The forest, the farm, and the mines, were in his belief the three sources of wealth. But wealth could come only from universal industry, honesty, thrift, and fair dealing among men. In his own dealings with his fellow men, he required those qualities; and, although his keen sympathies invariably responded to true distress, he had scant patience with those whose false vision saw in wealth honestly acquired a fund to be drawn upon for the support of the lazy and shiftless.
He once said: “There are four great words that should be written upon the four corner-stones of every public building in the country, with the sacredness of a religious rite. These watchwords of the Republic are Equality, Simplicity, Economy, and Justice.” And another time he said, when speaking of a profit-sharing arrangement he had made with his employees: “I am as well satisfied with that institution as with anything I have ever had to do with. I think that its greatest value is teaching the men to save. The first two or three hundred dollars is the hardest to save, but when once you have started, you all know it comes easy.”
Long before his death Mr. Hill’s name had become known throughout the civilized world. “His fame was international. His services were cosmopolitan.” Among the many honors which were heaped upon him in recognition of his services to mankind was the degree of Doctor of Laws by Yale University. In conferring this degree, Professor Perrin, of Yale, said:—
“Mr. Hill is the last of the generations of wilderness conquerors, the men who interpreted the Constitution, fixed our foreign relations, framed the Monroe Doctrine, and blazed all the great trails which determined the nation’s future. He has always been an original investigator, and we know him now as a man of infinite information. Every item of his colossal success rests upon a series of facts ascertained by him before they had been noted by others, and upon the future relations which he saw in those facts to human need and national growth. He believes that no society can prosper in which intellectual training is not based upon moral and religious culture. He is a national economist on broad ethical and religious lines; but the greatest things in all his greatness are his belief in the spiritual significance of man and his longing for the perpetuation of American institutions at their highest and best.”
His interest in books as a source of education found expression in the great public library which he presented to the city of St. Paul. To him, the trained mind was a necessity for success. Whether trained in the university or in the active life of the world did not matter, so long as it was trained; that was all that concerned him.
Mr. Hill’s reputation in years to come will rest chiefly on his career as an “Empire-Builder.” But he was primarily a railroad manager and a railroad engineer. His knowledge of the great business of transportation made it possible for him to extend his interests far and wide; no opportunity came near him that he did not investigate, and no opportunity which he accepted was ever put aside until he had developed it to its most perfect completion.
Physically, he was a man who seemed to express in his appearance the force and character which distinguished him mentally among men. Slightly under average height, with a great head firmly set on square, powerful shoulders, he commanded attention. He was physically strong, and his powers of endurance, which served him so well in the long hard days of his early life, remained unimpaired almost to his death. His firm mouth was half hidden by a beard, whitened in his latter years. His brow was high. His eyes were alert and looked out from beneath shaggy eyebrows. He was a man of a notable appearance which demanded respect and inspired confidence.
“Work, hard work, intelligent work, and then some more work,” was one of his frequent explanations of his success, and his advice to others. To young men he said: “The best advice to a young man, as it appears to me, is old and simple. Get knowledge and understanding. Determine to make the most possible of yourself by doing to the best of your power useful work as it comes your way. There are no receipts for success in life. A good aim, diligence in learning every detail of your business, honest hard work, and a determination to succeed, win out every time, unless crossed by some exceptional accident or misfortune. Many opportunities come to every man. It depends upon himself, and upon what he shall make of himself, what he makes of opportunities and what they will make of him.”
From a poor farmer boy, in fifty years, James J. Hill, by the force of his own determination, and the opportunities common to all men in the great Republic of which he became a citizen, achieved a position among the world-leaders of his day. Wealth in millions came to him, not by inheritance or a stroke of speculative chance, but from the works which he himself had conceived and created. The achievements of his life will long be remembered, not only because of their public service, but because of their inspiration to other men by affording an example of the heights which may be reached by hard work, imagination, and determination to succeed.