The Savannah morning news., 1903-04-19

lions more; yet, so tremendously has
the quantity of available money in
creased that there has been no trouble
at all in raising what has been neces-
sary.
1t was one of the great disappoint-
ments of life to r. T. Wilson that he
could not get his fingers into the rapid
transit scheme.
He was one of the few among cap
italists who believed in it almost from
the beginning. and he spent a great
deal of time in making personal
study of the problem.
Besides, he spent some thousands of
dollars in fees to engineers and
draughtsmen, and these gentlemen
drew up for him set Of elaborate
plans which Mr.. Wilson used to take
delight in showing to his friends and
the newspaper men. For some time
rapid transit was his one great hobby,
and because of this and his initials,
"R. IT," he was playfully nicknamed
Rapid Transit" Wilson, pleasantly
which he rather seemed to enjoy.
Just why he couldn't get on the
band wagon when the rapid transit
team was started is one of those
things of which the public will never
learn the facts. The whole history
of the struggle for better transit in
this big town is full of stories of dis
appointment and vain strugglings, and
the printing of the same would make
mighty interesting reading matter"
The life story of r. T. Wilson
would be a good thing to read, too. if
it could ever be got into type, but it
can't.
Mr.. Wilson came here from the
South soon after the close of the
Civil War, but he was a Northerner
by birth, hailing from Connecticut.
He went South when only a lad poor.
but enterprising. After the war, when
he came North, he was rich-for
those days-and quite as enterprising
as ever.
But his enterprise. at first, took on
rather an unusual twist--for a man.
1t ran more toward social success,
not to put too fine point on it, at
first, rather than business. Much
more than he wanted additional
wealth, he wanted to get his wife and
daughters into the social swim, and
he did it.
Probably his is the only instance
in all history of social climbing where
the social battle has been fought vir-
tually unaided by a man, for, accord
ing to all traditions, no female mem
Der of the Wilson family took any
hand in the social battle-to speak
Hibernically--till after it had been
won. Of the details of that battle
little is now remembered even by So
ciety folk.
In general way. though, it seems
to be agre@ that the fight was won
mainly Though the cooperation of
the Astors, and by reason of certain
70 I4-bi nsa
able to do that famous family of
social millionairedom. At any rate,
when r. 7, Wilson's son, Orme Will
son, married an Aston girl, the WILSON
place was as secure in society as the
foundation of the everlasting, rock
ribbed hills, and so remains to this
dav.
All the Wilson girls married we'll.
One is the wife of the present British
Ambassador to the United States.
One is the wife Of a Goelet, and one
is the wife of a Vanderbilt, as the
world is never allowed to forget
The one speck in the cup of social
joy for the Wilson's is that the Van
derbilts never did, and probably never
will, approve of the Wilson daughter
and sister and niece and cousin-in-
law. Perhaps the most curious side
" ILLS IlldLL6I lies III the circumstance
that the Wilson's were sit" in New
York society almost ages before any
of the Vanderbilts got in.
r. T. Wilson himself is one of the
handsomest men of his years in New
York or anywhere else. He is pretty
well along now, having outlived Coils
P. Huntington, his chief rival for hon
ors as the best looking old man in his
town, by some time.
Pa91lU half q dnzaT those
two old chaps were a remarkable pair
of examples of virile, we'll preserved
old manhood, and there is none
among the younger generation of
younger railroad men or financiers now
on the boards who can compare with
them in personal pulchritude.
To go back to the prevalence of
money in these latter years; the same
excess over former years exists outside
New York as in this big town. This
excess began half a dozen years ago,
and when it began it was a genuine
surprise even to those who were most
directly in touch with it.
A very striking case in point was
furnished two or three years ago, when
the general manager of a relatively
small Western railroad came East to
attend the annual meeting of his board
of directors. He wanted to buy $780,
900 worth of new rolling stock. and
after a hard fight he got authorization
to do so. After the meeting one of
the directors, who was also a banker,
said to the general manager that of
course the road would get the money
through his banking house, as had for
merly been the custom.
why, no." said the general manager.
81 had not planned it that way. You
see, there's a firm of bankers in our
chief town out there that has plenty
of idle cash, and l practically promised
to get it there, especially as I can have
it for per cent. which is as low as
you can give it to me- Duane.
I'm the competition under the man.