Evening capital and Maryland gazette. (Annapolis, Md.) 1910-1922, 1911-11-20
NEW NEWS OF YESTERDAY
Grover CIeveIand's Gospel OF Ac-
emulation of Wealth.
Incident While He Was Trustee Of Inc
Equitable Revealed His Way Of
Measuring the Ability
of Men.
ex z. ). EDWARDS.

After Thomas +. Ryan, at the time
OF the famous life insurance investiga-
ton OF several years ago, bought a
majority OF the stock of the Equitable
Life Assurance society, 50 shares of
the par value of $4,000, for nearly
100000, he created a trusteeship
over it. The three trustees were ex-
President Grover. Cleveland, George
Westinghouse and Chief Justice Nor
gan ]. O'Brien Of the New York state
supreme court.
One Of the duties of the trustees
was to secure from the policyholders
recommendations upon which might
be based the selection Of men to I'LL
such vacancies as might occur in the
society's board of directors. The OBJ
iect of this was TO secure for the pol
icyholders representation in the direc-
ton of the affairs of the society. Every
recommendation that was made to the
! trustees Mr.. Cleveland personally care
fully examined. II was a prodigious
task, but he was as faithful in the per-
Torrance of it as he had been in his
! oversight of every detail which came
to his attention when he was presi-
dent of the United States and which
called for official action or judgment
on his part.
In response to the trustees request
for recommendations to fill certain
vacancy in the board OF directors a
Tennessee policyholder forwarded a
letter recommending fellow Tennes-
seean. The policyholder, after mar
rating the good qualities of his candi-
date and YOU hing for his INTEGRITY of
character and ability, continued:
This man cyan with nothing. His
family was t penniless by the war.
He went to Y ork and worked for some
years with h hands in the fields. He
saved money. He bought little land.
He cultivated his farm. He w&s pa
tient and frugal. At last he began to
accumulate and he is now worth about
500, 00O-every penny of it earned by
honorable toll"
"That is as fine a recommendation
of candidate as any policyholder has
ever made, so far as / recollect," de-
clared Mr.. Cleveland to his fellow
trustees.
But" said Mr.. Westinghouse, IF
you are guaging the mans ability by
the fact that he is worth hundred
thousand dollars, don't think the test
amounts to very much"
Mr.. Cleveland looked up quickly. 1t
seemed to him that Mr.. Westinghouse
measured ability possibly by the mil
lions rather than the thousands, al
though this was not Mr.. Westing-
houses point at all.
The ex-president brought his hand
firmly down upon the table. He was
very much in earnest.
"Mr. Westinghouse" he said, 'if a
man in the south found himself in pow
erty at the close of the war, if he went
to work, laboring with his hands, If by
frugality and industry he began to ac
cumulate, and if with his accumula-
tons he enlarged his farm and 80
years after the war finds that he is
worth 100000, it seems to me that
that one hundred thousand counts for
more than millions of inherited money
or a billion made in speculation in
Wall street Other things being equal,
favor the election of this man as a
director of the company"
And in that brief statement is to be
discovered the entire gospel of wealth
accumulation in which Grover Cleve-
land believed.
Copyright, 1910. by Z. ]. Edwards All
Rights Reserved)