Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 123, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 May 1919 — Girard the Man Who Built Up Maritime Commerce and Made Shipping Great Power [ARTICLE]

Girard the Man Who Built Up Maritime Commerce and Made Shipping Great Power

Stephen Girard, remembered now chiefly as the founder df a Philadelphia college, through whose gateways “no ecclesiastic, missionary or minister of any denomination” is ever allowed to enter, was also the man who built up our maritime commerce and made American shipping a great power early in the nineteenth century. So he is pictured tn John Bach McMaster’s book, “The Life and Times of Stephen Girard.” Girard was born in France and began his shipping career in 1771 with a financially disastrous voyage to the West Indies. Forty-two years later he had achieved such fame and wealth that Joseph Bonaparte, in need of money, tried to put Girard in permanent possession of his vast French estates. In spite of recurrent losses from the depredations of pirates and privateers, Girard’s fortune grew to be the greatest in his adopted country. His fundamental tfllory of trade which brought his chief - profits was that wars and uprisings bring starvation, and that the vital need of any country, at war is wheat. During the war of 1812, when the government seemed about to fail in its attempt to float a public loan of $16,000,000", fully two-thirds of the amount was subscribed by three rich men, David Parish, John Jacob Astor and Girard, who contributed the largest amount, and in whose bank the loan payments were placed. BelieVlhg ~ that a fortune should be a part of the nation’s wealth, Girard, in his will, made large bequests to the state of Pennsylvania, the cities of Philadelphia and New Orleans and an endowment for the college bearing his name.