El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1910-10-28

4 and. with some money he had saved out
jof what sums his grandfather had given
him. he bought a printing plant and start
ed IN as commercial printer. While the
ljourneymen looked after the jobs the boy.
eSiiwell, went out and solicited the bust
ness. BY the time he was Is years old he
had obtained so much business for his
plant that he attracted the attention of
other concerns. and he was engaged as
commercial traveller by a law blank pub
fishing company-on the road at Is. He
Travelled up and down the Erie and the
New York Central lines and did big
business. Next he was engaged by Balti-
more concern OF printers and Travelled for
them IN the Carolinas and Virginia. When
he was Is he was making between 5000
and 5000 q year, and he got married.
Then he went West. In Kansas City he
rented a printing office, put all his Won
derful energy into it and made money
from the first But his health gave way
and he had to give Up the business. Print
| ing was too conflning. He moved to Chi
cago and became the representative Of
! two or three stationery houses there as
salesman.
| All this time he had been thinking of
railroads, railroads, railroads. The blood
OF his grandfather was strong in his veins.
HIS grandfather always had talked to him
as If he was a grown man, even when
Arthur SHlwen was only wee chap He
took the lad with him into conferences
with financiers, contractors and others.
The old man always treated the boy as
an equal. The boy was fed on business
and statistics and finance. To-day there
Is no man in the United States who can
get, at the heart of a complicated mass Of
statistics quicker and surer than Nj. Still
well.
But although he thought continually
about railroads he was not yet ready to
embark in railroading as a career. He
was tired of the drudgery Of the printing
business and Of selling stationery. He began
to study life insurance. That fascinated
him for a few years. He became assistant
State agent of the Travellers Insurance
Company in Illinois. and invented a new
) policy which was the first coupon policy
ever issued in the insurance field. This
was SO great a success that within two
years after its Introduction. 60 per cent. of
all the business that wa done by the
Travellers was through this policy. Its
SUCCESS
well State agent for Connecticut and
Rhode Island. He also invented another
policy which was adopted by the Penn
Mutual and which was remarkably sue
cesgful
But he was stll thinking of railroads.
railroads, railroads. and at q he amazed
the Insurance people by resigning and an
uouncing that he was going to become a
ss 900 a year and his income was increas-
ing rapidly. He had saved up quite
bit of money and had fair amount OF
royalties coming to him. so he started
West again. Once more he landed in
Kansas City. The Belt line that has done
50 much for the railroads OF that great
transportation centre was built by Arthur
e. SHlwen. He financed this project by
raising the money from the insurance peo-
pie with whom he had been working.
Once the Belt line was built he turned his
attention to new enterprise. The rail-
roads running east and west had a monop-
oily Of the great traffic beyond the Mis-
sisgippi. They fixed the rates on grain, on
packing house products. on ore and on all
the other great commodities and staples
OF Kansas, Nebraska. Iowa and the min
ing States OF the Far West II was Iur-
Their from the Missouri River to the At
lantic seaboard than it was from Kansas
CITY to the Gulf. The surplus products
of the Middle West go, in g. large meas
ure, across the ocean.
In 1892 Stilwell began building the Kan
sas City, Pittsburg & Gulf. which was
practically the air line from Kansas City
to the Gulf of Mexioo-Soo miles. The road
Is better known to-day as the Kansas City |
Southern. There was not much trouble |
about constructing the first hundred miles, |
but when ne got that far the panic OF '9S
hit him To build the next ten miles was |
horror. It required more application, |
more time. more energy. more persistence |
to raise the money for this little bit Of
track than It did for the next 200 or 800