A committee of four preachers once came to him from a country town a few miles out of Chicago, asking him to pay off the debt on their churches. It seems they had heard of the Armour benevolence and decided to beard the lion in his den. He listened to the plea, and then figured up on a pad the amount of the debt. It was fifteen hundred dollars. The preachers were encouraged—they had the ejaculation, "God bless you!" on tap, when Mr. Armour said: "Gentlemen, four churches in a town the size of yours are too many. Now, if you will consolidate and three of you will resign and go to farming, I'll pay off this debt now." The offer was not accepted.
When Armour was asked to subscribe one thousand dollars to a fund to provide an auditorium and keep Professor Swing in Chicago, Swing having just been tried for heresy, he said: "Chicago must not lose Swing—we need him. If I had a few of his qualities, and he had a few of mine, there would be two better men in Chicago today. Yes, we must keep Swing right here. Put me down for a thousand. I don't always understand what Swing is driving at, but that may be my fault. And say, if you find you need five thousand from me, just let me know, and the money is yours."
There is no use trying to work the apotheosis of Philip D. Armour: he was in good sooth a man. "I make mistakes—but I do not respond to encores," he used to say. When a man told of spending five thousand dollars on the education of his son, Armour condoled with him thus: "Oh, never mind, he'll come out all right—my education is costing me that much every week."
One of the Big Boys at Armour's is a character called "Alibi Tom." Time has tamed Alibi, but when he was twenty-two—well, he was twenty-two.
Now Philip Armour was an early riser, and at seven o'clock he used to be at the office ready for business, the office opening at eight. Sometimes he would come even earlier, and if he saw a clerk at work before eight, he might, under the inspiring spell of the brisk early-morning walk, step over and give the fellow a five-dollar bill.
Well, Alibi had never gotten one of these five-dollar bills, because he was usually in just before Saint Peter closed the gate. Several times he had been reproved, and once Mr. Armour had said, "Tom, be late once more and you are a has-wazzer." Shortly after this, one night, Alibi Tom had a half-dozen stockmen to entertain. They had gone to Hooley's and Sam T. Jack's, then to the Athletic Club and then they called on Hinky Dink and "Bath-House John," the famous Cook County literary light. Where else they had gone they could not remember.
It was about three o'clock in the morning, when it came over Tom like a pall that if he started for home now and went to bed he would surely be late again and it might cost him his job.
He proposed that they make a night of it. The stockmen were quite willing. They headed for the Stockyards, stopping along the way to make little visits on certain celebrities. At five o'clock they reached the Armour plant, and Tom stowed his friends away with the help of a friendly watchman. Then he made for the shower-bath, rubbed down, drank two cups of coffee and went to his desk. It was just six-thirty, and being Winter, was yet dark. He hadn't any more than yawned twice and stretched himself, wondering if he could hold out until noon, when he heard the quick step of "the old man." Tom crouched over his pretended work like a devilfish devouring its prey. He never looked up, he was that busy.
Mr. Armour stopped, stared, came closer—yes, it was Tom, the late Alibi Tom, the chronic delinquent.
"Well, well, well, Tom, the Lord be praised! You have given yourself a hunch at last—keep this!" And Armour handed out a brand-new, crisp, five-dollar bill.