The citizen. (Honesdale, Pa.) 1908-1914, 1911-06-09
HAMMOND'S RECORD

being a whirling, whizzing wizard
concerning the earth and the things
under the earth, not to mention the
sea and the power of rolling waters.
In the matter of clinging to the face
of Shiny cliff in a search for gold,
he has done things that drew the
veil over the vaunted exploits of the
highly expert but very extinct ptero-
dactyl; and Noah never catalogued
among his animals one four-footed
beast that had half of Hammond S
knowledge about how to make a
hole in the ground.
Conseq emily, in sending him as
special ambassador to the corona
tion of King George V of England,
President Taft, who has been his
close friend all his life, has set
down among the fogs and fads of
London a great effulgence-mean-
ing a real man, fall of red blood and
blue lightning.
Hammond's fame is built on his
achievements as a mining engineer,
but, in addition to this line of en-
deavor, he has used as his pawns
big pawns big water-power sites, ir-
rigation projects, oil-fields, and
street railways. Every day that he
fails to construct, carry forward, or
complete a far-reaching piece of
work, he retires miserably to bed,
sighs in dark detection, and sobs
himself to sleep-but, it should be
stated, the Sand Man usually finds
him with a broad grin on his face.
Car Nicholas, Kaiser Wilhelm,
and other potentates, sovereigns, and
princes have held his hand and
looked with interest into his steady
gray eyes. Laborers in mines and
bitches say he is good fellow, and
tramps call him buddy" He wore
brogans and overalls for years, and
at another time he hobnobbed with
Cecil Rhodes and wound up by hav-
ing himself sentenced to be hang
ed by the Beers as result of the
Jameson raid. On one occasion,
weakened and wracked by a malig-
nant fever, he crawled many miles
through the mountains of Honduras
and was finally nursed back to
health by kind native; and still
another of his feats was to explore
the region of King Solomon's mines,
making the journey through a two
hundred-mile desert so hot and dry
that the privations killed his sole
companion. And nowadays, as he
counts his millions and maps out
new enterprises, the high financiers
of Wall Street frisk his pockets in
attempts to find out where he car
ries his Aladdin's lamp or some 9TH
er magic instrument that enables
him to pull off his remarkable
stunts.
Only few months ago he went
to Russia and it was reported that
he was about to undertake the gil
gantic project of fully developing
the latent mineral wealth of Siberia
"a report which he has as yet nei-
ther affirmed nor denied.
This recital shows the things he
has accomplished, but back of the
achievements are two stories, more
human and more striking. One is
his personality, the other his wife.
Hammond has a tremendous capac-
1ty for sustained and intense work,
whether physical or mental; but he
is also a great lover of fun, and
therefore, good mixer" among
his fellows. Although he has done
things which required marvellous
courage and has established a bril-
liant career, he is as modest as
girl. The reason that tramps call
him buddy" is that he prefers,
rather than talk about himself to
hear their life stories and to get
their viewpoint of the world. In
the language of the farm, he has a
heart as big as a mules, and he en-
cages in much philanthropy the
kind that is gagged, obscure, secre-
tive, and on the quiet, not the kind
that is put out with one hand while
the other clutches the telephone to
call up the newspaper reporters to
hear all about the good deeds.
AS to the second story, Mrs. Ham
mond has accompanied him into the
Wllds OF Mexico, where there were
only mountains, Greasers, and rough
mlning-camps; into South Africa,
where she saved his life when he
was i'll and under sentence of death
on an unjust accusation; and into
the mountains and mines of the Far
West of this country when he was
starting out on the princely salary
of one hundred and twenty-five dol
lars a month. AS a helpmeet she
has been a glorious and glittering
success.
Hammond's career can be divided
roughly into three periods-the first
III ms CouuITy, mexico, and South
and Central America the second in
South Africa from 1898 to 1900;
the third in the United States from
1900 until the present time. AS a
result of his labors, he owns mines
In this country, Mexico, and South
Africa; water-power sites in the
United States and Mexico, and in
the land made famous by Diaz the
biggest irrigation project in the
world. Two of his ventures "on the
side We're to buy, electrify, and sell
the street-car lines of Cape Town
and Mexico City.
During the Mexican period. he
spent night with a notorious ban
dit who, with his sons, made a prac-
tice of picking off miners CARRYING
ore. Hammond had his wagon full
OF valuable ore and did not know
the character of his host. The fol-
lowing morning the old robber and
his sons, after showing Hammond
that each of them could put a rife
bullet through a whiskey-cork at
range of more than a hundred
yards, let him go on his way un-
molested and unrobbed.