The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1902-03-29
large fortune and great commercial
ACTIVITY still in the prime of life.

There is still another Chicago man
VINO is said to be receiving a yearly
salary so big that many would con-
slder 1t fair fortune after a lifetime
OF industrious effort This is Conrad
II. Matthieson, president of the Chicago
Sugar Refining company, sometimes
called the Glucose trust
He is now about 49, and his annual
salary has been variously stated at
| S65,OO0 and $4,000. At any rate, it is
but fifteen years since he left college,
and at first he worked ten hours a day.
carried his lunch with him and earned
$12 week. Step by step he mastered
every detail of the business and rose
to be manager.
Then crisis arose. calling for the
highest executive ability, and he was
equal to the emergency. His company
was in a rate-cutting pool and it's
profits had disappeared.
| Upon his aggressive initiative it with
drew from the pool, inaugurated a fight
OF its own and within two years was
! paying 30 per cent in dividends. This
! triumph inspired in Mr.. MatthieSon an
ambition to control the entire field, and
this was accomplished under his di-
rectIon shortly after the passage of the
: Dlngley tariff bill, which opened UP a
better future for the trade.
! Most of the concerns absorbed by his
company were losing money, but under
the combine which he organized their
| stocks were transmitted into gold. This
young man ears his princely salary by
| successfully handling $40 600, 900 of COM
I olned capital and conducting the glu-
! cose business, comprising some twenty
! departments, in such a systematic and
! prosperous way that the shareholders
are well satisfied.
He says that hard work is tonic to
him and he keeps at it early and late,
never asking a subordinate to do more
than he does himself. He knows no
other secret of success.
When Richard Delafieid, president of
! the National Park bank of New York,
had his salary raised from $4,000 to
$4,000, early last year, it was said that
no other bank president in the United
States received such big pay for his
services. The reason given for this
increase was that the banks business
had expanded so much and the respon-
sibilities Of its executive head had be-
come SO great that he well deserved a
salary only $4,000 less than that re-
ceived by the chief executive of the
nation.
AS the custodian of $40, 1000 900, to be
successfully handled in such financial
operations as are open to national
banks, his responsibilities are tremen-
dous. Mr.. Delafield began his business
career as clerk in a mercantile house
on salary of So a week. He is quoted
as saying:
Life is not summed UP i'll the accu-
mutation of riches. One may be happy,
though poor l know that, for l was
happy when had my So a week. There
is much satisfaction in this world in
work well DONE
There has been much talk concerning
the salary of Charles NJ. Schwab, pres
ident of the United States Steel corpor-
alton. AT first reports placed it at
S1.000,000 a year. When this talk died
out it was stated, on what seemed to
be good authority, that his actual sal
airy is 100000, but that he receives a
contingent fee, estimated at S125,000 an
nually, based on one-fourth of 1 per
cent of all the corporation may earn
over and above its fixed charges, after
deducting such sums as may be neces-
sary to pay the regular dividends on
the common and preferred stock
Mr.. Schwab, who is still young man
only 40-has risen to his present place
in twenty years, although he started
with the modest income of 81 day.
He says that there were never SO many
opportunities for the right kind of
young men as today.
His first step was to make himself
indispensable to his employer, instead
OF continually looking at the clock, and
this required a lot of hard work and
self-reliant manliness. He made up
his mind that nothing of consequence
in the manufacture of steel should re-
main unknown to him, and he studied
chemistry in a laboratory which he
fitted up in his own home; he read and
studied to broaden his general knowl-
edge, and inspired confidence by always
being sure of his facts. He was wide
awake and up to date.
The late Henry B. Hyde, president of
the Equitable Life Assurance society of
New York, received a salary of 100000 a
year for his work. He was man of
intense energy and constant activity,
and, although possessed of large for
tune, he labored day and night to build |
up the great institution of which he !
was the head. He worked more hours |
and took less vacation than any Subor-
dinate in his employ
A little more than two years ago Ell |
bert H. Gray, who at that time resided |
at Wheaton, ILL.,, a suburb of Chicago, |
was elected president of the Federal |
0ttCl COlllHebllyy lllCI Is uOM oil 1lllS-
grail part OF the steel combination. and |
his salary was fixed at $4,000 a year.
Having previously been attorney for !
the Illinois Steel company, he had mas
tered the legal side of the great indus
try before he was able to command |
such high wages. He specialized his /
knowledge and thus was able to at
tract the attention of the capitalists in
control of the vast enterprises.
@ 9 9
In the management of great railway
systems big salaries are not so unusual
as to attract more than casual COM
ment nowadays. There are few men of
whom it can be said they had the honor
of resigning a salaried place worth
SIS, 600 q year but when the late Pierre
Lorillard died last July it was told of
him that when the tobacco interests
were merged into corporation, with
him as president, at a salary of $75, coo,
he promptly resigned, saying that he
was too busy to attend to the duties
of the office.
AS a rule salaries are much lower in
England, France and Germany than in
the United States, except in few of
the higher official places. The ministers
Of the German empire receive three or
four times the amount paid to members
Of the cabinet in Washington. Besides
they have handsome houses to live in
free of cost and servants paid by the
government, but their subordinates are
1ot SO well paid as men occupying sim
lar places in the executive department
Of the United States.
There is said to be a surplus of high
y educated intellectual men in Ger
many, and the price of brains, like that
If other marketable commodities, being
regulated by the law of supply and de-
nand, many scholars are compelled to
De satisfied with incomes of from $50
% $50 a month Much the same .condi-