Evening star., 1936-07-19
lOO.YEAR FAMILY FARMS
HELD ASSETS TO NATION
Hereditary Owners Seen Exemplifying
Best Qualities of American
Citizenship.

paratively small. BY no conceivable
stretch of malevolent imagination
could they be thought of as public
enemies or as objectives of that war"
for the duration of which Mr.. Roose.
welt said he has enlisted.
In Orange, N j., there is. or was
when I was interested a few years
ago, a firm OF dealers in coal and
wood. IS and C. A. Lindsey. Inc"
which had been founded in the year
1906 as general country store by
John Morris Lindsey. and had passed
from father 10 son ever since.
At Lancaster, Pa. a centenary busi.
ness the department store of Hagcf
& Bro. was founded in 1921 as a
country store and is now or was re-
Gently in the ownership of the fourth
generation. In Lancaster also is a
drug store founded in 1880 by Carl
Heinrich Heinitzsch dater modified
to Heinitsh) which is still (or was a
few years ago when inquired) in the
hands of descendants of the founder.
Lancaster, Pa, is one of the most
interesting and substantial small cities
in America II it we're in New Eng.
land the poets of that section would
have celebrated it. third Lancaster
firm in the same hands for more than
a century is that Of H. C. Demuth
manufa cturer of snuffs. cigars and
scrap tcbacccs. founded in 1910. VT
another Lancaster centenarian busi-
ness is the Steinman Hardware Co.,
founded in l744.
The oldest family firm in America,
possibly the Oldest business of any
kind in this country. is the Francis
Perot's Sons Mailing Co. of Phila.
delphia, founded in 1887.
Not among the oldest. but still more
the best known to the public. is the
E. !. du Pont de Nemours Powder
Co. of Wilmington. Del, founded in
1902. Lately Mr.. Roosevelt and tha
New Dealers have chosen to make the
Du Points the symbols of what the
me there is much that is glamorous
and nothing at all that is danger.
Gus or to be conference.-the a family
which has had the vitality. not only
to hold on to a business, but to ex-
pand 1t generation after generation.
The Du Points. in a business way, are
the equivalent of the Adams family
of Boston in public life. AS the
Adams family has produced talent for
public life in generation after gener-
alton. so has the Du Pont family pro.
duced business ability.
Stamina Required.
Altogether, these centenary firms
compose picturesque and engaging
feature of American life, the spectacls
of age in a country that is new. OF
permanence in a country where change
is the rule. Think of the vicissitudes
they have endured, the stamina these
families had to have to survive panic
after panic: to come through one
economic hurricane after another; ta
maintain their sturdy individuality
against hostile economic forces, theil
pride and affection for their own
businesses and for their own fam.
lily names enabling them to re-
sist the temptation to sell out to
trusts or mergers. They must have
had high standards of commercial
and personal honor. They must have
had at once stability and adaptability
conservatism to hold on to the old,
resourcefulness to make adjustment
to the new.
There we're in all few years ago
when the subject interested me, less
than a hundred of them. I do not
know if the number is now that great
some may have succumbed to the
recent depression. On the other hand
there are. of course, steady accre-
tions-as time passes new firms are
able to show a hundred years of ex-
istence in the ownership Of the same
family.
The largest number of them by faI
is in Philadelphia. For some reason
New York. though as old a city, has
fewer. Out of less than a hundred
centenary firms, more than 40 are
located in Philadelphia. A small mum.
Der is in Baltimore. a smaller number
in Boston. Most OF the others aN
in small towns in the East. The far
thest south is a firm OF tanners al
Alexandria, Va. The farthest wesi
is the F. H. Lawson Co., galvanized
products" of Cincinnati. AS one goe,
west old firms naturally become fewer.
One of the centenary firms about
40 years ago had the inspiration ta
call the others together for a dinner
they formed a little club. Centenary
Firms and Corporations of the United
States" For their motto they took
an apt and charming line from
Shakespeare, "Gainst the tooth OF
time and razure of oblivion" Once
in each several years or so they have
dinner, though I have been told
lately they haven't met now for some
10 years. They ought to meet once
more-if only for the sake Of the good
laugh they could have about Mr..
Roosevelt's economic royalists."
III ns