Mr. MacDonald invited me to go to his studio to see a bust in clay of Mr. Stewart that he had just about finished. He said, “I knew Mr. Stewart’s aversion to having any portraits or photographs taken of himself during his lifetime, so I provided for the emergency some time ago by taking close observation of him at various intervals. During the past two years I have frequently come in contact with him, going into his store and getting a good look at him from various points of view, so as to impress his likeness upon my mind. I have thus succeeded in getting a pretty good bust of him in clay.”
Mr. MacDonald was very anxious that I should call and see this bust, because, as I knew Mr. Stewart so well, he inferred that my judgment would be worth something, and he expressed a desire that I should criticise his work. I promised him I would call and see the bust as soon as I could spare the time.
On leaving the dentist’s office I made another engagement to go back the following week, and in the meantime I had been unable to call at the studio of the artist, but the latter happened to be in the office of the dentist when I called there again. The will of Mr. Stewart had been published in the interim, and in it all reference to charities and benevolent institutions had been carefully omitted.
Mr. MacDonald reminded me that I had not called to see the bust, and added, “If you had called that time you would hardly recognize any resemblance between what it is now and what it was then.” “How is that?” I inquired. “Because,” he replied (facetiously), “as soon as I saw the will published in the newspapers and none of that immense pile left to the public, from whom it had been collected, I set to work and toned down the bumps of benevolence, conscientiousness, sublimity, veneration and ideality, making those of acquisitiveness, inhabitiveness, amativeness and all the selfish and animal propensities prominent. I naturally concluded, if phrenology is not a fraud, that Stewart’s will was a manifestation of the non-existence of the higher and more humane organs in his cranium. There certainly could be nothing there indicative of any generous emotions.”
I think everybody who knew the great dry goods merchant will be inclined to say that the judgment of the sculptor was neither rash nor uncharitable.
STEPHEN GIRARD.
Stephen Girard was another of the great millionaires who arose from penury, and whose eccentricity took a philanthropic turn. Mr. Girard was a Frenchman, born near Bordeaux in 1750, who made his home in later years in Philadelphia. He bequeathed over two million dollars to found and endow Girard College in that city.
There is a good story told, which seems to be well authenticated, of the manner in which Mr. Girard rewarded the ingratitude of a sister. When he was a boy about ten he manifested very little disposition for hard work, and his family treated him harshly. One morning a rumpus arose about his idleness, and having said something that aroused the ire of his sister, she clutched the broom and flew at him in a rage. He retreated, receiving a few hard blows over the shoulders as he passed for the last time over the threshold of his paternal home. He went to sea, his father having been a seaman, and through various vicissitudes of fortune eventually turned up as a millionaire in Philadelphia.
After young Girard had gone through the preliminary course as cabin boy, trading between France, the West Indies and New York, he had saved up some money and became part owner of a small trading vessel. This was in 1776, the year of the Declaration of Independence. His trading was suspended by the war with Great Britain. He then speculated in the renting of a number of stores in Philadelphia, and sub-let them at a large profit. Afterward he purchased a controlling interest in the stock of the old U. S. Bank in 1812, and became a private banker with a capital of more than a million. Subsequently he loaned five millions to the Government to help defray war expenses.
In the meantime fortune, however, had not favored his irate sister, who had chastised him with the broom. She remained poor. She had heard of her brother’s wealth, however, but did not have money enough to pay her passage to this country. In this extremity she went to the captain of a Philadelphia vessel in a French port and told him that she was a sister of Stephen Girard, without money, and desired to go and see her brother, who was well known to the captain. She received the best accommodation that the vessel could afford. Having arrived in Philadelphia the gallant captain escorted her to the house of her wealthy brother. Leaving her in the hallway he went in to see Mr. Girard and told him that a lady outside wished to see him. The benevolent captain was prepared to behold a demonstration of joy, which he thought would be exhibited as soon as the long lost brother and sister should recognize each other. He was not kept long in suspense. Mr. Girard knew his sister instantly. “_C’est vous._” “It is you,” he said. “Oui,” she replied. These were all the words that passed. There was no rushing into each others arms, but on the contrary, Mr. Girard plunged at the captain in a lively mood. “What authority had you to bring that woman here?” he said. The captain was dumbfounded and hardly knew what to answer. “Take her back again at your own expense,” he added.
The captain did not stand a minute on the order of his going, and the millionaire’s sister, without receiving one kind adieu, was conducted from the palatial mansion of her brother to the vessel, and thence to her pauper home in France.
This shows that the great philanthropist had a good memory and was resentful of injuries, yet it also betrays a narrowness from some taint of which the greatest minds are not entirely free. The Girard sister was unable to comprehend the higher aspirations of her young brother and his intelligent convictions, which had, no doubt, taken form at that early period of his life, that a man can never become wealthy by hard manual labor. He was wrong, however, in giving her the cold shoulder. She was correct in one sense, from her point of view, although a narrow view, and his large charity should have condoned an error arising from her superficial conception of his early designs.
His narrow-mindedness, with all his genuine greatness, and his eccentricity were exhibited in a remarkable degree in some of the restrictions of his will regarding the college. Although he was exceedingly generous in his gifts to religious denominations, without distinction, as well as to charitable institutions generally, he was, though illiterate, a free thinker of the school of Voltaire and Rousseau. He, therefore, had inserted in his will a prohibitory clause to the effect that no clergyman should be permitted to have anything to do with Girard College, nor even be admitted as a visitor. The college is for orphans between six and ten years of age, who are put to a trade when they are sixteen, all expenses being defrayed until they are able to earn a living. There are now over 500 beneficiaries. Girard died in 1831, at the ripe age of four score and one. He was worth nine million dollars, of which but a very small pittance went to a few of his relatives, the great bulk of the estate having been distributed among charitable institutions. This great philanthropist was exceedingly close in money matters with men generally, and it is said that he never had a friend, except the friend in the pocket, which is by all odds the most genuine.
The late James Lenox takes rank with the great philanthropists of the age, in attempting to devote a large portion of his surplus wealth to the good of humanity. When he died, in 1880, at the age of eighty, he was supposed to be one of the five wealthiest men in New York. He spent a million dollars to found and endow the Presbyterian Hospital at Seventieth street and Madison avenue, and over a half million in building the Lenox Library at Seventieth street and Fifth avenue.
The building and the library are both immense gifts, but admission to the latter is so hampered by red tape, forms and ceremonies that it is of little or no earthly use to the general public. As a piece of architecture the building may, according to the ideas of the famous John Buskin, help to educate the people, but in other respects they derive no benefit from it. The library, which is built on ten city lots, contains the choicest selection of books in the world, outside of the British Museum, besides valuable manuscripts and works of art, and its collection of American works is unsurpassed anywhere. That part of the collection, consisting of Mr. Lenox’s own private library of 15,000 volumes, contains books of rare value, many of which could not be duplicated. This is one reason why the general public are excluded.
In fact, there is a good deal to be said in favor of the fastidious care that is taken of some libraries and picture galleries, as a large portion of the general public don’t know how to appreciate their privileges, and therefore abuse them, some through the relic monomania and others actuated by pure mischief. Thus it was that Mr. William H. Vanderbilt was very reluctantly obliged to exclude the general public from his fine picture gallery, as certain visitors scratched the etchings with their canes and put their fingers on the pictures, while others were incessantly on the relic hunt and had to be carefully watched during their visit.
PETER COOPER.
Peter Cooper was another of the philanthropists, with large means, who sought to distribute a considerable part of it where it would do the most good to humanity, especially to that portion of it who are in pursuit of knowledge under difficulties. Mr. Cooper had a hard time of it himself getting a fair education, and he knew how to appreciate the boon. He was born in New York in 1791, and at the age of seventeen was apprenticed to a coachmaker. He tried his hand at several other occupations, was an inventor by nature, and the designer and builder of the first locomotive in this country, which had its trial trip on a part of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad.
Mr. Cooper experienced his great success in fortune building in the manufacture of glue. He afterwards erected extensive iron works at Baltimore, Maryland, and subsequently in Trenton, New Jersey. During his life he built the Cooper Institute, at a cost of $650,000, with a subsequent donation of $150,000. This institution is devoted to the instruction and elevation of the working classes. It consists of a large reading room and library and a public lecture hall. The building occupies a small block at the junction of Third and Fourth avenues and Eighth street. It has evening schools, attended by 2,000 pupils; a school of design for females, in which there are 200; also, a school of telegraphy for women, from which, in two years, over 300 operators have been sent out.
The rents from the building on the lower floor and the offices defray the greater portion of the expenses. Ample provision was made in Mr. Cooper’s will for the permanence of the institution. During his life he was a general donor to all kinds of charitable institutions, and almost every variety of labor organization. He ran for President in 1876 on the Greenback and Labor ticket, and was defeated by an overwhelming majority. He had an idea that a large issue of greenbacks would create universal prosperity and make everybody happy. He died in 1883, at the age of ninety-two, leaving five or six million dollars, the greater portion of which fell to his son and daughter, the latter being the wife of Mayor Hewitt.
One of the greatest of American philanthropists, especially as his princely bequest was rather unexpected, was the Hon. Samuel Jones Tilden, whose financial and political career I have referred to in another chapter. He was about seventy-three years of age at the time of his death, in August, 1886.
Mr. Tilden died worth about five millions, four of which he left to be donated to public and beneficent objects. The greater part of this is to be spent in the erection and endowment of a grand free library, which, if the terms of the bequest are properly administered, will be the greatest institution of its kind in this country.
The disposition of the Vanderbilt fortune, up to the present time, has been briefly described in the lives of the various members of the family in another chapter. The Clinic of the College of Physicians, however, which has recently been opened at Sixtieth street and Fourth avenue, is entitled to greater detail, as it is, perhaps, destined at some future day to become a great medical centre. Mrs. W. D. Sloane, daughter of Wm. H. Vanderbilt, subscribed $250,000 to build the Maternity Hospital, in connection with this institution, her father having, prior to that, donated the balance of the million necessary to finish the entire structure, which consists of the Clinic, the Maternity Hospital and the College Hospital. It is said that in all their appointments the different departments of this institution are superior to anything of a similar description in the world.
Among the men who disposed of great fortunes I may mention James Lick, of California, who devoted millions to charitable purposes; William W. Corcoran of Washington, who gave two millions for an art gallery and a home for old, decrepit and superannuated women; also, Mr. Stevens, of Hoboken, who devised two millions, one for the Stevens Battery and the other for the Stevens Institute at Hoboken. Miss Catharine Wolf, who died last year worth twelve millions, bequeathed largely of her estate to charitable purposes, and donated her magnificent art gallery to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
What a lesson is taught in these examples of philanthropic celebrities to our fellow-beings—I was going to say fellow citizens, but that would not be appropriate in many instances—the Socialists. Those millionaires, who have all more or less been denounced as hard-hearted monopolists, have been among the hardest workers and thinkers all their lives, many of them denying themselves the luxuries and some of them even the full necessities of life. For what purpose? Simply to be the hard worked and poorly fed mediums of accumulating wealth to relieve the necessities and minister to the comfort of the less fortunate, the idle, the dissipated, the poor and the needy, and in general those who misunderstood and abused them on account of their good work.
It was good for those benefactors of humanity that virtue is its own reward.
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CHAPTER XLIX.
SOUTHERN AFFAIRS IN SPECULATION.
THE PRESERVATION OF THE UNION A GREAT BLESSING.—TO LET THEM “SECESH” WOULD HAVE BEEN NATIONAL SUICIDE.—HOW IMMIGRATION HAS ASSISTED NATIONAL PROSPERITY.—RESCUED FROM THE DYNASTIC OPPRESSION OF EUROPEAN GOVERNMENTS.—SHOWING GOOD FELLOWSHIP TOWARDS THE SOUTHERN PEOPLE AND AIDING THEM IN THEIR INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS.—THE SOUTH, IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE WAR, HAD GREATER ADVANTAGES THAN THE NORTH FOR MAKING MATERIAL PROGRESS.—THE BUSINESS OF THE NORTH WAS INFLATED.—THE STATES OF GEORGIA AND ALABAMA OFFERED INVITING FIELDS FOR INVESTMENT.—ISSUING STATE SECURITIES, CHEATING AND REPUDIATING.—PRESIDENT JOHNSON CHIEFLY TO BLAME FOR THE BREACH OF FAITH WITH INVESTORS WHO WERE SWINDLED OUT OF THEIR MONEY.—REVENGE AND AVARICE UNITE IN FINANCIAL REPUDIATION.
During the war I did all that lay in my humble power to farther the cause of the Union, believing that it was a righteous one, and that the North went into the struggle to maintain, uphold and preserve the best form of government known to man, and certainly the only one suitable to America.
View it as we may, the wisdom of man has yet evolved nothing to surpass the Constitution of the United States. Whether Thomas Jefferson or Thomas Paine was the author of its leading features, is a matter that I shall not stop to discuss, but suffice it to say, that upon it has been established the best government in the world. There is no other system in ancient or modern history that could weld together and bring into the social and political affinity of one great integral harmony the immense variety and diversity of human elements that are dwelling as one large and comparatively happy family in the United States.
What other system could combine so many nationalities, creeds, passions and prejudices, modifying all of them and uniting all for the general good and the perfection of a higher development of human nature in political and social life?
There is none. We must go to the pleasanter pages of political fiction to find a comparison.
This country has made greater strides in each decade towards the possible approach of More’s Utopia or Plato’s Republic than any other country has done in the same number of centuries.
It must be admitted that we are a considerable distance from the happy goal contemplated by the writers named, but we are moving in the direction to show that its attainment is possible. We shall yet accomplish what the world has hitherto considered a pleasant fiction overworked through the highest ideal of Greek art.
This high state of development is what we are coming to in spite of the fact that the average ward politician has immense chasms to cross before the hill tops of his evolution shall appear in sight. When he begins to climb, however, his ascent will be marvellously rapid and he will leave that vehement youth of Longfellow’s, whose watchword was Excelsior, far in the distance. Moreover, his steps will be steady and prudent, and not liable to unfortunate reaction or fatal mishap.
It has been said that revolutions never go backward. With much stronger emphasis it may be asserted that evolutions in a Republic like those I am now contemplating never recede, but still press forward and upward towards the mark of a higher ideal.
A large proportion of the people who come here do so for the chief purpose of getting away from other forms of government that are despotic in their rule and oppressive to their subjects.
These people who come to us are saved and redeemed Their lives would have been wasted if they had remained in the land of their birth. In this country, they not only add to the wealth of the nation, but they become useful members of the social fabric, with few exceptions, enjoying happiness themselves and bringing up children, whom they teach to admire, honor and revere the institutions of this country in contrast with the land of their own nativity.
This country has thus become the asylum for the down-trodden of every nation, and it is a great gainer by the contrast thus constantly presented to the minds of those who come here. Our own people are also in this way taught to appreciate their privileges and set a higher value upon the advantages they enjoy.
If it were not for the constant stream of immigration to these shores, the people of this country might begin to think that Republicanism was the birthright of all, and forget that they enjoyed especial privileges by birth, and came into this world with a very important start of other nations. I fear that some of them are prone to imagine, especially some of the fair sex, that we suffer here from that long felt want of a hereditary and native nobility. Some of these fair ones have had sad experience, that should have disabused their young minds of these notions not very long ago. The force of these examples will have some effect, at least, in moderating the folly of their mothers. It can hardly be expected that many of the young ladies will learn much themselves, except by a repetition of the same sad experience, but the persuasive powers of the mammas may exercise a deterring effect in many instances where hasty matrimonial alliances to catch the bauble of a foreign title would be the forerunner of much misery and sometimes shame.
I might cite many instances of these from our own city, but the sensational papers will deal with them _ad nauseam_. I don’t aspire to be sensational in this book. I only attempt to state in matters of this kind what may suffice to point the moral, leaving the sensational story-teller to adorn the tale Nor do I mean to cast any reflection on such happy marriages as that of Miss Jerome to Lord Randolph Churchill, and others I could mention.
Our expansive territory has enabled the adventurous and energetic of all nations of the world to come here and make homes for themselves, instead of remaining in the land of their birth, where many of them were existing in a modified condition of slavery under other names.
The idea of encouraging this large exodus from other lands, and this freedom of assimilation with our people, has been one of the great bulwarks of our prosperity.
I realized this fact very clearly at the commencement of the war of the Rebellion, and have cherished it ever since.
I therefore felt deeply earnest in my sympathy with the North against the South, whose great effort was to break up the present form of government, attempting to destroy its autonomy and powerful cohesiveness.
The nation would have been split in twain to start with, if Horace Greeley’s advice had been taken, “Let them secesh.” Mr. Greeley’s counsel was well meant, as he thought the Southern people would soon be glad to return to the Union, but it would have been national suicide to follow it.
The two parts of the dissevered nation would have been constantly menacing each other, and kept on a war footing, with occasionally recurring hostilities across the border on every slight provocation. The result would have been that some or all of the European powers would have taken advantage of this state of affairs to plant the standard of despotism once more on these shores, making this fair land a battle ground for Imperial and kingly ambition.
These designs were foreshadowed by Napoleon III., whose actions I have dealt with more fully in another place, and Great Britain was only awaiting the opportunity to avenge Bunker Hill, Saratoga and Yorktown.
In fact, all the powers of Europe would have taken advantage of the chance of acquiring a slice of such a fine domain, where in the event of successful secession only feeble resistance could have been offered to foreign aggression.
In the event of a decisive victory for the Confederate arms, faction fights would have always been springing up, and the tendency would still have been increasing to create a greater number of separate and independent governments.
Napoleon had been looking at matters in this probable light, when he resolved to make Mexico a backdoor, with Maximilian as its keeper, to enable him to gain an entrance to this country when a favorable opportunity for the completion of his purposes should arise.
Having myself been born in a foreign land, where I passed my boyhood’s days, I have a vivid recollection of the workings of the harsh system of a European government, although by the accident of birth I was placed in circumstances where the pressure on myself was not very galling.
I saw enough, however, to make a durable impression on my mind, to arouse my sympathies for others and to excite my lasting indignation against dynastic oppression.
I lost no opportunity during the dark days of the rebellion in this country, to be outspoken in favor of the cause which I had espoused from a firm conviction that it was right. I did all I could to help to promote ways and means for aiding the North in carrying on the war. I went into the contest with my whole heart, and gave my entire and undivided attention to the sale of Government securities to raise the sinews of war.
In this way, I believe, I rendered more valuable assistance to the cause than if I had been performing deeds of valor amid the roar of cannon and the rattle of musketry.
I became pronounced in my opinions and made myself active in organizing meetings to celebrate every victory of the Union army, thus inspiring the men in the field and the recruits on their way thither, and sustaining the hearts of our business men to place implicit confidence in the future triumph of the nation.
It required more courage than many people now imagine to take this stand at that time, for opinion was largely divided in this city on the prospects of the issue, and a strong sentiment in favor of the enemy threatened at one time to become predominant.
Many people were eyed with very strong suspicion during the greater part of the struggle in regard to their loyalty, who had followed the course of extreme prudence in keeping their counsel, being doubtful of the result. I took the ground that citizenship would not be worth much in the event of final disaster to the Union cause. I was also of the opinion, when the war was ended to the glory of the country and the maintenance of the Government on a substantial basis, that the time had come to bury the hatchet.
I believed not only in bringing back the South under the old flag, but also in extending the right hand of fellowship to the people, who, whatever may have been their faults, had been terribly punished.
I believed that no good could come out of a policy that persisted in trampling upon a fallen foe, especially as that foe had, after all, only been an erring brother, and could be brought back again into the family fold to share its mutual sympathy and material prosperity.
I felt, therefore, that I could afford to be prominent in a movement that had this great and harmonious end in view, the more especially as my loyalty had never been questioned in the hour of our greatest peril.
I not only extended the right hand of fellowship to Southern men, but gave aid and comfort to them wherever they appeared in our midst.
My office, therefore, after having been the headquarters of loyal Northern men, and for every project in the interest of the Union cause, became notorious as the rendezvous of Southern generals and Southern people generally, almost as soon as the war was over.
General Beauregard was one of the prominent leaders of the Confederacy to whom I exercised the liberty of extending hospitalities on his first visit here. I relaxed no effort to make his visit agreeable, and show him the sights around the city. I recollect escorting him as my guest to the Gold Room, which was then quite an institution in Wall Street. At this time gold was selling at a premium of about 50.
On our entrance to the Room it was at once whispered around that my distinguished guest was General Beauregard. The President of the Board was at that time outspoken and bitter in his opinions against everything Southern, and had not the good sense and common manners to conceal his animus on this occasion. Others took a similar attitude, and the feeling manifested became as belligerent as if the war had been actually raging.
This exhibition of bad blood and bad manners was very distasteful to me. I was a member of this Exchange, and I thought I knew my rights, and I was disposed to maintain them. I regarded the insult to Beauregard as offered to myself, and was prepared to resent it accordingly. He was my guest, and I had determined to stand by him at all hazards. I informed those who were foremost in manifesting these unworthy feelings of resentment that I should protect my friend no matter what course they should take, as long as he desired to remain in the room. This had some effect in smoothing down the asperities of the most hostile, and we were permitted to depart in peace. I escorted General Beauregard afterwards to the New York Stock Exchange, where he was kindly received, and without a murmur of feeling. I introduced him to many of the members individually, who shook hands with him and interchanged civilities in the warmest manner, giving him a hearty welcome to our city. Beauregard was delighted with this reception at the Stock Exchange, but was greatly chagrined at the conduct of the people in the Gold Room.
After this, many other Southern notabilities from time to time came to the Street, and received at my hands similar treatment. Among others, General Forrest, of Fort Pillow carnage notoriety, paid me a visit.
I could relate a great many other instances, if time and space would permit, showing very explicitly the efforts I have made to help along harmony and reconstruction. I was anxious, in the interest of general prosperity, to assist the South to recover from the dreadful blow inflicted upon her by a fratricidal war as soon as possible.
So, as the work of reconstruction progressed, I became interested in the internal improvements of that section of our country, as my subsequent investments there will fully attest. I thought that the South had experienced fighting enough, as the North had, and that the people of that section would gratefully accept the terms in the main agreed upon under the appletree at Appomattox, between General Grant and General Lee. I had hoped that the peace would be such as to conserve all the interests of the country, including every man, from the boldest and bravest Confederate general down to the lowest of the negro race, without any invidious distinction. I had the hopeful impression that all would go to work and do all in their power to till the soil, or do anything else that would add to the material wealth of the country and the individual happiness of its recreated citizens; that they would apply themselves to every form of industry that would help in any degree to a recovery from the disasters growing out of the war, and the lamentable destruction of property attending it.