The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1894-02-11
A MULTI-MILLIONAIRE
Lesson i'm Phil .ArmOur's Active
Life for Other Men to Follow.
Tells How He Won Success, and Believes
There Are Still Just as Many OPP
p%Ortunities for Acquiring Wealth.

From an Interview by Arthur Warren. in
McClure's Magazine.
! Philip d. Armour is something more
than the richest man in Chicago; he is per-
haps the greatest trader in the world. But
that is not all. He is one of the greatest
manufacturers in this or any country. In
this capacity alone he employs 1900 per-
sons. pays 100000 or 100000 yehrly in
wages, owns 1900 railway cars. which are
used in transporting his goods, and has
700 or 500 horses to haul his wagons. Fifty
or sixty thousand persons receive direct
support from the wages paid in his meat
packing business alone, If we estimate fam
lilies on the census basis. He is a larger
owner Of grain elevators than any other
individual in either hemisphere; he is the
proprietor Of a glue factory which turns
out a product of 1000. 900 tons a year, and
he Is actively interested in an important
railway enterprise.
America has been conspicuous as the
country of opportunities. But it is a favor
lite saying In these last years Of our dying
century, that the opportunities are swiftly
who claim that the business opportunities
of America are getting exhausted; or, TO
put 1t in another way. that they will soon
monopolized by the intrenched millionaires.
/ had a word with Mr.. Armour on this
subject. 1 put this question:
do you think the young men the
present, and, for that matter, of the future,
can find for themselves such opportunities
elders-such opportunities as you found, for
That depends on the men. AS for OPP
portunitieS they will continue to be found.
as they hav been found in any business or
profession. where men seek them In dead
earnest. There was never a better time
than the present, and the future will bring
even greater opportunities than the past"
L said: You do not think, then, that
wealth, that combinations of capital will
monopolize the opportunities of the future?'
BRAINS AND MONEY.
"Of course not Wealth, capital, can do
nothing without brains to direct it. 1t will
be as true in the future as 1t is in the
present, that brains make capital-capital
does not make brains. The world does not
stand still. Changes come quicker now than
they ever did, and they will come quicker
and quicker. New ideas, new inventions,
new methods of manufacture. of transpor-
tation. new ways to do almost everything,
will be found as the world grows older, and
the men who anticipate them, and who are
ready for them, will find advantages as
great as any their fathers or grandfathers
have had"
wealth as 1t is of liberty?"
yes. of course. Capital can eat it's own
head off If you VIII let It. You must feed
'monopolies' you speak of require men of
brains to manage them, and they require
such men more and more every year. There
is always a demand for men of ability, and
my experience is that the demand is great
er than the supply"
What you say is directly in line with a
emark I heard not long ago dropped by a
shrewd thinker: Common sense is the least
common product Of human ingenuity
When you come TO that what is common
sense, assuming that to be the quality you
look for in your lieutenants""
Good judgment"
In the great electrical room of the re-
Gently opened Armour Institute (of which
he pays all the expenses fitted with eX-
quisite apparatus, a group OF embryo ex-
perts were engaged in delicate experiments.
II set great store by this" said Mr.. Ar
mour. I'm a few years we shall be doing
everything by electricity, and these young
men are getting ready for the coming
will be as old fashioned as the windmills
are now. You see here a generation pre-
pairing to work cut the problems of the
future. i am told that the apparatus here
is not excelled in any laboratory"
DIR. Gunsaulus, who is at the head Of the
institute. showed us Il letter written by
Benjamin Franklin to a friend. Immediately
after the former had made an electrical dis
covery.
Yes: on the day we started here we
had an electrical plant which cost us &c.,
GOO. You see. Mr.; Armour tells us to get
that"
You are fortunate in having such a
pocketbook," | remarked.
ARMOUR'S PHILOSOPHY.
We'll" said Mr.. Armour. I'VE run the
packing business. the grain business. the
glue factory and the railroad TO make
money for these boys and girls"
Aud that. 1 believe. is the substance of
Phillip Armour's philosophy. We had been