The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1905-06-26

BV Linus
The figure of Russell Sage is fading
out of the market place. Once 1t was
as certain a part of the Wall Stree
| picture as the flag on the custom
House, as the flying messenger boys, a:
the swarm of men at the door of the
Stock Exchange incoming and depart
ing. No, it was more certain; toi
Russell Sage observed no holidays ex-
Icept Sunday until his body broke down
Iunder the overwhelming task Set by his
cold, grim hunger for innumerable dol
lars. But the pale-blue eyes, though
1 they are keener than the eyes OF most
men at any age, have not the quick and
eager light which used to flash into
them in response to the news of a bar
gain in prospect or achieved. Inc
scanned gray face has lost its power of
meeting all appeals for generosity OF
mercy with complete lack of express
sion; irritation and contempt show
through sometimes; they are signs of
the breaking down of the sternest phys
ical discipline-for no real master OF
the Game, whether it be played with
pennies. between newsboys on the curb
stone, or with banks and railroads in
the markets, willingly allows his face
to register any human emotion. His
garments hang about him in auStere
homely lines, which have not changed
in the memory of any man. His APP
pearance, his ways, his stinginess, his
great wealth have become part OF
the traditions of his country.
Every village has its skintiint. Some
times he lives in a howell on the out
skirts of town, and tradition whispers
that every knot hole and chink in the
timbers of the shack are stuffed with
currency; sometimes he lives in fine
house on the hill and arrogantly dis
plays his wealth upon the highways in
order to hide the barren lovelessness
which exists in the place which he calls
his home. He is hated for the things
he might do, but does not, he is pitied
for the things he does not know and
never can have. His hoard receives
from the community a hypocritical and
coyetous consideration, which is there
by automatically subtracted from the
sum of human goodwill.
Russell Sage, for two generations. has
been the skinfiint of the great Yankee
nation. Does a drummer the drum
mer is the itinerant minstrel of this
degenerate age) invent a tale of hard
ness of heart and tightness of fist
which appeal to him as worthy of be-
coming classic? He builds it about the
personality of Russell Sage as naturally
as the Homeric bard attributed an act
of transcending wisdom to Athene or
a deed of valor to Ares; the tale is ac
cepted as true from the Lakes to the
Gulf. This unloVely repute has come
to Mr.. Sage, SO far as human discern
ment may go, with strict justice. 1t
may not be true that Mr.. Sage once
deducted ten cents from an Office boys
wages because the boy brought him a
.fifteen-cent sandwich at lunch time in
stead of a five-cent sandwich; but the
act is not inconsistent with anything Mr.
Sage ever said or did. There are hun
dreds of men who have seen him bag
Cling with the Wall Street apple wom-
an over the number of apples she
should give him for a penny; or quar-
reling like the veriest newsboy with the
Italian candy man at the Trinity
Church railing in the effort to get a
reduced price for a shopworn chocolate
cream bar
Men have asked Russell Sage what
his ambition is. He has answered with
set of copy book phrases about sim
pie, just, and cody living. He has
never said that his ambition from the
beginning of his life has been to prove
the superiority of his persistence and
shrewdness over other men by accumu-
lating the worldly tokens of worldly
effort-dollars. Yet the closest analysis
of his career reveals nothing else as it's
handspring
He came into this world. if not as an
unwelcome guest, certainly as an in
opportune burden to a sorely tried
family. Elisha Sage, his father. was
moving his home from Connecticut in
the era of dissatisfaction following the
hard times after the War of 1912; he
was bound for the Western Reserve,
but the arrival of Russell so discom-
posed the family plans that it settled
in Oneida County, New York. One of
his older brothers had a grocery store
/ in Troy. To him Russell, at fifteen
. years, was apprenticed at -four dollars
a month and keep
! He did his work in the store; and he
made shrewd bargains on his own ac-
count, trading jack-knives, clothing,
and gimcracks, and acting as go-be
tween in transactions that were out of
the reach of his own small capital. At
the end of his apprenticeship he was
able to form partnership with an
other brother, Montague In a year or
more he bought Montague's interest
and was his own master. The Recha-
bite temperance crusade took mighty
hold in Troy in 1889. Part of the bust
ness of the Russell Sage grocery had
been the sale of rum by the glass over
the counter. The temperance zealots
condemned the traffic; the whole bust
ness of the store rested under the shade
Of their conspicuous disapproval. Young
Sage announced that his conscience
! troubled him" He sold the store
pride in the righteousness of his con-
victions compelled him to state public
" that he sold it at a profit Then he
opened new establishment, in part
nershfp with John P. Bates, a righteous
and substantial citizen; the sale of rum
was not inhibited in the new store but
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