Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1889-02-22
WHEN FORTUNE SMILES.
The Turning Point I'm Ones Career
Comes at Forty Years.

From the Philadelphia Times
Alexander T. Stewart came IN 1873 from Ire
land where he was born in 1903. He opened
little linen store on Broadway, and gathered
wealth very slowly at first as most other men
had done. He was prudent shrewd and origi-
nal, and gradually became . heavy importer;
but he was forty-fve years old when he became
able to put up the first of two great stores in
which he afterward transacted his business.
Henry Clews, the Wall street millionaire,
spent his early manhood as a clerk, and when
the war broke out and found him broker in
small way, he began to make money. He
and his partner, Mr.. Livermore. who retired at
the close of the war with half million. jobbed
in certificates of indebtedness, and laid the
basis of the wealth which Clews afterward ac-
crued.
Henry Willard came from Germany at twenty
years Of age, and sold subscription books at
first. then became an irregular writer for the
press. He studied law later. but gave that up
and adopted journalism as his profession. He
was forty-one years old when. in 1874, he began
the great Oregon railway operation that made
him wealthy. Nine years later, when the
famous golden spike was driven through
Northern Pacific railroad sleeper, he was worth
S5.OOO,OOO. He impoverished himself in trying
to sustain the value Of his property and went
under. Next, at more than fifty years of age,
he rose again as a financier.
Warner Miller is fifty years old. Beginning
in the humblest way he managed to organize
mill company and worked sixteen hours a
day for ten years to make his fortune. He
was past forty when his bank accounts showed
him that he could afford to take the world
more easily. He is millionaire now.
Levi p. Morton is about sjxty-three years
old. Twenty-Five years ago, when he was
thirty eight or thirty-nine, he founded his
banking house. He was fifty-one when his
wealth enabled him to devote a part of his
MI to r,,,h1 do
when he established his London house in 1868,
and soon afterward went into the syndicate
for funding the United States debt. He was
past forty-three then.
John B. Slawson, the car-fare box inventor
was twenty-foe years old when he went to New
Orleans in 1910 from New York. There he
slowly made his way upward. But for the war
he would have pushed his invention at forty
six years of age, but he had to wait and he was
past fifty when his big money began to pour in.
jay Gould's early life was a failure, but this
phase of 1t was very short. He was born in
1881 and went into specializing in railroad
stocks in 1859, when he was twenty-eight years
old. He was very successful and made use of
the war when it broke out to gain large returns
on small or shrewd speculations. His fortieth
year found him, in his present opinion, only
starting in life, but the world already knew
him as master money maker, for he had been
more than three years president of the Erie
railroad, and his associate, Fisk, had startled
America with his share of the partnership.
Samuel J. Tilden made his first considerable
money as a lawyer; but he was more than forty
years old before he put other aspirations aside
for the time and begun that devotion to his
profession which was quickly distinguished by
his connection with the greatest law cause of
the day. He was forty-one when, in 1855, he
was defeated a candidate for attorney-gen-
eral of New York. After that came his greatest
legal triumphs. and after them his still greater
financial operations.
The Standard oil fortunes nearly all prove
the rule. Mr.. Rogers made his share of that
pile while younger than forty years old, but
Messrs. Rockefeller Starbuck and Flagler were
beyond that age when they grew rich.
Q Augustin Daily is fifty-two years old. He was
thirty -four when he began his brave struggle
with the dramatic company that is now world
famous. Wealth did not reach him till he was
hevnnd forty