The Washington times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1902-1939, 1924-04-25
TRYING
TO: RECOUP
~
FORTUNE
Former Merchant Prince Now
on Main Street Trying
to Come Back.
BY JOSEPHINE VAN DE GRIFT,
CosnnOpOlItan News Service.

BY JOSEPHINE VAN DE GRIFT,
CosmOpOIitan News Service.
HACKENSACK, N. j., April 25.--
Henry Siegel is making his second
effort to come back.
The one.time millionaire and de-
partnient store owner. whose fail
took with it the savings Of servant
girls aud. the life hopes Of old men
ana women. is now seeking happi-
ness behind the counter Of a mems
haberdashery here.
Once before Henry Siegel tried
to come back. He couldn't quite
make it. Now he is making an
other attempt to get back sJme of
the glory that once lowered over
Americas greatest merchant.
But Henry Siegel is old now
sixty'five years-and the days of
the old merchant princes, he will
tell sadly, are gone forever.
Now Has Little Shop.
And so-"Henri's Mems Shop"
has been run up on the sign that
flutters idly outside of 1873 Main
street, while within a little bird
like man with shrewd brown eyes
goes about the business of waiting
on trade.
Henry Siegel, who, in the days
Of Siegel and Cooper's glory, dealt
In millions of dollars worth of
women's ready to wear, now hovers
painstakingly over the selection of
mans collar and tie. Henry
Siegel, who ten years ago had a
fortune. Of $4,000 and who sat
within a glass-bound office issuing
orders that were cabled to all parts
Of the world, that same Henry
Siesel now gratefully accepts a
nlme from over the counter and
puts 1t away carefully in the cash
drawer.
Truly. in his own words, the old
order has changed.
IL was just a little more than
a half century ago that Henry
olegel, then a foufteen-year-old i'm
migrant boy, half sick with steer.
age odors and steerage food, climbed
snaKhy on to the American shore
ana surveyed the scene before him.
Then he went down to Washington
and got job in a store for $3.50
a week. His duties were to sweep
the store, run errands and wait on
customers. His pleasures were to
take a girl walking one night a
week and buy her, an apple.
Henry Siegel swept the store and
waited on customers with such
olllsence that when he was nine
teen he found himself making the
unheard of salary of SIS q week.
ne decided that he was meant for
better things and became q travel.
ing salesman. Two or three wears
OF this and he decided that he
would set travelling statesmen of
ms own to work, and he NVent into
business manufacturing women's
wear with his brother. Ten years
later he withdrew his holdings.
which by this time amounted to
$4,000. and with Cooper organized
the firm of Siegel and Cooper. It
thrtVed. Henry Siegel, at thirty.
eight years Of age found himself
worth 100000.
Continued to Prosper.
Mrs. Siegel died within a year,
but outwardly Henry SiegeI con.
tinued to prosper until he found
himself the guiding spirit in four
large stores. They were the Siegel
ana Cooper store in Chicago. the
Big store and the Fourteenth street
store In New York, and the Henry
S1egel and Co. store in Boston.
And now his dreams became even
wider. He would be a conoueror
In other fields, too. He would be
Henry Siegel organized his bank.
ana working people, knowing his
rise from a $3.50 clerkship, trusted
MIN. On pay days they stood in
long, patient queues, waiting to
put their money In Henry Siegers
The bank failed. It dragged with
It the Henry SiegeI stores and
Henry Siegel's $4,000, 900 fortune.
It dragged with it the slender saw.
tngs OF mattresses ana laundresses
or bootblacks and factory hands.
Some committed suicide. And
Henry Siegel found himself penni-
less. while over his head there hung
:. AAAO Va rAtVVV auO a sentence OF
ten months in the Monroe county
penitentiary,
Fifty-Nve, years old and with even
less money than on that day he
crawled out of the steerage. Henry
Siegel started staging the first
comeback. He became an exporter.
He proepered. He occupied pleas.
ant offices again. Steographers
Aew about to do his bidding. It
was war time. After the war there
came a. slump and the slump wiped
out everything Henry Siegel had
made,
Again he thrust his hands into
empty pockets. Again he looked
about him to, see what he might
turn his hand to, and again the old
urge of trade ,surged over him.
Henry Siegel, who had once Wis.
Toned the world as sort of Henry
Siegel q Co., trading post, now con.
cluded that a nice little store tucked
away In a little town some nlaca