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 PORTRAIT AND DATA 
 
 OF 
 
 UNITED STATES SENATOR FROM NEW 
 JERSEY AND PRESIDENT OF THE 
 PRUDENTIAL INSURANCE COMPANY 
 OF AMERICA. 
 
 Rational Newspaper 
 18iograpt)ie0 
 
 H COMPILED FOR NEWSPAPER REFERENCE BY THE ft 
 
 jfrattonai jEetoapaper ^Lssoctatton* inc. 
 
 23 PARK ROW, NEW YORK, U. S. A. 
 

JOHN FAIRFIELD DRYDEN 
 
 United States Senator From New Jersey and President of the Prudential 
 Insurance Company of America. 
 
 THOUGH John Fairfield Dryden, born at Farmington, Me., on August 7, 1839. 
 ultimately chose a business career, with life insurance as his chief specialty, he 
 was university-bred and early in his college career contemplated ^igal pro- 
 fession. His ancestry was of a cultivated and refined stock, reaching back 
 through New England to Northamptonshire, in England, where its most eminent 
 representative. John Dryden, attained a permanent and world-wide celebrity as one of the 
 best of the Poets-Laureate. These various influences — the literary strain of the Dryden 
 family, the liberal education at Yale, the early legal training, and the business activity of 
 maturer years — have combined to make Senator Dryden a broad-minded, many-sided man, 
 well informed on an unusual number of important subjects, and have given him a large- 
 ness of mental scope and a judicial and executive force possessed by very few men. 
 
 The subject of Life Insurance early engaged Mr. Dryden's attention, and he devoted 
 his time to a study of its principles, mastering the theory of finance, the construction of 
 tables, averages, percentages, futurities and scientific monetary economy. About 1865 he 
 obtained a report on the subject of Industrial Insurance, submitted to the Massachusetts 
 Legislature by Professor Elizur Wright, then State Insurance Commissioner. It criticised 
 the methods of the Prudential Assurance Company (Limited) of London, England. 
 
 Mr. Dryden procured all the reports of the company and analyzed them, and decided 
 that the Insurance Commissioner was wrong. This gave him the idea of formulating an 
 Industrial Insurance system foV the United States ; so, in 1873, ne visited Newark, and 
 interested such men as Noah F. Blanchard, William H. Murphy, father of Governor Murphy ; 
 Horace Ailing, Leslie D. Ward, and others. A bill was passed by the New Jersey Legis- 
 lature, and in 1875 The Prudential Insurance Company of America was founded. From 
 its inception Mr. Dryden was the soul and spirit of the enterprise. For several years he 
 was its Secretary, and when Noah F. Blanchard. the President, retired, Mr. Dryden suc- 
 ceeded him, and the Prudential, as every one knows, has grown to be one of the leading 
 life insurance companies of the world, under the able leadership of President Dryden, with 
 assets of over $60,000,000 and an annual income of $33,000,000. 
 
 In 1875, when Senator Dryden organized The Prudential Insurance Company of 
 America, a small office force adequately accommodated the transaction of its business, but 
 now accommodations have to be provided for over 1.300 Clerks, Managers, Inspectors, 
 Medical Directors and other officials. As the Company's Agents, Doctors and Home Office 
 employees now amount to over 20,000, it will be seen that Senator Dryden is a leader of 
 a vast army of active workers. 
 
 The Prudential, under Senator Dryden's direction, has erected three handsome office 
 buildings, which, together with the mammoth building formerly occupied by the Com- 
 pany and its new extension, make a group of structures solely devoted to business purposes, 
 said to be unequalled in any part of the world. 
 
Mr. Dryden is also interested largely in the Fidelity Trust Company of Newark (of 
 which he was one of the originators). He is also one of the organizers of the new 
 $25,000,000 Public Service Corporation, which practically controls all the trolley, electric 
 light and power and gas companies in the northern section of New Jersey, and is likewise 
 interested in the North Jersey Street Railway Company and the South Jersey Gas, Electric 
 and Traction Company, subsidiary systems. He has recently been made a Director of the 
 famous United States Steel Corporation, and is rapidly moving to the front rank among 
 the leading financiers of the country. 
 
 In politics Mr. Dryden has been a Republican all his life, and has taken an active 
 interest in his party's affairs. In 1896 he was one of the New Jersey Republican Electors, 
 and served again in that capacity in 1900 When the term of United States Senator 
 Smith, of New Jersey, expired, Mr. Dryden was put forward as a candidate for the seat, 
 but he made no effort to attain it. Engrossed with business affairs, he had shown no 
 desire for public office, though, as before stated, he was always keenly alive to party 
 interests. But on January 29, 1902, the Legislature of New Jersey, in accordance with the 
 spontaneous choice of the State, elected Mr. Dryden to fill the five year unexpired term 
 of Senator William J. Sewell, deceased, and he could not refuse the honor thus thrust upon 
 him. 
 
 As a Senator, Mr. Dryden has won golden opinions from his constituents, the general 
 verdict being that New Jersey never had a more efficient representative in the halls of 
 Congress. He secured for a New Jersey shipyard the construction of one of the largest of 
 the government's new cruisers, and he has enriched the State's Treasury of New Jersey 
 by nearly six hundred thousand dollars, interest due to the State from the Federal govern- 
 ment on unpaid Civil War claims. 
 
 Notwithstanding his constant and unwearying devotion to business affairs, Senator 
 Dryden has always kept fresh and bright his love for literature and the fine arts, and his 
 fondness for domestic and social life. He has large and valuable libraries in his Newark 
 and Bernardsville homes. He generally spends an hour or two daily among his favorite 
 authors and the current publications of the day. In the fine arts his particular fancy is 
 for paintings, in which line he is an acknowledged connoisseur. He owns a large number 
 of beautiful and valuable paintings, mostly of famous artists, and he is constantly adding to 
 the collection. 
 
 Senator Dryden's home life is ideal. An atmosphere of perfect congeniality and mutual 
 affection pervades the entire family circle, and although Mr. and Mrs. Dryden are fond 
 of society, in the usual acceptation of that term, and naturally take a prominent part in 
 society matters, they are fonder still of quiet home pleasures, and Mr. Dryden enjoys noth- 
 ing better than a pleasant evening in the company of his wife, his son, Mr. Forrest F. 
 Dryden, and wife ; his daughter and son-in-law. Colonel and Mrs. Anthony R. Kuser, and 
 his three grandchildren. 
 
 In demeanor Senator Dryden is dignified, yet kindly and courteous. In mental ability 
 he is equalled by few of the men who have attained, like him, great success in life, and few 
 men are equal to the great burdens and responsibilities that Mr. Dryden has borne for years, 
 and which he bears lightly. It may be added that the Senator is one of the State Committee 
 for New Jersey to raise funds for a memorial to the late President McKinley, at Canton, 
 Ohio, and he is a steady and generous contributor to religious and charitable objects. 
 
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