The Project Gutenberg eBook, How They Succeeded, by Orison Swett Marden

HOW
THEY SUCCEEDED

HOW

THEY SUCCEEDED

LIFE STORIES of SUCCESSFUL

MEN TOLD by THEMSELVES

By ORISON SWETT MARDEN

EDITOR of “SUCCESS.” AUTHOR of “WINNING OUT,” ETC., ETC. ❧

ILLUSTRATED

LOTHROP PUBLISHING COMPANY BOSTON ❧

COPYRIGHT,

1901, By

LOTHROP

PUBLISHING

COMPANY.

ALL RIGHTS

RESERVED

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER XIX

CHAPTER XX

CHAPTER XXI

CHAPTER XXII

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

THE GREAT INTEREST manifested in the life-stories of successful men and women, which have been published from time to time in the magazine Success, has actuated their production in book form. Many of these sketches have been revised and rewritten, and new ones have been added. They all contain the elements that make men and women successful; and they are intended to show that character, energy, and an indomitable ambition will succeed in the world, and that in this land, where all men are born equal and have an equal chance in life, there is no reason for despair. I believe that the ideal book for youth should deal with concrete examples; for that which is taken from real life is far more effective than that which is culled from fancy. Character-building, its uplifting, energizing force, has been made the basic principle of this work.

To all who have aided me I express a grateful acknowledgment; and to none more than to those whose life-stories are here related as a lesson to young people. Among those who have given me special assistance in securing those life-stories are, Mr. Harry Steele Morrison, Mr. J. Herbert Welch, Mr. Charles H. Garrett, Mr. Henry Irving Dodge, and Mr. Jesse W. Weik. I am confident that the remarkable exhibit of successful careers made in this book—careers based on sound business principles and honesty—will meet with appreciation on the part of the reading public.

Orison Swett Marden.

I

MARSHALL FIELD

THIS world-renowned merchant is not easily accessible to interviews, and he seeks no fame for his business achievements. Yet, there is no story more significant, none more full of encouragement and inspiration for youth.

In relating it, as he told it, I have removed my own interrogations, so far as possible, from the interview.

“I was born in Conway, Massachusetts,” he said, “in 1835. My father’s farm was among the rocks and hills of that section, and not very fertile. All the people were poor in those days. My father was a man who had good judgment, and he made a success out of the farming business. My mother was of a more intellectual bent. Both my parents were anxious that their boys should amount to something in life, and their interest and care helped me.

“I had but few books, scarcely any to speak of. There was not much time for literature. Such books as we had, I made use of.

“I had a leaning toward business, and took up with it as early as possible. I was naturally of a saving disposition: I had to be. Those were saving times. A dollar looked very big to us boys in those days; and as we had difficult labor in earning it, we did not quickly spend it. I however,

DETERMINED NOT TO REMAIN POOR.”

“Did you attend both school and college?”

“I attended the common and high schools at home, but not long. I had no college training. Indeed, I cannot say that I had much of any public school education. I left home when seventeen years of age, and of course had not time to study closely.

“My first venture in trade was made as clerk in a country store at Pittsfield, Massachusetts, where everything was sold, including dry-goods. There I remained for four years, and picked up my first knowledge of business. I

SAVED MY EARNINGS AND ATTENDED STRICTLY TO BUSINESS,

and so made those four years valuable to me. Before I went West, my employer offered me a quarter interest in his business if I would remain with him. Even after I had been here several years, he wrote and offered me a third interest if I would go back.

“But I was already too well placed. I was always interested in the commercial side of life. To this I bent my energies; and

I ALWAYS THOUGHT I WOULD BE A MERCHANT.

“In Chicago, I entered as a clerk in the dry-goods house of Cooley, Woodsworth & Co., in South Water street. There was no guarantee at that time that this place would ever become the western metropolis; the town had plenty of ambition and pluck, but the possibilities of greatness were hardly visible.”

It is interesting to note in this connection how closely the story of Mr. Field’s progress is connected with Chicago’s marvelous growth. The city itself in its relations to the West, was

AN OPPORTUNITY.

A parallel, almost exact, may be drawn between the individual career and the growth of the town. Chicago was organized in 1837, two years after Mr. Field was born on the far-off farm in New England, and the place then had a population of a little more than four thousand. In 1856, when Mr. Field, fully equipped for a successful mercantile career, became a resident of the future metropolis of the West, the population had grown to little more than eighty-four thousand. Mr. Field’s prosperity advanced with the growth of the city; with Chicago he was stricken but not crushed by the great fire of 1871; and with Chicago he advanced again to higher achievement and far greater prosperity than before the calamity.

“What were your equipments for success when you started as a clerk here in Chicago, in 1856?”

“Health and ambition, and what I believe to be sound principles;” answered Mr. Field. “And here I found that in a growing town, no one had to wait for promotion. Good business qualities were promptly discovered, and men were pushed forward rapidly.

“After four years, in 1860, I was made a partner, and in 1865, there was a partial reorganization, and the firm consisted after that of Mr. Leiter, Mr. Palmer and myself (Field, Palmer, and Leiter). Two years later Mr. Palmer withdrew, and until 1881, the style of the firm was Field, Leiter & Co. Mr. Leiter retired in that year, and since then it has been as at present (Marshall Field & Co.).”

“What contributed most to the great growth of your business?” I asked.

“To answer that question,” said Mr. Field, “would be to review the condition of the West from the time Chicago began until the fire in 1871. Everything was coming this way; immigration, railways and water traffic, and Chicago was enjoying ‘flush’ times.

“There were things to learn about the country, and the man who learned the quickest fared the best. For instance, the comparative newness of rural communities and settlements made a knowledge of local solvency impossible. The old State banking system prevailed, and speculation of every kind was rampant.

A CASH BASIS

“The panic of 1857 swept almost everything away except the house I worked for, and I learned that the reason they survived was because they understood the nature of the new country, and did a cash business. That is, they bought for cash, and sold on thirty and sixty days; instead of giving the customers, whose financial condition you could hardly tell anything about, all the time they wanted. When the panic came, they had no debts, and little owing to them, and so they weathered it all right. I learned what I consider my best lesson, and that was to do a cash business.”

“What were some of the principles you applied to your business?” I questioned.

“I made it a point that all goods should be exactly what they were represented to be. It was a rule of the house that an exact scrutiny of the quality of all goods purchased should be maintained, and that nothing was to induce the house to place upon the market any line of goods at a shade of variation from their real value. Every article sold must be regarded as warranted, and

EVERY PURCHASER MUST BE ENABLED TO FEEL SECURE.”

“Did you suffer any losses or reverses during your career?”

“No loss except by the fire of 1871. It swept away everything,—about three and a half millions. We were, of course, protected by insurance, which would have been sufficient against any ordinary calamity of the kind. But the disaster was so sweeping that some of the companies which had insured our property were blotted out, and a long time passed before our claims against others were settled. We managed, however, to start again. There were no buildings of brick or stone left standing, but there were some great shells of horse-car barns at State and Twentieth streets which were not burned, and I hired those. We put up signs announcing that we would continue business uninterruptedly, and then rushed the work of fitting things up and getting in the stock.”

“Did the panic of 1873 affect your business?”

“Not at all. We did not have any debts.”

“May I ask, Mr. Fields, what you consider to have been

THE TURNING POINT

in your career,—the point after which there was no more danger?”

“Saving the first five thousand dollars I ever had, when I might just as well have spent the moderate salary I made. Possession of that sum, once I had it, gave me the ability to meet opportunities. That I consider the turning-point.”

“What trait of character do you look upon as having been the most essential in your career?”

“Perseverance,” said Mr. Field. But Mr. Selfridge, his most trusted lieutenant, in whose private office we were, insisted upon the addition of “good judgment” to this.

“If I am compelled to lay claim to such traits,” added Mr. Fields, “it is because I have tried to practise them, and the trying has availed me much. I have tried to make all my acts and commercial moves the result of definite consideration and sound judgment. There were never any great ventures or risks. I practised honest, slow-growing business methods, and tried to back them with energy and good system.”

At this point, in answer to further questions, Mr. Field disclaimed having overworked in his business, although after the fire of ’71 he worked about eighteen hours a day for several weeks:—

“My fortune, however, has not been made in that manner. I believe in reasonable hours, but close attention during those hours. I never worked very many hours a day. People do not work as many hours now as they once did. The day’s labor has shortened in the last twenty years for everyone.”

QUALITIES THAT MAKE FOR SUCCESS

“What, Mr. Field,” I said, “do you consider to be the first requisite for success in life, so far as the young beginner is concerned?”

“The qualities of honesty, energy, frugality, integrity, are more necessary than ever to-day, and there is no success without them. They are so often urged that they have become commonplace, but they are really more prized than ever. And any good fortune that comes by such methods is deserved and admirable.”

A COLLEGE EDUCATION AND BUSINESS

“Do you believe a college education for the young man to be a necessity in the future?”

“Not for business purposes. Better training will become more and more a necessity. The truth is, with most young men, a college education means that just at the time when they should be having business principles instilled into them, and be getting themselves energetically pulled together for their life’s work, they are sent to college. Then intervenes what many a young man looks back on as the jolliest time of his life,—four years of college. Often when he comes out of college the young man is unfitted by this good time to buckle down to hard work, and the result is a failure to grasp opportunities that would have opened the way for a successful career.”

As to retiring from business, Mr. Field remarked:—

“I do not believe that, when a man no longer attends to his private business in person every day, he has given up interest in affairs. He may be, in fact should be, doing wider and greater work. There certainly is no pleasure in idleness. A man, upon giving up business, does not cease laboring, but really does or should do more in a larger sense. He should interest himself in public affairs. There is no happiness in mere dollars. After they are acquired, one can use but a moderate amount. It is given a man to eat so much, to wear so much, and to have so much shelter, and more he cannot use. When money has supplied these, its mission, so far as the individual is concerned, is fulfilled, and man must look further and higher. It is only in the wider public affairs, where money is a moving force toward the general welfare, that the possessor of it can possibly find pleasure, and that only in constantly doing more.”

“What,” I said, “in your estimation, is the greatest good a man can do?”

“The greatest good he can do is to cultivate himself, develop his powers, in order that he may be of greater use to humanity.”

II

BELL TELEPHONE TALK

HINTS ON SUCCESS BY ALEXANDER G. BELL.

EXTREMELY polite, always anxious to render courtesy, no one carries great success more gracefully than Alexander G. Bell, the inventor of the telephone. His graciousness has won many a friend, the admiration of many more, and has smoothed many a rugged spot in life.

A NIGHT WORKER

When I first went to see him, it was about eleven o’clock in the morning, and he was in bed! The second time, I thought I would go somewhat later,—at one o’clock in the afternoon. He was eating his breakfast, I was told; and I had to wait some time. He came in apologizing profusely for keeping me waiting. When I told him I had come to interview him, in behalf of young people, about success—its underlying principles,—he threw back his large head and laughingly said:

“‘Nothing succeeds like success.’ Success did you say? Why, that is a big subject,—too big a one. You must give me time to think about it; and you having planted the seed in my brain, will have to wait for me.”

When I asked what time I should call, he said: “Come any time, if it is only late. I begin my work at about nine or ten o’clock in the evening, and continue until four or five in the morning. Night is a more quiet time to work. It aids thought.”

So, when I went to see him again, I made it a point to be late. He cordially invited me into his studio, where, as we both sat on a large and comfortable sofa, he talked long on

THE SUBJECT OF SUCCESS.

The value of this article would be greatly enhanced, if I could add his charming manner of emphasizing what he says, with hands, head, and eyes; and if I could add his beautiful distinctness of speech, due, a great deal, to his having given instruction to deaf-mutes, who must read the lips.

“What do you think are the factors of success?” I asked. The reply was prompt and to the point.

PERSEVERANCE APPLIED TO A PRACTICAL END

“Perseverance is the chief; but perseverance must have some practical end, or it does not avail the man possessing it. A person without a practical end in view becomes a crank or an idiot. Such persons fill our insane asylums. The same perseverance that they show in some idiotic idea, if exercised in the accomplishment of something practicable, would no doubt bring success. Perseverance is first, but practicability is chief. The success of the Americans as a nation is due to their great practicability.”

“But often what the world calls nonsensical, becomes practical, does it not? You were called crazy, too, once, were you not?”

“There are some things, though, that are always impracticable. Now, take, for instance, this idea of perpetual motion. Scientists have proved that it is impossible. Yet our patent office is continually beset by people applying for inventions on some perpetual motion machine. So the department has adopted a rule whereby a working model is always required of such applicants. They cannot furnish one. The impossible is incapable of success.”

“I have heard of people dreaming inventions.”

“That is not at all impossible. I am a believer in unconscious cerebration. The brain is working all the time, though we do not know it. At night, it follows up what we think in the daytime. When I have worked a long time on one thing, I make it a point to bring all the facts regarding it together before I retire; and I have often been surprised at the results. Have you not noticed that, often, what was dark and perplexing to you the night before, is found to be perfectly solved the next morning? We are thinking all the time; it is impossible not to think.”

“Can everyone become an inventor?”

“Oh, no; not all minds are constituted alike. Some minds are only adapted to certain things. But as one’s mind grows, and one’s knowledge of the world’s industries widens, it adapts itself to such things as naturally fall to it.”

Upon my asking the relation of health to success, the professor replied:—

“I believe it to be a primary principle of success; ‘mens sana in corpore sano,’—a sound mind in a sound body. The mind in a weak body produces weak ideas; a strong body gives strength to the thought of the mind. Ill health is due to man’s artificiality of living. He lives indoors. He becomes, as it were, a hothouse plant. Such a plant is never as successful as a hardy garden plant is. An outdoor life is necessary to health and success, especially in a youth.”

“But is not hard study often necessary to success?”

“No; decidedly not. You cannot force ideas. Successful ideas are the result of slow growth. Ideas do not reach perfection in a day, no matter how much study is put upon them. It is perseverance in the pursuit of studies that is really wanted.

CONCENTRATION OF PURPOSE

“Next must come concentration of purpose and study. That is another thing I mean to emphasize. Concentrate all your thought upon the work in hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus.

“I am now thinking about flying machines. Everything in regard to them, I pick out and read. When I see a bird flying in the air, I note its manner of flight, as I would not if I were not constantly thinking about artificial flight, and concentrating all my thought and observation upon it. It is like a man who has made the acquaintance of some new word that has been brought forcibly to his notice, although he may have come across it many times before, and not have noticed it particularly.

“Man is the result of slow growth; that is why he occupies the position he does in animal life. What does a pup amount to that has gained its growth in a few days or weeks, beside a man who only attains it in as many years. A horse is often a grandfather before a boy has attained his full maturity. The most successful men in the end are those whose success is the result of steady accretion. That intellectuality is more vigorous that has attained its strength gradually. It is the man who carefully advances step by step, with his mind becoming wider and wider,—and progressively better able to grasp any theme or situation,—persevering in what he knows to be practical, and concentrating his thought upon it, who is bound to succeed in the greatest degree.

YOUNG AMERICAN GEESE

“If a man is not bound down, he is sure to succeed. He may be bound down by environment, or by doting parental petting. In Paris, they fatten geese to create a diseased condition of the liver. A man stands with a box of very finely prepared and very rich food beside a revolving stand, and, as it revolves, one goose after another passes before him. Taking the first goose by the neck, he clamps down its throat a large lump of the food, whether the goose will or no, until its crop is well stuffed out, and then he proceeds with the rest in the same very mechanical manner. Now, I think, if those geese had to work hard for their own food, they would digest it better, and be far healthier geese. How many young American geese are stuffed in about the same manner at college and at home, by their rich and fond parents!”

UNHELPFUL READING

“Did everything you ever studied help you to attain success?”

“On the contrary, I did not begin real study until I was over sixteen. Until that time, my principal study was—reading novels.” He laughed heartily at my evident astonishment. “They did not help me in the least, for they did not give me an insight into real life. It is only those things that give one a grasp of practical affairs that are helpful. To read novels continuously is like reading fairy stories or “Arabian Nights” tales. It is a butterfly existence, so long as it lasts; but, some day, one is called to stern reality, unprepared.”

INVENTIONS IN AMERICA

“You have had experience in life in Europe and in America. Do you think the chances for success are the same in Europe as in America?”

“It is harder to attain success in Europe. There is hardly the same appreciation of progress there is here. Appreciation is an element of success. Encouragement is needed. My thoughts run mostly toward inventions. In England, people are conservative. They are well contented with the old, and do not readily adopt new ideas. Americans more quickly appreciate new inventions. Take an invention to an Englishman or a Scot, and he will ask you all about it, and then say your invention may be all right, but let somebody else try it first. Take the same invention to an American, and if it is intelligently explained, he is generally quick to see the feasibility of it. America is an inspiration to inventors. It is quicker to adopt advanced ideas than England or Europe. The most valuable inventions of this century have been made in America.”

THE ORIENT

“Do you think there is a chance for Americans in the Orient?”

“There is only a chance for capital in trade. American labor cannot compete with Japanese and Chinese. A Japanese coolie, for the hardest kind of work, receives the equivalent of six cents a day; and the whole family, father, mother and children, work and contribute to the common good. A foreigner is only made use of until they have absorbed all his useful ideas; then he is avoided. The Japanese are ahead of us in many things.”

ENVIRONMENT AND HEREDITY

“Do you think environment and heredity count in success?”

“Environment, certainly; heredity, not so distinctly. In heredity, a man may stamp out the faults he has inherited. There is no chance for the proper working of heredity. If selection could be carried out, a man might owe much to heredity. But as it is, only opposites marry. Blonde and light-complexioned people marry brunettes, and the tall marry the short. In our scientific societies, men only are admitted. If women who were interested especially in any science were allowed to affiliate with the men in these societies, we might hope to see some wonderful workings of the laws of heredity. A man, as a general rule, owes very little to what he is born with. A man is what he makes of himself.

“Environment counts for a great deal. A man’s particular idea may have no chance for growth or encouragement in his community. Real success is denied that man, until he finds a proper environment.

“America is a good environment for young men. It breathes the very spirit of success. I noticed at once, when I first came to this country, how the people were all striving for success, and helping others to attain success. It is an inspiration you cannot help feeling. America is the land of success.”

PROFESSOR BELL’S LIFE STORY

Alexander Graham Bell was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, March 3, 1847. His father, Alexander Melville Bell, now in Washington, D.C., was a distinguished Scottish educator, and the inventor of a system of “visible speech,” which he has successfully taught to deaf-mutes. His grandfather, Alexander Bell, became well known by the invention of a method of removing impediments of speech.

The younger Bell received his education at the Edinburgh High School and University; and, in 1867, he entered the University of London. Then, in his twenty-third year, his health failing from over-study, he came with his father to Canada, as he expressed it, “to die.” Later, he settled in the United States, becoming first a teacher of deaf-mutes, and subsequently professor of vocal physiology in Boston University. In 1867, he first began to study the problem of conveying articulate sound by electric currents; which he pursued during his leisure time. After nine long years of research and experiment, he completed the first telephone, early in 1876, when it was exhibited at the Centennial Exposition, and pronounced the “wonder of wonders in electric telegraphy.” This was the judgment of scientific men who were in a position to judge, and not of the world at large. People regarded it only as a novelty, as a curious scientific toy; and most business men doubted that it would ever prove a useful factor in the daily life of the world, and the untold blessing to mankind it has since become. All this skepticism he had to overcome. “A new art was to be taught to the world, a new industry created, business and social methods revolutionized.”

“I WILL MAKE THE WORLD HEAR IT”

“It does speak,” cried Sir William Thompson, with fervid enthusiasm; and Bell’s father-in-law added: “I will make the world hear it.” In less than a quarter of a century, it is conveying thought in every civilized tongue; Japan being the first country outside of the United States to adopt it. In the first eight years of its existence, the Bell Telephone Company declared dividends to the extent of $4,000,000; and the great sums of money the company earns for its stockholders is a subject of current comment and wonder. Some fierce contests have been waged over the priority of his invention, but Mr. Bell has been triumphant in every case.

He has become very wealthy from his invention. He has a beautiful winter residence in Washington; fitted up with a laboratory, and all sorts of electrical conveniences mostly of his own invention. His summer residence is at Cambridge, Massachusetts.

His wife, Mabel, the daughter of the late Gardiner G. Hubbard, is a deaf-mute, of whose education he had charge when she was a child.

Mr. Bell, with one of his beautiful daughters, recently made a visit to Japan. The Order of the Rising Star, the highest order in the gift of the Japanese Emperor, was bestowed upon him. He is greatly impressed by the character of the people; believing them capable of much greater advancement.

Mr. Bell is the inventor of the photophone, aiming to transmit speech by a vibratory beam of light. He has given much time and study to problems of multiplex telegraphy, and to efforts to record speech by photographing the vibrations of a jet of water.

Few inventors have derived as much satisfaction and happiness from their achievements as Mr. Bell. In this respect, his success has been ideal, and in impressive contrast with the experience of Charles Goodyear, the man who made india-rubber useful, and of some other well-known inventors, whose services to mankind brought no substantial reward to themselves.

Mr. Bell is in nowise spoiled by his good fortune; but is the same unpretending person to-day, that he was before the telephone made him wealthy and famous.

III

Why the American People Like Helen Gould

MISS HELEN GOULD has won a place for herself in the hearts of Americans such as few people of great wealth ever gain. Her strong character, commonsense, and high ideals, have made her respected by all, while her munificence and kindness have won for her the love of many.

Upon my arrival at her Tarrytown home, I was made to feel that I was welcome, and everyone who enters her presence feels the same. The grand mansion, standing high on the hills overlooking the Hudson, has a home-like appearance. Chickens play around the little stone cottage at the grand entrance, and the grounds are not unlike those of any other country house, with trees in abundance, and beautiful lawns. There are large beds of flowers, and in the gardens all the summer vegetables were growing.

Miss Gould takes a very great interest in her famous greenhouses, the gardens, the flowers, and the chickens, for she is a home-loving woman. It is a common thing to see her in the grounds, digging and raking and planting, like some farmer’s girl. That is one reason why her neighbors all like her; she seems so unconscious of her wealth and station.

A FACE FULL OF CHARACTER

When I entered Lyndhurst, she came forward to meet me in the pleasantest way imaginable. Her face is not exactly beautiful, but has a great deal of character written upon it, and it is very attractive. She held out her hand for me to shake in the good old-fashioned way, and then we sat down in the wide hall to talk. Miss Gould was dressed very simply. Her gown was of dark cloth, close-fitting, and her skirt hung several inches above the ground, for she is a believer in short skirts for walking. Her entire costume was very becoming. She never over-dresses, and her garments are neat, and naturally of excellent quality.

HER AMBITIONS AND AIMS

In the conversation that followed, I was permitted to learn much of her ambitions and aims. She is ambitious to leave an impression on the world by good deeds well done, and this ambition is gratified to the utmost. She is modest about her work.

“I cannot find that I am doing much at all,” she said, “when there is so very much to be done. I suppose I shouldn’t expect to be able to do everything, but I sometimes feel that I want to, nevertheless.”

A MOST CHARMING CHARITY

One of her most charming charities is “Woody Crest,” two miles from Lyndhurst, a haven of delight where some twoscore waifs are received at a time for a two weeks’ visit.

Years before Miss Gould’s name became associated throughout the country with charity, she was doing her part in trying to make a world happier. Every summer she was hostess to scores of poor children, who were guests at one of the two Gould summer homes; little people with pinched, wan faces, and crippled children from the tenements, were taken to that home and entertained. They came in relays, a new company arriving once in two weeks, the number of children thus given a taste of heaven on earth being limited only by the capacity of the Gould residence. This was her first, and, I am told, her favorite charity.

Little children do things naturally. It was when a child that Helen Gould commenced the work that has given her name a sacred significance. When a little girl, she could see the less fortunate little girls passing the great Gould home on Fifth avenue, and she pitied them and loved them, and from her own allowance administered to their comfort.

“My father always encouraged me in charitable work,” she writes a friend. How much the American people owe to that encouragement. A frown from that father, idolized as he was by his daughter, would have frosted and killed that budding philanthropy which has made a great fortune a fountain of joy, and carried sunshine into many lives.

“Woody Crest” is a sylvan paradise, a nobly wooded hill towering above the sumptuous green of Westchester, a place with wild flowers and winding drives, and at its crest a solid mansion built of the native rock. One can look out from its luxuriant lawns to the majestic Hudson, or turn aside into the shadiest of nooks among the trees. What a place for the restful breezes to fan the tired brows from the tenements. Do the little folks enjoy it? Ask them, and their eyes will sparkle with gladness for answer. Ask those, too, who are awaiting their turn in hot New York, and watch the eagerness of their anticipation. For two long and happy weeks they become as joyous as mortals are ever permitted to be.

Miss Gould has a personal oversight of the place, and, by her frequent visits, makes friends with the wee visitors, who look upon her as a combination of angel and fairy godmother. Every day, a wagonette drawn by two horses takes the children, in relays, for long drives into the country. Amusements are provided, and some of those who remain for an entire season at Woody Crest are instructed in different branches. Twice a month some of the older boys set the type for a little magazine which is devoted to Woody Crest matters. There are several portable cottages erected there, one for the sick, one for servants’ sleeping rooms, and a third for a laundry.

And the munificent hostess of these children of the needy gets her reward in eyes made bright, in cheeks made ruddy, in the “God bless you,” that falls from the lips of grateful parents.

All winter long, instead of closing “Woody Crest” and waiting for the summer sunshine to bring about a return of her charitable opportunities, Miss Gould has kept the place running at full expense. During the winter she herself occupies her town residence. Ordinarily she would not keep “Woody Crest” open longer than Thanksgiving Day, but in the past winter fifteen small boys were entertained for six months. Six of these were cripples, and nine were sound of limb. Though it required many servants, I am told that the little guests were given as much consideration as the same number of grown people would have received. They had nurses and physicians for those who needed them, governesses and instructors for those who were well.

HER PRACTICAL SYMPATHY FOR THE LESS FAVORED

When, one day, I was privileged to meet Miss Gould at Woody Crest, I saw a hundred children scattered around the lawn in front of the stately mansion. It had been an afternoon of labor and anxiety on her part, for she felt the responsibility of entertaining and caring for so many little ones. As she finally cooled herself on the piazza and looked at her little charges romping around on the lawn, I asked her if she thought any of the little ones before her would ever make their mark in the world.

“That’s hard to say,” she replied, after a moment’s hesitation, “but no one can tell what may be in children until they have grown up and developed. But the hardest thing to me is to see genius struggling under obstacles and in surroundings that would discourage almost anybody. I do not see, for my part, how any child from the poorest tenements could ever grow up and develop into strong, successful men or women. Many of them, of course, have no gifts or endowments to do this, but even if they had, the surroundings are enough to stifle every spark of ambition in them. It is a mystery to me how they can preserve such bright and eager faces. What would we do if we were brought up in such environments! I know I should never be able to survive it, and would never succeed in rising above my surroundings. And it is harder on the girls than the boys! The boys can go forth into the world and probably secure a position which in time will bring them different companionship and surroundings; but the poor girls have so few opportunities. They must drudge and drag along for the bare necessities of life. My heart aches sometimes for them, and I wish I had the power to lighten the burdens of everyone.”

“The hardest thing, I suppose, is to see real ability fighting against odds, with no one to help and encourage?”

“Yes, that seems the worst, and I think we all ought to make it possible for such ones to get a little encouragement and help. When a boy is deserving of credit it should be given unstintedly. It goes a long way toward making him more hopeful for the future. We don’t as a rule receive enough encouragement in this world. Certainly not the poor. Everybody seems so busy and intent upon making his own way in the world that he forgets to drop a word of cheer for those who have not been so fortunate by birth or surroundings.”[^[1]]

[1]. Note.—For four paragraphs preceding I am indebted to George Ethelbert Walsh, whose interview was published in the Boston Transcript, Oct. 12, 1900.

For a number of years, Miss Gould has supported certain beds in the Babies’ Shelter, in connection with the Church of the Holy Communion, New York, and the Wayside Day Nursery, near Bellevue Hospital, has always found in her a good friend. Once a year she makes a tour through the day nurseries of New York, noting the special needs of each, and often sending money or materials for meeting those needs.

PERSONAL ATTENTION TO AN UNSELFISH SERVICE

Her charities, says Mr. Walsh, in the article above cited, are probably the most practical on record. She does not go “slumming,” as so many fashionable girls do, but she does go and investigate personal charities herself and apply the medicine as she thinks best. She puts herself out in more ways to relieve distress around than she would to accommodate her wealthiest friend. Not only has she always pitied the sufferers in the world less fortunate than herself, but she has always had a great desire to help those struggling for a living in practical ways to get along. It is this side of her noble work that stands out most conspicuously to-day. The public realizes for the first time that this young woman, who first came into actual fame at the time of our war with Spain, has been supporting and encouraging young people in different parts of the country for years past. These protéges are all worthy of her patronage, and they have been sought out by her. Not one has ever approached Miss Gould for help, and in fact such an introduction would undoubtedly operate against her inclination to help them. She has discovered them; and then through considerable tact and discretion obtained from them their ambitious desires and hopes. Through equally good tact and sense she has then placed them in positions where they could work out their own destinies without feeling that they were accepting charity. This is distinctly what Miss Gould wishes to avoid in helping her little protéges. She does not offer them charity or do anything to make them dependent upon her if it can be helped. By her money and influence she obtains for them positions which will give them every chance in the world to rise and develop talents which she thinks she has discovered in them.

Some of her protéges, continues Mr. Walsh, have been sent away to schools and colleges. One of the easiest ways to accomplish this is to offer a scholarship in some institution and then place her young protége in such a position that he or she can win it, and in this way have four years of tuition free. Fully a dozen different scholars are now enjoying the benefits of Miss Gould’s kindness in this and other respects. Four others have been enabled to attend art schools, and two are studying music under the best teachers through the instrumentality of this young woman. Two of these scholars were literally rescued from the tenement dregs of New York, and they showed such aptitude for study and work that Miss Gould undertook to give them a fair start in the world. Unusual aptitude, brightness, or kindness on the part of children always attract Miss Gould, and she has become the patron saint of more than a hundred. When her name is mentioned they show their interest and concern, not by looks of awe and fear but of eagerness and happiness. Those of their number who have been lifted from their low estate and put in high positions to carve out a life of success through their common patron saint, bring back stories of her kindness and consideration that make the children look upon her as they would the Madonna. But she is a youthful Madonna, and the very idea of posing as such, even before the poor and ignorant of her little friends, would amuse her. Nevertheless, that is the nearest that one can interpret their ideas concerning her.

Miss Gould’s beneficiaries have been sometimes aided in obtaining the most advanced schooling in the land; and she visits with equal interest the industrial classes of Berea and the favored students of the College Beautiful.

HER VIEWS UPON EDUCATION

Miss Gould is well educated, and a graduate of a law school. I tried to ascertain her views regarding the education of young women of to-day, and what careers they should follow. This is one of her particular hobbies, and many are the young girls she has helped to attain to a better and more satisfactory life.

“I believe most earnestly in education for women,” she said; “not necessarily the higher education about which we hear so much, but a good, common-school education. As the years pass, girls are obliged to make their own way in the world more and more; and to do so, they must have good schooling.”

“And what particular career do you think most desirable for young women?”

“Oh, as to careers, there are many that young women follow, nowadays. I think, if I had my own way to make, I should fit myself to be a private secretary. That is a position which attracts nearly every young woman; but, to fill it, she must study hard and learn, and then work hard to keep the place. Then there are openings for young women in the fields of legitimate business. Women know as much about money affairs as men, only most of them have not had much experience. In that field, there are hundreds of things that a woman can do.

THE EVIL OF IDLENESS

“But I don’t think it matters much what a girl does so long as she is active, and doesn’t allow herself to stagnate. There’s nothing, to my mind, so pathetic as a girl who thinks she can’t do anything, and is of no use to the world.”

HER PATRIOTISM

The late Admiral Philip, he of the “Texas” in the Santiago fight, regarded Miss Gould as an angel, and the sailors of the Brooklyn navy yard fairly worship her. A hustling Y. M. C. A. chap, Frank Smith by name, started a little club-house for “Jack Ashore,” near the Brooklyn navy yard. Miss Gould heard of this club, and visited it. At a glance she grasped the meaning, and, on her return home she wrote a letter and a check for fifty thousand dollars, and there sprang from that letter and check, a handsome building in which there are sixty beds, a library, a pipe organ, a smoking-room, and a restaurant. Do you wonder that the “Jackies” adore her, and that the gale that sweeps over the ship out in the open sea is often freighted with the melody of her name?

“When I visited Cuba and Porto Rico,” says Congressman Charles B. Landis, of Indiana,—to whom I am greatly indebted in preparing this article,—“I talked with officers and privates everywhere along the journey, visited camps and hospitals in cities and isolated towns, and everywhere it seemed that the sickness and suffering and heart yearning of the American soldier had been anticipated by Helen Gould. Voices that quivered and eyes that moistened at the mention of the name of this young American girl were one continuous tribute to her heart and work. She cannot fully realize how far-reaching have been her efforts.”

A business man looks for results. What impressed me most with Miss Gould’s work was the visible, tangible results. Every dollar spent by her seemed to go, straight as a cannon-ball, to some mark. Miss Gould has a business head, and is not hysterical in her work. She gives, but follows the gift and sees that it goes to the spot. She has studied results and knows which charity pays a premium in smiles, and tears, and joy, and better life, and very little of her money will be wasted in impracticable schemes. She has a happy faculty of getting in actual touch with conditions, realizing that she cannot hit an object near at hand by aiming at a star.

Miss Gould’s practical business sense was beautifully exemplified at Montauk Point. Hundreds of soldiers from the hospitals in Cuba and Porto Rico were suddenly unloaded there. Elsewhere were government supplies—tents and cots and rations,—but there the sick soldiers were without shelter, were hungry, had no medicine, and were sleeping on the ground.

Why? Because of red tape. This young lady appeared in person and amazed the strutters in shoulder-straps and the slaves to discipline by having the sick soldier boys made comfortable on army cots, placed in army tents, and fed on army rations,—and this, too, without any “requisition.” She grasped a situation, cut the ropes of theory and introduced practice. From her own purse she provided nurses and dainties, and bundled up scores of soldier boys and sent them to her beautiful villa on the Hudson.

The camp rang with this refrain:—

You’re the angel of the camp,

Helen Gould,

In the sun-rays, in the damp,

On the weary, weary tramp,

To our darkness you’re a lamp,

Helen Gould.

Thoughts of home and gentle things,

Helen Gould,

To the camp your coming brings;

All the place with music rings

At the rustle of your wings,

Helen Gould.

“OUR HELEN”

On the day of the Dewey parade in New York, Miss Gould was in front of her house, on a platform she had erected for the small children of certain Asylums. Mayor Van Wyck told Admiral Dewey who she was, and the Admiral stood up in his carriage and bowed to her three times. Then the word went down the line that Miss Gould was there, and every company saluted her as it passed.

But it was when a body of young recruits stopped for a moment before her door that the real excitement began.

“She shan’t marry a foreign prince,” they cried, tossing their hats and stamping their feet. “She’s Helen, our Helen, and she shall not marry a foreign prince.”

“AMERICA”

Miss Gould’s patriotism is very real and intense, and is not confined to times of war. Two years ago, she caused fifty thousand copies of the national hymn, “America,” to be printed and distributed among the pupils of the public schools of New York.

“I believe every one should know that hymn and sing it,” she declared, “if he sings no other. I would like to have the children sing it into their very souls, till it becomes a part of them.”

She strongly favors patriotic services in the churches on the Sunday preceding the Fourth of July, when she would like to hear such airs as “America,” “Hail Columbia,” and “The Star Spangled Banner,” and see the sacred edifices draped in red, white, and blue.

UNHERALDED BENEFACTIONS

Miss Gould has a strong prejudice against letting her many gifts and charities be known, and even her dearest friends never know “what Helen’s doing now.” Of course, her great public charities, as when she gives a hundred thousand dollars at a time, are heralded. Her recent gift of that sum to the government, for national defense, has made her name beloved throughout the land; but, had she been able, she would have kept that secret also.

The place Helen Gould now holds in the love and esteem of the republic exemplifies how quickly the nation’s heart responds to the touch of gentleness, and how easy it is for wealth to conquer and rise triumphant, if only it be seasoned with common sense and sympathy.

I will not attempt to specify the numerous projects of charity that have been given life and vigor by Miss Gould. I know her gifts in recent years have passed the million-dollar mark.

“It seems so easy to do things for others,” said Miss Gould, recently. It is easy to do good, if the doing is natural and without thought of self-glorification.

Miss Gould’s views upon “How to Make the Most of Wealth,” are well set forth in her admirable letter to Dr. Louis Klopsch, as published in the Christian Herald:—

“The Christian idea that wealth is a stewardship, or trust, and not to be used for one’s personal pleasure alone, but for the welfare of others, certainly seems the noblest; and those who have more money or broader culture owe a debt to those who have had fewer opportunities.

“And there are so many ways one can help. Children, the sick and the aged especially, have claims on our attention, and the forms of work for them are numerous; from kindergartens, day-nurseries and industrial schools, to ‘homes’ and hospitals. Our institutions for higher education require gifts in order to do their best work, for the tuition fees do not cover the expense of the advantages offered; and certainly such societies as those in our churches, and the Young Woman’s Christian Association and the Young Men’s Christian Association, deserve our hearty cooperation. The earnest workers who so nobly and lovingly give their lives to promote the welfare of others, give far more than though they had simply made gifts of money, so those who cannot afford to give largely need not feel discouraged on that account. After all, sympathy and good-will may be a greater force than wealth, and we can all extend to others a kindly feeling and courteous consideration, that will make life sweeter and better.

“Sometimes it seems to me we do not sufficiently realize the good that is done by money that is used in the different industries in giving employment to great numbers of people under the direction of clever men and women; and surely it takes more ability, perseverance and time to successfully manage such an enterprise than to merely make gifts.”

HER PERSONALITY

Miss Gould’s life at Tarrytown is an ideal one. She runs down to the city at frequent intervals, to attend to business affairs; but she lives at Lyndhurst. She entertains but few visitors, and in turn visits but seldom. The management of her property, to which she gives close attention, makes no inconsiderable call upon her time. “I have no time for society,” she said, “and indeed I do not care for it at all; it is very well for those who like it.”

Would you have an idea of her personality? “If so,” replies Landis, “you will think of a good young woman in your own town, who loves her parents and her home; who is devoted to the church; who thinks of the poor on Thanksgiving Day and Christmas; whose face is bright and manner unaffected; whose dress is elegant in its simplicity; who takes an interest in all things, from politics to religion; whom children love and day-laborers greet by reverently lifting the hat; and who, if she were graduated from a home seminary or college, would receive a bouquet from every boy in town. If you can think of such a young woman, and nearly every community has one (and ninety-nine times out of a hundred she is poor), you have a fair idea of the impression made on a plain man from a country town by Miss Gould.”

Helen Miller Gould is just at the threshold of her beautiful career. What a promise is there in her life and work for the coming century?

She has pledged a Hall of Fame for the campus of the New York University, overlooking the Harlem river. It will have tablets for the names of fifty distinguished Americans; and proud will be the descendants of those whose names are inscribed thereon.

The human heart is the tablet upon which Miss Gould has inscribed her name, and her “Hall of Fame” is as broad and high as the republic itself.

IV

Philip D. Armour’s Business Career

I MET Mr. Armour in the quiet of the Armour Institute, his great philanthropic school for young men and women. He was very courteous, and there was no delay. He took my hand with a firm grasp—reading with his steady gaze such of my characteristics as interested him,—and saying, at the same time, “Well, sir.”

In stating my desire to learn such lessons from his business career as might be helpful to young men, I inquired whether the average American boy of to-day has equally as good a chance to succeed in the world as he had, when he began life.

“Every bit and better. The affairs of life are larger. There are greater things to do. There was never before such a demand for able men.”

“Were the conditions surrounding your youth especially difficult?”

“No. They were those common to every small New York town in 1832. I was born at Stockbridge, in Madison county. Our family had its roots in Scotland. My father’s ancestors were the Robertsons, Watsons, and McGregors of Scotland; my mother came of the Puritans, who settled in Connecticut.”

“Dr. Gunsaulus says,” I ventured, “that all these streams of heredity set toward business affairs.”

“Perhaps so. I like trading well. My father was reasonably prosperous and independent for those times. My mother had been a schoolteacher. There were six boys, and of course such a household had to be managed with the strictest economy in those days. My mother thought it her duty to bring to our home some of the rigid discipline of the school-room. We were all trained to work together, and everything was done as systematically as possible.”

“Had you access to any books?”

“Yes, the Bible, ‘Pilgrim’s Progress,’ and a History of the United States.”

It is said of the latter, by those closest to Mr. Armour, that it was as full of shouting Americanism as anything ever written, and that Mr. Armour’s whole nature is yet colored by its stout American prejudices; also that it was read and re-read by the Armour children, though of this the great merchant did not speak.

“Were you always of a robust constitution?” I asked.

“Yes, sir. All our boys were. We were stout enough to be bathed in an ice-cold spring, out of doors, when at home. There were no bath tubs and warm water arrangements in those days. We had to be strong. My father was a stern Scotchman, and when he laid his plans they were carried out. When he set us boys to work, we worked. It was our mother who insisted on keeping us all at school, and who looked after our educational needs; while our father saw to it that we had plenty of good, hard work on the farm.”

“How did you enjoy that sort of life?” I asked.

“Well enough, but not much more than any boy does. Boys are always more or less afraid of hard work.”

The truth is, I have heard, but not from Mr. Armour, that when he attended the district school, he was as full of pranks and capers as the best; and that he traded jack-knives in summer and bob-sleds in winter. Young Armour was often to be found, in the winter, coasting down the long hill near the schoolhouse. Later, he had a brief term of schooling at the Cazenovia Seminary.

FOOTING IT TO CALIFORNIA

“When did you leave the farm for a mercantile life?” I asked.

“I was a clerk in a store in Stockbridge for two years, after I was seventeen, but was engaged with the farm more or less, and wanted to get out of that life. I was a little over seventeen years old when the California gold excitement of 1849 reached our town. Wonderful tales were told of gold already found, and the prospects for more on the Pacific coast. I brooded over the difference between tossing hay in the hot sun and digging up gold by handfuls, until one day I threw down my pitchfork and went over to the house and told mother that I had quit that kind of work.

“People with plenty of money could sail around Cape Horn in those days, but I had no money to spare, and so decided to walk across the country. That is, we were carried part of the way by rail and walked the rest. I persuaded one of the neighbor’s boys, Calvin Gilbert, to go along with me, and we started.

“I provided myself with an old carpet sack into which to put my clothes. I bought a new pair of boots, and when we had gone as far as we could on canals and wagons, I bought two oxen. With these we managed for awhile, but eventually reached California afoot.”

Young Armour suffered a severe illness on the journey, and was nursed by his companion Gilbert, who gathered herbs and steeped them for his friend’s use, and once rode thirty miles in the rain to get a doctor. When they reached California, he fell in with Edward Croarkin, a miner, who nursed him back to health. The manner in which he remembered these men gives keen satisfaction to the friends of the great merchant.

“Did you have any money when you arrived at the gold-fields?”

“Scarcely any. I struck right out, though, and found a place where I could dig, and I struck pay dirt in a little time.”

“Did you work entirely alone?”

“No. It was not long before I met Mr. Croarkin at a little mining camp called Virginia. He had the next claim to mine, and we became partners. After a little while, he went away, but came back in a year. We then bought in together. The way we ran things was ‘turn about.’ Croarkin would cook one week, and I the next, and then we would have a clean-up every Sunday morning. We baked our own bread, and kept a few hens, which kept us supplied with eggs. There was a man named Chapin who had a little store in the village, and we would take our gold dust there and trade it for groceries.”

THE DITCH