The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1896-05-30
PHIL ARMOuR'S BUSINESS
How the Great Pork Packer OF
Chicago rlanages His
Affairs.
He Is the Hardest Working Ma
of Any in His Great Estab-
Sd lishment.
Pays His r1en Well and Insists
that They Shall Keep Out
of Debt. r."
concluded from last weekly

l nahe-up. he Is one o. the teW men Wnt
can do more than one thing at a time. Whil
he was talking to me messenger boys woult
bring him kilograms showing the condition
of the stocks. He would answer them
giving his orders to buy or sell. At suci
times it seemed to me that he was not lis
tening to my questions and to what I wa!
| saying, but I soon discovered that he Was
carrying both our conversation and the
markets in his mind at the same time.
have been told that he has this ability in {
marked degree. DR.. Frank Gunsaulus, the
head OF the Armour tecnichal institute, says
| that he does not doubt that Mr.. Armour
could dictate letters on different subjects
to three Or four secretaries at the same
time, holding the thought of each separately
and carrying on the three or four threads
of thought without confusion.
Another instance of MIR. Armour's Ma
| poleonic character was seen here in the
panic Of 1898. He was one of the few men
prepared for the panic. He saw it coming
! months before it was a possibility in the
minds of other great capitalists of the
United States. He had not been feeling
well and he went to Europe for his health
While loafing about Carlsbad he came into
Europe, and from the way they talked he
learned that storm was brewing. All at
once he decided to come home. The day
he landed at New York he telegraphed the
leading managers of his different depart
ments to come there to meet him. They
came. Theytold him that business had never
been better, that all Of his enterprises were
paying and that they were making money
hand over fist. MIR. Armour heard their
reports and then threw a thunderbolt into
their midst by telling them to cut down the
business to the closest margin. Said he:
"There is storm brewing, and we must
draw in. We must have money to prepare
for it, and want you to get all the cash you
can and put it away in the vaults. want
you to go out in the street and stretch the
name of P. D. Armour to its utmost tension.
Borrow every dollar you can and then let
me know the result
Some of the men rather thought that the
cold man." as they sometimes call him, was
crazy, but they did as he directed. At last
they came to him and told him that they
had about $2,OO0,000 in cash.
''Oh," said he, "that's not half enough!
Go out and borrow more. Don't be afraid.
Get all you can, and get it as quick as you
can.'
This was done, and they finally told him
that they had secured $4,000000 in cash.
In addition to this he also had in hand about
50, 100000 in negotiable securities. With
a capital of what was practically $8,000,000
on hand, Mr.. Armour then sat back in his
chair and said to himself
well, if the crash must come, I, at any
rate, am ready for It..
1t was not long after this that the crash
did come. Money was not to be got for love,
work or high rates of interest. Prices
dropped to the bottom. Armour was prac-
ttcally the only man who was perfectly
prepared for it. He turned his $S,000,000
the masses Of less far sighted business men
were on the edge of bankruptcy.
You would not think that a man who
wealthy would be hard worker. This,
Chicago who watches his business more
closely and who puts in more hours than
p. D, Armour. He has all his life been an
early riser. He is at his office, winter and
summer, at 1880 o'clock every morning, and
remains there usually until 6. He goes to
bed regularly at 9 o'clock every night, eats
simply, dresses we'll, but not extravagantly,
and gets his chief pleasure, judge, out Of
his work He has great power of organi-
cation, and as we walked together through
his big Office he told me that the machine
practically ran itself. He took me through
the great Office room, in which, in cages
surrounded by wire screens, something like
100 men. were working away, keeping ac-
counts, figuring up columns to find the per-
centage of profits and loss, and answering
the enormous correspondence which IS con-
nected with a great business Ike this. AT
the back of the room we stopped at the
post Office, and Mr.. Armour asked the
clerk within it how many letters they had
received that day. The man replied that
5000 letters had come in, and that already
13 900 had been mailed. The man who
writes a letter or so a day can get some idea
of Arnlours business by comparing his
work with the answering of from 5000 to
1O, 900 letters a day. Leaving this part of
the room, we next went off to the left,
where, in sort Of an L, is the telegraph
office Of the establishment. There were, I
judge, dozen operators at work, and the
instruments which were clicking away were
enough to do the business of city Of
10000 people. Mr.. Armour has his own
private operator apart from these men.
9This operator has an instrument just out
side the little cage which IS Mr. Armour's S
private Office. 1t is his business to take the
messages direct from the chief, and he is at
his office as early in the morning as Mr..
Armour. ready to give him the reports
which have been received by telegraph and
cable from all parts of the world. These
are frs tdfsposed Of, and by 5 or 8 o'clock
Mr. Armour thoroughly knows just what
he wants his men to do In all parts Of the
world. III ID 0.he has pract cally settled the
hun probleu,s |of ttae day and 11 lls