Rensselaer Journal, Volume 10, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 January 1901 — ANECDOTES AND INCIDENTS [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

ANECDOTES AND INCIDENTS

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Phil, Armour

Armour's Vart Intere-rt-r. The late Philip D. Armour was a genius in organization. In his career he was farm hand, gold miner, grain merchant and packing king. He provisioned a great part of the world and its armies. He handled a third of the entire grain output of the West. „He employed 20,000 persons, with a pay-roll of $10,000,000 a year. The Armours' annual output was ▼alued at >200,000,000. He represented property interests Worth $150,000,000. ' His personal fortune is estimated from $30,000,000 to $50,000,000. He loved children, was good to his employes and aided everyone in distress. He spept $3,000,000 on the Armour Institute and Mission. His motto was: “A man should do good while he lives." Mr. Armour’s charities were extensive, hut thoroughly 4 characteristic of the man. all of his gifts being dispensed quietly and unostentatiously. Thousands have been the recipients of generosity of which the public knows nothing. Mr. Armour’s pet projects in philanthropy were theAwnpur Institute, a school of technology ahd the Armour Mission, a non-sectarian institution, whose object Is to promote the physical, Intellectual and moral Improvement of children and youth. Mr. Armour’s public benevolence first began In 1881 upon the death of his brother, Joseph H. Armour. He was given charge of a trust of SIOO,OOO with which td fund an Institution whose purpose should be to reach the people with the teachings and influences of the gospel- of Christ and to Insure the care and development of the children and youth In that part of Chicago in which it should be located. Mr. Armour took his brother’s bequest as a suggestion, and his benefaction has multiplied the amount many times. Aidtd Poor F'amtliej. *The buildings that stand side by side at Armour . avenue and Thirty-third street represent an investment by Mr. Armour for the education and ethical welfare of the community amounting to over $2,500,000. In addition to his public charities, numerous families have always been the beneficiaries of his benevolence. At Christmas times It had always been one of Mr. Armour’s pleasantries to lay in a stock of gold coins and walk Into his offices with a cheerful greeting and toss the coins around quite unpromiseuously among his two hundred clerks, who scrambled for the coins much to Mr. Armour’s amusement. The past Christmas Mr. Armour’s illness prevented him from visiting his office, but it did not prevent all his clerks and others In Jiis employ being substantially remembered through hie generosity. Only those closest to Mr. Armour during the last twenty years know of the full extent the thousands of appeals for assistance that came to him In every conceivable shape. No appeal that was not a fraud on Its face has ever been ignored by him without investigation. He once said that he did not like the idea of refusing any modest appeal without investigation, as it might be from some person most unfortunate hu+ worthv. WAr Pur-re E'tJer Open. It was Mr. Armour’s daily custom for many years to start the day’s busiJXX ch t nee a 1100 blll ,nto half dollars for beggars who called for help. During ,the World’s Fair Mr. Armour in company with ex-Ald. Henry S Fitch walked along Michigan avenue on their way to start for the fair grounds. An old expressman at the corner of Van Buren street recognized Mr. Armour and saluted him. Mr Armour stoppgd and shook hands with him and told Mr. ,Fitch that it was one of his old employes In days gone by. He asked the expressan how he Was getting along, and the man told him that he was doing well; that he had a wife and children, and was earning an honest living. A mortgage of S6OO on his home was the only thing which marred his happiness. Thereupon Mr. Armour gave the man the money to pay off his mortgage and made him happy. After doing this he told Mr. Fitch that he felt happier than if he had seen the World’s Fair a hundred times. Another time a townsman who was acquainted with his old friends in the native town called upon Mr. Armour in his office. , Mr. Armour inquired about an old schoolmate. The visitor told him that the man wanted to start a retail-grocery store in the town, but that he needed $1,500 to do so. After the visitor left Mr. Armour ordered his cashier to make out a check for |1,500 to the man who wished to start the store, and with a letter reminding the man of days gone by he sent him the check with wishes to start in the business at once. When told that because of the death of his old friend in Baltimore the two young daughters of the man would be deprived of an opportunity of ’a good education, Mr. Armour notified

his Baltimore agent to make arrangements and pay the best possible schooling of the young ladies, and continued to do so until they graduated. On the day of the failure of the firm of Grant, Ward & Co., when the provision market was panicky, he gave orders to his agent, John Geldmacher, to go on the floor and hold the market at all cost. After the man had bought Several million dollars’ worth he sent word to Mr. Armour that all Wall street was selling and that he could not hold the market. Mr. Armour answered him to hold the market even if the whole world was selling while there was a dollar left of his money. At the close of the day Mr. Armour was ahead several million dollars by the transaction.” One day several years ago a Chicago minister called upon Mr. Armour and applied for help for a poor woman, whom he had found in poverty and destitution In the most trying hour of child-birth. He supplied the minister with a goodly sum of money and forgot the Incident. The next day the minister returned and said: “I have brought back the money, Mr. Armour, for upon investigation I find that the woman is sinful and s&rving. She has not sought salvation that is freely offered without money and without price, and to satisfy my conscience I must therefore return the money.” Mr. Armour’s indignation was aroused and he dismissed the minister curtly. Then he sent a special messenger to relieve the unfortunate

THE ARMOUR CHAPEL. woman and make her unhappy lot as easy as circumstances would permit. In recalling the Incident Mr. Armour said: “A minister of the gospel of Christ should be the first one to show mercy to the fallen one, and if she was in sin and the slough of despond he should have been the first to reach forth a helping hand to lift her out and start her on the right road.” Good to His Employes. The relationship between Mr. Armour and his employes has always been ideal. Not hundreds, but thousands, of the men who have worked for him could testify to innumerable acts of kindness on his part. Mr. Armour rather looked upon the employes of his great concerns as one big family, and was always concerned in everything that was to their welfare and happiness. When a man was sick or in trouble he was always first to seek the particulars, and he saw to it personally that the salary went on and that the man had all the proper attention. He always had time to listen to what his men had to say, although he was perhaps one of the busiest men in America, and he would stop in the midst es important work to answer the questions of. some child who would come to his desk. Mr. Armour wanted his men to be well paid and it is probable that every man in his employ is receiving as much as he is worth. He was also willing to pay almost any price to a man if he considered his services necessary for the success of some department of his gigantic enterprises. A man’s qualifies-

tion for the place concerned him most, and the salary demanded was always a secondary consideration with him. There were no harsh words when the big army of men learned of Mr. Armour’s death last week. Each one felt that he had lost a friend and a benefactor. Heart and Purse touched. The manner in which Mr. Armour came to so richly endow the Armour Institute is a story good enough to bear repeating. He had heard the Rev. Frank Gunsaulus preach about what should be done for the boys and girls of the present generation. When the sermon was ended Mr. Armour went to Dr. Gunsaulus and asked: “Do you believe in the views you just expressed?” i “I certainly do,” was the answer. “And would you carry them out If you had the means?” “Most assuredly.” “Well, then,” said Mr. Armour, “give me five years of your time and I will give you the money.” This incident is described as “Dr. Gunsaulus’ $2,800,000 sermon,” but it led to the fulfillment of Mr. Armour’s chief work of philanthropy. Mr. Armour was as systematic in his charities as in his business affairs. The Armour mission funds are invested in a great square of first-class flats, the revenue from which accrues to the mission work, all the affairs of which he was the head. Chances for Hoys. In answer to the question if he con-

THE ARMOUR INSTITUTE. sidered the chances for a boy to succeed as good at the'present time as when he was a boy Mr. Armour replied: “Every bit and better. The affairs of life are larger. There are greater things to do. There was never before such a demand for able men.” It is related that several years ago Mr. Armour, with-Marshall Field, George M. Pullman, Norman B. Ream, John J. Mitchell and John Plankinton, was making a tour over the Milwaukee road in a private car. When 9 o’clock came Mr. Armour announced that he ■was going to retire. On being urged that there was to be a game of cards and that he should for once break hi rule about retiring at 9, Mr. Armour said: “I have never broken that rule for Mrs. Armour, and if I wouldn’t for ‘her I certainly would not for anybody else.” Philip D. Armour had two brothers older and two brothers younger than he. He also had one sister. All of the family are now dead with the exception of H. 0. Armour, who is two years younger than Philip D. H. 0. Armour had charge of the commission and grain business in Chicago when Philip came to Chicago, after which time he went to New York. His nephews, Kirk B. and Charles W., have charge of the packing business in Kansas City. His son, J. Ogden Armour has had absolute control of the Chicago business for two years. Compulsory education in New Zealand is considered a success.

Agatnst Compulsory. Idea. A meeting of the Brooklyn AntiCompulsory Vaccination league was held In that city the other night in the directors’ room of the public library. There was a spirited denunciation of compulsory vaccination and a call to arms to resist it Dr. M. R. Leverson presided. Henry Roland, the corresponding secretary, read several letters which had been sent to the league severely criticising the health authorities for carrying on the present vaccination crusade, and recommending an appeal for redress to the courts and the legislature. Dr. Leverson was applauded when he declared he would not hesitate to shoot the man who forced his way into his house to vaccinate him against his will. “Years ago,” he said, “I advised the shooting down of a policeman or health officer who was engaged in this invasion of a man’s home, and I have not changed my views on the subject The people must rise up and take the law into their own hands —not lynch law, but the laws of the hand, which are framed for their protection. Some people don’t know their rights sufficiently to shoot do,wn bandits. I have treated thirty cases of smallpox without reporting them and all recovered without a scar from two to .six days. All cases of ordinary smallpox should be cured within that time. Vaccination never prevented a human being from taking smallpox except by killing him.” It is decided that the league should no longer be confined to Brooklyn, but should embrace the entire territory of Greater New York.