Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1902-11-08
DEATH DUE To REST
Shock of FirstV acation Killed
Aged Millionaire.
RUSSELL SAGE rs ILL
PHYSICIANS LABOR HARD TO
KEEP HIM AT HOME.
New York Has Multiplicity of Old
Time Financiers Who Will
Die in Harness.


aires with a positive mania for work than
IN any other city on the globe Ihey nae
TO let go to take off the harness and rest
They frankly say that, in their honest opin-
ION. work, and hard work, is the only thlne
that Keeps them alive. When their sta'e'
due to extreme age. becomes suca that they
have TO give I'D work they confidently ex-
meet tn die soon afterward. Some Of them,
almost nonogenarians, assert win conVlc-
tion that they would have been dead years
ago had they not stuck to their Work.
They say, with some show of reason, tha'
after a man has spent sixty or seventy
Years in following out rut for himself ne
has got to keep on moving in that rut, ana
that to suddenly break away from 1t Is
equivalent to early dissolution. They prove
Ehis contention by pointing to the cases OF
friends of theirs famous in the world OF
finance and business, who have given up
the ghost very soon after being prevailed
upon by their children to aban.loL business
cares.
Killed by Rest.
Last Saturday there died here a man who
had been continuously the president of
bank since the year 1s49. Hts name was
Francis Asbury Palmer, and he was more
than ninety-one years old when he died.
He was in harness up to two months before
his death. when he was prevailed to take
q bit of a rest-the first he had had in more
than half a century. 1t is asserted by per,
sons who seem to know that thu rest Killed
him. He was nervous and uneasy ABOUT ms
business from the beginning of his little
vacation, and he worried and steWed SO
over the way he imagined things were go
ing at the bank-the National Broadway
Bank one of the big institutions or lhe
city-that he worked himself into teFer
which he was unable to fight against in ms
seniIe state. He was a mll't"nalr2 SO many
times over that he had often been known
to say that he didn't know within fVe MIL
lions how much he was worth.
This Francis Asbury Palmer had been
hard at work ever since his tenth year,
when he started in as an errand boy IN
this town Few men leave the record or
eight decades of work behind them. In his
early manhood he got job as driver or one
OF the old Broadway stage coaches-when
Broadway didn't extend much farther north
than Canal street Just twenty years after
h got his stage driving job he was the
president and main proprietor OF the Broad
way stage line. Then II was that he or
eanized the bank of which he was the head
for fifty-three years. In the year 1851 he
suffered from a slight indisposition, and he
was persuaded to go away from New York
for a brief vacation. He went, and stayed
lust ten days. When he got back TO his
desk at the bank he swore off on yaca-
tons. and he kept the swear off until two
months ago. 1t has been the grief and
despair of his children and grandchildren
and great-grandchildren for years that the
Old gentleman utterly declined to take
T st or even to white down his office hours
a particle. and all of their ruses and put-up
Jobs TO get him away from business failed
dismany. Half year ago he jokingly told
his family that he would consent to taking
q six months rest If they could bring
enough pressure to bear upon his old friend
Russell Sage to do likewise They actually
made the effort to induce Mr.. Sage to agree
t. the proposition, but the shaving old mon
ey-Ieuder only famed them. saying that he
1T hYtSi
OF life for six months for much money
again as he possessed.
Russell Sage's Indefatigability.
Russell Sage is getting on toward ninety
y ars old himself, and yet his physicians
h We been compelled to almost employ ply
: al force for the past fortnight to keep
h n at his Long Island home, where he has
ben laid up with slight Illness inciden:
to his advanced age. He has been squirming
and storming and struggling to get out of
the house and to his business. and it is
said that Mrs. Sage has been actually forced
10 hide all of the old gentlemans clothing
t. keep him from riski9g himself outdoors
G Ting the unreasonable weather a friend
OF the old millianaire'S declares that Mr.
Sage has fired his medical men out of hand
me and again since his slight illness be-
cause they wouldn't permit him to go to his
office. OF course. the medical men, noted
individuals in their profession, declined to
be fired.
Conservative firanciers who know what
they are talking about, will tell you that
Russell Sage is worth more than hundred
million of dollars and that he has at least
twenty-five millions in cold hard cash-an
amount of ready currency greater than that
possessed by any other millionaire. He has
been working hard since his early youth.
q was a member of Congress long before
tire present generation of men and women
came into being. For fifty years he hasn't
missed, all summed up. more than sixty
days from his office. including occasional
indlsposltiOns. rare two or three-day Vaca-
tons and business absences from the city
and so on. Even when the crazy chap threw
q carpet-bag full of dynamite at Mr.. Sage
a few years ago the old gentleman was re-
covered from the shock and back at his
desk two days later. His friends confidently
expect to see him haggling with Apple
Mary over the price of the two apples,
which he takes for his luncheon, for a good
many years to come yet. Mr.. Sage has
worn the same Overcoat for six years now
and 1t is pretty seedy-looking affair He
wears shocking hand-me-down clothes and
impossible hats, this constituting one of the
secret sorrows, 1t is said, of his amiable
generous and even-tempered wife None
OF the stories bearing upon Russell Sage's
acute appreciation of the value Of money
are exaggerated. Here Is one that hash I
been printed: Last summer the Wall street
men living on Long Island arranged for a
Terry boat to meet them at the Long Island
City station al $50 on business mornings TO
convey them to the Wall street slip and
thus save them the trouble of crossing over
10 New York and taking the 1, train down
town to their Offices They arranged to
pay 10 cents each per morning for this
ferry ride from Long Island City to Wall
street. New York. They invited Mr. Sage
70 join them. But MIR. Sage wouldn't He
continued to cross over to New York ON
tie ferry to Saith street, which he was en-.
Ett"d 10 do without cost on his regular
i'org Island railroad pass. When he reach
81 New York he was entitled to ride down
town without giving up nickel to the T.
ROAD Tor, as one of the directors of the 4
company, he, of course, had an |. mass
Tars he saved each day 10 cents to do
~Sfch he endured the long ride downtown
on the L, with its hot. sooty, soft-coal en-
gines. ga
Many Aged Financiers.
New York is simply cluttered with very
OLD men OF note In the financial and bust
ness world who resoIutely and stubbornlv
Withstand every argument Of their reIa-
fives and friends that 1t is time for them
10 quit Abram s. Hewitt is one of them
MI Hewitt is, of course, an exceedingly
1althy man, but he is just as keen in, his
attention to his vast business interests to-
gay as he was half century ago He
Ifes over in New Jersey now and every
pus'ress morning of his life he 'commutesS
:. TO New York with the hustling gang of
Yong fellows with their livings to make