The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1902-03-29
HISTORICAL
DEPARTMENT.
-o-0-o-0-o-o-o-0-c-0-0-0-0-0-o
ERA OF HIGH sALARIEs.
Men Who Command From $25 900
to $4,000.
Uo,1y Gu,

New York Sum-
It may be that future historians will
refer to the present time as the era Of
big salaries. When Lyman ]. Gage,
former secretary of the treasury, left
his $4,000 cabinet place in Washington
a short time ago and accepted an
offer to become president of the United
States Trust company at a salary said
to be $4,000 year, certain business
men in Chicago, his old home, ex-
pressed doubt as to whether-he was
able to earn that enormous amount.
The idea OF a big salary for little
work has its fascinations-and it's falla-
cies. Big pay and little or nothing to
do are two circumstances seldom con-
Joined in this world, though the I'M
informed wistfully dream of such con-
ditions.
That any man should render actual
services commensurate with a salary of
$4,000 a year is really beyond the I'M
Outstanding of the average toiler whose
stipend is 81 or SO a day. Nevertheless,
in this matter-o age there are
probably very few persons receiving
prodigious pay who do not earn every
dollar of it.
You may be sure that Mr.. Gage will
be worth more than $4,000 a year to
his employers or they wouldn't hire
him. said Chicago banker who for
merly was comptroller of the currency.
Perhaps you may remember a highly
interesting remark made by former
Secretary Gage last fall in an address
to the bank clerks Of Denver.
He told them that the demand for
good bank clerks was so much greater
than the supply that ne could place at
least twenty young men at a salary of
S25, 900 2 year each. The fact is that
capital, whether employed in COM
mercial or industrial enterprise, or in
banking, is always on the watch fer
able managers. There never was a
time when ffrst-class abilities could
command so much in salaries as now
This seems to be true enough. Even
S25 600 a year for the hire of one
mans brain is a vast sum; it is half
the salary of the president of the Unit
ed States. and few persons in private
enterprises receive so much; yet there
is such an unsupplied demand for this
rate of pay.
Mr.. Cages remark was doubtless in
tended to lay stress upon the fact that
a score OF young men NOTlH SZO,UUU
each could not easily be found. 1t is
conceded by business men generally
that when found, strong, buoyant,
resourceful, courageous young man,
whose education has been specialized,
may obtain ready employment at the
salary named, not only in banking, but
in railroading, engineering and devel-
oping large commercial and industrial
enterprises. The field is broad and
the masters of the situation are few.
Some months ago, when Charles
Counselman was elected president of
the American Fisheries company,
concern that has control of many of
the canning factories in the state of
Washington and along the shores of
Alaska, it was announced that his sal
airy was to be $4,000 a year. Like Mr..
Gage, Mr.. Counselman is a Chicagoan
and he has had a long and successful
experience as a grain merchant on the
board of trade, an owner of grain ele-
vators, builder of skyscrapers,
dealer in real estate and a man of
large business interests generally. He
began with little or nothing, and such
education as he possesses he acquired
in the school of experience. He was
always alert, creative and resourceful,
looking for big problems to solve. and
he solved them. He is today a man of