possible
to do a big retail business on this basis?
And at once John Wanamaker put his theories into exe-
cution, and on them his business was founded. The One-Price
System — all goods marked in plain figures — and money back
if not satisfied, these things were to revolutionize the retail

123

A. T. STEWART

trade of the world. ^The plan worked — it paid — the John
Wanamaker business increased — and a few merchants all
over the country began to adopt the plan.
The second great epoch in the life of John Wanamaker was
when he inaugurated the great store in Philadelphia covering
a block, in Eighteen Hundred Seventy-six, which was known
as the Grand Depot because it was lodged in the Pennsyl-
vania Freight Sheds. This great business innovation was
actually a rival of the Centennial Exposition.
Indeed, many merchants from all over America went to
Philadelphia to see the great store of John Wanamaker,
and incidentally they attended the Exposition.
The third great epoch in the life of John Wanamaker was
when he purchased the A. T. Stewart "Palace of Business'*
at Broadway and^ Tenth Street, New York City.
Now comes the fourth great epoch in the life of this tireless
and restless man: He has transformed the A. T. Stewart
Palace of Business and its adjoining new sixteen-story
building into a Business Exposition, that really outstrips
that epoch-maker, the Centennial Exposition.
The A. T. Stewart building is a "Woman's Store," devoted
to woman's wants.

The first floor of the new building is a "Man's Store." The
remaining fifteen stories of the new building are "Galleries, "
wherein are displayed the wonders of the loom, mine, forest,
and farm, from every corner of the globe, with all that talent,
skill and human ingenuity can add or invent, in bronze,
marble, canvas, fabric or textile.
124

Here is shown all that civilization demands for its comfort,
necessity, luxury or delectation. The "Department Store" has
gone with the things that were, or lingers on the outskirts.
The Galleries of Art and Industry are here.
This is the new John Wanamaker Idea — it is the crowning
achievement of a great and useful life. However, I believe it
is not the last innovation, for the Wanamaker spirit of "noble
discontent" seems perennial.

He who has not seen this new educational departure
represented by the New York Wanamaker Exposition,
does not know his America; he is moored to the past,
and is not afloat and free upon the tide of the times jt
Are the items and articles on exhibition for sale? Yes, and
all marked in plain figures, with the guaranty of your money
back if not satisfied. But you are not importuned to buy jt
The place is an unforgettable object-lesson for young and
old in what man hath wrought.

John Wanamaker, of all men in America, seems to know
that to stand still is to retreat. For over forty years he has
led the vanguard of the business world.
He has been a teacher of merchants. His insight, initiative,
originality, and prophetic judgment have set the retailers
of the world a pace. Many have learned much from him,
and all have been influenced by him. Whether they knew
it or not, and whether they would acknowledge it if they
did know it, matters little.

Professor Zueblin says of William Morris: "Not a well-
furnished house in Christendom, but that shows the influence

T .

of his good taste and his gracious ideas of economy, harmony
and honesty in home decoration. **

Likewise, we can truthfully say that there is not a successful
retail store in America that does not show the influence of
A. T. Stewart and his legitimate successor,John Wanamaker.

126

Elbert Hubbard will give his New Lecture
UNTAPPED RESERVOIRS as follows

INDIANAPOLIS, IND .— The Propylaeum,
Wednesday evening, Nov. 3d, eight o'clock.

ST. LOUIS, MO.— Memorial Hall, Friday
evening, Nov. 5th, eight o'clock. Seats on
sale at Bollman Bros.' Music Store.

CLEVELAND, O.— Saturday evening, Nov.
6th, eight o'clock.

CHICAGO, ILL.— Studebaker Theater, Sun-
day afternoon^ Nov. 14th, three o'clock.
Seats on sale at Box Office.

NEW YORK CITY— Cooper Union, Thurs=
tday evening, Nov. 18th, eight o'clock. Seats
^on sale at John Wanamaker's Book Store.

YOUNGSTOWN, O.— Elks Hall, Monday
evening, Nov. 22d, eight o'clock.

PITTSBURGH, PA.— Lecture Hall, Carnegie
Library Building, East End, Tuesday even=
ing, Nov. 23d, eight o'clock.

PHILADELPHIA, PA.— Witherspoon Hall,
Thursday evening, Nov. 25th, eight o'clock.
Seats on sale at John Wanamaker's.

BOSTON, MASS.— Chickering Hall, Thurs-
day evening, Dec. 9th, eight o'clock. Seats
on sale at Box Office.

Jf or gour JBoofefil

^OR the next few months our Bindery will be able to give Atten-
-J' tion to Special Commissions. Look to your Library. Should some o f
your books be worn and smudged with the thumb-prints of Time or
battered with the perennial disrespect of the Book-Borrower (May
Caxton grill his Soul!), send them to us. Mr. Kinder and his pupils
will frock them anew in a style which will make your Emerald ency-
clopedia turn green with envy. T^The Roycrofters can rebind a volume
any size in boards, limp leather, Alicia, buckram, levant or modeled
leather. Simply mail us the books with a note setting forth your
wishes. The work-will be De Luxe, and the cost mildly appropriate.

THE ROYCROFTERS, East Aurora. Erie County, New York, U. S. A.

A QUERY

By Leonard Nichols

Thoreau, long since dead and gone.
In name and fame still liveth on.
'Twas he, when at the evening meal
Asked for which dish he seemed to feel
A preference, in drawling answer said.
Though many viands there were spread —

"The nearest."
Long years a query 's pestered me;
'Tis this: Would Henry David Thoreau, he,
If asked which pretty Concord miss
Of his acquaintance he would kiss.
Have drawled in answer as before.
In Emersonian days of yore,

"The nearest"?

When You Write a Letter

bear in mind that the recipient probably gets
three or four pieces of mail at once. Depend on
it, a man or woman will alw^ays open the most
promising-looking envelope first. The interest in
subsequent letters is then disconcerted by the
message of the one already read. Letter Number
One commands the Unscattered Attention of the
Reader. If your letter is written on

Roycroft Stationery

be sure that it will take precedence over the picture
post-card, the local paper, the price-list asked for
and the customary incidental mail. QThe Roycroft
letter lends dignity to the language and inspires
consideration — what the user has to say is closely
barkened. Here is a most interesting Offer:
Five hundred sheets with envelope affinities,
your name and whereabouts printed Roycroftie
in appropriate shades.

Select your stock and send Copy Suggestions
with Order.

White Italian hand-made, Roycroft Water-mark
Rhododendron hand-made, Roycroft Water-mark
Cream Vellum Alexandra Japan - _ _
Roycroft Goldenrod _____

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10.00
10.00
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The Roycrofters, East Aurora, New York

MODELED MOSTLY
FOR MALE MAN

Modeled' Leather Match-Safe, made in mini-
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companion. Pine- motif design Price - $ .50

Modeled' Leather Cigar-Case, A very Artistic
pocket convenience in bronze Modeled Leather.
Will hold four fat perfectos, any color. Decorated
with Pine-Cone design on obverse. Price - $3.00

Modeled-Leat her Photo- Case, A very attractive
pocket photograph-folder ^ Will take two pictures
4x6 1-2. An Ideal arrangement for carrying or keep-
ing in sight two views of the same lady. Silk-lined,
with Conventional Design — sewed edges. Price, $3.00

Modeled- Leather Desk-Set, Large mat with
hand- tooled corners . Also, a blotting-pad and pen- wiper
thatched to chamois with leather back. Though an
Occult Green in color, it transforms a desk like Black
Art. 18x23 inches. Price - - - $3.00

Modeled' Leather Bill'Fold with {our additional
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THE ROYCROFTERS, East Aurora, N. Y.

measure

of a master

is his

success

in bringing all men
round to his opinion
twenty years later

— Emerson

■ v>« J>l|g-Tg

T is one of
the most
beautiful

compensa-

tions of life that no
man can sincerely try
to help another with-
out helping himself

Vol. 25

NOVEMBER, MCMIX

No. 5

iio^t^riFN^

TO THF HQMg^l3ff

H. H RO

BOOI^-RY-THR

W^K

fWHIVH-l5-]aSKSg

(

'''"%

OOD Roads,
Flowers,
Parks, Bet-

ter Schools,
Trees, Pure
Water, Fresh Air,
Sunshine and Work
for Everybody— these
things, to me, are

^Gligion— Robert Collyer

< tered at the poet-offlce ki Blast Aurora, New York, for transmission as seoond-claas matter.
Copyright, 1909, by Klbert Hubbard, Editor and Publwh«-.

^0 Z^t Jfaitfiful

3N certain Universities there is what is known as the
Sabbatical Year. That is to say, one year in seven is
given to the teacher or professor as his own: this
for the good of himself — and the school.
€fMr. Hubbard has written one Little Journey a
month for fifteen years, or in all One Hundred Eighty of
these biographies in tabloid.

Qlt is believed, judging from the continued sale, and the
gradually growing demand from High Schools, Colleges
and Libraries, that Little Journeys will have a permanent
place in the world's literature.

^Realizing the danger of the human mind to run in
grooves, and the tendency of a writer to do mental goose-
step, Mr. Hubbard proposes to take the year Nineteen
Hundred Ten as a Sabbatical Year, for the good of him-
self— and his readers.

qMr. Hubbard feels that a leisurely tour of Europe, amid
the sights and scenes of places made sacred by the presence
of good men and great — eke women, withal — will obviate
the risk of a decline of raw stock and recharge his cosmic
carbureter.

QAnd this to the end that all those dear friends, whose
love and loyalty Mr. Hubbard so prizes and ever hopes that
he may merit, may not have to drowse over pages poppy-
strewn with the trite, sprinkled with the commonplace, and
punctured by the obvious.

^Mr. Hubbard feels very sure that he is in sight of
Untapped Reservoirs, and the refined product of these he
expects to present to the Faithful in the years to come.
^The Philistine and The Fra will be continued
as heretofore. These being mostly comments on
the Passing Show can be written anywhere,
amid the rush and throng, the quiet of country
by-roads, or those places where the spirit of art
lingers. The intent is to make these Magazines
more worthy of that select clientele which has
made them possible, than ever before. flMay all
the good that the Loving deserve be theirs !

One Dollar for All!

1— THE PHILISTINE MAGAZINE

for one Year, as issued

2— TWELVE BACK NUMBERS
OF THE PHILISTINJE

To be read and given away as tracts to the unwashed
and unregenerate

3— AN AUTOGRAPHED ETCHING
OF ERA ELBERTUS

on Japan Vellum, by Gaspard. Suitable for Framing

All for One Dollar!

THE PHILISTINE, East Aurora, N. Y.

Enclosed find ONE DOLLAR, and I request you|[to send
me THE PHILISTINE Magazine for One Year, and the
twelve Back Numbers of THE PHILISTINE, also the Etching
of Fra Elbertus, by Gaspard, at once, as your Special Offer.

Date

Remit a One-Dollar Bill by mail. The United States mails are safe
Registered Letters, Post-Office Orders and Bank-Drafts are risky

Extra Postage: to Canada, Twelve Cents; to Europe, Twenty-four Cents.

Offer Number Ten

TWO DOLLARS FOR ALL!

1— THE FRA MAGAZINE for One Year
2— THE DOCTORS by FRA ELBERTUS

This is Mr. Hubbard's Latest Book. Bound in boards

3— ELBERT HUBBARD'S BUSINESS LIBRARY

Consisting of the following paper-bound booklets :

A Message to Garcia The "Cigarettist

The Boy from Missouri Valley Pasteboard Proclivities

How I Found My Brother The Roycroft Shop— A His-
Helpful Hints for Business tory

Helpers The Divine in Man

Get Out or Get In Line Hubbard -Albertson Debate

4— AN AUTOGRAPHED ETCHING of Era Elbertus
by Schneider on Japan Paper, Suitable for Framing

5— THE ROYCROFT MOTTO-BOOK

ALL FOR TWO DOLLARS!

THE ROYCROFTERS

East Aurora, New York
FRIENDS:— I enclose TWO DOLLARS and accept your
Offer Number Ten. So send me THE FRA Magazine and all
the emoluments and perquisites as per your offer.

Name

Address -. -

Date

Extra Postage : to Canada, Fojrty Cents ; to Europe, Sixty Cents

Hand-Hammered Copper

QTo hammer from a copper sheet forms of beauty

requires Patience, an Eye for Proportion, and a

Fine Appreciation of Artistic Values. One blow too

many — or too few — and your Tray is a jagg of metal,

and your Bowl a caveman's cup.

QRoycroft Hand-Hammered Copper is the Golden

Mean of Hand-Craft ^ Each piece has balance,

coloring, finish.

QNo matter how much we make, our stock is

always low.

CJFor the present, we have on sale the following:

Nut-Sets $15.00 up

Nut-Bowls . . 3.00 up

Pin-Trays 1.00 up

Ash-Trays . . . 1.00 up
Desk-Trays .... 1.00 up
Belt-Buckles .... 1.00 up
Paper- Knives . 1.00 up

((Special Articles Made to Order
THE ROYCROFTERS

EAST AURORA. ERIE COUNTY, NEW YORK

liooffiam

TO THh HOME^T^

ing^^Tflm

H. H. ROGERS

NonF= • iMTg^n

SlgN//HKH-T^^TnSIg|N10

m WNhK2J.vnumW W

E^m^^^^mm

OUCCESS is rooted in reciprocity. He who does not benefit the
**^ world is headed for bankruptcy on the high-speed clutch.

— H. H. ROGERS

H. H. ROGERS

LITTLE JOURNEYS

NE proof that H. H. Rogers was
a personage and not a person lies
in the fact that he was seldom
mentioned in moderate language.
Lawson passed him a few choice
tributes; Ida Tarbell tarred him
with her literary stick ; Upton Sin-
clair declared he was this and that ;
Prof. Herren averred that he bore
no likeness to Leo Tolstoy, — and,
he might have added, neither did
he resemble Francis of Assisi or
Simeon Stylites. Those who did not like him usually pictured
him by recounting what he was not.

My endeavor in this sketch will be simply to tell what he was.
fl Henry Huddleston Rogers was a very human individual.
He was born at the village of Fairhaven, Massachusetts, in
the year Eighteen Hundred and Forty. He died in New York
City in Nineteen Hundred and Nine— in his seventieth year.
He was the typical American, and his career was the ideal
one to which we are always pointing our growing youth. His
fault, if fault it be, was that he succeeded too well. Success is
a hard thing to forgive. Personality repels as well as attracts.
^ The life of H. H. Rogers was the complete American
romance. He lived the part — and he looked it. He did not
require a make-up. The sub-cortex was not for him, and
even the liars never dared to say he was a hypocrite.
H. H. Rogers had personality. Men turned to gaze at him on
the street ; women glanced, and then hastily looked, unneces-

127

H. H. ROGERS

sarily hard, the other way ; children stared. ^ The man was
tall, lithe, strong, graceful, commanding. His jaw was the
jaw of courage ; his chin meant purpose ; his nose symboled
intellect, poise and power; his brow spelled brain.
He was a handsome man, and he was not wholly unaware of
the fact. In him was the pride of the North American Indian,
and a little of the reserve of the savage. His silence was
always eloquent, and in it was neither stupidity nor vacuity.
With friends he was witty, affable, generous, lovable.
In business negotiation he was rapid, direct, incisive; or
smooth, plausible and convincing — all depending upon the
man with whom he was dealing. He often did to others what
they were trying to do to him, and he did it first. He had the
splendid ability to say **No** when he should, a thing many
good men can not do. At such times his mouth would shut
like a steel trap and his blue eyes would send the thermometer
below zero. No one could play horse with H. H. Rogers. He,
himself, was always in the saddle.

The power of the man was more manifest with men than with
women, yet he was always admired by women, but more on
account of his austerity than his effort to please. He was not
given to flattery; yet he was quick to commend. He had in
him something of the dash that existed when knighthood
was in flower. He dressed well, because everything he did,
he did well. But he hated Beau Brummel. Dress to him was
only an incident, not an end. He had taste, a sense of pro-
portion, an appreciation of color, a just regard for form. To
the great of the earth, H. H. Rogers never bowed the knee.
He never shimned an encounter, save with weakness, greed
128

H, H. ROGERS

and stupidity. He met every difficulty, every obstacle, unafraid
and unabashed. Even death to him was only a passing event
— death for him had no sting, nor the grave a victory.
He prepared for his passing, looking after every detail, as
he had planned trips to Europe. Jauntily, jokingly, bravely,
tremendously busy, keenly alive to beauty and friendship,
deciding great issues offhand, facing friend or foe, the
moments of relaxation chinked in with religious emotion
and a glowing love for humanity — so he lived, and so he died.
qAn executive has been described as a man who decides
quickly, and is sometimes right.
H. H. Rogers was the ideal executive.
He did not decide until the evidence was all in ; he listened,
weighed, sifted, sorted and then decided.
And when his decision was made the case was closed.
To explain matters to the mediocre is to have your enthusiasm
evaporate into space. To explain to your own familiar friend
in order to get the problem crystallized in your own mind is
quite another matter. H. H. Rogers did both. When he ex-
plained his plans to another, it was always quite certain that
the question was still incubating in his own brain. When
once the matter was clear to himself, he went ahead, and
got the thing done. Thus did he exemplify the working motto
of the Rev. Dr. Jowett, Master of Baliol, "Get the thing done
and let them howl."

Big men, who are doing big things that have never been
done before, act on this basis, otherwise they would be ironed
out to the average, and their dreams would evaporate like
the morning mist. H. H. Rogers made his dreams come true.

129

H •

IVE me neither poverty nor
riches," said the philosopher.
The parents of H. H. Rogers were
neither rich nor poor. They had
enough, but there was never a sur-
feit. They were of straight New
England stock. Of his four great-
grandfathers, three had fought in
the Revolutionary War.
According to Thomas Carlyle,
respectable people were those who
kept a gig. In some towns the
credential is that the family shall employ a ** hired girl." In
Fairhaven the condition was that you should have a washer-
woman one day in the week. The soapy wash-water was
saved for scrubbing purposes — for this was in Massachusetts
— and if the man of the house occasionally smoked a pipe he
was requested to blow the smoke onto the plants in the
South windows, so as to kill the vermin. Nothing was wasted.
^ The child born into such a family where industry and
economy are prized, unless he is a mental defective and a
physical cripple, will be sure to thrive.
The father had made one trip in a whaler. He was gone three
years and got a one-hundred-and-forty-seventh part of the
catch. The oil market was on a slump, and so the net result
for the father of a millionaire-to-be, was ninety-five dollars
and twenty cents. This happy father was a grocer, and later
a clerk to a broker in whale-oil. Pater had the New England
virtues to such a degree that they kept him poor. He was
130

H. H. ROGERS

cautious, plus. ^ To make, you have to spend ; to grow a crop
you have to plant the seed. Here *s where you plunge — it is a
gamble, a bet on the seed versus the eternal cussedness of
things. It *s you against the chances of a crop.
If the drought comes, or the flood, or the chintz-bug, or the
brown-tailed moth, you may find yourself floundering in the
mulligatawney.

Aside from that one cruise to the whaling-grounds, Rogers
Pere played the game of life near home and close to shore.
^ The easy ways of the villagers are shown by a story Mr.
Rogers used to tell about a good neighbor of his — a second
mate on a whaler. The bark was weighing anchor and about
to sail. The worthy mate tarried at a barroom over in New
Bedford. ** Ain't you going home to kiss your wife good-by?"
some one asked. flAnd the answer was: ** What's the use?
— I 'm only going to be gone two years. "
Half of Fairhaven was made up of fishermen, and the rest
were widows and the usual village contingent. The widows
were the washerwomen.

Those who had the price hired a washerwoman one day in
the week. This was not so much because the mother herself
could not do the work, as it was to give work to the needy
and prove the Jeffersonian idea of equality. The wash-lady
was always seated with the family at table, and beside her
wage was presented with a pie, a pumpkin, or some outgrown
garment. Thus were the Christian virtues liberated.
Where the gray mare is the better horse, her mate always
lets up a bit on his whiflaetree and she draws most of the load.
^ It was so here.

131

The mother planned for the household. She was the econo-
mist, bursar and disburse!.

She was a member of the Congregational Church, with a
liberal bias, which believed in ** endless consequences," but
not in ** endless punishment." Later the family evolved into
Unitarians by the easy process of natural selection.
The father said grace, and the mother led in family prayers.
She had ideas of her own and expressed them. The family
took the Boston Weekly Congregationalist and the Bedford
Weekly Standard. In the household there was a bookcase of
nearly a hundred volumes. It was the most complete library
in town, excepting that of the minister.
The home where H. H. Rogers was born still stands. Its
frame was made in Sixteen Hundred and Ninety — mortised,
tenoned and pinned. In the garret the rafters show the
loving marks of the broadaxe — to swing which musical
instrument with grace and effectiveness is now a lost art.
^ How short is the life of man ! Here a babe was born, who lived
his infancy, youth, manhood ; who achieved as one in a mil-
lion, who died, yet the house of his birth — old at the time —
still stubbornly stands as if to make mock of our ambitions.
A hundred years ago Fairhaven had a dozen men or more
who with an auger, an adz, a broadaxe, and a draw-shave
could build a boat or a house warranted to outlast the owner.
^ I had tea in this house where H. H. Rogers was born and
where his boyhood days were spent. I fetched an armful of
wood for the housewife, and would have brought a bucket of
water for her from the pump, only the pump is now out of
commission, having been replaced by the new-fangled water-
132

works presented to the town by a Standard Oil magnate ^
Here Henry Rogers brought chips in a wheelbarrow from the
shipyard on baking-days ; here he hoed the garden and helped
his mother fasten up the flaming, flaring hollyhocks against
the house with strips of old sail-cloth and tacks.
There were errands to look after, and usually a pig, and
sometimes two, that accumulated adipose on purslane and
lamb's-quarters, with surplus clams for dessert, also quo-
hogs to preserve the poetic unities. Then there came a time
when the family kept a cow that was pastured on the
common, the herd being looked after by a man who had
fought valiantly in the War of Eighteen Hundred and
Twelve, and who used to tell the boys about it, fighting the
battles over with crutch and cane.

In the winter the ice sometimes froze solid clean across
Buzzards Bay. The active and hustling boys had skates
made by the village blacksmith. Henry Rogers had two pair,
and used to loan one pair out for two cents an hour. Boys who
had no skates and could not beg or borrow and who had but
one cent could sometimes get one skate for a while and thus
glide gracefully on one foot. There was good fishing through
the ice, only it was awful cold work and not much pay, for
fish could hardly be given away.

In the summer there were clams to dig, blueberries to gather,
and pond-lilies had a value — I guess so! Then in the early
spring folks raked up their yards and made bonfires of the
winter's debris. Henry Rogers did these odd jobs, and re-
ligiously took his money home to his mother, who placed it
in the upper right-hand corner of a bureau-drawer.

133

H. H. ROGERS

The village school was kept by an Irishman who had attended
Harvard. He believed in the classics and the efficacy of the
ferule, and doted on Latin, which he also used as a punish-
ment Jti J>

Henry Rogers was alive and alert and was diplomatic enough
to manage the Milesian pedagogue without his ever knowing
it. The lessons were easy to him — he absorbed in the mass.
Beside that, his mother helped nights by the light of a
whale-oil lamp, for her boy was going to grow up to be a
school-teacher — or possibly a minister, who knows!
Out in Illinois, when the Wanderlust used to catch the
evolving youth, who was neither a boy nor a man, he ran
away and went Out West. In New England the same lad
would have shipped before the mast, and let his parents guess
where he was — their due punishment for lack of appreciation.
fl To grow up on the coast and hear the tales of the seafaring
men who have gone down to the sea in ships, is to catch it
sooner or later.

At fifteen Henry Rogers caught it, and was duly recorded to
go^^on a whaler. Luckily his mother got word of it, and can-
celed the deal. About then, good fortune arrived in the form
of Opportunity. The young man who peddled the New Bedford
Standard wanted to dispose of his route.
Henry bought the route and advised with his mother after-
ward, only to find that she had sent the seller to him. Honors
were even. His business was to deliver the papers with
precision. Later he took on the Boston papers, also. This is
what gave rise to the story that Henry Rogers was a newsboy.
fl He was a newsboy, but he was a newsboy extraordinary.
134

H. H. ROGERS

He took orders for advertisements for the '* Standard," and
was also the Fairhaven correspondent, supplying the news
as to who was visiting who ; giving names of the good citizens
who were shingling their chicken-houses, and mentioning
those enjoying poor health.

Whether the news did anybody any good or not matters little
— the boy was learning to write. In after years he used to
refer to this period of his life as his '* newspaper career."
Superstitious persons have been agitated about that word
"Standard," and how it should have ominously come into
the life of H. H. Rogers at this early time.
When the railroad came in, Henry got a job as assistant
baggageman. The conductorship was in sight — twenty
years away, but promised positively by a kind relative —
when something else appeared on the horizon and a good job
was exchanged for a better one.

An enterprising Boston man had established a chain of
groceries along the coast, and was monopolizing the business,
or bidding fair to do so.

By buying for many stores, he could buy cheaper than any other
one man could. But the main point was that the plan was to
go to the home, take the order and deliver the goods. Before
that, if you wanted things you went to the store, selected
them and carried them home. To have asked the storekeeper
to deliver the goods to your house would have given that
gentleman heart-failure. He did mighty well to carry in
stock the things people needed. But here was a revolutionary
method — a new deal. Henry Rogers' father said it was initia-
tive gone mad, and would only last a few weeks. Henry

135

H. H. ROGERS

Rogers* mother said otherwise, and Henry agreed with her.
He had clerked in his father's grocery, and so knew some-
thing of the business. Moreover, he knew the people — he
knew every family in Fairhaven by name, and most of them
for six miles around as well. ^ He started in at three dollars
a week, taking orders and driving the delivery-wagon.
In six months his pay was five dollars a week and a commis-
sion. In a year he was making twenty dollars a week. He was
only eighteen — slim, tall, bronzed and strong. He could
carry a hundred pounds on his shoulder. The people along
his route liked him — he was cheerful and accommodating.
Not only did he deliver the things, but he put them away
in cellar, barn, closet, garret or cupboard. He did not only
what he was paid to do, but more. He anticipated Ali Baba
who said, ''Folks who never do any more than they get paid
for, never get paid for anything more than they do. "
It was the year Eighteen Hundred and Fifty-nine, and Henry
Rogers was making money. He owned his route, and the
manager of the stores was talking about making him assist-
ant superintendent. Had he stuck to his job he might have
become a partner in the great firm of Cobb, Bates and Yerxa,
and put Bates to the bad. It would have then been Cobb,
Rogers and Yerxa — and later, H. H. Rogers, Dealer in Staple
and Fancy Groceries.

But something happened about this time that shook New
Bedford to its center, and gave Fairhaven a thrill.
Whale-oil was whale-oil then, and whale-oil and New Bed-
ford were synonymous. Now, a man out in Pennsylvania had
bored down into the ground and struck a reservoir. A sort of
136

spouting sperm-whale! With this difference: whales spout
sea-water, while this gusher spouted whale-oil, or something
just as good.

HE year Eighteen Hundred and
Fifty-nine is an unforgettable date
— a date that ushers in the Great
American Renaissance, in which
we now live. Three very important
events occurred that year. One
was the hanging of Old John
Brown, who was fifty-nine years
old, and thus not so very old. This
event made a tremendous stir in
Fairhaven, just as it did every-
where, especially in rural districts.
The second great event that happened in Eighteen Hundred
and Fifty-nine was the publication of a book by a man born
in Eighteen Hundred and Nine, the same year that Lincoln
was bom. The man's name was Charles Darwin, and his
book was **The Origin of Species." His volume was to do for
the theological world what John Brown's raid did for
American politics. QThe third great event that occurred in
Eighteen Hundred and Fifty-nine was when a man by the
name of Edwin L. Drake, Colonel by grace, bored a well
and struck "rock-oil" at Titusville, Pennsylvania.

137

At that time **rock-oil" or **coal-oil" was no new thing. It
had been found floating on the water of streams in West
Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
There were rumors that some one in digging for salt had
tapped a reservoir of oil that actually flowed a stream. There
were oil-springs around Titusville and along Oil Creek. The
oil ran down on the water and was skimmed off by men in
boats. Several men were making modest fortunes by bottling
the stuff and selling it as a medicine. In England it was sold
as ** American Natural Oil," and used for a liniment. The
Indians had used it, and the world has a way of looking to
aborigines for medicine, even if not for health. Spiritualistic
meditmis and doctors bank heavily on Indians.
This natural oil was known to be combustible. Out-of-doors
it helped the camp-fire. But if burned indoors it made a
horrible smoke and a smell to conjure with.
Up to that time whale-oil had been mostly used for illumina-
ting and lubricating purposes.

But whale-oil was getting too high for plain people. It looked
as if there were a ** whale trust. " Some one sent a bottle of this
'* natural oil" down to Prof. Silliman of Yale to have it
analyzed J- ^

Prof. Silliman reported that the oil had great possibilities if
refined, both as a luminant and as a lubricant.
To refine it, a good man who ran a whisky-still tried his plan
of the worm that never dies, with the oil. The vapor condensed
and was caught in the form of an oil that was nearly white.
This oil burned with a steady flame, if protected by a lamp-
chimney ,^ Ji>
138

H. H. ROGERS

Rock-oil in Eighteen Hundred and Fifty-eight was worth
twenty dollars a barrel. Lumbermen out of a job turned
skimmers, and often collected a barrel a day, becoming as it
were members of the cult known as the Predatory Rich.
This is what tempted Colonel Drake to bore his well, and see
if possible if he might strike the vein that was making the
skimmers turn octopi. ^ It took Drake nearly a year to drill
his well. He met with various obstacles and difficulties, but
on August Twenty-second, Eighteen Hundred and Fifty-
nine, that neck of the woods was electrified by the news
that Drake's Folly was gushing rock-oil.
Soon there were various men busily boring all round the
neighborhood, with the aid of spring-poles and other rude
devices. Several struck it rich, but many had their labor for
their pains. One man was getting sixty-five barrels a day and
selling the oil for eighteen dollars a barrel.
The trouble was to transport the oil — barrels were selling for
five dollars each, and there were no tanks. This was a lumber
country, with no railroads within a hundred miles. One
enterprising man went down to Pittsburg and bought a raft-
load of barrels, which he towed up the Allegheny River to the
mouth of Oil Creek. Then he hired farmers for ten dollars a
day with teams to take the barrels to Titusville and fill them
and bring them back. The oil was floated down to Pittsburg
and sold at a big profit. Stills were made to refine the oil,
which was sold to the consumer at seventy-five cents a
gallon. The heavy refuse oils were thrown away.
In Eighteen Hundred and Sixty began the making of lamp-
chimneys, a most profitable industry. The chimneys sold for

139

H. H. ROGERS

fifty cents each, and with the aid of Sir Isaac Newton's
invention did not long survive life's rude vicissitudes.
Men were crowding into the oil country, lured by the tales of
enormous fortunes and rich finds. ^ No one could say what
you might discover by digging down into the ground. One
man claimed to have struck a vein of oyster-soup. And any-
way he sold oyster-soup over his counter at a dollar a
dish. Gas-gushers were lighted and burned without com-
punction as to waste. Gamblers were working overtime.
The first railroad into the oil country came from Pittsburg,
and was met by fight and defiance from the Amalgamated
Brotherhood of Teamsters, who saw their business fading
away. The farmers, too, opposed the railroad, as they meant
an end to horse-flesh, excepting as an edible.
But the opposition wore itself out, and the railroad replaced
its ripped-up rails, and did business on its grass-grown right
of way and streaks of rust. QThe second railroad came from
Cleveland, which city was a natural distributing-point to the
vast consuming territory lying along the Great Lakes.
John D. Rockefeller, a clerk in a Cleveland commission-
house, became interested in the oil business in Eighteen
Hundred and Sixty-two. He was then twenty-three years old,
and had five hundred dollars in the bank saved from his
wages. He'^put this money into a refining-still at Titus ville,
with several partners, all working men. John peddled the
product and became expert on **pure white" and "straw
color. " He also saw that a part of the so-called refuse could
be re-treated and made into a product that was valuable for
lubricating purposes.
140

H .

Other men about the same time made a like discovery. ^ It
was soon found that refined oil could not be shipped with
profit; the barrels often had to be left in the sunshine or
exposed to the weather, and transportation facilities were very
uncertain. The still was then torn out and removed to Cleve-
land J> ^

The oil business was a most hazardous one. Crude oil had
dropped from twenty dollars a barrel to fifty cents a barrel. No
one knew the value of oil, for no one knew the extent of the
supply. An empty barrel was worth two dollars, and the crude
oil to fill it could be bought for half that.

T twenty-one, two voices were
calling to Henry Rogers: love of
country and business ambition.
The war was coming and New
England patriotism burned deep
in the Rogers heart. But this
young man knew that he had a
genius for trade. He was a sales-
man— that is to say, he was a
diplomat and an adept in the
management of people. Where and
how could he use his talent best?
fi When Sumter was fired upon, it meant that no ship flying
the Stars and Stripes was safe. The grim aspect of war came

141

H. H, ROGERS

home to New Bedford with a reeling shock, when news
arrived that a whaler, homeward bound, had been captured,
towed into Charleston Harbor and the ship and cargo con-
fiscated J> J*

It was a blow of surprise to the captain and sailors on this
ship, too, for they had been out three years and knew nothing
of what was going on at home. Then certain Southern
privateers got lists of the New England whale-ships that were
out and lay in wait for them as whalers lie in wait for the
leviathan. Q Prices of whale-oil soared like balloons. New
England ships at home tied up close or else were pressed
into government service. § The high price of oil fanned the
flame of speculation in Pennsylvania.
Henry H. Rogers was twenty. It was a pivotal point in
his life. He was in love with the daughter of the captain of a
whaler. They were neighbors and had been schoolmates
together. Henry talked it over with Abbie Gilford — it was
war or the oil-fields of Pennsylvania!
And love had its way, just as it usually has.
The ayes had it, and with nearly a thousand dollars of hard-
earned savings he went to the oil-fields.
At that time most of the crude oil was shipped to tidewater
and there refined. In the refining process, only twenty-five
per cent of the product was saved, seventy-five per cent
being thrown away as worthless. It struck young Rogers
that the refining should be done at the wells, and the freight
on that seventy-five per cent saved. To that end he entered
into a partnership with Charles Ellis, and erected a refinery
between Titusville and Oil City.
142

H. H. ROGERS

Rogers learned by doing. He was a practical refiner, and
soon became a scientific one.

The first year he and Ellis divided thirty thousand dollars
between them.

In the fall of Eighteen Hundred and Sixty-two, when he
went back to Fairhaven to claim his bride, young Rogers
was regarded as a rich man. His cruise to Pennsylvania had
netted him as much as half a dozen whales. The bride and
groom returned at once to Pennsylvania and the simple life.
q Henry and Abbie lived in a one-roomed shack on the banks
of Oil Creek. It was love in a cottage all right, with an absolute
lack of everything that is supposed to make up civilization. It
was n't exactly hardship, for nothing is really hardship to
lovers in their twenties but separation. Stili they thought,
talked and dreamed of the bluefish, the blueberries, the blue
waters, the clams and the sea-breezes of Fairhaven.
About this time, Charles Pratt, a dealer and refiner of oils,
of Brooklyn, appears upon the horizon. Pratt had bought
whale-oil of Ellis in Fairhaven. Pratt now contracted for
the entire refined output of Rogers and Ellis at a fiixed price.
^ All went well for a few months, when crude suddenly
took a skjrward turn, owing to the manipulation of specu-
lators. Rogers and Ellis had no wells and were at the
mercy of the wolves. They struggled on trying to live up to
their contract with Pratt, but soon their surplus was wiped
out, and they found themselves in debt to Pratt to the tune
of several thousand dollars. ^ Rogers went on to New York
and saw Pratt, personally assuming the obligation of taking
care of the deficit. Ellis disappeared in the mist.

143

H. H. ROGERS

The manly ways of Rogers so impressed Pratt that he
decided he needed just such a man in his business. A
bargain was struck, and Rogers went to work for Pratt.
The first task of young Rogers was to go to Pennsylvania
and straighten out the affairs of the Pennsylvania Salt
Company, of which Pratt was chief owner.
The work was so well done that Pratt, waxing enthusiastic,
made Rogers foreman of his Brooklyn refinery.
It was twenty-five dollars a week, with a promise of a
partnership if sales ran over fifty thousand dollars a year ,^
How Henry Rogers moved steadily from a foreman to
manager, and then superintendent, of Pratt's Astral Oil
Refinery, is one of the fairy-tales of America.
Pratt was the first man to refine crude oil east of Pennsyl-
vania. He had long dealt in lubricants and illuminants, and
had a reputation for fair dealing.

Henry Rogers became hands and feet and eyes and ears for
Charles Pratt.

The year's sales not only reached fifty thousand dollars, but
over twice that. The second year doubled the first. Henry did
not draw his commissions. In fact, Pratt could not pay them :
the business was expanding, and every dollar of capital was
needed that could be scraped together. Pratt gave Rogers an
interest in the business, and Rogers got along on his twenty-
five dollars a week, although the books showed he was
making ten thousand dollars a year. He worked like a pack-
mule. His wife brought his meals to the "works," and often
he would sleep but three hours a night, as he could snatch
the time, rolled up in a blanket by the side of a still.
144

H .

Then comes John D. Rockefeller from Cleveland, with his
plans of co-operation and consolidation.
Pratt talked it over with Rogers, and they decided that the
combination would steady the commercial sails and give
ballast to the ship. They named their own terms. The Rocke-
fellers sneezed, and then coughed. Next day John D. Rocke-
feller came back and quietly accepted the offer exactly as
Rogers had formulated it.

The terms were stiff, but Rockefeller, a few years later, got
even with the slightly arrogant Rogers by passing him this —
"I would have paid you and Pratt twice as much if you had
demanded it. "

"Which you are perfectly safe in saying now — and which
signifies nothing anyway, since the past is a dry hole. "
And they shook hands solemnly.

Rockefeller ordered a glass of milk and Rogers took ginger
ale d/^Ji'

Rockefeller was only one year older than Rogers, but seemed
twenty. Rockefeller was always old and always discreet ; he
never lost his temper; he was warranted non-explosive
from childhood. Rogers at times was spiritual benzine.

145

H .

N^Eighteen Hundred and Seventy-
two there were twenty-six sepa-
rate oil-refineries in Cleveland.
Refined oil sold to the consumer
for twenty cents a gallon; and
much of it was of an unsafe and
uncertain quality — it was what you
might call erratic.
Some of the refineries were poorly
equipped, and fire was a factor
that made the owners sit up nights
when they should have been asleep.
Insurance was out of the question.

One of these concerns was The Acme Oil Company, of which
John D. Archbold was President. Its capital was forty thou-
sand dollars, some of which had been paid in, in cash. Wil-
liam Rockefeller was at the head of still another company;
and John D. Rockefeller, brother of William, and two yesirs
older, had an interest in three more concerns.
Outbidding each other for supplies, hiring each other*s
men, with a production made up of a multiplicity of grades,
made the business one of chaotic uncertainty. The rule was
"dog eat dog."

Then it was that John D. Rockefeller conceived the idea of
combining all of the companies in Cleveland and as many
elsewhere as possible, under the name of The Standard Oil
Trust. The corporation was duly formed with a capital of
one million dollars. The Pratt Oil Company, with principal
works in Brooklyn, but a branch in Cleveland, was one of
146

H. H, ROGERS

the twenty concerns that were absorbed. The stocks of the
various concerns were taken up and paid for in Standard Oil
certificates.

And so it happened that Henry H. Rogers, aged thirty-two,
found himself worth a hundred thousand dollars, not in cash
but in shares that were supposed to be worth par, and should
pay if rightly managed seven or eight per cent.
He was one of the directors in the new company.
It was an enviable position for any young man. Of course
there were the wiseheimers then as now, and statements were
made that The Pratt Oil Company had been pushed to the
wall, and would shortly have its neck wrung by John D.
Rockefeller and have to start all over. But these prophets
knew neither Rockefeller nor Rogers, and much less the
resources and wants of the world.

In very truth, neither the brothers Rockefeller, Rogers, nor
Archbold, nor any one of that score of men who formed The
Standard Oil Company, ever anticipated, even in their wildest
dreams, the possibilities in the business. The growth of
America in men and money has been a thing unguessed and
unprophesied. Thomas Jefferson seemed to have had more
of a prophetic eye than any one else, but he never imagined
the railroads, pipe-lines, sky-scrapers, iron steamships, tele-
graphs, telephones, nor the use of electricity and concrete.
^ He did, however, see our public-school system, and he said
that **by the year Nineteen Hundred the United States will
have a population of fifty million people." This is why he
made that real-estate deal with Napoleon, which most Ameri-
cans of the time thought a bad bargain.

147

Rogers had great hope and an exuberant imagination, but
the most he saw for himself was an income of five thousand
a year, and a good house, unencumbered, with a library and
guest-room. In addition, he expected to own a horse and
buggy. He would take care of the horse himself, and wash
the buggy, also grease the axles.

In fact, his thoughts were on flowers, books, education, and
cultivating his mental acreage.

John D. Rockefeller was sorely beset by business burdens jt
The Standard Oil Company had moved its headquarters to
New York City, where its business was largely exporting.
The brothers Rockefeller found themselves swamped under
a mass of detail. ^ Power flows to the men who can shoulder
it, and burdens go to those who can carry them.
Here was a business without precedent, and all growing
beyond human thought. To meet the issues as they arise
the men at the head must -grow with the business.
Rogers could make decisions, and he had strength like
silken fiber. He could bend but never break. His health was
perfect ; his mind was fluid ; he was alive and alert to all new
methods and plans; he had great good-cheer, and was of a
kind to meet men and mold them. He set a pace which only
the very strong could follow, but which inspired all. John D.
Rockefeller worked himself to a physical finish, twenty years
ago; and his mantle fell by divine right on **H. H.," with
John D. Archbold as understudy.

Since John D. Rockefeller slipped out from under the burden
of active management, about Eighteen Hundred and Eighty-
eight, the business has more than quadrupled.
148

H .

John D. Rockefeller never got mad, and Rogers and Arch-
bold made it a rule never to get mad at the same time.
When the stress and strife began to cause Rockefeller to lose
his hair and appetite, he once pulled down his long upper lip
and placidly bewailed his inability to take a vacation. Like
many another good man he thought his presence was a
necessity to the business.

"Go on with you, " said H. H. ; **am I not here? Then there is
Archbold — he is always Johnny on the spot."
Rockefeller smiled a sphinx-like smile, as near as he ever
came to indulging in a laugh, and mosied out of the room.
That night he went up to the Catskills.
The next day a telegram came from Rockefeller addressed
to **Johnny-on-the-Spot, Twenty-six Broadway."
The message was carried directly to John D. Archbold, with-
out question, and duly receipted for.

Since then the phrase has become a classic; but few people
there be who know that it was Rogers who launched it, or
who are aware that the original charter member of the
On-the-Spot Club was Johnny Archbold.

149

H .

H. ROGERS was a trail-maker,
and as a matter of course was not
understanded of the people who
hug close to the friendly back-
log, and talk of other days and
the times that were.
Rogers was an economist — per-
haps the greatest economist of his
time J' ^

And an economist deals with
conditions, not theories; facts,
not fancies.

A few years ago, all retail grocers sold kerosene. The kero-
sene-can with its spud on the spout was a household sign.
Moreover, we not only had kerosene in the can, but we had
it on the loaf of bread, and on almost everything that came
from the grocer's. For, if the can did not leak, it sweat, and
the oil of gladness was on the hands and clothes of the clerk.
The grocers lifted no howl when the handling of kerosene
was taken out of their hands. In truth, they were never so
happy, as kerosene was hazardous to handle and entailed
little profit — the stuff was that cheap ! ^ Beside that, a barrel
of forty-two gallons measured out to the user about thirty-
eight gallons. Loaded into cars, bumped out, lying in the sun,
on station-platform, it always and forever hunted the crevices.
Schemes were devised to line the inside of barrels with rosin,
but always the stuff stole forth to freedom.
Freight, cartage, leakage, cooperage and return of barrels
meant loss of temper, trade and dolodocci.
150

H. H, ROGERS

Realizing all these things, H. H. Rogers, aided by his able
Major-general, John D. Archbold, revolutionized the trade.
^ The man who now handles your kerosene does not handle
your sugar. He is a specialist.

In every town in America of over one thousand people is a
Standard Oil agency. The oil is delivered from tank-cars into
iron tanks. From there it is piped into tank-wagons. This
wagon comes to your door, and the gentlemanly agent sees
that your little household tank is kept filled.
All you have to do is turn a faucet.

Aye, in this pleasant village of East Aurora is a Standard Oil
Agent who will fill your lamp and trim the wick, provided you
buy your lamps, chimneys and wicks of him.
His prices are reasonable, his service faultless.
He has tank-wagons that visit the villages for six miles
'round. He supplies the farmers with gasoline, kerosene or
lubricating-oil. And yesterday I saw him greasing a farmer's
wagon — all included in the modest consideration asked for
his oil ^ ^

And this service is Standard Oil Service — it extends from
Halifax to San Diego ; from New Orleans to Hudson Bay.
In very truth, it covers the world.

The Standard Oil Company takes the product from the well,
and puts it into the tank of your benzine-buggy, oiling the
wheels of the craft while your wife puts on her hat.
This service, with prohibition in the South, has ruined the
cooper's trade, the trade that introduced Mr. H. M. Flagler
into The Standard Oil Company.

The investment in cooperage used in the oil business has

151

shrunk from a hundred millions to less than five millions,
while the traffic in oil has doubled.

And the germ of this service to the consumer came from the
time when Henry Rogers worked a grocery-route for a
Co-operative concern that cut out the middleman and focused
on a faultless service to the consumer.

HE name ** petroleum" is Latin.
The word has been in use since
the time of Pliny, who lived neigh-
bor to Paul in Rome, when the
Apostle abided in his own hired
house, awaiting trial under an
indictment for saying things about
the Established Religion.
Until within sixty years, the world
thought that petroleum was one
simple substance. Now we find it
is a thousand — mixed and fused
and blended in the crucible of Time.

Science sifts, separates, dissolves, analyzes, classifies. The
perfumes gathered by the tendrils of violet and rose, in their
divine desire for expression, are found in petroleum J>
Aye, the colors and all the delicate tints of petal, of stamen
and of pistil are in this substance stored in the dark recesses
of the^Earth. ^Petroleum has^yielded up over two thousand
152

H. H. ROGERS

distinct substances, wooed by the loving, eager caress of the
Chemist. All of the elements that go to make up the earth
are there. Hundreds of articles used in commerce and in our
daily lives are gotten from petroleum.

To secure these in a form fit for daily use was the tire-
less task of Henry H. Rogers. Not by his own hands, of course,
for life is too short for that, but the Universities of the round
world have been called upon for their men of brains.
Rogers' business was to discover men.
This is a phase of the history of The Standard Oil Company
that has not yet been written, but which is of vastly greater
importance than the motions of well-meaning but non-
producing attorneys, whose mental processes are "dry holes."
^"Science is classification," said Aristotle to his bad boy pupil,
Alexander, three hundred and forty years before Christ.
** Science is commonsense classified," said Herbert Spencer,
fl" Science eliminates the worthless and the useless and then
makes use of it in something else," said Thomas A. Edison.
H. H. Rogers utilized the worthless; and the dividends
of The Standard Oil Company are largely a result of cashing
in by-products.

Rogers not only rendered waste products valuable, but
he utilized human energies, often to the great surprise of
the owner.

That gentle Tarbell slant to the effect that "Even the ele-
vator-boys in the Standard Oil ofiices are hired with an idea
of their development, " is a great compliment to a man who
was not only a great business man, but a great teacher.
And all influential men are teachers — whether they know it

153

H. H, ROGERS

or not. ^Perhaps we are all teachers — of good or ill — I
really do not know.

But the pedagogic instinct was strong in Rogers. He barely
escaped a professorship. He built schoolhouses, and if he
had had time would have taught in them. He looked at any
boy, not for what he was, but for what he might become.
^ He analyzed every man, not for what he was, but for what
he might have been, or what he would be.
Humanity was Rogers' raw stock, not petroleum.
And his success hinged on bringing humanity to bear on
petroleum, or, if you please, by mixing brains with rock-oil,
somewhat as Horace Greeley advised the farmer to mix
brains with his compost. Qln judging a man we must in
justice to ourselves ask, **What effect has this man's life,
taken as a whole, had on the world!"
To lift out samples here and there and hold them up does not
give us the man, any more than a sample brick gives you
a view of the house.

And viewing the life of Rogers for years, from the time he
saw the light of a whale-oil lamp in Fairhaven, to the man as
we behold him now, we must acknowledge his initiative and
his power. He gave profitable work to millions.
He directly made homes and comforts possible for thousands
upon thousands. He helped the young, without number, to
find themselves in their work and at their work.
In a material way he added vast millions to the wealth of the
world by the utilization of products whch were considered
worthless ^ ^

He gloried in the fresh air — in the blasts of winter, or the
154

zephyrs of spring. The expanse of heaving, tossing ice was

just as beautiful to him as the smooth flow of Heinrich

Hudson's waters, as they hasten to the sea.

The storied **Twenty-six Broadway" is no den of ogres, no

gambling-resort of dark and devious ways. It is simply an

office building, full of busy men and women — workers who

waste neither time nor money.

You will find there no figureheads, no gold lace, no pomps

and ceremonies. If you have business there, you locate your

man without challenge. All is free, open, simple and direct.

qOn the top floor is a restaurant, where all lunch in a common

fraternal way, jolly and jocund, as becomes men who carry

big burdens.

The place is democratic to a fault, for the controlling spirits

of Twenty-six Broadway are men who have come by a rocky

road, having conquered great difficulties, overcome great

obstacles, and while often thirsting for human sympathy

have nevertheless been able to do without it.

Success is apt to sour, for it begets an opposition that is often

cruel and unjust.

Reorganization gives the demagogue his chance; and often

his literary lyddite strikes close.

But Rogers was great enough to know that the penalty of

success must be paid J- He took his medicine, and smiled.

155

IME was when a millionaire was a
man worth a million dollars. But
that day is passed.
Next, a millionaire was a man who
made a million dollars a year.
That, too, is obsolete.
The millionaire now is a man who
spends a million dollars a year. In
this new and select class, a class
which does not exist outside of
America, H. H. Rogers was a
charter member.
**He was a royal gentleman," said Booker T. Washington to
me. '*When I was in need, I held H. H. Rogers in reserve
until all others failed me, then I went to him and frankly told
my needs. He always heard me through, and then told me to
state the figure. He never failed me.' '
Rogers gave with a lavish hand, but few of his benefactions,
comparatively, were known. The newspapers have made
much of his throwing a hawser to Mark Twain and towing
the Humorist off of a financial sand-bar. ^ Also, we have
heard how he gave Helen Keller to the world ; for without
the help of H. H. Rogers that wonderful woman would still
be like unto the eyeless fish in the Mammoth Cave. As it
is, her soul radiates an inward light and science stands un-
covered. But there were very many other persons and
institutions that received very tangible benefits from the
hands of H. H. Rogers.

One method he had of giving help to ambitious young men
156

H. H. ROGERS

was to invest in stock in companies that were not quite
strong enough financially to weather a gale. And very often
these were very bad investments. Had Rogers stuck to Stand-
ard Oil his fortune would have been double what it was. But
for the money he did not much care — he played the game.
^ Mr. Rogers was too wise to give to individuals. He knew that
mortal tendency referred to by St. Andre de Ligereaux as
**Hubbard*s Law," or the Law of Altruistic Injury. This law
provides that whenever you do for a person a service which
he is able and should do for himself, you work him a wrong
instead of a benefit.

H. H. Rogers sought to give opportunity, not things. When
he invested a million dollars in a tack-factory in Fairhaven,
it was with intent to supply employment to every man or
woman, or boy or girl, in Fairhaven who desired work.
He wanted to make poverty inexcusable. Yet he realized that
there were cases where age and disease had sapped the
person's powers, and to such he gave by stealth, or through
friends whom he loved and trusted. Mrs. W. P. Winsor, of
Fairhaven, for instance, worked days and months overtime
on the bidding of Mr. Rogers caring for emergency cases,
where girls and boys were struggling to get an education and
care for aged parents and invalid brothers and sisters; or
where fate had been unkind and God, seemingly, had forgot.
^ Houses were painted, mortgages lifted, taxes paid, monu-
ments erected, roadways laid out, books furnished, trees
planted, ditches dug, bath-rooms installed, swamps drained,
bridges built in hundreds of instances.
This is not philanthropy of a high order, perhaps, but Rogers

157

H. H. ROGERS

hated both the words **charitable" and ** philanthropic" as
applied to himself. All he claimed to be was a business man
who paid his debts and who tried to make others pay theirs.
The people he helped were the people he knew, or had known,
and they were folks who had helped him. He never forgot a
benefit — nor a wrong. He was a very human individual.
To give to a person where the account is not balanced by a
mutual service is, probably, to add an enemy to your list. You
have uncovered the weakness of your man — he is an in-
competent— and he will never forgive you for making the
discovery ^ ^

When H. H. Rogers paid off Mark Twain's indebtedness to
the tune of ninety thousand dollars, he did not scratch a poet
and find an ingrate.

What he actually discovered was a philosopher and a prophet
without a grouch.

Somewhere I have said that there were only two men in
America who could be safely endowed. One is Luther Bur-
bank and the other Booker T. Washington. These men have
both made the world their debtors. They are impersonal men
— sort of human media through which Deity is creating.
They ask for nothing — they give everything.
Mark Twain belongs in this same select list. The difference
between Mark Twain and Luther Burbank is this : Mark hoes
his spiritual acreage in bed, while Luther Burbank works in
the garden. Luther produces spineless cacti, while Mark gives
spineless men a vertebra. Mark makes us laugh, in order that
he may make us think.

The last time I saw H. H. Rogers was in his oflSce at Twenty-
158

H. H. ROGERS

six Broadway. Out through a half-doorway, leading into a
private conference-room, I saw a man stretched out on a
sofa asleep. A great shock of white hair spread out over the
pillow that held his head ; and Huck Finn snores of peace, in
rhythmic measures, filled the room.

Mr. Rogers noticed my glance in the direction of the Morpheus
music. He smiled and said, ** It *s only Mark — he 's taking
a little well-earned rest — he was born tired, you know."
^ If Mark Twain were not a rich man himself, rich in mines of
truth, fields of uncut fun, and argosies sailing great spiritual
seas, coming into port laden with commonsense, he would
long since have turned on his benefactor and nailed his hide
on the barn-door of obliquity.

As it is, Mark takes his own, just as Socrates did from Mr.
and Mrs. Pericles. Aye, or as did Bronson Alcott, who once
ran his wheelbarrow into the well-kept garden of Ralph
Waldo Emerson. The Orphic One was loading up with
potatoes, peas, beans and one big yellow pumpkin, when he
glanced around and saw the man who wrote ** Self -Reliance"
gazing at him seriously and steadily over the garden-wall.
The author of the author of "Little Women" winced, but
bracing up, gave back stare for stare, and in a voice flavored
with resentment and defiance said, **I need them!"
And the owner of the garden grew abashed before that virtuous
gaze, murmured apologies, and retreated in good order.
^ And Mark Twain used to explain it thus : ** You see, it is like
this : Rogers furnishes the plans and I foot the bills. "
And that was all there was about it. Only a big man can take
his own without abasement.

159

Mark Twain has made two grins grow where there was only
a growl before. I don*t care where he gets his vegetables —
nor where he takes a well-earned nap — and neither does he.

HE average millionaire believes in
education, because he has heard
the commodity highly recom-
mended in the newspapers. Usu-
ally, he is a man who has not had
college advantages, and so he is
filled with the fallacy that he has
dropped something out of his life.
We idealize the things that are not
ours J- ^

H. H. Rogers was an exception —
he was at home in any company.
He took little on faith. He analyzed things for himself. And
his opinion was that the old-line colleges tended to destroy
individuality and smother initiative. He believed that the
High School gave the key to the situation, and to carry the
youth beyond this was to run the risk of working his ruin J>
**The boy who leaves the High School at seventeen, and
enters actual business, stands a much better chance of success
than does the youth who comes out of college at twenty-one,
with the world yet before him, " he said. ^ He himself was
one of the first class that graduated from the old Fairhaven
1 60

H. H. ROGERS

Grammar School. He realized that his success in life came
largely from the mental ammunition that he had gotten there,
and from the fact that he made quick use of his knowledge.
Yet he realized that the old Fairhaven High or Grammar
School was not a model institution. **It has a maximum of
discipline and a minimum of inspiration," he used to say.
The changing order of education found a quick response in
his heart. He never brooded over his early lack of advantages.
On the other hand, he used often to refer to the fact that his
childhood was ideal. But all around he saw children whose
surroundings were not ideal, and these he longed to benefit
and bless.

And so in Eighteen Hundred and Eighty, when he was forty
years of age, he built a Grammar Manual-Training School and
presented it to the town. It was called the Rogers School.
Such a gift to a town is enough to work the local immortality
of the giver. But the end was not yet. In a few years, Rogers —
or Mrs. Rogers, to be exact — presented to the village a Town
Hall, beautiful and complete, at a cost of something over two
hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

Next came the Millicent Public Library, in memory of a
beloved daughter.

When his mother passed away, as a memorial to her, he
built a church and presented it to the Unitarian denomi-
nation. It is probably the most complete and artistic church
in America. Its cost was a million dollars.
The Fairhaven Water-works System was a present from Mr.
Rogers jfc ^

And lastly was the Fairhaven High School, as fair and fine

i6i

H. H. ROGERS

an edifice, and as completely equipped, as genius married to
money could supply. The only rival this school has in America
is the Stout High School in Menominee, Wisconsin, which is
also the gift of an individual.

No municipality in the world has ever erected and completed
so good a school — the taxpayers would not allow it. Into our
school-teaching goes the cheese-paring policies of the
average villager. In truth, George Bernard Shaw avers that
we are a nation of villagers.

The big deeds of the world are always done by individuals.
One-man power is the only thing that counts. The altruistic
millionaire is a necessity of progress — he does magnificent
things, which the many will not and can not do.
So we find the model town of Fairhaven molded and fashioned
by her First Citizen. Q Everywhere are the marks of his
personality, and the tangible signs of his good taste.
The only political office to which Henry H. Rogers ever
aspired was that of Street Commissioner of Fairhaven. He
filled the office to the satisfaction of his constituents, and
drew his stipend of three dollars a day for several years.
Good roads was his hobby. Next to this came tree-planting
and flowers. His dream was to have the earth transformed
into a vast flower-garden and park and given to the people.
^ His last item of public work was an object-lesson as to what
the engineering skill of man can do. He took a great bog
or swamp that lay to the North of the village and was used
as a village dumping-ground. He drained this tract, filled in
with gravel, and then earth, and transformed it into a public
park of marvelous beauty.
162

H. H. ROGERS

Abbie Gilford Rogers was the mother of four children — one
son and three daughters. These children all possess a deal of
the commonsense of their parents. The career of their
brilliant father has not dazzled them, neither has his money
sent them dancing down the primrose path of dalliance.
They are conservative, modest and sensible folk who do their
work and abjure the spot-light.

It is a big handicap to a young man to have a genius for a
father. Great caution is here advised in selection. Always and
forever he is compared by publican and proletariat, alike,
with his great progenitor. If father and son could be compared
at the same age it might not be so bad. But the boy of twenty
has to live up to the record of the seasoned warrior of sixty.
fl It is a satisfaction to see how well H. H. Rogers, Jr., endures
the test.

The young man puts forth no effort to rival the great man
gone. He does not call himself his **successor." He knows
that men of the type of his father are individuals — God never
duplicates them — and this perhaps is well.
The second wife of Mr. Rogers was Emelie Augusta Randel,
who survives him. Napoleon succeeded through his marshals
— and so did H. H. Rogers. Mrs. Rogers is a woman of grace
and a woman of ability. In all of his benefactions this fine
and able woman was a worthy coadjutor to her husband.
^ She was his friend, his counselor, his servant, his secretary,
his wife — loyal and loving, tender and true, honest and
sincere — wanting little, giving much.

The last great business effort of H. H. Rogers was the build-
ing of the Virginian Railroad.

163

H .

The road connects the great coal-fields of West Virginia with
tide-water. The route is four hundred and forty-three miles.
**By this line a thousand million dollars worth of coal is
made available to the world," said a great engineer to me.
And then he added, **It will take twenty years, however, to
prove fully the truth of H. H. Rogers' prophetic vision."
This was the herculean task of a man in his thirties — not for
one approaching his seventieth milestone.
But Rogers built this road alone. He constructed and equipped
it in a style so complete that it has set a pace in railroading.
You who know the history of railroads realize that the first
thing is to get the line through. Two streaks of rust, a tea-
kettle, and a right of way make a railroad. This allows you
to list your bonds. But H. H. Rogers neither had bonds nor
stock for sale. What other man ever put forty millions of
money, and his life-blood into a railroad?
Was the work worth the price?

It were vain to ask. The work is done — the man is dead — and
that his death was hastened by the work no one can doubt,
fl Rogers had the invincible heart of youth. He died as he had
lived, always and forever in the thick of the fight. He had
that American trinity of virtues, pluck, push and perse-
verance. Courage, endurance, energy, initiative, ambition,
industry, good-cheer, sympathy were his attributes.

164

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HE DOCTORS

H Satire in 7oup Seizures

By ELBERT HUBBARD

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To H\\ Roycitofteits

THE TIME for making your Selection
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The Rovcitoftcits l^fli^^?i

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LL THAT
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THE CREATOR
FOR WHAT I
HAVE NOT SEEN

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Y COUNTRY

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CIVILIZED

H . H

ROGERS

Vol. 25

DECEMBER, MCMIX

No. 5

LIOI/RriEY^

TO THE HOW

S[gN//HIVHn^^

FPi9J- Fw/ancm

EmS3

Vol. 25

DECEMBER, MCMIX

No. 6

rrO THE hOfSETOT^

in/mry^

mEmwmE^mn

EY ELEERT

91 He

NOriF • IMTQZS
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HE railroads

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the greatest

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has ever seen— Marshall Rdd

Entered at tlie post-office in East Aurora, New York, for trtmsmission as second-class matter.
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Co €:f)E Jf aitfiful

3N certain Universities there is what is known as the
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fl Realizing the danger of the human mind to run in
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flMr. Hubbard feels that a leisurely tour of Europe, amid
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THE armed fleets of an enemy approaching our harbors would be
no more alarming than the relentless advance of a day when
we shall have neither sufficient food nor the means to purchase it
for our population. The farmers of the nation must save it in the
future, just as they built its greatness in the past. — James J. Hill.

JAMES J. HILL

LITTLE JOURNEYS

AMES JEROME HILL has one
credential, at least, to greatness —
he was born in a log house. But
let the painful fact be stated at
once, without apology, that he
could never be President of the
United States, because this historic
log house was situated in Canada.
^ The exact spot is about three
miles from the village of Rock-
wood, Wellington County, Ontario.
^ Rockwood is seven miles East
of Guelph, forty from Toronto, and a hundred from Buffalo.
^ Mr. Hill well remembers his first visit to Toronto. He went
with his father, with a load of farm produce. It took two
days to go and two to return, and for their load they got
the princely sum of seven dollars, with which they counted
themselves rich.

James Hill, the father of James Jerome Hill, was a North of
Ireland man ; his wife was Anne Dunbar, good and Scotch. I
saw a portrait of Anne Dunbar Hill in Mr. HilPs residence at
St. Paul, and was also shown the daguerreotype from which
it was painted. It shows a woman of decided personality,
strong in feature, frank, fearless, honest, sane and poised.
fl The dress reveals the columnar neck that goes only with
superb bodily vigor — the nose is large, the chin firm, the
mouth strong. She looks like a Spartan, save for the pensive
eyes that gaze upon a world from which she has passed,
hungry and wistful. The woman certainly had ambition
and aspiration, which were unsatisfied.
James J. Hill is the son of his mother. His form, features,
mental characteristics and ambition are the endowment of
mother to son.

165

JAMES J. HILL

It was a tough old farm, then as now. As I tramped across
its undulating acres, a week ago, and saw the stone fences
and the piles of glacial drift, that Jim Hill's hands helped
pick up, I thought of the poverty of the situation when
no railroad passed that way, and wheat was twenty cents a
bushel, and pork one cent a pound — all for lack of a market I
qjim Hill as a boy fought the battle of life with ax, hoe,
maul, adz, shovel, pick, mattock, drawshave, rake and pitch-
fork. Wool was carded and spun and woven by hand. The grist
was carried to the mill on horseback, or if the roads were
bad, on the farmer's back. All of this pioneer experience came
to James J. Hill as a necessary part of his education.
Also, since his ninth year he has looked out upon the world
of friends and foes with one eye, the sight of the right eye
having been destroyed by a playmate shooting an arrow
into it. The accident at the time must have been a terrible
one, as it knocked the eyeball from its socket.
But the eye was pushed back, and bandaged by a skilful
country doctor, of the good old-fashioned kind — say, Dr.
Maclure, told of by Ian MacLaren.

" Will he be able to see — will he be able to see? " asked the
anxious mother.

" We will know in four weeks, " was the doctor's reply.
The four weeks passed, and the boy in the meantime was
quite the hero of the vicinity. Next to having a sore toe, a
boy with a bandaged eye is distinguished. Jim Hill probably
had both, for he never wore shoes, save in midwinter, until
he was fifteen and clerked in a store and sold calico, combs
and hairpins — then he just had to wear shoes. Stone-bruises
were the rule, and a loose toe-nail, under which the clover
caught, was no uncommon thing.

And the days rolled around, as the days do. The four weeks
arrived. The doctor came, removed the bandage, pushed open
i66

JAMES J. HILL

the lids — and the eye was sightless. ^ The optic nerve had
been severed or severely shocked.

The danger then was that through s)nnpathy the other
eye would go, too. But the vigor of the lad saved him, and
for over sixty years James J. Hill has seen more with one
lamp than the vast majority of men see with two.
When this accident occurred, the good country doctor prom-
ised to take the lad into his office and teach him the
mystery of medicine. That the boy should be a doctor was
the fond ambition of his mother until the lad was fourteen,
and even after. The old doctor tried to soften things by telling
of a blind doctor he knew who could make a most wonderful
diagnosis, all by the sense of touch.

James himself liked the idea of being a doctor. He made a
big stab at a borrowed Abemathy's "Anatomy " with his one
good peeper, evenings, over the kitchen-table. Even yet, if
you are not careful, he will refer to the tibia and fibula and
tell you of the man's os coccyx or his alveolar processes.
^ Stephen Girard's sightless eye was sunken and gone, but
few, even among those who know Mr. Hill well, realize his
physical disability. The eye appears all right, yet his habit of
wheeling full around and facing the visitor makes you know
the cause why — after you are told.

I once heard him tell that story about Admiral Nelson
when the flagship signaled the " Temeraire " to cease
firing. An aide called the attention of the Admiral to
the signal. He placed his field-glass to his blind eye and
trained it in the direction indicated.

" I don't see any signal, " he answered. " Keep firing until
you sink all the enemy in range, or until I tell you to quit. "
€[ I never knew Mr. Hill to speak of his blind eye to anybody.
His habit is to talk about affirmative things. Like that other
valiant Canadian, Dr. Richard Maurice Bucke (for whom

167

JAMES J. HILL

Mr. Hill always had a great affection), who had both feet
frozen off, and limped joyously through life, no word of
complaint escapes his lips. He has found life good.
But his love of beauty and color, and his taste for art, have,
possibly, been augmented by the fact which he has realized
that to him might come a day when, like Milton, he could
only look out upon this fair old world through the eyes of
another. For let it be stated that Mr. Hill began to collect
pictures and gems when he was a poor man, comparatively,
and at a time when the money spent for a ruby or a copy
of a Rubens was a sacrifice.

Once in Mr. Hill's presence I chanced to quote that saying
of Victor Hugo, " To be blind and to be loved — what happier
fate !" And the grizzled railroad king turned, in his quick and
abrupt way, and said, "Eh! what *s that? I did n*t understand
you ! Please say that again."

And when I had repeated the remark, he gazed out of the
car-winddw, and said nothing.

Life in Canada West in the Forties was essentially the same
as life in Western New York at the same period. The country
was a forest, traversed with swamps and sink-holes, on
which roads were built by laying down long logs and across
these, small logs. This formed the classic corduroy road.
When ten years of age James Hill contracted to build a
mile of corduroy road, between his father's farm and the
village. For this labor his father promised him a two-year-
old colt.

The boy built the road all right. It took him six months, but
the grades were easy and the curves so-so. The Tom Sawyer
plan came in handy, otherwise it is probable there would
have been a default on the time-limit. QAnd Jim got the colt.
^He rode the animal for half a year, back and forth all winter,
from the farm to the village, where he attended the famous
i68

JAMES

H I L

Rockwood Academy. Then some one to whom the elder
Hill was indebted, signified a desire for the colt, and the
father turned the horse over to the creditor. When little Jim
went out and found the stall empty he had a good cry, for
you can cry just the same with one good eye as two.
Three years after this, when his father died, he cried again,
and that was the last time he ever wept over any of his own
troubles jt J^

ROM his seventh to his fourteenth
year young Jim Hill attended the
Rockwood Academy. This " Acad-
emy " had about thirty boarding-
boys and a dozen day-scholars.
Jim Hill was a " day-scholar, "
and the pride of the master. The
boy was studious, appreciative,
grateful. He was n*t so awfully
clever, but he was true.
The master of the Academy was
Professor William Wetherald, a
Quaker, stem to view, but very gentle of heart. His wife was
of the family of Balls. The Ball family moved from Virginia
two generations before, to Western New York, and then when
the Revolutionary War was on, slid over to Ontario for
political reasons, best known to themselves.
There was quite an emigration to Canada about then,
including those worthy Mohawk Indians whose descendants,
including Longboat the runner and the Princess Viroqua, are
now to be found in the neighborhood of Brantford.

169

JAMES J. HILL

And certainly the Indians were wise, for Canada has treated
the red brother with a degree of fairness quite unknown
on this side of the line. As for the Tories — but what 's the
need of arguing!

The Balls trace to the same family that produced Mary
Ball, and Mary Ball was the mother of George Washington —
so tangled is this web of pedigree ! And George Washington,
be it known, got his genius from his mother, not from the
tribe of Washington, fl William Wetherald died at an advanced
age — near ninety, I believe — only a short time ago. It is cus-
tomary for a teacher to prophesy — after the pupil has arrived,
and declare, " What did I tell you! "

Wetherald looked after young Hill at school with almost
a father*s affection, and prophesied for him great things —
only the " great things " were to be in the realm of science,
oratory and literature.

Along about Eighteen Hundred Eighty-eight, when James
J. Hill was getting his feet well planted on the earth,
he sent for his old teacher to come to St. Paul. Wetherald
spent several weeks there, riding over the Hill roads in a
private car, and discussing old times with the owner of the
car and the railroad. ^ Mr. Hill insisted that Wetherald should
remain and teach the Hill children, but Fate said otherwise.
fl There is no doubt that Hill*s love of books, art, natural
history, and his habit of independent thought were largely
fixed in his nature through the influence of this fine Friend,
teacher of children.

The Quaker listens for the "Voice," and then acts without
hunting up precedents. In other words, he does the things
he wants to do. ^ Mr. Hill's long hair and full beard form a
sort of unconscious tribute to Wetherald.
In fact, let James J. Hill wear a dusty miller's suit and a
wide-brimmed hat and you get the true type of "Hicksite.**
170

JAMES

HILL

^ James J. Hill is a score of men in one, as every great
man is. But when the kindly, philosophic, paternal and
altruistic "Yim Hill " is in the saddle, you will see the
significance of this story: Just after Mr. Hill had gotten
possession of the Burlington, he made a trip over the road.
A rear-end flagman at Galesburg was boasting to some of
his mates about how he had gone over the division with
the new "boss of the ranch."

Here a listener puts in a question, thus : " What kind of a
lookin' fellow is th* oV man? "

And he of the red lantern and torpedoes scratches his head,
and explains, " Well, you see, it *s like this : He looks like
Jesus Christ, only he is heavier set! "

HE father of James J. Hill was
a worthy man, with a good hold
on the simple virtues, a weak
chin, and a cosmos of slaty gray.
^ His only claim to immortality
lies^in the fact that he was the
father of his son. Pneumonia
took him, as it often does the
physically strong, and he passed
out before he had reached his
prime. " Death is the most joy-
fullest thing in life, " said Thomas

Carlyle to Milbum, the blind preacher, " when it transfers

responsibility to those big enough to shoulder it, for that 's

the only way you can make a man. "

I once saw a boy of fourteen on the prairies of Kansas

171

JAMES J . HILL

transformed into a man, between the rising of the sun and
its setting. His father was crushed beneath a wagon that
sluiced and toppled in crossing a gully. The hub caught the
poor man square on the chest, and after we got him out he
never spoke.

Six children and the mother were left, the oldest boy being
fourteen ^ ^

A grave was dug there on the prairie the next day, and this
boy of fourteen patted down the earth over his father's
grave, with the back of a spade. He then hitched up the
horses, rounded up the cattle, and headed the cavalcade for
the West. ^He was a man, and in after-life he proved himself
one. ^ On the death of his father, Jim Hill's school-days were
done. His aptitude in mathematics, his ability to keep
accounts, and his general disposition to make himself
useful secured him a place in the village store, which was
also the Post-office. His pay was one dollar a week.
This training in the country store proved of great value,
just as it did in the case of H. H. Rogers, George Peabody
and so many other men of mark.
It is one thing to get a job, and another to hold it.
Jim Hill held his job, and his salary was raised before
the end of the first year to three dollars a week.
On the strength of this prosperity, the struggle on the
old farm with its stumps, boulders and mortgage was given
up and the widow moved her little brood to town. The log
house, on the rambling main street of the village, is now
pointed out to visitors. Here the mother sewed for neighbors,
took in washing, made garden, and with the help of her
boy Jim, grew happy, and fairly prosperous — more pros-
perous than the family had ever been.
Thus matters went on until Jim was in his eighteenth year,
when the wanderlust got hold of the young man. His mother

172

JAMES J. HILL

saw it coming and being wise did not apply the brake. QMan
is a migrating animal. To sit still and stay in one place
is to vegetate.

Jim with twenty dollars in his pocket started for Toronto
on foot with a bundle on a stick, followed by the prayers of
his mother, the gaping wonder of the children, and the
blessing of Professor Wetherald.

Toronto was interesting, but too near home to think of as
a permanent stopping-place. A leaky little steamer ran over
to Fort Niagara every other day. Jim took passage, reached
the foreign shore, walked up to Niagara Falls, and the
next day tramped on to Buffalo.

This was in the wonderful year of Eighteen Hundred
Fifty-six, the year the Republican Party was born at Bloom-
ington, Illinois. It was a time of unrest, of a healthy discon-
tent and goodly prosperity, for things were in motion.
The docks at Buffalo were all a-bustle with emigrants
going West — forever West.

Jim Hill, aged eighteen, strong, healthy — ^farmer boy,
lumberman, clerk — shipped as roustabout on a schooner
bound for Chicago. His pay for the round trip was to be
ten dollars, and board, the money payable when the boat
got back to Buffalo. If he left the ship at Chicago, he was to
get no cash.

The boat reached Chicago in ten days. It was a great trip —
full of mild adventure and lots of things that would have
surprised the folks at Rockwood. Jim got a job on the docks
as checker-off, or understudy to a freight-clerk. The pay
was a dollar a day. He now sent his original twenty dollars
back to his mother to prove to her that he was prosperous
and money was but a bagatelle and a burden.
A month, and he had joined the ever-moving westward tide.
He was headed for California, the land of shining nuggets

173

JAMES

J .

HILL

and rainbow hopes. flHe reached Rock Island, and saw a sign
out at a sawmill, "Men Wanted." He knew the business and
was given work on sight. In a week his mathematics came in
handy and he was handed a lumber-rule and blank-book.
flMr. Hill recalls yet his first sight of a Mississippi River
steamboat coming into Davenport. The tall smoke-stacks
belching fire, the graceful, swanlike motion, the marvelous
beauty of the superstructure, the wonderful letter "D" in gold,
or something that looked like gold, swung between the stacks !
Qlt was just dusk, and as the boat glided in toward the shore,
a big torch was set ablaze, the gangplank was run out to
the weird song of the colored deck-hands, and miracle and
fairy-land arrived. ^ For a month whenever a steamboat
blew its siren whistle, Jim was on the wharf, open-mouthed,
gaping, wondering, admiring. QOne day he could stand it no
longer. He threw up his job and took passage on the sailing
palace, " Molly Devine," for Dubuque.
Here he changed boats, and boarded a smaller boat, a stern-
wheeler, deck passage for St. Paul, a point which seemed to
the young man somewhere near the North Pole.
He was going to get his fill of steamboat riding for once. It
was his intention to remain at St. Paul a couple of days, see
St. Anthony's Falls and Minnehaha, and then take the same
boat back down the River.
But something induced him to change his plans.

174

JAMES

J .

HILL

HE two days on the steamboat
had wearied Jim. The prenatal
Scotch idea of industry was upon
him, and conscience had begun
to squirm. He applied for work as
soon as he walked out on the
levee. The place was the office of
the steamboat company. He stated
in an offhand way that he had had
experience on the water-front in
Chicago, Rock Island and Daven-
port .^ ,^

He was hired on the spot as shipping-clerk with the gratuitous
remark, " If you have n*t sense enough to figure, you are
surely strong enough to hustle. "

The agents of the steamboat line were J. W. Bass & Company.
Hill got along all right. He was day-clerk or night-clerk,
just as the boats came in. And it is wonderful how steamboats
on the Mississippi usually arrive at about two o' clock in
the morning.

Jim slept on a cot in the office, so as to be on hand when a
boat arrived and to help unload. Now, it was the duty of the
shipping-clerk to check off the freight as it was brought
ashore. Also, it was the law of steamboating that clerks
took their meals on board the boat, if they were helping to
unload her. Now as Jim had food and a place to sleep when
a Dubuque and St. Paul steamboat was tied at the levee, all
the meals he had to buy were those when no steamboat
was in sight.

Being essentially Scotch, Jim managed to time his meals so
as to last over. And sometimes if a boat was stuck on a
sand-bar he did the MacFadden act for a whole day. It be-
came a sort of joke in the office, and we hear of Mr. Bass,

175

JAMES J. HILL

the agent) shouting up to the pilot-house of a steamboat,
" Avast there, sir, for five minutes until Jim Hill stows his
hold. " ^ ^

A part of Jim*s work was to get wood for fuel for the boats.
This was quite a business in itself. He once got a big lot of
fuel and proudly piled it on the levee, mountain-high, in
anticipation of several steamboats.

A freshet came one night, the river rose, and carried off
every stick, so that when the " Mary Ann " arrived there
was no fuel.

" Wait until Jim Hill eats his breakfast and perhaps he *11
get an armful of wood for us, " shouted down the captain
in derision.

After that, Jim managed to load up a flatboat or two, and
always had a little wood in reserve. ^ The young man was
now fairly launched in business. The mystery of manifest-
ing, billing, collecting; the matter of "shorts," "overs,"
and figuring damages were to him familiar.
The Territory of Minnesota was organized in Eighteen
Hundred Forty-nine, and did not become a State until
Eighteen Hundred Fifty-eight. In Eighteen Hundred Fifty-
seven there was not a single mile of railway in the Terri-
tory. But in that year. Congress authorized the Territory
to give alternate sections of public lands to any company
that would build a railway through them.
Through this stimulus, in the latter part of Eighteen Hundred
Fifty-seven, there was organized a company with the
ambitious title of " The Minnesota and Pacific Railroad
Company. " Its line extended from the steamboat-wharf in
St. Paul to the Falls of St. Anthony. There were ten miles
of track, including sidings, one engine, two box cars, and
a dozen flat cars for logs.

The railroad didn't seem to thrive. There was no paying
176

JAMES J. HILL

passenger traffic to speak of. Passengers got aboard all right,
but on being pressed for fares they felt insulted and jumped
off, just as you would now if you got a ride with a farmer
and he asked you to pay. Possibly, a rudimentary disincli-
nation to pay fare still remains in most of us, like the
hereditary indisposition of the Irish to pay rent. ^ No one
then ever thought it possible that a railroad could compete
with a steamboat, and it was a long time after this before
Commodore Vanderbilt had the temerity to build a railroad
along the banks of the Hudson, and was called a lunatic.
flSo there being no passenger traffic, the farmers carrying
their grists to mill, and the logs being jfloated down the river
to the mills, the railroad was in a bad way.
Something had to be done, so the Minnesota and Pacific
was reorganized and a new road, the St. Paul and Pacific,
bought it out, with all of its land grants. The intent of the
new road was to strike right up into the woods for ten or
twenty miles above Minneapolis and bring down logs that
otherwise would have to be hauled to the river.
For a time this road paid, with the sale of the odd-numbered
sections of land that went with it.

In Eighteen Hundred Sixty-seven, James J. Hill became
the St. Paul agent of this railroad. He had quit his job with
J. W. Bass, to become agent for the Northwestern Packet
Line, and as the railroad ran right to his door he found it
easy to serve both the steamboat company and the railroad.
^ You will often hear people tell about how James J. Hill
began his railroad career as a station-agent, but it must be
remembered that he was a station-agent, plus. The agents of
steamboat-lines in those days were usually merchants or
men who were financially responsible. ^ And James J. Hill
became the St. Paul agent of the St. Paul and Pacific because
he was a man of resource, with ability to get business for

177

JAMES

HILL

the railroad. ^ As the extraordinary part of Mr. Hill's career
did not begin until he was forty years of age, our romantic
friends who write of him often picture him as a failure up
to that time. ^ The fact is, he was making head and gath-
ering gear right along. These twenty-two years, up to the time
he became a railroad owner, were years of intense activity.

HILE yet a clerk for J. W. Bass
& Company, Mr. Hill made the ac-
quaintance of Norman Kittson, as
picturesque a figure as ever wore
a coonskin cap, and evolved from
this to all the refinements of Pic-
cadilly, only to discard these and
return to the Simple Life.
Kittson had been connected with
the Hudson Bay Company. When
Hill met him, he was running a
fast express to Fort Garry, now
Winnipeg, going over the route with ox-carts. In summer
it took one month to go, and the same to return. In winter
dog-sleds were used and the trip was made more quickly,
q Kittson was the inventor and patentee of the Red River
Ox-cart. It was a vehicle made of wood, save for the linch-
pins. The wheels were enormous, some being ten feet in
diameter. It was Kittson's theory that if you could make
your wheel high enough it would eliminate friction and run
of its own momentum. The wheels were made by boring
and pinning plank on plank, criss-cross, and then chalking
off with a string from the center. Then you sawed out your
178

JAMES J. HILL

wheel, and there you were. flThe creaking of a train of
these ox-carts could be heard five miles. Kittson had the
government contract for carrying the mails, and managed,
with the help of trading in furs and loading up with mer-
chandise on his own account, to make considerable money.
qWhen Hill was in his twenties he went over the route with
Kittson, and made several trips, also, for his friend alone
with dog-sleds, when there was a rush of freight.
On one such occasion he had one companion, a half-breed,
of uncertain character, but who was taken along as a guide,
he being familiar with the route. It was midwinter, the snow
was heavy and deep, there were no roads, and much of the
way led over frozen lakes and along streams. To face the
blizzards of that country, alone, at that time required the
courage of the seasoned pioneer.

Hill did n*t much like the looks of his companion. And after
a week out, when the fellow suggested their heading for
Lake Superior, and dividing their cargo. Hill became alarmed.
The man was persistent and inclined to be quarrelsome.
Each man had a knife and a rifle.

Hill waited until they reached a high ridge. The snow lay
dazzling white as far as the eye could reach. The nearest
habitation was fifty miles away.

Under pretense of fixing the harness on his dogs Jim got
about forty feet from his man, quickly cocked his rifle and
got a bead on the half-breed before the fellow knew what
was up. At the word of command the rogue dropped his
rifle and held up his hands. ^ The next order was to right
— about — face — march! The order was obeyed.
On account of his blind right eye, Jim used a rifle left-handed,
but he was a sure shot and a quick one. ^ The half-breed
knew all this.

A double-quick was ordered, and the half-breed lit out,

179

JAMES

HILL

quickening his pace as he got out of range. Q Hill then
picked up the other rifle, put whip to his dogs, and by night
had gone so far that he could not be overtaken. flWhen Jim
came back that way a few weeks later, he kept his one critical
eye peeled for danger, but he never saw his friend again.
^ When I heard Mr. Hill relate this story he told it as simply
as he might relate how he went out to milk the cows.
One of the men present asked, " Did n*t you feel sorry for
the fellow, to turn him adrift on that frozen plain, without
food or fuel? " ^ Mr. Hill hesitated, and slowly answered,
" I thought of that, but preferred to send him adrift rather
than to kill him, or let him kill me. And anjrway he had only
fifty miles to travel in order to strike an Indian village. And
when he was there we were just one hundred and fifty miles
apart. You see I am a mathematician. It is a great joy to
figure out what a long distance you are from some folks."

N his business of supplying cord-
wood to steamboats, Mr. Hill had
a partner, grizzled and gray, by
the name of Griggs. Griggs was a
typical pioneer — always moving
on. He bought a little stem-wheel
steamboat, and shipped its boiler
and engine across to Breckinridge,
where he had the joy of running
the first steamboat, " The North-
west, " on the Red River.
Mr. Hill built the second steamboat
on the Red River, " The Swallow, " on the order of Kittson,
i8o

JAMES J. HILL

who bought the boat as soon as she had shown her ability
to run. All the metal used in its making, which of course
included engine and boiler, was sent across from St. Paul.
^ And if the outfit was gotten out of a wrecked Mississippi
stem-wheeler, what boots it I

Then it was that Kittson, having also bought the Griggs
steamboat, was given the title of Commodore, a distinction
which he carried through life.

By this time several things had happened. One was that
Hill had brought up to St. Paul a steamboat-load of coal.
q This coal was mined near Peoria, on the Illinois River,
floated down to the Mississippi, then carried up to St. Paul.
To bring coal to this Newcastle of wood was regarded as
deliberate folly.

By this time the St. Paul and Pacific had gotten a track laid
clear through to Breckinridge, so as to connect with Com-
modore Kittson's steamboats. When Hill first reached St.
Paul there was no agriculture North of that point. The
wheat-belt still lingered around Northern Illinois and
Southern Wisconsin. The fact that seeds can be acclimated,
like men and animals, was still in the ether.
The Red River Valley is a wonderfully rich district. Louis
Agassiz first mapped it, and wrote a most interesting essay
on it. Here was a wonderful prehistoric lake, draining to
the South through the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers,
and thence to the Gulf of Mexico. By a volcanic rise of the
land on the Southern end, centuries ago, the current was
turned and ran North, making what we call the Red River,
emptying into Lake Winnipeg, which in turn has an outlet
into Hudson Bay.

Agassiz came up the Mississippi River on a trip in Eighteen
Hundred Sixty-five. The boat he traveled on was one
for which James J. Hill was agent. Naturally, it devolved

i8x

JAMES

I L L

on Hill to show the visitors the sights thereabouts. And
among these sights happened to be our friend Kittson, who
full of enthusiasm offered to pilot the party across to the
Red River. They accepted and ascended to Fort Garry.
Agassiz, full of scientific enthusiasm, wrote out his theory
about the prehistoric lake. And science, now, the world over,
calls the Red River Valley, "Lake Agassiz." With Louis
Agassiz was his son Alexander, a fine young man with
pedagogic bent, headed for his father's place as Curator of
the Museum at Harvard. ^ From Winnipeg the party was
supplied an Indian guide, who took them across to Lake
Superior. Then it was that Alexander Agassiz saw the
wonders of Lake Superior copper and Lake Superior iron.
And Harvard lost a professor, but the world gained a multi-
millionaire. Louis Agassiz had no time to make money,
but his son Alexander was not thus handicapped.
The report of Agassiz on the mineral wealth of Lake Superior
corroborated Mr. Hill's own opinions of this country, which
he had traversed with dog-sleds. Money was scarce, but he,
even then, made a small investment in Lake Superior
mineral lands, and has been increasing it ever since. A
recent present to the stockholders of the Great Northern of
an iron tract worth many millions, had its germ in that
memorable day when he met the Agassiz party on the levee in
St. Paul, and unconsciously changed their route as planned.

182

JAMES

J •

HILL

HERE are two ways for a traveling
man to make money: One is to
sell the goods, and the other [is
to work the expense account.
There are two ways to make
money by managing a railroad :
One is through service to the
people along the line of the road;
the other is through working the
bondholders J^ jt
It was the eventful year of
Eighteen Hundred Seventy-six,
really got up steam. He was then

before James J. Hill
thirty-eight years old.

He was agent of the St. Paul and Pacific, and in this capacity
he had seen that the road was being run with the idea of
making money by milking the bondholders.
The line had been pushed just as long as the bondholders of
Holland would put up money. To keep things going, interest
had been paid to the worthy Dutch out of the money they
had supplied. Gradually, the phlegmatic ones grew wise, and
the purse-strings of the Netherlanders closed. For hundreds
of years Holland had sought a quick Northwest passage to
India. Little did she know she was now warm on the trail.
^ Little, also, did Jim Hill know.

The equipment — engines and cars — was borrowed, so when
the receiver was appointed he found only the classic streak
of rust and right of way. No doubt both of these would have
been hypothecated if it were possible. ^ Mr. Hill knew the
Northwest as no other man did, excepting, possibly, Norman
Kittson. He had traversed the country from St. Paul to
Winnipeg on foot, by ox-carts, on horseback, by dog-sledges.
He had seen it in all seasons and under all conditions. He

»83

JAMES J. HILL

knew the Red River Valley would raise wheat, and he
knew that the prosperity of old Lake Agassiz meant the
prosperity of the railroad that ran between that rich valley
and St. Anthony's Falls, where the great flouring-mills were
situated, the center of the flour zone having been shifted
from Rochester, New York, to Minneapolis, Minnesota jt
To gain possession of the railroad and run it so as to build up
the country, and thus prosper as the farmers prospered,
was his ambition. He was a farmer by prenatal tendency and
by education, a commission man by chance, and a master
of transportation by instinct. Every farmer should be
interested in good roads, for his problem is quite as much to
get his products to market as to raise them. Jim Hill focussed
on getting farm products to market. While he was a Cana-
dian by birth, he had now become a citizen of the United
States. His old friend, Commodore Kittson, was a Canadian
by birth, and never got beyond taking out his first papers.
The Winnipeg agent of the Hudson Bay Company was
Donald Alexander Smith, a hardy Scotch burr of a man,
with many strong and sturdy oatmeal virtues. He had gone
with the Hudson Bay Company as a laborer, became a
guide, a trader, and then an agent. Hill and Kittson laid
before Smith a plan, very plain, very simple. Buy up the
bonds of the St. Paul and Pacific from the Dutch bondholders,
foreclose, and own the railroad!

Now, Donald A. Smith's connection with the Hudson Bay
Company gave him a standing in Montreal banking circles,
and to be trusted by Montreal is to have the ear of London.
^ Donald A. Smith went down to Montreal and laid the plan
before George Stephen, manager of the Bank of Montreal.
If the Bank of Montreal endorsed a financial scheme it was
a go. Only one thing seemed to lie in the way — the willing-
ness of the bondholders to sell out at a figure which our four
184

JAMES J. HILL

Canadians could pay. Mr. Hill was for going to Holland, and
interviewing the bondholders, personally. ^ Stephen, more
astute in big finance, said, bring them over here. Hill could
not fetch them, Kittson could n*t and Donald A. Smith
could n't, because there was no dog-sled line to Amsterdam.
qihe Bank of Montreal did the trick, and a committee of
Dutchmen arrived to look over their Minnesota holdings
with a view of selling out. Mr. Hill took them over the line —
a dreary waste of slashings, then a wide expanse of prairie,
broken now and again by scrub-oak and hazel-groves;
deep gulleys here and there — swamps, sloughs, and ponds,
with assets of brant, wild geese, ducks and sand-hill cranes.
^ The road was in bad shape — the equipment worse. An
inventory of the actual property was taken with the help of
the Dutch Committee. ^The visiting Hollanders made a
report to the bondholders, advising sale of the bonds at
an average of about forty per cent of their face value,
which is what the inventory showed.
Our Canadian friends secured an option which gave them
time to turn. Farley, the Receiver, was willing. The road
was reorganized as the St. Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba
Railroad. George Stephen was President, Norman Kittson
First Vice-President, Donald A. Smith Second Vice-President,
and James J. Hill General Manager. ^ And on Mr. Hill fell
the burden of turning a losing property into a prosperous
and paying one. From the very day that he became manager
he breathed into the business the breath of life.
He advertised the railroad lands at a price and on terms
that were attractive to settlers. There are two ways of making
railroad rates — one is based on the cost of transportation,
including overhead and terminal charges; and the other is
simply based on the idea of moving the tonnage. Hill made
rates that caught the home-seekers. He figured that if the

185

JAMES

J .

HILL

country could be populated with prosperous people, the
rest was easy.

He sent over to England and bought hundreds of young
Hereford bulls, and distributed them along the line of the
road among the farmers. " Jim Hill's bulls " are pointed
out now, over three thousand miles of range, and jokes on
how Hill bulled the market are always in order. Clydesdale
horses were sent out on low prices and long-time payments.
^ Farm-seeds, implements and lumber were put within the
reach of any man who really wanted to get on ^ And lo ! the
land prospered Jt> The waste places were made green, and the
desert blossomed like the rose ^ Illinois, Iowa and Wiscon-
sin had quit wheat and turned to corn-growing. Minnesota
was coming into her own — the tide of immigration was
pushing over the North and West. It was the psychologic
moment — time and tide had joined hands with James J.
Hill in order that he might build an empire.

HE financial blizzard of Eighteen
Hundred Seventy-three was, with-
out doubt, an important factor in
letting down the bars, so that
James J. Hill could come to the
front ^ t^

The River Valley at that time was
not shipping a bushel of wheat.
^ The settlers were just taking
care of their own wants, and
were feeding the Lady of the
Snows up North around Winnipeg.

i86

JAMES J. HILL

We now know that the snows of the Lady of the Snows
are mostly mythical. She is supplying her own food, and we
are looking toward her with envious eyes.
In the year Nineteen Hundred Nine, just passed, the two
Dakotas and Minnesota produced over two hundred million
bushels of wheat — worth, say, a dollar a bushel. And when
wheat is a dollar a bushel the farmers are buying pianolas.
qXhe " Jim Hill Country" East of the Rockies is producing,
easily, over five hundred million dollars a year in food
products that are sent to the East for market.
The first time I saw Mr. Hill was in Eighteen Hundred
Eighty. He was surely a d3mamo of nervous energy. His
full beard was tinged with gray, his hair was worn long,
and he looked like a successful ranchman, with an Omar
Khayyam bias. That he has n*t painted pictures, like Sir
William Van Home, and thus put that worthy to shame, is
to me a marvel.

Working under the direction of Mr. Hill, as Railroad Super-
intendent, at this time was Allan Manvel, who was hands
and feet and eyes for Hill. Allan was Scotch, of course. He
could take orders and give them. I remember of Mr. Hill
once passing him out some Billy Muldoon vocabulary, and
Allan handing it back with compound interest, but going
right along and doing the thing just as he was told. Allan
graduated — " One of us had to go, " said Jim.
Manvel became President of the Santa Fe, and a kind of
foster-father to that very able man, Paul Morton, who was
a Vice-President of the Santa Fe before President Roosevelt
invited him into his Cabinet.

Hill has been an educator of men. He even supplied Donald
A. Smith a few business thrills. ^ " Tomorrow night I intend
to entertain the Governor," once said Smith to Hill.
" Tomorrow night you will be on the way to Europe to

187

JAMES J. HILL

borrow money for me," said Hill. And it was so. fl First and
foremost, James J. Hill is a farmer. He thinks of himself
as following a plow, milking cows, salting steers, shoveling
out ear-corn for the pigs. He can lift his voice and call the
cattle from a mile away — and does at times.
He bought a section of Red River railroad land from himself
and put it in his wife's name. The land was swampy, covered
with swale, and the settlers had all passed it up as worthless.
^ Mr. Hill cut the swale, tiled the land, and grew a crop that
put the farmers to shame.

He then started a tile-factory in the vicinity, and sold it to
the managers — two young fellows from the East — as soon
as they proved that they had the mental phosphorus and
the commercial jamake.

The agricultural schools have always interested Mr. Hill.
^ That which brings a practical return and makes men
self-supporting and self-reliant is his eternal hobby. Four
years in college is to him too much — "You can get what
you want in a year, or not at all, " he says. He has sent
hundreds of farmers' boys to the agricultural colleges for
short teims. Imagine what this means to boys who have
been born on a farm and have never been off it — to get
the stimulus of travel, lectures, books, and new sights and
scenes! In this work, often the boys did not know who
their benefactor was. The money was supplied by some
man in the near-by town — that was all. These boys,
inoculated at Mr. Hill's expense with the education
microbe, have often been a civilizing leaven, in new
communities in the Dakotas, Montana and Washington.
§In Eighteen Hundred Eighty-eight the St. Paul, Min-
neapolis and Manitoba became a part of the Great Northern.
^ Hill had reached out beyond the wheat country into the
arid zone, which was found to be not nearly so arid as we
i88

J A M E

HILL

thought. The Black Angus and the White-faced Herefords
followed, and where once were only scattering droves of
skinny pintos, now were to be seen shaggy-legged Shire
horses, and dappled Percherons.

The bicycle had come and also the trolley-car, and Calamity
Jake prophesied that horses would soon be valuable,
only, for feeding Frenchmen. But Jacob was wrong. Good
horses steadily increased in value. And today, in spite of
automobiles and aeroplanes, the prices of horses have
aviated. Jim HilPs railroads, this last year, hauled over
three hundred thousand horses out of Montana to the
Eastern States.

AILROADING reduced to its lowest
terms means cost of moving one
ton of freight one mile — this is
the unit of measurement.
Mr. HilPs ambition is to get this
cost down to the lowest point that
will allow returns, namely: First,
payment of wages and for material
to keep up the road. Second, interest
on bonded indebtedness. Third,
dividends (reasonable) on the cap-
ital stock of the road.
Railroad men for years strove to get moving cost down to one
cent per ton per mile — that was their goal. Four years ago
Mr. Hill got it down to 791-1000 cent, and a year later
reduced it to 749-1000 cent — less than three-fourths of a cent
for hauling two thousand pounds one mile. This is his triumph.

189

JAMES J. HILL

^The development of this prairie country never could have
been made so quickly without cheap lumber. The forests of
Michigan were about exhausted by Eighteen Hundred Eighty-
five ; Wisconsin in the Nineties ; and Minnesota soon followed.
The demand for lumber in North Dakota could not be supplied
from the East. The South was out of the question — you can
not get freight to move easily along parallels of longitude ;
it always seeks latitude, the same as man in his migrations.
^ On the completion of the Great Northern Railroad to the
Pacific tidewater — say in February, Eighteen Hundred
Ninety-two — Mr. Hill announced a rate of forty cents per
one hundred pounds on lumber from Washington mills to
St. Paul - Minneapolis — say two thousand miles or less —
at a cost of eight dollars a ton. This means two-fifths of one
cent per ton per mile. It had to be hauled over two mountain-
ranges, and across semi-arid plains, and miles of alkali-lands
that furnished no coal for steam, nor water fit for boiler use.
^ This was a tremendous cut, and it made the Northern
Pacific squirm. How could he do it? The secret was railroad
passes in the mountains at lower elevation than any compet-
itor, easy grades all along the line, thousands, yes hundreds
of thousands, of dollars spent in changing grades from, say,
eight-tenths to six-tenths per cent.

The highest point on the Great Northern Railroad in the
Rockies is five thousand two hundred six feet — less than
one mile above sea-level J^ No other transcontinental line
has an elevation so low Jk Crow's Nest Pass in the Cana-
dian Rockies is less, but is as yet used only by the Canadian
Pacific Railroad into Spokane. Mr. Hill has a track through
the same pass, and also easier grades beyond toward Van-
couver, British Columbia, and will soon have a freight line
of least grades between Puget Sound and the Great Lakes.
^ A one-per-cent grade means a rise of one foot in a track
190

JAMES J. HILL

one hundred feet long. Two per cent is called a mountain
grade. All transcontinental lines have grades in mountains
running two per cent and over, save the Great Northern
Railway. This is his secret: easy grades, without too much
cost in added distance. He threw away eighty miles of moun-
tain line in Montana once just because later surveys proved
a much easier grade possible in another direction. The
difference between eight-tenths-per-cent grade and six-
tenths per cent does not seem much, but a locomotive will
pull one-half as many more cars on the latter as on the
former. That is to say, the cost of hauling on a road contain-
ing eight-tenths-per-cent grades is fifty per cent greater
than operating on a road of siz-tenths-per-cent grades.When
other roads go into a receiver's hands, Jim Hill continues to
make seven-per-cent dividends for his stockholders.
A steadily falling cost of hauling freight, with greater
expedition of same, has marked Mr. Hill's progress in the
railroad world. In the spring of Eighteen Hundred
Eighty-seven, the St. Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba
Railroad started westward from Minot, North Dakota,
toward Great Falls, Montana, a distance of five hundred
fifty miles. The Montana Central Railroad, now part of the
Great Northern Railway System, carried it on one hundred
miles further to Helena. The steel was all laid in one summer,
at times as much as five miles a day. Mr. Hill kept close
supervision of the progress of this work, driving over the
grade almost monthly from end of track to Great Falls. With
relays of ranchers' horses one hundred miles per day could
be inspected, flj. M. Egan, General Superintendent, under
Allan Manvel, General Manager, had complete charge, assisted
by C.C. Shields. Five years later, in Eighteen Hundred Ninety-
two, the then Great Northern Railroad pushed westward
from Havre to Seattle. Shields had charge of this, and for

JAMES

HILL

his assistant chose " Fighting Farrell." Farrell afterwards
became Assistant to President Hill. His headquarters were
at Seattle. Hill furnished him opportunity for greatness;
he improved the opportunity, but Harriman eventually
captured him and he led the enemy into Seattle.
John F. Stevens was under E. H. Bechler, who had charge,
and retired on completion of the road, his assistant becom-
ing Chief Engineer of the Great Northern Railway System.
^ And so they built a transcontinental line without a dollar
of Government aid.

HE St. P., M. & M. Ry., when
Mr. Hill was General Manager,
had a capital of fifteen millions.
Today the capital stock of the
Great Northern is two hundred
millions. Northern Pacific about
two hundred and twenty millions,
and Burlington stock two hundred
millions.

Up to about his fortieth year,
James J. Hill was preparing for
his life-work. His mind was fallow
waiting for the thirty-year harvest to follow.
No man can become great save as he selects others to help
him. Mr. Hill chose his helpers. Donald A. Smith, Norman
Kittson, George Stephens, John S. Kennedy, R. B. Angus
were among the first. Later, H. D. Minot, a wealthy Boston-
ian, and a Harvard graduate, was induced to come West and
put some of his millions into the line which connected the
192

JAMES J. HILL

Twin Cities with the head of the Great Lakes at Duluth,
including all the valuable terminals thereat, with branches
to the iron-ore fields lying North and Northwest. Minot was
made President of this branch, which is now a part of the
Great Northern System. Minot, after whom the town of
Minot, North Dakota, was named, was a literary man. He
wrote fairish poetry, and he got up a code for the use of the
Great Northern Railway officials.

A clerk by the name of Frank E. Ward worked for him, and
at a near-by desk sat Charlie Sercombe. Work being slack,
young Sercombe said to Minot privately one day, " You are
paying us sixty dollars each month — let Frank go and
I will do all the work for seventy-five dollars."
The result was that Sercombe, who had made the suggestion,
was fired, and young Ward got the seventy-five dollars and
did the work. Ward was office-boy in the Grand Trunk
Railway offices at Montreal, first. Upon Minot's death (he
was killed in a railway wreck in Pennsylvania), Mr. Hill
took Ward and rapidly advanced him to be Assistant to the
President. He was then given charge of the Montana
Central Railway (now in the Great Northern Railway
System), perhaps the most difficult position of any on the
road. He was General Superintendent of the Great Northern
Railroad in Nineteen Hundred Two, and made General
Manager soon after, taking the place of John F. Stevens.
He is now General Manager of the Chicago, Burlington and
Quincy.

Stevens was chosen by the President at Washington as
being the ablest engineer to push the construction of the
Panama Canal.

Stevens was too good a man to brook interference on the
part of President Roosevelt or envious army engineers, so
he gave up the Panama job in disgust and is again working

193

JAMES

H I L

for Mr. Hill. QR. I. Farrington, Comptroller and Second
Vice-President of the Great Northern Railway, was a clerk
in the auditor's office of the Northern Pacific Railway at
seventy dollars a month in Eighteen Hundred Eighty-five,
and afterward was paymaster for the Rock Island.
When Charles H. Warren became Comptroller of the Great
Northern Railway in Eighteen Hundred Eighty-eight, he
made young Farrington auditor of disbursements at two
hundred a month.

Farrington was a perfect wizard at figures. When Warren
was made General Manager, Farrington took his place as
Comptroller; later he became Vice-President and Director
and had J. G. Drew as Assistant Comptroller.
Edward Sawyer, of Quaker parentage, now seventy years
and upwards, Treasurer of the Great Northern Railway,
was appointed first Treasurer of the St. P., M. & M. Ry. He
is an able man who asks for no bouquets. For over thirty
years he has worked for Mr. Hill. He is a Director in the
Great Northern. He was brought West from a New England
bank and has had charge of more millions in working for
Mr. Hill than an average banker sees in a lifetime.

194

JAMES

H I L

HE clothes that a man wears, the
house that he builds for his family
and the furnishings that he places
therein are all an index of his
character. Mr. Hill's mansion on
Summit Avenue, St. Paul, was built
to last a thousand years. The bronze
girder that supports the grand stair-
case is strong enough to hold up a
locomotive.

The house is nearly two hundred
feet long, but looks proportionate,
from the Art-Gallery with its fine pictures and pipe-organ
at one end, to its rich leather-finished dining-room at the
other. It is of brownstone — the real Fifth Avenue stuff.
Fond du Lac stone is cheaper and perhaps just as good, but
it has the objectionable light-colored spots.
^ Nothing but the best will do for Hill. The tallest flagpole
that can pass the curves of the mountains between Puget
Sound and St. Paul graces the yard. The kitchen is lined with
glazed brick, so that a hose could be turned on the walls ;
the laundry-room has immense drawers for indoor drying
of clothes ; no need to open a single window for ventilation,
as air from above is forced inside over ice-chambers in simi-
mer and over hot-water pipes in winter. ^ Mr. Hill is a rare
judge of art, and has the best collection of " Barbizons " in
America. Any one can get from his private secretary, Mr. J. J.
Toomey, a card of admission. As early as Eighteen Hundred
Eighty -one, Mr. Hill had in his modest home on Ninth
Street, St. Paul, several " Corots. " Mr. Hill is fond of good
horses, and has a hundred or so of them on his farm of three
thousand acres, ten miles North of St. Paul.
Some years ago, while President of the Great Northern

195

JAMES J. HILL

Railway, he drove night and morning in summer-time to and
from his farm to his office. He very often walks to his house
on Summit Avenue or takes a street-car. He is thoroughly
democratic, and may be seen most any day walking from
the Great Northern Railway office engaged in conversation
with one or more, and no matter how deeply engrossed or
how important the subject in hand, he never fails to greet
by a nod or a smile an acquaintance.
He knows everybody, and sees everything.
Mr. Hill knows more about farming than any man I ever
met. He raises hogs and cattle, has taken prizes for fat cattle
at the Chicago show, and knows more than anybody else
today as to the food supply of the world — yes, and of the
coal and timber supply, too. He has formed public opinion on
these matters, and others, by his able contributions to
various magazines.

Seattle erected this summer a monument to James J. Hill,
and St. Paul and Minneapolis will, I know, ere long be only
too glad to do something in the same line, only greater.
Just how any man will act under excitement is an unknown
quantity.When the Omaha Railway General Offices in St.
Paul took fire, at the first alarm E. W. Winter, then General
Manager, ran for the stairway, emerging on the street. Then
he bawled up to his clerk on the second floor excitedly,
" Charlie, bring down my hat. " But his clerk, young
Fuller, with more presence of mind, was then at the telephone
sending in word to the fire-department. Everybody got out
safely, even to the top floor, but the building was destroyed.
^ One night about ten o'clock, the St. P., M. & M. Ry. offices
at St. Paul caught fire.

The smoke penetrated the room where Mr. Hill with his
Secretary, Will Stephens, was doing some work after all
others had departed. They had paid no attention to the alarm
196

JAMES J. HILL

of fire, but the smell of smoke started them into action.
§Young Stephens hurriedly carried valued books and papers
to the vault, while Mr. Hill with the strength of a giant
grasped a heavy roll-top desk used by A. H. Bode, Comp-
troller, pushed it to the wall, and threw it bodily out of the
second-story window.

The desk was shattered to fragments and the hoodlums
grabbed on to the contents. No harm was done to the railway
ofiice, save discoloring the edges of some documents.
The next morning when Bode, all unconscious of fire or
accident, came to work, Edward Sawyer, the Treasurer, said
jokingly, " Bode, you may consider yourself discharged,
for your desk is in the street. "

When Conductor McMillan sold his farm in the valley for
ten thousand dollars, he asked Mr. Hill what he should do
with the money. " Buy Northern Securities, " was the
answer. He did so and saw them jump one-third.
Frank Mofifatt was Mr. HilPs Secretary for some years. Frank
now has charge of the Peavey Estate. C. D. Bentley, now a
prominent insurance man of St. Paul, a friend of Frank's,
used to visit him in Mr. Hill's private oflSce. Mr. Hill caught
him there once and said, " Young man, if I catch you here
again I *11 throw you out of the window. "
Bentley thought he meant it, so kept away in the future.
He told the story once in my presence, when Mr. Hill was
also present. Mr. Hill bought red lemonade for the bunch.
^ A porter on his private car was foolish enough to ask him
at Chicago once at what hour the train returned. That
porter had all day to look for another job, and Mr. HilPs
secretary provided another porter at once. Mr. Hill can not
overlook incompetency or neglect.

Colonel Clough engineered Northern Securities; M. D.
Grover, attorney for the Great Northern Railway, said it

197

JAMES

HILL

would not work. Grover was the brightest attorney the road
ever had. When the scheme failed Grover never once said,
" I told you so, " and Mr. Hill sent him a check for a thou-
sand dollars, over and above his salary.
Colonel Clough was employed at a salary of fifteen thousand
dollars, some years before his real work began. He came from
the Northern Pacific. Mr. Hill, when asked by a leading
official of that road, what he thought of the Colonel, replied,
" Huh I he *s a good man to file contracts. "
Mr. Hill said of Allan Manvel, then General Manager of
his road, " He may make a man some day. " Mr. Hill grew
faster than any man about him. He distanced them all. S. S.
Breed was Treasurer of the old St. Paul and Pacific Railroad.
His signature in a bold, fine hand adorned all the bonds of
that road, held mostly by the Dutch. He was made auditor
when the St. P., M. & M. Ry. was formed.
Breed had reached his point of greatest efficiency, but that
did not suffice Mr. Hill, who said to him more than once, for
Breed was an old-timer and well liked, " If you can't do the
work I '11 have to get some one who can. " Mr. Hill neither
fired the old man, nor reduced his pay. Breed got work up
to his death in the Great Northern Railway office, but at
the last served as a guide for strangers.
Breed was supplanted by Bode as Comptroller, followed by
C. H. Warren and then by Farrington — three Big Boys.

198

JAMES

HILL

BOUT Eighteen Hundred Eighty-
nine, Mr. Hill gave an address at
a banquet in the Merchants' Hotel,
St. Paul. With a large map of
the United States and Canada on
the wall, he took a huge pair of
dividers or compasses and putting
one leg of the dividers on the map
at St. Paul, he swung the other
leg out Southeast fifteen hundred
miles as the crow flies, into the
ocean off the Carolina Coast.
Then with St. Paul still as a center he swung the compass
around to the Northwest fifteen hundred miles. " All of this
country, " he said, " is within the wheat-belt. " The leg of
the compass went beyond Edmonton in Alberta. Last year
this new Canadian country produced more than one hundred
million bushels of wheat, and this is only the beginning.
Mr. Hill has always maintained that to call cotton king is
a misnomer. Cotton never was king. Wheat is king, for food
is more important than raiment.

Wheat is the natural food of man. The civilization of ancient
Greece was built upon Nile Valley Wheat. It is the one
complete, perfect, vegetable food. It contains all of the
elements necessary to the making of the human body. The
supply of wheat is the arterial blood that makes this world
of ours do something. Without wheat we would languish —
go quickly to seed, as China has.

St. Paul and Minneapolis lie at the head of navigation on the
Mississippi River — a little less than two thousand miles by
water from the Gulf and about the same distance from
Puget Sound tide-water by rail.

These cities are in the middle of the wheat-belt. To this point

199

JAMES J. HILL

came Mr. Hill, a green country youth. ^Transportation
was his theme, and transportation of wheat has been the
foundation of his success.

Wheat is of more importance to us than anything else — than
gold or cotton or coal or timber or iron.
Mr. Hill carries over his railroads all of these. The Great
Northern Railway, the Northern Pacific, and the Chicago,
Burlington and Quincy — over twenty thousand miles of
track — are in the hollow of his hand.
He directs, controls, even to minute details, this great
transportation system.

His seventieth birthday was celebrated a year ago last
September. Still he fails not. He has given up the Presidency
of the Great Northern Railway, retaining, however, the title,
" Chairman of the Board." But we all know that his hand
is felt just the same in every part of the working of these
miles of track.

It has been said of him that he knew every spike on the
Great Northern Railway. General Managers are changed
or removed as simply as an office-boy is asked to skidoo.
MacGuiggan MacGuire was brought from the East to be
General Manager and Vice-President at a fabulous salary.
^ He had charge of operation of the Great Northern. A few
short months showed his unfitness, and the boys were told
that he had gone to Europe for a change. They never saw
him after.

Charles H. Warren was a bright assistant as stenographer
and clerk to General Manager Manvel. Mr. Hill made him
General Passenger Agent, afterward Comptroller, then
General Manager. But Warren, after marrying a stockholder's
daughter, got chesty and aspired to be President of the
Great Northern Railway. He would n't resign and so was
fired. He found his office-desk one morning in the hall. Then
200

JAMES

H I L

he took a little holiday before taking a responsible position
on the Central Railroad of New Jersey, and marching on to
fame and fortune. QA. L. Mohler, a big man on the Union
Pacific, was Assistant Freight Agent on the St. P., M. & M.
Ry., afterwards General Freight Agent, then Land Com-
missioner, then General Manager. His day of greatest use-
fulness for Mr. Hill was passed, and he gravitated to the
0. R. R. & N. of Oregon, thence to the Oregon Short Line and
afterwards to the high position he now occupies on the
Harriman System. Migration is a fine thing, and many a
good man has to move on before he finds his place. ^ The
Great Northern Railway is a training-school for railroad men.
And when it is time for a man to go, on he goes.

R. HILL has three sons, all able
and growing men. But whether
they possess divine caloric or not,
it is too early to say. But certainly
it is true that they are bigger
men now than he was at their
age. Louis W. is President of the
Great Northern System. James N.
is Vice-President of the Northern
Pacific. Walter, the youngest boy,
looks after vast iron-ore properties
in the Lake Superior country.
There are also two daughters, happily married, with growing
broods of chubby youngsters who often gather at the big
home on Summit Avenue and make their Gran'pa play he
is an elephant for their benefit.

201

The Roycroft Motto-Book

This is a catalog and a list of about
Three Hundred Mottoes or Epi-
grams by Fra Elbertus 3^ In this
book we giwe the Motto and the
price, size of paper, etc., upon
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This Book of Three Hundred
Mottoes, Printed in Four Colors,
will be mailed to you on receipt
of TEN CENTS.

The Roy crofters. East Aurora, N. Y.

LEVANT CLASSICS

The person who "has everything" is the tilkychoo of kindly
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Holly-Tree Inn ------- Dickens

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Poems - - - - - - - - - Poe

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FRIENDSHIP, Henry D. Thoreau - - - $250.00

CONTEMPLATIONS, ElbeH Hubbard - - 200.00

ESSAYS OF ELIA, Charles Lamb - - - 100.00

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Nature Reading Gaol Song of Myself

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and

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you had best experiment with a Bound Volume of "Little
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Volume II. To the Homes of American Authors

Volume III. To the Homes of Famous Women

Volume IV. To the Homes of American Statesmen

Volume V. To the Homes of Eminent Painters

Volume VI. To the Homes of English Authors

Volume VII. To the Homes of English Authors

Volume VIII. To the Homes of Great Musicians

Volume IX. To the Homes of Great Musicians

Volume X. To the Homes of Eminent Artists

Volume XI. To the Homes of Eminent Artists

Volume XII. To the Homes of Eminent Orators

Volume XIII. To the Homes of Eminent Orators

Volume XIV. To the Homes of Great Philosophers

Volume XV. To the Homes of Great Philosophers

Volume XVI. To the Homes of Great Scientists

Volume XVn. To the Homes of Great Scientists

Volume XVIII. To the Homes of Great Lovers

Volume XIX. To the Homes of Great Lovers

Volume XX. To the Homes of Great Reformers

Volume XXI. To the Homes of Great Reformers

Volume XXII. To the Homes of Great Teachers

Volume XXni. To the Homes of Great Teachers

Volume XXIV. To the Homes of Great Business Men

Volume XXV. To the Homes of Great Business Men

O AVOID
UNKIND
CRITiaSM:

SAY NOTHING,
BE NOTHING, DO

NOTHING.— Fra Elberha

AND without
population is
a wilderness,

and population with-
out land is a mob«

JAMES J . HILL

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