Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 37, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 April 1905 — RISE OF A POOR BOY. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

RISE OF A POOR BOY.

Left a Fortune of Fifty Million Dallam When He Died. Meyer Guggenheim, of Philadelphia, who died in Palm Beach of pneumonia recently, aged 78, was another exam-

i pie of the possibili- : ties of youth in the j United : came to our shores a ; poor boy; he died '■ leaving $50,000,000 \ as an inheritance for i his children. Mr. Guggenheim was a Swiss Hebrew, born in 1827. In 1846 > with his family he sailed for America,

settling in Philadelphia, then a city of 100,000 people. Young Guggenheim began business selling stove polish. He made a little money and then he tried embroidery. A small store was opened; a larger one followed. In the meantime he took hold of mining in Colorado, being one of the first to enter this field. He was very successful. Smelting the ore being very expensive, he had a son learn the business, and then he began buying smelters as fast as his profits would permit. In the meantime he made big profits from selling Swiss embroideries, handling only the most expensive kinds. He sold this business out to continue the erection of smelters, several of which were placed in the mining States of the West, in Mexico and in South America. These properties yielded a profit all the way from $4,000,000 to $10,000,000 a year. When the smelting trust was formed Mr. Guggenheim declined to join, but later he did and was chosen president of this very powerful organization. Deceased was very methodical in his habits and his expenditures. He kept track of his annual expenditures and found to within a very short time ago he had expended $9,300,000. This did not include his gift of $250,000 for an addition to the Jewish Hospital of New York, nor a like sum to a similar institution in Philadelphia.

M. GUGGENHEIM.