Part 19 (1/2)
Born in 1836, a farmer's boy, with only such education as he could pick up, he , and for two or three years was engaged in ed, he fell in with a wealthy and eccentric individual named Zadock Pratt, who sent him to the western part of the state to select a site for a tannery He was soon doing a large lu business, first with Pratt and then in his own name; but he sold out just before the panic of 1857, and soon after entered upon that career of speculation in New York City which, in the end, made him the best-hated man in America
Picture the ht, with sallow skin and jet black whiskers, his eyes dark and piercing, his whole personality, as one observer put it, ”reminiscent of the spider” His reputation was that of an unscrupulous and immoral rascal, ould not hesitate to sacrifice his best friends, if need be His war against Cornelius Vanderbilt for control of the Erie was one of his typical operations--a hich, when he saas losing, he won by issuing 5,000,000 worth of fraudulent stock There was never any question about the cri, and Gould was forced to flee to New Jersey, where he spent islatures--millions, not taken from his own pocket, but from the treasury of the Erie, of which he had control He was ousted, at last, but not until he had added 62,000,000 to the indebtedness of the road, of which amount it was asserted Gould had pocketed 12,000,000
The culold, which brought about the famous Black Friday panic of 1869 The sche ever attempted by any operator, came near success Gould is said to have bribed the brother-in-law of President Grant and to have persuaded the President hiold He then succeeded in driving the price up to 162, when suddenly the bubble burst Gould, hi aith his i himself at the expense of his associates, an act of treachery unprecedented even in the stock market
These were only two of the reineered, and which need not be given in detail here The net result was a fortune of some seventy million dollars, and a reputation for duplicity such as perhaps no man in America ever had before It is only fair to Gould to say, however, that he accoamblers would like to accomplish, if they could, and that outside of finance, he seems to have been an estimable man, faithful to his wife, devoted to his children, and passionately fond of flowers Hehis life, nor did he le benevolent bequest in his will; but one of his children, Helen Miller Gould, hasher life and her fortune to charitable work It is doubtful if there is a better-loved woman in America to-day than Helen Gould, who has shown so notably how a life ood works
[Illustration: WANAMAKER]
The great marble palace which A T Stewart built on Broadway, in New York City, to house his business, and which was, at the ti in the world devoted to a retail business, is now occupied by another greateven sreat
John Wanarowth of the country may be hereafter, will always remain one of America's most representative and most successful men of affairs--both representative and successful because his business has rested fro satisfied custoether modern principle of ”your money back, if you want it”
John Wanamaker was born in Philadelphia in 1838, a poor boy with his way to make in the world He received his education in the coe of fourteen, entered upon his business career as an errand boy in a book store Fro store, and for soh money to start a little store of his own This he was able to do in 1861, in partnershi+p with a man named Nathan Brown, and ten years later, he was sole owner of a prosperous and growing business It was at about this time that an idea occurred to him which was destined to revolutionize the retail business of the larger cities of the country
The idea was sireat cities, et to the business centre, andfrom one store to another to make their purchases Why not, then, combine all the representative retail businesses into one store, so that the shopper could le roof, pay for them all at once, and have them all delivered at the sareat business be conducted le executive staff would do for it, rent, delivery cost, and a hundred other fixed charges would be reduced, to say nothing of the advantages of large buying, and the advertising which every departrew into a carefully-forreat Wanamaker department store, perhaps the most famous retail business in the world
Its tremendous success is an old story now, and it has found hundreds of i of the Philadelphia store, another was opened in New York in the old Stewart building, to which another building, four tie, has recently been added
Wanamaker froe that ”A satisfied customer is the best advertisement,” and he made every effort to see that none left the Wanamaker stores unsatisfied He also ed to buy anything; that every article of merchandise should be exactly as represented, and that any purchase ht be returned and the purchase money would be refunded without question As a result, Wanareatest asset
One would think that the ement of such a business would fully occupy any man, but Wanamaker found time for many public and benevolent interests He founded, in 1858, the Bethany Sunday School, which has grown into perhaps the largest in the world and of which he has always been superintendent; he has taken part in many moveeneral of the United States He reorganized the service; set in le improvement in its service the departraph, a postal savings-bank, a parcels post and one-cent letter postage He was the first official to regard the service as a business pure and siested had been carried out, the United States postoffice would now be a reatest banker and financier in Aan, who, however, is known not so well for the millions he has accu rare objects of art, until he has beco any ever possessed by another private individual That much of this will one day be bequeathed by its owner to the public there can be little doubt
J Pierpont Morgan is of a faan, was forhouse of George Peabody & Co, and on the retirement of Mr Peabody, succeeded him as the head of the business There was never any doubt of the son's vocation Born in 1837, and carefully educated, he entered the banking house of Duncan, Shere of twenty, and froreatest banking house in the country He has been largely concerned in the reorganization of railways and the consolidation of industrial properties, and theDuring the Cleveland administration, he floated a national bond issue of 62,000,000; he marketed the securities of the United States Steel Corporation, with a capitalization of 1,100,000,000; he secured A 50,000,000 for the British war loan of 1901; he controls over fifty thousand miles of railway, and his interests extend into practically every great financial enterprise in Ae su the-in hospital He built the ”Columbia,” which twice defeated the ”Shamrock”
in the races for the Aifts to the various museums and libraries of New York City The power he wields is enor the respect, as well as the adreatest work of A the past half century has been the upbuilding and extension of the railroad systee of the United States at the present time is over three hundred and twenty-five thousand; the total cost of the railroad equipment of the country reaches fourteen billion dollars and the yearly earnings average over two and a half billions They ee three million dollars a day--and, it may be added, they kill or injure nearly ninety thousand But that is a detail With this vast development of the railroad business the nareat systeenerally known as the Hill lines, the Harriman lines, the Vanderbilt lines, the Gould lines, and so on Of thesebriefly here
We have already related how Cornelius Vanderbilt secured control of the New York Central and Hudson River roads, and added to these until he had secured an entrance into Chicago; and how his son, William Henry Vanderbilt, added to this systeest in the country We have told, too, of Jay Gould's ideas of railroad et the most out of it for Jay Gould But when Jay Gould died, he was caught, as it were, with thousands of e Gould, Edwin Gould, Howard Gould and Frank Gould, of whoe is the only one that really counts But he, with a real genius for railroad building, has developed the Gould lines into a great systeh southard to Chicago, Oden, St Louis, New Orleans, Galveston and away out to El Paso These lines have played a reat Southwest, and it is said that George Gould is already blazing a way to the Atlantic seaboard, as an outlet for the ht traffic which his lines control
Noin this country has had aor adventurous career than James J Hill Born on a little Canadian farm in 1838, descended from the hardy Scotch-Irish of e have spoken so often, his father died when he was fifteen years, and he was left to his own resources He found work as a wood-chopper, and one day, while he was chopping down a tree a traveler stopped at the house to take dinner, hitching his horse to the gate The boy noticed that it was tired and fagged and carried it a bucket of water This attention pleased the traveler, and as he drove away, tossed the boy a Minnesota newspaper, resters of your spirit”
The boy read the paper with its glowing accounts of the new country, and the nexthe hit it one last lick for luck, and announced, ”I've chopped reat placard with the words, ”The last tree chopped by James J Hill” It _was_ the last one, for a day or two later the boy started for St Paul He brought with hial instincts and good principles of his Scotch-Irish ancestry, and, in addition to those, a self-confidence and sureness of judgot e clerk in a steamboat office in St Paul, and so took his first lessons in transportation probleent for a steamboat line, then he established a fuel and transportation business on his own account and ed it so well that by 1873, he had accumulated a fortune of a hundred thousand dollars
There was in Minnesota at the time a little railroad called the St Paul & Pacific It started at St Paul, but it stopped after it had got only a few hundred miles toward the Pacific Hill decided to buy it The price was half a million, so he tramped back to Canada and persuaded the bank of Montreal to let him have the 400,000 he needed That was surely one of the most wonderful feats of a wonderful career The directors of the bank were severely criticised;out that the road had never paid, and prophesying that it never would pay
Yet that Jim Crow road was the foundation of the Great Northern systeet Sound
Every man ent into the enterprise with Hill nons his stock in it as a free gift, for in the intervening years, the cost has been returned to him in the shape of dividends and bonuses It has never failed to pay regular dividends, and has, perhaps, won public confidence more surely than any other in the country For James J Hill has kept faith in the smallest detail with every man who ever entrusted a dollar to his hands The loyalty of the employes of the Great Northern has passed into a proverb, ”Once a Hill man, always a Hill man,” and it is true He knows his road as few other ht the St
Paul & Pacific, he traveled over the route in an ox-cart, studying not only the road, but the people along the way--there weren't many--and the resources of the country Before he extended his line to the Pacific, he went the whole distance on foot and horseback