CHAPTER XXX
A VOUCHER
My life, both in business and socially, in 1892 was not essentially different from that of 1891. Business continued satisfactory, my profits running up to within a few thousand dollars of the previous year.
My senior clerk, George Norman, had been in my employ for eleven years, coming to me as an office-boy. His salary was now twelve hundred and fifty dollars. I told him that as a clerk he would never be worth more to us, and advised him to start as a broker, which he did.
We gave him a strong endorsement in a circular to the trade, and how well we supported him is shown by the fact that we paid him sixty-six hundred dollars in commissions the first year of his business.
We returned to "Redstone" early in May. Our home, after our New York experience, was more attractive than ever, and we did not believe we would again care to leave it.
My readers will remember my reference in a former chapter to a trade journal which I turned over to George Lawton. On July 9th, in celebration of the commencement of its tenth year, the publisher issued a special number, a copy of which is before me. An article it contains is so completely a confirmation of much that I have written, I insert it here verbatim, except for change of names to comply with my narrative and the omission of irrelevant matter. The article was written by the Secretary of the Exchange:
WALTER E. STOWE.
Since the father is properly considered before the child, it has seemed to us most appropriate in celebrating for the first time the birthday of the [name of the paper], that we should not only make some mention of its founder, but even that we should accord him the first place in our brief memorial; and we have accordingly, rather against his own wishes, prepared the fine portrait of him which serves as a frontispiece to this issue. It is hardly in the character of a journalist that our readers will generally think of Mr. Stowe, although most of them doubtless know that he originated and for several years managed what we have no hesitation in saying is facile princeps among * * * trade papers; but rather in his more permanent role of decidedly the most successful among the younger generation of * * * dealers—as a man who has carved out for himself a position as commanding in respect of the * * * market, especially, as is occupied abroad by his London correspondent, the famous A * * * S * * *
A trifle over a quarter of a century ago—in February, 1866—Mr. Stowe entered the office of John Derham as a clerk fresh from school, in which capacity he served for just four years, and then succeeded to the business of this firm as a broker on his own account. A broker in those days was an altogether different sort of cogwheel in the machinery of commerce from the broker of to-day; success depending primarily on geniality of manner, industry and intelligence in the execution of commissions intrusted to him by the jobbing houses; all of which qualifications, Mr. Stowe possessed in an eminent degree, and devoting himself particularly to dealing in * * * advanced rapidly to a position in which the major part of such transactions as were not made directly by importers to consumers, passed through his hands. But his business ability was of a broader type than was needed for such services only, and in the process of evolution, through which the old-fashioned broker was practically eliminated, his place being taken by a new type of dealer, who although not always or even usually trading for his own account, yet makes most of his transactions in his own name, and is chiefly differentiated from the jobber only from the fact that he buys and sells in round parcels and does not break them up to shop out into smaller lots. As this change took place, Mr. Stowe developed into a dealer of a newer and more progressive type than the * * * trade had hitherto known. To-day he stands rather as an importer, the entries to his firm's credit having steadily climbed the list of percentages until they are now far ahead of those belonging to any other house; and with his intimate relations with A. * * S. * * * & Co., of London, it would be making no invidious comparison to say that he is the recognized leader of the * * * trade of America.
For all his remarkably prosperous career, Mr. Stowe has been in no way spoiled by success, and is to-day the same quiet, unassuming gentleman as when these characteristics attracted the good will of older men in the trade and secured to him the beginning of a business which has since grown so largely. He was a late comer to the membership of the Exchange, which he joined only in 1886; but has served on its board of managers for four years past, and since the first of April has held the position of vice-president. Outside of his business, his life is a thoroughly domestic one, for which he has abundant excuse in his beautiful home, "Redstone," at Knollwood, N.J., where he is one of the most popular residents of that charming suburb and where he has a particular claim to distinction in the fine stable which he maintains, his chief hobby being horse flesh, though not on the sporting side, with which we are most likely to associate such a passion. In short, the [name of paper] has every reason to be proud of its parentage, and like all good children delights in doing filial honor and wishing its founder all possible prosperity in the future as in the past.