The Waterbury Democrat., 1931-02-11


 EDITORS NOTE: This is the third of five stories on the rise and fall of the Armours, presenting the human side of q great business and famous family. To-day, Bruce Cat ton tells how the late J. ogden Ar nnour, son of the founder, spread the business over the world.
 BY BRUCE CATION
 NEA Service Writer
 Copyright, 1881, NEA Service, Incl
 Chicago--Thd hdheir-apparent to a throne seldom has much to say about his own future. Sometimes the heir-apparent to a great indus trial enterprise Is in much the same boat. It was so with J. ogden Ar mour.
 This man, who was to become the apotheosis of the fabulously wealthy American meat packer, and who was to transform the firm of Ar mour & Co from mere prosperous business house into d world-circling industrial giant, landed in the busi- ness somewhat against his will. Or so, at least, one gathers from hints in faded newspaper files.
 In the late 1870's. Armour. near ing 20, was student at Yale. His father, Philip Armour, was keeping busy with his packing house in Chi cago and dreaming of handing the expanding business on to his son.
 J. Ogden Armour, it is said, learned one day at Yale that his fathers mind was made up. The son was to become a meat packer. He returned to Chicago and was promptly put to work as clerk, at S1O a week. He worked 12 hours a day, and he started at the bot tom. There was to be no royal road to riches.
 The packing business was ex- banding rapidly. Someone had dis covered that artificial butter-oleo- margarine-could be made from meat by-products. A little later the canning of meat was perfected. About the same time refrigeration rooms were installed on ocean steamers, and the Chicago packers began to sell dressed beef in Eng land.
 J. Ogden Armour had come on the scene at busy time.
 The old century wound its way to q close. and the house of Armour expanded it's holdings. Aid Philip Armour, who had tramped across the continent to hunt gold in Cali fornia, and who had found gold, instead, in the stockyards of Chi cago, was getting old. Being old, he had a right to little crochets of be- havior.
 One Sunday, in 1893. the old gen. tleman went to church and heard the Rev Dr Frank w. Gunsauius preach on the subject. What l Would Do If I Had Million Dol vv@I-~ tyx,n so he gave the minister a million. The foundation of the Armour 1n- stitute of Technology was the re- sult-and old Philip Armour gave a great deal more than a million before he was through.
 His last years were not, perhaps, entirely happy. His younger son. Philip Armour. Jr, was sickly; and in 1900 he died, leaving J. Ogden as the only son. And a year later Philip Armour went to his death.
 Armour & Co at that time was doing an annual business of $100,- 000,000.
 T. Ogden Armour assumed the presidency, and became a middle western giant.
 For 10 years Armour &c Co paid no dividends, all of the prof1ts being ploughed back into the company in a vast expansion scheme. The meat business spread beyond the seas. A vast plant was established in the Ar genuine; branch offices were opened all over Europe. Armour turned to sidelines. Soon he was handnhe more grain than any other dealer on earth. He had the second largest leather business on earth. He con- trolled more refrigerator cars than any railroad on earth. He was one of the worlds foremost manufac- turers of fertilizers.
 Nor was that all. Armour be- came a banker. holding more than $5,O0O, 900 worth of stock in various Chicago banks. He became a ra1l- road man. and put millions of dol lars into the Chicago, Milwaukee St Paul railway. He invested heavily in a Kansas City street rail- way. He put fortune into power company. He joined in scheme for developing vast real estate tract near San Francisco, and put millions into it.
 In a decade and a half his firm had 500 foreign branches. did business of half a million dollars year, and paid American farmers upwards of s300,000,oo0 a year for livestock.
 And so the family of Armour, middlewestern barons Of modern America. reached it's zenith.
 Old Philip Armour, when he moved to Chicago, had built a mas sive, but comfortable, home on Prairie avenue. Here Philip Ar mour lived to his death; and here, after him, lived his widow. a state 1y old lady with high pompadour of soft white hair and gentle, un- assuming smile.
 But J. Ogden Armour built more modern and showy places Along about 1900 he bought a thousand acres of land up in Lake. Forest and set out to build a country home i