“Of course, you understand all I have told you is in confidence. You have been my guest and I rely on you not to violate that confidence.”
Needless to say the interview was never printed. The scribe reported to his office that the banker refused to be interviewed.
When Morgan died the leading business men of the country united in testifying to his ability and character. Judge Gary, who had been closely associated with him for years, said:
“As a constructive force in financial matters he had no equal. With keenest perception, with indomitable courage, and with unbounded confidence in the future he was a natural leader and as such was called upon in times of financial stress to lend his influence to avert a threatened storm or to overcome an existing difficulty. And he never failed. His character was such that the greatest men of this country and of other countries trusted him and followed his lead.”
Shortly before he last sailed from his home shores Morgan remarked to a friend that his work was done. The utterance was prophetic. And posterity is beginning to realize how great that work was. In these difficult days of world reconstruction, more than ever before, is his financial genius and particularly his faith and courage missed.
Charles M. Schwab
Perhaps of no other man in industry are as many anecdotes related as of Charles M. Schwab, the first president of the United States Steel Corporation, and now head of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation, the second largest steel organization in America.
Schwab is the Peter Pan of American industry. His is the spirit of perennial youth, his the philosophy of laughter.
“I try,” he says, “to be like Schulz. He was a foreman under me during the Homestead strike. He stuck by the company and one day came into my office dripping mud and water. To my inquiries he replied that some strikers had thrown him into the creek.