The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1902-07-12
MARCUS ALoNzo HANNA.


MARCUS AL0NZ0 HANNA.
BY JULIAN RALPH, IN 1.-THE COSMOPOLITAN FOR
JUNE.
To his friends and companions in
private life there seems to be nothing
very remarkable about Senator Mar
Gus Alonzo Hanna. They say that
he is just hearty, kindly, good man !;
very simple in his tastes, unpreten-
tious in his manners, earnest and
strong in his beliefs and principles
and remarkable among men in gener-
al only for his loyalty to his friends.
He has at the moment of this writing
a friend in dire trouble in Cuba, a
Republican, an Ohioan, public Of
fcer, who has been declared guilty of
abuse of his Office. Senator Hanna
has learned that the man did not
profit by the offense with which he is
charged and was not intentionally dis
honest The Senator is therefore
moving heaven and earth to secure
the mans pardon. The government,
the Senate, the Cuban leaders and
every friend and acquaintance who
can exert any weight on the man S
behalf are being pressed to do what
they can toward this end. That is
Senator Hanna's chief purpose in life
at the time write, his main occupa-
ton and his most cherished aim.
"That," said an intimate friend, "is
the most striking characteristic of
Mark Hanna: his loyalty to his
friends
This, then, is Point Number One
in the study of the secret of the life
of the man who is called "the Ameri-
can Warwick"
Without having been born in pow
erty, he is nevertheless self-made, for
he has carved out his own career in
paths his father never trod paths
wider and longer than any in the ken
of his ancestors. His father was a
successful grocer in what would now
be considered a small way, but at
that time was of large comparative
Importance. The Senator lived his
boyhood in a new country where
every man, woman and boy worked ;
where to work was neither distin-
gushing nor belittling, but was the
common lot of all. He got his earli-
est education in the Cleveland, Ohio,
public schools, and was one of the
plain people, than which there was no
other kind. His parents and all the
others around him, dedicated to the
planting of homes, the redemption of
wild lands and the development of
natures resources, were all pushing,
struggling people who looked forward
for all that they needed and depended
upon themselves for all that they were
to become.
mark" Hanna was born in 1897
(September 24) at Lisbon, in Colum-
biana County, Ohio, and was taken
to Cleveland at fifteen years of age.
At twenty he went to work-and very
hard work it was-as clerk in his
fathers store, which was the depot of
a grocery trade that extended as far
as Minnesota. His father soon fell
i'll and died, and when the son had
settled up and closed the business,
Marcus, then thirty years of age and
three years married, began business
on his own account and in new lines.
Today he enjoys an income of half a
million dollars year, owns line of
steamships on the Great Lakes, iron
mines in Wisconsin, Minnesota and
Michigan, is director in the Globe
Iron Works, which is large ship
building concern, is heavily interest
ed in steam and street railroads, holds
large coalmine interests and pays
nearly ten thousand dollars day in
wages to mis- many thousands of en-
ployes.
That is Point Number Two in con-
sideration of the methods and attri-
butes of the man who selects and elects
presidents and who is rather too loose
ly credited with having had more
power in the White House than any
man not elected to the presidency.
These points which 1 present, one
at a time, may be viewed differently
by different minds. 1t is said of a
well-known politician of the old chap
hazard school of politics." which OBJ
tanned before Senator Hanna's day,
that when he heard who was manag-
ing Mr.. McKinley's first campaign
he exclaimed Mckinley stands no
chance of being elected. Why, his
chief manager is nothing but a busi-
ness man p' And yet 1, who know
the old school of trust-in-sentiment-
and-luck politics and have seen the
work of the Hanna school of running
politics on business principles, view
the case differently. First, see the
formation of the mans character as
one of the mass of plain people en-
gagged in hard battle to wiring liv-
ing out of a new land, and, next,
see this training produce among these
people an astute commercial leader
who opens the bowels of the earth,
girdles the surface with railroads, sets
ahoat ships upon the inland waters,
exchanges a clerkship for the en-
ployment of an army of men and
takes as his share half a million dol,
lars year, if not more.
A sympathetic nature, a warm
heart, working arm, kinship with
the toiling masses and shrewd and
practical mind are the principal ele
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