LIFE STORY OF W. R. GRACE

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1687, 29 June 1904, Page 47

LIFE STORY OF W. R. GRACE

A. CAREER OE ROMANTIC. ACHIEVE-

MENT.

(By' John Thompson, in "Woriel’s Work,” ' American Edition.) The late Mr William R. Grace was a merchant-adventurer of the Elizabethan type, who was born .in Ireland in 1833 of good family, ran away to. sea as a boy, later engaged in the South American trade, at one time had what was virtually a mortgage on Peru, and ultimately became a reform mayor of New York. He was noted as a boy for his adventurous disposition.. He wanted to enter the English Navy, but, since his father would not consent, ran away to sea-as a cook’s scullion on a clipper ship sailing for America, More than two years 0 later his father got tidings of him from ew York, where he had been just managing to scrape an existence. His father induced .him to'return home, and bought him an interest in a ship chandlery business in Liverpool, so that before the bay was of age he was a well-established business man. But the spirit of the Elizabethan adventurer was in him, and, tiring of placid business life, he seized an opportunity to go to Peru, where, aided by his father, ,he secured a place at Callao with Bryce and Co., ship chandlers and furnishers. Here his duty was to go out in a small boat to vessels entering the harbour and soli'cit orders.- He Avas soon so well liked by the ship captains with; whom he dealt that he had to be % takeU into the firm, which became Bryce, Grace and Co. While in Callao, he married Miss Gilchrist, the daughter of a Maine sea captain.

Peru -was rapidly developing. The national revenues from the guano deposits were so great that the government was undertaking important enterprises. Mr Grace "was able by his skill and by his foreign connections to make himself useful to the government and, incidentally, to become rich. But about 1839 he fell suddenly ill and went home to Ireland. There he fell under the influence of a religious sister, from whoni lie acquired a deeply religious feeling that was marked in all his later life. After about a year spent in aimless travelling he settled in New York. Heie he established the house of VV. R. Grace and Co., to act as the American correspondents for Bryce, Grace, and Co., of Callao, Peru, who still held their influential position, and were able to throw the whole business of buying the supplies needed for the Meiggs railroads and other great public enterprises into liis hands. In addition to this he became cue of the confidential financial advisers of'the Peruvian Government. W. R. Grace and Co. soon became the leading South American exporting house in the United States. Between 1875 and 1889 he armed and equipped the Peruvian army and sold to Peru many of the ships in her navy. Uuriner the war between Chile and Peru in 1879-80 he extemporised an additional Peruvian navy and kept both army and navy supplied with munitions of war. His interests in Peru continued to increase until, in 1880, with his brother, Mr Michael P. Grace, he succeeded in putting through the so-called GraceDonoughmore contract, by which Peru, having fallen into very bad financial troiibles, handed over to the- Peruvian Corporation, an English company, the control of the roads and drainage canals and some other important sources of national revenue in consideration .of the company's assuming the national debt. In cither words, for the time being Peru made an assignment of its resources to a private company in favour of its creditor.

Meamvliile, Mr Grace had built up in NeAV York a reputation as a good citizen and a leading export merchant. HeAvas popular among the dominant Irish element for his advocacy of Parnell and for the leading position he had taken in sending aid to famine-stricken Ireland. In 1880 an attempt Avas made to effect a union for campaign purposes betAveen and Tammany Halls, the tAvo Democratic organisations in the city. After much trouble it Avas agreed that Irving Hall should submit a list of ten names to Tammany Hall, from which Tammany was to select a union candidate for Mayor. Mr Grace Avas tenth on this list, for his name was put there more as a compliment than because any one really thought that he might be selected, as he had had no previous experience, was unknoAvn to a great majority of the voters, and Avas a Roman Catholic. But he was chosen andelected by a few hundred votes, becoming the first Roman Catholic mayor of Noav York.

He almost immediately fell out with . John Kelly, the Tammany leader, about patronage; and thereafter Tammany be* came his bitterest enemy. Moreover, the city government was bi-partisan andi in the hands of professional politicians who had no liking for clean government, so that Mr Grace found himself almost alone, having quarrelled with the party that had elected him and being intensely disliked and distrusted by his political opponents. His nrst administration was one long fight against organised vice. On his retirement he was cordially hated by every organisation in New York, yet he had succeeded in effecting more radical reforms in city administration than any other mayor. He reformed the Police He partment, and took away from it the cleaning of the streets, creating a special department for that purpose. He organised a counter-police in the major s office that kept a strict cut!go* ever all that both departments did, with the result that for the first time in history the streets were cleaned, and diye-s ot all kinds, swindling, and open vice became more nearly unknown th «n tn< i y bad evtr been before in recent years. The way in which he outwitted the Louisiana Lottery, the strongest and most highly organised and protected of all the vicious things in New York, was typical of all that he did. He got a warrant, and finally secured entrv to the offices of the Lottery. No one was found to arrest, and no incriminating evidence of any kind was obtained. But the safe was still there, though it was securely locked. Mr

Grace ,-had it brought to the City Hall. So much did the Lottery fear the revelations that would follow its opening, that they undertook to leave New York and never return if it should be returned unopened. Mr Grace promptly handed it ovei’, and the Lottery disappeared completely from the city. All this was a result quietly obtained that Avould otherwise have cost many reputations, much time, and more money, and that would have raised enmities on all sides. • Not only did Mayor Grace do all this, but he, at the same time, gave New York the lowest tax rate and the most efficient expenditure of appropriations that it had ever known. Needless to say, at the end of his term he was not re elected. In 1881- political conditions in New York were such that Mr Cleveland’s election to the presidency was in serious jeopardy. Mr Grace was asked by Mr Cleveland's friends if he would run for mayor and take the chances of defeat at Tammany's hands, but he refused. He expressed' iris willingness, however, to' lead an independent party, and, if nominated by it, to run and accept the endorsement of any other parties. The other candidates were Grant and Gibbs. Mr Grace won by about 10,000. It is -probable that his campaign determined the National election of 1884, but he never secured for himself or his friends any National patronage from Mr Cleveland. His second administration was like his first, a wholesale cleaning up cf the city offices. He made but one great mistakeopposing the proposed tremendous extension of the Park system, not thinking that the city would grow up to it rapidly enough to justify the enormous expense. Again on leaving office he was without a.parlv, but he had this time a great independent personal following.

After Mr Hewitt's term as mayor expired, Tammany offered the nomination to Mr Grace, but he refused it,., saying that a Tammany nomination would be impossible to- accept. And down- to the time of his death he was always in opposition to -Tammany. . Mr Grace continued interest in Peru, and was largely instrumental in the completion of its railroad system and the development of the great Cerro de Pasco Mines. He had been one of the .organisers of the line of vessels plying between New York and the west coast of South America, an organiser of the Lincoln Safe Deposit Company, and of the great Terminal Warehouse Company. He was a director in the Ne\v York Life Insurance Co. He controlled the IngersollSargent Rock Drill Co., and made of it a prosperous (joncern. And he was the leading spirit in the last effort to build a Nicaragua canal by private enterprise. Mr Grace was deeply interested in religious matters, and was one of the most steady supports of the Catholic Church in America, though lie was, not in favour of any religious influence in the public schools. He was very charitable,, and endowed several religious institu-t tions.

Strong will and belief in his own capacity, and a cautious calculating Avillijjgness to take any risk, were the chief elements in a character that achieved, marked success in all that it undertook, and that - will he remembered as one cf the most capable and honest than have ever had a commanding position in New York politics. The spirit of the Elizabethan adventurer,. however, was always alive in W. R. Grace, as it was in his brothers.

When Mr Grace Avas Mayor of New York, his brother, Michael P., Avas the greatest power in Peruvian politics, and another brother, Dr Morgan Grace, Avas a leader in one of the New Zealand cabinets.