Chapter XXII (6)

“For young men starting upon their life work, it is much the best to begin as I did, at the beginning, and occupy the most subordinate positions. Many of the present-day leading men of Pittsburg, had serious responsibility thrust upon them at the very threshold of their careers. They were introduced to the broom, and spent the first hours of their business life sweeping out the office. I notice we have janitors and janitresses now in offices, and our young men, unfortunately, miss that salutary branch of early education. It does not hurt the newest comer to sweep out the office.”

“Did you?”

“Many’s the time. And who do you suppose were my fellow sweepers? David McBargo, afterwards superintendent of the Allegheny Valley Railroad; Robert Pitcairn, afterwards superintendent of the Pennsylvania Railroad; and Mr. Mooreland, subsequently City Attorney of Pittsburg. We all took turns, two each morning doing the sweeping; and now I remember Davie was so proud of his clean shirt bosom that he used to spread over it an old silk handkerchief which he kept for the purpose, and we other boys thought he was putting on airs. So he was. None of us had a silk handkerchief.”

“After you had learned to telegraph, did you consider that you had reached high enough?”

“Just at that time my father died, and the burden of the support of the family fell upon me. I earned as an operator twenty-five dollars a month, and a little additional money by copying telegraphic messages for the newspapers, and managed to keep the family independent.”

AN EXPERT TELEGRAPHER

More light on this period of Mr. Carnegie’s career is given by the “_Electric Age_,” which says:—“As a telegraph operator he was abreast of older and experienced men; and, although receiving messages by sound was, at that time, forbidden by authority as being unsafe, young Carnegie quickly acquired the art, and he can still stand behind the ticker and understand its language. As an operator, he delighted in full employment and the prompt discharge of business, and a big day’s work was his chief pleasure.”

“How long did you remain with the telegraph company?”

“Until I was given a place by the Pennsylvania Railroad Company.”

“As an operator?”

“At first,—until I showed how the telegraph could minister to railroad safety and success; then I was made secretary to Thomas A. Scott, the superintendent; and not long afterwards, when Colonel Scott became vice-president, I was made superintendent of the western division.”

Colonel Scott’s attention was drawn to Carnegie by the operator’s devising a plan for running trains by telegraph, so making the most of a single track. Up to this time no one had ever dreamed of running trains in opposite directions, towards each other, directing them by telegraph, one train being sidetracked while the other passed. The boy studied out a train-despatching system which was afterwards used on every single-track railroad in the country. Nobody had ever thought of this before, and the officials were so pleased with the ingenious lad, that they placed him in charge of a division office, and before he was twenty made him superintendent of the western division of the road.

WHAT EMPLOYERS THINK OF YOUNG MEN

Concerning this period of his life, I asked Mr. Carnegie if his promotion was not a matter of chance, and whether he did not, at the time, feel it to be so. His answer was emphatic.

“Never. Young men give all kinds of reasons why, in their cases, failure is attributable to exceptional circumstances, which rendered success impossible. Some never had a chance, according to their own story. This is simply nonsense. No young man ever lived who had not a chance, and a splendid chance, too, if he was ever employed at all. He is assayed in the mind of his immediate superior, from the day he begins work, and, after a time, if he has merit, he is assayed in the council chambers of the firm. His ability, honesty, habits, associations, temper, disposition,—all these are weighed and analyzed. The young man who never had a chance is the same young man who has been canvassed over and over again by his superiors, and found destitute of necessary qualifications, or is deemed unworthy of closer relations with the firm, owing to some objectionable act, habit or association, of which he thought his employers ignorant.”

“It sounds true.”

“It is.”

THE RIGHT MEN IN DEMAND

“Another class of young men attributes failure to rise to employers having near relatives or favorites whom they advance unfairly. They also insist that their employers dislike brighter intelligences than their own, and are disposed to discourage aspiring genius, and delighted in keeping young men down. There is nothing in this. On the contrary, there is no one suffering more for lack of the right man in the right place as the average employer, nor anyone more anxious to find him.”

“Was this your theory on the subject when you began working for the railroad company?”

“I had no theory then, although I have formulated one since. It lies mainly in this: Instead of the question, ‘What must I do for my employer?’ substitute, ‘What can I do?’ Faithful and conscientious discharge of duties assigned you is all very well, but the verdict in such cases generally is that you perform your present duties so well, that you would better continue performing them. Now, this will not do. It will not do for the coming partners. There must be something beyond this. We make clerks, bookkeepers, treasurers, bank tellers of this class, and there they remain to the end of the chapter. _The rising man must do something exceptional, and beyond the range of his special department. He must attract attention._”

HOW TO ATTRACT ATTENTION

“How can he do that?”

“Well, if he is a shipping clerk, he may do so by discovering in an invoice an error with which he has nothing to do and which has escaped the attention of the proper party. If a weighing clerk, he may save for the firm in questioning the adjustment of the scales, and having them corrected, even if this be the province of the master mechanic. If a messenger boy, he can lay the seed of promotion by going beyond the letter of his instructions in order to secure the desired reply. There is no service so low and simple, neither any so high, in which the young man of ability and willing disposition cannot readily and almost daily prove himself capable of greater trust and usefulness, and, what is equally important, show his invincible determination to rise.”

“In what manner did you reach out to establish your present great fortune?” I asked.

“By saving my money. I put a little money aside, and it served me later as a matter of credit. Also, I invested in a sleeping-car industry, which paid me well.”

SLEEPING-CAR INVENTION

Although I tried earnestly to get the great iron-king to talk of this, he said little, because the matter has been fully dealt with by him in his “Triumphant Democracy.” From his own story there, it appears that one day at this time, when Mr. Carnegie still had his fortune to make, he was on a train examining the line from a rear window of a car, when a tall, spare man, accosted him and asked him to look at an invention he had made. He drew from a green bag a small model of a sleeping-berth for railway cars, and proceeded to point out its advantages. It was Mr. T. T. Woodruff, the inventor of the sleeping-car. As Mr. Carnegie tells the story:—

“He had not spoken a moment before, like a flash, the whole range of the discovery burst upon me. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘that is something which this continent must have,’

“Upon my return, I laid it before Mr. Scott, declaring that it was one of the inventions of the age. He remarked: ‘You are enthusiastic, young man, but you may ask the inventor to come and let me see it.’ I did so, and arrangements were made to build two trial cars, and run them on the Pennsylvania Railroad. I was offered an interest in the venture, which I gladly accepted.

“The notice came that my share of the first payment was $217.50. How well I remember the exact sum. But two hundred and seventeen dollars and a half were as far beyond my means as if it had been millions. I was earning fifty dollars per month, however, and had prospects, or at least I always felt that I had. I decided to call on the local banker and boldly ask him to advance the sum upon my interest in the affair. He put his hand on my shoulder and said: ‘Why, of course, Andie; you are all right. Go ahead. Here is the money.’

“It is a proud day for a man when he pays his last note, but not to be named in comparison with the day in which he makes his first one, and gets a banker to take it. I have tried both, and I know. The cars furnished the subsequent payments by their earnings. I paid my first note from my savings, so much per month, and thus I got my foot upon fortune’s ladder. It was easy to climb after that.”

THE MARK OF A MILLIONAIRE

“I would like some expression from you,” I said to Mr. Carnegie, “in reference to the importance of laying aside money from one’s earnings, as a young man.”

“You can have it. There is one sure mark of the coming partner, the future millionaire; his revenues always exceed his expenditures. He begins to save early, almost as soon as he begins to earn. I should say to young men, no matter how little it may be possible to save, save that little. Invest it securely, not necessarily in bonds, but in anything which you have good reason to believe will be profitable. Some rare chance will soon present itself for investment. The little you have saved will prove the basis for an amount of credit utterly surprising to you. Capitalists trust the saving man. For every hundred dollars you can produce as the result of hard-won savings, Midas, in search of a partner, will lend or credit a thousand; for every thousand, fifty thousand. _It is not capital that your seniors require, it is the man who has proved that he has the business habits which create capital. So it is the first hundred dollars that tell._”

AN OIL FARM

“What,” I asked Mr. Carnegie, “was the next enterprise with which you identified yourself?”

“In company with several others, I purchased the now famous Storey farm, on Oil Creek, Pennsylvania, where a well had been bored and natural oil struck the year before. This proved a very profitable investment.”

In “Triumphant Democracy,” Mr. Carnegie has expatiated most fully on this venture, which is so important. “When I first visited this famous well,” he says, “the oil was running into the creek, where a few flat-bottomed scows lay filled with it, ready to be floated down the Alleghany River, on an agreed-upon day each week, when the creek was flooded by means of a temporary dam. This was the beginning of the natural-oil business. We purchased the farm for $40,000, and so small was our faith in the ability of the earth to yield for any considerable time the hundred barrels per day, which the property was then producing, that we decided to make a pond capable of holding one hundred thousand barrels of oil, which, we estimated, would be worth, when the supply ceased, $1,000,000.

“Unfortunately for us, the pond leaked fearfully; evaporation also caused much loss, but we continued to run oil in to make the losses good day after day, until several hundred thousand barrels had gone in this fashion. Our experience with the farm is worth reciting: its value rose to $5,000,000; that is—the shares of the company sold in the market upon this basis; and one year it paid cash dividends of $1,000,000—upon an investment of $40,000.”

IRON BRIDGES

“Were you satisfied to rest with these enterprises in your hands?” I asked.

“No. Railway bridges were then built almost exclusively of wood, but the Pennsylvania Railroad had begun to experiment with cast-iron. It struck me that the bridge of the future must be of iron; and I organized, in Pittsburg, a company for the construction of iron bridges. That was the Keystone Bridge Works. We built the first iron bridge across the Ohio.”

His entrance of the realm of steel was much too long for Mr. Carnegie to discuss, although he was not unwilling to give information relating to the subject. It appears that he realized the immensity of the steel manufacturing business at once. The Union Iron Mills soon followed as one of the enterprises, and, later, the famous Edgar Thompson Steel Rail Mill. The last was the outcome of a visit to England, in 1868, when Carnegie noticed that English railways were discarding iron for steel rails. The Bessemer process had been then perfected, and was making its way in all the iron-producing countries. Carnegie, recognizing that it was destined to revolutionize the iron business, introduced it into his mills and made steel rails with which he was enabled to compete with English manufacturers.

HOMESTEAD STEEL WORKS

His next enterprise was the purchase of the Homestead Steel Works,—his great rival in Pittsburg. In 1888, he had built or acquired seven distinct iron and steel works, all of which are now included in the Carnegie Steel Company, Limited. All the plants of this great firm are within a radius of five miles of Pittsburg. Probably in no other part of the world can be found such an aggregation of splendidly equipped steel works as those controlled by this association. It now comprises the Homestead Steel Works, the Edgar Thompson Steel Works and Furnaces, the Duquesne Steel Works and Furnaces, all within two miles of one another; the Lucy Furnaces, the Keystone Bridge Works, the Upper Union Rolling Mills, and the Lower Union Rolling Mills.

In all branches, including the great coke works, mines, etc., there are employed twenty-five thousand men. The monthly pay roll exceeds one million, one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars, or nearly fifty thousand dollars for each working day. Including the Frick Coke Company, the united capital of the Carnegie Steel Company exceeds sixty million dollars.

A STRENGTHENING POLICY

“You believe in taking active measures,” I said, “to make men successful.”

_Partial view of the Homestead Steel Works._]

“I believe in anything which will help men to help themselves. To induce them to save, every workman in our company is allowed to deposit part of his earnings, not exceeding two thousand dollars, with the firm, on which the high interest rate of six per cent. is allowed. The firm also lends to any of its workmen to buy a lot, or to build a house, taking its pay by installments.”

“Has this contributed to the success of your company?”

“I think so. The policy of giving a personal interest to the men who render exceptional service is strengthening. With us there are many such, and every year several more are added as partners. It is the policy of the concern to interest every superintendent in the works, every head of a department, every exceptional young man. Promotion follows exceptional service, and there is no favoritism.”

PHILANTHROPY

“All you have said so far, merely gives the idea of getting money, without any suggestion as to the proper use of great wealth. Will you say something on that score?”

“My views are rather well known, I think. What a man owns is already subordinate, in America, to what he knows; but in the final aristocracy, the question will not be either of these, but what has he done for his fellows? Where has he shown generosity and self-abnegation? Where has he been a father to the fatherless? And the cause of the poor, where has he searched that out?”

That Mr. Carnegie has lived up in the past, and is still living up to this radical declaration of independence from the practice of men who have amassed fortunes around him, will be best shown by a brief enumeration of some of his almost unexampled philanthropies. His largest gift has been to the city of Pittsburg, the scene of his early trials and later triumphs. There he has built, at a cost of more than a million dollars, a magnificent library, museum, concert hall and picture gallery, all under one roof, and endowed it with a fund of another million, the interest of which (fifty thousand dollars per annum) is being devoted to the purchase of the best works of American art. Other libraries, to be connected with this largest as a center, are now being constructed, which will make the city of Pittsburg and its environs a beneficiary of his generosity to the extent of five million dollars.

While thus endowing the city where his fortune was made, he has not forgotten other places endeared to him by association or by interest. To the Allegheny Free Library he has given $375,000; to the Braddock Free Library, $250,000; to the Johnstown Free Library, $50,000; and to the Fairfield (Iowa) Library, $40,000. To the Cooper Institute, New York, he has given $300,000. To his native land he has been scarcely less generous. To the Edinburgh Free Library he has given $250,000, and to his native town of Dunfermline, $90,000. Other Scottish towns to the number of ten have received helpful donations of amounts not quite so large. He has given $50,000 to aid poor young men and women to gain a musical education at the Royal College of Music in London.

“THE MISFORTUNE OF BEING RICH MEN’S SONS”

“I should like to cause you to say some other important things for young men to learn and benefit by.”

“Our young partners in the Carnegie company have all won their spurs by _showing that we did not know half as well what was wanted as they did_. Some of them have acted upon occasions with me as if they owned the firm and I was but some airy New Yorker, presuming to _advise upon what I knew very little about_. Well, they are not now interfered with. _They were the true bosses,—the very men we were looking for._”

“Is this all for the poor boy?”

“Every word. Those who have the misfortune to be rich men’s sons are heavily weighted in the race. A basketful of bonds is the heaviest basket a young man ever had to carry. He generally gets to staggering under it. The vast majority of rich men’s sons are unable to resist the temptations to which wealth subjects them, and they sink to unworthy lives. It is not from this class that the poor beginner has rivalry to fear. The partner’s sons will never trouble you much, but look out that some boys poorer, much poorer, than yourselves, whose parents cannot afford to give them any schooling, do not challenge you at the post and pass you at the grand stand. Look out for the boy who has to plunge into work direct from the common school, and begins by sweeping out the office. He is the probable dark horse that will take all the money and win all the applause.”[7]

Footnote 7:

Mr. Carnegie’s recent retirement from business, and the sale of his
vast properties to the Morgan Syndicate, marks a new era in his
remarkable career; and it gives him the more leisure to consider
carefully every dollar he bestows in the series of magnificent
charities that he has inaugurated.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

XVII

Herreshoff, the Yacht Builder

I

THE VOYAGE OF LIFE

Total eclipse; no sun, no moon;
Darkness amid the blaze of noon!—MILTON

AMID the ranks of the blind, we often find men and women of culture and general ability, but we do not look for world-renowned specialists. No one is surprised at a display of enterprise in a “booming” western town, where everybody is “hustling;” but in a place which has once ranked as the third seaport in America, but has seen its maritime glory decline, a man who can establish a marine industry on a higher plane than was ever before known, and attract to his work such world-wide attention as to restore the vanished fame of his town, is no ordinary person. Moreover, if such a man has laid his plans and done his work in the disheartening eclipse of total blindness, he must possess qualities of the highest order.

The office of the Herreshoff Manufacturing Company, at Bristol, Rhode Island, is in a building that formerly belonged to the Burnside Rifle Company. It is substantial, but unpretentious, and is entered by a short stairway on one side. The furniture throughout is also plain, but has been selected with excellent taste, and is suggestive of the most effective adaptation of means to ends in every detail. On the mantel and on the walls are numerous pictures, most of them of vessels, but very few relating directly to any of the great races for the “America’s” cup. The first picture to arrest one’s attention, indeed, is an excellent portrait of the late General Ambrose E. Burnside, who lived in Bristol, and was an intimate friend of John B. Herreshoff.

Previous inquiry had elicited the information that the members of the firm are very busy with various large orders, in addition to the rush of work on Cup Defenders; so it was a very agreeable surprise when I was invited into the tasteful private office, where the blind president sat, having just concluded a short conversation with an attorney.

“LET THE WORK SHOW”

“Well, sir,” said he, rising and grasping my hand cordially, “what do you wish?”

“I realize how very busy you must be, Mr. Herreshoff,” I replied, “and will try to be as brief as possible; but I venture to ask a few minutes of your time, to obtain suggestions and advice from you to young people.”

“But why select me, in particular, as an adviser?”

This was “a poser,” at first, especially when he added, noting my hesitation:—

“We are frequently requested to give interviews in regard to our manufacturing business; but, since as it is the settled policy of our house to do our work just as well as we possibly can and then leave it to speak for itself, we have felt obliged to decline all these requests. It would be repugnant to our sense of propriety to talk in public about our special industry. ‘Let the work show!’ seems to us a good motto.”

THE VOYAGE OF LIFE

“True,” said I. “But the readers of my books may not care to read of cutters or ‘skimming dishes,’ center-boards or fin keels, or copper coils _versus_ steel tubes for boilers. They leave the choice in such matters to you, realizing that you have always proved equal to the situation. What I want now is advice in regard to the race of life,—the voyage in which each youth must be his own captain, but in which the words of others who have successfully sailed the sea before will help to avoid rocks and shoals, and to profit by favoring currents and trade winds. You have been handicapped in an unusual degree, sailing in total darkness and beset by many other difficulties, but have, nevertheless, made a very prosperous voyage. In overcoming such serious obstacles, you must have learned much of the true philosophy of both success and failure, and I think you will be willing to help the young with suggestions drawn from your experience.”

“I always want to help young people, or old people, either, for that matter, if anything I can say will do so. But what can I say?”

A MOTHER’S MIGHTY INFLUENCE

“What do you call the prime requisite of success?”

“I shall have to answer that by a somewhat humorous but very shrewd suggestion of another,—select a good mother. Especially for boys, I consider an intelligent, affectionate but considerate mother an almost indispensable requisite to the highest success. If you would improve the rising generation to the utmost, appeal first to the mothers.”

“In what way?”

“_Above all things else, show them that reasonable self-denial is a thousandfold better for a boy than to have his every wish gratified. Teach them to encourage industry, economy, concentration of attention and purpose, and indomitable persistence._”

“But most mothers try to do this, don’t they?”

“Yes, in a measure; but many of them, perhaps most of them, do not emphasize the matter half enough. A mother may wish to teach all these lessons to her son, but she thinks too much of him, or believes she does, to have him suffer any deprivation, and so indulges him in things which are luxuries for him, under the circumstances, rather than necessaries. Many a boy, born with ordinary intellect, would follow the example of an industrious father, were it not that his mother wishes him to appear as well as any boy in the neighborhood. So, without exactly meaning it, she gets to making a show of her boy, and brings him up with a habit of idling away valuable time, to keep up appearances. The prudent mother, however, sees the folly of this course, and teaches her son to excel in study and work, rather than in vain display. The difference in mothers makes all the difference in the world to children, who like brooks, can be turned very easily in their course of life.”

SELF HELP

“What ranks next in importance?”

“Boys and girls themselves, especially as they grow older, and have a chance to understand what life means, should not only help their parents as a matter of duty, but should learn to help themselves, for their own good. I would not have them forego recreation, a reasonable amount every day, but let them learn the reality and earnestness of existence, and resolve to do the whole work and the very best work of thorough, reliable young men and women.”

WHAT CAREER

“What would you advise as to choosing a career?”

“In that I should be governed largely by the bent of each youth. What he likes to do best of all, that he should do; and he should try to do it better than anyone else. That is legitimate emulation. Let him devote his full energy to his work; with the provision, however, that he needs change or recreation more in proportion as he uses his brain more. The more muscular the work, if not too heavy, the more hours, is a good rule: the more brain work, the fewer hours. Children at school should not be expected to work so long or so hard as if engaged in manual labor. Temperament, too, should be considered. A highly organized, nervous person, like a racehorse, may display intense activity for a short time, but it should be followed by a long period of rest; while the phlegmatic person, like the ox or the draft horse, can go all day without injury.”

EDUCATION

“I believe in education most thoroughly, and think no one can have too much knowledge, if properly digested. But in many of our colleges, I have often thought, not more than one in five is radically improved by the course. Most collegiates waste too much time in frivolity, and somehow there seems to be little restraining power in the college to prevent this. I agree that students should have self-restraint and application themselves, but, in the absence of these, the college should supply more compulsion than is now the rule.”

APPRENTICES

“Do you favor reviving the old apprentice system for would-be mechanics?”

“Only in rare cases. As a rule, we have special machines now that do as perfect work as the market requires; some of them, indeed, better work than can be done by hand. A boy or man can soon learn to tend one of these, when he becomes, for ordinary purposes, a specialist. Very few shops now have apprentices. No rule, however, will apply to all, and it may still be best for one to serve an apprenticeship in a trade in which he wishes to advance beyond any predecessor or competitor.”

PREPARE TO THE UTMOST: THEN DO YOUR BEST

“Is success dependent more upon ability or opportunity?”

“Of course, opportunity is necessary. You couldn’t run a mammoth department store on the desert of Sahara. But, given the possibility, the right man can make his opportunity, and should do so, if it is not at hand, or does not come, after reasonable waiting. Even Napoleon had to wait for his. On the other hand, if there is no ability, none can display itself, and the best opportunity must pass by unimproved. The true way is to first develop your ability to the last ounce, and then you will be ready for your opportunity, when it comes, or to make one, if none offers.”

PRESENT OPPORTUNITIES

“Is the chance for a youth as good as it was twenty-five or fifty years ago?”

“Yes, and no. In any country, as it becomes more thickly populated, the chance for purely individual enterprises is almost sure to diminish. One notices this more as he travels through other and older countries, where, far more than with us, boys follow in the footsteps of their fathers, generation after generation. But for those who are willing to adapt themselves to circumstances, the chance, to-day, at least from a pecuniary standpoint, is better than ever before, for those starting in life. There was doubtless more chance for the individual boat-builder, in the days of King Philip, when each Indian made his own canoe; but there is certainly more profit now for an employee of our firm of boat-builders.”

NATURAL EXECUTIVE ABILITY

“Granted, however, that he can find employment, how do his chances of rising compare with those of your youth?”

“They still depend largely upon the individual. _Some seem to have natural executive ability, and others develop it, while most men never possess it. Those who lack it cannot hope to rise far, and never could._ Jefferson’s idea that all men are created equal is true enough, perhaps, so far as their political rights are concerned, but from the point of view of efficiency in business, it is ridiculous. In any shop of one hundred men, you will find one who is acknowledged, at least tacitly, as the leader, and he sooner or later becomes so in fact. A rich boy may get and hold a place in an office, on account of his wealth or influence; but in the works, merit alone will enable a man to hold a place long.”

THE DEVELOPMENT OF POWER

“But what is his chance of becoming a proprietor?”

“That is smaller, of course, as establishments grow larger and more valuable. It is all bosh for every man to expect to become a Vanderbilt or a Rockefeller, or to be President. But, in the long run, a man will still rise and prosper in almost exact proportion to his real value to the business world. He will rise or fall according to his ability.”

“Can he develop ability?”

“Yes, to a certain extent. As I have said, we are not all alike, and no amount of cultivation will make some minds equal to those of others who have had but little training. But, whether great or small, everyone has some weak point; let him first study to overcome that.”

“How can he do it?”

“The only way I know of is to—do it. But this brings me back to what I told you at first. A good mother will show one how to guard against his weak points. She should study each child and develop his individual character, for character is the true foundation, after all. She should check extravagance and encourage industry and self-respect. My mother is one of the best, and I feel I owe her a debt I can never repay.”

“MY MOTHER”

“Your mother? Why, I thought you had been a boat-builder for half a century! How old is she?”

“She is eighty-eight, and still enjoys good health. If I have one thing more than another to be thankful for, it is her care in childhood and her advice and sympathy through life. How often have I thought of her wisdom when I have seen mothers from Europe (where they were satisfied to be peasants), seek to outshine all their neighbors after they have been in America a few years, and so bring financial ruin to their husbands or even goad them into crime, and curse their children with contempt for honest labor in positions for which they are fitted, and a foolish desire to keep up appearances, even by living beyond their means and by seeking positions they cannot fill properly.”

A BOAT-BUILDER IN YOUTH

“You must have been quite young, when you began to build boats?”

“About thirteen or fourteen years old. You see, my father was an amateur boat-builder, in a small way, and did very good work, but usually not for sale. But I began the work as a business thirty-six years ago, when I was about twenty-two.”

HE WOULD NOT BE DISCOURAGED

“You must have been terribly handicapped by your blindness.”

“It was an obstacle, but I simply would not allow it to discourage me, and did my best, just the same as if I could see. My mother had taught me to think, and so I made thought and memory take the place of eyes. I acquired a kind of habit of mental projection which has enabled me to see models in my mind, as it were, and to consider their good and bad points intelligently. Besides, I cultivated my powers of observation to the utmost, in other respects. Even now, I take an occasional trip of observation, for I like to see what others are doing, and so keep abreast of the progress of the age. But I must stop or I shall get to ‘talking shop,’ the thing I declined to do at first.

THE SUM OF IT ALL

“The main thing for a boy is to have a good mother, to heed her advice, to do his best, and not get a ‘swelled head’ as he rises,—in other words, not to expect to put a gallon into a pint cup, or a bushel into a peck measure. Concentration, decision, industry and economy should be his watchwords, and invincible determination and persistence his rule of action.”

With another cordial handshake, he bade me good-by.

II

WHAT THE HERRESHOFF BROTHERS HAVE BEEN DOING

Their recent Cup Defenders have made their names familiar to all, but shipping circles have long known them. The business of the firm was long confined almost wholly to the creation of boats with single masts, each craft from twenty to thirty-six feet long. In their first ten years of associated work, they built nearly two thousand of these. But they were wonderful little boats, and of unrivaled swiftness. Then they made as wonderful a success in building steam fishing yachts. Then came torpedo boats.

_The race between the “Vigilant” and the “Valkyrie.”_
(_The “Vigilant,” Herreshoff boat, the winner._)]

And in 1881 their proposal to the British government to build two vedette boats was accepted on condition they should outmatch the work of White, the naval launch builder at Cowes. No firm had ever been able to compete with White. But in the following July the two Herreshoff boats were in the Portsmouth dockyard, England, ready for trial. They were each forty-eight feet long, nine feet in beam, and five feet deep, exactly the same size as White’s. They made fifteen and one-half knots an hour, while White’s only recorded twelve and two-fifths knots. “With all their machinery coal and water in place, the Herreshoff boats were filled with water, and then twenty men were put aboard each, that human load being just so much in excess the admiralty test, and even then each had a floating capacity of three tons. The examiners pronounced enthusiastically in favor of the Herreshoff safety coil boilers as unexplodable, less liable to injury from shock, capable of raising steam more quickly, far lighter, and in all respects superior to those that had been formerly used for the purpose.” The boats were accepted, and orders given at once for two pinnaces, each thirty-three feet long. Again John Samuel White competed, but his new boats could only make seven and one-eighth knots, while the Herreshoff’s easily scored nine and one-quarter.

RACING JAY GOULD

In July, 1883, Jay Gould was highly elated over the speed of his beautiful steam yacht “Atalanta,” which had several times met and distanced Edward S. Jaffray’s wonderful “Stranger;” but, on the twentieth of that month, his happiness, as the story is told, was very suddenly dashed.

After a hard day’s work, the jaded Jay boarded the “Atalanta” and began to shake out his pin-feathers a little, figuratively speaking. But before his boat had gone far on her run to Irvington, the bold manipulator of Wall Street made out a craft on his weather-quarter that seemed to be gliding after the “Atalanta” with intent to overhaul her. He had a good start, however, and sang out to the captain to keep a sharp eye on the persistent little stranger, so unlike the “Stranger” he had vanquished.

“I wonder what it is!” he exclaimed to a friend beside him.

The friend looked long and carefully at the oncoming boat, then turned a quizzical eye on Jay, remarking:—

“In a little while we can tell.”

“Will she get that close?”

“I think she will.”

It was not long before the strange boat was abreast of the “Atalanta,” and Jay was then able to make out the mystical number “100” on her. He rubbed his eyes. Those were the very figures he had long hoped to see on the stock ticker, after the words “Western Union,” but that day they had lost their charm. Before long he was not only able to see the broadside of the “100,” but also had a good view of the stern of the vessel, whereon the same figures soon appeared and nearly as soon disappeared, as the “100” bade good-by to the “Atalanta,” which was burning every pound of coal that could possibly be carried without putting Mr. Gould or some efficient substitute on the safety valve.

“He seems to be out of humor to-night,” said his coachman, after leaving his employer at the door of his Irvington mansion.

The mystic “100” which, by the way, was just one hundred feet over all, was merely the hundredth steamer built by the Herreshoffs, but on her first trip up the Hudson she attracted as much attention as the “Half Moon” of Henry Hudson or the “Clermont” of Robert Fulton. She was the fastest yacht in the world, and was beaten on the river by only one vessel, the “Mary Powell”—four and one-half minutes in twenty miles.

Although Mr. Gould was considerably irritated at his defeat, he knew a good thing when he saw it, and the next year he ordered a small steam launch of the Herreshoffs.

The “100” made a great stir in Boston Harbor. Later on she steamed through the Erie canal and the Great Lakes, and made her home with the millionaire Mark Hopkins.

THE “STILETTO”

The versatility of the Herreshoffs has appeared in their famous boiler improvement, and in the great variety of vessels they have built. The “Stiletto” only ninety-four feet long, over all, astonished the yachting world in 1885. On June 10, she beat the “Mary Powell” two miles in a race of twenty-eight miles on the Hudson. At one time, the “Stiletto” circled completely around the big steamer and then moved rapidly away from her.

Secretary Whitney bought the “Stiletto” for the United States navy, in which she has done valuable service. She was followed, in 1890, by the still faster “Cushing,” whose record in the recent Spanish-American war is so well known.

Admiral Porter wrote to Secretary of the Navy Chandler, that the little Herreshoff steam launches were faster than any other owned by the government, their great superiority showing especially against a strong head wind and sea, when they would remain dry while their rivals required constant bailing. They were better trimmed, lighter, more buoyant, and in every way superior in nautical qualities, and twice as fast as others in a gale.

Nineteen vessels have been built by this firm for the United States government.

“There is a certain speed that attaches to every vessel, which may be called its natural rate,” says Lewis Herreshoff; “it is mainly governed by its length and the length of the carrier wave which always accompanies a vessel parallel to her line of motion. When she reaches a speed great enough to form a wave of the same length as the moving body, then that vessel has reached her natural rate of speed, and all that can be obtained above that is done by sheer brute force. The natural limit of speed of a boat forty feet long is about ten miles an hour; of a vessel sixty feet in length, twelve and one-quarter miles; of one a hundred feet long, fifteen and three-fourths miles; of one two hundred feet long, twenty-two miles.”

As the speed is increased, this double or carrier wave, one-half on either side of the yacht, lengthens in such a way that the vessel seems to settle more the faster she goes, and so has to climb the very wave she makes. Hence the motive power must be increased much faster than the speed increases. Further, in order to avoid this settling and consequent climbing as much as possible, lightness of construction, next to correct proportions, is made the great desideratum in the Herreshoffs’ ideal boat. They use wood wherever possible, as it is not only lighter than metal, but is reasonably strong and generally much more durable. Wherever heavy strains come, a bracing form of construction is adopted, and metal is used also.

The engine of the “Stiletto” weighs ten pounds for each indicated horse-power; that of the “Cushing,” fifteen. The entire motive plant of the “Cushing” weighs sixty-five pounds for each horse-power; that of the “City of Paris,” two hundred. Comparing displacement, the former has eight times the power of the latter.

For four years our government kept a staff of officers stationed at the Herreshoff works to experiment with high-speed machinery, in which the firm then led the country. One of their steamers, ascending the St. Lawrence River to the Thousand Islands, ran up all the rapids except the Lachine, where a detour by canal was made. The Canadians were deeply impressed by this triumph.

THE BLIND BROTHERS

One of the Herreshoff sisters is blind and a remarkable musician; and one brother blind who studied music in Berlin, and who conducts a school of music in Providence. Lewis Herreshoff, one of the boat-builders, is also blind. He, too, is a fine musician and an excellent bass singer, having received careful vocal training in Europe. He has fine literary taste, a very clear style, and writes for magazines, especially on boat-building and engineering. He has a large foreign correspondence, all of which he answers personally on the typewriter. It would be difficult to find a greater favorite with young people, to whom he devotes much of his time, teaching them games or lessons, also how to sail or row a boat, how to swim or float, and how to save each other from drowning. When walking along the street with a group of chatting children, he will ask, “What time is it by the clock on St. Michael’s Church?” pointing right at the steeple. He will wind a clock and set it exactly, and regulate it, if it does not go right.

THE PERSONALITY OF JOHN B. HERRESHOFF

From his boyhood, John B. Herreshoff evinced a great fondness for boats and machinery, finding most pleasure, in his leisure hours, when boys of his age usually think only of play, in haunting boat-builders’ yards and machine shops, studying how and why things were done, and reading what had been done elsewhere in those branches of industry, beyond his field of observation.

At the age of eleven, he was studying the best lines for vessels’ hulls and making models and three years later he began building boats.

His terrible affliction has never seemed to weaken his self-reliance or turn him aside from following the chosen pursuit of his life, but has rather strengthened his devotion to it and his capacity for it by concentrating all his faculties upon it.

His many years of blindness have given him not only the serious, patient, introspective look common to those who suffer like him, and their gentle, clearly modulated voice, but have also developed all his other faculties to such an extent as to largely replace the missing sense.

He can tell as much about an ordinary-sized steam launch, her lines, methods of construction, etc., by feeling, as others can by seeing, and he goes on inventing and building just as if his eyes were not closed forever. He is a tall, big-brained man, who couldn’t help inventing and working if he tried. Such a man would have to suffer the loss of more than one of his senses before his mental efficiency would be impaired. When he wanted to build some steam launches for the government, he went to the navy yard at Washington and felt of the government launches, to discover their shape and how they were made. Then he went to Bristol and made better launches suitable for the government’s use.

HAS HE A SIXTH SENSE?

He reads and understands the most delicate intonations and modulations of voices addressing him, as others read and understand facial expression. His sensitive fingers detect differences in metals, and follow, as if with a gift of perception, the lines of models submitted to him, and his mind sees even more clearly than by mere physical sight the intricacies of the most complicated machinery intelligently described to him, or over which his fingers are allowed to move. “That is a good stick,” he will say, examining a pile of lumber with his fingers. “Here’s a shaky piece, throw it out; it won’t do for this work,” may come next, or, “Saw off this end; it’s poor stock. The rest is all right.” On hearing him criticize, direct, and explain things within his province, a stranger finds it hard to believe he cannot see at least a little,—out of one eye.

SEEING WITH THE FINGERS

By the constant practice, he has, as he expresses it, learned to see with his hands, not quite so quickly, but he believes as perfectly, as he could with his eyes, and this means more than it does in the case of an ordinary blind man; for, by a touch, he can tell whether the graceful double curves of a boat’s bottom are in correct proportion, one with another, and then, by a few rapid sweeps of his hands, over all, he can instantly judge of the symmetry and perfection of the whole. Even more than this, he will give minute directions to the carpenters and mechanics, running his hand along the piece of work one had produced, will immediately detect the slightest deviation from the instruction he has given. If at all impatient, he will seize the plane or other tool, and do the work himself. And yet the world calls this man “blind!”

While skill plays a material part, one of John B. Herreshoff’s boats is a product of the mind, in a very great degree. Psychologists tell us that we do not see with our eyes, but with the brain proper. This blind man sees, and constructs, not that which is objective and real to others, but that which is evolved from a transcendental intelligence applied to the most practical purposes.

BROTHER NAT

One of the brothers, who has good eyes, is a prominent chemist in New York; and one who can see is Nat the designer for the boat-building.

Nathaniel G., the great yacht designer, was born in 1848. When he was not more than two years old, he was often found asleep on the sand along shore, with the rising tide washing his bare feet. Whenever he was missing, he was sought for first on the shore, where he would generally be found watching the ships or playing with toy boats.

At nine years of age, he was an excellent helmsman, and at twelve he sailed the “Sprite” to her first victory and won a prize. When older grown, he was known as a vigilant watcher of every chance as well as a skillful sailor. Once, when steering the “Ianthe” in a failing wind, he veered widely from a crowd of contestants, so as to run into a good breeze he noted far to starboard, and won the race.

He took a four years’ course at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and then served an apprenticeship with the famous Corliss Engine Company. He worked on the great engine at the Centennial Exposition, and took a course of engineering abroad, visiting many noted shipyards. He joined the firm in 1877, fourteen years after the works were opened.

Nathaniel Greene Herreshoff, named for General Greene of Revolutionary fame, is seven years younger, and only less famous than his blind brother as a boat-builder,—only second to John B. in about the same way that Greene was second to Washington. “General Greene is second to no one,” said Washington. John B. would have done splendid work without Nat as he did for years before the latter joined the firm, but it would have been in a smaller way.

For years John B., his father, and his brothers, James B. or Lewis, and Nathaniel G., were accustomed to get together frequently in the dining-room of the old homestead, and talk and plan together in regard to boat-building. Nat would usually make the first model on lines previously agreed upon, and then John B. would feel it over and suggest changes, which would be made, and the consultation continued until all was satisfactory.

Nathaniel is described as “a tall, thin man, with a full beard and a stoop,” the latter said to have been acquired in “watching his rivals in his races, craning his head in order to see them from under the boom.”

“We have been always together from boyhood,” said John B., speaking of “Nat;” “we have had the same pleasures, the same purposes, the same aspirations; in fact, we have almost been one, and we have achieved nothing for which a full share of credit is not his just due. Nothing has ever been done by one without the other. Whenever one found an obstacle or difficulty, the other helped him to remove it; and he, being without the disadvantage I have, never makes a mistake.”

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XVIII

A Successful Novelist: Fame After Fifty[8]

Practical Hints to Young Authors,

BY MRS. AMELIA E. BARR

TO be successful! That is the legitimate ideal every true worker seeks to realize. But success is not the open secret which it appears to be; its elements are often uncomprehended; and its roots generally go deep down, into the very beginnings of life. I can compel my soul to look back into that twilight which shrouds my earliest years, and perceive, even in them, monitions and tendencies working for that future, which in my destiny was fashioned and shaped when as yet there was neither hint nor dream of it. Fortunately, I had parents who understood the

VALUE OF BIBLICAL AND IMAGINATIVE LITERATURE

in the formation of the intellect. The men and women whom I knew first and best were those of the Hebrew world. Sitting before the nursery fire, while the snow fell softly and ceaselessly, and all the mountains round were white, and the streets of the little English town choked with drifts, I could see the camels and the caravans of the Ishmaelitish merchants, passing through the hot, sandy desert. I could see Hagar weeping under the palm, and the waters of the Red Sea standing up like a wall. Miriam clashing the timbrels, and Deborah singing under the oak, and Ruth gleaning in the wheatfields of Bethlehem, were as real to me as were the women of my own home. Before I was six years old, I had been with Christian to the Celestial City, and had watched, with Crusoe, the mysterious footprint on the sand, and the advent of the savages. Then came the wonders of afrites and genii, and all the marvels and miracles of the Arabian tales. These were the mind-builders, and though schools and teachers and text-books did much afterwards, I can never nor will forget the glorious company of men and women from the sacred world, and that marvelous company of caliphs and kings and princesses from Wonder Land and Fairy Land, that expanded my whole nature, and fitted me for the future miracles of Nature and Science, and all the marvelous people of the Poet’s realm.

Footnote 8:

This is a most remarkable story, communicated to me by Mrs. Barr, and
related for the first time in this article. The distinguished
novelist, being a perfect housekeeper and the mother of a large
family, yet earns $20,000 a year by her books, which have been
translated into the language of almost every civilized country.—O. S.
M.