Martin B. Madden, public servant

Preface

DURING the height of the excursion season, eighteen months ago, there were assembled, one evening, in the lounging room of Sap Francisco's principal hotel, a score of travelers, each from a different distant part of the world. They were all engaged in the same conversation. This had centered on the topic of the Pacific coast's great opportunities in Oriental trade. The traveler whose authority seemed most acceptable to all the others, in reply to a question, said: 44 President Lincoln selected the site on this coast where the greatest city should be built. He caused it to be surveyed and laid out. The place is opposite Victoria, British Columbia, on the southern side of the great strait leading from the ocean to Puget sound. It is called Port Angeles. It has every advantage needed for the making of a metropolis. The harbor is the nearest in the United States to Asia, is immense in capacity and the most accessible on this coast to transcontinental railways. It is extraordinary that a man from Illinois should have been able to foresee the value of that location. No less marvelous is it that the same state possesses to-day the best city-building talent anywhere assembled in the world. The greatest municipal accomplishment of modern times is the construction of the city of Chicago within about one generation. The next was by the same men who did that and was the

6 PREFACE

creation of the White City at the Columbian Fair. New York grew. Chicago was builded. I could name twenty men now doing business in that city who could, if they would undertake to do it, make Angeles the greatest port in the world and one of the greatest cities. They would do the work in a few years, too. These Chicagoans are constructors, city builders, by nature. There are no other men in their class. "

Asked for their names, the traveler gave them, accompanying each with a brief oral sketch, and then continued: "The city made by these builders has already the best press in America, the greatest book-buying community, the most advanced school system, and the most democratic population. Its business men are at the same time the most enterprising and the most conservative ; its labor the most intelligent and the most reasonable; its bankers the most liberal and the most careful. If the biographies of the men who have made Chicago should be properly written, the literature would do more than all other essays to allay the growing discontent of the poor. These lives would perfectly exhibit the fact that in a country like this poverty is often the result of the lack of managerial talent and seldom caused by the success of the rich.

"They would clearly display this other truth — that the prosperous American, as a rule, in his business creates new wealth and adds it to the stock already in existence, taking from it only a fair share for his labor of production, letting the rest go into general distribution. It would be valuable beyond calculation to have the unprosperous convinced that the prosperous have not thrived at the expense of the poor; that wealth is generally obtained

PREFACE 7

by creative hard work of a kind few can do, and that the doing of this work, instead of resulting in appropriation, really increases distribution. Write well the story of Chicago's money-makers and you will help the poor."

When one of the twelve was asked for the facts in his history, he replied: ik My history? There it is, in that row of records. They contain everything recorded about me. Take them. You will find the whole truth, but much more condemnation than commendation." Chicago. July, igoi.

Contents

CHAPTER. PACE.

I. An Illinois Pioneers Boy — The Patriotic Cousins

Going to School — The American Temptation to

CHAPTER I. AN ILLINOIS PIOl BOY— THE PATRIOTIC COUSINS— GOING TO

WOOL— THE AMERICAN TEMPTATION TO WORK.

»» ARTIX BARNABY MADDEN was born in Dar- /T 1 lington, England, on the 20th day of March, A. D., 1855. His father, John Madden, was a plain man, of the agricultural class. His mother was Eliza O'Neil, of the ancient ruling family. Her father was a classical scholar of renown. He had been professor of Latin and Greek at a Dublin university, and afterwards in one of the schools in Paris, France. Mrs. O'Xeil Madden was a woman of uncommon mental gifts and strength of character. She was domestic in taste and disposition and fond of learning.

Some time before the birth of Martin, his uncle, Peter Warden, the husband of Mrs. Madden's sister, and a man of considerable importance, had moved into the northern part of Illinois, then the most attractive part of the United States for immigrants. Mr. Warden was a native of Pennsylvania and of Dutch-Huguenot ancestry. He was a well-educated man and had for a time taught school before moving west. He at first settled in the territory now Chicago, afterwards locating in Lemont, at present a metropolitan suburb. The Wardens prospered from the first.

In Mrs. Warden's correspondence with her sister she convinced her and her husband that the West, as minors was then known, was the best place in the world for the rearing of children possessing qualities for the creation of careers.

The Maddens landed in Boston in i860, when Martin was four years old, and at once went to Lemont, where* they took up a farm. Help was scarce in the West, then, . and few farmers could successfully manage agricultural land there unless they had boys of their own able to work. His children being small, John Madden did not become affluent at farming. As both boys and girls of working age were more valuable as farm help than they could be at any other occupation among the Illinois pioneers, it was almost impossible to secure attendance at any but the primary schools. The public educational system was beginning to extend over the West, and when the little red school-house made its advent in Lemont its good offices, for a long time, were confined to the younger children.

The Wardens, with more and larger boys, fared better than did the Maddens. Peter Warden became a citizen of influ^fece and means, and widely known. He was soon a leader. He was one of the men who established the first Baptist church organized in Chicago. Of this he was elected the first clerk, the most important and influential position a man could have in the community, next to that occupied by the preacher. One of his sons was the fourth white male child born in the city.

Mrs. Madden and Mrs. Warden, as well as their husbands, were of patriotic texture, and became intensely interested in the country. The Wardens had become absorbed in the slavery agitation, as it had been carried on by Stephen A. Douglas and Abraham Lincoln, and the Maddens had not long been residents of Illinois when they were as thoroughly American as their elder relatives who had induced them to become citizens. When the War of the Rebellion began, in 1861, Mrs. Warden had seven sons grown up. She sent six of them as soldiers on the Union side. To spare one son was a serious sacrifice, in a country where every man was so valuable; to send six out of seven was heroic. These people loved their country. They would have given to Lincoln's work everything they had, without the least hesitation. These six sons served all through the war. John Warden, one of them, was one of the 200 soldiers who volunteered to lead the called-for char r the ramparts of Vicksburg, during the Federal siege of that city. Every man of these 200 was wounded in that terrible task, and but nine returned from it alive. John was one of the nine. He was shot through both knees. So extraordinary was the heroism put forth by these intrepid men, that Congress declared a national vote of thanks to them and ordered a special medal to be struck, and presented for each. When John Warden finally, in 1893, received the Government's notice that his medal was awaiting him, the information was sent by President Cleveland. Warden refused to take the decoration from his hands because, as a soldier, he thought the President's conduct in the treatment of deserving pensioners was unfair and unjust. It was with difficulty that the soldier's cousin, then Alderman, prevailed upon him to accept the nation's gift and treasure it for what it meant.

At six years of age, Martin was sent to the public school. He attended it until he was ten. At that time the great value of the stone, now everywhere celebrated as the Athens limestone, underlying all the Lemont region, was beginning to attract general attention for building, paving and curbing purposes. Capital was hurried into the country for quarry development, the new town of Chicago's growth furnishing the demand and market. Labor was scarce and at a premium. Inducements were held out to boys to go to work in the quarries that were being opened up all over the neighborhood. It made Martin restive to see other lads easily acquiring by light work the cash that made them independent and important or useful in the region where trade had been nearly all barter, and where money had for a long time been so scarce that only big men could occasionally get any. The world was changing in his young eyes, and the desire to get his hand in became irresistible. He begged his parents to permit him to take advantage of the many opportunities lying all about. He was tall, healthy, and strong. He was, however, such a bright and promising scholar that both his parents had mapped out for him a career of learning, and he met with a stout resistance. The management of the children was in the mother's province, and the boy pointed out to her that the recently opened night school was better equipped with teachers than the one conducted during the day; that he could learn more at it; that what he would have to do if he went to work would be like playing for pay to a boy of his strength and activity, and that for this recreation he could bring into the family exchequer every week almost as much good hard money as his father would get by the barter of farming; "and then, mother, don't you see, I'll be earning more and father needn't work so much." The lad attacked his mother on her vulnerable side. She yielded, thinking a boy of his age would soon change his mind, and the experiment would do him no harm. In fact, it might cure him of the craze that was afflicting all his comrades, and steady him in the pursuit of knowledge. The boy knew, what his mother did not suspect he perceived, that his help was really needed and would greatly aid his father in the support of the family. He was permitted to seek work, but was to submit whatever proposition he got, before accepting it, to his mother for her approval. She knew he was perfectly truthful g.nd reliable. So when he soon afterward reported that the Superintendent of the Lemont Stone Company had offered him the job of carrying water to the men engaged in its quarry

rk, the mother could not at first comprehend the situation. There was no boy so young as her son hired in any of the stone works; and at the Lemont there were many scores of men employed. How could a lad like Martin supply them with water?

"It was like this," said the Superintendent. "He made us a proposition."

"A proposition ! Absurd. How could a boy like that make you a business proposition:" Why, he is hardly ten years old. "

"All the same, he did. He's more than ten up here" (tapping his forehead). "Says he, 'Can you give me something to do in the quarry?' 'And what can a little boy like you do in a stone quarry?' says 1. And says he, •Anything.' And then says he, 'What do you pay the men?' Tickled at that, I says, 'Two dollars a day each.' And he says, 'They have to go a long way to drink. And they all go. I've watched them. I could carry the water to them for less than two dollars a day.' Labor is scarce and we've got to pay high for it. It didn't take me long to figure out that what was in the lad's head was right. The time lost by the men going to and from the pumps makes up more in wages than the boy would save it for. So we've made a new job for the boy. We're going to make him water-carrier. There's money in it for both of us. "

The three dollars a week offered Martin was less than his work would save the company in a day, and when his mother twitted him with not getting a larger part of the saving for accomplishing all of it, he said he didn't think the company would hire him unless they made by it, and, besides, any other boy could do the same thing. ' ' Yes, ' ' laughed his mother ; * * if he would think of it. ' ' 4 'But the company would think of it," replied Martin.

Chapter II

THE WATER CARRIER UK LE MONT— AT NIGHT SCHOOL— STUDIES AND LAW— CHOOSES STONE.

THE maternal consent could not now be withheld, and Martin Barnabv Madden began his career. His judgment about the night school and the nature of the work lie was employed to do were both correct. The night school had better teachers than those working among the day attendants, because the pupils were older and more capable. Among these young Madden made better progress in his studies than he possibly could have achieved in the more juvenile classes. The water-carrying for a long time was as easy as playing ball. The quarries grew, however, and then the business got to be a little more serious. Martin regarded his occupation alw important. The more he became acquainted

with the quarrymen and the nature of the hard labor they performed for their wages, the more thought and care he bestowed upon his task. He never had to be called; he was always at his post. He never thought of saving himself steps by dealing out tepid drink to the hard-working men. He busied himself keeping cold, fresh water ready at all times. When the number of quarrymen grew to the point of taxation upon his energy, he established convenient stations and kept the receptacles at all of them full of newly-brought fresh cold beverage. He was for years after he had passed on from this work 2 IT

18 MARTiN £J. MADDEN

referred to as the best water-carrier ever known in Lemont.

A boy who did his work in that way was bound to attract the attention not only of the men, but of his employers as well. In addition to anticipating and being ever ready to cater to the thirst of the former, the vessels he used were not permitted to be unduly exposed, but were kept clean, bright and under shelter, and every evening carefully housed. He found time to move various tools, within his ability to handle, about to save the tired employes running after them. He made himself so useful in this respect, and often grouped implements so advantageously for emergencies, that the Superintendent one day created another new office for him, at increased wages — that of tool custodian.

This was quite a rise for a boy of his age, and stimulated his pride and love for order. In his new position he began to display executive talent. As water-carrier he had become familiar with the different localities in the quarries. Now, he began to observe the differences in the trend of the stratifications and to note the variations in the quality of the stone. The workmen all liked him and answered his queries with geological information that never fell on barren ground. In time it was found that not only were the tools well kept and well disposed, but they were often located with considerable scientific insight into the nature of the anticipated work. It was manifest that the lad was getting interested in the working of stone. His providence in the distribution of the implements, his foresight in the conduct of his task, became proverbial as one of the striking economies of the quarry. Every man engaged by the company grew interested in the boy. The workmen saw that the higher he rose in the company's employ, the better their welfare was provided for. The overseers realized that the more responsible the lad was made the better the condition of the property and the more satisfactory the results. It came about, therefore, that although young Madden never asked a favor of anybody, but attended strictly to what he had to do on his own volition always, every one in the business was interested in pushing him up.

He became a sort of institution in the quarry, which was now fast growing into a great Chicago industry. Fondness for the work was developing in him. He loved to watch the skillful extraction of the stone from the layers formed by nature ; to see it fashioned afterwards for the builders, and then follow it into the final place in structures. He studied nature's process and man's realizations from it, and grew to regard the stone-handler's work as one of the noblest employments of men. From the dust, or the gravel, or the animal deposits, to the finished occupied building was, to his young mind, a providential arrangement all planned ages ago and now carried out as originally conceived. He was witnessing the final process of the evolution and having a small hand in it. It exhilarated him, made him love the work, and was fast attracting his whole life into it. He was interested during the day; when he went home explained it all to his listening mother and father; he thought of it while at his evening school; and next morning was in a hurry to be first at the works, solicitous not to miss anything that might transpire. As he kept at the head of his class his parents as yet saw no occasion to fear for his education. His father was proud of him, and crowded all the information he could pack into the inquisitive conferences the lad brought on at all the family meetings.

At fourteen years of age, Martin was appointed time-keeper at the quarries. That was a phenomenal appointment for one so young. It made him the talk of the whole district. To be trusted by the company to look after its interests in seeing that it got the receipt of all the time it paid for from several hundred employes, was a distinction no boy of that age had ever before attained anywhere, so far as known, in Illinois. It made the Madden lad a public character. Boys who still fished and hunted birds pointed to him with pride as an acquaintance, and youngsters who did not dare to claim fellowship looked upon him with awe. His employers were certain he would not permit them to be cheated and the men knew he would be fair to them. Both sides would take his decision any time.

He was now earning more money in cash than his father's farming realized, and the question of education had to be settled. The parents admitted that Martin's evening studies and his constant questionings had enabled him to acquire more knowledge of real value than they, or anyone within their acquaintance, had had at fourteen years of age. Of course, the son could not speak or write either Greek or Latin as his grandfather could; but he was proficient in English and in mathematics and several other branches. Then most of the knowledge concealed in the Greek and Roman languages Martin had drawn out of the scholars in the locality without having had to learn the scripts, and the lad said : 44 Father, they have given it to me in better shape than I could have quarried it out of the original myself."

The mother's good, hard, practical sense, inherited from sturdy ancestors and cultivated in the severe task of maternal management, cropped out in the youth. He contended that his work was not wearying and that he would continue to attend night schools of higher grades, and depend upon his parents to keep him right in his reading and to help him prevent waste in pursuing his studies. The policy, once outlined, was carefully adhered to. The time-keeper added book-keeping, mechanical drawing, the higher mathematics and history to his studies, with special instructors. He rapidly became proficient and soon was promoted to the mechanical drafting corps of the company. In this body his economical devices were so many and valuable that he rose to the head of the staff, and at eighteen years he was the official chief. He was now attending the evening sessions of the principal commercial college in Chicago. He graduated at the head of his class, and was made Chief General Accountant and then Paymaster for the company, which now was employing about 900 men.

While attending the Lemont night schools Madden's memory attracted general attention and became an object of wonder. At one time when he was in the higher classes he was able upon demand to give the boundaries of every country, state and territory in the world; to name the capital of every state and nation; and to locate every known navigable stream, its source and mouth, state its length, and describe it direction. He could remember all things equally well and never forgot anything he noticed. He never "memorized," and seemed absolved from all necessity of doing it. Whatever reached his mind in any way was retained there and ever after was instantly available. This prodigious faculty of absorbing, retaining and reproducing explains his remarkable progress in acquiring as well as his skill in using knowledge. He was very fond of debating and public speaking, and in both was so decidedly the superior of any other youth in or about Lemont as to be without rivalry. It was noticed that in the declaiming feats, then the fashion among schoolboys in northern Illinois, other lads were always more or less constrained in their efforts because of the apparent labor of their memories, while Madden's speech seemed spontaneous and from abundance. In after life, when he was old enough to explain mental operations, he attributed this difference to the fact that they, having committed to memory the amount of speech they were to deliver, when upon their feet were visibly engaged in the effort of adhering to their limits; while he, having more to say than he had time to utter, was really engaged in the work of extemporaneous selection. This difference in the mental work gave his orations more natural action and appearance than could accompany mere feats of remembrance.

During this period it was decided by the local authorities to provide increased school room for the rapidly enlarging classes. Plans for a new building were under consideration when young Madden suggested to the Directors that an addition to the one in use could be devised that would answer requirements for several years to come. The officials were amazed at what they thought was audacity on the part of the youth, and in a pleasant taunter replied that they would like to see a plan of such an addition. The boy sat down at once and in their presence drew what was asked, with specifications complete. It was a revelation to the officials and answered all purposes so completely that it was at once accepted. The addition was constructed in strict accordance with the boy's draughting, and the school building so enlarged met the needs of that locality for a long time. The Directors, after accepting the plans, laughingly asked their author to send in a bill for ''professional services." He put his figure at $50. "Why, it didn't take you more than half an hour to make your drawings," said one of the Board. "But it took me many months to learn how," was the response. The fee was cheerfully paid and the incident became one of the legends of Lemont. The building was afterwards called "Madden's School House," and was pointed out to visitors as one of the features of the district.

At twenty-one years of age, Madden's proficiency was so great that he was placed in full charge of the stone work on the new county building in the city of Chicago, all of which was furnished by the company he was working for. The building is one of the most elaborate, massive and highly ornamental stone structures in the world, everywhere among architects regafded as a model. Unfortunately, it has never been completed according to the original design, and the ground upon which it is piled has proven uneven in supporting power. Every stone in the building was quarried under the personal supervision of young Madden. He drafted the design for every one as it was to appear in the building, marked it for the place it was to occupy, personally supervised its cutting, its trial, its transportation, and its final setting in place, besides keeping time on the production of each piece, its moving and its placing. He remained with this work until it was completed and labored on an average from 6 a. m. until 9 p. m. every day. That was in 1876, and he had but passed his youth.

Between his eighteenth and his twenty-second years, among his other studies he pursued that of law. He graduated from the law school and passed his examination for admission to the bar early in the year after attaining his majority, being one of the twelve that got through the ordeal that year. He had for a long time been ambitious to be a lawyer. Now that he had the right to practice, many brilliant offers were made to him. He took the matter under contemplation. He now had many people depending upon him. His salary was $200 per month. If he remained in the stone business he was assured of $3,000 a year immediately, with a prospect of soon getting $6,000. The best offer he could depend upon in the practice of law would not at once yield him a certainty of more than $1,500 per annum, with the future problematical. He decided to remain in the business he had been working at for twelve years and retain the large and valuable clientage he was certain of therein.

The company for which he was now working was known as the Enterprise Stone Company. It had been evolved from several smaller concerns engaged in quarrying the Athens stone at Joliet and Lemont and employed over 1,000 men. The Paymaster was soon promoted to the office of Superintendent. In that position he got out of the quarries all his employers paid for and placed it in the market with such expedition that there was the least possible loss on the way. He remained Superintendent until 1881.

On the 16th of May, 1878, two months after passing the twenty-third anniversary of his birth, Martin B. Madden took the most important step of a good man's life: he married. The union was one of perfect natural selection, the result of a long acquaintance. The bride was Miss Josephine Smart, of Downer's Grove, Du Page county, Illinois. Her grandparents on both sides had emigrated from England to New York when her father, Elijah Smart, was six years of age and her mother, Eliza Fell, six months. When Elijah Smart married he and his young wife started wes They journeyed in a

wagon all the way from Cattaraugus county, N. Y. , where they were reared, to Illinois and located at Downer's Grove. Here their daughter Josephine was born. At an early age she exhibited literary and musical talent of a high order, and her parents had her carefully educated. She attended Wheaton College and then pursued and finished her studies at Northwestern University. At the time of her marriage Miss Smart, because of her accomplishments and graces of person, was one of the greatest social favorites in northern Illinois. She had no superior among her sex in the entire West in either musical skill or developed talent in literary composition, prose and poetical. She might easily have reached any place before the public within a woman's ambition. Love of home, however, predominated in her disposition. After marriage she devoted her all talents to the woman's side of family and domestic life, and so became absolutely the partner of her husband. Heaven has entrusted these two with a daughter, now in her fifteenth year.

A short time after Mr. Madden 's marriage some neighbors were discussing with his mother the departure of her son from home and the probabilities of his career. His history was recounted and compared with that of many men then prominent in affairs, and the conviction was expressed that he would be " heard from." It was this conversation that drew from Mrs. Madden the remarkable statement so often quoted :

"I have raised a son who will not lie, nor take anything that does not belong to him, nor own anything that he has not paid for in full. He will not say anything against his neighbor, even if that neighbor be his enemy. He will not go into debt for himself. He will live on less than he earns and ever have money on hand to help himself and his friends along. He will all his days do for his employers more than he may be paid to do. He has a fine mind, a good tongue and a clean soul, and he will keep them that way as long as he lives, I know. He cannot easily be deceived, can take care of himself, and will never deserve any shame. He will rise from the time he left home and will not fall until he dies, and he will always stand up tall and straight among his fellow men. I am satisfied altogether with him and proud of what I have done in rearing him. The greatest statesman can do no more for the country than I have done in giving Martin to it — God bless them both."