INDUSTRY 
 
FAMOUS LEADERS 
 
 OF 
 
 INDUSTRY 
 
FAMOUS LEADERS SERIES 
 
 Each, one volume, illustrated $2.00 
 9 
 BY 
 
 CHARLES H. L. JOHNSTON 
 
 FAMOUS INDIAN CHIEFS 
 FAMOUS SCOUTS 
 FAMOUS PRIVATEERSMEN 
 FAMOUS FRONTIERSMEN 
 FAMOUS DISCOVERERS and EX- 
 PLORERS of AMERICA 
 FAMOUS GENERALS OF THE 
 GREAT WAR 
 
 9 
 
 BY 
 
 EDWIN WILDMAN 
 FAMOUS LEADERS of INDUSTRY 
 
 * 
 
 THE PAGE COMPANY 
 
 53 BEACON STREET, BOSTON, MASS. 
 
THOMAS ALYA EDISOX 
 
 (See page 115) 
 
FAMOUS LEADERS 
 
 OF 
 
 INDUSTRY 
 
 THE LIFE STORIES OF BOYS WHO HAVE SUCCEEDED 
 
 By 
 EDWIN WILDMAN 
 
 Editor of The Forum, author of "Reconstructing 
 
 America Our Next Big Job," "A&uinaldo, 
 
 A Narrative of Filipino Aspirations," etc. 
 
 Illustrated 
 
 BOSTON * THE PAGE 
 COMPANY * MDCCCCXX 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 Boys, these are stories of boys, perhaps like your- 
 selves young, ambitious, full of grit and anxious to 
 make of your lives a success, both in earning money, 
 building a business, and gaining honor and prestige 
 among your fellows. 
 
 Success is a hard road, as you will learn in reading 
 of the struggles, obstacles overcome, disappointments 
 and unremitting devotion to their ambition of these 
 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 They did not live joyless lives; they found pleasure 
 in their work, because they loved their work and hoped 
 to get on in the world. In preparing these stories I 
 have chosen mostly boys in different lines of work, all 
 of whom succeeded in the business world, so that what- 
 ever is your bent you may find help and inspiration in 
 the success of some other boy who commenced at the 
 bottom and worked, round by round, to the top. 
 
 The conditions in the business world of to-day are not 
 quite the same as they were when these boys were young. 
 But remember, the principles of success the per- 
 sistency of purpose, the zeal for hard work and the 
 necessity of putting in it your love of it, and your en- 
 ergy for it are the same. The opportunity is as 
 great to-day. The undeveloped resources of this great 
 country are calling for boys with brains and ambition. 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 Science lias opened up new fields, the increasing popula- 
 tion is offering larger markets, and our broadening trade, 
 extending into all parts of the world, beckons the boys 
 of to-day to prepare themselves for the tasks and oppor- 
 tunities that await them. 
 
 This is a great country, the country of greatest 
 opportunity ; a country that provides education in every 
 vocation ; and jobs and ownership and control await the 
 boys who are fit and who make the fight for success. 
 
 What others have done, you can do never forget 
 that and make your life a success by beginning early 
 and never letting up until recognition and compensation 
 are yours, by the work wrought by your own hands and 
 brains. 
 
 EDWIN WILDMAN. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 PHILIP DANFORTH ARMOUR .... 3 
 
 California Pioneer and Chicago Packing King 
 
 P. T. BARNUM 17 
 
 The World's Greatest Showman 
 
 ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL . . . .37 
 
 Immortal Telephone Inventor, and Humanitarian 
 
 JOHN M. BROWNING ..... 51 
 
 The Gun Wizard and Inventor of the Machine-Gun 
 
 WILLIAM ANDREWS CLARK .... 67 
 
 Montana Copper King and United States Senator 
 
 WILLIAM L. DOUGLAS 81 
 
 The Boy Who Pegged Shoes and became Governor 
 
 JAMES BUCHANAN DUKE .... 93 
 
 American Tobacco and Cigarette King 
 
 GEORGE EASTMAN 105 
 
 Who Invented the Kodak and Popularized Photog- 
 raphy 
 
 THOMAS ALVA EDISON ..... 115 
 
 Electrical Wizard and World's Greatest Inventor 
 
 HENRY FORD ...... 131 
 
 The Aladdin of the Automobile Industry 
 
 CHARLES GOODYEAR ..... 147 
 
 Inventor of Vulcanized Rubber 
 
 HENRY JOHN HEINZ ..... 157 
 Pittsburgh Pickle King and Sunday-School Leader 
 
 CYRUS HALL McCoRMiCK .... 167 
 
 Inventor of the Reaping Machine 
 
 HUDSON MAXIM . . . .181 
 Poet, Philosopher, and Wizard of High Explosives 
 
 JOHN H. PATTERSON 195 
 
 The Industrial Genius Whose Ruling Passion has 
 been to make things "go better" 
 
x CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 JOHN DAVISON ROCKEFELLER .... 213 
 Oil King and World's Greatest Industrial Leader 
 
 CHARLES M. SCHWAB 229 
 
 Steel King and Submarine Boat Builder 
 
 ISAAC MERRITT SINGER . . . . . . 247 
 
 Inventor of the Sewing Machine 
 
 Louis FRANKLIN SWIFT ..... 259 
 
 Head of the World's Largest Meat-Packing Business 
 
 JOHN WANAMAKER . . . . .271 
 
 America's Foremost Retail Merchant and Originator 
 of the Department Store 
 
 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE ..... 285 
 Inventor of the Railroad Air-Brake 
 
 JOHN NORTH WILLYS ..... 297 
 
 Wizard of Autos and Airplanes 
 
 FRANK W. WOOLWORTH 311 
 
 Magician of the 5 and 10 Cent Store 
 
 ORVILLE AND WILBUR WRIGHT .... 327 
 
 Who achieved immortal Fame as Airship Inventors 
 
 LINUS YALE AND HENRY E. TOWNE . . . 341 
 
 Who Revolutionized Lock-Making 
 
 ADOLPH ZUKOR 353 
 
 Motion Picture Magnate 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THOMAS ALVA EDISON (see page 115) Frontispiece 
 PHILIP DANFORTH ARMOUR .... 3 
 PHINEAS TAYLOR BARNUM . . . .17 
 ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL . . . .37 
 JOHN M. BROWNING . . . . .51 
 WILLIAM ANDREWS CLARK .... 67 
 
 WILLIAM L. DOUGLAS 81 
 
 JAMES BUCHANAN DUKE .... 93 
 
 GEORGE EASTMAN 105 
 
 HENRY FORD 131 
 
 CHARLES GOODYEAR . . . . .147 
 
 HENRY JOHN HEINZ . . . . .157 
 
 CYRUS HALL MCCORMICK .... 167 
 
 HUDSON MAXIM . . . . . .181 
 
 JOHN H. PATTERSON . . . . .195 
 
 JOHN DAVISON EOCKEFELLER .... 213 
 
 CHARLES MICHAEL SCHWAB . . . .229 
 
 ISAAC MERRITT SINGER ..... 247 
 
 Louis FRANKLIN SWIFT 259 
 
 JOHN WANAMAKER 271 
 
 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 285 
 
 JOHN NORTH WILLYS 297 
 
 FRANK W. WOOLWORTH 311 
 
 WILBUR WRIGHT 327 
 
 ORVILLE WRIGHT 334 
 
 LINUS YALE ....... 341 
 
 HENRY E. TOWNE 346 
 
 ADOLPH ZUKOR 353 
 
 JESSE L. LASKY ...... 357 
 
 xi 
 
PHILIP DANFORTH ARMOUR 
 
 CALIFORNIA PIONEER AND CHICAGO 
 PACKING KING 
 
PHILIP DANFORTH ARMOUR 
 
FAMOUS LEADERS OF 
 INDUSTRY 
 
 PHILIP DANFORTH AKMOUR 
 
 CALIFORNIA PIONEER AND CHICAGO 
 PACKING KING 
 
 DIGGING ditches and building sluices for gold 
 mines at $5 a day or $10 a night in a 
 California gold rush city was the way nineteen- 
 year-old Philip Danforth Armour, founder of Ar- 
 mour & Company, started his long and successful busi- 
 ness career. 
 
 Young Armour had walked all the way to the Golden 
 State from his home in Stockbridge, New York, in six 
 months, dodging Indians and suffering great privations, 
 sometimes nearly starving. Sluice building was less ro- 
 mantic than delving for elusive gold, but in the main 
 it paid better. Sometimes the young man worked all 
 night. His back was sore, but his hopes were high and 
 he worked and saved his money. 
 
 Phil, as he was known by all his friends and be- 
 fore he died he had them in all parts of the world 
 was born on a farm. The whole Armour family were 
 farmers. The old family plow, dating back to pre- 
 Revolutionary times, is still in possession of the family 
 and can be seen at the Chicago Stockyards at this day. 
 
 3 " 
 
4 " 'FAMbtJS LEADEES OF INDUSTEY 
 
 From the time he was born, in 1832, until he left the 
 farm, Phil was the most active and energetic young- 
 ster in his home town. All who knew him admired 
 his soundness of judgment and his desire to be con- 
 tinually accomplishing something. He could not be 
 idle. 
 
 The rush for gold in California was at its high mark 
 when Phil reached the age of nineteen. Farm life be- 
 came irksome to the ambitious youth, and, like many 
 others, he cast anxious glances toward the West the 
 unknown land where stories of untold wealth were 
 born and floated eastward on every breeze. Mother 
 Armour, like all the rest of the family, was too sensi- 
 ble and loving to permit her boy to run away, so, with 
 her blessing and several hundred dollars in cash, Phil 
 with a few companions left the old homestead and 
 started on foot for the land of the gold-paved streets. 
 
 It was quite an undertaking. One member of the 
 party died, two decided it was too far and turned back. 
 Phil and the remainder of the party, however, trudged 
 on. At Independence, Kansas, they purchased a 
 prairie schooner and the question of whether to pur- 
 chase oxen or mules to draw it arose. Some members 
 of the party wanted mules, because* they thought they 
 could travel faster. The party finally decided to pur- 
 chase oxen, and the wisdom of this course became ap- 
 parent in a few days, when the schooner began passing 
 other schooners which had been compelled to stop to 
 let the mules recover from attacks of sore feet. 
 
 The trip from Stockbridge, New York, took six 
 months, and, as he was footsore and weary, Phil spent 
 
PHILIP DANFOBTH ABMOUK 5 
 
 a day or two in looking the situation over in California. 
 After studying conditions carefully Phil showed his 
 good judgment which men admired him for in later 
 years and which he frequently demonstrated in business 
 enterprises by deciding to build sluices instead of 
 taking chances on becoming suddenly rich or being 
 everlastingly poor searching for gold. Besides, he 
 reasoned, building sluices required plain labor, it was 
 true, without excitement, chance or glamor, but it 
 would be the most dependable occupation in the long 
 run for one would know just how much one was going 
 to make at the end of a day's work. A five-dollar gold 
 piece in the pocket, he thought, was better than fifty- 
 dollars' worth of gold dust somewhere in the " dig- 
 gins.'' 
 
 Phil was strong and a willing worker, so he built a 
 great many sluices. In fact, he worked day and night. 
 Instead of working with his hands all the time he used 
 his head, too, and finally decided to take contracts to 
 build sluices, thereby giving employment to many 
 miners who were without funds and who wished to earn 
 money to return home. Business was good, as there 
 were many miners who wanted sluices built. Phil pros- 
 pered. 
 
 After five years, during which time he worked hard 
 and saved his money, young Armour had accumulated 
 a few thousand dollars. This he knew would buy the 
 best farm in Oneida County, New York, and, as that 
 was as much as any young man in his day could de- 
 sire, he started homeward with visions of marrying the 
 girl he left behind. When he arrived he found she had 
 
6 FAMOUS LEADEKS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 married another. Somehow, when he learned of this, 
 the several farms offered for sale did not appeal to 
 him, so he started for other parts to stake his fortune. 
 
 It so happened that on his return from California 
 young Phil had rested for two days in Milwaukee. It 
 was then a prosperous, growing city the gateway to 
 the West. Youthful, bewhiskered Argonauts, some 
 high with hope and others returning with plenty of 
 California gold, halted there on their cross-continental 
 journeys. Chicago, eighty-five miles to the south, was 
 somewhat behind in the race for supremacy because of 
 its low marshy land. Phil decided Milwaukee was the 
 logical place to stake his small fortune in trade. Op- 
 portunity offered itself and he joined with Fred B. 
 Miles, on March 1, 1859, in the produce and commis- 
 sion business. Each man put five hundred dollars into 
 the undertaking. The enterprise prospered from the 
 start. It handled the smoked and pickled meats then 
 in great demand by travelers, in caravans going to and 
 from the coast, because it was something that would 
 keep. At this time the farmers salted and smoked hams 
 and brought them to town with furs, pelts and bags of 
 wheat. 
 
 The firm of Miles & Armour prospered during its 
 three years of existence and P. D. Armour became well 
 known in business circles. In 1863 John Plankinton, 
 the largest packer in Milwaukee at that time, needed a 
 partner in his business, and P. D. Armour succeeded 
 Frederick Layton, the firm becoming Plankinton & 
 Armour. Pork-packing was the chief business of the 
 new firm. Both John Plankinton and P. D. Armour 
 
PHILIP DANFORTH AEMOUE 7 
 
 were "hard workers. They came to work at four o'clock 
 in the morning, worked hard until late at night and 
 business boomed. 
 
 After the Civil War Chicago speedily passed Mil- 
 waukee in the contest for commercial success and Philip 
 Armour prevailed upon his brother, H. O. Armour, to 
 go to New York and open the house of Armour, Plank- 
 inton & Co., commission merchants. Joseph F. Ar- 
 mour took charge of the Chicago office, which as yet 
 did no meat-packing. The Union Stockyards com- 
 menced operation in 1865 and in 1867 the Chicago 
 house of the firm commenced packing hogs under the 
 name of Armour & Company. The packing of hogs 
 exclusively was the business of the new firm for eight 
 years. 
 
 The open ranges of the West, feeding-places for the 
 bison of Mr. Armour's boyhood days, were by this 
 time, however, becoming the seat of extensive grazing 
 operations for cattle. Huge ranches were beginning to 
 spring up and cattle commenced coming to the markets. 
 In 1878 Armour & Company began killing cattle, and 
 in 1880 sheep were first slaughtered. 
 
 Armour & Company, under the direction of P. D. 
 Armour, began developing new markets in all direc- 
 tions in order to care for their increased trade, which 
 grew with the development of the country. In 1878 
 the refrigerator-car was perfected, and this important 
 event systematized the marketing of fresh meat. Mr. 
 Armour saw the importance of this and knew that the 
 refrigerator-car was the " open sesame " to a business 
 of tremendous proportions. He saw how it would link 
 
8 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 the meat-producing sections of the great West to the 
 more densely populated and heavy meat-consuming cen- 
 ters of the East. 
 
 Up to this time there had been no such thing as an 
 adequate fresh heef supply in the East and such West- 
 ern heef as got there went alive in stock-cars. Mov- 
 ing cattle from the prairies where production costs were 
 low to the Eastern centers of consumption where graz- 
 ing lands did not exist entailed transportation which 
 was hoth poor and costly. The refrigerator-car, Mr. 
 Armour saw, would offer a way to get beef from the 
 West to the East even in summer time, and he started 
 out to take advantage of this. 
 
 He encountered a snag, however, as the railroads did 
 not take kindly to the suggestion that they build re- 
 frigerator-cars for the transportation of fresh meats. 
 This did not deter Mr. Armour, for he built his own 
 fleet of refrigerator-cars. Business expanded rapidly, 
 due to the novel opportunity of eating fresh meat in 
 what, in those days, was considered the " off season," 
 and Armour & Company grew as new fields of en- 
 deavor opened up. 
 
 Philip Armour understood thoroughly the science of 
 eliminating waste. This principle of turning every- 
 thing into account was carried out persistently by him 
 for forty years and was chiefly responsible for his suc- 
 cess in later life much the same as he had obtained 
 his financial nest-egg in California by saving while he 
 was digging ditches. When he established the Chicago 
 firm of Armour & Company he still was governed by the 
 principles of industrial thrift, and, consequently, set 
 
PHILIP DANFOBTH ABMOUR 9 
 
 about to utilize waste .material which previously had 
 been thrown away. In other words, he started to de- 
 velop a line of by-products from the various parts of 
 the animals slaughtered, not sold as meat, and which 
 to-day is of such tremendous economic importance to 
 the world. 
 
 Instead of paying somebody to haul the waste away, 
 as had been the custom, Philip Armour started the 
 manufacture of glue, fertilizer and soap. Many other 
 lines of by-products were added from time to time until 
 to-day they are an important part of the packing indus- 
 try. Without these by-products fresh meat under pre- 
 vailing prices for the live animals would be out of 
 reach of the average individual. Even before the by- 
 product line was developed to the nth power of per- 
 fection it is to-day, Philip Armour used to say : 
 
 " Give me the waste from the animals slaughtered 
 and I'll make more money than the fellow selling the 
 meat." 
 
 From 1890 to 1900 the firm of Armour & Company 
 continued to grow under the guidance of Mr. Armour. 
 It expanded until it became international in scope. 
 
 P. D. Armour always was a worker even to the 
 day of his death he was actively engaged in his busi- 
 ness. He was a human dynamo with unlimited power. 
 He did not follow others, he led. Because of his in- 
 defatigable energy and because he had the faculty of 
 choosing the right men for the right jobs he succeeded 
 in building up a great international industrial enter- 
 prise which demonstrated its wonderful organization, 
 efficiency and worth during the recent World War. He 
 
10 FAMOUS LEADEES OF INDUSTRY 
 
 worked from early morning until late at night even 
 after he had acquired a fortune. He was the first one 
 down in the morning and the last to leave. He used to 
 say that the man who got in first was the man who won. 
 Quick judgment plus quick action was his formula for 
 success. That he was quick to act and quick to judge 
 is demonstrated by many interesting things told about 
 him. 
 
 One of the most spectacular of his triumphs was his 
 shattering of an attempted wheat corner in '93. At 
 that time Mr. Armour was personally handling a grain 
 business which he had created as a side line during 
 his meat-packing activities. Because of the panic, cash 
 grain in Minneapolis and other Northwestern grain cen- 
 ters was selling at such great discounts under the Chi- 
 cago May future that a large profit could be made by 
 buying up country grain and selling the Chicago May 
 against it. Mr. Armour bought several million bushels 
 in the Northwestern market. 
 
 At the same time a combination of rival grain op- 
 erators bought up all cash grain in Chicago and re- 
 fused to move it out. As the law decreed that all grain 
 be kept in registered elevators, this move by the com- 
 bine did not leave any elevator room in Chicago for Mr. 
 Armour's Northwestern wheat. With sixteen hundred 
 cars of wheat waiting on the tracks, three hundred boat- 
 loads on Lake Michigan and no elevator room, Mr. Ar- 
 mour discovered he was up against the crisis of his 
 life. 
 
 True to his past performances, it didn't take him long 
 to decide what to do. 
 
PHILIP DANFOETH ARMOUR 11 
 
 " I'll build an elevator and hold it," he declared, amid 
 protests from architects and advisers who said this 
 would be impossible to accomplish inside of six months. 
 
 " Six months nothing ! " Mr. Armour retorted vig- 
 orously. 
 
 It was noontime and he grabbed a telephone and 
 called a contractor. By five o'clock that day the plans 
 of a three-million-bushel elevator were drawn. By 
 seven o'clock electric lights were installed and excava- 
 tions begun. Despite the fact that labor was at a 
 premium because of the Chicago World's Fair the ele- 
 vator was completed and receiving grain in just forty- 
 two days. The combine was defeated. 
 
 Mr. Armour was quick to do things not only in busi- 
 ness but in whatever he undertook to do. In the old 
 Plymouth Church one Sunday morning, Rev. F. W. 
 Gunsaulus was preaching a sermon on the subject 
 " What I would do with a million dollars." Mr. Ar- 
 mour was present and he listened intently as the clergy- 
 man unfolded his vision of affording technical educa- 
 tion to boys who were too poor to attend regular techni- 
 cal colleges and described the kind of an institution he 
 would build. After the sermon, Mr. Armour went up 
 to Dr. Gunsaulus and said : " If you will give your 
 time to such an institution as you have outlined, I will 
 give you the money." 
 
 Dr. Gunsaulus agreed and the school became a reality 
 a very important factor in the field of technical edu- 
 cation. 
 
 It is estimated by close friends of Mr. Armour that 
 he gave away $5,000,000 in small unrecorded amounts. 
 
12 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 It was a habit of his to put one hundred dollars on his 
 desk each morning and on his trips through the office 
 and plant would reward zealous employees for good 
 pieces of work or for some sign of good judgment. He 
 seldom took home with him more than ten dollars at the 
 end of the day's work. He also was in the habit of giv- 
 ing his employees suits of clothes and many a man was 
 sartorially outfitted by Mr. Armour for some little thing 
 he had accomplished in a creditable manner. 
 
 Mr. Armour knew human nature. He knew what 
 people would do under average conditions. He knew 
 what the rank and file of his own men were interested 
 in. 
 
 An interesting sidelight on one of his donations to 
 a worthy cause came to light not long ago, years after 
 his death, when an Armour salesman entered a little 
 country store. The storekeeper gave the salesman an 
 order and never asked the price of a single article. 
 Naturally, the salesman was surprised and he asked 
 the reason for this action. 
 
 " Years ago when I was a young railroad engineer/' 
 the merchant explained, " my eyesight troubled me, 
 and one night I missed a signal and ran my train into 
 an open switch, just missing a bad wreck by the will 
 of Providence. Well, Phil Armour was on that train 
 and he came down the track to where I was standing. 
 Taking the lantern from my hand he held it up to my 
 face and I could see his eyes searching me to see if I 
 was sober and trustworthy in appearance. Then, say- 
 ing nothing, he turned and walked away. A few days 
 later I received a letter from him advising me to give 
 
PHILIP DANFORTH ABMOUE 13 
 
 up railroading and stating he was enclosing a check 
 for $1,000 for me to set up in some kind of business. 
 That's why I never question the price of Armour 
 products. " 
 
 Mr. Armour often declared he was not making money 
 just to have it, but to enable him to help others. 
 
 " You know it gives me more pleasure to give away 
 this money than it does the other fellow to receive it/' 
 he often declared to his secretary when the latter sug- 
 gested the advisability of investigating some of the ap- 
 plicants for charity. This is demonstrated by a study 
 of his entire career, which showed him always planning, 
 building, devising and creating. He did not hoard 
 money, but invested it again so it would set more men 
 to work. During his lifetime he had the distinction of 
 employing more men than any other individual in the 
 world. 
 
 When Mr. Armour died in 1901 he had a concern 
 doing a business of $180,000,000 a year. In 1918 the 
 company did a business of $861,000,000 and employed 
 fifty-seven thousand three hundred and three men in 
 their sixteen plants and four hundred and twenty-five 
 branch houses throughout various parts of the country. 
 The plant he established in Chicago in 18YO was run 
 with a small thirty horse-power engine, which, inci- 
 dentally, is on exhibition in the largest refrigeration 
 plant in the world at Armour & Company's power house 
 in the Chicago stockyards to-day. The company has 
 five thousand four hundred and thirty-three refrigera- 
 tor cars hauling the finished food products from the 
 plants to the branch houses where it is distributed to 
 
PHIXEAS TAYLOR BAH X I'M 
 
P. T. BARNUM 
 
 THE WORLD'S GREATEST SHOWMAN 
 
 THIS versatile, enterprising genius, and one of the 
 greatest celebrities that ever lived, was born in 
 Bethel, Conn., on July 5, 1810. His name, 
 Phineas Taylor, came from his maternal grandfather, a 
 great wag, who at his christening gave his mother a 
 gift-deed, in his behalf, to five acres of land, " Ivy 
 Island " of which more hereafter. 
 
 His father, Philo Barnum, son of Ephraim, a captain 
 in the Revolutionary War, was a tailor, farmer, and 
 sometime tavern-keeper. 
 
 The boy Phineas, like most farmers' boys, drove cows 
 to and from the pasture, shelled corn, weeded the gar- 
 den, and, when bigger, rode horses for plowing, turned 
 and raked hay, finally handling the shovel and hoe. 
 
 Phineas was six when he started to go to school, and 
 he proved an apt student. He was especially good at 
 arithmetic, and was once called out of bed one night 
 by his teacher who had laid a bet that the boy could 
 calculate the correct number of feet in a load of wood 
 in five minutes. He did the sum in less than two! 
 
 His business instinct early developed, and by the 
 time he was six he had saved enough pennies to ex- 
 change for a silver dollar, the possession of which, Mr. 
 Barnum once said, "made me feel far richer than I 
 have ever since felt in the world." 
 
 17 
 
18 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 As Phineas grew older his capital increased, for he 
 earned ten cents a day riding the horse that led the ox- 
 team in plowing, and on holidays, instead of spending 
 his money at fairs and exhibitions, he earned quite a 
 lot by peddling molasses candy, gingerbread, cookies, 
 and cherry rum. By the time he was twelve, besides 
 other property, he owned a sheep and a calf, and would 
 soon have been a small Rockefeller if his father, as he 
 humorously relates, had not "kindly permitted me to 
 purchase my own clothing." 
 
 About this time came a great event in his life. It 
 was January, 1822, when Daniel Brown put up at 
 his father's tavern with some fat cattle he was driving 
 to New York, and mentioned during supper, in the 
 boy's hearing, that he needed a boy to help him. 
 
 Phineas burned to see the metropolis, and besought 
 his father and got his consent to go. So next morning 
 at daylight in a heavy snowstorm he started on foot 
 with the cattle. After spraining his ankle while chas- 
 ing a stray ox, a misadventure he was afraid to tell 
 about for fear of being sent back, he reached New York 
 after four days. 
 
 On leaving home his mother had given him " one 
 dollar," which she thought would satisfy his every 
 need. But after buying some oranges at six cents 
 apiece, a knife, some candy, a gun that would " go off " 
 and some torpedoes he was about broke. 
 
 Getting back to the Bull's Head Tavern, where he 
 and Farmer Brown had put up, his first prank was to 
 hit the barkeeper with an arrow from his " gun," for 
 which he got a sound box on the ears ; then he exploded 
 
P. T. BARNUM 19 
 
 some of his torpedoes in the dining-room, the guests 
 flying in terror in every direction. Whereupon the 
 landlord floored him with a blow, exclaiming : 
 
 " There, you little greenhorn that'll teach you bet- 
 ter than to explode your infernal firecrackers in my 
 house again ! " 
 
 Meanwhile Phineas had eaten his candy, and thought 
 it the finest thing he'd ever tasted. So back to the 
 toy-shop he went, and, to make a long story short, he 
 finally exchanged all his purchases, including some 
 of his clothes, for candy, devouring it as fast as he 
 got it. 
 
 On his return home, after the cattle had been sold, 
 he was soundly whipped. So ended ingloriously his 
 first visit to New York. 
 
 It was now decided to let him visit his wonderful es- 
 tate " Ivy Island," about which he was always hearing. 
 He had heard himself called the " richest child in 
 town," the fear expressed that he would be " stuck up " 
 after inheriting so rich a property, and even his father 
 and mother hoped he would " do something for the 
 family " when he reached his majority and came into 
 his estate. And his grandfather took care to remind 
 him that he was indebted to him for his wealth because 
 he had been named Phineas after him. As he started 
 on his expedition, tremendously hopeful and eager, with 
 beating heart, his mother said: 
 
 (e Now, Taylor, don't become so excited when you 
 see your property as to let your joy make you sick, for 
 remember, rich as you are, that it will be eleven years 
 before you can come into possession of your fortune." 
 
20 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 The hired man, Edmund, ax on shoulder, went 
 along as guide. Crossing a meadow, they reached some 
 swamp-lands. 
 
 " We were obliged," as Mr. Barnum relates, " to 
 leap from bog to bog. ... I was up to my middle in 
 water and a swarm of hornets attacked me . . . after 
 floundering through the morass I arrived half-drowned, 
 hornet-stung, mud-covered, on dry land, and then 
 reached the margin of a stream. I now discovered the 
 use of Edmund's ax, for he felled a small oak to make 
 a bridge. Crossing, I proceeded to the center of my 
 domain. I saw nothing but a few stunted ivies and 
 straggling trees. 
 
 " The truth flashed upon me. I had been the laugh- 
 ing-stock of the family and neighborhood for years. . . . 
 Just then a huge black snake (one of my tenants) ap- 
 proached me with upraised head. I gave one shriek 
 and rushed for the bridge. This was my first and last 
 visit to ' Ivy Island ' ! " 
 
 As Phineas grew older his dislike for farm and other 
 manual labor increased. This was set down to laziness, 
 and, despairing of him, his father resolved to make a 
 merchant out of him. So he erected a building in 
 Bethel, and, with Hiram Weed as partner, started a 
 general store, installing Phineas as clerk on a small sal- 
 ary out of which the boy had to clothe himself. 
 
 He soon developed into a shrewd, sharp trader, get- 
 ting a world of experience and knowledge of human 
 nature as a result of his dealings with many diverse 
 characters. 
 
 Young Phineas was well brought up, so was a con- 
 
P. T. BAENUM 21 
 
 stant church and Bible-class attendant. In those days 
 churches were not heated, and in severe winters it was 
 no small hardship to sit several hours in a freezing 
 meeting-house. It would have been considered impious 
 sacrilegious to put a stove in one. The youth 
 nevertheless liked church-going and especially the Bible 
 class, in which he soon distinguished himself through 
 his excellent knowledge and comprehension of the Scrip- 
 tures. 
 
 In 1825, when the boy was only fifteen, his father 
 died at the age of forty-eight, leaving his mother with 
 five children and an insolvent estate. So straitened was 
 the family that Phineas had to get trusted for the pair 
 of boots he wore to his father's funeral. His mother 
 later on, however, by hard work and great economy, suc- 
 ceeded in redeeming the homestead. 
 
 Meanwhile Phineas got a position at $6.00 a month 
 and board, and, gaining the confidence of his employers, 
 who gave him opportunities of doing so, he soon began 
 to make money on his own account, for he was a born 
 trader and fond of anything speculative. 
 
 The next fall found him in Brooklyn, clerking for 
 Oliver Taylor, formerly of Danbury, where in time he 
 was entrusted with all the buying, scouring ~New York 
 City in search of bargains. But he was not satisfied 
 with a mere salary. He had a speculative genius and 
 was not content if he could not increase his earnings by 
 energy, perseverance, diligence in business, tact and 
 " calculation." 
 
 In the summer of 1827 he caught smallpox and after- 
 wards went home to recuperate. Returning to Brook- 
 
22 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 lyn, he gave Mr. Taylor notice, and opened a porter- 
 house (saloon) on his own account. But he was not in 
 business for himself long, for, getting a good offer, he 
 sold out at a handsome profit, and then became a clerk 
 in a similar concern kept by David Thorp, 29 Peck Slip, 
 New York. He lived with the family, was kindly 
 treated, and developed a strong taste for the drama. 
 Though he sold liquors to others, he didn't indulge him- 
 self. Furthermore he daily read his Bible and attended 
 church regularly. His habits were good in early youth. 
 
 Returning home to Bethel in 1828 he opened a retail 
 fruit and confectionery store in a part of his grand- 
 father's carriage house w'hich had been offered him 
 rent free if he came home. 
 
 This was, Mr. Barnum once said, " an eventful era in 
 my life. My total capital was $125, fifty of which I 
 had spent in fitting up the store, seventy in stock in 
 trade. . . . The novelty of my little shop attracted at- 
 tention. I was obliged to call in one of my old school- 
 mates to assist. When I closed at night I had the sat- 
 isfaction of reckoning up $63 as my day's receipts, yet 
 my stock was not seriously diminished, showing that 
 my profits had been large." 
 
 Later, on the advice of his grandfather, he sold lot- 
 tery tickets on a commission of ten per cent., and this 
 business, together with his store, netted him a most 
 satisfactory profit. 
 
 During this season the young trader extended his 
 lottery business, opening agencies throughout Connecti- 
 cut. 
 
 In 1829, he married Charity Hallett, of Bethel, a 
 
P. T. BARNUM 23 
 
 young tailoress he had greatly admired for several 
 years. 
 
 During a period of great political excitement, some 
 articles he had written were rejected by a Connecticut 
 paper he had offered them to, so he at once bought a 
 press and types and on October 19, 1831, issued in 
 D anbury the first number of his own papdr, The Herald 
 of Freedom. 
 
 The boldness and originality of its editing gave it a 
 large circulation, but its young owner and editor lacked 
 experience in journalism, and before long, in one of 
 several libel suits brought against him, he was con- 
 victed, fined, and jailed for sixty days. 
 
 Feeling ran high and he had everybody's sympathy. 
 So he was made very comfortable while in jail. A 
 room was papered and carpeted for him, he lived well, 
 and was kept busy receiving an endless stream of visit- 
 ing friends. He issued his paper, as usual, and it 
 prospered more than ever. The day he was released 
 he received a great ovation, going home in a coach and 
 six with a band, and there were processions, speeches, 
 odes, and salvos of cannon. Upon arrival in Bethel 
 amid general rejoicings, the band struck up " Home, 
 Sweet Home." 
 
 In 1836 Barnum sold his paper, and drifted to New 
 York, where he tried in vain to enter mercantile life 
 on a partnership basis. His money running low he 
 at last started a boarding-house at No. 52 Frankfort 
 Street. 
 
 In spite of all his cares, anxieties and struggles his 
 jocose moods predominated. He loved fun, practical 
 
24 FAMOUS LEADERS OP INDUSTRY 
 
 fun, for itself -and for the enjoyment it brought. He 
 was quick-witted and invariably able to turn the ta- 
 bles on inveterate jokers, especially the kind that picked 
 up money by laying " catch " bets-. 
 
 About now the fortunes of Mr. Barnum and his young 
 wife were anything but bright, and it was clear to his 
 mind that he had not yet found his proper vocation. 
 He had not yet discovered that he was to cater to an 
 insatiate human want the love of amusement ; that 
 fame and fortune awaited him on two continents as soon 
 as he should appear before the public in the character 
 of showman. 
 
 It was not until 1835, however, that Phineas T. 
 Barnum found his true vocation, beginning in this year 
 his long, vicissitudinous career as showman. 
 
 His first acquisition was " one of the greatest cu- 
 riosities ever witnessed, viz. : JOICE HETH, a negress, 
 aged 161 years, who formerly belonged to the father 
 of General Washington." It was also claimed, by the 
 man who was then exhibiting her in Philadelphia and 
 from whom Barnum bought her, that she had been 
 George Washington's nurse. 
 
 At the outset of his new career as showman, he real- 
 ized that everything depended upon getting people to 
 think, talk, become curious and excited about the " re- 
 markable curiosity.' 7 So posters, transparencies, adver- 
 tisements, newspaper paragraphs were used regardless 
 of expense, and in all the cities in which he exhibited 
 Joice Heth his rooms were crowded. She died the fol- 
 lowing year. 
 
 By now Mr. Barnum was sure of his ground sure 
 
P. T. BAENUM 25 
 
 that he had at last found his destined occupation in 
 life, and his next exhibit was the " eminent Italian 
 artist/' Signor Vivalla, as he re-christened him, an acro- 
 bat whom he engaged for one year at $12 a week. He 
 cleared about $150 a week on him in several cities, 
 but in Washington went broke and had to pawn his 
 watch to get back to Philadelphia. While at the Capi- 
 tal he saw such famous statesmen as Clay, Calhoun, 
 John Quincy Adams, Polk, etc. 
 
 Dull times in Philadelphia and small audiences had 
 the effect of stimulating Mr. Barnum's wits and devel- 
 oping in him the art or instinct of exciting the pub- 
 lic's curiosity, which he realized more than ever was 
 essential to success in his business. So, as he had just 
 discovered a circus-performer a balancer and juggler 
 named Roberts, the idea came to him of concocting 
 a challenge with the stakes at $1,000 from Roberts 
 to Vivalla. It was of course accepted, and the great 
 " trial of skill " was extensively advertised, arousing 
 the public to fever heat Needless to say the house 
 was jammed on the first night, and the " contests " 
 were continued indefinitely at much profit to Barnum. 
 
 Traveling about the country the young showman had 
 endless adventures. Once he was chased through a 
 town, caught, and nearly lynched. It turned out that 
 his partner had pointed Barnum out, as he was leaving 
 the hotel, as the " Rev. E. 3L Avery, the murderer of 
 Miss Cornell." This started a mob after him, all his 
 assertions that he was not Avery were useless, and at 
 last he was marched back to the hotel like a malefactor, 
 his clothes in rags, a vast crowd following. Here, of 
 
26 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 course, his partner, exploding with laughter, identified 
 him and he was released. 
 
 On Barnum bitterly upbraiding him for his trick, 
 he replied : 
 
 " My de'ar Barn-urn, it was all for our good. Re- 
 member, all we need to- insure success is notoriety." 
 
 And so it fell out. The pair had crowded houses, for 
 everybody was curious to see the two showmen who 
 played such extensive practical jokes on each other. 
 
 It was a nomadic, adventurous life that Barnum led 
 at this period of his extraordinary career, visiting, with 
 his traveling show, remote points, and undergoing all 
 sorts of hardships and dangers. One day he was 
 " broke," the next flush. It was at best a hand-to- 
 mouth existence, and he was still at the foot of the lad- 
 der when, through clever diplomacy on his part, based 
 on almost uncanny shrewdness, he managed to get pos- 
 session of the American Museum, on Broadway, New 
 York. 
 
 Prom the moment Barnum became proprietor and 
 manager of the American Museum there began a new 
 epoch in his career, which thereafter was one of bril- 
 liant success, accompanied by occasional setbacks. It 
 was, he once said, " the ladder by which I rose to for- 
 tune," for he made it the most popular place of amuse- 
 ment in the world. The public's curiosity as to giants, 
 dwarfs, mermaids, Indians, elephants, etc., was insatia- 
 ble, and so much money rolled in as to embarrass him. 
 
 In 1842 Barnum discovered at Bridgeport, Conn., 
 the remarkably small child, not two feet high, which he 
 later exhibited with tremendous success throughout the 
 
P. T. BAENUM 27 
 
 world as " General Tom Thumb." This was one of his 
 biggest catches in the curiosity line. The midget's 
 visit to the English Queen at Buckingham Palace caused 
 the royal family much amusement. 
 
 " Good evening, ladies and gentlemen ! " the " Gen- 
 eral " exclaimed as he entered the royal presence. A 
 burst of laughter followed the salutation, and the Queen 
 took him by the hand, led him about the galleries, ask- 
 ing many questions. Finally the General familiarly 
 told the Queen her picture gallery was " first-rate," 
 and added that he'd " like to see the Prince of Wales." 
 
 On a second visit, the Queen, after inquiring as to 
 his health, and receiving the reply that he was " first- 
 rate," said : " General, this is the Prince of Wales." 
 
 " How are you, Prince ? " said the General, with 
 great cordiality, shaking hands heartily. Then stand- 
 ing beside the Prince he remarked : " The Prince is 
 taller than I am, but I feel as big as anybody ! " upon 
 which he strutted up and down as proud as a peacock, 
 amid roars of laughter. 
 
 As a result of Koyal patronage Tom Thumb was all 
 the rage in England, and the little fellow's wages were 
 raised from $3 a week to $25, then to $50, when Barnum 
 made a new arrangement with the " General's " father 
 by which they became equal partners. 
 
 When Tom Thumb visited the Queen Dowager Ade- 
 laide he wore a gorgeous court costume. 
 
 " Why, General," said the Queen Dowager, " I think 
 you look very smart to-day." 
 
 " I guess I do," piped the General complacently. 
 
 The Queen, laughing, took him upon her lap his 
 
28 FAMOUS LEADEES OF INDUSTRY 
 
 dignity suffering no damage seemingly and presented 
 him with a beautiful gold watch. 
 
 In France the General traveled in a diminutive coach 
 and four, receiving royal honors. 
 
 Mr. Barnum next achieved a tremendous triumph in 
 the role of impresario, introducing to the American pub- 
 lic the noted Swedish songstress, Jenny Lind. To 
 bring this about he had to deposit with the vocalist's 
 bankers the prodigious sum (for those days) of $187,- 
 500. It took some hustling to raise this amount of 
 cash in the required time, and he was $5,000 short, when 
 his old Philadelphia friend, the Kev. Abel C. Thomas, 
 to his inexpressible joy and thankfulness, placed that 
 amount in his hands. 
 
 The Swedish nightingale arrived in New York, Sep- 
 tember 1, 1850, on the paddle-wheel steamship Atlantic, 
 and received a wildly enthusiastic reception. There 
 were decorations, bands, receptions, and at midnight of 
 that day the ginger was serenaded by two hundred mu- 
 sicians who were escorted to her hotel, the Irving House, 
 by three hundred firemen with flaming torches. The 
 excitement lasted for weeks, her concert tour proving an 
 astounding success. 
 
 To Mr. Barnum's credit, be it said, when he saw 
 that Jenny Lind's engagement was going to be success- 
 ful beyond their expectations, he voluntarily made a 
 change in the contract so greatly to her advantage that 
 her own receipts were doubled. 
 
 Miss Lind was greatly astonished, and grasping his 
 hand, said: 
 
 " Mr. Barnum, you are a gentleman of honor. . . . 
 
P. T. BARNUM 29 
 
 I will sing for you as long as you please ; I will sing for 
 you in America in Europe anywhere ! " 
 
 And one of the first things she did was to devote the 
 whole proceeds of one concert $10,000 to charity. 
 
 Single tickets to hear her sold at auction as high as 
 $625! 
 
 The campaign closed in a blaze of glory, Jenny Lind 
 receiving for ninety-five concerts some $176,675, and 
 Barnum's gross receipts after paying the singer were 
 $535,486. 
 
 In 1851 Mr. Barnum became part owner of the 
 steamship North America, afterwards partly owned by 
 Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, upon whom Barnum 
 called one day. 
 
 " Is it possible you are Barnum ! " exclaimed the 
 Commodore, in surprise. " Why, I expected to see a 
 monster, part lion, part elephant, and a mixture of 
 rhinoceros and tiger ! " 
 
 In 1855 the redoubtable showman was dashed to 
 ruin in the crash of the Jerome Clock Company to which 
 he had, in good faith, loaned very large sums. 
 
 He met his reverses with fortitude and calm confi- 
 dence. Although fairly deluged with sympathy and 
 bona-fide offers of help, even the little General offering 
 to appear in a benefit, he declined all offers, and at the 
 age of forty-six found himself once more at the bot- 
 tom of the ladder. Living frugally in hired rooms on 
 Eighth Street in New York, he fought as best he could 
 a hounding and persecution set afoot by creditors. 
 
 About this time a new and novel friend came to Mr. 
 Barnum's assistance a huge black whale that came 
 
30 FAMOUS LEADEES OF INDUSTRY 
 
 ashore close to the farm on Long Island where he was 
 spending the summer. 
 
 Mr. Barnum promptly bought the monster for a few 
 dollars, and sent it to the Museum (which he had sold 
 before his failure, intending to retire), where it was ex- 
 hibited in a refrigerator, netting him enough, as his 
 share of the profits, to pay his board bill for his whole 
 family for the entire season. 
 
 Then, accepting a loan of $5,000 from Mr. Wheeler, 
 the sewing-machine man, with General Tom Thumb 
 and others he set sail for England, returning in 1857 
 to New York, after a successful tour. 
 
 Now came some bad luck, for he lost by fire his 
 magnificent residence, Iranistan, at Bridgeport, the only 
 example of oriental architecture in the country. 
 
 After another visit to England where he lectured with 
 great success on " The Art of Money-Getting," Mr. 
 Barnum returned in 1859 to the United States. 
 
 Some of Mr. Barnum' s " art of money-getting " max- 
 ims are: 
 
 True economy consists in always making the income 
 exceed the outgo. 
 
 The foundation of success in life is good health. 
 
 Don't mistake your vocation. 
 
 Persevere. 
 
 Whatever you do, do it with all your might. 
 
 Use the best tools. 
 
 Don't get above your business. 
 
 There is no royal road to wealth. 
 
 Learn something useful. 
 
 Be systematic. 
 
P. T. BAENUM 31 
 
 Read the newspapers. 
 
 Beware of " outside operations." 
 
 Be charitable. 
 
 Keep your business affairs to yourself. 
 
 Preserve your integrity. 
 
 When this lecture idea was suggested to Mr. Barnum 
 by some of his American friends in London, he told 
 them that considering his clock complications he thought 
 he was more competent to speak on " The Art of Money 
 Losing " ; but they encouraged him by reminding him 
 that he could not have lost money if he had not pre- 
 viously possessed the faculty of making it. 
 
 Soon after returning home, in fact by March, 1860, 
 Barnum was " on his feet again " and once more the 
 owner of The American Museum, which soon began to 
 teem with newer and more interesting curiosities than 
 ever, including live white whales. 
 
 To keep these whales in their native briny, he tapped 
 !N~cw York Bay bringing salt water into his museum 
 basement and tank by pumping. The whales were 
 caught alive in traps by various expeditions that Mr. 
 Barnum sent out, and he soon added to his list of at- 
 tractions an aquarium, the first in the country, also 
 bringing the first " hippo " to America. 
 
 Mr. Barnum next ran across two more dwarfs, Com- 
 modore Nutt and Miss Lavinia Warren, the latter of 
 whom later on married General Tom Thumb. 
 
 Mr. Barnum was a Jackson Democrat until secession 
 threatened, when he allied himself to the Republicans, 
 by which party, in 1865, he was nominated for the Con- 
 necticut legislature and elected. 
 
32 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 In July of that year he sustained a heavy loss by the 
 burning of his Museum. By November, however, he 
 opened " Barnum' s New American Museum " higher 
 up Broadway, at Nos. 535, 537, and 539, with a fresh 
 stock of curiosities from all parts of the world. 
 
 In 1860 Mr. Barnum was again elected to the legis- 
 lature, and in 1867 was nominated for Congress, but de- 
 feated. 
 
 Mr. Barnum had had a twenty-five year lease on his 
 old Museum property, and now succeeded in selling it 
 for $200,000 to James Gordon Bennett, founder and 
 editor of the New York Herald, whose paper thereafter 
 for many years was published on the site of the old 
 Museum, Broadway and Ann Street. 
 
 He then made a successful lecture tour of the coun- 
 try, on one occasion riding on the locomotive of a 
 freight train, for he believed in keeping engagements. 
 
 In 1868 the New Museum, with a priceless zoological 
 collection, was utterly destroyed by fire with a loss of a 
 million dollars, and for awhile Mr. Barnum retired from 
 business. 
 
 But the energies peculiar to his nature couldn't be 
 chained down, and, after a pleasure trip round the coun- 
 try including the Yosemite, in 1870 he organized his 
 world-famed circus, a show still in existence though 
 merged with others. He so augmented the show, after 
 a brilliant initial success, that the expense of moving it 
 about the country rose to $5,000 a day ! 
 
 In December his great circus caught fire and every- 
 thing was destroyed except two elephants and one camel 
 a loss amounting to some $300,000. 
 
P. T. BABNUM 33 
 
 Nothing daunted, Mr. Barnum, with his usual forti- 
 tude, irrepressible energy and indomitable courage at 
 once cabled his European agents to " buy another mil- 
 lion dollars' worth of animals ! " By April, 1873, he 
 had brought together still another " colossal aggrega- 
 tion.' 7 
 
 Upon his return to America, after ransacking Eu- 
 rope and spending large sums for additional rare ani- 
 mals, the citizens of Bridgeport gave Mr. Barnum a 
 public dinner " as a mark of our esteem and of your 
 liberality and energy in private enterprise and in pro- 
 moting the industries and improvements of our city." 
 In 1875 he was elected Mayor of Bridgeport. 
 
 About this time Mr. Barnum entertained King Kala- 
 kau, of the Sandwich (Hawaiian) Islands, at his cir- 
 cus, now grown so large that when he decided to " show " 
 in Boston for three weeks, the cost of removal and of 
 the immense canvas tents was $50,000 ! 
 
 In 1878 he was elected for the fourth time to the 
 General Assembly of Connecticut. 
 
 By 1880 Mr. Barnum had added to his show many 
 notable features, including Admiral Dot, Woolly Horse, 
 the What Is It, the firing of Zazel from a cannon, the 
 tattooed Greek, etc. 
 
 In 1882 he combined his circus with Bailey's and 
 bought for $10,000 the monster elephant Jumbo from 
 the Royal Zoological Gardens, London. After arrival 
 in New York with his prize his receipts for three weeks 
 totaled $30,000 ! Such was the sensational interest the 
 arrival in America of this huge beast of the jungle 
 aroused ! Then he entertained the public with still an- 
 
34 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 other curiosity The Sacred White Elephant of Siam. 
 
 Marvelous was the career of Phineas T. Barnum as 
 showman, and great was his celebrity. President 
 Ulysses S. Grant once told him that his name was bet- 
 ter known throughout the world than his that every- 
 where he traveled he was asked " How is Barnum ? " 
 
 Before he died he presented his native town with a 
 magnificent bronze fountain, and, in fact, was always 
 very liberal and public-spirited. He was a most enter- 
 taining writer, and, among many other things, wrote a 
 book for boys called " Lion Jack," another on " The 
 Humbugs of the World/ 7 and his famous autobiography, 
 of which there have been sold millions of copies. 
 
ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL 
 
 IMMORTAL TELEPHONE INVENTOR, AND 
 HUMANITARIAN 
 
Copyright by Harris & Ewing Co., Washington, D. C. 
 ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL 
 
ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL 
 
 IMMOETAL TELEPHONE INVENTOR, AND 
 HUMANITARIAN 
 
 * * V ^m IG-A-JIG, and away we go," was one of the 
 r^ very first messages sent over the telephone. 
 Dr. Bell (in 1877) was lecturing upon and 
 exhibiting his just invented telephone and naturally 
 expected the distinguished Boston lawyer he had in- 
 vited to speak into his apparatus to utter, perhaps, some 
 immortal phrase, but the above absurd line was all the 
 legal gentleman could think of on the spur of the mo- 
 ment. 
 
 Alexander Graham Bell, now deceased, was a son 
 of Alexander Melville Bell, a noted Scotch- American 
 educator and inventor. Born at Edinburgh, Scotland, 
 on March 3, 1847, Alexander attended the Royal High 
 School, and, as a boy, displayed inventive ability by 
 designing a rotating contrivance for husking wheat. 
 The idea came to him while doing some work for a 
 miller who had commandeered his services. The boy, 
 it is related, was playing around a grist mill, not far 
 from home, when the miller spied him. Canny Scot 
 as he was, he hated to see " idle hands," so he roughly 
 ordered the boy to get to work removing husks from 
 wheat. The boy, somewhat amusedly, started in, but, 
 like the boy McCormick, in Virginia, soon rebelled 
 against such a slow, toilsome job. He decided he could 
 
 37 
 
38 FAMOUS LEADEES OF INDUSTRY 
 
 could do the work better with a nail-brush, and he did 
 indeed get better results. At last he conceived the 
 idea of husking wheat by machinery, and this idea, too, 
 proved successful. 
 
 He was a precocious boy, educated above his years, 
 and with an original, inventive turn of mind, which 
 bent its ceaseless activities in every direction. Form- 
 ing his boy playmates into a society for the " Promo- 
 tion of Fine Arts Among Boys," with himself as pro- 
 fessor of Anatomy, he would lecture his boy-classes 
 in his father's attic, using small animal skeletons his 
 father helped him to secure. One lucky day he found 
 a dead suckling pig, and tremendous was the excite- 
 ment of the Society, when the boy professor announced 
 his lecture. There was, needless to say, a full attend- 
 ance. 
 
 The youthful professor soon got warmed up over his 
 porky subject, but when the time came to illustrate his 
 argument by dissection, on sticking his knife into the 
 corpus, imagine the horror and terror of the boy-pro- 
 fessor and his class, when the pig emitted several ghostly 
 grunts, as the gas and air escaped. All, including the 
 learned lecturer, fled in consternation. 
 
 After leaving the High School, Alexander entered 
 Edinburgh University, also receiving special training 
 in his distinguished father's system for curing impedi- 
 ments of speech. Had it not been for the priceless 
 knowledge of the human voice, of sound and of vibra- 
 tion, thus imparted to him by his father what a dif- 
 ferent career might have been Alexander Graham 
 Bell's! 
 
ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL 39 
 
 In 1867 he entered the University of London, and 
 then in 1870 his father, alarmed at the death of two 
 of his sons from consumption, took Alexander to On- 
 tario, Canada, where the family settled. 
 
 Two years later Alexander crossed the border and 
 settled in the United States, where he introduced with 
 great success his father's system of deaf-mute instruc- 
 tion, becoming professor of vocal physiology in Boston 
 University. While devoting himself here to the science 
 of speech, young Bell became interested in multiple 
 telegraphy and it was while experimenting with a mul- 
 tiple-telegraph apparatus that the germ of the tele- 
 phone invention was implanted in his mind, for he dis- 
 covered that telegraph wires would transmit sound ! 
 He later on consulted a leading electrical authority at 
 Washington, telling him his idea, and also that he 
 hadn't sufficient electrical knowledge to perfect it. 
 " Get it ! " was the learned man's only reply. 
 
 Young Bell, luckily, knew all about sound and vibra- 
 tions, and this of course gave him a tremendous advan- 
 tage in working out his wonderful idea. He at once 
 started to find out by experiment all he could about 
 electricity, and while hunting a mechanician to make his 
 instruments, he ran across, in 1874, Thomas A. Wat- 
 son, destined to become his most valued associate. Bell 
 confided to young Watson his great idea, and, "My 
 nervous system never got a worse shock ! " said Mr. Wat- 
 son in later years. 
 
 The two young men were soon devoting practically 
 their whole time to the " idea," Bell furnishing the 
 plans, specifications, etc., and Watson the apparatus. 
 
40 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 On June 2, 1875, when Bell in one room and Watson 
 in another, were hard at work on the apparatus, a 
 strange sound suddenly came forth, and in that mo- 
 mentous instant Bell divined that his idea of sending 
 sound over wires was possible. 
 
 Thus was born the telephone ! 
 
 In a flash Bell turned to Watson and asked him to 
 construct with all possible haste a sound-conveying ap- 
 paratus according to new specifications, and the re- 
 sulting crude apparatus, which took ten months to con- 
 struct, was the first speaking telephone. 
 
 Forty years later Bell and Watson used this same 
 apparatus the first 'phone ever made in their 
 world-startling long-distance talk between New York 
 and San Francisco nearly 4,000 miles! 
 
 It was on February 14, 1876, that " the most valuable 
 single patent ever issued in any country," 
 
 U. S. Patent No. 174465 
 
 was issued by the U. S. Patent Office to Dr. Alexander 
 Graham Bell, then aged twenty-nine. 
 
 Strange to relate, on the same day that Bell filed 
 his caveat upon the telephone, Elisha Gray, then in 
 Chicago, filed one also, but a few hours later ! Which 
 only illustrates the truth of the saying : " Great minds 
 run in similar channels." Bell's application was filed 
 first, and Bell got the patent, Gray perhaps losing a 
 big fortune and immortality by -only a few minutes ! 
 
 Bell, however, very nearly lost his English patent 
 rights. A bit of luck due to a singular accident alone 
 
ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL 41 
 
 saved him. It seems that Lord Kelvin, formerly Sir 
 William Thomson, the famous English physicist, after 
 one of his American tours, took one of Bell's crude in- 
 struments back to England with him, intending to ex- 
 hibit it as a remarkable Yankee contrivance. But on 
 the voyage home, a certain spring on the Bell trans- 
 mitter was bent. So, when the day and hour of the 
 exhibition arrived the Bell telephone wouldn't work, 
 and it never occurred to the distinguished scientist to 
 press the spring down again. As he couldn't make 
 it work, no matter how he puzzled over the apparatus, 
 his audience had to be dismissed with an apology. Had 
 it worked, it would, under English law, have consti- 
 tuted " publication before application for patent " and 
 this would have lost to Bell all his chances of getting 
 his telephone patented in England. This trivial acci- 
 dent to the apparatus saved Bell. But for a big wave 
 that sent a ship over on her beam-ends and baggage 
 flying in every direction, the English would have had 
 mighty cheap telephones ! 
 
 But to return to America and Dr. Bell. Getting a 
 patent is one thing but marketing the patent is an- 
 other. Nobody believed in the telephone. " Oh, it's 
 only a toy ! " many would say. Hence it proved well- 
 nigh impossible (for a long time to come) to get any 
 one to put money into a telephone business. Only a 
 long and arduous campaign of educating the public, by 
 public tests and lectures, at last removed prejudice and 
 enabled the great telephone inventor to carry out his 
 plans. 
 
 Bell's first exhibition of his newly-patented telephone 
 
42 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 was at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia in 
 1876, soon after his patent was granted. It was a 
 curious-looking object, or apparatus, he produced before 
 his large audience. An old cigar-box, two hundred feet 
 of wire, two magnets from a toy fishpond and this 
 was all the first Bell telephone consisted of. But Lord 
 Kelvin, who -was at the Exhibition, spoke of it as " per- 
 haps the greatest marvel hitherto achieved by the elec- 
 tric telegraph." 
 
 Quite amusing to us to-day is the account of the first 
 long-distance test. This was between Boston and New 
 York, Professor Bell going to New York, to take charge 
 of the test at that end, he having obtained permission 
 to use the wires of the Atlantic and Pacific Telegraph 
 Company for the purpose. One of Dr. Bell's three as- 
 sociates in his telephone business was the mechanician, 
 Thomas A. Watson, then a youth of twenty. He had 
 charge of the test at the laboratory end, in Boston. 
 
 " That recollection," -said Mr. Watson a few years 
 ago, " is extremely vivid in my mind because it took 
 place in very hot weather. Our laboratory was in the 
 upper floor of a boarding house, not an expensive board- 
 ing house either, I can assure you. The house was full 
 of boarders, and as we had disturbed them quite se- 
 riously by shouting and talking and all sorts of noisy 
 experiments, we were, for that and other good and suffi- 
 cient reasons, not on good terms with the landlady. 
 
 " So I realized that as I had to do the shouting of 
 my life that night, I must muffle the noise. So I took 
 the blankets off my bed and Dr. Bell's and arranged a 
 sort of tent over my big telephone with five thicknesses 
 
ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL 43 
 
 of blanket. When I got the signal from Dr. Bell in 
 New York, that he was ready to hear from me, I 
 crawled in under my blanket tent and for two mortal 
 hours I shouted to him. I needed no Turkish bath that 
 night ! 
 
 " The next morning I asked the landlady rather 
 timidly if I had disturbed the boarders during the night. 
 They hadn't heard a sound ! So, like many others, the 
 experiment was a success." 
 
 One of Dr. Bell's first lectures in New York City 
 was illustrated from New Brunswick on the Pennsyl- 
 vania Railroad. A negro with a fine baritone voice had 
 been engaged to do the singing and young Watson went 
 there with his instruments, cornet, organ, etc., to super- 
 intend the demonstration. In spite of all Watson's urg- 
 ing, the negro was afraid to get close enough to the 
 transmitter for his voice to be heard in New York. 
 After his song Dr. Bell told Watson, through the 'phone, 
 that the audience hadn't heard a word of it. " You 
 sing, Watson," he finally said. 
 
 Now the young lady operator one of the first 
 " hello ! " girls had invited a crowd of girl friends 
 to the test. Imagine young Watson's confusion 
 only twenty years old and the most bashful boy you 
 ever saw! But there was no getting out of it, relates 
 Mr. Watson, " I had to sing. Those girls looked sol- 
 emn, and I didn't blame them; but I sang my whole 
 repertoire and I could hear them applauding in New 
 York." 
 
 The young Professor and his three associates 
 Hubbard, Sanders and the boy Watson were in ter- 
 
44 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 rible need of money, about this time, and had just been 
 grievously disappointed by the Western Union Tele- 
 graph company, who (fortunately for Dr. Bell) refused 
 to give $100,000 for the Bell telephone patent. Never- 
 theless, the lectures or illustrations given during this 
 year, 1877, by Dr. Bell were the foundation of the 
 telephone's success. They aroused the intensest inter- 
 est, and great crowds attended them first in Boston, then 
 in Salem, and later in Providence, where no less than 
 2,000 people crowded the hall. The youthful Wat- 
 son, the first telephone engineer, was always at the 
 " other end/' and would talk and sing hymns over the 
 'phone, once using a small brass band to play into the 
 receiver. 
 
 Dr. Bell, at this time very poor, saw a chance to 
 make an income out of these lectures, for he was getting 
 requests in every mail from other cities, so he em- 
 ployed a special agent to look after this part of the busi- 
 ness and also do some lecturing. He and Dr. Bell lec- 
 tured at the same hour, but in different cities, young 
 Watson (in between) furnishing the music, talk, etc., 
 to both lecturers simultaneously. These lectures at- 
 tracted capital to the telephone business, then under 
 Bell's direction, and within a year Professor Bell suc- 
 ceeded in making his telephone commercially practica- 
 ble. Until then it was ridiculed as a toy. 
 
 The resulting financial gains facilitated the Profes- 
 sor's marriage to Mabel, the daughter of Gardiner Hub- 
 bard, one of his most loyal associates. Miss Hubbard 
 had lost her hearing in infancy, and had been for some 
 time one of Dr. Bell's patients, deriving much benefit 
 
ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL 45 
 
 from his knowledge and scientific treatment of her ail- 
 ment. On the day of the marriage, Dr. Bell's gift to 
 his bride was his stock in the Bell Telephone Company 
 a gift to become later one of immense value a value 
 far up in the millions. After the ceremony Dr. Bell and 
 his bride took a trip to England, leaving the tele- 
 phone business in charge of his associates. 
 
 At this period the great pioneers of the telephone 
 were, in addition to Dr. Bell, its inventor, the youth 
 Thomas A. Watson, who constructed it, Thomas San- 
 ders, who put up the money to finance it, and Dr. Bell's 
 father-in-law, Gardiner Hubbard, the practical man of 
 business who introduced it. The legal end of the tele- 
 phone business was attended to by the lawyers James 
 Storrow and Chauncey Smith. Later on, Theodore 1ST. 
 Vail welded the straggling telephone system into a 
 world-wide and immensely profitable commercial enter- 
 prise which in less than forty years had returned to its 
 shareholders more than $2,000 for each $1.00 originally 
 invested. 
 
 So it was that Dr. Bell's long and laborious experi- 
 ments, conducted at a time in his life when he was ex- 
 tremely poor, were crowned with success, and he lived 
 to see the wonderful idea his brain had conceived evolve 
 into a billion-dollar enterprise. 
 
 Fame and riches were his ! 
 
 In 1880 the French Government awarded Bell the 
 Volta prize of $10,000, and in 1882 added to it the 
 Cross of the Legion of Honor. Dr. Bell devoted the 
 whole of the Yolta prize to founding the Yolta Bureau, 
 for the " increase and diffusion of knowledge relating 
 
46 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 to the deaf," at Washington, D. C., in which city for 
 many years he made his home. 
 
 Another of Dr. BelPs wonderful inventions, fore- 
 shadowing the wireless, was his " photophone," with 
 which one could talk along a vibratory beam of light 
 instead of a wire. This was never brought to practical 
 use. 
 
 Dr. Bell was one of the first of our great scientists 
 and inventors to give an impulse to aviation. He was 
 carrying on experiments, with what he called his " tetra- 
 hedral kites," and needed a very light motor to put in 
 them. Glenn Curtiss was then at Hammondsport, N. 
 Y., making motorcycles, and Bell employed him to make 
 his motors, incidentally, while he was with him, giving 
 him his idea for the airship now bearing his name. 
 
 Bell's services to the deaf, whom he rescued from 
 isolation by developing lip-reading into a science, were 
 incalculable. In this connection it was his belief that 
 defective hearing could be bred out of the human race. 
 He also did much to develop his father's method of 
 phonetic notation " visible speech." 
 
 At his summer home, Baddeck, Nova Scotia, he also 
 carried on some valuable experiments with sheep, tend- 
 ing to show how the production of mutton and wool 
 could be increased and the price lowered. 
 
 For a long time, too, Dr. Bell conducted experiments 
 and compiled some remarkable tables with the idea of 
 promoting longevity through sensible living and 
 eugenics. 
 
 He was also the co-inventor, with C. A. Bell and S. 
 Taintor, of the Graphophone, an instrument for repro- 
 
ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL 47 
 
 ducing sounds human speech, songs, music, etc., and 
 some other inventions of Dr. Bell's were the induction 
 balance and the telephone probe, the latter for pain- 
 lessly locating bullets or other substances in human 
 bodies. 
 
 But all these pale into insignificance in comparison 
 with his mastery of telephony. For who can estimate 
 the benefits to humanity conferred by the now omni- 
 present telephone ! 
 
 High in the Pantheon of the Great shines the name 
 of Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone. 
 
JOHN M. BROWNING 
 
 THE GUN WIZARD AND INVENTOR OF 
 THE MACHINE-GUN 
 
JOHN M. BROWNING 
 
 THE GUN WIZARD AND INVENTOR OF 
 THE MACHINE-GUN 
 
 IT was in the early '40's, about the time of the great 
 California " gold rush/' that Johnathan Brown- 
 ing, a gunsmith, left his home in Tennessee for 
 Council Bluffs, then a small lowan trading post on the 
 Missouri River. Here, for some time, he followed his 
 vocation as a maker and mender of guns, as well as 
 mending plows, kettles and other camp utensils for the 
 settlers. 
 
 In 1852, however, piling his tools, his stock-in-trade 
 and household goods into a prairie schooner as the 
 wagons of the plains were called at that time he set 
 out for the newly organized Territory of Utah. It took 
 his oxen a whole month to reach Ogden, in the Mormon 
 country, and here he located and soon had a thriving 
 business as gunsmith and general tinker, for wild and 
 unsettled were the times, and pioneers were coming 
 and going all the time. 
 
 It was in this, then small Far Western settlement that 
 his son, John M. Browning, destined to become the 
 world's most famous gun inventor, was born in 1854. 
 
 " Jack " Browning, not very long after learning to 
 walk, decided that his father's gunshop was the most 
 fascinating place to play in he could find. He never 
 grew tired of puttering around the junk heap, or 
 
 51 
 
52 FAMOUS LEADEES OF INDUSTRY 
 
 watching his father at the forge tinker up a teapot, 
 mend a plow, gun or clock. It was all great fun for 
 the boy, and, all unconsciously, he was learning some- 
 thing. 
 
 And so he grew up, mostly in the gunshop, his techni- 
 cal school, little dreaming that his tinkering with the 
 junk pile would some day roll wealth into his pocket 
 at the rate of $3,000 a day, and hitch his name to the 
 deadliest gun ever made, an invention of his own. 
 
 " Jack's " father sold guns as well as mended them. 
 He turned out a very good article, and supplied the 
 settlers, near and far, with firearms of his own manu- 
 facture. They were needed in those days, not only 
 as protection against animals but against Indians, many 
 of whom were hostile. 
 
 You may be sure that Jack knew how these guns 
 were made. He had keen powers of observation and 
 a good memory ; and he had watched his father making 
 them an uncounted number of times. 
 
 One day, when he was about fourteen, he said to his 
 father : 
 
 " I'd like a gun." 
 
 "Well," his father replied, hesitatingly, "I might 
 loan you one of these, here, if you'll be keerful." 
 
 " But I want one for my very own ! " 
 
 His father shook his head: 
 
 "Can't afford it!" 
 
 " I'll make one myself then, and it won't cost any- 
 thing ! " was the boy's impetuous retort. 
 
 " All right ! All right ! " laughed his father. " Go 
 ahead but don't you go a-shootin' any gun of your 
 
JOHN M. BROWNING 53 
 
 own contrivance until I try it first it's as like to shoot 
 both ends and in the middle all at once ! " 
 
 Jack beamed with joy, and sprang for the scrap- 
 heap, the place where his father threw bits of iron, 
 gun parts and other worthless material. He soon found 
 what he wanted, put it on the lathe, and, before long, 
 had a gun-barrel with a nice clean bore. He next as- 
 sembled the parts, whittled the stock with his own hands, 
 and finally put the weapon together. He had made a 
 gun! 
 
 Then, remembering his father's warning, he turned 
 his home-made gun over to him for inspection. 
 
 His father, surprised at the result of his son's in- 
 dustry and mechanical ingenuity, examined the gun 
 very closely. Then he put a light charge of powder 
 in it (for it was, of course, a muzzle-loader), rammed 
 home a bullet, and, aiming at the test-target, fired. 
 
 But it scarcely needed this test to prove to the old 
 man that his son had fabricated a mighty good fire- 
 arm as good a gun as any he had ever made him- 
 self. 
 
 He didn't want to spoil the boy, so he merely told 
 him he'd " done well." To his friends, privately, the 
 veteran gunsmith reckoned that " Jack has made a bet- 
 ter gun than I ever made." Such praise of Jack 
 Browning's prowess as a gunmaker aroused great cu- 
 riosity. Everybody wanted to see the gun and try it 
 and quite a few wanted one " just like it." Orders 
 poured in, and Jack pitched in with his father and 
 brothers, thus beginning in earnest his career as gun- 
 maker. 
 
54 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 Jack became an expert shot with his self-made gun, 
 and was soon supplying the family table from his game- 
 bag. What with his shooting excursions, schooling, 
 and work in his father's shop the youth led a busy life. 
 He wasted no time, and, what is more, determined to 
 improve upon his gun to make a still better one. 
 The same year he designed a breech mechanism (whit- 
 tling it out of wood) that surprised his father. 
 
 Before he was twenty-five young Browning had made 
 the first of his single-shot rifles, which was a great suc- 
 cess. It was an improvement upon anything that had 
 gone before, and he and his brothers made and sold 
 about five hundred of these new models, for it became 
 in great demand. Then one of the new weapons fell 
 into the hands of an official of a famous arms company, 
 which sent a man in hot haste to Ogden to find the 
 man that made it. 
 
 The man that made the gun and a very modest 
 man, too, was John M. Browning, as we have seen. 
 
 " Will you show me how it is made ? " he was asked. 
 
 " Certainly," he responded, and the official was 
 amazed at the way they turned out these rifles by 
 hand. 
 
 " Is it patented ? " 
 
 It certainly was patented. 
 
 " Will you sell us the patent ? " 
 
 Young Browning didn't know. He had made a good 
 thing out of it. He was working early and late trying 
 to fill orders. It seemed rather poor business to sell a 
 patent that was keeping him in all the work he could 
 attend to. But the man from the Winchester Arms Co. 
 
JOHN M. BROWNING 55 
 
 named a sum that almost staggered the young inventor. 
 So he sold his patent, and his design was the basis of 
 the first Winchester single-shot rifles of all calibers. 
 
 Thus began John M. Browning's career as an inventor 
 of firearms. It would take an expert in arms now to 
 understand or enumerate all Browning's inventions. 
 But it may be said that his work includes every rifle 
 from single-shot to repeaters that the Winchester con- 
 cern has produced; every gun made by the famous 
 Fabrique Rationale, of Belgium; the Colt automatic 
 pistols and machine-gun; Remington shotgun and re- 
 peating rifle; Stevens rifle, and the box magazine used 
 by the United States in the Spanish War. 
 
 He is the wizard of firearms a gun genius. His 
 famous 1886 model rifle sent all others to the scrap 
 heap, so superior it was; and the 1890 model of his 
 lever shotgun, which he invented, has outsold all other 
 models of its kind in the world. He was responsible, 
 top, for radical changes in rifle calibers. Most of us 
 to-day can remember the .22, .32, .38, .40 and .44, 
 which seemed as set and permanent as the everlasting 
 hills. But Mr. Browning developed such calibers as 
 the " 30-30," the " 25-20," and others known to sports- 
 men the world over. 
 
 For many years the bright nickel barrel and the 
 round, revolving chamber marked the revolver. To-day 
 that 'type is not so familiar. We see more and more 
 that ugly, flat, cold-blooded looking weapon made and 
 automatically shoots to kill. It is the work of Mr. 
 Browning. 
 
 One day Mr. Browning took a square piece of oak, 
 
56 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 bored a hole exactly the size of a .40 caliber rifle against 
 it so that the bullet would go through the hole, and 
 tried an important experiment. 
 
 He had figured out that there was a great deal of 
 wasted force in the gas caused by the combustion of 
 the powder. He wanted to make sure how much force 
 there was to this. He took no chances, but fastened 
 the rifle against the board, attached a cord to the trigger 
 and yanked. 
 
 Fortunately, it was a long cord, because the force of 
 the gas knocked the rifle back half way across the room. 
 This was the basis of his automatics, the basis of his 
 famous Browning gun which, during the war, was 
 turned out wholesale and shipped to France. 
 
 At the time Mr. Browning made his test he was asked 
 about it. 
 
 " I'm trying to harness the * kick/ " he declared, 
 solemnly. 
 
 They laughed. It was " one of John's jokes," they 
 said. 
 
 It was a joke that changed history. For very soon 
 Browning utilized the power of the gas in such a man- 
 ner that a part of this wasted pressure was transferred 
 to the breech mechanism and made to operate the gun. 
 One pull of the trigger and the rebound fired the weapon 
 a second time, this rebound fired it a third time, and 
 so on until he soon had a gun that, with a single pull 
 at the trigger, would fire six hundred bullets in less 
 than a minute ! 
 
 The outcome of these experiments was the automatic 
 firearm, or the famous old Colt's machine-gun, at the 
 
JOHN M. BROWNING 57 
 
 time one of the best in the world. It was adopted by 
 the United States Army and Navy and was the only 
 machine-gun we used during the Spanish War. During 
 the Boxer uprising in China a detachment of our ma- 
 rines with only two of these Colt's machine-guns 
 Browning's invention saved the foreign legations 
 from destruction and the inmates from butchery. 
 
 In 1914, at the outbreak of the world war, the only 
 plant in the United States for the manufacture of ma- 
 chine-guns was turning out this weapon, and quantities 
 of them were sold to the Allied Governments. 
 
 When matters began to look as though we would get 
 into the fight there came a demand from our Ordnance 
 Department for machine-guns. Experts began investi- 
 gations. The Lewis gun was conceded to be a " won- 
 der." It did terrible execution. But there was one 
 drawback, it was claimed: even the lightest of these 
 Lewis guns could not be fired by a single man except 
 under the very best of circumstances. And in our 
 present form of warfare there's no such thing as any 
 " best of circumstances." 
 
 Meanwhile Mr. Browning continued to " putter " 
 about his workshop in Ogden. He was working on an 
 improvement of the machine-gun. 
 
 This Wizard of Firearms has never been content to 
 sit back after one big achievement and rest on his 
 laurels. Sometimes he takes a bit of a fishing trip by 
 way of rest, then back again to his shop to try to make 
 still better what has just been conceded to be his 
 best. 
 
 He knew what was wanted a rifle as light as the 
 
58 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 average service gun that an enlisted man might use as 
 he would an ordinary rifle and yet, by a single pressure 
 of the finger, pour an endless stream of bullets into the 
 enemy. 
 
 This was out of the question, of course. But he did 
 the next best thing he perfected a machine-gun that 
 is no heavier than the average rifle sportsmen use for 
 moose and bear. In fact, a lighter rifle than that used 
 by African hunters for the biggest game yet this 
 machine-gun that he turned out can be lifted to the 
 shoulder as any gun and forty bullets poured into the 
 enemy in less than two and a half seconds like water 
 from a garden hose. Then he invented a heavier ma- 
 chine-gun, water-cooled. 
 
 February 27, 1918, was a great day in the history of 
 machine-guns, for this was the day the Government 
 tested the new Browning invention at Washington. 
 More than three hundred witnessed the tests, including 
 British, French, Belgian and Italian army officers, our 
 own army officers, many Senators and Representatives, 
 and, of course, writers for magazines and newspapers. 
 
 " A success ! " was the unanimous verdict. And 
 Secretary of War Baker remarked : 
 
 " It has paid us to wait, for we now have the very 
 best machine-gun in the world." 
 
 The lighter gun was first tried. Weighing only fif- 
 teen pounds the " little one " shoots twenty or forty 
 bullets at one time. One move of a lever cocks the 
 weapon, one pressure of the finger discharges it, and 
 the shots pour out as fast as one can follow another 
 from the muzzle. It is air-cooled and works of itself, 
 
JOHN M. BEOWNING 59 
 
 automatically, after the first shot, by means of gas 
 pressure. 
 
 A soldier using this gun could spray an advancing 
 enemy with forty bullets before he could fire six with an 
 ordinary repeating arm. The only tool necessary in 
 taking the gun apart is the edge of a cartridge. One 
 man operates it quite alone, feeding the clips and shoot- 
 ing. 
 
 A hundred men, each armed with this gun, could 
 destroy a couple of regiments. Or for advance, noth- 
 ing could stand up under them. 
 
 The wicked weapon, however, is the Browning heavy 
 machine-gun. This is water-cooled and works on a tri- 
 pod, but it weighs only thirty-two pounds. In the test 
 twenty thousand rounds were fired without a break or a 
 malfunction of any sort. In another test out of twenty 
 thousand shots there were but three misses, due each 
 time to a bad cartridge. In a supreme test, thirty-nine 
 thousand five hundred shots were fired in such instan- 
 taneous succession that the report sounded like one 
 noise. Then the gear gave way. But no such test 
 would ever be made in actual warfare, as such guns 
 are worked in pairs, one to rest, cool, be reloaded and set 
 back in place while the other is operating. This gun is 
 to be used for aviation service, stripped of its water- 
 cooler jacket, as the air will serve as a cooler. In this 
 shape it weighs but twenty-two and a half pounds. 
 
 The details of this test are history. They astounded 
 the world. The verdict from every one, everywhere, 
 was: 
 
 " This is the best machine-gun made." 
 
60 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 It was fifty-two years ago that John M. Browning 
 made his first gun. He has been making them, invent- 
 ing new ones, improving old ones, ever since. 
 
 And for the first time in his more than half a cen- 
 tury of gun-making he has permitted his name to be 
 used in connection with a firearm. 
 
 It is little wonder that he was not widely known. 
 It is little wonder that many people looked askance 
 when it was announced that the Government had 
 adopted the Browning gun. Go to any big gun manu- 
 facturing concern in the world and use his name and 
 you will find out that this man is known. It is said 
 that there was not a firearm plant in the world of the 
 modern type but what, before the present war, was 
 paying some sort of a royalty to a " Yankee chap named 
 Browning." 
 
 " Browning ? " they would repeat, " ah, yes ; the 
 American wizard of firearms. See this gun, and that 
 one this appliance, that improvement. His! We 
 must pay him a royalty to use it ! " 
 
 The great wizard of electricity, Edison, since the 
 day he sold papers on trains and rigged up a tiny lab- 
 oratory in a baggage car, has made no greater strides, 
 up to now, than did Browning, from the day when, a 
 thirteen-year-old boy, he turned out his first gun on 
 an old wooden foot-power lathe up to his latest achieve- 
 ment, the " Browning machine-gun." 
 
 His income from royalties on his inventions is nat- 
 urally enormous, and estimated at $1,000,000 a year. 
 But he still keeps up his habits of industry and simple 
 tastes. 
 
JOHN M. BEOWNING 61 
 
 If you stroll into his shop some day, you're sure to 
 find John M. Browning, the " gun wizard," in overalls 
 and jumper at a bench whistling as he toils away on 
 some new device for weapons. If he is at home you'll 
 likely find him in a plainly furnished living-room in a 
 rocker playing " Blue Bells of Scotland " on his be- 
 loved banjo. 
 
 The two things he likes best to do are tinkering with 
 firearms and playing the banjo. For sport he likes a 
 mountain stream and a hatband full of trout flies, and, 
 in the hunting season, he goes up in Wyoming after 
 bear and other big game. 
 
 A fine upstanding man is Browning, the " gun man " 
 six feet three inches tall, straight as an Indian, and 
 as active and vigorous as a young man of thirty. He 
 never " cottoned " to citified ways, prefers ready-made 
 clothes, and a very narrow straight collar. 
 
 When, after we entered the war, it was announced 
 that the War Department of the United States had 
 adopted the " Browning machine-gun," the cry went 
 up " Who is Browning ? " Though he had been in- 
 venting firearms for many years he had never put his 
 name to any of his models, and nobody knew this man 
 of Ogden, Utah. 
 
 " Ogden ! " one official would exclaim with a super- 
 cilious smile. " Queer place for a machine-gun to 
 hail from ! If it had been Ilion or Bridgeport " 
 
 It did seem absurd, for up to the time that John M. 
 Browning the gun-boy of Ogden perfected his new 
 machine-gun his name had not appeared on any of his 
 guns. None the less 
 
62 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 Every Winchester rifle; every Remington shotgun; 
 every Remington automatic rifle; every Colt machine- 
 gun; every Colt automatic pistol (such as our army of- 
 ficers carry) ; every one of the million army pistols man- 
 ufactured by a Belgian concern every one of these, 
 and more, WAS A BROWNING GUN ! 
 
 He invented all of them ! 
 
 And of the millions upon millions of these firearms, 
 known and carried in every quarter of the globe, not 
 one bore his name. 
 
 There was a time when Wilhelm Hohenzollern 
 proudly carried a handsome pistol presented to him by 
 Albert, King of Belgium. 
 
 John M. Browning invented it. 
 
 When Admiral Robert E. Peary planted the Stars 
 and Stripes at the North Pole he had a Winchester re- 
 peating rifle, model 7 92, in his hand. 
 
 John M. Browning invented it. 
 
 When, on that fatal summer day in 1914, a Serbian 
 fanatic shot an Austrian Archduke to death and pre- 
 cipitated the world war, he did it with an automatic 
 pistol. 
 
 John M. Browning invented it. 
 
 An Englishman of title, on a government mission to 
 this country, had occasion to call on Mr. Browning at 
 his home in Ogden. The English official bowed low. 
 
 " Sir John M. Browning ? " he asked. 
 
 " John M. Browning, sitr/' snapped Mr. Browning. 
 The Englishman took the hint and called him u Mis- 
 ter " after that. However, the Englishman was cor- 
 rect. Mr. Browning has every right to be addressed as 
 
JOHN M. BKOWNING 63 
 
 " Sir," because, early in 1914, King Albert of Belgium 
 conferred upon him the decoration of " Chevalier de 
 TOrdre de Leopold." 
 
 It is an attractive decoration so it is said. Mr. 
 Browning tucked it away in some mysterious place and 
 never even exhibited it, much less wore it, 
 
 So it is of no use to look in the " Almanach de 
 Gotha " or even in " Who's Who in America " for in- 
 formation concerning Mr. Browning. His name does 
 not appear in those interesting volumes. 
 
 Not one in a thousand, probably not one in ten thou- 
 sand, who has carried Winchesters, Remingtons, Colts, 
 Stevens, and such familiar firearms into the woods dur- 
 ing the game season, or used them at target practice, 
 coupled the name of Browning, when they read about 
 his machine-gun, with their weapons. But despite the 
 fact that various names and corporations appear on 
 these guns, the man who created them, the man who 
 modified and improved and simplified them, was this 
 same John M. Browning. 
 
 There is no Browning arms plant in Ogden. There 
 is a well-equipped shop where Mr. Browning " putters 
 around," as he himself phrases it, but he does not man- 
 ufacture firearms. He doesn't have to. He invents 
 them and lets the other fellow manufacture them while 
 he banks his royalties. 
 
 Sometimes a firearms concern wires him to come East 
 and help on a model. He looks over their drawings, 
 then over his own model to refresh his memory he 
 has made so many they are difficult to classify at a 
 glance and starts to make a few drawings himself. 
 
64 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 By night he has completed the work. They hand him 
 a check for ten thousand dollars and a certain agree- 
 ment concerning royalties, and back he goes to his little 
 shop and his hanjo. 
 
 While strumming on his hanjo out in Ogden he is 
 thinking up improvements on what is conceded to be 
 the best machine-gun in the world. 
 
WILLIAM ANDREWS CLARK 
 
 MONTANA COPPER KINO AND UNITED 
 STATES SENATOR 
 
WILLIAM ANDREWS CLARK' 
 
WILLIAM ANDREWS CLARK 
 
 MONTANA COPPER KING AND UNITED 
 STATES SENATOE 
 
 IT had been snowing steadily for a month and Last 
 Chance Gulch, the new Montana mining camp, was 
 buried deep under a heavy white blanket. Eor a 
 week or more no communication had been possible with 
 the outside world, the camp was practically cut off and 
 provisions were running 1'ow. It was getting close to 
 Christmas, too, when the miners, scattered among the 
 hills hard at work on their various claims, would gather 
 in camp and " whoop things up " socially. 
 
 But Last Chance Gulch's isolation was unexpectedly 
 broken one day by the advent of a two-horse sled bring- 
 ing mail and bad news ! The steamer, with supplies 
 for the camp especially tobacco had struck a snag 
 on the Missouri River, and gone down with all her 
 cargo ! 
 
 This meant a tobacco-famine for Last Chance Gulch 
 and there was growing excitement and anger among 
 the red-shirted miners. Many were the lamentations 
 and curses, for to the rough fighters of the wilderness 
 tobacco was the most precious commodity that came to 
 the camp. And then there was Christmas close at hand, 
 a time of jollity and jamboreeing. 
 
 Just about this time the early ? 60's be it noted, 
 
 67 
 
68 FAMOUS LEADEES OF INDUSTEY 
 
 flour was selling at $150.00 a barrel and ham at a dollar 
 a pound. 
 
 Now there happened to he in the camp an unusually 
 shrewd and courageous young man named Clark. Com- 
 ing to Last Chance Gulch after two months' hard, dan- 
 gerous travel with an ox-team, all the way from Col- 
 orado, he had staked out a claim and cleaned up $1,500 
 the first season. But he had decided that there was 
 more money dead-sure money at that time in trad- 
 ing than in gold-mining; so he had put all his capital 
 into provisions, which he bought at Salt Lake City and 
 sold to the miners for their gold dust. In a year the 
 young trader's capital had increased to $7,500. 
 
 Now, Clark, the moment he heard of the wreck of the 
 Prairie Belle, saw a golden opportunity to double his 
 capital within sixty days. He determined to get to- 
 bacco for Last Chance Gulch, or die in the attempt! 
 
 It was mid-winter, the thermometer twenty-three de- 
 grees below zero, when Clark harnessed his horse for 
 his wild, dangerous ride of two hundred and fifty miles 
 to Boise City, Idaho, his nearest supply point. The 
 miners gave the plucky young man a rousing send-off, 
 but few among them ever expected to see him alive 
 again. 
 
 When this lucky chance came, Clark had tried his 
 hand at about everything in which he saw a chance of 
 success. He had been teamster, miner, trader, and 
 had lived a life of incessant and arduous labor. Bent 
 double, he had " panned " gold wherever there was a 
 likely stream, up to his middle often in icy water; he 
 had driven ox and mule-teams through an Indian-in- 
 
WILLIAM ANDREWS CLARK 69 
 
 fested court-try, once three hundred miles through the 
 roughest kind of wilderness, so by this time he was in- 
 ured to all sorts of weather and hardships, and as hard 
 as iron physically. Yet to most people his expedition 
 seemed doomed to failure. 
 
 " He'll never get through in this blizzard ! " said a 
 grizzled old forty-niner. 
 
 But on January 1, New Year's Day, Clark rode tri- 
 umphantly into Last Chance Gulch with two thousand 
 pounds of tobacco in his wagon which had cost him three 
 thousand dollars,, He sold it for ten thousand dollars 
 and was the most popular man in Helena. 
 
 " It was," he once said, " the worst ride of my life. 
 The snow was deep everywhere, my horse could hardly 
 get through. A dozen times I thought it was all up 
 with me, but I stuck to my saddle and my horse was a 
 fine brute. It was really he who pulled us through." 
 
 In another year he was doing a wholesale tobacco 
 business all over central Montana, and had gained such 
 a reputation for honesty and square dealing that large 
 sums of money were entrusted to his keeping by the 
 miners, for, of course, there were no banks in the 
 camp then. Another of his famous " deals " was in 
 baking-powder, after which the " boys " called him 
 " Baking-Powder " Billy. 
 
 This gritty young man, William Andrews Clark, 
 destined to be one of America's wealthiest men, was 
 born on a farm near Connellsville, Pa., on January 8, 
 1839. All the education he received was in the com- 
 mon schools, and, like all farmers' sons, he had to work 
 on his father's farm in summer, attending school in 
 
70 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 winter. His grandfather was of good old Irish stock, 
 and from him the boy inherited his qualities of thrift 
 and industry. His grandmother was of French Hugue- 
 not descent, and to her he owes the pronounced artistic 
 instincts which found expression as soon as he became 
 wealthy. 
 
 In 1856 the family moved to Iowa, where the boy 
 worked on the farm and studied law at the University 
 of Mount Pleasant. Then, having no money, he taught 
 school for a while. But the humdrum life of a school 
 teacher had little fascination for so energetic and am- 
 bitious a boy, and, becoming restless, he decided to go 
 farther West and join the pioneers. Missouri, then a 
 frontier State, was his first stopping-place, and there 
 he caught the mining fever and traveled overland to 
 Colorado, where, after working ^ quartz mine at South 
 Park, he made his way, as has been told, to the newly- 
 discovered gold camp, Last Chance Gulch, in the Ban- 
 nock district of Montana. 
 
 After young Clark's famous ride, which gave him 
 the foundation of his fortune, he opened up other stores 
 in the territory, continued his trading, making money 
 all the time, even securing a mail route from Fort Ben- 
 ton to Sioux City, and later a Star route between Mis- 
 soula and Walla Walla. Then he founded the firm of 
 Clark, Larabie & Co., which, before long, became one 
 of the largest jobbing concerns in the Northwest, and 
 also opened a bank. 
 
 He had plenty of capital now, and, with his usual 
 wisdom, decided that it was about time he examined the 
 copper possibilities of the territory. First he secured 
 
WILLIAM ANDREWS CLAEK 71 
 
 claims, buying some outright and some on options, and 
 then to everybody's surprise, went to New York City 
 to study mining and metallurgy at the Columbia School 
 of Mines, for, with his usual shrewdness and thorough- 
 ness, he wanted to be able to find out for himself what 
 was in his mines. It is not always safe, in the min- 
 ing industry, to take "the other feller's" word for 
 it! 
 
 He was thirty-three years old when he returned to 
 Butte, the hub of the Montana copper region, where he 
 installed at his copper property the first stamp mill. 
 A stamp mill is a mill containing what is called a " bat- 
 tery " of stamps. The raw ore, embedded in rock or 
 quartz, is fed into the battery along with a steady stream 
 of water. Simultaneously, the enormously heavy 
 stamps are rapidly jiggled up and down by machinery, 
 falling, almost in unison, like giant hammers, upon the 
 ore and pounding it to pulp. The refuse flows off in 
 the sluice, the residue (metal) is saved. Formerly this 
 crushing had to be done by hand with an ordinary ham- 
 mer a slow, costly process. 
 
 A stamp mill, needless to say, is about the noisiest, 
 wettest, slimiest place on earth. The stamps, like a 
 drum, keep up an incessant tattoo, drowning the roar of 
 the ore dropping into -the chutes, and water splashes 
 about everywhere. 
 
 It was about this period that electricity began to be 
 widely used as a motive power in place of steam. Mr. 
 Clark again read the future correctly when he foresaw 
 an enormous demand for copper for wires. So he 
 hunted around for another copper property, examining 
 
72 FAMOUS LEADEES OF INDUSTRY 
 
 dozens of promising prospects in the course of his 
 search. 
 
 In Arizona Clark stumbled upon the biggest piece of 
 luck of his life. About thirty miles east of Phrenix 
 was a group of claims which, he intuitively felt, were 
 what he wanted. Elding his horse up to the owner's 
 cabin, he asked him what he wanted for them. The 
 owner looked at the little tanned, reddish-bearded man, 
 and, laughing, for he thought Clark was joking, an- 
 swered offhand: 
 
 " One hundred and fifty thousand dollars." 
 
 " All right/ 7 said Clark, " make out the papers, and 
 I'll give you a check for fifty thousand dollars and the 
 balance in thirty days." 
 
 The camp was electrified when the deal went through, 
 and Clark got the group of claims now known as the 
 United Verde Mine a copper mine that has been 
 yielding him for many years a million dollars a month ! 
 
 How did Clark arrive at his belief that there was a 
 great deposit of the red metal in this precise spot ? 
 
 Perhaps because he had studied mining and metal- 
 lurgy at an Eastern school of mines, and knew a good 
 deal about geology, and especially about geological for- 
 mations local to Butte, his headquarters. He had 
 studied the " outer oppings " in his region, the lava-like 
 rock, or ore, that, ages back, bubbled to the surface of 
 the earth, cooled and hardened. These " outer oppings," 
 if they contained mineral precious or other metal 
 denote deposits of it below, perhaps close to the surface. 
 And the deeper one digs, the purer and richer the ore in 
 these deposits is. 
 
WILLIAM ANDEEWS CLAEK 73 
 
 This is how Clark knew the value of these mining 
 claims he was buying, and his judgment was again cor- 
 rect. 
 
 Before long, Mr. Clark built a railway from his 
 mine to the main line, erected smelting works to treat 
 his own ore, and, as the number of his employees in- 
 creased and stores were opened to supply them, the town 
 of Jerome, Arizona, sprang up. 
 
 It is doubtful if Mr. Clark would take $100,000,000 
 cash for his mine to-day. No one knows what United 
 Verde stock is worth ; there are no quotations anywhere 
 and none for sale. 
 
 Wealth poured in upon the young man from Connells- 
 ville rapidly now, and his reputation as a man of great 
 ability spread throughout Montana. He was the Ter- 
 ritory's wealthiest and foremost citizen, and, as such, 
 represented Montana as orator at the Philadelphia Cen- 
 tennial Exhibition of 18 76. In 1877 he was elected 
 grand master of the Montana Masonic fraternity, and 
 the same year was commissioned major of a Butte bat- 
 talion that pursued Chief Joseph and his band of red- 
 skins in the K~ez Perce war. In 1884, he was Mon- 
 tana's Commissioner to the New Orleans Exposition. 
 
 He was president of the Constitutional Convention 
 of 1884, and of the second in 1889, in which year Mon- 
 tana was admitted to Statehood, largely through his ef- 
 forts, though the previous year he had been defeated 
 for Congress on the Democratic ticket. In 1890 he was 
 elected to the United States Senate, but, through the 
 machinations of powerful political opponents, including 
 Marcus Daly, he was unseated, the Senate rejecting his 
 
74 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 credentials. He was again elected Senator in 1899, 
 but his election was declared void by a Senate Com- 
 mittee, so lie resigned, submitting the matter to the peo- 
 ple of his State. In 1901, he was reflected for the 
 term of six years and at last took his seat. 
 
 Senator Clark's first wife, who had been a boyhood 
 sweetheart of his Connellsville days, died in 189 3 ; 
 and the present Mrs. Clark was formerly Miss Anna 
 E. Chapelle, of Butte. There is quite a romance 
 woven around this second marriage, which would never 
 have come about but for the Copper King's passion for 
 music. 
 
 Anna's father, Dr. Theophilus La Chapelle, came 
 from Montreal to Butte to better, first his health for 
 he had consumption and then his fortunes. He soon 
 died, however, leaving his family almost destitute. Of 
 his children, Anna, a very beautiful and highly talented 
 young girl, was his favorite, and, on his death-bed, when 
 he confided his family to the Copper King's care, he 
 laid special stress upon her wonderful talent for music, 
 and deplored not being able to gratify her musical ambi- 
 tions. The Senator agreed to look after his wife and 
 children, and did. Anna was sent to the Boston Con- 
 servatory, where she shortly developed unusual musical 
 talent, especially for the harp. He then sent her abroad 
 to study under the best masters. For a few years, in 
 Paris, she lived with one of the Senator's widowed 
 sisters, and was very assiduous in her studies. By 
 1899, her fame as a harpist was spreading in artistic 
 circles, and she received flattering offers to go on the 
 stage. But the Senator wanted her to study another 
 
WILLIAM ANDEEWS CLAEK 75 
 
 year, so sent her to other great European musical cen- 
 ters and engaged special teachers for her. 
 
 Meanwhile, his fatherly feeling was changing to love 
 and, in 1901, he married his young French-Canadian 
 protegee at a small hamlet near Marseilles, France. 
 For a while they lived at a retreat in the Pyrenees 
 kept by Benedictine monks, and then in a magnificent 
 villa at Cape Matifou in the Bay of Algiers. 
 
 Late in the year the Senator and his beautiful bride 
 returned to the .United States, where, on Fifth Avenue, 
 New York, he built for her what is probably the finest 
 private residence in America, if not in the world. 
 
 This wonderful nine-story house, a mass of comfort 
 and luxury, cost $10,000,000 simply to build. What 
 its furnishings, fittings, art work and art objects cost 
 in addition, no one can even guess maybe another 
 ten, maybe another twenty millions. For four 
 rugs Senator Clark paid $250,000, and he has paid 
 huge sums for oil paintings, and then there are the 
 ceilings from famous European palaces, the bronzes, 
 the library, the organ, Turkish baths, swimming pool, 
 etc. 
 
 To build this house, he bought no less than six indus- 
 trial plants, including granite quarries; and one mil- 
 lion pounds of bronze were used in the interior. 
 
 His art treasures include wonderful oil paintings, 
 tapestries, statuary and bronzes, which he values very 
 highly, but what he takes the most pride in is his price- 
 less collection of XVIth century Persian carpets, of 
 which he has forty-five examples out of only one hun- 
 dred and fifty in existence. 
 
76 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 Senator Clark was once asked to tell a boy how he 
 could get on in the world succeed in life. 
 
 " First," he said, " carefully determine upon an oc- 
 cupation or profession, which choice should depend upon 
 qualification and congeniality for a man must have 
 his heart in his work if he would succeed. 
 
 " The most essential elements of success in life are 
 a purpose, increasing industry, temperate habits, scru- 
 pulous regard for one's word, faithful performance of 
 every promise, perfect system in business so as to be in 
 close touch with all details, putting nothing off until to- 
 morrow, courteous manners, a generous regard for the 
 rights of others, and, above all, integrity which admits 
 of no qualification or variation. 
 
 " Then there must be unflinching courage to meet 
 and overcome the difficulties that beset one's pathway. 
 
 " If all these qualities be not inherent they can be and 
 must be cultivated. 
 
 " Rather a host of qualifications, but the boy to make 
 a thorough success in life must have them." 
 
 As Senator Clark started life a poor boy, with noth- 
 ing, and earned every dollar he possesses by the hardest 
 kind of work in a wild, unsettled region where the ut- 
 most courage and stoicism were needed, not part of the 
 time, but all of the time, his advice is worth pondering. 
 
 All the qualities he enumerates Mr. Clark himself 
 possesses, coupled with unusual shrewdness, initiative 
 and enterprise. " Nothing venture, nothing have " was 
 his motto, and there were times in his career when he 
 certainly took " long chances " but he won out every 
 time. He had the broad vision and remarkable opti- 
 
WILLIAM ANDBEWS CLAEK 77 
 
 mism as to the vast hidden natural resources of our 
 country that have characterized the most successful 
 pioneers of the great American West. 
 
 Mr. Clark is a quiet, modest man and dislikes pub- 
 licity. He silently pursues the even tenor of his way, 
 and, looking at him, it is hard to associate him with 
 the mighty mining, smelting, railroad and banking 
 enterprises which he controls. Though enormously 
 wealthy, he is plain, unassuming and democratic and 
 has an astonishing memory for names and faces. Busi- 
 ness and society won't mix, in Mr. Clark's opinion, and 
 that is why he has never been a " social climber." 
 When he has entertained, he has sought his friends 
 among people of artistic inclinations, and lovers of art 
 have always had free access to his wonderful houseful 
 of art treasures. 
 
 Mr. Clark's Western residence is at Butte, Montana, 
 the scene of his early struggles, and success. He has 
 done a good deal for the town, in one way or another, 
 and spends a great portion of his time there. 
 
WILLIAM L. DOUGLAS 
 
 THE BOY WHO PEGGED SHOES AND 
 BECAME GOVERNOR 
 
Photograph by I^ouis Fabian Bachrach 
 
 WILLIAM L. DOUGLAS 
 
WILLIAM L. DOUGLAS 
 
 THE BOY WHO PEGGED SHOES AND 
 BECAME GOVERNOR 
 
 THE career of the Hon. W. L. Douglas, Captain of 
 Industry, Mayor, Senator and Governor, the 
 founder and President of W. L. Douglas Shoe 
 Co., reads almost like a romance. It is a striking ex- 
 ample of what thoroughness and tenacity of purpose 
 can accomplish, and a refutation of the opinion that 
 there are no longer opportunities in the world for young 
 men. 
 
 Eew boys ever started out in life with less or worked 
 harder in their boyhood than W. L. Douglas, for, when 
 only five years old, his father was drowned at sea, and 
 his mother was left with several children to support. 
 Born in 1845, close to historic Plymouth, Massachusetts, 
 where, in 1620, the Mayflower Pilgrims landed, he was, 
 when only seven, doomed to a life of virtual slavery. 
 
 At this tender age the age when most children 
 are starting to go to school W. L. Douglas was 
 " bound out " to his uncle, -a shoemaker, and put to 
 work pegging shoes. Pegging shoes in those days was 
 mighty hard work. There were no machines to sew or 
 nail the different parts it was hand work, work 
 usually done by men or boys much older than he. In 
 fact he was so small that he had to stand on a box to 
 
 81 
 
82 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 reach, the bench where certain parts of the work were 
 done. 
 
 " Bound out " or " apprenticeship " at that time did 
 not mean doing just what one wanted to do or short 
 hours. It meant long hours and the doing of many 
 things that seemed to have no hearing upon one's trade 
 whatever. Size or age was no exception to the rule 
 for apprentices, and part of the work young Douglas 
 was called upon daily to perform was to go into the 
 near-by woods and gather fuel for two fires, besides peg- 
 ging his usual quota of shoes. The storms and cold of 
 the old-fashioned New England winters made no differ- 
 ence. This work had to be done and done without 
 murmuring. Hard as this may seem to the High School 
 boy who objects to arising in a cold room, it taught 
 Willy Douglas the value of obedience and of doing 
 what he was told to do, rightly, promptly and well. 
 
 The school-house was two miles distant, and at rare 
 intervals, when there were slack spells in the work, he 
 was permitted to trudge to school and learn what he 
 could of the " three R's." It is almost needless to say 
 that he was an apt pupil and improved his few educa- 
 tional opportunities to the utmost. 
 
 When he was eleven years old he returned to his 
 mother because of ill usage. The following spring his 
 mother made another agreement binding him out to 
 his uncle. This agreement was to the effect that for 
 young Douglas 7 labor at shoemaking the uncle was to 
 finish teaching him the trade, board and clothe him, 
 permitting him to attend school in season and pay him 
 $5.00 a month. Here he stayed four years, but as this 
 
HON. W. L. DOUGLAS 83 
 
 agreement was verbal the uncle evidently did not con- 
 sider it binding, and all the wages he received during 
 this period was $10.00. Many boys and young men 
 who are working for several times more a week than 
 he was to receive in a month and who think that there 
 is no chance in the world for a boy, should bear in 
 mind that tenacity of purpose, obedience to superiors 
 and attention to details will send them up the ladder of 
 success just as it did him, if they will persevere. He 
 wanted to be a master craftsman, and the years that it 
 took to accomplish this ambition were not considered. 
 His eye was on the goal, with the result that at the 
 end of this time he was master of everything that his 
 uncle could teach him about shoemaking. 
 
 In spite of his skill -at his chosen craft and the fact 
 that he was a full-fledged journeyman shoemaker, hav- 
 ing received only $10.00 the past four years, and not 
 finding an opportunity to work at his trade near his 
 home, he decided to try a cotton mill at Plymouth for a 
 while at the then large wage of thirty-three cents a day. 
 
 While working in this mill he had the misfortune to 
 break his leg, and as he could not work he attended 
 school, bobbing on crutches two miles each way. And 
 glad he was to have a chance to go to school again, for 
 he knew, better than many boys, the value of an educa- 
 tion, however limited. 
 
 This brief experience in the cotton mill and some 
 time spent doing chores for a farmer in the fall of 
 1861 for the privilege of schooling, board and clothes 
 are the only periods of his long and busy life that 
 have not been spent in the shoe industry. 
 
84 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 Having learned the trade of making fine shoes, the 
 desire of mastering completely every branch of shoemak- 
 ing led him to work in Hopkinton, Mass., making men's 
 heavy boots. Later he went to South Braintree, where 
 he worked with the famous old-time bootmaker, Ansel 
 Thayer. For three years he was an apt pupil of this 
 master craftsman. Although possessed with the ambi- 
 tion to be a master shoemaker the desire for an educa- 
 tion was still strong and while working here he attended 
 private evening school, paying for the same out of his 
 slender wages. 
 
 The opening up of the West at the close of the war 
 appealed to him as an opportunity of seeing a little of 
 the country and at the same time of plying his trade. 
 Accordingly, he journeyed across the plains and lo- 
 cated in the town of Black Hawk and, associating him- 
 self with Zephaniah Myers, famous as the best boot- 
 maker in the West, continued his chosen vocation of 
 shoemaking. While associated with Myers he learned 
 the two things necessary to make him an all ' round 
 shoemaker in every sense of the word. He already 
 knew how to make shoes. Now he learned how to de- 
 sign or draft and cut, also how to fit them, and was soon 
 known for miles around for the excellency of his work. 
 
 His fame spread to Golden City, Colorado, where 
 Alfred Studley, an old Massachusetts shoemaker, was 
 located. He sent for young Douglas and offered him a 
 partnership in his store. In those days there were 
 plenty of pesky Indians in this section of the West, as 
 may be inferred from the following advertisement put 
 out by the new firm. 
 
HON. W. L. DOUGLAS 85 
 
 INDIANS ! 
 
 If you wish to run away from the Indians 
 don't go barefoot, but buy a pair of 
 
 BOOTS OR SHOES 
 
 OF STUDLEY & DOUGLAS 
 
 But though convinced of the value of retail expe- 
 rience and although the venture was a success, he pre- 
 ferred the manufacturing end of the business and sold 
 out his interest. 
 
 " Any one can sell shoes," he explained to his part- 
 ner, " but I know how to make them. I'm going back 
 home and try to save some money to start a factory." 
 
 Studley laughed at him, but Douglas went back to 
 Massachusetts. 
 
 At this time making shoes by machinery was com- 
 ing more and more into vogue, and from 1870 to 1875 he 
 superintended the Porter and Southworth factory at 
 North Bridgewater (now Brockton) and familiarized 
 himself with all the -then known appliances for making 
 shoes by machinery. 
 
 The year 1876 saw the beginning of the new mam- 
 moth shoe industry which bears the name of W. L. 
 Douglas. Although thirty-one years old and married 
 he had faith enough in his ability to give up working 
 for others at a stated salary and start manufacturing 
 in a thirty- by sixty-foot room in the building previously 
 occupied by Porter & Southworth. His capital con- 
 sisted of eight hundred and seventy-five dollars borrowed 
 money and a firm belief that he could make a success 
 of shoe manufacturing. His output was forty-eight 
 
86 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 pairs a day and five employees constituted his whole 
 working force. 
 
 This is the kind of nerve W. L. Douglas had ! 
 
 The growth of the business from its start in 1876 to 
 the present time is an astounding and romantic record 
 of American enterprise and shows what thorough train- 
 ing, strict attention to business, honesty of purpose and 
 a mastery of details can accomplish. At the start of 
 his business venture Mr. Douglas was not only his own 
 buyer, cutter and salesman, he was at times his own 
 expressman as well. Old Brockton residents tell of 
 seeing Mr. Douglas coming from Boston with rolls of 
 leather under his arm. 
 
 Young men who want to succeed in life, but who 
 watch the clock for fear they'll work a minute more 
 than their regular hours, cannot do better than to make 
 note of the fact that in those days Mr. Douglas fre- 
 quently worked eighteen and twenty hours a day; re- 
 turning to the factory many a night, after days spent in 
 Boston buying leather and selling shoes, sorting and 
 cutting leather and laying out the next day's work for 
 his employees. 
 
 To this more than any other cause Mr. Douglas attri- 
 butes his success. It was only by working practically 
 day and night during these early years that he got his 
 start and laid the foundation for his large fortune. 
 
 As a result of careful attention to details and hard 
 work, the business grew to its present huge size. 
 
 Some idea of the present magnitude of the business 
 Mr. Douglas started in to learn at seven years of age 
 may be had from the following figures: 
 
HON. W. L. DOUGLAS 87 
 
 The business now employs more than four thousand 
 operatives 
 
 Uses the skins (hides) of one million eight hundred 
 thousand animals 
 
 More than one million yards of cloth 
 
 Four thousand tons of sole leather 
 
 And fifteen thousand miles of flax thread annually. 
 
 A year's output, if placed heel to toe, would reach 
 from Boston to Omaha; if piled one pair on another 
 would make a pile two hundred and fifty-six miles high, 
 and if packed in cases and shipped by rail at one time 
 would take five hundred and seventy-two cars and make 
 a train six and one-half miles in length ! 
 
 From the small beginning outlined above, the Doug- 
 las business has grown to tremendous size, and is a shin- 
 ing example of what thoroughness, honesty and tenacity 
 of purpose can accomplish. 
 
 Although an extremely busy man, Mr. Douglas found 
 time to take an active interest in local and state affairs 
 and has served his city, Brockton, as councilman and 
 Mayor and represented her in both the Massachusetts 
 Senate and House of Representatives. He also has 
 had the honor of being elected Governor of the old 
 Bay State. 
 
 Because of his early training and rise from the 
 ranks, W. L. Douglas has always been a champion of 
 and exemplar of fair treatment for employees, and la- 
 bor troubles, strikes and lockouts have seldom occurred 
 in his factory, because of his willingness to discuss 
 and arbitrate all matters in dispute. 
 
 It is due to Mr. Douglas' being able to see matters 
 
88 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 from the workingman's standpoint that two of Massa- 
 chusetts' best laws relating to the welfare of workers 
 are on the statute books. 
 
 While a member of the Massachusetts Legislature he 
 was the author of the state Weekly Payment Law, which 
 directs that employees at manual trades shall receive 
 their wages within each calendar week. In 1886 while 
 a member of the state Senate he introduced the bill " to 
 provide for the settlement of differences between em- 
 ployers and their employees." This bill was passed 
 and was the immediate cause of founding, by legislative 
 act, the State Board of Arbitration and Conciliation, 
 one of the most effective institutions in existence for 
 reaching and settling labor troubles. Following the 
 fair and manly course of considering the well-being of 
 his helpers, Mr. Douglas has always maintained the most 
 cordial relations and enjoys their confidence and re- 
 spect. 
 
 As Massachusetts was the first state to enact an ar- 
 bitration and conciliation bill and establish a slate 
 board to carry out its features, Mr. Douglas enjoys the 
 distinction of being the father of this legislation in the 
 United States. 
 
 Mr. Douglas is a humane man, and, as accidents will 
 happen, he long ago installed a medical and surgical 
 department at his plant. The surgical department of 
 his company is said to be one of the finest and best 
 equipped of its kind in manufacturing circles in 
 America. 
 
 Such is a brief sketch of this New England Captain 
 of Industry who, as a poor boy, was put to work pegging 
 
HON. W. L. DOUGLAS 89 
 
 shoes at the age of seven and who rose from the ranks 
 until he was president of a great corporation and a pub- 
 lic official. 
 
 Known and respected the world over and honored 
 by city and state, ex-Governor Douglas at seventy-four 
 may still be found -at his desk directing the business of 
 one of the largest fine-shoe manufactories in the world. 
 
 His career is certainly one of inspiration to the youth 
 of the world particularly Young America. For in 
 this land there are countless opportunities for young 
 men of ambition, thoroughness and honesty. What has 
 been done can be done again if one only tries. 
 
JAMES BUCHANAN DUKE 
 
 AMEKICAN TOBACCO AND CIGARETTE 
 KING 
 
JAMES BUCHANAN DUKE 
 
JAMES BUCHANAN DUKE 
 
 AMEBICAN TOBACCO AND CIGARETTE 
 KING 
 
 MANY great businesses have been built up from 
 very small amounts of money a few thou- 
 sands or a few hundreds of dollars. Some 
 have been built up on a capital less than one hundred 
 dollars. The man who is bright enough to recognize 
 and seize a good opportunity, or who has a good idea 
 and sufficient faith in it and industry to work or de- 
 velop it, seldom needs much, if any, capital. The fa- 
 mous Steel King and philanthropist, Andrew Carnegie, 
 the Scotch bobbin-boy, not long after coming to Amer- 
 ica borrowed $5,000 with which, in less than half a 
 life-time, he built up the biggest steel manufacturing 
 works on earth, selling out eventually for a sum so vast 
 that if divided up among the population of the world, 
 each inhabitant man, woman and child would get 
 twenty-five cents! But this story is about a business 
 now representing an invested capital of half a billion 
 dollars, that was built up on an original capital of fifty 
 cents. 
 
 Washington Duke was the father of the Tobacco King, 
 James Buchanan Duke, now the head of the British- 
 American Tobacco Company. 
 
 When the Civil War broke out Washington Duke, 
 whose ancestry was Down Eastern, was living very sim- 
 
 93 
 
94 FAMOUS LEADEBS OF INDUSTBY 
 
 ply on his three-hundred-acre farm near Durham, Nouth 
 Carolina. Selling his stock and crops, taking his pay 
 in tobacco, he sent his- wife and children to a relative's, 
 and for two years served in the Confederate Navy. The 
 war over, Washington Duke found himself at New Bern, 
 stranded. His only possession was a five-dollar Con- 
 federate note. As he was tramping the one hundred 
 and thirty-five miles to his ruined farm, he met a Union 
 soldier to whom he sold his five-dollar note, as a sou- 
 venir, for fifty cents: 
 
 When he reached the farmhouse he found that his 
 tobacco his sole capital had been looted by the 
 soldiery ; so all he had with which to begin life again 
 was the fifty-cent piece the Union soldier had given 
 him. What he bewailed as a misfortune, however, 
 turned out before long to -be a big piece of luck; for 
 when the Northern soldiers reached home, and had 
 smoked up the looted tobacco, they wanted some more, 
 and began to write to the postmaster at Durham for ad- 
 ditional supplies of the same delicious kind they had 
 found on the farm close by. 
 
 Washington Duke was thankful indeed to receive the 
 small sums accompanying these occasional orders, and 
 he began to wake up to the unusual qualities of North 
 Carolina tobacco. He filled all these Northern orders 
 with great alacrity, and, buying two blind mules and a 
 wagon, on credit, he went about the State peddling 
 his tobacco. Then his three sons, especially James, be- 
 gan to help him, and between them they planted, gath- 
 ered the crop, dried it over beechwood fires, and shred- 
 ded or granulated it with their flails in the barn. They 
 
JAMES BUCHANAN DUKE 95 
 
 were all big, strong boys, full of energy and ambition, 
 sharpened by fear of the " wolf." 
 
 Their petty dealings soon grew into something like a 
 business, though a very small one, and they found them- 
 selves hampered by lack of railroad facilities, so they 
 moved to Durham, in 1870, buying an old two-story 
 building as warehouse and residence combined. By 
 1874 they were able to build a small factory. 
 
 Washington Duke's youngest son, James Buchanan, 
 though under twenty, was the hustling, aggressive busi- 
 ness getter of the firm. His father and brothers grew 
 and manufactured the wonderfully sweet and fragrant 
 Carolina tobacco, but it was James who sold it. James, 
 later the organizer and head of the American Tobacco 
 Company, was outside man, and his splendid physique 
 and tireless energy brought him great success as a sales- 
 man. Jamming his grip so full of samples as to leave 
 scarcely any room for clothes, he rushed about the coun- 
 try, impatient of every delay of trains or other obsta- 
 cles, placing " Durham " tobacco, as it was called, in 
 cigar stores countrywide. There was literally no re- 
 sisting the young man's energetic, almost fierce, appeal, 
 and the most hidebound dealers succumbed to Jimmy's 
 onslaught, and he booked their orders. 
 
 His father and brothers were dumbfounded at the 
 boy's terrific industry and growing success. He was 
 working day and night on the road, taking no pleasure 
 and very little sleep, and sending in orders in increas- 
 ing volume for " Duke's Durham." The business was 
 growing fast, and Jimmy, the last born, was rapidly be- 
 coming its head and front its soul. 
 
96 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 James B. Duke, almost as soon as he started out to 
 sell tobacco, came to a shrewd realization of the value 
 of advertising. As he was a born trader and organizer 
 he presently hit upon clever ideas for advertising and 
 increasing the sale of Duke tobacco. Some of his 
 schemes were startling to the conservative, and almost 
 savored of " plunging." But the more he spent in these 
 clever and revolutionary publicity schemes the more he 
 made. Advertising of the kind that James B. Duke 
 planned, paid. 
 
 It would be hard to find a young man who was more 
 absorbed in his business to the utter exclusion of all 
 else than James Duke. It was this single-minded- 
 ness that led him to world-wide fame and a big fortune. 
 He had one idea that of selling Duke Brothers' to- 
 bacco and he stuck to it with even more than bull- 
 dog tenacity. Nothing outside his business selling 
 Duke's tobacco interested him. 
 
 Fortunately he had a constitution of iron upon which 
 his habit of excessive work had no effect, and, besides, 
 he knew all about tobacco, for when only nine years 
 old, on his father's return from the war to his ruined 
 farm, he had to tend the tobacco plants in the fields and 
 help rid the farm of weeds and rubbish accumulated 
 during its abandonment. He helped out, too, in the 
 curing shed, learning while a boy the secret of curing 
 the leaf so as to give to it its rich golden-yellow color 
 and delicious flavor. 
 
 Tending the plants, pulling up the weeds, cleaning 
 up the farm of the damage and rubbish left by Sher- 
 man's boys, was hard work for the youngster. But the 
 
JAMES BUCHANAN DUKE 97 
 
 whole family had to work, and, at the end of the year, 
 the result was a crop from which they realized only 
 forty dollars! 
 
 Nevertheless, insignificant as the reward of all their 
 toil was for this first year after the war, it filled the 
 three brothers and their father with renewed courage, 
 and it was the foundation of what grew to be one of 
 the largest businesses in the world. This bright, mild 
 and fragrant tobacco, of which the Northerners were so 
 fond, became the basis of an industry bringing in some 
 fifty millions of dollars annually. 
 
 Other farmers near Durham now began to raise to- 
 bacco and the Dukes shrewdly gave up its cultivation 
 themselves, devoting their whole time to curing and 
 selling the leaf. Soon they had a small factory and 
 were employing thirty-five men. Their profit the first 
 year was $7,000. 
 
 At this time James was only eighteen, and had not 
 been inside a school since he was nine. He was a 
 bright, quick-witted boy, strong, healthy and fond of 
 work. So his father gave him his choice of a college 
 education or a partnership. The boy didn't waste much 
 time in pondering this proposition. He could read and 
 write and figure, could put up a pretty good business 
 talk, and he knew all about tobacco, for from childhood 
 up he had been playing or working among the tobacco 
 plants or in the little log hut where the family " cured " 
 the golden leaf. 
 
 He instantly decided to take the partnership and con- 
 tinue at work, for his consuming desire was to make a 
 fortune. 
 
98 FAMOUS LEADEES OF INDUSTRY 
 
 Later his father retired, the firm became Duke Broth- 
 ers, and in five years their plant covered ten acres of 
 ground, becoming one of the most important industrial 
 concerns in North Carolina. This prosperity and ex- 
 pansion were due to James B. Duke's extraordinary en- 
 ergy, ambition and business acumen. No matter how 
 much profit the firm made, he insisted upon nearly all 
 of it being put back into the business. The partners 
 were allowed to draw only $2,000 a year each. Long 
 after prosperity came to James B. Duke he continued 
 to work as hard as any of his " drummers," living 
 quite simply and economically in a boarding-house. 
 
 In 1881 the Dukes began the manufacture of the now 
 so familiar paper-covered cigarettes, and about 1884 
 James B. Duke came to New York to see if he couldn't 
 solve some problems in connection with their production 
 and sale. Cigarettes were hand-made then, and the cost 
 of manufacture stood in the way of their profitable 
 marketing. Duke set some inventors to work, and a 
 somewhat crude machine was made, but its work was 
 imperfect. Then, although bankruptcy was predicted 
 for him, he gave the machine to some mechanical ex- 
 perts to experiment with, at last succeeding in getting 
 a machine that would make thousands of perfect cig- 
 arettes in a day. When Duke began to sell his ma- 
 chine-made cigarettes, he had all the other manufac- 
 turers beaten, and there was soon a rush on their part 
 for similar machines. 
 
 About this time one of his friends asked him how 
 much he had made. 
 
 " Some $2,000,000," he replied. 
 
JAMES BUCHANAN DUKE 99 
 
 " And how much of that have you got left ? " the 
 friend asked. 
 
 " A few thousands I've spent the rest in planning 
 for what I'm going to make in the near future/ 7 was 
 Duke's reply. 
 
 This was where James B. Duke displayed his finan- 
 cial and business genius. With amazing foresight, he 
 saw a wonderful future for his business. It was still 
 in its infancy, and he saw the time when Duke's to- 
 bacco and cigarettes would be on sale the world over. 
 And this is why he always insisted upon the profits being 
 put back into the young but fast-growing business. So, 
 still living quite simply, spending nothing on himself, 
 he poured his large profits back into his business, espe- 
 cially into advertising. He said once: 
 
 " I've spent more money in advertising than any 
 other living man. . . . I've given out fifty million dol- 
 lars to make my goods known." 
 
 The quick seizing of opportunities was Mr. Duke's 
 most striking characteristic. It was a young Virginian, 
 as the result of a chance remark, that set to work and, 
 in a year, when only twenty-one, invented the cigarette- 
 making machine, which Mr. Duke so promptly snapped 
 up and improved. It took courage as well as cash to 
 grasp this opportunity, for everybody predicted fail- 
 ure. 
 
 Mr. Duke grasped another opportunity in the for- 
 eign field when he invaded England with his cigarettes, 
 spending money like water in advertising and other 
 very sensational methods of competition. He met with 
 a long and stubborn resistance, his most formidable 
 
100 FAMOUS LEADEES OF INDUSTEY 
 
 rival offering to divide .among retailers offering their 
 tobacco for sale, a bonus of $200,000 every six months. 
 
 Mr. Duke, whose English branch was known as 
 " Ogden's Limited, 77 immediately announced that he 
 would divide the entire profits every six months, plus 
 $500,000, among the retailers, and that this would con- 
 tinue for four years ! 
 
 The British tobacco men saw nothing for it but to 
 buy out the Duke intruder, and this they did at a price 
 that made people gasp. Meanwhile the public had been 
 benefiting greatly by the cigarette war, getting their 
 smokes at an absurdly low price. And, needless to say, 
 Duke's " Cameos, 77 in their dainty little decorated card- 
 board boxes, were all the rage. 
 
 This stiff cardboard box for cigarettes was another in- 
 ventive-opportunity whose value was instantly realized 
 by Mr. Duke. As soon as he saw it he ordered fifty 
 thousand and within a few months was buying them 
 in million lots. Previously the cigarettes had been 
 wrapped loosely in packages, and were easily crumpled 
 and broken in the pocket. 
 
 When, in 1890, the Duke firm of Durham, North 
 Carolina, joined the consolidation of tobacco companies 
 they received $7,500,000 for their business, and the 
 very first year it earned twenty per cent, on its pur- 
 chase price. As a matter of course James B. Duke, 
 once the bare-legged nine-year-old boy who tended to- 
 bacco plants on his father's farm, was chosen to be the 
 president of the consolidation called the American To- 
 bacco Company, with its many millions of capital. JSFo 
 better man in the world, in the opinion of the owners 
 
JAMES BUCHANAN J>TJKE 101 
 
 and directors of the new corporation, could l)e found 
 than " Buck " Duke. 
 
 A few years ago Mr. Duke bought some land at 
 Somerville, New Jersey, and with characteristic energy 
 and originality set to work and built a magnificent man- 
 sion and surrounding estate costing $15,000,000. 
 
 The land was flat, Mr. Duke noticed. " I want a 
 mountain ! " he exclaimed. 
 
 This was considered a good joke. There were no 
 mountains nearer than a great many miles, and it was 
 declared impossible to remove any of them to Somer- 
 ville. 
 
 " I'm serious," he repeated, " I want a mountain ! " 
 
 And a mountain he got! Little by little the moun- 
 tain rose from the plain, getting larger and larger from 
 week to week, when it was finished rising one hundred 
 feet and covering about twenty-five acres. 
 
 Then he wanted lakes to go with the mountain, and 
 got them, too. 
 
 In addition to this superb country estate Mr. Duke 
 bought a fine residence on Fifth Avenue, New York. 
 
 " The one straight road to success," Mr. Duke says, 
 " is to learn to love your business . . . the man who 
 works only because he is paid to work cannot compete 
 with the man who works because he would sooner do 
 that than anything else. It is the practical secret of 
 success." 
 
 James Buchanan Duke has done more for the Ameri- 
 can tobacco industry than probably any other man. 
 At sixty-three years of age, he is still the Tobacco 
 King of the American continent. 
 
GEORGE EASTMAN 
 
 WHO INVENTED THE KODAK AND 
 POPULAKIZED PHOTOGKAPHY. 
 
GEORGE EASTMAN 
 
GEORGE EASTMAN 
 
 WHO INVENTED THE KODAK AND 
 POPULAKIZED PHOTOGKAPHY 
 
 AN astounding story of toil, trouble and disap- 
 pointment leading up to final dazzling success 
 is that of the poor Rochester, N. Y., boy, George 
 Eastman, who invented the Kodak, and whose name and 
 fame now fill the earth. Starting his business life 
 without a cent, at a wage of $3 a week, George East- 
 man's factories now cover many acres, and in his pocket 
 jingle millions of dollars. 
 
 Wonderful pluck, perseverance and gumption had 
 this Eochester boy, and rich was his recompense; but 
 his best reward is in the delight, pleasure and utility 
 his photographic invention brings to countless millions 
 of human beings. 
 
 George Eastman was born at Waterville, Oneida 
 County, N. Y., on July 12, 1854, and a year or two 
 afterwards his father located in Rochester, where he 
 founded a commercial college. He was one of the 
 pioneers in the idea that youths should have practical 
 training in commercial methods before entering busi- 
 ness life. In 1860, however, when George was only 
 six, he died, leaving nothing, and the boy's mother had 
 great difficulty in providing for his keep and school- 
 ing. 
 
 105 
 
106 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 However, lie was able to attend public schools until 
 he was fourteen, when he started in as office boy in an 
 insurance office at $3 a week. It seemed " big money " 
 to the poor boy who was so well acquainted with hard, 
 grinding poverty; but the early lesson had a salutary 
 effect, for the boy stood in such dread of the " wolf " 
 that he determined to save all the money he could. At 
 the end of his first year of work, although he had 
 given his mother a good part of his earnings, he had 
 managed to save and put in the bank the sum of $37.50. 
 
 George, as well as being thrifty, was industrious and 
 diligent in his work, and before long was getting $600 
 a year. His employer appreciated his abilities, and 
 knew that he was worth more than he could afford to 
 pay him; so he helped him to get a position as book- 
 keeper in the Rochester Savings Bank at a salary of 
 $1,000 a year. 
 
 Then followed several years of hard, confining office 
 work for young Eastman, and, his health not being very 
 good, it was decided to give him a vacation. At that 
 time Santo Domingo was greatly talked about, for the 
 reason that Uncle Sam was thinking of establishing a 
 naval base there. It was a little-known and far-off 
 country in those days, so George decided to spend his 
 holiday there. 
 
 He was telling a man he knew, an engineer, about 
 his contemplated trip, when his friend said: 
 
 " Why don't you take a photographic outfit along ? 
 Then you can take pictures of all the interesting places 
 and things you see on your trip." 
 
 This offhand, random suggestion had a revolutionary 
 
GEORGE EASTMAN 107 
 
 effect upon George Eastman's life, ultimately being the 
 means of bringing him fame and riches. 
 
 The suggestion so deeply interested young Eastman 
 that he at once started in to learn all he could about 
 photography. After he had mastered the rudiments 
 he bought a small camera, and hired a photographer in 
 town to teach him the wet-plate process. 
 
 He had made considerable progress in his new study 
 when he was detailed by the bank on some special work, 
 and had to forego his vacation. By this time, though, 
 he was so deeply interested in photography that, later 
 on, he took a short trip to Lake Superior, taking his out- 
 fit with him. He succeeded in taking a number of pic- 
 tures, but the process, as it was then, seemed to East- 
 man slow and cumbrous. On his return home he con- 
 tinued studying and experimenting and his first in- 
 vention in the photographic art was a compact, easily 
 portable outfit. Then, as he read the photographic 
 journals, he heard of the discovery in England of the 
 gelatine dry-plate process. 
 
 Eastman became more interested than ever, and went 
 on experimenting, for it seemed to him that a large 
 business could be done in manufacturing dry-plates, in- 
 stead of merely the materials needed in the wet process. 
 In other words, in a flash of intuition, he saw that if he 
 could relieve the buyer of the necessity of handling 
 the raw materials nitrate of silver, collodion, and 
 the glass of having to bother with a dark tent and 
 the whole slow, complicated and delicate process, he 
 would have perhaps a fortune in sight. He determined 
 to experiment on a larger scale along the lines of his 
 
108 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 idea, which was making photography available to the 
 masses. So, for a few dollars a month, he hired a room 
 for a workshop, getting a young man to look after it 
 during the day for he was still clerking at the bank 
 
 doing the delicate chemical experimental work him- 
 self at night. 
 
 Toilful days followed for Eastman, and he frequently 
 worked all night without taking off his clothes, some- 
 times sleeping from Saturday night until Monday morn- 
 ing. His dry plates, however, were a success, and a 
 demand, greater than he could meet, was springing up 
 for Eastman Dry Plates. 
 
 The secret of the superiority of his plates was due, 
 he once said, to his formula. He happened to hit upon 
 a very good combination more or less by luck. It was 
 necessary for him to secure great sensitiveness which 
 only a handful of men in the whole world had been 
 able to do and by ceaseless, tireless experiment, 
 George Eastman had discovered the secret. 
 
 Mr. Eastman now began to sell his improved plates 
 to his old teacher, the local photographer, and through 
 him secured another and large customer in New York. 
 
 Now convinced of the superiority of his plates to 
 anything of the kind on the market, he began to adver- 
 tise them. Orders rapidly poured in. 
 
 In 1881 he left the bank and organized the Eastman 
 Dry Plate Company, taking in an old friend, Henry A. 
 Strong, as partner, and quarters were secured on Yought 
 
 now Kodak Street for the infant manufacturing 
 firm. 
 
 Eor a while they were very prosperous, their sales 
 
GEORGE EASTMAN 109 
 
 reaching about $5,000 a month. But when spring 
 came, wholesalers or jobbers who had bought plates in 
 large quantities, keeping them in stock, through the 
 winter, began to receive complaints. The plates were 
 of poor quality no good so customers said. 
 
 Mr. Eastman at once started to investigate, and soon 
 discovered that with age the plates lost much of their 
 sensitiveness. He had to take back from the dealers 
 every unsold plate, and, to crown all, he then found 
 that his formula would no longer work ! He could not 
 produce a single good plate with it. It was baffling, 
 mysterious, heartbreaking and it was the same for- 
 mula, too, that he had used in the beginning. 
 
 There was nothing to do but call in all his outstanding 
 stock, and close the factory. It looked like utter 
 ruin. " Compared with what I then went through," 
 said Mr. Eastman once, " all the later troubles of my life 
 have been as nothing." 
 
 Adversity, though like the toad " ugly and venomous, 
 wears yet a precious jewel in his head," and this is 
 what Eastman found. The adversity into which he was 
 so suddenly plunged only served to draw out his latent 
 qualities or talents. His determination and courage 
 increased, more plans and ideas came to him. He 
 never lost hope. 
 
 Then George Eastman suddenly disappeared. 
 
 Weeks passed, but still his factory was closed not 
 a wheel turned. People smiled as they went by. 
 
 Meanwhile George Eastman was in England, prac- 
 ticing in the factory of a Newcastle firm on a formula 
 he had bought from them. After he had thoroughly 
 
110 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 mastered it in every detail, he hurried home, starting 
 up his plant without the loss of a moment. 
 
 His plates were satisfactory now, and business be- 
 gan to increase by leaps and bounds. Everybody 
 wanted Eastman plates. 
 
 It was this awful crisis, out of which he had emerged 
 at last so successfully, that turned Mr. Eastman's hair 
 gray. It was such a close shave for him that he could 
 not rest until he had discovered why his formula had 
 failed. He finally solved the mystery it was in the 
 gelatine he had been using. No other gelatine he 
 bought anywhere gave him the good results his first lot 
 did why, he could never find out. 
 
 The dry-plate business of Eastman & Strong was 
 now prospering, but competition was springing up all 
 around and, by 1884, business was bad and the outlook 
 gloomy. 
 
 Mr. Eastman, with remarkable foresight, had an- 
 ticipated this, however, and had started experiments 
 with film photography. He had visioned the contri- 
 vance soon to be known the world over as the KODAK 
 a word of his own invention. He knew that if only 
 he could make so small a self-contained photographic 
 apparatus, there would be no limit to the demand for 
 it. So he engaged the services of William H. Walker 
 to assist him in experimenting. Between them, they 
 at last perfected a method of film photography, and Mr. 
 Walker went to Europe in 1885 to introduce it there. 
 Eirst of all, however, was incorporated the Eastman Dry 
 Plate & Eilm Company. 
 
 In 1888 came the first Kodak, and at last the hith- 
 
GEOBGE EiASTMAN 111 
 
 erto dark and mysterious field of photography became 
 an open book for amateurs. This first Kodak was 
 fitted for one hundred exposures and took a picture two 
 and one-half inches in diameter, but it proved a bit 
 troublesome to amateurs who mostly had to return their 
 exposed films to the factory to be developed. This, also, 
 Mr. Eastman had anticipated, and by 1892 he had per- 
 fected and patented a machine by which his company 
 could make a film roll with a transparent support tak- 
 ing the place of paper. 
 
 Once this process was perfected, and the new film put 
 on the market, things began to hum at the Eastman fac- 
 tory and before long there was a tremendous expansion 
 of the business. Where there had formerly been only 
 a hundred or two photographic dealers in the country 
 there were now some ten thousand to fifteen thousand ; 
 and Mr. Eastman decided to start manufacturing photo- 
 graphic materials of every sort and description in ad- 
 dition to his films. Formulas, new ideas and patents 
 were bought from time to time and, once in a while, 
 some other company was absorbed. A research labora- 
 tory was also established, with a full staff under the 
 direction of a well-known physicist and chemist, and 
 everything that science and money could do to improve 
 the art of photography, to simplify or cheapen it, was 
 done. 
 
 To-day nothing is commoner than a Kodak, and a 
 child can operate one that costs but a dollar. 
 
 It is not every inventor who is able successfully to 
 exploit commercially his own inventions; yet this is 
 what George Eastman has done. For many years, he 
 
112 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 has been a very wealthy man, and his donations to his 
 native place, Rochester, have been very large. 
 
 In 1900 he was a Presidential elector on the Repub- 
 lican ticket, casting his vote for McKinley and Roose- 
 velt. 
 
 He is still unmarried, and fond of music, hunting 
 and camping-out trips in the West. His hunting lodge 
 is in Halifax County, North Carolina. His fine resi- 
 dence on East Avenue, Rochester, is said to have cost 
 above a million dollars. 
 
 In April, 1919, his company, the Eastman Kodak 
 Co., of which he is of course the President, distributed 
 $6,000,000 in stock to its employees. It will also con- 
 tinue its usual yearly wage-dividend of at least a mil- 
 lion dollars. 
 
 Mr. Eastman has shown during his business career 
 great cleverness and originality in his advertising 
 methods. The short, snappy word KODAK, one of the 
 best known trade-marks in the world, he made himself 
 out of a few letters, after trying out innumerable real 
 words. His phrase, " You press the button we do 
 the rest," in Kodak advertisements caught on like wild- 
 fire and came into popular use in connection with end- 
 less other things. 
 
 His career, like Henry Ford's, illustrates the value 
 of an idea. George Eastman evolved a good idea, and 
 he stuck to it patiently and persistently until he made 
 it pay. Obstacles and difficulties that would have over- 
 come an ordinary man only increased George Eastman's 
 determination and what he determined, he did. 
 
 He Kodaked the earth! 
 
THOMAS ALVA EDISON 
 
 ELECTEICAL WIZARD AND WORLD'S 
 GREATEST INVENTOR 
 
THOMAS ALVA EDISON 
 
 ELECTRICAL WIZARD AND WORLD'S 
 GREATEST INVENTOR 
 
 ALIVE wire, a bunch of irrepressible energy and 
 curiosity was the boy Edison. He devoured 
 all books within reach, and when ten years of 
 age was reading Hume's " History of England," Gib- 
 bon's " Decline and Fall," and encyclopedias. Books 
 on chemistry fascinated him and he was always ex- 
 perimenting to " see what would happen." It is amaz- 
 ing that such insatiable curiosity as he evinced on 
 more than one occasion did not end fatally for him. 
 
 He was, for example, one day curious to see what 
 would happen if he built a fire in a certain barn near 
 his home. The whole building went up in flames, and 
 Tommy was soundly whipped in the village square as 
 a " terrible warning " to all other boys, good or bad ! 
 
 What he learned from this experiment is not re- 
 corded. 
 
 When only six years old the boy's dominant trait 
 perseverance was beginning to manifest itself and 
 one day he disappeared. After a search he was found 
 sitting on some goose-eggs patiently trying to hatch 
 them! 
 
 From an early year he began to experiment with 
 chemicals and, by the time he was twelve, had an extraor- 
 
 115 
 
116 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 dinary collection in the basement of his mother's house. 
 He spent what little spare time he had from earning a 
 living down in his " laboratory " and he labeled all his 
 phials and bottles POISON to make sure no one would 
 meddle with them. 
 
 Cultivating ten acres of his father's farm was his job 
 for awhile and this he accomplished with the help of 
 another boy, selling as much as $600.00 worth of 
 produce in a year. Gratiot, Michigan, was where young 
 Edison did his farming, but his birthplace was Milan, 
 Ohio, where he first saw the light of day on February 
 11, 1847. 
 
 Thomas Alva was he christened, and his father, of 
 Dutch ancestry, was farmer, lumber and grain dealer. 
 While a child the boy's head had such a funny shape 
 that the doctor predicted mental disturbances at no 
 distant date. And so there were but not of the 
 kind the old doctor had in mind ! 
 
 At school little Tommy Edison couldn't rise higher 
 than the bottom of his class, so after a few months he 
 was sent home as being too stupid to handle. The 
 teacher said he was " addled " ! 
 
 Not very many years after this humiliating incident, 
 Hudson Maxim, himself a great inventor and learned 
 man, said of him : " Thomas A. Edison is the most 
 valuable man to mankind that ever lived." 
 
 But he had a long and thorny road to travel before 
 becoming the world's greatest inventor. 
 
 Tommy did not go to school again. His mother, a 
 very gifted woman, taught him at home and this is all 
 the teaching he ever received. 
 
THOMAS ALVA EDISON 117 
 
 He began his newsboy career on the Canadian Grand 
 Trunk Railway when he was about twelve, his train's 
 run being from Detroit to Port Huron and back. It 
 was hard work for the boy, and he was up early and 
 to bed late, getting mighty little sleep. But he was 
 soon making money for himself, for he was a bright, 
 likable lad, and had no difficulty selling his papers, 
 fruit and candy. 
 
 As his savings increased, so did his ambition, and he 
 opened a couple of stores at Port Huron, putting them 
 in charge of other youths, and extended his newspaper 
 business by putting newsboys on other trains. But 
 these ventures did not pan out very profitably, so the 
 young capitalist had the audacity to establish his lab- 
 oratory on the train in a part of the " smoker " not used 
 by passengers. 
 
 Meanwhile, the Civil War having broken out, the 
 boy, who was always thinking and observing, noticed 
 what an unusual demand there was for news. So he 
 decided to print a newspaper of his own on the train. 
 
 Mr. Edison, reminiscing one day over his experience 
 as a newspaper owner, said: 
 
 " It may seem impossible for a boy of thirteen or 
 fourteen, with hardly a cent in the world, to talk of 
 publishing a newspaper. This is how I did it. I 
 found that a set of old type and a battered, much-worn 
 hand press had been discarded at the office of the De- 
 troit Free Press, and I managed to secure possession of 
 them. Also, the railroad put an old baggage-car at my 
 disposal for a supply room for my papers and magazines 
 while on my trips. Here I set up my little plant and 
 
118 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 began publication of the ambitious periodical which. I 
 called the Grand Trunk Herald. 
 
 " Of course, the journal was a decidedly amateurish 
 affair, about twelve by sixteen inches in size, if I re- 
 member rightly, and confined to gossip of the line. I 
 was my own reporter, editor, typesetter, proofreader 
 and pressman. The railway men took an interest in 
 my venture and soon I began to find myself supplied 
 with a liberal variety of personal items of the Grand 
 Trunk. Notices such as the announcement that the 
 baggagemaster at the country station had broken his leg 
 or that an engine had gone to the shop for repairs or 
 that an excited passenger had lost his baggage might not 
 be of general interest, but they tickled the railway 
 men, and I found my circulation growing, so that I had 
 to hire three boys to help me." 
 
 When important war news came in, Edison induced 
 the railway telegraph operators to announce his pa- 
 per's contents on their bulletin boards ahead of his train. 
 As a consequence he would sometimes find big excited 
 crowds waiting for him, and he sold his papers at 
 fancy prices as high as a quarter a-piece. 
 
 It was at this period of his career that he divined, 
 with his usual genius of intuition, the practicability and 
 value of the telegraph in spreading news. He realized 
 its enormous value to newspapers. 
 
 His paper was a great success, and in one year his 
 profits amounted to about $600.00. But calamity was 
 close at hand, for one day while experimenting in his 
 train-laboratory, the car rolled and jolted a stick of 
 phosphorus onto the floor. Immediately the car caught 
 
THOMAS ALVA EDISON 119 
 
 fire, and his laboratory and his Grand Trunk Herald 
 went up in smoke. So enraged was the conductor that 
 he threw Edison off the train at the very next stop, 
 and boxed his ears so soundly that he has been prac- 
 tically stone deaf ever since. 
 
 His mother, who had great faith in him, now came 
 to his rescue, giving him the basement of the house for 
 his laboratory, and about this time he saved the life 
 of a station-agent's little son, snatching him, in the 
 nick of time, from in front of an approaching train. 
 
 So grateful was the father that he offered to teach the 
 youth telegraphy. This was one of Edison's ambitions 
 and he jumped at the opportunity. For some months 
 by working about eighteen hours a day he mastered 
 telegraphy, and built a line a mile long from the rail- 
 road depot to the village. He was then appointed tele- 
 graph operator at Port Huron, but his thirst for further 
 knowledge of electricity was so strong that he used to 
 become so absorbed in his experiments as to neglect 
 sending or delivering messages. He was discharged for 
 this neglect of his duties, and his next job, in 1863, was 
 as telegraph operator at the Grand Trunk station of 
 Stratford Junction, Canada. 
 
 Erom an early age Edison displayed unusual gump- 
 tion. His brain seemed to work faster than most peo- 
 ple's, and arrived at solutions of small and big prob- 
 lems instantaneously. He once gave an illustration of 
 this wonderful faculty. Ice in the St. Clair Eiver had 
 broken the electric cable between Port Huron, Michigan, 
 and Sarnia, Ontario, and no communication was possi- 
 ble. Edison, at the time a telegraph operator, jumped 
 
120 FAMOUS LEADEES OF INDUSTRY 
 
 on a locomotive at Port Huron, and began sending 
 messages on its whistle. For some time no response to 
 his " Hello, Sarnia ! " came across the mile and a half 
 of swirling ice-floes; but at last his signal was caught 
 by the Canadian operator and he began getting replies 
 by locomotive whistle. He thus established communica- 
 tion, without wires, between the two towns. 
 
 But again young Edison got into trouble through his 
 passion for experimenting and inventing. We must re- 
 member, though, that he was only fifteen years old. To 
 guard against operators falling asleep during the night 
 they were required to send in a signal every hour. The 
 boy thought it an unnecessary hardship to be kept 
 awake, especially when there was " nothing doing/' so 
 he contrived a machine to automatically send the signal 
 every hour. Then there was a collision and Edison 
 fled over the border. 
 
 For about five years after this event he followed his 
 occupation of telegraph operator, first in one place and 
 then another, at last settling in Boston, where, among 
 other things, he invented a stock-ticker. Business be- 
 came very bad, however, and Edison removed to New 
 York, leaving his books and instruments behind as se- 
 curity for his debts. 
 
 When he landed in New York City he hadn't a single 
 cent, and his first meal in the metropolis was on some 
 tea he begged from a tea-taster he ran across. 
 
 Now came the turning-point in the young inventor's 
 career. Gold speculation was at its height and three 
 days after his arrival in New York, he wandered into 
 the offices of the Gold and Stock Telegraph Co., which 
 
THOMAS ALVA EDISON 121 
 
 was furnishing the quotations by telegraph to their cus- 
 tomers. As he was watching the ticker, it stopped 
 working. In a few minutes in rushed, one after the 
 other, a lot of messengers with the news that their mas- 
 ters' tickers had stopped! The head of the company, 
 Dr. Laws, came in about the same time and it was 
 found that the apparatus had broken down. There 
 was great excitement, for ruin stared the concern in 
 the face. To the amazement of Dr. Laws, Edison 
 "butted in" with the guess that he "could fix it." 
 The employees gaped aghast at the famished, almost 
 ragged, youth's temerity. But he went right ahead 
 and did fix it. The result was that he was made gen- 
 eral manager of the whole business at a salary of $300.00 
 a month the very next day. He could scarcely believe 
 his ears when he was told the wages he was to get. 
 It seemed a princely sum. 
 
 Edison now worked harder than ever on his ideas, 
 and spent every minute of his spare time in experi- 
 menting. He soon was able to greatly improve the 
 stock-ticker, secure a number of patents, and later 
 founded the firm of Pope, Edison & Co., electrical 
 engineers. 
 
 Then came another streak of luck. He had been 
 doing work for the Western Union Telegraph Co., and 
 they one day asked him how much he wanted for a 
 certain patent. He was wondering if he dared de- 
 mand $5,000, when they asked him if $40,000 would 
 be a fair price. He thought it would ! 
 
 Even after getting the check he was skeptical of his 
 good fortune and in a fever of anxiety to cash it. When 
 
122 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 lie got to the bank there. was a long line ahead of him. 
 At last he reached -the teller's window, and timidly 
 pushed in his check. It was immediately thrown back 
 to him, for he had not indorsed it. He had never had 
 one before. The teller shouted something to him, which 
 he was too deaf to understand, and, with his heart in 
 his boots, and still believing he had been made a fool 
 of, he went back to the Western Union and told his 
 troubles to one of the officials. He laughed very heart- 
 ily at Edison's suspicions and sent some one with him 
 to the bank to identify him. 
 
 By way of a joke his $40,000 was paid to him in five- 
 dollar and ten-dollar bills, and Edison had hard work 
 finding room in his pockets for all the bundles. After 
 filling his pockets, he stuffed bundles down his neck 
 next to the skin, and journeyed back home to Jersey 
 looking very " lumpy." On the train, for fear of 
 being robbed, he wouldn't let any one sit near him. 
 At last he got home with his " vast wealth," but for 
 three or more nights he couldn't sleep a wink, so fear- 
 ful was he of being robbed. He was afraid, too, to 
 leave his room in the day-time. At last he made up 
 his mind he could stand it no longer. So, stuffing his 
 $40,000 in his pockets again, back he went to the West- 
 ern Union to tell his trouble to his friend. 
 
 He was taken to a bank, his money deposited for him, 
 and he got a check book. Then he slept better. 
 
 This was his opportunity to do what he had for long 
 dreamed of doing. With the capital he now had he 
 started a plant in Newark, N. J., to manufacture stock- 
 tickers, and in a little while his business became ex- 
 
THOMAS ALVA EDISON 123 
 
 tremely prosperous. His factory worked day and night, 
 and this is what he did himself, taking snatches of 
 sleep in his workshop instead of going home. 
 
 One of his first patents was an automatic telegraph 
 capable of sending and receiving three thousand words a 
 minute and recording them in roman type. He then 
 took hold of the old Remington typewriter, and per- 
 fected it; later, in 1873, going to England to intro- 
 duce his automatic telegraphic inventions. 
 
 Edison inventions came thick and fast now, and 
 during the '70's he worked out more than one revolu- 
 tionary invention, including his wonderful phonograph 
 and incandescent lamp. 
 
 The phonograph worked at the first trial, and, im- 
 agine his workmen's stupefaction, when the machine re- 
 peated the words he had talked into it, 
 
 "Mary had a little lamb 
 
 Its fleece was white as snow," 
 
 and they recognized the boss's voice. He devoted ten 
 more years, though, to improving it ; once, it is said, go- 
 ing without sleep for five days and nights. Everything 
 he invented was the result of innumerable experiments, 
 for he was satisfied with nothing short of perfection. 
 
 After evolving his incandescent lamp, came, in 1882, 
 one of his hardest tasks establishing the first elec- 
 tric-lighting plant in New York City. At the end of 
 this year only two hundred and twenty-five buildings 
 in the city had been equipped! People were terribly 
 afraid of the wires, and prejudice was hard to over- 
 come. For a while, to get people started and accus- 
 
124 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 tomed to the new illuminant, the current was offered 
 free for three months. Before he had perfected his in- 
 candescent lamp, he said one day to some one who 
 doubted his ability to bring it to a success : 
 
 " You wait, now. I'll make electric light so cheap 
 that only the wealthy can afford to buy candles." 
 
 About this time he built his electric railway at 
 Menlo Park, N. J., he being one of the first men in the 
 world to foresee its possibilities. 
 
 Mr. Edison's tenacity was only exceeded by his pa- 
 tience. For example, in seeking a substance suitable 
 as a filament for his electric-light bulb, he experimented 
 with no less than six thousand vegetable growths, finally, 
 however, discarding all of them in favor of metal. It 
 took nine thousand experiments a thousand a year 
 to complete his great invention of the storage-battery. 
 
 Nothing short of absolute perfection satisfied him, 
 and it is hard to see how any other inventor could ever 
 improve upon anything coming, finished, from Mr. 
 Edison's laboratory. He himself, though, took hold 
 of many other men's ideas or inventions, and, crude 
 though they might have been, made them into prac- 
 ticable, successful inventions. 
 
 In the United States alone he has been granted more 
 than one thousand patents, beating all records. 
 
 He suffered a heavy blow when the discovery of rich 
 iron mines in Michigan caused the abandonment of his 
 big Jersey magnetic ore-milling plant. This swept 
 away his whole fortune and put him heavily in debt. 
 " I can at any time get a job at $75 a month as tele- 
 graph operator," he said cheerfully. 
 
THOMAS ALVA EDISON 125 
 
 But his marvelously fertile brain came to his res- 
 cue, for he invented a method of making cement, and 
 soon the Edison kilns were making half the Portland 
 cement produced in America. Then he conceived the 
 idea of " pouring cement houses " making complete 
 houses of cement in a mold, houses that could be trans- 
 ported anywhere and that of course were fireproof. 
 
 Many stories have been told as to how Mr. Edison 
 came to invent the phonograph, his wonderful talking- 
 machine, but the following is the only true explana- 
 tion. Like most inventors, Mr. Edison has a won- 
 derful memory and is extremely observant always 
 keeps his wits about him. In his early work with 
 high-speed automatic telegraphs he had occasion to 
 experiment with embossed strips of dashes and dots 
 moving rapidly beneath a stylus to vibrate it, and 
 which, he observed, produced audible sounds. From 
 this trivial thing he got the inspiration, or idea, of the 
 talking-machine, concluding that if the undulations on 
 the strip could be given the proper form and arrange- 
 ment, any desired sounds could be reproduced. How to 
 produce the undulations was the problem but al- 
 most immediately the idea came to Mr. Edison that they 
 could be produced by the sounds themselves. This de- 
 duction completed his chain of reasoning, and the in- 
 vention, the phonograph, was produced ! 
 
 Mr. Edison has made so many inventions that he 
 has been called the " great American patentee," and 
 any attempt to enumerate his countless inventions would 
 be useless. The following, however, he considers the 
 greatest of his inventions ; 
 
126 FAMOUS LEADEES OF INDUSTRY 
 
 Quadruple telegraph, incandescent light, phonograph, 
 moving-pictures, telephone transmitter, electric storage 
 battery, electric railway. 
 
 His first invention, by the way, was an electric vote 
 recorder, with which, in Congress, a member could by 
 pressing a button record his vote without losing any 
 time or leaving his seat. He expected a grateful and 
 enthusiastic reception when he arrived in Washing- 
 ton and explained the workings of his wonderful in- 
 vention. But, to his chagrin, he found that some de- 
 vice to hamper and delay action by voting would be 
 more welcome. 
 
 During the recent war, Mr. Edison was one of the 
 very first among the Nation's greatest men to be picked 
 out by our Government to help and advise them. He 
 gave all his time to Uncle Sam, solving such problems 
 as engines, batteries and torpedoes for submarines, 
 wireless for warships, the aniline dye famine. 
 
 Mr. Edison was once asked what advice he could 
 give to would-be inventors. He said in reply : 
 
 " The best advice I can give to a man who wants 
 to be a successful inventor is to work twenty hours a 
 day. That is what I did for thirty years, and I cannot 
 see that it hurt me." 
 
 Mr. Edison is one of the best examples of American 
 grit, and to-day, at the age of seventy-three, he is Amer- 
 ica's Grand Old Man in the field of industrial-elec- 
 trical invention. 
 
 His great-grandfather lived to the age of one hundred 
 and four, his grandfather to the age of one hundred and 
 two, but his father was only ninety-four when he died. 
 
THOMAS ALVA EDISON 127 
 
 Mr. Edison attributes his own marvelous energy and 
 capacity for hard work to simple living. Most of us 
 eat too much, he says, and his own food consumption 
 has been of the most frugal description. " I can't be 
 bothered eating ! " he has exclaimed when called to a 
 meal, and it is well known of course that he has often 
 gone for days without either food or sleep, when in the 
 middle of an important experiment. He is one of the 
 hardest workers that ever lived. 
 
 In practically all his inventions Mr. Edison has had 
 the poor in mind. He has lighted their homes at nom- 
 inal cost, brought the prima-donna and orator (with 
 his phonograph) into the family circle, enabled poor 
 people to live out of town, own fireproof portable houses, 
 etc. 
 
 He is fond of books, and in the way of fiction likes 
 detective stories, his brain being of the kind that nat- 
 urally loves to work over and solve problems. 
 
 Not long ago Mr. Edison was asked if it wasn't a 
 fact that opportunities for boys were fewer to-day than 
 they were. He said in reply: 
 
 " I'd rather begin now as a poor boy than to start 
 again in the conditions which surrounded my early 
 life. 
 
 " The opportunities for a poor boy or a poor man 
 are greater to-day than they were then ; make no mistake 
 about that." 
 
HENRY FORD 
 
HENRY FORD 
 
 THE ALADDIN OF THE AUTOMOBILE 
 INDUSTRY 
 
 O1ST July 30, 1863, there was born on a farm at 
 Dearborn, near Detroit, Michigan, a boy who 
 was destined to make, within the miraculously 
 short span of ten years, a fortune so huge that in all 
 the world there is but one other man to-day with a 
 larger one. 
 
 And in all the world but one other man ever made 
 so much money so rapidly as did this Michigan boy, 
 Henry Ford, once he got his automobile factory started. 
 
 A year or two ago his share of the profits of his 
 business, for one year, amounted to about $40,000,000, 
 which means a daily income of more than $100,000. 
 
 He once said : " I don't have to worry about banks 
 they have to worry about me. They have to sit 
 up nights scraping together enough to pay me my in- 
 terest." 
 
 What was the early career of this still young man 
 who got so enormously wealthy in so short a time? 
 Did he succeed through luck? How did he do it? 
 
 Henry Ford was born on his father's three-hundred- 
 acre farm. He did not seem to be a bit different from 
 other boys, except that he liked playing with tools, and 
 making things with them out of odds and ends from 
 
 131 
 
132 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 the junk pile. He once built an engine in this way. 
 
 As he grew older his fondness for mechanical things 
 increased, and he made up his mind he was wasting 
 time between the farm and school. So one morning he 
 played " hookey/' and walked all the way to Detroit 
 eight miles to hunt a job. Almost immediately 
 he got one at the Flower steam-engine works at $2.50 a 
 week. 
 
 As he had to pay $3.50 a week for board, he thus 
 faced a weekly deficit of $1. So to come out even, he 
 had to get night work. This was not so easy, but at 
 last he succeeded in getting a jeweler to give him $2 
 a week for four hours 7 work at night. 
 
 This meant a fifteen-hour day for Henry, as he had 
 to work from seven A. M. to six p. M. and then from 
 seven to eleven at night. 
 
 Such strenuous work turned the raw country youth 
 into a very capable mechanic, and in course of time 
 he began to use his brain, think and plan, and make 
 suggestions, for he discovered inefficiency and labor- 
 waste at the plant. His wages were raised to $3.00, 
 but he decided that he ought to learn something new, 
 so went to the Dry Dock Engine Works at $2.50. A 
 knowledge of marine machinery manufacturing would, 
 he figured, be worth the fifty cents a week. In a little 
 while his wages were doubled, so he gave up his night 
 work. 
 
 It soon became evident that young Ford, as well 
 as being an unusually skilled mechanic, was in some 
 way different from the other " boys " of the plant. 
 Although he skylarked with them and took part in their 
 
HENRY FOED 133 
 
 games, he had a restless, ambitious spirit, and was al- 
 ways hammering out some new idea or scheme for 
 making a fortune. He quickly became a leader among 
 the youths, many of whom were inspired by his earnest- 
 ness and ambition. 
 
 One of his dreams at this time was to start a watch 
 factory that would turn out two thousand watches a 
 day costing thirty-seven cents each and selling for fifty 
 cents. This he easily proved could be done by buying 
 materials in great quantities, and manufacturing the 
 watches with extreme rapidity. 
 
 But he was destined to make automobiles not 
 watches, for just about the time his fellow workmen 
 were getting interested in his watch scheme, he had to 
 go " back to the farm " and take care of it. 
 
 He now had a chance to read and study, and one day 
 he came across an article in a technical magazine de- 
 scribing a horseless vehicle of French invention. At 
 last ! This was just the sort of thing he had been 
 vaguely dreaming of. It beat his watch scheme all to 
 pieces ! 
 
 So, with every sense alert, off he went to Detroit to 
 buy materials with which to construct an engine that 
 would beat the Frenchman's. 
 
 As he started to the depot in Detroit, on his way 
 home, he met a fire-engine. He noticed its big boiler, 
 and could not help thinking what a waste its weight 
 and bulk caused. On getting home he began to experi- 
 ment with an improved engine, and then came a great 
 idea " Why not use gasoline for the motive-power ? " 
 
 Then he realized that he couldn't go any further un- 
 
134 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 til lie knew more about electricity. At that time he 
 knew next to nothing about the mysterious fluid. So, 
 to everybody's amazement, he abandoned the farm, and 
 headed for Detroit again. Luck was in his way, for he 
 at once got work at the Edison Light and Power Co.'s 
 plant as night engineer at $45.00 a month. It hap- 
 pened this way. There was a balky engine in one of 
 their substations. The engineer in charge could do 
 nothing with it, and it seemed a hopeless case. Ford 
 came along at this moment. 
 
 " So you think you can tame this bucking-bronco en- 
 gine, do you ? " said the boss. 
 
 " Well, I'd like to have a try at it." 
 
 " All right ! " replied the engineer, " go ahead ! " 
 
 Ford took right hold of that cranky engine, and had 
 it in perfect running order in less than no time. 
 
 Six months later he was transferred to the Edison 
 headquarters as manager of the mechanical department 
 at $150.00 a month. 
 
 The young mechanic, who had but recently married, 
 began to feel about this time that his fortune was made. 
 He built a house for himself and wife, adding a large 
 shed to it for a workshop for he was determined to 
 complete his gasoline engine in order to build a horse- 
 less carriage. 
 
 While he was experimenting he had to put up with 
 much ridicule and suspicion as to his sanity. 
 
 " ' Kenny's ' dotty ! " said one ; " he's crazy," said 
 another. 
 
 But " Henny " just about this time, though he didn't 
 know it, was carving his name deep on the pillar of 
 
HENEY FOED 135 
 
 fame, and, in spite of the treatment he was getting 
 from his neighbors, and his wife's urging that they go 
 back to the farm, stuck heroically to his experimenting. 
 
 The last evening he tinkered on his engine he worked 
 all night. All efforts of his wife to drag him from it 
 failed. " In a minute," he kept saying. But the min- 
 utes ran into hours and still he worked. 
 
 By morning, Henry Ford had completed his task 
 had manufactured a horseless vehicle. And no sooner 
 had he put the finishing touches to it than he rode it 
 down the avenue. After traveling very slowly for sev- 
 eral blocks, it occurred to him that he couldn't turn. 
 So getting off, he pulled and pushed, finally reversing 
 it. Then he rode it back to his shed, tremendously 
 elated with his success. 
 
 This first Ford car was a very crude, clumsy affair 
 a one-cylinder engine mounted on a buggy frame rid- 
 ing on four bicycle wheels refitted with strong tires. 
 For a while Ford's " contraption " caused no little stir 
 and amusement, but interest soon died out, and he real- 
 ized that he'd have to think up many improvements 
 before he could afford to throw up his position and 
 start manufacturing motor-cars. 
 
 So for no less than eight years after this initial 
 effort Henry Ford worked all day at his job, and then 
 labored half of every night over the problem of im- 
 proving his machine. 
 
 His perseverance was truly wonderful ! 
 
 By this time automobiles were coming into general 
 use, but they were expensive, luxurious vehicles within 
 reach only of the rich. Ford's idea was the same idea 
 
136 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 he had evolved as to watches while a youth with the 
 Dry Dock Company to make a cheap vehicle in such 
 large quantities as to enable people of small means to 
 own one. So, steadily persevering, he at last devised 
 a two-cylinder engine that worked to perfection, built a 
 real body for it, and rode about in it extensively so as 
 to advertise it, for he wanted to interest capital, form a 
 company, and start automobile building. He foresaw 
 an enormous demand and enormous money-making 
 possibilities. Capitalists were timid, however, and he 
 could find no one willing to risk any money in such a 
 venture. 
 
 " When a feller needs a friend/' he usually finds him 
 among the lowly, seldom or never among the rich and 
 powerful. This was the case with Ford in his dark 
 hour. He knew a man styled " Coffee Jim," who ran 
 a lunch wagon. He had faith in Ford, and put up 
 enough money to enable him to give up his job at the 
 Edison plant and build a car to compete in the automo- 
 bile races. 
 
 Alexander Winton, one of the contestants, had beaten 
 everybody up to date with his car, and when Ford's little 
 two-cylinder car loomed up at the races there was a 
 general laugh. Gloom settled down upon the Winton- 
 ites, however, for, amid cheers, the Ford car took the 
 lead, spinning around and around the track and finish- 
 ing first. 
 
 Ford and his car got a lot of valuable publicity out 
 of the race, and capitalists a-plenty came around, but as 
 they one and all stipulated for control no Ford factory 
 was built just then. Ford, though an inventor, was too 
 
HENEY FORD 137 
 
 shrewd to let anybody else grab control of his idea. 
 
 About this time James Couzens, a shrewd merchant 
 of Detroit, Tom Cooper, a champion bicycle rider, and 
 a few other men of modest means became interested in 
 Ford and his car, and with capital they furnished, Ford 
 built a four-cylinder monster of eighty horse-power. 
 Barney Oldfield was engaged to drive it, and in a 
 three-mile race he won by half a mile ! 
 
 The feat startled the world, and fortune now seemed 
 to smile on the poor mechanician. Offers of capital 
 poured in, and a company was formed of which Ford 
 became vice-president, general manager, etc., at $150 
 a month. But a quarrel arose at the outset. His 
 backers wanted to manufacture high-priced cars sell- 
 ing for thousands of dollars, and Ford was determined 
 to stick to his original intention for making cheap cars 
 for the masses. As a result of the clash Ford, now 
 more than thirty years old, and with a wife and a child 
 to support, found himself without money or job. 
 
 Two men, however, Couzens and Wills, sided with 
 Ford and put up some money. A large shed was rented, 
 a couple of workmen hired, and enough material pur- 
 chased to build a few low-priced cars. Their company 
 was capitalized at $100,000, but only about $28,000 
 cash was paid in. 
 
 Ford now saw that his opportunity had come, and 
 he worked like a Trojan day and night, his two me- 
 chanics also. His customers increased rapidly, many 
 of them paying substantial sums in advance, and soon 
 the Ford shop was employing forty men and ordering 
 material in carload quantities. Every cent he made- 
 
138 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 he put back into the business, and his sales were at the 
 rate of one thousand cars a year. The price of his 
 car then was $900. 
 
 Then winter began, a time when orders were scarce, 
 and consequently money. So Ford made up his mind 
 to build a four-cylinder car that would beat the world's 
 record and it did ! 
 
 Now it was almost Christmas and there wasn't a 
 cent in the treasury to pay his one hundred workmen 
 with. It was an awful crisis for Ford. A dishonest, 
 tricky, shifty man would have lied to his men and jol- 
 lied them along, promising them all sorts of impossible 
 things. But Ford was not that kind of man. He was 
 an honest man, as well as practical idealist, and he was 
 shrewd and far-seeing. 
 
 He told his workmen frankly, truthfully, what the 
 exact conditions and prospects were, and to a man they 
 agreed to stand by him. This was the red-letter day in 
 Henry Ford's career. Cars tumbled out of his shop 
 faster than ever, and before long success came with a 
 rush so fast as to be dizzying. 
 
 In 1914 he put into effect his minimum wage of $5 
 a day (it is now $7), and reduced the working hours 
 to eight a day. This led to an invasion of Detroit by 
 job-seekers that was seriously embarrassing for awhile. 
 
 Mr. Ford displayed marvelous wisdom and knowledge 
 of human nature in raising his workmen's pay and re- 
 ducing their work hours, though employers almost the 
 world over called him " dreamer," even " fool." For in 
 one month, February, 1914, under the new eight-hour 
 plan less than sixteen thousand men made ten thousand 
 
HENEY FOED 139 
 
 more cars than fully sixteen thousand men did the pre- 
 vious February working ten hours a day. Maybe his 
 new plan didn't pay ! 
 
 Right on top of this revolutionary proceeding Mr. 
 Ford instituted a profit-sharing plan, and after being 
 in operation five months the bank accounts of employees 
 benefiting by it showed an average increase of three- 
 fold, the value of their homes increasing ninety per 
 cent, as well. 
 
 Then he began to divide profits with his customers, 
 by reducing the price of his cars. 
 
 Mr. Ford to-day has six men in his employ each get- 
 ting a salary of $75,000 a year, a number at $50,000, 
 and many thousands who are getting from $7 a day up. 
 All have a " chance upward." 
 
 Mr. Ford keeps enormous sums on deposit in various 
 banks, and is one of but very few men in the world who 
 can draw a check for five or ten millions. Enormously 
 wealthy as he is, however, he makes no investments out- 
 side his own business. 
 
 " I have never sought fame nor dollars," he once said. 
 " I have never tried to save money and do not believe 
 in young people saving money. Youth should spend 
 its resources in carrying out its ideas, in education, in 
 character formation. . . . My money comes in fast 
 and it goes out fast into new forms of industries ger- 
 mane to my own business." 
 
 In line with this wise policy Mr. Ford, less than a 
 year ago, put $7,000,000 into a tractor factory which 
 will employ four thousand workmen and turn out two 
 hundred and ten tractors a day. 
 
140 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 His solution of the labor problem is the sharing of 
 his profits not annually, but weekly with his em- 
 ployees. He holds that if given in a lump sum at the 
 end of the year it is almost certain to be lost in a bad 
 investment. By figuring the profit and paying it 
 weekly, the workman will live better, dress better, spend 
 more money on his home and family, and soon own a 
 house. 
 
 " I began," he says, " by having the desire to build 
 a motor-car that would be within the means of the 
 many, that would stand up and be worth while. I suc- 
 ceeded, and have sold more than three million of them." 
 
 It was this idea, together with his liberal treatment 
 of his employees his willingness to share his profits 
 and prosperity with his workmen that made Henry 
 Ford the world's greatest leader of industry, and, for 
 his age, the world's wealthiest man. 
 
 Mr. Ford is only fifty-six, and as wiry and active as 
 ever. He is of medium height, slightly built, has keen 
 humorous eyes, and abundant gray hair. His clean- 
 shaven, very mobile face is like an actor's, and he is 
 very magnetic, and filled with a tremendous enthusiasm 
 that is contagious. He manifests an intense interest in 
 everything, and likes to discuss and analyze find out 
 the why and wherefore of things. 
 
 Like most geniuses, mechanical and otherwise, Henry 
 Ford is indifferent to and careless with money. While 
 in his private workshop at his plant one day he was 
 handed a check for $200,000 by one of the officials. A 
 month passed and to the surprise of his office the check 
 had not come back! Obviously it had not been de- 
 
HENRY FORD 141 
 
 posited anywhere. Mr. Ford was asked about it, and 
 for awhile had no recollection of it. Bewilderment 
 set in. 
 
 " Hold on, wait a minute ! " suddenly cried Mr. Ford, 
 who was beginning to remember. 
 
 And diving down into a pocket of his greasy overalls 
 he produced a much soiled and twisted up scrap of 
 paper. It was the check, which, in his intense ab- 
 sorption, he had thrust into his pocket and clean for- 
 gotten about. 
 
 Mr. Ford is intensely democratic, loves his fellow 
 man, and is filled with the spirit of helpfulness. As 
 one of his townsmen once said: 
 
 " If you get stuck in a rut with a tin Lizzie, and 
 ' Henny ' comes along in another, he'll stop and pull 
 you out if he can. And mostly he can ! " 
 
 Mr. Ford's only son, Edsel, refused a chance to go to 
 college, preferring to follow in his father's footsteps 
 and go to work in the plant. He is now familiar with 
 every department of the immense plant, and can be 
 seen any day hard at work at a desk in his father's 
 office in Detroit. Edsel is a chip of the old block 
 a shrewd, hardworking youngster amply able to make 
 a living for himself. 
 
 Mr. Ford sold his Detroit home, and now makes his 
 residence on his two-thousand-acre farm on Rouge 
 River, near his old home, Dearborn. His winter home 
 is at Altadena, California. He is a nature-lover, fond 
 of birds and flowers. At an expense of $4,000 he once 
 imported five hundred rare birds from England. The 
 very night of the day his feather pets arrived at his 
 
142 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 Rouge River farm he freed them all. They looked 
 homesick, he explained, and he couldn't sleep thinking 
 of them huddled up, lonesome-like in their cages. 
 
 He is fond of boys, too, for he was once a poor hard- 
 working boy himself. Every year he takes a dozen or 
 more boys from the Detroit streets, keeps them at school 
 in winter, and lets them work on the farm in summer. 
 He feeds and houses them all the year round and em- 
 ploys a man specially to look after them. If they're 
 good boys, work hard make good there's a bright 
 future in store for them. 
 
 Some of Mr. Ford's sayings, and recipes for suc- 
 cess, are interesting and valuable. 
 
 " Ideas are the great forces in the world." 
 
 " Do not bother about money-making, but put all your 
 effort into putting over your idea. If you do that the 
 money will inundate you. That's the secret of suc- 
 cess, I'm inclined to believe." 
 
 " The only way to save money is to go ahead and 
 make so much that you have the hardest kind of work 
 in spending it all." 
 
 " I spend no more on myself than any man in my 
 employ. Money to me merely means a way to do 
 something more." 
 
 " Decrease prices, raise wages in proportion as busi- 
 ness grows." 
 
 " The world is rapidly coming to the partnership 
 (between employer and employee) idea." 
 
 " Nothing that does not pay is of any good, my 
 paper (The Dearborn Independent), for instance; if I 
 cannot make it pay it will serve no purpose." 
 
HENRY FORD 143 
 
 " ~No man who fastens his eyes on fame or the dollar 
 ever arrives anywhere." 
 
 " It's good business sense to divide with your em- 
 ployees." 
 
 Mr. Ford never reads " boosts " on himself. His 
 secretaries put them in the furnace. But he likes to 
 read " knocks." These all reach him. He profits by 
 them ; so he says : 
 
 " A wife helps a man more than any one else she 
 criticizes him more ! " 
 
CHARLES GOODYEAR 
 
 INVENTOR OF VULCANIZED EUBBEE 
 
CHARLES GOODYEAR 
 
CHAELES GOODYEAR 
 
 INVENTOR OF VULCANIZED RUBBER 
 
 A SLIGHT mischance or trivial accident has often 
 resulted in a great invention or discovery. Sir 
 Isaac Newton, the English philosopher and 
 mathematician, was alseep under an apple-tree when a 
 ripe apple dropped upon his forehead, wakening him. 
 This led to his great discovery of the law of gravitation. 
 The boy Stephenson, watching his mother's kettle on 
 the fire, was startled when he saw the lid suddenly 
 rise, letting out a puff of steam and then as suddenly 
 fall, only to rise and fall again a moment later, the 
 operation getting more and more frequent as the boil- 
 ing water emitted more and more steam, until finally 
 the lid was lifted off the kettle altogether. This seem- 
 ingly trivial incident gave the lad the wonderful idea 
 of harnessing steam and he invented the steam en- 
 gine which revolutionized industry and travel by land 
 and sea. 
 
 One cold spring day, Mr. Goodyear was standing 1 
 before a stove in a store at Woburn, Massachusetts, ex- 
 plaining to some skeptical acquaintances the properties 
 of a piece of his sulphur-cured india-rubber which he 
 was holding between his fingers, when he accidentally 
 dropped it on the almost red-hot stove. He naturally 
 expected it to be burned, or at any rate melted, but, 
 
 147 
 
148 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTEY 
 
 to his surprise, it was only shriveled and hardened, not 
 softened. 
 
 This little accident would have meant nothing to 
 most men, but to Goodyear, his senses and wits sharp- 
 ened hy penury and want, it was in the nature of a 
 revelation. He continued his experiments with india- 
 rubher with the utmost ardor, for he had made the dis- 
 covery that rubber, when mixed with sulphur and 
 subjected to intense heat, would become permanently 
 hard would not soften or melt. In other words, the 
 art of vulcanizing rubber was almost within his grasp, 
 his only remaining difficulty being to ascertain the 
 exact degree of heat and the exact space of time to 
 apply it. 
 
 India-rubber at this time was more or less of a cu- 
 riosity, or toy. Chunks, or balls, of the curious sub- 
 stance were given to children to play with, because of 
 its resiliency, or elasticity. When thrown to the ground 
 or against a wall the rubber would bound back, high 
 in the air many times, before " going dead " on the 
 ground. It was the delight of boys and girls. Good- 
 year's accident with a piece of his prepared rubber led 
 to its eventual world-wide use, in myriad ways, in com- 
 merce. 
 
 Charles Goodyear, whose invention has proved an 
 incalculable benefit to humanity, was one of the most 
 unfortunate of our great inventors, and, though suc- 
 cessful in perfecting his invention, died in debt. 
 Charles, the son of Amasa Goodyear, who was the first 
 man to make hay-forks of spring steel instead of 
 wrought iron, was born at New Haven, Conn., on De- 
 
CHARLES GOODYEAR 149 
 
 cember 29, 1800. He attended the public schools 
 of New Haven, and spent most of his early youth on 
 his father's farm, or in his factory. He was a great 
 reader, being especially fond of the Bible and other re- 
 ligious works. While doing odd jobs around the farm 
 his inventive talent came to the surface and he made 
 improvements in first one thing and then another. On 
 coming of age, his father, then in business in Phila- 
 delphia, took him into the firm. The business of A. 
 Goodyear & Sons was quite prosperous until 1830, when 
 panicky times came, and the firm had to suspend. 
 
 It was at this period that a rubber boom started. 
 Large quantities of the crude article were imported into 
 the United States, india-rubber factories sprang up and 
 many companies were organized for its manufacture 
 into shoes and coats. But the manufactured product 
 was very unsatisfactory. The shoes and coats made 
 in winter, softened and disintegrated in summer. And 
 severe cold froze them stiff. 
 
 Some friends, it is said, presented Daniel Webster, 
 the famous statesman and orator, with one of these new- 
 fangled india-rubber coats and hats, in the early days 
 of their manufacture. One cold morning he went out 
 onto the piazza of his residence wearing them. They 
 froze as hard as iron, so, releasing himself from his 
 rigid coat, which stood on the porch where he left it, 
 and putting the hat on top of it, he went inside. 
 [Friends passing by bowed to the stiff figure, believing 
 it to be the great Daniel Webster. 
 
 India-rubber was known for a hundred years or more 
 before Goodyear's day. French scientists had discov- 
 
150 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 ered in Peru, in 1735, a singular tree whose bark 
 when pierced yielded a milky gum. This sap was col- 
 lected in clay vessels and, when dried in the sun, became 
 hard. This hard material was caoutchouc or crude 
 rubber, and for a long time was nothing but a curiosity. 
 In England small pieces of this crude rubber were for 
 quite a time sold at a high price as curiosities, coming 
 in time, however, to be used for erasing pencil marks. 
 Then about 1830 Mackintosh, an English manufac- 
 turer, used it in his famous waterproof coats, inserting 
 a thin layer between two pieces of cloth. Mackin- 
 toshes, as these rubbery garments were called, soon be- 
 came all the rage for wear in rainy weather. 
 
 It was in 1834 that Charles Goodyear turned his 
 attention to india-rubber, and until he died his mind 
 was wholly absorbed with the idea of manufacturing 
 from the substance a solid elastic material. Practically 
 the first object of rubber that came to his attention was 
 a life-preserver, for which he almost immediately in- 
 vented a valve device, rushing to New York with it to 
 see the Roxbury Company. The rubber fever was at 
 its height then, resembling a gold or oil craze, and 
 Goodyear was sanguine of selling his invention. He 
 was soon enlightened as to the real condition of affairs 
 in the india-rubber industry, and was urged to devote 
 his time to discovering some method of bestowing dura- 
 bility to india-rubber goods. 
 
 This was soon after the failure of A. Goodyear & 
 Sons, and Charles, on his return to Philadelphia, was 
 arrested and jailed for debt. For a while the young in- 
 ventor was compelled to carry on his work and experi- 
 
CHARLES GOODYEAR 151 
 
 ments in prison. Later he continued his experiments, 
 though often in the direst distress, in New York and 
 Massachusetts. His courage and persistence were truly 
 wonderful, and he never lost hope. Whenever he got 
 a few dollars, they were immediately invested in new 
 materials, and, with fresh courage and energy, he would 
 go on experimenting. 
 
 About 1835 he got his first encouragement when, 
 after countless trials, he discovered that by boiling 
 the gum (rubber) with magnesia in quicklime and wa- 
 ter a substance resulted that seemed to be what was 
 wanted. He got a patent and began to sell his prod- 
 uct. 
 
 A year later came, by accident, another important 
 discovery. After bronzing some india-rubber cloth, he 
 applied some aqua fortis to remove some of the bronze, 
 but, as it seemed to have destroyed the cloth, he threw 
 it aside. A week later, on picking up the supposed 
 spoiled piece of cloth, he saw that it had undergone 
 quite a change. The acid had hardened it to such a 
 degree that heat would no longer melt it. Then he con- 
 sidered that as the aqua fortis contained sulphuric acid, 
 it was this latter that had " cured," or vulcanized, his 
 india-rubber cloth. 
 
 The secret he had been seeking to discover, lo, these 
 many days, was now his ! 
 
 He soon found a partner with money and together 
 they leased an abandoned rubber factory on Staten Is- 
 land, ~N. Y., and also opened a store on Broadway, New 
 York City. 
 
 Everything went splendidly for a year or two, when 
 
152 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 the panic of 1837 ruined his partner, and again Good- 
 year was penniless. Everywhere he went to raise fresh 
 capital he was ridiculed, and people began to call him 
 the " India-rubber maniac." 
 
 So, failing of success in New York, Goodyear set- 
 tled in Roxbury, Mass., where he succeeded in getting 
 E. M. Chaffee to put the plant of the Roxbury Rubber 
 Company at his disposal. Again for a while he was 
 prosperous and then again he was penniless. But his 
 confidence in himself and faith in his product led him 
 to persevere, and on and on he went, starving and strug- 
 ling, even selling his children's school-books in order 
 to buy food or materials. He used to bake his rubber 
 compounds in his wife's oven, and sometimes beg the 
 use of ovens at the shops in Woburn after hours. The 
 workmen thought him crazy. 
 
 Then one day came another important discovery. 
 He saw one of his employees, Hayward, sprinkling the 
 rubber with sulphur and drying it in the sun. Sulphur 
 had the same effect, he noted, as nitric acid, " cured " 
 it just as well, and he found that heat, applied to the 
 sulphured article, caused it to become pliant in cold 
 weather, retain its wonderful elasticity at all times, 
 and to lose much of its disagreeable odor. Hayward 
 used to say that the process was revealed to him in a 
 dream. 
 
 This discovery came in 1839, but with it came greater 
 hardships than ever. Eor a long time he was forced 
 to live on charity. In one crisis, half starving, in mid- 
 winter, he trudged many miles through the snow seek- 
 ing aid. He stumbled in the snow over and over again, 
 
CHAELES GOODYEAR 153 
 
 nearly succumbing to the cold. Finally he reached the 
 home of his acquaintance, Mr. Coolidge, who gener- 
 ously gave him enough money to keep himself and fam- 
 ily all winter. 
 
 After undergoing almost incredible sufferings, the 
 darkest hour of his life being the day when his child 
 died from lack of the commonest necessities of life, he 
 at last enlisted the aid of his brother-in-law, William 
 DeForrest, and, in 1844, obtained his patent for vul- 
 canized rubber. 
 
 While in Washington getting the patent he secured 
 an interview with President Andrew Jackson, showing 
 him some specimens of his manufactured rubber. The 
 President gave him a letter over his own signature 
 commending them. 
 
 Goodyear received his most substantial help, though, 
 from the Eider Brothers of New York, both men of 
 considerable property and of keen intelligence. They 
 furnished a large sum of money to manufacture the 
 Goodyear articles. Goodyear secured altogether about 
 sixty patents, and at the World's Fair in London in 
 1851 the Great Council Medal was conferred upon 
 him, and in Paris in 1855 he won the grand prize, also 
 receiving from the hands of Napoleon III the Cross 
 of the Legion of Honor. 
 
 Though a prey to necessity up to the day of his death, 
 he lived to see his invention applied to fully five hun- 
 dred uses, and a huge army of people busy manufac- 
 turing " Goodyear rubber goods." 
 
 His invention conferred many benefits upon hu- 
 manity, for multifarious are the uses to which it has 
 
154 FAMOUS LEADEES OF INDUSTRY 
 
 been made available. In our Civil War its great value 
 was, for the first time, fully realized. 
 
 Goodyear had the sublime faith and stick-to-it-iveness 
 of the true inventor. Once he got his idea, he stuck 
 to it, worked and worked, experimented and experi- 
 mented, to the last ditch. His tenacity was truly won- 
 derful. It equaled that of the potter, Palissy, who 
 used all the furniture in his humble home and part 
 of the house itself as fuel in his furnace to obtain the 
 requisite heat to perfect his enamel ware. 
 
 To-day, thanks to Goodyear, the rubber industry has 
 grown to stupendous proportions and his name is a 
 household word. American automobilists alone are 
 spending now a billion dollars a year for rubber tires, 
 and the uses of rubber in countless other ways, espe- 
 cially in humanitarian purposes, are world wide. 
 
 Like wood, steel or copper, rubber has become a 
 staple. 
 
 Had Goodyear lived to see the outbreak of the world- 
 war his wealth would have been fabulous. As it was 
 he died in debt, but not 
 
 " Unwept, unhonored, and unsung." 
 
HENRY JOHN HEINZ 
 
 PITTSBURGH PICKLE KING AND 
 SUNDAY-SCHOOL LEADER 
 
HENRY JOHN HEINZ 
 
 PITTSBURGH PICKLE KING AND 
 SUNDAY-SCHOOL LEADEE 
 
 AN inspiring and really wonderful romance of 
 business is the story of Henry John Heinz, the 
 Pittsburgh boy who built up the largest pickling 
 and preserving corporation in the world, entirely 
 through his own efforts and initiative. He did it, too, 
 in a very few years, and to-day his name is a familiar 
 one the world over. 
 
 Henry's father came from Bavaria to Pittsburgh in 
 1840, and it was in the Smoky City that the boy was 
 born in October, 1844. His parents, in 1850, re- 
 moved to Sharpsburg, where his father continued his 
 business of brick-making, later becoming a building 
 contractor in addition. 
 
 The boy from an early age showed unusual intelli- 
 gence, so his education and upbringing were given 
 much thought and care by his parents, who were very 
 fond of him. When he was old enough, he used to 
 spend some of his time at the kilns, helping his father ; 
 or, when he was not at school or studying his lessons 
 at home, his parents would let him assist in the cul- 
 tivation of a garden that was a part of their four-acre 
 home plot. This work was very much to the boy's lik- 
 ing, and he loved to potter about the vegetable patches 
 and flower-beds " watching things grow." It was while 
 
 157 
 
158 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTEY 
 
 at work in this famous garden that the seeds of ideas 
 were implanted in his mind that later on he seized 
 upon and developed into what proved a veritable gold 
 mine. 
 
 The boy had more than an average share of his Eu- 
 ropean wine-making ancestors' shrewdness and thrift- 
 iness, and it soon dawned upon him that, as the garden 
 produced more than the family could eat, he could per- 
 haps sell the surplus and make some money for his father 
 and also himself. To his own and his parents' sur- 
 prise he had great success selling the garden-truck at 
 market to the villagers, and one summer, before he was 
 seventeen, sold as much as $2,400 worth. 
 
 His success was so marked, and he developed such 
 extraordinary business gumption good horse sense 
 that his parents, who had about decided to make a min- 
 ister of him, sent him instead to a business college, 
 for, thought they, he surely is intended for a business 
 man. 
 
 Here Henry studied business forms and usages, and 
 learned a lot about commercial accounting. Later he 
 became his father's bookkeeper and practical assistant. 
 He almost immediately showed himself a resourceful, 
 go-ahead young man by introducing into his father's 
 brickyards new methods by which they could be run 
 in winter as well as summer. His father was so pleased 
 that he gave him a partnership. 
 
 His ambition was too large, however, to be bounded 
 by such a small business, and, with his father's con- 
 sent, he later on withdrew from the firm to form a 
 partnership in the brick business at Beaver 'Falls. 
 
HENEY JOHN HEINZ 159 
 
 But still he was not satisfied. Ever since his boyhood 
 days, when he had been so successful in selling garden 
 produce, he had been nursing an idea the idea of 
 pickling, or otherwise preserving, vegetables. In those 
 days this business was in its infancy in America, nearly 
 all packed or preserved foods being imported from Eu- 
 rope. They were therefore expensive, and in the na- 
 ture of luxuries. He foresaw a good demand and large 
 sale for a home product, so, with L. C. Noble, he 
 started a packing and preserving plant in one room of 
 a small two-story building at Sharpsburg, Pa. 
 
 For a year young Heinz gave his attention solely to 
 horseradish, which he dressed in a new way and packed 
 in bottles. He procured the horseradish from the fam- 
 ily garden, using in a year as much as filled three 
 quarters of an acre. With a basket of his prepared 
 horseradish in bottles he would go out, day after day, 
 and peddle it. Soon, as he added pickles, sauces and 
 other foods to his product, he had to use a wheelbarrow. 
 Finally the variety of his pickles and preserved prod- 
 ucts grew so large that he had to buy a horse and cart. 
 Jams and jellies were added to the Heinz product, and 
 his " pork and beans " gained for him a big reputation. 
 
 In the meantime the firm was increased by one more 
 partner, E. J. Noble, and then the business was re- 
 moved to Pittsburgh, where a large four-story build- 
 ing was leased. For three years the business under the 
 three partners went along very prosperously, but in 
 18 75 the Nobles retired from the firm, and Henry 
 Heinz's brother, John H., and his cousin, Frederick, 
 bought an interest. In 1882 a vinegar plant was es- 
 
160 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 tablished, and in 1905 the business, now grown to 
 enormous size, was turned into a corporation with 
 Henry John Heinz, founder of the business, president. 
 
 To-day the Heinz business is doubtless the largest of 
 its kind in the world ! 
 
 In addition to the large plant at Pittsburgh with its 
 four thousand employees, there are sixteen branch fac- 
 tories (including one in England, one in Canada and 
 one in Spain), ninety-eight salting houses, forty-five 
 distributing centers, four hundred traveling salesmen, 
 and agencies everywhere in the world. And it takes 
 about forty thousand people to harvest the annual prod- 
 uct, of the company's forty thousand acres of land. 
 
 The little four-acre garden grew to a forty-thousand- 
 acre one ! 
 
 Thus we see how the praiseworthy desire of a boy 
 to help his parents by preparing and selling table 
 delicacies from the family garden and thereby turning 
 an honest penny led to the building up of a colossal 
 world-wide business and, of course, a big fortune. 
 
 It took grit and gumption and Henry Heinz had 
 both. He stuck to his idea through thick and thin. 
 
 Much of the Pickle King's success, from the time 
 he first began to pickle and preserve anything, was 
 due to his insistence upon cleanliness in his factory, 
 and everywhere. 
 
 His original idea, which has never been deviated 
 from, was to give the public the earth's choicest prod- 
 ucts, so prepared and packed as to offer, at a fair, rea- 
 sonable price, the highest possible degree of quality, 
 purity and cleanliness. 
 
HENRY JOHN HEINZ 161 
 
 To attain this end Mr. Heinz inaugurated a program 
 that only a great captain of industry could have suc- 
 cessfully developed and brought to perfection. 
 
 The result was one of the largest and most efficient 
 industrial businesses in the world a model plant to 
 which fifty thousand visitors from all parts of the 
 world find their way annually. His policy successfully 
 carried out, led him ahead of less careful competitors, 
 the public rapidly coming to have confidence in his 
 packing. So the business grew very fast, once the 
 Heinz standard of high quality was known. 
 
 Mr. Henry John Heinz, who was carried away in 
 May, 1919, by pneumonia, lived 'a life of great use- 
 fulness and was recognized as one of the country's 
 foremost manufacturers and business men. He en- 
 joyed equal prominence in church and Y. M. C. A. 
 work, and as a broad-minded philanthropist. 
 
 He took unusual care of his employees, providing 
 for them a lecture hall, library, bathrooms, lunch-rooms, 
 roof garden and wholesome amusements vaudeville 
 and minstrel shows. The galleries of his employees' 
 hall he filled with costly historical and other paintings 
 which he procured from all parts of the world. He 
 believed in travel, of the kind that was instructive, and 
 he himself made many trips abroad, and some extensive 
 tours in Palestine, Egypt, Mexico, Bermuda, the West 
 Indies. Everywhere he went he kept his eyes open 
 for curios and works of art, to add to his wonderful 
 collection. 
 
 Though he bought many art treasures in foreign 
 lands, he was a thorough American, as an artist once 
 
162 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 found out. While Mr. Heinz was abroad the artist 
 painted some portraits in a frieze of the library he was 
 decorating for the wealthy pickle manufacturer. 
 
 " Whose portraits are they ? " inquired Mr. Heinz 
 when he saw them. 
 
 " Michelangelo, Savonarola, Moliere ..." 
 
 " There stop/' said Mr. Heinz with his usual kind 
 voice and smile. " I am an American in every fiber 
 of my body and in every heartbeat. These were very 
 eminent gentlemen, but they never knew America. 
 Scrape them out and insert a few Americans of the 
 type of Franklin, Longfellow, Whittier, Lincoln, Em- 
 erson our own poets and statesmen. This must be 
 an American room so far as those portraits are con- 
 cerned." 
 
 He kept in very close touch with his employees, do- 
 ing much to help encourage them, for one of his suc- 
 cessful ideas was that a business must be run by heart 
 power. So he treated his help fairly, helping those 
 deserving it over rough places, and as fast as employees 
 displayed the right kind of ability and sufficient of it 
 he took them into the firm made them his partners. 
 There never was a strike at the Heinz works. 
 
 Mr. Heinz was a liberal and wise giver in charitable 
 matters. One of his favorite maxims was : " Make 
 all you can honestly, save all you can prudently, give 
 all you can wisely." 
 
 His philanthropies were many and varied, extend- 
 ing as far as Japan, China and Korea, which Far East- 
 ern lands he once visited as chairman of a Sunday 
 School Commission. In 1906 he succeeded John Wana- 
 
HENRY JOHN HEINZ 163 
 
 maker as president of the Pennsylvania Sabbath School 
 Association, and he was also chairman of the executive 
 committee of the World's Sabbath School Association, 
 with its 36,000,000 members. 
 
 One of his sons, Howard, while at Yale University 
 became greatly interested in boys' club work, and on 
 his return home wanted to establish himself in this 
 kind of work for boys and girls on a large scale. 
 
 Howard's father became much interested in his work, 
 at last deciding to erect, at his own expense, a special 
 building, with modern equipment, for use in carrying 
 on this work. 
 
 Up to the time of his death he took the keenest in- 
 terest in Sunday School and other church work, and 
 also, like Mr. Rockefeller, gave away much money for 
 educational purposes the building up or founding of 
 schools and universities. 
 
CYRUS HALL McCORMICK 
 
 INVEJSTTOK OF THE HEAPING MACHINE 
 
CYRUS HALL MCCORMICK 
 
CYRUS HALL McCORMICK 
 INVENTOR OF THE REAPING MACHINE 
 
 IT seems strange that anything so common and so 
 necessary as an agricultural implement should re- 
 main unimproved, absolutely unchanged, through 
 several thousand years. Yet, until Robert McCormick 
 and his son Cyrus bent their minds to improving it, the 
 sickle (reaper) was the same rude implement as that 
 used by our remotest ancestors. It was the same hand 
 instrument as was used by the Egyptians along the 
 banks of the Nile and by the Babylonians and still more 
 ancient races in the valley of the river Euphrates, 
 which flowed through the Garden of Eden. 
 
 Necessity, however, is the mother of invention, and, 
 for the reason that the boy Cyrus McCormick found 
 it terrible drudgery, the hand sickle was superseded 
 by the reaping machine, and another revolutionary in- 
 vention placed to the credit of American pluck and 
 ingenuity. 
 
 Cyrus McCormick, who invented the reaper, was 
 born on February 15, 1809, on the paternal farm in 
 Rockbridge County, Virginia, in a period of hard times 
 and Indian and other wars. Robert, his father, was 
 Scotch-Irish, that strain which is conceded to be the 
 backbone of American democracy. He was an edu- 
 
 167 
 
168 FAMOUS LEADEES OF INDUSTRY 
 
 cated man, and though his homestead was built of logs, 
 it was commodious and well furnished, with parlor, 
 mahogany furniture, carpets and books. 
 
 Robert McCormick was a man of property and high- 
 standing and ranked with some of the most prominent 
 gentleman-farmers of his State men like Washing- 
 ton, Jefferson, Webster and Clay. His farms covered 
 one thousand eight hundred acres, and included grist 
 mills, sawmills, smelting furnace, distillery and black- 
 smith's shop. 
 
 This was in the days of Tecumseh, whose Shawnee 
 braves were terrorizing the settlers, the days when the 
 vast prairies of our Western country were roamed by 
 buffalo, when Chicago was unknown and New York 
 City about the size of Mobile, Alabama. The West 
 was a vast unfarmed stretch of wilderness, and what 
 little farming was done was done with primitive wooden 
 tools the wooden plow, the sickle, scythe and flail. 
 
 After 1812, however, there was a large and increasing 
 immigration into America of some of the best blood and 
 brain of Great Britain, and a great demand for farm- 
 land set in. 
 
 It was in such times as these, when our Republic was 
 still very young, that the boy Cyrus McCormick lived. 
 When he could he attended school, but for the most part 
 he worked on his father's farm, or cut wood and weeded 
 the garden before his breakfast. The Bible and cate- 
 chism, Murray's English Grammar, Webster's Spelling 
 Book and Dilworth's Arithmetic were practically the 
 only books he studied in school. 
 
 Cyrus was a very serious boy, and had the faculty 
 
CYEUS HALL McCOEMICK 169 
 
 of concentration. He could stick to a task and let 
 nothing interrupt him until he had finished it. He 
 was a thinker and planner, and always intent upon 
 something or other. When about fourteen, for exam- 
 ple, he felt the need of a map of the world. He 
 planned and drew one with great skill. 
 
 When he was fifteen, being a sturdy, strong-limbed 
 youth, he started out one day to do some reaping 
 a man's job, if ever there was one. For hours, the 
 perspiration rolling down his face, he stood amid the 
 ripe wheat swinging the clumsy implement that cut it. 
 At last body and brain rebelled against the drudgery, 
 and flinging down his sickle he was soon absorbed in 
 thought. How to make his job easier was his problem. 
 Not that he was in the least degree indolent. He was 
 a regular dynamo of energy, and there wasn't a lazy 
 drop of blood in his body. But he had a wonderful 
 brain, the mind of an inventor, and he intuitively felt 
 that there was a " better way " of reaping grain 
 could he only discover it. He saw that if he were to 
 continue this work he would need a lighter, handier im- 
 plement, one that could be swung to and fro easily. 
 
 After considerable thinking and planning he set to 
 work and most laboriously whittled out a smaller 
 cradle. He was then able to do more and better work 
 with less effort with his invention. A second invention 
 of his was a hillside plow. Later on he improved this 
 into a self-sharpening horizontal plow. 
 
 " Cyrus/' said a man who knew him, " was a nat- 
 ural mechanical genius. He was always trying to in- 
 vent something." 
 
170 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 There was a little log workshop near the McCormick 
 homestead, and here Robert and his sons used to work 
 and experiment on rainy days. 
 
 When Cyrus was eighteen, he followed in the foot- 
 steps of George Washington and studied surveying. 
 The quadrant he made for his own use is still preserved. 
 By the time he was of age Cyrus was a tall, muscular 
 and quite handsome young man, grave, dignified, and 
 always absorbed in thought or business. 
 
 Though he attended church regularly and sang in 
 the choir, and doubtless was acquainted with many girls, 
 he didn't at this period devote any time to " society." 
 As he explains, in a letter to a cousin in 1831 : 
 
 " Mr. Hart has two fine daughters, right pretty, very 
 smart, and as rich probably as you would wish; but, 
 alas ! I have other business to attend to ! " 
 
 Cyrus little knew when he wrote this letter that this 
 " other business " would some day bring into being a 
 plant in Chicago, covering two hundred and twenty-five 
 acres ! 
 
 Cyrus 7 father, long before he was born, had realized 
 that the hand sickle was clumsy and imposed needless 
 drudgery, and it had been the dream of his life, his 
 one consuming ambition, to invent a Reaper a har- 
 vesting machine. 
 
 His first attempt, which was tested in the harvest of 
 1816, was a failure. By 1831 he had improved it 
 but again it was a failure. So, after fifteen years of 
 experimenting, he gave it up as a hopeless job. 
 
 Cyrus, now twenty-two, full of energy and enthus- 
 iasm, seized upon the reaper his father had attempted 
 
CYRUS HALL McCOBMICK 171 
 
 to invent, and, with characteristic intentness, began ex- 
 perimenting himself. 
 
 His extraordinary mechanical genius enabled him to 
 triumph over every obstacle. Taking hold of the crude 
 machine his father had constructed and that wouldn't 
 work, the first thing the youth did was to invent the 
 " reciprocating blade " a straight blade with back and 
 forward motions of its own a blade with two mo- 
 tions. Another problem he solved was the supporting 
 of the grain while it was being cut. In that same year, 
 1831, he finished his task, and one day in July he gave 
 a successful test-exhibition of his reaper. A few days 
 later he cut six acres of oats with it. 
 
 The next year he gave a public exhibition of his 
 reaper at Lexington, encountering, however, a great deal 
 of opposition and ridicule, for the laborers saw no work 
 for them if it came into general use. Seeing the young 
 man's plight, one of the spectators, a member of the 
 State Legislation, the Hon. William Taylor, who owned 
 the adjoining farm, said : 
 
 " Young man, I'll give you a chance on my farm. 
 Just pull that fence down there and go in." 
 
 Mr. Taylor was a broad-minded, progressive man, 
 and had some confidence in the invention. Besides, he 
 liked the young man's looks and admired his pluck. 
 
 The test was a success, and Mr. Taylor pronounced 
 the McCormick Reaper invention worth $100,000. 
 
 Cyrus' father was greatly pleased, and said : " It 
 makes me feel proud to have a son do what I could not 
 do." 
 
 Cyrus now began the business of manufacturing his 
 
172 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTEY 
 
 reaping machine, offering them at $50 apiece; but, 
 such was the prejudice, that it was nine years before 
 he could find a farmer with courage enough to buy one. 
 Meanwhile he had to work his farm, and then some 
 iron mines on his land, to keep going. A panicky time 
 came along, however, and he became bankrupt. His 
 creditors swept everything away save his reaper, which, 
 being the work of a " crazy man " was not deemed 
 worth carting away ! 
 
 Cyrus did not lose courage on account of this his first 
 failure, but went ahead giving exhibitions of the ma- 
 chine. For a long time, though, nobody would buy 
 one, and, up to 1839, he hadn't sold a single one. At 
 last Fortune smiled. One day Abraham Smith, a far- 
 mer living some distance away, mustered up courage to 
 buy one. All went well for a few days the machine 
 worked beautifully and Farmer Smith was more than 
 pleased. 
 
 Then it rained, and for the first time it was discovered 
 that the McCormick Reaper wouldn't cut wet grain! 
 So Cyrus had to take the machine back, and go on ex- 
 perimenting. His reaper was not yet perfect. 
 
 Many men would have given up the problem would 
 have thrown the machine onto the junk pile. But 
 Cyrus McCormick was not that kind of man. He had 
 too much faith and determination. After much thought 
 he got the idea of giving his blade a serrated edge, that 
 is, of nicking it like a saw. On trying his new blade 
 it worked to perfection and the problem of a success- 
 ful reaper was at last solved! 
 
 Fixing the price of his reaper at $100, he now 
 
CYEUS HALL McCOEMICK 173 
 
 started out to be his own salesman. It was mighty 
 hard work, for he had to give endless demonstrations 
 with his fantastic-looking invention, and do a lot of 
 talking and traveling. In one year he had sold only 
 seven ; the next year, 1843, he disposed of twenty-nine, 
 in 1844 selling fifty. 
 
 But he began to experience an unlooked-for difficulty. 
 Some customers for his reaper lived so far away, in 
 the West or Southwest, that he was unable to get his 
 machine to them in time for the harvest. At last one 
 of his friends said to him: 
 
 " Why don't you go out West where there's lots of 
 room and where you can get land for your factory 
 cheap ? " 
 
 Cyrus thought well of the suggestion, but, with his 
 usual caution and thoroughness, studied the map long 
 and hard before making up his mind. Then, with only 
 $300 in his pocket, he started out on a three-thousand- 
 mile trip, traversing a number of Western states, at 
 last locating, in the Spring of 1847, in the then new 
 town of Chicago, once Fort Dearborn. 
 
 Here he succeeded in inducing one of the town's 
 foremost citizens, William Butler Ogden, to put in 
 $25,000 and become his partner. A favorable site was 
 selected, a factory built, and before long the McCor- 
 mick Reaper Company was in full blast. The price of 
 the machine was now set at $120. 
 
 Ogden and McCormick were almost giants physically, 
 and attracted universal attention as they walked down 
 the street together. They were both fine-looking, very 
 tall, muscular, dominating men, and, wearing their big, 
 
174 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTEY 
 
 wide-awake felt hats, presented a striking appearance. 
 
 In 1849, however, McCormick quarreled with Ogden, 
 who was as strong-minded and stubborn as himself, so 
 offered Ogden his $25,000 back, plus $25,000 $50,- 
 000 in all. Mr. Ogden accepted the offer and pulled 
 out of the firm. 
 
 Young McCormick's decision to move West was the 
 result of deep thought and study, and his choice of Chi- 
 cago as a site for his manufactory, a singularly wise and 
 lucky one. Chicago then had a population of only ten 
 thousand, but it was fast becoming a great trade point 
 by reason of its location. The country all around was 
 opening up to settlers from the Eastern states and from 
 Europe, and the McCormick Eeaper was aiding far- 
 mers in their conquest of the prairies to an enormous 
 extent. 
 
 Soon after buying out Mr. Ogden, McCormick began 
 to plan and develop his business with consummate skill 
 and customary thoroughness. He gave written guaran- 
 tees with his machines ; sold them at a fixed price which 
 he publicly advertised; advertised extensively in the 
 newspaper for he was a great believer in publicity 
 appointed agents throughout the section, and, by a sys- 
 tem of fair dealing, established a reputation for such, 
 thereby retaining the good-will of his customers. Thus 
 he borrowed money from the bank to manufacture 
 reapers, which he sold " on credit " to the farmer, sel- 
 dom losing any money, though he often had to wait a 
 long time. He trusted the farmer, and so earned his 
 gratitude and good-will. 
 
 His. most spectacular advertising methods were in the 
 
CYRUS HALL McCORMICK 175 
 
 way of public tests field contests with rival reapers. 
 In course of time these competitions became so tre- 
 mendously exciting, rough and expensive that by com- 
 mon consent the various manufacturers abandoned this 
 kind of business warfare. 
 
 By 1850 there were three thousand McCormick reap- 
 ers in the wheat fields of America, and the next year, 
 Mr. McCormick exhibited his machine in England at 
 the Crystal Palace Exhibition, winning the first prize 
 and also the County medal. In 1855 he went to Paris, 
 where he won a gold medal and succeeded in selling 
 one of his reapers to the Emperor, Napoleon III. In 
 1862 he made his headquarters in London, from which 
 center he conducted a vigorous selling campaign through- 
 out Great Britain and on the Continent. 
 
 By this time the McCormick Reaper Works, Chi- 
 cago's first manufactory, were producing more than six 
 thousand reapers a year. By 1871 production had 
 risen to ten thousand, but in that year the works were 
 destroyed in the great Chicago fire. They were soon 
 rebuilt, and in a year or two production had risen 
 to nearly fifteen thousand, as a result of Mr. McCpr- 
 mick's terrific and tireless energy. He molded men to 
 his will with scarcely an effort, and dashed all difficul- 
 ties and obstacles from his path in a battering-ram 
 fashion. 
 
 He worked so hard that occasionally he became over- 
 powered by fatigue at most inconvenient moments. 
 Once, after a very protracted work-spell, he came near 
 missing a great business opportunity. Always friendly 
 and hospitable to inventors, he had made an appoint- 
 
176 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 ment at his residence .with a man named Withington, 
 who wanted to talk to him about his self-binder inven- 
 tion. He got home later than usual that night and 
 terribly tired. Withington called that evening, and, 
 just as he was beginning to get warmed up in his de- 
 scription of his really wonderful invention, McCor- 
 mick's head nodded, and in a moment he was fast asleep. 
 
 Withington, furious at what he imagined was a de- 
 liberate affront, took the next train home. 
 
 When McCormick woke up it was morning, and he 
 was greatly chagrined. So he sent one of his most 
 trusted men in hot haste to explain matters to Withing- 
 ton and bring him back to Chicago. He struck a bar- 
 gain with him and was the first to manufacture his 
 ingenious machine, which, on a test near Elgin, cut fifty 
 acres of wheat, binding, with its steel arms, every bun- 
 dle and tying them with wire, without a single hitch or 
 failure. Each Withington self-binder saved the labor 
 of at least ten farm-hands. 
 
 Mr. McCormick at once started a tremendously ag- 
 gressive selling campaign, and before long had dis- 
 posed of some fifty thousand of the self-binders. Then 
 he substituted twine for wire, manufacturing the twine 
 at his factory, now greatly enlarged. 
 
 Mr. McCormick had a dogged determination and 
 bull-dog tenacity that was simply extraordinary. He 
 was not the kind of man to supinely submit to injus- 
 tice, or brook any interference with what he considered 
 his rights. 
 
 He fought one case, for example his famous bag- 
 gage case in the courts for no less than twenty-three 
 
CYEUS HALL McCOKMICK 177 
 
 years, the Supreme Court of the United States finally 
 awarding him $18,000 for nine trunks destroyed by 
 fire on the railroad. But the railroad kept him waiting 
 three years more, before sending him a check. The or- 
 iginal amount he asked for was $9,000. The interest 
 increased it to $18,000 ! 
 
 His fight for his patent was even more extraordinary. 
 It having expired in 1848, he sought to have it ex- 
 tended, his legal battle lasting until 1865. His request 
 for an extension of his patent was, however, finally re- 
 fused on the ground that it was of " too great public 
 benefit to be controlled by any one individual." 
 
 A wonderful fight began, when, in 1855, he hired 
 lawyers to take legal action against certain manufac- 
 turers infringing his patent. He had William H. Sew- 
 ard, who later was Lincoln's Secretary of State, Sen- 
 ator Reverdy Johnson, and E. N. Dickerson for his 
 counsel. But his opponents faced him in the courts 
 with an array of legal talent almost without a parallel. 
 Their lawyers were Abraham Lincoln, Stephen A. 
 Douglas (Lincoln's political rival later on), Edwin M. 
 Stanton, and three others. 
 
 It was a battle of master-minds, of legal giants, and 
 Stanton, in a wonderfully eloquent and convincing 
 speech, won a verdict against McCormick. 
 
 Lincoln earned his first fee $1,000 in this cele- 
 brated harvester case, and when elected President ap- 
 pointed Stanton his Secretary of War. 
 
 About the time the Civil War was fomenting, Mr. 
 McCormick was taking a great interest in politics. He 
 did everything in his power to oppose the war spirit, 
 
178 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 publishing powerful editorials in the Chicago Tribune, 
 a newspaper he had purchased, and making many 
 speeches. His plan for settling the controversy be- 
 tween the North and the South was known as the " Mc- 
 Cormick plan," and had the indorsement of the New 
 York Tribune's famous owner and editor, Horace 
 Greeley. 
 
 In 1861 it was said of Cyrus Hall McCormick: 
 " He will live in the grateful recollection of man- 
 kind as long as the reaping-machine is employed in 
 gathering the harvest." 
 
 It would indeed be hard to estimate the value of his 
 invention to the world in general and to the American 
 farmer in particular. 
 
HUDSON MAXIM 
 
 POET, PHILOSOPHER AND WIZARD OF 
 HIGH EXPLOSIVES 
 
HUDSON MAXIM 
 
 POET, PHILOSOPHER, AND WIZARD OF 
 HIGH EXPLOSIVES 
 
 IT seems strange now, to-day, that one of the world's 
 most distinguished living scientists and inventors, 
 Hudson Maxim, came very near going on the stage 
 as a professional wrestler. It was on his first visit to 
 New York that this almost came about. He was a 
 green country boy of only twenty-four, and soon after 
 arriving in the metropolis found himself in dire need 
 of money. 
 
 His brother, who was with him at the time, intro- 
 duced him, as a wrestler, to some sporting men, who ar- 
 ranged a match for him with a man named Flynn who 
 had downed all antagonists up to that date and was chal- 
 lenging all comers. As, however, they had to put up 
 some money for the Flynn challenge, they first tried him 
 out with an English wrestler, whom he downed, then 
 with no less a celebrity than " Matt " Grace, the ex- 
 collar-and-elbow champion of the United States. He 
 threw Grace the first bout, then was thrown himself 
 twice. The boy Maxim was chagrined, and thought the 
 match would be " all off." But to his surprise his 
 backers were more than delighted. He had far ex- 
 ceeded their expectations. 
 
 So the boy from Maine, who had already made a 
 reputation for wrestling and boxing, too in his 
 
 181 
 
182 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 own State, decided, like the Unknown Knight of old in 
 the Tournament, to enter the lists, and tilt for the prize. 
 
 He went on the stage and threw the hitherto in- 
 vincible Flynn. 
 
 His feat aroused tremendous enthusiasm, and very 
 attractive offers were made to him to enter the sporting 
 world and become a professional. 
 
 But Hudson Maxim had higher ambitions. 
 
 " It's nothing to be able to wrestle," he said. " I'm 
 going to do something else." 
 
 He little knew what, then ! 
 
 This boy from the Maine backwoods, whose parents 
 were so poor that he couldn't get any schooling or even 
 afford to wear shoes until after his ninth year, was al- 
 ways serious, studious and reflective. At an early age 
 he began to think. 
 
 " I remember," he remarked recently when recalling 
 his youthful days, " that when twelve years old, I de- 
 termined I would make my mark. I was crossing a 
 field in which the grass had been killed by the cold, 
 when I suddenly thought how closely man resembled a 
 blade of grass that life was a constant warfare be- 
 tween the summer of success and the winter of failure 
 and I then resolved that I would learn all I could 
 and qualify for every kind of accomplishment within 
 the range of my abilities, and would waste no time on 
 non-essentials." 
 
 Before many years had passed Hudson Maxim had 
 made good his resolve and became, next to Thomas A 
 Edison, the world's greatest inventor, as well as one of 
 the most amazingly versatile men of his time. 
 
HUDSON MAXIM 183 
 
 The Maxim family is of English and French-Hugue- 
 not descent, and the man whose life and achievements 
 we are relating, was born on February 3, 1853, in the 
 village of Orneville, Maine. He was the fourth son of 
 a family of six boys and two girls, his father being a 
 miller and wood-turner. 
 
 In his childhood days the boy Hudson was not amused 
 with the usual fairy-tales, or children's stories, in words 
 of one or two syllables. Instead, his father would dis- 
 course to him of ancient wars, the great and bloody bat- 
 tles of history, legends of sea-fights, calamities on sea 
 and land, pirates and ship-wrecks, earthquakes and vol- 
 canoes, wonders of the universe, mysteries of space and 
 eternity. This was the boy's mental pabulum the 
 kind of stuff he was interested in from his earliest 
 years. 
 
 His father, Isaac Maxim, was of a philosophical and 
 inventive turn of mind. Long before ironclads, he had 
 thought out and suggested a steel armor for warships 
 and had also experimented with breech-loading and ma- 
 chine-guns prior to the Civil War. So it was from his 
 highly gifted though very poor father that Hudson 
 Maxim inherited his extraordinary inventive, poetical 
 and philosophical faculties. 
 
 But though his father possessed energy and high 
 mental qualities, he was very poor. Hudson often had 
 to trudge the two miles to the district school through 
 snow waist high. Hats and shoes were luxuries *his 
 father couldn't afford. But the boy never complained, 
 for he was determined to learn all he could to get 
 some education at any cost to bis comfort, In line with 
 
184 FAMOUS LEADEKS OF INDUSTEY 
 
 this laudable resolve he would work in the fields a few 
 days, or do heavy work in a granite quarry or brick- 
 yard so as to earn a little money with which to buy 
 school-books, for in those days school-books were not 
 furnished free by school-boards. It took three days of 
 hard work in the hay-field, at twenty-five cents a day, 
 to earn seventy-five cents for a geography he had to 
 have! 
 
 But young Hudson Maxim didn't mind either the 
 hard manual work or the hardships, for he had a mag- 
 nificent constitution and a powerful frame. He was 
 getting bigger and stronger all the time and his muscles 
 were as hard as nails. 
 
 Before very long, having got sufficient education for 
 the purpose, a most unusual opportunity presented it- 
 self, over which, to-day, Mr. Maxim often has a hearty 
 laugh. He was invited to teach school in a district 
 where the boys were so bad that the trustees couldn't 
 keep a teacher. The last one had been thrown through 
 the window, sash and all. The young man accepted 
 the call with alacrity and by thrashing all the bad boys 
 one after the other, as they rowdied or " got fresh " 
 with him, he very soon made himself respected and 
 brought order and discipline into the school. Then he 
 started in to teach his pupils in earnest, teaching him- 
 self at the same time, for, as he explains : 
 
 " I didn't know much more than they did ; but as I 
 learned faster I easily managed to keep ahead of my 
 oksses." 
 
 He then attended the Maine Wesleyan Seminary at 
 Kent's Hill, where his inclination led him to specialize 
 
HUDSON MAXIM 185 
 
 in chemistry and other sciences. He was at this time 
 unusually proficient in grammar and rhetoric, and had 
 a remarkable faculty for memorizing anything poetical. 
 Many of the poems he learned in boyhood he can still 
 repeat word for word. 
 
 His first scientific discovery was made in 1875, when 
 he was twenty-two. In this year he published in a 
 scientific journal his theory of the " ultimate atom," 
 which is that all matter is one in the ultimate, and that 
 the difference in the various forms of matter and mani- 
 festations of force is due to the difference in the rela- 
 tive positions and motions of the ultimate atoms. His 
 hypothesis, after some years, was generally accepted. 
 
 After he left school he was, from 1883 to 1888, in 
 the subscription book-publishing business, and wrote 
 and published a book on penmanship and drawing. He 
 sold by subscription nearly half a million of these 
 treatises, making a very substantial profit, the money 
 from the sale of the books giving him his first capital, 
 and enabling him to begin on a large scale his experi- 
 ments with explosives. 
 
 In 1888 he left the publishing business to begin his 
 dazzling and dangerous career of experiment and in- 
 vention in the field of explosives. 
 
 His dynamite and smokeless powder mill at Maxim, 
 New Jersey, he built- in 1890. Smokeless powder was 
 his first invention, and its enormous value in warfare 
 soon became evident. For troops especially sharp- 
 shooters using " smokeless " can fire an unlimited 
 number of shots at the enemy, from cannon or gun, 
 without revealing their whereabouts by puffs of smoke. 
 
186 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 The United States Government adopted smokeless pow- 
 der, and the first they used was made at the Maxim 
 plant. Later the E. I. du Pont de Nemours Powder 
 Co., of Wilmington, Delaware, bought Mr. Maxim's in- 
 ventions and plant, retaining his services as consulting 
 engineer and expert. 
 
 This was his first big stride up the ladder of success. 
 
 His next great invention was Maximite, the first high 
 explosive to be successfully used in armor-piercing pro- 
 jectiles. After long experiment at Sandy Hook by the 
 U. S. Army the secret of its manufacture was bought 
 by our Government in 1901. So insensitive to shock 
 is Maximite though fifty per cent, more powerful 
 than ordinary dynamite that a projectile charged 
 with it can be fired from a big gun with perfect safety 
 to the gunner, and will penetrate the heaviest plate and 
 not explode until set off by the delay-action fuse. 
 
 Mr. Maxim then invented and developed a detonat- 
 ing fuse superior to any other for high explosive 
 projectiles; then he invented Stabillite, a new variety 
 of smokeless powder. Its great advantage is that it 
 can be used as soon as made, whereas so many other 
 forms of explosives require months to dry. 
 
 Stabillite was followed by Motorite, which is used in- 
 stead of compressed air as the motive power for tor- 
 pedoes. The Motorite is made in bars some five feet 
 long, and these bars are squeezed into steel tubes, and 
 sealed so that combustion can take place at only one 
 end. When the bar is ignited water is forced into the 
 chamber and the gases from the combustion, plus the 
 steam, drive the torpedo. 
 
HUDSON MAXIM 187 
 
 Motorite cannot explode, will burn without air, and 
 also under water. Mr. Maxim put more time and ef- 
 fort into this invention Motorite than into any- 
 thing else he ever attempted. 
 
 In addition to driving torpedoes, Motorite can also 
 be used to drive small torpedo-boats ; and a new type of 
 torpedo-boat designed by Mr. Maxim can be driven by 
 Motorite through the gun-fire of a warship, however 
 severe. 
 
 Carrying the explosive in its warhead this submarine 
 torpedo-boat hurls itself, faster than a mile a minute, 
 against a battleship's side. The result is a terrific ex- 
 plosion, followed by the destruction of the hostile ves- 
 sel. Motorite propels this deadly and invulnerable un- 
 der-sea projectile. 
 
 In experimenting with Motorite Mr. Maxim spent 
 $50,000 ! 
 
 Another of his inventions was a process for the con- 
 tinuous production of calcium carbide through heat 
 developed by resistance in a molten carbide conductor. 
 While experimenting in the manufacture of calcium 
 carbide, he discovered, and invented, a process for mak- 
 ing tiny diamonds. 
 
 Mr. Maxim is also the inventor of The War Game, a 
 game of skill not unlike chess; but above all is he in- 
 terested in poetry. His book on " The Science of 
 Poetry and the Philosophy of Language " has won high 
 praise from distinguished authors and scholars, and 
 given a number of new words to the English language. 
 He has written not a little verse himself, and the follow- 
 ing is one of his most recent efforts : 
 
188 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 BRITAIN'S GLORIOUS PART 
 BY HUDSON MAXIM 
 
 Since God broke chaos into light 
 And flung the stars upon the night, 
 And set the wonder of the day 
 Upon its high, celestial way, 
 Illuming into life and time 
 The unconditional sublime, 
 And vast insentience, touched with plan, 
 Felt that first throb whose end was man, 
 An all-pervading lightening sense 
 Has led on toward Divine intents. 
 In darkest hours of sore travail, 
 Doth still that leading sense prevail. 
 
 When eviling airs from Hell were spun, 
 And woke the blood-lure of the Hun, 
 Who every savagery combined 
 To conquer and enslave mankind; 
 Fair Belgium, greatened in her wrath, 
 Stood sword and soul athwart the path; 
 All France arose in battle-cry 
 " They shall not pass, for here we die 1 " 
 Still, the unuttered Scourge of God 
 Rolled on, and slew and over-trod. 
 
 Soon after the world-war broke out Mr. Maxim de- 
 voted most of his time to problems of national defense, 
 and in April, 1915, lie published his sensational book, 
 " Defenseless America/' which was tremendously influ- 
 ential in rousing the American people to their lack of 
 preparedness for war. The motion-picture play, " The 
 Battle Cry of Peace/ 7 was founded on this book, of 
 which Mr. Maxim has given away about one hundred 
 and twenty thousand copies. 
 
HUDSON MAXIM 189 
 
 In addition to this book and other publications on 
 Preparedness, the noted inventor gave much thought and 
 study to a new army ration made mostly from soya 
 beans, which were lately brought to this country from 
 China, where they have been a leading food-staple 
 since a time previous to the building of the thousands 
 of years old pyramids of Egypt. Though rich in nu- 
 tritious qualities these beans, because of their strong 
 flavor, have always been unpalatable to Americans ; but 
 Mr. Maxim has overcome this objection through a spe- 
 cial process of his own discovery. 
 
 Since the war broke out Mr. Maxim has invented a 
 number of important (but, of course, secret) war- 
 devices. One of these is a method of protecting ships 
 from torpedo attack. 
 
 Mr. Maxim, by the way, went to England in 1897 
 to sell some of his inventions relating to high explosives, 
 detonating fuses, ordnance for throwing high explosives, 
 etc. In a notable lecture before the Royal United Serv- 
 ice Institution of Great Britain he described and 
 strongly urged howitzers bigger and heavier, by two 
 tons, than those used by the Huns to destroy Liege. 
 The Teutons evidently profited by his suggestion. 
 
 It was after the outbreak of the Spanish-American 
 War in 1898 that our Government bought from Mr. 
 Maxim the secret of Maximite, his wonderful high ex- 
 plosive. 
 
 Practically all his working life Hudson Maxim has 
 been a world-leader in invention, research and discov- 
 ery relating to explosives and other agencies of war- 
 fare, but though he has invented more terrible and 
 
190 FAMOUS LEADEES OF INDUSTRY 
 
 destructive agencies for use in war than any one else, 
 he doesn't believe in fighting. He once said: 
 
 " I don't believe in war, I believe in peace, and the 
 day is coming when peace will be universal. 
 
 " War is often a necessity, and when it comes we 
 want the best tools we can get with which to fight. 
 
 " The use of such terrible explosives as I have in- 
 vented makes for peace more than all the homilies that 
 can be delivered. The debt that civilization owes to 
 gunpowder is one of the greatest that history has to 
 record. In every land and on every sea gunpowder 
 stands guardian over all accumulated wealth and the 
 progress of nations." 
 
 Mr. Maxim is of herculean build and strength, and 
 has a voice of great depth and power that has been 
 heard and understood a mile away. Because of his 
 voice he has been called the " Fulminating Philosopher." 
 His very broad shoulders and massive limbs tend to 
 reduce his stature of five feet nine inches. He has a 
 great shock of silver hair, a beard, and once wore an 
 enormous drooping mustache. He more resembles a 
 giant than an ordinary man. 
 
 His dark, glowing eyes betoken the dreamer. And 
 he is a dreamer. But he makes dreams trains of 
 imaginative-inventive thought come true. Out of 
 his dreams come terrifying inventions that blast armies, 
 destroy navies, rock mountains and continents. Armed 
 with his inventions men become Titans ! 
 
 It must not be supposed, though, that experimenting 
 with chemicals and inventing high explosives is easy, 
 pleasant and safe work. It is, on the contrary, terribly 
 
HUDSON MAXIM 191 
 
 dangerous. A little absentmindedness or slight lack of 
 caution may cost a limb or one or many lives. The in- 
 cident that cost Mr. Maxim his left hand is a case in 
 point. He was testing the dryness of some fulminate 
 compound, and, forgetting momentarily that he had a 
 tiny piece remaining in his left hand, he applied a 
 match to the bit he had broken off. A spark flew into 
 the hand, and the next thing he knew, after the ex- 
 plosion, was that his hand had disappeared. All he 
 saw was the bare bleeding end of the wristbone. His 
 face and clothes were bespattered with flesh and bone 
 splinters, and the next day his thumb was found on 
 top of a building two hundred feet away! This hap- 
 pened in the morning, and it was evening before he 
 could get a surgeon, as he had to walk a mile, ride in a 
 wagon, then in a train and finally on the " L " road in 
 order to reach his New York residence. Only a man 
 of heroic mold could have gone through such a day ! 
 
 In ten days he was back at his work again. 
 
 Mr. Maxim has a handsome town house on St. Mark's 
 Avenue, Brooklyn. His laboratory is in the rear, and 
 he is assisted in his experiments by his charming and 
 devoted young wife whom he married in 1896. Her 
 maiden name was Lillian Durban, and she is a notable 
 scholar and linguist, and was once editor of a London 
 review. 
 
 Mr. Maxim's country place, Maxim Park, N. J., 
 where his main laboratory is situated, is on J^ake Ho- 
 patcong, three miles from Maxim, the towin where 
 his workshops are located and where explosives are 
 made. 
 
192 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 Close by him lives Edwin Markham, the poet, who is 
 one of his most intimate friends. 
 
 Mr. Maxim's only rest or recreation is a change of 
 work. When he is not inventing deadly explosives, he 
 is delving into such subjects as the origin and develop- 
 ment of human speech, and oratory, poetry and rhetoric. 
 He works without any sense of physical fatigue, for, as 
 he says, " I was lucky to get a good, strong body," and 
 he likes to vary his work do different things. He 
 believes that the great discovery of the future will be 
 the harnessing of the energy stored in the sun's rays. 
 
 He is a great believer in the future of the airship, 
 and, as the resistance of the air decreases with height, 
 he says that a plane at an altitude of twenty miles 
 should travel at a speech of one thousand forty-eight 
 miles an hour! Go entirely round the world in seven- 
 teen hours ! 
 
 Mr. Maxim is now sixty-six years old, but he is still 
 working and experimenting, as hard as ever, on ord- 
 nance and explosives, and food problems doing all 
 he can to benefit his fellow men. He is a member of 
 many learned and other societies, and has for long been 
 recognized as one of the world's greatest men and bene- 
 factors. 
 
JOHN H. PATTERSON 
 
 THE INDUSTRIAL GENIUS WHOSE RULING 
 
 PASSION HAS BEEN TO MAKE THINGS 
 
 " GO BETTER " 
 
JOHN IT. PATTERSON 
 
JOHN H. PATTERSON 
 
 THE INDUSTRIAL GENIUS WHOSE RULING 
 
 PASSION HAS BEEN TO MAKE THINGS 
 
 " GO BETTER " 
 
 THIS is a story of a man who spent his boyhood 
 on a farm in Ohio. He was one of eight chil- 
 dren. All his spare time, when not in school, 
 was employed doing all sorts of odd jobs, either on the 
 farm or in the saw and grist mills that his father owned. 
 
 When a boy he had one outstanding trait. He was 
 always trying to improve upon something. He was 
 never satisfied with a thing simply because it worked. 
 He wanted to make it work better. One day he found 
 fault with the big carriage that hauled the logs to the 
 saw. It didn't seem to him to work right. The saw- 
 mill was very busy at the time, however, and his father 
 refused to stop the machinery merely to let the boy 
 " meddle " with it. 
 
 But he was determined. The thing he set his heart 
 on, he did. So the next morning he hurried down to 
 the mill long before breakfast and began tinkering with 
 the log carriage. When he was through and started it 
 going, it worked smoothly without a hitch. The heavy 
 logs were carried to the saw evenly and at the right 
 
 speed. 
 
 195 
 
196 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 " What have you done to it ? " asked his father 
 amusedly, that afternoon after school. 
 
 " Made it go better ! " was the proud reply. He had 
 put in new bearings, leveled the track with a spirit- 
 level, and cleaned and oiled everything. 
 
 This little incident was typical of John H. Patter- 
 son, the boy. Nothing suited him unless it was right, 
 and he never rested until he had made it so. 
 
 At last he left the old homestead for college. But, 
 before graduating, he served in the Civil War as a 
 Hundred-Day Man. At the expiration of his time of 
 service he returned to Dartmouth College, and was 
 graduated with the degree of B. A. 
 
 His first job on leaving college was that of toll-col- 
 lector on the Miami and Erie Canal. Here he very 
 soon found it necessary to give to each canal-boat cap- 
 tain a receipt for the money paid for tolls. This re- 
 ceipt was a check on the captains as well as on the toll- 
 collector. After Patterson had improved the system, 
 it worked so well that there were never any disputes 
 or arguments. This was his first experience with re- 
 ceipts. 
 
 He stuck to his job, added to his store of business 
 experience and, when he had saved a little money, he 
 and his brother went into the retail coal business in 
 Dayton. At the start the youthful firm ran up against 
 a most annoying snag. Many of their customers dis- 
 puted their bills, denying that they had received the 
 quantity of coal or wood or lime that they were charged 
 with. The young coal merchants were losing money 
 every day. 
 
JOHN H. PATTERSON 197 
 
 But it did not take Patterson long to devise a method 
 that would do away with these expensive complaints. 
 Profiting by his experience as canal collector, he had 
 receipts printed in five different colors. One color was 
 for soft coal, one for hard coal, one for coke, one for 
 wood, and one for lime. As each driver had to get a 
 receipt from the customer upon delivery, this receipt 
 was proof that the customer had received the goods he 
 had paid for or been charged with. 
 
 As a result of this little reform the business doubled 
 within a year. The receipts not only did away with 
 disputes they gave the firm a great deal of good 
 advertising. Customers spread it around that this 
 was a firm that charged them only with what they had 
 signed for and always gave them a receipt for their 
 money. 
 
 After the two brothers had been in the retail coal 
 business for several years, they put money into some 
 coal mines near Coalton, Ohio. In connection with 
 their mines they ran a retail store. They did a big 
 volume of business but, somehow, their profits were very 
 small at the end of the year. It was evident that there 
 was a leak somewhere, but there was no way of telling 
 where it was. 
 
 Just about this time the partners heard that a man 
 named Jacob Kitty had invented a machine which he 
 called a cash register. It was a clumsy thing, but it 
 did not take John H. Patterson long, after examining 
 it, to decide that he could make his business " go bet- 
 ter " with one of them. He ordered two. Crude and 
 costly as the machines were in those days, the firm soon 
 
198 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 had profits at Coalton instead of losses. The leak had 
 been stopped. 
 
 This was the turning point in the life of the future 
 captain of industry. Where most men would have 
 rested content that their business was benefited, he had 
 a vision. He recalled his initial business experience 
 as a boy on his father's farm. His father had paid the 
 hired help partly in provisions and it had been his 
 duty to weigh or measure them out and to keep ac- 
 counts. The cellar was the grocery, the barn the place 
 where grains were kept, and the smokehouse the meat 
 market. But there was no system of receipts, only a 
 huge book of accounts which was kept in the hall. 
 Somebody was always forgetting to charge a customer 
 with the proper amount of goods. As a boy he had often 
 been awakened at night by his father and asked if he 
 had charged a certain person with goods he had taken 
 home. 
 
 All these omissions and mistakes, Mr. Patterson re- 
 called, had meant a loss to the sellers, not the buyers. 
 It is human nature to forget, and if a customer is not 
 charged with the goods sold him, the loss is the seller's. 
 
 So his memory went back to those early days and he 
 realized how much money his father must have lost. 
 Eight there he made up his mind that there was a 
 wonderful future for the cash register if it could but 
 be perfected. The crude machine had helped him a 
 perfected machine would help every merchant. To 
 think was to act, with Mr. Patterson. He and his 
 brother bought out the concern which had made the two 
 crude machines they were using in their store. These 
 
JOHN H. PATTEESON 199 
 
 early machines, by the way, had no cash drawers, no 
 adding wheels, and did not print a receipt. 
 
 The brothers had a tremendous struggle to get the 
 business started. No one had any confidence in the 
 cash register, and they could get no financial backing. 
 It was uphill work. At the end of the first few years, 
 they had sunk practically all their money and were 
 worse off than when they started. The crisis came 
 when about $50,000 worth of cash registers were thrown 
 back on their hands because of poor workmanship. It 
 was very discouraging, but Patterson never lost his 
 faith in ultimate success. He was not the kind of 
 man to give up anything he had determined to do. 
 
 He knew that the business was fundamentally sound, 
 for it supplied a distinct need. He was convinced, from 
 his own experiences, that losses were going on in every 
 store in the country. The problem was to perfect his 
 machine, when it was bound to find a ready sale. Even 
 then he had in mind the day when he would build a 
 machine that would issue a receipt and thus give the 
 merchant maximum protection. 
 
 " For a long time," Mr. Patterson stated not long 
 ago, " our inventors were unable to design a machine 
 which would print a receipt. It was the receipts that 
 had doubled our coal business in a year. 
 
 " I knew that if we could get a machine which would 
 print a receipt for the customer and make a duplicate 
 record inside the register, it would do as much for 
 every merchant as the receipt and the cash register 
 had done for me as a merchant. 
 
 " My confidence in this business has never wavered. 
 
200 FAMOUS LEADEES OF INDUSTRY 
 
 It was based on my experience as a boy on the farm, in 
 the grist mill, in the market, in the canal-collector's 
 office, in the coal business, and as a partner in a retail 
 store. The great lesson I learned from each was the 
 absolute necessity of a receipt to the safe and sound 
 conduct of business. So you can perhaps appreciate 
 my enthusiasm for the receipt. 
 
 " I can almost say that the idea of giving and getting 
 a receipt is responsible for the success of my business. 
 With the obstacles, handicaps and discouragements un- 
 der which we labored, I doubt if I would have had the 
 faith to continue, had it not been that my own business 
 experience convinced me that the receipt-printing cash 
 register was needed throughout the world. 
 
 " The ( receipt ' idea really gave me my start in busi- 
 ness. What it did for me, it has done and will do for 
 others." 
 
 Giving receipts for money, grain or goods, is, by the 
 way, a very ancient custom. From earliest times the 
 man who paid out money for goods was given some 
 sort of document to enable him to account legally for 
 his newly acquired property. The ancient Egyptians 
 were very business-like in this respect. In our large 
 museums you will find, carefully preserved, receipts for 
 grain, rent money, and leases, written on scrolls as 
 far back as 4000 B. c. 
 
 So Mr. Patterson was really only bringing a very an- 
 cient idea up-to-date when he perfected his cash reg- 
 ister so that it could print and issue a receipt. His suc- 
 cessful exploitation of the receipt idea resulted in the 
 founding of what has become one of the world's finest 
 
JOHN H. PATTERSON 201 
 
 industrial plants, The National Cash. Register Com- 
 pany. To-day it stands, a beautiful and impressive 
 monument to man's foresight, upon the very spot in 
 Dayton, Ohio, where John H. Patterson, as a boy, 
 played and worked. 
 
 Mr. Patterson, however, had never seen any of these 
 ancient instruments of trade. He arrived at his con- 
 clusion in a common sense, logical way. He knew that 
 he got a receipt from the railroad, a ticket. When 
 he bought transportation from the Government he re- 
 ceived a stamp, his receipt for his money. When he 
 bought real estate, he got a deed. In fact, it was diffi- 
 cult to think of any business, outside of stores, in which 
 a buyer did not receive a receipt for money spent. 
 Then why should not merchants also give a receipt for 
 each purchase ? Yet very few did. 
 
 But steady perseverance with the receipt idea and 
 effort to perfect his cash register at last resulted in 
 complete success and he became one of our greatest 
 leaders of industry. The road to success was a thorny 
 one, however, for it took him eighteen years to sell his 
 first half-million registers. The next five hundred 
 thousand he sold in five years, and now cash registers 
 leave his factory at the rate of two every five minutes. 
 To-day the plant founded by Mr. Patterson covers al- 
 most fourteen city blocks, and the floor space of nearly 
 fifty acres accommodates some six thousand seven hun- 
 dred workers. 
 
 The cash register of to-day is an ornament to any 
 store and a familiar sight the world over. But ex- 
 actly what, you may ask, does the machine do ? When 
 
202 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 the merchant owning a cash register closes his store for 
 the day, his register tells him: 
 
 How much business each clerk has done, and how 
 many customers each has waited on: the total amount 
 of money taken in : the number of " charge," " rec'd 
 on acct " and " paid out " transactions handled during 
 the day. If any mistakes have been made, the register 
 tells who made them. It also prints and issues a re- 
 ceipt or prints figures of the amount paid or charged 
 on an original and duplicate sales-slip. It also prints 
 a permanent record of each transaction on a strip of 
 paper inside the register. 
 
 Thus at the end of the day the merchant has before 
 him, legibly printed in indelible ink, a complete record 
 of the day's business. 
 
 It was very different before the day of the cash reg- 
 ister. A customer might come in, buy something, and 
 ask the clerk to charge it. The goods that went out 
 represented money to the merchant. Yet all he had to 
 show for that money was a little scrap of paper. If 
 that paper was lost, his profit was lost besides what 
 the goods had cost him. More than that, if the clerk 
 forgot to make the charge entry, there was absolutely 
 nothing to show for the goods the customer had taken. 
 All this is impossible with the cash register. 
 
 Mr. Patterson is of Scotch-Irish ancestry. His first 
 American ancestor, his grandfather (whose father ar- 
 rived in this country in 1728), was a colonel in the War 
 of the Revolution and the founder of Lexington, Ken- 
 tucky. He afterwards owned much of the land upon 
 which Cincinnati now stands, and finally located a 
 
JOHN H. PATTERSON 203 
 
 large tract of land near Dayton, the present home of 
 the family. 
 
 John H. Patterson's greatest achievement is bring- 
 ing to perfection the wonderful mechanism known as 
 the cash register. It took years of patient study and 
 costly experimentation. First one improvement was 
 made, then another, and so on, until it almost seemed 
 that no further improvement could be possible. Yet 
 always the search has been on for ways of making the 
 register of even greater service to the merchant, and 
 those who know Mr. Patterson know that he will al- 
 ways continue trying to make the machine " go better." 
 
 He has been called by other employers 9 " revolution- 
 ist " because of his humane way of treating his em- 
 ployees. Through good and healthful environment, 
 he has put beauty and joy into their lives. He is, in 
 fact, the pioneer among industrial leaders in social 
 welfare work, for he was one of the first large em- 
 ployers of labor to discover that poor working condi- 
 tions and poor wages mean poor output and a poor 
 product. " Make the man right, and he will make the 
 product right," has been Mr. Patterson's motto. So 
 when he built his new plant, he included in it every 
 possible convenience and comfort for his employees. 
 To-day this model plant probably has no superior in the 
 world. 
 
 Quick failure was predicted when the new steel and 
 glass palace of industry was built. " Why," chuckled 
 one critic, " the boys of i Slidertown ? >? (the section of 
 the city in which the factory was located), " will smash 
 every window in it." 
 
204 FAMOUS LEADEES OF INDUSTRY 
 
 But Mr. Patterson had already had that very expe- 
 rience with the so-called " bad boys " of Slidertown. 
 And he had solved the problem with characteristic 
 promptness and success. Reasoning that the bad boy 
 was merely the boy of energy plus, without legitimate 
 outlet, he had provided a house and grounds and taught 
 them gardening, carpentry and a lot of other useful 
 things. There were no windows broken in the crystal 
 palace of the N. C. R. 
 
 The boys have their playgrounds, workgrounds, and 
 clubhouse. They have formed the Boys' Garden Com- 
 pany and the Boys' Box Furniture Company, both in- 
 corporated. The Boys' Box Furniture Company makes 
 and sells simple but attractive furniture. The material 
 is packing boxes, furnished by the N. C. R. Company. 
 The Boys' Garden Company raises garden produce for 
 their own homes and for sale. Both companies are 
 self-administered and the hoys divide the profits. To 
 gain admission to the Boys' Furniture Company, a boy 
 must have done two years of gardening and have re- 
 ceived his diploma from the Boys' Gardening Com- 
 pany. After a year at carpentry, he is eligible for 
 employment at the National Cash Register plant, and 
 you may be sure that he looks eagerly forward to en- 
 tering the " works." If every industrial establish- 
 ment in the land took the same steps toward directing 
 the energies of the boys of their neighborhoods in the 
 right direction, there would be fewer " bad men " and 
 prisons. 
 
 There are many educational features at the National 
 Cash Register City Club. Owl Classes are conducted 
 
JOHN H. PATTEESON 205 
 
 in salesmanship, business and shop practice, etc. All 
 employees are encouraged to attend. Then there is 
 the Hall of Industrial Education at the plant where 
 frequent talks are given employees by scientists, experts 
 on right living, and other prominent men. These talks 
 are given largely on the company's time. Mr. Patter- 
 son often alludes to the " Schoolhouse " as the " power- 
 house " of the company. Each noon there is an enter- 
 tainment held in this beautiful hall, usually consisting 
 wholly or in part of moving pictures. 
 
 The National Cash Register Company was the first 
 plant in America to put in force a minimum livable 
 wage for girls. The girls are taught calisthenics, have 
 their own clubs, and during working hours are provided 
 with rest rooms and rest periods. There are completely 
 equipped hospital and dental rooms, with doctors, den- 
 tists and nurses always in attendance. Every possible 
 precaution is taken to safeguard the health of National 
 Cash Eegister workers. The machines are guarded by 
 safety devices, the air in all buildings is changed every 
 fifteen minutes. The drinking water is regularly anal- 
 yzed. The wash-rooms are kept scrupulously clean and 
 sanitary, the old roller towel has been replaced by indi- 
 vidual hand towels, and common drinking cups have 
 given way to bubbling fountains. Brushes and combs 
 are sterilized daily. There are modern shower-baths 
 and each employee is permitted to enjoy one bath a 
 week in winter, and two each week in summer on the 
 Company's time. 
 
 Special care and attention is given to the health and 
 welfare of women workers. They come to work later 
 
206 FAMOUS LEADEES OF INDUSTBY 
 
 than the men and quit earlier to avoid crowded street- 
 cars. The old style uncomfortable stool has been re- 
 placed by the high-back chair with foot-rest. In rainy 
 weather, overshoes and umbrellas are furnished. There 
 is also a large library for the use of the employees. 
 
 The National Cash Register has three large dining- 
 halls ; one, known as the Officers' Club, where the execu- 
 tives, heads of departments and others of the employees 
 eat, a huge dining-hall for the men and a third dining- 
 hall for women employees. 
 
 Mr. Patterson has never confined his efforts to doing 
 good merely for his own people. A favorite motto at 
 his factory is " What is good for the National Cash 
 Register is good for other people." Never has he 
 spared effort or money when he could see a way to 
 spread the gospel of right living. Several health lec- 
 tures have been prepared by the Company physician. 
 These are illustrated with stereopticon slides and mov- 
 ing pictures, and have been given in many towns and 
 cities. One of the health lectures was especially pre- 
 pared with the intention of teaching our soldiers social 
 hygiene. It was heartily endorsed by the United States 
 army officials and was given to more than a million sol- 
 diers in twenty-one cantonments. A special war lec- 
 ture, " Wake Up, America ! " was arranged under the 
 direction of Mr. Patterson and given all over the United 
 States after the entrance of this country into the war. 
 All of the expense in connection with these lectures 
 was borne by the Company. 
 
 When war was declared, Mr. Patterson immediately 
 offered his own services, his plant and all its resources 
 
JOHN H. PATTEESON 207 
 
 to the Government. The record of the National Cash 
 Register during the war spoke volumes for the efficiency 
 and morale of the organization. The Company was 
 called upon to make instruments of precision which re- 
 quired the greatest possible exactness in manufacture. 
 Without any previous experience along this line, the 
 National Cash Register was, within a few short weeks, 
 putting the manufacture of these instruments on a 
 quantity production basis. The motto of the Company 
 became " War first, business second if there is any 
 time for business." 
 
 In 1918, Mr. Patterson presented to the city of Day- 
 ton, three hundred acres of land which is known as 
 Hills and Dales Park. Included in this magnificent 
 gift was a fully equipped country club, which had 
 previously been used by his employees. This gift was 
 valued at one million dollars, and was given as a re- 
 ward for good government in the city of Dayton. 
 
 When the great flood came to Dayton, in March, 
 1913, the National Cash Register plant was untouched, 
 as it stood on high ground. Mr. Patterson immediately 
 summoned his executive force and announced : " I de- 
 clare the National Cash Register Company out of com- 
 mission and I proclaim the Citizens' Relief Associa- 
 tion." Shortly afterwards, he made a rough sketch of 
 a boat and ordered that some be made immediately. 
 The first boat was brought to the water in fifteen min- 
 utes ; after that the factory turned out boats at the rate 
 of one every seven minutes. 
 
 The people of Dayton turned to Mr. Patterson at 
 the time of their great need. He headed the relief 
 
208 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 work and attended to everything with, such wonderful 
 efficiency and generalship that when General Wood and 
 Secrtary of War Garrison arrived on the scene, they 
 stated that Patterson had done all that could be done 
 they could do nothing more. It was some time before 
 the waters subsided, meanwhile the National Cash Reg- 
 ister was doing only relief work, caring for more than 
 twenty-five hundred homeless flood victims. And John 
 H. Patterson, who as a boy had a passion for making 
 things " go better," was acclaimed as the man who 
 saved Dayton. 
 
 From the time he made the machinery in his fath- 
 er's saw-mill " go better/' he had been applying the 
 same rule to everything he took hold of. This passion 
 for perfection for efficiency plus is the secret of 
 success. The boy who makes his tools better than any 
 one else's and then uses them better than any one else, 
 is bound to succeed in life. 
 
 John Henry Patterson has now been the President 
 of The National Cash Register Company for more than 
 a third of a century. His name and " National Cash 
 Register " are linked together in the minds of all civ- 
 ilized peoples. The fame of the National Cash Reg- 
 ister has gone around the world. National Cash Reg- 
 ister standards of living and working are recognized as 
 being synonymous with all that public-spirited men are 
 working for along industrial lines. In 1900, after an 
 exhibit at the Paris Exposition of his Company's out- 
 put, Mr. Patterson was awarded the decoration of the 
 Legion of Honor by the French Government. 
 
 His career is one long record of a life devoted to hard 
 
JOHN H. PATTEESON 209 
 
 work and useful invention for the benefit of his fellow 
 men. In the Hall of Industrial Fame, John H. Pat- 
 terson will always occupy a prominent niche. 
 
JOHN DAVISON ROCKEFELLER 
 
 OIL KING AND WORLD'S GREATEST 
 INDUSTRIAL LEADER 
 
JOHN D AVISO X ROCKEFELLER 
 
JOHN DAVISON ROCKEFELLER 
 
 OIL KING AND WOELD'S GEEATEST 
 INDUSTEIAL LEADEE 
 
 JOHN D. EOCKEFELLEE'S first business expe- 
 rience was at the age of eight, when he became the 
 owner of a few turkeys. At once he was con- 
 fronted with certain hard realities of life that had 
 never occurred to him. He had no money yet he 
 had to supply the birds with food! It was in a way 
 an amusing predicament he was in for his live- 
 stock threatened to turn out a white elephant. His 
 mother, however, came to the rescue, presenting him 
 with the curds from the milk to feed them. This solved 
 the boy's problem, and, as he took care of the birds him- 
 self, their keep cost him nothing. After a while he 
 sold his turkeys in a businesslike way, the money he 
 received for them being all profit. 
 
 John was only a little boy when he conducted this, 
 his first commercial transaction, but it was a valuable 
 lesson in business, for he learned that capital is neces- 
 sary to conduct any kind of business. This gave him 
 some idea of the value of money (capital), and led him 
 into habits of thrift. Later on in life when asked, at 
 his fine home at Pocantico, how he managed to buy 
 such a large and fine estate, he replied: 
 
 " By saving my pennies." 
 213 
 
214 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 The richest man in the world's earliest philanthropic 
 work was in lifting the niortgage from his home church. 
 His parents were Baptists and, from his earliest age, 
 John had taken a great interest in church work. He 
 was a constant attendant, and soon became a leader 
 among the young people. When only eighteen he was 
 elected a trustee of his church. For some years the 
 church had been struggling along under a debt of 
 $2,000. One Sunday, to John's horror, the minister an- 
 nounced that the mortgage was about to be foreclosed, 
 and that unless the congregation quickly raised $2,000 
 they would lose their church building. 
 
 The announcement made a profound impression upon 
 the youth, and, after the service, he posted himself at 
 the church door, and buttonholed the worshipers as 
 they came out, insisting upon getting from each one 
 of them a promise of a contribution toward canceling 
 the debt. He continued his campaign for some months, 
 and a proud day it was for John D. Rockefeller when 
 he collected the last cent, and the mortgage was burnt 
 amid general rejoicings. This was, Mr. Rockefeller 
 said once, the hardest work he ever did ! 
 
 As a boy the future Oil King was brought up in the 
 good old-fashioned way. " Spare the rod, spoil the 
 child," was his mother's motto, and she proved a " good 
 deal of a disciplinarian," upholding the standard of the 
 family with a birch switch whenever it showed a tend- 
 ency to deteriorate. 
 
 He was, for example, once soundly whipped for some- 
 thing he didn't do. After the whipping, when he was 
 able to explain, his mother said : " Never mind, we 
 
JOHN DAVISON ROCKEFELLER 215 
 
 have started in on this whipping, and it will do for 
 the next time." 
 
 On another occasion, John and the boys with whom 
 he used to play went skating by moonlight some- 
 thing he was forbidden to do. No sooner had they got 
 started than they heard a cry for help, and found a 
 neighbor who had broken through the ice and was 
 nearly drowned. By pushing a pole to him, the boys 
 saved his life, restoring him safe and sound to his grate- 
 ful family. 
 
 John and his brother William thought that because 
 of this episode, the saving of this man's life, they 
 would be " let off " and not punished for their disobedi- 
 ence. But, to their dismay, the idea proved to be 
 erroneous ! The birch was had in requisition as usual. 
 
 In this way was the habit of absolute obedience 
 sternly drilled into the Rockefeller children. 
 
 Mr. Rockefeller is a native of Tioga County, New 
 York, his grandfather, Godfrey, coming from Massa- 
 chusetts and settling in Richford. In this village John 
 Davison Rockefeller was born on July 8, 1839. While 
 a child his father, William A. Rockefeller, drifted here 
 and there, finally settling in Cleveland, Ohio, where he 
 built a house for the family. 
 
 By this time, John, his eldest son, was a lad of 
 fourteen and had had about the same boy-experience 
 that falls to the lot of most boys. He had attended dis- 
 trict school and done such work as chopping wood, 
 taking care of horses, milking cows, weeding the gar- 
 den, raising chickens and turkeys. He was, however, a 
 silent, secretive sort of boy and never mixed with other 
 
216 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 youths. He went about things in a somewhat earnest 
 and solemn way, but, whatever he had to do, he usually 
 did well. 
 
 His father was tall and fine-looking, with a dominat- 
 ing personality, a great hunter and an unusually fine 
 shot. He was, too, a very shrewd, practical man and 
 Mr. Rockefeller has often acknowledged owing a great 
 debt to his father for training him in practical ways. 
 He was engaged in numerous enterprises, large and 
 small, about which he used to talk very freely to his 
 son John, explaining their significance ; in addition, he 
 tutored him in the principles and methods of business. 
 
 As a result of his early business training, the boy 
 kept a little book, which he called " Ledger A," in 
 which he used to set down all the money he made and 
 all the money he spent, and also all sums he had given 
 away in charity for he had been taught to give reg- 
 ularly a certain percentage of his receipts to charitable 
 objects. This little ledger is still in Mr. Rockefeller's 
 possession and he is said to prize it above rubies. 
 
 It was the intention of his parents to send John to 
 college, but he was anxious to go to work, so when he 
 reached the age of sixteen he was taken from the high 
 school where he had almost finished his course and sent 
 to a commercial college in Cleveland. Here he was 
 taught bookkeeping and some of the fundamental prin- 
 ciples of commercial transactions, and this training, 
 though lasting only a few months, proved of great value 
 to him. 
 
 John's education being finished, the next thing for 
 him to do was get a job. This was by no means easy, 
 
JOHN DAVISON ROCKEFELLER 217 
 
 however. " I tramped the streets for days and weeks," 
 Mr. Kockefeller relates, " asking merchants and store- 
 keepers if they didn't want a boy." But no one seemed 
 to need a boy, and " very few showed any overwhelm- 
 ing anxiety to talk with me on the subject. At last one 
 man on the Cleveland docks told me that I might come 
 back after the noonday meal." 
 
 He was in a fever of anxiety lest he lose this op- 
 portunity, but when, betimes, he presented himself to 
 his prospective employer, he said : " We will give you 
 a chance." This was on September 26, 1855, and no 
 word was said about pay. 
 
 John went to work joyfully and with much energy 
 and enthusiasm. When January came, his employers, 
 Hewitt & Tuttle, gave him $50.00 for three months' 
 work. These were his first real wages and the amount, 
 $50.00, seemed to the boy almost a fortune. The firm 
 was a wholesale produce commission and forwarding 
 concern and John's work was clerical, in the office, 
 under a bookkeeper who was a fine executive and dis- 
 ciplinarian and who received $2000.00 a year in lieu 
 of the profits of the firm of which he was a member. 
 
 Beginning with the new year, John's salary was 
 raised to $25.00 a month and when at the end of the 
 year the bookkeeper left he took his position and did 
 the work at a salary of $500.00 a year. 
 
 As the firm's business was general and very exten- 
 sive, young Kockefeller got an unusually valuable ex- 
 perience in business. It was not long before he began 
 to audit accounts and make himself useful in all sorts 
 of business negotiations. In the passing of bills, col- 
 
218 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 lecting rents, adjusting railroad, canal and other claims, 
 lie met all sorts of people, against some of whom he 
 often had to pit his own shrewdness, and all this in- 
 creased his business knowledge and efficiency. 
 
 The next year he was offered a salary of $700.00, but 
 considered that he was worth $800.00. When April 
 came, this salary matter not having been settled, he 
 resigned because of an opportunity he saw to go into 
 the same business for himself. This opportunity came 
 about in this wayf Among the merchants in Cleve- 
 land, whose acquaintance he had made, was a young 
 Englishman, M. B. Clark, who at this time wanted to 
 enter business for himself and was looking for a part- 
 ner. He had $2000 and was looking for a man with 
 a like sum. Young Rockefeller had been very thrifty, 
 3ut he had only saved about $800, and didn't know where 
 to get the balance. On talking over the matter at home, 
 however, his father told him he had always intended 
 to give each of his children $1,000 when they reached 
 twenty-one. He offered to give John his share then 
 and there if he would pay him interest at the rate of 
 ten per cent, until he was twenty-one. 
 
 Needless to say, John gladly accepted his father's 
 offer, and the new firm of Clark & Rockefeller was 
 launched. " It was a great thing to be my own em- 
 ployer," Mr. Rockefeller once said. " Mentally I 
 swelled with pride a partner in a firm with $4000 
 capital ! " 
 
 Young Rockefeller was junior partner and had 
 charge of the finances and books. Mr. Clark attended 
 to the buying and selling. The firm at once began 
 
JOHN DAVISON ROCKEFELLER 219 
 
 to do a large business, dealing in carload lots and 
 cargoes of produce, and before long needed more capi- 
 tal to handle their growing business. 
 
 Mr. Rockefeller, as financial head of the firm, had 
 now to negotiate his first loan. In some fear and 
 trembling he asked the president of the bank for 
 $2,000. His reply was : " All right, Mr. Rockefeller, 
 you can have it. Just give me your own warehouse 
 receipts; they're good enough for me." 
 
 The fact that a bank was willing to loan him $2000 
 greatly elated the young merchant, and he began to 
 feel himself of some importance in the community. 
 He was a business man ! 
 
 Mr. Rockefeller now began to go out and solicit 
 business, something he had never done before. In the 
 course of his drumming, he pretty well covered Ohio 
 and Indiana. To the surprise of the young partners, 
 business increased so rapidly they could scarcely take 
 care of it, and their first year's sales amounted to half 
 a million dollars. 
 
 Of course, they had to keep on borrowing money as 
 their business expanded, and young Rockefeller's loans 
 from his father were many. Once in a while usually 
 at very awkward times his father would suddenly 
 " call " a loan, saying : " My son, I find I have got 
 to have that money." 
 
 " Of course, you shall have it at once," John would 
 cheerfully answer. 
 
 His father did not need the money, but was simply 
 applying a wholesome test, and in a week or two would 
 offer it back again. John was not particularly pleased. 
 
220 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 however, with his father's tests to discover if his finan- 
 cial ability was equal to such shocks. 
 
 But it was very difficult in those days, to raise money 
 for business enterprises, and John was glad to pay his 
 father the ten per cent, interest he charged him. This 
 was the ruling rate in those days, though considered 
 too high by many. 
 
 Meantime, the produce business of Clark & Rocke- 
 feller went on very prosperously and in the early six- 
 ties they organized a new firm to refine and deal in 
 oil. It was composed of James and Richard Clark, 
 Samuel Andrews and the firm of Clark & Rockefeller, 
 who were the company. Mr. Andrews, who had mas- 
 tered the process of cleansing (refining) crude oil with 
 suphuric acid, was the practical man in the concern in 
 charge of the manufacturing. In 1865, however, the 
 partnership was dissolved and after settling the con- 
 cern's, indebtedness and collecting the money due it, it 
 was decided to auction off the plant and good will. 
 
 By this time, young Rockefeller had waked up to 
 petroleum possibilities. With the intuition of genius, 
 he divined in a flash the wonderful opportunities all 
 around him in the refining of oil. He saw the number 
 of oil wells rapidly increasing and a great and grow- 
 ing business springing up in oil. So he was seized 
 with the desire to pull out of his produce business, buy 
 this oil plant and go into partnership with Mr. An- 
 drews. 
 
 The day of the auction arrived and the bidding 
 started in at $500.00. Young Rockefeller at once bid 
 $1000, and then the bidding slowly mounted to $72,- 
 
JOHN DAVISON ROCKEFELLER 221 
 
 000. Mr. Rockefeller, although he didn't exactly know 
 where he could get such a large sum from, at once bid 
 $72,500. Upon which, Mr. Clark, who headed the 
 other faction, said : " Fll go no higher, John ; the busi- 
 ness is yours." 
 
 " Shall I give you a check for it now ? " asked Mr. 
 Rockefeller. 
 
 To which Mr. Clark replied: "No, I'm glad to 
 trust you for it ; settle it at your convenience." 
 
 And so, as Mr. Rockefeller so modestly narrates in 
 his recent book, " The firm of Rockefeller & Andrews 
 was then established and this was really my start in the 
 oil trade. It was my most important business for 
 about forty years until, at the age of about fifty-six, 
 I retired." 
 
 The oil business turned out to be for a long time a 
 precarious and highly speculative business. The busi- 
 ness of refining oil was a comparatively easy one, and 
 soon every Tom, Dick and Harry was in the busi- 
 ness. There was, too, an over-supply of petroleum and 
 prices went down and down. This over-production 
 raised some great problems and one of the most im- 
 portant and probably most difficult was to find foreign 
 markets. 
 
 So the new oil firm found itself under the necessity 
 of increasing its capital, of securing the best talent 
 and experience obtainable, of buying the largest and 
 best refining concerns, and of centralizing the manage- 
 ment to secure greater economy and efficiency and at the 
 same time a wider market. 
 
 Notwithstanding occasional setbacks, the business of 
 
222 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 the enlarged firm grew at an unexpected rate, neces- 
 sitating branch refineries, storage tanks, agencies and 
 large stocks at the most important seaboard cities and 
 later on came the tremendous feat of establishing pipe- 
 lines, through which the oil was pumped to markets 
 at a great distance. These pipelines, upon which the 
 entire oil business is dependent, were followed by other 
 revolutionary improvements such as tank-cars and tank- 
 ships, the latter, vessels especially constructed for the 
 transportation of oil in bulk to tropical and other coun- 
 tries. 
 
 In 1867, William Rockefeller & Co., Rockefeller & 
 Andrews, Rockefeller & Co., and S. V. Harkness & H. 
 M. Flagler united in forming the firm of Rockefeller, 
 Andrews & Flagler, and this was really the starting 
 point of the Standard Oil Co. Their reason for thus 
 combining was to secure greater economy and efficiency 
 and a larger business. As time went on and the vast 
 possibilities of the oil industry became clearer, they 
 induced others to put in money, and organized the 
 Standard Oil Co. with a capital of one million dollars. 
 This capital was increased in 1872 to $2,500,000 and 
 two years later to $3,500,000. At the present time the 
 total capital of the Standard Oil Co. and its subsidiaries 
 or allied corporations probably exceeds a billion dollars. 
 
 A great many people have been lost in wonder at 
 the amazing growth of the Standard Oil Co. and some 
 people have not been backward in accusing it of un- 
 fair business methods. Mr. Rockefeller himself only 
 a few years ago said that he ascribed the success of the 
 Standard Oil Co, to " its consistent policy of making 
 
JOHN DAVISON ROCKEFELLER 223 
 
 the volume of its business large through the merit and 
 cheapness of its products. It has spared no expense 
 in utilizing the best and most efficient method of manu- 
 facture. It has sought for the best superintendents 
 and workmen and paid the best wages." 
 
 As a matter of fact, Mr. Rockefeller had faith in 
 American oil, and was successful in bringing together 
 vast sums of money to push it, against Russian and 
 other competition, into every quarter of the world. 
 He also utilized the by-products of the raw oil, build- 
 ing up a vast business in these alone, developing more 
 than two hundred products of petroleum, such as vase- 
 line, candles, etc. Every kind of transportation 
 elephants, camels, burros, rafts, tank-vessels, Chinese 
 and Indian coolies helped in illuminating the re- 
 motest quarters of the world with Standard oil. 
 
 About 1893 the panic year Mr. Rockefeller be- 
 came heavily interested in the iron-ore mines in the 
 Northwest, later on building a fleet of ships on the 
 Great Lakes to market his ore. Still later the whole 
 immense properties were turned over to Mr. Carnegie's 
 steel company at a good price. 
 
 Mr. Rockefeller was led to use his brain and money 
 in these iron properties through the fact that he had, 
 some years previously, made some investments in the 
 stock of iron companies. These proving unremunera- 
 tive, he got an associate, Mr. Gates, to go out there and 
 report upon them. The report being unfavorable, as to 
 management, financial condition, etc., he decided to buy 
 out the owners, and operate the mines himself. His 
 judgment as to their possibilities was as usual correct. 
 
224 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 " Going over again in my mind," said Mr. Rocke- 
 feller once, " the events connected with this ore expe- 
 rience that grew out of investments that seemed at the 
 time to say the least, rather unpromising, I am im- 
 pressed anew with the importance of a principle I have 
 often referred to. If I can make this point clear to the 
 young man it may be benefit to him. 
 
 " The underlying, essential element of success in 
 business affairs is to follow the established laws of high- 
 class dealing. 
 
 " Keep to broad and sure lines, and study them to 
 be certain that they are correct ones. 
 
 " Watch the natural operations of trade, and keep 
 within them. 
 
 " Don't even think of temporary or sharp advantages. 
 Don't waste your effort on a thing which ends in a 
 petty triumph unless you are satisfied with a life of 
 petty success. 
 
 " Be sure that before you go into an enterprise you 
 see your way clear to stay through to a successful end. 
 Look ahead. 
 
 " Study diligently your capital requirements, and 
 fortify yourself fully to cover possible setbacks, because 
 you can absolutely count on meeting setbacks. 
 
 " There is no mystery in business success there 
 can be no permanent success without fair dealing that 
 leads to widespread confidence in the man himself, and 
 that is the real capital we all prize and work for." 
 
 Mr. Rockefeller believes that disinterested service is 
 the road to success. To the boy or young man starting 
 out in life, he says : 
 
JOHN DAVISON EOCKEFELLEE 225 
 
 " If you aim for a large, broad-gauged success, do 
 not begin your business career, whether you sell your 
 labor or are an independent producer, with the idea of 
 getting from the world by hook or crook all you can. 
 
 " In the choice of your profession or your business 
 employment, let your first thought be: Where can I 
 fit in so that I may be most effective in the work of the 
 world? Where can I lend a hand in a way most ef- 
 fectively to advance the general interests ? 
 
 " Enter life in such a spirit, choose your vocation 
 in that way, and you have taken the first step on the 
 highest road to a large success." 
 
 The great fortunes made in this or other countries, 
 Mr. Eockefeller believes, have come to those men " who 
 have performed great and far-reaching economic serv- 
 ices men who, with great faith in the future of their 
 country, have done most for the development of its 
 
 resources." 
 
 As Mr. Eockefeller is doubtless the most successful 
 business man that ever lived, the boy or young man 
 starting out in life would do well to ponder seriously 
 what so distinguished an authority has to say about 
 getting on in the world. Some young men jump from 
 one occupation to another in their anxiety to make a 
 fortune rapidly and in the end get nowhere, have noth- 
 ing. Mr. Eockefeller's advice is, " Don't change ; just 
 stick to one thing until you succeed at it ... do not 
 be discouraged, and save, save, save ! Unless you prac- 
 tice thrift, you can never become much. Lay aside 
 every dollar you can, and after awhile you will have 
 enough to start in business." 
 
226 FAMOUS LEADEES OF INDUSTRY 
 
 Mr. Rockefeller early in life learned the value of 
 money. He found that lie could get as much money, 
 in interest, for $50 loaned at seven per cent, as he 
 could by digging potatoes for ten days. " I thus 
 learned," he says, " that it is a good thing to let money 
 be my slave and not make myself a slave to money. . . . 
 Make good bargains; save your money and let it work 
 for you. 
 
 " Wed natural ability to hard work and you have a 
 combination that nothing can defeat." 
 
 The most successful men in our country have been 
 the men who have had confidence in the United States 
 and its resources as well as confidence in their fellow 
 man. It has been the optimist who has succeeded. 
 
 Mr. Rockefeller is no exception to this rule, for it was 
 his faith in one of America's greatest natural resources 
 oil plus his tremendous energy and courage, that 
 placed our country in the first rank of petroleum pro- 
 ducers and made him John Davison Rockefeller 
 America's foremost business man and leader of indus- 
 try as well as the world's richest man and greatest giver 
 to philanthropy. 
 
CHARLES M. SCHWAB 
 
 STEEL KING AND SUBMARINE BOAT 
 BUILDEE 
 
Copyright by Clinedinst Studio, Washington, D. C. 
 CHARLES MICHAEL SCHVTAB 
 
CHARLES M. SCHWAB 
 
 STEEL KING AND SUBMARINE BOAT 
 BUILDER 
 
 BOUNDLESS are the opportunities of youth! 
 At twenty-five, Superintendent of the big Car- 
 negie Homestead Steel Works ! 
 
 At twenty-seven, General Superintendent of the Ed- 
 gar Thompson Steel Works, Braddock ! ! 
 
 At thirty-five, President of the Carnegie Steel Com- 
 pany ! ! ! 
 
 At thirty-nine, head of the greatest corporation ever 
 formed in the history of the world the great billion- 
 dollar steel trust ! ! ! ! 
 
 And now the head of Bethlehem Steel, the second 
 largest corporation in the world ! ! ! ! ! 
 
 A wonderful and dazzling career for this poor Penn- 
 sylvania boy who had to drive a stage for his father's 
 livery stable, clerk in a grocery store, and then drive 
 stakes at $1.00 a day! 
 
 But this boy had more than his share of grit and 
 gumption, of keen-mindedness. As the man who gave 
 him his first real job at $30.00 a month said: "He's 
 willing and bright, and he wants to know everything/' 
 
 This passion of his for knowing everything for 
 understanding and getting to the bottom of things 
 led him rapidly to the top of things, as we shall see. 
 
 229 
 
230 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 It was in the Keystone State, at Williamsburg, that 
 Charles Michael Schwab the future master of men 
 and millions was born on April 18, 1862. The 
 Schwab home a little log cabin was swept away 
 by the Johnstown flood in 1889, but, long before 
 this event, the family moved to the mountain ham- 
 let of Loretto, where there was a convent of Fran- 
 ciscan monks which had been founded by the royal 
 priest Gallitzen a century back. In this picturesque 
 spot on the crest of the Alleghenies, at the College of 
 St. Francis, run by the monks, Charlie studied for two 
 years, after attending the local school. 
 
 Charlie was fond of mathematics, being especially 
 attracted to engineering problems. After leaving col- 
 lege a full-fledged engineer he naturally expected to 
 land a good position where his knowledge and talent 
 would be useful and valuable. But instead he had to 
 drive his father's stage between Loretto and the rail- 
 road station, five miles away. 
 
 But soon his father moved to Braddock, and Charlie 
 then became a grocery-boy in the Spiegelmire store. 
 Spiegelmire had often ridden in the stage driven by his 
 old friend's son, and had made up his mind, from his 
 promptness and expertness, that the smiling, goodr 
 humored lad was no ordinary boy, so when the family 
 located near-by he offered Charlie Schwab a job. 
 Though the boy had other and higher ambitions he 
 cheerfully set to work, serving customers, running er- 
 rands, sweeping the store, in addition making himself 
 very agreeable in his employer's household at night with 
 his piano-playing and voice. 
 
CHARLES M. SCHWAB 231 
 
 Whatever he did, he did his best, giving his em- 
 ployer good measure, and always did he work smilingly 
 as if work were a pleasure. He soon made lots of 
 friends, for everybody liked the young groceryman with 
 such pleasant manners and then came along oppor- 
 tunity. 
 
 An occasional customer was Captain " Bill " Jones, 
 a big, man in those parts, the superintendent of Andrew 
 Carnegie's Steel Works. One day when he dropped 
 into Spiegelmire's for his plug of tobacco the youth 
 screwed up his courage to the sticking point and, as 
 Mr. Schwab once related : 
 
 " I asked ' Bill ' for a place in the mill. 
 
 " ' Can you drive stakes ? ' he asked. 
 
 " ' I can drive anything ! ' I replied." 
 
 The next day Charlie Schwab was driving stakes, for 
 a dollar a day, in Carnegie Brothers' mill. His job 
 was carrying chains and driving pegs, but he did his 
 best as usual, and in six months he was a gang-boss. 
 
 Within six years he was superintendent of the works, 
 then the largest steel plant in the country. 
 
 How did he do it become, at twenty-five, a forge- 
 master ? 
 
 By amusing Captain Jones and Mr. Carnegie with 
 his piano or organ-playing or singing of Scotch ballads ? 
 
 Bless us, no ! These were both hard-headed, shrewd 
 men who never employed a man who couldn't make 
 money for them! 
 
 He did it by specializing in chemistry and by apply- 
 ing his chemical knowledge to the manufacture of steel. 
 No one had dreamed of such a thing as the chemistry of 
 
232 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 steel before, and everything was done by rule of thumb. 
 
 Young Schwab gave 1 his nights to the study of chem- 
 istry and before long he was conducting important ex- 
 periments in testing the quality and strength of steel 
 in various processes. 
 
 At twenty-four he had some seven thousand men un- 
 der him, and had revolutionized the steel business, for 
 he " knew more about it than any other man in the 
 world," according to Mr. Carnegie. 
 
 It is little wonder that Mr. Schwab advises young 
 men to " marry early." He himself married at 
 twenty-one, and it is to his wife, who was ever urging 
 him on to study of the chemistry of steel, that he 
 largely owes his preeminence as a steel manufacturer. 
 After he had mastered the chemistry of iron and its 
 compounds Superintendent Schwab was able to inaug- 
 urate processes of steel manufacture that largely cut 
 down costs, and brought profit where before there had 
 been loss. 
 
 Seven years after entering the steel industry, the 
 grocer's boy had designed and built the great Home- 
 stead Works, and become one of Andrew Carnegie's 
 partners! In 1889 when Captain Jones died, Mr. 
 Carnegie sent him to Braddock to succeed " the great- 
 est steel man in the world," giving Schwab a stock 
 interest in his business amounting to $50,000, and a 
 salary of $50,000 a year. 
 
 This was the rapidest rise for a boy on record ! Later 
 on, when somebody tempted Schwab with a huge salary 
 to go abroad, and he refused, his loyalty so touched & 
 Mr. Carnegie that he made a new arrangement with 
 
CHARLES M. SCHWAB 233 
 
 him on the basis of a minimum salary of $1,000,000 
 a year. 
 
 It was this contract that seemed to hother the great 
 financier, the late J. Pierpont Morgan, when all the 
 Carnegie interests were formed into the billion-dollar 
 trust. He had heard of $100,000 salaries, but of mil- 
 lion-dollar ones, never! 
 
 Schwab, like all real geniuses, cared little for money 
 or salaries. Work was all he cared for, and his heart 
 was in it. 
 
 " What's to be done about this ? " asked Mr. Morgan, 
 significantly, holding out the contract which had just 
 put $1,300,000 into Schwab's pockets for a year's work. 
 
 " This ! " was Mr. Schwab's reply and he crumpled 
 it up and flung it into the waste-basket. 
 
 When Mr. Carnegie heard this he was again much 
 touched. " Only Charlie would have done that ! " he 
 said, and he sent him bonds in the new corporation for 
 the whole amount of the contract. 
 
 The Scotch iron-master was a man of heart, and he 
 believed in rewarding honesty and fidelity. Men who 
 made a habit of subordinating their own interest to 
 their employer's, who had ideals of work far above 
 mere money rewards, were scarce very few and far 
 between. 
 
 Carnegie was now out of the steel business had 
 been paid half a billion dollars for his interest and 
 Schwab, the boy-president, as he was called, now headed 
 the most gigantic industrial enterprise the world had 
 ever heard of the United States Steel Corpora- 
 tion. 
 
234 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 Step by step the Loretto boy had climbed the ladder 
 of success from its. very lowest rung. He had thrown 
 himself heart and soul into everything he had to do, 
 and given the best there was in him to every kind of 
 work that came along. After mastering his own job, 
 he had always tried to understand the one a step higher. 
 " The surest way," said Mr. Schwab once, " to qualify 
 for the job ahead is to work a little harder than any 
 one else on the job one is holding down. 
 
 " To my mind," continued the boss of Bethlehem, 
 " the best investment a young man starting out in busi- 
 ness can possibly make is to give all his time, all his 
 energy, to his work just plain, hard work." 
 
 Mr. Schwab's advice to the young man starting out 
 in life is to go to the work he delights to do. Unless a 
 boy takes a real delight or pleasure in his work he 
 might just as well leave it alone. Scrupulous honesty 
 is absolutely essential to success, and fidelity is equally 
 important. 
 
 " What gave me my first start in life," said Mr. 
 Schwab once, " was my loyalty and my integrity and my 
 standing by the man that gave me my start. He was 
 a good old Welshman, a Welsh steelmaker; a man of 
 sturdy character and a great man. In those early days 
 I had a smattering of chemistry and mechanics and I 
 soon discovered that what my superior needed was sup- 
 port and strength in that line. I therefore qualified 
 myself to do and know the things which he didn't know, 
 and soon I grew to be very valuable to him. 
 
 " I took care to have him think that I was not a 
 smart youngster who knew more than he did. And I 
 
CHARLES M. SCHWAB 235 
 
 loved that man because of his interest in me and I 
 loved to teach him without his knowing that I taught 
 him the things he didn't know, and when I grew to 
 manhood and into positions far more important than 
 he occupied, and when later in life it became my op- 
 portunity to select the proudest position, I said to Mr. 
 Carnegie, ' There is no position that you can offer me 
 that will make me so proud as to be the successor of 
 my old master, Captain Bill Jones.' 
 
 " Therefore I attribute my success in life to my loy- 
 alty to the man who gave me my start." 
 
 As Mr. Schwab began life with an empty pocket 
 without a cent in the world and never received a dol- 
 lar he did not work and work hard for, his advice is 
 worth heeding by every boy in the land. His mar- 
 velous career is an inspiration to every American youth, 
 for what one boy has done another can do. 
 
 " I work," he said once, " just for the pleasure I find 
 in work, the satisfaction there is in developing things, 
 in creating. . . . The man who does not work for the 
 love of work but only for money is not likely to make 
 money or to find much fun in life." 
 
 After being the President of the great Steel Trust 
 for three years, and one of the busiest men in the 
 world, Mr. Schwab suddenly resigned. His leaving 
 the billion-dollar corporation aroused world-wide sur- 
 prise, and all sorts of rumors were sent flying around. 
 One was that he had a violent quarrel with the rather 
 peppery Mr. Morgan the " watch-dog " of Wall 
 Street. 
 
 As a matter of fact it was caused by a clash of prac- 
 
236 FAMOUS LEADEES OF INDUSTEY 
 
 tical and impractical ideas, and Mr. Schwab's action 
 in resigning was characteristic of the man. " I was 
 hampered," explains Mr. Schwab, " by directors and 
 other interests. ... If I thought a mill ought to be 
 built at Pittsburgh I didn't want an important director 
 telling me it ought to be built at Chicago. If I had a 
 strike involving a principle, I didn't want to be told to 
 settle it for fear it might affect the stock market." 
 
 So Mr. Schwab quit gave up a salary of $100,000 
 a year, and took life easy for a year or two. 
 
 The Jeremiahs laughed. " Charlie's all through ! " 
 they shouted. " He'll never ' come back ' now." Cer- 
 tainly many people thought the same way, that he had 
 reached the end of his meteoric flight in the steel world, 
 that his business life was over. 
 
 But they were mistaken. Mr. Schwab's greatest work 
 was to come, and his career from now on is a record of 
 almost titanic effort. 
 
 While at the head of the great United States Steel 
 Corporation he had bought control of the Bethlehem 
 Steel Works, later selling out to the U. S. Shipbuilding 
 Co., which failed. He now bought back the bankrupt 
 Bethlehem concern and later went to Russia, where he 
 booked an order for a whole navy. 
 
 The story of Bethlehem's upbuilding by Mr. Schwab 
 and his fifteen young partners is an amazing one. 
 Bethlehem Steel to-day is only second in size to the U. 
 S. Steel Corporation and during the war its output of 
 war material guns, shells, shrapnel, big naval ord- 
 nance, submarines exceeded that of the far-famed 
 Krupp concern at Essen, Germany. At one time dur- 
 
CHAELES M. SCHWAB 237 
 
 ing the war Bethlehem had $400,000,000 worth of Al- 
 lied orders on its books ! 
 
 Nothing short of miraculous has been the amazingly 
 swift development and expansion to giant size of this 
 once small and bankrupt steel plant. Mr. Schwab thus 
 explains how he accomplished this wonder: 
 
 " When I took hold of Bethlehem the second time, I 
 selected fifteen young men right out of the mill and 
 made them my partners. I believe in profit-sharing. 
 Andrew Carnegie was the most successful profit-pro- 
 ducer in this country and he gave his employees half 
 of his profits in bonuses. 
 
 " Of the fifteen I selected, not one has proved a fail- 
 ure. I am proud of that and proud of them. One 
 of them (E. G. Grace), was a crane fellow at $75 a 
 month. He is now earning five times as much as any 
 other steel employee in the United States and is sev- 
 eral times a millionaire. 
 
 " I backed Bethlehem with every dollar I had and 
 could borrow." 
 
 And he closed his palace on the Hudson Kiver, and 
 camped in the little Pennsylvania steel town, so soon to 
 become world-famous. 
 
 It was in 1908 that Mr. Schwab plunged into the 
 work of rebuilding Bethlehem Steel, spending prac- 
 tically all his time day and night at the works, punch- 
 ing the clock at seven or seven-thirty A. M., every day, 
 just like any of his workmen, and staying " on the job " 
 until late in the evening. His enthusiasm was con- 
 tagious, and his men for whom he worked out a 
 scientific plan of profit-sharing idolized him and 
 
238 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 backed " Charlie/ 7 as they all called him, to the limit. 
 Millions upon millions were spent by Schwab in im- 
 provements and in purchase of other plants, and in 
 testing one invention alone he spent $15,000,000. This 
 was the Gray method of manufacturing structural steel. 
 It was a risk, as everybody else had turned it down, but 
 Schwab believed in taking risks, and this one turned 
 out a huge winner, for it gave Bethlehem supremacy 
 in steel manufacture. 
 
 And now came the most momentous event in Mr. 
 Schwab's career, when, one day in October, 1914, after 
 the world-war started, a messenger boy ran into his 
 office with an S. O. S. cablegram from Commander-in- 
 Chief Lord Kitchener urgently summoning him to a 
 conference in London. Lord Kitchener had made Mr. 
 Schwab's acquaintance when he visited America once, 
 and he was, of course, familiar with the Bethlehem 
 Works and their capabilities for supplying war-ma- 
 terial in an emergency. 
 
 This was Schwab's opportunity an unparalleled 
 one ; and ordering a trunk packed he lost not a moment 
 in getting aboard the White Star liner Olympic, which, 
 with full steam up, was all ready to sail for England. 
 
 Six days later, on the 27th, the Olympic s wireless 
 operator got the news that close by, off the Irish coast, 
 the great super-dreadnought Audacious was sinking, 
 presumably from a U-boat's torpedo stroke. Instantly 
 the Olympic changed her course, proceeding at full speed 
 to the big British battleship's assistance. As she sunk 
 beneath the waves, Mr. Schwab succeeded in taking a 
 photograph of the terrible event, 
 
CHARLES M. SCHWAB 239 
 
 After she sank, the huge liner had to remain in the 
 vicinity for several days until permitted to continue 
 her voyage, no one being allowed to leave the ship. 
 Meanwhile Lord Kitchener was impatiently awaiting 
 the steel man. Then Schwab was taken off the Olympic 
 by Admiral Jellicoe and " rushed " to London into the 
 presence of England's great fighter, Kitchener of 
 Khartoum. 
 
 For several days England's famous warrior and the 
 great American steel maker were in close and confiden- 
 tial conference. Then cable messages began to flash 
 across the Atlantic and from that time on a period of 
 vast and unprecedented activity set in at the Bethlehem 
 Steel Works. 
 
 " Charlie " had captured war contracts for the Brit- 
 ish War Office up into the hundreds of millions ! 
 
 The once bare-footed Loretto boy now overshadowed 
 his old boss, Andrew Carnegie, as a steel king and mas- 
 ter of millions. 
 
 He brushed aside, as being not worth thinking about, 
 an offer of $100,000,000 for his Bethlehem stock hold- 
 ings. 
 
 Then Mr. Schwab returned home as fast as a great 
 ship could travel under " rush " orders as to speed, and 
 before long he was sending submarines, under their 
 own steam, across to the Allies, and turning out shells 
 at the rate of a million a month. 
 
 Not long after America entered the war, Mr. Schwab 
 had war orders on his books amounting to half a bil- 
 lion dollars for the United States Government, and his 
 
240 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 stock in Bethlehem had jumped from $25 a share to 
 more than $700. 
 
 The Bethlehem concern, of which of course Mr. 
 Schwab is the head, he being chairman of the board 
 of directors, has now about one hundred and fifteen 
 thousand employees and a weekly pay-roll of nearly $3,- 
 000,000. It has branches in Chile and Cuba and owns 
 vast shipbuilding yards. 
 
 In April, 1918, Mr. Schwab became a dollar-a-year 
 man at Washington, where he was Director General of 
 Shipbuilding on the U. S. Shipping Board Emergency 
 Fleet Corporation. This was his biggest job and his 
 smallest salary; but he patriotically plunged into his 
 duties with his usual irresistible energy. 
 
 One of his first acts as Director General was to move 
 construction headquarters from Washington to Phila- 
 delphia so as to be near the country's largest shipbuild- 
 ing district, and as soon as Mr. Schwab started in to 
 build ships for Uncle Sam the more than one hundred 
 and fifty shipbuilding yards in the United States began 
 to leap up in production. His contagious enthusiasm 
 and strong personal magnetism had an instantaneous ef- 
 fect upon the ship-workers, among whom the Director 
 General, often in shirtsleeves and overalls, used to 
 mingle, urging the men to greater effort and encourag- 
 ing them. 
 
 He made many inspiring speeches as he visited the 
 various shipyards. At Hog Island, on one occasion, 
 two thousand foremen crowded the hall where 
 " Charlie " spoke. One man, after hearing him, wrote 
 him: 
 
CHAELES M. SCHWAB 241 
 
 " I have just got home from the Island . . . and I 
 feel I must tell you how greatly benefited and inspired 
 I am, after your heart-to-heart talk to us. There's 
 something wonderful, even mysterious, about the way 
 you penetrate and conquer a man's heart. ... It cost 
 me about $5 in lost overtime and I had to beg my 
 general foreman to let me off, but it just tickles me to 
 death that I didn't miss the opportunity of hearing 
 you speak. You've pumped enough enthusiasm into 
 me to keep me going for six months. ..." 
 
 Mr. Schwab, in his shirtsleeves, the perspiration roll- 
 ing down his face, called upon his hearers to increase 
 the riveting record from fifty-four thousand to two hun- 
 dred thousand a day by the time he came around to see 
 them again. 
 
 " Come a month from now, Charlie," they shouted, 
 " and we'll show you ! " 
 
 When the Quistconck was launched Charlie stood at 
 the rear of the Presidential train between two coatless 
 shipworkers, President Wilson standing just behind on 
 the platform, to be photographed. " I am always 
 pleased to have my picture taken with the boys," said 
 Mr. Schwab, as he smiled into the camera 
 
 " For battles are won by labor 
 
 As well as by gleaming blades, 
 And the riveters' roar may avail us more 
 
 Than the splutter of cannonades." 
 
 Mr. Schwab likes to get down among men and, by 
 appreciation and encouragement, fill them with energy 
 and confidence. " I do not want," he said, " to have 
 
242 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 any man in the shipyards working for me. I want them 
 all working with me." In this spirit he went among 
 them, diffusing good humor and inspiring men with his 
 own patriotism and exhaustless energy. 
 
 Needless to say, long before the Armistice came, 
 Charlie Schwab had satisfactorily answered the Nation's 
 question : " Where are the ships coming from ? " 
 
 When riches and fame came, one may be sure that 
 Mr. Schwab did not forget his boyhood home, building 
 a new Catholic Church for Loretto which cost him $1 50,- 
 000. He erected another at Braddock, established an 
 industrial school at Homestead, and he and Mrs. Schwab 
 built a wonderful home on Staten Island, New York, 
 for orphan and cripple children, costing $2,000,000. 
 
 Mr. Schwab is very philanthropic and these are but 
 a few of his many benefactions. 
 
 Music is Mr. Schwab's great hobby, and he has in- 
 dulged this in his French Chateau on Riverside Drive, 
 New York City, by installing a magnificent pipe-organ. 
 This wonderful palace cost Mr. Schwab $8,000,000, 
 and is a dream of artistic beauty. 
 
 At his works at South Bethlehem, Pa., Mr. Schwab's 
 workmen, thanks to his generosity, are able to enjoy 
 good music, including the Bethlehem Steel band of one 
 hundred and fifty pieces, in a fine music hall he built 
 especially for their use. 
 
 These same Bethlehem Works, brought to their stu- 
 pendous size and efficiency by the energy and genius of 
 one man, constitute to-day our country's best bulwark 
 against foreign attack America's Gibraltar. 
 
 Charles Michael Schwab's success has been an unex- 
 
CHAELES M. SCHWAB 243 
 
 ampled one in the world of work, and lie is doubtless 
 the world's most successful and most popular leader of 
 industry. 
 
ISAAC MERRITT SINGER 
 
 INVENTOR OF THE SEWING MACHINE 
 
ISAAC MERRITT SINGER 
 
ISAAC MERRITT SINGER 
 
 INVENTOR OF THE SEWING MACHINE 
 
 AMERICA excels all other countries in mechanical 
 inventions. Yankee inventiveness mechani- 
 cal ingenuity is proverbial, and to-day Ameri- 
 can shovels, plows, reapers, 'tractors, clocks, watches, 
 typewriters and locomotives, for example, have reached 
 earth's utmost confines. 
 
 Inventions that save labor that lessen the wear 
 and tear on human beings confer a benefit upon the 
 human race. Conspicuous among such beneficent in- 
 ventions is the sewing machine, justly called " Ameri- 
 ca's chief contribution to civilization." Few inventions 
 are in more general use. There are few households in 
 the world to-day without a sewing machine. It is al- 
 most as omnipresent as the clock. 
 
 Like most great inventions, that of the sewing ma- 
 chine was the result of slow growth rather than inspira- 
 tion. At the date when Isaac Merritt Singer's versatile 
 brain became interested in the problem of machine 
 sewing, it had been in process of evolution for fully a 
 century. But the nearest approach to Singer's ma- 
 chine, prior to 1850, was the machine of Walter Hunt 
 of New York City, 1832-3-4. 
 
 Hunt's broth- \ loniram F. ? was later hired by 
 
 247 
 
248 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 George A. Arrowsmith, an enterprising blacksmith of 
 Woodbridge, N. J., to^construct some sewing machines. 
 These machines, built by Hunt, were made and sold 
 in New York City, and the failure of Hunt and Arrow- 
 smith to get a patent was fraught with momentous con- 
 sequences. For Elias Howe, Jr., a shrewd, wide-awake 
 mechanic, heard of this machine, and, finding out that 
 it had not been patented, made a trivial addition or 
 two and patented it himself. 
 
 With fingers weary and worn, 
 
 With eyelids heavy and red, 
 A woman sat in unwomanly rags 
 
 Plying her needle and thread 
 Stitch! stitch! stitch! 
 
 In poverty, hunger and dirt, 
 And still, with a voice of dolorous pitch 
 Would that its tone could reach the Rich 
 
 She sang the " Song of the Shirt." 
 
 In a back street in Boston one midnight in August 
 in the year 1850 two men, penniless and friendless, 
 sat on a pile of lumber. They were both sick at heart 
 and discouraged, for a sewing machine they had worked 
 on long and hard wouldn't work. 
 
 One of them, the inventor, had heard from across the 
 seas the " Song of the Shirt," and it had roused in his 
 breast a burning desire to still its horrible refrain and 
 carry relief and help, through his sewing-machine in- 
 vention, to the weary seamstress. Golden visions of 
 wealth came to him. But alas ! his invention didn't 
 work. The two men were dejectedly discussing the 
 
ISAAC MEBEITT SINGER 243 
 
 machine's failure when his companion said to the in- 
 ventor that "the loose loops of thread were all upon 
 the upper side of the cloth." 
 
 In a flash Singer divined what the trouble was, and 
 back through the night went the two men to the shop, 
 re-lighted the lamp, tightened a little tension screw, and 
 in a few minutes Isaac Merritt Singer had produced 
 the first sewing machine that was ever practically suc- 
 cessful. 
 
 Mr. Singer, shortly before he died, told all about 
 how he came to make his wonderful invention. His 
 story in his own words is as follows : 
 
 " My attention was first directed to sewing machines 
 late in August, 1850. I then saw in Boston some 
 Blodgett sewing machines, which Mr. Orson C. Phelps 
 was employed to keep in running order. I had then 
 patented a carving machine, and Phelps, I think, sug- 
 gested that if I could make the sewing machine prac- 
 tical I should make money. 
 
 " Considering the matter over night I became sat- 
 isfied I could make them practically applicable to all 
 kinds of work, and the next day showed Phelps and 
 George B. Zieber a rough sketch of the machine I pro- 
 posed to build. It contained a table to support the 
 cloth horizontally, instead of a feed bar from which it 
 was suspended vertically in the Blodgett machine, a 
 vertical presser-foot to hold the cloth, and an arm to 
 hold the presser-foot and needle-bar over the table. 
 
 " I explained to them how the work was to be fed 
 over the table and under the presser foot, by a wheel 
 having short pins on its periphery, projecting through 
 
250 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTEY 
 
 a slot in the table, so that the work would be auto- 
 matically caught, fed, and freed from the pins, in 
 place of attaching and detaching the work to and from 
 the baster-plate by hand, as was necessary in the Blod- 
 gett machine. 
 
 " Phelps and Zieber were satisfied that it would work. 
 I had no money. Zieber offered forty dollars to build 
 a model machine. Phelps offered his best endeavors to 
 carry out my plan and make the model in his shop. 
 If successful we were to share equally. I worked at it 
 day and night, sleeping but three or four hours out of 
 the twenty-four, and eating generally but once a day, 
 as I knew I must make it for the forty dollars, or not 
 get it at all. 
 
 " The machine was completed in eleven days. About 
 nine o'clock in the evening we got the parts together, 
 and tried it. It did not sew. The workmen, exhausted 
 with almost unremitting work, pronounced it a failure, 
 and left me one by one. 
 
 " Zieber held the lamp, and I continued to try the 
 machine; but anxiety and incessant work had made 
 me nervous, and I could not get tight stitches. Sick 
 at heart, about midnight we started for our hotel. On 
 the way we sat down on a pile of boards, and Zieber 
 mentioned that the loose loops of thread were on the 
 upper side of the cloth. It flashed upon me that we 
 had forgotten to adjust the tension on the needle-thread. 
 We went back, adjusted the tension, tried the machine, 
 sewed five stitches perfectly, and the thread snapped. 
 But that was enough." 
 
 If it could sew five stitches it could sew any number ! 
 
ISAAC MERRITT SINGER 251 
 
 His invention was, after all, a success! And on 
 August 12, 1851, he got his patent. 
 
 But it is one thing to invent something, and quite 
 another thing to sell that something. Mr. Singer was, 
 however, confident of doing this. 
 
 Starting with a capital of $40 borrowed from an- 
 other man, this poor but clever mechanician then 
 launched upon the stormy sea of commercial life. Dis- 
 couragements and disappointments met him at every 
 turn. People were skeptical of the sewing machine, 
 and looked upon it much as we looked upon the Keely 
 Motor some years back. Many such machines had been 
 brought out but all had been miserable failures, and 
 many people had lost their money in such ventures. All 
 this Mr. Singer quickly learned to his sorrow when he 
 attempted to sell his machine. Everywhere he went 
 he found that people were unwilling to believe that a 
 successful sewing machine had actually been invented 
 and built, and quite often he was " shown the door " the 
 moment he mentioned his business. 
 
 He was advised by Mr. Blodgett, who was a tailor 
 by trade and knew more about sewing than Singer pos- 
 sibly could, to give up manufacturing and sell terri- 
 torial rights. Blodgett further told Singer he was posi- 
 tive that " sewing machines would never come into 
 use." 
 
 " Slow rises worth by poverty depressed," and pov- 
 erty was this poor mechanic Singer's obstacle. He had 
 a successful sewing machine, and a fortune from its 
 sale in sight but no money. He met discouragement 
 and rebuffs on every hand, perhaps even insult, and, 
 
252 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 in addition, he was fought by rival claimants to his 
 invention. But he had- grit and determination, and the 
 faith of a genius in his handiwork. 
 
 The undaunted mechanic struggled on in poverty, 
 bearing up under many reverses and disappointments, 
 resolved to force an unwilling public to recognize the 
 fact that a successful sewing machine could be and 
 actually had been made. Slowly he gained ground; 
 gradually he obtained access to the public ear; by 
 degrees he induced people to at least give his machine 
 a test. A few hundred dollars borrowed from friends 
 expedited the work of introduction, and, just as the 
 skies seemed to brighten, a new and formidable trouble 
 appeared. The news that Singer had made a machine 
 that would actually do continuous stitching brought 
 Elias Howe, Jr., to his door with the patent he had ob- 
 tained upon another man's invention (as before re- 
 lated), who claimed that Singer infringed his patent, 
 and must pay him the sum of $25,000 or quit the busi- 
 ness. It did not take long for a man who had re- 
 cently borrowed forty dollars to begin business to de- 
 cline paying twenty-five thousand dollars tribute-money, 
 and the consequence was that Singer found himself 
 burdened with litigation that threatened to swamp 
 him. 
 
 At this juncture he called in the aid of Mr. Edward 
 Clark, a lawyer, whose recognized legal and financial 
 skill were taxed to the utmost to prevent the utter ruin 
 of the inventor. Mr. Clark became an equal partner, 
 and business was thenceforward conducted under the 
 firm name of " I. M. Singer & Co," 
 
ISAAC MEEEITT SINGER 253 
 
 Other inventors were stimulated by Singer's success 
 to vigorous efforts at making machines of practical 
 utility, and the consequence was a series of infringe- 
 ments upon existing patents, resulting in a perfect epi- 
 demic of litigation. Principal among the litigants was 
 this same Elias Howe, Jr., whose patent enabled him 
 to bring all the rest under contribution, and this he 
 did, suing right and left for several years. The patent 
 of 1846 had made Howe complete master of the sit- 
 uation, enabled him to dictate the formation of a com- 
 bination, by the terms of which licenses were issued 
 to manufacturers upon the payment of a heavy royalty 
 for each machine manufactured. From this royalty 
 Howe received huge sums, millions of dollars, not be- 
 cause he had invented anything useful to the world, but 
 simply because he had obtained a patent upon the in- 
 ventions of another man ! 
 
 From the outset, Singer resisted, at great expense, 
 the demands and pretensions of Howe, fighting single- 
 handed the battle of the inventors and the great world 
 which was waiting for cheap machines. Howe was en- 
 deavoring to establish a monopoly, strong and compact, 
 which meant dear machines to the weary-fingered women 
 who were still singing the dreary " Song of the Shirt " ; 
 Singer & Co. were struggling to throw the business open 
 to fair and honest competition at moderate prices. For 
 three years the unequal contest was continued against 
 the monopoly. All the other manufacturers had yielded 
 to Howe at first, and were conducting their business 
 without interruption under his licenses. They viewed 
 the contest between Howe and Singer much as the tra- 
 
254 FAMOUS LEADEES OF INDUSTBY 
 
 ditional frontierman's wife regarded a terrible struggle 
 between her husband and a grizzly, merely remarking 
 that " it didn't make such odds to her which won, but 
 she allers loved to see a right lively fight." If Singer 
 won, all the others would reap the full benefit of the 
 victory without cost to themselves ; if Howe should win, 
 they would be no worse off than they were before, and 
 he would probably cripple their most formidable com- 
 petitor. Meanwhile the business of Singer & Co. was 
 suffering every possible obstruction, while that of their 
 competitors, now wholly uninterrupted, was making 
 great strides. 
 
 At last, in May, 1854, self-preservation dictated a 
 withdrawal from such a contest, and an agreement was 
 made by which Singer & Co. were to pay Howe a roy- 
 alty upon each machine manufactured by them. Thus 
 was taken the last and most important step towards the 
 great Sewing Machine Combination, into which Singer 
 & Co. were the last to enter, and then only when driven 
 into it for self-preservation, after a long and exhaustive 
 drain upon their means. 
 
 By the year 1863, the annual sales of Singer machines 
 amounted to twenty-one thousand, and agencies were 
 established in the principal cities of the United States. 
 In that year the firm was merged into an incorporated 
 company, bearing the title of " The Singer Manufac- 
 turing Company." By 1880 annual sales had reached 
 five hundred thousand, and to-day . . . ! 
 
 It is doubtful if the history of the entire world can 
 furnish an instance in which any single house, doing 
 a legitimate business, has had a growth so stupendous 
 
ISAAC MEKRITT SINGER 255 
 
 within an equal length of time. The reader will re- 
 member that Arrowsmith, the purchaser of Hunt's first 
 machine, failed to patent the invention because, among 
 other reasons, it would require " at least three thousand 
 dollars " to begin the business of manufacturing and 
 selling sewing machines. Little did he dream that 
 within thirty years a single company would have mil- 
 lions of dollars invested in the manufacture of one 
 form of sewing machine! Arrowsmith urged, for his 
 fatal delay in procuring the patent to which he was 
 then entitled, that the fees were so heavy some $60 ! 
 And now one company spends tens of thousands of 
 dollars annually in the various forms of advertising! 
 Its system of agencies embraces the entire civilized 
 world, and even pushes its outposts across the bound- 
 aries into semi-civilized lands. 
 
 On every sea are floating the Singer machines ; along 
 every road pressed by the foot of civilized man this 
 tireless ally of the world's great sisterhood is going 
 upon its errand of helpfulness. Its cheering tune is 
 understood no less by the sturdy European matron than 
 by the slender Japanese maiden ; it sings as intelligibly 
 to the flaxen-haired Kussian peasant-girl as to the dark- 
 eyed Mexican Seiiorita. It needs no interpreter, 
 whether it sings amid the snows of Canada or upon the 
 pampas of Paraguay ; the Hindoo mother and the Chi- 
 cago maiden are to-night making the self -same stitch; 
 the untiring feet of Ireland's fair-skinned daughters are 
 driving the same treadle with the tiny understandings of 
 China's tawny daughter ; and thus American machines, 
 American brains, and American money are bringing 
 
256 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 the women of the whole world into one universal kin- 
 ship and sisterhood. 
 
 Were Singer alive to-day he would he lost in amaze- 
 ment to see what a giant oak has grown up from his 
 original little acorn. He had the poor seamstress, 
 " with fingers weary and worn/ 7 mostly in mind when 
 he toiled, starving meanwhile, upon his epoch-making 
 invention. He probably never dreamed, for one thing, 
 that his sewing machine would be developed into one 
 for a vast variety of manufacturing purposes. 
 
 At the present time more than two thousand five hun- 
 dred varieties of Singer's invention are in use in in- 
 dustry driven by steam, electricity, etc. And a large 
 force of experts is constantly at work inventing new 
 types for new processes of manufacture. 
 
 It is said that the late war could not have carried 
 on without the sewing machine, for it is essential to the 
 manufacture of more than one hundred and seventy 
 distinct objects. 
 
 Merit is the only ladder to success in the Singer 
 concern. Both the present president, Douglas Alex- 
 ander, and his predecessor, the late Frederick G. 
 Bourne, started with the company as office-boys, and 
 rose to the top through sheer merit. 
 
 Such is the story of the sewing machine from its pal- 
 try and inauspicious beginning. Such were the strug- 
 gles and trials of the indomitable soul to whose genius 
 the world owes the vast, incalculable and forever ac- 
 cumulating benefits of this great invention. 
 
LOUIS FRANKLIN SWIFT 
 
 HEAD OF THE WORLD'S LARGEST 
 MEAT-PACKING BUSINESS 
 
LOUIS FRANKLIN SWIFT 
 
LOUIS FRANKLIN SWIFT 
 
 HEAD OF THE WORLD'S LARGEST 
 MEAT-PACKING BUSINESS 
 
 A HALF a century ago there lived at West Sand- 
 wich, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, a youth, whose 
 savings from work on the farm were eighteen 
 dollars. That was not much of a capital on which to 
 begin business, but to the youth in question it was 
 enough, so he drew it from its place of safety and in- 
 vested it in a heifer. Now it was Widow O'Leary's cow 
 who kicked over the lantern that started the great Chi- 
 cago fire, but it was Gustavus F. Swift's heifer that 
 started that young man in the butchering business that 
 was destined to grow into one of Chicago's and one 
 of the world's greatest industries. So do great oaks 
 from little acorns grow. 
 
 Mr. Swift was the original " thrift " man, and when 
 a boy at West Sandwich, started in to save his profits 
 and put them back into his business. Young Swift, 
 though a butcher's boy and then a butcher on his own 
 account, started life with a good education, well in- 
 grained habits of industry, plain living and the fear 
 of God. His father was a farmer and his first Amer- 
 ican ancestor, William Swift, emigrated to this coun- 
 try in 1630, settling in Sandwich, Massachusetts. Both 
 
 259 
 
260 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 he and his immediate descendants played their part in 
 the constructive building of the Commonwealth of 
 Massachusetts and, later on, in the federation of the 
 Thirteen Colonies into the United States. 
 
 Young Gustavus was an unusually bright and very 
 active lad, and was soon advanced and quickly mas- 
 tered all the details of the retail meat business. It was 
 a business he liked, and in course of time he became am- 
 bitious to have a butcher-store of his own. He had be- 
 gun to have glimpses of wonderful possibilities. He 
 dreamed of " big things " and wanted to be his own 
 boss. 
 
 After some years of hard work and no play, he man- 
 aged to accumulate a small capital, and opened a retail 
 butcher shop at Barnstable, Massachusetts. This to 
 many people no doubt looked like a wild venture for so 
 young a man ; but he was successful from the start and 
 branched out into the buying and selling of live-stock 
 in a small way between farmers and butchers in his lo- 
 cal territory. Gradually he extended his operations to 
 the then live-stock centers, Brighton and Watertown, on 
 the outskirts of Boston. 
 
 In 1872 the alert and enterprising Gustavus formed 
 a partnership with James A. Hathaway, buying and 
 selling live-stock, with headquarters in Albany, New 
 York. Hathaway & Swift were successful from the 
 start and Gustavus F. Swift became noted for his keen- 
 ness, foresight, and energy, and was regarded as an 
 authority on live-stock matters. 
 
 With the phenomenal growth of the West and its 
 constantly increasing live-stock development, an active 
 
LOUIS FRANKLIN SWIFT 261 
 
 live-stock market had grown up at Chicago, which was 
 rapidly making itself felt as a live-stock center. Being 
 thoroughly alive to this growth, the firm of Hathaway 
 & Swift, in 1875, opened an office in Chicago and later 
 moved their business and concentrated their entire ef- 
 forts at this point. Soon after locating on the shores 
 of Lake Michigan, Mr. Swift began to slaughter cattle 
 on his own account at Chicago, and, in the fall of 1875, 
 began shipping dressed beef to the Eastern markets. 
 Previously, all live-stock destined for Eastern markets, 
 the then principal consuming territory, was shipped 
 alive on the hoof and slaughtered in local slaughtering 
 centers in the consuming territory. 
 
 It was about this time, however, that a novel and 
 revolutionary device the refrigerator car was put 
 into practical use, and, while Mr. Swift was not the 
 inventor, he was among the first to use the idea and 
 had as much to do with the development of this dressed- 
 beef business as any one else in the trade. This idea 
 revolutionized the meat industry, for to slaughter the 
 cattle at some central point near its origin, paying 
 freight on only dressed beef, was an economic advant- 
 age not to be overlooked. Why pay freight on so much 
 of the animal that was uneatable ? 
 
 In 1878 the firm of Hathway & Swift was dissolved 
 and a new firm organized which was called Swift Bros. 
 & Co., being an association of Gustavus F. and his 
 brother, Edwin C. Swift. This new firm continued 
 the business with increasing success. In the meantime 
 the slaughtering activities of Gustavus F. Swift had 
 also continued to be very successful, and, with its 
 
262 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 growth, Mr. Swift determined to incorporate the busi- 
 ness. So in 1885, Swift & Company was incorporated 
 with a capital of $300,000 and Mr. Swift elected presi- 
 dent thereof. 
 
 The phenomenal growth of the business is a record 
 in itself, and additional cash was put in from time to 
 time to meet successively the demands for new and en- 
 larged facilities, so that in a few years the business 
 that was started with a capital of $300,000 and one 
 thousand six hundred employees, doing a slaughtering 
 business in a few small buildings, has grown to a com- 
 pany with a capitalization of $150,000,000, with over 
 60,000 employees, and with sales in excess of $1,200,- 
 000,000 a year ! 
 
 Gustavus Swift was a pioneer who blazed the trail 
 for one of the gigantic industries of the age. He was 
 a very shrewd, level-headed, far-seeing man a busi- 
 ness genius of unusual caliber. 
 
 An honest and sincere man, of few words but of quick 
 and effective action, he was a member of the Methodist 
 Church, and a firm believer in the Christian faith. 
 
 In his business he was a great educator. A model 
 of industry and business efficiency himself, he was con- 
 stantly endeavoring to develop a similar efficiency among 
 his many employees. While his criticism at times 
 tended to be severe, it was helpful, for his only inten- 
 tion was to make better and bigger men of those with 
 whom he was associated in daily work. 
 
 When Gustavus Swift died in 1903, the vast business 
 of Swift & Company fell to the charge of Louis, the 
 eldest of the eight surviving children out of eleven. 
 
LOUIS FRANKLIN SWIFT 263 
 
 In the old fable we read how the dying man called 
 his six sons to his bedside and told them to go to the 
 forest and each bring back a stick of wood. When 
 they returned each with his stick, he told them to make 
 a fagot of them. This they also did. 
 
 " Now, take the fagot," he said, " each of you, one 
 after the other, beginning with the oldest, and try to 
 break it across your knees." 
 
 They tried, one after the other, down to the young- 
 est, but not one of them could even bend, let alone 
 break, the six tied sticks. No result followed their 
 strenuous tugging and straining. 
 
 " Now, untie the fagot," said the dying man, " and 
 each of you take his stick, and then try." 
 
 The six boys each took his stick, and each instantly 
 broke it across his knee. 
 
 The dying man smiled. " Now," he went on, " you 
 will understand my parting advice, my sons. Stick to- 
 gether! For, as you have seen, in union there is 
 strength ! " 
 
 It is this idea that has been the guiding principle of 
 the Swifts. They have held together. Each, when old 
 enough, has entered the business, and, beginning at the 
 lowest rung, has, without favoritism, gone through all 
 departments and mounted to an executive position. 
 Thus, one is in charge of beef and mutton, one of pork, 
 another of soaps, still another of branch houses, and 
 yet another of the New England district, and so 
 on. 
 
 Each started in at the bottom, first putting in four 
 months in the stock-yards, under a cattle buyer, then 
 
264 FAMOUS LEADEES OF INDUSTRY 
 
 another four months with a hog buyer, and so on, until 
 every branch of the business had been covered. 
 
 Louis, now the head of the family, was born at 
 Sagamore, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, on September 27, 
 1861. When his parentsmoved to Chicago, about 1875, 
 Louis attended the Graham Grammar School and Engle- 
 wood High School, but, inheriting his father's intense 
 energy and love of work, the boy proved too impatient 
 to send to college. He wanted instead to go to work at 
 once in his father's big packing plant. So to work he 
 went, beginning at the foot of the ladder and working 
 his way up through every department of the business, 
 and growing with it. 
 
 When his father died there was no one better fitted 
 than Louis to succeed him as President of the world's 
 largest meat-packing business an organization owned 
 by more than twenty-five thousand shareholders and 
 making its profits on such a small margin as fractions 
 of cents per pound of meat sold. 
 
 Louis had worked hard, devoting his whole time and 
 attention to the business, studying it in every detail, 
 and letting nothing in the way of an economy or im- 
 provement escape his attention. He had frittered away 
 no time in " society " or in expensive time-wasting 
 amusements, fads or hobbies. Work was his hobby. 
 So, not merely because he was the eldest son, but be- 
 cause he was best fitted to wear it, did his father's 
 mantle fall upon him. 
 
 " The big boss,' 7 Louis F. is called, for he is big, 
 broad and tall over six feet. He is fond of horses 
 and of golf, but has very little time to devote to either. 
 
LOUIS FRANKLIN SWIFT 265 
 
 At his work usually at 8 A. M. and at night, when all his 
 employees have gone home, he and his brothers are 
 usually to be found at their desks. 
 
 Louis F. Swift, like his father who gave so much 
 money to Northwestern University, is also philan- 
 thropic, but, as he is a very reticent man, no one knows 
 much about his charities. He likes to be " let alone " 
 and keeps as silent as to his good deeds as he does about 
 his business. 
 
 He is a member of the Society of Mayflower Descend- 
 ants, and of a number of leading clubs ; but he is quiet, 
 modest and democratic and wholly absorbed in his busi- 
 ness, which, under his leadership, has shown its most 
 rapid growth and expansion. 
 
 One of Mr. Swift's beliefs is that every one par- 
 ticularly young men should be in debt. He urges 
 every one of the more than forty thousand employees 
 of Swift & Company to get into debt and to keep in 
 debt, and he has organized a system to encourage them 
 in this and to show them how to do it profitably. 
 
 " If the debt is for something of intrinsic value, it 
 is worth while," he says. " As soon as one thing is 
 paid for, buy something else and get in debt again. 
 Stay in debt and never get out. Just as long as the 
 debt is not for clothes or drinks or such things, but is 
 for something of real, tangible value, a house or a 
 bond, for example, it is worth saving for and it is 
 worth while. 
 
 " Save save something, no matter how little. Get 
 one hundred dollars in hand, get one thousand dollars 
 you will find the second hundred or second thousand 
 
266 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTKY 
 
 will come much more, easily than the first did. The 
 start is the thing ! " 
 
 May 19, 1919, Mr. Swift announced a " 1919 Em- 
 ployees Stock Savings Plan " whereby employees are 
 given the right to purchase stock at par by going in 
 debt for it. 
 
 In addition to this plan Swift & Company has an 
 Employees' Stock Investment plan for purchasing stock 
 at the market value and extending the payments over a 
 period of two years. This plan has now been in opera- 
 tion for more than fifteen years. 
 
 Love of country has been strongly inculcated in the 
 children of Louis F. Swift, and four of his five living 
 children were in active service during the great war. 
 Mrs. Bessie (Swift) Fernal went to France before 
 America entered the war, and, when our first detach- 
 ment of marines was landed, established a canteen just 
 behind the lines so that she might serve them with such 
 few little necessities and luxuries as she could get to- 
 gether. Later she entered the hospital at Xeuilly sur 
 Seine, Paris, as a nurse, and for more than a year gave 
 her devoted attention to the wounded, returning to this 
 this country in April, 1919. 
 
 Alden B. Swift was for a time in charge of a Red 
 Cross warehouse in France and returned to this coun- 
 try to enlist in a Motor Truck Division. He was in 
 this service when the armistice was signed. 
 
 Louis F. Swift, Jr., saw service in France as a First 
 Lieutenant in the Artillery Division. 
 
 William E. Swift enlisted in the Naval Aviation 
 Corps, returning from the Orient so that he might enter 
 
LOUIS FRANKLIN iSWIFT 267 
 
 the service, and was in training when the war ended. 
 Mr. Swift himself, during the great conflict, gave his 
 services untiringly to the business of preparing meat 
 foods in sufficient supply so that no man in service, 
 and no man, woman or child of the civilian popula- 
 tion, might go hungry, and few of our leaders of in- 
 dustry worked harder than he during the long gray 
 days of the war. 
 
JOHN WANAMAKER 
 
 AMERICA'S FOREMOST RETAIL MERCHANT 
 AND ORIGINATOR OE THE DEPART- 
 MENT STORE 
 
.TOTTX WAXAMAKEll 
 
JOHN WANAMAKER 
 
 AMERICA'S FOREMOST RETAIL MERCHANT 
 AND ORIGINATOR OF THE DEPART- 
 MENT STORE 
 
 ON a certain Christmas eve more than sixty years 
 ago a country boy, his clothes besprinkled with 
 snow, walked into a Philadelphia jewelry store 
 to buy a present for his mother. He had saved a few 
 dollars from his earnings and was glad to find a pretty 
 trinket within his slender means. 
 
 " I'll take that," he said, handing out the cash a bit 
 proudly. 
 
 As he spoke he saw another shiny something that 
 pleased him more, even though it was higher in price. 
 
 " I think I'll change my mind and take this one 
 instead," he said to the man, who had not yet wrapped 
 the first selection. 
 
 " It's too late now," snapped the jeweler. " You've 
 bought this and you must keep it." 
 
 Doubtless it had been in stock a long time, and, under 
 customs which then governed business, the boy had no 
 recourse. He took what he did not want and said 
 nothing nothing audible ! 
 
 But then and there he determined to start some day 
 a store of his own where no one would have to stand 
 
 such unfair treatment. 
 
 271 
 
272 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 This boy was John Wanamaker, who later on, in his 
 little clothing store in Philadelphia, was the first mer- 
 chant to install the " money back on your purchase " 
 system. 
 
 One might enter to-day, any time between the hours 
 of eight o'clock in the morning and six or seven at 
 night, the private offices in the Wanamaker Building in 
 Philadelphia and find there, hard at work, a genial- 
 faced, robust man of apparently sixty-odd years, whose 
 hair has only just begun to turn gray. 
 
 This man is John Wanamaker. 
 
 He has stopped counting his years, and he seems to 
 have stopped growing old, but he was born before rail- 
 roads in this country had made much progress; be- 
 fore the time of the perfected telegraph and telephone; 
 the electric light ; the wireless ; the typewriter and even 
 the steam-printing press. 
 
 His store was the first store ever lighted by elec- 
 tricity, and this event happened the night after Christ- 
 mas, 1878. In 1909 flying machines were on sale in 
 his immense emporium. 
 
 John Wanamaker, America's greatest retail mer- 
 chant, was born on July 11, 1838, in the southern part 
 of Philadelphia, when there were few houses in that 
 section. His father, Nelson, was a brick-maker, his 
 grandfather, John, a plain farmer, and the family orig- 
 inally came to America about the time of the landing 
 of William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania. His 
 mother's ancestors, who came over about the same time, 
 were French Huguenots. 
 
 John's father being a brick-maker, the boy's first work 
 
JOHN WANAMAKEE 273 
 
 was " turning bricks " and doing odd jobs around the 
 yard. He was the oldest of seven children, and, as 
 his parents were poor, he had to leave school early in 
 his boyhood days to earn a living for himself. 
 
 He was fourteen when he obtained his first employ- 
 ment as errand boy in the publishing house of Trout- 
 man & Hayes, on Market Street, at a salary of $1.25 a 
 week. 
 
 After a while his family moved to Kosciusko County, 
 Indiana, but returned to Philadelphia in 1856, when 
 John obtained a position in the retail clothing store of 
 Barclay Lippincott at $1.50 a week. 
 
 Then he entered journalism for a brief space, pub- 
 lishing a small paper called Everybody's Journal, finally 
 taking a position, at higher wages than he had yet re- 
 ceived, with Col. Joseph M. Bennett, proprietor of the 
 Tower Hall Clothing Store, at that time the largest 
 business of the kind in the city. About this period in 
 his career the young man began to put personality into 
 his work, with the result that customers at " Tower 
 Hall " began to ask when they came into the store 
 " Where is John ? " and insist that he ; and no one else, 
 wait upon them. He had pleasant, courteous manners, 
 and character, and every one had confidence in the 
 young, tall and good-looking salesman and liked him. 
 His customers rapidly increased, his acquaintance too, 
 and he gained his employer's confidence and esteem. 
 He succeeded, because he liked his work, and put his 
 whole heart and soul into it. 
 
 Colonel Bennett delighted in telling his friends that 
 " John is the most ambitious boy I ever saw. I used 
 
274 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTEY 
 
 to take him to lunch with me and he would tell me 
 how he was going to be a great merchant. He was al- 
 ways organizing something. He seemed to be a nat- 
 ural-born organizer. This faculty is probably account- 
 able for his great success." 
 
 He had great perseverance and tenacity. A school- 
 mate said of John Wanamaker that, when any difficult 
 problem in arithmetic was to be solved, it was the rule 
 to remain after school hours, and sometimes the master 
 would become weary in trying to solve it ; but John was 
 not so easily discouraged ; he would keep the master in 
 until he was satisfied with the result. In this way he 
 distanced all the other pupils. While he attended 
 school, little time was afforded him for play like other 
 boys, as he worked in his father's brick-yard " turning 
 up " the bricks. 
 
 This close application in one so young caused him 
 to grow up tall and thin, and his faithful attention to 
 his new employments told severely on his general health, 
 causing his friends to think that he was going into a 
 decline, and, at the suggestion of his physician, in 1858, 
 he started for Minnesota. 
 
 His health improving, he returned to Philadelphia 
 the same year, when he was elected the first salaried 
 secretary of the Young Men's Christian Association in 
 America, which organization was then in its infancy. 
 He was one of the first members of the Philadelphia 
 Association, and afterwards the chairman of the Inter- 
 national Committee. 
 
 One Sunday, while passing the Chambers Presby- 
 terian Church, at the corner of Broad and Sansom 
 
JOHN WANAMAKER 275 
 
 Streets, before he went West Mr. Wanamaker heard 
 singing, and entering the church was much impressed 
 with the services, especially with the preaching of the 
 paster, Rev. Dr. John Chambers. At the conclusion of 
 the services he went up to Doctor Chambers and intro- 
 duced himself. The clergyman was so pleased with the 
 young stranger that after a long conversation he in- 
 sisted on young Wanamaker joining his church and Sun- 
 day-school. John always thereafter took an active part 
 in Sunday-school work, and when but eighteen years of 
 age enjoyed quite a reputation as a speaker in religious 
 meetings both in the Chambers Church and elsewhere. 
 
 By 1861 the thrifty John had succeeded in saving 
 $1,900, and then he came to the momentous decision to 
 go into business for himself with his friend, Nathan 
 Brown, whose sister he married about this time. So, on 
 April 2, 1861, the youthful firm of Wanamaker & 
 Brown took possession of a building at Sixth and Mar- 
 ket Streets, on the site of what was once George Wash- 
 ington's home, and where also once lived Robert Mor- 
 ris, the great financier of the Revolution, who once en- 
 tertained Count Rochambeau there. Some other occu- 
 pants of this historic house were the British General, 
 Lord Howe, and, it is said, Benedict Arnold. 
 
 The store, was opened for business at six o'clock in 
 the morning on Monday, April 8, ninety-four hours be- 
 fore Fort Sumter was cannonaded by the Confederate 
 General Beauregard. 
 
 The first day's sales amounted to $24.67, of which 
 sum all but the sixty-seven cents was immediately spent 
 in advertising, in which Mr. Wanamaker has always 
 
276 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 been a firm believer. The first year's sales reached 
 $24,367, and the hustling young merchant didn't dis- 
 dain to deliver goods himself in a wheelbarrow some- 
 times. 
 
 On the outbreak of the Civil War, however, young 
 Wanamaker sought to enlist in the army, but was re- 
 jected on account of the weak condition of his lungs. 
 Then with George H. Stuart, James Grant and others, 
 he organized the great Christian Commission, which 
 went hand in hand with the Sanitary Commission, and 
 was so efficient in aiding the sick and wounded soldiers, 
 on both sides, until the close of the war. 
 
 The first eight years of Mr. Wanamaker's enter- 
 prise was marked by that same spirit of application to 
 which he had accustomed himself from early youth and 
 he lost not a day from business in all that time. His 
 energy and unceasing attention to the details of the 
 business caused it to grow with much rapidity, until 
 it developed into what was admitted to be the largest 
 retail clothing establishment in America. In 1865 he 
 inaugurated the strictly " one price " system, and its 
 success led many other merchants to follow in the same 
 line. 
 
 In 1875, Mr. Wanamaker bought the old freight sta- 
 tion of the Pennsylvania Eailroad at Market and Thir- 
 teenth Streets, and it was quite an event in Philadel- 
 phia when the " Grand Depot " was opened on May 6, 
 1876, a date almost coinciding with the opening of the 
 Centennial Exposition. In course of time the whole 
 block was gradually absorbed, creating the most inter- 
 esting as well as the largest retail store in America. 
 
JOHN WANAMAKEB 277 
 
 In September, 1896, the famous A. T. Stewart Store 
 on Broadway from Ninth to Tenth Streets, New York, 
 was added to this gigantic business enterprise, and in 
 September, 1897, a fourteen-story building erected by 
 Mr. Wanamaker on Broadway, Eighth and Ninth 
 Streets, was opened to the public with a demonstration 
 which was participated in by prominent men from all 
 parts of the country, including the Secretary of the 
 Treasury. 
 
 The old freight depot in the Thirteenth and Market 
 Streets block, Philadelphia, has entirely disappeared, 
 and on its site now stands a twelve-story granite struc- 
 ture with three floors beneath the street surface. An 
 army of more than twelve thousand employees is con- 
 nected with these great stores. 
 
 In 1912 this store was completed, and dedicated 
 by President Taft in the presence of a notable assemb- 
 lage of distinguished visitors, including members of the 
 diplomatic corps, Senators, Kepresentatives and Gov- 
 ernors. 
 
 Mr. Wanamaker was the originator and organizer of 
 this mercantile achievement. 
 
 John Wanamaker, a pioneer in big advertising, re- 
 duced it to a science. Perhaps more than any one 
 man in the United States John Wanamaker succeeded 
 in establishing the value of honest statements to the 
 reading public. He frowned upon " brag " and " blus- 
 ter " and set the pattern for great merchants throughout 
 the country. He translated white paper into money 
 that came across his counter and this translation was 
 achieved through his intimate knowledge of just what 
 
278 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 lie had to sell and his remarkable ability of making store 
 news interesting. 
 
 In 1914 he introduced into his business establishments 
 the Saturday full holiday for his employes during 
 July and August which has been largely followed 
 by progressive merchants. 
 
 He owns one of the finest art collections in the coun- 
 try, though some of his gems were lost in a fire which 
 burned Lindenhurst, his country home near Jenkintown, 
 in 1907. On the seventh floor of his store is a private 
 art gallery, in which are two colossal paintings epito- 
 mizing the life-work of Mihaly Munkacsy, " Christ Be- 
 fore Pilate " and " The Crucifixion." No price has 
 ever been placed upon these masterpieces. Often the 
 great merchant remains in this impressive room half 
 an hour or more, gathering inspiration for his daily 
 tasks. 
 
 He is a firm believer in real estate as an investment, 
 and owns valuable plots in and near his native city. 
 
 Mr. Wanamaker's wondrous energy is shown in a 
 nose prominent and eyes clear, characterized by fre- 
 quent flashes. His jaws are well-formed and strong, 
 and his face always is clean shaven, as smooth as a 
 boy's, as mobile as an actor's, and when lighted in the 
 warmth of discussion beams with expression. He is 
 almost six feet tall and finely built. Nobody ever saw 
 him dressed in any other color than black or dark gray, 
 with a plain black necktie under a turn-down collar. 
 His face has ever upon it an expression of geniality, 
 of warm-hearted amiability. Ever quick and spry in 
 his actions, no one can be in his presence without catch- 
 
JOHN WANAMAKER 279 
 
 ing something of the spirit of his wide-awake, all-per- 
 vading energy. 
 
 In 1900, while a prominent clergyman was visiting 
 Mr. Wanamaker at his store, two girls, detected in 
 shop-lifting, were brought into the private office. The 
 goods had been found on them, and while they admitted 
 their guilt, they were defiant and refused to reveal their 
 names. At Mr. Wanamaker's suggestion both men 
 knelt in prayer, which so moved the culprits that they 
 broke down, cried and confessed, saying they were 
 strangers in the city. Instead of sending them to 
 prison, Mr. Wanamaker had them taken to the house 
 of a Christian woman, and gave them employment in 
 his store. This is an example of his wonderful spiritual 
 influence and philanthropic activity. 
 
 Mr. Wanamaker has always had a purpose paramount 
 to profits in business, and he may be said to have rev- 
 olutionized the retail trade by his inauguration of 
 shorter business days, one-price system, profit-sharing, 
 pension funds, etc. 
 
 He has always been very public-spirited. He once 
 financed an expedition to Alaska, and while Postmaster 
 General introduced many reforms into the service. 
 
 In 1912 Mr. Wanamaker received the decoration of 
 an officer in the Legion of Honor from the French Gov- 
 ernment. Two degrees of LL.D. have been conferred 
 on him, one by Howard University, the other by Ursinus 
 College, University of Pennsylvania. 
 
 He has erected Y. M. C. A. buildings in India, China, 
 Korea, and in 1914 sent two relief ships to Belgium. 
 
 He is a typical example of the self-educated American 
 
280 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 who has climbed the ladder from the first rung to the 
 top. He has wonderful powers of concentration, and 
 is a good listener as well as a good talker. 
 
 In his New York office you will see a chair used for 
 many years by John Hancock; a desk of James Madi- 
 son's; and on his walls are hung old-time prints of 
 Abraham Lincoln, Stephen Girard, Robert Morris, 
 George Washington and other great Americans. In his 
 Philadelphia office, opposite his desk there always looks 
 down upon him from the canvas the familiar features of 
 Benjamin Harrison, his intimate friend, with whom 
 he served the American public for four years as Post- 
 master General. 
 
 Working six days a week, Mr. Wanamaker has never 
 been content to rest the seventh, and every Sunday 
 one can find him, even now, at Bethany Church in Phil- 
 adelphia, which he founded over fifty years ago, and 
 which has the largest Sunday-school in the world, reach- 
 ing a membership of almost six thousand. 
 
 Mr. Wanamaker has really given his great life to two 
 things to his wonderful business which has been not 
 only a path-finder in commercial ethics, but also an in- 
 dustrial community that supports in its various ramifi- 
 cations at least sixty-five thousand people; and to his 
 church and Sunday-school. Into each of these he has 
 woven his wonderful personality. 
 
 It has been said that he might have been President 
 of the United States had he been content to go along 
 with the machine methods of the day. But Mr. Wana- 
 maker has always stood for the highest type of govern- 
 ment, as he stands for the highest type of business, and 
 
JOHN WANAMAKEE 281 
 
 although he has made many fights for reform in his 
 home city and home State, he has been content to re- 
 main a soldier in the ranks, leaving the rewards to 
 others. 
 
GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 
 
 INVENTOR OF THE RAILROAD AIR-BRAKE 
 
GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 
 
GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 
 INVENTOR OF THE RAILROAD AIR-BRAKE 
 
 IFF! Bang! Crash! " It was a head-on col- 
 lision, and nothing remained of the two 
 " freights " but a heap of wreckage a mass 
 of junk. The engineers had seen the signals, hut before 
 the hand-brakes could be applied, the collision came. 
 
 A young man, whose train was held up by the wreck, 
 stood, hands in pocket, gazing at the ruin. He was 
 thinking. Then he remarked to one of the train hands : 
 
 " This wreck wouldn't have happened if the engineers 
 could have controlled the trains from their cabs ! " 
 
 " Control how?" 
 
 " By braking them." 
 
 " Why, yes," responded the man, slowly grasping the 
 idea, " they'd have had plenty of time ! " 
 
 When the line was clear, the young man continued his 
 journey, but there had been planted in his mind a 
 great idea the idea of the automatic brake for rail- 
 road trains. A very crude idea it was to begin with, 
 and he had to reject first one and then another attempt 
 to design a workable brake. A mechanical automatic 
 brake wouldn't work, and he realized that he had 
 to have some kind of motive power ; so he tried steam. 
 But that wouldn't work. His problem seemed insol- 
 
 285 
 
286 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTEY 
 
 uble, but in his spare time he continued tinkering with 
 his brake at his father's machine-shop at Schenectady, 
 ]^ew York. 
 
 Then Dame Fortune took a hand in shaping this 
 young man's career. 
 
 It was the noon hour of an intensely hot August day 
 at the Westinghouse Agricultural Works at Schenec- 
 tady. The machinery was still, everybody was at 
 lunch, and the few clerks in the office were well nigh 
 prostrated by the heat for it was the hottest day in 
 years. 
 
 At one of the desks, however, sat a young man whom 
 no heat, however intense, or cold either, seemed to af- 
 fect. A living dynamo, his tremendous energy, per- 
 sistence and concentration ox mind rendered him obliv- 
 ious of weather or other conditions. His name was 
 George Westinghouse, and he was soon to become one 
 of the world's greatest inventors. 
 
 George Westinghouse had a passion for work along 
 inventive lines, and on this particular day he was as 
 usual devoting his dinner hour to working on his 
 brake idea in his father's office. 
 
 So absorbed in his plans did he become, that for 
 awhile he didn't hear Dame Fortune in the guise of 
 a little girl whispering at his elbow. 
 
 " You'll take one, won't you ? " pleaded, almost tear- 
 fully, a childish voice. 
 
 " Take what ? " he asked, still mostly absorbed in his 
 drawings. He hadn't heard a word about what she 
 had previously said. 
 
 " This magazine," the girl replied, holding it out to 
 
GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 287 
 
 him. " You know, Pm spending my vacation getting 
 subscriptions for it." 
 
 George was a good-natured young fellow, and, like 
 most men of genius, without a particle of stinginess in 
 his make-up. 
 
 " All right," he said, putting down the money, " leave 
 the magazine on the desk." 
 
 The little girl laid the book down, thanked him and 
 went on her way. Almost immediately George was as 
 much absorbed in his work as ever and had forgotten 
 the incident. 
 
 Trivial as the incident was, however, it resulted in 
 momentous consequences to the world. 
 
 That evening when George went home he thrust the 
 magazine into his pocket and forgot all about it until 
 bedtime when he took off his coat and saw it sticking 
 out of his pocket. 
 
 Taking it out he glanced rapidly over it. Suddenly 
 something riveted his attention. It was a short item 
 describing the building of the Mont Cenis tunnel, in 
 the Swiss Alps, and stating how compressed air was 
 being used as motive power for drills. 
 
 In a flash George Westinghouse saw the solution of 
 his brake problem and, sitting down, he made a rough 
 sketch of the first air-brake. 
 
 Strange to say, George's father had no confidence in 
 any of his son's " wild schemes," as he called his youth- 
 ful inventions, and he declined to take up the manufac- 
 ture of any of them. So George decided to manufac- 
 ture them himself, and went about trying to raise capi- 
 tal for that purpose. He at last succeeded in getting 
 
288 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 two men to put up $5,000 each for the building of the 
 plant at Schenectady, they to have a two-thirds inter- 
 est. He was to give his services and patent-rights for 
 his third. He was shrewd enough, however, to re- 
 serve to himself the patents themselves. 
 
 A quarrel over this soon arose and Westinghouse was 
 " frozen out " of the business. -Without his energy, 
 initiative and genius it could not, however, go on, and 
 soon came to an untimely end. 
 
 The young man, though only twenty years old, had 
 recently married, and in the serious predicament in 
 which he now found himself, his warmest encourage- 
 ment and best advice came from his young wife. A few 
 days later he was in Pittsburgh, having made an ar- 
 rangement with the steel-casting firm of Alexander & 
 Woods to employ him as salesman, they to have the 
 right to manufacture his re-railing device, one of his 
 inventions. This was in the spring of 1868. 
 
 From then on the career of young George Westing- 
 house developed with a rapidity that was as astounding 
 as it was dazzling. 
 
 In 1869 the Westinghouse Air-Brake Company was 
 organized, with George Westinghouse as its president 
 and general manager, and by 1871 his resistless energy 
 had led to the adoption of his air-brake by most Ameri- 
 can railroads. The same year he went abroad with his 
 wife, and succeeded in getting his invention adopted 
 there, and after his return home Congress passed a law 
 making the use of the Westinghouse air-brake by rail- 
 roads compulsory. 
 
 When George Westinghouse died in 1914, at the 
 
GEOEGE WESTINGHOUSE 289 
 
 age of sixty-eight, he was the president of more than 
 thirty large corporations, the owner of thousands of 
 patents, and a multi-millionaire. 
 
 George Westinghouse was born at Central Bridge, 
 Schoharie county, New York, on October 6, 1846, his 
 father having moved there from Vermont. George 
 Westinghouse, Sr., an inventor of more than usual abil- 
 ity, had patented the first threshing-machine in Amer- 
 ica, and in 1856, when George, junior, was ten years 
 old, moved to Schenectady, New York, where he or- 
 ganized the Westinghouse Agricultural Works, to man- 
 ufacture his machines. 
 
 When the boy George was not at school, one could 
 be sure of finding him in one of his father's machine 
 shops, where he loved to tinker around and " make 
 things. 7 ' From an early age he showed a most unusual 
 aptitude for things mechanical, and before he was four- 
 teen hail invented the rotary engine. 
 
 When the Civil War came, George, only fifteen, de- 
 termined to enter the U. S. Navy. So he tried for the 
 examinations, passed, and was assigned to an assistant 
 engineer's post. Later he enlisted in the 12th New 
 York National Guard, afterwards changing to the cav- 
 alry, and finally closing his war record as engineer on 
 the U. S. gunboats Muscoota and Stars and Stripes. 
 
 After the battle of Gettysburg he went to college for 
 a couple of years, and then returned to his old job in 
 his father's factory. 
 
 The boy had a perfect passion for mechanics. Born 
 with a wonderful inventive genius and great fondness 
 and capacity for work, he had in addition to these 
 
290 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 valuable qualities, herculean size and strength, together 
 with an adamantine will. 
 
 After his invention of the air-brake, as related, all 
 these qualities were heavily drawn upon. He took his 
 air-brake invention to first one railroad manager and 
 then to another, but for a long time he was unable to 
 interest a single soul in it. No one had confidence in 
 the " boy's " invention. To stop a train by air, seemed 
 absurd on the face of it. 
 
 One of the great American railroad chiefs he man- 
 aged to secure an interview with was Commodore \ 7 an- 
 derbilt of the New York Central Railroad. Every 
 obstacle was put in George Westinghouse's way to pre- 
 vent this interview. But at last he reached the presence 
 of the railroad king. The old Commodore listened 
 silently to his earnest and eloquent description of his 
 invention, and, when the young man stopped talking, 
 said: 
 
 " So you think you can stop a New York Central 
 train going at full speed by wind, do you ? Well, 
 young man, I've no time to waste on darn fools 
 good morning ! " 
 
 His reception elsewhere was not unlike this one. 
 But these rebuffs did not dishearten the young inventor, 
 in fact only nerved him and strengthened his deter- 
 mination, for he knew the value of his brake knew 
 it would work. At last he got in touch with three 
 Pittsburgh gentlemen Mr. Carnegie, Mr. Pitcairn 
 and Mr. Bagley and it was arranged between them 
 to equip one train with the Westinghouse air-brake at- 
 tachment, and thus give the invention a practical test. 
 
GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 291 
 
 In October, 1868, the test was made with a train of 
 one engine and four coaches on a track between Pitts- 
 burgh and Steubenville. 
 
 Luck favored young Westinghouse, for, in the middle 
 of the run, a farmer's wagon got on the track, at a 
 sharp bend. Hand brakes would have been useless in 
 such a sudden emergency. The engineer threw on the 
 air-brakes, and a collision was prevented by a margin 
 of only a foot or two. So suddenly was the train 
 stopped, that everybody in it was thrown flat. 
 
 After this and other highly successful tests, " Crazy 
 George," as he was often called, was on top of the 
 heap, and hailed as one of the world's greatest bene- 
 factors. 
 
 He was soon traveling about in. one of the most lux- 
 urious and up-to-date private cars ever constructed, 
 completely equipped as a business office and study, and 
 then he built his palace at Lenox, in the Berkshires, 
 known as Erskine Park, where he entertained some of 
 the world's greatest inventors and scientists. 
 
 Within a few years the companies he controlled were 
 employing not far from a hundred thousand workmen, 
 whom he treated so fairly that there was never a strike 
 of any importance at any of his works. 
 
 Mr. Westinghouse was always " at home " to the 
 countless hundreds of inventors who came to him with 
 their ideas. Sometimes he got hold of something val- 
 uable, but often the idea proved valueless. He had a 
 perfect mania, or genius, for experimentation and in- 
 vestigation, and electricity soon attracted him. With 
 his usual irresistible energy he plunged into its study 
 
292 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 and in 1893 succeeded in getting the contract to light 
 the Chicago World's Fair. 
 
 Two French inventors discovered the use and economy 
 of the alternating electric current. Mr. Westinghouse, 
 with his usual acumen and enterprise, went to Paris 
 to see them and bought the patents. He then applied 
 the new system in the United States, with the aid of 
 his own inventions, throughout the whole field of the 
 electrical industry. It proved a revolutionary inven- 
 tion for the Westinghouse companies. 
 
 He then turned his attention to the electrification of 
 railroads, for it was his opinion, and he often stated 
 it, that the steam locomotive had reached its capacity, 
 and that universal running of trains by electricity was 
 close at hand. 
 
 Here again his foresight proved wonderfully cor- 
 rect. Some of the heaviest locomotives in the world 
 to-day are driven by electricity. 
 
 Some one said once that George Westinghouse' s air- 
 brake had saved more lives than were lost by Napoleon 
 in all his wars. He has, too, added to the rapidity 
 of railroad travel, for without air-brakes trains couldn't 
 travel at more than half the speed they do. 
 
 In addition to his air-brake, electrical and other in- 
 ventions Mr. Westinghouse was the first man to har- 
 ness natural gas to industry. By so doing he more than 
 doubles the manufacturing capacity of the Middle West. 
 It was through his wife he became interested in nat- 
 ural gas. Mrs. Westinghouse, with a clever woman's 
 intuition, was sure there must be some in the back gar- 
 den of their Pittsburgh residence. 
 
GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE 293 
 
 Mr. Westinghouse was amused, and asked her if 
 she was willing to spend $5,000 in sinking a well. 
 
 " It'll cost, all of that," he said. 
 
 " Yes, let's try it," his wife replied. 
 
 Down and down and down and down went the drill 
 until it seemed as if it must be ahout the center of 
 the earth. Still there was no gas! Then suddenly, 
 unexpectedly, the gas came with a gush that threatened 
 to sweep the house away. But the flow did not last 
 long, and soon the well petered out went dry. The 
 experiment was, nevertheless, a tremendously success- 
 ful one, for it led eventually to the use on a huge scale 
 of natural gas as a fuel in manufacturing, thanks to 
 George Westinghouse's experiments and inventions. 
 
 It has often been said that he was the possessor of 
 Aladdin's wonderful lamp. At his will, almost in the 
 twinkling of an eye, vast Westinghouse factories sprang 
 up, not only in America and Canada, but in England 
 and Europe. 
 
 But, as a matter of fact, his success was built upon 
 the same old formula an idea, and perseverance 
 enough to develop it. 
 
 George Westinghouse was a man of ideas, and his de- 
 termination stick-to-it-iveness enabled him to de- 
 velop them. Gifted with extraordinary mechanical 
 genius, and wonderful organizing ability, he was, in 
 addition, a far-seeing, broad-minded man, with a brain 
 peculiarly receptive to suggestions. In this respect it 
 somewhat resembled a lightning-conductor, so rapidly 
 did it absorb ideas. 
 
 Before he died he had the satisfaction of seeing his 
 
294 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 air-brake in universal use the world over; of being 
 made an honorary member of learned societies, and 
 of receiving decorations and orders from foreign gov- 
 ernments. 
 
 George Westinghouse was easily one of the greatest 
 men in his century, and one of the world's foremost 
 leaders of industry. 
 
JOHN NORTH WILLYS 
 
 WIZAKD OF AUTOS AND AIRPLANES 
 
JOHN XORTH WILLYS 
 
JOHN NORTH WILLYS 
 WIZAED OF AUTOS AND AIRPLANES 
 
 FEW leaders in American industry have been so 
 splendidly successful as John North Willys, the 
 "Auto Wizard" of Toledo, Ohio. The dra- 
 matic scenes in his life flash by with the rapidity almost 
 of motion pictures, and constitute a romance of auto- 
 mobile selling and manufacturing without a parallel. 
 
 In 1890, when only seventeen, a small storekeeper in a 
 country town in New York State, to-day he is a mil- 
 lionaire. 
 
 Well has John North Willys been called the " Auto 
 Wizard " ! 
 
 Mr. Willys is young much younger than most men 
 who have achieved as much as he, but has crowded 
 many years of hustle into his life. He is one of our 
 great army of young Americans who achieve big things 
 without any " drag," without any pull, and with no one 
 to push him. He needs no one to do that, as he is all 
 " push." He has the ability to do things in the right 
 way and with the most productive results. He has 
 business and financial genius. 
 
 It was in the small country town of Canandaigua, 
 New York, where his father was a brick-and-tile manu- 
 facturer, that the hero of this brief chronicle was born on 
 October 25, 1873. When old enough Johnnie went to 
 
 297 
 
298 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 the public school and did so well that his father wanted 
 to send him to college. But the boy didn't relish the 
 idea of going to the university, for he was boiling over 
 with energy and enthusiasm for a business life and 
 millions ! 
 
 He had already done some business on his own ac- 
 count before he was sixteen and it came about in this 
 way. He wanted a bicycle, and, as his parents couldn't 
 afford it, bicycles costing then a hundred dollars, 
 Johnny set forth after school and in different ways 
 earned money enough to buy a sample New Mail Bi- 
 cycle, taking the agency for Canandaigua and thereby 
 getting the dealer's discount. 
 
 This started him as a bicycle agent doing his selling 
 after school hours. At seventeen years of age he was 
 a business man ! 
 
 Later, after getting through school, he opened a bi- 
 cycle store and repair shop in Canandaigua. This 
 brought him in touch with the Eclipse Bicycle at El- 
 mira, N. Y., and he became a salesman for that com- 
 pany. Later, with the money he had saved, he estab- 
 lished in Elmira the Elmira Arms Company and dealt 
 in bicycles and sporting goods, first as a retailer then 
 as a wholesale distributor. Before he was twenty-five 
 he had built up a business of $500,000 a year. 
 
 Then came quite a violent turn upward of Fortune's 
 wheel for the youthful bicycle dealer. 
 
 One day in Cleveland he saw for the first time a 
 horseless vehicle a vehicle that was self-propelled. 
 A great idea seized him, and for $900 he bought a 
 Pierce Motorette to use as a sample, for he determined 
 
JOHN NORTH WILLYS 299 
 
 to sell motors as well as bicycles. He saw big money 
 in it. But although he gave endless demonstrations in 
 and around Elmira he sold only two the first year. The 
 third year he succeeded in selling twenty, and after 
 that he took more orders than the manufacturer could 
 fill. 
 
 Mr. Willys almost at a glance came to the conclu- 
 sion that there was a fortune in making automobiles, 
 but he hadn't enough capital. So as a first step, be- 
 fore beginning manufacturing, he formed a large sell- 
 ing company, as he had done with bicycles, to take the 
 entire output of one or two companies. He conceived 
 the idea of securing the entire United States agency for 
 the Overland car, which was manufactured by the Over- 
 land Automobile Co. owned by D. M. Parry of the 
 Parry Mfg. Co., of Indianapolis. He went to that city 
 to close this deal and was told that he was crazy to under- 
 take such a thing. 
 
 " What's your objection to giving me the sole United 
 States agency ? " demanded Willys. 
 
 " Young man," the president retorted, sternly, think- 
 ing to crush Willys in one sentence, " do you realize 
 that we want to manufacture five hundred automobiles 
 the coming year? " 
 
 (Mr. Willys makes more than that every forenoon to- 
 day.) 
 
 " Suppose I agree to take all of your five hundred 
 cars and pay you for those I cannot sell ? " said 
 Willys. 
 
 " You wouldn't be so foolish," answered the automo- 
 bile manufacturer, 
 
300 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 " Bring on a contract and see a foolish young man 
 sign it," laughed Willys, and he did. 
 
 It was an iron-clad contract binding him to pay for 
 five hundred automobiles every year. Mr. Willys went 
 back to Elmira, and then set out on a tour of the 
 country. He established many agencies and was suc- 
 ceeding so well that, from a Western town, he wired the 
 manufacturers in Indianapolis : " Need more than five 
 hundred cars to fill orders. How fast can you turn 
 them out ? " 
 
 It was a bright morning full of hope for him when 
 he sent that wire. He had visions of joy in that In- 
 dianapolis office when they got his wire. But when the 
 reply came it knocked the sunshine out of that day 
 quicker than a wink. The wire reply was : 
 
 " Take no more orders. Cannot fill those on hand." 
 
 It was a bad fix he was in then, when one takes into 
 consideration the fact that this was in 1907 the year 
 of the big panic when actual cash couldn't be had. 
 Young Willys was up against a mighty stiff proposition. 
 
 Big concerns were failing right and left, and other 
 big concerns were tottering. Those that were not tot- 
 tering were so badly frightened that they wouldn't in- 
 vest two dollars in a five-dollar gold piece, they were so 
 suspicious. Mr. Willys took his message from the Ov- 
 erland concern of Indianapolis to his little room in that 
 Western town hotel and sat down. He propped it up 
 in front of him and got busy. He didn't shed a tear 
 or wring his hands. He did ring for writing materials 
 and got busy setting down tall columns of figures. He 
 knew more about the manufacture of an automobile 
 
JOHN NORTH WILLYS 301 
 
 than most of the officials of the company that gave him 
 the United States agency. When he had finished fig- 
 uring he made the next train for Indianapolis. 
 
 " The failure of that company meant the loss of my 
 income, it meant that I must start all over again but, 
 worst of all, it meant that I must break my promise to 
 several hundred customers who expected me to deliver 
 cars/' Mr. Willys once said, touching briefly upon his 
 " dark day." 
 
 " What's the meaning of this ? " he demanded of the 
 manager of the company when he reached Indianapolis 
 late on Saturday. 
 
 The manager shrugged his shoulders. He had 
 stopped fighting several days before. 
 
 " We are going into bankruptcy Monday morning," 
 he said. 
 
 " We are not ! " exclaimed Mr. Willys. 
 
 " We ? " queried the manager with a sardonic smile. 
 
 " You bet. I can't afford to have you do this " 
 
 " We are out of funds. We paid many of our em- 
 ployees in checks to-day and there isn't money enough 
 to cover in the bank. Of course they will be preferred 
 creditors ' 
 
 " How much cash do you need to pay these men 
 and keep them ? " 
 
 " Only $350," was the manager's answer. Mr. 
 Willys stoutly asserted that he would raise it. The 
 manager said he was dreaming, that there wasn't that 
 much ready cash in seven States, and a lot of other 
 discouraging things. But Mr. Willys went to the hotel 
 clerk and asked for $350. The clerk's answer was quite 
 
302 FAMOUS LEADEKS OF INDUSTEY 
 
 to the point, " What's the answer ? I'll bite." It took 
 some talking and Willys' personal check to convince the 
 clerk that he was in earnest. The proprietor of the 
 hotel, learning that Willys wanted this money to pay 
 a group of Indianapolis workmen, ordered the clerk 
 to cash no more checks and to hold on to every coin and 
 bill from the hotel, restaurant, bar, cigar-counter and 
 other source of revenue. By Monday morning the pro- 
 prietor dumped a big stack of coins and small bills into 
 a valise and handed it to Mr. Willys, who got it into 
 the bank in time to pay the workmen. 
 
 " But why this generosity ? You are not one of the 
 company ! " queried the surprised manager. 
 
 " I'm going to be," declared Willys decisively with 
 a cheerful smile, and then followed some of the tallest 
 hustling for funds that ever occurred in the history of 
 automobiles, either in panicky or good times. 
 
 Story writers would not dare to create a " hero " who 
 forged ahead as rapidly as did Mr. Willys, or who did 
 big things on nothing but brains and hustle, because 
 the writer's critics would say that the story was not 
 only improbable but impossible. Yet it all happened 
 in fact. At that time the Overland automobile con- 
 cern in Indianapolis had a " factory " made of sheet 
 iron, 80x300 feet, filled with much-worn machinery. 
 When Mr. Willys reached that city and hustled up 
 enough cash over Sunday to pay the men the following 
 Monday, the firm's liabilities were $80,000 and its as- 
 sets about $8,000 in machinery and a few automobile 
 parts. 
 
 Even in good times few investors would care much 
 
JOHN NORTH WILLYS 
 
 for such a proposition, and in such times as the 1907 
 panic the suggestion that Mr. Willys or any one else 
 could raise money enough to tide the firm over seemed 
 wildly impossible. Mr. Willys had but little money 
 himself. He rushed to Chicago, he wired close friends, 
 he raked and scraped, and finally he got enough cash 
 to keep the concern going one more week, then enough 
 to keep it going five more weeks, at the same time stand- 
 ing off a bunch of decidedly clamorous creditors. By 
 good financiering he managed to stand off those $80,000 
 worth of creditors with $3,500 cash. He counted in 
 his orders for cars as assets, which made $25,000, he 
 took all the stock he could buy in the company he had 
 saved, and urged the men to work harder to fill orders. 
 Then he went out on the road again and got a heap 
 more orders, so many that a tent had to be bought from 
 a stranded circus to accommodate the overflow output. 
 
 The company was safe and prospering now, with Mr. 
 Willys at the helm, but in too crowded quarters. So 
 he looked around for a new site for his plant, and he 
 bought the Pope-Toledo plant in Toledo. He merged 
 it into the Overland and changed the name to Willys- 
 Overland Company. It was worth $1,500,000. He 
 got it for $375,000. His circus-tent days were over. 
 He had a real plant now, but he continued to enlarge 
 it, until it now covers a hundred and fifty acres of floor 
 space. He started other plants. To-day he has six 
 plants turning out, at top speed, his seven varieties of 
 cars. 
 
 In the early days, while every one was " automo- 
 bile mad," the people were not at all satisfied with the 
 
304 FAMOUS LEADEES OP INDUSTRY 
 
 one-cylinder affairs. .Mr. Willys knew this. He pro- 
 posed to give the people what they wanted. He built 
 up his giant business on four cylinders that is, he 
 added three more cylinders to a car of popular price 
 and then had to keep about as big a staff at work en- 
 larging his plant as worked on his cars. 
 
 On a certain day in December, 1916, quite a little 
 family party called on Mr. Willys at his Toledo home. 
 It was made up of five thousand Overland dealers and 
 another five thousand of their " folks." For seventeen 
 days they pranced around Toledo and got acquainted 
 with Mr. Willys and his plant and his cars, from 
 " Nothing on the floor " to a complete car. Eight 
 years before that Mr. Willys did not know one of 
 these men, nor had one of them heard of Willys. Quite 
 recently he told something of that " visit/ ' and of the 
 growth of his industry that made it possible : 
 
 " They came from all parts of the country, in seven 
 miles of Pullmans. They learned that we were big, 
 but also that we were human they found that their 
 rich relatives were not a bad sort after all. 
 
 " In 1909 we took over the big Pope-Toledo plant, 
 but it wasn't big enough for us. Our first year at In- 
 dianapolis saw us turn out four hundred and sixty-five 
 cars. By 1910 this output had grown to almost four 
 times that. In 1917 it was one hundred and forty 
 thousand. Nine years ago we had two hundred and 
 fifty employees. Now we have above twenty thousand. 
 
 " Naturally I wanted my salespeople to come and 
 get acquainted and they came, like schoolboys, bub- 
 bling with fun and keen for business. They saw every- 
 
JOHN NORTH WILLYS 305 
 
 thing there was to see, ate beefsteak dinners and wit- 
 nessed the best minstrel show I ever saw in my life 
 all made up of our own talent." 
 
 Mr. Willys' mention of the minstrel show gives a 
 hint of how very human he is. He gets on with peo- 
 ple because he is sociable, because he is democratic. 
 He is, too, of a sanguine, optimistic temperament and 
 ardently devoted to outdoor sports, for he is a strong 
 believer in the old adage : " All work and no play 
 makes Jack a dull boy." This is why he got such a 
 good baseball team for Toledo. 
 
 " He looks like forty, he acts like thirty and he 
 works like sixty," said one of the officials of Mr. Willys' 
 company. " He's down to his office before the office 
 boy and he sets a pace difficult to follow." 
 
 Mr. Willys is dynamic, blue-eyed, possesses a pleas- 
 ant smile, is slightly gray and can cover more territory 
 to-day than his youngest, liveliest salesman. 
 
 Before the war and before he started in to do his bit 
 for Uncle Sam, Mr. Willys' daily schedule was some- 
 thing like this: 
 
 Eeach office eight A. M. 
 
 Complete inspection of plant eight-thirty. 
 
 Get through important mail nine-thirty. 
 
 Meet callers by appointment until one p. M. 
 
 Office conference until two. 
 
 After that hour he frequently has private interests, 
 family interests, a bit of rest, some golf, more than 
 likely a trip to some gathering and speechmaking. 
 
 Mr. Willys has a charming wife and daughter and a 
 wonderful residence in Toledo. The family spend their 
 
306 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 summers on the Massachusetts coast. If he has any 
 hobby at all outside of manufacturing a good automo- 
 bile, it is art. About four years ago he bought the great 
 old painter Rembrandt's famous " Pilgrim at Prayer." 
 He owns many famous old masters and probably pos- 
 sesses the finest private art gallery in the West. 
 
 Quite naturally he believes in good roads. A few 
 years ago he believed $150,000 worth in them, giving 
 that sum toward the building of the Lincoln highway 
 from New York to San Francisco, which plan of link- 
 ing the two oceans by an improved highway he believes 
 only the first step toward what is going to be the great- 
 est engineering undertaking of the age. He says that 
 good roads do much for the automobile 'industry, but 
 that the automobile industry has done ten times more 
 in creating good roads. 
 
 It wasn't more than six years after he organized the 
 Overland Company that he was offered $80,000,000 for 
 his share of the company ! 
 
 That is considered, in the industrial world to-day, as 
 " some organizing." It is little wonder that when he 
 offered the powers at Washington to do his bit, some 
 one said " He's a great organizer ! " Another, " He's 
 a great hustler." And they certainly sized him up cor- 
 rectly. 
 
 Right on top of his tremendous success as an auto- 
 mobile manufacturer, Mr. Willys entered the field of 
 aeronautics, becoming the head of the Curtiss, Airplane 
 & Motor Company of Buffalo, K Y. 
 
 For more than twenty years Willys and Curtiss had 
 been friends, but it had never entered into Mr. Willys' 
 
JOHN NORTH WILLYS 307 
 
 head to add airship-making to motor-car making, until 
 Mr. Curtiss told him his company needed a practical 
 business man to run it. This was just before the United 
 States entered the war. Mr. Willys, with his usual 
 foresight, felt sure the nation was on the brink of de- 
 claring hostilities against Germany and her allies, and 
 foresaw how the Curtiss company would do a big busi- 
 ness in supplying our Government with its product. 
 It seemed a patriotic duty to go to the assistance of such 
 a vitally necessary industry in view of the nearness of 
 war. 
 
 Mr. Curtiss wanted to devote his whole time to in- 
 vention to the working out of his ideas and plans 
 in connection with airplanes and seaplanes, so he urged 
 his old friend Willys to take the Curtiss Company's 
 helm, and so relieve him of business and financial 
 worries. 
 
 It was in this way that John North Willys became 
 the president of the huge Curtiss Airplane Company 
 and, after war broke out, he certainly made things hum. 
 In one year he supplied our Navy with more than four 
 hundred seaplanes, and was turning out airplanes at 
 the rate of five hundred a month. 
 
 He is a great organizer a great executive that's 
 why. 
 
 John North Willys is a good type of the hustling 
 American with plenty of horse-sense. 
 
 He got some valuable business experience in his 
 youthful days when he was running his bicycle store 
 in Canandaigua, and where he sold his goods mostly 
 on credit, under the impression that everybody was 
 
308 FAMOUS LEADEES OF INDUSTRY 
 
 honest. " It was the best business lesson I ever had," 
 he relates, " as it opened my eyes to the stern realities 
 of business and taught me judgment and good horse- 
 sense." 
 
 Since then he has succeeded in everything he has 
 undertaken, and to-day is one of America's largest em- 
 ployers of labor, and one of the world's greatest indus- 
 trial captains. 
 
FRANK W. WOOLWORTH 
 
 MAGICIAN OF THE 5 AND 10 CENT STORE 
 
FRANK AY. WOOLWORTH 
 
FRANK W. WOOLWORTH 
 
 MAGICIAN" OF THE 5 AND 10 CENT STORE 
 
 THE ability to see an opportunity when it comes 
 along and make the most of it is not of course 
 given to every boy. But there are boys and 
 men, too who couldn't recognize an opportunity, even 
 if it were as big as a haystack. There was a farmer's 
 boy in New York State whose parents were so poor 
 that he had to go barefooted half the year and, during 
 the winters, no matter how severe they were, had to go 
 about without any overcoat. 
 
 Under such hard conditions it is no wonder the boy 
 came more and more to dislike the farm, on which he 
 did every kind of work, and left it before he was six- 
 teen to seek his fortune in the world of business. 
 
 This boy lived to build on Broadway, N"ew York 
 City, the tallest building in the world a cathedral of 
 commerce costing all told about $12,000,000 and to 
 see the tiny business he founded upon his " 5-cent idea " 
 grow to one thousand thirty-eight stores doing a busi- 
 ness of nearly $110,000,000 annually. 
 
 This boy was Erank W. Wool worth, who died in 
 1919, leaving a fortune of $70,000,000, including the 
 magnificent Woolworth Building, America's highest 
 beacon of commerce, and several fine residences. 
 
 Frank Woolworth was seven years old when his par- 
 311 
 
312 FAMOUS LEADEES OF INDUSTEY 
 
 ents moved from Rodman, New York, where the boy was 
 born on April 12, 1852, to Great Bend in the same 
 State. His parents and ancestors for many generations 
 were Methodists, and he was brought up very strictly. 
 Like the boy Rockefeller, Frank Woolworth more than 
 once got a whipping " on account " for some as yet un- 
 committed transgression. As a boy he had to toe the 
 line pretty hard. His youth was not a " soft " one. 
 
 His father was a farmer and the boy's life was a 
 hard, dreary round of humdrum farm duties. There 
 was nothing he did not do in the farm-work line. It 
 was all work and no play. He was glad when the win- 
 ters came and he could go to school, so he could play 
 during recess. But he never learned to skate, because 
 no one ever gave him a pair of skates and of course 
 he had no money to buy any. Skates were luxuries far 
 out of his reach. 
 
 He made the most of his opportunities at school, pick- 
 ing up knowledge as rapidly as any other boy, and 
 joining in all kinds of games and sports. He was a 
 healthy, normal lad, though thin. 
 
 As he grew up his farm work became more and more 
 irksome, and the ambition formed in him of being a 
 railroad engineer or merchant. He loved to play, 
 with his younger brother, at keeping shop, and would 
 ransack the house for articles to stock his counter 
 the family dining-table. His parents rather encour- 
 aged him in his idea of becoming a clerk in a store, for 
 they were satisfied that he would never be happy as a 
 farmer, for his heart was not in the work. He had 
 become fascinated by the idea of " selling goods," and 
 
FRANK W. WOOLWORTH 313 
 
 the young fellow who sold things in the village store 
 " was the object of my supreme envy," he once said. 
 
 At sixteen he was beginning to get some idea of what 
 he wanted to do for a living some day. So he left the 
 public school and for two winters, at a commercial 
 school at Watertown, laid the foundation of a good 
 knowledge of accounts and business usages. 
 
 After this necessary grounding in the science of ac- 
 counts, the boy felt ready to make his plunge into busi- 
 ness. So one freezing morning bright and early Frank 
 Woolworth hitched the old mare to a cutter and drove 
 to Carthage, where he doggedly drove from store to 
 store seeking a job. He was turned down with scant 
 ceremony all along the line, for nobody wanted an ill- 
 dressed, raw, awkward country boy. But when he went 
 home, " jobless," he was more determined than ever to 
 get into a store, for a trader's instinct was rapidly de- 
 veloping in him. The rebuffs only strengthened his 
 resolution, for he had the right stuff in him. He was 
 gritty. 
 
 At Great Bend, where the family lived, there was a 
 railroad station a small country railroad depot 
 and Frank, deciding that he'd have to get started, some- 
 how, offered his services, without pay, to the station- 
 master, who kept a small grocery store in the rear of a 
 freight shed. He decided to work for nothing in order 
 to get experience in selling and handling goods. In 
 this way he became assistant station-master, without 
 pay, and started in selling goods and tickets, making out 
 reports, and doing such other simple clerical work as 
 came his way. 
 
314 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 While working at the depot Frank made quite a 
 number of acquaintances, and this is something that 
 every young man ought to do. The larger his circle of 
 friends, the better chance there is for him to get on 
 in the world. 
 
 While working at the depot he never relaxed his 
 efforts to get into a regular store, and he turned down 
 an offer from an uncle of $18 a month, with board and 
 lodging, to work on his farm, for he was now fixed in 
 his determination to be a merchant. 
 
 He had a good friend in Daniel McNeil, who ran the 
 big general store at Great Bend, and who promised to 
 try to find him a job in Water town. Frank, almost 
 twenty-one, yet not earning a dollar, was becoming im- 
 patient over his future and used to see Mr. McNeil 
 every night to see if he had any news. After a long, 
 weary suspense, Mr. McNeil at last told him a man 
 named Augsbury in Watertown was willing to see him 
 and look him over. 
 
 You may be sure that Frank lost no time in reach- 
 ing Watertown and getting together with Augsbury & 
 Moore, drygoods merchants. He naturally expected a 
 small salary to start with, but the firm had an idea 
 that he ought to " pay for tuition " while learning the 
 business. This did not seem quite fair to Frank. 
 However they " split the difference " by agreeing to 
 give him $3 a week, after three months 7 work for noth- 
 ing, and to raise his salary fifty cents a week every 
 six months thereafter. During the three months he 
 worked for nothing all he lived on was $50 his sav- 
 ings for ten years ! 
 
FEANK W. WOOLWORTH 315 
 
 " Leaving my father and mother to strike out in 
 the world and tackle an uncertainty/' said Mr. Wool- 
 worth once, " was the hardest experience of my whole 
 life." 
 
 On a bitterly cold day in March, 1873, with three 
 feet of snow on the ground, the young man left home 
 for Watertown, his father, who was taking a load of 
 potatoes there, driving him over. 
 
 " As the sleigh drove away I could see my mother 
 standing at the door, and she stood there as long as I 
 was in sight. Her letters to me during the early years 
 of my struggle to make good were the most beautiful, 
 the most inspiring, any mother ever wrote to her 
 boy." 
 
 When the boy reached Watertown and hunted up Mr. 
 Augsbury, who was sick at home, he said: 
 
 " Hello, Bub ! Say, Bub, don't they wear collars 
 or ties up where you live ? " 
 
 As a matter of fact they didn't, so poor " Bub " had 
 to make deep inroads into his small savings getting col- 
 lars and ties and replacing his flannel with white shirts. 
 A haircut completed his metamorphosis from a " hay- 
 seed " a " rube " into a citified store clerk. 
 
 It was quite a time after starting to work for Augs- 
 bury & Moore (afterwards Moore & Smith) of Water- 
 town before Frank Woolworth, in the opinion of his 
 bosses, amounted to anything. A raw country boy, he 
 was naturally slow and awkward at first. He could 
 never find the goods a customer asked for, or remember 
 the price, or make out a sales check. For a long time 
 he was permitted to wait upon customers only during 
 
316 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 the noon hour. All the drudgery was his to do, and 
 the clerks turned their noses up at him because he was 
 only a farmer's boy, and ridiculed his awkward attempts 
 to sell goods. 
 
 His hours of work and interminably long they 
 seemed were from 7 A. M. to 10 p. M. 
 
 His progress was indeed slow. After five years of 
 the hardest kind of work, his salary, at the age of twenty- 
 six, was only $6.00 a week ! No wonder he jumped at 
 what he thought was an opportunity. For, hearing of 
 a vacancy in the store of a man named Bushnell, he 
 applied for it, asking $10.00 a week. To his surprise, 
 Bushnell said : " All right, when will you com- 
 mence ? " 
 
 On this big salary he felt justified in getting mar- 
 ried. 
 
 But alas! in a couple of months Bushnell cut his 
 pay down to $8, finding fault with his ability as a 
 salesman and because he trimmed the windows. " I 
 want you to sell goods nothing else ! " he snarled. 
 
 This blame for poor business and the cut in pay had 
 a serious affect upon young Woolworth. He became 
 despondent, and worried to such an extent that he was 
 stricken down with nervous prostration. He also con- 
 tracted a fever. He nearly died, back there at the farm, 
 and in his year-long sickness his mother greatly com- 
 forted him. She never lost faith in him. " Some day, 
 my son, you'll be a rich man," was her comforting as- 
 surance. 
 
 When he had fully recovered a man came along who 
 was so anxious to sell his four-acre farm that he offered 
 
FEANK W. WOOLWOETH 317 
 
 it to him for $900. Wool worth had no money, but 
 nevertheless, by raising $600 on mortgage and giving 
 his note for $300, he grabbed the opportunity. 
 
 He raised chickens and potatoes and anything and 
 everything that would bring in a dollar, his wife helping 
 him in his farming. And you may be sure it was a 
 terrible struggle to make both ends meet. 
 
 After four months, to his surprise, his old employers 
 Moore & Smith sent for him and offered him $10 a week 
 to come back and " tone up " the store. Woolworth was 
 greatly elated and his confidence in himself returned. 
 For, since he had started out in the world of work to 
 earn his living, this was practically the first recognition 
 he had received of the value of his services anywhere. 
 He had put a tremendous lot of hard work into the years 
 he had been at Moore & Smith's, and, as it seemed to 
 him, they at last appreciated his devotion to their in- 
 terests. 
 
 So young Woolworth went back to his old job, his 
 wife remaining on the farm until later on when he 
 rented a three-room home in Watertown. 
 
 In one year he had saved $50, in addition to loaning 
 his father who was very hard up $20 and paying 
 the doctor's bill, for at this time his first baby was 
 born. 
 
 It was on February 22, 1879, that Frank Woolworth 
 started his first five-cent store in Utica, E". Y., and 
 how he came to do this is the most interesting story of 
 his marvelous career, for it hinges upon an idea the 
 idea upon which he built up one of the greatest busi- 
 nesses and fortunes of modern times, 
 
318 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 This was the 5 ancj 10 cent stores idea, and this is 
 how it originated: 
 
 On a certain hot day in August, 1878, Mr. ^Moore 
 said to young Wool worth : " What more can you do 
 to earn your salary ? " 
 
 Trade was a bit dull ! 
 
 " Well/' replied Woolworth, after a moment's re- 
 flection, "I'd like to try to sell some of the goods around 
 this store that people have been slow in buying. Give 
 me a table and a little space and I think I can work 
 out an idea." 
 
 " Go ahead ! " was Mr. Moore's crisp reply. 
 
 The only thing available was a small sewing ma- 
 chine table. On this young Woolworth arranged some 
 of the shop-worn goods, and stuck up a sign : 
 
 Any Article on this counter 5 cents. 
 
 The goods went like hot cakes nearly every article 
 was sold the first day. 
 
 And this was the beginning of the idea of selling an 
 assortment of goods at a uniformly low price. 
 
 Young Woolworth continued selling five-cent goods 
 for Mr. Moore and their popularity in Watertown grew 
 steadily. Then he induced Mr. Moore to trust him 
 with $300 in five-cent goods to start a five-cent store 
 of his own in Utica. 
 
 The young merchant did very well for a time, but the 
 variety of articles he could sell at five cents was small 
 and as soon as people had supplied themselves with 
 mirrors, nail files, etc., his custom fell off, and he was 
 at his wit's end. Where to get new and different ar- 
 ticles to sell at five cents was his knotty problem. 
 
FEANK W. WOOLWOETH 319 
 
 His business at last petered out, so packing the 
 remainder of his goods he flitted to Lancaster, Pa., 
 where he succeeded in getting further financial back- 
 ing, and where his store was a success from the 
 start. 
 
 In a very little while Frank W. Woolworth was the 
 sole survivor in the 5-cent-store field, all his rivals, 
 one by one, had given up. They lacked what Woolworth 
 had grit, persistence, boldness, and originality of 
 ideas. Soon after opening at Lancaster he manifested 
 his boldness, his courage, by opening a branch at Har- 
 risburg, where he put in his brother, C. S. Woolworth, 
 as manager. He dropped this venture after a while, 
 but he was now satisfied beyond doubt that he had found 
 his business his life work. He was certain of suc- 
 cess. 
 
 By the summer of 1880 he was worth $2000. " I 
 felt so rich," Mr. Woolworth once related, " that I de- 
 cided to take the first vacation I had ever enjoyed." 
 
 Eevisiting Watertown the successful young merchant 
 received a great reception. The once green and gawky 
 country lad was now a solid and prosperous business 
 man, with more money in his purse than almost anybody 
 in the town had ever seen in their lives. 
 
 Eeturning to Lancaster, Woolworth now decided to 
 fix his brother up in some way. So, after some study 
 of the field, he sent him to take charge of a five and 
 ten cent store at Scranton. (His brother is now a mil- 
 lionaire.) 
 
 Philadelphia was next invaded by Woolworth, but 
 after three months he closed the store, for it was un- 
 
320 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 profitable, and opened one in partnership with his 
 cousin S. H. Knox,' in Reading. When Mr. Knox 
 died a few years ago he, too, was a multi-millionaire. 
 
 In spite of the failure of three out of five of his 
 five and ten cent stores Woolworth was undaunted. 
 His courage never waned, for he knew he had got hold 
 of the right idea. He visioned a chain of successful 
 stores country wide, and he lived to see his dream more 
 than come true. He had some hard sledding occa- 
 sionally, but from the time he opened successfully in 
 Harrisburg, there were few halts, or setbacks, in his 
 whirlwind career. " Excelsior " (Upward and On- 
 ward), the motto of his home State, New York, might 
 well have been his own battle-cry. 
 
 But before any really big success came, young Wool- 
 worth had many things to learn. When, for example, 
 he opened a store in New York, he worked day and 
 night. He was his own bookkeeper, salesman, buyer 
 and everything else. After an attack of typhoid fever, 
 which laid him up for eight weeks, he had the conceit 
 knocked out of him that he could do everything buy, 
 sell, keep books, etc. more efficiently than any of his 
 associates. He learned to leave details to others, and 
 to occupy his mind only with the larger affairs of the 
 business as a whole. Many business men who insist 
 upon attending to every detail of their business them- 
 selves who won't trust others remain in one little 
 store all their lives, and never know prosperity. 
 
 Woolworth early learned this lesson of cooperation, 
 and from then on he succeeded enormously. Not only 
 did he trust his employees to do lots of things he himself 
 
FEANK W. WOOLWORTH 321 
 
 used to insist upon doing, but he made a point of hav- 
 ing a partner in each of his stores. 
 
 His idea was that business is like a snowball, " One 
 man can easily push it along for a while but soon the 
 snowball gets so large that if it is to be pushed ahead, 
 help must be obtained to roll it and if you don't keep 
 on rolling it, it will soon melt." 
 
 Another secret of Woolworth's success was the rep- 
 utation he gained of giving " value for value." Then 
 again he dealt only in articles of " universal demand." 
 He didn't attempt to sell Siamese elephants, for few 
 people, even if wealthy, would care to have one for a 
 pet. Rather he sold candy, nursing bottles, hairpins. 
 Of handkerchiefs, for example, he sold, in 1918, fifty- 
 four million ! 
 
 Early in his career, when he was dashing ahead so 
 fast that many of his associates thought him crazy, he 
 grasped another secret of success that the more of 
 any single article you can buy at one time the cheaper 
 you can get it. He once saw a finger ring, which had 
 been manufactured to retail at 50 cents. Said Wool- 
 worth to the manufacturer: 
 
 " I want that ring at a price that will let me sell it 
 at a profit for ten cents." 
 
 The manufacturer laughed consumedly thought it 
 a mighty good joke. How many did he want ? A hun- 
 dred dozen, perhaps? 
 
 " I want a thousand gross ! " was Wool worth's reply. 
 
 Impossible! Absurd! Couldn't be done! He 
 could never make the ring to retail at ten cents. 
 
 Nonetheless the factory was soon working overtime in 
 
322 FAMOUS LEADEKS OF INDUSTBY 
 
 their effort to supply, the Wool worth stores with rings 
 to sell at ten cents ! Woolworth used sixty thousand 
 dozen in one year ! 
 
 In 1918, to many people's amusement, Woolworth in- 
 vaded the highest-priced shopping district in the world 
 Fifth Avenue with one of his 10-cent stores. It 
 has been strikingly successful, above forty-five thousand 
 people entering the shop the first day of its opening. 
 
 Woolworth's active, constructive work has had a 
 marked beneficial effect upon American manufacturing. 
 His expert buyers have often actually not only been 
 able to show manufacturers how to increase their effi- 
 ciency and output, but how to manufacture lots of 
 things formerly bought from abroad. He taught them 
 how to make, for example, celluloid dolls and Christ- 
 mas tree ornaments. Even before the war eighty-seven 
 and one-half per cent, of the merchandise he bought was 
 " made in U. S. A." 
 
 The cooperation with the maker of goods has re- 
 sulted in a large development and expansion in this 
 country's manufacturing industries traceable to Wool- 
 worth methods. 
 
 There are thirty-five thousand regular employees in 
 the Woolworth stores mostly girls. After being with 
 Woolworth one year each employee gets a cash bonus 
 at Christmas, and when a girl of three or more years of 
 service leaves to get married she received a substantial 
 cash wedding present. 
 
 Woolworth made no mistake when he determined to 
 bring so many of the commonest necessities of life 
 within reach of the masses. But his vast business was 
 
FEANK W. WOOLWORTH 323 
 
 established on business, not philanthropic, principles. 
 He sold nothing that he did not make profit on. He 
 sold nothing that was not universally used. 
 
 Out of little came much. The tiny acorn became a 
 mighty oak. From his chain of stores, in the United 
 States, Canada and Great Britain, with their more than 
 a half billion customers annually, came a golden harvest 
 of nickels and dimes. He enriched himself, and en- 
 riched many others, and, as a lasting monument to his 
 extraordinary energy and business enterprise, sturdy 
 American qualities of industry and plucky endurance, 
 the Woolworth Building and other Woolworth enter- 
 prises, stand to-day his best memorial. 
 
ORVILLE AND WILBUR WRIGHT 
 
 WHO ACHIEVED IMMOKTAL EAME AS 
 AIESHIP INVENTOKS 
 
WILBUR WRIGHT 
 
ORVILLE AND WILBUR WRIGHT 
 
 WHO ACHIEVED IMMOKTAL FAME AS 
 AIESHIP INVENTORS 
 
 A VERY ingenious but quite simple toy led to one 
 of the most startling and revolutionary inven- 
 tions in the history of the world. 
 
 Out in Ohio lived a good bishop, known as Bishop 
 Milton Wright, of the United Brethren Church. He 
 was an educated, clever man, otherwise he would never 
 have become a bishop. Passing a toy-shop one day, 
 he became greatly interested in a little contrivance in 
 the window labeled " fly ing-machine. " The toy had a 
 Greek name helicopter, or something like that and 
 was driven by twisted rubber bands, which, as they 
 untwisted, turned a couple of cardboard propellers. 
 He remembered his little boys at home, so went in and 
 bought one. 
 
 It was in 1878 when Bishop Wright brought home 
 this miniature bamboo and cork airship, and, holding 
 it concealed in his hand, to excite his sons' curiosity, 
 suddenly threw it up in the air, where, of course, in- 
 stead of falling, it began slowly and gracefully to fly. 
 
 The boys voted it the greatest thing in the toy line 
 they had ever seen, and they never got tired watching 
 its simply wonderful flights through the air. Having 
 no pilot aboard, the ship seldom flew in a straight line, 
 
 327 
 
328 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 but this only made it the more interesting, for its gyra- 
 tions in the air were erratic and quite extraordinary. 
 
 The toy, long after it fell to pieces, lingered vividly in 
 the boys 7 memories, and whenever they saw a bird sail- 
 ing through the sky they remembered their " bat," as 
 they had christened their helicopter, which, by the way, 
 was invented by a Frenchman after losing the use of his 
 limbs through hip disease. 
 
 The boys had inherited mechanical genius through 
 their mother, and, from an early age, had had a knack of 
 making and inventing things. So a few years later the 
 two boys Wilbur and Orville Wright put in all 
 their spare time constructing toy flying-machines some- 
 what resembling their " bat," only larger. " To our 
 amazement," the brothers once related, " we found that 
 the larger the ' bat ' the less it would fly ! We didn't 
 know then that doubling the linear dimensions of a ma- 
 chine calls for a motor eight times more powerful." 
 
 For the time being the brothers stopped experiment- 
 ing with airships for they had to earn their bread 
 and butter and began to manufacture bicycles, with 
 a safety-brake of their own invention. They had no 
 great success in this business, however, only about man- 
 aging to hold their own. 
 
 In 1896, when Lilienthal was dashed to death 
 from his flying-machine, the news made a great 
 impression upon the Wright brothers, and they 
 now began to seriously study aeronautics. They first 
 tackled Chanute's book, then Langley's and devoured 
 endless articles and treatises on the subject. They 
 even sent to Europe for Lilienthal's book, for he had 
 
OKVILLE AND WILBUE WEIGHT 329 
 
 evolved, seemingly, the best, yet simplest, ideas. " Who- 
 ever would conquer the air," he declared, " must imi- 
 tate the bird's dexterity must fly and fall, and fall 
 and fly, until he can fly without falling." They also 
 studied Mouillard's " Empire of the Air," and read all 
 the aeronautic magazines. 
 
 Out of their intense, thorough study of aeronautics 
 grew the conviction that airships built upon the then 
 current principles could have no practical value. So 
 they began to experiment and at last to make flying- 
 machines based upon their own theories. 
 
 In 1900, having at last constructed a ship to their 
 satisfaction, the brothers spent their vacation in North 
 Carolina, where their first experimental flight was made 
 one momentous October day at Kitty Hawk. ~No op- 
 erator was aboard their machine, for they flew it like 
 a kite, testing equilibrium, etc., by means of cords which 
 they controlled from the ground. 
 
 The results were tremendously encouraging, and in 
 the summer of 1901 Mr. Chanute spent several weeks 
 with the Wrights at their testing camp near Kitty 
 Hawk, offering suggestions and advice from time to 
 time as he watched the evolutions of their ship. The 
 more they experimented the more numerous and com- 
 plex grew the problems that had to be solved before 
 success was theirs, and what the young men had started 
 in to do, more for amusement than anything else, now 
 loomed up as something formidably scientific. They 
 were under the necessity of studying air, air-currents, 
 wind-pressures and velocities, the reciprocal effects of 
 superposed surfaces, etc., but all these and other mys- 
 
330 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 teries of aviation, instead of daunting, fascinated the 
 brothers and encouraged them all the more to master 
 the secrets of aerial navigation. 
 
 So on they went with their experiments, in the fall 
 of 1902 making about a thousand ground flights 
 short hops, grasshopper fashion, along the ground. 
 
 By this time everybody was smiling at " the Wright 
 boys." They were called " visionaries/' even " nuts," 
 and a very learned man proved conclusively, by mathe- 
 matics, that no heavier-than-air machine could support 
 itself in air, much less fly ! 
 
 But the Wright brothers went calmly, deliberately, 
 scientifically ahead, thoroughly testing, before adopt- 
 ing, any part or device used in their plane. They 
 tested the efficiency of their steering-gear, the sustain- 
 ing capacity of their wings, and then they designed and 
 started in to construct a practicable plane driven by a 
 motor. When they came to add propellers, however, 
 another scientific problem faced them screw propul- 
 sion. They could get no tables from naval engineers, 
 so their first propellers were constructed on a " dead 
 reckoning " basis. Notwithstanding they got a third 
 more power than either Maxim or Langley had ob- 
 tained. 
 
 At last arrived the great day! The greatest day in 
 the lives of these two indomitable, persevering souls, 
 and one of the greatest day in the history of American 
 invention. 
 
 It was on the 17th of December, 1903, that Wilbur 
 Wright (now dead) climbed into his motor-aeroplane, 
 turned on the power, and flew! His glide lasted but 
 
OEVILLE AND WILBUR WEIGHT 331 
 
 twelve seconds, but, since the world began, it was the 
 first time a machine carrying a man 'had arisen of its 
 own power, described a circle in the air and finally 
 descended safely to earth. 
 
 Up to this time the brothers had conducted their ex- 
 periments far from the madding crowd, in a spot where 
 their only visitors were the " mocking " birds that flew 
 inquisitively over them. They now determined to give 
 a demonstration at their busy home, Dayton, and in 
 the spring of 1904 a flight was attempted in the pres- 
 ence of a large crowd, including newspaper men all 
 very skeptical. 
 
 By this time the inventors had a heavier and stronger 
 machine; but on the first day of the great public dem- 
 onstration there wasn't wind enough to lift the plane, 
 and all it did was to bump along the ground a little 
 way. Another trial, the next day, was also unsuc- 
 cessful, for the motor went wrong. Some slight defect 
 developed, and it wouldn't go. 
 
 There arose also new problems of equilibrium to 
 solve, so the brothers had to do some more private experi- 
 menting. 
 
 Finally, in September, 1905, the brothers succeeded 
 in making a long flight. At a height of about a hun- 
 dred feet they sped six miles and back in the air. 
 
 The two Dayton boys had won! In less than five 
 years these two plucky and courageous American boys 
 had solved the problem of navigating the air had suc- 
 ceeded where countless other aeronautical pioneers the 
 world over had failed. 
 
 Tremendous excitement followed this feat, and the 
 
332 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 crowds to see the airmen were so great that the Wrights 
 had to continue their flights in a quieter place. 
 
 About now their money gave out, for their bicycle 
 business, having been neglected for some time, was 
 bringing them in nothing. So, although they had per- 
 fected their airplane, they had no funds for further 
 flights or experiments. But the young men had a good 
 friend in their sister Katherine. She had saved some 
 money from her salary as school-teacher, was devoted to 
 Orville and Wilbur, and had full faith in their in- 
 vention. She placed all her savings at the disposal of 
 the young aviators, so they could continue exhibiting 
 their machine and experimenting. 
 
 It was a solemn, impressive moment in the lives of 
 the Wright boys when, having thoroughly demonstrated 
 the practicability of their airship, a realization of what 
 their wonderful discovery meant to their country and 
 to the world burst over them. As in a vision, they fore- 
 saw all the marvelous possibilities of aerial navigation. 
 And they were awestricken ! 
 
 They had called a spirit " from the vasty deep," so 
 to speak, and it had come at their bidding. What 
 should they do with this newly-acquired and potentially 
 terrible discovery which enabled them, at will, to leave 
 the earth and fly immense distances at immense heights ? 
 
 It was a solemn and awesome moment when the young 
 men pondered these things, and they determined to 
 call a family council. So the two brothers, their father 
 and sister gathered one day in the parlor of their mod- 
 est dwelling, and all fell on their knees and prayed 
 to God for guidance. The prayer over, good old Bishop 
 
OEVILLE AND WILBUR WEIGHT 333 
 
 Wright, his face wet with tears of joy and thankfulness, 
 arose, and then the family decided that they must offer 
 the invention to their country. Being essentially re- 
 ligious, godfearing people and intensely patriotic, their 
 country was their first thought. No thought of com- 
 mercial gain entered into their minds. 
 
 So the brothers wrote to Washington, to the War 
 Department, to the effect that they had constructed 
 an aeroplane that would navigate the air, and offered 
 the invention to the United States. 
 
 The letter was pigeon-holed ! 
 
 The Wrights were very poor people. They could 
 not afford to go to the Capital and present the claims 
 of their epoch-making invention in person. So they 
 wrote to Washington again. Then they received a 
 somewhat curt refusal to consider the proposition, add- 
 ing that they had no time to send a board to Ohio 
 to examine into the claims of f( a couple of cranks." 
 
 And this was how the United States Government let 
 still another great American invention slip through its 
 fingers. 
 
 The Wrights were deeply chagrined, and, as their 
 money was nearly exhausted, the outlook was black 
 for them and their invention. But, fortunately, there 
 was in New York City a man who had a vision. 
 
 This man was Charles E. Flint, a born financier and 
 organizer, and he had read of the Wrights' experiments 
 with the deepest interest. He invited the brothers to 
 come to New York to see him. The two country boys 
 arrived in the metropolis soon after dawn, about 7 A. M. 
 for this hour seemed to them as late as they ought 
 
334 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 to call and presented themselves at the handsome 
 Flint residence. Mr. Flint wasn't up and dressed, but 
 he threw on his dressing-gown for he didn't want to 
 keep the two inventors waiting and came down to see 
 them. 
 
 Mr. Flint had a long conversation with the young men, 
 and was thoroughly convinced of their honesty and 
 knowledge of aeronautics, and of the success of their 
 biplane. As they left the breakfast-room Mr. Flint 
 said: 
 
 " You may draw upon our firm for $10,000." 
 
 This gave Orville and Wilbur Wright the sinews of 
 war, and they were now able to take out patents, and 
 start manufacturing their airships. They were also 
 able now to exhibit their machine and demonstrate its 
 capabilities at home and abroad, for one of the brothers 
 went to France to fly. 
 
 While Wilbur, in France, was making even Kings 
 gasp, Orville at home was astonishing the natives. 
 
 On September 9, 1908, at Fort Myer, Virginia, Or- 
 ville ascended in his machine, and broke all records by 
 remaining up in the air fifty-seven minutes. The same 
 day, in the afternoon, he made a flight lasting more 
 than an hour, and, on his return to earth, he went up 
 again, this time taking a passenger! On this occa- 
 sion he broke the world's record for a two-man aerial 
 flight. 
 
 About this time the United States War Department 
 began to get interested, for they foresaw the wonderful 
 possibilities of the airship in warfare. So they in- 
 vited bids for an aeroplane to carry two persons and 
 
ORVILLE WRIGHT 
 
ORVILLE AND WILBUR WEIGHT 335 
 
 fly for an hour at a speed of forty miles. Orville 
 thought he could meet -these requirements and on Sep- 
 tember 17, at Fort Myer, he took Lieutenant Self- 
 ridge up with him. And now occurred the first fa- 
 tality in the history of American aeronautics, for after 
 a few minutes an accident to the propeller dashed the 
 machine to earth, killing the lieutenant and injuring 
 the inventor somewhat seriously. 
 
 While these experiments were being conducted in 
 America by Orville, Wilbur was busy in France, and, 
 a week after the accident to Orville, Wilbur, on Sep- 
 tember 24, made a wonderful flight at Le Mans, travel- 
 ing in the air twenty-five miles and remaining up al- 
 most fifty-six minutes. 
 
 Three months later, on December 18th, Wilbur suc- 
 ceeded in beating all aviation records up to that date by 
 staying up almost two hours, during which time he cov- 
 ered twenty-five miles. The same day he made another 
 sensational ascent three hundred feet and the 
 " Yankee bluffer," as the French called him, before he 
 got through, had won all the prizes on French soil for 
 which he had striven. 
 
 Better than all for of course the brothers were 
 in great need of capital Wilbur sold the French rights 
 to his machine to a French financier and promoter for 
 $100,000. 
 
 The next year Italy paid $200,000 for the Italian 
 rights to the Wright aeroplane. 
 
 These European flights caused amazement abroad, and 
 excited overpowering curiosity. The late King Ed- 
 ward, traveling under his incognito of the Duke of Lan- 
 
336 FAMOUS LEADEES OF INDUSTRY 
 
 caster, came a long way to see Wilbur fly, and, after 
 one of his flights, grasped both his hands, and later 
 permitted himself to be snap-shotted with the " man 
 bird," as the French now began to call the daring 
 aviator. It was on this occasion that the boy's sister, 
 Katherine, made an ascent with Wilbur lasting half an 
 hour. She alighted close to the King, who warmly con- 
 gratulated her upon her intrepidity and safe return to 
 earth. King Alfonso of Spain and also King Victor 
 Emmanuel of Italy, came to see the Wrights fly. 
 
 " Kings are just like other nice well-bred agreeable 
 people,' 7 was Katherine Wright's opinion after meet- 
 ing and chatting with some half-dozen sovereigns. 
 
 On their return to America from hobnobbing with 
 royalties and great capitalists, Wilbur and his sister got 
 a rousing reception in their home town, and you may 
 be sure that no one was more pleased to see them back 
 safe than their aged father, who had sold his farm 
 all the property he had in the world to enable his two 
 boys to go on experimenting with their " bat." Had 
 they failed, it would have meant utter ruin to good old 
 Bishop Wright. 
 
 On June 10, 1909, in the historic East Room at the 
 Capitol, Washington, President Taft presented gold 
 medals, on behalf of the Aero Club of America, to Or- 
 ville and Wilbur Wright. Mr. Taft, referring to the 
 brothers' achievements in their own and other countries 
 with a heavier-than-air machine, called it a " great step 
 in human discovery." " Many great discoveries," the 
 President added, " have come by accident. Men work- 
 ing in one direction have happened on a truth that de- 
 
ORVILLE AND WILBUR WRIGHT 337 
 
 veloped itself into a great discovery, but you have illus- 
 trated the other, and, on the whole, much more com- 
 mendable method. 
 
 " You planned what you wished to find, and then you 
 worked over it until you found it." 
 
 These last words of President Taft's give in a nut- 
 shell the secret of the Wrights' success the persever- 
 ing development of an idea. 
 
 Wilbur Wright created an immense sensation in New 
 York City when he flew from Governor's Island up to 
 and beyond Grant's Tomb and back. This was during 
 the Hudson-Fulton celebration when the river was filled 
 with our own and foreign warships. As he flew up 
 the Hudson, less than two hundred feet above many 
 of these marine monsters, the value of the airship in 
 war became startlingly apparent, for he could have 
 successfully bombed any one of them. 
 
 The following month the French Government pre- 
 sented the Wright brothers with the Cross of the Legion 
 of Honor a much coveted distinction, and later on 
 Bother medals, decorations and honors came the way of 
 these two marvelously courageous and clever Yankee 
 mechanics. 
 
 The problem of navigating the air safely and expedi- 
 tiously being now solved, the Wright brothers were able 
 to organize a big corporation to manufacture Wright 
 aeroplanes, and success and money soon came their way 
 with a rush. For the Wright biplane had given a 
 tremendous impetus to the art of aeronautics, the whole 
 world was making airships of all types, and govern- 
 ments, too, were either buying or manufacturing air- 
 
338 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 vessels for war purposes for transportation of mail. 
 
 Thus, through steady perseverance in the face of all 
 sorts of obstacles and difficulties, did these two boys of 
 Dayton, Ohio, win fortune and immortality. 
 
 In the annals of American aeronautical adventure 
 and discovery these two inventors, Orville -and Wilbur 
 Wright, rule supreme. 
 
LINUS YALE AND HENRY R. TOWNE 
 
 WHO EEVOLUTIONIZED LOCK-MAKING 
 
LINUS YALE AND HENRY R. TOWNE 
 
 WHO REVOLUTIONIZED LOCK-MAKING 
 
 THE now world-famous " Yale " lock had its origin 
 in the village of Newport, Herkimer County, 
 New York, ahout the year 1840, when Linus 
 Yale, senior, hegan the manufacture, for the first time, 
 of this new kind of lock. They were described as " pin- 
 tumbler " locks, and, besides their novelty, were of great 
 mechanical excellence. 
 
 Linn Yale, junior, was born in 1821 and became the 
 foremost lock-expert in the country, far surpassing in 
 skill and inventive genius even his well-known father. 
 
 The work of the two Yales, father and son, especially 
 that of the latter, has had a profound and lasting influ- 
 ence on the lock industry. Nearly all American lock- 
 makers, and many foreign countries, have adopted the 
 principles of lock construction introduced by them, and 
 have followed their lead in making improvements in 
 design and in methods of production. Linus Yale, 
 senior, resurrected the ancient pin-tumbler of the Egyp- 
 tians, and adapted it to modern conditions of use, while 
 Linus Yale, junior, by combining it with the small re- 
 volving " plug," made possible the use of a flat key, 
 and by embodying the tumblers and plug in a separate 
 unit, or " cylinder," reduced the key to a constant 
 
 length for locks of all kinds, irrespective of the thickness 
 
 341 
 
342 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 of the door on which used. It is difficult to realize to- 
 day that prior to 1865 practically all keys were round, 
 and had to be long enough to reach through the door into 
 the lock, and that a bunch of keys might weigh pounds 
 where it now weighs only ounces. The work of Linus 
 Yale, junior, included also improvements in the com- 
 bination, or dial, lock for banks which were funda- 
 mentally sound and are now embodied in standard prac- 
 tice, and the metallic front postoffice box, now the ac- 
 cepted standard throughout the world. 
 
 Linus, from an early age, gave evidence of mechani- 
 cal ability. When he was not at the village school or 
 at home poring over his books, he was usually to be 
 found at his father's small plant, playing with locks 
 and keys, the workmen's tools, and rummaging in the 
 junk pile. 
 
 But the boy, as well as having inventive talent, had 
 artistic tastes and loved to sketch and paint, indoors 
 and out. When he went fishing he would often neglect 
 the fish nibbling at his bait, to make a sketch of a 
 pretty bit of landscape or of a bird or animal. 
 
 After he was all through with his schooling, and his 
 father asked him what he was going to be a painter 
 or a locksmith he said he thought he'd like to be a 
 painter. 
 
 So Linus, junior, began his career as an artist, and 
 for some time diligently worked at his profession, 
 painting portraits and landscapes that bore the im- 
 press of true artistic talent. 
 
 Before long, however, the young man's inventive 
 genius began to assert itself, causing him to turn his 
 
LINUS YALE AND HENRY TOWNE 343 
 
 attention more and more to mechanical pursuits. The 
 example of his father, a successful inventor and maker 
 of bank locks, decided him to abandon his art as a means 
 of making a living and devote himself exclusively to 
 lock-making. 
 
 He was a young man of high intelligence, and it 
 did not take him long to obtain a mastery of the busi- 
 ness. Within a few years after his father's death, 
 Linus Yale had become the leading bank-lock expert in 
 the United States. 
 
 In those days bank-locks were large, very intricate 
 and operated by keys. Mr. Yale, soon after succeed- 
 ing his father, produced a series of locks of this type 
 that were remarkable for their ingenuity, beautiful 
 workmanship and security. Known as " Yale Locks,' 7 
 they were distinguished by such names as " Infallible," 
 " Magic," " Monitor," etc. 
 
 The famous " lock controversy " which arose in Eng- 
 land during the World's Fair of 1851 when the Amer- 
 ican, Hobbs, succeeded in picking the best English bank 
 locks led to similar contests between American bank- 
 lock makers. 
 
 The young locksmith was drawn into the controversy 
 and after first discovering how to pick a famous English 
 bank-lock, discovered also how to pick his own best 
 bank-locks, and ended by demonstrating that any lock 
 having a keyhole could successfully be picked by one 
 having the necessary skill and tools. 
 
 This was a somewhat disconcerting discovery for 
 Linus Yale, the bank-lock expert, to 'make, but it led 
 to revolutionary changes 'and improvements in locks, 
 
344 FAMOUS LEADEES OF INDUSTEY 
 
 for from now on he concentrated his attention on the 
 combination, or dial lock, which in crude forms had 
 been known for centuries. To such wonderful per- 
 fection did he bring the " combination " lock, that the 
 several types of high-grade bank locks developed by 
 Mr. Yale gave his company world-leadership in the 
 manufacture of bank locks locks used for bank safes, 
 doors and vaults. 
 
 The " Yale " lock, now so familiar on the front doors 
 of residences and on office desks, was brought to per- 
 fection by Mr. Yale during the period 1860-64, when 
 he brought out an adaptation of the old Egyptian " tum- 
 bler " lock. Its greater security and conveniently small 
 key gave it great popularity. 
 
 The evolution in bank and other locks thus initiated 
 by Linus Yale has been continued and progressively de- 
 veloped to this day, completely revolutionizing the 
 world's lock industry. 
 
 Mr. Yale was of medium height and build, quiet and 
 somewhat reserved in manner with strangers. Those 
 privileged to know him intimately testify to a delight- 
 ful personality, responsive nature and keen apprecia- 
 tion of the finer aspects of life. His artistic tempera- 
 ment was ever in evidence and his note-books were filled 
 with sketches, alternately of mechanical ideas, of bits 
 of landscapes, and of familiar faces. He loved to fish 
 and knew all the trout streams near his home. Like 
 many inventors or mechanical geniuses, he disliked busi- 
 ness and, when he formed his partnership with Mr. 
 Towne, made it plain that he wished to leave the re- 
 sponsibility of business management largely to him. 
 
LINUS YALE AND HENRY TOWNE 345 
 
 This partnership was formed in 1868. In the sum- 
 mer of this year a mutual friend introduced Mr. Towne 
 to the talented and ingenious inventor of locks, Linus 
 Yale, whose business, chiefly in bank locks, then em- 
 ployed only thirty-five men. In October, at Stamford, 
 Conn., was effected the organization, with Mr. Yale 
 as president, now known as The Yale & Towne Manu- 
 facturing Co. 
 
 Three months later, in December, 1868, Mr. Yale 
 died suddenly and very prematurely, since when the 
 enterprise has been controlled and directed by Mr. 
 Towne. The new firm inherited Linus Yale's bril- 
 liant ideas, ideas which have since revolutionized Amer- 
 ican practice in lock designing, but which were made 
 commercially practicable only by Mr. Towne's remark- 
 able business sagacity. Starting with Mr. Yale's radi- 
 cal departure from the old methods of lock construction, 
 Mr. Towne has greatly amplified these original fea- 
 tures and introduced still further radical changes and 
 designs. 
 
 Boys developed rapidly during the great national 
 upheaval of the Civil War, and those equal to great 
 responsibilities found the opportunity to show what 
 kind of stuff they were made of. The rise of Henry 
 R. Towne, Linus Yale's partner, to high and responsi- 
 ble positions was one of unexampled rapidity. 
 
 Henry R. Towne was born in 1844 in Philadelphia, 
 where his father was one of the owners and operators 
 of the Port Richmond Iron Works. Henry was an 
 unusually bright and intelligent boy, and, after his 
 academic studies were completed, he was sent to the 
 
346 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 University of Pennsylvania. The War of Secession, 
 however, interrupted his studies, and, at seventeen, 
 he entered the drafting-room of his father's iron works. 
 Such rapid progress did he make that in 1863 he was 
 placed in charge of government work in the shops in 
 connection with repairs on the U. S. gunboat Massa- 
 chusetts. 
 
 The Port Richmond Iron Works had meanwhile con- 
 tracted to furnish the engines for the famous old moni- 
 tor Monadnock, and in 1864, Henry (not yet twenty) 
 was sent to the Charlestown Navy Yard to assemble 
 and erect them in the ship. 
 
 Then he was sent to the Portsmouth Navy Yard in 
 sole charge of erecting and testing the machinery of 
 the monitor Agamenticus (now Terror), and later to 
 the Philadelphia Navy Yard to engine the cruiser Push- 
 mataha. 
 
 These were tremendously responsible tasks for a 
 youth, but he did them so extremely well, that, though 
 only twenty-one, he was made acting superintendent 
 in general charge of the shops of the Port Richmond 
 Iron Works, the concern in which his father was a 
 partner. 
 
 When peace came young Towne realized the need of 
 further and more exact knowledge in many lines of 
 study which the war had interrupted. So he became 
 a close and industrious student under the guidance and 
 instruction of the late Robert Briggs, C. E., and went 
 with him on an engineering tour of Great Britain, Bel- 
 gium and France. Before returning he took a special 
 course in physics at the Sorbonne, Paris. In the mean- 
 
HENRY R. TOWNE 
 
LINUS YALE AND HENBY TOWNE 347 
 
 time, his father had retired from the manufacturing 
 business. 
 
 After returning to the United States, Mr. Towne 
 spent a year in further study and experimental work 
 with Mr. Briggs. During this association he carried 
 on numerous experiments with leather belting, the re- 
 sults of which were accepted as standard for twenty 
 years. 
 
 Then, for further education in the designing and 
 use of special machinery, Mr. Towne entered the shop 
 of William Sellers & Co., manufacturers of the Gifford 
 injectors. A year or so later, in 1868, came his meet- 
 ing with Linus Yale, as related. 
 
 Mr. Towne has been the chief factor in the growth 
 and development of the business, and its tremendous 
 expansion in this country and abroad has been due to 
 his unusual combination of mechanical with business 
 ability, his keen foresight and untiring efforts to main- 
 tain a product and service of high excellence. He 
 brought to the business the training and practice of a 
 mechanical engineer, together with a natural aptitude 
 for organization and executive management, thus ensur- 
 ing success. 
 
 Mr. Towne was one of the pioneers in the improve- 
 ment of sanitary and other conditions in factories, and 
 to-day the Yale & Towne plant at Stamford, Conn., 
 with its gardens, library, hospital, school, employment 
 bureau, safety devices, etc., is conceded to be one of 
 America's " model " industrial plants. 
 
 During the war the Company, in addition to large 
 quantities of its normal products, such as padlocks, 
 
348 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 chainblocks, etc., also made, for the United States Gov- 
 ernment, rifle grenades, bomb-dropping devices, fuse- 
 setters, pumps, cavalry bits, buckles, fasteners, etc., and 
 special parts for mines, gas nozzles, etc. 
 
 Some interesting statistics, for the year 1916, will 
 give some idea of the bigness of this typical American 
 manufacturing plant. The fifty-eight buildings at 
 that time contained four thousand eight hundred ma- 
 chines and eight thousand three hundred belts; the 
 plant's consumption in peace time of coal, twenty thou- 
 sands tons; fuel oil, six hundred thousand gallons; pig 
 iron, two thousand five hundred tons; steel, four thou- 
 sand three hundred tons; copper, one million six hun- 
 dred thousand pounds; lumber, one million eight hun- 
 dred thousand bd. ft., and water one hundred and fifty 
 million gallons. 
 
 There are forty-five thousand varieties of products 
 manufactured, and it costs almost $100,000 to print 
 and distribute some fifteen thousand copies of the one 
 thousand-page catalog describing them. 
 
 The Works' hospital treated, during 1916, twenty- 
 nine thousand six hundred and fourteen cases, of 
 which eighteen thousand seven hundred and twenty- 
 seven were surgical. 
 
 The plant now covers twenty-five acres and has up- 
 wards of five thousand employees. Half a century ago, 
 in 1868, when Linus Yale and Henry R. Towne founded 
 the business, the plant covered a portion of five acres and 
 had thirty-five employees. 
 
 The idea of stamping the word YALE in a coined panel 
 on the keys and all other products of this company was 
 
LINUS YALE AND HENRY TOWNE 349 
 
 conceived of by Mr. Towne in 1903, and there are few 
 better-known trademarks. 
 
 The company operates another large plant in Canada 
 and has numerous branches abroad. 
 
 The guiding principle of the builders of this great 
 business has been honesty of purpose and of endeavor; 
 for, in Mr. Towne's opinion, " There is no legacy so 
 rich as honesty." 
 
ADOLPH ZUKOR 
 
 MOTION PICTUKE MAGNATE 
 
ADOLPH ZUKOR 
 
ADOLPH ZUKOR 
 
 MOTION PICTUEE MAGNATE 
 
 THE boy who was destined to control the world's 
 moving-picture industry left his home in Hun- 
 gary for the land of limitless opportunities in 
 1890. The boy, though only sixteen, was alone, no rela- 
 tive or friend accompanied him, and when he landed at 
 Castle Garden, New York, with only twenty-five dollars 
 in his pocket, no kith or kin met the young immigrant 
 as he landed upon the shores of the New World. 
 
 The boy had only a smattering of the English lan- 
 guage, and this made it all the more difficult for him 
 to get a job. But he had lots of grit, and the re- 
 peated turn-downs did not discourage him in the least. 
 One day, when his money was about gone, he struck 
 oil got a job at $2.00 a week as sweeper in a fur 
 store. The proprietor liked his looks his firm, res- 
 olute mouth, his "I can!" jaw and keen visionary 
 eyes. 
 
 This was not a very dignified position for the lad 
 Zukor the future industrial captain but he put 
 " pep " individuality into his task, worked hard, 
 studied diligently at night, and as a result advanced 
 rapidly. He then invented a patent snap for furs, and 
 this again greatly improved his position and especially 
 
 his pocket-book. 
 
 353 
 
354 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 In 1894, when only twenty years old, Adolph Zukor 
 went to Chicago and embarked in the fur trade for 
 himself. It was here that he met his future wife to 
 whom he was married in 1897. He was so successful 
 as a furrier, that his friends began to speak of him as 
 having made his fortune little dreaming that the 
 youngster was merely on the threshold of a career soon 
 to put him in control of many millions of dollars and 
 thousands of employees, to some of whom he was to 
 pay fabulous salaries. 
 
 In 1903 the young fur dealer returned to New York, 
 where before long he began to get dissatisfied with the 
 fur business. It was too slow for a man of his restless 
 ambition. He wanted to make more money and make 
 it faster. So he began to look around for some oppor- 
 tunity in which he could invest his small capital, and 
 make some " big money " on it. 
 
 And now came Adolph Zukor's Great Opportunity. 
 One of his cousins, who had started a penny arcade, in- 
 duced him to investigate its possibilities. One of the 
 first things the shrewd young furrier noticed was the 
 penny-in-the-slot machine's ability to amass money rap- 
 idly. Patrons crowded around the machines, parting 
 with any coppers they happened to have in their pock- 
 ets, their curiosity increasing with each investment. 
 All day and all the evening pennies were dropping into 
 the machines in an unending stream. The masses, at 
 a cost so slight as not to be felt, were patronizing this 
 new form of amusement and Zukor, watching the 
 procession of visitors to the arcade, saw millions in it. 
 
 Here was a way of getting a quicker return on an 
 
ADOLPH ZUKOE 355 
 
 investment than anything he had ever seen or heard of 
 something like " coining money " he thought. 
 
 Zukor at once bought one of the machines, and it 
 proved so popular that he decided to venture deeper. 
 So he got a man named Marcus Loew, also a furrier, 
 whom he knew pretty well, to go partners with him in 
 a penny-arcade business. Starting with nine in New 
 York City, the young men before long had a chain of 
 arcade shows, extending to other cities. Thus was 
 founded the Marcus Loew enterprises, with Adolph 
 Zukor treasurer, operating theaters all over the East. 
 
 But before this expansion in their penny-arcade busi- 
 ness came about, Adolph Zukor was to discover the 
 " movies " and their marvelous possibilities. 
 
 The life of the photo-play, when Zukor first saw one, 
 was trembling in the balance. A great novelty at first, 
 the public soon began to lose interest, for the pictures 
 were crude, and there were not enough of them pro- 
 duced to give variety. People got tired of seeing the 
 same play over and over again. 
 
 Nevertheless, Mr. Zukor's faith in moving pictures 
 was born, a faith which has increased by leaps and 
 bounds, with the growth of the mighty industry he con- 
 trols. He installed moving pictures in his amusement 
 places, and very quickly realized that the screen was 
 doomed unless the standard was raised unless bet- 
 ter pictures were produced. The public was tired of 
 " Fourth Eeader story films " ! So he wrote to the 
 companies that were making motion pictures, begging 
 them for a finer type of play, and, not getting them, he 
 delivered his famous ultimatum: 
 
356 FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 
 
 " If you don't give me better pictures, I'll make them 
 myself!" 
 
 The photo-play producers laughed; the prophet of 
 the new art was called a " visionary." But behind that 
 faraway look in young Zukor's eye was a glint that be- 
 tokened a shrewd and practical mind, aggressive and 
 ready for battle. He at last waked up some of the 
 manufacturers, with the result that he got better plays, 
 and then, slowly, the public came back. 
 
 Then he conceived the great idea of getting well- 
 known plays and players for the movies. He was 
 laughed at, at first, for what well-known actor or ac- 
 tress would condescend to appear, voiceless, to a five- 
 and ten-cent audience! 
 
 After several unsuccessful attempts, Zukor finally 
 got Daniel Frohman, the famous theatrical manager, in- 
 terested in his project, and then Frohman had the hard 
 task of overcoming the prejudice of the actors them- 
 selves. Finding this well-nigh impossible Zukor and 
 Frohman decided that the only thing to do was to get 
 the greatest actress of all, Sarah Bernhardt, to play in 
 a silent drama. This they succeeded in doing at great 
 expense, and afterwards had no difficulty in inducing 
 other famous theatrical stars to follow her example. 
 
 Thus was the Famous Players Film Company formed 
 with Daniel Frohman as managing director. Their 
 first play, Sarah Bernhardt in " Queen Elizabeth," 
 was followed by James K. Hackett in " The Prisoner 
 of Zenda," and then came Julia Marlowe, Viola Allen, 
 Mrs. Leslie Carter, Ethel Barrymore, and many others 
 in their most popular roles. 
 
JESSE L. LASKY 
 
ADO;LPH ZUKOK 357 
 
 Mr. Zukor' s success in his theory once thought fan- 
 tastic that " nothing is too good for the public," led 
 to considerable imitation, and a number of other firms 
 and companies entered the same field. In 1916 these 
 were absorbed by Mr. Zukor and his associates, the new 
 concern being called The Famous Players-Lasky Cor- 
 poration, Adolph Zukor, president, and Jesse L. Lasky, 
 vice-president in charge of productions. 
 
 It was but a few years back, in 1903, that Adolph 
 Zukor and Marcus Loew caused wonderment in New 
 York by leasing the old Grand Street Theater on the 
 East Side and turning it into a motion-picture theater, 
 selling out in a few months at a profit of $100,000. 
 
 To-day the corporation of which Mr. Zukor is the 
 head stages its plays in countless newly-built and spe- 
 cially designed playhouses, from Maine to California, 
 featuring such well-known and successful actors and 
 actresses as Mary Pickford, Hazel Dawn, Pauline Fred- 
 erick, Billie Burke, Jack Barrymore, and the grand- 
 opera star, Geraldine Farrar. More than five million 
 people a day see the " movies " in more than eight thou- 
 sand theaters throughout the United States. 
 
 And Mr. Zukor, whose word is law in film fairyland, 
 now counts his wealth in millions. 
 
 His name stands out in bold relief in the annals of 
 American Jewry as one of the finest examples of what 
 an immigrant may accomplish in the United States 
 despite poverty, lack of friends and prospects. 
 
 For in less than twenty years after landing in Amer- 
 ica, Adolph Zukor was rich and famous. 
 
 THE END 
 
SMILES, A ROSE OF THE 
 CUMBERLANDS 
 
 $y Eliot Harlow Robinson 
 
 Author of "Man Proposes" 
 Cloth decorative, i2mo, illustrated, $1.50 
 
 Smiles is a girl that is sure to make friends. Her 
 real name is Rose, but the rough folk of the Cumber- 
 lands preferred their own way of addressing her, for 
 her smile was so bright and winning that no other name 
 suited her so well. 
 
 Smiles was not a native of the Cumberlands, and her 
 parentage is one of the interesting mysteries of the 
 story. Young Dr. MacDonald saw more in her than 
 the mere untamed, untaught child of the mountains 
 and when, due to the death of her foster parents a 
 guardian became necessary, he was selected. Smiles 
 developed into a charming, serious-minded young wo- 
 man, and the doctor's warm friend, Dr. Bently, falls in 
 love with her. 
 
 We do not want to detract from the pleasure of 
 reading this story by telling you how this situation was 
 met, either by Smiles or Dr. MacDonald but there 
 is a surprise or two for the reader. 
 
 Press opinions on "Man Proposes": 
 
 "Readers will find not only an unusually interest- 
 ing story, but one of the most compjicated romances 
 ever dreamed of. Among other things the story gives 
 a splendid and realistic picture of high social life in 
 Newport, where many of the incidents of the plot are 
 staged in the major part of the book." The Bookman. 
 
 "It is well written; the characters are real people and 
 the whole book has ' go.' " Louisville Post. 
 
8386080830O8K8GB 
 
 TWEEDIE, THE STORY OF 
 A TRUE HEART 
 
 y hla May Mullins 
 
 Author of " The Blossom Shop Stories" etc. 
 Cloth decorative, I2mo, illustrated, $1.65 
 
 In this story Mrs. Mullins has given us another de- 
 lightful story of the South. 
 
 The Carlton family lovable old Professor Carl- 
 ton, and his rather wilful daughter Ruth twenty- 
 three years old and with decided ideas as to her future 
 decide to move to the country in order to have more 
 time to devote to writing. 
 
 Many changes come to them while in the country, 
 the greatest of which is Tweedie a simple, unpreten- 
 tious little body who is an optimist through and 
 through but does not know it. In a subtle, amus- 
 ing way Tweedie makes her influence felt. At first 
 some people would consider her a pest, but would 
 finally agree with the Carlton family that she was 
 " Unselfishness Incarnate." It is the type of story 
 that will entertain and amuse both old and young. 
 
 The press has commented on Mrs. Mullins' previous 
 books as follows : 
 
 "Frankly and wholly romance is this book, and 
 lovable as is a fairy tale properly told. And the 
 book's author has a style that's all her own, that 
 strikes one as praiseworthily original throughout." 
 Chicago Inter-Ocean. 
 
 "A rare and gracious picture of the unfolding of life 
 for the young girl, told with a delicate sympathy and 
 understanding that must touch alike the hearts of 
 young and old." Louisville (Ky.) Times. 
 
ONLY HENRIETTA 
 
 Lela Horn Richards 
 
 Author of "Blue Bonnet Debutante" etc. 
 Cloth decorative, i2mo, illustrated, $1.50 
 
 Henrietta was the victim of circumstances. It was 
 not her fault that her father, cut off from his expected 
 inheritance because of his marriage, was unexpectedly 
 thrown upon his own resources, nor that he proved to 
 be a weakling who left his wife and daughter to shift 
 for themselves, nor that her mother took refuge in 
 Colorado far away from their New England friends and 
 acquaintances. Youth, however, will overcome much, 
 and when Richard Bently appears in the mountains, 
 life takes on a new interest for Henrietta. 
 
 When her mother dies Henrietta goes to live with 
 Mrs. Lovell, who knew her father years ago in the 
 little Vermont town. Mrs. Lovell determines to do 
 what she can to secure for Henrietta the place in 
 society and the inheritance that is rightfully hers. 
 The means employed and the success attained but 
 that's the story. 
 
 " Only Henrietta " is written in the happy vein that 
 has secured for Mrs. Richards a host of friends and 
 admirers, and is sure to duplicate the earlier suc- 
 cesses achieved for the young people by the Blue 
 Bonnet Series. 
 
 "The chief charm of the book is that it contains so 
 much of human nature and it is a book that will gladden 
 the hearts of many girl readers because oi its charming 
 air of comradeship and reality." The Churchman^ 
 Detroit, Mich. 
 
 vsxa&a^^ 
 
THE AMBASSADOR'S TRUNK 
 
 George Barton 
 
 Author of " The World's Greatest Military Spies and 
 
 Secret Service Agents" " The Mystery of the, 
 
 Red Flame" " The Strange Adventures 
 
 of Bromley Barnes" etc. 
 Cloth decorative, I2mo t illustrated f $1.65 
 
 Bromley Barnes, retired chief of the Secret Service, 
 an important State document, a green wallet, the 
 Ambassador's trunk these are the ingredients, which, 
 properly mixed, and served in attractive format and 
 binding, produce a draught that will keep you awake 
 long past your regular bedtime. 
 
 Mr. Barton is master of the mystery story, and in this 
 absorbing narrative the author has surpassed his best 
 previous successes. 
 
 "It would be difficult to find a collection of more 
 interesting tales of mystery so well told. The author 
 is crisp, incisive and inspiring. The book is the best 
 of its kind in recent years and adds to the author's 
 already high reputation." New York Tribune. 
 
 "The story is full of life and movement, and pre- 
 sents a variety of interesting characters. It is well pro- 
 portioned and subtly strong in its literary aspects and 
 quality. This volume adds great weight to the claim 
 that Mr. Barton is among America's greatest novelists 
 of the romantic school; and in many ways he is re- 
 garded as one of the most versatile and interesting 
 writers." Boston Post. 
 
THE BUSINESS CAREER 
 OF PETER FLINT 
 
 By Harold Whitehead 
 
 Assistant Professor of ^ Business Method, The College 
 
 of Business Administration, Boston University, 
 
 author of " Daws on Black, Retail^ Merchant" 
 
 "Principles of Salesmanship," etc. 
 
 Illustrated, cloth, I2mo, $1.65 
 
 As Assistant Professor of Business Method in Boston 
 University's famous College of Business Administration, 
 the author's lectures have attracted widespread atten- 
 tion, and the popularity of his stories of business life, 
 under the title of " The Business Career of Peter Flint," 
 which have appeared serially in important trade mag- 
 azines and newspapers all over the country, has created 
 an insistent demand for their book publication. 
 
 The public demand for these stories compelled the 
 author to continue them so long that, were they all 
 published in book form, they would constitute a set of 
 several volumes. By careful and scrutinizing editorial 
 work the author has recast the very best of this material 
 for book publication, the result being a story that is 
 virile, compelling and convincing as it leads the reader 
 through the maze of business entanglements. 
 
 A New York business man wrote: " I have read with 
 much interest the ' Career of Peter Flint,' appearing in 
 the Evening Sun. 
 
 " Having come to New York fresh from college 
 twelve years ago, I appreciate fully Peter's experience. 
 I want to say that I think your knowledge of human 
 nature almost uncanny." 
 
ROLLO'S JOURNEY TO 
 WASHINGTON 
 
 2)y Richard D. Ware 
 
 Illustrated with unique woodcuts by Robert Seaver. g 
 Price $1.25 
 
 The boy of yesterday the man of today knows 
 the Rollo books, and is familiar with the method by 
 which the mind of young Master Mollycoddle was 
 improved by the guidance and precepts of his father 
 and Uncle George. Those who survived such a course 
 of purification and still live will enjoy this story of 
 Rollo's journey to our national capital. 
 
 It is not written for the young in years, but for the 
 young in heart for the good citizen who can see the 
 funny side of a situation that is serious, and can laugh 
 at the mistakes and foibles of our great men of today 
 without malice or viciousness. 
 
 The book is about the Great War which has caused 
 so many tears of sorrow, and the author's only desire 
 is to replace those bitter tears with tears of mirth. 
 
Selections from 
 
 The Page Company's 
 
 List of Fiction 
 
 WORKS OF 
 
 ELEANOR H. PORTER 
 
 Each, one volume, cloth decorative, 12mo, illustrated, $1.75 
 POLLYANNA: The GLAD Book (430,000) 
 
 Trade Mark Trade Mark 
 
 Mr. Leigh Mitchell Hodges, The Optimist, in an editorial for 
 the Philadelphia North American, says: "And when, after 
 Polly anna has gone away, you get her letter saying she is 
 going to take 'eight steps ' tomorrow well, I don't know just 
 what you may do, but I know of one person who buried his 
 face in his hands and shook with the gladdest sort of sadness 
 and got down on his knees and thanked the Giver of all 
 gladness for Pollyanna." 
 
 POLLYANNA GROWS UP: The Second GLAD Book 
 
 Trade Mark (220,000) Trade Mark 
 
 When the story of POLLYANNA told in The Glad Book was 
 ended, a great cry of regret for the vanishing "Glad Girl" 
 went up all over the country and other countries, too. Now 
 POLLYANNA appears again, just as sweec and joyous-hearted, 
 more grown up and more lovable. 
 
 " Take away frowns ! Put down the worries ! Stop fidgeting 
 and disagreeing and grumbling ! Cheer up, everybody ! POLLY- 
 ANNA has come back! " Christian Herald. 
 
 The GLAD Book Calendar 
 
 Trade Mark 
 
 THE POLLYANNA CALENDAR 
 
 Trade Mark 
 
 (This calendar is issued annually; the calendar for the new 
 year being ready about Sept. 1st of the preceding year. 
 
 Decorated and printed in colors. $1.50 
 
 " There is a message of cheer on every page, and the calen- 
 dar is beautifully illustrated." Kansas Citu 
 
THE PAGE COMPANY'S 
 
 WORKS OF ELEANOR H. PORTER (Continued) 
 
 MISS BILLY (22nd printing) 
 
 Cloth decorative, with a frontispiece in full color from a 
 painting by G. Tyng $1.75 
 
 "There is something altogether fascinating about 'Miss 
 
 Billy,' some inexplicable feminine characteristic that seems to 
 
 demand the individual attention of the reader from the moment 
 
 we open the book until we reluctantly turn the last page." 
 
 Boston Transcript. 
 
 MISS BILLY'S DECISION ( 15 th printing) 
 Cloth decorative, with a frontispiece in full color from a 
 painting by Henry W. Moore. 
 
 $1.75 
 "The story is written in bright, clever style and has plenty 
 
 of action and humor. Miss Billy is nice to know and so are 
 
 her friends." New Haven Times Leader. 
 
 MISS BILLY MARRIED ( 12 th printing) 
 
 Cloth decorative, with a frontispiece in full color from a 
 
 painting by W. Haskell Coffin. 
 
 $1.75 
 
 "Although Pollyanna is the only copyrighted glad girl, Miss 
 Billy is just as glad as the younger figure and radiates just 
 as much gladness. She disseminates joy so naturally that we 
 wonder why all girls are not like her." Boston Transcript. 
 
 SIX STAR RANCH (20th Printing) 
 
 Cloth decorative, 12mo, illustrated by R. Farrington Elwell. 
 
 $1.75 
 
 " 'Six Star Ranch' bears all the charm of the author's genius 
 and is about a little girl down in Texas who practices the Tolly- 
 anna Philosophy' with irresistible success. The book is one of 
 the kindliest things, if not the best, that the author of the Polly- 
 anna books has done. It is a welcome addition to the fast- 
 growing family of Glad Books." Howard Russell Bangs in the 
 Boston Post. 
 
 CROSS CURRENTS 
 
 Cloth decorative, illustrated. $1.85 
 
 "To one who enjoys a story of life as it is to-day, with its 
 
 sorrows as well as its triumphs, this volume is sure to appeal." 
 
 Book News Monthly. 
 
 THE TURN OF THE TIDE 
 
 Cloth decorative, illustrated. $1.35 
 
 "A very beautiful book showing the influence that went to 
 the developing of the life of a dear little girl into a true and 
 good woman." Herald and Presbyter, Cincinnati, Ohig, 
 
LIST OF FICTION 
 
 WORKS OF 
 
 L. M. MONTGOMERY 
 
 THE FOUR ANNE BOOKS 
 
 Each, one volume, cloth decorative, 12mo, illustrated, $1.65 
 ANNE OF GREEN GABLES (45th printing) 
 
 " In * Anne of Green Gables ' you will find the dearest and 
 most moving and delightful child since the immortal Alice^' 
 Mark Twain in a letter to Francis Wilson. 
 
 ANNE OF AVONLEA ( 3 oth printing) 
 
 " A book to lift the spirit and send the pessimist into bank- 
 ruptcy ! " Meredith Nicholson. 
 
 CHRONICLES OF AVONLEA (8th printing) 
 
 " A story of decidedly unusual conception a&i interest" 
 Baltimore Sun. 
 
 ANNE OF THE ISLAND (i$th printing) 
 
 " It has been well worth while to watch the growing up of 
 Anne, and the privilege of being on intimate terms with her 
 throughout the process has been properly valued." New 
 York Herald. 
 
 Each, one volume, cloth decorative, 12mo, illustrated, $1.50 
 THE STORY GIRL (loth printing) 
 
 " A book that holds one's interest and keeps a kindly smile 
 upon one's lips and in one's heart." Chicago Inter-Ocean. 
 
 KILMENY OF THE ORCHARD (lath printing) 
 
 " A story born in the heart of Arcadia and brimful of the 
 sweet life of the primitive environment" Boston Herald. 
 
 THE GOLDEN ROAD (6th printing) 
 
 " It is a simple, tender tale, touched to higher notes, now 
 and then, by delicate hints of romance, tragedy and pathos." 
 Chicago Record-Herald. 
 
THE PAGE COMPANY'S 
 
 NOVELS BY 
 
 ISLA MAY MULLINS 
 
 Each, one volume, cloth decorative, 12mo, illustrated, $1.65 
 
 THE BLOSSOM SHOP: A Story of the South 
 
 " Frankly and wholly romance is this book, and lovable as 
 is a fairy tale properly told." Chicago Inter-Ocean. 
 
 ANNE OF THE BLOSSOM SHOP: Or, the Growing 
 Up of Anne Carter 
 
 "A charming portrayal of the attractive life of the South, 
 refreshing as a breeze that blows through a pine forest." 
 Albany Times-Union. 
 
 ANNE'S WEDDING 
 
 " Tke story is most beautifully told. It brings in most 
 charming people, and presents a picture of home life that is 
 most appealing in love and affection." Every Evening, Wil- 
 mington, Del. 
 
 THE MT. BLOSSOM GIRLS 
 
 " In the writing of the book the author is at her best as a 
 story teller. The humor that ripples here and there, the 
 dramatic scenes that stir, and the golden thread of romance 
 that runs through it all, go to make a marked success. It is a 
 fitting climax to the series." Reader. 
 
 NOVELS BY 
 
 DAISY RHODES CAMPBELL 
 THE FIDDLING GIRL 
 
 Cloth decorative, illustrated $1.6'5 
 
 "A thoroughly enjoyable tale, written in a delightful vein 
 of sympathetic comprehension." Boston Herald. 
 
 THE PROVING OF VIRGINIA 
 
 Cloth decorative, illustrated $1.65 
 
 " A book which contributes so much of freshness, enthusiasm, 
 
 and healthy life to offset the usual offerings of modern fiction, 
 
 deserves all the praise which can be showered upon it." 
 
 Kindergarten Review. 
 
 THE VIOLIN LADY 
 
 Cloth decorative, illustrated $1.05 
 
 " The author's style remains simple and direct, as in her pre- 
 ceding books, and her frank affection for her attractive heroine 
 will be shared by many others." Boston Transcript. 
 
LIST OF FICTION 
 
 NOVELS BY 
 
 MARY ELLEN CHASE 
 THE GIRL FROM THE BIG HOkN COUNTRY 
 
 Cloth 12mo, illustrated by E. Farrington Elwell. 
 
 $1.50 
 
 " ' The Girl from the Big Horn Country ' tells how Virginia 
 Hunter, a bright, breezy, frank-hearted 'girl of the Golden 
 West ' comes out of the Big Horn country of Wyoming to the 
 old Bay State. Then things begin, when Virginia who feels 
 the joyous, exhilarating call of the Big Horn wilderness and 
 the outdoor life attempts to become acclimated and adopt 
 good old New England ' ways.' " Critic. 
 
 VIRGINIA, OF ELK CREEK VALLEY 
 
 Cloth 12mo, illustrated by E. Farrington Elwell. 
 
 $1.50 
 
 "This story is fascinating, alive with constantly new and 
 fresh interests and every reader will enjoy the novel for its 
 freshness, its novelty and its inspiring glimpses of life with 
 nature." The Editor. 
 
 NOVELS BY 
 
 MRS. HENRY BACKUS 
 THE CAREER OF DOCTOR WEAVER 
 
 Cloth decorative, illustrated by William Van Dresser. 
 
 $1.50 
 
 "High craftsmanship is the leading characteristic of this 
 novel, which, like all good novels, is a love story abounding in 
 real palpitant human interest. The most startling feature of 
 the story is the way its author has torn aside the curtain and 
 revealed certain phases of the relation between the medical pro- 
 fession and society." Dr. Charles Reed in the Lancet Clinic. 
 THE ROSE OF ROSES 
 
 Cloth decorative, with a frontispiece in full color. 
 
 $1.50 
 
 The author has achieved a thing unusual in developing a love 
 story which adheres to conventions under unconventional cir- 
 cumstances. 
 
 " Mrs. Backus' novel is distinguished in the first place for its 
 workmanship." Buffalo Evening News. 
 
 A PLACE IN THE SUN 
 
 Cloth decorative, illustrated by William Van Drawer. 
 
 $1.50 
 
 " A novel of more than usual meaning." Detroit Free Fret*. 
 
 " A stirring story of America of to-day, which will be enjored 
 by young people with the tingle of youth in their veins." -. 
 Zion's Herald, Boston. 
 
THE PAGE COMPANY'S 
 
 NOVELS BY 
 
 MARGARET R. PIPER 
 SYLVIA'S EXPERIMENT: The Cheerful Book 
 
 Trade Mark 
 
 Cloth decorative, with a frontispiece in full color from a 
 painting by Z. P. Nikolaki $1.50 
 
 "An atmosphere of good spirits pervades the book; the 
 
 humor that now and then flashes across the page is entirely 
 
 natural, and the characters are well individualized." Boston 
 
 Post. 
 "It has all the merits of a bright, clever style with plenty 
 
 of action and humor." Western Trade Journal, Chicago, III. 
 
 SYLVIA Otf THE HILL TOP: The Second Cheerful 
 
 Book Trade M ark 
 
 Cloth decorative, with a frontispiece in full color from a 
 painting by Gene Pressler $1.50 
 
 " There is a world of human nature and neighborhood con- 
 tentment and quaint quiet humor in Margaret R. Piper's second 
 book of good cheer." Philadelphia North American. 
 
 " The bright story is told with freshness and humor, and the 
 experiment is one that will appeal to the imagination of all to 
 whom the festival of Christmas is dear." Boston Herald, Bos- 
 ton, Mass. 
 
 "Sylvia proves practically that she is a messenger of joy to 
 humanity." The Post Express, Rochester, N. Y. 
 
 SYLVIA ARDEN DECIDES: The Third Cheerful 
 
 B 00 k Trade Mark 
 
 Cloth decorative, with a frontispiece in full color from a 
 
 painting by Haskell Coffin $1.50 
 
 "It is excellently well done and unusually interesting. The 
 
 incidents follow one another in rapid succession and are kept 
 
 up to the right pitch of interest." N. Y. American. 
 
 " Its ease of style, its rapidity, its interest from page to page, 
 are admirable ; and it shows that inimitable power the story- 
 teller's gift of verisimilitude. Its sureness and clearness are 
 excellent, and its portraiture clear and pleasing." The Reader. 
 " It is an extremely well told story, made up of interesting 
 situations and the doings of life-like people, and you will find 
 it very easy to follow the fortunes of the different characters 
 through its varied scenes." Boston Herald. 
 
LIST OP FICTION 
 
 WORKS OF 
 
 CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS 
 
 HAUNTERS OF THE SILENCES 
 
 Cloth decorative, with many drawings by Charles Livingston 
 Bull, four of which are in full color. " * 
 
 The stories in Mr. Roberts's new collection are the strongest 
 and best he has ever written. 
 
 He has largely taken for his subjects those animals rarely 
 met with in books, whose lives are spent " In the Silences," 
 where they are the supreme rulers. 
 
 " As a writer about animals, Mr. Roberts occupies an envi- 
 able place. He is the most literary, as well as the most imag- 
 inative and vivid of all the nature writers." Brooklyn Eagle. 
 
 RED FOX 
 
 THE STORY OF His ADVENTUROUS CAREER IN THE RINGWAAK 
 WILDS, AND OF His FINAL TRIUMPH OVER THE ENEMIES OF 
 His KIND. With fifty illustrations, including frontispiece in 
 color and cover design by Charles Livingston Bull. 
 Square quarto, cloth decorative $2.50 
 
 " True in substance, but fascinating as fiction. It will inter- 
 est old and young, city-bound and free-footed, those who knew 
 animals and those who do not." Chicago Record-Herald. 
 
 THE KINDRED OF THE WILD 
 
 A BOOK OF ANIMAL LIFE. With fifty-one full-page plates 
 
 and many decorations from drawings by Charles Livingston 
 
 Bull. 
 
 Square quarto, cloth decorative $2.50 
 
 " Is in many ways the most brilliant collection of animal 
 
 stories that has appeared; well named and well done." John 
 
 Burroughs. 
 
 THE WATCHERS OF THE TRAILS 
 
 A companion volume to " The Kindred of the Wild." With 
 forty-eight full-page plates and many decorations from 
 drawings by Charles Livingston Bull. 
 
 Square quarto, cloth decorative $2.50 
 
 " These stories are exquisite in their refinement, and yet 
 
 robust in their appreciation of some of the rougher phases of 
 
 woodcraft. Among the many writers about animals, Mr. Ro^- 
 
 erts occupies an enviable place." The Outlook. 
 
THE PAGE COMPANY'S 
 
 THE HOUSE IN THE WATER 
 
 With thirty full-page illustrations by Charles Livingston Bull 
 and Frank Vining Smith. Cover design and decorations b7 
 Charles Livingston Bull. 
 
 Library 12mo, cloth decorative $2.00 
 
 " Every paragraph is a splendid picture, suggesting in a few 
 words the appeal of the vast, illimitable wilderness." The 
 Chicago Tribune. 
 
 " This is a book full of delight. An additional charm lies in 
 Mr. Bull's faithful and graphic illustrations, which in fashion 
 all their own tell the story of the wild life, illuminating and 
 supplementing the pen pictures of the author." Literary 
 Digest. 
 
 THE HEART THAT KNOWS 
 
 Library 12mo, cloth decorative ..... $1.75 
 " A novel of singularly effective strength, luminous in liter- 
 
 ary color, rich in its passionate, yet tender drama." New York 
 
 Globe. 
 
 EARTH'S ENIGMAS 
 
 A new edition of Mr. Roberta's first volume of fiction, pub- 
 lished in 1892, and out of print for several years, with the 
 addition of three new stories, and ten illustrations by Charles 
 Livingston Bull. 
 
 Library 12mo, cloth decorative ..... $1.75 
 "It will rank high among collections of short stories. In 
 'Earth's Enigmas' is a wider range of subjects than in the 
 ' Kindred of the Wild.' " Review from advance sheets of the 
 illustrated edition by Tiffany Blake in the Chicago Evening 
 Post. 
 
 BARBARA LADD 
 
 With four illustrations by Frank Verbeck. 
 
 Library 12mo, cloth decorative ..... $1.75 
 
 " From the opening chapter to the final page Mr. Roberts 
 lures us on by his rapt devotion to the changing aspects of 
 Nature and by his keen and sympathetic analysis of human 
 character." Boston Transcript. 
 
 "A very fine novel. We unhesitatingly pronounce it . . . 
 one of the books that stamp themselves at once upon the imag- 
 ination, and remain imbedded in the memory long after the 
 covers are closed." Literary World, Boston. 
 
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
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