The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1904-02-16
MR.. HANNA's I F
His Wonderful Career Told in Graphic
Worda.

His Wonderful Career Told in Graphic
Words.
The following story of Mr.. Hanna
remarkable life was written by Henry
LitchieId West less than 8. year ago:
The story of the life of Marcus Alon-
20 Hanna is the story of an ascending
scale. Always from the bottom to the
top. Ever a steady, persistent, inevita-
BILE advance; never a retrograde move
ment. 1t is a story of ~unvarying sue
cess. ~
Hanna's unique personality fills the
entire horizon Search through New
England or the middle states, or
through the great south and west, from
the Ohio to the Mississippi and to the
Pacific ocean and name if you can a
figure so commanding, so interest-com-
Polling. Theodore Roosevelt is the only
other American whose character rivals
in its intense individuality the Hanna
type. All others are commonplace be-
side him. A genius in organization, a
leader of men, a dominant character
in the business world, endowed by ma
ture with an enormous capacity for
work, possessed of a shrewd perception,
which is partly intuitive and partly
gained by long experience with the
world, his personality fills the public
eye. Abused and praised with equal
extravaganza, he has steadily pursued
his way, accepting criticism e 1t is
deserved and ignoring praise whel it
ID INV
usual man He is not an average
American. The United States, already
the wonder of this mundane sphere,
would excite the admiration and the
/; awe of the jewellers in the far-off stars
if all Americans were of the Hanna
kind.
And the remarkable thing about this
man is that his star, after blazing
LUMINOSITY in the political armament,
ought to have commenced to decline
last September. When President NC
Kinley fell a victim to the aSsassln's
bullet tears were shed for Hanna also
He was to be no longer the power be
hind the throne, said the men VINO ala
not know his forceful individuality, and
he was to sink back to the secluded
and narrow environments from Whlch
he had emerged. He was to disappear
and be forgotten. But what mas nap
pened? He is today as great, if not
greater, as during the lifetime of Nc
Kinley. Not so influential, perhaps, in
the White House, although there Is
ample foundation for the statement
that his Judgment is still regarded
there with much esteem, but none the
less potent in public affairs. instead
of disappearing from public view, ms
stature has grown until now IL mas
widened and broadened into colossal
size. Not to be ignored in national
LEGISLATION, pre-eminent in the all-lm-
portant work of adjusting the relations
of labor and capital, he is also IN pom
a Tics SI1l1 d IdCtOI IL NC
reckoned with. The death of President
Mckinley may have obscured some
political planets who shone by reflected
light. Hanna, like some self-creating
sun, with A1ndimmed luster glows.
The blood in Hanna is a curious COM
bination. He is English, Scotch, irish,
Yankee and Western. The English
makes him conservative, the scotch Is
r~esnonsible for his thrift and industry,
the irish gives him pugnacity and en-
durance, and the strain OF Yankeelsm
gives his blood a body and color.
Hams was born on the 24tn OF sep
TENDER, 1887 the place OF his niran was
twenty-five states had been ADMITTED
to the Union, and beyond Ohio there
was a vast and practically
domain. Amid environments tnat coulu
hardly be duplicated today in any part
of the United States, the boy was rear
ed. He learned early n of necessity
the lessons of self-relfance, industry ano
frugality. He did not know the hanul-
cap OF riches. His father was a coun-
try merchant. His ~gradfather had beer
a pioneer, and his great-grandfatneI
had ~emigrated from the north OF lrelano
to Virginia as long ago as 1864 IWe
hundred years ago, which is as Tar bach
as Hanna traces his genealogy, his an
cestors were in England, from which
J country they went to Scotland, and Their
to the north of Ireland. There was q
ToStleSSneSS III IilS1I O1OO0 liz NJ
them constantly moving. Hannas
: great-grandfather came from Ireland te
/ Virginia. where Hanna's grandfather
was born. In course of time he Went
out to Ohio, where Hanna's fatner wa
born and then the latter, in 1897, lett the
old homestead to go to Cleveland
With Hanna the desire for rowing dice
aWay. He never moved from the place
to which his father brought him. FOL
fftv years he has ived in the same city
More than that, there is in him little
love of travel. 81 had enough OF travel
ing" he says, when, as a young man
I had to go around the country for oul
firm" He has only been once across the
continent. He made one trip to Europe
but not until he was over sixty years OF
age and he vows he will never &C
again.
When Hanna really began life after
some common school education and a
term in the Western Reserve college, he
became a grocer's clerk His father kept
the grocery store.
AS his fathers health gradually
failed, young Hanna became more and
more identified with the business, and
when in 1862 the father died, the young
man was able to take his parents place
in the firm. During his years of clerk
ship he learned all that there was to
know of the grocery trade. h was
Hanna-like. Ever since then, in all OF
the multitudinous enterprises in which
he has been engaged he has mastered
their details. There were other clerks
in the store with him. They have been
forgotten. They were content with
their weekly wage and thought no OF
the future. Hanna was cast in a diff
ferent mold. He knew the price OF
everything and. what was more to the
point. where it could be bought heap
est. He nj what to buy, when TIC
buy, and how much to buy. The
knowledge did not come to him with
mt an AfF0rf He studied MT ha0kS