The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-01-30
CONTROLS THE WORLDS COTTON
The Story of Saving Man Who Has
Accumulated Great Wealth.

| New York WOrld.)
The firm of B. B. & r. Knight ceased
to be with the new year, and Robert
Knight became the uncrowned kinS of
cotton. His title is undisputed. He is
head of the cotton manufacturing in
dustry, both in this country and in
Europe. He is the largest individual
mill owner in the world.
He was clerk with j. H. Clark in
his Pontiac mill years ago, when he
saw the possibilities of a fortune in the
cotton spinning business, and earnestly
set himself to learn all 'its ms and
outs. Fortune favored him. His en-
ployer was elected United States SEN
ator.
I'D like to take a lease on this
mill" said young Bob boldly.
You can have it, my boy, for S5,OOe
a year." said Clark, who was feeling
in particularly good humor and was
not so stiff in his price as he might
ordinarily have been.
Done" said the clerk without an
instant's hesitation.
With another clerk for partner the
young man started out for himself.
They raised the money to start with
by some means or other and went at
it hammer and tOngS. 1t was many
night, though, before either of them
got a good nights sleep. But they met
with success, and in a few years were
able to buy out the plant for SiO,OoO
Since then Robert knights business
has been growing, growing, growing
He was not a man to get into DEBT.
He does not permit his notes to go into
the banks, where they have to pay
interest. He is his own bank his
policy has been one of acquisition. He
no addnd mill RI mill and village TO
village.
In New York he runs a wholesale
produce establishment and sends stores
TO his various villages, where they are
retailed out to his employees. The VII
lagos are largely collections of little
tenements built by him, to whom the
tenants, his workmen and their
families pay rent. In short, this rusty
old New Englander, whom many would
call a miser, for he spends as little as
many a clerk on his own home and at
tire, has learned the secret of perpetual
motion. The dollars that once come
into the swirl of his financial mael-
strom never escape. What he pays out
for wages he takes back again for
goods purchased at his stores or Tor
rentals of his cottages. The money
travels in circle, and always with an
inward tendency.
In the first place. the Knights were
educated under the old Sprague regime
at the time when the famous war gov
ernor of Rhode Island was at the helght
of his glitter and splendor. The SpraSue
interest seemed to be the whole manu-
featuring state of Rhode Island. The
knights were young and impression
able. But they were poor. Bob Knight
was one of Sprague'S proteges. When
the crash came and the Spragues fail
ed the knights learned a lesson They
saw in Sprague, the bubble, what was
possible and in the failure realized
where the weakness lay. From that
day to this no one, even in the widest
movements, has ever called the
knights eXtravagant. They were not.
In business Bob is very close, eX-
ceedingly close. For the last four
years he has practically carried on this
business alone. He is a fnancier. and
closely follows the markets, attending
personally to the purchase and safe Of
goods-even as it is said that he looks
after his grocery bill in his own house
hold.
He is not an imposing appearing men.
No one would recognize the Cotton
King by the innate majesty of his
appearance. About five feet eight
inches high, heavy in build, long gray
hair and chin whiskers and rather
slow method of speech, seeking retire
ment, wholly wrapped UP in his idol,
his business. is Robert Knight. In
private life he is not ostentatiOus. He
has no steam yacht, no tiger. no foot
MEN. He lives in the same style that
would be employed by man who had
an income of 1000 a year clear of all
and his children, now
young men and women, live in the
same wa--