The Savannah morning news., 1901-12-24
A GREAT FINANCIER.
Mr.. j. Pierpont Morgan's Wonderful
Career,
From the Baltimore Sun.

From the Baltimore Sun.
Mr.. J. Pierpont Morgan is a figure
not very open to the public eye, and.
considering the immense amount of in
terest in the personality of the power
full man of affairs, it is rather extraor-
binary that the periodicals have failed
to present any sketch of him which
bore the mark of authenticity and
which included the details of his ca
| reer comprehensiVely. The best er-
fort we have seen to describe this fig
ure, so mighty in the world of indus
! try and finance, is that contributed to
| McClures by Mr.. Ray Stannard Baker
| Mr.. Baker gives an idea of the almost
! unprecedented power welded by this
| one tinancier whose life is so precious
| to investors that English brokers have
! been insuring themselves at Lloyd's
| against his death, paying premiums of
| $50 on the thousand for three months.
Mr. Morgan has organized the most
| powerful industrial and financial insti-
! tuition the world has ever known. TT
matters not whether he was a large
| owner in the United States Steel Cor
! poration; as it's recognized and actual
| dictator he controlled a yearly income
| and expenditure nearly as great as
| that of imperial Germany, paid taxes
on a debt greater than that of MANY
of the lesser nations of Europe, and by
employing 900 men supported a pop
ulation of over 1000, 900 souls-almost a
nation in itself"
OF Old New England stock.
Mr.. Baker calls attention to the fact
that very much of our wealth belongs
to men sprung from the oldest Amer
lean families. Miles Morgan, the first
n haf II, ~. 4
in 1885. Mr.. Joseph Morgan grandfa-
ther of j. Pierpont Morgan, was a far
mer and tavern keeper in Hartford,
Conn.,, with Revolutionary war re-
cord. Joseph Morgan left his son, julius
Spencer, good property on Asylum
! Hill, Hartford, and Julius Spencer rose
| from bank clerk to a partner in the
dry goods business of Levi P. Morton
was later an associate of the million
aire philanthropist George Peabody,
and finally established a successful
banking house in London, with branch
es in America and Australia He mar
ried Juliet Pierpont, the daughter OF
Rev. John Pierpont, poet and preacher.
Mr.. j. Pierpont Morgan was born April
II, 1887, in Hartford, Conn In 1851 his
father moved to Boston and the son
graduated from the Boston High
School at IS and studied thereafter for
two years in Germany. His school life
was not particularly brilliant. AT the
age of p he embarked on his career
as a banker. learned the complicated
mechanism of foreig nexchange in his
fathers house and then was sent to
London.
Ills Career as n Banker.
In 1860, at the age Of %, young Nor
gan became the American agent for
George Peabody & Co At 27 he helped
organize the firm of Dabney, Morgan
q Co. In 1871 he formed a combina-
tion with the wealthy Drexels of Phil
adelphia, the firm being known as
Drexel, Morgan & Co. In 1895 Drexel,
Morgan e. Co. became ]. p. Morgan q,
Co.. and, Mr.. Morgans father having
died in $780, the New York, London
and Paris houses all came under the
dictatorship of ]. p. Morgan.
Mr. Morgan is of necessity an abso-
lutte dictator in any concern he active
ly works with. His firm is private
bank, owned by partners. There are
eleven partners besides Mr. Morgan,
most of them men of the first rank,
though all are under the influence of
their chief.
Mr.. Morgan is not a railroad man. an
ironmaster, nor is he a speculator or
railroad wrecker. He is primarily
banker-a worker in money Great
holders of capital trust him to invest
their funds, and with this financial
power he is enabled to buy out steam
ship lines. reorganize railroads or OBJ
tain an influence in their management
1t is of the first necessity that Mr..
Morgan should have unexampied good
judgment, and it is also of the first
necessity that he should be absolutely
honest. Wall street generally attrib-
utes his prominence in the world of
finance to the fact that he keeps his
word and is a gentleman in business
dealings.
Some "MOrgan Companies"
Besides his own private banking
house here and it's branches abroad,
Mr.. Morgan largely controls a power
full national bank in New York city
the National Bank of Commerce, of
which he is the vice president 1t is
known in Wall street as 'Morgan's
bank He is a dominating influence in
other banks and financial institutions,
and a director never without much in
tluence in twenty-one railroad COM
panies, great and small, including the
New York Central and Lake Shore
systems. He is a director in the West
ern Union Telegraph Company, the
Pullman Palace Car Company, the
Aetna Fire Insurance Company, the
General Electric Company--the great
est electric company in the world-and
In other less important corporations
And through his partners, who are di-
rectors in other railroad and steel cor
porations, his influence reaches far and
wide. He is a potent, and in times of
trouble the controlling, factor in sew
eral of what are known as the coal
roads of Pennsylvania-the Erie, the
Lehigh Valley. the Central of New
Jersey and the Reading, together with
their tributary coal fields. He is the
predominating influence i'm the South
ern Railway and in three of it's con-
nections. the foremost railroad system
of the Southern states, with over 5000
miles of track, a system which he Gre
ated and of which an associate and
friend is president. He is also pow
er in many other railroads. as witness
his recent appointment of the directors
Of the Northern Pacific Railroad and
his evident influence through j. ]. Hill
in the Burlington and Great Northern
management. And, as l have. already
said, he is at present practically die
tator of the vast steel interests of the
country; through the United States
Steel Corporation. and he controls at
least one Atlantic steamship line.
His Personal Characteristics.
"Mr. Morgan impresses one as a
large man, thick of chest, with big
set oil Il