The Bismarck tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, N.D.) 1916-current, 1924-04-01
D0HEEY FIRST
EARNED FIFTY
CENTS A DAY
Oil Magnate Tells Story of
His COl0rful Life and Rise
TO Great Fortune
This is the first chapter Of
How Il Made My Millions the
life story Of +. l.. Doheny, mil
ionairc and leading figure in the
Senate oil investigation.
BY T.. l.. DOheny

Copyright, 1924, NEA Service, Inc.) !
To be 4 Doheny is to be used to
trouble.
1t has been that way for gencr.
ations. My grandfather. Michael !
Dohcny, was embroiled in the Irish |
Revolution of 'AS. My father, Pat
rick pohcny, became a political ref
ugec.
And now l find myself facing trou-
bic of another kind. But | shall get
out Of it just as honorably as did |
they.
My dad was only l6 when he was
forced to flee. He went to Canada |
| and became Il seal fisher in Baffin's
Bay. 1t was arduous work, but my
father stuck to it for ten years.
After his marriage to st. Johns
school teacher, he went to Wiscon-
| sin.
He lost an eye, suffered other in
juries, and had to settle down to
| peaceful gardening.
! was born in 1856 ut Fond du
| Lac, a saw-mill town in those days.
There. were several children in the
family, but there is only one left
now.
When | heard that my brotherc a
year and half my senior, was to go
| to school | wanted to go, too. Al
| first there were some OBJ jcctions, but
then my father said | could learn to
talk thcre-if nothing else--and, at
| any rate, | would be out of the way
| at home.
SO they let me go, although
was only three years and four
months old.
| Red SQUIRREL the teacher called
me, for | was II little shaver with
s"rrrl top. and kept hopping around
most of the time.
The teachers said ! was POLITICALLY
inclined, had a good memory, was
good at mathematics, but poor at
chemistry although knowledge of
the last became of the greatest i'm
portance in my later work.
After school hours | always
found something to do. My dad
saw to that.
| | got a job in saw mill during
the summer vacation when | was l3.
! My special work was running Il
knOt-SaW, for which service | got Go
cents day-and Il scar'on my right
hand. Only bit Of luck prevented
me from losing several fingers.
i / surely was proud of my injury.
1t put me in the class with the
other boys of the town who had been
hurt in their work--and there were
many of them.
i The next summer one of the first
sugar beet factories in America was
opened at Fond du Lac. l got Il
job IN the fields. The man in charge
was like a real overseer, for he
drove us boys like so many slaves.
bown the long rows of beets we
went, SO or GO in line, working our
hoes wedding. We had to work
quickly; or else the lads behind
would close in and prod us with
their hoes.
For all this each of us received so
cents a day.
But life was too pleasant to let a
hard-driving overseer spoil it. We
were all veritable Huck Firms
swimming, fishing, getting into mis-
chief. When we had fence to
paint, we invariably connived to
make the other fellow do it.
Hardly a month went by during
the summer months without some
boy drowning. The water was deep,
and the floating logs made it treach-
erous. But that made the sport
more alluring.
Louis Pelleticr was my side-kick
in those days. | don't know what
happened to him later, for soon came
Il parting of the ways.
had dream Of going west!
lin the next article DOheny will
tell how he spurncd career as Il