The Sunday Oregonian. (Portland, Ore.) 1881-current, October 03, 1909, SECTION FIVE, Page 2, Image 56

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    Eld win Hawley the man who is looked fo to
take in a large way the place left -vacant by
E. Harriman B. F; Yoakum another
coming railroad king How their sons are
taking up the work of J. P Morgan and
William Rockefeller. ' .
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Hilal "'fcsli '
BT E. J. EDWARDS.
HOW rapidly the men who have "cre
ated many of the (treat and dis
tinctive American industries and
railway corporations are passing along!
John D. Rockefeller Is.ln retirement play
ing olf. carefully nursing his health and
; hoping that the prediction of his physi
cian, that he will live until he is 90 years
rf age and be in possession of all his
faculties, will turn out an accurate one.
His brother, William Rockefeller, has re
I tired from many of the corporations with
I which he was associated and helped to
build up. H. H. Rogers is dead. So Is
that wonderful autocrat of sugar. H. O.
. Havemeyer. So is E. H. Harriman. The
Vanderbilt railway regime is ending. A
new element is in control of 'the Pennsyl
vanla Railroad.
Tt was Commodore Vanderbilt who said
that It was easier to build up a great
property than to take care of it after it
was built up. and he also said thHt it was
Teallv harder work to take care of a
great railway system after it had been
created than it was to create it. Tt is
certain that If the country's great in
dustrial and railway institutions are to
be as successfully carried on as they
were created, there must be a younger
Feneration to take the helm. And if
these younger men succeed, then the time
Is coming when their names will be as
well known, when they will be as much
; talked about, as the Rockefellers, the
Morgans, and their other Internationally
famous predecessors.
Many persons have asked this question
. 'Who are the men who are going to suc
ceed, or who have succeeded. John D.
; and William Rockefeller. II. H. Rogers.
, John D. Archbold, in the Standard Oil
Company?"
After John Tt. Rockefeller retired, and
. after the death of Henry H. Rogers, it
became known to those intimately ac.
, quainted with Its affairs that the two
I new and powerful forces In the Standard
; Oil Company were to be James Andrew
Moffett and Henry Clay Folger. Jr. Mr.
I Moffett's name has been somewhat fa-
! miliar to the public for some time because
! be stood the brunt of that tremendous
' and unprecedented litigation In which
the Government prosecuted one of the
' subordinate companies of the Standard
' Oil. contacted it, and secured the fmposi-
tfon of the now historic fine of J29.OOO.0XI.
But it was not until Henry Clay Folger,
i Jr., was recently placed in a very re
sponsible position, making him one of the
i great executive authorities in the Stand-
ard Oil Company, that his name began
. to be mentioned beyondj the circle of his
business and social friends and acquaint
ances. Yet he is the man who probably
is ultimately to stand very much In the
same relation to Site Standard Oil Com
pany which John D. Rockefeller once did.
ew John I. of the Oil Business.
XEW JOHN D. OF THE OIL, BUSINESS
When John D. Rockefeller was first
expanding the Standard Oil Company of
Cleveland into the greater Institution,' a
bright-eyed, studious boy was preparing
at an academy in Brooklyn. N. Y., his
birthplace, for a college career. He was
conspicuous among his classmates for his
fondness for literature. They used to
aee hhn reading Shakespeare, and it -was
aid of him that when Edwin Booth
played his Shakespearean parts this boy.
Henry Clay Folger. Jr.. always managed
to see and hear Booth. The academy
youngsters thought he was sure to have
literary career, and that. too. was the
opinion that young Folger's classmates at
Amherst College formed of him. You
. can find out how his collegemates re
garded him by looking at the Amherst
catalogue for the year 18T9. In it young
Folger's name appears as one of the edi
tors of the Amherst Student. That was
a very literary journal, one of the best
of the college publications, .and some of
the best work upon it was done by Editor
" Folger.
But there wre some who recognixed
' another kind of ability in this student.
He had a wonderful facility for figures
and for mathematics. The most abstruse
mathematical works had no terrors for
him. He stood first in his classes as a
mathematician as he stood the first in
his college as a writer and editor. For
this reason he wears to this day the Phi
Beta Kappa key. He is one of the rare
ones among the men who are foremost in
American industrial leadership who have
the right to wear thia coveted badge
of high scholarship.
After h waa graduated from college,
tt I il ' - J ' "WsssTf ii Hfi in tf ' f'i '
the question with young Folger - was in
what direction lay his best career. He
was tempted towards the law. There are
lawyers in New York City today who
remember young Folger taking the nislit
course lectures at the New York Law
I School, so that it seems to be the fact
that at one time he very seriously
thought his career lay In the practice of
law.
But something was whispering to the
young man. some inrfer impulse, some
first real consciousness Of his ability.
' that bis career lay in the direct-ton of
American industrial activity. Almost
cfl-sually his attention was attracted to
i the question of the manner in which pe
troleum is produced, and what it costs
to produce It. and he had not given a
month's attention to this subject before
he discovered' that it offered to him a
most fascinating study. He shut his law
books and began a systematic study of
the yields and the costs In the field or
petroleum and of Its products. In other
words, he was becoming an expert au
thority on the production of oil, crude
and refined, and particularly of ' what
were waste products, now converted fnto
one of the most profitable of all of the
products of the Standard Oil plants.
Folger Beoofnes Standard Oil Man.
In a little while it became known to
the men who were producing refined oil
that this young graduate of Amherst,
who had studied law and who had also
served as a clerk for Charles Pratt, for
many years a refiner of petroleum oil
and one of the great forces who after
wards Joined with John D. Rockefeller,
had made himself a master of the sub
ject of yields and the costs of petroleum
and its various products. That knowl
edge brought to Mr. Folger the offer of
the secretaryship of the manufacturing
board of the Standard OH Company.
But he held this clerical position only a
short time. The Standard Oil leaders
discovered that the secretary of the
manufacturing board was a student and a
thinker, so they placed him in associa
tion with Charles Vose as joint manager
of the great Standard Oil works that
were located in the Williamsburg district
of Brooklyn.
Once a Joint manager of this great unit
of the Standard. Mr. Folger showed him
self to possess the same kind of mathe
matical mind that nature gave to E. H.
Harriman. A master of details. Mr.
Harriman. in the heydey of his power,
grouped, assimilated and based a Judg
ment upon any mass of figures brought
to him by his subordinates, as quick as
thought. Likewise, when Manager Fol
ger's assistants brought him a mass of
figures, great tables of statistics, it seem
ed as though, by simply running his eye
over them, he could Instantly grasp the
Inner meaning of them and was able to
act accordingly. In fact, within five years
after he had been placed In the manage
ment of the. Standard Oil refineries in
Brooklyn, Mr. Rockefeller, Mr. Archbold.
Mr. Rogers, and the other leaders In the
Standard Oil group began topeak of him
as a coming man. In time they placed
him at the head of the manufacturing
board, and recently be was elected a
director of the Standard Oil fcompany.
Some persons who profess to know de
clare this election practically made him
the director, the powerful, thinking, con
structive force of Standard Oil. It is
true that his mental grasp is upon every
detail of that gigantic corporation.
From Oil to Shakespeare.
Naturally. Mr. Folger Is a loyal Stan
dard Oil man, but during all the years
that he has been mastering tue almost
infinite details of the business of produc
ing, refining and marketing oil, he has
also been serving another master. That
master is Shakespeare, and of him and
his work Mr. Folger has been a lifelong.
enthusiastic and indefatigable student.
If a. Shakespearian authority, or a man
having in his possession what is said to
be a rare folio of Shakespeare's plays,
were to cull upon Mr. Folger in the busi
est hour ef the forenoon, he would And
that, busy as he was, he could still spare
a few moments to look at the folio or to
talk Shakespeare. Mr. Folger's evenings
are often spent in critical study of va
rious editions of Shakespeare. Some
times he takes up his pen so that he may
put upon paper the results of his study.
and in that way he has written several
important monographs upon Shakespeare's
works. These have given him a high
reputation In the leading Shakespearian
TITE SUNDAY OREGOXIAX, PORTLAND, OCTOBER 3, 1909.
- ' ' .. .
m..
associations of Great Britain and of the
United States.
Mr. Folger, while as much an admirer
of art as pome of its most noted collect
ors, has concentrated much of his work
as acollector upon Shakespeariana., He
is undoubtedly America's first authority
upon that subject. There is in the United
States not a larger or finer Shaker
pearian library' than is bis, and only
one or two in Great Britain that are
deemed of greater consequence. The
library today numbers 30,000 volumes,
and Mr. Folger. even when in the dark,
can put his hands upon any volume
that he wants.
Mr. Folger is now just 51 years of age.
and his home is now, as always from the
time of birth, in the Borough of Brook
lyn, a home where men and women of
high cultivation, and especially of literary
tastes and accomplishments, often meet.
Persons who have been his guests de
clare that he Is splendid company, a
man of unusually genial and cordial
presence. It Is said of him that he
makes1 any one with whom he is brought
In contact feel In a little, while as though
he were in the company of an Intimate
friend.
Moffett Impoverished Farmer's Son.
The true companion and associate, the
rear joint leader with Mr. Folger in the
new Standard Oil of the younger gener
ation, is James Anarew Moffett. He Is a
little older than Mr. Folger, having been
born in 1S51 in Pocahontas County. Vir
ginia. He is of Scotch-Irish descent on
his father's sld-i, while on the distaff side
his ancestry is English. This is often a
most fortunate ancestry, and from 1t
have come many of the greater leaders
of American industry and commerce.
Mr. Moffett was too young to servo In
the Civil War, for he was only 10 years
of age when the war broke out, but he
saw enough of its' ravages and horrors
to furnish him thrilling and romantic re
collections which . he sometimes Imparts
to his fr'ends. He was of school age
then, but he was obliged to rely entirely
upon the little private schools of the
South for his education. In them he
could not get the most satisfactory edu
cation possible at that time, since the
schools were likely to be interrupted at
any time by the approach of armies and
the danger of impending battle.
While he was going to school and, boy
fashion, giving heed to the war rumors
and clashes that were thick around him,
he frequently wondered what he would
do after his school days were over. The
war itself solved the problem for him.
His father was a farmer, and naturally
enough his farm was not in the best of
condition at the close of the war. So
young Moffett. when he was 15 years of
age. took off his coat and set out to
become a farmer's boy, and there is no
feature of Southern farm life with which
he was not then made familiar.
1 As a farm boy he worked so bard, and
yet so economically, In the sense that he
mads every stroke of work count, that
1
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--yMi-v ri,,"
some of the veteran farmers who were
neighbors of his father predicted that
some day the boy would be the owner of
a good-sized farm and would get rich,
as riches counted in those parts at that
time. He was always looking for a way
in which to economize time and to g!t
the most possible out of the soil, and on
these methods the ancient tillers of the
soil based their prophesies.
But nearby, when Mr. Moffett was
about 19 years of age, began some of the
first developments of the oil fields of
West Virginia. The youngster was at
tracted to them almost exactly as, at the
same time, young Henry C. Frick was
attracted to the coke fields which were
not very far away, and he was taken into
the employ of one o the oil companies
of Parkersburg.
Moffett's Golden Opportunity.
In a little while after that the managers
of the Standard Oil Company got their
eyes fixed upon him. Moffett uncon
sciously forced that company to see him.
and all because a golden opportunity had
come to him, and he had seized ift
There was a big oil refinery in Parkers
burg which had a pretty capable super
intendent. That was in the days when
there were a great many Independent re
fineries and very lively competition, some
of it of the cut-throat order. Rival oil
companies did not hesitate to tempt away
from other concerns men who were com
petent and experienced. And so one of
the great oil companies secretly ap
proached the superintendent of young
Moffett's company and made him a
tempting offer, conditioned upon his
promise to take the offer immediately. It
wag thought that the departure of this
superintendent would demoralize the rival
concern and destroy the competition
which it had successfully carried on. This
was regarded at the time as fair compe
tition. The superintendent went over without
warning to the new company, and he did
something else which was also regarded
as fair play at that time. He took over
with him a majority of the skilled men
of the refinery. As a result. It looked for
a day or two as though he had prac
tically destroyed, at least for a while, the
efficiency of the refinery of which he had
been superintendent.
But he did not know that there was a
youngster employed in that refinery wlTo
thought be could make goody Young
Moffett was then only in his tarly 20s,
and his place was a relatively subordinate
one, but he had mastered it. Not only
that nobody but himself knew that he
had made himself really an understudy
for every important position in the re
finery. So when the crisis came he saw
his opportunity and went after it.
I think I can run the refinery, if you
will let me," he said to the managers.
They looked at him a moment in amaze
ment. But when he told them a few
things about the business they Joyfully
recognized in him a very Industrious and
competent young refiner. So they told
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III
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V TAKE HIS fA TUSKS rNANClAL BltDCNi
him to jump Into the breach and see
what he could do. Within a month he
proved himself a veritable young captain
of industry he saved the refinery from
demoralization.
That was young Moffett's business be
ginning. The executive officers of the
Standard Oil Company promptly nabbed
him and sent him to the Pratt Refining
Company, of Brooklyn. He wasn't there
very long before the promise which he
had brought from Parkersburg of high
ability was proved filled. Then he was
made a member of the manufacturing
committee of the Standard Oil Company,
a very important post. He ws prac
tically self-taught, but he had. appar
ently, an inbprn gift for executive action
and administration.
There came a time when enormous re
fineries were established at Whiting. Ind.,
Just over the Illinois line, and within the
Chicago district. These refineries were
taking 30,000 barrels of crude oil a day
arid converting it into refined oil. This
enormous branch of the Standard Oil was
placed under the charge of Mr. Moffett
when he was only 39 years of age. Here
he mastered the oil business so far as the
executive direction and administration of
Its enormous sales were concerned, so
that after a brief interval, when he went
to New York as one of the directors of
the Standard Oil Company, wnen just 50
years of age, he was elected president of
the Indiana company, whose great re
fineries were at Whiting.
That presidency brought Mr. Moffett
directly into conspicuous notice at the
time of the Government prosecution of
the Indiana company, which resulted in
the $29,000,000 fine. In this trial he was
the great defendast, and it was the de
fense which he prepared and the ex
haustive statement which he made for
the instruction of counsel, upon which
the United States Appellate Court re
versed the trial and set aside the sentence
of the fine.
Moffett Succeeds Kogers.
When H. H. Rogers began to let up
in his activities in Standrad Oil, so that
he might have greater opportunity to
build his tidewater railroad from the
coal fields of West Virginia to Nor
folk, Mr. Moffett was placed in charge
of the supervision of the Standard Qil
transportation department. The busi
ness of this department is colossal and
very detailed. It was one of which Mr.
Rogers was the complete master, and
the question was whether it would be
possible to find any one who would be
able to carry on the truly difficult work
with the brilliant success with which
Mr. Rogers had done It. But so suc
cessful was Mr. Moffett that he was not
only elected vice-president of the Stand
ard Oil, taking the place formerly held
by Mr. Rogers, but he also succeeded to
almost all of -..e offices held by Mr.
Rogers at the time of his death. There
are a good many of these offices; any
one of them would be thought sufficient
business for a capable and energetic
Henry Clay Folger, Jr., and James A. Mofett
the two new leaders in Standard Oil-FoIger
is to be the new John D., and Moffett the
new H. H. Rogers of .Oil Moffett a former
farmers boy Folger is one of the world's
best known Shakesperian
man. 1 or example, there are the presi
dencies of the Southern Pipe Lino Com
pany, of the Northern Pipe Line Com
pany, of the Southwestern Pennsylvania
Pipe Line Company, and seven others.
It takes an intellect and temperament
of unusual administrative and execu
tive power successfully to handle and
economically to direct business of this
kind.
In 1S72. when Mr. Moffett entered into
the oil business, the first Standard Oil
Company had been in existence only two
years. In all the time that he was in
West Virginia, the various problems in
volved ir: the oil biiMine had been theo
retically worked out. His work has been
c;;!efly that of an executive and an ad
ministrator, and how great a work it is
may be ;udged from trio fact that In the
26 years since he became a member of
the ' manufacturing comrr.ittce of the
Standard Oil- that company has sold In
otjier countries than the Urited States
refined oil of the money value of $1,500,
000.000. In the transiwrtation of this re
fined oil to other parts of the world, ::s
well as in the piping of crude oil from the
wells to the refineries. Mr. Moffett has
been the chief Directing figure. Now he
and Mr. Folger are to he the new suc
ceeding forces in the work laid down by
the men who created this greatest of
world industries, with the possible excep
tion of the United States Stoel Company.
Mr. Moffett's family consists of his
wif and three children, two sons and a
daughter. OutsiHe of his family, his chief
interest, is in the Masonic fraternity, al
though he is an enthusiastic member of
the Virginia' and Southern societies of
New York City.
Fuutre Sugar King.
So much for oil, our greatest trust. As
for sugar, after the death of Henry O.
Havenieyor, who was the first, and to
his death, the only president of what
was our first great trust, the question
was whether aryene would come for-
ward competently to succeed Mr. Have- Hawley's transcontinental line will pass
meyer in the direction of that corpora- if he succeeds in getting it through; and
tion." because of his knowledge of this region
His successor in- the presidency is Mr. Yakum's name gives promise of he
Washington B. Thomss, who has been jng prominently coupled with Edwin
little in the public eye, and not at all Hawley's.
until he became conspicuous through the i Everybody in the business world knows
choice of him, two years ago, as the
successor of Henry O. Havemeyer. But
there is reason for believing that the
true and ultimate successor is to be Hor
ace Havemeyer, a young man of whom
tlie public has heard practically nothing.
The eldest of Henry O. Havemeyer's
sons, Horace, inherited his father's fond
ness for music, and especially for the
violin. The elder Havemeyer was one of
the best of .American connoisseurs on
violins and violin music. So, also, the
son. like the father, is fond of hunting,
and has the same enthusiastic delight in
natural scenery and landscape gardening
which characterized Henry O. Have
meyer. But it was not thought that the
young man would take any special Inter
est in the business of refining and mar
keting sugar, although sugar and the
name Havemever have been almost svn-
I onymous terms since the first Have
meyer began to refine In a small way
raw' sugar in a little factory near the
Hudson River in New York City.
Yet after his fathers death young
Havemeyer all of a sudden seemed to
realize the responsibilities, or the op
portunities, that were at his hand. The
managers of the sugar company were
told by him that he wanted to learn
the business. He declared that he was
going to do exactly what his father
did master the mechanical and the
chemical features of the refining of
sugar, and learn all about the great
sugar fields of the world, those of
Cuba, Louisiana, Sumatra and the
Philippines. But in addition to that
he wanted to know how to sell sugar,
how to meet and down competition; so
President Thomas placed him in charge
of the sales department, where he has
been serving for some months.
He is so utterly unlike his father, whose
step was quick and heavy, whose manner
was autocratic, although he could be
very kindly, that it was at first a matter
of some doubt whether the son would
have the aggressiveness and the fore
sightedness and the command of re
sources which are necessary if one is to
be a great salesman. But it is now said
in the offices of the sugar company that
the young man has developed great
ability as a salesman, and it is expected
that after he has mastered this depart
ment he will be transferred to soma
scholars.
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other, perhaps the manufacturing or ths
transportation department.
At all events Horace Havemeyer is now
looked upon as the heir presumptive to
the throno so long occupied by his father.
And he is so quiet a youiiK man. so in
different to what are called' social pleas
ures, that he is one of the few sons of
very rich and very successful men with
whose names the public has not been
made familiar.
Coming King of the Kailvmy World.
Oil--9ugar. What of Railroads?
The day after the death of E. H. Harri
man one of the great men of finance,
standing at the desk of one of the most
powerful of American bankers, asked:
"Is there any man In the railway world
today who is likely to stand in the public
eye as conspicuously as E. H. Harriman
did?"
The great hanker thought a moment.
Then he said: "You want constantly to
keep Edwin Hawley in mind. The
chances are that he may build the first
through transcontinental railway line."
If Mr. Hawley should do this he will
have accomplished the very thins upon
which Mr. Harriman's ambition centered.
It was in his close and confidential re
lations with C. P. Huntington that Mr.
Hawley revealed his great power as a
railway constructor. And so great was
the confidence of Mr. Huntington and
Bince ills death of those who control the
Huntington estate in Mr. Hawley that
he has been able to make, since Mr.
Huntington's death, the great advances
towards a through transcontinental sys
tem which have already caused him to
he much talked about in railway and
financial circles.
These circles are also keeping their
eye n Benjamin F. Yukum. They ara
doing this because they declare that
there is no man who better understands
railway conditions of the Middle West
and the. Southwest than does Mr. lakum.
it is through the Southwest that Mr.
that William G. Rockefeller, the only son
ed William Rockefeller, is gradually tak
ing his father's place upon the director
ates of many corporations with which
the senior Rockefeller was associated.
The younger Rockefeller is especially
identified with the Standard Oil Com
pany, but, what with attending numerous
board meetings all the wcck long, he Is
about as busy a young man as is to bo
found in this country.
In fact, young Rockefeller is so ab
sorbed in business that he Is almost
never heard of in connection with what
are called gentlemen's sports. He lives
the year round in a beautiful country
place at Greenwich. Conn. Ho is said
to have the largest and best collection
of auto'nobiles of nil the men of wealth
who live in the suburbs of New York,
but he uses the machines chiefly fur
rapid traveling hack and forth between
his house and the railway station.
As for J. rieipont Morgan, It is com
mon knowledge that the young man who
bears his name Is gradually hut sun ly
qualifying himself to take his father's
place In the world's affairs, and already
many of the details of the senior Mor
gan's Interest have been committed to
the care of the son.
(Copyright. li"05. by E. J. Edwards.)
BOTHA BUYS CHOICE STOCK
Famous Boer General Takes Sheep
Hack to Africn.
PARIS, Oct. 2. (Special.) General
Botha, who arrived here some davs ago.
6pent several hours at the National
Sheep Farm. In Rambouillot, where ha
purchased a number of rams for his farm
in the Transvaal. During the transaction
he pointed out two or three specimens
which he wanted, but the director smiled
and declared that he could not part with,
them, as they were the very liuest In
the flock.
General Botha appeared delighted at
this evidence of his expertness. and re
marked. "I am not a general nor s
minister. I am a good farmer, and thai
Is what Interests me." He has levffi
Paris for Holland,
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