The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-09-19

He never deliberated on the biggest prob lem His decisions came to him in flashes. as if by inspiration. He would work out the details of deal involving tens of millions when engaged in trifiing conversation. It was his habit when he grasped a situation to exclaim, I've got it." and say no more about It. He was advised by physicians six years ago that he must exercise if he expected to live to old age But the only active part or Hartman was his mind. He was so in- active physically that medical men warned him there was danger of the vertebrae in the spine stiffening or grow ing together. When this warning be- came known to the public he issued a statement saying he had been affected with muscular rhetHhatism of the back. In 1904 he was forced by his physicians to wear a cellulold corset and afterward this was changed to one made of linen and whalebone
 Hartman became a railroad man by a speculative accident He started his Wall street career as an office boy at a salary less than $10 week. All his life he was impressed with his own superior ability.
 A member of the stock exchange who worked with Hartman as an office boy made a practice of finding out the wages of the other boys and always insisting . on getting more pay himselm, because as he put 1, he was worth more. A director Of the Union Pacific said the other day in discussion Harriman: "Mr. Hartman thinks nobody can do anything quite as well as he can himself-and l guess he is right" His confidence in himself never deserted him.
 He had peculiar way of infusing his own confidence into his railroad systems. r1n nf hn 1nda hi charge was thoroughly convinced that he. the employe, was a most necessary man in the system, and that the system was absolutely necessary to the existence of the United States. Any Union Pacific brakeman would tell you that if it had not been for Hartman and the Union Pacific the great west would have been a wilder ness yet.
 MT. Hartman was once asked to state what he regarded as the best thing man could possibly do with his life. k is reply was simple enough:
 My idea Is that a man should try to make his children better. give them larger opportunities than he himself possessed. and do what he can to make the next generation a little better off than his own"
 At the time of the San Francisco earth quake and fire Hartman hurried to the coast and was taken in an automobile through the burned district. His tour of inspection lasted no more than three hours By noon of that day the word went forth that the Hartman roads were open to the refugees. They would be transferred to any point out of the state without money and price.
 The thing WAS without precedent. Nothing like it had eyer been done before. Hartman was wise enough to see that San Francisco was going to be hungry. and the best thing to do with the hum dreds of thousands of houseless refugees was to distribute them through the coun- try. So, day after day, the Hartman trains carried the refugees out of the state Any man could have a ticket by asking for 1t.
 It was a remarkable remedy in des- perate case, and while on the way to his private car, on the Oakland mole, where