The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1903-06-14
new YORK TOPICS
THREE MEN OF WIDELY DIFFER
ING TYPES ABOUT WHOM The
METROPOLIS Is TALKING.

MET ROPOLIS Is IALhING,
Dr. w. =. RainsfOrd Not So PrOmi-
nent Now, Perhaps. as Formerly.
who Was Betrayed Into GOssiping
About Mayor Low in ChicagO-His
FOrccfuIness and His Importance
as an Element in Metr0pOli tn II
Life-His support by j. p. Morgan
and other Big Capitalists-Mrs.
RainsfOrd n Typical New Woman
of the Better SOrt-Cnpt. Norton
Goddard. the Smasher of Policy.
Contrasts Between His Personality
and DIR. RainsfOrd's.
New York, June 13.-Dr. w. S. Rain
ford, rector of St Georges Episcopal
Church, in this city, is not nearly so
much of a figure in the newspapers
nowadays as he was eight or ten years
ago. His recent expressions concerning
Mayor Low, printed in Chicago while
the doctor was in that city, however,
have been copied extensively in the
metropolitan journals, and have caused
more than one New York reporter to
sit up and take notice.
For while the doctor is generally
ready enough to talk to reporters on
topics of which he approves, these
topics are few and far between, and
generally relate to himself, his church
and his work as clergyman and
citizen. He has never been known be-
fore to gossip freely and volubly for
the press about any one else, hold
ing it beneath his dignity to do so, as
he once told the present writer when
asked a perfectly simple and innocent
question about prominent New York
millionaire in his Chicago interview,
however, he discoursed at length on
the personal traits of Mayor Low, say
ing. among other things, that he is by
all odds the best balanced most self
contained man who has ever come I'M
der his observation.
1t is not thought likely by some of
those who know the doctor well that
he spoke thus freely with the notion
that his words would be put in cold
type. 1t is more likely, they think,
that the doctor had been the victim of
at some social function. who under
stood that he had the material for ex-
cellent copy and repeated 1t to the first
reporter he met If so, DR.. Rains
ford's experience is not unlike the ex
perience some months ago of James j.
Hill, whose careless and too frank ex-
preston of pessimistic views on the
business situation as a Chicago club
gave the railroad emperor of the
f1n pnd Of trOI1bla when
printed, and called out a qualified but
emphatic denial. Dr. Rainsford's re-
marks about Low happily for the doc
tor, were all complimentary and no
denial has been made or is looked for.
But the doctor will probably be more
careful in the future as to his listen
ers, when he decides to speak freely
about anyone in the public eye.
Though not a great pulpit orator in
the more popular sense, DR.. Rainsford
is undoubtedly a potent force in the
life of the metropolis, and his church
is one of the big towns most note
worthy institutions
Unlike many other Protestant
churches here, which have moved up
town because their congregations have
left them, st. Georges remains well
down town, in the same East Side
location it occupied when Rainsford
became it's head. Furthermore, despite
the fact that he is not specially silver
tongued, neither the congregation nor
the actual church mem bership has de-
creased, and this in the fact of a steady
increase in the neighborhood of non
English speaking, nom Protestant popu-
lation.
The secret of DR.. Rainsford's sue
cess in a field the like of which mas
driven out many others, notably DR..
Heber Newton. whose success ten or
twelve years ago was apparently on a
par. at least with DR.. Rainsford's, is
twofold.
First, Fainsford is a man of unusual
force of character and great mental
and physical strength. He is fairly
overlooking with vitality and personal
Second, he has unlimited
financial backing. The poorer mem
bers of his congregation do not hesi-
tate to give for the support of st.
Georges, but if they did its work
would go along just the same, since
a number of very rich men, the fore
most being ]. P. Morgan, stand ready
all the time to put up whatever funds
the doctor declares the church is in
need of. With such backing, which of
course comes from the circumstance
that Morgan and the others put the
fullest confidence in Rainsford, such
a man could not well make a failure.
Perhaps it would be only right to
say that the elements of Rainsford's
success are threefold and that his
wife il the third element. At all events
Mrs. Fainsford's strong personality
and her devotion to her husband and
his work have been of great help to
him.
Like her husband, Mrs. Rainsford
is English. Her father was London
merchant. at the head of a great ship
ping firm, which at the time of her
marriage practically controlled the
British China fleet. She is still under
fifty, but has been in America quite
long enough TO absorb the spirit of
the republic. In the best sense of the
term she is a new woman, and she has
served at least one term as a school
trustee, under appointment by the
Board of Education. But she is none
the less a won1anly woman, and she
did not slip into the light of publicity
till all of her three sons were we'll
grown and stalwart young men.
DR.. Rainsford has long beeen cit
iZen, and takes so much interest in To-
cal politics that more than once the
local newspapers whose policy he