Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1911-07-21

"a could survey at a glance
4 the long line of the banks
Il Il { 4 QUILTING. the fretted, tes-
i GsLI sellated ceiling, with it's
gIittering mosaic domes,
80 the massey pillars Of onyx, that
obilIed and frightened the common
nnrson who, by any accident, hap
nened to find his way into the plu-
tonic precincts of the bank itself.
Bostwick lived up town in one of
the handsomest houses in New York.
He sported a line of touring cars, for
which he had paid the usual $14,5O0
nor car. any one of which, even with
ont the use of it's honker, was suff1-
Gent to make the average man feel
low and contemplate in his own opin-
inn He contributed lav1shly to the
campaign funds of both parties, and
s was lust a trife bothered whenever
the president of the United States
would say anything strong enough to
attract the attention Of the public at
j large He sometimes would conde-
scend to utter a few words on the
4 Commercial Drummers' association,
or to some other equally important
organization, and his thoughts on
i such occasions were carefully consid-
cred by all the business interests in
4 all parts Of the country, and were
cabled to London, Paris, and Berlin
& to be carefully considered there.
soJr l. Il &C.
\ tie iaunt to Europe he paid for his
cabin accommodations price that
would buy a suburban home for Ole
Of his clerks; tossed to the head stew
ard a hundred-dollar bill, and flung to
the other serfs on the boat a fat bun
die of fives to divide among them
i selves.
Bostwick was as solid with all the
ministers of all the denominations as
the Apostle Paul himself; perhaps a
little more SO; and when he went to
church on he Sabbath hi, refined sus-
capabilities were never assailed by
anything he did not care to hear. His
name was always we'll up in the lists
of those who gave to religion or to
charity; and he took an active inter
est in all forward movements that
aimed at the thorough reform of cor
rupt political life, and at the swift and
signal punishment or the prompt ex-
tirpatiCn Of crime.
In the course of several years Of
this kind of existence Bostwick had
/ formulated for himself an estimate OF
his own position in the world, in
which he figured himself as one of
. the pillars Of the social fabric and
one of the necessary organs Of the
nations industrial vitality.
q The fundaments on which this estf-
mate were based were these: He had
8 financed some of the biggest tunnels
existence; he was the controlling
hand in a score of street railroad sys-
g items in as many American towns; he
81 was partner in nearly everything
that had been paying twenty per cent.
D on the par value of the stock before
S it was watered; and when he wanted
s to know how many were the COM
8 panies, corporations, concerns, and
coalitions in which he was one of the
big chiefs, he had to send for his
personal bookkeeper to supply him
s with the facts.
And yet, do you know, I never par
j ticularly cared for Bostwick, not
even before Longwood told me that
story about the Tropic Dawn, when
j Bostwick had tried to squeeze him in
the panic of 1907, and came very near
ly running Longwood over on the
rocks, when little money and lit
tie time would have floated him out
clear and fair into safe and open wa
ter.
Considering that he was pillar of
the social fabric, Bostwick had the
Queerest face you ever saw. His eyes
were set so close together that he
had to have the frame of his eye
glasses built on a special model. His
ears were large and stood we'll out
from the side of his head, and one Of
them was a good bit lower than the
other His face below the nose was
so long that you would just naturally
look at in wonder; and if you drew
line through the point where the mid
die of his mouth ought to be, you
would find that the mouth was about
twenty-five per cent too far on the
left side of the diagram.
Before the panic of 1907 Bostwick
was known in business as the "friend
OF the little fellows" Merchants and
manufacturers whose myriad travel
Ing men radiated from New York like
the light of the vernal sun had learn
ed to depend upon Bostwick as they
depended upon the regularly recur-
rent sequence Of the spring and the
Tall trade. Did Bostwick agree to
give you cash at discount on the
notes you brought in from your Gus
toners up to say hundred thousand
or more, he would smile on one side
OF his face and let you double the
account-if you found yourself doing
business greater than your capital
safely warranted. Did you need lit
tie money for proposition that fig