Cyrus Hall McCormick: His Life and Work

by Herbert Newton Casson

Horace Greeley, who was present on this occasion, described the victory of the McCormick Reaper as follows:—"It came into the field to confront a tribunal already prepared for its condemnation. Before it stood John Bull—burly, dogged, and determined not to be humbugged,—his judgment made up and his sentence ready to be recorded. There was a moment, and but a moment, of suspense; then human prejudice could hold out no longer; and burst after burst of involuntary cheers from the whole crowd proclaimed the triumph of the Yankee Reaper. In seventy seconds McCormick had become famous. He was the lion of the hour; and had he brought five hundred Reapers with him, he could have sold them all."

Suddenly the "Ugly Duckling" had become a swan. The glory of the Reaper began to rival that of the Koh-i-noor. McCormick was given not only a First Prize but a Council Medal, such as was usually awarded only to Kings and Governments. The London Times, which had led the jeering, became now the loudest in the chorus of approval. "The Reaping machine from the United States," said the Times editor, "is the most valuable contribution from abroad, to the stock of our previous knowledge, that we have yet discovered. It is worth the whole cost of the Exposition." Also, speaking on behalf of the English people, Sir Henry Lytton Bulwer said, "For all manly and practical purposes, the place of the United States is at the head of the poll. Where, out of America, shall we get a pistol like Mr. Colt's, to kill our eight enemies in a second, or a reaping machine like Mr. McCormick's, to clear out twenty acres of wheat in a day?"

On the whole, this Exposition gave the United States its first opportunity to answer the unpleasant questions that Sidney Smith had asked in 1820. What have the Americans done, he had asked, for the arts and sciences? Where are their Arkwrights, their Watts, their Davys? Here he was answered by the McCormick Reaper, the Colt revolver, the Hobbs lock, the Morse telegraph, the Howe sewing-machine, the Deere plow, and the Hoe press. And, as if to make the triumph of American invention complete, it was in this year that the yacht America easily out-classed the famous yachts of England in a great race at Cowes, and that the American steamer Baltic, of the Collins Line, broke all the ocean records and became the speediest vessel on the high seas.

This Exposition did much for McCormick. It was the first appreciation of his work, in a large way, that he had received. It was a welcome change after twenty strenuous years. It gave him the distinction that a naturally strong nature craved, and secured the friendship of such eminent men as Junius Morgan, George Peabody, J. J. Mechi, and Lord Granville. From a business point of view, also, the Exposition was of great service to McCormick. It enabled him to draw up a new plan of campaign for the foreign trade.

In the United States, he had made his appeal directly to the mass of the farmers. In Europe he could not do this. The vast bulk of the farmers here were tenants or serfs. But it was also true, he observed, that the Kings of Europe, and the members of the nobility, were land-owners. Here was his chance. He would begin at the top. He would sell his Reapers to the kings.

He noticed that kings and queens were not the remote and inaccessible personages that he had believed them to be. Prince Albert was plainly more interested in farm machinery than in the Koh-i-noor. The one prize which was awarded to him personally was for a model cottage, in which a workingman's family might live with greater comfort. And one morning, while McCormick was giving attention to his Reaper, the Queen and her ten-year-old son (now the King of England) walked past and had a view of the American Reaping machine that had been so widely ridiculed and praised.

McCormick had to hurry back to the United States, on account of a patent suit that was then in full swing; but before he left England he established an agency in London, and started a vigorous campaign among the titled land-owners. He prepared a statement, showing that even at the low rate of wages that were paid on English farms a Reaper would mean a handsome saving to English wheat-growers. But he did not depend upon the argument of economy. He placed his reliance also upon the fact that the Reaper had become the playtoy of kings, and that their fancy would presently make it the fashion.

Four years later he went with another Reaper to an Exposition at Paris, won the Gold Medal, and sold his machine to the Emperor. Then, in 1862, with his wife and young son and daughter, he made his headquarters in London, and opened up a two-years' campaign in Great Britain, Germany, and France. Up to this time the foreign trade had grown but slowly. All European countries combined were not buying more than half a million dollars' worth of farm machinery a year from Americans—less than we sell them now in five days. So McCormick exerted himself to the utmost.

He held field tests to awaken the farmers. He advertised and organized. There were now several dozen other manufacturers in the field, all making Reapers more or less like McCormick's; and he gave battle to them at London, Lille, and Hamburg. After the Hamburg contest, Joseph A. Wright, the United States Commissioner, cabled to New York: "McCormick has thrashed all nations and walked off with the Gold Medal."

Again, in 1867, McCormick had a notable time at Paris. The Emperor Napoleon III., then in the last days of his inherited glory, permitted McCormick to give a sort of Reaper matinée on the royal estate at Châlons. The Emperor was present, at first on horseback, and then on foot. The sun was hot, and presently he said to McCormick, "If you will allow me, I'll come under your umbrella." So the two men, dramatically different in the tendencies they represented, walked arm in arm behind the Reaper, and watched it automatically cut and rake off the grain. The Emperor was delighted. He forgot for the moment his impending troubles, and at once offered McCormick the Cross of the Legion of Honor. This was, in all probability, the last time that the coveted Cross was conferred in France by the hand of a sovereign; and the meeting of the two men was a highly impressive event, the one man typifying a falling dynasty that had risen to greatness by the sword, and the other the founder of a new industry that was destined to bring peace and plenty to all nations alike.