Part 7

No one can read the life of George W. Childs without a feeling slowly coming over him that the possibilities of our country are indeed very great. Certain it is that when we see so many examples showing what has been done by poor boys from the farm, we are forced to exclaim that we live in a free country; despite what some say we reiterate, our country is free.

George W. Childs, at the age of ten, became an errand boy in a book-store in Baltimore, and after a period of over a year in the Navy which he served later, he removed to Philadelphia and once more entered a book-store--his natural calling. After four years' apprenticeship, when less than twenty, with his savings he opened a small book-store on his own account.

"Where there's a will there's a way," so believed young Childs. He determined to one day be proprietor of the Philadelphia Public Ledger. "Aim high that you may not strike low,"--how true that adage is. When you see a boy make up his mind to do something; if he makes his actions correspond with his words, you can rest assured that it will be done. Sickness may come; disappointments will follow, but all must be overcome.

Jerome B. Rice determined to succeed in the seed business, but just as success seemed about to crown his efforts that terrible disease, rheumatism, came and deformed him. He lost the entire use of his lower limbs, but his brain was spared, and his determination was unshaken. An invalid chair was bought, a colored man wheels him every morning to his office door where loving hands gently lift him, chair and all, up the steps of the beautiful building now occupied and owned by Jerome B. Rice & Co. Nearly thirty years have passed and Jerome B. Rice has not taken a step, but during that time, despite all obstacles, the firm of Jerome B. Rice & Co. has become one of the leading seed-growing concerns of America. Young men with the same chance he had are apt to say, "It's no use." We answer, "Where there's a will there's a way." "To think a thing impossible is to make it so."

George W. Childs determined to own the Public Ledger. He determined to own the leading paper of the great city of Philadelphia, and he was a poor boy. Was this presumption? If it was he has proved its practicability. If he was building an air-castle he has since placed a firm foundation under it. He labored hard in this little store of his; he built his own fires; he did his own sweeping,--it was the same old story; he hired done nothing that he could himself do. He made some money--not very fast--but a good average profit, and he saved what he did earn. He mastered the publishing business, and he developed a marked business capacity in that line. A man usually fills the notch for which he is fitted: I was about to say--I will say that he fits himself to the notch which he does fill. Sometime we see men in subordinate positions who apparently are capable of the best, but a careful study reveals a screw loose somewhere; there is a weak point, and invariably that point is the one thing which stands between them and victory. "Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a candle stick, and it giveth light to all that are in the house." So said Christ eighteen hundred years ago; is it not so to-day? As young Childs had ability, and it was apparent, what matter it how old he was or where he came from? All the world asks is, "What can he do"?

The publishing firm of R. E. Peterson & Co. sought his alliance, and the firm of Childs and Peterson became known far and near. Do our readers call this luck? He now became a successful publisher, and seemingly his cup was running over, so far as this world was concerned, but it will be remembered that years ago he determined to own the Public Ledger, provided he lived. He was alive and his purpose still remained. He was waiting and watching. The Ledger was a penny paper--the war broke out--stock went up--the management was weakened by death and other complications, the Public Ledger was losing nearly $500 every time it went to press. The paper, great as it was, was losing $3,000 a week--at the rate of $150,000 a year. Now was Mr. Child's chance. In vain did friends entreat; in vain did wise business men shake their heads; Mr. Childs felt that his time had come, and he bought the paper, paying for it nearly $150,000. The new proprietor changed things; the paper was made a two cent issue, and into the Public Ledger he now threw his whole soul. "There is a tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood leads on to fortune." It is even so; he had purchased the Ledger at the right time.

Not one man in a hundred can successfully edit a newspaper; not one editor in twenty could edit the Public Ledger with success. Yet, Mr. Childs is one man out of the hundreds--he is the one editor out of that twenty. He determined to publish only the truth; all claim to do that, but Mr. Childs does it. The paper grew, and on the 20th of June, 1867, the Public Ledger took possession of its new building. This new building cost half a million of dollars, and is one of the finest in the city. At its formal opening many of the most distinguished men in the country were present.

Mr. Childs has been largely instrumental in establishing a small city at Wayne Station. He owns a large tract of land which he has divided into building lots of about an acre each. Any one desiring a home can get one by paying one-third down, and he is also furnished plans from which to select his ideal of a home. The houses built from these plans cost from $2,000 to $8,000 each. Mr. Childs and his partner, Mr. Drexel, have expended about $2,000,000 exclusively for beautifying the city.

Years ago Mr. Childs told a gentleman that he meant to prove that a man could be at once liberal and successful as a man of business, and the princely hospitality of this good man has demonstrated, beyond doubt or contradiction, its practicability. Dinners to newsboys and life insurance policies given to the wives of his employes; such acts make up the history of his life. The late Chief Justice of Pennsylvania once said in a speech: "Some men pursue military glory, and spend their time and energies in the subjugation of nations. Cæsar and Napoleon may be named as types of this character. But the tears and blood which follow violence and wrong maculate the pages of history on which their glory is recorded. Others erect splendid palaces for kingly residences, and costly temples and edifices for the promotion of education and religion in accordance with their particular views. But views of education and religion change, buildings waste away, and whole cities, like Herculaneum and Pompeii, are buried in the earth. Others again win public regard by the construction of means of communication for the furtherance of commerce. The canals, railroads, and telegraph are glorious specimens of their useful exertion for the public good. But the marts of commerce change. Tyre and Sidon, and Venice are no longer commercial centres. The shores of the Pacific are even now starting in a race against the great commercial emporium of our continent. But Mr. Childs has planted himself in the human heart, and he will have his habitation there while man shall dwell upon earth. He has laid the foundation of his monument upon universal benevolence. Its superstructure is composed of good and noble deeds. Its spire is the love of God which ascends to Heaven." Such a monument is, indeed,

"A Pyramid so wide and high That Cheops stand in envy by."

Is not that glorious success? But if the name of George W. Childs was not a synonym for charity and philanthropy, the fact that he has demonstrated beyond doubt the possibility of making a newspaper not only pure and clean, but also proving that people will buy wholesome news, as well as trash, and thus refuting the opinion that the people are wholly responsible for the vile matter that is circulated, ought alone to commend him to the world as a great benefactor. Worldly reasoners and great financiers, wiseacres and successful editors prophesied its failure, but what mattered this to George W. Childs? When a boy he determined to one day own the Public Ledger; he accomplished that. When a man he determined to elevate the tone of a newspaper, and thus prove the fallacy of the opinion that "A newspaper must print all the news, no matter what, or else fail";--he has here also fulfilled his desires. Surely, "Where there's a will there's a way."

JAMES GORDON BENNETT.

When Horace Greeley was starting the Tribune the Herald was five or six years old, and its success assured. Mr. Greeley started his as an uncompromising party paper; Mr. Bennett presented the Herald to the people as an independent paper, the first ever published that was simply an indicator of public opinion bound and gagged by no party.

To Scotland shall we as a nation ever be indebted for one of the greatest journalists of the nineteenth century. When about fifteen years old he entered a Catholic school at Aberdeen expecting to enter the clergy, but after an academic life of two or three years he abandoned the idea. This sudden change was in no small degree influenced by an edition of "Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography" which was published in Edinburgh about this time. He was greatly taken with the spirit of this volume which found sympathy in his thrifty Scotch nature. From the moment he finished this life of Franklin he determined to come to America, and after a short stay in Halifax, and Boston, his stay in each place being attended with great privation, we find him in the year 1822 in the city of New York, and still later he is employed on the Charleston Courier, of Charleston, South Carolina. There his knowledge of Spanish was a benefit, enabling him to translate the Cuban exchanges, and to decipher the advertisements which were sent in that language.

After a few months he returned to New York where he attempted to open a Commercial School. This scheme came to naught, however, and he then tried lecturing on political economy with but moderate success to say the least. He soon saw that these undertakings were not in his sphere, and once more he returned to journalism. He first connected himself with the New York Courier and when that journal became merged into the Enquirer he was chosen associate editor. After this the senior editor, J. Watson Webb, turned square around and began to support the United States Bank which he had so bitterly opposed and fought so vehemently. Young Bennett now withdrew and started a small paper, The Globe, but it was short-lived. He next went to Philadelphia and assumed the principal editorship of the Pennsylvanian. At that time all papers allied themselves to one party or the other.

Mr. Bennett conceived the idea of an independent paper; one which would be bound to no party or ring. He accordingly returned to New York for this purpose. He was very short of funds, and this fact alone would have discouraged most young men; not so with this man. He hired a cellar; two barrels with a board across served as desk on which was an ink-stand and goose quill. The proprietor of these apartments was not only editor and manager, but reporter, cashier, book-keeper, salesman, messenger and office boy. One hour he was writing biting editorials or spicy paragraphs; the next rushing out to report a fire or some other catastrophe, working sixteen to twenty hours per day. He persuaded a young firm to print his paper, and he was thus tided over that difficulty. Most young men would never have undertaken such a task, but what would they have done had they, after embarking in it, been twice burned out and once robbed within the first fifteen months? Such was the experience of Bennett, but as expressed by himself, he raked the Herald from the fire by almost superhuman efforts, and a few months later, when the great fire occurred in Wall street, he went to the scene himself and picked up all kinds of information about the firms burnt out, the daring deeds of the firemen, and anything sensational he did not fail to print. He also went to the unheard of expense of printing a map of the burnt district and a picture of the Produce Exchange on fire. This enterprise cost, but it gave the Herald a boom over all competitors, which it well maintains. It was the first paper that published a daily money article and stock list, and as soon as possible Bennett set up a Ship News establishment consisting of a row-boat manned by three men to intercept all incoming vessels and ascertain their list of passengers and the particulars of the voyage.

Mr. Calhoun's speech on the Mexican war, the first ever sent to any paper by telegraph, was published in the Herald. At one time when his paper wished to precede all rivals in publishing a speech delivered at Washington, for the purpose of holding the wire, Mr. Bennett ordered the telegraph operator to begin and transmit the whole Bible if necessary, but not to take any other message until the speech came. Such enterprise cost, but it paid; and so it has ever been. Seemingly regardless of expense, bureaus of information for the Herald were established in every clime. 'Always ahead' seemed to be the motto of James Gordon Bennett, and surely enterprise was no small factor in the phenomenal success of the Herald. The tone, it has been said, was not always so edifying as that of its contemporaries, the Post and Commercial, still every article was piercing as a Damascus blade. To buy one paper meant to become afterwards one of its customers. It was indeed astonishing what a variety of reading was contained in one of those penny sheets; every thing was fresh and piquant, so different from the old party papers. As originally intended, the Herald has always been independent in politics, although inclined to be Democratic. It supported Fremont and the Republican party, and was one of the staunch war papers.

Mr. Bennett has been described as being stern and disagreeable in his manners. In this we do not fully concur, and in view of the large number of employes who have grown old in his service, we cannot but feel justified in this belief. Horace Greeley and James Gordon Bennett, the two leading New York journalists, but how different. Mr. Greeley had a larger personal following than the Tribune; the Herald had a larger friendship than did Bennett who was the power behind the throne. Journalism lost no lesser light when the great Herald editor passed away June 1st, 1872, than it did six months later when Horace Greeley passed from darkness into light. As Mr. Bennett was a life-long Catholic, he received the last sacrament from the hands of the renowned Cardinal McClosky.

PHINEAS T. BARNUM.

We would not pass by so remarkable a character as that presented to us in the life of P. T. Barnum, a man born of poor parents at Bethel, Connecticut. Like many boys, he picked up pennies driving oxen for his father, but unlike many other boys he would invest these earnings in nick-nacks which he would sell to joyful picknickers on every holiday, thus his pennies increased to dollars. At an early age he was deprived of his father, and began work for himself at six dollars per month. He here saved his money, and afterwards opened a store which proved a successful business venture, especially after he added a lottery scheme. It is interesting to read of the many of our successful men who have drifted from one thing to another until they settled upon some life-work, then there was a hard struggle for victory, which was sure to come, provided they persevered.

In 1835 Barnum heard of a negress in Philadelphia who was reputed to have been the nurse of George Washington, and who it was claimed was 162 years old. Barnum immediately set out for Philadelphia, and succeeded in buying her for $1,000. This was more money than he already had; he, therefore, risked more than he owned, but by judicious advertising he was enabled to draw large houses, bringing the show up to paying $1,500 per week. The next year the negress died, and a post mortem examination proved her to be possibly eighty years old, but Barnum had secured a good start. From this time on, for fifteen years, he was connected with traveling shows, and his museum proved a most profitable enterprise.

In 1842 Mr. Barnum first heard of Mr. Charles Stratton, whom he presented to the world as General Tom Thumb--exhibiting him in both America and Europe.

In 1849, after much correspondence, he secured the sweet singer, Jenny Lind, for one hundred nights, at one thousand dollars per night. His profits on these concerts were simply immense, and he retired from business.

In 1857 it was heralded all over the land that Barnum had failed. It was so; unfortunate speculations had swamped him, and he returned to New York a bankrupt. Without a dollar he bought the Museum again, and in less than a year he succeeded in paying for it. His life henceforth has been full of its ups and downs; twice was he burned out, but as often he came forth in some new role--or rather an improvement on the old.

General Tom Thumb was again taken to Europe. This venture, and his lecture on 'Money Making,' in England, succeeded beyond his most sanguine expectations. Every note was taken up, and he is to-day once more a millionaire. He has been for years the central figure in 'The Greatest Show on Earth,' the expense of which is from four to five thousand dollars a day. But not alone is he great as a showman; his lectures must have made him noted, and he is connected with different other enterprises.

He is a very shrewd man, and is also honest. Think of it! at fifty a ruined man, owing thousands more than he possessed, yet resolutely resuming business life once more--fairly wringing success from adverse fortune, and paying his notes at the same time.

When solicited for money with which to carry on his campaign for Congress, he answered, "God grant that I be defeated, sooner than one grain of gold be so basely used." Such principles are glorious, and upon their perpetuation depends the rise or fall of a Republican form of government. Mr. Barnum's latest sensation, in order to draw crowds, is the consolidation of his great show with that mammoth show formerly belonging to Adam Forepaugh. This caps the climax, the two "Greatest Shows on Earth" united.

MATHEW VASSAR.