Monroe City Democrat. (Monroe City, Mo.) 1888-1919, 1907-06-06

years I have had the helm Of Ran
dolph & Randolph, have done moth
ing to mar the great name my ia
Their sAd uncle created. but something
TO add to its sterling reputation for
honest dealing, fearless, old-fashioned
methods, and all-round integrity.
BradstreetB and other mercantile
agencies say in reporting Randolph
& Randolph: Worth fifty millions
and upward, credit unlimited" I
can take but small praise for this,
for the report was about the same
the day left college and came to the
Office to learn the business" But,
as the survivor of my great father
and uncle, l can say, my Maker as my
witness, that Randolph C Randolph
have never loaned a dollar of their
millions at over legal rates, six per
cent. per annum; have never added to
their hoard by any but fair, square
business methods; and that blight OF
blights, frenzied finance, has yet to
find a lodging place beneath the old
black-and-gold sign that father and
uncle nailed up with their own hands
over the entrance.
Nineteen years ago was graduated
from Harvard. My classmate and
chum, Bob Brownley, Of Richmond,
Va, was graduated with me. He was
class poet, /, yard marshal We had
been four years together at st. Paul's
previous to entering Harvard. No
girl and lover were fonder than we of
each other.
My people had money and to spare,
and with it a hard-headed, northern
horse sense. The Brownleys were
poor as church mice, but they had the
brilliant, virile blood of the old
southern oligarchy and the romantic,
salaam-to-no-one" Dixie-land pride Of
before-the-war days, when southern
prodigality and hospitality were found
wherever women were fair and mems
mirrors in the bottom of their julep-
glasses.
Bobs father, one of the big, white
| pillars of southern aristocracy, had
gone through congress and the senate
Of his country to the tune OF Spend
and Not Spare which left his widow
and three younger daughters and a
small son dependent upon Bob, his
eldest
| Many a warm summer afternoon,
as Bob and padded down the
Charles. and often on q cold, crispS
night as we sat in my. shooting-box on
the Cape Cod shore, had we matched
L FAH f.,k L. 1. H.
inside run of the great banking bust
nses of Randolph & Randolph, and
Bob was eventually to represent my
fathers firm ON the floor of the stock
exchange. 'Td die In an office" Bob
used to say, "and the floor of the
stock exchange is just the chimney
place to roast my hoe-cake in" So
when our college days were over my
able old father stood us up against the
wall in his office, and tried us by his
tests, and proud we both were when
dad said: Jim, you and Bob have
chosen we'll You, Jim, are just the
chap to step into my shoes, and Bob is
cut to a thirty-second and sixty-fourth
for the floor" Proud we were, not
so much because of what my fathers
decision meant for our future, for
we knew we should get into the bust
ness all right, but because our judg-
ment was Endorsed by one we both
thought as near infallible as man
could be in anything pertaining to
business affairs.
Bob was then % and l year old.
er-I one of your raw-boned New Eng
land lads, not much for prettiness,
but willing to weigh in race-day with
any of them for 'steadiness and stay
ing qualities; Bob as handsome as
they made them, six feet talls in his
gym sandals straight as an arrow, with
the form of an Indian, and one of
those clean, brave, all-for-heart-noth-
ing-for-policy, smiling faces to which
men yield willing friendliness, and
women, idolatry. Bob's eyes were as
big and round and purplebrown as an
English bulldogs, unfathomable, at
once mild and stern, with a childish
come-and-go perpleXity; his nose as
straight as though chiseled by a mas
ter for a Greek medallion, with thin
curved lips to correspond, and high,
broad forehead whose Wilderness was
set off by luxuriance of hair that
seemed jet-black, but was of the same
rare purple-brown as his eyes. But
1t was the poise of Bob's head that
gave his good looks their crown. Who
ever has seen a bunch OF two-year-old
| colts in lonp-praSS KantuckV mad.