Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1902-01-20
VANDERBILT A WORKER

Cornelius Vanderbilt, appointed
municipal civil service commissioner
of New York. by Mayor Low, works
harder than the average PEN
iless young man. though he has an
month. or SS33 day. All the work
month, of 1898 day. All the work
that he does is from choice, as he
doesn't have to bother about the
wherewfthal for house rent. butcher
and grocery bills and such matters.
He is an ordinary looking young
man. boyish i'm appearance and demo
cratic i'm manner. but he has many
remarkable qualities which make him
as different from the average gilded
youth of fashion as Il steam engine
is from butterfly.
He has ambition-tons of it. That
/ * what makes him work so hard. He
wants To earn reputation and he in
dependent of the halo which hangs
over him simply because he is n Van
derbilt.
The family halo never appeared
very strongly to him any way. After
his disagreement with his father he
became doubIy anxious TO build up
name that would be purely the re-
suit of his own labors.
Some of the positions this young
man fills. and fills worthily, are:
Director in the Lucfawanna Iron
& Steel company.
Trustee of the New York Life In
surance d Trust company.
Director in the Rapid Transit Sab
way Construction company. which is
IL Il
Second lieutenant Company G.. 18th
regiment.
Member of several important com
mittees i'm the republican organiza-
ton of the Twenty-ninth Assembly
district.
Commissioner of municipal civil
service.
He is active in every one of these
positions and in addition TO attend
ing to all of the duties thereof he
finds time to work out many me
chanical devices. Several of these
have been patented and have been
demonstrated to possess great com
mercial value.
Mechanics is his hobby, and If he
gave way to it completely he would
spend all of his time in machine
shops.
Young Vanderbilt showed that he
had ideas and determination much
out of the ordinary when he had his
disagreement with his father over
his engagement to Miss Grace Will
son. The elder Vanderbilt command
ed him TO break the engagement.
making it plain that unless he did he
would he practically disinherited and
deprived of all the power and wealth
which conferred in the head of the
Vanderbilt family.
This meant loss in money alone
of over S4O.OOO.OOO, sum which
would have caused most men TO pom
der deeply before deciding to cast it
aside But young Vanderbilt's de
cision was instantaneous and posi-
tive. 1t was in favor of the woman
he loved.
His father kept his word. AS the
eldest living son Cornelius. according
to all precedent in the Vanderbilt
family, should have received the bulk
of his fathers wealth. Instead he
was left only S1.OOO,0OO, while $4500O.-
600 went to his younger brother. Al
fred Gwyne. Alfred gave $6.0O0,O00
to Cornelius TO avert litigation over
the estate.
Young Cornelius was never dis
heartened by the great loss ne suf-
fered in wealth and prestige. In the
five and half years since the quar-
rel with his father he has worked in
lcessantly and with good results. He
began by inventing Il locomotive fire.
box. The great value of this inven-
ton is that it keeps down the yearly
expense bill of a RAILROAD company