Little Visits with Great Americans. Эндрю Карнеги

I had but few books, scarcely any to speak of. There was not much time for literature. Such books as we had, though, I made use of.”

      “Were you so placed that your commercial instincts could be nourished by contact with that side of life?” I asked.

      “Yes, in a measure. Not any more so than any other boy raised in that neighborhood. I had a leaning toward business, and took up with it as early as possible.”

      “Were you naturally of a saving disposition?”

      “Oh, yes. I had to be. Those were saving times. A dollar looked very big to us boys in those days, and as we had difficult labor earning it, it was not quickly spent. I may say I was naturally saving, however, and was determined not to remain poor.”

      “Did you attend both school and college?”

      “Only the common and high schools at home, but not for long. I had no college training. Indeed, I cannot say that I had much of any public school education. I left home when I was seventeen years of age, and, of course, had not time to study closely.”

      “What was the nature of your first venture in trade, Mr. Field?”

      “My first venture was made as a clerk in a country store at Pittsfield, Massachusetts, where all things were sold, including dry goods, and there I remained for four years. There I picked up my first knowledge of that business.”

      “Do you consider those years well spent?”

      “I think my employer did, anyway.” He laughed.

      “I saved my earnings and attended strictly to business, and so made them valuable years to me.”

      “Was there no inducement to remain there as you were?”

      “Yes; before I went west, my employer offered me a quarter interest in his business if I would remain with him. Even after I had been here several years, he wrote and offered me a third interest if I would go back. But I was already too well placed.”

      “Did you fancy that you were destined for some other field than that in which you have since distinguished yourself?”

ALWAYS INTERESTED IN COMMERCE.

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      “No, I think not. I was always interested in the commercial side of life, and always thought I would be a merchant. To this end, I bent my energies, and soon realized that, successful or not, my labor would always be of a commercial nature.”

      “When did you come to Chicago?” I inquired.

      “I caught what was then the prevalent fever to come west, and grow up with the country, and west I came. I entered as a clerk in the dry goods house of Cooley, Woodsworth & Co., in South Water street.”

      “Did you foresee Chicago’s growth in any way?”

      “No, there was no guarantee at that time that the place would ever become the western metropolis. The town had plenty of ambition and pluck; but the possibilities of greatness were hardly visible.”

      It is interesting to note in this connection that the story of Mr. Field’s progress is a wonderfully close index of Chicago’s marvelous growth. An almost exact parallel may be drawn between the career of the individual and the growth of the town. Chicago was organized in 1837, two years after Mr. Field was born on the far-off farm in New England, and the place then had a population of a little more than four thousand. In 1856, when Mr. Field, fully equipped for a successful mercantile career, became a resident of the future metropolis of the west, the population had grown to little more than eighty-four thousand. Mr. Field’s prosperity advanced in strides parallel to those of the city; with Chicago he was stricken but not crushed by the great fire of 1871, and with Chicago he advanced again to higher achievement and far greater prosperity than before the calamity.

      “What were your equipments for success when you started as a clerk here in Chicago, in 1856?”

      “Health, sound principles, I hope, and ambition,” answered Mr. Field.

      “And brains,” I suggested; but he only smiled.

      “What were the conditions here?”

      “Well, merit did not have to wait for dead men’s shoes in a growing town, of course. Good qualities were usually promptly discovered, and men were pushed forward rapidly.”

      “How long did you remain a clerk?”

      “Only four years. In 1860, I was made a partner, and in 1865, there was a partial reorganization, and the firm consisted after that of Mr. Leiter, Mr. Palmer and myself (Field, Palmer & Leiter). Two years later Mr. Palmer withdrew, and until 1881 the style of the firm was Field, Leiter & Co. Mr. Leiter retired in that year, and since then it has been as at present: (Marshall Field & Co.)

      “What contributed most to the great growth of your business?” I asked.

      “To answer that question,” said Mr. Field, “would be to review the condition of the west from the time Chicago began until the fire in 1871. Everything was coming this way: immigration, railways and water traffic, and Chicago was enjoying what was called ‘flush times.’ There were things to learn about the country, and the man who learned the quickest fared the best. For instance, the comparative newness of rural communities and settlements made a knowledge of local solvency impossible. The old state banking system prevailed, and speculation of every kind was rampant. The panic of 1857 swept almost everything away except the house I worked for, and I learned that the reason they survived was because they understood the nature of the new country, and did a cash business. That is, they bought for cash, and sold on thirty and sixty days, instead of giving the customers, whose financial condition you could hardly tell anything about, all the time they wanted. When the panic came, they had no debts, and little owing to them, and so they weathered it all right. I learned what I consider my best lesson, and that was to do a cash business.”

HIS PRINCIPLES OF BUSINESS.

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      “What were some of the principles you applied to your business?” I questioned.

      “Well, I made it a point that all goods should be exactly what they were represented to be. It was a rule of the house that an exact scrutiny of the quality of all goods purchased should be maintained, and that nothing was to induce the house to place upon the market any line of goods at a shade of variation from their real value. Every article sold must be regarded as warranted, and every purchaser must be enabled to feel secure.”

      “Did you suffer any losses or reverses during your career?”

      “No loss except by the fire of 1871. It swept away everything—about three and a half millions. We were, of course, protected by insurance, which would have been sufficient against any ordinary calamity of the kind. But the disaster was so sweeping that some of the companies which had insured our property were blotted out, and a long time passed before our claims against others were settled. We managed, however, to start again. There were no buildings of brick or stone left standing, but there were some great shells of horse-car barns at State and Twentieth streets which were not burned, and I hired those. We put up signs announcing that we would continue business uninterruptedly, and then rushed the work of fitting things up and getting in the stock.”

      “Did the panic of 1873 effect your business?”

      “Not at all. We didn’t have any debts.”

      “May I ask what you consider to have been the turning-point in your career—the point after which there was no more danger of poverty?”

      “Saving the first