St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1893-06-08
Capt. Henry A. Castles Tri-
butte to Today's Central
Figure.
The Public Should Know Init
mately the Man 1t Has
HonOred.

appointing that prudent lnqulrerS seek
in the personal traits of the hero of the
hour some assurance of the permanence
of his success. 1t is, therefore, but nat
ural that we, among whom this man has
been going in and out for thirty years,
under whose eyes he has worked out
his designs, should be asked in these
days for our honest estIm ate OF his
capacity, that an intelligent forecast as
to the future of his great enterprises
may be attempted.
The career of James J. Hill, to those
who have known him longest and
best, is
Neither Miracle Nor Mystery.
In that career hard labor directed by
great intellectual power has won an
adequate recompense. That is all, but
that is enough. Emerson gives high
rank to men who superadd to the
mineral and animal force the more ex-.
allied faculties Of insight and general
izatlOn, as if earth's natural elements
had taken flesh and begun to cipher. "
Bonaparte said: "My hand of iron was
not at the extremity of my arm; it was
Immediately connected with my head"
The exc cutive man, nerved with in
ceSsant energies, whose brain moves
his hand without hesitation or indirec-
ton, who has an eye in every pore of
his body, and every eye a telescope.
after all only draws his present reve-
nues of resource from the stored treas
ures of previously acquired knowledge.
L may be pardoned for repeating what
has been said on several occasions. with
the subject of this article full in mind,
that the genius merely walks vigor
ously, laboriously in the direction toward
which all men are looking and point
ing. He collects and amplifies their
information as to the route and its en-
virOnments. He penetrates beyond
them in the exact line Of their ex-
plorations. He marches, cloud
compelling, while they stand,
inane. fiameless. shaken by the
whistling wind into tatters and shreds
of irresolution. He grasps the funda-
mentals; he organizes the essentials; he
WHITES the elements of success which
have lain dim, spectral, anonymous,
and-behold the consummatlon Then
men say: away with him! lie tells
us nothing new. His success is but a
consensus Of phenomena. We all but
had that in our own grasp; all but"
James j. Hill is plentifully endowed
with that rich element of common
sense, rounded, intensified, crystallized,
which is the safest, if not the
Highest Manifestation of Genius.
He is conservative. dominative-
giving multtudes with his fertility of
purpose. He has broad receptive
powers, keen perceptive powers and in
flexible will; The would shorten a
straight line to come at his object"
He has always been close, omniver-
Gus student of books, of affairs. OF
men. In company OF dozen gentle
men, eminent in varying walks of life,
he can, during ten minutes converse
ton with each, unOstentatiOusly tell
him something new and valuable about
his own speciality, something he would
deem 1t loss not t. INTERCHANGEABLE is
that sort of man, and that sort Of a
man Is one among million i'll this
world of mediocres.
Mr.. Hill knows his present business
thoroughly, from its ground floor to its
pinnacle. He is an expert in every de-
partment of railrOading, either from
practical experience or from ardent
study. All the details of the system
which he controls-its geography and
Its Typographical appearance; its Sleep
erS, rails and spikes; its engines, shops,
absorbed into his being and become a
part of him. He moves in them and
with them and through them, as per-
m
of their destiny.
And he knows all the regions through
which his lines pass better than any
other man In those regions or out Of
them. He knows in every state each
county he has penetrated. its towns, its
farms, Its soils, resources and capabil-
tiles; he knows its fauna and its
flora: he knows its air, its water
and its minerals with the knOwl-
edge OF "a practical scientist; he knows
the exact measure of it's transportable
products. and more accurately than any
of its own citizens he can estimate its
possibilities OF development. He has
been toiling for years to obtain this
knowledge and he can toll nightly.
Out of the eater comes forth strength.
The knowledge thus gained is part of
his capital, part of his ''plant," part
of his equipment as a railroad manager
and financier, which no rival can take
from him, and which has placed him
above rivalry in the prosecution of his
vast designs.
This knowledge of the Region
traversed by the embryo of his present
system was his before he passed TO the
control of that system. He better
knew the value of the property than
the men who created it or the men who
owned it. He thus came into its posses
sion adequately equipped with internal
resources to appreciate it, to safely
manage it, and to prudeDtly extend
it. Its management and its eXtenSio II
have been marYels of progressive sue
cess, and iI is an axiom that as much
wisdom is required for conservation as
for creation. That MIR. Hill rose from
a subordinate position to that of SUI
preme control, which he has held for
twelve years with unchecked increment
of prosperity, is not the result of luck
or accident. 1t Is All unimpeachable i'll
stance of the survival OF the ftteSt.
Brain and labor are the towering
lodges from which the drift boulders of
his success have been detached. And
that success is an encouraging proof
that for VIgOr, courage and persistence
there is still field. an opportunity OF
golden rewards.
An unerring index of Mr.. HIPS mer-
its and deserts is found i'll the fact that
success has not turned his head. Re-
sponsibilities have enlarged him, labors
have strengthened him. tut fortune has
not inflated him. The greatness of some
men seems TO be measured by the
sneers, envies and and hatreds OF baf
lied competitors But lie has no points
vulnerable to ridicule, no weakness
of vanity or egotism- which the
microscopic eye OF envy can de-
tect. The com nunity where his
whole active life. tas been spent rises
as one man to do !. M honor. And here
III lies the firm basis of his ascendency
and pledge of its permanence--the abil-
iGy to succeed without having his man
hood warped, or developing faults AID