The Kootenai herald. [volume] (Kootenai, Idaho) 1891-1904, 1894-09-29
How lie Built His Great Fortune.

The stories of howpoo boys displayed
pluck and perseverance and became the
architects of their own fortunes and
finally died millionaires and got into
books as Gn inspiration to all other poor
boys to go and be the architects of their
owhfertunes have always profound fas-
cination for poor and ambitious young
people. as well as for the rest of the
world.
We know such story that has never
been told. 1t shows how a man can be-
come very wealthy from an exceedingly
poor beginning, poor in many ways.
Once there was an Italian who came to
this happy land of freedom determined
to be rich. He did not care particularly
how he got so, butrich he resolved to be.
Like SO many other men who are bound
to be rich, he picked up the first thing he
found. 1t happened to be hand organ.
a secondhand, wheezy one at that. But
what signifies wheeze more or less to
the architect of his own fortune? The
brave Italian walked with the organ
strapped to his back Wherever he
found group of young ones, there he
unstrapped his music and lett its dolorous
strains vex the air till the childrens
mothers and fathers and all the boarders
were driven half crazy and paid dozens
of coppers to get rid of it. In that way
he laid the foundation of his fortune.
On good days like Fourth of July, or
at times when he happened in front of
houses where anybody was i'll or was.
trying to write poetry, the kind people
who pitied themselves because they had
to listen to his music shelled out hand
somely, and in the evening when he went
to the corner grocery to get his copper
cents changed into silver and paper
money he showed for his days earnings
sometimes $40 or 81. This made the
grocery man declare that he himself was
going to start out and grind an organ
too. The newspaper man who lived over
the grocery said he would also. But
they never did.
At last came the happy day-the day
when industry and frugality were re-
warded. He had slept in hole in the
wall and eaten things that we don't
wish to describe very particularly, but
he had saved his dimes and nickels. He
resolved to end his wandering life and
open permanent business. He did so,
beginning in very humble way at first,
as was proper for the man who was de-
termined to be self made He hired
some of his compatriots to follow up the
great city dumping grounds and extract
therefrom fragments of paper and cloth
ing that had Outlived their original in
tention. These they brought to the man
who was carving a fortune. The com
patriots toiled for him daily, and he
waited, knowing that the mills of the
gods grind slowly and that it would be
some months before he could have still
more base hirelings at his beck and call !
But his progress was rapid on the
whole. Now he is the greatest merchant
of rags in that whole section of coun-
try. He has bought real estate not i
little and proited by the unearned in
crement. His children belong to the
Four Hundred. He is able to dictate
TO the city just what streets shall or
shall not be run through his part of
town. He is also able to give large sums
IF money to the party every presidential
year. There is even talk of electing him
to certain high office in his state.
This story shows how man who is
determined to be rich may rise from a
humble organ grinder to become mil
lionaire and go into politics.