3 2E5 SDfi 
 
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 9948 
 
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 1911 
 MAIN 
 
GIFT 
 
 Alittle Journey 
 to the Home of 
 
 JOHN- 
 
 STETSON 
 
 Di/ElbertHubbaKl 
 
EVERY 
 great In 
 stitution is the 
 Lengthened 
 Shadow of a 
 Single Man 
 
 E M E R S O N 
 
JOHN B. STETSON 
 

 A Little Journey to the Home of \ 
 
 John B. Stetson 
 
 BY ELBERT HUBBARD ! 
 
 Done into a Printed Book by The Roycrofters, at Their j 
 Shop, which is in East Aurora, New York, U. S. A. 
 MCMXVI 
 
* 
 
 Copyright, 1911 
 
 By Elbert Hubbard 
 
 3rd Edition 
 
 GIFT 
 
STETSON THE MAN 
 
 HIS is the life-story of John B. Stetson, 
 told in " tabloid." 
 
 Stetson was an American businessman. 
 <I He is one of the moderns. I use the 
 word " is," because the influence of a 
 great personality never dies s* The 
 influence of the man is with us, and 
 his soul goes marching on. 
 Stetson was a workingman. He became 
 master of a trade at a time when this 
 trade was a synonym for the shiftless, 
 the unreliable, the erratic. 
 " Mad as a hatter," was a saying that 
 passed as legal tender in the current coin of language. 
 Lewis Carroll, in that very wise and foolish book entitled, "Alice in 
 Wonderland," paid his respects to the mad hatter. Various other 
 writers have done the same. 
 
 The old-time hatter, like the old-time printer, worked when he felt 
 like it and a good deal of the time he did not feel like it. 
 He was filled with the wanderlust, and to take off his apron and walk 
 out without excuse or reason was, for him, a very natural thing to do. 
 <I When the merry hatter received his pay and left the shop Saturday 
 night, it was quite likely the shop did not see him until along about 
 Tuesday or Wednesday, and then it took him the better part of a 
 day to get his hand in. 
 
 It is probable that the particular trade of hatter has been maligned, 
 for the fact is that one hundred years ago all the trades were very 
 much on the same basis. 
 
 A Similar Case 
 
 HN WESLEY in his "Journal" describes the condition of 
 the potters in England, during his time. Hah* their earnings 
 were spent for strong drink. None of them owned their homes. They 
 lived in long lines of hovels, from which they were evicted when 
 they lost their inclination or their capacity for work. 
 
 231. 
 
Four JOHN B. STETSON 
 
 They were a brawling, bearbaiting, restless, shiftless, unreliable lot. 
 They had no gardens, no flowers, no books, no pictures no ambi- 
 tions, no ideals. Very few of them could read and write. When they 
 attended the meetings of John Wesley they often showed their 
 appreciation by pelting the speaker with mud balls. 
 The places where they worked were sheds or small shops, managed 
 by a man who lived over the factory, or alongside, and looked after 
 his dozen workmen as best he could. The wares they made were 
 mostly jugs for brewers. 
 
 As John Wesley rode his old horse, " Timothy," through this Cum- 
 berland potters' district one day, greatly to his surprise he saw a 
 sight that caused him to rein in his horse and stop and stare .". 
 It was a flowerbed in front of a little house. 
 
 John Wesley dismounted, tied his horse to the fence, and went inside 
 to investigate. That night he wrote in his Journal these words : " He 
 is small and lame, but he loves flowers and his soul is near to God." 
 fl The man of whom he wrote was Josiah Wedgwood, the founder 
 of the town of Etruria, and who from making jugs for brewers 
 evolved the art of making vases. 
 
 Incidentally, Wedgwood coined the word " Queensware," and made 
 tableware of a sort and kind so that it came into general use among 
 even the common people, taking the place of the old-time metal 
 pot from which each member of the household dipped and 
 speared as suited his* own inclination. 
 
 Wedgwood raised pottery from a trade to a fine art. In the process 
 he became rich, and he made hundreds of other men rich. There 
 is not a household in Christendom today where the marks of 
 Wedgwood's genius are not shown. 
 
 The daughter of John Wedgwood became the mother of Charles 
 Darwin. Darwin has changed the thinking complexion of the 
 world ; but even Darwin, who was an innovator, did not do more for 
 humanity than did Josiah Wedgwood. 
 
 John B. Stetson did for the hatter's trade what Wedgwood had 
 done for the potter's. 
 
JOHN B. STETSON Five 
 
 Stetson made of his trade a business, a profession, a science, an 
 art. He did the thing better than it had ever been done before 
 since history began. 
 
 He was an economist, an organizer and a humanitarian. Inci- 
 dentally, he became rich, and he made thousands of other people 
 rich. He evolved distinct styles, and he made his name synonymous 
 with the thing he manufactured. 
 
 The Word Stetson 
 
 HE word " Stetson " has passed into the current com of 
 expression. If a man asks for a " Stetson " in any civilized 
 country in the world, the dealer knows what he wants; and will 
 possibly try to pass him out " something just as good." Wherever 
 hats are mentioned and discussed for even five minutes the word 
 " Stetson " is used. If a man wants to express the supreme excel- 
 lence of a hat he tells his customer, " It is a Stetson," or " Just as 
 good as a Stetson," or " Exactly like a Stetson." 
 But no dealer, even in his wildest imaginings, describes the hat he 
 offers as better than a " Stetson." The " Stetson " is the standard. 
 It stands for beauty, durability, efficiency, and all that is worth 
 while in the line of hats. It " looks " and it lasts. 
 Stetson made the business of hatting respectable. 
 The Evolution of the Factory 
 
 foHN B. STETSON was born in Orange, New Jersey, in Eight- 
 een Hundred Thirty. He died in Nineteen Hundred Six. 
 His was a life of constant activity. He ran the gamut from poverty 
 and hardship to wealth. 
 
 His father was an employing hatter, and a successful one according 
 to the standard of the times. Stephen Stetson lived over his shop 
 and worked at his trade in the good old-time way. It was an age of 
 handicrafts ;*> * 
 
 All manufacturing was once done in the homes. The entire family 
 worked at the business, and the trade was passed along whatever 
 it was from father to son. The sons, the daughters and the mother 
 all worked, too, at the business. Spinning, weaving, glass-blowing, 
 
Six JOHN B. STETSON 
 
 wood-carving, and the making of lead-pencils, cutlery and utensils 
 of every kind and sort were done in the homes. 
 Each of the great factories of New England can be traced back to 
 its rise when by the kitchen stove the master of the house worked 
 out an idea which took form in a commodity that was supplied to 
 his neighbors, being traded to them for something they themselves 
 made .-*. 
 
 Business was barter. Perhaps once a year the manufacturer took a 
 load of his wares to the neighboring fair, and there in his booth sold 
 enough to buy raw stock for a year. 
 
 These were the methods continued from ancient times down to the 
 invention of the steam-engine, and for a good many years after 
 the invention of the steam-engine the methods of the home handi- 
 crafts still survived. 
 
 The complete separation of the home from the factory is a thing 
 which the modern man has seen evolved. Men in middle life now 
 can remember a day when the principal merchant in every town 
 and village lived over his store, shop or factory. 
 
 Stetson the Elder 
 
 TEPHEN STETSON was making money, for he had centered 
 on that one thing. He lived in New Jersey, but he had the 
 true New England instincts. He saved, and saved eternally. He 
 worked and he compelled every one else to work, and in his life 
 there were very few play-spells. 
 
 When he had accumulated fifty thousand dollars he was accounted 
 one of the richest men in the business. He was fifty years old, and 
 he decided he would retire from business and enjoy himself not 
 knowing that happiness is a habit, and if you do not get your happi- 
 ness out of your work you will never know what happiness is. 
 He did not realize that to retire from work is to retire from life ; so 
 he sold out his prosperous business, and the money he had made in 
 a business he understood, he invested in one he knew nothing about. 
 <I And the result was that his investments which he had expected 
 would bring him in ten per cent or more without effort, melted away 
 
JOHN B. STETSON Seven 
 
 into thin air. 9 Andrew Carnegie's maxim, " Put all your eggs in 
 one basket and then watch that basket," had not then been 
 expressed. The business that prospers is the business that is 
 managed by the men who built it up. 
 
 The elder Stetson passed away, whipped out, discouraged, a bank- 
 rupt man, and his sons took in hand the raveled shreds of his busi- 
 ness and endeavored to build it up. 
 
 Hardship and 111 Health 
 
 /JOHN B. was one of the younger children, and the older ones, 
 / y filled with the thought of primogeniture, naturally took charge. 
 <I His father had taught him the trade. But education outside of 
 one's trade among the hatters was then regarded as quite superflu- 
 ous, so the lad never attended school a day in his life. His mother 
 taught him to read and write, and being possessed of a hungry mind 
 he acquired knowledge as the days passed. Life was his school * 
 John B. Stetson was working for an older brother by the day. He 
 made hats, taught others how, sold the product, bought the raw 
 stock and the brother absorbed the profits and the honors. 
 So we find the brothers separating, and John B. making arrange- 
 ments to start a business of his own. Then calamity came in the 
 way of ill health. The doctors said John B. Stetson had consumption 
 and that his days on earth were few. He was slight, slim, slender, 
 nervous, active, and the type of person who goes quick or lasts 
 long, as the case may be. 
 
 But John B. Stetson was not to die just then. He studied his own 
 case and he came to the conclusion that he would have to quit the 
 exacting business of making hats and get out in the open. 
 He struck out for the Far West, which then, in the late Fifties, 
 meant Illinois. 
 
 Fever and ague were then the one crop of the Middle West. 
 There were not trees enough to absorb the humidity, and the over- 
 turned sod created a miasma, and this transformed the prairies into 
 a Campagna of " shakes " similar to that which surrounded Rome. 
 <I Stetson shook, and shook dice with Destiny. He was burned with 
 
Eight JOHN B. STETSON 
 
 fever and chilled with cold, but he had no intention of going back 
 
 East. If he was going to die, he would die in the West, and he pushed 
 
 on across the Mississippi River, through to the rising city of Saint 
 
 Joseph, Missouri. 
 
 Saint Joseph was a trading-post where parties fitted out for Pike's 
 
 Peak seven hundred fifty miles away. 
 
 At Saint Joseph, Stetson worked in a brickyard ; then he became 
 
 manager of the brickyard, then part owner. Clay was plentiful, and 
 
 wood was to be had for the cutting. He made money and invested 
 
 it all in the business. 
 
 His brickyard was on the banks of the Missouri. He had made up 
 
 hah* a million bricks all ready to burn, arches complete and filled 
 
 with wood, fires started, when lo ! the fickle and finicky Missouri 
 
 River went on a rampage, overflowed its banks, rose and kept 
 
 rising, until it drove the firemen out of Stetson's brickyards. 
 
 The water still kept rising. 
 
 It put out the fires, undermined the arches, and the bricks made 
 
 without straw tumbled in a mass. 
 
 Soon they were a heap of mud, which the yellow waters of the 
 
 Missouri dissolved. 
 
 Stetson's fortune, the result of two years of hard work, swirled and 
 
 swam away to the South. Stetson stood on a hilltop and said : "Let 'er 
 
 go ! I am not the first man who has made a fortune and lost it ! " 
 
 9 The Civil War was on, and Stetson tried to enlist, but his physical 
 
 disabilities were too apparent and he was rejected. 
 
 There was a party fitting out for Pike's Peak, and Stetson was 
 
 invited to become one of the members. He accepted the invitation 
 
 and they started away on foot, a dozen young men headed for the 
 
 Rocky Mountains. 
 
 Stetson's health was still precarious. His risk, as the insurance 
 
 men would say, was a hazardous one. 
 
 In any event, however, he would not be a care to society. If he died, 
 
 he would simply drop in his tracks and a shallow grave would be 
 
 scooped out on the prairie and there he would rest in his last, 
 
JOHN B. STETSON Nine 
 
 long sleep, flf It was June and the rosinweed rose as high as a man's 
 head, across the prairies. Clouds of wild ducks circled over the 
 ponds. The prairie-chickens drummed on the little hilltops. The 
 blue cranes threw out then* sentinels, strutted and called. 
 Nature was at her loveliest and best. 
 
 And so these young men tramped, following the trail to the West, 
 always to the West, and as they journeyed, health and happiness 
 came back to John B. Stetson. 
 
 An Object-Lesson 
 
 [HEN John B. Stetson started for Pike's Peak, his bag- 
 gage consisted of the clothes upon his back, a shotgun 
 and a hatchet. His companions, a dozen or so in number, were 
 similarly equipped. 
 
 Science, with all its wonderful discoveries, has not devised a better 
 method for eradicating the Great White Plague than that used by 
 Stetson. It was out of doors all the time, under the blue sky, in wind 
 and weather; but best of all there was a purpose, an objective 
 point. They were going somewhere. There was plenty of good-cheer 
 and banter, and so they walked. 
 
 But the storms came, and the plains and the prairies were wind- 
 swept. At night they had no shelter. 
 
 In this extremity they resorted to a plan of sewing the skins of 
 animals together ; muskrat, rabbits, beaver, coyote, were plentiful, 
 but our friends had no method of tanning the skins, and there is a 
 certain, serious objection to using green skins for clothing purposes 
 in the Summertime, that need not here be cited. 
 Shelter-tents, just big enough to crawl into, were easy enough to 
 make with the help of skins. But these skins were thrown away 
 when the sun came out, and the hope and prayer was that the storms 
 would not again come. 
 
 Then it was that Stetson showed his companions an object-lesson 
 in science one fine day as they were sitting on the bank of the 
 stream with their feet dabbling in the water. The thing that Stetson 
 explained to his friends was something they had never heard of, and 
 
Ten JOHN B. STETSON 
 
 at once it caused a big argument. Things people have never heard 
 of they usually denounce as impossible. And while they are saying 
 that this thing can never be done, some fellow just goes ahead 
 and does it ! 
 
 The question turned on securing cloth for shelter-tents. One man 
 made the flat, dogmatic statement that cloth was made by weaving, 
 and that it could not be made in any other way. 
 Stetson stood out that there was another scheme for making cloth. 
 <I All the others denounced him and voted him a theorist ; so, to 
 prove his case, Stetson expounded to them the science of felting. 
 <I This is a branch of knowledge that is as old as glass-making c+> 
 It goes back to the time of Moses, who led the Children of Israel out 
 of captivity fifteen centuries before Christ. It was known to Homer 
 and Hesiod, for they mention the scheme in their writings. Pythag- 
 oras, six hundred years before Christ, made cloth by the felting 
 process, and as far as we know, the first fabrics were made of felt, 
 and weaving came hi as an afterthought. 
 
 And the world does not yet understand the science of felting, any 
 more than it understands the science of electricity or the making 
 of concrete. All we know is that the thing can be done. 
 Stetson explained these facts to his friends and received the merry 
 ha-ha, and the doubtful te-he by way of applause. Now here is a 
 story that was told me for fact, but when I once asked Stetson about 
 it, he only laughed and said I should not believe half I heard. How- 
 ever, I still believe the tale is sure enough true, and so I give it, 
 nothing extenuating and setting down naught in malice. So here 
 goes : Stetson took some of the skins that his friends had discarded, 
 sharpened up his hatchet on a convenient stone, and shaved the 
 fur off the skins. 
 
 He then cut a bit of a hickory sapling ; sliced off a thong from one 
 of the skins, and made a hunter's bow. With this bow he agitated 
 the fur so as to keep it in a regular little cloud in the air. 
 Here is a process known to all old-time hatters, but which can only 
 be done by an expert. It requires about as much talent and skill to 
 
JOHN B. STETSON Eleven 
 
 manipulate a hunter's bow as it does to play the violin. Nowadays 
 
 the fur is manipulated by a machine fan and allowed to settle, but 
 
 the principle is the same. 
 
 Stetson kept the fur in the air, and then it fell gently by its own 
 
 weight, and was very naturally distributed over a certain space. 
 
 As it fell, Stetson, with mouth full of water, after the manner of 
 
 John Chinaman, blew a fine spray of moisture through the fur. 
 
 Soon there was a mat of fur that could be lifted up and rolled. 
 
 It was like a thin sheet of wet paper. 
 
 There was a campfire near, and a pot of boiling water, and into this 
 
 boiling water Stetson dipped his sheet of matted fur. 
 
 It began to shrink. 
 
 By manipulating it with his hands, and rapidly dipping it in the hot 
 
 water, he soon had a little blanket, woven soft and even of perfect cloth. 
 
 <I The argument that the thing could not be done faded away into the 
 
 nothingness. Nobody said, " I told you so ! " 
 
 There was the actual thing cloth made by the felting process 
 
 one of the oldest devices of the human mind. 
 
 It was only recently that the microscope showed us that hair and 
 
 fur are not made up of straight, reedlike strands, but that every 
 
 individual hair is covered with small hooks, branches or prongs, 
 
 and that when stimulated by hot water these prongs show a great 
 
 tendency to cling to each other and will crawl or creep on after the 
 
 manner of " tickle-grass." And the youngster who does not know 
 
 about tickle-grass is to be pitied. 
 
 In the good old times when I went to the little red schoolhouse 
 
 arrayed simply in two garments, a runabout and trousers buttoned 
 
 thereto, tickle-grass came in as a scientific wonder. You simply 
 
 started the thing up your trouser-leg and it came out at your collar, 
 
 or where your collar should have been. 
 
 The First "Stetson" 
 
 [E principle of the single strand of fur is exactly the same as 
 that of the tickle-grass. But the tickle-grass we see with our 
 wide-open eyes, and the other is only manifest by the use of the 
 
Twelve JOHN B. STETSON 
 
 microscope. The shrinking of felt is caused by the fibers interlocking, 
 seizing upon each other and creeping close. It is a form of physical 
 affinity. Just why it is so we do not know, but the fact remains. 
 Cotton does not shrink or creep, because it has n't the feet. 
 And the story goes that Stetson's traveling companions were so 
 delighted with his experiment that they immediately went to work 
 killing jack-rabbits, beavers and skunks and any other of the fur- 
 bearing animals they could get. Then under Stetson's directions they 
 made felt tents that effectually turned the water, to the delight and 
 astonishment of the troopers on horseback and afoot, and in the 
 prairie-schooners, that were wending their way to the West. 
 Hats then were more or less of a luxury. Indians got along quite 
 well without hats. So did our friends in the pioneer days. 
 In Winter, the Davy Crockett fashion was in vogue. 
 The coonskin cap, with its dangling tail, was picturesque and service- 
 able, but in Summertime it certainly had its disadvantages in way 
 of moths and fleas. If you left your cap unguarded, some hungry 
 dog would probably carry it off. To amuse his friends, Stetson made 
 a hat out of the felt. It was big and picturesque. It protected the 
 wearer from the wind and rain, as well as from the scorching sun. 
 <J Besides all this, it attracted considerable attention. It made the 
 wearer the object of envy, ridicule or admiration, as the case may 
 be. But the ribald ones ceased to revile when a bullwhacker on 
 horseback, gaily seated on a silver-mounted saddle from Mexico, 
 looked upon Stetson's hat with envious eyes and then offered the 
 owner a five-dollar gold-piece for it. 
 This was the first genuine Stetson hat made and sold. 
 That it would eventually lead up to a great industry, no one guessed ; 
 but it was the germ of an enterprise that was to be worldwide in its 
 influence. 
 
 Life is Life 
 
 E little band of pioneers reached Pike's Peak, and dis- 
 covered that life is life wherever you go, and that about all 
 you have is what you carry with you. 
 
JOHN B. STETSON Thirteen 
 
 A few of those Western miners made money. Some left their 
 bones along the winding way ; others died in the diggings. Most of 
 them gambled and wasted their substance, whenever they had any. 
 <I Brigham Young's advice to the Mormons was : " Raise vegetables 
 and feed the miners, and you will all grow rich. If you mine for gold 
 a very few of you will make money, but the most of you will die 
 in poverty." 
 
 A year passed, and health and strength had come back to Stetson. 
 He was big and strong, able and ambitious full of ideas. He 
 decided that he would go back to the East back to the city that 
 Benjamin Franklin had done so much to make. There he would 
 work out his dream and, if possible, build up a business. 
 He could do this one thing. He was a feltmaker and a hatter. He 
 had the skill of fingers and the talent to do. And so back to Phila- 
 delphia he went, with his scanty earnings made in the diggings. 
 
 Trials and Difficulties 
 
 EACHING Philadelphia, he had one hundred dollars left. He 
 bought the tools of his trade, rented a little room at Seventh 
 and Callowhill Streets, and started to work making hats. To buy 
 the fur and make the felt was the first thing to do. 
 Stetson had no credit, but ten dollars' worth of fur was all that 
 was required to start. 
 
 He studied the fashions that were in vogue, and made the sort of 
 hat that seemed to be in demand. He peddled these out at the 
 stores of the dealers, one, two, three, half a dozen at a time. 
 He saw, however, that if he simply made hats like those that others 
 were making, working only to duplicate these, he would be but a 
 molecule in the mass. He wanted to do something different to 
 start a style. And so he made a hat slightly different from that worn 
 by the fashionables &+ Putting one of these on his head he walked 
 around from dealer to dealer, doffing his hat and telling them he 
 could duplicate it. 
 
 The dealers smiled in derision, saying that fashions came from across 
 the sea, and that to start a new one was not to be thought of. 
 
Fourteen JOHN B. STETSON 
 
 Then he went back to his shop and ironed an extra curl to the brim, 
 gave the hat a new twist and started out again. He was going to meet 
 the prejudices of the dealers. Again he was forced to return, unsuc- 
 cessful. Over and over again he endeavored to start his new fashion. 
 9 Finally, one day, he went out wearing a hat made of very fine, 
 soft felt. He had made this hat from the finest fur that he could 
 procure, and his endeavor was to make the lightest hat possible. A 
 felt hat weighs anywhere from two to four ounces. This hat that 
 Stetson wore weighed two. Stetson gave a vicious curl to his mous- 
 tache and a cock that matched to the hat, and twisting his hat over 
 one eye, he started again on his rounds among the dealers. 
 He assumed a rowdy, Beau Brummel appearance, aping the ultra- 
 fashionables, and as he swaggered into a store his dapper appear- 
 ance got the attention of a customer who eyed him with approval. 
 <I Stetson took off his hat and showed it to the dealer in the presence 
 of the customer who stood by. The customer became interested 
 and bought the hat on the spot. The dealer gave Stetson an order 
 for a dozen. 
 
 This was the first order for a dozen hats that he had received, and 
 he had been working the market for six months. 
 He hastened back to his shop, took all the money he had, went out 
 and bought the finest fur that he could procure, and started to fill 
 the order $*> to 
 
 From this time on he had plenty of work. The margins, however, 
 were very close. Customers would not pay more than two dollars 
 for a hat, and they said that this was such a little one anyway, that 
 it was not worth more. 
 
 Every Monday morning Stetson bought ten dollars' worth of fur. 
 The fur came in batches and was carried up the creaking stairways 
 by a lusty Irishman who flopped the bale upon the floor and waited 
 stolidly for his money. The mail during the week brought enough 
 to pay for the fur, but barely enough, and one Monday morning 
 when Stetson opened the last letter that had come to him, he dis- 
 covered that he had not enough money to pay for the bale of fur 
 
JOHN B. STETSON Fifteen 
 
 that would soon arrive. He knew the Irishman was on the way with 
 his wheelbarrow. Soon he would have to make the humiliating 
 confession that he could not pay. What to do was the thing he was 
 revolving in his mind. 
 
 He heard the man come up the stairs. He saw him enter with the 
 load upon his shoulders. The Irishman gave the bale a toss and it 
 fell with a thud to the floor, raising a cloud of dust. And as it fell, 
 the Irishman remarked in a hot-mush brogue : " The ould man says 
 that yez need n't moind about sinding the money for a week or so. 
 Jes' suit yersilf." 
 
 And then the son of Hibernia disappeared down the stairway. 
 Stetson sat dumb with surprise; and tears ran down his cheeks. 
 From that day forward he was a believer in what our friend Socrates 
 called the " Demon." Some call it " Providence," others call it 
 " Luck." Stetson never formulated it, but the belief was always his 
 that God was on his side, and that whatever he did would prove to 
 be right and proper and best ; that no matter how dark the clouds, 
 light would break through. 
 
 This compelling faith in himself and in destiny never forsook him 
 in all his long career. 
 
 The Big Idea 
 
 was only a few days after his receiving credit without asking 
 for it, that he decided to stake his all on a venture that no hatter 
 had before attempted. The bullwhacker on the plains who had sepa- 
 rated himself from a five-dollar gold-piece for a very crude kind of 
 hat, rose before him like an apparition. Instead of depending upon 
 the local trade of the hatters of Philadelphia and haggling with them 
 as to prices, Stetson decided to take all the money he had and make 
 a big, fine, picturesque hat for the Cattle Kings. 
 He would call his hat " The Boss of the Plains." 
 He had gotten a list of the clothing and hat dealers hi every city 
 and town of the Southwest, and he would send each of these one of 
 his big hats with a letter asking for an order for a dozen ! 
 This would either make or break him, but he believed that destiny 
 
Sixteen JOHN B. STETSON 
 
 was with him. So he spent all his money for material and then ran 
 in debt to the very limit of his credit. He made his big, natural- 
 colored hats, four-inch brim and four-inch top, with a strap for a 
 band and out went the hat to the West by express or by mail. 
 Whether the hat, or orders, would ever come back was the question. 
 Two weeks passed and the orders were coming, " Send a dozen hats 
 just like the sample." Some of the men sent cash with their orders, 
 saying that they wanted their orders given the preference. 
 This gave Stetson a clew. He sent out more samples as fast as he 
 could, making the suggestion that if a man wanted his hats by 
 return express, he should send the money in advance. 
 This new hat, " The Boss of the Plains," was made of one-grade 
 material and retailed at five dollars ; then in finer material to sell for 
 ten dollars ; then in extra-fine fur made from pure beaver or nutria. 
 These hats sold for as much as thirty dollars apiece. Money came, 
 and the orders were piling up. 
 
 From this time on the story of the business of John B. Stetson reads 
 like a romance. No tale of the imagination written by Sir Walter 
 Scott equals it. Stetson did things that Sir Walter could never even 
 imagine. He introduced initiative into the business. Stetson was a 
 creator, a dealer, a scout of civilization. 
 
 He marched always in the vanguard, and he introduced patterns 
 which, seemingly, can not be improved on today. 
 The great business of the John B. Stetson Company has doubled in 
 volume since his death. But the increase has all been by a close 
 application to the methods laid down by the dead chief. Being dead 
 he yet lives. 
 
 The Growing "West 
 
 HEN a thing is known it ceases to be either deep, strange 
 or profound. 
 
 But we wonder why, when Stetson sold his first, big, picturesque 
 hat there on the plains of Colorado, the thought did not at once 
 come to him that there was a market for such wares ! 
 The fact was that pioneers were poor. Hats were more or less of a 
 
CHRISTMAS MEETING 
 
STETSON EMPLOYEES 
 

 JOHN B. STETSON Seventeen 
 
 luxury, and the possibilities of the West were to Stetson absolutely 
 unguessed, just as they were to Napoleon when he sold that whole 
 vast territory for a fraction of a cent per acre It is doubtful 
 whether forty or so years ago any living man imagined the extent 
 of the wealth that now exists in America. Stetson did not know 
 that there was even then a growing class of Western aristocrats, 
 men immensely wealthy from the sale of cattle, who were coming 
 into power. 
 
 When we are in the midst of a thing we do not see it. Perspective is 
 necessary; and the thought of supplying a distinctive hat for the 
 aristocrats of the West did not come to him until a certain fateful 
 day in Philadelphia, when he had tried everything else and only 
 saw hardship ahead. 
 
 Stetson could always remember the exact time and spot when it 
 came over him that he could get away absolutely from competition 
 by making a hat for the cattle kings. The name, "Boss of the Plains," 
 seized upon him, and to supply this market became the one con- 
 trolling object of his life. He actually became fevered over it. Sub- 
 sequent events proved the truth of his prophecy. 
 
 A Man of Faith 
 
 TETSON was distinctly a religious man in the highest sense. 
 
 His love for his work and his workers was absorbing, and 
 his faith was the guiding star of his life. This gave him courage 
 and good-cheer, even in the face of seeming disaster. He knew that 
 all would be well. His firm faith in the Good was a strong factor 
 in his success. 
 
 The hat known as the "B. O. P." was a modified Mexican sombrero. 
 It was a sombrero with a college education. The limit of Stetson's 
 business from this on was his ability to manufacture. 
 From making one style he began to make many. The vogue spread, 
 and it became a fixed fact to the man of the West that for service 
 and utility, and to the man of the East that for style, he must wear 
 a "Stetson." A "Stetson" stands for success. Stetson's faith 
 was contagious. 
 
Eighteen JOHN B. STETSON 
 
 So far as I know, no great business was ever built up equal in 
 volume to this with such a minimum of advertising. Our scientific 
 friends tell us that advertising is an economic waste. This is cer- 
 tainly true. Advertising is telling who you are, what you are, where 
 you are and what you have to offer the world hi the way of service 
 or commodity. The only man who should not advertise is the man 
 who has nothing to offer. 
 
 At the same time, there is no finer way hi the world to waste money 
 than in advertising. Very few advertisers indeed know ho much 
 of a return they are getting. 
 
 Stetson was the first man to say, "There is no advertisement equal 
 to a well-pleased customer." He endeavored to make a hat which 
 would so please the customer that he would show it and explain to 
 others where he got it. The Stetson hat in looks and wear proved its 
 worth to the wearer and his friends, and the trademark which 
 Stetson was proud to put in it told the name of the maker and 
 where he lived. Thus every man who wore a " Stetson " was an 
 advertising agent for John B. Stetson. 
 
 The Hat as a Symbol 
 
 SUPPOSE it need not be explained that a hat is not concealed 
 on the person. It surmounts a man's dome of thought. It 
 occupies the proudest position in all that goes to make up his haber- 
 dashery and toggery. In togs the hat certainly occupies first place. 
 The hat is a sort of modified crown. There is a certain tendency hi 
 the human heart which prompts the individual to show his social 
 status in his hat. The hat reveals the mood of mind which the indi- 
 vidual possesses. 
 
 We bestow honors by touching the hat-brim or lifting the hat s^ 
 Thus we symbol our mental attitude toward an individual. There 
 are people before whom we stand uncovered, and there are others 
 in the presence of whom we stolidly pull our hat down. 
 William Penn was born with his hat on and never removed it, even 
 hi the presence of royalty. Thus did he manifest his ego. And from 
 Beau Brummel, who wore a towering hat with a dinky brim, we 
 
JOHN B. STETSON Nineteen 
 
 run the hat gamut to George Fox, who reached equilibrium in 
 breadth of brim. On Beau Brummel's hat was a fluttering flummery 
 of ribbons of various hues, but the hat worn by George Fox was 
 absolutely without ornament. The Mexican will ride out from his 
 hacienda on a ten-dollar horse and a one-hundred-dollar saddle, 
 wearing a forty-dollar hat and a three-dollar suit of clothes. 
 The thing that got the eye of the American cattle king was size, 
 simplicity, quality, individuality something that was unique and 
 genuine * &+ 
 
 Stetson, instead of advertising his hats or sending out traveling 
 men, shipped a sample hat by express to every dealer. Later on, he 
 discovered that the men in a town he sold attracted to themselves 
 pretty much of the hat trade. 
 
 The hats for which Stetson received orders when they reached the 
 dealer usually proved to be a little better article than the man 
 expected. Stetson aimed to disappoint his customers on this side. 
 If there were any surprises, he surprised the man by giving him 
 a better hat than he expected. And I heard the designer of today 
 say, "Any hat, moth-eaten or defective, is good enough for a 
 sample, but none is too perfect for a merchant to sell or a man to 
 wear." And the merchant and the wearer know that the hat they buy 
 will be up to the Stetson Standard, regardless of the sample $+ 
 Stetson disarmed criticism by absolute honesty, absolute integrity ; 
 and so far as I have been able to learn, he was the first hatter to 
 adopt the one-price system and refuse to sell any dealer who cut or 
 jockeyed prices. 
 
 In less than a year after Stetson began to make the hat known as 
 the " Boss of the Plains," he gave up the Philadelphia local trade 
 entirely, and in the interests of economy moved from the business 
 district to Fourth Street and Montgomery Avenue, three miles out. 
 He was clear in the suburbs of the city. The wise ones said that no 
 man could do business so far out of town ; others said the land he 
 bought was not worth the money. But the days went by, as the days 
 do, and now the Stetson factory is practically in the middle of the 
 
Twenty JOHN B. STETSON 
 
 city, and a great deal of the most valuable real estate is still beyond 
 the Stetson works. It became an axiom in the minds of the people 
 who knew Stetson that wherever he bought real estate prosperity 
 would follow. 
 
 The Idea Expands 
 
 HEN the Stetson factory was built in the suburbs, it was a 
 -three-story building one hundred feet long and thirty feet 
 wide. It was beyond the needs of the concern, but Stetson's prophetic 
 vision saw it filled with happy, prosperous and intelligent workers. 
 fl The first thing to do was to transform the shiftless, indifferent, im- 
 pulsive, drinking, tramp hatter into a reliable and earnest individual. 
 <I It was discovered that the men who were saving money soon evolved 
 a degree of integrity and intelligence which the tramp hatter did 
 not possess. Some of the men planned for building homes. This idea 
 grew and from it sprang the Stetson Building and Loan Association. 
 <I If Philadelphia is " The City of Homes," Stetson made use of the 
 favorable local conditions to encourage his men to build or to buy 
 homes of their own, and in the years of growth of the business, 
 this idea, worked out through the Building and Loan Association, 
 developed to such an extent that a large portion of the Stetson 
 employees became householders in their own right. These homes 
 were so numerous and so attractive in their varied styles that they 
 drew the attention of the United States Government, and the Bureau 
 of Labor made a special study of the results of the operation of the 
 Stetson Building and Loan Association, displaying facts and figures 
 with numerous pictures of houses in an exhibit at the Louisiana 
 Purchase Exposition. 
 
 The apprentice system adopted by Stetson was absolutely unique. 
 He paid the beginner a fair wage, with an understanding that if 
 the boy remained during the apprentice period he would receive 
 a fixed bonus for every week he worked. Here was a chance to 
 learn a trade and secure a snug saving at the same time. It was a 
 master-stroke in binding to him able and reliable men. This idea 
 grew and was worked out later in all departments in a big way s>+ 
 
JOHN B. STETSON Twenty-one 
 
 Today all the employees in the great factory, in which fifty-five 
 hundred people are working, are sharing in the profits of the busi- 
 ness through a system of bonuses. Starting many years ago, Stetson 
 offered on Christmas a small bonus to be paid the next Christmas 
 to those men who worked continuously and faithfully throughout 
 the year. While, the first year, not a large percentage of the men 
 earned the bonus, the result was sufficiently satisfactory to induce 
 the offering of a larger bonus the following year and the extension 
 of the plan to the workers in other departments. The bonus is 
 in some departments as high as twenty per cent, so that the em- 
 ployee who has earned during the year one thousand dollars 
 receives two hundred as a substantial Christmas reminder of his 
 share in the prosperity of the business. 
 
 When last Christmas I saw fifty-five hundred happy workers gather 
 in the great Stetson auditorium, all singing heartily in the intervals 
 of receiving their bonuses, it was clear that Stetson had made life 
 worth while. 
 
 A Friend to All 
 
 E secret of the success of John B. Stetson turned first on 
 meeting the market with a quality and style of hat such as 
 was in demand. The next thing was managing the workmen so as 
 to evolve about him a big Stetson family, a family of happy, healthy, 
 effective workers. 
 
 A JOURNEY TO THE HOME OF JOHN B. STETSON is no mis- 
 nomer for a visit to the Stetson factory. Stetson so thoroughly 
 identified himself with the life as well as the work of the factory 
 that it may well be called his home. 
 
 Stetson was on friendly terms with all his people ; called them by 
 their first names ; shook hands with them when they met ; took a 
 friendly interest in their affairs. 
 
 When the gathering of physical years came upon him and the 
 multiplied number of employees made it impossible longer to con- 
 tinue the personal contact with each, he still maintained his general 
 interest and activity. 
 
Twenty-two JOHN B. STETSON 
 
 He was always a stickler for fresh air and sunshine. This idea had 
 been impressed upon him in a tragic way through his close call 
 from death by tuberculosis. Always he loved the sunshine. His offices 
 and factory were flooded with light. He urged his people when they 
 built houses to build facing the South and the East, and was often 
 on hand to suggest, advise and encourage. 
 
 John B. Stetson was too busy to go to a doctor, so when need arose 
 his physician came to see him in his own office. Thinking of others, 
 Stetson got the habit of bringing in such of his employees as needed 
 treatment. This idea, like all of his, enlarged. His own physician's 
 services were outgrown. Specialists in various lines were called in. 
 A day came when Stetson found that if he was to have an office to 
 call his own that was not a clinic and dispensary he must make 
 other arrangements. And he built a hospital. 
 Nor would he confine this to the relief of his employees only. Its 
 benefits were free to all. Twice has the work of the hospital out- 
 grown its building equipment, and today a modern building with a 
 staff of thirty physicians and unsurpassed facilities is ever ready to 
 cure or relieve the ills not only of the workers hi the Stetson factory 
 but of the community surrounding it. 
 
 The prevention of illness has been even more effective. No expense 
 in building and sanitation has been spared to make workrooms 
 comfortable and healthful. The history of the business has been a 
 constant succession of tearing down old structures and building 
 new to secure the maximum of light and air. Figures show the result. 
 The Secretary of the Beneficial Association pointed out to me that, 
 while years ago to meet the sick and death benefits an occasional 
 extra assessment was necessary in addition to the regular monthly 
 dues, no such assessment has been made in the past seven years. 
 From the regular dues a surplus has accumulated, so that these dues 
 are now frequently passed. Through sanitation and careful fil- 
 tration of water, typhoid has practically disappeared and tubercu- 
 losis is no longer the hatters* bugbear. 
 And through this unselfish or if you please to call it, selfish 
 
JOHN B. STETSON Twenty-three 
 
 interest in his workers, the tramp hatter disappeared from the 
 Stetson factory and there grew up a big band of healthy, strong, 
 intelligent people. 
 
 Then came in organization, a division of labor, with department 
 heads, and these department heads were his marshals. They were 
 paid a goodly wage and given an interest in the business. 
 No employer of labor ever got a more loyal service from his helpers 
 than did John B. Stetson. The Stetson people, instead of planning 
 or scheming for ease and how they could get out of work, turned 
 their attention to helping the factory. They felt they were part of 
 the concern, and to cheat the institution was to cheat themselves. 
 <I The employer who can bring to bear this consciousness in the 
 mind of the worker has achieved a great victory over human inertia. 
 <I Stetson believed in his people and they believed in him. He dif- 
 fused an atmosphere of good-cheer, of ambition, wherever he went. 
 His business grew and he grew with the business. 
 Growing Rich by Giving 
 
 TETSON was always giving money, but he took good pains 
 'not to give so as to pauperize the individual. The amount of 
 money he gave away no man can compute, for he kept no record 
 of it himself and did not remember it, but like all men who give 
 much he was occasionally victimized. 
 
 He made it a habit whenever there was an increase in the family 
 of one of his workers to send congratulations, and at the same time 
 a substantial recognition. He loved babies. He doted on children. 
 He would often go out of his way across the street to pat some 
 youngster on the head and give him a quarter. The children would 
 follow him hi the streets and call him by name, and sometimes he 
 would carry a baby in his arms to relieve a tired mother. 
 It grew to be a custom that when a baby in the family of his workers 
 was a year old the mother would come around to the factory and 
 show her darling to the chief. No matter how busy he was he 
 would go out into the hallway and greet such a mother, and the 
 rule was to give her a dollar and wish her happiness. 
 
Twenty-four JOHN B. STETSON 
 
 Attached to his office in later years was a big waiting-room, and 
 in this room every forenoon was a goodly group of callers who came 
 for their blessing, and a bit anxious for the substantial part of it. 
 Stetson would go out from time to time and clean out the room 
 by shaking hands with everybody and starting them all on their 
 way. There were occasional repeaters, but Stetson overlooked little 
 things like that. He never sent any one hungry and empty-handed 
 away .-t* ro 
 
 On one occasion a woman with a baby in a shawl appeared as 
 usual. Stetson shook hands with her, patted the baby on the head, 
 gave her a dollar and started her off down the stairs. 
 In about fifteen minutes another woman appeared with a like 
 youngster in her arms. Stetson was intuitive. His was the feminine 
 mind. He simply knew things because he knew. This time, without 
 thinking, he said to the woman, " Have n't I seen you here before? " 
 <I And the woman said, " No." 
 
 He followed up the question with another, " Were you not in here 
 an hour ago or less? " Then he said, "I have seen this baby before. " 
 fl The woman, abashed, admitted that she had borrowed the baby 
 from her neighbor. 
 
 Stetson never blamed anybody for anything, except laziness, not 
 even for lying. He used to say, " Nothing but the truth pays." 
 Yet censure was not in his heart. He never converted himself into 
 a section of the Day of Judgment. He heard the woman's con- 
 fession that she had borrowed the baby. Then he laughed, shook 
 hands with her, gave her the dollar, and said, " Go off now, and 
 when you come back here again bring a baby of your own." 
 
 A Builder and a Creator 
 
 [AN, like Deity, creates in his own image. When a painter 
 paints a portrait he makes two one of himself and one of 
 the sitter. <I If there is a sleazy thread in your character you will 
 weave it into the fabric you are making. 
 A Stetson hat was a bit of Stetson character. 
 Stetson hats looked like Stetson they were unconventional, 
 
JOHN B. STETSON Twenty-five 
 
 natural, generous, genuine. They reacted, too, on the wearer. <J The 
 word " Stetson " not only stood for hat, but for a certain style of 
 hat, and a certain type of man. No cheap, apologetic, sneakerino 
 tightwad ever wore a Stetson it would n't fit him. 
 Stetson stood for The American Philosophy, devised by people who 
 live on the Fortieth Parallel hi America. 
 
 This philosophy reduced to its simplest terms means work, love, 
 laughter, study and play, mixed in right proportion and taken ad lib. 
 <I Stetson believed that only the busy person is happy, and that 
 systematic, daily, useful work is man*s greyest blessing. 
 " This country is built on business," said Stetson. 
 We are a nation of workers, builders, inventors, creators, producers. 
 <IWe are the richest country, per capita, in the world ; and our wealth 
 has all come from the farm, the forest, the factory, the mine, the sea. 
 We have dug, plowed, pumped, smelted, refined, transported and 
 manufactured. We did not inherit our wealth, neither have we laid 
 tribute on other countries as did earlier civilizations. 
 The word " education " sometimes stands for idleness, but The 
 American Philosophy symbols work, effort, industry. It means 
 intelligent, thoughtful, reasonable and wise busy-ness helping 
 yourself by helping others. Only the busy person is happy. 
 The world's greatest prizes in the future will go to the businessman. 
 The businessman is our only scientist, and to him we must look for 
 a Science of Economics that will readicate poverty, disease, super- 
 stition and all that dissipates and destroys. 
 
 It is a great man who focuses on his business and instead of putting 
 the whole world straight looks after just one individual, and that 
 is the man right under your own " Stetson." 
 A Business General 
 
 B. STETSON was a business general. He did his work 
 through other men. He knew the business of hatting, and 
 he knew the human heart better. He knew the consumer and the 
 dealer, and he knew the workmen who manipulated raw stock into 
 forms of use and beauty. <I He knew how to captain these workers 
 
Twenty-six JOHN B. STETSON 
 
 for his own advantage and benefit and theirs. He knew how to 
 transform indifferent, slipshod, faulty, foolish human clay into men 
 of worth. He knew how to take a man who was not a friend to him- 
 self, and by being a friend to him, make of him a man of integrity. 
 <J To influence an individual who does not know how to economize 
 his own time, or save his money over against the day of storm, and 
 make of this man an economist who will save his money and buy 
 a home and pay for it and have money in the savings-bank, and 
 conserve his health so as to enjoy his treasures of books and music 
 and flowerbeds and v%e table-garden, and to be on good terms 
 with his neighbors, and best of all with himself to appreciate Nature 
 and all the manifold beauties of this wondrous world, this was one 
 of the achievements of John B. Stetson, done over and over again. 
 <I From the very first Stetson was a stickler for quality. He 
 believed in his goods, and refused absolutely to compete in the 
 matter of price. 
 
 So far as I can ascertain, he was the first man in the hat business 
 to adopt the one-price system; and for forty-five years the prices 
 on Stetson's hats have remained the same. Materials and wages 
 have all very much advanced, but to meet this advance, scientific 
 economics have been introduced hi the way of manufacture that 
 equalized increased cost of raw stock and labor. 
 Always and forever the price has been the same ; and no man, no 
 matter how much money he had, even in the darkest financial hours 
 that Stetson ever saw, could buy a hat a penny cheaper. 
 Stetson believed in himself and he believed in his goods, and he had 
 the supreme faith that the public would eventually come to him. 
 <I John B. Stetson was one of the great organizers of the world. 
 All men who succeeded in a masterly way owe their success to their 
 ability to manage and control the efforts of other people. 
 Napoleon succeeded through his marshals, and this fact he made 
 no effort to conceal. He bound men to him with hoops of steel. He 
 fired them with his own enthusiasm and filled them with his own 
 purpose. He loved them and they loved him. Bertrand followed 
 
JOHN B. STETSON Twenty-seven 
 
 his master into exile at Saint Helena, and was servant of the man 
 who once ruled the world until this man passed away. Bertrand, 
 remaining on the spot, guarding the grave, refusing to leave Saint 
 Helena even when the master had turned to dust, gives us an object- 
 lesson in loyalty that we can never forget. 
 
 When Sir Humphry Davy was asked to name his greatest and 
 most important discovery, he thought an instant and then answered, 
 " Michael Faraday." 
 
 If I were asked to name the greatest discovery of John B. Stetson, 
 I would say, " James Howell Cummings." 
 
 It is unfair to compare one great man with another, because every 
 superior man is an individual. God never duplicates. But the loyalty 
 of Cummings for Stetson is the loyalty of Bertrand for Napoleon. 
 <I However, it is not a loyalty to a lost cause or to the memory alone 
 of greatness gone. It is something far more difficult than that s^ 
 An executive has been described as a man who decides quickly and 
 is sometimes right. The real fact is that he has to be right fifty-one 
 per cent of the time, and more. 
 
 Cummings was born in the little village of Goshen, Pennsylvania, 
 in the year Eighteen Hundred Sixty-seven. The lad received a 
 public-school education and passed through the high school with 
 honors, and at fifteen years of age entered the employ of the 
 Stetson Company as errand-boy. 
 
 Marshall Field once said that if he wanted to pick a boy who would 
 take up his work and eclipse his record, he would select a youth 
 who left school at fifteen, whose father was dead, and who had a 
 mother and brothers and sisters to care for. 
 
 Young Cummings was not a Bertrand; he was more. He was the 
 Corsican. He had the same hungry desire to know, the quick 
 intuition, the tireless grasp of detail, and the ability to swim with 
 the tide and not get drowned in a multiplicity of items. 
 Like Napoleon, Cummings is slight in stature, athletic, and uses 
 all the body he possesses. He has the ability to work long and hard, 
 to laugh and play, to run and enjoy, and thus he gets his rest in 
 
Twenty-eight JOHN B. STETSON 
 
 change. He takes his vacation every day, and so he never needs one, 
 and is always in a mood to enjoy one. 
 
 From errand-boy he became clerk, then assistant manager ; and in 
 Eighteen Hundred Ninety-one when he was twenty-four years of 
 age he was made Secretary of the great corporation. 
 Then he became Treasurer, then Second Vice-President ; and in 
 Nineteen Hundred Six when the Chief passed away, Cummings 
 glided by divine right into the position of President of the John B. 
 Stetson Company. For five years he had been hands, feet, ears and 
 eyes for John B. Stetson. He had been manager de facto. 
 Cummings had the respect and love of every department head. It 
 was civil service carried to its logical end. Cummings knew the mind 
 of Stetson better than Stetson had known it himself. Cummings at 
 twenty-four had the prophetic vision. He had been disciplined by 
 Fate, and Nature had supplied him with the ability to learn in 
 silence and to accept what he could not change. 
 Cummings never looked for slights or insults, or thought of having 
 a good time. The business was his first love. He became a part of it, 
 and since he became President of the institution he has made no 
 attempt to change the name of the concern from " Stetson " to 
 " Cummings." He reverences the memory of the great man gone. 
 He is not in evidence except when needed. He is a man who early 
 learned how to take orders, and he now knows how to give them. 
 <I I would say that the chief characteristics of James Howell 
 Cummings are summed up in the following-named qualities: 
 loyalty, good-cheer, economy, faith, energy, industry, modesty, a 
 restless ambition and a noble discontent. 
 
 Cummings is never quite satisfied. Everything must be made better. 
 He is always willing to learn ; and while he has little patience with 
 the individual who springs a suggestion in order to divert attention 
 from one that has already been made, and the genus kicker is quickly 
 sized up, yet the most lowly helper in this entire army of five thousand 
 people and more can always reach him and will receive a patient and 
 kindly hearing if there is something to be said. Cummings gives 
 
JOHN B. STETSON Twenty-nine 
 
 small credit to himself for this great success. He says he owes it all 
 
 to the people who make the hats, the salesmen and the wise and 
 
 intelligent dealers who sell them. 
 
 Cummings has sympathy, but it is not of the maudlin sort. " Forget 
 
 yourself in your work," is his motto ; and so he is a happy, healthy, 
 
 grateful, gentle Colossus of business. 
 
 Under the management of Mr. Cummings, the John B. Stetson 
 
 Company, already the largest business of its kind in the world, has 
 
 not only continued in this proud position, but has doubled the 
 
 volume of its output. 
 
 William F. Fray 
 
 ILLIAM F. FRAY is Vice-President of the institution. Mr. 
 Fray has gotten a lot of fun out of his work money as 
 well. He is a joker with a wonderful fund of stories that happened, 
 or did n't, as the case may be. Also, Fray is a worker and a friend of 
 workers. The history of hatting is at his tongue's end. Here is one 
 that he told me, which may be true : 
 
 Australia, we hear, is overrun with rabbits. The Government once 
 offered a reward for exterminating the pests. The first rabbits were 
 carried into Australia by a Scotchman with red hair. He certainly 
 was a genius in spite of his color-scheme. Fray says he had freckles. 
 In any event, the Scotchman carried two rabbits as pets to Australia. 
 fl In five years, Fray says, this Scotchman was the owner of ten 
 million rabbits the natural result of geometrical progression. As 
 smart, however, as was the Scotchman, his scheme did not exactly 
 work out. What the Scotchman wanted to do was to raise rabbits 
 for the fur, so as to manufacture felt for Tam-o'-Shanters, spats and 
 breeks. The rabbits in Scotland had a beautiful, deep, soft fur ; but 
 in a few generations in Australia the fur took on a totally different 
 quality and evolved rather in hah*. 
 
 The climate of Australia was of a kind that took care of bunny 
 without a fur overcoat; and while the Scotchman had the rabbits 
 all right he did not get the fur. So the only rabbit-skins that can now 
 be used for fur come from the North, or the land of cold and snow. 
 
Thirty JOHN B. STETSON 
 
 Albert T. Freeman 
 
 ST was the fixed policy of John B. Stetson that no individual 
 in an institution was necessary to the success of the concern. 
 <I His idea was that the organization should be so complete that 
 any one man, from president to janitor, could drop out and his 
 presence not be missed. 
 
 In order to show a man that he was not necessary, Mr. Stetson used 
 to send certain individuals away on vacations. This would prove to 
 the rest that the work could go on just as well. And in fact, if ever 
 a man got it fixed in his mind that he was absolutely necessary 
 to the business, he ran a pretty good risk of being dropped out 
 entirely * 
 
 The understudy to Mr. Cummings is Albert T. Freeman. 
 Mr. Freeman has the Stetson spirit in every particular. He came into 
 the Stetson factory twelve years ago under rather peculiar condi- 
 tions. Stetson met Freeman and liked the young man so well that he 
 employed him to come on to Philadelphia and enter the office 
 From the first Freeman showed such marked ability that Stetson 
 allowed him to gravitate to where he belonged. 
 The man who can shoulder burdens is always needed, and Freeman 
 exhibited a fine aptitude for taking care of difficult and complex 
 propositions that needed readjustment. 
 
 Freeman was born in the little village of Penfield, Monroe County, 
 New York. He was one of a family of nine children the father, a 
 Baptist preacher, " passing rich on forty pounds a year." It is a 
 great blessing to be born into such a family, where soft luxury is 
 absolutely out of the equation, but where there is an earnest desire 
 to improve every opportunity for good. 
 
 The recipe for educating your children is : Educate yourselves $+> 
 Freeman's parents were educated folks; and good health and a 
 hunger for knowledge were the young man's sole inheritances 
 From the village school to the High School, and then to Rochester 
 University, was a natural evolution. Then came a post-graduate 
 course at the University of Chicago, with a turn at teaching and 
 
JOHN B. STETSON Thirty-one 
 
 the rest followed. Mr. Freeman is now Vice-President and General 
 Manager of the Stetson business. 
 
 I once heard Mr. Cummin gs say, " Blessed is that man who has 
 found some one to do his work," and Freeman was in his mind 3+ 
 When, in Eighteen Hundred Ninety-one, the Stetson business was 
 incorporated, Mr. Stetson provided for the interests of his lieuten- 
 ants and older employees by assigning them portions of the stock. 
 <I With the large later growth there was a natural infusion of new 
 blood, and he sought some plan to give the younger men who had 
 shown their value to the business, a direct interest in its profit. 
 <I With this in mind, in Nineteen Hundred Two, a new issue of five 
 thousand shares of Common Stock was set aside to be assigned at 
 the discretion of the President, to employees. Unlike other stock 
 participation by employees, no payment was required or permitted. 
 Stock was issued to trustees for the employees to be paid for at par 
 out of its dividends. These dividends, since the inauguration of the 
 plan, have been not less than twenty per cent per year. The stock 
 is thus full paid in about five years, after which time the employee 
 receives the full benefit of ownership of the stock, except that he 
 is not permitted to dispose of it. At the end of a fifteen-year period 
 of trusteeship, the stock is assigned absolutely to the employee. 
 Absolute transfer is also made, in the meantime, in the case of death 
 or incapacity of the employee. 
 
 If, on the other hand, the employee is discharged or leaves, he 
 receives the actual amount paid up on the stock. 
 As the market value of the stock is about four hundred dollars a 
 share, there is, obviously, a strong material inducement to maintain 
 the loyalty and interest of the employee. It is a splendid plan for 
 insuring permanency. 
 
 Through the operation of the stock-allotment plan and by other 
 means, a large proportion of the adult employees of the Company 
 have become directly interested in the profits of the business by 
 stock ownership. 
 Nearly thirteen thousand shares, of a market value of more than five 
 
Thirty-two JOHN B. STETSON 
 
 million dollars, are now owned by persons actively engaged in the 
 business of the John B. Stetson Company. This can not truthfully 
 be said of any other big corporation in the world. 
 The factory floor space of The John B. Stetson Company covers 
 more than twenty-eight acres. Here nearly six thousand hands 
 are employed. The entire round world is scoured for materials. When 
 I talked with one of the head men in the manufacturing department, 
 who has been with the business for nearly forty years, in the course 
 of the conversation he threw out a grave wonder as to whether there 
 were any fur-bearing animals along the canal-banks of Mars. 
 A remarkable feature of the Stetson business is the general and 
 wide distribution of the product, the hats being sold throughout the 
 world in every country in which hats are worn. No other trade- 
 marked article of merchandise that I know of is so widely distributed. 
 <I Stetson hats are sold by one hundred fifty wholesale merchants 
 and more than ten thousand retail merchants. Of the latter, one 
 thousand one hundred twenty-four are in foreign countries. 
 The largest foreign markets of Stetson hats are Argentine Republic, 
 Mexico, Canada, South Africa and Europe. 
 
 The materials for Stetson hats are brought from many parts of the 
 world, but the manufactured hats go to a greater number of countries. 
 The vogue of the Stetson hat is thus not in its exclusiveness so far 
 as the merchant is concerned, but in the strong hold with the con- 
 sumer which its quality has secured, and in the desire of the mer- 
 chant to satisfy this public demand, regardless of whether other 
 merchants are also handling the same goods. 
 The John B. Stetson Company is always striving to make the best, 
 better. Nothing is too good for a " Stetson " wearer, a " Stetson " 
 dealer or a " Stetson " worker. 
 
 This great business has more of this spirit of brotherhood than any 
 other big business I can now recall. The Stetson spirit regards 
 business as opportunity not mere opportunity to make money, 
 but also the opportunity to educate, bless, benefit, uplift and add to 
 the joys of the world. 
 
JAMES HOWELL CUMMINGS 
 
CIVILIZA 
 TION 
 
 turns on Or 
 ganization; and 
 Organization, 
 in order to be 
 of any value, 
 must be Sci 
 entific fi /t