Little visits with great Americans

Preface

"Experience," says the proverb, "is a dear school, and none but fools learn therein." The inference is that to be wise one must suffer himself to be taught by the experience of others. This volume contains the life stories, told by themselves, of many successful men and women, with emphasis on those experiences which to them appear to have been the turning points in their lives.

It is not likely that there is anywhere in existence a similar collection of heart-to-heart talks with distinguished people of equal value to this. The idea of requesting the leaders in invention, manufacture, transportation, commerce, finance, in political and public life, and in the professions of the ministry, the law, literature and art, to bequeath in their own words the stories of their lives, their ideals, and the lessons of their experience, to the American public, originated with Orison Swett Harden, and contributed in no small degree to the immediate and remarkable popularity of Success, in which many of these interviews first appeared. The early files of the magazine are long since exhausted, but the interest in, and demand for, these articles is sufficient assurance that they are of enduring merit, and deserve to be collected in permanent form.

Preface

We regard them as a trust. We do not feel that we have a right to withhold them from the public. We have accordingly fulfilled our obligation by presenting them in attractive form, and we are well assured that young and old alike who are striving to attain their ideals in life will recognize the fact that the highest form of self-interest will lead them to read and absorb the practical helpfulness contained in these pages. Many and varied careers have been selected, so that each one may find his ideal of success fulfilled in real life, and be aroused to a lofty aspiration and resolute determination to achieve like eminence. With Emerson we say, "Hitch your wagon to a star." and, with Lowell, "Not failure, but low aim, is crime."

While for the most part the experiences portrayed in this book occurred upon American soil, in several instances persons born or now living abroad, but prominently identified with American life, have been included.

We acknowledge our indebtedness to the publishers of the "Literary Digest," of "Collier's Weekly," of the "American Review of Reviews," and others who kindly loaned valuable photographs for reproduction, and also to members of the Success editorial staff for valuable assistance in the preparation of this volume.

The Publishers.

INVENTION.

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Hard Work, the Secret of a Great Inventor's

Genius — Thomas Alva Edison 17

II. A " Down-East " Yankee Who Dictates Peace

to the Nations — Hiram Stevens Maxim. .. . 35

MANUFACTURE.

III. A Poor Boy Who Once Borrowed Books

Now Gives Away Libraries — Andreiv Carnegie 51

IV. A Good Shoemaker Becomes Detroit's Best

Mayor and ]\Iichigan's Greatest Governor — Hazen S. Pingree 71

COMMERCE.

V. Determination Not to Remain Poor Made a Farmer Boy Merchant Prince — Marshall

Field 80

VI. Honesty the Foundation of a Great Merchant's Career — John Wanamaker 92

VII. A British Boy Wins Fortune and Title by American Business Methods — Sir Thomas Lipton 108

FINANCE.

VIII. A Self-made Man Who Strives to Give Others

a Chance — Darius Ogden Mills 117

IX. Thrift, the Secret of a Fortune Built in a

Single Lifetime — Russell Sage 125

X. Cut Out for a Banker, He Rose from Errand Boy to Secretary of the United States

Treasury — Lyman Judson Gage 131

XL A Young Millionaire Not Afraid to Work in

Overalls — Cornelius Vanderbilt 138

TRANSPORTATION.

CHAPTER PAGE

XII. A Messenger Boy's Zeal Lifts Him to the Head of the World's Greatest Telegraph

System — Robert C. Clozvry 144

XIII. Enthusiasm for Railroading Makes a Section Hand Head of the Metropolitan System — Herbert H. Vrceland 152

XIV. A Factory Boy's Purpose to Improve Labor Makes Him a Great Leader — Samuel Gompers 164

PUBLIC LIFE.

XV. A Puny Boy, by Physical Culture, Becomes the Most Vigorous of American Presidents — Theodore Roosevelt 173

XVI. A Brave Volunteer Fights His Way to the Head of the American Army — Nelson A. Miles 188

XVII. IMaking the Most of His Opportunities Wins

a Coveted Embassy — Joseph H. Choate . . 196 XVIII. A Village Boy's Gift of Oratory Earns Him

Wealth and Fame — Chaunccy M. Depezv... 207

XIX. A Chance-Found Book the Turning Point in a United States Senator's Career — Jonathan P. Dolliver 219

XX. Varied Business Training the Foundation of

a Long Political Career — Thomas C. Piatt. 225

XXI. A Magnate^ the Courage of His Convictions

Makes Him a Reformer — Tom L. Johnson. 234

EDUCATION AND LITERATURE.

XXII. A Backwoods Boy Works His Way Through College and Becomes University President

— Jacob Gould Schiirman 243

XXIII. A "Jack of All Trades" Masters One and Becomes the Poet of the People — James IVhitcomb Riley 252

CHAPTER PAGE

XXIV. A Farm Boy Who Devoured Books Writes One of the Greatest Poems of the Century

XXV. A Famous Authoress Tells Literary Aspirants the Story of Her Struggle for Recognition— £//a Wheeler Wilcox 272

XXVI. A Printer's Boy, Self-Taught, Becomes the Dean of American Letters — William Dean

Howclls .' 283

XXVII. A Famous Novelist Atones for Wasted School Days by Self-Culture — General Lew Wallace 296

XXVIII. A Social Leader, Having " Eyes That See," Earns Literary Laurels — Mrs. Burton Harrison 30S

XXIX. Painstaking the Secret of a Celebrated Painter's Success — Edivin Austin Abbev 311

XXX. A School Girl, Not Afraid of Drudgery, Becomes America's Foremost Woman Illustrator — Alice Barber Stephens 321

XXXI. A Schoolboy's Sketches Reveal the Bent of a

Talented Illustrator — Frederic Remington. . 327 XXXII. Rebuffs and Disappointments Fail to Repress a Great Cartoonist's Genius — Homer Davenport 334

XXXIII. Being Himself in Style and Subjects the Se-

crets of an Artist's Wonderful Popularity

XXXIV. A " Printer's Devil " Whose Perseverance

Wins Him Weil-Earned Reputation as a

Fun-Maker — Frederick Burr Oppcr 353

XXXV. "A Square Man in a Round Hole" Rejects $5,000 a Year and Becomes a Sculptor —

XXXVI. During Leisure Hours he "Found Himself" and Abandoned Law for Art — Henry Merwin Shrady 366 s

AMUSEMENT.

CHAPTER PAGE

XXXVII. Deformed in Body, His Cheerful Spirit Makes Him the Entertainer of Princes — Marshall

P. Wilder 371

XXXVIII. Energy and Earnestness Win an Actor Fame

— Richard Mansfield 379

XXXIX. A Father's Common- Sense Gives America a

Great Bandmaster — John Philip Soiisa 384

PHILANTHROPY.

XL. BHnd, Deaf and Dumb, Patient Effort Wins Her Culture and Rare Womanhood — Helen

Keller 391

XLI. Jay Gould's Chum Chooses " High Thinking, Not Money-Making," and Wins Success

Without Riches — John Burroughs 402

XLII. A Millionaire's Daughter Makes Inherited Wealth a Blessing to Thousands — Helen

Miller Gould 413

XLIII. A Self-Made Merchant Solves the Problem of

Practical Philanthropy — Nathan Strauss... 420

DIVINITY.

XLIV. A Varied Career Develops the Resourceful Head of a Great Institutional Church and College — Russell H. Conivell 426

XLV. An Inspiring Personality Wins a Noted

Preacher Fame — Frank W. Gunsaulus 432

XLVI. From the Forge to the Pulpit, a Life of Devotion and Application — Robert Collycr 441

CANADIANS.

XLVII. Canada's Leading Conservative Extols " the Country of the Twentieth Century" —

Robert Laird Borden 447

XLVIII. An Eminent Scholar Advocates the Union of Canada and the United States — Goldzvin Smith 454

CHAPTER TT T> U ^'^^^

XLIX. After Failure as a Grocer, He Becomes the Ablest Administrator Quebec Has Ever

Had— 5. A^. Parent 460

L. Canada's Leading Economist Tells Her Sons to Seek Fortune in Her Own Domam—

Andrezv G. Blair ••••• 470

LI. A Distinguished Educator Has Found Contentment in the Simple Life — James Loudon 479 LH. Beginning as Telegraph Operator He Built the Canadian Pacific— 6";> IViUiam C. Van Home 485

LHL An Immigrant Boy Becomes a National Figure in Reform— 6"a);nic/ Jones 49o

LIV A "Forty-niner" who Seized Opportunities

Others Failed to See— Philip D. Armour.. 511 LV. The Blind Yacht Designer Attributes His Conquests to His Mother's Early Care— John B. Herreshoff • 52«

LVI A Great Vocalist Shows that Only Years of Labor Can Win the Heights of Song— Li/- lian Nordica 54i

Apelles, the great artist, traveled all over Greece for years, studying the fairest points of beautiful women, getting here an eye, there a forehead, and there a nose, here a grace and there a turn of beauty, for his famous portrait of a perfect woman which enchanted the world. It was not a portrait, not an imaginary ideal head, but a composite, a combination from the most perfect features he could find. By combining the perfect points, the graceful curves, the lines of beauty of many individuals, he made his wonderful painting.

The great artist knew that all elements of beauty and perfection of physical form could not be found in one person. He knew, too, that some of the most perfect features and beautiful curves would be found in women who were on the whole anything but beautiful — perhaps repulsive.

The editors of this volume have been for many years in quest of the elements of a grand, healthy, symmetrical, successful man — the ideal man. They knew at tlie beginning that it would be impossible to find any one man who would illustrate all these points of perfection, who would combine in perfect degree all the success qualities, but they have found in scores of men who have achieved something worth while qualities which, put together, would make a composite ideal man, a man who, in the evolution of civiHzation, will, perhaps, sometime be possible. Usually, in men who have risen to eminence, some one quality or virtue shines conspicuous, often accompanied with defects, perhaps great weakness, which, to gain the lesson, we must ignore.

The editors have found here a man illustrative of perseverance, here one marked by undaunted ambition, there a life where grit overcame all obstacles, and another where the quick grasping of opportunities led to noble achievement.

They have interviewed successful men and women in the various vocations, trying to get at the secret of their success, the reasons for their advancement. These varied life stories will give the reader the material for constructing the composite character — the ideal man or woman — one that shall combine all the best virtues and qualities, whose imitation will help to insure a useful, profitable and honored life. This composite man will not be a one-sided specialist. He will not be a man cursed with any great weakness. He will be a man raised to the highest power, symmetrical, selfcentered, equipoised, ever master of himself.

It does not follow that every man whose name appears in this book is a model in every respect. Napoleon was not a model character, and yet he exemplifies some success qualities in his career in an almost ideal degree.

What question, arising from individual experience, from family life, or from daily observation within the community, is of more poignant human interest than the query : "Why do some men succeed, while others fail?" and the allied question: "What constitutes success in life, and how may it be attained ?"

An analysis of the ideals and achievements of these leaders in invention, commerce and finance, in public affairs, and in literature, the arts, and the professions, as set forth by themselves, seems to reveal certain salient life lessons well worthy of most careful consideration. First, it would appear that without exception every successful man or woman at some period of his or her life, whether early or late, has formed a life purpose, and has registered a solemn vow to achieve something more than ordinary in the world. An exception to this rule appears to obtain in the cases of men or women possessed of a strong natural bent or talent, the exercise of which is an instinctive craving that will not be denied. This determination to be or to achieve, or this instinctive bent of thought and action, appears to be the first indication of greatness, and the turning point in great careers.

The next most obvious lesson to be drawn from a careful study of these interviews seems to be, that once a determination to succeed is made, and the first steps, however humble, have been entered upon in the new career, the subject commences to take an interest amounting to positive pleasure in the tasks and duties incident to his chosen life work.

The far-away goal of success, wifli its reward of

lO fame, wealth, and all that money can procure, appears to fade from the worker's sight as he advances toward it, and the incitement to labor for material reward is lost in the joy of congenial labor for its own sake. The player loses sight of the hope of victory in the mere zest of the game. This note appears again and again in the life stories of great workers as revealed by themselves, and accounts for the spectacle, so puzzling to many, of the master of millions apparently grasping for more millions in his declining years. There can be no content with present achievement, however great, because all who have achieved great things have discovered that the ends sought are lost in the value of the faculties developed by the search, and they hence seek, not additional reward of toil, but rather the pleasurable exercise of the chase. The joy of labor will not permit men to lay down the harness and relinquish effort this side the grave.

A determination to succeed once formed, and a congenial career once chosen and entered upon, there commences a process of character-building by the formation of life habits. These solidify into personal characteristics, the varying assortment of which in the individual constitutes what we call his personality, wherein one man differs from another. Character, it has been wisely said, is the resultant of choices. It appears again and again in the reminiscences of those who have succeeded, that from time to time they have deliberately chosen a course of action which by force of habit has become a personal characteristic, and has earned them national, if not world-wide, reputation. The name of ''Honest" John Wanamaker stands for a reputation having a commercial value of hundreds of thousands of dollars. The acorn from which grew this mighty oak was a young man's choice of honesty as the foundation of his career.

Books and essays by the score and hundred have been written by theorists upon the principles of success in life. Worthy as are many of the writers, their lives often illustrate the adage of the poet, "It were easier to tell twenty what were good to be done than to be one of the twenty to follow mine own teachings." Boldly contrasted with such writings are the flesh and blood maxims herein contained, stamped with the mint marks of great personalities, towering mountainous among their fellows, each coined from the life habits \v'hich have hardened into enduring character, and have left their impress upon the history of our times.

In a drawing-room or public assemblage he would indeed be unambitious and mean-spirited, who would not choose the company and conversation of the greatest and the best. Carlyle says, "Great men taken up in any way are profitable company." What privilege could promise equal pleasure and profit with a series of visits at the homes of the most notable personages our land contains, to consult with each on the great questions of success or faihn-e, of what constitutes ideal success, and of how it may be attained ?

Such is the privilege contemplated by this volume and freely offered to all who choose to avail themselves of it. Compared with the inspiration, the examples and the wise counsel contained within its covers, the cost of such a volume sinks into insignificance. Benjamin Franklin said that the reading of one good book made him what he was. Henry Clay testified, "to the fact that in the midst of her early poverty my mother provided her home with a few choice books, do I owe my success in life." Senator Dolliver, in the present volume, regards a chance-found book as the turning point of his career, and like testimony is all but universal. Let the young and the guardians of youth weigh well the thought that there are sins of omission, as well as of commission, and that it may be hardly a less criminal negligence to refuse fit books for the growing mind than food for the growing body.

Quite aside from considerations of profit and duty are the considerations of pleasure offered by a volume of this character. It is a truism that truth is stranger than fiction. The romance of reality is the most thrilling of all romances, and there is a peculiar fascination associated with those glimpses of the inner man which are revealed by a speaker who sets forth his own life story, and places his own interpretation upon it. From this view point, "Little Visits" possesses a wealth of suggestion and of information, alike valuable and interesting to readers of all ages and of every walk in life.

•Introduction

The dominant note of this book, is inspiration ; its keynote, helpfuhiess.

We have tried to drive home every precept and lesson with stirring and inspiring stories of great Hves which show that men and women are the architects of their own fortunes, and which will explode the excuses of those who think they have no chance in life. It shows that necessity has ever been the priceless spur that has urged man to struggle with his destiny and develop his greatest strength.

We think the reader will find in these pages the composite character, the all-round success. We have tried to show that there is something better than making a living, and that is making a life — that a man may make millions and be a failure still.

We have shown that a man to succeed must be greater than his calling, that he must overtop his vocation. We have tried to teach that the really successful man must be greater than the book he writes, than the patient he treats, than the goods he sells, than the cause he pleads in the courts — that manhood is above all titles, greater than any career.

The Editor.

H

Book One Inspirational Talks

WITH FAMOUS AMERICANS.

Success Maxims

The tissue of the life to be

We weave with colors all our own,

And in the field of destiny

We reap as we have sown.

— Whittier.

No man is born into this world whose work is not born with him. — Lowell.

If a man can write a better book, preach a better sermon, or make a better mousetrap than his neighbor, though he build his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door. — Emerson.

Character is power — is influence; it makes friends, creates funds, draws patronage and support, and opens a sure and easy way to wealth, honor and happiness. — J. Hawes.

To be thrown upon one's own resources is to be cast into the very lap of fortune. — Franklin.

There is no road to success but through a clear, strong purpose. A purpose underlies character, culture, position, attainment of whatever sort. — T. T. Munger.

Heaven never helps the man who will not act. — Sophocles.

The talent of success is nothing more than doing what you can do well, and doing well whatever you do, without a thought of fame. — Longfellow.

The longer I live, the more deeply am I convinced that that which makes the difference between one man and another —between the weak and powerful, the great and insignificant, is energy — invincible determination — a purpose once formed, and then death or victory. — Fowell Buxton.

In the measure in which thou seekest to do thy duty shalt thou know what is in thee. But what is thy duty? The demand of the hour. — Goethe.

A strong, defiant purpose is many-handed, and lays hold of whatever is near that can serve it ; it has a magnetic power that draws to itself whatever is kindred.— T. T. Munger.

i6

I

Hard Work : the Secret of a Great Inventor's Genius.

To discover the opinion of Thomas A. Edison concerning' what makes and constitutes success in Hfe is an easy matter, if one can only discover Mr. Edison. I camped three weeks in the vicinity of Orange, N. J., awaiting the opportunity to come upon the great inventor and voice my questions. It seemed a rather hopeless and discouraging affair until he was really before me ; but, truth to say, he is one of the most accessible of men, and only reluctantly allows himself to be hedged in by the pressure of endless affairs. "Mr. Edison is always glad to see any visitor," said a gentleman who is constantly with him, "except when he is hot on the trail of something he has been working for, and then it is as much as a man's head is worth to come in on him." He certainly was not hot on the trail of anything on the morning when, for seemingly the tenth time, I rang at the gate in the fence which surrounds the laboratory on Valley Road, Orange. A young man appeared, who conducted me up the walk to the elegant office and library of the great laboratory. It is a place, this library, not to be passed through without thought, for with a further

»7 store of volumes in his home, it contains one of the most costly and well-equipped scientific libraries in the world ; the collection of writings on patent laws and patents, for instance, is absolutely exhaustive. It gives, at a glance, an idea of the breadth of the thought and sympathy of this man who grew up with scarcely a common school education.

On the second floor, in one of the offices of the machine-shop, I was asked to wait, while a grimy youth disappeared with my card, which he said he would "slip under the door of Mr. Edison's office." "Curious," I thought; "what a lord this man must be if they dare not even knock at his door!"

Thinking of this and gazing out of the window, I waited until a working man, who had entered softly, came up beside me. He looked with a sort of "Well, what is it ?" in his eyes, and quickly it began to come to me that the man in the sooty, oil-stained clothes was Edison himself. The working garb seemed rather incongruous, but there was no mistaking the broad forehead, with its shock of blackish hair streaked with gray. The gray eyes, too, were revelations in the way of alert comprehensiveness.

"Oh !" was all I could get out at the time.

"Want to see me?" he said, smiling in the most youthful and genial way.

"Why, — yes, certainly, to be sure," I stammered.

He looked at me blankly.

"You'll have to talk louder," said an assistant who

The "Wizard of Electricity"

worked in another portion of the room ; "he don't hear well."

HIS GRANDFATHER WAS A BANKER.

This fact was new to me, but I raised my voice with celerity and piped thereafter in an exceedingly shrill key. After the usual humdrum opening remarks, in which he acknowledged with extreme good nature his age as fifty-five years, and that he was born in Erie county, O., of Dutch parentage, the family having emigrated to America in 1730, the particulars began to grow more interesting. His great-grandfather, I learned, was a banker of high standing in New York ; and, when Thomas was but a child of seven years, the family fortune suffered reverses so serious as to make it necessary that he should become a wage-earner at an unusually early age, and that the family should move from his birth-place to Michigan.

"Did you enjoy mathematics as a boy?" I asked.

"Not much," he replied. "I tried to read Newton's 'Principia' at the age of eleven. That disgusted me with pure mathematics, and I don't wonder now. I should not have been allowed to take up such serious work."

"You were anxious to learn?"

"Yes, indeed. I attempted to read through the entire Free Library at Detroit, but other things interfered before I had done."

"Were you a book- worm and dreamer?" I questioned.

"Not at all," he answered, using a short, jerky method, as though he were unconsciously checking himself up. "I became a newsboy, and liked the work. Made my first coup as a newsboy.

"What was it ?" I ventured.

"I bought up on 'futures' a thousand copies of the 'Detroit Free Press' containing important war news, — gained a little time on my rivals, and sold the entire batch like hot cakes. The price reached twenty-five cents a copy before the end of the route," and he laughed. "I ran the 'Grand Trunk Herald,' too, at that time — a little paper I issued from the train."

HIS FIRST EXPERIMENTS.

"When did you begin to be interested in inventions ?" I questioned.

"Well," he said, "I began to dabble in chemistry at that time. I fitted up a small laboratory on the train."

In reference to this, Mr. Edison subsequently admitted that, during the progress of some occult experiments in this workshop, certain complications ensued in which a jolted and broken bottle of sulphuric acid attracted the attention of the conductor. He, who had been long suffering in the matter of unearthly odors, promptly ejected the young devotee and all his works. This incident would have been only amusing but for its relation to and explanation of his deafness. A box

The " Wizard of Electricity "

on the ear, administered by the irate conductor, caused the lasting deafness.

"What was your first work in a practical line?" I went on.

"A telegraph line between my home and another boy's, I made with the help of an old river cable, some stove-pipe wire, and glass-bottle insulators. I had my laboratory in the cellar and studied telegraphy outside."

"What was the first really important thing you did?"

"I saved a boy's life."

"How?"

"The boy was playing on the track near the depot. I saw he was in danger and caught him, getting out of the way just in time. His father was station-master, and taught me telegraphy in return."

Dramatic situations appear at every turn of this man's life, though, temperamentally, it is evident that he would be the last to seek them. He seems to have been continually arriving on the scene at critical moments, and always with the good sense to take things in his own hands. The chance of learning telegraphy only gave him a chance to show how apt a pupil he was, and the railroad company soon gave him regular employment. He himself admits that, at seventeen, he had become one of the most expert operators on the road.

"Did you make much use of your inventive talent at this time?" I questioned.

"Yes," he answered. "I invented an automatic attachment for my telegraph instrument which would send in the signal to show I was awake at my post, when I was comfortably snoring in a corner. I didn't do much of that, though," he went on ; "for some such boyish trick sent me in disgrace over the line into Canada."

A NOVEL METHOD OF TELEGRAPHING.

"Were you there long?"

"Only a winter. If it's incident you want, I can tell you one of that time. The place where I was and Sarnia, the American town, were cut off from telegraph and other means of communication by the storms until I got at a locomotive whistle and tooted a telegraphic message. I had to do it again and again, but eventually they understood it over the water and answered in the same way."

According to his own and various recorded accounts, Edison was successively in charge of important wires in Memphis, Cincinnati, New Orleans and Louisville. He lived in the free-and-easy atmosphere of the tramp operators — a boon companion with them, yet absolutely refusing to join in the dissipations to which they were addicted. So highly esteemed was he for his honesty that it was the custom of his colleagues, when a spree was on hand, to make him the custodian of those funds which they felt obliged to save. On a more than usually hilarious occasion, one of them returned rather the worse for wear, and knocked the treasurer down on his refusal to deliver the trust money ; the other depositors,

The " Wizard of Electricity "

we are glad to note, gave the ungentlemanly tippler a sound thrashing.

"Were you good at saving your own money?" I asked.

"No," he said, smiling. "I never was much for saving money, as money. I devoted every cent, regardless of future needs, to scientific books and materials for experiments."

"You believe that an excellent way to succeed ?"

"Well, it helped me greatly to future success."

"What was your next invention ?" I inquired.

"An automatic telegraph recorder — a machine which enabled me to record dispatches at leisure, and send them off as fast as needed."

"How did you come to hit upon that ?"

"Well, at the time, I w^ in such straits that I had to walk from Memphis to Louisville. At the Louisville station they offered me a place. I had perfected a style of handwriting which would allow me to take legibly from the wire, long hand, forty-seven and even fiftyfour words a minute, but I was only a moderately rapid sender. I had to do something to help me on that side, and so I thought out that little device."