White Pine news weekly mining review. [volume] (East Ely, Nev.) 1910-1920, 1914-03-29
THE JUSTICE Of
HIGH SALARIES
EDWARD MOTT WOoLLEY SHOWS
ENGINEER POPE YEATMAN
EARNS HIS ONE HUNDRED
THOUSAND DOLLARS A YEAR.
(From McClure's Magazine.)

l1cly ~XpfeSSe n opinion Inat no
man was worth a salary higher than
$4,000 a year. 1t Is the purpose OF
typical NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. men
show what they do for their money,
and tell how they came into their
Jobs. Is Mr.. Mellen right? The
facts will answer the question.
1t may be said at the start, how
ever, that Daniel Guggenheim does
not agree with Mr.. Mellen. He does
not like to talk. about so personal a
thing as a mans salary, but he says:
why shouldn't a man get 100000
a year? Is there any limit TO what
he can earn when he can put through
such a tremendous proposition as the
one down at Chiquicamata?"
In five years the Guggenheims paid
John Hays Hammond more than a
million dollars. This is authentic
His salary was 500, 900. and the
balance was made up of bonuses, par
tieipations, etc.
Practically nothing has been print
ed about Mr.. Yeatman. He was born
In st. Louis in 1861. and is a nephew
of the late James e. Waterman. a dis
tinguished philanthropist of that city
His given name. Pope. is derived from
his grandfather. Judge Nathaniel
Pope. who was the first territorial
secretary of Illinois. In his boyhooi
he lived in New Haven, Connecticut
While still In his teens he spent sew
eral summers with relatives on a
ranch in Wyoming. and thus gained
Il liking for outdoor life.
Then, the Guggenheims wanted ?
man who could put things through
Mere technical ability never yet madea
great engineer. There is the same Diff
ference between engineers that there
is between surgeons. It's a mental
trait. and hard to define. The big sur
geon diagnoses a ease. takes the re-
sponsibiltity Immediately. and per.
forms the operation, perhaps in the
middle of the night. Lesser surgeons
confronting such a case hesitate and
call in the big fellow. He is the man
who puts the thing through
"Yeatman had a reputation in
Africa for technical skill and for
shouldering responsibility and put
ting things through"
Just about that time the Guggen-
helms were considering the Develop
ment of some copper ore lands out
around Ely, Nevada-in a wild and
desolute country among gigantic
volcanoes long dead. The Nevada
Consolidated Copper company had
come under the Guggenheim control
and a big problem was looming up to
be solved. The ore out there was low
grade-a large quantity of II had to
be mined to get a little copper. Old
fashioned methods would mean a
prohibitiye cost.
These Nevada lands had been
promoted by M. l.. Requa and other
mine men. but they were unable to
make capitalists believe In the pro-.
Iect.
Yeatman went out there with his
crops of engineers. He set churn
drills at work, tested the ore, and re-
ported a plan for mining the ore and
treating It.
II Is said OF Yeatman that when
he was a boy out in Wyoming he had
the faculty of finding his way any
where alone. You couldn't lose him
In the most rugged mountains or on
the broadcast prairie. He learned
natures signs with the aptitude of an
Indian, and came to depend on him
self. His self-reliance was often a
cause of anxiety to his elders. Now
1t was this trait of self-reliance that
aout presidents.
His plans for developing the copper
lands around Ely called for an ex-
penditure of some $40, 10000 0 This
didn't alarm the G~uggenheims. Here
he was especially fortunate, for the
average employee is limited to the
narrow vision and timidity of his
employer. There would be more
NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. men III there
were more employers with a big
horizon. The Guggenheims have
hundreds of men in their employ who
draw salaries that would give the
ordinary employer a congestive chill.
Twenty and thirty thousand dollars
a year isn't anything unusual, in their
organization. Young men around
thirty are earning II. But they are
men who put things through. Per-
haps this policy partly accounts for