AMERICAN MILLIONAIRES.

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 11109, 30 October 1901, Page 3

AMERICAN MILLIONAIRES.

V.—THE ASTORS AND VANDER--IHLTS. - . To write about American millionaires and not refer to the Astors, Vanderbilts, Goulds, and other money kings of the country, who by operations apart from trade and industry have achieved great fortunes, would be like writing about the Civil War and leaving out the name of General Grant. . Compared with the careers of other American men of wealth, the stories of the founding of the fortunes of these older moneyed families seem quite ancient history, and yet it is only about fifty years since the originator of the Astor* wealth passed away, while cot a quarter of a cexrturv has gone by since the creator of the Yacderbiit fortune died. These two names, however, are still names of might and potency, representing, as it were," the corner stones of that great temple of rich.Es which to-day forms such an object of worship in America. The present members of these two opulent families enjoy the almost unique distinction amongst American families of having been born to great fortunes. As a rule, the American millionaire is a man who has had to fight hard for his wealth.—a man who has risen from very humble beginnings. But the Astors and the Vander- ; bilts now living are almost men of line- ! i age and ancestry, for they can trace their ' I pedigrees back for four generations before coming upon the dead level of poverty from which their great-grandfather sprang. In their way they are aristocrats, in spite of their still being engaged in the moneymaking business, but their interests in the substantial wealth and wealth-creating undertakings of the country are so vast, and count for so much in the national life, that a brief outline of the careers of these famous money-amassing families, and of the Goulds and other Wall street magnates of a later day, will not be out of place in our portrait-gallery of America's richest men. It was John Jacob Astor, who was born in* Heidelberg, Germany, in 1763, who was tbe fortune-making genius of the Astor family. He was.the son of a butcher, and helped his father in the business until, in early manhood, he conceived the idea of trying to better his lot in America. Oh the way over he made the aeouaintance of an old fur trader, who talked freely with -he young man concerning the exciting life and large profits 'of men who went out to the North West and traded ■ with the Indians for skins. So deep an impression was made upon John Jacob Astor by these stories that he made up his mind long before he landed at New York that he would try his luck in the fur business, and, accordingly, he made his way straight across the continent, undergoing innumerable hardships during the slow, tedious and dangerous journey, and when at last he reached the .Western solitudes he began without loss of time to turn to account the expert information he had received from his old fellow-voyager while crossing the Atlantic. f No Capital—Pienty op Cotjrage. He had next to no capital when he reached hia destination, but he had courage and audacity, which did nearly as well in those days and in that far-off region. He soon discovered that the old trader had not sent him on a wild-goose chase. There was p.enty of profitable business to be done by a shrewd man like himself, with a keen eye for a bargain, and a convincing manner that told. upon the simple barbarians who lived their primitive lives out there and hunted the wild animals that were then so numerous around them. Mr Astor became as one of themselves, spending months at a time with them, getting to- know something,of their language and _ great deal about their weaknesses, and in this way putting himself on the most favourable footing for doing business with them. Often enough, Mr Astor was able to buy valuable sable and musk furs from the tribesmen for some trilling return in the shape of glass beads, red paint, or—most seductive of all—whiskey v In one way and another he managed to get hold of considerable quantities of furs very, very cheap, and sent them to Europe and China, selling them for such prices as, then ruled in the chief cities —prices which would have seemed fabulous to the Indians. Mr. Astor organised.-- great business, establishing trading points over, the .North Western territory as far as tha Pacific, coast. ";-■.- - - • ' This was the .adventurous trade which yielded John Jacob Astor his first hundred dollars. Alter that his gains soon mounted up into thousands, for he -. was thrifty and frugal, and the desire to become 'rich had taken possession of bin. As soon aa he found himself with a few thousand dollars clear, he began to consider how he could most profitably invest. the money, and, having the true instincts of moneymaker, he decided that the best thing he could do with his savings would be to invest them in .real'estate in New York, ; which he could.see would one day become ' a great, rich, and populous commercial city. . He was convinced -that real estate judi- j ciously bought ml an improving city of { that kind would inevitably increase greatly in value as time went on. This was the money-making path he marked out for himself, and be stuck to it with remark- \ able tenacity. So, with every fresh haul ■ of dollars realised from his trading with the Indians be bought additional property in New York,; and, in order to keep in close touch with his real estate holdings, and with a further eye to his fur trade interests, he opened a shop in the Empire City. This done, he took to wife a clever ! young woman of business habits named ; Sarah Todd, and the two started house- j keeping in. a room over the shop. Here tbey lived in the most economic" style for fifteen years, their whole hearts devoted to their business. They spent, most of their evenings in the shop, sorting .pelts. But when the time came that they had acoumuldted a fortune of £50,000 they began to think that they might possibly afford to live in* a better style, so they took L small house apart from the shop, and :ame persons of some little note. Mr Astor, however, kept on with his furtrading, and kept on with his real estate investments. More than that, by a lucky speculation in bonds, he doubled his fortune at a stroke, and. no matter how much he made, all 1 his money was put into real property. He was in the enviable position of being able to hold on through times of panic and depression, and when values ran low he purchased, all he could. So he continued his money-making tactics for the rest of his life, and when he died in 1848, at the age of eighty-five, he left behind him to his son, Wm. B. Astor, an estate valued at £4,000,000, which was regarded fs an immense fortune" in those days. . He bequeathed a legacy of £80,000 to the city of New York to found a library. A Valuable Legacy. " Rut tihe most important legacy John Jacob Astor left to- those of his race who came after him was the solemn advice, to always adhere to the policy Which he himself bJad laid down and religiously practised, which was to hold fast to the real estate, never to sell any pi it, but to improve it and buy more. And that is the policy which the Astors have ever since consistently pursued. Wm. B. Astor, the son, made it "the leading principle of his life. No one was ever able to inveigle hin = into trade, speculation, or enterprise of any ' kind whatsoever. The be-all and end-all : of bis life was "Proppnty, propputy, propputy," and when he - died in 1875, it was found th_t in the twenty-seven years which, had elapsed since tbe death of the original j John Jacob Astor the Astor fortune had been doubled. Another Wm. B. Astor (the grandson of John Jacob and eldest son of the first Wm. B.) succeeded, and again the policy was i "hold fast." By tbis time land values were | I improving at a greater rate than ever, and j when this head of tbe Astor family passed \ away, in 1890, the fortune had once more ; been doubled, and this in the short space ; of fifteen years. The bulk of tbe Astor j wealth now devolved upon his two sons, j John Jacob and William, who, between [ them, it was estimated, owned over 3000 ; booses in New Yoxk, witfo the Land thereunto attached. These two heirs of the Astors died in 1893. when the present William Waldorf Astor inherited the larger share of the A_tor accumulated fortune, and John Jacob Astor fell in for the remaining portion. Mr W. W. Astor is'now about fifty years of age, and resides in England. He is proprietor of the "Pall Mall Gazette" and other literary .properties, and has himself won distinction for his literary and artistic talents. He has. at all ' events, been mucb more than a mere man of money. He wot United States Minister

to Italy for several years, and while living in Rome wrote a clever novel of Italian history, entitled "Valentino.*' Olher works from his pen have since beEii issued, .yd all of them are marked by ft highly-cultnnd and refined imagination: His cousin, John Jacob Astor the third, resides mostly in New York, and is n figure of considerable! prominence in the-social life of America. During the late war with Spain, he equip- . bed a "battery of horse artillery at his own cost, and served with them as leader m Cuba. , ~ . • . - This, in brief, embraces the history of the Astor" family since the time of the fur-tradinc days of the original John Jacob Astor to "the'present year of grace. No member of the family has been in trade since the fur shop, was closed. Still, they h:ivs all been men of business, more or less, and in the control and management of their extensive properties have displayed great capacity. Some of their properties such as the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, which is probably the finest house of the kind in.the world —a marbe palace of regal splendour —are magnificent contributions to the architectural importance of the best parts of New York. It is estimated that Wm. Waldorf Astor is worth over £20,030,000, and that John Jacob Astor is not very much behind him in point of wealth. The Vasderbixts. Turning to the Vanderbilts we find ourselves in a more active atmosphere, tbe family wealth having been acquired by a long series of financial speculations connected with the general development of the country, its railways and other enterprises, although, of course, they have been anti are owners of considerable real estate. Three generations of Vanderbilts have left their mark upon tlie nation's progress. The first of the family to make a name and a fortune was Cornelius, Vanderbilt, commonly known as* the Commodore. He was born on Staten Island, in 1794, and as a boy had a rather rough time of it. From six years of age to sixteen he worked v hard, doing any kind of odd job that presented itself, labouring on farms, performing porter's duties, or helping in building operations; in fact, dump anything that a strong and healthy boy could get to do in a new country. He was of ;a thrifty disposition, however, and when he got his first .hundred dollars together he utilised the sum in buying a small boat, with which he started business as a carrier of vegetables between New York and Staten Island, occasionally conveying passengers as well. . He prospered beyond his expectation, though not beyond his merit, for he was always on, the look-out for paying cargoes, and was 'diligent and capable. One of his strokes of ' luck, at this time was the obtaining of the contract for carrying* provisions 'to the- six forts around New York. He was doing so well that he ventured upon the important step of marrying. This was when he was twenty years of age, and the object of his choice was his cousin, Sophia Johnson, who. proved to be not only an excellent wife but a clever woman of business. Not long after his marriage he was able to build a small s'eftuoner for his growing carrying traffic, and became known among his intimates as Captain Vanderbilt, - for titles, were more the outcome of popular approval than of official recognition in those days. Then he took a little hotel in New Jersey, leaving his wife to manage it while _he was busy ' with his schooner. In three years after his marriage he was worth £2000. Then came the great change involved in the introduction of steam as a means of ship-pro-pulsion. At first young Vanderbilt took sides with those who sneered at the steamboat as a toy, but it did not take him long to revise his judgment. He saw that a revolution in water-transport was impending, and resolved to be one of the leaders. Ho he sold his interest in the v sailing vessels of which he had had charge', and began to look around for a steamer to command. But here he-was met with difficulties. A. monopoly of the use of the new motive power in the State of New York had been granted to Fulton and Livingstone, and their steamers were plying daily between New York and -Philadelphia, and other near ports. In opposition to these ships, and in spite of their legislative protection, a wealthy man named Thomas Gibbons started a line of steamers of his own, and there was for a time' much litigation and -fierce contention between the monopolists and -Gibbons.. Cornelius Variderbiit's...sympa-', thies were with Gibbons, and when/the latter was in want of a commander for his new steamer, The Mouse of the Mountains, he offered the post to Cornelius, who immediately accepted it, at a salary 1 of £200. a year. For the next twelve years Cornelius Vanderbilt was actively, employed in these steam shipping ventures, which, under his direction, ultimately paid the owner of the"me £8000 a year, Vand-er* bilt's salary being advanced to £400 a year. New Ideas. In those strenuous years Cornelius Yah-

! derbilt had learned much about the possibilities of the steamship ac a, moneyi maker, and had made up his mind to go "into tlie business himself. So in 1829, in spite ci the remonstrances and increased offers of Gibbons, and the entreaties of his wife, he quitted the service of his old master, and removed with his family to New York, where he began to build boats ,bf an improved pattern, and ran them in opposition to the old-established lines. For the first five years after leaving Gibbons he made £6000 a year. Soon after that he doubled his income; an<l so he -went on enlarging his vent-ores rear after year, and became a rich man. In a published list of the more active men of that day he was described as "Cornelius Vanderbil't, -worth £150:000, of an old Dutch root," of whom it was added, "He has evinced,more goaheaditiveness than any other single I Dutchman ever possessed. It takes our American hot suns to clear off the fogs and the vapours of the Zuyder.Zee, and wake up the phlegm of a descendant of old Hoii*land." A Start in , Wall Street. : In 1846, Captain Vanderbilt began to speculate in other things than steamships, venturing upon tlhe turbulent waters of Wall street, where by numerous brilliant manttuvres —notably in capturing certain railway interests, by which Ire secured practical control of large undertakings— he added largely to his wealth. His ships were steaming in and out in all directions. !He ran boats to Albany, and established lines to, Providence, Boston, Newport, and many other places. His greatest steamshipping venture, however, was the formation of the Nicaragua line, which shortened the route to the Pacific by 600 miles. Chit cf this speculation he made upwards of £200,000 a year. #At one time he had a fieet of- sixty-six steamers on his various lines, and the honorary titue of Commodore i was conferred upon him by his friends, and accepted and borne by him for the rest of his life. Hβ was nine years altogether in the Nicaragua shipping trade, out of which Ke is said to have_made £2,000,000. It was not all plain-sailing for him for all that. The Nicaragua Transit Co., to whom he sold a controlling share of the Nicaragua fleeb. at one time refused to pay him according to bargain, and as suing them would involve- great cost and delay, and something i like an international complication, he resolved upon adopting another mode of bringing them to their senses. Hβ accordingly wrote the following laconic epistle: —"Gentlemen, —You have undertoken to cheat mc. I won't sue you, for the law is too "slow. I will ruin you.— Yours truly, Cornelius Vanderbilt." He kept his woid; he put on a n,ew fleet of steamers, and in less than two years the Nicaragua Transit Co. were bankrupt. Goes "Solid" for Railway "Specs." When the Commodore went into railway speculation he sold all his ships f&r £600,000 in cash, and entered upon the most brilliant period of his career. Although nearly seventy years of age when he made his firsts great railway coup, his brain was as active us ever, and during the next fifteen years he succeeded in doubling his wealth four times. over. The Harlem Railroad, the Hudson River road, , and the New . York Central came successively under his sway, and under his energetic direction they prospered amazingly. . In 1869 he , declared a tremendous dividend of new stock, by which 80 per oent. was added to the value of the Hudson Biver. stock, and 170 per cent, to the value of the New York Central shares. He.' was able to say.before his death, rt l have, made a million dollars every year of my life, and -the. best of. it is that it has. been worth three times that to the people of the United States!" Commodore Vanderbilt liad three sons— William Henry, Cornelius Jeremiah, and George, but beyond giving them a fair education he did not evince any particular regard for them. In truth, towards William Henry and Cornelius he showed a positive dislike, looking on them both as deficient in intelligence and utterly incapable of any business career. For ithe youngest son/ he' displayed a' warmer feeling, and sent him to West Point and-entered him for 5 a military life-; but both Cornelius Jeremiah and. George died without accomplishing anything to add to the Vanderbilt fame, the latter'e health, giving way after exposure in the Civil War, and tihe former having all along been physically weak. It remained for William Henry, alone. 4ofeeetrtro the family name, but the father had little hope of Billy, 'as he called hint, treating him as a stupid, shiftless fellow, worthr »f no mention. .

The "Commodore's" Order to "W.H.V." At eighteen years of age, William Henry,. Vanderbilt was appointed to a clerkship in a Wall street bank, and, tyro years later, incurred the ■ displeasure of his father by marrying the daughter of a Brooklyn clergyman. William Henry was receiving | a salary of nineteen dollars a week,. and ' that was all; his father making, iidm.no allowance, and refusing to do anything f for him aftef diis marriage; so the young' "W.H.V. ,, Scores. - ' From this decision there was, of course, no appeal. The Commodore bought a farm of seventy acres of unmade land on Staten Island, and put. the young couple on it, and here for a number of years they continued to live and strive. Thus the millionaire, clerk and iris wife struggled on for many years, living most of the time in cheap boarding-houses. A day came, however, when* William Henry's ihealth gave way, and the doctor informed the Commodore that his son would have to be takes out of the bank if his life was to be saved. The Commodore looked sternly upon his son when nest they met, and said, "Well, Billy, what next?" "I; don't know," was' the answer. ''If you leave the bank what can you do? ,, the father enquired next. "Weil, I suppose I can manage to support the two of us." "The two of you," exclaimed the Commodore, angrily, 'Til tell you what the two of you will have to do; yo'u'll 'have to go and live on a farm; that's about all you are fit for." and his son lived their separate existences, the father steadily piling up has wealth, and the son working on at his farm hanky recognised. The years went slowly by until William Henry Vanderbilt, the farmer, became a man of forty-three, with a young family' growing up around him, and the Commodore, whenever he gave tibe son a thought, regarded him as a farmer and nothing eke. But one day about this time the son treated, the father to a slight surprise. The stupid boy, now forty-three years of age, managed to get the . better of his father in a certain financial transaction to the tune of half a million doQars, Aid this had the effect of changing the . Commodore's attitude towards ihis son from one of suspicion and,distrust to one of confidence and belief, and within three months of that time William Henry VandeTbilt was "in full control of his father's financial affairs, and displayed a capacity for handling and making money that showed him after all to be the true son of bis father. When the Commodore died, in 1877, at the age of eighty-two, he left to William Henry, then fifty-six years of age, a fortune of £15,000,000; and this immense fortune William Henry succeeded in more than doubling- in the eight years of life that were still left to him, dying in the magnificent, mansion that he bad erected for himself in, Fiftih Avenue, leaving to 'his children a fortune of £40,000,000, of which his eldest eon Cornelius received nearly £12,000,000; his second son, William Kissam Vanderbilt, £11,400,000, and to each of his six remaining children he gave £2,500,000; while his widow was provided with the yearly income of £40,000 for life, and the use of the family mansion. - The Sorrqws of a Miixioxaibb. Cornelius Vanderbilt, William Henry's eldest son, inherited in addition to his 'large fortune, a considerable share of the Vanderbilt faculty of money-making. At twentyone be was placed in the Treasurer's office of the New York Central, which had long previously been under the control of the Vahderbilts, and he had been, in that department thirteen years when his grandfather, the Commodore, died. After that he'was rapidly advanced to mare responsible positions, and, on the death of his father, in 1885, he became the head of the and in addition to holding the chairmanship of the Board of Control of the New .York Central and the Michigan Central Railways, he held- v important posts in connection with other lines run t>j the Vanderbilfc?. His father, William Henry Vanderbilt, had not been too happy with his immense wealth in his later years, having pathetically remarked on one occasion: "The care of two hundred million dollars if too great a load for any brain or back to bear; it is enough to kill a , man. There is no pleasure to be got put of it as an off-set —no good of any kind. ' I hare no real gratification ox enjoyment at

any sort more than my neighbour vrho iM worth only half a million. So when I lay down this heavy responsibility I want fliY sons fc> divide it and share the -worry Which it will cost to keep it." But the lortane which eacJi of the sons inherited, and which each of them, augmented year by year by the force of their immense holdings oCstock and their clever financial management, was hardly less of a burden than that which their'father had had to bear, for all of them proved themselves men of business capacity, and probably did not find the handling of their millions a task beyond their respective capacities. There'is always a. ready way out of the burd-ensomeness of money, but few choose to take it. As to Cornelius Vanderbilt, he continued to manage hie affairs with great ability down to the time of his death, in 1899, -b"y -which time he had increased his fortune to £20,000,000. A Cmr op ttte Old Block. There -was much of the sternness of spirit of the Commodore in his namesake the third Cornelius, -who had been trained in strict business habits, and was a great disciplinarian. He looked for the same obedience and submission in his own children, that his grandfather had looked for in his, and strongly resented baing crossed. To an extent he was proud and unbending. This was shown quite early in his career. At tho * time that he was employed in the Treasurers Office one of the managers happened to mention to the Commodore that his grandson was making a very clever clerk for them. "Why," said the Commodore, "this is the first I have heard of one of Bill's boys being with you. Which one is it?" "Cornelius/ , was the answer," "and a fine, manly lad he is, too." "Well," returned the Commodore, after a moment's thought, "I wish you would ask him to come agd see mc this, afternoon, before he goes home." When the young man arrived in the Commodore's office, the old gentleman expressed surprise at his having left school, and risked why he had not applied to hi* prandfather it he wanted a job? Young Cornelius looked serious. "I had made up my mind," lie said, quietly, "that T would not ask you for anything." This reply pleased the Commodore 'so much that a few days later he added a codicil io his will, by which a million dollars was left to the "grandson who had been independent enough to look out for himself. A Hard Sum.. Another instance- of the third Cornelius't stern view of life and its obligations wae manifested in his dealing with his own.eon, Cornelius tho. fourth, his eldest child. The latter married Miss Grace Wilson, a young lady of good family, but eleven years her husband's senior, some two years before the third Cornelius's death. The father made ,the most vigorous protest against the union, but all to no purpose, and after the marriage father and son -were never again on the old terms of affection, although many attempts were made to bring about- a reconciliation, and when the will of the father came to ba read it was found that for his act of disobedience the soto ■was pwnished by being displaced from the position of chief heir and head of the family, which -would otherwise have .been his, and the second son, Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt, was put in his place, inherita fortune o* £10,000,000, while the elder brother had only £300,000 left to him. All the other children received much larger shares. Alfred Q. Vanderbilt, however, prompted by brotherly affection, and for the sake of family harmony, gave Cornelius £1,200,000 out of his own fortune, and thus the punitive act of the father -was considerably ameliorated.

William Henry Vanderbilt's second son, William Kissam Vanderbilt, is now the head of the Vanderbilt family, and, in spite of his splendid gifts to his daughter, Consuelo, the Duchess of Marlborough, in the way of dowry, .and his liberal style of living, has managed his business affairs sufficiently well to pfill leave him with a fortune of £20,000,000. The younger son of William Henry Vanderbilt, George, who married about a couple of years ago, has, in addition to a magnificent mansion in New York ; built himself "a lordly pleasure bouse" at Biltmore, in the mountain region of North Carolina, at a cost of many millions. • The" estate comprises about 100",000 acres, and forms one ol the finest and most extensive private propertieai in the. country. It is -possible to drive t-t-rtw*-five miles .in a straight line from toe bouse without getting away from tbe estate. ■'..■-', The Vanderbilts,". with* . *heir n_me*fo_fl railway and other undertakings, representing colossal operations, hold' a most cony ma-ding position,. and, speaking generally, it may be said - for them that tbey, never forget their duties to the public while engaged in the great ,work of guarding 1 and. increasing their personal fortunes. The New York Central system, which the Vanderbilts have for so long! controlled successfully, is one of the best built tad best equipped lines in tbe States. This great railway, which, in 1831, was only seventeen miles in extent, and carried passengers at the maximum speed of fifteen miles an hour, now extends, with its .various connections, over an aggregate length of track of 10,430 miles; its equipment consists of 150,400 freight cars, 3600 passenger coaches,. baggage, mail, and express cars, and 3580 locomotives; and in 1899 it carried more than 62,000,000 passengers, and hauled over 103,000,000 toon of freight;