TEN PAGES NEWS FROM FOREIGN LANDS SECTION FOUR - NEWS OP THE THEATRES AUTOMOBILE NEWS . PORTLAND,. OREGON, SUNDAY MORNING, SEPTEMBER 28, 1913. ROM DRIVING HORSE CARS TO MILLIONAIRE CAREER OF A. WELCH Industry, Ambition, Hard Study and . Foresight Bring Sue cess to Man Not Yet 50, What dreiuns ot future power flocked through the head of Alvadore Welch when he waa throwing the blacksnake acroRB the haunches of his nonchalant xai-horsea 16 years ago, probably were no more ambitious than the dreams of every normal youth who ever worked for hire. That some of these visions came true m Welch's caBe is due by no means to chance, If the verdict of his business associates is true. Mr. Welch was , christened Alvadore which Is now taken to account for his use of the tingle initial "A." He has offices at Room 1313 Yeon building, but declares that unlucky numbers never give him a thrill of buperstitious fore . bodhifc, That he is reckoned to be worth his million, that he began with practically nothing- and worked at the hardest of hard labor while he was learning how to command men and capital, e.11 means, his close friends Fay, that what he lacked in- college lore he made up In horse game and the abll ity to stand rouph knocks. - "How did you happen to get into the electrical and power development busi ness?" Mr. Welch was asked the other day. "Well, maybe it was because one of 'my first Jobs was firing a boiler at an electric plant back in Danville, 111., he answered. "I worked at that a while be cause 1 had learned to tend a boiler when I was firing on a railroad before that. One thing works a fellow into another, you know, and when I came west, I turned to that line because it was the line I know best." It was 21 years ago In October that Mr. Welch found himself in Spokane, working for the electric light company, in no lofty capacity. He remained there a year or so with the Thomson-Houston i,,peopJe and then spent some time all up and down the coast, installing elec tric motors, and taking care of what ever oads and ends of electrical work he could do. Fred W. Newell used to own the As toria street car line some 20 years ago, .and it was with him that Mr. Welch began his real career. Welch Was Student. "I never felt I wanted to work for wages all my life," Mr. Welch says, when he talks about those days. "That's why I used to study so much." And Mr. Newell likes to tell how Welch used to pore over books on elec tricity and . engineering, pencil and paper in hand, solving problems of horee power and kinetic energy, using a bit of fctring and the straight edge of an envelope to draw his diagrams. "H drove the street oar in the days f the horse," Mrr W6iHra4 thethr day. "Part of the time he was night hostler at the stables, currying the horses, getting them ready for the tiight relief, talcing them back into the barn and bedding them down for the night. It was in between times that .he would do his studying, and he knew a lot about the theory of electricity be fore he quit the horses." Trades Jobs Wltb Firemen. After he had been working at the barns and on the cars for a long time, doing all the "heavies," helping pry derailed cars back to the tracks on rainy nights, mending harness, nailing new boards on car platforms, Impro vising devices to make the service better, one of the firemen became dis satisfied with his Job and wanted to get outdoors. That was when the system had been rlectrlfieo. and Mr. Welfh was occupy ing the dizzy heights of being a motor man. So Welch traded jobs with the fireman. All this was ngreeaole to Mr. Newell, and it wasn't long before Welch, already versed in the rudiments of electricity, was making all sorts of little devices to demonstrate what the books were teaching him. "I used to go past the power house sometimes of a night," said Mr. Newell, "and often I would see Welch hard at work on some technical book. That was one of the things that made me like him he never failed in the work at hand, but he always found time to add to his knowledge. Then one day I discharged my chief engineer because he was inattentive to business and .gen erally unsatisfactory. Welch Becomea Chief Engineer, "Welch came to me and told me he wanted the Job. I asked him If he thought he could take care of It. and he was very positive that he could. So I let him try it. Although ha had no teaching in electrical matters except what he had taught himself through his reading and experiments, before he had been on the new Job a week he had the system running better than It ever had been .run since its electrification. From that time on he was constantly rising. And now Mr. Welch, at 47, Is head of a dozen, enterprises, trolley lines, gag plants, waterworks, electrlo light and power' companies, power sites and . land companies. His sobriquet ot "railroad ltlUde', came from his build ing of the .beginnings of the Portland, Eugene Eastern northward from Eugene and of the Oregon Electrlo northward from Salem. To his percep tion of the possibilities of these two projects probably is due their later acquisition by the Southern Pacific and the H1U interests, respectively. Development Is Foreseen. "I have always said that when Ore gon has as many miles of railroads as Washington has, she will have a popu lation many times as great," he says. -.' "Washington has nearly four times the mileage that Oregdn has and Washing ton Is more highly developed. Oregon's timber BUpply has hardly been touched Washington's is nearing its finish. The Willamette valley alone should and will become the home of 3,000,000 people within a few years. "All It needs is railroads to bring out the produce these people are to raise. Just take a trip over the elec tric lines that1 are now In operation nd see how the big farms have been : divided into small farms, how the vil lages have grown into towns, how the , canning factories and the creameries r and the little factories have sprung up PROMOTER ROSE BY UNASSISTED EFFORT . , . , y 1 : if v .- f it XM&mmm - V" - js Alvadore Welch. and grown to prominence. l"That's, the best argurr extension of electric lines. More peo pie are living on the land ' and' are making bigger and better livings from the land than ever before. - The day of the enormous - cattle range -will pass Just , a aooa as the, electrlo railway finds universal extension. That means a blgeer population, better business, better living." Strikes Oat ror Himself. When Mr. Welch quit the Astoria traction system, having grown weary of ...e hardships of a fixed salary and a small one at that, he started an engi neering business for himself in Port land. Along with this he installed an agency for the clllng of electrical ma chinery. This project was not so suc cessful as others, because Mr. Welch was not the most assiduous of salesmen. The idea of traveling over the coun try asking people to buy his wares was not the sort of work that appealed to him and it was not long before ho dis covered that4f ever he was going to cut a real swath, he must get into an other line, m He had saved enough and made enough, however, to -get hold of the Baker light plant He waa not alone in this, but managed to Interest enough capital to put the deal over. The power that lighted Baker was then generated by steam, and it was one of Mr. Welch's first tasks to change It to water power. This done, he extended transmission ines to La Grande, and the towns on through to Cove. Three years later he bought the falem Light & Power com pany and a number of gas plants. Oregon Eleotrlo Started. Then It was that he started the Ore gon Electric, building seven miles of It northward. With this project fairly started, he sold it. with the Salem plant, to Moffatt & White of New York, who in turn transferred the railroad to the Hill interests. The Baker light plant and Its adja cent connections became a sort of financial football for Mr. Welch and his associates, who had it, sold it, ac quired It again and disposed of it sev eral times over. In between his deals n eastern Oregon he organized the Willamette Valley company, , which bought small light, water and trans mission propositions and built them up nto new properties. This company s holdings were represented ut Cottage Grove, Eugene, Springfield, Dallas, Independence, Albany and other valley cities. His next project was the organization of the Northwest corporation, which In cluded ownership of water, light and power properties at Baker, Walla Walla, Pendleton, North Yakima, Lewlston, and other cities of eastern Washington and Oregon and Western Idaho. v Properties Bold At Profit. All these properties, further devel oped and extended, . were transferred in one big deal to the Bxllnshy company at a profit of something like $1,000,000. It. has been estimated that Mr. Welch's personal share of this exceeded $200, 000, which represented a commission on both his money Invested and on bis .genius in organization and develop ment. The beginnings of the P. E. & E. be came Mr. Welch's next conoeptlon. He started in with an associate who was to furnish half the money for an elec trlo line northward from Eugene. But the associate took cognizance of the troublous financial times, of the un certainties of getting a connection to make the line of. value, and presently withdrew. Builds line Himself. "And so I buiU the line from Eugene to Monroe myself." said Mr. Welch. "It was a big undertaking for one man, but somehow I got through. Be fore the line was finished I sold it to Mr. Strahorn and his associates. It Is now affiliated with the Southern Pacific." Then Mr.- Welch bought back the Salem public utility plant and presently acquired the Seaside light and telephone system. Mr. Welch Is not strong for remem bering the dates of air these Ventures, he says dates make little difference, anyway, But about.two years ago he organized the Douglas County Light company, then acquired for the second time the Roseburg plants, and organ ized the Twin City Light & Traction company at Centralla and Chehalls, Wash. ' By the water power developed nearby he secured plenty of energy for the trolley line between the two cities and the Vancouver, Wash., Traction company came into hta control. Ion' Company Formed, The Washington-Oregon , corporation wax formed to are for these Washing ton' traction projects and Is the basis of the Portland-Seattle Interurban pro JecJr now under way. -By a . pending reorganization of this company. Mr, elch retires aigeneral . manager to care for the traction features of the business, leaving the well-established and dividend-paying gas, electric light and water subsidiaries to his asso ciates. Among the other projects in which Mr. Welch has been interested are water power mid light companies in Idaho, which he has disposed of to a local corporation styled the Big Bend Light & Power company. Picks Trustworthy Men, "One of the reasons Mr. Welch has been almost uninterruptedly success ful," Biiid a business associate, "is that he always picks men whom he can trust. If he can't trust you, he doesn't keep you. He will pay your salary without question, but as soon as he feels that yon are not playing square, you had better find a berth elsewhere. Ho 'puts4fce)pk- squarely to the man he assigns to do a certain task. Then he doesn't bother with It any more until he gets results. If he doesn't get them he merely puts mome one else on the Job. "On of the characteristics Mr. Welch has always displayed in organizing a new company or building a project is caution. He lakes plenty of time to consider and when he Is through con sidering he. goes fast. What he loses In speed at first he makes up afterward in energy. Besides that he Is reckoned a good trader, so that whatever he touches brings in some overplus when he lets go." Welch Broad Minded. "Another thing that has made him successful without being branded as being unfair, is that he is always will ing to let the other fellow make a profit, too," said another associate who sometimes works for him and some times with him. "I doubt If a single man who hits had any business rela tions with him in the dozens of big deals he has put across would ever think or say he got the worst of It. And yet Mr. Welch has prospered he has taken advantage of opportunities that everyone else could have seized if they had the vision, the grit and the power to 'put it over.' " Mr. Welch in still Under BO and hard ly looks 40. He has a fine home In Portland, and six children hay, come into his family. Some of theso have children too, and Mr. Welch grins every time he says: "I am a grandfather." "I guess I worked at every Job thre is around a light plant," Mr. Welch said the other day. "You may be sure I had lots of hard work to do, chuck ing cordwood Into the engine hollers, winding armatures, manning the front end of streetcars, greasing tracks, lay ing rails, everything that a roustabout has to do. I'm glad of it now, be cause It gave me such a good idea of what it- meant to take care of the bigger things that have come up since." PASTOR KUHLMAN IS ACQUITTED BY FELLOWS Eugene, Or.. Sept 27 TI W. Kuhl man, Methodist pastor at Tillamook, who was arrested . In Portland In Au gust on a charge of accosting women, end who was convicted by a Jury com posed of three ministers; three news paper men and a woman social worker, was today acquitted by the Methodlet conference in session here. The con ference went into executive session to try the case. Kuhlman ittd not appear. Ho will bo appointed to a charge for the coming year. ; The Laymen's association of tho con ference held a meeting which was ad dressed by Bishop Cooke and presided over by R. A. Booth of Eugene. The relation of the laymen to the working order of tho church and cooperation with "the ministry were the subjects discussed. Another session was devoted to cele brating the successful . completion of the endowment campaign Cor Willam ette university. Last night an anniver sary meeting of" the Kreedmen's Aid society and of the board of education was held. Addresses were delivered by Rev. O. F. Bovard, president" of the University of Southern California, apd Rev. J. Q. Martin, formerly a mission ary arngng the' negroes. Morgan Paya $2,500,000 Tax. Albany, N Y., Sept. 27. State Con troller Schmer today received a f 2.B0O, 000 check Covering the Inheritance tax on that part of the late J.1 P. Morgan's estate concerning the value of which the - controller and executors have (react ARLETA PEOPLE SHOW THEIR APPROVAL OF SOCIAL CENTER IDEA , 1 " - - - - Big Gathering at School House Attended by Big Number of Residents of District. There's a recent custom among the luncheon clubs when an entertainment feature pleases for someone to inquire: "Do we like It?" And the audience will respond with a shout: "Absolutely!" In presence, if not by voice, the peo ple of Arleta similarly gave approval ot the conversion of their school into an up to date social center Friday night. Light and music, flowers and flags, reclaimed the big building from its usual night time soinherneMS. refresh ments were served by bright faced girls, while people who had lived as strangers next door to each other came to the school and became acquainted! At least . 1500 attended. It was the most thoroughly delightful and festive occasion Arleta has ever known. First Effort Made. After two years and more of discusD ing the desirability of making school houses attractive, well lighted gathering places for people during the evening, as an economic and social proposition, the Arleta program Is the first big ef fort along this line. The Parent-Teachers' association has led the way. The committee said that so great an interest had been awaken,ed that almost every family ot the district was represented. The am bitious thought now is to open th" school buildings at least twice a week ror special programs, studies and recrea tion that will continuously stimulate in terest. The success of plans of this kind lo other cities has proved the school social center's community value. The fact that IB other schools of the city were represented either by teach ers, principals or members of parent teachers' association Indicated the sig nificance attached to the movement by the educators of Portland. Program Was informal. The program was not a pro gram. It was a reception honoring Su perintendent and Mrs. L. R. Alderman irnd Miss Nina Johnson, assistant prin cipal of Arleta school. With a rare common sense the usual round speeches were omitted. Mrs. George M. Burllng ham. president of the Parent-Teachers circle, introduced several vocalists. Mrs. L. E. Ward, Mrs. Sheldon Franklin Hall, Mrs. J. S. Handsaker, Mrs. Wood ham Mrs. J. 8. Dunbar, Mrs. McKenna, Miss Nellie Fawcett. Mrs. U C. Jordan, Mrs J. V. Powell and others noticeably contributed to the success of the event. . Arleta school Is one of the largest in Portland. Many people live In the dis trict which has been one of rapid growth. Principal S. F. Hall said con cerning the gathering Friday night: "I consider It a discovery of the value of the school for social purposes and it ought to mark the beginning of an epoch, educationally and socially, in Portland." , One of the Arleta plans is to furnish children noon-time lunch at little cost. Mrs. L. E. Ward, a leader, said that the school board had taken a small building near the school, that already several hundred applications of teachers and children had been received because the idea of a warm lunch, to substitute the cold variety and prevent a long walk home, appeals. Hawaiians Finod for Assault. The efforts of Bob Kiluas, John Kaas, Tom Eaionia and John Albei t. Hawaii ans, to beat Pong Song, a Korean, and the efforts of John Albert to assault one of the officers who were called to quell the disturbance, ended unfortun ately for the four Hawullans who were each fined $10 by Judge Stevenson In municipal court yesterday morning. Al bert, who made the assault on the offi cer, was fined an additional $10 for that asHuult. The arrest was made at Fourth and Davis streets. Turn to the First Section Double Center Page r J And Read One of the Most Important and Interesting Advertisements Ever Published in This Paper McritiOnl tj" Merchandise of c P "tty IB uy Your Furnitare Henry Jenning & Sons The Big Furniture Store With Small Prices Handsome Brass Bed This Week Only Here is indeed a rare value in a handsome, polished, well constructed Brass Bed. ' It has five fillers, two-inch posts and is positively quaranteed. We made an unusually for tunate purchase of these beds and are consequently able to make this remarkably low price for this flQ PU.iWO week only SEE OUR WINDOW DISPLAY Q ' ... If U IT H If ' PnV "Garland" Heating Appliances-The World's Best "GarIand"Heating Stoves (maT-si I Some Facts: Variety In this comprehens ive line we offer, without ques tion, the largest variety ot" coal and wood heating stoves in existence. "Garlands" are made in ill styles and sizes for every kind of fuel. Quality As thc'Largest Makers of Stoves andange in the World" we are enabled to produce, and do produce, the highest quality. "The World's Best" in stove con struction, at the lowest possi ble cost and consequent price to the user. mi i A Luxurious Bath for 2 Cents The popularity of the "Garland" Water Heater is based upon the genu ine exclusive merits 'of its construction, the perfec- . tion of its operation and its reliability and econ omy. It does not leak or get out of working order rusted water irom its copper coils is impossible. It is, in short, a perfect , piece of scientifically con structed mechanism that invariably gives maxi- mum results at a mini mum cost. , ' fairy jsnrang Second and Morrison Streets V; r jfoNft11 fyj v .V.'-'