Nothing has been said oftener of Mr. Morgan than that he was “a ‘bull’ on America.” One of his old friends disclosed, the other day, the origin of this “bullishness.” As is well known, Mr. Morgan was an optimist. His father’s temperament was the same, and the older man impressed upon his son—when he was returning to America more than half a century ago, to go into business—his own belief in this country and his faith in its future. “Any man who is a ‘bear’ on America is bound to fail,” he said. Coming from the lips of his father, whom during his life the son leaned on and respected, and whose memory he revered and honored, these words made an indelible impression on the young man’s mind; the more indelible as they confirmed his personal feeling and conviction and, in later years, his experience. As it turned out, his confidence in the country’s future was a potent factor in its material prosperity.
Current report has it that once, when Mr. Morgan invited into his firm a young man who had made a name for himself, he said, “I want you to come down here and ‘do things.’” Less well known—though as well worth preserving—is his word to another bright young man, in similar circumstances. Surprised no less than gratified at the invitation, the fortunate one exclaimed, “But what can I do for J. P. Morgan and Company?” “I don’t ask you to make money for us,” was the reply; “but we have a great many duties and responsibilities here, and I want you to come in and help us bear them.”
It is related that Mr. Morgan’s father once threatened to withdraw his power of attorney from the son, if the latter persisted in overworking. If the warning was given, it probably was heeded; but Mr. Morgan was always a great worker, though in his later years, at least, he realized the value of holidays, as is shown in the saying ascribed to him: “I can do a year’s work in nine months, but not in twelve.” Apropos is the legend that partnership in the Morgan house meant a short life, if not a merry one. Undoubtedly, all the members of the firm had their work cut out for them. It could not be otherwise in a house that stood at the top and meant to maintain its position. There was an immense amount of work to be done, and they were there to do it. But they were always men who liked to work; and the fact is that when a partner died or retired, it was at an age when death or retirement was not unnatural. There have been few exceptions to this rule. And one, at least, of Mr. Morgan’s former partners has survived his chief, though several years his senior.
Mr. Morgan’s own stalwart physique and capacity for work were an inheritance from his father, whose death, at seventy-seven, was due to an accident. Some of his indomitable energy must have come to him from his maternal grandfather and namesake, John Pierpont; for, when the Civil War began, that poet, patriot, preacher, and ardent reformer, after seventy-six strenuous years, had the pluck to enlist as a chaplain (though for a very brief service) and lived to be eighty-one years old.
It is recalled that at school Mr. Morgan was a writer of verse, but it does not appear whether this was due to the example of his grandfather, one of whose poems on the death of a child—“I Cannot Call Him Dead”—has gone into the anthologies.
An interesting incident relating to the poet is told me by a friend. During the Civil War, Father Pierpont (as he was called) was a clerk in the Treasury Department at Washington, and while there was often a visitor at the house of Paul H. Berkau, well remembered in Washington as president of the Schillerbund, a club for the study of German literature. The Berkaus were abolitionists, friends of Sumner and Julian, and other men of that faith, and this was a bond between them and their friend the poet. One day, when he came to see them, he found on the table a copy of his volume, “Airs of Palestine and Other Poems.” He took it up and wrote on the fly-leaf these lines:
“Shame! that my book should to my friend be sold
Rather than made a present of, or lent;
Sold, too, for paper, not so good as gold
By forty-eight or forty-nine per cent.