The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1884-07-26
Romance in Business.

trials and experiences of perhaps every
successful business man in the city to-
DAY would seem to be a serious
romance. We are apt to accept as
fact the notion that trade involves none
OF those nobler emotions and sensibili-
ties of nature that are readily perceived
in the struggles and endeavors of men
of that other form of genius which
blooms in books and painting, in the
fields of arts and sciences. There is
something so material in the idea of
traffic, the hustle among the essential
things of life, that it seems the men en-
gagged in such pursuits must be little
more than money-grabbing machines;
insensible to the delicate fancies, the
Joyous upliftings of sentiment, or the
firm, heroic qualities that gave color
and purpose and charm to those differ
emily gifted men who know how to let
the world in upon their thought.
The case is otherwise, however. and
it needs but a biography here and there
to prove how evenly balanced in human
nature are the broad principles of
spiritual and moral as well as physical
being. This view has been afforded by
a number of English writers who have
gathered into large volume the stories
OF fortunes made in trade by men whose
lives have in them all the elements of
romance, though they developed in the
outward form of hard-headed business.
We find around us everywhere, no less
than in the pages of this book, men
who have reached upward to prefer
thrnIprh Inf IN
an idea most people believed to be wild
and morbid, and which, through multi
piled failure, they themselves have
come at times to distrust.
To follow the ups and downs, the
privations and distractions, the periods
of hope and the seasons of despair tn at
checker the lives of all men VIII O have
done any thing really great in the af-
fairs of the world, is to be in the pres
ence of romance, the more fascina-
ting and pathetic because of its stern
reality in the moments of passing ex-
perience. We have now in the market
rich and beautiful fabrics that are
nothing more than silk waste
utilized. Yet the Englishman who
finally perfected the machinery to save
this refuse was out of pocket 81 800, 900
before he was able to make practical
demonstration OF his much ridiculed
idea.
The article now famous as Bessemer
steel was the result of an obstinate per-
Sistence, in the face of adversely and
skepticism sufficient to dishearten any
but superior man. and it is estimated
that on existing rails in England alone
there is, by this means, saving of
other than invention, which is admitted
to involve a certain kind of genius, we
may with no difficulty find evidences
of the same superior character of mind
that enables one man to tower above
his fellows. A walk down any promi-
nent thoroughfare of Chicago will lead
| past from one to q dozen monuments
OF this material romanticism in the
ways of trade. One of the merchant
| princes of America, man vet young in
years, with scarcely line in hisface or a
bend in the 1.-the, graceful form, began
| his career in this city as clerk, with
no money but his salary, and to-day he
is the dry goods magnatc of Chicago,
doing a business said to involve $780,
100000 year. The life of this man is
a veritable romance, with touches of
color here and there like the pigments
of fiction. Within a stones throw
from his principal establishment is an
other king of trade, who from an
equally humble beginning has reaped a
fortune almost as ample, and gained
public repute into the bargain.
The hotel that is one of the wonders
of the new world sprung from the mea-
ger counter of a diminutive store, with
immediate trials and hardships that
gave marvel to the present stupendous
success. The history of tho men who
now control the large manufactures in
this city, and whose famous stock and
provision concerns in the south part of
the city would need little establishment
to give them all incredible fascination of
vital romance. Even now, when some
one well informed of the facts contrasts
the conditions of this or that favorite
of trade. describing the early nothing
with the present every thing, the hear
er takes the story with a fair allowance
of salt, unwilling to believe that indie
fatigable industry, determined energy,
indomitable courage are the Aladdin
lamp of the business world, and that
with them wonders may be accom-
plished. Chicago Inter Ocean.
|