The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1899-02-25
A MAN OF WONDERFUL CAREER
Once Poor Irish Boy, He Is Now
Merchant Prince.
SUCCESS DUE TO ADVERTISING
Has Achieved Fame and Fortune in
Nineteen Years.

Thirty years ago Thomas Johnstone
Upton staggered ashore in New York,
black with coal dust and gasping for
breath, from the furnace room of a
Charleston steamer.
He had become stowaway on board
because he had no money to pay for his
passage; had been dragged from his con-
cealment after the boat was out at sea
and with kicks and curses sent to earn
his passage by shoveling coal.
If, as seems certain, Sir Thomas Lip
ton comes to visit the United States this
year, 1t 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 fai-
ries.
The stowaway boy will return as
knight of Great Britain; as member of
one Of the most aristocratic yacht clubs
in the realm, charged with the purpose
of winning the American cup; as
lAC LIZ ouu dSoOC1dlc VI IuC pEluCG Ol
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-
tions, where every prospect pleases; at
his warehouse 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 600 refrigerator cars, and
thence carried to every quarter of the
globe in Upton ships; 1900 men, women
and boys will delve into the accounts
and recl1onings 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
42O shops and stores which hoist the
Upton flag, thousands of employees will
measure out 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 in interest
the truth about this man, who has pass
Il ~,
the stowaway to the many milioned
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 Gas-
gov, where his parents lived, as a mes
senger at 81 cents week, educating
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 II 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 18, man in stature and a
man who had seen far countries and new
ways, and had kept his eyes open. Il
have always felt that got a good COM
mercial training here" said he when
last in the United States.
Lipton's Irish parents had savings
$4oO. 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 a small
shop, in which he was the only sales
man, accountant and window dresser
the entire 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 gay
ly with ribbons, and led them through
the streets labelled "Liptons Orphans"
"Lipton's Monsters" another story says,
and perhaps both tales are equally du-
bious.
But advertise Upton did from the first.
Il believe in advertising" he says. ut
,a 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,
Is hours out of the "a. With the con-
quest of capital came the opportunity to
demonstrate his favorite project-to dis
pense with the middleman and bring the
producer and consumer together. His
first large productive enterprise was the
purchase of plantations in Ceylon and