%^H^'H^ ! H^%^H^%^H^%^ SHOULD AULD ACQUAINTANCE BE FORGOT? £ ^%^%^%^H^%^%^%^%^%. •' '" if .4X1 1 '■••••. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2012 with funding from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign http://www.archive.org/details/shouldauldacquaiOOgles SHOULD AULD ACQUAINTANCE BE FORGOT? SHOULD AULD ACQUAINTANCE BE FORGOT? FOR COMMERCIAL CLUB MEMBERS ONLY PRINTED, NOT PUBLISHED 1924 Kind Trader; I feel that you will have earned the title if you read these pages through to the end. They were written for my own diversion, on rainy days, last August and September. On reading them now I find that often I have used the expressions of smiling eyes, genial, open countenance, friendly manners, and the like. These repetitions transgress good literary form, I know, but I wouldn't take them back; they are true where written, and might justly have been written oftener. These attributes indicate humor, and humor is a saving grace to keep men from sinning against convention, and other sins, and to smooth the rough places of life. Such attri- butes make for friendship, and the men who have them are our friends. So forget my lapses from literary good manners, and accept this little book as a messenger bearing gifts of good will, and in lieu of a Christmas card, from Yours very sincerely, John J. Glessner. SOME FRIENDS OF MINE AMONG THE EARLIER MEMBERS OF THE COMMERCIAL CLUB A LL were friends; of enemies there were none, I % yet some were friendlier than others, some JL JL alas were old when I was young, and some had gone to their reward before I became a member. Most of them have passed away now, each leaving as much void as humanity does when it is done. These were doing men: of these I would speak. I hold them in honored memory, and would rejoice to call them back for an hour to talk over the changes since their day. I would not make an exhaustive study or give an estimate of each man, or tell of his important work — rather would I recall some pleasing incidents, some personal traits or characteristics that may bring them to mind with those who knew them, or knew of them. Lowell has a pretty couplet of apol- ogy, suited to this time and place: So you'll excuse me if I'm sometimes fain To tie the Past's warm night-cap o'er my brain. So far from being sad over my age I glory in it, and in the comforting philosophy that a man never knows [7] much until he is old — and then he is too discreet to tell it. Young men, of course, haven't the same vantage ground for review as have their elders. To the younger generation all those with more years than their own seem old, and though admitting that I know less now than I did in my own conceit at twenty, I can look back with pleasure over the past fifty years in Chicago and realize how fortunate I have been in friends, and rejoice in that fortune. The Commercial Club was formed in 1877, at tne beginning of the year, to promote better acquaint- ance and more intimate friendships and "a friendly exchange of views" among the members. This did not mean that we in the chief city of the Middle West were a set of partly civilized barbarians in trade, but only that up to that time there was here no organized association of business men as such, and it was quite possible for one not to know his neighbor's views on questions of mutual interest. Of course there were ameliorative societies before the Commercial Club — charities, lodges of Masons, Odd-Fellows, luncheon and social and literary and artistic and practical clubs, etc. The Board of Trade provided a meeting place for one class of business, but a club of merchants and bankers, manufacturers and railroad officials, and including all lines of trade, was novel. In essentials it has re- mained unchanged in all these years. It was to be a picked body of men, picked for ability, integrity, enterprise, public spirit. It was to be a representa- tive body, with only one or two men in the member- [ 8 ] ship from each line of trade. The character of every candidate for admission was scrutinized most care- fully; any shortcoming in any of these qualifica- tions would prevent election, and as this rule has been adhered to strictly, there have been no scan- dals connected with the Club or its members in its nearly half century of existence. Just how my election came about, or who were my proposers, I know not, but I must have had partial friends. It is in recognition of this that I am minded to set down some recollections of them and of that time, and disregarding dates and alphabeti- cal sequence, would begin with George Clinton Clarke, who was the first Secre- tary of the Club, an insurance man, and the Club was fortunate to have such a secretary. He was a gentleman in every sense of the word, deeply inter- ested in the Club's welfare, in making it and keep- ing it dignified and useful and important — a vehicle for making friendships among Chicago men of af- fairs, and keeping them friendly, of cultivating teamwork, a spirit of pride in the town and in the success of other men, something to give us thoughts beyond our selfish selves; and incidentally insisting that we don evening clothes in the evening, a cus- tom not always honored in the observance. As a citizen he was classed "a man of clean hands and a clean conscience. " That didn't necessarily belong to the insurance business, nor was it confined to it, but John Janes, the second Secretary, also an insurance man, had [9] the same spirit, the same ambitions, and carried the Club along in the same manner, and was equally- popular and influential with all the members, equally forceful, equally devoted, equally fine. I am proud to recall the warm friendship that was mine with them. Janes' deafness seemed to add to our affection for him. Clarke was Secretary for ten years. Janes suc- ceeded to the Secretary's office at Clarke's untimely death, and continued for fourteen years, until he himself was taken away in August, 1901. To these continuing Secretaries much credit is due for keep- ing the Club true to its original ideals. Henry B. (Harry) Macfarland, boot and shoe manufacturer and merchant, was Treasurer of the Club for ten years, 1 892-1 901, inclusive. Along with George Clarke and John Janes, he was re- sponsible in large measure for the success of the Club and the excellence of its dinners and the ab- sence of friction. By the mutabilities of trade and the deaths of partners, he abandoned the shoe busi- ness and became a law publisher. His death came in 1920. Every man who knew him deplored his passing. The characters and unselfish devotion of these men were potent factors in making the Club what it was then and is now. Its interests were their in- terests, and they were not only its most valued members, but its most beloved. In addition to their personality, it was the sum of those elements repre- sented by that much overworked word "Service," [ 10] plus untiring industry and courtesy, that made them so important and endeared them so much to us all. They insisted upon dignified formalities in dress and conversation and behavior, and so culti- vated gentle manners. In those days they spent much time before the monthly dinners, aided by a special committee for each occasion, in so seating the members at table as to please each most. Many a time have I sat with Janes for hours in afternoon or evening preparing table diagrams, my part being mostly to give encouragement and approval. Chicago was ripe for the spirit that made the Commercial Club. Early Chicago, like other set- tlements, found each man intent on his own prob- lems, and perhaps a little ruthless in striving for his individual success, without much thought for how that might affect his neighbor, though of course at no time would any lapse from good faith have been tolerated. This Club and these men directing it were powerful in raising and keeping high the standards of commercial integrity. From insurance ranks came other highly appre- ciated men. Eugene Cary, one of the youngest men to sit upon the woolsack, was County Judge in Sheboygan, Wis., when only twenty-two years old. Later he came to Chicago as General Western Man- ager of the German-American Insurance Company. He was President of the Club in 1898 and was suc- ceeded in membership by John W. Cofran, another insurance man; and later, first in the Merchants Club and afterwards in the Commercial, came [ " ] Charles D. Norton, practical, energetic, enthusias- tic, genial, generous, President of the Merchants Club in 1906 and giving of himself freely for the City Plan and other good works here, until called to Washington by President Taft, and afterwards to New York. Our Club may well be proud of its in- surance members, past and present. Those of the early day have all passed from earth now, and most of them in the fullness of their powers. Solomon Albert Smith heads the Necrology list. His death was in November, 1879, when the Club was very young. In life he was tall, good looking, a ready and positive man, a great banker for his day, a great favorite too, called affectionately by his associates, Sol Smith. His residence was at 414 Wabash Avenue. His bank had the long and honored name of The Merchants Savings Loan & Trust Company, now Illinois Merchants Trust Company, and has at all times been an important financial in- stitution. Mr. Smith has the posthumous distinc- tion of being the only man whose son and two of his grandsons became members of the Club. On an arithmetical progression basis there should be four great-grandsons chosen to membership, eight great- great-grandsons, etc. Edward Swan Stickney, another able banker, an art connoisseur as well, a highly cultivated man, dying the next year, left a valuable collection of paintings that later went to the Art Institute and are now housed there in a beautiful gallery of their own, under the name of the Stickney Collection. [ 12 ] James Monroe Walker, astute lawyer and execu- tive, a man of large affairs, a wise counsellor; Richard C. Meldrum, railroad executive, well in- formed and expert in his profession; George Armour, railroad builder, a man of wide vision, sound judgment, largely responsible for the old Galena & Chicago, now Chicago & North- western Railway — all passed in the next year. John Clark Coonley, a magnificent figure of a man, fine in size and form and feature, a manufac- turer of great force and judgment, the most genial of companions, died in 1882. Charles Palmer Kellogg, the leading merchant in hats and caps, was taken before he had had oppor- tunity to make deep impression in the Club. These had passed before I was received into membership. I knew them all, some intimately, and like all other members mourned their deaths. Each man had some hobby outside his business, unless perhaps it was Solomon Smith, who was banker first and always. In those days, when so many of us were young who now are old, deaths in the membership did not come as frequently as in later years, and perhaps made a deeper impression. The next man to go, and that was two years after the last death, was Anson Stager, head of the Western Union Tele- graph Company — courteous, kindly, forceful, a good organizer, who was succeeded in his high busi- ness connection, after an interval, by a fellow-mem- ber of our Club — Col. Robert C. Clowry, but this [ 13 1 succession took the successor from us to the wider field of New York. Colonel Clowry still has part in the councils of the Telegraph Company, though not so active a part, and rarely comes to Chicago to at- tend a meeting of the Club. In that same year of 1885 we mourned the loss of John W. McGenniss, stone merchant, a man of the highest character and great ability and many friends, but I knew him too slightly to properly ap- praise him. And in the next ten years deaths came in cycles of two years, with sometimes two close together — George Clarke and Martin Ryerson in 1887; John Crerar in 1889; Gen. William Strong in 1891; Uri Balcom in 1 893 ; John B. Drake in 1 895 ; Charles M. Henderson and Edson Keith in 1896; James W. Oakley and Henry Stone and George Pullman in 1897; Louis Wampold and Henry King and John DeKoven and W. C. D. Grannis in 1898; Robert Waller and George Meeker in 1899; and Charles Fargo in 1900, the last year of the century. Since the opening of the twentieth century there has been a long list of departing members. Manners and customs and adornments differed somewhat then from now. More were bearded then. Of the first eighty members six wore full beards, twenty sported both beards and mous- taches, twenty-eight had moustaches alone, eleven had side whiskers, three goatees only, eight goatees and moustaches, four were barefaced. Some were more heavily bearded than others — bearded like a [ Hi pard. I don't really know what a pard was or is, nor how he was bearded, but that is the way these were. Edson Keith's full dark beard, John Crerar's flowing side whiskers, George Pullman's chin whis- kers, General Strong's pointed goatee — there were all varieties, and many shades of color. In 1882 the Club established a Manual Training School at Michigan Avenue and Twelfth Street, and expended considerable money in buildings and equipment, and a staff of instructors. We thought the boys would learn even more rapidly from books than in the regular public schools, and at the same time gain much practically in mechanical arts — and they did. Marshall Field took a deep interest in this, and so did Eliphalet Blatchford, and William Fuller and Marvin Hughitt. At one Commence- ment a young Scandinavian graduated with such honors that Mr. Hughitt made him Inspector of Cars on C. & N. W. Ry, with a considerable force of men under him, and he traveled back and forth over the road in his special car. Many youths went through this school to their advantage. About once in each year there was an exhibit at a dinner of the Commercial Club at Grand Pacific Hotel, of the work done by these youngsters. After a time the school was turned over to the University of Chicago in spite of the intricacies and embarrass- ments of the law, but it took the patience and wisdom of Blatchford and Fuller to accomplish this. Mine was less than theirs. Blatchford was [ 15 1 regular in attendance and conscientious in every- thing. At its origin I think the plan of the Commercial Club was not so much to do actual work as that it should afford opportunity to discuss matters of in- terest, form conclusions and perhaps make plans, and to induce other organizations to do the real work. Chief of these was the Citizens Associa- tion, which had been formed three years earlier and included many of the men who afterwards made the Commercial Club. At one time various questions were up for discus- sion by the Commercial Club just before the spring election, and a meeting of the Citizens Association was called, at which one candidate for mayor was present. There was some plain talking of the short- comings of the administration, at which the candi- date took offense, said he would not stay there to be questioned, and started to leave, whereupon Marshall Field backed up against the door with the remark — "Mr. Mayor, you are seeking re-election to execute the wishes of the citizens of Chicago. These are proper questions, and you are not going out of this room until you tell us what your policies are regarding them." If the Citizens Association was not the child of Franklin MacVeagh, he was at least its foster fa- ther, and one of its earliest presidents and staunch- est supporters. It may have been through his advo- cacy that the Commercial Club devoted itself, as [ 16] I have said, to the discussion of affairs and forma- tion of ideas that were carried out by the Citizens Association and other similar bodies. MacVeagh was christened "the scholar in poli- tics" — well born, well read, highly cultivated, the soul of honor. He made a nearly successful cam- paign for the senatorship in Illinois, and later did admirable service as Secretary of the Treasury in President Taft's Cabinet. I think, however, that Mr. MacVeagh does not belong in this category of remembrance, since I rejoice still to count him among the choicest of my living friends. While living in West Washington Street and be- fore we had gone to Prairie Avenue, my physician put me on horseback, said that I must not drive any more, but take to the saddle and to walk. It was not a difficult prescription to follow, except that to take it took time also. However, I made up for that by riding early in the mornings as far as possi- ble. Another rider there was living near me, Rich- ard T. Crane. He rode by the doctor's decree also, and so we rode together occasionally. He wore a high hat and a tail coat, while my coat was a very short sack, the creation of Edward Ely, that artis- tic and painstaking haberdasher — that was his high sounding name for tailor and furnisher — who had his emporium decorated with golden epigrams of Ralph Waldo Emerson in golden letters attached to walls and stairways, the most important of which as I remember now was — "Trifles make perfection, but perfection is no trifle." 1 17 ] Ely lived in the next block to me. He had lost three wives, and when his own time came and the eminent Presbyterian preacher alluded feelingly to the many occasions when he had officiated similarly in that house in the then recent past, and the choir followed almost immediately with "Watching and Waiting for Thee," the auditors were constrained to keep sober countenances. During my administration of the Citizens Asso- ciation we undertook to guard the polls at one city election. Ely was assigned to the precinct that had its polling place at the corner of Washington and Clinton Streets. It took a man of strong courage to stand among the rough characters of that precinct, at least if he could be designated a so-called "silk stocking" kind of man, but Ely did it, and did it all day long. Tall, slender, swarthy in complexion and somewhat pronounced in clothes, he was just the type of man those rough-house boys would choose to play a little rough-house with; but withal those boys admire courage and good temper, and Ely stuck it out gallantly and did his duty until polls closed and the preliminary count was made. Ely was not a member of the Commercial Club. He was a real character. Most of us patronized him then. Alas, like most of his then patrons he has been sleeping his long sleep these many years. Crane was a character, too. A large, impressive man, strong mentally and physically, opinionated, which only means that he had his own opinions and held them stoutly. He didn't mince words. We all [ 18 ] belonged to the same Clubs then, as I have said, and other organizations — Citizens Association, R. & A. Society, Literary Club, Athenaeum, with more or less regular meetings. At this time there was in the main dining room of the Chicago Club what was dubbed familiarly the "Millionaires' Table, ,, so-called because Field and Pullman and Fairbank and the Spragues and Crerar and MacVeagh and some others always lunched there. It was never my habit to lunch in the middle of the day, and if I had so lunched my table would have been a little lower in the scale, but my friends were at that upper table. When I began building my house in Prairie Avenue, George Pull- man, my neighbor diagonally across the street, fancied he wouldn't like it, and made some rather caustic remarks. The others thought it good sport to bait him, and so the house was a subject of con- versation daily, until Albert Sprague called Mac- Veagh aside with, "Frank, this won't do. We may stir up some ugly feeling between two of our good friends. " "All right, Albert. I'll get Crerar and General McClurg, and we'll fix it up tomorrow. " And the next day after Pullman had spoken, Mac- Veagh made some remark about domestic archi- tecture and art, followed by Crerar, and then McClurg added, "We all know John Glessner, and most of us know his architect. I have confidence they will not make anything objectionable; at any rate, Til make no criticism until the building is completed." And the house was no longer the sub- [ 19 1 ject of discussion at luncheon. As it approached completion, Mr. Pullman grew to like it. We were always friendly. We rode horseback together at times, as the same edict had gone out for him that had for me, but we didn't ride thus often, for we both found that the backs of restive horses, while they might be called seats of the mighty, were not seats conducive to connected conversation either serious or beguiling. Mr. Pullman was a forceful man. He dominated his Board of Directors, and there was only one opinion and one decision among them — and that was Mr. Pullman's. Philip Armour was a business man first and last, but not quite all the time, for he had a heart for melting charity. Sometimes he relied upon the R. & A. Society in charitable matters, and he would have done better had he depended more upon it, for as with the rest of us there were cases where he was deceived — one in particular that I recall, where he had expended some hundreds of dollars, and to his chagrin the Society showed him it was on an utterly unworthy subject. One member we had of delicate and sparkling humor, ever ready with a kind act for a friend and what would have been kind consideration for a foe if he had had one, Otho Sprague. He was never in robust health after army service in the Civil War, but whatever his own suffering, he was in cheerful humor always with his friends. We were sitting in front of a blazing fire in the big sitting room of the [ 20 ] Calumet Club one evening during the Christmas holidays of a certain year — Armour, Otho Sprague, John Clark and some others. It was Armour's cus- tom before such times to take the prize beef at the Stock Yards cattle shows and send choice roasts to various friends, different persons for different years. I had just thanked him for the roast he had that year sent to me, when Otho turned and said — "Did Armour send you a roast of beef? Well, he does a great deal of good in a quiet way/' Armour was a very early riser, and went early to business. In my horseback days, the little daugh- ter of my house liked to ride with me. We rode before breakfast, and many times as we started out we met Armour driving to business behind a pair of smart chestnut horses in a Goddard phaeton, and the little girl's remark was, "Mr. Armour will think we are pretty fine folks, out so early in the morning." To go back to Richard Crane and the meetings of the Citizens Association, Relief and Aid Society, Commercial Club, etc.: Crane would, on occasion, ask me to read a paper of his at one of these meet- ings, and again would urge some action upon me, and when I couldn't always agree with him, then for a time he wouldn't ask me to read; but after a while the request would come again. It was said that we of the West Side drove in buggies, and in derision that we had three in a seat. I think neither Crane nor I went to that extreme. Two was my limit, and he was too large to have more. [ 21 ] Crane was a great admirer of John Crerar — one of the few men who could so organize his business that it could be carried on with great success with apparently little of his own personal attention. At any rate he always had time for sociability or for any outside worthy object. His countenance car- ried assurance of his unaffected affability. Once seen one would ever remember his characteristic whiskers, his kindly eyes and winning smile, the flirt both instinctive and distinctive that he gave to the lapels of his coat. He was a pleasant, agreeable companion, a devoted friend, and when he died left generous bequests to the many worthy causes he had supported in life, and the remainder of his large estate for the founding and support of the Crerar Library, from which he stipulated should forever be debarred all nasty French novels. I had had, indirectly, a slight connection with John Crerar, in that some time before I came to Chicago my firm bought the plow business at Yellow Springs, O., of the firm to which Crerar succeeded as Crerar, Adams & Co., dealing in rail- way supplies. Crerar had to bask in the happiness of his friends' homes, for he never had one of his own. He never married, and for all the time I knew him lived at the Grand Pacific Hotel, where he had but one room, and, indeed, gave that up if he went abroad for any considerable absence. This hotel was not only the boast of Chicago, but was the pride of its owner, John B. Drake — a real hotel man, self-made, [ 22 ] who knew his business thoroughly from the bottom up, who knew what went on in every department ofit. The second bachelor member of the Club was Thomas Murdoch, grocer, another man of quick, sure and wise decision. Unlike Crerar, he had a beautiful home, presided over graciously by his two sisters. He was a keen sportsman with the rod, owned the fishing rights for miles on both sides of the Canadian river of York, and not only enjoyed this contemplative man's recreation, but delighted to take friends, and some quite young men among them, to camp or march or sail with him. He, too, dying, left a large estate to charities selected with much thought and care. William Munro, of English origin and accent, who represented the Bank of Montreal here, com- pleted the triumvirate of genial bachelors. The custom of two or three Board of Trade men to tether their horses for hours at a time in front of his bank, and perhaps to feed them there, and not al- ways in nose-bags, gave him much annoyance, as it should have given to any man. I liked his indigna- tion, and therefore encouraged rather than checked it. Later he removed to London, where I hope he was not scandalized by the feeding of horses at the sides of streets of busy commerce. While the three great grocery houses, Sprague's, Reid-Murdoch's and MacVeagh's, had each two members in the Club, the whole hotel line in the city, which was as much concerned with provisions [23] and supplies, was represented only by John B. Drake. He loved his business and was especially proud of his remarkable game dinners, and of the fact that his hotel was ready for business at all hours of day or night. He said there was never a lock to his entrance doors. He maintained that the profits of hotel keeping were in the waste cans, though he used a less euphonious and perhaps more expressive word. A story is told that meeting a fel- low member one day, he asked casually if he could use any money, not mentioning the amount. That afternoon he sent over $250,000, asking neither note nor acknowledgment. Of course it was re- turned at the appointed time with scrupulous punctuality and integrity. Drake was an upright man in every way, gen- erous minded, and a supporter of all good causes, yet modest withal for one who had achieved so great success. He was short in stature and of rather stocky build, but alert in every faculty. He knew all of the great men of his time in our own country, and many from other lands There was Erskine Phelps, a very able shoe mer- chant and manufacturer, who thought he resembled Napoleon I. in voice and manner, and perhaps in mind; and who made a noteworthy collection of Napoleon-ana. He did not seem a bookish man, but I think he was. He liked a good horse, he liked a good table, he had a good house with a large, handsome dooryard on Indiana Avenue, near 16th Street. His next door neighbor on Indiana Avenue [ 24] was Murry Nelson, whose business was grain, both merchandising and storage, the most aggressively honest, the most incorruptible, the hardest fighter for what he thought right of any citizen of Chicago, clear headed, uncompromising, plain speaking and courageous. He had little patience with finesse or nice social distinctions, but for any good cause one could always depend on Murry Nelson's assistance. He was full of humor, too, and enjoyed a lively ar- gument, even when it went against himself. We and our families were warm friends. Frequently he came to my house to talk over public matters, and often met there Elbridge Keith, another broad- gauge, public-spirited man. We three were far from being in agreement always. Keith's business in- terests as merchant and banker, and his attention to politics in the best way, kept his daylight and sometimes his evening hours employed, so that his wife used to say their children grew so fast and he saw so little of them that he couldn't recognize them from one Sunday to the next, and once he found his eldest son loom so tall, standing beside him in church, that he thought he must be standing on the footstool and bade him get down and stand on the floor. Elbridge Keith was not a handsome man, a little stooped in carriage, a little slouching in walk, a little careless in dress, but he was of sterling char- acter. He and his brother Edson lived side by side in Prairie Avenue, but Edson, with the same ster- ling character, was a strikingly handsome man, tall, [ 25 ] erect, with springy step, dark hair and full beard, always immaculately dressed, always courteous, apparently never ruffled; he exactly fitted his splendid business of wholesale millinery merchant. His tragic death was sincerely mourned. Across the street lived Marshall Field, the mon- arch of them all as merchant and man of affairs. I suspect his hair was not gray when I first knew him, but I think of him always with gray hair and mous- tache, with the keenest of eyes that looked one through and through from under prominent brows. He had unfailing judgment of men — commercial judgment — an impeccable memory, was quick in decision, always courteous, or at least I can remem- ber but one instance when I thought there was any lack. His close acquaintances thought he had not many resources aside from business, and his widely diversified affairs could not have left much time for anything else. He had most kindly feelings and care for old employes and old friends and for good causes generally, and for children, but he liked to do things in his own way, and thought, quite justly I believe, that nearly everybody was trying to tell him what to do in charity and with his money. Naturally we all think we can do some things with a man's money better than the owner does. We must take off our hats to Marshall Field's memory for his splendid donation to the Field Museum, even while we deplore that his death came before he could complete the further gifts he had intended. [ 26 ] William Gold Hibbard, Nestor of hardware mer- chants, living near to me in Prairie Avenue, handi- capped by being hard of hearing, yet perhaps for that very reason warmer in friendships and more generous in charity, and Turlington W. Harvey, directly across the street from him, lumber mer- chant of great activity, with a score of yards along the length of the Burlington Railroad — the first deeply interested in St. Luke's Hospital, and the second in Dwight Moody's evangelist movement — the one with a large family of lively and comely daughters, and the other with an equally large fam- ily of yet more lively and virile boys, who played together as children and afterwards — yet propin- quity did not make marriages between these suit- able and complementary young persons. Harvey was a great-minded man in many ways, deeply interested in the Relief and Aid Society and in Sal- vation Army affairs. He amassed a considerable fortune, which he spent generously in religion and charity. Unfortunately he lost much of his fortune, and died far from home in a hospital, but with wife and sons beside him. Charles Palmer Kellogg, merchant in hats and caps, and Charles M. Henderson, boots and shoes, lived near by; and between George Pullman's home and Marshall Field's was John Wesley Doane's, whose specialty was teas and spices and coffees. The use of electricity then was novel. Half a dozen men in the neighborhood had their own private electric light plant installed in Mr. Doane's stable [ v i and presided over by a somewhat self-important engineer. The Doane boys managed the stable, and the master himself was not much in evidence. It is related that having to visit the place once himself, he was met by the engineer with — "Sorry, sir, but I can't let you in. Mr. Doane doesn't want any strangers about here." It is a melancholy occupation thus to recall the friends who have passed from sight, but there are consoling reflections also. The recollection is both poignant and pleasant. It is sad to realize the effort that is required to recall the men we do not meet daily, but pleasant to think of them. They lived, they did their parts, therein they had joyous lives. I never knew the elder Martin Ryerson until I welcomed him into the Club, or he welcomed me; and then so soon after his death in 1887 I welcomed the present Martin as successor to his father's member- ship. The elder Ryerson had an adventurous life as a pioneer lumber man, but he possessed the ele- ments of genial companionship, notwithstanding his long sojourn in the primitive woods. That so- journ may have increased the natural quiet reserve of his manner. Going to Europe for a year he re- mained for half a score because of his wife's dread of the return ocean voyage. Others of the early members of the Club who were pioneers in the lum- ber line were Uri Balcom, W. C. D. Grannis and f 28 1 A. A. Carpenter. The latter was a pioneer dry goods merchant as well as lumberman and adven- turer. He went to California with the gold hunters, and in due time he was President of the Citizens Association, as were so many other Commercial Club members. These three each took his business seriously, as he did also his recreations and his char- ities. Each of them had strong characteristics, and all made conspicuous commercial success. John De Koven, always my friend and inciden- tally my banker for many years, fond of good living and full of good stories of the early days when he and Field and Janes and others were new here and still youngsters, and would sit in the moonlight and in slight costume on the board fence of Dearborn Park, where the Public Library is now, and watch the races and scuffling of their mates, when one was an under clerk in a dry goods store, another a bill clerk in a railroad office, still another in an insurance office, all in minor capacities. All had more than the usual high ambitions of youth, and all attained them in full and overflowing measure. De Koven was a widower for many years, but succumbed to Hymen's witching wiles a second time. Otho Sprague took his young daughter to the Lake Shore train one day, sending her to school, and looked about for a friend to whose care he could commend her. Finding De Koven — "John, come and see my little girl. Won't you look after her on this trip?" Certainly, certainly he would, with great pleasure. And then in a minute — "Otho, [ 29 1 come here, in the drawing-room. This is my wife. We were married today. " And so Mr. and Mrs. De Koven, on their wedding journey, took charge of little Miss Sprag lie on her way to an eastern school. The humor of that situation appealed to Otho Sprague. It was his humor that kept him alive so long. His experience in the Civil War left him with vitiated lungs and heart, and but for his humor and sunny disposition he must have had many doleful days. And yet only his very most intimate friends knew it if he had. His delicate health compelled him to spend the later years of his life in the more comfortable climate of California, where many of us visited him in his hospitable home. And one cannot speak of Otho without recalling his slightly older brother, Albert Sprague. They had married sisters, they were in business together, they lived side by side, they had the same tastes, Otho with the more sprightly wit, Albert with the more literal view of life, equally supporters of the good and true in art and literature and industry and charity and good will. And next to them, in a neighboring house, came Bartlett, whom nobody called by his first name, Adolphus, but his friends always knew him by his middle name of Clay. He was not strong physically and traveled about the world much with Otho Sprague, seeking health. He also had a ready and a sprightly wit. Suave in manner, quick and posi- tive in decision, of sound judgment, full of energy — what wonder that he had so many friends and made [ 30] so great success as a merchant. He had a sympa- thetic heart, of which one instance: Hearing one Sunday noon that a friend engaged in social welfare work had died suddenly, leaving an encumbered estate and a helpless family, Mr. Bartlett headed his subscription paper, walked from his home at 27th Street down Prairie Avenue on one side to 1 6th Street and back on the other, and had raised a fund large enough to cancel the mortgage on the home and leave a nice nest egg for the widow; and no one knew of it except those who put their names on his paper. Very near to Bartlett's home was Marvin Hughitt's, of C. & N. W. Ry. H. H. Kohlsaat, publisher and baker, lived then on the next corner, Chauncey Keep on the opposite side of the Avenue, and Charles Hutchinson and Ernest Hamill, all of whom by the grace of God are still traveling along with us through this vale of opportunity. Note: That was in the good old days of Prairie Avenue's prestige and prosperity. Three weeks after the above paragraph was written came the death of Charles Hutchinson, and in a few days afterwards that of Herman Kohlsaat. They were unlike, but both were marked men in their different ways, each with a nimble wit, a penetrating mind, an adequate vocabulary to praise or denounce as needed, a fund of kindly humor and of good stories to take off the sting of any harsh criticism. Of Charles Hutchinson it could be said that he was a hard-headed business man, yet a dreamer, a financier [ 31 ] and an art connoisseur, without emotion and yet full of sympathy for all good things, ready to expend himself and his substance in a good cause or for a friend. With- out seeking them, he held more offices of trust and honor than any other of our citizens. Kohlsaat delighted to keep a finger on the political pulse, he had very large acquaintance with public men, and was the trusted counsellor and adviser of many in high office — an entertaining, delightful companion. After active membership he went upon the Associate list for several years, and then withdrew entirely from the Club and took up residence in New York. And still a few days later came the death of James B. Forgan, another marked man, of wide influence, great practical wisdom and experience, warm sympa- thy, ripe judgment. The homely virtues of industry, thrift and economy were his. Honesty and fair dealing, and such vision that without overlooking the small things could grapple with the great, made his success in life. Always courteous, his clear complexion, white hair, commanding figure gave the impression that he was the cleanest man one could meet — in person, in thought, in action. He told me at one time that young men needed an incentive to save, and that when he was starting he made up his mind at the beginning of the year how much he should save from his income, and at once bor- rowed that amount and invested it. Otherwise when temptation to some small extravagance came he might spend this week's income and delay saving until next week, but with this obligation in mind he saved per- sistently until all was paid. James Wheeler Oakley, tanner and leather mer- chant, who could tell a good story with the best of story-tellers, was a man of winning ways and com- panionable; however severe his lips might be at [32] times his eyes were ever merry and he was a general favorite. He died in 1897, soon after I got to know him well. I don't remember the cause of his death, but know that it wasn't because of his acquaintance with me. Henry W. King — I knew him very well, and his intimate friend, Franklin Head. Both suffered acutely from hay fever and were obliged to seek relief in the White Mountains in August and Sep- tember, and to this I owe much pleasant inter- course with them. King was an able man in busi- ness, in charity and otherwise, ever regardful of duty. He was adviser and executor or trustee for many important estates, a member of many wel- fare and humane and political — not partisan — so- cieties, and presided over many, was high in the councils of the Presbyterian Church and its educa- tional institutions, and while concerned with large things did not neglect small ones. The Commercial Club was a dignified body, and he wanted even more dignity and no frivolity whatever. He held liberal views in almost everything except family relations, and there there must be comformity to the strict and narrow and almost puritanical rules. Later he became more liberal in this when circum- stances in his own household showed that there might be conditions that would justify more liber- ality. Besides all this Henry King was the glass of fashion and the mould of form, one who believed that men and women should wear proper garments 133} for all occasions, who could and did tell when and what to wear from tan shoes to the newest necktie and the latest headgear, as was natural, for his business was clothing, who thought a dinner not a dinner unless the diner was in dinner clothes and the dinner had a salad, — a good adviser and admon- isher — he did both for me many times upon request or by his own volition, executor for many estates and trustee for many heirs, whose purse was freely open to Presbyterian charities and other charities. He was a true-hearted gentleman, a good friend, ready with sympathy, and he never betrayed a confidence. I knew the admirable lady who survived him for many years, and she was delightful, too, in her way. She used to tell how that after she came into the King family she rescued the family clock case from the stable, where it had housed the currycomb and other instruments for the equine toilet, and re- stored it to the works from which it had been divorced. After the ministrations of the horologist and the cabinet maker it resumed its place as a fine, honored article of use and household adornment. The other member in the clothing trade was Louis Wampold, an unassuming, quiet man, of lib- eral views and open purse, and highest principles. I wonder if it was his dark-rimmed glasses, com- bined with dark hair and whiskers faintly sprinkled with gray that gave him so dark an appearance. I cut from a current newspaper a very pretty story about rival clothing merchants, with intention to read it [34] to King and Wampold when I should find them to- gether, but unhappily Wampold had been gathered to his fathers before the opportunity came, and King followed a few months later. Harley Bradley became a member of the Club in 1 88 1, and was its President in 1904. Lively, genial, helpful, every one of us rejoiced in his friendship and mourned when he was stricken with a lingering illness that affected his speech and confined him to his bed, a wheel-chair and one floor of his house, and to the constant loving care of devoted daugh- ters. I remember the last call I made upon him, near the end. He could not speak, but could hear and understand perfectly, and the look in his eyes told how he enjoyed my rambling talk of our friends, his and mine, and he held my hand as if he could not let me go, though I feared I was overtax- ing his strength. He was a true, loyal, generous friend, stricken when he could have been of most use to his family and to society. Bradley's business was akin to mine — his making the smaller and mine the larger tools for farmers' use. After him came Christoph Hotz, and still later Hotz's partner, Peter Schuttler, wagon makers, which again was a business somewhat akin to mine. Hotz had that cheerful smile and jovial greeting that warmed the cockles of one's heart. Schuttler was more restrained, but agreeable also. These three men, with the Spragues, and Coonley, and Crane, and myself, and Chalmers, made up the West Side contingent in the early days [35] Another great merchant was Levi Leiter, who be- fore he left the Field-Leiter firm and went to live in Washington, lived in Calumet Avenue. He was the first President of the Commercial Club. Starting in humble capacity in a dry goods store in Springfield, Ohio, he advanced through every department of the business and became one of the country's great- est and most famous merchants. He was one of the youngsters who, very lightly attired, played or sat on the fence and watched others play in the moon- light in Dearborn Park when Chicago and all the world was young. Leiter was very proud of his trout pond and his Southdown sheep on his Lake Geneva estate. He at one time promised me a buck and two ewes, but somehow I never got them. Those at the "Mil- lionaires' Table" at Chicago Club used to chaff him, saying the,y didn't believe he had any sheep or he would send them some mutton. One midsum- mer evening when my family was away and I was keeping grass-widower's hall, young Murry Nel- son came rushing over with "Mother wants you to come right away — come just as you are — Mr. Leiter has sent down a saddle of mutton" — and so I went just as I was, and found Mr. Leiter in im- maculate evening clothes. But the mutton was good. A good many men graduated from business and Chicago to Washington and politics. Paul Morton, a railroad man, with the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy and other roads, and later with the Santa [36 1 Fe, became Secretary of the Navy in President Roosevelt's Cabinet, and from there went to New York to preside over and direct the Equitable Life Insurance Company. He was fifty-four years old when he died, in January, 191 1, but that was all too soon, and many friends mourned his early taking off. Another Chicago man who kept his home here and lived in Washington during sessions of Con- gress was Senator Charles B. Farwell, strong- minded, decisive but good-natured, an excellent merchant, of large views and wide experience, and much interested in other lines than his own dry goods business, always accessible and cordial with his friends — a much greater man than he had credit for being. N. K. Fairbank was a conspicuous man, large, fine looking and positive. In any emergency one always knew where to find him. He had been trained as a bricklayer, and was proud of it and of his ability in that line. His main business was as manufacturer and merchant of lard and lard oils, but he took in provisions and grains and many other things. He was catholic in his trade and in everything else. He contemplated building in his home a chapel for the ladies of his family, and billiard and card rooms for himself and his sons. He was catholic as well in his charities and his public spirit, a generous contributor to every good thing. He made and lost many fortunes, and made many friends and lost none. He never was down- [37] hearted at his losses or elated at his gains, and possessed ample means at the end. "The mildest mannered man that ever scuttled ship or cut a throat" was Gen. A. C. McClurg, member of the Club for many years and once its President. When the Civil War broke out he was a young untrained man, with his business spurs yet to win. He left his chosen profession of bookselling to join the army, a volunteer in the ranks, ignorant of military science, even of the manual of arms, but by dint of native ability, study and applica- tion, advanced rapidly through every post to the rank of Brigadier General. He was a hard fighter and a successful, and was filled with solicitude for the welfare of all under his command. When the war ended he laid aside his military rank and quietly resumed his civilian occupation and built up a great business as bookseller and publisher. His bookshop was known far and wide, the resort of bibliophiles the world over, especially that de- partment known as the Saints and Sinners Corner, where were found the choicest of human spirits on the chairs and the rarest of books on the shelves. He was member of all the organizations that I was, only more worthy and more efficient. His military experience, however, did not leave him. He visited London to consult a noted physician to whom he was entirely unknown, who looked him over and said of some symptom — that you got in military service. "What makes you think I have had military service?" "I don't think it; I know; your [38 1 malady comes only from military service." Mc- Clurg died in the South. As I waited for the train that brought his body home to be laid in Grace- land I thought, Here was a man of the highest ideals. And he reached them. Peace to his manes. Another military member, and he also was a lumberman, was Gen. William E. Strong. A man who can sing and won't sing should be made to sing is an altogether unnecessary injunction, for there is nothing that a man who can sing likes so much to do, and so it was with Gen. Strong. He was both a sweet and a strong singer, and he enjoyed to sing as much as his hearers did to hear him and to join in the chorus. And "Marching Through Georgia" was his favorite number. He had a record of able service on General Sherman's staff during the Civil War, and marched with him on that famous march. He died in April, 1891. Then there was the Dancing Class that met weekly, sometimes at John Clark's house, but gen- erally at Bournique's Academy (high sounding title), which included the Dexters, the Gen. Sheridans, and others who were not of the Com- mercial Club but of its friends. Among those most deeply interested were the Clarks, the Fairbanks, the Doanes, the Pullmans, the MacVeaghs, who at that time lived in Michigan Avenue near 18 th Street, until the new Richardson home he built took him to the North Side as mine took me to the South. Into this dancing crowds so joyful strife, my sober footsteps never learned to stray, and be- [39 1 sides, the West Side was too far distant, and the dancing class was given up about the time I came into its neighborhood. Perhaps an added bond of sympathy between John Clark, MacVeagh and myself and Murry Nelson, was that we had similar families — each one son and one daughter of corresponding ages, except that Murry had two sons and one daughter — and we lived near together, I in the center and the others each two blocks distant, but in three different directions. A serious minded man was Hon. George E. Adams, lawyer, politician, congressman, member of this Club, its President in 1907, and much more a statesman than a politician. He was the first congressman of his time, and not alphabetically only. And so George Adams* name led all the rest. In all roll calls and lists his was the first name to be called. He was erect in carriage, as his friends well remember, and had a lofty and distinguished poise of head and chin. Because he was a remark- ably able and pleasing presiding officer he was often called in that capacity. He was deeply in- terested in literature and music and art, and was for several terms President of the Orchestral As- sociation. He had an acute sense of responsibility and of the fitness of things and ranked high in every way. Many members lived at the upper end of Prairie Avenue. It was not unusual for one of half a dozen men to stop at the corner of 18th street, as boys [40] would do, and look up and down the Avenue to find some one to walk down street with them. They didn't actually shout "Yahoo, Johnny, come on over," as boys would have done, but they thought it. I did not know Andrew Brown, the packer, affectionately called Andy, nor William Chisholm, iron and steel, at all. They had removed from Chicago long before their deaths. Neither did I know E. T. Watkins of the Gas Company, nor John M. Durand, grocer, very well. Charles M. Henderson, boots and shoes, was my neighbor. Incipient softening of the brain darkened his latter years. Henry B. Stone, railroads, who would have been chosen President had he lived a few months longer, Charles Fargo, President, American Express Company, Anthony Seeberger, hardware merchant, tall, grave of face, with a twinkle in his eye that gave assurance of humor behind that mask, George Walker, real estate, another lovable man, — I knew them well and admired them much. Orrin W. Potter made an excellent President in 1 88 1, and C. Fred Kimball was a most efficient Treasurer in 1902—3-4. As an interesting item in these recollections I could tell of half a dozen of the more prominent men here mentioned who dined at my house one evening, and over their cigars speculated on what each man could do to make his living if for any reason he was precluded from making it by his [41 ] chosen profession. Mind you, this was in all seriousness, and it was singular that every man of them would rely upon some circus or vaudeville trick — notably Henry B. Stone, and also Theodore Thomas, who was with us and was every man's friend, but not of us as member of the Club. The Commercial Club made various trips, on some of which I couldn't go. I well remember now the pang I felt when I saw the company off to Duluth and the iron country, and again when they went on the Chesapeake & Ohio excursion without me. I helped to pilot them to Cincinnati, though, in my administration, and was with them through the California trip, and to St. Louis and to Boston, etc. On all these occasions there was an absence of restraint except during the formal exercises. After the last Boston trip I took them to my country home in New Hampshire for a short call that would have been longer except that one of our number objected to traveling on Sunday. We stopped our train at the end of a stub road some distance below the Profile House, and drove in four-horse Concord coaches, quite a string of them, the remainder of the way, leaving the train to go back to the main line and around to our regular station. Once at my house each man had his pref- erences and evidenced his ruling passion, strong in pleasure. It really was amusing to watch these men, so staid and sober at home, so frolicsome when abtoad. One wanted to see the wild flowers, [42] another the vegetable garden. Peabody was curious about the source of water supply; Harvey looked at the cows, etc., etc.; Bernard Eckhart and several of the younger men tried racing over the grass paths, ending in the downfall of the miller and grievous damage to his garments. Like Sheridan at Winchester that was serious business, with Bar- ney^ other trousers twenty miles away — as the crow flies over the hills, and ninety as the railroad runs around them. But that was remedied. It so happened that my lady had visiting her at that time an old and much loved schoolmistress of Chicago, and it also so happened that several of these Club members, now grave and serious with responsibility at home, had once been pupils of hers, and several others had been on the Chicago School Board in her time. These two were the only ladies to grace this company, the company was too large for our dining room — so one table was set there and another in the hall adjoining, with one lady at each table, and there was much rivalry to get their attention. I will not name them — that sainted schoolmistress and half of her admirers in this company have now joined the great majority. I was with the Club on the Cuban trip — one of great recreation and delight and some profit. We stood together, Fuller and I, and perhaps one or two others, on the diminutive hill of San Juan and looked on the battlefield and moralized over the civilization that permitted naked half-grown boys and girls in numbers along the road we had passed, [43] though the day was bright and warm, and later we marvelled as we walked arm in arm down the gently sloping cobble-paved roadway in the quiet of a cloudless Sunday morning to the beautiful blue waters of Santiago Bay. Nature quickly obliterates the ravages of war on land, and almost instantly where the waters hide the sunken argosy. And as we looked with non-military eyes over this field and these waters we agreed privately with our two selves that the Cuban-Spanish-American War was a sort of six-by-nine affair, and that a modicum of human endeavor combined with a considerable coating of printers' ink is the making of heroes. The California trip, under the Presidency of William A. Fuller, and on invitation of the Santa Fe and the Chicago & Northwestern Ry. was made in a special train that carried not only our company but every facility for comfort and pleasure — beds, baths, barber shop, table, refreshments, news- papers, library, and everything belonging to a civilized, cultured, luxurious life, and gave us three weeks of delightful association so intimate that each man really knew and was known by his neighbor when we got home. Even the barber pro- claimed his satisfaction that he had come with us, for "while of course he had known Mr. Field in a business way before, he had never met him socially until now." At that time no one could be sure that this was not one of Will Chalmers' pleasantries. James H. Eckels, one time Comp- troller of the Currency, under Cleveland, banker [44] and all-round business man, was called upon for various addresses or responses, one particularly at Phoenix, Ariz., in awarding prizes in ty-steering (steer tying) contests among cowboys, was erudite — as the occasion demanded. Eckels may have had an austere face, but he had smiling eyes that belied that. He was a man of many close friendships. Crossing the bay at San Francisco, Mr. Head, when asked by reporters about Who's Who — pointed out William T. Baker as our greatest grain merchant: "he can write his check for $20,000,000/ ' Every California paper carried that story the next morning, and after that it preceded us at every stop. There was much persiflage of that sort, along with more serious things. It was true about the grain merchant, but William Baker was more than that: truly he was a good citizen, and a versatile. On the way to Phcenix and Prescott, in Arizona, we had word that the Governor would be glad to receive us in his office in the State House. We therefore arranged that Mr. Baker would make the response to the Gov- ernor's expected address of welcome. When we filed in and heard Governor Murphy's address — "Gentlemen, have a cigar," of course the response had to be equally concise and unmistakable, something in the line of "Don't care if we do." After an hour's pleasant talk, in which we learned more of Arizona than we had known, and the Governor learned more of Chicago than he had known, we re-entered our carriages with Mr. [45] Head's remark, "Baker, that's the best speech you ever made." But Baker was a fine speaker. Many business men are at a loss on such occasions: he was different. His thoughts came quick and clear and in logical sequence when he was on his feet, expressed in excellent and concise English and in an agreeable carrying voice. He had been President of the World's Fair, of the Commercial Club, and, I think, of the Citizens Association And Franklin Head was besides a banker an all- round man of affairs, with large and varied in- terests. He was a literary man of high rank, and had prominent part in many literary, historical, scientific and philosophical societies. His humor was gentle and all pervading, and his friends in- numerable and devoted. His skits about the "In- somnia of Shakespeare," "Legend of Jeckyll Island," and "A Notable Law Suit," brought him a national reputation and much amusing cor- respondence. I was close in his confidence while he was preparing some of these, particularly the last mentioned. Head was more than a little absent-minded at times. When in the White Mountains he and Henry King had communicating rooms at Maplewood Hotel, and with fatherly interest King always looked Head over as they finished dressing. One morning he said, "Colonel" — he always called Head Colonel— "that tie won't do." "Well, Henry, what's wrong with the tie? What tie shall I put on?" "Any one but that: that tie won't go with [46] that suit at all." And Mr. King went down to breakfast, followed soon by his friend, to be greeted with, "Why, Colonel, what have you done?" "Well, Henry, what have I done? Isn't the tie right?" "No: youVe put the second tie on top of the first." At luncheon at my house one day that summer the two friends were eager to get bulletins from the Sullivan-Corbett prize fight, then going on at New Orleans, and wishing that Corbett might win, for as they expressed it, Sullivan was a brute and a bruiser and Corbett was a real gentleman. But wasn't it Corbett's wife who encouraged her husband with, "Hit him in the slats, Jim; hit him in the slats?" Mr. Head died in June, 19 14, away from home, but with his daughters beside him. Returning from the California trip and a hundred miles or so before we reached Salt Lake City, quite early in the morning, we were met by a Reception Committee from that place, of which my business representative was the head. He was not a Mor- mon, but his associate was, and the latter was returning from the East with a part of his family — two ladies, one his wife. The other may have been his daughter, or another wife — he was said to have three. I only know she was pretty. Now, our com- pany, all men, were just getting out of their berths and, of course, not prepared to receive ladies. So I had to excuse myself, rush back to the car, and hustle either John Clark or Murry Nelson out of [47 1 their state rooms to make a place for the ladies. Clark was furthest along and had to vacate, and the porter gave the room a lick and a promise, and then the ladies were taken aboard as the train moved off, and with a great show of dignified politeness we gave them the place of honor. I hesi- tate to repeat the characterization Harley Bradley gave of the Mormon official and his exceedingly long beard. A local philosopher has said that perfect con- fidence doesn't exist between two women until their back hair is down. Similarly with the male element confidence comes when two or three are gathered together in the wee sma' hours. Peabody and Porter and I, and perhaps two others — I write from recollection, not from records — were delegates to a Hard Money Conference at Indian- apolis, where we kept rather late hours, I fear, for staid heads of families. Porter, railroad president and financier, man of broad vision and large under- takings, told this tale of an experience when he was General Superintendent of the Lake Shore Road, in the early days of the Pullman Palace Sleeping Cars and of the Civil War. Then the cars of passenger trains were classified — smoking car, emigrants' car, common car, ladies' car, and occasionally sleeper; and it was economy to have as few cars on a train as possible, especially as the Government was apt to confiscate a car to carry soldiers if trains were running empty. Going from [48 ] Cleveland to Chicago one night, Porter's conductor reported there were but two men in the day coach, and was told to put them in the ladies' car and omit the coach. One went there and the other forward to the emigrants' car. Later the conductor roused Porter from sleep to say an emigrant was making a great fuss about having been robbed of several hundred dollars. After ineffectual attempts by the conductor to develop the criminal, Porter went forward himself and accused the man who had left the day coach, and by threat to drop him off the train in motion induced the question, "What will you do if I tell you?" "Put you in the penitentiary." And he got the confession. Then, with the man under guard, he telegraphed ahead and had the road's private policeman at the train on arrival and arrested the robber. And still later the road's attorney was to prosecute. When the case came on, all parties present, the lawyer found an imperfect case, as there was no evidence to locate the crime — Ohio, Indiana or Illinois — and so had the case adjourned. Thereupon Porter took it up again with, "I told you the other night I'd throw you off the train, and you believed me?" "Yes." "And I'd send you to the penitentiary, and you believed me?" "Yes." "Well, I've thought about it again. The Government wants soldiers; you're a sturdy man; if you'll go to Camp Douglas and enlist in the Union Army and agree to fight loyally, I'll let you off." And the fellow was turned over to two city policemen. All this while the rail- [49] road policeman was standing around very uneasy with no chance to talk to Mr. Porter, but called on him the next day — u Mr. Porter, why didn't you let me take that man to Camp Douglas? Those two city police got $100 each bounty for enlisting him." And Porter concluded he was successful to appre- hend but unsuccessful to punish. Francis Bolles Peabody was another unusual man, thoughtful, prudent and wise. He preceded me by one term as President of the Citizens Association and by one term as President of this Club. He had had thorough legal training in the office of Franklin Pierce just before Pierce was elected fourteenth President of the United States. Peabody was what we called a mortgage banker in those days and would now designate an investment banker. His younger partner and son-in-law, James L. Houghteling, a studious, thoughtful, high minded man, took his club membership seriously from 1884 until his death in 1900. As President of the Citizens Association Mr. Peabody aroused the wrath of some politicians, and I fell heir to that, which made my efforts to get the Chicago Drainage bill through the Illinois legislature very difficult. It delayed the passage somewhat, but didn't defeat it. In our efforts for the passage of the Drainage bill through the legislature we tried to harmonize every influence in Chicago, and mine were espe- cially directed to Hon. Joseph Medill of the Chicago tribune. I always afterwards had a mild [ 50] grudge against the Spragues and Bartlett and Nelson and one or two others that they would not go with me to beard the 'Tribune lion in his den. They had had experience. Medill was aggravatingly good-natured on this occasion, but it was hard to convince or even argue with him, for whenever I would make a good point he would take down his ear trumpet, and I might as well speak to a stone wall. Finally, however, he agreed to go with us to Springfield, and he did valiant work for the bill. He was the best posted man politically that was ever produced in the West, and I well remember how, after everybody else had gone to bed, he and I sat on the edge of my berth (his was just opposite) and talked until very late. His reminiscences were of absorbing interest. Edward P. Ripley, head of one of the great transcontinental railway systems of the country, the Santa Fe, when asked by a lady, in my presence, the duties of a railway president replied, to do anything that was so mean, or small or disagreeable or difficult that no one else would do it. He took his road from virtual bankruptcy and made it a well organized, well equipped, popular, money- making enterprise. When urged to become Presi- dent of the Commercial Club he counselled, "Wait; wait until I haven't so much to do," but was ready always to take his part. He selected first- class aids, and was always considerate in what he required of them; he appreciated their devotion to his cause; he was quick to see good qualities in [51 ] those with whom he came in contact. I saw a good deal of him the winters I spent at Santa Barbara. There he said he wouldn't let his business interfere with his golf. At his seventieth anniversary his rail- road friends gave him a birthday dinner, and spoke the highest compliments in heartfelt words. In a few months thereafter death severed the cordial relations that had so long continued. Byron Laflin Smith, another able banker, exec- utor, trustee and adviser for estates and individuals, besides the serious concerns of his business life, was full of good-tempered practical jokes when off duty. Walking home one night with a comrade he bantered, "I'll race you around the block for a dollar. " And the friend, not knowing that Byron was in athletic training, wheezed along, much out- distanced. And then the dollar, and what to do with it. The decision was to give it to the Univer- sity of Chicago anonymously. And at the next convocation Dr. Harper read out dramatically among many large gifts, "One dollar from a Friend, anonymously," and many in the audience thought it a gift from some toiling widow who de- prived herself, and that the gift really meant more to her than the thousands given by the well-to- do. And Byron and his friend chuckled softly to themselves. Again: going to his summer home at Lake Forest one evening a lady said to him — "Mr. Smith, I am raising funds for (naming an excel- lent charity) and I want one hundred dollars from 1 5^1 you." "All right, Mrs. H., I'll tell you what I'll do. I am soliciting for the Chicago Orphan Asylum. If you'll give me one hundred dollars for that, I'll give you one hundred dollars for your charity." When that bargain was completed she said, "I'm going to see Mr. tomorrow and get one hundred dollars from him." "Bet you two dollars you won't." The next Friday the lady walked in to Mr. Smith's desk and laid down two dollars. "What's this for?" "I didn't get the subscription I told about." And when the one hundred and two dollars was presented at the next Orphan Asylum meeting Byron had to explain about the odd two dollars. Alas, the three principals in this little episode all are gone, but the two Institutions still are carrying on their excellent work and soliciting gifts to pay for it. It was through Byron Smith's work as executor that the Old Men's Home was established through the will of James King. The Old Guard and the next to the Old Guard who are still with us are growing fewer and fewer, yet there are many more of those who have gone — Blatchford and Rand and Ream, and Seeberger and Houghteling and Higinbotham, merchant and President of the World's Columbian Exposition, and Burnham, its architect and builder, and others, and others, of each of whom I might say many an interesting word to revive our memories, if that were needed. "All, all are gone, the old familiar [53] faces. " We mourn our loss. We grieve that they have departed this life. Departed this life: what pathos in that old-fashioned phrase! The bodily- activities have ceased; the untiring minds are at rest; our recollections persist. For their lives and works our paeans of praise, for their deaths and parting our sad tears, for our past associations only cheerful memories. Farewell, old friends, farewell. It is common to prate of the heartlessness of great cities, but not entirely justified. The larger and more widespread the city, the harder to probe and know its true heart. Chicago was and is hos- pitable, ready to meet the stranger half way, and take him at his proven worth. I came here still callow, without experience, without acquaintance, without introductions, to supplant an unsatis- factory representative. I found little snobbery in Chicago. There is none in the Commercial Club. I was most kindly received by both. These are lightsome sketches of my early friends in the Commercial Club — not important, for I have had no thought to give a serious history of these men and their achievements. It may be that my gossipy tales may have a little brief interest for those who hold some memory of the appearance and characteristics of the men whom I am proud to have known familiarly in their heyday — those characteristics of mind and heart that we love to honor. The list omits many, too many, who have [54] died in recent years, who were my dear friends, but not of the original Old Guard. Fate has been kinder to some of the members of the Old Guard. A good many have left our gray and dull and smoke-begrimed but much loved atmosphere and surroundings for the milder air and brighter skies east and west and north and south. These elders made the Club, for it was their fortune to be with it in its infancy. The present younger members are not younger now than those in their time. These will carry on the Club with the same high aims and I have faith to greater accom- plishment; but these younger don't belong in this category — they are still in busy life, still grappling with its fluctuations and its vast concerns. If my dates and some other things are a little confused and confusing or even inharmonious, please remember I have stated that I write from recollection, not from records. If there seems unnecessary garrulity, I urge my friends to be considerate. As for age, they are approaching where I may be said to have arrived — and a fellow feeling makes us wondrous kind. In whatever I did to make and retain these friendships, I had more than the help, the cordial and most active and efficient co-operation of the lady who honored me with unstinted confidence and the privilege of paying her bills, though her part was mostly behind the scenes. My house was a meeting place, and to me two of the most de- [ S5l lightful gatherings we had were when the Com- mercial Club held one of its annual meetings at my home here, and again when it visited me for a day at my country place in New Hampshire. In- deed I believe that my friends thought better of her than they did of me, as I did and do myself. I am admonished to hasten in setting down these memories lest soon there be no one left to send them to. Since Charles Hutchinson's death I merit one distinction along with Marvin Hughitt. He and I are the earliest and for the longest time in active resident membership of the Commercial Club. I could easily appraise him had I enough sufficiently laudatory adjectives at command, for he has been a man of deeds and accomplishments since before he walked the length of I. C. R. R., inspecting telegraph lines and outfit, until now the head of one of the greatest, most successful and prosperous and powerful of the great railroad systems of the country, due to his directing efforts. And as for myself: I have had some modest success in the past and may perhaps hope for a still more modest part in the future, but sub- mit that it is too soon for self-appraisal even if that were permissible, and besides I might not stand as high in my own estimation as I should like to in yours. Moreover, I may yet fall from such small grace as I have, and Prudence says "Wait." But I have loved this Club since the day I was overwhelmed by the notice of my 1 56 1 election to membership. I have written the final memorials for many vanished friends. And when my time comes for such ministration, I should be more than pleased could I know that some kind, partial scribe would write after my name and dates what was said years ago over a wiser but not more devoted man — "He had good friends whom he loved. " And until then I would ask of you who read these vagrom sketches that you be- lieve me to be, Faithfully yours, John J. Glessner. 57 PRINTED BY R. R. DONNELLEY AND SONS COMPANY AT THE LAKESIDE PRESS, CHICAGO, ILL.