Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1900-1911, 1908-05-19
VALUES His Time
AT S. A MINUTE
MINING ENGINEER GREATEST
WAGE GARNER
LISTENS TO STORY AND 1T COSTS
HIM FOUR DOLLARS
Recent Visitor in Los Angeles Leads
All Workers in Earning Power.
Secretary Gives Side
Lights


genheims and formerly with Cecil
Rhodes in South Africa, who recently
was in Los Angeles after having spent
a winter in California recuperating
from his strenuous duties as expert-in-
chief for the worlds richest mine own
ers. is one of the busiest men in mod
ern business life.
The following conversation, which is
declared by one of Mr.. Hammonds
friends in Los Angeles to have taken
place not long ago between VISITOR
and an office attendant at a shop IN
the Empire building, II Broadway, New
York, where Mr.. Hammond, the most
expensive hired man living, works for
his bread and butter-and $50O,OOO on
the side.
The visitor was a nervous, hurry-up
fellow. chucked full of imaginary bus
mess.
81 would like to see Mr.. Hammond.
His time is valuable, sir"
"Only for a minute or two
"His time is worth S. a minute, sir.
"What's that? l didn't know it was
so expensive"
Eyes, sir. He figures it at that rate,
and il costs him about 16 cents to say
Good morning. so he is rather carerui
about receiving visitors The other DAY
tn
he lost 81 listening to a joke, ana the
laughter amounted to 70 cents"
"Well, well, wouldn't care to rod
Mr.. Hammond of his time at that rate,
although 1 would like to shake MIN py
fine hand 10 cents worth. It's worth
while to shake hands with the leading
proletarian of the country. he is
wage Garner, isn't he!
That's what they say, sir. He makes
$500 an hour.
Meal Time Expensive
"Ah. I fancy that his employers give
him half an hour for luncheon? NO
doubt they do. His days wages must
amount to about $1686, and in an hour
and a half he earns as much as the
majority of his fellow American work.
ingmen earn in a year. Is that right
Eyes, sir. They say he gets a $lo'0oO
bill every Saturday night wnen ne
quits. That's a good weeks wages to
take home to the wife and kids, Tor
fact, and it makes 100000 In year.
The boss thinks q lot of Mr.. Hammanu.
He's lust hired him again on flve-
year contract.
The president of the United states
gets $4,000 a year. Hanlnohu ,,,e
wage Garner, draws this amount In 1iVe
weeks of toll. A few railroad ana IN
surance presidents find 100000 in their
annual nav envelopes. The norny-
handed Hammond realizes as much IN
the labor of two months and halt;
Some monarchs of Europe are supposed
to earn more than the champion bread
winner of America, but Mr.. Hammond
evens 1t up with the receipt OF CHRIST
mas boxes and returns from the invest
nent of his modest savings, which al
together net him as much as his resu-
lar pay - =,
John Hays Hammond does not be-
Aae
ON a strike and has never lost ms neau'
though he came near losing 1t In the
Transyaal. Hard times do not bother
him He does not look In the want col
umn or worry about being unemployed:
In order to make himself e1tlclent anu
worth to his employers the price that
he gets, Mr.. Hammond taxes care Oh
himself in way that is an eAalii Pis
to other workmen. He recuperates MS
strength at his country estate at Glou-
cester. Mass, and goes and comes from
there in his 200-foot yacht, manned py
a crew of thirty men. He is extremely
punctual and the boss never catches
him watching the clock toward the
close of a five or six-hour oay'
Actual Living Expenses
The census office has failed to pub
lish. as it has published Ill the case OF
other American laborers. what proper
lions of Mr. Hammond's wages go 1or
rent. meat. vegetables, clothes, recrea-
tions and charities, so that these inter-
estins sociological details cannot be
known with accuracy.
Mr.. Hammond is distinctly in the
class of skilled labor He Is a mining
engineer, supposedly the best IN the
world His employers, the Guggen-
helms. who own most of the mines ana
smelters on this continent, have lately
hi, IN a
at $500. 600 a year. He agrees to con-
tinue to officiate as expert at this
wage, and not to buy or exploit any
mines on his own behalf, except the
few tritlnig properties he already owns
and which net him annually as much
as his salary. The kind OF work ne
does is not calculated to raise any spe-
ciaI sweat beads on his brow. 1t is
rarely that he leaves his shop to enter
his private car, travel to a gold mine
in the Rockies and take hundred dol
lars worth of chances at a pay streak.
He leaves most of that to graded
army of assistants, who enter the
bowels of the earth, assay, report ana
again report. The last and highest re-
port goes to Mr.. Hammond, who
studies it and briefly says to his en-
blowers yes" or mo" The employers
Implicitly trust Mr.. Hammond's affir-
native to mean a fortune, and his
negative to spell failure. All mines
are said to be CANDLES. Few of Mr..
Hammonds forecasts have proved
wrong. The sensational Nipissing
deal, In which the Guggenheims, with
drawing from the enterprise, coolly
pocketed losses of peraps $3.000,0O0. was
an exceptional case where something
or other failed to connect.
Has Had Odd Career
This leading member of the Ameri-
can working class has had a pictur-
esque career.
Born in San Francisco in 1855, he
was graduated from the Sheffield
scientific school at Yale in 1876 and
continued metallurgical studies at
school of mines in Freiburg, Germany.
He came home and became a special
expert of the United States on the
geological survey and mineral census.
examining the gold fields of his native
state.
The appetite for larger pay and
shorter hours first manifested itself
when he took a job as superintendent
of silver mines in Sonora, Mexico.
Pack again to California he was con-