The Career of a Capitalist

THIS story is not a warning. It outlines the life of a man belonging to a class against whom there has been much clamor in this country during the last few years. He is a capitalist. According to the teaching of the reformers he is a non-producer, a man who lives by the labor of others, and therefore an oppressor of those whose toil has given him his wealth. It is indeed true that he has never worked with his own hands since the time when, in his early boyhood, he engaged in catching fish for the markets of his native town. Pursuing this industry for a few weeks, he found himself possessed of an accumulation of small silver coins amounting to about twentyfive dollars. The money was for some reason put aside, and is still preserved by his children. “ This,” he once said to me, “ is the first and last money that I ever earned by my own manual labor.” His home is on one of the great peninsulas of our Atlantic coast, at the head of navigation on a small river which permits the passage of vessels of a thousand tons burden. He is fifty-six years old, and still lives on the spot where he was born. His early education was inconsiderable in extent, and so unsystematic that it did not even give him an idea of the methods by which knowledge might be acquired. When he was married he could read but very imperfectly; but his young wife insisted upon his taking a daily newspaper, and then with affectionate firmness required him to read it through each evening. At first there was much that he did not understand, but he learned the art of wise and stimulating inquiry, and so drew from those about him whatever knowledge they possessed. This habit still gives his conversation a remarkable interest and vitality. He appears to have been able to carry unanswered questions in his mind for any length of time, until some new source of information was revealed.

He was left an orphan when about seventeen years of age, and the next year entered upon the life of a man of business. His father had been the proprietor of a country store with a trade of about forty thousand dollars a year. After his death two of his brothers, who settled the affairs of his estate, decided to continue the business, admitting their nephew, our young friend, to a partnership with them. He received from the estate of his father about fifteen hundred dollars. The affairs of a country store at that time embraced the sale of everything the people of the region needed for use, and the purchase of everything they wished to sell. There was not yet any separation of the different lines or departments of trade, such as dry goods, groceries, hardware, clothing, millinery, etc., but articles belonging to all these classes, and many others, were sold at the same place, which also afforded a market for whatever was produced or manufactured in the surrounding country. The store was the great vital centre for the life of the region, for the reception and distribution of everything. There the farmers bought their plows, harness, shovels, hoes and scythes, hats and shoes (most of their clothing was manufactured at home in those days), and there they sold their wheat and corn, bacon, hay, and other productions of their farms. Thither their wives and daughters carried young fowls, eggs and butter, and home-made cloth, and took away in return calicoes, muslin do laines, bonnets, ribbons, combs, and needles. Here the wood-cutters bought their axes; the handles were generally made by somebody possessing uncommon dexterity in this particular manufacture, and brought to the store for sale. (There are very few men who can make a good axe-handle; not so many, probably, as write poetry for the magazines.) The plans for new undertakings and enterprises were generally discussed and arranged at the store, and it had important relations to the social life of the people. There were opportunities for a genuine and useful education in such a place, and our young friend entered with hearty interest upon his new course of life.

Copyright, 1879, by HOUGHTON, OSGOOD & Co.

He soon came to have a large share in the organization, direction, and management of the business, and in a few years became its real head. He was always a close observer of men, and of the effect upon them of their circumstances and occupation. He early became convinced that the interests of a community or country are advanced by increasing the number of employers, — of men who direct and pay for the labor of others. He observed that many men lack capacity for the wise direction and organization of their own labor, while they are highly useful and successful when working for a competent employer. Others possess qualities of mind and character which fit them to be leaders or masters of the industry of others. When our friend saw these qualities in the men around him, he felt a strong desire that they should have means and opportunities for their development and practical application in some suitable sphere of action. As his business increased and brought him facilities for extending it in new directions, he began to confer with some of the young men of the neighborhood in regard to their employment and wages. Most of them worked by the day, at cutting and hauling wood, burning charcoal, and similar occupations, but there was not yet in the region any systematic industry which afforded regular or profitable occupation to the people. Men were often idle for weeks together. The country needed men to employ and lead the labor of their neighbors.

So our friend said one day to a young married man who lived near him, “ You are making shoes, I believe? ”

“ Yes, when anybody wants them, and I can get money to buy stock.”

“ Why don’t you open a shop, and hire two or three hands? There is young so-and-so, who is doing nothing. He can whittle out anything with a jackknife, and he ought to have something to whittle that will be of use. He would soon learn; and you could find one or two more.”

“ Why, do you think I could get work enough?”

“ Well, there are a good many people about here that wear shoes. How much are you making now? ”

“ Oh, perhaps a dollar and a half a day, when I have work.”

“ Well, there is that little house of mine on the corner. You can have that free of rent, and I will let you have money to buy stock. I will insure you your dollar and a half a day; you shall pay me interest at the legal rate for the money you have from me, and we will divide the profits equally.”

The shoe shop was opened, and was successful. It was enlarged in a year or two, and for many years gave steady and profitable employment to a considerable number of men.

By arrangements essentially similar our friend formed partnerships, during the first twenty-five years of his business life, with harness - makers, blacksmiths, wheelwrights, tinsmiths, lumbermen, lime-burners, oystermen, farmers, and manufacturers. He has had scores of such partnerships with wood-cutters and charcoal burners. In the same way he has supplied means for building and operating numerous flouring and saw mills, using both steam and water power. He has owned farms and timber lands in South Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, and Ohio, with stores in each region to supply his farmers and the laborers at his mills. Thousands of men have been employed in connection with these enterprises, and hundreds of them enabled to become in their turn employers and organizers of labor. In many instances men have worked for our friend, and with him, during a term longer than that of an average life-time. Almost always the relations of employer and laborer, and of business partnership, have passed into those of personal friendship; and when, as has often occurred, men have wished to leave him to go into business for themselves, he has felt a genuine interest in their undertakings, and done what he could to promote their success. Those who have worked for him longest say that he never employs a man merely for what he can get out of him.

Many years ago he took a young carpenter into partnership, and engaged in ship - building. The oyster fisheries along the coast near him are of great excellence, and furnish employment for thousands of men with their vessels. Of many of these boats, constructed in his ship-yard, our friend retains a share in the ownership, and this relation with the fishermen has promoted steadiness, industry, and sobriety among them in a marked degree. The larger vessels, of from eight hundred to a thousand tons burden, built under his supervision, are known in every sea for the superiority of all the materials used in their construction, and the careful honesty of the work. Many of these he owns in part.

The first carts that were ever taken across the mountains from Acapulco to Oaxaca were made in our friend’s shops, and sent out to an acquaintance who had a building contract in the latter city. They were objects of great interest to the native workmen, who were eager to be permitted to use them in transporting the stone and other building materials which they had been carrying. A dozen mules were harnessed, and with some difficulty fastened to the “ new carriages.” When the first cart, drawn by a rather diminutive mule, was brought to the place where it was to be loaded, the laborers swarmed around it, and piled so much stone into the rear of the vehicle that it tipped over backward and lifted the astonished mule into the air, where it hung and struggled until the removal of the stone restored it to its normal position on the ground.

Some fifteen years ago our friend became desirous of finding some means for preserving and utilizing the enormous quantities of fruit produced in the region in which he lives. He erected a large building and put in the necessary machinery for canning fruit, and this has ever since, during the season for the business, afforded employment, to about one hundred women and more than half as many men. Tbe principal products canned are peaches and tomatoes, and of these many millions of pounds have been used, and the goods are known in all the markets of the world. This is an industry which produces and stimulates many others.

The little straggling hamlet in which the young man began his business life has become a handsome and important town, with seven or eight thousand inhabitants, most of them operatives employed in manufacturing industries, — in the production of glass, iron, cotton and woolen goods, shoes, buttons, chemicals, etc. There is probably not one of these industries which was not in some way aided by our friend in the earlier stages of its growth. For many years there were but few men engaged in business of any kind in the town who had not been employed by him, or associated with him in such relations as I have described.

The original character of the site of the town made the construction of suitable streets a matter of some difficulty and of a great deal of labor, and to this object our friend has devoted much time and effort. For such work he has never accepted any compensation, regarding all measures for the improvement of the place as matters of enlightened self-interest for business men rather than of duty.

The circumstances of most of the population, their employments and general environment, have been such as favored the development of habits of intemperance. Some of the largest manufactories are closed for two months in summer, and during this time the men and boys are idle. They have good wages during the remainder of the year, and it is not wonderful that drinking and gambling should seem to them only natural amusements and diversions during this long holiday. These industrial and social conditions have given the friends of order, sobriety, and good morals cause for much anxiety, and for constant effort in endeavoring to counteract these unfavorable tendencies. The influence of the various churches of the place, Methodist, Presbyterian, and Roman Catholic, has been highly effective amongst the operatives as a means of moral restraint and guidance. The public schools of the town have more than average excellence, and the place has one of the best Kindergartens in the country. (It is a real Kindergarten, and not a travesty of Fröbel’s principles.) There is a valuable public library with several readingrooms. Temperance societies of various kinds have rendered important assistance in the mental and moral education of the workingmen. For several years past there has been but little intoxicating liquor sold in the place. All these agencies for the promotion of the most important ends for which society exists have received assistance, encouragement, and sympathy from our friend, and people know beforehand that he may be counted amongst the supporters of any measure likely to advance the interests of the community.

He is the most quiet and unobtrusive of men; he never makes speeches or addresses public meetings, and in arranging matters of business never rambles away from the subject in hand to irrelevant topics. I think he does not belong to any church, but he understands the value of the church in the community, and has a genuine fraternal esteem for all who are laboring to overcome evil and promote good-will among men. He is eminently conscientious, gentle, and forbearing, simply and silently religious. In society his manner is marked by a quiet, cordial dignity. He is eminently social, and little children, strangers, and diffident people are at ease with him at once. He likes to entertain his friends by giving them the freedom of his house, the use of horses and carriages, and other means of diversion, while he joins them from time to time with apparently equal interest in whatever his guests prefer as the pursuit of the hour. If a new game is introduced for the children, or young people, he learns it with them, and engages in it with a zest as great as theirs. I think no visitor at his house ever left it without wishing to return.

He has a cultivated and interesting family. His own experience of the disadvantages resulting from the want of culture in early life has led him to give his children an unusually judicious and practical education. His principal recreation consists in hearing his wife or daughters read, commonly some of the works of American authors of our own time. (His old friend, the daily newspaper with which he began his education, is still faithfully read, as it has been for all the years from the first.) He enjoys the writings of our principal American poets, likes biography and travels, and has an especial fondness for books that describe clearly the character, resources, and productions of different countries, with the habits and industries of the people, and the particular conditions under which society exists in various parts of the world. His house is frequented by intelligent and cultivated men and women from different parts of the country, and is one of the chief intellectual and social centres of the region where he lives. A score or so of his neighbors have for some years assembled there once a fortnight for the purpose of reading Shakespeare’s plays. No one participates with heartier interest than our friend in the work of this little club. He always wishes to know the meaning of what is read, and is not satisfied till he has learned whatever is attainable about the historical personages or occurrences mentioned in the play.

He likes to see the best actors occasionally. He unites, in as great degree as any man I have ever known, the wondering, receptive spirit of a child with the critical analysis and judgment of a mature and cultivated intellect. He has a genuine enjoyment of good pictures, and prefers small, quiet landscapes. He is always greatly interested in machinery, and readily understands its construction and movements. I have met few persons who saw and comprehended so much as he of the exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876. He has great delight in the microscope and its revelations. He is very fond of flowers, and has always been a close observer of the forms and habits of plants. When some friends were setting out from his house, a few years ago, upon a botanical excursion, he joined them, and on hearing various flowers and plants described was able to tell where they grew twenty-five or thirty years before, though he did not know their names.

He appears to have no eccentricities. He never uses profane language or ardent spirits. When he was young, rum was sold at every country store, but his father had refused to keep it for several years before his death, and our friend never sold a drop of intoxicating liquor of any kind. He was an earnest antislavery man, and ever since the end of the war he has been deeply interested in the development and prosperity of the Southern States of the Union. He is cordially patriotic, and feels much interest in politics, but is not a partisan, and seems able to recognize true worth and excellence in all parties and classes. He has always been solicitous for the diffusion of sound and practical ideas among the laboring people, having comprehended at an early period the truth that the conditions of life and business in this country, especially those connected with universal suffrage, involve some difficult problems, and some serious disadvantages for those who work for wages.

I have here presented as many of the principal facts of this man’s life and work as I am able to embody in a paper of no greater length. A master of fiction could portray an ideal character, and supply more dramatic incidents. This account is merely true. It describes the life of a quiet, humane gentleman, — one who has been most useful to his fellows, who has aided in the development of whole regions of our country, and who, I am sure, never knowingly harmed any human being. And yet this man, according to the teaching of those who pretend to be the best friends of the laboring man, is an enemy to society, an oppressor of the poor and of all who toil. He has a beautiful home, with pictures, flowers, books, scientific collections and instruments. But it is urged that my friend has no right to these possessions, that they are the evidences and proceeds of injustice, because he is a capitalist, because he does not labor with his hands. Yet he has provided and directed remunerative labor for an army of men who had not ability or opportunity to provide it for themselves. He has trained hundreds of these men till they were able in their turn to provide work for others. As I have heard the abuse and execration which unreasoning partisans have heaped upon all capitalists, I have wished to tell the story of some lives that I have known. I am well assured that wise teaching — the truth — respecting the relations between capital and labor, or rather those between capitalists and laborers, is still as important and necessary as before the recent political defeat of some of the disorganizing elements and tendencies in our society. We shall be exposed to similar dangers and difficulties while so large a proportion of the whole people retain the qualities of mind and thought which are the real source of our perils. We cannot expect speedily to suppress or root out these evils; we can only hope to maintain our ground against them, and gradually to expel them by wise vigilance and by unhesitating acceptance of the responsibility of propagating knowledge and true culture.

My friend has always clearly understood the necessity of honestly paying the debts of the nation which were incurred during the war, and he thinks that if our people could have been wise enough to be strictly honest in matters of national finance and currency, we might have escaped something of the paralysis of business and industry from which we have recently suffered. He laments the madness of the workingmen in demanding irredeemable paper money, but thinks that the cultivated people and business men of the nation should understand that, if there is great disturbance and depression of industry in the country, and particularly if many people are for some time out of employment, some such popular madness is almost certain to arise. He believes there may still be danger and difficulty before us in matters of national finance, on account of the clumsy and unnecessary silver legislation, and fears that the fluctuating value of silver may be an embarrassing element, in the problem of resumption of specie payments. I find that most of the business men of my acquaintance distrust the effect of a double standard of value, and believe the present experiment of a bi-metallic currency can end only in disaster; but they fancy it is inevitable that we shall try many foolish experiments, and that we may as well try this one now. My friend thinks the American people will be obliged to learn that the yard-stick has been made for some time, and its length established, and that for all honest men it is thirtysix inches long; that there are one hundred cents in a real dollar; and that the hope even of pecuniary gain from schemes of readjustment, repudiation, and debasing the currency is an illusion. All endeavors to obtain something for nothing he regards as stupid and foolish; fairness and integrity being in his estimation a kind of capital without which success in business is impossible. This gentleman never engages in electioneering, and does not purposely influence those who are in his employ; but the facts of his life, such as I have here described, have profoundly impressed many of the working people about him, and the intellectual conditions of the region where he lives are in consequence comparatively unfavorable for the development of hostility to capitalists, although the workingmen constitute so large a proportion of the population.

It might be instructive to compare this life with the course of any one of the politicians who denounce capitalists with such vehement bitterness. I asked my friend not long ago if he had not lost much money by trusting dishonest or incompetent men. He replied that he had had such losses, adding, “ But every kind of business has its risks, and I should probably have had greater losses if I had invested in stocks or mortgages in the usual way.” He said that such a course would have given him far less labor, care, and anxiety than the one he has followed. In times of great depression he has felt burdened and anxious on account of the difficulty of providing labor for his people; and has often kept them employed for a long time when nothing could be sold for as much as it cost. He holds that when laborers are idle, capital always declines in value. He thinks the first step toward improvement in times of great depression is for workmen to live on as little as possible, and for capitalists to employ as much labor as they can. Let the laborers live savingly, and the capitalists be content with small profits.