HE ENTERS THE GRAIN MARKET.
“For a little while. My ambition was setting in another direction. I had been studying the methods then used for moving the vast and growing food products of the West, such as grain and cattle, and I believed that I could improve them and make money. The idea and the field interested me and I decided to enter it.
“Well, my standing was good, and I raised the money and bought what was then the largest elevator in Milwaukee. This put me in contact with the movement of grain. At that time John Plankinton had been established in Milwaukee a number of years, and, in partnership with Frederick Layton, had built up a good pork-packing concern. I bought in with those gentlemen, and so came in contact with the work I liked. One of my brothers, Herman, had established himself in Chicago some time before in the grain-commission business. I got him to turn that over to the care of another brother, Joseph, so that he might go to New York as a member of the new firm, of which I was a partner. It was important that the Milwaukee and Chicago houses should be able to ship to a house of their own in New York—that is, to themselves. Risks were avoided in this way, and we were certain of obtaining all that the ever-changing markets could offer us.”
“When did you begin to build up your Chicago interests?”
“They were really begun, before the war, by my brother Herman. When he went to New York for us we began adding a small packing-house to the Chicago commission branch. It gradually grew with the growth of the West.”
“Is there any one thing that accounts for the immense growth of the packing industry here?” I asked.
“System and the growth of the West did it. Things were changing at startling rates in those days. The West was growing fast. Its great areas of production offered good profits to men who would handle and ship the products. Railway lines were reaching out in new directions or increasing their capacities and lowering their rates of transportation. These changes and the growth of the country made the creation of a food-gathering and delivering system necessary. Other things helped. At that time (1863) a great many could see that the war was going to terminate favorably for the Union. Farming operations had been enlarged by the war demand and war prices. The State banking system had been done away with, and we had a uniform currency, available everywhere, so that exchanges between the East and the West had become greatly simplified. Nothing more was needed than a steady watchfulness of the markets by competent men in continuous telegraphic communication with each other, and who knew the legitimate demand and supply, in order to sell all products quickly and with profit.”