The Birmingham age-herald., 1902-09-07
RICH MEN'S ABLE SONS.
Millionaires Who Have Inherited the Genius as sE We'll as the Wealth of Their Ancestors SE
BY MAURICE M. HINTON.

New Amsterdam, they have been identI- fled with the city which is now fast pressing onward in the race that Is des- tined to end in its becoming the first municipality in the world, and their posi- ton in the splendid city of today Is as strong and fully assured as when it was struggling village, composed of few shops along the river front, and Dutch farms, now the sites of private edifces that rival the palaces of the old world. From the days of the revolution, they have given the republic high service in war and peace, soldiers and statesmen. whose names are stainless. and who have deserved well of the country in a pre- eminent degree. To the upbuilding of the west, also, have they largely contributed for the Illinois Central is a monument of which even a crowned head might well feel proud. Relatives of the Fishes are the New Jersey Keans, potentian when Washington's ragged continentals trod the soil of that gallant state, and still more potential today, not only in It's councils. but in those of the national government. Tn the Astor family, we have presented through successive gener- ations those strong, virule mental en- dowments and characteristics of the original founder which made him one of the most famous men of his generation.
 
 worthy of his anohstry. and if one of it's members has, because of some eccen- tricities in his mental equipment, thrown off his citizenship and become a foreign CT, whatever may be thought of his pa- triotism, his intellectual endowments cannot be called in question.
 Old Commodore Vanderbilt was one of the most forceful and far-seeing Ameri- cans that ever lived. He was a pioneer in fields which it was predicted would prove to be his financial ruin, but few men built more wisely and solidly than did he and in the magnificent enterprises he projected, men of his blood and name have arisen to carry them to points of marvellous development of which in his cold and practical imagination he did not dare to dream Not always wise have all the Vanderbilts been in every relation of life but every one of them has had rigid training in the details of the vast busi- ness they have inherited, and no one can give any instruction on the subject. One of the youngest members of the house Cornelius. Jr.-has shown that he is pos sessed of a mechanical genius which has already given him honorable place among practical inventors.
 If Jay Gould has searched the world, he could not have found a man more cap able of managing his vast and manifold interests than George Jay Gould, his eld- est son. The Gould of today is a splendid example of what careful training can ac- complish. provided, of course, that the object of it possesses the mental and moral qualities without which training and education are of little or no use. Those qualities young George Gould had in a pre-eminent degree and so with the millions at his command he has naturally become one of the four or five most able and potential men in the world of rail- roads, finance, cables and teIegraphs. Un- der his management the great fortune left by his father has been enormously increased, and 1t would be difficult to place a limit to what it will be long be- fore MT. Gould shows signs of advancing age. MT. Gould's three brothers, Edwin, Howard and Frank, are all able men, and in various enterprises, not connected with the great family properties, have added largely to their individual fortunes. Clarence H. Mackay, who has just come into the inheritance and management of one of the colossal fortunes of modern times is up to the full mental stature of | his father, and 1t is very certain that the hundred and more Mackay millions will gather unto themselves many and many an addition long before the century be- gins to grow old. It, too has been rig orously trained for the vast responsibil- l ity that has so suddenly fallen upon his shoulders. Nothing has he to learn about cables under the seas and telegraph lines over the mountains. All that Is known about electricity in the laboratory and the workshop he knows, and if necessary he could earn his living as an expert miner. John w. Rockefeller, Jr.. is an- other young man, the greater portion of whose time is given to a close study of all ! that effects the Standard oil Company, which in the magnitude of it's transac- tions is a little empire in itself. One of the very greatest financial institutions. created purely by individual effort, with out the aid of enormously valuable public franchises, and which depended not on monopolies of any kind for its gigantic development, Is the Equitable Life As- surance Society. Its receipts, expendi- lures and profits are on a truly imperial scale while it's fame is worldwide. In the second seat of its executive power, sits today Mir. James H. Hyde, the son of It's founder. The financial power which he wields and has wieded for the public interest in seasons of calamity and panic is so great that 1t borders on the imaginative. MT. Hyde is another prod uct of superb training on the broad foun- dation of inherited genius in his chosen field