The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1892-05-18
NEW YORK LETTER.
The Latest Gossip Of the Great
Metropolis.
a Night with the Union League of Phifa-
delphia and a Talk with James n.
Young-A Man with a Career and
q Baroness with a Record.
COPYRIGHT, 1927

League club in Philadelphia. In
strictly political sense, the Union
League club is a historic organization.
1t was begotten in the spirit of the
war, and was one of the first of the or
ganizations in the north which COM
bined social intercourse with the devel-
opment of loyalty and steadfast support
of the union cause. After it came the
Union League club of New York city,
which also rendered most valuable serv-
ice to the government and the armies.
The clubhouse of the Philadelphia
league is beautifully situated. on Broad
street and is fine, old. capacious struc-
ture, but already there is a movement
on foot in the club to sell and build else
where or enlarge. It would be a pity
to disturb the present building, because
of its history and traditions. All the
great generals of the union, from
Gen. Grant down, have received ova-
tions within its walls, and its pic
lures and historical works pertaining to
the war are not only valuable of
themselves, but greatly so by rea-
son of association. At these din
ners to which have referred met
a number of conspicuous and dis
tinguished men, among them Mr.. A. A.
Mcleod, the giant president of the
Reading railroad system, who is mainly
responsible for the marvellous advance
ment of that vast corporation which has
come up through SO much tribulation
Mr.. Mcleod looks to be about forty
years of age, and is certainly not over
forty-seven. He shows his sturdy Scotch
lineage in every aspect of form and fig
ure. He is man built for work and
endurance. 1 had expected to see raw
boned Scot with visage as stern as the
storm-end of one of the Hebrides, but
instead found a very pleasant, affable
gentleman who is inclined to listen as
well as talk. Certainly at the dinner
table he is anything but an absorbed
magnate. He seemed to be rather
pleased when suggested that in all my
travels throughout the world had come
in contact with the fact that s'Sandy
MCPHERSON" or rather the Scotchman,
was the great fnancier, bookkeeper and
general manager of everybody's bust
ness. said that wherever had found
an English commercial house of any dis
tinction there was always Scotchman
in the firm or Gaelic boss
in the back room keeping books.
I had also discovered that on
all the railways in remote sections
of Europe and Asia the Scotchman was
nearly always found attl throttle of
the locomotive and close to the head of
every enterprise. The shrewdness, per-
sistency, long-headedness and cool
bloodedness which had enabled the
Gael to build cities and argosies in the
bleak sections of Scotland had made
him the master of finance and mechan-
les all over the world, and thrift fol-
lowed in his wake. This tribute to Mr..
McLeod's ancestors brought out this
story from Henry Watterson, who was
of our table group: "a daughter of
Lord Dundas one day fell into the Ser
pentine in Hyde Park, London. A rosy
checked Irish lad who happened to be
near by jumped into the water and res
cued the damseL Next day Lord Dun
das sent for him to thank HIM, and, be-
ing pleased with his appearance, in
CURED Of the lad what favor he could do
him. With instructive humor the boy
said: 4 wish your lordship would
make me Scotchman.' His lordship,
not in the least questioning his prowess
in the matter, replied with great gray
ity: I Gamma, my Lad; Gamma gle ye
the prudence"
Mcleod, who seems to be veritable
Mcleod of dare-most-anything, is, be-
ieve, a native Pennsylvania. He was
originally associated with Mr.. Austin
Corbin in the construction of his great
Rockaway beach hotel. He was after
terward associated with the Long Island
railway system and still later with rail-
road interests at Elmira, N. Y. He is a
practical, mechanical, business railroad
man. While Franklin Gowen, the great
legal theorist and philosopher, was
wrestling with the Reading system and
plunging it into complications of all
kinds, Mcleod was looking after the
everyday ends of things, studying road
beds, traction subjects, the weight of
rails, frogs and couplings and brakes.
He slowly rose from place to place I'M
til, all of sudden, the country heard
of him as the head and front of this gi-
gantic corporation whose system and
methods of ACKNOWLEDGEMENT have at
last attracted the attention of
congress. To-day the Reading sys-
tenn embraces fully 1900 miles of rail-
ways. It has splendid and magnifi-
Gently equipped line out of New York to
Philadelphia, Washington and the west,
and with it's new leases it will soon be
connecting with Boston by way of the
great Poughkeepsie bridge Oontroll-
ing, as it does, the hard coal output of
eastern Pennsylvania, it has now
reinvited the hostile rivalry of the
great Pennsylvania company, and
fight Of much Importance and great
magnitude is imminent. Mr.. Mcleod
seems to combine all the managerial
qualities of the late Tom Scott with the
reserve strength Of Gen. Grant. He
moves on their works as the general
did, and his motto is evidently "Push
Things" He is either going to live in
our history as one of the greatest
railway Napoleons of the times or he
will score monumental failure. There