Kentucky Irish American. (Louisville, Ky.) 1898-1968, 1899-03-04
The Son of Poor Irish Parents
Who by Industry and Grit
Has Become Rich.
Uses His Wealth to Increase
Business, Lives Well and
Likes Sport.
SAYS HE'LL WIN AMERICAS CUP.

Upton staggered ashore in New York,
black with coal dust and gasping for
breath, from the furnace room OF
Charleston steamer.
He had become stowaway OH board
because he had no money TO pay for his
passage; had been dragged from his con-
cealment after the boattwas out at sea,
and with kicks and curses sent to earn
. his passage by shoveling coal.
IT. as seems certain, Sir Thomas Lip
ton comes to visit the United States this
year, it will be under conditions so diff
ferent that their bare recital beggars the
old tales of wealth and power won by
white magic and the wands Of the
fairies.
The stowaway boy will return as a
knight of Great Britain; as a member OF
one of the most aristocratic yacht clubs
in the realm, charged with the purpose
of winning the American cup; as
the friend and associate of the Prince OF
Wales and the Duke of York; as the
merchant magnate whose ships sail
every sea, and whose laborers till and
toll in every quarter of the globe to add
to his golden gains.
While his pulse thrills with the fever
of the most glorious of sports, and the
white clad sailors lie fiat along the wind
ward rail of his Shamrock, 5000 half
naked Ceylonese will be picking, pack
ing and sorting teas upon his planta-
tons, where every prospect pleases; at
his warehoute docks in Colombo and
Ceylon, fleet of ships will be loading
with his goods; in far Chicago his abat-
toirs will be turning 5000 hogs per day
into food products to be sent to the sea-
board in 900 refrigerator cars, and
thence carried to every quarter of the
globe in Upton ships 300 men, women
and boys will delve into the accounts
and reckonings of his London Office; 200
Upton printers will be striking off the
labels and wrappers for his. goods, and
in every part of the United Kingdom, in
420 shops and stores which hoist, the
Upton flag, thousands of employees will
measure off ha'ports of tea and sugar
even while they wait with loyal conf
dence the first cable flash of news from
the struggling yachts.
No romance can surpass i'll interest
the truth about this man, who has passed
almost at a leap from the CRIME of
the stowaway to the many millioned
splendor, and who still lives on the
threshold of middle age, and looks for
ward to almost limitless increment of
wealth.
Very young, the boy worked in Glas-
gov, where his parents lived, as a mes
senger at sixty-one cents a week. edu-
eating himself in the night school. He
ran away to this country, crossing in
the steerage and worked two years on
South Carolina plantations. 1t was not
long after the war. There was no money
down there. He was seventeen years old
when he gave it up and walked to
Charleston, and took a stowaway's dusty
berth for New York.
In that city he earned enough to buy
steerage passage to Glasgow, where he
arrived at eighteen, man in stature and
man who had seen far countries and new
ways, and had kept his eyes open. 81
have always felt that got good COM
mercial training here" said he when
last in the United States.
Lipton's Irish parents had savings
$500. They intrusted this money to the
boy, who had seen towns and men and
whose eyes cleaned with the light of
commercial contest. He opened small
shop, in which he was the only salesman,
accountant and window dresser-the en-
tire force.
Sir Thomas Upton says he owes his
success to- advertising. They say that in
those early days he bought the two big
gest hogs in Scotland, decked them gayly
with ribbons, and led them through
the streets labeled "Lipton's Orphans"
"Lipton's Monster" another story says,
and perhaps both tales are equally dubi-
Gus.
But advertise Upton did from the first.
"I believe in Advertising" he says. 1T
is the life blood of modern trade. Every
body reads. His pennies were few, but
nimble, they have rolled far.
The shop grew, and presently there
were others The business went by leaps
and bounds. Upton worked, he says,
twenty-five hours out of the twenty-four.
With the conquest of capital came the
opportunity to demonstrate his favorite
project-to dispense with the middleman
and bring the producer and consumer
together. His first large productive en-
terprise was the purchase of plantations
in Ceylon and Colombo, where he raises
tea, coffee and cocoa with native labor.
He is the largest individual land owner
in Seylon. His packing house in Chi
cago is a more recent undertaking.
Upton has travelled in most quarters
of the globe, but many of his properties
and employees he has never seen. He
trusts to subordinates, and knows how to
. choose men whom he must trust.
There are APO Upton shops in Great
Britain, all just alike; sixty in London
alone, the others everywhere.
Every new Upton shop is opened by