The daily morning journal and courier., 1897-10-12

was spinning along behind his trotters, seeking the excitement of a spurt of speed With rival team. The rhythmic movements of these intelligent and highly trained thoroughbreds as they seemed to tread on ether and fly through the air gave him exquisite pleasure, As they passed and distanc- ed horses famed for triumphs on many courses, and brought on to beat him, this strikingly handsome and apparent ly stolid old man was keenly enjoying that victory in competition which had been the handspring of his career. The lightning-like evolutions of his mind working in harmony with, and excited to action by. both the speed and dan gers of the race brought to perfection, before he dropped the reins upon these panting partners of his thoughts, many scheme which routed his enemies or revolutionized Wall street.
 He received daily bushel of begging letters. The man whose invention could be bought and millions made with a few thousands, the farmer whose mortgage was past due and who, if the mortgage were lifted, could pay the principal to his rescuer, though he could not meet the interest on it to the mortgagee; the woman whose husband was straying away, but who could hold him to hap py home if she could buy the vine-clad cottage around the corner; the old man whose sands of life had nearly run out, and the young one who needed only a little capital to become a capitalist; the church or college hopelessly in debt; the girl whose future happiness would be wrecked unless she could have a rousseau for marriage and furniture for housekeeping; honest men and Wo- men, frauds fools and cranks-all needy and unable to breast the waves of ad- versity or make their way in the world appealed to him. He never answered them. "If I should give them my whole fortune," he said, "one-half would go to thieves and the other half to people whose folly and improvidence would squander it in week, leaving them worse off than before." He possessed neither sympathy nor sentiment, but ] had formulated theory of justice and compensation, summed up in the phrase | Give a man a chance" It might be a very humble and a, very hard chance, but if the man would stick and dig and climb he was worth assisting. As proof | of the value of this principle in true philanthrophy, he would point to the president of one of his railroads who | had started as gateman at one of his | ferries.
 Cathedrals and grand churches did not impress him. His mind always re- ] verted to the little Moravian Meeting i House, where his mother Worshipped l She was the one ever fresh and tender memory, never touched by time nor lost in his years of bitter strife. Every one l have ever met who had made and sus- tained a great success ascribed it all to the impelling influence and restrain highland of a sainted mother. He went one Sunday, to the Church of the Stran- gers and saw a congregation made uE of the clerks, salesmen, bookkeepers and porters in the big wholesale stores of the neighborhood. Fellows who art | helping themselves,'' he said, and sent the pastor, Dr. Deems, fifty thousand
 dollars. Unlike most self-made men he placed the highest value upon a lib eral education and alphabetically la 4 IIleIllSu HIS OWL ldCh DI IL.
 1 The period of the active life of Cor
 nelius Vanderbilt was the era of revo
 lution and evolution in our national his
 tory. The. civil war, and rapidly sue
 ceeding inventions and discoveries called for men of great original genius
 and courage and gave them unexam l pied opportunities. It produced in war | Grant and Lee; in statesmanship, Lin coin; in the pulpit, Henry Ward Beech
 CT; in journalism, Horace Greeley; il I oratory, Charles Sumner and Wendell
 Phillips, Alexander H. Stephens, Henr,
 Winter Davis and Henry W. Grady
 and in the industrial and business
 world, men who have left their mark
 upon every state and city in the Union
 Opportunities for large enterprises ant
 vast fortunes were frequent in tn
 mighty upheaval occasioned by the de
 struction of old methods and machin
 cry, and the reduplication of force il
 the application of steam and invention
 of power, the rapid settlement of state
 and creation of cities. Such conditions
 can never occur again. Few of tn
 men who ruled like sovereigns in thei
 respective spheres were worthy type
 of American manhood. But the com
 modore. chief of them all, in the sue
 cess of his undertakings and in the con
 tinuing victories of his campaigns. was
 in his public spirit, his sterling integ
 rity, his fidelity to his associates in tn
 great enterprises he built up and hi
 rugged patriotism, the best representa-
 tive of the self-made man.
 
 LESSONS OF THE FADING YEAR To the Editor of the Journal and Courier: Seemingly conscious that "absenct
 strengthens friendship where the las