The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1908-05-10
Says the Hotel Clerk: x~.....
"When Millionaires Begin
to Talk, You Wonder
How They Ever Got 1t"
BY IRWIN S. COBB.

x amt seen lately where John DIS
been talking any," said the House De-
tective of the Hotel St. Reckless. He
amt sick, is hep"
81 understand he's enjoying his usual
good health, conservatively estimated
TO be sixty-four dollars a minute" said
the Hotel Clerk, "but 1 think he sus-
pended his conversations on advice"
"Wuz it the advice of his doctor, dye
spose?" asked the House Detective.
We'll" said the Hotel Clerk. I'm
not what you could call in the deep
confidence of the Rockefeller family,
but 1 have a shrewd suspicion that it
was probably on the advice of his law
yer. / haven't heard of Uncle John d.
lndulging in many oratorlcai outpour-
ings since that time last summer when
he mounted the witness chair out in
Chicago and explained the innate and
constitutional purity Of Standard Oil
so cOncluslvely that the judge only
fined 'em twenty-nine million dollars.
In fact, a dense and deafening wave OF
silence appears to have descended upon
quite a number of our wealthiest gen.
tlemen who were lately talking extern
sively for the public prints and also
Harpers Weekly. A few short months
d
mans office would hear loud twitter-
ing sound. It was only Mr.. Hartman
being interviewed by a little lady spe-
cial writer in town on the Science of
Train Wrecking as an Inside Job, or
some other congenial topic, but 1t
sounded like throwing a seed cooky
into the canary cage, Today, If you
should put on a reporters badge and
drop in on him for the purpose of ask
1aa
result as if you were SerenadlnS the
laundry windows of a deaf and dumb
asylum at a quarter past two o'clock
on a snowy morning early in January
of a hard winter. And that's the way
it used TO be, Larry, and that's the
way ii ought to be. I'm glad to see
them getting back to first principles
once more.
You remember how twas a year or
so back before this vocal madness
descended on our leading captains of
finance. In those days John D. Rookie
Teller thought as much of a reporter as
he did of a process server, and his re-
gard for a process server was only
equalled by the love which the historic
1arantula cherishes for the traditional
tarantula. The only way q newspaper
man could get within yelling distance
of ]. Pierpont Morgan was to disguise
the trademark door of the Morgan
mansion, carrying a Venus de Medicine
of a Castor and Pollinaris or some
other deity from the ancient Greek
1oharmacoeia under his arm. On
being approached by member OF
the press Andrew Carnegie was about
as conversational as a small saucer of
cold oatmeal E. H. Hartman could
engage in his favorite occupation OF
tacaWn Oh
ing 1t in again. the same as German
performing on an accordian, for days
at a time without once expressing
desire to be seen by anybody from one
of the daily publications. If muck
raker broke in on him unawareS, he
cuddIed down behind his mustache and
tried 10 pass for a set of military hair
brushes.
"An of a sudden there came
change You never saw such a rush
of capitalists all trying to turn out
the words and music simultaneously
H H. Rogers had his picture taken in
seventy-five poses, and hired press
agent who'd done publicitiZing for some
of the most prominent ingenues in the
business. Rockefellers Thursday aft
ernoons for reporters, with matted milk
and dipped toast, Baptist style. be-
came a recognized institution. It's
mistake
ing soul kiss is a new thing, Larry. 1t
really dates from the time Mr.. Rookie
Teller came back from that European
tour of his. and was so glad to see so
many reporters at the dock. He sent
best regards to Link Steffens from the
gangpIank After that, we used TO
read in the newspapers that, passing
through Illinois, he'd stop his private
car the Idatarbele, to tell the editor
IL III. lid Il
ent-News- Democrat that any young
man starting in life. as he'd done, with
$50 in cash. and honesty as his only as
sets, could succeed in business, and
still keep the fifty. Reporters APP
preaching Mr.. Harriman's residence
on business found him lying across the
doorway, where the door mat is usual
" found, with the word Welcome"
embroidered on his shirt bosom in cleo
trio lights.
But on the whole / don't think the
experiment turned out pronounced
success. Carnegie, down at Hemp
stead making armor plate while the
Pinkertons made orphans, was small,
silent man. Carnegie, comforting i'm
promptu oratiOns and libraries on the
country at large, was no longer silent.
But still Just as small, or even smaller,
l couldn't see very much ground for
hurting the dollhouse encOmfums at Mr..
Rockefeller's style of voice delivery,
either 1t seemed to me I'd liked him
better when he was human geological
exhibit with a CLEAN in his eye dating
back to the glacial period and a smile
like a seam on some old red sandstone.
As long as one of the Nothingbut-
brotherhood slides around saying moth
ing and making shore ice, we fear him
and We respect him because We do fear
him. But when he opens his face so
far that we can look down on him and
observe that he has the same sort of
interior decoration that a necktie sales